Fez (2012)

Cover by Bryan Lee O’Malley, creator of Scott Pilgrim.

To say that I'd been waiting a while for this game would be the understatement of the year. It's difficult to remember exactly when I first heard of it, given that it was announced around the same time as some other games with the same perspective changing concept I think it's fair to say that the art style was a big part of what kept me interested in it over the past 5 years. It started to take on almost mythical status as a game that might never see the light of day, with very sporadic updates on its progress leaking out. When your game idea is copied in an online flash game before its release, you must really know that you're taking a long time on something.

Funnily enough, for a long time I was expecting a game like that Sky Island clone, where it would be quite strictly level based. While some of the trailers hinted at a more open world I still went into Fez not really knowing how freeform it would be. I quickly found myself heading through door after door that lead to completely new areas and not really knowing how to get back. There was something quite exciting about this, it felt like you were really going on an adventure and falling down a rabbit hole that you might not come back from. I knew that some kind of warp gate would probably turn up to help you get around quicker but until you find one (well, two actually) there's definitely a sense of getting lost in a pixelated foreign land.

Sadly I didn't really find navigating this world as much fun as I had hoped though, due to its laggy and unresponsive controls. The old school visuals suggested to me that playing it would also feel like an old school platformer with tight and responsive controls but I would constantly feel like I wasn't fully in control and that actions like dropping down ledges or picking up boxes were a little inconsistent. I'm usually one to give games the benefit of the doubt when people complain about low frame rates but in this case I'm pretty sure that the laggy controls were largely down to the poor overall performance of the game. There is a section near the end where the detail gets really low and suddenly the controls got more responsive and the motion appeared smoother, I would have loved to have played the whole game with the responsiveness that this section allowed you a brief glance of. This wasn't exactly helped by some strange button choices, with X and B performing two separate actions that felt like they should have been one button and pause/inventory screens on the Back, Start and Y buttons!

It's difficult to know whether much blame for performance issues can be put on XNA, Microsoft's game development tools, which were used to create this. I've touched on this idea before, that using such a high level language must leave little room for optimisation after a certain point but it seems different with this being a full Xbox Live Arcade release and not just an Indie game which XNA is most commonly used for. To me it seems like the higher price point and level of polish expected should perhaps have lead to the game being ported to a different system that would allow better use of the Xbox's capabilities if they had reached the limits of XNA but if that was the case I imagine we would still be waiting for the game's release right now. Aside from the performance issues there were also numerous crashes and glitches like falling out of the world in small areas that should really have been caught beforehand. I have managed to avoid the issue that forces you to restart the whole game from the beginning but some friends were not so lucky. A patch for the crashes should be incoming but I doubt that there will be much that can be done to improve or stabilize its performance.

I have other issues with the game but these feel more like my personal preferences, rather than legitimate criticism. You'll quickly realise that the basic platforming and perspective shifting is only half of the game, with the majority of it centred around more abstract puzzles to find 'anti-cubes' and translating its language and numbering system. I've managed to find a few of these anti-cubes, some via cool solutions like scanning an in game QR code and another by building Tetris shapes in all four perspectives but the rest quickly started to feel like they were outside of my realm of comprehension. My preference would be for the game to help you out a little more but for others the lack of any pointers is clearly part of its appeal, revelling in the old school nature of making your own maps and noting down the strange symbols to piece together the clues littered throughout the game.

As it stands I feel like I'm in this weird limbo where I don't really have the time or patience to figure out all of its mysteries myself but I don't want to just go and find all of the answers on the internet either. Following the progress of other players on internet forums is perhaps a less explicit way of finding answers and sometimes just following someone else's thinking can help you to come to your own conclusions. I'm still not sure that I will ever find everything in this game without some serious help though and its basic ending doesn't seem to offer any explanation of what it was all about (though it is a suitably mind bending conclusion). Even if translating the language is not integral to finding any of the anti-cubes, I would still have liked there to have been some way of showing the translated text in game, rather than referring to your notes or some kind of website/app for a character by character translation.

Despite all this, the game does a great job of keeping you playing, sometimes purely because of how charming the whole experience is. It's filled to the brim with neat touches, references to other games and even internet memes. Even if you don't solve all of the puzzles they still add to the game's atmosphere and the feeling of a world that you don't quite understand. It's a great experience that I think almost anyone can enjoy to some degree but not everyone will get as much out of it. I guess I'm just a little saddened that it didn't grab me as much as it has done others when I've been waiting so long for it.

The Cabin in the Woods (2012) - Spoilers Galore

Poster by Mondo

I'm making the assumption that anyone reading this has now either seen the film, is never going to see the film or just really doesn't mind spoilers. As I said in the previous post, it was difficult to write much without feeling like I was heading into spoiler territory. This is despite the fact that I wouldn't say it was a film centred around big twists, more that it's nice to see it unfold as it goes on first time around. For example, when I mentioned the opening credits I felt like drawing too much attention to them could lead people to the conclusion that it's all a modern form of human sacrifice to appease the gods a little too early. I could also have listed a multitude of films and games that it reminded me of but again that could have started giving people certain expectations outside of what the trailers show. It really surprised me to see other reviews that would happily give away the appearance of killer clowns and other horror legends, when there is initially nothing to suggest they will feature.

Looking at the negative reviews that seem so quick to throw around spoilers, I'd say a common feature is that they didn't find it funny. I understand that humour is subjective and that some of it could have been a little insular to horror movie fans but it also seems that a lot of them had a pre-conceived idea of what it should be (while others clearly drifted off and invented their own version of the movie). Most seem so concerned that it does not have whatever makes a good horror movie to them, but I think that it clearly sets out to be a comedy horror in the tradition of the Evil Dead trilogy. Again perhaps not a series for everyone but those films have stood the test of time and are proof that comedy can be a valid choice in making a different kind of horror movie. In fact the only part of the Evil Dead films that scares me is when the taxidermy comes alive and starts laughing, which I don't think is even supposed to be scary (I was both disappointed and relieved that this concept didn't make it into Resident Evil 4 after seeing the prototype footage of it). You can imagine that the "I dare you to kiss that Moose" section felt even more uncomfortable to me than it already must have to everyone else.

So if you were expecting something scary and didn't find it funny then I can imagine that some of the faults in it might leap out at you more easily. I think if you let yourself get bogged down in the details of the film it can start to unravel - even though the film explains that the sacrifices have to make their own choices and ignore warnings, it does seem like a very overcomplicated method of completing the sacrificial ritual. Combined with the fact that they forget about the stoner Marty when they have sophisticated heart rate monitors... you kind of have to start tying yourself in knots to explain everything perfectly. Those who aren't having fun are much less likely to go along for the ride and put these issues out of their mind. There is also probably an element of backlash at the many positive reviews it is garnering, I can see how it might seem that some critics are over hyping it but I think that if it grabs you then it's hard not to get excited about it.

One criticism that I'm not sure I really get though is that it's trying to be cleverer than it really is or that it's a 'hipster movie' (something that was levelled at Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World too when it's pretty much an anti-hipster film). I think anything that ends the way this does is not really trying too hard to be clever or insightful, to me it just sets out to be a whole lot of fun. The last 20 minutes is like the most epic version of the end of nearly every zombie film I can think of. It's something I could watch again straight away as there was so much going on at once that you couldn't pick up on everything. One part in particular was the shot where it starts to pan back from an array of CCTV monitors with almost every screen parodying a different film. I immediately focused on one screen that looked a little like Alien but then heard someone next to me going "urrggh" and I switched my attention to the screen with something vomiting acid onto someone. Just thinking about the amount of effort that went into each of these little bits of footage cemented my opinion of it being a total love letter to horror. I was sure that the amount of creatures shown in this section greatly outnumbered the amount shown on the whiteboard near the start of the film - perhaps they had a pool to choose from each year...

By the time Sigourney Weaver turned up as the facility director, she seemed like the perfect cameo to bring the whole thing to a close. While I've heard it mentioned that Jamie Lee Curtis pre-dates her as a 'final girl' horror movie survivor I still think she was a good choice, especially as she seems to play a more malevolent character pretty well. I could probably have done without the final shot of the film - as many people have said it didn't seem to live up to the Lovecraftian nature of the ancient gods that had been suggested up to this point (although directly showing Cthulhu on screen doesn't usually go that well either). I also think that if it had ended just before you see the giant hand it might have been more interesting to leave that ambiguity over whether the ancient gods were real or if the facility was run by a cult that had kept up this ritual just for the sake of it. The end came at the right point though and its length felt perfect, the amount of stuff in it felt like it should have added up to more than 90 minutes but I can't really think of any sections that dragged. Overall it perhaps isn't as much of a game changer as Scream was back in the day but to me it is the more enjoyable film and always feels like it is celebrating horror rather than mocking it.

The Cabin in the Woods (2012) - Spoiler Free

I think that this is going to be a fairly short post as it's quite difficult to really get into discussing this film without giving away what I would consider to be spoilers. Sadly there have been plenty of reviews eager to spoil parts of it, largely those that have had a negative opinion of it. Even trying to describe it in a positive light gets tricky very quickly and I'm even questioning whether I should talk about the opening credits! If you've seen the trailer and some of the posters for it then I would say that you have just about enough information to tell if it intrigues you and still go in to the cinema to experience it fresh, any more information than that and I think you risk taking away some of its entertainment value.

So what can I say about it? My first thought is that it's basically a love letter to horror movies, I would possibly have said a tribute to them if it wasn't a good film in its own right. If you like horror films in general I can almost guarantee that you will like it but it's more difficult to say whether it will appeal to everyone. If you don't like horror from a blood and gore perspective then there is plenty to put you off here but it isn't a particularly scary film if that's what puts you off. Some people might class an unscary horror film as a failure outright but I think it works more as a comedy and it's difficult to mix sustained fear with that. There are 'jump scares' but most of these made me laugh straight after the jump as the film had either been preparing you for it or tricking you at the last minute. The humour is a mixture of stuff that will probably be funny to anyone and things that may be more aimed at horror buffs but I don't think it comes across as being exclusive.

Overall I found it a fun film and while I wasn't impressed by the quality of the screen I saw it in (looked like an upscaled DVD), I think seeing it in the cinema added to this. As if the horror stereotypes were managing to escape the film, I was actually sat next to a young couple with the girl jumping at all of the shocks (I think she even dropped her popcorn at one point). I don't know if it has much more to it and if it's really the saviour of horror that some people seem to be deeming it but I'll certainly search out more about it now that I've seen it. I may even come back to it in another post with spoiler gloves off to give anyone reading this a chance to see it first.

The Hunger Games (2012)

My feelings towards this film were rather mixed before I got to see it; fear that it might just be the next Twilight as it's based on a 'young adult' series of books, hope when I started to hear good reviews from places I trusted but then concerned that I might now have too high expectations of it. The film doesn't exactly do the best job of pulling you in at first either, I'd heard warnings about the shaky-cam sections at the start and if that kind of thing affects you then you might find yourself wanting to leave or vomit in the first 20 minutes. I didn't really notice it after this point, as more starts to happen I guess it seems more appropriate but having plain establishing shots wobble all over the place just seems kind of pointless - unless it's trying to say "this district is so poor that no one can hold a camera straight". On top of this, if you've heard much about the film beforehand then there's not really anything you don't already know in this section. One aspect I did like though was that if you did happen to know nothing about who is selected for the games, then it does a good job of misleading you about which male will be chosen as up until their name is called they have never even appeared on screen.

To begin with I found myself a little sceptical of the whole concept and felt like maybe it would have been easier to swallow if the games were set up by a conquering alien race or something. However as it went on I found myself coming around to the idea and not just because humans have taken pleasure out of death matches in the distant past. It's not really been picked up on in other reviews so I don't know if it's considered a spoiler or if it's just quite obvious but to me the film seems to be more of an attack on what we are prepared to watch as entertainment, even if it is a little clumsy and heavy handed about it at points. As someone who hasn't read any of the books, like I mentioned in this post, it seems logical that film (or TV) would be the natural medium for the story. Fans of the book might disagree but I felt that there were numerous aspects that worked well because they were filmed and not written.

A big part of the games is about how important it is for players to be liked by the audience and not just a great fighter. This leads to characters playing up to the cameras and trying to make a good impression, even if it's not their true feelings. I appreciated the ambiguity over what characters true feelings were and how much was just for the cameras, with some of it probably being a mix of the two. The fact that you then have actors pretending to act on top of their basic role, it feels like it gives an extra nuance that might not have been in the books. You could say that some of it was not great acting but was it intentional to give that 'reality show acting' feel?

Looking at it this way actually seems to help out with other problems that critics have found with the film. Some have suggested that it could have been more violent but I think that fits in well with the idea that almost anything can be shown on television as long as it's not graphic or bloody. And if it seems like there is not enough character building before the games begin, those watching the TV show would be in roughly the same situation too with only their interviews to tell them about the person. There hasn't been anything to really make them care from the outset, no relationships formed between players, which makes the later deaths hit harder and allows the early casualties to be brushed over.

The film creates obvious villains within the games, who you are almost guaranteed to hate by the end but really you are being manipulated in the same a reality show would with selective footage. The kids actions are really down to the society they have been brought up in, rather than trying to brand them as animals or savages as the tabloid press is so quick to do. It's only right at the end of the film that we get a glimpse of their humanity and how almost everyone has been affected by what they've essentially been forced to do. In a strange way I was glad to see that the main character didn't get away with completely clean hands either. It initially seemed to suggest that she might get through the entire film without directly killing anyone but when she finally does it feels totally instinctual in order to protect herself - literally shoot first and ask questions later.

I could well be giving the film far too much credit as the finale of it felt a bit ridiculous. Unless of course they were then trying to make some kind of point about computer games instead of television as that's what the whole segment felt like. Overall though it kept me entertained and in general just made me think about it more than I would ever have expected to. I was slightly saddened to hear that the next film will not feature the same director, which makes me unsure whether the sequels will work as well as this one, or at least carry on the same feel. That said, the list of potential directors is looking very good and I'd be particularly interested in seeing what Alfonso Cuarón would do with it, given that his take on the Prisoner of Azkaban was my favourite film in the Harry Potter series.

More Revelations?

Despite considering myself to be a fan of the Resident Evil series as a whole, I can recognise that they often tend to take two steps forward and one step back in new iterations. One example that comes to mind is Resident Evil Zero where they finally allowed you to exchange items when your inventory was full but removed the impossibly linked storage containers and still left you with a tiny inventory, forcing you to traipse around the game just as much to try and remember where you left important items. By comparison Resident Evil 4's sprint forward while barely looking back should perhaps have obviously been difficult to replicate.

So I approached Resident Evil: Revelations with some caution, given that I haven't actually played RE5 yet as the description of a useless AI partner who would eat all your ammo and get killed repeatedly put me off. So I was happy to find that they had reworked this setup in Revelations, with your AI partner having unlimited ammo and being generally invincible (although it did start to get comical watching Parker getting molested by ooze zombies for minutes at a time). I didn't really have anything to complain about for quite a while, the way the game was set out seemed to have been really well tailored for a hand held release, with each episode being of a reasonable length for a quick session (often before bed, perhaps not the best way to get to sleep). If you did end up getting killed in a section that would usually be a good indicator to me that I should give it a rest for that day, rather than being a particularly frustrating experience. This had the added bonus of allowing me to get through most missions without suffering any recorded deaths - good tip for any S-Rank hunters out there.

3D wise I found that the game worked pretty well and after a little time to adjust I played most of it on the very strong setting with the 3D slider also at maximum. When there were few other distractions this seemed to really draw you into the game and perhaps even helped you to overlook some of the less detailed areas of the graphics. I still had problems with images bleeding between both eyes but that is more of an issue with the 3DS than how the game is implemented. Almost any 3D system has trouble with areas of high contrast and in a horror game this is likely to occur a lot when you have mostly dark areas highlighted by a single light source. I did eventually find that I could improve the bleeding by changing my vertical viewing angle as well as the horizontal but it's still difficult to always remain in the perfect viewing zone.

Sadly I did find a dumb 3D problem that is entirely the fault of the game, which was the fact that the sniper scope was still shown in 3D. I'd previously read people talking about the 3DS version of Metal Gear Solid 3 and while people initially thought that the game went into 2D mode because Snake wears an eye patch, they eventually realised that it was only 2D when looking through a sniper scope and was 3D when looking through binoculars. While this may seem like an over the top bit of detail, Revelations sadly shows that a 2D sniper scope is absolutely essential as you can't focus on the scope target which is close to you and your distant target at the same time. Through some experimentation I discovered that looking through only your left or right eye would make the crosshair appear to be to the left or right of where the bullet would actually hit. In the end if I did want to use the sniper rifle over any amount of distance I had to knock the 3D slider off while I took the shot and then remember to put it back up afterwards, which is what I believe the game should have done for you automatically. I don't know if it is possible to patch 3DS games but I would really like to see it fixed if I want to play it more in future.

Though I initially thought that the difficulty level of the game was pitched perfectly, I did eventually come across a very frustrating boss section. Without spoiling anything it involves chasing an enemy that can move through air ducts, which takes a huge amount of damage to put down. I was stuck here for a long time and while the start of this chase usually wasn't too difficult I would repeatedly struggle near the end and had no option to save when I'd done the first part particularly well. I might have found it difficult to keep playing if there wasn't the distraction of playing a couple of Raid mode missions beforehand to try and get into the right frame of mind to try it again. With hindsight it's not a particularly long section but at the time I was screaming out for a save point, even wondering whether I didn't actually have enough ammunition to complete it and if the game's auto-save system had screwed me without an earlier backup save. This section probably had my most recorded deaths as when I finally managed it, it still felt like a fluke and I wasn't prepared to restart it to try and do it perfectly.

My overriding complaint after finishing the whole game is that the pacing of it really went off the rails. It felt like about half way though it starts the traditional end-game sequence and then tries to continue this pace for the rest of the game. What was initially exciting just started to feel like "Oh God, is this ever going to end?". By comparison Resident Evil 4 is a much longer game but managed to feel fresh all the way through by making permanent moves to new locations and balancing the peaks and troughs of the action. Revelations just had too many sections that were "Run! No time to kill enemies or explore!" and having this approach before you'd even found the last keycard made it seem like all those locked areas near the start of the game were pointless as you weren't going to get the freedom to go and unlock them. This felt like a conflict with the fact that this seemed to be partially following the general pattern of the older Resident Evil games, but in those you would almost have free reign of the map before you entered the final 'secret lab' area.

This relentless pace then takes a nosedive at the end, with the most boring final boss I've seen in a long time. You spend what feels like 10 minutes chipping away at its health and avoiding predictable attack patterns, before it goes mental and uses almost unavoidable attacks that are bound to kill you on your first attempt. I eventually scraped through this section by sheer firepower and careful herb usage, I still don't really know how to knock him out of his last attack pattern quick enough. While this section may have wrapped up some story issues, I think the battle before this would have made for a more satisfying conclusion in an all out action kind of way.

As for the story, I was a little disappointed in it but unlike Assassin's Creed it does at least have some kind of revelations to it, even if they are mostly about this self contained story. I guess it just didn't especially seem like it fills in any really important gaps between RE4 and 5 but I cannot say for sure until I play 5. From what I understand, the events that directly lead to RE5 are already covered in the Lost in Nightmares DLC so I guess I will have to bite the bullet and pick up the gold edition, even if I only play it on the easiest difficulty setting or something. I feel like I have maybe had enough of the series cheesy B-movie dialogue too, which is funny considering that used to be part of its appeal. I guess it's always been the same but it's just starting to feel like fear and tension punctuated with lame one liners is a bit of a strange mix...

The future of game storytelling

I've read quite a few articles recently that have a negative outlook on the future of storytelling in games in one way or another. Either from the point of view that single player games aren't financially viable or just that story shouldn't be the focus of games in general. Given that part of the reason I set up this blog was taking more of an interest in the process of writing film scripts and how this can relate to games this initially seemed a little depressing. I also don't want to see the end of story based single player games personally but I sadly have to recognise that I'm probably no longer part of gaming's biggest market, with multiplayer modes almost never being a draw for me - unless they're local co-op.

However, I eventually got to thinking about whether the same point about telling stories could be levelled at films in a way. When you get down to it, sometimes the story in films is secondary to the visual style of it and can result in a more interesting final product than you would expect given the story (something that people have said about Drive from last year). And to contrast, a very thorough and faithful adaptation of a story that was originally a book can make for a very dull film. I think that films which can be looked upon as timeless classics are those that feel like film was the perfect medium to tell that story; that the direction and cinematography combine perfectly to create the whole package. A film that I've not seen but have often heard described this way is Citizen Kane and I think that when people say that we are still looking for the "Citizen Kane of videogames" that we could be misunderstanding what we are actually looking for.

So what does make a great story that can be told through a video game? I've been thinking back to one of my favourite games of the past ten years - Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. While it probably doesn't immediately stand out as having the most complex story, I feel that there are many aspects of it that fit so well within the format of a game. Released at the height of near film length cut-scenes in game series such as Metal Gear Solid, this stands out by having very few out of gameplay cut-scenes and instead focuses on building interest in the characters via their banter as the game goes on. There is also attention paid to the interactive and random nature of games, by having apologetic dialogue for when the Prince is accidentally shot by the AI controlled character Farah. This simple addition creates a moment of humour and a degree of personalisation to your journey through the game, when you could have quite easily found yourself irritated by the "dumb computer".

There are also parts of the story that make sense from both a narrative and gameplay aspect, like the section where you lose the dagger of time and therefore the ability to rewind when you make mistakes. This makes sense and doesn't feel forced from a story perspective while at the same time serves as a perfect way to challenge you to prove that you have mastered the game's core skills and can get through a section without that safety net. I felt that the final battle was a little weak but the rest of the ending is great, how it reveals that the Prince hasn't been breaking the fourth wall and talking directly to the player throughout the game, he's been relating his whole story to someone else. Again this is a great little touch that serves gameplay and story at the same time.

It seems slightly ironic that it went on to have a film adaptation, which I initially felt disappointed by how much the story had changed. I've come to realise that it would probably have been very difficult to transfer directly to film with just two characters navigating abandoned palaces. But I also almost felt insulted by some of the making of features about it, where those interviewed seemed to suggest that by default the film story would be better than the game. To me they seemed to be taking the opposite approach, with those involved in the film setting out to make something fun and entertaining but forgettable, when the game has clearly been so memorable to me. This is despite the fact that I don't think the game is perfect by a long shot - it has its flaws but it's still something that I will quite happily come back to and play through every couple of years or so.

Going back to those initial articles though, the other harsh question you have to ask is whether any of this helps to make a game more financially viable in the long run? While there has been a recent HD port of Sands of Time for the PS3 I've not heard great things about it, in terms of it losing some of the filters and graphical touches that were part of its original charm. Given that I don't own a PS3 myself I'm happy enough to replay my Gamecube version via the Wii and would probably advise anyone else to do the same. This again feeds into the problem of pre-owned sales, given that if I want to buy an old film or album I can be pretty sure that I can walk into HMV and pick up or order a copy (though I might baulk at the price) whereas for classic video games my only real option is eBay after a couple of years. Digital distribution of better HD remakes I think will certainly help, even if there will always be a subset of people who will complain about textures/models that aren't updated.

I'm not sure I really have a clear answer to this question but if we're still going to see single player only story based games, they're going to have to cost less to make in the first place. I think that we will have no choice but to move away from the expensive process of trying to emulate films and look to what the real strengths of video games are. At the end of the day, interactivity is always going to be a big part of it and I think that it doesn't always have to be big game changing decisions like Mass Effect, which must take a lot of effort to plan out. Sometimes I think Prince of Persia's example of catering for the random occurrences in games can help you to have your own personal story to tell about your experience with a game, something which is mentioned in that Edge article. If we are happier to tell people about a few laps from Mario Kart than the main plot of a game I think this shows that the more personal a game can feel to you the better.