The Drama of NBA 2K11

October 24th, 2010 •
Tags: drama, Gaming, Michael Jordan, narrative, NBA 2K11, sports games, story, videogames

Professional sports simulations are, by their nature, almost unable to move in the same direction as gaming as a whole. While Mass Effect, Uncharted, and Enslaved are free to push narrative forward, the nature of sports games forces them into a position of making their simulations incrementally more accurate year after year. By following along with the dramatic career of the most famous athlete ever to play the sport, 2K has managed to add a pinch of story into their main course of spot-on simulation.

I am certainly not a rabid sports fanatic. There was a time I was pretty obsessed with basketball, but that was many years ago. Nowadays, I’m one of those clueless folks who has never heard of the current superstars in any pro sport and doesn’t even know which sports are in-season at any given time.

However, I have fond memories of my interest in basketball. If I take this thought a step further, I have fond memories of a time when I would buy and play several basketball videogames every single year. It started with the SNES version of Bulls vs. Blazers and the NBA Playoffs.

In the early ’90s, your favorite team had better make the playoffs or else you wouldn’t see them in that year’s sports title. As far as the game was concerned, they didn’t exist. Also, you wanted to avoid moving around too much with the ball or else you might incur the wrath of the overzealous refs in the form of a charging call.

Developers made incredible strides by the time I tired of playing. I must have quit sometime in the era of the PS2 and Xbox. While I enjoyed playing these games, they improved only incrementally each year. This, along with the fact that I no longer followed basketball, pushed me away.

Fast-forward about seven years. I came very close to picking up NBA 2K10 after seeing some stellar reviews. I figured it had been long enough since I played for me to notice some substantial improvements. The $20 price-point on PC also helped. However, I ended up putting that off because of my extensive backlog at the time.

By the time I was ready to buy, 2K had dropped some delicious info on their next game in the series: the cover athlete would be Michael Jordan. My interest in basketball had coincided almost perfectly with Jordan’s storied career with the Chicago Bulls. This was no coincidence.

As a result, I decided to stick it out for the next game. I was sure I would enjoy it, and the nostalgic draw of being able to play as Jordan was a great incentive to wait. After all, I had already waited more than half a decade.

I fired up the game and was immediately dumped into the shoes of the man himself — a young Jordan facing off against Magic Johnson and the Lakers. I listened to the commentary as the game began. I still count this as the aspect of basketball games most improved in my absence.

As I listened to them recount the events surrounding the game and what was at stake, it occurred to me that I was experiencing something I never had in a sports game before: drama. I was living out a story. The developers wrapped-up this intensity with the rules of basketball and tied it neatly with a nice physics-engine-shaped bow. At that moment, those mechanical improvements helped me to live out this unfolding drama which depicted actual historical events.

It was truly a revelation. I have yet to touch any aspect of the game other than the Jordan Challenges. Why would I want to? I can live out moments that were incredibly important to me when I witnessed them all those years ago. Not to mention I still have yet to complete all the challenges as they are surprisingly difficult. I’m sure that, once I do complete them, I will happily begin my own drama by drafting Jordan into the current league.

You may wonder what makes this any different from playing as your favorite current star in any sports game. In those games, you merely take your team through a fantasy season. That experience may also be enjoyable and certainly has its place, but it lacks one thing that makes the Jordan Challenges unique: context.

For example, one of the challenges is to score at least 55 points against the Knicks. At face value, this challenge is very shallow. The context is introduced by that brilliant and dynamic commentary I mentioned previously.

Before it starts, you can read about the circumstances surrounding that particular game. In different scenarios, you hear that Jordan is playing in his first outing since returning from retirement or the commentators mention articles from local newspapers. This detailed commentary continues throughout the course of the game.

These minor details make the scenarios feel much more real. Much like one of the many random objects littered around the worlds of Bethesda’s RPGs, NBA 2K11 has an attention to detail you expect from a game driven by narrative. Fortunately for us, that’s what this game is: a sports game driven by narrative.

I recognize much of this could be lost on someone without proper context. For one, if you didn’t know these scenarios were based on actual games, the challenges would lose weight. The reason they are so dramatic is that they really happened! Each of those games — and countless others — are tiny little stories of triumph over adversity. These stories, when taken as a whole, make up a career whose equal is not yet on the horizon and one that no player will eclipse for years to come.

Almost every aspect of NBA 2K11 is stellar from the quick response to the deft transitional animations, but that’s not the real draw of the game. It allows you to experience a level of drama and emotion that digs deep past the typical surface level provided by these games. You won’t simply make the buzzer-beater to win the fantasy finals; you will, as Michael Jordan, make the game-winning shot against the Utah Jazz in 1997 to win his sixth and final NBA Championship in his last game as a Chicago Bull. It’s specific details such as these that push NBA 2K11 from the starting five to the Hall of Fame.

[Thanks again go out to Bryan Harper for his help editing this piece.]

This article first ran on Bitmob.

The Hidden Kinect Requirement: Mixing Motion Controls and HD Visuals

September 15th, 2010 • 1 comment
Tags: games, Gaming, HDTV, Kinect, motion control, move, THX, viewing distance

High-definition motion controllers bring new possibilities, and with them, a new set of problems. You’ll find plenty of discussion online about the space requirements for Kinect — a subject many gamers already broached with the Wii. What you won’t find is discussion of a brand-new, more nuanced problem specific to this forthcoming high-def hardware: your vision.

The basement of my house has become what some might call a “mancave.” I have a modest 46-inch HDTV connected to my consoles and my PC. Until recently, I kept my futon about 12 feet from the screen, and it was from there that most of my gaming took place. Everything worked out beautifully — except my computer.

Sure, the PC itself functioned well enough, but since it’s the only device that utilizes all 1920 horizontal pixels, it was very difficult to see detail in some games, and it was nigh impossible to see text when browsing the web — most web fonts are one or two pixels wide and two or three pixels high on the display. Seeing seven or eight square pixels out of more than two million on a 46-inch display from a distance of 12 feet is not a happy endeavor, even with the magic of corrective lenses.

It was then I realized that as displays become better, you need to be closer to them to see all that…er…betterness. The THX HDTV setup recommendations state that to find the optimum seating distance, you should “divide the size of your screen by .84.” If you’re starting from the viewing distance rather than the TV size, you can multiply by .84 for the opposite result. This means that a viewing distance of twelve feet — my original set up — would require a 120-inch screen to properly take in the splendor of the images present on screen. On the flip side, it also means that I should be about four to five feet from my 46-inch set. Since neither solution was workable, I looked around for some looser recommendations.

I found an online viewing-distance calculator which provides the hard-and-fast THX recommendations alongside a slightly more realistic recommendation based on a specification written by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. (This is the guideline I will be using for the remainder of this article.) I could see myself upgrading to a 60-inch screen at some point. That puts me at about eight feet for a happy viewing experience. I tightened my room up by sliding the futon closer to the screen — the prescribed eight feet — and now suffer much less eye strain. Once I do finally upgrade to the bigger set, I suspect I will have no problems whatsoever.

Perhaps this deserves a bit more explanation: Back in the days of standard definition, a 36-inch set was enough for almost any space. The picture on that set had 480 vertical lines of on-screen rendering composing the image. The pixels had to be large enough that those 480 lines filled the screen to create a single, unbroken image.

Today’s high-definition displays pack 1080 vertical lines of pixels. In order to fit more than twice as many pixels on a display of the same size, the pixels need to be smaller. Tiny pixels are naturally harder to see. But the reason high definition looks better is because those extra pixels deliver additional detail that the fewer pixels of standard definition can’t describe. Viewers don’t need to be able to distinguish individual pixels, but they do need to be able to fundamentally register each one to get the full impact of the image — most easily evidenced by my web-text example.

I’m skirting around the point that this is a consideration many people never make when buying a TV. Games haven’t traditionally featured distance requirements between the player and the display. But the Wii broke new ground in that respect. Players now need to ensure they have space to fling their white, plastic remotes as they jump, shoot, and minigame their way to glory.

So, what’s the difference? This is old news, right? Not if you factor in one of the biggest selling point of cutting-edge visuals: high definition. I could hook up a Wii to my grandparents’ floor-model Admiral and still see every one of the Wii’s 480 vertical pixels from across town. On the 360 and PS3, the lowest-resolution games are nearly twice that of the Wii, with a few games venturing further up the high-def ladder. Motion controls impose an “artificial” distance requirement on your living room set up, and as I squinted at my PC from afar, the mythical Wii HD is started to look much less attractive.

Microsoft has set the space requirements for Kinect at a reasonable six feet. This is not terribly difficult as this viewing distance merely requires a 45-inch diagonal-set measurement for proper viewing — remember I’m the guy who has a TV with a standard-manufacturer measurement of 46 inches. It does, however, exclude those with 36-inch, 37-inch, and 42-inch displays, which are all relatively popular. If you’re interested in complying with the THX spec, you’re looking at a 54-inch display, even at this distance. Other sources claim more space is needed to play properly — in fact, much more.

Giant Bomb’s Jeff Gerstmann stated on the August 10 Bombcast that he recommends 13 feet in order to get the entire player into the Kinect’s calibration frame (the discussion begins at around one hour and seven minutes). My second, more liberal HD recommendation source indicates that a 12-foot viewing distance needs an 88-inch screen. Needless to say, mere mortals like you and I will probably never own a screen of the size necessary to discern a 1080p display from 13 feet — the Kinect’s purported optimal registration range. But let’s get a number, anyway, just for giggles.

That number is a staggering 96 inches (or 116 inches [120-inch manufactured screen] based on the official THX specs). Unless you plan on buying up the local movie theater and converting it into your personal gaming palace, you will most likely never properly play a 1080p game at a distance that is optimal for both the Kinect and the high-def game you’re using it for (according to Gerstmann’s hands-on recommendation).

Many of you may be wondering if this is really such a big deal. Of course, it’s all a matter of perspective. For the hardcore, the anal retentive, or those like me who are lucky enough to be both, the thought of losing fidelity in a lovingly crafted game is an affront to our sensibilities. We painstakingly select a display which will best compliment our beloved pastime. We believe games are art and want to experience everything they have to offer. And for everyone else, it’s a moot point.

It is akin to the VHS and DVD trend of so-called “fullscreen” movies — which actually only displayed a portion of the frame at any given time. The majority of buyers didn’t care about the artistic integrity of the film and merely wanted their SDTV filled from edge to edge with picture. But purists wouldn’t hear of recklessly cropping a film in the name of practicality.

My concern is that it’s all antithetical to the marketing message of “high-definition motion control.” After all, high definition doesn’t matter if the player is too far away to see it.

Abstracting hardware: obsolescence obsolete (with OnLive)

March 25th, 2009 • 1 comment
Tags: cloud, cloud computing, digital distribution, Gaming, mac, OnLive, pc, pc games, pc gaming, Windows

Most everyone has heard the news of OnLive, the new cloud-based computer gaming platform. I’m not here to regurgitate that for you. Instead, I intend to give it some context.

Cloud computing is all the rage right now. With netbooks growing in popularity, all sorts of Internet-based services are popping up to make the experience of owning a netbook more rich. OnLive applies this model to PC gaming while broadening its appeal way beyond the netbook crowd. Where an app like Google Documents might outsource a little processor load and some data storage, OnLive’s system will send all of the intense load to your CPU and graphics card associated with PC gaming to a monstrous computer hundreds of miles away. The benefits are clear. While existing web apps have sold themselves to the typical PC user on convenience (e.g. the ability to access documents anywhere), this is the only service I can think of that has a chance to sell itself by saving gamers significant money on the hardware that is typically necessary to run these intensive games… not to mention the dedication to keep up with frequent upgrades just to maintain the performance status-quo. An entry-level gaming PC is going to cost around $800. This system enables a $300 netbook to do the same thing by relegating every task associated with the game other than actual display of the resulting video stream.

There are also implications here for the established modes of game distribution. In my most recent post, I discussed a possibility for a new model of game distribution that does away with the physical product altogether, but that proposition did not suggest any fundamental shifts in the way gaming works—only the way they are distributed. Digital distribution platforms have gained significant popularity over the past year. OnLive’s distribution model is digital, but it seems to be something of a hybrid between GameTap and Steam. I honestly don’t understand the model entirely, but Steve Perlman claimed in an interview there will be tiers of service which suggests a subscription model while the interface’s options for either buying or renting any given title suggests a more traditional model of paying per title. This is serious competition on either front. Steam will have difficulty as games that are available for both services will have significantly lower requirements through OnLive. Subscription services like GameTap typically serve so-called “casual” gamers better and contain few if any new release hardcore games. OnLive is coming into this with major partnerships with huge publishers (and committments for simultaneous release with retail) to give it some more muscle.

For the numerous advantages, this service already has a few small disadvantages I can see. First, the max resolution being quoted right now is 720p which is a bit behind the times. I understand there are now Internet bandwidth considerations as the resolution increases, and I’m sure that is the reason for this choice. It doesn’t make it any better for gamers that crave high fidelity experience with their PC gaming and are accustomed to running 1920×1200 or higher resolutions on their PCs. Second, with any digital distribution model comes concerns about consumer issues. As with other similar platforms, many consumers will likely not be comfortable with the license they are actually purchasing. Every software purchase is merely a license whether or not you receive a physical product, but, frankly, it is much easier for software publishers to enforce unreasonable demands in a license while they still control the software. If I have a disc, I can always resell it whereas a digital software purchase may be impossible to transfer.

For all my excitement, I am sceptical. It sounds much to good to be true. The only way we’ll know (before an actual launch, that is) is by getting in on the beta which should start this summer. If OnLive launches at an attractive price, good performance, and reasonable licensing agreements, this may be the Trojan horse that brings PC gaming back to the forefront.

iDracula update

March 23rd, 2009 •
Tags: Game, games, Gaming, iDracula, iPhone, iphone game, mobile, update

The developer has released a meaty update to the fantastic iPhone dual-stick shooter iDracula (my review). It includes two new levels, new weapons, and new game modes. It really adds quite a lot to a game that was already well worth the cost of admission. If you were waiting, maybe this is the incentive you were waiting for.

iPhone review: geoDefense

March 18th, 2009 • 1 comment
Tags: games, Gaming, iphone game, iPhone games, review, tower defense

There was a short period of about a month just after the app store went live that there were no tower defense games whatsoever. Now, that space is much more crowded and with good reason. The iPhone is a gaming platform excellently equipped for the tower defense genre of which geoDefense is a solid example.

There are two basic variations of the genre. Some games allow you to place towers anywhere, and the towers form the path the creeps will traverse (e.g. Fieldrunners). Others like geoDefense lay out a path for the creeps and allow placement of towers anywhere except on the path. This is my favored style. I prefer to concentrate on the strategy involved in placing towers rather than placing towers and constructing the most effective path.

The place where geoDefense does the best at differentiating from other tower defense titles is its look. The graphics harken back to the vector graphics of old arcade games like Asteroids and Battlezone. This is an often used style, but the explosions in this game are really a sight to behold. At its more frenetic moments, the player will be treated to hundreds of colored particles exploding around the screen as he lays waste to hordes of creeps.

Unfortunately, the game takes few chances overall. There are a few new towers I haven’t seen in previous TD games (like a tower that collects energy from creep explosions feeding it back to towers for more powerful shots), but this does little to provide incentive to purchase this title over and above similar games on the app store. Towers are sometime introduced (and taken away) for particular missions which adds another layer of strategy to the game.

Disclosure: I am not and will not ever be competing on the pro circuit in strategy games. That said, I found this game more difficult than most. This is not a bad thing. Usually, I expect to coast through several waves of creeps in a new TD game. In geoDefense, I found myself scraping by even in the early levels on easy mode. I then tried the medium levels and found that they were very similarly difficult. The feeling ov even difficulty across easy and medium difficulties could have been because I became more skilled playing the easy levels and was better prepared to play on medium. The hard levels do feel significantly more difficult. This is where I first experienced the game actually removing access to a tower. It certainly achieved its desired effect.

In short, geoDefense is an excellent example of what it is: a simple tower defense game with excellent graphics. I would love to recommend it more highly because I really do think it is an excellent game. However, it takes virtually no risk and sticks to well-established conventions of tower defense games. I don’t necessarily need genres to be blended or anything like that, but I think there are some simple elements that could be added to make the game more compelling. I would love to see some sort of progression where it feels that my play in one scenario will actually affect my standing in the next. That would be a relatively simple feature that, if balanced properly, could really provide some incentive for reply.

iPhone review: Zen Bound

March 13th, 2009 •
Tags: games, Gaming, iPhone, iPhone games, mobile, relaxation, Zen Bound

As soon as you launch Zen Bound, you’re going to realize you’ve stumbled into something really special. True to it’s name, the game is really a zen experience. The feelings I get playing this game are very close to those I get playing Flower on the PS3. I’m sure it’s much easier to sell a game if you stick guns and blood into it, but bravo to brave developers willing to stretch the definition of gaming even if it makes the marketing a bit more labored.

Zen Bound allows the player to manipulate a wooden object by way of touch control. A rope is stretched from the screen to the object at an angle determined by the accelerometer. Players twist and turn the object to wrap the rope around it. The goal is to touch as much of the object with the rope as possible while soothing music plays in wonderfully separated stereo. There are two modes. As best I can tell, the difference is in the types of objects you are given to bind. The Tree of Reflection presents the player with a series of representative objects (usually animals carved from wood) while the Tree of Challenge contains more abstract and geometric shapes. As you bind the objects, they become “painted” a different color. The unpainted portions are those still left to touch.

It sounds like a very simple concept but there is really a lot of strategy involved. I can’t just string my rope anywhere as I might bridge the rope over portions of the object that I will then be unable to touch later. Also, you are limited to a length of rope for each object forcing you to be economical with your use of it. Each stage has three flowers the can be attained. The first at 70% coverage, the second at 85%, and the third at 99%. It is possible to obtain all three at once by achieving 99% on your first completion of a level. Flowers accumulate to grant access to new stages higher up each tree. A level is completed by tying a second nail that begins glowing when you have reached the first completion level (70%). This adds another level of challenge as the level will end as soon as the rope makes contact with the nail after reaching at least 70%. If you want to achieve the second or third level of completion, you will have to avoid the second nail until you reach your desired coverage.

The graphics are simple but beautiful. Granted, this isn’t a game with high polygon count models, but the models are beautiful and serve the purpose perfectly. The style of the art is complementary of the music. Everything feels relaxing and very… well, zen. The game opens with a text message which says that it is designed for use with headphones. Please take this to heart because the iPhone speaker does not do justice to the wonderful music in this game.

There are currently 6,000 games on the app store. Far less than 1% of those are entertaining. Less than 1% of those are unique. This game is in that 1% of 1%. I implore you to reward developers that think outside the box and toss out the tropes of gaming that have been established over the past 30 years. Zen Bound is an incredibly unique and rewarding experience that should appeal to nearly everyone.

iPhone review: The Quest

March 11th, 2009 •
Tags: 3D, games, Gaming, iPhone, mobile, RPG, The Quest

The Quest is a first-person Western RPG in the vein of Daggerfall and probably some older titles I don’t recall. RPGs on the app store are few and far between. Most of those are JRPGs which are often characterized by cookie-cutter save the world/princess storylines and strictly linear gameplay that rarely strays from the main storyline. The Quest, like other Western RPGs, is open-world nonlinear and contains many quests that are off the main storyline which can be completed in any order. This game is something of a throwback and may not appeal to new gamers who have only joined the fray in the last five or so years but veterans like myself will find much here to appreciate. The graphics are serviceable but nothing particular special to look at. However, the depth of this game is unmatched by anything I have seen thus far. The game includes a robust inventory system along with in-game shops that will sell you new items and buy your old ones. The game includes a magic system in which spells can either be cast from scrolls or learned from books. There are projectile and melee weapons at your disposal.

You will not find yourself running out of things to do here. At any given time, you will probably have multiple quests which can be completed in any order. There are townspeople to talk to. The game employs a day and night cycle which will actually have bearing on what you may do in the game. There is so much here it would be impossible to cover it all.

The game’s interface is a success in some areas and a failure in others. Movement can be accomplished in one of two ways: via the on-screen arrows or by gesturing on the actual viewport. The game recognizes six different movements: forward, backward, sidesteps left and right, and turns left and right. Arrow movement is straightforward; there is an arrow for each movement type. Gesture movement is less obvious but still fairly intuitive; swipe up to move forward, down to move backward, left or right for sidesteps, and diagonals for turning. Navigating the world is pretty easy using this system. Games like this are obviously better suited to a mouse and keyboard, but this is a good implementation given the platform. The inventory system is a bit unintuitive. When shopping or picking up an item,  the game allows you to switch between viewing your own items and the other party’s items (be that party a seller or the ground) by way of a pair of curved arrows. Unfortunately, it is not immediately obvious (at least to me) which arrow is which. The green arrow pointing up will display the other party’s inventory while the yellow arrow pointing down displays your own.

Combat is turn-based and simple enough to execute. Simply face your target and tap the attack button to perform a single attack after which the enemy will have an opportunity to either move or perform an attack on you. There is a little luck involved and health potions are strongly recommended.

I can’t recommend this as a game for the masses. Not everyone will enjoy it. It appeals to a small albeit devoted audience. However, for RPG gamers, this is a game that is hard to find on the go. A game with the depth of The Quest on a mobile platform is a real treat. It’s not without it’s problems, but those can easily be overlooked by anyone looking for a substantial RPG to play on the go.

Gaming blogs roundup

March 2nd, 2009 • 1 comment
Tags: blogs, game blogs, games, Gaming, gaming blogs, video games

I’m on a major gaming binge right now. As a result, I’m looking around for some cool blogs to add to my reader. I’ve found quite a bit of good stuff. Gaming is really so much more mainstream than it was ten years ago. Its audience has also matured tremendously. The media and the moral police of this great nation have had to accept the maturity of the content. The blogosphere reflects these sweeping changes in the medium. The blogging medium is even newer than gaming so as gaming has matured, blogging has matured into respected citizen journalism. These are the blogs that stand out right now. I’m skipping right over the Joystiqs and Kotakus—the juggernauts. You probably already know those. These are the blogs that, although they are a little harder to find, are well worth the effort.

Catchy Name News (RSS feed)- I first have to mention a friend’s blog. Justin is a long-time gamer with a lot of insight, a sense of humor, and an intense hatred of space marines and “art games.” His articles are always hilarious and often cover the dark corners of gaming many fear to tread. He just won the local SFIV tournament so head over to his blog and comment your congrats.

Sexy Videogame Land (RSS feed)- Leigh Alexander is all over the ‘net at major sites like Gamasutra and Kotaku. This is her personal gaming blog. There are some very cool posts. She’s currently playing RapeLay, the rape game that Amazon got into hot water for selling. I thought that might get your attention.

Magical Wasteland (RSS feed)- The design of the Magical Wasteland is complementary to the content. The entire site is black and white with no images getting in the way of the content which is insightful and well-written. This won’t clog up your reader either as updates come about once a week.

Arcade Heroes (RSS feed)- If you want to follow the dead and/or dying arcade scene, this is one great place. One thing you’ll learn from reading the site is that the arcade scene is much more vibrant in Japan than it is here in the US.

Dusty Pixels (RSS feed)- Is retro your game? Dusty Pixels covers game not in this generation (and I don’t see anything from the previous one), but even younger gamers may still be able to get “retro” as they seem to cover games for the original Playstation. There is a post with cool tips for acquiring older games to help get your collection going.

There are probably more blogs than there are people on earth so you probably have a few favorites I have missed. Maybe you have a gaming blog of your own you’d like to plug. Post a link in the comments. I’m always game for more cool game blogs!

Frequency/Amplitude reborn!

February 26th, 2009 •
Tags: Amplitude, Frequency, games, Gaming, PSP, rhythm games, Rock Band

Frequency and its sequel Amplitude for the PS2 were Harmonix‘s, Guitar Hero creators and current developers of Rock Band, first foray into console gaming. The games pioneered the modern rhythm gaming craze. In fact, the biggest difference between Rock Band and the early games are the controller. Harmonix tested the waters by releasing games that could be played with the standard PS2 controller. The games were really excellent. Granted, the PS2 controller wasn’t perfect for them, but they could have been improved with a small controller similar in size to the PS2 controller but with a different layout. Harmonix instead skipped straight into controllers shaped like instruments completing the metaphor.

That’s all well and good, but Sony recently announced a portable version of Rock Band for the PSP! Instead of some type of special controller for the portable console, the game will control with the standard PSP controlset. This gets me really excited. I was a big fan of Frequency and Amplitude, and I think it is a bit silly that Harmonix had to bundle a guitar shaped controller with what was essentially the next Frequency game to get the average gamer’s attention. If Harmonix can achieve bigger success with this spiritual sequel by exploiting the Rock Band brand, so be it! This may be the release that forces me to buy a PSP.

Primotech Exclusive: EA Publishing Rock Band Unplugged for the PSP

iPhone review: iDracula

February 21st, 2009 •
Tags: games, Gaming, iDracula, iPhone, iPhone games, mobile

At first glance, iDracula is visually reminiscent of the Diablo series (no, not the new rainbow/unicorn-riddled Diablo 3). Imagine my surprise when I fired up the game to find it has both feet firmly planted in a genre resurrected by Geometry Wars: the twin-stick shooter. For anyone unfamiliar with this type of game, it utilizes two different directional inputs—the first for traversing the arena and the second for controlling the direction of fire. In this implementation of the genre, you are a vampire hunter fighting wave after wave of monsters, picking up weapons and skills along the way to help you deal with the ever-encroaching onslaught.

Of course, the iPhone does not have the “twin sticks” from which the genre derives it’s name. Instead, like others that have come before, the developer had to devise another control mechanism. iDracula uses two on-screen directional controls giving it razor-accurate response. Per convention, the left side controls your character’s movement while the right side controls firing. The controls are rarely obtrusive and are positioned to still allow for a large play area while still being large enough to facilitate intuitive controls. It’s easy to find where your thumb needs to be to move and/or fire in any given direction.

The game comes with two modes: “Rush” and “Survival.” Rush mode throws you right into the fray. At all times, you’ll be surrounded by tons of monsters, and, armed with your machine gun and unlimited ammo, you’re tasked with mowing down as many as possible. This is the game mode for a quick play session. If you just have a minute or two to play, fire up “Rush” mode to dispense with all the foreplay. Throughout my play in this mode, there isn’t really any progression. That’s where “Survival” mode comes in.

“Survival” mode is the meat of the game. This mode couples the frantic arena shooting with RPG-like progression to give players a surprisingly robust experience. The mechanics are identical, but there is real progression here and incentive to play for more than a few minutes. You start with a handgun, and you’re looking at two or three shots to kill the weakest enemies. Luckily, the enemies will trickle in slowly at first to ease you into the action. Before long, the pace will pick up, new and stronger enemies will be introduced, and you’ll most likely have found a better weapon just about the time you were thinking you weren’t going to hold up much longer with just the pistol. The game seems to be intelligent about when new weapons are dropped so that you never feel like you are either underpowered or overpowered. You also have to manage ammo, but, honestly, once you start getting new weapons, ammo is not tough to find either although you may not necessarily find ammo for the particular weapon you want to use.

The progression comes in other forms as well. Perks are iDracula’s analog to leveling and learning new spells in an RPG. After a number of kills, you will see the perks icon light up in the top-right of the screen. Tap it to access a menu with four randomly selected upgrades like the ability to do more damage when your life gets low or a greater maximum health. These upgrades are persistent throughout your play session. In addition, you will periodically encounter Dracula. He is much tougher than the other enemies. If you defeat him, you are awarded with a shard. Collect shards to advance in rank. Unfortunately, rank is purely superficial; it’s nothing more than a word displayed at the end of the statistics screen displayed when you die leaving little incentive to strive for higher rank.

Now this is sounding like more of a timesink, right? Luckily, the developer considered the habits of mobile gamers and included an autosave that will allow you to resume your game after you have closed the game (or received a call). There is an in-game pause button as well, which is also convenient from time-to-time.

My complaints are few and minor. The character’s lower body moves completely independent of the upper body which creates some wacky-looking scenarios such as running full-speed forward away from monsters while your torso is facing and aiming in the exact opposite direction. The character’s feet should always be within a 90° radius of the direction of his face, but that is not necessarily the case here. I would love to see some sort of narrative and a progression through that narrative although that is a bit much to ask of a game at this price-point. (Maybe in the sequel?) An audio cue for perks would be nice. I often don’t know until I glance at the top-right of the screen that I have perks available. Finally, it is somewhat difficult to switch weapons in the game. The task itself is simple, but it requires diverting one of your thumbs from a directional control to execute. This is often dangerous by the time you might want to switch weapons because of the frantic pace of the game. To halt either firing or moving at these times is virtually suicide.

I’m really excited to see more from this developer. This is a near-perfect mobile gaming experience for players craving a bit more in the realm of hardcore gaming experiences on the iPhone. It is a genre-bending title that expertly melds a game well-suited to short, quick play sessions with some elements that make it worth coming back to. The game is currently $.99 at the time this review is published and will be for a little while longer. The developer is also promising some meaty additions (like a new game mode) in an upcoming update. The regular price is $2.99. It’s an incredible value at either price, and I’m sure iDracula will remain on my home screen for some time to come.