Tag: game reviews

#oneaday Day 800: Some interesting games I've covered

One of the things I've always been fond of doing over on my other website, MoeGamer, is covering games that don't get much (or any) attention elsewhere — be they brand new or old and crusty. So today, in celebration of 800 daily posts, I thought I would point you at a selection of games that you might not have heard of, and the things I have written about them. Doesn't that sound nice? Doesn't that sound like it'll give you a nice range of things to read on the toilet? I know you're reading this on the toilet!

In no particular order…

First up, here's my writeup on Lapis x Labyrinth, a thoroughly unusual game from Nippon Ichi that blends elements of platformer, action RPG, arena combat game, shoot 'em up and pachinko. (Don't worry, there's no actual gambling or microtransactions.) It's an incredibly compulsive game that knows how very appealing it is when you do something in a game and things explode into a shower of shiny things. Narrative-wise it's almost completely forgettable, but in terms of presentation and particularly gameplay, it's a wonderful thing indeed, and highly recommended if you want to play something quite unlike anything else you have experienced.

Next up, here's a look at Root Letter, a visual novel/adventure game hybrid that I once described as "Ace Attorney for the over-30s", and very much stand by that description. It's a thoroughly compelling mystery story with some spooky elements, and does a great job at juxtaposing the energy and optimism of youth with the glum reality of early middle age. I still have not yet played the expanded version of this which adds the option to replace the hand-drawn artwork with photographic stills; I think probably enough time has elapsed between me playing the original version and now that I can (and should!) give it a go, given that it's on my shelf, and has been for quite some time.

Dragon Quest V is not what I'd exactly call an "unknown" game, but this piece which I wrote on the game's treatment of fatherhood — specifically, as experienced by a child, and how I related it to my own life experiences and memories of family life as a child — remains something that I'm very pleased with. I was emotionally invested in the subject matter, and I think that came across in what I wrote. I'm sure the things I describe will be familiar to at least some of you.

Here's a piece on Criminal Girls, a thoroughly interesting — and oft-misrepresented — role-playing game in which you take on the role of a jailer in Hell, tasked with leading a group of "delinquent" girls on the path to getting a second chance at life and a chance of "redemption" from their "sins". The game explores matters of trust both in its narrative and, quite remarkably, through its mechanics, making it a thoroughly interesting example of how a game's thematic elements are woven throughout the entire fabric of the game rather than simply used as set dressing.

Here's a piece on Namco's Star Ixiom, a game from the company's PlayStation era that never, ever gets talked about — but which is actually really, really good! It's the follow-up to the company's Famicom Star Raiders-like, Star Luster, and is absolutely packed with both depth and a variety of things to do, with multiple ways to play according to whether you prefer a linear, mission-based structure or a more freeform, strategic game. Vastly underappreciated game that I'm bummed I never even heard of back when the PS1 was current — but thankfully, I can enjoy at my leisure today.

Finally, let's close off today with a look at SWERY's The Good Life, a game from this unusual and widely beloved creator's back catalogue that, once again, I never see anyone talking about. It is a thoroughly interesting game that combines elements of cosy life sim, murder mystery and open world adventure, allows you to turn into both a dog and a cat, and you can also ride sheep. It is somehow less "wacky" than it sounds, and has some real heart and soul to it — as well as a thoroughly convincing interpretation of the Lake District landscape to explore.

There are many other games I've covered on MoeGamer to date, so if you want more than the above links, stop by the All Games page on MoeGamer and check out an index of every game I've covered to one degree or another. Or you can hit up the article index (also available organised by date) and browse that way instead, if you prefer. Either way, if you've never paid MoeGamer a visit and you like the things I write about games, stop by and have a look around! It's my favourite thing that I've created on the Internet, and I intend to keep it standing for many years to come, so please enjoy what I've put there to date.

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

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#oneaday Day 945: Reviewing is Broken, August 2012 Edition

Game reviews are broken.

This is a pretty well-established fact by now, I would have thought, but the issue rears its ugly head any time something interesting but flawed such as Papo & Yo shows up and is, overall, worthy of praise but riddled with technical issues.

Let's stay with Papo & Yo for a moment to illustrate my point. (I won't be spoiling the game here, so read without fear.)

Papo & Yo is, technically and objectively speaking, filled with flaws. The frame rate is pretty poor at times, there's a lot of screen tearing and the collision detection is occasionally a bit off.

Does this make it a bad game, though?

No.

Does it prevent it doing what it sets out to do?

No.

This is ultimately all that should matter. And yet IGN notes that "poor design outweighs any interesting concepts", ultimately concluding that the game is "bad".

Well, yes, if judged next to something that is longer, more polished and designed primarily as a "game", I guess Papo & Yo is "bad". The problem comes when you consider the fact that all games are not created equal. Papo & Yo was put together by an extremely small team who did not have the budget to do more than they did. It succeeds admirably in telling its powerful, emotional story despite its technical flaws, which cease to matter almost immediately after starting to play. It was also not designed to be a "good game" — it was designed to be a vehicle for telling its story.

I'm reminded of a post I wrote a while back concerning visual novels and interactive movies. Back in the dawn of the CD-ROM era, if anyone dared to release a title like this that focused on the story at the expense of what would be traditionally called "gameplay," it was slated without mercy. The mantras of the day were "gameplay is king" and "graphics do not make the game".

To be fair, a lot of these "interactive movies" were simply poor stories, too, largely proving that (at the time) game studios simply did not have the budgets to compete with Hollywood. But some were enjoyable, and I can't help feeling that some of them may have had a better response had they been released today with better technology and storage capacities.

You see, gameplay isn't king. Not all the time, anyway. In something like Geometry Wars, sure, gameplay most certainly is king, though the beautiful neon presentation certainly doesn't hurt. But in something like School Days HQ or Papo & Yo, gameplay is not king. Gameplay is not even in the king's court. Story is king. And alongside this comes the necessity to judge a game based on how well it is achieving its objectives rather than how "good" it is compared to all other games. In no other medium do we judge individual creative works against everything else ever created in the same medium. No; we judge bestsellers against bestsellers; literature against literature; arthouse movies against arthouse movies; blockbuster against blockbuster.

Both School Days and Papo & Yo are "bad" if we're to judge them against other, more "gamey" experiences. In School Days all you do is watch animé sequences for 20 minutes and then occasionally get to pick between two options. In Papo & Yo all you have to do is navigate the environment and solve some fairly simple puzzles. But neither game is setting out to be a "fun" game. Both of them are setting out to do one thing and one thing only: tell a story. They accomplish this in completely different ways. And they both succeed admirably, regardless of their game mechanics and regardless of any technical issues.

Most gamers I speak to on a regular basis seem to recognise this fact. So why, exactly, do we persist in judging all games to the same standards? This isn't about giving a "free pass" to "art games", as I have seen a few commentators remark in the last few days. It's about judging a game on just one thing: how well it achieves its goal. Screen tearing (which, let's not forget, blighted the original Uncharted to a very noticeable degree) does not affect how well Papo & Yo spins its tale just as, to flip the argument around, the stupid, nonsensical story doesn't affect the fun factor of Call of Duty.

As always, then, the best way to judge whether or not a game is something you want to play is simply to try it for yourself — or at the very least discuss it with your friends and get the opinions of people you trust. "Good" and "Bad" are relative, arbitrary and ultimately quite useless descriptors when referring to creative works, and so I firmly believe the sooner we get out of the habit of judging all games against some ill-defined "canon of greatness", the better.