Triptych - Volume 14: Pilfer, Purloin, Plunder
By Brenna Hillier - Thu Sep 3, 2009 6:29pm
Here we are once again in the world of Triptych, the weekly feature that wonders why the world makes it so difficult to find information on any but a handful of massively hyped titles, and then remembers it’s because all the decent releases are overlooked by gamers attempting to avoid the masses of shovelware loaded into retailers every day.
It’s a nasty combination, and you know what? It makes me feel like I’ve been robbed. That’s right. The hype machine, cheap-and-nasty-developers, and the indifference of general gaming culture all conspire to steal from me the opportunity to experience new and exciting gaming experiences. Luckily, Triptych is here, like some over-zealous burglar alarm that goes off when you drop a heavy box too close to the front door, to blow the whistle and deliver a trio of neglected titles, which this week centres on the theme of stealing.
Last week I had a good old rant, airing my crackpot theory that hidden object games are the reason we don’t see as many quality adventure titles as we ought to. It seems quite nice that this week should see a little bit of spotlight on that genre, then, with 15 Days.
We all know how adventure games relating to theft go: there is a mystery, and you must solve it and bring the perpetrator to justice! But in 15 Days, you yourself are the wannabe-perpetrator, one of a group of political activists who steal famous art works and then sell them off to raise money for good causes. Almost makes you feel warm and fuzzy, doesn’t it? Bless.
It all works out rather nicely, though, with your puzzle-solving skills (click everything a million times) put to work figuring out how best to utilise your various high-tech gadgetry in order to pull off a successful theft. Playing through four disparate story lines that gradually weave together – in a net of political intrigue, no less ¬– you will get to do some mystery-solving as a police investigator as well.
Described as “fast paced”, 15 Days sounds like it might be just the ticket for those in the mood for a point-and-click with something different to offer, and should arrive for PC in the holiday rush.
Download the Captain Blood Gamescom 2009 Trailer
Captain Blood, a famous literary figure, is one of these noble pirates, whose dastardly deeds are directed only at the nefarious enemies of all things good and right– i.e., the Spanish, who were not, apparently, as deeply in the author’s good books as the Englishmen who falsely arrested the future terror of the Caribbean and had him transported. Thus, there’s not so much of the usual peg legs and wenching as open-chest shirts and dashing ponytails, and at the end, assumedly, a royal pardon and congratulations all round.
In the meantime, though, it’s swashbuckling, naval battles, and the compulsive collecting of power ups and new abilities to make robbing the Spanish blind even more exhilarating. On land the good captain has at his disposal a quite a wide array of weaponry, from swords to primitive grenades to throwing knives to muskets, which is quite necessary given the swarms of enemies requiring a good thrashing. On the open sea, the helm of the good ship Arabella, and its cannons, should provide a nice break from button mashing. Due on PC and Xbox 360 next year, Captain Blood should fill the gap left in our hearts by a lack of recent pirate films… for a while.
I really can’t blame the rest of the world for ignoring this title, for two very convincing reasons. The first is the simply awful title that has given me a headache from all the eye-rolling I’ve had to do while looking at it. I suppose it could have been worse – they could have called it Hei$t Xtreme or something – but as wince-worthy marketing decisions go, that’s right up there, and I’m tempted to indignantly ignore the game myself, just to teach them not to patronise us quite so thoroughly.
The other reason is that Codemasters themselves seem to be doing a pretty good job of ignoring their own title. It really wouldn’t surprise me to receive a correction in a few days’ time, informing me that they’ve shelved or renamed the project, because we haven’t heard a peep about it for almost two years – and yet, there is plenty of evidence to indicate that we might even see this game in the holiday rush.
What confuses me most about Hei$t is a very odd difficulty gimmick described in early press releases, before Codemasters decided to go all closed-vault on us. It works like this: if you mess up a mission, subsequent missions will be harder. Does that seem a backwards step to anybody else? Remember back in the days of, oh, Ecco the Dolphin, where they introduced intelligent difficulty control, so that when you had been stung to death by the same jellyfish for the seventeenth time, the game slowed the jellyfish down…? Hei$t is apparently determined to speed it up. What incentive does the player have not to reload an earlier save when sneezing during the tutorial could mean you never defeat the final boss…?
Anyway, because of the peculiar silence around it, I can’t tell you much more about Hei$t than you already know from the title and screens, nor even tell you whether it is worth waiting for, or whether you should just replay the excellent heist mission in GTA IV again. We can only slot this one into the calendar in pencil; let’s say “December” and await an update.
I don’t understand why there aren’t more games about stealing things. There’s plenty of games that let you commit every kind of atrocity of a violent nature, with nary a hint of consequence (unless you count maudlin cut scenes) but throw in a bit of light-fingered acquisition and suddenly there are police sirens everywhere. Some of my favourite sequences in action games are those that require you to get in and out of a location with a particular object, either through brute force or stealth, and since capture the flag is kind of a variant on that, it’s obviously a popular pastime. Where are the games about Arsene Lupin, Bonnie and Clyde, the adaptation of seventies series I Takes a Thief? Where, might I ask, is a Victor & Hugo game? Or a new Thief?
What are your favourite games or segments of games with a nice bit of looting in them?
It’s a nasty combination, and you know what? It makes me feel like I’ve been robbed. That’s right. The hype machine, cheap-and-nasty-developers, and the indifference of general gaming culture all conspire to steal from me the opportunity to experience new and exciting gaming experiences. Luckily, Triptych is here, like some over-zealous burglar alarm that goes off when you drop a heavy box too close to the front door, to blow the whistle and deliver a trio of neglected titles, which this week centres on the theme of stealing.
15 Days
) Adventure characters blank faces amuse me. |
We all know how adventure games relating to theft go: there is a mystery, and you must solve it and bring the perpetrator to justice! But in 15 Days, you yourself are the wannabe-perpetrator, one of a group of political activists who steal famous art works and then sell them off to raise money for good causes. Almost makes you feel warm and fuzzy, doesn’t it? Bless.
It all works out rather nicely, though, with your puzzle-solving skills (click everything a million times) put to work figuring out how best to utilise your various high-tech gadgetry in order to pull off a successful theft. Playing through four disparate story lines that gradually weave together – in a net of political intrigue, no less ¬– you will get to do some mystery-solving as a police investigator as well.
) That seagull is asking for it. | ) I love those cupboards intensely. |
Described as “fast paced”, 15 Days sounds like it might be just the ticket for those in the mood for a point-and-click with something different to offer, and should arrive for PC in the holiday rush.
It’s an acknowledged fact that I swoon for all thing piratical, so there was no way I wasn’t going to sneak this one in, especially given my similar relationship with publishers 1C. Hey, pirates steal! That’s kind of what makes them pirates. Well, that and being awesome.Captain Blood
Captain Blood, a famous literary figure, is one of these noble pirates, whose dastardly deeds are directed only at the nefarious enemies of all things good and right– i.e., the Spanish, who were not, apparently, as deeply in the author’s good books as the Englishmen who falsely arrested the future terror of the Caribbean and had him transported. Thus, there’s not so much of the usual peg legs and wenching as open-chest shirts and dashing ponytails, and at the end, assumedly, a royal pardon and congratulations all round.
) Press A to stab | ) Not exactly a horde of opponents here... | ) Press A to mock moustache |
In the meantime, though, it’s swashbuckling, naval battles, and the compulsive collecting of power ups and new abilities to make robbing the Spanish blind even more exhilarating. On land the good captain has at his disposal a quite a wide array of weaponry, from swords to primitive grenades to throwing knives to muskets, which is quite necessary given the swarms of enemies requiring a good thrashing. On the open sea, the helm of the good ship Arabella, and its cannons, should provide a nice break from button mashing. Due on PC and Xbox 360 next year, Captain Blood should fill the gap left in our hearts by a lack of recent pirate films… for a while.
Hei$t
) I'm on a boat! |
The other reason is that Codemasters themselves seem to be doing a pretty good job of ignoring their own title. It really wouldn’t surprise me to receive a correction in a few days’ time, informing me that they’ve shelved or renamed the project, because we haven’t heard a peep about it for almost two years – and yet, there is plenty of evidence to indicate that we might even see this game in the holiday rush.
What confuses me most about Hei$t is a very odd difficulty gimmick described in early press releases, before Codemasters decided to go all closed-vault on us. It works like this: if you mess up a mission, subsequent missions will be harder. Does that seem a backwards step to anybody else? Remember back in the days of, oh, Ecco the Dolphin, where they introduced intelligent difficulty control, so that when you had been stung to death by the same jellyfish for the seventeenth time, the game slowed the jellyfish down…? Hei$t is apparently determined to speed it up. What incentive does the player have not to reload an earlier save when sneezing during the tutorial could mean you never defeat the final boss…?
) These guys look strangely familiar. | ) As does this diner. |
Anyway, because of the peculiar silence around it, I can’t tell you much more about Hei$t than you already know from the title and screens, nor even tell you whether it is worth waiting for, or whether you should just replay the excellent heist mission in GTA IV again. We can only slot this one into the calendar in pencil; let’s say “December” and await an update.
I don’t understand why there aren’t more games about stealing things. There’s plenty of games that let you commit every kind of atrocity of a violent nature, with nary a hint of consequence (unless you count maudlin cut scenes) but throw in a bit of light-fingered acquisition and suddenly there are police sirens everywhere. Some of my favourite sequences in action games are those that require you to get in and out of a location with a particular object, either through brute force or stealth, and since capture the flag is kind of a variant on that, it’s obviously a popular pastime. Where are the games about Arsene Lupin, Bonnie and Clyde, the adaptation of seventies series I Takes a Thief? Where, might I ask, is a Victor & Hugo game? Or a new Thief?
What are your favourite games or segments of games with a nice bit of looting in them?
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