By Fraser McMillan and Lewis Denby

Last summer, The Chinese Room made a small name for themselves through the success of experimental Half-Life 2 mod, Dear Esther.

Set on a deserted island off the coast of Scotland, it told the rather unnerving tale of a man succumbing to madness, explained via a series of narrations as you explored the increasingly surreal world.  It was only peripherally interactive: you walked around, you looked and listened, but that was about it.

Korsakovia is The Chinese Room’s attempt to merge Esther’s surreal storytelling with something more resembling a traditional game.  Each of their mods is part of lead designer Dan Pinchbeck’s ongoing research project at the University of Portsmouth, examining the new ways in which the first-person engine can be used to communicate ideas with the player.  You can read a lot more about it here, and there’ll be some more specifics below.  Lewis Denby and Fraser McMillan have been playing Korsakovia, which releases on Saturday.  Both found it so interesting that they stayed up late talking about it.  Here’s what they said.

Fraser: Okay. So I just finished a videogame, apart from where I skipped a couple of bits.  What did I just play?
Lewis: You played a mod called Korsakovia.  It’s by The Chinese Room, who previously did Dear Esther, which I’m not sure if you’ve played, but is excellent.
Fraser: I haven’t.  I heard it’s excellent.
Lewis: Korsakovia, then. Overall impressions?
Fraser: Good.  Never played a game that fucked with me so much.  A problem I had with this was that I often wasn’t sure if this was by design or accidental.
Lewis: Yes.  It’s occasionally hugely impressive in its mind-fuckery.  It’s also occasionally filled with odd design quirks, but ones that manage to be accidentally brilliant.  Shall we do basics?  It’s a first-person, horror-centric FPS with a focus on running away from things whom you’re not quite sure what they’re supposed to be.
Fraser: “The Collectors.”
Lewis: You play a psychotic patient in a psychiatric hospital, as a doctor – who narrates – tries to work out what’s wrong with you.
Fraser: There are a lot of televisions involved.
Lewis: Televisions, electricity, fire and furniture.
Fraser: They like their chairs, that’s for sure.
Lewis: Oh, relevant point: it’s part of an ongoing research project looking into how people respond to inventive uses of the first-person perspective, as well as fragmented narrative.
Right.  Where shall we start?
Fraser: Okay, I have some things. Number one: It treats the atmosphere as an end in itself. It creates an incredible sense of unease, assaulting the visual and auditory faculties spontaneously.
Lewis: It’s hugely stifling, in that respect. It’s rare for a game to instil such panic.  It’s up there with ‘Shock 2 and Silent Hill in that respect.
Fraser: I’ve never played that series, but I think I’d like it. Korsakovia certainly did instil panic in me. My palms were sweaty and I frequently found myself lashing out when I could and grabbing at nearby doors. You’re constantly on the run, sometimes from nothing, but sometimes from a sinister entity or maybe your own fear. I’d like to point to the sountrack here – it did a great job of building slowly with dissonant and sickening noises.
Lewis: Jessica Curry did the sound design.  She’s an absolute star.  Some of the noises are tremendously horrible.  It’s all about odd volumes.  Some things are unnervingly quiet.  Other bits – like the static disturbing the voice overs – is uncomfortably, piercingly loud.
Fraser: Those were horrible. I felt myself cowering at times, literally curling up in my chair. It’s not necessarily “scary” in the same sense as a horror film; it’s more unnerving. This is where interactivity and perspective come into their own.
Lewis: On a more obviously gameplay-orientated note… it’s an odd one.  There’s a lot of running away.  But the level design breaks the atmosphere at times, I’d say.  The signposting isn’t great.
Fraser: Definitely not. There’s an uncomfortable amount of backtracking for such a short game. It’s easy to lose your bearings. I found some objects to be inconsistent as well, which is never a good idea. There are some wooden barricades that can be smashed, but others that can’t and are often on the critical path. It could have done with being a bit more linear.
Lewis: I didn’t mind any of that. It was a more direct thing, for me.  In the second level – the warehouse – there were bits where the obvious route to progress wasn’t in your line of sight.  Example: you climb down a ladder into a huge room. Your eye is immediately drawn to a couple of destinations ahead, but where you actually need to go is behind you. That stumped me for ages.
Fraser: That doesn’t often bother me, but there’s not a lot of fruit borne from exploration in this case. That said, maybe the fact it uses the Source engine means the signposting will be compared to Valve’s, never a good place to be really.
Lewis: Perhaps.  But I think it’s an important thing to get right. Dear Esther suffered from that as well, but at least that simulated an open environment.  Korsakovia’s clear thatit follows a strictly defined path, and I think it’s occasionally guilty of assuming the player will know where to go.  Perhaps the level designer was too close to his own work.
Fraser: It must be a problem for designers, though. Players all have different styles, some will absorb their surroundings and others will just forge ahead. It became more of an issue for me later in the game when enemies are stronger, faster and more persistent.
Lewis: I didn’t notice a dramatic shift in the strength of enemies.  Just the number.  Oh: the enemies are well worth talking about.
Fraser: They’re very etheral and creepy. Exactly the kind of thing that scares the living piss out of me. Think ICO, but more malicious.
Lewis: Immediately, they’re most reminiscent of the Smoke Monster in LOST.  But they’re more alarming.  They’re eerily fast.  These big plumes of black mist that just charge towards you, emitting this ear-piercing shriek.  One of the main research questions in Korsakovia was how players would respond to enemies that didn’t resemble anything usually used in videogames; foes to which it’s difficult to assign motive or humanity.  The result, for me, is that it becomes instantly terrifying.

[Continues...]

By Lewis Denby

Since I was young, I’ve always held a deep fascination with Ancient Egypt.

It began while in my final year of primary school, having been assigned the seemingly insurmountable task of producing a ten page report on the era.  It progressed long into my teenage years, during which I finally had the opportunity to visit Cairo, its phenomenal museum and Giza’s pyramids.

Playing the first episode of Curse, a Half-Life 2 mod that’s been out for a couple of months now, is oddly evocative.  A virtual world is never going to be an adequate replacement for visiting a real place – not for a long while yet, at least – but as far as game environments go, Curse’s is pretty striking.  From the splendid decor, to the gorgeously composed soundtrack, to the dynamically shifting architecture that rises and falls in front of the sun’s glare, this supernatural representation of the period hits all the right buttons for me.

Which is probably a good thing, since Curse features a lot of buttons.

//In with the old
Fraser was going to write about this a while ago, but decided against it, having not been too impressed.  While I can completely understand why he wasn’t, I really am.  It’s stirred up some archaeologically adventurous side in me that I wasn’t even fully aware of.  I’ve played through twice already this week, and you can be sure I’ll be delving into this remarkable world again, just as soon as time permits.

It really is an archaeological thing.  Not only is it set in an alternately realised Ancient Egypt, it also feels just about that old to play at times.  The most obvious visual reference point is Heretic, with your ethereal, magic hand floating at the bottom of the screen – though, in stretching the Source engine to its absolute limits, it looks at least as stunning as today’s top, next-gen releases.  Beyond that, its secretive, exploratory tendencies evoke memories of iD Software’s early work, with hidden areas enclosing new delights, and button-pressing, key-hunting mechanics elevated to the forefront of the game.  Enemies largely attack in Doom-esque waves.  Even the audio, aside from the thoroughly beautiful and authentic score, sounds archaic.

At the same time, certain elements feel experimental and fresh.  Combat is the most immediately different aspect.  Your character has two modes.  In the standard setting, youroutstretched arm can shoot a bolt of energy at nearby objects, sending them flying around the room, or smashing the more brittle items to pieces.  When enemies approach, madly flinging stuff around the place is rarely enough – so it’s fortunate that right-clicking snaps you into combat mode, locking you on to the nearest foe a la Metroid Prime or Zeno Clash, and allowing you to swing with your mouse (a la Penumbra) to dispatch your undead opponents.  With a magical, glowing mace that appears out of nowhere.

When the system works, it works beautifully.  Early on in this first episode, when only a couple of mummified beasts attack at once, it’s fantastically satisfying to wait patiently before swinging up, down and boshing both of them on the head (any hit is, incidentally, an instant kill). But it loses its elegance when in amongst larger groups, which you invariably will be.  The powerfulness of your mace, coupled with the AI’s tendency to block your path and engulf you, means it’s often easier to swing your mouse around in circles and hope it eventually does the trick.  And really, it always does.  Playing on medium difficulty, I died three times.  Twice I fell into a chasm, and another time a giant hand punched me in the face for not unlocking a door quickly enough.  Not once did I even come close to perishing during combat, which suggests something’s a little wrong with the balancing.

There’s also never any real sense of brutal feedback for your mace-swingery.  Compared to Zeno Clash, Curse’s combat feels remarkably disconnected.  And while it may seem unfair to compare an amateur mod to a commercially released and applauded game, it’s worth pointing out that this is one of the very few areas in which Curse is not as entirely polished as its fee-charging competitors.

[Continues...]

By Fraser McMillan
My Crusader has spotted his target. The Archer is perched atop a turret across the courtyard and I’ve managed to outflank him using the waterway.

He sits oblivious, identifying his own quarry and taking aim. I creep up behind him steadily, ensuring no other enemies are nearby. I dash up to the platform as quietly as possible, but he’d never hear us over the din of the surrounding battle. The target readies a long-tipped arrow and prepares to strike my fellow Agathia Knights below; one hefty swing later and his skull is bumping down the staircase, arterial spray gushing with vigour across the steps. Chalk one down for the bad guys.

The appeal of Source Engine mod Age of Chivalry lies in moments like this. But it can take some time to get into, with first impressions dominated by confusion at a few key design decisions. Why does the button labelled “sprint” equate to “light jog”? Why is the timing of each return to battle so sporadic? Why do attack animations take an age to complete? Why are the spawn points so painfully far from the battlefield?

//Straight to the Source
Though some of these questions are unfortunately omnipresent, the initial distaste wears off. Age of Chivalry is deliberately methodical; no, let’s go for jugular – it’s very slow. Not only is it the most plodding competitive multiplayer game I’ve ever experienced, though, it’s also among the most tactical. Age of Chivalry proves that we don’t need suppressed MP5s and Night Vision Goggles to be strategic – just the correct measure of pace and a bloody great axe.

And it’s wonderful, providing space for genuine battle planning alongside the enthralling, almost turn-based back-and-forth of combat. There’s a clear-cut feel to the whole thing, which some would call clunky – and in a sense they’d be correct. But much faster and it would begin to cater for the twitch audience, and there are enough PC games to satisfy that crowd as it is. No, Age of Chivalry is for the less instinctive player who relishes a good kill and can live with the inability to rack up 50 frags a minute, a slow burner that is tough to crack but makes all effort worthwhile afterwards. Mechanically, its basic scrapping is akin to that of Oblivion, or a simplified version of Dark Messiah’s superlative melee system. Coincidentally, it’s not too dissimilar to Source-based stablemate Pirates, Vikings and Knights II.

//A change of pace
It’s incredible how different virtually anything can become when the speed is increased. It renders films unwatchable, for a start. On a more positive note, a faster tempo lends live music an added urgency, and a margin of less than one second in a fifty lap race can be all it takes to seize glory. When applied to free, first-person, melee-based arena combat modifications for Half-Life 2, the rule remains firm. There’s little to pick between Pirates, Vikings and Knights II and Age of Chivalry in terms of gameplay, but a simple gear shift transforms the former into a instantly rewarding slice of hack-‘n’-slashery. It’s a dizzying and radical alternative to the meticulous strategising and weighty nature of its cousin. To what do we owe this?

Why, characters move faster. Have you ever played a game and rushed around for no reason other than an unnaturally urgent impulse that apparently flows from keyboard to fingertips? Every PVKII player seems to have been infected by this, and as soon as one enters a server it is abundantly apparent. Fail to pelt around like a headless chicken and, well, decapitation is not to be reserved exclusively for comedic analogy. It’s absolutely frantic, battering on like Age of Chivalry turned up to eleven. The trailblazing speed means tactics, sneaking and defensive combat go out the window.

The aesthetic of PVKII also highlights the stark contrast with AoC. Golden temples glitter in the sun, glowing lava almost bursts from the screen and exquisite, sky-blue ocean surrounds a vibrant paradise island in a bid to replace the subdued browns and greys of medieval times. Rather than heads, it’s explosive parrots which fly from shoulders, and the clinks and clanks of battle are replaced with over-exaggerated “YARR!”s and “KABOOM!”s. TimeSplitters-esque colour and character arguably represents a larger gap in execution than the tempo, but every aspect of the disparity can be traced back to that fundamental distinction.

//Tic-tac-toe
Both titles are equally marvellous, but cater to wildly disparate play styles. The splendid humour evident in Pirates, Vikings and Knights II is little condolence for the fact new players are slaughtered without compunction, whereas Age of Chivalry is less instantaneously intriguing but more lenient in challenge. Anyone with a spare hl2.exe owes it to themselves to check each of these out, especially since it’s a time of substantial updates for both. To say there’s no real gameplay variation other than the character movement is probably a little unfair to the developers and undersells the mods somewhat, but it certainly plays an important role in shaping these two experiences. So, does slow and steady win the race? That’s up to you.