Shattered Horizon Update
Since my first review of Shattered Horizon, a lot has changed. Weapon loadouts have replaced the single assault rifle / sniper gun. Three new kinds of grenades, along with four new maps, and voice chat have all been implemented. What started out as the bare bones of an online shooter has grown to a much fuller title.
The largest change comes as the weapons. When the game released, everyone was equipped with a standard assault rifle, which could scope into a sniper rifle. Now, before you enter a map you're presented with a choice of five different guns: a railgun (sniper), a machine gun, assault rifle, sub machine gun, and shotgun. Alongside all of these is a pistol, along with previously included melee axe and grenade launcher. This adds a large amount of variety and deepens the strategy immensely. Alongside these are three new grenades: the Decoy sends out false radar blips for your enemy, Pulse reveals enemies on your radar and HUD, and the Flare lights up a second sun, effectively blinding anyone in eyesight. The new grenades are interesting but don't add too much to the dynamic of the original ICE, EMP, and MPR grenades, but certainly keeps things interesting. Four new maps have been added, bringing the total up to eight. The quality and originality has been maintained; each of the new maps are quite unique to explore.
However, there are a few bugs to be found, most of mine dealing with grenades, and the system requirements remain high. Although, if at first Shattered Horizon looked to be too empty, it's certainly worth taking another look at.
Lost Planet 2
I enjoyed the first Lost Planet. Mechs (or the in game name, a Vital Suit or VS), thermal energy to keep you alive, forbidding environments and terrifying creatures, it all came together nicely despite its flaws. Not so in Lost Planet 2. Its somewhat hard to see where things went wrong, but somewhere along the path of making everything bigger and more of it, LP2 makes a lot of mistakes.
There are good things to be found in LP2. Co-op play takes center stage, both off and online, and is enhanced by multi-person VS suits. You are always accompanied by three AI partners, and I'm pleased to report both the friendly and enemy AI is fairly competent. There's room for improvement, but overall it almost feels like playing with four other people, albeit a few occasional quirks. Environments are also fantastically detailed and varied. While the original Lost Planet did what it could with a snowed over planet, E.D.N. III has changed since then, bringing about cities, jungles, and deserts.
Thermal energy makes a return, but it feels a bit useless this time around. It made perfect sense when the planet was covered in ice, but venturing around deserts and jungles doesn't require a constant supply of heat to survive. In Lost Planet, your thermal energy was constantly lowering to keep your body alive, and if you needed to repair yourself or a VS suit, it used up more. In LP2 this all applies sans the constant lowering. Thermal energy is really only kept around if you need to heal yourself.
Even then, the Thermal Energy doesn't have much impact. When you die, you simply spawn back at any of the data posts (read: checkpoints) you've activated along the way; you come back with a fresh chunk of ammo and thermal energy into a persistent world. So any real threat of losing your Thermal Energy evaporates when it becomes easier to die. After a specific amount of respawns you will be forced to restart the chapter however.
The entire game is split up into six episodes, each with three missions, each of those divided by three again into chapters. Chapters are sometimes bewilderingly short; one is just a few hallways, some mooks and thats it. A boss battle will fill up a chapter, and some of these are frustratingly long. Its not helped by constant reviving, either. The worst are the bosses that continually regenerate limbs no matter how many times you blow them apart. Normally players are inclined to take out limbs so they aren't getting swiped at. Its also a natural indication of how long until the boss is killed. But when limbs are perpetually regrown, the process of taking down a boss is extended both mentally and in-game.
The pacing of the missions is skewed a bit too. I try to stay away from topics like level design and pacing, but when I fight two massive Category G Akrid in back to back chapters, something is wrong. Another very apparent flaw is there is no main character, and barely anything of a story. The organizations are still the same, Nevec, the Snow Pirates, and a few new ones, but if you haven't played LP then you'll have no idea who these people are. Each episode is played from a different point of view and a few are more compelling, and anything resembling a story doesn't come into view until about the fourth episode, when all of a sudden 'the entire world is in danger of being destroyed.'
So is LP2 still fun? It has its moments. If you make it past the boring and unoriginal first few levels, there are some great backdrops and missions to be found. But it comes with a heavy price.
Likes:
- New environments and amazing visual
- Co-op and AI partners
Dislikes:
- Weak story
- Lengthy and tiring boss battles
Review Score
/ 
The review scale at LevelFortyTwo is between 1 and 5. A score of 5 is considered an amazing game, 4 is a well-done game with only minor issues, 3 is in the middle; not great, but not bad, 2 is a very problematic game, and 1 is absolutely terrible.
Achron
Time travel has been used pretty widely in games. From platformers like Prince of Persia or puzzles like Braid, traveling around in time offers a unique experience only truly accessible in games. But most of these games have been limited in their handling of time travel in order to preserve gameplay. But now, Hazardous Software brings us Achron, a real time strategy game that allows players to go back in time and freely erase their previous actions and wage wars in the past.
Achron is equipped with a time map, which shows a linear progress of time, up until the past few minutes. The map shows your position in the timeline, other players in the timeline, any battles from the past or present, units, resources, and chronoports, the devices that allow you to send troops back and forth in time. When a player returns to the past an carries out an action, you can't simply jump to the future to witness its results. Philosophically speaking, no one actually watched the events in the past happen, so in actuality they never did. The time waves set up in Achron act as an observer, carrying all of the actions made in the past to the present. This frees players from having to watch all of their actions in order to make sure they really do happen.
Achron allows you to view the past freely, but in order to alter the past and issue new commands, it will cost chronoenergy. The farther back in time you make your changes, the more chronoenergy is spent. Chronoenergy is recharged at a fixed rate and is independent of other traditional resources. Chronoenergy takes center stage in strategy, as all of your movements in the past require it.
This leads to a new dynamic when waging a war. A typical skirmish might take place like this: Player A sends an army to Player B's base. In retaliation, Player B sends his army back in time until before Player A's army was even built, to attack his base. Player A will then go even further back in time, sending previous troops to meet Player B's army in the past. And so it goes on, until either one's chrono energy is spent and the changes are carried into the future. As anyone who has touched an RTS knows, this adds several layers of strategy to a fairly normal real time strategy game. Every traditional concept of the RTS genre gets turned on its head, from resource gathering to forming alliances.
Achron is also being released with a score of mod tools for the community. At the moment Achron can import 3D art into the game, along with scripts to customize levels, units, and AI. The terrain and environment can also be changed. Future plans for mod tools include an interface and menu editor; and a level editor to tie in all of the other tools together. Hazardous Software is also releasing the engine behind Achron as well, allowing anyone to utilize the time travel mechanics they've developed and implemented in Achron.
Achron can be found here, and pre-ordering it will give you instant access to the alpha, along with any updates and the full game upon release. You can also listen to our interview with Chris Hazard, the president of Hazardous Software and lead designer on Achron, to get more information.
Gratuitous Space Battles: Order
GSB: Order is a mini-expansion that adds a few new features, and more importantly, a little more variety to the game. The new survival mode will pit waves of enemies against the fleet you build, and you're judged on how long your fleet lasts. Since ships will enter from any point on the battlefield, it changes up how you think about ship placement and weapon outfitting. Four new weapon types are also added: the radiation gun does lasting damage on top of impact damage; the nuclear missile does the same (but is a missile); firefly rockets are faster version of normal rockets; and anti-fighter limpet mines attach themselves to fighters, slowing them down a considerable amount. The selling point of the expansion pack is the new package of ships: four new cruisers, three frigates and three new fighters are added into their own faction of the zealous Order.
While the expansion doesn't change much, the gameplay remains the same. The new survival scenario offers something different than the other scenarios, but isn't very expansive to provide much more playtime. Survival mode also feels like a feature that should have made it in at launch.
Pick up GSB: Order here or read our original review here.
Likes:
- Survival Mode offers something new and different
- More weapons = more fun
Dislikes:
- Essentially the same game with a little more added
Review Score
/
The review scale at LevelFortyTwo is between 1 and 5. A score of 5 is considered an amazing game, 4 is a well-done game with only minor issues, 3 is in the middle; not great, but not bad, 2 is a very problematic game, and 1 is absolutely terrible.
What Art Says About A Game
A picture is worth a thousand words. Aside from lame cliches to open an article, a game’s artistic style can speak volumes about what a game is like and how the player is meant to experience it. Well built games can imply more in a single cutscene or character design than entire box blurbs, and better yet, you don’t always notice them.
I’ve picked a few games that are generally opposite each other artistically, and see how much we can infer from the game just from visuals alone. Obviously you’ll have played these games so you know what they are like, but it’s still a fun exercise.
Team Fortress 2 is instantly recognizable among the online shooter community. The game has a very cartoony, over the top feel. Guns are everywhere, in every screenshot and every trailer and video is emphasizing over-the-top violence. Each class in Team Fortress has its own unique look and silhouette. Line up each character by their outline and you can easily name each one. This is the pinnacle of character design, an instantly recognizable character with the least amount of detail.
Team Fortress 2 isn’t very realistic, and it’s shown in the art. Cartoon graphics lead to cartoon physics and ridiculous settings. The premise itself: two teams of builders (RED and BLU) battle in arenas, is off the wall but the game never bothers itself with that and doesn’t mind if you consider it unrealistic. The iconic picture of TF2 is all of the classes lined up brandishing their signature weapons. All of them are on an even plane, indicating the class balancing found when playing. No one class stands out.
Everything comes together to subconsciously tell your brain: this game is wacky fun. Over the top characters, crazy physics and violence, people like that and the game.
From Team Fortress we move onto Bioware’s space opera RPG Mass Effect, where you play the ideallic Commander Shepard out to save the universe. Mass Effect has a pretty traditional story arc: The hero needs to stop the villain. You have supporting characters, other villains, and a realistic world to bind them together.
This is shown right at the start with the box art. We have the villain, Saren, overlooking our main hero, Shepard, and his (or her) companions. This is a look we are used to for the kind of story Mass Effect tells: one of epic adventure spanning the galaxy to save humanity. We see a similar set up among almost all ‘traditional’ stories with heroes and villains.
Mass Effect has an idealized realism feel to it. While there are unpleasant places to visit, the majority of the game has a ‘perfect’ feel to it. The Normandy is spotless, along with the majority of the Citadel and other mission hubs. Characters and companions are visually perfect, with few flaws among them. And while it isn’t a very soft science fiction setting, it’s not the gritty reality we will most likely experience in a few hundred years.
This makes any decrepit people or places stand out from the rest of the world, which isn’t a bad thing. Bioware invested a lot into making the world realistic, but not always at the expense of the story.
My final exhibit is Professor Layton, seeing as how I don’t know a lot about this game I will take a shot at examining it and see what I can come up with. Michael has also kindly added his assessment of Layton, since he has played the game.
The first thing that immediately strikes me about pictures and screens of Layton is the sepia tone to it. The warm colors are calm and give me a sense that the game is slower paced and more controlled. I took a stab at guessing it was a puzzle/novel type game, and Michael kindly confirmed this for me.
Taking a look at the box art (for The Curious Village), the prominence of Luke and Professor Layton easily indicate they are the most important characters in this game. I can see some of the supporting cast in the background, and each one gives the feeling of a unique character to meet in game. Finally, overshadowing all the characters is what appears to be the town itself. If the title didn’t already give it away, its clear everything takes place in the village.
While most of the other characters have a warm or neutral tone to them, Luke is dressed in a vibrant blue. Perhaps he is an outsider? I do not truly know, but he clearly stands out from everyone else. The schoolboy outfit also gives a sense of curiosity, tying into the ‘mystery’ presented by the game.
Michael: The Professor Layton series is another great example of what art says about a game. In these games the art is all hand drawn, and has a hint of sepia tones that provide the game with a strong “Triplets of Belleville” aesthetic.
The art not only matches the locales in the games, but also the music that goes along with it. The music is typically very whimsical and relaxing, allowing the player to focus on solving the puzzles at hand. Overall, the art quickly shows the player that they are going to be playing a more relaxed game that feels oddly European, but also really adds to the atmosphere.
So take a look at your favorite game and see how its design can tell you something you might have previously missed. Feel free to leave a comment below with your observations.
Why the iPad will suck and why the Courier will.. probably suck as well.
So unlike most of Apple's target audience, I know my way around a computer and am completely unwilling to shell out thousands of dollars for one. I've used Macs before and they have their uses, but the day I willingly pay money for one is the day I shove bamboo under my fingernails.
And so we move on to Apple's next piece of flashy hardware that I file under 'flashy gimmicks that are hilariously overpriced and lacking in real functionality', or the iPad.
So at first glance it would appear the iPad is just an iTouch with a bigger screen. And you'd be exactly right. It uses the exact same OS as the iPhone/Touch, and has more streamlined browser and music player. There's also a bunch of new stuff Apple is excited to sell to you, like eBooks and an iWork suite, which has stuff like word processors and things.
Why it will suck: If the Apple logo wasn't a good indicator (yes I'm that petty), a big one should go off when you read the words 'no browser flash supported'. Meaning a lot of the things that web browsers use to enrich our lives and be awesome will be disabled.
But probably the ultimate reason the iPad will suck is the price. For 16 gigabytes (spaces achieved on jump drives now), you'll have to shell out $499, before taxes and whatever else you'll need, like apps and such. For 32gb, you'll need to want to dump $599 down a hole, and 64gb tops out at $699.
But people will buy it, because thats what they do. The iPhone/Touch worked because it was small, the size of a large phone, fit easily into pockets / purses and had a phone somewhere inside. In comparison, the iPad is huge, the size of a netbook or larger. Apple may pick up the crowd that buys netbooks, but I have a feeling they're thinking this is the next logical 'step' in handheld devices. Maybe a step backwards.
Next we have Microsoft's Courier, which actually looks decent. Unlike Apple, it appears Microsoft put some actual thought into their tablet computer. Sporting a stylus and two screens, there seems to be a lot more 'realism' in the graphical interface. Things like flipping a photo over to make a note, dragging pictures around, etc. There's a lot less information out on Courier, so I'll jump straight away to why its already much better than the iPad.
Why Courier is so much better than iPad: Firstly, its shaped like a book. You can fold it up, put a nice leather case around it, and leave it in a bag without worrying about mussing up those lovely touch screens. This also leads into the fact it has two screens, leading to a lot more multitasking capabilities and multi-application interactions. You can also 'store' information in the fold between the screens, just to keep things out of the way. All this may mean its heavier, but at this point its not really a big deal is it?
See Apple, while its all nice and fine you've made your iPad light as a feather, its still a gargantuan piece of machinery. The iPhone/Touch needed to be light and slim because we were sticking it into our pockets and using it as phones. You guys did well on that, and I applaud you. But now you're into tablet PCs that can fit life size keyboards on them, a little more weight here or there isn't going to worry anyone. I'd much rather have something with a little more to it than a piece of glass that I'll constantly fret over breaking.
Moving on, the Courier has a stylus. While you could have used a pencil or whatever for the iPad/Touch/Phone, a lot of complains were heard over generally messing the screen up a lot. Styluses get rid of a lot of that, and if you do it right may hide that you're on a computer. You're just scribbling in a notebook, right? And scribble you can, writing notes and such using the stylus should be nice. Though what the stylus can't do is multitouch, but thats when we resort to our fingers.
Why the Courier will probably suck eventually as well (though I hope it won't): Microsoft, like Apple, has a nasty habit of forcing their other products down our throats, in the delusion everyone wants to use them. So we might get blindsided by limited use of Bing.com, Hotmail, Live Messenger, Live Games, or whatever else.
One thing is that there's no sign of a keyboard. In the video at the link above, the presenter writes in a URL while web browsing. Unless the handwriting software sucks (or your handwriting sucks), this will cause a lot of problems. Hopefully they've already anticipated this and are including an on screen keyboard. Microsoft definitely looks like its on the right track (you know, actually thinking of new and interesting features) with its plans for Courier. If the price is right, people might actually buy it.
The Void
It's hard to find a game that doesn't fit into any established genre. A genre label will tell you at a glance what you can do in the game. Since The Void can't be easily fit into any genre, it begs the question, what does one actually do in The Void? First, it's worth noting The Void is probably best described as an adventure game, but even that is a limiting title and not worth taking very seriously.
The Void is a kind of afterlife, a desolate place devoid of natural life. Three kinds of people inhabit the Void: Sisters, Brothers, and Predators. Sisters are naked guardians of chambers, and you'll need to feed them Color in order to continue. Brothers are blind, hideous, and deformed people that guard the Sisters and the Color in the Void.
Within minutes of playing, Color becomes the most important aspect of the game, because to do anything, you'll need Color. Speaking to NPCs, fighting, moving around in the map, all of it requires Color. Color is your health, mana, currency and inventory. There are six different kinds of Color, and they also represent your stats. Run out and you'll die. Color appears naturally around chambers in The Void at the beginning of each cycle (similar to an in-game day), but it is not enough to sustain you. You'll need to grow gardens, infusing trees with color, which will bloom each cycle and give you color. Color can also be mined or given to and later extracted from local fauna.
In the game, you'll visit Sisters who are hungry for Color. Feed them the Colors they want and they will reward you with Hearts, places in your body to store your Color. Each Heart also serves as a 'spell', allowing you to give Color, shield yourself, run quicker, etc. However, Color is always fading from your Hearts into your Nerva, which is color that can actively be used in the glyphs (or spells). The glyphs are drawn directly onto the screen with the mouse.
Brothers are the guardians of Sisters, twisted, blind creatures that will also punish you for wasting Color. They will assign you tasks to complete and will casually rampage your carefully grown and maintained gardens. So, you don't like Brothers all that much. Deformed and twisted creatures, Brothers provide the foil to the Sister's beauty. If you fail at a Brother's task, instead of restarting entirely, you'll get a chance to defeat him (although 'it' might be more appropriate) in battle.
I won't lie, it took me a long time to play even a small amount of the game. While it is overall well built, it is so foreign that simply breaking into the rhythm is a feat among itself. That on top of its brutal difficulty and general indifference to the player, restarting it once or even twice is something that must be done. Many times you'll find yourself stuck in a chamber with no Color left to leave, and you'll have to go back to a previous save. It's easy to see where you can have fun in The Void, but the problem for some may be wrapping your mind around it.
Unfortunately, I found it hard to enjoy myself in the game. I did my best to try to like it, but the sheer slope of the game's mechanics and presentation made it hard to slowly ease into the game and enjoy it. The score below is hopefully a more objective assessment and less about my troubles playing it. If you're into games that you know what will happen, or just in for something quick, fun, and easy, then it's likely you won't enjoy The Void. If you're always out for a new experience that simply can't be found anywhere else, you'll love the ultimate freedom to do as you wish, once you unlock how to.
Likes:
- Color is everything, changing how you view things like currency and health in game
- Beautiful and downright creepy visuals
- Amazing story line
Dislikes:
- Brutal difficulty, unless you're into that
- Easily possible to get yourself stuck requiring loading up an old save
- Nailing down glyph drawing can be tricky
Review Score
/
The review scale at LevelFortyTwo is between 1 and 5. A score of 5 is considered an amazing game, 4 is a well-done game with only minor issues, 3 is in the middle; not great, but not bad, 2 is a very problematic game, and 1 is absolutely terrible.
Its a Test!
So at some point in the past Michael said blogs would be implemented so he could come and tell people what he was doing. But, I do all of the design on the site, it gets implemented when I remember and / or have the time. So I suppose this is the first inaugural annual perennial half daily blog post by me.
Its a pretty boring New Year's Eve for me, considering I'm writing a blog post on the site. Listening to Flight of the Conchords and such. As a random fact, on both of my ankles I have a V laceration, about a half inch wide on each / and \. It was from ice skating. I regret nothing.
Nick
Nick has recently purchased lots of books, and would like to point out (for the nth time) that he does not like consoles.
Gratuitous Space Battles
If you ever find yourself daydreaming about life as a commander of a space fleet, able to customize your ships and tactics, and watching the ensuing slaughter of your enemies, Gratuitous Space Battles is a game you will ruthlessly enjoy. However, it takes the power of directly controlling your ships right out of your hands. During the actual battle in any scenario, you simply watch, and see if your strategies and tactics were effective.
This brings about very skewed levels of intensity in the game, when compared to a normal space combat game. A lot of your work goes into customizing your ships and tactics, but with the battles themselves all you can do is watch and hope your plans work. So your focus goes into balancing your ships right and counteracting different rules for each scenario.
A lot of thought needs to go into your ships. You'll balance crew and power, among others to be able to support your shields and weapons. There are three classes of ships, fighters, frigates, and cruisers, in order of size. Ships can be outfitted however many times you want and configured to fight in different ways in a battle. You can have as many different kinds of ships, but at the start of a battle you have a specific amount resources available, limiting how many ships you can deploy.
After each battle (assuming you win) you are awarded "Honor", which can be used to purchase new ship hulls, weapons, shields, armor, countermeasures, and the various other items you equip your ships with. Once you own a particular upgrade, it won't cost to move it around as much as you need to, provided your ships can handle it.
Your ships can have a deep level of customization to their tactics. They can be assigned to attack weak targets, retaliate, group up, hold their ground, etc. Along with your tactics there is a light form of multiplayer, in which you can 'upload' fleets in battle scenarios and download others to fight against, but that is as far as it goes.
GSB is not for everyone. Those who want to immediately jump into the heat of a battle and directly control each ship will not find it very enjoyable. If you're on the other end of the spectrum though, the game is perfect for you. You spend much longer putting your ships together than watching them in action, and everything up to that point is quite enjoyable.
Likes:
- Deep level of customization
- Lives up to the gratuitous title
- No resource collecting or empire building
Dislikes:
- Limited multiplayer
- Bit of a tougher learning curve, but not too bad
Review Score
/
The review scale at LevelFortyTwo is between 1 and 5. A score of 5 is considered an amazing game, 4 is a well-done game with only minor issues, 3 is in the middle; not great, but not bad, 2 is a very problematic game, and 1 is absolutely terrible.
LevelFortyTwo Contest – Shattered Horizon
We're happy to announce our very first contest! While we won't be having them on a regular basis, whenever we get a copy of a game to give out, you're in luck! Our very first game is Shattered Horizon, a competitive shooter set in a fully 3D zero gravity environment. If you listened to the podcast, we mentioned that you will have to create a name for our discussion segment, but instead we're going to be cutting our pure discussion segment, and will be allowing it to just pop-up when something catches our fancy. That way we avoid clichés.
The new contest requirements will be: you must create an account on the site, and then leave a comment on this page that you would like to ask us on the podcast. We'll be picking entries at random on Monday November 30th. All entires must be in by 12pm EST, any entries submitted after this time will be disqualified. Good luck to all who enter!
Shattered Horizon is a game you don't want to miss out on!
