Thoughts on the Videogame BAFTA's 2011

Action: Batman: Arkham City
The problem with having a Film and TV panel do game awards is that they think games should fall under the same categories. Action applies to a lot of games. Batman is awesome so I’m happy it won the award. Given the broad number of games that fall under Action I would’ve gave it to Xenoblade Chronicles.

Artistic Achievement: Rayman Origins
Good to see Style win over Technical ability. Love the style of Rayman and I’m eager to play it (Sadly lost in the Backlog). Would’ve given the award to Child of Eden though, that game is beautiful but sadly I think it wasn’t mainstream enough for BAFTA.

Audio Achievement: Battlefield 3
The only award I’m happy Battlefield won. The sound in battlefield is excellent. Would’ve given the award to Child of Eden though. Sound plays too much of a role in Child of Eden with some original ideas setting it apart from other on rail shooters.

Best Game: Portal 2I’d like to think BAFTA didn’t play Xenoblade Chronicles either but I’m happy Portal 2 won. It was my number 2 and it shows the critics do have some taste, even if the public does not.

Debut Game: Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet
Not played but can’t think of many good debuts this year. Maybe Xenoblade although I’m not sure if that was Monolith soft’s first game.

Design: Portal 2
No brainer. Portal 2 all the way.

Family: LittleBigPlanet 2
Not got around to playing LBP2. The first was ace though sadly to a Yellow light of Death I lost all my data. Initially I thought Sonic Generations and Mario 3D land should’ve been nominated but when the show started talking about it, LBP2 was an obvious choice and I can see why those two weren’t. LBP2 is probably the best co-op game aimed at everyone rather than shooting fanatics. Although Rayman could’ve taken this one too.

Game Innovation: LittleBigPlanet 2
A sequel wins Innovation, really? Should’ve gone to Child of Eden, or maybe Xenoblade, Ghost trick if it was eligible would also be a candidate. Skyward sword too would’ve been a worthy winner.

Mobile & Handheld: Peggle HD
OK now this one is a cheat. Peggle did not come out last year, it’s much older. Way too much focus on mobile gaming and not handheld. Only Mario 3D land was nominated outside of mobile games. Serious this jerky flash shit is not the future of games. Notable exclusions include Ocarina of Time 3DS (if Peggle is nominated OOT should be), Ghost trick (may not be eligible as it was out in Jan last year and should’ve been in last years awards), Mario Kart 7, Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep (which admittedly I haven’t played those two) and Okamiden. Peggle is awesome but it came out ages ago it shouldn’t have been nominated. Not Sure if Resident Evil: Revelations counted for this year either.

Online - Browser: Monstermind
Don’t care about this award. The only browser game I played was that Assassin’s Creed Facebook game.

Online - Multiplayer: Battlefield 3
Fair enough I guess. I prefer Modern Warfare 3 and Gears of war 3 but Battlefield 3 can be fun if you have a good squad. Maybe Marvel vs Capcom 3 should’ve got this, or Portal 2 although that lacks competitive multiplayer. Portal 2’s co-op campaign is ace. Tough call, I’d probably give it to Gears 3 due to its wealth of modes.

Original Music: LA Noire
Not heard this soundtrack. As a Video game music connoisseur I have to say there have been some cracking soundtracks including Sonic Generations, Xenoblade Chronicles, Child of Eden, and Marvel vs Capcom 3. The Sonic fanboy in me is screaming Sonic Generations but I would give the award to Xenoblade, such a fantastic score.

Performer: Mark Hamill, for The Joker in Batman: Arkham City
Definitely. Either him or Stephen Merchant, J.K. Simmons or Ellen McLain for Portal 2. Also the Sonic, Resident Evil and Assassin’s Creed fan in me has to give props to Roger Craig Smith for Sonic Generations, Marvel vs Capcom and Assassin’s Creed Revelations.

Sports/Fitness: Kinect Sports 2
Another award I don’t particular care about. Though I will say Racing should not be included in this category. As far as gaming goes, Racing is too well defined a genre to share it with the likes of FIFA.

Story: Portal 2
Another one I agree with (see my Game of the Year post). Ghost Trick’s excellent “Page Turner” story and Xenoblade’s good balance of length and excitement also get a mention from me.

Strategy: Total War: Shogun 2
Another award I don’t care about. I can’t think of a single strategy game that excited me this year.

BAFTA Ones to Watch Award: Tick Tock Toys
Another pro mobile gaming award though to be fair there weren’t many newbies on the console scene. Monolth Soft for Xenoblade maybe, I’m still not sure how new they are.

GAME Award of 2011: Battlefield 3
Annoyed but not surprised given the love for this game. I personally find it dull and desperately needing a multiplayer tutorial for newcomers. I guess a good multiplayer experience is one people will remember over a solid single player experience. Personally I voted for Portal 2, but I would’ve been happy if Batman or Skyrim won it.

So predictions for next year

*Action: Mass Effect 3, Bioshock Infinite or Resident Evil: Revelations.
*Artistic Achievement: Bioshock Inifinite
*Audio Achievement: Bioshock Infinite or Mass Effect 3
*Best Game: Mass Effect 3
*Debut Game: Kingdoms of Alamur perhaps
*Design: Bioshock Infinite is looking promising, Maybe Catherine
*Family: Honestly don’t know
*Game Innovation: Again looking like Bioshock unless something brilliant comes up
*Mobile & Handheld: Resident Evil: Revelations.
*Online - Browser: Honestly don’t know
*Online - Multiplayer: Street Fighter X Tekken
*Original Music: Bioshock
*Performer: The cast of Mass Effect 3 so far, Maybe Bioshock
*Sports/Fitness: no idea
*Story: Bioshock or Mass Effect
*Strategy: no idea
*BAFTA Ones to Watch Award: no idea
*GAME Award of 2011: Bioshock or Mass Effect 3

Would probably be able to give better answers after E3

Battlefield 3

Let’s get this out of the way first. This game is not as good as Modern Warfare 3. There I said it, and I mean it. Comparisons between these two games have been made since first announcement, Battlefield being the one to topple Call of Duty’s crown. Sorry but it is a long way off.

Let’s start with the campaign. Yes I know games like these are all about the multiplayer but a good game cannot exist on multiplayer alone. A game should still be fun alone and this is going to be a common theme throughout this review.

The campaign is typical military nonsense involving terrorists and nukes, filled with Jargon you’d need an extensive spell in the military to understand. Admittedly COD has this but definitely not as much as in Battlefield.

My biggest beef with the campaign is how lazy it’s been designed. I like DICE, mirrors edge was a lot of fun, but with Battlefield they need to go back to level design 101. Here are a couple of braindead examples.

Early on you find yourself in a car park. Two guys with RPG’s spawn off in the distance. They are well camouflaged and hard to make out with your standard rifle. Get too close and you’ll be overwhelmed by a swarm of enemies. Oh and the Cars explode meaning the only cover will kill you if an RPG hits them.

At no point does it mention that you have a sniper rifle in reserve. This helps a lot and without it the section is pretty much impossible. A simple press Y to change weapons hint would have been nice, but no you get that in the next section.

Later you come across a large room with 9 round desks neatly arranged in a square grid. Around the edge is a balcony with the stairs at the right hand side of the room. Now my gamer brain tells me that I should aim to get high because height gives you an advantage in a shootout. EHHHHHHHH! Wrong answer.

This section requires you to pass an arbitrary point in the room to continue. Remember COD4, remember how it would continuously spawn enemies until you pass an arbitrary point. Remember how everyone hated that and was glad when it got fixed in Modern Warfare 2. Well guess what’s back.

Yes if you go up high you will find that despite killing 30 to 40 enemies they never stop spawning. You have to edge your way to the door at the end of the room. But here’s the kicker, if you jump down from above the door and reach it that way nothing will happen.

You have to edge along the floor making the area above pointless. This actually works against typical strategy like it punishes you for thinking.

There are moments where the game just feels unfair. I know I’m playing on hard but it never feels hard but fair, usually unfair.

Take the AI, like all games now you are part of a squad but how does this game identify friendly AI characters, you know the ones you don’t shoot, by a tiny triangle above their heads which nine times out of ten blends perfectly in the background.

But when you actually shoot one you get a huge unavoidable message saying “Friendly Fire will not be tolerated”. Admittedly I did not fail the campaign by shooting friendly AI but even so it shouldn’t be this hard to identify friend from foe.

And this is By far Battlefield’s greatest weakness and it spills onto Multiplayer too. A lot of the time it seems that you are shooting enemies that are a fair bit away, usually wearing dark green and standing in front of a black background. Just seeing your enemy is a challenge and is far harder than in any other shooter I have ever played.

I did enjoy some of the shooting but this was when you were given a sniper rifle with thermal, at least then I could actually see the enemy.

To make matters worse for the sake of realism they have scattered “dust” on the screen. They’ve really gone all out to make it impossible to see what you are supposed to be shooting. But do you think the enemy has that problem, No! If the slightest part of you body is exposed they will be able to hit it.

Identifying targets to shoot gets a little easier in multiplayer but not by much. Icons are really small as are names above the heads of friendlies. As a sniper you have the ability to “Spot” enemies by pressing Back while aiming. A Useful addition and one that should be explained to you before you start playing multiplayer. I only found out about that through the internet and I will say that Battlefield 3’s multiplayer isn’t the best for welcoming newcomers.

Earlier I said a game should be fun when playing alone, Battlefield isn’t, not in campaign and not in Multiplayer. You need friends to get anywhere with this and this is where it fails for me. Playing Battlefield 3 in a squad of randoms just doesn’t work. Without communication and strategy the whole reason Battlefield 3 is “better” than MW3 goes out the window, and really who speaks to randoms, I don’t, fuck Randoms.

Now compare this to pretty much any other shooter and I hope you’ll get my point. Where Communication helps, you can still get by without chatting to randoms and still have a good time. In Battlefield you can’t take advantage of its strengths without communicating. Vehicles are made with multiple passengers in mind, usually to man turrets and you’ll want an engineer to repair damage to extend the vehicles life. If you’re in a squad with mates this isn’t an issue, you’re communicating and planning on the fly. Take away that communication as it becomes a ball ache, do you take the role as engineer just so you have one? Do you wait for a team mate to jump in your vehicle? Should I jump into this vehicle or is the driver waiting for his squadmate to join him?

With a full squad of four friends, all communicating and working together Battlefield 3 can be a lot of fun despite its obvious flaws when it comes to finding people to kill. Alone though the game fails in campaign and multiplayer.

Other problems include a severe lack of modes (only 4, and two are deathmatch modes) and an insistence for realism throughout. Take the vehicles, Yeah you can fly a jet and it’s cool when it works, but you need a PHD to fly them as they are so awkward. Halo has shown us how vehicles should be in FPS, flying a banshee feels like a QTE in comparison to Battlefields flying vehicles. Why? This has always been one of the things I hate about this series, offers nothing and takes away so much.

How people can say this is better than Modern Warfare 3 I’ll never know. I get that COD is popular now and it hasn’t changed much since COD4, but I can’t see how Battlefield 3 is better. The Campaign is a rubbish mess, compared to MW3’s sublime campaign and Multiplayer requires friends to be any good. I’m convinced that those that say Battlefield 3 is better are sick of COD and want something different, Battlefield 3 gives that but different does not equal better.

Battlefield 3 is a game where its greatest strengths become its greatest weaknesses depending on the scenario. The Realism is impressive but ultimately gets in the way, the multiplayer is set up for team play but then fails when you haven’t got a good team to rely on. The campaign is a rubbish mess with very little redeeming qualities and the multiplayer could do with more modes.

If you really need a realistic modern war shooter and COD aint doing it for you anymore, Battlefield 3 may be just what you need, however it is far from being a brilliant game.

6/10

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

I didn’t get on with Oblivion. I heard such great things about it that when I got my Xbox 360 that was the first game I chose. After discovering how save files are linked to your tag (So my first offline profile’s save became useless), losing my tag for several months (I was originally Joz the Bat, I am now Joz Labatte) and just getting lost, I ended up starting the game 3 times and not getting very far.

I tried but gave up at the first oblivion gate as those head butting dinosaur things annoyed the fuck out of me.

For that reason I decided that Bethesda games weren’t for me. The weight management system also felt unnecessarily intrusive, making looting the many dungeons difficult.

Then came Fallout 3 a game I waited to drop in price and I was blown away by it. I don’t know what was different, the change from traditional fantasy to sci-fi (I’m more a fan of the latter), the use of guns over melee weapons or maybe just that I didn’t have to restart several times due to my own unfamiliarity with the system.

I was still weary when it came to Skyrim and again waited for a drop in price. After all the game of the year accolades it was getting I had to at least try it and I’m glad I did.

No it’s not Game of the Year for me but it comes close. I’m enjoying it far more than Oblivion and if Fallout 3 gave me faith in Bethesda, Skyrim has confirmed their status as brilliant developers, one whose games I’ll be getting excited over in future.

So where to begin with Skyrim, well lets start with the obvious, this game looks amazing. The detail throughout is fantastic. One thing Oblivion did have was beautiful graphics, but Skyrim makes that look like a PSone game. Every texture is very detailed and beautifully lit.

But for Skyrim where there is greatness there is also weakness. Graphically it looks stunning but I’m 30 hours in and the scenery has barely changed. Outside it is a stunning winter wonderland, switching between forests and mountains but that’s it. Skyrim has its look but rarely deviates from it.

Similarly inside the dungeons look pretty much the same throughout. If it is not the same crypt walls, it’s the same cave walls.

Compare to say Xenoblade Chronicles which obviously can’t stand up power wise, for pure detail Skyrim has it beat. But then the locations on Xenoblade are nicely diverse and unique. From basic plains to marshland that lights up beautifully at night, the hot humid jungle to the cold mountains, the ruins of the fallen arm to the fleshy alien interior of the Bionis.

Moving onto Gameplay, Skyrim has a lovely menu system which allows you to move through your inventory with ease. Favourite weapons and magic can be favourited for quick access through a separate menu activated by the D-pad.

But its strength lies in how it handles combat. The Left trigger controls your left hand, the right trigger your right. You can select any combination of magic, shields and weapons you want. I use magic on my left (usually healing magic) and a small weapon on my right (usually an enchanted mace). But you can sacrifice both hands for more powerful heavy weapons like Axes and Sledgehammers, or for long range combat through bows.

Two handed weapons can block but you can’t use magic without changing your setup, hence why I prefer the one handed weapons despite losing the ability to block. Shields are used not only to block attacks but also to parry. Use you shield as an enemy attacks you and they will stagger leaving them open to counter attack.

You can also dual wield. Two of the same spell will be more effective than one when used at the same time. You can also dual wield one handed weapons for maximum offence but no defence. The point is it is entirely up to you, each system has its advantages and disadvantages and this wealth of choice is always appreciated.

Armour too can vary. You can select normal clothing for minimal protection but maximum speed, heavy armour for maximum protection but minimal speed and light armour in between the two. The weight of your armour dictates the noise you make so successful sneaking requires lighter armour or a spell. How you handle situations is entirely up to you whether you take hits and dish them out, or you sneak around undetected to catch your enemies off guard.

However the annoying weight management system still rears its ugly head. I guess this is just something you have to get used to but I hate it. Every item suddenly become a choice, can I carry this? is it worth anything? oh no I have to drop something because I’m carrying to much.

There is so much to pick up but a lot isn’t relevant at all. Things like money and lockpicks are generally weightless, but the majority of stuff will have weight. Potions are useful but too many will eat up a lot of your weight allocation. Selling armour and weapons you find but don’t need will be your primary source of income but it is hard to tell whether or not you can carry it all.

What you find is that halfway through a dungeon you will need to make a choice, discard loot you intend to sell or leave the dungeon, sell your items and come back. This happens way too frequently and only the assistance of a companion (which this time appears early in the game) is your only way of looting a dungeon without stopping regularly to sell your loot.

Speaking of selling loot everything seems to take forever in Skyrim. Every merchant has limited gold and if they can’t buy something from you, you will have to go to the next merchant. That usually means at least two loading screens, one for leaving the merchant’s building and one for entering the other. They do get more as time passes but if you have a lot to sell you will be going back and forth a lot. You can spend an hour selling stuff that in most games would take 10 minutes tops.

Out of my 30 hours at least 10, maybe 15 have been sent creating items, enchanting items, balancing weight, selling items and organising storage of items.

Not to mention that the powerful dragon enemies tend to attack cities at random. The following scenario has happened more than once and it is really annoying.

To carry more loot to sell I store my armour and most of my weapons in a chest in my house. I fast travel to another town to sell my loot but as soon as I arrive a dragon attacks. I can’t fast travel away, the dragon won’t let me. I then have to fight the dragon with no armour and often just a mace. Since dragons fly I often have to chip away with magic. This is usually a no win situation, one that no player should come across.

Skyrim is like a wild bachelor party that never seems to want to end, with the most beautiful strippers, delicious beer and filled with loads of fun games to keep you occupied through the night, however every so often you have to take your gran to Tesco’s and wait a long time until she’s ready to go back home.

Fantastic game but with a couple of minor annoying features that ruin the whole experience.

9/10