My Games of 2011, Part 3

With numbers 5-3 on my list, I tackle three very different kinds of games, not only in their genre and presentation, but in the way I could think about them.  One game really resonates with me, one game left me feeling like a neglectful friend for the majority of this year, and the final one left me feeling like I needed to defend it, which left me dumbfounded at the fact that I felt as much, since I expected it to fair quite a bit better in the collective of the internet.  So, for various reasons, these three games are quite a bit more personal for me, which is why I felt the need to group them together as such.  Not that any of the other games on the list aren't personal in some way, but...well, you know what I mean.

5. Catherine

Oh boy, Catherine.  I wrestled for about an hour last night when I was writing up the previous post about how to explain this one.  In all honesty, if I hadn't split the numbers like I did for the reasons I did, the fact that I just couldn't think of anything would've caused a split regardless.  In the end, I figure all I can do here is be honest since, well, what's going to happen?  Not a lot besides me looking dumb for posturing so much, really.  Though I'm sure it's at least a little obvious why I'm mincing words so much with this one, as it's quite a bit personal.

The core of Catherine's story, very obviously, is relationships - not only the one between two people -in- a relationship, but the relationship between men and women in general, the relationship between friends, and the ways all they can get a bit muddled between themselves.  Anyone who cast even a cursory glance towards Catherine could see that, and I'm trying to make sure I don't spoil anything for anyone here.  By extension of that core value, Catherine also revolves around how relationships can sometimes go bad which is something that can resonate with you if you're in a relationship that isn't going so hot.  I'm sure I don't have to explain any more than that, but at the same time, I should clear up that I can't draw many more parallels than the most basic one I mentioned which is likely a good distinction to make for anyone who knows how the story goes.

Aside from the story is, obviously, the gameplay, which at first sounded like something one would have to just stomach through to get into the real meat and potatoes of the game.  The oddity of that statement is not lost on me, however that really seemed to be how it was billed.  That was all to my surprise when the gameplay of Catherine proved to look interesting, complex, challenging and, best of all, fun, which I still think is a feat worth nothing less than absolute surprise whenever it comes up.  It almost seems like it would be either too simple to be fun or would end up too difficult to be fun, yet it (from what I saw) manages to mostly be right in the middle - challenging, but not overly so, meaning it actually manages to be fun, or at least looks like it.  Trying to think of ways I would go about getting up was fun at least!

4. LittleBigPlanet 2

Despite my constant use of European box art, I am American.  Figured I should say that at some point.

LittleBigPlanet is a series that is very near and dear to me, as anyone who has read this blog should know, so the sheer excitement I had for LittleBigPlanet 2 was nothing short of sky-high levels.  And when I got it, it was glorious, everything filled to the brim with charm and fun, and at the time it wasn't just me enjoying that but on several occasions, my younger nephews who absolutely loved the game as much as I did.  The inclusion of the ability to make little movies and such provided no end of laughs for them since a lot of people took to doing little clip-shows akin to Robot Chicken with quite a few of them being actually funny.  It surprised me too, honestly, much as the quality of a lot of LittleBigPlanet 2 levels did, custom or not.  What also surprised me was how I treated the game which was, in a word, poor.

Maybe it was due to my inability to really devote time to making levels, or maybe it was due to the fact that I had a lot of games that I needed to play (and still do), but after I was 'done' with LittleBigPlanet 2, I moved on to other things, saying "I'll come back to it, I'll come back to it", though I never did.  For what it's worth, I still fully intend to get back into the game, but I'm not quite sure how well that'll go; I still have a mountain of unplayed games after all, and LittleBigPlanet Vita will allow me to have my LittleBigPlanet fix anywhere, worry-free (Since blah, blah, PS3 paranoia, blah blah) without sacrificing quality as far as I can tell.  I'm not sure just how much of LBP2 the Vita version will actually be able to hold, but I would suggest that it's "a lot", and hopefully am proven correct because LittleBigPlanet 2 offered quite a lot of fun among other things.

Still, while I was playing LittleBigPlanet 2, I can attest to always displaying something along the lines of 'giddiness', since that's just how charming the game was.  Every new addition to the game was fantastic and contributed a lot to the experience overall, since for every smart usage MM implemented in the base levels, creators in the LBP community found about five more, ensuring that the 'smart' levels in the user-created territory were just that, if not brilliant.  And it's pretty much for that reason that LittleBigPlanet 2 can manage to be viable at various stages in its life, as all it takes is a community interested in making levels.  As far as I know, there is still a community there, which perpetuates yet other communities to exist, which keeps the game new and interesting in ways that even MediaMolecule couldn't have figured on.  So maybe that's why I feel secure in knowing that the game will still be there when I get to it, even if that's going to be quite a ways down the road.

3. Uncharted 3:  Drake's Deception

Depending on where you look on the internet, opinion of Uncharted 3 seems to range from between "Game is definitely worthy of the Uncharted pedigree" to "Game is not as good as Uncharted 2 which means it's instantly bad" and everything in between.  I have spent quite a lot of time, possibly too much time, trying to justify just why I am in the former camp above, as I very, very honestly found very little wrong with the game.  There were a couple things I didn't care for (similar to Uncharted 2, Uncharted 3 doesn't devote enough screentime to certain characters), but the common complaints never got to me, leaving just an extremely polished cinematic game, just as Uncharted 2 was before it.  And it's for all those reasons that I find it difficult to retread the statements I've made in the past

On Crushing (which is one of the ultimate tests of any game, how well it plays on hardest difficulty), every battle in Uncharted 3 is an intense, calculating conquest and not a simple firefight.  Taking stock of what you're against, deciding when the best time to pop out and fire is, making sure you're utilizing all your moves properly (including the steel fist) and figuring out the best place to get to and how during every fight requires thought and precision and the game happily offers you both, but only if you know when and how to take it.  It's a harsh teacher that I think many were not prepared for, but it's a fair one despite the willingness several people would like to display in calling the enemies "Bullet Sponges".  Any veteran of Uncharted the first (and by proxy the second, but less so there) knows that you aim for the head unless you're running up on them to finish them off with a mighty punch.  Aside from that, the locals are gorgeous, the acting is never dull, and the charm of the characters still hasn't worn off...for me at least.

I decided this year that instead of saving number one for it's own post, that I'm going to put my top two picks together in a single post.  This is mostly because I honestly, literally sat for half an hour or so trying to figure out just which game deserved the number one slot which I think suggests that they both did.  Still, only one game can win and in the end, I did have to pick that game, but for any reason, and at any other time, they could be almost interchangeable as my favorite game of the year, which is what I suggest personal Game of the Year lists are for.  So I think it's only fair that I talk about both games at the same time to really show that off, that they're both deserving of that high praise.  Because there is going to be a whole lot of praising going on, I can assure you of that.

I Am Bad at Predictions

So, I've previously made some predictions in this blog, and by the ones I can remember the most, I've been right and wrong two major times, netting me a fairly poor 50% prediction rate.  Well, I just noticed it today, but that rate went entirely down thanks to something else I stated back in June.  For those who don't want to hop back in time, I'll just go ahead and quote just what I got so very, very wrong.

So, what is the problem, if not something easy to admit and point out to, which has already been done?  My wager is that the above problems are merely symptoms of the real problem here.  The fact that we as 'Gamers' cry out that there's not enough innovation, enough originality, and then when it comes around, it's not rewarded as one would expect, merely because it's something new, something untested.  A rough formula.  Pictured above, obviously, is Catherine, which is Atlus' first dip into the HD side of the pool.  Likely not their last, but it's almost that easy to tell you that Catherine will not make as much money as they're used to in previous games they've put out.

You can't get anymore different than the current climate of gaming than Catherine, and yet all those people who are quick to knock the latest number game, the ones who scoff at FPS games, of those, only a small percent will go out and buy Catherine when it's released.  This, in turn, sends a message to developers, one that says 'Make what's already out there if you want to get a paycheck'.

Well, I'm sure you, reading this, know where this is going already, but just to pull it all together, Catherine sold 200k copies in NA in -one week-.  So not only was I (thankfully) wrong, since that's actually Atlus' largest launch to-date, but I was so wrong that I cannot help but find it hilarious.  What am I, friggin' Patcher now?

I guess the lesson here is:  Never expect doom dooooooooooooooom.  Because it just comes from a negative place and things in life just tend to surprise you when you expect doom.  But this unexpected greatness in sales?  It couldn't have happened to a better game.  While I haven't personally played it, I've caught a few livestreams of it that my buddy has put on to see how it plays and see how the story unfolds and while I expected a great and entertaining story, I did not expect the, quote "terribly difficult puzzler" sections of the game to actually look fun.  Sure, they also look like they are capable of creating frustration to the max, and a few of them actually border on "How the hell was I suppose to do this without a FAQ/Video", but they look well enough to be only challenging in a fun way, rather than the soul-numbing way.

And despite what many could see as me 'ruining' the game for myself by seeing (part of) the story, I don't believe I'm doing so at all.  I haven't seen all of it after all, and if anything, seeing what I have just further cements that, while I don't have it now, I will have it in the future, settling for nothing less than a brand-new copy, whereas beforehand I was just figuring on getting it at the ever-vague some point where all-too-many games have found themselves in regards to my purchasing schedules, much less my playing ones. 

 I guess maybe I should just stop predicting things, because I'm now swinging at 1:2, and I'm not sure I want to see the number in the 'Wrong' column get any bigger.  But I'm not sure I'll remember this next time I go to say something that will put me out there on the line.  So, we'll see.  I'm sure if I state something that ends up being wrong again, I won't hesitate to bring it up, but it'd be nice to also hit something right on the money.

What's -Really- Wrong with the Industry?

Look at the screenshot above.  Do you know just what game that is?  I'd wager a guess that, well, yes, you do actually.  For some reason, it's hard to find a shot like the above when you really want to, which really annoys me, but that's besides the point.  Anyways, for those of us that know the game is, indeed, Bulletstorm, there's also those who would look at the above shot and wonder what version of Call of Duty it is before going about their merry way.  A lot of people will tell you that it's because the market has become so saturated with FPS games that you could take any of them and put them in a line-up and they'll look the same.

Others will tell you that sequels are what's wrong with the industry, citing even so recent as E3 as proof.  After all, the biggest games shown were:  Halo 4, Gears of War 3, Uncharted 3, Resistance 3, The Elder Scrolls 5, Legend of Zelda:  Skyward Sword, Mass Effect 3, Saint's Row 3, Call of Duty:  Modern Warfare 3, to name a few.  They'll claim that we're so out of ideas that our retreads over the same familiar territories are the only things that can get out of a developer's studio with any chance to sell.  This never, of course, takes into account that, at one point, these games above were all-new, original IPs. 

Obviously, I'm in neither of the above camps.  While the above scenarios aren't wrong, neither are problems facing the industry; after all, video game sequels aren't a new thing, nor would I be willing to believe that they're any more prevalent nowadays than they used to be, when such games like Doom and constant installments of Adventure Game franchises were the things to get in on.  It's no surprise that FPS games are prevalent nowadays!  They sell.  Video game companies are in the business to make money.  Adventure Games (point-and-click mostly) had their turn, RPGs had their turn, and when the next trend comes around, they'll get on that too.  Because for every sequel that comes out, especially the ones that are only 2 or 3, that was a new IP very, very recently, and the sequel is a sign of success.

Some may take a look at the success of certain franchises and scoff; after all, they're not being bought in bulk by the real gamers, the people who are likely to look around on gamefaqs, on Penny Arcade, on numerous other message boards and websites for video games.  They're being bought by the same people who proliferate the other trends that are 'ruining' everything else:  The unwashed masses.  But we all know that's not exactly true, and just because a 22 Year Old frat guy who doesn't know Final Fantasy from Persona enjoys a good game of Black Ops multi-player, that doesn't entitle him to anyone's scorn.  Because he's there, he's got a console, a game, and he's enjoying what we all enjoy ourselves. 

Who knows?  Maybe he'll be that one who uses Black Ops as a gateway into something else.  Maybe he goes from Black Ops to Resistance.  They're both shooters, after all.  And maybe he tells his buddy he's playing Resistance and his buddy, knowing that Insomniac and Naughty Dog are both good companies, sort of close to one another, recommends Uncharted.  Just like that, he's playing something that we can all call one of our games and likely enjoying it just as much as we would.

So, what is the problem, if not something easy to admit and point out to, which has already been done?  My wager is that the above problems are merely symptoms of the real problem here.  The fact that we as 'Gamers' cry out that there's not enough innovation, enough originality, and then when it comes around, it's not rewarded as one would expect, merely because it's something new, something untested.  A rough formula.  Pictured above, obviously, is Catherine, which is Atlus' first dip into the HD side of the pool.  Likely not their last, but it's almost that easy to tell you that Catherine will not make as much money as they're used to in previous games they've put out.

You can't get anymore different than the current climate of gaming than Catherine, and yet all those people who are quick to knock the latest number game, the ones who scoff at FPS games, of those, only a small percent will go out and buy Catherine when it's released.  This, in turn, sends a message to developers, one that says 'Make what's already out there if you want to get a paycheck'.

In my opinion, that is the problem here.  Developers are afraid to make new, untested games, and rightfully so.  Though we ultimately benefit from their efforts, as we generally end up getting to experience something new and wonderful, we're not the only ones in the equation.  It's the Developers we have to worry about; those people with a dream and the ability to do something new, they're almost never given what they want or need, and things just don't work out.  The ones that don't just get cut out or fired end up elsewhere, which is good at least, but they'll likely never forget the game they made that 'could have' changed things, but didn't because nobody wanted to buy something that looked different.

I'm not really sure there's a point here, honestly.  Maybe it's just the idea that inFamous 2 and LittleBigPlanet 2, two games that are near and dear to my gaming heart, could get lumped in on a checklist of games with numbered iterations in a statement claiming the industry is devoid of creativity and originality.  Just because they're not brand-new games with brand-new concepts and ideas, in a brand-new world in the eyes of certain people because of the '2' at the end of them, they're not as 'important' as something else, something unestablished like Dragon's Dogma, Dead Island or Rage.  Which I'm sure we can all agree is bull, whether you're excited for these new games or not.

Catherine Demo is NA-Bound

 

This one's for you, Chance.

Siliconera has just recently reported that Catherine, the apparently super-hard, super-strange game from Atlus will be getting a demo release in English sometime between now and July 26th, when the game is released.  At least, that's what I would assume, since demos are generally better served -prior- to the game's release, rather than afterward.  Unsurprisingly, the 'English' in the phrase 'English Demo' denotes that the demo will feature full english subtitles as well as voice-acting from the English cast, including that of Troy Baker (I'm assuming it's this one) and Laura Bailey as the lead characters.

Siliconera also stated that those a little wary about the game after hearing about the super-hard part of it will be glad to know that the NA region release will include the patch that was released for the Japanese version to reduce the difficulty a bit.  Unless you're, like, crazy or something. 

Fans who are eagerly awaiting any morsel of Catherine (the game) should be ready to grab that demo right when it comes out, of course, because it has been known to disappear and then reappear for a bit before disappearing again.  Which, when you type it out like that, seems almost like it was done on purpose.  Atlus, you teases.