I Wanna Play That! #5 Ninja Theory
Over the years I have started up and then killed off a number of personal and professional blogs, whether tailored to a particular audience or simply an outpouring from my brain (such as it is) onto the internet. But there is one particular kind of article/post/thing that I always like to revive from blog to blog: a semi-regular round-up of cool, innovative, exciting games that I've found, and really, really want to play...
..and, speaking from experience, probably won't. The fact is that there are more games out there than there are hours in the day, or £££ in my bank account, and this has always struck me as very unfair and most likely a design oversight by God that somebody ought to rectify. But, when I win the lottery and retire to a Caribbean island, I will get round to playing All Of The Games, and these will be towards the top of my list.
Ninja Theory, a British studio in Cambridge, has dominated my radar recently, as Bioware and Bethesda slowly sink in my entirely subjective, whim-bound personal rankings. Mass Effect Andredoma's lackluster reviews and Bethesda's refusal to put out a new singleplayer TES game (boo, guys, boo,) contrast with the bold, aspirational titles tumbling out of Ninja Theory which are reminding me what games can be.
At Develop last year, I was lucky enough to be in the audience for a talk in which a member of the dev team for Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice was speaking. My work for the day was done, I'd helped compose the questions, so I could sit back, learn and enjoy. The conversations were enlightening, and I was intrigued to learn more about the games mentioned. Hellblade is fascinating to me. It's such a challenging subject matter - this game is Mature in all the senses of the word, and it makes me deeply want and deeply not want to play it. Ninja Theory are, in my opinion, one of the most exciting studios operating out there right now. They call on such a variety of cultural and gameplay touchstones in order to craft their experiences; Hellblade is Viking themed, whilst Enslaved: Odyssey To The West calls upon the 16th Century Chinese literary classic of the (almost) same name: Journey To The West.
For some unfathomable reason, I'd got it into my noodle that Odyssey To The West was a Playstation exclusive, and therefore I'd never get to play it. When I acquired a partner, and then successfully tricked them into moving in with me, a Playstation 4 took up permanent residence in my house, so I looked the game up to buy. And, of course, it turned out I am quite stupid, and it has been available on PC for a number of years. In my defence, Ninja Theory don't mention the PC version, or indeed even the PS4 version(!) on their own website, so I think I can be forgiven. Either way, considering this game well over half a decade old, I am psyched to give it a go. Retro is in; I want to play Okami too.
And finally, DmC: Devil May Cry. I own this, and it remains one of the few games I have played but not finished. I was trying to play it with a keyboard and mouse and man, it does not work doing it that way. You gotta play this with a gamepad, and if you can grow a couple extra thumbs too, that'd help. One wet weekend, I'm going to sit down and knock my head against this game until I figure it out properly this time.
