9 minute read
now Playing: the evil within
now playing
the games we’re still going back to, and why
“He’s behind you!” Sebastian had arrived just in time for pantomime season.
Jon Denton is playing The Evil Within
beCaUSe… “they simply don’t make them like this any more”
Loving the atmosphere and multi-layered genre references HaTing the crappy framerate
Shinji mikami and i are kindred spirits. and it’s not just because we both have a predisposition for wearing awesome hats. i know little about the man beyond his professional career, but his work as a game director has coloured the past 17 years of my life, ticking every box i never knew i’d even drawn.
The Evil Within is, according to the man himself, his last game as director – and as such, it draws on all of his experience. this is the man who created ‘survival horror’, and The Evil Within demonstrates just what that genre is, why it’s so powerful and how nobody else out there is making games like this any more. early on in the game, a cutscene shows a close-up of a zombie eating a corpse. it rears its head towards characters and an unpredictable tone only accentuate the magic, though. it’s the extension of a genre that died with Resident Evil 4, and it’s exactly the way it should be. in many ways, The Evil Within is a relic – but a relic of a time where games felt progressive and boundarypushing. it may look and act like action-heavy classic Resident Evil 4, but its crippling tension, scarcity of ammunition, claustrophobic interiors and glacial pace have more in common with mikami’s original PlayStation duo. it’s a game that captivates and raises the pulse as much with its mechanics as its atmosphere. Scary zombies are made doubly so when the threat of grisly death is real. it’s something the later Dead Space games lost, and the series’ goodwill went with it. for all its nods and winks (you’ll see countless Resi references, entire levels based on Silent Hill, touches of Condemned and even some Project Zero), The Evil Within is ultimately very happy in its own scarred, torn skin, and very happy being a videogame. n
the camera with a blood-soaked mouth after it notices your presence. it’s a direct lift of the famous ‘first encounter’ scene in the original Resident Evil, and sets the tone for a game that’s almost duty-bound to cram as much as possible of its creator’s history, and the genre he spawned, into one work, but to do so in a way that never feels like parody. as much as this is a great survival horror game, it’s also a game about survival horror itself. and as a result, it’s a game about Shinji mikami himself. a Jill sandwich
if that all sounds a bit pretentious, don’t worry. The Evil Within is as pulpy and nonsensical as it should be – a dizzying b-movie tornado with a scant disregard for the rules of consistency and narrative. bad dialogue, silly //this is a survival horror game, but it’s also a game about survival horror. and as a result, one about mikami himself//
DETaiLS
Released
oct 2014
Dev
tango gameworks
Pub
bethesda
Format xbox one Score 8/10 Recap
the evil within grafts resident evil 4’s gold-standard survival action to a far less forgiving world.
it must be absolute murder trying to see out of that thing.
now pl A ying
Dave Rudden is playing… Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2
Hell, if all else fails, at least we can sit back and enjoy the fireworks filling our screens.
BECAUSE… “I finally found a leaderboard worth ascending”
LovinG Tackling an old fave in a new way HatinG That none of my friends will ever know
Released
Jul 2008
Dev Bizarre
Creations
Pub Microsoft
Studios
Format Xbox 360 Score 9/10 Recap The
sequel to Xbox 360’s best launch game expanded upon the concept with a batch of new modes, including, bizarrely, one where you don’t shoot.
My affection lessens with each new Geometry Wars game that passes, and I think I’ve realised why; leaderboard clutter. The original had just two, and the sequel had six. Geometry
Wars 3 (reviewed on page 75) has a whopping 50. It’s lost focus and I’ve lost direction. Whereas my friend Craig and I would regularly trade bragging rights on the original threadbare leaderboards, we’re now so spoiled for choice that the chances of us even replaying the same stage seem remote.
In my quest to regain a sense of purpose, I recently revisited Geometry
Wars 2. After a quixotic attempt to solve the Sequence mode, I happened Pacifism starts with little in the way of challenge until you hit eight digits.
With my patience hitting a nadir, I looked at my Achievement list to see if it hid clues. One lauded passing five gates in five seconds, and another gliding across every wall. I decided to incorporate those into my strategy. After all, if I hit a gate before enemies passed through, they’d be gone and I’d have a clearing ahead. Even though it wasn’t the sexiest strategy, I stuck to the walls when large groups populated the centre. By the hour’s end I had added seven million to my top score. The next day I increased my score another five million, leapfrogging a couple of friends.
Yet if I brought up my newfound dominance of a six-year-old game, they’d probably look at me as if I’d flipped my lid. But it taught me a lot about a series I already thought I’d mastered – even if those I’ve overtaken are no longer around to see it. ■
upon my old nemesis, Pacifism – and my quest to scale the leaderboard may have changed my entire approach.
Pacifism – where you can’t use your weapons, and points are earned by passing through explosive gates – is probably the biggest outlier of the modes. For as much as movement means in Geometry Wars, having impeccable aim and bomb timing can more than make up for poor placement. That safety net doesn’t exist here. I returned to Pacifism with an already high score of just over 20 million, placing in the top third of the 600,000-plus leaderboard. For the first half-hour, I barely sniffed my old score. I quickly became angry at the mode’s slow burn; while others escalate fast,
DEtaiLS
Chris Schilling is playing Fantasia: Music Evolved
BECAUSE… “I like to get my freak on”
LovinG Playing for fun HaTinG Playing for high scores
Hollaaaaaaaaaaaa!” The very best music games make you feel like you’re contributing to the song you’re playing, not just hitting a series of cues. Fantasia’s approach is slightly different to the norm: you’re half-dancing, halfconducting, swiping and thrusting your arms to hit markers in a manner that feels a bit like semaphore. Harmonix instinctively knows how to connect player to music, so that somehow this strange approach just works.
So as I’m flapping clumsily along to
Missy Elliot’s Get Ur Freak On, when the aforementioned shout goes up, it’s the most natural thing in the world to stretch out both arms in a victorious V, palms splayed, to hit the two extended cues at the top corners of the screen.
It’s honestly one of my favourite gaming moments of the past few years.
Telltale’s inaugural Game of Thrones episode may not have been quite the big-hitter we’d been hoping for (see page 80), though it certainly sowed enough seeds of intrigue to be worth my while. But as a woman who once mainlined three series of the TV show in less than three weeks, two hours of game is not enough for me, so what better to try than 2012’s much maligned action-RPG? Unfortunately, I’ve come to realise that HBO has truly spoiled me. it isn’t my fault. I know the song inside out. I know the cues. I know the timing. And I know that, without fail, Kinect will miss at least one of my swipes or pushes, forever dooming me to 99%.
Perhaps Music Evolved would be better with scores removed entirely. Leaderboards don’t have positions attached, and with some mixes more complex than others, there’s no real impetus to better yourself – not when someone with a DLC pack might have an advantage you’re not aware of. Still, in a genre that tends to encourage mastery, it’s frustrating to never feel entirely in control of your destiny. Not least when Missy rubs salt in the wound. “Y’all do it sloppily,” she raps with a dismissive snort, ironically alongside two cues I always hit. Don’t blame me, Missy; it’s Kinect you should be sneering at. ■
Combat in TV’s Game of Thrones broadly falls into one of two camps: sprawling, epic battles involving casts of thousands, and desperate, quickand-dirty skirmishes. Remind me where in the show they mash the A button to line up sluggish, semi-turn-based attacks on small groups of Wildlings. Okay, when you’re playing as Night’s Watchman Mors Westford you can switch your consciousness to that of your dog, but thanks to HBO’s megabudget sheen, you need to give me control of a Direwolf or give me death. Whenever such a scrap occurred, I found myself longing for those quiet days of dialogue wheels and diplomacy.
Yes, I’ve been turned into the least Westeros Westerosonian ever, and I am ashamed. If anyone needs me, I’ll be sitting in a corner, rocking and crying, until season five hits screens. ■
Almost as thrilling is the sequence where you’re invited to swipe repeatedly downwards to match the repeated cries of ‘yes!’ between each line Missy spits. I never miss those cues. I wish I could say the same for all the others. As the caption repeatedly informs me, hitting every cue earns you five gold stars. I may never know the satisfaction of having attained such perfection, alas, and I’m pretty certain
To be honest, I should have taken the hint when I paused for several minutes at the title screen, just to hum along to the rousing theme tune.
I wasn’t expecting to jump straight in and start defending Blackwater Bay, but I was still taken somewhat aback by the stats. There are so many stats to set, before you really know what you’re setting them for. So much of Game of Thrones’ appeal lies in how rounded and real its characters already feel, so it’s a bit disorientating to have to determine ol’ Barry Took-the-Black and Fred Fire-Fiend for myself.
At least I got to wander my lumps of stats around such iconic locations as the Red Keep and The Wall, even if there was no sign of hunk-in-chief and knower-of-nothing Jon Snow. And it doesn’t help immerse me that textures are uglier than Hodor’s hairy backside. DETaiLS
Released
Oct 2014
Dev Harmonix Pub Disney
Interactive Studios
Format Xbox One Score 7/10
Emma Davies is playing Game of Thrones
BECAUSE… “I want to try my hand at Westeros action”
LovinG Seeing The Wall for myself HaTinG Actually being expected to fight
DETaiLS
Released
Jun 2012
Dev Focus Home
Interactive
Pub Cyanide Format Xbox 360 Score 6/10
