It was inevitable eventually.

After nearly three years – probably a personal record for concurrent blogging – I’m retiring Citizen 16 and City 16. Which isn’t to say I’m going to quit writing stuff on the Internet altogether just that I’m no longer planning distributing that writing across two sites.

But why?

1. Visibility

I’ve got a couple of plans that I’m not entirely comfortable talking about yet. However it’s becoming clear that it’d be helpful to have one single site that I can redirect people to as a sample of the sort of shit that comes out of my fingers.

Yeah, this one’s a bit vague.

2. Content

Both sites are now at the point where padding has crept in to keep a pretence of activity. While the traffic numbers for both sites are by no means spectacular, they are substantial enough to keep me worried when I go long periods without posting. This leads to ‘any old shit’ being published. (I should note that when I refer to ‘any old shit’ I generally mean this and not this, which I’m fine with. Think of that what you will.) Going back to one site covering everything should lead to a steady stream of posts without having to resort to publishing for the sake of it.

3. Name

So why close both sites and start again instead of just closing one and carrying on? Because I fucking hate the name Citizen 16. I really don’t know what I was thinking there except ‘shit, I need a URL and here’s one I’ve thought of that’s available.’ It’s based on a reference to a reference to a reference, which is about two steps more tenuous than I could even be bothered to explain to people let alone to mean anything.

What will the new site be called? I don’t know yet, but while I pull my usual trick of browsing song titles for inspiration I’ll be sure to leave it at least 24 hours before I actually register the bloody thing.

That’s about it really. I’ll probably archive both these sites over at WordPress, just so I’ve got them to hand. For those sole visitors of Citizen 16 annoyed that the next blog will also include game based stuff: suck it up. For those visitors of City 16 who don’t care for the rest of the crap I tend to write about: … well actually I’ve got a plan for that. I might dual post all game content on a separate Tumblr blog as well, just to focus it out. I’ll almost definitely set up a Tumblr dedicated solely to An Hour With… posts, as that was the only feature I actually enjoyed writing and plan to start doing it again. Audiogames is definitely continuing because I’m a fan of both music, games and telling people what they should like, so that place is perfect for me.

Also I’ve always quite fancied the idea of doing a collaborative games blog with 2 or 3 other people as it would solve the problems of content padding, time required and singular viewpoint. Let me know if you’re interested in that and we’ll work something out.

More soon, when I’ve got a URL and sorted out hosting options. Until then I’ll probably save all the posts I was working on for new site’s launch so it will continue to be quiet around here.

UPDATE: Congratulations to ‘Rougier’ for nabbing himself a free copy of Portal 2.

For those not aware of Valve’s frankly insane marketing campaign for Portal 2… well, it’d be far to complicated to actually go into. The upshot however is that this insignificant gaming blog has a free copy of the PC version of Portal 2 to give away to someone. That someone could be you!

Instead of hosting a lazy ‘just post something in the comments’ style competition here I’ve gone one step further and am hosting a lazy ‘just post something in the comments’ style competition in our Steam Group District 16.

Here’s how you win:

1. Join this group.
2. Leave a comment here requesting Portal 2 (or, if you own Portal 2, any other Valve game – I’ve got giftable copies of pretty much all of them except TF2… and Ricochet.)
3. ??????
4. Portal 2!

Step 3 in that above process is a random draw… I should probably have been clearer on that. Keep in mind that the last time I tried to give a game away only one person entered, so you really do have a pretty good chance of winning here.

As mentioned above, I’ve got giftable copies of pretty much all the Valve games, including Left 4 Deads 1 & 2, all the Half-Life series and both Portals. I’ll pick a random person and gift them the game they want – and then maybe do this again if it’s not Portal 2, I dunno I’ve not thought this through.

I’ll have more thoughts on Portal 2 soon, but in the meantime here’s a completely spoiler free review of the game:

Is Portal 2 worth buying?

Yes.

Audio Games

3 years of copyright infringement for music posts over on Citizen 16 has, touch plastic, failed to bring about a cease and desist letter so I’m pushing my luck further by dedicating an entire blog to posting the best of game soundtracks. Here’s a sample:

Quick! Name your favourite FPS soundtrack…

Okay, that didn’t work for a number of reasons; we’re not actually having a conversation, I haven’t published this yet… well, you get the logistical problems. What I can say with confidence is were it not for the Half-Life 2 series I’d be completely unable to even think of an FPS soundtrack, let alone a good one.

Followed by an attempt to get to some sort of a point.

Hopefully by the time I’m done with it there will be an impressive collection of excellent game music (and I’m taking suggestions either by email at octaeder@citizen16.com or in the comments here.) Either that or I’ll have been sued relentlessly.

There’s only so long you can play Little Big Planet 2 (LittleBigPlanet 2? LittleBigPlanet2? Can’t gaming even standardise spacing?) before you decide to have a go at building your own level, perhaps using the Top Gear rationale “how hard can it be?”

Surprisingly hard it turns out. I did it anyway. Nearly a month ago.

Since then exactly 7 people have played it. Apparently the old “if you build it, they will come” Field of Dreams misquote doesn’t apply to gaming. Shock, no? Some research uncovered a mercenary tactic used by publishers called ‘marketing’ the purpose of which appears to be persuading people to buy their game by:

1. Letting people know said game actually exists.
2. Exaggerating or outright misrepresenting certain aspects of that game so it will appeal to a pre-determined target audience.

Point 2 is difficult because my target audience is literally chuffing anyone, which isn’t an easy group to pigeonhole into a neat set of desired features. (Side Note: I decided I probably shouldn’t resort to my default tactic of swearing profusely in a post about LBP2 but have already had to urge to do so three times. See if you can spot where!) Point 1 is a little easier: Guys, I’ve made a level in Little Big Planet 2!

It’s called LaunchPad McQuack, and you can queue it up to play in-game here.

This is actually a significant milestone for me, as attempts in the last game to create anything never got very far. My tendency to fixate on making one particular aspect work perfectly always left me with a couple of neat prototypes but nothing actually fun to play. The same thing threatened to stop me this time as well, after I decided to play around with the ‘Sackbot’ logic tools despite nothing in the level actually needing any. (Although one of the seemingly incidental Sackbots in the level has a surprisingly complex set of behaviour patterns for a super-mysterious reason.)

The finished level is a pretty short race-to-the-top Bounce Pad obstacle course. I emphasise the ‘short’ because most of my time was spent on making the level rotate 90 degrees once you reach the midway point. My preference is to figuring things out as I go along, meaning some of the more complicated mechanical stuff took much longer than originally intended.

Amusingly I had a tester on hand, in the form of my brother, whose biggest contribution was to call me a dick until I made it easier. Further feedback indicates that I didn’t actually make it easier, he just tested it so much that he got used to it.

Anyway, the new plan is to create LaunchPad McQuack PRIME next, which will be longer, have a more forgiving difficulty curve and not feature as much of the stupid crap that took up all my time (instead having new and even more challenging stupid crap.)

Oh, and currently my brother is top of the leaderboard because he found the super-secret hidden room. This is cheating, because he saw me make the super-secret hidden room. As such, although I’m not telling you where it is, I’m letting you know: yes, there’s a super-secret hidden toom.

The suggestion to start rounding up my favourite suspects of each particular genre was made nearly two years ago and since then I’ve been playing at it. A look at Interactive Fiction was basically a proof-of-concept and then, over a year later, came the rhythm games, more a test for things to come than a storming-out-the-gate feature declaration. Well it’s time to stop pussyfooting around and make some TOUGH DECISIONS.

Of course the problem with such a feature is that not only have I not played every game in existence, but I’m limiting myself to three main entries (plus a selection of interesting notable mentions.) There will be games that don’t make it because I’ve not played them, don’t remember them, don’t know them or simply don’t like them. But lists are meant to start a discussion and so by all means jump in and start arguing wildly.

Let me explain what I mean by arcade racers, because I’m being quite specific in my definition. I’m using it to mean racing games that are less about racing as they are about fucking your opponents up. Prime comparison in the form of two of EA’s franchises: Burnout would make it, Need For Speed wouldn’t as, however forgiving its handling may be, most iterations actually want you to overtake your rival not obliterate them. This list, then, is for those obliterators.

Rollcage: Stage 2

Rollcage was always the forgotten futuristic arcade racing series, seemingly similar enough to Wipeout to be dismissed as just another clone. That’s both fair enough and a complete fucking travesty. Wipeout 2097 was instrumental (although not alone) in transforming the image of consoles. For that reason it’s one of the most important games out there. That doesn’t mean Rollcage and its sequel weren’t better. Because they were. Significantly.

While the series may have featured boost pads and power-ups the core concept centred on vehicles with wheels bigger than the cars themselves going so fast they could drive up walls and ceilings. As a result it did away with thin circuits requiring careful airbraking; Rollcage eased the emphasis on technical navigation – for instance, if you flipped your car you just carried on regardless – in favour of scrapping with opponents. In essence it was as much Twisted Metal as Wipeout, complete with destructible scenery, interesting weapons and an array of two player arena modes (Rubble Soccer being a pretty stunning example of understanding how to do arcade racing competitive multiplayer that doesn’t fall apart if there’s a big skill gap between players.)

It was those multiplayer modes that propelled Stage 2 into the list over it’s prequel. Despite the original having arguably more interesting tracks, the lack of multiplayer and other extra modes meant it spent far less time in my console.

To this day it’s my stock answer for the game I’d most like to see get an HD remake. Not so much for the updated graphics, but the chance to fly round vertical surfaces and burst triumphantly from tunnel ceilings with the sense of raw speed modern hardware allows, darting through debris as buildings explode around is a dream worth salivating over. Sadly it’s also an unlikely one.

Does it feature a bastard ‘blue shell’ equivalent? Yes. Yes it fucking does.

Mashed

The PS2 was the last console that was actually about having friends.

Which is a handy attention-grabbing controversial sentence to open on. Of course the console had its share of solo pursuits, usually accompanied by hour-long goddamn cutscenes but, with no online infrastructure, developers who wanted to give their game a good multiplayer component had to assume actual human beings would collect together from time to time. It’s that kind of assumption that leads to games like Mashed existing.*

*Despite Mashed being a multiplatform game… Still, you get the point.

Mashed’s single-player mode may as well have not existed – essentially being a dull training session for the multiplayer section – and while the game would technically work online, somehow it would lose something in not having the option of turning to your mate and screaming “FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING FUCK!” before nudging his car off a skyscraper.

The game followed the Micro Machines style of up to 4 players on a single camera – fall behind the scope of the camera and you’d crash out, losing points in the process. It’s such a perfect system for party gaming, without any of the squint-or-you’ll-miss-it problems of 4-player splitscreen, that it’s amazing so few games use it.

But Mashed had more to it than simply being an excellent Micro Machines-esque romp. The game contains, in its Polar Wharf level, genuinely the greatest piece of track design of any racing game – arcade or not. It’s nothing more than two long straights bookended by brutally tight hairpins and covered in ice and yet it’s also the absolute high point of local competitive multiplayer. With 4 people attempting to race in such a confined and slippery environment – just one bump or nudge away from being knocked off into watery oblivion – there is no game that better demonstrates the mix of anger, scheming, betrayal, shame, gloating, sulking and exquisite joy that gaming can provide.

Does it feature a bastard ‘blue shell’ equivalent? No, but eliminated players can call in airstrikes on those still battling it out. Whatever you do, turn this option off if you actually like your friends and want them to continue talking to yourself and each other.

Burnout: Revenge

No games quite capture the pant-wetting terror of pure speed like Burnout. Driving along a road weaving through cities and highways, always driving into traffic to keep your boost topped up is exhilarating until – oh fuck – a lorry reduces your speed to zero mph in a millisecond. It’s all the more effective by being set on tarmac with familiar (yet oddly named) cars instead of hovering ships from the distant future.

Speed aside though, the Burnout series didn’t truly hit its stride until Burnout: Takedown – the third game of the franchise – introduced the eponymous takedown mechanic. At last gamers were being rewarded for the natural impulse to shunt AI drivers off the road that so many games felt the need to penalise. Not only did it give the series the focus it was previously lacking but it proved how to do arcade racing without the use of power-ups. It reminded us all that cars can be there own weapon and using one to slam a particularly annoying opponent into a bus is far more satisfying than sending some homing missile off into the distance and desperately hoping its target doesn’t have a shield.

And then there’s the crash mode. Half puzzle, half explosive toybox – like the Angry Birds of multiple car highway pile-ups… only fun. I can’t think of anything else that offers such a perfect blend of arcade high-score chasing and wanton joyous destruction.

So why pick Revenge, arguably the series most token “more-stuff-than-the-last” update? Two words: Traffic. Checking. Being able to ram any same-way traffic and actually increase your boost – and therefore speed – took the ridiculosity (shut up, it should be a word) to new and joyous levels, and in an arcade racing title that’s exactly how things should be. Burnout: Paradise, the latest of the series, offered many changes and innovations but while it did a lot very well, it’s also simply less pure than it’s PS2 ancestors. Revenge remains the series’ dumb-fun high-point – exactly why it’s in this list.

Does it feature a bastard ‘blue shell’ equivalent? No. It’s not a dick.

Next post: The arcade racer ‘notable mentions’ post.

Good News! I’m no longer going to get lost attempting to find my home after an extended cave expedition.

Bad News! My home is somewhat ‘underneath’ all that inconvenient lava. Turns out it’s not as easy to control as you might think.

Predictable Update: Rather than build a new house in the inverse shadow of my lava fountain I attempted, with typical pigheadedness, to stem the flow. At which point – with painful inevitability – I fell in and died, losing hours of neat stuff. The evidence suggesting I might, in fact, be a complete fucking moron keeps piling up.

That’s only a level from World 3. There are many more worlds. I’m struggling to imagine how convoluted some of the end-game challenges will be.

Anyway, if that looks & sounds right up your alleyway, there’s more info on the game’s website.

The Usual Disclaimer: I’ve neither designed a game nor spent time dissecting game design and, as such, am not claiming any expert knowledge into the secrets of making better games. The ‘Let’s Improve Gaming’ moniker appended to this post is just as facetious a self-mockery as reading the post will make you hope it is. And with that in place, I’m going to talk shit about RPGs for a bit.

There are a series of missions in Dragon Age: Origins that aren’t about killing or collecting or fetching. They’re given by a ‘fence’ in the city of Denerim and they are about stealing.

He's too ginger to be stealthy.

My first thought on uncovering these missions went along the lines of, “Holy fucking fuck yes! Stealth based rogue-specific quest line all up in my RPG!” Then I found out they were just another set of generic quests available to anyone.

• Mission 1: Pick a lock.
• Mission 2: Kill some dudes in a warehouse.
• Mission – ah, who the fuck even cares?

This isn’t a story about inevitably disappointing RPG quest lines; it’s a story about my excitement at the possibility of unusual RPG quest lines. It surprised even me, and I spent some time analysing just why the prospect of a game I was enjoying doing an about-turn in style brought about such an outbreak of hope. I found two possible reasons.

Reason 1: Divergence

One of the biggest problems with playing a massive 40+ hour RPG is that it requires you to play it for 40+ hours. That’s a lot of time to spend in the same world, fighting the same enemies with the same combat system. It’s no wonder that one of Oblivion’s most praised sections is the Dark Brotherhood quests.* They were an attempt to do something different, to deliberately stand out in a game primarily about getting into a bunch of scraps with some monsters. It didn’t even matter that they were a bit clumsy, attempting to do things that the game’s mechanics weren’t designed to accommodate. That they were trying was enough.

*Obviously Oblivion’s most praised section – and rightly so – is the bit with the raining dogs on fire, which similarly perverted the main game into something that was more akin to an adventure puzzle.

In My Official Favourite RPG Of All Time Baldur’s Gate there were a couple of thief-only stealth missions you could complete within the eponymous city. Despite being a pretty small quest line, it remains a large part of what I loved about the game. Not that this is an observation restricted to RPGs. People will happily tout Bioshock’s Fort Frolic or Thief: Deadly Shadow’s Cradle levels as highlights because of the way they twisted the structure and tone of their parent games to offer self-contained experiences.

It would be nice to see game developers taking more risks within the confines of their own games to provide a bit more variety.

Reason 2: Stealth!

After the critical box-office success of early 00s titles like Metal Gear Solid 2 and Splinter Cell, stealth became the game mechanic du jour for headline grabbing back-of-the-box features. It was crudely shoehorned into so many releases that within a few years it became synonymous with unoriginal, mediocre action games. Fuck that noise. Stealth games – good ones, at least – comprise some of my favourite titles. God knows, I didn’t play through all the MGS series for its plot.

When given the choice it’s a play style I’ll gravitate towards. Take the Hitman series. I’m sure it’s still a good game when played in a more traditional ‘run about killing fuckers’ approach but that’s never stopped me from painstakingly completing every level having killed only the man I’d been contracted to snuff out. Give me a dark corner and an excruciating amount of time to sit observing guard patrol patterns and I’m the happiest person with a gamepad, assuming I’m not playing a corridor shooter’s gimmicky stealth level.

The chance for stealthy stabby fun was the reason I was playing a rogue in the first place, despite many Internet warnings that it was Dragon Age’s most difficult class, and in hindsight I should have realised it was never going to break with tradition. Stealth in the game is a binary talent; you’re either fully cloaked or you’re not. There’s no skill or chance for error, if you’ve levelled the ability high enough you can happily wonder around guards nicking what you like.

Stealth as fuck!

That doesn’t mean it couldn’t work. In fact I think an RPG structure – the peculiar mix of adventure, action, tactical planning and inventory/skill management that defines the genre – would be perfect for a stealth game. While dedicating the length of a cup of tea to imagining the form such a game could take, I arrived at an espionage based RPG. Proper espionage too, not the James Bond shoot and fuck-a-thon that game developers tend to gravitate toward when making anything about spies. For example, playing as a spy posing as a low level employee for a security firm and working out the methods for stealing data from a secure room. That way each level would be about gathering information, bribing the right people, cloning access keys, even levelling up RPG-like skills like speech, lying and technical abilities.

But that’s just one example born of a desire to see the RPG break out of its narrowly defined shell. I’m sure there are plenty of others, so I’ll finish by asking: what changes or improvements would you like to see RPGs take?

I wanted to like this. All the previews, videos and even the demo suggested it would be something special. Not that I had any fondness for the first game… Hell, I didn’t even play the first game, but what I saw of a friend’s playthrough suggested sloppy targeting and shitty AI. No, what interested me was the presentation.

(That and if IO are going to deny me another Hitman game I at least want the project they’re working on instead to be good.)

To be fair, Kane & Lynch 2′s presentation is striking. Presented in the style of an Internet video it’s full of digital artifacts, pixelation and diegetic music. It works well, although has an inherent problem:

Kane & Lynch 2′s Inherent Problem #1: Creating a YouTube video upload effect for your game implies the presence of a guy filming it all – something that isn’t in anyway supported by the fiction.

That sounds like a minor nitpick and it’s something I doubt most people would even notice… But that’s most people. It bugged the fuck out of me for much of the game. Why the fuck are they killing people on camera? Why isn’t the cameraman taking cover? Who the fuck went through and pixellated everything? Did they get signed release forms for all the civilians running past? The fuck, game?

Away from my own issues suspending disbelief, the look of the game is pretty interesting. It’s all muted tones contrasted against stark neon, lending a moody atmosphere without treading the waters of an exclusively grey/brown palette. As for the two main characters, they’re probably the ugliest protagonists of all gaming: middle aged, balding losers – unashamed and unrepentant arseholes who’ve failed at every aspect of life. Frankly, they’re a refreshing change from muscled soldiers and JRPG lady-boys. Their appeal lies precisely in their complete lack of appeal.

All of which makes it a great shame that the game is a bit shit.

Kane & Lynch 2′s Inherent Problem #2: It’s pretty fucking boring.

In theory it’s a good idea. While not realistic it does at least shy away from needless explosions, turret sequences and that bit where you have to take down a helicopter with an RPG that you handily picked up the level before. It attempts to be more Michael Mann than Michael Bay. Which is a good idea, in theory.

The problem is K&L2 doesn’t have any ideas to replace the standard action clichés. Even pretty average shooters understand pacing, the idea that something is needed to break up endless rooms full of men waiting to be shot. K&L2 doesn’t. The closest it gets to pacing is adding a corridor between rooms full of men for the characters to run down and shout at each other. The rest of the time it’s just taking cover and shooting.

Sometimes you’re taking cover and shooting while escorting an angry British guy, sometimes you’re taking cover and shooting at people trying to kidnap you girlfriend from another building, sometimes you’re taking cover and shooting while naked and sometimes you’re even taking cover and shooting from a helicopter. The rest of the time you’re simply taking cover and shooting… For 4 hours… And then the game ends.

The taking cover and shooting mechanics are perfectly fine – in fact all the controls work well, with the exception of the sprinting which feels a lot like trying to control a drunk on a unicycle. That’s the weirdest thing about Kane & Lynch 2, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a game so polished be quite so dull.

While so much surrounding the game is actually pretty damn good, the bit that matters – the actual game – just isn’t. One to avoid, unless you really love taking cover and shooting.

42%

A quick note on the multiplayer: I didn’t play the multiplayer.

Singularity basically does a reverse Bioshock. That game attempted to cover it’s uncouth gun toting, spanner-wielding, blood pouring nature with a plot and setting designed to make it look Important. Singularity revels in multiple ways to mutilate your enemies so as to distract you from it’s absolutely terrible plot and setting. Spooky Russian research base? Evil experiments gone wrong!? Time-travel? Just forget about all that and explode limbs off generic soldiers with a gun that lets you control the path of bullets.

It could have been worse. It could have been Nazis.

It’s a game with willfully old-school corridor shooter design, albeit one that borrows liberally from various seminal FPSs of the past decade; full of moody foreboding, bosses with luminescent fleshy sacs marking weak points and crates – so, so many crates. However, it takes an important element of 90s shooters to heart: being unashamedly fun. In addition to your arsenal of quirky weapons the true star of the show is the TMD (Time Manipulation Device – obviously,) which is a sort of cross between HL2′s Gravity Gun and Bioshock’s plasmids. It’s a weapon, an environmental puzzle enabler, a bullet-time trigger and hidden object finder all rolled into one. The TM of the TMD is entirely automated as most things you can use it on only exist in two states; soldiers can be alive or disintegrated, messages can be obscured or legible and crates can be crates or crumpled crates. The TMD merely moves each object between these states… Although it can also turn soldiers into disfigured mutants that attack their former comrades. I’m not sure what time-travel theory is at work there, but you don’t want to try and apply logic to Singularity if you can help it.

The true test of any in-game gimmick is how well it performs when the shit hits the fan. As a horde of mutants rushed me in one particularly brown-trousers moment of Singularity I managed to freeze the majority of them in a time-bubble thing, throw in an explosive barrel and then kill any stragglers before unfreezing the time-bubble, destroying them all in a localised explosion. Not only did it look cool, but it was proof that the game is competent enough at introducing it’s myriad of features in a way that facilitates their use. More chances for experimentation would have been nice, but what is there works well.

I mentioned it also doubles as a puzzle enabler. Here’s Singularity’s one puzzle: You have a crate and a door with a gap too small to crawl under. You must use the device to age the crate so it’s all crumpled down, fit it under the door then reverse it so it’s full size again, lifting the door enough to crawl under. That’s the game’s only puzzle. Still, between that and the quiet periods of exploration that provide enough spooky audio and visual clues to make it obvious that you’re about to face a new enemy there’s enough downtime between fights to get you invested in the atmosphere of the game and prepare you for the next inevitable battle.

If you're thinking, "Wow that's a boring screenshot," know that it's a fucking official promotional shot. What?

And there’s a lot to like about the game’s atmosphere. Numerous visual effects create a unique experience. Not the bits where past events are played out in ghostly hallucination – that’s been done to death – but where a building peels away like dried paint to instantly decay 60 years just looks neat. Also there’s a level set on a ship that falls apart as you progress through it and I’m a complete sucker for levels set on a ships that are falling apart as you progress through them.

Essentially then, Singularity isn’t likely to be a game you remember in X years time as you reflect on the best of the genre but it’s a fun romp through B-grade Russian shenanigans that I highly enjoyed despite my current weariness with FPSs as a whole.

74%

A quick note on the multiplayer: I didn’t play the multiplayer.