Saturday, 7 June 2014

A look back at Bastion

Hoping that at some point this summer I'll get to play Transistor (most likely on the PS4 thanks to my budget), I figured that perhaps it might be a good idea to have a look back at Supergiant's debut: Bastion

Bastion; developed by Supergiant Games who've recently released their latest work Transistor.
Pictured here brooding with crest in hand is the main protagonist known only as the kid 
 In Bastion you play the character shown in the picture above known only as the kid as he wakes up to find that the calamity has occurred which has resulted in the world being blown apart. Platforms of earth form bridges under his feet as you explore the environment, coming across enemies such as gas fellas which are like blue ghosts, windbags which are like big blue blobs of goo, peckers which are bird -like creatures and many more varieties. The only characters other than the empty ashy husks of those who perished in the calamity are the Ura (a separate race from the kid who is Caelondian) Zulf, the Ura Zia and the Caelondian Rucks and it is this latter character that I want to draw particular attention to next because he also plays the role of narrator and it is this narration that is one of Bastion's most intriguing aspects.


Zulf - Note the pale skin indicating he's an Ura

Zia - Who is also an Ura


Rucks (the Narrator) - Like the kid is Caelondion
Yeah sure narration isn't anything new but let me tell you no-one has done narration like this. Logan Cunningham who is the Voice Actor for Rucks puts on the sexiest voice of all time and delivers absolutely everything....and I mean every single line perfectly in a Western drawl reminiscent of Sam Elliot. Considering that it's mostly Rucks that's doing the talking for all of the characters and almost every action you do, it's a damn good job he does so too. The Kid, Zulf and Zia are for the most part completely silent and I don't think I'll go too much into their story and motivations because I feel that it will spoil it for you. But I can safely say the story is in my opinion really heart wrenching and excellent, the main objective for the most part is to collect cores and shards to get the Bastion (a machine base that might help deal with the apocalyptic calamity) working again. It really helps that there are only four characters because it gives more structured pacing and meaning to each character, whom you can explore even further through back-story side-quests. We can really get this impression of being the last survivors of the apocalypse and it's quite an awesome take of the apocalypse story too. Yeah sure a Western ain't nothin' new for a post-apocalyptic world, but one presented like this sure is.

The Bastion where as you progress through the game you collect cores to build more buildings that can provide you with more gameplay options such as weapon upgrades, Spirits, Idols (get more XP at the cost of making the game more difficult) etc.
You can probably see from the screenshots, it has this gorgeous hand-painted, bright art style with deformed characters that give it a slightly cartoony...well perhaps it would be more accurate to say fairy tale look about it. The background environments look absolutely beautiful and really draw you into the world. Also they're not too difficult to navigate either which is an especially important factor to note in this game since the levels form under your feet and it may not be especially obvious straight away where you need to go. The level design though uses visual cues such as broken platforms to give hints to the player as to which direction to go but since it's a mainly linear game anyway it doesn't matter too much. Plus it's fun exploring every nook and cranny because of the art and also to experience every bit of narration by Rucks.

BUY THE SOUNDTRACK NOW


The Soundtrack is stellar too with really unique tracks by composer Darren Korb, using a variety of instruments and inspirations it's unforgettable and matches the action, visuals and tone so perfectly. You have to buy the soundtrack ASAP once you've finished the game of course, it's one of the best OSTs I've ever heard and that's taking film OSTs into consideration as well. 

The Kid with the War Machete and Carbine
Weapon select screen at the Arsenal building
The Kid and his trusty hammer against a windbag

But what about the gameplay? Well I would put mechanics mainly under the label of Hack and Slash, being able to choose from a variety of weapons enabling a fair variety of play-styles. Weapons include the starter Cael Hammer which swings a heavy blow to your foes, the fang repeater which is an automatic gun that fires bolts in rapid succession but can't be fired whilst moving, my favourites the war machete which is a fast chopping melee weapon and the duelling pistols which I like because A:They fire as fast as you can push the fire button and B (the most important reason): They look frikkin' awesome and rule of cool must be applied at all times. It's not the deepest combat system in the world but I feel that just hacking and shooting at the enemies as is is damn well satisfying and fluid enough. Oh and also just as a note I feel that it's a game that's definitely best used with a controller, the analogue controls give it a better and more responsive feel especially in regards to what direction you're facing.

The Forge: where you can use materials to upgrade your weapons
The Distillery where you can get spirits that give you special passive abilities, you can have more spirits active at once as you level up through the game. 

You can upgrade your weapons using materials you find or you can buy them using your fragments which you come across within levels and by defeating enemies. The system is fairly simple where you generally have two choices at each upgrade level to choose from. You gain experience, leveling up meaning you can unlock more slots for spirits at the distillery. Spirits are power ups for you to choose from and you gain more choice and more quantity of spirits as you level up. It's your typical progression from a mechanical point of view but I do love how they tied it in thematically to the story by using alcoholic beverages, it's an aspect that this game is great at doing overall which is something I can really appreciate and makes it all the more engrossing.

This game is a simple one, but the variety is still present to hopefully suit a greater number of people's play-styles. But hell there's no beating about the bush: it's worth playing it just for the art, music and narration alone, not that I have anything wrong with the gameplay in fact I praise it for it's versatility. The way that it draws you into the world is just superb and is basically for the most part unrivalled in this regard...seriously I can't get enough of it.


Bastion is a game who's uniqueness isn't exactly in the "how" it executes it's aspects, but rather in the quality to which it synergises and presents them. The narration perfectly works with the gameplay, the art-style works so well with the music and the story I might add which is a bit surprising considering how dark it is. It definitely gives it it's own sense of personality and with a voice constantly there in your ear it's as if the world personified is just communicating to you directly. Well perhaps not totally but it definitely gives it a real sense of atmosphere, helping with the story and immersion.

I can't recommend Bastion enough, it won't be the best game for everyone sure but you just have to experience that soundtrack and narration. And by the way it's really unfair that Logan Cunningham is so young yet has such an awesome voice like that:

Here's what I thought the Voice actor for the narrator Rucks looked like
Here's what the Voice Actor (logan Cunningham) for the narrator Rucks actually looks like......yeah I am crying with jealousy here

Sunday, 2 March 2014

Why is Journey my favourite Video Game so far?

Well when it comes to Video Games first opinions do matter, and I can safely say that my first playthrough of Journey was one of the most extraordinary gaming experiences I have ever...experienced. One which I hadn't felt in any other game making this very unique so let me explain why. This, (that comma there is a VERY dramatic lengthy pause) is Journey:

That little red person there is the player

Now before I properly start I have to say this, Do not read this post if you haven't played Journey. I say this because Journey is an experience and giving off any hint of what that experience is beforehand is spoiler. I've posted advice on what you should do to prepare for your first playthrough here:

6 Tips on playing Journey

So once you've read that particular post play Journey and then you can read the rest of this. So if you haven't played it, have a good time and I'll see you in a bit. If you have played it then read on, though note that this whole post will be written in a way that makes it seem that the reader hasn't played Journey. I write like that just to make it easier for me.

Ok well I'll start off by saying what you do in journey, which is walking and gliding towards a mountain. That's about it in regards to the main aim of the game. The gliding mechanic works by your character having a scarf which is powered by cloth, or rather energy found in cloth "creatures" and "plants" which exist in the land you traverse. You hold down the X button to levitate yourself until the energy in your scarf runs out and you can make your scarf permanently longer (meaning that you'll be able to hold more energy) by finding special glowing symbols of energy.

See those little pieces of cloth floating around the player?
Those are an example of some of the creatures that supply you with the energy that power your scarf
Due to the fact that the player will want to glide as much as possible he/she will want to encounter the cloth strewn about the about the land, and interacting with the cloth creatures in particular gives the world some life, some immersion. The gliding is glorious, it's impossible to properly "fall" quickly and the camera doesn't move too fast so there's this really graceful feel to the movement of the player. This is then enhanced by one of the first unique aspects you'll notice about Journey, that being the visual style.

Journey has some of the greatest visuals I've ever seen in a Video Game
The game looks gorgeous with a minimalist style that gives you a feeling that you're journeying through a painting. That combined with the glide mechanic...well let me tell you swooping high in the air being able to see the stunning landscape before you, made up of beautiful colours is just something else you know? Believe me when I say it feels fantastic.

So what do the visuals consist of? Well one of the most notable aspects is the rolling sand on the dunes which glitter in the sun, with each level giving a different colour towards it. You can see in the above screenshots that one of the first levels the sand is orange in a slightly closed off environment (but still large enough to have fun gliding around). The next level however looks like an endless sea of pink dunes against a green sky, it really gave me an epic feel to my journey. And when I say epic I MEAN epic, I'm not using it as a casual slang. The level after gave me my greatest moment in gaming and for me contained the best visuals within Journey (and all of gaming) though I think I'll talk about that at the end of this post.

The aesthetics of the game also provide an excellent execution of distinct environments. An example of this would be when you fall into the underground ruins, the dark blue colours and floating twinkling dust gives it a sense of being underwater. Now here this is combined with the gliding which now in a way makes it seem that you're swimming in the sea, especially as the little cloth creature seem like fish, with even some that resemble jellyfish, whales and the long thin extending pieces of cloth attached to the ground look like seaweed. At that point since the mountain isn't in your view you feel like you're at the depths of the ocean exploring something really special.

A lot of the cloth presented in this level looks like seaweed

Another environment, the last one, would be the snowy mountains. Now for me snowy environments give a feeling of the end of the world, not in an apocalyptic sense, but as in if the world were flat for example then that snowy harsh environment would be the furthest place from civilisation right at the edge. So it gave me an this feeling that I was closely reaching the end of my Journey when I did get there, that sort of atmosphere was perfect in my opinion. However whether or not it was directly intentional I don't know because snow in most religions represents death in the sense that it's the end of the seasonal year. So whereas my sense of "the end" atmosphere was more of a geographical one, it could be that for other people it would be more symbolic of "the end" in terms of time. The fact that it can be open to interpretation is one of the games strongest accomplishments in that regards, enough artistic input to actually have meaning yet vague enough that people can adapt and experience their own individual emotions from it.

The Warm Colours of the Desert

The dark blue of the ruins that gives a sense of being underwater

The pale white harshness of the snowy mountain

The next thing to talk about would be the music (composed by Austin Wintory), which is top notch and is definitely one of the best uses of music in a Video Game. The soundtrack is dynamic so it changes depending on what you are doing in the level. The ethereal calm that it produces for the first couple of levels really gives a sense of peace and most importantly freedom when gliding around atop the sand. But it gets exciting when sliding down for one particular level, which is the level I'll talk about later.

When landing in the underground ruins there is a sense of tranquillity but very different from that given off from the music of the first few levels on the sand dunes. Rather than giving a sense of openness and freedom, the music is perhaps more...humble I suppose would be the word. It's not upbeat like that found on the upper sand dune levels but yet is still calm, it really does enforce the idea of being in an underwater, completely different, unexplored world.

The amount of tranquil music means that the more tense and sad music has an even bigger effect on the player, it really does provide quite an impact. Journey can be considered a prime example of how important soundtracks are in Video Games, providing joy, melancholy, tension, it provides these without the player consciously even noticing. It's especially important when the player's characters are mute and direct words are not spoken

However what I haven't talked about so far is probably Journey's greatest accomplishment, you can see it in the pictures above and it's the fact that Journey is an online 2 player co-operative game. BUT, and this is a really important BUT, you can't communicate with the other player (either verbally or through text) except by "singing" or perhaps it would more accurate to call it chirping a note. You don't know who the other player is either, their name isn't displayed, you just meet a player on your journey and you can choose to go together or not. This lack of communication means that you don't fall into the pitfalls of conversations, no trolling, no judging a person on the way that they talk, no judging a person on their gender or nationality. Instead you judge the person purely based on their avatar, this immerses you even more into the game and most importantly gives you a positive emotional connection with another REAL player. Something that no other game that I've played so far has managed to achieve to this extent. The joy you feel from gliding around in the air with a red friend by your side, the sadness of losing someone that you've been travelling with for a while whether it be because of a disconnection or you just wandered too far apart. It was just such a new and unique experience for me, and it really is something because at the end you get a list of all the people you met along the way and sometimes people will send messages via PSN thanking you for the journey. It's just extraordinary.

Journey is a game where online co-op contributes (one of the largest contributors in fact) to the emotional impact of the experience

The game's short length of 2-3 hours is perfect because it means you and your partner can experience your journey to the end making it special. If it were longer then you'd have to stop playing the game and leave your partner, then when you want to play it again you'd have to continue with another person. It kind of makes the person with you more of a disposable ghost than anything else, whereas if they've stuck with you to the end you form a proper emotional connection since they don't feel like a drop-in drop-out random, instead they really do feel like your companion.

Seeing the whole thing in one sitting is important because stopping and starting a game in itself is immersion breaking obviously. A true understanding and emotional effect of the pacing within Journey can really only be experienced if you traverse through the whole narrative, which is why having a shorter game means having a greater control on how the players are affected for each gaming session. However I should note that doesn't mean that greater control doesn't mean absolute control, this is a Video Game after all and that means input from the player. This is something which thatgamecompany know and is an ethos that they've applied extensively because each Journey can be different depending on who you meet. Maybe you met someone who on the first run stuck with you, but unfortunately left just before the end leaving you to finish your journey alone. Or perhaps instead you felt joy in meeting many people on one journey and had fun either gliding around or singing together as you met and left some really cool people. Or maybe you just wanted to go on the journey alone, focusing on the task at hand yet being free to explore by yourself. It's your choice, your experience and it's different each time.

What makes Journey shine even more though is how all these different aspects: gameplay, visuals, sound design, music and narrative complement each other. It's difficult to single out just one aspect and say this is what's making me feel this way at this particular moment, because all of them are always acting on you and most importantly always contribute to the same emotion and never really falter in their execution. The gameplay never contradicts what the other creative assets are trying to feel, something which a lot of games do. It appears to be a game where each department knew exactly what the other was trying to achieve which gives a sense synergy in its creation making it more than the sum of it's parts. I assume that communication of aims and ideas between staff when developing this was pretty damn efficient to achieve what they did.

Now I'm going to talk about a particular level of Journey, one that provided me with my favourite moment in Video Games so far. It's the sand sliding level, I call it road of trials after the music that plays over it, I can't remember the real name I think it's "The sunken city" or something like that. Anyway after soaring around the vast desert and helping some cloth creatures, the music gets more exciting and you're dropped by one of those creatures into a valley on a hill. At this point it gets so joyous as you slide smoothly and do flips and hops over gaps and rocks, the sand glistening. Then it comes to the moment I was talking about which is when the music starts to calm and the sand glows golden as the sun sets and the camera switches to a side view of your characters "surfing" within some ruins and you can see the rest of the city behind you in a wide shot as the sun sets behind the mountain...I mean as I write this I'm getting annoyed that I can't express what I felt into words. At the very least here's a few pictures of what the level looks like:

Here's a shot of a player sliding down the level with the cloth creatures playfully following

Here is another player looking up at the ruins

And here is my favourite moment in gaming...I mean just look at it
To hear, see and most importantly play Journey is an experience that has emotionally affected me in way that nothing before has from any work of art from any medium. Like I keep on saying it is a unique experience and it is for those reasons that I consider it to be my favourite game of all time.

Cheerio!

Saturday, 1 March 2014

6 Tips on playing Journey, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons and basically any short really REALLY emotional game.

Ok well the advice I'm gonna give here is inspired by, as you can probably guess by the title of this post, by my playthroughs of Journey and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. Games which I intend to make a more thorough comparison in a later post so if you're interested you might wanna look out for that.

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

Journey

However the advice is in my opinion applicable to any game that has great emotional impact and requires a lot of immersion. It's pretty obvious advice but it's still that which I feel many people still choose to ignore and not fully understand how much of a difference it can make. Another thing to point out is that all this advice is really for the first playthrough for each of these games, since it's the first go that really has the most impact on you. Obviously these rules are subjective and don't apply to every single person out there but I still feel they do to most. Anyway lets crack on:

1. Play with nobody else present in the room.
You need to be fully immersed in the game so that means having no-one around to distract you. Try and make sure that you are able to play with no-one entering into the room later on, you really do need to be fully isolated for those 2-3 hours.

2. Play it all the way through in one sitting.
Pacing is really important when presenting a narrative and this really can't be properly experienced unless you play the whole game from start to finish in one go. Stopping and starting a session affects the immersion and therefore the pacing that you experience. If you know you don't have time to play through the whole game before you start then just wait until a later date before you play, trust me your patience will be rewarded.

3. Have no music (or any noise for that matter) playing outside of the game.
Similar to the first point, outside noises provide distraction whether it be music, construction out on the street. Try and quieten the room as much as possible turning off any possible source of sound and if there are sounds that can't be stopped, then maybe it might be better to wait until a later date to play it.

4. Wear noise proof headphones?
This one stems off from number three and is one which I'm not 100% sure on for everyone. For me headphones are perfect since they block out noise and provide me with clear sound. However for other people it depends on the quality of your headphones. You'll just have to be the judge on which source you own provides the clearest sound. I'm curious about surround sound vs headphones, because for me I imagine I would still choose headphones but I've never experienced surround sound in a home before so I can't really comment on that too much.

5. Darken your room as much as possible.
For the same reason that you don't want ambient sounds distracting you, you don't want ambient light distracting you either so closing the curtains and turning some of the lights off can make a big difference.

6. Only play the game when you feel like you want to play the game.
What I mean by this is that don't play the game just because you've got nothing else to do, but only play when you feel like you really want to get in this game. These sorts of games aren't for everyone and going in for the first time with a more positive attitude towards the game in my opinion can really affect the experience, hopefully ensuring that you're one of the people who can enjoy it.

Well that's my advice for playing Journey and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, remember though afterwards I would lax these rules a little since you've got to make sure it doesn't affect your health. So these are only definite for your initial play of each game. They're obvious and well known, but I still feel a little reminder of how to possibly enhance your gaming experience can't hurt. Well I'm off now so have fun playing. Cheerio!


Sunday, 23 February 2014

Shishi-odoshi: Japanese Bamboo fountain

As well as wondering what the hell Kotatsu were (here's the previous post: Kotatsu: Heating table), I've been desperate to find out what those things were that go clank in Japanese ponds. I first noticed them in Kill bill, it occurs when the bride and Oren Ishii fight one on one.

Shishi-odoshi: The water fills up the Bamboo adding more weight causing it to tilt down and pour out the water. Because the weight of the water is now gone the bamboo tilts back up to the starting position banging the back on a rock making a distinct clank

 They're called Shishi-odoshi which literally means "scare the deer" and they were used, as the name suggests, to scare away animals from Japanese gardens. However now they're used mainly for their aesthetic and antique value. From what I can tell on wikipedia "Shishi-odoshi" is a broader term to refer to different devices used to scare animals and "sozu" is the specific fountain mentioned here, however Shishi-odoshi and sozu can be synonymous. I love the sound these things make so I wouldn't mind getting one when I get my own place someday.


Here be the sources of my information:
Wikipedia: Shishi-odoshi
Attic trunk: sells Shishi-odoshi
Tabletop fountains: fountain store

Kotatsu: The Japanese heating table

I've been meaning to look into what these were for a while now, I've seen them so much in anime with many characters talking about and around them yet I've never bothered to remember what they are. I'm talking about the Kotatsu.

Kotatsu: a light blanket (Shitagake) is covered by a heavier blanket (Kogatsu-gake) under the tabletop
The Kotatsu is a Japanese table that has heating underneath it (mainly electric these days but it used to be coal), sealed from the outside with a blanket/futon insulation running around the edge. Obviously the upper half of your body would still be exposed but the theory was that the heat would travel up from the bottom of your robe to the top, basically creating a warm current. I don't know if this actually worked or not but one thing's for certain, it sounds like the Japanese have it rough when it comes to heating. Apparently there are few modern Japanese apartments that have central heating as well as air conditioning so usually the tenants have to provide it themselves which isn't as effective. Indeed this clearly makes the Kotatsu an important part of the house, one where the family gather round for dinner, or watch telly.
Top one is the more mobile, electric Kotatsu or Oki-gotatsu and the one underneath is the stationary Charcoal Kotatsu or Hori-gotatsu

 It being something for people to gather round makes it a focal location for conversation in many anime.

Apparantly there's a saying or belief that if you sleep under a Kotatsu you'll catch a cold
I'd love to have one at my place, not just for the sake of having something Japanese in the house but because I reckon it looks genuinely really comfortable. I'll definitely have to get one at some point in my life, especially if I get a cat

Pets have taken advantage of the Kotatsu, it must be amazing to be able to fit under one

Here are the sources for my information:

TV Tropes
The Kotatsu: a different way of thinking about Tables
Kotatsu: The Heated Small Space Desktop
The Cold and the Kotatsu
Kotatsu wikipedia