Pixel Hunt Issue 14

PS3 360 Wii PC MOBILE OPINIONS FEATURES

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Australia’s best gaming -zine

FULLY INTERACTIVE magazine

ISSUE 14

MARCH 2011

1 1 0 2 e 11 c ce 20 n e r e f re fe o co n c s r e rs p el pe o l ev game d eve true jrpg reincarnation an extensive look at shin megami tensei

amongst bad company

get better at battlefield: bad company 2: vietnam

the best home setups finding the ultimate gaming luxuries

Letter from the editor Bulletstorm In A Teacup The reactions to Bulletstorm, both in the leadup to its release and now that it’s on shelves, have been pretty interesting to observe. What’s strange is that the gameplay itself has barely rated a mention – the focus has mostly been fastened on Bulletstorm’s ‘juvenile’ humour. Perhaps I’ve misjudged popular opinion completely, but I feel as though we’ve been apologetic about Bulletstorm, held it arm’s length, discounted it as a backwards step in the quest of video games to be ‘mature’. It seems as though some gamers are stricken with a kind of inferiority complex, caught up in a pointless battle with mainstream perceptions. Some of us are desperate for video games to be taken seriously and Bulletstorm represents evidence to the contrary. We’re scared that it will be used as ammunition by ‘the other side’ who believe that games are childish and pointless. It’s the same reason that people rush to the frontlines of the games as art debate. Some of us need that validation, to know that video games are as legitimate as books and film. The hypocrisy and silliness of it is that so many games are juvenile in one form or another. The difference with Bulletstorm is that it’s self-aware, purposefully juvenile, as opposed to the majority of ‘serious games’ which strive for emotive drama and chin-stroking thoughtfulness and yet have all the maturity and depth of an episode of Captain Planet. I guess it frustrates me somewhat that we decry Bulletstorm’s purposeful stupidity while the genuine stupidity of other games goes ignored. Killzone 3, for example, strives to be taken seriously with its war-driven narrative, desperate soldiers in desperate situations, darkly overwhelming odds. Yet when I compare the ideas and the narrative and the dialogue of the two games, it’s obvious to me which one is ‘juvenile’. Hint: it’s not Bulletstorm.

In other happenings, if you’re reading this issue of Pixel Hunt, it means that the Nintendo 3DS has just been released in Australia. Nintendo’s love of Australia couldn’t be more apparent; we get the 3DS last, we pay the most for it and we get the smallest range of launch titles. Not that Nintendo seem overly concerned about the launch titles. Hope you guys like Street Fighter and/or Nintendogs! I equate my relationship with Nintendo to getting a hug that seems warm and loving at first, but then the hugger touches you inappropriately and you feel dirty and a bit ashamed.

looking forward to

LA Noire

LA Noire’s blend of GTAstyle driving and shooting combined with adventure game forensics is compelling. It certainly has the look and the feel, thanks in part to the incredible facial animation; if the gameplay delivers it will be a GOTY contender.

Developer Team Bondi/ Rockstar Games Publisher Rockstar Games Platform PS3 / 360 Genre Action Release 20 May 2011 OFFICIAL WEBSITE

Michael Pincott | E-zine Editor

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march 2011

contents ISSUE 14

MARCH 2011

Publishing Editor Dylan Burns E-Zine Editor Michael Pincott Website Manager Matthew Williams E-Zine Production Aaron Sammut Advertising Contact the Editor if you would like to advertise with Pixel Hunt dylanb@pixelhunt.com.au Contributors Dylan Burns, Anthony Capone, Tim Henderson, Annika Howells, Brendan Keogh, Jahanzeb Khan, Patrick Lang, Ken Lee, James O’Connor, Michael Pincott, James Pinnell, Alex Walker

COVER FEATURE GDC: Game Developer’s Conference

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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

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Follow: www.twitter.com/PixelHunt DONATE: If you’d like to show your appreciation for each issue, please donate via PayPal at www.pixelhunt.com. au. All proceeds will go back into making Pixel Hunt the most up-to-date, honest and (we hope) fun gaming zine available.

NAVIGATING THIS -zine WHAT IS A PIXEL HUNT?

Pixel Hunt is actually a term that refers to video games that use a point and click interface like in so many adventure games. As such, Pixel Hunt the magazine is also interactive. Try clicking on items, such as the icons to the bottom of the page to turn to the next or previous page, the arrow to the top of each page will take you back to the contents page where each individual story is linked. Give it a go.

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THE GAME DOCTOR GETTING TO KNOW GTA

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS WITH PROFESSOR PIXEL

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FEATURE HOME SETUPS

THE ultimate gaming den

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FEATURE shin megami tensei

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KILL DEATH RATIO Battlefield: Bad Company 2: Vietnam

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WHAT WE’RE PLAYING WITH THE PIXEL HUNT STAFF

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creative Uncharted

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OPINION Enslaved

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OPINION IN COD WE TRUST

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FEATURE KEN’s HOLIDAY SPECIAL

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www.PIXELHUNT.com.AU

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PRESS START TO PLAY

NOT THE NEWS Roaming reporter DYLAN BURNS brings us the unreliable word on the street.

Gameinformer MATHS: (gp + V) = (X x GX / MS) + (R / GP) + (D or P x R) = % gp = gameplay v = visuals x = Ad Sales

gx = game sales ms = market share r = readers

gp = genre preference d = developer p = publisher

Game Informer Apply the Fraction Big news that is sure to rock the gaming world: Game Informer recently trialled a new scoring system with a subscriber-exclusive issue that was only available if you called the subscriber hotline and spoke your credit card number. The system, which adds onto the already existent 0.25 increment scale, will see fractions brought into each writer’s score. For example, it will now be possible for Gears of War 3 to score 9.25 and 1/3 out of 10. Game Informer says that adding in an extra fraction will allow writers to really hone in on the totally scientific task of assigning a final score. Rumour has it that IGN are planning to hit back by rating games out of the mathematical figure Pi. 4

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Valve Admits that Half-Life 3 Won’t Happen In a shocking statement to the world media, Valve has announced that Half-Life 3 will never be made. Speaking to Pixel Hunt exclusively, Valve employee Rico ‘Steam Boy’ McTavish stated: “Honestly, with Half-Life 2 and the episodes being so perfect, we realised that it just wasn’t needed. Besides, those gamers who even remember the story are pretty old by now, and new gamers don’t even know what Half-Life is.

Besides, we haven’t really been able to find the time for Half-Life between making f**kloads of money through Steam and coming up with new Team Fortress 2 hats. We could string the media along for a few more years but we figured that we’d finally put you out of your misery. Okay, I have to go, my Ligers need feeding.” march 2011

Guitar Hero Staff Forced to Beg for Food Deep in the recesses of Los Angeles exists a seedy strip of real estate called Publisher Alley. Down this dark, dank corridor of smeared concrete you’ll find a small community of homeless game developers; poor souls who have been thrown to the wind after cancelled projects and canned IPs. Recently joining their ranks were several staff from the now defunct studio in charge of the Guitar Hero franchise, following the dumping of GH by Activision.

Pixel Hunt has never braved Publisher Alley, but a reliable source was employed (for the price of a hotdog) to investigate.

Unfortunately, it seems the GH staff aren’t doing too well. Described by others within Publisher Alley as ‘fresh meat’, they occupy the lowest rungs of this miniature society, forced to perform debasing acts such as writing code for more senior ‘alley cats’ (developers attempting to claw their way back into entry level jobs) and filling out bugsheets for QA testers. Food is apparently in such short supply that just throwing a packet of chips at the GH team results in a piranha-like frenzy. More on their plight as things develop.

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3DS Art Exhibit Goes Too Far Most gamers have come to the realisation that the ‘games are art’ debate is about as interesting as counting the hairs on your arm. Nonetheless there are some who take it very seriously, and some who just take it way too far. Such is the case with an exhibition opening in London next week. Entitled “Skull-F**k the World: Feminism and 3D Gaming Through the Eyes of Children”, the exhibit includes thirteen orphans who have had their eyes surgically removed. Some financial backtracking courtesy of Lester Freamon shows that an evil subsidiary of Nintendo America is behind the initiative. When questioned, a PR rep had this to say: “The 3DS represents a reawakening of our senses. As such, this exhibit is all about art and stuff, and those children were each paid handsomely with a free 3DS!” When asked to shed some light on the meaning and purpose of the exhibit, the PR rep remained cryptic. “We want viewers to make their own minds up.” www.PIXELHUNT.com.AU

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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

ANNIKA HOWELLS is the queen of her castle.

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he back end of 2010 was a difficult time. With so many quality titles coming out each week, gamers could simply not afford to buy every single one. Or if they could, they probably didn’t have time to play them all. Chances are, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow was one of the games you chose to save your cash on, or perhaps it’s gathering dust on your shelf. Either way it’s a shame, because Lords Of Shadow is a real gem.

Castlevania games have a poor track record when it comes to the third dimension. Mercury Steam and Kojima Productions have navigated this pitfall by not actually creating a new Castlevania game at all.

Instead, they have taken the best aspects of every other game of the past few years and smooshed it all together like some kind of spectacular 6

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Katamari (incidentally, Katamari is pretty much the only game they haven’t borrowed from). There are boss battles straight from Shadow of The Colossus, Uncharted-esque climbing sections, God Of War’s flashy, button-mashing combat, and Devil May Cry’s elaborate enemy design.

Films have been influential as well, with obvious homage paid to the likes of Pan’s Labyrinth and Lord Of The Rings in the environments and characters.

What Lords Of Shadow lacks in originality, it makes up for with delivery. The game looks absolutely gorgeous, taking you through lush forests, murky swamps, snowy vistas and crumbling gothic castles.

The attention to detail in design is astounding – evident by the copious amounts of unlockable concept art.

The enemies are diverse and creative,

and I must say it is a pleasure to see vampires and werewolves looking ugly and evil again. You won’t find any thirteen year old girls swooning over these bad boys.

Lords Of Shadow is ENORMOUS. However, each chapter is a nice, bite-sized length, so it’s easy to say “I’ll just play one more” and then find yourself still going at 2am, telling yourself you don’t need to eat or sleep because you can collect coloured orbs to do that for you now.

Each chapter has a specific challenge and multiple items to be found, many of which can only be accessed after

getting certain upgrades, adding further replay value to the already gigantic main game.

Combat is mostly button mashing, and while you spend the whole game unlocking and buying upgraded moves, it’s more effective to just spam the basic ones. The combat is spiced up by a dual magic system. Use your blue power and your health will regenerate with each blow you land.

Use your red power and each blow will deliver more damage. Another fun aspect of combat is jumping onto the backs of various enemies and riding around on them, whether for march 2011

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

“I AM GOING TO NEED SOMETHING A LITTLE BIGGER”

Developer Konami Publisher Konami Platform 360 / PS3 Genre Action

OFFICIAL WEBSITE

The story plays out as your basic good vs. evil fare, with a stoic hero searching for his lost love, all the while with a facial expression like he’s got a lemon up his arse.

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platforming, puzzle solving or crushing your enemies like tiny grapes.

Some of the puzzle sections are quite inventive, such as the level where you’re shrunk down into an intricate music box, or having to track down chupacabras that have stolen your powers. But there are still far too many tedious light refraction puzzles that just slow the game down. Fortunately they’re brief, letting you get back to beating up mythical nasties and clambering up castle towers.

The story plays out as your basic good vs. evil fare, with a stoic hero

searching for his lost love, all the while with a facial expression like he’s got a lemon up his arse. It’s completely unremarkable until the very end when the whole thing goes very Hideo Kojima, with twist after twist and a ridiculously lengthy exposition by a villain who then says “So, you’ve finally figured it all out… MUAHAHAHA!” In fact, I hadn’t figured anything out and I wasn’t even sure who this villain guy was. I wouldn’t have even bothered mentioning the story if it weren’t for the epilogue, which is so gob-smackingly awesome that it

overshadows all the slush that came before it and leaves you salivating for the next instalment.

Fans of the Castlevania franchise will probably be disappointed by how un-Castlevania the whole thing is, but fans of big dumb action adventure fun will have a ball.

Lords Of Shadow may be unoriginal, but it’s one very good looking and enjoyable knock-off. Like a fake designer handbag, it looks great and you’ll get quite a lot of enjoyment out of it. Just don’t show anyone the inner lining up close.

ANNIKA HOWELLS www.PIXELHUNT.com.AU

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God Damned Crazy: A GDC Adventure Pixel Hunt’s man in San Fran, BRENDAN KEOGH, recounts his memorable week at the 2011 Game Developer’s Conference.

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ll around me, people are jamming their oversized carry-on luggage into the plane’s overhead lockers. The Australian accents in the row behind me are jarringly unfamiliar but comfortably nostalgic. Over the next fourteen hours, flying from LAX to Sydney International, I have plenty of time to get re-accustomed. That is, of course, if I don’t pass out first, which is quite likely considering the week I just had.

I am returning home after a week spent in San Francisco at the 25th Game Developer’s Conference. You might know it as GDC. 8

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Once a year, a significant percentage of the game industry’s developers, designers, artists, writers, publishers, programmers, and theorists converge on the Moscone Exhibition Centre to mingle, teach, learn, and, most significantly, play. In their wake, an equally intimidating mob of middleware merchants and press gather. This year, I was fortunate enough to be one of the latter, while I mostly managed to avoid the former—though they have managed to spam up my email for the past month with opportunities to monetize my gameification schemes.

Where do I even begin an account

of GDC? I learnt so many things, met so many people, and played so many games that no one article could hope to convey the entire experience. Do I detail the sessions? The expo? The award show? The parties? Do I focus on the sheer quantity of people, supposedly topping 19,000 attendees this year? Do I try to explain how despite this, you still might bump into John Romero at a party, Jason Rohrer on a train, or Mega64 in a bar?

Oh, by the way, I did all of these.

GDC is too many things to be categorized as any one thing. It’s too big, too unruly, too utterly insane. Yet, paradoxically, it is the tightest, most

... a significant percentage of the game industry’s developers, designers, artists, writers, publishers, programmers, and theorists converge on the Moscone Exhibition Centre to mingle, teach, learn, and, most significantly, play. march 2011

The unofficial theme for this year’s conference almost seemed to be “are social games real games?”

Everyone had an opinion on this new, young sector of the gaming community. angry birds agreeable group of people you could ever hope to meet. Some faces may be more recognizable than others, but everyone is there for the same reasons: because they love games, and they love playing.

Well, okay, everyone except Zynga.

The presence of social network and mobile game developers at GDC is a topic of much contention.

The unofficial theme for this year’s conference almost seemed to be “are social games real games?” Everyone had an opinion on this new, young sector of the gaming community. In many ways, they’re like the teenage punks of the games industry - albeit Australia’s best gaming

-zine

well groomed ones who are focused on making lots of money. Every second talk seemed to be either a veteran game developer warning against the evils of social games, or a young upand-coming developer from Zynga, Rovio or ngmoco:) lauding metrics, Facebook, and the iPhone.

The underlying anxiety towards social and mobile games hovered just below the surface for most of the conference, but came to the forefront in Wednesday morning’s keynote, delivered by the president of Nintendo, Satoru Iwata.

Iwata’s keynote was a babushka doll of a talk. On the surface, it was a retrospective on the last twenty-five

years of video games (more specifically, Nintendo video games). But underneath this was a poorly hidden marketing stint for the 3DS, and underneath that, was a not-so-subtle attack on mobile games.

Iwata directly attacked what he sees as ‘disposable games’ from companies focused on churning out games in huge quantity and low quality.

See, Nintendo long ago gave up competing with Sony and Microsoft for the ‘hardcore’ audience, choosing instead to focus on the untapped wallets of the casual scene. But now that Facebook and iPhone games are on the scene, offering quality casual games for a fraction of the

price of a DS game, Nintendo have found themselves in a whole new console war. Don’t think for a second that the unveiling of the new iPad across the road at the same time as Iwata’s keynote was a coincidence.

Iwata, along with all traditional game developers and publishers, is afraid of these new fields of play.

Far more interesting than Iwata’s defensive “those aren’t real games” ramble was the annual game developers’ rant, where some of the bigger voices in the industry can let off steam. The topic of this year’s rant was “No Freaking Respect: Social Game Developers Rant Back.” Fingers were www.PIXELHUNT.com.AU

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...a pixellated orange man and an pixellated yellow man were projected onto the wall as they ran at each other, threw swords, slid, punched, and were eaten by giant serpents.

The crowd cheered, the players bowed, the controllers were sticky with spilt beer. pointed, names were called, cows were clicked, plastic coins were stolen (it’s a long story). I won’t instigate any individual people in the mud-flinging, suffice to say it was a memorable experience with a dialogue that wouldn’t be out of place in Bulletstorm.

For my part, are social games really games? Who cares. Certainly, there is a discussion to have in regard to the addictive nature of some social games, and their tendency to exploit their player base. But for the most part, if more people are able to discover the joys of games and playing through social games, then I think that is great.

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And that is possibly the single most significant thing I got out of GDC: an appreciation for the power and the perversity of play. Play is everywhere and is a definitive aspect of what it means to be human. It is pretty easy to forget this in the drudgery of everyday life, but a week-long conference of game designers is the perfect place to remember it.

Be they MMOs, cutscene-heavy adventure games, niche indie titles, card games, social games, or performative turn-based combat simulators (more on that in a moment), games were everywhere at GDC, and they all served some kind of social

function. If people weren’t playing games, they were talking about games; or teaching people new games; or creating new games, or sharing experiences, anecdotes, and stories.

On the Wednesday night, I was in a bar for a demonstration of Messhof’s newest indie, psychedelic, and now award-winning jousting game, Nidhogg. While people drank, danced, and argued over that evening’s award show (Super Meat Boy was robbed, by the way), a pixellated orange man and an pixellated yellow man were projected onto the wall as they ran at each other, threw swords, slid, punched, and were eaten by giant

serpents. The crowd cheered, the players bowed, the controllers were sticky with spilt beer.

Thursday night was the inaugural (and God I hope annual) Kill Screen Magazine and Copenhagen Game Collective party.

Walking into the warehouse hidden down a back alley of The Mission was to be hit with a dizzying wall of motion and playfulness. Half a dozen obscure Scandinavian games were projected onto the walls, and everywhere were people playing.

B.U.T.T.O.N (or Brutally Unfair Tactics Totally Okay Now) usually sees four players forced to do all kinds of crazy moves (spin in a circle, touch march 2011

kill screen magazine

www.killscreenmagazine.com

something orange, sit on the ground) before making a mad dash for their button beneath the monitor where they need to fulfil more crazy demands to win (first player whose button is pressed fourteen times wins! Second player whose button is held for seven seconds loses!). To further complicate things at the party, the buttons were taped to four robot-guised volunteers dashing around the venue.

Next to this was Monkey See, Monkey Mime. Players strapped Wiimotes to their arms and head and performed crazy interpretative dances while the other players frantically attempted to mimic them.

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If they fell too far behind, they would be kicked from the round.

And then, after several kegs of beer had been emptied, Richard Lemarchand (lead game designer at Naughty Dog) appeared and taught us all Ninja. Standing in a circle, players took turns to lash out at each other with their best ninja moves in an attempt to hit another player’s hands to knock them out of the game. It was as ridiculous and absurd as it sounds, but it was utterly amazing and fun.

Once the party was over and everyone stumbled out onto the late night/early morning streets of

San Francisco, more games of Ninja spontaneously erupted. At one point, about twenty people were playing in the middle of a street. At the centre of them all was Lemarchand, slaughtering opponents in swathes with karate chops and high kicks.

The point of these stories is not to boast about the amount of fun I had, or the fact that I got karate chopped by the lead game designer of Uncharted 2. Rather, the point is that everyone was playing. Not just drunkenly at parties, but also at the conference. All week, everyone, everywhere, was playing.

Play is crucial to existence and

it is not something we should be ashamed of. This is what I learnt at GDC. Humans forgot that for a while, but with video games, we are once again learning what it means to play.

“Are social games real games?” is the wrong question.

All games are social; that’s the point: they allow us to socialise through play. Video games aren’t some nerdy subculture we partake in; they are much more important than that. Video games tap into the very point of existence: to play. Does that sound a bit ideological? Well, GDC is infectious like that.

BRENDAN KEOGH www.PIXELHUNT.com.AU

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FEATURE

HOME IS WHERE THE GAME IS

muteki htddw7500 www.jbhifionline.com.au

...the ultimate gaming luxury..

Many dream what the ultimate gaming den might be like, but actually putting one together can be both challenging and pricy. ALEX WALKER gives you all the information you need to begin building your own gaming nirvana.

A

hard fact of life is that your gaming environment you play in just as important as the games you play.

You might be an ardent Call of Duty fan, but you’ll be a lot less enthusiastic after spending two hours sitting on a milk crate than if you were relaxing in a high-back office chair.

Consoles are no different: a proper television with the right lighting, proper sound setup and a comfy sofa is light-years away from sitting awkwardly in a garden chair looking at half a picture, because you bought a TV that’s four feet long and now you can’t adjust it to the proper viewing angle.

With so many products to consider – TVs, chairs, consoles, desks, mousepads, keyboards, gaming gloves, surround sound systems and every other piece of paraphernalia – simply improving your setup can be a frustrating experience.

That’s where Pixel Hunt comes in. Let’s get comfortable.

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the sound boomchair stealth www.boomchair.com

the chair Ikea’s VERNER swivel chair is comfort on a budget, although for console gaming the Retro King Kahuna Beanbag is heaven for under $200. If you’ve got money to blow, the $400 Boomchair Stealth, complete with an in-built 4-inch subwoofer, three 2-way speakers, RCA input/output ports and adjustable volume, treble and bass, is the ultimate gaming luxury.

Speakers for computers start out fairly cheap: Antec Lansing’s VS2621 three-piece setup will set you back $50 while Logitech’s Z506 offers a 5.1 Surround Sound upgrade for $98.

Headphones are much better value for money these days too, and the Plantronics GameCom 367 for $38 from MSY is an absolute steal. The Audio Technica ATH-AD700’s are a fair step up at $150, but so is the sound, especially when listening to music and movies.

For televisions, speakers are almost a necessity in this day and age of wafer thin panels. The trick is working out what kind of setup can function with your wallet and the available space.

A sound bar speaker is essentially surround sound in a single unit – fewer cables, so less clutter - although the added convenience comes with a larger price tag. JVC’s TH-BA1 will set you back $649 through JVC’s Australian portal, although a quick search on Amazon found the same speakers for $US251.42. The Zvox Mini will also do the job for a much more respectable $449, although unless you live in Canberra or Perth, you’ll be forced to buy before you try.

Fans of a more traditional, multi-speaker setup, may be interested in the Yamaha YHT-294 5.1 channel home theatre system. If you’re willing to spend the cash, Sony’s Muteki HTDDW7500 nine-speaker setup is an absolute blast – although it’s also $1000. And did I mention it came with nine speakers? march 2011

the screen

If you want the fastest possible response time on a TV, look no further than a plasma television. They’re bulky, come with a risk of burn-in and aren’t great in the sun, but the contrast levels and picture quality is fantastic.

Panasonic’s VIERA 42” plasma supports 1080p for less than $800 from JB Hi-Fi. If 42” isn’t big enough, you can pick up the 50” LG plasma for $988.

Spend an extra couple of thousand and you can add a 65” plasma to your wall, courtesy of Panasonic.

If plasma isn’t your thing, or you don’t have the space or the support for something quite that heavy, LCD/LED TV is the next best option. Kogan’s 32” LCD will get you 1080p gaming on a shoestring, although it’s well worth scrimping together pennies to upgrade to Kogan’s 32” with an in-built PVR and Blu-Ray player. You can also pick up the Samsung 32” UA32C5000 LED for a similar price ($899, in stores only) while Samsung’s 37” model fits just under the $1000 budget with a dollar left over for the flood levy.

The next step up is size, as well as 3D gaming. A Sony Bravia 40” LED LCD won’t get you 3D, but it does come with a 100hz refresh rate and IPTV for just under $1400 from JB. Big W’s online store is selling an older model of the 40” Bravia – the KDL40EX500 – for $1047 – while the same site has a Samsung Series 5 46”

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FEATURE LCD for $1228. The newer Samsung 46” LCD model (which was rated very highly by consumer group Choice in a test of 46” TVs) is selling for $1499 at The Good Guys, so you may be able to save as much as $200 with a bit of haggling.

If you live on a palatial estate or a villa on a few acres where you have the space for an even larger screen, the Sony Bravia 55” for $3296 will surely accommodate even the biggest spaces. If you want to take things a step further, an Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 8350 Projector for $US1299 can beam perfect 1080P pictures onto any wall in the house.

Thankfully, sorting through monitors is a much easier task. The more hours a day you spend gaming, the more value you’ll get out of the 120hz-capable, 3D ready screens. The BenQ XL2410T and the Alienware Optx AW2310 are both excellent tools for the job here, whether you choose to game in 3D or just play everything in 120hz.

Unfortunately, they’re also both more than $400. Not every computer is capable of handling a solid 120 frames a second either. If you just want a solid all-rounder at a more reasonable price, then BenQ’s E2420HD and the ASUS VE248H are worthy candidates for less than $250. (Samsung BX2440 is also a good choice, but it doesn’t come with a HDMI port.)

panasonic’s viera 42” www.jbhifionline.com.au

...the Sony Bravia 55” for $3296 will surely accommodate even the biggest spaces.

sony bravia 55”

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FEATURE

steelseries 6gv2

www.steelseries.com

the other stuff If you’ve got a console, you think you’re right to go: but there are a few other bits and pieces that can make all the difference.

Sound, for example, can have a completely different effect depending on the position. Having a speaker stored on the ground can often be far less effective than spending a little extra on some wall mounts. Selby Acoustics sells speaker brackets and mounts for a modest price, although you’ll need to check for compatibility.

Having a HDMI to DVI cable is also handy, in case you want to connect your console into your non-HDMI capable monitor. You can pick up a Belkin HDMI to DVI converter from the Apple online store for $30.

But while console users are still 14

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...Razer Deathadder are proven performers among casual and professional gamers alike.

coming out of the dark with many parts of their gaming setup, PC gamers are still getting some of the basics wrong. One of the most aggravating habits of PC gamers is seeing them spend up to $150 on a gaming-grade laser mouse, but then ruin the experience by using the desk or a plank of wood as a mousepad.

A Razer Goliathus (Speed or Control edition) can extend the life of your mouse by years, particularly those precious Teflon mouse feet, for as little as $20. If you’re used to a traditional standard mousing surface, be sure to pick up the Speed edition, as the Control features a particular weave that can feel annoying against your wrist.

Mice can be hit and miss, but

razer deathadder

www.au.razerzone.com

Microsoft’s Intellimouse V3 and the Razer Deathadder are proven performers among casual and professional gamers alike. The former sells for less than $50 in most stores in Australia, while $60 is the standard going rate for a Deathadder/Deathadder V2 (the V2 has a 3500DPI sensor instead of 1800DPI, although since 3500DPI is far too sensitive for gaming, this has no real practical value).

Keyboards are a cheap exercise too. A $45 Microsoft Sidewinder X4 keyboard will be sufficient for 99% of gamers. For the other 1% harbouring delusions about their need for a mechanical keyboard, the SteelSeries 6GV2 for around $150 will satisfy your need.

Gamers like shopping. Let’s not beat around the bush here; we’re like a legion of magpies, hunting for the newest, shiniest toy we can stick in our kleptomaniac-like beaks. The key is to be smart when you do go shopping, not getting too wowed by a flashy picture in the store or a good deal on another model that isn’t suitable for your needs. Keep those things in mind when improving your setup, and you’ll be relaxing in gaming bliss in no time.

ALEX WALKER

belkin hdmi/dvi

www.belkin.com/au

march 2011

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

PROFESSOR PIXEL When he’s not meditating, playing The Legend of Zelda backwards with one hand or finding conspiratorial messages in issues of Woman’s Day, PROFESSOR PIXEL answers your most fiendish gaming questions.

Got a question for Professor Pixel? Fire it off to professorpixel@pixelhunt.com.au

Q

Dear Professor

Professor Pixel

What the hell is going on over at Activision? In the last month we’ve had Bizarre Studios close their doors for good and the Guitar Hero franchise totally shut down.

Regards Concerned Frederick

Q

Dear Professor

I’m a man. Not only a man, but a manly man. Or at least, I was. The other day I went and purchased Kirby’s Epic Yarn. Upon seeing the giant, spherical, very pink and utterly joyous Kirby on the front cover, complete with magical yellow star attached to its long pink appendage, the store clerk looked at me, looked back at the cover, looked at me again. He raised

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Thanks for your question Frederick. Things do seem rather unstable over at Activision. My Activision insider tells me that a recent incident in Activision HQ may have something to do with the sudden cutbacks and layoffs – it was Bobby Kotick’s birthday a couple of months an eyebrow, regarding me with suspicion. I shrugged and giggled nervously. As he bags the game he lets out a deep sigh, gives a subtle shake of his head, then hands me the bag without making eye contact. It was almost as if he was suggesting that a grown man shouldn’t be playing a game about guiding a pink blob through a magical world of yarn. Is he right? Should I just cut off my testicles

ago. There were big plans for a cake with strippers, helium balloons and a big banner that said ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY BOBBY!!’ on one side and ‘EA SUX!!’ on the other.

Unfortunately, everybody forgot Bobby’s birthday. Bobby turned up expecting cake and strippers and balloons and having a good old chortle at and mail them directly to Nintendo?

I keenly await your advice.

MP

A

Professor Pixel

Don’t go cutting anything off yet, MP. From the sounds of things, perhaps the store clerk WAS passing judgement upon you for your purchase. But so what? If a man wants to guide a pink blob through a magical world of yarn, what right does

THQ’s new logo, but all he got was a report with the latest sales numbers for Guitar Hero: Warriors Of Rock and a prank call from Tim Schafer.

He went into a rage and cancelled the whole franchise.

Then he hid under his desk and wailed for several hours.

Eventually he was able to be lured out with Skittles. anybody else have to judge him for that desire? A real man should not only play Kirby’s Epic Yarn in all its G-rated glory, they should broadcast with pride that they completed it 100% and found every last furniture item to decorate their house in Quilty Court, especially the archway from the Rainbow Falls level, it looks really great between the windows. Not that I would know, Kirby’s Epic Yarn is totally for girls.

KIRBY’s EPIC YARN A game with balls?

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THE GAME DOCTOR

GTA IV

One Man’s Quest to Earn A PhD By Wanking On About Games He Likes...

BIIIiiG AMERICAN TEEEEEETTIIIES More thesis tales from our very own cross between House and Dr. Mario, JAMES O’CONNOR.

“One gets rid of narrative as a framework for thinking about games only at one’s own risk.” “…the discussion operates with too narrow a model of narrative, one preoccupied with the rules and conventions of classical linear storytelling.”

- Henry Jenkins ‘Game Design As Narrative Architecture’

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he direction of my thesis has changed a bit since the last time I feverishly slapped together this column between deadlines (this one has missed its deadline: I’ve 16

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been battling teaching work, thesis proposal resubmissions, other work and one horrific hangover). That is to say, three quarters of it has been lost in favour of a significant expansion of the other quarter. The provisional title is now something along the lines of ‘Player Responses to and Experiences with Narrative in Grand Theft Auto IV and other Open World Action Games’.

So, essentially, my thesis is going to be about talking to players about how they play through GTA IV. How they reconcile their killing sprees

with the ‘main’ narrative. What kind of wacky adventures they’ve had in Liberty City. What they consider part of the game’s ‘canon’, and whether actions that aren’t saved ‘count’.

Whether they try to narrate their pigeon hunts or not. That sort of thing. I’ll also be tackling machinima, walkthroughs, and various other surrounding texts.

The voice of the ‘gamer’ is largely missing from games academia.

Certainly there are examples of ethnographic research with players out there, but most of them seem

to have been conducted by people who don’t actually play the games themselves. In fact, videogame academia is full of people who had only just picked up a controller two years before their books were published. Peter Brookey opens his book about the relationship between games and Hollywood (which I won’t name because I refuse to give such an enormous piece of shit any publicity) by thanking the man who “first put a control pod (sic) in his hands”. That, to me, is disgusting.

As a gamer myself, I am march 2011

THE GAME DOCTOR

liberty city

I know Liberty City like the back of…. well, not my own hand, but certainly the hand of someone I see at least once a week.

This should allow me to conduct research through casual discussion...

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potentially, and uniquely, positioned as a participant observer (I think is the right terminology anyway – I’d check, but not needing to reference these things is so damn liberating!). I know GTA IV inside out. I’ll be playing it – and a few other open world action games – again, all the way through, soon. I know Liberty City like the back of….well, not my own hand, but certainly the hand of someone I see at least once a week. This should allow me to conduct research through casual discussion, and I won’t need everything explained to

me, as is so often the case with this sort of research.

What I really want out of my research is to put the player back into the writing. I want players to discuss with me the ways in which they engage with open world action titles, in terms of their exploration of space, their justification of actions, and whether they view their activities as simple play, as narrative exploration, or as a sort of escapism from the limitations of the ‘real’ world. I want to discuss how players approach the random acts of

violence these games allow them to commit, and whether they feel any remorse for these actions. I’d like to determine whether any remorse is the result of the actual crimes committed, or rather a feeling of guilt at potential narrative dissonance.

I think this will be interesting.

I sincerely hope it will be. I may even be able to use Pixel Hunt to source some research subjects!

More on that next time. Or possibly the time after, it’s hard to predict these things.

JAMES O’CONNOR

www.PIXELHUNT.com.AU

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FEATURE

TRUE JRPG REINCARNATION

Sometimes a video game phenomenon in Japan translates well in the West, and sometimes it doesn’t.

JAHANZEB KHAN takes us on a journey through the Shin Megami Tensei series and explains what we’ve been missing out on.

T

he name ‘Shin Megami Tensei’ (which translates literally as ‘True Goddess Reincarnation’) has earned quite a reputation over the years as an elusive and legendary Japanese RPG franchise that simply screams ‘niche’ and ‘hardcore’.

Originally starting out as Megami Tensei, the series is as old as Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest and Phantasy Star, although it doesn’t enjoy the same amount of popularity and recognition that those titles grew to receive. Shin Megami Tensei was late in reaching Western audiences, 18

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eventually hitting the United States in 1996 with Revelations: Persona (later renamed to Shin Megami Tensei Persona).

Unsurprisingly, Australian gamers never got a chance to experience Persona. The first official Shin Megami Tensei title to arrive on our shores was none other than Shin Megami Tensei: Lucifer’s Call (also known as Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne) in 2005. By contrast, the first Final Fantasy to reach Australia was VII, in 1997, eight years earlier.

While Final Fantasy and Dragon

Quest were exploring medieval settings and Phantasy Star took to the cosmos, Megami Tensei did things differently. It created a world based closer to reality. Even the more overtly fictional aspects of it were relatable to the real world.

Shin Megami Tensei games usually took place in a present day Japan setting, with characters comprising of high school students, detectives, computer nerds and basically ordinary people. A real world inspired setting obviously still needs fictional and fantasy

elements to make it a proper RPG, so Shin Megami Tensei has always drawn heavily from real world mythologies, religions and cultures.

Famous figures and characters from Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism and Shinto, as well as Norse and Greek mythology, appeared in the game as ‘demons’, which players must battle and work with. The writing in Shin Megami Tensei titles was more sophisticated than your typical ‘hero saves the world’ plot, with dark undertones and religion and morality taking centre stage. Perhaps it was march 2011

FEATURE

...Megami Tensei did things differently. It created a world based closer to reality. Even the more overtly fictional aspects of it were relatable to the real world.

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2006

2005

FEATURE

PAL-SONA

Release Date: July 1, 2005

Release Date: July 21, 2006

Release Date: March 2, 2007

Shin Megami games that got a PAL/AUS release.

Shin Megami Tensei: Lucifer’s Call

Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga

Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 2

due to these strong, dark and (dare I say) ‘anti-religious’ themes that the series could not be released outside of Japan without heavy alteration.

However, not all Shin Megami Tensei games were like this. The series has explored a variety of different settings and themes to keep things fresh. The Persona and Devil Survivor series retain the classic elements of the franchise but are more light-hearted and uplifting, sporting interesting characters, a catchy J-pop soundtrack, typical

Japanese anime humour and plenty of style. Digital Devil Saga took place in a futuristic sci-fi setting, while the Devil Summoner games took place in the early 19th century.

As mentioned earlier, Shin Megami Tensei: Lucifer’s Call was the very first Shin Megami title released in Australia, and while it wasn’t exactly a commercial success, it is still regarded by some as one of the better RPG experiences of the last generation. At the time, I had no knowledge of the franchise and bought the title only

because I had read that Dante from Devil May Cry featured in the game.

What I played was unlike anything I had played before. I’d entered a living, breathing post-apocalyptic world populated with demonic creatures, powered by a dark and surreal plot with mysterious characters. The experience felt more intense and mature than any other RPG I had played, and the dark religious undertones were a huge plus.

Then along came Persona 3 and Persona 4. Those two games brought the franchise into the

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Platform: PS2

Platform: PS2

Platform: PS2

...Shin Megami Tensei: Lucifer’s Call was the very first Shin Megami title released in Australia, and while it wasn’t exactly a commercial success, it is still regarded by some as one of the better RPG experiences...

march 2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

FEATURE

Release Date: May 3, 2007

Release Date: March 6, 2008

Release Date: March 12, 2009

Release Date: August 11, 2010

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs.

The Soulless Army

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3

Shin Megami Tensei Persona 4

Shin Megami Tensei Persona

mainstream and suddenly a much wider audience became aware of the series. Taking place in present day Japan but in a fictional location, Persona can be best described as a mix between a dungeon crawler RPG and a visual novel with a touch of dating simulator. Persona was like an anime series you could control, where progression was on a day by day basis (in-game time of course) and each day felt like a new episode.

Persona offered a degree of freedom that cannot be found in a traditional

Japanese RPG, and while the degree of freedom was nowhere near the staggering level of Western RPGs, it was still sufficient to create a unique experience tailored to the player.

Another element that set the series apart was the ability to communicate with demons. In Pokemon you just beat the crap out of poor little creatures and then trap them into tiny balls. In Shin Megami Tensei things are a little bit more humane and professional; you have to talk to demons and persuade them to

Platform: PS2

Platform: PS2

Platform: PSP

Platform: PS2

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work for you. This basically involves conversing with them, winning them over with charm and saying the right things. It can also involve striking a deal with them which may require you to part with some money, items and vitality. It’s a real shame that this idea didn’t become popular. It is certainly a more intuitive and interesting way of collecting creatures than just beating them up, but then I suppose an Incubus doesn’t have the same appeal as a Pikachu.

Even with several excellent

Japanese RPG franchises like Suikoden, Tales, Final Fantasy, Disgaea, Dragon Quest and Phantasy Star, you’d be hard pressed to find anything like Shin Megami Tensei. If you’re the kind of gamer who hates Japanese RPGs because of all the stale conventions associated with the genre, then fire up a Shin Megami Tensei game; you may well find yourself falling in love with some of the most unique and innovative titles in the JRPG canon.

JAHANZEB KHAN

www.PIXELHUNT.com.AU

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KILL DEATH RATIO

Battlefield: Bad Company 2: Vietnam When we realised there were not one but two colons in the title of this expansion, we figured we’d need not two but three brave and able-bodied soldiers to deliver a report.

Instead, we got DYLAN BURNS, KEN LEE and JAMES O’CONNOR.

Ken: I think you all know by now that I absolutely love Battlefield: Bad Company 2. I was really looking forward to the Vietnam DLC: A new setting, new maps and new weapons. It hasn’t disappointed so far, although there are things I haven’t come to terms with yet. Even so, there are plenty of changes that I feel have had a positive impact on the game. The first of which are the new weapons, and more importantly, how scopes have been removed from most of them. Without the scopes, I either need to be far more accurate, or get in closer. This leads to more 22

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intense skirmishes, which really ties into the Vietnam feel. What do you guys think?

Dylan: The flamethrower is pretty cool, but it’s hard to get kills with.

Even though the maps encourage more close quarters combat, an AK beats a flamethrower most of the time. In fact, an AK is pretty damn handy even for snipe shots.

I like what they’ve done with this expansion, embracing the era and translating period-related limitations to the gameplay experience. In some ways it evens the playing field, especially for players who previously

had upgraded sights on their automatic weapons.

Ken: I definitely agree that the Vietnam theme is incorporated very strongly into the design of the game, in terms of visuals, audio, and gameplay. Even the title screen gives you a clear indication of that Vietnam vibe, with the shirtless soldier with a flak jacket, and Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Fortunate Son blaring in the background. The feel is just spot-on.

The flamethrower breaks my heart too. I love flamethrowers in videogames, but there’s a real lack of punch in Vietnam. I’m sure it’s

been balanced to prevent people from abusing it, but nonetheless, when I set someone on fire, I expect them to die!

The other big addition to the game are the maps, which I feel are very well done. One of my criticisms of the maps in vanilla BC2 is how narrow and funnelled the maps feel.

There’s a small corridor leading to the objective points, and the areas around those points are quite cramped as well. In Vietnam, the objective points are still quite cramped, but the areas leading up to them are wider, allowing for more march 2011

KILL DEATH RATIO

Battlefield: Bad Company 2: Vietnam Developer DICE Publisher EA Platform 360 / PS3 / PC Genre Shooter OFFICIAL WEBSITE

...the first time I used the flamethrower I lit four of my own teammates on fire and watched in horror as they all died.

James

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flanking movements. I find that this opens up tactical options for players, instead of just chucking bodies into the meat grinder.

James: Man, the first time I used the flamethrower I lit four of my own teammates on fire and watched in horror as they all died. I put it away and haven’t pulled it out again. Are you guys not playing on hardcore? Because on hardcore, the flamethrower is brutal. You’re also seriously not getting the full Battlefield experience – playing a medic in hardcore mode is excellent fun.

The Vietnam expansion is excellent.

I love that choppers are more vulnerable. I think the map designs are excellent. But most importantly of all, it nails the balance between personal heroics and the need for teamwork even better than the original modes did. The winning team is almost always the one that works together, but sometimes you need an individual player who the rest of the team can feel compelled to rally behind. Being the player who blows up an M-COM station or captures the third base, bringing together a team that previously reeked

of disillusionment, is a powerful experience. The Vietnam expansion, with its lack of scopes and vast open killing fields, suits this sort of play to a tee. Conquest mode on Vantage Point is particularly incredible.

Ken: I think you’re spot on about the team mechanics, James. Team cohesion is definitely a key to surviving in Vietnam. Being a lone wolf will not get you far in this game.

The game does inspire leadership, and it’s a thrill for both the leader and follower when someone steps up to fill that role.

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KILL DEATH RATIO

It doesn’t quite feel as unbalanced as Call of Duty and I find that the maps are always designed in ways that make each game feel different.

Dylan

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in vanilla BC2, largely because I find it hard to navigate without the minimap. Even in BC2, I still sometimes find it hard to orientate myself in each level, and to call out positions to my team-mates. This is why I love the compass addition to the mini-map in Vietnam so much, and makes me wish this could be brought into BC2 retroactively. I can yell out “enemy entering east of bravo”, instead of “enemy coming up from that bit of

river that meets the big rock behind the village”.

And yes, the choppers being vulnerable this time is great. It’s changed the whole pace of the game. Teams concentrate their fire on the common threat; people aren’t merely running to take control of enemy choppers to dominate the map nfairly.

Dylan: I would have far less hours than you guys, as I uniformly suck at multiplayer shooters. I enjoy them,

but I rarely get many kills and I find that I lose patience quite quickly.

That said, I do enjoy Bad Company 2’s multiplayer. It doesn’t quite feel as unbalanced as Call of Duty and I find that the maps are always designed in ways that make each game feel different. With Battlefield 3 just officially announced, Call Of Duty had better watch its back.

DYLAN BURNS, KEN LEE & JAMES O’CONNOR march 2011

SIX Ways To Not Suck At BAD COMPANY 2: VIETNAM

1

Slow Down Sergeant Brown: It’s not essential to always be running.

Sometimes taking a moment to pause can give you time to survey the area. It’s also surprising how easily spotted a moving target is, even at distance.

Be More Supportive, You Jerk: Every available character class has some type of support function, whether it’s dropping ammo or laying landmines.

Communicate with your squad on what support you can provide. You don’t need to be an ace shooter to help your team win.

When In Doubt, Blob: If you’re struggling to mount a good defense in Rush, try Medic-blobbing a single M-COM station with your squad. If everyone is playing a medic, then as long as one person survives an assault they can bring everyone else back to life. Get an ammo pack in there as well and you can offer some real resistance. Of course, if you can hold the enemy team at bay without needing

2

3

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KILL DEATH RATIO

everyone to fall back to the M-Com station, more power to you.

Repair Enemy Tanks – And By Repair We Mean Destroy: If you can get close, use the engineer repair tool to attack enemy tanks. This is done so rarely that the tank’s occupants usually aren’t expecting it, and since you’re right up against them they’ll often be at a loss as to what to do about it. If you’re really lucky, they won’t even work out what is happening until their tank explodes.

Squads = Winning: Always choose to be put into a squad, even if you’re not playing with friends. It means you’ll usually be able to spawn much closer to the action.

Pretend You’re Playing Red Faction: Guerilla: Remember that there are ways of blowing up M-COM stations other than planting on them. Learn which buildings can be collapsed, and which stations can be damaged by, say, planting C4 outside of the structure they’re in….

4

5 6

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ON THE HUNT

WHAT WE’RE PLAYING Believe it or not, the Pixel Hunt staff actually play some video games now and then. Here’s what has tickled their fancies of late.

JAHANZEB KHAN

Hard Corps: Uprising

Contra meets Guilty Gear in this brilliant new XBLA title. I love run and gun shooters and have poured countless hours into games like Gunstar Heroes, Contra and Metal Slug. I’m also a huge fan of Guilty Gear.

Hard Corps: Uprising combines the best of both worlds to create a gorgeous, addictive and tough as nails shooting experience.

ALEX WALKER

Game Dev Story

This tycoon-style game has me hooked.

Pretending to be Bobby Kotick, watching as millions of morons purchase my Reversi online RPG, is a great relaxant on the ride home from work. Bring on the sequel.

PATRICK LANG

Yakuza 3

With Yakuza 4 due out next month, I thought it was about time I caught up with Sega’s crazy gangster/minigame/ soap opera hybrid.

It’s amazing! Nothing beats stomping around downtown Tokyo, putting a beatdown on street punks before stopping off for a game of darts and heading back to the orphanage you run in Okinawa.

ANNIKA HOWELLS

Kirby’s Epic Yarn

I’m going to have to start wearing a tin foil hat, because clearly Nintendo have been reading my mind and have subsequently created a game encompassing all of my favourite things.

There’s an adorable round pink, a world made of crafty items in gorgeous soft pastel colours, and bright pretty sparkly things to collect.

I’m in kawaii heaven!

ANTHONY CAPONE

Call Of Duty: Black Ops

I am almost ashamed to say, but my current gaming hours are filled with playing Call of Duty: Black Ops online.

Having finally become a somewhat decent player, and combined with the joys of exterminating campers and running around Nuketown with a shotgun, I’ll be playing online til the early hours for some time yet.

I’m going to have to start wearing a tin foil hat, because clearly Nintendo have been reading my mind...

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march 2011

ON THE HUNT

TIM HENDERSON

DYLAN BURNS

Mirror’s Edge

Total War: Shogun II

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I’m revisiting Mirror’s Edge as a part of an attempt to clear my backlog and it really looks unbelievable on a machine that can push the high-end settings.

Some flaws in the level designs ring louder now that the thrill of the new has worn off, but the evocative use of colour contrasts and the promise of the premise have me hooked all over again.

This one came for review (for another publication) but I’m glad I forced myself out of my comfort zone. The game is massive and though I’ll never get as much out of it as Total War zealot, I’ve really enjoyed coming back to the PC with an immersive experience such as this.

aaron sammut

Killzone 3

I have been playing Killzone 3 purely from a critical stand point. The visual eye candy just has to be bad for you (I’m yet to try out the 3D), the audio curls your toes and while the plot is only just serviceable, the premise and art direction is spot on. Guerilla Games aren’t exactly being revolutionary with the genre, but what they are doing is something to such a sublime level...

So why?!! Why does the game just feel so flat and hollow?

MICHAEL PINCOTT

Marvel vs Capcom 3

I tend to gravitate towards fighting games, partially because I love the science and technicality of them, and partially because I love going through a roster of characters and testing them out. MvC3 has been especially great for the latter; I can’t settle on a team because I keep finding new characters that are fun to use. Except for Spiderman. He sucks.

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creative

Charlie Learns the Hard Way PATRICK LANG takes Charlie into, shall we say, Uncharted territory.

T

“

here’s no such thing as a fucking free ride, Charlie!” she’d screamed at me, as I hustled out the door carrying a plastic shopping bag full of clothes and booze. In response I’d told Sasha (was that her name? I can’t remember) to take a hike and I’d forced the Volkswagen out to the airport to catch a plane to Nepal.

In retrospect, I probably should have known better, and paid Sally more attention. When I’d got the letter from a ‘prominent’ Nepalese university offering me a semester of work as a ‘visiting fellow’, or some other semi-academic bullshit, I should have smiled and politely declined. But you know me, any chance to get out of the country and chase foreign tail and I’m already on the plane, demanding another complimentary whiskey.

The first few weeks in Nepal had been promising, and I spent most of my evenings there in a local bar, tossing back glasses of raksi and thinking that Samantha should just shut the fuck up.

Apparently I had a job of sorts at the nearby university, and I did turn up a couple of times to play grab-ass with the locals and pretend to know something 28

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about writing, but usually I just bunkered down in the office they’d given me to catch some sleep.

A pretty good deal, by anyone’s estimations – until the Serbian came to town. Now, I knew that Nepal had a bit of a... complicated past when it came to civil unrest, but I thought that the reds in power had at least made the place more stable. Anyway, one day this guy Lazarevic walked into what was becoming my local and you could tell straight away that he was going to be a real pain in the ass. He started firing an AK into the ceiling and spitting some crap about a “phurba” and something called a “Cintimani Stone”.

Then all hell broke loose, and I started to think that perhaps Stacey had known what she was talking about after all.

Lazarevic had brought his own private army with him, and they proceeded to start ransacking the city looking for god knows what. It was about then that I decided that I needed an exit plan. The roads were clogged with locals trying to get out, so I headed for the railway station and, in my best broken Nepali, started yelling

at the clerk. What he was saying was a little difficult to follow, but I knew what rejection sounded like in any language.

So I used the gift of Westerners everywhere and started talking VERY LOUDLY AND SLOWLY in English, in the vain hope of bludgeoning my way to what I wanted.

After about 15 minutes of this the clerk threw his hands in the air, dashed something off on a piece of paper and pointed to a train in the distance. I like to think it was my powers of persuasion that convinced him to help, but the distinctive rat-a-tat of automatic weapons in the distance can’t have hurt.

I grabbed my plastic bag, now full of bottles of raksi and my passport, and headed for the train. It was a big motherfucker, not in great shape, but it was leaving town, and that fit my needs perfectly. I installed myself in one of the carriages at the front and started on a bottle. After about 10 minutes we started moving and I was getting a nice little buzz on. Hell, I thought, maybe Nepal would turn out alright after all.

Take that, Sia. Unfortunately, it was about then that Lazarevic made his

way into the carriage.

I ducked under the seat and watched as a small PMC marched through the door. Big, evil bastards wearing body armour – the kind that could shrug off the entire clip of a .45 before breakfast. There were two others; a British guy who looked like he’d get annoying fast, and a tasty brunette with an ass like a peach who seemed to have escaped from a film noir, where she would undoubtedly be the femme fatale who tempts the hero with her sexual wiles.

They all argued for a while, some bullshit that I’m happy to admit I wasn’t really paying attention to. I’d managed to stay neatly out of sight hidden in the back under the seat, and despite my constant fear of that Lazarevic bastard I managed (thanks to the raksi) to catch a little sleep.

I was woken by the distinctive and unwelcome sound of gunfire somewhere at the back of the train.

It was a long train, so I wasn’t overly worried, but it did seem to be getting closer. I looked up. Everyone had left the carriage, presumably in the direction of the gunfire. Morons. I march 2011

peered out the window and saw snow... and mountains. That bastard of a clerk had sent me in the wrong direction – I was heading for the Himalayas.

It was right about then that the train exploded.

I don’t know how long it was before I came to, but it was accompanied by an almighty crash. I peered out of the window of the wrecked train to see several carriages slip off the edge of an icy cliff.

Good thing I splurged on first class, I thought.

I heard a voice – groaning, complaining and generally pissed off. Looking up slowly I saw a well built man crawling over the edge of the cliff, grasping his side, which had a nasty looking bullet wound in it. I stayed down, not wanting to irritate someone with an abdominal wound, and waited as he slowly made his way amongst the carriages. I waited there a long time until I heard gunfire, some cries and a pissed off voice.

“It’s locked,” Abdominal Wound exclaimed. “It’s always locked.”

Realising that this guy was probably my best shot of getting out of there in one piece I grabbed my plastic bag, thought nice thoughts about Sophie and headed after him at a discreet distance. Eventually I reached an open snowfield full of now-decrepit train carriages. I perched myself on a ledge, lit a cigarette and watched quietly as Abdominal Wound dispatched a bunch of the PMC dudes. It was brutal. I wasn’t sure what this guy’s team was, but I wanted to be on it.

He clambered up out of the snowfield and continued on. I stubbed out my cigarette and started after him. Some way up he collapsed in front of a lone figure, someone who looked like a native of the area. I quickly ran up. The native looked at me suspiciously until I handed him the raksi bottle. He took a swig and smiled.

“Charlie,” I said, pointing to my chest.

“Tenzin,” he said, in reply, and motioned me to follow him.

He slung Abdominal Wound over his shoulder like he was a ragdoll and started off into the distance. I picked up my plastic bag and followed him.

Hang on Sarah baby, I thought, Charlie’s coming home.

PATRICK LANG Australia’s best gaming

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creative

I was woken by the distinctive and unwelcome sound of gunfire somewhere at the back of the train. www.PIXELHUNT.com.AU

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OPINION

Reset 4.0 In Praise Of Animation TIM HENDERSON returns serve on the rather divisive Enslaved.

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s with all good media outlets, Pixel Hunt exudes a sense of camaraderie and good times behind the scenes. We finish each friendly week of seeing eye-to-eye with a friendly trip to the nearest pool hall where we share rounds of drinks. Of this, we allow public privy.

What we don’t display is the piece of glass sticking out the back of Dylan’s head, the one that Cody wedged there after our site founder sank a yellow ball. Likewise, all footage of Alex must be shot from his right side, lest the common people realise that HE ONLY HAS ONE EAR! In briefer terms, we are prone to disagree.

So, then. Enslaved.

What a flippant little life this game has led. At first happily fated to be the next Beyond Good and Evil – a game that everybody loves but nobody purchased – it has since gone under

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the hammer of harsher voices. Voices that are “baffled and saddened” (PH 13) about the praises that the game has had lavished upon it.

As if in need of a fragment of glass lodged in my own head, I find myself baffled and saddened about the way in which these criticisms are aimed at the game. Even from my more generous perspective, Enslaved is hardly Game of the Year material, but it seems that its triumphs are heavily influenced by the perspective from which you approach them.

To wit: the storytelling.

To wit while abusing italics: the storytelling.

Outside of a refreshingly vivid and imaginative take on how to visually create a post-apocalyptic world, there’s nothing new here. The lead characters conform to archetypes, their interactions with each other take them exactly where you’d expect, and the abruptness

of the ending betrays flaws in how foreshadowing was approached. None of this is of much concern to me. I’m far more interested in the manners in which information about the characters is conveyed, and of how the plot itself remains tied to gameplay objectives.

This is obviously an issue of personal bugbears. It may be that I am far more interested in the means than the ends, and in this regard, Enslaved has a moment to shine.

The player-character, Monkey, is an oaf. He’s a brute, lithe and strong and very likely raised in jungle-like environments. He puts his own sense of self-preservation first, but is susceptible to that ‘good heart’ syndrome that afflicts so many of his kind. There is nothing unique about this.

But Enslaved is a videogame, an interactive medium and a visual one, and when it comes to taking advantage of these characteristics of the medium,

the character of Monkey is bordering on a masterclass. Imagine composing a video of a mixture of gameplay and cinematic sequences from Enslaved, doing the same for a game such as Mass Effect, and then playing these two videos to an unconcerned audience with all audio and written dialogue/information stripped away.

Imagine asking this audience for its interpretation of the respective characters and events in the two games. Imagine testing which game narrative they got a greater feel for.

I would be hugely surprised if Enslaved were to fail in coming up trumps. There are two arguments for why this could be: the first is that Enslaved has a smaller cast and a simpler plot. The other is that Enslaved had a far more nuanced understanding of animation.

It has to be acknowledged that intensity of Enslaved’s animation march 2011

obsession does result in character control that sacrifices playable fluidity for visual follow-through. There’s a sense that a lot of Enslaved’s animations are working within canned loops. It refuses to sacrifice its visual dynamic for reactive playability, and in this regard it’s a lesser game than the likes of Uncharted, which does a finer job of employing adaptive animations.

Nonetheless, the animation in Enslaved is charged with meaning.

Just playing around with Monkey in an open space, scampering up ledges, swinging between branches, or even just running through long grass will spare the player a need for words.

Much of his archetypical personality will have been made clear. Because this information is evoked in the player, rather that told to them, it becomes more natural, and less like something learned from a textbook (or a codex for that matter).

Similar qualities also apply to the other two cast members: Trip and Pigsy. We subconsciously absorb information about them in cinematic scenes, as well as during gameplay.

Like Heavenly Sword before it, Enslaved excels in delivering actual performances that subtly define the characteristics of an otherwise orthodox cast. Only here, its palpability extends beyond cut-scenes.

This isn’t the only victory, but it is Australia’s best gaming

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the one I find to be most important.

Character animation is the great unsung communicator. Perhaps this is because it’s harder to take precise note of – it is easier, after all, to consciously notice information that is actually told to you. But this shouldn’t undermine its value. Solid facial animation may not lead to developed characters, but nuanced expression can convey meaning that renders words second-rate.

Other flourishes are less important, but still welcome. The audible yelling of Monkey when Trip is beyond easy earshot, or the way he sounds physically strained while scaling some mammoth construct lends texture and meaning to his words that goes far beyond those words themselves. There’s also a matter of integration, wherein the plot, for all its straightforwardness, works harmoniously with the gameplay situation at hand.

Personally, I’ll take a competent story that communicates itself effectively through its medium over one of greater depth that can do nothing more inventive than lean heavily on extended, flat exposition and large chunks of written text. Gaming’s bigger problem isn’t in finding good stories to tell, it’s in finding interesting ways to tell them.

TIM HENDERSON

OPINION

But Enslaved is a videogame, an interactive medium and a visual one, and when it comes to taking advantage of these characteristics of the medium, the character of Monkey is bordering on a masterclass. www.PIXELHUNT.com.AU

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OPINION

Generation COD

Is the Call Of Duty franchise the devil of the video game industry, or is it just following standard industry practice?

Let’s ask ANTHONY CAPONE.

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hree games in, and Call Of Duty was becoming just another shooter. Then Modern Warfare appeared. The critical and commercial success of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare propelled the brand to the heights of AAA rivals Grand Theft Auto and Halo. Several years on, the financial windfalls continue, but Call Of Duty has garnered somewhat of a poor reputation among gamers.

Viewed by many as a money-grabbing venture and blamed for driving a lack of innovation, Call Of Duty may have turned from a top of the line FPS into the devil of the gaming industry.

However, a closer analysis reveals that the issues generating the fury of gamers are nothing new in the context of the video game industry.

Some might dismiss each forthcoming instalment of Call Of Duty as nothing more than the next Activision money spinner. While there may be a degree of truth in that, we need to remember that the goal of the video games industry is just the 32

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same as any other business; to make money, and lots of it. Call Of Duty is Activision’s perpetual cash cow, and Bobby Kotick will continue to squeeze every last penny from the franchise.

He isn’t doing it to annoy gamers or to kill originality, but simply because he has a duty to shareholders to generate returns. It may seem an illadvised practice that will ultimately spell the series’ doom as it did to Guitar Hero, but in the end, it’s the model that keeps the wheels of business spinning, and not just those of the video game industry.

One way Activision has sought to make money from the Call Of Duty behemoth is with the higher price of downloadable content. Under the new model, map packs for Modern Warfare and Black Ops cost around $20 a pop. Compared to other downloadable expansions and other complete games that cost far less, it could be seen as a blatant rip-off.

However, as with anything, the inherit value is entirely subjective. march 2011

For example, take a user who purchases Black Ops exclusively for multiplayer. Looking at the scenario from a purely economic angle, the game retails at about $120. The disc comes with 14 multiplayer maps, translating to over $8 per map. Taking the First Strike map pack, which contains four maps, each map converts to about $4 each. Hence, on a cost for content ratio between the two, First Strike represents a good investment for the multiplayer junkie spending hour upon hour playing the game.

I would argue that paying a one-off fee for more content is far more preferable to paying a monthly subscription, which has been toyed around with for some time.

The idea of subscribing to Call Of Duty as on online service has raised the ire of many gamers, but so far, the negative outcry has staved off the idea. Instead, Activision have used the downloadable content market as a de facto form of subscription. Nevertheless, the possibility of subscribing to a game as popular as Call Of Duty should not be so unfathomable, especially when PC users have been enduring the practice in MMOs for years.

Looking at Call Of Duty and World Of Warcraft side by side, commonalities emerge. Each Australia’s best gaming

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has hundreds upon thousands of online players communicating and working in teams, levelling endlessly and traversing the same areas day after day. Industry analysts like Michael Pachter may not be so unreasonable in stating that Activision could legitimately implement a subscription model for Call Of Duty. Nevertheless, the company has conceded the point, saying that a payment system will never be a part of the mainstream series. However, with word of Bungie developing a MMO-style FPS for Activision, the notion of paying for a COD-type online experience may be very close. Given the affliction of the console community to in-game subscription, it will be intriguing in the least to see how Activision proceeds.

Another sticking point for Call Of Duty is the ‘rinse and repeat’ syndrome of each new iteration.

Since Modern Warfare took a gigantic leap with its contemporary narrative, sequels have been criticised for failing to innovate. Critics do not deny that that the series continues to deliver cinematic gameplay experiences, so the issue may simply have to do with game design and setting. Call Of Duty asks players to do nothing more than assume the role of a one-man army and

pull the trigger. This type of role is so frequently employed that standing out becomes a significant challenge. Originality is undeniably hard to achieve, especially in the current generation, and it’s not just developers like Treyarch and Infinity Ward who are guilty of repetitive design.

Uncharted 2 is one of the best games of this generation, but in comparison to its predecessor and numerous other titles, Naughty Dog didn’t really produce anything new.

Arguably, all they did was create the best possible experience with triedand-true gameplay and an outstanding narrative. Hence, when critics fire at Call Of Duty for its lack of originality, it should be remembered that the entire industry has grown comfortable in rehashing the same games time and time again, regardless of how polished they may be.

Lack of originality is a challenge that faces the entire industry, especially when raising a new intellectual property is so fraught with difficulty. Ultimately, Call Of Duty is the machine that keeps the world’s biggest publisher in business and ensures that jawdropping experiences such as Modern Warfare can be seen again.

Is that such a bad thing?

ANTHONY CAPONE

OPINION

Originality is undeniably hard to achieve, especially in the current generation, and it’s not just developers like Treyarch and Infinity Ward who are guilty of repetitive design. www.PIXELHUNT.com.AU

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KEN’s HOLIDAY SPECIAL

LAND OF THE RISING KEN International man of mystery KEN LEE visited Tokyo last November. Allow him to stir jealousy within you with his tales from abroad.

Pachinko Parlours Cho Chabudai Gaeshi

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he very first thing that set me on the back foot upon entering Tokyo is how massive and urban the entire city is. I’ve always been a city boy, but even I was taken aback by the scale of the sprawl. Wide streets, endless cars, neon signs, tall buildings shoved up against each other, and scores of people walking briskly. Imagine this same scene replicated across multiple districts, each about the size of the Melbourne CBD. Against this backdrop is endless, unceasing activity. The streets are packed with people at all hours of the day. In the mornings, you see commuters and cleaners sweeping the streets. The afternoons are filled with office workers looking for lunch, walking from shop to shop surveying the wealth of yummy goodness. As night settles, unlicensed

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food carts set themselves up along walkways serving beer and hot noodles.

Even at 2am, the convenience store across the road was still bustling.

It was only when I started getting past the initial sensory assault that I noticed the many things that set my geeky heart aflutter. There were anime and video game images posted everywhere: in magazines, store fronts, posters and towering billboards.

Countless advertisements for the latest video games appeared during prime time television programming; God Eater Burst was the flavour of that particular month.

The first geeky thing I noticed was the abundance of Pachinko parlours.

In itself, these pachinko machines are no more interesting than regular

jackpot machines. But throw in a heap of anime and video game references, such as Gundam and Neon Genesis Evangelion, and even I found myself getting drawn into these parlours.

Perhaps my limited skills in Peggle tempted me into thinking that I’d do alright if I tried my hand at them.

These pachinko machines are so pervasive that I even saw them in video game arcades as well. And the arcades are a sight to behold. Seeing arcades thrive in Japan adds a bittersweet taste to the whole experience, especially when compared to our own dwindling arcade scene. Entering the arcade, I am welcomed by endless rows of claw crane games, begging for a 100 Yen for the chance at winning a stuffed Pikachu toy. While I didn’t

succumb to their siren song, I did play a game of Cho Chabudai Gaeshi, which roughly translates to “Upending the Tea Table”. Players stand in front of the machine, which has a fake table built into it. Players then slam on the table multiple times, as the screen depicts increasingly annoying situations (such as children talking on their mobiles at the dinner table). And at the apex of their frustrations, they physically flip the little fake table, see the on-screen representation wreck havoc, then earn points for the devastation caused.

Going deeper into the arcades, I started seeing games aimed squarely at dedicated gamers. World Club Championship Football combines collectible card games (such as Magic: The Gathering) with team management march 2011

KEN’s HOLIDAY SPECIAL

Nishi Shinjuku

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games (like Championship Manager) to create a wholly unique experience.

Players form decks of cards which they can purchase or trade with other people, then lay the cards down on an arcade machine to form their team.

Moving the cards around affects the team formation mid-game; players can also train up their team for future competitions.

The other game that intrigued me was Border Break, which gives players a control scheme similar to a mouse and keyboard set-up, bringing the PC gaming into an arcade environment. The left hand controls a joystick for movement and the right manipulates a mouse-like peripheral to aim as players pilot their hulking robots in 10v10 battles.

Arcades aren’t the only place for a Australia’s best gaming

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person to geek-out in Tokyo; the name Akihabara is one that would be familiar to many gamers. In many ways, it is exactly what I expected: video games, anime, gadgets and other assorted tech toys. Walking around the area, I saw large stores selling all manner of electronics, and dodgy little places selling miniature pin-hole cameras.

The best stores in the area are without a doubt the retro game shops. Walking into the store is akin to walking into a museum; it is a celebration of video game culture.

Shelves are packed with games for every conceivable console, and every conceivable console is actually working and for sale. There are systems hooked into televisions for you to mess around with; I spent about 20 minutes playing

...I was tempted to buy a portable console that played SNES games; the nameless machine was obviously manufactured without an official license.

Wario Land on the Virtual Boy. For a while, I was tempted to buy a portable console that played SNES games; the nameless machine was obviously manufactured without an official license.

Despite the attractions of Akihabara, I did have some discomfort hanging about the area. Sexualised imagery was prominently displayed.

Mega-stores had a floor each dedicated to games, anime and porn.

This discomfort was most keenly felt when I noticed a DVD proudly proclaiming pictures and videos of a 12 year old girl in a bikini. It seemed like despite the celebration of geek culture, there was also an expectation that most geeks were social deviants.

Or perhaps it only applies to otaku.

In spite of this one negative, there is still so much to love about Tokyo and Japan, and so much yet left to say. I haven’t even touched on the maid cafes, the crazy fashions and cosplayers or relaxing at the hot springs. I didn’t talk about Disney Land, the Studio Ghibli Museum, or the areas that preserve Japanese tradition and culture. There is just so much to take in. It is this intangible, unquantifiable aspect that gives Japan its density, beyond the packed buildings and throngs of people. And it is this density that will either scare you away, or completely enchant you. Either way you’ll need to keep up the pace, or the whole city will leave you behind in its dust.

KEN LEE www.PIXELHUNT.com.AU

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Issue 15 – Coming MAY 2011 IN THE NEXT ISSUE

DEATH IN VIDEOGAMES

SO UNTIL THEN KEEP UP THE HUNT