This is my final post before Christmas, so it will cover a few things. First off: Mass Effect. Then an update on a serious issue for the Wii, and finally a look at the current state of the industry. Here goes...
Mass Effect has been in development for a while. It was announced a year or two before the 360 was out, and was getting a fair bit of coverage. I think it was going to be a launch window title, but that soon slipped to make something far more epic. It is mostly a spiritual successor to Knights of the Old Republic, much like Bioshock was to System Shock 2. The overall feel is the same, with some game play and atmospheric differences. The game play differences: rather then switching to a squad mate and controlling him that way, you have a dial you can use to issue commands. This leads to orders like this: You lift him over your shoulders while I snipe his head off and you force push him off the ledge. It works fairly well. The next one being a change of universe. I recommend reading the book (out now. Mass Effect: Revelations) as it sets the tone and introduces the world while being a decent story in its own right.
I can't find the game to rent ( I now have a plan that lets me rent any two games at a time for a monthly price) and I would rather not buy it unless I have played it first. But the other reviews are good... Its a close call, considering I spend most of my disposable income on the rental plan...
And for the Wii. This is actually an update on "Has the Wii been left Behind?"
And the answer is: (suspensefull music)
YES!!! The Wii has been left behind. At least game wise. While the motion controls are innovative, they have almost completely alienated good ports from coming out. Here is a recent example: Need For Speed: Pro street. A decent game, but it did not blow away anybody. At least for the 360 and ps3 versions. The Wii one was a noticable downgrade, mostly due to the consoles unique controls scheme and inferior power. Before that, Call of Duty 3 was also a slightly above average game. The Wii edition was also a major downgrade. Now you may notice that I have not used any ports from excellent dev teams yet. Why not? Because they don't port to the Wii. Call of Duty 4? (completely amazing by the way) Nope. Assassins Creed? Nope. The Darkness? Nope. Skate? (okay, not amazing, but good) Nope.
Even through all this, the Wii has somehow maintained a steady influx of games, and they number many more then the 360s library of titles. This is because the Wii has such high sales. Now this a great thing. I congratulate Nintendo for making gaming such a mainstream thing. The sales have surpassed that of the 360, and demolished those of the Ps3. But tis also a curse. The Wildfire sales of the Wii has reduced publishers to downright spamming the console with atrocious games. This would never happen on the 360 or Ps3, as both of them make their games go through quality testing. The Ps3 has highish standards, while the 360 lags behind a little bit. The Wii, however, has none. This lets a flood of junk overcome the system.
Combined with a crippling number of third party games, the Wii has definitely been left behind, at least games wise.
And now for the industry.
Next Gen horse power brought a few changes to the industry. The price of making a game went way up, at least if you wanted it to stay competitive with the rest. The overall quality of games went up, and you were no longer as limited by the tech of a platform. While this may have produced things like higher polygon counts and High Definition Range Lighting and anti-aliasing, it gave developers a bit more freedom to express themselves. one could now have truly stylized game.
And this really helped the industry, with games now being nominated for artistic achievement awards. But the other innovation was downloadable content. Bite sized games that be downloaded in minutes were now quite feasible, and they extended past the realm of pcs and into our consoles hard drives. Even the Wii, which had been busy innovating control schemes and ignoring the games using them, embraced this new feature. While the Wii has a comeplete lack of original content, it oldies are great. X-Box Live Arcade has a good slection, with a lot of original content. The PlayStation Store has meatier titles, which are shorter then real titles but cheaper too.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Oh no!
Well, the new patch for 360s brought good stuff and stuff. The good stuff: Social networking. Now you can display your real name, a litle blurb about your self, and look at other peoples friends list. So now for the bad stuff: Parental controls. This is not necessarily a bad thing. How it works is you set a timer and you are forced to logout hen that ends. Now I have a way to prove to my dad that I have not been playing for 5 hours straight. The bad news: M rated content. Even T rated content. None of this can be downloaded if you are flagged as a child account. So if you use your real age to sign up, and you are under 18, you can kiss that Halo 3 ViDoc goodbye. But Mricosoft is not completely heartless, and you can promote your self to not be a child account, so there is a way out.
This incident has left me and more then a few other gamers gasping. I tried to download the Frontlines: Fuel of War demo, and only to get a "you are not allowed to get this content due to age restrictions" message. I immediately went in search of a solution. After a bit of googling and forum searching, I found that promote to parent button. I was saved. But what caused this sudden and unwarned change of policy?
Probably Manhunt 2. This was an ultra-violent stealth game from Rock Star. The content was so bad that the ESRB forced Rock Star to filter all the kills. The game was not even that good, released to mixed reviews, and had average sales. The end result was a media opus that almost no gamers cared about. So this may have sparked this sudden change. The thing that shocked me was that this stuff could be locked away, but with a few passwords that could be undone. All Microsoft did was remove this and force it upon child accounts.
This incident has left me and more then a few other gamers gasping. I tried to download the Frontlines: Fuel of War demo, and only to get a "you are not allowed to get this content due to age restrictions" message. I immediately went in search of a solution. After a bit of googling and forum searching, I found that promote to parent button. I was saved. But what caused this sudden and unwarned change of policy?
Probably Manhunt 2. This was an ultra-violent stealth game from Rock Star. The content was so bad that the ESRB forced Rock Star to filter all the kills. The game was not even that good, released to mixed reviews, and had average sales. The end result was a media opus that almost no gamers cared about. So this may have sparked this sudden change. The thing that shocked me was that this stuff could be locked away, but with a few passwords that could be undone. All Microsoft did was remove this and force it upon child accounts.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Wii first impressions, part 3
This is the last one, I promise. Anyway back to the the impressions
Super Mario Galaxy
I'm not really that far, so I cant talk. But so far, the game has been: Amazingly spectacularly awesome. If you own a Wii, get this game.
Wii sports
Besides being a tech demo, Wii sports is a blast. Golfing is great, Base Ball is merely meh, Boxing is fun when it works, and bowling is great. The whole things feels just a little half baked though, but its free, so who cares!
Soul Caliber Legends (rented it two days ago)
Complete Garbage.
And thats the games. The console is fairly fun to use. Using motion sensing to operate menus is fun but impractical, and the virtual console has some real winnzers on its hands. I like the whole Mii system, and I think Nintendo needs to get rid of individual save profils on each game and adopt a unified system using a Mii, much like the 360s gamer tags. Over al the system is fun, and the motion controls are not perfect but will probably get better. They are great now, if a bit buggy.
Super Mario Galaxy
I'm not really that far, so I cant talk. But so far, the game has been: Amazingly spectacularly awesome. If you own a Wii, get this game.
Wii sports
Besides being a tech demo, Wii sports is a blast. Golfing is great, Base Ball is merely meh, Boxing is fun when it works, and bowling is great. The whole things feels just a little half baked though, but its free, so who cares!
Soul Caliber Legends (rented it two days ago)
Complete Garbage.
And thats the games. The console is fairly fun to use. Using motion sensing to operate menus is fun but impractical, and the virtual console has some real winnzers on its hands. I like the whole Mii system, and I think Nintendo needs to get rid of individual save profils on each game and adopt a unified system using a Mii, much like the 360s gamer tags. Over al the system is fun, and the motion controls are not perfect but will probably get better. They are great now, if a bit buggy.
Strangle Hold review
Strangle Hold is an unrealistic third person shooter. I'm just getting that out of the way, just because I had to suspend disbelief so many times just to slightly enjoy this game. But taking a few hudnred bullets and having bloodstains all over you won't go away with a single medkit.
The basic gameplay elements of Strangle Hold revolve around slowing down time and doing cool moves to finish of enemies. One scene has you sliding down a rail while shooting down air condition systems and signs to crush enemies. Its over the top, but surprisingly not very bloody. So tequila time lets you slow down time and perform stylish kills, but you can only have that active for about ten seconds. Its gauge refills slowly. So you can leap through the air, ride rails, and back flip off walls. The next thing is is that the environments blow up quite nicely. A bullet could take out a chunk of a concrete pillar, while ten could take down the concrete to just re-rod.
A shotgun shell could demolish part of a wall. My favorite is when the house start blowing up. That was awesome.
The final part of this formula is the "Tequila bombs". Get enough stars (from getting stylish kills) and you fill up your tequila gauge. Then you can heal your self, fire off 5 clips worth of hot and be immune to damage for a few seconds, get a single precise shot and last but not least spin around and kill all the enemies in the room.
While Strangle Hold may sound like a blast, it has its fair share of flaws. Bad AI causes the enemies to just sit there firing until they get hit, and the signle player campaign is short and a little repetitive. Beside that, a nitcable lack of polish make this game feel a little rushed.
7/10
The basic gameplay elements of Strangle Hold revolve around slowing down time and doing cool moves to finish of enemies. One scene has you sliding down a rail while shooting down air condition systems and signs to crush enemies. Its over the top, but surprisingly not very bloody. So tequila time lets you slow down time and perform stylish kills, but you can only have that active for about ten seconds. Its gauge refills slowly. So you can leap through the air, ride rails, and back flip off walls. The next thing is is that the environments blow up quite nicely. A bullet could take out a chunk of a concrete pillar, while ten could take down the concrete to just re-rod.
A shotgun shell could demolish part of a wall. My favorite is when the house start blowing up. That was awesome.
The final part of this formula is the "Tequila bombs". Get enough stars (from getting stylish kills) and you fill up your tequila gauge. Then you can heal your self, fire off 5 clips worth of hot and be immune to damage for a few seconds, get a single precise shot and last but not least spin around and kill all the enemies in the room.
While Strangle Hold may sound like a blast, it has its fair share of flaws. Bad AI causes the enemies to just sit there firing until they get hit, and the signle player campaign is short and a little repetitive. Beside that, a nitcable lack of polish make this game feel a little rushed.
7/10
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Heroic DLC out!!!
Whoo! Bungie just came out with some new maps for Halo 3. There are noly three of them, but one has limitless configurations. After finding out of the popularity of Firge, they made this one: Foundry. It's a huge warehouse with two sort of bases on either side of each other and filled with a ton of crates and other odd scenery. While this configuration is not the most thrilling, all of that can be deleted and replaced with other stuff in Forge. In Forge on this map, you can place man cannons, walls, stairs and like 5 types of crates. The options are limitless. Two days ago, I helped someone make a ctf map on there, but it had a giant maze with turrets in the middle part of the map. The bases had shotguns and Battle Rifles. It's this type of thing that makes this map pack worth it's price: 10$. The other two maps are good, but not up to par with the other ones. Another ctf oriented map and a what seems to be a driving map thats all about splattering people with Warthogs round out this dlc. Its worth it. But only for Foundry.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare review
I remember back in the day when Call of Duty (cod) came out. It as amidst a ton of cruddy WW2 shooters, and it really stood out. And I remember all the rumors when that first trailer came out for this game... Anyway, the final result is spectacular.
When I first got this, I wondered how the CoD formula would translate into the modern period. Well, it dos. Same intense CoD formula, just an ak-47 replaces the Thompson. But now you can call in air strikes, use flash bangs... The CoD formula has been updated and improved in this rendition. One of the key differences is the amount of allies you have. It's now about 12 vs 20 or 30, but your guys are allot better then the enemies. The next change makes a huge impact on gameplay: shooting through walls. You standard infantry gun will go right through a wall and into an enemy. While this might sound like a minor change, it really makes the game feel allot more realistic, while adding tactical depth. So while the single player campaign is great and all, the multiplayer is even better.
A variety of game modes give enough variety, but the customization system gives the game some legs. You can choose your weapons from submachine guns, shotguns, sniper rifles, and assault rifles and a pistol, followed by another piece of equipment. This could be an rpg, or some claymores, or a few flash bangs. The final part of this formula is the perks. These give your trooper a leg up over he competition. They can give you more health, a better fire rate, more ammo, more damage... All the basics are here, but a few ones that you would not expect show up. On top of that, you can get attachments to your weapon. All of these factors lead to a few interesting classes, like a sniper that will pin you down then hit you through the cover, or a stealth class that never shows up on a radar and just knifes people. while some perks feel a little imbalanced, overall theres no clear winner.
Call of Duty 4 is an intense first person shooter that, while not perfect, provides some great times with an addicting multiplayer experience. This is one of the great games of the year, maybe even a little better then Halo 3.
9.5 out of 10
When I first got this, I wondered how the CoD formula would translate into the modern period. Well, it dos. Same intense CoD formula, just an ak-47 replaces the Thompson. But now you can call in air strikes, use flash bangs... The CoD formula has been updated and improved in this rendition. One of the key differences is the amount of allies you have. It's now about 12 vs 20 or 30, but your guys are allot better then the enemies. The next change makes a huge impact on gameplay: shooting through walls. You standard infantry gun will go right through a wall and into an enemy. While this might sound like a minor change, it really makes the game feel allot more realistic, while adding tactical depth. So while the single player campaign is great and all, the multiplayer is even better.
A variety of game modes give enough variety, but the customization system gives the game some legs. You can choose your weapons from submachine guns, shotguns, sniper rifles, and assault rifles and a pistol, followed by another piece of equipment. This could be an rpg, or some claymores, or a few flash bangs. The final part of this formula is the perks. These give your trooper a leg up over he competition. They can give you more health, a better fire rate, more ammo, more damage... All the basics are here, but a few ones that you would not expect show up. On top of that, you can get attachments to your weapon. All of these factors lead to a few interesting classes, like a sniper that will pin you down then hit you through the cover, or a stealth class that never shows up on a radar and just knifes people. while some perks feel a little imbalanced, overall theres no clear winner.
Call of Duty 4 is an intense first person shooter that, while not perfect, provides some great times with an addicting multiplayer experience. This is one of the great games of the year, maybe even a little better then Halo 3.
9.5 out of 10
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Assassins Creed review
You move through the roof tops, searching for your target. You see him. Your alerted to a guard behind you. "your should not be here". You whirl around, and a blade concealed inside your gauntlet reveals itself, finding its way into the guards neck. He falls onto the street below, causing a panic. What do you do next? The choice is yours.
Assassins Creed is different. It set the path for the stealth game of the future. In that game, you hide in plain site. No more shadows. No more hiding. This type of gameplay is clearly on display in Assassins Creed, and looks good in Splinter Cell: Conviction. In AC(Assassins Creed), you can do allot. This simple thing is what sets apart this game from the rest. The period is th middle ages, in the middle of The Crusades. You play as Altair, a man who works for the Assassins. These people are not like the Assassins of today. They are not for hire, and strive for peace by killing anyone who prevents it. This may sound brutal, but it's really not. The game strives on shades of gray, mostly by making you wonder if you person you just killed is really that bad. This works, but the way of presenting feels forced. You and your victim have a tense conversation after you have stuck a blade into his neck.
So enough about the story. The gameplay is incredibly immersive , as there no true load screens and no non-interactive cut cutscenes. There might be one, but that's about it. In order to kill your target, you must first gather some information. This is done by intimidating the target through violence, pickpocketing, eavesdropping, and talking to informers. This works, but the method of gaining information is chosen. So you HAVE to eavesdrop on a conversation, instead of maybe pickpocketing. Luckily, the order is not chosen for you. This creates some real freedom, but that is an illusion, albeit a skillfull one.
So an average information mission might go like this: You scan the area for a high point. Upon finding one, you go ot it and climb it. You scan the horizon. The missions and view points are now on your radar ( a view point marks missions, but you can stumble across them through exploration). You drop down and once again take to the rooftops. You eliminate him, hoping no one else notices. Then you artfully bound from rooftop to rooftop. Closer to your objective, you get down from the rooftops to start preparing. You scan fro guards. Upon seeing one you grab him and stick the hidden blade into his throat, and slowly walk away. Now your ready. You listen intently to your target, and when he's done, you silently stalk him. You reach out your hand, and grab the contents. You slowly walk away, hoping he won't notice.
Now dos not really describe the stealth part. Simply put, you try and disappear in the crowd. You can gently push people out of the way, and you can even pretend to be a scholar. The guards are not trigger happy, so you can get away with a bit before they attack. You have three states: Anonymous, which is ideal and means guards don't suspect a thing, yellow means that they now something is up, red means that they are informed and will attack on the slightest disturbance. This system works well, but I found it a bit hard to shake a guard who was on yellow and red. It's realistic though.
When everything said and done, Assassins Creed is a great game, if a little repetitive. 9 out of 10.
Assassins Creed is different. It set the path for the stealth game of the future. In that game, you hide in plain site. No more shadows. No more hiding. This type of gameplay is clearly on display in Assassins Creed, and looks good in Splinter Cell: Conviction. In AC(Assassins Creed), you can do allot. This simple thing is what sets apart this game from the rest. The period is th middle ages, in the middle of The Crusades. You play as Altair, a man who works for the Assassins. These people are not like the Assassins of today. They are not for hire, and strive for peace by killing anyone who prevents it. This may sound brutal, but it's really not. The game strives on shades of gray, mostly by making you wonder if you person you just killed is really that bad. This works, but the way of presenting feels forced. You and your victim have a tense conversation after you have stuck a blade into his neck.
So enough about the story. The gameplay is incredibly immersive , as there no true load screens and no non-interactive cut cutscenes. There might be one, but that's about it. In order to kill your target, you must first gather some information. This is done by intimidating the target through violence, pickpocketing, eavesdropping, and talking to informers. This works, but the method of gaining information is chosen. So you HAVE to eavesdrop on a conversation, instead of maybe pickpocketing. Luckily, the order is not chosen for you. This creates some real freedom, but that is an illusion, albeit a skillfull one.
So an average information mission might go like this: You scan the area for a high point. Upon finding one, you go ot it and climb it. You scan the horizon. The missions and view points are now on your radar ( a view point marks missions, but you can stumble across them through exploration). You drop down and once again take to the rooftops. You eliminate him, hoping no one else notices. Then you artfully bound from rooftop to rooftop. Closer to your objective, you get down from the rooftops to start preparing. You scan fro guards. Upon seeing one you grab him and stick the hidden blade into his throat, and slowly walk away. Now your ready. You listen intently to your target, and when he's done, you silently stalk him. You reach out your hand, and grab the contents. You slowly walk away, hoping he won't notice.
Now dos not really describe the stealth part. Simply put, you try and disappear in the crowd. You can gently push people out of the way, and you can even pretend to be a scholar. The guards are not trigger happy, so you can get away with a bit before they attack. You have three states: Anonymous, which is ideal and means guards don't suspect a thing, yellow means that they now something is up, red means that they are informed and will attack on the slightest disturbance. This system works well, but I found it a bit hard to shake a guard who was on yellow and red. It's realistic though.
When everything said and done, Assassins Creed is a great game, if a little repetitive. 9 out of 10.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Wii first impressions, part 2
Well, sicne I have already talked about the console itself, I will now go into some undetailed impressions about the games I have rented or own.
Red Steel (rented)
Red Steel is extremely different then any other shooters out there. To start with, it's controls are... strange. There exactly hat you would expect them to be, so you use the wiimote to look around by turning it to the edge of the screen, and the nunchuck handles using things like reloading and opening doors. It's extremely immersive, but in a bad way. Even though the character you play as is a trained bodyguard, you feel like a civilian whenever you try to aim. The cursor tend s to jump from one side of the screen to the other, and you will often see your gun vibrating really fast, due to some technical glitches. Overall, it feels 's like Red Steel has potential... but, like many aspects of the game, that's has been squandered.
Excite Truck ( rented)
This game started off impressive. Tilting the remote to steer feels great, and works well. But after that quick tutorial telling you how to accelerate and steer, the game go's downhill. Some extremely unclear motions, and the fact that almost all tricks are performed by motions, forces the game downhill. It might be easy to pull off the most basic stuff, but anything else will kill your hands. Seriously. A misunderstanding about the controls scheme made my hand hurt. The controls are just that bad.
Super Mario Galaxy
Wow. And I don't type this sarcastically. This game amazing. Some of the concepts presented steel the show from other, more classic, Mario elements to the point where it makes the game feel like a new franchise.
You may recall Prey. This game had a long development time, and never really fulfilled on it's promises. It's main gimmick was that you could flip around gravity. This was extremely interesting, and was occasionally delivered upon by shooting at enemies on the ceiling. Super Mario Galaxy is remniscent of this game by involving gravity, and unlike Prey, it really feel's great.
In Super Mario Galaxy you shoot from planet to planet, but not in the way presented in game's like Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect. Here you go from sphere to sphere by finding a launch star, and shaking the remote will shoot you to the next area. I have to go now, so I will continue this tomorrow.
Red Steel (rented)
Red Steel is extremely different then any other shooters out there. To start with, it's controls are... strange. There exactly hat you would expect them to be, so you use the wiimote to look around by turning it to the edge of the screen, and the nunchuck handles using things like reloading and opening doors. It's extremely immersive, but in a bad way. Even though the character you play as is a trained bodyguard, you feel like a civilian whenever you try to aim. The cursor tend s to jump from one side of the screen to the other, and you will often see your gun vibrating really fast, due to some technical glitches. Overall, it feels 's like Red Steel has potential... but, like many aspects of the game, that's has been squandered.
Excite Truck ( rented)
This game started off impressive. Tilting the remote to steer feels great, and works well. But after that quick tutorial telling you how to accelerate and steer, the game go's downhill. Some extremely unclear motions, and the fact that almost all tricks are performed by motions, forces the game downhill. It might be easy to pull off the most basic stuff, but anything else will kill your hands. Seriously. A misunderstanding about the controls scheme made my hand hurt. The controls are just that bad.
Super Mario Galaxy
Wow. And I don't type this sarcastically. This game amazing. Some of the concepts presented steel the show from other, more classic, Mario elements to the point where it makes the game feel like a new franchise.
You may recall Prey. This game had a long development time, and never really fulfilled on it's promises. It's main gimmick was that you could flip around gravity. This was extremely interesting, and was occasionally delivered upon by shooting at enemies on the ceiling. Super Mario Galaxy is remniscent of this game by involving gravity, and unlike Prey, it really feel's great.
In Super Mario Galaxy you shoot from planet to planet, but not in the way presented in game's like Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect. Here you go from sphere to sphere by finding a launch star, and shaking the remote will shoot you to the next area. I have to go now, so I will continue this tomorrow.
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