Back in January I said I was going to start highlighting more articles from other sites that contain the types of discussions we try to start here at Co-Op Critics. I’ve done a really bad job of that, but perhaps today’s entry will kickstart a more regular flow of these highlighted articles.
Over at USgamer (the sister site of Eurogamer), Pete Davison posted a great article today that fits in with The Year of B-Games series I’ve been doing here. The article is called “When Bad Isn’t Bad,” and Davison asks the staff of USgamer to reflect on some of the favorite games that were not critically or commercially well-received.
There are some interesting games on the list, including Ninja Blade, a From Software title that I’m hoping to get to this year for my B-Games series. Here’s a snippet of what USgamer’s Mike Williams had to say about Ninja Blade:
“Everything in Ninja Blade has to be there because it’s awesome. It’s the only explanation. Ogawa carries four different weapons on his back because it’s awesome. He does amazing skateboard tricks while surfing on a missile because it’s awesome. He hits a wrecking ball like a baseball because it’s awesome. Why does Ogawa ride a motorcycle through the sky to shove it down a boss’ throat? Because it’s goddamn awesome.“
To see the rest of what Mike had to say and get the full list, you can read the full article here.
On a related note, I really like what I’m seeing from USgamer so far, and that’s not surprising seeing as 1UP alum Jeremy Parish is the Senior Editor for the site.
What is It? The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct is a new first person survival game set in the world of The Walking Dead television series. Players take on the role of Daryl Dixon as he and his brother Merle travel the Georgia countryside trying to survive the initial stages of the zombie outbreak.
Why Does it Make the B-Game List? Survival Instinct is a licensed game, made on a modest budget and an accelerated development cycle. The game retailed at $50, as opposed to the usual $60 price point. Its current metascore is 32 out of 100 for the XBox 360 platform, which is what I played it on. Since its release, the game has sold about 420,000 copies on all platforms combined.
Why It’s Worth Playing
Because there are some really interesting ideas at play in Survival Instinct, especially for a first-person zombie game. For starters, the emphasis on stealth as opposed to combat give the game a great sense of atmosphere. Zombies are deadly in this game, particularly if you encounter more than one or two at a time. And ammo is scarce enough that a ‘run and gun’ approach won’t get you very far.
Survival Instinct also features a party management system, where you can send members of your group off on their own side missions to collect gas or supplies. Granted, it’s not very fleshed out, but it adds another layer to the game and it’s simple enough to manage.
The graphics aren’t amazing, but honestly I could care less about that–they do an adequate job of depicting the world, the story and a creepy atmosphere. A lot of the action happens in broad daylight, and there is some nice lighting throughout the game. And the sound design is pretty great in places.
Where Does It Stumble? Survival Instinct definitely stumbles in the technical category. There are a lot of invisible walls, the quicktime melee events are frustrating, and the zombie AI is inconsistent, which makes the stealth portions of the game inconsistent. I could never get a good feel for the aggro range of zombies. Weapons don’t have a lot of heft to them, and melee combat is clumsy, as you get into a pattern of shoving a zombie and then trying to gauge when it’s close enough to connect with your weapon. Having played ZombiU and loved it, I was hoping for more from the melee combat in this game.
There are some truly frustrating moments where you get attacked by a horde and the mechanics just don’t hold up to that kind of situation. Your character is not meant to fight a horde, as the zombies are too deadly, yet there are times where it’s unavoidable and leads to death after death. Worse still, the checkpointing system sometimes puts you in a worse situation when you do respawn.
Closing Thoughts
I’m really torn about this game, because while it isn’t a great game, it’s nowhere near as bad as many mainstream gaming sites are making it out to be. I feel like this is a classic case of the game being doomed by critics before it even came out. It also highlights the problems that B-Games face, and one of the reasons that I started this series in the first place. There is simply no place in today’s gaming market for a game like this.
Survival Instinct actually reminds me a lot of Deadly Premonition, as both were very ambitious in a lot of ways, but fell short because they didn’t have the resources to fully realize those ambitions. The big difference is that Deadly Premonition was released at a $20 price point in the US, and it became a cult hit, with people embracing many of its flaws because it offered a unique experience at a very reasonable price. The biggest misfire of Survival Instinct was the $50 price point in my opinion, because it signaled that the game was a budget title, but didn’t offer a low enough price point to justify overlooking its technical failures. If you can find it for under $30, it’s definitely worth checking out.
If you want to hear some behind the scenes about the development of this game, I interviewed Glenn Gamble from Terminal Reality about Survival Instinct right before the game came out. You can check that out here.
What is It? Fracture is a third-person shooter that takes place in a future where the Untied States are no longer united. The country has fractured (get it?) into two groups–the Atlantic Alliance and the Republic of Pacifica
Why Does it Make the B-Game List?
This game received mixed reviews when it came out, and its current Metascore is 63. It also sold poorly, finishing with about 430,000 units worldwide on PS3 and Xbox 360 combined.
Why It’s Worth Playing
The basic terrain deformation mechanics are pretty cool, as you can raise and lower much of the ground around around you. The most obvious use of this is to create and remove cover, but you can also smash object and people into ceilings, pull the ground out from underneath things, and so on. The best part of this functionality is that it’s built into your suit, so no matter what weapon you’re using, those basic abilities are available to you.
The game actually has a cool opening sequence as well, which feels very inspired by Starship Troopers in its presentation.
Where Does it Stumble? Fracture feels like a classic case of a game built around one interesting idea, and not much else. It’s also a game where many ideas really don’t go past the premise stage. The idea of the country being divided is interesting, but once the game starts, it’s just a generic “us vs. them” storyline, and none of the enemies are particularly interesting.
I mentioned that the core terrain deformation mechanic was cool, but the rest of them are mapped to grenades, which means that you are constantly needing a particular type of grenade for a particular situation. This masquerades as puzzle solving, when it really isn’t as you are handheld the entire time. For example, I needed to get into a sewer system at one point, but there was a great covering it. instead of just being able to blow it up, I needed to use a special grenade that would cause a pillar to rise out of the ground, catching the lip of the grate and opening it so I could go through. That type of gimmicky stuff is present throughout.
Closing Thoughts Fracture is the first of the B-games I did not finish. While it’s definitely worth spending a little time with to check out the terrain deformation, there’s not a compelling reason to stick with it after a few hours. The good news is, you can grab a copy used for $3 like I did, and at that price, I got plenty of enjoyment per dollar.
What is It? Blacksite: Area 51 is a sci-fi/horror first-person shooter from Midway. The game is a spiritual successor to the old Area 51 Atari arcade shooter and the 2005 FPS of the same name. The storyline starts with a Delta Force squad looking for WMDs in Iraq and finding alien technology instead. One of the squad members is left for dead as the rest of the team escapes an alien (Xeno) attack. A few years later, the remaining squad gets brought back together, and they find out the government was trying to harness the technology to create super soldiers. As you might imagine, that plan went awry.
Why Does It Make the B-Game List?
Aside from its light gun arcade legacy, Blacksite has a Metascore of 60 and received pretty mediocre reviews across the board. The designer of the game later admitted that the game had a troubled development, and had almost no playtesting before release.
Why it’s Worth Playing
It’s actually pretty fun. The basic shooting mechanics are fine, and there is some rudimentary squad management, where you can tell squadmates where to go during encounters. It’s not very deep, but it’s enough, as you can use squadmates to trigger encounters, which gives you an advantage in terms of positioning, cover, etc.
And while the level design is plain at times, there were a few times that we went through residential neighborhoods that was cool.
The boss fights aren’t particularly interesting, but I had fun with all of them, and the game was rarely frustrating (save for one boss fight–see below).
Where does it stumble?
The vehicle mechanics are pretty bad, and I never really had fun driving. Most of the time, I would be driving while a squadmate used the turret on top of a vehicle. There was never an opportunity for me to take the turret and assign a teammate to drive. (like you can do in Halo, for example). It wasn’t a huge deal, as there weren’t a ton of driving segments.
There was one frustrating boss fight where you’re the gunner on a helicopter and are taking on a giant alien on a bridge. The controls are clunky, and it’s really easy to get hit by projectiles you don’t even see. I died several times during this sequence, and it was easily the most frustrating in the game.
Closing Thoughts
A fun sci-fi shooter with light squad based elements, Blacksite: Area 51 is a solid B-game that you could blow through in a day or two. if you see it in the bargain bin, grab it. You can get it for $10 on PC and $20 on consoles brand new, but I grabbed a used copy for five bucks.
I’m kicking off the Year of B-Games with a game that should not be on this list, because it’s too damn good–Binary Domain.
What is it? Binary Domain is a third-person sci-fi shooter developed by the Yakuza team and published by SEGA. It debuted on the XBox 360 and PS3 in February of 2012, and made its way to PC in April of 2012. The game takes place in a future where robotics have advanced to the point of being able to pass for human beings. You play as part of a “Rust Crew,” a team that is sent into Japan to investigate a corporation thought to have breached international laws regarding the creation of human-like robots. Things go downhill from there.
Why Does It Make the B-Game List?
While it has a Metacritic score of 72 (considered “good” on most review scales), Binary Domain is primarily on this list because it sold very poorly when it came out. In the month it debuted in the US, Binary Domain sold a total of 20,000 copies on the XBox 360 and PS3 combined. This game was completely overshadowed by the juggernaut that was Mass Effect 3, and it didn’t help that SEGA did very little in the way of marketing for it. This game came and went very quickly.in the US, although it fared better in Japan. On a slightly positive note, it does look like lifetime sales of the game are around 360,000 (according to VGChartz), which doesn’t seen too bad, but what do I know?
Why It’s Worth Playing
Let’s start with the story. Granted, I’m biased, as I know writer Antony Johnston, who worked on the story. But the story is a lot of fun, with nods to classics like Blade Runner as well as a few of John Carpenter’s movies (They Live, Big Trouble in Little China) along the way. The dialogue is well written and genuinely funny in a places. There’s an interesting love story woven into the game as well, and in general, all the characters are pretty well defined, if archetypal.
That leads me to the second reason this game is worth playing–the squad dynamic. On a basic level, you usually move through the game with a squad of three characters, which you can choose from a roster of several as the game goes on. In combat, you can either use voice or button commands to give order like “Charge,” “Fire,” “Retreat” and a bunch more. I found the voice controls to work surprisingly well, and because you can use them in dialogue as well, there are times where the interaction between you and the characters has a great flow to it.
You also get to manage your squad in terms of gear upgrades, improving both weapon performance as well s offensive and defensive capabilities. It’s not very deep, but it adds another layer to the squad management.
Finally, there’s a trust system with the other characters on your roster, and it’s based on how you respond to dialogue as well as your actions in combat. As you progress through the game, you can build trust with your teammates, which can alter how parts of the game play out, especially near the end.
Where does it stumble?
My only major knock against the game is that the squad AI is not great at times. Because the trust system is affected by how well you do in combat, when a squad member walks across your line of fire in the middle of a fight, they get upset at you and you actually lose trust. Granted, it’s not hard to get it back, but there were times that I had to work to get teammates back on my side because I accidentally shot them when they blindly ran in between me and an enemy. It happened enough times over the course of the game to be mildly annoying.
Other than that though, I really have no knocks against this game, It’s well put together all around.
Closing Thoughts
Just one: This game was criminally overlooked. It’s a blast from start to finish.
You can grab Binary Domain for $20 brand new on XBox 360 and PS3, and for $25 on Steam right now. It’s well worth your time and money.
A couple weeks ago I posted about how I just don’t have the time in my life anymore to play games as much as I’d like to. As a result, I’m buying fewer games, but spending more time with those games, trying to get as much out of the experience as I can. One of the byproducts of this approach is that it has largely freed me from the “new release” cycle of gaming, where I needed to play all the new games when everyone else was playing them, just to feel connected to the conversations of the moment. Now I pick and choose, buying games that I am really interested in, and often buying them months after release, when the price has dropped, or picking them up during digital sales on Steam, PSN or XBox Live.
One of the things I’ve noticed recently is that my gaming tastes have changed over the past few years as well, and they now resemble my taste in movies more than ever. Specifically, I find myself more interested in low-budget and overlooked games than in big budget, AAA releases. And I’m not necessarily talking about indie games. I’m talking about console games that, if they were movies, would be put in the “B-Movie” category. They could fall into this category for a variety of reasons. The most common reason is that they were made on a small budget compared to their more high-profile brethren. But, they also could have had a rocky development cycle, or a really short development cycle (as a lot of licensed games have). Or maybe they’re a port of a game that was put out on another platform. Whatever the reason, I want to play these games.
But wait, you might say, you don’t even have time to play all the “good” games. Why would you spend time with games that are, in many cases, not very good at all?
I will answer that by going back to my movie analogy. My favorite genre is low-budget horror movies. The reason I love these movies so much is that I’m always fascinated to see what the director, the cast, and the special effects team do with the limitations they have. Do they set the movie in one location? Do they overly rely on digital effects, or do they invest in practical effects at the cost of something else? What things does the movie prioritize, and what does it compromise? Does the story rely on a bunch of tropes, or really try to do something different? And if it does use tropes, how well does it execute on them?
I think the same way about low-budget or “B-category” games. What did the devs decide to prioritize versus compromise? Does the game have some really interesting systems but really bad visuals? Is the story the strong point, but the mechanics are bad? What’s the game’s strongest quality? What did the developer decide to build around? What are the interesting qualities of this game, despite the fact that it might not be very good overall?
In many ways, as someone who enjoys thinking about the process behind the product, “B-games” are so much more interesting to play than most big-budget games.
Don’t get me wrong, I still play a lot of big-budget games, and many of them are awesome and very interesting. But there is something about those mid to lower-tier games that fascinates me. And the reasons I’ve been thinking about this issue now are twofold. First, I am fascinated by the discussion around Aliens: Colonial Marines, and I will be grabbing it as soon as it drops in price. Second, since we are entering the end of this console generation, there is a whole library of games that are available on the cheap. Games you would never think of paying $60 for can be gotten for under $10 in most cases.
So, over the next year I’m going to revisit some of the “B-games” I’ve played, trying to finish the ones I can and figure out why I left the ones I didn’t finish. I’m looking forward to writing about them.
I’m sure everyone out there has their own definition of a “B-game,” but here’s a list of some that I’ve played that fit my definition:
Velvet Assassin The Saboteur
Legendary Alone in the Dark
Alpha Protocol Dark Sector
Binary Domain Brink
Clive Barker’s Jericho Damnation
Deadly Premonition Far Cry Vengeance (Wii)
GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra Hellboy: The Science of Evil
X-Blades Rise of Nightmares
Section 8: Prejudice Shadowrun
Two Worlds I & II The Conduit
Wanted: Weapons of Fate Wet
Raven Squad: Operation Hidden Dagger The Club
