Game Maker's Playlist (August 2017) (Patreon)

Hey $3 people! Here's your Playlist video for the month. I've also posted the text below if you'd prefer to read it!

Sonic Mania 

So, if you don’t know, this is a tribute to classic Sonic games. A greatest hits collection, plus all new content. It’s actually made by a bunch of Sonic fans and modders, who were hired by Sega to, basically, do what they can’t: make a good Sonic game. 

And they definitely pulled that off. It feels like an old Mega Drive Sonic game, as seen through nostalgia goggles. So the animation is better, the backgrounds are more detailed, the music sounds terrific and, most importantly of all, the level design has been fixed. 

No longer will you run headfirst into a wall of spikes or get jumped by enemies Kool Aid Manning their way through walls. At least, no where near as often. Sonic Mania rounds off Sonic’s rough corners to make something that is enjoyable to play the first time through - not just when you have learned the levels, which is kinda how classic Somic felt.

Though, with all the shortcuts, secrets, and bonuses for quicker play, you might want to replay Mania’s stages, too. 

I still don’t love Sonic. Even in this, essentially the perfect version of the classic formula, I’m left a tad cold by the whole affair. It’s hard to put my finger on it, but I guess the game isn’t challenging me all that much. It’s more interested in speed spectacle than actual gameplay that tests your ability to master a character’s unique move set. That’s probably a whole ‘nother thing.

But anyway, this is a game that is filled with charm, heart, colour, and energy, and it’s hard to get too critical about that.

Lone Echo

Lone Echo is the first virtual reality game that has, for my money, really got locomotion right. You know, most games go for teleportation or typical FPS controls, both of which are less than ideal. But Lone Echo’s got something completely different. 

It’s a game set in space, and therefore zero gravity, and so you spend the game floating around in spaceships, debris fields, and spooky abandoned space stations. And to get around you just grab onto walls and shunt yourself off. 

It feels pretty amazing, actually. I noticed that while the game has got some pretty boring and standard objectives - like, in one part, you essentially just need to put some boxes on a shelf, the fact that you’re drifting all over the place, chucking the boxes through zero G, going upside down and using a little Iron Man boost to reorient yourself - even the most simple tasks feel great. 

So the game itself is okay. Some nice puzzles, an okay story, I had fun with it. But I could just jet around in space forever. Well, for about 20 minutes at a time, maybe. I spent way too long in VR on my first go and felt pretty queasy for the next few hours. 

AM2R

In a parallel universe, AM2R is to Metroid, what Sonic Mania is to Sonic. Sadly, Nintendo wasn’t interested in scooping up an incredibly well made and polished fan game, and instead threatened the creator with legal action. Boo. 

But anyway. This is ostensibly a remake of Metroid 2. Though, it is much, much, more with loads of unique bosses, and areas, plus a complete rundown of the best abilities and techniques that have appeared in Metroid games.

You’ll be spider balling, shinesparking, screw attacking, power bombing, and so-on. By the end of the game you’ll be one of the most tooled up and capable Samuses seen yet. 

Metroid 2 is a funny one to remake. It’s quite different to other Metroid games, because you hardly ever return to previous areas. You enter a new zone, clear it out, and move on with no critical need to return. You might want to go back for secrets, but that’s about it. 

And so the game does move along at a good pace with new content being introduced all the time. But I miss the zig-zagging back and forth across the entire world map from other games. 

But anyway, the fact that this was made by just one dude, for the most part, is incredible. Im really looking forward to play Nintendo’s own Metroid 2 remake next month to see how it compares!

Tacoma

Okay, so Tacoma is the new game from Fullbright, who made Gone Home. And it’s basically a game about audio diaries. But, like, the best audio diaries ever. It’s set on a space station and you get these 3D augmented reality playbacks of the ship’s crew, portrayed as coloured ghosts.

And yes, this is yet another excuse for indie devs to not have to render a human face. So good job there. But it’s also very effective for conveying information - much better than Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture’s sparkle people. It’s effortless to know who said what. 

Now, the game is basically just a case of watching these AR projections, maybe watching them multiple times and following different people. And looking at what people are reading when they pull out their space age iPhones. And then repeat. 

And, I felt that the game lost something that made Gone Home great. Gone Home was the story of Sam and Lonnie, and the game explains their story in great detail. Everyone who gets to the end of the game will know what happened to them. But it’s also the story of Sam’s dad, mum, and uncle, and those stories are way less explicitly told. You’ll need to read notes, find stuff, conflate information, interpret and deduce. I loved this stuff. 

Tacoma is all Sam, basically. You’ll see the full extent of the story by the end and there are only scraps of secret backstory to uncover by being extra nosy. So that’s a bit of a shame. It felt less interactive, more linear, more like watching a film than exploring a space. Still enjoyed it, but Gone Home remains the best walking sim. 

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

And finally, I don’t have too much to say about Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice but I wanted to give it a shoutout.

This is the new character action game from Ninja Theory, but it’s not trying to be a deep and involved brawler. It’s quite a simple set-up really, reminds me of like Assassin’s Creed’s combat if anything.

What the game does well is represent psychosis through lots of different means, including voices in your head done through binaural audio in your headphones, and weird shifting stuff in the background. There are puzzles, for example, about perception and things changing before your eyes which are hard to get your head around but that’s kinda the point.

I need to play more of this one, but it’s certainly one of the more interesting games of 2017 for many reasons, not least because Ninja Theory made a pretty impressive looking game on a much smaller budget than your typical game of this size. Which is great - we need more games that can take such risks with a smaller budget. Good on you, Hellblade.