But at the same time, I had this nagging feeling that this was nothing but a niche product. I could not see this underpowered, gimmicky console deliver the kind of experiences I wanted. I like my graphically intense FPS-es and stat-heavy RPGs. I want to see graphics get better and better, and play (admittedly badly) against others online. Wii obviously wasn’t for me.

I don’t need to tell you Wii is currently outselling every ‘hardcore’ console out there. Seems there are a lot of people who just want to play tennis and Mario, and don’t care about anything else.

That Nintendo’s machine apparently appeals to just about everybody and their Nan is the reason both Microsoft and Sony ordered their R&D departments to crank out their own motion controlers. And bless em for it. At the very least they are trying something ‘new’, even though they’re just ripping off someone else’s successful idea.

But I think they are kind of missing the point. Nintendendo Wii isn’t a traditional console. You might as well call it it’s own ‘genre’ of product: an activity machine with a rather limited selection of activities.  Most Wii games out there are variations of Wii Sports and Wii Fit. The few exceptions rarely sell well (except if Mario is in it).

So this makes me wonder why Sony and Microsoft want to turn their machines into something they clearly aren’t. It’s as if the manufacturer of traditional mobile phones releases an add-on touch screen to make their product behave like an iPhone.

I just don’t see how Joe and Jill Casual-Gamer are going to be interested in this kind of Frankenstein’s Monster. One of the reasons Wii is so appealing to them, is its simplicity. Now Sony and MS are trying to sell them a console they previously did not want for its threatening amount of features, by adding another feature.

I am not saying Joe and Jill are dumb, or won’t understand. I just think they won’t care. They can just play on their Wii and have a blast.

A couple of weeks before FFXIII arrived in my office, I remembered I still had Final Fantasy V in my DS. I had played about seven or eight hours of it before putting it away. Now seemed as a good moment as any to pick it up again. After booting it up, I  was immediately confronted with what I call ‘Final Fantasy Syndrome’. These old games do not have quest logs or markers or anything to tell you where you are supposed to go next. My party awoke in an Inn on Crescent Island without any clue of what they where supposed to do.

I spent a good 20 minutes roaming around the tiny island, speaking to its inhabitants, hoping to be pointed towards my next destination. I once again realized Final Fantasy worlds are inhabited by autistic villagers, stuck in their three square walk, spouting the same useless line over and over. Hopping on a Chocobo only compounded the problem. I was now free to fly anywhere, to any autistic villager on this huge world map.

Thank goodness for GameFaqs. By following one of the walkthroughs, I mentally retraced all my steps and found out where to go next. Turns out there was only one NPC in one specific location who progressed the story.

I called this ‘Final Fantasy Syndrome’ for a reason. All of the FF games before XIII have had this in one way or another. To be honest, I should just call it JRPG Syndrome. There are several PSOne JRPGs I have not finished because of this same exact problem: not remembering where to go next. In any case, this problem shows that what Final Fantasy games offer isn’t freedom. There is only one path to follow. This path, however, is so wide, that we can get lost on it, and mistake it for free roaming.

If we look at Final Fantasy XIII, the path is narrow. This means we don’t have to bother with GameFaqs to find our next destination. It’s somewhere ‘just ahead’. All the pointless wandering has been taken out of the equation, with emphasis now firmly on progressing the narrative and discovering the battle system.

Now, mind you, I am not saying all games should do away with exploration. I am just pointing out Final Fantasy games have never been about freedom. They have been about telling a story and experimenting with the many different battle systems.

Freedom is such a powerful concept. We want to be masters of our fate and be free to decide what we want to do at any given time. Real life rarely grants us this freedom. Perhaps this is why we as gamers are often looking for this in our pastime. But games can never offer true freedom, only the illusion of it. Some games succeed in hiding their fences better than others. And some others do away with the smoke and mirrors entirely.

After some slight confusion (“We thought you worked for Dutch TV?” “Nope, I write about games.”) and a very long wait, it is my turn to talk to Kitase and Toriyama. The two Japanese men seem relaxed and smile, but I’m sure they are at least a bit anxious about the fate of their latest creation. Reviews from Western outlets are trickling in, and I ask Kitase what he thinks about the sometimes unfavorable comparisons to more freeform RPGs like Dragon Age Origins.

Freedom

“Yes, Western RPGs are more about freedom. But Final Fantasy is a different sort of game. It is much more akin to watching a movie, where you appreciate the world and are immersed deeply in the story. You get to experience dramatic moments and big events. In that sense, the concept of FFXIII is much more like a first person shooter such as Call of Duty.”

This mention of one of the West’s most successful franchises isn’t accidental. This latest installment of one of Japan’s most recognized series seems to be built around pleasing the West. “We are very excited to see how gamers respond. We have created a completely original world. This was a huge challenge. Working for a HD system like the PS3 asks a lot of our designers. We had to model every object with so much detail, so you would believe these things where real and existed somewhere.”

HD

High quality graphics are very important to the creators. They see it as a way to please that huge and recently discovered group of ‘casual gamers’. “We hope they will be engaged by the graphics and the story. We realize this means some of our fans, who like the more traditional games, might be disappoined in some ways. But we hope they will take this journey with us. If we keep creating traditional games, we stand still, and we want to make steps forward.”

One of the most apparent changes is the battle system. Conflicts with assorted monsters are no longer resolved by issuing orders to all party members. Just one character is under your control, but the roles of your support staff can be changed on the fly from damage dealing to healing to magic and so on. “We showed a demonstration of our vision of battle at E3, three years ago. We wanted combat to be speedy, but also tactical. We told our battle director we wanted these elements to be combined. This is a difficult challenge because tactical and speedy seem to be a contradiction. They have worked for three years on coming up with what we have now. Our need for speediness resulted in the automatic behavior of the other party members. We shifted a lot of the tactics to the preparations before battle, where you assign roles to your characters. Team building has become much more important.”

Sequel

While building teams is now in the hands of the player, the responsibility of building the unique worlds of Pulse and Cocoon rested firmly on the shoulders of the Final Fantasy creators. Even after playing a mere five hours, it feels to me that there is much more to this universe than this story. It seems obvious to continue adventures on these two worlds in a direct sequel. So, will there be a Final Fantasy XIII-2? The men laugh and begin to answer very diplomatically: “That depends on how well the game sells in the West!” But after pressing a bit, Kitase concedes he would very much like to do a direct sequel. “In the past three years we worked both on the world and on the various systems. Creating these systems isn’t very glamourous and can frankly be a bit boring. If we could do a XIII-2, we could direct all our attention to the story and refine what we have already built.”

This is an advantage which will not exist for the team that might create Final fantasy XV (XIV is already announced as an MMO). Every numbered Final Fantasy game stands on its own, and is created starting with a blank slate. Still, elements carry over to become canon, like chocobo, crystals, and archetypcal spells. What elements of FFXIII would Kitase like to carry over into future Final Fantasies?

“We do not know if there will be a XV. This depends a lot on the success of XIII. Also, it is difficult to pinpoint elements that are typical Final Fantasy. They are mostly invisible: part of the DNA of the game, that everyone recognizes as typical Final Fantasy. But if there is a XV, I hope the way we wrote our characters carries over. We strived to create believable people of flesh and blood. They are not robots. And they are not super heroes. I hope this humanity is something we will see again.”

Ring Ring!

I’m in my home office. It’s a quarter past five. “Ring ring, your iPhone is ringing!” says my phone. I answer. It’s Adam Mersky, director of communications at Turbine. He introduces me to Aaron Campbell, live producer of LOTRO. It’s a bit bizarre to speak to these Americans from my study in a small town in the Netherlands. It’s the same study where I spent an almost embarrassingly large amount of time in the world of  LOTRO. This is why my inner fanboy is taking his seat next to my professional inner journalist.

“This update marks the beginning of Volume 3,” says Campbell. “Until now, new volumes started with expansions. We launched with Shadows of Angmar, which was volume 1. Volume 2 started with Mines of Moria. We now move away from this patern.” Obviously, my next question is when we can expect a new full expansion. After two sem-sly attempts from me to learn more, Mersky intervenes gently yet firmly. There will be no announcements today about upcoming expansions. “But is Riders of Rohan at least still slated for this year?” I ask. Both men laugh. “No comment.”

Elrond

Of course Campbell is more than happy to tell me about book 1 of volume 3, in which the heroes of Eriador now must rally the rangers behind king Aragorn. This time Elrond narrates the story, replacing Gandalf and Galadriel. LOTRO tells its story through its ‘epic quest line’. Each ‘book’ consists of a series of quests. Several of these are special instances, in which the player experiences the story through scripted events. “We want to make the story more personal for the player,” says Campbell. “NPCs will respond to your previous deeds or lack thereof. If you finished or skipped a book, they will react differently.” I tell them I feel little touches like that can be a huge improvement over the standard “Only you, [insert name], can save us!”

“We are working hard to make these ‘book quests’ attainable for all players.” With this, Campbell adresses one of my personal frustrations. It becomes more and more difficult to finish earlier, low level book quests without other players.

Inspiration

“We are gradually introducing ‘moments of inspiration’ for certain Volume 1 quests. This allows players to solo certain sections that previously required a group, by temporarily boosting their stats.” My hopes of now finally clearing a series of ‘epic’ instances in Moria, in which I must defend certain halls from invading forces, are crushes when Campbell tells me there currently are no inspired moments in the Dwarven kingdom. Yet. “But there are several solo paths through Moria,” he adds.  Just not the epic story.

Playing with yourself

The increased focus on solo play is a response to changing MMO players’ tastes. Fewer people are willing to play many hours in a row to achieve something. To maximize fun in shorter sessions, Turbine introduced Skirmishes with their Siege of Mirkwood expansion. Skirmishes are instanced battles in which players (solo or in groups of up to twelve heroes) fight off hordes of Sauron’s minions. “We created new Skirmishes for this update. The great thing is, they allow us to go back to older areas of the game and reuse them to tell new stories. In this book, we go back to Angmar. One of our new Skirmishes takes place in The Rift, which many of our players remember as the setting for the raid on the Balrog.”

Campbell once again confirms the team’s intent to use Skirmishes for PvP (“No, we can’t say when…”). Player versus Player combat is the most underdeveloped part of LOTRO. Apart from (necessary) improvement in balance, not much has changed in LOTRO’s single PvP zone Ettenmoors.

Enough already

Keeping classes balanced is a challenge, especially after raising the levelcap. I ask the developer if they are now done with constantly resetting experience points on Legendary Items. Their laughter tells me I sounded more frustrated than I intended. “For now we are done,” is the rather unsatisfying answer. My further attempts to break through the friendly PR wall, to get a glimps of what’s in LOTRO’s future are expertly blocked. “We just have to be very careful with what we say,” says Mersky. “Before you know it, people think we ‘promised’ a new feature that might not be feasible.” At least Turbine isn’t suffering from ‘Peter Molyneux syndrome’.

Campbell is then quick to point out that the new book update will bring much more to players. The Spring Festival will be expanded to include gardening (“No this is not confirmation that Gardening is the new hobby.”) and new recipes are added for high level crafters. But players have come to expect theses things from the game. Turbine raised the bar on what subscribers can expect from free updates. And the fact they are continuing to support the game in this manner shows how determined they are to keep their subscribers entertained.

*EDIT* Seems WebZen is starting their own servers which will continue Archlord in Western territories. Bought credits, however, will not transfer over.

This message went out today:

It is with much sadness that today we announce our intention to close the European and North American ArchLord game servers operated by Codemasters Online.

Our licence for ArchLord is due to expire shortly and unfortunately, after several weeks of negotiations with NHN, the Korean developers of the title, we have not been able to reach an agreement to renew the contract, therefore the service will be transitioning across to Webzen.

This means that Codemasters will no longer have the right to operate the service in the Western territories it currently provides service in and therefore we are obliged to shut down all associated game services before the licence expires.

The last full day of service will be 1st October, 2009. All ArchLord world servers will shut down on the morning of Friday 2nd October, UK time. Further details of how the transition of the service will be handled, will be provided closer to the time of the transition.

The purchase of credits is now no longer available to ensure all players have the opportunity to spend their remaining Chantra credits in game and use their remaining Chantra items. Likewise, the creation of new ArchLord game accounts/subscriptions is now disabled. For further information, please see our ArchLord Service Transition FAQ in the forums.

ArchLord was Codemasters Online’s first free to play MMO service and we have been very proud of its development and success during its three years of existence. Over that time the service has gone from strength to strength and has one of the most passionate communities we’ve ever seen.

We’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who supported ArchLord and those players that not only played it, but also raised an army and ruled the world in Chantra.

The Codemasters Online Team
www.codemasters.com

I guess most of you know Cryptic is the studio behind City of Heroes/Villains and the new Champions Online superhero games. These MMOs excel in customization options, and Star Trek Online will continue this trend. During the behind closed doors demo at Gamescom, we were shown a character generator that allowed an almost limitless creativity. It even allows the player to create his or her own alien race. This feature worried me at first. Not that I am a stickler for canon or anything, but it struck me as weird to have many people play a creature which is the only specimen of that race. It turns out, this does not have to be the case. I asked if it was possible to share designs with other players, and the answer was yes. This shines a whole new light on this feature. It makes it possible to start a guild (‘fleet’ in STO) made up of a new unique race, designed by the players.

Come fly with me
When the guys from Cryptic wanted to show how ships can be just as unique, a small glitch caused some hilarity. Rather than the expected ship model, a rather confused looking human materialized in outer space. A few button presses later, the correct model was flying on the big screen. Ships can be fitted with all kinds of parts, creating a unique and personal look. Ships cannot be every shape you want, though. Every class has its base configuration which will always be recognizable. There will be no mistaking a Galaxy class starship from, for example, a Constellation class. These craft can of course be taken into combat. Starship battles will be tactical and allow for huge epic fights. Imagine, for example, fleets of 25 ships working together to fight a Borg cube.

Up, up and away
The core of an MMO is of course team play, and STO has its own way of dealing with parties. Every standard away-team will be composed of five characters. If there aren’t enough players to fill out all spaces, NPCs will step in. Every player will have access to NPC officers, who are ‘pets’ with different strenghts and skills. As you move up through the ranks, you can have more and better officers in your ship, and therefore in your party.

To boldly go…
Damn, I was doing so well. But how else could I describe the exploration system? Cryptic designed what they call the ‘Genesis system’, which procedurally generates planets. The game designers use Genesis as the basis for in-game missions. But it will also be used to allow players to actually explore strange new worlds. By going into certain sectors, players can find stars and planets that have never been seen before. Not only that, it is possible to share coordinates with others, to show off your discoveries. I am very curious about how this will play out in the actual game, and if these player discovered planets feel like part of the universe, or ‘tacked on’. The idea is great in theory, anyway.

Star Trek Online certainly seems to have the correct ideas about what makes Star Trek great. It gives players a tall ship and a star to steer it by. It looks very well and the art style is dead on. I do hope the game will have many more sandbox-like elements, like the exploration system. For me, Star Trek was not about grinding for an epic phaser, but about the freedom to fly to the stars. So far, Cryptic seems to give us just that.

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Let’s not beat around the bush here. You can hardly call yourself a geek if you haven’t ever fantasized about jumping to light speed in the Millenium Falcon, or about staying on target while strafing the Death Star. So it’s not hard to understand the appeal of a game set in the Star Wars universe. Especially if it’s a persistent world where we can all live out our most geeky fantasies. The Old Republic, as you probably know, promises just that.

Thumbs up!
Bioware have a thing about choice. As they demonstrated in their single player RPGs, they consider the story that unfolds based on your actions to be very important. The demonstration at Gamescom began with the now famous trailer, where Sith and Jedi battle it out. Following that, we where shown a live played sequence where a Sith warrior decides whether to save or kill an Imperial captain. It must be noted that all of the events where displayed in real-time, looked awesome and where fully voiced.

By showing a thumbs up or thumbs down, the press in the audience was asked to decide the captain’s fate. To my surprise, most of us wanted to see him live. Unfortunately, it seems the Dark Side had overtaken the demo systems and the sequence crashed. This was doubly unfortunate for that poor captain, as the only playable ending was now his demise.

Yada yada yada
After this, it was time to move on to the behind closed doors portion of the demonstration, where I was finally allowed to take control of the same Sith warrior, and to play through the same sequence. This time, I chose to save the captain, and saw an entirely different set of events unfold. Everything was again perfectly voiced, and playing though the dialogue was a joy. The same system is in place as in Mass Effect, and it works great.

Fortunately, it wasn’t all about menus and dialogue. There was action as well. After the cut scenes, it was up to me to first cut through dozens of troopers. Using several attacks, I could string together combo’s. For example, there is a charge attack, which launches your character through the air towards a targeted enemy. You can follow this up with saber strikes, use an AOE to stun nearby enemies, or force choke your target.

More is better
Controls are very responsive, and even though there are the typical MMO cooldown timers on your actions, combat is extremely fluid and fast. After battling through the minions, I was finally confronted with the boss character: another Jedi. Killing him awarded me with his light saber, which allowed me to dual wield. This is just as cool as it sounds.

A Bioware guy asked me what I thought. My first reaction was: “This isn’t an MMO. This is a next gen Knights of the Old Republic”. The whole experience felt very much like a single player game. It is very hard to imagine how this all will feel when playing with others. Combat and story are so streamlined and so scripted, that I cannot yet see how the experience will be with a random PUG or even with some good friends.

No comment
Bioware wasn’t talking much about this yet, but confirmed parties of “approximately four or five people” where planned. Exact numbers where not given. Same goes for raiding, which was confirmed, but again no team sizes where specified.

I can say I walked away from this demo impressed. I have played dozens of MMOs and TOR seems to be unlike every one of them. If the quality of the rest of the game is like the demo, I might not even care if there are other players around to group with. This truly feels like a true KOTOR sequel.

I’ve always loved adventure games. Being a child of the eighties, I was raised on text based games like Zork, Adventure and the Level 9 series. Naturally, when graphical adventures popped up, I was all over them, and loved Space Quest, Monkey Island and (to a lesser extent) Day of the Tentacle.

So I was thrilled to discover that Point and Click adventures weren’t dead. They were hiding on the DS. The first Phoenix Wright game kind of passed me by without noticing it. But part two (‘Justice for All’) got it’s hooks into me. A wonderful blend of Anime, Absurdity and court room ‘drama’, combined with fun and sometimes difficult puzzles. I played Justice for All on and off for about a year, and finally finished it on holiday.

The third part of the series, Trials and Tribulations, has been winking at me for a while now. After playing through the first chapter I put it aside, mainly because I had not time to play games just for fun. There were reviews waiting to be written, and a hungry monster (the presses) to be fed. Now, during the post Killzone silence, I finally had time to dig back in.

As usually, attorney Phoenix Wright is faced with several crimes, and he has to prove his clients innocent. Gameplay-wise, there are two ‘modes’: investigation and trial. First you traverse the different scenes and hunt for clues with the stylus. You meet different characters and question them by selecting topics. You can confront them with evidence if you smell an inconsistency, and doing so forwards the story to the inevitable trial. Here you basically keep interrogating the suspects and try to prove inconsistencies with your previously gathered evidence.

The cool thing is that you never have to meddle with keys or solve environmental puzzles, but still have some great puzzles to solve that require you to actually follow the story and deduce logically.

It’s odd that a game that basically hinges on logical deduction has a script that must have been written under the influence of several illegal substances. Characters aren’t just over the top… They have gone beyond the top into an alternate universe of tops to go over. And is this a true representation of Japanese law? And are judges really blessed with the intelligent of a half-eaten fruitcake?

None of this matters. In fact, it enhances my enjoyment. It’s great to just turn off that nagging part of the brain that wants everything ‘realistic’. What’s left is a great read with nice puzzles, and a familiar cast of characters. It feels very much like an interactive comic book where story not only matters but is part of the gameplay.

So Phoenix Wright will be in my DS for a few weeks to come, and I am sure I will enjoy this series for a long time yet.

What are you currently playing? The latest greatest or just something you had almost forgotten about? Let me know your stories from the back of the shelf!