Tag Archives: video games

Top Ten of 2010 – No. 5

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It’s back ladies and gents! The feature that I thought would just crawl away and die and hope that no one would notice is back with a vengeance. Actually it’s just back because I had time to kill on two mammoth train journeys to and from London and I needed to not be raging at the lack of quiet on the Quiet Coach.

5. Super Meat Boy

I’m not sure any other game in my Top Ten of 2010 has as good controls as this game. None of them are as finely honed and perfected as Super Meat Boy; they will all have some minor failing somewhere between what your fingers do on the controller to what you see occur on screen. Not so with Super Meat Boy.

When you die (and you will die a lot), it was your fault. Your fingers failed you. I apologise for writing that; I really hate it when I read that stuff in reviews. I can make an exception in this case however, because it is actually true.

For some, this will be too much to take and they will give up. For others, it will spur you on to greater and greater feats of appendage dexterity. It is a remarkable piece of programming.

Super Meat Boy

Everywhere you go you leave a trail of blood

The path through each level is (usually) obvious and even when it isn’t, each of your untimely demises will quickly start to reveal patterns as to what you should be doing. I think that’s part of the appeal for me, there’s a certain evolution that you go through on every new level that you play.

Initially you’re just feeling your way around, trying to work out what to do. Then you go through again and again until you can comfortably complete it (this doesn’t really happen on the later levels). Eventually as you continue to refine and streamline your path, new opportunities for time-saving become apparent (“Ooo, can I take out the need to land in front of saw blade after the wall-jump by just wall-sliding a little higher on the wall and jumping it in one go?”).

Super Meat Boy

Too much salt is bad for you, m'kay?

I found myself doing this for every little chunk of a level, trying to critically analyse its make-up and navigate the most efficient path possible, trying to hone my muscle memory such that I could replicate it every time. After you’ve reached that level of depth, that’s when you try to string everything you’ve learnt together in a perfect run for a world-beating leaderboard time! Incidentally, if you like competing with your friends on leaderboards you will love this. I was ranked pretty highly around the time it came out (both amongst my friends and the wider XBL public) but I dread to think how far I’ve slipped down now.

It’s very addictive and there’s nothing more exhilarating than nailing a perfect run and rising up the leaderboards. On some of the levels, there’s nothing more exhilarating than actually finishing it!

Top Ten of 2010 – No. 6

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Yes, they’re getting ever more irregular. I apologise. I’m still a little off my game. I will endeavour to be better. In the mean time, let’s carry on with another of my top games from the year that was 2010. You can find the previous sections here: 10 & 9-7.

6. Darksiders

Games released right at the start of the year tend to fair quite badly in end of year lists, so I’m glad my memory extends back far enough to remember that Darksiders was probably my biggest pleasant surprise of the year. I remember reading about it late in 2009 and it certainly sounded intriguing; a Zelda-esque adventure set in a post-apocalyptic, neo-gothic version of Earth where you get to play as one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, War? AWW HELLS YEAH! I actually ended up pre-ordering it in a “well, the premise and what I’ve seen of it so far interests me enough to take a chance” kind of way. Don’t you just love it when a risk pays off?

Darksiders

This is War. You do not mess with War.

Before we really get into it, there is one major negative that I need to point out: The Start of The Game. No really, that’s it. The start of the game IS the negative. The first hour or so of Darksiders is shit. Unbelievably shit. I don’t think I’ve EVER played such a good game that has an introduction as shit as this one. It’s boring, slow, completely linear and not really any fun whatsoever. It doesn’t help that this is quite a tough game (more on that later) and I don’t recall getting much in the way of tutorials or explanations of the mechanics. Seriously, I had no real idea what was going on during the opening. I just know I was incredibly glad when it was over. Please persevere with it though, please!

I mentioned earlier that it’s quite Zelda-esque in its design. That is quite the understatement, because it’s almost a carbon copy of how Zelda works: enter a dungeon, do some fighting, solve some puzzles, kill the boss, get a new piece of equipment, use that new equipment to access new areas, repeat. Fortunately, once “that intro” is out of the way the game blossoms into a beautiful, expansive world, ripe for exploration. If you’re the kind of player that loves exploring every nook and cranny of a game, you will surely enjoy this game. For me, the key thing that makes Darksiders so good is the quality of the dungeons. With the exception of one, where you spend a lot of time fighting and riding your flaming (literally) horse Ruin, the dungeons are brilliantly designed chunks of adventure gaming, each with its own identity and style, smart puzzles, and plenty of levels to explore.

Darksiders

This is War's flaming horse, Ruin. He is summoned out of the ground. AT WILL!

Darksiders is a bit too easy on Normal difficulty. Actually, it’s very easy. All the forums and reviews I’d read had suggested to play it on Hard (“Apocalyptic”) difficulty for more of a challenge. And boy is it a challenge. There’s no middle ground here; either you fight and win all your battles easily on Normal or, on Apocalyptic, every single fight you engage in, no matter how seemingly insignificant the opponent, becomes a tense, sometimes infuriating battle for survival. There were quite a few difficulty spikes throughout the game. One of the early bosses is far harder than most you will fight later in the game and some encounters with standard bad guys will occasionally test your patience. It gets really silly when the “big” enemies you had trouble with early in the game arrive in packs as the small, minion-type characters later on! Combat is handled adequately but sometimes it can feel difficult to create decent combos – the controls are good though.

Lastly, it’s worth spending a bit of time talking about the characters. They’re excellent. Character designs are bold and exciting and with the exception of a few of the minor enemies, everyone helps add to the fantastic look and feel of Earth part-taken over by demons. The voice acting is brilliant, bringing the conniving, devious characters to life and there’s a reasonably good story, full of twists and turns. Oh and the ending is amazing. Seriously. I won’t spoil it, but I had goosebumps.

Top Ten of 2010 – No. 9-7

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So let’s continue our look at my Top Ten games of 2010. I’m releasing them in irregular-sized chunks but it really comes down to when I get a chance/inspiration to do some writing. Again, these are games that I’ve played this year and that were released this year.

You can read the first part here.

9. LIMBO

LIMBO

LIMBO - It's a bit creepy.

I’ve already written about LIMBO at great length and to be entirely honest, there’s not much more I’d say. I’ll give you a few choice quotes, but I think I covered it the first time:

“What’s so great about the opening section is just how bleak and scary it is. There is a genuine feeling of trepidation and fear of what is to come. Normally I’d be quite critical of things like hidden insta-death traps but […] the checkpointing is forgiving and the nervous trial and error nature of the game just made sense within the context of the story.”

Hopefully you didn’t miss the half-price deal Microsoft put out on New Years’ Eve. If you did, never mind eh? You should still buy it.

8. VVVVVV

This is a bit of a surprise (late) entry in my Top Ten. I’d played the demo months ago and really enjoyed it but I didn’t get around to buying it until I was trying to think of things that would run nicely on my netbook. For the record, it runs beautifully.

VVVVVV

VVVVVV - Yes, it's tough.

Created by indie developer Terry Cavanagh, you play as Captain Viridian, tasked with rescuing your 5 crew members (can you guess what letter all their names start with?) after your ship runs into a few inter-dimensional issues. Drawn in a super-simple but incredibly charming retro style you only have three controls available to you: Left, Right and the ability to flip gravity. There is no jump button. With this limited move set you must navigate the “open world” map (open in as much as you can pretty much go wherever you want), flipping the gravity to navigate obstacles and avoid danger.

And boy, is there a lot of danger! The graphics aren’t the only old skool gaming feature here. VVVVVV is a tough game; brutally so, but as with the best of the genre you keep trying because you know it is possible, despite how it appears the first few hundred times you attempt a particularly tough section (SPOILERish: As an example, Veni Vidi Vici is probably the toughest section in the whole game).

You will die a lot; in the 4ish hours it took me to complete the main game, I died some 2200 times (that’s over 500 times an hour!) but a bit of nimble finger work and perseverance should see you right in the end! It’s important not to understate this: VVVVVV is beautifully designed. It features some of the best, most intelligent level design I’ve seen in a long time.

Try the demo, and then buy it. Please.

7. Halo: Reach

I like Halo. At their best, they provide small doses of bombastic, unpredictable chaos against an epic space opera backdrop. At their worst, they’re sluggish, repetitive corridor shooters with little to make it stand out from the hordes of other FPS games. How many games can get some levels so right (The Silent Cartographer) and others so wrong (The Library) over the course of just one game?

Clearly, I’m not your typical Halo fan; I’ve never really got into its highly competitive multiplayer component and I think each successive campaign has been better than the last (that’s right, I thought Halo 2’s campaign was better than Halo’s). Each game was fun while it lasted but none of them left me feeling genuinely excited.

Except Reach.

Halo Reach’s campaign is spectacular. I believe my good friend Mr Binks described it like a Halo: Best of album, and I only wish I had been smart enough to come up with the analogy first because it is absolutely spot on. Gone is the repetitive corridor trudging. In its place, the campaign is stuffed to the gills with the bits that we all love about Halo; fighting out in the open, pitched battles in confined spaces and set piece after epic set piece.

Halo: Reach

Halo: Reach - Very Noble

The guns feel as good as, if not better than they’ve ever felt and whilst I’m not a fan of the trademark low gravity movement style, the controls feel tight and responsive.

My main criticism of Reach and to be fair, it covers all the Halo games to date, is the story. And to be clear, it’s not that I think the story is bad. From what I can gather, there’s a very exciting, engrossing sci-fi tale being woven here. It’s just that it’s told so badly. Whilst I’m sure I could tell you what’s going on minute to minute, the over-arching story is a vague mish-mash of seemingly unrelated events. I know it’s epic and exciting, I just don’t know why it’s epic and exciting. There is a wealth of depth and background to the story but it’s never introduced in an effective way. A recent article on EG pretty much sums it up for me.

Halo: Reach

Halo: Reach - From dooown tooown!

Reach is also the first of the series where I’ve really got into the multiplayer. It might just be because it’s the first Halo game I bought at launch (and hence large numbers of my XBL Friends List were playing it) but I just found myself drawn to it. Add Firefight mode into the mix and you’ve got an incredibly compelling package.

With their final game in the series, Bungie have perfected the Halo formula and I for one, will definitely “Remember Reach“.