New dawn, new place, this blog now continues to Crusader ✟ Ping. Why? Why? Why not!

Walk right in, sit right down (Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments, 2014)

I contemplated getting Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments for a while. It looked old school. And by old school, when it comes to mystery point and click game, it often rhymes with clumsy. At some point, it was on sale so I got it. But haven’t tried it on the spot.

Not even the previous post, clearly on topic, made me try it. To be honest, it did but I quit after seven boring minutes.

It felt small, this baker street flat. And it looked more tied to the recent Guy Ritchie movie than to anything mentioned in my last post: more action than mystery. I was not in the mood for an half-baked mystery game.

Then, hitting another blocker damned bug in Shadowrun: Dragonfall, I gave it a longer run.

And I was positively surprised. Despite some mad screen tearing by default (v-sync must definitely be set on) and too many times out for the game to load locations but also dialogs, the ambiance is there and, almost at the end of the first investigation, I have still no set opinion on the culprit (that’s not necessarily good, though).

The mini-games are fine and the system to process leads so far seems smart. On a specific lead, you can pick two likely options and decides which you think more relevant. Unfortunately, sometimes it’s a bit too assertive. In one of the cases, looking for an accomplice, you are forced, for two suspects, to set them either to had time to do this or is not involved because had no time to do this. On what planet the fact that one suspect did not do this rules out the possibility he could be accomplice and have done other part? Worse, you cannot set both to had time to do this while actually they had. Should such elaborate clues system ends up on an almost random pick?

So even though this a game definitely worth being played more than seven minutes, sometimes, the results are a bit frustrating. I guess they designed it for the player to still have something to think about when all the clues are found. Otherwise it would just be a matter of clicking here and there. But for a future version, they should really work on what is truly disturbing: avoiding false dilemmas. Daddy, let your mind roll on!

Much too cleaver (Ripper Street, 2012-2014; Sept détectives, 2012; Mr. Jack, 2006)

Already missing Game of Thrones characters and still not getting any proper news about Telltale’s next episode?

Assistant to Spooks/MI5 Matthew Macfadyen enacting Detective Inspector Edmund Reid (yeah, historical character, head of CID of the Met Police at the time of Whitechapel Murders of Jack the Ripper), here is Jerome Flynn, that you also know as Bronn, playing Detective Sergeant Bennet Drake.

In episode S01 E05, you may also see Ser Jorah Mormont, aka Iain Glen. Solid cast. Solid setup, nice costumes and good stories, as you can expect when someone dares to use XIXe century London as environment.

One of the latest Sept comic-series episode is also cast in Victorian period. That’s a good example of the best this series can provide -some episodes were unfortunately not overly good-, a series with no set genre, authors, characters, but just focused on this number : 7 (sept/seven). Selected authors are to come up with a story focused on seven important characters from a specific genre. And this one is named Sept détectives.

Not a surprise, the seven detectives are inspired by the classics of the genre. Inspired but consistent, all of them. Graphics are good. Finally, and that’s probably what matters most in this genre, the story is well written, twisty I might add. I was not familiar with Herick Hanna’s work, the scenarist. Pretty pretty pretty good. Looks promising.

To stay in context, you’d be wise to give a try to Mr. Jack. That’s a two players board game: one is trying to get the ripper on the large, the other behind bars. I found it well-balanced and properly designed. It does not takes hours to grab the rules neither does it gives too much room to luck. There are extensions to add cards or change scenery (New York version) that I have not tried but would be willing too.

After all, the streets of London can never be safe!

Unhappy faces ain’t gonna get you in (Life Is Strange, 2015)

I waited a while before giving a try to Life Is Strange. It’s made by a french studio named DONTNOD Entertainment and, over years, I grew wary of frenchness/ubisoftness in video games: repetitive gameplay with teenager philosophy in disguise of an inconsistent plot.

Plus Life Is Strange is a point-and-click adventure game and, these days, with Telltale Games, the standards are quite high.

Gameplay wise, Life Is Strange forces you to click and move the mouse to a text string like “Do this” to do anything. I guess they thought it would be practical in case there are many actions possible. But in most cases, you actually have one or two possibles actions. And when there are two actions, usually the first one is “Look at” which is utterly useless since you are already looking at the said object. The game is labelled “graphic adventure” but you are forced to focus on some meaningless text strings. It’s not intuitive neither graphical at all for me.

For instance, here’s you opening a door : there is a door handle but a click on it does nothing. You have to click in the circle then move your mouse to the string “Enter” you’ve read – and not follow the arrow that starts from the circle and point to the handle. Everything is confusing there: what you see and what you are supposed to do. The interface tries hard to look smart but forget she’s there not to be smart but discrete.

After fighting a bit with the interface – despite how primitive the gameplay of a point-and-click game can be, next thing you notice is the childish attitude of the main character: poor student in art-whatever wants to cry because, huh, because she’s shy, so she runs to the toilet. Sob.

Poor girl. Skater boys dont like her. Did they made here totally ugly and not the style of skater boys? Are they having a laugh? Next character: the mall cop/university security nutcase that bullies students and wants to cameras to be installed everywhere. So unexpected!

Least to say the very first impressions of the game are not so great. Plonk then?

What about the story itself? Telltale Games have this notion that your choices tailor the game. Smart way to say that even though a game story can  branch, if there is a real story, your choices cannot change it all. DONTNOD does not tell how much you can influence the story. In Life Is Strange, you dont have to decide fast like in Telltale Games at some crucial moments: you can take as much time you want and test the alternatives before you decide. But since I’ve only played the first episode so I cannot tell really how it unfold and how much the choice you make influence the game.

I can tell however that playing the first episode in full made me acquire the rest of the season. Yes, despite the poor gameplay and simplistic characters design, I’m curious to see where it leads. I think that qualifies the story as interesting enough – at least to be bought during steam sales. Come on feet, teach yourself to move.

N’y pense plus, tu es de passage II. (Cities: Skylines, 2015)

Testing further Cities: Skylines, 2015, so far I managed to build a perfect highway interchange. Except that this one, three layered, is overly expensive. Three times the price of my first attempt (some roundabout on top of the highway, typical of “Paris périphérique”) :

The next logical option was to make a cheaper version by reducing the number of lanes of the direction changes. I even added pedestrian passage.

It is way cheaper but it’s still a very big thing hard to place. So I just realized that having highway exits on both sides at the same spot could actually be avoided. It’s not clear yet whether two T intersect are obviously less space consuming than one single X intersect. So here’s my next proposal:

All these are available in an asset collection.

N’y pense plus, tu es de passage (Cities XL, 2009; Sim City 5, 2013; Cities: Skylines, 2015)

Some time ago, I was replaying good old Sim City 4 Deluxe.  Then I had other stuff to do and it did not make much progress. Then Sim City was released. And by Sim City, they, EA Games, meant Sim City 5. Thanks to my general rule to never buy any game released by EA Games, I skipped it and reviews confirmed that I was not missing anything.

On the side, I also gave a try to Cities XL. The very notion of zoning residential area with a specific social class set seemed to me unrealistic. France’s very own history and her many “cité nucléaire” (common name for suburban areas supposed to host, when built, rocket science searchers and workers and that are now filled by unemployed and criminals) tells how much can differ what you actually designed and planned and what you ended up with on a 20/30 years time span.

And Paradox Interactive published Cities: Skylines. I usually like Paradox approach so I had to give it a try. It’s looks like a new take on Sim City 4. It’s said that transportation is a primary aspect of the game and that’s actually quite a challenge to design some transportation system that scales.

When you start your city, you are limited by cash flow. I did a few clumsy tests. Then I knew from some episode of Myth Buster that roundabouts are more effective that any other crossroads systems. So I went on and designed some big highway roundabout to link districts.

Soon, though, I realized I just made up something very common on “Paris périphérique”, which one is stuck at least four times a day. Thanks to the steam workshop and clever system of added assets within the game, I found many clever intersections designs. Some people clever did their homework. Road intersections common in Europe are there!

Still, being quite happy with my roundabout system, even though it does not exactly scale, I made further test with it, for instance split it to serve a district only (intersection as T instead of X) instead of two. I’ve read some stuff, checked some Neufert, and finally came up with the idea to multiply layers. The following works nice:

Whichever direction you want to take, you only change direction once. The only drawback is that this construction is tremendously expensive to built and to maintain. So my next step will probably to try to make it cheaper, probably but reducing the amount of lanes when you change directions.

On the road again!

To piwo jest za ciepłe #2: Sobieski cynamon + 7up mojito

Każdy kraj miał swoje mody (For the Love of Cars, 2014; Car SOS: 2013-2014; Wheeler Dealers, 2003-2014)

Interested in old cars? Or just in mechanics? Years ago, I watched on I-can’t-remember-which cable channel some shows dedicated to car being restored. Notably about old american cars made into hotrods (the show was quite disturbing since it had some boring reality-tv ingredients) or land rover restoration.

Although one season was made, For the Love of Cars is a good quality show. You have two guys teaming up, an actor (Philip Glenister) and a car restoration expert (Ant Anstead) and they take cars that are of a specific matter to british automotive history: Ford Escort Mark 1 Mexico; Land Rover Series 1; Triumph Stag (I was not familiar at all with this one); Mini Cooper Mk 1; MG TC; DeLorean DMC12.

They manage to include interviews of unexecpted enthusiasts of interest. For the Mexico, and old copper and an old car thief are interviewed and meet so they can discuss good old time. For the Land Rover, the show present us a guy that travelled through the world with a similar model, etc. Ant Anstead shows a lot of the restoration process, it’s a must watch.

Car SOS does not even get his own en.wikipedia page. That is to say that’s a bit of cheap version of For the Love of Cars. Here, you have Tim Shaw, tv host, as Philip Glenister, and Fuzz Townshend, bus mechanic and drummer as Ant Anstead. The idea of the shows is to meet people that have a car dying in some garage and to repair it. Usually, it’s the car of the father and there is a sob story about why it has not been fixed but abandoned over years. Not a bad idea – but when you see a guy playing golf and driving very expensive car, it looks funny, to say the least, to think he really need a free restoration of one of his cars. In some others cases, you can see that some guy get totally moved by seing his car even better than when he bought it decades ago. And that’s nice. A drawback of this show is that it often miss to describe and show the restoration process. And often too, they just buy parts or almost complete cars instead of fixing what they have; but that’s probably tied to the concept of the show: they start sometimes with cars beyond salvation so major parts just need to be completely replaced.

I’ll mention last the show that is actually the oldest but that I’ve just started to watch. It’s Wheeler Dealers. Here you have the buyer (since it started in 2003, I cannot keep considering For the Love of Cars as the reference), Mike Brewer, real car trader, and the mechanic, Edd China, Edd China is as impressive as Ant Anstead, in his own way. No matter what car Mike Brewer brings, whether it’s a BWM 840ci with a 4000 cm3 engine and lot of electronics or a BMW Isetta, microcar with 247 cm3 engine, whether the fix is about engine or the car shell, he get the job done. Plus he shows lot of tricks and tips. That’s great. This guy famous for fatest moving toilet/furniture world records knows his business.  And, you got it, Mike Brewer is providing him with a large range of cars. He’s always very happy with what he bought. But why would he not, since he went for it? Depending on the seasons, the initial buy got a price limit (first £1000, later £2000, then £3000, etc). It’s kind of obvious that if you buy the same car as Mike Brewer but don’t have an Edd China, with the knowledge and the tools, around, you’ll probably wont make any profit. Still, it does not make the show less interesting.

 If you can’t watch the show, you can always buy a Maluch. I na niego mocno chuchał, Mały, tani, na urlopy, Zjeździł z nami pół Europy.

Update: It turns out Edd China worked on Father Ted!

Nie płaczcie panny, nie płaczcie za nami, Obowiązek wypełnić musimy (Afterfall: Reconquest, 2015)

Afterfall: Reconquest seems promising: an episodic story-driven third-person shooter video game with action and adventure elements in some post-apocalyptic world, inspired by S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (except it does not take place in post-Chernobyl Pripyat but in some New Poland, buffer zone in an alternate history where nazi germany was not defeated). I tried to play episode 1 and it really fit the bill: as much as S.T.A.L.K.E.R. after the release, it’s good enough for you to be seriously interested but the interface and several bugs prevents you to explore more.

I cannot play with the keyboard: keys are not configurable and not properly set for AZERTY keyboard. So I’m forced to play with a gamepad and then mouvements are overly slow and clumsy: I’m dying at every corner just because my guy takes ages to properly aim. Aside from that, the game is not overly responsive despite the fact that I’m using a decent rig. There’s a lot of screen tearing. Plus the all black and white -with some rare colors- is giving me headaches. As result, the game is hard to play, you are fighting with it.

I hope they’ll work that, even though it’s probably a bit late already. Because the story seems otherwise good and the graphics are great. It deserves to be fixed. As much as S.T.A.L.K.E.R. would have deserved a real multiplayer mode. Będziem was czekać.

 

All is safe and all is good but lately I’ve had dreams of blood (The Detail, 2014)

Presented as “The Detail combines the emotional impact of Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead with the themes of a realistic crime drama like HBO’s The Wire, delivered with our own unique visual style inspired heavily by graphic novels.”, I was afraid it would be too-much.

As the next prick, I both love The Wire (not that much season 2) and dislike pricks that love The Wire – I watched it first when it was on air though. So anything pretending to be related in any way to The Wire has to be treated with suspicion. But the game was on sale so I went for it.

And I’m actually glad I did. So far (the game is delivered by episodes) The Detail is good. Not surprinsingly, it depict a sick sad world, it was not expected to be original in this regard.

The characters are likely, the graphics are nice and the gameplay is really well thought of, you navigate a bit in a comic. I dare say Telltale people should take a look at it, there are some good ideas. From time to times, the interface is inconvenient but it’s very rare (I was also forced to play with the gamepad, but that’s the same with Telltale games and their keyboard setup stuck to QWERTY keyboard). Ambiance wise, in my opinion it does not relates that much to The Wire or The Walking Dead but more obviously to NYPD Blue (already mentioned there): the main cop in the game is totally a Sipowicz in any aspects.

I’m looking forward the following episode or any other game from Rival Games. You had me where you want me so you thought.