I realize, as the clock chimes 1 AM, that I’m huddled in front of the soft glow of my monitor late into the night, for the third time this week. Minecraft has it’s cubed hands latched into my brain, controlling every urge I have. I don’t want to sleep, I want to dig for diamonds.
It’s great.
Minecraft is the most charming, original game this year, and it’s not out of beta testing. Its blend of LEGO meets RPG meets survival horror is so good, in fact, that people are paying to beta test it. Including myself. No game company charges for a beta test, then again, very few games have caught fire like Minecraft has. What started out as a personal project for Markus Persson, aka Notch, has become an anomaly – the game has no advertising, only word of mouth, and has sold over 1.9 million copies and it’s still in beta testing! Also, bear in mind that Persson’s most notable work before Minecraft was as a developer on the very forgettable Wurm Online. Like I said, Minecraft is an anomaly.
Notch, aka thy Lord God, Creator of All that is Minecraft has set hearts on fire. Fan sites across the web blow up every time he tweets a new feature his development company, Mojang AB, is working on for Minecraft (Persson’s twitter account has over 147,000 followers as of this writing). All that fanfare exists for good reason. Minecraft is excellent. Don’t let its plain-Jane presentation fool you, this game has received as much love and care as any AAA release I’ve played. Things like portals to another dimension, a functioning circuit system, and numerous other cool touches manifest Mojang AB’s reverence for their work. The depth and complexity of this game is only limited by the player’s imagination. People have built actual, functioning computers in Minecraft, entire rollercoasters have been constructed, mammoth cities sprawl across Minecraft servers – the breadth of this game is practically unmatched. And it’s still in beta.
This is one of those rare projects where the unbridled ambition of a developer is in lock-step with reality. A java-powered game that blends this many different genres seems like a project that would collapse under its own weight. The guts and determination it takes to make a game like Minecraft are well beyond anything I have, that’s for sure. Persson took a labor of love, exposed it to the light of day, and worked his fingers to the bone making it a reality. Then, when Minecraft’s popularity caught on, he ran with it, founding Mojang AB. Now, he has one of the best PC games of the year in his repertoire – Persson’s ambition paid off.
The fact is, you’d be a fool to not play this game. The most basic description I can give is Minecraft is virtual LEGO with monsters thrown in. Playing it’s like reliving a part of my childhood over again, and this time nostalgia doesn’t get in the way. I get excited when I excavate blindly into the ground, and stumble upon a gaping, expansive underground cavern ripe with resources for the taking. At the same time I have a tinge of nervousness as I explore – I know there will be monsters in that same cavern. Every groan of a zombie freaks me out just as much as anything in Resident Evil. Every Minecraft player has been gripped by the absolute horror of hearing a distinctive hisssss, only to turn around just in time to see a creeper blow you to kingdom come.
That’s the other thing that makes Minecraft so great – the pace is so organic, but so spot-on. It’s near impossible to replicate, and just as difficult for me to explain. One minute, I’m completely relaxed, taming wolves to follow me around – the next minute I’m locked in complete fear as a creeper comes out of nowhere, threatening to explode everything I’ve worked on for the past two nights. There have been a number of times where I’ve fled in terror, my heart pounding, my fingers crushing my keyboard, as I’m trying to lure a creeper away from my painstakingly crafted home. I’m more than willing to sacrifice myself, respawning a distance away from my safe haven, and risking dying multiple times trying to get back to where I was. That’s how attached I am to the virtual LEGO castle I built – I’d gladly sacrifice a half hour of sleep, running back, probably getting killed multiple times in the process, just to keep it in tact. And I need my sleep. The funny thing is, after that moment of horrifying death, I’m looking at a vast, beautiful landscape stretched out before me. I’m relaxed and ready to find more adventure. That’s a common Minecraft experience.
At the same time, it’s an experience unlike any other. In a sea of “me too” games, Minecraft is a true original. It’s everything an indie game should be: ambitious, creative, original, and above all, fun. I can’t recommend this game enough to you. It’s around $20 and is absolutely worth every cent. Go check it out. You’ll be glad you blew off bedtime for Minecraft.
The Humble Indie Bundle is have its third annual release at 9:30 Pacific tonight: The Humble Frozenbyte Bundle . This year’s pack includes a couple of games from Finnish game developer Frozenbyte. They are Trine, Shadowgrounds, and Shadowgrounds Survivor. These will also be accompanied by two new games: Jack Claw and Splot.
You’ll be able to pay whatever you like for the Humble Frozenbyte Bundle. A portion of the proceeds will go to the Child’s Play and Electronic Frontier Foundation charities, with the remainder going to the games’ developers. You’ll be able to decide what portion of your donation goes to whom when you check out on the Humble Indie Bundle’s site.
Check out the video they released today for more info.
Bethesda’s first step into the well-mapped FPS wilderness, Brink, is releasing on May 10. That’s a full week earlier than the game’s initial release date of May 17. Why they’ve decided to release a week earlier is anyone’s guess. Could it have something to do with L.A. Noire’s May 17 release? Chances are good.
I bought Minecraft last Friday. It’s basically LEGO with monsters, and nothing short of awesome. If you haven’t heard of it, go check out their site.
Looks pretty ho-hum, right? Forgive the graphics, forgive the simple-looking gameplay. You need to play this game. It’s deeper than you’d think. Minecraft is so organic and crazy, no two games can be replicated. This is the sort of game that every developer wishes they could create – easily one of the most important games of its time. If you’re too cheap to pay $20 for the beta, you can play an earlier version of the game for free.
Regardless, I highly recommend that you pick this up. Check out what you can do in this game.
Yep. And it totally snuck under my radar. Apparently there was a demo at last year’s E3. Today, Gametrailers released an exclusive trailer of the new Twisted Metal game, and I’m cautiously optimistic. The first two were great. They practically defined my early Playstation days. But the last couple have been lackluster. They didn’t have any soul to them. They felt like they were just sort of going through the motions.
I can’t be the only one praying for Twisted Metal’s return to form.
Valve are working on a new ARG, apparently. This one started with their sale of the indie game bundle Potato Sack Pack through Steam on April 1st. I love watching a good ARG unfold. If you’re curious, start here. Reddit also has a pretty good thread about all of this.
Smart money says that this is somehow related to the upcoming release of Portal 2. Check out some of the promotional stuff Valve has been putting out for that game.
Having trouble accessing PSN? Hackers from the group “Anonymous” have been conducting DDoS attacks on Sony’s servers, affecting the PSN service. Anonymous says the attacks are in response to Sony’s law suit against PS3 hacker GeoHot. Check out their ultimatum for what they’re calling #OPSony.
If I ever hit the lottery someday (or learn a useful skill) I’m going to follow in TheLastGamer’s footsteps. His collection is unreal!
Kill Screen Magazine, which has the honorable distinction of being the only gaming magazine mentioned in GQ, has released a new article about one intern’s experience at Games Radar. Go read it.
I think the point of their story is to explain how an article about a game can sound like it’s another piece of hype coming straight from the publisher’s mouth. As a gaming journalist, it’s hard not to foster a “too close for comfort” relationship with a publisher. Reviewers depend upon news from publishers, just like publishers depend on income that a good review can generate. It’s in both party’s interests to get close.
However, in this instance the end result wasn’t all that bad. The article feels like Kill Screen is reaching for something provocative. You can ask any journalist about their experiences with PR people, and get a similar story nearly every time. A PR agent’s ultimate goal is to get a journalist to publish said agent’s press release completely unedited. That’s the best way to make their company or product look awesome, even if everyone knows it’s a day-old turd sandwich. If you sit a PR agent in the same room as a reviewer, that PR agent is going to do everything short of locking the door in order to get a good review. It’s not that PR agents are bad people, it’s that their livelihood depends upon their ability to make something look great, regardless of its actual quality.
But, understood in a more general sense, Kill Screen’s article is indicative of something that may be more systemic. Most people probably have their suspicions about publishers indirectly buying reviews for favorable scores on their games. When you’re fighting in a crowded, billions of dollars a year industry, the temptation to cheat the system becomes very real. For example, there’s the Jeff Gerstmann incident (though Jeff’s firing lead to his founding of one of the best gaming news sites). CNet hasn’t been able to tell anyone why Jeff was fired because of California state law, but it’s hard to deny what that whole thing looks like.
Ultimately, because the gaming press has such a close relationship with the very industry they’re scrutinizing, it may be impossible for a games journalist to be completely objective. Does that really matter, though? It’s not like a $60 video game is the difference between life and death. Ultimately, as a consumer, can you trust what a review says? That’s the billion dollar question.
If you’re familiar with the Assassin’s Creed series, you’ll probably remember that the first game was… divisive. While the premise of the game was enticing, some found that the execution was lacking. Complaints of repetitive quests, not enough content, and a generally disappointing presentation compared to what was promised left a lot of people closely watching the game disappointed. With the release of Assassin’s Creed II, it seemed that Ubisoft had taken the criticism of the first game to heart. The general consensus being that the sequel was a marked improvement over the original in every way, but still had imperfections. About a year after that, Ubisoft released Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. Because Brotherhood followed so quickly on the heels of Assassin’s Creed II, there were accusations of the game being a cheap cash-in. While Brotherhood does re-use assets and game mechanics from AC 2, it’s an improvement over the previous entry. The multiplayer, alone, stands as one of the best, most original ideas this generation and might be worth the cost of admission.
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood continues the story of lady’s man Ezio Auditore, the main character of Assassin’s Creed II. Brotherhood picks up the instant that AC:2 ended: Ezio, having punched-out the Pope himself, has liberated the Apple of Eden (a ancient device used to create religion, among other things). Since clocking the Holy Father stands among the pinnacle of achievement for some, Ezio decides to retire back to his family’s estate in the Italian countryside, ready to fill his calender with crazy parties until the end of time. But Cesare Borgia, sworn enemy to Ezio, has other plans for our young Cassanova. Cesare’s army sieges and eventually destroys the Auditore estate, stealing the Apple of Eden, and leaving Ezio fleeing to Rome with little more than his raw sex-appeal. Now, Ezio decides, is the time to build up the Assassin Brotherhood, and reclaim the apple.
Rome, in Brotherhood, is spectacular. It’s among the best digital representations of a “living city”. From the painstaking recreation of Italian renaissance fashion, art, and architecture, to the little things, like bards running up to Ezio with lutes in-hand, only to have them rudely knocked out as Mr. Auditore pushes the annoying little bastards aside – it’s evident that Ubisoft put a lot of love into Brotherhood. The city becomes a playground as Ezio runs around finding several different kinds of collectables, subverting the influence of his hated enemy, the Borgia, and completing missions for different factions and NPCs (Leonard DiVinci, amongst them). At any given time during the single player, you’ve got at least a dozen or so missions open for completion, each part of their own storyline, which contribute to the story overall.
In fact, there’s almost too much to do in Brotherhood. And not all of it feels meaningful. For instance, you can renovate shops which earns you money, which is basically only spent on renovating more shops. And as you form the Assassin Brotherhood, you can send your underlings out on missions, which would be awesome, but you don’t get to participate or watch them complete their tasks in any meaningful way. Sending Assassins on missions boils down to you fiddling around in menus every few minutes. Sure, your Assassins level-up when they complete contracts, but whatever level your underlings are has no meaningful effect on the game world. In short, much of it feels like busy-work.
If you’re the kind of person who absolutely must finish everything in a game before moving onto your next one, prepare to spend a lot of time with Brotherhood. I’ve completed the main mission and have finished about a third of the side-quests, and I’m about 37 hours in. Overall, the single player is incredibly polished. Sure, there are some reused art and assets from the last game, but even if you played AC 2 to death, you’ll still enjoy yourself here. Also, if you liked the ending of AC 2, Brotherhood’s ending is every bit as crazy.
There’s also multiplayer in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. It’s nothing short of awesome. Brotherhood is easily among the top multiplayer games this generation. However, if you’re looking for a run-and-gun, kill him before he can react game, keep looking. Brotherhood is no Call of Duty. This game plays much slower, but no less intense.
To give you an example of Brotherhood’s multiplayer, I’ll tell you about my favorite mode: wanted. Ostensibly, it’s your basic free-for-all deathmatch. In wanted, you’re on your own against up to seven other players. Every player is given a “contract”, which is another player they have to find and kill, but there’s a twist! At the beginning of a match, every player picks an avatar. This avatar is then duplicated throughout the map and controlled by AI, creating several dozen copies of every player in the match that move, react, and generally wander around the city-scape as a player would. Your job, having a contract to kill your target, is to find out which NPCs are dummies, and which one is the player you’re hunting. Once you’ve figured that out, you get to split you target’s skull in half with an axe, or slice their neck with a straight-razor. Get it wrong, and you lose your contract, negating any points you could have earned for the kill.
Keep in mind that another player, or sometimes multiple players, will have you as a target. As you’re stalking your pray, chances are someone isn’t far behind waiting for you to reveal yourself by doing something an NPC wouldn’t do (for instance, hopping around on rooftops, or killing someone). This makes for very intense games of cat-and-mouse where you’ve always got an eye behind your back, watching for any strange movement. The potential for mind-games and misdirection are practically limitless, creating deep strategy for the game – also it’s ridiculously fun.
You’ll receive points based on how “skillful” your kill is. That score is determined by how stealthy you were approaching your target, and what yo
u did to land the final blow (for instance, you’ll get a bonus for waiting in a haystack, and then jumping out as your target walks by, pulling them back in with you). Conversely, if you think someone is following you, you have two options for escape: run or stun. Successfully doing either earns you points and your pursuer loses their contract on you, denying them points. Running works whenever you can manage to do it . It’s your best option most of the time, but it isn’t easy. Once you start sprinting around, you’ve effectively revealed that you’re not an NPC, and become an obvious target. Stunning, however is another beast entirely.
As you start to play online, you’ll probably wonder why stunning your pursuer rarely works. You’d be surprised to learn that’s the intent. Ubisoft takes the position that Brotherhood should be more about cunning than reaction speed – meaning you’ll need to get the drop on your pursuer if you want to stun them. If every encounter turned into “who can push the button faster than the other guy” it would ruin the mood of a Brotherhood match. Understandably, many people are turned off by the perception that they aren’t able to directly defend themselves. However, I think it’s one of the many things that makes Brotherhood great. Because stuns only work under very specific conditions, a player is forced to be smart when eluding a pursuer. And make no mistake – the multiplayer in this game is all about intelligence.
If ever you were to play an Assassin’s Creed game for the single-player, Brotherhood is what you’ll want. It’s an improvement upon its predecessors in every category, and it’s just plain fun. It has its small problems, but they’re nothing that should keep you from enjoying yourself. If you’re looking for multiplayer different from the shooter-of-the-month, you absolutely need to play Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. The multiplayer on offer here is deeply satisfying and unlike anything that has come along this generation. Simply put: you owe it to yourself to play this game.
Score:
4.5/5
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood continues the story of Ezio Auditore, the main character and designated lady’s man of Assassin’s Creed 2. Ezio, having punched-out the Pope himself, and liberating the Apple of Eden (a device created by ancient aliens used for mind control, or some such) finds himself with no more mountains to climb at the start of Brotherhood. Thus, he retires back to his family’s estate in the Italian countryside, ready to start the 30-year bacchanal that is surely going to consume the rest of his life. Ah, but Cesare Borgia has other plans for Ezio. Cesare’s army destroys the Auditore estate, leaving Ezio fleeing to Rome with little more than the clothes on his back. Now, we’ve finally gotten to the meat of Brotherhood.
If you’re familiar with the Assassin’s Creed series, you’ll probably remember that the first game was divisive. Many loved what the game offered: the chance to run rooftop to rooftop as Altair, the game’s main character, in a crusades-era setting, occasionally murdering people with little knives hidden up his sleeves. While the premise of the game was enticing, others found that the execution was lacking. Complaints of too many repetitive quests, not enough content, and a generally disappointing presentation in comparison to what was promised echoed in anguished cries across message boards, blogs, and gaming magazines. With the release of Assassin’s Creed II, it seemed that Ubisoft had taken the criticism of the first game to heart. The general consensus seemed to be that the sequel was a marked improvement over the original in every category, but still had imperfections. About a year after that, Ubisoft released Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. Because Brotherhood follwoed so quickly upon the heels of Assassin’s Creed II, there were cries of the game being a cheap cash-in. Thankfully, Brotherhood improves upon Assassin’s Creed II much in the same way AC:II improved upon the first game.
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood continues the story of Ezio Auditore, the main character and designated lady’s man of Assassin’s Creed 2. Brotherhood picks up the instant that AC:2 ended: Ezio, having punched-out the Pope himself, has liberating the Apple of Eden (a device created by ancient aliens used for mind control, or some such). Ezio then finds himself with no more mountains to climb. Thus, he retires back to his family’s estate in the Italian countryside, ready to start the 30-year bacchanal that is surely going to consume the rest of his life. But Cesare Borgia has other plans for Ezio. Cesare’s army seiges and eventually destroys the Auditore estate, stealing the Apple of Eden, and leaving Ezio fleeing to Rome with little more than the clothes on his back. Now, Ezio decides, is the time to build up the Assassin Brotherhood, and reclaim the apple.
Rome, in Brotherhood, is spectacular. It may be one of the best digital representations of a “living city” ever presented. From the painstaking recreation of Italian renaissance era fashion, art, and architecture, to the little things, like bards running up to Ezio with lutes in-hand, only to have them rudely knocked out as Senore Auditore pushes the annoying little bastards aside – there’s a lot to love about the way Brotherhood presents Rome. The city becomes a playground as Ezio runs around finding several different kinds of collectables, burning down the towers of his hated enemy, the Borgia, and completing missions for different factions and NPCs (Leonard DiVinci, amongst them). There’s almost too much to see and do in Brotherhood. If you’re the kind of person who absolutely must finish everything in a game before moving onto your next one, prepare to spend a lot of time with Brotherhood. I’ve completed the main mission and have finished about a third of the side-quests, and I’m only 37 hours in.
There’s also a multiplayer mode in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. It is nothing short of awesome. It’s easily among the top multiplayer games this generation. However, if you’re looking for a run-and-gun, kill him before he can react sort of affair, you’ll be severely disappointed. This is no Call of Duty.
To give you an example of Brotherhood’s multiplayer, I’ll tell you about my favorite mode: wanted. Ostensibly, it’s your basic free-for-all deathmatch, but once you get into the game and start to understand the nuances of everything, it becomes so much more. In wanted, you’re on your own against up to seven other players. Every player is given a “contract”, which is another player they have to find and kill. Sounds simple, but there’s a twist. At the beginning of a match, every player picks an avatar. This avatar is then duplicated throughout the map and controlled by AI, thereby creating several dozen copies of you that move, react, and generally wander around the city-scape map as you would. Your job, having a contract to kill your target, is to find out which ones are dummies, and which one is the player you’re hunting. Once you’ve figured that out, you get to split their skull in half with an axe, or slice their neck with a straight-razor. Keep in mind that another player, or sometimes multiple players, will have you as a target. As you’re stalking your pray, chances are, someone isn’t far behind you waiting for you to reveal yourself by doing something an NPC wouldn’t do (for instance, hopping around on rooftops, or killing someone). This makes for some very intense games of cat-and-mouse where you’re trying to guess which of the three monk NPCs behind you might be another player waiting to snap your neck.
You’ll receive points based on how “skillful” your kill is. That score is determined by how stealthy you were approaching your target, and what you did to land the final blow (for instance, you’ll get a bonus for waiting in a haystack, and then jumping out as your target walks by, pulling them back in with you). You’ll also receive points for eluding other players. If you think someone is following you, you have two options for escape. You can try to out-run them, or you can stun them. Runing works whenever you can manage to do it – it isn’t easy, because once you start sprinting around, you’ve effectively revealed that you’re not an NPC, and become an obvious target. Stunning, however is another beast entirely.
As you start to play online, you’ll probably find yourself wondering why stunning someone rarely works. You’d probably be surprised to learn that’s the intent. Ubisoft takes the position that Brotherhood should be more about cunning than reaction speed. Whether you agree with that position is up to you. Understandably, many people are turned off by the perception that they aren’t able to defend themselves. I think it’s one of the many things that makes Brotherhood great. By stunning only working under very specific conditions, a player is forced to be creative eluding a would-be assassin.
Max Crit! 