Changing culture, one gamerscore at a time.

"So why don't I level up? What're my perks?" "No leash. Now kill that raider."

It seems Bethesda, in a moment of utter genius (and I mean this with no sarcasm) have decided they’ve learnt a couple of things from Fallout 3′s reviews and audience feedback. Todd Howard, the title’s executive producer, has been quoted as saying the following; “Greatest lesson? Don’t let the game end, don’t have a level cap”. These two things are the only problems with the game I can think of. The game ends with a bizarre choice; sacrifice yourself by standing in radioactive gas to stop a bomb from going off, send someone else in to do it for you who will also succumb to the airborne toxins within, or run away and let it blow up.

Now, as I played this section standing next to Fawkes, an intelligent Super Mutant who was immune to radioactive substances, if not healed by them, I was a little confused. Why couldn’t I send him in? And even if you don’t send yourself in to die, and stop the bomb using someone else, the game still ends. This hurt a lot of players because unless they reverted to an earlier save, as I did, they could no longer play their current character. Whether I went back for achievements or simply more fun content is irrelevant; games like these should follow the example set by Fable and its sequel; continuous play after the narrative’s conclusion. The level cap is also a good idea that needed nixing, as I can only grin with glee at the thought of having every skill to maximum, and every perk in the game. You’d squash things flat.

Need for Need for Speed?

Need for Speed started off as one of the most promising franchises in arcade racing, along with the likes of Burnout and the industry standard, Ridge Racer. And yet somewhere along the line, it hit its head and woke up convinced it was a game adaptation of the Fast and Furious trilogy (read: farce), and things went a little awry. The live-action FMV sequences didn’t help, either; if it didn’t work for Command and Conquer, it sure as hell isn’t going to work for you guys. I won’t touch upon NFS: Pro Street, as I intend never to include profanity in the blog, and that would have me break the rules a few sentences into the paragraph. However, in a suprising turn of events, EA is attempting to revitalise the franchise with three new titles, each aimed at a very different audience.

Three titles, ladies and gentlemen. The first, Need for Speed: Shift, is the NFS title for the fan of more realistic racing experiences such as Gran Turismo and Project Gotham Racing. The second is Need for Speed: Nitro, geared towards fans of the arcade-style racing experiences of old, though EA is keen to stipulate it won’t be “a Mario Kart clone”, though whenever someone needs to deny plagarism prior to anyone even seeing the content, it’s usually a sign that they’re lying through their teeth. The third title, most intruigingly, is Need for Speed: World Online, a play-for-free online racer hitting the East at 100mph, then cruising on over to Europe and the USA if it works out.

I think this is a brilliant idea, but honestly? I think EA is seriously shooting themselves in the foot considering how astonishingly well Burnout Paradise is doing at the moment. Every time I even mention Criterion’s open-world racer I feel the urge to buy it to once again feel the rush of demolishing barriers at warp ten while spinning through the air and listening to DJ Atomika, someone I’ve missed since his SSX 3 glory days. I don’t think it’ll outdo Paradise, but it’s a welcome addition and here’s hoping they drop the sex and focus on what made NFS such a groundbreaker in its genre; the rush of the cityscape at illegal speeds, the customisation, and of course, the nitrogen injection.

Dead as a… Dinosaur?

It seems Turok isn’t being continued by Disney, in the latest round of redundancies for game developers. 70 employees were laid off the project, as the developer Propoganda is being pushed by Disney to cut costs and focus on one project, of which there still is one, albeit completely hidden from view. I can’t say I’m surprised, the game was a complete farce, horrible to play, and in all honesty, if I want scary moments, gunplay and dinos, I’m going to watch the Jurassic Park trilogy. Disney, when a twenty year old man would rather play Wall-E on his 360 than Turok, I think you need to take a serious look at how badly marketed, designed, and written it was. But fix it. Upgrade it. There’s a reason it was a staplemark of FPS gaming on the N64.

A Sad Day for Ensemble

In this blog post, Ensemble Studios co-founder Bruce Shelley said goodbye to all of us from the creators of the exciting new RTS experience, Halo Wars. It’s a damn sad day when a team of people can work that hard on a title, promise to do DLC (and they’re still doing it, bless them) and update with patches and new ideas constantly, and still get canned by Microsoft. This isn’t just the team who piddled around in the world of Master Chief, this is the team who worked on Age of Empires amongst other things. They’ve done a lot for the RTS genre, and to see them go like this is as insulting as it is aggravating.

ATTENTION GAME DEVELOPERS: The recession is resulting in an increase in entertainment sales figures. The reason for this is because more and more people are staying indoors as going out is too expensive. What does this mean, amongst other things such as books and DVDs? It means more people are playing Gears, Wii Sports and World of Warcraft. What it doesn’t mean is that you can lay off hundreds of staff in the industry, then expect any decent content with developers scared out of their wits they’re going to be canned at every moment. The higher-ups will learn eventually. I just think all of us in the industry are sick of waiting for them to do so.