Half Gamer Half Crab

I've been interested in Fable for a long time. I don't mean since the previews of Fable II started or anything. I mean since the game was a fuzzy pre-alpha screenshot and 40 words of text talking about a Project Ego.

So you can imagine that I was into the hype surrounding Fable. The talk of freedom and morality and so forth. And you can imagine that I was disappointed by the final game. Now don't get me wrong, because it was actually a very solid, enjoyable game. It's well made, fun, fast-paced, and all that jazz. I've got few complaints about Fable as a game, just disappointment that it was Fable and not, well, Project Ego.

Fable 2 looks like a different story. We Brits have to wait a couple more days sadly, but what I am hearing so far sounds good. Great, even. Specifically what sounds great is that you can purchase every single property in the entire game world, and then rent them out or whatever, gaining income for doing so. This, in itself, is wonderful. And I just can't help but think about the possibilities of, for instance, purchasing the business and home of someone who was unkind to me as a child, decades later, and turn him out onto the streets. I want to make him a PAUPER.

Or I want to buy an entire town and run it like the archetypical cruel Victorian industrialist. I want to grind them under my heels as I grow fat and gout-ridden on their toil. I want to inspire the writing of Das Kapital. Or to simply buy the entire world and ban everyone from every property, turning the nation into one of bums. (Will they commit crimes out of desperation?)

I don't expect that it will be quite that detailed and freeform. But it'd be quite lovely to get even a few of these things to some degree. And it does sound like Fable 2 comes closer than most to this sort of freedom!

My my! Rumors abound that a new installment in the much-loved Syndicate series is in the works. How fascinating! This would definitely be a good thing, but to be honest I'm just not sure anyone can work that Bullfrog magic. Even Lionhead have trouble working that Bullfrog magic. When you're talking about a stable of games like Theme Park, Magic Carpet, Syndicate Wars, and Dungeon Keeper, it's hard to match.

I'm not going to rail against EA, except to say that I hope by the time this comes out they have abandoned or toned down their ludicrous and inefficient copy protection nonsense.

I don't think co-op is being exploited to its fullest. I don't think its even close, to be honest. Co-op tends to simply mean you've got another gun at your side, and another damage sponge. Sure, they throw some extra enemies at you or maybe buff some of their hit points, and it's true that sometimes they split you up so the two of you are pursuing complimentary objectives, but ultimately they tend to be pretty uninspired affairs. Massively, massively fun, but nonetheless uninspired.

Let's imagine a game with a horror slant. Let's think it's a FPS with a horror slant. And let's imagine two people are playing it over XBL.

You've gone through a few levels with your buddy, having good times, shooting things up. You start a new level, and it has a slightly different atmosphere. Slightly creepier, slightly less actiony. As the two of you make your way through the level the number of encounters is a little lower, but the ammo is a good deal lower. The game has stepped up the difficulty, it seems.

You head into a new room and suddenly, your friend opens fire... on nothing at all. The bullets bury themselves into the walls. You start to ask what the hell they're wasting all that ammo for, but before you can get a word in they're yelling at you to start firing.

They can see enemies which you can't see, and vice-versa. Are they real? Are they hallucinations? To the person who can see them they act perfectly normally; to the other person you're shooting at shadows. Now you'd need to do this right. You couldn't overdo it, you couldn't make it a gameplay mechanic you rely on. And you certainly shouldn't have a specific enemy who acts like this - any regular enemy should sometimes have this capacity. But used occasionally and wisely, the ability to enhance the game and create tension and drama, not just between the game and players but between the players themselves, would be great.

That's just one example of how I think co-op gameplay could be more than it is.

The next few weeks in gaming are quite intense. Let me give you a quick rundown of everything I'm interested in;

October 17: Saints Row 2. I picked up the first SR cheap some time ago, while waiting for GTAIV - but it actually turned out to be hugely fun. I'm looking forward to 2 because, as their ad angle suggests, they're not taking the srs bzns route which GTAIV took. And while an incredible game, the latest from R* just lacks that possibility for silliness and ridiculousness.

October 25: Fable II. Okay, ol' Petey likes the hype, but the first one was still a lot of fun despite not being revolutionary, and this one looks like at the least an iterative improvement, if not better still. Also local co-op. In an RPG. You don't know how awesome this is, guys.

October 31: Fallout 3 & Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3. Yeah two long awaited additions to two amazing franchises. I'm not expecting Fallout 3 to be a Fallout game, but I am expecting it to be a lot of fun. RA3 is going to be epic and awesome and I simply cannot wait.

Nov 7: Gears of War 2. My good friend Barry and I would spend an immense amount of time playing GoW. The new game from Cliffy B is sure to be even more balls-out insane! Plus, Horde mode looks redonkulously awesome.

Nov 14: Mirror's Edge. Wow, a game that actually tries to do new stuff! Well, except for Assassin's Creed I guess. But I love the aesthetic it has going on, and it's an interesting idea that I can dig. I will be checking it out!

Nov 21: Left 4 Dead. Well, it'd be nice to have a proper multiplayer survival horror with zombies, but this will suffice, as it does look pretty wonderful.

So that's what, seven games I want in six weeks. Pretty intense and ridiculous! Just as long as I can keep off the WarCrack, or Wrath of the Lich King sneaks onto the list as well, and that would just make things silly =[

Theme Park, made by Bullfrog, is one of gaming's venerable old men. Originally released in 1994, it wasn't one of the progenitors of the management and building genre, but it certainly had some of the most wide-reaching effects, both on the genre and on me personally.

I first played Theme Park on the PC. However, this was a family machine, and for me to get time on it was rare, so I ended up getting the Mega Drive version instead. Once the PS1 was released and I got one, I got a copy for that as well.

Theme Park is a strategy game, where you take managerial command of, well, I hope I don't actually need to spell it out. You control the placement of rides, amenities like souvenier stores, food stalls, and so forth, and can create a park layout with very few restrictions. That's one of the keys to Theme Park's success, and what it taught me about games which might seem less than obvious when you consider the more competitive side. What's compelling about Theme Park is designing and building a park which is not just profitable, but also aesthetically pleasing. Building a park with sensible themed areas, for instance surrounding your Haunted House with a creepy, graveyard kind of place, proved far more rewarding than simply achieving the objectives. At the same time the objectives places a constraint that made design more rewarding. If you could do what you wanted to do, despite the constraints of budgets, objectives, staffing, and so forth - that was the real mark of success in Theme Park.

That's something which has always compelled me in games. I don't usually enjoy straight-up sandbox modes for very long, because the lack of challenge renders it somewhat stale. To face a challenge, succeed, and see the fruits of my success - therein lies the greatest appeal of any strategy game, to me. And for me Theme Park was the first time this was demonstrated to me.

Of course, it can be hard to get that balance of challenge and freedom just right. Theme Park isn't perfect here. For instance ensuring you have the handymen to keep the park clean, and assigning them properly, can be a chore. Balancing micromanagement is difficult for developers, because it needs to remain engaging and fun, but to also allow to some extent for challenge, but more importantly for customization in how things are done. In Theme Park you could maintain a very small business, or you could construct something vast - that freedom of objective is something strategy games ought to aim for.

If you see Theme Park around, give it a try if you haven't before. There's a remake of it on the DS, which was pretty decent for the most part, but you really want to be playing the old PC version. (A candidate for something on GoG.com.) There aren't many games I played so intensely that, upon closing my eyes, I could see sprites. Theme Park is one of those games.

So there's an indie game doing the rounds right now, you may or may not have heard mention of it. It's called Mount & Blade. It's a very interesting little piece, and one which has had me compelled for some weeks now.

If you've seen many reviews of M&B the comparison you'll have seen most often is Oblivion. This is a false comparison and I don't know where it comes from, except perhaps insofar as they both have RPG elements like stat-building, and they both have real-time combat. Beyond that they are entirely different games. A far more accurate comparison, in my eyes, is with Elite and with Dynasty Warriors.

The game centers around the fictional land of Calradia, circa 1257. The military technology is broadly analogous to our conception of medieval technology at that time - swords, spears, lances, and so forth. Guns are hidden in the game code, and several mods make use of them, but in vanilla they don't make an appearance. Also not making an appearance is magic, or indeed fantasy in any form. No magic, no race but Humans, no healing potions, nothing. Just soldiers, weapons, and horses - mounts being to some degree the game's raison d'être. The game is ultimately a combat simulator, and whilst I mention DW as a comparison that is due only to them both having real-time combat of significant numbers. With regards to how combat plays out this is almost a polar opposite of Koei's cash cow. Whereas DW is arcadey and over the top, M&B strives towards a realistic representation.

Combat here is convincing and based on physics. If you swing at someone and can't get a lot of speed up before you impact, you won't do much damage at all. If you're on horseback and smash someone at full tilt with a battle axe, they're likely to drop like a sack of potatoes. As a result of both this and how you defend yourself the game has a strong skill component in combat. Defense comes in two forms; with a shield and without. The former offers protection against frontal attacks, but your shield can be broken by repeated hits. The latter requires more player involvement, as you will raise your weapon to parry, but you won't necessarily raise it to the right position until your opponent begins preparing their swing. This requires you to pay attention - especially because the AI is smart enough to feint.

As the leader of a mercenary force, you can also give commands to your troops. This can be crucial to victory against tougher groups of foes, and it's very satisfying when you successfully execute a tactic. You recruit troops in the Elite-style side of the game, which is the world map and various towns, villages, and castles on it. You have the freedom to go anywhere on the map right from the start, to do quests for towns, villages, and the lords of any of the five nations in the game. You can recruit troops, who gain strength through combat and your Training skill level. You can hunt bandits and looters and the like. You can attack caravans. You can trade various goods between cities, making a profit for yourself.

This side of the game is less developed than the combat, it's true, but it works well and can become very involving. There's no main plot to hold your hand, you just go about whatever business you please. I've seen some complain about this but for me, it's liberating and works well.

M&B is a compelling experiment. It's far from perfect; the quests get repetetive, there are some balance issues with regard to the economy, herding cows is the most annoying thing since itchy diarrhea. But the combat is some of the best I've seen in gaming, you grow attached to the land, your character, and your army, and it's a very brave and refreshing piece of work. It must be recommended.