The Reticule

Emerging from the Batcave today on the consoles, and in two weeks on PC, Batman:Arkham Asylum sees the caped crusader take on his old nemesis The Joker in one of the darkest videogame adaptations of the famous Batman yet. Paul Dini is probably most famous for his work on arguably the best Batman cartoon in Batman: The Animated Series, creating the character of Harley Quinn and, most importantly to us, is the scriptwriter for Batman: Arkham Asylum. We flew out our questions (taking our Shark Repellent Spray) to Dini on Arkham, Mark Hamill and why we won’t be seeing Catwoman in our trail through the madhouse…
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It was my Day of Defeat, I loaded up Valve’s Source based World War Two shooter and promptly died. A lot. In my defence I am a bit out of practice with playing Day of Defeat as I haven’t played this great game for many, many moons. You can put this down to the fact that when I initially played the game I was plagued by the infamous ‘stuttering’ bug which was a common occurance in Source games a few years ago. Fortunately these issues are in the past which means I have been able to play Day of Defeat in all its glory.

This is a tough game to initially get to grips with, especially for someone like me who is used to Valve’s current multiplayer hit Team Fortress 2. Day of Defeat may not match the realism of games like Red Orchestra or Arma II, but it is a big change from more run and gun games like Unreal Tournament 3 and the aforementioned Team Fortress 2.

There is no place for madmen charging around corners expecting to use your trusty flamethrower to burn the first thing that moves. Rather this is about slowly edging around the corner with your iron sights held in shaking hands to your eyes. You peak around the corner but before you know what hit you you are dead with the retort of the sniper rifle still ringing in your ears. Then a big ‘Nemesis’ logo appears on the scoreboard. Damn that sniper!

Day of Defeat is a serious war game and it feels like one, I found myself playing on a quiet server at one point over these past few days yet despite there being just a handful of players in game the sounds of war could be heard at all times. Whether it is the shouts of ‘Point Secure’ or the rattle of a machine gun in the distance they combine to create an atmosphere unmatched by other games, everything sounds and feels real. It can be the sound of the Kar98k firing or a grenade momentarily dazing you as the scenary flies around, everything works to make you feel that much closer to the action.

It is just a shame that support for this game seems to have died off, there are only a handful of official maps in the game and there are numerous bugs that have emerged since the game was moved onto the Orange Box Engine, fortunately Day of Defeat still plays very well and there is still quite an active community. It is a nice feeling to go back through some of the older Valve games and give them a play again, the newer games have taken the spotlight in recent years but games like Day of Defeat Source are still worth checking out.

Last week you may have seen our request for feedback on The Reticule. Firstly we want to say thank you to everyone who provided feedback, with it we hope to really improve the site.

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Osmos is, as Phill recently told me, a really awesome late night game. This is perhaps one of the most relaxing games I have played for a long time, I must admit it makes for a nice change of pace. It is telling that the developers, Hemisphere Games say “relax…good things come to those who wait.” This sums up Osmos completely, a perfect game to take your time with. You see, you are a mote, I’m not sure what a mote is exactly, but that is beside the point, you control an organism which can only move by ejecting some of its own being which makes you smaller. You are able to absorb other motes which are small or a similar size to yours which creates a delicate balancing act between moving towards a mote you want to absorb and not expending enough of your mass to find yourself being the one absorbed.

Of course not all motes will sit by idly and let you absorb them, some are intelligent and will move away from you to save themselves, something which the Biophobe just did to me. You can find yourself duelling with the sentient motes as you battle each other to absorb the smaller ones which just float idly in the world you occupy. What is great is the use of colour with the motes, you can tell when a mote is ready for you to absorb as it turns blue (Chris is colourblind so the colours are likely to be wrong – Ed) while the motes which have an eery red glow are to be avoided at all costs. It really is a beautiful game, you could sit and watch it for hours lost in the variety of things that can occur, the music as well is perfect. The soundtrack contains soft ambient music which sits well with the relaxed mood of the game, they really do go hand in hand. If you check out the Steam page for the game check out the system requirement for sound, a little touch but one that shows the class of the game and the developers.

You have three different game modes to play around with, Sentient which features things like the Biophobe where you must absorb the other sentient being. Force Ascension seems your mote orbiting what seems to be the sun, you have to become the biggest mote travelling around the star, you are able to change your orbit simply by moving your mote, be warned that if you travel out of the orbit you are likely to have a hard time avoiding falling out of the galaxy and coming across a ‘Lifeform Terminated’ message. The final game mode is Ambient, you just set out to become the largest mote in your zone without any pesky stars or sentient motes interfering in your plans. This is the one you will want to play late at night just to unwind and become the biggest mote in the yard.

As you progress through the multitudinous levels you will notice that they start to break off from their core gameplay style, thus you get levels such as F3A. There are 47 levels to get through and they will take a while, they become quite challenging as you progress, but they never become so tough you won’t be able to complete them. You have a little help in this aspect, if you start a level where you find yourself at an immediate disadvantage you just just hit Alt+Z to restart the level with a randomised starting layout. Another helping hand comes with the time control, you can easily speed up or slow down time in the game to aid your journey. If your orbit around the attractor in the Force levels is taking too long you can just speed up time, likewise if you want to catch a fast moving mote slow time down to catch up with it. It is a great little tool to help you out in the game.

What more can I say about this gem of a game? It was nominated for several IGF awards and won the D2D Vision Award and was named in the Pax 10. Achievements that are truly deserved of such an outstanding game. At only $10 direct from the developers you can’t go wrong. This is a game which shows how strong the indie games scene is on the PC right now. Buy it and enjoy it.

An amazing game in every way.

Paradox may be all hands on deck at GamesCom in Germany but I managed to sneak some questions through to the companies CEO, Fredrik Wester. Read on for his comments on DLC and newly announced titles from Paradox. (more…)

Ashes Cricket 2009 is a game which troubles me, I enjoy it, I really do, but it has so many problems and little niggles that make it hard to enjoy the game. The problems start with the release date, for a game that is using the Ashes licence you would think that the game would have been released before the cricket series started. That didn’t happen, the game only came out on the eve of the final test, that is just poor timing.

Flintoff bowling at the Aussies.

Still, that is just one of the small things that trouble me with the game, the licensing and player likenesses are anoother. You don’t have any of the official Ashes sponsorship present in the game, it is disoncerting to see Codemasters logos splayed at each of the wicket. There is little when you are playing the Ashes tests to make them stand apart from any other test match you can play in the game, you get the same old commentary repeating the same long-winded discussions all the time. The player likensses are very hit and misss with the two licenced teams of England and Australia. For every in game Monty Panesar who looks very realistic you have a Freddy Flintoff who bears no resemblance to the man who is retiring from international cricket at the end of this series.

The other nations available to play include the remaining eight Test playing nations along with Kenya and Ireland, none of these feature licenced players. Yes there is a customisation tool, but it most certainly isn’t the easiest to use, especially when you realise you can’t create an entirely new team, you have to swap players in and out of the pre-made squads like the CMXI and Rest of the World XI. In their own right these are small things, but after a while they add up to detract from your experience with the game. It is telling that I haven’t talked about the cricket itself yet.

Hawk-eye adds some TV style action.

Well for a start you will want to check out the Legends Coaching which sees Shane Warne and Ian Botham teach you the various aspects of how to play the game. I’ll warn you now that you will want to use a gamepad for Ashes Cricket, the keyboard/mouse combo just doesn’t cut it. The principle actions of the three areas of the game are simple, for batting you select the direction you want to hit the ball and chose to defend, attack or attempt a lofted strike. You can aim more accurately by deciding to play off the front or back foot, though be warned that sometimes if you leave it to automatically decide which stance to use, you will find yourself screwed over and walking back to the pavilion. The trouble with batting is timing, I had to ask on the official forums how to time my shots, this is where the game could have done with a ‘nets’ practice area where you don’t have to worry about playing a proper match or being interrupted by the two legends whenever you do something they don’t want you to do.

Bowling is simple enough, as a seamer at any rate, you select whether you want to bowl a fast, slow, swing or a cut ball. Once you have done this you are presented with a bowling meter, hit it in the green section for a perfect delivery, but if you go in the red you will send down a no ball. The trouble comes with the spinners, whilst they are pretty good in the hands of the AI I have really struggled bowling them myself, even when they have a high skill level. This all comes down to the fact that the ideal suggested length is really quite full which prevents the ball from actually getting to spin to a large extent. If you are lucky enough to draw a batsmen to play a poor shot to one of your fielders you are presented with a little quick time event, you have to press select when a target reticule surrounding the ball turns green. It strikes me as odd though that you have more time when the reticule is green when the ball goes to the slips than when out closer to the boundary when you should, in theory, have more time to get beneath the ball unlike the quick reflex catches needed in the slips.

I head back to the dressing room.

In the field you also have control over which end to throw the ball in an effort to cause a run out. Really though there is little need, most of the AI batsmen seem to have a suicidal mindset when running between the wickets, I regularly end up with more run outs than any other dismissal. This is a major problem with the game, another lies in the run rates. It is all too easy in a Test match to move along at 6 or 7 runs an over. This isn’t the 20Twenty format, it shouldn’t be happening. In one match I played I got onto the third innings when still on the first day. This was because of the shocking level of run outs and the ease of which you can score fast runs. I don’t think I need to mention that my poor batting skills also played a part in this speedy first day of a match.

Despite the issues I have, the game really is fun, especially in the 20Twenty or One Day games, again the competitions are not officially licenced and you can’t start a tournament before the quarter final stages, but the sense of freedom to thrash the ball around is great fun. Also the teams bright colourful kits spice up the visuals which vary from very nice in some views to plain ugly in others.

Read for the big shot.

The trouble is that despite all the issues I have with Ashes Cricket 2009, I do really enjoy it. I didn’t think I was going to at first, and it took me a while to actually make an progress with the batting, but there is a solid game hidden away here. It is just a shame that there are so many glaring problems with it. I hope that Transmission Games can go away and create a much more polished game in time for the next Ashes series down under. For now though, I have to say that for anyone not interested in cricket that you should give this a miss. If you do like cricket then it may be worth trying out, just don’t expect a perfect game.

I really like it, but it has too many problems. Give it a miss.

Always believe in your soooouuulllll!

So, as you may have gathered from last month’s review, we at the Reticule rather liked the first episode of the resurrection of gaming’s favourite pirate Guybrush Threepwood. After setting such a high precedent with Launch of the Screaming Narwhal, can Telltale match the high standard for the second episode, (more…)

Mini Ninjas is gorgeous, isn’t it? It’s beautiful in the way you can tell a child’s going to be really good at art; it’s simple, yet stylish, getting across whatever it was the child was trying to draw, and looking pretty good at the same time. Mini Ninja’s colours don’t go outside the lines. This may, or may not, be because there are no lines.

The art style seems to be indicative of how the game plays. Simple, yet stylish and refined, you’re tasked with finding out what’s going on, as you figure out that the evil samurai (who have some of the most adorable sounds and voices I’ve heard in a long time) are actually mystically enslaved woodland creatures, so, by killing them, you’re actually saving cute little animals. It’s all so quaint, it could be sickly. It just isn’t, for some reason.

I reckon it’s because it’s still kind of serious, despite the cutesy façade. It’s serious in the way a fairy tale can be serious, or a parable; there are people in trouble, and you and your motley band of ninjas have got to set things right. So you go about your task, freeing pandas and the like, knowing that you must do these things. All the while giggling when you hear the little samurai march past, because they sound so deathly serious, despite having the voices of angry children.

There are some clever little mechanics thrown in, too. You can possess any animal you find, which allows you to sneak past as a frog or rabbit, or charge through as a boar or a panda. Man, Panda’s get mean when they use those big bear claws. Swipe! SWIPE! But then you notice there’s a river, so you flip your comically oversized hat over, hop in, and row your way down, until you’re engulfed in white water rapids, and desperately paddling for your mini life. Then, suddenly, you’re in a lagoon, and there’s fish. Ah, so that’s what the fishing rod in your pack was for.

It’s a linear design disguised as exploration, and it does just as well at hiding its true nature as Hiro, the main character, does at hiding from samurai. And, what with him being a ninja, he does that pretty well. His friend Futo, a huge man with a mallet, not so much. But then he’s got a big hammer, so he makes up for his deficiencies in other ways. Suzume, the last friend unlocked in the demo, seems to just be a slightly weaker version of Hiro, but I’m sure she’ll have her uses in the full game. You can switch between them at will, in a sort of Trine kind of way, which is helpful when facing different obstacles in different ways. There’s also a bit of magic, like the possession of animals, and then, of course, fireballs and the like.

While the demo is pretty short, weighing in at just shy of 1GB, it’s hopefully indicative of a really clever adventure game in the vein of the better Zelda games. It’s kind of taken everyone by surprise, firstly coming from the developers of Hitman and Kane and Lynch, two notoriously brutal games, and by sneaking up on us with a sudden release date that’s only a few weeks away. I’m going to resist making a ninja pun about that, but really, I can’t wait to play more.

You can get the demo here.