Achievement Unlocked 01.08.09

Posted by Rod Oracheski on 01.08.2009

411's Rod Oracheski steps into the new year with a look at two upcoming games and how hands-on time with both shows that evolution is not only real, but necessary.



After a glorious two weeks off, both Christmas and New Years fell on Achievement Unlocked days so I just said 'screw it' and got drunk with family and friends, I'm back for another Thursday column. I had a great time over the holidays, and hopefully everybody reading did as well.

There was no lucrative Christmas gaming haul, these days I tend to give more than receive, though I did get Band of Brothers on Blu Ray. Feel free to share your haul in the comments - did you get a console? Game? Mario-themed slippers?


After all that time off I figured I'd kick off 2009 with a look at two of this year's releases that I've been able to try out: Resident Evil 5 and Ninja Blade.

One title is the latest in a franchise that's about as big as they get - I mean their movies aren't even done by Uwe Boll! - while the other is a new entry that bears a striking resemblance to a former great that, with Itagaki gone, is perhaps unlikely to reach those heights again.

So why is it that the release without a storied history is the one I'm looking forward to? Let's find out...

Looks aren't everything.

If you'd told me, even just two months ago, that I wouldn't be looking forward to Resident Evil 5 after getting to try it, I'd have called you a liar - but that's the situation I find myself in after trying out the demo. The demo dropped this from a must-have 'Day One' game to 'I'll rent it' status.

It's not the graphics, which are stunning and every bit what I expect from a PS3/Xbox 360 game. The engine supports a good number of enemies onscreen at any given time and has very little in the way of screen tearing while maintaining a consistent framerate. The texturing isn't consistently top-notch stuff, but the overall presentation is very good. The player models are exceptional and though there are some lookalike zombies, it doesn't diminish the experience at all.

What does, however, is the porting over of the old control scheme. For some reason, despite polishing up every other aspect of the gameplay experience - even adding in co-op play - the developers refuse to believe there have been advances in the basic gameplay elements that the game hinges on - movement and combat.

You still have to stop moving to shoot, falling back to the 'tank-style' control that the series is known for. Shooting your gun requires holding one button, pressing another to shoot. Even using your knife is a two-button affair, even though your only knife attack is a simple swipe.

There's a school of thought says that we shouldn't complain when we get more of the same thing we liked before, and I can see where they're coming from - but only if you throw out the notion of evolution. I think gamers do want more of the same, but not more of the exact same thing - that's where you get the 'I've played this before' feeling cropping up. We expect, and deserve, to have the gameplay refined in the exact same way the graphics and sound are.

And that's where Resident Evil 5 fails, in my opinion. New coat of paint, but the exact same gameplay beneath - and it was getting old last-gen, so it's feeling archaic these days. Back when they could only put one or two zombies on the screen, hindering player movement helped create tension. That's not the case anymore, so why keep those old hindrances - especially when you now have multiple zombies attacking from multiple directions at once? That goes double with the 'in close' camera angles that don't give you the view of what's coming up beside or behind you that you had in the past.

It's not like the problems with Resident Evil 5's controls are beyond fixing, after all. Let us move and shoot - and keep the two-button shooting. Left Trigger brings up the aiming reticle, slowing player movement to half or less, and Right Trigger shoots - there's enough enemies on the screen to keep the tension levels high on their own. Make the knife swipe a single press of a Bumper, letting players use it for smashing barrels and crates more easily. Make it ineffective in combat to counter its new ease of use, doing little or no damage but doing a slight knockback instead.

Letting us move and shoot at the same time was overdue for the franchise when Resident Evil 4 hit shelves - that it's still not in for Resident Evil 5 is starting to border on the ridiculous. The game looks amazing, but let's try something new on the gameplay front for a change.

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Ninjas - known for their flair.

On the other side of the fence is Ninja Blade, a game that strides close to the path laid by the Ninja Gaiden franchise, though it's not a proper offshoot of the series. After some hands-on time with this one I'm really looking forward to it, and that's because if it actually was Ninja Gaiden III, it does right all the things that Resident Evil 5 did wrong.

First off is a slightly decreased level of difficulty - something Ninja Gaiden was guilty of overdoing. There's a place for the hardcore 'do it perfectly or die' level of difficulty in a game, but there's no reason for that to be called 'normal' and get harder from there. Ninja Blade doesn't appear to be so enthusiastic about seeing players fail in combat, something that will open the game up to a much wider audience.

It also offers up a combat system that's immediately rewarding, with flashy attacks and some low-level strategy that's open (and obvious) to a wider audience. Run into an enemy with a shield? Switch to the heavy sword and break it, then switch back to the quicker weapons for the hardcore slaying action. That's not to say there's nothing here for more advanced players, with finishing attacks (hit Y at the end of a combo) that give those players the edge.

Then there's the integration of QTE, a 'love it or hate it' gameplay mechanic that I generally fall more on the side of 'hate it' in games. They work pretty well here, thanks in part to putting the input button in the middle of the screen so you're not staring at the bottom of the screen, away from the action, waiting for the prompt. This helps keep you involved in what's happening, something that helps the second smart move - making the button you need to press relate to the action, not simply a random input.

In a lot of games your character will need to jump, but the button you're prompted to press is random - it might be jump, but it might also be an attack button or the menu button. In Ninja Blade, from what I experienced in the demo, it's going to be the button related to the action. If you need to jump or wire swing, it'll be the A button. If the situation calls for movement, it'll be the stick. Looks like an attack is coming up? You can bet it'll be the X or Y button. This does make the QTE more predictable for experienced gamers, but it opens the game up to those less-experienced among us, and helps keep you involved in the action at the same time. There's a difference between hitting a random button to trigger an attack and hitting what you know to be the attack button - you get that feeling that 'I did that' a lot more strongly, for example.

Another good move is avoiding punishing the player via the QTE. Failing on a button or direction press causes a short rewind (in black and white) to the start of the QTE string. No 'Game Over' screen and loading a saved game, just a quick 'let's try that again' rewind. You can still die in the game, of course. Fall in combat and there's no rewind waiting for you. There's no reason to punish players for a single missed button in a QTE, however, and I'm glad they've found a way around it.

Ninja Blade also brings in Ninja Vision, a slowed-time mode where you'll find it much easier to avoid projectiles and take out enemies. Of course using Ninja Vision also means you'll take more damage should you be hit, so there's a tradeoff. It's a feature Ninja Gaiden could have used.

Of course the game looks very good, with boatloads of particle effects - but I expected nothing less from From Software, who also made Otogi and the highly underrated Chromehounds. They've always been good about pulling power from whatever hardware they're developing for, and Ninja Blade is no exception.



So what do you think? Are you in the 'gimme more of the same thing' camp, willing to buy the same game with better graphics and little to nothing in the way of gameplay refinement? Or do you fall more along my line of thought - willing to play in the setting of the earlier games, but looking for some improvements to how things play?

Those thinking of pointing to sports games with annual releases should consider what they're doing on that front. Every year is a roster update, true enough, but there's also considerable gameplay tweaking. Not every year is on the order of the NHL series switch to the dual-stick Skill Stick method, but every year does feature marked gameplay improvements (or at least changes) over the previous year.

In recent years, it could be argued that sports games - primarily EA's crop of titles - are actually leading the way in terms of annual iteration plus improvement. Madden was greatly improved this year, as was FIFA - and it's hard to argue against NHL 09's addition of Be A Pro and online league implementation. Compare that to, for example, Rainbow Six Vegas 2 which, while a good game, wasn't really much different at all from its predecessor.


Over the break, while I'd intended to clear some of the backlog of games I talked about in the last Achievement Unlocked, I wound up playing other games instead and considering their entries in 411mania's year-end awards.

Burnout Paradise, for example. I'd played it quite a bit at a friend's house, but never went through the entry-level stuff for myself. So I picked up a copy and started tooling around the streets unlocking things and picking up Achievements. While I still would vigorously argue that cutting out Crash junctions was an absolutely terrible decision, (You want some popular DLC, Criterion? ADD THAT IN!) it's a solid game from start to finish and still worth checking out almost a year after it released.

I also fired up LittleBigPlanet again, checking out the changes made. I was disappointed to see they've tweaked the gameplay a bit, but problem areas of floaty jumping and sticking behind objects remain. They've also tweaked how you find user-created content, but it's got quite a ways to go before it'll be easy to find consistently good levels. The developers have promised to continue supporting the game with UI improvements, so we'll see what the upcoming months bring. One negative that I didn't expect - the proliferation of overpriced DLC outfits. With the game not selling as well as expected, getting positive word-of-mouth from free outfits would seem like a smart move.

I also tried out Secret Service, though it's not up for any awards, the budget-priced offering from Activision that hit shelves a while back. I'm not quite so sold on that one, even with a reduced price tag. Sluggish movement and aiming, along with frustrating hit detection, put the brakes on a decent-to-good plot. The Achievement list is surprisingly good, but it's a shame the game doesn't measure up.

Most of my time lately has been spent in Call of Duty: World at War's multiplayer mode. I went through CoD4's multiplayer mostly grouping up with a single friend who was particularly insistent on getting games going. That group has expanded this year, and now we're regularly rolling five or six man groups - all chatting in a Party and having a great time.

I'd still rank CoD4's multiplayer higher than World at War, though the initial gap in enjoyment has closed now that I've learned more of the ins-and-outs of the maps. Strategy isn't quite as clear as in CoD4, and most maps aren't as finely polished, but there are still lockdown tactics that can be used to do well in team games. A handful of exploits have cropped up, mostly going under the map, but that's really no different from any other multiplayer game and was definitely something seen in CoD4.

I've heard talk about more than just a map pack, with the potential for multiple map packs being bandied about, so we'll see what kind of support they offer up. Infinity Ward had a smash hit but seemed reluctant to do much with it at all - if Treyarch improves on that, then World at War gets a clear advantage.

News of the week is probably the mass firings over at 1UP, with the majority of the podcast voices being wiped out. While unfortunate, that's business. EGM/1UP wasn't doing well financially and UGO, the company that bought them out, didn't want to buy a sinking ship and just let it continue to sink. Divested of EGM, which will be shuttered after the January issue is released, there's a chance 1UP can be sustainable.

I've liked the 1UP Yours podcast for quite a while now, and 1UP FM was starting to really come into its own - so there's a hole in my listening schedule for the foreseeable future. I guess that means it's time for the guys at the Exploding Barrel podcast to step up their game!

Speaking of business, 2K is apparently looking to do some big business in the world of Bioshock according to a recent interview. Word of advice - invoking the name Star Wars when talking about farming out five sequels to a great game that could (and possibly should) have been a one-off property isn't a great idea.

I can't wait for Bioshock 4: The Rise of Jar Jar, followed a year later by Bioshock 5: Binksian Apocalypse, and Bioshock 6: Why Aren't You Buying These Anymore?

Until next week, I'm out.