Let’s talk about Fez: the perpetually delayed indie game darling for XBLA. Guess what? Straight from the game’s designer, Phil Fish, we now know that Fez has finally been rated by the ESRB. He’s been posting about it on his Twitter:

“FEZ RECEIVES ESRB RATING: E for everyone, mild fantasy violence!”
“E FOR EVERYTHING IS REALLY HAPPENING!”

Granted, it’s now a day later and this rating still has not been posted on the official ESRB website, but this is still a great sign. The game was already rated in December by Europe’s PEGI board, so this is the next logical step. After years of delays and scattered screenshots, this is the most substantial “this might actually happen” news we’ve seen yet.

Oh, and if you aren’t excited, you haven’t seen Fez! For you latecomers, Fez is an amazing-looking platformer with a cool retro style, reminiscent of Super Meat Boy. Unlike Super Meat Boy, Fez isn’t a simple 2D platformer. In Fez, you can fully rotate the 2D world in glorious 3D. Here, this video will explain it:

Looks incredible, right? Welcome to the “When The Hell Can I Play Fez?” Club.

Back on point, there’s still plenty of red tape to jump through, but it’s starting to sound like Fez might actually make it to Xbox 360 in 2012.

Until then… courage.

At CES 2012, Microsoft finally announced that it was bringing the Kinect to Windows. The Xbox 360 version of the Kinect has reportedly shipped over 18 million units to date. That’s not surprising. The silent-but-massive casual player fanbase is absolutely in love with the device.

What makes the creation of a Windows-centric device interesting is how much attention Microsoft is paying to the ever-growing Kinect modding community.  These dedicated fans have been hard at work, tweaking the existing Kinect hardware to function far beyond its official capabilities. Modders have found ways to use it to play non-supported titles, such as Skyrim. Fashion designers have used it as part of their shows. Microsoft even has a campaign that shows the Kinect helping stroke and brain injury patients in rehabilitation centers. Basically, modders have made the Xbox 360’s Kinect a far more functional device.

From speaking with the reps at the Microsoft booth, it seems like gamers are not the primary audience for this product.  Instead, Kinect for Windows is being aimed at developers who will try to create applications in the retail and healthcare industries. It sounds like the first step in Microsoft fully embracing the “Kinect Effect” they coined in this ad:

http://youtu.be/diy7rkWkDtU

Details are still limited, but right now we know that the Kinect for Windows will be $250, which is surprisingly pricey, considering that it’s Xbox counterpart can be found at retail for under $100. It is unclear whether this new Kinect will be backwards-compatible with the Xbox 360 model.

All we’ve ever wanted from the Kinect was that “Minority Report” experience. By offering a PC-native model, this cuts out at one of the major hurdles that was holding modders back.  We’ll have more news as the story develops.

It has been ten years since Microsoft launched the mighty Xbox and set us down on a distant planet with one of the most iconic characters in gaming today, Master Chief. Halo set the bar for shooters on consoles, seeing as it was the launch title for a console that was designed for FPS gaming. The controls were solid, the story was interesting and the multiplayer brought us all together. If you’re thinking Halo Anniversary is just a nice way to commemorate the original game with an HD remake, be ready for much much more.
What you will know before picking up the game is that yes, this is a full high definition remake of the original game. They promised a heightened gaming experience with the free DLC Anniversary maps for Halo Reach multiplayer. Now once you pop in the game, if you follow your instincts and curiosity, there is something waiting just below the surface. When you played Halo ten years ago, did you ever look down a corridor or go the wrong way on purpose just because your gut feeling said “Somethings down there”? Most of the time you would find a dead soldier and some ammo or an over shield. Bungie knows the mind of their fans and decided to reward curiosity in Halo Anniversary. This time if you follow your gut, you will discover hidden terminals planted in each level. Some are just a flashing beacon, others are an “incoming message” on a computer screen, but if you access them you will get to see a short video following 343 guilty spark and his time on installation 04. The terminals give a lot of really cool plot info covering past present and future linking to the sequel. I won’t spoil the details so you’ll just have to check them out for yourself. Happy hunting!

If you don’t own a Kinect, you’re missing out on some sweet features in this game as well as bonus content. During solo campaign mode you have the ability to use a list of voice commands with the Kinect. You can say things like “Change weapon” or “Reload” i had the most fun with “Flashlight”. These may seem gimmicky but they added a scanning feature (guess what the command is). When you are in scan mode everything goes into batman vision a la Arkham Asylum/Arkham City, except for key items and characters which will show as bright orange. You can rest your reticle on these things and say “Analyze”, it will gather information on the object and store it in your library. This will give a complete description and background for you to browse through later. They also offer a nostalgia mode allowing you to switch back and forth from the classic look of halo to the HD version. This is one of the coolest features, just going to different areas and comparing the detail is amazing to look at. If you are using the Kinect just say “Classic” or “Remastered”, otherwise you can just hit select.

Let’s talk multiplayer and achievements. Seeing the old maps really warmed my heart. Playing the old maps with a jet pack sells the game by itself. Everything you remember is right where you left it. The weapons are in the same familiar spots as well as new weapons to accommodate Reach multiplayer. The maps are as follows: Beaver Creek/Battle Canyon/Battle Creek, Damnation/Penance, Timberland/Ridgeline, Prisone/Solitary Hang ‘Em High/High Noon, and Headlong/Breakneck. I hope these maps will inspire people to bring over their TV’s and Mountain Dew for a good old fashioned LAN Party. As far as achievements go, the list got a lot longer with a total of 44, a few being pretty crazy.

One of the more crazy, and nostalgic, is “I’ll be taking that”. This achievement takes place on “Assault on the Control Room” level. This was a little reward to all those hardcore fans doing little stunts or glitches back in the day, one being the attempt to safely knock down a banshee in order to fly it through the level. The banshee sits on top of a platform about mid way through the level and can only be knocked down by sniping or hitting the platform just right with a rocket. Do this and you’ll earn 25 gamer points. Possibly the craziest achievement is “How Pedestrian” in which you must complete the second level “Halo” without the use of any vehicles. This level is long and hard (that’s what she said), if you plan on walking this entire level you’re going to need patience and some serious fire power. The level is designed for the use of the warthogs 50cal, without it you can expect bigger than usual firefights with the Covenant. There are other crazy achievements like finishing “The Library” without dying and in 30 minutes or less. You can check out the full list of achievements once you pick up the game.

Being what it is, I would give this game a perfect score, but not everyone is a Halo fan, and when it first released most people gave an 8 out of 10 which is modest. I will say 9 out of 10 just so the 1% can occupy Modern Warfare.

Can we all just come to terms on this? This is a war on the level of dumb only matched by dumb wars like Donald Trump vs Rosie O’ Donnell, Pokemon vs Digimon, Axel Rose vs his fans, Call of Duty vs the “cool kids,” and 360 vs PS3. In all cases, each had something to bring to the table and really the war was simply a tie up of preferences and poor choices with no real winner, but a bunch of losers. Donald Trump and Rosie are insane, Pokemon was kid friendly while Digimon tended to go in a darker direction, Axel Rose is… well, insane and the fans wanted him to not be, Xbox and PS3 are both gaming systems with their equal claims to success, and Call of Duty was being shoved down the general populaces throats by Activision and we were loving it like the whores we are. There may be a few detractors from the ranks who spam Meta Critic and every forum they can, clambering to speak out against the biggest giant in all of videogamedom. Yet with the release of MW3 and its record setting $775 million in sales during the first five days, the point of the few vocal has been beaten down by the wallets of the general market.

Activision’s biggest competitor in the world of gaming, EA, decided to be the voice for those vocal few with its ad campaign for Battlefield 3. Taking it right to the king with its slogan “Rise Above the Call,” that started a message board feud within the community that hasn’t seen this level of retardation since PSN went down and 360 fan boys stated the war was over (it is not, it is not even a war, it is dumb. Just stop it with the Playstation controller is for baby hands, or PSN is free, but PSN got hacked, or the Japanese don’t give a shit about Xbox, or my Momma use to beat me so screw Microsoft, or whatever. It’s dumb). The competitive ad campaign was an approach that I feel hurt Battlefield 3 by making a war that didn’t need to exist in the first place. Fan boys will protect what they are a fan of, and instead of bringing out a game that is different and fills the market with another option, it forced the stupid to make a choice between one great game and another great game with the only reason being because they were a fan or a hater.

The games, while both are first person shooters in a modern setting, couldn’t be any more different.

GamePlay:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3– MW 3, much like its predecessors; and even more so than last year’s Black Ops, is all about fast action and arcade style controls. The weight of realism is sacrificed in favor of over-the-top set-pieces and thrill-a-minute intensity. While the other game makes impacting the ground in prone have a weight to it, in Modern Warfare 3 it is not implausible to dive from a second story after a full sprint like Superman onto your belly without even an exhale of air. Hell, jumping off of a building and getting a headshot while performing a full 360 spin like a ballerina action hero became a thing. Everyone in CoD is a John Woo character (John Woo is the retro Michael Bay, he was Michael Bay before Michael Bay was Michael Bay. Note: Michael Bay to Call of Duty reference quota has been fulfilled).

Movements in MW3 are brisk and the controls are precise, allowing for crazy twitch reactions that count heavily on an individual’s reflexes and tend to make a player feel a tad badass. It is very possible to hold down the trigger and keep an even spread as if recoil was hardly a concern at all. Even at vast distances it is not implausible to keep a bead on an enemy without having to resort to a burst shot method. While this doesn’t play into the hand of realism, it does play into the hand of ridiculous fun without a concern for strategy. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is all about pacing, and it is a pace that never slows down. From Single-Player to Multi-Player it is mindless stupid action.

Battlefield 3 – BF 3 is all about scope and is the closest thing to a realistic shooter out at the moment. There is a weight to the controls that makes actions slower but more deliberate. The action takes place on a broader spectrum and rewards co-operation and patience, recoil is a big deal here, and the spread can easily get out of hand even at short distances. Learning to control bursts is a must, and while a player can sprint for miles without a break, the size of the playing field can often mean there will be a lot of sprinting.

Hitting the ground in prone gives a split second of re-adjustment as the gun and the character have to find their place. The environment explodes and chips away, trees fall from impact, and cover fire blurs the screen making shots more difficult. Entire buildings can collapse with the right amount of work and vehicles just keep coming to make life more stressful. Yet, with all of this, MW3 still moves quicker and is far more chaotic. Battlefield 3 is all about focus and strategy, working around obstacles rather than running head-first into every bit of danger that comes along. Battlefield 3 is the Saving Private Ryan to Modern Warfare 3’s Rambo.

Final Call – Modern Warfare 3 is all about how fast things can move and how big the explosions can be. While Battlefield 3 has environments that go boom, the booms in MW3 are just that much bigger. If you as a player feel like killing things without much thought, you pick up MW3. If you as a player feel like working with a team and developing strategies with friends to conquer a wide open map, you pick up BF3.

Winner!

Team Fortress 2: It is a strategy class based shooter that is about as arcadey as it can get. The design is simple and the animations are more recognizable than any other shooter on earth. Plus, it is free to play now. So… you should probably get on that.

Graphics:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – Modern Warfare 3 is Modern Warfare 2 with maybe a slight upgrade. It is the same engine, it looks damn near identical and this could be said about everything from general control, to sound, to of course the topic of discussion now. This is to say, the game looks fantastic. Better than mostly everything out there today. Activision is playing it safe and that’s just fine. The lighting is good and the camera work during the single-player campaign is top-notch. It gives the cinematics a larger than life appeal that seamlessly transition into gameplay. The graphics are Call of Duty, millions of people recognize it in all of its Call of Dutiness.

Battlefield 3 -Battlefield 3 is a new game built on a new engine. It is tender love and care from the ground up and on a powerful PC it is one of the best damn looking games around. This isn’t opinion, this is fact. Battlefield 3 is incredible looking. With the new re-tooled Frostbite 2 engine, there is a sense of realism that Call of Duty just can’t match. Yet, that isn’t what Call of Duty is about is it?

Even on massive battlegrounds buildings will topple in real time, parts of it will chip away as shots are fired upon it. Potted plants burst in your face, and pieces of large rubble blown away from the side of buildings can crush someone standing in its trajectory. The amount of work the engine takes on in every single moment of the game is absolutely stunning. Everything works to add that realism to a game that focuses a lot on realism. Which Call of Duty does not.

Final Call - In terms of graphics, it really isn’t a debate. MW3 is based on an old engine that looked great when it was released and still looks good now. BF3 is a whole new engine and one of the best looking games to date. Yet, all of its graphical achievements are based on making it feel more real, something that Call of Duty doesn’t care to achieve. Because it doesn’t have to, it is not what the game is about. (And yes, MW3 runs at 60fps while BF3 runs at 30fps. It will hardly be a bother while playing BF3, and MW3 needs all its 60fps so it can be so damn unrealistically fast.)

Winner!

Skyrim: Seriously, the new Elder Scrolls game looks fantastic, especially on a PC. There’s nothing else quite as damn pretty, and in terms of scope. No competition. There was many a time I stood atop a mountain as I stared across the horizon and caught myself saying the words “holy crap, this is purty.” While this maybe could happen in MW3 or BF3, I think I was too damn busy saying “Where the f*$% did I get killed from!?” or “That’s right! You can’t beat m-F*&#!”

Sound:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – In terms of voice acting, MW3 wins. This in thanks to the big time talent behind the voices of the game. Sure the characters ooze a level of machismo that can only be compared to the Chuck Norris invented by Chuck Norris jokes. The acting is impeccable and the amount of banter in the main storyline is fun to listen to. Plus hell, it has a rock soundtrack. That’s awesome right? It is like a movie!

Battlefield 3 – In terms of in game sound effects, BF3 wins. The sound of guns in enclosed spaces echoes appropriately to its surroundings, the weapons have the right amount of explosive power behind them to sound real. Not to mention the sound of bullets hitting the rock above your head or a sniper bullet whizzing by your ear is enough to frighten anyone with the right headset or sound system. Vehicles can be heard from miles away as they roll over debris, crunching rock and whatever else below them. Helicopters and jets drown out the sound of bullets and when jumping out of one the wind lashes the ears just like it should. The game sounds just as fantastic as it looks.

Final Call – MW3 and BF3 sound like shooters. They have guns and they shoot stuff. Battlefield 3 sounds better thanks to its incredible new engine, and there is seriously nothing more intimidating than a sniper bullet in that game. Yet, the voice acting in Modern Warfare 3 is head and shoulders above most in the industry.

Winner!

BioShock: In terms of voice acting and cinematic appeal, this game is still on top. Has anyone seen; or in this case, heard the previews for Infinite? Holy crap. While it has an artistic look, the sound is impeccable, and the soundtrack is everything it needs to be. From the first moment a player enters Rapture the sound design is there to get its creep on. It never lets up and the sound is just as much a part of the experience as the level design and the story itself.

Single-Player:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – If there was ever a time to go ahead and hand a winner medal to one of these two games in a category it is in this department (and sound). Modern Warfare 3’s story may be over the top, and it may feel a bit on the rails in terms of how it pushes the player to one exploding set-piece to another, but it is essentially everything anyone can expect from a game in this series. That is to say it is badass. It may be full of more plot holes than… something full of holes (a well irrigated garden or swiss cheese perhaps? I don’t know. Not incredible with analogies) but beyond anything it is fun. Sure there is a violent murdering of a dog that is glossed over like nothing happened, and there is nothing quite as WTF! as the airport terrorist sequence from MW2. In the end however, MW3 is a great short single player campaign that makes using it as training for the real game (multiplayer) a good time.

Battlefield 3 – For all of its posturing and “above the call” crap, Dice appeared to forget that a large number of CoD fans buy the game for its campaign. I know that sounds dumb, but it is true, some people want to play a shooter, but couldn’t give a damn about having a 10 year old shout in his ear about how much of a faggot they are. I know one of these people, they exist, I’ve witnessed it. (The person who didn’t like multiplayer, not a 10 year old shouting faggot into someone’s ear.)

BF3’s campaign wants to be Modern Warfare so bad that it is actually a little sad. They even dedicated a majority of its ad campaign to showing off the campaign. So, it isn’t like they weren’t aware that some people cared about the single player. The story is full of big set-pieces and it takes place in a world that feels more real (read: boring) but in the end it is just not that exciting. Levels are designed like linear corridors even when outdoors and the entire affair feels a whole lot more confined than Modern Warfare 3. The characters are even more forgettable than their MW3 counter-parts and I found myself wanting the Bad Company crew back. This is not to say that the BF3 campaign sucks, it’s okay, but as a training tool for the real game, it doesn’t even let you use the vehicles much. So, yeah… I guess it kinda sucks.

Final Call – In the single player category there is a clear winner, and that isn’t a single person’s opinion. This is a majority opinion in not only the community, but in the “professional” news world as well.

Winner!

Half Life 2: HA! GOTCHA! In terms of big time single player campaigns in a large shooter franchise, nothing tops HL2. Valve took its time making everyone care for its side characters and establishing the silent hero Gordon Freeman as the lab geek turned hero of the world who is also awesome. We love that nerd with a gun, we really do. Hell, it has been over 4 years since episode 2 concluded on a cliff hanger, and fans are still clamoring for an end to a story started in 2004. That’s a level of dedication that can only be compared to that of a Tool fan. Seriously, Maynard… I need a new album.

Multi-Player:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – It’s crazy, it’s chaotic, it’s all about the kills, it’s Modern Warfare 3 baby! There isn’t much different within the core mechanics here, and that’s fine. While some things have been changed in the sake of balance and to favor some co-operative play, in the end, it is all about the K/D and playing to that sort of frantic kill, kill, die, respawn, kill, kill style of gameplay that the series has perfected over the years.

While new kill streaks called strike packages have been introduced and modes like Kill Confirmed works to try and get people to play together like a team. The game does not hurt anyone for being a lone gunman in their own one man army. Actually many still play that way and are perfectly fine for it if their scores have anything to say about it. Team work may make a group unstoppable if done correctly, but it is doubtful that the majority of the hivemind will give a damn.

MW3 has so many game modes that there will be something to do and people to shoot in so many variations that it can become difficult to become bored. While it isn’t quite Halo big in term of game modes, it is impressive. Also they brought back Spec-Ops which is as always, a great co-op experience. If you are into that sort of stuff.

Battlefield 3 – BF3 may not have as many game modes as MW3 but what it does have is incredibly well designed. Rush and Conquest modes take place on many maps that have multiple entry points to an objective and often span large distances that can be compared to playing on all the MW3 maps at once. The scope of the field of battle (see what I did there?) is ridicuhuge (new word) and the balance between vehicles, player classes, and weaponry only continues to force people to play together or be slaughtered by those who do.

Every class has been re-done to offer support to the team from reviving, to repairing vehicles, to re-supplying ammo. The co-op bases are covered. It is amazing what a strategically placed revive can do to turn the tide of battle at the last moment. Also when you throw in destructible landscape, that sniper in the second story window isn’t much of a problem anymore. Having trouble with the one point of entry to an objective? Whip out some C4 or rocket launcher and make a new one!

Battlefield 3 matches can take some work and often leave an exhausted feeling in players. It isn’t as quick and there is plenty of times that a badly timed spawn can mean having to run for what feels like –forever- back to battle, since all the vehicles are gone. The pacing of BF3 is slower and more deliberate, and the multiplayer rewards teamwork like no other shooter out there. It’s a different type of game, and that is what makes it special.

Final Call – The point here is as it has been from the get go in this article. Comparing these two games is just unfair; there is no need for a war when in essence MW3 and BF3 fulfill a different purpose. It is completely alright and actually worth it to go ahead and buy both if you can afford it. They both offer something the other doesn’t. BF3 may have more of that new game smell compared to the yearly recycle that is the CoD franchise, yet no one does arcade kill-fests quite like the call, and in the end BF3 doesn’t look to try to compete if the final product has anything to say about it.

Winner!

World of Warcraft: Beause… screw you. That’s why!

I have a theme going here if you haven’t noticed, and WoW is the biggest multiplayer game in the history of ever and has been the reason Blizzard is one of the most successful developers around, even though they’ve only released around two games in the time that CoD has been a franchise. I could have just said Halo and really pissed in them fanboy Cheerios.

Final Final Word!

It’s plain that my objective here has been to not pick a real winner between the two, but instead to poke fun at the whole fact that we even have to compare them. BF3 is a team class based semi-realistic modern day FPS with an emphasis on team-work, strategy, vehicles, and large open playing fields while MW3 is an action packed fast paced modern day FPS with an emphasis on quick chaotic matches and small confined maps to help keep the action centralized. With such a large sales gap between the two games, it is obvious that CoD isn’t going anywhere. BF3 did really well, but it is far from competing on that level, even Halo got swallowed by the Modern Warfare beast.

So what if in MW3 I entered my first match and had my first death ever be at the hands of a player named Cuminmyanus (which I believe Live confused for Cumin-Myan-us which doesn’t make a damned bit of a sense and is honestly retarded). That is just the general market! It is full of Dr Creamhorn’s and other dick or bodily excrement references. That is what all the BF3 fans can look forward to if the series ever reaches that level of success.

The Real Winner!

YOU!:That’s right. I know it may sound all after school special, but seriously. There are two awesome FPS games out there with a ton to offer, and they both do what the other doesn’t. So, do everyone a favor and get off the pedestal and go back to just enjoying the games you like and stop pissing on everyone’s parade.

I used to love PC gaming.  Unreal Tournament ’99? Counter-Strike?  Those were my jams, son. For years, I’d raged about how console controllers could never replicate the precision needed for PC shooters.  Then I traded my PC for a Mac and joined all my “regular people” friends on Xbox Live.

Nowadays, I’m much happier in my gated community. Still, part of me yearns for the lightning-quick madness of mouse-and-keyboard controls. I just want to spin on a dime and put a single sniper round through some fool’s eyeball one last time.

That’s where Penguin United’s Eagle Eye Converter 3.0 comes in. Basically, this device claims to let console players hook up their mouse and keyboards to their Xbox 360.

Sounds great in theory, but does it actually work?

The Big Idea:

The Eagle Eye claims to provide tighter, more accurate controls akin to what you’d experience on the PC. Granted, being the only person in a game that has this enhancement sure sounds like cheating to me, but I’m not opposed to a bit of good natured rule-bendin’. Ain’t like I’ve never “soft-Googled” a Scrabble word or two in my time, so let’s keep an open mind here.

What’s in the Box?

Inside the $60 package you’ll find the Eagle Eye Converter–a small control box that serves as a bridge between the Xbox and your mouse and keyboard.  You can preprogram up to two different button configurations at a time. So if you play Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3, you can instantly swap between your two custom layouts with a flick of the switch.

There are a bunch of turbo switches, too, if you’re the sort of person that needs to have artificially enhanced super-rapid-fire pistols. Cheater. The turbo switches work just fine, so if you want to skip right past “rule bending” and straight-up ruin everyone else’s experience, here’s your chance.

A Very Questionable Definition of “Easy”

Unfortunately, using the Eagle Eye isn’t as dirt simple as its “Ownage Never Comes Easier” (Eww.) tagline makes it seem. The device needs to jump through quite a few hoops before it can trick your 360 into accepting a mouse and keyboard.

First, be aware that you need the official wired Microsoft controller. The Eagle Eye won’t work with the official Microsoft wireless pad or any third-party controller.

Second, you need a Windows PC to run the Eagle Edit key mapping software. The application isn’t compatible with Apple, so Mac users are out of luck—or they’ll just need to lug the thing to their workplace PC, like I did. For a device whose target consumer has potentially traded his or her gaming PC for a Macbook, and  is now taking extraordinary measures to replicate the PC gaming experience, this seems like a massive oversight.

One-Time Initial Set Up:

There’s no denying it: For the console crowd, this is a complicated device. And by “complicated,” I mean “prepare to sit with the instructional manual in your lap.”

Here is the first-time setup process from beginning to end:

• After you’ve installed the Eagle Edit software, plug the Eagle Eye box into your PC’s USB slot.
• Then, attach your intended mouse and keyboard to the Eagle Eye. So far, the device has worked with every mouse and keyboard combo I’ve had lying around, so it’s fairly versatile.
• Next, map your buttons to whatever keys you’d like. There are also a bunch of “axis dead zone” and “sensitivity” options.  These can be pretty tricky, so you’ll probably be better off downloading an existing configuration from Penguin United’s Calibration database.
• After you recheck your controls, you can save them right to the Eagle Eye box.

Congratulations, you are now done with the one-time-only initial set up. It’s smooth sailing from here, right? Nope! Get ready for a big sloppy bucket of tedium.

The following is what you need to do every single time you want to use this thing:

Step One:

Turn on your Xbox and connect the completely empty Eagle Eye device to your Xbox 360.

Step Two:

Plug your wired controller to the port in either the mouse or keyboard USB slots on the Eagle Eye box. Wait for the Xbox 360 to register the controller.

Step Three:

Now, remove the controller from the Eagle Eye and connect your mouse and keyboard.  You should now be able to navigate the dashboard.

We are not finished yet.

Step Four:

Start up a game. Your keyboard should be working perfectly, but chances are the mouse is jerking around and moving rather slowly… so reach for that instruction manual, because it’s time to adjust for your mouse’s individual dead zones and sensitivity!

Step Five:

Using the keyboard’s function keys and scroll wheel, slowly tweak your controls until you’re able to aim a bit smoother and faster. Just keep experimenting.  To help you pass the time, scream obscenities at the device.

Finally, once you make some progress, press the F6 key to save your settings to the Eagle Eye Converter.

Technically, saving that painstaking calibration should mean that you won’t need to do this again, but the odds of your mouse working perfectly are pretty slim. From my experience, after messing with these advanced controls, I was eventually able to get a modicum of smoothness, but it would still jerk and freeze up while I was turning, causing me to catch a lot of bullets with my face.

Ownage Never Comes

During my time with the Eagle Eye Converter 3.0, I gave it a go in Call of Duty and Brink. I was definitely able to line up some specific shots that normally wouldn’t be possible. In the center area of the screen, the mouse control certainly gives you an advantage.  Outside of that sweet spot though, it’s a different story. If you need to quickly spin to face an enemy, you’re already dead. I’m not an expert, but I don’t really think that’s an accurate definition of “ownage.”

Let’s not even get into the beating I took in Serious Sam.

Is This Thing Worth It?

Penguin United was nice enough to send us a review sample, but frankly this just isn’t a very good device.  Even if there is some aspect of set-up that I’m missing, that’s beside the point.  I’m reasonably tech-savvy. If I’m getting confused, chances are that other people will be confused too. The Eagle Eye is a good idea, but I wouldn’t buy one myself. It has all the warm user-friendliness of a Cinco product.

I’ll give Peguin United this, though: The keyboard component does work pretty well for Street Fighter IV.  So if you wanted a cost effective way to turn your keyboard into a homemade HitBox, well, here you go.

Real Talk: If you’re a console player looking for a little bit of a competitive edge, I recommend that you buy a set of KontrolFreeks. They’re only ten bucks and greatly increase your accuracy and control with a gamepad. After a week or two of use, I couldn’t imagine playing without them.  I still may not be an “OWNAGE” expert, but they have definitely helped me step up my game.

Happy Dashboard Day! The newest revision to the Xbox 360 UI is available now after a brief delay this morning. Sticking with Microsoft’s new Metro obsession, get ready for page after page of flattened tiles, complete with nestled ads and a wide array of various sized boxes. If you’ve got a Windows Phone or the Windows 8 beta, you should feel right at home in box country.

One of the biggest changes aside from the visual aesthetic is the full Kinect motion and voice integration. Now you can change panes with a wave of a hand nearly anywhere you are in the Xbox interface. Swipe through lists with the flick of your wrist, or just tell Bing what you want and let her do the work. If you’ve been using Windows 8 with a mouse, you’ll know how antiquated your controller will feel when not using gestures to navigate the new UI. It works, but Minority Report would have been much less impressive if they would have been sitting at desks researching crime patterns on Altavista, Dogpile, and Compuserve.

While all these changes are fine and integrating the look of Microsoft’s other platforms makes sense, the folks at Microsoft have a loftier goal. They want you to turn your Xbox 360 on every time you turn on your television. While that may be already a truth for some of us, expanding the Xbox 360 to a cable box, PPV hub, HBO/Cinemax portal, and Redbox alternative, all go to their goal to “change living room entertainment forever.”

I have avoided Sonic games for a good long time now. The last one I laid my hands on was Sonic Heroes, which was an overall broken experience. Since then I neglected to care about the blue hedgehog with attitude; the series had gone off the rails into being unimaginative and frustratingly flawed. I didn’t want my childhood memories to take any more hits, as I was one of the kids who held Sonic in high esteem and adopted the Genesis over the Super Nintendo. I still believe the four Sonics on the Genesis are some of the strongest platformers of that early generation. The years have not been kind to him however, and the third dimension has nearly destroyed the credibility of Sega’s mascot. The continued redevelopment of the franchise has only succeeded in hurting the franchise, and the new additions only proved to be a departure from what made it so damn fun in the first place. The Sonic franchise isn’t about riding around on skates and using guns, it isn’t about running around with a sword, it isn’t about turning into a werewolf, and it for damn sure isn’t about Sonic experiencing a blossoming social life with other random animals with attitude.

There was once a time when this mascot went head to head with Nintendo’s plumber and during its height was even considered better by quite a large group. As time went on though, Mario continued to get better and better and Sonic continued to become an embarrassment to itself with each release being reminiscent of all those 80’s hair bands trying to stay relevant by dropping a new shitty album well after their prime. It didn’t work for Mötley Crüe, it didn’t work for Guns N’ Roses, and it for damn sure didn’t work for Sonic. Unlike these bands though, Sonic has seen a couple of releases recently that were strong and further proof that it was possible to make a good Sonic game.

For Sonic’s 20^th birthday we see the release of Sonic Generations, and I have no shame in saying that it is yet another good game in the series and a return to form for the blue guy. Sonic Team has finally gone back to what made the series so much fun, fast gameplay mixed with twitch based platforming. There is a story here and while it is mostly dumb, it is exactly what it needs to be; an excuse to make this a Sonic only game. Thank god for that by the way. The game opens with Sonic throwing a birthday party with all of his friends, then suddenly a monster appears and tears away the fabric of time and space, kidnaps his friends, and throws Sonic into a sort of limbo. In this Limbo, new Sonic is introduced to his child self, and they both learn that by running at high speeds through areas of their life, they can return time to normal. Not exactly scientifically sound, but it is an excuse to run really fast and play as both a 3D sonic from the likes of Sonic Colors, and an improved 2D Sonic from the likes of Episode 4.

Each level in the game is a re-imagining of a stage from every game in the series, from the good games to the bad. Thankfully, the bad game’s stages have been re-imagined into being awesome and often times a tad bit challenging. It is really fun going back through levels from Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 (the only good 3D Sonics) in 2D, and overall the new sonic stages are more exciting with the way they move from 3D to 2D seamlessly. At times however, they are frustratingly bogged down by a wonky camera and the occasional action not performing the way it should. The homing missile move that sonic has adapted over the years adds to the fast jumps that rely heavily on quick reflexes that many of us have honed over the years, yet sometimes, it just doesn’t work out of nowhere resulting in a quick, unfair death. The camera will also tend to get stuck on a corner or refuse to function correctly, and these moments lead to a complete halt to the action as the player struggles to get things back on track.

2D Sonic, on the other hand, is solid in every single level, and some of the later stages are challenging and well designed. Making this all feel like a refreshing return to the status quo. The main game can go by just as fast as the action itself and if done doing the bare minimum, can easily be completed in less than 5 hours. What makes the experience last is the introduction of challenge stages that open up before boss battles after 3 levels have been completed by both Sonics. There are multiple challenge stages for each level and each of them can be played by both Sonics. The challenges range from more enemies in a redesigned version of the stage, to only 1 ring to get through an entire section, to racing against a doppleganger, to a ton more options. Most of these are a lot of fun and add a challenge to the game that otherwise is non-existent. There are some on the other hand that are incredibly dumb and ruin the fun, more often than not these bad stages are the ones that call on Sonics buddies to help out.

Seriously, screw all of Sonic’s friends, all they serve to do is hold him back from being great. Most of them commit the one cardinal sin of this franchise; slow the game down. These challenge stages are frustrating not because they are difficult, but because of how utterly bad they are. Luckily, these challenges don’t have to be completed to move on, but if you are a completionist, prepare to want to curse the day Sonic ever decided to have a social life.

Bosses do make a return to the franchise, with seven battles in total; they are all mostly well-built and sort of fun. I would have much rather had a boss to end each stage like they used to however, I didn’t much like the way things were laid out here. Each section of 3 levels is capped by a final boss in a random level designed only for that fight, which can only be unlocked by completing one challenge stage for each level. There is also the mid-boss type that is a fight with one of Sonic’s rivals, again in their own stage. Most of them are fun in their own way, but are definitely not a high-point in the game. The final boss is extra guilty for just plain being badly designed and the furthest thing away from fun.

Final Call: Sonic has returned to being a good game, and added with the apparently awesome Sonic Colors, Sega may have finally figured out what made these games good in the first place. I don’t think he will be at the level of greatness that Mario is at ever again, because while Mario continues to evolve with each release, Sonic has had to de-evolve in order to remember what made him awesome in the first place. Hopefully with time Sonic Generations can be looked back on as a step towards the greatness that one of my favorite mascots has always deserved. The game is very short and even with the additional challenge stages, it is only about a 10 hour experience. Sonic Generations as a whole is a good game. Not a great one, but a really good one worth a rental.

Pros:

• Fast and exciting gameplay
• Imaginative level design that is continuously exhilarating
• Most Challenge levels add a fair amount of difficulty to the game
• Beautiful graphics that add a layer of depth to each stage
• Remixed soundtrack is mostly great

Cons:

• Occasional camera bugs can lead to misjudging a jump or halting the action
• Fickle control scheme can sometimes break, leading to unfair deaths
• Challenge levels with Sonic’s friends are mostly atrocious
• Boss battles are either okay or bad

Dice is not playing around with its first DLC for its big hit Battlefield 3. The promised free expansion that was given to consumers who bought the Special Edition of the game is more than just a map pack. It will give fans of the game 4 new maps, three new vehicles, ten new weapons, five new dog tags, five new achievements/trophies, and lastly a whole new game mode. The game mode while not exactly new, is the return of Conquest Assault which for those not familiar is a hectic version of Conquest. Conquest Assault starts with one team fully in control of every spot immediately putting one team on offensive and the other tasked to defend their territory.

The four “new” maps included in the DLC are re-worked versions of the most popular classic Battlefield maps: Strike at Karkand, Gulf of Oman, Sharqui Peninsula, and Wake Island. Each map is re-designed with the new Frostbite 2.0 engine which will leave more buildings to be destroyed and a change up for even those familiar with these maps. Dice has gone back through each of the maps and re-made them to show the wear and tear of all the battles that had played out on them previously. These are war torn places and fans will be surprised to see how much has changed on their favorite battlefields.

“The launch of Battlefield 3 was only the beginning as we vow to keep the game alive with additional content and gameplay improvements in the months ahead. We’re excited to recreate and share some new Battlefield moments on these beloved maps that only Battlefield games can provide,” Says Executive Vice President of the EA Games Label, Patrick Soderlund, adding, “Back to Karkand is another way for us to say thanks to our fans and show our continued support for the game.”

As a fan of the game, Mr. Soderlund, I say “you’re welcome and thank you.” This is big news for anyone who got their hands on the Special Edition of Battlefield 3 and even for those who didn’t. If you aren’t one of the lucky ones, the DLC will only be $14.99 and for all the content provided, the price tag is worth it.

Back to Karkand will be available Tuesday December 6th for PS3 owners. Xbox and PC owners will have to wait a whole extra week when the DLC drops for them on December 13th.

Can't Wait

I sat inside of an inn, basking in the warmth of the fireplace as I read over a few books that I had collected along my journey. The quaint establishment was full of chatter that ranged from talk of a thieves guild I had helped re-establish to a bard playing his lute while singing a song I had heard many times. Patrons interacted with each other independently of my influence, and even gathered around the singing bard, waving their cups in the air along with the song. It was a small moment, one of many, but one I couldn’t help but to seep myself into as I sat on my own couch in the real world eating a meal that would keep me going for a few more hours. I had barely delved into the main quest to rescue the world from the threat of the dragons that looked to end the world, but I had cleared my way through many dungeons and conquered what they had laid out before me. Uncovering many stories within that I might otherwise had missed. It was this sense of discovery in a world that never ceased to give me things to do that inspired me to impart so much of my free time into a game that rarely failed to immerse me in a way I had never been before in this medium of entertainment.

There are so many small moments within Skyrim that stuck in my memory and made me happy that I had a bit of a problem staying on target while playing. I had met old gods named Daedra Princes, that had me do their bidding against my better judgement, I had run into a man in another inn and joined him in a drinking contest that ended in something like The Hangover: Medieval Times. I had even stumbled into the mind of a long dead ruler that had been driven mad, and I had shared a feast with an old god in a moment that reminded me a bit of the tea party with the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland. The world of Skyrim had made me feel regret for a few of my actions, it made me chuckle as I played a game of tag with a few kids in a city, and it always made me feel inspired to continue to discover what was hidden within the frozen mountainous land of the Nords (The Elder Scrolls version of the Vikings). Bethesda‘s magnum opus to the open world genre had me grinding away hours of my life picking flowers, hunting deer for their hides, and chasing after butterflies like a child with attention deficit disorder just because I could. It was essentially a gateway to a wonderful new place that made me realize that I possibly had a few mental disorders I wasn’t otherwise aware of.

Skyrim is an exquisitely crafted piece of a world that has been built upon over five different games, and it is thick with mythology and lore so finely detailed that it is absolutely mind-blowing to consider the amount of time put into each slice of the entire life sucking pie. A pie that can easily consume well over 100 hours of a gamer’s free time. Skyrim made me a feel like I had missed something when I had put away Oblivion, only playing it for maybe ten hours before I had forgotten to pick it up again. It made me regret that I had never tried to go back through Morrowind when it had glitched on me many hours in and made a main character disappear, ruining my chances to play through the main storyline. I had however played through Fallout 3 in a fashion that could only be described as religious, so I knew full well what Bethesda was capable of. Yet, no matter how much I loved the post-apocalyptic world of Fallout, Skyrim had introduced me to the harsh continent of Tamriel and I was enamored by the amount of detail woven into every bit of it.

Skyrim is a game defined by the small moments like the ones I described in the first two paragraphs. While the main quest has its moments, the freedom of the open world led to a path that I imagined looked more like a heart rate monitor than a straight cohesive line to an objective. There is very seldom a sense of urgency, and while a player is fully aware the world is under the threat of world ending dragons and that they are the chosen dragonborn with the destiny to defeat them, it is just far more fun to run up that mountain and see what’s over the ridge. It feels like a bit of a downfall, but one hardly worth being much of a complaint. Bethesda has done a wonderful job accumulating all they have learned from their previous games and streamlined much of the content that bogged down the experience of the previous installments. No longer is character creation about picking a class and having to stick to it, things are as simple as choosing a race with some benefits in one area or the other and then going on your adventure.

Skyrim has changed the way I feel about the way a character should level, the freedom given to players to do what they want to do in the case of character development is impeccably clever and I hope RPG’s in the future take a few hints from it. If you want to wield magic, you simply do it, and the more you use it, the more it levels. Want to become a sneak thief that can pickpocket a weapon and the clothes right off a guard’s back without being detected? Skulk around in stealth and pickpocket simple things until the skills level up to that point. The system of building a character based on what a player actually uses is an idea that should have been implemented long ago. The leveling itself has been streamlined, it as simple as placing a point in magic, health, or stamina and then picking a perk if you have leveled a particular skill high enough, it just makes sense. There is no need to wait for a level so you can increase the lock-picking skill to get into that treasure chest found a few dungeons back anymore. If a lock is set to a high difficulty level and the players skill is low, it simply means the puzzle is going to be more difficult and they will likely go through a lot more lock-picks. There is no longer a feeling of being punished when a choice of what class the player has chosen keeps them away from content within the game.

The combat system itself has been improved vastly over that of its predecessors with a simple tweak known as dual wielding. It may sound like a small attachment, but in practice it completely changes the way the game is played. You could wield two single handed weapons and tear apart foes with speed, or equip a shield spell in one hand and blast away with fireballs in the other. You can even do like I did and spend most of the game with one hand always ready with a healing spell as you slash away at foes with a weapon in the other to then switch off to dual wielded fireballs to lay waste to stronger foes from a distance. When two of the same spells are wielded together with the right perk, the results are spectacular. There was something downright fulfilling about blasting away with lightning in two hands as if I was Emperor Palpatine.

The combat in the Elder Scrolls series has always been known to be a bit airy, with impact sometimes feeling a smidgen off. While I noticed this in earlier games, it wasn’t much of an issue in Skyrim. Each hit felt visceral and impacted with the right amount of gory sound to be satisfying. The pull out cinematics from the Fallout series return here, and instead of limbs being blown off by a shot, we are instead treated to beheadings, quick cuts taking out the legs before another slices deep into the neck, and even the occasional impaling upon a large sword. These are a thankfully a well added addition, and while at times the animations can be sloppy and underwhelming, they feel good none the less. So what if a mace cleanly beheads a person as if it was a sword, or if you accidentally get treated to a scene of anal sword rape. It is a nice addition, and the glitches simply follow the knowledge that this is indeed a Bethesda game.

Glitches are bound to happen in a world this large with this much detail. NPC’s move about a city or around the paths on the terrain as if they are all actually going about their lives separate from a player’s involvement or manipulation, it is an impressive feat that should be filled with a lot more bugs then we see in the final product. Dead Island didn’t get away from game breaking bugs, and its world was far smaller and less detailed. This is a difficult game to tackle for developers and the occasional floating corpse or flying mammoth is well within the bounds of acceptable. I don’t hear much about game breaking glitches, there is the occasional lock-up that can be frustrating and it is made ever more so by the obtrusively long loading screens. Nothing however serves to break the experience, most of the time the glitches are simply funny.

Speaking of loading screens, this is one complaint I can lobby without remorse. They are a tad long on consoles, and make the latter part of the game a bit of a chore when fast traveling from place to place to get quests done or entering a new city and exploring to gather up quests. It isn’t much of an issue when delving into dungeons or traveling the vast world, but in cities every door that is opened prompts a loading screen that can take a minute or so, just to spend a few moments inside the shop before exiting to another loading screen. Fast traveling is a quicker way to get around, and while the designs of individual characters, dragons, doors, and tables are impressive. There are only so many times I can manipulate them on a loading screen before it all just becomes tedious and the immersion is dampened.

The main stories themselves are all well and good, but as with most Bethesda games they are slightly underwhelming when everything is said and done. The civil war comes off rushed, and the main story comes to a conclusion a bit too easily. The guild quests are at best engrossing and at worst uninteresting and uninspired. As I stated before, Skyrim stands tall on the small details, the side quests, and its sense of discovery. It is a more streamlined interface that makes exploring more rewarding and less laborious thanks to icons appearing on the compass when a player is in an area that has some points of interest. If the icon is black, it hasn’t been discovered, if white, it has. This makes going on a mission in a new area far more difficult since Timmy is likely going to have to wait to find out about his parents well-being in that one dungeon because there are far to many black areas on my compass along the way, and I have to see what is there. It is Bethesda’s fault for randomly placing interesting quests within these discoveries that makes me feel like I’d be cheating my experience by rushing through an objective. Oh, and one more complaint. The menus… they do suck quite a bit. Expect to spend more then enough time digging through them constantly to get to where you want to be.

Final Call: Skyrim is not a perfect game, but with such scope and imagination it is damn near impossible to really get everything right. Bethesda Softworks has created a title that is the new bar for what is possible in a video game and is their masterpiece to the open world genre. It may suffer from the occasional hiccup and glitch, or a story that has little sense of pacing and comes off as underwhelming by the end, but the real story of Skyrim is the one the player creates. The best moments lie in the scenery and the side quests, they lie in watching a giant mourn over the loss of his mammoth on the bank of a river, so struck with grief that it doesn’t lift a finger to attack when approached by the player. Skyrim is a fantastic place that continues to add to the mythos of the Elder Scrolls world, and I was more then happy to spend damn near 100 total hours in it.

Pros:

• Highly detailed world that is large and riddled with tons of content
• Visceral and pleasing combat mechanics
• Possible to spend a reported 300+ hours with the amount of side quests available
• Streamlined traveling and leveling system makes the game more accessible
• Beautiful graphics with an eye for the smallest of details
• Side quests so finely written, that they can often trump the main content

Cons:

• Incredibly long loading screens
• Main story is underwhelming and left feeling unimportant
• The occasional bug can freeze the game
• Clumsily designed menu system

Xbox live and PSN have proved to be a great place to delve into a different world within gaming. As mainstream titles looks to assault our senses with over the top action, large explosions, and worlds so large that traveling from one corner to the other could take hours. Mainstream games are in essence trying to consistently become bigger and badder than what has come before. The digital market however, has aimed to remind us of a simpler time in gaming. Many of the games on the digital market have innovated upon older gaming conventions and added a sense of artistic flair that continues to prove that gaming can be an art form. From the platformer puzzle games that entered into dark surrealism such as Braid and Limbo, to an action RPG title that introduced us to an ever evolving painted world in Bastion, and to now a beautiful serene landscape that gives us a Populous for our consoles with From Dust.

The point of this introduction is to talk about the last game mentioned here; From Dust, which recently saw release on the virtual consoles during this year’s Summer of Arcade. As the virtual console has become more mainstream many of the titles I mentioned above have become legends and have set the bar for what to expect from the market. How does From Dust stack up against the likes of Limbo, Braid, Bastion, and all the others that have helped bring the indie scene to a higher status amongst gamers?

From Dust is in essence a god game that in practice becomes one of the most beautiful and intriguing physics puzzles that I have ever played. The point of the game is simple; the player is presented a number of small locals with the goal of leading a nomadic tribe through dangerous terrain and assisting them in growing their civilization and discovering the history of their people. The player takes control of the breath of god, which is a large ball of power that is easily controlled with the analog sticks and has the power of picking up a certain amount of terrain and putting it down elsewhere within the landscape. The simple mechanic of moving around water, sand, and later lava to make bridges or clear an area of pooled water is where the physics shows its weight.

From Dust has some of the best water mechanics I have ever seen in a video game, and often the water itself acts as the big puzzle within the game. The small areas that act as the playing field of each puzzle are full of flowing waterfalls that continue to fill the world with a rushing stream of water, the flow of which the player must divert in order to properly reach the next totem or exit that eventually presents itself. The totems are large obelisks which, when reached with a certain number of villagers, will become the center of a village that they create. Watching the small nomadic tribesman dance around the obelisk and play their instruments to create their crude homes and the plant life which surrounds it from the ground is a wonder to behold. They literally pop into creation from the ground below, summoned into existence by a mysterious force. This act of creation is especially awe inspiring when you pull up close and watch these actions take place from the perspective of your villagers.

Reaching these totems and spreading plant and wild life around the terrain is the heart of each level. Beyond the act of diverting the flow of water from water falls or jet streams that randomly appear as you gather up sand, there are large obstacles of nature that continue to increase the difficulty of the game with each passing level. The jet streams mentioned above made for one of the more frustrating puzzles, but volcanoes, and tidal waves will also act to wipe out your tribe and present you with a game-over screen.

The difficulty does spike a bit quickly in From Dust, forcing the player to really focus on how everything works within the landscape. The level of physics which the player must deal with during these spikes is something that I doubt many players will be prepared to take into consideration at first. With some patience and toying around however, the player will soon discover how much has gone into the creation of the game. Lava flows from volcanoes in a way that simulates life to a tee, and watching lava move down an area and eventually hit water and dry into solid rock is impressive to behold. Creating rock paths is far more useful than sand paths, since sand can be eroded away by water and eventually break down to cause some damage to your progress.

A thing to keep in mind about using lava to create rock paths is something a player can easily forget, it is lava, and it lights things on fire. Lava can escape your grasp as you release it onto a sanded or rock area while trying to place it in water. This will cause small amounts of molten destruction to flow towards a village and destroy it without the player knowing it has happened until screams and a visual prompt lets them know. There were many times I would be in the midst of controlling the land and diverting the flow of a nearby waterfall so it will no longer interfere with my goals when I would hear screams and think to myself “what now?” only to discover my civilization going down in a blaze of shame and panic. This issue, by the way, rears its ugly head on the third level and things progressively get more difficult, for example… fire trees. Screw fire trees.

From Dust is art in motion, the game itself is beautiful to watch and even during the frantic events there is something wonderful and calming within the chaos of nature’s force. Tidal waves rise up in dramatic ways and shake the entire land you play in. This action will constantly cause the player to stop and scramble to figure out what to do. The power unlocked by the totems give you new tools to use to complete the level, one of which causes the rushing water from a tidal wave to wash around an invisible bubble protecting the village. Zooming in on the villagers during these moments creates a sense of godliness that is as epic as any action scene in the biggest of mainstream titles.

From Dust is a game that continues to validate the existence of the indie market and the digital platform. Just as Limbo, Braid, Bastion, and many others have before it, From Dust proves the legitimacy of simple mechanics in gaming. It doesn’t always have to be about multi-million dollar budgets and over the top cinematics. A game can be great simply on tight mechanics and interesting art choices. It is difficult to experiment with mainstream titles since artistic IPs will often be overlooked (Beyond Good & Evil for example) for games that have an established name.

Final Call: From Dust is simply the best physics puzzle game I have ever played and even without much of a story, the plights of the villagers is felt, and the rush of panic you feel when they are in danger is real. Ubisoft Montpellier has released a near flawless title that should be experienced by everyone. None the less, screw fire trees… screw them in their firey tree-y faces.

Pros:

• Tight and easy to learn controls
• Beautiful graphics
• Unmatched water physics
• Deep and rich puzzles
• A great value at only about $15

Cons:

• Difficulty spikes can often feel unfair
• No real story worth focusing on
• Very little replay value

Bastion. A strong supporter. A fortified place. A location of safety. The title of an excellent debut game by Supergiant Games, a recently founded independent developer. Similar to other recent indie developers like Mojang of Minecraft fame, Supergiant Games has put its best foot forward as it steps boldly out into the world with a superb solid action role-playing, single-player hack-n-slash game. But unlike some other indie games hitting the market, the brilliance lies not in the gameplay, but in the storytelling.

Bastion’s greatest triumph is the invention of the narrator; his voice is a constant companion to the player and lends to a singularly immersive experience with no breaks for long cut-scenes or text-block infodumps between player-controlled sequences. The narrator’s commentary manages to never grow tiring or repetitive and he gives a feeling of life to the game, his smooth drawl providing a steady stream of exposition on the world and commentary on the player character’s actions in-game. The often small, detailed touches of his narration provide the player with a feeling of truly being a part of the story and possessing a personal stake in what is occurring. This sentiment continues to grow right up until the tale’s end, the climax of which provides choices for the player that go beyond the simple decisions of good and evil that plague the branching endings of today’s modern games; when I reached them, I actually had to lean back in my seat to pause and think on what to do.

It’s difficult to talk about the story without spoiling the experience. It starts slowly and jumps directly into the protagonist’s shoes without introduction, leaving the player blind to the world and left to find their way through it with only the narrator’s company. The story comes out gradually, like a trail of breadcrumbs that draws the player’s interest and leads them along further and further in. Tidbits of information are constantly revealed to the player as they journey, leaving them to wonder what lies within the blanks and trying to piece the narrative together as the picture of the world is progressively painted for them from blank canvas before their very eyes.

And Bastion truly does appear to be painted, with the visual style providing gorgeous visuals that makes the very most of its isometric viewpoint. From the characters, to the enemies and the environments, the hand-painted style provides a treat for the eyes. As the player character constantly progresses through the game world, the art style works to provide new spectacle for the player and keeps the level design from growing tedious or dull.

The gameplay makes efforts towards the same, and while Bastion’s base hack-and-slash mechanics are regular fare for the action role-playing genre, Supergiant has still put forth due effort to provide variety within what remains a solidly built system. With set piece scenes, the occasional boss fight, and optional side-missions, the experience stays fresh rather than showing the sameness present in many games within the genre. New customization options are laid out in a constantly growing array for the player to choose from, furthering the sense of the personalized experience that the game imparts.

The player character has the choice of two weapons, a special attack, and passive abilities which are all fully alterable in the game’s hub between levels. The narrator will provide hints as to the strengths and nuances of each combination as it is chosen, and each weapon as it is discovered. The side mini-games give the opportunity to upgrade the capabilities of your weaponry by running the player through trials to prove their mastery of their equipment. There are yet more choices in this, as the upgrades will often modify and add effects to how the weapon operates rather than simply boosting damage, which all proves to increase the range of available play styles and combinations to still greater heights. Even the difficulty is modifiable to your heart’s content through an innovative structure, allowing the player to take on specific challenges to face in their battles. The developers even go as far as to give every single one of these mechanics a satisfying and interesting in-game explanation that provides a unity of game design elements and narrative.

Bastion’s music is no exception and provides flavor to each scene in which the player finds himself. As with everything else, the developers made sure to go the extra mile and have crafted a diverse soundtrack for Bastion’s shifting moods. The soundtrack ranges from a pounding and intense wild western adventure, to a haunting and melancholy drama that sweeps you into a remembrance of things past. Each song stands tall on its own merit and in-game they serve to emphasize the tone and events onscreen.

Bastion is an example of excellence in execution and another fine addition in the growing independent gaming scene. It is comparable to the wacky Castle Crashers in color and fun, and Limbo and Braid’s deep, evocative ambiance. All told, Bastion is greater than the sum of its parts, with nearly unparalleled flow between them. The narrator ties the entire thing together, allowing the story and mechanics to be introduced smoothly into the experience and provides a touch of life and polish to the package. Bastion introduces an element of replayability into it all, even after the first playthrough is all said and done; the desire to discover everything it has to offer makes Bastion an experience that will linger in your mind even after you walk away.

Final Call: While the gameplay in Bastion doesn’t break any new ground, it is still solid and varied, and provides the foundation for the rest of what Bastion has to offer, the mesmerizing aesthetics and masterful narrative imparts a lasting and immersive experience.

PROS:

• Great story and immersion.
• Beautiful hand-painted visuals and soundtrack.
• High replay value and new game plus mode.
• Gameplay is tight and responsive.
• $15 price tag, available for download on Steam and Xbox Live Arcade.

CONS:

• Doesn’t break any new ground with the hack n’ slash gameplay.
• Game only lasts 6-8 hours per playthrough.

In August of 2011 Eidos Montreal released Deus Ex: Human Revolution and sadly we are just getting around to reviewing a game that helped us get over the sluggish period in gaming that came shortly before the onset of the chaotic holiday season. Deus Ex: Human Revolution is the third game in a series that hasn’t seen a new release since Invisible War in 2003. Invisible War received good reviews during its time, but fans saw it as a dumbed down version of a game they loved. The original Deus Ex was a cult classic on the PC and later found release on the PS2. It has constantly been labeled as one of the best PC games of all time and won multiple game of the year awards in 2000. Its revolutionary approach to mature story-telling, player choice, and multiple narrative paths helped win it a dedicated following.

Eidos’ 2009 merger with Square Enix brought focus back to the series and work took off on a proper Deus Ex title which had originally been announced on May 17, 2007. With one of the largest publishers and developers of role playing games solely behind the project, life looked good for this beloved series. Deus Ex: Human Revolution left two important questions to the long time fans of the franchise. Is it as good as the first game? And is it better?

The simple answer is yes and no. DE:HR is, however, one of the best games released this year, giving players something palpable to sink their teeth into with one of the most intriguing stories I have seen play out in this medium in a very long time. The year is 2027 and the world is a much different place due to the continued growth of corporate control. Since the invention and implementation of human augmentation, society and the human species has seen a vast change in the way the world functions. Augmentation is used to enhance the lives of the people who go under the knife to receive them, and the possibilities are endless for what can be done with them to further the development of a person’s capabilities, both physically and mentally. The downside is that the human body often rejects the augmentations, making those who take them dependent on an anti-rejection drug.

Not only are the surgeries expensive, but the constant upkeep on the drugs themselves is a constant expense that makes it difficult for the lower and middle-class to grow along with those capable of receiving them legally. This class-separation causes a rise in crime as many have subjected themselves to scavenging for augmentations and receiving surgery and drug supplies through a growing black market. There are even those whose bodies can not take to the augmentations at all and those few often find out the hard way what can happen when their bodies reject them. The privatization of human evolution and the anti-rejection drugs that make them last leads to an outcry for change in the way things are done. It even leads to the inevitable formation of a movement called the Humanity Front that stands against the act of playing god all together, theorizing that this is a path that will lead to humanity’s destruction. Other groups have grown alongside the Humanity Front, preaching their own ideas on how these problems can be addressed, even going as far as to attack and terrorize people to get their point across.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution takes place in this world and all of these elements are fleshed out incredibly well. From the NPC’s that exist in this world’s version of Detroit and China to the main characters themselves. There is a constant struggle between deciding what is right as the game toys with the players ideology, morality, and political beliefs.  Eidos stated that the player will have control over how they play the game, and while this stands mostly true for the gameplay, it stands very true to how the story progresses.

You play as Adam Jensen, the head of security at the headquarters of Sarif Industries’ in Detroit. Sarif Industries’ is one of the leaders in augmentation technology and a powerful entity within American society. Adam works alongside his ex-girlfriend Megan Reed who is a researcher for the company that has recently come up with a huge breakthrough that will allow augmentations to be done without the dependence on anti-rejection drugs. Just before her press release on the recent discovery, the building is attacked by a group of heavily augmented soldiers. During the attack Jensen is beaten down by one of the attackers and left in critical condition while trying to save Megan and her research team. The entire research team is murdered and burned, leaving only charred remains of the bodies. In an act to save Adam’s life the C.E.O of Sarif industries; David Sarif, decides to put Jensen through some major augmentations. He implants Adam with experimental technology that he appears to take to exceedingly well. While augmentation for Adam was done out of necessity there is still the question as to if this is something he would have wanted. Before he can think on it too much, he is called back to work to continue the investigation on the attack and find out who was behind it. What follows is an ever evolving story that forces the player into scenarios that exceedingly presents them with moral choices that while never good or bad, often rely on the players perception of the situation.

The characters in Deus Ex:HR are all fascinating and evolve just as much as the story. Everyone except for the main character that is. Adam Jensen is sadly one of the few complaints I have with the game, his character design and voice acting are a low point. He might as well be a cyborg version of Neo from The Matrix, and his voice acting is even more stale than Keanu Reeves. Little range is shown with the character, and even though the choices he must make are huge for the world at large, he never seems to change. Jensen acts as the eyes in which the player sees the world through, and is consistently overshadowed by all the side characters he interacts with. While the main character may stay static throughout Human Revolution’s story, many of the other character’s do not. They instead progress and change with every large twist and turn, and in some cases turn out to be something completely different than what had originally been presented. These side-characters are wonderfully voice acted and animated, I learned to care about many of them much more than I ever did about Jensen. Jensen acted as nothing more then a catalyst to the experience. His back story was far more interesting than the character himself. Which is too bad, because the more I discovered about Adam the more interesting the idea of him became.

The world itself is rather large and even though it takes place in two cities that, while not big themselves, are cluttered with important places to go and people to talk to. Deus Ex: Human Revolution can easily take 30+ hours to experience in full, and while not long for an RPG, it is rather long for an action game. There is never a shortage on things to do and the side missions are rather varied, they can go from breaking into fellow co-worker’s offices and hacking into their personal computers to catch someone stealing the anti-rejection drug, to helping Megan’s mother expose the sloppy detective work done on the investigation of her daughters death, to even helping a call girl in China stop her boss from forcefully augmenting one of her fellow workers in a way that would make her easier to control. The side missions help flesh out the underbelly of the world and the corruption present within it and they are often complex and relevant to the overall story.

The small interactions themselves can help breathe life into the world. From the moment the game returns Adam to work after his surgery, he is bombarded by co-workers fearing for their safety, mourning over the loss of Megan Reed and her research team, and even showing concern for Adam returning so soon after the attack that nearly took his life. Even when you first walk out into Detroit there are many who talk down to Adam for being Augmented, showing the support the Humanity Front has with the common folk. Hell, after the first mission you get rewarded with being able to see the results of your actions in the dialog of people on the streets. It is these small touches that help bring an exciting feeling of realism to this grim and indecisive world in which Human Revolution takes place. The only complaint I have is that often the NPC’s will stay static in their designated areas that will eventually take away from the immersion. It is a small complaint, but if large games like Fallout and Oblivion can succeed in making a city seem alive, then Deus Ex should have had no trouble with it.

A game however is nothing without good gameplay, it can only survive so long with a strong story. Deus Ex: Human Revolution delivers with its promise of allowing the player to choose how the game is played in this area, at least for the most part. The ability to upgrade Adam’s augmentation using Praxis Points opens up a wide variety of gameplay choices. You can build a stealthy agent that can put the likes of Solid Snake and Sam Fisher to shame, or build a super soldier who can punch holes in walls, toss vending machines at his enemies, and take on a hail of gunfire. The upgrades can even turn you into a smooth talker that can follow the subtle hints of facial expressions and release a pheromone that can help turn people to your way of thinking. The dialog situations can be just as intense sometimes as a big firefight, with the right upgrades you can make these segments easier by being able to track the effects your replies have on the character you are talking to, as well as look at psychological reports that describe the personality type of the person you are trying to persuade. These add an interesting touch to the dialog trees often found in Bioware games, but even without these upgrades the facial animations are impressive enough to give hints on what effect your words are having. The options are plentiful, and I especially loved that the game awarded players who went a passive route and never killed a single soul in the game outside of the bosses.

Beyond that, the game plays as a mixture of many other great games. With the right stealth upgrades you can make the navigation HUD look like something out of Metal Gear Solid with line of sight, noise display, and a countdown timer that indicates when enemies will stop looking for you. They even mix in a bit of Splinter Cell with an upgrade that puts an indicator on screen of where you were last seen in almost the exact fashion seen in 2010′s Conviction. The shooting and cover system is almost identical to Rainbow Six: Vegas making it work and work well. I quite enjoyed lining up a perfect shot from behind cover and popping up for just a split second to score a precise headshot, and then following it up with another and another until the room was cleared. The fun of these situations is often in getting things done the way you want, by either taking out an entire room the quiet way or laying down hell upon your would be attackers with precisely aimed shots (I say this because ammo is a bit scarce and the inventory system is sort of clunky.)

The strategy behind taking out a room with stealth is, in and of itself, a puzzle that is fun to tackle. Finding a way to take people out quietly, dragging bodies into hidden places, taking air vents into optimal positions behind the enemies, and using the environment to attract the attention of guards towards a trap you laid out is incredibly enjoyable. It is moments like these when all goes well that never stopped giving me a great sense of accomplishment. The way the level design is laid out is also quite impressive, giving the player multiple points of entry and multiple options on how to get through the area. It is even possible to clear an entire objective by talking your way through it without ever having to take out a single individual. The freedom of how to get things done is so impressive that when Deus Ex throws a broken and ill-conceived boss battle at you it is incredibly disappointing.

The biggest complaint I can lobby against DE:HR is that the freedom is immediately sidelined in favor of arena style brawls with bosses that, if not prepared for, can lead to multiple frustrating reloads of your save file. Stealth is not an option during these moments, the game forces the player to take on these threats head on and it is as if you have been thrown into a completely different and less impressive game. The first boss battle comes when it isn’t expected, but after defeating this enemy, most players will build their characters appropriately in order to take care of these threats. This is too bad, since this means that all players will build similar characters in some aspects in order to trump these cheap fights. I even heard from a friend of mine that he was unwilling to continue playing the game because of these boss battles, they really do threaten to break what is an amazing experience with their poor design.

The rest of the game, however, warrants building your character around them so as to traverse and discover the real magic within the game. Human Revolution is one of the most rewarding and mature experiences a gamer can ask for even with all the flaws. The message the game conveys is a heavy one, and one I appreciated in its neutral approach to the issues. Never did I feel forced to take one side of the argument or the other, if I took one, it was because it felt right to me and many players will likely go a different route than I did. While many games give freedom to the player through an open world and the ability to complete the story how they wish, Deus Ex: Human Revolution gives players freedom by choosing how the game is played (for the most part) and the how the story progresses by pressing on some rather mature and potent issues.

With recent political movements as of late protesting against corporate power, Deus Ex: Human Revolution is even more relevant right now than it was back in August. Plus, no matter what side you take, the story never tells you what side is right. It leaves it up to you to decide that. If anyone hasn’t given this game a shot, it comes highly recommended, it is a great game with few low points and a story that is stronger then most everything currently offered in this medium.

In 2009, FromSoftware gave us Demon’s Souls, a notoriously difficult action-RPG that earned a massive cult following. For its fans, Demon’s Souls’ mix of punishing gameplay and bizarre multiplayer marked it as one of the most interesting titles ever made. Now, FromSoftware brings us that game’s spiritual successor, Dark Souls.

Aside from a new open-world structure and story, Dark Souls looks and feels almost identical to its forebearer.

Just like it’s father, Dark Souls is the Tim & Eric Awesome Show of video games.

Hear me out: Tim & Eric have a polarizing “love ’em or hate ‘em” sense of humor. To certain people, it’s sheer comedy genius. To most others, it seems like a bunch of stupid bullshit.

If you don’t believe me, watch this:

Unlike most nerd fights, there’s really no love lost between the sides. Most sensible Tim & Eric fans completely understand why the haters can’t stand them. They’re pretty intentionally weird. And no matter how you feel, it’s even harder to believe that somewhere someone in a business suit actually finances this lunacy.

That is precisely how I would describe the Souls series. If you love it, you can completely understand why someone else would loathe it.

The plot in Dark Souls is virtually non-existent. There is definitely a story going on, but it mostly happens in the background. Basically, you’re an immortal knight looking to rid the world of demons, dragons and general medieval crazy crap. There are warring deities and monsters, but you keep getting the distinct impression that you’re not exactly the “main” character in this tale. You’re just here to kill stuff until there is nothing left to kill, so get moving.

At first glance, it looks like any other medieval hack-and-slash.  It may even look a little sloppy, but only to the untrained eye.  If you’re running around in Dark Souls, slashing wildly at anything that moves, you’re not going to last long.

Dark Souls is a prime example of an uphill battle. Yes, you’re immortal, but you’re definitely not getting off easy. Be prepared to die. A lot. Fights are not to be taken lightly. You need to move slowly. Carefully. Methodically. You exist moment-to-moment. One false step spells doom. Even lesser enemies can slaughter you.

Each time you die, you are stripped of all your earnings and are transported back to your last checkpoint. All the enemies you vanquished on the way are resurrected right alongside you. You run the same route again and again… and again.

With each death, you get a little better. You learn to play smarter. At first it seems like you’re just memorizing patterns, but you’re not. You’re becoming a more cunning killer. Now you know their weaknesses, and damn it, this time they are going to pay.

That’s the appeal. In Dark Souls, you don’t just breeze past early parts just because you have better gear. You advance because you’re just too bad-ass to be stopped. You don’t “beat” Dark Souls, you conquer it. It’s the most rewarding, empowering feeling a video game can give.

The game is surprisingly light on hand-holding.  It drops you into the world with a broken sword and merely implies that you should walk forward. Even after you leave the “tutorial” area—which includes a gigantic boss—you’re simply released into a huge open world. This world is Dark Souls’ largest improvement over its predecessor. There are practically no loading screens as you seamlessly traverse the game’s massive expanse. You decide where to go based entirely on the idea that “the enemies here seem to kill me less efficiently than the enemies there.”

Everything about this feels like an old school video game. People still aren’t quite sure “what does what” and where to use certain items. Message boards, wikis and groups of like-minded friends are still trading tips and figuring it out as they go. It really feels like we’re all working together, exploring this vast world.

Speaking of playing with others, like Demon’s Souls, multiplayer is rather unorthodox. The Dark Souls world is always online, but there is no voice chat whatsoever. Players communicate by leaving text messages on the floor for each other. These could be helpful hints that tell you about secret doors, or they could be lies to lure you off a cliff.

You can summon other players to help you fight a boss, but its damn near impossible to track down your real-life friends. The competitive multiplayer consists of players forcing their way into your game and fighting you while you try to complete a level.  It’s a weird way to handle multiplayer, but it absolutely enhances the experience.  It makes the massive and terrifying world of Dark Souls all the more foreboding and lonely.

It’s not all perfect though. There are some glaring errors that falter when compared to Demon’s Souls. For one, Dark Souls seems to have a slightly jankier online set up than its predecessor. In Demon’s, if you were “undead” you could invade the game of any “living” player at any time. To avoid invasions, players could simply play the game as “undead” themselves, but this costs them half of their health bar. There was a definite reward element that forced you to risk invasion.

Conversely, when you are “undead” in Dark Souls, the only tangible penalty is that you cannot summon helpful players. So most people just stay undead to avoid being harassed. Also, being the invader now requires you to spend relatively hard-to-find items. This limits the multiplayer encounters even more. It’s a rather counter-intuitive misstep.

Really though, spotty online play is my only complaint about the game. For me, this is easily going to be my game of the year. Nothing is going to come close to this.  I will beat this over and over, with multiple characters. For my money, it’s the best gaming experience I have had in years. You may hate it though.

The Souls series has a bad reputation of being elitist, but it really isn’t. It’s just very particular. You either “get it” or you don’t. It doesn’t make you less of a gamer to hate it. It’s just not your thing.

The best advice I have for you is this:  if you like the idea of this and own a PlayStation 3, pick up Demon’s Souls for $15 or so.  It’s a wonderful game and will definitely let you know if you’re the type of person who will appreciate Dark Souls.

We are creeping up on November and have already seen the release of the first wave of big games released this holiday season with Rage, Dark Souls, and Batman Arkham City. As all gamers have been aware, the end of 2011 is going to be big. Really big. I have trouble remembering a year that had so many AAA titles being released all around the same time; it is going to be hell on our wallets. There are some other games creeping out during this time that deserve some attention, and attention I shall give them. Games that are going to be innocent bystanders in the FPS turf war between Call of Duty and Battlefield. Titles that may find themselves lost within the wilderness of Elder Scroll’s Tamriel and Zelda’s Hyrule. It’s interesting to me that there are so many smaller games that publishers are pushing out during a time when they are going to have to stand up against Batman’s rogues gallery and the witty action packed life of Nathan Drake. I feel that many of these titles would perform well on their own merit, but I fear that they will be overlooked standing aside these giants. It’s time to shed some light on these titles, and give them a small dose of the attention that they deserve.

SONIC GENERATIONS

Release Date: November 1st, 2011

Platform: 360, PS3, Wii, NDS, PC

Publisher: Sega

Developer: Sonic Team

Releasing In The Same Week As: Uncharted 3

Sonic has had a rough couple of years since his career took a dive in the new generation. Sonic Team released dud after dud for Sega’s big blue mascot which made those who supported the genesis back in the day weep, at least a little. Recently, things have been kind for our hedgehog friend with the release of the solid Sonic Colors for the Wii in November of 2010. A game that reminded those who gave it a shot why the blue hedgehog with attitude was once competition for Nintendo’s galaxy traversing plumber. There was also the arcade hit Sonic the Hedgehog 4 – Episode 1 which, while not great, was good enough to feel promising in the hands of someone who wanted to relive a special time when Sonic wasn’t a joke.

Sonic Generations had a short playable demo available back in June that got a good amount of people to sit up and pay attention. Sega released a second demo in October that is currently available for download but will soon be gone. For anyone who missed their first chance I strongly recommend giving it a download. Allow me to assure you, this looks promising. Sonic might be back, and by back I mean fun again. If Sonic Generations fulfills the promise shown in the demos and if Sonic Team gets a third hit in a row, the hedgehog may just start to race his way back into our hearts. I hope it does, because I have missed that blue bastard. I really have.

GOLDENEYE 007: RELOADED

Release Date: November 1st, 2011

Platform: 360, PS3, Wii, NDS

Publisher: Activision

Developer: Eurocom

Releasing In The Same Week As: Uncharted 3

A remake of a remake? While this may seem a bit odd and groan-worthy, let us all take a moment and look back on Rare’s original Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64…. okay, all done? Anybody who actually took a moment will remember how amazing it was. There is nostalgia here, and while owners of the Wii got a chance to play through this remake last year, those who don’t care about Nintendo’s system didn’t. The release was solid, receiving positive reviews for its recreation of all the classic levels and updating the old multiplayer that had at one time showed us that consoles could compete with PCs in the FPS genre.  Reloaded is going a bit further than just adding some HD flare to a year old Wii title. The graphics have been completely redone, and are very well done. While early reports indicate that the multiplayer is buggy, the possibilities on stage here are quite enticing.

This release will see a brand new campaign that acts as something of a challenge mode as well as some new multiplayer game modes. I have high hopes for this release, as I was a huge fan of the original and don’t much care for the Wii’s multiplayer layout. Goldeneye holds a special place in many a gamer’s hearts, and while Eurocom does not have the best of track records, last years remake was good and this one shows even more promise for us 360 and PS3 fans.

There really isn't much out there in the way of official advertisement for this game.

METAL GEAR SOLID: HD COLLECTION

Release Date: November 8th, 2011

Platform: 360, PS3

Publisher: Konami

Developer: Kojima Productions

Releasing In The Same Week As: Call of Duty: MW3 and Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Recently we have seen a lot of classic games from the olden days come back with HD reboots, many have been the same games with updated graphics and maybe a few new additions thrown in to entice old players into reliving a game long since beaten. God of War, Sly Cooper, Resident Evil Code Veronica, Resident Evil 4, and Team ICO have ventured into that territory with some success. Others have completely overhauled the game and given us something fresh; Goldeneye, as mentioned before and Telltale’s Monkey Island games went that route. Metal Gear Solid HD disappointingly takes the former approach. However the collection includes Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. Again leaving me a bit disappointed that the first MGS isn’t here, but I imagine it would take a lot more work to re-do than the other three, and since MGS HD Collection is a bit of a reskin, the budget must not have allowed for a complete overhaul of a PSx game.

Let us remember though, that not many MGS fans got a chance to play Peace Walker since it was a PSP only title. The game was a great entry into the confusing mythology of the world, and will now be playable for the mainstream audience. Any fan of the original series needs to give this a look, these are classics that I imagine will translate perfectly fine for modern gamers.

JURASSIC PARK: THE GAME

Release Date: November 15th, 2011

Platform: 360, PS3, iPad, PC

Publisher: Telltale Games

Developer: Telltale Games

Releasing In The Same Week As: Assassins Creed: Relevations, Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, and Saints Row: The Third

Telltale Games is a company that many have come to trust with bringing back the classic adventure games that stay true to their source material. They have given life to Strongbad, re-introduced us to the awesomeness that is Sam & Max, made many look back on Lucasart’s classic Tales of Monkey Island, brought Back to the Future to the world of gaming the only way it could be done right, and will soon deliver upon us The Walking Dead game.

Jurassic Park is the next franchise they are tackling before The Walking Dead, and so far it looks rather promising. Telltale knows what they are doing, and bringing a Heavy Rain control scheme to the dangerous world created by Michael Crichton and brought to the big screen by Steven Spielberg makes for a game worthy of some attention. While some early reports out of July’s Comic-Con lead to some concerns with the slower mechanics during the dino attacks and the general character design, it appears the developers addressed these issues and fared better with its appearance at PAX in August.

Let us also mention that it will be released at a lower price point for a full title, and at $39.99 it may be worth a look.

RAYMAN ORIGINS

Release Date: November 15th, 2011

Platform: 360, PS3, Wii, NDS,  PC (Vita in 2012)

Publisher: Ubisoft

Developer: Ubisoft Montpellier

Releasing In The Same Week As: Assassins Creed: Relevations, Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, and Saints Row: The Third

THIS GAME NEEDS SOME LOVE! Out of anything on this list, and over quite a few of the AAA titles, this game is on my personal must have list. Some gamers may remember that Rayman and Rayman 2 where some of the most solid and beautiful platforming games ever created. This is a series that made Ubisoft and made it possible for them to make games like Rainbow Six, Splinter Cell, Prince of Persia and Assassins Creed. The current market has been spoiled by some stellar 2D platformers on Live and PSN with games like Super Meatboy and ‘Splosion Man, but let’s also consider that the Wii has recently seen the release of Kirby’s Epic Yarn and Donkey Kong Country that were both released as full retail 2D platformer titles that did rather well.

Everything I have seen of Rayman Origins points to a beautifully animated and difficult game that shows nothing short of a developers love for what they are doing. With new characters being introduced to the series that all look fun to play, a co-op element that is bound to be chaotic, and a beautiful world to explore, this is a game that deserves attention. It deserves to be a hit, and I have a feeling that this will be a critical darling that will sadly be overlooked by the general market. I personally am just as excited for this as I am for Skyrim.

SERIOUS SAM 3: BFE

Release Date: November 22nd, 2011

Platform: 360, PS3, PC

Publisher: Devolver Digital

Developer: Croteam

Releasing In The Same Week As: WWE ’12

Serious Sam promises to be a return to the old school shooter style that Duke Nukem: Forever should have been. Anyone familiar with Serious Sam knows that it is a chaotic experience where enemies are thrown at you from every direction. It is a frag-fest full of some of the weirdest enemies ever imagined. (For example, a rhinoceros velociraptor skeleton.) Serious Sam 3 offers a bloody experience and some cool looking melee attacks. You can rip out a one-eyed crawly creatures eye and then throw it at another enemy or rip open a guys chest and remove his heart that you can then…. throw at another enemy.

Serious Sam 3 will offer 16 player co-op and a bevy of multiplayer modes that, at this stage, competes with the number of and creativity of the game modes offered in Halo: Reach. (For you haters out there, Halo has got one hell of multiplayer game mode line up that is untouched by any other series.)  Here’s hoping Serious Sam turns out as fun as its predecessors, and finds an audience within the mainstream. I’m hoping it is going to have that classic feel that Duke Nukem: Forever missed out on mixed with the fun insanity we saw from Bulletstorm earlier this year.

There we are, a spotlight has been put upon some games that will likely be overlooked this holiday season. I hope they all turn out as great as they are looking, and make a splash to compete with the behemoths they will be going up against. They will all need a lot of luck in order to survive, but I’ll be looking at them, and I hope many other gamers will be too.

I think it’s fair to say I’m a fan of Batman. Long Halloween and the Killing Joke are a couple of my favorite comics and I have the Dark Knight practically tattooed onto my brain. For some reason though, Arkham Asylum never quite clicked with me. Maybe I was a little hung up with the seemingly random x-ray vision that Batman had or maybe the nerd in me is still raging about Harley Quinn’s redesign. I recognized that Rocksteady created a fabulous game but it just wasn’t for me. I was hard pressed, however, to see if Arkham City would swing past me again or if this would be a Dark Knight to remember.

The story begins with Bruce Wayne protesting over the creation of Arkham City – a prison literally built into the center of Gotham City. He is promptly arrested by Hugo Strange, the man behind the prison social experiment, who reveals that he knows that Wayne is really the Batman. After getting harassed by the Penguin and some prisoners, Wayne contacts Alfred and changes suits into the Batman. Not wasting any time, Batman flies off to go and fight evil doers. After saving Catwoman from Two-face, Batman confronts the Joker, whom he finds out is dying from the Titan serum from the events of the previous game. The Joker poisons the Batman with his blood and reveals that he’s also been sneaking his infected blood into Gotham’s blood banks for months, knowing that this would force Batman to find a cure for his disease. Hugo Strange then starts a ten hour countdown to Protocol Ten – something that the Batman has to figure out what it is, and stop it before it can be enacted.

One thing that Arkham City does that surpasses over its predecessor is the ability to glide through Gotham City. Granted, it’s a limited portion of the city, but it’s definitely quite impressive. Gliding silently around town and listening in on criminals as they talk about your exploits makes it so sweet when you nab them from the shadows and frighten their buddies. The open world really gives a great feeling about what it’s like to be the Dark Knight, seeing the city from his eyes. I was kind of bothered by the false sense of urgency that the storyline pushes on you, however. Between trying to cure and incurable disease and stop an unknown protocol happening in the course of one evening, you’d think everything would move quicker. It took me longer than necessary to realize that it didn’t matter how long I took with each mission – the overall threat was plot related and would solve itself as I played more missions. I took this moment to play some side missions I was sorely neglecting, opening up the game to way more exploration than the main storyline.

Okay, normally I wouldn’t do this, but I’ve got to point it out for this game and stand on a soap box. I’m kind of fed up with the concept that female characters in comic books and video games need to be turned into sexual objects. The idea that women are sexual – yeah, I get that. But I find it embarrassing when the design of a character is such that it just screams “look at me! I’m a cheap attention ploy!” Poison Ivy doesn’t need to wear a shirt that doesn’t fit and panties made of leaves for guys to go “oh yeah, she’s hot.” Neither does the camera have to get an ass shot of Talia every chance it gets. Every male character gets some sort of personality with their uniform that displays their character without saying a word. The women? They get corsets and tight pants. It just seems really unnecessary to me and takes away some value from the game I might not otherwise have cared about.

I have a hard time explaining to people exactly why I enjoyed Arkham City. It’s not that it’s a bad game–far from it. I just don’t quite understand what it is I like about it. The plotline is kind of ridiculous-–even for something based off of comic books-–and gets unnecessarily complicated towards the end. The female character designs range from ridiculous to unnecessary, and Killer Croc just looks stupid. Plus, I was so overstimulated by “things to do” that at one point when I had to struggle to keep focused on the storyline, just so I wouldn’t lose track of where I was. Overall, though, I had a pretty great experience. The interactions between Batman and the Joker are always fantastic and reminiscent of the Killing Joke. Beating up bad guys with the kung fu ninja skills of the Batman is always satisfying. I guess even the biggest “WITF” moments were outshined by ten more “OMG” times.

I’ll do my best to summarize this game in question form; did you like Arkham Asylum and also Spiderman 2? Then this is the game for you. Do you like pretending to be the Batman and also sometimes Catwoman? Go and get yourself a copy. Are you the goddamned Batman? Then you probably don’t want to play this game as you are a fictional character. Basically it comes down to this; Arkham City isn’t a perfect game… but it’s fun. It’s ballsy, good, beat ‘em up and tie ‘em to a gargoyle fun. If nothing else, you’ll be going as the Batman for a long Halloween.

Fruit Ninja is one of those simple, yet highly addictive iPhone games that people will play for hours on end and then deny even owning. For many people, myself included at times, it’s tough to admit when a casual game has its hooks in you. Halfbrick Studios wowed us with Raskulls during XBLA Games for the Holidays, but can Fruit Ninja Kinect, basically an iPhone port, hang with the likes of Bastion or Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet during the Summer of Arcade?

To put it simply, Fruit Ninja Kinect is the perfect addition to the Summer of Arcade mix. At 800 MSP, it’s the “bargain” title and the only break from lengthly campaigns you’ll get all summer on XBLA. I’ve played a majority of all the Kinect games since launch and this one takes the cake for simplicity and fun, but also accuracy in reading hand movements. There’s no story to be had here, but that’s for the best. You just stand in front of the Kinect, let the game calibrate your distance, and you’re chopping fruit in no time. The game gives you a silhouette of yourself to shame you into exercising at some point but more so to give you a sense of where it sees you. You know exactly where your hand will chop when you hold it out because you see it in relation to the fruit on the screen.

Fruit Ninja Kinect offers multiplayer co-op and competitive modes in addition to SOLO ROUND modes Classic, Arcade, and Zen. Classic mode has you ensuring all fruit is chopped, none drops off screen, and you avoid all bombs thrown into the mix. Arcade mode goes bananas (pun… intended) as game-modifying nanners are mixed in to allow you to get score multipliers, slow down time, or create an unmanageable orgy flow of fruit onscreen. The last and perhaps most difficult mode is Zen. Zen mode makes you wait for the precise moment when all the fruit align and you can get as many as possible in one swipe. Getting fruit combos adds bonus points which are required to get the best scores possible in Zen mode. Additionally there is a challenge mode where the game will present a simple score goal for you to attempt to attain. Completing challenges and other feats unlocks new blade effects and backgrounds called Sensei Swag, but the net result of any of those is a slightly different visual effect that you really don’t even notice when you’re engaged in fruit combat.

Multiplayer co-op is a blast if you have the living room space for it. You stand side by side trying to make sure no fruit goes un-ninja-ed while also trying not to chop the living hell out of your teammate. Competitive mode is basically the same, only the fruit is color coded to ensure compliance with the Equal Ninja Opportunity Act of 1963. Also, if you chop your opponent’s fruit, you lose points. Occasionally, neutral colored fruits fly swiftly across the screen providing a bonus to the quickest slice. The best part of the multiplayer experience is that there is about one full second of configuration needed to add another player, and when they drop out, their silhouette “poofs” as if they threw a smoke bomb and ran off into the night.

If you own a Kinect, you’d be a big fool not to pick up this game. Kinect is about simple fun, active movement, and casual gaming, and you will not find another game in the current library that exemplifies these principles more than Fruit Ninja Kinect. Halfbrick has turned me from dreadful to curious about the concept of porting touch-screen games to Kinect. It goes to show that in the right hands, something as simple as slicing fruit can be as rewarding as any big budget Kinect game you play.

Pros

- Dead simple configuration
- Surprising accuracy with hand motions
- Simple gameplay for kids and adults

Cons

- Sensei’s Swag menu is a nightmare
- Knuckle-busting is common without proper spacing
- I think I may have sprained my wrist chopping pomegranates

Fruit Ninja Kinect is a steal at 800 MSP, regardless of whether or not the iOS versions are a fraction of that. For those of you who just cannot be persuaded to entertain yourself for $10, it will also be made available for free bundled with the upcoming game, The Gunstringer. The amount of fun, accessibility, and accuracy you get with Fruit Ninja Kinect make it more of a killer app than a cash-in, and everyone who owns a Kinect owes it to themselves to pick this up during Summer of Arcade.

Welcome to the latest edition of the Box Of Many Things. This time I’ve been playing Ninja Gaiden Sigma, a remake/upgrade of the Xbox original. Since it’s taken me this long to get around to playing it, I think we can safely say this certainly wasn’t my reason for getting a PS3 in the first place.

Let’s start with the story.  The main character is Ryu, a straight-up modern ninja who lives in his village of Hayabusa.  Like any anime storyline, Ryu’s family has an ancient artifact of great evil and mystery.   Obviously, its mystery is only surpassed by its immense evil. You begin “Bruce Lee style,” fighting your way through a dojo leading up to your nunchuck-wielding Master who hands you your ass. Once some bizarre vaguely English translated banter is exchanged, Ryu senses a disturbance in the Force. He rushes outside to see rival ninjas burning his the village to the ground. After slicing through his foes, Ryu faces a Samurai Demon-thing wielding what may-as-well be the malevolent sword from Soul Calibur.   This is your standard “you’re supposed to lose” fight. The Demon mops the floor with Ryu and struts off with that “you got served” attitude. Soon after, Ryu gets right back up and gets ready for his ultraviolent quest for vengeance. This concludes the tutorial portion.

The overall experience of playing as a ninja is pretty awesome. The gameplay is fun but hard. It felt like I needed two years experience and some kind of degree in ninja economics. Now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever played a ninja game before. That’s probably why it took me so long to get the hang of all Ryu’s artful maneuvers.

Plus, the enemies can run laps around you, so blocking quickly becomes Ryu’s best friend. Patience and timing are key to Sigma. Unfortunately, I don’t understand why you can’t unlock counter-attacks until chapter 3.

Once you understand the ninja mechanics it’s time to start upgrading your shit. That means new weapons, new special attacks, and of course, new gear. Ryu starts the game with a traditional ninja outfit but once demons make him look like a bitch, shit gets real and he straps on the leather fitted armor. It looks like Batman’s sleeveless summer wear.

The game has a neat story, cool moves, and hot anime chicks. Unfortunately, everything happened so fast that I hardly had time to enjoy it. The pace of the Ninja Gaiden Sigma was hopped up on caffeine.  It was just one decapitation after another at breakneck speed.

This is awesome, don’t get me wrong, but if I was gonna be on a railroad, I wish I could have seen everything. The boss fights get more and more ridiculous, they really like to hype up that whole “Mech meets Monster” thing. I was very surprised that the final boss wasn’t Tetsuo from Akira.

In summary, I really enjoyed the game. Sigma did a great job of reinventing would-be tedious hack-and-slash moves. I wasn’t exactly blown away by the game but maybe I would appreciate it better if I play the previous titles. But that is the entire of purpose of the Box, to play through things I would have never played otherwise. Obviously, I’m aware that there is a sequel to this game. Since I had a lot of fun slashing everyone up and unlocking new techniques in this one, I just might pick it up once the B.O.M.T. comes to a close.

Coming up next in the B.O.M.T. – Soul Calibur IV

I wasn’t sure if I was going to enjoy Raskulls when I first heard about it. Game developer Halfbrick has done a bunch of iPhone games I’ve never heard of (outside of Ninja Fruit) and I wasn’t really impressed by the gameplay footage I had seen. Once I started playing, however, these little Raskulls blew me out of the water.

Raskulls centers around a fictional land ruled by the King. An evil race of Pirats crash land on the planet and decide they need a new power source. Luckily for them, the Raskulls kingdom has just such a power source – the Shiny Stone. The King decides that in order to keep his kingdom safe and to hold onto the power source, he has to hold a tournament and give the power skull to the winner. What if the Pirats win, you ask? Well, they simply can’t because then the kingdom loses the power skull. Gosh, don’t be so negative.

The good thing about the story is that Halfbrick realized the story isn’t going to matter. So instead of working on insane backstory that nobody was going to care about, they created this hilarious and campy story that creates the perfect tone for the game. I haven’t laughed this hard (intentionally) because of a game in years.

The gameplay is basically divided into two different kinds of levels; ones where you have to get to the end really fast, and ones where you have to get to the end really fast perfectly. As a gameplay mechanic it is beautifully simple and deceptively complicated. There is so much unexpected diversity in the few modes that are offered that it can get quite insane. All you have to do is clear blocks but they make it such a god damned challenge every single time. There’s a lot of strategy involved; which path do I take? Which blocks do I destroy? Should I frenzy now? Should I start spamming fireballs? Did I leave the oven on? Will my loved ones still love me by the time I complete this level?

Every time you beat a level you get a medallion. Some areas are locked off until you get a certain number of medallions. The levels past these are hair-pulling insanely difficult but they can be beat. Sometimes it takes a few hours to beat a twenty-second level. There are multiple paths to go in order to get to the end. Towards the end of the game I was getting a little burnt out, but for the most part I beat every single task I was given, even the stuipidly hard ones. On some tasks they’ll offer you another medallion if you complete the similar task but this time meeting x criteria. Often it’s a “beat the clock” kind of thing, but there’s a few that say “without getting squished” or some similar such nonsense. Your reward for beating so many things is the ability to unlock characters for multiplayer and unlock “cheat codes.” They don’t really do much. One turns you into an apple, another makes your head huge, a third gives you an afro. The best part is you can combine most of them for hilarious effect. And boy is it hilarious.

The multiplayer is great, although kind of limited. You pick one of a handful of characters but it doesn’t matter who you pick. The only difference is aesthetics and that’s kind of disappointing. It’s kind of interesting that they include characters from other games (and also Destructoid). As much as I hated ilomilo, I have to say there is a certain amount of joy playing such a cute character and trash talking the shit out of your friends. They score you after your races and you get experience points for your win. You can level up, but I’ve yet to see it matter. They don’t score you with people on an equal level. Also they haven’t come up with a perfect tie-breaker system. Each prix has four races. My friend and I were playing – he won two, and I won two. The winner of the prix was determined by whoever one the last round. I’d like to see them fix this but it’s not a huge deal. It actually makes winning the races that much more important.

Raskulls has everything I look for in an XBLA title. The art direction is simple, neat, and unique. The gameplay is fun, challenging, and rewarding. The world is interesting, detailed, and imaginative. When you’re done the main part of the game there’s plenty for you and your friends to do. And it’s funny. It’s honest to goodness one of the funniest games I’ve played in a long time since Psychonauts. It has its flaws with the lack of diversity in the multiplayer system, but they don’t detract from the game in the slightest. Go get this game. Right now. Why are you still reading this?! Go!

Mr. Hawkins says… “I was very skeptical about Halfbrick transitioning from the iPhone to the highly competitive big leagues of XBLA. Their Indie Game, Echoes, was impressive and addictive, but definitely not of the scale of most XBLA releases. Raskulls, however, came through in a very surprising way. In a nutshell, Raskulls is a fleshed out party/racing take on Mr. Driller, but with a lot of humor, challenge, and speed mixed in. I really liked Halfbrick’s Monster Dash and Age of Zombies on iOS, but it’s good to see they have the chops to make a bigger experience. To be honest, as fun as Raskulls (and its DLC) was to complete, it’s still on the edge between mini-game and full game. Let’s hope that the exposure, success, and popularity of Raskulls gets Halfbrick motivated to keep evolving and to continue developing for XBLA.”

The latest in a long line of rhythm games from Harmonix, Dance Central sets out to prove that the Kinect is more than just a gimmicky trick for your money dollars. Does it have the right moves or should you evacuate the dance floor?

I believe in honesty, so before I begin this review, I would just like to state that my dancing skills are about the equivalent of a two-legged dog on ice… with a broken ankle. My knowledge of real dances is equally handicapped. After failing to find the Macarena and the Hustle, I went to the first dance on the list – Poker Face. In seconds I was Lady Gagaing all over the place. The cue cards on the screen were really easy even for a weenie like me to understand. If I started doing something wrong my body parts would start giving off a subtle, yet quite noticeable red highlight. During the breakdown, given no proper cues, I proceeded to spaz out. The resulting images that the Kinect so kindly took were so hilarious that I ended up missing my mark due to my sides bursting. Ultimately I ended the song with fairly decent marks and a new-found sense of rhythm.

I was now footloose and my dancing soul hungered for more. Not content with the supposed “easy” songs, I let my pride take over and decided that my next challenge would have to be something nearly impossible. That’s when I found Snoop Dogg’s Drop It Like It’s Hot and I, like Icarus, flew too close to the sun. My arms and legs lit up like a Christmas tree, and the disembodied voice of the Dance Central gods told me exactly what they thought of me. It was terribly disappointing. Clearly the difficulty curve of the game is not to be ignored.

Wanting to test the multiplayer part of the game, I brought the game to a bunch of friends who had just as much dancing skill as I and equally out of shape. In terms of scores we did about the same, but I discovered something about the game; it is far more satisfying to watch your friends flail about than anything else Dance Central has to offer. The game engine is pretty good about realizing that not everyone dances and it definitely compensates that by pretending you did the move correctly. It gives you the benefit of the doubt; as long as you attempt to kick your feet in the right direction it will score you right. This way you can dance without worrying about being perfect. And if you’re still in the middle of a dance and you can’t figure it out, it’s okay. You can pause the game and practice the dance moves in the middle of the song.

For anyone thinking about getting Dance Central, just ask yourself this one question; “Do I have Kinect?” Yes? Well, get it! You have no reason not to. It’s incredibly fun, beautifully crafted, and a good excuse to get people over to be silly with. It’s not a very deep game – most of what you unlock from playing it is all aesthetic – but it also doesn’t need to be. And if you’ve ever played DDR for a second, Dance Central is all that and more.

Now for those of you that don’t have Kinect, you’ll have to make an important decision. If you can convince yourself that one game is worth the hefty price tag, than this is definitely one of those games. I know I’ve paid way more than this for a bunch of plastic toy guitars, but at least Kinect has potential to do something other than make noise.

On November 9th, 2010, I was awarded my 10,000th Xbox Achievement point. The task that pushed me over the 10k mark, you might ask? Pushing down poor people in the original Assassin’s Creed. This got me thinking about all the other achievement points that I earned over the course of the last 4 years. How many other virtual people did I destroy on my way to 10k points? How many hours of my life did I waste playing garbage games for online bragging rights? Luckily, Microsoft is keeping track so I can go back though some favorite achievements through Xbox.com.

Oddly enough, my journey to a 10k Xbox Gamer Score started by waiting in line at Wal-Mart until midnight to get a Nintendo Wii on launch night. The first Gears of War game had just been released and a couple of my friends decided that the Wii simply wasn’t going to cut it. This brand new father didn’t have the extra coins laying around to pick up both, so they gifted me a used Xbox 360 along with a copy of Madden 2007 a couple of weeks after the Wii release. A quick trip to Best Buy later and I was ready to rock with Madden, Gears of War, and Halo: Combat Evolved for the original Xbox.

Achievement points came cheap and easy in early days of the Xbox 360. Although I only got a few of the points for Madden 2007, you can get close to 600 out of 1000 points by playing just one NFL season. Gears of War was almost just as easy to get points. Hell, you got 10 points just for completing the tutorial level and 10 more just for playing your first online match. Call of Duty 2 was one of the few launch games that I played and is one of the best examples of getting easy points. Completing the game on the hardest difficulty setting will get you 1000/1000 points. This is how the phrase “Achievement Whore” was born, children.

These launch games didn’t really reward you for going out of your way to explore the games content. Part of this was that the developers were still getting used to the idea of putting achievements in their games and, looking back on the achievements I got from these games, nothing really made me say “Holy crap that was unbelievable!” The other part of this was my fault for not getting Xbox Live in time to enjoy the online content Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 and Gears of War offered in their prime. The same goes for Castle Crashers and The Orange Box. These were four great games with a good amount of online achievements that I didn’t get a chance to play, since I was late to the Xbox Live table.

I eventually got Xbox Live as well as three red lights on my console. In the meantime, some of the games I started playing were downright mean when it came to gaining points. The Guitar Hero games really made you earn your points, and the ones you got were memorable. I have never been good enough at Guitar Hero to earn a lot of those achievements, but I bet it would be awesome to score 500,000 on one song or to get a 1000-note streak. The hardest cheevos to earn would have to be for 100,000,000 lifetime points, or 5 stars on every song on expert difficulty in Guitar Hero 3. I would also like to see the stats on the number of people that have earned the “Seriously 2.0” badge from Gears of War 2, which is rewarded for killing 100,000 enemies in the game.

There were some achievements that I earned that were a lot of fun to get, too. My favorite Halo: Reach achievement had to be “Lucky Me” for getting a triple kill while jetpacking. This was a lot of fun, although I got super lucky to get this one. Another one that was really hard to get but was totally worth it was the “Walk Free” badge from Grand Theft Auto IV. This one was awarded for successfully escaping a 4 star wanted rating from the cops. This was one of those moments that I will remember for a long time to come. The airport was a great place to get the warning up quick and had good freeway access to break away far enough to start ditching the cops.

Needless to say, I am a fan of the achievement system. It is the best way to brag to your friends and have the proof to back it up. I wish there were achievements for the NES back in the day so that I could prove to everyone that I beat Battletoads without dying a single time. Ok, so I didn’t finish Battetoads, but that would be a good mark to have on your record. I would like to see an achievement for Super Mario Bros for beating the game without using a warp pipe or for doing a speed run on just about every beat-’em-up released for the NES, Genesis, or SNES. The Live Arcade having old school games like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade is a nice step in the right direction though.

Sadly, this story ends with where it began. I am without an Xbox at this time, as I have earned the ultimate achievement: the “E74 Please Contact Customer Support” achievement. I am at 10,250 points and not sure I there is another Xbox in my future. Either way, I don’t think there is going to be a sequel to this story about the road from 10,250 to 20,000 points. Maybe that’s a good thing for the poor people of Assassin’s Creed who got pushed and shoved for a measly 5 achievement points.

EA games and Digital Illusions Creative Entertainment (DICE) released news this Tuesday regarding their breakout hit Medal of Honor, giving us a glimpse at the soon to be available downloadable content on Xbox LIVE Marketplace and PlayStation Network. Featured in the FREE download pack is the explosive new multiplayer game mode Clean Sweep. Consisting of a 3-round, last-team-standing battle with no re-spawns, and no support except for your teammates and your aim, Clean Sweep promises to be an enjoyable and welcomed alternative to Team Assault. Set to release November 2nd, check out our sneak peek preview and game details after the jump:

An ideal game mode for the diehard FPS, the Clean Sweep multiplayer mode is a best of three round faceoff. As said, there are no re-spawns, so it’s kill or be killed. Each round is 4 minutes long and the last team standing wins. Fast paced and exhilarating, the multiplayer expansion is sure to be a fast favorite. Playable on two completely new maps, Bagram Hangar and Khyber Caves, as well as the redesigned favorites Diwagal Camp and Kabul City Ruins, players will truly test their skills as a Tier 1 Operative in the Special Operations Command.

EA Games, with special consultation from real actual Tier 1 Operatives, has created the most realistic multiplayer experience in First Person Shooter history. The meticulous attention to detail and realism poured into the games bearing the MoH name has been unmatched by any other FPS series in history. Fittingly, the Medal of Honor is the highest decoration the U. S. Government can bestow on a member of the Armed Forces, and once again the game that shares its name lives up to a higher standard. Having already sold over 1.5 million copies worldwide in its first week, the game already has exceeded expectations, and I look forward to playing Clean Sweep when it is released next month.

Fable III is coming out on October 26th and it’s looking like you are, again, going to be leading the Revolution against the tyrannical King Logan in the now-industrialized nation of Albion. In the trailer, we see that the player character is the one brokering deals with local Revolutionary tribes, giving orders to his troops, and taking control of the population using a combination of guile and outright war scenes. I’m looking forward to the change of pace from the predominately lone-wolf experience that was Fable 2. The big problem with this trailer is that I don’t see a dog; we know the dog is coming back, it’s just a question of how much of a role it’s going to play.

The “Revolution” launch trailer features the Black Angels‘ song “Young Dead Men.”

The game will be available in both the standard edition for your usual $59.99 while the Limited Collector’s Edition is availabe for $79.99 and includes a bonus quest, exclusive in-game location, “Fable III” playing cards, a Guild Seal Coin, the Boxer dog breed and a unique outfit for your male or female hero. The game is being released in the United States on October 26th.

So…  Yeah…  Activision announced that the demos for DJ Hero 2 and Guitar Hero: WoR will be available today for free download on Xbox LIVE.  Yay?  Hallelujah?  Happy-happy-joy-joy?  Ah hell, I don’t know, I’m really tired and this was the only email I got this morning that remotely resembled news so I fucking posted it.  God, it’s early and yes…  That was a Ren and Stimpy reference.  I feel it’s been long enough.  I’m bringing it back!  Demo track lists after the jump.

DJ Hero 2:

“Don’t Cha” Mixed With Pitbull “I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho)”
Lady Gaga Featuring Colby O’Donis “Just Dance” Mixed With Deadmau5 “Ghosts N Stuff”
MSTRKRFT Featuring N.O.R.E. “Bounce” (Battle Mix)

Estelle Featuring Kanye West “American Boy” Mixed With Chic “Good Times”

Pussycat Dolls Featuring Busta Rhymes

Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock:

Black Sabbath “Children of the Grave”
Foo Fighters “No Way Back”
Slash featuring Ian Astbury “Ghosts”
Dethklok “Bloodlines”

Square-Enix announced a new Xbox 360 exclusive IP at GamesCom this year, and it’s far from slaying dragons and finding crystals. Gun Loco is Square-Enix’s new third-person run and gun shooter, offering a single player campaign and up to 12 players in multiplayer competitive action.  The title features original character design by toy designer Kenny Wong of kennyswork and brothersfree fame.

Square-Enix describes their upcoming title as a free-for-all escape at all costs from a remote prison planet at the edge of the solar system. Since the creation of the prison, the ruling order has long since dissolved and anarchy rules. The game features varied climate zones, maps built for running and sliding while shooting, and an array of diverse locales built around the planet’s ancient inhabitants.

The characters encompass the spectrum of sociopathic rage. Equipped with unique attire, weapons such as banana peels and bazookas, and character unique “take-down taunts”, each character is designed to play differently to keep the gameplay fresh. Gun Loco uses a sprint system in addition to standard run and gun which allows you to branch off your attack and perform a running, sliding, jumping, or catapult vaulting kill. Each stage offers a variety of environmental obstacles for the player to use to their advantage.

Why You Should Care

It’s a new IP from Square-Enix, and most likely developed by one of their most recent acquisitions. Yes, it’s always possible that this could turn out to be Eidos 3rd string release list filler, but I’ll definitely give it a shot. Square-Enix has a history of delivering incredibly fun, although not always polished 2nd party titles. Einhander, Ehrgeiz, and Drakengard, all weren’t without their flaws but all turned out to be fun solid titles. The other reason you might want to check this out is because Sega’s The Club was widely overlooked and quite enjoyable 3rd-person run and gun game developed by a highly talented team now tied to Square-Enix, Bizarre Creations.

Gun Loco is set for a 2011 release and is exclusive to the Xbox 360.

There are plenty of ways to get Xbox 360 games today.  Digital distribution, rental services, and retailers are all available and thriving.  My recent experiences, however, have brought some ideas to light on how the concept of Xbox 360 game sales and distribution should evolve, and soon.

I recently came across the glory of Blu-Ray + Digital Copy combo packs.  I can fire up the ol’ Blu-Ray player and watch at home or check out the Digital Copy on the iPad, iPhone, laptop, or basically any other digital media player.  I can install Xbox 360 games on my console and I can also buy them through Games on Demand, so let me buy a combo pack and give me one license to install it on my Xbox 360 and still have the disc for my collection or to lend out.

Now explore creating a game rental service.  The demo system is hugely popular on Xbox, so expand on it.  Allow me to rent games for 400 MS Points for 3 days, or through a Zune Pass style all-you-can-consume plan at a reasonable rate, then give me the option to keep it if I like it by paying the difference.  This way I can jump into playing online for a weekend without breaking the bank and you can put the screws to GameFly without the need of a single warehouse.  It wouldn’t hurt Zune Marketplace exposure to have a combo subscription for unlimited game rentals and music downloads either.

Hell, let’s just lose the physical copy altogether.  Let me pre-order or buy new releases through Games on Demand on release date, but partner with Amazon for code sales and distribution.  This may seem like a bizarre route to go, but I can already buy Microsoft Point cards, XBL subscriptions, and XBLA games instantly on Amazon so this isn’t all that different.  We’ve talked about Games on Demand before, and it’s clear it needs work to be relevant but this would be a great first step. Amazon gives you the power to make digital copies of games competitively priced.  They actively compete with current sales at Fry’s Electronics, Best Buy, NewEgg.com, Target, and most importantly, GameStop.  Amazon would make Games on Demand a living, breathing store.  GameStop can undersell Games on Demand after just a week or two after release date due to the high influx of trade-ins, but used games are usually only a few bucks cheaper than a new copy.  Make people question if it’s worth it to go to GameStop in order to save a buck or two against Games on Demand for a used disc in a sticker infested case.

Installing an Xbox 360 game averages out to about 4GB per title.  On the new Xbox 360-S system, that equates to about 50 games.  Most people won’t complain about that, but for the ones that do, offer a solution.  TiVo gives me the ability to attach a storage extender.  If I disconnect it, it cannot be connected to another TiVo or computer without formatting itself.  Since I have to be logged into XBL to play my downloaded games anyway, offer a 1TB external HDD with similar constraints and your hardcore digital enthusiast is covered.

Lastly, and knowing full well that this is the longest of shots, grow a pair and make the Zune HD able to play XBLA games.  You may have to make some controller contraption for it, but done correctly you’d wipe the floor with 90% of PSP games out there on a comparable system.  You want to get Apple’s attention?  Put a perfect XBLA port of Castle Crashers on a Zune HD or Windows Mobile 7 phone and watch them sweat.  There are dozens and dozens of fantastic XBLA games that blow most everything on the App Store or Facebook away, so capitalize on that or lose the opportunity.  Don’t forget Amazon manages to give away 3G on every Kindle, so leverage them when you make your mobile community.

Well, E3 has come and gone and now most of the dust has settled. A lot of stuff was announced and we got to see a lot of new games, it was all very exciting. Among the most talked about announcements were the new motion controllers from Sony and Microsoft. As you may have read, Natal doesn’t have me all that excited, and I personally feel that these motion controls do not represent the true future of gaming in any way. While that may be true, there is a new feature on the Xbox 360 that makes my pants feel funny. While everyone was focused on Natal they missed what Microsoft had to say on Games on Demand, a feature which they are greatly underplaying.

Marc Whitten made a post on the Xbox Live Community Team’s blog about many of the Microsoft E3 announcements and had this to say about Games on Demand:

Xbox LIVE has changed the way you play your games, and now we’re changing the way you access them, with the digital distribution of full Xbox 360 games. The Games on Demand channel will launch with a library more than 30 great games, from classic hits like Mass Effect, BioShock and Assassin’s Creed, to family favorites like LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga and Sonic the Hedgehog. You’ll have access to a wide variety of great games, downloadable in only a few hours and at the touch of a button. We’ve also added the option to purchase Games on Demand directly with your credit or debit card.

I truly believe that GoD represent a progression in the way that consumers will be able to access video games in the near future. It may seem like a small step to most, but this really is a large step in the progression to complete digital distribution. Microsoft started with their XBLA service and then added the ability for in-game DLC. Later they offered Xbox Originals for download, and now they have come full circle and have added a full download service for current generation games.

Games on Demand will offer benefits to both publisher and consumer, though I do foresee a couple of problems with the service already. Most of the benefits of digital download for the publisher are pretty obvious. If they don’t have to manufacture and ship any packaging or discs it will cut down on their costs quite a bit. As everyone knows, less overhead means more profit. Digital downloads also will eliminate the need for developers to fit all their content onto DVDs, in fact the system would not need a Blu-Ray player at all.

Mass Effect = $20

Used game sales, this is the most important benefit to publishers compared to anything else. Publishers have complained about the used game market for as long as it has existed. They have already removed the resale market for PC games long ago with the introduction of CD keys and online validation but have not managed to dampen the console used game market, yet. They have made attempts with DLC to slow used game sales and that has worked on a few games like CoD 4, Halo 3, or even Fallout 3. Despite their efforts the used game market is stronger than ever.

This is why publishers should love Games on Demand. If the consumer buys the game online, they can’t sell it to anyone. The game will be attached to that person’s gamertag and will not be able to be transferred. If publishers are able to transform the market to the point where 50% of games being purchased are digital downloads, that will put a huge damper on the used game market, and that is exactly what publishers want.

As far as the consumer goes, I think Games on Demand will have plenty of benefits. First and foremost, you get to be even lazier than before; that’s a bonus in my book. Never again will you have to go to the store to buy a game, get out of your chair to change discs, or be asked to reserve the new Madden game when you are buying a copy of Professor Layton. If you watched the silent video above you can see how simple it is to switch from one game to another.

On top of that, the store never closes (except for scheduled maintenance), and they are never sold out. Even if it is 2AM and you are playing a demo of a game that just came out you won’t need to wait until tomorrow to buy it. You also never have to worry about discs getting scratched by your younger sibling, pet, or even the console itself. All of the games will also load faster and the system will run much quieter when a disc isn’t spinning.

Imagine how different a huge game launch like Halo 3 would be with Games on Demand. Microsoft could allow people to buy the game several months in advance right from their console. Then, as soon as the game goes Gold and discs start getting printed, it could be put up on Xbox LIVE and the game could be pre-downloaded by all those who pre-purchased the game. You don’t have to deal with waiting in line for a day or sitting out in the cold; everything can be done from the comfort of your own home. They could allow you to start playing the game right at midnight on launch day; fuck, they could let everybody start playing the game a day earlier that retail release. That sounds great to me.

Games on Demand Launcher

As excited as I am about this new service, I do have some reservations and general concerns. They did announce that all games on the GoD service will be the same price as their retail counterparts. I really think this is a big mistake. If you aren’t getting the packaging, disc, and instruction manual, it should be cheaper. I also think that if Microsoft put up the games for $5-10 cheaper online depending on the retail price, it would offer greater incentive for the consumer to buy it online.

They also need to take some protips from Valve. Valve has proven that their free gameplay weekends coupled with their 25-50% off sales can increase sales of a 6 month or even 2 year old game greatly. If Microsoft doesn’t do any sort of free weekends, they at least need to have big discounts at some point. One other negative point in regards to cost is that they won’t offer any refunds. There is nothing worse than buying a game and finding out it sucks, but I guess that is why they allow you to download demos of most of the games.

My biggest concern though is hard drive space. There are a lot of systems out there with a 20GB hard drive, which is essentially only 12GB, which in turn means you can only have 1 game at a time. The current Pro bundles come with the 60GB and the Elite’s with a 120GB. Even the 60GB will only be able to hold about 6 games. They have said that you can delete games and re-download them at any time but what we really need are larger hard drives.

I must say that Justin “Clown Shoes” Murray was half right on one aspect when he said that the next generation would be all digital distribution. I think it will be a large part, but disc sales will still account for a significant portion of game sales over the next generation. But, he is still a fucking moron for citing that they would have 300TB hard drives. As for a solution, Microsoft should keep the hard drives in their SKUs the same as they are now. But, they will need to offer larger storage options in the near future that don’t cost $140 for a 120GB hard drive, they are totally shafting the consumer on that. I can buy a 500GB 2.5” hard drive for $100 from Newegg. Microsoft should drop the price of their 120GB to $60 to match the price of a new game and come out with a new hard drive, most likely 250GB, at price it around $100.

So there you have it. I am definitely looking forward to the new Games on Demand feature of Xbox LIVE and can’t wait to buy a game through the service once it becomes available.

[images courtesy Engadget]

[video courtesy Joystiq]