Tuesday 20 July 2010

Transformers: War for Cybertron

I do like the Transformers as a concept so I was curious about the game.
I tried the PS3 demo and immediately found the multiplayer very interesting and fun so, given also that it is a full co-op and me and my fiancé are avid co-op players it was an instant buy.



The Single Player campaign can be played by up to 3 players, either friends (closed game by invite) or online with casual buddies.

During the story you play both as Decepticons (first) and Autobots (through the end) which is nice and you have four different classes to try out (Leader, Soldier, Scientist and Scout as in the multiplayer) although only 3 and sometimes 2 of them are available at the same time.

The story isn't particularly "amazing" but good enough and the game really is challenging, the gameplay is varied enough and you also need to fine tune your strategy against the different bosses.
If you're playing alone or with only another buddy, as I did, the third character is sort of useless in that he doesn't do much in terms of kills etc. but it's useful as a guide and often takes the enemy attention (and bullets) without ever dying which can come in handy (and very handy when you're alone) so you can definitely use the NPC for your strategy.

If you like to play it in hard mode I strongly suggest playing alone or with friends as resources are pretty scarce so you want to share them evenly with your mate, also, it's important to co-ordinate and always pick the scientist when available (the curing weapon is really helpful in hard mode).

If there's something I have to complain about is the ammo/life supply, in hard mode they are very scarce in many places and highly concentrated where you don't need them at all so you end up craving for ammo (even though you're very careful about not wasting them) or having to leave them behind 'cause you've got plenty already (and usually all this abundance is just before a door or whatever that will close down and become inaccessible afterward.

The Multiplayer is very solid and quite entertaining.
It has good variety with four classes (quite different and that you need to play differently) each of which has different usable weapons, abilities and abilities-boosts you can combine as you prefer to fine-tune them to your own game style for that class.
It's also got several unlocks for each class and many challenges that give you additional experience points.

The soldier is the toughest character and easier to play, so to speak, as it requires less strategy. The scientist, on the other hand is very weak but it's also the only one that can fly which allows for a quite different gameplay.
All in all, obviously every character had their strategy but be warned that if you start with the soldier you'll be "spoiled" by his high life points and you'll really find it hard to manage lower life points characters like the scientist afterward.

One of the most intriguing aspects is the ability to play both in robot and vehicle style, every class has its own vehicle with different weapons mounted on it.
The robot/vehicle transformation is really a breeze, very well implemented and done and definitely adds a lot to the game experience.

The maps (8) are more or less the same style, you don't have snowy landscapes, forests, sea etc. since Cybertron is "just" an hardware world however they indeed are varied.
They are also well build with two or even three levels and weapons, life cubes and ammo well scattered throughout the map.
There is no weapon that gives you an unfair advantage, they are all well balanced and quite different to use.
The Challenges points aren't particularly rewarding however the kills indeed are, they can grant you several points depending on the weapon or ability you used to perform if or even more for weapon/ability combos. You also get points for ending kill streaks, for killing the same enemy repeatedly or when in low life and so on so earning experience points isn't that hard although maxing all four classes will require some dedication.

The multiplayer with the four different classes and the various maps is entertaining and varied enough that you will keep playing it for quite sometimes and it's certainly "refreshing", so to speak, as it's not the "usual" war-like setting (not that I have much against it but changing style every once in a while is cool).



The Escalation mode is also intriguing and fun to play.
You can play it with up to 3 friends although only playing characters will enter the field (there won't be any NPC) and you have to fight 15 waves of enemies.
They start slow with the little spiders and weaker robots and every wave, obviously, becomes tougher and harder to fight.
Kills give you points that you can spend on life, ammo and additional weapons and grenades. You also have to unlock doors to have more of the map at your disposal and reach rooms with shields and more powerful weapons to be bought.

The little squares you get when killing robots fill your ability bar, just as in the campaign. Is very important to pick your characters carefully.
I can certainly suggest Arcee (cloaking and shockwave) and Ratchet (turret and shield) if you're playing in two only (but also do include them in any larger team).

I have to say tough that playing it in only two is very hard but still fun, we have reached wave 11 so far but have good chanced to improve our score!


Conclusion
This is definitely a game worth picking and playing, it's very well done and it's really fun in all 3 modes: co-op campaign, multi-player and escalation.
Definitely a solid 8.5.

Saturday 3 July 2010

Requests to developers

Games grow ever more complex and complete, yet, sometimes the end-users run into smaller or larger choices that somehow do spoil the gaming experience.

Of course, I'm not talking about bugs, those are just that, things to be fixed, but rather about how some things are implemented or some choices that maybe aren't that big a deal for a developer but that can be a bit or very annoying to some users.

So, based on personal experience and "issues" I've had I've compiled this little list for developers, little forethought that can improve users experience (sometimes even a lot!).

- Subtitles everywhere (in game, in cut-scenes etc.)
while nowadays the quality of dubbing in games is certainly superior to what it used to be some years ago the truth is the original voicing is (almost) always superior.
Just think about Uncharted 2, the voice was recorded together with the action, something that even a great dubbing cannot replicate.
Not to mention original actors are usually chosen with great care while for dubbing sometimes choices are more limited (due both to time and money restrictions).

Also, for some languages (in places where game audience is small as well as the money that can be invested) dubbing isn't available so people have to do with the original voicing and subtitles.

Also do not forget there are deaf/half deaf people, for them the subtitles is the only way they can access a game dialogue.

Yet, there are games where subtitles aren't available everywhere.
An appalling example is Ratchet & Clank that only have subtitles for cut-scenes and not for the in-game dialogue. While the in-game dialogue isn't that relevant it still is part of the game, so why no sub-titles?

Marvel: the Ultimate Alliance 2 is another example with the subtitles only available for single player but no multiplayer, however give the amazing sheer amount of bugs in the game that was probably just one of many.

- Well paced subtitles
this isn't actually something I have run into very often, however if you've got Splinter Cell: Conviction you know what I'm talking about: a few sentences that vanish after like a couple of seconds making it impossible to really read it.
I find it pretty amazing that no one noticed this issue for such a big title.



- Separate audio settings for voices/FXs etc.
It's become a habit to separate the audio settings for Music and effects in game, however not every game includes different settings for actual effects and voices making it a real problem.

When I play Red Dead Redemption I really feel like I'm going to become deaf: the shooting is very loud while voices are very low which means you raise the volume to hear the dialogues and then your eardrums are hurt by any sudden shooting: bad feel and bad experience.
This is particularly nasty when using headphones and can easily cause headache if you don't pause the game every ten second to raise and lower the volume (quite annoying!).
This is something that would also be very useful in Ratchet & Clank where the weapons sound really is noisy and it's practically impossible to hear voices while you shoot.

On the other hand there are games that already do it: Demon's Soul for example or Transformers: War for Cibertron: 2 thumbs up for them!



- Easy/fast way to mute players or send messages in-game
Multiplayer is becoming hotter and hotter with many games including such an experience even when they are mostly conceived for single players (see: Uncharted, Splinter Cell: Conviction etc.).

Things very useful to have are:
- easy/fast way to mute players. While I understand the value of talking in-game I really find it annoying to listed to kids bubbling their stuff or people putting their music at high volume.
I really can't understand what drives these people annoy others but the point is there are annoying people so please, let us mute them fast and easy (still have to find how to do it in Transformers: War for Cybertron)

- ability to send messages in-game.
Playing Red Dead Redemption lately it was really a pain when I had send someone a message and had to do so through PSN messaging system. It wasn0t annoying because I had to use the PSN messaging system but because I had to go look for the person among my recently met players and then send him/her the message, there was no way to just click a button in-game and have the PSN message window appear automatically (unless I'm dumb and blind).
Yes, there are headphones etc. but not everyone speaks the same language, you know, especially in Europe ;)!



- Non-locked saves
Please, p l e a s e, PLEASE!!! Or pretty please with sugar on top, if you prefer: make the saves copy-able to an external device.
Really, consoles aren't everlasting and they are subject to failures!!!
If you do play games yourself you probably do know how frustrating it is to just lose all your game progress, especially when you're about to finish a game.

This is also particularly true when one is after trophies and maybe was just missing a few that, however, will require a complete walk-through to get again (and yes, while Killzone 2 is a pretty amazing game playing it for the third time from scratch gets boring).

Many games nowadays have a very high re-playability value so that's not very "smart" to make saves unloackable because once one loses everything the re-play value is lost.
A fitting example is Heavy Rain. I'm 70% done with still some different paths to experience, I'm not into it right now though and if I lose my save (PS3 dies etc.) I'll just have to replay everything from scratch: meh.

On the other hand there are very loooong games, such as Demon's Soul, for example: if you lose your character progress, that's really excruciating!

I can understand there are sound reasons for locking saves but I also imagine XBOX360 and PS£ programmers are smart enough to find a way-out and make "hackers" or smart-asses harmless and players happy.
Really, just think about it: How many smart-asses are you "handcuffing" and how many regular players are you upsetting? I'm pretty sure the latter are many, many more and I'd say it's the latter that should really be your primary concern, right?

- Differently named saves
For those kind and smart programmers/developers that DO actually allow us to put our saves in a safe place (yeah, I've learned by past experiences and I have a tiny PS3 USB key in one of my PS3 USB ports all the time) I do have one more request: could you kindly ^_^ name saves in slightly different ways?
When I go and save my Red Dead Redemption progress I can basically only save 1 save rather than multiple, the same was Biochock 2, but it would actually be much more useful if we could save different progress, or maybe the saves folder as a whole!


- Avoid "tricky" trophies
Ok, this only happened once but it was painful, I played InFamous hard from the very beginning, but the beginning wasn't actually early enough.
Well, those of you that run into this know what I'm talking about. Basically to get the trophy for having played InFamous hard you had to switch immediately after the game starts to hard mode.
The point is you were immediately sucked into the game so it really wasn't that straightforward to go and check those settings.

If you want to do something like that (not just the same thing, you know, simply something that could be compared in flavour), please, just prompt a message or window asking if one wants to switch to hard mode so that one doesn't miss a game-long trophy for a couple of minutes of non-hard playing at the beginning!


- Show "hidden" trophies after the 1st walk-through
Many people like to platinum or max the achievements of a game, it's a way to show they truly like the game and did 100% of what could be done.
While I agree some trophies (story-related) should remain hidden to avoid "spoiling" players I don't get why others should.
Truth is people interested will just check the lists posted online since it's quite impossible to guess a hidden trophy with all things that can be done in most games so why don't developers just reveal all trophies once the first walk-though is over?
That would be quite convenient!



Well, that's certainly not all that could be asked but already quite a few things, hopefully someone will take them into consideration, I think it's good feedback from players!

p.s.: note that my examples usually mention fairly recent games but obviously they aren't based on these games only, it's just that these are the ones I remember exactly about!

Happy Gaming!
Ivy