Microsoft

The problem with making a game so amazing the first time, is following up that game with an even better sequel. Room for improvement is small, forcing the developers to dig deep into their creative wells, to introduce new concepts or ideas to impress the players.

No one expected Batman: Arkham Asylum to be as well executed as it was; dismissing its existence was the common attitude towards it. Rocksteady delivered an experience so contrary to what we believed, pushing Batman to the forefront of quality video games in 2009. With our expectations now set high and our attention drawn in, it would be impossible for Batman: Arkham City to duplicate such a lofty achievement. Batman: Arkham City won’t wow its players like its predecessor, but the fluid melee combat and wide cast of stellar characters that populate Arkham City, are enough reasons to slip on the bat suit once more.

The repetition of hearing the same noises and sounds, or walking through a similar looking environment killing the same enemies can be annoying to a point where it can eliminate any desire to continue forward. Bastion’s differentiating feature was the narrator, and to my initial understanding, he would describe every movement my character made. I imagined the narrator spewing lines of worthless dialog like “He swung his hammer, hit the enemy hard, and sent it back to where it came from. He continues walking and walking until he arrives at a door”. Looking back that may have been an exaggeration on my part; I couldn’t help but imagine that it wouldn’t be annoying when it was often described as “Someone narrates everything you do”. However, it’s a rather unfair representation as the narrator is more of a story teller sharing his grand story to whoever was listening. Bastion is not just a game with a narrator; it’s an experience that starts with a simple approach to combat, character progression and art style, and again ends with a simple yet self-reflecting story.      

Instead of developers relying on hardware strength to produce higher fidelity graphics, they are finding ways to optimize their game engines, to then use these new found tricks to replicate something that would require advanced hardware. Team Bondi has recently developed this new technology that would allow them to capture little movements of the human face, similar to the concept of full body motion capture. This significant improvement of facial animation plays such an important role in Team Bondi’s and Rockstar’s detective story, that it’s unfair to dismiss this technological leap, even though it would have been better served as the supplement, not the core.