From a comment I made at Kotaku when someone said ATI was better than nVidea.
Let me regale you of a tale of a dark and dangerous world - a world called 'drivers'. Our 'hero', if one can call him that, goes by the name of Catalyst, and no matter where he goes, he is endlessly followed by the tales of the games that were rendered unplayable due to his lack of prowess. It is a sad and unhappy tale, full of misery, woe and anger, mostly mine. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin.
Once upon a time, a young gamer tried to play Bioshock with his outdated PC on too many times and found that the motherboard had died. Sad and frustrated, he convinced his parents to lend him the money so he could purchase a brand new PC, one that would be capable of playing not just Bioshock, but also Crysis, should the mood take him (though it never did, sadly).
This shiny new PC came with nearly everything that PC Gamer magazine (the UK one) recommended, including a relatively new ATI Radeon HD 5850 card. And when he got the PC up and running, it was wonderful! Bioshock could run for longer then 15 minutes at a time! FEAR looked shiny and impressive! Half-Life 2 was much the same!
And when the time came to update his drivers, our gamer did so without nary a question. "New drivers", he told himself, "means better performance with games!" The gamer, if you have yet to realise, is not the smartest tool in the workshop.
Update his Radeon drivers our young gamer did, and now they proudly displayed the number 10.2 on their shield. And the gamer thought no more about it, playing the same games over and over again.
But then the young gamer, in an RPG mood, tried to play Neverwinter Nights. Denied! The game crashed before it even reached the main menu! The gamer was puzzled. The game had always run on his old machine. What had happened? Had the final patch not applied properly?
And so he went through the lengthly process of re-installing NWN and its two add-ons. Remember, the game was released back in the days before DVDs, so in total there were 5 CDs to go through. To say it was inconvenient is somewhat of an understatement. To say it was a massive pain in the arse is much more appropriate.
Yet, once he had re-installed the game and fully patched it, the problem persisted. And so, frustrated and annoyed at the wasted half an hour he had just spent, the gamer turned to the internet for help. And, eventually, he found it, in the form of other gamers complaining of the same problem while possessing similar graphics cards.
The diagnosis? "It's the Radeon 10.2 drivers", they cried! "It interferes with the Aurora engine and stops it from running!" And to the gamer's horror, this meant that any game that used the same engine, or had engines developed on top of it, would have the same problem. Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2, Jade Empire, and even The Witcher! A shocking oversight!
With the 10.3 drivers, the problem was then fixed, and the gamer could enjoy running around the town of Neverwinter and becoming the greatest rat-catcher in history. But this was not the first of the gamer's run-ins with Radeon. Oh no.
After a while, Psychonauts went on sale on Steam. For 99p, no less! The gamer bought it at once and played through it again, safe in the knowledge that it would not suffer the same issues as the PS2 version he had previously acquired.
And it was glorious indeed! The resolution was wonderful - 1440 by 900! The mouse was, as always, much preferred to the joypad, and the world of Whispering Rock was more vivid and wonderful than ever.
But then came Gloria's Theatre. And the game collapsed into nothingness. The framerate, which had until then been wonderful, collapsed into single digits and never recovered, no matter where the gamer went in the game. Almost instantly, the game halted. No longer could the gamer keep playing, his saved game forever corrupted. An unavoidable tragedy.
And then the gamer did something he would do for no other game. He updated his Radeon drivers to the very latest ones (10.4 by now), and restarted the game from the very beginning. A new save game overriding the old one fixed the issue immediately, and he resolved to try again.
Two days he spent returning to his last known place in the game. And played the other levels he did, until there was nowhere left to go but Gloria's mind. And once he did so, the game did once again start coughing blood and clutching at its chest. The framerate plummeted, as did the gamer's hopes of finishing the game. He has yet to replay it, not wishing to play through the rest of the game again only to be disappointed.
And this is still not the end of the story! Yes, there is more woe to come. For as the ATI Radeon grew 'stronger', so to did its ability to break games. 10.5 caused horrific graphical glitches with Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (and StarCraft 2, though it had yet to be officially released).
10.6 was particularly hard on the gamer, as it completely broke any game using the any of the Quake engines. This meant the first three Quake games, SiN, the Star Trek: Elite Force games, American McGee's Alice and Jedi the Star Wars games Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy were no longer playable. There's a possibility that this has been fixed in the recent 10.8, but even so the gamer was not able to enjoy slicing the arms off Stormtroopers as a bearded mercenary for a significant amount of time.
Radeon has his moments, but they are far, far overshadowed by his crippling failures and constant neglect from his mentor and ruler, the evil vizier AMD, nee ATI.
And sadly, this is where our tale ends. The gamer has endured much frustration with ATI Radeon and his devilish drivers, and will no doubt continue to do so in the future. The fiend's lack of respect for those that support him and unwillingness to listen and respond to the criticisms they give him are his undoing.
Next time, go nVidea. Then at least the video at the beginning of Bioshock will be true.
Update: I did update to 10.8 (I had to, in order to play Sam & Max 305), and it didn't fix the Quake 3 thing. Grr.
Games You Realise You Hated (Forum Post)
Shut up, I've been busy. But anyway, this is exactly what the title says: a list of games that I realized I hated while playing them.
EDIT: There's a problem with the font that means half the post is in teeny-weeny-eye-strain-o-vision. I'm trying to sort it out, but since it involves retyping everything, my chronic laziness is stopping me from fixing it particularly quickly. Sorry.
EDIT2: Ok, think I've fixed it. Huzzah.
Halo - About 8 hours in, I encountered the Flood. I also realized that I'd just spent the last hour running through the exact same corridor that had been copy-pasted about 300 times. This was around the time I abandoned the game and moved onto something more fun. Looking back on it after I'd finished painting the cat, I realized that aside from a precious few levels that take place outside, the majority of the time I spent playing the game was me running through corridors, all of which looked extremely similar, fighting exactly the same enemies and using exactly the same tactics - shoot everything that moves, wait until my shields are nearly gone, hide behind cover, wait for shields to regenerate, then rinse and repeat. I also realized just how bored I'd been with the game. The series may have a great story and a thrilling arc, but if the gameplay itself is less fun then an hour-long session of Sudoku, then I couldn't care less.
Tomb Raiders I - V - For obvious reasons, really. Playing the Core Design'd Tomb Raider titles in modern times is very, very boring. The games are very slow paced, and while that works for some titles (stealth games like Splinter Cell, mostly), an action packed 3D platformer should be fast paced. TR was most definitely not faced paced. I skipped the first TR in favour of its Crystal Dynamic'd remake (which I very much enjoyed, PoP-style platforming needs to be done in more games), so I have played through about two-thirds of TR2. But I really couldn't keep going past the ice levels, because my arms had fallen asleep by this point. So yeah.
Timeshift - I've actually finished this. But that was on my old PC, when I could only play games for 15 minutes at a time before my graphics card overheated and my PC switched off. Playing it in small chunks, it's surprisingly manageable. Playing it in larger chunks, which my new PC allows me, lets you realize how little fun the game actually is. The time manipulation mechanics are fun at first, but after the novelty wears off, you're left with a distinctly average shooter with a few fancy 'hey, look how cool we are' gimmicks. Or rather, one fancy gimmick, that isn't really all that fancy, because in order to make it through the game, you will be using slo-mo pretty much all the time. And that gets real old, real fast. Which is a little ironic really, when you think about it.
Exodus From The Earth - Chances are, you've never heard of this. Good. It is quite possibly the most boring, tedious, badly translated attempt at a modern FPS I have ever played. Almost every cliché in the book is here, from fighting through a factory/warehouse to a confrontation with a CEO in his office that turns sour, and the action itself is hopeless because you can never tell if you've actually hit anyone with your shots. There's no response - no blood, no screams, nothing. You just have to keep shooting in the hope that you're actually doing some damage. Add in the fact that I genuinely got stuck at one point in the game and had no idea of where I was supposed to go, and I literally just went 'sod it' and gave up. Which is not normally a good thing.
Painkiller / Serious Sam - I've lumped these two together because they're extremely similar (and both have had multiple sequels that changed bugger all but still charged us full price for the privilege), but you can also include pretty much any FPS to come out of Germany along with them. Apologies to Yahtzee, but the reason he likes these games is the same reason I get fed up with them - they're all about killing. And I don't know about you, but when a game does nothing but throw wave after wave of enemies at you, it doesn't take long for you to get tired of it. Especially when there's little to no variation in the enemies or their attacks. I mean, at least Doom had the odd keycard-fetch-quest to liven things up.
Dead Space - Initially this game actually got off to a good start. Then my machine needed reformatting and I had to restart the game. To my utter shock (and indifference), I realized this game did not match up to how good my mind thought it was. Although the game had its moments (and time you enter a zero-g or de-pressurized area, mainly), the vast majority of the time you just do exactly the same thing. Wander around with your gun drawn shooting the arms off stuff. And while that may describe around 95% of games out there, Dead Space somehow managed to make it incredibly repetative, unexciting and routine. The second you see an enemy, you inwardly sigh and start carving all its limbs off, and that's why I gave up. Also, those little insect-like creatures? Screw them. Screw them all.
XIII - I put this solely down to the controls. The game is an utterly horrific console port which, aside from the standard mouse-look that all PC games have to have by law, completely fails to grasp how a PC FPS should work. As well as the movement feeling unnaturally sticky and unrefined, you can't select weapons with the number keys 1-5. Instead, you have to cycle through them using the PageUp and PageDown keys (or Z and X, if you're feeling fruity). That means that it takes far too long to change weapons, and the same goes for the inventory (though that's a little more standard in games). The game has a great story, being based on a cracking graphic novel series, and I spend a great deal of time on it, but the controls really did cripple it and I just couldn't take any more. Shame, really.
The Nomad Soul - Again, this is down to the controls. The Nomad Soul, also known as Omikron, was by roughly the same guys who made Indigo Prophecy (aks Fahrenheit) and Heavy Rain. It attempted to mix several different gameplay styles, such as a 2.5D fighting section, an FPS section and, IIRC, a driving section, all connected by a third person bridge that also served as the main part of the game. Unfortunately, the fighting section is absurdly difficult to control, the FPS section is woefully bad, the driving section lackluster and the third person section incredibly clunky. There's a brilliant story here, and there's a body-swapping mechanic that worked so well the makers of Driver have stolen it, but the over-ambitious attempt to combine so many genres into one just doesn't work. Another shame, but if a game constantly kicks your ass purely because it won't let you play it properly then it's no wonder no-one bought it.
EDIT: There's a problem with the font that means half the post is in teeny-weeny-eye-strain-o-vision. I'm trying to sort it out, but since it involves retyping everything, my chronic laziness is stopping me from fixing it particularly quickly. Sorry.
EDIT2: Ok, think I've fixed it. Huzzah.
Halo - About 8 hours in, I encountered the Flood. I also realized that I'd just spent the last hour running through the exact same corridor that had been copy-pasted about 300 times. This was around the time I abandoned the game and moved onto something more fun. Looking back on it after I'd finished painting the cat, I realized that aside from a precious few levels that take place outside, the majority of the time I spent playing the game was me running through corridors, all of which looked extremely similar, fighting exactly the same enemies and using exactly the same tactics - shoot everything that moves, wait until my shields are nearly gone, hide behind cover, wait for shields to regenerate, then rinse and repeat. I also realized just how bored I'd been with the game. The series may have a great story and a thrilling arc, but if the gameplay itself is less fun then an hour-long session of Sudoku, then I couldn't care less.
Tomb Raiders I - V - For obvious reasons, really. Playing the Core Design'd Tomb Raider titles in modern times is very, very boring. The games are very slow paced, and while that works for some titles (stealth games like Splinter Cell, mostly), an action packed 3D platformer should be fast paced. TR was most definitely not faced paced. I skipped the first TR in favour of its Crystal Dynamic'd remake (which I very much enjoyed, PoP-style platforming needs to be done in more games), so I have played through about two-thirds of TR2. But I really couldn't keep going past the ice levels, because my arms had fallen asleep by this point. So yeah.
Timeshift - I've actually finished this. But that was on my old PC, when I could only play games for 15 minutes at a time before my graphics card overheated and my PC switched off. Playing it in small chunks, it's surprisingly manageable. Playing it in larger chunks, which my new PC allows me, lets you realize how little fun the game actually is. The time manipulation mechanics are fun at first, but after the novelty wears off, you're left with a distinctly average shooter with a few fancy 'hey, look how cool we are' gimmicks. Or rather, one fancy gimmick, that isn't really all that fancy, because in order to make it through the game, you will be using slo-mo pretty much all the time. And that gets real old, real fast. Which is a little ironic really, when you think about it.
Exodus From The Earth - Chances are, you've never heard of this. Good. It is quite possibly the most boring, tedious, badly translated attempt at a modern FPS I have ever played. Almost every cliché in the book is here, from fighting through a factory/warehouse to a confrontation with a CEO in his office that turns sour, and the action itself is hopeless because you can never tell if you've actually hit anyone with your shots. There's no response - no blood, no screams, nothing. You just have to keep shooting in the hope that you're actually doing some damage. Add in the fact that I genuinely got stuck at one point in the game and had no idea of where I was supposed to go, and I literally just went 'sod it' and gave up. Which is not normally a good thing.
Painkiller / Serious Sam - I've lumped these two together because they're extremely similar (and both have had multiple sequels that changed bugger all but still charged us full price for the privilege), but you can also include pretty much any FPS to come out of Germany along with them. Apologies to Yahtzee, but the reason he likes these games is the same reason I get fed up with them - they're all about killing. And I don't know about you, but when a game does nothing but throw wave after wave of enemies at you, it doesn't take long for you to get tired of it. Especially when there's little to no variation in the enemies or their attacks. I mean, at least Doom had the odd keycard-fetch-quest to liven things up.
Dead Space - Initially this game actually got off to a good start. Then my machine needed reformatting and I had to restart the game. To my utter shock (and indifference), I realized this game did not match up to how good my mind thought it was. Although the game had its moments (and time you enter a zero-g or de-pressurized area, mainly), the vast majority of the time you just do exactly the same thing. Wander around with your gun drawn shooting the arms off stuff. And while that may describe around 95% of games out there, Dead Space somehow managed to make it incredibly repetative, unexciting and routine. The second you see an enemy, you inwardly sigh and start carving all its limbs off, and that's why I gave up. Also, those little insect-like creatures? Screw them. Screw them all.
XIII - I put this solely down to the controls. The game is an utterly horrific console port which, aside from the standard mouse-look that all PC games have to have by law, completely fails to grasp how a PC FPS should work. As well as the movement feeling unnaturally sticky and unrefined, you can't select weapons with the number keys 1-5. Instead, you have to cycle through them using the PageUp and PageDown keys (or Z and X, if you're feeling fruity). That means that it takes far too long to change weapons, and the same goes for the inventory (though that's a little more standard in games). The game has a great story, being based on a cracking graphic novel series, and I spend a great deal of time on it, but the controls really did cripple it and I just couldn't take any more. Shame, really.
The Nomad Soul - Again, this is down to the controls. The Nomad Soul, also known as Omikron, was by roughly the same guys who made Indigo Prophecy (aks Fahrenheit) and Heavy Rain. It attempted to mix several different gameplay styles, such as a 2.5D fighting section, an FPS section and, IIRC, a driving section, all connected by a third person bridge that also served as the main part of the game. Unfortunately, the fighting section is absurdly difficult to control, the FPS section is woefully bad, the driving section lackluster and the third person section incredibly clunky. There's a brilliant story here, and there's a body-swapping mechanic that worked so well the makers of Driver have stolen it, but the over-ambitious attempt to combine so many genres into one just doesn't work. Another shame, but if a game constantly kicks your ass purely because it won't let you play it properly then it's no wonder no-one bought it.
Why Adventure Games That Kill You Died Out (Article)
Not quite a forum post, but a comment on a Kotaku post. The post itself showed two videos containing the many ways to die in Space Quest III, and I felt moved to write the following in response.
EDIT: This post got some interesting feedback. I may include some of it, along with my responses. Maybe.
There is a reason why games like this are no longer made.
Although they were far from the only company doing so, Sierra titles really were the stand-out champions of 'games that kill you for no reason'. Unfortunately, while many people like games that perform this service, it did an awful lot to hold games back.
The primary issue is right there in the title - killing you for no reason. If you were to walk right into the path of an enemy, then fair enough, but games like Space Quest would often kill you just for walking to a new screen. Half the time you wouldn't know what was there, and you were severely punished for merely being curious. This, as you can imagine, would be incredibly frustrating for an average player, and would easily convince them to just give up and try something else.
The second problem is the genre. Adventure games never have, and never will, lend themselves well to instant-death situations. In action titles, it's much more acceptable, but adventure games are generally known for making you think your way out of a situation, and suddenly throwing in a stealth section or limited windows of opportunity just don't gel with the rest of the gameplay. And don't even get me started on items that you have to pick up or you can't complete the game.
The third problem is checkpoints. Adventure games like Space Quest didn't have them, so when you died (often unfairly) you would either have to reload a previous save or restart the entire game. And since half the time you didn't know whether an area was dangerous or not, sometimes you could end up losing half an hour, or worse, more, because you hadn't saved for a while.
Modern gaming has solved a lot of these problems. Adventure games now rarely (if ever) let you die, and if they do, they let you retry from a point in time not too far back. This makes the games far more enjoyable, and means that players can feel free to explore without worry of being unfairly punished.
I'm focusing on adventure games purely because that's what's featured in the videos, and that's immediately what people will think of when they read this topic. Action titles have also gotten much easier, but there's a different discussion.
EDIT: This post got some interesting feedback. I may include some of it, along with my responses. Maybe.
There is a reason why games like this are no longer made.
Although they were far from the only company doing so, Sierra titles really were the stand-out champions of 'games that kill you for no reason'. Unfortunately, while many people like games that perform this service, it did an awful lot to hold games back.
The primary issue is right there in the title - killing you for no reason. If you were to walk right into the path of an enemy, then fair enough, but games like Space Quest would often kill you just for walking to a new screen. Half the time you wouldn't know what was there, and you were severely punished for merely being curious. This, as you can imagine, would be incredibly frustrating for an average player, and would easily convince them to just give up and try something else.
The second problem is the genre. Adventure games never have, and never will, lend themselves well to instant-death situations. In action titles, it's much more acceptable, but adventure games are generally known for making you think your way out of a situation, and suddenly throwing in a stealth section or limited windows of opportunity just don't gel with the rest of the gameplay. And don't even get me started on items that you have to pick up or you can't complete the game.
The third problem is checkpoints. Adventure games like Space Quest didn't have them, so when you died (often unfairly) you would either have to reload a previous save or restart the entire game. And since half the time you didn't know whether an area was dangerous or not, sometimes you could end up losing half an hour, or worse, more, because you hadn't saved for a while.
Modern gaming has solved a lot of these problems. Adventure games now rarely (if ever) let you die, and if they do, they let you retry from a point in time not too far back. This makes the games far more enjoyable, and means that players can feel free to explore without worry of being unfairly punished.
I'm focusing on adventure games purely because that's what's featured in the videos, and that's immediately what people will think of when they read this topic. Action titles have also gotten much easier, but there's a different discussion.
Series that need to end (Forum Post)
Yes, another post from a forum. Just be grateful I'm actually posting something.
First off, I'm a single player gamer. I play games for their offline aspect. That's what I will be judging the following on. Don't get angry or irritated at my choices if I pick one you enjoy playing onlone with your friends, because I'm not picking it for that.
Halo - The single player campaigns for all of them were hopeless. The first game literally had copy-pasted corridors that took me hours to get through, and the sequels did nothing to improve the gameplay - if anything, they worsened it by combining the health and shield bars into one, placing you in uninspired and repetitive levels and having a plot that made little to no sense.
Final Fantasy - I wouldn't mind this if they just focused on the core games. But no. They have to make sequels, and prequels, and utterly unrelated spin-offs (Tactics and Crystal Chronicles, I'm looking at you). The stories are pretty much based on the same ideas with new spins, the battle systems have just gotten worse with each one and the latest is just an embarrassment. I do not want to spend 20 hours learning how to play a game. Which leads me neatly on to...
Grand Theft Auto - And by this, I mean the more recent, 'realistic' ones. There's a reason most people prefer Vice City to GTA4 - it's just plain more entertaining. The recent games have been far too gritty and realistic to be much fun at all. The Ballad of Gay Tony was a good step in the right direction, but it's not enough to save the series. Either give us back the zany, over-the-top cartoonish GTAs, or stop making the damn things.
Splinter Cell - This one's bound to be a bit controversial, but hear me out. I thought the first four games were great fun. Sneaking along, performing stealth kills, moving the bodies out of sight... Tense, but extremely rewarding. The new game is nothing like that. While I'd expect a few changes, that's not what Conviction gives us. It's an almost completely different game to the ones that came before it. And that's why this series need to 'die and go away' - because it's not Splinter Cell any more.
Worms - Remember this? Way back in 1995, a few guys made a great turn-based combat 'simulator'. Team17 then spent the next 15 years remaking the same damn game over and over again. 15 years. I'm sick to death of the damn series, I'm sick to death of the cheating AI which always, without fail, uses grenades. I'm sick of all the cute voices which grate after around 30 seconds. And most of all, I'm sick of finding exactly the same game on every single console under the sun.
Sonic the Hedgehog - Do I really need to explain this? Yes? Oh. Well. Ever since Sonic went into 3D, he's pretty much split the fans. I'm with the camp that thinks everything since Sonic Adventure was rubbish. The character could work in a 3D world, but the only game that's really come close to showing that is Unleashed, and you spent half the time in that in 2D-style sections, so it's hardly the best example. There's been a change lately though - Sonic 4 looks like it could be good and Sonic Colo(u)rs might be interesting. But I have little faith for either of these, and if they aren't any good, then this franchise definitely needs to have both barrels. (Yes, I watch ZP*. Who doesn't.)
Assassin's Creed - Heh. Kidding.
*Zero Punctuation. Here's the relevant video.
First off, I'm a single player gamer. I play games for their offline aspect. That's what I will be judging the following on. Don't get angry or irritated at my choices if I pick one you enjoy playing onlone with your friends, because I'm not picking it for that.
Halo - The single player campaigns for all of them were hopeless. The first game literally had copy-pasted corridors that took me hours to get through, and the sequels did nothing to improve the gameplay - if anything, they worsened it by combining the health and shield bars into one, placing you in uninspired and repetitive levels and having a plot that made little to no sense.
Final Fantasy - I wouldn't mind this if they just focused on the core games. But no. They have to make sequels, and prequels, and utterly unrelated spin-offs (Tactics and Crystal Chronicles, I'm looking at you). The stories are pretty much based on the same ideas with new spins, the battle systems have just gotten worse with each one and the latest is just an embarrassment. I do not want to spend 20 hours learning how to play a game. Which leads me neatly on to...
Grand Theft Auto - And by this, I mean the more recent, 'realistic' ones. There's a reason most people prefer Vice City to GTA4 - it's just plain more entertaining. The recent games have been far too gritty and realistic to be much fun at all. The Ballad of Gay Tony was a good step in the right direction, but it's not enough to save the series. Either give us back the zany, over-the-top cartoonish GTAs, or stop making the damn things.
Splinter Cell - This one's bound to be a bit controversial, but hear me out. I thought the first four games were great fun. Sneaking along, performing stealth kills, moving the bodies out of sight... Tense, but extremely rewarding. The new game is nothing like that. While I'd expect a few changes, that's not what Conviction gives us. It's an almost completely different game to the ones that came before it. And that's why this series need to 'die and go away' - because it's not Splinter Cell any more.
Worms - Remember this? Way back in 1995, a few guys made a great turn-based combat 'simulator'. Team17 then spent the next 15 years remaking the same damn game over and over again. 15 years. I'm sick to death of the damn series, I'm sick to death of the cheating AI which always, without fail, uses grenades. I'm sick of all the cute voices which grate after around 30 seconds. And most of all, I'm sick of finding exactly the same game on every single console under the sun.
Sonic the Hedgehog - Do I really need to explain this? Yes? Oh. Well. Ever since Sonic went into 3D, he's pretty much split the fans. I'm with the camp that thinks everything since Sonic Adventure was rubbish. The character could work in a 3D world, but the only game that's really come close to showing that is Unleashed, and you spent half the time in that in 2D-style sections, so it's hardly the best example. There's been a change lately though - Sonic 4 looks like it could be good and Sonic Colo(u)rs might be interesting. But I have little faith for either of these, and if they aren't any good, then this franchise definitely needs to have both barrels. (Yes, I watch ZP*. Who doesn't.)
Assassin's Creed - Heh. Kidding.
*Zero Punctuation. Here's the relevant video.
The Trouble with T.Davies
Another Doctor Who themed rant, I'm afraid. Deal with it.
I thought The Next Doctor wasn't all that good. That was down mostly to RTD's writing, and it's often something I have problems with.
Having watched all his episodes, I've found that he generally writes two types of episode - one where the threat level remains constant throughout, and the other where there's a big reveal about two-thirds of the way through.
The episodes where the general tone of the episode and the overall threat remains roughly the same throughout work really well. Tooth and Claw, for example, or The Waters of Mars. Whether it's a constant feeling of doom or just a standard romp, they generally turn out pretty well.
The episodes where there's a big reveal about two-thirds or so into the story are not as good. Love and Monsters is a prime example of this, as was The Next Doctor. Up until that point, the story will be pretty good, but once you get to that reveal, RTD can't resist having some big earth-shattering event or an utterly ludicrous monster (or both) that just stops the episode dead in its tracks. Once you hit that moment, you're gone - you've lost whatever respect or enjoyment you previously had for the episode and you switch to mocking mode. 'That monster looks ridiculous!' or 'That makes no sense at all!'. And once the big reveal happens, you still need to have the Doctor beat this threat. But if you don't take this threat seriously, then it's hard to watch someone else do so.
Let's take Voyage of the Damned as an example. It wasn't the most fantastic episode in the world (way too much death for my liking), but it was enjoyable enough. Until we find out that the big bad is a head in a box. An annoying, smug, vain and just plain irritating head in a box. And it's an ugly head in a box as well - sparkling teeth and everything. Once we, the audience, discover this, we stop caring. It could be the head of Hitler for all we care, we're just not going to take it seriously. And if we won't take that seriously, then why should we take anything else seriously? And then Kylie takes a forklift to the ugly head in a box. I'll repeat that.
Kylie Minogue drives a forklift and forces an ugly, irritating head in a box to fall down a hole.
If anyone else had written a script with that in it then it would never have gotten through. It's just ridiculous. And RTD expects us to not only accept that, but feel sorry for Kylie as she then falls down the hole herself and dies. Which is absurd, because he's already lost us. He's crossed the line and lost the viewer's respect. And then he goes on and has Queen Elizabeth evacuate Buckingham Palace in case the ship crashes into it, and when it doesn't he has the Queen actually thank the Doctor. This isn't serious drama - it's a bad comedy sketch.
Several of his episodes play out like this. With Boom Town it was the Slitheen taking control of the TARDIS and causing somewhat unconvincing cracks to appear in Cardiff. With Love and Monsters it was the Abzorbalof (or, rather, Peter Kay). The Stolen Earth/Children of Time, the sheer cluster-f*ck of characters. The Next Doctor, the CyberKing. And so on.
I'm not saying this happens all the time. It's something I've only found in some of the episodes written by RTD. And even then, those episodes are fine, even great, until that 66% mark. It's the fact that RTD includes those OTT moments that means I am thrown out of the plot with little to no hope of getting back in. And when I say 'we/us', I mean me as a typical audience member. I admit not everyone shares my views, but if you visit the Gallifrey Base forums (formerly the Doctor Who Forums), for example, there are a fair few who do.
I very much enjoy Doctor Who. Even the old, not-as-good ones (well, except the early ones which just go on and on and on...). And when RTD is on form, he can write some of the best episodes. But, conversely, he can also write the worst. It's still better then a lot of other shows, but when compared to the brilliance of Who, he can really fall short.
I enjoyed Planet of the Dead - I thought it was an enjoyable romp, if not exactly jam-packed with tension. And as I already mentioned, The Waters of Mars was, with the exception of a few make-up issues, bloody marvellous. It seems that co-writing episodes with someone helps to temper RTD's bad habits.
Honestly, I don't really like to over-analyse stuff. When I do, all I find are more things to dislike. But I've had this view on RTD's writing for a while now and I felt like sharing. In doing so, I help myself to actually realize why I feel that way. I look forward to the Christmas two-parter.
- Ironically, RTD did exactly what I ranted about once again in The End of Time - Part I, with the Master turning everyone on Earth into himself. I mentioned in another thread that it was the sort of thing a six-year-old would come up with, which I think sums it up nicely. Part Two was brilliant though.
I thought The Next Doctor wasn't all that good. That was down mostly to RTD's writing, and it's often something I have problems with.
Having watched all his episodes, I've found that he generally writes two types of episode - one where the threat level remains constant throughout, and the other where there's a big reveal about two-thirds of the way through.
The episodes where the general tone of the episode and the overall threat remains roughly the same throughout work really well. Tooth and Claw, for example, or The Waters of Mars. Whether it's a constant feeling of doom or just a standard romp, they generally turn out pretty well.
The episodes where there's a big reveal about two-thirds or so into the story are not as good. Love and Monsters is a prime example of this, as was The Next Doctor. Up until that point, the story will be pretty good, but once you get to that reveal, RTD can't resist having some big earth-shattering event or an utterly ludicrous monster (or both) that just stops the episode dead in its tracks. Once you hit that moment, you're gone - you've lost whatever respect or enjoyment you previously had for the episode and you switch to mocking mode. 'That monster looks ridiculous!' or 'That makes no sense at all!'. And once the big reveal happens, you still need to have the Doctor beat this threat. But if you don't take this threat seriously, then it's hard to watch someone else do so.
Let's take Voyage of the Damned as an example. It wasn't the most fantastic episode in the world (way too much death for my liking), but it was enjoyable enough. Until we find out that the big bad is a head in a box. An annoying, smug, vain and just plain irritating head in a box. And it's an ugly head in a box as well - sparkling teeth and everything. Once we, the audience, discover this, we stop caring. It could be the head of Hitler for all we care, we're just not going to take it seriously. And if we won't take that seriously, then why should we take anything else seriously? And then Kylie takes a forklift to the ugly head in a box. I'll repeat that.
Kylie Minogue drives a forklift and forces an ugly, irritating head in a box to fall down a hole.
If anyone else had written a script with that in it then it would never have gotten through. It's just ridiculous. And RTD expects us to not only accept that, but feel sorry for Kylie as she then falls down the hole herself and dies. Which is absurd, because he's already lost us. He's crossed the line and lost the viewer's respect. And then he goes on and has Queen Elizabeth evacuate Buckingham Palace in case the ship crashes into it, and when it doesn't he has the Queen actually thank the Doctor. This isn't serious drama - it's a bad comedy sketch.
Several of his episodes play out like this. With Boom Town it was the Slitheen taking control of the TARDIS and causing somewhat unconvincing cracks to appear in Cardiff. With Love and Monsters it was the Abzorbalof (or, rather, Peter Kay). The Stolen Earth/Children of Time, the sheer cluster-f*ck of characters. The Next Doctor, the CyberKing. And so on.
I'm not saying this happens all the time. It's something I've only found in some of the episodes written by RTD. And even then, those episodes are fine, even great, until that 66% mark. It's the fact that RTD includes those OTT moments that means I am thrown out of the plot with little to no hope of getting back in. And when I say 'we/us', I mean me as a typical audience member. I admit not everyone shares my views, but if you visit the Gallifrey Base forums (formerly the Doctor Who Forums), for example, there are a fair few who do.
I very much enjoy Doctor Who. Even the old, not-as-good ones (well, except the early ones which just go on and on and on...). And when RTD is on form, he can write some of the best episodes. But, conversely, he can also write the worst. It's still better then a lot of other shows, but when compared to the brilliance of Who, he can really fall short.
I enjoyed Planet of the Dead - I thought it was an enjoyable romp, if not exactly jam-packed with tension. And as I already mentioned, The Waters of Mars was, with the exception of a few make-up issues, bloody marvellous. It seems that co-writing episodes with someone helps to temper RTD's bad habits.
Honestly, I don't really like to over-analyse stuff. When I do, all I find are more things to dislike. But I've had this view on RTD's writing for a while now and I felt like sharing. In doing so, I help myself to actually realize why I feel that way. I look forward to the Christmas two-parter.
- Ironically, RTD did exactly what I ranted about once again in The End of Time - Part I, with the Master turning everyone on Earth into himself. I mentioned in another thread that it was the sort of thing a six-year-old would come up with, which I think sums it up nicely. Part Two was brilliant though.
Lego Doctor Who - The Classic & New Blocks
Hey all. Happy 2010! At last, I can say two numbers instead of one and not seem weird! Huzzah.
Anyway. This particular piece (somehow) came about after I started a topic talking about the last episode(s) of David Tennant's stint as The Doctor. I'm not really sure how, but the conversation moved onto the possibility of a Lego Doctor Who game, which I naturally jumped upon like a starving wolf being presented with a nice shiny jugular covered in marshmallows and chocolate.
This is pieced together from a few different posts, but I think it makes sense once edited together. Now if we can just get this made, we'll be sorted.
Coming soon! Lego Doctor Who: The New Blocks! Chronicling the new series, from Rose to the End of Time! Thrill as you play through the very best of Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant's adventures through time and space! Tremble as you fight the Daleks, Cybermen, Juddoon, Sontarans and the diabolical Master! Laugh as the once treasured stories are rendered in lovable bricks and quirky cutscenes!
And let's not forget the classic adventures! Lego Doctor Who: The Classic Blocks, Volumes I, II and III! Marvel as William Hartnell swaps heads with Patrick Troughton! Shiver as the Master first appears! Puzzle over how Tom Baker manages to avoid tripping on his scarf! Laugh at Colin Baker's terrible dress sense! Gasp as Paul McGann gets more then one adventure!
In stores soon, provided the BBC has even a shred of sense and lets Traveller's Tales actually make it!
-x-
The specs:
Lego Doctor Who - The Classic Blocks - Volume I
Chapter One - William Hartnell
Levels - The Daleks (aka The Mutants and The Dead Planet), Marco Polo, The Dalek Invasion of Earth, The Romans, The Time Meddler, The Myth Makers, The Massacre (of St Bartholomew's Eve) and The Tenth Planet [Total - 9]
Chapter Two - Patrick Troughton
Levels - The Power of the Daleks, The Highlanders, The Macra Terror, The Tomb of the Cybermen, The Ice Warriors, The Web of Fear, The Invasion, The Space Pirates and The War Games [Total - 9]
Chapter Three - Jon Pertwee
Levels - Spearhead from Space, Inferno, The Claws of Axos, The Curse of Peladon, The Sea Devils, The Three Doctors, The Green Death, Invasion (of the Dinosaurs) and Planet of the Spiders [Total - 9]
Lego Doctor Who - The Classic Blocks - Volume II
Chapter One - Tom Baker (The Early Years)
Levels - The Sontaran Experiment, Genesis of the Daleks, Terror of the Zygons, Pyramids of Mars, The Seeds of Doom, The Hand of Fear, The Robots of Death, The Talons of Weng-Chiang and The Invasion of Time [Total - 9]
Chapter Two - Tom Baker (The Later Years)
Levels - The Key to Time (Parts I, II and III), City of Death, The Creature From the Pit, The Leisure Hive, Meglos, The Keeper of Traken and Logopolis [Total - 9]
Chapter Three - Peter Davison
Levels - Four to Doomsday, Black Orchid, Earthshock, Mawdryn Undead, Enlightenment, The Five Doctors, The Awakening, Resurrection of the Daleks and The Caves of Androzani [Total - 9]
Lego Doctor Who - The Classic Blocks - Volume III
Chapter One - Colin Baker
Levels - The Twin Dilemma, Attack of the Cybermen, Vengeance on Varos, The Mark of the Rani, Revelation of the Daleks and The Trial of a Time Lord (all four parts) [Total - 9]
Chapter Two - Sylvester McCoy
Levels - Time and the Rani, Delta and the Bannermen, Dragonfire, Remembrance of the Daleks, The Happiness Patrol, The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, Battlefield, The Curse of Fenric and Survival [Levels - 9]
Chapter Three - Paul McGann
Levels - The Movie (aka The Enemy Within) - [Audio Adventures] - Storm Warning, The Sword of Orion, Invaders from Mars, The Girl Who Never Was, Blood of the Daleks, The Zygon Who Fell to Earth, Worldwide Web and Death in Blackpool [Total - 9]
Lego Doctor Who - The New Blocks
Chapter One - Christopher Eccleston
Levels - Rose, The End of the World, Aliens in London, Dalek, The Empty Child, The Parting of the Ways and The Christmas Invasion (David Tennant in Eccleston's outfit) [Total - 7]
Chapter Two - David Tennant (Brown Suit)
Levels - New Earth, School Reunion, The Girl in the Fireplace, Rise of the Cybermen, The Satan Pit, Doomsday and The Runaway Bride [Total - 7]
Chapter Three - David Tennant (Blue Suit)
Levels - Smith and Jones, The Shakespeare Code, Evolution of the Daleks, Human Nature/The Family of Blood*, The Sounds of Drums and Last of the Time Lords (two levels**), along with Voyage of the Damned [Total - 8]
*I prefer the second title, to avoid confusion with the book called 'Human Nature' upon which the TV episodes were based.
**In the first level, you'd be David tennant trying to save Martha, and in the second, you'd be Freema Agyman trying to save the Doctor.
Chapter Four - David Tennant (Various Outfits)
Levels - Partners in Crime, Planet of the Ood, The Sontaran Strategem, The Doctor's Daughter, The Unicorn and the Wasp, Silence in the Library and Journey's End [Total - 7]
Chapter Four - David Tennant (Various Outfits)
Levels - The Next Doctor, Planet of the Dead, The Waters of Mars, The End of Time (Part One) and The End of Time (Part Two) [Total - 5, possibly 6 if Dreamland is included as well, though that's debatable]
Anyway. This particular piece (somehow) came about after I started a topic talking about the last episode(s) of David Tennant's stint as The Doctor. I'm not really sure how, but the conversation moved onto the possibility of a Lego Doctor Who game, which I naturally jumped upon like a starving wolf being presented with a nice shiny jugular covered in marshmallows and chocolate.
This is pieced together from a few different posts, but I think it makes sense once edited together. Now if we can just get this made, we'll be sorted.
Coming soon! Lego Doctor Who: The New Blocks! Chronicling the new series, from Rose to the End of Time! Thrill as you play through the very best of Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant's adventures through time and space! Tremble as you fight the Daleks, Cybermen, Juddoon, Sontarans and the diabolical Master! Laugh as the once treasured stories are rendered in lovable bricks and quirky cutscenes!
And let's not forget the classic adventures! Lego Doctor Who: The Classic Blocks, Volumes I, II and III! Marvel as William Hartnell swaps heads with Patrick Troughton! Shiver as the Master first appears! Puzzle over how Tom Baker manages to avoid tripping on his scarf! Laugh at Colin Baker's terrible dress sense! Gasp as Paul McGann gets more then one adventure!
In stores soon, provided the BBC has even a shred of sense and lets Traveller's Tales actually make it!
-x-
The specs:
Lego Doctor Who - The Classic Blocks - Volume I
Chapter One - William Hartnell
Levels - The Daleks (aka The Mutants and The Dead Planet), Marco Polo, The Dalek Invasion of Earth, The Romans, The Time Meddler, The Myth Makers, The Massacre (of St Bartholomew's Eve) and The Tenth Planet [Total - 9]
Chapter Two - Patrick Troughton
Levels - The Power of the Daleks, The Highlanders, The Macra Terror, The Tomb of the Cybermen, The Ice Warriors, The Web of Fear, The Invasion, The Space Pirates and The War Games [Total - 9]
Chapter Three - Jon Pertwee
Levels - Spearhead from Space, Inferno, The Claws of Axos, The Curse of Peladon, The Sea Devils, The Three Doctors, The Green Death, Invasion (of the Dinosaurs) and Planet of the Spiders [Total - 9]
Lego Doctor Who - The Classic Blocks - Volume II
Chapter One - Tom Baker (The Early Years)
Levels - The Sontaran Experiment, Genesis of the Daleks, Terror of the Zygons, Pyramids of Mars, The Seeds of Doom, The Hand of Fear, The Robots of Death, The Talons of Weng-Chiang and The Invasion of Time [Total - 9]
Chapter Two - Tom Baker (The Later Years)
Levels - The Key to Time (Parts I, II and III), City of Death, The Creature From the Pit, The Leisure Hive, Meglos, The Keeper of Traken and Logopolis [Total - 9]
Chapter Three - Peter Davison
Levels - Four to Doomsday, Black Orchid, Earthshock, Mawdryn Undead, Enlightenment, The Five Doctors, The Awakening, Resurrection of the Daleks and The Caves of Androzani [Total - 9]
Lego Doctor Who - The Classic Blocks - Volume III
Chapter One - Colin Baker
Levels - The Twin Dilemma, Attack of the Cybermen, Vengeance on Varos, The Mark of the Rani, Revelation of the Daleks and The Trial of a Time Lord (all four parts) [Total - 9]
Chapter Two - Sylvester McCoy
Levels - Time and the Rani, Delta and the Bannermen, Dragonfire, Remembrance of the Daleks, The Happiness Patrol, The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, Battlefield, The Curse of Fenric and Survival [Levels - 9]
Chapter Three - Paul McGann
Levels - The Movie (aka The Enemy Within) - [Audio Adventures] - Storm Warning, The Sword of Orion, Invaders from Mars, The Girl Who Never Was, Blood of the Daleks, The Zygon Who Fell to Earth, Worldwide Web and Death in Blackpool [Total - 9]
Lego Doctor Who - The New Blocks
Chapter One - Christopher Eccleston
Levels - Rose, The End of the World, Aliens in London, Dalek, The Empty Child, The Parting of the Ways and The Christmas Invasion (David Tennant in Eccleston's outfit) [Total - 7]
Chapter Two - David Tennant (Brown Suit)
Levels - New Earth, School Reunion, The Girl in the Fireplace, Rise of the Cybermen, The Satan Pit, Doomsday and The Runaway Bride [Total - 7]
Chapter Three - David Tennant (Blue Suit)
Levels - Smith and Jones, The Shakespeare Code, Evolution of the Daleks, Human Nature/The Family of Blood*, The Sounds of Drums and Last of the Time Lords (two levels**), along with Voyage of the Damned [Total - 8]
*I prefer the second title, to avoid confusion with the book called 'Human Nature' upon which the TV episodes were based.
**In the first level, you'd be David tennant trying to save Martha, and in the second, you'd be Freema Agyman trying to save the Doctor.
Chapter Four - David Tennant (Various Outfits)
Levels - Partners in Crime, Planet of the Ood, The Sontaran Strategem, The Doctor's Daughter, The Unicorn and the Wasp, Silence in the Library and Journey's End [Total - 7]
Chapter Four - David Tennant (Various Outfits)
Levels - The Next Doctor, Planet of the Dead, The Waters of Mars, The End of Time (Part One) and The End of Time (Part Two) [Total - 5, possibly 6 if Dreamland is included as well, though that's debatable]
Current Status
Hey. Just thought I give a quick post letting any potential reader what's going on with me at the moment.
At present, I am waiting on The Escapist to approve my second review, this one of Time Gentlemen, Please!, which I have a whopping great ad for on the right of the screen. Seriously, you can't miss it. Anyway, I've been waiting on The Escapist for about a month and a half now, which is getting rather frustrating, and I've sent a couple of 'reminder' e-mails asking why they've been taking so long.
I've also been working a a whole new series of reviews, this time of the PS2 Ratchet and Clank games. I'm not doing the PS3 titles, as I don't actually have a PS3, which is fair enough, really.
However, I've finally landed a job at the new PoundLand store that's opening in Worthing, so I'll have much less free time to scribble down words and present it as a serious piece of literature. Probably. Stupid job.
Anyway, that's what's been going on in my life. How about you? Everything all right on your end?
Well, that's nice.
At present, I am waiting on The Escapist to approve my second review, this one of Time Gentlemen, Please!, which I have a whopping great ad for on the right of the screen. Seriously, you can't miss it. Anyway, I've been waiting on The Escapist for about a month and a half now, which is getting rather frustrating, and I've sent a couple of 'reminder' e-mails asking why they've been taking so long.
I've also been working a a whole new series of reviews, this time of the PS2 Ratchet and Clank games. I'm not doing the PS3 titles, as I don't actually have a PS3, which is fair enough, really.
However, I've finally landed a job at the new PoundLand store that's opening in Worthing, so I'll have much less free time to scribble down words and present it as a serious piece of literature. Probably. Stupid job.
Anyway, that's what's been going on in my life. How about you? Everything all right on your end?
Well, that's nice.
I'm a Published Writer! - UPDATED 22/08
I'd like to tell you how honoured I am that I have now become a published writer, as my review of Ben There, Dan That! has been used as a Featured Review on The Escapist.
Thankfully, now that they've apologized and fixed the errors they introduced thanks to their editing, I actually can! I've actually printed off the e-mail they sent me, claiming that I'm 'passionate about my reviews', which made me very happy indeed. The fact that I was slightly drunk at the time is completely irrelevant.
You can read the review here. Enjoy!
Thankfully, now that they've apologized and fixed the errors they introduced thanks to their editing, I actually can! I've actually printed off the e-mail they sent me, claiming that I'm 'passionate about my reviews', which made me very happy indeed. The fact that I was slightly drunk at the time is completely irrelevant.
You can read the review here. Enjoy!
Ben There, Dan That! and Time Gentlemen, Please! (Reviews)
Deja Vu?
Sort of. I'm trying to get this used as a Featured Review on The Escapist, and when I submitted the original version of my review, I asked for feedback. Which I got. As a result, I rewrote about 80% of the review to incorporate this feedback, resulting in a much improved and better flowing piece.
For the record, there were three comments.
1) Is this one game or two?
2) Are you writing from a checklist?
3) What's the plot of the games?
I'm just copy-pasting this from The Escapist, so this one'll include pictures. I normally remove these from the reviews I post here, but I honestly can't be arsed this time.
I first heard about Ben There, Dan That! in an article in PCGamer UK, where one of the game's authors wrote an interesting article about its creation. I never bothered to actually try the game, but after playing MI:SE recently, I developed a taste for classic adventure gaming, and during my searches for good free games, stumbled upon Ben There, Dan That! by Zombie Cow Studios. Once I'd finished that, I immediately went and bought its sequel, Time Gentlemen, Please!. If this were a just and righteous universe, you would all do the same.
Sort of. I'm trying to get this used as a Featured Review on The Escapist, and when I submitted the original version of my review, I asked for feedback. Which I got. As a result, I rewrote about 80% of the review to incorporate this feedback, resulting in a much improved and better flowing piece.
For the record, there were three comments.
1) Is this one game or two?
2) Are you writing from a checklist?
3) What's the plot of the games?
I'm just copy-pasting this from The Escapist, so this one'll include pictures. I normally remove these from the reviews I post here, but I honestly can't be arsed this time.
I first heard about Ben There, Dan That! in an article in PCGamer UK, where one of the game's authors wrote an interesting article about its creation. I never bothered to actually try the game, but after playing MI:SE recently, I developed a taste for classic adventure gaming, and during my searches for good free games, stumbled upon Ben There, Dan That! by Zombie Cow Studios. Once I'd finished that, I immediately went and bought its sequel, Time Gentlemen, Please!. If this were a just and righteous universe, you would all do the same.
Please don't ask me to go back the way I came. PLEASE.
Ben There, Dan That!, like the recent Tales of Monkey Island, opens at the tail-end of an adventure staring the two title characters, Ben and Dan. Tragically, Dan has managed to end up deadified, and having completed a whole load of off-screen adventures, the player-controlled Ben has finally gotten him all ready for resurrection. All that remains is to stick a firework up Dan's bumhole and shoot him along an incredibly long piece of twine over a bottomless gorge and into a shack full of corpse-reanimating equipment. But that's far from the end of their adventures.
Upon returning home after a funky title sequence, the pair settle in to watch Magnum PI. Or they would, had Ben not been forced to use the aerial in his attempt to bring Dan back from the dead. A makeshift antenna to stick out the window is hastily made, and the pair are promptly zapped aboard an alien ship full of doorways leading to parallel universes. In order to return home, the two have to venture forth into these alternate worlds and find the two pieces of a yin-yang, which will open up the door back to their own world. Along the way you'll kill a Priest, cause a miniature Death Star to fry a dinosaur, travel through the rear end of a cow and absorb a man with a sponge.
If any of this sounds offensive to you, chances are that this series are not for you. Which is a real shame, as it's brilliant. The sheer amount of charm the central characters exude more then compensates for any distasteful actions they, and by extension you, take. These may be some of the most offensive adult games you'll have played, but they're also absolutely hilarious, far more so then many other so-called 'comedy' titles released in the last few years.
One of the major factors crucial to this is the writing. Having to get past a Priest by killing him would seem cruel, even offensive if taken straight. Doing so by not only whacking him over the head with his own bible, but then expressing a forlorn hope that he's just sleeping (when really, you're not fooling anyone, not even yourself), and then developing that action even further, turning the act of inadvertently killing people while trying to get things from them into a running joke, takes a LOT of balls. Thankfully the writers manage it with aplomb, and that's not even the worst they have to throw at us. The darkest side of humour is evident throughout the game, but because everything is played for laughs, it's actually surprisingly difficult to become offended at the actions taken by Ben and Dan. The blank expressions permanently worn by the pair, coupled with the dry comments offered by the two really endear them to you, and it's hard to hate such a pair of lovable scamps, even if they do swear a tad too often.
Also taking a large amount of the edge off of things are the graphics. While you'll inevitably think the two leads seem incredibly basic, they quickly grow on you, and you'll find that their oddly distinct animations make them hard to hate, even as they inadvertently kill someone via the gift of toilet cakes. And while the characters may not be particular highlights, the backgrounds are the real stars of the show. The parallel universe angle means that there are several different versions of the London skyline, all lovingly rendered with jaded angles and straight lines. It's a wonderful throwback to classic LucasArts games without being generic, as other games made in the same vein can end up being.
Fear not! We shall have no need for such useless items!
I mention LucasArts adventures for a reason. One of the highlights of those games were the puzzles, something Ben There, Dan That! does relatively well with. The tried-and-tested 'pick up everything not bolted down and combine it all with everything else' technique will show just how much care has gone into the game, as almost every combination possible has a custom response. Trying to use a crowbar with a dinosaur will warrant a 'I'm not Gordon Freeman!' comment, while trying it on a PC will warrant a concern that that'll crash the computer. Unfortunately while these responses are funny, there's no real hints or tips as to what to do in any given situation, and it can be a bit hard to get into the frame of mind the designers had while making the game. Once you do stumble upon the answer though, it all makes a wonderous kind of sense.
Another point against Ben There, Dan That! is the music. Or, rather, the lack thereof. While the theme tune is certainly funky, it's also pretty much the only piece of music you'll hear throughout the game, aside from the lift music that crops up in a horrifically long elevator sequence. There's background ambience in certain places, such as keyboard tapping in a software development office or the blurred-out commentary of the big game in a pub (or, rather, bar), and you'll get a little musical flourish whenever you unlock a new universe to explore, but that's about as sophisticated as it gets. The developers weren't able to afford to have someone score the game, which is a shame, as it really could have enhanced the game a great deal.
In the end though, these negative points don't really do that much to damage Ben There, Dan That!. It's still an entertaining game, and you'll have hours of fun with it, but compared to its sequel, you get the feeling that it could have been just that little bit better.
Time Gentlemen, Please! opens up with a recap of the events of Ben There, Dan That!, and immediately impresses with a full-on attention grabbing musical piece and fantastic artwork accompanying the text. From there, the game only gets better, as Ben and Dan try to find the setting of their previous adventure in the hopes of utilising some left-over technology to undo the inadvertent mass destruction of the entire world. Finding a way back in time, they attempt to stop coathangers from being invented, but in the process wind up allowing Hitler to take over the world with the aid of an army of cloned Dinosaurs. If such a thing is possible, the game only gets weirder from there.
As we've come to expect from sequels, the game looks even better then its prequel, not just in the higher resolution artwork, but also thanks to the additional new-fangled flashy effects. A great example of this is the opening sequence - the rain coming down over a now devastated London (accidentally brought about by the lead character's actions, naturally) looks absolutely stunning, and really push the AGS engine used by both games to new limits. Thankfully Ben and Dan both look the same as they did before, although they now have more then one expression, which is used to great comic effect at times.
Also much improved are the puzzles, which now have a much more imaginative flair about them, making use of an old-school text-based adventure game, ageing or de-ageing inventory items and even altering the very fabric of time itself. If any of the puzzles seem too hard, dialogue from the lead characters will often nudge you in the right direction, drawing your attention to items that can be picked up or nudging you about certain things you should try. It's a sort of in-game hint system that you can't turn off, and though sometimes you'll already know that you should do something, more often then not you'll appreciate being told that you should use a different inventory item instead of the one you're currently trying to use, or that Dan is capable of doing something that Ben is not. That said though, sometimes this hint system will fail you and you'll be left wondering what you've missed, and given how much bigger this game is compared to its prequel, this can mean a lot of running around trying to find that one item. Fortunately there's a new map included which lets you zip around the world, but even so, it's a shame they haven't managed to completely overcome the genre's biggest problem.
ZE SLOP BUCKET VILL BE MINE! ACHTUNG!
The final item on the checklist is music, and this too is much improved over the first game, in that there actually is some. From the remastered theme tune to the party mix that plays during the stone-age disco, there's a surprising amount of mileage to the soundtrack, especially so given that most games made using the AGS engine are relatively simple, featuring rather basic tunes or stuff ripped from different sources. You can even alter how loud it is in the options menu, something very few, if any, AGS games have at all. As a result the whole feel of the game is incredibly professional.
These games really do push the boundaries of adventure games, both in content and in style. They're ludicrously adult, frequently absurd and gleefully over-the-top. And they're both some of the best games I've played in years. I cannot recommend them enough. Go and play them, you simple-minded fools. Where else will you see a battle-mech striding Hitler in command of an army of cloned dinosaurs? Nowhere, that's where.
The first game, Ben There, Dan That!, is absolutely free, so you've got no excuse not to at least try it. The second game, Time Gentlemen, Please!, isn't free, but it's only £2.99 (around £3.35 including VAT, which the website shockingly didn't mention you'd need to pay!), which is around $5ish. If you do the math, that's WAY less then the Monkey Island remake, and they'll last you as long, if not longer. Go and play them already, I want to see a third one.
Addendum: At the request of the Ben (of Ben & Dan fame, folks!), I'm adding a score for Metacritic. Three out of... Nah, kidding. 9/10 for Ben There, Dan That! and 10/10 for Time Gentlemen, Please!.
Screenies from the Zombie-Cow website and softonic.com. Thanks guys!
Okami Wii (Review)
Another day, another review. I'm trying to get through the fairly large number I originally posted on that wonderous forum of legend. This one's quite short, mostly because it feels extremely similar to a Zelda game and when you've played something so often, you tend to forget about the most obvious things. I should probably go back and rewrite this, beefing it up a little, but eh, whatever.
When I went into Okami, I wasn't all that sure what I was going to get. I hadn't done a lot of research beforehand, and even if I had, I doubt it really would have prepared me for what I was to encounter. Simply saying it's pretty steeped in Japanese culture, for example, really doesn't get across just how different it is from most games.
Okami is very Japanese. It doesn't so much embrace the culture as take a photograph and wear it as a mask, claiming that this is it's real face. The character designs, the levels, the dialogue, the menus, the gameplay, everything is as Japanese as you can get without going over there and ordering a round of sake. And this, I feel, is it's biggest flaw, because as you're starting the game, it's just overwhelming. There's no respite, save for a wacky 'sidekick' of the American persuasion, and even he seems to be a Japanese version of a spunky partner. There's so much to take in all at once, you can't simply ignore it - you have to embrace it. Once you do so though, there's a brilliant game lurking underneath.
Rather then play as the standard action hero #4,562, you actually play the reincarnation of a god, taking the form of a White Wolf. As such, you don't use weapons in the standard fare. Your basic attack is a simple headbutt, while your major assaults will be made by using a paintbrush to 'paint' the attack you wish to use. Again, it's a lot to take in at first, and it will confuse you to begin with, but once you get the hang of it, you'll start to really enjoy the different style of gameplay.
The most important aspect of any game like this is the combat, and it works fairly well, though there's a few minor niggles. Holding B to ready your brush and then moving the remote while pressing A to actually paint your move works great once you get the hang of it, though making the B button a toggle rather then a holding option would have made things a bit easier on the hand. Also, sometimes the game has trouble recognising some of the moves you make, and the close combat, which requires you to shake your remote to do the headbutt move, is a very finicky tactic I have yet to master, despite playing the game for hours.
Graphically, the cell shading looks good at first, but after a while the odd character designs and interesting application of the art style will cause people to rethink their stance. Unlike other games using similar techniques (Zelda: Wind Waker is the obvious example), this game does actually seem to age, and it hasn't done so as well as it could have done. The low resolution, presumably carried over from the original PS2 version of the game, certainly doesn't help the cause, and the odd cases of pop-up, where plants and animals suddenly appear about a meter in front of you while on the move, are more jarring then anything else.
The plot, while having a very Japanese twist, is little more then 'the bad guys were sealed up in the past, seal has been broken, go beat them back again' fare that many games have, but there's enough charm and personality behind it to keep you going, even if it is just to see where the supposed village hero pops up next, and he's a cliché himself. The people who inhabit the villages and fields you visit all have a personality, and you never mind helping them, out with the problems they have, but after a while it'll dawn on you that these are little more than the fetch quests of old. It's never enough to make you stop playing, but there's a distinct feeling of deja vu through a fair bit of the game.
Oddly, the game seem custom made for the Wii, even though the console wasn't out when the game was first released. There may be a few problems, and the actual gameplay itself may not be as revolutionary as it claims to be, but in the end there's a great game buried here. It's just a shame there's so much Japanese smothering it.
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