Today is Tuesday, but not just any other Tuesday, for today was Super Tuesday.
Today determined who will be running. Right now it looks like Hillary Clinton and John McCain.
November is going to be very interesting…
January 25, 2008
With each console generation we see a changing of hats. One generation it is all about 3D graphics, the next is about multiplayer, the next is about online play. And with each change, gamer’s jump ship from one console to another, unless they are some of the lucky few that can afford all three consoles. What is the effect of this on the industry as a whole though? What it pretty much boils down to is the question if fanboys/fangirls are a good thing or a bad thing. Sure it is a good thing from a business side because you can flaunt your amount of ‘loyalists’, but it is hardly pushing the industry forward. With all the comparisons to the film industry I am highly surprised that gaming hasn’t started to form guilds, and no I don’t mean in World of Warcraft.
A good example of benfits of guilds include the recent Writer’s Strike. Now I know most people, myself included, aren’t happy about the second season of Heroes being cut short, or a hold on the storyline of Lost, but from a developer stand point, the guild allows a better degree of flexability when creating something new. A big flaw of the gaming industry is the lack of original games getting recognition. Unless you are a sequel or based off of a movie, better luck next time. If you want to create a new IP, you better have the game come out with a console, or else you face a high amount of risk releasing the title.
I am honestly surprised a game like BioShock or Assassin’s Creed can stand up to power house sequels like God of War II, Halo 3 and Super Mario Galaxy for the covetted title of Game of the Year. With a guild in place for say, graphic design, this allows for all games to maintain a certain standard of quaility graphically, where as a gameplay guild could focus in on control and find out why camera controls are always an issue. Standards could be set! Friendly mediums could be met! The amount of gaming crap could become a thing of the past!
The only problem with the original IP in this case would have to be the marketing. Unless you are shooting something or cussing up a storm, the game slips under the radar of the public eye. Look at the best sellers for 2007. 3 out of 10 are Mature-rated; Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, and Assassin’s Creed, and all but Assassin’s Creed and Wii Play are sequels. Is killing people really that entertaining?
January 24, 2008
Due to unfoseen circumstances, today’s blog post has been delayed until tomorrow.
No there is not a problem with a plane, but I am thinking I could blame the Writers Strike…
January 22, 2008
Welcome to a new column style I am incorpirating called Insert Coin. The primary focus of these posts will be on the video game arcades of yesterday, with a focus on classics and the obscure. To kick off Insert Coin, I will start with one of my favorites, and an all time classic: Galaga.
Galaga is one of many space age shooters from the 80’s. It’s brethern include Space Invaders, Galaxian, and Centepide. Each stage was littered with 40 enemies of three different types, a red enemy, a yellow enemy and a blue enemy. While the red and yellow only required one bullet to destroy, the blue enemies took two shots. In later levels, the enemies shift into various forms that are worth differnt point values.
Challenge stages took place every three levels. In these levels enemies never lined up, only dancing around the screen to see how many you could eliminate. This was also a prime chance to earn extra lives, as your ship was elminated in only one simple shot, or collision.
This game has been released many times in recent years, with each version trying to stay true to the orginal, although very few succeed. People complain about how fast buttons respond to how lives aren’t cherished as much as they were in the original arcade version.
IMAGE SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Galaga.png
January 17, 2008
The original Call of Duty represents many things in the eyes of gamers. From it’s excellent use of id Tech 3, to its harsh multiplayer environment, it could be viewed as the pinnacle of 2003 PC gaming. Fast forward four years, to a world where consoles rule. World War II has been beat to death, and Sci-Fi is getting close to boiling point. How does Infinity Ward adapt to this new landscape? Modern Warfare.
Call of Duty 4 doesn’t follow any specific war, but it hits close to American shores. The game starts with a small training mission, followed by a small team infiltration on a Russian Cargo ship. Story picks up shortly afterwards, as one of the games protagonist, a middle-eastern revolutionary named Al-Asuad, executes the president of an unnamed middle eastern country, President Al-Fulani. From that point on it is a mad rush by the British SAS and the USMC to gain control of the situation.
While the story line is well written from a game perspective, it still feels a little too linear. You are often faced with insurmountable odds, trying time and time again to win each battle. And that is where the single player falls short. It often seems that battle is luck based due to the inconsistent AI. What isn’t luck based comes down to the simple pattern of die, commit enemy positions to memory, die, and try again. That’s assuming you don’t get hit by any stray bullets or happen to sit on a grenade.
Graphics also impress, coating the game in an unprecedented amount of detail. While sometimes the speech looks a little jarring, it is forgiven quickly due to the realism presented elsewhere on the character. The only thing that rivals the graphics would have to be the sound design. The guns all sound and feel realistic, with ample amounts of recall.
The multiplayer though… The online play of the game shines just as bright, if not brighter, as the singleplayer. Modes vary from Team Deathmatch to Headquarters to Cage Matches. Everything you do in any of these modes adds to your overall rank, allowing you to make custom classes to fit your particular glove. On top of that there are also small, mini-achievements for just about anything. These challenges range from getting 10 kills with specific weapons, to getting kills while crouched. After completion of the challenges, you unlock things for your custom classes, like special camo prints for your guns, custom sights, and improved abilities.
Once you finish the single-player campaign, playing through it again seems trivial, unless you didn’t play through on Veteran the first time. The Epilogue makes you want to force Infinity Ward to do a game to compete directly with Rainbow Six. The multiplayer is deep, but the people in which you participate with make it shallow. Overall, it is a solid package worthy of purchase. Especially because it doesn’t take place in World War II.
January 15, 2008
It has been years since Knights of the Old Republic debuted on the original Xbox. Now, one generation later, BioWare raises the bar even higher with Mass Effect. Gone are simplistic, un-spoken lines of ‘dialogue’. Removed is the at times clunky dependentcy of d20 combat system. The speech system and combat system are the peanut butter and jelly of this delicious sandwich, or sammich if you prefer. Improvements from Knights of the Old Republic don’t stop there though. Sheer content alone makes Knights of the Old Republic feel like a pilot to a TV show as apposed to Mass Effect’s strong entry into trilogy territory.
Where as KotOR had lines of dialogue your created character ’spoke’ to others, Shepard takes center stage with a personality crafted by the hands of the player, even if the voice for both versions of Shepard sounds flat compared to other characters. Keith David and Seth Green give very memorable performances as Commander Anderson and the witty pilot Joker. I can only begin to imagine the lines of dialogue yet to be discovered.
While there is no strict dark side and light side dichotomy many games offer, Shepard feels more akin to the other side of the alignment table, leaning more towards Chaotic and Lawful as apposed to Good or Evil. Regardless, Shepard picks his or her words wisely, without seeming to harsh, but still sounding like a loose cannon, assuming that is the path you choose. These choices don’t have an effect on your character, allowing you a sense of freedom personality wise.
The customization of Shepard has depth as well, with options ranging from a strict military background to a simple life of a torn citizen. While most games add this just to add ‘depth’, BioWare makes sure you remember what you picked, with consistent references to Shepard’s past, although it would have been nice to see them cut of quests depending on background.
Speaking of quests, there is a fair amount, although I expected more. There are a few that stood out, and others that felt very under-developed. One of the best ones is the quest you must complete to gain access to certain specializations, depending on your class. Poor ones range to doing a quick time action event to analyze something in a certain way to simply talking a character out of working at a certain bar due to safety.
Combat is well realized, with the ability to issue complex commands to your two squad members at a moments notice. There is one major flaw in the combat is the cumbersome cover system. Sometimes it works, and other times your character stands and takes bullets without locking into an obviously nearby piece of cover. That and your squad mates AI sometimes likes to hug bullets, but that could be due to the assignment of squad command to the Xbox 360’s crappy D-Pad.
The biggest part of Mass Effect though is it’s well flushed out universe and story. The Codex feature adds novels worth of depth to even the smallest of races in the game. The team at BioWare are truely masters of their craft, creating a unique blend of art, story, and gameplay. The fact that this game is getting overlooked by shallow First-Person Shooter’s is a real shame, as depth should never be ignored.
January 10, 2008
Finally back.
Regular updates start again on Tuesday!
December 21, 2007
Why do all Russians have perfect aim? Why do they all have nukes? Why does it take them 12 shots to die? Why does it only take the British 2 shots to die? WHY THE FUCK ARE THERE ONLY CLOSED CORRIDORS?!?!?!
Why is Infinity Ward so awesome?
December 15, 2007
Sorry for no update on Thursday, there was an emergency. Three Updates next week!
December 11, 2007
It is sad that I am going to have to start reviewing Wii games like PSP games in a sense. Most PSP games would be very excellent, if the system itself was designed in a different way. Super Mario Galaxy is proof that you can have a good game with a system that could be so much more.
Super Mario Galaxy starts off the way all Mario games do, with a letter from Princess Peach. Then the first hour starts. Nintendo seems to stress story this time around, making Mario a friend of yet another Princess who has a space ship who could travel the universe. Thats right, could. That is where everyone’s favorite plumber steps in, collecting Power Stars to power the ship.
The controls in Super Mario Galaxy have been vastly simplified from Mario’s last offical outing, Super Mario Sunshine. Gone is the all annoying Water Pack, and for the better. Mario loses most of his attacks, at least in the sense that you are in control of. In place of it is the Spin attack, which with a flick of the wrist, Mario can knock enemies back to be jumped on or kicked. Kicking is performed just by running into a dazed enemy, while jumping is mapped to the A button. Camera control is mostly thrown out the window, for better or worse.
Graphically, this is the best looking Wii game to date, hands down. And that is the problem. Sad to say my 360 outputting in 1080i has spoiled me for the rest of my life. It hurts to look at the game compared to certain games on the 360. I am not saying I want Mario rendered in the Unreal Engine, but working out the edges wouldn’t hurt at all. There are plenty of games with a creative art design that don’t look like this. Just look at Ratchet and Clank Future.
The sound design is not only the best aspect of the game, but damn near perfect. From classic Mario themes, to crazy renditions, to new orchestrated tunes, Galaxy performs in spades. The thwomp of Mario’s Stomp ability, the ambience of the lava lakes, the sound of being shot threw space. Everything is perfect.
Level design is another area where this game shines, from planet sizes ranging from the tiny to the planets made of very few platforms of fire and ice, the game shows off everything you could think of. The later levels are very unforgiving, which is okay because the game stacks you with lives like no other, but the challenge doesn’t loom quite as nicely. My personal favorites were the Toy Level and the level in which rain controls where you can travel. This is Nintendo game design at it’s best.
With 120 stars to collect and a reason to traverse the universe one more time after that, Super Mario Galaxy delivers time and time again. The co-op mode feels tacked on at the last minute, and while the game is fairly new, the hardware does show it’s age. It is nice to have this Power Star back, but it could have had way more Shine.
