I haven’t been away from the game long enough to write a formal deconstruction, but I’ve been talking to a lot of friends about Playdead’s Limbo recently. My opinion differs from the majority (not to say I’m on my own), and I think writing it in the blog is the best way to articulate the angle I’m coming from. In doing so, I hope I’ll be able to get some feedback on why the things that bothered me made the game better for everyone else.

Art Style

The first thing everyone talks about when they see Limbo is the unique minimalist art style. It’s looks absolutely beautiful in motion, and it creates an incredible mood for the game’s world. It evokes all sorts of emotions without the use of language, and it undeniably leaves an impression with the player.

Unfortunately, I found a huge drawback to this art style in the context of Limbo’s gameplay. It’s not always clear what the player can and can’t interact with in each area, and the VFX often work against it. The majority of the times I got stuck in the game were because I didn’t know what I was supposed to be interacting with (i.e. pushing buttons on signs that change the direction of gravity). I’m all for a cool look, but it’s a design failure when it interferes with the player’s ability to understand their environments. It’s not “clever” or “innovative” to confuse the player about what they can and can’t interact with in the game world, and a few too many puzzles fell into that category for my taste.

Death

Like Another World before it, Limbo has an obscene number of graphic death scenes. It’s no secret that, no matter how attached to their characters, players love seeing them get mangled in creative and unexpected ways – take a look at Dead Space or Resident Evil, for example. There are “all the ways to die” videos on YouTube with millions of hits, and artists clearly put a lot of effort into making sure players are satisfied.

The difference between deaths in Dead Space and Limbo is that the player doesn’t always have control in Limbo. In fact, death is treated not as a punishment for failure but as a way of showing the player the solution to a scripted event puzzle. One section in particular highlights this, where the player approaches a switch surrounded by two small crevices on either side. Stepping on the switch causes a piston to come down and smash the player into the ground. A few steps further down the hallway lies an identical looking switch, but stepping on this switch is actually the only way to prevent the piston from falling. There are no visual cues to solving this puzzle before you get to it – the player must learn entirely from trial and error.

It’s harmless enough because the game respawns the player right in front of the switch hallway, but why is it necessary? Are players supposed to think the developer is clever for misleading them? Is it just a general “screw you” to the audience? I chuckled when it happened, but it was annoying. Here’s a game that is advertised for its artistic value and innovation, and puzzles like this are simply time wasters that artificially extend an already short gameplay experience.

Death animations are only entertaining to a point. Limbo’s shining moments are its clever puzzles, and these death scenes are the complete opposite. Roughly 10% of the events in the game are nearly impossible to avoid on the first attempt, 60% are trial and error, and the remaining 30% are actually clever puzzles that award the player with a sense of accomplishment.

Takeaways

Much like the world of the game itself, Limbo’s moments of brilliance are shrouded in darkness. This is a game I really wanted to like – I bought it before trying the demo and talked about it with friends before its release – but I found it to be a huge disappointment. It’s not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s not worth fifteen dollars and I’m baffled as to how it’s maintained over a 90 on Metacritic. It’s easily trumped by Xbox Live companions ’Splosion Man and Braid. Maybe today’s gamers really do appreciate those crazy death animations more than actual game design.

]]> http://holdenlink.com/2010/07/thoughts-on-limbo/feed/ 0 http://holdenlink.com/2010/06/game-deconstruction-robot-unicorn-attack/ http://holdenlink.com/2010/06/game-deconstruction-robot-unicorn-attack/#comments Tue, 29 Jun 2010 03:51:22 +0000 Holden http://holdenlink.com/?p=784 More >]]> Open your eyes, I see. Your eyes are open.
Wear no disguise for me, come into the open.
When it’s cold (when it’s cold), outside (outside), am I here in vain?
Hold on, to the night, there will be no shame.

When I was trying to decide which game to deconstruct next, I listed the games I’ve been playing the most recently. Then I pulled out my phone to send a text message and Robot Unicorn Attack stared back at me. I stopped playing just long enough to write this article.

Robot Unicorn Attack

Developer: Adult Swim Games
Platform: Browser (link) / iPhone
Genre: Imaginary
Metacritic: N/A
Price: Free / $2.99 (iPhone)

Robot Unicorn Attack is a completely unoriginal game that managed to be better than its source material in just about every way. It clearly followed the example of indie darling Cannabalt, which is still a great game on its own. Whereas Cannabalt’s audience was limited to the hardcore gaming community, Robot Unicorn Attack made the gameplay more complex and found a much larger audience (over 27 million players according to the developer). It’s a rare failure of the K.I.S.S. principle. What’s so magical about this game?

Gameplay
The objective of Robot Unicorn Attack is to live as long as possible. The game instructs the player to “make your wishes come true” at the beginning of each round, with the subsequent reminder that “you will die.” The core gameplay consists of jumping, double jumping, and dashing from across floating platforms as the unicorn automatically runs to the right. The player’s score increases at a rate that grows every 5,000 points, and additional points can be earned by running into fairies or dashing through star-shaped rocks. The wish ends in a fiery explosion when the player runs into a wall, falls off the map, or hits a star without dashing.

The two button gameplay (jumping or dashing) is deceivingly deep. The player’s success or failure depends on the timing of each jump or knowing when to double jump over an obstacle versus dash under it. The game’s increasing speed makes reacting to each obstacle even more difficult. The camera can be problematic, and I still find myself occasionally blaming the game for randomly spawning a platform with an unfairly placed star on it when I crash, but I’m still steadily improving my scores.

Asthetics
IGN has praised Robot Unicorn Attack as “the best Erasure song you’ve ever played,”and it’s true that most of the game’s character comes from its soundtrack. The sci-fi sounds of jet boosters and explosions combined with the synthpop love ballad is extremely memorable in every way you don’t want it to be. Players find themselves humming the song for hours after they play.

The game’s art style mirrors the sound design with Michael Bay-worthy explosions set against platforms of purple grass and rainbows that could have come straight out of a My Little Pony cartoon. The ironic pairing of things that don’t belong together wouldn’t mean anything without the gameplay depth, but it makes the game a guilty pleasure to play.

The comparison to Cannabalt is a great reminder that game design only goes so far: production value and execution made this game the viral success that it is.

Replayability
Take away the music and there’s a key difference between Robot Unicorn Attack and it source material that makes it all that much more addictive: the combination of three wishes. If you have a great run in Cannabalt, you can share it and brag to your friends. If you have a great run in Robot Unicorn Attack, that’s nice, but it doesn’t matter unless your other two runs are just as good. The combined total of all three runs is the only score that gets recorded.

Players can find this annoying, but it actually serves as a way of making them come back to play more often. It eliminates blind luck from earning them high scores and rewards talent and practice. It effectively makes the game three times as challenging as it otherwise could be without changing the gameplay at all. The result is the most meaningful use of “submit a score to Facebook” that I know of.

Conclusion
A friend of mine referred to Robot Unicorn Attack as ”the perfect Flash game,” and I’m inclined to agree. It takes less than five minutes to play, but it rewards players who come back. The soundtrack gets stuck in players’ heads and lures them back to play more. Players aren’t afraid to share their scores over Facebook because high scores actually seem like an accomplishment instead of a cheap ploy to get more people playing.

The offending code has been removed. We believe this was an automated attack, and in most cases the attackers do not do anything with the users’ data. It was likely targeted at multiple sites running the same backend as Only at Tech. That doesn’t mean you should be careless if you use your Only at Tech password on other sites with sensitive data. To be on the safe side, we would recommend you change your passwords on Only at Tech and any other sites where you use the same email/password combination.

We apologize for our failure to secure your information on our side, and for any inconvenience this causes you. We’re currently in the process of upgrading to a more secure backend as part of a major site update, but in the meantime, we’ve taken some precautions to prevent this from happening again.

Technical details on the attack are below for those of you who are interested. This is Tech, after all.

Only at Tech as it appeared on Google. We love "Dancing with the Stars" as much as anyone, but...

Around 11:30 PM, routine social media monitoring of the “Only at Tech” phrase revealed an oddity in the Google search results page.  Instead of the usual Google snippet of the homepage, we encountered a link to a spammy pdf file.  Further research revealed that our site returned an HTTP 302 redirect to a randomly generated URL, but only when accessing the site with a Google user agent string.

We discovered that malicious code had been inserted into two of our files — a config file and an include file.  Both of these files contained JavaScript code of the following form:

eval(base64_decode(…))

This structure is commonly used in by malware authors to obfuscate malicious code.  Decoding the base64 string resulted in the following JavaScript file: http://pastebin.org/129150

Reading the JavaScript confirms the evidence we had first encountered with the 302 redirect when using a Google user agent.  And more specifically, user agent strings that contain one of “google”, “Googlebot”, “slurp”, or “msnbot” were redirected to spammy/malicious pdfs.  These user agent strings are those that are used by the webcrawlers of Google, Yahoo, and MSN/Bing respectively.  The malicious JavaScript also revealed the details of how the randomized URLs were constructed.  In short, they are randomly assembled from a shortlist of prefixes and suffixes found in files on a server identified only by its IP address.

Investigating the IP address using standard online DNS tools and WHOIS queries, we found that the server was registered to a user located in Luxembourg and hosted in the same country.

Searching the Internet for some of the code snippets found in the JavaScript file, it turns out that the code is commonly available on the underground malware market.  We found discussions of the code in forums ranging from Brazil to Belize, as well as links to other compromised sites.

Though finding traces of the attack spread across the world may seem particularly frightening, this is no different than any other malicious break-in.  It is common practice among the hacker community to spread traces across the Internet, because it provides redundancy and makes tracking down the original source more difficult.

We are continuing to investigate the origins of the attack and taking appropriate precautions.  These are the steps we have taken to prevent this from occurring again:

• permanently disabled FTP access to our webspace
• replaced all passwords with 32+ character passwords containing over 176 bits of entropy and all character classes
• set all files to read-only with minimal permissions
• ensured all software is fully patched

By 1 AM, malicious code was identified and removed, and the above precautions had been taken. The Only at Tech team is doing their best to continue to handle the situation appropriately.  If you have any concerns, suggestions, or questions please contact us at help@onlyattech.net.

- Andrew Ash, Programmer
- Holden Link, Designer

This month I take a look at another downloadable title, this time for the PlayStation 3. I briefly played PixelJunk Shooter at E3, and although I was impressed with its visual style and ease of use, I didn’t know how long the game would be able to keep my attention with its simple mechanics. I picked it up based on the developer’s reputation for quality, and although it was a bit on the short side, it does a lot of things very well.

PixelJunk Shooter

Developer: Q Games
Genre: Shooter / Puzzle
Metacritic: 86
Price: $9.99
Length: 4-6 hours

Background
PixelJunk Shooter is the fourth entry in the Q Games’ PixelJunk series of PSN titles, following most recently the critically acclaimed PixelJunk Eden. It follows suit with the series’ reputation for high production value and polish. On the surface, the game isn’t very special – it’s a space-cavern exploration adventure along the lines of Subterrania for the Sega Genesis (I feel like this dates me), but its puzzle design is so innovative that it creates a very fresh experience. Its difficulty stems from its fluid-based physics puzzles, all of which force the player to think carefully about every move. The game isn’t particularly difficult, but it’s extremely clever.

Gameplay
Shooter consists of three worlds that have roughly five levels each. Each level is broken up into a handful of areas where  a handful of crew members from the ERS Piñita Colada have been stranded. The player is tasked with rescuing all of the survivors in each area, without letting more than five die during the course of a level. All survivors must be rescued or killed (no one gets left behind) before access to the next area until the the final area is reached, where an escape gate opens to leave the level. The player cannot backtrack to areas they have completed without replaying the entire level. In the final area of each world, the player encounters a boss that must be defeated to continue on to the next world.

The player’s health is displayed on a heat gauge at the bottom of the screen. As the ship takes damages or flies around magma, it gets warmer. If it gets too hot, it stalls out or explodes. The ship’s temperature gradually decreases when it is far away from hazards, and it cools off instantly when submersed in water.

The player’s deaths are not tracked – if you die at any time during a level, you start back at the beginning of the area. The only way to fail a level is to allow the lost survivor counter to reach five. The player can earn 1-UPs during the game that subtract one from that counter. If the player restarts an area after accidentally killing a survivor, the survivor will reappear in the level but the penalty for losing him does not reset.

The entire game is also playable in co-op mode. Playing with a friend almost completely eliminates the penalty for failure because it’s rare for both players to die at once. After dying in co-op mode, it only takes five seconds to respawn. The level only ends if both players die, meaning if one player can stay alive, it’s as if the death never happened.

The level select screen goes deeper and deeper into the cavern as you progress through the game.

Mechanics
Although rescuing survivors and collecting diamonds are the primary objectives, the meat of the game is found in manipulating various fluids. There are multiple kinds of fluids and gasses, and the player can move them around the level by blasting apart the rock that holds them back in each area’s caverns. As the game progresses, the player learns a system of rules for how fluids interact with each other that become the basis for most of the game’s puzzles:

• Water mixed with magma yields solid ground
• Water mixed with oil yields gas
• Water mixed with ice yields ice
• Magma ignites gas
• Magma melts ice
• Magma evaporates oil

Flying near magma or flying through gas slowly heats up the ship. Flying into magma or oil usually results in an instant death. The player must also consider how the fluids affect the survivors: they can survive forever in water or a short time in gas, but they instantly die in lava or oil. They can also get trapped in ice and freeze to death.

In some areas, the player will be able to use a dock to temporarily change the ship’s functionality via Metroid-esque “suits.” They might change the ship’s primary fire to shooting water or lava instead of missiles, or they might change how the suit interacts with the environment (i.e. reversing effects of water and lava). Each suit lends itself towards a particular type of puzzle, but they have downsides as well. The Water Suit is great for neutralizing lava or creating ice walls, but it takes away the player’s ability to attack most enemies because it can only shoot water or pull away chunks of ice with the grapple. The Magma Suit is powerful for melting ice and killing most enemies quickly, but it’s easy for players to accidentally shoot themselves with magma that gets deflected from walls and it can make navigating through gas very dangerous. One exception is the “Anti-Magnet” suit that repels the magnetic oil substance found in the later levels – allowing the player to guide the fluid around simply by flying near or through it. It’s a lot of fun to use, but it’s overpowered compared to the other suits because there isn’t a downside to using it since the ship retains all of its normal abilities. I felt like the second world was harder than the final one as a result.

Once a suit is equipped, there is no way to discard it until the area is completed. Suits reset at the beginning of each area, and there is never more than one suit available in any given area. Part of me feels like this is an obvious missed opportunity, but I also realize that it keeps thing simple. As it stands, the player can never get stuck to a point where the level must be reset, and it would likely be easier to reach a dead end when combining the abilities of each suit. That’s a good thing, but I still wish the game had more puzzles that played on the weaknesses of each suit. I found that I had to think the hardest when I was worried about dying more than when I was trying to get to an exit, and most of the suit puzzles minimize those situations.

Sometimes, the grapple is used to open doors like this one.

Aesthetics
The game uses a simplistic cel-shaded style similar to the other titles in the PixelJunk series. It lends itself particularly well to the fluid animations. At first I was a little bit confused about which kinds of surfaces I could shoot through because there isn’t much difference in their appearances aside from shading, but I quickly adapted to the game’s world and didn’t have any trouble after the first couple of levels. Then again, I was lucky enough to be playing on a massive HDTV in 1080p, so it might be a bit more difficult to see with a poor contrast ratio on a standard tube TV. The characters (enemies, ships, bosses) have minimal animation, but they still manage to feel alive in the context of the game. The style is nothing revolutionary, but it works well and I have a hard time picturing this game without it.

The game’s soundtrack is made up of the series’ trademark smooth electronic beats. There’s some subtle procedural music alteration during particular events in the game. When the player is engaged in combat, the percussion track goes from ambient to driving. It helps create a sense of urgency for dealing with enemies without being intrusive or jarring like a flashy graphical effect could be.

If you’ve played other PixelJunk games, Shooter’s aesthetics will be instantly familiar but they come across as far more polished than its predecessors.

This gas was ignited by lava, and it will blow up the pillars of ice trapping the survivors on the left.

Controls
The player moves his spaceship around with the left stick and changes its orientation with the right stick. Spinning the right stick performs a spin-attack that can dig away soil or deflect enemy fire. Either of the right triggers can be used to fire the currently equipped weapon, and holding down one of the right triggers operates as a secondary fire. The left triggers fire the grapple used to pick up items or survivors. None of the face buttons are used during gameplay.

Without its simple controls, the game would quickly over-complicate itself. The ship’s movement is just floaty enough to match the game’s outer-space setting, but it’s tight enough so that the player doesn’t blame the game for running into hazards. There is a very slight auto-aim correction on the primary fire, but I was only frustrated with myself (not the game) when stray bullets hit survivors.

The biggest gripe I have with the controls is the lack of a good tutorial. There are “how to play” slides available for viewing before the game, but like most players, I jumped in and figured I’d learn as I go. As a result, I was stuck for about 30 minutes on one level trying to figure out how to pass an obstacle when the solution was to spin-attack through it. I had never needed it before, and I was well past halfway through the game, so I simply didn’t know about the spin-attack ability. A playable tutorial of some sort is a necessity in almost any game when the controls aren’t self-explanatory – even overlays that explain the controls during the main game would have been sufficient, but it’s not right to assume the player will read a boring set of slides before jumping into the action.

Another frustration is the lack of a decent camera for the co-op mode. If one player moves off the screen into a secret area or proceeds to the exit, the other player is instantly transported there. Similarly, player two will die  via a Sonic the Hedgehog 2 drowning-style countdown timer if player one goes too far away. Perhaps a dynamic splitscreen system could have solved the problem?

Where’s the Fun?
This is the classic example of a game being better than the sum of all its parts. The gameplay is simple enough to be easy to pick up and play with a friend, but complex enough to avoid turning into a collect-a-thon. There’s very little change in difficulty, but there’s a lot of depth to the game’s puzzles (pun intended) and it makes you feel clever every step of the way even if there isn’t any sort of real penalty for failure. That lack of a fail state allows the game to offer a large variety of puzzles without getting too frustrating.

Watching the fluids interact with the world is a treat in itself.

The game also does an excellent job of giving the player feedback for every action. I  think it’s what made Uncharted 2 such a success, but on a smaller scale: even if the player is on a linear path, the game can fabricate an exhilarating experience by making players feel like they have a tangible impact on everything in the world. Shooter gets away with it by maximizing the use of its fluid animations. The player has minimal control over the fluids, but that limited influence has massive amounts of feedback because of the various ways the fluids can interact. The player feels directly responsible for every cool chemical reaction and every pretty visual effect.

Similar to PixelJunk Eden, the game displays the number of remaining collectibles in each level to encourage completionism. Survivors re-appear on each playthrough, but the diamonds do not. At first I was aggravated that I was going to have to redo all the puzzles and get each survivor all over again if I wanted to find every diamond I missed on my first playthrough, but then I realized that collecting every diamond would be a boring challenge if the game was stripped of its puzzles. Then I found out that on subsequent playthroughs, the game also enables a time-trial challenge with an online leaderboard. On paper, these features are obvious and certainly nothing innovative, but they add a good deal of replayability to an otherwise short game.

What’s Next?
Q Games has already announced that they’re working on PixelJunk Shooter 2, a very uncharacteristic move for a team that hasn’t made a sequel before. The EP, Dylan Cuthbert, says that the team was able to get all their big ideas into the first game during development, but there were still a lot left on the drawing board. I’m looking forward to see where they take it – PixelJunk Shooter is a lot of fun, but there’s also a lot of untapped potential.

Click the image to go to the GGJ site and play!

I was responsible for game design and audio. My team won first place!

The contest also had “achievements” we could get by sticking to certain constraints. We were rewarded for having no text, using less than 16 colors, and being playable in a browser. Check it out and let me know what you think!

Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney – Capcom, Nintendo DS
I was hesitant about the series ditching Phoenix, but in the end, I still got to yell “OBJECTION” at my handheld and that makes everything in the world OK. The updated investigation phase mechanics weren’t all that compelling even though they made good use of the DS. Maybe I was burnt out from the previous three games, but this one couldn’t keep my attention long enough to make it past the third case. Finished: NO

Auditorium – EA, iPhone
I played it first on PC, so buying the iPhone version was a no-brainer for me. It’s a great mobile game. The puzzles lend themselves well to the touchscreen, and levels can played in two or three minutes while waiting for a bus. I found the gameplay to be addicting enough that I finished it before I had the opportunity to play while waiting for a bus, opting to play it over Thanksgiving when I should have been socializing with family. EA offers more levels, but you have to feed the microtransaction monster to get to them. Finished: YES

Batman: Arkham Asylum – Rocksteady, PS3
As most of the mainstream reviews have already noted, this one was a pleasant surprise. It’s one of the best stealth action games out there, even if the AI is fairly predictable. The combat system was intuitive and fun despite being so repetitive. None of the mechanics would have meant  anything if Rocksteady hadn’t done such an amazing job with the game’s presentation. It truly makes the player feel like Batman, and even the collect-a-thon elements (Riddler trophies) were rewarding with Bioshock-esque tape recordings and backstory that went far beyond the genre’s usual offering. It’s a licensed game, but it’s also fun and innovative. What a concept! Finished: YES

Boom Blox Bash Party – EA, Wii
I’m clearly not biased at all when I say that every Wii owner should drop everything and buy this game right now. It’s a great puzzle game, and even now that I’m home without any obligation to play it daily, I occasionally find myself breaking it out to play around in the level editor or see what other users have created online. Finished: YES

Borderlands - Gearbox Software, PC
I was never much of a Diablo fan, but I loved the mission system in Borderlands. You can take on multiple missions at once and work on them in whatever order you choose, even stopping mid-mission to complete objectives from other ones. It’s one of the few open-world games that truly feels free. It’s also remarkably huge. I mostly played it alone, but my bad experience with multiplayer (on public servers) seems to have been one of the few bad ones. I’m looking forward to giving it a try with some friends. Still playing it now.  Finished: NO

Brutal Legend - Double Fine, Xbox 360
I thought this would be one of the year’s best releases, and it let me down. It’s still a great experience. The first third of the game is a blast, filled with excellent writing and creative gameplay with lots of variation. The rest of it, though, falls short of the quality I expected from Tim Schafer and Double Fine. The RTS segments (“stage battles”) are extremely lengthy, and they happen in rapid succession. It also didn’t seem to scale well in terms of difficulty – there was precisely one strategy for beating each of the stage battles, and although I was laughing throughout, it was more fun to watch than to play. The side quests were extremely repetitive as well. I understand it was originally designed as a multiplayer-only game, but the single-player experience is what was talked up during development, and it didn’t deliver. Finished: YES

Burnout Paradise – Criterion/EA, PS3
I’m late to the party on this one. I downloaded the game when it was released over PlayStation Network, and then slowly played through all the events over the course of a few months. At first I didn’t like the series’ change to open-world gameplay, but  now I can’t go back. Even though all of the events took place in the same world, it didn’t feel repetitive. I actually enjoyed learning the map and remembering landmarks to find shortcuts in each race. Speeding through the streets or across a narrow mountain path is exhilarating, but the crashes are absolutely beautiful too. It’s one of the few games I’ve played where failure is equally as rewarding as success – it’s just fun all around. My biggest complaint would have to be the lack of customization on the vehicles – there’s little reason to return to old cars once you unlock new ones, so the garage gets unnecessarily cluttered by the end.  Finished: YES

Chrono Trigger DS - SquareEnix, Nintendo DS
I own this game on Super Nintendo and PS1. It’s my favorite game of all time. I picked up the DS version after seeing one of my friends play it (on my recommendation). I couldn’t resist giving it another go and I have no regrets. There aren’t any graphical upgrades, but it’s a very sleek port. The new translation bothered me a bit, and then I was more upset that I’m enough of a nerd to notice the differences. The stylus controls leave a lot to be desired, but they didn’t mess up the standard controls. Can you ask for much more on a game that’s already great? Finished: YES

Command & Conquer Red Alert 3 – EA, PC
My roommates and I played some skirmishes this summer and it played just like I would expect an RTS to play. The single player campaigns weren’t particularly fun in terms of gameplay – for me, at least, removing the social element of online play kills the genre – but I loved the cutscenes in all their cheesy glory. You can’t go wrong with Tim Curry. It’s a fun game, but every RTS is doomed to being released in the shadow of StarCraft 2. Finished: NO

Critter Crunch – Capybara Games, iPhone
If Katamari was crazy for instructing players to roll up the world with a giant snowball, then Critter Crunch deserves equal recognition for featuring a mechanic that equates to eating and vomiting cute little creatures. Feeding little critters to bigger ones is such a simple concept, but the addition of chaining (or “food chaining”) adds a level of strategy just thick enough to make it interesting without overcomplicating the brilliance of its simplicity. The presentation is top-notch, both of the gameplay modes are fun, and there’s enough content to last a good while. Finished: NO

DJ Hero – Neversoft/Activision, Xbox 360
At the very least, Neversoft deserves credit for not making this as a complete Guitar Hero clone. The controller is well-made and there isn’t as much carry-over from the guitar as you’d expect. My biggest criticism is the design of the note charts. Whereas Guitar Hero’s notes are placed on a vertical fret board that moves towards the player, DJ Hero uses a circular turntable. The notes come in from the side and curve down to eventually straighten out. Unfortunately, this makes it very difficult to play the game with muscle memory because it means the horizontal positions of the notes are changing as they get closer to the target zone. The game also doesn’t provide enough feedback when the player misses a note – I was often left wondering why my combo broke, and when you don’t know what you did wrong, it’s easy to blame the game and get frustrated. Design issues aside, only a few of the mixes are worth listening to more than once and many of them reuse the same songs. If you can get past that, it’s the most original music game in quite some time and it’s every bit as innovative as the original Guitar Hero. Finished: NO

FarmVille – Zynga, Facebook
Check out my decon if you haven’t already. Millions and millions of users can’t be wrong, right? Finished: N/A

Flight Control – Firemint, iPhone
Another great example of a simple concept made into a fantastic product thanks to high production value. The basic concept is to use your finger to draw paths guiding planes to landing strips without letting them crash into each other. It’s surprisingly difficult, but the player can’t blame the game because it provides such excellent feedback. That makes it challenging and addictive rather than frustrating and passable. Flight Control is the new Snake. Finished: N/A

Flower - ThatGameCompany, PS3
I generally aligned with the critics on this one too. It’s the best implementation of motion controls I’ve experienced thus far on any console. When I say “experienced,” I also intend to imply that Flower is more of an “experience” than it is a “game.”  Rather than putting you in the role of a character or the pedals that you ultimately move around, the game puts you in the role of the wind. It’s oddly empowering and creates a sensation of flying unmatched by any other game. I don’t think I can categorize it as “casual” or “hardcore.” That said, it’s not for everyone – there isn’t much in the way of difficulty, and it’s very short-lived. Finished: YES

Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2 - Bizarre Creations, Xbox 360
As much as I like Everyday Shooter, I could never get into Geometry Wars. My roommates bought this through my Xbox Live account and it became their nightly addiction for a good while. We have a 60″ DLP 1080p HDTV, a 7.1 surround sound system, and somehow game gets more play time than anything else. I think I enjoy watching people play it more than playing it myself. I’m not particularly bad at it or anything, it’s just that I find playing it to be frustrating in the wrong ways. Losing in the game is an even split between knowing exactly what I did wrong and blaming the game for being cheap with its enemy spawn locations. Finished: N/A

Ghostbusters: The Videogame - Terminal Reality, Xbox 360
I found Ghostbusters to be an enjoyable one-time-playthrough sort of game despite its repetitive gameplay mechanics because it does such a good job of making you feel like you’re in one of the movies – sort of like Arkham Asylum. Without the nostalgia, it might have seemed like a rather mediocre Gears of War clone. I got very far in the game but didn’t have the desire to finish after I got distracted by work and other new releases. Terminal Reality shows a lot of promise with this game’s polish and presentation, though – much more than in their previous titles – so I’m actually hoping for a proper sequel. Finished: NO

Henry Hatsworth and the Puzzling Adventure – EA, Nintendo DS
On paper, Hatsworth shouldn’t work. It asks you to constantly switch screens between a platformer and a puzzle game – neither of which are remarkably innovative or compelling – but somehow, the combination of the two makes it seem like a fresh experience. I had a blast in the game’s first set of levels, but then the difficulty curve went out of control. It was frustrating because it would take 10 or 15 minutes to play through a level and reach a boss, but after running out of lives at the boss, you have to repeat the entire level again. Sometimes that can be a good punishment – take a look at Mega Man for example. But the puzzle aspect of Hatsworth makes it unreasonable because it’s nearly impossible to get the Mega Man focus of precision platforming when your attention is split between two screens. Finished: NO

Hook Champ - RocketCat, iPhone
I fell in love with Hook Champ after grabbing it on sale shortly after its launch thanks to a nod from users over at CheapAssGamer. It’s a swinging-adventure game where the goal is to use a grappling hook to swing through underground caves as quickly as possible. The controls are masterfully executed for the touch screen – touching on either side next to the  character makes him move in that direction, and touching on either side above the character makes him fire his hook towards your finger. The developers add a couple twists to the formula like one-time-use rockets that give you an extra boost if you miss a swing and need to try again. There’s a lot of content for the asking price, and everything is extremely polished. It’s everything a good indie game should be. Finished: YES

I Love Katamari – Namco, iPhone
The reviews said this was a decent port, but it had a really sluggish framerate on the iPhone 3G that ruined the experience. I have a 3GS, so I thought I’d give it a try because it’s supposed to be a lot faster. It was still  far too slow to be enjoyable after playing through the PS2 and Xbox 360 incarnations of the series once you get past the first level. The tilt controls are a bit awkward as well, making it the only time I’ve found myself cursing while listening to the game’s trademark happy music. Finished: NO

iBlast Moki - Godzilab, iPhone
I picked this up when it was free during the Appvent Calendar promotion, and it ended up being one of the better puzzle games I’ve played for the iPhone. The core mechanic consists of setting time bombs around a level to propel the cute, round little Rolandos Mokis from the start to the goal. The formula gets interesting in each new set of levels where new features are introduced. One world’s levels take place underwater, so bombs also be set to prevent the Mokis from rising to the surface. There isn’t a lot of replay value aside from a basic gold/silver/bronze medal system, but it’s fun while it lasts. Finished: YES

Left 4 Dead 2 - Valve, PC
Although it’s not typical for Valve to release a quick sequel, you’d think they do it all the time by looking at Left 4 Dead 2. It’s an improvement over the first game in every way, and there’s more than enough content to warrant the price tag. Scavenge mode has all the fun of the original game’s Versus mode without asking for the huge investment of time to play through a whole campaign. Valve is just one of those companies that doesn’t make bad games even when they set themselves up for high expectations. Finished: N/A

Madden 10 – EA, Xbox 360
The last Madden game I purchased was Madden 93 for the Sega Genesis. I’ve stuck to the NCAA series since then, but my EA employee discount over the summer tempted me to pick this one up. I ended up playing it a lot more than NCAA 10. It’s extremely polished, the graphics and animations are stunning, and the presentation is unmatched. But that’s why the annual entries of Madden always sell so well, right? Finished: N/A

MadWorld - Platinum Games, Wii
It’s really gory, it’s really stylized, and it’s really repetitive. Most of the time, it fires infinite waves of enemies at  you and lets you kill them with standard attacks or quicktime-event based special attacks. Fun for a few hours, but I lost interest fast. For what it’s worth, it is one of the most graphically impressive games on the Wii. Finished: NO

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames - Pandemic/EA , Xbox 360
Mercenaries 2 is one of the few games that delivers on the promise of destructible environments, and it does destruction very well. The first two hours are a blast because the game gives you all the toys at the beginning, but then it gets stuck in the fetch or kill quests that most mission-based games succumb to. Blowing stuff up is so awesome that it makes everything else less interesting in context. Finished: NO

NCAA 10 – EA, Xbox 360
It’s always fun to create a player and rise to lead my own school’s team to a national championship, but after playing Madden 10 it’s hard to go back. I can understand that the presentation can’t be as sleek when there are hundreds of teams to worry about as opposed to the 32 NFL franchises, but it’s one of the few games where graphics make a huge difference in the gameplay. Madden’s animation engine is better too – it’s almost as if the NCAA series’ tech is a year behind. Despite my insane levels of school spirit, I see little reason to own both games. Finished: N/A

Need for Speed Underground – EA, iPhone
When I got my iPhone, I heard that this was the best racing game on the platform. It sports great graphics, fully rendered cutscenes, and intuitive controls. In terms of gameplay, it feels stripped down from what I’ve come to expect out of the Need for Speed name, likely due to the smaller screen. It’s still a competent racer, but it lacks all the adrenaline of its console counterpart – and that’s a huge part of the genre for me. Finished: NO

Noby Noby Boy – Namco, PS3
It’s even stranger than Katamari, which I suppose is an achievement. There isn’t really any “game” here, it’s just a playground. I ended up wasting enough time with it to justify the $5 price tag. Finished: N/A

PixelJunk Eden – Q Games, PS3
I became bored with this game because I didn’t really understand how to play it. One of my roommates fooled around with it, and after hours of watching him play through it I wanted to pick it up and try again. It has a great visual style and the sound design is absolutely fantastic. I don’t like how the game makes you re-play each level multiple times without changing the scenarios – imagine being forced to re-earn each star in Super Mario 64 before getting the next – but it’s a great overall experience that’s worth checking out. Finished: NO

Plants vs. Zombies - PopCap Games, PC
My first day at EA, my co-workers told me to go home and buy this game. I obliged, and I wasn’t disappointed. It’s a great spin on the tower defense formula with tons of character. The Zen Garden was an awesome idea that encouraged me to finish the extra challenges after completing the adventure mode. Once I finally finished everything the game had to offer, I cleared my profile and started all over again to see if I could do it faster. I’ll probably do it again when it comes out for iPhone later this month. Finished: YES

Prince of Persia – Ubisoft, Xbox 360
I was a fan of the last generation’s Prince of Persia games, but this entry was a massive disappointment. The art style and presentation were great, but taking away the ability to die totally ruins the series’ formula of adventure. There’s never any danger or sense of urgency because you can die as many times as necessary to complete an area. There’s no reward for doing something correctly on the first try. For me, this meant progressing in the game wasn’t rewarding either, which translated to it not being fun. Finished: NO

Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time – Insomniac, PS3
I’ve been loyal to the Ratchet series since the second game hit the PS2. Tools of Destruction was its enjoyable next-gen debut, and Quest for Booty was a decent downloadable distraction. A Crack in Time is a fairly standard sequel. The best thing it brings to the series is the moon exploration system. I went through the entire game and found every last collectible item because I actually enjoyed doing it – each sidequest is on a different moon, so it always feels fresh. Aside from that, I actually missed not having Clank for the majority of the game. The constant banter between the two protagonists gives the series a lot of character, and this game felt a little empty without it. Finished: YES

Rhythm Heaven – Nintendo, Nintendo DS
Everyone who attended Iwata’s keynote at GDC 2009 received a copy of this game for free. I played it on the trip home and long after. Unlike Rock Band which tests muscle memory, Rhythm Heaven actually challenges players with real rhythm puzzles. The controls are limited to tapping or swiping the stylus across the screen. It’s frustrating at times because it seems like it should be simple, but it’s quite difficult and the game isn’t very kind with its feedback – about as different as you can get from other recent Nintendo games – but it’s designed in a way that makes it hard to “blame the game.” It does allow the player to skip levels and come back later after failing three or four times. The amount of content they packed into the cartridge was a lot more than standard Nintendo fare as well. I still haven’t unlocked a handful of the mini games because I’m trying to get perfect scores on some of the other ones first. Finished: NO

Scramble 2 – Zynga, iPhone
Scramble is available for just about every social networking platform, and the free iPhone version is everything it should be. Online multiplayer, easy touch screen controls, accelerometer support, and slick Facebook integration make it a no-brainer for the low, low price of free. It might not have the fancy 3D graphics of EA’s Boggle, but the gameplay is identical between the two. Finished: N/A

Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood – Bioware/Sega, Nintendo DS
At a recruiting event, I joked with a Bioware rep that this could be the worst game they ever made but it would still be the best Sonic game in at least a decade. It’s not terrible, but it’s a letdown for anyone who expected a Paper Mario quality adventure. The plot is weak, the graphics look rushed (it sparingly uses 3D models on a pre-rendered 2D environment, Final Fantasy VII style), and the gameplay is extremely repetitive. The Elite Beat Agents-inspired battle system is decent, but it takes too long to get through each fight. That problem is maximized by the game’s affinity for backtracking. Every part of the game shows promise, but no single piece is polished enough to warrant a recommendation. I invested about 7 hours into it before getting out the old Mario & Luigi game for GBA for a second playthrough instead. Finished: NO

South Park Let’s Go Tower Defense Play! – Microsoft, Xbox 360
2009 was the year of the tower defense game. While Plants vs Zombies dominated the PC, South Park dominated Xbox Live. I bought it and played through the entire campaign with my roommates in a single night. Without the multiplayer component, it probably wouldn’t have been anywhere near as much fun. It features everything you’d expect from an honest tower defense game – mazing, upgrading, selling, etc. The South Park franchise adds a layer of charm to the formula, but it doesn’t really bring anything new to the genre. It simply does everything well. Finished: YES

‘Splosion Man – Twisted Pixel, Xbox 360
Check out my decon for a detailed breakdown of the game. Easily one of my favorite games from 2009. Finished: YES

Sudoku – EA, iPhone
Sudoku puzzles are a great way to pass the time while waiting for the bus or sitting in an office. EA’s offering can be as simple or fancy as you want it to be. It can fill in all the possible numbers for each square, highlight specific numbers on the board to make it easier to find sequences, or pull in puzzles from the newspaper and solve them instantly. My complaint is that the options to get help – hints or fill ins – are on the main game screen. This means it’s really easy to accidentally hit them from time to time, and there is no “undo” button. I don’t regret picking it up, but it could be better. Finished: N/A

Tales of Vesperia - Namco, Xbox 360
It’s doesn’t say much to call it the definitive JRPG for the Xbox 360, but Vesperia is my personal favorite of the Tales series. The characters are likable, the plot is decent, the graphics are beautiful, and the battle system is fantastic. The main story is also remarkably long with numerous sidequests to spare. I’ve invested about 35 hours into Vesperia, and I still don’t think I’m near the end. I typically can’t sit and play it for long periods of time, but it offers a detailed summary of the plot so far from the pause menu to refresh my memory when I need it. Hopefully I’ll get around to finishing it soon. Finished: NO

The Beatles: Rock Band - Harmonix, Xbox 360
It’s an understatement to say that The Beatles: Rock Band is the best version of Rock Band available anywhere. In addition to all the features of Rock Band 2, it offers harmonization support for three vocalists, unique dreamscapes (trippy backgrounds and venues) for most of the 40+ songs, and truly meaningful unlockables. It won’t make anyone like The Beatles’ music, but it’s gaming nirvana for anyone who does. Finished: YES

The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition – LucasArts, PC
Apart from graphical upgrades and a new hint system, there isn’t anything Monkey Island fans haven’t seen before. I was disappointed that the “HD upgrade” simply replaced art assets. It looks great in screenshots, but the animations are still just as choppy as in the original. This made sense for something like Street Fighter 2’s HD version, where framecounts matter to players for strategical purposes, but it seemed sloppy in Monkey Island. Still, I can’t complain too much because it gave me an excuse to revisit an excellent game. Finished: YES

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves – Naughty Dog, PS3
The first Uncharted was a mystery – it was Prince of Persia with gunplay and a decent plot until the last hour or so, when it became Gears of War with zombies and monsters. The sequel outdoes the original in every way. It’s like a Michael Bay movie, except it’s enjoyable. The combat hasn’t changed much, but there’s a bigger emphasis on mixing combat with parkour and acrobatics. Between a lengthy single player campaign and a thriving online multiplayer mode, there isn’t any reason to pass it up if you have a PS3. As a designer, I found myself creating save checkpoints so I could go back and try to figure out how they made certain areas of the levels. For example, one fight takes place in a building that is literally falling over while you’re still inside it. Everything is sliding towards one side of the room, and the outside world is visible through the windows. It turns out they built a physics engine that allows them to do it without any tricks. Hats off, Naughty Dog. Finished: YES

Valkyria Chronicles – Sega, PS3
Another game I’m late to the party on, Valkyria Chronicles is an innovative strategy RPG that turned heads last summer. I was addicted to the game for the first seven or eight battles, but when they take over an hour each, it starts to feel more like work than play. It has a great cast of characters, but the developers seem to think the numerous cutscenes are a lot better than they actually are. There are at least six or seven of them between every battle. The difficulty curve is all over the place – each battle is harder than the last, and the game suggests that you re-play older battles to level up. The problem is that replaying the older battles are extremely easy because of the amount of experience you gain for completing them the first time. The battle system doesn’t lend itself well to grinding, and the game wants way too much of it. Finished: NO

…

That’s it! Keep in mind that these are merely my opinions, and I’m not claiming to be any sort of an expert critic. Looking back is a useful exercise for me to identify trends and mechanics that are working across the entire industry, and hopefully I’ll be able to implement some of them in my own projects.

We turned “Only at Tech” into “Only at U(sic)GA” as a way to poke fun at our rival prior to the game. We had hundreds of hilarious stories submitted by Tech students,  but some folks from UGA also used the site to express their displeasure. Here are some of the funnier hate posts that we rejected:

• Girls. Only at UGA
• We don’t have such a severe Napoleon complex that we have to make fake websites, and newspapers, making fun of a superior University that hardly considers us a rival. Only at….wait….thats everywhere except Georgia Tech. Get a life, geeks.
• “I noticed there was a ‘cows’ category now. That must be referring to all the Tech girls that visit Athens…only at UGA.”
  
• Everyone who reads this website is a loser who was too scared to go have a social life in Athens. Sorry you’re all retarded. Only at tech
• By the way, UGA is too hard for rednecks to get into. A for effort though. Only at tech.
  
• NERDS  NERDS NERDS NERDS NERDS NERDS NERDS NERDS NERDS NERDS NERDS NERDS NERDS NERDS NERDS NERDS NERDS NERDS
• Only a truly lame and retarded school would make a stupid website about their rivals. L2becreative. Only at tech.

And finally…

• this website makes tech look retarded. ever realize people at uga don’t care about our ‘rivalry’? sorry you don’t think poultry science and agriculture is important to our country, because it is. Only at tech.

I hope everyone had fun with the site! Good luck getting through dead week.

There are a few typos (and some misquotes – I promise my grammar isn’t that bad) but it’s full of praise for the website and the way it has been embraced by the Georgia Tech community. We’re rolling out some major updates to the site on Saturday – can’t say what just yet, but hopefully it will give Tech students yet another reason to visit.

Hits: 383,691
Page Views: 281,952
Unique Visitors: 8,770
Average Page Views per Visitor: 32.15
Fans on Facebook: 1258
Bandwidth Used: 8.96 GB

The page view ratio is extremely high. That means people are getting onto the site and staying to read pages upon pages of content. Great news for us!

And some graphs:

Site Activity by Hour of Day

In typical Tech fashion, the website’s popularity was highest from 11 to midnight. Will with 12AM-1AM slot be even better? It looks like we still haven’t peaked.

Top Referring Sites

Behold the power of Facebook! We didn’t do any advertising for the site other than mentioning it in front of our CS class.

Most Used Browsers

Georgia Tech is probably the only place where Google Chrome users outnumber IE 6, 7, and 8 users combined. The “Others” category was dominated by Blackberry and Opera, but there were also a few hacking tools in there from people who tried (unsuccessfully) to hack the site. At one point, someone did run a script that voted for their post every 30 seconds to raise it to the top of the ratings.

Most Used Operating Systems

Windows Vista narrowly edged out Windows XP for the title of “most used OS.” There were roughly half as many iPhone users as Windows 7 users, and three times as many Mac OS X users as Windows 7 users. To break one Tech stereotype, only 182 people accessed the site from Linux, and 11 poor users were still running Windows 98.

]]> http://holdenlink.com/2009/11/only-at-tech-the-first-day/feed/ 2 http://holdenlink.com/2009/11/new-website-only-at-tech/ http://holdenlink.com/2009/11/new-website-only-at-tech/#comments Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:27:25 +0000 Holden http://holdenlink.com/?p=492 More >]]>

Announcing “Only at Tech,” a website for Georgia Tech students to share their stories of love and hate about their school. I’m the website’s designer. It’s very comparable to websites like FMyLife or Texts from Last Night. Check it out!

http://www.onlyattech.net

Update: The site’s launch went better than we could have ever imagined. We’ve had over 200 submissions and over 400 people add us as fans on Facebook in a period of seven hours. Keep spreading the word!