Easter has passed us by, and I'm sure many of you had a good time gorging yourselves on chocolate. The Warp Pipe spent its holiday nestled up to a copy of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, with a few hours dedicated to attaining that all important 100% in Bully: Scholarship Edition. It has been a busy week for gaming here, actually; I think I managed about 3,000 new achievement points since the return of my 360 (which pushed me into the top 100 Australians on MyGamerCard), I pushed my way through the majority of Smash Bros' single player modes and I've been reading Steven Kent's The Ultimate History of Video Games, which I'll talk about more in a later column.

This week I thought we'd do something a little different: spurt out some interesting facts, insightful thoughts and bold proclamations. As promised last week, we'll look at one of Shiny's most underappreciated efforts in Sacrifice, and throw our cheap gaming buddies a bone with the Gothic Universe collection.

25 Random Facts, Thoughts and Claims

When I'm doing research for the main topic of each week's column, I tend to stumble upon cool little factoids which, for a number of reasons, end up not making the final draft for the week. Oftentimes, there are also idle thoughts which just aren't enough to base a column around. Then you have the bold claims, which are good for forum flame bait, but not really appropriate for the piece. This week, I thought I'd just throw a few of them out there.

Just face it, the game stinks.

FACT: The clouds and bushes in Super Mario Bros. are the same sprite, just re-coloured. You wouldn't believe how many people were shocked by this little revelation.

CLAIM: Battletoads for the NES (and Mega Drive) is a terrible game, a half-assed cash-in on the mutated amphibian craze at the time. Most people only remember the game for its ridiculous difficulty level.

FACT: The US version of Battletoads contains a rather large glitch which makes it impossible to beat on two player mode. At the start of the 11th level, the second player is unable to move, and must lose all of his lives so that the first player can continue on.

THOUGHT: Microsoft needs to scrap these stupid 100-200 point packs of Gamerpics and Themes. Gamerpics and themes should be unlocked through getting achievements.

CLAIM: Ubisoft obviously hasn't heard of v-sync. Even their splash logo has serious screen tearing problems.

THOUGHT: Nintendo's WiiWare service is the perfect opportunity for them to create level packs for some of their older games. Who wouldn't love an expansion pack for Super Mario World?

FACT: Ever wonder why Privateer 2: The Darkening had very little to do with the original? It was originally just entitled The Darkening, with an Origin press brochure indicating a separate Privateer 2 game was in development. Due to Wing Commander IV running over budget, Privateer 2 was dropped and the name was added to The Darkening.

CLAIM: Halo 2 and 3 contain some of the worst video game narratives I've bore witness to. Why am I fishing Cortana out of a giant anus again?

Wanted: good game for us to star in

THOUGHT: Konami seems to be relying on Metal Gear as their tent pole franchise, so why not go back and do a full 3D remake of Metal Gear and Metal Gear II: Solid Snake, just to fix up all of the continuity errors they've created. Call it Metal Gear Solid Zero or something clever like that.

CLAIM: The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction is the best free roaming super hero game, despite its horrible plot and wretched final boss.

FACT: The original Mega Man was not successful enough to justify a sequel, but Keiji Inafune and his team worked on one in their spare time, with Capcom eventually giving in and allowing them to work on it provided it didn't clash with their other projects. There are now over 100 products with the Rockman/Mega Man name.

CLAIM: Level design needs to stop taking a back seat to pretty graphics. Many of the best games of all time are remembered for their quality design, not for their pretty graphics.

THOUGHT: Why is it so difficult to make good games based on DC Comics properties? Superman's omnipotence makes him boring from a video game standpoint, but what about Batman? Perhaps the license holder should try something that makes use of the Dark Knight's investigative abilities, rather than just his fists.

FACT: Japanese publisher Jaleco was at one time working on a game based around President Clinton's cat, entitled Socks the Cat Rocks the Hill.

CLAIM: The ending for Beyond Good & Evil is not a cliff-hanger, as it's remarkably obvious what's going to happen to that character. If you want to see a real cliff-hanger ending, play Shenmue II.

How Hellgate turned out so awful is a damn mystery

THOUGHT: Sega will sink a bunch of money into a godawful Altered Beast revival, and what looks like a godawful rebirth of Golden Axe, but they will not attempt to finish the Shenmue story in any shape or form. If I ever strike it rich, Shenmue III will happen, even if I have to make Yu Suzuki work at gunpoint.

CLAIM: The success of Grand Theft Auto III didn't catch me completely off-guard. I'd been following the progress of the game for years, and was genuinely excited to finally be able to have the freedom of GTA and GTA2 in a 3D world. What did catch me off-guard was how good the game was – I was expecting a 7-8 experience.

FACT: The Auran that put out that godawful mess called Fury was not the same Auran that made Dark Reign. Most of those guys moved to Pandemic to do the sequel.

THOUGHT: What the heck went wrong with Hellgate London? You had a large number of Blizzard alumni who'd worked on Diablo II doing a similar game with a larger scope – how could that go wrong? Yet it came out late, like many Blizzard games do, but it sucked unprecedented amounts of ass, which is something most Blizzard games don't (I say most because they did do Death and Return of Superman for the SNES).

FACT: Capcom has a tendency to scrap a lot of Resident Evil games midway through development. Resident Evil 2 was started over despite the original version being 80% complete. The original Resident Evil 4 became Devil May Cry. The Resident Evil 4 we know today went through three different versions, two of which have trailers. There was a planned port of Resident Evil for Game Boy Colour, scrapped in favour of Resident Evil Gaiden. There's even a proof of concept of Resident Evil 2 for the GBA, though I believe that's an engine test.

Apparently Silicon Knights don't need to release games to make money

THOUGHT: 3D Realms released a substantially different beta version of Duke Nukem 3D called Lame Duke on the first anniversary of the game's release. It'd be really cool if they released the 1998 or 2001 versions of Duke Nukem Forever on the anniversary of its release, should that event ever happen.

CLAIM: Regenerative health is one of the stupidest things to hit first person shooters in years. Sure, it's fine with Master Chief's power armour, but I don't really think it's appropriate for the 101st Airborne in Normandy.

FACT: Otacon's little battlefield droid in Metal Gear Solid 4 is a homage to Gillian Seed's robotic assistant in Snatcher, a cyberpunk adventure designed by Hideo Kojima. The robot's name was...Metal Gear.

THOUGHT: What the heck is with games that attempt to be highly realistic randomly throwing aliens and mutants into the mix late in the game? Far Cry, Uncharted, Crysis – there's probably even more.

FACT: Silicon Knights has been around for 16 years, yet they've only managed to release six games in that time. Four of those games were released in their first four years; they have only released two titles in the 12 years since, one of which was a remake which was a joint effort with Konami. How they keep running is anyone's guess.

Great Games Remembered

Will Shiny ever make a game of this calibre again? Probably not.

Shiny Entertainment was on something of a dream run in the latter part of the 90s. Since parting ways with Virgin Interactive, David Perry and his cronies met great success with Earthworm Jim, Earthworm Jim 2 and MDK. Wild 9 was even picked up by Sony for distribution in Japan. At the start of the new decade, things really looked promising for Shiny with the cool-yet-unconventional Messiah, and Sacrifice, an awesome new take on the real time strategy genre. What separates Sacrifice from the other RTS games is that players control a commanding unit (the wizard Eldred in the single player mode) on the field from a 3rd person perspective, rather than the traditional eagle eye viewpoint. Other units are created through spells cast on the battlefield. Players ally themselves with one of five gods, each of which has its own set of spells and creatures. The story varies greatly based on which god the player chooses to side with, as the gods begin to factionalise later in the game.

The game has two basic resources; souls and mana. Souls are a finite resource used to summon creatures and come in two varieties; the neutral blue souls placed by the map creator or waiting to be harvested from friendly creatures, and red souls from your enemies, which must be purified by the Sac doctor unit. Mana is used for casting spells and summoning creatures. It's an unlimited resource generated by the Manafountain structure on the map. The manafountains are neutral to start, providing mana to anyone nearby, but summoning a manalith will ensure that it only produces mana for your side. Manahoars can be summoned to collect mana from the fountain at large distances.

The basic goal in Sacrifice is to desecrate your opponent's altar by using it to sacrifice one of your beasties. This process will sap the opposing wizard's energy – the stronger the creature you sacrifice, the higher the damage will be. Battles are highly intense, given that your character is in the thick of it, though they can often end up in stalemates due to the soul harvesting method of army creation. Multiplayer treats things a little differently, with your wizards gaining new spells through experience on the battlefield. There are also a few other gameplay modes revolving around getting the most kills or collecting the most souls.

Although highly rated at the time, the critics' love of Sacrifice was not matched by its retail sales, with the game not meeting its sales targets. While Shiny's legacy has been tarnished by those two awful Matrix games, Sacrifice will always stand up as an example of the developer's former greatness.

Budget Gaming Highlights

Gothic Universe contains 3 rather large RPGs for a bargain price

One thing I try to look for when recommending budget games is the long term value. If you're strapped for cash, you want a fifty-plus hour epic, not your typical 6-8 hour, cinematic ridden romp. This week's budget recommendation, Gothic Universe, contains three such epic games (and one add-on). For fifty bucks, you can take home Gothic, Gothic II, The Night of the Ravens add-on and Gothic 3, all in one neat little package.

Gothic is the brainchild of German developer Piranha Bytes. Each game in the series is a large scale RPG not unlike those in the Elder Scrolls series, but with a higher degree of user determined direction in the game world. Each game begins with the player (a nameless hero) arriving in a town and joining up with one of the local factions. Each game has a central plot, but much of your time can be spent freely pursuing quests for the faction of your choice. As your faction grows stronger, their influence can be seen across the world. The player can do anything that any other character in the game does – from useful things like forging new weapons, to useless things like dancing and urinating.

The first two games in the series are a little aged, not just for the fact that they came out at the start of the decade, but the combat mechanics may be a little stiff, and the game does very little to help players know their location or keep track of their quests, which may be a little too much to ask for veterans of games like Morrowind and Oblivion. Still, the Gothic games really stand by the concept of open ended gameplay – you can run around and do as you please, and many of the quests can be resolved in multiple ways. Of course, like many other open ended RPGs, the three Gothic games are full of annoying bugs and glitches. People like to complain about the quality of the English translation, particularly in the first game, but it's not really a big problem.

Minor issues aside, anyone looking for a few good sword-and-spells epics should take a look at the Gothic Universe pack, which can be found at most stores for $49.95.

Quote of the Week

Vivendi Games Producer Aaron Blean had this to say while announcing the new 50 Cent game, Blood in the Sand:

"Once we get the game out there ... I think people will realize right away where our focus for the sequel is. We've emphasized the gameplay quality [more] than anything this time around. We can't wait to show the game around."

In other words, "The last game was a quick cash-in and we admit that it was a total load of crap. With rumours abound that Activision is going to start axing our projects, we promise that we'll make this one better." I think the game should also include a ticket for a rocket ride into the sun.

Next Week

Next week on The Warp Pipe, I'll evaluate the big games hitting in the second quarter of this year, discuss a game from a popular series that mysteriously hasn't been released in Australia, and revisit another game-to-film crossover.