Game Invader - My weekly gaming column for the New Indian Express

Sorry folks - I've been awfully busy with a bunch of things, and hence no time to update the blog. Should be back to semi-regular updating from next week.

I have, of course, been writing my weekly Game Invader column for The New Indian Express. You can read the whole bunch of articles here.

A few selected pieces below - personal favourites.

The genetic make-up of videogames 

Sometimes, as a game developer and a student of the art form itself, I enjoy taking a close look at a game I’m playing, and try and trace the origins and history of specific features found in it. The genetic make up of videogames is a fascinating study.

Monkey Island 2 gets a makeover 


With the release of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge Special Edition, one of the greatest and most beloved games of all time gets a fresh coat of paint, so that an entire new generation of gamers can enjoy its renowned sense of humour, devilish puzzles and unforgettable characters.

E3 2010 — Nintendo wins again 

The story of gaming over the past five years or so has been one of Microsoft and Sony playing a desperate game of catch-up, as Nintendo, laughing merrily, leaves them eating gaming dust. The story of E3 2010 was no different.

The video game as a software toy 

I’ve just spent several hours playing Just Cause 2, and strangely enough, so far it’s been more of a toy than a game

Bioshock 2 and the challenge of extending Rapture

by Anand Ramachandran. This article first appeared on my Game Invader column for the New Indian Express

Rapture is a beautiful gameworld, but rather hard to expand upon.

When Bioshock was first released, it was rightly hailed as an instant classic. However, it was also praised to the heavens for its innovation and gameplay, which was rather baffling. Bioshock's strengths lay in its superb story and breathtaking setting. The visual and sound design were among the finest in the history of gaming, and, as everybody knows, it had the “best water effects ever seen in a videogame”™. The gameplay, however, featured no real innovation (younger gamers – please refer to System Shock 2), the gunfights were cookie-cutter, and the way the game handled player death effectively devalued any real tension the player might have felt during the combat. So while Bioshock remains a triumph of fantastic, atmospheric videogame storytelling, making a sequel was always going to be problematic.

And now, with Bioshock 2, our fears have been confirmed. While the sequel is indeed an excellent game, it simply doesn't blow us away the way its predecessor did.

Because, with Bioshock, the developers painted themselves into a bit of a corner in a couple of ways.

First, they chose surface (story, visuals, sound) over core gameplay. Since the surface was so astonishingly brilliant, this didn''t matter the first time around. But, in a sequel, it was always going to be hard to top that effort, and hence player disappointment was almost guaranteed. Even though Bioshock 2 does feature a great story and impressive presentation, it still lacks the 'wow' factor, because the initial bar was set so high. And, in the absence of these things, the gameplay doesn't hold up very well. Games like Halo and God of War don't really need any major innovations in story or visual presentation, because the core gameplay is so much fun that anyhing else is a bonus. Games like these are perfect for churning out sequels, because fans care only about the gameplay – even small innovations or additional features will keep them interested. Halo 3 is a classic example – I enjoyed every minute of the campaign, although I can barely remember what the story was about.

Second, they created a gameworld that, while being splendid and beautiful, is terribly hard to expand upon. The fiction of Bioshock firmly locks Rapture as a single underground city, the vision of one man, now a complete, dystopian wreck, overrun by lunatics and abominations. While it is theoretically possible to jump through a few hoops and contrive ways to expand the game's universe, the solutions would probably still feel just that - contrived. Bioshock 2, which is set in the same Rapture as the original, still feels fresh yet familiar, but it's hard to see the gameworld sustaining interest through yet another sequel. This is even more important for a game that depends on story and setting to hold the players' attention. Contrast this with the gameworlds created for games such as Halo, Fallout, Mass Effect or Dragon Age – all open worlds which make it easy for the designers to add a planet here, a forest there, a dwarven ruin here and infinitely extend the gamer's virtual playground. While I again reiterate that it's certainly not impossible to extend the world of Rapture, it is difficult to do it in a manner that wouldn't feel forced.

None of this would matter if Bioshock featured gameplay that would stand on its own, without the technical and creative wizardry to prop it up. Sadly, it doesn't. Which just demonstrates that old “gameplay over story” chestnut in emphatic fashion.

Dealing with Death.

by Anand Ramachandran. This Article first appeared in my Game Invader column for The New Indian Express

The iconic death screen from 'Oregon Trail. Never heard of it? Look it up. Now.

Death in videogames is almost as old as the medium itself. A huge percentage of early arcade games had the concept of 'lives' – die three times, for instance, and you'd see the dreaded words 'GAME OVER' on your screen. The concept of 'death' was so ingrained into the medium that even in games where you didn't technically 'die' (you'd just miss catching something, or hitting something) you'd still say things like “I have only two lives left” or “I died”.



Soon enough, most genres replaced the idea of a finite number of 'lives' with the concept of 'health' or 'hit points'. You'd start with, say, a 100 hit points. Whenever you did something stupid, like take a rocket launcher in the face, or fall off a cliff, you'd lose health. When your health was completely depleted, you would die. This was probably done to make games more accessible and forgiving to players – the concept of 'dying' because of a single mistake was pretty harsh. And games were difficult back in the day – a single touch of an 'enemy object', such as a bullet or a spike or the enemy itself, would result in instant death in games like Donkey Kong, Pac-Man or Space Invaders. The 'health' concept at least gave players some room for error. Of course, this also made scalable difficulty easier to implement, since the 'degree' of damage could be controlled.



More recently. Many games began to dispense with the idea of 'health' altogether, favouring a damage system where you would die only if you took sustained damage for a period of time. If under fire, the gamer would simply have to take cover for a few seconds, and 'health' would be restored to normal. Halo : Combat Evolved was probably the first game to successfully implement this feature, and today even role-playing games like Mass Effect 2 have followed suit.



It's fairly logical – gamers hate to die. They hate to have to constantly re-load old save games and play through difficult segments repeatedly. Combined with automatic checkpointing systems, these new ways of approaching player death have made games more fun for the average player. In fact, the legendary LucasArts adventure games (Monkey Island, Sam and Max, Full Throttle) did away with the concept of death altogether – you just couldn't die or get hopelessly stuck in a LucasArts adventure. Hardcore gamers scoffed at this, and missed the frenetic tension of desperately clinging on to the last 'life' or miniscule 'health' – playing extra carefully until a reprieve in the form of a 1-UP bonus or health-pack could be found. At least they still have Super Mario Bros.



Now, the recently released 'Heavy Rain' treats death in a wholly new and intriguing way. The game features a parallel narrative technique where the player controls different characters at different points in the game, experiencing the storyline from their converging viewpoints. And if one of the characters happens to die, due to a choice the player makes, the story simply continues – and the death of the relevant character impacts the way the rest of the story pans out. It's very clever and exciting – and could change the way games tug at our emotions. Sure, games like 'Wing Commander' and 'Final Fantasy 7' featured emotional death scenes that impacted the story, but never of a character that the player controlled.



If it works well, interactive narrative would have taken another bold step. If not – oh, well. There's always conveniently placed exploding barrels.

The need for game appreciation

by Anand Ramachandran. This article first appeared on my weekly Game Invader column for The New Indian Express.


All other currently thriving art and entertainment forms benefit from a thriving ecosystem of critique, appreciation and deep understanding. Films, books and music are studied and dissected by an army of critics who look at everything the form has to offer, from the popular to the obscure, and throw light on their many aspects – such as cultural relevance, historical significance, sheer aesthetic beauty, technical excellence and so on. This not only helps us as fans understand and enjoy the arts in broader and deeper ways, it also exposes us to a far wider body of work, and indeed enhances our experiences of these arts.


Why, then, don't we have anything similar for games? Why is there precious little in terms of critique or appreciation of videogames as a bona-fide art form as there is for cinema for instance? We cannot argue that games are in their infancy, because they aren't. Videogames are now well over three decades old. All we have are reviews, which are great, but do not qualify as informed criticism. As Greg Costikyan, the renowned independent game designer and journalist pointed out, a review is a buyer's guide, intended to tell people whether the game in question is worth their time and money. It tells us nothing of the game's cultural context or significance within gaming's canon.


For gaming to gain acceptance as a mainstream entertainment medium and art form, we must make efforts to preserve and celebrate its heritage. A young gamer playing Bioshock 2 today is unlikely to know much about the history of shooting games, and the diverse influences which Bioshock brings together.


We need to look at questions that dig deep into gaming's very soul. How does the history of games that are based on destruction differ from that of games based on creation? How are these games different in what needs and desires they fulfil in the gamer? Where does a game like Spore (which gives you tools to create things that help you destroy other things) fit in to the scheme of things? How do games that let you nurture creations (The Sims, Farmville) differ in basic nature from those which depend on mindless destruction (Borderlands, Doom) to engage the gamer? How do we explain games that lack objectives or winning conditions altogether (The Sims, Flower) ? Are they games at all? There's so much to understand and study and shed light on.


Popular discourse based on questions such as these will only help strengthen the foundations of popular gaming, and create a solid base of knowledge from which who knows what kind of games will spring. The sheer variety of choices available to the public in books, films and music is staggering – and games are nowhere close to offering that much variety. But it's growing extremely quickly, and a better critical understanding will doubtless fuel innovation and experimentation.


We need game clubs where young gamers can play the games which are the ancestors of today's blockbusters. An Age of Empires fan must experience Dune II. A Fallout 3 fan should have the opportunity to play Wasteland. An Uncharted 2 fan should be given the chance to check out the original Ninja Gaiden or Prince of Persia or Donkey Kong.


Music and film fans have access to the hits of yore, the creations that shaped and defined the art through the ages, and to intelligent discourse and critique that helps them experience and appreciate it in context. We must ensure that gaming fans have the same.

Is Bioware the greatest developer ever?

by Anand Ramachandran. This article first appeared on my weekly Game Invader column for the New Indian Express.

By releasing two genre-defining games within a few months of each other, Bioware has stamped their authority on cutting-edge game development, and have staked their claim to being the greatest game development studio of all time, at least outside Japan.


Last year's Dragon Age : Origins was a lovingly, intricately and masterfully crafted classical role-playing game, in the traditions of Bioware's own epic, Baldur's Gate 2. It featured a delightfully rich and detailed high-fantasy gameworld, a role-playing system that was a purist's delight, and some of the best squad-based tactical combat in modern gaming. It raised the bar for swords-and-sorcery RPGs, and is now the definitive high fantasy role-playing game by some distance.


Now, merely a few months later, they've gone and done the same for sci-fi based RPGs with the utterly magical Mass Effect 2.


This is a very different role-playing experience from Dragon Age. While the latter is a very old-school, classical, deliberately paced game, Mass Effect 2 lays down the template for the post-modern RPG – faster paced, more accessible and more cinematic. While Dragon Age : Origins is clearly aimed at veteran RPGers, Mass Effect 2 is the kind of game that can introduce a generation of new players to the role-playing genre, which it in fact completely redefines. While Dragon Age feels like you're in a 'Lord of The rings' type epic novel, Mass Effect 2 is like being in a Star Wars movie.


With the Mass Effect franchise, Bioware achieves what no other developer has managed to achieve in the past decade – simultaneously establish a new set of interactive storytelling and role-playing gameplay mechanics, and create one of the most interesting sci-fi universes in recent times. The Mass Effect universe is fleshed out with the usual top-notch writing, great lore and painstaking attention to detail that are all vintage Bioware. It has the potential to be the Star Wars / Star Trek universe of future generations - no mean feat, and it could only have been pulled of by Bioware.


Make no mistake, with Mass Effect 2, Bioware now owns the sci-fi RPG, and indeed have set the new standard for the 'interactive cinematic experience' that has always been gaming's holy grail. And with Dragon Age : Origins, they own the high-fantasy RPG, and the legions of fans of hardcore traditional role-playing. Indeed, while Dragon Age is the successor to Baldur's Gate 2, Mass Effect is descended from Star Wars : Knights of The Old Republic, another of Bioware's best games. And with both games, Bioware has broken free of the shackles of existing franchises (Dungeons and Dragons, Star Wars) and created completely original universes.


A look at any definitive list of the best games of the last fifteen years will reveal that no other developer has so many entries, with so many different franchises, with the possible exception of that other legendary studio, Blizzard. With the upcoming Star Wars MMO, The Old Republic, Bioware now threatens Blizzard's stranglehold over the MMO landscape. If anyone can dethrone World of Warcraft, a Bioware-Star Wars combination probably stands the best possible chance.


A Blizzard vs Bioware verdict is too close to call – they're both incredibly skilled, influential and successful studios. They've both created top-class fantasy and sci-fi universes. They've both created games that redefine genres. But one factor in favour of Bioware is that, while Blizzard's efforts have so far been restricted to the PC platform, Bioware has found success on consoles as well.
Greatest ever? Close, but a successful Star Wars MMO should seal it conclusively.

Is Role-Playing the ultimate videogame genre?

In the beginning, genres were watertight. Action games were pure action – some had the semblance of a story, others just ignored it altogether and let you get on with the leaping, running and killing. Racing and sports games put you in the thick of things, and didn't bother with levels or stats or items. Strategy games just focused on making sure your fingers were almost dropping off from pain. Fighting games featured crazy rosters, mad combo skills, but no customization. Adventure games had great stories, mind-bending puzzles, and little else.

Meanwhile, Role-Playing games were catering to the more hardcore, more intelligent and erudite gamers who demanded more complexity and nuance from their gaming experience. There were engaging stories, lots of complicated stats and items to manage, there were vast and exciting lands to explore, dangerous creatures to kill, puzzles to solve, strategies to formulate. Early CRPGs such as the Ultima games, SSI's legendary Gold Box games based on the Dungeons and Dragons rules, Wasteland, Daggerfall and Betrayal at Krondor were amazingly complete gaming experiences, and prely for the hardcore. They were difficult and demanding – and would usually overwhelm new players who would rather play more simple games such as Doom or Screamer or Prince of Persia.

But the fact was that Role-Playing games offered the most complete gaming experience of all genres – incorporating adventure, strategy, puzzle-solving, and action in addition to the core role-playing mechanics of character development and equipment trading.

Fast-forward to the present day, and you have every single genre scrambling to introduce 'role-playing elements'. Shooters such as Borderlands and Bioshock give you a range of weapons, stats and skills to develop your character. Racing games such as Forza Motorsport have introduced XP points, a level-up system, car customization and vehicle upgrades you can buy from a store. Sports and racing games have introduced story based 'career modes' to further draw players into the experience. Strategy games such as Dawn of War and Warcraft now feature unique 'hero' characters that can be levelled up just like in an RPG, and equipment and items that offer bonuses and boosts. Fighting games such as Soul Calibur now have 'create your own character' modes, skill progression, and unlockable moves and equipment. Even casual games like Farmville have tons of features from traditional RPG designs.

Just what is happening here?

Looks like game designers are discovering that as the gaming market matures as a whole, gamers are demanding more value from their games – especially considering that games aren't cheap these days. You stick in role-playing elements (character development and customization, item progression, engaging story and setting) and suddenly the same basic gameplay is more involving, and lasts much longer. Job done. Even online communities have all been built as meta-games, which are essentially role-playing in nature – consider XBOX Live's customizable Avatars, achievements and gamerscores, all fundamentally role-playing concepts.

So what we have here is this – whatever you're playing today, it's likely you're playing an RPG at some level.

At a basic psychological level, we're all obsessed with acquiring stuff, and comparing said stuff with our friends and neighbours and total strangers. Role-playing games tap into this need for constant acquisition driven growth, and make it a harmless (mostly) and entertaining virtual experience. And addictive. Game publishers like that.

Alright, off now. Need to play Dragon Age Origins for a few hours – so I can level up my strength to 38 and wear that Blood-Dragon Armour. That'll show Videep Vijay Kumar who's boss.

Weird, beautiful, Japanese.

Japanese game design makes another breathtaking comeback with Bayonetta – the new action adventure from Hideki Kamiya, the creator of Devil May Cry and Viewtiful Joe. Every time you think that Japanese studios can't make weirder, more outlandish games, they go and surprise you by doing exactly that.

Essentially, Bayonetta is a third person beat-em-up featuring insane combos, furious combat, and fantastic graphics. But that's like saying Zinedine Zidane is essentially a midfielder. It's accurate, but entirely useless in describing Zizu's magical, almost superhuman qualities. You play through Bayonetta alternating between frenzied tension, helpless laughter and sheer open-mouthed awe.

It's hard to describe the Bayonetta gameplay experience without sounding like a drug-addled lunatic, but I'll give it a shot. Bayonetta is a dark witch who has pistols in her hands. And she also has pistols that double as high-heels for her shoes. So she can, and does, shoot the bad guys while pirouetting, turning cartweels, leaping and somersaulting through the air, or just strutting around like a fashion model. She also has a variety of kicks and punches, but why bother with mundane martial arts when you can magically produce an iron-maiden and crush your foes in it? Or chop their sorry noggins off with a guillotine that appears out of nowhere? Or eat them by summoning a dragon, which used to be your hair, which used to be your clothes? You'll battle in gothic churches, broken clock-towers that hurtle through the air, abandoned train stations for dead souls – all to the beat of crazy techno music. Do I sound like a drug -addled lunatic yet? Good.

This is where Japanese game design really comes into its own – in the execution of ideas so crazy, so bizarre, that any sane publisher would immediately withdraw support. Luckily for us, the Japanese aren't sane. Which is why we get to play games like Bayonetta. Or Devil May Cry. Or Katamari Damacy. Or Loco Roco. Or Okami.

The Japanese have no problems believing that you can make a commercially successful game out of rolling really big balls using random junk, and using them to create stars in the night sky. Or one where you play a wolf-god and defeat your enemies using calligraphy (yes, calligraphy).

Even the more straight-laced games from Japanese designers, such as the Mario, Zelda and Metal Gear Solid franchises display a basic sense of fun and humour that defy conventional logic. Solid Snake hides from terrorists and other hi-tech enabled bad guys by climbing into a cardboard box, for heavens sake. Can you imagine the Master Chief doing that?

At some level, the Japanese realize that above all else, a game needs to be fun. If it manages that, it doesn't matter if it isn't realistic, or believable, or plausible. This is why they make bold, innovative games that don't puch the design envelope so much as tear it to shreds.

Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo's legendary creator of Mario, Zelda and Metroid, once said that he didn't understand why people always wanted to compare games to movies, and want games to be more like motion pictures. He stressed that Nintendo's design philosophy always aimed at creating games that could be enjoyed purely as games. No points for guessing which company sells the most games worldwide.

More power to innovation, I always say. I'd like to see more Bayonettas and Katamari Damacys among the inevitable deluge of derivative Halo and Call of Duty sequels. Thankfully, it seems to be happening increasingly. Good times.

Dragon Age Special 01 - General game overview, and fanboy rant.

by Anand Ramachandran. This article first appeared, under a different headline, on my weekly Game Invader column for The New Indian Express. It is the first in a series of detailed Dragon Age based series that we will be doing in the coming weeks.

I actually carry a physical scar on my body that reminds me of Baldur's Gate 2. It was an argument at work over how I was spending too much time playing it, and needed to focus more on work, or something along those lines. I smashed my fist through a glass door in anger, found that my wrist had been slashed, and rather sheepishly rushed to hospital. The scar's still there. The game was THAT awesome.

Now, Dragon Age : Origins has finally arrived as its successor. And I've removed all glass objects from the vicinity. Just to be extra safe, I've stopped talking to people as well. This game is THAT awesome. In an earlier column, I had wondered if Bioware would finally deliver the classic their fans wanted. That question has been answered rather emphatically.

A glimpse of the battle that kicks off your journey in Dragon Age : Origins.

If, like me, you're a fan of the Infinity Engine games, then you've been disappointed by the lack of a true, next-gen sequel to those classics. The original Baldur's Gate titles, the Icewind Dale games, and Planescape : Torment were easily among the greatest CRPGs ever made, offering truly hardcore role-playing, great adventuring, and classic, addictive, tactical combat. To the true fans, no RPG that has come since then matches the supercharged chess-on-steroids like battles that the infinity Engine delivered based on the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons ruleset. Only those that have carefully plotted, strategized, stocked up on equipment, spells and potions meticulously to bring down a dragon or Demilich can understand.

Not that there weren't any great RPGs since then, indeed, there were several of the highest quality. The Elder Scrolls games such as Morrowind and Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Bioware's own Star Wars : Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect took role-playing and adventuring in exciting, fresh new directions. However, the combat didn't quite cut it. Of the games mentioned, only KOTOR came close to delivering an experience close to Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale.

Thankfully, Dragon Age scratches this very itch.

This is the game I've been waiting nine years to play. It's Baldur's Gate 2 with next-gen graphics and presentation, a great new role-playing and combat system, and quintessentially Bioware storytelling. I've been playing for a mere five or six hours, and have already been swept up into the game's world of intrigue, politics, evil, treachery, heroism, romance and high adventure. Bioware's game design and storytelling have always been top notch ( Baldur's Gate 2 is easily one of the greatest high-fantasy experiences of all time ), but now they have the technology to deliver a level of immersion that takes it to a different planet altogether. The world of Ferelden feels truly alive – grass sways as you run past, armor shines and glistens as you stride into battle, blood spatters on to your face as you hew your Darkspawn foes, your companions endlessly chatter and bicker amongst themselves. It's the perfect vehicle for the extremely solid role-playing system and the refined, brilliant tactical combat to truly shine through.

Dragon Age Origins is Baldur's Gate 2 on steroids. It's the game I've been waiting for for almost a decade now. Woo-Hoo!

And while Dragon Age : Origins is available for XBOX 360 and PS3, the PC is by far the best platform on which to experience this epic game. If you have the rig to run it, this is easily the best PC gaming experience of the year. Console owner's, don't fret, though. It's still a great game on consoles, and suffers only in comparison to its PC version.

Thank you, Bioware. After nine years, I finally can lose myself in a game for hundreds of hours, just like I did with BG2.

Bossfight plays Dragon Age on Intel Core i5 .

Classic PC games get new life at Game4u.com

In a great development for PC gaming veterans and newbies alike, Milestone Interactive has introduced a great new line called 'PC Essentials', which features some bona-fide PC classics at amazing prices. It pleases me no end to see games like the Fallout titles and the almost-forgotten gem MDK available in stores today for an entire new generation of gamers to enjoy.

If you're a relative newcomer to gaming, chances are that you've never played Interplay's original Fallout games that paved the way for last year's blockbuster hit Fallout 3. The first two Fallout games are widely acknowledged as being among the finest role-playing experiences of all time. They featured enormous gameworlds – arguably even more detailed and nuanced than that of Fallout 3, amazing characters, and an intricate, detailed and engaging role-playing system. The tactical combat was also extremely addictive and deep, and it was the first time gamers were introduced to the V.A.T.S. System that Bethesda reinvented so well in Fallout 3. These are absolute must-play experiences for any self-respecting role-player, and indeed for any gamer even remotely interested in the industry's roots and history.

The 'Fallout Trilogy' compilation now available includes both these games, and the excellent combat oriented spinoff Fallout Tactics : Broherhood of Steel for the incredibly low price of Rs.499/-, making it easily one of the best deals available today. I cannot emphasize this enough – these are all-time classic games, which offer experiences that will effortlessly trump much of the superficial, overpriced, overhyped rubbish that we come across all too often these days. If you're a real gamer with the intelligence to look past useless physics or gratuitous graphic overload and recognize top-notch ganmeplay, you owe it to yourself to try these games.

Another sweet deal is Shiny Entertainment's old but forgotten classic MDK, one of the funniest action adventures ever made. It's a third person shooter in which you alternate between playing as a super-hero, a mad scientist, and a robotic dog. Do I really need to say more? It was received in it's day as one of the most spectacular single-player games ever, and continues to be most entertaining, over ten years after it was made. It's available for Rs.199/-, and you'd have to be crazy not to pick it up.

The 'PC Essentials' series also features titles like the strangely haunting 'Messiah' and the vastly underrated FPS 'Kingpin : Life of Crime'. Milestone has promised to release more titles, and I personally can't wait to experience my gaming boyhood all over again.

This is a great initiative, because it keeps a generation of classic games alive and kicking –  an invaluable service to the gaming community. These games deserve to be played by today's gamers, and the gamers in turn deserve the chance to enjoy the classics of a bygone, and arguably purer era of gaming. Additionally, these are titles that will run on practically any old computer – ensuring that almost anyone can enjoy top-quality gaming experiences on a rock-bottom budget. Of course, some of them may need a bit of tweaking before you can get them to run on modern operating systems, but there is plenty of help available on the Internet.

The games are available both in stores, and on Milestone's online store www.game4u.com. The site also offers offline payment modes, including a useful cash on delivery option. Sweet.

It's nice to see distributors here bring in innovations like this to spark the gaming market in India. Cheers to Milestone Interactive, and more power to further initiatives like this.

Does Uncharted 2 herald the future of storytelling ?

by Anand Ramachandran. This article first appeared on my weekly Game Invader Column for The New Indian Express

Naughty Dog's seminal PS3 game, Uncharted 2 : Among Thieves is already being hailed as an all-time videogame classic. It's a superbly immersive eperience that effortlessly slips between storytelling and gameplay, delivering the closest thing to being in an action movie we've ever seen.






 This video provides a glimpse into Uncharted 2's cinematic gameplay experience. This is actual gameplay, not a video. Word.



The significant thing is this : gameplay-wise, Uncharted 2 offers few innovations. The platforming and acrobatics have been done in the Prince of Persia trilogy and in Assassin's Creed. The shooting and cover mechanics are clearly inspired by Gears of War. Even the settings – ancient temples, mysterious ruins and the like – could arguably be attributed to games like Tomb Raider which came many years earlier.


If it's so derivative, what makes Uncharted 2 so damn special ?


Many things, mate. Many, many things.


Firstly, Naughty Dog has taken gameplay features that have been done before, but polished and improved them to deliver a gameplay melange unlike any seen before. Ken Levine, creator of the incredible 'Bioshock', once said that he considered himself a kind of Chef, who merely mixes together existing ingredients to create a surprising, delightful dish. This is exactly what Naughty Dog has achieved with 'Among Thieves' – while you will surely find many individual components familiar, the overall experience is wholly unique and thoroughly original.


Secondly, through a combination of skilful narrative, superb dialogues and expertly crafted set-pieces, Uncharted 2 is that rare game which effortlessly flits between being a  narrative and participatory experience. Many games have tried this, with varying degrees of success. Some of them have even claimed to be 'the ultimate interactive movie' or 'the most immersive virtual world' and the like, but Uncharted 2 has taken this to a completely new level. I've played lots of games, but this is the closest thing to being in a great action movie that I've ever experienced.


The absolutely top notch writing plays a major part in this. In terms of story, 'screenplay', and dialogues, Uncharted 2 is on par with the best action adventure films of recent times, and easily better than tripe like '2012' or all those stupid films featuring Matthew McConaughey or Nicolas Cage. Sure, it's tightly scripted and completely linear, but this works in the game's favour. At every point in the game, you really want to know what's going to happen next – and the plot twists and red herrings ensure that you're never disappointed. Essentially, the gameplay exists just to move you from plot point to plot point – but it's great fun on its own, and helps develop the emergent story that the player creates. Videogaming as a narrative form at its finest.


Which really makes you think how so many games might benefit from some good, professional writing from a storytelling standpoint. Games like Assassin's Creed or Halo, which had amazingly fun core gameplay but frankly boring, irrelevant and fairly ridiculous storylines. Wouldn't they have been immensely superior games if they had storylines that actually engaged you to complement their fabulous gameplay? I certainly believe so.


Uncharted 2 is a singular achievement that shows how games can contain world class narratives without sacrificing gameplay. It answers the age old gameplay vs. story question in an unexpectedly emphatic fashion – you don't have to choose. If more games follow this lead, videogames could finally hit that sweet spot between story and gameplay that can appeal to the widest possible mainstream audience, and put gaming on an equal footing with movies and TV. . And the venerable Roger Ebert would finally shut up.

A reckless disregard for gravity.

Among the many delightful independent games available on Steam, Valve's online game distribution service, comes one that is undoubtedly the most imaginatively named titles in recent memory. It's called AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity, and , at less than eight hundred rupees, it's one of the best value for money games you can buy this year.

Developed and published by Dejobaan Games (an impossibly serious voice announces “bringing you quality videogames for over seventy-five years” during the game's intro video), Aaaaa! is everything videogames should be – amusing, original, innovative and heaps of fun. To get an idea of the sense of irreverent humour that Dejobaan has brought to this title, just visit their web site and see for yourself.

Basically, this is a game about jumping off extremely tall buildings, hurtling towards your tiny landing pad target, opening your chute in time, and land without any broken bones. It's played in first-person, so you'll basically be looking down as you free-fall through the skyscrapers that make up the game's levels, trying to hit targets, collect points, annoy spectators by showing them the finger (really) and open your parachute as late as possible for maximum points. Falling close to building surfaces, and even brushing them, get you additional score bonuses. But get it wrong, and you'll painfully bounce from wall to ledge to overhang, and break a lot of bones on your way down.

It's a game played almost completely at breakneck speed. You begin each level standing on the rooftop of a building, walking around and looking down for the best possible route to the landing. But at some point, you have to jump off. And then, the game becomes magical – you will hurtle towards the ground at blinding speed, accelerating all the time. The walls of buildings, beams, ledges, neon signs, roofs and spectators whiz by in a blur – you'll have to make split second decisions and choose your path – or wind up as street pizza. It's a bona-fide adrenaline rush.

Adding to the game's already high WTF quotient are special items – an espresso shot that will slow down your surroundings, a glove that will help you flip off spectators, a spray can that helps you paint grafiiti on the walls as you zoom past them. It's all quite completely insane, and a blast to play.

The visuals are a neon-futuristic-techno-cyberpunk genre of classics like WipeOut XL, Rez, Geometry Wars and the old arcade classics. It's all high contrast, brightly glowing, pulsating, strobing madness, and it moves by in a whirling, twirling dance of dazzling brilliance.

A game such as this lives or dies by its level design. There are too many examples of a great concept being completely deflated by poor level design, but this isn't one such instance. You'll replay each level multiple times trying to rack up the highest possible score (or, in the game's terminology, get mazimum 'teeth'. Don't ask.) and you'll never be bored.

Most importantly, Aaaaa! is unapologetic about being what it is – a game. There's no attempt at story, or narrative, or anything more than the most wafer-thin of contexts to the gameplay. It's our art form at its purest – a harkback to the glory days of Tetris, Pac-Man and Breakout where gameplay alone decided the success of a game in the eyes of critics and fans.

Aaaaa! is an unqualified triumph of unfettered, imaginative game development. If you care about games at all, you should support developers like Dejobaan by buying it. More power.

A console-free gaming world? Just maybe.

by Anand Ramachandran. This article first appeared on my weekly Game Invader column for the New Indian Express

Predicting future trends in gaming is every videogame boffin's favourite pastime. In the future, we shall have games so realistic, we won't be able to tell them from real life. We'll have AI so advanced, it will behave exactly like humans, making mistakes, acting unpredictable, and sowing emotion. We'll have chips and nanobots embedded in our bodies. Yeah, whatever.

I'm more interested in a rather more believeable, and much more exciting trend. And it's not all that far away, either.

When a little known service called OnLive demonstrated their 'game streaming' service, observers were greatly excited with the possibilities. Basically, OnLive used a combination of a custom set-top box like device and blazing broadband speeds to deliver a service where you could play any game you want, on any platform – so long as it was there in their library.

The technology is charmingly simple – the only signals that need to travel between the server and your receiver are your controller input, and the real-time AV signal from the game. All the processing is done at the server end – and the video and audio output is streamed to your TV set. It's almost like your games are just another TV channel, which you can control.

By centralizing the processing needed for today's heavy-duty games, and depending on broadband to receive controller input and deliver the audio-visual feedback, services such as OnLive can be genuine game-changers, completely redefining the gaming industry landscape.

For one thing, hardware platforms will become irrelevant from a consumer standpoint. It could even eventually see gaming move to one convergent hardware platform – since gamers won't have to choose between platforms anymore, and it just might suit game developers and publishers to break free of the clutches of console manufacturers. The PC has always been the most open and democratic platform, and we may very well see its return, albeit in a more 'server' like avatar.

For another, it will completely eliminate the need for developers to create content for multiple hardware platforms. Whatever the platform, it won't make a difference to consumers anymore – they will be able to play games regardless of platform – since the onus of maintaining the platform will be shifted to the service provider. The console wars will no longer be a roadblock for good quality content to reach the widest possible audience – and situations like single console owners missing out on quality games like Halo, Super Mario Galaxy or Little Big Planet will be a thing of the past. Ultimately, consoles are merely a delivery mechanism – people care about games, not about hardware. If there's another viable delivery mechanism, consoles will die. And good riddance.

Think about it – a future where you will be able to play any game you choose on any internet-enabled device, whenever you want. No more pre-ordering games at exorbitant prices or standing in long queues to get your hands on a copy. No more constantly upgrading your hardware and software just to play new titles. No more missing out on annoying 'platform exclusives' just because you chose the wrong console to buy.

Admittedly, it's still some way away – the broadband speeds required for the service to be viable are way too expensive for end consumers at the moment. But cheaper broadband is something we're bound to see sooner than later.

And then, we'll be able to play Killzone 2 on our mobile phones if we so wish. Brilliant.

Bioware : more awesome than Jack Black.

>At Electronic Arts' India Showcase 2009, they previewed a number of exciting titles from their upcoming line-up : Brutal Legend, FIFA 10 , Dante's Inferno and Need for Speed:Shift.

But I mostly had eyes for only one. While the crowds, quite predictably, milled around FIFA and NFS, I joined a few other wise men to feast my eyes, ears and brains on the only game among the lot that could go on to become an all-time classic. Yep. Dragon Age : Origins was there. And, going by my first two hours with it, Bioware could just have created their finest RPG since Baldur's Gate 2.

As soon as I got the chance, I grabbed my chair, put on the headphones, and shut out everything else – the other games, the lunch buffet, the air-conditioning, the scantily-clad girls (okay okay, I'm lying about the last bit). I had been waiting more than a year for this, a chance to test drive what promises to be a role-playing experience to please the most hardcore Dungeons and Dragons fans.

I'm pleased to report that it's an absolute classic waiting to happen.

From the first moment, you can see that this is the game Bioware has been waiting years to make. This is Baldur's Gate on steroids. This is the game Neverwinter Nights could have been. This is the game that will wipe away the softcore hangover from Jade Empire and Mass Effect. It looks simply beautiful – the environments are flawless and the characters are top-notch.

The writing – storyline, dialogues, descriptions – is vintage Bioware. And the storytelling feature that gives the game the tag 'Origins' is something that could redefine the much-vaunted 'replayability' that RPG developers bandy about so recklessly. Essentially, depending on the race and class you choose for your character, you will begin the game in one of six completely different locations. I played two origin stories – the human wizard and the dwarv commoner, and it was like playing two entirely different games based on the same engine. And, through a number of subtle visual, audio and environmental clues, the coherence of the universe is beautifully conveyed. WHen I was playing the second time as the dwarf, I noticed many references that overlapped with the happenings from my earlier play session – looking at the same world through a different perspective. It's absolutely brilliant, and every serious gamer will want to play every origin story at least once.

Bioware has abandoned the Dungeons and Dragons ruleset this time, and gone with a completely original role-playing system. Though it undoubtedly remains rooted in D and D basics, this is a slightly simplified, more intuitive and streamlined system that will please number-crunchers and newbies alike.

The combat, likewise, is a delightful mix of features from earlier Bioware classics. The tactical, top-down view from BG2 and NWN meet the pausable, queueable commands from KOTOR, and then some. Spells and special skills now have a recharge period, and can be cast again when fully charged. This adds a great layer to combat tactics, as you carefully juggle your command queue to outwit your foes.

Just listen to me rambling.

Don't get me wrong, the other games were great, too. In any other circumstances, I'd be raving about how much fun it is being Jack Black, armed with a demonic guitar, getting medieval on a range of hellspawn in Brutal Legend..

But damn. Dragon Age : Origins was so good, it completely distracted me from the other stuff. Sorry EA. I tried.

The King of Fighters? Don't think so.

It's been an incredible year for 2D fighting games. Street Fighter IV announced itself as perhaps the finest the genre has ever seen – featuring gameplay that walked the fine balance between pick-up-and-play and truly hardcore, a superb online experience and great visuals. Marvel vs Capcom 2 was a great revival of an old favourite franchise, with one of the largest and most interesting rosters of all time. BlazBlue was a breath of fresh air to the genre, and created what could turn out to be a blockbuster franchise in the years to come.

KOF XII wouldn't last a single round with Street Fighter IV or BlazBlue

Amidst all this excitement, it's hard to understand why anyone would bother with a thoroughly mediocre title like the King of Fighters XII. The latest in the venerable franchise is a classic example of what not to do with a sequel – a laundry list of game design don'ts.

In case you get the wrong idea – let's make it clear that the basic fighting system in KOF XII is as solid and sophisticated as ever. All the classic 3-on-3 team fighting mechanics that made it a much loved title on the Neo-Geo platform return in the latest version, with some small tweaks and additions. There are improved knockdown attacks and juggles that open up new offensive possibilities. There's a new critical counter system that, if timed perfectly, stuns your opponent and renders them vulnerable to offensive chains. It's a system that has stood the test of time, offering equal opportunities to offensive and defensive players – but it's really a no-brainer for the development team, who were working with gameplay that has been honed over fifteen years.

They've got almost everything else wrong.

The visuals are fairly decent, but given the achievements of Street Fighter IV and BlazBlue, they don't really hold up. The backgrounds are decent but not spectacular. The sprites are animated fairly well, but still have a jaggy, retro look. While this is fine for a truly retro title like MVC 2, they don't quite cut it in a full price game. But it's fine, really. The visuals would be tolerable if the rest of the game wasn't so broken.

You see, the essential problem with KOF XII is that there's nothing to do. Offline, there's a basic single player mode, a versus more, a training mode, and some unlockable art. That's it. No challenges, no story mode, no survival, nothing. In this day and age, for a full-price game, that's simply unacceptable. The single player arcade mode is essentially a time trial – there is no boss character to play, and no reason to play repeatedly. This game is only fun when you're playing it with a buddy on the same console.

The online experience could have perhaps justified the price, but it's simply awful. The lag is terrible – a deal breaker for a fighting game where timing is everything. You can't find players with decent connections. You can't quit out of spectator mode until the bout is over.

Better learn to love this menu - because you can't quit out of it.

Even more unforgivable – the game's offline and online menus appear to have been designed by either incompetents or sadists. For instance, you can't quit from the character selection screen to the main menu – you have to first start a match, and then quit to the main menu. This deserves a resounding WTF? It's ridiculous that a game this broken made it to retail.

KOF XII's lack of features and bad design combine to catapult it into 'disaster' territory. Avoid this, and spend your money on Street Fighter IV or BlazBlue.

What's with the overly generous review scores ?

by Anand Ramachandran. This article first appeared in my weekly 'Game Invader' column for the New Indian Express



I'm surprised at how easily high scores are doled out at gaming review sites these days.


A close look at the popular review aggregator site metacritic.com throws up some interesting information. While the scores on a specific review site are susceptible to factors such as reviewer bias, the scores on an aggregator are usually good indications of its general critical success. In the interests of focus, we'll stick to the PC platform for this analysis, though console platforms do seem to show a similar trend.


On metacritic.com, the 2007 classic Bioshock sits alongside Half Life and its arguably better sequel at 96 points. This puts it above Baldur's Gate 2, Grim Fandango and Diablo. To anyone who has even a cursory understanding of the history of PC gaming, this is plainly ridiculous. Bioshock was a fantastic title, but it did very little that hadn't been done before. The role-playing elements were a dumbed-down version of the ones found in System Shock 2. Sorytelling in FPS games was done equally well, if not better in a number of games, notably in the Half-Life series. The only area where it was unparalleled for its time was in the audio-visual presentation. But if graphics were the benchmark, then Crysis would be the best game of all time.


BG2, Grim and Diablo were games that pushed at the very boundaries of game creation – either creating new genres or taking existing ones to unheard-of levels. Each game, even today, sits at the pinnacle of its genre. Not true of Bioshock, which is surpassed for greatness by Half-Life, System Shock 2, and even the original Doom.


A little further down the scale, we see a distinctly mediocre game like Mass Effect scoring above classics such as Starcraft, Myth II, Serious Sam and Icewind Dale. This is even more patently absurd. At least Bioshock was truly a great game that paled only in comparison with all-time classics – Mass Effect was ordinary even by the standards of its day.


Further down the scale, things get even murkier, with many of today's rather good-but-not-great games (Dead Space, Ghostbusters) sitting alongside classics from the past (Arcanum, Curse of Monkey Island).


I remember, back in the nineties, a score of seven or above generally meant that a game was good enough to buy. Above eight was a guarantee of a great game, and nine or higher was an absolute classic. While the grading remains reasonably consistent at the higher levels, the lower scores have become something of a free-for-all. Today's gamers will not even look at a game that scores a seven . My questions to game reviewers is this – why isn't the average score five, as common sense would dictate? A seventy percent score indicates to me that a game gets more things right than wrong. So why dole out such a score to a game you say is not worth my money? It's counter-intuitive, and misleading.


In fact, I believe that the whole score / star based rating system is a lazy cop-out for people who can't be bothered to read the review text. My advice to game-buyers is this : read the review, don't depend on the score. Reviewers usually get it right in their text – discussing the finer points of all aspects of the game, but their review scores are often completely incongruous with the content of the review. It's often along the lines of “Gee, this game completely sucks. Let me give it a 6.5”.


Go figure.

The Rock Band experience comes to the PSP.

My first reaction to Rock Band : Unplugged on the PSP was one of scepticism. The basic appeal of the Rock Band series was that you get to feel like a genuine rock star – thanks to the plastic guitars and drum kits that made every 'air' musician's dream come true. What's the point of a handheld game using the same mechanic, but without the cool instruments? Lame, right? Like the mobile versions of Guitar Hero.

But Rock Band : Unplugged is immensely fun in its own right, and thank the gods of rock for that.

If you can look past the lack of instruments and get used to hitting the face and shoulder buttons in rhythm, you'll find that Rock Band :Unplugged delivers a great portable rhythm game experience – similar to and yet different from its console cousins in the best possible ways.

The Rock Band franchise has always been about delivering a 'complete band experience' , and the PSP version manages to do that surprisingly well by incorporating a smart new innovation – by hitting the left and right shoulder buttons, you effectively switch between playing the guitar, bass, drums and controlling the vocals. Hit every note for a short period, and that particular instrument will go into 'autopilot', playing itself for some time while you focus on the other tracks. You'll need to make sure that no track fails – ignore a track for some time and it goes into a 'red zone' of sorts. You will then need to play that track and hit every note for a while to bring it back to speed. Thus, the game makes sure that you're always switching between tracks, devoting roughly equal time to each one in every song you play.

While this sounds a little clunky and awkward, it's in fact far from it. Once you get used to the controls, you'll be effortlessly switching tracks, playing solos and rocking out like a pro band. You actually do get the 'band' feeling, and it's extremely satisfying to nail some of the harder solos later on in the game. This could also be partly because you create your entire band from scratch, giving them names, dressing them up, and kitting them out. You can't help getting attached to the little buggers, and share in their successes as they zoom up the international charts. Your band starts out small, and eventually grows to international superstardom, playing gigs all over the world, travelling by private jets, and picking up groupies, managers and even their very own spiritual guru. It's all presented very well, too – sharp, colourful visuals and impeccable audio (play this with headphones).

Rock Band isn't the first handheld rhythm game that I've enjoyed (Elite Beat Agents on DS, Gitaroo Man on the PSP), but it is without doubt the most satisfying one for the rock fan in me. The song list, such an important part of any such game, is extremely solid and covers a wide range of genres. Among the more fun to play tracks, early on in the game, are The Jackson Five's ABC, Pearl Jam's Alive, Billy Idol's White Wedding and Boston's More Than A Feeling. You can also download songs through PSN, but for players in India this isn't an option, obviously.

Rock Band : Unplugged on PSP offers a great way to pass the time at airports, waiting rooms and queues of all kinds – you're gaming and listening to music at the same time. What could be better?

Zork : The Great Underground Empire

by Anand Ramachandran. This article first appeared in my weekly 'Game Invader' column for the New Indian Express

There's so much brouhaha today about 'interactive storytelling' and 'creating interesting gameworlds' that you'd think it was some newfangled, cutting-edge idea.

The fact is that, in the early days of computer gaming, there were several games that would rival the best of today's products in terms of storytelling and writing. And one of these, the venerable Zork series, remains largely unsurpassed in terms of creating a fascinating, engaging and fun gameworld for gamers to experience.

Zork. The very mention of the name will bring fond memories rushing back to anyone who played the games when they first came out. Memories of white houses, elven swords turning blue, saying 'Hello Sailor' in unlikely places, counting Zorkmids and being Totemized (a very bad thing). And, of course, avoiding places which are pitch dark, where you were likely to be eaten by a Grue.

The iconic opening screen from Zork

The first three Zork games (sensibly called Zork I, II and III), were text-only adventures, which might seem unbelievable to many younger gamers, for whom games = graphics. But back in the day, these games sold over a million copies (contributing to INFOCOM's rise as one of the first successful computer game publishers) , and continue to be downloaded by thousands of gamers eager to relive the memories or find out what all the fuss was about. Some would argue that the lack of graphics actually made these games better, more vivid experiences – in a way that some people make a case for books over movies.

And to those of you who consider yourselves 'hardcore', understand this - these games didn't pamper you with features like automaps or auto-journals. You had to meticulously keep manual notes – mapping the gameworld and writing down clues that would help you get through the game – if you hoped to finish the game. It was a pretty common part of the early adventure gaming experience, and it was usually great fun to go back and revisit the furiously scribbled notes once you were done with the game.

While the three graphical follow-ups (Return to Zork, Zork Nemesis and Zork Grand Inquisitor) weren't as critically and commercially successful as the earlier text-based adventures, they were still great games in their own right.

Gamers saw the famous white house for the first time in Return to Zork.

Return to Zork, in particular, introduced a number of extremely interesting features to the point and click graphical adventure genre. You could take snapshots of things with a camera, use a 'recorder' to record what game characters spoke to you, and you could kill anyone in the game ( although at the cost of making the game unwinnable). It was a superbly written adventure with hilarious characters, a rich history and back-story, and great dialogue. A pity it had some seriously frustrating design flaws – you could wander the gameworld for hours without realizing that you had made an earlier mistake that would prevent you from completing the game. Still, RTZ had some great moments. Players still remember the famous drinking sequence with Boos Myller, where you had to drink him under the table and then steal his keys.

Boos Myller was the first videogame character I had to beat in a drinking contest.

The Zork universe remains perhaps the finest example of striking an unlikely creative balance – the universe managed to be laugh-out-loud funny and eerily scary at the same time. And it's not for nothing that it has been included in the digital games canon, as one of the most important games of all time.

Zork Grand Inquisitor starred world-renowned David Hasselhoff precursor Dirk Benedict.

Those of you who are interested in a bit of gaming's history would do well to look online for free-to-play versions of the classic Zork games. Much fun to be had.

Monster Hunting - not for the meek.

by Anand Ramachandran. This article first appeared on my weekly 'Game Invader' column for The New Indian Express.

Every so often, there comes along a game so lovingly, unabashedly hardcore that it reminds us of why videogames have managed to attract such a devoted, almost tribe-like fan following.

Monster Hunter : Freedom Unite on the PSP is one such game. While the gameplay is merely a polished, slightly improved version of its predecessors, this is the first release officially available in India. And for the hardcore set, this game alone is reason to get a PSP.

While most games today mollycoddle new players by offering tutorials that ease the learning curve, and difficulty levels that make failure near impossible, Monster Hunter : FU lives up to its abbreviated name by being so unforgivingly deep and difficult from the word go, that it seems to mock your feeble efforts at playing it. Sure, it has a superb tutorial that explains every facet of the game – but the tutorial itself will take over two hours to complete.

You'll go up against some baaaaaad monsters in this game.

Monster Hunter : FU is essentially an action / role-playing game in which you must protect a village by hunting down different kinds of monsters that roam the surrounding countryside. While this may sound like a regulation formula, nothing could be further from the truth. Hunting a monster in this game doesn't mean running brazenly into the forests, slashing the beast into ribbons, and hurrying back for a reward. You'll have to prepare carefully for each hunt – meticulously choosing your equipment and strategies depending on the weather, terrain and nature of the beast. Wander off into the snowy mountains without the proper warm clothing and hot drinks, and the frost will kill you even before you face your first monster battle. Forget to carry enough food, and you'll be so weak from trekking, climbing and running through rugged terrain the monsters will likely die laughing before you even scratch them. Trying to hunt down a flying monster armed only with a great-sword? Bad idea.

If you think you'll take this guy down by button-mashing, you'll be dead before you hit 'X'

The sheer number of things to do in the game is bound to delight RPG purists. Monster hunting, naturally, is incredibly varied and satisfying. Apart from a range of melee and ranged weapons, you can choose from a variety of traps, thrown weapons, bombs and the like to lure monsters, track them, conceal your approach and evolve unique strategies for each hunt.

Apart from this, there's a weapon, armour and item crafting system where you can use materials gathered from the wilderness to improve your equipment, create potions and suchlike. Gathering stuff in itself is deep and detailed – you can pick herbs and flowers, catch insects with a bugnet, catch fish, and carve items such as bones and meat from killed monsters. You can grow your own ingredients on your farm.You can cut precious gemstones from veins that you find on rock-faces in the mountains. You can cook a steak if you need food on a long and lonely hunt. And yes, you can burn it if you're not careful.

I haven't come across this guy yet, but when I do, I'll probably quit and get back to playing 'Rock Band Unplugged'. Mummy!

Sadly, there's no online multiplayer, so you'll need a friend with a PSP to play the ad-hoc coop mode – but it's worth it. The team hunts are great fun, and the only way to take down some of the tougher beasts in the game. Make sure you play with headphones for a vastly improved experience.

Monster Hunter : FU successfully delivers the thrill of the hunt on the PSP's tiny screen. This is a game that almost dares you to play it – but rewards the hardcore like few other games do. Easily among the best handheld action RPGs available today.

Who're you gonna call? (sorry - couldn't resist)

by Anand Ramachandran. This article first appeared on my weekly 'Game Invader' column for the New Indian Express.

It's been a good month for film franchise based videogame adaptations – Ghostbusters and Wolverine garnering the critical acclaim that normally evades titles based on movies.

While the Wolverine game ended up being way better than the terrible movie it was based on, it was the Ghostbusters game that I was more interested in. The film is a much-loved classic that had a fantastic cast, great humour, and an odd mix of creepy-funny-cool that few films have matched. Living up to that legacy was always going to be hard, especially more than a decade after the film first came out.

But, hoo boy! This game is spades of fun, especially if you, like me, grew up loving everything about Ghostbusters. It's an authentic Ghostbusters experience in every way.

The first Ghostbusters game I ever played was an odd, repetitive and fairly boring one on the ATARI 2600 platform. You'd basically drive around the city, find ghosts haunting random buildings, and then use the famous 'Ghostbusters gun' to trap them. Again and again and again. Even Ray Parker Jr.'s iconic 'tananaananaana – tananananaanaana' humming in the background couldn't dull the pain.

This game is very different. And the music still plays. Yeah, baby.

Within the first two hours of gameplay, you get to trap Slimer (again), learn to use the famous Ghostbusters photon beam gun and other cool equipment, find hidden ghosts, and, most importantly, hang out with Peter, Ray and Egon. Who'da thunk, eh?

From the very first moments, the game makes you feel genuinely like one of the gang. The likenesses of Bill Murray, Dan Ackrod and Harold Ramis are fairly convincing, and the spoken dialogue is flawless. The banter is genuinely funny, and feels just like a Ghostbusters movie.

However, none of this would matter if the actual Ghostbusting wasn't any fun. Luckily, it is heaps. It feels genuinely frantic and tense when you focus the beam on a ghost, and then struggle to reel him in. You can actually feel the spook struggle to break free, and it's hugely satisfying to yank him around and slam him into walls, or the floor. Once you wear the bugger down, you'll have to toss a trap on the floor, and get the ghost right on top of it and hold him there for a few seconds, and you have him. The boss battles, in particular, feel appropriately intense and exciting. The music and sound effects add greatly to the cinematic atmosphere. Awesome stuff.

There are also bit where you need to use the geiger-counter like thingie to detect the presence of paranormal energy, and scan the environment for clues to track down hidden ghosts. One sequence early on, where you traverse a series of flooded, dark corridors in search of a fisherman ghost stands out eerie and spooky, without ever once slipping from action-comedy into pure horror. It's a delicate balance, and it's done very well indeed.

There's also a fun sequence where you fight through hordes of ghosts on the city streets, to blaze your way through to the famous Marshmallow Man, whose gigantic figure looms ahead right through the level. Much entertainment – joyous, happy gaming.

Ghostbusters does have it weak spots – the feedback system could have been better (you often get lost if you haven't been paying attention to the voice-overs), the graphics aren't spectacular, and the shooting sections seem forced. But, as movie adaptations go, this is among the best we've seen. Plus, when you get to run with some of Hollywood's greatest comic actors, who's complaining?