Life Ain't A Game

Videogames exist in a strange universe. No matter how different two games may seem, you’ll always find common rules that link the two – like Forza 4 and Prince of Persia sharing a rewind function, for example. Now imagine if our world was governed by those rules. Would it be better? Or worse? In this feature I take a look at real life through a skewed lens, and ponder what it would be like to live in a world governed by the rules of the videogame.  

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - "The Borderwatch" (Fan Fiction)

Loredas, 5.50 p.m., 15^th Last Seed, 4E 201

Northern Cyrodiil

 

I never did care for the taste of blood in my mouth.

When the Imperial bastard with the gap-tooth grin and nervous twitch struck me again, I ignored the sting of impact that lanced my frozen cheek and spat a long plume of bloody saliva across his leather boot. He cursed, long and loud – something about feeding me to a frost troll – and raised his hand for a third strike. I glared at him, willing him to do it, to stoke my rage just a little more – but the officer behind me intervened.

Made of Win or Straight to Bin... Dark Souls

A lot of games split opinion on launch; even more split opinion during the pre-release hype when judgement is passed purely on leaked screens, hollow publisher PR waffle and the pedigree of the developer. In my new feature, Made of Win or Straight to Bin, I’ll attempt to balance the arguments for and against the biggest incoming games by presenting the five best reasons to be excited and not so excited about their release. First up is incoming dungeon crawler, Dark Souls.

2009’s Demon’s Souls is an awesome game, but upon release it divided the PS3 community down the middle with its contrast of incredible gameplay and knuckle-whitening difficulty. This October, From Software launch the “spiritual successor”, Dark Souls, as a multiplatform title and are hoping to recapture the same sense of online community and hardcore respect as they did with Demon’s Souls. But will it be any good? Let’s have a look…

Why I Don't Mind Batting for Both Teams (Figuratively Speaking...)

I’ve been a self-confessed Xbox “fanboy” (as much as I hate the term “fanboy”) for a good nine years, ever since I borrowed my uncle’s console and a copy of Halo while he buggered off to Tenerife for a fortnight. Two weeks and three playthroughs later, and my Playstation One went over the trade-in counter quicker than a copy of BMX XXX.

Torchlight Review - Xbox Live Arcade

TORCHLIGHT

Formats: Xbox 360 (XBLA)

Format Reviewed: XBLA
Publisher: Microsoft

Developer: Runic Games
Release Date: 9th March 2011
Score: 92%


Given that I haven’t played the PC version of Runic Game’s Diablo-aping hack ‘n’ slash RPG, I’m going to go ahead and write this review as if you haven’t, either, and fill you on background information that you may or may not need.

Runic Games was founded in 2008 by several of the leading team members from Blizzard North, the company behind the original Diablo. Released on PC in 1996, this point & click action RPG is often cited as responsible for creating the modern dungeon-crawler and as a result, almost 15 years on, Torchlight is a very similar beast to its illustrious ancestor.

It follows the same hub-world structure, with all the action based around the titular town of Torchlight, a mining boomtown located above a network of deep caves rich with a magic-producing material known as Ember. Adventurers and treasure-seekers come from all over the world hoping to make their fortune in Torchlight, and your player characters are no different. In fact, almost immediately upon strolling into town you’re approached by Syl, a young sage apprenticed to Master Alric, a powerful mage who has disappeared somewhere in the mines, and given the task of hunting him down.

Which is pretty much it, as far as the storyline goes: enter the mines, discover Alric’s fate, save the town – all whilst hammering the face buttons and collecting obscene amounts of randomised loot. So far, so Diablo, right? But the simple truth is that this is not a bad thing. Diablo was a spectacular game for its time that still manages to be playable now (its sequel even more so) and Torchlight succeeds in taking all the very best bits of that series and slapping a new coat of shiny modern paint on them.

The characters available are varied enough to warrant two or three playthroughs, which is hardly an issue anyway when the kill-loot-level mechanics at work are so addictive. First up is the Destroyer (see “Warrior”, in any other game) a close-quarters powerhouse whose talents involve heavy-hitting melee attacks, battlecries and AoE stuns. Next is the Vanquisher, a sultry little vixen and Torchlight’s example of a Rogue, able to lay traps, use ranged weapons to devastating effect and pile on the DPS nice and thick. And finally, the Alchemist is the Mage class, wielding offensive or defensive spells and buffs alongside ranged attacks. Each class has three talent trees available to them, containing so many options that you’re unlikely to touch on a considerable number of them in one play.

Each dungeon is assembled from building blocks upon entering, meaning that it’s not often you’ll see the same crystal-lit cavern or overgrown abyss twice in a row, adding to the replayability and seriously buffering the potential boredom factor. Loot is randomised, too, dropping all over the damn place from low-level foes, sparkly chests and hundreds of little pots that might well be worth a fortune before you smash your axe through them to get to the few gold pieces or old skull cap at the bottom.

But for the best equipment you’ll need to complete quests assigned by the townsfolk or defeat the randomly generated bosses that turn up all over the place, and which are usually just a larger version of something you’ve already been fighting with a silly, pulled-out-of-a-hat fantasy name like Turkeywarbler the Unmentionable (okay, I made that up, but if you’ve played Torchlight you’ll know I’m not far off the mark). With various item sets to please the rampant completionist in you there’s plenty to keep you adventuring – and if you get too heavy with the loot you can always send your trusty pet back to the surface to sell it all for you.

The pets initially come in three varieties: wolf, lynx or weird lizard-chicken thing, but if you fish at the waterholes dotted around you can feed the catch to your animal buddy to temporarily change their appearance and abilities. Beyond that, it’s hard to say much more about the gameplay – it is what it is. But that’s not to say it isn’t highly addictive and incredibly charming. Always looking for the next great drop or pushing for the next level and the skill you can’t wait to use on the scores of enemies rucking towards you is like crack to genre-fans, and Torchlight delivers in spades.

There are a few criticisms, however. For one, the lack of a New Game+ mode has angered some of the Diablo purists out there who feel that it hamstrings the longevity, but in all fairness, Diablo 2’s New Game+ mode was really the same game again with higher stats. On occasion the frame rate will stutter, a bad guy might end up stuck in a wall and from time to time the larger spells are so screen-fillingly devastating that you can’t actually see what’s going on – but these quibbles are minor. Of more importance is that fact that on anything less than Hard difficulty, this will be a walk in the park for anyone familiar with dungeon-crawlers.

But none of these niggles detract from the colourful, exciting and endearing charm of this old school adventure. Recommended for fans of kill-loot-level games only (as anyone else will probably wonder what all the fuss is about after an hour or two of play) Torchlight is 1996 dressed up in 2011, and all the more likeable for it.

Words by Mick Fraser

Crackdown 2 - Xbox 360 Review

CRACKDOWN 2

Formats: Xbox 360, PS3, PC

Format Reviewed: Xbox 360

Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios

Developer; Ruffian Games

Release Date: 9th July 2010

Score: 85%

Back in 2007 when Crackdown was released, most people knew it simply as “that game what came free with the Halo 3 beta”. It was what they like to refer to as a “sleeper hit”, sidling into the market on the back of Microsoft’s biggest Xbox cashcow and taking everyone by surprise by actually not sucking at all. To be fair, it was the fact that Realtime Worlds’ little gem was really a rough diamond that endeared us all to it. It didn’t feel big budget, it didn’t feel pretentious, it was just a game that let you blow stuff up, jump over buildings and become addicted to collecting hundreds of little orbs. It never claimed to be anything else, and as a result was one of 2007’s best games and remains one of the 360’s most enjoyable breakout hits.

Two Worlds - Xbox 360 Review

TWO WORLDS

Formats: Xbox 360, PC

Format Reviewed: Xbox 360

Publisher: SouthPeak Interactive

Developer: Reality Pump

Release Date: 9th May 2007

Score: 52%

I'm not much of a psychologist, but if there is one thing I know about the human condition, it's this: anyone can be made to believe anything. All it really takes is confidence, a few false promises and a large dose of hype. This is something that developers Reality Pump must know all too well, having somehow managed to convince the game-playing world that they were preparing to release an epic RPG masterpiece with Two Worlds...