Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 Night Vision Goggles!

Man, I thought the legendary Halo 3 “cat helmet” was bad. If you haven’t seen it, Infinity Ward has really gone to great lengths to cash in on the Prestige Edition of their hotly anticipated Modern Warfare 2 game. For a whopping $150 (roughly equivalent to two full-priced 360/PS3 games and a DS game) you can get your copy of Modern Warfare 2 with a working pair of night vision goggles. What??

Sure, you get a lot of stuff for that cash aside from the goggles. Included in the package are:

• Steel book with metallic finish (included in the $80 hardened edition)
• Artbook (included in the $80 Hardened Edition)
• Token to download the origninal Call of Duty (included in the $80 hardened edition)
• Night Vision Goggles that is capable of seeing up to 50 feet
• Collector’s stand to hold your goggles that is individually numbered.

How to improve Xbox Live messaging

It’s generally accepted that Xbox Live’s core user experience is better than that found on the PlayStation Network.  Having one set standard across all games makes communicating with your friends much less of a hassle (most noticeably when grouping up for particular games).  However, I still think there’s plenty of room for improvement.  The following is just a quick list of simple features that I wish Xbox Live had.

1. Message Previews – More often than not, when I receive a text-based message from a friend while playing a game it’s usually a short 1-3 word phrase.  But in order to actually see what the message is saying I have to open up the dashboard, go to the messages tab and that’s where I see the actual preview from the full message.  Why not just include the preview in the new message notification?  Rather than the notification saying “so and so just sent you a message” it could say “‘Invite Please’ – Friend’s Name.”
2. Simpler Voice Messages – Voice messaging is the sort of feature that you use a few times because it’s a cool idea and then realize it’s too much work so you go back to normal text messages.  If you’re playing a game it’s hard to justify opening the dashboard, going to messages, selecting create new message, recording audio, then sending it to your friend.  It just takes too long.  Not only that, but most of my friends hate getting voice messages if they’re in a game because not only do they have to navigate to the messages tab (see #1), but they also have to take the time to listen to whatever the sender is saying.  It sounds trivial but if they could add a sort of hotkey with the xbox jewel for quickly recording messages, and also add a prompt similar to “hit the ‘A’ button to play” for incoming voice message notifications, it might be a much more attractive feature.
3. Access to Sent Messages – This is a quick one.  There’s nothing worse than logging into Xbox Live and seeing a new message from a buddy that simply says ‘okay’ or ‘haha’ or ‘cool.’  What are they talking about?  I have no idea, but if I could see my sent messages I could find out.
4. Seamless Community Integration – It’s kind of annoying that for every game my group of friends decides to adopt we have to first go through that game’s particular clan or team features to become associated.  Why not just work this into Xbox Live itself?  Steam does this quite well.  In Steam you can setup your own groups and invite users to the group without having to mess with individual games.  Steam also provides a handy homepage for each community group to see their latest activity.  Imagine being able to login to Xbox Live and browse a list of clans/guilds, see what games each is playing, and also sign up right from the guide?  Sounds like a good feature to me.

AudioBoo – Battlefield 1943 and Monkey Island

This one’s split into two parts because the first part exceeded 5 minutes.

Fight Night Round 4 – Vicious Uppercut

So I picked up Fight Night Round 4 this week and I have to say I’m loving it so far.  I’m a huge boxing fan and this game doesn’t disappoint.  There have been a lot of haters out there complaining because EA took away the use of face button controls, but I find “Total Punch Control,” i.e. controlling your punches with just the right analog stick, to be more than adequate.  There’s a bit of a learning curve but once you figure it out it’s a bunch of fun.

One of the coolest new features is the ability to replay and upload videos from your fights to EASports.com.  Below is a 4 second clip of my latest knockout.  It was a “flash knockout,” which is a new feature in FNR4 as well.  What it means is basically if you land a perfect punch even if you’re getting beat pretty badly you can instantly knock down your opponent, just like in real boxing.

Sacred 2: Fallen Angel Review

Sacred 2: Fallen Angel is almost difficult to review just because of the sheer amount of content in the game.  You can play for hours and hours and still not really make a dent in the overall scope of the game, but based on the amount of time I’ve sunk into the world of Ancaria I think I’m well equipped to dish on my opinion of the game.

Sacred 2 is, at its most basic form, a callback to the classic PC RPGs of yesteryear.  For the most part if you’re a fan of games like Diablo, Diablo II, Dungeon Siege and Neverwinter Nights you’ll have a good time with this game.  You get to choose one of six character classes with unique traits and skills, and play through either the dark or light side of the main story campaign.  Make sure you’re careful to pick a character you really like though, because the level cap maxes out at a staggering 100, so you’ll have a lot of time to bond with your digital self.

As with most RPGs the main gameplay is as follows: travel from town-to-town picking up quests from villagers and other NPCs, go bash in the skulls of some monsters, and return to said NPC to get experience to advance your character’s level and gain some loot.  The items you receive are rated on a star scale up to 5, with each additional star signifying an ever better item with more powerful attributes.  The reason this is important is because, as we all know, dungeon crawler RPGs are all about the loot.  If you don’t have a propensity for acquiring trinkets to maximize your character’s abilities then this game (as well as the entire genre) isn’t for you.

The graphics are somewhat discouraging for next-generation title.  The closest thing I can relate them to is Titan Quest on the PC, but that’s a 3 year old game.  Still, the comparison is apt as both the camera angle and character movements in both games are very similar.  Given the fact that the world of Ancaria is huge it makes sense to give them some leeway in the graphics department, but still there are better looking games out there.  The audio is another aspect that I have issues with – it’s very repetitive.  You’ll hear the same bits of music everytime you have an encounter with an enemy (a scenario which plays out roughly every 30 seconds) so you’ll probably be tired of the sound aspect of the game within a few hours of play.  The voice acting is also hilariously bad, but one could almost chalk that up as a feature of the game since it brings some nice comedic relief every now and then.

Where this game truly shines is in co-op multiplayer.  You can jump into an instance of the game with up to 3 of your friends and progress through the story as you would if you were playing the game alone.  Like most RPGs this is the way the game was meant to be played.  You’re able to jump in and out of games no matter what your progress is in singleplayer, given that you characters are no more than 10 levels apart.  From here you can progress through the campaign as you would normally, working through quests and generally helping each other out and once you finish up the session your character’s experience progress, items and loot are carried back into singleplayer.

My biggest problem with Sacred 2 is the platform.  As I mentioned above, it’s a traditionally PC RPG experience which has been ported to the console, and I think the Xbox 360 doesn’t do it justice.  Being able to use a keyboard and mouse instead of a controller probably would have made this game much more enjoyable to me, if only because clicking on the screen to have my character move is much easier than using an analog stick.  The game also chugs a bit when you’re in towns which may be a symptom of limited console hardware.

If you’re looking for an action RPG on the console then I’d have to say give Sacred a shot.  I know a lot of people have been much more glowing about it than myself.  However, I don’t think this is the type of game that someone who isn’t familiar with the genre will be into.  In the end I’d say that Too Human pulls off a console adaptation of the genre better than Sacred 2, so if you’re going to try Fallen Angel consider picking it up for PC instead.

“How To Make A Great Movie-Based Game” – IGN

Until relatively recently most gamers cringed when they heard about a new game based on an upcoming movie or similar franchise.  Because of the fact that movie tie-in games usually seem rushed out of the door and leave fans of the movie scratching their heads, the developers at GRIN were faced with the overwhelming task of making a game that lives up to the fanbase’s expectations while at the same time providing a fun experience to everyone else.  Hit the link below to check out an IGN article discussing how they went about making it all come together.

http://blogs.ign.com/terminatorsalvation/

(Courtesy of RocketXL)

Terminator Salvation Gameplay Video

If you read my review but were looking for more info about the game, this is a great resource to check out.  It’s provided by the folks at RocketXL (thanks as always to them) and it gives you access to a bunch of cool videos, most importantly a portrayal of the game in action.

*Video removed*

Terminator Salvation Review

It goes without saying that the Terminator franchise has had its peaks and valleys, but I for one believe that the latest foray into the world of John Conner was quite successful as a movie.  So then, how does the game fare?  Roughly the same, I’d say.  Having completed Terminator Salvation on the Xbox 360 I can say that it’s a totally enjoyable experience, an exciting action thrill ride that coincides with the theatrical release very well, especially considering that the game’s plot is meant as a prelude to the events that occur in the movie.  Therefore, if you’ve already seen the film you’ll get a whole new experience with the game.

Terminator Salvation is a lot like Gears of War, in a good way.  Most notably in the control style – Salvation uses the same over-the-should vantage point for its gunplay, and even has a pretty interesting cover mechanic.  The best part about it is that with the ability to move precisely between various forms of cover you won’t experience the hassle of getting stuck to cover, or not being able to remove yourself from it as is common in Gears.  Secondarily Terminator Salvation brings Gears of War to mind because it’s just a straight-up fun action experience that doesn’t take itself too seriously and varies the gameplay enough to keep the player interested.  Although 3rd person shooting could be considered Salvation’s main course, there are several vehicle and defense scenarios which give the player enough variation to keep them guessing.

The audio and visual aspects of the game are spot-on.  You’ll hear the familiar Terminator anthem several times throughout, and nothing pairs better with mowing down Endos and Aerostats than that classic ballad.  All-around the music fits well, and the visual portrayal of a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles is surprisingly intricate and vivid.  The weapon load-out is sufficiently varied without becoming too encumbering: you get your standard M16-variant machine gun, a tactical shotgun, a light machine gun, a grenade launcher, RPGs and even a few different forms of grenades.  Though it may sound limited compared to other games’ abundance of weaponry I find that having just a few weapons to work with is optimal since, more often than not, the player just finds their favorite gun and sticks with it anyhow.

I do have a couple of beefs with the game, though.  First of all, it’s damn short.  You can blaze through the whole of Terminator Salvation in an afternoon without much difficulty.  This is coming from a guy who is notorious for taking longer to complete most games than many others do.  Also considering the fact that the achievements are pretty basic and there isn’t a whole lot of replay value, that initial 5 hours is probably the most you’ll want to get out of the game, period.  This shortcoming is somewhat remedied by a nice co-op mode, however.

All-in-all I’m not sure that I can safely recommend Terminator Salvation as a $60 purchase to anyone but the most hardcore Terminator fans.  If you’re interested in the game and are looking for a fun but brief experience, by all means check it out, but wait until the price drops a bit or pick it up as a rental and save your cash for a more substantial game.

E3 2009 – Rumors and Such

It’s that time again.  This year’s return to the E3 of yesteryear should produce some exciting news.  This post is really just a roundup of some of the rumors I’ve heard and what I’m looking forward to most.  We’ll start with Microsoft and the Xbox 360.

Not much is known about what Microsoft is going to show this year.  You can bet that Halo 3: ODST will play a big role, but otherwise they don’t have the laundry list of announced megaton games to talk about like they have in years past.  One rumor going around is that they’re working on a motion controller (in fact, the same rumor is going for Sony) so we may see the debut of a new motion controller initiative to compete with Nintendo’s ridiculously successful Wii.  There’s also a rumor that the 360’s dashboard will see another massive update similar to the “New Xbox Experience” we saw last holiday season.  This might be tied into the Zune / Xbox Marketplace integration that was announced this past week (along with the new Zune HD).  However, as far as games go, I’m kind of at a loss.  Some folks are saying that Half-Life 2: Episode 3 will be debuted during Microsoft’s conference despite the fact that it’s traditionally a PC franchise.  I’m not sure about that but Episode 3 is definitely a game I’m interested in seeing.

The Sony press conference is the one I’m the most excited for because they have the biggest list of announced games to look forward to.  There has also been some interesting information leaked about possible revisions to their hardware which have me excited.  Let’s start with the games, though.  Currently the games they’ve announced that I’m interested in:

• Uncharted 2 - A sequel to my second favorite game on the console.  What I’ve seen so far looks even better.  Can’t wait for this game.
• Heavy Rain - Should be interesting, comes from the same folks that made Indigo Prophecy.  The gameplay seems to rely heavily on quick time events but the visuals are great as a result.
• Project Trico - This game isn’t technically announced yet, but some footage was released not long ago and it looks promising.  Unfortunately I wasn’t around for ICO on the PS2, but I’m looking forward to playing my first game from Team Ico.
• God of War 3 – This one’s obligatory.  Another game from a series I haven’t had the opportunity to try out yet but if nothing else the gameplay looks extremely fun and the visuals are amazing.

So that’s just the software, how about the hardware?  I’ve been flirting with picking up a PSP (for the second time, I might add – I bought the original when it was first launched but there were no games so I traded it in to put towards my 360), and all rumors point to an announcement of a new version of the PSP this year during Sony’s press conference.  Apparently called the “PSP Go,” this new portable console will be focused on digital rather than physical media.  You’ll be able to download games from a PSP store which is very appealing to me, and very appealing to Sony because it should cut down on some of the rampant piracy issues associated with the device.  A lot of folks are pointing to this as the rebirth of the device, and I know that if it’s announced I’ll buy one, plain and simple.

There’s also the question of the Playstation 3.  Despite having a solid line-up of games Sony is still struggling in this department.  Some shots were recently leaked of a PS3 “slim” redesign, and originally these images were scoffed at.  There is a bit of a twist however – sites that put these images up were contacted with cease and desist notices, giving this rumor some credibility.  Could Sony finally be making a big push to put the PS3 on the map?  A slim and sexy version of the console could do the trick, though a price drop wouldn’t hurt either.  We shall see.

As for Nintendo?  Who on Earth knows.  They maintain that they’ll have games for core gamers (i.e. gamers who aren’t interested in doing exercises on a balance board or playing their Wii remote like a pretend saxophone) but we’ve heard that before.  All I know is that it really doesn’t matter what they do at this point, the Wii and DS combined will continue to sell like gangbusters and completely outshine the 360 and PS3.  My only concern is that Microsoft and Sony will begin to think that motion controllers are “where it’s at” and give up on traditional gaming as we know it.

It would be a sad day if that were to happen.

Chronicles of Riddick : Assault on Dark Athena Review

I’ve had some time to spend with Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena and I have to say my overall impressions are very positive.  I was a bit apprehensive about playing the game because I wasn’t at all familiar with the franchise and I’m usually a little hesitant when it comes to games based on movies (and movies based on games, for that matter).  However, Assault on Dark Athena has a lot of fun gameplay elements and overall I’m very happy with the experience.

To review Assault on Dark Athena is really to review two games – both Assault on Dark Athena itself and the previous title in the series Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, which debuted late in the original Xbox’s lifecycle and was therefore missed by gamers such as myself.  Fortunately you don’t have to worry about playing a shabby Xbox port, because Tigon and Starbreeze Studios have completely remastered the game to bring it up to next-gen standards.  I have to say compared to native Xbox 360 games there is no noticeable difference in graphical fidelity, and the environments in Butcher Bay are rich and pleasing to the eye.  They did a great job of breathing new life into a game that was considered ahead of its time on the Xbox.

Gameplay-wise Escape From Butcher Bay and Assault on Dark Athena are part stealth/espionage, part first person shooter, and part puzzle-solver.  Though you’re encouraged to use Riddick’s comfort in shadows to quietly take out enemies in the dark, you can also run around blasting them if you so dare.  The puzzle elements of the game are almost a throwback to older PC adventure games like Myst or Monkey Island.  There are many times throughout that you’ll have to use your noggin to work through a problem in order to advance, and more often than not the puzzles provide just enough challenge to be fulfilling without being so difficult as to cause frustration.

The move from Butcher Bay to Assault on Dark Athena does provide some handy upgrades, but the overall look and feel of the series remains consistent.  Though the environments and textures are just as good in Butcher Bay as they are in Assault on Dark Athena, I noticed that the character models in the latter were a big improvement.  You can tell that a lot of attention was paid even to off-shoot characters and overall the detail is great.  Another cool enhancement comes in the form of hot keys for your weaponry.  If you want to, you can use a radial to browse all of the weapons you’ve collected, but in Assault on Dark Athena you can also assign your favorites to buttons on the d-pad for easy access.

The two games include a whole lot of replay value aside from the standard fare of achievements.  If you’re a fan of the Riddick franchise you’ll delight in the fact that you can unlock a whole bunch of bonus features by finding and collecting items such as packs of cigarettes and security key cards in the game.  Overall I have to say that it’s rare to find a singleplayer experience that provides as much content as Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena does.  Even if you’re new to the franchise like I was you’ll be able to jump in and enjoy the gameplay right away, and because Butcher Bay and Assault on Dark Athena have linked narratives you’ll get a consistent experience the whole way through.

If you want to learn more please check out my media post for ‘Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena’ by following this link: Game Reviews – The Chronicles of Riddick : Assault on Dark Athena and Sacred 2: Fallen Angel