61 Frames Per Second : eidos

Deus Ex Machiwuhuh: Where is Warren Spector?

John Constantine — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 22:30:00 GMT

Warren Spector is what we here at 61 Frames Per Second call “a mule of epic proportions”. His mulishness can be measured by a number of standards. For example: how many people could make a decent videogame about Mark Hammil dogfighting giant space cats? How many people could make a medieval stealth game and actually have it feel speedy and good? How many people could make Deus Ex? Precisely one person. He rules, but it's been quite a long time since we've seen him 'round these parts.

Now, admittedly, everyone knows precisely where Warren Spector is. He and his assembled crew of visionaries from Junction Point Studios have been at Disney Interactive since 2007. The long-lived rumor, which popped up again just this past December, is that Spector has been working on a Mickey Mouse platformer alongside Disney Feature Animation and Pixar. Sounds like a match made in heaven to be honest. Some of gaming’s brightest designers have worked on Mickey Mouse platformers. That’s just a rumor though. The fact is that Spector hasn’t had a new game on the Markey in half a decade and Junction Point hasn’t published anything at all. What’s the hold up Warren? We miss you!

Spector actually sat in on a roundtable discussion with other famous gaming faces like Will Wright, David Perry, and another of others. Spector touched on subjects all too familiar for him, like creating single-player experiences that require lower time investments from players while still having potent narratives. He didn’t mention his new game though. Maybe this year, the year Eidos will show off their Spector-less Deus Ex 3, will be the year Warren re-emerges. If it isn’t, and you’ve got a hankering for the man, I heartily recommend you go play Thief or Deus Ex again. Or head over to The Escapist and read Spector’s four part essay series, Gaming at the Margins. His theories on the medium are off-base here and there, but are nourishing food for thought all the same.

Related links:

FMV Hell: Star Studded Casts - Do you Give a Crap?
F**k Your Future: Mirror’s Edge, Blade Runner, and the Future City
Behold: The Internet's Effect on Erotica
A Decade of Gaming Excellence

Anything Less Than the Best is a Felony: Arkham Asylum Might Be the Best Batman Game Yet

John Constantine — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 01:30:00 GMT

Batman is awesome. I would never say that Batman wasn’t awesome. Batman is only a tool though. A conceit, a platform, a set of rules to tell entertaining stories with. There’s something people tend to forget every time a new Batman game gets announced. Bats hasn’t had a very good videogame career, but everyone seems to think it has to do with the medium. It isn’t that videogames starring Batman are usually bad. It’s that everything starring Batman is usually bad. There are three good Batman movies to four terrible ones. There is one good Batman cartoon, and four others that can physically damage three out of five human senses. There are a number of very good Batman comics. There also happens to be over one thousand Batman comics that suck.

As of 2009, there is one excellent Batman videogame (NES), a handful of okay Batman games, and close to twenty that are trash. Not trashy. I mean the sort of thing you put in the garbage. After watching a playthrough of Batman: Arkham Asylum’s first twenty minutes, I’m willing to say that Rocksteady Studios has the potential to make the first great Batman game. No fanboy hyperbole here. It actually looks that good.

The demoed chunk of Arkham Asylum’s first chapter expands on the trailer released this past January. Batman has arrested the Joker and is delivering him to the titular sanitarium. Outside of the brief cinema of Batman’s late night drive, the narrative heavy opening minutes mercifully give the player control, letting you walk alongside the guards and doctors as they escort the Joker in. It’s nice to not have to passively sit through the story and it lets you get sense of your surroundings. Rocksteady’s asylum is an amalgamation of previous incarnations (the game doesn’t adhere to any specific continuity, comic or otherwise.) Here, it takes up an entire island on the river near Gotham City, and is made up of founder Amadeus Arkham’s mansion and an industrialized facility. The hospital looks, appropriately enough, like a videogame setting. With its grimy metal hallways and shadowed vents, it looks like a place to keep the super-powered criminally insane. Purists might scoff at the design, but it’s tonally consistent with this version of Batman’s world. It all looks quite nice to boot. It has that wet look games built on Unreal Engine 3 tend to, but doesn’t suffer from any of the texturing troubles (see: environments loading sans textures) that plague games like Mass Effect. The character designs also seem familiar inside UE3, but that’s thanks to their Epic-ness; these thick-looking versions of Batman, Commissioner Gordon, the Joker, and Harley Quinn would look right at home in Gears of War. These also might get fans in a huff, especially the American McGee-ified Quinn, but they work in Arkham Asylum.

After the Joker escapes, you get your first taste of Arkham’s combat. Since I didn’t get to actually play the game, it’s impossible to say how the brawling feels, but it gives the best impression possible. Fighting recalls nothing if not Sega’s Yakuza. Thugs surround Batman and you dash back and forth between them, combo meter filling as you contantly move between them. The game intelligently interprets who you want to attack; press the analog stick in their direction along with X or Y (light and heavy strikes respectively), and you smoothly draw in for the hit. Like in Yakuza, finishing and strong moves also go into stylish slow-motion. (I was told that some of these moves are only in slow-motion the first few times they’re used, a smart choice that should keep the game fast.)You unlock new moves and upgrade Batman’s skills and equipment by gaining experience. It may damage some of the Batman persona – you are supposed to be the world’s greatest detective and an accomplished martial artist from the outset, after all – but it’s a welcome concession to the medium. Arkham Asylum needs to be a good game first, and making the combat an evolving set of rules will help it be just that. The game’s investigation and stealth play don’t hurt either.

At any point while playing, you can activate investigative mode. A colored filter covers the screen, highlighting interactive parts of the environment (concealed paths, grapple points) as well as scan-able information (characters, writing on walls.) In the demo, the extent of puzzle solving through investigation was limited to find-the-path and hit-the-switch problems, but producer Nathan Whitman said the game goes deeper as it progresses. (He mentioned crime scene investigations, which have popped up in other previews, but sadly I didn’t see any here.) If it all sounds a bit like Metroid Prime’s scan visor, that’s because it is. Whitman dropped exactly that name in describing the game’s investigation and seamless-world exploration. The investigation filter also informs Arkham’s “Silent Predator” play. Terrible name aside, these stealth features look solid and integral to nailing the character in a game. Many of the asylum’s rooms are large and allow for creative dispatching of enemies. Sneak through the shadows, activate investigation mode, grapple to the ceiling, drop down on a thug and zip him back up. When there’s only one baddie left, glide down with your cape wide and kick him in the head before he knows what’s coming. It all looks smooth and active as well, hardly a collection of cutscene triggers or QTEs.

I know. This is a lot of referencing classic games to paint a portrait of Arkham Asylum. Metroid Prime, Yakuza, Gears of War. I don’t think Rocksteady Games is trying to hide where they get their inspiration though. Even the game’s Batman: The Animated Series pedigree – Harley, Joker, and Bats are all voiced by their actors from that series, and Arkham’s written by alum and Detective Comics scribe Paul Dini – shows their willingness to pull from the best sources to make sure their Batman videogame is actually worth playing. It looks great. We’ll see how it feels to play when it comes out this summer.

Fanboy note: No, Batman’s eyes are not white. They won’t be. They are, however, white when he’s in investigation mode. Whitman said that’s the compromise to appease y’all. Ah well. Better than nothing.

Related links:

At Least Batman: Arkham Asylum's Story Will Be Good
Batman Can't Even Land a Punch on Superman in a Video Game
A Silver Lining to The Dark Knight
NYCC 2009 - DC Universe Online

Millions of Disappointing Tomb Raider Sales for Eidos

Bob Mackey — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 17:00:00 GMT

Tomb Raider: Underworld was one of those games I was a little bummed about missing out on over the busy 2008 holiday season. I'd pretty much abandoned the series after the second installment, but flirting with both Tomb Raider: Legend and Anniversary over the past few years proved to me that the series might once again deserve my full attention. Because I was without some sort of device used to stop time, though, my winter break was filled to the brim with other games, some of which I really shouldn't have been playing. So I couldn't help but feel guilty after hearing multiple reports on podcasts, blogs, and websites about the disappointing sales of Underworld; did my lack of care doom this underdog series to an undeserved death, just when it was getting good again? Well, according to Gamasutra, the rumors of Tomb Raider: Underworld's retail death have been greatly exaggerated:

Although Eidos previously admitted disappointment with Tomb Raider: Underworld’s sales, the title racked up 2.6 million unit sales in the period, with a faster rate of sell-through than either Tomb Raider: Legend or Tomb Raider: Anniversary.

It's unclear what exactly Eidos would consider "not disappointing," but it's safe to assume at this point that Tomb Raider: Underworld has made a very healthy profit--unless they happen to be supplying their development team with an endless supply of cocaine and high-class prosititutes. But even if these extremely unlikely employee perks did exist, Underworld literally made hundreds of millions of dollars, and that's nothing to sneeze at, especially as the American economy continues to circle the drain. Brain disease and blockbuster game development might not always go hand-in-hand, but with incidents like this one and EA's John Riccitiello claiming that the recession is good for gaming, it might be time to consider dishing out Thorazine in the company cafeterias.

Related Links:

The Uncanny Valley: Tomb Raider and Lara Croft Are Starting to Freak Me Out
Gamepro Feature Mourns The Loss Of Mammaries
If This is True, RIP Eidos

At Least Batman: Arkham Asylum's Story Will Be Good

John Constantine — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 01:30:00 GMT

It’s been pretty disheartening to see so many people losing their game industry jobs these past few months. First and foremost, it’s terrible to see thousands of talented people out of work. It’s also tragic to see so many games get cancelled. I’m still upset that Free Radical’s Star Wars Battlefront 3 will never come out. That game looked unbelievable. That’s not always the case with cancelled games though. For example, I think the world’s a better place now that Pandemic’s The Dark Knight tie-in won’t clog up shelves across the land. From the sounds of it, that game was troubled with a capital OUBLED. It’s cancellation also means that Rocksteady Games’ original Batman game, Arkham Asylum, will have a much better chance of getting noticed by the millions upon millions of people obsessed with Bruce Wayne and Joker.

This new trailer doesn’t have any play in it, so it’s pretty useless for giving an impression of Arkham Asylum as a game. What it does have is plenty of story. Competently written and awesomely voiced story. Not to be too gigantic a geek, but that’s Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy you’re hearing! The Joker and Batman of Paul Dini’s Batman: The Animated Series! Speaking of Mr. Dini, he’s the man in charge of writing Arkham Asylum. This game is going to be like a giant playable episode of that show, albeit an episode with graphic violence suited to the drippy, bumpy textures of a game built on Unreal Engine 3. Sounds like a winning combination to me.

Rocksteady Games only has one other title under their belt, a PS2 first-person shooter called Urban Chaos: Riot Response. Anyone out there ever play it? Should we trust these guys to make an awesome Batman game?

Related links:

Batman Can't Even Land a Punch on Superman in a Video Game
A Silver Lining to the Dark Knight
Of Children and Lego Games: A Valid Concern

If This is True, RIP Eidos

Cole Stryker — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 22:00:00 GMT

The Silicon Valley Insider reports on a rumor that Lara Croft may be shedding some clothing in order to boost sales in upcoming installments in the longsuffering Tomb Raider franchise.

Over on tombraiderforums.com, a poster believed to be (but not confirmed as) "Tomb Raider: Underworld" creative director Eric Lindstrom says future Lara Croft games may go for a "Mature" rating.
The Teen rating meant we couldn’t do things we wanted to or were done in the past, but it was a publisher mandate at the tmie [sic]. It won’t always necessarily be so, though, the future can always be different.

If this is true, it can't speak very well for the future of the franchise, or Eidos in general. However, I think that SVI is perhaps inferring a bit too much from the message board post. For instance, he could be referring to more violent content, as opposed to sexual imagery. Whether it's violence or sex, I suppose making a genuinely fun game that people want to play is out of the question.

When will developers learn that ramping up mature content does not necessarily translate into sales?

F**k Your Future: Mirror’s Edge, Blade Runner, and the Future City

John Constantine — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 19:00:00 GMT

The image above is a little bit of Deus Ex 3 concept art from Eidos Montreal, the crack design team who broadened our sexual horizons with Fear Effect and taught us that controlling sociopathic murders is boring as sin with Kane & Lynch. I can imagine the dialogue between the artists and producers when this image was submitted for approval:

"What do you got for us today, concept artists?"

"Check dis!"

"This isn't Deus Ex! This is just a screencap from Blade Runner with the guy from Deus Ex 1 smoking in front of it!"

"I'm fired aren't I?"

"No! It's perfect! That’s all these nerds want anyway."

I kid. There is no Deus Ex without Blade Runner, after all. While its influence isn’t quite on the level of Aliens, Blade Runner’s vision of a nightmare cityscape in the far-flung-but-familiar future is a close second. Its towering super-skyscrapers and dank alleyways are the aesthetic meat of beloved games like Shadowrun and Snatcher, but you can also see them in mid-period Contra, Flashback, Abe’s Odyssey/Exodus, and even recent blockbusters like Mass Effect. Then again, it’s not just games. Syd Mead’s Los Angeles has been the template for depicting the urban landscape of the future in all media for close to twenty-five years.

I’ve been curious for awhile now as to what the next popular conception of the cityscape is going to be. The Blade Runner type came on the heels of the ultra-slick Logan’s Run-style, cities of spires all white and sterile that typified science fiction from its 1950s heyday through the 1970s. This may not be the most academic logic in the world, but since sci-fi literature gave us our Future City model post-WWII, and sci-fi film bore its successor, I’m looking to videogames to create the next archetype.

If you’ve been reading 61FPS regularly, you probably won’t be surprised to hear me say that I think Mirror’s Edge features the most likely model for tomorrow’s City of Tomorrow. Edge’s nameless city has the same whitewashed sterility that was the hallmark of the 60s/70s future city but twists the model by coating it in streaks of primary color and keeping the architecture familiar. The buildings, subway stations, and shopping centers recall today’s Montreal but with a consistent modernist bent. Edge’s dystopia is also a recent institution. The story constantly reminds the player that the totalitarian government responsible for the city’s current shape hasn’t been in power long, and so the omnipresence of architecture-as-construction-site provides a fine narrative metaphor: you play behind the future city’s façade of perfection. Whether or not this model fully captures the zeitgeist of 2008 and beyond remains to be seen, but I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if we start seeing Edge’s city more often then Blade Runner’s, especially in games, going forward.

Note: Forgive my hate against Eidos Montreal. Yeah, Fear Effect and Kane & Lynch suck, but they made Soul Bubbles. They’re alright.

(Link: Gamereactor via Kotaku)

Related links:

The Three Stigmata of The Halcyon Company: Philip K. Dick Comes to Games
Mirror’s Edge: Everything You’ve Heard Is True
Trailer Review: Mirror’s Edge
The Eternal Question: Why Is Super Mario Bros. Fun?
Ceci N'Est Pas Une 1-Up: The Surrealist Future of Postpunk Gaming

Whatcha Playing: Bubbles, Bubbles, Bubbles!!!

Derrick Sanskrit — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 19:00:00 GMT

It's always a curious thing when games are sold exclusively at one chain of stores. I can understand if, hypothetically, Big Box Store shells out big bucks to have the exclusive sales of Frat House FPS Sequel. The built-in fanbase will want the game and rush to the nearest Big Box Store, that store makes enough money to profit from their initial investment, and the publisher still got their game out there to the masses and made some extra cash while they were doing it. What bothers me is when smaller, somewhat unknown or niche games are exclusive to one store, making it harder to find and less likely that curious gamers unfamiliar with the property will give it a chance. I was worried when this happened last year with the long-awaited Chibi-Robo: Park Patrol which found its way exclusively to Wal-Mart shelves, but thankfully that game turned out wonderfully. And so now, some three months after its release exclusively to Toys R Us, I have finally gotten my hands on a copy of Soul Bubbles for the Nintendo DS. I can't say whether it was worth the added trouble of having to go find it, but I can say that so far it is one of the most enjoyable DS titles I've played in months.

First off, check out this beautiful opening screen that welcomes you when you start the game.

I already like this third-party developer.

The gameplay itself so far feels like a wonderful mix of LostWinds and Locoroco. Transport a bubble or series of bubbles containing spirits around an obstacle-filled labyrinth using the incredible lung capacity of a floating mostly naked kid (he wears a scarf). The controls really utilize the DS hardware remarkably well. I keep imagining playing Soul Bubbles with dual analog sticks and, while certainly possible, its just not as fun or intuitive. The art direction is downright impressive, with lush landscapes and beautiful particle effects. As demonstrated in LostWinds, when a game's play mechanic is based around wind and blowing, it is imperative that every element in the environment react naturally with the breeze or the fourth wall is broken, and in this regard Soul Bubbles is an astounding achievement. The farther along I venture into this world, the more it seems every individual element has been carefully considered. Much like in Boom Blox, I am often miffed when something doesn't move the way I want it to, but accept that hey, that's realistic physics and I just kind of suck.

I'm only about halfway through the game right now, having cleared the fourth of eight worlds, and only recently has the game really started to demonstrate its nefarious environmental challenges. Slime is sticking my bubbles to walls as angry bees attack or wind tunnels are shooting my bubbles wildly into mazes of sharp thorns and puffer fish. I was particularly smitten with one recent puzzling section where it was required to capture lake water in a bubble, run it along a path and into a thorned vine, releasing the water below onto a rock that split the water into two streams to put out two fires, and later another lake that was closed off by vines, so I had to pop the bubble and then quickly form a new bubble to catch the water that fell through the vines. Despite the steady increase in difficulty, though, there is never a sense of urgency or of real imminent danger, which is much appreciated in a portable game. The levels so far have ranged from two to twelve minute playthroughs on the first try, perfect for on-the-go adventuring, and every stage has a healthy smattering of hidden objects to collect.

Completing a stage presents you with how many souls were safely delivered, how much hidden stuff you gathered, and your time, meaning Soul Bubbles should have a healthy chunk of replay value to collect everything, especially for speedrunners. Rapidly devouring all of my DS playing time, Soul Bubbles is easily the most casually hardcore game I've played since Eden.

Previously on Whatcha Playing:

The Thirst For Adventure, Pointing At Things, and Not Knowing What to Say
Cleaning House, Finding Roots
How Does Your Garden Grow?
The New Adventures of the Nintendo DS
Fallout (Metaphorically Speaking)
Loving/Hating Mario Kart Wii

Where Will You Go, Tecmo? What Will Happen to Our Love?

John Constantine — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 22:00:00 GMT

This has been something of a tumultuous year for Tecmo. In the past twelve months, they’ve shipped just four games, three of which are Ninja Gaiden games. The fourth, Fatal Frame IV for Wii, wasn’t even developed in house (it was handled by Suda 51’s Grasshopper Manufacture.) None of these games were actually published by Tecmo, relying on companies as diverse as Eidos, Ubisoft, Microsoft, and Nintendo for distribution. In June, their public face and star designer, the outspoken, boozing womanizer Tomonobu Itagaki, quit the company days after Ninja Gaiden II released to middling reviews. In August, their president resigned and Square-Enix tried to take over the company. Today, Tecmo announced they’ll be the latest Japanese company to find refuge from shrinking domestic business by consolidating. Their new partner will be Koei.

Tecmo, I’m worried about you. Times are tough for Japanese developers developing traditional games for home consoles. We’ve had wonderful times together and I’m still looking forward to Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff this fall. Remember all the good times we had with Tecmo Bowl? Yeah. Corporate mergers are a good thing for Japanese developers. Look at Namco-Bandai, that’s gone well! That totally cut down on all those terrible licensed anime games Bandai made. Mergers are also good for creativity. Sega totally kept their strong creative streak after ducking out of the hardware business and merging with Sammy. Look at Square and Enix! They keep on making the same new, adventurous software they did fifteen years ago when they don’t have to. Why, they could just keep on cranking out things with the words Final and Fantasy on them and make a buck.

…

Bottom line, I’m concerned about Tecmo retaining their identity after the merger. They are, after all, merging with the house of Dynasty Warriors. Tecmo doesn’t always release great games, but they have a rich history of fun and interesting games. It would be a shame to see them just fade away.

(Link: Edge Online)

Related links:

Trailer Review: Tecmo Bowl – Kickoff
Whatcha Playing: Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword
The 61FPS Review: Ninja Gaiden 2
Where is Shuichi Sakurazaki, Creator of Ninja Gaiden?

The Uncanny Valley: Tomb Raider and Lara Croft Are Starting to Freak Me Out

John Constantine — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:00:00 GMT

The world has seen a lot of Lara Croft. Back in the mid-90s, it was downright hard to avoid videogames’ so-called first sex symbol and even more difficult after the Angelina Jolie “films” started coming out in 2001. Lara as ridiculous-looking-game-character has always been more of an icon than Lara as actual-human-being. Of course, that hasn’t stopped Tomb Raider’s publisher Eidos from paying models to dress up like her from the beginning. It was pretty silly back in 1996; Lara Croft looked more like the freakish offspring of Barbie and a Dire Straits video than a woman. The only thing the model had in common with the character were guns and leotard. But as technology has advanced, and photos of models have gotten more photoshopped, over the past twelve years, the real and fake Lara’s have been getting more and more similar in appearance.

Frankly, it’s starting to freak me the hell out.

Let’s take a look at the eight Laras that coincide with the soon-to-be eight Tomb Raider games. See if it freaks you out too.

Here’s Katie Price in 1996 for Tomb Raider 1. Like I said, pretty silly.

Nathalie Cook in 1997 for Tomb Raider 2.

Rhona Mitra and Tomb Raider 3. Game character still looks scary but is losing the whole jagged edge thing.

Nell McAndrew on Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation. Here’s where it’s starting to get a little freaky.

Lara Weller and Tomb Raider Chronicles. Lara Weller does not look like a real person.

Jill de Jong and the ill-fated Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness. The crappiness of this first PS2 version of the series provides some respite from the uncanny valley because Jill de Jong looks like an attractive young woman in a costume and Lara Croft has got angles again.

Karima Adibebe in 2003 for Tomb Raider Legend. Lara’s a little bit more realistically rendered in the game (a little, mind you.) Karima looks a whole lot like the character though.

Alison Carroll. Tomb Raider Underworld. 2008. This is fucking terrifying.

Yeah. Well, now I don’t know what’s scarier. That real and imaginary sex symbols are converging, that I noticed this, or that I put the time together to write this. Sheesh.

Related links:

Feeling It: Social Versus Primitive Emotion in Videogames
Gamepro Mourns the Loss of Mammaries
The Five Greatest Enhanced Remakes – And Five That Weren’t So Great
Video of the Day: Judah Friedlander Explains the Uncanny Valley