I’m not finished with Dead Island, I haven’t beaten my first play-through, but it is a lot of fun. Its main features are large maps (not open world), diverse classes, a crafting system, and a rather fun combat system. There’s definitely more, but those are the main few things that stand out in the game. At first glance, before Dead Island was released, it looked like a shoddy Left 4 Dead clone with some additional elements from Borderlands. After playing, it is clear there is a lot of influence from Borderlands. I would even go as far as to say the shell of the game is nearly identical to Borderlands. However, it is nothing like Left 4 Dead, with the exception of being an FPS with 4 different characters to chose from, and the inclusion of zombies. For my money, Dead Island is a lot more fun, a lot more re-playable, and a lot more complex than Left 4 Dead.
The things I really like about Dead Island tend to be centered on delivering a challenging zombie-fighting experience. I felt that Left 4 Dead, in comparison, was very centered around killing massive waves of zombies, with the special zombies only being there to catch you when you were doing so, or simply being imperceptive as to your surroundings. In Dead Island, the zombie killing is much more about timing and survival. Ammunition in Dead Island is very hard to come by (there is almost no ammo in the first chunk of the game), and typically you have to kill other human beings to get their guns (which is hard on its own because they have the guns!). Three of the four classes are not even centered around firearms, which I found a very welcome direction for the game’s design: ranged weapons are a rarity and their ammunition is precious. I like that, it forces the player to enter melee very often, where the zombies are obviously most-challenging.
There are a lot of options when it comes to combat, each with their own tactical use. I have played, so far, as “Sam B.”, a gangsta’ who focuses on melee attacks and physical combat with primarily blunt weapons. Through unlocking talents, I gained the ability to knock zombies over while running (tackle), stomp on the heads of enemies I have knocked down, hit enemies with a special jab attack, and a multitude of other options. Each class has three talent trees, much like Borderlands and similar games, but the talents are unique to each class. In addition to those talents, each class has a “Fury” ability which is activated manually when the player has filled their fury bar with copious amounts of combat.
There’s a crafting system, too. It isn’t half-bad, but it is a bit simple. Often it boils down to scouring areas for random pieces and parts, and then creating weapon modifications (and some little utility items). I managed to make a ton of modifications for my weapons, all of which were pretty entertaining, though some were rather dull, offering flat damage bonuses. One of my favorite weapon modifications is called “Magic Wand”, and can only be applied to a blunt weapon, so it fit my thug’s melee specialization perfectly. Once a zombie is hit with a blunt weapon with the magic wand modification, there is a percent chance that they are struck for extra electric damage and rocket through the air as if hit by lightning (or a wizard’s thunder). That is a a pretty satisfying and fun way to kill a zombie. All the talents, fury abilities, and weapon modifications make customizing and the creation of unique characters rather streamlined. Even if two members of the same player team are the same class/character, they tend to be rather different in their setup.
The multiplayer setup is great, with the exception of one annoying flaw, which I will explain shortly. You can join lobbies, and directly join the games of your friends, as you would expect from any modern multiplayer game. However, the most-interesting way to play multiplayer is by proximity. Basically, whenever you are within the same location or proximity to another player, you simply press a single key and join up with them, as if you were wandering the island and encountered a survivor. This allows players to oscillate between single-player and multiplayer with extreme ease, and join up with people when they feel like it. The flaw, however, is something hardware related: the microphone cannot be turned off, and is always open. I am not sure if this is a bug, or if perhaps some modders have taken care of the issue, but it is very annoying to always have an open microphone in a game where you are not asked whether you are about to join a random person playing over the ‘net. It also means that if you are already chatting with another program, like Skype or Google+, prepare for double-microphone feedback to annoy your ears until you close either Dead Island or the chat programs.
As far as difficulty goes, Dead Island is certainly challenging, but all that challenge is heavily watered down by an extremely weak penalty for death. Upon death, you simply wait somewhere around 10 seconds to respawn, and lose some money. While money in Dead Island is very important for repairing, upgrading, and buying weapons and gear, it isn’t that important. Because of that, death is not that impacting or important, because it simply lacks any real penalty or punishment. As a result, it is pretty hard not to be able to finish a quest or clear a horde of zombies, because you can respawn over and over to finish the job if you fail. I really have a strong distaste for this trend of re-trying and checkpoints in modern games, as well as what appears to be a designer trend toward making the player feel as comfortable and without consequence as possible. Actions in games should have consequences, and if they are not very strong then the value of the challenge is not very strong either. This is probably my biggest issue with Dead Island, all things considered.
Another aspect of Dead Island that I felt was rather poorly designed/implemented is the vehicles. One one hand, the vehicles are nice, allowing players to get around very large maps without too much trouble, hit zombies (which is great fun), carry up to five friends with them (in a truck), and move around items for quests. My issue with them is that they are super-duper clunky, and the game’s environments are very poorly set up for driving. I understand that the setting is during a zombie infestation/apocalypse/whatever, but it is nearly impossible to drive these trucks around in the Resort area without ramming into things or just generally having an annoying time maneuvering. All the roads twist, and all the roads have debris and other broken-down cars in the middle of the road. While, in theory, this would simply make the driving more challenging, there is basically no way to screw up, only to annoy yourself by bumping into things due to the poor controls and handling on the vehicles. Not exactly the kind of difficulty I consider valuable, more the kind of difficulty that is just an annoying hurdle.
If you enjoy zombie games, I have yet to play a game that captures the “zombie experience” quite as well as Dead Island does, so it is worth purchasing. If you dislike “RPG elements” and the idea of multiplayer being omnipresent, I would not buy it.
Lately I’ve been watching my roommate play through my collection of Sega Mega Drive games and taking a look at the design ideas that were utilized during the Mega Drive/SNES era. I remembered Ranger X from when I was a lot younger, around 7 or 8-years-old, and had fond memories of the game’s visual style and intense difficulty. I was very curious to see whether the game was indeed a gem of Mega Drive gaming, or my fond memories were the result of simple nostalgia, as is so common with today’s gamers. Thankfully, while having a few small errs and issues that could have easily been addressed, Ranger X is an extremely robust shooter with intuitive mechanics and a great depth of play. Ranger X is a combination of 2d-side-scrolling-shooter, resource management, robotron-like, and platformer. Its mechanics are conducive to a fast-paced shooter with many objects and enemies on screen at a time, contrasted by periodic sections of slower puzzle-solving and navigational challenges. Of course, all of that is topped off with a boss fight at the end of every stage.
The player assumes control of Ranger X, a large robotic mecha/exosuit that seemly defends the earth from hostile alien invasion. Not the most original plot, but the game is not narrative heavy in the slightest, and prefers to communicate to the player through very bizarre and well-timed cut scenes and the mechanics of the game. There is no tutorial, nor are there pop-up hints/pointers on how to play the game. You simply start the game, press start, and you’re on the first level. Some may call that unpolished, and would expect a bit more to be handed to the player, so that at least they can understand the basics of the game. However, due to the simplicity of the Mega Drive’s standard controller (3 buttons, d-pad, start) it is very easy to pick up the basic controls, especially since two of the three buttons simply shoot to either the right or left side, reminiscent of games like Robotron or Smash TV. I highly enjoyed the decision to have two “shoot” buttons that correspond to different sides. It not only opens up the game to challenges that attack/approach the player from both the right and left side, but it makes the controls feel a bit clunkier and “mech-like”. One cannot just slide their fingers across the d-pad to turn and immediately fire, you have to move your main “action finger” to the appropriate button. Not an earth-shattering control scheme, but I appreciate the nice touch. The other benefit of the lack of explanation of mechanics or controls to the player is an extreme sense of surprise and enjoyment at learning a new mechanic or interaction in the game, of which there are a numerous amount, far exceeding the logical space of most games from the same generation (even other shoot-em-ups on the Mega Drive).
The only real issues with Ranger X are some bugs, and some strange hardware effects. Occasionally the Mega Drives slows down significantly, as there are tons of objects interacting on screen at a time, and sometimes the alpha-sorting for different sprites becomes jumbled, hiding some objects behind others in a way that is clearly not intended. Other than those small issues, the game is extremely polished.
The levels are very diverse in both their visuals and challenges.
The visuals are rich, sporting an 80′s-anime stylization reminiscent of Macross and Gundam. There are beautiful parallax backgrounds, light effects, pseudo-3D environment and enemy detailing, and a great sense of movement due to the nicely-done sprite animations. The music is catchy and each level has a unique tune that gets the blood pumping, and the mind working. The sound effects for enemies, weapons, and so on are excellent and never becoming annoying or jarring to listen to for extended periods of time. The cut scenes are nicely-paced and serve to break-up the typically fast-paced play with interesting music and stylization.
Jumping is very smooth and fluid in Ranger X and further contributes to the slick 80′s-anime aesthetic of the game. Jumping takes fuel, which recharges over time when the player is standing on a surface. This adds a nice bit of timing and pacing required to jump effectively, and allows a lot of levels in Ranger X to have a puzzle-like approach to their platforming. On one particular level, the level itself is almost entirely vertical, with a very small amount of horizontal space in which to move. The player is constantly gauging the fuel they have, jumping, fighting a great number of enemies mid-air, and trying to land on a higher section of the level without first running out of jump-pack fuel.
Shooting is fun and fluid, offering a robust amount of weapons for dealing with enemies and environmental hazards. The really interesting things about the weapons are that some of them are hidden, and have to be found by exploring various levels (or can be passed-up entirely), and that the player can only switch weapons when he is “inside” of his allied vehicle. The “allied vehicle” is a friendly NPC vehicle that follows Ranger X around each level, and highly contributes to the complexity of the play. The game is difficult enough that only the best players can survive, and win, without the use of their allied vehicle. The allied vehicle starts as a very fast motorcycle/bike with its own automated gun. When Ranger X stands upon it, he can ride it like a platform and both his weaponry and its weaponry can fire at the same time, giving the player two streams of bullets. Or, Ranger X can “fold” itself into the bike and combine with it, giving the player control over its movement, the ability to switch out weaponry, and a new life-bar based on the vehicle, but restricting the line of fire to a single stream that is rather low on the screen (the bike is shorter than the mecha). The second allied vehicle that appears in the game is a flying laser platform. Again the player can ride it, and this time the laser platform fires a bombardment of laser shots at enemies near Ranger X. Also, again, Ranger X can combine with the platform to switch weapons. The allied vehicles make fights a great deal more interested, and require the player to use some level of planning due to the requirement of combining with a vehicle in order to switch weaponry. A simple restriction like that heavily opens up the space of play to different challenges from the game, without adding too many mechanics to the system.
A large mechanic in Ranger X is the “power bar”. The power bar fills only when Ranger X is visibly located within a source of light. Yes, this game’s mecha is solar-powered, and the game takes note of it in very creative ways. There are darker tunnels and places where the player is made to conserve his power bar (the power bar is used to heal and fire the non-default weaponry) and much brighter areas where the player can fire the power-consuming weaponry freely and have their power restored. The power bar adds value to the weaponry (it now costs a resource) and to healing (which also costs power, so healing is taken instead of more weaponry capabilities). This adds a management puzzle to the fast-paced combat that requires players to play the game at a fast rate, but keep track of their remaining power, lest they run out and lose the ability to use their better weaponry. It also allows the designers to construct levels in which light is used to guide the player. Light is a very common visual element for guiding a player through a level, perhaps even the most common, but in Ranger X it is also something to interact with, which makes it that much more interesting. Even very subtle light sources make a tremendous difference, showing the level of polish and subtlety in this game. Light comes from many subtle sources in Ranger X. For example, explosions from enemies provide a quick burst of light that fills the power bar.
The strongest design traits of Ranger X are its extremely harmonious elements and its willingness to let the player discover how the game works for themselves.
Sinistar is a game about the struggle of a player trying to prevent the summoning/construction of an angry space deity called Sinistar. Sinistar is notorious for his terrifying lines of dialogue, which both taunt and horrify the player, and his large-scale bulk that quickly zips across space. He is constructed by his workers, who are endlessly zipping along from asteroid to asteroid gathering materials to bring their dark god to fruition. The player is a ship pilot that must gather Sinibombs from asteroids, and defeat any minions of Sinistar that are mining, or simply in the way. Sinistar is a very difficult game, as the player has to juggle asteroids-like movement and shooting with dodging enemies, dodging their shots, gathering materials to make Sinibombs, traversing the different zones of space (levels), and finally fighting Sinistar.
Sinistar is an older example of a genre of game I call “doom games”, or games where the player is under a constant pressure to deal with an impending threat or end-state. Some other doom game examples are Zelda: Majora’s Mask, Pikmin, Dark Seed, and others. Sinistar creates a harmony of play and skill by demanding multiple tasks of the player while still keeping them pressured by the impending summoning of Sinistar. The game is also difficult, but rewarding, in that a player can allow Sinistar to be built (or simply fail to perform as needed), but the game will not simply end, the player has an opportunity to do glorious space battle with the dark god himself. Sinistar is a very difficult enemy to fight. He moves quickly, attempts to startle the player with his bellowing roar and condescending dialogue, and a single run-in with the god will end with the player swallowed whole. The player must move quickly, predicting Sinistar’s movement with the mini-map, and shoot off his/her limited quantity of Sinibombs to destroy Sinistar.
I’m a big fan of Sinistar. The metal, energetic font that was once printed on the arcade cabinets does perfect justice to the atmosphere of the game. The sounds are brilliant and invoke a sense of doom and technology. Sinistar himself is large, skeletal, and terrifying, even in his old-school graphical rendering. The HUD is minimal but effective, and the color palette of black, white, red, blue, and some sheening metal tones bring a great energy to the deep void of outer space, and to the minions of Sinistar. The player is small and on an even level with the rest of the enemy ships, and definitely inferior in power to Sinistar, unless they are skilled at destroying his minions.
There is a neofolk revival movement currently underway in contemporary metal and ambient music subcultures. It is building itself out of the energy and destruction of second-wave black metal, doom metal, and older industrial and ambient traditions. The movement values artisanship over mass-production, mysticism as a natural part of the human condition, tribalist sentiments, and experience/emotion as just as valuable as intelligence and thought, with the individualism hard-won from black metal. Bands will release music that is untitled, with multiple tracks of nothing but ambiance, sometimes wrapped in large leaves from their homeland, or individually numbered and released as a limited set. I’ve seen one band release an album as a master tape in a leather bag, with a deer emblem on the cover. Strength and will are valued, as well as understanding of the relation between one and many. Bands often take multiple, contradictory stances on their politics, often shunning politics and such modern nonsense, and instead advocating an adopting of personal and group values.
Drone is seeing a new renaissance in metal as well. Drone bands seek to express an idea with great energy and purpose, without a song structure that is fast, where the listener is encouraged to be patient and follow the spaces between melodies, rather than an immediate hook, a bridge, a chorus, and a finish. Drone’s sister, Doom, comes into the picture with bands like Sunn O))) and Moss, to show that a song is more than just a melody or notes, it is a texture and atmosphere. Texture is something we tend to avoid in modern forms of art, we are too busy and neurotic, moving from activity to activity, person to person, networking, caught in the spiraling tornado of nonsense that is modern communication. We wouldn’t want our games to be inaccessible, for someone to have to take the time to understand a logic, rather than rush into it for instant gratification. We skimp on environment art and complex forms of interaction. What is the point, anyway, if John Doe is only going to enjoy if he has fun within seconds of picking the game up, and has no patience to understand?
While we expand as the medium of video games, we encounter an area that black metal did a long time ago, during its second wave of existence. We know what we don’t want, and we will destroy everything in response to that. For black metal, it was modernist society, dogmatism, and the rampant advance of rationalism over emotion. Black metal wanted to be free and powerful, unrestrained by morality or Christianity, among many other things, and most of all, to be individual, but without sacrificing our gains in knowledge, wisdom, and strength of character. Games are running into a similar territory with mainstream gaming focusing more on ways to play games than real design, on accessibility and ease of use over a personal and meaningful play, and more on gaming as a care-free social event than a challenge. Indie gaming marches onward, producing a gem here and there, but mostly recycling old ideas of design in novel ways. Indie gaming is unsuccessful, so far, in regards to the kinds of advances in music with the neofolk movement, the ideas that need to be reintroduced into our world and into games are being avoided. Indie gaming is successful, though, in its allowance of anyone to make a game, provided they have the spirit and effort, and its lack of restraint that is so common in mainstream games due to financial risk. Indie games can afford to be more free, inventive, creative, and personal with its ideas. Even film, though I won’t go into it, is in a similar boat: the boat of our modern neurotic society.
I dream of a day when the ideas of black metal, through the current neofolk movement, make their way into games, were they are not only sorely needed, but have a perfect home . Where games are artisan-crafted to be personal, meaningful things. A revival of hardware working synonymously with game, as in the arcade days. I’d like, someday, to wrap my games in a leaf, as it were, and a person to receive it in the mail knowing it was made by me, and perhaps some friends. As black metal found, though, if you are going to destroy everything, it is prudent to think of an actual alternative, we cannot simply scorch the earth with our discontent without anything new to plant in the ruins of the past, or we will cause an indie culture ripe for self-destruction. And, worst of all, bad games.
Sinistar is a game almost out of another time, in the future, where these things might be the case. It is hard, it has a strong level of personality to it, it had arcades made to hold it as an idea, and it isn’t afraid to challenge the player to form a space of play that is meaningful beyond being a “time waster”, or something someone does while waiting in line. It demands attention, skill, and the juggling of patience and decision-making. It is split-second in actions, but must be thought of in the wider sense of play for a player to be skilled at it (the ultimate structure of the doom genre). I think that is the ultimate lesson of Sinistar: When doom is coming, you have a lot to do, and if you are ill-prepared, your fight will be harder. We live in a chaotic world where it is nearly impossible to understand anything of the long-term effects of our actions, so we opt for neuroticism. We’re building a Sinistar of our own right now.
