Spontaneous Sunday: Battlestations: Pacific

Welcome to another week of Spontaneous Sunday. This will be the final Spontaneous Sunday of 2016 as next week is Christmas and after that, New Year, and this Friday was my last day of semester 1 MA Games Design, so it seems like a good idea to have a break until the New Year!

Today I have played Battlestations: Pacific (2009, Eidos Hungary, Eidos, Xbox 360). This game had been sat unplayed on my Xbox 360 since September 2015, when it was one of the free games available through Games With Gold.

"Battlestations: Pacific is an action and real-time tactics video game published by Eidos Interactive and developed by Eidos Hungary. It is also the sequel to the 2007 video game Battlestations: Midway. It was released for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 on May 12, 2009 in North America, and on May 15, 2009 in Europe and Australia."

- Wikipedia on Battlestations: Pacific.

What do I expect from the game?

I knew a little bit about the game before playing it today, such as the premise/concept and the gameplay format, but not much else, and I couldn't remember ever seeing any gameplay footage or anything like that, so I was going into it relatively blind. I expected it to involve aerial and naval battles and taking command of planes and ships in recreated WW2 battles in the Pacific theatre. I expected it to have decent graphics, to be dramatic and action-packed, and to have a certain level of historical accuracy and content.

Being a big fan of all things WW2, I expected to enjoy the game. I haven't played many games involving flying and naval combat - the only ones I can think of right now are GTA, Star Wars Battlefront, Battlefield 2 and Assassin's Creed: Black Flag, though I'm sure theres more - so I was excited to see how Battlestations: Pacific played out.

First Impressions - What did I think of the game in its first few minutes?

The game's front end is high energy, dramatic and visually appealing, with options and a map of the Pacific displayed on the left and clips of in-engine battles on the right that show off whats in store in the game and makes a positive first impression. I was interested by the "tactical library" option so I quickly checked it out. Its a library of loads of information about the Pacific theatre including the different aircraft and ships in service on both sides, and you can also see a 3D view of each vehicle which is pretty cool. This feature really offered a lot of interesting information and I could have spent a long time reading it but it was time to get into the game!

A shot of the 3D aircraft view in the tactical library.

I chose Single Player and decided to enter the "training grounds", assuming that this would be equivalent to a tutorial level, but I was mistaken and after about 15 minutes of failing to understand what I was doing and crashing a few planes, I began to realise that this feature was most likely a practice tool for players who already knew what they were doing. My thoughts at this point were that the UI was quite unclear, and the controls of deploying and managing units was fiddly and awkward, but actually flying was pretty satisfying. I then crashed my plane into an island and clipped through the terrain which caused my Xbox to crash... not a great start!

My first view of the game: the aerial combat training grounds.

First flight, in a Hawker Hurricane.

Undeterred, I rebooted and entered the naval combat training grounds which I managed to complete with more ease and no crash!

At this point I still felt pretty lost so decided to just jump into the US campaign. A cinematic played showing a montage of land, air and sea battles. This cinematic set the scene well and was dramatic. The game does cinematics very well indeed.

I discovered that the first missions of the campaign are, in fact, the tutorial levels. I completed these and gained a better grasp of the core gameplay systems and controls. Then I waged on into the campaign proper.

What do I like about the game? What does it do well?

A shot from the US campaign opening cinematic

After the shaky and confusing start in the training grounds, the campaign was a lot more entertaining and action-packed. I completed 3 of the US campaign missions. Mission one was to defeat some fighter planes and escort some bombers as a fighter plane unit. Mission two was a night time naval mission. Mission three involved both air and naval combat and sinking several enemy aircraft carriers. It wasn't until mission three that I began to feel competent in playing the game and could fully get into it. It is an interesting game concept and the core gameplay is enjoyable. Being able to fly planes and pilot naval ships in the WW2 Pacific is a gameplay experience that I've never had before and it felt new and unique. It is fun and engaging one you settle into it, but this takes a while.

Available missions are displayed on a map.

The game is part straight-up action in that you can control individual aircraft and ships, and also part real-time strategy, because you also have AI controlled units at your disposal which you can deploy and give orders to. This marriage of gameplay formats is interesting and unique and once I'd gotten used to it, it was fun to experience. This really shone in the 3rd mission, where I was in control of both air and naval forces and could command them simultaneous to achieve my objectives.

The graphics and general aesthetic of the game are strong positive points. The graphics are quite realistic for the games 2009 release date. The game is visually appealing and consistent in its aesthetic, thought the UI is not quite as attractive as the rest of it.

The historical setting and content is also a positive point. Medal of Honor: Rising Sun is the only other game that I have played that is set in the Pacific theatre of WW2, which really is a huge part of history and often underrepresented in games and other media. The tactical library feature is really cool and will appeal to WW2 fans like myself. The missions themselves also offer some insight into the events and battles. I always enjoy when a WW2 game offers information - I find that it nicely grounds and legitimises the game.

What don't I like about the game?

So, once I'd gotten the hang of Battlestations: Pacific, it became pretty fun and tactical, and its also a nice-looking game with historical content, but its not without its flaws.

I think that the game isn't very easy to get into on your first time playing. I kind of expected this to be the case when I chose it for Spontaneous Sunday and I was proved right! It is firmly within the category of the more "difficult to grasp" Spontaneous Sunday games. It also lacks a bit of polish in many areas, the UI being one of them. It also must be stated that this is the only Spontaneous Sunday where the my entire console has crashed!

The information messages in the early-game were not very informative and important things were not disclosed, such as the colour of the dots around the reticle signifying whether or not a target was in range of your guns (see picture below). For someone who didn't know what to expect, it was hard to really tell what the game was, because of its joined action and strategy elements. It took me a while to realise that I needed to be commanding my units as well as controlling my own unit at the same time, mostly because this wasn't really explained.

Also, the pace of the game can make it a bit tedious and slow, especially in less action-packed missions such as mission 2, the night-time naval battle, that just involved a handful of ships. A lot of time is spent simply travelling to your target which takes a while. Battles usually take 25-30 minutes to finish. I would have liked if the whole pace of gameplay was increased a bit to make it more quick-fire and frantic, and have less moments of waiting. The slow pace could scare off more casual players.

However, in mission 3, which involved both air and sea combat and many units, the pacing problem wasn't quite as bad, so I suppose it depends on the mission!

Final Thoughts

Battlestations: Pacific is a game with an interesting concept and core gameplay, set in an underrepresented but rather fascinating and very important era of WW2. The opportunity to fly aircraft and pilot ships in recreated sea battles is really cool and as a WW2 fan, there were many moments that I felt somewhat in awe. It's also a good looking game which adds to the realism and experience.

It does have its flaws, such as its lack of accessibility and dense learning process, but having played and gotten the hang of it, I'm sure that in future sessions I will enjoy it more. I think that it may not have been best suited to the Spontaneous Sunday treatment, as it demands to be played for a longer time than I played it for to get the full effect. Because I'm interested in the setting and the unique gameplay, I will definitely be returning to Battlestations: Pacific in the future. 

DE4101 Design Research 1 - Update!

Here's an update on how my work is going for my DE4101 Design Research 1 work. My last DE4101 blog post was a month ago and contained a list of the books that I have gathered for my Literature Review. Since then, I have also gathered 10 websites and 10 journal entries and have finished writing my Literature Review (though I may tweak it further in the days leading up to the submission on January 2nd).

The focus of my Literature Review has been atmospheric game environments and how they are created. The texts that I have gathered are from a variety of sources and authors, including books, websites, magazines and journals written by all manner of professionals, indies and hobbyists. My goal for the review was to learn what methods are used to create atmospheric environments, mostly in games, but I also read a bit about film and stage sets.

Conducting this review has been a lengthy and demanding but ultimately very valuable process. I've plumbed the depths of literature on environment art and have uncovered some very thought-provoking arguments and concepts which will surely help me to further improve my creative process.

But my DE4101 work is not over yet! I will soon be getting started on the contextual review, which will cover non-textual sources such as videos, images, games and so on.

Watch this space for more DE4101 updates!

Spontaneous Sunday: Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition

Welcome to another Spontaneous Sunday, this week I've played Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition (2014, United Front Games, Square Enix, Xbox One). It is an updated, current-gen re-release of Sleeping Dogs, which was originally released in 2012 on last-gen consoles. It is one of the free games available through Games With Gold on Xbox Live this month.

"Sleeping Dogs is an open world action-adventure video game by United Front Games and Square Enix London for PlayStation 3, Windows, and Xbox 360 platforms. Set in contemporary Hong Kong, the single-player story follows Wei Shen, an undercover Hong Kong-American police officer on assignment to infiltrate the Sun On Yee Triad organisation. Definitive Edition was released in October 2014 for Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. It features improved gameplay, setting and audiovisual quality."

- Wikipedia on Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition

What do I expect from the game?

As Sleeping Dogs is an open world action-adventure game with crime themes, I expect it to have obvious influences from other games of this genre such as Grand Theft Auto, Saints Row etc, and borrow some features and systems from these games to an extent. Sleeping Dogs is a fairly well known and high profile game so I expect it to be good, though I have never really heard or read any reviews of it. I'm particularly interested in the setting - modern day Hong Kong - as I think it will be an interesting setting and not like any setting I have seen before in a game. In terms of gameplay I expect that it will be mission based, with side missions and collectables scattered throughout the city.

First Impressions - What do I think of the game in its first few minutes?

The game's front end

The game's front end is simple but effective and has an aesthetic that is in fitting with its setting and themes. I started a new game and an intro cutscene played, in which the game's protagonist - Wei Shen - is conducting some manner of shady deal at a docks, before police show up and raid it. The player then takes control of Wei Shen and attempt to escape the police by sprinting, running, jumping and climbing - this acts as a quick intro to the games movement mechanics. This sequence lasts a couple of minutes, with short cutscenes and gameplay flowing seamlessly into one-another as you try to escape through fish-packing plants and apartments before eventually being surrounded and arrested. This is a high-energy intro to the game and also a good way of teaching basic movement.

The next scene sees Shen in a holding cell where he meets with a childhood friend and criminal, as credits play showing the game's array of voice actors which includes such people as Emma Stone. Then Shen enters an interrogation room and speaks with some officers and its revealed that he's actually an undercover officer himself. Theres something very cinematic about the opening sequence and it did a good job at drawing me into the story.

The first few missions involves meeting a gang-boss and running some odd-jobs around a market area, buying new clothes and fighting a fair few thugs. I was instantly impressed by the authenticity of the game world. There's a lot of detail and a lot going on. The environments look and feel authentic and its full of many varied NPCs that have a lot to say and perform various actions in a lifelike way.

The player is introduced to the combat system early on and it feels fluid and easy to grasp; you can use combos, grab and throw enemies etc. After a few missions in an enclosed area, you are given free reign to explore the city, completing missions for the gangs, police and also doing favours for random people.

What do I like about the game? What does it do well?

There's a lot of positive points about Sleeping Dogs. As an open-world game, the game world is obviously important and the developers did a great job with it; the game-world is an attractive and interest place to explore. The variety and detail that has gone into it is impressive, its exactly how I would imagine Hong Kong to be, and the graphics are also very strong - the developers definitely made good use of the Xbox One's graphical capabilities when updating the game from last-gen.

The hand-to-hand combat is a really good system. It feels fluid and fun and theres a few cool mechanic such as grappling and throwing enemies and using the environment in combat. The game also features a parkour-esque movement system that allows you to run, jump and climb around the environment and this often plays a part in missions.

The story is another strong point of the game and also the way that it is delivered. The story seems mature and well-thought out and there seems to be slightly more substance to it than there is in a lot of other games. The game feels cinematic to an extent and the voice actors and script help contribute to this too. The story is revealed at a good pace, with references made by characters to mysterious events in Wei Shen's past that made me want to keep playing and reveal more about the story. The scenarios in each mission are also well thought-out, even the "favours" that you can do for random people could probably have gotten away with being simple "fetch" missions but there's more to them than that - one involved talking to a woman who distracts you while her accomplice robs you and you have to chase him down, and another involved driving around the city taking photos for a clothes vendor to print on t-shirts.

You can also upgrade and customise your character through buying clothes and accessories and earning XP that can be used to improve skills and abilities, which adds another dimension to the game.

Character customisation.

Upgrade system.

Despite my initial thought that the game would be clearly influenced by other open-world crime games like GTA and Saints Row, I think that it does enough to set itself apart from this by means of its interesting setting and its unique mechanics and this works to its credit.

What don't I like about the game?

I don't have many complaints about the game as its pretty solid in most ways and I only have minor issues with it. Firstly, the free-running movement system is good but outside of missions that are specifically designed to make use of it, there aren't many real opportunities to use it. In missions designed for it, you are directed through routes that make good use of it, but in free-roam, it doesn't see much effective use, which is a shame because its a fun mechanic.

The driving physics aren't the best and it can be quite fiddly to drive around the city, for motorbikes in particular. Though with that said, there is a really good mechanic when driving which is the ability to ram which involves pressing X to swiftly swerve sideways which can be used to attack other vehicles and is unique and really fun in practice. Finally, a rather minor but noticeable issue is that the engine audio of the cars is really high pitched and loud and it sounds like you're always travelling at high speed when you're just cruising around. The vehicle audio doesn't gel with the visuals and its jarring and a bit annoying!

Final Thoughts

Sleeping Dogs: Definite Edition is a strong open-world action game in an interesting setting with some interesting and unique mechanics, and a fairly well-written story. I played for about 3 hours and I feel like I've barely really gotten into it, I didn't even get any guns! So I'll definitely be returning to it in the future to play some more. There's no serious issues with it that I have found which may be due to it being a re-release; the developers probably identified the issues from the original release and rectified them for the Definitive Edition.

That's all for this weeks Spontaneous Sunday!

Spontaneous Sunday: History Channel - Great Battles Medieval

Welcome to another Spontaneous Sunday! It feels good to be back after taking a break last week, and this week I have played History Channel - Great Battles Medieval (2009, Slitherin Software, Xbox 360). I bought the game a few weeks ago in Cex. I played History Channel - Great Battles of Rome a few years ago on the PS2 and I enjoyed that, so when I saw that there was a medieval game too, I had to buy it and give it the Spontaneous Sunday treatment!

"The History Channel: Great Battles Medieval is based on the story of the Hundred Years War. It features a completely new graphic engine and a totally new game play system that will allow the player to be in complete control of massive armies. From the thunderous charge of the knights to the men-at-arms fighting for their lives in hand-to-hand combat, the game recreates the epic feel of medieval battles, featuring thousands of characters simultaneously."

- Metacritic description of Great Battles Medieval

What do I expect from the game?

Having played Great Battles of Rome on the PS2 years ago, I expected Great Battles Medieval to be similar in many aspects. Great Battles of Rome was a fairly solid strategy game that allowed you to take control of and customise your army. It had a story-driven campaign mode and I distinctly remember it being pretty difficult. I expect the game to be historically accurate in terms of soldier types, settings, and how the battles work due to it being affiliated with the history channel.

First Impressions - What did I think of the game in its first few minutes?

Great Battles Medieval is a strategy game set during the 100 years war between England and France during the 14th century. I'm a big fan of history and strategy games, especially Age of Empires so it seemed perfect. I launched the game and reached the front end which had an interesting menu system with all the options arranged in a circle that could be cycled through. I instantly liked the aesthetic and felt that it was suitable "medieval". I decided to jump straight into the tutorial campaign.

The tutorial campaign consisted of 3 missions that covered movement, combat and a demo battle. I didn't think that the tutorial was terribly informative and it threw me in without a lot of instruction and this left me feeling a bit lost, but by the 3rd level - the battle - I had managed to grasp how to play, though it did take me a few defeats to get to that point. I liked the look of the game, it looked and felt authentic and the developers went to great lengths to make sure that the battles played out in a realistic way. The tutorial wasn't brilliant but it did the job. Having completed the tutorial I started the English campaign.

What do I like about the game? What does it do well?

The overall look and feel of the game is really nice. It's got a great medieval aesthetic that is established by all the elements of the game such as the graphics, the settings, the music and the way in which medieval battles and tactics are portrayed. It's all consistent and well tied-together. Levels are chosen from a moving 3D map of France, with soldiers walking around on it, ships at sea and little buildings. This was a really nice touch in that it contextualises and breathes life into the setting. Theres even a short movie before each level that is part CGI and part live-action and they work well and add to the aesthetic.

Pre-mission movies

The unit movement system is solid enough but occasionally a bit awkward though I'm sure with a few  more hours of play I would master it. The camera system during battles is really good and it allows you to zoom far our to see the whole battle, or zoom right down to ground level and see the action up close, and the game looks just as good at both extremes. Control of the camera is important as there is always a lot going on in the battles and you'll want to keep track of the action; the battles are intense, tactical and fun.

The scale of the battles is impressive and there can be several hundred units on screen at any time. Great Battle of Rome was also grand and dramatic but the series came even further after that and looks even better. The new engine and graphics system used in this game is probably to thank for this. The campaign starts out with pretty small scale battles and takes a while to really get going in terms of battle scale, but the game also offers another mode - Skirmish mode.

An example of a large scale battle.

Skirmish mode allows you to play stand-alone battles and levels and you can tweak settings and customise the scenarios. There was also a Skirmish mode in Great Battles of Rome but there wasn't much content to it, so I didn't expect too much from Medieval's Skirmish mode, but I was pleasantly surprised by how fleshed-out the Skirmish mode is. This mode allows you to jump straight into large scale battles without having to work through the campaign and it allows the game to show how large scale it really can be. It also offers a welcome distraction from the campaign which can get very difficult and make you need a break from it! The game really shined in Skirmish mode.

Squad customisation.

Another good feature is the squad customisation feature. You can level them up, buy new weapons, upgrade skills and make cosmetic customisations. You find yourself learning each squads strengths and weaknesses and how best to use them to win battles.

What don't I like about the game?

Great Battles Medieval is a good game and I enjoyed it, but as always there was a few issues that I found. Firstly, there was the lack of direction in the tutorial campaign. It is a rather hard game to grasp and the lack of instruction in the tutorial didn't help this fact. Had I not played Great Battle of Rome, I would have had a harder to time to get to grips with it.

The first tutorial level.

The game's audio is fine and it does the trick, but it gets noticeably repetitive after a while. The looping of the music is particularly noticeable, though it does suit the game just fine.

The game is pretty difficult and it does not hold back in terms of difficulty - I failed the 3rd level of the campaign about 5 times before deciding to play Skirmish mode and come back to it later. However, the difficulty level is not frustrating like other games (specifically Dishonoured, my previous Spontaneous Sunday game that I was not a fan of!). The game is punishing and you sometimes have to try and win battles that seem almost impossible to win, outnumbered and outgunned, but the fact that its tactics that eventually wins you the battle gives a great sense of achievement, so the difficulty isn't a huge problem.

Final Thoughts

Great Battles Medieval is a solid strategy game that is a bit difficult to get started on and even harder to be good at, but its definitely enjoyable and it looks and feels authentic, and it feels rewarding when you win a battle that you've fought several times. I'm a fan of medieval history and RTS games so I enjoyed the setting and being in control of big medieval battles.

The only issues I had with the game were the tutorial and the difficulty, but I'm sure that the more I play the better I'll get and the more I will enjoy the game as a result, so I'll definitely be playing it again soon!

New Environment Project: Roman Milecastle

I've started a new environment art project this week. I'm going to be creating a Roman "milecastle" environment. A milecastle was a small fort, placed roughly every Roman mile along Hadrian's wall in Northern England during the Roman occupation of "Britannia" in the 2nd century onwards. I've started preliminary research and planning of the scene and I aim to start 3D modelling next week.

I've created a Pinterest board for the project, click here to see it. I've also watched a few documentaries and read about Hadrian's wall, milecastles and Roman Britain in general.

And here's some pictures of my notes/research, list of items and a few sketches.

Just an extra note, I probably won't be doing a Spontaneous Sunday this week because I'm in work on Sunday and I'm getting the train back home for a few days afterwards so won't have time. So I'll either have to skip it or I might do it on Monday instead, time permitting.

That's all for now!

Spontaneous Sunday: Dishonored

Welcome to another week of Spontaneous Sunday, this week I have played Dishonored (2012, Arkane Studios, Bethesda, Xbox 360). I've wanted to play it for a while and I have heard it mentioned  a lot recently due to the recent release of Dishonored 2, so I picked it up cheap from Cex.

"Dishonored is a 2012 stealth action-adventure video game developed by Arkane Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. It was released worldwide in October 2012 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. Set in the fictional, plague-ridden industrial city of Dunwall, Dishonored follows the story of Corvo Attano, bodyguard to the Empress of the Isles. He is framed for her murder and forced to become an assassin, seeking revenge on those who conspired against him."

- Wikipedia on Dishonored

What do I expect from the game?

I had a pretty good idea of what to expect from Dishonored because it is a game that I've heard and seen a lot about due to its popularity with critics and gamers alike. I expected a first-person action adventure game with stealth elements. I expected its strengths to include the environment art and world design. I also expected it to have good level design, because during my time as a Games Design undergrad, we did a brief about level design and how to white-box a level and the tutors used it as an example of good level design, with multiple routes for the player to take to complete missions. Thematically, I expected it to be heavily steampunk themed and draw influences from Victorian Britain. I expected it to be a good game because of the positive reception and good reviews.

First Impressions - What do I think of the game its first few minutes?

The game's front end is very nicely done. The front end menu features an area of Dunwall - the heavily London-inspired city in which the game is set - and when selecting a menu option, the camera flies/pans over to a different part of the environment. This is pretty cool and was a good decision on the designer's part, as the environment art is a major strength of the game, so it makes sense to showcase them from the very beginning. I checked out the options menu and saw that there is a huge amount of options that you can change in terms of gameplay and UI. I started a new game and selected normal difficulty.

The game begins with the player-character arriving back to Dunwall via boat after a long journey. The player meets with the Empress, who is then assassinated and the player is framed for it by corrupt officials. The boathouse and palace environment was really attractive with interesting architecture and a view of the city over the river. One thing that I noticed from the very beginning of the game is that the graphics, or rather the art style, were not what I expected. I expected it to be photorealistic (or as close as you can on a 4 year old 360 game) but in fact it features a lot of low-poly modelling and lower-res textures. The result is an interesting stylised game world and some very attractive environments.

Having been framed for the Empress' murder, you are imprisoned and scheduled for execution. The first level of the game is your escape from the prison, aided by unidentified "friends" who provide you with a key and equipment needed to escape. Again, the environments are very well made. The gameplay, however, was not equally appealing. I found the movement and stealth clunky and awkward. I felt like the game encouraged stealth, so I decided to try and be stealthy, and reload if I was detected and forced to fight. As the prison level went on, I got increasingly frustrated with the stealth and movement which culminated in me failing 4 times to sneak across a courtyard. Finally, I decided to just fight and I destroyed all the enemies in seconds and had a lot more fun doing it, and also got a combat-based achievement... I decided then to disregard the game's subtle nudges in the direction of stealth.

I escaped the prison and entered a sewer that, while a very well-made environment with a lot to see and do and different routes to take, went on for too long and left me wanting to just get to freedom.

What do I like about the game? What does it do well?

Dishonored is full of really nice environment art.

Having escaped the prison and sewer, I meet my new allies and get to explore their HQ - a pub in a run-down district of the city. Again, it's a truly beautiful and well-made environment. Dishonored has possibly some of the most attractive scenery and environments of any Spontaneous Sunday title (defeated only by Metro: Last Light). Dishonored nails pretty much every aspect of environment art including lighting, layout, architecture, models and textures. Theres also a lot to do, see and collect. I spoke to a few new characters and explored the pub area. I found a lot of books dotted around that helped to add to the lore of the game world, which is another of its strong suits.

The Distillery District was a particularly interesting environment and level, with different routes and ways to complete objectives, people to interact with, interiors to enter and side-quests to pick up. The games level design is good and the routes are interesting. I can't think of many other games that offered such varied routes through a level.

The game world and backstory are well thought out and interesting. The similarities to Victorian London and the British Empire and the steampunk theme make for are apparent, but the developers really put a twist on it and made it their own and it makes for a very interesting virtual world. It's also delivered well through books to read, people, environments and environmental storytelling through such things as graffiti, posters and items.

The upgrade system.

I should, of course, mention the game mechanics. Theres an interesting inventory and upgrade system. Soon after arriving at the pub, the player enters a dream world where they gain supernatural powers. These turn out to be some very interesting mechanics that add a whole new dimension to the gameplay - but having these powers when escaping from the prison would have really helped to make it a less frustrating experience. The Blink power, which allows the player to dash forward small distances or teleport within a short distance, is a particularly interesting and unique mechanic, which made navigating levels feel pretty interesting.

The audio was good, especially the voice acting. The game features some pretty high profile voice actors and this is apparent in the quality of the voice acting. SFX and atmospheric audio is also good and the music, while not terribly memorable, serves its purpose and suits the game well.

The game's overall aesthetic/look and feel is one of its best assets. The aesthetic is consistent and every element feels well-considered and like it all ties in together, from the UI to the environments, weapons, audio and everything else.

What don't I like about the game?

I have a very mixed opinion of Dishonored - it ticks almost every box: attractive environments, rich game world, interesting mechanics, level design, audio, voice acting... but it leaves one very important box unticked. The gameplay is not good.

I have already mentioned my frustration in the prison level. Well, this continued throughout the game. The stealth system doesn't work very well at all and the levels and AI seem poorly designed for stealth. Enemies ability to detect the player is unpredictable, sometimes they will see you behind cover from a good distance, other times they will be completely oblivious to your presence right next to them and this makes the stealth awkward. Its not easy to tell if a route is safe because the AI detection is so inconsistent.

The AI pathing/patrol routes make no sense and they don't make it easy for the player to slip by. Enemies walk around seemingly at random. I believe that a key element in a good stealth game is the opportunities to slip by enemies at just the right moment and feel a sense of accomplishment as a result. Dishonored just does not give you those opportunities. The stealth is messy and frankly infuriating at times and overall just not enjoyable at all. There's nothing fun about repeatedly being detected by an enemy while trying to sneak across an area that seems literally impossible to sneak across. Too often, I was detected and just ended up murdering a bunch of guards, which was much more enjoyable from a gameplay perspective.

The AI is also poor in other areas. One level required me to infiltrate a meeting between two officials and assassinate one of them while saving the other. While entering the building, I was detected and ended up having a fight in the meeting room which resulted in several dead enemies littering the room. The two officials entered the room for their meeting and did not react in any way to the multiple dead guards all over the room. While watching their buggy, ridiculous meeting, I was detected once again by an enemy who appeared seemingly from nowhere, and died fighting another hoard of annoying guards and decided I had had enough of Dishonored. Dishonored presents the player with an amazingly attractive and well designed city and then doesn't allow them to explore it, because they are constantly hunted and killed by guards and it ruins everything good about it. It's a huge wasted opportunity.

Final Thoughts

As you can probably tell, Dishonored and its terrible stealth system has frustrated me greatly. Overall, its a shame, because it does everything else so well and I really do enjoy the aesthetic, the theme and environments. Not to be defeated, I will probably play it again because I want to see more of what it does well, but I will probably take a much more combat heavy approach from now on because I found it more fun and I think the game works better like that than as a stealth game. I wish that it was a less hostile game because I want to explore the environments and the compelling game world without having to endure the constant frustration of being detected and attacked!

Granted, this is only my personal opinion, and I realise I'm not very good at stealth games and I don't often play them, but I can tell when poor design is compounding the issue. Also, I think the game is slow to get started, and I have only seen part of what it has to offer. Hopefully if I sink a few more hours into it, it might begin to grow on me, but I expect it be a painful process.

Spontaneous Sunday: Valiant Hearts: The Great War

Welcome to Spontaneous Sunday week 7. This week I have played Valiant Hearts: The Great War (2014, Ubisoft Montpellier, Ubisoft, Xbox One). This was one of the free games offered with Xbox Live's "Games With Gold" feature in October 2015 and had been sat unplayed on my hard-drive since then.

"Valiant Hearts: The Great War is a puzzle adventure video game developed by Ubisoft Montpellier and published by Ubisoft. Valiant Hearts is a puzzle-based game which takes place across the course of World War I, the Great War, putting players in the role of four characters; the Frenchman Emile, his German son-in-law Karl, American soldier Freddie, and Belgian nurse Anna."

- Wikipedia on Valiant Hearts

What do I expect from the game?

Having downloaded the game for free with Games With Gold, I had a quick look at the screenshots and read the game's description and some user reviews before playing it today. I knew that it was a 2D puzzle game set in World War I but not much else, but I did have some expectations.

I expected it to involve a lot of combat, specifically shooting (but it turned out that is not the case and its much more puzzle-based than I expected). I expected it to be very story-driven, with multiple characters (which I was correct about). I didn't know whether I would actually be able to move the character or whether it would be a point-and-click, decision-based game. I expected it to be good because it has a lot of positive reviews on the xbox store and an average rating of 4.2/5 stars.

The art style is like nothing I had really seen before, so I was interested to see how it would look in motion. I was also somewhat curious of how the game would portray World War I, an often sensitive topic that must be approached with care, in a respectful way given its art style.

First Impressions - What did I think of the game in its first few minutes?

The game's front end shows one of the playable characters, Emile, standing amongst rubble with a dog, with the games logo shown and sombre, thoughtful music playing. It's simple but effective. I started a new game and a cutscene played, giving a short background on how WWI began and introducing some main characters; middle-aged French farmer and grandfather, Emile, his daughter, Marie and his German son-in-law Karl. As a German, Karl is deported from France and is enlisted into the German army. Emile is enlisted into the French army and the game begins with him arriving at the enlisting office. The cutscene is consistent with the games art style and is nicely animated. It also introduces the story and sets the mood well.

Following the cutscene, the player takes control of Emile and enters the enlistment office, coming out the other side in French army uniform, illustrating how rushed French conscription will have been in 1914. The game's tutorial level involves attacking training dummies with bayonets and grenades and the player is also shown how to climb objects. The player then raises the French flag to the sound of Le Marseillaise. It's representative of the morale, patriotism, optimism and bravado seen before first combat, and seems to be intended to contrast with the more grim mood seen later in this chapter of the game.

Emile arrives at the conscription office. This is the moment that
gameplay begins.

Training mission.

Raising the flag.

The player is then sent to a train station where they must solve a puzzle to stop some French soldiers hassling an African-American soldier, Freddie, who is a playable character and Emile's friend later in the game. The puzzle involves bribing an officer with wine, having a band play to get soldiers to dance and blasting some soldiers with smoke from a train. Through all of this, the player is only ever instructed through speech bubbles with pictures in them that appear over NPC's heads. It's all very charming and well-thought out.

A cutscene plays showing Emile's unit being deployed to battle at the Marne. The player has to charge an enemy position, using careful timing to dodge enemy fire and bombing, and I noticed at this point how unlikely a hero Emile is - as far as war games go, I am used to playing as battle-hardened, infinitely capable super-soldiers like those seen in CoD and other FPS games - while Emile is an aged farmer and essentially a civilian. He is eventually wounded at the end of the level, and captured. I was surprised at how sad this was considering I had only taken control of this character a few minutes earlier - there's something about the game's art style and the way it presents itself and delivers its story that makes you feel invested in and attached to the characters - a certain je ne sais quoi. 

What do I like about the game? What does it do well?

I played the game for about 3 hours and completed the first of 4 chapters that span the whole length of the war. The first positive thing that I noticed about the game, and surely one of its unique selling points, is its attractive, interesting art style. I've never really seen an art style quite like it. I was initially skeptical about how the game could pull off a cartoony/animated art style and still approach its subject matter respectfully, but I soon realised that it managed this very well, and in fact the game is endorsed by Mission Centenaire 14-18, as described on the game's website;

"Valiant Hearts: The Great War is endorsed by the Mission Centenaire 14-18, the French Commission in charge of the First Wold War commemorative program and creator of the "Centenary" certification which highlights the most innovative WW1-related projects. This endorsement certifies the accuracy of historical content in Valiant Hearts: The Great War"

...which is certainly an accolade that Battlefield 1 cannot claim! Valiant Hearts offers background on the events that it portrays and WWI life in general in a Historical Facts page in the pause menu, which I found to be fascinating and a valuable addition to the game. This page shows colourised real photographs which bridge the gap between the heavily-stylised game and the real world, grounding and contextualising the events on-screen.

The Historical Facts page.

There's also hidden items to find in each level such as British coins and Canadian dog-tags, all of which are accompanied with a bit of background information, so they encourage exploration, add replay value and educate the player all at the same time. The game also portrays and mentions the wide range of people and cultures involved in the war including British, French and Canadian forces and the Foreign Legion, Muslim soldiers and Indian soldiers. The developers approached the topic of WWI respectfully and with integrity and is education on a topic that is well worth knowing about.

The game's story is definitely a strong suit and the characters are interesting and charming. The story is emotional from the very beginning and engages the player in an emotional way that few games manage and attempt. The characters are likeable and easy to empathise with and root for. A particularly emotion moment occurs when Emile and Freddie meet again for the first time since the train station at the start of the game. The pair then free the dog from being trapped in barbed wire and make friends. This scene is accompanied by uplifting music, which brings me to the game's next strength: the audio.

Emile and Freddie free the dog.

The game uses audio incredibly well. The music is fitting and suits the game well. There are many changes of mood in the game, from the optimism of the tutorial level and the light-heartedness of band playing in the train station, to the sad moment when Emile is wounded and the suspense of stealthy sections, and the music keeps up with the mood at all times. There are also small musical flourishes that accompany puzzle-related actions, and they are a way of giving feedback to the player in that they sound positive when the player takes a step in the right direction, or negative if the player does the wrong thing. Another creative use of audio is in a car-chase scene where the characters are being attacked by planes and a zeppelin. The bombs and gunfire occur in time with the music. It took me a while to notice and I was really impressed with the developer's creativity in this feature. The ambient audio within levels is also well-done and sounds interesting and authentic.

Screenshot from the rhythm-based car chase section.

The gameplay itself is interesting and engaging. The puzzles are creative and the mechanics are nicely designed. One mechanic I enjoyed in particular is the dog, who you can command to interact with things in the environment to solve puzzles and access areas. He's also a charming character in his own right. I liked that the player is only ever instructed to solve puzzles through visuals (speech bubbles, things placed in the level etc.) and no text or vocal instructions are given, but its still clear what needs to be done. The developers pulled this off very well.

The first chapter concludes with a dramatic boss battle against
a German zeppelin.

What don't I like about the game?

Valiant Hearts is another of those Spontaneous Sunday titles that puts me in a tricky spot, because I fail to find anything seriously wrong with it! There wasn't really anything design-wise that detracted from the gameplay, though there was an instance where I broke a puzzle and caused a progression-stopping bug that forced me to restart the level and reminded me of my stint as a QA tester at Tt Fusion.

Another minor thing that I didn't like is that, while the voice acting was generally good, the characters didn't have accurate accents in the cutscenes. Emile's daughter, Marie, was voiced with a posh English accent rather than French.

Finally, there is the fact that the gameplay wasn't as I had expected. I expected it to involve more combat when in fact it was much more puzzle-based, and the gameplay was therefore a bit more slow paced than I had expected. The gameplay is fun but is not particularly thrilling, and the game's stand-out moments come in the form of plot-points rather than gameplay. When recommending the game to someone else, the gameplay wouldn't be the first thing that I think to tell them about; I would instead focus on the story and concept in general.

Final Thoughts

Valiant Hearts: The Great War is a unique, charming and well-executed game with an interesting concept and nice art style. The story is engaging and the historical facts feature appeals greatly to me. It's education and feels like a sensitive, well-executed portrayal of WWI. There should be more games like this, that seek to bring sensitive themes and knowledge to players in an entertaining but respectful way. Ubisoft Montpellier did a good job of this.

It has some interesting ideas such as the clever use of audio and the visual instructions for the puzzles. I think it is probably the most charming Spontaneous Sunday title yet and it has cemented its place on the list of games that I will be playing again soon.