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Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Modern Warfare 2 Special Ops AC-130 Gameplay

Here is footage of 2 player co-op featuring a man on the ground, and a 2nd player controlling the devastating AC-130 gunship from the skies. There are over twenty Special Ops missions included in the game. If they even come close to what is seen here, we are all in for one wild ride.

Marc Moves to Pennsylvania!

I wanted to take a moment and congratulate Marc on his new job and new life in Pennsylvania. We hope you find much success! All donations and delicious perishables may be sent to Jonathan Focarino. Good luck, have fun!

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Games You Should Play - 10/20/09

It's been a very busy time in The Marc household, with moving and starting a new job and working my butt off at my old job to train my replacements. I haven't really had that much free time to blog. However, I figured since I posted my Brutal Legend review, that I would enlighten all of you with a brand new "Games You Should Play."

Games You Should Play - Amplitude

Amplitude is to Rock Band/Guitar Hero as Medal of Honor is to Call of Duty. Both are precursors to the biggest games out there. If you have played Rock Band Unplugged on the PSP, you have played Amplitude. Amplitude is actually the sequel to the game Frequency...but much much better. It's kind of hard to explain exactly what it is or how it plays, but once you play it and start to learn it it is not that hard. It's actually easier if I explain how Rock Band Unplugged works. Basically, you play the whole band, all four instruments, and you have to keep them going all at the same time. But...you don't have to play them all at the same time. You have to keep them going by hitting a whole bunch of notes in a row for a defined section, then that track (drum, guitar, bass, solo) plays automatically and you can move on to the next track. Repeat for all the tracks and by the time you have all 4 going at once (if you are good) the first one you did should be back to hitting the notes. You have to be pretty quick and be able to keep a rhythm to succeed at this game.



In order to know where Rock band and Guitar Hero get their roots, you should play this game for that reason alone. The multiplayer stinks (it is definitely NOT a party game) and you cant even play online anymore if you wanted to as they shut the servers down years ago. The difficulty ramps up about as well as the RB/GH games, and Brutal is seriously, seriously, hard. But if you put the time and effort into memorizing everything, it should be easier. What really kills this game, is the song list. Good songs, don't get me wrong, but only 26 songs makes for a game where there is not much variety. There's a decent variety to the tracks, but only 26 songs makes for a game where you can hear about every song in an hour. There are no MEGA HUGE AWESOME songs either. In fact, most of it is stuff you've never heard of. Don't get me wrong, the game is still fun. You should definitely play it.

Brutal Legend Review

I usually don't like to review games until after I have beaten them, but in the case of the awesomeness that is Brutal Legend, I will make an exception. To put it bluntly, BRUTAL LEGEND ROCKS! It has its downfalls, which I'll delve into, but on the whole as a package, it is the definitive heavy metal game.

I won't bore you with the intricacies of the story (which goes from 0-60 in about the length of time of an Iron Maiden guitar solo), but I will say a few things that I like. It's a decent story, probably Tim Schaefer's weakest, however, in the grand scheme of things, way better than a lot of crappy stories these days (I'm looking at you Mirror's Edge). Tim Schafer games include all of the Monkey Island Games, Grim Fandango, Full Throttle and Psychonauts.

The story is basically a "what if there was an parallel universe where Heavy Metal was created and passed down by the gods and people forgot it over time, but if you rock out and play some kickass solos you get awesome powers." I mean, how awesome is that!? If you didn't say very awesome, then you are dead wrong

It takes some huge balls to create a game like this, both figuratively and financially, as in the last 20 years (or if we want to get very technical, since Metallica's Black Album), heavy metal has been slowly dying. It has since been replaced by many things, none of which are even close to being the same thing. Goth and scream metal are not the same things. In fact, one of the main villains you fight are Goths, but I won't get too much into that. How metal is this game? Well, apart from the kick ass solos you bust out in a Guitar Hero styled way, there's also 82 metal songs in this game. These aren't just little blurbs or major bands, I'm talking huge names and huge songs and really obscure (but still AWESOME) songs. This is a game that has Ozzy, Lita Ford, Rob Halford and Lemmy doing voice acting. Let it be known that Ozzy does have the smallest part in terms of importance to the actual story, but he is the fucking GUARDIAN OF METAL. I mean, do I really need to sell you on the metal level of this game? I think not. If you like metal, don't read the rest of my review. Just go buy this damn game.

Ok, for all of you people on the fence who kinda like metal or Jack Black, here's what is good and bad about the the actual gameplay.

Good

  • The hack and slash parts are excellent and everything controls very well. From driving your car (Druid Plow) to running and picking certain enemies to attack, everything is smooth.

  • The actual hack and slash battles are also equally excellent, making you think about how you will attack a huge group of enemies and switch between your battle axe, and your guitar (or, other battle axe if you want to use Heavy Metal lingo).

  • The side missions, while repetitive, have a good variety to them. There are a decent amount and you don't really HAVE to do them, although they will help you later on buy more upgrades that you will need. They aren't bad if you do them sporadically, like I have, but if you want to do a whole bunch in a row, you will notice that they get very boring and that the little cutscenes right before are almost exactly the same in each case, but overall, I liked the variety of them.

  • The graphics are gorgeous. There is a bit of pop-in when you are driving, but GTA has pop-in too and I think it's still an unavoidable thing when you are talking about a huge open world game. The characters are very cleanly rendered and the style of everything is awesome. When it really shows off is when there are LOADS of enemies and units on screen. There is almost no slowdown (once I've seen in), while there are loads of units fighting. This was never designed to be a realistic looking game, and I wasn't expecting that, but the art design and style is phenomenal.

  • The voice acting is among the best I've ever heard. Even with huge names, they don't give them WAY too many lines and the more important people are voiced by phenomenal voice actors (Tim Curry or even Jack Black). My only qualm was that Rob Halfords character looked like it should have been voiced by David Bowie.

Bad

  • About an hour in you have your first boss battle, or "stage battle" as it's called in the game. No matter what Tim Schaefer says, this is totally a RTS design. Read this Penny Arcade strip to get a sense of what i am talking about. I, for one, am not a fan of real time strategy games. However, they are not quite that hard, except for the one I am currently stuck at! GRRRRRRRRR! However, they are unnecessarily long and while it is encouraged that you actually fight in these battles, you don't have super powers or a health bar so it is tough to gauge how much you can actually take, and these enemies will kill you (you automatically respawn an infinite number of times until someone actual wins or loses the battle, but its annoying).
That really is the only bad thing I could find in this game, and while it is a design choice and a matter of personal preference (I hate RTS games, too much going on at once), but if you can get past that, you'll love this game. Please play the demo on 360 or PS3 to play the 1st half hour of the game if you are on the fence. That should make you want this game a lot more. If you are thinking about it, PLEASE buy it. This is a game that will LIVE AND DIE by the sales it has when you purchase it NEW. Please support the fine developers at Double Fine and only purchase new, as I fear that if this game bombs, it will just make it harder for an original game with an original idea to get created if you aren't from a big company and because dammit, Tim Schaefer deserves it.

Rating: 9.5 out of 10.0

Monday, October 19, 2009

Darksiders Hands On Impression

This past weekend I was fortunate enough to make it to the Big Apple Comic Con located in midtown Manhattan. The convention was totally overhauled this year to include B movie stars, comic book artists, and videogames. The only 3rd party title on display was the upcoming Darksiders developed by Vigil Games. This is the developer's first outing and the pressure is on to produce a brand new hit intellectual property. I had an opportunity to play through a portion of the game and form some pre-release impressions.

The demo opened at some point deep within the story. You play as War, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. You are a hulking bad ass that is more than capable of laying to waste everything in your path. War has a variety of both physical and magic attacks. All of which are brutal, visceral and gruesome. Comparisons will immediately be made to the God of War series and with good reason. Darksiders wants to be God of War in every way imaginable. If you had dropped Kratos into the mix, it would have made little difference to the gameplay. The button configuration is nearly identical, including light and heavy attacks with a grab button for gore soaked close encounters. Darksiders even features simple platforming to accompany the carnage. Intimidating foes of various scale are ever present as you slice, dice and clobber your way through the level. Boss fights are massive, over the top and require quick time events to bring the behemoths to their knees. The developers at Vigil Games are clearly great admirers of the God of War franchise and with good reason. The question is, do we really need a God of War impersonator when God of War III is just around the corner?

In the coming months, no doubt more information will be released and the Vigil Games will be looking to differentiate themselves from the crowd while still appealing to the God of War audience. As it stands now, the game looks great. Character models are richly detailed and the environment is well defined. Famed comic book artist Joe Madureira provided the character designs for Darksiders and the developer's 3D artists did a fantastic job bringing his creations to life. For the record, there was little discernable difference between the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. However, the Xbox 360 version did appear to be a bit brighter. We shall have to wait and see if Darksiders is a worthy spiritual successor or a note for note carbon copy of one of gaming's biggest icons.









Big Apple Comic Con photos courtesy of Stephanie Koithan

Thursday, October 15, 2009

CryEngine 3 Beauty Speed Interaction Trailer

Crytek is widely considered to be the industry leader when it comes to in game graphics. After taking a look at this brand new trailer showcasing the CryEngine 3, it isn't hard to see why. I can't wait to see this technology put to use in a new intellectual property from Crytek.

Friday, October 9, 2009

Batman: Arkham Asylum Review

There are a few universal truths in the videogame industry. Halo games will always be released full price regardless of content. Your girlfriend will never care about your latest Xbox 360 achievement (if she says she does, she’s lying) and finally, games based on comic books can never be Triple A titles. I am pleased to report that at least one of these truths has been laid to rest. More appropriately it’s been blown to bits. Batman: Arkham Asylum is that good.

From top to bottom Batman: Arkham Asylum has more polish than the top of Patrick Stewert’s head. Bad jokes aside, this is a carefully crafted masterpiece and I don’t throw that word around lightly. You will be immersed in an experience that takes you to every corner of the Asylum as you play through continuous memorable moments. The game begins with Batman bringing Joker back to Arkham after an admitedly easy scuffle. Joker, never being one to be outdone, turns the table on the Dark Knight and takes command of Arkham. Chaos naturally ensues and Batman is left to his own devices to bring down the nefarious super criminal. Many characters from Batman’s stellar catalogue of villains make an appearance including Victor Szasz, Poison Ivy, Killer Croc, and Scarecrow among others. Each villains segment plays out in a unique manner with the Scarecrow’s sequences being particularly fantastic.

The player has the unique position of witnessing the longest night of Batman’s life. You begin the evening with only your trusty batarang and grappling hook to tackle your foes. As the story progresses, you’ll have the opportunity to retrieve several more wonderful toys from Batman’s arsenal as well as unlock combat specific abilities. Each gadget is fully upgradeable and a lot of fun to use. You haven’t truly lived until you’ve hung upside down from a stone gargoyle only to swoop up an inmate and hang him by his toes. The up close and personal combat is surprisingly fluid. Seamlessly moving from takedown to takedown is a sight to behold. With only a few simple button presses you can pull off a 40 hit combo and leave a room full of bad guys in a world of hurt. The button configuration is simple, but the timing and execution of combos takes a great deal of patience to master. Everything looks fantastic as well. The game has a very clean and stylized artistry while maintaining crisp clear visuals. Rocksteady completely captured the feel of the Batman universe. This is as close as anyone is going to get to dawning the cape and cowl. The developers were careful to exclude hockey pants from Batman’s wardrobe.

Batman: Arkham Asylum will take about ten hours just to complete the main story objectives. This is not including the over 240 Riddler challenges that will have you crawling through the complex solving various cryptic messages and uncovering hidden Riddler trophies. Several combat trial rooms are included as well with more unlockable as you progress through the game. Small graphical hiccups are present, but are nearly negligible considering they are infrequent and don't intefere with the experience. The majority of texture loading issues are most certainly due to the Unreal Engine the game is built on. Buy a copy of Batman: Arkham Asylum and give it a place of distinction on your game shelf as one of the very best this generation.

Rating: 10.0 out of 10.0




Thursday, October 8, 2009

Uncharted 2 Single Player Gameplay!

Today we have some footage featuring various locales and gameplay from Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. I literally can't wait to get my hands on this game. If you haven't done so yet, download the multiplayer demo from PSN and join in on the mayhem. I personally recommend rolling with the shotgun. Getting a one hot kill on an unsuspecting foe is ridiculously satisfying. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves will be released next week on October 13th.