If the gaming industry is an automobile, and the game designers are the drivers, then that makes us, the players, backseat drivers, and we'll be damned if we're gonna let the industry keep on heading the way it's going (good or bad) without letting them know what we think. So buckle up, feel free to complain about there being no air in the back, and bring your most critical and analytical mind to the open air discussion of the current age, Backseat Gamers! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Did I ever mention that I actually got SEGA to engage in a debate with me on twitter? I know I told Lead Salad about it, but I actually wrote a twitter to them and they responded and what followed was amazing. I kind of won the debate. More on that in a minute, but let me just say I hate SEGA in many ways.
They used to be great. They made great games and systems, but now they just make terrible Sonic games over and over and horrible Marvel movie games. They're a shell of their former self and that's why they need to be put out of their misery to the resounding clapping of my hands.
This post was spurred on by an article TJ sent me yesterday. I read the article without a bit of surprise. Bottom line is that SEGA is restructuring and trying to streamline their business to cut losses. My only comment to the heads of SEGA is that if you quit making shit games or made something the fans actually want you'd be a profitable corporation again. Also, have any of you actually played video games?
What follows is my Twitter debate which will actually show more of what I've briefly described above:
NOTE: Since it will take me days to get back to SEGA's October 2011 tweets I'll just paraprase what was said by them.
@DylanCrespo@SEGA Bayonetta was astounding, but was developed by Platinum Games. Condemned is also excellent, but was dev by Monolith.
To which there was no reply. There was another guy that hopped in, but his account is locked and I can't access his tweets.
Basically, the best game SEGA had to throw back at me that wasn't Sonic or Super Monkey Ball was Bayonetta. Which wasn't even developed by them.
What's funny is that the new Sonic game that is of old-school 2D design hasn't even been that well received. In fact, the fan made Sonic 2 HD remake not only looked better graphically than SEGA's Sonic 4, but was generally perceived as a superior game. Until SEGA made the fans that made the game take it down.
Yet another example of SEGA sucking at life is the HD rerelease of one of the greatest Dreamcast games ever, Crazy Taxi. They ran into issues with the licensing of music (still not sure if it was money they didn't want to pay or something else) so the game was released without it's best element. The amazing soundtrack.
The game I'm most excited about SEGA putting out is the HD rerelease of Jet Set Radio. I just can't wait to get it for Vita and see how they've fucked it up.
I don't have a 3DS and don't plan on getting one, but I still couldn't help, but shake my noggin with the announcement of 3DS XL.
I know that my brother-in-law and Amateria both have a 3DS so I guess this is geared towards them more than anyone.
Do you feel burned at all? Would you have picked the XL over the stock version had you had the choice? What about the still no inclusion (yet can still be bought as an extra!) of a 2nd circle pad?
I mean it's a no brainer that handhelds get bumps in certain areas like battery life, sleeker design, brighter screens, but this just seems like a little too much to me as a consumer.
Let me explain:
The PSP had 4 different iterations: PSP 1000, PSP 2000, PSP 3000 and PSPGo. The 2 after the original were better battery life, skinnier design and brighter screens. The 4th was a craptastic digital only version that sucked massive ass.
The DS had, if I remember correctly, 4 different iterations: DS, DS Lite, DSi and DS XL. All of which were pretty drastically different than the other: inclusion of cameras and different software.
I guess, as a consumer, it feels a bit more of a backhand with such changes to the hardware. Where if you don't upgrade to the new version, you're left behind with the outdated version with not only different and worse specs, but also entirely different features.
With the PSP models they all did the exact same things, but did them more efficiently. With the DS you were actually left out if you didn't upgrade.
Just seems like a crappy way to treat your customers that's being repeated with the 3DS, but I guess as long as people keep paying for them (as with Nintendo they inexplicably always do) then Nintendo has no reason to change.
As part of my Father's Day I picked up Gravity Rush for the Vita. I had enjoyed the demo enough and saw that it had some pretty awesome potential. After dumping in a little over 2 hours last night, in my first play of the game, I'm happy to say that the game is simply wonderful!
The game starts in a typical wokeupandcan'trememberwhoyouareandnowhavestrangepowers type way which is kind of an old hat, but the game really does a good job of sucking you into it's awesome world. It's a sandbox/open world game that is reminiscent of Crackdown in some
aspects like the cell shading and orb/jewel hunting, but it plays in a
completely different manner.
You play as a "shifter" named Kat who is given powers to shift gravity by a sparkly looking cat that she names Dusty. It's funny because around the 2 hour mark while "flying" around the world I realized I wasn't actually flying. I was falling. No matter which direction you go in the game while you "fly" you're actually falling because you are going with the gravity parameters you've set.
The game controls very well and the combat is surprisingly fun, fast and very fresh. You find yourself using face buttons and the touch screen all in rapid succession and I'm still shocked at how well it flows.
The music is truly excellent and keeps the game feeling....I don't know.....more immersive? I'm having a hard time pinning down what I mean, but the score is one of the best I've heard in some time.
Kat is an extremely likable protagonist and I've come to see the game as a origin story for a new superhero. Awesome.
There are also comic sections to read that work like a 3D interactive comic that is somewhat animated. I love these as they are extremely well done and very nice looking. It just helps solidify the whole comic book hero image in my mind.
I've already become obsessed with collecting every jewel and completing every side mission and challenge. I very easily see myself dumping hours and hours into this trying to 100% the game.
It's a very good game that I'm thrilled to have in my collection of growing Vita games. It's the best new IP I've seen since the first Assassin's Creed and it deserves every gamers' attention.
I know that game journalists seem to enjoy nothing more than saying the Vita is already a failure (IGN, Kotaku and Gamesradar), but with games like this I just don't get it. This game couldn't work on any system, but the Vita. Maybe if Kat were a plumber stuck in old school game design it would be better received on a handheld. (Yes, I'm a bitter game blogger!)
While you're waiting for my full review, in a week or so, please watch this launch trailer to see the game in motion:
We've all been playing games together as a group for the better part of a decade now and I want to know what's been your favorite moment of playing with each other ever?
I can recall dozens of hilarious moments, but I think my all time favorite goes to Lead Salad.
He was visiting me for the week and his visit happened to coincide with the release of Resident Evil 5. We both went to GameStop at midnight and bought it and then went back to my apartment to play LAN coop.
We played for a solid 4-5 hours straight and things started to get a little....slap happy. We were fighting some villagers and one of them happened to jump in such a way that the bottom of his foot was exposed and Lead Salad blasted the bottom of the guy's foot and killed him. It may not sound funny, but we shit our pants laughing for about the next 20 minutes and it's something I still laugh out loud about to this day.
I thought that these were extremely well thought out articles on not only the state of used games, but the cost of new ones as well.
I tend to agree with all points the author brings up. How about you?
I think that publishers and developers need to take an honest look at their games and ask themselves if this game is worth 60 bucks? Will this sell better at $40 bucks? Is a tacked on MP (cough*Dead Space 2*cough) really going to sell more copies of your game?
I think the last new game I bought that was only $50 bucks, at launch, was Perfect Dark Zero and that launched with the 360.
I'm not saying GameStop is perfect, but their trade-in policies have allowed me to get many a new game I otherwise wouldn't have and for that I'm grateful and frankly, the developers should be, too.
As you may or may not know, the newest DLC for Gears of War 3 will be released tomorrow. The pack features remakes of Jacinto and Raven Down, plus 3 new maps. Is anyone down for a Horde smack-down on either Tuesday night or Wednesday night? I've got both nights open after about 6pm est and I'd be willing to start as late as about 10pm est. "Gentlemen, you have my demands. Peace out!"
What follows is a quick breakdown, of the first things that come to mind, of what I loved followed by some gripes and then a talk about the ending.
Loved -
- Combat - The game feels like it really hit it's stride with this 3rd installment and actually felt like a modern, competent 3rd person action shooter that had a pretty great RPG element to it.
- Action - There's a ton of it! Combat is fast and tense, but can get only slightly repetitive.
- Set Pieces - While not all were mind blowing I do remember saying "holy shit" more than once. Especially on one of the moons of Palaven. Watching a Reaper ground battle is pretty damned cool and terrifying.
- The Stakes - The game has the pressure set to 11 with pretty much, yet again, the entire universe depending on you. The game does a good job of never really letting you forget what you're up against and how dire the situation is.
- Cut Scenes - While I'm normally not a huge fan of these there were many more in ME 3. They weren't overly long, but generally every mission had a small intro explaining what's coming up.
- Consequences - I've always tried to play out the best/happiest possible ends in these games, but I inadvertently played critical missions out of order and what happened absolutely blew me away. I watched as 2 groups of people I was fighting for fought and the the one I sided with absolutely destroyed the other. My actions had cause the death of literally an entire race of people. I couldn't believe what I'd just witnessed.
Along with consequences there are several moments where I had crew members try and off themselves for various justifiable reasons, but was able to stop them by interrupting the scene with a Paragon Action. I missed one of these with one member and they died. Again, the stakes are high.
- The "I Actually Had Tears Well Up and Almost Cried Moment" - There's a scene where one of my favorite characters from ME 2 goes to right a wrong and this character does so knowing it's going to its death. The final moment is an extremely bittersweet throwback to a very funny dialogue from ME 2 that you'd only connect if you actually spent the time getting to know this character from the previous game.
I was shocked, stunned and actually blown away at my response. The only other time I've had a reaction to a game this strongly was actually in ME 2 DLC "Overlord". When you find that the person behind the machines going crazy was a handicapped savant that had been forcibly hooked into a machine by his brother. The savant in the machine is found in horrible conditions reciting numbers to a game that he and his monster of a brother used to play as kids. It was a beautifully sad moment that still musters up emotions to this day.
- Shepard - He's still awesome. I know that everyone's Shepard is different, but I've always loved how I've played mine. He is a nice guy that cares about others, but calls bullshit when he sees it. He never backs down from a fight. He's astoundingly deadly, but also compassionate.
- Multiplayer? - The multiplayer is actually a lot of fun. It's basically Gears of War's Horde Mode, but in the ME universe with better characters and powers. Winning in multiplayer actually helps your single player game. It was an additive I truly didn't expect to enjoy and I plan on dumping a bunch more time into it.
Gripes -
- Ammo Types - While they still exist there doesn't appear to be a huge difference in them like in ME 2. All are powerful. In ME 2 I constantly switched to get the best results, but in ME 3 I basically just used Inferno Ammo at all times. I only needed to switch on harder enemies that are more like mini-bosses thrown into fire-fights.
- Squad - I'm a little let down by the squad, but not in the way you might expect. This is honestly the best squad in the whole series because nobody sucks. In both previous games there was always one person that made my eyes roll or that was a snooze fest. Everyone in this game is actually pretty awesome. Great personalities and voice acting and they're all truly badasses. My problem is that I didn't get to spend a lot of time with them.
I feel like in the previous 2 games, especially 2, I spent a shit ton of time learning about them and becoming quite attached to their plight and story. Here you spend time around them and not so much with them.
So it's a positive and a negative I guess. So long as I wasn't forced to talk to Jacob from 2 ever again I was happy.
- Errand Boy - While I guess just about every game has you playing some version or variation of an errand boy it was a little more apparent here because of the very nature of your mission.
- Side Quests - All RPGs have main and side quests. While this game featured tons of action packed missions they were mostly all main quest related with only a handful of smaller ones that were side quests. However, there were a ton of side quests that were very weak fetch quests that seemed little more than filler.
- War Assets - It ties into some frustration with the end of the game, but the main crux of the game is building up as many allies as you can to take to war with you. Ultimately, it felt like I was just running up my War Asset number and it wasn't really doing anything.
You'd understand more fully if you've beaten the game.
- Unreal Engine 3 - The engine works better here than in the previous games so that's great, but the problem comes from a spot later in the game where you are fighting on the ground of a destroyed London. I shit you not you could almost interchange the set pieces and looks of ME 3 and Gears. The gameplay styles being so similar certainly doesn't help, but the identical engines really were distracting at moments at how similar the games not only played, but looked when not in space.
- Zaeed Massani - He's a DLC character in ME 2 and is briefly in ME 3. He made my gripe list because he's not in the game enough. He's a merciless bounty hunter that actually comes off as the deadliest man in the galaxy. His brutality and lack of non-sense has consistently made him a favorite of mine to be around, but he's never given any attention. He deserves an offshoot with his own game. You heard it here first.
- Day 1 DLC - Oh yeah baby! You know you love it. Buying a game and there being an additional pack for purchase as soon as you boot it up. Sadly, they marketed that son-of-a-bitch perfectly because it's not just another mission they added, but another squad mate....that's a fucking Prothean! Seriously, the alien race you've spent 100 hours learning about is usable in the game. As a ME junkie I couldn't help myself, but get Javik and use him in absolutely every mission.
The Ending - I'll try and keep this brief
Overall, the ending is bad. The backlash or anger you could feel towards Bioware is, in my opinion, justifiable, but isn't overwhelmingly surprising to this reviewer.
Now that that's out of the way I'll move slightly more into dissection without ruining it for those that haven't beaten it yet.
I beat the game right at 30 hours and for 29.9 of those hours the game was absolutely brilliant. It's literally the last 5 minutes that it falls apart.
The final 30 minutes is the actual end of the game and the first 25 minutes are awesome. You see Shepard get taken to the breaking point and I actually found myself astonished at his resolve and ability to....just....keep....going. It wasn't cheesey either. The bastard just wants to win!
The final 5 minutes and ending cutscene are, from a quick glance, actually pretty awesome. I found it to be emotionally moving, exhilirating and captivating all at once.
It's not until about 2 minutes after the credits started rolling that I began to dissect what I just watched. It's full of holes. And I mean it's riddled with them.
I could have gotten past the holes, but they also did a shit job letting you know about your squad. Who lived? Who died? As they seem to just show them at random in a cutscene. Also, during the final fight I saw a Krogan that I was 60% sure was Wrex get zapped by a Reaper, but I don't know if it was actually him! Did he live? Was that even him?
I went to youtube to look at other endings and basically they are all the same. No matter what you do or don't do or who lives or dies doesn't matter. What happens is a small (but, I guess, arguably large) variation in the cutscene. It's a pretty huge bummer that they're all so similar. To be able to so fully customize your game up until the very end and then be forced to choose door A, B or C was a downer.
I actually kind of dug the ending, but would have preferred another option or two that my Shepard would have chosen. To say, "Fuck these! We're doing option Go Fuck Yourself instead!"
I guess I just don't know where the disconnect happened for Bioware. Maybe being part of EA forced them into a time table that they had to make or maybe that's actually what they wanted, but with a game so full of history and careful plotting and writing the plot holes are glaringly huge.
I found a really good video on youtube that does an excellent job hashing out the big problems with the ending. Obviously, this video is major spoiler territory so only watch it once you've finished the game, but I'll just put it here for easy reference:
Overall -
ME 3 is an amazing game that falls apart at the very last moment. Does it ruin the game? Not at all, but the overall experience of my over 200 hours spent in this universe is definitely marred.
At the start of ME 3 I said that it's shaping up to be the best of the series and I don't really know if I can say that now. Not because of the ending, but seeing all of the differences between all 3 games gives me a much larger appreciation for what each offers.
ME 2 was my least favorite of the 3, but after finishing this game I might actually prefer 2 to the rest.
They seem to each have a different overall focus and, looking back, it's really pretty amazing what Bioware did. ME 1 laid the ground work and ME 2 built on it with am amazing story and unforgettable characters and ME 3 was all about bringing it all together effectively.
I don't think I could pick a favorite and in my opinion that's very high praise.
As I said in my preview, I'm a huge fan of the series and have been since I was a kid. Ninja Gaiden on the original XBOX and Ninja Gaiden II for the 360 (and later PS3) are phenomenal action games with super-slick, third-person hack and slash gameplay. I had high hopes for this third entry in the series, which were shaken earlier this week after reading a few ho-hum reviews. I still had certain expectations of the game, and thought that it couldn't possibly be as terrible as some were making it out to be, but that hope was quickly shattered after I'd had the game to myself for about 5 minutes. I know we've done the plus/minus system for reviews on here, but (and it breaks my heart to say this)....I have nothing positive to say for this one. Here is my list of complaints:
- the difficulties are not balanced very well at all. I had read in other reviews that Team Ninja dumbed the game down for newer players, so I decided to start on "Hard" difficulty since I'm a series veteran and consider myself to be pretty decent. I tried 5 or 6 times, but could not even reach the first checkpoint in the game. Fair enough. Challenge is a good thing, but I had already decided that I didn't like the new combat (more on that coming up) enough to try to struggle my way through on "Hard" difficulty. I switched down to Normal and proceeded to plow through the game. I can't be sure, but I'd say I could count on one hand the number of times I died. So I went from not being able to reach the first checkpoint to dying MAYBE 5 times the entire game. Not very good balance.
-the combat has been completely "neutered" this time. Gone are the random, occasional decapitations from the first game. Gone is the visceral dismemberment gameplay mechanic from NG2 where standard attacks would cut limbs off of enemies, who would then change to a more aggressive attack style, often doing major damage to the player with an explosive suicide move. What we're left with is still bloody, yes, but completely and utterly unsatisfying. Removing the dismemberment was such a huge mistake. I couldn't even believe just how BORING the combat was without it. It really honestly surprised me more than I could have thought. Enemies just seem to be damage sponges now. I found myself pretty much just mashing X to wear guys down instead of strategically dodging and countering like the previous games. Even the standard grunts take far too many hits to kill. Contrast that to NG2 (which I just popped in and played for a few minutes before sitting down to write this) where I had 2 guys charge at me and I countered, removing limbs from both of them. Press Y 2 more times to execute both of them, fight over in less than 5 seconds. Way more satisfying because I had the TIMING perfected to perform a counter move. My SKILL was rewarded with a powerful strike, versus NG3 where I'm just mashing buttons.
- the now-famous (and awesome) Izuna Drop is silly, since the victim's head doesn't even explode anymore (LAME!). Also the Flying Swallow (jump towards an enemy and hit Y) dive attack completely sucks now because instead of slicing limbs off it enters you into an auto-move that sticks you to the ground instead of being able to "swoop" 3 times.
- this game's version of an execution move is called "Steel on bone." Essentially it's just a standard attack, but when done on a weakened enemy, the camera will zoom in and you'll have to hit X or Y to finish the attack, essentially pulling out the sword since it's hitting bone. This does kill the enemy, BUT the weird part of it is that they'll still be crawling around the battlefield and you can hit them again...which makes no sense. I tested this out when I just let one of these guys crawl around the battlefield for a while. They just crawl around and eventually stop moving. Very irritating because you'll often hit them again unintentionally, performing the same canned "execution" animation
- this game is extremely linear. There is NOTHING to find, nowhere to explore, nothing interesting to look at. Contrast that with the original game where you had a large open world where bits were periodically opened up to you. You could find secrets (windmill shuriken, anyone?), collect scarabs, etc. NG2 was more linear than the first, but you could still explore the stages for collectibles, yellow essence (currency), etc. which leads me to my next point....
- there is no currency in the game. No shops, no upgrades, not even secondary weapons, which again leads me to a MUCH more important point....
- this game gives you, the player, ZERO sense of progression or getting stronger. That is a crime for any game, but especially a game in this series. I can't remember how many weapons there were in the first game. I'm thinking maybe 5? Plus secondary weapons. In NG2 there were EIGHT primary weapons. 6 of those had 3 levels of progression. 2 of them had 4 levels of progression, opening up new moves and combos with each level up. On top of that, you had, what, 5 secondary weapons to choose from? This game gives you 1 primary weapon (not even the Dragon Sword!) and regular shurikens, which are just as useless as always. Also, Ninpo as we know it has also been cut down to 1 choice (a dragon that swallows everyone on screen) and you slowly build up the ability to use it by fighting well, instead of having a set number of times you can use it.
- the combo counter has been removed. When I say "combo counter" I mean the counter in the corner of the screen that tallies your successful hits. That only makes sense. Why would you need a combo counter to keep track of how well you're able to flow in combat when you don't get rewarded for it and you're just button-mashing instead?!
- bosses have no life bars. There were a few times when I wasn't even sure I was doing damage because there is no life bar and they give no indication they're getting hurt. I hate that.
- I swear, you do not even have to hit the correct button when a QTE comes up for a steel on bone finisher in combat. This just furthers the point that it's a button-masher game. Developer speaking here: "Have a fun time mashing the buttons, even when a QTE pops up...don't bother stopping to look at the specific button to push. Just keep on mashing."
- the camera moves around so rapidly, it doesn't even let you process half of the cool Ninjitsu stuff you're able to pull off.
- the game occasionally forces you into slow-motion where you're just walking around in slow-mo. You walk up to guys who just sorta start milling around aimlessly and hit X to kill them with a Steel on bone attack. I fail to see the point. These parts are terrible.
- Anybody remember the Ultimate Techniques from the previous games? You could hold the Y button to charge up an Uber powerful attack that would take down 3 or 4 guys easily or do major damage to a boss if you could manage it. Well, since there's no essence to collect in this game, you can do an Ultimate Tech after you kill a certain number of guys (I think). The awful thing about it though, is that you don't even have to AIM it this time. You can just hop away from everyone, hold Y for a second, let it go, and you just zip around the screen insta-killing 3-5 guys. Awful.
- towards the end of the game, I found myself wanting to skip fights because they got so monotonous. And the game actually does let you skip them sometimes. I don't EVER remember wanting to skip fights in the previous games, unless my health was really low and I was scared of death.
- this almost goes without saying, but since Japanese folk developed this game, that old trick of "repeating bosses" gets pulled out of the bag multiple times. I fought the guy in the Red Pajamas and Mask 3 times, fought about 9 helicopters and 6 Spider Tanks. Give me a break.
- The game kept popping up tutorials on how to slide and how to wall-climb right up until the end. In fairness, I think this can be turned off in the menu.
- this game had the BALLS to tease me by showing me "stuff" from the previous games. In a "Virtual Reality" sequence, I fought in a few locations from the first 2 games (including the top of a rainy zeppelin). Also, the "shop music" from the first game was playing on a jukebox. BIG no-no.
- and finally, a bit of a nitpick, but it bugged me nonetheless: the main menu is sideways. It needs to be rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise so I can READ it. What were they thinking?
Alright, I've picked the game apart and basically said it's a steaming pile of crap. I think it's true and I stand by it. I had all these negative thoughts about the game and it really got me thinking. How could the designers of this game test it out and then think, "Yeah, I think we've made something really excellent here."? They removed SO much and gave the player so few options of how to play the game. Many reviewers of the game say these design decisions reflect Team Ninja's desire to draw in more of a crowd. I don't know if I really agree. It seems more like laziness on my part. If they wanted to "cater to noobs" more, couldn't they have just made an easier mode where you take very little damage? How about fixing the camera to give a better view of the action? I just really don't see how anyone could defend the decision to remove so much of what made the first 2 games awesome. Limiting the player's options does not make the game more enticing to noobs, does it? If I was new to the series, I would wonder what got players so fired up about the series at all. I would look at the previous games and think, "Wow, I want to use bladed nunchuks, and explosive shurikens, and a giant scythe! Oh, and look at all those different magic powers!" Team Ninja had almost FOUR YEARS to get this game right. There is no excuse for them spitting out this game as it is. I don't care that your lead designer left, as influential as he may have been. If I, Lead Salad, can play this game in 2 days and pick it apart like I have, couldn't someone else in a more professional position have done it and told them it was terrible? R.I.P. Ryu Hayabusa.
So.... Angry Birds Space is out, and it's awesome. I wish there was another way to put it. It's just awesome. I was fairly certain that this was just going to be a cosmetic shift, maybe some new abilities, and more money in Rovio's pocket, but the lack of gravity creates a whole lot of new gameplay mechanics (still revolving around slinging your birds into oblivion), and it creates a whole lot of simple joy.
Angry Birds has always been a game that no serious gamer really likes to admit that they love, but I think it pushes our buttons the same way it pushes non-gamers. Angry Birds Space ups the ante slightly by challenging even the most expert of Angry Birds Players to reconsider the tried and true strategies. Thinking through some of the "harder" levels felt like there was a bit of a puzzle element to the game, requiring me to think about the sequencing of events much more than I ever did in the original angry birds.
It's free for Android, or $.99 if you feel like getting rid of the ads. I don't think any of us have ever sat down for a long night of gaming and planned on that gaming being Angry Birds, but I do think we've all played it. I'm curious what you all think about it.
Hey fellers, I just came across this deal and figured I would share. I'm not sure when everybody's XBL subscription is up, but this here's a steal. 12 months and a $20 points card for $46.
I'm a big fan of the series. I have been since the NES days. I love the hack-and-slash, frenetic, bloody goodness of the newer games.
Enter the newest entry in the franchise set to be released tomorrow. Developed by the same studio, but without the original designer of the series (Tomonobu Itagaki), it is opening up to mixed reviews. I was 100% set on buying this game tomorrow up until I read IGN's review, which ripped it to shreds and gave it a 3 out of 10. Now I'm having second thoughts. Only a few other reviews have been posted up but they are much more respectable (and 8/10 from OXM and an 8/10 from CVG).
I guess my question is....should I care what one review says? Would any of you let a few bad reviews turn you off from buying the next game in a series you've always loved? What if reviewers had unanimously taken a dump on Mass Effect 3? What if reviewers, later this year, give Halo 4 really mediocre scores? What if Black Ops 2 is finally the CoD game where reviewers start to wise up and give it low marks for lack of innovation, etc.? I know we've kinda discussed this before, but not quite so specifically.
Here's a short film showcasing Quantic Dream's (of Heavy Rain fame) newest performance capture technology. I feel that the whole self aware robot stuff is a little bit of an old hat by now, but this is still done well enough to warrant a watch.
I remember reading about David Cage kind of hating on LA Noire's face scanning system because that's literally all it could read was the face.
With this technology it captures the entire performance all at once.
Heavy Rain wasn't the greatest game ever and the story had a ton of holes in it, but it was a game I actually enjoyed immensely. It was so different and to say that the great actors in the game had nothing to do with my pleasure with it would be doing it a disservice.
Too bad the controls were as wonky as they were. Maybe next time.
Apparently, my save file for Mass Effect 2 has been corrupted or lost. I had finished the game with some solid decision making, but apparently my xbox only remembers about half of my time doing that.
When I went to import my ME2 character to ME3, nothing showed up, so I signed into the Origin Servers, went into Mass Effect 2 to check to see if the file was still there. It certainly was, but the most recent save in the game was somewhere around the 20 hour mark. I haven't even met all the characters yet...
I'm not gonna lie, I almost don't even want to play Mass Effect 3. The most compelling part of the series was the idea that my choices directly impacted the world, and it was really cool how all the choices I made, both good and bad, were mine. Not anybody else's pre-rendered notion of how things should be... I was a different person then! I wasn't married, I had different dreams and aspirations... my choices were mine.
Now if I want to play the game I either need to dump another 20 hours into ME2 just to finish the damn thing, or jump in and not have any of my old choices in there... What a freaking bummer. I know some of you have played multiple characters multiple times, but something I really liked about the Mass Effect games was the pressure of choice. I tried playing a second character in ME1, but I didn't enjoy making new decisions... If I really wanted to see the outcomes of different choices, I could always hop onto youtube.
The appeal of the series to me is entirely lost. If I want good combat, I'll just play Gears. If I want cool characters, I could just read a book or something. Nothing can replace the fresh eyes of my original decisions...
For those of you that know and understand me best as a gamer you're already well aware that I'm extremely critical of sequels. Lead Salad periodically makes a comment in regards to that and it spins into a series of small jokes which ultimately makes me provide evidence that there are, in fact, sequels that I feel are better than the original (see Hitman: Silent Assassin, Gears of War 2 and Assassin's Creed 2).
It's not that developers sucked up the game, but made changes that were unnecessary and ultimately lost what made the original better. The new Batman: Arkham City is worse than the original because of the sandbox and diluted plot structure. Dead Space 2 took the intimacy of the dark horror of the first game and threw it into a linear format with way too many enemies. I realize it's preference, but I feel that if a game has something special going for it don't change the formula. Unless your Assassin's Creed. Then absolutely change the formula.
Bearing all that in mind it's with no small thought process or uncritical eye that I can boldly claim that Mass Effect 3 is shaping up to be the best of the trilogy. I'm 3 hours in and I'm absolutely blown away.
Allow me to explain.
The original Mass Effect is in the upper echelons of gaming for me. Good action mixed with an excellent overarching story, great rpg elements, a phenomenal cast and decisions that I'm forced to make that actually mean something. If I remember right my first playthrough took me just over 65 hours and I continued to beat the game another 6 times. Continually improving my character and eventually beating the game on it's hardest difficulty to import that file to Mass Effect 2.
Mass Effect 2 is an excellent game. It improved combat, in a manner, but also handicapped the Vanguard class. I figured the game was being more "shooter-y" than the original and after switching to the Soldier class the game was much more fun. The story still kicked ass and the characters were as excellent as ever (yay for Garrus!). It's an epic game, but went too far in removing rpg elements out of it's rpg-ness. Leveling up was almost non-existent and customizing your guns wasn't an option outside of ammo types and armor wasn't salvagable anymore. You had to just switch around different armor pads for different effects.
Mass Effect 3 is the evolution that ME 1 to ME 2 should have been. The action is even faster and more frantic and varied than 2, but reinstates a lot of rpg elements. There are far more powers to upgrade and you're given more skill points to distribute, but at a cost of higher powers costing more points. There are also skill trees within skills that make you further plot out your strategy for battle. The graphics are improved, but most noticeably in the faces and armor. Animations are much smoother and movement in general feels much more natural. It's nice to play an rpg that isn't clunky as hell....or made by Rockstar.
Next, I'm going to do the unthinkable and draw comparisons between Star Wars and ME:
ME 1 felt like Star Wars Episode IV. You have a new hero establishing himself and realizing his powers. He ultimately saves the day.
I felt that ME 2 was still Episode IV because even though you're against great odds and there is still overwhelming doom ultimately barreling down on you you still had a big victory against the enemy. The stakes were high, but I never truly felt very helpless.
ME 3 feels like Episode V. You know. The one where the rebels get their asses kicked and Han gets frozen? The one where it seems they're up against unbeatable odds and the stakes are through the roof and hope seems lost?
To me, the game is surprisingly dark and effecting (no pun intended). There's a small boy early on in the game that Shephard kind of sees from afar and while leaving earth the ship that the boy is on gets absolutely destroyed. Being a father of a small boy it kind of hit me in a strong way. The little boy does show up again in a somewhat expected/predictable, but very haunting manner that left my heart racing. It's a reminder of what's at stake and how terribly stacked the deck is against us.
It's nice too because even Shepherd admits, in dialogue, that it's pretty helpless. He puts up a good front for people, but when he's with Liara (one of his oldest friends and he's speaking candidly) you can actually see some cracks in his unending bravado. In the first 2 games he seemed almost untouchable, but here....he seems more human. More defeated. A powerful man that feels powerless in a situation that seems highly likely for failure.
All in all I played just over 3 hours and I'm absolutely thrilled with the direction the game has taken. I look forward to plunging dozens of more hours into this first playthrough and seeing how Shephard and his crew fair in the end....if they do at all.
Also, Ashley Williams looks a lot hotter and significantly less "cross-eyed," but holy shit. She's still a bitch.
I've been getting more and more excited as we get closer to launch and I do have it preordered already. I'm just nowhere near the level of excitement as I was for Mass Effect 2.
Not sure why that is. Maybe because I'm so familiar with the series having dumped in hundreds of hours between the 2?
I'm def most excited about my squad. Garrus and Wrex are still the greatest 2 NPCs of all time. I'm excited to see where this next game takes them and to battle with them one more time. I hope I can manage to keep everyone alive, but Garrus dying in a blaze of glory while taking out a Reaper would be a bitching end to an absolutely badass and deadly character.
I'm currently attempting to finish my final playthrough of ME2 on "Insanity" difficulty as that's the profile I want to import and I want that Platinum Trophy!
Some of you may have followed the previous post on handhelds and their cultural relevance and if you did it was abundantly clear that I very much love my Vita. What follows are just some thoughts on the system in no real order on how it plays, works, games and interface.
THE SYSTEM:
It's excellent. It's built very well and even though it's a little on the large side for a handheld it feels great in my hands. I really liked my PSP 3000, but it was a tad small and uncomfortable to hold.
The sticks are excellent and give you the precise control you'd expect from sticks. The buttons are of the "clicky" variety which isn't my favorite, but the shoulder buttons feel very good.
The touchscreens work very well. As good as any smart phone I've ever used.
The screen itself is huge. It's gorgeous and is a pleasure on the eyes.
I thought the interface was a little clumsy at first. Want to look at friends or trophies or chat? They are all separate apps that have to be loaded independently of each other. At first I thought this was lame until I realized it was more than likely done this way as a way to save power.
I like that the system seems to be aware of when it actually needs to be connected to the PSN and only connects when necessary. It always holds the wifi signal, but won't go into PSN accounts until needed. Again I would assume this is to save battery.
The networking and PSN Store all work better than I could have hoped. It's all relatively seamless and works well. I've been adding funds to my wallet and using PSN cards with great ease.
The system multitasks extremely well. I love that at literally any point of any game I can hit the PS Home button and it will instantly pull me out of the game and will allow me to flip through any page on the Vita I want. I can pull up my friends or trophies app or load the PS Store and Chat all while keeping my game running in the background. When I'm ready to keep playing I go back to the page my game is running on and hit continue and I'm instantly back in the game with no loading. It's awesome.
The battery generally gets a beating by me since I have all the settings maxed and am generally downloading something at the same time. Not sure from a first hand account yet as to how long it will last while simply just playing a game, but the general 4-5 hours seems accurate.
I really only have 2 gripes about the system: 1. I'm not fond of the speaker locations. They are almost constantly blocked by my thumbs to some extent while using the sticks. It's not a huge deal, but can be distracting to get some slight sound muffling while playing. 2. The back touchscreen is great, but sometimes I'm accidentally inputting things when I don't mean to because of where I place my fingers on the system. I guess that there's probably not a way around this as it is literally the nature of the Vita.
GAMES:
I currently own Uncharted, Escape Plan, Rayman, Mutant Blobs and Super Stardust. The weakest of the line up is Escape Plan. While not a bad game it isn't wowing me like I hoped it would. Levels are very short and the load times are long. Using all aspects of the Vita has been very "grin giving" to me. Pushing things over or pulling out drawers by hitting the back touchscreen gives a very unique feel to a puzzle game I've never seen before. This is the only game I've ever played that gives you almost a fly on the wall God complex through the way it plays which is really cool. Leaky steam coming out of a pipe? Literally plug the pipe with your finger. It's a neat game that could be really amazing when a sequel rolls around.
Uncharted is shockingly good and is surprisingly more fun than Uncharted 1 and 2 for the consoles. I'm not saying it's the better game, but that it is more fun. There seems to be more platforming and a smaller amount of endlessly streaming enemies wearing balaclavas (one of my biggest gripes of the series). There are even some decent stealth levels which were almost non-existent in the console versions (I've yet to play UC3).
Using the touchscreen for this game has been surprisingly fun. I'm no fan of gimmicky controls, but I do appreciate using a new input that is executed well. Another good example of this is arming charges in Killzone by using the Sixaxis tilt controls. In Uncharted you enter combinations through a dial combination lock. You take charcoal rubbings of important landmarks. You use the back panel to spin an item and the front panel to literally clean it up to better inspect it. At one point I had to put my Vita up to a bright light to see the hidden ink on some paper to read it. Using the back touch panel as an exact and seamless way to zoom with my sniper rifle and camera is amazingly refreshing. One thing I thought I would never use was to use the sixaxis to further dial in a precise shot while aiming down the sights. I now use this all the time. Combat also utilizes a little touchscreen prompts for fist fights. The lamest one by far is when you slip while walking across a beam and have to use the sixaxis to not fall....really lame.
Needless to say the graphics are amazing on this game and the soundtrack and voice acting is on level with the console versions. I'm on chapter 15 and I'm still shocked that I'm playing this on a handheld.
Rayman is a breath of fresh air that I didn't know I needed. It's ridiculously fast paced and tons of fun. It's like Mario mixed with Sonic, but with very tight controls and some tough platforming. It uses the touchscreen to a small, but fun, extent to grab certain items that are in bubbles. A very fun game that I wouldn't have given a fair shake on consoles.
I got Super Stardust as a gaming dare by my bro-in-law, Silent, to have high score competitions and it's fucking awesome. Basically it's a twin stick shooter and is as balls crazy as Geometry Wars, but you're playing on a spherical planets. Amazing controls and graphics with a great soundtrack. A ton of modes to play and a leaderboard built specifically to make you play more and more as every game mode shows where your points stack up against your friends. It's very addicting and very fun. Just so you all know I'm already pummeling Silent.
Mutant Blobs I got just last night and haven't even played yet. I keep reading it's a ton of fun and a must buy. I'll keep you posted on that.
CONCLUSION:
All in all I'm madly in love with the Vita. I've been consistently choosing to play it over my PS3 and 360 which is something I've never done with a handheld.
The ability to play small short games along with large complex ones is something that hasn't happened up to this point with handhelds.
UBER-CONCLUSION:
Sell all other handhelds and get a Vita. It's truly the best handheld there's ever been. I look forward to pwning your weak punk ass scores in Super Stardust.
I've been thinking a little bit about handheld systems lately, mainly due to Sony's Vita release. Handheld gaming has changed a lot over the years in technology, but I'm not sure the gamer's personal goal in handheld gaming has really changed at all. Culturally speaking, I think Sony took a bit of a gamble with the Vita, positioning themselves in a way that they could either destroy the market share Nintendo has had for so long, or destroy themselves.
Let me start off by saying I really like the Vita. I think the high price tag is the only thing that really kept me from making the investment. It is totally stacked with cutting edge tech, game quality and graphics look phenomenal, and all the inter-connective features on it (PS3, web, etc.) really add some depth to gaming that has been absent from even home consoles.
We have seen in the past, however, that technical proficiency does no equate to sales dominance. For me, this is no better represented than by Sega's GameGear. Poised in perfect position to really show Nintendo what for, the GameGear boasted a larger color screen, a comfortable button layout, and (for it's time) cutting edge features, such as a TV tuner adapter. Why did Nintendo's little grey box with it's puny monochromatic display succeed?
Nintendo (deliberately or not) met the needs of the 'gamer on the go'. As fantastic as of features as the GameGear had, it wasn't addressing the main needs of the travelling player. Nintendo exercised a sort of, 'form follows function' mentality when designing their unit. It was compact, efficient, and it scratched that gaming itch all at the same time. The GameGear was large, required ample power to run, and it ignored the cultural need of it's time - who needed to watch TV wherever they were at? Nintendo won out because they were more aware of the cultural 'need' (I use that word very lightly...).
As a quick segway, let me defend Sega's decision here... they were attempting to become the emergent technology. Sometimes the culture dictates the need and technology responds, sometimes the technology emerges and the culture embraces it. The iPad, for example... There wasn't a very strong need for tablet computers, they had existed for a while, but the iPad found a way, through a mixture of redesign and marketing, to make their product a cultural solution. Sega just didn't do that...
Back to the Vita, and this is what I'm curious what other people are thinking on this too. Is the Vita meeting a need, or is it trying to fill in an unnecessary gap? It's features are very close to that of a smartphone, so much in fact that it even includes social media apps, and game information sharing features. I'm very impressed by the ability to bring Uncharted with me wherever I go, but is that really what I want out of mobile gaming? It's the free games and simple games that make the smartphone gaming market so lucrative, so how do you convince a million Angry Bird addicts to pony up 400 bucks for this new thing and a couple of games?
That might be a little unfair, but it is the truth of the market we are currently in. Nintendo has kept up their success thanks to their share of first party titles (surprise, surprise...), but with them the risk is the opposite. If they don't stay more culturally relevant, then they risk becoming old news, a console lost in the piles of old toys from yesteryear. I think the risk for them is real too - I have a 3DS, and as much as I love it, the marketing focus on the 3D technology was a mistake. I play it all the time, but I never use the 3D.
Anyone else have a different experience with this stuff? Most of this is written based off of my own experiences, but I don't think it's that far from the truth... I basically stopped playing my GameGear because I was always tethered to a wall outlet. That isn't exactly what I imagined when I wanted to go into "mobile gaming."
DLC. Not entirely new or ground breaking, but the way it's packaged and presented is always changing. Most recently so with clever marketing tag lines like "Elite" and "Season Pass".
Now I'm not talking about user created content or mods or patches. I'm talking about content created by the developers and then sold to the gamers.
I've been talking, at some length, with Lead Salad about Gears 3 DLC and the continual pillaging and raping of my belief in developers as kind gamers, like myself, that love games as much as I do and want to spread gamer love to all with new content they've created.
I feel very strongly that Gears 3 DLC has crossed a line. Normally I wouldn't take the time to write about DLC because it's always a point, in my mind, as a power of choice, as a consumer, to purchase or not to purchase (that is the question!) it. But it was the clever marketing and thought that I'd actually be saving money that got me to purchase the now hated "Season Pass".
What the Season Pass gives players is the first 4 DLC packs for the cost of only 3. I believed, in my naive and safe mind that the world was fair and beautiful, that if I loved the game and expected to play it for a long time after release I'd be stupid not to....only in this case I was very stupid to.
Shortly after the first DLC dropped it was announced that it would be made free to everybody as a sign of how "giving" Epic is at Thanksgiving. How wonderful! I've now paid for DLC in advance that's now free to all! I've already been robbed of my benefit of getting 4 for the price of 3. But hey look! I at least get these extra skins! 10 bucks for 3 cosmetic skins works out to $3.33 a skin or 266.66 MS points per skin. Not too shabby!
Not long after the first DLC was released the Season Pass was put on sale at a discounted price. Another burn.
I guess what bother's me the most is that I feel had as a consumer. Like they really stuck it to me. It feels worse than buyers remorse because I've actually spent around 90 bucks on a game I feel I really have to keep, more than ever, to justify my expense. I enjoy the game, overall, and wouldn't really wish to be rid of it, but whenever I play it it comes with a tinge of resentment which is something I've never felt with any game in the past. Not even HALO 3 or REACH which I bought and sold about a dozen times between the two.
The DLC has also been released criminally close to the launch of the game. At least when COD releases it's inevitable map packs it lets the game breathe a little.
I have wondered, in the past, if maybe the developers would have included some of this content at release, but were unable to because of disc size capacity issues. If that's true then that might be the biggest burn of all. And please don't forget on disc DLC which Gears has been guilty of in the past.
I'm not a moron. I understand that games are a business and that large developers and publishers have a bottom line that must be met and that cushioning that bottom line is made easier with DLC.
Now that the holidays have come and gone, I'm almost caught up on my list of things to play. Almost. My birthday was a couple of days ago, so a few more games got added to the list. I guess if you're gonna choose to have any problem in your life, having too much to play and enjoy isn't a bad problem to have.
In the online world, MW3 and GOW3 have still been occupying a majority of my time. Both have their issues, but not big enough ones to stop playing, just big enough to rage quit every now and then. MW3 is what it is, and it's usually a safe bet because I'm almost always guaranteed to have someone online to play it with. Gears is really only fun when you've got a group working through it together (in Horde or Multi) so that one usually takes the backseat. I still own Battlefield 3, in hopes that maybe someone besides my brother will pick it up, but with so much on my plate anyways, not gonna do any persuading to other people to buy it.
In the single player world, I've been playing quite a bit on my 3DS. I finished Ocarina of Time 3D, as well as Mario Land 3D, and have been chipping away getting all gold cups in the new Mario Kart. On the big screen, Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword has been quite the treat, and I anticipate in a month or so I'll probably end up doing a full write up on that.
I've also been playing through a couple of the Professor Layton games that I missed. The Layton games are awesome, for those that don't know, and anyone with a DS looking to kill some time, these come highly recommended. Professor Layton, they famous puzzle professor, and his young apprentice Luke, work their way through strange mysteries and mishappenings. The characters are charming, the animation sequences are top notch (very reminiscent of The Triplets of Belleville for those animation buffs out there...) and the gameplay is simple and straightforward - puzzles! The puzzle selection is fairly diverse as well, from logic puzzles, more simple math equations, riddles, kinetic puzzles, etc. My only real problem with Layton, which is really more of a preference is how they end up ranking the puzzles. Each puzzle is given a quantity of "picrats" to earn depending on it's difficulty, but due to the puzzle diversity and how different people use their brains, a hard puzzle for someone might be very easy for someone else. The touch screen can also inhibit some of the puzzle solving here... Point and click adventures worked very well on PCs because the mouse cursor could change as something new could be interacted with. When the DS uses this mechanic, there is no "hover" feature that lets the player know what they can and cannot interact with, leaving them feel lost and confused. Most of the time when I can't think my way through a puzzle, the beginning of my confusion could be traced back to the limits of controls. Or maybe I'm just making excuses for a puzzle stumping me good.
In any case, it's been nice to get back to gaming in a variety of genres. I also finished Uncharted 2, which was a long time coming, so I didn't feel like that was worth writing much about. That game is just too long.
I'm gonna start my day off now, and spend the rest of it exploring Skyward Sword until someone invites me to play something online. This was kind of a lazy post, just felt the need to write something. Out.
I do love me a good first person shooter. A lot of it probably has to do with what I played when I was really falling in love with videogames, but FPS games really push the right buttons for me. It feels a little bit immature sometimes to play so many of them, and despite what other gamers and members on this blog might tell you, I do try to expand my horizons. Somehow though, it all comes down to having a good solid shooter.
It shouldn't be a surprise that I picked up Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (COD, MW3). One could do a quick search and find all the stats and information about the game and be impressed by the numbers in every direction. I think it did something like 6.5 million copies sold in the first 24 hours of sales. Absurd. It got so many phenomenal reviews and such high critical acclaim between persons and co-workers that it would be difficult to discredit the game from popular opinion alone. As a smart and seasoned gamer, though, albeit one who loves first-person shooters, I know this can't be the end all.
And indeed, it is not. What I've found sort of "across the board"is that there is some polarization going on. Some people love it, some people hate it, some people swear by it, some people swear by the previous installments of the franchise. I think, to a degree, that this happens with all games and media. Not everyone could love everything, but most media sells on a smaller scale, so it isn't as noticeable. If 5% of the crowd didn't like a game like Bayonetta, the screams of frustration wouldn't be nearly as the loud (let me do the math here...) 325 million users (also 5%) who bought it the first day.
Something that I don't think gets done though in the industry, either in marketing, reviews, personal blogs, etc., is calling the game what it is. We get caught up in the sensationalism and take it all too personally, regardless of whether the opinion is positive or negative. At least, I know I do. Here's my breakdown so far....
Call of Duty is Call of Duty is Call of Duty...
Since the release of COD4, these games have basically been a license to print money. They're so addictive, so steady with it's learning curve, and for the most part, fairly balanced. But you would be doing yourself a disservice if you went into a Call of Duty game expecting anything different. Take a look at Activision's business model - nothing changes from game to game, they just go and sell it to you again. Mark my words, there will be a definite, clean cut ending to the COD games someday, because Activision will do exactly what they did with Guitar Hero. I don't think that will be for quite sometime though. The COD machine is rolling, and the momentum shows no signs of stopping anytime soon.
I don't want my warnings about expectations to go misunderstood, however. I don't just mean for optimists who want something new, but also for the pessimists who think too much has changed. It hasn't. It hasn't even changed game engines since COD4. Five games in a row now, with the same engine! They may have changed the killstreaks, or maybe how some of the weapons look, but they can't change too much, otherwise the most important part of what makes COD what it is would be lost - the feeling. If the game designers (whichever studio is working on it, it doesn't really matter anymore...) want to have a successful COD release, they have to make it feel like the other ones. Gamers might disagree across the board about which game has the best aesthetics, but at their core, they all play the same.
I think that's all ok though. Consistency is a fine trait to have amongst a franchise, and regardless of preference, I think all of the good, long-lasting, series have a strong and consistent feel to them.
Kill Confirmed is Awesome
COD basically does one multiplayer playlist very, very well - Team Deathmatch. TDM is the standard to which all other COD playlists have been measured. The downside of having a really good TDM mode is not having enough diversity. Since that "killing" aspect of the game is a core design element, it makes it hard to have any other the other playlists feel different. CTF feels like TDM with a flag being run around. Even the most tactical of gametypes like Search and Destroy feel like simple variants of TDM. Kill Confirmed takes that simple principle and runs away with it.
Kill Confirmed is what I would say is MW3's big gift to the franchise. It takes the simplicity of TDM and adds a scoring system into the mix. Regular TDM rules apply, such as the call-ins and pointstreaks, but to win as a team, you need to "collect" the dog tags of your slain foes. A golden pair of dog tags will glow to collect after a kill is executed, and a point adds to your score. If a teammate gets cut down, then a red pair of tags will exist. Deny the enemy an opportunity to score by collecting the red-tags. First to 65 wins.
Although it's a fairly simple and familiar concept (can anyone think of any other playlist that does this? It feels so familiar...) it really adds a lot to how a game will flow. "Hot spots" of death and destruction will naturally occur, making sense to the idea of holding an area down. As a team, you can alter the flow of a match by deliberately choosing to move to a different location - after all, the enemy can't score if they can't collect your tags. Changing the eb and flow of a battle is a really cool feeling. It's also nice to see less sniping.
This playlist also helps compensate for one of COD's biggest weaknesses - the sensation of camaraderie. Although Team-Deathmatch is the name of the playlist, it hardly plays as a team game. Kill Confirmed, like Battlefield's scoring and leveling system, forces the player to play as a group. I still wouldn't recommend COD as the best "group" game, but Kill Confirmed definitely fills in a lot of those weak spots that COD has.
Kill - no wait... Pointstreaks
In the past COD games, killstreaks are everything. Getting X number of kills in a row will allow the player to call in something to help out the team. Radar scans, chopper, support... tactical nuclear strike. The call-ins have changed in the past, but the premise had not - it's always about kills. Not so anymore. Call-ins are done through points, instead of kills. Points can be earned by taking down air-support, knocking out a turret, capturing a flag or a point, and of course, killing an enemy. This not only encourages the player to not appeal to the lowest common denominator and always focus on killing, but lets them choose to play as they wish, rewarding them for helping out in whatever way they choose to.
Additionally to implementing point streaks, the COD designers have created "strike packages". These are preset call in packages that the player chooses. Each class has it's own strike package making switching out on the fly as easy as picking a new class post-mortem. There are three packages to choose from - Assault, Support, and Specialist. As one could probably surmise by the naming, Assault and Support have call-ins related to more killing and more support, respectively. (The Support class also has a cumulative total for points, that don't reset after a death). The Specialist, my personal favorite, is new. Specialists don't get any call-ins for their team, but instead, unlock additional perks for themselves. After 2 kills, a Specialist will receive an additional perk of their choice, to work in addition to the three they've already selected for their class. This continues with 4 and 6 kills (That's six perks at the same time...). At 8 consecutive kills with no deaths, the "specialist bonus" is unlocked, giving the player who earned them all of the perks at the same time.
I'm gonna start a new paragraph here, because it took me a while to appreciate the impact that this has on one's game, and it totally freaked me out the first time I earned the bonus. With all the perks running, I can run longer, I don't make noise, I reload quicker, I aim down the sights quicker, I switch guns faster, I don't take fall damage, I'm invisible to radar, helicopters and thermal, and if I start to run out of bullets, I resupply my guns from my fallen enemies. In the simplest of terms, this is as close to God-mode that anyone could get in a COD game. It does all restart if I die, but it makes the whole experience very rewarding. If I finish a game with a 24/3 Kill/Death ratio, I know I earned every single one of those kills. No choppers doing the work, no turrets keeping me safe... all my hands, my weapon. I am a one man army.
Final Thoughts
I don't want to give off the wrong impression here. I don't think COD is the best game in the world. I don't think it should win any game of the year awards. I don't even think that the changes made in MW3 even make it worthy of being called the best COD game yet. But it is good. It is a solid experience, and it is a safe and consistent choice. COD does what it does very well, and I don't think it's blind ignorance that's moving millions upon millions of this title off the shelves at stores.
If that's not the stuff you think you want in a game, than stay away, but I don't necessarily believe you. I think that we consciously and subconsciously make decisions about our games with safety in mind. It's why we go to review sites, it's why metacritic exists at all. We want consistency in our gaming, but we also want the experience to remain fresh. With both of those things in mind, Activision really has done some amazing work here. It's incredible to think that they've been able to release the same game experience, with some small variances, for five years in a row with consistent growth in sales. There is a small art to changing something just enough, but not too much.
I look forward to my time with this game over the next year, but not so much that I couldn't put it down to play something else. It will always be on my shelf even though I may not be playing it like there is no tomorrow. It's like I like it just enough to warrant not getting rid of it until the next installment comes out.
Do you hear that? I think it's the sound of Bobby Kotick laughing.
