You should go and buy Zeno Clash immediately. It is one of those indie games that reminds me why I love this industry. Deeply imaginitive, a terrific art style and some great gameplay.
Indie developers ACE Team have taken some risks with this and the first-person melee combat is nicely handled. They used the Source engine which I’m familiar with because the last two games I worked on were based on Source. We had trouble with melee combat in The Ship, we didn’t have punching but there were several club and sword weapons. Judging distance and range can definitely be a problem in the first-person perspective and there are times when it feels awkward in Zeno Clash but their block, counter and combination combat system for hand to hand works really well for the most part.
The story and the art style are also great, here is my full Zeno Clash review. It only costs $20 (£15) so seriously get on Steam and buy it. With publishers applying an ever tightening choke hold on the industry there is a danger that creativity and risk is lost from games. It is these qualities that really drive things forward and for me Zeno Clash is a great example.
Tags: ACE Team, Indie Games, Zeno Clash
Posted in Games, PC | No Comments »
Have you ever heard of Multiverse? They are middleware providers of an MMO engine and tools which they give away for free to developers in return for a share of the commercial spoils, if the resultant games ever go commercial.
Back in 2006 they announced a Firefly MMO game after signing a deal with Fox. Joss Whedon fans everywhere wet their pants in excitement and Multiverse went on the hunt for a developer to make their game. A couple of years later they announce they are going to make a Buffy MMO game but this time they are doing it themselves. This new Buffy game means that Firefly is now on hold. That was back in September last year and they haven’t said anything since.
I’m thinking Firefly is never going to see the light of day but it would have made a much better MMORPG than Buffy. On the other hand there aren’t enough horror MMO games out there, even some of the exciting prospects in development have now halted work and will probably never come out. There are a few free vampire MMORPGs but they are mostly text based and very simple. We definitely need a decent horror MMORPG, personally I’d go for a zombie infested world with simple survival as the aim but hey vampires would do.
The truth is most MMO games that get announced never actually make it to market. Even big projects at wealthy companies often disappear after a few years and with the associated cost it shouldn’t really surprise anyone. Not only do you have the usual difficulty of producing a game which is enjoyable to play and works technically but you also have to launch it into a busy market, make sure you provide plenty of server support and promote it enough to build a decent player base. Failure with any of these factors and your MMO game will sink without a trace.
I’m really tempted to download the Multiverse engine and have a play with it. Maybe knock up an MMORPG in which you take on the role of a young developer and challenge you to build a bankroll by slaying investors, conquer fickle fans and ultimately face off against the big bad evil of the games industry - the publishers.
Tags: Buffy MMO, Firefly MMO, MMO Games Development, Multiverse
Posted in MMO | No Comments »
I still get a thrill when free games come pouring through my letterbox but there is a downside to reviewing games. Actually there are a few reasons that it occasionally sucks. First off sometimes the games you get sent are total turkeys. In April I got sent a bumper load of turkeys. My first review for Boom Town was Stormrise and despite having the Creative Assembly (Australia) name on it, the game was a real-time strategy disaster for the PS3.
I also got sent Gobliiins 4 an inane, antiquated point and click adventure for the PC which was painfully bad. If you’ve been reading the blog you’ll know my opinion on point and click adventures.
As if they weren’t bad enough another game that landed on my doormat was CID the Dummy for the Wii.
I always feel a bit bad for criticising games, I know how it feels from the development side and a bad review can be seriously dispiriting if you’ve worked on a project for months or even years. The thing is you have to be honest, I always try to imagine how I would feel if I actually spent money on the game in question and having bought several terrible games over the years it never fails to piss me off.
You also have to actually play through the game in order to give it a proper review and that can be hard going. It takes willpower to keep playing something you are really hating but then that’s another thing that stirs up the vitriol.
Even when you are playing a game you enjoy, the pressure to hurry up and finish it can be annoying. You’ll find yourself thinking about what you are going to say instead of just enjoying the game. At the end of the day it comes down to opinion, there is no real evaluative standard that can be applied across the board.
Tags: cid the dummy, gobliiins 4, reviewing games, stormrise
Posted in Games, PC, Playstation 3, Wii | 2 Comments »
