This is a nice quiet week...oh wait, I'm looking at a different week! Big releases in all the categories I list in these posts, so get ready. As usual, I have my pick of the week in every category.
Games
Playstation 3 System (11/17)
The system we've all opined about (and every eBay seller's fantasy) is ready to drop on Friday. Sony has said they hope to exceed expectations, but I'm willing to bet the amount of systems available will be 400k or lower. For those that pre-ordered at EB/Gamestop I wish you luck and hope your local store goes chronologically and not sell to those that spent more on the system/games/accessories as you. I'll make a post later on talking about my feelings with the PS3 and Wii about to drop.
PS3 Ported Games
This includes such games as NBA 2K7, NHL 2K7, Tony Hawk's Project 8 (sans online), Call of Duty 3, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, Need for Speed: Carbon, NBA Live 07, NHL 07 and Tiger Woods 07. I may have forgotten some, but it will be interesting to see how they stack up against their 360 counterparts.
Resistance: Fall of Man (PS3)
It is a busy games release week because of the Playstation 3 and this easily tops the choices coming out of the PS3's launch. IGN's review gave it a 9.1, although it was a poorly written article. I await Gamespot's take on it since I find they run generally at the same wavelength I do. I think no matter what this game receives my Game of the Week endorsement even though I may not play it for a long time.
Final Fantasy III (DS)
This game was also in the running for the GotW award, but with the PS3 avalanche coming in the same week it gets relegated to a note from me. I've heard good things about this 3D re-imagining of FF3 and I hope it turns out nicely. I don't have a DS as of yet, but this is yet another reason to think about picking one up.
Genji: Days of the Blade (PS3)
I think the various reviews (Gamespot 6.4, IGN 6.0) that are out there now pretty much sum up the game. It looks nice, but doesn't play so well. I give a big Rent It to this one for those of you that get a PS3 and keep it.
Ridge Racer 7 (PS3)
So, this morning I run across this forum thread at Evil Avatar that compares screens from RR7 with those of RR6 on the 360 last year. This proves of course that Ridge Racer 7 is actually Ridge Racer 6 renamed (there may possibly be more tracks though). This isn't the best game to be making comparisons on since it isn't a game that will graphically wow you, but it is interesting to see which system does graphics better. I just wanted to point this out, but you should certainly Rent this game.
Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom (PS3)
This game could be good given how well the PSP game was received. This game also started the whole Xfire controversy where people were thinking the PS3 online component was run by Xfire, but Sony had just used Xfire for this game. I'll talk more about the online capabilities of PS3 and how disjointed it is in another post. I think this game looks interesting and may be a good Buy.
Sonic the Hedgehog (360/PS3)
This game is going to suck if it is anything like the 360 demo that came out a bit ago. Sonic was once on top of the world, but with each successive release since Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast the quality has been going to pot. If the graphics are pretty good I could see this game being a good comparison of the graphical power of the 360 vs. the PS3...I just think the game is going to suck big time. This game may go into the Skip It territory, but you may want to rent as well.
WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2007 (360/PS2)
I have not gotten my new issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly, but they supposedly reviewed this game and scored it a 7.5. I don't know if EGM is still doing the 3 reviewer thing or not since this issue was supposed to see big changes, but if 7.5 is the average of the 3 reviewers I'd say that is pretty good for a wrestling game. IGN also reviewed it and gave it an 8.0. My only problem with that is that IGN also gave the Xbox RAW games reviews in the 9s and neither game was THAT good. I say Rent It on this one.
Movies/DVDs
The Da Vinci Code (DVD)
Easily my DVD Pick of the Week. I enjoyed this movie a lot, although it is obviously not as good as the similarly themed National Treasure. I think it is certainly worth a rental and maybe even a purchase.
Family Guy Vol. 4 (DVD)
Pick this up to continue your collection of Family Guy DVDs. I don't think this second part of the 4th season is as good as the other seasons, but it is still some quality viewing.
James Bond: Casino Royale (Theater)
Easily my Theater Pick of the Week. I know many people out there can't get used to a blond Bond, but give Daniel Craig a chance! I think this movie looks really good and hopefully it can rejuvenate the franchise via a reboot.
Happy Feet (Theaters)
Another computer animated movie, this time starring penguins. I have no clue whether this movie will be good or not, but they certainly are advertising it everywhere (even at Blockbuster!). The concept sounds interesting, but when I think of computer animation pioneers I don't really think of Warner Bros. in the same class as Pixar or Dreamworks.
Comics
Civil War #5
Comic Book Pick of the Week. Nothing gets the blood flowing more than another Civil War release from Marvel as it ramps up toward the end of the series. I'm not very high on Civil War, but I certainly await to see how much more Millar can push the future of Marvel. Spider-Man is front and center on the cover and I just hope Millar and JMS don't ruin Peter forever by the end of this series.
Astonishing X-Men #18
"Torn" reaches its conclusion. Will we find out the story behind Emma and the White Queen and how they can be or not be the same person? The sad part in all of this is that the next arc is the last one that Whedon will be working on, but the good news is he also moves into writing for Runaways.
Cable and Deadpool #34
I cannot stress how good and funny this series is. I think it goes largely unnoticed like She-Hulk does and I hope some people can drop a major book they don't enjoy reading for this book.
Iron Man #13
The series finally moves into Civil War territory. Hopefully this book will go at length to explain exactly why Tony Stark isn't the biggest ass in the Marvel Universe. Right now he and Reed Richards are striving for the title of biggest ass around. I think an explaination is well in order in this case.
Moon Knight #6
The first arc finally reaches its conclusion. I think this opening arc has been rather slow in execution and I hope this last chapter pushes toward the next arc.
New Avengers #25
Another Civil War tie in and only 1 month until the story about Wanda Maximoff and Clint Barton. Is it sad that I'm more excited about that issue than this one? The solicitation says that Tony is ready for the final battle...be he makes a "fatal mistake" that he will pay for. I'll believe it when I see it.
Thunderbolts #108
It is sad that this team is going to go the way of the wind to be replaced by more A-list villians, but hopefully they will go out with a bang. In this issue the conclusion to the fight between Zemo and Grandmaster reaches its end.
What If? Spider-Man: The Other
I am very interested in this issue simply because I like to see what the other way would have been for this arc. I didn't enjoy the Avengers Disassembled What If? much, but hopefully this will be different with Peter David writing it.
Action Comics #845
Part 2 of "Last Son", the Geoff Johns/Richard Donner team-up. I liked the first chapter and can only hope the goodness continues here.
Birds of Prey #100
The series reaches a new milestone as Oracle needs to look for some new recruits. I love this series and am sad that Black Canary has left, but hopefully new and exciting stories are ahead.
Monday, November 13, 2006
Sunday, November 12, 2006
First Look: Gears of War (360)
I finish up my first looks with the game that stands head and shoulders above the 3 I played over the week: Gears of War. I could finish this first look by saying this game is a Must Own, but I need to quantify that somehow I think. Epic has created a game that will stand up with Halo and Halo 2 as killer apps of Microsofts console systems. In many ways Gears of War is better than either Halo (graphics, sound, gameplay). In other ways, such as multiplayer and story, it cannot hold a candle to either Halo game. In the end, this is how Gears of War will ultimately be judged: can it transcend the Halo games and stave off the upcoming onslaught of Sony and Nintendo's new gaming machines?
The story behind Gears of War isn't anything special. I think many reviewers and varied forum posters have said how sad the story is. The original Halo wasn't that great at story, but in the end it was a longer game than Gears of War is and therefore has more of a story behind it. Basically the story is you play a soldier who was put in prison by the alien Locust. Some Army guys bust you out and you spend the rest of the game following (or giving) orders and going through the motions of each checkpoint. The beauty in this game is that the gameplay is second to none in a 3rd person action game. I personally haven't felt like I was actually living through an action movie like I do with Gears of War. It is small on talk, but blows things up really nicely.
The biggest gameplay innovation here is the way you use cover. Cover means everything in this game; possibly even moreso than it does in the Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon games. I'm not big on either of those games simply because they are more squad based than Gears of War and it is far more strategic than GoW's run and gun perspective. From your cover you can look around or above you and aim (L trigger) and fire (R trigger) your gun. Blood will splatter as you shoot your enemies. The graphics are just fantastic and when you go into full-on run (by hodling down the A button while moving forward) the camerawork is exquisite and makes you feel like you're right there.
Gears of War obviously borrows a lot from the Halo playbook, but that's a really nice playbook to work from. There aren't as many enemies, although there are times you feel severely outnumbered. They also borrowed the health engine from Halo as well where if you stay still for a while your health will return to you. Much like Halo you can only have 2 guns on you, although you cannot double wield in this game. The cool thing about the guns is that your character switches them in and out with ease from their place on his back. This isn't a game where the player has tons of guns and no place to put them. Instead you actually see the guns on your character.
Another cool addition to the gameplay is the reloading of ammo. You can initiate it at any time with the R button. A little slide will go across and if you want to have a quick reload with extra power you have to hit the R button again inside the little sliver of white or within the section of gray. If you don't get it in either of those two sections the gun will jam and precious time will be taken away as you reload. You can also choose to just let the reload happen by itself and not try to do a quick reload. Quick reloads give you some extra power to your shots, so they are a valuable resource.
There is a minus to Gears of War though and that is the multiplayer aspect of the game. I think many people figured the matchmaking would be much like it was in Halo 2, but the story from Epic is that Microsoft built the Live play on the 360 differently than they did on the Xbox. I figure whatever problems there are will be rectified by the time Halo 3 comes out simply because they changed the way it worked when Halo 2 came out as well. Epic has talked about possibly fixing it themselves, but I would guess sales would be a good indication of whether they are going to take the time to work on it or leave it for Gears of War 2.
The multiplayer games I did get into were pretty fun, although there is really nothing akin to the Halo 2 game modes in this game. Basically it is a "one and done" type of situation for the games I played. You get picked off and you're done for that round. In many ways it seems a lot like the Splinter Cell games, but I think this game needs to have spawning going on and time limits. It's just one place where it falls well below the bar that Halo has set.
In the end I think this is easily a Must Buy and easily the first game where it is worth owning a 360 for. I certainly hope there are more games like this in the pipe coming up.
The story behind Gears of War isn't anything special. I think many reviewers and varied forum posters have said how sad the story is. The original Halo wasn't that great at story, but in the end it was a longer game than Gears of War is and therefore has more of a story behind it. Basically the story is you play a soldier who was put in prison by the alien Locust. Some Army guys bust you out and you spend the rest of the game following (or giving) orders and going through the motions of each checkpoint. The beauty in this game is that the gameplay is second to none in a 3rd person action game. I personally haven't felt like I was actually living through an action movie like I do with Gears of War. It is small on talk, but blows things up really nicely.
The biggest gameplay innovation here is the way you use cover. Cover means everything in this game; possibly even moreso than it does in the Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon games. I'm not big on either of those games simply because they are more squad based than Gears of War and it is far more strategic than GoW's run and gun perspective. From your cover you can look around or above you and aim (L trigger) and fire (R trigger) your gun. Blood will splatter as you shoot your enemies. The graphics are just fantastic and when you go into full-on run (by hodling down the A button while moving forward) the camerawork is exquisite and makes you feel like you're right there.
Gears of War obviously borrows a lot from the Halo playbook, but that's a really nice playbook to work from. There aren't as many enemies, although there are times you feel severely outnumbered. They also borrowed the health engine from Halo as well where if you stay still for a while your health will return to you. Much like Halo you can only have 2 guns on you, although you cannot double wield in this game. The cool thing about the guns is that your character switches them in and out with ease from their place on his back. This isn't a game where the player has tons of guns and no place to put them. Instead you actually see the guns on your character.
Another cool addition to the gameplay is the reloading of ammo. You can initiate it at any time with the R button. A little slide will go across and if you want to have a quick reload with extra power you have to hit the R button again inside the little sliver of white or within the section of gray. If you don't get it in either of those two sections the gun will jam and precious time will be taken away as you reload. You can also choose to just let the reload happen by itself and not try to do a quick reload. Quick reloads give you some extra power to your shots, so they are a valuable resource.
There is a minus to Gears of War though and that is the multiplayer aspect of the game. I think many people figured the matchmaking would be much like it was in Halo 2, but the story from Epic is that Microsoft built the Live play on the 360 differently than they did on the Xbox. I figure whatever problems there are will be rectified by the time Halo 3 comes out simply because they changed the way it worked when Halo 2 came out as well. Epic has talked about possibly fixing it themselves, but I would guess sales would be a good indication of whether they are going to take the time to work on it or leave it for Gears of War 2.
The multiplayer games I did get into were pretty fun, although there is really nothing akin to the Halo 2 game modes in this game. Basically it is a "one and done" type of situation for the games I played. You get picked off and you're done for that round. In many ways it seems a lot like the Splinter Cell games, but I think this game needs to have spawning going on and time limits. It's just one place where it falls well below the bar that Halo has set.
In the end I think this is easily a Must Buy and easily the first game where it is worth owning a 360 for. I certainly hope there are more games like this in the pipe coming up.
First Look: Call of Duty 3 (360)
Well, color me somewhat impressed. I had written this game off simply because Infinity Ward had nothing to do with it. Treyarch (the Spider-Man games and Call of Duty: Big Red One) took the helm for this iteration as IW works on Call of Duty 4 for PC only (supposedly).
Call of Duty 3 seems to borrow a lot from the previous game. You are put in a variety of roles for different countries on the Allied side. Instead of only controlling one soldier, you control the path of many. Also much like the last game, Call of Duty 3 is a very scripted game in the single-player universe. I personally don't mind it, but I know many people that don't enjoy playing these World War II games that have you go from point to point and never have an adaptive AI that comes at you all the time and not at intervals. I'm sorry to tell them that many FPS and 3rd person action games are scripted and checkpoint based, it just depends if you've grown tired of these crutches or not.
The graphics and sounds in this game are top notch, but there have been some missteps here and there that I have seen. Your friendly AI troops seem to enjoy getting in the way of gunfire and sometimes they just disappear from sight. Add to this the fact that the enemy AI sometimes starts to shoot like characters in GI Joe (not being able to hit the broadside of a barn) and miss you at point blank range.
The controls are pretty nice, but I would still love to have mouse and keyboard controls. I think I'm pretty hardcoded with the whole FPS control issue. If a game starts off in the PC world I have a hard time adapting to console controls. I just don't feel I have the pinpoint accuracy I have on the PC. On the reverse side I find that if a game starts off in the console world (Halo for example) I find that the controls are nice and tight and find my accuracy to be very good. I don't know if that means there is a different conceptualization of the controls depending upon where a game starts off, but it is interesting to note. In the case of Call of Duty 3, even though it isn't coming out on PC it is obvious that it has been built upon the last iteration and that game started off as a PC game even though many would consider the 360 version better from a graphics and sound standpoint.
Call of Duty 3 takes place during the Normandy Breakout Campaign period, meaning it takes place after the landing and follows the allies as they try to take back sections where the Germans held ground. This means you won't be re-living the Battle of Normandy in this game, but there are plenty of "Holy shit!" moments in the game thanks to the terrific sounds in the game. As I said in my opening statement, I am somewhat impressed by this game on the single-player side simply because I figured Teryarch would drop the ball. In the end they've kept the ball rolling, although it certainly isn't as engaging as the last game honestly.
Where Call of Duty 3 really shines is in the online world. This shouldn't be a surprise given how popular the last game was online for the 360. I've played a few games (Capture the Flag for the most part) and I find it quite fun to play. The voice communicator runs nicely and I can hear everyone. The only negative I have seen so far is there hasn't been any ranked games that I've been able to get into, only unranked ones. This is fine since I could care less if I'm on a leaderboard or not, but I am surprised more people aren't playing ranked games. They could of course all be playing Gears of War, but I figure this game will be quite popular as well.
In the end I'm leaning toward the Buy It category simply because of the online gameplay. If you are leaning on it strictly for single-player play I would rent it because you should be able to finish it within the rental time. $60 for a multiplayer game may seem a bit steep, but the fact is you can get more people in one game playing Call of Duty 3 than you can get in Gears of War. The more people, the more fun it is honestly.
Call of Duty 3 seems to borrow a lot from the previous game. You are put in a variety of roles for different countries on the Allied side. Instead of only controlling one soldier, you control the path of many. Also much like the last game, Call of Duty 3 is a very scripted game in the single-player universe. I personally don't mind it, but I know many people that don't enjoy playing these World War II games that have you go from point to point and never have an adaptive AI that comes at you all the time and not at intervals. I'm sorry to tell them that many FPS and 3rd person action games are scripted and checkpoint based, it just depends if you've grown tired of these crutches or not.
The graphics and sounds in this game are top notch, but there have been some missteps here and there that I have seen. Your friendly AI troops seem to enjoy getting in the way of gunfire and sometimes they just disappear from sight. Add to this the fact that the enemy AI sometimes starts to shoot like characters in GI Joe (not being able to hit the broadside of a barn) and miss you at point blank range.
The controls are pretty nice, but I would still love to have mouse and keyboard controls. I think I'm pretty hardcoded with the whole FPS control issue. If a game starts off in the PC world I have a hard time adapting to console controls. I just don't feel I have the pinpoint accuracy I have on the PC. On the reverse side I find that if a game starts off in the console world (Halo for example) I find that the controls are nice and tight and find my accuracy to be very good. I don't know if that means there is a different conceptualization of the controls depending upon where a game starts off, but it is interesting to note. In the case of Call of Duty 3, even though it isn't coming out on PC it is obvious that it has been built upon the last iteration and that game started off as a PC game even though many would consider the 360 version better from a graphics and sound standpoint.
Call of Duty 3 takes place during the Normandy Breakout Campaign period, meaning it takes place after the landing and follows the allies as they try to take back sections where the Germans held ground. This means you won't be re-living the Battle of Normandy in this game, but there are plenty of "Holy shit!" moments in the game thanks to the terrific sounds in the game. As I said in my opening statement, I am somewhat impressed by this game on the single-player side simply because I figured Teryarch would drop the ball. In the end they've kept the ball rolling, although it certainly isn't as engaging as the last game honestly.
Where Call of Duty 3 really shines is in the online world. This shouldn't be a surprise given how popular the last game was online for the 360. I've played a few games (Capture the Flag for the most part) and I find it quite fun to play. The voice communicator runs nicely and I can hear everyone. The only negative I have seen so far is there hasn't been any ranked games that I've been able to get into, only unranked ones. This is fine since I could care less if I'm on a leaderboard or not, but I am surprised more people aren't playing ranked games. They could of course all be playing Gears of War, but I figure this game will be quite popular as well.
In the end I'm leaning toward the Buy It category simply because of the online gameplay. If you are leaning on it strictly for single-player play I would rent it because you should be able to finish it within the rental time. $60 for a multiplayer game may seem a bit steep, but the fact is you can get more people in one game playing Call of Duty 3 than you can get in Gears of War. The more people, the more fun it is honestly.
First Look: Tony Hawk's Project 8 (360)
The series reaches its 8th installment with Tony Hawk's Project 8. I didn't play a lot of the last game simply because I had read from various places that the 360 version was a simple port from the Xbox/PS2 versions of the game with little graphical update. This time around they have supposedly built it from the ground up on the 360.
As I've been playing the game here and there I find that Tony Hawk's Project 8 is a cross between the other games in the series and the old Amped games from Xbox. You run through various tasks that have different levels of success as you go through them. Most of them are split between three levels: Amateur, Pro and Sick. You should have no problem getting through the first level and possibly the second level. For the third level you will find out that you have to have an upgraded skater in order to get the height needed to pull off big combos.
As you finish the levels you rank up from 200th place as the best skater around. The key to the game is to get into the final 8 that Tony Hawk plans to reward. I have yet to even reach the 100th rank and the game is already starting to grate on me. The game just feels like mostly a rehash of prior games in the series. They have added the "Nail the Trick" move in this game where you press in both buttons (not triggers) in order to go into a slow-mo move where you can control the deck via the two analog sticks and do really crazy tricks. This is often the key to scoring the Sick rating in many of the tasks.
The graphics are quite nice, but there are trick destroying slowdowns in many areas. I can only guess that the slowdown is in relation to how fast you are going when it happens. This is something I hope they fix with the next iteration.
Bottom line is that Tony Hawk's Project 8 was fun when it started out, but it is getting tedious as I continue on. There are some cool events here and there and it seems like a shoutout to the old Hawk games and not the Underground games. So far I'd put this squarely in the Rent It category, but I have to play it a bit more (if I can handle it). Not sure what Ron was smoking when he gave it a 9.3, but I would have to say I'm squarely with the feelings of Gamespot, IGN, Team Xbox and Gamespy.
I have not given the online portion a try yet, but I plan on doing it before my rentail period is done. I have heard it is a nice game to play online and that is probably why the early Playstation 3 reviews of the game are lower since there is no online play in that version.
As I've been playing the game here and there I find that Tony Hawk's Project 8 is a cross between the other games in the series and the old Amped games from Xbox. You run through various tasks that have different levels of success as you go through them. Most of them are split between three levels: Amateur, Pro and Sick. You should have no problem getting through the first level and possibly the second level. For the third level you will find out that you have to have an upgraded skater in order to get the height needed to pull off big combos.
As you finish the levels you rank up from 200th place as the best skater around. The key to the game is to get into the final 8 that Tony Hawk plans to reward. I have yet to even reach the 100th rank and the game is already starting to grate on me. The game just feels like mostly a rehash of prior games in the series. They have added the "Nail the Trick" move in this game where you press in both buttons (not triggers) in order to go into a slow-mo move where you can control the deck via the two analog sticks and do really crazy tricks. This is often the key to scoring the Sick rating in many of the tasks.
The graphics are quite nice, but there are trick destroying slowdowns in many areas. I can only guess that the slowdown is in relation to how fast you are going when it happens. This is something I hope they fix with the next iteration.
Bottom line is that Tony Hawk's Project 8 was fun when it started out, but it is getting tedious as I continue on. There are some cool events here and there and it seems like a shoutout to the old Hawk games and not the Underground games. So far I'd put this squarely in the Rent It category, but I have to play it a bit more (if I can handle it). Not sure what Ron was smoking when he gave it a 9.3, but I would have to say I'm squarely with the feelings of Gamespot, IGN, Team Xbox and Gamespy.
I have not given the online portion a try yet, but I plan on doing it before my rentail period is done. I have heard it is a nice game to play online and that is probably why the early Playstation 3 reviews of the game are lower since there is no online play in that version.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Review: Need for Speed: Carbon (PC)
Title: Need for Speed: Carbon
Developer: EA Canada
Platform: PC
My Recommendation: Rent It
Need for Speed: Carbon is the 11th game in the series and I have played all of the games extensively. In many ways this new version of NFS combines elements from those games as well as the last game, Most Wanted. Basically it takes the same feel of Most Wanted and adds in the tuning aspects of the Underground games. It creates a good game, but in many ways anyone who played the last game may feel a sense of deja vu.
The story for Carbon takes place right after Most Wanted and involves the same character. You've left Rockport and come back to an unforseen until now new city. It seems this is where you used to live and you left on bad terms according to your ex-girlfriend and the local gangs. They think you took a bag of money and set up the police sting that took out a bunch of cars, but over the course of the game you get new points of view of the crime and people start to believe you weren't at fault and that the bag of money was switched with an empty one that you took to Rockport.
I think the FMV cutscenes in this game are slightly better than the ones in Most Wanted where everything was too over the top. It seems EA dialed down the cheese factor with this game, although I have noticed other people think this is more cheesy. Outside of those things, the game plays much the same as Most Wanted, but this time you only race at night (borrowed from Underground).
The basic foundation of the game is the same as Most Wanted in how you go through your career. Instead of a blacklist you actually have a World Map that gives you races to choose in order to take over that section of the map with your gang sign. Gone are the point milestones that ruined the upper levels of the blacklist in Most Wanted, here it is all about the racing (sprints, speed camera, checkpoints) along with two extra modes: drifting and the Canyon Races against the gang bosses.
Drifting is an interesting game type and it has been seen before in the series. It is much different to drive the car in the Drift challenges than in the straight race challenges. The car is loose and the key to the race is to get the most points possible and beat the other cars (that are not seen). If you hit a wall you lose your accumulated points and you can also gain multipliers to your base score. The Drift challenges are pretty easy unless you are on a Canyon map where there are lots of twists and turns along with the danger of going off the cliff.
The boss challenges are different this year. At the end of each of the 4 sections of the map you will face the main boss of the gang. Usually you will race them in one race type and then you will go to a 2-part Canyon race that is won based on points via how close or far away you are from the other driver. It is in two stages. The first stage you are following the boss. If you are lucky enough to pass the boss and keep ahead of them for 10 seconds you win the overall race and don't have to do the second stage. In the second stage the points you earned in the first stage count down as you try to keep ahead of the boss. If you end up with positive points at the end (and don't fall off the cliff, which is an immediate loss) you win the boss challenge. The last two sections of the map are a bit harder than the first two, but they are far easier than getting to the next person on the blacklist from Most Wanted.
Also introduced in this game is a choice early on of what class of car you want to start with: Tuner, Exotic or Muscle. Tuners handle better, Exotics accelerate better and Muscle have a lot of power. The choice is important because you will be stuck with this car until you get enough money to pick up another car you unlocked from the Car Lot on the map. I personally started with a Tuner simply because they can overtake other cars in turns and later on I ended up with an Exotic because once tuned they can become speed demons which is very important in the later stages.
Another gameplay mechanic introduced in the game is your Crew. Along the way you can hire people to join your crew and help you in races. Each person is one of three classes: Blocker, Scout and Drafter. The first one helps block out opponents, the second one finds shortcuts on the track for you and the third one allows you to do a slingshot by drafting behind them. I found that the only worthy one is the Blocker. The crew members can also give bonuses to you such as more money by winning a race, ability to buy parts for less, etc. The AI for the crew works okay, but there are some problems. For the most part the crew member stays close to you, but there were times where they went way behind and could never help me. You can instigate them to do their job, but sometimes they will totally miss the opponent or they won't listen to your orders. It is very much a hit or miss situation, but I can say that they helped me a bit in many races.
Along with all this there are tuning options for whatever class of car you make. I don't get too into making my car look cool or anything (one of the reasons I wasn't so high on the Underground games). There is an AutoSculpt feature that allows you to change a lot of things about your car manually. Also when you upgrade parts you can choose the parts to be skewed one way or another and it will change your cars stats. I generally just stayed in the middle and didn't skew toward any side and I did pretty well.
I would also like to touch on the police action as well. The police and heat meter are back, but throughout the game I didn't feel as desperate with the police as I did during the milestone point achievements I had to make in Most Wanted. The police certainly chase you in this game, but the overall aggression on behalf of the police seems to be down a notch. I personally like it, although I do find that I can get out of chases much faster than I could in Most Wanted. Some amount of chase is exhilarating, but overdoing it like Most Wanted did at the end was a little much.
My final recommendation on Need for Speed: Carbon is that you rent it first if you've played Most Wanted. At the foundation the game is basically the same, but this time you are racing at night and the game flows more smoothly with the elimination of the points milestones from Most Wanted. I personally like Carbon better, but others may have different views. The one thing I will say is that EA needs to figure out something new for the franchise since the last four games can very much be fused together. The concepts may be somewhat different between the Underground games the the two latest games, but the overall feel of the gameplay is the same. I can only recommend a rent for this game since you can easily go without it and put your money toward another game coming out this holiday season.
Developer: EA Canada
Platform: PC
My Recommendation: Rent It
Need for Speed: Carbon is the 11th game in the series and I have played all of the games extensively. In many ways this new version of NFS combines elements from those games as well as the last game, Most Wanted. Basically it takes the same feel of Most Wanted and adds in the tuning aspects of the Underground games. It creates a good game, but in many ways anyone who played the last game may feel a sense of deja vu.
The story for Carbon takes place right after Most Wanted and involves the same character. You've left Rockport and come back to an unforseen until now new city. It seems this is where you used to live and you left on bad terms according to your ex-girlfriend and the local gangs. They think you took a bag of money and set up the police sting that took out a bunch of cars, but over the course of the game you get new points of view of the crime and people start to believe you weren't at fault and that the bag of money was switched with an empty one that you took to Rockport.
I think the FMV cutscenes in this game are slightly better than the ones in Most Wanted where everything was too over the top. It seems EA dialed down the cheese factor with this game, although I have noticed other people think this is more cheesy. Outside of those things, the game plays much the same as Most Wanted, but this time you only race at night (borrowed from Underground).
The basic foundation of the game is the same as Most Wanted in how you go through your career. Instead of a blacklist you actually have a World Map that gives you races to choose in order to take over that section of the map with your gang sign. Gone are the point milestones that ruined the upper levels of the blacklist in Most Wanted, here it is all about the racing (sprints, speed camera, checkpoints) along with two extra modes: drifting and the Canyon Races against the gang bosses.
Drifting is an interesting game type and it has been seen before in the series. It is much different to drive the car in the Drift challenges than in the straight race challenges. The car is loose and the key to the race is to get the most points possible and beat the other cars (that are not seen). If you hit a wall you lose your accumulated points and you can also gain multipliers to your base score. The Drift challenges are pretty easy unless you are on a Canyon map where there are lots of twists and turns along with the danger of going off the cliff.
The boss challenges are different this year. At the end of each of the 4 sections of the map you will face the main boss of the gang. Usually you will race them in one race type and then you will go to a 2-part Canyon race that is won based on points via how close or far away you are from the other driver. It is in two stages. The first stage you are following the boss. If you are lucky enough to pass the boss and keep ahead of them for 10 seconds you win the overall race and don't have to do the second stage. In the second stage the points you earned in the first stage count down as you try to keep ahead of the boss. If you end up with positive points at the end (and don't fall off the cliff, which is an immediate loss) you win the boss challenge. The last two sections of the map are a bit harder than the first two, but they are far easier than getting to the next person on the blacklist from Most Wanted.
Also introduced in this game is a choice early on of what class of car you want to start with: Tuner, Exotic or Muscle. Tuners handle better, Exotics accelerate better and Muscle have a lot of power. The choice is important because you will be stuck with this car until you get enough money to pick up another car you unlocked from the Car Lot on the map. I personally started with a Tuner simply because they can overtake other cars in turns and later on I ended up with an Exotic because once tuned they can become speed demons which is very important in the later stages.
Another gameplay mechanic introduced in the game is your Crew. Along the way you can hire people to join your crew and help you in races. Each person is one of three classes: Blocker, Scout and Drafter. The first one helps block out opponents, the second one finds shortcuts on the track for you and the third one allows you to do a slingshot by drafting behind them. I found that the only worthy one is the Blocker. The crew members can also give bonuses to you such as more money by winning a race, ability to buy parts for less, etc. The AI for the crew works okay, but there are some problems. For the most part the crew member stays close to you, but there were times where they went way behind and could never help me. You can instigate them to do their job, but sometimes they will totally miss the opponent or they won't listen to your orders. It is very much a hit or miss situation, but I can say that they helped me a bit in many races.
Along with all this there are tuning options for whatever class of car you make. I don't get too into making my car look cool or anything (one of the reasons I wasn't so high on the Underground games). There is an AutoSculpt feature that allows you to change a lot of things about your car manually. Also when you upgrade parts you can choose the parts to be skewed one way or another and it will change your cars stats. I generally just stayed in the middle and didn't skew toward any side and I did pretty well.
I would also like to touch on the police action as well. The police and heat meter are back, but throughout the game I didn't feel as desperate with the police as I did during the milestone point achievements I had to make in Most Wanted. The police certainly chase you in this game, but the overall aggression on behalf of the police seems to be down a notch. I personally like it, although I do find that I can get out of chases much faster than I could in Most Wanted. Some amount of chase is exhilarating, but overdoing it like Most Wanted did at the end was a little much.
My final recommendation on Need for Speed: Carbon is that you rent it first if you've played Most Wanted. At the foundation the game is basically the same, but this time you are racing at night and the game flows more smoothly with the elimination of the points milestones from Most Wanted. I personally like Carbon better, but others may have different views. The one thing I will say is that EA needs to figure out something new for the franchise since the last four games can very much be fused together. The concepts may be somewhat different between the Underground games the the two latest games, but the overall feel of the gameplay is the same. I can only recommend a rent for this game since you can easily go without it and put your money toward another game coming out this holiday season.
How Reviews Are Done/Scored
Before I put up my first review of the new VV blog, I thought I would explain how reviews will be done. I'm taking the step to not give any sort of rating (stars, 1-10, 1-100, grades, etc.) that can be used in an aggregate review site like GameRankings. My friend Bill Harris (Dubious Quality) talked about this before I could unveil my ideas for reviews, but I think much along the same lines as he does. Scoring does nothing for your average reader other than give it some arbitrary score. Instead I'm going to do something different.
The review itself will be pretty free flowing, but at the top I will have the information and my rating for the game. There are 4 ratings: Must Own, Buy It, Rent It and Skip It. I think they are pretty self explanatory, but I shall explain nonetheless. Must Own can be considered as being akin to an "Editor's Choice" or top rated game. Buy It would be considered a really good game and one I would recommend buying, but it isn't as good as Must Own. Rent It is pretty easy, you should rent it and see how you like it before buying it. The Skip it is obviously a game that you just shouldn't look, but or play.
There is no perfect game out there, but there are games that must be owned simply because they are fantastic. I wish more gaming websites would run away from the scoring template, but the reverse side is that they rely on being noticed on aggregate sites in order to get more business.
I hope you like the ratings, although I am open to other ideas or ratings to give. I am not going to go with any sort of percentage scoring though. All people want to know is whether a game is worth it or not honestly and not debate whether this game that scored 9.6 at this time is better than the one that scored 9.8 years ago or not.
The review itself will be pretty free flowing, but at the top I will have the information and my rating for the game. There are 4 ratings: Must Own, Buy It, Rent It and Skip It. I think they are pretty self explanatory, but I shall explain nonetheless. Must Own can be considered as being akin to an "Editor's Choice" or top rated game. Buy It would be considered a really good game and one I would recommend buying, but it isn't as good as Must Own. Rent It is pretty easy, you should rent it and see how you like it before buying it. The Skip it is obviously a game that you just shouldn't look, but or play.
There is no perfect game out there, but there are games that must be owned simply because they are fantastic. I wish more gaming websites would run away from the scoring template, but the reverse side is that they rely on being noticed on aggregate sites in order to get more business.
I hope you like the ratings, although I am open to other ideas or ratings to give. I am not going to go with any sort of percentage scoring though. All people want to know is whether a game is worth it or not honestly and not debate whether this game that scored 9.6 at this time is better than the one that scored 9.8 years ago or not.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
No Gears of War Today
Gears of War was planned to be (hopefully) my last purchase with EB/Gamestop. I was one of the lucky ones that got caught up in the shipping snafu that seems to be affecting a lot of EB/Gamestop pre-order people. I got the call from the Gamestop automated voice that they would have it today, but I didn't check my messages from work today when I got the call that the game may be delayed a day. I wasted a trip to EB and was told to come back tomorrow, but they were nice enough to also give a $5 reduction on the price of the game (some are saying $5 toward another pre-order, but this guy said $5 off GoW).
I could have gone to Best Buy and picked the game up probably, but since I already paid most of it off at EB an extra day wouldn't hurt much. As I said above, I hope this is my last purchase at the EB stores (but not online) as I've had trouble with them ever since I pre-ordered my Xbox 360 last year. I try to keep my business with them at a minimum, but they do have some exclusive offers like the Final Fantasy XII Collector's Edition and Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin with all the extras (I believe it is exclusive to EB/Gamestop, not sure though) that are quite enticing.
Maybe I'll spend this valuable time trying to finish off Need for Speed: Carbon so I can give my review of the game. I'm at 75% complete, so it shouldn't be too much longer to go. Also hope to have a full review of Battlefield 2142 up as well. I've played Final Fantasy XII here and there, but haven't gotten into it enough to go beyond my initial impressions.
I also hope to rent Call of Duty 3 and Tony Hawk Project 8 just to check them out. I am not very excited about either game. The first one because Infinity Ward has nothing to do with it and the game is not coming out on PC. In Tony Hawk's case I feel they added the cool do your own move mode, but that it will be more of the same...very much like Madden has become (and remember, I was a big Madden fan before).
Hopefully once I have Gears of War and can play it for a bit I can join some of you in some online action. For those that already have the game, let me know how you like it.
I could have gone to Best Buy and picked the game up probably, but since I already paid most of it off at EB an extra day wouldn't hurt much. As I said above, I hope this is my last purchase at the EB stores (but not online) as I've had trouble with them ever since I pre-ordered my Xbox 360 last year. I try to keep my business with them at a minimum, but they do have some exclusive offers like the Final Fantasy XII Collector's Edition and Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin with all the extras (I believe it is exclusive to EB/Gamestop, not sure though) that are quite enticing.
Maybe I'll spend this valuable time trying to finish off Need for Speed: Carbon so I can give my review of the game. I'm at 75% complete, so it shouldn't be too much longer to go. Also hope to have a full review of Battlefield 2142 up as well. I've played Final Fantasy XII here and there, but haven't gotten into it enough to go beyond my initial impressions.
I also hope to rent Call of Duty 3 and Tony Hawk Project 8 just to check them out. I am not very excited about either game. The first one because Infinity Ward has nothing to do with it and the game is not coming out on PC. In Tony Hawk's case I feel they added the cool do your own move mode, but that it will be more of the same...very much like Madden has become (and remember, I was a big Madden fan before).
Hopefully once I have Gears of War and can play it for a bit I can join some of you in some online action. For those that already have the game, let me know how you like it.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
This Week in Entertainment (11/5 - 11/11)
Another busy week for gaming, the beginning of the holiday DVD flood starts to trickle down this week and a quiet week on the comics front rounds things out. I will have a pick of the week in every category.
Games
Gears of War (360)
This game honestly will make or break the Xbox 360 going into the holiday. With Halo 3 a good distance away, this is the highest profile game coming out for the system. There has been enough hype surrounding it to attempt reaching the fanaticism of the Halo franchise. I think Microsoft has done a good job of promoting the game on television as I've seen shorter versions of the "Mad World" spot that was unveiled on Marketplace recently. This is the game that should make all the 360 owners feel better about the system because this is truly the emergence of the 2nd generation of Xbox 360 games where the term "hi-def" may finally make a case for itself. This game is easily my choice for Game of the Week this week, but there are other games coming this week.
Guitar Hero II (PS2)
Many will pick this game as their game of the week and if it was coming out any other week than the GoW release it would probably be mine as well. I have yet to touch the original GH (blasphemy, I know!), but I may give this one a try. I expect this game to be a big seller this week and the addition of 2-player play brings it up another notch.
Tony Hawk Project 8 (Every system known to man, but PC)
The plus side of this release is that the 360 version has been built from the ground up and not ported from the current generation like American Wasteland and Gun were. It is also the only next-generation version that will have online play. I played the demo a bit and I think it is cool they have the slowdown to pull off cool tricks with the analog sticks, but outside of that how much more can this game give us that prior Tony Hawk games haven't?
Call of Duty 3 (Every system...but PC?)
Call me skeptical on this one simply because Infinity Ward isn't developing it and the fact that there isn't even going to be a PC version. I know the 360 version of the second game was cool and all, but why spit in the face of the system that made this franchise popular in the first place? I will await reviews before I even touch this game. Yes, it looks a lot like the other games, but I just don't have as much faith in Treyarch as I do in Infinity Ward.
Viva Pinata (360)
I called this game as being a sleeper when it comes out and I still believe that. The fact is that many kids will be interested in this game and I'm a bit surprised that Microsoft hasn't started promoting this game. Then again, maybe they have because I rarely watch Saturday morning cartoons anymore. I think this game will be reviewed well and I hope it becomes a hit with children out there simply because Microsoft needs some penetration into that market.
Movies/DVDs
Transformers: The Movie 20th Anniversay Edition (DVD)
Oh yeah, baby! Sony has gone back and remastered the whole movie in this release. I was pissed that I hadn't picked up the other DVD iteration of this movie, but now that Sony has given it some good treatment I won't be without this movie anymore. I was 9 years old when this movie came out in theaters and I still have fond (and not so fond...you know what I'm talking about) memories of it. I love this movie even today, but I'm not picking it for the release of the week.
Cars (DVD)
This is my DVD of the Week this week. It is not as good as Finding Nemo or The Incredibles, but it is still a high quality movie. Pixar can do no wrong, although I am afraid about their next movie Ratatouille (though it is directed by Brad Bird, maker of The Incredibles. This is a great family movie in my opinion and an easy pickup to add to your collection.
Stranger Than Fiction (Theater)
This is my film to see this week. From the previews this movie looks fantastic and early word is that it is very good. Will Ferrel plays an IRS worker who starts hearing the voice of Emma Thompson. She is basically writing Ferrel's life in her new book, but doesn't realize she is actually writing the life of a real person. The whole idea sounds original and I think this could be Ferrel's breakout dramatic role.
A Good Year (Theater)
Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott come back together for the first time since Gladiator in this movie that I still don't know much about. It seems like a coming of age story and that is all well and good, but I think Crowe has dabbled in these types of roles a bit too much. It's time for him to try something new.
Comics
Annihilation #4
This is my Comic Pick of the Week. I'm liking this series a lot more than 52 and Civil War. The former has really slowed down while the latter has slowed down its release schedule and is starting to feel a bit strained in the amount of time we have to wait. So far this series has been a very interesting read and I can't wait to see what happens next. Too bad Marvel didn't hype this series as much as Civil War because this is the better written series.
Batman #658
The final episode of "Batman and Demon"...I mean, "Batman and Son". I have no clue where Morrison is going with this final chapter, but I hope that little bastard turns out to be something other than Bruce's son or meets some untimely accident.
Green Lantern #14
Part 1 of "Hal Jordan Wanted". I have a hard time believing this series is going to see two comics this month, but stranger things have happened. So far I've really liked the GL comic book, I just wish it came out more regularly than it has.
Games
Gears of War (360)
This game honestly will make or break the Xbox 360 going into the holiday. With Halo 3 a good distance away, this is the highest profile game coming out for the system. There has been enough hype surrounding it to attempt reaching the fanaticism of the Halo franchise. I think Microsoft has done a good job of promoting the game on television as I've seen shorter versions of the "Mad World" spot that was unveiled on Marketplace recently. This is the game that should make all the 360 owners feel better about the system because this is truly the emergence of the 2nd generation of Xbox 360 games where the term "hi-def" may finally make a case for itself. This game is easily my choice for Game of the Week this week, but there are other games coming this week.
Guitar Hero II (PS2)
Many will pick this game as their game of the week and if it was coming out any other week than the GoW release it would probably be mine as well. I have yet to touch the original GH (blasphemy, I know!), but I may give this one a try. I expect this game to be a big seller this week and the addition of 2-player play brings it up another notch.
Tony Hawk Project 8 (Every system known to man, but PC)
The plus side of this release is that the 360 version has been built from the ground up and not ported from the current generation like American Wasteland and Gun were. It is also the only next-generation version that will have online play. I played the demo a bit and I think it is cool they have the slowdown to pull off cool tricks with the analog sticks, but outside of that how much more can this game give us that prior Tony Hawk games haven't?
Call of Duty 3 (Every system...but PC?)
Call me skeptical on this one simply because Infinity Ward isn't developing it and the fact that there isn't even going to be a PC version. I know the 360 version of the second game was cool and all, but why spit in the face of the system that made this franchise popular in the first place? I will await reviews before I even touch this game. Yes, it looks a lot like the other games, but I just don't have as much faith in Treyarch as I do in Infinity Ward.
Viva Pinata (360)
I called this game as being a sleeper when it comes out and I still believe that. The fact is that many kids will be interested in this game and I'm a bit surprised that Microsoft hasn't started promoting this game. Then again, maybe they have because I rarely watch Saturday morning cartoons anymore. I think this game will be reviewed well and I hope it becomes a hit with children out there simply because Microsoft needs some penetration into that market.
Movies/DVDs
Transformers: The Movie 20th Anniversay Edition (DVD)
Oh yeah, baby! Sony has gone back and remastered the whole movie in this release. I was pissed that I hadn't picked up the other DVD iteration of this movie, but now that Sony has given it some good treatment I won't be without this movie anymore. I was 9 years old when this movie came out in theaters and I still have fond (and not so fond...you know what I'm talking about) memories of it. I love this movie even today, but I'm not picking it for the release of the week.
Cars (DVD)
This is my DVD of the Week this week. It is not as good as Finding Nemo or The Incredibles, but it is still a high quality movie. Pixar can do no wrong, although I am afraid about their next movie Ratatouille (though it is directed by Brad Bird, maker of The Incredibles. This is a great family movie in my opinion and an easy pickup to add to your collection.
Stranger Than Fiction (Theater)
This is my film to see this week. From the previews this movie looks fantastic and early word is that it is very good. Will Ferrel plays an IRS worker who starts hearing the voice of Emma Thompson. She is basically writing Ferrel's life in her new book, but doesn't realize she is actually writing the life of a real person. The whole idea sounds original and I think this could be Ferrel's breakout dramatic role.
A Good Year (Theater)
Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott come back together for the first time since Gladiator in this movie that I still don't know much about. It seems like a coming of age story and that is all well and good, but I think Crowe has dabbled in these types of roles a bit too much. It's time for him to try something new.
Comics
Annihilation #4
This is my Comic Pick of the Week. I'm liking this series a lot more than 52 and Civil War. The former has really slowed down while the latter has slowed down its release schedule and is starting to feel a bit strained in the amount of time we have to wait. So far this series has been a very interesting read and I can't wait to see what happens next. Too bad Marvel didn't hype this series as much as Civil War because this is the better written series.
Batman #658
The final episode of "Batman and Demon"...I mean, "Batman and Son". I have no clue where Morrison is going with this final chapter, but I hope that little bastard turns out to be something other than Bruce's son or meets some untimely accident.
Green Lantern #14
Part 1 of "Hal Jordan Wanted". I have a hard time believing this series is going to see two comics this month, but stranger things have happened. So far I've really liked the GL comic book, I just wish it came out more regularly than it has.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
First Look: Final Fantasy XII
It's hard to believe it has been almost 5 years since the last proper single-player FF game has come out (Final Fantasy X). There was Final Fantasy X-2 and the MMORPG Final Fantasy XI that both came out in 2003, but neither can really be a proper FF game when compared to the rest of the series.
Square-Enix decided to base this new game in a well-loved world by many: Ivalice. Ivalice was the setting of the fantastic strategy game Final Fantasy Tactics on the original Playstation (pick it up and play it if you haven't!), so as far as I am concerned they've already started off on the right foot.
I'm only about 2 hours into the game and so far I'm liking it, although I am not very keen on the camera controls or the new Active time battle system. My wife likes the camera controls, but for any FPS player out there the controls are reversed with no way to switch it around in the options. Luckily pushing in the right analog stick will let you center the camera behind you.
The biggest change of course is the new battle system and the Gambit system. This game is far more action orientated than any FF before it, but you can still choose to do the waiting version of attacking and plan out your attacks. The other way is active motions that you do via menus as you run around. To accompany this system is the Gambit system where you can set priorities for yourself and your AI allies and pretty much let that control any action you take in a battle versus you manually doing it. The added bonus of this way of attacking is that there are no longer any random battles and you see all of your enemies on the screen, so you can choose to stay or run when going against an opponent.
So far the story is straight out of the Tactics games in how it is represented. I'm liking the game a lot, but I need a lot more time before I can review it. So far I'd say buy it simply because it's been a long time since a proper FF game came out and this is a fitting end to the RPG mastery that the PS2 has had for a long time.
Square-Enix decided to base this new game in a well-loved world by many: Ivalice. Ivalice was the setting of the fantastic strategy game Final Fantasy Tactics on the original Playstation (pick it up and play it if you haven't!), so as far as I am concerned they've already started off on the right foot.
I'm only about 2 hours into the game and so far I'm liking it, although I am not very keen on the camera controls or the new Active time battle system. My wife likes the camera controls, but for any FPS player out there the controls are reversed with no way to switch it around in the options. Luckily pushing in the right analog stick will let you center the camera behind you.
The biggest change of course is the new battle system and the Gambit system. This game is far more action orientated than any FF before it, but you can still choose to do the waiting version of attacking and plan out your attacks. The other way is active motions that you do via menus as you run around. To accompany this system is the Gambit system where you can set priorities for yourself and your AI allies and pretty much let that control any action you take in a battle versus you manually doing it. The added bonus of this way of attacking is that there are no longer any random battles and you see all of your enemies on the screen, so you can choose to stay or run when going against an opponent.
So far the story is straight out of the Tactics games in how it is represented. I'm liking the game a lot, but I need a lot more time before I can review it. So far I'd say buy it simply because it's been a long time since a proper FF game came out and this is a fitting end to the RPG mastery that the PS2 has had for a long time.
First Look: Need for Speed: Carbon (PC)
You may ask why I picked up the PC version and not the 360 version. It comes down to the fact I could get the PC Collector's Edition for $40 versus getting the 360 Collector's Edition for $70. The PC version may not end up being as smooth as the 360 version, but for $30 difference I think I can get the same kind of excitement out of the game.
I liked last year's Need for Speed: Most Wanted after taking a break when the series went Underground for 2 versions. The only problem with the game last year was once I got high on the Blacklist (probably above #10 if I remember) I had to start grinding for points in the cop chase events in order to meet the prerequisites to take on the next Blacklist member. Eventually I would reach a high point in my wantedness that the cops were almost impossible to lose. I would get up to the points I needed and then try to get away from the cops and found myself getting busted and losing all the work I had just done. I think I got to #3 on the Blacklist and called it a game because it was simply too tedious to do the point grinds; I just wanted to take on the Blacklist opponents.
In Need for Speed: Carbon, EA is billing it as a perfect fusion of Most Wanted and the Underground iterations. The gameplay and storyboard of the former; the tweaking and nighttime races of the latter. At this point I would say that Carbon is a better game than Most Wanted. It supercedes the cheese that was on display with the story/FMV sequences with a good story and better directed FMV sequences (so far). Most Wanted felt like a soap opera where as this one so far feels more like Fast and the Furious (which may or may not be viewed as a soap opera, but at least it is a better done soap opera).
The gameplay is much the same as in Most Wanted with the addition of a gameplay addition in being able to use racers in your gang to help you win a race. This addition is not perfectly implemented, but when the wingman AI works correctly it can mean the difference between winning and having to restart a race. When the AI doesn't work correctly you will find that you are all alone in trying to win the race. The enemy AI seems to have been jacked up a bit and now there are more opponent cars on the road than there was in Most Wanted. The cops also make a reappearance here as well, although they haven't really crossed paths with me since the scripted event early in the game to show you that cops are certainly in the game again. From what I've heard the cops battles are not as interesting as in the last game, which could be good in my mind honestly after taking the above into account.
You are in charge of your own gang and you can hire and fire up to 3 wingmen (or women) that can help you in races. The key to the game is having your gang take over sections of the map while also defending your own territory from invaders trying to take over. The nice thing is that there is an easy teleport to the next mission you want to take by clicking on the mission and going straight to that spot or you can decide to drive through the city to the next mission. The game is very non-linear in that the map opens up to you quite a bit and you have to pick and choose in order to grow your territory.
Eventually you will move in on the territory of the major gangs and have to take on the gang leader on a race in the Canyons which are rife with sections where you can crash right through and fall off the cliff. There are two rounds to these battles. The first one is you chasing your opponent and trying to keep close to him or overtake him for 10 seconds. If you do the latter you automatically win the overall race. If you fall off the cliff or allow the opponent to get far enough away for 10 seconds you lose the race. The second stage is the opponent following you. The same rules apply as in the first race. It is very difficult, but it can be done and is more exciting than the simple races you did in Most Wanted.
As you go through the races you unlock upgrades for your car. In fact, at the beginning you choose what type of car you want to start with: Muscle (powerful), Exotic (top speed) or Tuner (best cornering). Eventually you will see car shops where you can pick up other cars as well. You also have options as you upgrade to how you want to skew the parts, such as top speed vs. acceleration. It's pretty easy to understand. You also have Autosculpt available to you to change how your car looks in case the heat gets high for you (the meter makes a comeback from Most Wanted.
There is another mode of gameplay that is added to Carbon and that is the Drift modes. In this mode your car has very loose controls and you attempt to drift through the course and get the most points possible (with multipliers) and beat the other cars (that you don't see) in overall points. This mode is pretty boring, but you can also find yourself behind on points and have to pull off some amazing multiplier drifts.
So far I have to say I am impressed by this game and I'm liking it more than Most Wanted at this point. That could of course change, but we'll see. I'd also say this game is probably shorter than Most Wanted simply because I'm already up over 20% complete and I've only played a little over an hour. I don't ever remember being that far complete in Most Wanted that quickly. I probably won't play online, but I may rent the 360 version to do just that. I find racing games online on the PC just don't work as smoothly as they do on a console system. I recommend a purchase of this game if you like arcade racers at all.
I liked last year's Need for Speed: Most Wanted after taking a break when the series went Underground for 2 versions. The only problem with the game last year was once I got high on the Blacklist (probably above #10 if I remember) I had to start grinding for points in the cop chase events in order to meet the prerequisites to take on the next Blacklist member. Eventually I would reach a high point in my wantedness that the cops were almost impossible to lose. I would get up to the points I needed and then try to get away from the cops and found myself getting busted and losing all the work I had just done. I think I got to #3 on the Blacklist and called it a game because it was simply too tedious to do the point grinds; I just wanted to take on the Blacklist opponents.
In Need for Speed: Carbon, EA is billing it as a perfect fusion of Most Wanted and the Underground iterations. The gameplay and storyboard of the former; the tweaking and nighttime races of the latter. At this point I would say that Carbon is a better game than Most Wanted. It supercedes the cheese that was on display with the story/FMV sequences with a good story and better directed FMV sequences (so far). Most Wanted felt like a soap opera where as this one so far feels more like Fast and the Furious (which may or may not be viewed as a soap opera, but at least it is a better done soap opera).
The gameplay is much the same as in Most Wanted with the addition of a gameplay addition in being able to use racers in your gang to help you win a race. This addition is not perfectly implemented, but when the wingman AI works correctly it can mean the difference between winning and having to restart a race. When the AI doesn't work correctly you will find that you are all alone in trying to win the race. The enemy AI seems to have been jacked up a bit and now there are more opponent cars on the road than there was in Most Wanted. The cops also make a reappearance here as well, although they haven't really crossed paths with me since the scripted event early in the game to show you that cops are certainly in the game again. From what I've heard the cops battles are not as interesting as in the last game, which could be good in my mind honestly after taking the above into account.
You are in charge of your own gang and you can hire and fire up to 3 wingmen (or women) that can help you in races. The key to the game is having your gang take over sections of the map while also defending your own territory from invaders trying to take over. The nice thing is that there is an easy teleport to the next mission you want to take by clicking on the mission and going straight to that spot or you can decide to drive through the city to the next mission. The game is very non-linear in that the map opens up to you quite a bit and you have to pick and choose in order to grow your territory.
Eventually you will move in on the territory of the major gangs and have to take on the gang leader on a race in the Canyons which are rife with sections where you can crash right through and fall off the cliff. There are two rounds to these battles. The first one is you chasing your opponent and trying to keep close to him or overtake him for 10 seconds. If you do the latter you automatically win the overall race. If you fall off the cliff or allow the opponent to get far enough away for 10 seconds you lose the race. The second stage is the opponent following you. The same rules apply as in the first race. It is very difficult, but it can be done and is more exciting than the simple races you did in Most Wanted.
As you go through the races you unlock upgrades for your car. In fact, at the beginning you choose what type of car you want to start with: Muscle (powerful), Exotic (top speed) or Tuner (best cornering). Eventually you will see car shops where you can pick up other cars as well. You also have options as you upgrade to how you want to skew the parts, such as top speed vs. acceleration. It's pretty easy to understand. You also have Autosculpt available to you to change how your car looks in case the heat gets high for you (the meter makes a comeback from Most Wanted.
There is another mode of gameplay that is added to Carbon and that is the Drift modes. In this mode your car has very loose controls and you attempt to drift through the course and get the most points possible (with multipliers) and beat the other cars (that you don't see) in overall points. This mode is pretty boring, but you can also find yourself behind on points and have to pull off some amazing multiplier drifts.
So far I have to say I am impressed by this game and I'm liking it more than Most Wanted at this point. That could of course change, but we'll see. I'd also say this game is probably shorter than Most Wanted simply because I'm already up over 20% complete and I've only played a little over an hour. I don't ever remember being that far complete in Most Wanted that quickly. I probably won't play online, but I may rent the 360 version to do just that. I find racing games online on the PC just don't work as smoothly as they do on a console system. I recommend a purchase of this game if you like arcade racers at all.
First Look: Battlefield 2142 (PC)
I will preface this with the fact that I was in on the Battlefield 2142 beta and played it extensively. I didn't have any major system problems with the beta, but once the demo came out I was getting knocked off the EA Master Server like many other people. I felt the beta showed me enough to warrant a purchase of the game. The Titan mode in and of itself was pretty exciting in the beta and having more maps to play it on sounded pretty cool.
I purchased the game, installed the patch (which was a pain in itself with me having to uninstall and re-install a couple times) and found that sometimes the game would come up when clicked upon and sometimes it would just jump back to desktop with no black screen. Through some voodoo magic I got it to work if I went to a Command Line prompt and ran the executable from there and sometimes it would work when clicking on the icon. Once in the game it moved nice and smooth, probably moreso than Battlefield 2 and I noticed that map loading on my machine with 1GB of RAM was faster than in BF2. The word was that if you had 2GB the maps would load taht much faster, but it looks like they rectified that here.
Early on when the game was released the EA Master Server disconnects were happening frequently for many people, including myself. I ended up shelving the game for a while because Titan just cannot be enjoyed when you can only play 5 minutes and then get kicked off and try to find another server. According to DICE/EA they have fixed the majority of the problems with the disconnects over last weekend so I fired it up earlier this week and found it a much more enjoyable experience.
Now, many forums have been lambasting EA for their little card that came with the game talking about IGA getting information from your computer in order to supply ads inside the game. EA went on to clarify it a number of days later talking about just taking your IP address and geographically putting ads related to your region in the game. I find it kind of funny that people exploded over this simply because this is the way games are moving toward. Microsoft purchased Massive recently and I can only guess Live and any Microsoft Games are going to have these types of ad extraction in it. Many people put Microsoft and EA on the same level of demonization, but other companies (that maybe you love) are going to go down this road as well.
I'll review BF2142 after I get a bit more time with it. With the server disconnects fixed, the game has been far more enjoyable. I still think the Titan mode is worthy enough to purchase this game along with the whole futuristic feeling of the game. I mean, you can ride a mech and drive a hovertank. Granted, there is only 1 mech per side on each map (I think), so in order to enjoy them you'd better run at the sole mech pretty quickly. Even with the ad fiasco I recommend picking this up, I could use a nice squad in this game.
I purchased the game, installed the patch (which was a pain in itself with me having to uninstall and re-install a couple times) and found that sometimes the game would come up when clicked upon and sometimes it would just jump back to desktop with no black screen. Through some voodoo magic I got it to work if I went to a Command Line prompt and ran the executable from there and sometimes it would work when clicking on the icon. Once in the game it moved nice and smooth, probably moreso than Battlefield 2 and I noticed that map loading on my machine with 1GB of RAM was faster than in BF2. The word was that if you had 2GB the maps would load taht much faster, but it looks like they rectified that here.
Early on when the game was released the EA Master Server disconnects were happening frequently for many people, including myself. I ended up shelving the game for a while because Titan just cannot be enjoyed when you can only play 5 minutes and then get kicked off and try to find another server. According to DICE/EA they have fixed the majority of the problems with the disconnects over last weekend so I fired it up earlier this week and found it a much more enjoyable experience.
Now, many forums have been lambasting EA for their little card that came with the game talking about IGA getting information from your computer in order to supply ads inside the game. EA went on to clarify it a number of days later talking about just taking your IP address and geographically putting ads related to your region in the game. I find it kind of funny that people exploded over this simply because this is the way games are moving toward. Microsoft purchased Massive recently and I can only guess Live and any Microsoft Games are going to have these types of ad extraction in it. Many people put Microsoft and EA on the same level of demonization, but other companies (that maybe you love) are going to go down this road as well.
I'll review BF2142 after I get a bit more time with it. With the server disconnects fixed, the game has been far more enjoyable. I still think the Titan mode is worthy enough to purchase this game along with the whole futuristic feeling of the game. I mean, you can ride a mech and drive a hovertank. Granted, there is only 1 mech per side on each map (I think), so in order to enjoy them you'd better run at the sole mech pretty quickly. Even with the ad fiasco I recommend picking this up, I could use a nice squad in this game.
Welcome to the New Look of Virtual Viewpoints
I'm again going to try to make this a regular place for me to write about entertainment as a whole. In going with the new turn of the page I also gave the site a new look as well simply because I think the black/red motif was a bit hard to see with the last iteration of this blog. I hope this one works a bit better, I can certainly read my articles better and there is even a search option that has been added that connects to a Google Beta search. I also added my Xbox Gamertag to the right so people can check out my paltry acheivements and re-instituted the comments to see if I can get any discussion going on here.
I hope to make this a regular thing with me writing. I envy my friend Bill Harris over at Dubious Quality (link also available to the right in the Links column along with my regular haunts...I'll be adding more) in how much content he puts out there. Granted, I don't have children as of yet and his Eli stories are a staple of the blog, but I hope to achieve the same sort of regularity that he has.
You may like to know what kinds of things are coming up on this blog. I plan on writing up initial impressions of Battlefield 2142 (PC), Need for Speed: Carbon (PC), and Final Fantasy XII (PS2), as well as touch on a few games I've missed talking about over the last few months. Coming up next week I should have impressions of Gears of War (360) and possibly impressions of Guitar Hero II, which will be my first time playing with the series (blasphemy, I know!). Bill has written extensively about the original and now he has a copy of GH2 a week before release, so checking out his site will only make you that much more excited about the game. I'm thinking of getting both games so my wife and I can play together (having two guitars). You guys think I should go that way or just get GH2 and an extra guitar?
On the gaming side I'm going to divide up my writings into 3 categories with the new relaunch. Previews will be of demos I play, betas I am in (after NDA) or previews I am sent by companies. First Look articles are akin to initial impressions of a purchased or rented game and Reviews will be just that.
I'll also be touching on Comics (a favorite topic of mine) and possibly even TV shows and movies like I used to. Get ready, I hope for this to be a fruitful ride.
I hope to make this a regular thing with me writing. I envy my friend Bill Harris over at Dubious Quality (link also available to the right in the Links column along with my regular haunts...I'll be adding more) in how much content he puts out there. Granted, I don't have children as of yet and his Eli stories are a staple of the blog, but I hope to achieve the same sort of regularity that he has.
You may like to know what kinds of things are coming up on this blog. I plan on writing up initial impressions of Battlefield 2142 (PC), Need for Speed: Carbon (PC), and Final Fantasy XII (PS2), as well as touch on a few games I've missed talking about over the last few months. Coming up next week I should have impressions of Gears of War (360) and possibly impressions of Guitar Hero II, which will be my first time playing with the series (blasphemy, I know!). Bill has written extensively about the original and now he has a copy of GH2 a week before release, so checking out his site will only make you that much more excited about the game. I'm thinking of getting both games so my wife and I can play together (having two guitars). You guys think I should go that way or just get GH2 and an extra guitar?
On the gaming side I'm going to divide up my writings into 3 categories with the new relaunch. Previews will be of demos I play, betas I am in (after NDA) or previews I am sent by companies. First Look articles are akin to initial impressions of a purchased or rented game and Reviews will be just that.
I'll also be touching on Comics (a favorite topic of mine) and possibly even TV shows and movies like I used to. Get ready, I hope for this to be a fruitful ride.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
One Thing I Forgot (PS3 Related)
I forgot something in my post last night when talking about missteps. I think a major one is that Sony has decided to not put a rumble feature in their controller. They say that the motion wireless controller wouldn't work with a rumble mechanic, but we all know that's hogwash. The truth of the matter is they don't want to pay Immersion Technologies any more money to use their patented rumble technology. Last time I checked the case between them was still in court with Sony attempting again to overturn the lower court(s) decisions toward Immersion.
Bottom line is Sony doesn't want to lose the lawsuit and they don't want to take the way that Microsoft decided upon (which was $26 million and a stake in Immersion). In the end, should Sony lose the lawsuit (which they eventually will probably) they will end up paying a lot more than Microsoft did. In fact, via the last court document Sony would have to pay Immersion over $90 million to settle their lawsuit.
Sony is once again arrogant about the whole thing. I truly believe they think they will win this lawsuit, but chances are they won't. The fact that the PS3 won't use rumble technology should pretty much a be a sign that Sony agrees that the technology is not their own in the first place. Rumble has been a part of console gaming for a while now (probably going close to 10 years) and I would not be surprised if some casual game players get their PS3 and start playing games and wonder where the rumble feature is.
This could come back to bite Sony in the ass, but given time I figure people will get used to the non-rumble feature and everything will be fine. I do think there will be an initial shock of it not being there though. Whether that effects sales or not remains to be seen.
Bottom line is Sony doesn't want to lose the lawsuit and they don't want to take the way that Microsoft decided upon (which was $26 million and a stake in Immersion). In the end, should Sony lose the lawsuit (which they eventually will probably) they will end up paying a lot more than Microsoft did. In fact, via the last court document Sony would have to pay Immersion over $90 million to settle their lawsuit.
Sony is once again arrogant about the whole thing. I truly believe they think they will win this lawsuit, but chances are they won't. The fact that the PS3 won't use rumble technology should pretty much a be a sign that Sony agrees that the technology is not their own in the first place. Rumble has been a part of console gaming for a while now (probably going close to 10 years) and I would not be surprised if some casual game players get their PS3 and start playing games and wonder where the rumble feature is.
This could come back to bite Sony in the ass, but given time I figure people will get used to the non-rumble feature and everything will be fine. I do think there will be an initial shock of it not being there though. Whether that effects sales or not remains to be seen.
The PS3 Could Still End Up on Top
You've probably read my prior posts where I've ripped the PS3 up and down for the decisions Sony made. I'm still not in full agreement with Sony going toward the Blu-Ray platform so early in the PS3's life. The Playstation had a CD-ROM drive (Compact Discs were introduced in 1982, 7th Guest was one of the first CD-ROM games in 1992) when it came out in 1994 in Japan (1995 in the US). The Playstation 2 had a DVD drive in it (DVD players were first sold in 1997 in the US) and came out in late 2000, over 3 years after the format had begun. In the case of Blu-Ray, the players just recently came out and now they are going to unload a ton of Blu-Ray players in the PS3. It's not a very good idea to unload a new format onto a game system, but Sony will try it anyway.
In the end though I don't think any negative aspect is going to push people away from the Playstation 3. Just tonight I put a post up in Evil Avatar that I would like to duplicate here and talk a bit more about it. Here is my post:
I think the weakest parts of the launch kind of mirror the Xbox 360 launch. There really isn't any game that has been announced that will blow us away. Most of the games are ports and, much like Penny Arcade noted today in their comic, I'm not too excited about Resistance even though Insomniac is making it. Maybe something will pop out, but who knows.
A weak spot where the PS3 does not mirror the Xbox 360 launch is in online play. It's already been noted that Tony Hawk Project 8 won't have an online component like it's 360 cousin. There are rumors of other non-Sony games not having online play either. Sony's own games will though, that being Resistance and Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom.
No matter the negatives I think the PS3 is going to sell well and could possibly take over the Xbox 360 in system sales. The price will be a deterrent, but once Sony gets into 2007 and starts bringing out high profile exclusive games, the allure of the PS3 might be too strong for many people. Sony will continue to have the mindset that the Playstation brand name sells until they are proven wrong. The consumers would have to prove them wrong here, but somehow I don't see it happening.
In the end though I don't think any negative aspect is going to push people away from the Playstation 3. Just tonight I put a post up in Evil Avatar that I would like to duplicate here and talk a bit more about it. Here is my post:
In the end I have to believe the PS3 is going to turn out just fine and sell well. I'd love to pick one up, but I'm not sure I'll be going after it first day like I did with the Xbox 360. Chances are good that many people will stand in line to get one and then they'll sell it on eBay for a tidy profit. I think you'll have a far greater chance at getting a Nintendo Wii two days later if you need a new game system.I've always argued that Sony has had a static mindset since they first announced the PS3. They personally believe the PS3 will survive and thrive just on the Playstation name alone. To many people, given the price and what they feel are missteps by Sony, this mindset is seen as arrogant. However, history shows that Sony may just be right and know that no matter the price people will pick the system up just because of the trusted Playstation name.
You may ask me what I mean by historically, well let's use Wikipedia and spell it out purely in system sales.
We'll start with the system many of the late 20s to 30s+ people played with growing up, the Atari 2600. The Atari 2600 sold 25 million systems.
Nintendo owned the land for a long time after Atari and here are their numbers:
NES: 60 million units
GameBoy: 69.52 million units
Super NES: 49 million units
Nintendo 64: 32.93 million units
GameBoy Color: 49.27 million units
GameBoy Advance: 75.81 million units
GameBoy Advance SP: 38.84 million units
DS: over 22 million units
GameBoy Micro: 1.86 million units
DS Lite: 4.15 million units (June 2006)
With Sony, things went like this:
Playstation: 102 million (shipped, which is different than sold)
Playstation 2: 106.23 million (shipped)
PSP: 20.02 million (shipped)
Of the actual consoles Nintendo racked up ~142 million sold. With the handheld GameBoy in various iterations (including DS) they have racked up ~262 million sold. The original GameBoy and its iterations account for ~119 million of that and the Advance iterations account for ~117 million.
Moral of the story here is that Nintendo's main consoles have sold less as they went along. With Sony, the Playstation 2 has overtaken the original in units sold and even the original PS sold 40+ million more than the original NES. Playstation is a brand name that many people are interested in. I'm not sure Xbox 360 or Wii can penetrate the bias people have with the Playstation brand whether the PS3 is more expensive or not. We live in a Playstation world and it is indeed an uphill battle for both Microsoft and Nintendo.
I personally think Sony is crazy with the price and I hope people won't pick up the PS3 in massive quantities. I am also a realist though and know the Playstation brand will probably live and thrive through another generation, especially if they keep some major franchises as exclusive (FF, MGS, etc.).
The loss for Sony this round will probably come from the fact that they won't see a massive buy-in for Blu-Ray movies (much like UMD movies have all but died out) which is an integral part of their decisions with the PS3. I'm not sure the mainstream public is ready to move into the next generation of optical movie media and it may take several years before DVD falls out of favor toward a new format.
I think the weakest parts of the launch kind of mirror the Xbox 360 launch. There really isn't any game that has been announced that will blow us away. Most of the games are ports and, much like Penny Arcade noted today in their comic, I'm not too excited about Resistance even though Insomniac is making it. Maybe something will pop out, but who knows.
A weak spot where the PS3 does not mirror the Xbox 360 launch is in online play. It's already been noted that Tony Hawk Project 8 won't have an online component like it's 360 cousin. There are rumors of other non-Sony games not having online play either. Sony's own games will though, that being Resistance and Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom.
No matter the negatives I think the PS3 is going to sell well and could possibly take over the Xbox 360 in system sales. The price will be a deterrent, but once Sony gets into 2007 and starts bringing out high profile exclusive games, the allure of the PS3 might be too strong for many people. Sony will continue to have the mindset that the Playstation brand name sells until they are proven wrong. The consumers would have to prove them wrong here, but somehow I don't see it happening.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Quality "Old School" Adventure Games This Week
Thanks to Evil Avatar and their weekly roundup I found out that some quality adventure games are coming this week. I'd say late last year these were rumored to be coming and now they've snuck up on me. Each one is $19.99 and here they are:
The King's Quest Collection (KQ 1-7, I am guessing Mask of Eternity is the one left out)
The Space Quest Collection (SQ 1-6)
The Leisure Suit Larry Collection (LSL 1-4 + 6...remember there was no 5)
The Police Quest Collection (1-3 and Open Season)
I put them in that order simply because if you had to choose only one or two I'd pick KQ and then SQ. These new collections also run in Windows XP (and I can only guess Vista when it comes out) which was a hit-or-miss trial with the original versions of these games. No clue on whether they have the redone #1s for each game (the VGA versions) or whether the later versions include the original CD-ROM release voiceovers. I hope both are the case.
These games will of course feel ancient today. I think the latest release is Space Quest VI: The Spinal Frontier, which came out in 1995. It was a sad day when Sierra stopped making adventure games and it was an even sadder day when adventure games pretty much died. I wish LucasArts would bring out collections of their old Adventure games, especially the CD-ROM talkie versions.
Anyway, these are great pickups at $20 a piece and I can't recommend them enough.
The King's Quest Collection (KQ 1-7, I am guessing Mask of Eternity is the one left out)
The Space Quest Collection (SQ 1-6)
The Leisure Suit Larry Collection (LSL 1-4 + 6...remember there was no 5)
The Police Quest Collection (1-3 and Open Season)
I put them in that order simply because if you had to choose only one or two I'd pick KQ and then SQ. These new collections also run in Windows XP (and I can only guess Vista when it comes out) which was a hit-or-miss trial with the original versions of these games. No clue on whether they have the redone #1s for each game (the VGA versions) or whether the later versions include the original CD-ROM release voiceovers. I hope both are the case.
These games will of course feel ancient today. I think the latest release is Space Quest VI: The Spinal Frontier, which came out in 1995. It was a sad day when Sierra stopped making adventure games and it was an even sadder day when adventure games pretty much died. I wish LucasArts would bring out collections of their old Adventure games, especially the CD-ROM talkie versions.
Anyway, these are great pickups at $20 a piece and I can't recommend them enough.
Game Informer Wii Article
I'm sure many of you have read Billy Berghammer's "Will Wii Be Disappointed Again?" article on Game Informer this weekend. Before I get into it I would like to point out today's post on Penny Arcade. In the last paragraph, Tycho talks about the article and points out something that many people may not know: Billy used to run Planet GameCube.
I've met Billy on a few occasions, but I doubt he remembers me much. I used to know a few people from Game Informer since it is a magazine based here in Minneapolis (I think it is the only major gaming magazine not located on a coast once EGM left Chicago for San Francisco). The last time I remember seeing Billy was at the Cube Party I covered for Console Gold in 2002.
Anyway, I don't want to get too off-track. Much like Tycho I have to believe this was pretty hard for Billy to write. He is one of the biggest pro-Nintendo people I know, but in the end his words do ring true. Nintendo will have only 2 launch titles at release, one of which is a GameCube title that has been re-jiggered on the Wii (The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess). There is also no Mario game and I was disappointed to hear there wouldn't be a Metroid game either, no matter how much I hated the scanning needs in the previous 2 games on GameCube.
There is also a good chance that 3rd parties could go the way of the dodo bird a while after launch. Billy also makes a good point that if multi-platform games start to take on the "portability" factor and are not built ground-up on the Wii that the versions of those games will pale in comparison to the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions. It takes less money to make a port than it takes to build the game separate from the other versions. Will companies take the cheap way out or will they continue with what they're doing here at launch? We'll just have to see.
I've met Billy on a few occasions, but I doubt he remembers me much. I used to know a few people from Game Informer since it is a magazine based here in Minneapolis (I think it is the only major gaming magazine not located on a coast once EGM left Chicago for San Francisco). The last time I remember seeing Billy was at the Cube Party I covered for Console Gold in 2002.
Anyway, I don't want to get too off-track. Much like Tycho I have to believe this was pretty hard for Billy to write. He is one of the biggest pro-Nintendo people I know, but in the end his words do ring true. Nintendo will have only 2 launch titles at release, one of which is a GameCube title that has been re-jiggered on the Wii (The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess). There is also no Mario game and I was disappointed to hear there wouldn't be a Metroid game either, no matter how much I hated the scanning needs in the previous 2 games on GameCube.
There is also a good chance that 3rd parties could go the way of the dodo bird a while after launch. Billy also makes a good point that if multi-platform games start to take on the "portability" factor and are not built ground-up on the Wii that the versions of those games will pale in comparison to the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions. It takes less money to make a port than it takes to build the game separate from the other versions. Will companies take the cheap way out or will they continue with what they're doing here at launch? We'll just have to see.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Wii: 11/19, $250 w/Game...is it Enough?
I'm really sitting on the fence about the Wii news today (and by the way, welcome back; I know I've been gone for a bit). The system comes out on Sunday, November 19th, which is 2 days after the Playstation 3 release (more on this in another post) and it will come packaged with the Wii Sports games that now include Boxing and Bowling along with Tennis, Golf and Baseball. The price will be $250 in North America and roughly $215 in Japan minus the game on December 2nd.
The price and the included items (along with some other key components) are what have me on the fence. The price would be nice if an extra Wiimote (the controller) was in the box. Why would you put Wii Sports as a pack-in and not have a second controller along with the system? Wouldn't you be interested in playing the game with your family? I know I would, so I'd have to spend an extra $40 to get another Wiimote (and add $20 more for the nunchuck's add-on). For those that have larger families (such as children), you may have to spend another $80 on top of that (and another $40 for the nunchucks) to have the full complement of 4 controllers in order to play 2-on-2 tennis for instance. The absence of a second controller is a huge thing in my mind, especially with a pack-in game that screams multiplayer play.
At $250 with a game and one controller it seems a bit bare compared to even the Xbox 360 core system. I don't know how much the SD cards will cost for the Wii, but I do know the 64MB memory card for 360 costs $40, so those are addition costs just to save a game on either system. It does show the Wii as a cheaper value, but we once again fall back on the idea that the Wii is just a glorified GameCube at its core. The hardware power is not up to snuff against either the 360 or PS3, and for many people that will be a big thing to them. This doesn't speak about the games created for the systems, but it is tough to swallow $250 when there is a $300 more powerful system option out there.
Nintendo has made other mistakes with the Wii release as well. The first one is the fact that the Wii will drop 2 days after the PS3. Why not bring it out before even if there are lower numbers of systems available? For those that want all 3 systems and don't want to pre-order the 2 new systems, that means standing in line in the middle of November for 2 days in the same week. For people in the upper Midwest (like myself), things can get quite nippy that time of year. Many will decide between one or the other or they may decide to buy neither.
The second mistake is that The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess will be available on the Wii at launch, but Nintendo has PUSHED BACK the GameCube release of the game to December 12th?!?!?! What in the hell is up with that? I hate when Nintendo backs out of what they said. Reggie said at E3 that both copies would be out at launch, but now the GameCube version comes out weeks down the line? The dirty thing is that this may push some people to pick up the Wii version simply to have the game first, but many of us have been waiting years for the GameCube version (such as myself). I personally am not too excited about the Wii version of Zelda because I think the Wii controller aspects were added way down the line and may not be as fully implemented as they could be. I think there will be a bunch of tired arms out there after playing this new Zelda game that will supposedly be very long. The only thing I was excited about with the Wii version was that it was in widescreen while the GameCube version is not. However you will NOT be able to play the Wii version with the old GameCube controller, so you're stuck with Wii controls for the game, which is a mistake in my opinion.
The third mistake is that they announced Metroid Prime 3: Corruption won't be out until 2007. I'm not necessarily surprised by the announcement, but I think it would have been a strong signal if that game was available at the launch of the Wii. We all knew that Mario Galaxy wasn't going to be out at launch, but Nintendo did leave the door open for Metroid.
The fourth mistake can be interpreted as not being a mistake. Nintendo announced the prices of the NES, SNES and N64 games via the Virtual Console. They will rely on Wii points in at least North America, which means it will be much like the Microsoft Marketplace points. You go the store and pick up 2000 points for $20. Here is the breakdown of prices (they did not announce TG16 prices for games like Bonk's Adventure which comes out at launch):
NES: 500 points (or $5)
SNES: 800 points (or $8)
N64: 1000 points (or $10)
They expect to have 30 games at launch and 10 games every month thereafter. When taking the Xbox Live Arcade titles into account I see no problem with the prices, but this is also a double-edged sword because chances are high there will be far more people interested in the games released for the Wii than the ones on Xbox Live Arcade. Live Arcade has had its share of old titles (Gauntlet, Smash TV, Pac-Man, Frogger), but it has also been home to some great original games like Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved and Wik. In the case of the old titles, many have been given High-Definition updates and run for about the same price as the NES games above. I think a lot of people are not too giddy about the prices, but I think Nintendo is standing up to Microsoft quite well. Microsoft will be the leader in original Arcade things, but I think the Nintendo library is going to be huge on the Wii; especially for those of us that played those old games.
In the end I doubt I'll be picking up a Wii at launch. The lack of a 2nd controller and the whole Zelda fiasco is enough to put me in that camp. I am interested in seeing an actual live demo of the Wii as well. The system sounds excellent in concept, but actually sitting/standing and moving your hands in order to control the game may not work in practice. There may be a lot of tired arms out there, but the concept is certainly innovative.
The price and the included items (along with some other key components) are what have me on the fence. The price would be nice if an extra Wiimote (the controller) was in the box. Why would you put Wii Sports as a pack-in and not have a second controller along with the system? Wouldn't you be interested in playing the game with your family? I know I would, so I'd have to spend an extra $40 to get another Wiimote (and add $20 more for the nunchuck's add-on). For those that have larger families (such as children), you may have to spend another $80 on top of that (and another $40 for the nunchucks) to have the full complement of 4 controllers in order to play 2-on-2 tennis for instance. The absence of a second controller is a huge thing in my mind, especially with a pack-in game that screams multiplayer play.
At $250 with a game and one controller it seems a bit bare compared to even the Xbox 360 core system. I don't know how much the SD cards will cost for the Wii, but I do know the 64MB memory card for 360 costs $40, so those are addition costs just to save a game on either system. It does show the Wii as a cheaper value, but we once again fall back on the idea that the Wii is just a glorified GameCube at its core. The hardware power is not up to snuff against either the 360 or PS3, and for many people that will be a big thing to them. This doesn't speak about the games created for the systems, but it is tough to swallow $250 when there is a $300 more powerful system option out there.
Nintendo has made other mistakes with the Wii release as well. The first one is the fact that the Wii will drop 2 days after the PS3. Why not bring it out before even if there are lower numbers of systems available? For those that want all 3 systems and don't want to pre-order the 2 new systems, that means standing in line in the middle of November for 2 days in the same week. For people in the upper Midwest (like myself), things can get quite nippy that time of year. Many will decide between one or the other or they may decide to buy neither.
The second mistake is that The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess will be available on the Wii at launch, but Nintendo has PUSHED BACK the GameCube release of the game to December 12th?!?!?! What in the hell is up with that? I hate when Nintendo backs out of what they said. Reggie said at E3 that both copies would be out at launch, but now the GameCube version comes out weeks down the line? The dirty thing is that this may push some people to pick up the Wii version simply to have the game first, but many of us have been waiting years for the GameCube version (such as myself). I personally am not too excited about the Wii version of Zelda because I think the Wii controller aspects were added way down the line and may not be as fully implemented as they could be. I think there will be a bunch of tired arms out there after playing this new Zelda game that will supposedly be very long. The only thing I was excited about with the Wii version was that it was in widescreen while the GameCube version is not. However you will NOT be able to play the Wii version with the old GameCube controller, so you're stuck with Wii controls for the game, which is a mistake in my opinion.
The third mistake is that they announced Metroid Prime 3: Corruption won't be out until 2007. I'm not necessarily surprised by the announcement, but I think it would have been a strong signal if that game was available at the launch of the Wii. We all knew that Mario Galaxy wasn't going to be out at launch, but Nintendo did leave the door open for Metroid.
The fourth mistake can be interpreted as not being a mistake. Nintendo announced the prices of the NES, SNES and N64 games via the Virtual Console. They will rely on Wii points in at least North America, which means it will be much like the Microsoft Marketplace points. You go the store and pick up 2000 points for $20. Here is the breakdown of prices (they did not announce TG16 prices for games like Bonk's Adventure which comes out at launch):
NES: 500 points (or $5)
SNES: 800 points (or $8)
N64: 1000 points (or $10)
They expect to have 30 games at launch and 10 games every month thereafter. When taking the Xbox Live Arcade titles into account I see no problem with the prices, but this is also a double-edged sword because chances are high there will be far more people interested in the games released for the Wii than the ones on Xbox Live Arcade. Live Arcade has had its share of old titles (Gauntlet, Smash TV, Pac-Man, Frogger), but it has also been home to some great original games like Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved and Wik. In the case of the old titles, many have been given High-Definition updates and run for about the same price as the NES games above. I think a lot of people are not too giddy about the prices, but I think Nintendo is standing up to Microsoft quite well. Microsoft will be the leader in original Arcade things, but I think the Nintendo library is going to be huge on the Wii; especially for those of us that played those old games.
In the end I doubt I'll be picking up a Wii at launch. The lack of a 2nd controller and the whole Zelda fiasco is enough to put me in that camp. I am interested in seeing an actual live demo of the Wii as well. The system sounds excellent in concept, but actually sitting/standing and moving your hands in order to control the game may not work in practice. There may be a lot of tired arms out there, but the concept is certainly innovative.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Assassin's Creed Goes 360...Could Other PS3 Exclusives?
Although UbiSoft is not confirming the worst kept secret in videogaming, Computers and Videogames came out with an Assassin's Creed Preview...for the Xbox 360. They also branded it with the Official Xbox Magazine logo, meaning it will probably be in the next issue of OXM. Of course, Ubi isn't saying whether it is true or not, but honestly this is the worst kept secret in gaming.
"PS3 only" were the words floating around Assassin's Creed at E3 (although no one announced exclusivity to the PS3, it is just that only the PS3 was named for the game). The game was previously shown at X05 (a Microsoft event) as Project Assassin. Several sites, whether true or not, say that the game was shown at E3 on an Xbox 360 with a sheet over it, hiding the fact it was running off of that and not a PS3 prototype. In the end the fact is that Assassin's Creed will most likely come to the 360, whether it be the same day as the PS3 version or after a timed exclusivity agreement. This kind of thing made me think about another game that may teeter on the multiplatform edge considering the amount of bad press Sony is getting and the general unexcited attitude of many developers about the system.
That game is the 3rd party crown jewel for Sony and the PS3: Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.
You guys are probably thinking I'm crazy, but this could possibly happen. Kojima said MGS4 was PS3 only at the "current time" in June 2005 and that he had no plans to port it. However, his tune may change given how news of the PS3 has hit here in North America and Europe, the two countries where the MGS series sells very well versus the Japanese market. Given the fact that this game probably won't see release until the latter half of 2007, Kojima and Konami could find that the Xbox 360 has a stranglehold on overall system numbers everywhere outside of Japan. They may release it PS3 only in Japan and release it multi-platform here, possibly giving the PS3 version a more special treatment...or they could make a 360 version as the base system from where to make the PS3 version.
I don't know if the 360 will ever put a dent into Japan, but if enough of the Japanese developed 360 only games are of high quality they may start to make headway. I'm not saying MGS4 will be coming out on 360, but who really knows. I think Sony has created its own possible catastrophe everywhere outside of Japan (and possibly in Japan to when put up against the Wii).
"PS3 only" were the words floating around Assassin's Creed at E3 (although no one announced exclusivity to the PS3, it is just that only the PS3 was named for the game). The game was previously shown at X05 (a Microsoft event) as Project Assassin. Several sites, whether true or not, say that the game was shown at E3 on an Xbox 360 with a sheet over it, hiding the fact it was running off of that and not a PS3 prototype. In the end the fact is that Assassin's Creed will most likely come to the 360, whether it be the same day as the PS3 version or after a timed exclusivity agreement. This kind of thing made me think about another game that may teeter on the multiplatform edge considering the amount of bad press Sony is getting and the general unexcited attitude of many developers about the system.
That game is the 3rd party crown jewel for Sony and the PS3: Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.
You guys are probably thinking I'm crazy, but this could possibly happen. Kojima said MGS4 was PS3 only at the "current time" in June 2005 and that he had no plans to port it. However, his tune may change given how news of the PS3 has hit here in North America and Europe, the two countries where the MGS series sells very well versus the Japanese market. Given the fact that this game probably won't see release until the latter half of 2007, Kojima and Konami could find that the Xbox 360 has a stranglehold on overall system numbers everywhere outside of Japan. They may release it PS3 only in Japan and release it multi-platform here, possibly giving the PS3 version a more special treatment...or they could make a 360 version as the base system from where to make the PS3 version.
I don't know if the 360 will ever put a dent into Japan, but if enough of the Japanese developed 360 only games are of high quality they may start to make headway. I'm not saying MGS4 will be coming out on 360, but who really knows. I think Sony has created its own possible catastrophe everywhere outside of Japan (and possibly in Japan to when put up against the Wii).
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Civil War #3 Discussion (SPOILERS)
So, Civil War #3 came out this past week. If this issue teaches me anything it is probably that Marvel has little to no hope of outdoing the nuclear bomb from the reveal at the end of the second issue unless there is another big event that revolves around Spider-Man (such as Aunt May or Mary Jane meeting their maker). The big thing from this issue is that Thor shows up at the end and is evidently with Iron Man, but who really knows. His SHIELD codename is "Lightning"...lame.
It is also revealed that Daredevil (or Fakedevil as many are calling him) is not Matt Murdock. The person may look like Murdock somewhat, but it is obvious this person can also see. Supposedly Fakedevil's identity will be unmasked this week in Daredevil #87. I find it funny how this identity reveal is left in the main book, but Spider-Man's unmasking happens in Civil War instead of Amazing Spider-Man.
Another thing I have learned is that Civil War has a problem I was afraid of a long time ago (in this post). Unlike the majority of DC's Infinite Crisis, the whole story of Civil War is not self-contained and almost pushes you to pick up the other tie-ins to totally understand what is going on. I figured ASM would be the only tie-in worth it, but I've found almost every Civil War tie-in helps catch you up for when the next chapter of the main book comes out. There is also the Frontlines issues as well to understand things even more. Bottom line is that this series will be far more expensive to comic book readers than IC was.
I have to believe Spider-Man is going to pay for his unmasking. My money is on Aunt May dying simply because IF Marvel kills Mary Jane I'm done with them. Aunt May deserves to die for pushing Peter toward unmasking and I think all the signs point to it. I think Joe Quesada's whole Peter/MJ anti-marriage argument is a red herring for us to think about her being the one eliminated. Then again, maybe Marvel isn't going to eliminate either, but I rather doubt it. Like I said earlier, they have to do something to outdo what happened last issue or they blew their load way too soon in my opinion.
It is also revealed that Daredevil (or Fakedevil as many are calling him) is not Matt Murdock. The person may look like Murdock somewhat, but it is obvious this person can also see. Supposedly Fakedevil's identity will be unmasked this week in Daredevil #87. I find it funny how this identity reveal is left in the main book, but Spider-Man's unmasking happens in Civil War instead of Amazing Spider-Man.
Another thing I have learned is that Civil War has a problem I was afraid of a long time ago (in this post). Unlike the majority of DC's Infinite Crisis, the whole story of Civil War is not self-contained and almost pushes you to pick up the other tie-ins to totally understand what is going on. I figured ASM would be the only tie-in worth it, but I've found almost every Civil War tie-in helps catch you up for when the next chapter of the main book comes out. There is also the Frontlines issues as well to understand things even more. Bottom line is that this series will be far more expensive to comic book readers than IC was.
I have to believe Spider-Man is going to pay for his unmasking. My money is on Aunt May dying simply because IF Marvel kills Mary Jane I'm done with them. Aunt May deserves to die for pushing Peter toward unmasking and I think all the signs point to it. I think Joe Quesada's whole Peter/MJ anti-marriage argument is a red herring for us to think about her being the one eliminated. Then again, maybe Marvel isn't going to eliminate either, but I rather doubt it. Like I said earlier, they have to do something to outdo what happened last issue or they blew their load way too soon in my opinion.
Console Gold/GamingTrend Wikipedia Article
Yeah, it's been a long time since my last blog. I really haven't felt like writing anything or I find myself too busy to find time to sit down and type out my thoughts on things. So, my first post back is going to be about the site I used to work for.
Before I begin, I'm saddened to say that someone picked up the CG domain and turned it into a porn link site. I had been regularily checking to see if the domain was becoming available, but the day it was switched I was out of town. I think it happened on a Saturday because I know I checked the status on Friday. It does kind of piss me off to know the site I helped work a lot on has been changed into this, but I guess that's the way the ball bounces.
I don't think I've made it a secret that I still lurk around the GamingTrend board, but I refuse to contribute in any way to it. I noticed that one of the users set up a Wikipedia article on GamingTrend. This is all fine and dandy, but it seems the article is up for deletion (but may yet survive). My problem with the article is that it is skin and bones. There is a vast history on CG/GT that is not even touched on in the article. The main reason this was probably written is because of Ron's stance on the Starforce copy protection software and that he will take 10 points off of the final rating if a game contains Starforce because one of the games destroyed his computer.
To me I think this whole idea comes by as too little, too late. If GT wanted to strike its own path it would have done this a long time ago when Starforce was at its high point. Nowadays most publishers have eliminated using Starforce (UbiSoft and CDV being the big ones), but this was brought up because of the last game CDV sent out to GT had Starforce in it (along with a game from Midway, who really doesn't release that many PC games). This is akin to jumping onto the Titanic after it started to sink. GT wants to make this big news (Ron posted it in Starforce's board and on Evil Avatars board from what I've seen), but it's just too little, too late in my estimation.
I personally would have put the idea that someone was thinking of putting an article up on the forum and then have everyone contribute to it, including the staff. There isn't a whole lot of staff left that can comment on things before around 2001 outside of Ron, but a more broad history could have been made. I personally would delete the article simply because there isn't a whole lot of information on it. Of course, maybe that is a problem with Wikipedia in itself because many of the articles don't contain enough information. Then again there are many comprehensive gaming related articles as well, such as Penny Arcade or 8-Bit Theater (which, granted, are both webcomics). For a gaming website perspective there is a site younger than CG/GT, Gamers With Jobs, that has a larger article.
Bottom line is I would be more happy if there was more information, but as it is now the article really doesn't add anything to the information superhighway.
Before I begin, I'm saddened to say that someone picked up the CG domain and turned it into a porn link site. I had been regularily checking to see if the domain was becoming available, but the day it was switched I was out of town. I think it happened on a Saturday because I know I checked the status on Friday. It does kind of piss me off to know the site I helped work a lot on has been changed into this, but I guess that's the way the ball bounces.
I don't think I've made it a secret that I still lurk around the GamingTrend board, but I refuse to contribute in any way to it. I noticed that one of the users set up a Wikipedia article on GamingTrend. This is all fine and dandy, but it seems the article is up for deletion (but may yet survive). My problem with the article is that it is skin and bones. There is a vast history on CG/GT that is not even touched on in the article. The main reason this was probably written is because of Ron's stance on the Starforce copy protection software and that he will take 10 points off of the final rating if a game contains Starforce because one of the games destroyed his computer.
To me I think this whole idea comes by as too little, too late. If GT wanted to strike its own path it would have done this a long time ago when Starforce was at its high point. Nowadays most publishers have eliminated using Starforce (UbiSoft and CDV being the big ones), but this was brought up because of the last game CDV sent out to GT had Starforce in it (along with a game from Midway, who really doesn't release that many PC games). This is akin to jumping onto the Titanic after it started to sink. GT wants to make this big news (Ron posted it in Starforce's board and on Evil Avatars board from what I've seen), but it's just too little, too late in my estimation.
I personally would have put the idea that someone was thinking of putting an article up on the forum and then have everyone contribute to it, including the staff. There isn't a whole lot of staff left that can comment on things before around 2001 outside of Ron, but a more broad history could have been made. I personally would delete the article simply because there isn't a whole lot of information on it. Of course, maybe that is a problem with Wikipedia in itself because many of the articles don't contain enough information. Then again there are many comprehensive gaming related articles as well, such as Penny Arcade or 8-Bit Theater (which, granted, are both webcomics). For a gaming website perspective there is a site younger than CG/GT, Gamers With Jobs, that has a larger article.
Bottom line is I would be more happy if there was more information, but as it is now the article really doesn't add anything to the information superhighway.
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