Killzone 2

With mouth open, jaw hitting the proverbial floor, I think some drool dripped from my chin as I gazed upon the beauty that is Killzone 2.
It’s hard not to notice just how good developer Guerilla made Killzone 2 look. Aside from recent PC shooter Crysis, it is the greatest looking game ever made. Buildings have never looked so detailed, nor have firefights so vibrant. Once I was able to detach my eyes from the TV screen, I was engulfed by one of the better shooters made in recent memory.
After playing the greatly hyped Killzone back in 2004 for the Playstation 2, I was extremely disappointed by its shortcomings. I was cautious for the sequel, seeing as how publications such as Electronic Gaming Monthly and Game Informer touted Killzone 2 as one of the greatest looking games of all time.
After jumping into the single player campaign, those fears were quickly forgotten. In the sequel, you control Sergeant Thomas Sevchenko instead of Jan Templar, the hero from the first. The rather generic story only becomes interesting in the in the final two hours of the game. The writing rarely impresses; your crude squad mates spend considerable time discussing what they could do to each others’ butts.
Killzone 2 does include positive mechanics from other games. For example; your character now has the ability to take cover, much like in Gears of War 2. The ability to go in and out of cover so seamlessly creates an immersive, stop-n-pop experience. So many enemies appear on screen during the course of a firefight, the ability to step in and out of cover creates a sense of tension that few games rarely achieve.
Enemy AI won’t exactly blow you away, but it does offer a new approach to an old game design. In some games, one or two enemies appear at a time, making it too easy to kill them one at a time. Developer Guerilla instead decided to include more enemies on the screen in Killzone 2 and give them all different timers. If you try and pick off one enemy at a time, there are five or six others waiting to shoot you.
Your AI partners provide the most frustration. I oftentimes witnessed enemy Helghast soldiers run past my teammates and then not even attempt to shoot the enemy. Repeat this process about one hundred times, and you will understand the annoyance.
As far as online multiplayer, a more streamlined matchmaker would have helped out tremendously. Also, detailing the match type in each server room would be helpful. Local co-op would have also been a nice touch seeing as how you have an AI partner around you for about 90% of the single player game.
Overall, Killzone 2 offers a beautiful, rich experience that’s not without some minor problems like the partner AI or the generic story. But, if you own a Playstation 3 this is a definite must buy.

Mass Effect 2 Just Blew My Mind

/hype
/hEdAsplode

Is Conan Immortal?

One of our first posts was entitled R.I.P Age of Conan and it detailed my sadness at the passing of what I felt was a great game. This sadness notwithstanding, I was unable to remain a subscriber to the game; I gave into the same issues that had driven away so many. Like them I moved on, chalking up the experience to a fond memory of an opportunity lost. I assumed that Funcom wasn't up to the task of fixing the game's myriad of problems or reproducing content that was of the same quality as the areas that had originally memorized me. But, MMOs are unique in that they get more than one press cycle.


The first of these cycles was a mixed bag for Age of Conan. Sure the game got positive reviews, netting a game ranking score of 81.0%, but the word of mouth was atrocious. I was unfortunate enough to experience this negative reaction first hand, when close friends of mine who I bullied into trying the game, would return with nothing more than a list of game breaking bugs, hard reboots, and visually disturbing graphic glitches. Some of these graphic glitches were actually fairly humorous, I find myself recalling one in particular that caused the breasts of female NPCs to dance up and down much like the lemurs in the film Madagascar. But, on the other hand some were infuriating, causing the world to be drawn in only low res muddy textures, or having your avatar’s hair either change color for entire log ins, or completely disappear. Although one was only able to enjoy these visual bugs when you were able to actually play the game, which the crushing memory leaks, and the hardest of hard locks made more difficult than necessary. But, just as the positive reviews disappeared under a mountain of negative press, so did the game’s problems disappear in my absence.

I really didn’t expect it on my return. I figured I would play it for 15 minutes and then uninstall it, as I am known to do with old PC games. Slowly however, I noticed that the bugs that were once mocking in their persistence were gone. As that realization sunk in I began looking for other bugs I remembered, to prove to myself that I hadn’t counted Funcom out too early. But, in my search I realized that almost every bug of any significance was gone. Not only that, but the game had improved from a reasonably objective standard as well.

The horses that were originally punitive in their pricing were now absolutely attainable by the lonely solo player. The graphics in A.O.C. are the stuff of legend, but required a computer of an equally mythic proportion. But, upon my return they seemed to be much better optimized. Frame rates were up by about 10 in every zone, textures that had previously popped in like a Gears of War 2/Halo 3 cut scene now appeared immediately after loading. The quests which before seemed to peter out after about level 27, now seemed to ooze from every zone I could make it to. These improvement though impressive aren’t what has me the most doubtful of my previously prognosticated demise of A.O.C.

It’s the content that lies just around the corner. Funcom earlier in the games life announced it was cutting employees due specifically to the falling subscriber numbers. But, these cuts were apparently not aimed at the content design team, since a quick search of what they are working on is impressive in its quantity. A new zone Y’mir’s Pass was just recently released along with a sweeping pvp update. This pvp update is being followed up by a second expansion in the next patch, which is scheduled to come out in the third week of February. In the near future Funcom has announced a new zone called Tarantia Commons District where the game play is said to mimic Assassin’s Creed with on-roof fighting and movement. As someone who knows the game’s engine well, this is really exciting. Additionally they will be adding, more items through the three new raid dungeons they are introducing, the pvp ranking system they will continue to flesh out, and their commitment to completely redesign all of the dungeons in the game made for 6 man groups. This redesign will include more engaging boss encounters that are said to be inspired by World of Warcraft and traps inspired by action movies (one includes I gigantic rolling border careening down a narrow stair case once it is sprung). So was my previous lamenting premature?

I don’t think anyone, even Funcom, knows that yet. The game has two chances at a “re-launch”: One when the new Conan Movie comes out in 2010 and the other when the Xbox 360 version of A.O.C. arrives. Either of these events will give a large shot in the arm to a game that is really ready to present itself to the world. And, until this “resurrection” takes place, or the world comes crashing down around my avatar’s head, I will be enjoying Hyboria.

"Bully" Should Be Beaten Up

Show of hands: who here wasn't tortured by bullies in high school, and desperately wanted to strike back (I'm talking to you, Charles Weninger, you neo-Nazi shithead)? I know I felt that way (I'm like the lone radical liberal in the middle of Conservative County Kansas, so don't be shocked) and when I heard about the concept of "Bully," an Xbox 360 game which allows a pushed-around kid to strike back without blowing his school sky-high, I was immediately attracted to the concept and picked it up.

However, in terms of gaming, I'd have to assign "Bully" an F. There is not a single video game class that "Bully" passes to keep me from expelling out of my gaming collection.

But I'll back up and compliment the graphics. "Bully" attempts to create an image of modern, pulpy comics with the latest cartoon animation. The best comparison I can think of is "007 GoldenEye" from the Nintendo 64, which depicted similarly large-headed avatars running around during trigger play. The graphics during the cinematic movies are quite a bit better, and should be complimented accordingly.

However, it's difficult to be overly excited about the graphics when the angles will, during absolutely critical moments in the game, gyrate like the screen has been possessed by an epileptic seizure. This is unfortunate, because as bully-busting rebel Joe, you occasionally need to be able to flee from incompetent school authorities, who can't seem to realize when you're striking out, you're really just fighting back, yet possess the sense of Sabretooth when it comes to tracking you down and dragging your squalling hide back into the principal's office.

More to the point, it's almost as if the creators were so focused on making the graphics aesthetically pleasing, they completely forgot to double-check that the game play itself is interesting. Suffice it to say, it isn't. Each game feels like it's straining to be interesting and playable. The concepts are fabulous, but the delivery doesn't follow through. The most interesting mini-game involves dissecting a frog, but the task is so tedious as to be completely unengaging.

The mini-games also randomly shake like they're hanging over the Golden Gate Bridge 1989. As a result of the misguided angle seizing, it makes it almost impossible to complete quests, which are dolled out one by one. The interface of the game refuses to allow you to take on multiple quests (wait, let's us gamespeak; "errands") at a time. This not only makes gameplay a time-consuming process, it feels more like prepping for an Algebra test than a dose of entertainment.

Adding insult to injury, there appears to be a video interlude on average of once every three minutes. This approach makes it nearly impossible to really enjoy the game from a first-person experience because just was you become comfortable in the character's skin, you're again treated to a third-party perspective, and many of the videos last longer than the individual trigger play.

I generally try to minimize my scorn in reviews, but sitting here I am wondering what in the hell makes anyone like this game. Joe is a decent enough anti-hero and that's cool, and obviously the animation is pretty sweet too. I'll even give it extra credit for the implied affair between the principal and his administrative assistant. Yet this game is an absolute failure and frankly I want my $20 back. More than that, I want the last three hours that I wasted playing this colossal disappointment. I think the makers should be shot--no, wait, just put into detention for a long, long time.

In the interim, I think I'm going to take my copy of "Bully" outside and teach it a lesson.

Gamer Response: Women are Posers

Everyone, pretend to be shocked: Kansas readers (and at least one woman) hated my video game column.

I took my last post and pared it down for my current employer. What can I say? I'm suffering serious writer's block these days.

In any case, what bothers me about these comments:

1. The rhetoric would seem to suggest that any video game featuring women at all is inherently sexist. This means women better accept their only acceptable role models are men, and crazy stupid animals (think "Viva Pinata" and "NintenDOGZ") and completely undermines the revolution spawned by Sarah Kerrigan towards depicting women as equals with complicated backstories, level abilities and protagonist prowess, and...

2. The idea that a woman advocating for more female inclusion in video games needs to "put her penis away" and "stop trying to be one of the guys" is inherently sexist and justifies the continued exclusion of females, which...

3. Inherently props up the continued subjugation of women in video games (rather than work within the system to create stronger female role models, we'll just sit around and complain about them, accepting we're all reduced to air-headed Juggies) and women who play video games (they just want to be dudes, or they just want to impress dudes) and...

4. Ultimately proves that the column is right. Until more women get involved, this will continue to be the attitude dispensed towards women gamers.


Interesting note. All of the comments here seem to accuse me of trying to conflate the sexes by blurring the line between being an individual woman who enjoys games and a woman trying to fit in with a guy crowd. Yet earlier today, my office intercepted a call from your local yokel insisting that I would likely spend the rest of my life alone with my 50 cats (for the record, I have two dogs because although my pomeranian has been known to behave in a rather cat-like fashion, I DESPISE cats) because I'm too interested in drawing distinctions between the sexes.

And this is just reason 450,429,549 why I need to get out of the midwest.

DoW II: The Next Big Thing?

I spent a substantial amount of time last weekend playing the open multiplayer beta for Relic's Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War II. These are my preliminary thoughts.

Couple of quick disclaimers here: (1) I played the first one for a while, but ultimately thought that, as an RTS, it had more potential than substance; and (2) the beta I played was clearly incomplete (no campaign, no skirmish mode, etc.), so this shouldn't be considered comprehensive. But it's never too early to begin speculation, so here I go.

First off, the game looks pretty impressive: whether you're talking about the extensive list of individual animations, the (almost) completely deformable terrain, or the highly-detailed units, this is inarguably a very polished product. It's clear that the developer was intending from the beginning to give the player exciting, detailed, and authentic (at least for a fantasy-inspired futuristic RTS) battles, on which subject the game succeeds quite nicely. Explosions frequently shook the entire battlefield, and the violence that takes place between "armies" is positively giggle-inducing. And yes, there is a reason I put that last term in quotes: for all of its eye candy, Dawn of War is still, at its heart, a glorified squad tactics game.

And to me, that's the biggest problem about DoW II. When I saw my supply counter (you know, the current/maximum number of troops in combat), I noticed that it topped out at "100". No big deal, since troops in these things are usually delegated in single digits...............whoops, strike that. Out of the four races, the cheapest unit you can buy comes in at nine supply points, which means that under no circumstances can any race field more than eleven units at a time.

And that just seems to make the battles kind of small. While skirmishes are a fact of life in DoW, pitched battles are intense, satisfying.......and absurdly short. It seems that there is a TON of buildup initially for about three minutes worth of good action. Assuming the losing side can piece itself back together, there is potential for rinsing and repeating. But it'll be more of the same, since the unit selection for each side leaves a good deal to be desired. Not only are choices kinda sparse (maybe six or nine per race), but they ALL fall under the same basic templates, echoing my complaint about every RTS since, like, Warcraft III. Melee. Light ranged. Heavy ranged. Mech walker. Heroes are OK, but I think they were better implemented in Lord of The Rings: BFME II -- in this game, they are fairly cookie-cutter, and aside from various pre-sets of gear, there's virtually no customization. And why is everything ground-based........?

So, my (admittedly) pre-mature verdict? Entertaining for a weekend, but DoW's apparent lack of depth bodes ill for its long-term playability. Here's hoping the single-player campaign is as good as Relic says it is.

Hold that thought, actually: just double the unit limit and I'll be good to go.

Buck's Skate 2 Review

Lather, rinse, repeat, and then pull your hair out. This was a feeling I had many times while playing Skate 2. The Skate franchise has been built on extreme realism. Meaning, if you can’t do it in real life, you can’t do it in Skate. This is one of the games biggest strengths. It’s also one of the weaknesses in that the game can be very unforgiving. This is very much how my experience was with the game, some positive points and some negative ones.

Having never played the original Skate, I had little knowledge of what to expect from Electronic Arts new game. What I did know was that this series, unlike Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater (a more arcade style game)was developed to be very realistic. The very first thing I noticed was just how large and vibrant the world is that developer Black Box created, filling it with pedestrians and vehicles was one of those things. Approaching an intersection and having to time one of my runs around when the cars would leave the intersection was very impressive.

Graphically,Skate 2 is on par with most open world games like Grand Theft Auto 4 or Saints Row 2. As for the non-existent storyline, your character is released from jail and must skate his/her way to glory. Along the way, you run into every professional skater that you can think of, Eric Koston, Colin McKay, and Rob Dyrdek just to name a few. The multiplayer portion of the game is more or less an extension of the contests from the single player campaign which is fun in its own way.

Skate 2’s control scheme makes the barrier of entry is extremely high. Though Skate 2’s tutorial section may not be obligatory, it definitely forces you into completing it lest you want to frustrate yourself for a couple of hours like I did. Even after the tutorials give you an understanding of how the physics work, the game is still very unforgiving, almost to the point of extreme anger. Most of the controls are mapped to the right analog stick, and because of this, there were instances when I wanted to complete one trick only to do another. For example, I only wanted to Ollie so I could grind a rail. I ended up doing a Kickflip, did not get enough air, subsequently hit the rail, and bailed. Repeat this process about 20 times in a row and you’ll know my pain.

Ultimately, unless you’re a fan of the genre or an actual skater, your time and money might be better spent on something else. Skate 2 is not a game that anyone can just pick up and play. It will take time to learn how to complete tasks, and learn different tricks unless you have played the first game. If you are willing to learn the controls then you might have a great time. Black Box and EA have made a very deep, realistic game but at the expense of playability. That’s not to say that this game is horrendous, just frustrating. In the end, I would say to rent this game before buying it.
Final Grade: C+/B-

Feminism and Gaming

In my Freelance Magazine class, it was announced we would be assigned an article to research, write, polish and ultimately try to publish through the course of this semester. This would obviously have been last week's class, since tonight's class was not attended by yours truly as a result of one-too-many Margaritas with the author's boss at Happy Hour Lunch Specials off of Industrial and 18th, which resulted in a long, uninterrupted nap. Apparently, turning a phone's ringer to the "vibrate" setting will also keep the alarm from doing anything but vibrating. Hey, who knew?

But, I digress.

It didn't take me long to figure out the article that I wanted to write would focus on two things very near to my heart: gaming, and Feminism.

But wait! Stop the presses! Feminism--like girls? And gaming?

Oh yes, I went there. Growing up in a family of boys and an uninvolved mother, I realized pretty quickly that video games represented not only a bridge to spend time with my family, they represented an outing for stress and the ability to help me improve my motor skills, which weren't that great to begin with. I liked being able to kick my father's ass at "Super Mario Bros. 3" and systematically destroy Freddy Krueger in "A Nightmare on Elm Street." To this day, I'm likely to depend on my original Nintendo for stress relief and validation of living in a big creaky house with no one else around.

Over time, the only other system I really fell in love with was the N64. It offered "GoldenEye," "Yoshi's Story," "Banjo and Kazooie," "MarioKart" and a whole host of games I never was allowed to play because they "weren't for girls." One game, the name of which escaped me, involved channeling the spirit of Jack the Ripper, which I found intriguing. There were so many I never got to play but wanted to, and it was the first time I became aware of my sex as a limiting factor from something I enjoyed.

During this time, my Feminist consciousness was emerging. I understood that in the workplace, I was more likely to make less money than my counterpart with the exact same credentials, experience and education for no other reason than a different chromosome. I knew that the female athletes at my school weren't taken seriously by the administration or the other athletes. I had no interest in children or marriage, and spent most of my time reading books by Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem and Naomi Wolf. Yet watching my brothers and their friends have massive gaming parties while I stayed down the hall with my latest "Sassy" magazine (not to be confused with fluffy glossy titles like "YM," "CosmoGIRL" and "Seventeen") I couldn't help but wonder why I seemed to be poised between one or the other. Why couldn't I be a girl, specifically a girl who embraced Feminism, and a gamer?

When I received my first computer, I was able to begin bridging the two with "StarCraft," a military science fiction real-time strategy video game developed by Blizzard Entertainment. I was about 14 and instantly hooked. I had played the predecessor to "StarCraft," but it was a different experience. "StarCraft" boasted Sarah Kerrigan, a trained psychic assassin and second-in-command for renegade upstart Arcturus Mengsk. Kerrigan was beautiful, but dangerous; compassionate, but deadly. She was everything that my Feminism manuals had been screaming at me to become. She didn't need a man, and even her captors became afraid of her. By the end of the game, Kerrigan had become the Queen of Blades, able to kick the ass of any man, woman or spawn that attempted to cross her.

I'm not alone in my love for Kerrigan. Arguably, she had something to do with why "StarCraft" was voted time and again the best game the year it came out, and why Kerrigan has become a model for other female character development. It isn't merely that she became a villain (although GameSpot currently pegs her as the second greatest villain in modern gaming) or the fact that she tangles with characters the way a seasoned cowboy wrangles a bucking horse. In a nutshell, Blizzard and in particular Kerrigan creators Chris Metzen and James Phinney created a gold mine and history by making Kerrigan human.

Granted, a very flawed human. She's both a sinner and a saint, and she makes no apologies for either. She's cunning, brutal and in a way that might be frightening given the number of insect-like blades protruding from her back, alluring. Unlike the video game heroines of the past like Princess Peach, Kerrigan oozes a sexuality that goes beyond posing as a damsel in distress. She's a femme fatale who is just as likely to behead her lover as bed him, and she's more concerned about furthering her agenda than courting fan favoritism. In some ways, she's every woman who ever donned a power suit during the Reagan Years without any of the fragile hypocrisy. Her power remains strong, over a decade later. Just last year, writer Rob Wright for Tom's Games praised Kerrigan as one of the best female characters of all time, an honor for which Kerrigan has seemingly set the bar.

True, video games often seem to exploit women. Young, dangerously thin women are often seen parading in nothing but bondage bikinis waiting for some modern incantation of a knight to save them. Plots can lose themselves in sexual story lines that bring nothing to the overall game play or character journey. However, critics of video games fail to realize that these are the new mediums through which we must express ourselves, our ideas, our collective wish for change. To improve a system and remove the failings or shortcomings, we must work within it to accomplish the vision for the future. WomenGamersOnline.com, for example, heralds Kerrigan as a breaker of the stereotypes, noting that although Kerrigan could be chalked up to the "bad girl" mold, she also has a considerable depth and complexity in her backstory that makes it impossible to dismiss her. Rather than get hung up on the aspects that could break her as a candidate for Feminism on screen, they embrace her for the greater change she's likely to usher in. Women fighting women, though stereotypically appealing for men, can be a deal breaker for other women. When Lara Croft was bemoaned for her exaggerated features, the backlash not only kept women from playing "Tomb Raider" but from gaming completely. Older and wiser now, women on the inside are less likely to throw stones from inside their glass houses, mostly because the video game industry can't really afford any additional acrimony.

And it seems other sources are getting the message. Last February, Matt West reported on CNN that women now constitute 38 percent of gaming, and an even higher number are expected to continue assuming executive roles at gaming companies in the next few years. Currently, just 12 percent of people in the gaming industry are women, but several initiatives such as Gaming In Real Life (G.I.R.L.) is focusing on harnessing in more women to change the face of the industry. At present, most of the women tend to be involved on the art side of things, but women such as Torrie Dorrell, senior vice-president of global sales and marketing for Sony Online Entertainment, want to push for a more executive role for women in the industry.

Yet on the art side of things, it appears the industry is finally learning from Kerrigan. Though attractive as a human, Kerrigan featured none of the exaggerated details of other famous gaming poster girls. Sherry Floyd, a game designer with SOE's Seattle studio, praised the character design of first-person shooter and espionage thriller "The Agency." Cassie is aesthetically pleasing but not an amalgamation of the current appreciated female stereotypes, which has traditionally been viewed as a turn-off by wary females straddling the fence of whether to game.

When I began asking the Feminism questions a decade ago, women gamers were barely a blip on the radar. We remain a small minority, perhaps through dogged determination if nothing else. Like the women who first pioneered magazines that went above recipe exchanges, we've come to recognize that video games are the new medium of expression and liberation. Women shouldn't be gaming more just because it is actually fun to do so, but because video games represent the last barrier to total equality between the sexes.

What's So Hard About That?!

For my first post in this venue, I'm going to pontificate on something that I've been contemplating for a long time. Most would say too long, in fact.

Quick background: I've been playing videogames since I was eight years old, and my first system was the SNES, which was purchased about three months after it came out. Something I noticed pretty quickly about the launch lineup was that the games were pretty challenging. It took me several months to beat Super Mario World, and I threw my controller at the ground in frustration during Pilotwings more times than I care to admit. That said, the challenge was a double-edged sword, in that as I was getting my ass kicked playing these things, I was actually getting better. In fact, I got really good at all sorts of SNES games, and would continue to hone my skills with the N64, PSX, Xbox, etc. Name something really hard from those systems, and there's a good chance I've beaten it.

Fast-forward to the current generation of consoles: we are now in a dramatically different world. Gaming is inarguably a mainstream activity, as evidenced by its overpowering of music and movies in gross revenues. Ex-nerds such as myself haven't just stopped hiding our parephenalia; we're actually going out of our way to show it off. A number of factors have contributed to this, concerning which we've all heard about improved graphics, the lure of online interaction (check out the SFIV post on this blog for more analysis there), and the explosion of casual gaming outlets on cell phones and the internet. What often goes unacknowledged -- even actively ignored -- is that as videogames have become more popular, they've gotten much easier. The casual link is pretty hard to deny, in that your chances of getting someone hooked on a game improve dramatically if they're not constantly throwing down the controller in anger. Makes perfect sense, in fact, and I would argue that without the "dumbing-down" of difficulty that gaming has experienced over the past decade, the expansion would never have happened.

Which is all well and good...............until people go overboard and turn 90% of the games out there into an unmitigated cakewalk. And I'd argue that while we're not quite there yet, emerging trends tell me that we're going to be there soon.

It all started out so innocently, too: instead of making someone play a game through in one sitting, let's establish save points. How about health refills mid-level? Maybe even checkpoints so beating a level within an hour or so is possible, as opposed to mindless trial-and-error sessions. Perhaps items that can be used at will in times of emergency? Better defense mechanisms? So far, so good. I'd argue that it became bad right around the release of BioShock, a game in which you literally cannot die. Ever. Well, at least permanently: once you're beaten, shot, stabbed, whatever, you resurrect in a Vita-Chamber, which never seems to be anymore than a couple of rooms away from where you died. The kicker here is that the enemies are just as injured as when you die, so ankle-biting to death is very possible. I recently saw this trend rear its ugly head again in the most recent Prince of Persia, a game in which it is not possible to die in any way, shape or form. And it ain't just confined to consoles: Blizzard's most recent expansion to WoW has made raiding easy to the point where it has essentially taken all the pride out of beating an encounter. Even more mainstream stuff like Fable II is a tad scary; great game, but you can't die.

Am I overreacting? Yeah, probably: I'll be the first one to admit that not everyone is a glutton for punishment that just would not put down the controller until they beat Devil May Cry III. Or God of War II. That is the special area in which bizarre folks like me dwell happily. But I think that once you completely eliminate the possibility of failure from a videogame, it cheapens the experience. Why do I care about jumping over a pit if I'm saved from every mistake? Why take the time to figure out how to beat a boss if the whole thing turns into button-mashing with no consequences? Conversely, does it help that some developers churn out insanely hard games to compensate, even if those games are hard because of cheap stuff like repeatedly subjecting your character to unavoidable damage? I might be different, but one of the main reasons I play new games (something of a rare occurrence these days, unfortunately) is to feel a sense of accomplishment once I've beaten them. That's why I spent all those long nights raiding in Hyjal Summit and Black Temple (pre-3.0 nerf, thank you very much!). It also is why I literally would not stop fighting Zeus at the end of GoW II until he had been beaten. Sure, an experience is a great thing, but I still love that feeling of accomplishment. It's what keeps me coming back.

And I sure as hell would like to retain an element of challenge in my gaming experience. Sure, Devil May Cry III was ridiculously hard, but it was difficult in an old-school way: if you die, it's because you did something stupid. Granted, I wouldn't want all games to be that difficult, but are death penalties really so bad? Are gamers so fragile that they'll ditch a game just as soon as it starts to make them sweat? The recent "reconfiguration" of Midnight Club LA (*cough*nerf*cough*) suggests that may be the case, concerning which I think there needs to be a distinction between games that are unfair, and games that merely force the player to avoid sucking.

Here's hoping the latter doesn't fade into the sunset.

Was It A Rational Fear?

The year has finally wrapped up, and what is the first thing on every gamers mental agenda when the new year begins? Dread and fear of coarse. We aren't afraid of our oncoming return to school, or the possibility that our holiday sales job might disappear (though the recent economic downturn might make that a close second). We fear instead a fate worse than death. Months upon months without any new games worth playing. In 2008 this same fear gripped us all. Was it rational?

One could not be blamed for prognosticating a disappointing 2008, with the best year in gaming history still fresh in our memory. But, when you compare the games released in both years the disparity seems to vanish.


Games of 2007:

Halo 3
Rock Band
Mass effect
Crysis
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Assasin's Creed
Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lion
Super Mario Galaxy
God of War 2
Bioshock
The Orange Box
Uncharted: Drakes Fortune

Games of 2008:

Gears of War 2
Fable 2
Midnight Club: Los Angeles
Call of Duty: World at War
Prince of Persia
Fallout 3
NHL '09
GTA 4
MGS 4
Dead Space
Soul Calibur 4
Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe
Little Big Planet
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning
Burnout: Paradise

So in retrospect 2008 turned out to be a great year for gaming. But, as the holiday season wears off, the fear is reborn. In forum surfers, podcast wielding critics, and our own creeping sub-conscience we see the dread of months without quality gaming return. Are these fears rational? We shall see...

A Self Defeating System.

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/38549.html

For some reason i find the dialogue placed over this video really cool. It makes it seem like a really awesome multiplayer game. That being said, as soon as I remember that this is a Playstation 3 exclusive, I lose all interest.

First the the PS3's Controller seems specifically designed to irritate anyone attempting to play a fps. (in regards to the general gameplay mechanics, not menu navigation :) For example, I played the grossly overrated Resistance: Fall of Man (just as good as Gears of War...pfft) every menu ever seemed to take 3 times the conscience effort that it would taken on the Xbox 360. The L & R buttons are in a terrible location, most likely due to the fact that the controller hasn't really been redesigned since it was introduced for the PS 1. Just think about it logically, where does a trigger go? On top of the gun? No, Sony wrong answer. Where is the gas pedal? On top of the steering wheel? Nope, wrong again Sony. Additionally, the controller is way too small. This diminished size makes the controller lighter (especially if you have one of the rumble'less ones ;) but, it also makes longer play sessions pain educing. But, it isn't really the controls that make Killzone 2's awesomeness mute.

The PS3 is like like a celibate super model girlfriend. Sure she has all the parts necessarily to fulfill her purpose, but it just isn't going to happen. The PS3 can indeed provide games over the intertubes, but going online and enjoying online are two completely disconnected events. Multiplayer PS3 games are adaptions of one of two types.

1. Wedging a well running Xbox 360 multiplayer game into an archaic, un-unified framework, with poorly maintained servers.
2. Or the Socom: Confrontation method of taking a PS2 online interface and raising the resolution.

Both of which just leave me with a strong unwillingness to play my 499$ PS3 online. This is appropo of another problem in general. The Japanese business culture analyzes decisions in terms of decades, and not quarters. This mindset protects you from over-reacting, but it also severely hampers your ability to react. If everyone in your yard (Japan) plays by the same rules that's fine, but when outsiders show up Microsoft, Bio-ware, Criterion, Bungie, and Blizzard everything starts moving too fast to compete. Nintendo and Sony missed the online boat completely. Recently, Sony has made some valiant attempts at fixing the above problems. But, some of the problems seem a little systemic.

Can this problem be fixed without launching an entirely new console. Does the system hardware allow for a better, quicker, and unified online interface? I personally don't know, it would seem that such a process would be pretty expensive. Since the service is free, coming up with the funding could prove difficult. This coupled with a shift in general attitude from the gaming community favoring the Xbox 360.

Rest in peace Age of Conan

No game in my honest opinion has done so many things right, that will go down in history as such a catastrophic failure as AoC. Now, not everyone has played AoC, those who didn't buy it right away will probably never pick it up. It only sold 15 k copies in its second month on shelves. And, that being the case, I would like note the parts of AoC that are truly lamentable in their absence from the genre.

- The graphics have to be mentioned first. For any kind of game, on any system, AoC would still be a stunning game to behold. This unfortunately for Failcom was a double edged sword. On the one hand, it set AoC apart from the other cartoony/late Xbox-quality graphics that are commonplace in the genre. And, On the other it placed a C-Peen-barricade in front of most newly-bored technically deficient WoW players.

- The character creation in AoC was simply fantabulous. If you spent enough time working with it you could make almost anything you wanted. I literally spent hours making chars, deleting them, and then remaking different looking ones.

- AoC's music really can't be overstated in it's quality or epic'ness. The composer though obviously overqualified to be working in the game industry, will probably never be rewarded for his work, since AoC's production is now nothing more than a ghost story for MMO developers. From the perfectly suited pirate music of Tortage, the sweeping middle-eastern inspired music of Stygia, the grand echoing anthems of Aquilonia, to the haunting angelic ballads that coarse through the valleys of Cimmeria. AoC's music bleeds authenticity and surrounds the player in the loving embrace of World of Conan. The music of the different lands in the game are meshed seamlessly with random battle music, that really catches the feeling of an epic battle scene in a movie.

- Though these pleasures would have all been easily passed by if the combat wasn't engaging. But, engaging the player in combat is exactly what AoC's combat mechanics were designed to do. Every move requires a string of button commands, that make fighting feel more like the player is performing a dance of death at the expense of their usually headless opponents. Headless not because it because of horrendous AI like MGS 4, but because the player, both caster and melee characters have fatalities that though available from level one, increase in their variety as the player levels.

- The landscapes of AoC were functionally disconnected by, irritatingly frequent and extremely awkward loading screens guised as wagon trips. But, once the loading screen dissipated the zones were just amazing.
- After leaving the Jerusalem inspired Stygian capitol Khemi, I hopped on a boat to the nearest starting zone. I stepped off the row-boat lightly banked on the close side of what was unmistakeably designed to be the Nile River. The water looked amazing, I really couldn't resist my urge to go get a glass of cold water. When, I returned to the keyboard I did a quick turnabout to see what this new zone looked like. But, immediately I was left aghast by what seemed a unpossibly huge black pyramid towering in the distance. Forsaking all near by quest givers, I cut a swath through lion packs, caravan robbers, and massive black rhinos, but the closer I felt I was to the pyramid the more it began to dawn on me that the pyramid far bigger than I had first believed. Approximately half the zone away on a map, 3/4's the size of the Barrens. The gates of the pyramid immediately sent me into flashbacks of the Mummy movies. 2 impressive golden statues of Stygians gods guard a shadowy hallway descending into the bowels of the burial chambers built around the entrance of the pyramid.

- In the Aquilonian starting zone, a gigantic mountain range is topped by a menacing gray castle which is visible from almost anywhere in the zone.

- A jungle nearer Stygia is covered in lusciously emerald-green foliage, teaming with flocks of enemies looking more like the Bird-predators from post-mammal-rising BC age.

- The Animations in AoC were really the best in any game yet made in my opinion. The motions were fluid, satisfying, and visceral all without being overly floaty in regards to game terrain.

- The mounts in AoC were incredibly beautiful and very nicely animated but, nothing that would make them worth lamenting. The movements, and controls of the mounts however were really something special . They had weight, mass and a very well tuned sense of momentum that almost made it feel more like I was playing Oblivion and less like a MMO.

- AoC's dungeons/instances are behind the intimidating doors of structures that have lorded over your view for large segments of leveling, as nothing more than a reminder of what adventures await you around the next level.

- The loot you get from these dungeons are surprisingly accurately modeled after real world armor of the ancient world. Roman/Greek legionary's gear, Celtic/Germanic tribes furs and horns, and exotic light armors inspired by the Egyptians and late Muslim forces of the Crusades.

These things add together making AoC feel extremely epic and amazingly grand. This feeling makes imagining yourself in a fantasy epic almost unavoidable. And, with characters that can be so uniquely yours thanks to the character creater, AoC becomes an adventure, that though never ultimately rewarding or well polished, is hard not to be intoxicated by.

The Second Best RTS of All Time.

We all love Starcraft. It sits alone alone atop the majesty that is RTS greatest.
But, who is its successor? Some might say Red Alert, others Command and Conquer. But, I gleefully break from the curve by announcing Battle for Middle Earth 2 the second best RTS of all time.

Before you throw tomatoes at me, I ask, have you played it? If not, feel free not to argue. In the rare case that you have, think back... The music was perfectly orchestrated and synced to every unit-based decision. The care taken, when any unit was moved or used in combat was astonishing. The soundtrack was in my opinion is the best in the history of gaming (granted with cinematic'ly-derived help). The unit responses, were incredibly deep and inexplicably based on the situation, if you were headed back to your base, your units would say as much, if they were overwhelming an enemy, both the unit-response and the music would affix themselves to that reality.

But, it doesn't end there. The combat was not only beautifully realized with clever animations, but populated with units that were painstakingly ripped from the pages the evasive Tolkien lore. Each unit drips with not only personality, but also authenticity. At not point do you feel like you're playing the translation of a book to code, but that you're playing the inevitable realization of what Tolkien meant when he wrote of the Three-Army-War.

Not only this, but your units work along side the most well thought out heroes in RTS history. Most of the time, heroes are either rush bots, or they are overbearingly HP'd units. In LOTR BFME 2 they are not only your best units, they are also the hinge on which war swings. At any moment Heroes can win or loose you the battle. But, in this same way, the earned-powers of the player, provide him with the power to destroy worlds.

Some RTS matches can at times last forever, with forces equally strong, lead by commanders of equal skill, in which a distant resolution is their only hope for reprieve. Not only does LOTR BFME 2 cultivate this feeling, it also brings its resolution home quicker, and more cinematic'ly than any RTS in recent memory.

In a war this grand, no aerial bombing would suffice, only summoned Watchers, Rohirrim, and dragon gods would suffice. No game in RTS history has taken as much pleasure in wiping entire armies off the map as LOTR BFME 2. The game can change on the width of a dim, and swing back on the swiftness of a click. Is this unfair to the overly skilled? Probably, but is it intoxicatingly fun? Yes.

Is it the most refined, balanced RTS of all time? No. But, you will never forget the experience you had with the forgotten masterpiece of the RTS genre. Do yourself a favor and play it.

Pixel-Based Fight Club

Street Fighter is coming back, Raul Julia's death not withstanding. With the sudden resurgence of tournament fighters: Street Fighter 4, Street Fighter 2 HD: Remix and Mortal Kombat: DC Universe, I am lead to ask the question why? And, here is what I came up with. When video games were new, gamers were chained to the arcade machine. Players could chose to play any game they wanted. But, they had no choice, when it came to facing one another. If someone walked up to you, while you're playing Street Fighter 2, you had two options: leave the arcade-stand in disgrace, or face him. With the death of Arcades, gamers retreated to their couches to regroup and vegetate. Unintentionally hiding behind the walls of their own home, protected from from the "pixel-based-fight club" that was the arcade. With games that are less about 1 on 1 conflict and more about A.I.-stomping.

But, luckily for Ed Boon and Capcom, it wasn't to disappear forever. The designers of U.T, Quake, Counterstrike, and Halo, realized that there was a way to re-introduce this "fight club", but in such a way that gamer's egos would be protected. Give everyone a Mask, in the form of an Alpha-numeric gamertag. A virtual blanket of anonymity. So new players are allowed to suck, while training to get better. All this without losing face, while dueling on a MK machine, in front of what at-times could grow into a small crowd, watching your every move.

What else does an online shooter protect us from? The occasional moment in an fps, where you just get lucky. You stumble upon someone who doesn't even know that you're there. You turn a corner, raise your weapon. You see someone on the other side of a poorly lit hallway, pathetically sprinting for cover. What do you do? A clip to the back, turn and go. Or, you're one of those gamers who's handle is "EoDCiA" and you have ALWAYS used a f'ing sniper rifle. You've masturbated to Shooter and Enemy at the Gates. You could hit a hobbit from a mile and a half; all while reciting lines from Clerks 2. Or just like someone who doesn't pass the pipe, you're a "Camper". You're the first in to every crevice and the last one who leaves a hot zone. Your RP-90 is aiming through a whole in the roof, where they could never possibly see you. Easy kills, all without ever actually facing the person.


Recently, however, a growing segment of gamers have tasted this "pixel-based fight club", and have started to desire more. More direct conflict with less anonymity. World of Warcraft's battlegrounds have gone from 40 on 40 AV matches, down to 2-3 man arena teams, where theory-crafting governs every move. RTS leaderboards have become hotly contested bloodbaths, where rush-fest 1 on 1 matches cause much joy and dismay amongst teenage-malcontents. While at the same time, online gamertags have become more and more permanent I/E: Steam, Xbox-Live, PSN and the emerging market of MMO's.


So what the FUCK does this have to do with tournament fighters? *Sigh* Well, we have after a long journey finally returned to the pinnacle of multi-player competition. One on one, no excuses win or lose, serious fucking multi-player. Now, I say all this with the caveat that, I am one of those people who has enjoyed the wall of anonymity. I am a rabid-gamer, but I am terrible at games that require more than eventual response. So this isn't a cry of triumph, as much as an observation. Thoughts?