Getting all emotional

Maybe I'm a psychopath, but when I was presented with three Nazi prisoners about to be executed by the Russians in Call of Duty: EXTREME HARDCORE AAWWW YEEEAAH! (World at War), my immediate and unflinching response was to shoot them. Poor Gary Oldman; he's a fantastic act0r, but quite frankly he was taking far too long with all his words and sentences and whatnot. Even as he opened his mouth to speak, I had identified the situation as one that had to be resolved before the general violence could continue. So I shot them. And chuckled a little at the abruptness with which what was clearly meant to be a "dramatic" moment was brought to an end. It reminded me a little of Call of Duty multiplayer; of creeping along, watching your corners, keeping an eye open for snipers, staying low and quiet...
...only to have some little shit with an SMG come bunny-hopping around the corner, spraying you with bullets and utterly destroying your attempts to play soldier "properly".

"Wut iz morraleaty?"

Actually, you know what? Fuck you. I'm not a psychopath. I simply failed to connect to the sequence on an emotional level; I saw the entire scenario through the eyes of someone who knows how to make a skybox in UnrealEd. I saw it as that which it really was; a scripted event designed to regulate the flow of gameplay and ensure that it wasn't all run-shoot-run-shoot-quickload. And given that the run-shoot aspect is WaW's strongest component (and it should be, given that the entire game is essentially a WWII mod for CoD4, which had rock solid gameplay), I really didn't want the flow of such running and shooting and frolicking amid the corpses to be regulated at that moment.
Gary Oldman; I love you, but stfu, seriously. Just shoot someone. And then shout, "I. AM. VEWWY DISAPPOINTED!" like you did in the Fifth Element.

Penumbra, however; now that's a different story entirely. I was really very impressed with Overture and Black Plague; they showed not only a level of polish that is rare in indy games, not only a really interesting combination of the FPS and Survival Horror genres, but most surprising of all; they made me feel something.

"WHOTHEFUCKISTHAT!?!"

For a game that uses the player character's isolation and claustrophobia as its primary weapon, I found the secondary characters to be the most interesting and engaging that I've encountered in quite some time. For the most part, they did nothing; they were voices, or text, or the occasional image. For the most part, their physical presence in the game was manifested merely in terms of the associated scenery; the places they'd been, the things they'd done before you arrived. And yet, I found myself actually giving a shit.

Perhaps it was the isolation that served to emphasise what little non-hostile life there was in the game, or perhaps the writing was simply fantastic (certainly, I'd put a few of Clarence's lines up there with HK47, given his tendency to call you "monkey"). More likely it was a combination of the two, and perhaps this is related to the small development team; a closer relationship between the writing, and the "physical" side of the game.

Dunt look like much, but this had me all emotional

Whatever the case; as much as I laughed at the prisoner-execution in World at War for trying too hard to be dramatic...I found myself quite unexpectedly speechless and rather sad at the conclusion of Red's story in Penumbra: Overture. In a world full of games in which I'd happily set fire to virtual opponents, and then throw their flaming flailing bodies at their friends before jumping up and down a bit on the remains...here was a game in which I actually felt a little shocked by such violence. I think it was the manner in which it was handled, in addition to the writing itself; there was no big cinematic effects-laden spectacle. Just a sad end to a pitiable character.

And in the end, I suspect that the easiest way for a game to trigger emotion in the player...is to not try too hard to tell the player what to feel. The trick is to understate the entire thing; if the player in question is capable of feeling something, they'll be more inclined to feel it with a subtle nudge that sets their imagination on fire, than a big foam hand being thrust in their face with the words "CRY NOW BITCH" written upon the finger.

Of course, another way to make the player emotional is to not let them play the game. The publishers of Dark Athena apparently like losing money; completely fucking up the game's PC release so that at least two online retailers no longer have the game's price listed, while potential buyers are having a hard time finding copies in the shops. I was rather looking forward to playing this, having been a fan of the last game, so I'm getting a tad emotional over the fact that the universe apparently doesn't want me to have it.
An emotional state that is compounded by the fact that I'm still waiting for Far Cry 2 to arrive, despite having been told that the item had shipped last week.

- An Emotional Brax

Brax's Wishlist

I know you've been awaiting this post with bated breath, Mr Tingler, so here it is.

BRAX'S MOST WANTED GAMES OF 2009 (IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER):

Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena

Or CoR:AoDA if you want to attempt to shorten the title and confuse people. I must confess I didn't play the first game when it was first released on PC. Perhaps it didn't ping upon my games radar loudly enough, or perhaps the chemistry wasn't quite there yet for our relationship. However, having returned from my drunken debauchery in the US last summer, I set about buying and playing a few of the games I had missed out on. This included Psychonauts (yes I know, I'm a terrible human being), Star Wars: Republic Commando (whose intelligent team mates utterly crapped on the next game in this list), Mass Effect (which I rant about, but played twice back to back over one week), and of course Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay.
Dark Athena sounds like solid entertainment. I may already own the original, but quite frankly I am greatly looking forward to replaying it with the updates, and find myself wishing that such enhanced re-releases were more common. Being bald has never been so much fun...leaving aside Mr 47 of course (don't worry Mr Tobias Rieper, I love you more than Riddick really).


Aliens: Colonial Marines

To be honest, I'm not holding my breath over this one...I've had a gut feeling that it'll be delayed or some such for a while now, but I live in hope. Having played Left 4 Dead obsessively, the idea of four player coop in the Aliens universe makes me bounce around like pre-teen Spice Girls fan high on E numbers. Not literally of course. I have far too much decorum for that. Anyway, though details seem to be a little thin at the moment and I have yet to see the game up and running, I'm sold on the concept. Whether or not it has been tainted by its inevitable cross-platform release also remains to be seen.

Diablo III

I was never into Diablo that heavily. About the time that one of my mates was obsessing over the first game, I was busy with the Baldur's Gate franchise. However I could not deny, even back then, that Diablo was easy to play and easy to enjoy, and became an almost religious experience when played cooperatively over a home network.
Having recently been dragged back into my cooperative-based obsessions by Left 4 Dead, I find myself looking forward to Diablo III more than Starcraft II (the whole "three-releases" thing has annoyed me, to be honest). And given that I was never a hardcore fan of the series, I'm not too bothered by the art direction that has seen so many people frothing at the mouth.

A Mount and Blade expansion and/or sequel

Mount and Blade is evil. EVIL. Recently, I managed to drag myself away from the game only to discover that it was 4am. I haven't been so entranced by a game, nor suffered such lost time, since my old World of Warcraft days. There's always one more battle to fight, one more soldier to upgrade, one more combination of clever tactics and equipment to try. And the horses...the thundering of hooves as you lead a cavalry charge, the satisfying SWISHTHUNK as you swing an axe at somebody's head from horseback. And the cheering as the last enemy hits the ground with a pleasing thump, and the smugness that follows as you gallop past your victorious army, who would be chanting your name if the software allowed for it. I don't care what follows; whether it be a graphical update, a physics update, a new map, a new setting. I just want MORE. And I want the likes of Bethesda to realise the depth of their horse-related failure.
Oh, and if the horses in Mount and Blade could shit in front of villagers, that'd be good too. Or just fart really loudly, in that proud and noble way that only horses are capable of.

A New Hitman Game

Surely it's time, isn't it? Blood Money was fantastic, but there's a lot of room for improvement and evolution in the franchise. I'm normally against such franchising, given that it is nearly always the evil spawn of corporations, but I have a real weakspot for Mr Ben's psychopathic bald-headed twin. He's just so loveable. And quite frankly, it has been too long since his last outing, and I'm concerned that IO have got it into their heads that they should make something other than Hitman games. BAD IO INTERACTIVE.


- Nick Brakespear