New School Year

And thus it begins. A new school year has started... in fact this is my final school year. Which is a bit of a scary thought but at the same time I can't wait to get into the industry. Anyway, this year I have two projects that I'm working on.

The first one is for Senior Team Project. Which is kind of like our Senior Thesis Class. We spend the whole school year making a game. My team has decided that we want to take a simple game that already exists and then make it in Unreal Tournament 3 so that we can show case the artists' skills and my skill as a level designer. So what we're making is The Floor is Lava. Unfortunately, there's about four programmers in our entire major at the moment... they burn out easily. So I'm doing the programming as well as designing and level designing. Which isn't actually a big deal because designers should know scripting anyway and I've worked in UT3 before so it's not like I'm starting blind.

One of the things about Senior Team Project though, is that teams can be cut and the team members from that team diseminated to the other groups. So there's a chance this could happen to us. But I am confident that we can make a product that will showcase our abilities and be fun at the same time so I'm not too worried about it.

The other project I am currently working on is for my Advanced Seminar class. This is an optional class for designers and artists. They each have their own section so I'm obviously in the designer section. In this class everyone chooses a project and spends the semester making a project for that class. My project is currently being called Swords, Curses, and Smites. It's a working title as soon as I come up with a better game name I'll use it. But it's a card game based around the idea of one type of cards allows a person to tank, another kind allows a person to deal good amounts of damage, and the third allows them to heal. So it's a very simplified form of standard roleplaying roles. Once I have the rules more solidly explainable and such I'll perhaps post a link on here. Right now we're in the middle of playtesting so it's still quite finiky and one of the decks is horribly overpowered compared to the others. But again that's why I'm playtesting.

That pretty much covers it for this update. I hope you all enjoyed my review of Madworld and found it informative. I should have another review posted up in a couple of weeks and hopefully you will find that one helpful and informative as well.

Madworld for the Wii*

Here it is my first review. I will be endeavoring to do a review at the beginning of every month and then an update on my classes/professional life in the middle of every month. Now on to the review:

Concept: 3/5
The concept of Madworld has been kicking around since the Ancient Roman Empire. The only difference being that in Madworld no one actually dies because it's a videogame. Madworld is basically the coliseum, a bunch of people that probably didn’t want to be in the situation are forced to fight in a life or death struggle for the amusement of the “higher classes.” Madworld takes one or two notes from the 80s Schwarzenegger move “Running Man” as it stars an “ex” military man who is set to topple the game’s owners and “string pullers.” It also takes the idea of videotaping or filming the whole “game” for the audience. The concept is a little derived but overall isn’t necessarily a bad starting point.

In this world of sequels that we find ourselves living in however, when a new franchise comes a truly unique concept or game mechanic is necessary to make it stand out and necessary if it wants its own set of sequels to follow. This is something that Madworld simply lacks. It’s a solid concept but so 80s that it feels a little worn and tired. So I rate the concept as average.

Graphics: 2/5
There are three major things to note when talking about the graphics of Madworld. That is the main character Jack, the black and white world, and the bosses. First on the list is Jack. Jack is a very ripped, muscular man with goggles on his head and a chainsaw arm. Ignoring the whole chainsaw on the arm thing was done by the Evil Dead movie series which again points to the fact that the people that made the game wish it was the 80s again. There’s something eerily familiar about Jack, oh wait that’s right he looks like Hellboy!Giant right hand; two lumps on the forehead, being either shaved horns or goggles; ripped masculine body, and a nice lithe waist. Jack is basically Hellboy’s human son! Hell we can even go so far as to point out that they both have nice big belt buckles, a short sleeved jacket that they leave unzipped/buttoned, and a mutton chop styled beard. I have trouble believing no one noticed this in the development process and didn’t raise a flag about the fact that they are so similar. So I’m left to assume that they did it on purpose and some people may be cool with that but again for a new franchise you want as much individuality as possible and this just irks me.

The next thing I want to bring up is the black and white environment. I’m sorry I need to make a correction; it’s black and white and red. This seems like a bit of a rip off from Sin City. But unlike Sin City red is used only for blood, if anything else is red in the environment you wouldn’t know it. This was a gamble on the part of the development studio and I have to say that in my opinion it’s a gamble that did not pay off. It definitely gives the game a different feel from most other games on the market so good job on that front. But the lack of the colors got in the way when I was playing. I would be running around doing things wishing there was a certain environmental asset, called a rosebush, near me and not finding it only to find out that I was standing next to one the whole time. Granted this type of mistake can happen in just about any game but because there’s a lack of color in the game I find myself not noticing things a lot more.

Finally I want to mention the bosses. As part of the basic premise of the game everyone that you encounter is either a normal person driven insane by the game and become a bloodthirsty delinquent or is someone who joined the game on purpose for whatever their own reason is. But in both of these scenarios they’re still a normal human being. As such when I encountered the first boss the only thought going through my mind was “Why is he so big?!” Because he was the size of at least 3 or 4 people put together. After the first boss I became desensitized to the fact that the bosses were larger than everyone else but it really threw me for a loop at the beginning.

The graphics just made me raise an eyebrow at one thing after another. Which is sometimes a good thing. But this time it wasn’t.

Sound: 4/5
I really enjoyed the sound in this game. The fact that I noticed the sound as being really good and enjoying it is almost enough to push it to a 5/5. Unfortunately there was one problem with it that keeps it from being perfect. This is a problem that most sports video game fans will recognized and that’s the commentary track. Don’t get me wrong, I love the voice actors for the commentators. Those voice actors being Bender from Futurama and the Announcer for the Pod Race from Star Wars: Episode 1. It was genius casting on the developer’s part. And what they say is often quite hilarious. The fact that they have announcers sitting there talking about how the main character is doing while killing people is actually kind of fun and new and interesting as well. The only problem is that like Madden or other sports games they begin to repeat what they say quite often, which is particularly annoying.

The voice actor for Jack is also a recognizable voice. I don’t remember his name but he’s that guy who does voice acting for almost every English anime dubbing and a number of games as well. As soon as you hear his voice you think to yourself “It’s that guy!” Which is a bit of a blessing and a curse really. Because there’s nothing wrong with the job he does and it’s nice to have a little more star power too I guess. But there’s this stigma attached to him of being “that guy” so it’s nice but at the same time every time you hear his voice you think of all the characters he’s voiced and say “you’re that guy.” It’s a little distracting.

The music is great though. All my other gripes about sound aside when I sit down and play the game and the music starts up it really gets me pumping to kill some people and bust some heads. I’m sure some people may read into this and draw some conclusions about hip hop and the other music that it plays but the simple matter is that they chose really good music to invigorate the player to run around and commit acts of violence.

Playability: 3/5
Madworld suffers from what all Wii games suffer: the controller. When the Wii was first coming out everyone was excited about the new Wiimote. We all thought it was going to be a breakthrough in gaming technology and design. While the technology has been… more or less proven the design side of things is seriously lacking. They’ve simply replaced button pressing with stick waggling. There are some games that use the Wiimote in new and interesting ways… Madworld is not one of them. Its controls are not bad. It blends the use of the buttons and the motions of the Wiimote well. But the promise of new and inventive ways to play games is far from this title.

Boss battles are often reduced to dodge and block, dodge and block, OOOH quick time event! Where Ala God of War and every other game since God of War you have to time your button presses, I’m sorry stick waggles, to properly beat the boss in a little epic moment. This type of gameplay was interesting the first time it was done but seriously at this point is the industry so out of ideas that we can’t do anything else? It’s like Bullet Time events. Max Payne did them well and then everyone else under the sun decided they needed to have them too so that they could be just like, I’m sorry better than, Max Payne. You’ll be better than the people who did their own gimmick by inventing YOUR OWN!

Other than eventually getting to the point where you just let enemies run up to you and stand there for a couple seconds letting you do whatever you want to them before they even try to throw a punch there’s a few other complaints I have about the gameplay. You get more points for using environmental death traps which are scattered around the environment but like I said in the graphics section the black and white nature of the game means you could be looking at one and not even notice. My other greatest complaint is the item system. You can pick up an item, walk up to a person and use it on them. But after you pick up an item you have to hold a button to carry the item. Which is just annoying in my opinion, if I pushed a button to pick this item up I want it, why should I have to prove my want of this item by holding a button to carry it?

Entertainment: 3/5
The story is pretty cheesy. But it’s cheesy like an old friend, who when you set him up perfectly for a “yo mama” joke you know he will jump all over it; or set him up for a pun and know it’s going to happen. But unfortunately my adoration for the story ends there. It’s pretty dark, which isn’t a bad thing, but IS a you either love it or hate it thing and I’m more on the hate side than the love. The story is also kind of confusing. Preferring to just jump into it and explain it as you go. Which I absolutely love in a novel, but this isn’t a novel and I usually in novels they explain it right after the mention something where as this game will leave it alone for a level or two and then explain what they mentioned a while back.

You can also tell that they really tried to sell this game to hardcore gamers because not only are there ninjas and zombies and sumo wrestlers, etc. in the game. They even have it set up that if you find a pirate hat in the ninja levels you can throw it down and all the ninjas will run over and attack the pirate hat for a while instead of you. This is silly and cheesy and actually had me laughing for a little bit.

X-Factor: 3/5
There’s something captivating about the game. You start playing and you just zone out and don’t think anymore. You see the ninjas attacking the pirate hat and you laugh because you get the joke, unless you don’t get the joke. It’s a very silly game that they just let be silly. Now I say it’s captivating… but that’s until you hit a difficulty wall. I was enjoying the game and would wake up in the morning eager to play this game until I got to one stage and would be stuck on it for a day. When it would take me multiple days to get passed one stage I really stopped caring. The game can be captivating. But not that much.

Overall: 18/30 AVERAGE
This game is exactly what I mean by middle of the road. For every positive thing I could say about this game there’s a negative thing as well and vice versa. I definitely think it’s worth a rental if you have a blockbuster membership or a gamefly account. But I cannot honestly recommend you buying it until you’ve tried it first and discovered whether it’s your thing or not before hand.

*Please note that I do not own the rights to Madworld or any of the images in this post.