Thank God

Gears of War 3 is going to have a public beta.

First Reach Impressions

I'm only halfway through the campaign, so I'm not going to discuss that at this juncture, but I will say that I am enjoying it so far. My one complaint is that the new character models for the Elites feel a bit...rounded out, I guess. I remember the Elites in Combat Evolved seeming very lean and athletic-looking, but still having enough musculature to be far more imposing than Jackals. If the old models looked like collectible statuettes, the new ones look like action figures designs for children under the age of 10. They're devoid on edges and small parts. You can judge for yourself.

The first image is from Halo 2 and the second is from Reach. I guess the difference now that I see them side by side is how much broader the shoulders are on the Elite from Halo 2. The new models are almost too humanoid. They just don't jump out at you the way they used to. They might have done that so that they'll not such huge targets in multiplayer, but I think it kind of detracts from the single player experience.

As for the multiplayer, I think this game may go down as the definitive Halo game. Sure, there will always be people who like Combat Evolved the best, and there is literally nothing Bungie nor anyone else can do to change that, but there will always who think the first Super Mario Bros. is better than the third. Nostalgia and fear of change. I'm sure there will also be people who like Halo 2 the best, but I don't think anyone is going to say 3 is the best anymore. Nothing against 3--I loved 3--but CE, 2, and Reach will stand as the three paradigms of differing philosophies while 3 remains a neutered transition between 2 and Reach. CE will will remembered for its brilliant simplicity, innovation, and ease-of-use; 2 will be remembered as the best execution of a dual-wielding centered FPS; and Reach will be remembered for its clever gun balance, armor abilities, and staggering depth gameplay options. Unfortunately, Halo 3 is now obsolete in my mind. It had dual wielding, but it was more of a leftover from Halo 2 and hardly used. It had equipment, but equipment was gimmicky, frustrating, and at times over-powered. Armor abilities are basically like equipment, but fun. Halo 3 also had a great depth of gameplay options, but Reach has far more. Lastly, Reach's version of Forge makes Halo 3's look almost embarrassing. Double lastly, Halo 3 lacked any true standout maps like Blood Gulch, Lockout, or Ivory Tower.

While I was a big fan of dual-wielding and I will always argue that team slayer doesn't get any better starting with an SMG on Halo 2's Lockout, I can't say that I really miss it. Halo's gameplay really does benefit from shooting at guys you can barely see.

--Chilly P

Top 10: Other Realms and Media

As our readers are most likely aware, I love making top 10 lists. There's just something so authoritative, so definite, so...well, arrogant about making top 5, 10, 50, whatever lists that I just can't get enough of them. Nothing will fully suck away my Saturday afternoon more than getting caught up watching a 5 hour top 100 countdown on VH1. I even watched their Top 100 child stars even though I'd never watched Diff'rent Strokes or Punky Brewster or The Partridge Family or half the garbage those kids were from. It didn't matter that I couldn't tell Corey Haim from Corey Feldman, I was wrapped up in it. One of my favorite writers, ESPN's Matthew Berry, will periodically do a "Ten Lists of Ten" article containing 7 or 8 fantasy-relevant lists with a few "Favorite Fantasy Team Names" or "Favorite Movie One-Liners" sprinkled in for good measure. With that in mind, here are some top ten lists that I'm going to come up with on the spot. Unlike Rolling Stone magazine's recent top 500 songs of all time, these are not meticulously thought out. I'm just going to go with my gut instinct. Feel free argue or agree with me, or even give a random top 10 of your own. Anyway, without further ado, here are nine lists of ten...because I'll let Matthew Berry be one better than me.

Top Ten Rock Songs of All Time
1. A Day in the Life - The Beatles
2. Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin
3. Free Bird - Lynyrd Skynyrd
4. All Along the Watchtower - The Jimi Hendrix Experience*
5. Gimme Shelter - The Rolling Stones
6. Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana
7. Baba O'Riley - The Who
8. Good Vibrations - The Beach Boys
9. Seven Nation Army - The White Stripes
10. More Than a Feeling - Boston

Top Ten 2009 Best Picture Nominees
1. District 9
2. The Hurt Locker
3. Up in the Air
4. Inglourious Basterds
5. Avatar
6. The Blind Side
7. Up
8. An Education**
9. Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire**
10. A Serious Man

Top Ten TV Shows of All Time***
1. LOST
2. South Park
3. Arrested Development
4. Breaking Bad
5. Seinfeld
6. 30 Rock
7. Dexter
8. Battlestar Galactica (the new one)
9. The Wire
10. House, M.D.

Top Ten South Park Episodes
1. "Towelie"
2. "The Succubus"
3. "Asspen"
4. "Scott Tenorman Must Die"
5. "All About Mormons"
6. "Major Boobage"
7. "Butters' Very Own Episode"
8. "Trapped in the Closet"
9. "Gnomes"
10. "Manbearpig"

Top Ten iPhone Apps in the App Store
1. geoDefense
2. Words with Friends
3. Shazam
4. IMDb
5. Tap Tap Revenge: Lady GaGa
6. Wikipanion
7. Scramble 2
8. Pandora
9. ESPN Radio
10. Vevo

Top Ten Fantasy Football Players to Draft in 2010
1. Yeah
2. Right
3. Like
4. I'd
5. Tell
6. My
7. Competitors
8. My
9. Draft
10. Strategy

Top Ten South Park Episodes That Barely Missed the Cut
1. "Pip"
2. "Child Abduction is Not Funny"
3. "Chinpokomon"
4. "Chef Aid"
5. "Spooky Fish"
6. "Jewbilee"
7. "You Got F'd in the A"
8. "Woodland Critter Christmas"
9. "Christian Rock Hard"
10. "Mecha Streisand"

My Top Ten Rock Songs of All Time Circa 2007
1. A Day in the Life - The Beatles
2. Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin
3. Sympathy for the Devil - The Rolling Stones
4. Dream On - Aerosmith
5. Carry On Wayward Son - Kansas
6. Free Bird - Lyrnyrd Skynyrd
7. Good Vibrations - The Beach Boys
8. I Am the Walrus - The Beatles
9. Behind Blue Eyes - The Who
10. Happiness Is a Warm Gun - The Beatles

Top Ten Movies with the Best Opening Scenes
1. The Dark Knight
2. The Matrix
3. Jurassic Park
4. Raiders of the Lost Ark
5. Pulp Fiction
6. Mission: Impossible III
7. X2: X-Men United
8. Inception
9. Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope
10. Monty Python and the Holy Grail


--Chilly P


*Yes, I know Bob Dylan originally wrote and recorded the song, but Jimi took it to a whole new level.
**Okay, I haven't actually seen these two movies yet, but I'm betting they're better than the Coen brother's befuddling A Serious Man. It wasn't bad, per se, but I just didn't get it. I doubt many Gentiles do.
***Aren't old TV shows such garbage?

Black Ops and new Bioshock Information

That picture is of the Call of Duty: Black Ops Prestige Edition. You get a working remote control car with a camera on it that feeds video and sound to the driver. Being the type of sucker who owns a pair of Modern Warfare 2 night vision goggles, I may soon be the proud owner of such a toy. There's a new multiplayer gameplay trailer as well, which I've embedded below. The RC car will be a pretty fun killstreak, but it looks to only require 3 consecutive kills, so I guess campers be damned. There's also a nifty spy camera shown in the video. What makes me nervous though is the ballistic knife. It looks like it shoots knives at people and gives the user a pretty sizable lunging range. The best news, however, is that Call of Duty is finally starting to catch up to Halo 3 in terms of multiplayer features. Ladies and gentlemen, we will have the ability to record previous matches. Hooray for the end of clan disputes (now if they could just fix the mess that CoD:Mod2 left Search & Destroy in). As for the potential balance issue with the knife and whether or not we'll still have to deal with grenade launchers, we'll just have to wait for the supposed full multiplayer reveal in September.


Oh, and if you were waiting for a true sequel (prequel?) to Bioshock that's being done by the original studio and helmed by Ken Levine, the original visionary, then you're in luck. It's just been announced. Sequels done by separate studios tend to be devoid of risk and they always feel a lot like fan fiction. But when you get the masterminds themselves to make a follow-up, well, I won't spoil anything. Enjoy the shit out of the trailer:



--Chilly P

p.s. Gimmedat crossbow NOW!

I Get Wet without Even Trying

I think maybe all of my posts should be titled with esoteric song lyrics. Anyway, I think it's about time I talk in length on Hydro Thunder Hurricane. This game is a hell of a lot of fun. Also, unlike the Summer of Arcade's first title this year, it is unmistakably a video game. It's been a long time since I've loved a racing game this much, and I think it may go into my all-time favorites list with Mario Kart: Double Dash!! and Burnout: Revenge. As you may have gathered, it's a sequel of sorts to the original arcade game, which was also one of my favorites. It's very arcade-y in feel (I've written that word in three different contexts now) and no other racing game is so distinctly split into two types of steering.

With a water racer, you have to deal with the elements. The most prominent of these elements is waves, and waves make you go airborne. They aren't the only thing, though, so does going off ramps, launching off waterfalls, and even jumping your boat. Handling in the air is something that I've found is key to my success in the game, and Rad Hazard is the king of aerial control. While it has the worst handling in the water (it's more a hovercraft than a boat), a skilled user can strategically use boost to steer it almost as well as any other boat. What's nice is that it controls with almost same amount of ability in both the water and while airborne, so you never feel out of control with it like you do other boats.

Well, I'm not too humble to admit that I've gotten damn good at the game, and it's gotten to the point where I have difficulty finding a challenge online. The matchmaking system is very bare bones (you create or search for a match) and it can be difficult to get into a good lobby. Other than that, I fully recommend the game. The tracks are all beautifully choreographed and every single one of them could have easily been the standout in a less memorable set. Just know this: getting 200/200 Achievement points is going to be damn near impossible. The Expert Ringmaster events are brutal, and going gold in the event that does all eight of them consecutively is a task I'm sure few men have accomplished.

--Chilly P

Thoughts for Tuesday 080310

I know I haven't been posting much recently, but all I've been playing recently is Hydro Thunder Hurricane and Halo Wars. The former isn't particularly deep and I've said about all I need about the latter. Anyway, the Madden NFL '11 demo came out, and I have to say that I do like the new feel of the game. However, apparently online franchise was the least used feature in last year's edition, so word on the street is that they haven't updated it much. Since online franchise was literally the only thing I cared about last year, it may not be worth it for me to pick it up this season.


On a random side note, remember this commercial? I liked it.

For those of you who love Instant Queue-ing on your 'box, I've got three new shows to recommend. Two of them ran only one season and the other never made it through the second season, so it should be pretty easy to get through each of these shows' entire runs. They are, in order of recommendation, Better Off Ted, Stella, and The Unusuals. The first is an ABC critical darling that just never found an audience, the second is an extremely quirky comedy from Comedy Central starring that dude who loves the 80s and some other The State vets, and the last was one of the many shows to fail at following LOST's time slot during its 6 year run. Speaking of the The State, I believe that's on Instant Queue these days as well. I've never seen it, but it's apparently where all the Stella and Reno 911 guys got their starts, so that's probably next on my docket.

If you have Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare on the PC and want to try making your own levels, the tools to do so are available for free on the internets. They're actually quite easy to get into (especially compared to Unreal Tournament 2004, in my opinion), and there are a good number of helpful videos on YouTube. CoD4 runs about $30 wherever you look these days, which isn't exactly cheap for a 3 year old game with two sequels on the market.

Lastly, no I don't have Starcraft II yet and yes, I wish I did. I played the beta, and that made it painfully obvious that my laptop was not capable of running such a glorious program.

--Chilly P

Let's get WWII up in this bitch

Well as I mentioned I haven't been around much and my video game playing was not very frequent, so I felt like I couldn't really write anything of substance to annoy you all with. Yet in the last month or so, I have grabbed three games that are worthy of mention and can spark something here. Think of this as a 3 part mini series of rehab posts, hooray.

The first game I downloaded and play on occasion is Company of Heroes. Although this game isn't new by any stretch, it is certainly fun and worthy of looking into. If you have a crush on anything World War II like I do, it is hard to pass by this sweet little thang. (I also love Relic/THQ as I mentioned here.) I grabbed the original game plus an expansion for about 30 dollars off Steam, and have enjoyed it since. If you are patient and look around the interwebs, you can find this game along with some of the expansions for a cheap price. As a matter of fact, the day after I bought the game, it seemed like a dam of deals was shattered and I found a flood of deals sweeping over my frustrated self.
Anyway, the game is an RTS and you can play as the Axis (Wehrmacht or Panzer Elite) or the Allies (Americans or British). The armies are distinct and play fairly differently, which allows for some diversity and ways to break the monotony. Artillery and tanks seem to rule the day, but well used (and massed) infantry can be equally destructive. Visually, this game is very impressive. The characters interact with the levels in an awesome way that is cool to watch but also fantastic to play. (If you have a computer with a nice video card, you will enjoy watching battles). The voice acting is also entertaining (copious amounts of ethnic slurs from the 40s), which makes any game better.
The general physics and engine used in CoH is something that adds a nice twist to the regular "mass and attack" style of RTS that frequently happens. The game follows the standard Relic/THQ style of squad based games, but also throws in a strong use of terrain in order to play. Every time you move squads around the map, you are trying to utilize terrain in order to gain (or force enemies to lose) defensive statistics/benefits. Light brush, small fences, etc. will provide small benefits to your defense and allow your armies to crouch and hide behind them. Stone walls, tank traps, sandbags, etc. can offer huge benefits to a squad's defense, and really cause problems for an enemy. (Being on an open road causes defense to go down.) So not only are you trying to beat your enemy by grabbing land (which contains resources), but you must use the land in order to effectively defend and attack.
I haven't touched the online/competitive gaming aspect of this game, so I really can't talk about the way it is played at a "higher level". But I can say that comp stomping is entertaining for me, so that is pretty much what I have stuck to.

This is all for now.
-SC

Oh Herro!

Ladies and Germs! I have some posts to drop in your faces, but first I must hit you all with this:

ROBOT UNICORN ATTACK

(HT: Stinky aka True)

(The song is amazing and if you do not like it you are a terrible person.)

I know I haven't been around much, but I am about to fix that. POSTVALANCHE in the near future.

-SC

Ps. I know you all want this, so here you go baby birds.

Within Reach

The beta completely failed to sell me on Halo: Reach. Then I saw this video (one of Bungie's "ViDocs"), and now I am completely sold. For once, the last thing I care about is multiplayer. I'm decently excited about the campaign, very excited about Firefight, and I'm now drooling at the mouth for Forge World, which looks to be worth my $60 by itself. I may never (i.e., 'rarely') touch matchmaking. Anyway, enjoy the video.

--Chilly P

Lost in Limbo

Warning: there be spoilers ahead

Let me first say this: if you have any sort of passion for interactive entertainment and its capacity for art, Limbo is something you absolutely must experience. Without a doubt, it makes its way onto my list of top 10 XBLA games; let's say slide it in to that 5th spot ahead of Geometry Wars 2 and behind Castle Crashers. While that's a great compliment to the game and speaks volumes about how much I loved it, it could have easily made the top 3. At the top of that list you'll find the two games on the XBLA that I find best exemplify gaming as an art form. Portal and Braid both rose to that level by becoming more and more awe inspiring as the game progressed. They both established themselves as games early and through brilliantly establishing game mechanics early and then using those mechanics to elevate the play experience into something meaningful and emotionally complex, those game rose from video game to interactive art as you played them. Where Limbo unfortunately gets it wrong is that it gets it backward. The game starts out as a true art form, but as the experience goes on, it devolves from interactive art to video game.

From here on out, there are going to be ***SPOILERS***, so don't read unless you've played the game. During the first 45 minutes or so of Limbo, it doesn't even feel like a game. It's an interactive experience. Your mind feels like it's completely shut off, but it's not. It's so fully and deeply engaged in the experience that progressing through it feels very organic. And while yes, there are puzzles and there are platforms, you're not exactly conscious of them. You merely move forward past obstacles. The game feels much more like a film than a game because your progress is entirely orchestrated. Each puzzle is so unique and so organic to the situation that you barely even notice that you're solving puzzles. The epitome of this sensation comes when you come to an impassible spike pit and the giant spider that's been haunting you for the past 20 minutes falls down behind you. You immediately fear for your life and jump straight into the spike pit. You of course die, but for that brief moment the idea of trying to bridge that gap seems a much better alternative to facing the spider head-on. Upon respawning (something you will do a lot), you know that this time you'll have to face the spider. This time when it falls, you stop to see if it come at you. When it does not, you slowly approach the beast. As you move closer, the camera pans left to reveal that the spider has only a single leg left. Confident that you've defeated it, you move towards it in triumph, only to be skewered by its last leg. Okay, time for a third try. This time, you move toward it slowly until the leg rears back to strike. When it does so, you quickly jump back to avoid being killed a third time. This time, the leg stays outstretched as the spider clearly hasn't the strength to strike a second time. Your first instinct in this moment of triumph is to jump on the spider's head, and you do so. If the spider is still going to kill you, it would have done so then. Next you try to push the spider into the spike pit to use it as a stepping stone, but it won't budge. Next, you try pulling it there by its leg. It won't budge that way either. But, as you keep tugging, the leg starts to come off. After ripping off its last leg, you are then able to roll the head of the spider into the pit.

What's so awe-inspiring about this sequence is how naturally the puzzle's solution reveals itself to you. At no point do you even feel like you've been presented with a puzzle, this is simply the way that you get across the gap. You feel resourceful. From this point forward, however, the game begins to slowly fall under the weight of its initial ambition. Obstacles begin to feel more and more like puzzles, and the experience slowly and gradually devolves into a game that we've all seen before. It starts with the first time a worm attaches to your head and the only way to remove it is to solve a crate puzzle. That one crate (the first of many) is the first item or set piece that doesn't feel natural. It doesn't feel like you're using part of the environment, it feels like a level designer placed a crate there so you could solve a puzzle. It's out of place, and it's your first moment of disbelief in the world. That first crate is quickly dismissed, however, as the game continues its organic since of wonderment for another 30 minutes or so, until you reach your first water puzzle.

There's a section of the game where you have to flip a couple switches a few times to change water levels and use floating crates to get across a couple of gaps. This is where Limbo stops being a piece of interactive art and becomes nothing more than a puzzle platformer. Granted, it's a very good puzzle platformer, but nothing about it is unexplored territory. Unlike Braid and Portal, Limbo does not have any unique play mechanics. Both of those games begin by introducing you to unique play mechanics of their games and the rules of their worlds, and then use that to spring art at you unexpectedly (yes, I'm aware of how awkward that sentence is). The beginning of Limbo never feels like a tutorial. The experience merely unfolds before you. Each interaction with the environment feels natural. The clear intent of the designers was to never fall back on old puzzles or solutions and to continually challenge the player with new obstacles at every turn. The problem is that from this water puzzle forward, the puzzles are all very clear in your mind. You enter a room, and you are presented with a puzzle. Your thought process is no longer, "how do I keep going?" it's, "how do I solve this puzzle?" It gets even harder to suspend your disbelief and fully immerse yourself as the game goes on because the puzzles become more and more present in your mind. The first time you invert gravity, it becomes very, very clear that this experience which was once art has become nothing more than a video game.

In the end, Limbo was a very frustrating experience. It was on such a great path before it become nothing little more than rehashed switch and crate puzzles. That being said, however, I still whole-heartedly recommend the game. The art style is very unique, the play mechanics are solid, and for the first 45 minutes, you're completely lost in it. And, a lot like I Am Legend, while it's never bad, those first 45 minutes are so spectacular that they make the second half all the more disappointing, but the whole is still worth it for those first 45 minutes where you completely lose yourself in the experience.

--Chilly P

[update] p.s. I've started reading more reviews, and it turns out that I'm not alone.

Moment of Silence

1 vs. 100 has officially been canceled and will not return for a third season. While I'm still owed some ducats from the previous season, overall it was a fantastic game and I will sorely miss it. Microsoft is releasing this Kinect technobabble to and get the casual Wii-owning gamer to pony up for a 360, but these Live games that have hosted sessions like television shows are something that casual fans can really relate to. Possibly moreso than a device which even furthers the 360's likeness to HAL. When you played the live shows, it really felt like you were on an actual game show, especially if you made it to the mob, which I was fortunate enough to do one time. I mean, hell, they were handing out prizes that closely resembled cash. Well, they said they were. Like I said, I haven't seen a dime of those 560 MS points. I don't know why they couldn't automate that process, but my gut tells me that the technical issues of doling out prizes led to the game's end. It's a shame, really.

--Chilly P

Howzit?

Well, I have been away for a while, but I will soon return. I haven't been playing tons of video games, so my lack of posts correlated to my relative gaming. I spent some time in South Africa for the World Cup which naturally took me out of the loop, but I plan to get back on this horse and ride.

Hope everyone is doing well and still checks up on this occasionally.


SC

Sounds Like Crack

First there's the humming sound. Then it gets a little louder as you get closer. Then there's that satisfying 'bing' noise when you finally catch it, followed by the sweeping little beeps as the agility goodness is vacuumed into your body. It's addicting, and I've already spent too much of my life chasing that feeling.

Crackdown 2 is a very good game. It's almost identical to the game we played 3 years ago, but since it's been three years, it's more like revisiting an old friend in new clothes than rehashing an experience that's still fresh in my mind. The feels shorter this time around, though, and I liked fighting the gang bosses in the first game more than the giant freaks in the sequel. What's really disappointing is that the biggest enemies in the game never even attack you. They just stand in front of these beacons you're protecting and wail on them, which just makes them very easy to kill (given you have the appropriate amount of firepower). So, you don't really fight them so much as shoot unmoving targets. I'd say Ruffian whiffed pretty bad on that one.

The flight is a fantastic addition. It feels more like Mario's cape in Super Mario World than Alex Mercer's glide ability in [Prototype], which is good for making it a more unique experience. I'm also a big fan of the increased power of the ground pound. It's been upgraded from stunning to devastating. The helicopter is a pretty nice addition as well, but it goes a long way towards cheapening the accomplishment of reaching the tops of the two highest buildings in Pacific City. I don't know why Ruffian didn't include 'cheevos for scaling those bad boys without the aide of the helicopter. That's strike two...but they doubled with the glide suit, so all-around it was a solid at-bat. I'm off my game with the sports metaphors today.

--Chilly P

p.s. You know, a lot of reviewers have been slamming the game for taking place in the same city, but I actually liked that. I enjoyed not having to learn a whole map all over again. Sure, it's lazy, but I'm okay with it.

Thoughts for Wednesday 070710

Map Pack 4 has been released for Bad Company 2. If you guessed that it didn't included any new maps, you'd be correct. We've now got Atacama Desert available in Rush and Port Valdez in Conquest. Are we finally gonna get chopper battles in Rush? I'd be more snide about this update, but I really wanted Atacama for Rush.

I got Sin & Punishment: Star Successor for Wii. Like all Treasure games, it punishes you. The game is nothing short of incredible, though. The gaming world can essentially divided into two halves: interactive media and video games. Where games like Mass Effect 2 and even Call of Duty can be called interactive media, Sin & Punishment is 100% video game. Remember back in the SNES and N64 days when games didn't have that much of a story or any AI whatsoever and the entire game was scripted and demanded that you memorize the game in order to get the high score? Man, those are video games, and that's what Sin & Punishment is. For those of you who missed my recommendation of the the first game, S&P:SS is an on-rail shooter akin the Star Fox 64 or Panzer Dragoon. Yes, you can do barrel rolls, but no, you aren't instructed to do so in a memorable fashion. I haven't made it through the whole game yet; my plate has been pretty full. Having a real job sucks.

We broke out Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare last week and got our beaks into some clan matches. Good times, dude, good times. I tell you what, that game had awesome graphics in its time (way back in 07), but next to Bad Company 2 it looks like shit. I also kept hitting the back button trying to spot people and getting the score menu. It's also crazy how quickly you kill people in that game.

I played some Guitar Hero II last night. I couldn't believe how hard it was to see hammer-ons compared to Guitar Hero 5. I tell you what, though, that game's setlist was and still is unparalleled. Even the bonus songs were incredible. I can also tell that I've gotten a lot better since the days when I used to play that game non-stop. To think I used to have trouble with Thunderhorse...

--Chilly P

p.s. Blood Gulch is coming back. Let's hope they don't screw it up this time.

Living Up to "360"

The whole idea behind calling it the "Xbox 360" was that the console did everything. Well, it's about to replace the crap out of your cable box. Hulu Plus is officially coming to the PS3 and Xbox 360. The $9.99/month plan will include up-to-date seasons of current ABC, NBC, and Fox television shows (and presumably their subsidiaries), and not that "Last 5 weeks" b.s. you get on the free website. You get entire seasons. So, what does this all mean?

By sometime early 2011, Xbox LIVE will be fully integrated with Netflix, ESPN, and Hulu. Neflix subscriptions start at $9.99/month, ESPN is free (for Gold members), and Hulu Plus is another $9.99/month. Throw in the $50/year fee for Xbox LIVE Gold, and you're paying about $290/year or about $24.17/month. With all the sports, serial dramas, and sitcoms you could want and the added bonus of the Netflix Instant Queue library, I think you can basically get rid of your cable or satellite. As a comparison, Dish Network starts at $24.99/month for 120 channels, DirectTV starts at $29.99/month for 150 channels, and cable has various prices, but you're not going lower than $24.99/month.

So, for people like me, you actually get more of what you want (and at your convenience) for less than the cost of satellite or cable (especially when Netflix and Xbox LIVE Gold are already sunk costs). The big drawback, however, is that you don't get NFL games (and more tragically, the Red Zone Channel). We've also yet to see just how awesome the ESPN integration is. But, it is entirely possible that your Xbox 360 will fully replace your cable box.

--Chilly P

In the News

Some random stuff, put in bullets for your convenience:

• The new iPhone operating system, iOS4, is available for download. It took like 20 minutes to everything the way I wanted, but I now have all but 10 apps (including the bottom bar) in folders and no longer have pages. I also grabbed a sweet Metroid wallpaper for my homepage. I'm currently listening to Pandora in the fuckin' background. Other than the aforementioned application, multitasking is largely worthless at this stage.
  
• I downloaded iBooks as well. It automatically downloads Whinnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne, but I got rid of it because it doesn't interest me. My digital library currently consists of Alice's Adeventures in Wonderland, On the Origin of Species, The Communist Manifesto, Metamorphosis, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, The Art of War, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The United States Constitution, and The King James Bible. I wouldn't suggest trying to decipher my political and/or religious beliefs from that set. Anyway, there's a good amount of literary classics available for free, all of which I assume are public domain at this point. Now we'll see if I'll actually read any of them (spoiler: probably not).
  
• One last iPhone tidbit--and this one's games related--EA is having a massive $0.99 sale on over a dozen of their games. I think I'm gonna pick up Red Alert, SimCity, and maybe a racing game. I don't remember if Spore Origins (Sporigins?) was listed, but as someone who already has it, I can say that it's probably not even worth $1. Also, you'd think they'd offer Scrabble for $1 to try to compete with Words with Friends, but it's not so.
• The Medal of Honor beta for PC and PS3 has already begun, I believe. It's not available for 360 yet, but it will be "soon." I've already got a key, so I'll be sure to give my impressions.
• Onslaught for Bad Company 2 (it's like Horde, Firefight, or Nazi Zombies) is currently available for PS3 and will be available for 360 tomorrow. It's 800 Microsoft Points, which is a reasonable price; especially considering the success of Modern Warfare 2's 1200 point Stimulus Package.
• Speaking of BC2, I've officially gone platinum (1000 kills) with the M24 sniper rifle. I did it in almost exactly 20 hrs of use (no, it's not as long as it sounds). Want proof (By the way, that's a good site to use if you wanna find out how many Destruction 2.0 kills you have, or if you want to compare all of your stats with a friend)?
  
• Apparently, there's a way to get your BC2 games to stop lagging. I haven't tried it myself, but I have it on good authority that it works.
• Transformers: War for Cybertron has been getting some pretty positive reviews. I played the game at E3 and thought it was basically Call of Duty but uglier. However, that statement is quite a compliment to the gameplay mechanics. They were smooth, the control was tight, and the class system seemed surprisingly deep at first glance. In today's crowded market I doubt I'll ever give it the time it deserves, but if you've ever wanted to battle as a space robot that is also a vehicle, this looks like your golden opportunity.
• David Hale is moving on. We've both enjoyed reading him and wish him the best of luck; the Bulldog Nation will miss him.
  

--Chilly P

Gender and Crackdown

The same Crackdown 2 demo I played at E3 came out on Xbox LIVE (and presumably PSN) last night. I highly recommend getting skills for kills. In honor of the new Crackdown, I thought I'd post something I wrote about the first one late last year.

The game design course I took where I helped create Vision by Proxy was taught by a feminist. I don't mean "feminist" as in "men and women are equal," I mean it like, "men mistreat and undermine women, who must constantly fight an uphill battle for equality" type feminist. I may feel differently because I'm a man, but I'm not of the opinion that the world is out to get women. But, that's not the purpose of this post. Anyway, she made us read a bunch of papers about games and women and about how gaming is a boy's club and that 90%+ of developers are men and that 90%+ of games are designed for men. I'm not saying this isn't true, I just don't see how it's a problem. So, we had to write a blog post (ugh, b-word) about a game that either stereotyping women, overly sexualizing women, or being made for women. So, looking to my favorite girl gamer, my sister, I decided to write about her favorite game, Crackdown. Below is exactly what I wrote, but edited for typos. Just remember that I did this for a class, so I wrote it as quickly as possible and wrote just enough for a passing grade.

To be honest, I don't really know a whole lot of women who play "hardcore" video games. I mean, my mom's been known to play Solitaire on her iPhone for hours, but I'm talking about games made for gamers. My little sister is actually the only woman I know who owns and Xbox 360, which has to be the most testosterone-laden console of the big 3 right now. She even has her own $50/year Xbox LIVE Gold membership (which she mostly uses for Netflix streaming). So, what kind of Xbox games does she own? Well, she has Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, staples on any 360 collection, but she doesn't play them very often. She tends to play a good amount of Fable II and Tiger Woods PGA Tour '10 (not that she likes real-life golf), but I'd have to say that her favorite game has to be Crackdown. This game is all about non-stop shooting, kicking, and blowing up faceless gang members, so why is it so appealing to her (and I'm just going to assume that she's not just some weirdo and that there are other women who enjoy this game)?

Crackdown definitely requires those quick reflexes and spatial abilities that Fron and friends say are tough for women to master. However, unlike your typical Haloz, Crackdown has a very intuitive (so nothing like GTA) lock-on system that I'm sure eases that difficulty. In fact, I'd probably have to say that it has the best lock-on system I've seen in a sandbox game. Throw in the fact that explosive rounds have huge splash damage, and the difficulties of aiming are greatly reduced. There's also the added bonus that you can kill people with melee attacks that easily lock-on to the nearest enemy. It's a lot easier for my sister to use this method, and I find that she uses it far more than guns and explosives combined.

Jenkins says women like to explore games at their own, gradual pace. I would say that Crackdown epitomizes that in its genre. It's a sandbox game, a genre popularized by the Grand Theft Auto series. These games are built around exploration. Crackdown does separate itself in this regard, however, by not really even having missions. Unlike other sandbox games where you're free to do anything until you start a linear mission, Crackdown just has three gangs in its city who's leaders you must kill. These leaders are placed in strategic parts of the city and have a lot of gang members protecting them, but you never have to tell the game, "Okay, now I'm going to try to kill this leader." You just go do it. In fact, you can get through half of that leader's health, and then just leave if you want and try to go kill someone else. When you come back, he'll still have half of his health gone. You really do beat the game at your pace, in (almost) whatever order you want.

One aspect of the game that does go completely against what women typically look for is the existence of a story. Laurel says women typically enjoy deep stories, rich character, strong values, and all that other stuff that makes them think The Notebook is better than Die Hard (which it's not). Crackdown has none of these things. The story is pretty much non-existent, it's just, "Go kill these bad guys, agent," and "Skill for kills, agent. Skills for kills." You play as a nameless, faceless agent who is easily replaced, has no dialogue, and is quite literally a tool for a totalitarian government. It's easier to identify with Pac-Man and the Weighted Companion Cube than The Agent (You can even change what your Agent looks like each time you play the game, so there's precisely zero importance placed on identifying with your character) . As the "story" goes, when you die, another one of you is just cloned and sent to keep on cleaning up the city. I think many women who grew up with Super Mario Bros. aren't used to video games telling compelling stories, so that expectation is forgone from the beginning. In the absence of story, all that is expected is tight, responsive control in a virtual playground. Like Super Mario Bros., the physics and rules of Crackdown's Pacific City are quickly and easily understood. Character progression is streamlined and fully automated, and the game can easily be played in short bursts. For women who don't play a lot of action games, accessibility is key, and Crackdown is about as accessible as they come, even more so than Mario's 3D iterations.

Just about the entire game is full of those dangerous and contested spaces that Fullerton et al. say women don't typically enjoy. I think the big difference here between Crackdown and other vertical sandbox games like [Prototype] and Spider-Man 2 is that you never really die. Or rather, you die all the time, but you're never really punished for it, just inconvenienced. When you die in Crackdown, you just respawn as a whole new agent at a checkpoint of your choosing (a checkpoint simply being a spot on the map, not a spot of progress) and the world is exactly as you left it. If you had taken off half of a boss's health and killed half of his guards before you died, it'll be just like that when you come back. I feel like this aspect is key for getting women into hardcore games, and you're starting to see it more and more. Even some of the most critically acclaimed games of the past few years, like Bioshock and Fable II, use this philosophy. While this kind of reward-without-punishment system can be frustrating to people like me who feel that beating a game like this on the hardest difficulty means nothing, it's almost a must-have for my sister. I understand why developers would want to do this, too. Beside the fact that it'll appeal to more people, these developers spend years working on these games and they want you to finish it. They're not making revenue a quarter at a time anymore. But I digress. A significant event that helped both of us discover how important trivial deaths are to her is when I got her to play [Prototype].

Like Crackdown, [Prototype] is a vertical sandbox game where you play as a superhuman defeating large numbers of inferior foes. [Prototype]'s Alex Mercer is even more agile than The Agent in that he is capable of running up walls and gliding over long distances. The game even has a more fleshed-out story, and the primary form of attack is via melee. The problem is that when my sister got to the Time Square boss 3/4 through the game, she became frustrated. It's a long boss fight, to say the least, and when she died merely seconds from defeating it and was forced to start all over, that's when she called it quits. She enjoyed the game for the most part, but the penalty of death was so frustrating for her that she hasn't picked it back up since then.

I'm not really sure whether or not Crackdown was in any way designed for women, but I would probably guess that it wasn't. While you can choose from several character-models to play with, they are all overly-macho men. The game does have a nice, kinda cartoony art style, but I'm betting that was used to make the game stand out in a crowded genre (games with guns). While I doubt many women picked the game up themselves out of curiosity (my sister never would have played it if I hadn't encouraged her to), I do think it lays down a nice foundation for a game that can be enjoyed by both sexes.

Fron, J., Fullerton, T., Morie, J. & Pearce, C. (2007). The Hegemony of Play. In Situated Play: Proceedings of Digital Games Research Association 2007 Conference. Tokyo, Japan. 1-10.

Fullerton, T., Morie, J. & Pearce, C. (2007). A Game Of Ones Own: Towards a New Gendered Poetics of Game Space. In Proceedings, Digital Arts & Culture 2007, Perth, Australia. 1-11.

Jenkins, H. (2004). Game design as narrative architecture. The Game Design Reader, 670-686.

Laurel, B. (2001). Utopian Entrepreneur. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

--Chilly P

E3 Wrap-up

I'll get this out at the beginning: Game of the Show? Vanquish. I did some further research about the game because I'd been largely ignoring it up until I played it, and I'm excited to say that it's the latest game by Shinji Mikami. If that name sounds familiar, it's because he's the genius behind the Resident Evil series, specifically Resident Evil 4. If that name doesn't sound familiar, well, it's the dude who made Resident Evil 4. Now, for a little history...

Third-Person Shooters (TPS) were always kind of wonky. The camera was always way out from and centered on the character because that's how Super Mario 64 (a 3D platformer) had the camera. Just look at the early Resident Evil games, Jet Force Gemini, Splinter Cell, or Grand Theft Auto III and you'll notice how inferior TPS gunplay had always been to FPS gunplay. Then came Resident Evil 4, which pioneered the Over-the-Shoulder Third-Person Shooter (OtSTPS). Unlike a typical TPS, Resident Evil 4 had the camera directly over the right shoulder of the main character. By placing the player character on the left side of the screen, players could play the game like an FPS, but still have the benefit of seeing their character. Fast forward almost a couple years later and we get the next major evolution in OtSTPSes, Gears of War. Gears took the OtSTPS formula and made it more action oriented and made going into the cover work better than in any game before it. Turns out that using a cover mechanic in an OtSTPS worked beautifully. Vanquish is the next step.

Next to Gears of War, Resident Evil 4 & 5 feel very deliberate and slow-paced. Next to Vanquish, Gears of War feels downright sluggish. Vanquish also ups the complexity of the controls. Where Gears maps cover, run, and dive all to the 'A' button, Vanquish gives each of those functions their own mapping. Dive is 'A', cover is 'X', and roadie-running is replaced by rocket sliding, which is mapped to 'LB.' The game is fast, throws all sorts of ballistics your way at all times, and just kicks all around ass. There's only one thing that downgrades this game from "Must buy" to "Must play": no multiplayer. It's a shame because outside of the bullet-time aspect, the game seems perfectly suited for multiplayer and could easily garner a sizable online community. Here's to hoping they change their mind.

Vision by Proxy has gotten a little bit of attention, which is really flattering. It was really such a treat to be showcased by the booth that got The Misadventures of PB Winterbottom off the ground. So, thank you, IndieCade, for by Vision by Proxy a chance.

Did I mention I met Bear Grylls?

I watched a demo of F.3.A.R., and I gotta wonder what they were thinking. The game is all co-op now (like Resident Evil 5), and one person plays as a dude with a gun, and the other person is a mother fucking ghost. The ghost is able to levitate people, shoot them with ectoplasmic goo, and fly across the screen to possess them. The poor sap playing the other guy gets to use bullet time, but it isn't all that much of a bonus when both players get to have it when he activates it. If that's not enough, the ghost gets to solve all the puzzles, and in large firefights the other guy usually just gets shot at while the ghost possesses someone behind enemy lines and then kills everyone from behind. Seriously, what the hell was thinking process behind this? Who the hell wants to be the useless asshole who isn't a damned ghost? I mean, the ghost can't use guns unless he's possessing someone, but who cares? You get to use guns in every other game. I don't see the point unless you have a friend who loves laying down cover fire while you do all the cool stuff.

--Chilly P

E3 Day 3

Well, it's over. I think I might cry.

I did manage to get into the Portal 2 showing. In a word? Delightful. I was just in awe the entire time I was watching it. You really can't appreciate the complex puzzle possibilities of the new environment elements until you see them in action. This is particularly true for the excursion funnel. This apparently asbestos-based device (pictured above) creates a tunnel in space that moves people and objects through it. It also travels through portals. One puzzle they showed us (which is the one pictured above) had them using the tunnels to move a block around. They'd move the block horizontally for a while, and then shoot a portal beneath it to quickly move it upward. It was pretty cool to watch. On top of the new puzzle elements, it was also delightful to hear the new dialog from GLADoS. I had very high hopes for this game before, and now they're even higher. I just hope I'm not setting myself up for disappointment.
[Update] If you'd like to see some of the exact footage that I saw behind closed doors with Valve, you can watch it here.

I played some Marvel vs. Capcom 3. If you liked Marvel vs. Capcom 2, you'll like 3. If you didn't like 2, then you won't like 3. That's really all there is to it. Personally, although it was a lot of fun, I'm probably going to skip it. I already have Marvel vs. Capcom 2, and the new one feels a whole lot like the first one but with shinier graphics. Plus, I'm tired of getting my ass kicked online when I play fighting games.

I got my full ten minutes with The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. Since I had an exhibitor pass I was able to get in line before any of the media or 'Exhibits Only' people could, and I chose Zelda over the 3DS. Why? Zelda was giving out free t-shirts, and they weren't giving out bupkis for the 3DS. Anyway, Zelda: SS (Link's a fascist now) looks like someone took Twilight Princess and painted over it with Wind Waker's palette. I guess the idea is to make it immediately distinguishable from the past two console Zeldas. Anyway, the game feels pretty good with the motion plus controls. The side effect that I find unfortunate is that you really have to get into your sword slicing now. A friend was telling me how much he liked and he then posed like he was clutching an imaginary sword and shield. I found it hard to get into it that much with some Nintendo rep constantly trying to help me. Sure, I might not have figured out that Link can sprint now without him, but it was still annoying.

My team members were telling me that LeVar Burton came by IndieCade and that he really enjoyed Vision by Proxy. This was particularly awesome for one of my team members who said she grew up Star Trek. I just know LeVar Burton as that guy I saw on Reading Rainbow when they forced me to watch it at school. Still, it's pretty cool, though. Several smaller bloggers wanted to write pieces abut us, so I'm going to keep an eye out for that. There were also some other independent devs who want me to try out their game and give them feedback, so it felt pretty nice to be part of this indie community. We may actually have to finish our game now, so stayed tuned for that.

Well, that'll pretty much do it. I'll write a wrap-up for the show when I get back to the ATL and I've had time to mull it over. I'm just so sorry that it's over. Going there and having a game of mine on display was a dream come true.

--Chilly P

E3 Day 2

Man, oh man, did I get some swag today. I have now doubled the amount of shirts that I have to take back home with me. I also saw Felicia Day and got my picture taken with Bear Grylls. But, on to some game impressions...

Sega might have a real winner on their hands with Vanquish. I'm not sure about the whole story behind it (I'm pretty sure some famous Japanese designer is behind it), but I know it's Japanese and I never expect Japanese shooters to feel this fantastic. It plays a lot like Gears of War, but faster. It also has a much more...titanium-feeling art direction. Oh, and holding the left bumper makes you slide around on your knees. It's to the same effect of the roadie run, but it's way cooler and distinctly Japanese. There's also the fact the you fight a whole bunch of robots instead of aliens. Oh, and if you tap the slide button while sitting in cover, the dude pulls out a cigarette and lights up. How ballin' is that? I had so much fun with it today that I had to demo it twice. It's definitely my favorite demo so far. I hope it has multiplayer. Good multiplayer. And co-op.

My least favorite demo, on the other hand, has to be the Conduit 2 demo. The graphics don't even look good for a Wii game. They also really need to work on their control scheme. Holding 'Z' pulls up a box and health bar around an enemy, yet if you want to aim down sight, you have to toggle it by pressing down on the d-pad. It looks ugly, feels terrible, and it's really just a shame because I like seeing small studios succeed.

Bungie, because they have to be cool, was holding hands-off demos every thirty minutes. I was able to skip the 2-3 hour line by showing up 3 minutes before one demo time and mixing into a crowd of people waving and hollering for t-shirts. By the time they ran out of shirts, I had miraculously blended into the front of the line :). Anyway, they demoed a space battle and the new Firefight mode for Reach. The space mission was one where you're in a limited area and you fly around in circles shooting banshees. It looked really dull, just like every other dog-fighting game or level ever, and maybe it's just me, but I doubt banshees are space-worthy. Firefight definitely looked cool, though. There's a new armor ability and class called 'Medic' where the player drops a bubble shield that heals people who are inside it. It worked nicely for Firefight, though I'd think it too overpowered for multiplayer. They also showed a new weapon that's a cross between the Hammer of Dawn from Gears and Bad Company's mortar strike. It was cool.

I saw a fat guy eat a booger. It was gross.

I found out today that my Exhibitor badge gets me into the private meeting rooms upstairs, so I checked that out a little bit today. I got some sweet Portal 2 swag, so I geeked out pretty hardcore about that. I'm going to sign up for some appointments tomorrow to preview those more private games for the good of all of us...except the ones who are dead.

--Chilly P

p.s. In case you haven't heard, ESPN is coming to the 360. It's gonna be killer.