One of my last reviews was for Assassin’s Creed II.  There was another AC game during that time… Brotherhood. It was fun. It takes place right at the end of AC2, and built on the asset management portion of Assassin’s Creed II. Actually that’s about 60 percent of  the game. Story was as good as ever.  Gameplay was even fun.  Though I do remember the beginning of the game feeling overly familiar, the mechanic almost being… tiresome? This sort of relates to my previous post about mission structure, and how it’s just a hard fact to ignore the fact that you can feel like you’re doing the same thing over and over again.

Again this is why I have mostly avoided First Person Shooters. With the exception of my next purchase, Brink, everything over the last year has been mostly single player.

Portal 2 was a lot of fun. It fleshed out an interesting back-story for Aperture Science. Puzzles were a lot easier. I found this to be a shame.

I played both Mass Effect games. I had to stop the first game because the voice acting was so flat that even during the most intense points of the game i felt bored. Furthermore, the auto save was super fucked. I found myself playing segments of the game, dying, and having to wind up 20 minutes before where I was.

The second game felt too short. This is because I felt captivated by just about everything in the game. It was worth every second of praise it received. I can’t wait to play the third installment.

I still need to play Fallout: New Vegas. And I am overly excited about LA Noire, which shocks me because I don’t usually care about sandbox GTA clones, but the level of drama and that the play mechanic is to solve crimes has me hooked.

What have you been playing?

People call a game Art because of the complex stories involved, and the very intimate connection a gamer feels when plot is revealed “I had to go through this whole journey with these people in order to reach this pivotal point”  This is especially true of RPGs as a whole, but not so much, in other genres.  Though I admit that’s not quite fair, I do understand that there are exceptions to this fact, and those are great games.  Halo: Combat Evolved was a great example of a story whose points pushed into you the feeling of a great adventure in a game that at it’s core is just a base shooter. Both of it’s sequels tried to recapture the same sense of awe, but fell further and further away from the moments that held the first one so highly.

Honestly, plot isn’t what stops games from being art. It’s the connective tissue.  It’s the fact that if you boil it down, it’s that you as a player are usually a monster in common society.  Be it aliens, Nazis, terrorists or just gang members, you endlessly kill them to reach the next point of interest. In some games you kill up to and not limited to the population of some smaller US towns in order to reach your goal of feeling accomplished.   Those people all have families, and names.  Though rarely is any of that given any reverence in a games.

I do recognize that you don’t always kill.  In some case you just beat the crap out of your opponents.  So the idea is the same but not really as extreme. That’s called kid friendly, or “How to get a Teen rating”.  I just feel like games over the last 3 years, with a few exceptions, have become more about innovating a control scheme, or a gimmicky gameplay element (cover systems, Mark and Execute) and less about compelling story, or making you react to things, and building character.  I will not that there are a few exceptions (Heavy Rain), but those are more made to appeal to about 1 percent of the gaming market.

America itself is infatuated with violence of all forms. But I feel like it’s reached a point where I can’t look at most games that are being released recently without feeling like I’m paying $60 for the videogame equivalent of Ninja Assassin.  Which is to say a movie with so much action thrown in so regularly that there is no solid plot, pacing, or value as Entertainment.  Or Art.

Unlike  previous games,  there is no longer a voice in your ear feeding you objectives. You are, as Sam,  making moves on your own. The objectives, and his thoughts are projected on the environment around you. While this not only gives you a clear set of tasks, it also shows off the game’s ability to control light, and dark.

The Mark and Execute feature in the game is truly outstanding. It frequently makes for multiple “I feel badass” moments during gameplay. While performing a hand to hand take down on an enemy, you unlock the ability to Mark multiple enemies (lights and explosives too) and as long as all marked objectives are with in line-of-sight and range, you can Execute them with a push of a button.

So, if while playing, you peek through a window and see three enemies stacked up around a door, waiting to ambush you. You can Mark them, go back to the door, kick it in, and Execute the three enemies with three perfectly placed bullets. However if you want to re-enter this feature, you have to incapacitate another enemy with a hand-to-hand takedown.

This Splinter Cell isn’t about being a cowboy. Stealth is still a huge priority. Rather than over-packing your HUD in this installment, the game lets you know when you are hidden in shadow by making everything around you black and white… Except for the enemies. Not only does this give you a constant feedback on how hidden you are but also makes spotting enemies from the shadow easier.

The Last Known Position feature is another win for Ubisoft. If you are spotted by an enemy, and then manage to lose him, a shadow of Sam will show his Last Known Position, as perceived by the enemy. they will converge on the position, allowing you to execute a tactical flanking maneuver on the fly.

The demo starts midway through the storyline of the game, giving players some of the gadgets Sam has procured during his missions. This includes some classics such as flashbang and frag grenades, and also newcomers like EMP grenades, and a portable EMP that centers on your person. Fear not Fanboys, the goggles are back. They provide a sonar vision that allows you to temporarily see enemies and items through walls (and yes, you can Mark through walls with them).

While I do enjoy toys, I hope that  the beginning of the game finds Sam with only his intelligence and his ability to snap necks. Considering the intelligence of the AI, all the toys in the world might not be enough. For example, I threw a grenade past a group of enemies. They ignored the explosion behind them and immediately converged on me, because they had followed the path that the grenade was thrown from. In another instance, I had shot out a light in a nearby room, and two enemies, rather than both investigating, did something unexpected. One moved towards the room, the other covered him in case of ambush.

If all of Splinter Cell: Conviction is well thought out, beautifully rendered, with the same level of rich gameplay, and mantains an intense, but not unbeatable experience, then I am oozing over with excitement for this game.

Every Day The Same Dream

You wake up to your alarm. You always wake up to your alarm. The world looks like shades of grey to you, But there’s no time to feel depressed, you have to get to work. You get dressed, and go to the kitchen. Your wife is there, watching tv while she cooks, as she always is. She is watching some nonsense on the tv, but you can’t help but notice how much more colorful it is than your life. She wishes you good morning; you don’t bother to respond. Your mornings have not been good for quite a while now. You walk over to hug her, and all she can say is,  “come on honey, you are going to be late,” as she always does. You leave your apartment, and go in to the elevator, and that old woman is there. That old woman is always there. Her presence always unsettles you a little bit, and you decide to not talk to her. As you always do.  You drive to work, you’re boss tell you that you are late, as he always does, and you take the long walk to your cubicle, where the rest of the day fades to obscurity. You wake up to your alarm. You always wake up to your alarm.

This is the general life of the faceless man in the moving and unnerving flash game, Every Day The Same Dream.  Calling it a game, however, is doing it a huge disservice.  It is more of a piece of interactive performance art. The point is to pull this man off of  the beaten path, but it will take the man, and you, in to some pretty dark places, including the thought of suicide.  It can be played through in about twenty minutes, but it will stay with you for quite a while. Everyone should experience this thought-provoking piece of art.

Every Day The Same Dream can be played here

After stumbling upon this delicious bit of free internet, the question had to be asked, “what else is out there? what are we missing?”

Boomshine

Created by Danny Miller at K2xl, Boomshine is beautiful in its simplicity. The point of the game is to cause a chain reaction, setting off as many “explosions” as possible.  each level has a set number of “explosions” that you must set off to advance to the next level.  Its colorful, addicting, and surprisingly relaxing, which is a quality you rarely find in gaming today.  Matched with music by Tim Halbert, this game is surprisingly fulfilling for such a simple concept.

Boomshine can be played here.

Obechi

It seems you can’t mention Boomshine without mentioning its brother, Obechi. Another one of Danny Miller’s creations, Obechi is very similar concept to Boomshine, but instead of popping colorful dots, you are using rings to collect them. The only catch, you must use an exact amount of rings to collect an exact amount of dots. It’s harder than it sounds, but you won’t care as more of Tim Halbert’s music washes your cares away.

Obechi can be played here.

Time Fcuk

has to be said, this is one of the most disturbing games I’ve ever played. It’s also one of the most fun puzzle games i’ve ever played. It all starts when a poor little man comes across a box, and a future self comes out of it. the general premise of the game is to simply get from point a to point b. Thing get tricky though when you jump through layered dimensions, and  (not joke) a version of yourself grows out of the side of your head, and starts to tell you things. His Name is steve.
created my Edmund Mcmillen, this bizarre game will keep you enticed, and possibly frightened for hours.

Time Fcuk can be played here.

Miami shark

This game is basically Ecco the Dolphin on PCP, and six grams of cocaine. You are a shark, and you gain points by destroying and killing all thats around you. things get crazy when you dive out of the water to pull helocopters and planes in to the briny deep. This game is basically the potato chips of gaming. Not a whole lot of thought required, and still a lot of fun.

Miami Shark can be played here.

Auditorium

The most noticable part of Auditorium is the creators  refuse to tell you how to play it. This isn’t a bad thing in this instance, its the opposite. The feeling of discovery you get while navigating this game out is unique.It’s obvious from the title that this game is based primarily on music, but in a way that is special. The look, feel of this game is game is breathtaking as well.Yet again simplicity wins out the day.

Auditorium can be played here.

Flash games truly test developers. Without huge budgets, or a well-known franchise to ride on the back of, the only thing that can make these games successful is their creativity. These little tidbits of ree gaming magic are a resume for developers, hopefully spring-boarding them to an even bigger project. Games like these make me excited for the future of the industry.

We all remember Halo: Combat Evolved. It was a fitting name for the game, because it completely changed how gamers understood first-person shooters. Before Halo, we were slaves; our lives were defined by a number, between one and one-hundred. Death was just a zero. Before Halo, we were able to magically carry ten guns (and rocket launchers), and ammo for all of them.  Throwing a grenade was considered to be a fruitless endeavor. The arrival of Halo rewrote the rules. Our lives were more complete with the promise that our shields will recharge, and throwing grenades was suddenly a very rewarding strategy. But now we could only carry two guns, showing that what shooters giveth, shooters can taketh away.  

Halo became the next level of FPS, bringing  the idea of of LAN (local-area network) play to consoles. Suddenly gamers across the world were eating, drinking, being merry, and murdering their friends within the comfort of their homes. No one was surprised to find that Halo 2 was going to have full online support. The birth of Xbox Live was watched by thousands of gamers, and the rising star of Halo was reaching it’s apex.  

Online multiplayer was now an every-day word for most of us, as were double-kill, bomb-running, and KDR (Kill to Death Ratio.) So when new maps for said multiplayer was released, gamers were ecstatic, and were happy to pay the low price of six dollars.  

Four years later, Halo 3 comes along, and things start to get dodgy. Halo 3 was a masterpiece of its time. But the fully-expected map-packs fell a bit flat, as nearly half of the “new” maps were just remakes of Halo 2 maps. Also, each pack almost doubled in price, costing 800 microsoft points, which works out to be about $10. With 4 map packs total, the price of Halo 3 just reached $100 over five installments, if you didn’t wait 6 – 9 months before they dropped prices.  

And here is the real punch to the face. The map packs were all needed to continue to play matchmaking. If you wanted to keep playing their game, you had to keep paying. It became more obvious when Halo: ODST was released, because they released the game with all the added content of Halo 3 maps, which you already needed to buy in order to play online. Again, you needed those maps too, to participate in matchmaking.  So you would end up either not being able to play or forced to re-buy some if not all maps you already downloaded.  You did get the benefit of three bonus maps, which, unfortunately, made the purchase more uneven.  Recently a new map pack was released, which contains the said “bonus” maps from ODST.  

I wonder how many people bought ODST just for these maps, making the total retail price of Halo 3 multiplayer $170?  

Perhaps you should just stay in there?

After 4 games (3½ really), is the Halo franchise still relevant? The Halo series held top billing for nearly a decade . Everyone was playing. Everyone was addicted. But the world has changed in that time and so have our tastes. The gameplay differences between the first Halo game and the most current is just not enough to keep people interested. There is a palpable feeling of longing, of searching for more in the gamer community. This, combined with the years-long shell game that we have been made to endure, may have killed the franchise. Halo: Reach needs to bring something new to the table in order to regain relevance.  

Sadly, my theory on this matter is that which starts sweet will surely end bitter, and Halo was very sweet.

It took me a few tries throughout the day to play the game, which was rather frustrating. The curve is steep, but once I got it, the game is rather fun to play, although the controls are nothing like Halo or Modern Warfare 2. If you don’t explain that Predators can’t jump like frogs unless you press the left trigger, all of  a sudden everyone thinks your game sucks. The whole concept of “focus mode” is brilliant, but after playing over and over with people, I felt like no one had any idea what it was. Focus mode for the average person is an objective marker, and mêlée auto aim rolled into one. As an Alien, you move so quickly it’s hard to hit people, so they created this to allow you to pounce on enemies before you reach them, making the Alien a LOT more effective against both Marines, and Predators, who have the advantage of extreme ranged attacks.

Now that I covered everything they fucked up with in this release, I’ll tell you everything they got right. Once you get used to the controls, each species plays completely different from every other, and they all feel correct. The mêlée combat is robust, with a block system for every species. Which means, if you’re getting attacked by a Predator as a Marine, you can use your rifle to avoid your early end, and then quickly strike back, giving you a distinct advantage against the big brute. Everything has a check and balance to make sure that, if you keep a cool head, you can win most any fight. To get to that point, however, is a struggle.

Alien: When I first tried the Alien out, I was angry about how slowly he was moving. Then I remembered the run button. The information they give you as an Alien is sparse, but everything in the HUD gives you necessary information. Need to get around obstacles while running? Look at the ceiling and hit jump, and your reticule will change to tell you that you’re going to make it. Once you’ve jumped, you’re running on the ceiling and the box is out of your way. As you come up behind an unlucky victim, you are notified to hit a button and kill him instantly, in a very brutal fashion. Putting the mêlée attack buttons on the shoulders also makes for an interesting change of pace.  And a welcome one at that.

Predator: He jumps. He is a tank. And he is rather easy to kill if you play him like an idiot. I spent a lot of time laying traps using heights and vision modes to my advantage, and I won every game in which did that. I also spent some time running around on the ground like an idiot, to the opposite result. They did the Predator justice in this game, if you play him correctly. If you don’t a lot of hungry aliens and scared marines will let you know.

Marine: Scariest thing ever. You have a “flashlight”, which just barely allows you to see. You have a pulse rifle, which you have to fire in bursts while screaming. And you still get probed by an Alien tail, or skewered by a Predator’s wrist blades. You have to be tough as a real marine, and sharp, and quick. You get a motion tracker (which gave me nightmares as a teenager from the movies and games, and those nightmares will come back with good reason). This is by far the most atmospheric of the three species, and at times makes Silent Hill look like My Little Pony.

In the past I have really enjoyed the AvP franchise for the PC; to this day, I still have both games on CD. While back then the three species always felt like standard shooter fare with few additions, this is no longer the case.  The control scheme and style of play for all three species are completely different, yet balanced. In this release, I appreciated every frame. I loved dying more than killing because it gave the game a chance to show off. I would wait to re-spawn and just watch the Aliens move, or watch a Predator cloak himself as he passed a camera. It always felt genuine, as though it was part of the movies. As I warned before, the learning curve is STEEP, but it’s worth it. Seeing as this was my day off, the demo for AvP was a welcome escape. I hope you find it to be the same.

1 Agency Supercar, it looks awesome, does it transform into something more like in the first game?
2 Helicopter, how many people sit on that? it looks sweet.
3 Agency Tower, Boy you got bigger.
4 There is a blue eye icon token pickup thing. Is that like a view point a la assassin’s creed, or some kind of recon mission?
5 Did i seriously see agents flying? i hope this is more like a glider (like in Batman: AA)

I loved all the locations that they show, one of them being a Shi Gen boss’s location with the pool emptied, the Los Muertos Kingpin’s house and accross the street on the hillside is a whole village of people trying to get away from the Freaks. It makes me feel like they’re taking serious care to tell a story with context clues, and that’s awesome.
The Agency tower has a middle spire, and I’m curious to see if you still have the same car ports or what.  I hope the tower is it’s own environment with multiple floors for weapon/vehicle selection (like an armory).  This i heard is coming out in May. That’s not a long time away. I’m excited.

Do you want to blow shit up with me?

Here is the link if you have no idea what I’m talking about.

1. If you haven’t played the first one, the opening of this game fills out very briefly what happened.

2. Download the first game when you get a chance, the story is worth it.

3. Don’t think that this game is even in the same realm of awesome as the first Assassin’s Creed. This one blows it out of the water.

Now that I got that out, let’s compare them for this paragraph’s sake.  Gone are the very slow segments of you walking around as Desmond trying to find clues.  It becomes more and more apparent through this game that there is a progression in dealing with the future. The first was to get your bearings.  What is this room? What is the animus? Don’t I have nice sheets? etc. This game is about discovering yourself.  About the effects the Animus has on the protagonist over a period of time. And it’s also about how pretty Italy was during the 1490′s.

In terms of controls, I immediately went, “Oh, I know all this.” You fight and move in very much the same ways as Ezio as you did as Altaïr, so it’s like jumping back into the bucket seat. However that was the one part of the first game that wasn’t lacking in some way. As a funny aside, I honestly didn’t realize how much was missing  in the first game until I played this one.  For instance, there was no economy system; and all armor was plot-controlled. AC1 was a game that gave you very little choice, and that has changed very much for the better. Combat in this game is much the same in style; however you do have a variety of bad guys, all with specific weaknesses and exploits which AC1 horribly lacked.  You also get a choice of weapons, all with specific stats and bonuses to better fit your play style, All of which has different take downs, and some of which are brutal to watch.  No longer does getting into a fight make you take a deep breath, sigh, and know that you’ve just lost the next three minutes of your life, fighting 9 of the same guy, endlessly repeating one move until they’re dead and halted all mission progress as well.

In this game that is not the case. You invest money into a town, which will pay you at regular intervals, and steadily grows the more you invest. By the end of the game, I was racing to see if I could make a million florins, mostly because nothing ever breaks.  I think a Sim City aspect of gradual degradation would have been nice in the end game, but whatever, there is a great improvement over the original here.

Now, on to story. I hate this paragraph because I can’t tell you anything about it other than it delves a lot further into the creation myth than the last one (obviously) with quite a few optional side quests that you can chose to ignore, as they’re not integral to completing the game. I do warn you that if you want to run through a game and ignore the story, and not complete the side quests, this game isn’t one you should be playing. Go pick up Modern Warfare 2: it’s got a six-hour campaign that should keep your ADD in check for a little while.

It took me 31 hours and 5 minutes to complete the game to a point I was satisfied with it, 247 kilometers from where I started. Worth it? Yes.

This game doesn’t rely on cheap shocks to keep you interested. Rather it fleshes out EVERYTHING from Leonardo Da Vinci, to Ezio, to the leader of Florence.  And to help? There is a rather robust menu system that will explain the significance of every person, place, and document you come across.

So if I was going to write this as a single sentence, I would tell you that this is the best single player experience you’ll get out of 2009, and that you should buy this game because you will replay it.  I know I will.

This should look frustratingly familiar.

Why does this happen? Why do people feel the need to be such overwhelming dickballs when they’re playing online?  I’ve done a bit of research, so I’ll let you in on what I’ve found out.

The name of the disorder that makes people assholes when they’re playing video games is the Online Disinhibition Effect.  Several aspects go into it, but the most important part is that since you are anonymous, and there is no fear of reprisals for your conduct, you can forever act the fool, and no one will show up at your house and beat your face in.  So you act like a total douche because it’ll never come back to you in real life.  This is called Disassociative Anonymity.

As far as I can tell, this attitude is only overtly present in 3 obvious cases. First: The player is 15-23, or still in school.  Adults do act like this, but I think a lot of them wise up, and realize that you still have to conduct yourself as an adult even in anonymous situations. Plus, adults know acting this way doesn’t make you feel better, and you don’t look cooler by being a toolcase.  Second is the overcompensating dick. This one is ageless, and is someone who plays online as a means to feel worth something. They need to win, “be a pro”, and focus on their win/loss ratio.  These people are usually pale, and hard to talk to in social situations, because they can no longer talk about anything but how good they are at gaming. This also causes them to become more and more disassociative, and it’s harder for them to go outside. I’ve seen a lot of people I know become this specific thing, and some of them get away from it, and some don’t.  Third is the person who is just a dick. It’s just as hard to talk them in real life as it is in videogames, and they need this outlet to unleash unabashed hate on people. These people should be avoided, because they’re fucks.  Hateful fucks.

Unfortunately there is no way to dissuade strangers from acting like this.  No matter what you say, if they want to be jerks, they will be jerks.  Do not listen to them. Ever.  Best course of action is the activation of the mute button as swiftly as it is able to be pressed, before they affect your day.  They are a distraction, and if you let them get to you, you’ll find a back and forth flaming verbal grudge match quick in the ranks.

However, if you have friends who act this way, talk to them. Offline is usually the best time, but if they’re getting out of control during a match, just calmly tell them to stop. If they don’t listen, you don’t need to play with them.  When you do talk to them offline, they may be hesitant as first. Trying to tell you that acting like this isn’t a big deal, or that “who cares, it’s not like anyone knows who I am”.  Which is true, but a mark of good character is acting like a human being ever if no one knows who you are.  Playing any game requires conduct, and most sports have very specific rules concerning how players act, and the punishments that go along with breaking those rules.  Explain that this may not have a punishment, but it’s doesn’t help playing with them in any real way when they act like jerks.  Give it some time, and if they want to change, they will. If they don’t, I would suggest playing with other people. You can still hang out with them, and even play with them, though I suggest Co-op instead of playing against other people.

Now that you know about this, or at least know why it happens, maybe you’ll either stop yourself from being this kind of person, or ask your friends to stop. The internet, and online gaming even moreso, is a very young thing. Xbox Live is only seven years old this month. As a society, we’re still feeling out the conduct that we all follow when we’re online. We’re also still learning to understand what this behavior is, and that even if we can get away with it, we should strive to be more adult, even if we’re still playing as adults.

Let me take a step back. I’m almost 30 here, I can be more mature about this.

If you have a console which was made to sell a game, you’re talking about Halo and the 360.  The series bookeneded the original Xbox, with Halo: combat Evolved coming out for launch, and Halo 2 pushing the series onto the current generation of consoles. The series made backword compatablity on the 360 a must (until october 2007) and has individually, and as a series, broken a LOT of sales records.  Halo 2 was still 60 bucks to buy, TWO years after launch, which is unheard of for a game.

Enough stroking. I’m trying to illustrate the point that as a franchise it has done well.  So with Halo: Reach coming out next year how do you keep people playing a game up to 3 year after launch?

Assign numbers to progression.

I LOST A RANK!?!

Ever since Halo 2′s  brilliant ranked match systems, Bungie has made a point of trying to get Halo fans to work endlessly at being better than everyone else.  Halo Waypoint is no different.  It boils down to an Xbox Live Portal to Bungie.net and to news concerning the Halo franchise, but more than that, it’s a unified score system to every Halo game after Halo 3.  Which ensures that there are people who will play over and over and over, until they unlock EVERY achievement on Halo.  Hell, I was on Waypoint for an hour last night, and I felt like I hadn’t done enough compared to my friends. Which is insane, who cares?

Well, according to Microsoft and Bungie, You do. And you should.