Summer time is a notoriously slow season for quality video game releases. There are some inevitable summer sleepers that risk the peril of skating below game of the year radar, but some gems garner enough attention to be memorable and wildly successful. It makes sense from a marketing standpoint. Game developers operate under the assumption that a majority of their customers still fall somewhere between the 12 to 18 year old range that still relies on their parents to buy games for them. With this sort of business model, the winter holiday season is the best time to market and release games.
As an adult gamer, I don't really care when a game comes out, but this particular practice does tend to make it more difficult to catch those hidden gems when they hit the market unless I'm really paying attention. Digital distributors like Steam have alleviated this issue somewhat by offering sales during off seasons, but I digress. This isn't a long winded rant about business strategy. I neither have the knowledge required to speculate the marketing practices of major video game publishers, nor do I have the desire to research and quote credible sources in order to form an argument on the subject. Instead, let's stick with what I do know.
There are two games that I'm really looking forward to this summer. They are total must haves for me, and the fact that they are wildly anticipated summer games is saying something about off season releases. It might be somewhat telling that the games I'm about to discuss are both survival based games, but in many ways they couldn't be more different. One is a story based game with an interesting focus on character development, splashed with some crafting and environmental puzzle solving. The other is an open world survival game with a strong influence on player agency and environmental awareness. Still haven't figured out what they may be? Wonder no more!
The Last of Us
There are very few development studios that I admire more than Naughty Dog Studios. Ever since they broke out onto the market with Crash Bandicoot, and the Jak and Daxter trilogy, I have been hooked on anything they put out. The Uncharted trilogy remains my favorite current generation franchise even though I thought the third installment fell a little flat, and it felt a little self important. Still, Naughty Dog is constantly setting the standard for developers who strive to build cinematic, story driven games.
Uncharted gave gamers a protagonist who could form meaningful relationships with other characters, and an even more meaningful relationship with the environment around him. Sure, the combat is rather basic given the window dressing, and some people complain that the gameplay itself does little to advance the standard of interactivity, but few can pull off a spectacle like Naughty Dog can.
So what is it about The Last of Us that warrants so much excitement? Well, it's a number of things really. After watching several of the available gameplay videos that have been circulating over the past year or more, TLOU shows incredible promise as a heavily story based companion game with a focus on strategic inventory management and adaptive combat. What this means is that Naughty Dog has maintained its focus on building compelling characters and dialogue interactions, but they are building a more complex combat system which should set this game apart from the Uncharted games.
Game footage shows the main characters searching through post apocalyptic city ruins for supplies, and fighting through more believable enemy scenarios than those found in previous Naughty Dog games. The developers have stated that TLOU is a survival adventure game first and a shooting game a distant second, so that in itself is pretty interesting from my viewpoint.
Another compelling aspect of this game is that combat really feels like something dangerous that should be avoided if possible. Enemy encounters hold a weight that most games fail to capture outside of titles like Dead Space and the original Resident Evil installments. Human enemies react dynamically to your actions, and encounters really seem to play out in a way that feels organic rather than scripted. There are infected humans who act much like zombies, but different infected types require different tactical approaches to be dispatched or avoided.
All in all, The Last of Us looks like a survival story with interesting survival based gameplay. It isn't your own story, but the character development should be strong enough that it will leave players wanting more. I do have some concerns over the game however. With any story driven game, my immediate concern I have is that there may only be so many ways that a given encounter can play out. With the Uncharted games, enemies would move around combat areas in a way that was challenging, but combat was predictable.
One minute, you would be prowling through a corridor area that is largely devoid of obstacles, and the next moment you are standing in a room with fallen stones and waist high walls that are perfect for cover. It's fair to say these areas are built as scripted combat arenas. Enemy spawn points were fairly obvious as well. What remains to be seen is whether or not enemy areas will be as identifiable in TLOU.
Furthermore, does the game take cues from other games like Dishonored in that many combat opportunities could be avoided all together in favor of a more stealthy approach? One of the game footage sequences showed the main character dispatching several bandit type enemies by using the environment and his inventory to his advantage, but could the encounter have been circumvented entirely if he had been stealthy enough to pull it off? Furthermore, if one of the bandits were left alive to escape, would that have consequences after the encounter? Would he and his comrades come for revenge?
Perhaps I'm putting too much emphasis on what could be possible with a game like this when the confirmed gameplay elements are exciting enough on their own. It's never good to set your expectations too high when they are bound to be unsatisfied with the final product. That being said, The Last of Us still looks like a pretty amazing game that releases on 6/13.
DayZ Standalone
The DayZ mod for Bohemia Interactive's Arma 2 game and expansions has been something of a phenomenon in the PC gaming world for the past two years. The mod started off as a shaky, unstable mess in which players were thrown into a barren, post apocalyptic world swarming with erratic, shambling zombies. There were no instructions, no missions, and no objectives. Your goal was only to survive. Danger came in the form of starvation, exposure, zombie attacks, and interference from other players who inhabited the world.
Then, the community embraced the game with such enthusiasm that it soon evolved into an Internet sensation. Mods of the mod surfaced as user support increased and different game modes emerged. Soon, you could find Dayz servers featuring different maps and weapons. There has always been a lot of love for DayZ, and it showed as sales for Arma 2 skyrocketed on Steam.
All of these things made the inevitable announcement that DayZ creator Dean "Rocket" Hall was building a standalone version of the beloved mod for PC and possibly for console systems in the future more intriguing. Hall promises that the standalone game will feature even more survival systems than the mod, and since it won't be encumbered by some of the limitations of Bohemia's own Arma 2 game, there is much more potential to what the developers can accomplish.
I've played my share of the original mod and its variants, and the only disappointing thing about them is that PVP, looting, and survival is about all you can do. Sure, it's fun to group up with a squad and raid NPC encampments in DayZ: Origins, but aside from that, what is there to do beyond that? At least Dean Hall has promised that there will be a great deal more lore and back story to the new DayZ universe, and that players will really be able to take ownership of the world in a way that hasn't been possible within the mod.
Furthermore, Hall has stated that there is a bigger push for realism in the standalone game in reference to having a number of visual cues that are typically found in shooters being removed entirely. For example, the standard HUD will be less invasive, or it may be removed completely meaning that there will be no more health or ammo counters to aid players in game. The developers seem to be aiming for more of a simulation effect in this regard.
The draw for me is that DayZ has the potential to be the kind of game that lets players write their own stories, and create their own missions. There isn't a scripted scene to be found anywhere that forces you to enjoy the game the way developers want you to. Also, there isn't any sort of finite quality to DayZ. The game has no ending, and if you die, you just start over again.
The full level of customization that this game will allow has yet to be seen, but it seems that the Alpha build will be available for purchase some time in June 2013. I for one can't wait to jump in. Dean Hall may have some lofty expectations for the game's final product, but then again it's nice to see a developer show such enthusiasm for a product.
Though past summer release seasons have proven to be barren wastelands of mediocre release titles, this June seems to be a fairly promising month. Things will naturally slow down quite a bit for current generation consoles with the Playstation 4 and Xbox One coming out this winter, but it's nice to see that at least the PS3 lineup is getting some love before its successor launches. Both of these games have generated so much buzz that it seems likely they will both sell well, and they are certainly must haves for me.
As always, stay frosty!
~Krimmit
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