1081: Reasons to Get a Wii U (or a Friend Who Owns a Wii U): Nintendo Land

Page_1 I had some friends over tonight for some computer and board game action. I lost our game of Agricola as usual (though not by as much as normal — I’ll take that) but what I really wanted to talk about was the game we played earlier in the evening — Nintendo Land.

I had a feeling that Nintendo Land would go down well, but I’m super-impressed by quite how much fun it really is. We were concentrating on the competitive games, based on the Mario, Animal Crossing and Luigi’s Mansion franchises, and all of them provide chaotic fun for up to five players along with an apt demonstration of exactly what the Gamepad controller device brings to the table.

The Luigi’s Mansion game sees the player with the Gamepad taking on the role of a ghost and up to four players with Wii Remotes playing the part of ghost hunters armed only with torches. The ghost’s job is to knock out all the ghost hunters by sneaking up on them and touching them; the ghost hunters’ job is to reduce the ghost’s hit points to zero by shining light on it. The twist is that the ghost is invisible on the TV screen, which the hunter players are referring to, and only the ghost player gets a full overview of where they are in relation to the others on the Gamepad screen. The ghost also occasionally reveals itself when lightning flashes and when it performs a “dash” action, and the hunters’ controllers vibrate when the ghost is nearby. The ghost player has an on-screen marker showing the boundary of where the vibrations will occur, meaning they can play some amusing mind games with the other players if they desire.

The Animal Crossing game, meanwhile, casts the Gamepad player in the role of two guards and the Wii Remote players in the role of animals trying to collect sweets. The animal players have to collect a particular number of sweets before the guards catch them three times, though the more sweets they are carrying, the slower they move. The twist with this one is that the single Gamepad player controls both guards using the dual analogue sticks on the Gamepad, and their viewpoint pans and zooms to keep both guards in view at once, while the players on the TV may only see what is in their immediate vicinity.

Finally, the Mario-themed game casts the Gamepad player in the role of Mario and the Wii Remote players in the role of various-coloured Toads. It’s Mario’s job to stay un-caught until a timer expires, and it’s up to the Toads to capture him as quickly as possible. Like in the Animal Crossing game, the Toads may only see what is in their immediate vicinity, and their controls are deliberately clunky and awkward to make it more challenging for them to catch the more agile Mario. The Mario player, meanwhile, has a screen that shows both an overview of the entire level (including where the two Toads are) and a close-up of their immediate surroundings. For the most part, the Mario player will be using the overview map to try and stay out of trouble, but when the Toads get near the close-up view comes into it own as Mario tries to avoid their tackles.

These three games offer a tiny subset of what Nintendo Land has to offer — there are a selection of more cooperative games on offer as well as a bunch of single-player games for the Gamepad that would still be fun for friends to take it in turns on.

The interesting thing about Nintendo Land is that it’s a slight shift in attitude from Wii Sports, the pack-in game with the previous-generation Wii. Wii Sports was designed to be accessible and intuitive, making use primarily of motion controls that anyone could perform. Nintendo Land, meanwhile, assumes a basic level of “game literacy” — familiarity with a controller being used “traditionally” — but still remains accessible to a wide audience. Consequently, it strikes a good balance between being casual-friendly as well as challenging and fun to veteran gamers.

Next week I’ll hopefully have the opportunity to play both Nintendo Land and the excellent Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed with a full complement of five players, so I’m looking forward to that. The games described above are great fun with three; I can only imagine the chaos with five. I can’t wait.

Think about that. When was the last time you played a game that you couldn’t wait to get your friends over to your house for?

#oneaday Day 918: We Dig, Dig, Dig, Dig…

Yes, I’ve been playing Minecraft again, thanks largely to several members of the Squadron of Shame finally biting the bullet and jumping on the bandwagon. And, once again, I am rediscovering the sheer joy of that game.

The first time I played Minecraft I wasn’t overly enamoured with it. Not because of the deliberately lo-fi graphics — on the contrary, I found them highly endearing — but because I had literally no idea what I was supposed to do, and at the time I started playing, it was largely up to the player to either work things out for themselves or refer to a wiki. Nowadays, of course, there are achievements to guide your early days in the game and basic techniques are practically common knowledge — the Xbox version also removes the need to remember the specific “patterns” to craft tools altogether, making it even more accessible and a great jumping-on point for those who have no idea what Minecraft is all about.

After spending a hefty proportion of time in Minecraft’s many pixelated, blocky worlds, however, that sense of “what on Earth do I do now?” is, as it turns out, precisely what appeals to me about the game. I have no goals aside from the ones I set for myself. There is no “end” to the game aside from the time when I wish to stop playing. (Well, technically that’s not quite true — you can “finish” Minecraft through a long and convoluted process culminating in a difficult boss battle against a giant evil dragon thing. But you can carry on playing after that.) The world is different each time I start a new game. And therein lies Minecraft’s biggest joy.

Minecraft is like being a kid again, assuming you were a kid who never had to get home in time for dinner, and a kid who was trusted with various sharp implements. Minecraft taps into that youthful desire to explore, to discover, to see what’s over that next hill, around that corner, on the other side of that sheer rock face. It taps into that youthful fear of being lost in the middle of nowhere and having no idea of how you’re going to get back home. And, like those youthful expeditions into forests and caves, it’s much more fun with friends.

Minecraft is what you make of it. I currently play on two multiplayer servers — one with a small group of “real-life” friends and the other with a group of people I primarily know online — the aforementioned Squadron of Shame. The differing approaches we take on each server are very interesting, and represent two very different social dynamics.

On my “real-life friends” server, everyone quickly staked their claim to their “territory” and built something big and impressive there to mark it. Tim built a huge castle; James built a wizard’s tower and network of connected walkways with giant mushrooms (plus a huge tree made of trees); Andie built some quaint (and practical) little houses; and I built a large, experimental pyramid-like structure and enormous, intricately-carved bridge.

On the Squadron of Shame server, meanwhile, things were a lot more cooperative from the get-go. I was one of the first people on the server, so I took the time to establish a basic base camp — wooden hut with crafting table and furnace, sufficient to last the night. Over time, and with the assistance of others, this hut expanded with an extra room containing beds, and a large mine beneath it. Other structures sprang up nearby until our improvised “base camp” started to look like a small village. I built roads in every direction as I explored, and others followed suit to help us find our way to various impressive landmarks. When we found a cool piece of randomly-generated scenery, we talked about it as if it was a real place. Other “citadels” sprang up around the map, and we as a group went further and further afield. I constructed some kick-ass bridges.

In both cases, the world feels alive — because it is alive. It’s constantly growing and changing according to how far people have explored and what they have built. It’s an immensely satisfying experience to know that you’ve played a part in the shaping of a virtual world, whatever your contribution and whatever your particular skill sets might be. In many ways, it’s similar to the satisfaction of playing an active role in something like Second Life, which I’ve been known to spend time in in the past, and which I once referred to as “taking a walk through other peoples’ imaginations”. The key difference here, though, is that Minecraft has a great deal more immediacy than Second Life — and considerably fewer prostitutes.

So if you’ve been holding off on playing Minecraft, I suggest you give it a shot — preferably with friends. If you have no idea what you’re letting yourself in for, fire up the Xbox version and play online or in split-screen. When you’re ready, grab a copy of the full experience on PC and prepare yourself for the most immersive game world you’ll ever experience — the one you helped create.

#oneaday Day 792: When Play Feels Like Work, It’s Time to Stop Playing

Asynchronous games are a great idea. At the time of writing, everyone is jizzing all over Draw Something (and quietly hoping that Zynga doesn’t acquire the developer in order to monetize the game out of the arse even more than it is already) — the latest in a long line of successful mobile asynchronous games that include Hero Academy, the With Friends series and, on a smaller scale, various board and card game adaptations.

Now, in theory, the fact that you can play a turn-based game with someone on the other side of the world at a pace which suits both of your busy lifestyles is a great one. And sure enough, it most certainly is a great thing. Games which previously proved impractical to organise when players span various different timezones are suddenly accessible to all and sundry, and your mobile device becomes a portal to a wide variety of social, multiplayer experiences that you can share with your friends.

Trouble is, everyone wants to get in on this action, meaning that whatever flavour of the month asynchronous hit there is will promptly bombard you with notifications and game requests as absolutely everyone on your Facebook friends list suddenly wants to play. And God help you if you post your username for such a game on Twitter.

Now, having a bunch of people to play against should be a great thing, particularly in a game that occasionally offers such a fascinating glimpse into people’s minds as Draw Something does. But, you know, it all gets a bit too much sometimes. When you have twenty people taking their turns in Draw Something, twenty more begging you to play Words With Friends, twenty more wanting you to play Hero Academy, it’s easy to find yourself overwhelmed with notifications and game requests, and find yourself spending hours at a time just catching up with games — and meanwhile your opponents are also taking their turns, meaning sometimes it’s almost impossible to catch up. You can always exercise self-control, of course, and only accept the number of games you know you can handle — even going so far as to uninstall the games you know you don’t want to play, perhaps — but there’s always that element of peer pressure going on.

I can’t help feeling that developers of these games could do a bit to help out here. The simple addition of a “privacy” button that automatically blocks all new game requests but allows current games to continue would be a good one, for example, or perhaps a hard (and reasonable — perhaps user-customizable) limit on how many games can be running concurrently. At the moment, I often find myself letting games expire accidentally due to the fact that a bajillion notifications come in at once, I have no time to deal with them at the time, and they form a backlog which would require a considerable number of minutes to clear. It’s at that point that play starts to feel like work, and that’s a situation you shouldn’t find yourself in.

When something becomes an effort to play and there’s no discernible payoff for doing so, that’s when you have to question why you’re playing in the first place. The thing with all these asynchronous games is that victory is a very hollow experience — win or lose, after a brief “You Win!”/”You Lose!” message, the first thing most players will do is immediately hit the “Rematch” button. Most don’t even do any particularly detailed stat-tracking, meaning you can’t even gloat over your winning streak against your friend. Some, like Draw Something, don’t even make it clear whether or not you’re supposed to be competing against or cooperating with your friend, and then patronise you with primary school-esque “Good Try!”s when you get one wrong. (Notable exceptions: the adaptations of card and board games such as Carcassonne and Ascension do a good job of both stat-tracking and providing a good victory screen for winners to gloat over and losers to quickly skip past.)

These games have their markets, though. They let people connect with one another in new ways, and they open up the medium of gaming — specifically, multiplayer gaming — to massive new audiences. That’s a great thing for the industry as a whole, but there’s only so many “It’s your turn!” notifications I can take before I go completely mental.

#oneaday Day 642: M-M-M-Multiplay!

I don’t generally play a lot of multiplayer games. There are a number of reasons for this, chief among which being the fact that I never seem to be any good at any I try out — or perhaps it’s just that the sort of people who play multiplayer-focused games tend to play them to such a degree that they get really, really good at them and take great delight in “pwning noobs” or whatever imbeciles like to call it.

Cooperative games fare a little better but I’ve always found myself hesitant to take on cooperative challenges with anyone other than friends that I know well and trust. I have never played Left 4 Dead with anyone other than people I have been talking to and playing with for many years now. Perhaps this reflects my own idealised view of what I would like the situation to be were a real zombie apocalypse to happen — I would want to be with people I trust.

Part of the matter is due to the attitude of some people online, however. I recall giving Dungeons and Dragons Online: Stormreach a go a while back and liking the game a great deal, until I did a dungeon run with a party, at least one of whom had obviously done the quest before. I was still new to the game and learning how it worked, so I made a few mistakes along the way, and a rather poorly-designed platforming part towards the end of the quest caused me a bit of difficulty. Rather than having a good laugh about it afterwards, like I would have done were it someone else in the same situation, I ended up with a torrent of abuse hurled in my direction. I logged off and never went back. An overreaction perhaps, but I was in no hurry to spoil something that was supposed to be fun with the bad attitude of arrogant people who think they know best.

I don’t play much multiplayer on Xbox because I don’t like voice chat, for reasons outlined here. And also, there aren’t that many games that support multiplayer on Live that I’m in a great hurry to indulge in — the Xbox has a reputation as “the shooter console” for a reason. There are exceptions — I loved Need for Speed Hot Pursuit online, and Burnout Paradise could often be a lot of fun, but driving games were often also prone to the “everyone else is better than you” problem.

This lengthy preamble is a way of leading up to the fact that I am very much enjoying playing Trendy Entertainment’s excellent Dungeon Defenders in the manner in which it is supposed to be enjoyed — multiplayer. Sure, you can play it single-player, but you’d be a fool to do so, since it’s extremely difficult solo, and even more so with certain classes. Rather, it’s a game that is well balanced for its four player cooperative action, and features a good balance between cooperation, competitiveness and communication.

I’ve played a few games of it now, and the best sessions I’ve had were the ones where people were communicating — not in a “hurry up u noob” sort of way, but in a helpful “this is going to happen on this wave, so put that there and then be ready for it” sort of way. I’m always pleasantly surprised when I come across people like that, and I always make a point of thanking them after the game when I do so. It’s a genuine pleasure to play this sort of game in the way it was designed — with up to four people working together for a common goal and helping each other out along the way, rather than berating each other for their mistakes.

To cut a long story short, I’m of the strong belief that Dungeon Defenders will be the first game in a very long time that will see me regularly playing online with random strangers. My first experiences have been so good that I don’t feel any of the usual uneasiness about partying up with randomers to hack a few orcs to pieces. It helps that the game itself is excellent and easily understandable, too, and challenging without being unfair.

If you haven’t checked it out yet and the idea of an action RPG crossed with a tower defense game sounds like something that appeals, I strongly recommend you give it a shot. It’s $15 (or local equivalent) on Steam, and also available via PSN and Xbox Live Arcade. I haven’t played the console versions, but I will say that the mouse and keyboard controls of the PC version work extremely well

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have another dungeon to defend before bed.

#oneaday Day 640: Defending the Dungeon

I find myself in vaguely familiar surroundings, though I’m not quite sure of the best way to proceed. Fortunately, one of my companions steps up to the plate. She’s a young, pretty elf, and she packs a mean-looking minigun. I’m inclined to follow her suggestions.

“Put down a wall there,” she says, clearly indicating the place she’s referring to. I oblige, hastily battering together an impromptu blockade of wood, steel and spiky bits.

“Now one here,” she adds, nimbly leaping over to another pathway towards the crystal. “And one over the other side, too.” Her friend, clad in his robe and wizard hat, lollops over and drops a few mana crystals to help me pay for the defenses we’re setting up. I follow her instructions, and soon enough we’re ready.

“Chaaaaarge!”

We hear the cry from behind the door before they arrive. My mind wanders for a moment, thinking that it was awfully nice of the incoming hordes to wait until we were ready before attacking, but I am quickly snapped back to the present by the sight of what looks like a small army approaching.

I leap into action, swinging my sword wildly and knocking goblins left, right and centre. Green blood sprays from their lifeless corpses as they fall to the ground — they don’t even reach my blockades, so weak are they against my swordsmanship. I glance to the sides and see my compatriots covering the other doorways in their own distinctive, inimitable styles. Our erstwhile leader is mucking in with her minigun just as much as the rest of us, and before long the doors slam shut, the crystal safe for a little longer.

This time, we agree that I should put some harpoon launchers behind my blockades just to make doubly sure that none of the advancing hordes get anywhere near the crystal. They prove surprisingly effective, especially when combined with the magical structures that my robe-and-hat-clad companion also summons out of thin air. Before long, we’re taking another breather, but it’s clear that this time, things are a little different. There’s an air of tension about the group, as if it knows something terrible is about to happen.

The doors fly open again, and another swarm of enemies troops into the chamber. I wade in, cutting through them like butter, knocking them aside, into pools of lava and down seemingly bottomless pits. These dungeons are dangerous, and surely having pools of lava beneath your castle can’t be a great idea, I think.

Suddenly, the incoming enemies seem to stop, and there’s a noise.

Thud.

There it is again.

Thud.

And again.

Thud.

Louder, this time.

THUD.

Something big is coming. We look frantically around the room to prepare for whatever it is that’s headed our way, and our gaze falls upon the mysterious alchemical equipment left here long ago by our apprentice friend’s forebears. The pretty elf nods, and we steel ourselves just before a huge demon bursts through the ceiling, roaring in fury.

I charge straight at him but am immediately knocked back by a wave of fire. The pretty elf gestures to one of the pieces of equipment down the side of the room and charges towards one herself. Following her lead, I smash the device as hard as I can with my sword, and strange, crackling, blue energy emits from it. Our two other companions do the same, and before long there’s a whirling maelstrom of the crackling blue energy, converging on the demonic beast bearing down on the pretty elf.

It worked! He spasms and judders, unable to move. We immediately leap in and start attacking him — his thick skin is like stone, but from his howls of pain, it’s clear we’re hurting him. He breaks free of his energy prison and roars again, flames bursting forth from his body and knocking us back. He’s on the ropes, though, so if we can just do it again…

He falls, the impact of his massive body hitting the floor making the whole room shake. Gigantic, valuable-looking mana crystals burst forth from his corpse and we gather them up greedily — this stuff is better than gold coins. There’s an air of calm over the strange laboratory, and it’s clear that this area is safe, for now. But this is just one of many of the Eternia Crystals that we’ve been tasked with defending. Can we live up to the bold example set by our ancestors?

Only time will tell — but we’ll have a lot of fun doing it. So can you.

#oneaday Day 521: It’s Your Turn Now

I’ve discovered the most terrifying thing in the universe: the man who very politely, but incredibly loudly, tells you “It’s your turn now!” on the iPhone version of Carcassonne. It’s terrifying because hearing someone’s voice when you’re not expecting to — such as, say, when you’re trying to get to sleep — is a frightening thing. Quite why a murderer or rapist would say “It’s your turn now!” is… no, hang on, that sort of works, doesn’t it? Shit.

But anyway. The terrifyingness of Carcassonne is not what I wanted to talk about — at least not directly, anyway. I wanted to take a moment to talk about asynchronous games, how awesome they are and where they can go from here.

The iPhone (and, presumably, Android) is home to a wide range of excellent asynchronous-play games, allowing people to play at their own pace at a time to suit them. The upside to this is that people even in wildly disparate time zones can play games against each other. The downside is that it’s easy to forget what games you’re playing, particularly if your push notifications decide not to work properly.

But that downside isn’t sufficient to dampen the awesomeness that is the ability to play Carcassonne with someone across the other side of the world. The “…with Friends” series (Chess, Words and Hanging) are all excellent examples of How To Do It Correctly, too, providing a simple, intuitive interface to games that most people know how to play. The quirky and entertaining Disc Drivin’, too, offers a fun experience, even if whoever goes first has a clear advantage over everyone else. (That’s my excuse, anyway.)

Certain social games are taking steps to incorporate asynchronous features, too. Dragon Age Legends, for example, allows players to recruit their friends’ characters — complete with equipment and abilities — into their party for combat. This allows people to play with their friends without their friends actually being there — defeating the object of a multiplayer game, you might think, but actually making the best of the fact that it’s pretty rare for you and all your friends to be online at the same time.

Consider this taken to the next level, though. Why haven’t we seen an asynchronous MMORPG yet, where players can party up with AI-controlled characters based on their friends’ equipment and ability lists? It works in Dragon Age Legends, though admittedly that’s a very simple turn-based game. But most MMORPGs have AI built in for enemy and ally characters anyway, so why shouldn’t there be a way for players to “play” even when they’re not actively logged in to the game? I think that’d be kind of cool, actually — and it would certainly get around my biggest bugbear with MMORPGs, which is the fact that a good 90% of my friends live in a completely different and mostly incompatible timezone to me.

On a related note, then, if you live in Europe and want to play Champions Online, Spiral Knights or anything else you’d care to suggest (preferably of the free to play variety) do please get in touch!

#oneaday, Day 306: Need for Speed

My brother was good enough to send me a copy of the new Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. It arrived this morning and I’ve spent a fair amount of time putting it through its paces today. I shall now share my thoughts for the benefit of those of you considering it.

In very simple terms, it can be described as “Burnout with real cars”. This is not in the slightest bit surprising, given developer Criterion’s history. But this is through-and-through a Burnout game, right down to the ways you earn boost and the cinematic “crash camera”. And not a Burnout Paradise interpretation of Burnout, either. Because although I loved that game, as did some of my friends, there are plenty of people out there who didn’t like it much, either, for various reasons.

Hot Pursuit returns to the roots of both the Need for Speed and the Burnout series, in that it is about driving impossibly-expensive and shiny cars through a variety of circuits in an effort to Be The Fastest Mo-Fo In The World. There’s no tacked-on story (besides the fact that the cops have outfitted themselves with some seriously heavy-duty automotive hardware) and no unnecessary fluff—it’s just a map screen, a series of events and a bunch of cars to unlock gradually according to your progress. Those who did enjoy the free-roaming nature of past Need for Speed games as well as Burnout Paradise are free to drive around the sprawling game world as they please to find events, but those who prefer kicking it old-school can just select events from a map. Best of both worlds. You have to wonder why this hasn’t been thought of previously.

The shining light in Hot Pursuit‘s arsenal of, err, light-emitting weapons (abandon metaphor!) is the Autolog system. Essentially an in-game social network, it sets out to do what Blur did, but better, and succeeds admirably. While racing any event, you have not only the single-player targets to beat, but also an “Autolog Recommends” target to beat, too. This way, when you do beat all the single-player events (and you will, eventually, because they’re not that difficult, at least to begin with) you have plenty of incentive to go back and beat your friends. This incentive is made even better by the fact that you have a Facebook-style “wall” on which you can brag about your Achievements and even write your own custom messages and comments. There’s a fairly heavy-duty naughty word filter in place, though, which inexplicably censored the post “This game is awesome. Time to take a break, now, though.” in its entirety. I haven’t seen bizarre censorship of this nature since Phantasy Star Online censored the words “shoes” and “Saturday” for having rude words in the middle of them.

Overzealous censorship aside, though, the Autolog feature is an excellent one. Every time you log in, assuming you have friends playing the game, you’ll have a new set of challenges to beat. Autolog even recommends friends of friends that are playing the game whom you may want to add to your Xbox friends lists. This is a smart idea—again, why hasn’t anyone thought to do this before?

Possibly my favourite thing, though, is the return of one of the best things about Need for Speed: Most Wanted. The cinematic “chase music” when you’re being chased by cops. While the licensed soundtrack that plays in cop-free events is solid enough, though fairly forgettable, the orchestral, cinematic music that plays in Hot Pursuit events gets the pulse pounding and adds a sense of urgency to these races. I’m glad to see the return of it.

I haven’t tried playing as a cop yet, though I’m anticipating an experience akin to a modern-day remake of Chase HQ. This is very much a Good Thing. Further reports as events warrant.

In summary, then: You like arcade racing? You gonna love this.

#oneaday, Day 140: Being An Asshole

Every time there is a “new advance” in AI for video games, the first question a lot of people ask is “how human is it?” How does it compare to playing against a real, actual, human person? A gaming-related Turing Test, if you will. And the answer is always “it’s not very human”. There’s one reason for this – computers can’t be assholes.

I was playing Blur multiplayer tonight and the one thing that struck me is how much of an asshole players online can be. That’s not a criticism, by the way. In fact, the sheer assholeness of a lot of online Blur players makes multiplayer races a pretty thrilling experience. And the AI players in the single-player, while frustrating, aren’t assholes. They never drop a mine directly behind a powerup so you grab the powerup and then explode. They never use a Barge to knock you off a cliff. They never swerve into you at the start line and bash you into a wall. They never wait until the home straight to launch a mine right up your arse and sail past in the last half-a-second of the race. They never park sideways across a narrow bit of track just to get in the way.

This sort of creative sadism which online Blur players have developed is what makes the multiplayer so much more appealing than the single-player mode. It’s really interesting to see the tactics that people have obviously developed independently without any prompting from the game. The “trapping a powerup” thing, for example. The AI players never do that. It’s never suggested you do it in the loading-screen tips. But it’s, when you think about it, a smart idea. Everyone is clamouring for powerups throughout every race. So why not make the more desirable ones rather more difficult to get?

This is a different sort of assholeness to the kind of 13-year-olds who scream racist, homophobic abuse down their headsets during games of Modern Warfare 2 (which they shouldn’t be playing anyway, but of course, that’s another conversation) – this is a stubborn, passionate desire to win at any cost bar cheating, rather than a stubborn, passionate desire to be a dick. And it’s fun. You can’t help getting involved. Watch other people playing Blur and all you want to do is out-asshole them. Get someone with a carefully-placed mine, or accurately slam a backward-fired Shunt into their face while they’re slipstreaming you and it’s immensely satisfying.

In fact, Blur as a whole is set up for being an asshole. Take the social gaming features I discussed the other day. What possible reason could there be for posting information about how well you’re doing other than to make other people think “I need to take that asshole down a peg or two”?

The reason, of course, that AI in single-player games being a perfectly accurate representation of a human is not necessarily a desirable thing is this: sometimes we like to win. And if you’re playing against 19 other assholes, most of whom are more of an asshole than you, very often you don’t win. That’s all very well, and competitive and so on… but if you’re playing by yourself, you want to win, don’t you? So that’s why I can say with some confidence that I really, really hope AI doesn’t ever improve to a level where it’s indistinguishable from a human. Because I like to beat it sometimes. And I’ve played over 60 online races in Blur now… and won two of them!

#oneaday, Day 103: Synchronise… Watches!

Anyone who’s got friends in other countries, something which has become more and more likely with the rise of online social networking, will know how difficult it is to do things together sometimes. Different time zones, the fact that you’re not “just around the corner” from one another – all manner of factors conspire to ensure that arranging a friendly game of Modern Warfare or Fat Princess, let alone anything more adventurous, is tricky business.

So what’s the solution? Well, how about if you don’t actually have to be online at the same time as each other to play together? It’s obviously not quite the same as actually being able to talk smack live to each other, but it’s a start. And it’s a gaming trend which is growing.

Many iPhone and iPad owners have been enjoying Words with Friends, a Scrabble clone with a different board layout to avoid difficult copyright negotiations. Words with Friends gets this idea of asynchronous multiplayer just right. Play a move and a pop-up push notification is sent to your opponent that it’s their turn. They can play their turn whenever is convenient to them. Then the notification is sent back to you. There’s also a chat window in game, where messages can be left for the other player. If you want to both stay logged in and play in real-time, there’s nothing stopping you doing that. But if, like most people, time is of the essence and you don’t have a spare hour for a friendly game, you can spread your game over the course of several days, weeks, months as necessary.

Obviously this works great for turn-based games, but what about genres which are traditionally real-time? Take racing games, for example.

Well, here’s a clever solution. The rather literally-titled Async Racing allows players to compete against each other without being logged in at the same time. The way it does this is by recording players’ laps around the game’s tracks and then using these recorded laps as opponents when someone decides to enter a race. Mario Kart Wii did something similar some time back with its Mario Kart Channel functionality, and it proved rather successful for a while, at least among my friends and I.

Then there’s Geometry Wars 2, perhaps the best – and simplest – example of asynchronous multiplayer fun. By posting one of your friends’ scores in the upper-right corner of your screen at all times during gameplay, you’re always competing against someone else. Assuming you actually have some friends, of course.

While asynchronous multiplayer is never going to completely take the place of simultaneous play complete with all the trash-talking that entails, it’s certainly an attractive alternative for those who are either short on time or friends in the same time zone. It’ll be interesting to see how – or indeed if – it will translate to other genres.

One possibility is for it to use the behavioural analysis that Halo: Reach is supposedly going to pioneer for its matchmaking. Imagine being able to party up with an AI team in something like World of Warcraft made up of your friends’ personalities, or have a game of Call of Duty against bots based on behavioural analysis of your buddies. Sure, it’s not a patch on actually being there with your friends, but we’ve established that isn’t always an option for some people.

Games are more fun with friends, whether they can be there with you or not. New opportunities to “play” with people you wouldn’t normally get to should be embraced. Asynchronous play is going to be a big part of the future of gaming, and it’ll be interesting to see who gets it right first.

#oneaday, Day 63: Act Your Age, Joanna

Late again. And I hold one thing entirely responsible for this: Perfect Dark. Actually, two things. Perfect Dark and Cody “NintendoTheory” Winn.

I know I wrote about Perfect Dark the other day but I feel I should enthuse a little more about it because my experiences with it over the past few days have been highly entertaining. First up, I played some online co-op with Calin Grajko (who was brave enough to interview several members of the Squadron of Shame a while back and has stayed in touch since) – specifically, through the first few levels on Perfect Agent difficulty. This was great fun, as Perfect Agent difficulty is pretty brutal in its difficulty – you don’t get much in the way of life, there are lots of (failable) objectives to complete and there are tough enemies all over the place. The best thing about playing co-op, though, is that it gives you the opportunity to have a laugh along with the game. Perfect Dark may appear at first glance to be taking itself rather seriously, but you only need to jump into a co-op game to see that really isn’t the case. This is a game that shines when played with friends, be it co-operatively or competitively.

Which brings me to the next point – Counter-Operative mode. This is possibly the most broken game mode I’ve ever played, but it’s brilliant in its stupidity. One player controls Joanna Dark, just as in single-player, and has to complete the missions. The other player, on the other hand, repeatedly respawns as random enemies around the level. Jo has one life. The Counter-Operative can keep coming back over and over again, and it’s their job to make life a pain for Jo.

It’s tempting for the Counter-Operative to rush in and confront Jo as soon as possible, of course, but if this happens the match can be over rather quickly. What is far more entertaining is when the Counter-Operative decides to play mind games with Jo’s player, as Calin did to me.

As I made my way down the dataDyne building, I noticed it was oddly quiet, and there seemed to be something of a trail of destruction, like someone had got there first. The building was completely devoid of enemies, until I got to the bottom floor. I stepped out of the elevator and headed towards the level’s exit when suddenly…

BIFF!

Jo’s vision blurred and I whirled her round to discover an incompetent-looking guard in spectacles punching me repeatedly. It was Calin. He punched me again and knocked my gun out of my hand and suddenly, we were engaged in the sort of cack-handed fistfight that only ever happens in first-person shooters. As Calin realised that the enemy characters weren’t capable of picking up weapons that had dropped to the floor, I seized my opportunity and grabbed my dropped pistol, shooting him in the head and escaping the level.

It’s not entirely clear whether or not anyone bothered to playtest or balance Counter-Operative mode, but one thing’s for sure – it’s so ridiculous it is one hell of a lot of fun.

The thing that’s kept me up tonight, though, is something which is always dear to my heart in online gaming: leaderboards. As anyone who battled against me in the Geometry Wars 2, err, Wars of last year will attest, leaderboards inspire great competition. And it so happens that Mission 1 of Perfect Dark on its easiest difficulty level provides an ideal arena for bitter competition to see who can clear it the fastest. Cody and I were ping-ponging times back and forth earlier until, as of this time of writing, I sit on the top spot of my friends leaderboard with a time of 40.95 seconds. I invite any of you to try and beat that – without using the apparently-infamous glitch that I’d never heard of before today which allows you to beat the level in 6 seconds flat. Challenge set!

As you can tell, I’m smitten with Joanna’s adventures. I was back in the N64 days and I am again now. Perfect Dark is such a complete package that it is almost without a doubt one of the best uses of 800 Microsoft Points on XBLA. There is so much to do besides the basic single-player missions. There are the various multiplayer modes. There is co-op. There is counter-op. There are tons of secrets to discover in the Carrington Institute that forms the backdrop to the main menu. There are challenges. There are leaderboards. There are Achievements. It’s a game that will keep you busy for a very, very long time.

The thing I’m most impressed by, though, is the fact that as a game it still plays brilliantly today – ten years later – with no modifications besides the resolution and framerate upgrades. It takes some adjusting to playing a game which doesn’t point out your objectives in gigantic neon-coloured HUD arrows, but I find it far more satisfying than any shooter I remember playing in recent memory – both in single-player and multiplayer.

So if you haven’t bought it yet, stop bitching about the N64, stop moaning about the framerate on the old version, stop complaining that it gave you motion sickness (at least until you’ve turned off “Head Roll” in the options to see if that makes you feel better), stop whingeing that the characters’ mouths don’t move when they talk… look, just buy it and enjoy it, okay?

Act your age, Joanna.