My second contribution to OntheStick.com‘s 31 Day History of Horror Games is up! It’s all about Sierra On-line’s horror/thriller Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
I’ve got another Post up at On the Stick
Tag: video games
Today’s Post can be Found at On the Stick!
Today’s post can be found over at On the Stick and is part of their 31 Day History of Horror Games. I’m talking about Alone in the Dark. Click over and read it and all the other entries this month!
Taking the Rose-tinted Glasses Off
You, dear Reader are already familiar with my interest in video games, especially older ones. A quick look at the Let’s Play tab will reveal that many of the games I am most familiar, and fond of, are over twenty years old. I will be the first in a room to talk about how much I love Sierra’s classic adventure titles or the hours of entertainment I derived from NES titles such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Destiny of an Emperor. What you won’t find me doing is putting on the rose-tinted glasses and waxing about the “golden years” of gaming. A recent jaunt with the game above, Alone in the Dark, has reminded me just how far video games have come. And, how difficult gaming could be in the past. Nostaliga is the only thing that keeps us from seeing it. That, and such useful things as: save states, VGMaps, DOSBox, GameFAQs, etc., etc.
I’ve found that they the best way to remove the “golden age” delusion is to simply introduce the deluded person to an game that they have never played. King’s Quest or Space Quest would be a slog if I hadn’t spent hours and hours and hours playing, and memorizing, them as a youth. Without access to FAQs or other aids they’ll quickly come around. I did this to myself just the other day when I booted up Alone in the Dark. Thankfully, I didn’t have to dig deep into my memory banks and try to remember how to create autoexec.bat or config.sys files or fiddle around with Windows compatibility options in order to get the game to work. This was mandatory back when the game came out and before DOSBox. No, I just installed the package provided by GOG.com, clicked, and played. This wasn’t an issue for console gamers but, for the longest time even getting your game to run on a PC was a challenge. Did you have a sound card? Did you have the right drivers for it? Was it compatible with the game you were playing? Did you have enough memory? Is your PC loading TSR programs that are eating up your memory? Some games you could never play and you’d never know why either… No one mentions how much fun they had creating boot disks, and various forms of autoexec.bat; because it was terrible, awful, and we’re all glad those days are behind us.
Once you get into the game though it isn’t much better. Alone in the Dark was an early 3-d game and it shows. Everything is an ugly collection of cubes and polygons. Your character is unresponsive and moves like a tank, objects that are necessary to complete the game are sometimes hidden in objects you assume are the background… Good thing there’s a story here and one inspired by my favorite author, H.P. Lovecraft, or I’d never even play the thing.
Alone in the Dark isn’t alone (harhar) even the highest rated games from the past; the ones that make ‘Top 100’ lists are riddled with odd choices, confusing puzzles, and impossibly stupid game design. And why wouldn’t they be? People were, they still are, trying to figures things out. “How do we give the player control in a 3d environment?” “What if we make the city a giant maze?” “What would a game about a reporter be like?” Some things eventually work (moving in 3d space in a video game) others didn’t (an adventure game about reporting, and giant maze cities)
That doesn’t mean these games are bad, it just means you have to accept them on their terms and use a FAQ when you hit a wall. It’s a lot like reading really old novels or watching old movies. There are times when you wonder “why are they doing this?” Well, it’s because it had never been done before and it seemed like a good idea at the time. No one knows until they try. It’s a good thing they did too because now we don’t have tank controls or nondescript endless corridors. Once you accept that, you can find a lot of good stuff out there!
Just don’t tell me that it was better back then.
Space Marine: Not a Review
Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000 is a tabletop war game. Actually, for all intent and purposes, it is THE tabletop war game. Other war games exist, historic and otherwise, but people outside the hobby? If they know about tabletop war gaming at all they probably know about Games Workshop’s Warhammer (Fantasy or 40k). I started playing 40k over a decade ago and I love it. I love the hobby, the models, the fluff, etc. I wouldn’t call myself a fanboy (I own their competitor’s products and have some complaints).
As fun as a table top game is to play, after the game is over and you’re packing your models up and collecting stray dice, you have to admit that tiny metal and plastic models pushed up against each other and hundreds of dice roles doesn’t quite convey the frenetic pulpy action of the fluff:
…The attack was defeated, but there was no doubt there would be many more before the day was out. Less than a fifth of the Ultramarines who had begun the operation were still alive and Idaeus knew that one more push would see them defeated. He ignored the pleas of his sergeants and set off alone in a suicidal attempt to blow the bridge.
Sprinting through the bullet-chased and smoke huanted rubble, Idaeus reached the first of the demolition charges just as the retrieval Thunderhawk touched down beyond the bridge’s western approach and out of range of the enemy’s anti-aircraft positions. Triggering the commes-net Idaeus ordered the remaining Ultramarines to retreat under the command of Sergeant Uriel Ventris as the Night Lords began yet another assault. The surviving Ultramarines withdrew under fire to the Thunderhawk and Idaeus waited until the last possible second before detonating the first charge. In a catastrophic chain reaction, the remaining charges exploded, destroying Idaeus, the briddge, and much of the Night Lords’ oncoming assulat wave in a searing blast that shook the earth for Leagues around.
Excerpt from Idaeus’ Last Charge, Codex Space Marines
I have plenty of imagination and that is generally what I use when playing 40k, but now thanks to Relic and THQ I don’t have to always imagine and I don’t have to rustle up a table, and opponent and three to four spare hours. Instead, I can play Space Marine:
Space Marine is a middling action title, it isn’t great and it isn’t bad. The game does a decent job of delivering fast paced, violent action set in the 40k universe. For people who don’t know anything else about the 40k world that is all the game can be. For players of Warhammer 40,000 and fans of the world Space Marine is quite a bit more. It takes all those static images of models on a table and brings them to life! Here we can experience the destructive power of a Lascannon or the tremendous might of a single Space Marine against Xenos hordes. I especially appreciate how faithfully they portrayed the weaponry in the game. I kind of understood how a plasma gun differed from a melta gun; I understand the basics of a bolter (standard, heavy, and storm.) Space Marine, just as it does for the titular characters, brings this aspect of the 40k universe to life.
The best sections of the game are when you have access to a assault jet pack. I wish they had used the pack more or simply designed the game around it. Every jet pack level adds a vertical component to the game that is much more complex and compelling than the standard horizontal lay out of the rest of the game. I enjoy going from kill room to kill room as much as the next guy. But, in a 10 or so hour campaign it can get boring. The Jet pack allows for much more creative level design as well as giving the player an out when they are outnumbered. Hopefully, if there is a sequel the assault pack can play an integral part of it.
The only complaint I have with the game is how it handles your character’s life bar. While your Space Marine has a regenerating shield his life force is static and can only be regained by performing an “execution” against an enemy (canned animation kill) this would be fine except for the fact that some of these kills can last 3 or 4 seconds and you take damage while performing them!? I lost count of how many times I died while being stuck in the execution animation that would have healed me had it not gone on for so long…
Space Marine is a fun game, I hear the multiplayer is especially exciting, (and allows for creating your own Space Marine chapter!) for those looking for a shooter and aren’t already occupied with Gears of War 3 (I will never understand why this game was released a mere week before the most anticipated third person shooter of the year.) If you are a 40k fan though this game is indispensable!