The Quixotic Engineer

As often happens with hyped-up games, Mirror’s Edge fell short of many people’s lofty expectations. Some complained about its length (I managed to complete the story mode in two solid evenings of gaming). Others criticized the cliché-ridden story, which was seemingly written with the philosophy that: “Sudden betrayals are shocking, the more the better!” However, I think most people would have overlooked these flaws if DICE had managed to nail the gameplay. Unfortunately, Mirror’s Edge is the victim of a compromised vision.

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This Wednesday I attended Gamma 3D, a game design event being thrown by Kokoromi and connected to the Montreal International Game Summit. There is serious indie talent at these events; last year’s Gamma 256 featured the much-discussed Passage among others. The theme of this year’s competition was 3D stereoscopy, explained thusly by the organizers:

“It’s very typical of games right now to toss [3D stereoscopy] in as some back-of-the-box bullet point,” says Kokoromi co-founder Heather Kelley. “We wanted to throw it out there as an actual design challenge, and not treat it as some buzzword.”

Adds co-founder Phil Fish, “Right now, Ubisoft is working on a 3D stereoscopic game, and we’re seeing it more in TV and film. So we asked the question: is it worthwhile? Is there anything you can really do with it?”

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I’m roughly a dozen hours into Fallout 3, and so far my experience has been very entertaining but highly inconsistent. Every flash of brilliance, moment of wonderful storytelling and interesting nook of the vast capitol wasteland has been marred by stiff character animations, sloppy A.I. and show-stopping bugs. I thought I might take a moment to chronicle some of the ups and downs on the roller coaster of quality that is Fallout 3.

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A few weeks ago Mike Walbridge put out a call looking for review writers for a new project. This venture was the expansion and revamping of a gaming website called Snackbar Games where he is the head editor. I expressed an interest, and Mike kindly offered me a job. I’ll now be writing occasional reviews, news posts and commentary over at Snackbar.

My first review of the indie puzzle game World of Goo was posted earlier today, you’ll have to click through to Snackbar to check it out:

Snackbar Games – World of Goo Review

For game reviews to move away from buyer’s guides and toward true criticism, I believe price must no longer be a factor in scoring. Portal is a great game at $20 or $60, even if it’s likely a bad investment in the latter case. However, since I avoided saying it there I’ll say it here: World of Goo is a steal. Spending $20 for one of the best games of the year is a no-brainer. Spending $20 to support indie developers is a no-brainer. Spending $20 for a game released on OSX and Linux is a no-brainer. Please purchase and play this wonderfully creative game, you absolutely will not regret it.

In the latest episode of the Brainy Gamer podcast, Michael and his guests Leigh and Mitch have a fascinating discussion contrasting two recent horror releases: Dead Space and Silent Hill: Homecoming. The consensus is that, while Dead Space is technically impressive and features innovative use of the third person perspective, it lacks the subtle psychological elements of a traditional survival horror title. I’d hate to reduce the impact of their arguments by summarizing them, so you’ll have to listen for yourself if you’re not convinced.

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