Gears, Games and Life in 2009

Hello faithful readers,

I haven't written anything in a month. I know you must all be very disappointed but let me explain. I was busy. But hey, I'm back now. And thank god right? So it's a new year, we have a new president, Wii Fit is GotY (according to Amazon), Wii Sports is the best selling game of all time, nintendo invented god, and a ton of other shit that I won't mention in the below paragraphs. So how bout you just follow along and listen to me ramble about stuff that actually matters and isn't just about the stupid wii.

"What you've been playing" is the most overused feature on all gaming sites/blogs/podcasts. Here's a far more original version for our one-of-a-kind blog:
What I Haven't Been Playing
Anything other than Gears of War 2 and Left 4 Dead
I will assume there is no reason to explain why as they are unquestionably the two most awesome games available.

On to other news and ramblings...

Gears of War 2 patch is out today. I read through the list of stuff they fixed/balanced and couldn't find "made matchmaking happen quickly" or "eliminated lag" so that sucks...but anyway here are the
Top 5 Awesome Things They Did Change
(in descending order of awesomeness)

1. Punish players for quitting
I fucking hate those kids who care so god damn much about their fucking rank that they quit as soon as their team is down by 2 rounds. Do you know how difficult it is to quit out of gears? You have to bring up the center button menu and return to the dashboard and then restart the game and navigate through all the menus again. It probably takes 5 minutes. Then you need to find another multiplayer match, which can take another 10 minutes if you're unlucky. Meanwhile I'm sitting there in the game watching my teammates drop out like flies and all of a sudden it's me versus a team of 5 that's been kicking our ass even as a full team. Thanks quitting assholes, that really added to the fun.

2. Improved client side hit detection with the shotgun
As long as there is gonna be lag, at least my shotgun will still work. It's the worst when you've put 5 shots in someone pointblank and they don't pop then they spin around and get 1 in you and boom you're dead.

3. Added achievement progression to the war journal
What can I say? I C=3 Cheevos. They are addicting...and this is TAJ.

4. Got rid of the shield and a shotgun glitch
This glitch was utter bullshit. I never noticed the dude with the shield had his shotgun out until I was gibbed all over the floor.

5. Spawn protection
Gives you 5 seconds of invincibility after a respawn so that you don't immediately explode from some asshole's frag while you’re leaving the spawn room.

There are a number of games I feel are worth playing but not buying. So what are my choices? Rent or borrow? Well, borrowing is pretty unlikely (I don’t have many hardcore gaming friends) so renting is the only option left. Now do I rent from blockbuster or get a service like Gamefly? Living in Boston means that the blockbusters around me a run by a bunch of shitheads who let their store go to shambles so that you can't find anything. But I don't like the commitment of Gamefly. Currently I have Netflix and sometimes I'll let a movie just sit in my living room for 2 months...which is a dumb waste of money. Anyway, here's the list of games that I believe are probably worth playing and then getting rid of after you beat:
Fable II
Prince of Persia
Mirror's Edge
Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts
Viva Piñata 2
Far Cry 2
World of Goo

No More Hero's for Wii used to be on that list but I was buying something on Amazon and I needed to spend $25 for the free super savers shipping...No More Hero's was only $20...it was a no brainer. Other than that the only one on that list that I think I'd buy is Fable II. I had a ton of fun with the first version of the game. It's just so colorful and cheeky.

Finally, I want to make one non-gaming comment about our new president. I've always been relatively indifferent about politics. I find myself to be a bleeding heart or hardcore democrat on some issues like go green and save the world and technology and science should be put before all else while at the same time cutthroat and uncaring about other stuff like homeless people are just catching the shit end of the natural selection stick...it's Darwin baby. So for this reason I've always kind of banked on the fact that the president can't do too much on his own cuz all his shit still needs to pass through a ton of other people so...ignore it. So I was at lunch during the inauguration speech yesterday and it was awesome. He is a great speaker. So much so that it made me care (just a little, but still...). Then for one reason or another I found myself on Whitehouse.gov, which had just received a huge update. Anyway, I read some of the stuff on there and Obama rules. He will be blogging all through his presidency. He is posting all his proclamations and executive orders out there for everyone to read. Also he plans on putting all non-emergency legislation on the site for 5 days to allow people to review and comment on it before he makes any final decisions. I thought that was awesome. He's embracing technology, he cares what the public thinks and he is making himself and his office as accountable as possible my making them as transparent as possible. He's certainly a refreshing change from Dubya.

And that's all.
p>c. AD.

2008 Retrospective

2008 is more or less over in the video game world. Anything new that gets released at this point can’t expect much attention. All the blockbusters have dropped in time for the holiday season; the final point of punctuation being the new Prince of Persia, which from what I read is great as a comfortable timewaster but if you enjoy any sort of a challenge you will hate it. Anyway, it feels like a good time to take a look back on what I played and of that group which I loved and which I didn’t.

As one quick note before we get going: I have an Xbox 360 I play every day and a Nintendo Wii that (like everyone else) I haven’t turned on in months.

Best 360 Retail Game: Gears of War 2

What’s the best part of this game? Cover system? Brutal weaponry? Chunks of flesh and splattered blood? I think all of those things are great little bonuses but what makes the game really incredible is the way it’s redefined the shooter. Gears somehow slows the pace of the game while making it feel more frantic. It’s not a run and gun like halo or most other shooters. It forces you to execute flawlessly while taking your time and constantly reevaluating your position. It eliminates the all too common cycle of spawn > get as many kills as you can before you die > die > repeat. If you die in gears you’re out until the end of the round with the rest of the other poosies, and who want’s to be there?

B3RG Runner-Up: Dead Space

It’s easy to define what made Dead Space the kick ass game it is. One thing: atmosphere. First of all, they set you in the scariest place possible, the middle of outer space on a busted ship with no communication. You are completely and utterly alone. Then they get rid of the HUD, add a bunch of ambient noise, do an over the shoulder view, automated computer system that sounds like people whispering from a distance, flickering lights and insane doctors and religions…it was all about atmosphere and it was 100% success.

Best XBLA Game: Geometry Wars 2
Seizure inducing firework-esque visuals, pulsing electronic music, over the top frantic gameplay, but most of all ridiculously addicting. The win in this game is short rounds that always leave you thinking “but this is so easy…why did I fly into that guy? I can do better”.

BXG Runner-Up: Braid
Geo Wars’ antipode. This game encourages you to relax, take your time and think. Soothing music and art design by Claude Monet (not really) made this game an intelligent escape from the norm. The puzzles forced you to think, leave, come back and finally have one of the most satisfying eureka moments of any game I’ve played to date.

Most Disappointing 360 Retail Game: Battlefield: Bad Company
What can I say? I was game starved. I knew this wasn’t going to be that good. I had friend who swore by the old Battlefields though…I bought into the whole, “completely destructible environments alone will make this game awesome” bullshit. Multiplayer was fun for about 3 hours. Campaign was terrible. This game sucked.

Most Disappointing XBLA Game: Castle Crashers
Castle Crashers was super hyped. The gaming community watched the Behemoth Dev Blog like hawks for what seemed like years. Every time a new weapon or animal orb was announced we all exploded into cheers, “Woo! Yay for a…mace/fish/cleaver!”. When it released I was on the fence about snagging the beat’em-up. I thought, “This game will be awesome if I have friends who play it with me”. I spoke with a few friends who felt the same. So we all got the game. Turned out connectivity bugs had rendered it impossible to play over live and therefore no fun. Single player beat’em-ups become a chore after like 5 minutes. Woot for hype. Stupid Behemoth is still correcting the issues today and should have the patch out soon. Oo yay!

Best Game for A Lesser Console: Little Big Planet
I have one friend with a PS3. From the day he got it I’ve made fun of him. Since that day I’ve told him to buy two games for it. First was the new Metal Gear Solid, not because I thought it was going to be good, because it was “the game that makes the PS3 worth owning” according to popular outcry. The other game was Little Big Planet. He bought it last weekend and brought his PS3 over to my apartment so we could give it a spin. I must say that it is a phenomenal game. It’s a silly, fun time that’s great for multiplayer locally and lends an unimaginable amount of creativity to the player. Oh, and I started to scratch the surface with the level editor last night (yes, he left it at my apartment, woo!) – unbelievable depth. Easily the best game I’ve played on PS3 or Wii in the past year.

BGFALC Runner-Up: Okami
Okami for Wii was a remake of the ps2 version. It’s the game they say the newest Legend of Zelda stole it’s gameplay elements from. Saddly, the best way I can describe it is by using Zelda as a reference. It’s like Legend of Zelda if Link was a Japaneese God embodied by a wolf instead of a little elvin boy. All your special abilities in the game are driven by god powers you control with the “celestial brush”. To control the brush you paint different sybols on the screen using the Wiimote and an onscreen stylus. This is how you solve puzzles; this is how you do combat. It’s an awesome mechanic perfect for Wii. The game has depth, story and is ridiculously long. Like any Zelda game as it progresses you learn new techniques that keep the puzzles and combat from getting old. It’s good…I guess it’s about as good as a Legend of Zelda game but amped up with god wolfs and 7-headed mountain-sized serpent beasts.

And that’s it.
p>c.

Gears Gets Old School...Kind Of

The world used to be a lot smaller. When I was young I got my start playing Tank Wars on the PC against a couple of computer controlled opponents. The family computer was next to the washing machine, adjacent to the living room; and there I sat, on a stool that was a challenge to climb as an eight year old, alone. Then when we got a Nintendo Entertainment System my brother and I would occupy our finished (and by finished I mean unfinished except for an area rug, a pool table and a TV) basement for hours at a time struggling through cooperative bubble bobble; dying to get through each level and pick up that next password code (before the days of saved games). When the Super Nintendo dropped we begged our parents for it saying “it’s like Mario in 3D!”. Nintendo 64 released a few years later and it actually had three dimensional games. I remember my friend Brian opening it at his birthday party and popping Super Mario 64 in…my mind was blown. I got into the shooter genre with the game that sucked almost everyone from my generation in, Goldeneye. It had four player deathmatches and as a 13 year old boy one of the coolest thing you could ever imagine doing was firing a rocket launcher at your friend. The next step in this progression’s tale was Xbox and it’s flagship game, Halo. Halo was phenomenal. It wasn’t cartoony, it was realistic and gritty. On top of that you could plug a couple Xboxes into each other and load up each one with four players. I can’t count the number of times I carried the TV from my bedroom two flights down to the basement so that we could system link two Xboxes together. We’d set the teams; put the four people on red in the main room and the four people on blue in the back room. At the time it was unbelievable, eight player video games?

These days it’s very different. There’s no lugging consoles over to your friends house so that you can play four vs. four team deathmatch. Today you connect through the internet. There’s no coordinating with your friends to find a time that everyone has free…a couple hours they like to waste killing each other. Today the pool of opponents is practically limitless. You could end up playing with anyone who owns the game and has an internet connection. Many games today have actually gone the way of making local play more difficult. Rarely do you see four player split screen anymore. Instead it’s most common to cap local play at two and online play at one person per console. Playing video games is a different social world now. Back then if you had an interest and a friend with an Xbox you were all set to play to your hearts delight. Chances are your friend was looking for the opportunity to get some multiplayer in. Today you need to buy your own console, pay for online service, get a copy of the game…

In many ways it used to be a much cleaner, purer experience.

Today when I get a game for my Xbox 360 I follow a pretty standard routine. First I play through the single player campaign on the hardest difficulty available (yes, I’m badass). This first step has never changed, it’s just like I used to do on any gaming console in the past. I enjoy that feeling of accomplishment I get when I beat a game. Next I do something I never did before the 360, page through the possible Achievements and see what’s required to unlock those points (play it on a new harder difficulty, kill 30 enemies with the flamethrower, find all the collectables, etc.). I generally crank through as many as those as I can next and that is the point the game sort of turns into work for me. I’m no longer playing it as I see fit. I’m not playing it to escape or relax. I’m playing it to complete arbitrary tasks set forth by the developer. But I can’t help it. I need to beat them…at least some of them.

Once I start to realize I’m not having fun (I’m doing work) I turn my attention to the multiplayer. Multiplayer follows a general cookie cutter format with most new games. The first time you play you are a rank zero. As you play more games and beat people supposedly better than you, your rank rises. In many games this ranking is a range from 1 to 50. Each game uses a different ratio of skill and experience to decide the speed at which you rank up. A lot of games are attempting to use the same TrueSkill system the Chess world uses, ELO. It does a calculation based on which side of the bout is predicted to win and by how much (similar to a spread in sports betting). If the favorite wins, they gain a modest amount skill points and the underdog loses a modest amount. If there is an upset, the underdog gains a large amount of skill points and the favorite loses a large amount. It’s a system put in place to keep public games fun and competitive by matching you against similarly skilled opponents. However, as I said above, in most games this is balanced with experience points. Everytime you win a game you get 1 additional experience point, if you lose, nothing happens.

What I’ve found is this: in games such as halo 3, your rank is advertised next to your name with both a numeric value and a symbol. In the early stages of multiplayer your rank will jump sharply. The further you come along the more the slope of advancement stabilizes until you reach the skill level you are “supposed” to fall under. Under such conditions I quickly found myself playing for a purpose other than the fun of the game. I needed to get to that next rank. Every time I lost a match I was furious because I knew I faced the possibility of ranking down in the network; stepping further away from my goal.

Often I miss the days of sitting in my basement with 3 of my friends in the back room and my brother and 3 of his friends in the other room, screaming at each other through the wall, talking all sorts of shit, but laughing my ass off win or lose. After the match we’d step outside for a cigarette and either congratulate ourselves on our awesome win and talk some trash to my brothers team or laugh about how badly we were beat after the warthog we were all in got hit with a rocket and went flipping through the air…

This is why I applaud the Gears of War 2 ranking system. There are 5 ranks represented by pictures, not numbers; FIVE, not fifty. You have no way of telling how far or close you are to the next level. I feel liberated...freed. I’m not worrying about making it from 22 to 23. I’m not pissed at my teammates for not coordinating as well as we could have or not reviving me at some crucial moment. I’m not thinking about any of those many things that irked me while playing Halo 3. I’m simply too busy laughing.