Before your sick mind get the better of you, I am definitely not referring to certain body part. Instead, I am referring to the game length and the number of hours one spend on the game. It’s a common justification on the forums that true gamers are those who spend hundreds, if not thousands of hours to profess one’s dedication to the game. That I do not agree. As a game collector, I play games to experience new things and to see new ideas. I also place values on games according to these refreshing elements, instead of the more tangible justification like game prices and number of hours of gameplay. Reason why I was never adverse to short games, like Samorost which I’d finish in less than half an hour.

Yet, I somehow felt a bit short-changed by Alien Hallway. The game is extremely short, so much so that I felt that it was not worth the already low price-tag.

The Game
From the developers of hair-ripping shooter games Alien Shooter, Sigma Team company abandoned their formula of top-view shooter game in favour of a side-view action-strategy shooter, much like the style of Sonic the Hedgehog with guns.

Appealing to the adrenaline junkie, Alien Hallway has you defending a hallway from the never-ending stream of alien horde with the sole purpose of invading your base.

In the single-player campaign mode (which is the only mode available in the game), there are in all twenty-one levels across three three planets. The objective for each level remain the same from the firs to the twenty-first stage, where you take control of an army (from the left of the screen) to sally-forth to the right and take down the alien’s base and the ceaseless spawns of aliens. The levels are pretty short (usually spanning from five to no more than ten minutes per level) and lacking in design variability. The hallway from each level remain as simple linear container with no proper fog of war and contain no environmental factor to enable player to employ new game style.

Fortunately, as you progress through the campaign, new units are slowly unlocked upon reaching specific stage. Yet disappointingly, the units really only differ to the range and power of their attack and their hit points. When held up at the crossfire, the units will stop at their maximum effective range. While that could be a key component in having some tactical value in the game, it is mostly pointless, as there are no actual tactical difference between one unit and another with each weapon affecting all aliens equally well.

The completion of each stage will provide you with a fixed amount of gold. Together with the bonus amount earned (dependent on your performance), the gold could then be used to upgrade the unit that will make your troops more powerful (increase hit points, damage, additional thrown explosives) or upgrade in skills that would give you an added edge such as increasing gold income, decrease the cool down time and upgrading your base defense. Each upgrade have 10 levels. Without any high score list or other game modes available, tthe 10 levels of upgrade is probably the only feature in the game to justify any kind of replay value in the game.

Not that one would really want to lengthen the horrifying experience with the gameplay (or lackthereof anyway). While the mission is clear for each level, your interaction with your troops is very limited. They move and attack automatically after spawning them, so all you need to do is occasionally click on their grenade icon and place an air strike every thirty seconds or so. And for a game that unashamedly copy the the gameplay element of Swords and Soldiers, it pales in comparison with just one intervening power (air-strike). Swords and Soldiers, which cost the same, has a much longer gameplay, more colourful units, a tech-tree with a score of abilities ranging from striking to healing and much more variability than Alien Hallway.

Get this game instead!

In conclusion, Alien Hallway is one of the worse game I’d played in recent memory. There are some interesting moments in the game, but ultimately you are left with a lot of regrets for even spending the money on the game. If you have $10 to spare, go for Swords and Soldiers instead.

Most games are set on the basis of this perfect world, where the language is scripted in a way that certain chains of decisions will always give rise to a desired outcome. Experienced or l33t games are simply those who immerse themselves long enough in this environment of constant logic to entrain themselves to the same chain of thoughts to emulate the same desired outcome again and again.

The fact is no matter how realistic a game is, due to the logic in which the language is based on, it fails greatly in emulating the chaotic nature of the real world and remain as a trainable program.

Developers did pick on this fact early on and constantly work to increase the complexity of this logic, be it through introducing random generator within the language to make decision-outcome equation less predictable, or disguise the logic by putting in more and more decision elements. Yet, most games still fall short of delivering this real-world complexity.

A# (read as A-Sharp) LLC, a Seattle based small developer, managed to came out with one of the most real-world like logic with their 1999 game called King of Dragon Pass (KoDP). Not a commercial success in any sense of the word, KoDP is a cult-hit with a small fan-base due to its oddity in more sense than one. KoDP contain no sprites, no animation whatsoever and no speech. Instead, people and events are depicted within the game with lavish hand-drawn artwork. KoDP is also impossible to circumscribe into any genre as it contains elements of strategy, construction, management, simulation and role-playing.

What is there not to like about beautiful hand-drawn graphics?

Putting you in charge of a clan in the fantasy world of Glorantha (based on the same world in the pen-and-paper role-playing game – RuneQuest), KoDP is primarily a turn-based strategy game, with screen after screen of mind-numbing stats to wade through as you decide how much of your land to assign for crops and grazing, how many farmers, warriors and craftsmen you want in your village, and which gods to sacrifice to. Other than land management, you can also explore distant lands to discover new tribes and treasures, raid or trade or perform other diplomatic functions with other clans.

Upcoming iOS version of KoDP has the same ridiculous amount of choices

Undoubtedly, the sheer number of options on offer and the depth of the gameplay is also daunting. Even starting a new game results in a lengthy multiple choice quiz which lays down the history of your clan and sets up the starting and victory conditions accordingly. Choosing to simplify the game elements through the simple choice-making system, A# allows players to be fully engaged in the decision making process, fully enjoying and thinking about the choices that would be the most befitting for the clan.

Random interlude events are also fanciful and could thwart you from your directions for the clan. Your warriors might complain about the way they are treated and need to be dealt with, curses must be lifted and spirits appeased, friends and allies will ask for aid, mysterious items and races are discovered and decisions must be made to enslaved or treat them as equal, and strangers will come to your court requesting sanctuary. Each problem comes with a wide range of possible solutions, and depending on which course of action you choose the effects on your clan’s morale, health, reputation and relations with other settlements can be drastic.

Hero’s quest – where your clan member can actually die with a failed quest

With each decision ranging from logical, to emotionally driven and indifference, the game capture the spirit of the real-world decision making. That added with the invisible time-span for the decision-consequence equation, this game managed to achieve what most games fail greatly at, i.e. real-world-like decision making mechanism.

The gameplay is complex and slow paced, requiring a lot of time and effort to get anywhere. But if you have the necessary patience there is a strangely addictive turn-based strategy game hiding in there, with a dose of adventure and role-playing elements for good measure. The range of options on offer is positively bewildering, giving almost limitless replay value.

King of Dragon Pass can be bought from the developer’s online store and a 67Mb demo version is available to download which will you give you one year (five turns) to get a taste of what’s in store.

Giggling like a little girl while I peeled open the package, I was grinning cheek to cheek when I saw the cover. The words “Hardcoregaming101.net presents The Guide to Classic Graphic Adventures” dully sit on the top of the cover, while the middle of the cover was an image of lots of exciting items and subjects. Items like the Max plushie sitting on top on a VGA CRT monitor showing a King’s Quest screen and sitting on the table that is shared by a photo frame with the purple tentacle (from Day of the Tentacles), a rubber chicken with pulley in the iddle and two of games on either side, with the spine showing titles like Death Gate, Shannara, Blade Runner, Sanitarium, Leisure Suit Larry, Secret of Monkey Island. Games that instantly brought back memories, bringing a tear in my eye.

As I flip through the book, I couldn’t help but be impressed by the effort in putting together more than 300 reviews, including the more famous Sierra-On-Line’s Gabriel Knight Adventures, LucasArts’ Grim Fandango, to the little known Microprose’s Bloodnet, Take 2′s Bureau 13 and Softedge’s Cosmology of Kyoto: A Visual Mindscape of Old Japan.

Even though I didn’t agree on the judgement make by the reviewers on some games I held dearly, such as Legend’s Death Gate and Superhero League of Hoboken, I can’t help but think that this is one of the most valuable tools an classic adventure gamer (such as myself) can hope to obtain in a nostalgic quest through the golden age of the genre. The book is a gold mine full of famous treasures and little-known gems, and I’m already making a list of the games I’d played and those I have not. Treating it like a companion of the games I must try before I die, I am already on the process of checking down the games I’d yet to play. Can’t wait to get my greasy paws on those titles and start my quest again in experiencing these titles at least once.

This is definitely a good read for those who are interested in reliving the glory gaming on the golden age of classic adventure gaming (1984 – 1999). It will definitely relight those dormant memories for those who grew up from those times; it’ll be a good history lesson for those who wanted to know the forgotten computing gaming hidtory.

But before we could dwell into that, it is essential to establish what exactly is a good story.

A Good Story

A story is a narrative or tale recounting real or fictitious events often in a logical or thematic manner. It is a loose definition, which make anything as mundane as a diary to become a story (e.g. Diary of Anne Frank).

A good story differ in that it has to contain substance, be it having a strong fundamental message, strong backdrop or strong characters build-up. These lays the foundation of the story, so that even if elements go astray during story-telling, the structure of the story will hold up on its own.

A good story has to also create vivid images and it should touch people in someway. This could be achieved either with strong image cues or with attractive and verbose language. A good story should be able to make one recall the events as if they unfold right in front of one’s eye.

Stories however can be delivered differently, be it in books, through a story-teller or through movies, plays, music, games or dances. And more often than not, a good story is often associated with good-story-telling. So how is story-telling done in games?

Gaming and Story-telling

Computing gaming in the very essence often take out the parts of the narrative and turn them into small gameplay portion to allow players to be immerse into the story-telling experience. Just like in space invader, the story theme is set up right with the title, and the gameplay makes you feel like one advancing the story through the experience of re-enacting the story. Or it could be just any generic FPS solo campaign where the story telling take place as video cut scenes, and the players re-enact the action segment in between to “advance” the story, so that it could continue on to the next bit of the story.

Using Final Fantasy as an example, players are often subjected to long CG sequence to establish the backdrop of the world and end-of-the world events, or to reveal characteristics of the characters. The only bits in which players are often left for the interactive bits are either random encounters or boss fights between the CG sequences, or the sandbox easter egg that has nothing to do with the story.

It is not that FF story is not strong. On the contrary, they often are and have the ability to recreate images for a good story. However, if you’re picking up a game,you’re expecting the entire game to be consistent and recreate and narrate the entire experience as a whole. Thus when the game ended up giving you two separate experiences, the story-telling simply bite the dust. A pity really, for I doubt most people would feel the despair that FF stories aim to set up to achieve, when the player is tapping on the controller waiting for the CG to end to give a piece of his mind to the boss…

Telling Story as a whole

There are games that tell a story as a whole, where players are subjected to the same experience, able to emotionally connect to the game and see the events unravel in front of their eyes due to the actual gameplay. The obvious games which has this strong story-telling element are point-and-click adventures, where players are subjected to the same simplified but consistent experience, with their actions directly progressing the games. However, I shall leave adventure games for another day.

Two noteworthy games that succeeded in telling a story as a whole are Bioshock and Beyond Good and Evil. Bioshock is remarkable in the sense that the story unfolds not in CG but in the gameplay, where you grow with new power set and choose your style of play and decision to affect the outcome of the story. Beyond Good and Evil on the other hand really make the challenges crazily difficult, so much so that you are being place in the shoes of the character, using wits to outshine the overwhelming odd, and thus emulating the feeling of the actual events in the gameplay.

There are quite a number of games that stay true to story-telling in games. However, just don’t expect the run of the mill top-games to acheive this…

There are plenty of memorable songs from Pop’n Music, and one of my favourite is by the artist EGOISTIC LEMONTEA.

EGOISTIC LEMONTEA is the pseudonym of Tatsuya Mizuno (composer), used exclusively for Bemani series of rhythm video games by Konami. Songs of EGOISTIC LEMONTEA are primarily associated with the music character Sumire in the Sympathy theme used in Pop’n Music.

Sympathy themes:

Sympathy – Usual Days
Sympathy 2 – Distance
Sympathy 3 – Memories
Sympathy 4 – Cloudy Skies

Cloudy Skies, which was featured as a unlockable song in the Pop’n Music Portable (PSP game), has a nice dance beat, which I totally love to groove to.

流田Project did a cover on this song late last year. While I don’t really think it is an improvement over the original song, but much like other NagaredaP songs, they exude the passion in any song they do, often in a dorky sort of way.

However, with time, a better understanding of my own character and experience, I gradually accepted my personality as more of a directing type than a supporting sort. That’s why I really came to enjoy singing these days, where success of the song is solely depending on the flair and the effort put in. And the failure of the session is simply a failure in understanding one’s limit (in vocal range) or simply the lack of familiarity of the song or style.

Luckily with Youtube, there are helpful uploaders who will put up PV with lyrics so that one could train sufficiently before each session. One of my favourite karaoke video to sing to is 五月天 – 知足.

Yes, singing karaoke to me is not really a casual event. I have to treat it seriously to truly appreciate it. And frankly, your friends would be more appreciative of you to, if you are able to ace a song, or able to show enthusiasm through more familiar songs. They would definitely appreciate your effort much more than the misplaced belief that flair in singing will show up spontaneously to an unfamiliar song.

Their first album, Nagareda P (流田 P) was released on December 1, 2010 and featured covers of anime songs, such as fripSide’s “only my railgun” and “Level5~judgelight~” – the theme songs of とある科学の超電磁砲＜レールガン＞ (to aru kagaku no railgun), “Super Driver” – the new OP of 涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱 (Suzumiya Haruhi no yuutsu), “God knows…” and “Joint” (灼眼のシャナⅡ Shakugan no Shana second season’s OP)

It is not unusual for a band to cover a more established song. However, only few bands got their recognition from internet videos like Youtube, or in 流田Project’s case, Nico channel.

In May 2009, 流田 Project stormed the internet with their cover of “Don’t say lazy” (K-On!!’s endtheme). Here’s a video of them in action:

They are really amazing. Not only is Nagareda’s voice musculine and strong, his high pitch is well-controlled, giving the song a heavier and nicer twist. With the masks blocking their looks, and their videos showing everyone in action, it is easy to choose your vantage point and follow the crazy antics of each musician. For instance, the way Kurihawa spun his drumsticks (not very successfully) at 2:52 into the video; and the Momoyama sway around at the left corner in a goofy manner.

There is nothing more significant than musicians actually enjoying the music, ‘cos only when they do that, would the music they make seem really fun. 流田Project make music fun again!!

What is so interesting about this particular song? For one, it is not a typical SIAM SHADE song. As explained in my earlier entry, Siam Shade is more a progressive rock band, than a popular-act (as perceived from their tremendously successful anime ED single) or a visual-kei group (as perceived with their earlier involvement as a travelling band with Luna Sea). With most progressive rock song, there usually would not be so much of a verse-chorus combination, but changing musical progression from the song, often with different emphasis of different musical component to give an overall tight feel. The progression is distinctively lacking in this song, along with the noted absence of Daita’s outlandish performances of his guitar.

What this song brought however was catchy lyrics that is reminiscence of a somewhat bubble-gum pop feel. More specifically, the lines “It’s so hard to break loose from this lonely night | I know it’s hard for you to do but please don’t worry” were repeated four times overall in the song, with the lines repeated twice in rapid succession. And as with the bubblegum pop, these lines (which are fully comprehensible to an english-speaker) are easily picked up and easily deciphered. It is so easy in fact, I was often humming those lines during those days and, much more infrequently, today.

In the J-Rock scene, there are a number of acts that are associated with the prog rock music. Yet, none really stand out more than Siam Shade. Apart from their more popular songs, such as 1/3の純情な感情 (sanbun no ichino junjou na kanjou) and 曇りのち晴れ(Kumori nochi hare), their pieces would definitely feature the flamboyant playing of Daita Itoh on lead guitar that appear in non-solo sections, thus making their music feel crowded but never loud. And the most telling sign of their prog rock roots is in their instrumental songs that are usually featured in each of their album; songs that would otherwise be ignored by singles lover obviously, due to the length of these pieces, or the lack of the radio-worthiness without the vocals of Hideki.

Yes, instrumentals are easily ignored by our senses. But thanks to the wonder of video, these instruments can hopefully be more appreciated today. For instance, check out on Daita’s crazy tapping in their song “Triptych”. Check out their crazy head-banging action while you’re at it too…

It’s a pity that my favourite Siam Shade’s instrumental, “Solomon Seal” is not found on any video site. Nonetheless, their “Virtuoso” (featured in my favourite Siam Shade album, “SIAM SHADE IV-Zero”) is another great piece that provided great balance between crazy and flamoboyant guitar, with solid rhythm section (drum and bass).

Numerous sites stated that Siam Shade is heavily influenced by one of the great prog rock bands in the 90s – Dream Theater. While they are definitely not the crazy Berkley grads (Mike Portnoy, John Petrucci and John Myung), they were comparable in numerous ways to the DT. And more importantly, Siam Shade unique brand of music brought in new identities within the J-Rock scene, which is still seeing the blends of prog rock today.