Making Metro 2033 Immersive

I played Metro 2033 to completion for the first time about a year ago.  It had been on my radar (and my Steam list) for quite some time and I finally got around to actually playing it.  I’d heard so many great things about it and was very excited to play it.

It didn’t quite grab me in the way I wanted.  The voice acting was laughably bad in spots.  Character models have some of the deadest eyes I have ever seen.  The shooting was stiff and didn’t give me the control I wanted during intense moments.

By the time I reached the end, I wasn’t having much fun.  I even downloaded a FAQ to help me power through the last few levels in peace.  Quickly, I moved to the next game, not really thinking about the experience I just had.  There were more games in my backlog to “slog” through.

Recently, I had an itch to play the game again.  Part of me still wanted that experience I was expecting the first time through.  I decided to try a few things to hopefully strengthen the game.  One of these things was changing the spoken dialogue to Russian.  The game is based off a Russian book and takes place in a post-apocalyptic Russia.  What better way to make the game more immersive?

I also decided to play the game on a harder difficulty.  I don’t play many games on Hard, mostly because I have too many games to play through.  Also, I hate hard difficulties that simply make enemies crazy accurate or able to absorb entire clips without going down.  A few things about the Ranger Hardcore difficulty intrigued me enough to give it a shot.

First, bullets are actually powerful.  On Ranger Hardcore in Metro 2033, one bullet will often do the job, both for you and for baddies.  Enemies are a bit bullet-spongy on the Normal difficulty and this was a very welcome change.

Scavenging is a huge part of Metro 2033, as you need to find ammo and filters (for your gas mask) to survive.  These items are made much scarcer, giving the player an even greater need to scavenge or risk running out of supplies at a very inopportune time.

 

The final change to the game is a simple one – no HUD.  This means no crosshairs and no way to tell how much ammo you have, unless you are visiting a shop.  Luckily, your timer for how much air you have left on the surface still exists but only because it isn’t part of the HUD (it’s represented by a watch on your wrist). 

 

The results of my replay?  Suddenly, I understood the people who absolutely loved the game.  The world that seemed absolutely silly (mostly due to that terrible English voice acting) felt much more intense.  Something about Russian voices just fits the setting perfectly. 

I felt like I had to work to survive in this world.  I tensely snuck around enemy camps that I wouldn’t have a chance taking head-on.  When I did have to engage, every shot needed to count or I risked going down.  I even got into the habit of counting out how many shots I had fired, so I wouldn’t have to reload at an inopportune time.

I was torn between desperately trying to get off the hazardous surface and wanting to comb the ruins for any amount of ammo or filters I could find.  Several times I found myself dashing between alcoves in search of filters, gasping as the poisonous air tore at my lungs.  These are some of the most heart-pounding moments I’ve ever had in a game.

For anyone who skipped Metro 2033, I highly recommend you go back and check it out.  It still has its problems (stiff controls and some very odd audio-mixing) but those are easily overlooked for one of the best post-apocalyptic video game experiences to date.

Commercials in My Video Games? No Thanks.

I don't usually get up in arms about things.  My temperament is pretty calm and I can usually see both sides of any argument.  I find it hard to review books or games because I find myself being too understanding of the things that are wrong.  For example, the Mass Effect 3 ending didn't really bother me too much.  I do think it was a bit lazy at the very end but I still enjoyed the game as a whole.  The whole debacle with Diablo 3's online servers didn't really irk me either (although, I did get that game for "free").

I read something today that did get my blood hot, something I would absolutely fight against if it ever came to light.  Destructoid posted an interesting article today that talks about a new Sony patent.  This patent defines a system where a commercial can be inserted INTO a game

The advertising already present in video games, like billboards with real products on them, works because it doesn't interfere with the immersion (at least, it usually doesn't).  Ads that interrupt the gameplay most certainly would.

I understand that games are getting more costly to develop.  I understand that the economy is in dire straits and every company is looking for more ways to offset costs.  I don't care.  We already pay $60 for these games, several times more than other forms of media.  Find another way to do it.  And don't try and offer us a bullshit line of "Pay more and get a version with no ads!"  That won't work either.

Ads that interrupt content are probably the most hated form of advertising in the world (interstitials, I believe they are called) and no one wants them in their games.  Don't do it.

First Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Impressions

This past weekend was the Guild Wars 2 beta and I managed to snag myself an invite by pre-purchasing the game.  I spent a good amount of time playing it and I just thought I'd give some of my impressions of the game.

First, and I think most importantly, was the extreme amounts of hitching and lag at the beginning of the weekend (around 2 pm my time on Friday).  When I got out to the areas with other people (after a brief instanced tutorial), it became unbearable.  Actions would take 3-5 seconds to happen after the button was pushed and it was impossible to get anything done.  Luckily, this lag didn't persist past the first day of the beta and hopefully NCSoft will be ready for this next time.  The servers were almost always at High capacity (at least the American ones were) so some more servers would probably be a good idea.

The feel of the game is very interesting.  It resembles a game like WoW, with smoothness (during the non-peak hours) during the combat - when you push the button for an ability, it comes out without delay.  This is something I feel a lot of MMO's don't nail and it bothers me constantly.  This seems to be in service of their combat system, which allows you to roll around by double tapping movement keys to dodge attacks.  Most attacks are dodgeable and it gave the game a more actiony feel.  Not quite sure if I like that yet.

I mostly played an Elementalist with my time, wanting to get a decent chunk into the content and not wanting to spread my time doing it.  She was 15 at the end of the weekend and had just left the first zone.  Her moveset was very involved and required a lot of thinking on my part. 

If you didn't already know, Guild Wars 2 doesn't have you learning skills the normal way.  Instead, equipping a new type of weapon (like a staff or sword) gives you a new set of skills.  You unlock a set of five of them by using the ones you have already and get the rest in a (relatively) quick amount of time.  Getting a new type of weapon meant grinding out new skills but they are usually quite different.

On top of this, the Elementalist has four "aspects" that correspond to the elements such as wind and fire.  Each aspect has its own set of skills and those sets also change with the weapon.  This easily gives the Elementalist the most to think about in terms of skill usage and it seems like it could be very interesting.  Of course, only playing for six or seven hours meant I didn't get a full grasp of them all but enjoyed trying to combo them together.  I could easily see this class being one of the more interesting ones to play, especially in PvP.

Before I talk about my rather brief time in PvP, I want to touch upon the quest structure in Guild Wars 2.  Unlike your traditional MMO where you travel to quest "hubs" and then go out and do them, GW2 seems entirely built on the public quest system that was most well-known from Warhammer Online.  On your map are several unfilled hearts; each of these corresponds to one of these quests.  By going to this point of the map and aiding the people there, you fill a bar that eventually tops out and fills the heart on your map and gives you a nice experience boost.  There is also an overarching story quest for your character that you do alone but it is much less experienced than the public quests.

This is a odd, but intriguing choice by NCSoft.  Forcing players to work together no matter what if they want to level means they can do crazier things with the quests.  Most memorable to me was the giant shadow demon I fought with about seven other people in a swamp area.  Before this event started, a few smaller events happened all over the zone where portals had to be closed to stop invasions (a la Rift).  When we closed the smaller portals, bigger ones opened in the swamp.  Closing those let out the boss demon.

It was a great deal of fun.  His pattern was fairly simple - let us wail on him a bit and then summon more portals we had to close to be able to attack him again - but things were crazy during it.  Attacks flying left and right, portals opening and people scrambling to close them, other players going down and having to run over and rez them.  It was simple but intense and was probably my favorite moment from the beta event.

Unfortunately, I can see a huge downside to this system.  Public quests are very dependent on other people.  What happens when everyone has leveled and no one is around to do these quests with you.  Like Warhammer Online, the middle tiers of the game would most likely be barren and extremely difficult to solo.  I'm not sure how NCSoft plans to balance this but I'm willing to give them a shot before I dismiss it out of hand.

Finally, let's talk a small bit about PvP.  Guild Wars the original was well-known for its "jump right in" PvP.  Anyone could make a max-level character with a good set of gear and go right into the fight.  Guild Wars 2 has a similar system but in a different way.  You create a normal character and jump into PvP whenever you want through a menu and are automatically scaled up to 80, the cap.  When you leave PvP, you go back to your original level.  It's a simple way to handle it but allows more people to try it out since they don't have to level a character to max level first.

The PvP combat itself felt good but wildly imbalanced at this point.  I flailed around a few games on my Elementalist and had a hard time with it because of all the skills.  However, some classes, particularly the melee ones, seemed to shred me much more quickly than the others.  I don't blame the game for being imbalanced now because it's in beta and should be fixed but it made it hard to get into the PvP.  It felt just as fluid as the PvE experience, with plenty of ledges to jump on and little hidden paths in each map.  The only available game type was a capture and hold points type game that worked well enough.  Next time, I might focus on PvP a little more to get more of an impression.

Well, I've rambled on long enough about my time with Guild Wars 2.  I had fun with the beta at times but also thought it dragged in many spots.  Maybe that was my class choice, maybe the XP values aren't final, I don't know.  I will certainly play more of it (since I've already paid for it!) but how much I play of it will depend on a few things.  Expect another update after the next beta!

Personal Attacks Instead of Product Reviews Are Not Alright

For those of you who haven't heard already, there is a man who claims that the idea for the Assassin's Creed games came from his book. He is suing Ubisoft for stealing his ideas and plans to seek both monetary reparations and the blocking of sales of Assassin's Creed 3.

I'm not here to talk about whether or not this man is telling the truth or how much imitation is too much when using a similar idea you heard elsewhere. I want to talk about what some gamers are doing in retaliation. The man's book, Link, is sold on Amazon and a bunch of gamers have taken it upon themselves to negatively review his book just on the grounds of not liking his lawsuit.

This is not the way to go. Reviews are in a very bad place right now, with controversies over too many similar ratings among websites or writers not being unbiased enough to review it. The rise of Metacritic as a tool for determining a game's success amongst publishers has made the power of our game reviews even more potentially damning. We shouldn't be giving this man's bad reviews just because we don't like something he is doing.

No matter the medium (movies, games, books, etc.), a review should be about the quality of the product itself. If potential customers keep seeing reviews treated as nothing but a place to trash the creators of the product and not about the thing they are supposed to be reviewing, who is going to take them seriously any more?

Dark Souls PC and Gamer Entitlement

Dark Souls was a surprising hit for From Software last year. The game that came before it, Demon's Souls, was well-liked but it just did okay in the sales department. Dark Souls was a much more well-received game and it almost seemed like everyone was playing it. I definitely enjoyed it as well - it ended up on my top 10 list for 2011. The one thing that people have been clamoring about for the game was a PC version, for those that didn't own a console but were intrigued.

Well, we are finally getting a PC version (whether they planned it all along or the petitions actually worked is hard to tell) and people are overjoyed. At least, they were until they learned that the game would include Games For Windows Live, the service that PC gamers love to hate. New petitions have shown up begging for the removal of GFWL and a lot of the positive comments about Dark Souls have again turned negative.

I can kind of understand this vitriol for GFWL. At times, I have had massive problems with the service, mostly with updating the client and getting stuck in impossible update loops, but for the most part, it is fairly unobtrusive. Some complaints state that Dark Souls' ever-online functions would be hindered by GFWL and I could certainly see that being the case at points.

However, I cannot get behind this petition. Its intents are in the right place but the anger around the whole thing is not. Gamers managed to convince From Software to put the time and effort into a PC port and they immediately complain when it isn't everything they wanted. GFWL is a horrible piece of crap sometimes but it isn't the end of the world; if the game did end up including it, it would only be a minor inconvenience.

It seems like this year is the year of gamer entitlement (an overused word but for good reason). If something isn't exactly to their liking, they yell and scream and pout until they get their way. Bioware caved with the Mass Effect 3 ending and I'm willing to bet From Software will cave too, unless the deal is already cemented.

On one hand, we are the consumers paying for these products and our say should matter. On the other, the consumer doesn't always understand what went into a decision or how game design actually works.

We are heading down a dark path towards a future where any little thing that fans of a game don't like will be patched or updated because that is what is expected of a developer. This future will be one where the only game developers are the ones that don't even bother to try something new because they don't want to risk being drawn and quartered by the online community.

Gamestop Forced to Notify Customers About Online Passes

Gamestop is the company we all love to hate. They are constantly at odds with one group or another and most gamers tend to ignore them if they can. The prices they give for trade-ins is abysmally low and they turn around and sell them for twice as much to willing consumers ready to spend $5 less. It's shady but completely legal.

One thing that won't be legal for Gamestop anymore is selling games with online passes without warning the consumer first in California. Most of your salespeople in a Gamestop won't tell you that that game you are saving $5 on will actually cost you $5 more when you have to buy an online pass.

I'm glad that someone is finally cracking down on this and I hope it spreads to more states soon. Many gamers are smart enough to not fall for such a trick but there are plenty of not-savvy consumers out there that do - and it needs to stop.

Persona 3: FES Only $10 on Playstation 3's Store

The Persona games have been around for awhile but they only really gained widespread popularity here with Persona 3 and Persona 4. These games have been popular enough to make Atlus a fairly loved company and allowed a game as strange as Catherine to actually sell really well. Remakes of each of them have come to the PSP, with P4 coming to the Vita later this year, and fan fervor over Persona 5 is rather intense.

I remember playing through Persona 4 first (thanks to the Endurance Run of the game found at Giant Bomb) and immediately wanting to track down 3. That was probably 2 years ago now and the only place I could manage to find a copy was on PlayAsia, paying way too much for shipping and having to wait almost three weeks to get it. It has been easier to find at various points in time but can still be pretty tricky to track down.

This is why I was so amazed at Atlus when they announced that Persona 3: FES would be releasing on the Playstation 3 store as a PS2 Classic download. I was even more amazed that the price would be only $10! For a game that amazing (and hard to track down), this is an amazing deal. While I stand by my assertion that Persona 3 Portable is a better game (even without all the running around town, the fact that you can control your whole party is way more crucial to enjoyment in that game), this is still a great way to get into the Persona series for a cheap price.

Killzone 3 Multiplayer Going Free-to-Play With Level Cap

Free-to-play (F2P) has become a huge thing in the gaming industry. Games like League of Legends and the Lord of the Rings Online adopted a F2P model with microtransactions to support the company and it was a massive success. The industry quickly took note and several F2P games, as well as MMOs relaunching as F2P, have come out in the last year or so.

F2P isn't something we see on consoles because these consoles weren't really designed for such a thing. Sony isn't letting that stop them. Killzone 3's multiplayer has started to taper off, according to developer Guerrilla Games, and they think they know how to fix that. In just a few days, full access to the multiplayer component of Killzone 3 will be free to all Playstation 3 owners.

Of course, there's a small catch to this: you can't level past 10. If you want more progression, you just have to pay $15 for the rest of the content. Aside from the leveling, everything is free from the original content to the DLC map packs. Even so, the developers hope that this will create a resurgence in one of the most popular PS3 online shooters.

This is a great idea and I fully endorse Guerilla for deciding to do it. Pulling more people into your multiplayer game is always a good idea and I wouldn't be surprised if they end up making a ton more money off of the game this way. If so, it would give good support to the idea of selling the single-player and the multiplayer in a game as separate experiences for those who want one or the other and not both.

Mass Effect 3 to Feature Reversible Cover With FemShep

Trailers and screenshots of Mass Effect games have never really hyped me up that much for one major reason - they all tend to feature the male Shepard instead of the female Shepard. I firmly believe that the series is a much better experience when you get to see a woman kicking ass and leading such a powerful team. Being voiced by Jennifer Hale certainly doesn't hurt either (especially since the male's voice is so awful!).

As a small nod to the fans of FemShep , the cover of (at least the X360 version) will be reversible, allowing gamers to have FemShep on the front of their game. This isn't really a big deal in the least but kudos to Bioware for acknowledging the subset of gamers that love FemShep.

Now, I just need to see if the PC version has the same cover. Fingers crossed!

Learn to Code by Playing a Game?

Everyone who plays games thinks about what it would be like to make them. Several look up coding programs and start to dive in. Only a small fraction ever make it very far. Coding can be a rather intense mixture of problem solving and high-level mathematics and it can be very intimidating. A small game development team called Primer Labs have decided to take the Guitar Hero tact of learning something and making a game that also teaches you how to code called Code Hero.

It seems to be a tool that teaches you by integrating important coding types and techniques into a bit of gameplay, allowing the player to learn what each thing does to the environment. Code Hero teaches players the Unity game engine, an established free-to-download engine. The team's Kickstarter page says the game has elements of Minecraft (with the different pieces to assemble) and Portal (with your gun that shoots code) that should be familiar to game fans.

This sounds like a very interesting idea. I am a big fan of the concept of learning something by doing it and think this could be a good starting point for gamers interested in a possible future in coding. If the game is easy enough to understand while also teaching in a way that doesn't just make sense in the actual game, it could be a fantastic way to learn coding.

I'm including a link to the team's Kickstarter page where you can pledge to help make the game a reality. $1 gives you access to the beta so you can try it yourself (something I need to do as well). They are currently approaching $45,000 of their $100,000 goal with only 4 days left to hit the goal. If you are interested, make sure to pledge!

Code Hero Kickstarter

Mass Effect 3's Final Month Looking A Bit Shaky

Mass Effect 3 is coming out in less than a month and I'm still fairly excited. Of course, my excitement has started to wane a bit with the story leaks (didn't read them but heard skepticism about the quality) and the decision to include a tacked-on multiplayer mode. I still have a bit of faith in Bioware but I can't help but be a little worried.

It doesn't really help that ME3 has been in the news so much lately, usually in a negative light. First was the team's decision to not include gamepad support on the PC version. I do play the PC version but I feel the M+KB controls are optimal. It still seems a little weird that they didn't go ahead and put the feature in, seeing as everything (even indie games) nowadays at least has the support. The developers arguments that it plays better on the M+KB anyways may be true but everyone likes options.

And today, EA has done something else a bit sketchy. They were offering a promotion deal of a free copy of Battlefield 3 if you pre-ordered Mass Effect 3 on Origin. This was a fantastic deal - too fantastic, it seems. Today, they pulled the deal and have changed the terms of receiving the free copy of Battlefield 3, for the worse. It seems they didn't foresee how damn popular such a deal would be (duh, EA) and were hemorrhaging money way to fast.

All this bad press, plus my own dreadful feelings about the game itself, is making me really start to worry. Bioware is one of the most consistently awesome developers out there but even they can make mistakes, like the heavily-flawed Dragon Age 2. None of us will know until March 8th if the game turned out all right, something that shows just how far our faith in Bioware has dropped off since the amazing quality of ME2.

Mass Effect 3 Demo Impressions

The Mass Effect 3 demo came out today and, although I really should have not bothered, I went ahead and played through it anyways. Just thought I'd give my basic impressions.

The first thing I noticed upon playing the demo was how much more cinematic the game is, especially during active gameplay. The Mass Effect games have always had a film-like quality to the but that was mostly in cutscenes. Now, they are doing things in-game that remind me of a Call of Duty game.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this. I may just need to get used to it but it barely seems to resemble a Mass Effect game anymore. That special VGA trailer where all that happened was running from one side of the area to another comes to mind and makes me slightly worried.

Something seems a little off about the shooting. The demo is short and I am used to playing on the PC but something just felt stiff about it. You walk extremely slowly when not running and everything seems to move just a bit too slowly. I couldn't quite tell if it was just me or if the game was actually that stiff in my brief time with it.

The dialogue choices seemed a little stripped of options but I'm guessing that's just because it's a demo; those options probably exist in the full game.

The upgrade system seemed interesting. At first glance, it looks EXACTLY like the screen from the first Mass Effect, but you can expand each ability for more option. Each tick of progress down the tree seems to have a choice of two upgrades, usually a power versus cooldown type thing, with the final values clearly shown at the bottom. It seems like a nice mix of the first game and the second game's upgrade systems.

I didn't bother with the multiplayer and probably won't in the main game. That doesn't interest me much at all. I don't play Mass Effect for the combat, I play it for the story.

There really isn't much more to say about it. You get the basic idea of the story from the demo (recruit all the other species to fight back against the Reapers) but don't see any of it really play out. There isn't much character interaction, which I feel is the main point of these games. I guess we will have to wait and see in a few weeks how the final product has turned out.

Atlus Printing Another Run of Radiant Historia

Good news for all you JRPG fans! If you missed out on the critically-acclaimed Radiant Historia last year, Atlus is going to print another run and release it near the end of March. People who tried to procure a copy of this game in the last few months (like me) saw just how damn scarce it has become.

Radiant Historia is a DS RPG with an interesting combat system that matches some tactical grid-based elements with standard JRPG combat. It pairs this with a time travel story that is one of the best out there, according to critics. I personally can't wait to get my hands on a copy of this game. And for a decent price!

New Adventure Game Coming From Double Fine, Funded Overnight on Kickstarter

Kickstarter has been around for awhile. It allows companies to tell people about a pitch or an idea they have for a product and ask individuals for donations to help meet a given monetary goal. If they meet the goal, they make the product. In addition, people who hit certain tiers of donations get certain rewards like a mention in the credits or getting to meet the developers.

After the interesting Notch and Tim Schafer meeting a few days ago, Double Fine announced yesterday that they were starting a Kickstarter project for a new adventure game. This was likely an idea they had at some point in the past but couldn't secure funding for. They hoped to get $400,000 for starting funds.

They hit $400,000 last night. As of this writing, they are up to almost $940,000, easily the most money a Kickstarter project has ever made in this amount of time.

This is an interesting thing to see happen. Double Fine's belovedness obviously had an impact on how quickly this goal was met but it is still quite impressive. It shows game developers just how much support they could get from fans if their fans liked them enough.

We might just be on the cusp of a new trend for some independent games that would have otherwise fallen through the cracks. Of course, how many indie developers have the clout that Double Fine does?

Sony Strikes Again: UMD Transfer Program Not Coming to US

You may have heard something about Sony offering a transfer program in Japan for PSP owners to obtain digital copies of their UMD games for transfer to the Vita for a fee. Most people assumed a similar program would be coming to the U.S. and Europe, seeing really no reason to do the same. According to reports today on various sites, Sony has come out and said they will not be offering such a program here.

This is not a very good way to inspire people to buy a Vita. While the potential audience for such a feature would probably have been minimal, it is still a large enough percentage not to ignore. The only way to obtain PSP games on a Vita now will be if you own a digital copy of one already or buy a new copy off PSN in the future. Either way, no one wanting to play their old UMD's can get rid of their PSP now.

I think Sony made a huge mistake not offering this program in the U.S. While the prices for this feature in Japan were controversially skewed by game and by publisher, it still would have been nice to have the option to transfer instead of just being forced to buy a new copy of a game.

Unique Funder for Psychonauts 2?

I check Giant Bomb several times a day. Usually, it's the first thing I go to when I get up and look at my sites. Today, a particularly interesting headline caught my eye on the front page. It read 'Minecraft's Creator Offers to Fund Psychonauts 2' and made me laugh with just how odd, yet perfect an idea it really was.

This exchange happened via a series of tweets between Notch, the face of Minecraft, and Double Fine's Tim Schafer. Seeing as how Notch lives across the ocean in Europe, he posted these tweets very late at night for us U.S. residents. Tim Schafer noticed the tweets this morning and the two have supposedly gotten in contact with one another.

This is a fairly odd occurrence but it could happen. Notch has made millions off the success of Minecraft and seems like a fairly laid-back lifestyle kind of guy. There isn't anything strange legally about an investor funding a project like this. If the two came to agreeable terms, this might actually happen.

A sequel to Psychonauts has been talked about for years but the first one never did well. A private funder like Notch may be the only way this game can get made. I guess we'll hear more about this in the near future.

Modders Rejoice! Skyrim Creation Kit Releases Tuesday

Yippee! The Skyrim Creation Kit will be out next Tuesday. Expect to see tons of great mods taking advantage of it in the next few weeks.

What about the mods already out, you ask? Well, those mods are interesting but lacking in scope, not because of any shortsightedness by the designers but because there isn't much you can do without the mod tools. Modders have been able to replace textures with different ones or change models into other models but they can't get at the code that makes it all work.

With the Creation Kit, modders will be able to do things like design entirely new quests or make weapons that have interesting new properties. Take a look at the scope of some of the greatest Oblivion mods and you can see part of what's coming. The rest, I'm sure, will surprise all of us.

Bethesda is apparently teasing some kind of surprise when the Creation Kit does launch. Most people are guessing that it will be the mod browser that Bethesda talked about during development, a central place to find a bunch of neat mods. Could be interesting, if it manages to be easier to use or more convenient than the already-great Skyrim Nexus website.

THQ Receives Stock Delisting Notice, Outlook Seems Dire

A couple of weeks ago, there was a lot of talk about THQ. Rumors were abound that the company was canceling ALL of its 2014 games. Add that to the string of layoffs that they have had over the last year and the Internet was definitely abuzz about the company. At the time of the rumors, I figured they had to be a bit more dire than the situation actually was, with the successes of Saint's Row the Third. It turns out that they are in more trouble than I actually thought.

Stories have been all over the Internet today about THQ receiving a stock delisting notice from NASDAQ. This means that since THQ's stock has been closing at under $1 for so long, they are at risk of being unable to be publicly traded anymore. While this isn't necessarily the death knell for THQ, they are definitely in trouble.

I am really bummed to hear this. THQ isn't the biggest publisher but I really like their tendencies to take a chance on some things that other publishers don't (Darksiders, Saint's Row, Metro 2033 and its sequel). I also feel bad for Relic and Volition, two extremely talented developers that could have issues if THQ folds.

Looking at their lineup, they need a few more winners and to cut some of the worse franchises they have like the Nickelodeon games and the ever-atrocious WWE Smackdown series if they want to continue to operate.

Resident Evil 6 Demo Coming! (But Inside Another Game)

Dragon's Dogma is a game I haven't really heard enough (or made the effort to learn) about to know whether or not its worth playing. In fact, as I write this, I can't even think of anything to say about the game itself. I'm sure I've read something about it but none of it has stuck. Knowing Capcom's recent luck with their newer IP's, I imagine I'm not alone.

Maybe seeing this attitude all over the Internet made Capcom decide to include a Resident Evil 6 demo with copies of Dragon's Dogma. Similar to Crackdown, it won't be included on the disc itself but will give access to the demo at some point in the future. Also similarly, I expect a lot of people will buy the game just to get at the demo.

Most disgusting about this demo is that it will actually be Xbox exclusive for about two months. The Xbox 360 demo will become available in early May and the Playstation 3 demo will pop up in early July.

This is a really bad path to tread down and really makes me wonder why a company would care about a goddamn demo. Is Microsoft really anxious for the exclusive rights to the RE6 demo? I expect they paid to have this arrangement work out and I can't really see why. It just sets a precedent for exclusive demos that I really don't want to see continue.

UPDATE: According to an article on Destructoid, Capcom is stating that the demo's exclusivity is in fact due to an agreement with Microsoft. They don't specify whether the company paid for the demo's rights alone or if it some dual marketing deal with the DLC also releasing first on the Xbox 360 (something I would bet money on). Either way, the demo will still release much later on the Playstation 3.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning to Include Online Pass

By now, most of you in the know have probably heard about Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning's inclusion of the now-standard online pass. It is still a bit weird to see it in a single-player focused game but it happens more and more now. The online pass for Amalur promises a full quest line that can only be gotten by buying the game new (or buying a pass with a used copy).

When asked about their inclusion of the pass, community manager Muse said that the pack had been developed with intents of being sold after the game's release and was not content simply culled from the disc. Instead of selling the quest line, they decided to give it to new purchasers for free. That would make it a bit less sleazy but CM's live to spin good press. Not sure I believe it as of yet. More likely, EA demanded an online pass and they scrounged up some content to meet the demand.

I'm still a bit annoyed whenever I see this happen. Does it really make sense to put an online pass in a single-player game that lacks any multiplayer? What about those people who don't have a Live account and only play those single-player games? Of course, we know why it happens - publishers like their money, after all.

I still wish that they could come up with something that doesn't require me to punch in a code before I can even start playing (especially when it's just a 200KB unlock key). Playing some new games is an exercise of patience after entering any pre-order bonuses, retailer specific bonuses, online passes, and day-one DLC included within. Add in the always necessary day one patch and it can take several minutes to get into a game. I just want to play my new games dammit!

Witcher 2 Enhanced Edition Content Coming to PC For Free

The Witcher series is one of the few sets of games that actually managed to do well just on the PC. CD Projekt Red made a couple of kick-ass RPGs with a very uncommon tone that shocked me the first time I saw it. Of course, Xbox 360 owners are finally going to get their hands on an updated version of The Witcher 2 on April 17. Coming along with the game is a bevy of updates and new content that promise to enhance the game past its original greatness.

I was a little bummed to hear about that content at first. I was an early adopter on The Witcher 2 and paid full price for the game. Hearing about content I wouldn't have access to unless I bought another copy sounded like a pain in the ass. Lucky for me (and all PC adopters), all of these updates will be coming to the PC version for absolutely free.

CD Projekt Red is hitting it out of the park again. First they make their game completely DRM-free and now they are providing an astounding amount of updates for absolutely no cost. Kudos to them for keeping up with their very generous trend of user-support. I can't help but wish more developers would be willing/able to support their games like this .

Norman Jayden's True Addiction

SPOILER ALERT: I will be talking about a few of the endings from Heavy Rain so if you don't want to be spoiled, you probably shouldn't read this.

I just played through Heavy Rain again after not having touched it since its release in 2010. Since then, I have become a bit more critical when playing games, in hopes of being a better writer. I found something I wasn’t expecting to find. Some of the things I saw during my second playthrough actually made me regard one of those characters in an entirely different light.

Norman Jayden is the FBI agent you control during the game, an agent sent to help investigate the crimes of the Origami Killer. Players get to control him investigating leads and putting together the case in the police way. Being part of the FBI means he has a neat little way-too-futuristic tool called ARI (Augmented Reality Interface) made up of a pair of shades and a special glove. Think Minority Report’s hand-waving interface mixed with a very sophisticated forensic tracker and full database on everyone in the world and you’ll know exactly what it is. Oh, it can also simulate virtual reality environments and has some little games.

Norman also has a little problem, an addiction to the drug Triptocaine, a little blue vial of some liquid future drug. Over the course of the game, the player is given the option to have Norman take the drug to calm his shakes or simply wait it out. But is he really addicted to the Triptocaine? Or is he, as I came to believe during my second playthrough of Heavy Rain, actually addicted to ARI?

No one in the game ever says exactly what the blue drug is for. All we know is that when Norman takes it, his shakes and blurry vision goes away. Couldn’t it be a drug that counteracts the negative effects of too much ARI use? Maybe he doesn’t want to take it because he thinks he can beat it on his own. He is worried about people noticing his little events but he probably doesn’t want anyone to feel sorry for him. The ARI technology also seems very high-end at this point and it’s possible no one else would understand what was going on. Seeing the vial might make people think he is a drug addict, even if Triptocaine was a prescription drug for ARI use.

Heavy Rain has a variety of endings for each of its four characters based on what you did in the game. Two of Norman’s endings are of particular interest to me in this argument. One of them occurs if you solve the case and save Shaun Mars, the last victim of the Origami Killer. Norman is shown throwing away his vial of Triptocaine and returning to his office at the FBI. He takes off the ARI glasses for a break and notices digital tanks, fragments of one of ARI’s game modes, invade his reality. This is a very clear tell that what Norman was actually addicted to was ARI and it is still affecting him.

The other ending of interest is what happens if Norman gives up on the case and Shaun Mars dies. Norman is shown in one of ARI’s virtual reality environments but without his glasses. He is talking to someone we can’t originally see but are eventually shown is another Norman. Norman then goes on to kill himself with a Triptocaine overdose out of guilt for messing up the case. Norman again sees ARI elements in his reality, an effect of overusing ARI to a point where it starts to affect his mind. Both of these endings make a point of using ARI assets to show his frayed mind and that can’t just be a coincidence.

There are a few points where I can see someone going “But wait, what about…?” One of these is the constant nosebleeds that Norman gets when not taking Triptocaine. That has to be a drug-related symptom, right? Not necessarily. Nosebleeds can be triggered by intense stress and an addiction to ARI could certainly cause that to happen. Another point of contention may be the overdose scene in that “bad” ending. Just because he overdoses on Tripto doesn’t mean it was a bad drug. It’s extremely easy to overdose on prescription drugs as well and it makes sense that Norman took more than the normal amount to try and get the ARI fever dreams to stop.

This clever little trick never occurred to me on my first playthrough of Heavy Rain. Seeing it now, it all seems so clear. We are never told what the drug actually does because that would make it extremely obvious. All the symptoms that Norman shows happened not because he was having Tripto withdrawals but because he wasn’t taking it to cope with the side-effects of ARI usage. Two of Norman’s four endings show him having an ARI-related hallucination.

The Ickiness of Using Dead People in Video Games

Reality Fighters is one of the expected launch titles for the upcoming Playstation Vita. In Reality Fighters, players are able to use the device's camera to take a picture of themselves and create a fighter that looks just them them. Once uploaded, the fighter can be adorned with a variety of silly gear to create a unique looking character.

There aren't just created characters in Reality Fighters. One of these unlockable included characters, as reported by Joystiq, will be none other than Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita) from the Karate Kid series. The character obviously can't be voiced by Mr. Morita so a voice actor will imitate the man for the vocal effects.

I find this extremely icky. Ever since the inclusion of Kurt Cobain in Guitar Hero, I wondered what the appeal of including a dead person in a video game really is. Some may argue that it's an honor to be included in a product but if they are dead, why would they care? Not to mention the fact that companies only do it for the money and press around doing such a thing, not to honor that person. This is a trend I do not wish to see continue.

In fact, why do we feel the need to include real people in our games at all? Game developers have the ability to make ANYTHING they want as character designs and yet most of them make people based on other people or boring, bland stereotypes that we are all getting tired of. Take charge and mix things up, guys.

No Blizzcon for 2012

Blizzard has announced that, due to the multiple projects it is working on (Titan, WoW Expansion, Diablo 3, Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm), it will not be holding its annual Blizzcon convention this year in Anaheim. This marks the first year since 2006 that they have not held the convention.

I'm glad Blizzard is one of those developers that knows when it has plenty on its plate. Them putting aside a somewhat meaningless convention in order to finish the two (three?) games that everyone is waiting for is very smart of them.

Hopefully that means we will actually see Diablo 3's release this year, although it gets less likely by the day with the lead developer leaving and the purported changes they plan to make to the game.

No Exclusive Character for Xbox 360 Version of Street Fighter X Tekken

Street Fighter X Tekken is coming out in just a couple months and the characters keep getting announced. Some of you may have heard about Cole McGrath from Infamous be exclusive to Playstation platforms. I hadn't paid much attention to this but today's post on Joystiq informed me that there hasn't been, and won't be, an exclusive Xbox 360 character reveal. Apparently, the developers wanted an exclusive character but ran out of time before they could reach a decision with the right people.

Wait a minute. Didn't Ed Boon from the Mortal Kombat team say something very similar about their reasons for not including an exclusive character in the latest game in the series? What is up with the lack of exclusive characters in Microsoft versions of fighting games?

I have a few theories. One of them is that Microsoft doesn't really believe in this fighting game thing and didn't want to pay for an exclusive character right in the games. Another similar theory is that Microsoft is more protective of its characters being in other franchises and wasn't willing to share. Or maybe the process behind a Microsoft character being licensed is much stricter than Sony's (wouldn't be surprised after hearing about the Cert process for XBLA games).

No matter the reason, it's still a little disappointing. The Xbox 360 is the most popular system when it comes to multiplatform games and it sucks that those players don't get anything for their devotion. I know that the Xbox controller is the least optimal for a fighting game but there are still plenty who try. If the blame for this is on Microsoft, they need to be more willing in the future.

New Longer Feature

Finally got around to writing a longer "feature" again. Just finished it and I plan to post it in the next few days after an edit or two. It will be much longer than my average post and investigates something I feel is very important to games.

Look forward to it soon!

How Much Time Do These Guys Have On Their Hands?

Like many people, I got into the Minecraft craze for a time. For about two weeks, I was playing it five or six hours a day easy. Then, I had to reformat my computer and lost my world (wasn't a way to back them up when I played). I tried to start over but it never got me in the same way. Every so often, I'll fire it back up for a little while but not for long. The biggest thing I've tried to do with it since then was an idea I had to rebuild the Serenity from Firefly but gave up about halfway through due to the difficulty I had imagining the right dimensions in block form.

Like my idea to build the Serenity, tons of people build things from other games and movies all the time. I remember months ago when someone had rebuild parts of Rapture and was amazed at the craftsmanship. Now, someone has gone out and rebuilt the entirety of Hyrule from Ocarina of Time and I am even more impressed. The detail is astounding and I can't even imagine the amount of time it must have taken, considering how long it took me to do the little I did for the Serenity.

Hyrulecraft, as it's called, is in Alpha status and can be downloaded to play on your own computer now. If you want to do so and/or see some footage from it, go to the link below.

Hyrulecraft Video

Resident Evil 6 This Holiday Season

I have been a fairly devout fan of Resident Evil ever since around the time Resident Evil 2 came out. My parents were divorced and one time, when I went over to my dad's house, he had a brand-new Playstation and Resident Evil 2. It took me some time to open up to the game but I really enjoyed what I could play of it over at his house. I didn't get to play enough of it until it came out Nintendo 64 later when I got my own copy and played it to death. Resident Evil 2 is still the game I consider the high-point of the series, especially the older-style games.

I have played every Resident Evil game that has released over the years and completed each of the main series games (didn't touch Outbreak much or the awful gun-game Survivor series). I miss some of the old days of RE2 and even the RE-make on the Gamecube. The newer games are fun but aren't quite the survival horror gameplay I know and love. Even still, I won't ever miss out on a proper RE title.

Resident Evil 6 was announced yesterday with a pretty long and interesting trailer. It shows a variety of gameplay scenarios and characters and is just as indecipherable as any of the newer Resident Evil games. Theories are abound on the Internet now and the one that sounds most likely is a three-way split in the game. The parts with Leon look more like the older REs, the Chris parts look a bit more actiony with a squad, and the mystery man with who has to be Ashley looks like RE5. If this theory pans out, that sounds like a very interesting game, with shifting perspectives throughout.

Part of me is a bit bummed that they could be bringing back the co-op gameplay from RE5. While I'm sure that game is extremely fun with a human partner, I rarely play games like that with others (I'm gamer friendless, what do you want?). Having to babysit Sheva was a bit annoying in some spots of the game and having to play inventory management between the two (nowhere near as interesting or fun as normal RE management) is a pain. Many of you may argue that giving her a sniper rifle made her godly but I still can't forget her tendencies to get in the way during the Wesker fight. Not to mention the lack of tension when you have a helper during the whole game.

Of course, either way, I'm in for a day-one purchase. Here's hoping Capcom continues the good trends from the last few games - new game plus, infinite ammo upgrades, and hilariously stupid plotlines - and knocks a few of the worst ones - partner AI and lack of atmosphere.

Time to Party Like It's 19...No, I'm Not Going to Make That Joke

The late 90's were a hell of a time for gaming. PC games were in their prime, consoles were on the up, and good games were coming out left and right. One of the most widely-accepted "best years of gaming" is 1998, a year that brought Ocarina of Time, Metal Gear Solid, Starcraft and more. For me, as well as a lot of people, it is one of the most nostalgically pleasing times of my life.

Of course, trying to go back to those games now can be kind of hard. N64 and Playstation's 3D graphics look like absolute garbage now, pixelated all to hell and grimy to boot. On the PC, games like Fallout 1 and 2 and the Infinity Engine games (Baldur's Gate 2, Planescape Torment, etc.) had very complex game systems that required a lot of time to figure out properly. As someone trying to go back to play some early PC games now, it can be a hell of a thing trying to figure out these not-at-all obvious control systems.

Bioshock Infinite's lead designer Ken Levine thinks that games weren't just more complex: they were actually a hell of a lot harder too. To honor this period of gaming, Bioshock Infinite will have a difficulty mode lovingly described as "1999 Mode" in which everything has been ratcheted up in difficulty. Not many details have been given yet but he states that managing resources will be a much more demanding task and that a Game Over screen can actually be reached, a rarity in today's games.

I love when games make their difficulty options more than smarter, more accurate enemies and mess with health values. Crysis comes to mind as a game that truly made its harder difficulties different, by removing HUD elements such as the crosshair and making all enemies only speak Korean. If this mode in Bioshock Infinite actually alters game mechanics to make the game more challenging, I applaud the developers. We need less Veteran difficulties from Call of Duty and more Delta difficulties from Crysis.

Saints Row the Third Review

The first Saints Row game was seen by many as a blatant rip-off of the Grand Theft Auto series. Volition took the open-world format that was made popular by the PS2 Grand Theft Autos and created a fairly decent clone. Sure, it was heavily inspired by the series but it played well enough to satisfy gamers waiting for the next GTA game. Grand Theft Auto IV and Saints Row 2 came out in the same year and it was at this point that a difference could be seen. While Volition had chosen to carry on with the crazy, Rockstar had opted for a more serious, character-driven story. Each game did what it did well but the two series didn’t quite do the same things anymore.

When Volition went to the drawing board for ideas for the third game in their series, they must have realized this new disparity. Someone must have said “Well, we have the over-the-top open world series now. Why don’t we just go as nuts as we can with it?” before the room exploded with ideas like giant purple dildo bats and auto-tuned pimps. Saints Row the Third is the product of Volition going completely off-the-rails with the tone and content in its game and it couldn’t make for a more enjoyable experience.

Saints Row the Third once again follows the Saints, top gang of Stilwater, and brings back familiar faces such as Shaundi and Johnny Gat. After their takeover of Stilwater in Saints Row II, they have become the most famous gang in the world, signing autographs as they rob banks and businesses. Perhaps finding crime in Stilwater too easy, they travel to nearby Steelport to rob a bank. Things don’t go the way they are used to and they soon end up in custody. It turns out that crime in Steelport is run by the Syndicate, a group that doesn’t take too kindly to the Saints’ actions against one of their banks. They offer the Saints a place in their organization – for most of their profits. Your character, leader of the Saints, doesn’t take too kindly to that and decides to fight back against the Syndicate and take control of Steelport.

The meat of the game is your standard open-world fare, with main missions to lead you through the story and side activities galore to keep you entertained should the need arise. Your cell phone is the key to starting any story mission, allowing you to begin one at any time without having to first drive to a specific point. As much as I would like to tell you some of the things you will do during the story, I won’t. Why? From my own experience, I shouldn’t. Each thing you don’t see coming will be that much crazier and hilarious if I don’t even hint at them. Trust me – go in blind.

Side activities are started by driving to various points on the map. Old favorites like Insurance Fraud have returned along with some others that are hit-or-miss. My personal pick is the Professor Genki activity, where you run through a gauntlet of enemies and try to kill as many as you can in a short period of time. Combos and shooting billboards will earn you more cash. It’s like The Club, only good. Of course, there are a couple stinkers, particularly the escort ones. Luckily, there is enough variety to always give you something to do.

Your cell phone is also used for the robust upgrade system where you can spend your hard earned cash from missions and owning property (works like in Fable 2 and 3, where you accrue money from property every so often). These upgrades range from simple health boosts to the option to call a homie to bring you a VTOL jet. Most of these upgrades have multiple ranks and this is where things get insane. Near the end of the game, you can start unlocking immunity to any type of damage and unlimited ammo for each class of weapons. These upgrades are essentially cheats that Volition encourages you to use. You are practically unkillable when you finish the upgrades (except in a car for some reason) and it makes the endgame remarkably fun.

If you’re like me, you never quite enjoyed the feel of Grand Theft Auto IV. Sure, Niko’s animations were extremely realistic and the cars drove much more like they are supposed to but I never had fun with that. Saints Row the Third is the complete opposite of that. On foot, things move quickly with a liberal sprint meter. Adding to the fun, holding the sprint button (rightfully named the awesome button by the developers) down modifies your actions. Jacking a car? You will jump through the window or windshield and kick the driver right out. Attacking a pedestrian? You might just drop kick them. It adds a bunch of pep to the game that makes being on foot tolerable. As for the vehicles, they are much looser too. Some of the larger vehicles are still slow but the mid-range and up cars all turn very loosely, allowing you to powerslide around corners and cover huge amounts of ground quickly. Much more fun than the stiff controls of GTAIV.

I did have a few problems with Saints Row the Third. On the Xbox 360 version, it gets framey regularly. On a few occasions, I had a guy (a boss, on one occasion) disappear and leave me unable to finish a mission. During one mission where I was escorting a friendly car from a helicopter, I shot a rocket at a chasing vehicle and had the smoking husk fly up and flip my helicopter over, forcing me to restart. Amusing as all hell but somewhat annoying. The biggest problems were the hard locks I had on no fewer than five separate occasions. I played this game long after the patch that was supposed to fix hard locks and still managed to encounter several. To its credit, the game checkpoints and autosaves rather liberally, so I didn’t ever lose much progress. I also found myself not caring and jumping right back in after the crash to play more, something I rarely do when my Xbox locks up.

On more than one occasion in Saints Row the Third, I found myself laughing simply at the absurdity the game had gone to. Sure, the characters are really well-written (Kinzie is a favorite) and the dialogue is often laugh-out loud funny but the truly memorable moments are when a character you just can’t believe comes along or your own character does something completely f***ed and no one blinks at how crazy it really is. I can easily understand why some people may be offended by it or put off by its seemingly juvenile sense of humor. I wish I could convince those people to give it a chance. Lucky for Volition, those people seem to be in the minority. Let’s hope they keep making these games crazier and crazier as the years go on.

New Graphics Card = New Computer

Oh, Ubisoft, you must be so irritated. Gamers clamor for your games on PC, wanting to play amazing titles like the Assassin's Creed series on a prettier system (or at all, for some). Yet when you release the games, you can't help but pile on the anti-piracy measures out of fear of losing millions on a game. Better relations with your customers might help but you ignore them wholeheartedly and ramp up the DRM instead.

In yet another piece of Ubisoft anti-piracy news, reports are starting to come in that Ubisoft's DRM is, shocker, a piece of garbage. Guru3D, a highly respected benchmarking site has been testing Anno 2070, a new game in the vein of Sim City or Tropico, and are reporting a rather odd occurance with the game. When they switch out graphics cards for a new test, the DRM registers that as a new computer and uses one of the three installs that owners of the game get. Since Guru3D tests games on a wide variety of machines, the game quickly refused to allow access and stated that all installs had been used already.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse for Ubisoft DRM, something like this comes along. It probably isn't anything more than a bug but it certainly won't soften public opinion of them anytime soon. At this point, I'm kinda with Ubisoft on this whole PC thing. If they can't find a better way to make their PC ports, I'd rather they just stop trying. Crappy, DRM-saddled versions of games aren't appealing to anyone.

Bullying Pirates Is Not The Way

All gamers know that piracy is a pretty big deal. It is cited as one of the main reasons why PC development has been lacking compared to console games. SOPA and PIPA are directly related to companies being angry with piracy and copyright infringement. Ubisoft's hated DRM policies are their attempt at trying to cope with the losses. No one knows what the right means of attack really is. Most companies, like Ubisoft, try to go too far in their attempts.

CD Projekt RED, developers of the Witcher series, recently had a bit of controversy surrounding them when they tried to go after pirates of their games. They demanded compensation from anyone who pirated their games, stating that they had the means to find the thieves. Of course, they retracted these claims rather quickly, knowing that a vendetta against pirates wasn't going to end up with anything good. Most likely, it would just annoy the people who buy the games legally.

We can't just hold this one company to blame for such a crazy idea. According to Torrentfreak.com, multiple companies have tried this exact tactic in the past. Some of the companies include Ubisoft (big surprise, right?), Codemasters, and Eidos/Square Enix. Each of these companies have used IP-tracking to find supposed pirates of their games and sent cash-settlement letters to them. These letters are essentially threats, demanding compensation to avoid lawsuits.

This isn't the way to do this, guys. Bullying people around, even pirates, is just going to end up with bad publicity for your company. There have even been cases of IP-tracking being completely wrong, causing letters to be sent to entirely innocent people. I understand why these companies are frustrated and can sympathize with them. Still, this isn't the way to do things.

Mass Effect 3 Includes Mandatory Origin Install

Origin has been a point of contention amongst gamers. EA's Origin service is meant to be an alternative to Steam but only carrying EA published games instead of a wide variety of them. It isn't any more obtrusive than Steam but having another service running in my tray, one that I rarely use as opposed to Steam, is a bit annoying.

Today, it was announced that Mass Effect 3 would require Origin to run on PC. This isn't much of a surprise but is still a bit sigh-worthy. My original or "canon" save files are on the PC so I was planning on getting this version. I already keep Origin installed for Battlefield 3 so this isn't anything more than a minor annoyance. Lucky for gamers, there will be no install limits and only a one-time online check for the campaign. EA has come a long way since forcing gamers who wanted to redownload their EA games to pay a $5 fee for "insurance" past the initial download.

According to EA, Steam isn't out of the question but it doesn't seem likely. Ever since the big kerfuffle when EA pulled some of their games from Steam, Crysis 2 in particular, they have been selling their newer games exclusively on Origin. EA states that it is because of how Steam forces publishers to sell DLC through their store, a fact that EA doesn't really like. I just hope that DLC for ME3 isn't like it was for ME2, forcing me to go to a Bioware store where I have to add credit separate from any other account to buy the DLC and then download and install each piece of content individually.

The inclusion of Origin in Mass Effect 3 isn't surprising or overly offensive but it shows us again that EA isn't about to give up on it, no matter how well Steam does. Some of you may argue that Steam is a monopoly and deserves competitors. I haven't been burned by Steam yet (and have been by EA) so until they fuck up, I can't help but feel this way.

Shadows of the Damned Review

Suda51 is fucking crazy. If you’ve played any one of his games, you know that he comes up with the most random but creative gameplay scenarios in video games today. Unfortunately, those creative ideas usually come with a bit of iffy gameplay, proving that you can’t be a jack of all trades in the gaming industry. When he announced Shadows of the Damned a few years ago and said that Shinji Mikami would be onboard as the gameplay producer, gamers everywhere rejoiced. Standards were unbelievably high. While the game maybe didn’t quite live up to its potential (what game does?), Shadows of the Damned is still an engaging shooter with an unmatched sense of humor.

In Shadows of the Damned, you take control of Garcia “Fucking” Hotspur, a demon hunter with more attitude than Buffy and Dante combined. His girlfriend Paula has been kidnapped by Fleming, Lord of the Demon World, and he will do whatever it takes to reclaim her. Garcia gives chase and is soon joined by his ever-present companion, Johnson, second only to Wheatley as last year’s best British character. Oh, and Johnson is a skull. The game has you traveling through the demon world, with Johnson as your guide, on your way to Fleming’s castle to recover Garcia’s girl. A simple and overused concept but done well enough here.

The biggest strength of Shadows of the Damned is really its humor. It is unlike anything else on the market today and manages to make immature jokes about penises and feces charmingly funny. At one moment you might be laughably confused at a strange fact about the demon world (for example, goat heads somehow produce light) and at others you get an Evil Dead parody. The best examples of the game’s humor are these storybooks you find over the course of the game. Each of them precedes a boss fight and basically tells you the horrifying ways the next boss ended up in Hell. You don’t just read the storybooks – they are each narrated by either Garcia or Johnson. It is slow and somewhat bumbling but the readings and funny asides that they add are amusing enough to be worth it. It is the absurdity of this world – and the way the characters react to it - that makes this game anything but generic.

The gameplay itself mostly resembles Resident Evil 4’s style of shooting, although you can actually move and shoot in Shadows of the Damned. It isn’t very effective but still a handy trick when trying to stay out of range of some nasty demons. A combat roll that can be used at any time is also present and is extremely useful for dodging attacks. Johnson, in addition to your companion, is also all of your weapons. He morphs into a pistol, machine gun, and shotgun/rocket launcher with names like the Hot Boner and the Skullcussioner. The guns have a satisfying kick that only gets better as you defeat bosses and recover blue gems, the keys changing your weapons into new forms with new abilities.

Unfortunately, the aiming system itself could have used a bit more work. While the cursor doesn’t float around like in RE4, it never feels quite “on” either. Shots sometimes don’t go where you think they will, even when the cursor is right on. Getting headshots is supposed to be more challenging than body shots but when the aiming seems to be artificially made more inaccurate to do so it just doesn’t work. The game is never too hard – ammo and health is plentiful - but the aiming just isn’t as precise as some of the best in the genre and it can cause frustration in heated encounters.

A simple upgrade system is in place to make the weapons grow over the course of the game. White gems are the currency and you can spend them at drink dispensers (the health item of the game) and Christopher, a lovable half-demon who wants to bring Fleming down as much as you do. You can exchange white gems with him for drinks, ammo, and red gems. Red gems are the key to upgrading your weapons and can be spent at any time once you acquire them to increase things like your health pool or each weapon’s damage and ammo capacity. These gems can also be found in the world and there are plenty of upgrades to keep you eager for more gems for the entirety of the game.

The quality of the music can’t be ignored. Shadows of the Damned’s music evokes a style that is unlike anything you will probably ever hear in a video game. It meshes an overall Spanish theme with horror themes to make something unlike anything I have ever heard. The loading screen music is simple but I found myself humming it for days after I played the game (in my mind, the mark of a great soundtrack).

It's both really too bad and asking too much that Suda51 and Mikami didn’t make something unforgettable but Shadows of the Damned is still a good time. Some issues with the aiming system and some egregiously bad load times between sections make the game less than perfect and can try your patience. Even still, it is a singular experience that can’t be reasonably compared to anything else out there. You may not want to play the game but you’d be doing yourself a favor if you at least watched someone else play it.

DNS Blocking Removed From SOPA

If you've been keeping up on the SOPA and PIPA bills (and you should be!), you probably heard the good news today. Lamar Smith, a Texas House Judiciary Committee member, has removed the DNS part of SOPA from the bill. No better reason is given then he knows that with that part of the bill gone, it stands a much better chance of being pushed through. Kind of hard to applaud Smith's change when you know the reason behind it, huh?

DNS blocking was easily the most egregious part of the bill, allowing copyright holders to contact ISP's and have them block access to "offending" sites with little hassle. The ease with which a company would have been able to report such an offense was much too lenient and could have easily led to abuse from some of the more copyright-protective companies.

SOPA is still a major threat, a much too aggressive form of copyright protection that treads on censorship at times. Also, SOPA had the DNS part of it removed but PIPA still has it. It is too soon to call the bills dead at this point but we can feel a bit better from this point forward if the men behind them are more willing to change them than we thought.