Holding out for a hero

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

inFAMOUS is the latest, greatest superhero game to hit stores – and it's a good one.

It puts you in the shoes of Cole, a regular guy who suddenly finds that he can leap from skyscrapers, shoot bolts of electricity from his hands, and scale up buildings with the nonchalant ease of . . .er . . . Altair from Assassin's Creed. You then proceed to rescue innocents, deal with creeps on the streets, and save the world from a mysterious conspiracy hatched by mysterious conspirators. You'll then divvy up your time between the rooftops, the mean streets and the festering sewers, performing all manner of cool stunts and unleashing your superpowers on unsuspecting (and suspecting) goons and baddies. Dizzying leaps, cars being tossed around, exploding barrels and good old fashioned fisticuffs – it's all there in a great mix of superhero and classic videogame action.

While it really isn't anything more than a next-gen mashup of ideas from games such as GTA, Spider-Man 2, and The Incredible Hulk : Ultimate Destruction, inFAMOUS takes these ideas and runs with them very well indeed. It looks great, and plays incredibly well. The combat is fun, exploring the world feels truly awesome, and the story, if you care to follow it, is fairly interesting. Importantly, Cole feels like a reluctant superhero who is slowly finding his feet within the meta-being business, understanding his powers. learning to control them, and making the moral choices that every true-blue superhero must eventually make. When you walk the streets, fighting beside the people, and restraining fallen bad-guys with an electric arc, you can't help feeling a bit righteous and all heroic (of course, I'm talking about when you make the 'good' choices).

I'm sure Videep will cover the details in his upcoming review, but there's one aspect of inFAMOUS I'd like to examine a little closely – the very core superhero concept of keeping crime off the streets. Besides the main story, inFAMOUS features a number of side missions that, when beaten, result in a neighbourhood block being cleared of criminal activity, and earning the lasting gratitude of its citizens. As you gradually begin taking back neighbourhoods, and cleaning up the town, there's a sense of genuinely heroic satisfaction that unfolds – and that is inFAMOUS' greatest achievement as a superhero game.

Whether I'm playing a game as a famous superhero like The Hulk, or a videogame specific creation like Cole, my biggest motivation is felling like one. I want to help the defenceless, needy man on the street. I want to foil evil plots. I want to kick ass. I want to save the town, the world, the universe. inFAMOUS, by delivering a believable, vibrant gameworld that truly looks and feels like it needs saving, gives me the opportunity to do just this.

In a sense, that's why role-playing games like Oblivion, Fallout, Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights appeal to me, they help me play the hero. But they don't let me do cool superhero things like leap from rooftop to rooftop, hand upside down from ledges while shooting electricity at faraway enemies, and plummet hundreds of feet and land with an explosive shockwave that sends cars flying in every direction. inFAMOUS is that sort of game.

Here's hoping it spawns more games that make you feel like a superhero, with the world at your feet. It's an opportunity for game developers to create entirely new, and lucrative, superhero franchises, which have traditionally always been born in comics. Developers, are you listening?

The remakes I'd like to see

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

The release of 'Bionic Commando' strikes another telling blow for fans of classic videogames who'd like to see modern remakes and reinventions of their favourite titles from another era.

Fans of Bionic Commando will get to finally experience the action of their favourite one-armed operative and his grappling hook in glorious, hi-definition 3D. And they'll be hoping that he would have finally learned to . . . er . . . jump.

Bionic Commando. Now playable at BLUR in Chennai and Consoul in Bangalore. You should swing by. Pun not intended.

It's a good time to be a lover of classic gaming, with a whole bunch of titles being relaunched on a multitude of platforms from mobile phones to downloadables and virtual consoles. Remakes have always been popular with videogame fans, because they are always keen to see their beloved characters and settings in cutting-edge technology. Whenever gaming platforms evolve – with better graphics, sound and processing power – it opens up possibilities for remaking old favourites with a new, shiny coat of paint.

But why, then, do developers stubbornly refuse to remake some of the games I want to see in hi-def glory?

If ever a game cried out for a next-gen remake, it's the amazing PS2 classic, Shadow of the Colossus. Featuring the most gigantic bosses ever, the best videogame animal companion, a stirring score, and some of the most cinematic gameplay of all time, Shadow of The Colossus looked incredible when it made its appearance on the PS2. Surely, this game would be perfect for the PS3 to show-off its muscle? Or even a PC version that would knock our socks off? Why, Sony, why aren't you remaking it? Spoilsports. Imagine climbing up one of those humongous beasts, hanging on for dear life while it tries to shake you off and stomp on you, all in 5.1 surround and full HD. The mouth waters at the prospect.

Another old favourite I'd love to see remade is No One Lives Forever, the classic but sadly forgotten spy shooter that remains one of the finest examples of the genre. It was clever, witty, well-designed and challenging. And featured on of the sexiest protagonists in gaming – Cate Archer was waaaaaay smarter, hotter and more attractive than her more famous tomb-raiding countrywoman. NOLF is a game that would greatly benefit from the possibilities opened up by today's state of the art. And, after all the dark-as-doomsday shooters we've been playing of late, we could use a few laughs, and some old-fashioned spy excitement. Not to mention the delights of seeing Ms.Archer with more polygons doing the very creditable work of bringing her to life. What gamer would ask for more?

Other old classics I'd like to see re-imagined are Defender and Outlaw. Furiously flying a spaceship, shooting down mutants, and catching falling humans (okay, okay, humanoids) sounds like it would be a fun XBLA title at least. And Outlaw, the quintessential, bare-bones deathmatch experience, would be an outstanding online multiplayer shoot em up - I would happily plonk down cash for shooting opponents through fully 3D cactuses and stagecoaches, armed merely with a six-shooter. A little imagination, and these can surely be hugely successful games for the modern casual audience. Ironic, as they were once as hardcore as gaming ever got.

Of course, everybody's favourite reboot, the ill-fated Duke Nukem Forever, may now never see the light of day, with the closure of 3D Realms. But gamers worldwide will be hoping that someone picks up and revives the franchise, like what Bethesda did with Fallout3. And, as any gamer worth her salt knows, you can't keep The Duke down for long.

Catching up with the classics

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

What's a gamer to do? So many games, so little time. Typically, there are so many great releases that happen simultaneously across platforms that it's humanly impossible to play them all to completion. In fact, even merely trying every single top-notch release is something that any gamer with a day job will find a tall order.

However, with the industry going through a fairly lean period in terms of releases, I had the opportunity to catch up with some old classics that I never had the time to complete earlier.

Phoenix was an old favourite for many years. A big bad mother spaceship . A rotating shield. Regenerating bad guys. The memories.

With Chrono Trigger being reinvented released for the DS, to well-deserved acclaim, an entirely new generation was introduced to one of the greatest games ever made. The original SNES version was a game that I never really got around to playing for more than a few hours, and I thought it might be a good idea to fire up an old SNES emulator and finally get around to paying my dues. And what an experience it turned out to be. Chrono Trigger remains one of the most poignant videogame stories of all time – with a fabulously interesting gameworld, captivating, layered characters, and addictive gameplay that will keep you engrossed for hours. The game also features imaginative minigames and modes of interactivity that were ahead of its time – and an indicator of how imaginative design could fill a game with quirky surprises and hidden delights that crank maximum gameplay out of an engine. It's a spectacular, unforgettable game that all gamers simply owe it to themselves to play.

I've also found time to revisit old arcade classics likes Centipede, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong and Phoenix. Needless to say, I suck at them now – worse than I did when I was an addicted kid about twenty five years ago. It's also interesting to see how these games were adapted to different platforms – there were significant differences between the coin-op arcade versions and the many home-video console iterations of these classics, and it's a great learning experience for a designer to look at these differences and analyze the reasons behind them.

As a game designer, I find playing classic arcade games an essential learning experience, partly because they tend to focus on very narrow aspects of gameplay. You'll learn loads about things like difficulty, basic AI patterns, level design and feedback by playing the single-screen games of the arcade era. Defender, for instance, can teach a young designer much about the basic implementation of the minimap, and Asteroids can illustrate basic physics and control lessons better than most sophisticated games. This is because these games are so simple compared to modern games, they almost serve as test applications, small laboratory playgrounds to look at specific aspects of game design that would be lost within the more complex, larger games of today.

I challenge you to find a more hardcore, bloodier, zanier shooter than Metal Slug. If you do, stay away - it might kill you.

Another classic series that I've been rediscovering recently is Metal Slug. After just a few hours of the most insanely hardcore 2D shooting you will ever play, I was left breathlessly wondering why I didn't play more of this when I was younger. Over-the-top violence, brutal difficulty levels, and some of the most laugh-out -loud yet intimidating bosses seen in gaming make Metal Slug another must-play experience. Think you're hardcore? Not if you haven't played Metal Slug.

Most of these classic titles are either available at budget prices, or are free to play on the web. When there aren't any other games worth dropping your hard-earned cash on, it's probably a good idea to try catching up with a classic you haven't played before.

In search of the ultimate gaming Badass.

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

With the possible exception of comic books, which have featured some of mankind's baddest dudes (Lobo, Hellbrandt Grimm, OMAC, Galactus), gaming has perhaps been the home of the most dudes you wouldn't want to mess with.

Of late, Marcus Fenix from Gears of War is a personal favourite. This is a dude who stared down – yes, you heard right, stared down – a big, mean spider-monster about the size of Valluvar Kottam. This is a dude who killed a huge rockworm the size of Anna Salai by getting into it, and cutting of its arteries, and then slashing his way out of it with a chainsaw. All the while, making witty jokes and indulging in light-hearted banter with his buddies. Awesome.

I also like The Nameless One, from Planescape:Torment. Firstly, the guy simply couldn't die. Whenever someone managed to 'kill' him, he'd rise again, even more horribly scarred than before. Additionally, he had a journal tattooed to his back, and his best friend was a floating, talking skull. We're talking off-the-scale pWnage here.

Bioware also gave us some of gaming's greatest badasses in the Baldur's Gate series – Minsc, Sarevok, Bodhi and Melissan were tr00ly hardcore individuals who could decimate entire armies all by themselves. Er . . . okay, maybe not Minsc. He had a pet hamster. But it WAS a miniature giant space hamster, which redeems him just a bit, right? And, boy, could he dual-wield.

And then, there's Kratos. What do you say about a guy who took on the Gods themselves, and kicked their butts? That his main weapons – the Blades of Chaos – are fused into his flesh? That he clawed his way through a mountain of dead bodies piled on top of him? That he does all this bare-chested, since armour is for sissies? Words are not enough.

Of course, you don't have to look like a Badass to be one. You could be a short, fat, Italian plumber and still make the grade. Mario is so awesome, he can leap from planet to planet in effing outer space, without a 64y space helmet. He can take down massive monsters by chucking coconuts at them. All with a jaunty, cheerful air, and with that impossible jolly music playing in the background, too.

We could go on about many other crowd favourites – Master Chief, Solid Snake, Dante, Sephiroth, M.Bison, Astaroth, Baraka and Guybrush Threepwood. Er . . . okay, maybe not Guybrush. But he did out-insult an Aussie, right? Which makes him better than S.Sreesanth, right?

We have also had our share of bad ladies in gaming. No, not her. She's waaay too image conscious to be tr00ly badass. I was thinking Samus Aran. And Cate Archer. And Chun Li. And that chick from Deathtrap Dungeon. Ok, I'll stop now.

No discussions on gaming badasses can be complete without a mention of perhaps the great-grandaddy of them all – Duke Nukem. The Duke is the archetype on which almost all shooter protagonists are based on (except that wimp Freeman). Who else could say “There are two things I love – kicking alien butt and chewing gum. And I'm all out of gum.”, before matter-of-factly saving the world from yet another alien invasion? Besides, the Duke was the first character who could stop to take a leak in the midst of battling alien scum.

Sadly, with the closure of 3D Realms, we don't know if we'll ever see him again. But I'll resist the temptation to make the obligatory Duke Nukem Forever joke. Respect.

In search of the ultimate gaming Badass.

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

With the possible exception of comic books, which have featured some of mankind's baddest dudes (Lobo, Hellbrandt Grimm, OMAC, Galactus), gaming has perhaps been the home of the most dudes you wouldn't want to mess with.

Of late, Marcus Fenix from Gears of War is a personal favourite. This is a dude who stared down – yes, you heard right, stared down – a big, mean spider-monster about the size of Valluvar Kottam. This is a dude who killed a huge rockworm the size of Anna Salai by getting into it, and cutting of its arteries, and then slashing his way out of it with a chainsaw. All the while, making witty jokes and indulging in light-hearted banter with his buddies. Awesome.

I also like The Nameless One, from Planescape:Torment. Firstly, the guy simply couldn't die. Whenever someone managed to 'kill' him, he'd rise again, even more horribly scarred than before. Additionally, he had a journal tattooed to his back, and his best friend was a floating, talking skull. We're talking off-the-scale pWnage here.

Bioware also gave us some of gaming's greatest badasses in the Baldur's Gate series – Minsc, Sarevok, Bodhi and Melissan were tr00ly hardcore individuals who could decimate entire armies all by themselves. Er . . . okay, maybe not Minsc. He had a pet hamster. But it WAS a miniature giant space hamster, which redeems him just a bit, right? And, boy, could he dual-wield.

And then, there's Kratos. What do you say about a guy who took on the Gods themselves, and kicked their butts? That his main weapons – the Blades of Chaos – are fused into his flesh? That he clawed his way through a mountain of dead bodies piled on top of him? That he does all this bare-chested, since armour is for sissies? Words are not enough.

Of course, you don't have to look like a Badass to be one. You could be a short, fat, Italian plumber and still make the grade. Mario is so awesome, he can leap from planet to planet in effing outer space, without a 64y space helmet. He can take down massive monsters by chucking coconuts at them. All with a jaunty, cheerful air, and with that impossible jolly music playing in the background, too.

We could go on about many other crowd favourites – Master Chief, Solid Snake, Dante, Sephiroth, M.Bison, Astaroth, Baraka and Guybrush Threepwood. Er . . . okay, maybe not Guybrush. But he did out-insult an Aussie, right? Which makes him better than S.Sreesanth, right?

We have also had our share of bad ladies in gaming. No, not her. She's waaay too image conscious to be tr00ly badass. I was thinking Samus Aran. And Cate Archer. And Chun Li. And that chick from Deathtrap Dungeon. Ok, I'll stop now.

No discussions on gaming badasses can be complete without a mention of perhaps the great-grandaddy of them all – Duke Nukem. The Duke is the archetype on which almost all shooter protagonists are based on (except that wimp Freeman). Who else could say “There are two things I love – kicking alien butt and chewing gum. And I'm all out of gum.”, before matter-of-factly saving the world from yet another alien invasion? Besides, the Duke was the first character who could stop to take a leak in the midst of battling alien scum.

Sadly, with the closure of 3D Realms, we don't know if we'll ever see him again. But I'll resist the temptation to make the obligatory Duke Nukem Forever joke. Respect.

Make it hard, make it last.

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

I've been guilty, of late, of playing some games on 'easy' difficulty. There, I said it.

My only excuse is that I have a job that keeps me rather busy, and I don't get enough time to play games as much as I'd like. So, in order to keep in touch with so many games across so many platforms, I need to, like, not DIE every few minutes. Cranking down the difficulty levels helped me quickly see as much of a game as possible in quick time – enough to get a good grasp on gameplay, underlying core concepts, production values and the rest.

But then, you lose the love.

The games I remember most fondly are those which I had to strain every sinew to beat – Baldur's Gate 2, Halo 3, Braid, Fallout 3, DOOM, Dawn of War. In the early days of true-skill gaming, there was Pac-Man, Defender, River Raid and Donkey Kong.

There's a special happiness to beating a challenging game on the harder difficulty levels – a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction that is one of the purest joys found in gaming. Anyone who loves their games will tell you stories of how they beat a Boss after ten tries, or solved a puzzle after six hours, or managed to better a seemingly insurmountable hi-score or race time. These are cherished moments in every tr00_b700 gamer's life.

I try several different games every month, but once in a while, I'll feel the love. And will want to finish it for the sheer pleasure of playing, dedicating twenty plus hours of my sadly packed life to it. And then, I'll look for the difficulty and crank it up.

The most recent of these is Guitar Hero : World Tour. The easier levels are great to get a hang of the game, but you'll never feel like Zakk Wylde or Yngwie J.Malmsteen unless you attempt the songs at the harder levels. And it's a truly warm glow (or awesome headrush) you'll feel when you nail a particularly difficult solo after much practice and multiple tries.

Some of my happiest (and most oft-narrated) gaming memories are of long struggles with specific battles in Baldur's Gate 2 – notably with illithids, dragins, and the game's no.2 boss, the evil vampire Bodhi. Believe me when I tell you that I used to actually arrive at tactics and strategies in my dreams. I kid you not. I was THAT into BG2. Completing Halo 3 on 'Heroic' was fun, too (though I wasn't good enough for 'Legendary').

I also remember the agony of wracking our brains over devilishly clever and ingenious puzzles in the early Sierra and LucasArts adventure games – and the matchless exhilaration of hitting on the right solution, sometimes after days of trying. Sometimes, it would come to you when sitting in class, or on a bus, or lying in bed, and you'd just KNOW, and you couldn't wait to get to the PC and try it out. When it worked, there would be high-fives and hugs all round. Remember folks, these were pre-Internet days. No walkthroughs. No cheats. None of that sissy stuff. You had to beat the game. Yourself. Like a woman. Or at least, like a really tough man.

Id software got it right with Wolfenstein 3D. The difficulty levels were called : "Can I play, Daddy?", "Don't hurt me.", "Bring 'em on!", and "I am Death incarnate!" . If you really wanted a good time, you know what you'd pick. Right?

Wanted : Better Indian Casual Games

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

The recent spate of 'election' themed games on many Indian casual gaming web sites has led to some amusing coverage in the press.

Many paragraphs have been devoted to explaining how 'gaming companies' have 'developed' games based on the elections in order to 'educate' players or give them a 'feel' of politics. Some people from these companies have even given us the usual sound bytes about how they wanted to provide 'this experience' or educate players about 'that aspect of gaming'.

Which is all very well – except for one thing.

The games mostly, er . . suck.

Creating a poor 2-D platform jumping game where L.K.Advani or Manmohan Singh must run, jump over obstacles, avoid 'political opponents' and collect 'votes', is no different from Mario running and jumping over obstacles, avoiding 'koopa troopas' and collecting coins. And the latter is much more fun.

A game like this, despite the ridiculous claims by the marketing or PR people who make it, does not educate players about the election in any reasonable way. It is nothing more than a cheap attempt to cash in on a current topic – which is fine with me, really. That's what casual game developers need to do. Only, please stop claiming that it's some major design innovation with lofty goals of education and the like.

It's not just an election thing – I recently read about a 'stock market' game where players would have to 'catch' stockbrokers or investors or whoever, who would leap out of a building window, presumably to commit suicide. Yeah, just like Kaboom. Or Fire. Or a hundred other games from the classic arcade game era.

This, according to the company whose web site it is on, is supposed to educate people on various aspects of the recession. What the WTF?

Indian casual game publishers – hear this. We appreciate your efforts and investments into expanding gaming markets in India. We love the way you have introduced casual gaming to the average Indian office goer or college student or housewife. Full power to you.

But we'd appreciate it even more if you also spent some resources to develop truly original and interesting designs which would help us get the quintessentially Indian, topical 'experiences' you claim you want to deliver. How about a true-blue Rajnikanth style fight game? Or an election game where you need to lie and cheat your way to victory? Or an Autorickshaw racing game that actually captures the unique physics of a rickshaw, and is not merely a vanilla racer with Autorickshaw models replacing the usual cars? There I knocked off three ideas that wouldn't be too hard for your developers to make. And it took me all of five minutes. Surely your people can do better?

A little more thought into concept development and design can lead to an exponential increase in the quality of games on the Indian casual scene. And no. I'm sorry, just swapping characters and assets from an existing design with 'Indian' people and objects doesn't make the game Indian, or even topical. Was Yoddha an 'Indian' game just because it had ostensibly Pakistani terrorists and . . er . . Pepsi bottles? Nope. It was just another bad shooter, period.

So show us some love, publishers. Put on your thinking caps, and give us some games that will make us laugh, scare us silly, or get us thinking. Hire the youngsters who are playing your games – they'll surely be glad to help out.

And for heaven's sake, stop your idiot marketing / corporate communications people from making stupid, ill-informed and downright LOLworthy statements to the press.

Worried about your child playing videogames ? Read on.

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

I have a six year old son who loves videogames. I love videogames. So this works out great for the family toy-shopping budget. But this article isn't about how to cut your monthly expenses by having offspring who share your taste in digital entertainment. Nope. That will have to wait.

I still meet a lot of parents who are concerned, and sometimes even shocked, that I let my son play the kind of games he does. This is to share my experience with them and those among you like them, who are confused about letting their children play the games they seem to love so much.

First things first – I don't let my son play violent, twisted, or morally ambiguous titles. No GTA. No Mortal Kombat. No Resident Evil. Cartoonish violence is fine with me though. I'd prefer my son to play Street Fighter IV rather than watch supid TV serials where ordinary people (just like the friends and family he relates to) lie, cheat and even kill each other due to money, ego and sex. Now, that's some truly sick shite, and yet I don't hear too many parents expressing concern about kids watching these works of art.

But the really interesting part? Left to himself, my son naturally gravitates towards games where you create things, as opposed to destroy them. In the past few months, the majority of his game time has been spent building things in the Spore creature, building and vehicle creators, building his own levels in Boom Blox and Little Big Planet, and making music in Wii Music. Yes, he'll sometimes prefer a session of SF IV or Super Mario Galaxy, but it's surprising how much he prefers to build and create, using the tools provided by games.

That's my son, building some creepy eight-legged spider-vehicle in SPORE.

Take Wii Music, for instance. When he began playing it, his attempts at making music were an absolute mess – he'd just randomly wave the Wiimote about, creating noises that would make Cacofonix sound like Jose Carreras. But now, he's showing a clearly improved understanding of musical concepts like tempo and pitch. He gets most of the pitch-matching and pattern recognition exercises correct. His jam sessions sound a lot nicer. And he just conducted an orchestra playing Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy' for an 88% score, and thunderous applause from the virtual audience.

And no help from me. I just observe, and never intervene with his learning process. These games are great virtual teaching tools, designed by hardcore pros who know exactly how to help someone improve at a skill while keeping it fun, challenging and yet not frustrating. (Just ask my wife – who managed a 20% increase in Guitar Hero accuracy over a single two hour play session).

Playing with Boom Blox or Spore's creators are similar to playing with Lego or Play-Doh – stimulating the child's imagination in very similar ways. Yes, playing with physical toys provides a tactile experience that cannot be replicated in a videogame, but on the other hand, videogames open up creative possibilities and features that are impossible with physical toys.

Also, my son is a normal child who enjoys reading, cartoons, music, mucking about with toys, playing in water, painting, climbing trees, hanging out with his friends, and playing cruel pranks on his mother. He's not obsessed with videogames, nor are they a mystery to him – they're just a part of his overall scheme of things.

My point? By integrating the right videogames into a child's play mix, there are benefits to be had that many of you may not have thought possible.

Dumb, mindless fun. Highly recommended.

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

Playing Tigon Studios' recently released Wheelman on the PS3 managed to touch a long-forgotten chord in me – the one which makes me enjoy extremely stupid yet fun games. I'll play these for hours – with a stupid grin on my face, which confounds my wife and thrills my son.

Wheelman is never going to be counted as an all-time classic, but when it's fun, it's heaps of fun. First, you play as Vin Diesel. Unless there's a game based on Chuck Norris or Mr.T coming out anytime soon, that can't be beat for sheer awesomeness. Second, you drive a number of cars, bikes and trucks performing some wicked maneouvres on the streets of Barcelona. You'll take flying leaps from vehicle to vehicle, perform screeching handbrake turns, pull off some absolutely insane stunts and participate in truly Hollywood-style hi-speed chases. The wonderfully forgiving, floaty vehicle physics and the relatively low difficulty levels make Wheelman one of those games you'll play for hours, without even understanding why you didn't stop much earlier.

It's got a crap story, terrible acting, ho-hum graphics and annoyingly crippled on-foot shooter gameplay. But when you're driving an eighteen wheeler truck over a bridge, knocking enemy vehicles into the water, and simultaneously dodging launched grenades, you won't care.

Wheelman, at least for me personally, follows in a long tradition of games that shouldn't be so much fun, but undoubtedly are. They're not smart or clever. They don't have great interactive narratives, or layered, nuanced characters, or complex, deep gameplay mechanics. Most of them involve blowing things up, breaking things down, or slicing and dicing. But hey, they're fun to play.

Okay – I'll admit it. The whole article was a setup so I could talk about Serious Sam. Just when every game was trying to be Half-Life, by adding storylines and characters and sophistication, Serious Sam went the other route and delivered crazy, mad shooting gameplay where you just had to shoot hundreds of things that would run at you (if you could stop laughing at their ridiculousness). It was astounding, breathtaking fun – and had no right to be. Dumb shooters were supposed to be dead. People wanted more depth. More cerebral gameplay. More moody atmosphere. Right? Apparently not, and thank God for that.

Then, there's the Party Crash mode in the Burnout games that has to be one of the silliest, laugh-out-loud game modes in recent history. There's something to be said for a bunch of increasingly drunken people passing a controller around and seeing who can cause the most carnage at a traffic junction. Burnout is probably the leading racing franchise in gaming today (eat dust, NFS), but Party Crash is easily the most frivolous and addictive diversion it offers. I've never seen it fail to liven up a party.

I've also always enjoyed the Mortal Kombat titles, despite the obvious superiority of the Soul Calibur, Street Fighter or Tekken series in terms of deep, sophisticated fighting mechanics. There's something stupidly fun about MK. And of course, there's that announcer, too. I'm in fact drawing great amounts of enjoyment from the latest iteration, Mortal Kombat versus DC Universe – much delight watching Batman, Superman and The Joker getting medieval on Liu Kang, Raiden and the MK gang.

There's something about the basic, direct fun factor of games like these that taps directly into the essential appeal of gaming itself – the original classics like Space Invaders, Pole Position, Defender and Pac-Man were astoundingly simple yet undeniably addictive. Something there to think about.

Hoog Lee comics on the KKR web site

The company I work at, A Bellyful of Dreams Entertainment, is creating some comics for the Kolkata Knight Riders web site. The comics are all based on Hoog Lee, the KKR mascot which was created by my colleagues Shashi Sudigala and Raj Golay.

The comics are essentially aimed at a younger audience (approximately 8 t0 12), as the KKR franchise is looking to create a strong brand equity with this age group, presumably to leverage SRK's popularity among them. But for that, I guess the team needs to, like,win a few games :)

The two strips I'm posting below are written by me and drawn by Ashish Padlekar. Click on a thumbnail to see the full strip.







We're also doing some single-panel stuff written by Ravi Abburi and drawn by Raj Golay. Am including a sample below, but you can head over to the KKR site for more.



Will keep you guys posted on more developments.