I’ve always been a fan of games which choose to reduce visual imagery to it’s barest form. When I saw Playdead‘s LIMBO I knew it’d be a game I’d want to checkout. It’s been popping up everywhere. But I have to admit after checking out the video on it’s site, and seeing many screenshots, I am very excited for Playdead‘s LIMBO. Via this article from Kotaku the story is described as thus:

Limbo is the story of a young boy braving a bleak and mysterious world in order to determine the fate of his sister. The art is purely black and white, with the main character and platforming elements silhouetted against beautiful greyscale backdrops.

It’s coming to Xbox Live, and I am going to play it. There’s a few more screen shots after the jump if you haven’t left inglorio.us and gotten lost in the website for LIMBO.

Rockstar‘s Red Dead Redemption looks great, as the video above shows. I like the trimmed down UI, and the quick shot of the “store” UI looked pretty slick as well. Interesting choice for that persistent mini map in that lower left. Looks like it with lifted right from Grand Theft Auto IV.

Okay, this has nothing to do with game UI, but when I saw Kotaku had posted this box cover for Borderlands I had to repost it here. Its. Simply. Amazing.

The popularity of themes seem to come in in waves on every medium: books, television, movies and games are no different. Sci-Fi is popular for a while and then Fantasy then World War Two games take the spotlight. Now it seems we have moved once again into the territory of the wild west. Rockstar’s Red Dead Revolver is getting a sequel with Red Dead Redemption and Ubisoft‘s Call of Juarez also getting the sequel treatment with Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood. Codemaster‘s is publishing the steampunk-ish Damnation which includes it’s own western overtones, and now Red Steel 2 is going to the wild west. That’s four all due to hit the market very soon.

So with all these western games looming what does this mean for the players and developers? Well it’s a underplayed theme in a lot of regards, it’s not another fantasy game nor a World War II shooter so it will feel fresh. It’s been a while since Gun, Call of Juarez, and Red Dead Revolver and even longer since my favorite western shooter LucasArts Outlaws. While not an original setting it’s definitely a good time for the market to see the wild west make a comeback. So I think the potential for some great gameplay his here.

Giving players a fresh new environment to explore is always a plus, but it also puts a lot of pressure on the game developers, your environment won’t add much to your appeal if you are just another wild west shooter. A player isn’t going to want to experience the same desert setting, with the same dried up ghost towns, the same weaponry and the same bad guys. Unlike fantasy and sci-fi where ranges are broader and pretty much anything goes, the westerns genre can’t be as capacious. It’ll be up the the developers to draw clear separation between their product and others coming to market.  A theme doesn’t guarantee results, you’ll need solid game play, a good story, excellent controls and UI, on top of that fresh theme to really pull it off, in other words, a solid user experience as a whole.

BioShock used a unique setting and rich story to engage players and move away from other horror-themed shooter. Gearbox‘s Borderlands is doing a good job as well. Being a pseudo-apocalyptic sci-fi wasn’t enough they went with a different art style and a new direction in co-op gameplay separating themselves from the approaching wave of apocalyptic MMOs. It’s a good direction and the distinct style and approach is separating them from the masses.

In a surge of western themed titles a developer has to work to standout or risk their title following into more of a me too spot. Oh… and yes, that is Freddie Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist up above.

TouchArcade (via IGN) posted two screens for Gameloft’s upcoming Assassin’s Creed. The game looks quite fetching, nice three dimensional environments, decent textures (much improved over the DS version,) and an interesting setting. But… you see I don’t want to talk about Assassin’s Creed, not really, I want to talk about the current lack of innovation when it comes to controls on the IPhone.

Maybe ngmoco:) and Hand Circus’ Rolando spoiled me. After all it was great, a subtle blend of accelerometer and gesture based controls that created a fun and challenging game. It embraced the platform; it felt new, like nothing I had really played before and that’s what helped make it great. Assassin’s Creed looks different, here we have a powerful touch surface where we can tilt, pinch, swipe, flick, tap and slide. Instead of embracing this new technology like Rolando, Assassin’s Creed returns to the D-Pad. I find it hard to believe a traditional control scheme replicated virtually is the best we can do with such a powerful platform.

There’s more to this than just embracing the new technology available, there is also the screen size. The screen on the IPhone is a decent size, but much goes to waste when onscreen controls take up so much real-estate. Assassin’s Creed isn’t the first this is the path many developers have taken. Gameloft’s previous games: Hero of Sparta and Brothers in Arms also replicated classic controls. Chillingo’s iDracula, Fishlab‘s Galaxy on Fire and to some degree Hermitworks‘ Space Trader follow in a similar footsteps and the list doesn’t stop there, the App Store is full of them. These aren’t bad game, I enjoy the lot of them, but they just don’t feel like they fit on an IPhone. They feel like they want to be on a DS/DSi or PSP where the the traditional inputs already exist.

I’ve written about the IPhone before, looking at developers who treat the device almost like a Wiimote. Now it seems like I am seeing the opposite, developers (with great games) shying away from the powerful interface options that the IPhone provides instead of trying to find that happy medium.