The Entertaining Noble Nutlings Stumbles With Its Free-to-Play Execution

Posted: 2013-01-18 12:52:05.313

It has been a busy start to the year for iOS gamers; following the release of the excellent Hundreds, we've seen Joe Danger's transformation into a touch-based game and the sequel to Temple Run hit. In the middle of all that came the release of Noble Nutlings, the first game from Boomlagoon, a small developer made up of former Rovio staffers whose previous work includes Angry Birds. After downloading Nutlings when it was first came out last week, I only began playing it in the past few days. In the process, I'd forgotten completely that it was a free-to-play game. Upon realizing this after a few hours of play, many of the issues I'd had with it suddenly made a lot more sense.

Don't take that to mean the game itself isn't fun, because it is a very good time. Noble Nutlings is, in essence, a physics-based racing game reminiscent of Rovio's Bad Piggies. Like in that game, you're able to customize your vehicle; in this case, your cart can be outfitted with different tires and bodies, each with varying stats in two categories. As compared with Piggies, Nutlings is much less about designing a working vehicle and more about driving it to the finish line. It's also downright silly in many ways, with possible cart components including a frying pan, turtle shell, and stop sign wheels.

The physics, meanwhile, match the tone you'd expect from a game that lets you ride around in a banana with wheels. This is no real-life physics simulation; at times, you'll be transporting the three Nutlings along on a one-wheeler which won't necessarily crash when it falls all the way forward or backward and is dragging itself along. More severe accidents will send its passengers tumbling and you'll have to wait for the cart to respawn, potentially ruining your chance at a good time.

When you fall over, it will almost entirely be of your own doing. You have control over acceleration and the way the cart leans, either by tilting your phone/tablet left or right or using on-screen buttons, the latter of which I found to be easier to use because finding the neutral point is as simple as taking your finger off the screen. Leaning is a critical aspect of the game, as going off jumps can send you flipping through the air, and ensuring a safe landing will help you to reach the finish line quicker. It's also necessary for dealing with sharp hills and inclines, as well as the one-wheeler stages that would be impossible to complete if you were not balancing the cart along the way.

Many of the game's levels have more than a single path to take to the finish. Depending upon your goal -- do you want to collect all the acorns, or aim for the best time possible -- and the way your cart is constructed -- your setup may or may not be fast enough to make certain jumps -- there will be more than one way to go, something that does a lot for the replayability of each level. I had fun experimenting with different routes to see which was fastest with which cart design, and I have more than a few levels to return to because I've yet to explore alternate routes you have to take when trying to grab every acorn in one run.

It's a good thing that the levels feel so replayable because, if my experience is any indication, you'll be doing a lot of replaying them. You can't advance through the entire game merely by making it to the finish. Completing a level earns you only a single star; beating designated times are necessary for earning the second and third stars available on each level. And you'll have to wrack up a good number of stars throughout the game if you want to access many of the later levels without parting with your precious coins. I'm still locked out of roughly a third of the game's levels, forced to either grind my way to better times or more coins by replaying earlier levels over and over again. I've erred against spending coins to unlock these levels because coins don't come at an especially fast pace, and many of the more interesting cart pieces -- the ones I want to try most -- cost a lot of coins. Unlocking the next level after completing every one that came before it is not how I want to spend the coins I've saved.

I was confused as to why this was as I played until remembering I hadn't paid anything to download the game, which is free-to-play. Prior to that realization, I had thought the option to buy coins was there simply because that's what games do these days. In fact, those microtransactions are the way Boomlagoon makes money, and while at no point are you bombarded with notifications about coins being available in exchange for real-world money, parting with some cash seems like the only realistic way of ever obtaining many of the more expensive cart pieces. I also can't shake the feeling that the star restrictions for later levels are in place so that you buy upgrades and, in turn, coins. Likewise, the chili boost that you can use to speed yourself along costs coins to refill, and the game isn't particularly generous about the way it's consumed -- use some boost and then screw up on a level, and that boost (and the coins you spent to acquire it) are gone for good.

I don't have any problem with the free-to-play model (at least in theory), and I've really enjoyed Noble Nutlings. But certain design decisions seem to have been made here to funnel players toward the game's in-app purchases even though some of those things are a detriment to having a good time. Using the chili boost can be good fun, and I'd like to be able to screw around with it. Unless I'm willing to sacrifice the coins I've been saving to spend on certain items, though, I can't do that.

You can, of course, just download the game for free and take what enjoyment you can from it. Should you want to really throw yourself into it, however, plan on having to either spend money or face the potential for some serious grinding.

Temple Run 2 Feels Familiar, But the Formula Remains Fun

Posted: 2013-01-17 19:12:48.66

  Being the sequel to such a massively popular game, there are two different ways Imangi Studios could have realistically gone with Temple Run 2: Stay in the genre but make a much different game, or stay within the established framework of the original and simply expand upon it. Imangi opted for the latter, and while I'd have liked to see something that feels a bit more original, the game remains undeniably fun.

If you've played the original Temple Run, you'll be at home with the basics immediately. TR2 is an autorunner where the camera is fixed behind the player. You'll jump over gaps, slide under low-hanging barriers, and lean around obstacles as they come at you, occasionally picking a direction and turning when the randomly generated route splits. These core elements are identical to those in TR, but a few new things are introduced to fit in with the new temple-in-the-sky setting.

Among these are zip-lines and mine carts, which require you to tilt the phone/tablet from side to side in order to stay on-track. Zip-lines are fun, even if only because it's fun to watch and it gives you a short break as the only input needed once you're on one is tilting side to side to collect coins. Beyond those, there's not a lot of new obstacles in terms of functionality. There are things that are new visually, like waterfalls, but you deal with those in the same way you would a gap or tree log in your path: jump. For some people, the change in looks will be enough; if you're expecting something more from this area of the game, prepare to be let down.

With the addition of the mine cart and zip-line, there are just enough abilities to keep you on your toes. Just as importantly, the game doesn't give you so much to deal with that you'll fail because you can't remember which of the many abilities at your disposal is necessary to deal with an obstacle. Over time most everything grows to be second nature. Even though I'd played my fair share of the original Temple Run, I initially struggled in TR2 to make it 1,500 meters. Now, getting to double that only feels like a warm-up. Likewise, there's a real sense of progression that comes with your high scores. You're almost guaranteed to have it increase over time, not only because you improve but also because completing objectives grants you permanent multipliers that make scores that initially seem unreachable much more doable. The game never becomes what I'd describe as easy, as the difficulty ramps up the longer you survive. And once you begin to feel your high score is in reach, things become especially tense, and that's where the game is at its most fun.

  Those objectives should be part of what help to keep the game fresh beyond the high score hunt, but there's not nearly enough interesting ones to manage this effectively. Collecting coins, running a certain distance, finding a gem -- these are all very bland things to be asked to do as compared with some of the crazier ones in a game like Jetpack Joyride. That game's nature lends itself to having more exciting objectives, but I can't help but feel Imangi could have done something more interesting with TR2's. (And, much to my annoyance, being limited to three objectives at a time leads to situations where completing an objective presents you with a new one that you managed in the prior game, only you don't get credit for it.) At best, they can slightly affect your approach to the game -- causing you to avoid collecting coins for a time, for instance -- but otherwise you're still doing exactly what you would be doing anyway: Running for as long as you can without screwing up, and while collecting as many coins as possible.

The things coins are used to buy could have used a bit more originality, too. You can still spend them to improve the power-ups you'll find scattered throughout the world, and you can now equip yourself with one of them so that, upon filling your coin meter, it can be activated. But there isn't the array of new power-ups you might expect there to be in a sequel. The one notable addition in this area is the ability to use gems -- occasionally found in-game or available for real-world money -- to revive yourself after meeting your demise. Within each run, the cost increases the more you use this, and unless you're willing to spend money to buy gems, this is something you can't rely on consistently. Still, it is much appreciated for when you make a mistake on an otherwise great run, and a big improvement on the revival system in the original TR, save for the screen that pops up after you die that I wish you could skip.

Same-y as it all feels, I've really enjoyed playing Temple Run 2. It looks nicer than its predecessor, though it has some serious pop-in issues that can be distracting when you're trying to focus on what you're doing. I also miss the markers that showed how far your Game Center friends made it when they played. Ultimately, my quibbles with the game aren't major; it's not an enormous overhaul of the Temple Run we know, but it is a better version of it. And with TR2 being free to download -- and there being no pressure to ever spend any money -- it's hard to muster any serious complaints.

Far Cry 3's Messy Mod Scene Renews My Appreciation for Steam Workshop

Posted: 2013-01-16 16:55:25.497

Far Cry 3 is a very enjoyable open-world shooter. Its narrative is a flawed one, and yet, disappointing as that is considering what we were led to believe prior to its release about the kind of story it would tell, what I've found more bothersome than anything are many of the smaller problems it has. Fortunately I'm playing the PC version, and oftentimes what that means is I can turn to the modding community to fix some of those for me. I'm not expecting anyone to overhaul the story or make the entire game way more awesome by fulfilling everyone's wishes and introducing dinosaurs (yes, that is a challenge, modders), but I assumed I'd be able to go online and fairly easily find improvements to address some of my complaints. I was wrong, and it made me realize how spoiled I've become.

I've been playing Far Cry 3 sporadically for the last few weeks, having gotten to it a bit late (which is just as well, as an interface patch released late in December allows the game's many annoying in-game notifications to be disabled.) There's one thing that stuck out to me almost right away, and it's something that has persisted in bothering me each time I play: The menus are awful. They're sluggish and a pain to navigate, especially with a mouse, unusual as that is. Were this Halo or Battlefield, it would be more forgivable as the menus in those games aren't important. In Far Cry 3, inventory management and crafting are significant aspects, and there's no getting around the fact that this all has to be done through the terrible menus.

Should you want to use two syringes in a row that haven't been assigned to a hotkey, that means having to navigate the menus twice, as each usage pulls you back into the game to watch the needle get jammed into your arm. There's also no easy way to dispose of items in your inventory when you've run out of room, something that can and will happen, at least until you have the bigger inventory upgrades. And why identical items aren't stacked is beyond me, as providing that as an option could have helped to cut down on the clutter. I realize these probably sound like insignificant things, but they're incredibly annoying, and I find myself not bothering with crafting or reading codex entries simply because I'd prefer to stay out of the menus whenever possible.

Outside of the menus, there are other small issues that I'd presume modders could take care of, too. The presence of identical white rope anywhere you can pull yourself up doesn't help to promote immersion, nor does the way objects you can interact with (be it a plant or a crate with loot inside) blink to attract your attention. The latter is indeed something that can be solved with mods, although doing so is not nearly as simple as it should be.

Far Cry 3's mod scene is far from bustling; its page on Nexus Mods contains only a few dozen mods, and many of those are compilations of other mods. That's because the game was not designed with mod support in mind, a fact that becomes abundantly clear when you go to install one.

If there's a single mod you want to use, there's a chance it'll be as simple as replacing a pair of files in one of the game's folders. Others, like the weapon attachments mod talked about in the video above, require an additional download and a process far from what anyone would describe as "user-friendly," as the video demonstrates. It quickly occurred to me why compilations were so popular on Far Cry Nexus, and it's because the game won't allow more than one mod to be installed simultaneously without a lot of extra work.

In response, people put together these collections of existing mods. This undeniably makes the entire experience more convenient, but it also removes the ability to pick and choose exactly what mods you want to use. A common component of these compilations is to either remove or scale back the information provided on the minimap, and while some are nice enough to offer two versions of themselves -- one with the modified/removed minimap and one with the minimap untouched -- that still doesn't help to customize the rest of its contents. I might want weapon changes, improved textures, and access to the wingsuit right from the start, but I don't want a handful of other things the Tinker Tailor Soldier compilation offers. Unfortunately that's not an option without throwing myself into a convoluted process I'd just as soon avoid.

Being faced with this scenario has made me realize just how good I've had it recently downloading mods for Skyrim, Civilization V, and Serious Sam 3: BFE. Steam Workshop has simplified the process of obtaining mods to the point where it's no more difficult than installing a game through Steam. One click and it's done without ever navigating into any hidden folders or unpacking and repacking files or wondering whether binary converters are necessary or anything of the sort. And even though the Skyrim NPC mod I recently wrote about lacks Steam Workshop support, installing it involved extracting some files into a folder. That's it.

I'd begun to take the Workshop and easy installations like the Interesting NPCs one for granted, but Far Cry has made me realize I should not. In many cases, mods are the single greatest thing about PC gaming, and support for them (and making their use a simple and friendly process) should be something every developer aspires for. Those already doing so get an even bigger thumbs-up from me than ever before. Those like Ubisoft who do nothing of the sort might find I'm more hesitant to buy their PC games in the future.