Michael Walbridge

SB Staff Picks 2008: Mike Walbridge

December 17, 2008

Game of the Year awards are almost never consensus picks. Different gamers like different types of games. Here at Snackbar Games, we have a diverse staff of writers and editors, and between now and the end of the year, they’ll each be telling you, however they choose, about their top ten of ’08. Today, editor Mike Walbridge shows his dislike for rankings while telling you his favorites.

In no particular order:

N+: The little downloadable that could is a party game that can take up the evening just as effectively as any music or gun-based game. Hundreds of levels, fun competition and cooperation, four players on one console, and free map packs featuring over 200 maps, months later? Juicy.

King’s Bounty: A cult hit to be sure, but fans of strategy or the quirky can get lost in the world of King’s Bounty for a very long time. A permanent world requiring frequent creative approaches to battle makes numerous reruns worthwhile, and each run is at least thirty hours!

Left 4 Dead: Manages to make the players the content in the game. This is the multiplayer version of making the player the character. Plenty of good runs and the way the Source Engine supports so many enemies on screen at once is uncanny.
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Legendary

December 15, 2008

PS3 / Reviews / by Michael Walbridge /

Can Legendary, a game with a halfway decent plot, atmosphere and pace carry a game with bad mechanics?

When a mysterious relic is brought up from the sea floor, you are hired by an antiquarian to steal the famed artifact. What seems like a simple task turns deadly when you realize you were unwittingly set up to open Pandora’s Box and let loose all the monsters of mythology into the modern world. Emblazoned with the signet and a power to stop the demons, you are hunted by werewolves and your ex-employers mercenaries as you desperately try to seal in the horrors you unleashed.

What starts out as a cool premise is quickly shattered by the actual mechanics of this game, despite the cool atmosphere. Right from the beginning you get a sense that something just isn’t right here; the gun positioning on screen is off, and the controls feel way too loose, despite being adjustable through the options menu. More to the point, the one trick pony of this show is a hobbled one; the powers bestowed by Pandora’s Box are ironically more of a curse to the player than a benefit.

Using the signet, you have the ability to suck up animus, a sort of energy left by the monsters, to refill your health as well as store as energy to use against enemies. Problem is the game is so unforgiving, even on the lowest difficulty setting, that you will constantly be low on both health and stored energy to do anything with it. Practically useless against the monsters, this energy is better used tending your health, although trying to do that while being attacked is impossible and all the more frustrating. Luckily the standard FPS mechanics and plenty of ammunition save this title from being completely unplayable.

Designed from a run and gun perspective, it is all about the pace. You are not meant to stop and stare at the lacking environments. You are supposed to jump a little as a werewolf comes screaming through a door or a griffon plucks an unwitting victim from right in front of you as you navigate the linear path. Spark nailed the atmosphere, giving you a strong impulse to just keep going for survival’s sake. Creature graphics were favored over area details and while the overall graphics are nothing to write home about, they get the job done.

In short, the game seems half finished, like the multiplayer, hoping a good premise can save a flawed game. If you are looking for a good FPS, there are a bunch of titles that are better than this. If you are looking to see how they interpret the Japanese Blood Spider myth (don’t ask), the game may seem playable, if barely.

ESRB: Mature for Blood, mild gore and plenty of bullets
Plays Like: Mythology themed First Person Shooter
Pros: Fast paced action with more than a few wow moments
Cons: Broken; mechanics and gameplay seriously flawed

SB 2008: Most scrutinized games

December 10, 2008

News / by Michael Walbridge /

Some games receive a lot of attention. Whether it be forums, arguments with friends, or extensive coverage of how well the game innovates or changes the way games will be made in the future, certain games were on everyone’s lips.

Snackbar’s “most scrutinized games” aren’t anyone’s personal favorites, per se, but the games that have most affected the changing landscape of how games are made (many consistent themes arose this year) and the ones that spurred the most thought and discussion. READ MORE

Silent Hill Homecoming

November 20, 2008

Reviews / Xbox 360 / by Michael Walbridge /

The first Silent Hill is almost a decade old, and were it not for the PSP’s first Silent Hill title, Silent Hill: Origins, fans would have assumed the series retired. Origins and the last major console-based title, Silent Hill 4, were considered oddities; 2008 brings us Silent Hill: Homecoming, the first Silent Hill game to be developed by Americans.

Silent Hill’s success has come mainly from unique storytelling that adhered to cinematic horror conventions. If you love horror, you are aware that there are Japanese and American styles of horror presentation. If you aren’t, a brief and incomplete summary: American horror usually reveals the root cause of the problem as the story goes along; the problem usually involves lots of blood and dismemberment. Japanese horror is allowed to involve blood and dismemberment, but not required to; it is, however, required to steep the viewer in mystery. Even if the threat is abated or escaped, its full nature still lies in question.

So previous Silent Hill games had a particular Japanese flavor; really scary monsters and situations combined with puzzling situations and endings where you mostly knew what happened, but you didn’t know why, or even sometimes how.

Most of Homecoming is by the book Silent Hill. The combat, while better than previous releases, is still uncomfortable; it is almost impossible to dodge something using the new combat dodge. The puzzles are usually easy but occasionally maddening, the monsters are strange (except those who come back for an encore, due to familiarity), and the scenery and music perfectly support the urgent and intense need to sort out family matters. Akira Yamaoka of previous Silent Hill titles wrote the soundtrack for Homecoming, and the graphics on the PS3 and 360 make it feel like a new and improved experience. The screen sometimes looks like it’s displayed by projector, complete with grains and occasional spatters of black–surprisingly this doesn’t annoy but manages to sink into your brain, unconsciously making you accept it without question.

It’s unquestionably still part of the canon; some may view it as a half-sibling and a stepchild. You play Alex Shepherd, a young man discharged from the military. On your way home, you discover that your younger brother Joshua is missing; when you get home, your father is also missing and your mother has become catatonic. The plot is still unpredictable, but it doesn’t feel original. The biggest divergence here is that while a few questions are left open, most are answered; if understanding why all the characters do what they do and become what they become would ruin Silent Hill for you, you may feel betrayed by this game (do not worry: there is still a UFO ending).

This is legitimate horror. The fights are not fun and not easy, and the save points are spaced apart terribly, but this is still Silent Hill. Think of it as spicy and bold cover of your favorite classic song: you will always think of the original, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be good in its own way.

ESRB: M for mature for language, dark themes, and horrible deaths and gore

Plays like: A polished Silent Hill with less obscurity and improved combat mechanics

Pros: Makes good use of current-gen systems in presenting a horror experience, voice acting is passable and it (whew) manages to be scary and engrossing

Cons: Diehard Silent Hill fans may dislike some stylistic changes in storytelling, the combat is still not that good and the save points are far apart

Left 4 Dead

November 19, 2008

PC / Reviews / by Michael Walbridge /

Bill, Louis, Francis and Zoey are four civilians who must help each other survive a trek through a simple, normally tame locale in order to reach an evacuation point in order to avoid turning into zombies. The first sign that Left 4 Dead is not a game made for its story or plot is the fact that these same four people are in trouble in various spots and are introduced through a movie poster. In one campaign, they must reach a hospital and be evacuated by helicopter–in another, they must reach a farmhouse and be rescued by the military.

Left 4 Dead will appeal to anyone who likes to have a good time with friends. Single player is fun for a while, but the computer-controlled companions start to feel strange–sometimes they are stupid, but their aim is often flawless, never missing zombies and never hitting teammates.

But in multiplayer co-op campaigns, which is the game’s raison d’etre, the friendly fire mechanism brings tension and meaning, because there can be literally 50 zombies, all who cannot be outrun, all of which will sometimes swarm only one or two players, and knowing when to stop shooting in such circumstances requires precision. To further complicate matters, there are special zombies that almost always need two players to be taken and down and boss zombies that almost always need four; this further forces teams to work well together.

Every single zombie is randomly placed before and during each campaign session, giving Left 4 Dead a sense of chaos and replayability–the well-designed levels are memorized quickly, but if a map starts with say, two or three hundred pre-placed zombies, thirty could be in the last room, first hallway, or neither. Anywhere that appears to lead somewhere, even if it doesn’t, can be a source of a wave, and it doesn’t matter whether it is the side, front, back, or any combination of these at once: your problems and tight spots will almost always vary in location, if not nature.

In versus, you get to be all but one of the special zombies; you have a creator’s vision of the map and can see all your enemies through walls (teammates can see each other that way as well) and can choose to spawn anywhere you want as long as it’s not too close or in plain sight. The other players play the campaign in the exact same way as they would in a co-op campaign against the computer, only with player-controlled special zombies.

Left 4 Dead is traditional zombie shooting with revolutionary gameplay design; one part MMO for its required social teamwork, one part Geometry Wars for its insane, unpredicable chaos, and three parts highly solid and safe FPS mechanics with grenades, molotovs, shotguns, pistols, and automatic weapons give Left 4 Dead the ability to show us how comfortable and standardized the FPS format has become. Left 4 Dead cannot be missed.

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