An Interview with Star Kiwi's Leo Curtis

Star Kiwi member Leo Curtis talks to Max Hart about their exciting game Space Hawk, iPhone games and the New Zealand gaming community.

As a side-scrolling space shooter you have to forgive some people for dismissing Star Kiwi’s Space Hawk as just another R-Type clone.  Yes, there is a big hulking ship (the Space Hawk), that if it dies spells game over; and yes, you have to blow up asteroids and enemy spaceships.  But what’s special is that the game is all about escorting the Space Hawk and making sure it doesn’t go BOOM by defending it with mini-ships via on-screen controls.   Outside of the gameplay, Star Kiwi promises online leaderboards very shortly as well as achievements that go beyond the typical ‘Congratulations! You have completed the game on Hard!’, etc.  Admit it, we all love achievements.

When asked, Leo will tell you that he is a fan of games with a great difficulty curve: “anytime I’m challenged is great”, in particular he cites fighting and sports games as the best examples of this, including his all time personal favourite Fire Pro Wrestling (which his Star Kiwi colleagues mercilessly tease him about).  It seems Leo’s love of difficult games has bled through into Space Hawk itself:  upon completing the Hard difficulty Nightmare Mode is unlocked, which as one reviewer put it: “is quite literally what it says it is”.  Leo laughs when I tell him this, explaining that the mode was actually included more or less as a mistake due to a programmer inserting too many asteroids on the screen at once.  The resulting mode is a slightly toned-back version and as he points out that “to this day our best player can get three quarters of the way but has never finished it”.  As to whether anyone can actually survive long enough to complete the game on Nightmare, Leo doesn’t have a clue, suggesting that if anyone does they would get a very special achievement.

Why make a game for the iPhone?  When I asked this question I half-expected Leo to dive into some technical mumbo-jumbo about accelerometers and particle effects leaving me to stare at a wall for a bit.  Admittedly, he did touch on this but there was a much more simple reason behind the decision.  StarKiwi CEO Ryan Thatcher had become hooked by the iPhone game Air Traffic Controller and was astounded that such a simple game could become so addicting...oh and also sell four million units in a year.  So along came the simple thought of ‘You know what?  I reckon I could do better’, kicking off the Space Hawk process.

While Space Hawk was a plan bursting with ambition, Star Kiwi found themselves without a coder – a somewhat essential part of any game development company – thankfully, the Game Developers Meetup solved this issue.  A once a month meeting off Queen Street, the Game Developers Meetup serves not only as a forum for avid local developers to discuss their projects, but also provides an opportunity to network and find work.  The latter part comes along in the form of a section affectionately called ‘Desperately Seeking’, where anyone can put their hand up to say “Hey I’m working on a project I need a programmer/artist/coder”.  Star Kiwi stepped up to the plate and gave a little spiel requesting a coder and came across the answer to their prayers – a.k.a. Matthew Gatlang: “He was able to fix little issues that we had just over night and suddenly we could see this game coming full circle”.  Star Kiwi had a team.

But what about the funds?  The big boss man Thatcher had some, but that alone would not be enough.  So the Star Kiwi crew got on the wire and began approaching potential investors.  What followed was a somewhat tiresome process, says Leo: “First of all they didn’t understand that it was a game, they kept on saying ‘Why are you building another app? Everyone builds apps,’”.  The frustrating issue was that people did not realise that there were people in New Zealand who knew how to make games that could be sold all over the world.  Leo eventually got the message through that people like to have a game with them, whether it’s Solitaire on their computer or Tetris on their phone – making it an almost universal appreciation. 

With a bit of budgeting and some good ol’ fashioned Kiwi hard work Space Hawk was released, and subsequently people began to see that New Zealanders actually making games was a reality.  After Space Hawk’s release interest in the company sky-rocketed: Star Kiwi began to get numerous phone calls from people saying “Hey I have an idea for a game, I have this much money, can you make it for me?”.  So have they taken up these offers?  Leo was pretty mum to discuss this but he did confirm that due to Space Hawke’s success its sequel is currently in the works while at the same time another IP aimed at a broader audience is slated for a February 2011 release.

Whether you want to prove Leo wrong and earn that achievement Nightmare Mode achievement or just want to play Star Kiwi’s much-touted Space Hawk, the good news is that it’s available right now on the iTunes App Store for just $1.29.  For what is essentially loose change you could have this on your iPhone provided it’s 3GS or 4G (sorry 3G iPhone users, the 3D effects will kick your phone to the curb).  Space Hawk is also about to be released for those lucky punters with iPads too, so watch this space!

Assassin's Creed 2 review

The first Assassin’s Creed received mixed responses from critics and gamers alike. Praise for its style and relative grace as well as just how damn pretty it was, whilst loud complaints were directed towards its tedious and repetitive mission structure as well as its general lack of difficulty. While the game’s praises led many to purchase the title, the flaws halted a number from gritting their teeth to complete the damn thing (myself included). Despite the game’s flaws it was clear that Ubisoft had a franchise worthy of a follow up and hence we have Assassin’s Creed 2.

While many elements of the game will be instantly familiar to those who played the original (free running, combat, stealth, etc) there are a few notable changes. Most obvious of which is the change of scenery: Crusade-era near-east is replaced by Renaissance Italy – whose themes of rediscovery of forgotten ways is very fitting for the sequel. Among multiple references to the original’s protagonist/ancestor, Altair, codex pages are inevitably discovered unlocking more Assassin secrets such as blueprints for a primitive gun and even a second hidden blade. Whereas other games may automatically upgrade your abilities upon collection of these collectibles, it is who you take these seemingly empty collectibles to that gives the game, and setting, real soul and believability – Leonardo da-goddamn Vinci. Yes, the Renaissance-era legend has a firm place in this title by being a close friend of our protagonist’s ancestor Ezio. It’s the little things just like da Vinci that give this game its charm and, as the timeline progresses over the years, the cities themselves change – bridges and churches are built, areas become more populated by believable people, etc. Speaking of which a little while into the game you are given access to your own villa-come-village that, as you invest in it, changes from a dreary hole to a bustling town complete with everything from a church and shops to a brothel (apparently a tourist attraction in Renaissance-era Italy), which earns you money relative to how much money you throw at it.

Settings and themes aside AC2 plays very much like its predecessor which is both good and bad. Good in that it is easy to pick up and thoroughly enjoyable whether whisking along rooftops or descending on a target. Bad in that it is at you may blindly find yourself resembling a squished tomato after gleefully jumping the wrong way off a ledge. Also, at times the combat is too easy with the all too reliable strategy being waiting to counter enemies’ strikes. Luckily these are the only remaining flaws from the original’s gameplay that remain, the tedious eavesdrop/steal/etc missions have been mercifully replaced by more varied missions that provide good pacing and actually feel that they are a part of the wider story arc.

Another major aspect of the original AC that makes a return for the good and bad is the visuals. While there is a lot of visual gratification for climbing up a church spire to admire the view there are at times some very jarring shortcomings in the graphics department. For example, characters’ faces still look exactly as they did in the first game, while very good they appear very tired and just plain lazy when compared to the AAA heavy hitters that AC2 is meant to compete with. While it may seem a very small gripe to make this type of shortcoming does prove to be detrimental to the experience which is a bit of a shame.

Outside of the main story arc Ubisoft have implanted a fair bit of side quests and booty collecting in order for gamers to get the most out of their buck. As well as the aforementioned codex pages (which also grant you more health eventually) you can collect feathers, loot for treasure and take part in side quests such as assassinations, races and deliveries. However there are two particularly notable side quests that will keep platform junkies and conspiracy nuts respectively busy. The first is Prince of Persia-inspired plat forming to be found in assassins tombs which eventually rewards you with your predecessor’s armour. The latter requires you to scan certain anomalies on walls etcetera in order to decipher clues that flesh out the game’s conspiracy – hinting at a presence that has long been among civilised man.

While Assassin’s Creed 2 still contains many similar flaws to its predecessor, it is a solid game for those gamers who want to have a change from online-heavy games like Modern Warfare 2 and Uncharted 2. While still holding onto the original’s charm and beauty the team at Ubisoft have (mostly) listened to fans’ and critics’ concerns by injecting a well-paced plot and believable setting thereby crafting a game that is a joy to both play or to simply admire.

8.5 out of 10

A Chat with Stickmen Studios' CEO Wil McLellan

Wil McLellan is not exactly your average CEO. In fact, Stickmen Studios is not your average company either, it is in fact one of New Zealand’s few game development studios. Wil managed to take some precious time out of his day to sit down and chat about Stickmen Studios and New Zealand’s place in the global gaming industry.

Established in 2006 before opening their studio in Christchurch two years later Stickmen was formed after Wil and two friends decided, “Yeah we can probably make a game in our spare time”. After speaking to people in the industry they decided to formally establish the company and see where it would take them. What followed was years of tireless research that consumed many evenings and weekends. “And then the real hard work started”. Eighty and one hundred hour weeks became the norm as they experienced just how much of a challenge the gaming industry is. What was once a hobby now became his life.

Wil and his team gained experience by working with partner companies to create Flash and iPhone games. Working with kiwi-games portal company Cerebral Fix, two games for the iPhone were produced: the retro Swarm and the family-orientated Love, Share, Nurture – both available for purchase. However, Stickmen’s big projects-focus on the home console developing titles for WiiWare and, as of June this year, the PlayStation Network.

He explains that while Stickmen could have simply chosen to pursue franchised products with an already established audience it is simply not how the company operates, “Our real drive is to make original IP”. Despite opting for a business model with significant high risk Wil is confident in Stickmen’s ability to create high calibre games. By building titles from the ground up it allows for the emergence of innovative and exciting material, something which links into their goal to create breakthrough gaming. Take their soon-to-be-released WiiWare title ‘Dragon Master Spell Caster’ for example, a fully 3D titles to be made available for download on Nintendo’s console – by no means a small feat for a first-time project. Wil is particularly proud of the dragon-fighting gameplay because in a lot of games missiles and magic rarely, if ever, make contact mid-air, “We really liked the idea that when magic collides it does something magical”. So what would happen if, say, a fireball collided with an ice-based attack? Steam of course. And what about an earth versus lightning magic? You’ll just have to find out when the game is released. As their first complete project Wil admits that Dragon Master will provide Stickmen a significant learning curve “You’ve just got to learn how it’s done first time round and that always takes time”. And it’s from these lessons, he predicts, that Stickmen will grow as a company and learn to create subsequent games with greater efficiency and quality.

Speaking of which, Dragon Master is not their only project in the works: two additional WiiWare titles codenamed ‘Project I’ and ‘Project F’ are also in development. While admitting that he cannot reveal anything significant about these games, a quick gander at their website reveals a few details. ‘Project I’ appears to be a side-scrolling puzzle-adventure featuring cute cartoon-style graphics while ‘Project F’ hints at an addictive fantasy-based experience. While remaining very tight-lipped on these projects the head-honcho of Stickmen promises that both are original IPs that again contribute towards their breakthrough gaming mantra in their own unique ways. Stickmen, Wil enthuses, does not want to be held down to a single genre of gaming, claiming that the studio does not want to follow the herd. This is clearly evident in the range of projects thus far: Dragon Master is a 3D dragon flying game, while ‘Project I’ and ‘Project F’ are respectively puzzle-adventure and “strategically-based”. However, Wil teases, there is yet another project in the works that may be released before ‘Project F’. While remaining very quiet on any details he promises that this mystery project continues to carry on a “very different look and feel” to their other products, promising only that further information will be revealed come-November.

“We don’t want to be predictable”, Wil says, and tells me that he is particularly proud of Stickmen because the team are not part of a machine per se. In a writing meeting, for example, everyone gets to put their ten cents in, resulting in a team unified by something that is their shared creation: “I don’t know if it’s unique, but it’s certainly a very enjoyable way to work”.
With so many projects on the go and such an inviting space for employees to stretch their creative muscle, one would think that game development would be a popular career in New Zealand – a nation that prides itself on innovation. Unfortunately this is not the case. Wil points out that countries like Scotland and Canada, who respectively employ 11,000 and 14,000 people in the industry, earn their economies billions of dollars. While New Zealand’s few hundred game industry folk bring in a just a few million per year. A pretty embarrassing statistic, Wil laments, undoubtedly not helped by the lack of opportunities available to those wanting to get into the industry itself despite having the right qualifications. Those who miss out on the very limited positions in NZ’s gaming industry end up working for corporate IT or, as was the case of one of Stickmen’s developers, getting qualified then stacking shelves whilst trying to get into gaming. And then of course there’s the ever-occurring brain-drain: the exodus of talented and qualified kiwis overseas to pursue careers that are simply not available in their own country.

What is New Zealand doing to prevent this loss of talent? Aside from companies like Stickmen and Wellington’s Sidhe Interactive doing whatever they can, it seems very little. While very grateful to the support provided by WINZ (Work & Income New Zealand) and FRST (The Foundation of Science, Research and Technology), Wil still believes the central government could do more. “What I would like to see is some more government support for the industry” Wil declares, just like the recent support and subsequent rise of New Zealand’s movie industry. He holds a lot of respect for the Kiwi movie-makers who have proved that New Zealand is a great place to make films, but now he wants to prove that this is the case with our gaming industry. Pointing to the success of Shatter, Sidhe’s critically acclaimed downloadable game on the PlayStation Network, Wil claims that this is proof that New Zealand is more than capable of making great games.

So what could the government be doing to support our gaming industry? By providing a small investment and a few incentives similar to those offered by other countries, Wil predicts we could see an exciting growth similar to that of our movie industry. In fact, New Zealand game development has the potential to become as powerful, if not more so, than our world renowned movie industry. The explosion of gaming’s popularity thanks to the emergence of casual gaming in recent years has led to some statistics putting the industry growth rate at twice that of television and movies – proving that gaming is no longer a restricted medium. While joking that 95% of statistics are made-up, Wil still points out that the while the film and television grows at 5% per year, gaming rockets along at a whopping 10.5% a year – thus proving that it is no longer a restricted medium and the perfect place for investment.

So where to now for the New Zealand game industry? Will our government answer the phone and provide support to some of our most creative minds fighting to prove New Zealand’s place in the global industry? Or will companies like Stickmen continue to prove themselves through tireless innovation just as they have been doing so since they established themselves as one of the country’s very few game development studios? As more titles are released and announced it is plain to see that so long as Stickmen keep to their goal of delivering breakthrough gaming, New Zealand is sure to increasingly feature on the world stage. And who knows maybe in a few years we will proudly be seeing a kiwi presence at the E3 Expo in LA.

To view Dragon Master Spell Caster's trailer click here (strangely under the name Dragon Master Spell Catcher)

Transcription of Interview with Stickmen Studios' CEO Wil McLellan

Stickmen’s goal, your internet site claims, is “breakthrough gaming”. Has this always been the case since Stickmen was formed in 2006? And how do you aim to maintain this goal?

It has always been the case, we didn’t want to make a company that followed a more traditional model which is I guess doing lots of projects for other people. Most of our projects we fund ourselves and as such we get to work on our own ideas, so our real drive is to make new original IP. It’s a real hard model to do because you’ve got to fund the whole thing yourself but it’s a real exciting one because the guys are creating genuinely new games. However, this model is high risk, because the newer the game concept, the more untried and untested it is, whereas if you take a well-loved franchise and put it out there there’s already a following. But we do like this approach because it was this desire to create new innovative and exciting entertainment that is behind Stickmen. Hence the first project Dragon Master [Spell Caster] is an original very bold project.

Breakthrough for Dragon Master is that it is one of the first fully 3D titles made for WiiWare so we really pushed the boundary there as a brand new studio. Another component we added into that particular product that was breakthrough: unlike a lot of games where the characters’ offensive weapons were like missiles, it doesn’t matter if they were like weapons or magic, they just fly past each other. Well we really liked the idea that when magic collided it does something magical. So in that particular title when a fireball hits an ice bolt it will turn into steam, and if you then hit that with an earth bolt something else will happen, and with a lightning bolt something else will happen, so you get all these magical combinations going on that players can then use to their advantage. So we went for a couple of breakthroughs there: one which was involving your characters magic; the other was the full 3D for our first WiiWare project, I don’t know if it was unique but it was certainly an ambitious move for a new studio.

We are working hard to ensure that all the games that we are currently working on at the moment have a new angle or breakthrough in them. What we didn’t want to do was follow the herd. We want to make original titles that will excite and entertain, which is a real challenge but it’s what why we’re into games.

Speaking of Dragon Master Spell Caster: when will that be available for release?

It’s in final stages of testing at the moment. With it being our first project we’re learning all the technical processes you have to go through.

Yeah I guess it would be a funny use of the word I know, testing time for you guys seeing as this is your first IP. This is your first real go at it, so it’d be quite important for you guys.

Dragon Master Spell Caster is our first complete project so you’ve just got to learn how it’s done first time round and that always takes time. Obviously what you hope is that the second one is faster and a lot smoother, and the third one and the fourth one... and you get better at it. It’s like anything I guess: provided you learn from your mistakes, the more you do it the better you get.

So tell me about ‘Project I’ and ‘Project F’, how will these contribute to ‘breakthrough gaming’.

Unfortunately I can’t say too much about the projects, but what I can say about them is that they’re both again original products. I can also say that we will be announcing a third project which will probably beat ‘Project F’ to market, and that one we’re just keeping really tightly under-wraps at the moment which is a very exciting collaboration that we’re doing. I’ll be releasing details in November. They [Projects I and F] do follow the lines of breakthrough and I think the exciting thing about them is that each one is very different. It’s not as if we’ve set up and just said “alright we’re just going to make one type of game”. Whilst there is a lot of merit in that because you create a fantastic asset base and you get a lot of experience making them, what we’re really trying to do is test what we can get out there that’s new and innovative and exciting and keeps pushing the boundaries. So for example Project I – as it is codenamed – is very, very different when you see the concept art shots on our website, from Dragon Master Spell Caster which is a 3D dragon flying game casting spells. Project I interestingly, even though it looks 2D, has actually been made using some 3D assets that have been rendered to made to look 2D. The actual gameplay behind it is very puzzle-based even though it looks like a platformer. So we hope people will be really blown away when they actually do get to play it and everything comes together; with a great story, humour, interesting sort of puzzles and challenges and really a fantastic main character. Actually there are two main characters which have a great dynamic and we hope that people will really enjoy some of the banter that goes on between them. So we’re trying to create something that people can sample for the first time and get excited about. Project F is going to be a little way off development. That’s actually looking more into the fantasy genre, and it will be a more strategically-based product. And there’s this new product that we’re actually bringing out which is substantially through development at the moment but we’ll be releasing details about it in November, and again: very different look and feel from all of them.

We want people to be excited about the products that are coming out. Regarding what’s coming out next; we don’t want to be predictable, and I think that’s why a lot of the guys really enjoy working here because everybody gets a shot at pitching their ideas, it’s not like they’re part of a big machine. I mean when we work on a project the whole team pitches in and gets involved in the storyline, it’s not just the writers. So in a writing meeting we’ll have the programmers, the artists, the animators, the sound guys, the music guys, the compliance guys, the usability, the testers. They’re really one team and so the project becomes theirs – it’s very much their creation. I think that’s actually quite exciting because you don’t just get artists who only want to do the art, they do want to have some say in the characters, the development, the story; the same with the programmers, it’s just the same with everyone. I don’t know if it’s unique, but it’s certainly a very enjoyable way to work.

I’ve noticed that you guys have recently gained development status for Sony’s PlayStation 3 and for the PlayStation Network. This could be too early to ask you this but how will this compare to developing for the Wii due to the power differences between the machines. Would you guys also be aiming to pursue a different audience because of the Wii is obviously more aimed towards the more casual markets whereas the PlayStation is going towards the more blockbuster feel of these big powerhouses. Are you guys chasing after a new market or are you simply trying to do something different?

That’s a good question because as you correctly say a lot of the consoles are directed at different audiences. What we are looking to do is to have the option to move the products across onto platforms where appropriate because gaming isn’t standing still, the markets are evolving. The PlayStation is a very exciting platform for us and obviously our guys are looking forward to learning about it and getting hands-on. I think it will be nice for people to experience our products in different ways as well because we can obviously customise them to suit those platforms. Why did we do it? It boils down to the fact that if you’re going to have a really good opportunity moving forward then it pays to have as many open doors as possible.

In the global scheme of things NZ game developers have never really featured globally until earlier this year when Sidhe released Shatter. Do you think kiwi developers like Stickmen Studios will increasingly step into the spotlight, and thus get NZ as a game development base out into the global industry?

The NZ gaming industry is really just limited to a handful of players. There’s some embarrassing stats which are like Scotland employs 11,000 people in the industry, Canada employs 14,000, New Zealand: probably a couple of hundred people. That’s a real loss for New Zealand because these other countries are receiving literally billions of dollars a year towards their economy, New Zealand’s making a few million. And the real sad thing is that New Zealand is a great innovative country: there’s kids leaving university with the right qualifications and they’ve got nowhere to go. They’ve got a handful of organisations and if they don’t get the jobs there they have to leave the country or, as we found one of our lead developers, one of our great guys with a first-class degree, stacking shelves because there wasn’t an industry to employ him. They kind of jump out after education and go “Great I want to get a job!” and it’s either do you want to join corporate web design or graphic design? “No, I want to get into gaming” right well here’s a couple of companies to apply at and if they don’t have a job you can either join the queue and get a temporary part-time job or leave the country, or go into the corporate world and do a different career. So in regards to are we going to step out there: very, very much so. We have grown dramatically and that’s because there’s a lot of people around really, really keen to get into this industry. And Sidhe, who we work with very closely, they’re really driving the industry, trying to help people get out there, enormously helpful to me personally and to the company. Mario and the guys are excellent, so we are going to do everything we can to support that. And it goes without saying that if we get products out there we promote them correctly and publish them correctly then news will spread that people are actually making games in New Zealand. What I would like to see is some more government support for the industry. New Zealand’s embraced the movie industry because a few people did things the hard way and total respect to those guys. They’ve shown New Zealand can be a great place for movie-making, and Mario’s showing that you can make good games here. I mean Shatter is superb, it’s been very hard for New Zealand, or anyone in New Zealand, to achieve that. The incentives that are offered to studios opening up in New Zealand are non-existent when you compare to those in Scotland and Canada. So I think the answer to your question is two-fold. One is: yes absolutely, we’re going to do what we can to raise the profile of gaming in New Zealand and to show that it’s a fantastic place to make games. And why that is, is because you’ve got an educated population, a very attractive exchange rate, the games made in New Zealand are almost 100% export product; and you’ve got a Western culture so there’s no language-barrier when working with Europe and America which are two of the major markets. So you’ve got several enormous strengths and almost no companies here doing it. I really think the piece that’s missing is for the government to sort of sit back and go okay yeah this has got real potential and we should get behind this and see where it goes, because for an absolute miniscule investment and some incentives they could really develop a very exciting industry.

I agree because gaming is such a new form of entertainment people aren’t really catching onto how potentially powerful the industry is.

Well some industry statistics show now that gaming is growing at twice the speed of TVs and movies, it’s not bigger than TVs and movies. But you can look at stats all over the place, you can’t really hang your hat on any particular statistic because what’s the old joke: 95% of statistics are made up. But there are those out there that seem to show it at around $60billion a year at the moment, but that’s due to grow $100billion soon because it’s growing at 10.5%, allegedly, per year, whereas I think TVs and movies are growing at 5% a year so it’s growing at twice the speed. That’s because it’s not seen as a restricted medium anymore. Lots of different people are starting to game, casual gaming now, if not the majority of casual gamers are female. You’ve got a number of different platforms: iPhones, DS, PSP, all the WiiWare, Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, PC. There all these different ways of playing games and also the type of gaming is changing. The actual casual game market ranges from maybe 7 to 70 in all sexes because you’ve got things like Brain Training coming out and Wii Fit. So traditional non-gamers, or non-traditional people, are moving into and getting into games, they’re getting engaged, so it’s an enormously exciting market.

What, for you, makes a great game? Is it the fun factor, the immersion, or are you one of these high-brow types that argues that gaming can technically be viewed as a legitimate form of art because it is an expression?

I wouldn’t say I’m high-brow. I do believe that all the guys that work for us are artists: whether they’re a programmer or if they work in the art core because it is very creative, they’re using the tools available to them to make something new and exciting and I really do believe that it’s art. However I do believe that every game should be designed for the purpose that it is intended. So for example there are very different types of games: you’ve got the sort of AAA games where you might expect to sit and play it for say eighty hours in six hour sessions. I enjoy those games as well and there are some cracking ones out there, but then there are the casual games as well: which [appeals to] people sitting on the bus wanting a ten minute experience. My key sort of games test is does it make me smile, is there a moment in there where I get a bit of a smile or a laugh? It doesn’t mean that it necessarily has to be funny but it needs to be a sense of achievement or there needs to be a sense of immersion – these are the things that you are mentioning. I mean, overall people need to put the game down and get a sense of enjoyment. It comes down to the whole experience that you take away from it has to be enjoyable, and the way that you deliver that depends on the platform and the type of game that you’re making.

How did you get into gaming yourself?

I’ve been gaming for twenty, twenty-five years. I got involved in the arcades when there weren’t home consoles. I remember the very first Atari console with the...I don’t remember what the game was but it was basically two wooden blocks and you bounce a square block between them.

Pong?

Yeah it might have been Pong. And I remember sitting on my Gran’s kitchen floor playing against my sister on that game. And that was just enjoyable and addictive and very, very simplistic and really the game mechanic was just fantastic. So I got into gaming from a very, very early age so when the arcades started opening up with the games there, got very into those. I remember the very first multiplayer games like Gauntlet which would have queues of people at the arcade queuing up just to a get a game on a 4-player game and it was absolutely superb. And then the home consoles and PCs started to open up. So I’ve been into gaming all the way through. It’s superb when you look back and see how gaming is evolving and how it’s becoming more appealing to everybody. It’s really sort of breaking the mould of gaming. Even the term ‘gaming’ these days, when you look at the introduction of edu-gaming products, the boundaries are being smashed. But it’s great to look back. It was really nice because my sort of background, and then I went into university, got a job and I got into corporate IT. And then when I was over in New Zealand I had met these other software developers and sort of started a company in our spare time, working evenings and weekends and thought eventually “Right, well are we crazy? Better check now”. That’s when I talked to a few people in the industry who were all very, very helpful who said “Actually you guys have got some reasonably good ideas about a business here” and they were very supportive and we took a step, left the corporate world, branched out on our own. It was one of the really exciting things for me when after working really hard in New Zealand and building the studio to go out and meet my heroes in the gaming world and actually chat to people. Talking to some of the big names and thinking “Wow I used to play your games and here I am actually talking to you”. The guys who made the original Ghosts’n’Goblins, Commando – I mean these are the sort of old ZX Spectrum and arcade games. These companies are now huge, and these guys just sort of sit there and go “yeah I did the artwork for that game”. And now we get to do that ourselves and you realise just how hard it is, but you also experience the joy of creating something that’s genuinely new and that’s what we’re working to do.

So that hobby-on-the-side you had, was that the beginnings of Stickmen?

The company started literally just through a conversation with two friends and we decided “Yeah we can probably make a game in our spare time and see what we can do”, and that evolved into something where we thought we might have something to actually go at here. Through meeting a lot of different people in the industry we thought we could actually form a company. And obviously we formed the company and then kept on doing research for a couple of years on exactly what’s smart, what’s not smart, meeting people, learning from their lessons, and then we opened the studio a couple of years later. So it was a couple of years of really hard work, evenings and weekends. And then the real hard work started, because then you go into your sort of eighty, hundred hour weeks and you realise just what a big challenge the industry is. It changes from then that hobby into your life, it really takes over.

Despite the massive technological advancements achieved in this current generation such as hyper-realistic graphics and blockbuster experiences, do you think that gamers could be distracted from what makes a game genuinely good?

I think a good game will never rely on fancy graphics. Because gamers are smart enough to figure that out in the first few seconds: if it doesn’t play well then it doesn’t sell well. There’s lots of examples of games out there that look amazing and the screen shots are fantastic but it falls over once people have played it. So I think the most important thing in games, and it sounds obvious, is gameplay. It really has to be an enjoyable experience and to do that you need to understand what people want from the experience, in your market, and design your gameplay mechanic around that, and if you can enhance that by making it look great with great graphics then that’s fantastic. Obviously there’s genres like FPS that are really enhanced by fantastic graphics, but then there are other games out there that are still classics like Tetris, the new Bejewelled and things like that that have nothing like those types of graphics but they’re enormously popular because they are delivering what people want from that experience and doing it really, really well. So I think a game that tries to cover itself up with fancy graphics will fall on its face, but a good game can be enhanced by nice graphics.

Your site says that Stickmen have done PC gaming as well, what projects have you done for the PC and have you guys done applications for, say, iPhones etc in the past?

We have worked with our business partners and done a couple of iPhone games. Working with partners such as Cerebral Fix, we’ve done two games with them called Swarm and Love Share Nurture, which are two very different games. Swarm is a retro arcade game and that’s actually out now. Love Share Nurture is actually a family game which is matching animal noises and cute pictures to words, which is designed for parents to play with their young kids. It’s a very fun little application where children can have fun with pictures and hear the noises and match it – it’s a great learning experience. So we’ve worked with our business partners there to deliver those products. We’ve also worked with partners on a number of Flash game projects for PC. We haven’t released any commercial, what I’d class as mainstream PC games but we’ve only been around a short time and have been focussed on console. We’ve got three main WiiWare titles in development and they’re really occupying the majority of our time.

The N Word

What I am to talk about in this column today can be boiled down to one word. The N word has a lot of history and heritage which commands not only respect and courtesy but also to some fear and a sense of longing for days long past.

I am talking, of course, about Nintendo. And you thought I was going to say something bad.

Nintendo is to gaming what laughtracks are to bad 80s sitcoms, it has always been there and whether contemporary gamers like to admit it or not Nintendo’s prevailing legacy will always remind us of how to make sense of an industry that has matured into a mainstream form of entertainment in the last few years. The big N has been around since the stone-ages of gaming with the Nintendo Famicon in 1984 and has arguably been at the forefront of the industry healthily holding its own with the heavyweights Sony and Microsoft. In the last generation of gaming consoles Nintendo have taken a remarkably different direction that has proven to be commercially successful on a ridiculous scale, but has also resulted in a feeling of alienation for certain core gamers.

The Nintendo Wii and the handheld DS both incorporate technology that until recently could not be matched by their competitors: the use of two screens and controls incorporating a stylus pen of the DS and the motion controlled waggling of the Wii have allowed Nintendo almost unmatched access to the casual gaming market. However in the wake of the recent E3 conference in LA the Nintendo appear is increasingly looking stale – the Wii’s motion controls (albeit enhanced by the Motion Plus) appears to be outclassed by Sony’s showcase of similar hardware for the PS3 and the announcement of a new Metroid and Super Mario Galaxy barely seemed enough to steal the show from Sony and Microsoft. However all is not lost for the company that at one time defined console gaming, a DS title turned so many heads that it became for some the game of the show.

Scribblenauts sees the player controlling Maxwell whose task on every one of the 220 levels is to collect stars by using the stylus to spell out objects to spawn. Sounds simple enough right? The beauty of Scribblenauts lies in the sheer amount of objects, both inanimate and very much alive, available to you. For example you could spawn a ladder to climb up a tree to get that star, alternatively you could burn the tree down with a flamethrower...or flagging that completely you could spawn a time machine to travel back to medieval times whereupon you can summon a Kraken to terrorise the poor folk.

Save for my Pokemon days, I have never been a fan of Nintendo – Sony and Microsoft have always captured my attention with their pretty lights and loud noises – but if Scribblenauts has taught me anything it’s that one game’s charm can far surpass another’s action. It’s the possibilities that games like Scribblenauts presents to the gamer, whether they be casual or a seasoned COD4 vet, that defines the current generation of gaming. Gaming is currently going through a transformation hardware and software wise that allows the player to increasingly express themselves, titles like Little Big Planet and Spore too are evidence to this, that fits well with the social networking of Facebook and Twitter.

The reason for me writing this particular blog is to raise the question: After being in the game for so long will Nintendo’s focus on the casual gamer be the end of them? By the time the next generation of consoles roll out will the Wii’s successor even stand a chance now that it is increasingly probable that both Sony and Microsoft will incorporate motion sensing technology? Or will Nintendo focus exclusively on the casual market, further alienating their core gamers?

UFC 2009 Undisputed (PS3/360)

At the turn of the millennium the world began to change: generation Y came into maturity leaving disgruntled baby-boomers nigh on retirement, animal-orientated flues got bored and started to take a jab at humans, and the West realised that flashy reliance on credit wasn’t such a good idea. This effected many countries the world over, however curiously enough it effected a certain form of entertainment which ill-defined itself as a sport – Wrestling. WWE – formerly WWF until a few panda bears got confused and started knocking out patrons with chairs – has fallen from its flashy grace and since been replaced by the more realistic and downright brutal form of uber masculinity and man-love known as the UFC, the Ultimate Fighting Championship. As the sport gained momentum stateside it proved inevitable that it would follow in the footsteps of its glam-loving cousin (WWE if you haven’t been following) and hence games were made...but these were, in a word, crap. But now enter THQ and Yukes Media Creations, who you may remember made the WWF games so popular back in their heyday, to save the day giving gamers UFC 2009 Undisputed.

THQ’s past work on wrestling games pays dividends in UFC’s favour: the control scheme – while at first overwhelming in its complexity incorporating the use of nigh every button available – is very responsive and produces some savage bouts when used accurately. Obviously aware that such complicated controls may lead to casual players to be turned away the game automatically gives new gamers the option to immediately teach you how to fight via a lengthy but ultimately useful tutorial. With many games the tutorial will only last 15 minutes maximum, UFC2009 on the other hand throws so much information at you that while it is possible to breeze through the tutorial within 15 minutes the player is almost guaranteed to forget something basic like how to clinch – don’t giggle, it’s an actual move. In UFC2009 the player will be throwing punches and kicks, performing take-downs or throwing their opponents down to the ground where they can further punish them by going human-pretzel on their ass, forcing them into submission. The point that I am ever so slowly getting to is that UFC2009 gives the player so many ways to fight that the controls feel jumbled and very confusing. For example to perform a take-down (a glorified tackle to the ground) you have to hold down the left trigger while pushing the right analogue stick toward the opponent before rotating the same stick to complete the move. This may not seem like a major gripe, but it surely would have been far more logical to apply the exact same scheme to the left analogue stick – which is assigned to moving the player’s chosen meat-bag around the ring. Suplexes and other throws from the arts of judo, BJJ and wrestling can also be performed but the truth of the matter is that by simply focusing on the simple task of knocking the sense out of your burly opponent by way of boxing, kickboxing and Muay Thai will yield a win far more quickly – and with a lot less hassle. In fact not only is it easier to go into each round fists and feet flying, but when you do win it looks so much more spectacular. By navigating your way past your opponents blocks – which are controlled by the right trigger and shoulder buttons for low and high respectively – your blows whittle down their unseen stamina leading to the moment when you do land that king hit when all goes slow-mo and the camera zooms in on them as they fall like a tree sending a mouth-guard laced with blood to the ground about a foot from said metaphorical tree. While it is good to see that THQ have put in the effort to squeeze in the complexity and range of moves into the game itself it is unfortunate that most of the wins that I clocked up came down to first round TKO’s, something that is doubly wasteful when each fight is supposed to last five rounds.

Along with the normal exhibition mode UFC2009 holds a create-a-fighter option which you inevitably use to carve up a piece of meat in your own image for use in the game’s career mode. The tools presented allow for the creation of a baby-faced 7-foot heavyweight or a vertically-challenged lightweight axe murderer with the possible nicknames of ‘The Claw’ or ‘El Turro’ among others. While it provides an adequate package the game’s allowance of up to one hundred possible fighters feels a bit overkill unless you want to recreate all of your favourite action and sit-com stars duke it out – finally, an opportunity to see Chuck Norris roundhouse that wanker Matt LeBlanc’s head off!

The vast majority of time invested in UFC2009 by any player will be in the in depth career mode in which you create a fighter, or choose from pre-made nobodies, and lead them to glory in televised-style fight-nights bludgeoning your way to gain the belt of their weight class, of which are light, welter, middle, light-heavy and heavyweight. In between bouts you can participate in practise fights with you sparring partner in order to gain skill points to assign to the offensive/defensive aspects of the game’s different general fighting styles. In addition to this you can train to build up your stamina, strength and speed as well as flicking through annoying UFC newsletters and other emails whose text is too small to read anyway. Regardless whether you win or lose you gain reputation points that go towards training camp invites and sponsorships from UFC’s most renowned gyms which give you the opportunity to learn new combos as well as add to your fighter’s attributes that would normally be attained via training and sparring. Outside of the quest for fame in a virtual world of glitz and shiners UFC2009 also holds a mode particularly tailored for the hardcore UFC nuts out there in ‘Classic Fights’ where if the player can finish famous bouts in the way that they did in reality they will be rewarded with unlockables.

Visually, UFC2009 looks great: cuts show up realistically and fighters’ faces contort in pain, and in between rounds the fighters look properly exhausted and drenched in sweat, however once you get outside the octagon everything else looks a bit bland. The crowd and fellow fighters in your home gym look dull and robot-like while curiously enough the ring-girls have more pixels in their bouncing boobs than in their faces – Dead or Alive fans rejoice! The audio does a great job building up the testosterone with angst-ridden hard rock and nu-metal accompanying the menu screens and enthusiastic crowds and the ecstatic commentary providing great weight to the energetic atmosphere of the octagon. The combination of great visuals and sound that really sells UFC2009 to the player, a ferocious no-holds barred vibe is constantly present when slugging away inside the octagon which is intensified when the game picks up on the brutal smack of a knock-out blow.

While the sheer diversity of the controls results in a steep learning curve that will probably turn away newcomers and non-fans UFC 2009 Undisputed feels and looks like a Mixed Martial Arts game should – brutal and oozing with testosterone. By blending diverse fighting styles with proper fight-night atmosphere UFC 2009 Undisputed is something that will surely satisfy any fan of the sport. WWE eat your panda-fearing heart out.

8/10

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (PS3, 360) - Activision

Comics and gaming are two things that would seem like they would be as successful as salt and vinegar, however it has only been recently when game developers have actually got the feel right.

Released in tandem with the new film, X-Men Origins: Wolverine puts the gamer in the admantium soaked bones of the Hollywood-friendly Wolverine as he seeks out his former comrades in a mission of revenge and redemption – I think. The reason for this unfaithful recollection of the plot is that despite some very well done cut scenes that effectively copy the composition of the comics the story is not what makes this game unique.

What does make this game great however are the (mostly) smooth gameplay and the sheer bloodlust generated from slicing an enemy into two before digging you claws into his buddy's face. The controls are simple enough for any gamer to pick up quickly with heavy and light attacks as well as throws and spearheaded leaps that can be put together to create some brutal combos. On top of this Wolverine can also do the token double jump and block/deflect foes’ attacks creating an all-round varied and solid fighting control scheme as well as handily having the ability of regenerative health. The more creatively you slice the cannon fodder of foes you collect what the game refers to as Rage that can be used to unleash Wolverine’s impressive Rage abilities that are unlocked as the game progresses. For example, simply slicing and dicing someone to bits will only give you one or two rage points, but if you throw them into another foe/off a cliff or even into a sharp spike, you will get a hell of a lot more. In addition to this there is a slight RPG element in the use of experience points earned for defeating foes and nabbing collectable items – such as dog tags. Aside from simple gratification levelling up grants you ability points that you can assign to boosting your health, the effectiveness of certain attacks as well as boosting the damage dealt by your shiny claws. As well as upgradeable abilities the game also includes what it calls Mutagens, these are power-ups hidden throughout the game-world that, when equipped, grant the player extra bonuses to damage resistance, extra experience from foes and extra Rage among others.

Activision, thankfully, have realised that Wolverine’s claws are really, really sharp. So when you take out an enemy they do not always simply flop to the ground in a random pre-rendered animation – they can be decapitated. In fact, so often does this happen that within the first ten minutes it soon becomes apparent with the amount of blood, flying limbs and curdling screams of pain that this game is R18. This therefore makes X-Men Origins: Wolverine one of the goriest superhero games out there today – something that will surely quench any player’s bloodlust.

It isn’t all just mindless hack and slash fun, aside from the normal cannon fodder soldiers you will have to employ some level of tactics in order to effectively take down stronger foes who range from machete-wielding African natives (oh so tastefully racist) to robots who fire lasers and missiles. The range of foes throughout the game keeps the game fresh and stops it from falling into a trap of boring hackuntilyourarmsfalloff gameplay, and then there are the bosses. There is certainly no shortage of boss fights in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which is good because once you get past the simple ones at the beginning of the game you will come across some absurdly epic and fun matches that provide a great challenge. The most memorable of which had to be an epic fight with a Sentinel that climaxed with Wolverine skydive-chasing the mech monster through the air while avoiding its debris.

As great as the gameplay is it will feel instantly familiar to anyone who has played any of the God of War games on the PlayStation, so much so that it can detract from the X-Men comic book charm. Games’ protagonists wield a pair of really sharp things (claws versus the Blades of Chaos), both games are total gore fests warranting age restrictions and both operate on similar semi-RPG levelling and skill systems. The result of this is that despite X-Men Origins: Wolverine being arguably the best of the movie tie-ins, it largely feels like God of War in a different skin and therefore falls just short of effectively standing on its own to non-comic-loving gamers. It is because of this that brings me to the conclusion that non-X-Men-loving PS3 owners should refrain from buying this, saving it for a rental and instead buy any of the two previous God of Wars until the next comes out after more light is shed on it following E3 in June.

3.5 stars

Race Pro (360) - Atari

Only a few years ago there were just two players on the race-sim battleground conveniently opposing one another: Xbox’s Forza Motorsport and PlayStation’s Gran Turismo. These two titles provided stunning visuals and an immense range of licensed cars. But now it seems that the big players in the gaming industry are clueing on to the fact that these games are not only infuriatingly difficult to master but are also a lot of fun. Cue Atari, offering 360 owners another exclusive in the form of the imaginatively titled Race Pro.

Gameplay-wise Race Pro feels dated and arcade – something a current-gen simulation should not be. There are two major faults that haunt this game’s claim to simulation: the first is that in a straight line your car will be the quickest on the track no matter what; the second is that unlike what Granny Turismo’s licence tests and Forza teaches you the racing line can be ignored in favour of driving aggressively. A lot is borrowed from the gospel of Forza featuring a default race-line with turn-notices a la every-rally-game-ever-made, adjustable difficulty in the form of driving assists and almost the exact same rotatable camera controls. In fact the only aspects of Race Pro that make it stand out from the race-sim giants is that every car in the game is an actual race car that belongs on the track (no whipping your Corona around Road America here) and hidden away in the options menu are adjustable steering, throttle, brake sensitivities as well as other mindless technical jargon. The latter feature could be the only significant selling point of this game, as only perfectionist mechanics and wannabe motorsport fanatics would actually care about this.

To further your career as a Race Pro you race in championships for teams who initially require you to beat a set time on a particular circuit in their car before you can purchase their contract at a discounted rate. Upon completion of championships not only are you rewarded credits per-race but also trophy-car versions of you team’s motor, after a few completed contracts per class (normally two) the next class is unlocked granting access to more contracts with faster cars and some more tracks. Back in the days of the original TOCA games this may have been acceptable, warranting no complaints, but in this day and age this method of progression proves linear and is a repetitive grind. Other offline modes include Single Race, Championship (which is essentially a few Single Races thrown together), Hot Seat (offline multiplayer), Time Attack and Open Practice all of which involve simply selecting a track, a car and gunning it – something that, again, brings nothing new to the racing table. Online, however the game box boasts “extensive” Xbox Live races against 12 other budding Race Pros. While this is a pretty major promise, and the most intriguing out of the features boasted, when logging on Xbox Live to test this out I found at most six opponents to take on – far from extensive.

One of the great things about race-sims is that the graphics are very pretty: trees and buildings reflect with stunning detail off the cars and the lighting effects of the sun and street lights serve as great distractions when hurtling down a straight at 200km/h. This is probably where Race Pro most notably drops the ball though. While some effort has gone into the car models and the realistic depiction of the race tracks it all comes off sub-par compared with the graphics of, well, damn near every game offered on the current generation consoles bar the Wii. So bland are the visuals that the game appears as if it belongs on the original Xbox or even on the aging PS2...in fact even the original Forza and Gran Turismo 4 were far more pretty.

Lastly, there is practically no soundtrack in this game aside from a Scottish voice out of no-where congratulating you on finishing and telling you off for doing something wrong. While Atari may have intentionally done this in order to gain the full race-day immersion, again, all that results is a feeling that the game is unfinished.

While there are not that many race-sims available to gamers the very high standard of quality in those available makes it very difficult for any newcomer to stand a chance at keeping toe to toe with the big boys. Unfortunately due to mundane graphics, grinding career progression and very little in the way of a unique experience Race Pro falls behind the behemoths of the racing genre. If you own a 360 and you are looking for a racing sim buy Forza 2 or GRID and avoid this like the plague.

Halo Wars (360) - Ensemble Studios

As the flag-ship game for the 360 it is not surprising that Halo developers Ensemble are pushing the franchise to new limits in order for it to seep into everyday gaming culture, which has largely been successful thanks to the franchises three critically acclaimed games. Now, in what is a very interesting step, the latest offering in the Halo franchise is not first-person shooter but a real-time strategy.

It is a well known fact in the global gaming community that if there is one genre of gaming that consoles have continually failed to get right it is strategy: this is because a PC’s keyboard plays a monumentally important role in a l337 term known as ‘micro-management’; however a console controller is obviously hampered by its lack of buttons. Ensemble have addressed this problem by allowing you to cycle through different types of units using the left and right triggers and by using the shoulder buttons to select local (on screen) and all units. While this is a good idea Halo Wars still manages to lag behind its PC brethren due to the fact that you cannot arrange your units into specific squads for further micro-management. The use of the left, right and down buttons on the game pad serves the use of quickly jumping you to selected units and map events but thanks to the lack of a mouse allowing you to freely click on the mini-map itself results in a general feeling of restriction. While this may seem like a minor quarrel it can make a big difference later on in the campaign with the difficulty cranked up or on a fairly hectic skirmish when you are multi-tasking between constructing units and managing those already in the thick of battle.

Halo Wars is set 20 years prior to the events of the first Halo game (referred to as ‘The Halo Incident’) pitting you in control of UNSC forces as they valiantly struggle against the fittingly evil Covenant alliance. One of the main selling points for the 360-fanboys in la la land will be the opportunity to control armies of American-accent-totting UNSC forces or even switch sides in a skirmish to take control of a few Hunters, Banshees and the formidable Scarab. While both goodies and baddies hold forces of adequate variety that can be upgraded through research, not to mention that in Skirmish mode each general holds specific unique units; there is a persistent feeling of limitation. This is largely down to the limited visual and artistic differences between certain units; even with the ability to zoom in controlled through the right analogue stick it is difficult to tell them apart. This was particularly a pain when in one mission I continually found myself sending useless artillery tanks into the thick of battle mistaking them for something far more useful (and short range). The result: a certain Mr Cracka screaming at the aforementioned artillery in frustration, cursing the fact that they were almost identical in appearance to the more useful Scorpion tanks. This leads me conveniently to another issue I found with the game play: despite the presence of an adequate range of units to combine into an army it was all too easy to fall back onto the old amateur tactic of tank rushing. With this lack of strategy consistently employable throughout the game’s campaign save one or two missions it kind of defeats the purpose of a strategy game, and results in the fact that Halo Wars is not something that the die-hard RTS fans out there should be rushing out to play but instead serves as a good introduction to the genre itself.

All up Halo Wars is an interesting new take on the 360’s ‘killer app’ that provides a control scheme that, for once, actually works for a console RTS and is a fun game to play because of this. Unfortunately due to the simplicity in the units’ range and the dumbed-down difficulty thanks to the lack of strategy actually required, Halo Wars is a game that should only really be bought by the hardiest of Xbox fan-boys or those wanting an introduction to the strategy genre.

3.5 stars

Parappa the Rappa: Killzone 2 (PS3)

I am always sketchy about games that receive mountains of hype by faceless marketing departments in the lead up to their releases. Sure, the game looks pretty and we are promised oh so much for forking out the hundred or so from our already thin wallets for it, but most of the time these games turn out to be unpolished and uninspired. However, Killzone 2 has done the improbable by actually matching its own hype with stellar visuals and some of the most intense firefights in recent memory.

The plot of Killzone 2 is not exactly gripping, but then again it cannot be called garbage. All you really need to know is that the evil Helghast Empire is now on the defensive back-foot after the American accent-toting Interplanetary Strategic Alliance managed to repel their invasion of the planet colony Vekta from the first Killzone. As soon as you pick up the game you are thrown into the invasion of the planet Helghan in a D-Day inspired scenario crash-landing on a beach…if you could call it that. Helghan is far from a holiday resort with some genuinely menacing environments on offer adding nicely to the dark tone of war given off by the game; this is complemented further by the enemies sporting glowing red eyes and evil English accents wheezing through post-apocalyptic helmets and gas masks.

Combat is exciting and intense providing a great challenge throughout the game to the degree that you never get to the point of partaking in a spot of controller-discuss. The controls feel spot-on with great responsiveness while retaining the feeling of your character’s weight. By sticking with bullets over lasers, Killzone 2 avoids Halo’s fantastical sci-fi approach to weaponry in favour of raw grit, the result of which is a far more believable experience reminiscent of shooters like Battlefield and Call of Duty. However in saying that special mention has to go to the electricity spewing gun and grenades that prove to be very useful for mechanical foes and provide humour in hearing your more fleshy enemies’ garbled screams. Killzone 2’s gamble with the inclusion of a cover mechanic pays off allowing you to reload and (briefly) plan your next move without becoming Swiss cheese. The game even makes use of the largely useless Sixaxis motion control system by using it to turn valves and plant C4 charges. While most of the time this feels well designed, there are a few moments when going from staunchly firing your gun to flailing and twisting your controller in the midst of battle makes you feel like a bit of a dork.

Outside of the main campaign, there is further evidence of Killzone 2’s greatness by the inclusion of a great online multiplayer with some great maps and modes. The set up of multiplayer is superb in that you do not necessarily have to stick with the bog-standard death match. Once an objective is completed, the game assigns a new mode seamlessly through radio commands, the result of which can have you scrambling around the map completing search and destroy-style missions for a few minutes before smoothly changing to hiding in a corner while your teammates protect you from being popped in assassination missions. Even if you do not have access to the internet, the team at Guerrilla have included a Skirmish mode teaming you up with and against teams of bots playing multiplayer missions which adds a lot of replay value to an otherwise linear game.

While the original Killzone on the PS2 was average, Guerrilla have finally got the formula right with a superb shooter that gives the 360’s heavyweights Gears and Halo a real run for their money and effectively puts the PS3 back on the FPS map.

4.5 stars

Parappa the Rappa: Skate 2 CANTA review

In 2007 EA Blackbox's Skate stole the heavyweight championship belt off the ailing Tony Hawkes franchise for the skateboarding genre by focusing not on arcade-like craziness but instead on realism and a revolutionary 'flickit' control scheme. Skate 2 has finally arrived with much hype expanding the tricks to twice the amount of the original, as well as a redesigned city and the ability to hop off your board to move objects around to create your own line anywhere in the game. Along with these features Skate 2 still very much feels like the first game, encouraging you to explore New San Vanelona to find hidden spots to destroy (or 'Kill') and complete a very wide range of challenges.

Like most games nowadays there is a plot, but really it's just your average quest for skater of the year theme which quickly takes a back seat. The only important thing about the plot that links with the gameplay is that while you were in prison (yeah, weird I know) a natural disaster occured and a corporation known as MungoCorp rebuilt the city but have capped many a skate spot and have infested the city with security guards. This ties into the gameplay loosely by setting you challenges revolving around avoiding said-guards and uncapping spots to make them accessible to you and other skaters, but that's really it. While the story may be weak, everything else is solid.

Blackbox have taken a leaf or ten out of the Tony Hawkes franchise's book by allowing you to hitch a ride on cars by way of skitching and giving you the ability to abandon your board to run around like a nice normal person. The reason for the latter is so that you can walk up stairs and even grab onto certain objects to move around to create you own line. While this is a brilliant idea and can really liven up a dull line the off-board controls feel stiff and wooden (think old-school Tomb Raider bad) compared to how Tony Hawkes Underground managed to pull it off. The result is an at times frustrating experience that feels like it was tapped on at the last minute, and is ultimately pretty disappointing seeing as this was one of Skate 2's main selling points. Another leaf that has been taken out of the Tony Hawkes game bible is the inclusion of bonelesses, no complies, footplants and handplants resulting in a more diverse trick book, albeit at times difficult to pull off. Speaking of tricks, the flickit system of course remains, assigning the left analogue stick to controlling your body and the right for your board, but has been expanded to include fingerflips as well as more grabs and grinds.

Skate 2, like its predecessor, is not a very easy game to play and has a fairly steep learning curve in respect to getting used to the controls, however since there are no stats to assign, your skater's limitation is down to your own mastery of said controls. At times this will leave you wanting to hurl your controller through a window/TV/annoying flatmate's face, but the immense satisfaction of finally pulling off a killer line or trick is worth every painstaking moment.

The signature low camera angle of Skate remains giving you the perspective of your cameraman buddy Reda (who looks remarkably like last year's VP Amedeus Rainbow) which results in an at-first annoying but ultimately realistic view focusing not on your skater but rather your tricks. However if you do find yourself pining for the Tony Hawkes' camera angle Skate 2 has included the option to do so. One thing does have to be said about the characters though, the dialogue is littered with 'sick', 'buttery' and 'dude' to such a point that I wonder if all skaters actually talk like such douches (ummm hi CUBA).

It has to be said that it is very fortunate for us students that Skate 2 has been released this early in the year so far away from assignments and exams. The sheer amount of hours you can easily sink into just screwing around New San Van completing some excrutiatingly hard challenges, making skate videos using the very flexible replay editor and even taking it online to kick some n00b ass is epic. The game even caters for the players who totally suck at skateboarding by expanding the original's Hall of Meat rewarding you for hurting yourself in certain ways. This of course results in further procrastination by throwing yourself off stupidly high buildings and dams just to see how many bones in your rag doll body you can break in one go.

While it may have failed to live upto all its promises effectively, Skate 2 is still a superb game that has the potential to destroy your social life (in a good way) and is a must have if you have ever been a fan of skating.

Parappa the Rappa: Skate 2

Pros: Almost double the amount of tricks including handplants, bonelesses, and footplants; expanded city with way more skateparks; the ability to get off your board and move objects around to create that perfect line; alot more challenges to keep you busy; not as many trick-specific challenges this time around.

Cons: Steep learning curve getting used to the control scheme; some challenges are actually nearly impossible requiring luck or trickery to succeed; on-foot controls feel like they've been ripped from the mid-nineties; seemingly solid objects can be easily moved by you or other AI; the sheer amount of security is a bit overkill at times; no way to replay your favourite challenges; annoying glitches that can stop you from completing challenges and even freeze the game.

Buy it or rent it: Buy it if you can get used to the controls. Despite it's difficulty and glitches Skate 2 is a superb game that anyone who has ever had an interest in the sport should play. The sheer size of the city and it's almost limitless lines combined with the excellent replay editor will provide hours of replay value and with it's immense popularity there will always be someone online to play a spot of S.K.A.T.E. with.

In 2007 Skate reinvented the way that skateboarding games played with the award winning Flickit control system and the more down to earth realistic approach to the genre that had previously been dominated by the squandering arcadey Tony Hawkes franchise, so it's no surprise that there has been alot of hype behind the sequel. Back again is the city of San Vanelona, back again is the Flickit system, and back again is the annoying Reda...but it's all different.

The story of Skate 2 is that of redemption...well sort of. In the opening movie you are released from prison for an unmentioned crime and your cameraman/annoying git of a friend Reda informs you that while you've been in the slammer San Van has been rebuilt by Mungocorp to become New San Van and is now teeming with security eager to knock many a skater of his or her board. Throughout the game you basically spend your time draining pools, freeing skate spots from clamps and generally reclaiming the title of Skater of the Year to show the pros what's what. Of course, being a sports game, the story takes a back seat pretty quickly in favour of just skating, this is the charm of the Skate franchise and it's good to see that Blackbox have barely changed the formula to encourage just this. In Skate 2 you can easily sink more hours into perfecting a killer line anywhere in the sprawling city than actually completing the game's challenges; and with the enhanced replay editor, which allows you to create your own skate video, Skate 2 holds alot of replay value.

One of the main hypes behind Skate 2 is the controls: the team at EA's Blackbox have managed to almost double the amount of tricks at your disposal. The Flickit system has been expanded to include fingerflips and one footed grabs and by simply tapping a button as you reach the lip of a quarter pipe you can bust out a handplant, which can be tweaked in a similar way to grabs by pushing the right analogue stick in a direction. In a similar way bonelesses and no-complies have been added but are slightly more difficult requiring you to time you ollie and grab or foot-push perfectly. The grinds and stalls have also been expanded by allowing you to grab your board or even strike a pose (or 'flair' as it's called) while doing so. It's good to see that even by doubling the amount of tricks Skate 2's developers have been true to the formula by relying on natural-feeling controls and not resorting to the Tony Hawke's franchise's Special move cheapness, however the inclusion of 'flairs' quickly gets lame even if you do change them around. The control system of the Skate franchise is unforgiving to be brutally honest. Unlike Tony Hawke's where you could bust out a varial heelflip to judo almost instantly the controls in Skate actually require your own individual skill and your own ability to learn. While this is initially difficult, the steep learning curve is actually very refreshing, resulting in a much more realistic feel to skating restricted only by your own ability, as opposed to individual stats (THPS I'm looking at you).

The other main hype for Skate 2's control scheme was that you could get off you board to get up stairs, caveman into a grind or drop and even move objects around to create your own custom line. While in theory this was a great idea in reality this feature feels unpolished and frustrating. Tony Hawkes Underground was the first skating game to allow you to get off your board and succeeded with a simple control scheme using the left analogue stick to move you about while the right analogue stick controlled the camera. You would have thought that Skate 2 would have unashamedly copied this scheme because, well...it worked, but really it just feels rushed and unpolished. This is a major dissapointment when you think about it and a bit of a blow to a great game, however the simple fact is that you aren't going to be spending alot of time off your board anyway so it can be ignored in favour of the game's great trick system.

Overall the look of New San Van is great: there are way more rails, lips, and damn near anything to make a great line, but what makes Skate 2 stand out is the fact that you can now hop off your board and move certain objects around to air massive gaps or just make that dream run that much more technical. However, just like running around off your board, this aspect of gameplay is unfortunately flawed. With just a single button you can grab onto certain objects and move them around almost effortlessly, but this is also the case when you or the AI knock into the objects, thus ruining your perfectly placed line. This can be incredibly frustrating in certain challenges where you have to clear a gap using loose objects while avoiding security guards. Again this fault results in a rushed feeling to the game which is quite a dissapointment, but just, and only, excusable.

Despite New San Van being a great city to skate and explore the inhabitants can get pretty annoying by dropping physics-enhanced litter and handbags that get caught in your wheels and generally just getting in you way, and those pesky security guards are far from elusive too. While the game gives you the option to distract security by calling on the infamous Big Black it feels like a bit of a last-minute tack on that has greater chance of ruining your custom line than protecting you from being tackled.

Skate 2's faults stop it from being a really great game, however it is still very good nonetheless. Skate 2's charm lies in its controls and sheer replayability, which coupled with the very flexible replay editor and slick online play makes for a great buy.

8.5/10
**** 4/5 stars

Parappa the Cracka: Fable 2

2008 was a big year for gaming exclusives when it came to the PS3 vs 360 console wars: Sony had Little Big Planet, Metal Gear Solid 4 and Resistance 2 among others; while Microsoft answered with Gear of War 2 and the delightful Fable 2. So to get myself into the groove of game reviews I have decided to review Lionhead Studios' Fable 2.

Fable 2 is set some years after the events of the first game from the original Xbox in the very medieval-England inspired land of Albion, you start off as a poor child nick-named 'Little Sparrow' following your big sister around your town until you are both summoned to looming castle by the king where, after some unfortunate events, you are ultimately left for dead by said king. Your sister does not survive the event thereby establishing a story based upon vengeance and ridding the world of the power-hungry ruler who threatens to destroy it with the establishment of a dark new world order. The story takes you to many interesting towns both big and small, prosperous and poverty-striken where you gather information and ultimately gather three fellow 'heroes' to defeat the bad-guy. However, I felt that the story really wasn't as engrossing as it really could have been; after playing the much more mature Fallout 3, where it felt like peoples' fates were really in your hands, the fantastical and light-hearted elements of Fable 2 failed to capture my attention. Also due to the fact that your character never talks, instead simply gives thumbs up/down or other simple expressions, you caring for the world of Albion seems overtly absent. Another niggle I had with the plot was that, like Fallout 3 the climax was, well, not very climatic at all - sure the last boss fight was pretty good, but it didn't feel like the last boss fight.

Speaking of fighting the gameplay of Fable 2 is simple enough for any twit to pick up and play and also challenging enough to really suck you in and have fun, thus Lionhead Studios have crafted a control scheme suitable for both the hardcore RPG nut and the casual gamer. There are buttons specifically assigned to meelee, ranged and magic attacks and combining the three to defeat enemies when completely outnumbered can be very satisfying. Of course it wouldn't be an RPG without some sort of experience-based, leveling-up system enabling your character to become a near unstoppable force on the battlefield. Whenever you defeat an enemy they will drop glowing coloured orbs corresponding to each of your attacks as mentioned above will also fall to the ground as well as green experience orbs, combining the coloured and experience orbs allows you to upgrade these attributes resulting in increasing your health and giving you new melee moves (strength), increasing your accuracy and speed (skill), and granting you the ability to cast magic (will). It's a simple enough system to allow you to plan your moves in advance, but also strongly encourages you to become a sort of jack-of-all trades ability-wise.

With all RPGs and fighting there comes a moment of two when you will frankly get your ass kicked, whether this be by a gang of hollow men or by the gargantuan hand of a troll. Ultimately Fable 2 is very forgiving in this sense because once you die, or rather 'knocked out', you are brought back to life by some mysterious force momentarilly knocking back all surrounding enemies and completely recovering your health bar. The only negative consequences of which is that you lose any remaining experice orbs unclaimed and you gain a scar, both of which may ultimately encourage any penny-pinching gamer to save his or her money for investing in property as opposed to purchasing potions. What is a little dissapointing about Fable 2 is that if you are smart, and not rushing through the main plot, there is a chance that you may well not die at all. This is because the game is also very forgiving in its lack of difficulty, sure there are some tough fights out in Albion but they are all easily manageable to any seasoned RPG veteran.

Property is among many of the ways to make money in Albion, which, let's face it, you're going to kind of need when it comes to upgrading your weapons. Almost every building that you can walk into has a sign by the entrance giving you the option to purchase and move in or purchase and rent out. Cheaper properties such as shacks can be found in towns which are small and have bad economies and crime rates, while the more expensive ones come in the form of big shops and fancy houses in nice towns and cities - in fact it's even possible to purchase an entire castle! You can smartly invest in a property by purchasing it when the town is a dump, and then clean the town up by running out the criminals and giving gold to an investor who, after a certain period of time, will transform the ugly dump into a thriving metropolis. The return of your investment in property comes every five minutes in the form of rent, whether you're actually playing the game or not. This is a very interesting mechanic because it runs on real time based upon your 360's clock, however this can be taken advantage of by changing your console's clock ahead by a year and then reaping the benefits of god knows how many minutes of rent. But when you start your adventure through Albion property is going to be way too expensive for your n00b ass, so it's much smarter to start off with a simple job chopping wood, making swords or even serving drinks at the local pub. Whilst initially low paying and mundane, the more you keep at it, the more you'll be promoted - thus boosting your pay rate and pay multiplier. The interaction for these jobs involve a semi-circular plain and a marker that must stop in the green area in order to maximise the quality of the wood/sword/beer. While it's easy once you get used to the swinging marker this gets tedious fast and ultimately encourages you to get enough money to invest in property.

It is not just jobs that you interact with, several times in the game you are required to built up renown points among villagers and townsfolk in order to progress, this can be acheived in two ways: by completing side quests, and by impressing them in certain ways. The latter is where Fable 2's interacting mechanism comes into play. Certain people like certain things: drunks and vagabonds enjoy lewdness, so ripping out a fart or dancing will impress them; whilst fair maidens (or gents) will be impressed by whistling and flexing of one's muscles. However you can be as scary and intimidating as you want to be as well: for example if you think a vendor is being too steep with his prices why not give them a slap or scare the crap out of them with an evil laugh to force them to lower said prices? Intriguingly this also works for when you want to purchase someone's business too. The interaction with NPCs in Fable 2 goes further still by allowing you to flirt with townsfolk to the point where you can get married, move into one of your purchased properties and even have children, while this may have been a good idea at the time the actual effect of this is kind of hollow. Sure, the more immature (and 15-year old) gamers will be delighted to learn that you can have sex with damn near anyone, so long as they like you enough...or is a hooker, but really it just feels like time wasted trying to gain similar controversy coverage that came along with GTA: San Andreas' Hot Coffee issue.

One of Fable 2's biggest selling points is that you can be as evil or as good as you want to be, there are multiple factors to shape you character as you progress, starting from the beginning you can give arrest warrants to the town guard or to the head of a gang among others to decide whether your childhood town will be prosperous or a crime-ridden dump in the future. Your character changes over time based upon the choices you make, and citizens of Albion react to you accordingly. For example if you free slaves and vanquish the head slaver people will pass you in the street and complement you on your efforts...however if you run against the grain and enslave townsfolk people will avoid talking to you and you may even get in trouble with the town guard. The physical appearance of your character can change with your actions as well: want to stop that pair of horns sprouting from your head? Maybe you should stop slaying innocents and walking on the wild side buddy!

Along with negotiating the fine line between good and evil the thing that sets Fable 2 apart from other RPGs is something fairly minor that adds a very human side to your whole Albion experience, your dog. You save your dear mutt from a bully at the beginning of the game and he sticks by you throughout the plot providing some cutesy moments and one or two instances of amusement - at one time coming in the form of stealing an undead skeleton's head and bringing it to you oh so proud. But apart from the light hearted moments you dog does help out in practical ways: in combat if you knock an opponent down he will finish them off on the ground while you deal with someone else; he will also sniff out treasure chests and dig spots gaining some items that you otherwise may have missed. Your dog is not completely impervious to attacks however and will every now and then require some healing, or even a pat on the head or a doggie treat to cheer him up when scared. It's the little moments like these that actually make you give a damn about the mutt and make you genuinely value his company. However, your dog, like you, can change based upon your actions: the more evil you are, the more fierce he will appear; whilst the more kind hearted you are, the more noble and playfull he will become.

I cannot really say if Fable 2 is a major improvement upon the original's formula on the Xbox as I never played it, however it does bring some interesting gameplay mechanics to the console RPG table. At times it feels lacking in that extra oomph to really set it apart from other WoW clones out there, but in saying that it does have some truly exellent levels, such as exploring a massive evil spire with suffering and death pulling at your heart strings. While playing this game I did notice that my 360 was working very hard to keep everything going and at times suffered from some pretty dire frame rate issues and slow down, most notably whenever I pulled up the pause menu to add to my stats or fiddle with equipment the game would stop for a second or two considering what it would do with itself. However, Fable 2 is still a great game and an excellent 360 exclusive for those who love their RPGs, and with so many sidequests (some of which can only be unlocked after finishing the main story) it is doubtful that any RPG junkie will get bored quick.

8.5/10