2 Idiot Gamers

Well today present a whole host of pressers from Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft, and Sony.  The day started off with the Microsoft stage show. This could easily be summed up with one picture, in motion form:

Compliments of @JensDietrich

Aside from Kinect, Kinect, Kinect Rail Shooter, Another Rail shooter for Kinect; there were a few key announcements pertaining to media content.  This included the addition of live streaming TV.  Although there were no specifics related to fees, carriers, or date.  UFC will also be offering Pay Per View via XBOX360.  This will integrate some of the features of ESPN 3, like winner, victory type, historical information.  This is a very interesting move in the way that MS plans to replace cable and provide competition to a direct competitor just recently made available, HULU Plus.  There were two additional announcements related to HALO – the first being the HALO Anniversary title.  Which is a remastered version of the first HALO done in the reach engine.  The second is that they announced HALO 4, 5, and  6.  Well technically it was just HALO 4, however they did say it was the beginning of a new trilogy so the extrapolation was easy enough.  There it is a hour and thirty minute press conference summed up in one paragraph.  All in all it was not all that impressive.  There were some key movements with some neat features, however it seemed to be lacking some flair.

Next up was the EA press conference.  They announced a few titles, nothing that was unexpected or already known about.  There was Need for Speed: The Run, Battlefield 3 – Which featured a tank battle and looked very well put together.  They teased all the Star Wars and MMO fans out there with another CG trailer, but again, there was no launch or open beta date.  Which honestly is extremely disappointing.  EA also pimped their new online portal called www.origin.com.  This has some exclusive trailers.   They also showed more Mass Effect 3, which looks more and more impressive.  They also tagged its release date as March 3, 2012.  There was some Madden, FIFA, a really big Curt Schilling (like I’m one to talk).  Again, there was nothing here we had not seen or known about before.  SSX was also shown again, this time much more care-free and fun like the original, rather then that pseudo military snowboarding game shown at the VGA’s.  Aside from Battlefield and Mass Effect, there was little here to be excited about – SSX does make me smile though.

The day continued with the UbiSoft Presser.  That started out with a big smile.  They introduced a simple traditional two player plat-former - Rayman 4.  This brings a smile to anyone new or old that likes a good side scroller.  There was a fun augmented reality Raving Rabbits game.  The MC then went a little off the rails.  There was a demo of Ghost Recon, which with all honesty looked pretty boring.  There was some Driver: San Francisco, then a mostly expletive demo of Far Cry 3.  The Inglorious Bastards made an appearance in Brother in Arms: Furious Four.  There were some other less memorable announcements.  Although it ended with the coup de grace – Assassin’s Creed Revelations.  Which was epic.  It definitely looks better.  There are some new take downs and it all looks real good.  I found somethings I was impressed with, like Rayman, AC, Raving Rabbits, however there was one missing item, Beyond Good and Evil 2.

The long day of talking ended with Sony.  Normally, they are the first real day of E3, this year though they made a change.  Jack Trenton took the stage and apologized for the PSN outage and security breach.  He asked those who have given up on Sony to please stick around and listen to the future they have planned for their platform(s) in the future.  There was more move this and move that.  A untimely trailer for a game coming out tomorrow.  Seemed like a waste of a few minutes.  There was the attempt to bring more 3d home, which includes a Sony PS branded TV that does 3D.  There was an amazing game play footage trailer of Bioshock Infinite, along with a weird announcement of a non-descript NGP title.  Kobe Bryant was on stage, looking really out of place trying to play a basket ball game.  Uncharted 3 was shown and looked as expected – polished, beautiful, and full of Nolan North.    We finally got some announcements for the HD remake of ICO and Shadow of the Colossus.   Added to that was the PSP God of War ports to HD ion the PS3.  Both of which are due out in September.  There were a bunch of exclusives that seemed wedged in, or back room deals made because they are so odd.  Like Bioshock be packed with Bioshock Infinite and  Star Trek having a downloadable prequel, then the 1943 pack-in with Battlefield 3;  all PS3 exclusives.  Some dungeon running social game called Ruin.  Looked like everything else dungeon crawler out there,  except other people build the dungeon you invade.  There was some mention of a unified experience across the PS3 and NGP version.  I also forgot to mention, they announced the NGP, officially named the PSVita; I’m just going to stick with the NGP though.  There will be two versions, a WI-Fi version and a Wi-Fi/3G version, powered by ATT (the crowed had boos and mocking laughter at this moment.  The wi-fi only version will be $250, the 3g version $300.  Which honestly seems reasonable.  They mentioned something called Playstation Suite, which aside from the Xperia, no one seems to know anything about.  All in all it was another forced presentation.   Aside from Uncharted 3, NGP price point, and the BioShock tailer it was another flat conference.

Microsoft unfortunately announced somethings in their press release that should have been mentioned in the press conference – Cloud and ID saved to cloud for a truly portable XBOX live experience.  This is huge.  Sony has had this feature for Plus users since the Summer, so this is a competing feature.  One thing to take away from this is again, they seem to be leaving their core gamers in the dust, pushing peripherals. It seems Microsoft wants everyone to use the Kinect, Sony wants everyone to have a 3D TV, so I wonder what Nintendo be pushing tomorrow.  I am hoping the floor shows and private demos have more to offer.  Right now the start seems pretty flat.  There are some shining surprises, Rayman and Raving Rabbits to start, but there was little from the big two to start the show.  Luckily we know that there are plenty of good games on the horizon this year and next.  I look forward to seeing those and Nintendo tomorrow and how innovative their new console will be.

I’m a big fan of  Bioshock.  I loved almost every minute of the first game with the notable exception of what I thought was a relatively lackluster final boss fight. The underwater utopia of Rapture was one of the most wonderfully realized environments I’d ever encountered in a video game and I thoroughly enjoyed the Ayn Rand-ian storyline.  The only other complaint I can lodge with the original Bioshock was it’s duration.  At a little over ten hours, I would have liked to have spent a couple more hours in Rapture.

Well, that’s what Bioshock 2 delivers. Another ten hours in Rapture. Everything I loved was still there; the gorgeous water effects, the foreboding atmosphere, the several varieties of Splicers with which to do battle, etc.  Even the soundtrack, chock full of old-timey goodness was back.

And herein lies the problem.  Almost nothing is new.

I was so excited to be playing the part of a Big Daddy, clamped into a diving suit, possessed of  the strength of ten men and protecting the Little Sisters.  Alas, it turns out that a Big Daddy is just about as tough as Jack was in the first game. That’s right! The lumbering leviathans that turned up every so often as boss battles in Bioshock take regular human damage.  This flaw makes the experience of Bioshock 2 an almost insurmountable disappointment.  Add to this the inclusion of a really cool drill-bit attachment to the right arm that runs out of fuel after about three uses and there really seems to be no advantage to playing as the character whatsoever.  Basically, the limitations of the characters abilities makes being a Big Daddy virtually useless.   Oh. You can walk underwater but you won’t see any combat there.  It just gives the player the opportunity to walk a little slower than usual.

This is about as tough as you'll feel as a Big Daddy.

Another new twist is the gaining of ADAM, the element that allows you to upgrade your plasmid powers.  There’s now the ability to have adopted Little Sisters harvest ADAM for you from random corpses along the way. Unfortunately, as the little gal is extracting the serum, it causes a steady and annoying wave of Splicers to rush the area to stop her.  You now have the ability to set traps that will hold off the first few of these enemies, but it basically comes down to a swarming firefight.  These events aren’t difficult to get through, but they are tedious and after the first few times,  it just becomes easier to murder the Little Sisters and take the ADAM from them.   Sure, you won’t get as much ADAM and you’ll get the “bad” ending, but choosing to stave off the Splicer throngs time and time again provides a pretty accurate definition of monotony.

Apart from one new flavor of Splicer, the only other new foe is the Big Sister, and she’s a colossal pain in the ass.  She shows up every now and again, leaping from wall to wall, throwing fireballs and diving in for the occasional melee smack.  She’s not particularly tough to beat, but her sudden, unavoidable appearances elicit a frustrated sigh more than the dread of, say,  the Nemesis from Resident Evil 3.

Now this sonuvabitch knew how to make an entrance!!

...this chick? Not so much.

Add to it the complete lack of an epic final battle and the whole experience just doesn’t work as a sequel to a great game.  If anything, the whole thing feels like a lengthy expansion pack. The storyline is passable, but not as good as the narrative from the first game.  There’s a twist at the end that was somewhat satisfying, but to go back and replay it for the different endings just seems like too much labor for too little result.

It pains me to put these words down. I was very much looking forward to a return to Rapture, but there is quite simply not enough new to make it worth the time it takes to get through Bioshock 2.

Ain't No Rest for the Wicked!

From great advertising to a unconventional art style, Borderlands is that first person shooter with a loot system like Diablo that you might have been waiting for.  Borderlands carries a weak story setup by a bus ride into the desert, once there you and your crew are out to find the elusive Vault.  This vault is fabled to carry untold riches and unrivaled alien technology.  Then starts the first person goodness.  To start out you have four classes to pick from.  Each has their own specialty and special ability.  One of the nice things about this game is you can level up any gun skill, you are not limited to your gun proficiency you start with.  So if you pick up a gun you really like, just use it, your XP will come.  There is a soldier class that starts with proficiency machine guns and shotguns, special ability: deployable turret.  There is a berserker who is melee and heavy weapons, special ability: beserker rage.  There is a hunter who is snipers rifles and revolvers, special abilities: Pet Bird.  There is siren who is shotguns and handguns: phasewalking.  Each of these classes has their own tech tree which they can level up to help themselves, others, or enhance the group.  Each one offers plenty of benefits. Oh and I forgot to mention, it is multiplayer!

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In a strange and coincidental turn of events, I can name two moments of deep disappointment over the past few years after picking up a game that I had really been looking forward to.  One was the original Assassin’s Creed and the other was the next-gen debut of Prince of Persia. I ditched AC after only a few days ofter realizing that it was way more repetitive than I liked, and I sold PoP back about an hour after  I finished it because it came across to me like a childrens version of a once-great franchise.

See, I like climbing stuff. I like climbing really, really tall stuff. I enjoy the feeling that I’m going to fall from a dizzying height if I make the wrong move while climbing really, really tall stuff. That’s why Ico finds its way into my play rotation at least two times a year.

I was crushed by how little enjoyment I got out of AC.

Now, here comes Assassin’s Creed 2 with a different historical tableau to explore and a new protaganist to control. I had little interest originally, but after reading some advance impressions, and seeing some of the early gameplay, it looked like the folks over at Ubisoft had really listened to some of the gripes about AC and were setting out to address, fix and improve them.

Holy shit!

Not only did they turn out a much better game, but I got my PoP fix to boot!! Seriously, I seldom play a game for more than a few hours at a time before I’m either too drunk to continue or I’m distracted by some murder show on the Discovery Channel.  Nine straight hours in one night later, the only thing that pried my controller from my hands was my inability to keep my eyes open from need of sleep.

Graphics – Everything here is gorgeous. World characters repeat, but not so frequently that it becomes distracting. The city maps make me want to travel back in time and start stabbing people because it looks like so much fun!!!

Story – Fantastic. Engrossing and rich like a fine plate of  mezzaluna ravioli slathered in bolognese sauce. There will never be a time where you’re not interested in Ezio’s next mission. And the added bonus? I’m playing a videogame and I’ve picked up a little Italian along the way, you “bastardos”! See? It’s just like “bastard” but there’s an “o” at the end.

Gameplay – Nice to see that the people behind AC2 have fixed the problems of the original. The rooftop antics of this game would be enough to make it worth buying. As far as free-running is concerned, this game not only tops Mirrors Edge, but actually fixes the problem in THAT game as well!! There is the occasional, “oops, I jumped the wrong way” moment, but 9 times out of ten that’s my  fault. The fighting, on the other hand could use some work. A little bit rockier than I normally like.

Although in a few instances, this scenario......

...nearly led to THIS scenario!

Sound – The hand to hand combat sounds like a guy hitting a wall with a nylon full of meat. Other than that, I love it. The music, the NPC dialogue and the swordplay sound great. Have fun standing in front of a herald and hearing what he has to say.

Replay Value -  Not quite done yet, but I look forward to going back and finishing up the side-missions and trying to actually cap out the achievement points.

Summary – Well worth a buy. Buy two in case the first one gets scratched by that raccoon that lives under the sink. Seriously, I haven’t been this re-interested in a product since Tomb Raider got their shit together.

Much love,

Max

Modern Warfare 2 is a tour-de-force of action.  It feels like they took a good Micheal Bay movie and grinded out a game.  There are huge set pieces of action that are so riveting that your palms will actually sweat.   The game plays like the first one, with some graphical improvements to the HUD.  The game is constantly warping you to the persona of various soldiers involved in various conflicts.  The story is a little incoherent, however the point is driven across really well.  War is hell, no one is a real hero, and everyone is at risk at any moment.  Unlike Halo where Master Chief is set up to be the good guy and champions a single handed battle against evil, the lines of good and evil, right and wrong are constantly being blurred here.  MW2 challenges you to look at this game as a comment on war.  It has the potential to strike plenty of meaningful conversations with those that have played it.  It is able to do this while delivering some amazing action and tension.

The missions vary from stealth to out right action.  It covers this range really well.  It has some issues with direction, it tries to be minimal in the way it leads the player along.  It wants you to learn and explore.  This works well, however it can be terribly punishing to the players.  Sometimes you take a route that leads to to a group of enemies that ends in instant death.  Other times you take the perfect path and run into one or two baddies.

Ambushed in Rio

An example of this is depicted in the picture above.  This is one of the great levels, you are forced to jockey back and forth between building.  You also have to  manage targets with the tactical advantage of higher ground, all the while dealing with a barrage of ground targets.  This mission alone took me plenty of tries to get through it.  Plenty of gibbing, till I filly manged the crowds making it easier to get through.  The use of check pointing through out the entire campaign makes the ease of this burden of a little easier.

The story plays out much like Red Dawn.  Eventually the US gets invading and saving the White House becomes a major mission.  The American soil fights also introduces one of the coolest weapons in your arsenal, the predator drone.  This is a great little added weapon.

Storming The Rock...err...The Gulag

The picture above is the start to my favorite mission in the game.  You are raiding the Russian Gulag to bust someone out.  It plays out a bit like the movie The Rock.  There is even a locker room set piece with elevated advantage.  I loved it.

Gonna hit the showers

Overall the campaign took me 6 hours and 35 minutes and netted 235 achievement points.  Short, however acceptable.   I still have two more pieces of content to sink my teeth into before I am acutally finished.  I fear the online play, not because of getting pwnd by some 12 year old, because of the known addictive nature of this experience.  If it is even remotely upgraded from MW1, I know I will be bit by that bug and never leave the TV.  Spec Ops mode looks interesting, waiting for a buddy to finish it up so we can play that together.  All in all the campaign alone is worth the cost of the game.  It is riveting game play, tight controls, decent story, and phenomenal action set pieces make this game absolutely worth it.

Liked:

Epic Action Set Pieces

Tight Control

HUD updated to always give you your goal.

Amazing Cinematic look and feel

Disliked:

Length – I would have liked an 8 – 10 hour campaign

Infinitely Spawning Enemies – Rio is brutal on the ground and suffers severely from this.

Inconsistent sense of urgency – some levels pull this off amazingly, other leave you wondering why they are barking in your ear.

In the Dark – Sometimes you feel like you are in the dark trying to accomplish a task, or getting to a specific door on a vehicle.

I will follow up with a Spec Ops/Online review shortly.

This review was based on a retail copy of the XBOX 360 version of the game, purchased by the reviewer.  Campaign has been completed by the reviewer on normal difficulty.  It is available on XBOX 360, PS3, and PC.