Big egos in gaming

Totally opinionated piece below.

Something that gets on my nerves every once in a while is a small game company that comes from a grass roots background and makes some great games and then they turn into assholes.

Enter Valve, Bungie, Epic and Jonathan Blow.

I know it's a personal opinion thing, but if I see one more review or story spouting the genius of Valve or Bungie I'm going to blow something up. Watching interview videos with developers is painful to me because it seems to be less about the game and more about theirs egos of making "the greatest game everz!"

Valve is a studio that has fallen greatly in my mind. They've made some awesome games and somewhere between Half Life 2 and L4D2 they just became turds. L4D was amazing and while rushing out a sequel for quick cash they forgot to keep the fun in L4D2. Portal was a lot of fun, but has ZERO replayability and isn't the greatest thing of all time like some seem to think it is. It was originally some college kids game project that Valve picked up.

As far as Portal 2 goes didn't Gabe Newell spend the last 2 years bashing the hell out of the PS3 and now out of E3 I'm reading that the best version of Portal 2 will be on the PS3 because of Steam and Sony not holding their online community upside down by their balls and letting them get stuff every once in a while.

Where the hell is Episode 3 of Half Life? Wasn't the point of episodic content to get games to the players faster? I did hear an unconfirmed rumor that every fat joke made about Gabe Newell pushes back Episode 3 another two weeks.

Bungie struck gold with HALO: CE and every game since has been considerably worse than the last. I can't wait till they stop with the HALO crap altogether. This probably has me loving my PS3 more than anything else lately.

Cliffy B is just a turd. He's a small man with small penis syndrome and that's why all of his games are busting at the seems with "MEN!" and even more "MANLY MEN!" that have chainsaws on guns! I honestly respect his game making abilities cause the GoW game campaigns are tons of fun, but he just needs to chill out.

Jonathan Blow....read anything that guy has written or talked about and you'll see he's clearly an asshole and full of himself.

Phenomenal game makers that I respect that are still just making great games without all the hype or drama inbetween games? 2K Marin, Bioware, id, Bethesda and as of late Guerilla Games, Insomniac and especially Naughty Dog.

Starcraft

I just ran into this and thought it was funny because we were just talking about skill involved in Blizzard games. I know that this is muscle memory, but still....I don't know anyone that moves like this.

1080p - New TV

Hey, I just got a new TV yesterday. An awesome 47" Vizio that goes up to 1080p. I know the stock cables on the XBOX 360 block the HDMI plug. I know I need an HDMI cable but do I really need to fork out the $40 for the 360 converter kit? Is that all I need to run it in 1080p?

Any help or advice would be appreciated. My brother believes the 360 can run in 1080p but I'm not sure how to do it...

Thanks ahead of time.

Blizzard

Many of you may not be too familiar with this company though I'm sure you've heard of them or one of their famous products, World of Warcraft. I just wanted to take a quick minute to bring some praise to my favorite video game company.

(They primarily work with PC games and no, that is not why I love them)

They have a "we'll release it when it's done" philosophy on game design which has ended up creating high quality products that many people love and play for years and years. Starcraft players are treated like celebrities in South Korea where the game is still played extensively after 12 years. Many claim that Starcraft revolutionized the strategy game genre. Not quite sure if it revolutionized the genre but it definitely pushed it foward. 3 races with 3 different build orders and tech trees was a pretty new concept back then. This philosophy also allows them to release a beta version of a game that plays smoother than a majority of games from other companies on their initial release. Having put a lot of hours into the Starcraft 2 beta, I was pretty impressed at how smooth and bug free it was. They also continue to support their games after release with patches and updates and expansion packs.

Their whole design philosophy appears to revolve around what will be fun and enjoyable for the player. They don't hesitate to make major changes with a game several years after it's been in development to make sure their product is awesome. Diablo III has been in the works for five years now and they recently announced a major change and did away with the skill trees for the different classes!

One can only look to the success of World of Warcraft to see how well the company as done. They pretty much own the MMORPG market and with the release of the Cataclysm expansion pack, don't appear to be letting go of this anytime soon.

This may fall on deaf ears but if many other companies adopted their game design philosophy, there would be a lot more high quality, enjoyable games out there. I can only hope that their merger with Activision will not taint their products, which it doesn't seem to have done yet.

RAGE!

I've had my eye on this game for some time now. I know that a lot of people have lost faith in id over the years because of their lack of innovation, but I've always found their games to be very well put together with an amazing production value and excellent execution....plus they have the Godfather of graphics, John Carmack, at their disposal.

I remember reading about storage issues on the 360 discs and the problems that it's created for id and possibly condensing the world to save money when the game ships to keep it on one disc. I sure hope they go all out for the PS3 at least.

IGN gave RAGE the E3 award for "Game of the Show" and I don't think it's hard to see why.

This isn't helping....

I've been reading about new 360 Slims that are already faulty. This isn't helping and I'm sorry, but this only frustrates me more about that company. They can claim all the international sales numbers they want, but you know they can't be too accurate when every person I know that owns one has purchased at least 2.

Retarded.

A way around the Sixaxis

Just an interesting find when I was messing around with the PS3.

I was saying in my Killzone 2 review that it's a bummer that I have to use the PS3 Dualshock and not my awesome new Afterglow controller with the better joysticks because it lacks the extra 20 bucks for the Sixaxis. I figured that I could use my new controller and just unplug it and turn on the Dualshock when I need the Sixaxis, but this didn't work. It just auto signed in under player #2. Well I found that I can switch, on the fly, the number player that the controller is assigned to when I hit the PS Home button, under "system settings," and it worked! I can just switch the Dualshock to #1 and back to #2 when I'm done with it!

I know it's not a huge deal, but still worth a post.

Crackdown 2 Demo Impressions

Hardly worthy of a full review, but definitely worth mentioning is the Crackdown 2 demo.  Giving you 30 minutes of play, the demo gives you some pretty good looks at how the world can change and develop, and how your character is going to change with it.

Liked

The World : Pacific City hasn't changed much (architecturally speaking) since the first game, which is cool because it gives a real sense of familiarity right when you boot it up.  It takes a few minutes to get your bearings, but when you do it all comes flooding back to you.  I explored a lot in the first game, and it looks like I'm going to get that and more in the follow up.

Day and Night:  In Crackdown 1, night basically meant that there weren't nearly as many cars on the road, a great time to get some of the driving challenges done.  In 2, there are these infected zombies and monsters that come out at night, giving the world a real sense of busyness. The zombies bugged me at first, (why are there all these zombies in my Crackdown!?) but I think it will create a much better balanced game experience in the end, cause it means that there isn't any down time as night and day cycle.  The cycling did seem a little quick if this is the goal, but it's probably going faster than usual so they can showcase both aspects in the short lived demo time.

The Announcer: He's totally back and already encouraging me to be awesome.  Like the time cycling, I do hope he's toned back a smidge in the real game... he's overloading me with info, and intel, and news, and compliments, and criticisms...  give me a break, guy. At least he's hilarious.

Disliked

New Crosshair - I liked the old one more.  The aiming mechanic is about the same, still frustrating to quick target certain guys, but it works well enough.

Objective Missions - Just a preference, but I liked the way it was done before.  "Hey Agent! There's a boss over there... get him!"  They've included missions where I need to flip a switch to do X activity for _______ purpose.  It all in the name it seems of creating a better narrative with it, but they really don't need to.  I'm playing this game because it's fun to jump over buildings and to use a small sedan as a melee weapon, not for character development.  When they first announced that Crackdown 2 was going to continue the story from the first game, I literally had to think about what the story was, if it was even there to begin with.  The new story does fit in well enough to the first, but it still doesn't matter.

- - - - - - -

I'm excited to pick this one up.  I know my brother and I are going to co-oping it up a lot in this, so anyone who wants to hop in and clean up the city (... again!) is more than welcome! Should be a great time with 4 player co-op.

Killzone 2 Review

This is the very first game I've played to completion on my PS3 and it was an awesome and trying time.

Liked:

Graphics - Say what you want about the PS3 only playing almost every game in it's library at 720p, but this game is gorgeous. I think that some of the poorer looking games on PS3 were just lazy ports of 360 games, but I truly believe that the 360 couldn't handle this game. There's simply too much info on the discs. If I remember correctly when the game was being shown one of the developers said the first level was 2gb.

Style - Again some people may hate on the browns and grays, but it looks really good and fits the world, Helghan, really well. I LOVED the depth of field of what was in and out of focus. The way your hands and guns would be blurry one moment depending on the action or how close your instruments of death were to your face works really well and is easily the best implementation I've ever seen in a game.

Guns - Holy crap these guns are meaty. All of the weapons have a more primal look and sound to them that only add to the atmosphere.

Movement - While the controls took some getting used to I really enjoyed the "weight" or "heaviness" of the movement. Makes you feel more like a person in a firefight than a Green God of smooth walking and gunning that many other shooters have. Only other games I've seen use weight well in an FPS are "Riddick" and "The Darkness" (I'm gay for Starbreeze Studios btw).

Audio - A good soundtrack that never gets overdone and the sound effects are top notch.

Length - The game was teetering on the edge of overstaying its welcome, but I did enjoy it the whole way through.

Gameplay and Cover - It's pretty run of the mill gamplay, but they do throw in a curveball with letting you "stick" to cover and stay in first person mode. When it works it's awesome, but it's also broken.

Sixaxis - As dumb as it is to admit I really liked arming charges with the sixaxis. Hold R1 to grip and the move the charge accordingly. It was a lot more fun and even immersive than "Hold X" or "Hit X Repeatedly."

Brian Cox - He does the voice acting for the head Helghast and I'd be totally lying if I said his speeches weren't compelling or dare I say....moving?

Dislikes:

Controls - Don't know where to start really. It took me a solid 20 minutes of tinkering with the controls to get something workable (doesn't help that it's my first PS3 shooter game too). You crouch and get into cover with the same button and this creates a HUGE problem. Holding L2 will crouch you down and while you may be working around a corner trying to kill a guy you may get to close to a wall or box and get sucked into it. Then while you're being fired upon the wonky cover system won't let you peak around the corner for some reason, but you're afraid to let go of L2 because you'll get blasted. This is a very common problem in the game.

Bullet sponges!!!! - I played the game on "Hard" difficulty and it definitely ran me through the paces. I really enjoyed the challenges and there were some admittedly very tough parts, but holy crap the Helghast take a ton of damage!!!! (after beating the game I went back just to see the game on "Normal" and they died in what most would consider an acceptable amount of time)

Iron sights - It took me around 4 hours of gameplay to finally realize you're a much more efficient killer not using the iron sights. This is the exact opposite of what it should be. I think it has to do with the chunkiness of the shooting, but I found it much more effective to stay crouched and shoot in short bursts.

Sixaxis - I got a great 3rd party controller recommended to me by Lead Salad that has a joystick layout similar to the 360 controller and it's awesome. The downside is that it doesn't have the Sixaxis support so I HAD to use the Dualshock to be able to play the game fully.

Characters - Very very cookie cutter with plenty of bad dialogue and cheesey voice acting.

Final Thoughts:

The game was a total blast that was hard to play at times due to some control issues and poor iron sights.

Get the game if you like shooters and be sure to play it on Hard if you're in the market for a new controller because I almost broke mine more than once.

360 Loyalist Finally Takes the Plunge

Finally got a PS3 as a Great Father's Day surprise from the wife! I already have quite a few games that I've been getting from goozex and the 2 that came with the system. I have God of War Collection, Heavenly Sword, inFamous, Killzone 2, LBP, Resistance 1 and 2, MAG and Uncharted.

I've had the last 2 days off and I've put a considerable amount of time on the system since I got it and so far I love it. I will admit hooking it up and waiting an hour for the update to finish and then updating all the games was a pain in the ass, but I really like it.

brjahu said it best when he said it's more of a computer than a console and I would agree. From the way you have to install everything, to the menus and the far larger amount of options for everything from video to audio output its definitely a more PC styled console.

It's been interesting seeing how not just one game on the PS3 does shooters, but all of them. They all control primary and secondary firing from the shoulder buttons!? What the hell sense does that make? Getting used to playing Killzone 2 was a huge pain in the ass especially because of the "weight" your character moves around with. After I nailed it down I've loved every second of it. MAG and Resistance are set up similarly.

I guess that it's seemed a little like a breath of fresh air after being with the 360 since launch. Not that the 360 is bad at all and honestly it's vastly superior to the PS3 as far as the friends lists goes and partying up. I guess I've just slowly felt myself turning on the 360 when I think about how much money I've dumped down the drain on just the hardware for that thing. Admittedly I haven't had to purchase it all, but I just feel taken advantage of. I've had to purchase 2 360s, HD DVD drive, LIVE for 6 years, wireless adapter and a 120gb hard drive and extra controllers. That's over 1400 bucks there.....just on hardware (waiting for Amateria's avatar clothes jokes).

Also, MS has always had a bad attitude about monitoring everything that goes in and out of their service. Basically they don't want to give out anything for free and that's their business, but it is a little annoying after so long. Goofing around in LBP for a few hours and having some of the neatest interactions I've ever had online with other players has proven to me that user created content is not the devil!

Bottom line is that I've been so impressed with the PS3 I'm going to start buying multiplatform games for it starting with Dead Space 2. I'm also looking forward to replaying my favorite 360 games on the PS3 just because I can.

E3...highlights and thoughts thus far

Xbox Specific

Games

Gears 3 - 4 player co op looks excellent, looks like they've ramped up pretty much everything another notch, graphics, animations, weapon swapping, moves...cant wait.
- Beast mode - new take on horde mode where u play as the various locus, only seen some brief footage so far but from wat i've read it could prove to be a winner.

Halo: Reach - campaign footage shown looked good, cant really form too much of an opinion of it just yet considering wat we saw. MP we know will just be more of the halo action but news just came out that firefight mode with matchmaking will be included which is long overdue, sharable customised gametypes for that also, standard stuff these days i guess.

Nothing surprising or exclusives/new IP's were announced which was a bit disappointing.

Hardware

Kinetic - pretty interesting to see this kind of technology making it's way into our homes, i couldnt care less for the gaming revolations, tho i was kinda impressed by the use of kinetic for navigation and operation of the xbox....but i'm no way buying into it.

New xbox slim (or watever they're calling it) - like it, if it goes cheap enough i may even upgrade.

Sony

Games

Killzone 3 - looks a notch up from KZ2, loved the first so sure i'll be picking this one up regardless.

LBP2 - such a creative approach to a game, pretty much make any style of game u like and share it, having played some of the most creative levels in LBP i cant wait to see wat some ppl come up with.

Twisted Metal - finally a sequal to the sony classic, should prove to bring some light hearted entertainment to online gaming.

Hardware

3D - not sold on this yet at all...need to see it for myself before i judge.

Move - i'll pass thanks

Multiplatform

Dead Space 2 - looks fantastic, if u havent watched the footage on the web already go see, very impressed.

Medal of Honor - Single player sounds great, authentic story, realism etc. MP - footage looks like a cross between MW and BC which will hopefully produce something special, it's being developed by DICE which is certainly a good thing. Beta starts 17th(early adopters i believe, 21st for everyone else) worth checking out i'd say.

Portal 2 - only a brief glimps but liked wat i saw, outdoor enviroments improved graphics, looks forward to this one.

AC: Brotherhood - looks like a proper sequal to AC2 and set in Rome, seeing Ezio standing ontop of the Collesseum was pretty awesome. some footage of the MP has come online and looks very interesting, beta coming exclusive to PS3 sometime so will be checking that out.

Ghost Recon - loving wat i've seen so far, very tactical gameplay and looks graphically impressive as expected these days i guess. full 4 player co op campaign which is always a Pro.

Call of Duty - more of the same, no massive interest will wait and see.


Games that were missing.

Mirrors edge 2 - pitty no mention of this yet, love it to be announced.

Last gaurdian - guess there holding this one back till TGS



I'm sure i've missed a whole bunch of stuff so interested to hear your thoughts.

Bionic Commando

Bionic Commando, up until a little over a year ago, was only a game I had read about every once in a great while on some "All Time Top Games" list. It was originally released for the NES and was known for it's difficulty and smart level design.

While I never played the original I did have the great pleasure of playing the amazing remake by "GRIN" called Bionic Commando: Rearmed. Not long after Rearmed released the full fledged long awaited sequel came out on modern consoles. I had read very mixed reviews on the game. Mostly the professional game reviewers were running it through and all the regular players that gave it a shot really seemed to enjoy it. Couple the good stuff from the regular players with the game trailers that gave me a huge 80's action movie vibe with awesome Terminator-esque music and I was very interested in giving it a try.

I just finished the game and I can honestly say I'm really impressed at how much I enjoyed the game and how GRIN brought the game to a 3D world.

Since Lead Salad has made a "Like/Dislike" setup I'll do the same.

Like:

Story: As ridiculous as it is and as terrible as the voice acting is in spots I found myself laughing again and again and just how bad some of it was. I know I probably shouldn't like that, but it's too over the top cheese at times to not enjoy.

Bionic Arm: It has a pretty steep learning curve to get use to and I can absolutely see many people putting the game down because it can be difficult to get the hang of. It honestly took me a good hour or 2 of play to feel comfortable with the arm. It has many functions in combat, swinging and grappling and it can stick to anything. I know it sounds cheesy, but in many spots where you're swinging and fighting regular enemies or boss's at the same time a feeling of exhilaration occurs because there's so much going on and you can't believe you're controlling it all at once and actually surviving!

Swinging: It's just a lot of fun. Whether you're in combat, shooting through valleys as fast as you can to avoid snipers or just navigating some structures it's always a lot of fun.

Difficulty: I was telling Lead Salad about this, but it's been really nice to play a game again that tests me as a player. The game is pretty unforgiving in the first place, but your character also doesn't take much damage so if you screw up you're going to have to do the whole section over again because of the weird level structure (more on that in a minute). The game isn't difficult because of shoddy design, but because there can be so much going on at once with controlling your swing and fighting enemies and avoiding radiation.

Boss Fights: Awesome!

Music: I can't pin it down and it probably has more to do with the new game paying homage to the original, but the soundtrack is amazing. It feels like a modernization of old school soundtracks.

Graphics: 1 point for not using the Unreal Engine, but seriously the game looks great. Not groundbreaking or anything, but I always found the environments and enemies to be pretty spiffy looking.

Dislikes:

Hair: Holy Hell who designed this guy?! Worst idea for a haircut ever. Whoever drew this dude's hair in production should be shot, but the guy that okay'd it should be have his entrails hung from the Blarney Stone because it's bad. Why the hell couldn't they have just updated the old model or the model from Rearmed???

Loading........: This game loads like it's all it has to do.

Level Structure: Goes hand in hand with loading. Basically you load up a section which could be very small or pretty big, but as soon as you hit the end of it here comes a load screen! All the time this thing would yank me out of the game world and show me a diagram of my controller reminding me how to play. It made the game feel less like a game and more like a large series of challenge rooms that happen to make up a story.

Arm in Combat: Once I had acquired some moves to where I could hook a guy and throw him into his buddies it's about the only move I did. There are bigger enemies that will beat the piss out of you though so I'm not talking about them.

Radiation: Since the game is primarily played in a city that had a nuke go off there's some radiation to speak of. It's pretty easily identifiable by it's blue color, but man oh man I died more than a few times (especially when you're in a pinch) by crossing over too far into radiation. It's a very fast death btw.

Swimming: Someone get this man some water wings! In a game where the goal is to move across the maps using a swing arm you have to expect some areas with water. If you fall in the water you drown in about 4 seconds. You're only hope is to fall near enough something you can latch on to to pull yourself out.

Repetition: As much as I enjoyed the game it got a little repetative towards the end. The last 2 big boards were great and totally new, but during the last couple leading up to it I found myself just wanting to get to the final confrontation. This wasn't because the game is boring, but killing the same enemies over and over is.

Final Thoughts:

This game was a lot of fun and using the arm is a blast and actually works. I think this game didn't get a fair shake because of it's steep learning curve and next to no promotion. While I really enjoyed it I would have a hard time recommending it to others because of it's complexity.

If you're up for something fresh, fun and with an old school challenge then give it a go because it's definately a gamer's game!

Sidenote: It wasn't long after the game released that GRIN shut down for good. Just another example of great talent, while maybe not seeing their full potential, go down the drain.

Red Dead Redemption review

Alright, so I was able to finally finish the game last night. It took between 21 and 22 hours to complete the campaign, and man, did it ever seem like it took longer than that.

This game went on for way too long, and I think I know why. It's because 90% of the missions are exactly the same! Follow someone on your horse or ride with them in a stagecoach and listen to them talk about "whatever" (boring). Get to wherever you're going and take out a group of bad guys. And then (the worst part) is that often you'll have to ride BACK to the original location where the mission started while continuing to listen to the "blah blah blah" of the NPCs. It's been said that the writing in the game is stellar, but I hardly think so. There was a string of missions where the only thing Marston ever said was some variation of this sentence: "If you don't give me what I want, I'm gonna put a bullet in your head!" Not only does that get old, but I didn't play the game that way so it made no sense to have my character talking like that.

Towards the end of the game, I kept thinking I was on the last mission, but it just kept going...and going....and going. I couldn't believe that some of the final missions involve shooting crows and HERDING CATTLE! And the ending......I don't think it made much sense. Maybe I missed something. Or maybe I didn't and I just think it's weak sauce. However, I do like how they let you continue on after you've completed the campaign.

There are a lot of things about this game that bother me:
-The aiming is either far too easy or far too difficult. If you have the auto-aim on you'll never miss anyone. If you take that feature off, good luck getting your pin-sized crosshair (dot, rather) on anyone in time with the sluggish control and be prepared to abuse the Dead Eye feature.
-Running is ridiculous. Why do I have to hold "A" to run and tap to sprint? Haven't we had analog controllers for, what, 15 years now?
-The cover system blows. I still don't even know if there's a button to get me out of cover. I usually just held the stick AWAY from whatever rock I was on and that takes a good few seconds to pull you out.
-The horse mechanics are terrible and that's a shame since riding a horse is one of the most frequent activities in the game. Whenever I get off a horse to pick a flower or something, the camera angle changes and it's disorienting. When I stand back up, I'm facing a different direction and the horse is in a different place or moving around. Also, whenever I whistled for my horse, it ALMOST ALWAYS comes from the direction that I'm trying to go (and it will often run about 10 feet past me) so when I hop onto the horse I'm facing the wrong direction and have to turn around. ANNOYING!
-Precision walking and platforming are impossible. You bump into door frames, can't walk up a few steps easily. Jumping is so slow and clunky. What a joke! Also, I hate how when I'm standing RIGHT in front of something (like a bed to save the game or an animal to skin it) sometimes the game won't give me the prompt to do so unless I clumsily shuffle around a bit.
-Traveling around is just...too time-consuming. I know, there's the fast travel, which I abused heavily, but that just seems cheap somehow.
-If you have a mission at night, good luck seeing anything. I don't know what it is about this game, but if it's dark, you're not going to be able to see bad guys moving around unless you're using Dead Eye or if they shoot you first.
-I didn't really love how the narrative was structured. I feel like the end goal is to get Bill Williamson and Javier Escuella. You VERY rarely even see them or hear from them, though, which makes them weak adversaries in my opinion. Then after you deal with them, there's ANOTHER guy you're supposed to get that's barely even been mentioned before that point.


Despite all this, I had an OK time playing. I guess what bothers me is that this game has been praised so highly. 24 scores of "100" on Metacritic. I mean, how can people overlook all the things I've mentioned? I didn't make them up! That's only a handful of stuff, too! I'm tired of overhyped and overrated games! I think Rockstar must have a lot of reviewers paid off or something, because I didn't like GTA IV at all and was just kinda "blah" about this game yet both of those have MOUNTAINS of praise heaped on them.

Is it just me or is MP getting boring?

Seriously, I know I've been saying it for a bit now, but I could almost care less about MP gaming anymore. Even with you guys (who are some of my best friends) I just don't have a desire to play. Coop is about all I can handle. Maybe I'm going gaming impotent or I am so old now that I'm returning back to my childhood as old people do an all I want to play is SP stuff. Speaking of SP stuff The Saboteur is a lot of fun and once you get past the learning curve Bionic Commando is a LOT of fun and pretty difficult to boot!

Bad Company 2 is all that I'd play competatively anymore and MAG (at least giving it one hell of a go/try) whenever I get my damn PS3.

Am I alone in this???

Goozex (a more full blown explanation for brjahu)

It's awesome. I've been able to get many games that I wouldn't have actually spent my own cash on like 50 Cent and Bionic Commando or The Phantom Hourglass.

For those that don't know, it's all a person to person video game and movie trading system. The most a normal non-limited edition game will run you is 1000 points. Points are worth $5 dollars for every 100 points so a 1000 point game is $50 bucks. A brand new game on launch day will only run you 1000 points, but you will have to wait for others to actually purchase and trade the game before you get it.

The LEAST any game can be worth is 100 points.

All you ever pay when sending a game out is shipping which can run anywhere from 1 - 3 dollars. Depending on the person's trading history you may decide to send the game with shipping confirmation if you think them to be dishonest. This will run you another 80 cents.

When receiving a game you have to have "trade tokens." A trade token is the only charge you will ever get for getting a game. You can buy as many as 50 tokens at once or as little as 5 and they are 1 dollar apiece.

Games point values transfer to cash amounts that are very close to the same price GameStop would charge you so as you can tell if you straight out purchased points from the website to get games you would be retarded because you wouldn't be saving any money.

Where the real hook of Goozex is is in that it gives you the same points when you trade a game as it does to get the same game. The newest Prince of Persia was going to net me $27 bucks at GameStop, but I got 1000 points for it on Goozex.

The only annoying thing that you could run into on Goozex (and it's really more the user having crap/old games) is if you have a ton of games only worth 100 points cause you're only making a couple bucks on each other them, but the math still works out in favor of the user. If you wanted to get the new Prince of Persia it's going to run you 60 bucks new from the store or 55 used from GameStop. You only have to trade 10 crap 100 point games out to get the game you actually want. If shipping for each game is 2 bucks and you have to cash in a trade token it's only around 21 bucks for a new game. It's obviously much much less if you have something good to trade.

This is is no way meant to be an attack on GameStop because I think that they're a good store, but as far as getting the most bang for your buck as a consumer you win with Goozex every time....unless you want a game on launch day....then you're boned.

Alan Wake = Bamboo Shoots Under My Fingernails

I just purchased this game today, based on some decent reviews. That is $60 down the drain. I can't believe someone would design crap like this and package it up as a game. Writing a cool story and then giving it some of the lamest gameplay to ever come in contact with a game just disgusts me. The premise is cool and the story starts to draw you in... until you are forced to die & respawn, die & respawn, die & respawn, die & respawn, die & respawn, die & respawn, die & respawn cuz there isn't enough ammo in the whole entire world and the dodge mechanism works half the time and every enemy can run much, much faster than you can... even while you are sprinting... And I was missing one out of every 10 or more shots fired. I was doing some serious conserving.

Not to mention all the ammo and weapons I horded from the first episode are COMPLETELY stolen from me! The game is a weak, not quite as scary copy of Silent Hill. This rant just had to happen, I was so pissed off someone would design this garbage.

If it wasn't meant to be scary, it failed miserably. If it was meant to really, really piss me off, it succeeded brilliantly. Please stay away from this dookie disguised as a video game.

Like
+ That I can trade it in on Goozex and earn points for a game worth playing
+ That I have several other unfinished games lying around that will now be completed

Dislike
- fear and suspense disguised as lack of ammo
- a protagonist who can knock a guy down in a cut scene but has no melee attack... at all... for all the times you have no ammo... at all...
- yet another game where water does not exist (up until the start of the game) and no one has learned how to swim during child swimming lessons, parents owning a pool, having a creek behind their subdivision, having a beach nearby, or even in gym class in high school
- that this game was scheduled to be released much earlier... and this is what everyone waited for?
- that someone play tested this and thought anything positive at all...
- and I thought FFXIII had bad gameplay!?
- some game companies have reviewers in their pockets...
- if uwe boll made a movie out of this game, it would be better than the game...
- music albums have Explicit stickers and parental warnings but video games do not have Bad Gameplay warnings...

Damn Ubisoft and their dumb UPlay.

I got the newest Prince of Persia about a week and a half ago because the whole series is a lot of fun. I've had some problems with the game.

First of all there are several rather large glitches. One is a game breaker if you don't know how to fix it. You basically get to a spot at the end of the game and if you die there you just keep respawning there because that's where the autosave last saves and you die and die and die. Many people had to restart altogether to get around this. Turns out the fix is to delete the autosave from your memory and fall back on the "backup autosave." It's annoying, but at least it's fixable.

Another glitch is where you rank up parts of your character and after saving and quitting and turnign the game back on all your stat points are either gone or redistributed. There is no fix for this. You're just SOL.

My glitch is the worst. The game hasn't been giving me any stats to even upgrade. I played the game for over 3 hours and the whole time it's telling me "You've earned another XP point! Hit the 'back' button to redeem." Every time I do this it shows I have "0" points. When I try to spend one it confirms that I don't have any to spend. I delete all my saves and start over....same problem. I delete it all again and start over again...same problem. It's actually worse this time because for some reason the game has some "ghost" memory of where I was at XP wise and starts leveling me up from my initial playthru and it's STILL not giving me points. I finally broke down yesterday and called Ubisoft. I talked to a guy by the name of Brian who said he's only heard of this happening to one other person and that Ubisoft is aware of the problem and is working on it. Turns out it's the Ubisoft UPlay feature that broke my game. UPlay is a feature in newer Ubisoft games that gets you more content for playing the game and admittedly has some kinda cool stuff in it. Anyways, one of the rewards in the new PoP is 2 automatic skill points. I guess me redeeming that reward broke my game because UPlay is still in beta.

Bottom line is that I'm boned. A game patch won't help me because it's UPlay that's broke and it's been in "beta" for over a year already. How much longer will in be in beta? The PS3's Home service has been in beta for almost 3 years now.

I asked the Ubisoft guy if he could just refund my purchase and he said there's nothing wrong with the game and that if I just play under a different profile it will work fine. Retarded. I want to play under I 3N3MY I. That's my gamertag and that's what I paid to play on.

Currently I can't find a way to delete UPlay from my gamertag and from what I've been reading on the internet there isn't a way to do it. My only other idea is to try to attach my UPlay to a different gamertag so I'll be trying that at home.

Pray for my patience.

You got "There WIll Be Blood" in my "Red Dead Redemption"

Just something I noticed last night while playing RDR was that a town I was riding to happened to be named "Plainview." Now if you remember from the amazing (sorry Juniper) "There Will Be Blood" the main character's name is Daniel Plainview and he's an "oil man." Well, not only is the town named Plainview, but on the map there's an oil derrick and in the small town there's one right in the middle of it.

Just wanted to point out a cool reference to a very cool movie in an awesome game.

That is all.

Blur Trailer

I'm sure you all roll your eyes whenever I find another time to mention my love for the Project Gotham Racing franchise. I've been playing it since the original Metropolis Street Racer for the Dreamcast.

Anyways, Bizarre Creations is done with PGR and their next game is Blur. It's basically a grown up version of Mario Kart. Here's a hilarious trailer that openly mocks Mario Kart.

Red Dead Awesomeness

I'm nowhere near writing a review on this game, but I'm having a blast playing it. My favorite game since Fallout 3 for sure.

Basically just wanting some cool situations you guys may have come across in SP or MP.

My favorite online moment was when I was in Free Roam just running around a town minding my own business and some other human player comes charging down the street at me on a horse shooting his rifle. I real quick pulled out my six shooter Schofield and aimed at him and shot his horse in the head on accident. While the horse was falling it slammed into me and I thought it killed me. Turns out it just knocked me down and when I got up what did I find? The bastard that was trying to kill me getting up from the ground by his dead horse. I finished him off. Then I changed my underwear.

Unbelievable badass game.

One final word on the Reach Beta

I've been reading on the forums on Bungie.net and came across this post. Unlike almost every other post on there, it's actually pretty well thought-out and well-written. It summarizes the problems in the game, and gives reasons WHY they're a problem. I'm not sure I agree with his thoughts about competitive gaming, and while he makes great points about the guns being too weak, it also seems like deep down, he just wants the Battle Rifle back. I'm also fine with the speed and jump height. Anyway, this is mostly for Amateria and 3N3MY, but of course anyone who played the Beta can relate. It's a little long, too, but give it a read.

http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=44376218&postRepeater1-p=1

Red Dead Redemption

Juniper: "YES" I'm picking up my copy after work. I do have band practice tonight, but I have tomorrow off and will hopefully be playing all day after Masen's doctor appointment!

I'll admit that this was a last minute decision by me, but after looking at reviews and a lot of videos and talking very briefly with Lead Salad about it I think it's gonna be stellar. Not the biggest GTA fan out there, but I agree with Lead Salad that this is the time period, location and "life style" that Rockstar was meant to make a game for.

8 Player Free Roam looks like an MMO styled blast. Hope you guys get it as well.

Me, Lead Salad, brjahu (possibly) and at least one other guy on my friends list is getting it for sure, Patondeez, and he's cool as hell.

Patience, Competition, and Me.

Lead Salad got me thinking about something, something that's been halfway on my mind for what seems like a long time.

Competition has become a huge part of the gaming culture. Although this doesn't really constitute any huge revelation for any of us as experienced players, it deserves some thought.  When an activity that could be considered intrinsically "fun" (i.e. Videogames) becomes a competition, often times the level of "fun" we end up having depends strongly on what the outcome of the competition was.  Example: I may enjoy playing this specific game, but if I don't win, I don't enjoy it.  Some out there may argue that the experience itself is still fun, but if one consistently loses, I refuse to believe that the experience could hold the same degree of "fun."

(For the record, I recognize a great deal of this is subjective, so please bear with me and apply as appropriate to your own lives/experiences.)

It's almost impossible to avoid a competitive mindset though.  The cards are stacked against us in this manner.  It's a very common gameplay element now to have a competitive multiplayer, so common in fact that it's sometimes surprising that the designers omitted one intentionally.  Outside of that, we even find competition within the gaming systems interfaces, using achievement points and trophies to give us feedback on our progress, and a relative measure of how we "rank" amongst others who are undergoing similar tasks.  I'm not trying to imply that achievements and trophies are one dimensional and can't do more than compare us, but those comparison tools are part of the interface of the operating systems, so it's almost impossible to argue that a little bit of friendly competition isn't woven into their design.

I don't believe, however, that the competition we currently see in videogames is an unnatural progression.  In almost any hobby/activity, we have backseat drivers who look on condescendingly almost as to say, "gimme a turn, I can do better", if they don't just go and say it outright.   This principle may even just be built into our humanity.  Anyone ever have someone tell them better directions to go somewhere, even though you already know a perfectly adequate route?  Or have someone criticize a popular sports teams decision? Or just take the grilling tool straight out of your hand to do a better job?

In my personal opinion, a huge issue that magnifies this common principle is a lack of patience.  We're such a busy culture/world, having patience to let things play out and see the result is something that we lack overall, and it's got to be infecting our gaming as well.  We get frustrated at delayed titles, canceled DLC, slow load times, someone sitting next to us on the couch "playing it wrong."

Now about Halo: Reach (HA HA! You knew it was coming...)

I know Halo can be a bit of a hot button out there, but I'm using it as an example because it's the most current example we're all familiar with.  Reach's multiplayer has gamers across the world torn between loving it and hating it. Bungie has quite a task set before them - they not only need to meet expectations of a revamped multiplayer and gameplay overall, but they also need to not ignore the hardcore Halo fanbase that's currently in motion.   Bungie set aside, I think a little bit of patience when undergoing a new multiplayer experience goes a long way.

My personal experience with Reach has been interesting.  I was frustrated at first.  My experience in other Halo games wasn't really helping me out here.  Things were way too different for me to play in my same traditional Halo style.  After I was able to nail down a control scheme I liked, and experienced some of the loadouts that I responded well too, I was finding a great deal of success.  It was shortly after this happened, that I realized I wasn't the only one who was finding what worked.  It was harder to win, more frustrating to lose, and as a result, more difficult to enjoy.

I'm now at a turning point in my decision making with Reach.  I feel like I've gotten a pretty good cross-section of what it's like, what it's supposed to be like, and a few fair predictions on how it's going to be come launch.  How much patience though, should I exercise.  It's arguable that any single person, given enough patience and time, could master any game and ultimately enjoy it well enough.  How much should I dump into Reach?  Should I quit if the armor lock setup isn't nerfed a bit?  What if they change the grenades around?  Is it worth my time to learn the nuances of the game before I make a judgment, or are those changes and differences from my expectations too much of a dealbreaker.

Obviously this is a Beta, so we'll have to see where it ends up, but I don't see any reasons why a similar thought process and asking personal questions like these can't apply to any game we undertake.   We do it pretty regularly in single player experiences, but it's harder in multiplayer.  In a single player game we can forgive wonky controls, weird AI control, and even bad all-around gameplay because the only hurdle we have is whatever baggage we bring going in.  We don't need to worry about a winner/loser condition to dictate our fun.

Where do others sit with issues like this.  I'm a big fan of Halo, so it's easy for me to give it a little patience and try to learn the system to gain success, but I'm not so patient with Call of Duty.  It's not really about the title we're playing, but how we relate to it.  I've had friends who have encouraged me to look past my own instincts with single player stuff because the benefits of being patient were worth the time - how is any multiplayer experience any different?

Skatch and brjahu

Are they alive? I know I saw brjahu at Amateria's wedding, but that's it.

"The thing you gotta know about Sam Fisher is..."

Time for a formal look at Splinter Cell: Conviction.  Since the game's been out a while, consider this your fair warning to SPOILER ALERTS.   I'm gonna try to use a little bit of a Kotaku style review system.  Little bit of a breakdown about the game and it's elements, a small section of bullets breaking down personal likes and dislikes, followed by a general thumbs up or down.  (If this works well, maybe we'll try to find a unified format for reviews on this site, maybe even create our own that isn't from a much larger more popular gaming forum.

Breakdown:

    In this fifth iteration of the Splinter Cell franchise we find a pretty strong departure from the stealth systems that were found in most all of the previous games.  When the original Splinter Cell came out for the original Xbox, we saw a redefinition of stealth in a way that most games had never seen.  Metal Gear was probably the most realistic that most of us got, but to call Metal Gear is to stealth what Mario is to plumbing.  The series involved stealth, sure, but a majority of Metal Gear's gameplay revolves around tactfully displacing and manipulating the AI.  Whether or not you agree with the claim about Metal Gear, Splinter Cell changed things.  It added shadows and noise and movement to the list of things to worry about.  The rules for sight-lines and AI changed now that we had a light sensor to let us know when were cloaked in the beautiful darkness, and a meter for sound to let us know if we were walking to quickly.

    The system was so revolutionary that it spawned 2 (and a half) sequels that almost followed it to a fault.  Every game added some new stuff along the way, for better or worse, but it all seemed to be formed on the same foundation.  It almost looked for a period of time that Conviction was going to be growing from that tree also... until Ubisoft realized that their gameplay designs were too close to Assassin's Creed and needed to revamp their "homeless sam" idea, a tough financial decision I'm sure, but was probably for the best in the end anyways.  Assassin's Creed's crowd blending technique was unique, and using that as a core element in a competing (both ubisoft, btw!) game couldn't have been a good choice.

    As a result of the lack of discussion amongst Ubisoft as a company, we get a new branch to the Splinter Cell series that looks more like a branch that was grafted in from Jack Bauer's playbook.  Sam's life has been pushed to it's limit, with the loss of friends and coworkers at Third Echelon, the loss of his last tie to sanity, his daughter, Sam is a loose cannon.  He seems to be calm enough and keeping to his own for the most part, until an old acquaintance, Grim, the intel from the previous games, decides to light his fuse with promises about his daughter being alive. 

     Insert the generic government conspiracy story here.  I'm trying not to rail on it too much, because the story wasn't that bad, but it sure wasn't anything that surprised me.  It worked well enough though, giving a context to the super fast gameplay.  Using new techniques like the Mark and Execute functionality, Sam can literally breeze through a room of tangos and not even have a second glance. Although this new gameplay is super fun, it's hard not to think about how different it is from the Splinter Cell's of yesteryear.  More on that later.

Things Liked:

- Mark and Execute - Using this is a must, so it's pretty fortunate that it's really rewarding.  After getting a close range hand-to-hand kill, Sam earns a few quick executions on some targets of his choosing.  This is probably the biggest change to the Splinter Cell formula due to the fact that it basically requires the player to rethink why they're hiding in the shadows.  Older Cell games would reward the player who demonstrated patience, timing, and execution.  Conviction provides the player with immediate gratification rolling these older elements into the simple mark and execute format.  The only real difference is that you only need to be as patience as you need to, not the entire time.

- Co-op Modes - Although cooperative gameplay modes are becoming a standard in most games, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (their 3rd title) really brought something special to the table with their co-op story mode, and the Conviction team definitely showed some respect to their older brother here.  Co-op play has a unique campaign to the main campaign, multiple gameplay modes outside of the story, as well as a vs. mode (have yet to try...).  Although very similar to Sam's gameplay, two player play lets players share their executions with team mates, creating a sort of back and forth feel with the momentum of the gameplay.  It's an incredibly rewarding experience, something I'm glad to see brought back after it's absence in Splinter Cell: Double Agent.

- Environmental Guidance - I don't even know what to call this one, but it was awesome.  Having my goals and objectives built into/onto the environment I was apart of not only have me the information I needed without breaking up the flow of the gameplay, but provided me with some actual directions to help me on my way.  Absolutely brilliant.  (Carried to far in some cases... see below)

- Death and Execution Animations - Although purely stylistic, the death, execution, and interrogation animations are super fun to watch.  The player is given a small degree of control here, using the environment to get the facts they need out of uncooperative baddies.  I would imagine the temptation to make some sort of quick-time event for the interrogation scenes was high, but I think the detail work in the animation draws the player in enough without all that super exciting button-pressing immersion.

Things Not So Liked

- The dialogue - All of it.  Too much. Too heavy. Laid on too strong.  Oh, and everyone really loves to swear.  It's so distracting from the gameplay at times.  It's a clear attempt at trying to thrust the player into a fearful situation that Sam should be in, but the heavy-handedness of it all along with the high use of profanity makes it difficult to take it seriously, and it mostly comes off as juvenile.  "Fisher! You can't f***in' hide, this is an airport!"  ::sigh::

- Who is this? - "The thing you gotta understand about Splinter Cell: conviction was this... Sam Fisher.  He's the main roll. Who am I?  The thing you gotta know about me... is that I'm the one... the guy who's narrating this story... that surrounds Sam... ..." I couldn't wait to finish the campaign so this guy would stop talking.  Everything he said was the last thing he would ever say.  I'm still not entirely sure why he was needed to narrate the story anyway.  It seemed to stand on it's own really well, and this guy always seemed to distract me.  Whatever.

- Environmental Feelings - Although the objective guidance built into the world worked really well, projecting Sam's inner thoughts and feelings felt odd and simple.  Words like Rage, Hate, Revenge, being printed in front of me don't make me any closer to feeling those words, character decisions do.  Also, what tense are these in?  Sometimes the wall writing feels like tips and instructions from on high begin written for the players benefit.  Sometimes it feels like Sam's inner dialogue.  I'm alright with either, but both happening simultaneously was a small, but borderline sloppy choice, I think.

- Sonar Vision - What am I a bat? Give me my night vision goggles back.

- Desaturated Stealth Alerts - In Conviction Sam doesn't have the support or the resources to have a fancy light meter reading suit like he previously did.  To work around this, designers used the color saturation as a means to let the player know when they were hidden.  This gets kinda frustrating because color saturation doesn't really have a "middle ground" the way light brightness does.  It also takes away from the brilliant colors of the game being seen.  I'm supposed to hide, right, if I'm playing the game right?  Then why does my game look better when I'm not playing it right?  (This one is up for debate... maybe messing around with color saturation is cool now.)

Final Thoughts

I'm a little surprised at how easy it was to come up with dislikes and how hard it was to articulate the great things, as I generally liked this game.  I'm still cranking through all the co-op modes and looking forward to doing some achievement hunting with this one.  My guess is that my knowledge and love of previous Splinter Cell titles has really held my mind back, letting me see more that's "wrong" than right, even if these "wrong" things were pretty cool design choices (i.e. color saturation).

I could easily recommend anyone giving Splinter Cell a fair shake.  It's unique enough that it won't feel like white noise amongst the myriad of shooters most of us have filling our shelves.  Older Splinter Cell fans might feel a tad bit alienated by it, but once the game is looked at for what it is, instead of what it isn't, a much better and well-done product is found.  My only other warning would be the length.  The campaign is one of the shorter ones out there, only clocking in between 5 and 6 hours.  The only reason that this didn't make the "dislike" list was because the replay value is pretty high if you enjoy it.  Finding places to climb, routes to take, and ways to work through most levels cooperatively or solo really opens the doors to many possibilities.  I don't think it's gonna feel like any real work to get these achievements since I'm looking to play most of it again anyway.

Drop your thoughts and weigh in on this.  I'm almost more curious to get the opinion of someone who's not played the previous Splinter Cell installments... figure out of some of these dislikes are really issues or maybe just my nostalgic expectations not being met. 

Amateria, out.

::Edit:: I realized after I published this and went to bed that the impression I may have left was negative, due to the high quantity of "cons".  I really enjoyed this game a great deal, and I think if you've got someone to play the cooperative modes with, the replay value and in turn, the enjoyment you get from the game, will ultimately be there.

Canceling my plans to Preorder Reach (DUN DUN DUNNNN)

I've been saying it and you guys jinxed it! Don't talk about grenades being too powerful or they'll take them away and we'll be stuck with Halo 2 and 3 all over.

Seriously, I'm majorly bummed about this because IMHO they were revitalizing the series. Bungie just does what the community of NEWBS bitches about and ruins the game for others. It's not like less people would buy the game if they kept the damage up where it should be. For me when it comes to actually getting kills in Reach a lot of it boils down to the increased damage of the grenades because the majority of guns are as powerful as a Super Soaker 150...or the KLOBB.

If they wanted to balance the game get rid of the damn Sword and Hammer, but I guess that would make too much sense.

Bummer. I was really looking forward to being proven wrong because the Beta is pretty damn fun.

GameCube

Is there anyone out there that still has a soft spot for this system? I don't mean Nintendo as a whole, but this actual system?

I've been wanting to play Prince of Persia: Warrior Within and The Two Thrones before playing the new release "The Forgotten Sands" and since the 360 doesn't play those two I decided to get them for the Cube.

I broke it out last night and got it all hooked up and got my TV settings just how I like them to "help" the picture some and all in all it doesn't look that bad....especially compared to a non-upscaled PS2.

Anyways, I started messing around in Metroid Prime and I had a rush of adoration for the console. From how comfortable the controller was in my hand to the sound of the menus to the tiny discs. This was actually the console that shoved me into modern gaming thanks to Lead Salad my sophomore year of college. He knew that I loved my N64 and was a huge Resident Evil fan so he literally brought me to his room and said, "play this." It was the amazing remake of the original Resident Evil on the Cube. Then he really wowed me when he put in Metroid Prime.

That year I got a GameCube for Christmas and even though some time later I felt betrayed by the same system I played the hell out (damn you to hell Super Mario Sunshine) I still love my GameCube.

Great GameCube games that have and will always remain in my collection:

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4
Resident Evil, RE 2, RE 3, RE Code Veronica, RE4
Metroid Prime
Super Smash Bros: Melee
Wind Waker
Ocarina of Time and the Master Challenge

I love you GameCube. Especially since every time I break you out of your mess of a box that has a PSONE, PS2, 2 Dreamcasts and a Turtle Beach headset....you work like new.

Assassin's Creed 1 and 2

Author Note: This is written more in love than frustration.

This needs to be brought out in the daylight. Amateria hates, mocks and despises Assassin's Creed. Why wouldn't he? I mean he played the 1st one for at least an hour.

I'll admit (for the 100th time) that the 1st game got repetative, but I still played the hell out of it and it's a phenomenal game IMHO. The 2nd game is nothing short of breath taking. Everyone on this blog that has played it loved it. Juniper told me it's the best sequel he's ever played. Lead Salad told me he wished there were more hours in a day to be able to keep playing.

Saying that you didn't get the story you were promisd in marketing material is incredibly dumb. That's like saying The Sixth Sense sucked because Bruce Willis was a ghost all along! The "twist", if you could even call it that, takes place about 5 minutes into AC and is NOT a game breaker. In fact I have always felt and argued that it enhances the game and allows for a much richer story across several generations of assassins, the AMAZING conspiracy stories in the 2nd game and allows you to experience what Desmond Miles experiences coming in and out of the Animus.

I've been right about so many amazing games that you mocked or didn't give a crap about until you FINALLY came around to playing them. Half Life 2 (which you still haven't fully beaten), Mass Effect and even the show Arrested Developement and Wes Anderson are just 4 examples off the top of my head of things you never wanted to get into when they were recommended to you. After you play them or watch them you talk about how great they are and those of us that played them a year or two ago are just left saying, "We told you this a year or two ago."

Bottom line is you're wrong about Assassin's Creed and those on this blog that have played it will tell you it's amazing and that...well...you're wrong.

Breaking News

Breaking News:

Amidst the turmoil of Infinity Ward employees abandoning the company like rats from a sinking ship and fed up with Activision and it's CEO Bobby Kotick, Sergeant Gary "Roach" Sanderson, Private First Class Joseph Allen, Private James Ramirez, Captain John "Soap" MacTavish, Simon "Ghost" Riley, and Captain John Price will not be returning to the Call of Duty series.

It was officially confirmed this morning that none of these stars will be featured in any future Modern Warfare game titles. Though several of these characters were killed off in the series, they refuse to appear in any flashbacks, memory montage's, pictures, documents, videos, and any and all other means.

Captain John "Soap" MacTavish

MacTavish spoke with reporters, saying "I refuse to participate in a series that is saturating the market with short campaigns, raised prices, less bullets, unstoppable perks. Also, Bobby Kotick is an ass." MacTavish went on in length on how he wanted to show his support to the Infinity Ward employees by leaving the Modern Warfare 3 project. He is confident that he will be able to find work in other war-themed games and claims he has already been approached for a brief cameo in Medal of Honor and possibly Battlefield 3.

Captain John Price

Price said that he had no comment for reports but stood to the side, nodding his head in agreement, as MacTavish spoke with reports. Price did confirm that he will not be staring in a role in Modern Warfare 3.

Simon "Ghost" Riley

Simon Riley, best known as "Ghost", covered his face when confronted by reporters, even going so far as knocking a camera to the ground and threatening physical violence if he was not left alone. No charges have been filed as if this time.

Bobby Kotick

Upon contacting Activision, Bobby Kotick, in his real form, said in a statement "#$%*&% them and their &#$#& mothers. They #$@*&$# tried to make gaming #%*&$#* fun and we'll have none of that #*$&$^ at Activision. Modern Warfare 3 does not need their $^%@#*& in $^$%*#@ or #$^%$%@."

Bobby Kotick's PR Manager paraphrased, claiming that Activision was sorry to see them go but fully understood their desire to pursue other projects and said that their parting was on good terms with Activison and it's CEO.

Trials of St. Lucia and 60K

Last night I finally purchased the "Trials of St. Lucia" DLC for Dante's Inferno. For those that aren't aware it's basically just a challenge pack. The neat thing about it is that it also allows individual players to create their own challenges and post them for everyone to play. Super cool idea and from the short amount of time I spent with it yesterday it works really well. LOTS to add and very easy to create large scale battles that will really test your skills.

You can vote on user challenges and upload your own to be voted on. There's also a new coop mode that allows you to play as the St. Lucia the Patron Saint of the Blind (I guess the real St. Lucia had her eyes plucked out because she wouldn't marry her betrothed). I haven't had a chance to try the coop yet, but when I played as Lucia she's a very fast character so mixing up styles with another good brawler will be oodles of fun.

Funny enough the ONLY problem I've found in the DLC is all the fault of the players. Since, like most DLC, there's new achievements the overwhelmingly large amount of user created maps were all made to get easy medals for achievements. The other maps that were more serious were 1st or 2nd time attempts at making something compelling and weren't too good. I blame ourselves as gamers for this problem and I truly look forward to the garbage maps being weeded out and seeing what the community can create. I wonder if the developers saw this coming because at least they added 50 new challenges that they made that are actually difficult.

Also, I broke 60,000 achievement points last night and have a larger penis because of it.

Coolest moment of Reach Beta so far:

For me, it was when I saved a teammate by killing the guy who was performing one of those long assassinations. I saw that animation start, zoomed in from halfway across the map with the DMR and put him down with a headshot...and my teammate survived it.


I've got lots of thoughts on the Beta, but I'll reserve judgment until I play more (all 4 maps, all gametypes) and we can talk about it in a different post, but has anyone else had a cool moment like that?

Halo is old news, but I never meant for this to happen.

Maybe over a quarter of the staff leaving Infinity Ward and then suing the company that has been holding their money hostage isn't enough evidence that Activision is indeed a giant evil bastard.

What poor decision making.

"M" Rated

Something that has been bothering me lately has been the insane amount of swearing in games. I think it's been annoying me more recently because every new game I've been getting has copious amounts of profanity.

The first shocker was Bad Company 2. I'm not even talking about the campaign, which was pretty tame, but the f#$%ing multiplayer has it too. The really crazy thing is that it's the computer yelling random obscenities when the computer isn't even playing. There aren't any bots in the matches so why should the computer be talking? I understand they want to make the match sound busier than it may actually be, but I do enjoy the yelling for updates on the status of the match like "They're taking point Alpha!" and the like. If the game is gonna swear at me just do it before or after the match like Gears of War or CoD: WaW...nothing like getting cursed out by Jack Bauer.

Another new game series that has never had a problem with swearing is Splinter Cell and now Conviction is loaded with it! It doesn't sound scary or intimidating....just juvenile. The swearing can be so thick at times it just sounds like a middle schooler just learning the finer points of cursing and is determined to show you how badass he is.

It's extra annoying because when I'm just playing to have a good time and a NPC is calling me everything under the sun my wife is telling me that there's no way I'll be playing this garbage when Masen is around and I have to agree. I don't want my kid picking up these habits. If he's gonna learn to swear he'll learn it from the public school system just like his dad.

Why can't a game be "M" rated for just having "Mature" context and not swearing and BOOBIES! Mass Effect and Bioshock are 2 game series that actually deal with mature content in a responsible and adult manner. They deal with complex issues and choices without copious amounts of dollars being thrown into the swear jar.

Red Dead Redemption

so this game's totally been under the radar, dont think we've had a single mention of it on here and there's not exactly alot of hype surrounding it...yet. but damn this trailer looks sweet, can see this on definately turning a few heads come release.

Thoughts on current trends.

I've been thinking a lot lately how gaming is changing and evolving, and what it's gonna look like going forward.  This was really brought to the forefront of my mind with games like Heavy Rain being released, as well as Alan Wake just around the corner.  Cut from the same psychological thriller mold, these titles embrace a very cinematic quality in their approach to narrative, almost trying to capture what it would be like to be responsible for the events of a film, as they happen in real time.

At this point I'll hop on my high horse and wax philosophic about how games are intrinsically different from film, and should be treated as such.  Game storytelling is almost paradoxical - without borrowing from other artistic genres, games really don't have much storytelling ability behind them, but after those elements are borrowed, games can tell stories in such a way that it makes them unique from any of these other mediums.  The question we need to ask ourselves is how much do we want to let those other mediums' influence the direction games are headed?

I'm not certain that the direction that Heavy Rain and Alan Wake are moving in is a natural one.  I almost feel like the development process behind these (admittedly awesome looking) titles is one of fear of progression.  They're still holding very closely to the parent art forms they were so influenced by, and lack the ability to branch off and become their own product.  Heavy Rain, as interesting of a concept, as gorgeous as it was, was still just a playable movie filled with quick time events.  Alan Wake looks a little more on the playable end, but we'll have to wait and see.

I think one of the most interesting futures for games comes from the social aspect.  Socialization and gaming have never really been that far apart, but rarely is that socialization in the framework of the game.  It's usually been outside the game, in the "culture" of gaming (i.e. Arcades).  With the rise and popularity of games like Farmville, Yo-ville, Mafia Wars, and other Facebook games, we're seeing elements of socialization being spun into the fabric of the games design.

Why are these games so popular?  I should probably play one before writing about them any further, but I'm afraid that I'll get hooked like so many other people I know.  These games have struck a strong chord in the hearts of so many people, probably due to it's strong connection to the social networking.  Farmville follows design rules that reward/require the player to help and be helped by their friends.  This isn't anything new to games as a whole (Borderlands anyone?) but by integrating it into the preexisting social network, all they had to do was package a product someone would be attracted to.

Let's go to a real world example.  Susie is really kinda interested in gaming, but lacks the conviction to make the commitment.  A DS would probably be a great choice, but she would have to buy the system, learn about the games, find something she likes, and if she wants to do the cooperative gameplay, she'd need to find a group to play with.  Farmville doesn't beat around the bush, though.  It follows the same simple rules console games have, it's available on a platform she won't need to make any additional investment in, and the social aspects of the game are already there because they're built around a current, active, comprehensive social network.

Am I looking forward to Farmville 2? Hardly, but I am excited to see how socialization works it's way into gameplay.  I socialize a great deal while I play games, but the game isn't encouraging me to do that, it's my own goal and hopes.  I don't really know how it's all going to change, but I am excited to see a different direction of thought starting to influence how we make games.  I can only handle so many games that are like films...

God of War III...again

Alright, I just finished up the game last night. It took me about 12.5 hours. Overall, it was a great time and it's a stellar game, but it's not without flaws and there's no way I'D ever give it a 100/100. Rather than doing a "review" I thought I would just list the things I like and dislike about the game, and that should just about cover everything.

LIKE:

-The visuals: It's gorgeous to look at. The Kratos model is probably the best-looking video game character ever (not gay). HOWEVER, I will have more to say about this in the "dislike" section. Also, there was never any slow down or lag in the game. Even with 50 guys on the screen it ran as smooth as if there was nothing.

-The audio: The music, sound effects and certain voices are excellent. I just went and replayed the Hercules battle last night to get a trophy and the music during that part is especially awesome. The voice of Hades was another high point. Gravelly, resounding bass and just...freaky, which is appropriate for the king of the Underworld. Also, the Helios head does this little scream every time you pull it out to light your way.

-The scale: It's a big world you're fighting in and the game designers do a lot to help you remember that. From the first battle on top of Titans climbing Mount Olympus to the multiple times you go up and down the chains from the top of Olympus to the depths of Hades to a battle with Cronos himself, it's amazing.

-The revamped magic system: Each magic spell you have in this game is tied to a specific weapon, which eliminates the need to pause to switch weapons. Now, you use the d-pad to select weapons and don't need to worry about switching magic, too, since they're tied together. I like this system much more because it just eliminates trying to remember which magic you have equipped. Now I know that when I have the Blades of Exile on, when I hit R2 it's going to summon the Army of Sparta and lay waste.

-The secondary weapons: The Bow of Apollo and the Head of Helios are pretty useful secondary items that you can use to light enemies on fire from afar and blind enemies, respectively. I used both of these much more than I thought I would. Unfortunately, the designers did not incorporate the 3rd secondary item, Hermes' Boots, into gameplay much at all. There are a few parts, mainly immediately after you acquire them, that you use them to run up walls, etc., but VERY rarely after that and that's a little disappointing. It CAN be used offensively to charge through groups of enemies, but I never did that.


DISLIKE:

-Other character models: Many of the characters other than Kratos don't look nearly as polished. Hera and Aphrodite's chamber maids come to mind immediately. Hera's scenes only involve her talking to Kratos and when the camera cuts between the 2 there's such a huge contrast in the level of detail. She almost looks like something out of a PS2 game. The same thing goes with those chamber maids. When you initiate the sex-minigame (now a staple of the series) the camera pans off of Kratos and Aphrodite onto the maids and they also look like PS2 models. On the plus side, though, there's Zeus, Poseidon, Hermes, Helios, Hades, Hercules and they all look good.

-Lack of variation in the weapons: Three out of the four weapons in the game are chains with spikes on the end. I can't figure out why they did this. The 4th weapon you get is basically just an electrified blade-on-a-chain that you use ONCE to power up some platforms. The non-chain weapon is awesome, and I wish they could have come up with something else. I would have liked to see a battle axe or a mace, maybe. Or a samurai sword. Just kidding.

-The roll: One of your defenses in battle is the roll. Just move the right analog stick in any direction, and you'll roll that way. Sounds great, right? Well, it would be but for the delay at the end of the roll. Yes, after you roll and land on your feet there's a SLIGHT delay where you're just kind of stuck there; you can't move, you can't jump, you can't attack. I said that it's slight but when there are 50 guys on the screen coming after you it feels like an ETERNITY. This was the same in all 3 games and it always bothered, but never so much as in this one.

-The frustrating boss battles: Again, all 3 games have done this, but it's never gotten under my skin until this one. In the boss fights in these games, you'll often have DOZENS of other small guys attacking you during a boss fight. It could just be because I played on Hard difficulty rather than normal for this 3rd game, but man it got really old. I just think it's a really CHEAP way to make a boss battle more difficult.

-The story: It's basically just God of War 2 all over again. You don't like Zeus. You want to kill Zeus. Why? Because he tricked you into giving up all your powers at the beginning of God of War 2. And why did he trick you into doing that? Because you were abusing your powers and being a dick.

-The character of Kratos: He's boring. He's one dimensional. He wants to kill Zeus just because he wants revenge. Also, I really can't stand the voice of Kratos. I don't know who did the voice, but it just seems like they try too hard to make him seem badass. Well, at least it wasn't Nolan North or Vin Diesel.

-The ending: I was not a fan. That's all I'll really say. I suppose I should have known I wouldn't like the ending since I wasn't invested in the story and I thought Kratos was kind of a jerk. Oh well.



In conclusion, I'll say that even though I had lots of problems with the game, I still enjoyed it. It was a spectacle to behold and it's fun to be in control of all the mayhem. Another thing about playing on Hard is that while it's difficult and frustrating, it's that much more satisfying when you can finally beat the area you're stuck on. It deserves all the praise it gets for its graphics and scale and "epicness" but that can't change the fact that the story is rehashed and Kratos is a stale character. I mean, even Zeus and Hermes tell this to Kratos during the game: "You always fail and never learn from your mistakes." The game itself is certainly not a "fail" but I think the writers could have come up with something more riveting than another revenge plot for this epic game. If Kratos had been fighting FOR something (other than revenge) or in defense of something....it could have been so much better. Take the epic movies "Braveheart" and "Gladiator" for example. While I love both movies, there's no doubt in my mind whether I like (that depiction of) William Wallace or Maximus more. Wallace fights for his country and for freedom and Maximus fights to get revenge on Commodus for killing his family and trying to kill him. Like I said, I really enjoy both movies, but there's not really any contest of who you like more/feel more sympathetic for/want to win more when you really think about it.

Crysis 2 Trailer

Am I the only person that's seen this? The first time I watched it my mom happened to be in the room and we were both blown away. I mean...is it all in game footage? I know that Crytek has made what many call the best looking game ever in Crysis 1, but that footage is ridiculous if it's in engine. I'm really glad that they're bringing this series to the consoles because when it launched the PC guys were lording it over our heads. It'll probably kill the consoles processors, but whatever.

Probably in my top 5 fav trailers ever.

Alpha Protocol

I've been keeping my eye on this game for quite some time. It looks like a great Dragon Age + Oblivion / James Bond = awesome. A spy RPG sounds awesome to me and from the footage I've seen, it looks like they are doing a pretty cool job, giving you choices on what type of spy you want to be: suave, aggresive, etc., etc. And it's Obsidian and they are definitely known for putting out some quality products.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lox7IGllexU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyznNNNwHso

Splinter Cell: Conviction and....other things...

I'm surprised no one has really put up anything SC related so I'll do it first. I held off getting it for a few days because since my wife hasn't worked in a month and won't be working for another month, since the birth of my child, the cash flow has slowed. It pays to have a sugar momma.

Anyways, I started looking at my pretty large collection of 360 games and pretty much all the games in it I love for one reason or another. From Blacksite Area 51s arcadey, fun, campy alien sci fi shooter to Dragon Age and Fable 2. So I says to myself, "I have a lot to hock here that would allow me to get SC." I called GameStop and asked about several games to trade in and the total was 96 bucks. The manager then tells me if I can add in a 6th next gen game I'll get an extra 40% in trade. I hung up the phone and had a revelation! I had a crap ton of games that I LOVE, but will more than likely never ever play again or games that I would love to play, but won't be able to because they are such a ginormous time suck...Dragon Age and Tales of Vesperia come to mind.

Amateria helped me compile a list and from memory it went something like this. Quake 4, FEAR 1 and 2, Blacksite, Rock Band 2, Guitar Hero 3, Fable 2, Darksiders, Mario Kart DS, Super Mario 64 DS, Tales of Vesperia, Eternal Sonata, Dragon Age (a handful of others I can't think of) and 4 controllers. With the 40% extra and then getting a EBgames rewards card for another 10% I got 50% back more on the trade in of games. Altogether I got $215 bucks. I got SC and am holding on to the other $156 for my eventual purchase of a PS3 (which is my ultimate end goal)!

I know I sing the praise of Goozex and while it's ultimately the far superior game trade service I wanted actual dollar value credit to go towards a PS3.

Anyways....on to SC. Not to brag, but I think of myself as kind of a bitchingly good SC player. I've completely dominated all the previous games on all difficulties and played them to death (except for the garbage Double Agent one). The new SC is really good and I think a natural evolution the series should have taken to go more mainstream like all game companies do and to modernize the series. Sam controls more fluidly than ever, but it does come at a price. This modernization leaves some of the old SC fans out in the cold. "Mark and execute" completely takes the fear out of bashing a door down that has more than one person behind it. Regenerating health makes death a little more laughable and overall I think the game MAKES you fight more than the old games. There are many more enemies and far fewer ways to sneak around them. I was a big fan of not killing a person in the original unless it was part of my actual mission. I would knock out a person with secondary ammo or hit them in the head with cans or trash and elbow them in the head. I would also only allow myself to finish missions only using the pistol. It was a good way to up the difficulty for myself and a much more rewarding way to play.

Bottom line for the new SC is that it's awesome, but there are some control issues that go against the very well established formulas set by other large 3rd person shooters (b/c SC is now much more of a shooter/stealth hybrid than ever before). I think that putting the "crouch" button on the shoulder buttons is pants on head retarded while making the "Left Thumbstick" reload is really dumb because these two buttons could EASILY be interchanged and only help the game. I DO like having to hold in the "Left Trigger" to stay in cover because it keeps you much more assure of whether or not your stuck in cover...RS: Vegas was the first to do this that I know of.

Having played to death and made mad fanboy love to the Assassins Creed series it's very interesting to see how majorly AC has impacted the new SC. I bit of a downer at times when the lines between Ubisofts games start to blur....the newest Prince of Persia feels thrown in as well...especially during platforming.

The game is awesome and I still can't wait to get my PS3!

P.S. The moving from one cover to another is cool, but I WOULD LOVE to mention that as far as I know "Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard" did it first and that game was pretty bad and the feature was almost never used. It's funny to see such a powerhouse game lift ideas from no name games that are downright bad at times.

P.P.S. One more critique then I'm done I promise! I can't believe they don't have a button or option to switch your perspective from right to left so that you can see around corners better.Chaos Theory had it and so did Army of Two: The 40th Day and so did Matt Hazard. It seems especially helpful in this game and it isn't even an option.

Gears of War 3

The game was officially, officially announced last night, along with a trailer.

It looks like they shaved Cole's head and then glued it to Dom's face.

I hope the whole game isn't gray like that. There has been lots of talk about jungle environments and underwater stuff (not sure how THAT will work), though.

I'm looking forward to another rockin' campaign (hopefully 4 player this time??). My expectations for multiplayer are extremely low. Bring on Horde mode again tho.

Swordfish Studies and Fiddy Cent

Okay....I'm kind of a shooter junkie. I play great shooters, mediocre shooters and even downright bad shooters. 1st or 3rd person makes no difference to me.

Recently I played thru the entire game of "Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard" and it was no easy feat. The game went on for FAR too long, but for some reason even as I was explaining to my understanding wife that I hate this game I felt compelled to finish it. I wanted to see then end. I finished it and shipped it back out on goozex 2 days later.

Next I got "Army of 2: The 40th Day." I am still a BIG fan of the first game which I played for hours and hours both with brjahu, my brother, a few strangers and myself. This new one wasn't bad at all and had some amazing set pieces, but I found myself being just....bored by it. I didn't dislike it. I thought that some control issues were badly implemented and that aiming was a little "slidey," but that it was okay overall. Anyways, I decided to not even finish the game and shipped it out again on goozex yesterday. I finished Matt Hazard, but not The 40th Day...weird.

Anyways, I finally come to my point. Last night I started "50 Cent: Blood on the Sand" and it's awesome. Really tight controls and no nonsense gameplay. The game borrows very heavily from Army of Two over any other shooter and it somehow one ups a major studio like EA MONTREAL.

The story is ridiculous, but the action is fast and tight. You fortunately have no control over your AI partner so he never slows you down and is ALWAYS helpful. The soundtrack is a huge list of 50 Cent songs and the swearing is some of the most prolific in any game to date, but man is it fun.

Just nice to play a game that knows its a game and focuses on fun and fast paced gameplay over story or content. I guess that sometimes I get so bogged down by judging a game on it's content or if it's artsy or "worthy of play" that I forget to just have fun.

It is CO-OP so I would truly love to run through this game with another member of G-UNIT...let me know.

The Downfall of IW

It's falling apart... I blame Activision...

http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/plugged-in/exodus-continues-at-call-of-duty-developer/1396096

Groan...Grumble....Gag

I know we don't like to do links anymore, but this is just gross.

God of War III - Review

So i just finished my 2nd playthru of GOW3 and this game is nothing short of phenomenal, i know the word "Epic" is a bit cliche but GOW goes beyond Epic and it's already my fav game of 2010...

The game starts pretty much straight up where GOW2 left off and it has to go down as the most epic (yes sorry that word again) opening to any game i've played, the sheer scale of this game is like nothing i've seen before. For those who've played Shadow of the Colossus you've experienced some pretty awesome battles...GOW just pisses all over it and i can fully appreciate why it's taken so much time and money to produce.

The Combat is the core gameplay and they've nailed it again, very slick seemless hack and slash. Plenty of variety and complexity to the combos too and it's not just a case of picking your favourite move and repeating over and over (square, square, triangle anyone who's played GOW1 & 2) the AI is pretty smart and certainly on the harder difficulties makes life pretty hard so it's essential to mix up attack patterns and choice of weapons. As the game progresses it gratually rewards you with new ablities and weapons which all come in handy during the course of the game and there's something for everyone there so you can kind of go about your business how you choose.

Graphics are pretty much up on the top tier of this gen and when you consider the scale this game is being rendered on it's something pretty special. It's paced very well, some neat puzzle sections breaks up the intensity of the combat and the boss battles are always nicely built up to so you always feel like theres something you're fighitng towards. The story is well told using a combination of some cool art graphics and the in game engine to create the very nice cutscenes.

It's hard to talk about the best parts of this game without spoiling so i'm going to bring this review to an abrupt end, it's just a game that everyone should get their hands of at somepoint as mentioned before #1 game for me this year so far.

Borderlands

Btw, congratulations to 3N3MY on the birth of his son!

Borderlands is in the mail from Goozex, just in time for my vacation to San Diego. I don't know if any of you still play this but I would love to do some co-op when I get back on the 12th. I bought Borderlands on Steam for the PC, making the mistake of purchasing a digital copy that I can't trade or sell... so I used some points on Goozex to get it.

Anyways, I've been playing a lot more on the 360 lately. Add me on LIVE if you haven't already... JuniperRed