I recently took part in the 2nd Beta of Turbine’s Lord of the Rings Online. This was my first run as a beta tester, and I have to say that at that point it was fairly polished. I’ve since been accepted into the public beta (3) but haven’t logged in yet, and the main reason for that is my graphics card. Even playing the game on the lowest graphics setting I still have a MAJOR lag problem.

The few times I amped it up to full bore, however, I was gob-smacked by the lush environments. Possibly in line with the depth of Tolkien’s Middle Earth mythos Turbine have decided to avoid the cartoon stylings of something like World of Warcraft in favour of going for a super-realistic aesthetic and, as far as the environments go, they have succeeded magnificently. You’ve only got to log onto one of the umpteen fan fora around to hear enthusiastic excurses on the water ripples of Eriador.

When it comes to character design, however, things are less wonderful. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it’s a failure, but once that word is out there there’s not a lot I can do about it (sorry, Turbine). The faces are Everquest-ly bland, and the lack of bright colours due to the realist aesthetic make everything a bit drab. Admittedly, I felt the same about the ugly humans in Warcraft when I first got it, but soon learned things looked different in-game. Perhaps the same will happen for LOTRO.

There’s also the problem of choosing race: the options available are male or female Human, male or femael Elf, male or female Hobbit, or Dwarf (this last on account of the fact that Tolkien’s dwarfs – his plural, not ours – are bearded whether they’re male or female, leaving little difference for gameplay). Having decided that gameplay is going to be heroic, Turbine (who have rights to use material from both the books and the films – something no previous Middle Earth video game has had) have excluded the option to play as any of Sauron’s minions. After the player’s character reaches Level 10 there is the option to play as a minion of Sauron for a limited time which constitutes the games PvP content, although as I have not played the PvP content I cannot really comment on the mechanics other than saying I couldn’t be bothered getting my lvl 10 dwarf to Bree in order to access it.

This limitation may be nicely in keeping with Tolkien’s sentiments, but limits an already severly limited franchise even further. Tolkien’s Middle Earth stories may have effectively started the Fantasy genre and its susequent MMO evolution, but it is relatively late to the game itself and has been left few trappings to appear original. People are deservedly weary of sword and spell MMOs, and its extensive mythos has impaired it in ways other franchises are not. In Tolkien, for instance, there are only a handful of wizards in history, whereas in other MMOs there are as many as there are players who create them. While this keeps an encounter with a wizard a special occasion and prevents the streets of Rivendell from being clogged with them, it removes a key attraction from MMOs: freedom. When I play Warcraft I can be made to feel that I am changing the course of Azeroth’s history, a sense that is capitalised upon in the Burning Crusade and its new races. Those who have read Tolkien, however, will probably know how Middle Earth’s history turns out in the end (at least the Third Age). While this still leaves room for the accomplishments of unknown heroes, the suspension of disbelief is that much harder when 90% of people you encounter are other such heroes, most likely 30 levels more accomplished than you and replete with shiny mounts.

The HUD and general interface will be familiar to Warcraft players, and indeed seems to be modelled on it to be accessible to defecting players. The crafting system is interesting as any profession is composed of three subsidiary crafts that overlap with other professions, although some things need to be worked out before launch: during beta 2 there was no beginners’ forge in Thurin’s Hall (the dwarf city). All in all however it seemed like a decent MMO, if a little disappointing to someone who saw the coming wave of licenced mythoi (LOTRO, Age of Conan and, to a lesser extent, Warhammer Online) as the antidote to our addiction to Warcrack. I feel unable to give a proper evaluation, however, without playing it for considerably longer on a machine that can handle the lovely landscapes.

Previous coverage:
LOTR beta baby

A friend and I went to see the Night in Fantasia: Symphonic Games Edition orchestral performance of video game scores the other night at Sydney Town Hall, having seen the Eminence orchestra at the Sydney Conservatorium last December for their “Passion“ performance. Eminence are a group of Con kids who are obviously avid video game and Anime fans, and state they established the ensemble to introduce gamers to the world of classical music. Their Passion show was a sampler of such work, including selections from both video game and Anime scores, as well as Brahms’ ‘Hungarian Dance’ and Saint-Saëns’ ‘Danse Macabre’. Not being as avid a fan of Anime as some, I was particularly eager to see that they had split their popular Night in Fantasia show into dedicated games and Anime shows.

As with the Passion show several of the game scores featured were from Japanese games never unreleased in the Western world, let alone little old Australia. The organisers’ obvious fetish for performing music from the Chrono (Trigger) series may be due to an intention to educate us to virtues of the game, which is fine, but I’d say I’m not alone in the audience for wanting to hear music from the games they know and love performed by a large symphony. The popularity of their John Williams show alone is testament to their audiences’ love of something familiar. Even when the scores were from games familiar to Australians, often more obscure pieces were chosen (I don’t think I recognised a single part of their World of Warcraft medley).

This orchestra was much larger than the Con show, and featured a choir and use of the Town Hall pipe organ (*bliss!*) although, while I’m not sure how much of the concert hall is acoustic and how much is amplified, there seemed to a problem with the organ being drowned out by the other instruments. It was also nice to see a screen behind the orchestra that played clips from the games the scores were in. As with previous performances the evening’s guests included several video game composers from Japan, and this is possibly the source of my criticism. Don’t get me wrong: I think it’s terrific that they’d come all the way out here and, in some cases, take part in performing their work; and the people from Eminence are hardly obscure fanboys. Their eminence (sorry, I couldn’t resist) has seen them chosen to perform the soundtrack to the new Anime series Romeo X Juliet.

The problem arises from the fact that their presence seems to dictate in part the choices for the set list. It seems almost as if in order to honour each guest 2 or 3 pieces of games they’ve worked on are performed and, when you’ve got 7 guests as there was the other night, that’s pretty much the whole show. As there was no pen on hand I didn’t get a chance to fill out a feedback form this time (yes, you can’t even escape them during a night at the symphony), but if I’d had the chance I’d have drawn attention to this. There’s also the fact that while they pretty much kept to what was on the original promotional poster, I’m sure I saw a newer one at Kinokuniya that claimed Matt Uelmen (of Diablo and Burning Crusade fame) was going to be present. He wasn’t. *sigh*

All in all I probably won’t be rushing out for tickets to the next Eminence night, although that has more to do with a lack of variety extending to things familiar to me than any question of quality. The orchestra is skilled and professional; they just might benefit from a little more variety. I hear it’s the spice of life.

I’ve left quite some time between finishing the game and writing a review, as I agreed with myself that I would do it after I’d read and written sufficient speculation on the official forum. I should probably also disclose at this point the baggage I bring to this game: I have been the moderator of a fan forum for this game since well before it came out, and am the regular contribtor to several other boards dedicated to the game, including a wiki. So, with my nerdentials out of the way…

When The Longest Journey was released in 1999 it was to much acclaim. A traditional 2D point-and-click Adventure, TLJ was something of a swansong for the much-talked-about death of what was one of the most popular genres in the early-to-mid 90′s. The story of one girl in the 23rd century and her discovery of a world of fantasy – Arcadia – parallel to our own world of technology – Stark, and subsequent quest to stop the implosion of these two worlds was popular with both critics and gamers. The announcement back in February 2003 that writer/directory Ragnar Tornquist would be revisiting Stark and Arcadia was greeted with universal hope – a hope that was shortly followed by apprehension. Would he sell-out and commercialise it? Would he fall into the much-hated “Action Adventure” trap that so many other games had?

Fans were able to keep track of development by Tornquist’s blog, where he tried to allay their fears of the announced action elements by coining the various genres “Modern Adventure” and “Thriller“, insisting that action was necessary to lend an air of urgency to the game. This is a valid point, and the same thing was recently experimented with in Fahrenheit and its timer on actions. The action in Dreamfall is pretty much just combat and stealth, and while the latter is integrated fairly seamlessly into the game the combat is via extremely intrusive cut-scenes and painfully clumsy. To some degree the attempted urgency brought on by these is successful, although many people were in fact overly frustrated by some of the more difficult sections of the game. This lead to a general anxiety that stuck with the player for the entire game, and also one of the main criticisms made: that the little observations made by protagonist April Ryan in TLJ were absent from Dreamfall. They were, in fact, there: it was just that one felt compelled to rush through the game by the urgency and subsequently missed them. A replay of the game, aware of the where the action sections are and when to be relaxed, can be much more leisurely and the observations are indeed there. This is one aspect of game development that could be either viewed as a failure or a success, depending on your point of view.

Tornquist was also at pains to avoid the word “sequel”, going instead with the apparently more neutral term “spiritual successor“. (He has since retracted any distinction.) The aim was to produce a game that newcomers to the series could pick up and not have to worry about missing anything. While this is generally true, one or two parts would be difficult (at best meaningless) without knowledge of TLJ: I think in particular of April’s disputed status as a “Wave”. We have since been told that Dreamfall is the second chapter in a much longer saga and, indeed, it is a story without an end in immediate sight. This is a point that has been argued on Tornquist’s blog and on the official forum, and neither camp looks set to concede defeat. For myself, the claim that the game was concluded “thematically” is at best partial. Analogies to films that end on a cliffhanger (i.e. the second of a trilogy) seem to me forced: at the time of release we were under no other impression than that what we were getting was a stand-alone game. To push the anaolgy further, comparisons with a television series are equally artificial. One knows an individual episode will be followed by another, so cliffhanger endings are warranted. They are also appropriate at the end of a series if the show is syndicated for another year following; but the best shows wrap up all their story threads at the end of the year. I feel I should at the very least give a warning: caveat ludor (‘player beware’ – sorry, sometimes I can’t help myself): this game ends on a “cliffhanger”.

Another fear was that the PC version of the game would be rushed out, and all care would be given to the Xbox version. While this may not have been true for graphics, it was certainly true of the controls for PC: the x-axis was inverted as default. This may sound trivial, and you can indeed remedy this problem with a simple change in Options; but for a good minute or so there at the beginning you are left feeling confused and frustrated at this lack of consideration. Suffice to say, it does not make for the best first impression.

The graphics are, indeed, lovely. The PC version can stretch up to quite a nice level of detail – much better than the Xbox’s settings, obviously. But while the locations are beautifully rendered, some of the character models are pretty dodgy. Main character Zoe Castillo has arms that make her look anorexic on account of an over-muscled shiny skin that wants to give her slender upper arm defined triceps; thankfully she covers up for most of the game because of chillier temperatures than her home in Casablanca. Also, most of the male character models seem to have had far less time spent on them than the females: Zoe’s ex Reza has bizarrely featureless features. That’s to say nothing of the white dragon’s teeth…

But these are the criticisms of an anticipatory fan: what about those who were new to the series, and had no expectations that required living up to? It may be one-sided (in that those who did not enjoy it are unlikely to post), but some of the most glowing reviews on the official forum come from those who have not played TLJ. This does not necessarily indicate that TLJ is better: just that TLJ fans (who might be considered synonymous with Adventure fans) had expectations they did not feel were lived up to. The best indicator would be in sales, but I can only speak for what I’ve seen Australia. The marketing of the game here was non-existant, and none of the staff at EB, Games Wizards or Harvey Norman had any idea when the game was due until it was actually on the shelves. You were lucky if there was one copy on display, and within a week or two the price had been dropped to $49.95 (RRP was variously $69.95 and $79.95). I guess we’ll know how well it did if they announce another game in the series.

But all this is not representative of how I feel about Dreamfall. The game is really quite terrific in all its flawed beauty. Is it better than TLJ? I don’t think I can answer that. TLJ may be better as a complete package, but Dreamfall has an immersive charm that keeps it in the stakes as a contender. I think the only balanced review of this game could be done by someone who hasn’t already visited Arcadia in TLJ. So I’ll just shut up now.

Interactive Cinema as a genre rose and fell in the early to mid 90′s, with (infamous) titles such as Dragon’s Lair and Cyberwar that gave you superior graphics at the expense of gameplay – requiring you simply to press Left or Right at the correct moment occasionally. Now wacky Frenchman David Cage of Quantic Dream has made his attempt to resurrect the genre with Fahrenheit.

In their previous outing Omikron: The Nomad Soul (1999), Quantic Dream employed instead “Sandbox” (I hate that definition) style gameplay for their “immersive experience”: cutting the player loose in the city of an alternate dimension. Now they’ve changed their tack to Interactive Cinema (to read their gaming manifesto in handy point-form click here), although they still utilise their motion-capture studio to its fullest.

Being a big fan of Nomad Soul (as it was named out here in Aus), I’d been awaiting the sequel (which has just gone back into development) for some time; until it was put on hold indefinitely to complete their new project Fahrenheit. This game looked promising enough, especially with the interesting idea of playing it from multiple (often directly opposing) viewpoints; each bundled as a separate episodic module to be released (roughly) monthly – to give it the feel of a television series. Various things conspired against Quantic Dream, and the episodic structure was abandoned, as well as their original publisher. That it came out at all is miraculous to say the least; to be successful at all is the icing on the cake.

Nomad Soul was criticised for trying to be all things to all men: it attempted to integrate several genres into one (Adventure; FPS; Fighting), leaving adherents of each genre unsatisfied. While Cage would no doubt try to defy categorisation of Fahrenheit under anything but “Interactive Cinema”, the game has been all but offically adopted by the Adventure genre and community. It might best be viewed as one of several possible new directions for the ailing genre to take.

It starts out promisingly enough, beginning with a cinematic sweep over New York City with the main character providing voice-over that sounds slightly cheesy, but not unforgivably so. The first scene is suitably gritty, not to mention tense. The primary innovation on the branching dialogue trees typical of Adventure games is that there is a time limit to your choices, so everything you do is given an urgency, but unfortunately this urgency isn’t always appropriate. From ‘level’ to ‘level’ you are given the option of controlling any one of the 3 main characters (not 4, despite what the game promises – if you’re going to include Marcus’ tiny part then why not also The Oracle’s, making 5?), however this choice is seemingly illusory, as all must be completed to advance. (This might not be entirely true, I’ve only played it through once, and it’s possible that you might be able to skip less important sections depending on the choices you make.)

And this is another claim the game makes for innovation: that the branching storyline choices provide for alternate endings. The autosave feature (which is activated virtually every scene) means that you cannot really create multiple savegames on the one playthrough to make different choices; instead, you must play the whole game through to see the different story branches (although it seems it may be possible to circumvent this feature with the help of a little inventiveness).

Somewhere around the middle of the game, the complexity and pace of the story speed up dramatically and, unfortunately, bottom-out somewhat. One is left with the feeling that this is the result of abandoning the episodic structure in favour of a single ‘feature’. It seems that the story from this point was written, but not yet fleshed-out, and any subsequent ‘fleshing-out’ was cursory to say the least. The relationship between the two main characters is never really developed, and when it climaxes there are definite titters to be heard from the ‘audience’.

This may not be a result of rushed development, however, and may instead just be bad writing. The same accusation can be made of the bizarre love-twist finale to Nomad Soul; indeed many elements of that game are included in Fahrenheit. At times it feels like someting of a ‘Best-Of’ reel of things from Nomad Soul (in the same sense that some of the best gags in Shaun of the Dead were just rehashed from Spaced), and certain story elements (such as the aforementioned relationship) come across as rather farcical. Come to think of it, there are more farcical elements than just the storyline: for instance, Afro-American character Tyler Miles is always accompanied by a funky, porn-ish soundtrack, even during the darker moments of the story.

That said, the awesomeness of the soundtrack is truly revealed upon unlocking it as one of the easter eggs (which is what those coupons you pickup through out the game are for), besides which it makes for some damned funny gaming. The downtime scenes such as where where the same character has a basketball shoot-out with a colleague to avoid paying back the 100 bucks he owes him is equally cool, as well as when the two cops have a spar in the gym.

I bought it on PS2 rather than PC, as for several years Adventure games had been simultaneously released on PC and console, and I’d never tried the console versions. Given that the controls were usually geared towards those platforms, it was worth a try. The graphics were decent for PS2, but not suitably improved from Nomad Soul to impress me overmuch. Everything is muted by the grainy filter and subdued colour palette, and this serves to disguise the lower level of detail: I’d be interested to see what the X-Box and PC versions look like. The motion-capture, however, has not improved enough since 1999, and the models still tend to exaggerate all their movements. Thankfully, characters no longer only mime wielding objects (as in Nomad Soul), and are now provided with appropriate props.

The control system has been discussed at length elsewhere; suffice it for me to say that my biggest criticism of it is that it means you can only watch the action set-pieces of the game in your peripheral vision, and most of them aren’t unlockable as easter eggs. This can be slightly annoying, as they’re quite spectacular in a Matrix-y sort of way. Indeed, the game manages to fall on the right side of the very fine line between homage and plagiarism/derivativeness; a fall that always seems to be inexplicable. Oh, and the sex-scene that was cut from the US release ISN’T interactive, at least in the Australian version. Or maybe I just hadn’t made the right story-branch decisions earlier …

This is a game that every serious Adventure gamer (and they all take themselves a bit seriously, don’t they?) should play, if only to see one possible trajectory their beloved genre may take. It’s also part of the gaming vanguard where developers are trying to make games for people who don’t usually play them (see the above-linked manifesto). Interesting stuff; watch this space.

Just bought/played/finished Another Code: Two Memories, from unknown Japanese developer Cing, known in other territories as Trace Memory. Being something of a closet Adventure gamer (I’m still in the closet!), I just had to have this when I saw it was coming out. Its pretty manga aesthetic (and I say manga and not anime because most of the pretty images are stills) and cosy gameplay make for some enjoyable playing.

The majority of gameplay is from a top-down (yet 3D-rendered) view, and you drag protagonist Ashley through the woods and rooms of Blood Edward Island with the stylus: not as annoying as it sounds. Puzzles see the view switch to 1st person, and it is usually at this point that this view comes up on the touch screen and you can affect the object with the stylus – or microphone depending on the puzzle (the one puzzle where you blow the dust off an old painting is bizarrely satisfying).

The majority of the game takes place in a dilapidated mansion that was the scene of death and jealousy, in the company of a young boy’s ghost. All of this should spell out “haunted”, but take the creepiness out of a haunted house, and you’ll end up with something like the Edwards’ mansion here. There’s probably about 6 hours of relaxed gameplay here (provided you don’t get stuck on the obligatory illogical adventure game puzzle), and replay value is added (so I’ve been told) with the unlocking of an easter egg after the credits and added content upon recommencement of the game. I’d recommend anyone buy it, if it didn’t cost $69.95. As such, I will only recommend it to anyone who likes Adventure games or manga. This last category should include everyone anyway.

Got the new pink DS on the day it was released! It was packaged with the Nintendogs of one’s choice: Chihuahua and Friends, Lab and Friends, and Dachshund und Freunds (just kidding). All the other dogs can be unlocked theoretically. Some require luck in finding certain items, most require winning lots of money in competitions.

I got Lab and Friends but the nice guy at EB threw in the cover of the demo Chihuahua because the (real) dog on it is sooo cute.

It’s only early days now, but I’ve taught my Elliott how to sit, lie down, shake, wave (like shake only higher up), play dead, roll over, play (shakes his bum – so cute!), jump and back flip (get it to jump when it’s sitting). It doesn’t have the most advanced voice recognition so if anything has an “a” in it, it thinks it’s saying “shake”. Apparently the trick is to use two or three words for your tricks but I’m not that creative. When your pet does actually respond correctly, it is strangely rewarding. And patting the little fellow, surprisingly, doesn’t get boring. It is so apparently happy and responsive (if you pat it enough, you can get little imaginary bones that the dog will eat) that it so hits the soft spot like a real animal.

On the first weekend home with my Nintendogs I also had to look after a real life Golden Retriever puppy. She ended up have a severe allergic reaction to an insect bite and had to be driven to the emergency vet at midnight which ended up costing more than the DS. Even before that incident, I was wanting her to go home so I could play with my Nintendog.

Heady from the excitement generated from Syberias 1 (2002) & 2 (2003), developer Microïds has moved on to the similarly astonishing Still Life. Continuing their extraordinary talent for innovation and genre-blurring, Microïds have mixed together both ‘point’ AND ‘click’ in a stunning combination, sure to revolutionise the usually conservative genre of Adventure gaming.

Now we all know that Adventure fans are generally backwards-looking; considering gaming to have reached its apex in the early to mid-90′s Lucasarts games of lore. 2D graphic adventures are ‘where it’s at’, in case you didn’t know, and anyone who tries to revitalise the dead genre (and by “revitalising the dead genre” I mean tweaking it to sell to people other than the core fanbase who’ve been playing them since the 90′s anyway) by, I don’t know, doing something new (“Eew! He said a dirty word!”) is to be spat upon as the corporate sell-out he truly is.

It’s because of people like that we end up with games like Microïds insists on making. Games like Syberia and Still Life, that appear to adhere slavishly to the genre introducing nothing new, and instead going backwards. What annoys me most about such slavishness is that the genre of Adventure games is so damned stunted because it is supposed to sacrifice everything in the interests of a good story. Microïds’ games, however, bizarrely lauded on account of “character development” (surely impossible without first the employment of “character”), are some of the worst writing seen in years. Syberia was perhaps an interesting idea that was unfortunately told in a most uninteresting fashion: over two long games. When I first began playing I was frustrated by the length of time everything took to accomplish. Moving from one screen to another was carried out by Kate Walker’s snail-paced meander or, alternatively, her snail-pace trot. Unlike games such as The Longest Journey, there was no option to hold down the Esc button to speed up the process and, as puzzles often required you to retrace quite a bit of the ground covered, this was extremely annoying. But I must come back to the actually writing itself and ask the question: why tell the story over two games? It’s not like a lot of the intervening filler was anything more than that – filler. We could have been saved the time (and money), and gotten through it in one game, if Sokal had ever heard of a little thing called ‘editing’ or, better yet, ‘re-writing’. But no, his game was perfect from the first.

Similarly, Still Life is some of the worst writing I have ever seen. Starring new character Victoria McPherson and her grandfather PI Gustav McPherson (star of Microïds’ Post-Mortem, which I have not yet played), we revisit boring and offensive stereotypes we thought had died long ago. Supposedly spunky Vic Mac begins the game by bringing everyone at the crime scene a cup of coffee, and later she slides into fluffy slippers and makes her dad a batch of grandma’s cookies (a particularly annoying puzzle) which he then eats all of. The first officer she meets at the scene is an Afro-American, who speaks like a white minstrel and swears more than any other character in the game.

Speaking of swearing, in my online adventures in adventure game forum-posting I have discovered an unusual quirk: adventure gamers have an intolerance of colourful language. Now this may be explained away simply as ingrained American Puritanism (the country founded on dissident religious extremism as it is), but undoubtedly in this game it would be accepted as in keeping with the painfully gritty ‘atmosphere’. It’s a paradox I don’t think I’ll ever understand.
So the writing is terrible, which doesn’t even begin to go into the derivativeness of it all. The atmosphere is Se7en, the story is a mix of Jack the Ripper and Gabriel Knight (right down to going through Granddad’s trunk in the attic – but not before solving an unnecessarily puzzling lock), and to commit a crime of spoiling: there isn’t an ending! We have to bloody wait until the next game which – not because they’re good games, but because it will be one of the only 2d Graphic Adventure games released that year – the core fanbase will buy.

What I don’t understand about the Adventure genre is that there has been a growing underground movement for some time that produces games in the style fans know and love, a kind of online security blanket, that they can download for free. But they still bemoan the lack of games they can buy in their favourite (only) genre. I know this adventure fan, because I… *shudder* I used to be one.

And no doubt I’ll buy Still Life 2: Animated Life. *sigh*

Having just recently bough a GBA SP (the limited edition gold Zelda one!), I thought I’d get a game my girlfriend would also like to play (she now has a ltd ed. Pokémon Emerald one herself), and she suggested Warioware: Twisted!, presumably in preparation for the DS and copy of Warioware: Touched! she plans to buy in a month or so, presumably in preparation for the Australian release of Nintendogs.

Despite the annoying bulge the cart comes with (only adding to Wario’s burlesque persona) that makes it hard to store, this game is ‘fun’ with a ‘ph’ (i.e. ‘phun’). The bulge is a necessary part of the game’s twist mechanism, which imbues it with the ability to respond to your turning the GBA like a little steering wheel (indeed, this would be an awesome mechanism to exploit the unconscious gamepad-turning people employ when playing driving games).

In typical Warioware fashion, this feature is used to assist you in a series of minigames, involving such gems as shaving a man’s face, ironing a shirt, or dunking a basketball. As the game progresses you may need to also employ the depression of the A button in combination with this feature. There is a slight “rumble” feature that adds to the tactility of the overall game experience (although it is so small it should be called ‘rattle’). Each level has a different feel, and allows you to unlock “souvenirs” that are usually non-game oriented (such as sawing a violin for no better reason than shits and giggles). Once an area is finished and the next one unlocked, you can also replay an area to up the high score there.

I say: bring on more games with twisting! I say: bring on Warioware: Touched!, and the Brave New World of gaming it ushers in! I say: steal my driving game idea, but give me a whole lot of money!

I picked up KOTOR for $19.95 the other day at EB and, I have to say, the graphics aren’t quite as good as I remember them. In contrast KOTOR2, while maintaining the look of the KOTOR universe, is a vast improvement.

Some things I forgot to mention about KOTOR2. 1) Some of the menu layout is much better than KOTOR. For instance: inventory management in KOTOR was organised according to a bizarre taxonomy (you could organise according to recently acquired items, etc.). 2) KOTOR had a feeling (perhaps somewhat illogical) that most things you were encountering in the game were new to the characters: alien races, planets, technology, and so on. This proved immensely satisfying for Star Wars nerds such as myself (“Ohmigod, Tattooine is barely colonised?!”). This wide-eyed innocence is lost in the second game: everything is old hat and nothing is explained. It makes a hell of a lot more narrative sense, but I miss that naïvete. 3) There is a y-axis, when you hold down the right mouse button. 4) The writing really is excellent.

Just reading back over my last post, it does come out a little more vitriolic than I intended. Don’t get me wrong, I stand by everything I said. It’s just a little one-sided in its representation of my opinion on the mag is all.

I’m not really jealous of American magazines, they suck almost as much as ours (not quite as much, because they at least have original copy); but I am envious of the UK because they have Edge. Why can’t we have a decent mag out here in Aus? I’ll ignore the Australian edition of Edge: I mean, who wants regurgitated UK content a month after it comes out (besides, obviously, readers of Australian GamesTM)? I’ll pay exorbitant air-freight prices, thank  you very much.

There’s a challenge for you JBTN: give us something like/better-than Edge.