Yeah, I know I’ve already done one indie game post today, but this one is extra special. Tyler Glaiel, the co-creator of Aether, the Edmund McMillen classic, has made a game that’s easily the creepiest and genuinely scary flash game I’ve ever played. It’s called Closure, and it’s all about the light, or lack thereof. It’s Sam Fisher’s nightmare; a world where the only things that exist are those that are illuminated. Well, that and the things scrawled on the walls. And what I think are blood stains. I didn’t look too closely.

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This could well be considered a rant of Angry Internet Proportions. Frankly I don’t care. Bill has a vision for the future of gaming, and I don’t like it. It’s a bleak picture of confusing interfaces, irritatingly specific internet connection requirements and unwieldy, restrictive, deceptive financial transactions. I don’t think any of my points here are going to be new, but given my recent Dawn of War II connection anguish, and the upcoming Fallout 3 DLC Operation: Anchorage, I felt it important to let you, the consumers know a little more about what you’re getting into when you use the service, since I can imagine that like myself, many of you will be using it for the first time.

So first off, lets look into the bit that really stings – buying off  the Marketplace. I haven’t actually done so just yet, and will be doing so only grudgingly, because it’s a confusing, obscured process as far as I can tell. The essential summary is, you don’t use “normal” currency to buy items off the Marketplace. You buy “Microsoft Points”; a virtual currency stemming from Games For Window’s Live‘s Xbox birthing. For an excellent run down of these costs, I suggest you take a look at the Wikipedia article regarding Microsoft Points. The crux of the matter is that depending on where you live, you’re going to be shafted over due to exchange rates. Granted this is nothing new to anyone familiar to buying stuff online. Steam has made some headway in improving the state of affairs, though not without some headaches – most glaringly, by charging extortionate amounts to Euro buyers.

Acquiring this online currency is a painful experience in itself. You can only buy them online if you have Visa, Mastercard or Am-Ex. Again, it’s a common problem, but a company as reputable as Microsoft should know better in all honesty. I just cannot fathom why so many companies are so slow on the uptake when it comes to payment options – why no localised bank options? Why no Pay-Pal? All are secure, and fast options.  Finally, you have to treat these points as for what they are: easy money for MS. With some variations, buying with these points comes in odd numbers – the Fallout 3 DLC for example costs 800 points. The smallest amount you can buy from third party retailers (I’m buying mine off Amazon, with its whopping 50p discount) is 2100. So come the third DLC pack, I’m going to be 300 short. I’ll have to buy more. And yet, there will likely be little I want to buy off them otherwise; much like vouchers are easy money for highstreet retailers. It’s a horrible system. Horrible.

Anyway, I wouldn’t mind all this if MS had the good will to actually provide a decent service. Those of you who’ve already loaded (intentionally or otherwise – the recent Fallout 3 patched slapped it on for me in anticipation of my buying the DLC) will know what I mean. It’s a counter-intuitive service in almost ever respect. There’s absolutely no logic in the layout, and no indication of how to actually use its various functions. It’s slow, clunky and unwieldy to use. The process of buying anything is a horribly veiled one. I’m coming to dread actually using it to get the Fallout 3 DLC. I implore you all to hang on and see what I and other bloggers and sites have to say about how it all works before getting it. Part of me is already anticipating the experience to be fraught with niggling irritations, regardless of how good the actual content is. I think the content is going to be awesome for the record books, though time will tell on that one.

Mention has to go to the horrible technical issues that plague the operation of GFWL. I’ve spent at least an hour every day (2-3 one day) trying to get the ingame GFWL interface going, in Fallout 3 and the Dawn of War II Beta from everything from networking to registry alteration. How on earth can MS justify releasing software that might require potentially clue-less consumers to tinker with highly volitile areas like this? Bizzarily, I could connect to the exterior application fine, but not the ingame one. If you look at Steam, the interface and connective systems are all integrated. GFWL’s in contrast appears to be a patchwork implementation. I have to say though, regarding my issues, Relic developers and consumer representatives were nothing less than excellent in their striving to help allieviate the problems. Hats off to them. There’s a very useful thread here for help and advice for people struggling with it by the way.

Everything about GFWL reeks of sloppy coding and implementation, I dare say as some kind of misguided attempt to link X-Box Live and GFWL, no doubt in an attempt to cut corners and save a bit of cash. As one forumer I read had to say, X-Box Live networking and Windows should be kept on seperate continants, let alone in the same service. Though of course, it must be noted that doing that would probably put one of the two in an unsupported area. Only some countries are graced with Microsoft’s beneficence after all… which is again, quite ridiculous for what should be a universally international service in this day and age.

I get what MS are trying to do. Providing a unified structure for gaming is an ostensibly noble cause. But when Valve and Stardock are demonstrating how to really do things, Microsoft are proving themselves horribly inept in comparison. As I mentioned before, I suggest you all wait for me to wander into the Fallout 3 DLC minefield before buying, which I will be doing as soon as it’s available this Tuesday, with a mind to informing you all by Wednesday at the latest.

Edit: Unfortunatly, Amazon still haven’t dispatched my points card yet. Things might be delayed a little if it doesn’t arrive tomorrow. Also, in case you missed Seniath’s comment on the matter, it seems someone else wasn’t happy with GFWL in Microsoft. It’s general manager has been sacked. Not surprised.

This is a fun little thing; Assassin Blue, a 2d platformer where you play a morally ambiguous assassin for a government in an unnamed country, tasked with killing people. Very paradigm shattering. Only it’s quite hard, and rather amusing at the same time. Your first target is the 3rd President the country has had in the last 2 months, and as such he’s decided to learn how to hurt people with big bits of metal. So instead of having an easy target, you’ve got a mentalist within a whirlwind of spinning blades. Fun.

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Ninjas are internet royalty. At some point in the long forgotten youth of the internet the concept of a Ninja fighting a Pirate was introduced, and everyone went giddy. It’s quite refreshing to have a ninja game without pirates in, or aliens, zombies, robots or anything else. Ten Ton Ninja is a platforming/puzzle game based around ninjas and their insatiable love of gems, and there are no pirates.

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ACES Game Studio, the team recently behind the long-running Microsoft Flight Simulator series, have in a stunning move been shut down as a part of the recently-announced 5000 layoffs by Microsoft. This also jeopardizes the future of the Microsoft Train Simulator series, as ACES were working on its second iteration. Microsoft themselves have predictably said that the Flight Sim franchise will not die, but they’re not being any more specific, Gamasutra reports. Nor have they, to my knowledge, said anything about Train Simulator 2. My thoughts about all this after the break.

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The demo for the seemingly long-delayed FEAR 2 was released on Steam today. It’s a hefty 1.8gb, so it might be an overnight job for some of you. I’ve played it a couple of times now, so here are some thoughts:

It does seem on the whole, to be same-old-same-old. I think it’s a case of if you loved FEAR, and want more, you’ll probably love it. It really is the old game transferred onto (an admittedly sexy) new engine. i.e. corridors full of angry men and bullets, while the environment half-falls apart around you. It looks amazing, and the new physics are incredibly authentic looking. I particularly love the weapons – one of the previous game’s highlights if you remember, and they’re back with a vengence. They’re joyously destructive and lethal; with one proviso. The sound effects are shit. Here you are ripping a soldier in half with a sniper rifle that barely audibly registers. It genuinely detracts from the satisfaction of using them. Given the high quality of atmospheric audio, it’s even more glaring.

I can’t say it’s particularly scary though. All the moments that are clearly meant to be are as frequent as they are obvious, and to be honest, I wasn’t made to jump or freak out once. The “ghosts” in one section were more a distraction than anything else. I can’t help but feel the pacing is off – in the space of 10-20 seconds you’re creeping through a darkly lit corridor, the next you’re taking on hordes of replicants. The chief horror influence is clearly of course, The Ring – but The Ring didn’t chuck heavily armed soldiers at the viewer every minute or two. Alma’s a genuinely memorable character – and indeed, probably the chief selling point from a narrative point of view. The soldiers don’t really fit that, at least in my opinion.

The demo gives you a taste of the power-armour sections of the game, and to be honest, I felt it was too dis-orientating. The best comparison would be the tank levels in Medal of Hono(u)r: Allied Assault; wandering round an environment with very angry people, all appearing out of nowhere while you desperatly try to fend them off. It did look all very cool mind.

I have to say, I’m not terribly impressed. The graphics are stunning, but perhaps not the leap the first game presented. The combat is visceral and intense as ever, but not really that different. And it’s just not terribly scary. But I get the feeling, that if you liked FEAR, this sequel will more or less live up to it. It is a demo of course as well, and this is by no means a review (nor really a review at all actually) of the full game, so we’ll see how things turn out come release next month.

When I mention ‘simulation games’ there will be a large number of people who think I am simply talking about games like The Sims, SimCity and Sim Isle. Yes, these can be considered to be simulation games, but they barely scratch the surface of what the sim genre is.

Sim games, such as European Truck Simulator, games in the Silent Hunter and IL-2 Sturmovik series’ are real sims. These games are what the sim genre is all about, taking a niche field of interest and making a game out of it. Often the developers of these types games try to make something that will emulate real life as much as possible, thus the myriad number of options for realism that you will see in some, and the overwhelming amount of controls in IL-2 Sturmovik.

European Truck Simulator simply puts you in the position of driving your own little truck around Europe, delivering this and that to various cities. It is not a great game; it has a variety of problems, not least that the roads are all alike and the truck driving is all a bit easy at times. However, European Truck Simulator for me is all about the relaxation of driving around Europe delivering different goods here and there. It is relaxing being able to play a game without the pressure of getting from A to B while avoiding the cops and rival gangs a la GTA IV.

The Silent Hunter series is a great example of how to make a simulator, the games being excellent too doesn’t do them any harm. For me Silent Hunter III is special as it perfectly combines the elements of simulation and a more action orientated style. The joys of setting to sea and travelling from your home port to a small area of water to the East of England cannot be matched, watching the seagulls fly about your U-Boat and toughing out the rough seas, reminiscent of my time driving my truck into Paris with a wagon full of bird food. Furthermore, the choice between taking the simple approach to combat by sighting up your target and pressing ‘Fire’ or going back in time to World War Two and do everything by hand is an inspired design choice.

Simulation games come in many different guises, be they truck or bus driving games, World War Two submarine or aerial combat games or even cycling management games. They provide people with a different kind of escapism than what we get with Call of Duty or Company of Heroes, they are a special genre, one that we should strive to support and help improve. Go on, pick up a sim game today.

I’ve just played through the demo for A Vampyre Story after I heard it was done by the Monkey Island chaps, which, while I’ve never played (please, no stones or arrows), does send pleasurably tingles down my newly awakened appreciation for adventure games (after playing The Longest Journey). This is taking the comical route of placing you in the ridiculous proportions of a newly turned vampi(y)re named Mona, with her bat pet/friend called Frederick. Impressions through the jump.

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