From LittleBigPlanet to Dreams: Media Molecule and the future of DIY gaming

Turn on your console today and you’ll find a rich library of games that put game-making into the player’s hands. Super Mario Maker 2 and Dragon Quest Builders 2 are just two recent critically acclaimed examples, while Minecraft is now the best-selling game of all time.

Of course, this has its history in the modding culture on PC and dates further back to computers like the Commodore 64 which, besides its own software library, allowed anyone to program their own games, giving birth to the bedroom coders of the 1980s.

But these coding options didn’t really exist for the games console, not least because these were considered more as entertainment for your living room TV rather than a workstation. This all changed with LittleBigPlanet on the PS3, its creators Media Molecule headed up by ex-members of Lionhead, a studio that embraced a culture of tinkering with technology and giving players agency.

Console creation

LittleBigPlanet brought build-your-own games to the mainstream, with the emphasis on sharing them.

“We believe that people like expressing themselves in lots of different ways, like gardening, sewing, or making music,” says Siobhan Reddy, Media Molecule co-founder and studio director. “The idea was to give players a home to build upon those experiences they had with the Commodore 64, Lego, dress-up - all of these things that we all collectively, individually loved, and bring that to a console experience.”

Back in 2006, pitching LittleBigPlanet as a platforming game where you could also create and share your own levels actually came at a good time, as it coincided with the rise of user-generated content-sharing platforms like MySpace, Flickr, and YouTube - though there were doubts along the way.

“The idea was to give players a home to build upon those experiences they had with the Commodore 64, Lego, dress-up - all of these things that we all collectively, individually loved, and bring that to a console experience.”

Siobhan Reddy - Media Molecule

“I think what became more challenging as time went by was people believing that we would be able to build a creative community,” says Reddy. The true test came with the game’s public beta a month before launch, which she recalls watching the results from their conference room screen. 

“We knew it would take about half an hour for someone to get through the first bit of the game that would unlock Create,” Reddy explains. “So the clock's ticking down and we're thinking, 'will someone publish something?' And then when we saw that first creation, we're like, okay, all right. And then it just followed and flowed.”

LittleBigPlanet allowed for an incredible breadth of player expression and customization in both its adorable mascot Sackboy and its levels, yet it was also within the constraints of a physics-based platformer. By the time the team had shipped LittleBigPlanet 2 in 2011, they were ready to break free of those constraints for something far more freeform and ambitious, which brings us to Dreams.

No dream too big or small

If you want to just paint, sculpt, or doodle about in Dreams, well, you can.

Currently available in early access on PS4, there’s no simple way to describe Dreams. Sure, you can use it to create your own games, while the final version will also include a fully playable campaign, but it’s really a rich smorgasbord of creation tools comparable to Photoshop, Blender, Garage Band, and YouTube, albeit in a playful form using either the DualShock 4 or PlayStation Move controllers.

And while the infinite possibilities can seem daunting for anyone with blank canvas syndrome, the beauty is that you can enjoy Dreams purely by noodling and tinkering with just one element. 

There may be people who still want to make their own solo projects, but whether you’re interested in creating beautiful environments or interesting character models, the creations become their own reward in the Dreamiverse, with one such favorite trend of Reddy’s being the abundant variety of animals that players are making.

"That’s the dream - that people would riff on each other’s ideas they share.”

Siobhan Reddy - Media Molecule

“I particularly love the pelican,” Reddy says. “And now someone’s made a couple of little games about the pelican, and I love that it’s gone on to have a little life of its own. That’s the dream - that people would riff on each other’s ideas they share.”

There’s also an abundance of support both from in-depth tutorials that cover the basics to masterclasses, as well as from regular community jams to encourage you into the various available pathways.

“You can come into it and just collage a game together, but what I’m also noticing is that people are dipping their toes a little bit more into logic or animation,” says Reddy. “It might be that you always stay on the collage, or it might be that actually you sort of incrementally learn different aspects of game development, or sculpture, or animation, or music. Wherever the mood takes you, we want to provide a pathway.”

Care in the community

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Dreams community really love making animals.

To an extent, Media Molecule has evolved from a traditional game developer to tool creators, as well as curators and moderators, fostering and facilitating a creative community.

There’s probably an advantage to shaping this community early on, in smaller numbers in early access, to prevent the trolling or toxicity that can plague other games. According to community manager Abbie Heppe, Dreams already benefits from having a positive community from the outset. After all, the most common words used among the community have been ‘love’ and ‘thanks’.

“I think as much as there's always been a hunger for people playing games, there's also been the fact that people like putting their own imprint on the games that they play."

Siobhan Reddy - Media Molecule

“I think part of that is driven by the fact that people are doing creative things, and they need to put themselves out there,” says Heppe. “You see that in professional congresses too. People need that sort of support, feedback, and encouragement from people around them. It makes people think about how they react and respond to others.”

Dreams is certainly the most ambitious sandbox for creating just about anything you can think of, but Reddy also modestly refers to it as just one of many other creative experiences, especially where today even traditional games are featuring creative modes of their own, whether it’s Overwatch, Fortnite or even Assassin’s Creed Odyssey.

“I think as much as there's always been a hunger for people playing games, there's also been the fact that people like putting their own imprint on the games that they play,” Reddy explains. ”I love the fact that this generation is growing up where it's completely normal to have creativity as part of their game experiences. 

"It's really awesome that we're a generation where that's really celebrated, because it’s obviously something that we love.”

Posted in Uncategorised

Playdate and the value of gaming hardware in the digitally streamlined age

As E3 2019 approaches, next-gen is on everyone’s minds, from the drip-feed of information on PS5’s specs to Xbox Project Scarlett. Then again, if things go Google’s way, dedicated hardware could be a thing of the past as we simply play the latest games from any screen hooked up to the internet via Stadia.

And then there’s Playdate. Arriving in 2020, this bright yellow indie-focused handheld console is as far away from ‘next-gen’ as you can imagine. Take a look at its 1-bit monochrome screen with fewer buttons than the original Game Boy, and you might even call it retro if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s also got a crank on the side that’s sure to create new gaming experiences - indeed it’s the only control input for the first announced game Crankin’s Time Travel Adventure by Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi.

It’s certainly not attempting to compete with the big boys, yet it’s also the most wonderful looking console we’ve seen for a long time, embracing its own quirks and constraints that serves as a reminder of what makes consoles special in the first place.

Outside of the box

Playdate’s games are designed to be short bursts of fun you can’t experience anywhere else (Image credit: Panic)

The problem is that consoles haven’t felt unique for ages. As each generation gets more powerful, they’ve become little more than gaming PCs. The PS4 and Xbox One are essentially black or white set-top boxes that inoffensively blend in with the other boxes under your TV - ‘sleek’ is just an excuse to sand down any quirky edges.

This applies to the controllers as well. The number of buttons, triggers and analog sticks have remained the same for PlayStation and Xbox, and it’s no surprise that Google’s own controller apes those designs.

It’s this kind of homogeneity that allows Google to adopt a tagline for its streaming platform Stadia: “the future of gaming is not a box”. Because other than the company logo, what really sets these boxes apart? If there no tangibly defining quality, then why would we care if they were to be swept aside with the cloud tomorrow?

Playdate is the refreshing answer to that, and one that nobody had been expecting, but then that was its raison d’etre from creator Panic. 

As taken from the company’s press release, “Nothing’s surprising anymore, and surprises are great! Panic saw an opportunity for something truly different in the world of videogames. Something small-scale that could deliver a dose of fun and delight to videogame players who have otherwise seen it all.”

Touch of retro

Sega Genesis Mini

Even though it’s not used, the Genesis Mini has a cartridge flap, because details matter (Image credit: Sega)

Of course, it might be unfair to compare a device that fits comfortably into your shirt pocket with powerful beefy home consoles but, even in the handheld space, Playdate breaks away from its contemporaries. Not only is its display monochrome and not backlit, there’s also no touchscreen. As Panic’s design partner Teenager Engineering puts it, “We want to break people of their touch psychosis”.

It’s actually for this reason that the crank was introduced to Playdate. It’s such a bizarre feature, and time will tell whether it’s just a gimmick, but it’s both this distinction along with the console’s deliberate constraints that reminds me of past consoles.

“We want to break people of their touch psychosis.”

Teenager Engineering

For while the industry is chasing next-gen and putting more numbers onto specs than the last generation had, retro hardware still delights us, as seen by the success in mini releases in recent years. It’s partly driven by nostalgia factor, but having these things literally in your hand again is a reminder of their unique designs. Just put a Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis side by side and nobody’s going to be confused which is which. 

Older gaming hardware was also defined by its constraints. Watch a PS4/Xbox One/PC video comparison and most people will barely notice the difference but in the 8-bit and 16-bit eras consoles had vastly different specs in their chipsets, so limited color palettes gave each system its distinct look, or you can identify a system purely based on its sound chip, whether it’s the SID chip of the Commodore 64 or the Genesis’s Yamaha synthesizer chip that gave its music more kick.

The controllers of course also offered different experiences in your hand. Even when Sega introduced a six-button controller to support the Genesis version of Street Fighter II, it wasn’t just a copy of the SNES controller.

They Nintendon’t make ’em like they used to

Could the 3DS’s true successor be Playdate all along? (Image credit: Nintendo)

We often look to Nintendo to innovate, from the three-pronged N64 controller to redefining how we interact with games with both the DS and the Wiimote. Yet the Nintendo Switch is in many ways sees the company going more with the flow than ever.

Sure, a system where you can have home-console quality experiences on the go has long been a dream. But conversely, we’re also playing the same old games (with ports flooding in every week, quite literally so). Its relative parity to current-gen hardware means designing a game with handheld in mind is a thing of the past.

Of course, there’s benefits to streamlining, especially for third party developers who can bring their games to all platforms without compromising on quality or wasting resources to tailor to another system’s specific features or limitations. But when a developer embraces a console’s quirks, we also get new experiences.

"If consoles are to ensure survival in the face of the cloud, they need more than a lot of bigger numbers."

While we’re still wondering if Rockstar will ever port GTA 5 to Switch, there’s a shame knowing there’ll never be something comparable to Chinatown Wars on the DS, a game hardly inferior to GTA 4 but rather a brilliant alternative suited to the platform it was made from the ground up for. As the Switch renders the 3DS obsolete, so too does it signal the end of dual screen gaming, perhaps the last true innovation we’ll see from Nintendo in the portable gaming space.

It’s why Playdate’s silly little crank and its season of bite-sized games made to only fit within its yellow square is refreshingly important. Contrary to what Google dismissively thinks of gaming’s past and present, consoles are not just boxes, they’re defined by their distinct personality while and their constraints come to give them their identity.

If consoles are to ensure survival in the face of the cloud, they need more than a lot of bigger numbers, they need to remind us what makes them different and a joy to hold in the first place. And what’s more different and joyful than a crank?

Posted in Uncategorised

Blood and Truth: how Sony’s London Studio is taking VR to the next level

Since its launch in 2016, PlayStation VR has seen the emergence of some terrific exclusive titles, from Astro Bot: Rescue Mission to Tetris Effect. However, PSVR has been missing a genuine blockbuster, a system seller on the scale of Uncharted that can also show off VR to its fullest. Who better to lead the charge than Sony’s own in-house London Studio and its ambitious PSVR title Blood and Truth, a London-set gangster thriller that’s all about transforming the player into an action hero.

The Soho-based studio is of a different pedigree to the developers of Sony’s Worldwide Studios, and not just because it has the privilege of being located next door to PlayStation’s head office. 

"Everyone had a lot of fresh thinking and and no preconceptions of what games needed to be."

Tara Saunders - Head of Studio Operation

When it was first formed as Team Soho back in 1993, the development team consisted of college graduates with next to no experience in the games industry. It was still mostly a junior team when Tara Saunders, now head of studio operations, first began her career there as a junior animator working on London-set GTA clone The Getaway for PlayStation 2. 

“Everyone had a lot of fresh thinking and and no preconceptions of what games needed to be,” Saunders tells TechRadar. 

Indeed, following The Getaway, London Studio has built a heritage of pioneering emergent technology, having a role in developing the hardware as well as the innovative games that drive it. These include the EyeToy, a webcam that essentially turned humans into the controller, Singstar, which seen the studio develop a unique pitch detection Fsystem to make karaoke a competitive party experience, and Wonderbook, which combined AR marker tech with the motion controls of the Move controller to literally create magic. In each case, there’s a strong technology thread that pulls this hardware together.

It's Morpheus time!

PSVR demo The London Heist serves as a spiritual predecessor to Blood and Truth (Image credit: SIE London Studio)

It was then a natural progression for London Studio to be involved in PlayStation’s VR plans from day one, developing the in-house LSSDK engine for VR rendering and creating a collection of demos later packaged into PSVR launch title: PlayStation VR Worlds. 

“VR felt like the right piece of tech for us to focus our skillset on,” says Saunders. “We’ve been working in camera-based gaming, working with 3D. Looking back at Wonderbook and what you can do with AR markers, what works with AR became what can we do with VR. With new tech, we build on each iteration to do something bigger and better with everything we’ve learned.”

In essence, Blood and Truth is a culmination of the studio’s work on a whole other level, taking bolder creative steps that other VR developers have shied away from so far. Instead of a mute disembodied avatar, you’re in the head of ex-SAS operative Ryan Marks, back home to help defend his family (and their not-so-legitimate business) from a criminal takeover.  

“We wanted a game grounded in reality rather than science fiction.”

Stuart Whyte - Game Director

While there’s been a nervousness to pursue photo-realism in VR, London Studio has doubled down on its photogrammetry tech to ground its characters and setting in realism, while character performances rely on eye contact to really involve you in the scene so that you’re not just an observer.

Another central problem of VR has been how to grapple with locomotion. Indeed, most developers opt to avoid movement altogether or have you traverse by teleporting. Speaking to Blood and Truth’s game director Stuart Whyte, this was an area the team looked to address very early on. 

“Teleportation wouldn’t work thematically,” Whyte tells us. “We wanted a game grounded in reality rather than science fiction.”

Instead, traversal is done almost on-rails with node-based navigation, so that you simply look to where you want to move.

All hands on deck

Blood and Truth takes in a mix London’s glamour and grit, from casinos to tower blocks (Image credit: SIE London Studio)

Without needing to wrestle with a convoluted control scheme, the emphasis is instead on what the player can do with their hands, which is a good deal more than just shooting people. The variety of what you can do with the Move controllers makes it a richer, more immersive VR experience but is also important for the pacing. 

“When you’re in a firefight in VR, the intensity is amazing compared to playing on a TV,” explains Whyte. “But conversely, you can’t stretch that out, so we break it up with other object interactions and story beats.”

Shooting is still a core part of what you’ll be doing in Blood and Truth, but even this comes with more satisfying physicality than just aiming and pulling the trigger. Firing an automatic weapon, you can hold it with both hands to steady your aim, reloading is done manually by inserting ammo cartridges into the weapon chamber, and you can also do some pretty bad-ass action hero things like dual-wielding or gunspinning (a trick that’s not limited to pistols). 

"When you’re in a firefight in VR, the intensity is amazing compared to playing on a TV."

Stuart Whyte - Game Director

There’s moments where your hands can make for tactile movement, such as for climbing up ladders, crawling along the floor, or in a tense moment of free-falling, reaching out to grab onto a ledge to pull yourself up just in the nick of time.

Even with the limitations of VR tech that’s really just tracking your head, the team makes use of calibrating the Move controllers to map out your body, so that you’ve got holsters to your sides for your pistols, larger weapons like rifles are kept on your back which you can reach over your head, while ammo is strapped to your chest. 

“There was a huge amount of work to get that right, because the console and camera is only tracing the player’s head - it’s got no concept of the rest of the body,” explains Whyte. “Trying to make that intuitive was tough but we put a lot of time into that.”

London calling

The game’s grounded in realism - well, action film realism, that is (Image credit: SIE London Studio)

Since the first awe-inspiring deep sea shark attack demo tantalized us with the potential of Playstation VR, London Studio has embraced the tech’s potential and its constraints to bring new possibilities in VR. While Blood and Truth may be the fruition of all the studio’s work so far (even some of the game’s panoramic views of London feature assets from The Getaway), but for Saunders, it’s just the beginning of the studio’s VR roadmap. “We like the fact that we’ve done a lot of smaller things, but going forward, we want to make big blockbusters with nice, long developed stories and believable characters,” she says.

As a studio with a rich history in using emergent tech to create new experiences, it also has another division quietly working away on new live-action technologies for use in creating interactive and cinematic games, though that’s all Saunders is prepared to say at this time. Otherwise, the core focus is on becoming the leading VR studio in the world, or in her words: “our ambition is to become the Naughty Dog of VR.”

PSVR is already performing better than the other VR headsets currently on the market, thanks to its comparatively affordable price and focus on games, though its four million install base is still a modest success compared to the 90+ million PS4s sold. Blood and Truth may be the big flagship title to truly take VR mass market.

Posted in Uncategorised

How the Sega Mega Drive lives on as a music player

If you’re a hardcore retro collector who’s clung onto their Sega Mega Drive (known as the Sega Genesis in North America), or upgraded to HD with Analogue’s premium Mega Sg, did you know there’s more you can be doing than just playing Sonic 3 and Knuckles? It may not look it, but your console can also function as a music player - and we don’t just mean selecting a game’s sound test menu.

‘Technoptimistic’ is an album by Remute, a techno music producer based in Hamburg, released on cartridge. That’s right, not CD or vinyl, but on a genuinely playable Mega Drive cartridge. It’s not the most likely medium you’d expect to put a music album on but as he tells TechRadar: “this is the album I’ve wanted to make since the beginning of my career.”

Videogames have a rich musical tradition, from its underground demoscene roots in the 1980s to its breakthrough into the pop charts with tracks like Doctor Spin’s Tetris in the 1990s, to the present day, where game soundtracks are increasingly being made available on Spotify. While primarily this relationship has seen musicians sampling game sounds in their work, Remute aims to take this further by using retro consoles to actually create these sounds.

Indeed, Remute’s career had begun in the early 00s with an EP titled ‘Hypnoconsole’, heavily influenced by videogames, but he laments that at this time he was only able to sample existing game sounds and effects, as with all the above. But with his new album, he has been able to create his own original sounds that specifically utilize the Mega Drive's Yamaha YM2612 synthesizer chip.

Tracker field music

Remute, techno producer based in Hamburg, who has released the first techno album on cartridge (Image credit: Remute)

Remute composed ‘Technoptimistic’ using the widely available music tracker software Deflemask, which faithfully emulates the Mega Drive sound chip (and a whole host of other classic sound chips, from the Commodore 64 to the NES). However, it wasn’t enough to just emulate the sound of the Mega Drive, he also wanted this music playable on a chip.

We might be used to seeing classic and contemporary game soundtracks getting a vinyl release but a cartridge album isn’t just a novelty recording. In fact, it’s not a recording at all. 

“‘Technoptimistic’ is just playing code that gets to music when you switch on the console - it’s all generated in real time,” Remute explains. “I thought I had to put it out on an actual cartridge because it wouldn’t feel natural on vinyl or digital, it would just be some other recorded album.” 

Yet ‘Technoptimistic’ doesn’t have claim to being the first Mega Drive cartridge album. Ahead of the curve in 2010 was Australia-based underground electronic music artist Nathan Stanley, better known as freezedream, who released a short album ‘Today’ for the Mega Drive. More recently, he also composed the music for Mega Drive platformer Tanglewood, released in 2018.

freezedream’s Mega Drive cartridge album released in 2010, long before many retro gaming revivals (Image credit: freezedream)

Growing up experimenting with tracker software on the Amiga, Stanley admits he doesn’t have a nostalgia for the Mega Drive like Remute or other musicians notably influenced by its sound. The chilled ambience of the tracks in ‘Today’ are in fact unlike what you might expect to have heard on the hardware. “I generally like more mellow electronic music,” Stanley tells us. “I’d probably say that instead of being influenced by the traditional sound of the Mega Drive or emulating videogame music, I was kind of thinking how could I do something different for this console.”

At the time, Deflemask also didn’t exist so ‘Today’ was actually made using a tracker called TFM Music Maker, which included an FM expansion module that just happened to be compatible with Mega Drive’s FM chip.

Cart life

Owing to limitations, freezedream split his 16-bit ROM into two 8-bit chips and soldered them together (Image credit: freezedream)

In either musician’s case, getting the music onto a proper cartridge was no mean feat. While there’s still plenty of pressing plants for vinyl, there’s no industrial method available to create music on game cartridges, so everything is handmade, from designing your own PCB (printed circuit board) to making your own cartridge cases. 

For the latter, Stanley did some old-fashioned recycling. “I just bought a bunch of old sports games in bulk and salvaged the shells,” he says. “It was a fair bit of work - it’s why I didn’t produce too many copies of the album.”

The limited run naturally means that ‘Today’ is now only available on Bandcamp as a digital stream or download. As for anyone who does buy ‘Technoptimistic’, a free digital code is also included with the cartridge, should you not have a 30-year old console on hand. Nonetheless, Remute still insists that cartridge is the optimal way of experiencing his album.

“I had some fans who bought my cartridge who said they didn’t have a Mega Drive to play it, so they had to track it down,” he says. “This was really fun for them going through eBay or flea markets. Making people do something in order to listen to the music feels very adventurous and exciting, and entertainment is made for excitement and adventures.”

Having also put out music on floppy disk in the past, Remute knows a thing or two about embracing physical technology to its limits. Given how distinct the sound chips of the early computers and consoles were, it wouldn’t be a stretch to consider them as musical instruments in their own right.

Give physical life back to music

Welcome to the next level (Image credit: Sega)

Even as digital has become the default way of consuming music, there’s nonetheless been a resurgence in vinyl - even the cassette is apparently making a comeback. Granted, game cartridges were never intended as a format for listening to albums, but following the unveiling of Google Stadia and the technological march towards the cloud, even novelties like this highlight the continuing importance of physical media.

“I think the comeback of physical media shows the desire of people to collect, to have an emotional bond with something, because you can’t have an emotional bond with Spotify,” Remute says. “It’s getting too convenient, too impersonal, music just becomes something unimportant. Having physical media puts the music back to life”

Unsurprisingly, Remute has also bought himself a Mega Sg, which the cartridge also runs on, though he has also made use of it as a means of performing his chip music live. Otherwise, the recommendation is to play the cartridge with a Mega Drive model 1, known for having a superior sound to the later model, as well as a headphone jack.

Cartridge albums might be a little too niche to become the next vinyl among music collectors but who knows, perhaps the next major retro indie game will release its soundtrack on a cartridge - after all, the 16-bit sections of time-travelling ninja platformer The Messenger also had its score composed on Deflemask. With the celebration of the Mega Drive’s 30th anniversary just past and Sega’s in-house Mega Drive Mini due in September, it’s certainly the time for it.

Posted in Uncategorised

Tetris 99 and the best free Nintendo Switch games

With over 1,000 games on the Nintendo Switch, there can be a daunting amount of titles to choose from - and often more than your poor wallet can handle. So where better to start than with some free games.

But, with just over 25 games that are actually free to play on the Switch, there’s considerably less garbage to sift through compared to say the smartphone market. Indeed, many either have pretty pristine production values or won't insidiously ask you to cough up cash every other minute, and we daresay a few stand out as some of the best games on the system, period. Who says the best things in life aren’t free?

From battle royales to MOBAs to a surprise RPG, we’ve rounded up a list of the best free Nintendo Switch games you can play right now.

Fortnite

Fortnite

Image credit: Epic Games

The biggest gaming phenomenon in the world, Fortnite needs no introduction. This battle royale sees 100 players dropping onto an island where you'll to fight to the death alone, in pairs, groups or in an epic 50 vs 50. 

Its vibrant, wacky personality makes it a great fit for Switch, while all the hidden challenges and building mechanics make it more than just a game about running around killing people.

While forking out for a Battle Pass nets you the coolest cosmetics and silly dances,  each new season of free content is constantly reshaping the island and bringing fresh surprises. Even better, its new Creative mode is also free.

Warframe

Warframe

Image credit: Digital Extremes

A super-fast and slick PvE game whether you’re playing solo or with friends, Warframe is one of those Switch ports that looked almost impossible. Indeed, the port was handled by Panic Button, the studio behind the miraculous ports of Doom, Wolfenstein 2 and Rocket League for Nintendo’s hybrid.

There may be some visual downgrades from its PC counterpart, but its locked 30fps frame rate still ensures your titular space ninjas are swift in combat whether you’re using melee weapons or guns (motion controls are also supported for aiming). 

Most importantly you’re getting all the content and updates that this game has seen on all other platforms in the six years it’s existed.

Arena of Valor

Image credit: Timi Studio Group

Arena of Valor is an arcadey take on the MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) genre, but also an example of how a game originally made for mobile can shine on Switch, with huge visual improvements and controls intuitively mapped to sticks and buttons.

You can play from 1v1 to the full traditional 5v5 battles that include the MOBA staple of fighting your way through a three-lane map in an effort to get past the opposing team’s towers and destroy their core.

However, unlike other free-to-play MOBAs like DOTA2, you only get to play with a limited number of free heroes on weekly rotation, so if you want to experiment with all the available classes and unique abilities, you’re either going to have to play a lot or pay real money to unlock them.

Paladins

Paladins

Image credit: Hi-Rez Studios

Despite initially launching on Switch with the paid Founder’s Pack, the free version of Paladins is just as worth looking into. The next best thing to Overwatch, it’s a hero shooter you can play in first or third-person, supporting motion controls, and unlike Fortnite or Warframe, it actually runs at a smooth 60fps.

It’ll take a lot of play time to unlock all 40 playable champions, though it’s at least good to know that everything can be accessed eventually just by playing the game. But even if you’re just dropping in to casually play matches, you’ll still get a chance to experiment with the roster as its champions are also available on a free weekly rotation.

Pokémon Quest

Image credit: Game Freak

Your favorite Pokémon get the Minecraft treatment in this relaxing game where you explore an island befriending cuboid versions of the adorable critters. For some, it might be too relaxing, especially as you can opt to just have the game running in auto-play during the very simplistic battles.

Since arriving on Switch last year, its appeal may have waned in light of the Let’s Go games. Nonetheless, it’s still an enjoyable distraction that’s surprisingly generous with its freemium systems, while the island is made of 12 different areas that can keep you exploring for some time. It just might be better to enjoy in the background while you’re catching up on Netflix. 

Brawlhalla

Image credit: Blue Mammoth Games

Yes, Brawlhalla may be an unabashed Smash clone, but it’s also one that you can play for free, and the only entry in this list that you can gather some mates around to play together. As a platform fighter, the principles of damaging your opponents until they’re weak enough to be knocked off the stage remain intact, as is the simple and accessible control scheme.

For a clone, Brawlhalla has its own personality thanks its vibrant Saturday morning cartoon art style. And if it kind of reminds you of Rayman, then you’ll be pleased to know you can actually play as Rayman too! While you can either grind or pay up to unlock its 40+ character roster, Brawlhalla generously provides eight free characters on rotation.

Galak-Z: Variant S

Image credit: 17-Bit

An anime-inspired sci-fi shooter that began life on PS4 and PC, Galak-Z: Variant S is both a sequel and an overhaul of the original’s roguelike mechanics, adapted instead into a freemium experience.

Piloting both a mech and a fighter jet, you’re on the search for rare upgrades while taking on genuinely tough enemies and hazardous environments. The freemium system means you can expect timers for just about everything from decrypting relics to repairing your ship when you lose all your health unless you fast-track them with some premium currency. But if you can patiently play it in short bursts, there’s a lot Galak-Z has to offer.

Deltarune: Chapter 1

Image credit: Toby Fox

From Undertale creator Toby Fox comes the mysterious Deltarune. Technically, it’s only the first chapter and is being released as a free work-in-progress demo, while future episodes will cost money. We’re going to make an exception with this 'demo' because a) these episodes could be years from happening, and b) this is a pretty meaty first taste, lasting as long as some of the best indie games out there.

While it’ll naturally benefit players who have already played and finished Undertale,  on its own it’s still a fascinating and charming old-school turn-based RPG. Like its predecessor, it employs an innovative twist to its battle system, which is party-based this time round.

Tetris 99

Image credit: Nintendo

OK, so Tetris 99 is only available to paying members of the Switch Online Service. But you know what, we’re going to make another exception because it’s just brilliant!

Tetris, but battle royale, might sound like an early April Fools joke, however, the classic drop puzzler works absolute wonders when played against 98 other players. Your rivals will appear in miniaturized forms around your screen in real-time, as you frantically drop blocks and clear as many lines as you can to send garbage blocks to your opponents, all while the game speed and a remixed Tetris theme get faster.

Tetris 99 is a beautiful subversion of what a battle royale and a Tetris game can be, and for those hooked to crack the final 10 and win, get ready to learn about back-to-backs, T-spins and tumble down a rabbit hole of competitive Tetris pro strats.

Posted in Uncategorised

Ready Player Two: are video games and dating a good match?

Online dating may have long shed its stigma, and practically everyone you know has probably swiped potential dates on Tinder. However, online dating can still be a cesspit of crushing anxiety, as you try to make yourself as Instagram-presentable as your recent photo library will allow. And that’s before you even have to deal with rejection, indifference, or fending off unwanted creeps who won’t stop messaging you.

You might think cutting through the hoops and meeting people IRL might be better, but these are also a mixed bag. I mean, would you normally hang out in this pretentious wine bar? Is a stranger on the Internet really worse than talking to a stranger you probably have nothing in common with? During these multiple forced meet-cutes, you’re not really sure whether to make idle small talk or ask the ‘big questions’.

Suffice to say, I have a lot of scepticism with dating, and am about ready to quietly accept dying alone. Nonetheless, when a new dating event comes along that lets you go and play video games, it means I have at least one reason to check it out.

‘Ready Player Two’ comes from organisers Joypad Bar – London-based retro gaming party specialists with a track record for putting on events like club nights in trendy Hackney warehouses, trashy film screenings or burlesque shows, all of which also happen to let you play video games. To that end, their latest venture is essentially speed-dating, where you also happen to play video games with each other.

Pass the controller

Ready Player Two

Ready, set, date. Image Credit: Alan Wen

Ready Player Two works much like any other speed-dating event. In a basement bar located just off King’s Cross Station, you’ve got about a dozen men and a dozen women getting to know each other for five minutes at a time. But instead of facing each other awkwardly, you’re both actually facing a CRT monitor, controller in hand, playing through games of yesteryear on a good old-fashioned Mega Drive, SNES, N64 or Gamecube consoles – none of that emulation malarkey.

If nostalgia is a romanticised view of the past, doesn’t that make retro video games romantic by association? Aside from the fact you have to sit together to play old games, Joypad director George Swain highlights the technical merits of retro games for speed dating. “You can just pick them up and play them straight away,” he says. “You can start a race in Mario Kart on the N64 in 8 button presses. On the Switch, it’s something like 28 button presses. It’s just practically better.”

The event does however take a rather traditionalist structure, where the women stayed seated while the men move around at the sound of a ringing bell. It’s a slight imbalance, given that the men get to sample a whole range of retro gaming while the women are stuck with one the whole evening almost like a booth attendant - the upside is they have chosen their game in advance (they can also opt to swap the cartridge or disc if they get bored).

Love Kart

MARIO KART 64

Roses are red, shells are blue...

Mario Kart was a popular choice for the night’s gamer-daters, as was Smash Bros – and there was something charming about getting to play different iterations of these games in one evening (Nintendo consoles were certainly in the majority too). But it was also a chance to replay some obscurities like Duck Hunt (light guns, remember those?) or unusual ports like the hideous Atari 2600 version of Donkey Kong.

Rather than going through the tedium of asking what someone’s into, it felt refreshing having one date nerding out over Star Wars: Rogue Leader on the Gamecube, or another making their choice of Street Fighter III: Third Strike a fun talking point.

Not that anyone’s keeping a tab of gamer credentials. “I’ve always had a slight distaste for the term ‘gamer’,” says Swain. “It doesn’t really have an equivalent in any other media, and I don’t think it has a place anymore in the sphere of people who enjoy video games.”

Indeed, the dates I spoke to all had different relations to games, from those who haven’t picked up a controller since their school days to a few who still actively play the latest releases, while one single parent mentions how her kid ropes her in for the odd session of Fortnite. 

Regardless of experience, an interest in retro games simply puts everyone on an equal footing. “It gives you a talking point,” says Swain. “It’s not really interesting to talk to someone and go, ‘Oh, I got this on at the minute,’ or ‘I was playing this last week’. But say, ‘Oh, I remember when this came out’, and you can talk about that time of your life, maybe you went to similar places or did similar things – it’s a way to just connect in a broader way.”

Two's companies

Ready Player Two

Image Credit: Alan Wen

Activity-based dating events aren’t exactly a novelty. Dating company Smudged Lipstick, who Joypad has collaborated with for ‘Ready Player Two’, actually puts on many different types of events every month, from Jenga to life-drawing classes to escape room events. Basically, they’re interested in more than “just sitting across someone in a speed-dating scenario,” says founder Jordi Sinclair. “We do all kinds of weird stuff that’s going to challenge people to get out of their comfort zone.”

It’s a bit ironic that a company with an ethos on getting people away from staring at screens and improving communication and body language would get involved in an event where guests are basically staring at screens most of the time. But ‘Ready Player Two’ turns out to be a good match for both organisers: it really is about having fun first, meeting someone second.

“We’re not going to tell you you’re going to meet ‘the one’, or ‘love is just around the corner’,” says Sinclair. “We’re just letting people relax and not feel like it’s a dating event. You just walk in, play a game, have a laugh, and just organically get to know each other.”

Even if it turns out trying to beat someone at Mario Kart or Street Fighter and having a conversation at the same time is trickier than it sounds, the point was it didn’t really matter. There wasn’t any particular pressure to put a tick against someone’s name at the end of the night, so long as you had fun.

“Dating’s always going to be dating. We just do what we can to make it easier,” says Swain. “The worst thing you can say about this event is you came and spent a couple hours playing video games with people. You’re not going to have a bad time doing that.”

Posted in Uncategorised

5 things that made Resident Evil 2 so frighteningly great

It’s 2019 and there’s hordes of new games to look forward to, so it comes as a surprise that the one we're most excited for is a remake of a game over two decades old. But Resident Evil 2 is far more than just a super pretty makeover of the 1998 classic - like we’ve had with Shadow of the Colossus or Spyro. It’s essentially a new team of developers remaking the game from the ‘ground up’ with the all-new RE engine and a perspective shift from fixed cameras to behind-the-shoulder. Resident Evil 2, made anew.

This is also about capturing the spirit of the original for a new audience with higher expectations for the medium in the intervening decades. So not only is the remake dialling up the horror with more terrifying realism and claustrophobic lighting (or lack of it), it’s also drastically improving the script and performances.

Fans have been hungering for this remake for years, but just what is it about Resident Evil 2 that has infected us for all these years? Even if the low polygons and camp voice-acting of the PS1 version don’t pass the test of time, what at its core still makes it more vitally important than even the original Resident Evil, and so worthy of revisiting as a new big-budget release?

Global outbreak

After all, we should credit the 1996 title for giving birth to ‘survival horror’, and revitalizing zombies, before they would take over every other medium. But while the first Resident Evil was hugely acclaimed and one of the best-selling Playstation games, it was Resident Evil 2 that blew it wide open into the global mainstream.

At the time, it was listed in the Guinness World Records for “surpassing the revenue of all but one Hollywood movie for the same weekend” for its launch, while breaking the records of the biggest games at the time, including Final Fantasy VII and Super Mario 64.

Mirroring that was the game itself. This wasn’t a sequel content with re-treading the original beats. Instead, if took it to a grander cinematic scale (goodbye to those cheap live-action sequences). So instead of our survivors cooped up in an isolated mansion, the zombie outbreak has spilled out onto the streets of Racoon City.

The city would only be the beginning. The vision for the series would become even bigger, Resident Evil 2 laying the groundwork for building the lore into more than just about surviving a zombie outbreak but a metaseries where multiple self-contained stories could be told. Resident Evil 2 wasn’t just a blockbuster-selling game  – it launched multiple blockbuster films, comics, and other spin-offs.

Iconic characters

Of course, what makes some games so memorable are their characters. And while you’d think terrible voice-acting or obvious gendered color-coding might be a detractor, it’s a testament how iconic Leon S Kennedy and Claire Redfield remain in our eyes.

Whereas the first game’s Chris Redfield was something of a typical dull masculine protagonist, Leon’s a fresh-faced rookie police officer on his first day on the job, with a hair style almost certainly modelled after Hollywood heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio (the similarity of their first names is surely no coincidence). 

The heroic leads, as seen in the new remake.

Meanwhile, Claire Redfield makes quite the entrance on her motorcycle, and while she might not have the same specialist background as her S.T.A.R.S. agent brother, she quickly surpasses master of unlocking Jill as one of the series’ most kick-ass female characters.

It’s not just the heroes that shine either. Hinted at in a few messages in the first game, Resident Evil 2 is also where we’re introduced to Ada Wong. Whether she stands out as one of the first notable Asian characters in 3D gaming or because of her not entirely appropriate femme fatale wardrobe, there’s no denying that this double-agent is one of gaming’s most iconic antiheroes.

Unforgettable nightmares

Then there’s the zombies themselves. While they were still the slow shuffling sort, before 20 Days Later gave them a literal boost a few years later, the emphasis of a citywide outbreak gave them a more frightening dynamic, whether you’d be cornered by a horde of them (or as many as the PS1’s power could allow) or find their arms reaching through the boarded-up windows to grab you.

But it’s also about more than just zombies. The Umbrella Corporation was always brewing more monstrous creations, and Resident Evil 2 had them in spades, from the terrifying fleshy crawly Lickers, whose eponymous tongues could lick your head clean off, to the ridiculously gigantic alligator lurking in the sewers.

The worst of them however was the Tyrant Mr. X, a seemingly unstoppable force who didn’t just soak up bullets and deal a lot of damage, but also had a knack of showing up unexpectedly, crashing through walls to scare the absolute bejesus out of you. This aspect of being pursued by an indestructible monster in fact forms the basis of the sequel Resident Evil 3: Nemesis.

Different paths

While the first game gave you two playable protagonists, it often felt like two parallel stories rather than two halves of the whole. Resident Evil 2 follows this approach to an extent but then adds its own ingenious twist, unlocking a ‘B’ scenario once one character’s ‘A’ scenario has been completed, basically giving you four campaigns in total.

It essentially gives you the other character’s side of the story, while a ‘zapping’ feature meant that certain choices from your character in the ‘A’ scenario would carry over to the ‘B’ scenario, like an unlocked safe or certain enemies not respawning if killed earlier.

And that wasn’t all. You could also unlock a minigame called ‘The 4th Survivor’ where you play as an Umbrella operative codenamed HUNK trying to escape Racoon City with just the items you have. Even more hilarious is a minigame that lets you play this as a block of tofu armed with just a knife - and it’s great that both are back in the remake.

Next-gen talent

Perhaps more importantly, Resident Evil 2 wasn’t just a great game, it also made a name for Hideki Kamiya. Having previously worked on the first Resident Evil as System Planner, he graduated to directing the sequel, but not without butting heads with the series creator Shinji Mikami.

To his credit, Mikami backed off from his baby, giving the young upstart the freedom and flair to make Resident Evil 2 bigger and more ostentatious in Capcom’s bid to make it the bestseller and multimedia franchise it would go on to become. Kamiya’s ideas and reputation would only get bigger and bolder, with a fantastical and action-packed take on Resident Evil eventually becoming the all-new demon-slaying Devil May Cry, while he would go on to co-found studio PlatinumGames and create the even more ridiculously bad-ass Bayonetta.

It’s been well over a decade since Kamiya has been with Capcom, which these days doesn’t have a big personality as the face of one of its brands (apart from perhaps Street Fighter producer Yoshinori Ono). But given how faithfully and successfully the remake has captured the original’s spirit of horror from the original, sure to ignite a new generation of Resident Evil fans, greatness surely beckons for the series’ new custodians.

Posted in Uncategorised