It was at this moment during my first playthrough of Bastion that I cocked a quizzical eyebrow at my screen. Did the narrator just react to something I did? At the time, I wasn’t sure, but I very soon would be. Because Bastion’s narrator isn’t just some simplistic storyteller or a hokey conveyor of lore – he’s a reactive character that will offer commentary, guidance and context to your actions within this world.

Perhaps the most famous example of this gruff raconteur at work can be triggered within minutes of firing up the game for the first time. Roused from your slumber and confronted with a ruined world, you steer The Kid from his bed on to the game’s critical path, picking up your trusty hammer as you go. And, when you stumble into a clearing covered in breakable boxes, you probably do what most gamers would: smash ‘em.

But your destructive tendencies don’t go unnoticed. “The Kid just rages for a while,” breathes the narrator. It’s a simple line that does a lot of heavy- lifting. First, it works to recontextualise your video game-y habit of smashing crates in search of collectables, turning a flatly utilitarian action into a moment of role-playing character development. Your workmanlike hunt for currency is suddenly reimagined as a passionate outburst, a violent tantrum in the face of oblivion.

And, once you reach The Bastion – which stands as the one remaining sanctuary in this dead world – you’ll get to meet the man behind those treacly pipes. Although he’s initially introduced as The Stranger, you’ll soon discover that his name is actually Rucks, and while his enigmatic dialogue doesn’t give much away, his character design provides all sorts of hints towards Rucks’ role within this gameworld. Both Rucks and The Kid wear red bandanas and carry cog insignia, for instance, and the two men have the same colour hair and eyes, too…

But for all of the narrative intrigue that his presence throws up, Rucks impresses most thoroughly on a technical level, and a little context into the character’s creation only makes Supergiant’s achievement more remarkable. As the debut product of a small independent studio, Bastion was not a big-budget affair with clearly defined job roles. As such, composer Darren Korb was also tasked with recording the game’s voicework, and he asked his thespian roommate Logan Cunningham if he’d be interested in the part. Rather than hiring an expensive recording studio, Korb set up a microphone in a closet, and Cunningham would deliver his lines into the blank back wall of a cupboard.

Korb proved a demanding taskmaster, too, asking Cunningham to perform take after take to ensure that every single sentence had exactly the emphasis, inflection and tone that he was looking for. By the time Korb’s recording sessions were complete, he had more than 3,000 lines of narrator dialogue for the team to implement in-game, and it’s this vast catalogue of informative interjections, interesting asides and contextual comments that give the illusion of intelligence to the narrator’s nattering.

While all that might seem frictionless in the final product, it was far from an easy goal to realise, and writing a system that would retrieve and play these audio files at the appropriate time proved a significant engineering challenge – doubly so, given that the team was adamant that Rucks should never repeat himself and never interrupt himself. Making this faintly mad ambition a reality required two of Supergiant’s finest to sit down and hand-script all of those 3,000 or more lines of dialogue. It took quite some time.

But the result isn’t just impressive or immersive – it’s very much delightfully un-gamey, too, and it’s only when you’re confronted with a companion that never loops lines of dialogue or cuts out mid-sentence that you realise just how accustomed you are to making concessions for NPC eccentricities. Every time Rucks crops up to provide background on your surroundings or fill you in on Caelondia’s feisty fauna, it only adds to the sense that Bastion is a game that pays attention to your actions. Plenty of games may feature silver-tongued storytellers and eloquent speakers, but Bastion is one of the very few that appears to listen back.

This article originally appeared in Xbox: The Official Magazine. For more great Xbox coverage, you can subscribe here (opens in new tab).

The post Why Bastions narrator is a silver-tongued storyteller and an understated narrative lynchpin appeared first on Game News.

For the low, low cost of whatever-you-feel-like-at-the-time, you can get Psychonauts, LIMBO, Super Brothers’ Sword and Sworcery, and Amnesia: The Dark Descent. If you pay more than the average (which currently stands at a little over $7) you’ll also get Bastion.

Not bad, huh? To make the deal even more ridiculously awesome, you’ll also receive that soundtracks for all of the listed games absolutely free. See? We weren’t joking when we said it was the best bundle ever.

The post Humble Indie Bundle 5 is the best HIB yet appeared first on Game News.

Portal 2, Bastion, Battlefield 3, and Uncharted 3 were also well represented. See the full list (via Game Informer) below:

Game of the Year: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda)
Best Audio: Portal 2 (Valve)
Best Debut: Supergiant Games (Bastion)
Best Narrative: Portal 2
Best Visual Arts: Uncharted 3 (Naughty Dog)
Best Downloadable Game: Bastion
Best Game Design: Portal 2
Best Technology: Battlefield 3 (EA DICE)
Best Handheld/Mobile Game: Sword & Sworcery (Superbrothers)
Innovation Award: Johann Sebastian Joust
Ambassador Award: Ken Doroshow/Paul M. Smith (the legal council who won the U.S. Supreme Court Case Brown vs. Entertainment Merchants Assn.)
Lifetime Achievement Award: Warren Spector
Pioneer Award: Dave Theurer

The GDC’s main event was preceded by the Independent Game Festival Awards, which honored the movers and shakers of the indie scene. Winners included:

Best Student Game: Way
Technical Excellence: Antichamber (Alexander Bruce)
Excellence In Design: Spelunky (Derek Yu)
Best Mobile Game: Beat Sneak Bandit (Simogo)
Excellence in Visual Art: Dear Esther (thechineseroom)
Excellence in Audio: Botanicula (Amanita Design)
Audience Award: Frozen Synapse (Mode 7 Games)
Nuovo Award: Storyteller (Brainbeanz Ltd.)
Seumus McNally Grand Prize: Fez (Polytron)

Skyrim’s GDC award is the latest feather in Bethesda’s cap. The Elder Scrolls sequel also swept the Interactive Achievement Awards, won Spike’s top honor during the VGAs, and is up for multiple categories in the GAME British Academy Video Game Awards. More importantly, it won GR’s Platinum Chalice Reader’s Choice Award, which is worth more than its weight in fake, made up platinum.

The post The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim takes GDC Awards top prize appeared first on Game News.

Hey, videogames are a visual medium. Therefore, graphics are part of the package. How large a part they play is one of those things gamers will argue about for hours, withlots ofphrases like”graphics whore”, “frames per second”, “gameplay first”, and “realism vs art” thrown about. We say don’t overcomplicate things – we like pretty pictures, plain and simple. The question is, which one did we find the prettiest?

The Nominees:

Rayman Origins
Gorgeous hand-drawn visuals make this one of those games you simply have to see in motion to believe. Stupidly lushhigh-res backgrounds burst with vibrant color as impossibly fluid characters jump, stomp, and fly through the world with the grace of Olympic figure skaters.Preview

El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron
Designed by the lead artist on Okami, the look of El Shaddai seems almost like a stained-glass window come to life. But more important than the technology is the art design. Dream-like architecture andsweeping vistas are everywhere, and we’ve yet to see a level in which something, be it clouds or water or whatever, wasn’t moving. The world of El Shaddai might not look like anything on Earth, but you can’t say it doesn’t look alive.Preview

Far Cry 3
We love good art design, but sometimes it’s a game’s sheer technological prowess that blows us away. Look closely at the screenshot above. You almost don’t noticethe motion blur, the depth of field, the density of the jungle foliage or the way the dappled sunlighthits that vegetation.Why? Because you’re distracted by the fact that Far Cry 3 is so realistic, you can actually see the crazy in this lunatic’s eyes. This is why some folks buy $600 video cards – and why we don’t blame them for it.Preview

Bastion
The product of a dev team so small they could all ride to work together in a single SUV, Bastionis a labor of love. Andbecause whoever’s in chargeof the “making the graphics” part of that love uses every color in the spectrum and turns the brightness up to neon, wefind ourselves captivated. The more you see Bastion, especially in motion, the more breathtaking it is.Preview

Rage
Don’t let Rage’s bleak setting and muted color palette fool you. It’s actually glorious in motion, moving at a silky smooth pace even on consoles. And you don’t even notice a first how very solid all the textures look and how well lit the whole world seems to be. The game world in Rage may be sickly and struggling, but the game engine itself is alive and roaring.Preview

BloodRayne Betrayal
Another game that still screens simply can’t do justice, Betrayal somehow makes the title vampiress seem even more lithe and agile than before – probably something about the 4000 frames of animation the devs have given her. As a result, the entire game flows along as fluidly as the blood that seems to pour onto the screen every time Rayne sees another living creature. She’s feisty.Preview

And the winner
is…

June 20, 2011

The Nominees:

Rayman Origins
Gorgeous hand-drawn visuals make this one of those games you simply have to see in motion to believe. Stupidly lushhigh-res backgrounds burst with vibrant color as impossibly fluid characters jump, stomp, and fly through the world with the grace of Olympic figure skaters.Preview

El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron
Designed by the lead artist on Okami, the look of El Shaddai seems almost like a stained-glass window come to life. But more important than the technology is the art design. Dream-like architecture andsweeping vistas are everywhere, and we’ve yet to see a level in which something, be it clouds or water or whatever, wasn’t moving. The world of El Shaddai might not look like anything on Earth, but you can’t say it doesn’t look alive.Preview

Far Cry 3
We love good art design, but sometimes it’s a game’s sheer technological prowess that blows us away. Look closely at the screenshot above. You almost don’t noticethe motion blur, the depth of field, the density of the jungle foliage or the way the dappled sunlighthits that vegetation.Why? Because you’re distracted by the fact that Far Cry 3 is so realistic, you can actually see the crazy in this lunatic’s eyes. This is why some folks buy $600 video cards – and why we don’t blame them for it.Preview

Bastion
The product of a dev team so small they could all ride to work together in a single SUV, Bastionis a labor of love. Andbecause whoever’s in chargeof the “making the graphics” part of that love uses every color in the spectrum and turns the brightness up to neon, wefind ourselves captivated. The more you see Bastion, especially in motion, the more breathtaking it is.Preview

Rage
Don’t let Rage’s bleak setting and muted color palette fool you. It’s actually glorious in motion, moving at a silky smooth pace even on consoles. And you don’t even notice a first how very solid all the textures look and how well lit the whole world seems to be. The game world in Rage may be sickly and struggling, but the game engine itself is alive and roaring.Preview

BloodRayne Betrayal
Another game that still screens simply can’t do justice, Betrayal somehow makes the title vampiress seem even more lithe and agile than before – probably something about the 4000 frames of animation the devs have given her. As a result, the entire game flows along as fluidly as the blood that seems to pour onto the screen every time Rayne sees another living creature. She’s feisty.Preview

And the winner
is…

June 20, 2011

The post GamesRadar E3 2011 Awards: Most Graphics appeared first on Game News.