Game Articles – Matheus Pitillo

August 20, 2013 — Comments are off for this post.

Review: Disney Infinity

Disney Infinity

Release Date: August 18, 2013
Developer: Avalanche Software
Publisher: Disney Interactive
Genre: Adventure / Sandbox
Plataform: PS3 / 360 / Wii U / Wii / 3DS / Mobile / PC

Lets face it: everyone is a Disney fan! I honestly won't believe you if you say that at one point of your life you weren't touched by Disney's unique way of telling stories. Whether by their characters, art, animations, parks, shows, songs or even by Mickey himself. I bet you have experienced that "magic" and, if you are a human full of emotions, you probably fell in love too.

And finally the big day arrives for all of those Disney lovers: the big release of Disney Infinity, a game that - as Disney - is everywhere. Or at least in almost all platforms. The player can find it on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo WiiU - as the main console version - or even on Nintendo 3DS, following more as a "Mario Party" gameplay style. Nintendo Wii also received the game for its platform, though with fewer features, such as the absence of a co-op experience in the Play Set part of the game. And if it wasn't enough, players can also experience Disney Infinity on PC and iOS devices, offering the options to build, edit and share all of your toy box experiments at any time.

For the ones who still don't know, the game allows players to share their creations on ANY PLATFORM. It doesn't matter if you are a Nintendo player, you can easily share your Toy Box with an user that plays on PlayStation 3, for example.

WHERE DREAMS COME TRUE

Disney Infinity it is not just one game, it's a game within a game. Imagine that you have the opportunity to go back to your childhood and you are gifted with an amazing and colorful Toy Box. All you need to do is to drop all of these items on the floor and start to build your own dreams. You can do "anything", you just need to use a spark of your imagination. Who never imagined making the boring Winnie the Pooh do a quick visit to Cruella de Vil's house? Well, maybe not! Who would want to do such a thing, right? *cough cough*

The point is: while the game offers original Play Sets with original adventure experiences related to the character's Universe, it also offers a second game mode in which it is YOU who have freedom to create whatever you want, in the way that you want, to finally share with your friends and see how they will react whitin your creations. This concept allows the game to attract an even wider audience. Whether you are a big fan of the movies, or adventure games, or even if you are just a crazy action figure collector person like myself, you will always find people getting trapped inside this expensive cycle. So, by following this philosophy I will write this review in a different way than usual: find the category that best fits you and read this review. (Or, you might just read it all, since I lost loads of time writing it! LOL)

DISNEY INFINITY FOR GAMERS

First of all, Disney Infinity is not Skylanders. The only thing similar between both games is the Base that allows to have figures being "scanned" inside the game. But besides that, the games are totally different. It's almost like trying to compare Assassin's Creed with Watch Dogs, because both use basically the same control scheme. Anyway...

By purchasing the Starter Pack the player will receive three characters/figures - Jack Sparrow, Sulley and Mr. Incredible - and a Play Set with their unique worlds. Play Sets are a piece that contains the whole Universe of a specific group of characters. The player needs to place this piece on top of the Disney Infinity Base - that comes in the Starter Pack - to finally be able to access this Universe. Within the Play Set, players also needs to place their characters on the DI Base, so they can be brought to "life" into the game.

Each Play Set delivers a complete open world campaign experience - based on the Play Set theme - full of objectives and collectables. Because of the theme related experience, the players can only use the characters that are part of that Universe. So, if you want to play, for example, in The Incredibles' Metro City, you will need to use Mr. Incredible, Mrs. Incredible, Dash, Violet or Syndrome. But if you want to use different characters from different Disney Worlds, you will only be able to do it by playing in the Toy Box. And that's the good news: there is a secret Big Vault in each one of the Play Sets, that can only be opened if you use all of the characters from that Universe. By opening it you will be rewarded with an already designed Toy Box of that specific Play Set. So you and your friends can play together, without the restriction of only being able to use characters of that specific universe. Finally, there are also unique items to unlock in the Toy Box that can only be found in specific Play Sets.

Gameplay wise Play Sets also offers different types of gaming mechanics and experiences. Although all of them follows for an open world adventure idea, each one of the Play Sets focus more on a different concept. Monster University is all about pranks, scares and competing. They even have a school points scale, that reminds me the whole idea of House's competition in Harry Potter series. LOL. Pirates of the Caribbean introduces swordplay combats, ship battles and even ship customization. Yeah, you can customize your own ship! And, finally, The Incredibles gives you loads of melee combat, with super powers and small missions around Metro City.

Each Play Set can take around 5 to 7 hours to complete, plus the hours that you will spend by searching for all unlockable items. Since the Starter Pack comes with 3 Play Sets, you can easily calculate 15 to 21 hours of experience to complete the whole game of this first wave. Of course the player can always place a new character and search for all the specific missions and items related to that character, increasing even more their gameplay.

Not everything is perfect, though. Even offering different mechanics, story lines, environments and experience, all the starter play sets end up giving the feeling of lack of something. The stories are not very strong - compared to the original movies - and the missions tend to not vary too much, differing only on basic mechanics, for the same theme/idea. But don't get me wrong! I am not saying that the game, or these Play Sets, are bad. They are actually very good. But not perfect, you know? I was actually quite surprise with The Incredibles in specific, because I felt like they had a bigger variance of characters vs. powers, compared to Pirates of the Caribbean for instance. But on the other hand, in the Pirates Play Set I found that the universe looked bigger, and with more stuff to do, while the characters themselves were almost the same.

Regarding the controls, while the Nintendo Wii U seemed to be the best option to play the game - considering that the player could easily use the gamepad to navigate through the items, objectives and menus - if the player decides to play on Co-Op, the only controller that will actually work for the second player is the Wii Remote. This kind of sucks, considering that it's a mess to move and rotate the camera, or even to use special attacks etc. Luckily Disney already announced that they will soon release a patch giving support to the Pro Controller as well. Besides that, all controllers are pretty easy to learn and it seems to be very intuitive, even with loads of options to do.

Finally, if you are a gamer who loves to create your own Worlds, quests and stories, the best game mode for you will definitely be the Toy Box.

The Toy Box is this empty environment/level to be filled up with your imagination, using the items you collected in the game. By playing the main campaigns - or the characters specific Adventures - and leveling up your character, the player is rewarded with Spins. Spins can also be found in capsules, around other pre-made Toy Boxes. Those Spins can be used in the Toy Box Vault which randomly rewards the player with one item, out of 16, per spin. Every time that you want to increase the number of items to use in your Toy Box, you will need to rely on your luck and in your progression with Spins. The other option, of course, is to collect those items around each one of the Play Sets, as I said before.

It is not hard to create your own adventures, but it might require a little bit of patience. You just need to change between pages of categories and items, and finally place it on the environment. You have the option to rotate and move those pieces until you achieve the best spot for your adventure. To change textures or even to delete something, you can use the Magic Wand that offers more options to the player. There are also items that help you to quickly change the sky just by pressing a button, as well as to spawn new enemies etc. But talking about "patience" one more time, what I found a little bit frustrating is the low speed between menus and items. Maybe it's just me, but every time I decide to move from gameplay mode, to building mode, it drives me crazy because of the delay between options.

Triggers, events box and links can also be used in the Toy Box. if you are familiar with some Game Engines such as UDK or Unity, you will find that to "script" the events on Disney Infinity is very easy. Players can connect special items together and give them basic rules. You can easily link a button that, when pressed, will activate fireworks, open doors, start a song or spawn new objects or enemies. There are even cameras to unlock in the Toy Box Vault that allows you to change from top-down to side-scrolling games. And the character will also follow this pattern while locked inside this camera mode. It's awesome! And, the best part is that for the new players, the game also offers tutorials teaching the basic mechanics of the triggers and objects.

After creating your own Toy Box, you can easily share it online between your friends, or even send to Disney to wait for a review. If approved, your Toy Box can be downloaded directly from their Original Database. Players can play any toy box in any of the platforms.

So, if you are included in the GAMER category that I said before, I would recommend Disney Infinity if you like an easy-to-play adventure experience, with building and customization options. If you are a big fan of Little Big Planet and Minecraft you will probably love this game.

DISNEY INFINITY FOR FANS

It's pretty clear how much love the effort the team put into this game. Disney Infinity was made by Fans for Fans. Each one of the Play Sets features a whole new storyline in parallel with the original one shown in the movies. And it was confirmed that Avalanche Software and Disney worked directly with Pixar to make these storylines as good and complete as the ones seen in theatres. It might have not succeed 100% - as I said earlier in this review - but it was pretty close to it.

You can easily recognize the personality of each one of your favourite characters. The voice acting is stunning and the animations make them be extremely alive. It's nice to have the option to see how their lives existed after the movies and how we have total control on top of that now.

Right in the beginning of the game the player can experience one of the most beautiful introductions I have ever see in a game. All the first part is actually playable - and without spoilers - you will learn the first mechanics and controls, and also be enchanted with the beautiful Universe that Infinity is part of. All the possibilities are introduced right there, and it just make us, fans, even more excited to start building everything that we always dreamed as well.

As a fan, if there is a negative point in the game I would say that it is the lack of classic characters. Of course this problem can easily be solved soon, in the next wave of characters and Play Sets. But the thing is, as much as I love Monsters University, The Incredibles, Cars or any of other Pixar movies, I really miss the classic characters from the first Disney animations. Where is Simba? What about Ariel, Mulan or Pocahontas? One Play Set about Aladdin would be amazing as well, you know? I understand that the developers can add it, if they decide to, but I really don't get why there was a lack of this content for the first wave of the game. I just hope they are not planning to do only Play Sets related to Pixar movies...

DISNEY INFINITY FOR COLLECTORS

Now comes the best part - And also the most expensive one! If you are a crazy collector like me, you finally found the perfect game. Man, no words describes how well done each of the figures are. The quality is amazing! Their unique poses represents perfectly each one of the characters and all that I want is to buy them all, even if I don't end up playing the game anymore or bankrupting myself in the process.

And if it wasn't enough, everything related to Disney Infinity comes in waves, bundles, accessories and pieces. You will not only collect figures, but also Power Discs, albums and cases. To have the most powerful character, or the most complete Toy Box, the player can add Power Discs on top of the DI Base, to increase a character's stats, or add tools and characteristics to your own Toy Box.

For the first wave of items, there are 20 official Power Discs - 3 of them are rare pieces - while stores like Toys R Us and GameStop have their own exclusive Power Discs as well. So, if you decide to have all figures and all Discs, expect to spend at least 200 hundred dollars, if not more.

Knowing about this huge marketing, Disney Infinity created a special feature inside the game that they call the Hall of Fame. Every character or Power Disc that the player purchased and unlocked in the game will appear in this Hall of Fame as a physical statue. The statue can vary from Bronze, Silver to Gold, according to the level experience of the character. The Hall of Fame constantly evolves, growing walls, celling, flowers etc. It's a very beautiful and stunning experience to face. And you end up having your original figures in hand, but also inside the game.

So, if this review is for you - a collector - don't think twice and go buy your figures. Take zillions pictures of them. Place it inside protection cases - available from all major retailers for a small cost - and show it to your friends or enemies, so they can envy you too. LOL. Yeah, it's awesome and I love it! And since Disney knows exactly how to sell more dreams, a new wave of characters are coming soon, with new Play Sets. You will be able to find characters such as Rapunzel, Skeleton Jack, Woody etc.

TO INFINITY AND BEYOND

Disney Infinity has everything going for it to be one of the biggest hits for the ending of this generation of video games. It's a game that allows for the mixing of any type of genre, with the ability to create anything that only relies on your own imagination. It's a game which also puts friends and family together, with infinite fun and choices. To know for sure how long this game will last, it only depends of how long the developers will give support to it. But I would guess that it will take a long, long time, to disappear from your shelf, or from the stores.

My Personal Score: 4/5

[button type="icon" icon="paper"]Written by Matheus Pitillo.[/button]

Published by Matheus Pitillo in Game Articles, Reviews

March 31, 2013 — Comments are off for this post.

Review: Bioshock Infinite

Bioshock Infinite

Release Date: March 26, 2013
Developer: Irrational Games
Publisher: 2K Games
Genre: First Person Shooter
Plataform: PlayStation 3 / Xbox 360 / PC / Mac

When a game gets to the point that it is able to convince players to invest in a genre that they never enjoyed in the past, it means that the game did it right. I felt exactly like that when the first Bioshock was released and fell immediately in love with this incredible masterpiece of storytelling. The Bioshock series deserves all the honour and admiration it has received, again sending the player to one of the most beautiful and incredible cities ever.

COLUMBIA - THE CITY IN THE SKY

In Bioshock: Infinite the player controls Booker DeWitt, a private investigator that refers to himself as an "independent contractor". Following a series of events and problems that he faced in the past, he become involve in gambling, leaving an enormous debt to pay. To find a way to pay his debt, he is sent to Columbia - a floating city in the sky - to find a girl named Elizabeth and bring her back to New York City.

Columbia is divided into two different factions: the Founders and the Vox Populi. The Founders try to keep the city for pure Americans only, while the Vox Populi represents the others of color or different ethnicity. With that in mind, the player will face all types of conflicts between those two groups of people.

Different of the other Bioshock games, Infinite introduces to players a character who actually speaks and have his own personality. Full of opinion and attitudes, DeWitt will express himself from beginning to the end of the game, creating a very strong bond between player and character. And all of this "expression" gets even deeper when the player finally meets Elizabeth, having in-game dialogues all the time during the game experience. Some players have criticised these dialogues as annoying during the gameplay, but in my opinion - considering how immersive and important the story of the game is - those dialogues worked pretty well and I could not complain of a single one. Elizabeth is extremely interesting and special and I could listen to her talking for hours and hours.

Columbia is one of the most exciting and "welcoming" cities that I have ever experienced in a game. Every corner of Columbia is filled by NPC's actions, colours, songs etc. You don't feel like you are walking around a "synthetic and plastic" city. Columbia actually convinces you that you are facing a "real" and nice place to live. Right in the beginning of the game when you first gets to Columbia, a city fair is happening, full of people, music, activities and fireworks. Everything looks amazing and magical. Columbia is huge and everything that you see of it by distance are actually parts of the city that you will still visit at some point of the game. But there is something dark brewing below the vibrant exterior.

ELIZABETH - AN AI THAT ACTUALLY WORKS

Elizabeth is an extremely special character in the game. While the whole plot of Infinite runs around her, the player also has her help during the combat situations and other moments of the game. And, so far, I guess this is the first time that an NPC artificial intelligence for in-game co-op works so well. Elizabeth will "never break" during the game. She always knows exactly where to go and where to hide from the enemies, as well giving you 100% of support all the time. She is there to give you tips, more ammunition, health packages and money - in this case it's kind of annoying at some point, considering that she gives you items all the time, making the game too easy at times.

The mystery surrounding Elizabeth is the main plot of the game and goes from beginning until the last minute of it. Don't expect to figure out the twist in the storyline, because YOU WILL NOT. Just let things happen and try to absorb as much information as you can from the game dialogues and Voxphones - the new Audio Diaries of the first two Bioshocks - and you will not regret it.

It is not too odd to compare Elizabeth with some princesses from Disney. The classic princess locked in the tower, watched over by a monster, and waiting for her hero to save her. To be more specific, her tastes and desires to live in France, as well as your looks, love for songs and dances and even her commitment with reading, makes me compare her directly with Belle from Beauty and the Beast. In the first half of the game Elizabeth will earn your affection, with all of her kindness and love. She is definitely more than an AI. She is a true character that will follow you during your journey and staying at your side, allowing you to see how she grows up.

So, while Elizabeth "is" Belle, Songbird - the giant mechanical bird - is Beast; having mixed feelings that evolves from protection, to possession, rage and love and uncomfortably evokes feelings of a possessive lover. I just wonder if this relationship between both characters were suppose to have some reference from the classic of Disney.

LEVEL DESIGN AND GAMEPLAY EXPERIENCE

As I said before, and you probably already saw in some videos of the game, Columbia is an huge city. So, probably you are wondering if you will feel lost in some moments of the game, while searching for your main objective direction. The answer is NO! DIfferent from the first two Bioshocks, in Infinite the game offers an option to guide the player to the right direction by just pressing a button and following the arrow that will arise in the floor in front of you. In theory this may seem like a very weak strategy, but in practice it works very well and can save hours lost by players who would be looking for the right direction until now.

Another cool aspect in the game is how the player is introduced to the new gameplay mechanics. By using the city fair that is happening in Columbia as an excuse, the tutorial is presented as part of this festival, offering at the same time more details for the plot, like how racist and heavy the game is, as well as an amazing set for the two first Vigors - the new Plasmids in Infinite - as well as shooting and aiming game controls. But as always, not everything can be perfect. Something sounded weird for me, considering that he is using the two first Vigors for the first time in the game, DeWitt does not react hesitant or different, despite knowing that his body is changing and being affected by this strange power. But what is even more odd is that when he finally gets for real a fixed Vigor, he starts feeling weird and uncomfortable, and reacts with that by dialogues in-game. I understand that the first Vigors to be introduced are there just as a part of a "tutorial section" of the game, but even so, they could have at least activate an "event" condition that by the first time that DeWitt gets the first Vigor - tutorial or not - he should react with his body changes.

But you know what? The Vigors are awesome, the special effects by using it are amazing, and the traditional "new power old-style explanation" is still in there, so I will stop being too judgmental and start giving positive points to Infinite.

Level Design wise the game works very well. All objectives are creative and pretty clear. I didn't feel bored by completing any of them. Everything makes sense with the plot and with what you are searching for in the game. Another nice thing about the levels / environments is that if you actually come back in an old area to complete a side mission, or even just to visit a specific place again, the game will not reload enemies. All enemies are spawned for a reason in each one of the environments and they all make sense for the game storytelling and combat situations. By playing the game you can see that each part of Columbia was constructed to be able to be revisited in different moments, with different "eyes".

The combats in Infinite are very similar of the old Bioshocks - not considering the newest AI help from Elizabeth - you will be basically just swapping between weapons and vigors, trying to find the perfect match between them. The difference is that this time you can only care two weapons with you, forcing you to think carefully before making a choice. Another cool thing is that the game also allows you to combine Vigors Powers, damaging the enemy even more.

Another big surprise is how easy and intuitive the skylines are. It's pretty easy and pleasurable to control DeWitt around the huge number of skylines around Columbia. They help you to reach some places faster of the city, as well as offering amazing exciting combat situations.

Although the game offers some choice moments, your actual decisions for those choices does not influences the plot of the game at all. I can understand that this was added more like a way to explore more how the players will react and judge according to each situation, but I don't think Irrational Games explored this in the best way possible.

Besides that, what else was changed for the best? Mini games! They are not present in the game anymore and I am just glad for that. You will not face mini games to unlock doors or hack computers and machines. That's why Elizabeth is next to you after all.

STUNNING VISUALS AND AMAZING ENVIRONMENT ATMOSPHERE

Bioshock Infinite is stunning! I don't have too much to say besides the fact that EVERYTHING in the game seems so well planed from Pre-Production to the actual Production of it. Again, Columbia is the most convincing city that I ever played on. Everything is so colourful, magical, beautiful, well modelled and alive.

The game starts introducing this amazing and bright city, that drastically moves to a radical atmosphere, darker, dirtier and "cold". Each one of the environments have something special that characterizes the game moment and explore the maximum of its forms. We can feel exactly the feelings that they wanted us to feel by playing and walking around the city.

LESS HORROR, LESS HARDCORE

Different of the older Bioshocks, Infinite is extremely easy, considering the Normal Mode Difficult. Enemies seem to die easier and if it wasn't enough, Elizabeth is always there to give you extra life and salt, to help you during combat. Out of combats, the girl will also offer you loads of cash, making it super easy to buy new items, weapons and vigors upgrades. The whole financial hard time presented in the old Bioshocks are not here in this game and I still don't know what I think about that...

Difficulty is not the only thing that changed in the game series. Infinite has no sense of horror or tension. Don't expect to feel the tension that you probably had at the first time that you fight against a Big Daddy or a Big Sister. What Infinite offers is a very deep and strong sense of action. I guess my biggest mistake was to wait too much for Songbird and the Boys of Silence. Don't get me wrong: both enemies are amazing and they totally make sense with the plot, but I was expecting to see them more often in the game and to face epic combats against them. And, unfortunately, that's not what happens. I would actually say that characters like the Lutece twins were much more interesting characters to me, if not my favourite ones in the game.

Finally, independently of whether you are a fan or not of Bioshock, you definitely need to try this one. Infinite brings all the big aspects of an epic game, with a magical environment, a plot full of intelligent twist and characters that makes you believe that even a digital character can have real feelings. I am trying to not show my personal feelings for this game too much, but I can say that it is one of - if not - my favourite games ever.

My Personal Score: 5/5

[button type="icon" icon="paper"]Written by Matheus Pitillo.[/button]

Published by Matheus Pitillo in Game Articles, Reviews

Tags: 2k Games, Beauty and the Beast, Bioshock, Bioshock 3, Bioshock Infinite, Booker DeWitt, Columbia, Elizabeth, game, Irrational Games, Matheus Pitillo, PC, PlayStation 3, Rapture, review, Unreal, Xbox 360

November 27, 2012 — Comments are off for this post.

Review: ZombiU

ZombiU

Release Date: November 18, 2012
Developer: Ubisoft Montepellier / Ubisoft Bucharest
Genre: First Person Survival Horror
Plataform: Nintendo WiiU

To play as loads of different people in a very small time interval was never so fun and yet so "frustrating" at the same time. I felt terrible to see my first character dying in the middle of a zombie horde, and losing all the weapons and equipment that I collected in the first few minutes of gameplay. But, even worse was when I started with a new character, Liz, who died right before she was able to recover all the items that I lost some minutes before. And the worst part: against the same zombie! At that time I realised that I should get used to the idea that I would be losing all "those people" during the game and that I should accept it or, If I didn't want to feel so frustrated any more, then perhaps the best idea was to take the game out of my WiiU and focus on New Super Mario Bros U again. So, this review is for you if, like me, didn't give up on playing ZombiU just because of one frustration or, hmmm... maybe 30 others. LOL.

Wii U Game Pad features right in the first minutes!

Talking again about my first minutes of game, the first impression that I had with ZombiU was how immersive this game is. Without revealing any spoilers, the game starts with the first survivor in the middle of a zombie attack, in one of the numerous streets of London. The action starts without giving you any clues, or even a moment to catch your breath. This first minutes work as a tutorial, but they don't pause at all for you to learn it too well -- your only option is to hear the voice that talks with you, and follow his instructions, running away from that attack and hiding yourself in the safest and nearest room available. This "tutorial" ends up being a good option, since the normal human reaction for this situation is always to run away, trying to figure out the controllers by themselves. And yeah! I did it. HA!

The game brings to you the best working example of the WiiU since the launch. A lot of the features are presented right there, showing what the Gamepad is capable of. I would say that if you are a new owner of the Nintendo WiiU, you should start with ZombiU. It's a great choice! 🙂

It's impressive how immersive the game can be having the Gamepad as the main controller. In the game you control a lot of things directly through the Gamepad. Your map is always visible on it and by pressing a radar button you can scan to see if there are zombies nearby. It's scary some moments in which you are in a total darkness and you turn on your radar and can see zombies ominously approaching you. By the way, another very nice feature - which may sound a little bit silly - is the lantern. With one click you can turn it on or off. While on, the battery will decrease, but if you turn it off again it will recover very fast. The strategy is to use it in a intelligent way, because if a zombie sees your light you can be sure that the game will be even harder. They will hunt and try to kill you at any cost.

The Gamepad also offers different features such as the innovative Scanner that you have probably already seen in one of the videos online. The Scanner is used to identify hidden items around the environment, as well giving you a night vision, or even the capability to hack some cameras and systems in London. The player can move with the Gamepad in any direction around itself to actually see the real environment in-game, or you have the option to just rotate using the right analog stick. After scanning objects, they will be fixed in your map forever so it is easy to search for later.

Another exciting moment is that every time that you need to get an item from your inventory the game does not pause. You need to select everything directly in the Gamepad in real-time, being sure to always keep in mind that you could be mauled by a zombie at any time. LOL.

But, surprisingly, one of my favourite Gamepad features are the voices that come directly from the Gamepad. Everything that I hear from my "guide friend" - speaking in English, with his amazing British accent - comes directly from the Gamepad, making me feel like I'm even more inside the game. The quality of the audio is AMAZING! You feel like someone is there, in your "hands", trying to help you. You can only understand this feeling after you finally play it. So, for now, just believe me.

Besides that, ZombiU offers more than 20 different features to show off what the Gamepad is capable of. Between those features, the most common are: the aforementioned Sonar; the Weapon Crafting, that gives the option to upgrade, tweak and customize your weapons and gear to give you a much needed edge over the zombie hordes; the precision sniping, that makes the GamePad transform into a scope that enables the player to zoom in for headshot; the hack door systems; the lock picking, the blacklight, the turret, the mini map, the inventory management, the shooting skills, the personal notebook, the barricade system and others.

The Demon's Souls of Nintendo?

As I said at the beginning of this review, if you are not a hardcore gamer, or if you hate how hard a game like Demon's Souls can be, you should maybe avoid using time playing ZombiU. Maybe I'm over exaggerating and the difficulty is not THAT HARD, but believe me when I say that it is at least comparable. ZombiU offers two different game modes: Normal Mode and Survival Mode, and both modes are pretty hard.

In Normal Mode, every time you die you start as a new character, with only a pistol with 6 bullets and a piece of wood in your inventory. If you want to recover all the items that your last survivor collected, you need to find him on the map in his zombie form. The game registers each one of your survivors during the game, as well as your name, last name, gameplay time and other small information. This way you can keep a track of how many survivors you have played with during your campaign and how long each one survived. That's not a joke when the Game X-Statement is: "How long will you survive?"

For Survival Mode the game is even more insane. If you die, the game is over! Like, really over! At least the player has the chance to choose between two modes inside Survival Mode, the chicken one and the hardest one.

The difficulty of the game is impressive. There are some moments with a slower pace, with some environment exploration and chance to search for some items or small "puzzles", but for the most part the game follows a faster pace and when a battle starts you can expect at least eight more zombies to come to attack you, all at the same time. Some of them possess different characteristics and attacks, creating different types of combat situations with close combat or long range attacks. For example, there is a zombie that spills a powerful vomit that burns the player or a guard zombie that uses a helmet, making his resistance to attacks higher.

Despair in the streets of London

If you have ever been to London this is another aspect that will make amaze you about this game. It is unbelievable how faithful the game is with places of London. It's awesome to see the same places that you've visited before in real life, but this time all destroyed, in flames and populated with hordes of roaming zombies. There are some moments in the game that you will need to visit places such as the Buckingham Palace while you are facing a huge storm. You will also find and read some of the letters written to the Queen. It's AMAZING!

But this is not a huge surprise, since Ubisoft is well known as a company that creates environments very similar to the reality, e.g. Assassins Creed Trilogy. While the game shows a lot of huge and very beautiful environments, it loses some points for repeating little aspects of some of those environment in a way that can make you feel as though you have already been there before. But not to an extent that actually makes you feel too bad about it.

Talking about the feeling of despair, ZombiU does a great job. Mixing a gameplay style that features Survival Horror with a First Person Game, you will feel excited and scared for the majority of the game. A lot of the environments in the game will be in the dark, allowing you to make good use of your lantern in the right moments of the game, as well as creating a better horror atmosphere. The game makes sure to create some specific fright moments that make you jump behind your sofa, or at least almost that. LOL. Maybe one of the reasons to be so scared to die are the controls of the game. And that is what I will be talking about in the next part of the review.

Level Design, Objectives Directions and Controllers

You probably read somewhere online or heard one of your friends saying that the Controls in ZombiU are probably not the best. I mean, after some minutes of gameplay, you can easily learn how to aim better by utilising your weapons or understand the best combat strategy for a situation according to timing. But even so you might hate how at some moments of the game the controls feel like it is playing with you! I can't say very well how I would make the controls differently, since the conceptual idea for the game was to focus on the Gamepad new functionalities, but definitely I can imagine that new First Player games will have the same critics focused on how inefficient it is to play with the Gamepad. But again, nothing that you can't get used after some time. Aside from that, all the other controls seem to work well and the control scheme seems to be easy understandable. You can make your character run by pressing the left analog stick while you move it forward. And this is one of the things that you will be mostly using in the game. Oh, yeah!

As the Level Design and Objective Direction in the game, I can say that ZombiU works very well. At any time, by pressing the button "-" in your gamepad, the missions will be displayed on the gamepad screen at the same time. And all the time, by starting a new mission, a direction mark will show on your map in the gamepad, helping you to not feel so lost during the game. Honestly, I just felt lost for two moments of the game, and mostly because I was more distracted with a fire environment that made me fail to notice that there was actually a path right in front of me! But generally speaking the missions work very smooth, as well as directions, in-game information etc.

Hunting other Online Zombies

ZombiU offers a very simple Online Gameplay Experience. According to the game idea, I believe the online experience is quite good enough actually. The game does not offer an online campaign mode against your friends, or anything like that. Mostly, the way it works is that during your main campaign, if you are playing online, is allowing you to find other players' survivors that have turned into zombies. So, by killing them, you can loot their items and also have their gamertag registered in your gamepad, showing how many other online zombie players you have killed during your campaign. I agree this is not as much as fun as they could have done - for example, if other online players could control their zombie against you, but again, I believe this is to create foster the idea that the game wants us to feel loneliness in the chaotic universe they have created.

Another online function present in the game is the In-Game Online Messages. After around two hours of gameplay you will find a spray paint can that gives you the option to leave messages on the wall by using some default drawings that the gamepad offers. You can see those messages during your campaign by searching with your scanner. You also have the option to like those messages or not, making them have more realistic value if the information is trustful.

The King of Zombies: A "blah!" Multiplayer Experience.

I'm not sure if the reason that I disliked the multiplayer was because I played with my roommate while he was using the WiiRemote + Nunchuck instead of a Wii U Pro Controller, but the game play was pretty hard, and not to mention somewhat annoying. Well, both game modes are nice, actually, but the gameplay experience is frustrating.

Basically ZombiU Multiplayer features two modes: the King of Zombies and the cliche Capture the Flag Level. In the King of Zombies the player with the GamePad needs to use their energy points to summon zombies around the level, trying the best to kill the survivor. All his strategies need to be done directly on the GamePad screen, making each decision a mystery for the other player. The player controlling the WiiRemote (BLAH!) or the Pro Controller needs to survive as long as he can, killing the zombies summoned by the King of Zombies. With time, the King of Zombies can summon new types of zombies, increasing the difficulty.

The second multiplayer mode is the Capture the flag Level, in which the King of Zombies needs to again summon zombies before the other player captures all flags in the level. Both Game Modes offer different types of levels and conditions.

The problem is that the player who is controlling the survivor will face a lot of frustrating moments, since the control layout used on the Wii Remote are a piece of junk! It's super hard to aim and shoot using the Wii Remote. The controls are difficult to memorize and to feel right, considering that the player is in a fast paced situation. But talking about the King of Zombie the experience is quite exciting, offering a new type of gameplay style and a very intelligent one as well.

Again, maybe the problem was the controller that I used. At least I'm hoping for that.

Nintendo Wii U first option game!

Finally, to finish this review, I would say that if you are planning to buy a Nintendo Wii U, or if you already bought one, you should get ZombiU. Of course there are a lot of small issues, as well as some control problems and repetitions, but definitely if you want a great introduction to what the Nintendo Wii U can do in this generation, ZombiU is the best option to show you that.

Nintendo made an excellent choice by releasing the game with the début of their new console. Maybe the game does not have the best graphics ever, but for sure it has a innovate and uniquely immersive gameplay experience, with a reasonable length, very challenging game difficulty and environments with amazing lighting and scary moments.

As a final score, I would need to take 0.5 points from ZombiU because of the confusing Multiplayer Mode that didn't please me, even though it featured a nice concept. But what is a nice concept without good execution?

My Personal Score: 4/5

[button type="icon" icon="paper"]Written by Matheus Pitillo.[/button]

Published by Matheus Pitillo in Game Articles, Reviews

Tags: 2012, articles, features, First Person Survival Horror, game release, Gamepad, gamepad features, king of zombies, Level Design, Matheus Pitillo, Missions, mode, multiplayer, Nintendo Wii U, online, review, Ubisoft, WiiU, ZombiU

September 29, 2012 — Comments are off for this post.

Game Reverse Engineering: SOTC

Game Reverse Engineering: Shadow of the Colossus
Also submitted to VFS GD25 Critical Analysis Class

Article Summary
This is an analysis of Game Reverse Engineering based in the game Shadow of the Colossus (PS2). This article was also used as one of my assignments in Critical Analysis Class at Vancouver Film School - Game Design Program 2012. This assignment was also written by Hirad Harandian, Jose Gonzalez, Michael Plouffe and Quin Henshaw. With this analysis we not only given the breakdown of the mechanics in Shadow of the Colossus, as we also showed how these mechanics works and what it does for the game itself.

Published by Matheus Pitillo in Game Articles

Tags: article, Controls, game design program, Game Mechanics, Game Reverse Engineering, GD25, Matheus Pitillo, Mechanics, PS2, Shadow of the Colossus, SOTC, vancouver film school, VFS

February 7, 2012 — Comments are off for this post.

3 Act Structure: Heavy Rain

3 Act Structure: Heavy Rain
Also submitted to VFS GD25 Storytelling Class

This paper is an analysis of a 3 Act Structure based within the game Heavy Rain (PS3). The analysis was written considering Ethan's original plot in the game. This paper was also used as one of the Storytelling Class Assignments at Vancouver Film School – Game Design Program 2012.

ACT ONE

Clear Setup
How far WOULD YOU go to save someone you love? In Heavy Rain you see yourself in control of four different stories that try to answer this question. (Compelling Theme) Four characters, with different lives and motivations, each with their own strengths and weaknesses that somehow end up together in a central plot: The Origami Killer. The Origami is a serial killer who is kidnapping and drowning little boys, leaving an origami figure on their dead bodies.

Ethan Mars, protagonist of this whole story, is a father, architect, married and has two children. His life could be seen as a trouble-free life, until an incident happens and he witness the death of one of his sons;
Madison Paige is a photojournalist who recently also attracted to the cases of the Origami Killer to get more information for your story. She suffers from insomnia, which causes it to her spend your nights in motels;
Norman Jayden is an FBI agent who ends up being scheduled to investigate the case of the Origami Killer. Early on we can see that his “problem” is the main dependence on a drug known as Triptocaine;
Scott Shelby is a private detective who investigates crimes committed by Origami Killer. Like all the other characters, Shelby also has a physical problem, which in his case is asthma.

Inciting Incident
Some months after Ethan lost his first son in a car accident (Quiet Character Moments), his second son – Shaun - disappears when both are playing in a park. (Reversal) Ethan spaces out and when night time comes he recovers his senses and returns to the park to search for his son. Trying to find him in any place, Ethan returns to his house and searches for Shaun in his bedroom, but the boy really disappeared. He finally starts to question if his son was kidnapped by the Origami Killer.

A compelling central question

A story sets up a question to be answered: “Will Shaun be found before the Origami Killer kills him?”.

First turning point
After Shaun be kidnapped by the Origami Killer, Ethan leaves his normal everyday and decides to follow his quest in search for his son, trying to succeed in time, before Shaun dies.

ACT TWO

Progressive Complications
The second act does not really begin until Shaun goes missing. Because of Shaun's kidnapping, the story develops through a series of complications and obstacles. Ethan embarks on his rescuing journey and goes through five different obstacles that the player can choose (Tough Choices) if they want to follow the Origami Killer rules exactly, or trying to solve it in a different way. In parallel with Ethan’s conflicts, the other characters are solving their own obstacles (A Balanced Cast) while searching for more clues. Madison has her encounter with Ethan and begins to help him on his journey.

Midpoint Sequence
When everything seems very bad in Ethan’s life, the midpoint sequence starts with the police suspecting that Ethan is the Origami Killer, because of his psychological condition. After that, the rest of the game is remarkably more difficult (Major Sequence of Action) considering that the cops keeps trying to arrest Ethan during all his rescuing journey.

Second turning point
Ethan needs to follow your last choice, deciding if he will drink the poison – which will leave him with only one hour of life – that the Origami Killer offers to him, in exchange for revealing where his son is hidden. (Set Up/Pay Offs & Convincing and Empathetic Antagonist). A quick background story of the Origami Killer is presented.

ACT THREE

Climax
Is revealed to the players that Detective Scott Shelby is the Origami Killer. Depending of player's choice in other moments of the game, Ethan will finally reach the place where his son is held. If Ethan died before this, or didn't find all clues about his son’s location, Norman or/and Madison will confront the Origami Killer.

A Crisis Decision
Ethan is confronted by the Origami Killer and needs to decide whether to follow him to not let him get away, or whether to save his son who is trapped in a well that is filling with water.

Resolution
The game ends with an epilogue showing the scene of Ethan moving into a new apartment with his son. Ethan asks if Shaun is satisfied with the new house and Shaun says: “It doesn't matter where we live, as long as we’re together.” If the other characters in the game have survived to the end, their story are also presented in a positive or negative way, according to choices that the player made during the game.

[button type="icon" icon="paper"]Written by Matheus Pitillo.[/button]

Published by Matheus Pitillo in Game Articles

Tags: 3 Act Structure, Game Design, heavy rain, Matheus Pitillo, VFS

January 1, 2012 — Comments are off for this post.

Book Review: The Art of GD

The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses

Author: Jesse Schell
Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann
Paperback: 512 pages

As I said in my last post here in Life at VFS, the school recommended us to read some books to be prepared for classes and for our work in the Game area. So I decided to start my first Book Review with one of these recommended books. It's hard to me to review a book, as I never done this before, so I hope I can explain well what I'm trying to express here, ok?

How to teach about Game Design if this is an enormous subject, without beginning or end, and totally non-linear? There isn't one simple and correct way to teach how to create a great game. It's not like just say "do this" and everything is going to work well, since games involves a lot of characteristics from a lot of things. It seems a movie, with images and story from behind, it seems a book with some amazing narrative, but also is playable, is interactive, and changes with every choice of the player. But the hardest part of it is to understand what the player really like and search for, to have pleasure with this final product. Is too hard to just find the perfect recipe for success that will work for all tastes of all players. That's why a lot of books that try to teach about Game Design most of time don't have it completed successfully.

Jesse Schell is a Game Design Professor at Carnegie Mellon University and Executive Director of Schell Games - the biggest video game studio of Pittsburgh - with The Art of the Game Design, he shows that the technics to create a good game are around us every time, in every moment of our lives. He knew how to teach us in a non-tiring way, and with an amazing writing, the best fundaments that we need to know to formulate a powerful game for all tastes.

Wait! What the book is really about?
First of all, this isn't a book of Game Development. The author will not teach you about art, 3D modelling, programming or anything like that. All the writing is focused on Game Design: its mechanics, technics, iterating etc. And this is the best differential of the book, comparing to others with the same subject.

In one hand we will see from beginning a single map be transformed by every chapter, until complete in the end a full map with new concepts and technics. With this you can learn and create your own game following each one of these informations. This map allows you to understand better how Game Design is divided and how you can use it well. Even seems too hard to understand, the book explains very well every step by every chapter.

And in another hand - and not less important - the book presents a series of what the author calls of "lenses", or questions, that you can use in your game, or what you can ask about your game design, to see if you are following correctly the way of production. These lenses were very well studied and created with amazing concepts and technics that even new Game Designers can understand easily and start to use it on their own games.

The book starts with the basics concepts of Game Design, with the main examples - mostly with traditional board games - and then teaching about game mechanics, interface, puzzles etc.

It's normal to see the author citing moments of his life in which he used as an example to all his next creations, proving again that the game design is present everywhere. And exactly because the book is so transparent as well, we can feel that every moment is like you are having a dialogue with the author. It is interesting how the reading and accompanying of the book is simple and easy to understand, despite being so dense and with so complicated matters - especially in the chapters about the mechanics and interface.

The 100 Lenses
During all pages of the book we will learn 100 different Lenses, also know as 100 sets of questions that will help you improve your game. The more interest is that these lenses are collected from so diverse fields as architecture, music, psychology, film, anthropology, etc.

It's amazing how the author decides to teach us with a deck of cards. For us, players, what is best then one organized "game", with illustrations, informations and very well content? The "players" can buy the Deck of Lenses on the author website, or download the app for Android, iPhone, iPod or iPad, reading everything directly in your mobile.

I've tried the Deck of Lenses App on my iPhone, and I can say it works very good and it's great to have it with me all the time in hands. They have the same illustration as the real cards and are organized between category, alphabetic order etc. I do recommend to everyone too.

The Book Synopsis

"Anyone can master the fundamentals of game design—no technological expertise is necessary. The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses shows that the same basic principles of psychology that work for board games, card games and athletic games also are the keys to making top-quality videogames.

Good game design happens when you view your game from many different perspectives, or lenses. While touring through the unusual territory that is game design, this book gives the reader one hundred of these lenses one hundred sets of insightful questions to ask yourself that will help make your game better. These lenses are gathered from fields as diverse as psychology, architecture, music, visual design, film, software engineering, theme park design, mathematics, writing, puzzle design, and anthropology. Anyone who reads this book will be inspired to become a better game designer and will understand how to do it."

- Jesse Schell

Easy reading, easy to understand
The first time that I've listened about the book, I was in my old job, when I asked for a suggestions about books with this subject, and another Game Design friend of mine recommended The Art of Game Design. Since then I'm always using all tips and technics that the author presents to us. And it's not to be surprised that the school recommended this as one of the main books to study.

In my opinion The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses is one of the most powerful Game Design Books that I already read and seen in the gaming market. The easy reading, with a lot of amazing content even with just 512 pages, teach any new or old Game Designer the main principles that we need to know about Games and how to create a great one.

So, for any Game Designer, I truly recommend the book. I hope you can enjoy and learn so many things as I did.

The Art of Game Design | Official Website: http://artofgamedesign.com/

Apple Deck of Lenses App: App Store

Android Deck of Lenses App: Android Market

[button type="icon" icon="paper"]Written by Matheus Pitillo.[/button]

Published by Matheus Pitillo in Game Articles

Tags: 100 Lenses, A Arte de Game Design: o livro original, análise, book review, Carnegie Mellon University, Game Design, Jesse Schell, Matheus Pitillo, review, Schell Games, Sérgio Nesteriuk, The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses, vancouver film school, VFS

December 25, 2011 — Comments are off for this post.

Review: Uncharted 3

Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception

Release Date: November 1, 2011
Developer: Naughty Dog
Publisher: SCEA
Genre: Action
Plataform: PlayStation 3

When we play Uncharted 1 for the very first time, we feel the sensation that we never saw a game with such a amazing graphics and scenarios full of so realistic nature. Then comes Uncharted 2, which can offer to you graphics even better and with a so distinct narrative that we never saw in a game before, as they can present to you the story in the same time that you are playing and controlling your game character. And finally, when we are thinking in how Naughty Dog could give to us a new Uncharted with a lot of surprising things like the old ones, we will never expected that would be this all. However we could find that the game would be great, we would not expect how much he really was amazing. And that's why I'm always saying that Naughty Dog is one of the most incredible game companies that I know until now, and of course, like me, must have another thousands of people dreaming to work there someday.

Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception have the same initial plot focused on something that is always in the games of the series. Nathan Drake is in search of lost treasure in a mysterious land in the middle of ~~nothing~~ desert and for that, he have the presence of his inseparable friend Victor Sullivan. But even coming with the same cliche as always, this time we notice that the main objective of his search in the story is not exactly just the treasure, but actually the answers for some unsolved questions that Nate are carrying for so long. The story is much more! Is about Nathan's life, his feelings, what he believes and how proud he can be, at the point of risk his and his friends lifes.

In some way we have two opposite opinions here. This screenplay is one of the most vague of all, or one of the most strong? I’m saying that because differently from the other previous two games, you never feel that you are really searching for the treasure. Of course you are going to find tips of how to find the correct place that the treasure are, you are dealing with enemies that want the same as you, and you are risking your life for that. But during all the story, I don’t feel that the main characters really want to find the precious treasure, like in the old games. And that’s why I’m here questioning myself if it is something good or not. Since in all the others games of the series we are always seeing the same plot. It looks like that Amy Hennig - game director and script writer of Naughty Dog - finally made a story that absorbs players into something more intimate and exciting.

The Little Thief
Soon after the first scene of the game - which by the way is set in a Pub in London - in the end of the first chapter, we are led to the first steps of Nathan as a little thief and treasure hunter. We can control the Nathan of 20 years ago through the colourful streets of Colombia, and better understand how his childhood was influenced for everything and how he met Sullivan and started his friendship in a uncommon way.

It's interesting to learn how was Nathan's life, and all the difficulties that he passed. And it's amazing to see how the story take all the old characters of the old games and put then together in a natural way.

One new character is presented too, and she is the villain of Drake's Deception. Her name is Marlowe and she's in Nate's childhood too. Marlowe was the first woman villain in Uncharted series, and she can be both a manipulative woman, also a person who cares about Nate in some strange ways. She want to find the same treasure that Nate are searching for 20 years ago.

Visual richness in all aspects
Every time Naughty Dog focuses on a different main ambiance. The first two games we were surprised with a great realistic nature, water and ice scenarios, respectively. This time, graphically, we can see that they made a big upgrade with more realistic scenarios, and presenting for the first time one huge desert full of sand effects. With all references that the team searched for, they were capable to create realistic real time sand physics, presenting exactly how the sand reacts when someone walks on it. It's amazing and indescribable when Nate walks around the desert, trying to stand firm and survive while walking with no direction.

The Level Design team had a lot of research based in all scenarios to make them the most realistic possible. Every detail has been thoroughly studied, able to create a very realistic atmosphere for every place. They visited cities such as Cartagena, in Colombia, Pubs in London and even castles in Syria, to create the most realistic possible the new scenarios of the game. And the result that they had have been really impressive. The wealth of detail is such that reminds me some times the game Assassin's Creed, but with brighter and more vibrant colours.

But as if that's not enough, Drake's Deception can impress us even more with all the light effects and render, that we had never seen in PS3 game so far. It's impossible to don't agree that we feel like we are seeing a playable hollywood action movie in real time.

Barbie, the new generation
If have something that Nathan doesn't cease to do in Drake's Deception is to change his clothes. I was taking note every time that he appears using new clothes or just swapping between the old ones or adding a new accessory. Naughty Dog was not stopped when it came to creating new looks for our hero.

Throughout the game, Nate ranged between visual as a elegant black smoke, his jeans and green T-shirt for use in forests, long sleeve white shirt, then adding a Blue Palestinian scarf for levels in the desert and, finally, returning to the traditional green T-shirt.

A new cherry in the old cake recipe
Overall the game follows a very similar gameplay to the already known in the series. All progress through the game is presented by a gameplay that tricks you with a false freedom that doesn't exist. As different as your fighting may be, the end result will always be the same, looking like you're following a rhythm of quick-time events. But what benefits these pace of play, is that the narrative can convince you that you have control of your choices and in the end what matters most are the scenes that you saw through its results.

This time the game also focuses on melee combat. It is clear that the moments of great tension and firing are included in the game as always. But now you also have the option of attacking your enemies with many different types of scams, and even steal their weapons and grenades during your defence against the enemy attack, and your own counterattack.

Another thing that makes the gameplay more fun and variable is how the level design is very important for the gameplay. This time you have more option to take advantage of scenarios to use them in your favour, dodging the blows of the enemy, climbing platforms and even taking advantage of object scenarios to attack your rivals, for example, using chairs and bottles.

Of course we see some glitches during the gameplay. One of the most notable and frequent is during the horse fighting level. Sometimes we can see that is impossible to Nate jump in the back of the horse from where he is, and then, even so, he just appear on it like everything was totally normal. By the way, this level is amazing!

In general the gameplay changes between action and puzzles, with great well-built cutscenes, making you feel like you never spend so long on just one activity during the game. They knew how to mix all chapters in a way that you don't want to stop to play the game until you solve everything. Even though the game follows a linear sequence, and without many difficulties.

Without wasting more time, I might add that the soundtrack is also something that deserves our congratulations. All the action scenes were perfectly represented by the music, as well as the most sensitive and quiet scenes of the game. What about voice acting, Drake's Deception also remains with the impeccable quality of the previous games, but maybe a little disappointed in the language voiceovers in Portuguese-BR, because of some inconsistencies with our true language.

Naughty Dog Lovers
The Uncharted series has always been a good option for the worshipers of games, the curious, and especially for Game Designers. The extras with several making-of in the game are still available. Not to mention the variety of options for dubbing and subtitles in several languages, including our Portuguese of Brazil.

It's clear that the game - as all of them! - has some failures. But I believe that the qualities that the same gives to the players and all the affection and love that we can see in the production of it, makes any slight failures be acceptable to the point of putting Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception in the list of one of the best games ever developed.

My Personal Score: 5/5

[button type="icon" icon="paper"]Written by Matheus Pitillo.[/button]

Published by Matheus Pitillo in Game Articles, Reviews

Tags: Amy Hennig, análise, game, Matheus Pitillo, nathan drake clothes, naughty dog, PS3, review, uncharted, uncharted 3

December 16, 2011 — Comments are off for this post.

The power of Webgames

Game Development:
Home productions of Flash Games that became hits
Also published in EGM Brasil #73

The column Game Development have the intention of presenting to you readers, that Brazil is also within this network gaming creations with both more complex tools and games with greater highlights, as well as easily accessible tools - plus fast, simple and dynamic.

In this edition we will talk about the production of homemade games made in Flash, the opinion of a student who is in the business and also about games that have become successful and adapted for other platforms.

From Web to Consoles
Currently there are several sites that offer to us the possibility to play games developed in Flash or Shockwave. These games are known as Webgames. Some of these games don't stand out much, having low numbers of visits and little or any interest by the public. Other stand out a bit more, getting more public attention and is best seen. But there are also those who can "evolve" to a bigger step.

The game Alien Hominid is a great example of that. The title began as a Flash Game on NewGrounds website. His concept was based on some classic 2D shooters like Metal Slug and Contra. It was so successful that eventually launching a full version and turbines for various consoles, including PS2, GameCube, Xbox 360 - Live Arcade - and Xbox. And from a "simple" Webgame - he and some other games - turned out to be playable on the most famous consoles.

Original Publication in EGM Brasil Magazine

It is everywhere
Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating a little. But at least in much of the online universe we can see many traces of Flash. Interfaces of sites, opening animations, cartoons, online tables, business demos, Webgames, Advertasing Games...

Starting with Advertasing Games - simple games that want to spend the advertising message of a product - such as the goal of these Webgames are one, to disclose the product, most of the time these games are placed on their sites and are made in Flash, because most of them are lightweight and thus access to visitors is much easier. But that doesn't mean that the Shockwave is also not always present there. We could say that both can be found in the objectives of creating sets of large companies. An example is the national company Devworks Game Technology. The Devworks is focused on developing games. The company produces for various platforms, as well as offering entertainment, activities for the use of games in marketing, training, etc. Devworks has produced several games for advertisers who want to increase the visibility of their ads, both with creations in Flash, and Shockwave - in this, bringing more quality. Currently Devworks is the company with the largest customer base of Games in Brazil. Customers include Nestlé, Nokia, Oi, Disney, Coca-Cola etc.

"Our main product is Gametrack, which was produced in Flash and Shockwave" - says Marcelo Carvalho of Devworks Game Technology - "The advantage is that these games are faster to produce and have a good compatibility with the machines that will run , also does not need to install. There are some disadvantages of course, they do not allow very complex games, such as 3D games with high definition. The gaming performance can also fall short in some cases, but in general it's fine to go a long way programming in Flash and, even more in Shockwave, because it has 3D built-in and the performance of lingo script is fairly good".

Another example of company that follows the same path is Atrativa. It offers direct access to a public that can be handled interactively and segmented like no other communication vehicle. Atrativa have a higher mean retention of Internet users. There are more than 30 minutes per visit. The company employs forms of advertising that harness the Internet's potential to maximize the results of your marketing campaign and achieve their goals.

Closer and more accessible
To create Webgames, and for sale of services, promotion of products and even for production of home games. This is how Flash and Shockwave is taking over more and more ground in this field of Game Development. "We used a lot the softwares Flash and Director in our first year course in terms of programming." - Says Rafael Schleder, a student of Technology in Digital Games at PUC-SP - "With Director we realized that we could use our 3D models we've produced during the year of the terms of 3D modeling and put them in our games, enabling us to create projects more differentiated, having just a sufficient knowledge of programming. And in the end we realized that even with these tools that are always present with easy access, we can also create games very interesting. "So, here's a tip for those who are thinking of entering the area and don´t want to burn many neurons.

[box type="info"]Shockwave Vs. Flash

First of all, games in Flash and Shockwave are the same thing? No! Many tend to confuse these two software, which although they can do almost the same, they have some very different details. Most of these differences are directly related to the origin of the two file formats. To create Shockwave files, it uses the Director to generate files in .DCR, and to create Flash files, the format is .SWF that is generated by the programs Flash, FreeHand, Generator, among others.

The main differences are:

Flash files load faster than Shockwave files;
Shockwave is more versatile. We can create more complex games with more details of animation, 3D content and more interactivity. While Flash is only able to create 2D games;
There is a greater variety of file types with Shockwave. You can import a Flash file to a Shockwave movie, but the reverse is not possible;
More than 90% of Web users have the Flash plugin, which makes it more accessible and more knowledge of the public, while just under 60% have the Shockwave plugin installed;
The program for creating Flash is much cheaper;
Flash is an open source format. Anyone can see how it works and is open to changes. The Program Director uses a compiled file, which makes hard possible modifications.

[/box]

[button type="icon" icon="paper"]Written by Matheus Pitillo.[/button]

Published by Matheus Pitillo in Articles, Game Articles

Tags: Alien Hominid, article, Atrativa Games, Brazil, Devworks Game Technology, EGM Brasil, Flash, Game Development, Marcelo Carvalho, Matheus Pitillo, Rafael Schleder, Shockwave

November 12, 2011 — Comments are off for this post.

Time Machine

The mythology of Chronos in the World of Games
Also published in EGM Brasil #72

Time is an essential factor in our lives. Many try to escape the hours, ignoring the fact that by every moment we are getting older. The common concept of time is indicated by intervals or duration. According to the theory of relativity, time has been considered as a fourth dimension of the space-time continuum of the Universe.

It's not hard to find the concept of time control introduced in games. There are many game characters that keep trying to achieve their goals, by manipulating the time. But after all, in mythological terms, where did all this came from?

Titan or God?

Chronos and Cronos are not the same “person”. In Greek mythology, Chronos was the personification of time. Often confused with the Titan Cronos, especially during the Alexandrian and Renaissance Period. According to the Orphic theogony, Chronos appeared in the beginning of time formed by himself. It was a being who had three heads: a man, a bull and a lion. He was represented as a man who ate his own son, in which we could understand the idea that it is impossible to escape time. We would all sooner or later be "consumed" by it.

Another explanation for this representation was the confusion with the Titan Cronos, who also ate their children for other reasons. In the case of Cronos, the youngest of six major Titans, son of Uranus, reigned among the Gods during the period known as the Golden Age. A prophecy said that he would be beaten by one of his sons. Thus, fearing that the prophecy came to fruition, he began to devour his own children when they were born.

Original Publication in EGM Brasil Magazine

Time Control
Having total control - or not - of time, here it is a list of characters who faced this challenge during their adventures:

1) Prince of Persia
In the trilogy of the game, using the power offered by the Dagger of Time, the player has the ability to control time allowing the Prince to kick a few seconds, undoing some inaccurate movement; freeze time, by leaving the enemies and the action in slow motion; see part of his future, and also make their movements faster than their enemies.

2) Chrono Trigger
One of the most popular RPG games, Chrono Trigger fits a lot of the aspect of time travel. Crono and his friends must visit six different eras in order to repair everything that was messed up at other times, and so bring order back to the continuity of life of each one. They travel through the ages using Epoch – a time machine – or the portals that arise during the game. At this time the characters have to perform various events and challenges.

3) TimeShift
In TimeShift the player must travel through an alternate timeline, using their powers of chronological manipulation to save all. The game aims to reach a new category in shooter games: a game in four dimensions, the fourth being the tracking of time. As in Prince of Persia, players have the ability to put the time in slow motion, freeze enemies, or jump back in time to be able to conclude that something has gone wrong.

4) Onimusha 3
Maybe this game does not fit completely in control of the time category. However, it is hard not to put it in this list, because like it or not, Samanosuke travels 500 years forward swapping places with the French military Jacques – polygonal version of the actor Jean Reno – who ends up in the past. And it is this incredible journey through time and space that forms the plot of the game. Some of the puzzles are based on this difference in time, with certain events of the past influencing the future.

5) The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Link couldn't get out of this. Unlike the other protagonists, the hero does not use time machine or any dagger to control it. Already possessing the three main artifacts and performing the “Song of Time” with the Ocarina that Link receive from Zelda, the door to the Sacred Realm is open. There the hero finds the Master Sword, a sword able to banish all evil from Hyrule. The moment Link tries to wield the sword, his spirit is imprisoned for seven years. Thus, holding or placing the sword again into the Holy Kingdom, he goes or returns seven years. By traveling through time, Link learns more about the Hyrule of future and past.

6) Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time
With the help of Professor Elvis Gadd, Mario and Luigi use a gadget that makes the two journey into the past. There they are faced with the baby version of themselves and have new adventures together. Thanks to black holes that the player finds from time to time in the game, Partners in Time is set in the past and present of Mushroom Kingdom and the passage between these two periods are frequent.

7) The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
This time Link has only 72 hours to save the world. The gameplay unfolds over these three days when the moon is approaching the city of Termina. Link must use the Ocarina to keep track of time and being able to “revive” the last three days again, while gaining enough skills to defeat the villain Skull Kid and the powerful Majora’s Mask.

[button type="icon" icon="paper"]Written by Matheus Pitillo.[/button]

Published by Matheus Pitillo in Articles, Game Articles

Tags: article, Chronos, EGM Brasil, games, Matheus Pitillo, Time Machine

October 25, 2011 — Comments are off for this post.

From Comics to Games

Game Development:
After all, who is Roko-Loko?
Also published in EGM Brasil #76

Roko-Loko, a rocker character who left comics and ended up in the Brazilian gaming world is the creation of cartoonist Marcio Baraldi, who showed his talent in the first pages of the Rock Brigade Magazine, soon becoming a great success.

For those who don't know, Roko-Loko and Adrina-Lina are the creations of characters completely original directed to the Rock Universe. "I relied on Brazilian rockers, who are more spontaneous and "lokos" (crazy) on the planet. Until then the rocker public didn´t had a character to represent them", says Baraldi, completing "cartoonist had no real rocker character created before, who really had to do with the World of Rock." The success and recognition was so great that the character Roko-Loko just "won" three books, a doll and T-shirts, until he was into the first game of a Brazilian character for teens, titled: "Roko-Loko no Castelo do Ratozinger".

Original Publication in EGM Brasil Magazine

The birth of the Game
The suggestion of moving the comics to the World of Games came from a conversation with Sidney Guerra - friend, programmer and designer of Baraldi's site. With the idea accepted, Baraldi stumbled the game creation. "Sidney has always loved the Roko HQs, beyond the fact of be rocker and addicted to games. He drew that Roko will look good on a platform game, very colorful, dynamic, in the 80 years style. I ran into the project. I wrote the game story and did all the drawings. So Sidney and Richard Aguiar, a computer programmer, produced the game", emphasizes Baraldi. "We did the whole product with only three people! Since Roko-Loko was a rocker character, we called the band Exxotica, who made an amazing soundtrack. Everything was really perfect!"

With all the success of the game, was released a REMIXED version that extended the game with two new bonus levels, and brought a special development for this DVD edition, containing documentaries and Game Making-ofs. Because this version for PC ended up winning a Gold Disc and Triple Platinum by 400 thousand copies, Roko-Loko opened doors and expanded also for Mobile Games.

"It´s great when things go well! I invested a lot in Roko-Loko, because I get it that the kids adore him and he is a character that has potential for many different media and products. It is as if he were my Mônica or my Menino Maluquinho."

[button type="icon" icon="paper"]Written by Matheus Pitillo.[/button]

Published by Matheus Pitillo in Articles, Game Articles

Tags: article, EGM Brasil, Game Development, Marcio Baraldi, Matheus Pitillo, Roko-Loko

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