dlcA videogame zineby Stef and SarahISSUE #2/Sept2014

dlcA videogame zineby Stef and SarahISSUE #2/Sept2014Hi! So, after making issue #1 of DLC all the way back in May, we decided one, very important thing. We wanted DLC to be a bit bigger, more articles, more games, more everything! (So...it’s about 4 pages longer...!)

I write this to you on a Monday evening at the tail-end of Summer. I had some holiday time off from work in which we finally finished a new EP as our band Sonic the Comic, and then I basically played video games the rest of the time. Perfect. Except, y’know, I didn’t actually write anything about the games at the time. It’s four days until we travel up to Glasgow for MCM where we’re debuting this new issue of DLC, and it’s Monday evening (as I may have already mentioned) and I’m facing the slightly daunting challenge of writing around 20 pages of solid gold video game based stuff. What could possibly go wrong?It’s been an eventful few months

in terms of videogaming for us - as well as the neverending releases for PSVita, we have finally took a leap into the next generation of gaming, getting a WiiU a month or so back, and this last weekend I bought a Playstation 4.

This is probably the earliest in a console generation that I’ve ever had the most up to date console. I had the original Playstation about three years after launch, I had a Playstation 2 about seven years after it first came out, and an Xbox 360 about five years after release - It’s pretty exciting. Especially with stuff like Destiny and Arkham Knight on the horizon. (Mentioning AK has probably set it’s release date back even further though, whoops)

Anyway - this issue is about games old and new. It’s been a good summer.

Enjoy!-Stef

I have died hundreds of times in the last month or so. Hundreds upon hundreds. I’ve been killed by spikes, by giant eyeballs, and even from the occasional big drop. Long story short, I’ve been playing Rogue Legacy and Spelunky on my Vita, and I’m getting punished for it.

A few months ago, I couldn’t go on any videogame website without seeing the terms roguelike and roguelite being used all over the place, and it tooks ages for me to even find out what they meant exactly. There are a bunch of definitions, but put simply, they relate to games that a) have randomly generated levels, and b) feature the scenario that when you die in game you have to start over from scratch with a new character.

When I got my Vita a few months back, I got Spelunky within the first days, and I definitely did not get it at first. It seemed simple, but I kept dying. I moved on to something else. The basic premise is that you’re a treasure hunter exploring caves, and the caves are different every time. If you manage to get past the initial four levels in the caves, you get to the jungle, and then other zones after that. It’s a really challenging game.

But that’s the thing isn’t it, all that dying. You start thinking that maybe you can do better. So the next day you load up the game again, and you get a bit further, and you do a bit better, and that’s the secret to it really. Practise makes perfect, and all those deaths start to seem less disappointing, and more like part of the process.

“Just One More Go” or: My Short-Term Addictions to Rogue-Lite Platform Games

I am still yet to complete Spelunky. It was a fun game to a certain point, but now there’s a PS4 version on the horizon (sadly no release date yet), I’m more than happy to give it another shot, especially as I never really delved into the multiplayer side of things - four player Spelunky might just be amazing.

More recently, the newly released Rogue Legacy ate up a few solid days of my life. It follows a similar gameplay style to Spelunky in that it’s a 2D platformer with randomly generated levels, but there are a few big differences.

Firstly, when you die in Rogue Legacy you get to keep your loot, and you can use that to level up your character. Whereas Spelunky makes you start over without any power-ups gained in the previous run, Rogue Legacy at least gives you a sense of getting stronger and more powerful, with a large range of customisable perks giving you quite a few options on how to play the game.

Secondly, the structure and theme of the game is quite different too - Rogue Legacy is based around randomly generated castles and a storyline where everytime you die, you

pass on your traits and gold to your next of kin.

The only downside that I’ve found with these games is that basic premise aside, they’re kind’ve lacking in storyline. It’s fun to pick up and play these games, but when you accidentally spend the best part of a summer’s day dying over and over again just so that maybe you stand a chance of maybe beating one of the games four sub-bosses, you do find yourself thinking - what exactly did I spend the whole day working towards?

Of course, it seems unfair to blame these games for that - they aren’t designed to be cinematic storytelling masterpieces, they’re designed to be skill-based platformers that truly test your platforming abilities, and honestly? They do that ridiculously well.

-SP

I don’t know why I bought the first Mass Effect game. I know it was one of the first games that I bought when I first had an Xbox 360. I know that it was the game that made me realise playing videogames on a standard definition television was a losing battle (there was no way anyone was reading the text on that game on an old TV), and I know that I got really hooked into the game.

It took the shooting mechanics

from games like Halo and added in a bit of Gears of Wars’ hiding behind stuff mechanics, but it wrapped all of this up in a really interesting space opera of a game world.

I mean, narratively it’s almost the same as Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix where - spoiler alert! - Harry was trying to make everyone believe that Voldemolt was real but no-one believes him. Great. End of the

Mass Effect, Tomb Raider, and the Summer of Finishing What I’d Already Started.

world = immenent for sure. Just for this game, replace Voldemolt with an ancient evil from space, and you’re basically there,

It was the first game I played where it gave you options in conversations of what to say - you could play the hero as an honourable nice guy, or you just be a ruthless devil-may-care rogue. It was a great game, and I was totally absorbed in it from start to finish. When I finished it, I knew that Mass Effect 2 was already out, so I picked that up and started playing. It started with a bang, and I got really into it to start with until I got into the main game... and it just slowed down pace-wise.

Now side-quests were a big part of the first game, and they were a fun distraction from time to time, but in the sequel, the main game started to feel like sidequest central as one of the main things you are required to do early on is to go around recruiting a bunch of characters to join your crew, with each character consisting of a roughly one hour long mission, as well as an additional hour long “loyalty” quest once they are part of your crew.

I lost interest. For about 3 years.

So a few weeks ago, I started feeling a bit guilty about games. I was flicking through the game library on my Xbox, and I was looking at game after game that I’d started, but never completed. Red Dead Redemption? nope. Grand Theft Auto 5? 25% complete. Tomb Raider? Such an amazing game, but still a good quarter left of the main story.

So I did what any rational person would do. I finished some games.

First was the aforementioned Tomb Raider. I started that about six months ago, and for a week I got really into it. I think I got a bit disheartened when I THOUGHT that I was getting towards the very end of the game...only to find that it wasn’t over, not for a long while.

Going back to the game after a bit of time off was definitely the right choice though. The gameplay seemed fresh again, and I had a newfound appreciation for just how much fun combat was when you try and use the bow and arrow all the time.

Finally getting to the end of the game was a joy as well, it was a really great epic journey, and I’m really looking forward to the next one now.

So, one down, what’s next? I played a bit of GTA and Red Dead, but the massive scale of those games pushed me back towards Mass Effect 2.

And you know what? The time off was worth it, again. I persevered with the middle section of the game that caused my dissatisfaction in the first place, and before I knew it, things had really picked up, and the sense of urgency that I felt in the first game was finally there again.

I spent the next few days getting to the end of the game, and even playing through some of the DLC for the game - even though I’d finished the main story, I was still hungry for more gameplay in this world!

Last week, I decided to get hold of Mass Effect 3, still entralled with how much I enjoyed the end of the second game, and some issues aside - I’m a bit confused as to why I’m having to run all manner of weird and wonderful errands for different alien species when, y’know, the world and the galaxy and the universe as we know it is meant to be under direct attack? - It’s been really great so far.

Now the only question is going to be finding the time to play it now work has started again. But hopefully it wont take me three years to finish this one. Hopefully.

-SP

A horrifying true story of the day Sarah got her PS Vita.

I’ve got a pretty weird on-off relationship with football. I remember my dad taking me to Wolves games when I was younger and I didn’t really like it. I would keep having toilet breaks, and snack breaks, and yeah, I think I might have made my Dad miss a decent amount of goals by being an awful child. Whoops. (I did get better as I got older)

Football video games though! As a fairly quiet child, I was all about the football games. I remember Championship Manager 2 in all it’s text-based glory, I remember somehow getting Robbie Fowler to join Wolves on a free transfer in LMA Manager, and I remember absolutely ridiculous slide tackles in Fifa 2000.

And then, skipping through a few world cups where England never really did anything great, and supporting a football team that managed to yo-yo up to the Premier League and down again, and then I was at university, and my housemate was really into Football Manager. And I gave it a bit of a go...but no. I couldn’t get into it.

It took Football Manager being released on the PS Vita earlier this year for me getting interested again. It got reduced to half price pretty quickly (I don’t know what they were thinking releasing it towards the end of the football season really) so I got it, and played my first season as Wolves pretty quickly! I finished top of Division 1 pretty comfortably,

“We’re Being Overrun in Midfield”:Football Manager, Wolves FC and me.

and everything was going amazing. All it took was some ill-advised allnighters, and I was on course to start season 2 in the Championship.

The phrase “just one more game” is definitely appropriate here. The glory was amazing.

So season 2 starts, the board give me a decent budget to get in some new players, so I build upon my already strong team. Sako, Cassidy, Dicko, Batth, and a bunch of new signings. We were ready to storm our second season.

And then... it all started going wrong. We started losing games. Not just one or two games though. I think we started the season with a ten match losing streak. It was awful. Team morale was down, the fans were questioning every single purchase that I’d made.

I tried all manner of different tactics, I tried playing the exact team lineup that I won the previous league with. Nothing worked. Sure I won a game here and there, and even scraped the odd draw. Maybe it would be okay? Again, “just one more game” came into play, but this time it was with a strange desperation. Just one more game. We can win this next one? Right?

And then it happened. About six games before the end of season, we were technically relegated. Past the point of no return. We’re back down to Division 1 next season...and this was the point where we actually started winning games.Typical.

So we get to the end of the season, relegated nonetheless, but from the looks of things, I don’t think the board or directors are going to sack me. We’d gotten back on track, and promotion next season would be a no brainer.

So we start pre-season preparations, I get rid of some highly paid but severly underperforming players and get the wage bill looking respectable. I even start organising preseason friendly games. Business as usual.

Until...I’m teamless. There’s an email telling me I’ve been sacked. I was gutted. I reloaded my last save, I got to the same day...and the same thing happened. Basically...game over.

*****Since then I’ve restarted with Wolves on the PC version of the game - it’s a lot faster, which is nice. We got promoted like before... now we just have to wait and see what happens next...

-SP

I could always see through horror films when I was younger. There was a part of me that knew that what was happening on screen wasn’t real, just actors and makeup and effects. Don’t get me wrong, I still found some films really scary, I just found a very good bravery mechanism for whenever it was needed.

I never really played horror video games though. I borrowed Resident Evil 2 once and played it a bit, but I got tired of the saving mechanic and I returned it within a short time.

It wasn’t until I was in my last year of university that I found and bought Resident Evil 4 for the

Gamecube. I’d gotten a Gamecube for ridiculously cheap from work (we had one just hiding away down in the overflow stockroom, talk about the luckiest find ever!) and I went through the metacritic top rated games to see what I should get. Resident Evil 4 was up there. I gave it a shot.

And it was TERRIFYING. I couldn’t play it without my housemates being around. It was the most stressful gaming experience that I’d ever started, but I was determined to get through it. I mean, you’re there to rescue the President’s Daughter. You can do this.

One time I played it when no-

Scaring Myself Silly - The oh-my-god-why-am-I-playing-this side of Survival Horror

one was in. It was spooky, creepy, and I quickly reached a save point and quit. There was a another great moment when I actually sat on the volume up button on the tv remote while a boss was transforming into a huge monster and it felt like the walls of the house were vibrating.

I finally completed RE4, and it was a great, if harrowing experience. But why did it succeed where so many horror films never did? I guess putting me in charge of the protagonist is a big part - it’s not just me watching someone get gruesomely murdered, it’s me getting brutally murdered.

Still, my survival horror experiences still tend to be few and far between. Sarah and I have played loads of zombie games over the last few years, but they never seem to generate the same kind of fear - games like Left 4 Dead 2 and Call of Duty - Black Op’s Zombies feel more like arcade games than real life simulations - waves upon waves of zombies attacking you while you’ve got almost unlimited weapons doesn’t get anywhere near the terror of limited ammo and sporadic, yet horrifically powerful undead.

An amazing example of a zombie game that does capture the survival horror genre quite wonderfully is

State of Decay. It came out on Xbox a few years ago, and is centred all around survival in a zombie outbreak. The roaming hordes of zombies, and the stamina mechanic that means you can only exert so much energy at one time - no running away forever or hacking away at zombies with axes for an unlimited amount of time. If you get tired, you can barely get away, and if you don’t get away? Your character is killed. Dead. No restarts. You take over as another survivor back at camp. The first time this happened I was genuinely crushed. I wasn’t unbeatable, this felt real.

Recently we’ve started playing The Last of Us on PS4, and the environment in that game is spectacular - lush overgrown cityscapes populated with hideous and deadly “clicker” zombies. I swear that everytime I have to try and sneak past a clicker without it noticing me, I don’t breathe the whole time. It’s a great game, but I’m betting you know that already!

I guess the last thing to talk about in terms of survival horror is something pretty up to date - The P.T. demo that appeared on the Playstation store, that is connected to the new Silent Hill game, Silent Hills. We watched a video of someone playing it, and thought, sure it looks creepy, quite

realistic? But not THAT scary. Then I actually played it myself. I was so, so, so wrong. It’s horrible (in the best way). The way you realistically stumble around the same circuit of a house again and again is nothing short of unsettling in itself, and the snippets of radio news shows, and strange banging and slamming and crying and then all the lights are off and something is screaming and ...yeah. I don’t know exactly how P.T. ties into Silent Hills - for all I know it could just be a fantastic twisted proof-of-concept - but for the price of free, you need to check it out if you have a PS4. Genuine creepy terror.

Which I guess isn’t quite the same as survival horror, but who’s counting, it’s exhilarating in how messed up it is.

So what am I getting at here exactly while I babble about survival horror games that I enjoy? I guess it’s this - no matter how much I love playing games that are high on emotions, and playfulness, and innocence, there’s sort’ve nothing that can match the way your heart jumps out of your chest during survival horror games. It’s good to get scared sometimes.

-SP

DLC 2Written by Stef Purenins@teamabctinyspells.bandcamp.comlightningstef.tumblr.com

Illustrated by Sarah Graley-@sarahsketchbook-oursuperadventure.com-rentquest.com-treetrunksdiy.bandcamp.com

They join musical forces at- sonicthecomic.bandcamp.com

Issue 3 will be twice as long with stuff about Don’t Starve, Destiny and Minecraft, amongst others! Thanks for reading x

dlcISSUE #2/Sept2014We have a facebookpage--> “dlczine”