Sold on the Demo

It's been a busy one. The Xbox Live Marketplace has been awash in some great demos in recent weeks. I've had a crack at most of them and have discovered a surprising phenomenon this time around: the inability of a demo to sell me on the final retail product.

I count Resident Evil 5, The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, and Wanted: Weapons of Fate among some of my most anticipated titles this spring. The demos for all three games failed to ignite my interest, dispelling months of positive hype, preview videos and screenshots in a matter of minutes.

Demos are still one of the best ways for gamers to test drive a product before making a buying decision. So what does it say about a demo when it almost works against the game itself, revealing the game's shortcomings for what they are and possibly even focusing undue attention to flaws that might not pose such a large factor in the full retail release?

There's also a misconceptin among the gaming community on what the purpose of a demo really is, even going as far as to confuse the goals of a demo to that of an open beta release. In the case of Resident Evil 5, the quality of the demo made me doubt whether I was actually playing test code or an actual slice of a the the actual game. A myriad of problems made me dislike this demo, not the least of which was the cumbersome control scheme. This sentiment was shared by gamers at large and the mass reactions prompted a response from Capcom
brass and the game producer. The complaints were heard loud and clear, but fears were not allayed. It was only a matter of getting used to the controls, we were told: Once we played the actual game, it would all make sense.

But of course it would. I won't get into Capcom's response to fan reaction to the demo, as stubborn and arrogant as it was. The statements were telling, however, and stood as a stark reminder to us all that demos have always been mainly tools of marketing, and not an avenue for iterative design. As much as I wanted Capcom to roll back their survival horror opus and change fundamental design mechanics in order to make a better game, this was not going to happen. By the time a demo launches, almost everything about a game's development is locked in and near to completion.

So it can be disheartening for developers to see some negativity result from gamers getting a sample of their pet project and realizing that they won't be able to change anything once the actual game is released into the wild. I can almost begin to see why some game demos never see the light of day, or show up months after a game's release. I used to find late demos inexcusable. It flies in the face of marketing logic, or so I had mistakenly assumed. If the recent batch of demos are any indication, maybe publishers and developers ought to put more care into their demo code and put more thought into what segments of a game are to be shown. Should a custom level be built, a patchwork of different areas of the game or simply the first 30 minutes of the retail code be used for expediency's sake?

For game companies, putting out a demo is still giving gamers what they want. It's just not the win-win it used to be. In all likelihood, they have been waiting with bated breath for it, eager to get a taste. That first impression, however, can be a killer. Without the benefit of having the full power of the game behind you, impressions are left to hang only on a fraction of the full meal, the little you've decided to offer them as a sample. If the demo is good, then the experience will be extrapolated into a favourable impression of the full game to come.

And a lousy demo? Well, I've learned to never underestimate good marketing, word of mouth and the power of Metacritic.

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The Impression Game: FEAR 2 demo

The ad campaigns for FEAR 2: Project Origin tell you to fear Alma again. Playing the advance demo the other night on my Xbox, I wondered if it was more fitting to fear pre-Half Life 2 shooter design.

But that's not to greatly disparage the solid game on display here. All the familiar trappings of the FEAR were present, along with the beats you've come to expect from a tightly scripted corridor first-person shooter. Your character, a different FEAR operative than the original's protagonist, is dogged by Alma during impromptu hallucination sequences. Meanwhile phantoms haunt your steps and homogeneous hordes of replicant soldiers impede your progress through a story that seems as nebulous as ever.

Typical of a shooter, things like "meet us at the rendezvous point", "find the exit" seem to provide all the narrative force required to string you through some beautifully devastated environments. Monolith has taken FEAR to the beauty salon by applying a fresh coat of foundation and layering on all the blush and highlighting you could ask for. The texture detail in the sequel is several magnitudes more intricate than it was in FEAR. The light has also seen a tremendous overhaul. Gone are the jagged, janky shadows, replaced now with bevy of lighting tricks that take the games atmosphere from being merely believable to utterly gripping. It shares more than a few stylistic hallmarks with last year's Condemned: Bloodshot. Thankfully, where that game revelled in up-close melee while offering a smattering of gun play, FEAR 2 amps up the gun porn but throws in the same amusing butts and scissor kicks from the original FEAR.

The play mechanic are competently realized. The game nails that all-important feel of holding and firing powerful weapons. Where FEAR offered a largely cosmetic option to aim down your weapon's barrel (which in practice looked more like you were lifting the gun from waist to chest height), FEAR 2 goes full out with a iron sights mode that perfectly mimics that found in the Call of Duty series. The standard arsenal of boomshots, rifles and subs all look appropriately sexy but they suffer with their muted reports. Really, a shotgun should not sound like a pop gun.

Yet if there's a problem with FEAR 2, it's surely not for its lack of intensity or good intentions. With it's thin story and pretensions of Hollywood horror scares, the developers are still not sure what they want you to think after the last bullet has been fired and the final replicant dispatched. Despite the cheap scares brought on the occasional blurry visions, you're essentially a one-man wrecking crew: incredibly well-armed and endowed with superhuman reflexes (yes, the slow motion makes a return), so the threats never feel elevated to any point beyond the purely concrete. As in the first game, the core game play is actually quite divorced from the core of the story. A survival horror game like Dead Space links these pieces together by actually making the scares and threats one and the same. Here you see visions of ghosts but blast armies of obstacle-hurdling relicants in the face mask. Ther'es not much horror there, but it's still a damn fine guilty pleasure.

So while the demo for FEAR 2 still makes a solid case for retail purchase, it doesn't quell any suspicions I have about stepping into the shoes of yet another super soldier on a particularly bad acid trip. Perhaps the multiplayer modes will include one for a communal freak out session, no weapons required.

(Note: To be fair, the various preview videos of the final game do show some variety in the enemies beyond soldiers and mechs. We can expect a showing from the deformed freakazoid contigent and even the demo included a posse of angry poltergeist monsters. I'll admit that it can be fun to hate on Alma, even if it will probably be a lot more fun to play the damn game once it comes out on February 10th, 2009.)

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Are Consoles Finally Ready for Real-Time? (Part 1)

Real-time strategy games, as a genre, have not been very kind to me these last several years. The last RTS I ever dug into with any aplomb was Blizzard's Warcraft III. It was then, as I dutifully built my bases, harvested wood and cranked out countless units all armed with special abilities, that I really began questioning my actual liking for the genre. More recently on the console side of things, I've always felt compelled to play more RTS games on the Xbox 360, more as a way of balancing my gaming diet over actually having an affinity for this style of game. Consequently, my experience with RTS titles on the 360 often begin and end with a game's demo.

Given my spotty history with RTSs, it's been a surprise to catch myself feeling much more optimistic about the genre. But what is it about this genre that has me being pulled in one moment and pushed away the next? Why now, of all times, am I suddenly feeling bullish about real-time strategy, especially on the consoles?

To understand my optimism, we need to take a quick jaunt in our time machine. Real-time strategy is a genre that began in 1992 with the seminal Dune 2 and has, shockingly, changed very little in the last 17 years. Seventeen years. That period of time in the games industry is equivalent to the birth and passing of a star (as an aside, I've been rewatching bits of Danny Boyle's Sunshine and I do relish my space ship disaster movies!). It's amazing to consider just how very little has changed in seventeen long years within a genre that would seem so rife with possibilities. When it debuted, Dune 2 established a new way to play strategy games by combining the combat-driven goals of traditional hex-based war games with the empire-building and "play god" qualities of games like Populous and SimCity. While there were already games on the market that held similar ambitions, none of them had Dune II's sense of immediacy of allowing you to control your armies in real time. Leisurely turns played against the AI or against human opponents over play-by-mail systems were a thing of the past. Strategy was now a real time affair and the gaming public (including yours truly) ate it up.

Dune II's basic formula of harvesting resources, building a base and amassing a massive army to destroy the enemy's base was perfected in the years to come. Westwood Studios, the studio responsible for creating the RTS template, followed up Dune II with Command and Conquer, while PC games upstart Blizzard entered the market with their wildly successful Warcraft games. By the time we approached the late 1990s, the PC games market was literally overflowing in RTS titles. The Westwood and Blizzard franchises quickly became the gold standard against which all other pretenders to the throne were compared against. Unfortunately for us, there were far too many pretenders and consumers were soon awash in mediocore "me-too" experiences.

I want to skip ahead several years to the present day in order to show just how little has changed with RTS games since the '90s. The genre really has evolved into a very niche genre, not unlike the fighting games that seem to be going through a renaissance right now. RTS adhere to a very particular set of rules and conventions and demand a relatively high level of performance from its players. To the average player, your typical RTS presents a rather daunting task. Even with the luxury of a keyboard and mouse, most RTSs play out like a multi-tasker's wet dream. There are tech dreams to memorize, workers and harvesters to manage, not to mention a war that needs to be waged, sometimes on multiple fronts. What results can be described as a glorious marriage of fast reflexes, even faster tactics and true panic-induced strategic thinking. On a less favourable day, your typical RTS can devolve into a mind-numbing arms race, as each player blunders through their production tree so as to build up the largest army of the strongest (or cheapest) units and send the entire mob en mass to the enemy's front gates. All of this unfolds admist a cacophonous flurry of hotkey strokes and mouse clicks.

As if it comes as any surprise, this style of of game play and interface design has transitioned rather horribly to the home console. Thumb sticks are no substitute for even the worst mouse. We've also pretty much reached the conceivable limit of buttons we can comfortably fit onto a game pad. While recent advancements have streamlined common tasks like unit selection, preparing build queues and creating hotkeys, playing console RTSs remains a cumbersome, labour-intensive venture. (In light of this grim fact, I'd like to give out big props to the developers of Command & Conquer for their hard-headed insistence on fighting this uphill battle)

Oh, but times, they are a'changin'. I've recently been sucker punched by Ubisoft Shanghai's EndWar, a Tom Clancy property that puts the player squarely back into the army commander's boots: an army commander, I might add, who has also bee relieved of his middle management and junior accounting duties. This game, despite it's rough edges, has impressed me to no end. Also on the horizon, I am looking forward to the ever mysterious Halo Wars. Both EndWar and Halo Wars point the way towards a very bright future for strategy games on the console and I'll be going more in-depth in my next post about how they have the potential to change our opinions about RTSs forever.

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The Play With My Box Dubious Distinction Awards 2008

Best Candidate for PR Muzzling
Denis Dyak (Silicon Knights)
Peter Molyneaux (Lionhead Studios)
Bobby Kotick (Activision)

Failed Shot at Tony Hawk-style Video Game Stardom
Shaun White

Triumph of Innovation Over Good Design
Mirror's Edge

Triumph of Innovation Paired with Good Design But Low Content
Left 4 Dead

Biggest Disappointments
Army of Two
Spore
Stars Wars Force Unleashed
Mirror's Edge
Rainbow Six Vegas 2
Too Human

Weakest Justification for Neutering Mature Game Content
Emil Pagliarulo (no child killing in Fallout 3)

Complete and Utter Hardware Sales Domination
Nintendo (Wii and DS)

Complete and Utter Software Sales Domination
(Tie) Xbox 360's attach rate & Blizzard's Wrath of the Lich King expansion

Blatant Case of Imitation as Flattery
(Tie) Xbox 360's Avatars & Playstation 3's Home and improved Trophy system

Most Embarrassing Portrayal of Game Culture
Spike Video Game Awards

Laziest Sequel
Rainbow Six Vegas 2

Botched PC Port
Supreme Commander

Best Example of Bringing a Knife to a Gun Fight
Konami for Rock Revolution

Got your own ideas? Post up your suggestions for more Dubious Distinction awards in the comments section.

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Q1 Release Calendar Highlights for 2009

The new year is upon us. Gamers and podcasters alike have been picking through the ashes of the madness that was fall/winter 2008. While internet debates continue to stir about whether 2008 was the "superior" year of gaming over 2007, they are also asking the most poignant of questions, like: How will 2009 stack up in the quantity and quality of game releases?

The first quarter of any calendar year is typically a quiet time for notable game releases. This year the slate is looking uncharacteristically exciting, thanks to a number of long-anticipated sequels and higher profile games that were delayed from their originally scheduled Q4 launches in 2008.

In order of release, here are my picks for games to watch for the remainder of this winter:

LOTR Conquest
I realize that I did not paint the rosiest picture in the post of my impressions of the demo a few days ago. Fellow bloggers have kindly advised me to try out the demo's multiplayer mode, claiming that it is a far more interesting experience than the tutorial-like single player trawl. Even with all my early misgivings about this game, it is overall a rather strong release to see in January of all months. With a heavyweight license behind it, a credible developer in charge and some very solid production values on display, LOTR Conquest is poised to make a very big splash... at least until some of the other Q1 games are rolled out.

Afro Samurai
I know very little about this Bandai Namco release. Based on the cult animé series, Afro Samurai immediately grabs the eyes with its visually striking art design, one that supposedly stays very true to the source material and seems to be a perfect fit for an edgy action-adventure game. The game will feature a unique bit of technology that will allow bodies to be cut -- and presumably separated-- at any point and from any direction. With the pre-release buzz nearly non-existent, my expectations are refreshingly blank. Here's hoping for a strong demo to hit XBL and PSN well before the game's retail launch.

Sacred 2
Action-RPG fanatics got their just desserts last August when Too Human stormed the shelves and was met with mixed reviews all around. The game failed to light a fire at retail but caught on with a devoted fan base who were willing to forgive the game's many glaring flaws and enjoy the unadulterated level- and loot-grinding mechanics. Sacred 2 will give Xbox 360 gamers a second shot of hack n' slash action this February, touting a vast open world, multiple player classes, ride-able mounts and 4-player online co-op. The PC version launched last November to unremarkable reviews and there were prompt complaints about the litany of bugs that snuck by the QA team. I remember many years ago how German developer, Ascaron patched the first Sacred to death and I sincerely hope most of the technical hiccups are ironed out before they unveil this ambitious action-RPG to the Xbox masses.

FEAR 2: Project Origin
Monolith's flagship shooter has suffered a bit of an identity crisis. With the FEAR brand locked up in legal hell for the better part of 2008, Monolith was forced to position the game as a spiritual successor to 2005's FEAR (released to 360 in 2006) rather than a legitimate sequel. Thankfully, the FEAR brand is back in its rightful home but the sequel still faces some hurdles on its road to acceptance. Similar to Valve's reliance on their Source engine, FEAR 2 has been developed on a retro-fitted LithTech engine, a reliable piece of kit that may be getting a touch long in the tooth. Players can expect the level design to open up beyond the drab office interiors of the first game, with pitched firefights spilling onto devastated city streets and even a few joyrides in mech-like war machines. I remain optimistic but I wonder if Monolith is getting stuck in a time loop. The industry as a whole seems to be over its fascination with corridor crawls and Bullet Time, so only time will tell if Monolith serves up a helping of retro-cool or just tired old retro.

Street Fighter 4
The one-on-one fighting genre has seen a bit of a resurgence these past couple years, so it's only fitting that we are a little over a month away from welcoming back the arguable granddaddy of fighter franchises. Street Fighter 4 has already been making waves in arcades overseas and with good reason. Marketed as a "return to form" for the series, SF4's game play will take most of its cues from the template popularized by Street Fighter 2 and its many variants during the 1990s. Featuring all of the original playable characters and a host of new personalities, the home versions of SF4 will also feature bonus characters not found in the arcade edition. Fans of Akuma, Fei Long, Cammy, Rose, Dan Hibiki, Gouken, Seth and Sakura can rejoice! These additions brings up the total roster to a staggering 25 characters. If this isn't the definitive version of Street Fighter for the new generation, I am at a loss to figure out what is. This may also herald the first time I lay down the money for an arcade stick or fight pad just play a fighting game.

Resident Evil 5
I am a relative neophyte to Resident Evil, yet another revered Capcom franchise that has been brilliantly managed and reinvented all these years. Sharing many traces of game play DNA with Resident Evil 4, this new game will deposit players in war-torn Africa in the continuing fight against the zombie virus. This game is sure to be a technical showpiece for both Xbox 360 and PS3 owners as it features some of sharpest graphics seen so far this console generation. For the first time in the series, co-op play will be supported from the ground-up, allowing players to step into the shoes of Chris Redfield or his newcomer partner-in-arms, Sheva Alomar. With so much going for this game, I wonder how it will be received in a world where Dead Space exists. Survival horror has always been a rather small genre in gaming, so it'll be interesting to see how a genre titan like Resident Evil fares in a more competitive, modern climate.

Halo Wars
My recent infatuation with strategy and war games has warmed me to the prospect of playing Halo Wars this March. Notable in so many different ways, the game nonetheless struggles to gain traction in the enthusiast press. You'd think the Halo brand alone would be enough to draw global attention yet all is not roses and sunshine for Ensemble Studios' swan song. The way I see it, the success of this game hinges on one thing: control. From the beginning, Halo Wars was touted as the only RTS developed to take full advantage of console hardware (this distinction has now been officially stolen by Ubisoft's excellent, EndWar). Where previous RTS games have been met with partial success due to cumbersome or incomplete integration of mouse-keyboard controls to a game pad environment, Halo Wars will be designed with just that peripheral in mind.

Even so, the overall design still seems to stubbornly adhere to the resource harvesting and base building formula established by Dune II in 1992. More so than any flaw with control schemes, this tired formula is the main reason I shy away from most modern RTSs. It would be more reassuring to know that Ensemble was also intent on shattering the harvest-build-rush paradigm of yore along with any innovations made to user-centered design. As it stands, we can at least be assured of a unique take on the Halo universe, as well as a solid, final release from one of the best RTS developers of our time.

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The Impression Game: LOTR Conquest

It's a fresh new year, which means right about now we should see the release of lower profile titles that were held over from the competitive holiday shopping season. Following in lock step with the movie industry, the months of January and February are traditionally viewed by game publishers as an ideal dumping ground for lesser (in either quality or marketing muscle) games that probably would have been eaten alive during the peak "Oscar buzz" months beginning in October of the previous year.

The upcoming LOTR Conquest from EA/Pandemic is certainly timed in a manner to suggest that it belongs in this category of Q1-released games of dubious quality. The demo was unleashed unto Xbox Live over the weekend and I gratefully gave it a test drive after throwing up my hands in exasperated frustration, blustering through Chapter 4 of Mirror's Edge as it were.

At it's heart, LOTR Conquest is a dressed up meld of DICE's Battlefield and Koei's Dynasty Warriors series. Comparisons to the latter franchise are never wholeheartedly flattering, so I did leave the demo's solo experience with an odd, unsatisfied aftertaste in my gullet (more on that later).

LOTR Conquest is a solo or multiplayer game that pits the forces of good versus Sauron's empire of infinitely expendable orcs. The demo guides you through various scripted sequences as you experiment with each available player class on the good side, of which there are 4, plus the opportunity to control a unique Hero character taken from the LOTR canon.

Victory is based on the aggressive capturing and holding of control points and it's this mechanic that draws the most parallels to the Battlefield games. Holding a control point confers a few advantages, such as offering the ability to switch classes and providing a respawn point closer to the front lines of war.

There seem to be all the core ingredients necessary for a rollicking fun multiplayer hack n' slash festival. Most of the player classes are tremendously powerful and capable of cutting down large swaths of orcs with only a couple button presses. The emphasis is on fast action, so there's no limit on mana energy for casting the Mage's pre-assigend spells or rationing the number of arrows in your quiver. The enemy hordes are constant, so your only real concern is to press the attack and keep the combos flowing.

The demo concludes with a clunky, lopsided duel against Sauron. Even stepping into the leather boots of a Hero character (sorry, his name eludes me now) did little to bolster my enjoyment of this set piece. Sauron freely tossed me around the battlefield, largely shrugging off even my stronger combos, interrupting my attacks and being a right pain in the ass like any good end boss should.

I can't help but have a very tepid first impression of LOTR Conquest. The rather mindless hacking of ineffectual enemy drones did remind me too much of Dynasty Warriors for my liking. I'm curious to see if there's any innovation to be found in the full retail's single-player campaign. Will it be a repetitious linking of the same control point conquest scenarios or will the developers surprise us with some interesting game play diversions along the way? Multiplayer is likely where most players will flock to and make their home, but even there I question the game's ability to grow the necessary legs to hold its audience's attention. I didn't get a sense of much strategic depth to the game play even though I'm confident some inspired strategies will emerge soon enough among the power elite. Yet what I played of the demo felt very superficial in both breadth and depth of design, so longevity should definitely a concern for anyone considering a purchase.

Finally, I just don't know if another game using the LOTR license really needed to be made. The mythology is old hat by now and while the Peter Jackson trilogy was superb, the Return of the King is coming on 6 years old now. This is one dead horse and I'm not sure any amount of genre plundering can breath new life into this revered but dusty franchise.

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Best of 2008: Game Journalists and Personalities

In no particular order:

Jeff Green
Greenspeak, 1UP Network, EA

N'Gai Croal
Level Up - Newsweek

Jim Sterling
Destructoid, Podtoid podcast

Shawn Elliot
1Up Network, 2K

Chris Dahlen
Save the Robot, The Onion AV Club

The Entire Edge Magazine Staff
Edge Magazine, Edge-Online.com

Honourable Mention: Geoff Keighley (Game Trailers), Adam Sessler (G4TV), Victor Lucas (Electric Playground)

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