Little Touches

The snap and pop of combat in Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

Smart-bomb aftertouch in Mushihimesama Futari

Hero's sword glinting in the sun in Dragon Quest VIII

After playing through the demo of Vanquish a few times I felt quite ready to start the game proper on Hard mode. I was quite wrong. The first boss, the boss from the demo, readily demolished me time after time. Over twenty times, in fact. This was in the first quarter of an hour of game time. Shamefully, but with a strong desire to actually see the rest of the game I had just bought, I quit to the title menu and lowered the difficulty to Normal, vowing to return to Hard mode (not to mention God Hard mode) later, after I had learned how the game worked. 7 hours later the credits were rolling, the grin had not left my face.

Last night I began Vanquish again, notching it up to Hard mode. This time on the first boss, while still no walk-over, I didn't lose a life. Its laser did not touch me. Now I was at the opposite side of the arena slow-motion firing at its limb joints while its heat-beam was directed at a position I had been at mere milliseconds before. He fell much quicker this time. It is a satisfying feeling, that of actually becoming better at a game, not merely using power-ups or leveling to overcome its trials. The higher difficulties are about using the games' minimal skill-set to navigate the level more elegantly, to punish the enemies more swiftly and with infinitely more style. Level design is elegantly post-Gears. It has a satisfying tightness to it which means that each bite-size stage, once dispensed with, feels like a scoring a Tetris. The assault up the face of the monstrous concrete elevation feels like Gears' Mansion staircase exploded in just about every direction.

Vanquish is about moments: being sat in cover as an army of enemy robots fire upon you from across a makeshift battlefield, and plotting your boost trajectory from one enemy to the next, flipping behind cover to launch a slow motion rocket at a lumbering mini-boss, switching weapons without missing a beat to pummel it while it is weak. Watching hundreds of explosives and their smoke-arcs crossing the screen reminded me of Bangai-O. And that's it: Vanquish is a game I imagine Treasure might have made, which happens to be the highest compliment I can give any game. Vanquish is sharp. It is modern cover-shooter and old-fashioned score attack. It is one moment. The moment you decide to do what needs to be done. It feels almost breathless, and is a moment that happens over and over again.

Currently playing: King's Field IV.

number108 tim rogers

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@TomorrowsEnd King's Field IV is "Demon's Souls underwater".

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Over the past couple of evenings I've been playing Killzone 2. And, despite the juvenile title (I can't imagine having to ask for the game out-loud, in a shop or something), I'm enjoying my time with it. I know nothing of the first game, nothing of the story, or the characters, and I don't actually think it's important. 'Move-from-here-to-here-and-shoot-everything-with-red-eyes-before-they-shoot-you' is all you need to know. It's simply a chunky shooter (That should be a genre).

One of the ways the developers tried to set the game apart from other First-Person Shooters was with the weight of the character. And it's immediately noticeable; the movement feels like that of a huge meathead with a tonne of armour on. It's nice. It feels different, and it gives you a satisfying presence in the world.

The cover system is interesting and Gears-like, and while it makes little sense (if I can see over the obstacle whilst supposedly in cover, doesn't that leave my poor meaty-head dangerously exposed?), it feels nice to utilise. The tight, claustrophobic level-design is built around its use yet, on the default difficulty level, its not strictly necessary.

I think I'm going to start again from the beginning. Play it on a higher difficulty. See what's what.

Since recently finishing Final Fantasy XIII, I've had the urge to finally tackle Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions for the PSP. It has been a game I've been a little wary of since its PSP release in 2007. Its density and complexity at once repel and draw me in; the promise of its Shakespearean plot clashing with its notorious difficulty. Trying the game in the past led only to taking up something a little smoother like Disgaea instead, replacing Tactics on the shelf with the understanding to try again on one of those rainy days that never comes. I was afraid of when the game was going to bite.

I try to think back to 3 years ago. Am I more intelligent than I was then? That's a question. Am I a different person now? My sensibilities have changed, definitely. And I suppose it's this where this sudden feeling comes from. A feeling of not wanting, anymore, to try a little everything and end up being left with nothing, but thoroughly experiencing only the best and wholly inhabiting it as I do. Be it games, films, novels, anything.

Unfortunately, being that my PSP is currently 1500 miles away on a small Greek island, this feeling will have to be sustained until late August. To do so I am replaying another Yasumi Matsuno's game in the so-called Ivalice Alliance, Final Fantasy XII. My initial uncompleted save-file, dating from the European release, is over 50 hours long. Playing through the first 5 hours again this week I realise I barely remember any of the story events. The hospital dream sequence, the bare-knuckle prison brawl; each came as if by surprise. This delights me no-end, it means experiencing the story anew, with fresh eyes. I'm also relieved that the game still has the power to excite me on the second play-through: the feeling of the (almost) wide-open expanses, the intricacies of the gambit system/license board, the characters (Balthier's entrance!). Separated from any pressure, I can now allow the story to breathe, allow myself to relax in to the experience and enjoy the flow. When August comes (or the intriguing September release of War of the Lions on the iPod touch) I shall be suitably versed to tackle the epic tale of a Kingdom divided.

Final Fantasy's reception is often that of extremes. You have the people who love it over here, and the people who hate it over there. More vocal, perhaps, than both of those groups are the people who love to hate it and those that hate themselves for loving it. And they're everywhere.

Despite the importance of a sense of 'world' in all Final Fantasy games, the way they present themselves couldn't be more different. Here we are with Final Fantasy XIII and it, too, carries the weight of expectation which has surrounded the release of every Final Fantasy since VII; XIII's unique controversy is that the developers have taken a knife to almost everything recognisable of Final Fantasy in the classic sense, leaving a streamlined, minimalist adventure heavily indebted, so say the creators, to western games. Modern Warfare inparticular. This new approach is particurlarly evident in the game-world itself. The events of XIII take place on the planet of Pulse and its satellite, Cocoon. The initial 25 hours of game-time take place in Cocoon, the entirety of which is spent running a linear path. Narratively, this makes sense, being that you are a band of escapees deemed necessary of exile by the government. Therefore, you are on the run. There are no towns, no world map, nowhere to hide. There is no-place to stop and drink in the atmosphere, you are constantly moving forward. As such, you never get to feel the sense of ownership of the world that comes, in the previous games in the series, from traversing the game-world, slowly becoming stronger, and taking the game (and often, the narrative) at your own pace. In XIII, you feel on the clock. No doubt about it, Final Fantasy XIII is a game about running.

By the time I reached Pulse, I felt exhausted. Luckily, Pulse is the polar-opposite to your previous experiences. Whereas Cocoon was as set of intricate pathways through a stunningly detailed science fiction world of hard-plastic and metal, Pulse is organic, green, beautiful. A literal breath of fresh air. Your first steps open into a vast plain, alive with skulking creatures the size of houses, the sun beating down through the bluest of skies. The contrast couldn't be more explicit. Pulse allows you to slow right down and re-evaluate the preceding events, it gives you the open-world to make your own, finally.

It would have been interesting to let visions of Pulse be informed entirely by the game itself. Unfortunately, pre-release information tended to focus on Pulse, almost as an apology, or at least an explanation, for the games' initial linearity (an advert for the game had Leona Lewis dabbling about in Pulse, an experience divorced entirely from the previous 30 hours of the game, even). This had the unfortunate effect of ruining part of the games message; that of exposing government propaganda and disinformation. Throughout the game our only impressions of Pulse are devastating, that it is "a hell on Earth" and that we are to fear our inevitable deportation. The government of Cocoon plants seeds of false-truths within the populace which infects the people with a violent mistrust of anything Pulse-related (as seen when Snow and Hope endeavour to escape PalumPolum and are angrily besieged) and, in-turn, keeps the people in check. Our knowledge of Pulse from outside the game's world skew the government's actions and actually undermine their propaganda; we know that Pulse is not a fiery hell on Earth because we've already seen it in the adverts on television and the internet. It leads to a strange disconnect which actually could have been a postmodern masterstroke if only it was in any way intended and capitalised upon.

The consensus as to why XIII is disliked is that it is linear. That it is empty. That there is nothing to do in the world. I understand this. I do. On the contrary, though, its minimalist philosophy appeals to me on a personal level; I don't like stuff, I dislike clutter. Final Fantasy XIII cleared the deck, wiped away everything superfluous. It is stark. It is minimalist. It is ambient gaming. Gaming for Airports. I used to put the game on and do other things, read books, tidy the house. It conforms to Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno's (woah, Wikipedia) concept of ambient music. I wanted the games' atmosphere to fill the space I inhabited. But Masashi Hamauza's delicate score possessed incredible depths, depths I didn't fully appreciate until listening to the soundtrack through headphones. I do this a lot, these days. Now, the game is a memory. A journey I once took. I listen to a carefully considered selection of its soundtrack to remind myself while running on the treadmill. The view of the trees and the railway bridge out of the gym window gradually giving way as the light outside darkens and all I can see are the reflections of myself and others, all running. For some reason or other.

Little Touches

Scoring a perfectly timed reload in Gears of War.

The subtle foot-taps as you run along a crane-arm in Canabalt.

The real-time clock on the dashboard in Gran Turismo PSP.