Battlefield 3 Beta Impressions (XBOX 360)

       Aiming through the holographic scope, I check my corners again as I fiddle with the zoom button. Up, down, up, damn... I fire a bunch of erratic shots narrowly escaping death; presumably killing my target only because he didn't see me prone. As he fired a wild spray of shots himself every which way before he went down.

       A sniper shot whips by my head, knocking out my hearing and I run toward the bridge I was covering only to have the second shot, hit me square in the head killing me. The dying animation comes up, which is my hand rising futility for a second. Almost trying to fight back with the last little bit of effort or reaching for some invisible salvation. It's hard to say, but the first few times you see it, it is definitely moving in a strange, subtle way.

      This is not some dream or excerpt from a novel. It's a typical episode one might encounter in the Battlefield 3 Beta for the XBOX 360, PS3, and PC. For full disclosure I was in the Battlefield 3 PC Alpha. But I haven't pre-ordered and I have no other link to the game or it's developers.

     Most people, the developer included, would probably say that this multiplayer flavor of Battlefield is extremely challenging. I would say it's very difficult. It's not Bad Company 2, it's not Modern Warfare 2, no it's harder than that. What makes it so hard? Well, bullets do a realistic job of killing you. If the player gets shot more than 3 times, they are dead. The weapons have appropriate kick; the heavier your gun the more recoil there is. There are bipods, steadying devices for lighter weight guns, and a whole slew of different scopes. All of this help you aim and shoot better. But you NEED to get incredibly used to playing with your gun in order to use it accurately.

     There is terrain deformation; which means that if you stand behind a glass or wooden barrier. Your going to die. If an RPG hits the wall that you happen to be hiding behind; you are probably going to die as well. You can crawl, go prone, and of course crouch. If you don't do these things your also going to die. In some FPS games you can run around stabbing people, and narrowly escape death, if you are lucky enough or skilled enough to do so. This WILL NOT work in Battlefield 3. Mostly because people see you coming and their squad sees you coming and they shoot you before you can get anywhere close to stabbing distance.

     In fact, in the mode we were playing, Rush (Where one team must defend computers from being destroyed while another team tries to destroy those computers by planting C4 on them. It is a classic Battlefield mode.) I've seen guys run toward one of the computers only to be literally mowed down by the hail of bullets flying through them.

    There were a few small problems with the Beta. Firstly, during one match some of my progress wasn't saved from one round to the next. Which was a small thing, but a little annoying. There were a couple of cases where once the sound was interrupted due to environmental reasons; it didn't come back in an appropriate amount of time. Again, this was a small thing. Finally, the water effects in the game where it comes to a small pond in one area of one of the maps, seemed static and unmoving. Certainly this was probably an area that simply needed more polish. But again, not a big deal. I've been playing the XBOX 360 version of the Beta since it went wide and other than some annoying matchmaking issues when connecting to servers I never experienced any truly serious bugs. The game was playable and fun. Even if it took quite a while to get used to.

   While not currently having access to vehicles is annoying; it might have been a way for players to get used to the new controls and game mechanics in this new Battlefield; before throwing even more complexity at them with the learning to use the vehicles. I can only wonder if the vehicles will be an absolutely essential part of Battlefield the way they are in Bad Company 2 . Tanks, planes, and helicopters win matches. No matter how good an engineer or group of engineers are it usually boils down to who has the most armor and the ability to use it in the end.

  Here's hoping the next phase of the Beta has vehicles. If not, I'll be there the first week to give you the lowdown on the final version. For right, other than some network issues(EA please, just across the board, fix that stuff will you!). Battlefield 3 is looking like an excellent game and one certainly equipped to compete with the a little more arcade-like Modern Warfare 3.

Themes of Gears of War!

        War is a pretty obvious theme of Gears of War. After all, it's in the title. But this is more of the essence of war than the kind that any one in the West has ever experienced. Because the wars of Sera have lasted hundreds of years. There are people who's whole lives they have known nothing but war. Women don't work because they are needed to bare children because so many people have died in war. Food is rationed to the degree that the civilian population is starving in order to keep the army going. The COG is also part of this War theme. COGs and gears, these two things go together as pieces of a machine. This is the machine of war or by the Stranded's standard's the machine of oppression. This brings us to the next major theme in Gears of War.

      Freedom isn't what people are fighting for in Gears of War. They are fighting for survival. While COGs know that the Locust take people hostage or kill them. Most others believe that the Locust just kill people. This is what the player believes in Gears of War, then in Gears of War 2 the Locusts were shown using humans for experiments and in work camps. Seemed to be a call back to the Holocaust and the Nazis. But similarly to some insurgents or conquered peoples in our world; most Stranded blame the COG for all the troubles of the world. But there is also the element an element of Stalinism to the COG. Either a person is with them or against them. While Stranded are usually tolerated; they are all ways considered as the other, the people who don't fit into what the life and the state require of them. It isn't a matter of freedom of choice; it's a matter of whether or not you are part of the problem or part of the solution. Its an extreme version of emergency procedures.

      Brotherhood is the glue that holds the COG together. Without it, there is no respect and no sense of order within the COG. They have lost everything, their families, many of the friends, and in some cases any sense of normality that most of us would recognize. At one point in Jacinto's Remnant Cole realizes that he had only seen what most would consider normal life in paintings in the COG's capital building. This is the kind of thing that Brotherhood helps; it's easier to deal with a severely terrible life with the help of people you trust. Considering trust, usually comes with watching each others backs this means Brotherhood. This sense of comradeship may seem foreign to us or even comedic. But one must remember that if you lived in New York and then watched it sink into the ocean only to then live in a war torn ruin of a city; perhaps sticking together to the end with some friends might not be a bad idea.

     Destoryed Beauty is also something that many people bring up about Gears of War. This is the idea that a beautiful place is destroyed and its remains are still beautiful. While some people would argue with the word beautiful here, I think I would perhaps replace it with compelling.

     Destroyed Beauty runs through the entire series and can even be seen in the characters themselves. They are scarred, haggard, but in most cases beautiful. Not because of their physical beauty but because of their unshakable determination to survive. While this might not seem beautiful to some people; I think it is THIS that makes Gears of War so attractive to SO many different people. There are plenty of other reasons; but I think this is one subconscious theme, that makes us all really love Gears of War.

    Finally, in the Gears of War series the main theme of course is that of Fathers and Sons. Marcus and Dominic have lost everything; until Marcus realizes his Father may still live at the end of Gears of War 2 and then again at the beginning of Gears of War 3. Dominic has lost his wife and family. Which is all about the other side of the loss Marcus is feeling. They are in many ways mirrors of each other. Marcus the Rock and Dominic the emotional wreck. There is much more to both of them than that, of course; but these are the themes that run through their characters.

Tokyo Game Show: Why are we interested in this again?

Tokyo Game Show 2011 just wrapped. I wasn't in Tokyo, not that I wouldn't have liked to be. But seeing all the coverage that came out of Tokyo, I have to say that I'm more underwhelmed than ever.       Every year since 2007 it seems like the show has gotten more and more derivative. Perhaps, the close proximity in time to PAX or Gamescom might be the reason. With the exception of Capcom and Namco. This year's show seemed lackluster to say the least.

       Sony was completely consumed by Playstation Vita and as predicted Nintendo was showing off 3DS games that probably should have been there for launch. It is hard to get excited about new 3DS games when the games that have come out have been so horribly done.  Even ports, seem like major issues for these developers.  So how much faith do I have in new games? None to very little...

      In a year that seems to be self explanatory that the handheld platform is an aging dinosaur both companies are holding on to their investments for dear life. There hasn't been a single 3DS release this year that has been worth the price of admission for the system or the game. Playstation Vita while looking pretty also is saddled with memory card, battery life, and hardware quality issues. Sounds like the PSP all over again.

       I certainly loved all the features about Dark Souls, Persona's fighting game, Street Fighter x Tekken, Soul Calibur V, and of course the Ultimate Marvel versus Capcom 3 stuff.

      So that was my impression of Tokyo Game Show. What did I miss? Let me know in the comments section or on Facebook…

Dead Island: A Study in Terror!

    Standing by a pool you are surrounded by zombies. Some shambling, some running at you. They make a gutteral groaning noise and then you are thrown into action. Not because you are ready to fight but because your foes have reached the length of the bloody oar you hold. One swipe across your field of view leads to the zombie dropping. But another is already on you. You kick it away and try an overhead strike with your blood cake oar. While doing this you are backing up, because you don't want to get surrounded or cornered. That can only mean death. The zombies are on their feet again, and as the first one begins to come toward you, you strike again, having your oar snap. You grab the broomstick near you and hurl it into the skull of the other zombie just as it is beginning to rise again. You are panting and covered in blood.

   This is a relatively typical encounter in Dead Island...

  When I heard about Dead Island for the first time, I was completely unimpressed. To me it was just another zombie game. Even seeing the much hyped trailer seemed to just be a form of misdirection rather than an actual advertisement for the game.

  The impressive thing about Dead Island is not the story, or the graphics, or even the mechanical systems. It is visceral combat, mixed with the design of this open world. I'm usually not much of an open world game player. I enjoyed Red Dead Redemption and Infamous. But that's about the extent of it. I hated that L.A.Noire was open world and I've never touched a GTA for more than a few minutes. It's just not my thing.

  Dead Island however, provides something I felt sorely lacking in just about every other video game except perhaps the original Bioshock. A sense of fear. What was around the next corner? How many zombies would there be? Would they be infected just regular zombies? What would happen next?

  When Dead Island did this right, it did it VERY RIGHT! But there were plenty of problems, bugs, etc... That would keep the player from getting into the game in this visceral way. Dead Island isn't Dead Space. But it is head and shoulders above something like Left 4 Dead. But only as a single player experience. If you are with others, you feel powerful; unstoppable even. My very few sessions with others were fun; but all of the danger was removed from the game. Except maybe, losing my progress due to a game crashing bug.

  I really liked putting points into my skill tree and seeing what happened. I was thrilled when I was able to build or upgrade weapons. Even if early on in the game this seems a bit limited.

While the initial commercial may have generated huge hype for this game. I can't say Deep Silver made any big mistakes with Dead Island except maybe in the area of not making a compelling story. Zombie stories are pretty much dime a dozen simplistic fair. So creating something unique here probably would have been difficult. But failing to include something compelling was probably more of a factor of time, budget, and design concerns than being uncreative. Perhaps they will have enough cash to do it right in Dead Island 2, I just hope there will be enough gamers left to take another chance on yet another zombie game.

Space Marine Warhammer 40K “This is NOT a Review!”(X360)

      Just so we get this out of the way right off; I am a big fan of Warhammer 40K’s video games.  I’ve played every Warhammer RTS that’s come out and I love them the way that some girls love chocolate.  They can’t get enough and they eat it slowly; sensually even.   So when I say that there are things I don’t like about this latest of games from Relic and THQ.  It’s not because I either don’t understand or don’t appreciate the material.  In fact, it’s because of this that I have some problems.

      I certainly love the feel of the game’s controls.  Every movement makes the player feel like a badass Space Marine.  A seven foot titan of man who knows no fear and is filled with the power of the Emperor.  Rushing into a horde of Orks with only your chain sword and bolter is no problem at all.  Even the silly system of getting health from execution moves, once gotten used to, is a pretty good system.  But I STILL would have preferred recharging health.  Mostly because it would fit.  Nanomachines within each Marine repairs their damage.  So, really, the current system is just an excuse to do execution moves all the time.  Not that, that’s a bad thing, these moves are cool and fun; even if their animation priorities can kill you if you do them at an inopportune time.

     The variety of weapons in the game is vast and probably more than the average Marine would have on a mission.  But it’s fun to play with all the different effects; and yes, some weapons work better in some situations than others.  But I would have been happy to carry the war hammer and plasma bolter the whole game, but that doesn’t necessarily work in every situation the game puts in. Sadly…

       Unfortunately this arsenal is the first thing that begins to chip away at Space Marine’s glossy armor.  First, the game really never requires the player to use one weapon over another.  So why have them in there?  Also, the amount of cannon fodder in Parts 1-3 of the game can get really old unless the player is simply playing with different weapons.  I would have liked to see more Chaos Marines and different daemons earlier in the game to make the game not only a little more varied but reduce the amount of battle fatigue that some of the sections can create.  Chaos Marines are smart and more deadly than Orks.  Which would have really changed the early game.  Not that the final boss is anything to go crazy over.

     I did really like, the mid-boss Ork battle.  It was hard without being stupid.  Also, I did like how it required the player to change up his tactics.  That is what a boss battle should be.  As much as I liked the fury meter in the game, I also felt that this was a weak way of handling crowd control.  In the RTS games, the Marines have different equipment and powers they can activate; it would have been a lot of fun to explore these in a third person shooter.  They have barely scratched the surface of this breath of choices in this game.

   The rest of the game is great.  Graphics, sound, even a descent story with likable characters.  Especially Captain Titus.  He is unwavering, he is a man who gets things done.  The perfect UltraMarine.  But he still puts people over mission, which is a nice touch to the game.  The way, it is the game’s length is about right at around 6-9 hours depending on difficulty and how good the player is at the game.  I died often, mostly from stupid mistakes I made.

       Multiplayer…  I loved it and hated it.  The player is able to unlock different armors, that do nothing special, different perks(that unlock too slowly), some different weapons(that mostly do what your weapons do in single player), and the player gets three different classes of Marine.  No Librarians, no TechPriests, and no crazy powers.  Especially from the Chaos side of things, a Sorcerer would have made quite a difference.  I like the modes (Team Deathmatch, and Capture and Hold).  But it all ways seemed like the games devolved into one team standing on one side of the map shooting the other.  The single player is all about melee and the multiplayer seems to be all about gun play.  It is a very startling break.  The melee in multiplayer exists and it can be good in some cases.  But for the most part, it devolves into two guys mashing buttons until one guy wins or some one comes from behind and starts shooting.  Having so few maps certainly makes it easy for new players to get into the game, but players will tire of them quickly.  This could certainly be solved with some DLC.  But I was playing in the launch week for the game, and it was already starting to become difficult to find games.  Matchmaking had to put higher level players into lower level games just to fill up teams.  Which created the problem that because so much is behind XP unlock walls, the lower level character the player has the weaker they are.  One or two high level characters can completely destroy the balance between teams.

        Probably more health would help to make multiplayer more interesting; but creating character classes around weapons seems limiting.  I certainly would have liked to see a Librarian like in the XBLA game Kill Team.  Which seems to be a much better representation of the Warhammer Universe.  But has it’s own problems.  I think a game that was a cross between Space Marine and Kill Team probably would have been the best way to go.

     Would I buy Space Marine?  No, but I would rent it.  But if you find the multiplayer more compelling than I do; you would probably do well buying it.  The multiplayer could easily occupy someone for a couple dozen hours at least.  But, again, this isn’t a review…

   

    

    

Deus Ex Human Revolution “This is not a Review”

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     While I never played the original Deus Ex games.  I do know a fair amount about them and certainly have watched others play portions of them.  I wasn’t very impressed; I found them a little more than a little out of date.  When people start playing around with floppy disks in the future, my suspension of disbelief begins to melt away.  But those games aside, none of that suspension needs to be worried too much about in the latest game Deus Ex Human Revolution which is supposed to be the prequel to the series.  How, I’m not quite sure; but hey, I’m not an authority on the universe.

    The game is kind of a hybrid; it’s a shooter, RPG, and a stealth action game.  The main theme of the game, is having CHOICE.  Well, that’s great; but most of the time, even playing on the lowest difficulty, your main choice is to whether or not you’d like to proceed with the game.  Making an improper choice, usually putting your PRAXIS points in the wrong place, can impede your game progress.  I’ve talked to friends who are also playing the game, and people who play the game as basically a hacking/stealth game.  Usually find the game enjoyable and fun.  But that doesn’t seem like much of a choice to me.

    Of course, all of these people had the problem that the boss battles; were very difficult for the people who didn’t add at least one offensive augment to their arsenal.  Which, goes against the whole rest of what the game had been telling them.

      I found numerous bugs in the game.  For instance, during a sequence at the beginning of the game.  You are supposed to be able to disable a turret, that there is no way to disable.  Even with the code to the security network, you are unable to do so.  Also, in the first boss battle in the game; I shot him with two rockets and he simply shrugged it off like I shot him with the handgun.  I guess there was a particular way I HAD to kill that boss; not much choice there either.  Along with that, I had many instances of enemies detecting my presence without seeing me.  Once I was around the corner from some enemies and they all of a sudden went on high alert and ran around the corner to start shooting me.  Finally, for all the games bluster about talking your way out of situations.  Not one policeman ever questioned me before just starting to shoot me.

      None of my comments above, really take away too much from the playability of the game.  As long as you know that in Deus Ex Human Revolution you MUST: focus on hacking, stealth, and finally take one offensive augment like the Typhoon weapon system.  Otherwise, you will have a very hard time, even on the lowest difficulty setting.  Also, unlike all most every shooter in the world, you can take around 7 bullets before you are dead. 15 bullets with full armor.  So, if for some reason you don’t take my advice about the stealth; your going to need to play the game as a third person shooter and stick to cover.  Which is also fine, but it wasn’t my choice.  Maybe it’s yours…