Achievement Unlocked 06.13.09 The Return
Posted by Rod Oracheski on 06.13.2009
411's Rod Oracheski makes a return with Achievement Unlocked, taking a look at late-development reveals and the value of 'value added' features, plus the games he's been playing in his time away.
While E3 is generally the happiest (and busiest) time of year for those who follow the games industry closely, the death of my grandfather cast - for me at least - a shadow over the annual celebration of all things electronic. Busy with other things, I put Achievement Unlocked on hiatus for a week or two, largely missing out on the annual E3 extravaganza of speculation and delight.
Life goes on, however, so I used the time to give the column a new look. Whether you like or loathe it, feel free to leave a comment down below. You might have to scroll down though, as with a couple weeks worth of news and gaming banked up this could be a long one.
This week in Achievement Unlocked we'll talk about the value of a late-development reveal and use E3 reveals as examples, then hit on the rise of 'value added' features on Xbox Live, and take a quick look at this week's NPD results. We'll close things out with a look at what I've been playing and whether or not you should be playing it too, and we'll close things out with a video gallery of HD goodness.
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction
Someone forgot to wash his hands...
Companies are all looking for the same thing when they announce a new game: excitement. Excitement breeds speculation, which breeds discussion, which creates buzz - and buzz leads, more often than not, to sales.
To get all the way up the chain to buzz, however, you need to fill those other criteria. First off, the game needs to generate excitement. That means it has to look amazing and possibly do something innovative, though being the continuation of a popular series wouldn't hurt. You also need to have an audience that's surprised by what you're showing them, as successive 'reveals' of a product will have less and less impact.
By those standards, there were some great reveals at E3 - the unveiling of Splinter Cell's new look, for one. After going silent on the project for months, Ubisoft built to the E3 showing with a clever (and, most importantly, UNDERSTATED) series of teasers that revealed nothing about the game but had people talking nonetheless. Then they show up and blow people away with a gameplay demo - no teasers, no video, just straight gameplay that showcased the changes made.
Splinter Cell: Conviction not only looked amazing, especially compared to its last outing, but it also did a number of new things. Doing away with the HUD-based story information is a good move, even if lifted straight out of TV show Fringe, and Rainbow Six might have allowed you to mark targets in the past - but the 'mark for execution' (and showy execution at that) move is a another great addition here.
It was an excellent reveal that created immediate excitement, speculation, discussion and buzz. Nobody knows if it's still a 360-exclusive or not (that's part of the speculation side of things) but the game is poised for huge sales later in 2009.
Another great reveal was Assassin's Creed 2, another Ubisoft product, at the Sony conference. This was another 'come from nowhere' game that revealed with gameplay, though the impact was spoiled a bit by leaks of images and video in the weeks leading up to E3. With new gameplay elements and more varied missions, Assassin's Creed 2 has people talking.
For me, the biggest surprise reveal was Forza 3. It wasn't a game that I really thought about being unveiled ahead of time, with the only real tip being a blurry logo spotted during a conference room meeting in some other country. Then they reveal it at the show, not just with video but with gameplay - and it looks good. They talk up new features, show the new ability to roll vehicles, and then drop the date as October of this year.
That's the kind of thing companies should be doing more. Hype the game when it's coming out soon, not four years away. When I see a game at E3 for the first time and I'm going to be playing it by Christmas, that catches my attention. I'm sick of seeing games at E3 year after year - stop talking them up when you've got nothing to deliver.
Forza 3, Assassin's Creed 2, and Splinter Cell: Conviction are all games I want to play MORE since seeing them at E3 - a lot more, and they'll be out this year. Contrast that with Alan Wake, another game that was shown again this year. While I still think it looks pretty good and I'm looking forward to playing it, there's just not that same desire that I feel about those other three titles.
Maybe that's just because they'll all be out this year, while Alan Wake is still that super-vague "2010" that so many games are tagged with - but I think it's because I've seen Alan Wake a couple times now, and it's harder to make me salivate over it.
Joy Ride
$10? No deal. Free? Great deal.
The phrase "free to Gold subscribers" has been popular lately, with a slew of features announced for gamers with Xbox Live Gold. Before E3 there was 1 vs 100, a gameshow that allows thousands to play concurrently and compete for real prizes, currently in beta and expected to go live soon.
At E3 we heard about the integration of Facebook, Twitter, and last.fm. This is more than just being able to visit those sites, you can actually interact with them - posting status updates to Facebook, posting screenshots to Twitter, etc...
Then there's Joy Ride, an Avatar-using racing title unveiled at E3. To be honest, I didn't really care much for the game at all, and didn't understand why they were devoting time to it...until they said that delightful word: free.
As a free title that encourages me to party up with friends and go tooling around, I'm suddenly very interested. Midtown Madness 3 was amazing for that back on the original Xbox - just get into a chat, link up and go driving.
Apparently there'll be vehicles and tracks to buy, a microtransaction model that's very popular in places like Korea and one that several companies, including EA, have been trying to bring over. In a nice touch, only one person in the party needs to own the tracks so it'd be pretty easy to set up a rotation on who's buying maps, should the group decide they're tired of the old ones.
With more games to be announced in the 'Prime Time' family on Xbox Live, I expect to see the value of Xbox Live Gold subscriptions continue to rise in the future.
Software Top 20
UFC Undisputed (360)
Wii Fit (Wii)
EA Sports Active (Wii)
UFC Undisputed (PS3)
inFamous (PS3)
Pokemon Platinum (DS)
Mario Kart (Wii)
Punch Out! (Wii)
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (360)
Wii Play (Wii)
New Super mario Bros (DS)
Mario Kart (DS)
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (PS3)
CoD4: Modern Warfare (360)
Gardening Mama (DS)
Sacred 2 (360)
CoD: World at War (360)
Rhythm Heaven (DS)
Halo 3 (360)
Gold's Gym Cardio Workout (Wii)
The May numbers are out and it's a month of decline, with almost universal decline in sales. The Wii and DS lead the way in sales for both consoles and handhelds, with the Wii also, strangely, sporting the largest decline in sales. The Wii sold 289.5k in May, a decline of 57% from last year. The DS sold 633.5k - numbers that include both original DS and new DSi sales, up 40% over last year.
The 360 was second in sales, pushing 175k through the retail pipeline in May. That's just slightly off last year's 186.6k sales, a decline of 6% year over year.
Sony's hardware brought up the rear, finishing with the PS3, PS2, and PSP as the bottom three hardware units tracked. The PS3 sold 131k (-37%), the PS2 117k (-12%), and the PSP 100.4k (-45%) - with PSP sales perhaps flat as a result of the much-rumoured PSP Go, unveiled at E3. The PS3 decline is probably the most troubling to Sony, as it's the five straight month of year-over-year decline.
Software sales showed the strength of the UFC brand, with the Xbox 360 version finishing in first with 679.6k sold. The PS3 version finished in fourth overall, behind Wii Fit and the EA Sports Active Bundle, with 334.4k in sales. Wii Fit and EA Sports Active picked up 352.8k and 345.8k in sales, respectively.
Sales dropped off considerably to the number five position, with inFamous (PS3) selling 175.9k in the roughly week or so it was charted, 158.5k below the number four position. It's a relatively weak entry for the highly-touted PS3 exclusive, though next month's NPD may be more indicative of its mass market appeal.
Positions five through 10 remain fairly consistently spaced, with Pokemon Platinum (DS), Mario Kart (Wii), Punch Out! (Wii), X-Men Origins: Wolverine (360) and Wii Play (Wii) filling out the list. The lowest selling title in the top 10 had 109.8k, up from last month's low-water mark of 91k, set by Godfather II on PS3.
The sales numbers seem to indicate the Wii (and to an extent DS) userbase, despite being as immense as it is, continues to resist the efforts of third party publishers. EA Sports Active Bundle, at 346k sold, is somewhat of an outlier on the basic trend of sales being dominated exclusively by Nintendo titles. With six titles in the top 10, only one is a third party - the aformentioned EA game.
That trend continues into the top 20 in sales, with 11 titles appearing on the DS or Wii - all but three being from Nintendo themselves. In addition to EA, Majesco hits the charts at #15 with Gardening Mama on the DS, and Ubisoft strikes 'gold' at 20 with Gold's Gym Cardio Workout for the Wii.
Another interesting thing to take from the 11-20 totals was Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare outselling its sequel, Call of Duty: World at War. Interesting in Modern Warfare 2 might be responsible, though it's likely map pack releases for World at War will help push it back up the charts.
It's also worth noting Halo 3's appearance in the top 20, made notable by the absence of Killzone 2. Despite strong support from developers with patches and map packs, Killzone 2 hasn't grabbed the attention it needs to continue selling. Sony may be looking at an advertising push to get sales up on that title again, perhaps even bundling it with the hardware or a controller.
Since the last Achievement Unlocked, I've played a good portion of six titles: Prototype, Red Faction: Guerrilla, Sacred 2: Fallen Angel, Fuel, Tiger Woods 10, and Ghostbusters. Okay, so I haven't really gotten to play all that much of the last one, as it didn't show up until this week and I've been at a golf tournament. In the interest of space, I'll just provide details on Prototype and Red Faction, with quick hits on the other four. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments.
[Prototype]
At full power, Alex doesn't really need vehicles.
Prototype
Prototype starts slow, using the tried and true 'start powerful, then take them away' approach to things. You're introduced to Alex Mercer at the height of his power in the tutorial, letting you have a taste of some of those various powers, and then take control in a classic '[x] days earlier' twist.
Can it still be called a twist when every second game on the market does it?
In any case, you're thrown into the past and get to earn your powers back while working through the backstory. It's an interesting way to tell a story, which is probably why so many games use it. I wouldn't say that Prototype's story is exactly Shakespeare or anything, running pretty high on the Cliche-o-meter, but it's provided in an interesting way via the Web of Intrigue.
The Web is just that, a web of interconnected points that you unlock by finding and consuming (more on that later) people who know the information you need. The more of the Web you unlock, the more of the backstory you'll have - whether or not you can fit it all together is up to you. Targets who have information to advance the story can be found while roaming the city and during the optional side missions - perhaps also during story missions.
Regardless of how good or bad the story is, it wouldn't matter if the gameplay didn't match up and Prototype delivers. The basic gameplay will be immediately familiar to those who played Radical's past Hulk games - The Hulk and The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, both on last-gen systems. Even this generation's Hulk game, though developed by Edge of Reality instead of Radical, would be a great 'plays kind of like this' comparison title.
Those looking for something subtle should definitely look elsewhere - Prototype is all about the intense combat sequences and wanton violence. Cool sequences abound, including stuff generally only seen in cutscenes. For example, I was running down the street with a strike team after me when a tank shot at me and hit a bus instead. I was starting a jump at the time and contacted the bus, thrown into the air by the explosion, in the air. Instead of simply bouncing off of it, I started to run up the side of the vehicle and jumped off it to continue along my merry way.
It was straight out of one of Ninja Blade's crazy QTE sequences, something I didn't think would really be workable in regular gameplay. I still don't think it's possible to have those kind of 'did you just see THAT' moments routinely without QTE, but one can always hope...
You definitely get more cool things happening once you start unlocking (or 'buying' via evolution points) your powers again. There are tough choices to be made initially and even tougher choices to be made later, when powers can cost a tremendous amount. Do you want to go for travel upgrades like sprint speed, glide distance, and jump height early on, to make it easier to move around the city? Do you concentrate on combat abilities so you can more easily tackle the harder monsters arrayed against you? You can even choose to focus on survival abilities, going for more of a cautious approach to combat.
The fun stuff is all in the combat aspect, of course. Here's where you'll learn new attacks like the dropkick (great against helicopters) or elbow drop (perfect for taking out tanks) - along with a handful of other, non-wrestling, moves. From Mercer's typical attacks you'll upgrade to claws, stone fists, a tether-style arm, even a giant blade. Each of these attack upgrades grants access to unique upgrade lines, culminating in Devastators - limited-use attacks that destroy large areas of the surroundings, along with anyone unfortunate enough to be standing there.
There are 31 story missions in all, with a decent amount of variety in what you'll need to do. They all tend to boil down to 'kill everyone who dares to move' but at least it never gets boring. The optional side missions come in several flavours as well - running a checkpointed path, consuming military/infected enemies, gliding down to within a short distance of a target, etc... Those side missions are increasingly important the farther you go into the game, when the evolution reward becomes a great way to earn enough to unlock new skills.
I had a blast playing Prototype, and easily recommend it as a rental. As a purchase, you'd have to be a fan of Radical's past Hulk games for this to be a shoe-in as a $60 pick up. I loved it, but your mileage may vary.
Red Faction: Guerrilla
The hammer - learn to love it
Red Faction: Guerrilla
The second of three 'open world' games I played, Red Faction: Guerrilla is perhaps the most innovative of the bunch. Volition has been pushing destructibility in the Red Faction series for ages, and this is their best showing yet. Everything on Mars can be smashed, blown up, shot to pieces, driven through...the variety of destruction options available to you is just short of overwhelming.
That said, the game could have used some compression on the gameplay side of things - it's just too big for its own good. It's easy to find yourself overwhelmed by the number of missions available, something also seen in games like Oblivion or Sacred 2.
The graphics are good, though the screen tearing (while seemingly improved from the demo) detracts somewhat from the experience, and the controls are spot-on - but it's the gameplay that steals the show. Every mission provides you with multiple ways to complete it, though mostly you'll just smash into a base, running over everyone in your path until you've taken enough damage to destroy the vehicle or done enough to destroy the target.
When it all comes together though, Red Faction: Guerrilla offers a gameplay experience you just can't find anywhere else. On one mission I approached a base, dropping anti-personnel mines on the path to take care of potential reinforcements. Once inside the base I switched to rockets and laid waste to several fuel tanks, along with the soldiers foolishly standing nearby, then to my trusty hammer of doom to clean up the remaining structures.
While hammering down the last building, I could hear the repeated booming of my mines going off and knew reinforcements were on the way. Finishing off the building, I started towards the path...then thought about it. With reinforcements coming from there, it made little sense to go that way if I didn't have to...and with that trusty hammer I didn't have to. Breaking through the far wall, I booked it out of there. That just doesn't happen in most games.
The rest:
Sacred 2: Fallen Angel - Great game that feels a lot like an older PC RPG like Baldur's Gate, but mixed with the addictive loot gathering of Diablo. Same-screen multiplayer, along with four-player online, makes this one a great pickup for those craving a good loot game. Despite the financial issues the developers found themselves in after shipping, they've already issued a pair of patches - so support doesn't appear to be an issue.
Fuel - Do you want a great racer with rock-solid controls? Look elsewhere. Fuel is much more about roaming than racing, but tearing through the landscape on a quad or dirtbike makes for a good time. Add in 15 friends via Xbox Live and it makes for a great time. It's unfortunate floaty controls make the cars and trucks less fun than they should be, but any game that allows you to drive for over and hour without hitting a wall is defintely something to check out.
Tiger Woods 10 - The opening splash screen makes it sound like there are a dozen improvements, but I probably wouldn't have been able to spot a single one if they hadn't been pointed out. It's the same great Tiger Woods action, and if that's what you want...here it is.
Ghostbusters - It's like Gears of War meets a fishing game. Characters are spot on and it's an entertaining experience for those looking to travel down memory lane with their favourite ghostbusting group.
