Nostalgia - Rose-Tinted Gaming Goggles

Most long time gamers have those ghosts of gaming past in cupboards, away in storage or up in their loft, and occasionally we get the urge to play through them again hoping to re-live the exciting memories and hope for fun that once was. But sometimes we all look at something with rose-tinted goggles.

This was most certainly NOT a barrel of laughs when I
was young

The first game that would spring to mind for me would be Sonic & Knuckles Collection - My very first PC game. Recently after seeing it go for cheap on Steam I went ahead and re-purchased it. I was rather excited, as I used to spend hours on this game although I never did actually complete it (Gimme a break I was 7), so I sat down put on my headphones and began and for the first few Minutes - It was glorious!

However after that initial 'I remember this! I remember that' wore off, I began to notice that It wasn't as great as I remember. The first few zones were easy... I mean really easy. Within less than 20 or so minutes I was in the Carnival Night Zone, and I met my nemesis from my childhood - that god-damn barrel (pictured above), but I figured it out soon enough, you simply press up and down... Anyways, after that annoyance dealt with, I continued and managed to complete Sonic 3 within an hour. Sure there were some parts that were a little tricky, but the experience of hours of play in my youth and having more common sense now made the game a whole lot easier and, well, a bit boring.

Another game that I have recently played from my younger years is Rollercoaster Tycoon - a game I spent a lot of time on back in the year 2000. And this had the opposite effect to sonic, I enjoyed re-playing it so much I ended up buying Rollercoaster Tycoon Two (plus x-packs) from amazon, for a steal of a price. However I still couldn't help but be critical on the the game and definitely thought it could do with some added features.

Shut up and spend your money guest 2326!

Firstly, including a 'speed up time' feature would be a god-send, too often I found myself staring blankly at the screen waiting for cash to come in and too many times, I had completed my objectives but had to wait 3 years of game time to finish the park (which also makes me think once your objective is complete you should finish that park anyway...). Also a few times I found it difficult to navigate and a full dynamic 360 view would be welcomed.

But after I thought of these points I had to laugh at myself. I was critiquing an old game for features it didn't have and maybe couldn't even support back when it was developed. and for what it was, it was a damn good game.

However some games always remain timeless classics in the mind of the player and for me the only thing I'd ever change about the following three titles would be the Graphics - Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy IX and Final Fantasy X (sorry FF Fans, VIII was good, but I didn't enjoy it as much as the others). When I found these games again, I decided to get hold of an emulator and play them on my PC. The memories just came flooding back, and I diligently played each game through until the end.

If  dated graphics don't offend you, play through FF7.
NOW!

Admittedly, I didn't play them as I did when I first played them. I was replaying them more for the story rather than unlocking all the secrets and spending hours doing tedious stuff (Lightning dodging in FFX anyone?). I did do a few things though, such as training gold chocobo's in 7 & 9, and getting the more secret of Aeons in 10. I think I wouldn't change these games (except graphically) because of the time I had poured into each title. I'm fairly sure that with each one I probably spent near 70 hours playtime when I went through them the first time.

But looking back and playing through these games shows me just how much the gaming  industry has changed, titles now are easier to get into, easier in (default setting) difficulty, and have a plethora of more features. Think of the tutorials you get in games nowadays - usually a whole level devoted to teaching you, whereas sonic's tutorial was the manual you had in the box and FFVII's tutorial was speaking to NPC's and slogging through a lot of text.

Also, these older games don't have multiple difficulty settings, if you were stuck at something you had three choices - The path of the Hero (get better and keep trying), The path of the Rogue (try and find cheats if your parents will let you use the dial up internet connection, at least for those my age) or The path of the Coward (ragequit). Now if things are tough you can just dial down the difficulty in the options. A good example is Skyrim, on the hardest difficulty - Dragons can very quickly kill you dead and are scary, but on easy they are about as much of a threat as one of the rabbits you see running across the landscape.

And yet gaming hasn't just changed for the worse, as technology progresses, so does the ability to implement options and features of convenience. You'll hear a lot of 'pro' gamers go on about how things were better 'back in the day'  but in honesty if you gave them a game now that doesn't include things such as auto-save, level select, difficulty settings and game over meaning game over, they would criticise the game into oblivion.

It is strange to take a trip down memory lane and look at these games that don't include so many features we see as standard now. It shows you how gaming is evolving and the progress it has made over the past couple of decades. Some titles have lost their way and others have shone through and are still going strong, but it's always fun to have a look at where they began.

What am I playing? - Fallout 3 Vs New Vegas

Hey guys, What am I playing is going to be a column that delves into the games I am currently enjoying, be them 1 or 10 year(s) old.

So recently I have been playing through both of the more recent Fallout titles from Bethesda. With Steam offering the ultimate editions complete with all DLC for reasonable prices, I thought 'why not'.

The House always wins...

Today I want to objectively look into the points that make a game good for me and see what each game has to offer and which I prefer, so ready your Pip boys it's time to leave the vault.

1. Storyline (PLOT SPOILERS BELOW)
Bethesda are very good at making open RPG's and keeping away from having a set in stone path for your character follow. Whilst there are some constraints, you have a lot of freedom in how you wish for your character to act, be it a slick talking, stealthy scourge of the wastes or a righteous, all guns blazing warrior you have the freedom to be what you would like. In this aspect, Fallout New Vegas offers a lot more freedom - this is down to the multiple factions you change your standing with throughout your gameplay. New Vegas offered multiple completely different outcomes to completing the standard game, and surpassed Fallout 3 in that aspect, where you were confined to a few different speech options or choices in the final moments of the game.

Vault 101

That being said, the storyline of 3 gripped me a lot more than New Vegas - A lone vault dweller seeing the wasteland for the first time in an effort to find his lost father. As for New Vegas, the storyline definitely worsened after you get hold of the platinum chip, your epic quest for vengeance is kinda stopped short, not to say it doesn't have its moments afterward, but I definitely reached a peak in mystery and intrigue before you approach Benny.


NV does offer a very interesting story throughout the available DLC's however, which all have minor links to eachother, which was nice and kind of made up for the lack-lustre main storyline.

So NV offered more open ended gameplay and choices and had nice storylines within the DLC but 3 had a gripping storyline throughout and for that the victory of this section goes to Fallout 3


2. Gameplay

'SHIT!SHIT!SHIT!SHIT!SHIT!' were my exact words I think.

With Fallout, my preference is to play on Very Hard Difficulty. Before I invested in the games myself, I played with a friend for many hours on Normal. The problem with normal is there's only really the risk of death in the first few levels while you adjust and you tend to just stockpile Stimpaks and food without much need to use them. Very Hard difficulty offers much more of a challenge, nothing gets the blood pumping more than meeting a Deathclaw or Super Mutant Behemoth on this difficulty.

New Vegas bought something I loved to the table, Hardcore mode. Activating this just added to the challenge and you can spend a good half hour trying to get past a certain group of enemies over and over, you can't just instant heal up with a few spammed stimpaks. You actually had to live like a wastelander - keeping hunger at bay and feeding yourself whenever you could. New Vegas also added a couple of mini-games to the table, being casino orientated, so you get the option to kick back in post-apocalyptic Vegas and play some card games or slots which was a nice feature.

For both games on PC I did have the issue that the vanilla games crashed - a hell of a lot. Sometimes I'd go a couple of hours with no crashes and sometimes I would have 3 in 15 minutes. Didn't experience any issues with the DLC on either game but I had to make sure I was constantly pressing F5 (quicksave) as not to lose my progress. Very annoying, but I guess it built up a good habit.

Anyway, I digress. In terms of gameplay New Vegas is the clear winner, a forseeable outcome as it was built on the foundations of Fallout 3.

3. Atmosphere
This is one of the key points for me, as this attributed to or detracted from my enjoyment of both titles. The overall feel of the games. Fallout for me has always enticed me due to the feeling of mystery and exploration into the unknown whilst walking the wastes, finding places untouched by humans for many years, and the sense of wilderness and lonliness.

I found the Capital Wasteland in fallout three was amazing. Be it walking the Super mutant infested streets of DC or finding an abandoned vault in the wastes the sense of adventure was always present.

What I also liked about the Capital Wasteland, is that you could eventually stumble on a place that has had no contact from anyone since the war, be it just a house where the inhabitants perished when the bombs dropped. Or the underground remnants of a factory basement - now full of nasty creatures.

New Vegas, on the other hand, doesn't seem as barren at all. One of my major gripes with the game was the fact I wasn't so much as wandering a lonley wasteland anymore, I was just moving from settlement to settlement and it seemed humans were everywhere. Sure the Mojave had its share of abandoned buildings and facilities, but nowhere near the amount as 3. This annoyed me. I lost that feeling of imminent danger and it didn't feel so much as a wasteland as it did in 3.

Yeah it did have big barren areas, but there was -never- the thought that you could have been the first in 'x' place since the bombs stopped dropping and people hopped out their Vaults. This gave the game a completely different feel to 3, which in some ways is good, keeping it fresh and new, but in other ways it was a little disappointing.

So with that being said I'd say the winner here would be Fallout 3


Conclusion?
While both games are awesome in their own right and both have good and negative aspects, I will have to side with Fallout 3. This is mainly because of my third point, and the fact that it kept me playing a lot more than New Vegas. Once I had completed the main story and DLC in New Vegas, I never got the urge to trawl through the Mojave and Explore every single nook and cranny, but with Fallout 3 I did. Fallout three has definitely consumed many more hours of my time than new Vegas also, and even with a smaller amount of guns and armour and extra features, it managed to grip my attention much more than its successor.

Game Spotlight - Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

Happy Tuesday all, I want to talk to you today about a relatively new game that I have been playing through recently - Kingdoms of Amalur : Reckoning.

Released on the 10th of February, I was expecting a lot from KoA:R; it had some great names working behind it including Ken Rolston, The lead designer of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (a game I thoroughly enjoyed), and it had promised a lot of hours of gameplay in conjunction with a very highly spoken of combat system.

After a little deliberation with some gamer pals, I hopped on Steam and downloaded it the day after release and had the weekend to get stuck into to it.

First Impressions
I was a little underwhelmed at first, whilst there was the reasonably cool opening cinematic and scenes of action before you play, I immediately felt a little disconnected with the game. While the lore wasn't that hard to follow it seemed like the opening cinematic was more of a history lesson rather than something that gets excited and raring to go. But I shrugged that off and continued on to create my character.

Character creation
I always enjoy this part, it gives you an immediate connection to your character and helps you get immersed in the game. While the system in Reckoning isn't as detailed as something you'd find in one of Bethesda's RPG's, it still offers a nice level of customisation. You have four races to choose from and some basic face presets to begin your creation.

Not my actual character, Just an example.

Into the fray
Right, so the game begins. First off, if you are playing this game on the PC with a mouse and Keyboard and not a controller - the mouse sensitivity is outrageous, before I did anything  I had to turn it all the way down. Secondly I advise selecting press instead of hold to sprint for Left-Ctrl, believe me, your little finger on your left hand will thank me after playing for a couple of hours.

Now that's out of the way you can start to play. The tutorial is easy to follow and the combat begins, I found that really fun. The beginning tutorial also gives you a glimpse of each play style be it Warrior-type, Rogue-type or Wizard-type and you get to have a play around with a selection of weapons although not all. I felt the tutorial was done very well and helped you figure out what you will want to play.


The real game begins...
To avoid spoilering the rest of the game for you, I'm not going to describe the rest of the game in much detail, but I will give my feelings and an overview of many of the aspects.

First off - questing. Questing is standard practice in any RPG and the availability of side quests is very welcome in many to keep the game open and non-linear, which I feel is key to producing a successful RPG, however Reckoning, I think, has slightly overdone it. Aside from the main storyline there are multiple quest chains and factions available, so much so that the objectives of which seem to blur together and become very repetitive, you know, kill x amount of y, clear x area of y, go to place and activate or kill x. As other reviewers have noticed, the quest system seems more like something you'd expect from an MMORPG rather than a single player game and isn't really as engaging as I could have hoped.

Another thing I noticed is that I got a distinct feeling that the turmoil and danger in the world isn't very prevalent at all, at least in the first Three main areas - Dalentarth, Plains of Erathell and Deltyre. Sure there are nasty creatures to slay in each and people to help, but it really doesn't seem that you are making any world changing difference.

The main storyline, whilst having a couple of nice and new ideas felt very generic and wasn't something that reaches out and pulls the player in to a world of immersion, and again, especially during the earlier stages of the quest line, I felt I was doing a lot of unimportant busywork.

My Character mid-way through the game - Warrior build

Combat feels good in the game, with the option to change your speciality throughout by visiting an NPC. Playing one spec can become a bit stale after a while but with the option to change and with multiple weapons available keeping the action fresh is easily doable. Each spec has their own talent tree and their own spells to use so picking a combat style that suits you is easy - My personal favourite would be a Greatsword wielding warrior.

An example of one of the warriors' available spells 

The game does involve other features that help create the finished package, one of the most prominent would be the crafting which is quite well done in comparison to other systems I have encountered in the past, you craft gems, potions and Armour/weapons - each with a unique system. Admittedly they took me a little time getting used to, but once I had done a bit of each I had fun making potions and crafting armour.

To sum up, whilst being a game with a lot of content and good character customisation, Reckoning failed to deliver on one key point for me - I didn't feel immersed in Amalur at all. The side quests text felt so unimportant I even found myself skipping the descriptions and heading straight for the objectives - much like how I'd treat a daily or levelling quest in an MMO. However, Reckoning does provide on another front - its an easy game to get into and have fun with; the combat system was very well done and the fact that (I felt) the lore doesn't suck you in too much means I can go back and play an hour here and there.

Overall rating from me - 7/10