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• Sailing the Internet Seas, Historical Preservation, and The Great Rumble Roses vs. Silent Hill vs. Metroid Dance Party Throwdown

  Beware! Sail too far to the east, brave soul, and you will come upon that most dangerous of seas. The sky changes to a sickly fresh bruise color, all angry purple and yellow, and the waves will toss madness and froth against the bow. Even the sturdiest ship, the steadiest mind, will be shaken by the foul humors waiting for them beyond the horizon. Ye have been warned. Beware! Beware the internet! I got lost in an internet vortex this afternoon. It all started innocently enough. Smooth sailing, reading Multiplayer’s interview with Steve Papoustis about Dead Space: Extraction. This led to Matt Hawkins’ Fort 90, and that’s when things started to veer off course. For anyone unfamiliar, Matt’s one of NYC’s great games journalists, but he’s also a madly prolific renaissance man. Fort 90 is a dangerous place, dense with images and text. It’s an easy place to lose your bearings, and that’s what happened to me. Matt linked to the Garry’s Mod work of one MrWhiteFolks. MrWhiteFolks made some spectacular high resolution images of No More Heroes character models stripped of their cel-shading. Very cool stuff. He also made this: Oh there’s more. Much more. Read More... Posted Feb 26 2009, 06:30 PM by John Constantine with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, metroid, no more heroes, resident evil, silent hill, gears of war, halo, resident evil 4, dead or alive, dead space, mtv, silent hill 2, dead space extraction, gmod, silent hill 3, rumble roses, fort 90, garry’s mod

• The Holy Grail of Immersion

  A recent Wall Street Journal article got me thinking about immersion, or, the level at which players feel they are inside the game universe, rather than controlling an avatar in a virtual world.  Games like Afro Samurai that omit the HUD may be an indication of what games will look like going forward. Visual means of displaying things like emotions or feelings could be the next step, according to Ian Bogost, an associate professor at Georgia Institute of Technology. "They're finding new and more subtle methods of communication for inner states," he says. "Even seeing the intention to rely less on meters and more on depiction of the way a character's thinking or feeling is promising." Interesting thoughts, but I don't see this as especially innovative. Read More... Posted Feb 10 2009, 09:30 PM by Cole Stryker with | with no comments Filed under: cole stryker, dead space, afro samurai, wall street journal, immersion

• Dante’s Inferno and the Lit-Based Game

  The announcements at Spike’s Videogame Awards weren’t exactly shockers. Gears of War 2 downloadable content? That’s like telling someone they’re going to get a pickle with their burger. Then again, a game based on Dante’s Inferno developed by EA Redwood (Dead Space) is a little out of leftfield. Games based on literature are not common. Better examples, like Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy text adventure, are even rarer. (It’s actually debatable whether or not Hitchhiker’s should even count as an adaptation considering it was more of cross-medium narrative Adams retold for a decade in the first place.) More often than not, when a work of literature crosses into games, it either becomes something else entirely like the Call of Cthulu games or it’s a tragic mess like Universal Interactive’s Fellowship of the Ring. The linearity of fiction – and epic poetry for that matter – does not suit even the most linear game types. Yes, Signor Alighieri’s poetry is outwardly suited for game adaptation. The man’s vision of Hell is broken into levels, each one filled with, as Cole pointed out, plenty of enemy types. But sociopolitical commentary isn’t something you can convey through bludgeoning demons with blunt crucifixes. I’m a strong believer, as I’ve mentioned here on 61FPS before, that most everything doesn’t need to be turned into something else. Read More... Posted Dec 15 2008, 07:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, ea, hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy, douglas adams, dead space, call of cthulu, the divine comedy, ea redwood, fellowship of the ring, dante’s inferno, dante Alighieri, lord of the rings

• WTF EA?: Boom Blox Blueprint Studio “Closed”

  Had you told me a year ago that EA would publish not one but three of 2008’s best games, I would have called you a liar and then kindly asked you to stop letting your dog defecate on my perfectly kept lawn. Had you then told me that said three games would all be original IPs and that among them was one of Steven Spielberg’s gaming projects, I would have promptly put on my heaviest pair of boots and kicked you square in the groin for lying even more. And yet here we are. Dead Space and Mirror’s Edge, while not perfect, are far and away two of the most memorable things I’ve played in the past twelve months. Unfortunately, I still haven’t gotten to play Boom Blox but it’s sitting at the very top of a long list of games I need to play before January rolls around. Derrick’s been singing its praises since it came out and the promise of a quality original game for Wii with great single and multiplayer is just plain alluring. I do, after all, want to use my Wii for something. So it’s with a heavy heart that I tell you good readers that the unofficial EA studio known as Blueprint, the network of designers responsible for Boom Blox, has been dissolved. Read More... Posted Nov 19 2008, 07:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, boom blox, steven spielberg, ea, wii, metroid prime, retro studios, dead space, mirror’s edge, bomb lox 2, armature studios, lmno, blueprint studios

• Yahtzee on Dead Space: Competent But Bland

  Everyone's favorite fedora-wearing snark king is back again this week with another review, this time dealing with EA's new action/horror title Dead Space.  On a certain podcast I can't quite remember, I heard Dead Space referred to as Now That's What I Call Survival Horror Vol. 1; meaning, of course, that the game combines several popular features of existing survival horror games into a single compilation.  From what Yahtzee says, it looks like this description is pretty accurate: I really do think Dead Space's familiar-to-a-fault game play is a result of the publisher; really, anything with the EA brand these days is designed to be friendly and inoffensive.  In this era of gigantic publishers, it feels like a certain dumbing-down is happening.  Take a look at Activision's Call of Duty 4; the game refuses to tell you what Middle Eastern country you're in--although it should be pretty obvious to anyone with a passing knowledge of current events. Read More... Posted Nov 05 2008, 03:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with no comments Filed under: ea, yahtzee, zero punctuation, dead space, bob mackey, electronic arts

• Watcha Playing: The Palette Cleanser

  The past six weeks have been teeming with meaty, action games. I’ve been working through them slowly but surely, like an elegant seven course meal. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed was thick, hot comfort fare, a brief appetizer of sloppy design coated in delicious Stormtrooper and rancor killing action. The game’s a buggy mess, really, the gaming equivalent of empty calories, but definitely satisfying. Then there was the dynamic horror duo of Dead Space and Silent Hill: Homecoming, a soup and salad combo built to terrify. They didn’t really scare, but instead delivered visceral body simulations. Both games succeeded by making you constantly aware of your avatar’s physical presence and the heft of their actions, and they achieved this through a careful synergy between atmosphere and play. Yakuza 2 was truly the main course, a game I had no expectations for whatsoever that turned into an all time favorite. Its broad adventure, pulp tale of cops and crooks, and simple but ceaselessly engaging fisticuffs were nourishing, more substantial than anything released on current gen consoles. For dessert, Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia. Another bonafide surprise, Ecclesia turned out to not be another retread through Igarashi’s decade-old formula, but a challenging successor to Castlevania 2 with fierce action whose variety and elegance was exceeded only by the game’s environments. Yes, it’s been a great month of big games, but it’s been the small things I’ve played in between them, games I’ve played for no more than a handful of minutes here and there, that have given the most *ahem* food for thought. Read More... Posted Oct 29 2008, 05:45 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, whatcha playing, playstation 3, nintendo, star wars, nintendo ds, microsoft, xbox 360, wii, silent hill, silent hill homecoming, castlevania, sony, playstation 2, mega man, katamari damacy, fable 2, mega man 9, dead space, castle crashers, star wars the force unleashed, castlevania order of ecclesia, yakuza 2, wipeout hd

• Resident Evil 5: Continuing on the Transformation Trail From Horror to Suspense

  It might seem strange, considering how often I’ve expressed my adoration for the genre here on 61 Frames Per Second, that I wasn’t always a fan of horror. In fact, being frightened was not something I considered a good time in any way, shape, or form. Call it a symptom of an extremely over-active imagination, but even a scary story told at summer camp was enough to keep my childhood self wide-eyed and sleepless, sheets pulled over my head while my mind conjured even greater terrors than the ones in fiction. Scary movies, scary stories, and even scary games were simply too much for me. It wasn’t until I was in my mid-teens that I started to come around to the thrills of being afraid for fun, but it was still a slow process. The original Resident Evil was, in many ways, horror training wheels for me. I’d be lying if I said the game didn’t still freak me out a little. It was never the “BOO!” moments either, the dogs jumping through windows or the rushing camera POV that signaled the arrival of the first Hunter baddie. It was the atmosphere, the lonely clacking of feet on the floors of empty hallways, the score, and that very first zombie, its grisly visage slowly turning to the camera, rendered in CG just abstract enough to seem unreal. The campy dialogue and ridiculous live-action intro weren’t enough to dull the menace, but the action and puzzles kept me hooked. By the time Resident Evil 2 came out in 1998, I was converted and I’ve remained a devotee of horror gaming since. I’ve stuck with the series too. But Resident Evil hasn’t really been about horror, or even fear, in almost ten years. Each successive entry has brought the series further across that delicate line, from horror into suspense. Resident Evil 4 was a true sea change, but it’s the upcoming Resident Evil 5, which Derrick and I got to play at Capcom’s New York preview event today, that cements the franchise’s transformation into a full-bore action experience, one whose tension comes from overwhelming numbers and a sense of claustrophobia instead of limited resources and lurking dread. Read More... Posted Oct 22 2008, 06:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, resident evil, capcom, dead space, resident evil 5

• This Week's Releases: Too Many Damned Games!

  The holiday season has officially begun, what with today marking the release of about 9 million games.  It's true a lot of these titles are pure crap, but quite a few gems have snuck into the pre-pre-Thanksgiving buying rush, like Far Cry 2 and the new DS Castlevania.  I'm even having Fable 2 sent to my house via GameFly, and I have no idea why! It could be that I'm caught up in the hype of release season, or that I'm just trying to figure out how an industry can be so prosperous in a time of economic turmoil. Whatever the case, having so many options available to murder free time will inevitably ruin my life, as I'm sure it will also ruin yours. But it doesn't have to be that way--surely there are ways to experience all of the holiday releases while keeping social relationships intact and also avoiding pesky bedsores.  As a public service, I have compiled a list of tips to get you through this season of unbridled entertainment unscathed and experienced in your chosen hobby.  Keep in mind I am in no way responsible for the disappointment of search parties that will inevitably find you. Read More... Posted Oct 21 2008, 01:30 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: fable 2, dead space, bob mackey, castelvania, new releases

• Trailer Review: Dragon Quest IX

  As October wears on and the fruits of game season, grand experiences like Dead Space and Fable 2, start to illuminate my living room with an incandescent and warming light, I find myself not looking forward, but back. 2008 has been, to date, a year overflowing with great games and even though it’s been less than a month since I finished it, I’m already looking back at Dragon Quest IV fondly. The characters, the leveling, the music; it was glorious. But, as it is with JRPGs, it will be a very long time before I ever attempt to complete that particularly glorious remake again. (If ever. Role-playing games are a steep time investment as is, a fact I’ve discussed many times in the past.) But this trailer, only recently presented in high-quality after its debut at Tokyo Game Show, fills me with hope for the future. Dragon Quest IX will be awesome. Oh yes, it will be so, so awesome. Read More... Posted Oct 20 2008, 06:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, trailer review, square-enix, dragon quest, fable 2, dead space, yuuji horii, dragon quest iv, dragon quest ix

• The 61FPS Review: Dead Space

  In 1986, the world bore witness to one of gaming’s most important watershed moments, an event whose profound impact on the medium is still seen today, in games released every week. Protagonists, game worlds, sound effects, and art direction; there is no facet of design that this single creative work hasn’t influenced. It isn’t The Legend of Zelda or Metroid. It isn’t Out Run, Adventure Island, Kid Icarus, Bubble Bobble, or Castlevania. It isn’t even a videogame. The gaming legacy of James Cameron’s Aliens cannot be overstated. Ignore all thirty games actually based on Aliens and consider the past twenty-two years of gaming as a whole. Syd Mead’s art and designs cover every game from R-Type to Halo 3. H.R. Geiger’s titular xenomorph is mirrored in hundreds of enemies, even beyond Contra. The group dynamics and character archetypes of Cameron’s protagonists are the template for almost every squad-based shooter ever made. And the forbidding labyrinth of colony LV-426 has defined entire genres, particularly the first-person shooter. This movie is where the space marine, modern videogames’ essential lead, comes from. Aliens made many, many games what they are. But no one game has ever gone as far in recreating the entire Aliens experience – of allowing you to actually enter a dilapidated, abandoned science fiction world full of monsters hunting you from the shadows – as EA Redwood Shores’ Dead Space. The Ishimura and its broken, dimly lit passages, the bloodthirsty and relentless necromorphs spawned from the ship’s dead, the weapons you wield as Isaac Clarke (the pulse rifle and flame thrower being the direct nods,) even Jason Graves and Rod Abernathy’s screeching, dissonant score are all explicitly lifted straight out of the film. The game’s disparate parts conspire to let you actually play James Cameron’s sci-fi survival ride instead of watch it. The gameplay follows the formula precisely: at the start of all twelve chapters in Dead Space, you are instructed to go to a place, locate that chapter’s MacGuffin (a machine that needs fixing, a person, a creature that needs killing,) eliminate a specific obstacle, and survive a constant and seemingly unstoppable, unpredictable threat aided only by limited supplies and unreliable supporting characters. What’s more, Dead Space succeeds, a work that ends up as far more than the sum of its borrowed parts. Read More... Posted Oct 14 2008, 08:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, ea, resident evil, 61fps review, aliens, dead space

• Question of the Day: How Do You Make a Horror Game Horrifying?

  Don’t be afraid. There are no ghouls here. Just nerds. ‘Tis the season for delighting in frights, is it not? That time of year when Halloween is just around the corner, the days get darker, and the things that go bump in the night start getting goosebumps, because, hey, it’s cold out there. As I mentioned last week, it’s also the beginning of game season. Horror, as a genre, doesn’t have quite the presence it did in gaming a few years back, but autumn 2008’s seeing a number of high-profile scary games hitting consoles across the land. Silent Hill’s back after a four year absence, EA is releasing their brand new IP Dead Space in just over a week, and Atari is re-launching their ill-fated Alone in the Dark on PS3. Horror games are an absolute favorite of mine. There’s a visceral thrill they provide that is distinct to the medium, mixing the tension-and-release dynamic essential to horror in any medium with the deep satisfaction of accomplishment that comes from successfully playing a game. Read More... Posted Oct 06 2008, 06:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, ea, silent hill, konami, atari, alone in the dark, dead space, question of the day

• Overworld: Friday the 13th

  Overworld examines how one game or series establishes a unique sense of place. Buzz for EA Redwood Shores’ Dead Space has gone from indifference to genuine excitement in the weeks since E3. Now that people have actually played the interactive paean to Cameron-Carpenter-styled horror, they’ve found that its forbidding atmosphere, sound, and HUD-free presentation are hype-worthy and legitimately scary. I haven’t gotten to try it out myself but I’m anxious to get my hands on it. Redwood Shores have taken the essential road to designing quality interactive horror; Dead Space is, at its core, a game about confinement, about being trapped in a hostile environment with limited means of survival. Videogames lend themselves to this method of creating tension and anxiety because their environments are, naturally, closed. System Shock’s dilapidated space station, Resident Evil’s mansion, and even the more expansive town of Silent Hill are perfectly closed spaces, places that simultaneously create dread and a functional goal: how do I get out? It’s far rarer to see a game take the opposite route. After all, it isn’t easy to make a game that makes you feel lost. If a game forces you to lose yourself in its environment, by way of randomly generated environments or trick passages that lead to incongruous locations (as in Zelda’s Lost Woods), it risks frustrating the player – this is especially bad if the game’s intent is horror, since frustration can easily replace anxiety. It’s equally difficult to create a closed environment that is delicately constructed to confuse the player. The original Metroid and its Game Boy sequel are two of the only games that manage to successfully pull this off thanks to its series of identical hallways and dead ends. Another is Friday the 13th. Read More... Posted Aug 14 2008, 03:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, overworld, metroid, nintendo, ea, resident evil, silent hill, nes, dead space, Friday the 13th, ljn