100% Machine Code Games!

   I remember, back in the 8Bit home-computer days, when this was the marketing cry for ‘quality’ games, or supposed quality at least.

When home systems like the ZX 81, VIC 20; and to a lesser extent the later ZX Spectrum, and commodore 64; ruled the home-computer markets, and first generation consoles like the ATARI 2600 were just becoming seen as ‘old hat,’ written in machine code was seen as a majour selling point. There had originally been an initial glut of games written in some form of BASIC, as the language was generally included on the ROM of most home computers, and was designed to be easy to understand and quick to pick up. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not dismissing Basic in any way, shape, or form at all here. This was undoubtedly the introduction for many people, of a certain age-range, into a career in the IT industry. And the current IT workforce has a lot to thanks these systems for.  But back then it was all about programming games, something most people with a home-computer had attempted to varying degrees of success.

A Review of NeverEnd. (PC)

I’ve decided to have a look at those quirkier or somewhat left-of-centre games that got panned in the general press and internet review sites.  First of all I intentionally picked a few games that I had never heard off, which consistently got low reviews from the main media sources, and then I did some internet research, before playing them with an open mind whilst remembering the on-line and in-print comments. I intended to see if I thought all these games are genuinely awful, or if there is possibly something more to the general review trends? After all there’s truth to the old axiom ‘know your audience.’ Me, well I’ve absolutely no idea who reads this stuff: So this one’s for you Anon...

Panned Games - Review 2: NeverEnd.

The second game on my ‘Panned Games’ list is NeverEnd, an old-style fantasy based RPG game for the PC.

This one got a Metacritic score of a whole two stars, then came the usual, band-waggon jumping, derogation on YouTube and various other 'games fan' blogs.
It subsequently gained a bit of an anti-fan following in certain gamming-circles.

But was this deserved?

The lead character is female, but not necessarily in a ‘Cor look at them pixles,’ Lara-Croft type of way...

Following thw fall of the evil Enakhaan, the  powerfull wizard Sarthaan - banished all non-human magical beings to another realm, amongst those that were driven from their land were noble warriors and mages from the race known as Auren. Now, only a few remain, lost in a world that hates them.
Agavaen is a young Auren, living as an outcast and travelling with a band of thieves.
Her magical powers are starting to grow and now, aged 20, she is beginning to wonder what her future might hold.
And so says the blurb, but what does this mean for game-play? 

The game is played over a series of fixed viewpoint backgrounds, some of which scroll as you move the character through them. Camera angles, and distances, vary from scene to scene, in much the same way as the original Resident Evil games did, although the overall feeling here is much more spacious, although some internal locations do give a good claustrophobic feeling.

This is basically a pseudo 3D third-person RPG adventure game, set in a fantasy world populated by the usual characters, but the plot does have a decent story-arc and progresses at a steady pace. None of the plot puzzles are too obscure, and although the story progression is fairly linear you do need to put some thought into it in order to advance. You also need to continually level-up during the adventure, but again this is fairly even paced and experience should accrue steadily as you progress through your quest. I only had to stop and ‘train’ in order to proceed on a couple of occasions, and then not for very long. The story is fairly involved and relies on puzzles just as much as levelling-up to proceed, with enough side quests and interactive characters to keep it interesting. You can also gather a party of fellow adventurers to help you out with the fights, this 'party' aspect is handled well enough, with some characters being integral to the plot and some not.
I’ve heard this referred to as a ‘Girls Game,’ apparently in a derogatory manner, although I’m not sure why. The lead character is female, but not necessarily in a ‘Cor look at them pixles,’ Lara-Croft type of way… Although some of the characters aren’t exactly dressed for winter.

Will 2013 be the year TV Console gaming changed forever?

We’ve already seen TV-Top gaming creep into the living room with the release of the OnLive TV console, and we've heard of the proposals to include streamed on-line gaming options in future TV-Top Video-Streaming media devices…

But, with both Google and Steam getting ready to release their own TV-Top games consoles, should we all be looking forwards to the advent of a completely new wave of, console-like, gaming?

 

Electro-Mechanical Magic.

Lets take a look at some pre-electronic arcade games.  

 

 

 What was in the arcades before the advent of video games?
 If you said one-armed-bandits and slot machines you are half right. Because mechanical based arcade games machines shared the floor with the more long-lived pin-ball machines and bandits from far before even I was born.

These arcade games machines were all initially very much mechanical based.

 

I’ve read first-hand accounts from the people responsible for building these machines and it appears that, towards the end of their run at least, the building process became more of a suck-it-and-see ‘black art’ than a precise science. Many of the people responsible for fixing these electromechanical marvels would freely admit to ‘not know exactly how or why they worked in the way they did half the time.’ The ‘science’ of these machines had evolved into an ‘art’ in much the same way early bedroom-coders would later forge the beginnings of the multibillion dollar/pound video-game industry.

 

One of the most collectable of these is the ‘World Series’ game released by Rockola in 1937.

This was pretty much a mechanical device, but did have some minimal electricity-run components, so technically this was an early electro-mechanical gaming device.

A Review of AMY (PS3 & Xbox 360)

I’ve decided to have a look at those quirkier or somewhat left-of-centre games that got panned in the general press and internet review sites. First of all I intentionally picked a few games that I had never heard off, which consistently got low reviews from the main media sources, and then I did some internet research, before playing them with an open mind whilst remembering the on-line and in-print comments. I intended to see if I thought all these games are genuinely awful, or if there is possibly something more to the general review trends? After all there’s truth to the old axiom ‘know your audience.’ Me, well I’ve absolutely no idea who reads this stuff: So this one’s for you Anon...

Panned Games - Review 1: AMY

The first game on my list was AMY by VectorCell. This is a first person horror-survival game, where you take control of, Lana. A character who, as well as trying to survive in an epidemic ridden world, also has to take care of Amy, a young girl who appears to have some undisclosed form of autistic communicative difficulties. 


The back-story revolves around your attempts to escape the city with Amy in tow.

The game-play is primarily puzzle based, with the Amy ‘companion character’ having three main functions. The first being that you must keep Amy safe; this is done ether by keeping her close (calling for her and holding her hand) or by hiding her. The second function of Amy is to aide in puzzle solving. This can range for something as simple as getting her to crawl through a space where the main character couldn’t fit and press a button to activate some mechanism or open a door etc, to more complicated puzzles where you must place her in certain positions in order to perform some action(s). Then move her around with a combination of instructions; getting her to move and perform a series of simple commands that help accomplish a task; always bearing in mind that she is more vulnerable when away from your direct control.

The third, and most intriguing, function of Amy is to protect your protagonist from the infection. When separated from Amy the main character will slowly become infected, leading to your eventual death if you can’t find Amy in time and don’t have any serum handy.

The best indie games on PSN and Xbox Live

Indie, or Independent, game releases have been gaining momentum and notoriety on the PC for some time now. And over the past few years they have turned into a legitimate force on the two main console platforms as well...

The main problem with Indi games has generally been deciding exactly what an Indie game is. Some people seem to forget that ‘Indi’ simply stands for ‘independent’ and generally try to define the games by their game-play or genre, normally calling anything that’s outside the mainstream gaming gamut and ‘Indie’ game. This never really works though, because there’s nothing to stop an Independent developer making a game which is firmly within the mainstream game style, and some of the major developers have released the odd quirky game over the years..

The grey-area comes in trying to define exactly what an Independent publisher really is, and isn’t. Although, I think it’s faire to define a few (but still rather fluffy) rules...

They are not financially backed by a publisher.

They are generally promoted by small or start-up companies.

They tend to be produced by individuals or groups, who may form small companies.

They generally rely heavily on on-line ‘digital-distribution’ markets.

They tend to have much less (or no) resources and budget than mainstream games.

They are not limited to an allocated budget or development schedule and time-frame.

Development is not generally steered by any controlling (corporate) interests.

They do not require publisher approval: many self-publish.

They often rely on the artistic ability, creativity, imagination, and experimentation

 of an individual or very small team.

A review of Slender:

Are horror games getting more or less horrific?

With the rise of a plethora of big-name horror based games, and game-series; released for the PS2, original X-box, and even the Dreamcast; it looked like horror, and survival horror in particular, was a genre that was here to stay by the 32/64Bit era.

Then something happen.

I'm not entirely sure what, why, or when but the (planning and resource based) Survival-Horror game suddenly seemed to die out.

By the time Resident Evil 4 came out it seemed to popularise the notion of far more action based 'horror' games, and the RE series never returned to it's roots after this, apparently, despite recent proclamations to the contrary. Not that I'm blaming RE4 for this demise, but in the current climate most commercial horror games are taking the RE4 action based route, and not necessary basing their new games around the purer 'horror' aspects that a lot of the older games did.  Some of the independents, on the other hand, seem determined to get right to the beating heart of what makes a horror game. And Slender is one of those games gaining a reputation in the scare stakes...