GONE HOME

Ah, god bless Steam. Where else could I find a 20 euro game for only 5?

Anyway, after some big publisher products, I felt like I could use some indie material. Gone Home is one of those critics darlings that have popped out in the last years, and apparently it had strong storytelling. Why not?

So, I just finished and the overall feeling is mostly positive. You can go through the whole game in less than 3 hours. It's very short (maybe too much?) and mainly based on exploration. You impersonate the older sister of a family who returns from a year travelling through Europe, but the house is empty. All gameplay goes around you opening drawers, checking notes and letters and playing tapes so you can connect the dots of the inner family stories.

There are no enemies, no shotting, no magic, no nothing. Just move around and learn about what happened to your family on that year. There are 4 plots that you can unveil, 2 of them not particularly interesting but the main one is touching. 3-4 puzzles for opening combinations (one I had to check for the solution online)... and that's pretty much it.

Now: Do I recommend it? It depends. If you are in the mood for some indie novelty, definitively. It offers a new approach of how to tell a story, and it kinda succeeds. Don't expect much more, though. Also for 20 bucks you can probably get more gameplay from other indie games, so I'd suggest to wait until it's for sale.

But I don't want to sound diminishing: I deeply appreciate the effort and applaud the final result. We need people trying new things, and Gone Home shows us a possible way.

HITMAN GO

Hitman Go is a very interesting study case. As a game is enjoyable and visually unique, and as a part of the Hitman franchise is daring enough to take the gameplay into a brand new territory.

As Jack the Ripper said, let's go piece by piece: Although the spirit of the game remains faithful to the Hitman series (you impersonate Agent 47 and your goal is to infiltrate and murder your target) the gameplay is turn-based. You can only move through a grid and it doesn't have many knots, which you share with a number of guards. Every time you move, the enemies move as well. You need to find the route across them and sometimes use some objects to alter their patrols.

So, although technically speaking you have a stealth goal, it's closer to a board game than the console ones. It's a bold move into a totally different area, and you need to applaud Square Enix for giving green light to this approach. And for the most part, it totally works!

The developers have done a good work in every sense: Each level takes 2-3 min, which fits with the average playtime on mobile platforms. There is a new enemy or ability unlocked every 3-4 levels, renewing the interest, and there are some optional challenges that can assure replayability. On top of that, it's fairly easy and I needed no internet walkthrough to finish it.

On the minus side the game lacks story and it's not easy to feel totally hooked. And it's not particularly long, either.

It currently has an 81 on metacritics (7.0 for users) and feels right. I was entertained for 3-4 good hours, and impressed for the bravery of betting on a totally new gameplay & platform. Well done!

F.E.A.R.

I remember playing FEAR back in its day, and abandon it for being repetitive. But when the whole series was on sale on Steam for a ridiculous price I thought 'what the hell' and bought them all.

Still, my opinion hasn't changed. The gameplay is centered on shooting sections with occasional scary scripted events plus some optional exploration. It's a good display of what 10 years ago was considered as a FPS experience (more advanced than Doom, for example), but boy things have changed!

There was some buzz at the time regarding the advanced AI patterns. Every time you played the layout the enemies would behave different, if memory serves because the game would learn from the player's combat style and adapt. Back in the day I remember that was frustrating to me since I couldn't learn from each attempt what the NPCs reaction would be, and this unpredictability made me fail over and over the same scenario.

Still, I didn't abandon the game because of that but due to be always the same: The enemy variation is not high and some of them are scarcely used. I eventually managed to make my way through the whole game following the same strategy: Get into the combat zone, activate bullet time and headshot the bastards. It rarely failed.

Another semi-failure is the creepy moments. There are plenty of sudden appearances of Alma, the scary girl, but since the player can be looking any place when that happens it's fairly easy to miss them. The story itself is not particularly engaging, and hints more than tells. An interesting choice, but I eventually had to check wikipedia to understand what happened.

On the other hand, the combat systems work fine, the visual effects were ahead of its time and overall it was an interesting mix of genres. Also, it was very useful to me for collecting info about 'how not to do certain things' that I'm storing on a personal wiki to be used if at some day I go into teaching at the University. Yay!

DEMOLITION MAN

The game was GTA Vice City, and the mission's name is "Demolition man". If memory serves is one of the story ones, which means you HAVE to complete it if you want to progress in the plot. But the mission was... fucking difficult.

It goes like this: You get to control a helicopter toy with really sloppy handling. You're supposed to pick up a bomb nearby, fly the toy into a building and plant it on a specified location. Then you return, collect another bomb and repeat until you've dropped all of them, each on a different floor. Aside from driving through narrow spaces and the helicopter's low health, there are plenty of thugs protecting the location / shooting at you. Check here for more info.

I remember lots of days trying on my PS2, 10 years ago. Back in those days there weren't so much info on the internet, and definitively not video walkthroughs. You could get hints on forums but that was all. On top of that, the mission was super-hard even if you knew exactly what to do.

In the good old days, you played pretty alone and assumed the game was adapted to everyone's skill. As a consequence, if you couldn't finish a game/mission you immediately thought you sucked as a gamer. But today you can read what other people think regarding the same experience, and find out they have the same problems than you. That's how I've found most others were frustrated by this mission as well. That makes it less frustrating since it's not my fault, but instead the game's.

Funny thing is I got the iPad version and I completed it on my third attempt, I think. Times change.

COMMUNITY AND COMMUNICATION IN GAMES-AS-SERVICES

Interesting talk, worth if you're working on an online service:

DEADLIGHT

Here's another one of those nice games you may have missed but actually are quite enjoyable: Deadlight. The first game of a Spanish studio, in which they struggle to finish it for more time they initially expected. I know that of first hand since some friends worked on it.

The final result, in my opinion, is quite good. The visual approach, similar to Limbo, totally works and gives a unique flavor to the experience. The game systems work fine, nothing you haven't seen before but I know for a fact they had huge issues just to have this. It was critizised for being too short and it's indeed: Just can finish it in 4 hours without major issues. Still, for 15 dollars in XBLA I wouldn't feel cheated (admittedly, I paid even less due to my "only games with 75% discount on Steam" purchase policy)

The game is essentially platforming and puzzles. Both systems work reasonably well. You can see little details that require polish but nothing major. The puzzles themselves were not particularly difficult (I completed the game without external help) and I'm actually a fan of that. I see no reason for frustrating users with challenges that at the end of the day internet can solve for you.

I believe they intended to make it much longer, but their scheduling and overall direction was not as precise as it should have, and the experience falls short. The story doesn't hurt but it could have been much better, since it sins where other games do (i.e. Ryse or Castlevania LoS): The most interesting plot twists are left for the end, where most gamers will never reach.

A nightmare mode (no saving), collectibles (often more a nuisance than adding value), leaderboards and achievements complete the pack. As a whole, a good first game of a new studio, and that's not little thing. Good luck!

MONUMENT VALLEY

Being an admirer of Escher’s artwork, it’s no surprise I was attracted by Monument Valley. In essence, the game makes interactive all those geometric fantasies, and creates a wonderful (although short) experience.

I’m kinda envious because I’m not good at designing visual puzzles at all. Sadly, I could have never made this game. However, somehow I aspire to do something similar in the future: Create a brand new gameplay experience that none has imagined before. Monument Valley does that, and it’s so uncommon that you have to admire the effort... and support it if possible, buying the game ;)

The design is remarkable since there are no failing conditions (much like Monkey Island, no matter how much you fail the game always allows you to retry), and with really little elements they manage to create a solid 1-2 hours of gameplay.

Yep, that’s one of the weaknesses of the game, it’s quite short. 10 levels, each of them you can beat in 5-10 min. The story falls onto the ‘poetic’ or ‘suggestive’ category: Few storytelling elements, that evoke more than lead. Think of Braid or Limbo for references. It works as a canvas, but can’t say I found it particularly engaging.

Honor mention for the visuals, simple but extremely beautiful, and the oniric audio. Altogether they create a one-of-a-kind experience. Hopefully they’ll make DLCs, or a sequel. I strongly recommend the game for whoever likes games or art in general. Monument Valley is currently my candidate to GoTY 2014.