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Monday, December 6, 2004
That's right! It's been long enough, so start the engines, spin the wheels and throw another pile of Army Men games into the furnace - Electric Interweb is back!

We know, we know - it's been a long, long time since we last updated. After a great deal of deliberation, we decided that if we couldn't be funnier than UK Resistance, we could at least be more infrequent than them. But don't worry; the long break away has, at the very least, allowed us to stockpile absolutely loads of great material that will keep the site in updates for years to come! Nah, just kidding - it's still the same badly formulated crap we've been serving up irregularly for God-knows how long now. Some things never change, eh?

Some things, however, do change. The game's industry changes all the time, while simultaneously staying largely the same. In the months that we've been away, loads of stuff has happened that we really should have been lampooning. So, in a bid to catch up, here's a quick run-down of the things we would have commented more fully on had we been able to bother.

Sony PSP - It's a handheld Playstation 2. Good idea, Sony - maybe on a screen that small, people won't notice how crap and jagged your console's low-resolution graphics look.

Nintendo DS - Ooh, look! Two screens! And one of them's touch sensitive! That's really going to tempt people away from the better-looking, more powerful Sony PSP, isn't it? That said, it should allow developers to be more imaginative and innovative with their titles. Just imagine how innovative the Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh games aregoing to be now!

Nintendo Revolution - Nintendo reveal at E3 that their next-gen console is already in development, and that it's been nicknamed "Revolution" because it will be completely unlike anything that we've ever seen before. And given the innovation already demonstrated with the DS, they could be right. It's still going to sell bugger all, though, isn't it?

Doom 3 - Yes, it involves hours of tedious corridor trekking. Yes, it lacks any real gameplay innovations. Yes, its puzzles are staid and overused. Yes, the monsters are one-dimensional and predictable. Yes, the selection of weapons is lacking in imagination. But doesn't it look pretty?

Far Cry - I've just spent hours taking down worryingly intelligent soldiers. I've learned to listen for their footsteps. I've learned the intricacies of their patrol routes. I've eavesdropped on conversations and listened in on barked orders. I've adapted to their strategies, and watched, dumbfounded, as they've adapted to mine. And what's this? Oh look, it's a terrifying zombie monster who can apparently leap half the level in one go and stove my head in with a single punch. That's not disappointing at all. Far Cry - When good games go bad.

Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon - The reinvention of the adventure game, they reckon. It's intelligently plotted, and wonderfully acted. It's just a pity that the adventure game's reinvention seems to involve reinventing intelligent conversation-based puzzles as bits where you have to push crates around. Also wins the award for the worst game ending since you realised that Space Invaders was just going to go on for ever and ever and fucking ever.

Half-Life 2 Code Thieves Tracked Down - Members of Half-Life's online fan community worked together to track down the hackers who broke into Valve's computers and stole the Half-Life 2 source code. Likelihood that none of that group of Nancy Drew wannabes has ever used Kazaa - 0%.

X-Box Arcade - Microsoft plans to attract new gamers to X-Box live by offering downloadable, pay-for-play versions of ancient arcade games like Space Invaders and versions of Solitare. In other news: Ford attempts to win over potential drivers by re-releasing the Model T.

Goldeneye: Rogue Agent - It's like a list of warning signs. An EA Bond game (Danger! Crap Game Series Alert!) "inspired" (Danger! Inverted Comma Alert!) by Rare's groundbreaking original, it actually bears no resemblance whatsoever to either the original game (Danger! Cashing In On Goodwill Of Classic Game Alert!) or the film that game was based on (Danger! Frighteningly Spurious Plot Alert!). Instead, you play a former 00 Agent kicked out of MI6 for being too naughty. (Danger! See, We Told You!) In the first ten minutes of the game you kick Bond off a rooftop (Danger! Predictable Ending Alert!) and lose an eye in a confrontation wth Dr No. Who, as we all know, was killed in the first Bond film. Which was set many years before Goldeneye, the film on which this game is spuriously based (Danger! Time Paradox! Set Belief Suspension to Factor 11!)

So, Scaramanga (also killed by Bond in a film set previously to Goldeneye), who is helping out in a war between Doctor No and Goldfinger (despite them all being dead and having nothing at all to do with each other in the original books, films or games), replaces your missing eye with (wait for it) a Golden Eye! Because Scaramanga is The Man With The Golden Gun! See! It all makes sense! Neat bit of plotting there, EA; the Pullitzet's on its way for sure.

But that's not all. Your new Golden Eye is actually a miniature version of the Goldeneye satellite from the film Goldeneye! I'm not even going to insult your intelligence by mentioning how microscopically little sense that makes, and even if I wanted to I couldn't because this plot is so monumentally stupid it has actually left me speechless. And as if that wasn't bad enough, at various points in the game Scaramanga donates you "Eye Powers" such as EM Hack which disables security systems, EM Shield which deflects bullets, Magnetic Field for picking up enemies and chucking them around and MRI Vision for seeing through walls.

At this point, it seems pointless picking holes in these powers because the whole concept of the game is as poorly constructed as a rice-paper bomb shelter, but I have to mention one little thing: none of those powers are even vaguely physically possible. I mean, how could a magnetic field toss your enemies around, unless you're fighting enemies exclusively constructed from metal? And anyway, what do any of them have to do with the Goldeneye satellite, a machine whose sole purpose was to unleash city-devestating laser beams? Eh? EH?

The concept and design of this whole game grates more than a sandpaper posing pouch, but there's one thing that stands out, for me, as the most irritating thing of all. Your Golden Eye is quite clearly a mechanical device, right? It's a miniature version of a satellite. It's a machine. So, it obviously needs a power source. And EA admits that using your Eye Powers depletes energy from the machine. So, obviously it needs recharging. I'm not a games designer, but I can already think of several ways of doing that which kind-of make sense. The eye could be powered by bio-electricity, and to recharge it you could sacrifice a little bit of your health. Or you could have scenes where you connect yourself up to electrical sockets - I can imagine a memorably disturbing vision of the character jabbing electrical connecters into his eye. But that's not how EA are doing it, oh no. In Goldeneye: Rogue Agent your Eye Energy is recharged by... taking out enemies stylishly.

No, EA. NO. You can't establish the Golden Eye as a mechanical device one moment and then have it's energy levels restored by a mechanic that judges how well you're playing the game. It makes no sense whatsoever. You've attempted to create a plot framework that establishes the Golden Eye as a Real Thing existing in a coherent gameworld, but then you go and destroy that illusion of reality by recharging it's power levels based on a judgement that admits that the whole thing is just a charade and the game is, well, just a game.

The whole thing could have worked. Enough craft has gone into the level design and combat to make the game enjoyably playable. But just having a playable game wasn't enough for EA, because EA don't make games - they invest in Franchises. They had to make a Bond game. But their Bond games simply haven't been very good, so they decided to buy in on the goodwill afforded to Rare's classic N64 shooter by borrowing the Goldeneye name. Which in turn produced another problem; making a game that had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the film or the game, but which still warranted the Goldeneye name. Hence the shoehorned plot, the crowbarred game mechanics and the absolute disreguard for Bond history, characterisation or internal consistency.

If Goldeneye does one thing, it reaffirms EA's position as the single most cash-hungry, cynical publisher ever to have existed in the history of the games industry. I mean, I thought Fifa: Road To The World Cup was bad, but this takes the biscuit. EA have taken so many liberties with this licence that I actually feel genuinely insulted. In fact, I have reached the point that I will not buy this game reguardless of how good it is. I don't care if it's the best game ever. I don't care if it offers flawless level design, impossibly smooth gunplay and impeccable graphics. I don't care if my copy of the game comes with a Golden Ticket entitling me to a magical tour around Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. I don't care if it cooks, cleans, makes tea, tucks me into bed at night and fellates me gently while I'm sleeping. I refuse to buy it.

Now, you know that here at Electric Interweb, we're not given to exaggeration. We tell it like it is, straight and true, and that's why we can say, in all earnestness, that even thinking about buying this game makes you more evil than Hitler. Just something to bear in mind.

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