Bethesda Blues

My particular corner of the internet is full of coverage on the imaginatively titled PlayStation 4 right now. It's exciting, and I missed all of it. I didn't stay up for the livestream, and a day of office-y stuff means that the only PS4 coverage I've been able to catch has been on my phone while on the bus this morning. So, whilst I digest all the (likely) amazing numbers and graphics, a guest post from a friend of mine, who is possibly a bigger gaming nerd than I am. Think of him as my new resident expert in first person RPGs. A genre I tend to stay away from, because I just don't click with them.

Skyrim. Arguably one of the greatest RPGs on the modern day console. Perhaps equally rivalled in my opinion by Fallout 3/Fallout New Vegas. Both of which are supremely competent in delivering a fresh, vibrant atmosphere that really draws you in. One flaw however. That moment where you’ve battled through hordes of enemies, used a considerable amount of arrows/ammo open the door to the final boss/leader of a gang and you’re excited to get some awesome loot and get some major experience or possibly an achievement/trophy and then… oh. Its froze on the loading screen. Bugger. Hard resetting the console, load up and…! OH! You haven’t saved for a while and the autosave isn’t from that door! It’s… from a few doors back… you know… through all those enemies?

Frustrating isn’t the word. I’ve been playing video games since I was 5, and the awesome colours and soundtrack to Sonic the Hedgehog on the Mega Drive fuelled an obsession that still burns bright now, 19 years on. But since the advent of DLC and extra in game content, the world of video games is as ever changing as the Wasteland. But for some games its more trouble than it’s worth in my opinion.

So, back to my main point… WHYYOUFREEZEEPICGAMES? Fallout 3, epitome of awesomeness, made even more awesome by 5 DLC Quests as it were. Now, I purchased the GOTY edition on PS3 and was pleased as punch! All 5 DLC packs at once. Epic! No. Apparently the code is only strong enough to support 3 of the DLC packs, as 5 prove too much for the game to handle! Constantly freezing, often just going into VATs mode froze the entire game, forcing a hard reset. Ridiculous. I found this happened increasingly often in the Mothership Zeta DLC; potentially because (after googling) it was the last DLC pack I had left to do, and the game struggled to load it. This, coupled with the fact it was actually a bloody hard bit of DLC, meant it forced me to put the game down for a few months! I just couldn’t bear to play it. I did, and bossed it, and now I’m happy again but there’s still that odd moment where I load a new area or enter VATs mode and boom. Frozen. That’s the gripes out the way, but it is relatively minor I guess in comparison to the rest of the game. It’s beautiful. As a quick side point, how awesome is the Cowboy Repeater in Fallout: New Vegas? One of my favourite weapons.

Skyrim is completely the same, beautiful game, delicious storyline, ample sidequests, but it’s a HUGE game. This game froze long before DLC was released. There is always an awkward moment where it freezes on the loading screen for a new area and you think… ‘Do I turn my Xbox on and off? Will it corrupt my save file? (Which is 100 hours +)’ Games shouldn’t do this; it is the responsibility of the studios to ensure the game on the shelf is as close to perfect as it can be. This again was a reason I put Skyrim down for a month or so before completing it… that and Halo: Anniversary. (GrownupGamer's note: That's just on Xbox. Think how the PS3 owners feel. They've had to put up with the famous framerate issue and a huge DLC delay.)

Those games are just two from a possible massive list but they are two that are my favourites and quite frankly have been spoiled on the whole by the incessant glitching and freezing. (Fallout 3 more so, admittedly) but what do they have in common? Bethesda. Now, don’t get me wrong, this isn’t an attack on a fantastic games studio… oh no. Merely a gripe about a major chink in its armour. Bethesda have massive potential, just need to fine tune the DLC problem and I think quite possibly will make it to the coveted top spot of my favourite games developer. (2K currently hold this honour – for their blinding Borderlands and Bioshock games). 

However, the most recent Bethesda game I purchased was Dishonoured. Unfortunately this has not even made it to my disc tray yet! (Which after reading numerous reviews seems an abhorrent idea) but I just simply have not had the time. Although I am eager to scale the heights of Dunwall I am cautious. Cautious of getting so deeply involved in a game that if/(when?) it freezes I will be disenchanted and my faith will have plummeted once again. Hopefully I will be proven wrong. Only time will tell, and with the release of DLC already for Dishonoured, will this be enough or will there be more? Either way; just the look of this game excites me.  

(GrownupGamer's note: Fear not Guest Blogger! Dishonored is only published by Bethesda. All of the developmental heavy lifting was done by Arkane Studios. I've played it and didn't see a single glitch.)

Retracing Steps

I've been away a while. You know how it is, too much to do, not enough life to do it in. Mostly though it's because of Persona 4 and Spec Ops: The line. This post was supposed to be about Spec Ops, but over the weekend Edge Magazine ran an article on Yoshi's Island, and I was really impressed by how well the overall look of the game had aged.

Have you played anything old recently? Did it look like total ass? Probably. But then again, maybe not? You might be lucky enough to have played something that inexplicably looked great even though it was made before some of the people you know were even born.

That really does happen to people. You don’t realise how old things are sometimes. My girlfriend recently had to explain what a floppy disc was to the kids she was teaching. Really. My sister didn’t know you could play both sides of a vinyl.

But I digress.

If old games look good, they look good for two reasons.

1: Absolutely sky high, top notch, incredible art design.

2: The ability of the artists to translate that into polygons or pixels.

Take Ridge Racer Type 4 as an example. It arrived late in the PS1’s life and Namco had really got their Ridge Racer mojo. Hell, even the intro movie looks great and it was made in in the last century! Ridge 4 is bursting with personality, from the Pooka trackside on Phantomile, to the Cessna buzzing overhead on Wonderhill. Each locale is lovingly crafted, yet clear and clean. Grab a screenshot and you can see the attention that went into every single inch of every single track. There are blazing orange sunsets, taxiing aircraft and bright blue seas. There is something like Chinatown, cobbles and winding mountain tarmac. Ridge Racer has always felt like a great place to drive in, but Ridge 4 is unmatched, before or since. 

Really though, the thing that still makes Ridge 4 pop is the cars. Almost every one of them beautiful to behold, with great race liveries, despite the low resolution. Watching them blazing through the night trailing red streaks from the tail-lights is still a joy to behold. Gran Turismo had real cars, but Ridge 4’s were desirable. To this day, I want an Assoluto Bisonte, and if I ever become a millionaire I’m going to approach Namco for the models and find a way to build one on top of a Ferrari chassis. All the supercar houses in all of Europe never made a car as beautiful as the best that Ridge 4 could offer. 

Another great example from the Playstation era is WipeOut. Play any WipeOut game released before WipeOut HD and you'll be surprised by how fresh and clean they still look. A lot of this is down to the peerless concept work of The Designer's Republic, whose sleek, clean and bold vision of the future of racing seemed to jump fully formed into the hands of Psygnosis all those years ago.

Art quality is crucial to how well newer games age. If you check out most last gen games with realistic graphic design, they will look pretty bad to your modern High Dynamic Range Lighting addled eyes. I remember the first Max Payne blowing my socks off, but returning to it now, it's not so pretty. On the other hand, games with a really stylised look fare better. Ratchet and Clank, Jak and Daxter, Sly Raccoon, Ico and Shadow of the Colossus may not outshine more modern games, but I've never said, "Ugh, this looks awful," whilst playing them. In the future, it will be games like Braid, Alien Hominid, Limbo and the flat out gorgeous Bastion that will have us commenting about how well they have aged.

The same holds true to 16-Bit too. Mortal Kombat has looks pretty bad next to contemporaries such as Street Fighter II or the fabulously obscure but tons of fun Brutal: Paws of Fury. Compare MK's digitized sprites to the fluid animation of Brutal's silhouetted character select screen and there's no competition.Yoshi's Island's crayon aesthetic means it still looks as charming now as it ever did, whereas the SNES' other SuperFX fueled graphical powerhouses frankly don't. 

I could go on and on with games like Flashback, Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, Wind Waker, Alundra, Final Fantasy, E.G.G and Sonic. In the end it always comes back to the art. Good art, it seems, is timeless and without borders. Just as the art connoisseur can appreciate the works of the old masters in the gallery, the gamer can find good graphics no matter what the age of the system he or she is playing on.

All this makes me sound like a graphics whore, and you know what, I am. I'm not afraid to admit it. And while there are a lot of great games with badly aged graphics (here's looking at you GoldenEye), there's a pretty strong correlation between games looking nice and playing nice. Besides, everybody likes to look at something pretty, and it can be a great way to get people to look at classic games who may not necessarily check them out. The next time someone tells you they don't play old games because they look rubbish, or because they play badly, find a way for them to play Yoshi's Island. If you can't lend them a SNES, find it on the GBA or emulate one. It's easy enough. At the very least, show them a youtube video and get them to guess how old it is. I guarantee you they'll probably get it wrong. Even if they don't, they'll jump on the retro wagon eventually.

Retro gaming is getting a lot of love at the moment. Old, but cool is how it was described in Wreck It Ralph, and that's pretty much on the money. Personally I think it's because there are people old enough now to have been around gaming for as long as they can remember. They're looking back and wanting to recapture the memories with their mates, or in cases like this on Penny Arcade, sharing the past with their children. That's cool in itself, although realising they game you're playing with your young 'un is older than they are can be pretty harrowing experience.

It seems to come to us in different ways. I have a friend who can quote correct eBay prices for rare games off the top of his head, who is consumed with the desire to own every Gamecube game ever. There's me, always late to the party, trying to get hold of something I missed out on first time round or looking out for old stuff that remains easy on the eyes. I recently paid £23 for a thirteen year old copy of Discworld Noir on the PS1, and I'm irrationally excited about it. I've even managed to find room on my memory cards so that I can play it on the TV rather than emulate it on my laptop. I have a feeling that G-Police and Colony Wars will be next on the list. Then there are the hardcore retro heads, like the guys who run 8-Bit Lounge at the Hare and Hounds in Birmingham. That they have access to all this stuff in itself is amazing, but that they are willing to share it all and let you play for free is special. If you haven't heard of them before, check out the site and perhaps show your face at the next event. It's a great show of how inclusive gaming can be, and a side of our hobby that's rarely seen by a mainstream  media that sometimes focuses too much on the negative aspects of games.

We are getting to the point now where gaming has a long enough history to look back upon to appreciate the significant works of the past in the way we do with other media, such as film, music or art. Interest in old games is something I think will continue to flourish as the medium as a whole continues to mature. After all, you've got to know where you've been to find out where you're going. No matter how well, or otherwise, the graphics have aged.