Demo Time: kingdoms of quick timey events edition

Hey, cupcake. Wait ... are we doing pet names yet? Well, just in case, let me tell you about some demos that I played through recently. This book I bought said that's a sure-fire way to take any relationship to the next level. I took a shot at Amy, Final Fantasy XIII-2, Asura's Wrath, The Darkness II and Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. Maybe afterwards you'll let me stroke your eyebrows without any gloves on.
Amy



Oh hey, it's everyone's favourite punching bag of the moment - a little mute girl with mental problems. Nice going, GAME JERKS.

From what I had heard, I was quite content to let Amy pass me by without a word, sailing off into obscurity. Farewell, god speed. But then! Some people on Twitter whose opinions I appreciate (but certainly don't value) start talking about how much they enjoyed the trial. And so in I plunge, because I'm impressionable and on the whole quite partial to a nice rough gem. The kind of game that makes it to release only because the creators were passionate enough to push through their own technical short-comings.

Amy seemed to slide into this category, almost comfortably. Sure - if it was your job to list everything wrong with a game there wouldn't be much here that would go unmentioned. The framerate is immediately poor, the voice acting ranges from okay to unintentionally (I guess?) terrifying / hilarious, the models likewise, environments muddy and enemies bland, controls awkward and strange. There's even the slowest ladder climbing I have ever witnessed - and if I had to pick one thing I loathe in games above all else it's a slow ladder climber. Why would you do that? Hurry up. HURRY UP.

But there was something there underneath all the issues, shining up at me like a lost penny in a long-drop. Mostly it was Amy herself - losing points for being a child and gaining them back again by remaining silent - who managed to set off my protective instincts. Or maybe just my irrational fear of feeling guilty over any AI characters in my care getting hurt. Either way, I clung onto her hand for far longer than was necessary, only letting go to run towards an enemy screaming YOU LEAVE HER ALONE. DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH MY CHILD as I beat them to death with a piece of wood.

I clung onto her hand until my finger started cramping on the shoulder button, not just for her safety but for my own comfort while walking around the creepy train station with some effectively unsettling audio stuff going on. Just as I edge my way into a new area in Dark Souls with my shield raised as some slight and potentially ineffectual reassurance. Then at one point I took her hand and the controller starting vibrating in time with her heartbeat and that was just a neat little idea that made me smile.

Typically I like to just keep these demo thoughts focussed and contained enough on what I actually experienced from playing just the demo itself. As would make sense. But, in this case, I have heard that everything takes a massive turn for the worse soon after this, with unfair instant-fails combined with terrible checkpointing, awful puzzles and implementation of powers, bugs, broken design and a fistful of other serious problems that strangle the life out of that small spark of potential with their big sweaty hands. If you want a technically iffy, slightly wiffy, critically dismissed but rather lovely downloadable game then maybe just stick to Hydrophobia and we'll all go home wet and happy. Final Fantasy XIII-2



"When reaching for the future, we sometimes fall into the past."

Is this the future or the past? Either way, we're time travelling. There's some guys. There's a moogle. There's a boss fight! Paradigm shift tutorial! Cinematic Action time! Cutscene, running, jumping, treasure, hidden treasure. Crazy woman dressed as a chocobo sells you things. Great - premptive strike! Zwerg scandroid. Monster crystals. Feral link tutorial! Feed your monster things - level up! Paradigm pack. Moogle clock. Time gate. Monster materials, fragments, adornments. Sidequests, 300 CP - spend them all! In the cystarium! Tinker, tailor, ravager, medic. Accessory weight, kupopo. Paradox temporal rift tutorial. Boss fight ... victory?

I had little to no idea about what was happening. But ... I think I enjoyed it? Like that time you came round with some special pills and a selection of harnesses. Final Fantasy XIII is one of those games I haven't played and have really little intention of playing and yet ... and yet ... still kind of want to get just so I can join in when everyone is slagging it off. Or not slagging it off. Actually, I would say most of my game purchases stem from the desire not to feel left out of conversations. Please just someone talk to me.

I can't say anything about the characters or vague plot hintings here really grabbed me - and I don't think that's entirely down to my ignorance of the game's predecessor. Nor did I love any of the designs - this kind of floaty holograms & tendrils style isn't much to my liking. But the underlying systems - the fighting and monster raising, numbers and people flying around everywhere - appealed to that deep, sordid organ inside of me that longs to gorge on base mechanical progression. So, there's that. Good game? Who knows. But if someone could let me know how many hours you have to put into Final Fantasy XIII before the battle system functions like this, I would be glad to know. Asura's Wrath



Do you like that bit at the end of a boss fight - after you've finished the part where you're actually fighting - where the boss goes GGRRRRARRRGGHHH and then reveals his ultimate form and unleashes his super-special awesome rage attack? And then you have to jam on a button like it's Track and Field memorial day in order to stop them? And the entire initial fight where you were properly in control seems like inconsequential foreplay by comparison, thereby eroding your sense of victory and connection with events with every passing second? No, nor do I really. But if you do, then here's a game made up entirely of those moments. Hooray!

I punched a giant into space.

He didn't seem to like that. I also shot some things at a ship or something and pressed some buttons quickly and then had a fight with another man. Occasionally there was mention of Asura's daughter and some other people. My guess is that one of them did something bad and now Asura is pretty angry about it. This isn't a very good game if the demo is representative. This isn't really even a game at all.

Men shout at each other and at themselves, then penetrate the entire planet in various ways. I see what you're doing, guys. It's not particularly subtle and I don't think I want to see how this whole situation could possibly escalate. Press B a million times to fist a black hole with your eight metal arms? GRRRRAARRGGGHHH! And in the slick dark silence afterwards, we spoon. The Darkness II



First thought: I really should get the original game as quickly as humanly possible. It must be at least a little bit like the sequel, and that means it must be at least a little bit enjoyable. Because this demo was really solid and - most surprisingly of all - a hell of a lot of fun.

I don't think people are really bored of FPSs as a whole, just bored of shooting at men with a small selection of automatic weaponry. That's not really fun, there's no variety just a repetitive mechanical manipulation of the controller's triggers. A little freedom, a little inventiveness goes a long way. Also, being able to rip the doors off cars and throw them at enemies to cut them in half. Yeah, that's the good stuff.

I don't think 'combat puzzle' ever stopped being a good idea - although I think 'combat playground' would be my preferred terminology for a game to be built around. Less about carving the most efficient path through a group of different enemies as possible, more about just having a nice variety of different dispatch methods available at all times. I think it is a mark of success when a player will approach a situation in a certain way not because it's most efficient but because it's most fun. Judging by the Darkness II's upgrade menu, there are going to be a hell of a lot of different ways to dispatch people. I picked up something that shot bugs out of ... somewhere, and the enemies didn't like that very much. I did, though, and that's what really matters.

I like the look of the game - it's not cel-shaded exactly, but there's that slight black outlining which really makes everything pop out and seem solid. I like the idea of light being dangerous, although knocking out every single light was a little tedious. I like the tease of the story, although who knows where it could go. But most of all I just like how the game plays - one arm for grabbing and throwing, one for whipping, two hands for two guns and a host of special abilities. And lots of men to experiment on.

This is a demo you should play. This is probably a game you should buy. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning



Let's get the really bad stuff out the way first - this demo did not treat me kindly. It locked up entirely three times. In most games this isn't a major set-back - restart and reload - but when there's no saves and you have to start from the very beginning again, it can get annoying. I had given up on it after the third freeze, but later on that evening in the dark and the cold I decided to give it one more chance. Luckily, everything went more smoothly on the fourth attempt. Aside from things like characters popping in and out of existence during conversations and some bizarre issue across concave sections of the ground. I guess the demo is from an old build of the game.

All that crashing meant I got to go through the character creator process four times. If you were wondering - grey-skinned bald elf lady with a lip ring, big bald black man with a magnificent white moustache and an eyebrow ring, ruddy-faced dude with long blonde hair and a big blonde beard, bald blue-skinned other-elf woman with a massive yellow tattoo splattered across her face and an eyebrow ring. I know I like facial piercings and appreciate a solid piece of moustachery, but the bald thing was a new revelation in my personal preferences. I am learning new things about myself every day. Here, I bought you a razor.

But - the game. The game. It's slightly unfortunate that the demo takes you through the tutorial dungeon - necessary perhaps, but still unfortunate. It was only when I got outside and had levelled up a few more times as well that I started to get a grasp on the real potential in the game's combat. They should have just started you off with a few skill points in the bag, because once you've got some combos and charge moves for two separate weapons along with some special attacks or magic, everything starts to flow a lot better during a fight and actually becomes quite fun. Quite easy to get stuck into animation sequences, but fun nonetheless. I would recommend persevering for a little while more if you played some and got bored of swinging one sword with one move around the place.

Other things ... I don't know. Obviously all of this is my own ridiculously twisted and idiotic opinion, but I'm aware that I have certain quirks that carry a greater weight in my overall opinion than they should do. I like jumping, for example. I really like jumping, my friend. Well, I should say I like the freedom of exploration and clambering about the place - getting into awkward nooks and crannies like a sexy wasp nest - that is only really possible when you can jump around the place. There's no jumping in Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, and in one slight design decision the scope for pissing about is severely limited and I feel sad. Areas may be open in one sense, but this is not an open world game - there's a hard boundary around everything and clear paths to take from one place to the next. I'm not a big fan. On the other hand, you can run around very quickly and that is something I enjoy. I am a simple man with simple tastes.

Visually, there are highs and lows. The opening dungeon is rather bland and the first characters you see - a pair of gnomes - could have fallen right out of WoW without anyone noticing. But then, when you get outside it's really quite pretty and feels distinct - a nice, lush forested area with waterfalls and trees soaring up into the sky. A pleasant place to be. Everything else - lore, story, quests, general mechanics outside of combat - has the same kind of feel to it, half familiar but half different enough to not stir up any ill will. I guess it's pretty impressive how much work has gone into the world-building and history and everything, but when it draws from a well we all learnt to swim in, the effort doesn't seem entirely worthwhile. Hopefully the full game beats its own path a little more decisively than the impression the demo gave me.

I was on the edge with this, leaning towards a purchase. Now I think I'll take a pass. Not because I think it will be a bad game, just that the demo has solidified in my mind the boundaries of the experience ... and I'm not quite in the right mood for this kind of thing at the moment. If there's a quest to get Alyn Shir a jumper to wear or something I may reconsider.


Well that was a bit of a slog, thanks for bearing with me. That was a little joke there just for me, safe in the knowledge that not a single person could conceivably have read all of that and still be here. Haha ... butts.