Gaming History: Publishers

Video game publishers play a large part in the release and marketing of games, and often the development stages also. Good video games publishers will allow the developers to make a game which fits the original vision of the creator whilst appealing to both a core audience and other gamers alike. Bad video games publishers allow budgets, time constraints and obstacles to consistently get in the way of the development and release of video games resulting in a sub-standard product at release which is lucky to make its money back.

For this edition of Gaming History, I'll be looking at 5 good and 5 bad video games publishers, their history and what they've done right and wrong. While I don't think that every game released by these publishers is good or bad, there's an overwhelming majority of titles in their output which swing my opinion eitherway. I'll be starting with the good publishers, so that I can reference things later on which worse publishers could have done.

For most people, Sega is instantly associated with Sonic The Hedgehog. As both their mascot and flagship franchise, the Sonic games of the Mega Drive era received much critical acclaim and are widely regarded by many fans to be the best in the series. Whether or not this is true, Sega published a whole host of other great titles for the system such as Streets of Rage, Golden Axe, Revenge of Shinobi, Comix Zone, Ristar, Toejam and Earl, Super Fantasy Zone and Vectorman. This wide choice of quality titles for their own system lead to its success alongside the Super Nintendo.

The very first home console I owned was a Sega Dreamcast which helped to shape my views on what video games should be. Particular favourites of mine from this era are arcade titles which had been ported to the Dreamcast such as Crazy Taxi, House Of The Dead 2, Sega Rally Championship 2, 18 Wheeler American Pro Trucker, Power Stone and Sega Bass Fishing. All of these titles retained an arcade feel with enough content and gameplay to justify a home release.

(Jet Set Radio for Sega Dreamcast - Published by Sega)

In addition to these arcade style games, the Dreamcast had a strong lineup of other titles such as Shenmue, Sonic Adventuer, Soul Calibur, Phantasy Star Online, Skies of Arcadia and Jet Set Radio, all published by Sega. While the Dreamcast didn't sell nearly as well as the Mega Drive, it seems that mistakes made in the 5th generation of consoles had more to do with this than any failings of the system itself.

In both of the eras I've discussed above, Sega had around 8 studios which produced games for them; the most famous of which being Sonic Team. Spreading their franchises out between teams which worked on every instalment of said franchise meant that games were made by people who already had experience of producing titles in that series, and were attempting to make quality titles to aid sales of Sega hardware.While their output seems to have gone downhill in recent years since they left the console market, I regard the Dreamcast Era and Mega Drive Era as proof that they were once one of the best video game publishers around.

I couldn't reasonably include Sega in a list of greatest video game publishers without talking about Nintendo also. While their approach to franchises and producing games has been markedly different historically, their output has been consistently full of quality and good games. Starting from the NES (released in 1985 in America) which reintroduced the public to quality video games as consumers began to flock back to the video game industry after the crash of 1983, titles such as Super Mario Bros 3, Metroid, Punch-Out!, and Legend Of Zelda gave gamers a taste of new, more detailed and exciting adventures.

The SNES era forced Nintendo into much greater competition with Sega, as the Mega Drive was released first and was quickly gaining a fanbase. Deciding to let their games do the talking for them, the SNES era produced new titles for most of their popular franchises as well as introducing titles such as Earthbound, Donkey Kong Country, Pilotwings, Pokemon, F-Zero, Starwing, and Kirby. These two eras saw the introduction of the majority of Nintendo's most well known franchises.

(Earthbound for SNES, Published by Nintendo)

The N64 era saw many third party publishers preferring Sony's disc based approach to gaming and leaving Nintendo to make games for their own console. Despite this the N64 managed to rack up 32 million sales worldwide on the strength of its gaming lineup. The top 20 best selling Nintendo 64 games were all published by Nintendo themselves, and are all highly rated and acclaimed video games. Without much 3rd party support, it would have been easy for the company to have given up hope of selling many systems, but instead they teamed up with Rare and their internal development teams to produce a stellar lineup for the system.

While gamers can criticise Nintendo all they like for sticking to the same franchises since the SNES era, both the Gamecube and the Wii had a lineup of quality titles which sold systems and held their value much better than many other releases. My respect for Nintendo comes from the fact that it would have been easy for them to release substandard games and resort to a slew of mediocre titles, selling on the weight of their franchise names, but they haven't. Pokemon, Mario and Zelda games of today are just as highly rated as their original counterparts.

Although I haven't played a lot of Capcom's recent titles or indeed a whole lot of Mega Man, their most well known franchise, they've still impressed me enough with other titles to warrant inclusion on this list. The first Capcom game I played was Power Stone for the Dreamcast, a 3D arena fighter where players compete to collect 3 power stones and transform into a far more powerful version of themselves in order to win the fight. There was an anime series based on the game which ran for 5 months after the game's release. What really impressed me about the game was the cast of original characters, exciting gameplay and overall mood of the game.

Before Power Stone even existed, Capcom were well known for their Street Fighter games, Street Fighter II particularly. With many improved versions and updates keeping the game fresh and relevant as a fighter, it enjoyed continued popularity and remains as arguably the most influential fighter of all time. Partially inspired by another Capcom Beat 'em up, Final Fight, Street Fighter II brought bonus stages, combos, special moves and increased arcade popularity to the fighting genre.

(Killer7 for PS2, published by Capcom)

Just after the short Dreamcast era, Capcom began to publish some surreal games which have gained much popularity since their release such as Viewtiful Joe, Okami, Killer7 and the Phoenix Wright series. While they had different roles in the production of all of these games, I'm confident that many of them would not have had as much character and charm without Capcom's involvement in the development and publishing process. In recent years they've continued this sort of ethic somewhat with the release of Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective for the Nintendo DS.

Today Capcom are best known for their Resident Evil, Devil May Cry, Monster Hunter and Mega Man series. All of these have had plenty of installments across many consoles and continue to please fans on the whole, despite a few fans who never seem to be satisfied. Overall Capcom are to thank for inspiring many of the fighting games we see today, as well as releasing fighters such as the Capcom vs SNK series. While they could easily have sat back and focussed on fighters once Street Fighter II was sucessful, gamers were instead given an excellent selection of games spanning many genres.

As the third largest video game publisher in the world behind Activision and EA, Ubisoft have an advantage over a lot of the publishers I've mentioned, however I still regard them fairly highly as a company. Their most beloved game series, Rayman has had many instalments from its inital release in 1995 up to the present day. The most recent game in the series, Rayman Legends had a very good critical reception, as have most of the games in the main series. While the spin-offs from the series haven't faired quite as well, the Rayman series as a whole is enjoyable and innovative.

Ubisoft brought the JRPG Grandia to the PS1 in Europe two years after its release in Japan, which is something I'm particularly grateful to them for, as I've been enjoying it between games for a few months now. Later Ubisoft published quite a few games for the Xbox's target market; (though many of these were on other consoles also) releasing Morrowind in Europe, the Tom Clancy series, the Far Cry series, and XIII, a cel-shaded comic book style first person shooter.

(No More Heroes for Wii, published by Ubisoft)

Ubisoft were also responsible for publishing some enjoyable titles for Nintendo's 7th and 8th generation consoles; No More Heroes and its sequel were enjoyable and innovative titles which challenged the player with becoming the top ranking assassin in a surreal world, with many humourous elements. While Red Steel didn't get the most amazing critical reviews, it made good use of the Wii's motion controls and was a decent launch title for the console. Another launch title published by Ubisoft was ZombiU for the WiiU. Again, the critical consensus was mixed but it's a game that I personally enjoyed.

The best known modern series published by Ubisoft would have to be Assassin's Creed which recently received a highly acclaimed 4th instalment. With titles in the series based in different historical time periods and vast locations to explore, the series has become incredibly popular. Alongside publishing traditional videogames, Ubisoft also released Rocksmith, a guitar hero-esque game which uses real guitars and is able to teach users to play them.

One of the most controversial video game publishers in existence, Rockstar Games are renowned for their Grand Theft Auto series, which tops sales charts for both the PS2 and PS3 with San Andreas and V respectively. The many intriguing and violent instalments of the series have been popular since the release of the original GTA in 1997. Other Rockstar titles which have attracted a lot of controversy are the Manhunt series and Bully, set in a boarding school, though it was far less violent than the two aforementioned games, and had a somewhat misleading title.

Rockstar have also published their fair share of stylised, film-like videogames including Max Payne, Red Dead Revolver and L.A. Noire. Having recently researched and reviewed L.A. Noire, I was surprised to find out how much of the development fell to Rockstar for the game, as Team Bondi who were initially responsible for development made mistakes and bad decisions in addition to treating their staff poorly. While I wasn't truly amazed by the final product, I'm sure it would have been far worse without Rockstar's input.

(GTA V for PS3, published by Rockstar)

Other games of note from Rockstar include a video game adaptation of the 1979 film "The Warriors", the Midnight Club racing series, and strangely "Rockstar Games presents Table Tennis" which is far better than it might seem and has a great 'pick up and play' quality to it, especially on the Wii. There's a good choice of characters to choose from, an in depth tutorial and a good difficulty curve to the career mode.

Overall there's no set formula for being a good video games publisher. Consistently releasing quality titles, in a series or over a range of genres, innovating and pushing the boundaries of video gaming and allowing titles which might not normally be published to be released are just a few of the things which have made the companies on this list great. My own personal criteria for a good publisher seems to be when I begin to notice that a few of the games I like are by the same people.

If you're a regular reader of my review blog then you'll be aware of the Simple Series. If not, then imagine a set of over 200 games for PS1 and PS2, amongst other consoles, produced and developed as cheaply as possible and published by D3 Publisher. With titles such as "The Chess" and "The Pro Wrestling", most of these games were only released in Japan, but around 80 of them made their way to Europe. From what I've played of these games, there's little effort put into the programming, most game modes are basically the same and there's hardly any play value to them.

As the idea of the Simple Series is to sell games at a budget price, having published them cheaply. The early simple series games were based on generic themes such as tennis, chess, or mahjong but extended to slightly more complex themes. The most popular Simple Series game, Earth Defense Force has made its name for being pretty bad but almost playable, spawning an entire series out of the idea.

(MaXXed Out Racing for PS2, published by D3 Publisher)

Outside of the Simple Series, D3 Publisher seems to enjoy acquiring licenses for kids television shows and other popular franchises and publishing rather mediocre if not outright rubbish games based on them. Examples of this include the recent Adventure Time: Explore The Dungeon Because I Don't Know!, Ben 10: Alien Force and Ed, Edd n Eddy: Scam Of The Century. While kids games have never been the most highly rated titles, producing horrific budget titles could put young fans off video games for life.

The worst thing about the budget titles produced by D3 Publisher are that even for the price you pay, they're nowhere near worth it. While I've decided to collect the PS1 and PS2 titles in the series, I'd never pay over £1 for anything in the series and no-one should ever have to. If you're looking for good value games then the pre-owned section is a far better bet.

Next up on the list of my least favourite game publishers are Midas Interactive who have gone through a few name changes including simply "Midas" and "Midas Touch". Their first crime against video games is bringing the Simple Series to the UK, as they publish most of the titles from the series which arrive here. In addition to this Midas publish budget games in the UK much the same way that D3 Publisher do in Japan. Most Midas games are so budget that they don't have a metacritic rating of any sort, and the ones that do are mediocre if not bad.

Of the two games I've reviewed by Midas, (I'm not that keen on picking up any more, outside of the Simple Series) I'm not sure which was worse. The first is X-treme Express, a train racing game which while novel, felt incredibly budget, didn't have much choice of game modes and looked graphically poor. It turns out that racing on straight tracks is just as boring as it'd seem. Players are allowed to switch rails at certain points in the game, but the bad AI and controls make it almost unenjoyable.

(Xtreme Express for PS2, published by Midas Interactive)

The other game; Golden Age Of Racing was a classic style racer featuring cars from the 1960s. Unfortunately turning was impossible at any speed above 40mph, and even then it took considerable effort. In addition to failing at the basics of being a racing game, it suffers from a lot of the same problems as Xtreme Express. I don't hate Midas for being a budget games publisher, but the amount of effort they put into any of their titles seems minimal. None of their titles seem to have much depth or replayability to them either.

Midway began their life by distributing Space Invaders and Pac-Man in the USA. After this they published some arcade titles of their own, which in more recent years have made it onto "Midway Arcade Treasures" collections. Three of them. So, what sort of arcade classics warrant having 3 individual collections of games? There's Defender which technically wasn't even published by Midway, but Williams Electronics who merged with them 8 years after the release of the game. Or maybe Joust, another Williams game? Marble Madness? Paperboy? The only game that I can honestly say is worth playing on any of the Arcade Treasures collections is Smash TV, and once again it's by Williams.

Okay, so most of their claims to fame in the early arcade era were actually by Williams, but there's the Mortal Kombat series? Personally I think Mortal Kombat is a pretty mediocre fighter with poor AI and little appeal outside of the fatalities. Primal Rage is another game which is referred to lovingly by nostalgic fans every now and then, but really isn't much fun at all. In fact I can only think of two Midway games I even enjoyed; Showtime NBA on NBC and Ready 2 Rumble Boxing.

(San Francisco Rush on N64, published by Midway)

The rest of Midway's output seems to be about making updated versions of their arcade "classics". Examples of this are L.A. Rush, an attempt to update the San Francisco Rush series, which included a licensed West Coast Customs and horrible gameplay, Rampage: Total Destruction for the Wii which made some of the worst use of the motion controls that I've seen, and the various updates to the Crus'n series which haven't got any better since the first game.

Overall Midway were the type of publisher that relied on their previous games and franchises to keep their business alive. Unfortunately most of these were aquired when the company merged with Williams, and most of the games that weren't aren't worth playing. Midway went into liquidation in 2009 as they ran out of franchises to produce a new version of. Probably.

Before Activision, third party developers didn't exist. While being the first was quite an achievement at the time, it was bound to happen at some point, and doesn't shield them from criticism, particularly in their present day dealings. It's not until around 1999 that Activision began to do anything of particular note, but around this time they began to acquire developers whose games they were publishing such as Neversoft and the Tony Hawk's Series, Treyarch and Infinity Ward with the Call Of Duty series and Luxoflux and the Vigilante 8 series.

Instead of developing and publishing games themselves, Activision acquired developers and published their games, with much more creative control over the process as they owned the developers. Some of the developers acquired by Activision were only able to produce a few games before going out of business, such as Bizarre Creations (makers of Metropolis Street Racer and Project Gotham Racing), and Luxoflux (who made the True Crime series whilst owned by Activision).

(True Crime New York City for PS2, published by Activison)

Activision's best known game series to date, Call of Duty is also the 8th best selling franchise ever. While its widespread popularity is well documented, so are concerns of unoriginality between instalments of the series and short single player modes which give way to focus on the multiplayer aspects of the series. While the gameplay seems to have kept a consistent quality of sorts, there's not been much progression for a series on it's 10th instalment.

Overall Activision seems to rely on bringing out two new Call Of Duty games a years, buying developers who seem like they might have a good franchise and then letting them go out of business if they don't. While I don't deny that there have been some good Activision published titles over the years, it doesn't make up for or excuse their behaviour in general.

My final publisher on the list of bad ones is possibly the worst. EA Games received the Worst Company in America award for 2012 and 2013, for poor treatment of their staff and customers. Over the years they've produced some enjoyable games, but in a lot of cases they've acquired developers who were already making good games in the same way as Activision and passed the product off as their own.

Some fine examples of this sort of activity are their purchase of Criterion Games, makers of Burnout (one of Need For Speed's biggest rivals), Maxis, makers of the Sims (now EA Maxis, so that EA can get extra credit), BioWare (makers of Mass Effect), and Bullfrog Productions (makers of Populous, who are now defunct, following the EA takeover).

(Dungeon Keeper for Mobile Devices, published by EA)

More recently, EA released a mobile version of the Bullfrog Productions game "Dungeon Keeper", except that the gameplay had been changed to fit a free-to-play model which eventually demands cash out of the player if they wish to make any decent progress. Add this to the fact that EA had fixed the rating system for the app so that users could only give 5 stars and you have something that can hardly be called a game, so much as a pay-to-win experience being released by EA.

Some of EA's biggest moneymakers are their sports games; FIFA, NBA, NHL, and Madden games are all pretty popular and bought by gamers regardless of their similarity to last season's game. In a lot of ways this is worse than my frustrations with Activision for releasing similar Call of Duty games. Personally I'd like to see a definitive version of each sports game released and then have EA wait until there's a large enough technological advance to actually warrant a new game. It's not as if rosters couldn't be updated with simple downloads anyway.

With more and more examples of EA's greed and lack of respect for their consumers being documented in the media in the past few years, gamers have started wonder just how long the company will be able to completely ignore what they want before a complete boycott of their games ensues. The release of Simcity caused some discussion of this, and I'm sure it won't be long until there's more.

A few companies that were close to making these lists were Atlus and Konami, on the good side and Microsoft Studios (purely for ruining Rare) on the bad, but I didn't feel that I had compelling enough reasons to put these companies on here.

All in all there's no recipe for how to be a good publisher, but perhaps there is for being a bad one. Trying to make games as cheaply as possible to sell at a budget price hardly ever produces satisfying results, if at all. Attempting to cash in on past successes that we're particularly good to start with won't get you very far either, and acquiring any studio that is making a sucessful game so that you can be on the publishing credits, only to continue the series by keeping everything exactly the same for 10+ instalments is probably the worst publishing sin of all.

Olympic Games Roundup

With the Winter Olympics and Paralympics having only recently been, I thought that it was only appropriate to take a look at some Olympic video games too. While I don't have any of the latest releases, I did find three titles to review with an Olympic theme. The first is for Dreamcast, and the second two are for Playstation 2. 

Game: Sydney 2000

Console: Sega Dreamcast

Developer: Attention To Detail

Release Date: 31st August 2000

As well as appearing on the Dreamcast, Sydney 2000 was also released for Playstation, with ports to N64 and Game Boy Colour cancelled. The last summer Olympic game released for home consoles had been on Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo, so it was the Dreamcast's chance to show off just how far technology had come in the past 4 years. There's a choice of 12 sports from the Olympic programme, and Arcade and Olympic modes which allow for different styles of gameplay. 

Arcade Mode lets players jump right in and compete in all events straight away, earning points for how well they do in the competition. Olympic Mode has players train up through various Virtual Gym exercises and then earn their place on the Olympic team by placing first in a qualifier. This adds a little replayability to the game overall, although the Virtual Gym exercises are essentially the same thing as a lot of the gameplay. Players control their athlete in events with the "power" buttons (A+B) and "action" buttons (X+Y). Most events comprise of tapping A+B in sequence as quickly as possible and hitting X or Y for actions. 

While I'm glad that the running games have been kept to a minimum, it doesn't quite feel like an Olympic video game with only a choice of 100m or 110m Hurdles. Perhaps a relay race or endurance race might have been a good addition. The 100m consists of mashing A+B as fast a possible after the starting pistol, and the hurdles is pretty much the same, save for pressing the action button every now and then to clear the obstacles. It's not particularly easy to time the jumping of hurdles but at least this adds some challenge to the monotony of button mashing. 

For the javelin event the running is exactly the same as before, with a press of the action button to confirm the angle of the throw, before your athlete runs over the foul line being all that's really needed. Winning the event is far too easy and I spent my spare attempts trying to impale myself with the javelin. The hammer event is almost the complete opposite of the javelin. Players build up power by alternately tapping the power buttons and then must judge the moment of release so as not to throw it inside the cage. While still spinning, players set the angle of the throw before release, but it's far too hard to even get one legal throw recorded as there's no indication of when would be a good time to let go of the hammer. 

The triple jump plays fairly well, with the typical build up of speed with the power buttons before judging the correct time to launch a jump, and setting the jump angle for all 3 jumps. This is another event where it's incredibly easy to beat the computer by miles. The high jump event requires mostly timing as players attempt to take off from their jump foot and use their stored power to clear the bar, using the action button to kick their legs over the bar. This event is particularly difficult as the computer players regularly break the world record to win the event.

The skeet shooting is a nice change up from the athletics events, requiring players only to aim and pull the trigger when the target is in sight. This is another event where the computer will freely break the "world record" in order to win. The 100m freestyle swimming sees a return to form for the "power" button mashing style of events. It's easy to win and requires nothing more than fairly fast tapping to beat. 

The final four events begin with possibly the most fun of all 12 events in the game; the 10m Diving. Players complete 5 different dives, with button markers displaying when they need to press to perform certain aspects of each dive. There's choices of difficulty which affect the overall score multiplier and a mark out of 10 awarded to each dive. The only downside is the event's relative ease. The concept for the Weightlifting event works well; pressing the power buttons alternately until a certain marker is reached, at which point the athlete moves into the next phase of the lift. 

The Sprint cycling is about as close to an endurance race as the game comes, with an energy preservation meter and some tactical thinking needed to win the race. It's not too hard though, and once you know the correct strategy there's really nothing to it. The final event on the game is the Kayak K1 Slalom which features almost impossible controls that make doing anything that the event asks of you difficult. Turning to get through the water gates is hard and ones which require you to go backwards through them are too much of a challenge. 

Graphically the game is pretty average; it looks better than the Playstation version but not by too much. It's a big improvement from previous Olympic games, however. The commentary included in Athens 2000 is fairly standard and only really of note when it interrupts gameplay by announcing something before it even happens (as in the Skeet Shooting event) or when it's being rude about your performance, particularly in the harder events. 

Overall there's a decent variety of Olympic events included in this game and it's not all button mashing or badly thought out controls. Some events such as the Kayak and Hammer Throw feel as if they could have had better controls, and the AI could have been improved on the whole, but as the first properly 3D offical Olympics game it doesn't do a bad job. The training modes add some depth to the experience as a whole but there's not a lot of replayability as its similar to the main game.

Rating: 57/100

Grade: D

Game: Athens 2004
Console: Sony Playstation 2
Developer: Eurocom
Release Date: 14th July 2004

By the time Athens 2004 was released, the Dreamcast had been discontinued and so the game of the next Olympic cycle was console exclusive to the PS2. Featuring more sports and disciplines than the last official Olympics game and a new developer there's still just as much button mashing, but the question is whether it's fun button mashing. From the start screen, you're given the choice of competing in Arcade or Competition modes; Arcade mode has a practice and single event feature, as well as party mode for multiplayer games, but other than this the only difference seems to be that Olympic and World records are not featured.

In Competition mode players can choose to compete in a single event, decathlon, heptathlon, all events of a particular kind or all events in the Olympic program. There's also the option to create a custom program of up to 10 events which is good for just playing your favourites. As the events in some disciplines are similar, I'll be looking at them in groups.

With 6 of the game's 25 events being different variations of running, the need for a fun but solid control system for these events is high. The 100m, 200m, and 400m races all feature the classic "press 2 buttons alternately" control system, with L1 used for quick starts and ducking at the finish. While this can get tiring for the 400m, it works decently in the two shorter races and the amount of challenge seems to be pretty spot on. For the 110m Hurdles however, things get considerably more difficult as the game requires you to continue to run whilst pressing L1 to get over the hurdles, and it's not exactly intuitive as to when you need to jump either.

800m and 1500m races employ a very different style of racing. While I'm glad that there's no need to button mash for 3-4 minutes, there's a lot less to do than I'd like. Players tilt the right analog stick to set their runner's speed; the faster they go, the quicker they lose stamina (although there's a sweet spot which will allow you to go a decent pace without losing any stamina). On the final lap, players are given a speed boost equal to the amount of stamina they have left, which can be used at any time on the final lap. If you have the right technique these races are far too easy to win, but if you don't you'll finish a frustrating last place.

For the 7 Field events of the game there are various control schemes; the Long Jump, Triple Jump and Pole Vault all use similar "run, then press L1" ideas where the result is a combination of how well you can button mash and then time your jump. The Pole Vault idea is probably the most successful as players must clear a certain height on the chart, as well as stop the marker within the area to do a valid jump. For the High Jump event players are in control of each step their athlete takes as well as the jump and leg flick at the end. Timing the run up can difficult but once mastered, the event can be fairly enjoyable, if a little hard on higher jumps.

As for the throwing events, three different control schemes are employed; for the discus the player has to make fast circular motions with the analog stick (which is difficult) before hitting L1 to choose the throwing angle. For the shot put event, the player sets a power meter and then an angle to determine how far the throw is. The angle meter goes up very quickly and is difficult to control, as well as there being a red zone in the power meter which indicates a foul. The javelin event features the same "run, then press L1" idea as the jumping events, however L1 is pressed to estimate the timing of the throw. It's difficult to get anywhere near other competitors in this event and often your athlete seems to take an extra hop over the foul line for fun.

The swimming events in the game control similarly to the running, with the addition of a breathing meter which requires players to press L1 occasionally. While there are 4 swimming events featured, they're all very similar and none are particularly impressive. Obviously it's difficult to simulate swimming with controller, but I'd say that a rhythm based idea may have been better and easier to win with.

The gymnastic events feature many different control schemes, the most interesting of which is lifted straight from Dance Dance revolution games and used for the Women's Floor Excercises. I'm on the fence as to whether this is innovation or plagiarism. The Men's floor Excercises in contrast, feature a rhythm based idea with 2 components; charging your concentration by tapping X and O alternately (which makes the rhythm hitzones bigger) followed by tapping the X button at the correct point, and a part which moves around the 4 face buttons in order.

In the Men's Rings the analog sticks control the held positions with tapping of R1 and L1 to steady the athlete inbetween holds. To dismount there's a button combo which must be executed within a certain time limit. For the Vault event the player must build up speed to get air by pressing X and O alternately before pulling off a button combo within the time they have before hitting the floor. The harder routines don't show the combo you're required to pull off before you're in the air for added difficulty. All in all, the gymnastics events have a mixed standard of enjoyability with the highest being a blatant copy of another game's core dynamic.

The final four events are sort of miscellaneous as far as disciplines go. By far the worst event in the entire game is Showjumping; if your horse's speed is even slightly wrong going into a jump it'll refuse to even try, and timing the jumps right when your speed is correct is hard anyway. The commentator is condescending and after about 5 penalties, you get disqualified. I've not managed to complete a single round of this event, much as I've tried. Weightlifting requires more alternate pressing of X and O to get to different stages of the clean and jerk, but it's hard to do at the heaviest weights and the computer always seems to be able to outlift you.

Archery features a fun aim-based control scheme where players must judge how much the wind will affect their shot, using the left analog stick to aim before shooting an arrow. Matches are one-on-one, so there's a closer competitive element also. The final event is Men's Skeet Shooting which allows players to aim along the path the clay pigeon will take and time their shot to hit the targets. I found it pretty difficult to judge and hit anything in this event, but I wasn't entirely sure whether it was the game or me that was at fault.

Graphically the game looks pretty good at times, although the athlete models aren't as realistic as they could be. While the locations and props look nice, muscles and skin tones tend to detract from the realism that they're trying to achieve. Commentary is simple and tends to repeat a lot if you play the same event multiple times, but definitely adds to the feel of the game as an official Olympic product.

Overall as a collection of sporting minigames with different controls and ideas, Athens 2004 is hit and miss. Games like swimming and short distance running tend to rely overly on alternate button mashing, but there are good ideas in events such as the long jump, shot put and gymnastics. While these sort of games have a fairly niche market and short shelf life, as an Olympic game, it succeeds in offering a large variety of events to compete in but has little replayability beyond trying to win them all.

Rating: 66/100
Grade: C

Game: Torino 2006
Console: Sony Playstation
Developer: 2K Sports
Release Date: 24th January 2006

Official Winter Olympics video games date back to at least 1994, but the only one I currently own is that of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. Featuring 15 different disciplines of winter sports, the game looks promising initially. There's not a huge amount of game modes however, with the option to compete in all events, 9 specific events, a single event or to choose your own program of events. There's no practice setting or bonus features to the game at all.

Again I'll be looking at the events in groups of similar sports so as not to repeat myself. The first four events are under the Alpine Skiiing discipline; Downhill and Super-G are both fairly similar race skiing events with gates to pass through and a simple control scheme which uses the left analog stick to steer. Aside from getting a good start by pressing the meter at the correct time at the top of the hill, the player's time depends on how well they navigate the course and its various gates.

The Slalom and Giant Slalom skiing events focus more on skill than speed, with much tighter turns between their gates. Personally I found it hard to get the hang of either event despite the decent control scheme. The AI players seem to set fairly perfect run times and it's difficult not to miss any gates. Considering the fact that these 4 events make up over 1/5 of the entire game it seems like there should have been more variation between them.

Two more skiing events are next in the program and once again they're extremely similar. Both Normal Hill and Large Hill ski jumping use the same controls and are essentially the same event. Players must balance their skiier down the inital hill before pressing X to jump. Upon taking off the skiier must once again be balanced in the air before pressing X to land. While the controls are simple, the player's score seems almost random upon landing and as gameplay isn't much fun, there's no incentive to try and beat the computer.

Cross Country skiiing is an endurance event which relies on the player's conservation of stamina and ability to press down the X button varying amounts to follow an effort meter. While it's good to see a little bit of strategy in the game, only one strategy can really win medals in the event. The Nordic combined event features a ski jump followed by a cross country race, with a headstart for those who place well in the ski jump. While this is obviously a real Olympic event, it adds nothing to the game as it's just two of the previous events combined.

The ninth and final skiing event is the Biathlon which combines Cross Country Skiing with Shooting. While this is obviously a real Olympic event, and the shooting is a nice change up from the monotony of the ski sections, this event adds no real value to the gameplay of the game as a whole since the same tactics and strategy can be used from other Cross Country skiing events.

There are three Speed Skating disciplines, 500m, 1000m and 1500m. These use the X and O buttons alternately in a stready rhythm to achieve the maximum speed. The only real difference between all 3 events is the length of the races. While I'm glad that the developers didn't choose the all too common control scheme of mashing the X and O buttons, the longer races can get pretty boring.

Finally (and the most fun of all) come the Bobsleigh and Luge events. Although the choice between 4 Man Bobsleigh, Women's Bobsleigh and Luge doesn't seem to make much difference to the gameplay, the first person viewpoint and fast paced dynamic featured in all 3 events combines well with the control options to steer whichever vehicle you chose.

Graphically the game can be impressive at times, and it's the best looking game of the ones in this review but some textures and other details could definitely be better. The commentary featured in the game is strange for a couple of reasons. Firstly it's not always entirely accurate; on a good run the commentators might remark on how far you are behind, even though you're headed for a gold medal, and secondly all the commentators seem to do is agree with eachother rather than have an interesting conversation about the sport you're currently partaking in.

Overall Torino 2006 feels like a thinly disguised set of the same sports attempting to be passed off a different events. In truth there's only 5 truly different winter sports experiences to be had, which is a shame when things like Curling or Ice Hockey could have so easily been included instead of longer versions of sports already in the game. The sports that are featured are mostly bearable and even almost fun in places, but it's not enough to save the game from being poor.

Rating: 46/100
Grade: D

Collection Review: Intellivision Lives: The History Of Video Gaming

Game: Intellivision Lives: The History Of Video Gaming
Console: Sony Platstation 2
Developer: Realtime Asscociates
Release Date: 20th November 2003

The Intellivision console was released by Mattel Electronics in 1979 and sold 3 million units with a total of 125 games released overall for the system. Just under half of these are included on this collection, which was released for PS2, Xbox, DS and PC, by budget publisher Play It. The controller for the original system featured a 12 button number pad and a circular d-pad. The game gets around this by assigning the number pad to the right analog stick and the control knob to the left analog stick, with particular action buttons assigned to the face buttons of the controller.

The games are divided into categories on the main menu screen which is stylised as a 70s pizza bar. The categories featured are Arcade, Gaming, Combat and Sorcery, Unreleased, Space, Kids, and Sports. I'll be taking a look at the games category by category and making a note of anything particularly good or bad. While the menu could have been a little easier to navigate, it's nice to have the games sorted by genre.

The best games of the Arcade section are Night Stalker (where you play as a man defending himself in a maze against robots, bats and spiders), Buzz Bombers (which is a little like Space Invaders, but with bees), and SNAFU (which is a snake clone, but fun nonetheless). On the whole the controls for these games are responsive, or at least seem to have the desired effect on screen.

The worst of the Arcade section includes Bomb Squad (a strategy game using the Intellivision voice module to shout commands at you) which was more confusing than attempting to defuse a real bomb, Vectron (a shooter where you're some sort of base, instead of something that actually moves) whose controls made zero sense, and Thin Ice (a game where you play as a penguin who attempts to drown other penguins by skating holes around them in the ice) which was fiddly and difficult to play.

The "Gaming" section of the collection highlights some of the more unnecessary games released for the Intellivision. With the exception of Horseracing (which is confusing and slowly paced), all 6 other games could be played better in real life. Backgammon, Checkers, and Reversi had awkward control schemes and would have been much easier to set up and play on a board, and Poker and Blackjack are fairly easy to play with a set of cards. While many people don't own a Roulette wheel, the Roulette game featured is hardly exciting anyway.

With some of these games being two players only, another problem with the collection is highlighted. Due to the odd nature of the Intellivision controller, players can press the select button on the PS2 controller to bring up a visual representation of the Intellivison controller on-screen. In some games this is necessary to select various options. With only one player's controller on-screen it's easy enough to move it around and out of the way of the action, but with two it becomes cluttered and messy.

The best of the Combat and Sorcery category of games are those which are more fantasy based; Thunder Castle (pictured above) features various levels where players must collect items to defeat enemies around a maze in a pseudo Pac-man style. Tower of Doom is possibly the most complex Intellivison game I've seen so far, with an adventure through dungeons where you can encounter and fight creatures, as well as find and use items to escape. Finally there's Utopia which is rather difficult to understand at first, but is a fairly detailed attempt at a SimCity type game, way before SimCity was even released. 

Other than these 3 games however, the Combat and sorcery section is somewhat of a letdown with the rest of the games divided between hard to play simulation type games )such as B-17 Bomber, Sea Battle and Sub Hunt) and Atari 2600 clone games (such as Armor Battle, Battle Tanks and Biplanes). So far it's this section that has had the best display of complex and interesting games. 

Surprisingly the space themed games only number 6, in an era where the genre was incredibly popular. Astrosmash is perhaps one of the best known games for the system. Gameplay consists of shooting down Asteroids which are falling towards Earth. For every one that is destroyed, points are gained and for each one that gets through, points are lost. A life is lost when the player is hit by a piece of asteroid, or in other special circumstances. Space Armada is also a familiar game, although this is because it's essentially Space Invaders, though there are fewer enemies who also move more slowly than in the original game.

Both Space Battle and Space Spartans feature more of a strategic style of gameplay with multiple screens and options for attack. I found both of them difficult to understand entirely, and didn't think they were particularly worthy of making this compilation. Lastly Space Hawk and Star Strike are both more slowly paced space shooters which have little character and less to enjoy gameplay wise than Astrosmash or Space Armada.

The kids games that were made for the Intellivision were mostly educational, so as you'd expect Math Master and Factor Fun are largely based around maths. There's a version of scrabble with fairly difficult controls misleadingly named "Crosswords", and a game called Word Rockets which features some of the worst sound effects I've ever heard in a game. I'm not entirely sure of the point of including these on the collection as either there was nothing better (which proves the game lineup was pretty dire), or the developers thought that they're enjoyable games (they're not).

Two games do stand out in the kids section though; Frog Bog is a port of the Atari 2600 game Frogs and Flies which plays pretty nicely and makes for a short but enjoyable experience. Sharp Shot is the other standout game as it features 4 different minigames based on timing; Football Pass, Space Gunner, Submarine, and Maze Shoot. In an era where all of these could easily have been released as individual games without much of a problem, it's good to see that not everyone was doing just the minimum amount of work necessary to make a game.

The sports section purports to have 22 different games over 14 sports, however some sports have 2 games which are basically the same, save for a few improvements. It seems as if the original games have been left on the collection to bolster the game count, because they add nothing when there's an improved version to play, just below them. In general most, if not all of the sports games are poor representations of what they're supposed to be, and although it was early on in video game history they're just not much fun to play.

The last section of games concerns unreleased titles, half of which are locked, with no explanation of how to unlock them, and the other half are the Demo Cartridge ) for shops displaying the Intellivision), Magic Carousel (a game for preschoolers) and Hyponotic Lights (a fairly unexciting puzzle game).

Graphically the game's menu looks decent and functions well, and the graphics of the Intellivision games look as good as they're ever going to. The sounds from the games are also as true to the console as they can be. There's an interesting choice of introductory song on the menu screen however (check it out with the link); I don't know who decided to rhyme "incision" with "Intellivision", but it wasn't the greatest idea. There's some bonus content in the form of interviews with programmers for the Intellivision, and box art can be viewed from the menu of each game, but that's about it.

Overall I'm not entirely convinced that this collection needs to exist; while the Intellivision was definitely a popular console in its day, there's only about 5 games that are actually worth playing in the whole collection. With the addition of control difficulties, multiple versions of the same sports games being included, and a generally mediocre feel, I'd recommend avoiding this collection and getting a real Intellivision if you're that keen on playing the games.

Rating: 43/100
Grade: E

Game Review: L.A. Noire

Game: L.A. Noire
Console: Sony Playstation 3
Developer: Team Bondi
Release Date: 17th May 2011

Conceptually different to anything that Rockstar Games had published before it, L.A. Noire saw the company team up with independent Australian developer Team Bondi to make a film noir inspired video game set in 1947, which allowed players to take the role of a detective and solve crimes around the city of Los Angeles. With much more investigation, deduction and attempted atmosphere than previous Rockstar titles, there's less violence required and no opportunity to kill people other than those that the game wants you to.

The game's story takes the main character 'Cole Phelps' from being a lowly Beat Cop, through traffic crimes, homicide and arson cases, and Vice Squad matters. While the crimes may differ, the main gameplay routine remains the same throughout; investigate crime scenes and any evidence left there, question suspects arising from investigation, and then repeat the Investigate/Question cycle until the case is solved. Sometimes there are action sequences where Cole must apprehend a suspect, subdue them, or shoot his way through a building but these are few and far between.

Overall the game is pretty cutscene heavy; arriving at any story locations will trigger a short arrival cutscene, as will interviewing suspects. The investigation portion of gameplay allows you to roam around crime scenes and locations relevant to the case searching for clues which are indicated with a chime on the soundtrack when discovered (although this can be turned off). Some items can be further investigated by rotating them or taking a closer look, and others are completely irrelevant. All main pieces of evidence must be discovered before the next part of the case can be accessed, but missing minor clues only impacts on your final case rating.

Once all evidence has been uncovered the questioning portion of gameplay commences, in which Cole asks questions of suspects and witnesses from clues written in his notepad, and attempts to determine whether their statement is the truth, doubtful, or a lie. The NPCs facial expressions and movements are the main indicator of which option is correct, although it's not blatantly obvious. If the player chooses to accuse the suspect of lying, a piece of evidence to prove the lie must be selected from Cole's notebook. The main problem with this system is that it's a little ambiguous as to whether doubt or lie is the correct option. In one case, I chose to present evidence that a suspect's last statement was a lie (something about a pair of glasses) and ended up accusing them of being a murderer.

In addition to the somewhat passive gameplay modes of investigation and questioning, there are action sequences which see Cole attempting to apprehend or subdue suspects. There are 4 main types of action sequence in the game; non-violent on foot, when a suspect flees instead of staying to be questioned. Weapon based on foot, where a building contains multiple armed suspects to be killed. Brawling, where players engage in a fist fight to subdue a suspect, and vehicular action sequences which require ramming or tailing a suspect's car.

Any story case action sequence can be skipped if failed 3 times (I'm not sure why you'd want to), but none of them are too hard. The cover based shooting mechanic of the weapon based on foot sequences is similar to that of GTA IV, which isn't too surprising considering Rockstar helped with the development of the game, as well as publishing it. The lock-on system can be troublesome at times, but it's something that takes a little getting used to, rather than being a problem.

The city of L.A. itself is large and feels very much in character for the era, with plenty of 1940s cars, buildings and landmarks. It takes a considerable amount of time to drive from one end of the city to another, and this adds to the immersion as well as giving you the feeling of being just one cop in a huge city. There are plenty of buildings that you're allowed to enter (for missions at least, free roaming is more limited) and the people of Los Angeles will take notice of you, even if it is a little too often.

While I won't be discussing the plot explicitly in this review, I do have a few general complaints of the storyline. Firstly a lot of cases tend to end abruptly, just as you start trying to piece together what might have happened; coming across incriminating evidence at the residence of a suspect who then runs off only to be apprehended leaves you wondering why you were even trying to do any deductive reasoning. The ending of the game also follows this pattern, but on a grander scale. There's no real resolution or closure to the plot and many fans were left disappointed by this.

Graphically the game is very impressive with extremely detailed facial models in interrogations and questioning, and a good level of interactivity with many of the items which are scattered around crime scenes. The musical selection is enjoyable and fits well with the time period; there's a wide choice of radio shows and music to listen to in vehicles as well as the soundtrack itself. The voice acting is of particularly good quality and matches well with the motion captured facial expressions to deliver a realistic conversational experience.

Overall L.A. Noire delivers a generally immersive and enjoyable film noir-like experience in look, atmosphere and story. While gameplay can seem fairly linear at times, there is the odd case where you have to choose who you want to charge out of two suspects, and interrogations can be challenging in a positive sense. In truth L.A. Noire succeeds neither as a detective style game (due to linearity and premature case endings), nor as a police style video game (gameplay wise at least), but as film noir style experience which gives you a taste of 1940s Los Angeles without any sugar coating.

Rating: 80/100
Grade: B

Razorworks Racing Game Double Header: Ford Racing 2 vs Total Immersion Racing

Having been told that both of these games were an affront to the racing genre by a friend, I rushed out to pick them up and try them myself. Interestingly they're both by the same developer and have the same producer. The first game; Total Immersion Racing features racing with licensed GT, GTS and Le Mans Prototype class cars all on track at the same time, and Ford Racing 2 features a selection of cars licensed by Ford racing on various tracks.

Game: Total Immersion Racing
Console: Sony Playstation 2
Developer: Razorworks Studios
Release Date: 20th November 2002

The concept for Total Immersion Racing seems fairly exciting; licensed GT, GTS and Le Mans Prototype cars, real world track locations and "smart AI" who hold grudges and remember your actions. With a career mode that lets you work your way up the ladder, racing more and more powerful cars for different teams, and a series of challenges which unlocks various cars and tracks for play in time trial mode, my first impressions of this game were good.

After around 5 minutes of playing however, I was soon disappointed. Career mode begins with a choice of 2 GT teams to race for, either Team Audi or Noble Racing. The choice is fairly inconsequential as while there are differences between the cars featured, the overall handling of the game is the biggest challenge. It's somewhere inbetween arcade and simulation and feels very slidey and erratic around corners.

It took me most of my first qualifying lap to master the handling of the car I had chosen, so naturally I was in last place on the grid for the first race of the series. Surprisingly, within the first couple of straights I saw myself through to 1st position in the GT class without any challenge from the AI at all. In subsequent races, I noticed that apart from spinning out every now and then, the computer players stick rigidly to their racing line just like games such as Gran Turismo 4. Another similarity between the two games is a lack of damage to cars, both visually and mechanically.

Even more disappointing was the fact that a feature shown on the back of the box, the "AI-tude meter" which was intended to indicate how computer players were feeling, doesn't even feature in the game at all. In all of my time playing the game, I tried to instigate some sort of reaction from computer players, but unless I was in the way of their racing line, absolutely no sign of the AI "holding grudges" was present. The only mention of rivals in the game came from the Team Manager in Career mode, who seems to choose a random racer from the same class and tell you that they're now your rival. More often than not it was someone 3 or more places below me in the standing who I hadn't even had any contact with during the previous race.

The Career mode in the game isn't too bad once you've accepted the handling problems and lack of AI intelligence. It's fairly easy to place first in each championship, if not win every race. The progression from GT cars to Le Mans Prototypes is decent, and they are slightly more difficult to drive. For each class you move up into, there's an extra lap per race, and 2 extra races per championship. It'd easily be possible to win all 3 classes of championship in a single play session.

Challenge mode features smaller championships featuring specific cars in which you must place first to unlock the next challenge. Doing so also unlocks new cars for use in Single Race and Time Trial modes. The same problems with AI and handling are present in Championship mode, and as there are only 9 tracks featured in the game, it can get rather boring.

Graphically the game is average; while it doesn't look bad, the quality is lower than Gran Turismo 4 and other games in the racing genre. As previously mentioned there's no damage to cars, and while the game claims to have advanced particle and weather effects, I wasn't particularly impressed. The soundtrack features mainly techno beats behind the racing which are repetitive and don't really stand out as something I'd actually like to listen to. The worst sound feature by far however is your Team Manager on the radio, who will tell you either obvious ("Overtake the next car and you'll be in first place") or inaccurate (the last quote, when you're in 3rd) information.

Overall Total Immersion Racing seems to be more of a failed concept than a game. Perhaps the entire AI programming budget was spent on acquiring the licenses to the cars featured, or perhaps "computer opponents with the intelligence of real racing drivers" were too difficult to program. Whatever the excuse, Total Immersion Racing fails to live up to its claims, and without them is a mediocre and bland racing game with very little appeal to anyone.

Rating: 45/100
Grade: D

Game: Ford Racing 2
Console: Sony Playstation 2
Developer: Razorworks Studios
Release Date: 28th October 2003

Ford Racing 2 is a simple, yet strange concept for a game; players race various models of car produced by Ford in various events. While there's 32 different cars to choose from, this is far less than the average racing game of the era, and for players without much knowledge of these models, it may seem like a rather dismal selection. For players who are aware of Ford's range of and have played other racing games, the choice of just 6 tracks (even if they do have 16 layouts of said tracks) and lack of a real career mode will be the main offputting factors.

At the main menu screen you're given the option of selecting a Quick Race (with preset cars on preset tracks), Single Player Mode (which includes options for Ford Challenge, Ford Collection, which lets you race with your unlocked cars and tracks, and view your Driver Profile) and Multiplayer (where players can race their friends). As Quick Race and Multiplayer races are stand alone races, it's to be assumed that Ford Challenge is the main mode, although it seems like more of a supporting mode.

In Ford Challenge mode you're given 7 different classes of racing (separated by car type), with 2 or more challenges in. Some are locked to begin with, and can be unlocked by completing other challenges. There are 8 different types of challenge; some are driven alone such as Driving Skills and Racing Line challenges, and others are against AI opponents, such as Standard Race, Elimination and Duel. There are 34 different challenges in total, and 3 difficulty levels on which to complete them.

The handling is game resembles arcade style racers but braking seems to be a big problem, as any attempt at slowing down ends in losing control and sliding off the course. The challenges themselves have a wide range of difficulty with some requiring completion on Easy mode, and others being possible on Hard. The AI is incredibly unpredictable and sometimes drives very badly, even spinning off track of its own accord at times. Some of the solo challenges seem fairly unnecessary and give the impression that the developers just wanted to pad out the gameplay of Ford Challenge mode.

Graphically the game's locations look nice for the era, and even the cars aren't too badly modelled. There's a slight lack of detail on some models, especially stock cars however. For a long time I was under the impression that there were only 3 songs to choose from in the entire game, however the default setting for the audio is "Rock" which features 3 songs. If changed, players can also listen to Funk and House music, or a combination of the 3. The music featured is energetic and fun to race to.

Overall Ford Racing 2 has a lot of problems; no real career mode or replayability, mixed with a small selection of cars and tracks, most of which have to be unlocked. While it can be fairly graphically impressive, and the racing soundtrack is good, the cons outweigh the pros quite heavily and give the game a very hollow feel overall. There's hardly any depth to Ford Challenge mode, let alone the others and so you'll have experienced everything the game has to offer within a few hours.

Rating: 36/100
Grade: E