Rocket League

I'd like to think that the person who came up with this idea was kind of a lazy kid.  Daydreaming while playing a game of soccer one day thinking "I like to hit the ball but I'd really rather not run around".  Rocket League is a game about car soccer.  Jumping cars to be exact.

Really it's a pretty simple concept.  1-4 cars compete against each other trying to get a giant soccer ball into a net.  There are no fouls, outs, off-sides, or other more complicated soccer rules.

The controls are somewhat intuitive but I didn't really get it until after I went through the tutorial.  I think some moves like the double-jump and activating the ball cam are crucial to having any kind of success in this game.  I'm also not sure that the ability to rocket around while airborne will ever come in handy.

Probably the most interesting thing from the development side of this game is how it came into the market.  At first Rocket League was free to PlayStation Plus members.  Now it's 20 dollars.  By releasing the game for free they were able to get a ton of publicity on reddit's gaming channel.  I'm not sure how reproducible of a strategy it is but for them at least it was a great way to launch a new IP.  However, if too many companies were to adopt this plan it'd be the same problematic race to the bottom that happened in the mobile games market.

Also, it's interesting to me that on their website they list a title called "Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle Cars" released in 2008.  I guess they've been sitting on this idea for a while.  I'm not sure what they contributed to Mass Effect 3 and X-Com: Enemy Unknown.

All in all it's a pretty good game.  Well-polished, simple and easy to pick up and put down.

7/10

Tales from the Borderlands

Telltale did a good job of working with an already developed title.  They were able to get many of the voices from the previous games and the art is pretty on point.  It has a good soundtrack too.

I wonder how it would be different if this whole interactive story genre came from the other side.  If the movie industry were to begin it instead.  Do you think they would give the player small meaningless choices instead of allowing them to effect the story in substantial ways?  Would they would stretch the movie across 5 episodes and have it last around 10 hours in total?  How many of these little walk around and talk to everything parts would make the cut?  

It actually seems like this is the direction Telltale is going (not counting whatever they did before the walking dead).  In The Walking Dead there are many puzzle sections and areas where the player has a lot of interactivity in general.  In Tales from the Borderlands I can leave the controls for 20 minutes and the game will play on without any real impact.

If I could just show up at Telltale and tell everybody what to do it'd be this:

Make something shorter and use the extra production time to layer over the same content.  Remove the walking parts entirely.  It should have more branches to the story and real consequences.  I'm convinced this is a genre can gain more mass market appeal than it already has.  Maybe try getting a movie actor.

Anyways, overall the game was funny and I thought the character customization was a neat thing to add.  Check it out if you like the borderlands universe or Telltale Games in general.

6/10

Super Meat Boy

I grabbed this game as it became free this month on playstation plus but it is 5 years old.  I don't know that I love the mechanic of jumping around and dodging obstacles but I think the game does an excellent job of rewarding the player for doing this.  Even though this game requires the player to fail constantly, it also rewards the player constantly.

The first several levels are really quite easy giving an early feeling of accomplishment.  Once the levels get harder and the player dies more often, they are still rewarded by getting a cool replay showing where all their Meat Boys died throughout the level.  Honestly I think the replays are one of the most major if not the most major reason why this game was a success.

The plot of this game takes a backseat and isn't really all that deep (or good).  I didn't really appreciate the humour so much either but I suppose somebody might.  It stays consistent though and I'm assuming the flash roots of this title have the same feel.  In Indie Game the Movie, there's a scene where Edmund McMillen explains how Meat Boy is exposed and vulnerable, and how he doesn't just love bandage girl he needs her.  Maybe to a less cynical person that may have seemed like a sweet or deep sentiment but personally I can't help but think that the real reason he's made of meat is to keep the gore but get a lower age rating.

They did a great job with the level design in this.  I noticed in many of the more complicated levels with a difficult part a bit later on, they'd have a very similar part at the beginning so I could experiment with the motions.  When it had especially strange mechanics though they would almost always be at the start of the level which helped me avoid some frustration.  Many of the mechanics get reused in different ways and when a new mechanic is introduced for the first time it's always very simple which is a nice touch.  Another nice thing is that some of the levels also have some less obvious paths that can save me a lot of time but that I only noticed after dying several times, growing tired of the motions, and experimenting.

One thing I found myself wondering while playing this is how much do I really enjoy getting through the frustrating parts of a game like this if I don't get to brag about it afterwards?  I feel like the bragging right factor is a pretty important piece of the success of this type of game.  I'm not sure if this game allowed players to share their replays on social media at all but it could've been a nice touch.

7/10