#games of 2011

[listoriented]

Cities in Motion

: metaphorical gridlock

Cities in Motion is a game about public transport, and so I wanted to write about public transport. I wanted to write about why (better) public transport is important for social equality and important for transitioning into a future where we use less, rely less on, oil, by which I mean a future of reduced private car use and ownership. I wanted to fit in my positive experience of now living in a city with (relatively) decent public transport and how that affects the feeling and makeup and structure of a place compared to a city I came from, a city where the public transport is (relatively) patchy, where cars more overtly dominate the planning decisions and the politics and the social fabric and entire lives, really. I wanted to tie these things into how Cities in Motion represents public transport as artificial and overly malleable but ultimately interesting systems, and how the movement and optimisation of movement of people across a space modelled in some way on these real, existing spaces, could be usefully figured to think about the underlying structures of cities and individual resource consumption and infrastructure and ideology.

These were ideas for the piece I was going to write, a piece which never happened, a not-happening which lead to another awkward silence between playing the last of my ten hours with Cities in Motion [sometime in February] and finally following up on many weeks worth of the same note in my to-do list, a reminder to write the damn piece so I could move on and write something else, a note which itself was then ignored and eventually forgotten until today when, deep in the midst of procrastination, I returned to the document.

The first reason, backed up by the dates suggested above, is that in March the novel coronavirus made a real splash over here in Australia, as it seems to have done pretty much everywhere, being, well, y’know, a pandemic. The dampening effect on this piece in particular was twofold: this made it hard to write generally - an apparent contradiction because there was suddenly seemingly so much more time to write in, thanks to the sudden removal of almost all reasons to leave the house, but time which, thanks to the surging background anxiety of finding ourselves in a pandemic and everything that came with that, couldn't actually be used for much more than panic-refreshing twitter and staring glumly at a netflix home screen. The second reason was specific to the project: how to write a game-review-cum-personal-essay about public transport at the very time when public transport everywhere was becoming an enclosed nightmare of disease? An imagined conduit of DEFINITELY GETTING SICK OH GOD. I suddenly found that, for the first time since I was a teen still overcoming residual fears of trains and strangers instilled by repeated warnings from my parents throughout childhood, I didn’t want to get PT at all, anymore, ever – that I was going to choose to walk and bike and drive places wherever possible, probably for the next long while, and that I counted my blessings and privilege that I could continue to live my life while ceasing to take the tram or bus.

But this surprising if paradigm-shifting situation was arguably still just a distraction from my real problem, which is that the more I played Cities in Motion, the less sure I became that I wanted to keep playing Cities in Motion, or that I was really enjoying Cities in Motion at all, or that this game about public transport systems really aligned with my hope to discuss public transport systems as an interesting and necessary social good, rather than it was interested in presenting them as a nostalgic relic. The game works like this: you’re put over a muted-colour map of various European cities in various times past (imagine a run-of-the-mill city builder except all the buildings and roads and people are already in place for you), beginning inauspiciously with Berlin in the 1920s. You're asked to connect up the tendrils of the city with buses and trams and, eventually, train lines, generally in the sense that an invisible population haunts the map and all of them are keen to get somewhere, and specifically in that to finish the level you need to complete a string of objectives which ask you to connect certain landmarks together using certain transport systems. My problem, the first several times I tried it, was that I only thought about the specifically asked objectives, not realising that all of these were loss-leaders, and so repeatedly I kept going bankrupt and having to restart the mission, wondering what was wrong with the way I'd laid out the lines, why everyone in Berlin hated me, why my trams were full no matter how many I put down, why the lines were all unprofitable if every carriage on it seemed constantly at capacity, and why the traffic was always banked up. It took a bunch of googling and reading different threads and multiple walkthroughs to realise that the scenario’s specific objectives, presented in the form of requests from Berlin's mayor, were always going to lose money, and that the way to make money was not to prioritise these but instead set up a bunch of more profitable lines of your own accord.

In short, it's one of those games that hides most of its important information and doesn't care to nudge you, so to speak, back on track. One might begrudgingly argue well, that's what it'd be like, planning public transport; you don't really know where people want to go and have to dig through complex population demographic statistical information in order to plan accordingly. But it’s just…wilfully obtuse? And not fun? It puts its eggs into the realism basket but even there comes up with some wonky results, the counterargument being that like all sim games it is just that – a game, a toy, a thing to play with and absorb a sense of broader systems at work, not actually learn what it is like to try and be a uh, in this case, public transport tycoon.

But then this obtuseness itself was distracting me from a more fundamental problem about how the game views the role of PT, or more specifically how success in Cities in Motion – as with most sim-like games, it should be said - is centred around being able to get back more money than you spend. You try and make easy profits on some busy lines in order to build and maintain other lines. But I don’t think public transport should be about turning a profit or making money; arguably, such an insistence is what historically killed (nay, continues to kill) public transport systems in many places around the world, with flow on effects always including widening inequality and increased reliance on car ownership. And that’s kind of the rub here – your goal isn’t to make the city more accessible for everyone, or to connect disparate areas up in the most efficient way possible, but to make enough money to complete a few select objectives, even though that probably means building a transport system to cater to just a few of your virtual citizens.

It’s an unfair comparison to make, maybe, but I can’t help but hold it up against Mini Metro, the one public transporty game that I’ve ever really loved. Sure, the practicalities slash “realities” of having to fund transport lines and place them within a city that already exists in concrete and limiting ways are entirely absent from that minimalist puzzler, which instead is based on the abstraction of transport system maps over the vaguest ideas of cities existing only in relation to their scant topographical waterfeatures. Still, Mini Metro never asks you to make money - all it wants is for you to get the people where they want to go. As soon as someone appears on the map, it’s your job to connect them up with PT, and if you can’t do it in time, you’ve failed. Leave nobody behind, it suggests. This is more the kind of transport game design I can get behind, have gotten behind. As for Cities in Motion’s insistence that we must become the devil in order to beat the devil, to that I say phooey. 

up next is Cities in Motion 2

[listoriented]

Choplifter HD

military realism and the tyranny of remakes

Choplifter (1982) had the player fly a wobbly helicopter across a lurid purple landscape, looking for blobby white humanoids to pick up and rescue while trying to evade and gun down enemy planes and tanks. The Choplifter page on TV Tropes quotes the game’s framing narrative:

“In an international incident, the militaristic Bungeling Empire has kidnapped the 64 delegates to the United Nations Conference on Peace and Child Rearing. Exploiting an ancient treaty with the United States, you have disguised a helicopter as a sorting machine and smuggled it to a mail distribution center near the border where the hostages are being kept. An opportunity comes when one of the Bungeling's barracks suddenly catches fire, and the hostages run about frantically. As Bungeling planes and tanks approach, you rush to your chopper, seizing this brief opportunity for heroism...”

It was rather fantastical, a little ridiculous. There’s the gag of the set-up, the strange made-up place name. The game’s 8-bit visuals give you the sense that it’s maybe set on another planet. Sure, the game was made the year after the 1980 Iranian hostage fiasco – something the developer, Dan Gorlin, claimed not to have been conscious of when conceiving Choplifter’s premise – but (and perhaps this is easier to say with the distortion of time and distance) the otherworldliness of it makes it hard to now immediately connect the game with the idea that it’s commenting on, responding to or really in any way promoting the US military project.

So it’s interesting, I suppose, to consider the choices InXile – apparently in collaboration with Gorlin – made when remaking the game as Choplifter HD (2011). There’s the choice to set a lot of the scenarios in real places, having you respond to events that sound like remixes of, well, real contemporary events and lots of other contemporary military games. The first mission is prompted by: “A repressive Middle East regime has imprisoned all foreigners. As part of a UN force your mission is to fly into the chaos and rescue as many multinationals as possible. Fortunately, most of the military forces are engaged in controlling the population, so resistance should be light.” The second has you rescuing “stranded victims” from a village overrun by warlords in Indonesia, the seventh has you respond to “terrorists have taken over several buildings on our home soil.” There is, in other words, an intention to give the game an element of real-life simulatory fantasy, one that isn’t destabilised enough by, say, the surprise appearance of zombies in mission four, or the silly wink-and-nod bonus objective of having to rescue the same war reporter, “Scoop Sanderson”, over and over again, or the various missions which lack specific place-name details in their flavour text.

Additionally, we’re now accompanied by the voices of our helicopter pilot and co-pilot, who constantly cycle through a bunch of quips in full American-accented machismo trope-jargon to alert the player to the presence of enemies, such as:

“Another idiot who needs a lesson”

“oooh what a Big Gun he has”

“Truck, about to go BOOM”

“Bad guy with a bad-ass toy!”

“Jeep about to be scrap metal”

“Big-ass gun he’s obviously compensating for something”

“Boo-ya”

“Watch that jeep become junk”

“Who’s that woman I saw you with last night?” “You only saw the one?”

There’s also the look, a little jagged sure, but something approaching realism, 3D environments with details backgrounds drawn to evoke the various mission settings. You add all this up and it’s a clear intentional shift into positioning the player in the hot-seat of a contemporary American heroic power fantasy in such a way that’s meant to be cross-read into real-world events. This is the nexus of a narrative that the US and allies already sell to themselves about themselves – that they’re a global peacekeeper just stepping in to help others in times of crisis caused nebulously from nowhere, in far off places that just happen, for reasons unknown, to be tragically unstable. Given that it’s presented uncritically here and (barring some late-game injunction I never made it to) without any reference to the roles various components of western imperialism play in instigating these kinds of conflicts in the first place (CIA-backed coups, geocorporate-backed military governance and so on), it’s hard to get past the gross feeling that Choplifter HD is basically a playable propaganda leaflet.

What’s doubly weird is that, given how overt it is, none of the reviews of the game from 2011 seem to make note of this shift at all. Sure, many complain that the “comedic” pilot and co-pilot banter gets annoying quickly (agreed), or that the realist-leaning Unreal 3 engine assets don’t look that good (also agreed), or that the game is often difficult in a way that tends more toward unfairness and janky design than simply being mechanically challenging (definitely). But there’s little to say about how this remake is dressed in a tone-deaf, unselfconscious veneer of status quo American imperialism that’s much more pronounced than it ever was, ever could have been, in the 1982 Apple II original. Perhaps there was an acceptance of inevitability here about the games industry in 2011, that if you’re making a military-ish shooting game then OF COURSE it’s going to evoke these ideas of distinctly American heroism and righteousness, it’s hardly even a choice, no questions asked. Or perhaps there’s a feeling that this choice of presentation doesn’t matter, given it’s a sidescrolling arcade game, something you’re gonna play in fifteen-minute bursts, where the flavour-text for each mission makes little functional difference to the game-play.

But this was a set of choices that InXile made, regardless of whether these choices came about from a passive parroting of the hegemonic narrative, or whether they were made with certain conscious political and/or marketing intentions. Each of these choices might, in hindsight, seem like a sacrifice, given that they’ve all made the game worse – the gung-ho copter bros are unbearably irritating, the realist-aesthetic leads to a lot of visual clutter and indistinctness, and much of the flavour text is half-hearted and dull. Perhaps a more creative remake of Choplifter could have revived the original’s interesting arcade concept without making it into a bland and problematic power fantasy. I guess we’ll never know.

up next is Chroma Squad

[lovethemhatethemplaythem]

Voted Best Shooter 2011, I Bring You GEARS OF WAR 3.

LET'S TALK ABOUT THE NEWEST OF THE GEARS FRANCHISE RELEASED SO FAR. GEARS OF WAR 3. This bad boy was ranked pretty dad-gum high on the gaming scoreboards, ranking even higher then the "gamer famous" Call of Duty: MW3 AND Battlefield 3 (Don't believe me? Look it up yourself.) You put that disc in and it's got you hooked like a crack addict. The biggest, and best, multiplayer game type this game has to offer (despite many more) is TDM (Team-Death Match for those who don't know your gaming acronyms.) Each player from both teams of 5 smashing their A buttons and and right and left triggers to get that beautiful first kill of the game. Speaking of beautiful, the graphics are a god-send from the ones they gave us in Gears 2. Spit-shined and polished up, you have the locust looking scarier then ever before. Every scale and crevice perfectly glistening in the light as they reek havoc on the COG. Yep. I'm for the locust ladies and gentlemen. Everyone loves the bad guys. 

Gears 3 also brought some new weapons to the fight. The deadly retro lancer and the Sawed-Off Shotgun to be exact. The retro is much stronger then the normal lancer, each bullet doing more damage then the last. And if it's actived then you best just run to your mother; if the stopping power doesn't get you first that is. As for the Sawed-Off...well, it's pretty much a one shot...if you're close enough. You can even kill more then one person with that one bullet. BUT ONLY If you're close enough. Keep that as a reminder. It has no where near the range the gnasher has. If you're a wall bouncer then this gun was sent directly from EPIC's heaven, and sent down to earth with your name engraved on its side, dedicated entirely for you. But I wouldn't get so high and mighty if you think its a god send. If they keep their distance from you, then there is little to nothing you can do.

Which brings me to point C. Another thing they added to the franchise is the ability to "update." In other words, you can shoot someone who could shoot you at exactly the same time leaving you both dead on the ground, earning you a kill AND a death. Unlike many other people I personally enjoy this new feature. As long as I get MY kill I'm happy.

Being that I've personally played this game myself (LEVEL 400 BISNITCHES ;D), I highly recommend it for the multiplayer. They have so many different game types to choose from, dedicated servers*, and an updated playlist every week or so. The campaign story is also written very well and lasts for hours, even on a simple difficulty. Arcade Mode is also a new feature to Gears so they can up the replay value. Not to mention the various medals you get doing certain tasks. Some simple. Some hardcore. Four stages to each. Bronze, Silver, Gold, and my personal favorite Onyx. Onyx is the last and hardest medal to achieve. It can be anything from getting 6000 executions (The Angel of Death medal) to pressing a button in the campaing 2000 times (I've Got The Codes medal.) Each medal you get, the more XP you are given. The more XP the closer you become to getting to that next level. Plus you get to show off your medals to other people once you kill them (now who doesn't want to do that, right?) 

So much to write. So little time. If you have any questions about Gears of War 3, I'll be glad to answer them for you. Or, you can go out there guns blazing straight into the game (if you haven't already!)

[bldatruegamer]

The Hit List (my MOST anticipated games this year)

Here it is kids...my most wanted list for 2011...or at least whats left of it. It's not comprehensive, but it's pretty good.

So without further ado lets get started.

Dragon's Dogma. This one is technically in early 2012, but I had to put it in this list since they've been showing so much of it in 2011.

Capcom has said time and again that this is purely and action game, but if all it takes is a few steps to take a kick ass action game (from the looks of it) and transform it into a RPG then Bioware and Bethesda will have to re-think there supremacy over the choke hold they currently have in that market space.

But for now, lets just play along with the marketing. (wink, wink) and pay no attention to the flying dragon logo that looks suspiciously like a jab at the flying dragon logo of Dragon Age.

Bodycount. I like fun, entertaining games and this game looks like just that. I wasn't a LOVER of Black the game prior to this one.

Although technically not a sequel, its in the same vein.

In any case it looks like something I can sink my teeth into.

Call of Juarez: The Cartel. After Red Dead Redemption the western themed game was drained of life. It will take a few more years before any game can make a dent in that space again.

Its a shame really since the last Call of Juarez offered a great alternative to Rockstar's opus. I've been a follower of this property since it's debut and I have not been left wanting (except when dealing with the god awful sneaking sections in part 1)

I am looking forward to this new game. I want to see what a modern day cowboy has in store for me in the Juarez universe. Sign me up.

Asura's Wrath. Awesome fights. Giant gods. fantastic art style. Whats not to like about this game?

Capcom hasn't confirm the date so I'll just go ahead and place it right here in 2011. I'm just being hopeful.

All I know is that when it drops, so will I. Right on the couch, with controller in hand playing this game.

Tomb Raider. I will admit at one time I wanted this series buried along with any signs of it ever being made.

But with the excellent Guardians of Light and NOW this reboot of the property I feel I should eat those words.

This is inspired game making. Based on what Ive seen. If they can deliver the goods, it seems they will not only attract all those fans lost to the crap they where spewing for years but gain legions of fans the world over. IF THEY CAN PULL THIS OFF.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Saints Row The Third. Saints row is a game you either love or you hate.

It's not because its not a good game, its because of how it was designed. One cannot simply indulge in the game and have a good time.

One must do stupid pet tricks otherwise known as "activities" to unlock main missions and this cause one to kick the TV gangsta style. Its a real pain, and it plagued parts 1 and 2. Volition promises to fix this in part 3 but until we see what this is all about AND you have the ability to customize your crib to the fullest not just your crew. I'll keep my fingers and toes crossed.

Trailer was john blaze though.

Prey 2. Here i an interesting surprise.

When last I saw this game it was a few years ago and the story was awesome, the gameplay was ahead of its time (I'M LOOKING AT YOU PORTAL) and the hero was unique, but it never gained the audience that it should.

Now from the looks of the trailer it seems the property is going in some brand new, strange direction. I CANT WAIT to see what happened to the hero of portal 1 and what new adventures he will have and MORE IMPORTANTLY what new game mechanics are in place for me to munch on. To bad about Tommy though.

Need For Speed The Run. If you are reader of this space, then you know I love extreme racing. You also know that over the past few months, extreme racing has taken a mega beatin' and all the best dev teams have been laid off.

So lovers of this kind of racing are left with little to pick from. Thank goodness that we have this game to look forward to.

It's different to say the least. Not only do you race but you actually get to leave your vehicle and through QTE (quick time events) negotiate perils, find another vehicle and KEEP MOVING. Its a Cannon Ball run. So the name of the game is never stop going forward.

My interest is peeked.

NeverDead. Here is a game that when I first saw it I didn't think much of it.

It looked silly and I thought to myself "what a waste of resources." "Just another in a long line of quirky Japanese games"

Its amazing to me how STORY gives heft, meaning and context to everything. As soon as I saw the proper trailer. I realized this is a game I wanted to play.

Seems like our hero is a suffering knight. That has fallen from grace and become what he despises the most. He also carries the burden of having the death of a loved one plague his soul. His naivete cost him dearly.

Sign me up!

King Arthur 2. A game that is equal parts a war game AND an rpg? Surely you jest?

Well no I am not. King Arthur was an amazing game and I cant wait to play part 2.

Hybrid gaming done right is an absolute rarity in gaming today and this if all goes well will be a true gem.

Cant wait for it!

Resident Evil Operation Raccoon City. In a word, EXPECTANT!

Yeah, I know its not a scary type game but its a very interesting concept and I signed on to this game as soon as I heard about what it entailed, but once I saw the trailer i was hooked.

I can only assume it will be 4 player coop and so forth. Hopefully it wont be too much like Left 4 dead, cause you know, that game just didn't make any sense and the fun factor was dubious to begin with.

Sword of the Stars 2. Ah, this is one of my favorite turn based strategy games and ITS GETTING A SEQUEL!

Take the best part of any strategy game, the action and ass kicking and put it front and center, the SWORD and build a game around that concept.

Each race deals with their empire differently of course. and how you conquer the galaxy is completely up to you.

See you on the other side of the Universe.

Skyrim. Do I REALLY need to write anything in this space?

This will arguably be the reason my children forget they have a father and I loose my job.

Bethesda may be flexing their publishing muscle this year, and dabbling in different genres, but they know that their bread and butter and flagship game is the Elder Scrolls...WAIT! do you hear that? that's the sound of a monsoon of cash crashing the coffers over at Zenimax HQ.

Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception. I cant think of a single series that encompasses the feeling adventure better than this one.

Taken in its entirety what you have here is a grand, high octane action/adventure for adults this side of Indiana Jones. The addition of Multiplayer was fun, but it is Drakes exploits that will be remembered the most. Don't know if after the third one it will be over for awhile, I suppose sales will dictate this, but as it stands now, I am more than happy to "buy my admission ticket" for his latest adventure.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine. Relic the current custodians of the Warhammer property have done ans AWESOME job at creating games based on the license and based on the interviews and information floating on the web I am hopeful on this next project.

Seems natural to try your hand at a Gears of War type of game when dealing with such material. HOWEVER, they have much to live up to. MUCH competition in this space. Not only from the obvious source, Gears of War, but also from games that you may not be thinking of, games like Batman Arkam City. Games that demonstrate HOW to do licensing right and maximize and leverage your resources and genre to suite your property. Simply running and gunning WONT cut it.

I love Relic, but I wont give them a free pass simply because my curiosity is peeked.

Silent Hill Downpour. I have a love hate relationship with this property. I sometimes love to play their games, but then I realize the game hasn't changed much since the first one with the exception of Homecoming, but then that game got panned, because you could actually fight back (a bit).

So here we are back to being wimp and all EMO. Lets hope that even though we are in FAMILIAR territory, they will include some innovations and inspire something from their players other than nostalgia to keep the series going.

I'm kinda tired of having my flashlight eaten alive by a darkness that's impenetrable. Besides, Dead Space taught us all how its done.

Driver San Francisco. Game looks exciting and right there that brings the game up many ranks.

Other than this info has been scarce so. I know it will be for my 3DS and that's a plus also.

So I am interested in this title, but I would like more details. Cant say much, but I have a good feeling. Then again could be that I need a change of underwear.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I was a ball of skepticism and so was Square-Enix for a long while. At first they didn't want to release the game, then they did. Then they didn't, then they finally nailed and confirmed when and where they would release it.

To me, part 1 and yes even the other games where special in their own ways. Play as you want and finish each mission as you like.

Whats funny to me is that the imperfections of part 1, what made it game of the year in many periodicals is exactly the kind of thing that brought Alpha Protocol to the crucifixion. But that would be for another article.

Ace Combat Assault Horizon. Ive been playing Ace Combat games on and off for quite some time, but this game has me in a state of frenzy.

The devs have take this property and given it a shot of adrenaline and stirred things up in a way that has me all kinds of excited.

October cant get here fast enough!

Well I hope you enjoyed this simple list. Like I said its not comprehensive AND its subject to change, but these here there they are.

Stay frosty.