Sony's Sands of Time 3

By Daniel Needham

By doing the basics right, developers are set to succeed.

Welcome to the third edition of Sony’s Sands Of Time, and if you’re a new reader welcome aboard! As always I’m open to reader feedback, and in fact I highly encourage it, as it gives a scope to my audience and their tastes.

Today I’m going to discuss a topic relating to the last months of a console. As you loyal readers may know, I run a sort of ‘retro section’ in the form of the category “In the beginning”. I recently received an email asking whether buying games in the last months of a console's life was worthwhile. Well in my view it certainly is, as the original Playstation had some great titles released in its twilight months. And who can forget some of the great titles coming up on the PS2? God Of War 2 anyone?

If you have missed some of the gems discussed today, remember that you’ll have all summer to work on that Playstation tan!

In The Beginning:
I’m going to presume here, maybe naively on my part, that many of you won’t have played or even heard of this title. It was only through sheer luck that my brother, who was nine at the time, hired this game; otherwise I probably never would have noticed it or even have played it for that matter.

The title I’m speaking of is Sheep Dog And Wolf.

Although released when the original Playstation was pretty much on life-support, this game had moments of sheer brilliance and original ideas that at the time hadn’t been seen in a platformer before.

Starring some of the famous Looney Toons characters, and featuring a wide arsenal of ACME laboratories equipment, Ralph Wolf must match wits against Sam Sheep-dog to rustle up a herd of sheep from his flock. Before you can steal the wool out from under Sam Sheep-dog's eyes, you'll have to help Ralph cleverly manoeuvre through awesome cartoon environments while skilfully utilizing a unique bag of gadgets and tricks in order to capture his prey.

What stood out about this most however was that this game really appealed to all ages, mainly because it was a title that did all the little things right, making it that much more satisfying when you succeeded, something I feel is lost from games these days.

These Days:
Nobody likes a bully, and nobody likes being bullied. But what do you do when confronted by a bully? Do you sit there and take it out of fear that standing up to the bully will lead to more torment? Or do you stand up, throwing everything back at him that you can? Rockstar's latest game, appropriately titled Bully but under the alias Canis Canem Edit in New Zealand, puts you in that situation and gives you the tools to stand up to those bullies, knock them around with your fists, and rise to the top of a boarding school's playground battlefield.

Having only had this title two days, via the US, I’m already strongly excited by what I see, as I believe that first impressions of a game often have the largest impact on you.

Bully opens with you, 15-year-old troublemaker Jimmy Hopkins, getting dumped off at a boarding school by your newly remarried mother and her husband, who intend to leave you in your academy for an entire year whilst they live it up on a cruise. As the new kid thrown into the equation, you're quickly painted as an outcast. You're also befriended by another such outcast, a weird kid named Gary, who is apparently having delusions of taking over the entire school. However, Gary removes himself from the equation relatively early on, leaving you to fend for yourself yet again against the school's different factions while attending classes, avoiding authority figures, and occasionally kissing girls and - if you believe the media reports - even boys.

However, what really sets the scene here is the scene and surroundings itself. A basic storyline that nearly everyone can relate to, as well as good dialogue and voice acting really make this title stand out from the pack - which like I mentioned earlier is similar to Sheep Dog And Wolf, as it does the basics well, and by doing this accentuates the positives. Budding developers take note.

We will skip Eye For The Future this week as I’d have to be a genius if I were to predict titles for the PS3’s twilight days. As mentioned in the top of the article feedback is most certainly welcome, and feel free to discuss anything! Tune in next time for another column packed full of Sony gaming. Until then play hard, Playstation.

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