Xbox 360 - Darksiders

Darksiders by THQ / Vigil

Here's another throwback to the late-90's / early-00s. This is your standard third person shooter with semi-irritating boss battles. You probably would have even found this game in an arcade or two in the late 90s.

Controls

Nothing spectacular here. Typical controls for a third person shooter. There is one control, however, that was completely done wrong. When you finally get the chain to swing from floating hook areas, the chain controls are badly done. First, you target the item to chain. Then you press the fire chain control (right trigger). That's ok, so far. But, instead of releasing the RT button to release the chain, you have to press the A button. If you release the RT button, you stop swinging. It's like, huh? Who thought this controller design up? It's far more intuitive to release the RT button to release the chain itself. Duh.

Story

You're one of the four horsemen who are there to prevent heaven and hell from starting a battle on the Earth. Well, it happened anyway and they blame your character (one of the four horsemen). Ok, so the premise is weak, but it at least gets you motivation for what you're doing (or about to do).

So anyway, you'll find there's lots of hacking, slashing, chopping and stomping going on here. Not particularly exciting if you ask me. For a late 90s type game, it'd probably have been a hit back then. With gaming engines and stories that have long progressed beyond this level of hack and slash, it's really old hat at this point.

Level Ups & Combos

They did add the ability to level your weapons up by adding enhancements and obtaining upgrades. You can buy combos from Vulgrim (the local merchant). As you progress through the game, you find a Vulgrim merchant location in each of the map areas (with the exception of the Iron Canopy area). So, you can make your character somewhat stronger by finding (or paying for) new weapons, features and upgrades. You find items by digging through chests, but mainly by paying Vulgrim.

To pay Vulgrim, you obtain blue 'souls'. These souls pop out of things and enemies you destroy. There are blue souls (money), yellow souls (action points) and green souls (health) in various sizes. There are also healing spells that you can buy from Vulgrim when you can't find health on the level (and yes, there will be times).

Bosses

Most of the bosses are quite easy, with the exception of Silitha (a large teleporting spider). It appears that THQ made this specific battle extremely difficult to complete. Not sure why unless they just like raising frustration levels. Simply search at Google for 'Defeat Silitha' and you'll find many many gamers looking for the answer to this battle.

Irritation

As with many games of this style, the developers decided to add some quite irritating things to this game. When you're just about out of health, you have to listen to a heart beating until you find more health. Hello.. I can SEE the meter on the screen, I don't have to be reminded with an irritating heartbeat noise every second.

When you're trying to beat Silitha, about every 2 seconds she says, "Hold still little one" or some other such drivel. It became so irritating, I had to turn the voice volume all the way down.

Next, I play with Y inverted. Unfortunately, Darksiders doesn't remember that once you've restarted the game the next time. So, I have to constantly remember to go into the options and invert the Y setting. This should be saved to the game save.

The controls do not always respond well. So, when you're battling enemies, you seem to sometimes get stunned for no reason and that allows enemies to pound on you. It's almost like the game is doing this on purpose. In fact, it might actually be doing that.

Vulgrim Tunnel Travel

This part of the game was completely pointless. Yes, you do travel from one area to another reasonably fast. The part that is pointless is that you have to run around this track from point A to point B. There's no fighting, no quests and no treasures there. Frankly, I would have preferred to enter the portal and exit it with nothing in between. If you're going to make the gamer do something, then make it worth their while... here's another tip to go into the Game Design from a Gamer's Perspective manual. Although, it's really already there as 'Don't waste the gamer player's time'.

Overall

This is a tired, old and worn out gaming style. I understand a lot of gamers still like to play them, but for an RPG gamer, this play system just doesn't really work. If you're the kind of gamer that likes to roam through levels, figure out puzzles and battle silly creatures, then you might like this.

The best part of this game.. well, there is no real best part. This is an average/mediocre third person shooter with nothing overly special. If you simply must play everything on the Xbox 360, go for it. If you're looking for a quality, longer and more thought provoking game that's compelling, Darksiders isn't it.

Score

• Sound: 6/10 (irritating voices)
• Graphics: 6/10 (good, but missing too many details)
• Gameplay: 7/10 (mostly workable)
• Story: 7/10 (weak plot wrapped with lots of hacking and slashing)
• Bugginess: N/A
• Controls: 6/10 (bad chain control. otherwise workable)
• Bang-to-buck: 1/10 (definitely no replay value)
• Play Value: $5 (limited play value, repetitive, boring in places, rent)
• Overall: 5.5/10 (I definitely recommend renting this title. Not worth $60).

Big Screen - Avatar

Avatar by James Cameron

While I know there is a video game for this movie (which Gamezelot may eventually review), this review is about the film itself. You're probably asking yourself, "Why is Gamezelot reviewing movies?" Well, I'll tell you. Essentially, Avatar is a nearly 3 hour video game romp. It is effectively one big cutscene from a video game. Because of this fact, I have decided to review this movie here.

Story

It's actually 3 stories in one. Boy meets girl, boy falls in love, boy betrays girl, boy wins girl back. Ok, so much for the love story. The second story is for the battle over Pandora, the planet the Navi inhabit. Humans need 'Unobtanium' and to get it, they must displace the locals (the Navi) on the planet Pandora. The third story is of sacrifice and courage by those chosen to become Avatars.

Essentially, there are two factions towards domination of Pandora. The Sigourney Weaver character camp that believes that understanding the natives is the answer. She does this by creating the Avatars (lifelike representations of Navi bodies that humans can remote control). So, her intent is to blend in with the Navi and become one with them using these Avatars. This tactic doesn't work until a handicapped marine signs on to run an Avatar.

The second camp is the military commander. He wants decisive action to get the job done. If that means destroying the Navi to get the Unobtanium, he'll do it.

The Navi are the indigenous peoples of Pandora. Ok, so that's the setup.

In the 3 hours that unfold, lots of visual effects are used and some cool and amazing things are done. This is, to date, the best live action video game yet. When we can finally get consoles that can produce graphics that look like Avatar, then we'll be onto something.

Premise

The premise behind the film is sound, but the basic stories have been dumbed down to fit into the nearly 3 hour framework. In fact, this movie would have been better served as an actual video game where you could spend hours and hours playing it and get a truly in-depth experience. But, of course, the graphics wouldn't have been anywhere near as stunning.

However, ignoring the graphics work, which is outstanding, the stories are actually fairly weak with lots of holes. The writer(s) could have done much better at sewing up the details of Pandora and the Humans, but failed to do so. So, there are a number of rather cliche and trite things about the way this movie unfolds. While you haven't seen a movie that looks like this one visually, you have seen this film before. Effectively, Cameron has taken stories that are old and tired (and somewhat politically correct) and wrapped them in a shiny new huggable CG ribbon.

Caricatures

Unfortunately, the characters in this film were all basically cartoons of real humans. From the unfeeling G.I. Joe to the Smoking Doctor. There's nothing very realistic about any of the characters. Even the attempt at sympathy for the handicapped marine really falls quite flat. Because his human role in the movie basically consists of entering and exiting the Avatar control pod, you get very little real emotional time with the human part of this character. The only emotional time you get with Jack Sully (the handicapped marine) is him as the Avatar which, with as well as it was done, just doesn't cut it. So, Jack Sully's character is flat and underdeveloped.

Human vs Avatar

Unfortunately, as well, there was very little struggle for any of the characters learning to control the avatars. For example, there have to be long term exposure effects of some kind. Whether that's nosebleeds or convulsions, there needs to be some negative consequences to using the avatar chamber. Something that tells the human body that it's not a good thing. That never happens. Without this element, it leaves the human world flat and emotionless. It makes the story feel all too perfect. Without this element, this leaves the story without a human antagonist that prevents the avatar from working perfectly. And, throughout this film, the avatars perform flawlessly.

Without something that ties the the audience to the cause of the humans, it leaves the audience emotionless towards any of it. It's hard to feel for the Navi fully because you realize they are simply CG characters. Worse, they are CG characters which are caricatures of real tribal cultures. You want to feel for the humans trying to do good for the Navi, but you can't because there's not enough screen time given to these elements. You can't feel for the bad-guy soldiers, so the whole affair ends up mostly unemotional.

Contradictory points

The characters tend to contradict themselves during parts of the film. For example, the tribe leader's daughter who first meets up with Jack Sully (as an Avatar), gets a sign from Eywa (aka Gaia) for her invite him in to her tribe. She doesn't understand why, but she does it. She chastises Sully for killing these dog creatures as 'unnecessary' and him being a child. Yet, later he kills an animal without remorse and it's all ok. There are other times as well where the film steps on itself with the tribal culture. So, this makes the tribal aspects not very well conceived.

High points

There are high points, but they are all there to manipulate the audience into feeling good about the situation. Like when Sully is able to pull off getting his flying creature or when he swoops from the sky and takes control of the much bigger and more revered flying creature. Hello, if it were as easy as he made it out to be, then the entire tribe would have done it.

Manipulating these feel-good points to make the audience feel happy almost seems a bit contrived. It works for the moment, but when you reflect on it you really understand how Cameron manipulated the situation for the audience rather than for the story.

Audio

The music score is fairly intense, but typical for this kind of blockbuster. There's lots of swelling orchestral movements throughout. Too many, in fact. The score is loud, but that may be partly because of the theater. In most parts the score works, but it's also quite cliche. There's nothing new here. Even though the graphics excel, the music score is standard.

Overall

The movie was good, but not perfect. If the movie had grounded the human parts in a more solid reality with more human character development, the Navi parts would have been much more believable. The struggles between the G.I. Joes and the Navi were really there to provide a battle environment... an Ewok vs Stormtrooper moment, if you will. This is the Star Wars for a new millennium, but even Star Wars kept the humanistic aspects to keep the audience grounded (at least for the first 3 movies). The later three movies felt much more like Avatar.

I'm at a loss why CG and human drama can't work. Avatar definitely shows that it is possible to do it with film (even though Avatar itself didn't succeed), but it doesn't have to be feel-good fluff. Unfortunately, Cameron took us on this journey, but primarily as a cartoon than as a real human drama. Perhaps he felt that the CG would play better if it felt more cartoony than as human drama. I don't know, but this film opens doors to the next evolution of film making. I would say that District 9 was probably closer to human drama vs CG than any film to date including Avatar.

Unfortunately, Cameron has already set the tone with Avatar. So, Avatar 2 is off the table for moving back towards real human drama. I don't fully understand the cartoonistic approach to Avatar. Cameron would have done Avatar far better and more satisfying by making all of the characters more real (from character development side) from the beginning... and also truly studying tribal cultures to ensure the approach was consistent throughout.

Oh well, there's always next time.

Score

• Graphics: 10/10
• Audio: 9/10 (in parts, too loud and abrasive)
• Story: 4/10
• Overall: 7/10 (too cartoonistic and simplistic)

Game design from a gamer's perspective Pt. 4

Lighting

Lighting is critical to any 3D game title. It is equally as important as the camera. While the camera lets you peer into the world, the lighting allows you to see (or not see) the world. Good lighting let's you see what you need to see. Great lighting sets a mood for the story. Setting up the proper lighting for any scene in a 3D world is critical to the mood you're trying to achieve and is one of the two major ways (the second way being music) to set the tone and mood for the game (and story). Games that have successfully used lighting properly include Bioshock, Chronicles of Riddick, Halo 3, Assassin's Creed, GTA4, F.E.A.R. and The Darkness (just to name the top games). No, Oblivion didn't make this list. While Oblivion has reasonable lighting, it's just not outstanding. Note that lighting needs to be combined with textures and shaders to complete this package. Perfectly lighting a poorly textured or shaded object doesn't do anything for your game. These two things go hand in hand... which is why texturing is next.

Proper lighting entails making sure the color of the lighting is accurate for the scene. Lights should produce a halo effect if very bright. If it can produce the film 'strings' (left and right horizontal streams), it can easily give your game a film like quality. In fact, I've not yet seen a game that's even done this. Lights on the backs of vehicles or during moving sequences should produce streams. Lighting should produce soft shadows, when possible. Lighting should always produce a shadow. Shadowless lighting is odd and makes your game look unrealistic. Also, unless you're trying to achieve a specific mood, shadows should never be 100% black. True ambient (GI - bounce) lighting always lightens up shadowed areas. So, even if your engine doesn't support GI, you can simulate it through the use of ambient lighting.

Texturing and Shading

While lighting is key to setting a tone and mood, shading and texturing brings out the realism. If you want to make a scene look photoreal, you need four things: natural lighting, high resolution textures / shaders, a high resolution mesh (or low res mesh with great looking normal maps) and natural environments. Clearly, in a video game, there's limited RAM. So, you have to optimize the game's memory footprint by taking some shortcuts. So, while you will need to take shortcuts, don't take them unless absolutely necessary. For example, don't make your mesh resolution so low that even a normal map can't fix it. Use a high enough resolution that the mesh looks good on its own. Then, add normal and displacement maps to increase the resolution and add realistic folds and creases. Combining that with great looking diffuse textures and you've got a winning combination.

Games that have successfully produced great looking human models include Mass Effect, Bioshock (at least the Big Daddy), Oblivion, Fallout 3, Heavy Rain, Drake's Fortune, The Darkness and a few others. Unfortunately, there are many more games that use low res textures, shaders and models. For the Mario's and Sonic's of the world, that's fine. But, for a human drama, don't skimp on shaders and textures.

Additionally, don't put tons of effort into your human characters by using 1024 x 1024 texture maps and then proceed to load 128 x 128 maps onto terrain surfaces. Keep consistent. Use high res maps for all surfaces or none. Don't pick your main character to make look great and then cheese out on the rest of the surfaces. Two Worlds was primo at this. High res character models, low res terrains. It looks horrible.. don't do it.

Shaders

Shaders are what make your objects look like real everyday objects. It adds shine, transparencies, ambience and lots of subtle things to your characters. For example, the use of a specular map on skin surfaces is critical to making skin surfaces shine properly. Without a specular map, the skin surfaces look shiny and plastic. Again, for Mario, that's fine. For human drama, not so much. Always try to make an object look correct by using the proper levels of specularity and specular maps when possible.

Levels of Detail

Level of Detail (LOD) is commonly used in games. It saves memory for distant objects but also gives high res details up close. When possible, use it. Any console programmer likely already knows this, but if you don't, here you go. You can read up on the use of LOD at various sites including Wikipedia.

Character Models

What's to really say here. The best I can offer up is make them look good. Leave this task to your very talented character artists to design. I've rarely come upon games that have poorly designed characters. Occasionally it happens, but rarely. For example, I was a bit disappointed in the models for Crackdown. Most movie tie-in games tend to have poor character models. In many cases, the game designers choose to move the camera very far back from poor quality models. This can make the model look a lot better than it is. For level based games, a small character can work. For up-close-and-personal 3D shooters, that doesn't work so much.

Again, hire quality designers and modelers to produce your models. Texturing and shading them is, of course, a big way to make or break the model.

Graphics modes

I've been very impressed by various games that some designers have chosen to employ. For example, Halo 3 has almost an almost cartoon approach to the models, but placed in a very realistic environment. This gives the game an almost surreal quality. Master Chief looks like armor, but at the same time he looks like a cartoon. This works.

Crackdown and Borderlands, on the other hand, chose an outline system for the characters. While it looks fine for the first few minutes, the graphics quickly get in the way of the story. It's difficult to get past the outlines. If you want to use outlines in a game, use them sparingly. For example, GTA used a design outline approach to intro graphics, but not the game itself. The game itself had a much more realistic look. This also worked.

3D console games really do look best when you use the 3D system to look realistic. Trying to use a stylistic approach to 3D doesn't seem to work well with Direct3D or OpenGL. Perhaps these systems need a facelift, but the recommendation from Gamezelot is not to use outlines if possible. Although, experiment. If you come up with something that has a wow factor, maybe I'll reconsider.

Playability - Terrain and getting stuck

A big part of game design is how well the game plays. Graphics, textures and shaders affect playability very little. Playability includes such things as collision detection, how well the characters move in space and how they interact with objects in the space.

For example, Fallout 3 majorly failed in one aspect of playability. The rebar, rubble and various blocks and chunks of cement get in the way of movement. It's easy to get 'stuck'. Sometimes getting stuck means you can jump your way out. Some times getting stuck means restarting your game. It is crucial to make sure your play testers ferret out any stuck spots. If possible, don't make terrain where you get stuck anyway. It's always frustrating to walk over terrain to be blocked by some invisible thing that you have to jump over or go around. Make sure to thoroughly play test your games for this aspect of the terrain.

Collision Detection

I won't say that much here about collision detection. In short, just make sure it works properly. Bullets aiming at the player character need to impact and be felt through rumble. The collision needs to make sense. So, test and test to ensure your detection system works 100%. Then playtest it again to make sure your game testers agree.

Easter Eggs

Easter eggs are fun little romps. Whether they are an integral part of the game and story or not, you should always include some. They are fun little diversions that let you step away from the main game and just idle down for a little. It's always good to let the gamer take a break in the environment just to 'play'. By 'play', I mean wander around and look at everything, goof off and generally do nothing. Getting away from the main action for a few minutes lets you regroup for a possibly hard boss battle. Wandering off just to explore the gaming system lets you find easter eggs and these can be as little as a secret message to an in-game award. It's your choice as to what people find, but make it fun.

In-game tutorials

When a game first starts out, many game designers feel that tutorials are the only way to 'help' the gamer become accustomed to the environment. For first-time gamers, this is true. For hard core die-hard gamers, this isn't true. Having to start out a brand new game and spend the better part of an hour wading through pause after pause stopping for pop-up screens and messages is frustrating and annoying. Always give the gamer the option to skip tutorials and go right into playing the game. If the first level is designed as the tutorial, then make sure it's not important to the game and give gamers a way to skip it.

Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5