Review: Dust: An Elysian Tail

Whether you view it as a visually evocative action-adventure or as a testament to its creator's talent and persistence, Dust: An Elysian Tail is a game worth experiencing.

Whether video games are "art" is a question that has largely been settled, at least by anyone whose opinion I value. These days, someone arguing that "video games shouldn't be considered art" sounds like my grandfather arguing that rock and roll shouldn't be considered music.

Fortunately, moving past the "games as art" debate allows us to address the sorts of interesting questions people have been asking about other art forms for years. For example, when judging the quality and worth of a work of art, how much do the circumstances of its creation matter? Should the value I ascribe to a work of art be affected by knowing who made it, or how they made it, or why they made it?

Of course, I don't know the answers to these questions, but I certainly thought about them a lot while playing Dust: An Elysian Tail, a downloadable title available on Xbox LIVE Marketplace. Dust is an 2D side-scrolling action/adventure/RPG game, a genre more tritely known by the portmanteau "Metroidvania". You play as the eponymous protagonist Dust, an anthropomorphic animal (or "furry", to use a more socially loaded term) suffering from a conventional case of narrative-induced amnesia. Joined by a talking magical sword and some sort of flying squirrel-bat, Dust fights to uncover the truth behind his mysterious past, while helping the denizens of the world of Falana fight back against the forces of an invading army led by a genocidal commander.

Amidst the game's enchanting sylvan environments teeming with stunningly animated fauna, you might think you're actually watching Bambi... up until Dust starts murdering everything, that is.

From this synopsis, you might think that Dust is derivative, uninspired, and full of clichés, and were circumstances different, I might be inclined to agree with you. However, when I was at PAX East earlier this year, I got a chance to play an early demo of the game and speak briefly with its creator, Dean Dodrill. I learned that Dean (or "Noogy", as he seems to be known on the Internet) created Dust almost entirely by himself, and that he was not an experienced game developer or computer programmer, but an artist. In 2009 he won Microsoft's Dream-Build-Play competition, and since then he has toiled with single-minded devotion toward making his game a reality.

For some reason this interaction profoundly altered my perception of Dust. Instead of thinking about it as a product, I started thinking about what it meant to Dean, why he made it, and what it had taken for him to accomplish this task. My personal assessment was that Dust had been a true labor of love, a stunningly beautiful interactive experience created by a gifted animator to honor a group of characters and a fantastical world that he truly cared about. After only playing Dust for a few minutes, I had decided that I loved it, too.

When I first met Fidget (Dust's "nimbat" familiar) I wanted to stuff him in a bag full of rocks and toss him into the sea, but godsdammit if he didn't start to grow on me by the end of the game.

Mind you, I don't want to give the impression that Dust isn't a great game in its own right. After playing it in its entirety, I can say that beyond its breathtaking visuals, Dust does a lot of other things right, such as its well-balanced and highly engaging combat system. The main character fights in a variety of ways: with melee combos, by having Fidget (his sidekick) shoot projectiles, or by spinning his sword and/or himself into a whirlwind called the "Dust Storm". However, ideal combat arises from the skillful interplay of these three elements. For instance, Fidget's projectiles are greatly enhanced in scope and power when used in concert with the Dust Storm, but continuing this action for too long damages your character, requiring the intermittent use of sword attacks. Also, certain enemies have strong defenses that can only be lowered by parrying their attacks directly with a melee strike, but such enemies are usually accompanied by large groups of weaker foes that must be crowd-controlled with the Dust Storm.

Once you get the hang of the combat system, it feels completely fluid and highly satisfying... except on those occassions when some monster get in a lucky shot that stops your 1,000-hit combo at hit number 999.

In other ways, though, Dust runs somewhat counter to my tastes. Its story is rooted in a certain kind of traditional "good-versus-evil" high fantasy that's never appealed much to me, especially when compared to the grittier, morally ambiguous (and admittedly trendier) settings of something like Dragon Age or Skyrim. However, like a Disney movie, the characters exhibit such an earnestness that even a stone-cold asshole like me can't help but find them endearing. In particular, the interactions between Dust and Fidget, delivered via some highly respectable voice acting, are often engaging and charmingly funny.

On paper, I typically would consider Dust to be above average, but not truly spectacular— a "check-plus", if you will. If it had been made by a larger studio with a sizable budget, I'd probably be giving it four stars. However, I can't separate what I know about the game and its creation from my experience while playing it, no more than I can watch Braveheart while pretending Mel Gibson isn't a deranged racist. Even though I don't know Dean Dodrill personally, I can tell that that he deeply cares about the world he created and the characters in it, and a sense of that devotion stuck with me the entire time I played his game. Ultimately, the enjoyment of experiencing something that matters so much to someone else is probably the biggest reason why I loved playing Dust: An Elysian Tail. I hope that other people love it, too.

Review: Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is the third and latest entry in the Deus Ex franchise, a series of first-person action role-playing games set in a dystopian future full of sunglass-wearing cyborgs. For those of you new to the series, here’s a helpful little timeline:

2000. The original Deus Ex comes out, giving PC gamers and cyberpunk fans an innovative new gaming experience, which keeps them occupied while people with actual lives are off drinking Budweiser and dancing to Thong Song by Sisqó.

2011 (The Present). I play Deus Ex: Human Revolution for the Xbox 360, subsequently composing this scintillating review.

2027 (16 years in the future). The events of Human Revolution take place. Not only has the advent of cybernetic technology blurred the lines between man and machine, it also has somehow led to everyone keeping their important belongings (i.e. money, booze, and weapons) in unlocked drawers, sewer drains, and easily accessible man-sized air vents.

2052 (another 25 years after that). The events of the original Deus Ex take place. Everyone notices that in the past 25 years, the world’s graphics just don’t seem as good, and the selection of available cybernetic augmentations has somehow gotten markedly less awesome. However, Deus Ex fanboys argue that everything is better than whatever happened 25 years ago.

Design: 3 / 5

For the most part, Human Revolution tries to recapture the spirit of the original Deus Ex. The core philosophy of both games is that a truly immersive gaming experience should support a variety of play styles.

Presenting Adam Jensen, your protagonist.
I’d say he’s half man and half machine, but it’s really more like 3/4 machine, 1/8 gravely voice, and 1/8 sunglasses.

Let’s say it’s your goal to get inside a particular locked room. In Deus Ex, you can choose to tackle this challenge via any one of the following approaches:

1. Kill the guard and hack the electronic door lock.
2. Knock out the guard, draw a penis on his forehead in permanent marker, and then search his unconscious body for the door code.
3. Chat up the guard with a little “Hey, how ’bout that whole ‘guarding things’ thing... sucks, am I right?” and then convince him to let you in.
4. Climb through an air vent in the next room and use your bad-ass robotic arms to punch through the adjoining wall.
5. Do #4 above, but then kill the guard on your way out for good measure.

The extent to which you will be successful in any one of these approaches depends on your character’s particular set of abilities. Using software upgrades called “Praxis Kits”, you can unlock different cybernetic abilities (or “augments”) that let you excel in different styles of game play. For example, one ability allows you to sneak around more quietly, while another lets you release pheromones that make you more persuasive. There’s also one that instantly vaporizes any nearby life form into a bloody mist by way of a lethal cloud of high-speed metal bearings. Although very cool, this one is somewhat less useful than the pheromones when Adam Jensen is on a date.

Just because you made a pretty loading screen doesn’t mean I want to stare at it for 60 seconds every time I fuck up.

Considering how many ways you can approach nearly every aspect in the game, the developers did a decent job keeping the game balanced and relatively bug-free. I tried a few different character builds, and they all were fun and playable. I had heard that the boss fights were a little unforgiving toward non-combat play styles, but even when playing with a non-lethal stealth character, I didn’t find them to be out-of-step with the difficulty of the rest of the game.

I did have a few issues with the game design, however. First, the control scheme isn’t the best around, and routine things like readying/equipping weapons and using items were a lot more cumbersome than they need to be. This wasn’t too much of a problem for the pacifist ninja I played most of the game as, but I could see it being quite frustrating for a combat build. A much bigger issue was that the load times were frustratingly long. I don’t know if I’ve just been spoiled by the seamless loading strategies of other games, but by the end of Human Revolution, I was literally choosing my course of action based on what was the least likely to return me to that damned loading screen.

Artistic: 4 / 5

For the most part, there’s not much about the aesthetics of Human Revolution that will knock your socks off.  There’s only so many ways you can can rip off Blade Runner, and with light-up umbrellas off the table, options are somewhat limited.

The streets of modern Hengsha. It reminds me of the old saying: “Visions of a dystopian future are like assholes: everyone has one, and they’re usually dark, brown, and full of toxic pollution.”

However, the game does manage to put a few of its own small twists on a tired genre. While most of today’s companies would have us believe that our future will be full of smooth, elegant curves like one big iMac in an evening dress, the world of Human Revolution is decidedly angular. Triangles appear to be the most fashionable shape one can wear, and most of the buildings and vehicles could have been designed by Volvo. Even Jensen’s chin is aggressively pointed, like his goatee is coming to attack you. It’s a solid motif, and helps convince me that some genuine thought went into the art design of the game.

Yelena Fedorova: voted worst-dressed villain of 2027.

Narrative: 4 / 5

If you can suspend enough belief to get past its idiosyncrasies, the world of Human Revolution can be quite enthralling. Although Jensen has the charisma of Keanu Reeves pretending to be a paperweight, his story is set against the backdrop of an ideological clash between the corporations that want to further the goal of human augmentation and factions that wish to resist and/or eradicate it. Throughout the missions, I was exposed to a number of opinions on both sides of this massive societal struggle, and I found it to be an interesting and believable setting for the events of the game.

Honestly, the thing that kept pulling me out of the game is what I call the “douche factor”. Since Jensen is a cold, monotone, and fairly unlikable character, it seemed like the game designers tried to force me to empathize with him using a simple strategy: making everyone else in the game more unlikeable. Sure, Jensen may seem like kind of a hard-ass, but wait until you meet Frank Pritchard, the douchey IT guy at his company, or David Sarif, his douchey boss. Compared to these pricks, Jensen seems like a swell guy. In fact, pretty much everyone you’ll meet in this game is kind of a jerk, which might explain why so many people are trying to kill you.

Gameplay: 4 / 5

If I had to sum up Human Revolution with one word, it would be choice. I’m not talking about the bullshit moral choices of games like Mass Effect, Fable, or inFamous, where you basically have to decide at the beginning of the game if you’re going to play as a bloodthirsty sociopath or a benevolent doormat, depending on which path gets you the coolest stuff. I’m talking about playing the game as though you’re a real person. Perhaps you’re the type of guy who tries not to kill people, unless it’s really convenient. On the other hand, maybe you like to put as many bullets in bodies as possible, but decide to talk your way past a guard just that once. In other words, instead of your character being a one-dimensional caricature of a moral being, Human Revolution (like its predecessor) allows you to approach each situation individually, weighing strategic concerns, moral issues, and your own personal preferences to determine your way through each challenge.

This whole computer hacking thing seems a bit unnecessary, considering this guy probably wrote out his password on a Post-It and left it next to his keyboard. 

Unfortunately, if this whole choice thing doesn’t sound that interesting to you, then I have to tell you that a lot of the other gameplay elements are lacking. By combining elements of a shooter, a stealth action game, and a role-playing game, Human Revolution is jack-of-all-trades and master of none. If you’re looking to experience high quality gaming in any of these other genres, you’ll find better experiences elsewhere.

Summary

Without a doubt, the original Deus Ex was a landmark experience that brought something new to the world of gaming, and as its heir, Human Revolution goes a long way at recapturing the spirit of the original. While it has some quirks, and may annoy the hell out of you at times, Human Revolution is still worth checking out, especially for those of you who are new to the world of Deus Ex. Now, it’s time for me to go... I think my save game is almost done loading.

Review: Bastion

This week I’ll be reviewing Bastion, an action RPG developed by rookie indie developer Supergiant Games and released for the Xbox LIVE Marketplace (XBLM) and PC. Bastion follows the adventures of an unnamed protagonist (referred to as “the Kid”) as he tries to piece together remnants of a shattered world.

Design: 4/5

I’m really growing to like the “downloadable game” concept, particularly as it’s executed on XBLM. Downloadable titles allow small developers to take solid, innovative concepts and realize them on a limited scale, without having to compete with multi-million dollar blockbuster titles. Sometimes fifteen-dollars-worth is just the right amount of game.

Apparently, the Kid slept right through the Apocalypse.  Typical teenager.

In the case of Bastion, fifteen dollars buys you 5 to 10 hours worth of old-school action RPG gameplay. The basic structure is textbook: go to some location, kill a bunch of things, and eventually collect some magic stone or crystal or whatever. (I honestly don’t remember what your character collects; it could have been ceramic unicorns or virulent STDs. Frankly, it doesn’t matter.) However, there are a few things that attempt to set apart Bastion’s polished but heartfelt rehashing of this familiar formula... though not necessarily all of them succeed. Let’s discuss them, shall we?

Artistic: 4/5

The first thing one notices about Bastion is its look. The game takes place in a post-apocalyptic world (presumably because it’s more compelling than a pre-apocalyptic one), rendered in a hand-painted art style reminiscent of the sprite-based gaming days of yore. However, unlike most destroyed game worlds (e.g. Gears of War, Fallout), this one isn’t a pile of monochromatic rubble; instead it’s full of vibrant colors and lighting effects.

Okay, do these people have huge heads and tiny feet, or are they all just leaning toward me?

A main part of the game aesthetic is that as you make your way through this bizarre world, it magically reassembles itself around you. Paths rise up to meet your feet, while trees, rocks, and houses reconstitute themselves in response to your very presence. While the effect can be pleasing to the eye as it happens, I found that the finished product actually appeared over-wrought, almost too cluttered by the revived scenery.

Narrative: 4/5

Another potential selling point of Bastion is its innovative concept of “dynamic narration”. As you progress through the game, your adventures are recounted by a gravel-voiced raconteur reminiscent of Sam Elliott from the Big Lebowski. (In fact, part of me kept waiting for him to ask me for a Sarsaparilla.) In theory, this narrator responds to your in-game actions, telling your story as it unfolds.

If this concept had really been taken all the way, I think it would have been incredible, but unfortunately Bastion just touches the surface. The majority of the time, narration responds more to where you are in the game level than to what you’re actually doing at the time. Compare this to the handful of instances when narration responds to your immediate actions, and you’re left feeling like there were a lot of missed opportunities.

Gameplay: 4/5

Beneath all of its accoutrements, Bastion boasts some fairly solid gameplay. The controls are fast and responsive, which combined with a variety of weapons and enemies keeps the combat from getting too tiresome. One welcome change would be if the game let you swap weapons anywhere (instead of only at “Forge” locations), because by the end of the game I had settled into using the Cael Hammer and Scrap Musket for pretty much everything.

The land reforms under your feet as you move about the world, which I suppose is more convenient than the alternative.

Summary

All in all, Bastion is the video game equivalent of listening to a fun, fresh cover version of a classic song. If you’re looking to pass the time by running around killing sentient plants with interesting weapons Secret-of-Mana style, it’s certainly a reasonable place to start.

Review: Fable III

It’s been about 50 years since your father (the Hero of Fable II) defeated Lucien and became King of Albion. While the billowing smokestacks of Bowerstone’s industrial district indicate much has changed in the past five decades, many things have also stayed the same; for instance, it’s still acceptable to start a conversation with a stranger by clucking like a chicken or farting in their face. The protagonist of Fable III is the youngest son of the former king, who at the beginning of the game flees the castle to escape the oppressive rule of his eldest brother, the current reigning monarch. Shockingly, it is soon revealed (by the same blind, manipulative bitch as the last game) that it is his destiny to lead a revolution, become the new king, and eventually defend the kingdom against a terrible ancient evil.