Just yesterday I received a message on Live from a complete stranger with an attached Halo 3 screenshot.  To my surprise, it was not a picture of someone’s replay showing one of my more embarrassing moments online, nor was it a picture of someone’s self-compensating twig and berries.  It turned out to be similar to this picture you see below, only the armor was red.

http://blog.spywareguide.com/2009/05/halo-3-recon-armor-chain-lette.html

This is apparently what you might get if a Spartan and Ghost Rider had a kid.  But it’s probably more like retaliation from someone realizing everybody mutes him when he tries to blast 50 Cent over his mic and camp all day, making his team lose.  The deal is if you send this screenshot to 50 other people, you will unlock “Recon Armor” for Halo3.   According to the above website, there is no such thing, but then I’m sure you would know that, right?  This chain letter has been squelched, but the fact that my version of this picture features a RED flaming spartan probably still means some people haven’t taken the hint and has started it again.

Yes kiddies, you’re not just restricted from being a chain letter composing douche on the computer, you can do it right on your Xbox!

There defiantly is more than meets the eye to this game.

Okay I know, that was just awful, but honestly I wasn’t expecting much to this game.  Not because the first game was horrible, but it just seems to be tradition for all movie based video games to be horrible.  Rarely do we ever get an exception.  This is a current Gamefly rental for me, and it was really the only worth while 360 game I could pick out that was currently holding me any interest (after watching a multiplayer video) other than Prototype.  (Which I have yet to receive because it’s taking forever to restock.  Lesson learned, treat Gamefly rentals like a pre-order.)

The case is usually that screenshots do not do the game justice.  Well, it’s quite the opposoite for Trans 2.  While the Transformers are highly detailed, the landscape, buildings, and humans are not.  Buildings seem to be rather shallow, while human beings look rather lifeless, but the focus here any way is big giant fighting robots, not big giant asses.

In-game graphics.  I promise.

I should mention near the end of this writing I have a very minor movie spolier, but I couldn’t resist the reference, so just a head’s up.  First, the single player.  Like the first game, you have a choice between two campaigns, Autobots, or Decepticons, and you can switch between them without losing progress in the other.  Before each mission, you can review your stats, any unlockables you have acquired, and upgrades.  Killing enemies gives you energon, or, basically money or experience points.  You can spend the energon on upgrades.  These upgrades can do various things such as increase your health, decrease the amount of heat your weapons produce, or increase your melee damage.  The problem is other than the ones I’ve mentioned, the rest of the upgrades don’t really see much use, such as the damage or heat capacity of your vehicle mode weapons, which you will barely ever use since you can’t aim your vehicle’s weapons other than straight.  The game is easy enough to beat without having to replay missions to get energon to spend on an upgrade that will give you that extra boost to finish a mission.  In the game’s end, I still have about 17 upgrades that  I have yet to get.  The game’s progression is non-linear, in that you can choose whatever order you want to do the missions, providing you have done the requirements to unlock them.  At first glance, the mission interface is horrible, it takes a while to get used to what mission you are selecting.  Once you’ve chosen a mission, you get to choose which Autobot/Decepticon you want to use….which is a joke.  More on that later.  Once you’ve chosen your bot, the mission begins.

The mission variety in the campaign is a standard stuff, nothing we’ve never seen before.  For Autobots, you are either destroying Decepticons, activating/repairing objects, or rescuing civilians and transporting them to a destination.  As Decepticons, you are destroying Autobots and human military, activating/repairing objects, and kidnapping civilians and transporting them to a destination.  In contrast, no matter what side you’re playing you’re going to be doing the same thing, just for different moral reasons.  (Other than as Decpiticons, killing random cars and civilians feels more justified, because you can even do that as Autobots despite you actually trying to protect them.)  However, the level design is really good.  Though technically just an average city landscape that people live in, for a robot it’s an arena.  There are tons of buildings for you take cover behind or climb over.  This means you can tackle enemies from different angles every time, so at the very least the missions that do nothing but throw waves of robots at you are at least replayable.

Each mission also has several skill shots for you to find that go towards unlocks, (that for some reason still count even if you “touch” them)  as well as medals that you can earn for completing the mission within a given amount of time.  Finishing missions unlocks new ones and other zones.  Finishing all missions in a zone unlocks Free-Roam for that zone, or what I like to call “Godzilla” mode.  This mode is quite possibly the worst part of the game.  In this mode you can run around the area without any enemies or any objective to worry about.  The only thing that is there is just random civilians, cars, and buildings, who are there even in the missions for ambience.  Yes, it’s Grand Theft Auto minus the police, or stat tracking.  If you ever wanted to wreck havoc in a city as a giant robot, here is your chance.  But since you can do that (accidental or not) anyway during the actual missions, and nothing tracking your evil deeds, playing this mode is really pointless, there’s just no challenge to it.  Chances are during the missions while jumping, running and dodging, you’re going to kill somebody and knock something over anyway.

Speaking of pointless, let’s go back to the character selection.  The problem with being able to choose which bot to use for each mission is that half the time you are limited to one choice, while the other bots are locked.  In some cases, this is understandable.  For instance in one mission you have to fly between naval ships, so Breakaway who can turn into a jet is naturally the proper choice.  Any missions that involve you lugging Sam or Mikaela around have you play as Bumble Bee, while the end missions of course deal with Optimus Prime.  However, the majority of the game’s missions don’t deal directly to the film (missions that the Transformers could of been doing before the start of the movie or offscreen) and in some cases even the parts that do tie in with the movie are changed up a bit for the game’s sake.  Because of this, I don’t understand why you can’t choose any bot you want, especially when the game boasts being able to take on the missions anyway you want.  The only way to unlock them for any mission is to perform specific tasks during missions like performing certain moves a certain amount of times, but  since the missions are so straight forward, I don’t see how many people would want to bother, espeically in every zone, the required task is different.   Still, each mission has various tasks to perform that also unlocks artwork, cutscenes, and best of all, entire full episodes of the original 1980 Transformers TV show.  Let the nostalgia and cheese begin!  *autobot face zoom in and out* scene transition*

The control can take a while to get used to, but in the end as awkward as it is the control layout feels nesscary to allow fluid transitions between the various modes.  (And it can’t be changed.)  By default, you are in robot mode.  The left stick moves you around in whatever direction you push, and the right stick moves the camera.  Pushing X performs your melee attack, (3x for a combo) or you can hold it down to do a charge attack.  That’s about as complicated melee gets.  To bring up your guns, you hold LT.  This brings up a reticule, while RT shoots.  While holding LT, the left and right stick change to moving/strafing and aiming, respectively.  Holding the LT the entire time can put a pain in your trigger fingers, but I believe it’s like that because it changes how the sticks move your character.  (Although I don’t see a problem with it being a toggle instead of holding it down the whole frikkin time)  Holding RT (without holding down LT) puts you into vehicle mode.  Yes, “holding” again.  Ugh.   Most games where controlling a vehicle is only half the game, (GTA, Saints Row) a face button serves as the acceleration.  To slow down your acceleration, you simply let go of the button, hit the brake face button, or just tap it to keep a steady momentum.  Not so here.  RT is also your acceleration, so to slow down you gently release pressure on RT.  The problem is if you let it go altogether you don’t just glide along the road and slow down, you stop instantly and change back into a robot.  This means you can stop on a dime when all you wanted to do was slow down, and in mulitplayer this can get you killed.  There is a break button, but it’s also LB, and you have to keep holding down RT (the accleration) while doing so.  I can’t remember a game where you drive in order to break you also have to push the gas at the same time.   Oh and power steering is LT.  Because in most FPS games RT shoots, often times I find myself wanting to shoot by pushing RT, (no LT) so that just turns me into a car when I don’t want to.  Also while in vehicle mode, while holding down RT, if you hold down either A, X, or B, and then release RT but still holding down a face button, you perofrm various other (but damn useful) moves.  For instance, holding down A then releasing RT turns you back into a robot, but maintains your speed and makes you jump higher and further.  Without enough practice you can find yourself hopping buildings switching between robot and vehicle like a pro.  This controller setup is more uncomfortable than it seems, but of course it’s due to limitations on a gamepad.  I can easliy see how this can be replicated for the PC version.

All in all the campaign is pretty short, while 23 missions for both campaigns may seem like a lot, all of them can be finished quickly.  Give or take, no more than 8 minutes for the longest of missions.  The upgrades might take you a while, but as I said before only a few of them are really useful and you’ll be long past done with the  campaign before you even get them all.  The stat tracking I listed earlier tracks quite a lot of stats, but it also takes forever to scroll through them all.  It still doesn’t warrant to keep doing the same missions over and over.  The only tasks that seem worthwhile are the episode unlocks.

And it’s a shame too, because none of the unlockables in the campaign have any effect in the multiplayer; there is no upgrading of any kind, you have everything from the start.  You’ll be hard pressed to finish the campaign as fast as possible just so you have a chance to try out all the different Transformers before trying to use them online.  (I tried starting a game by myself, it takes a long time because I have to kill msyelf in order to switch characters, and apparently even with no opponent, those deaths counted towards my multiplayer stats.  The only way to avoid is to make another game.)  The game has five maps to choose from, all which come from the campaign.  Five isn’t much, but they are stuffed to the brim with buildings, so you can make good use of them.  Multiplayer has five game modes.  Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, One Shall Stand (TDM with leaders on each team that disable spawning on their team when they die) Control Points and Battle For The Shards.  (Capture The Flag.)  The game DOES have assist points (thank god) and is rather generous with it, so you don’t have to worry about teamates knocking on you because you barely contributed.  A kill is worth 10 points, but an assist can be worth as high as 7 points from what I’ve gotten, and thankfully  points is ranked higher than kills.  The game keeps track of a separate listing of stats just for multiplayer.  THESE are the real stats you’ll be paying attention to.  The only problem is it seems to track stats whether you are playing ranked or not, which obviously can be exploited very easliy.  The game takes up to 8 players.  That may not seem like much considering the size of the maps, but you’ll be thankful when you find out just how long it takes to kill someone.  (Unless you completely blindside them of course.)  This isn’t Call of Duty with realistic  2, 3 shot kills, but I would say it’s a little higher than Halo, about 4-5 seconds of constant damage with a Transformer with heavy armor.   You can host with different options, such as time limit, number of private slots, faction restrictions, and number of rounds.  (I know, number of rounds sounds like you don’t respawn, but thankfully you do, save for One Shall Stand.  I don’t know why this option is even here, just increase the time limit.)  Faction restriction enables whether or not you are forced to pick bots on your faction.  For example if set to “No,” that means if your an Autobot, you can choose Megatron, or Decepticons can choose Bumble Bee.  The different Transformers all range with different play styles.  Each Transformer comes with a primary and a secondary weapon.  Weapons are either  automatic, semi auto, chargeable, grenade type (splash damage), dumbfire (unguided) missiles or lock on missiles.  There is no ammo count to worry about, but there is overheating for each weapon.  Each Transformer also has a special ability with a cooldown that is activated with Y.  Big huge hulking Transformers like Ironhide or Long Haul usually have semi auto weapons and are slow, but can take a lot of hits before going down.  Medium sized Transformers like Optimus are middle range with automatic weapons, and small guys like Bumble Bee or Sideways are small and fast, but if they have an auto weapon it’s a bit weaker.

I wish the faction restriction was just off to begin with, because I do see a few balance issues; there are some Transformers that don’t seem to have an equivalent on the other faction.  For instance, my first game I played as Ratchet (Autobots), small frame with weak armor, but had a machine gun and a grenade launcher, with healing as his special ability.  (Everyone regardless of ability can heal to full in a few several seconds by staying out of combat.  Important note:  Having your guns out counts as “in combat”, even if your alone in hiding, so remember to holster your weapon when doing so.)  Yet, Long Haul (Decepticons) is a tank character with HEAVY armor, yet his special was also healing.  In that match, I didn’t stand a chance.  Not only was I dying left and right, but I could never hit anything:  the entire opposite team (who were not in a clan) were all using Starscream, or some bot whose vehicle mode is a jet or chopper.  The decepticons seem to have an over abundance of aerial bots.  I then found the counter for arial bots:  Lock on missiles.  Unfortunatley, only Bumble Bee (Autobots) and Starscream (Decepticons) have lock-on missiles.  Jets are prime targets for missiles, as they are out in the open.  Eventually I kept using Bumble Bee as my main character.  Why?  He has lock on missiles.  One cluster itself doesn’t hurt much, but they take mere seconds to lock on and fire again, and up close you don’t even need to bother locking on:  just barrage them in their face up close.  If things get too hot, his vehicle mode is everyone’s favorite yellow Camero, hit the A button to get a turbo boost and high tail it outta there.  If I want to be a real bitch, his Y ability creates a burst of (I would say EMP but that would effect him too) electricity that stuns anyone near him.  The time they are stunned is enough time for me to pummel them with missiles to kill them off or get them near dead from full health.  Cheap?  Probably, but he’s also fragile.  I usually end up with more kills than deaths with him.  Now, I can’t do this if I’m a Decepticon in a server where the host has faction restriction.  I have to be Starscream, who has a large, fat build, decent armor, and has lock on missiles as both his secondary AND his vehicle form.  You would think a character wouldn’t use the same type of weapon that is also his weakness, especially if he has two of them.

Sideways (Decepticon) is small, so you would think he is the same as Bumble Bee, but in face he’s the sniper of the faction.  He’s smaller and even weaker in armor than Bumble Bee, and his small stature make him hard to see if sniping from a inconspicuous position.  He moves fast, his vehicle mode is a hot rod, but he has no lock on missiles.  So whose the sniper for Autobots?  Breakaway, whose stature is really tall, and vehicle mode is a jet…tall and fully exposed doesn’t exactly qualify for subelty, but yet they give him a sniper rifle .  So in other words, there doesn’t seem to be an equivalent of Bumble Bee (small and fast, lock on, no sniper) for Decepticons, and no equivalent for Sideways (small, fast, sniper, no lock on) for Autobots.  In all games when it comes to balance, it’s usually big armored guys have slow but damaging and easy to use weapons, while weaker guys have weaker weapons but some kind of back up weapon that makes up for it, as well as they’re speed.  I can’t help but think that a few weapons should be switched around.

The sound effects are excellent.  You can hear the bullets hitting metal, explosions are loud, and lasers aren’t your cheap “pew pew!”  All the actors from the film including Peter Cullen, Megan Fox, and Shia LaBeouf all voice their respective roles in the game, although for the most part you will only hear the Transformers talking.  Needless to say, the acting is top notch, but for some reason Shia sounds like he’s rushing his lines like a nervous wreck, as if his “mental breakdown” never ended.  As good as the acting is though, I wish whatever character I’m escorting would just shut up at times.  I don’t need to hear “You’re taking damage!  Be careful!”  when I’m at 95% health.  Unlike multiplayer, you are surrounded often with enemies smaller than you in single player, so avoiding bullets is often not an option.  The music ranges from  heavy metal riffs or dramatic tones, depending on what’s happening.  However this awesome music is absent in multiplayer.  (As it is with most multiplayer games for some reason.)

Depending on the lasting appeal of this game’s multiplayer, I might end up buying this game.  The campaign is honestly nothing to speak of, especially if nothing you unlock in it has anything to do with the multiplayer section.  You can use all the Transformers from the start online.  I would of bought this for PC, it would be a lot easier on my trigger fingers, but I just know the online community would be dead there, despite the PC game being a simeltanous release with console versions.  (That means no shitty ports.)  The game has a good Armored Core (or to old schoolers, Mechwarrior) feel to it.  Weapons are huge, powerful and flashy, and with the exepction of vehicle mode or small bots, you’re never aiming at something that is jumping around with a seizure, so super human Quake aiming aren’t required.  If they’re smart, they’ll add more maps and possibly some kind COD4 like perk system to it.  As it stands right now the community is pretty high, but let’s hope they don’t wait too long.

Dark…..Joanna Dark.

When Goldeneye for the N64 was released, FPS games had made a new name for it self, at least for the console market.  While FPS games were already on the PC, it wasn’t exactly a mainstream.  The term “shooter” elvovled into “FPS,” going from  shooting in only 4 or 8 directions to virtually any direction in real life.  On May 22th, 2000, Goldeneye’s “sequel,” was released, or at least it’s better half.  While not exactly an outright “sequel,” Perfect Dark was basically Goldeneye 64 on steroids, but with a completely different theme.  Goldeneye’s big brother, or sister if you will.  Taking Goldeneye 64’s engine, Rareware took what made Goldeneye 64 so great and just went bannanas, pretty much making the “Halo” of the N64.

Perfect Dark introduced a lot of FPS things that we see today, things that we take for granted, and even some things that no other FPS has.  At least, based on what I played, it was the first FPS to have an actual reloading animation, something other than just “bring the gun off screen and back.”  It also had character leaning, the first weapon selection wheel and even a target range for each weapon.  It had co-op play, something that not enough FPS games do.  (Although it was quite funny as the second player was just an unimportant backup named “Velvet Dark” I believe, that for some reason never played a role in the game’s story, or showing up anywhere in the game’s cutscenes.)   It even had “Counter-Co-op” play, a game mode that so far…only Left4Dead does.  It’s the same as co-op only the 2nd player has the option of helping the 1st player, or playing as random enemy soldiers throughout the level.  You had limited health, but your human intelligence and respawning hopefully would make up for it, especially when a 3rd or 4th person could jump in as enemy soldiers and start planning on how to stop the 1st player playing as Joanna.  It’s a great feeling to try and blend in with the AI soldiers and gang up on the 1st player before he can find out which soldiers are AI and which are the other players.  The game also had what it calls a combat simulator, it’s version of multiplayer.  Now, I find it strange that despite all the advances Perfect Dark made to Goldeneye, in various magazine awards Goldeneye STILL won over it.  Goldeneye is only fun when you had other people to play with, unless you constantly play a campaign which everyone has pratically memorized.  Perfect Dark fixed all these with besides 4 player split screen, the addition to add up to 16 AI bots, ranging from extremely stupid to tough as nails.  Granted playing against a bot is never as fun as playing against a friend, but Goldeneye was winning awards for it’s multiplayer presumably you always had company.

Let’s not forget PD’s weapon selection, which, I dare admit, is better than Halo’s, or any other FPS I’ve played.  Besides various types of pistols, SMG’s, assault rifles, (unfournatly one shotgun) it also had unique weapons such as the laptop gun, a laptop looking gun that fires like an assault rifle but could also be deployed on a wall as a portable gun turret.  Also throwing knives, crossbows, a “Gears of War like Lancer” gun called a Reaper, and a tranquilizer that causes your target’s vision to blur, or if you want to get really nasty, get up close an personal with it an “inject” them for an isntant kill.  And the of course, everyone’s favorite cheapskate, the Farsight.  The Farsight was the lazy man’s sniper rifle.  The gun could not be fired accurately with the hip (or not at all I believe) but aiming it caused your character to enter a alien heat like vision and automatically track  a random opponent, no matter where you where.  If for example, you were hiding in one room and your opponent was 3 or 4 rooms nearby, you could bring up the scope and shoot him….through the wall….all 3 or 4 walls.  It wasn’t “completely” cheap however, while the tracking did elimiante the need to actually find the player, you couldn’t control the tracking directly, and it wasn’t like the player would stop moving.  Lose the track, and you had to reposition yourself.  Also because it was splitscreen it’s not like the other player didn’t know you had them in your sights.

Perfect Dark will remain a classic for years to come, but the problem is it’s on a console that’s over 10 years old.  Well not anymore.  Hopefully, coming this winter in 09 Xbox Live Arcade will be re releasing Perfect Dark.  The game is supposed to come with new features, but what features we don’t know.  The only new enhancement anyone knows of is that it will be in 1080p and will support up to four in multiplayer.  The shot above are the improved graphics, (the rest is from the original N64) but to be honest it doesn’t look like much of an improvement.  I wouldn’t expect much though other than sharper textures.   Now I never owned Perfect Dark Zero, and I haven’t played it enough to really find out what was so “bad” about it, but I’m wondering if the negative ratings for Zero will have any effect for this XBLA release.  To one not willing to do the research, they’ll base their buying decision off of Perfect Dark Zero and won’t give the original a chance.  As far as enhancements go, I can’t exactly imagine that much to enhance, but up to 4 multiplayer?  What is this, the stone ages?  Give us at least 8.  And even if they don’t improve the graphics much, I also really despise the look of Joanna’s sneaking suit and her hair.  Wearing her sneaking suit, you can really see the N64’s limitations.  Essentially her character model is completly naked with a skin wrapped around it, and she’s built like a stick.   Joanna’s hair in her CG artwork does not even depict what she looks like in-game as you can see below.  The CG you see below is the promotional artwork designed at the game’s first release:

Now it could just be me, but she looks like G.I. Jane with slightly more hair.  Really cut short, kind of looks like a boy if it wasn’t for the lipstick.  It definitely does not match what the XBLA shot is depicting.  I understand this is mostly due to the N64’s limitations, but there are other characters in the game that actually have depth in their hair, not this flat pasted on look that Joanna has.

I’m usually reluctant to buy remade versions of games I already own, but this one is an exepction.  Let’s just hope the whatever improvements Microsoft plans to do are worth it.

In the late 80’s gaming on a PC was a foreign concept to me, but who could blame me or anyone else when the NES was taking over our lives?  Every time whenever friends would come over, the first thing we all headed for was the room with the NES or hip console at the time and the hours would fly by.  Back then, I had…some PC games at the time, if you like monochrome that is.  How how did you load the games up?

c:\ _
c:\ cd/ultima
c:\ ultima.exe

(Do you really hate Windows that much?)

Then the big bad-ass bastard, the birth mother of all FPS games, came Doom.  (Ok, techincally the real birth mother was Wofienstien 3d, and an even older one was a DOS shooter but still all made by Id.  At the time I was playing Faceball  on Gameboy.)  While Doom wasn’t technically the first FPS game to be made, it was the first to be popular.  (And the first to have “heights” in 3d space, or, “Y” coordinates for level designers.)  While I rarely ever got to play it online, shooting up monsters in 3d space was a blast for me.  My control setup?

A – open door/use item
S-  run
D – strafe left
F- strafe right
space bar – shoot
arrow keys – movement
shift – run (at 10x the speed of any FPS game with the fastest character movement)

While not exactly the best kind of setup used for today’s games, it was good enough for me, and I could survive Ultra Violence with it, and sometimes Nightmare, depending on the level.  Eventually, consoles started getting into the 3d gimmick, especially the Nintendo 64.  But no shooters until Goldeneye 64, and it’s sequel (gameplay wise at least,) Perfect Dark 64.  This was the console’s way of introducing the FPS genre for the console users.  Nothing was more fun than inviting your friends over so the whole lot of you could sit at a TV split into four screens while laughing with your friends.  (And then cursing them for looking at your screen.)  Good times, but good times can turn to bad.  During my sophmore year at high school I was later invited to a LAN party at my school’s computer room to play  some uknown FPS game to me, though after playing it now I believe at the time it must of been Quake 3 Arena.  I was told not to change the controls.  WASD?  Mouse 1 to shoot?  What were they thinking?  When I tried using a mouse on DOOM, moving the mouse left and right made you turn, yes, as it does today, but moving the mouse forward MOVED YOU FORWARD, it did not make you look up.  Moving it back made you move back.  I could not see ANYONE being comftable looking like a dumbass constantly thrusting your mouse forward like a retarded duelest just so you can move 30 feet.  So I secretly changed to my little old DOOM setup, expecting this “Quake 3 Arena” to be the same…and probably got one kill.  It wasn’t until my junior year I was at a friends house playing FPS games on the computer and realized how genius the WASD setup actually was, and how it wasn’t about “thrusting.”

I stand corrected.

I bought some shooters for my PC, but chugging along with at 460mhz and an intergraded video card, it was not fun.  So when I got my first job, I decieded to save up my hard working dollars to buy a gaming computer.  (After learning about the harsh realities on how expensive one is)  All my friends was gaming on the computer, and I was always left behind with the controller.  When I did finally get one, shooters were thriving on the PC.  Good times once again, but I’d be lying if I didn’t expereince a little deja vu.  Hardware devleopers with cash signs for eyes started making their evil little Xbox.  While I’m usually hot to trot to buy the next gaming console the minute one is released, my gaming PC put a stop to that.  But as I played more and more shooters, the more shooters on the Xbox became more streamlined, especially when the 360 started coming along.  Although I was a little peeved having to spend a few thousand just too keep my hobby up to par.  I couldn’t bare going back to sticks again, not after having the awesome precision of a mouse.  But as far as top honcho mice go, they got their cookie and now they want their glass of milk.  “Wads” of it, preferabbly in 100’s.

So how do you do that?  Make something that will appeal to the masses.  Or convert.  Make a video game console that only costs just as much as a video card but deliver the same graphics.  But that didn’t stop me, going back to the sticks for me was like going back to the stone ages.  Why would I ever want to back?

That’s when developers started doing what I like to call finanically compenstating, but more commonly known as “dumbing down.”  (And I DON’T mean finacially as in they’ll lose moeny if they don’t.)  A prime example is that in the PC version FEAR, pushing Q and E makes your character lean, an extremely underated tactic that has saved my ass hundreds of times.  This makes your character move slightly to the left or right but keeping his legs still, exposing only the upper portion of your body as well as giving you room to shoot.  If not, it was a fast and quick was to come out of hidding and instnatly back in cover without over doing it.  In the XBOX version, leaning was done by pusing left or right on the D-pad.  This was fine.  In Call of Duty 4, leaning was still done with Q and E.  XBOX?  Niente.  Instead the D-pad has you switching your items.  Now, going back to FEAR, if you read my first FEAR 2 post, I mention that Q and E no longer made you lean.  I neglected to mention that this was made in the final cut.  Why?  Because on the XBOX version you can’t either, all the buttons are already taken up for other actions.  In an effort to make both versions of the game “fair,” leaning was removed altogether.  But tell me, how is it exactly fair to remove a feature based on the fact that one version lacks the buttons for it when both versions can’t play against each other online? If they never see each other, what does it matter if one version has a difference?  Now this is from a gameplay standpoint, but there are others, and for me is a big slap in the face.  Call of Duty’s tradition of having killcams, in which you see a 5 second replay of the player who just killed you from his point of view (making you cry “bullshit” everytime when it replays your player not even firing his weapon at all when you distinctnly remember doing so.) continues in Modern Warefare, it’s 4th in the series.  The killcam is mostly used to see exactly how you died, and hopefully, learn from your mistakes.  (And to make sure the sonofabitch isn’t cheating.)  I remember an update that Infinity Ward announced that they were going to add greandes, airstrikes, and helicopters to the killcam.  Normally it shows your opponent throwing his grenade and then carrying on whether or not he actually pursed you after that, it was boring.  Getting killed by a player’s airstrike or helicopter negated the killcam all together.  With the udpate, the cam would follow the grenade down to wherever it landed, as well as airstrikes, and a 3rd person viewpoint of the helicopter.

Oh yeah, this didn’t make it to the PC version, only the XBOX.  Why?  I have no clue.  At best my guess would be they were too damn lazy to implement this for the PC, but I couldn’t see ANY reason why this was apparently not a good thing to have on the PC, nor why this was difficult.  Infinty Ward did not mention anything regarding that this was only coming to the XBOX, nor did it mention any reasons for not putting on the PC afterwards.

Now I may be complaining about something trivial, after all, essiently it’s celebrating your character’s death, but that’s besides the point.  It’s the attitude.  These qualms are indeed trivial, but it goes beyond that.  Mainly, making ports.  With the exepction of Devil May Cry 4, (based on what I read) and Mass Effect, I have yet to find ANY game that was ported to be in good shape.  It’s about as common as games based off movies.  I can understand if the company releases a game on the PC and then the console relases it years later, since the consoles’ hardware can’t even compete with a PC, but that doesn’t happen anymore.   Now, it’s the other way around; the console comes first, then the PC.  So now we are making a game built for worse hardware and are forcing it on a PC with better yet incompabitle hardware.  Why do they do this?  Everyone would rather concentrate on just making a game for consoles simply because it makes more money.   Another reason could be that they are using the consoles as a guinea pig to see if a game is really going to take off or not.  Then if it does make enough money, they port it to PC.

The real shit that hits the fan is whenever a company says they are making a game for console and PC, (and ACTUALLY DOES make it for PC, not just lie about it and change plans last minute before release *coughSaintsRow2cough*) all versions come out nicely.  The second plans are made to delay the release of the PC version of a game(or decided to make one at all at a later date), I alreayd know the outcome of the game.  Bugs are to be expected with any version, they come and go, but the framerate is just simply HORRENDOUS! And who can blame them?  After working on a game for so many years, I can assure you you are not going to want to come back to it again after it’s release and rework the game’s engine all over again.  It’s understandable that it’s difficult to change a game’s coding just so the computer’s hardware can read it easier, but after seeing that many games made for all versions THE FIRST TIME around come out great, there is just simply no excuse.  Don’t make a port, make a CHANGE.  If it was possible to do it then, there is no reason why it can’t be possible several months later.  Laziness is no excuse, either make a GOOD version of the game, or don’t make it at all.

To comment on an episode of Sealab: 2021, “there is an knife in my eye and you keep twisting it.”  Well theres a knife in my eye and companies are twisting it.  Why do gaming PC’s all have to be so damn expensive?  At an approximate, my Alienware is $3,800.  Yes, you read that right.  Three thousand eight hundred fucking United States of American dollars.  Plus tax.  That is enough to buy NINE Xbox Elites or SIX 80GB PS3’s.  Overpriced?  Yes.  Could I of saved money if I built it myself?  Yes.  But does this sucker ever overheat?  No.  I may of been a fool paying for overpriced hardware, but like I said in my last post I’m no engineer, nor do I plan to be.  Why am I being charged so much for hardware in my PC to play games that make said hardware completly useless?  When I buy a game that has a 256MB video card for RECOMMENDED specs, a 768 MB video card should damn well pass.  The public know that consoles are pretty much dominating the PC for many reasons like this….so why don’t they lower the cost of gaming hardware for PC’s?  Either do that, or make better releases!  We’re paying companies 10 times  EXTRA money than we have to to play the same games that a little console can for a straight 500 bucks, so don’t throw us these crappy ports.

And it looks like the developers know it too.

http://www.onlive.com/

That knife is getting deeper as well.  If the video didn’t explain it well enough, here’s a synopsis.  OnLive is a similar to Gametap, in which you play games instnatly, only you pay for the games instead.  Pay for it once, and it’s yours though, no different than if you had bought it in the store.  Onlive itself is a console, but this console can connect to your TV or PC or MAC as well.  The TV is self explanatory, just plug it in, plug in your Internet cables and there you go.  So what are the system requirements for playing this on a computer?  Windows XP/Vista, or Mac O/S.  That’s it.  This means you can essietnially play games like Crysis on a mom and pop computer, laptop, or any craptacular computer you bought from Costco or those pre-installed software happy computers from HSN.  So how is this done?  To the naked eye, it looks the same.  You play games just as you would.  Push buttons, make your avatar move on the screen.  OnLive is different.  Whether your’re using the controller for your TV, or mouse and keyboard for your computer, all your inputs are sent to the server you are connected to as data, because theres no game software installed.  That data is processed on the server and OnLive plays back a constant streaming video of your inputs on your screen.  In laymans terms, you are making an invisible person play a game on a a computer that DOES have the game installed, and someone is broadcasting that computer’s screen live to your TV or monitor.  This alone, tells me that gaming companies know they are really not doing their job for the PC market and it’s showing.  This service will make gaming rigs……mostly obsolete.  Of course with OnLive, there is a catch.  Listed in the FAQ of OnLive:

• What kind of Internet connection do I need to use the OnLive Service?
  OnLive works over nearly any broadband connection (DSL, cable modem, fiber, or through the LAN at your college or office). For Standard-Definition TV resolution, OnLive needs a 1.5 Mbps connection. For HDTV resolution (720p60), OnLive needs 5 Mbps.

This ultimatley means that your internet connection is going to be the prime factor of how well quality of video is played back to you, but 5 mbps for 720p?

In the end, it’s of course all a marketing ploy and bad timing on my part, but there shouldn’t be any reason for the current slack in PC games.  Simply put, PC owners have just got

“You need people like me, so you can point your fucking fingers, and say that’s the bad guy!”

If there was one gangster movie that I had to pick to be my favorite, it would definitely be Scarface.  (With my second favorite being “American Gangster.”)  Not because he was one of the first, (the first was actually “The Muskateers of Pig Alley” made in 1912) but because he had a different balance between good and bad that other gangsters didn’t seem to have, but then again maybe the timeline was a factor.  The 70’s had The Godfathe, where being a  gangster meant honor, loyalty, and kissing people on the forehead.  In the 90’s, gangster turned into an adjective; where “being” gangster meant wearing your pants below your underwear and walking with a tilt.  Shirt optional. In my opinion that was just all too common.  Now, in the new millennium you have your really cool and collective gangsters like Denzel Washington who in truth, all they really want to do is to do their business with as little confrontation as possible.  Tony Montana came between all that in the 80’s, a mixed breed, a combination of both total badassness and moral ethics.  Coming right after the Godfather movies,  he wasn’t a ruthless cold-blooded murderer with no conscience, but he wasn’t a pussy either.  Though he defiantly wouldn’t mind some.  Simply put, showing he has no class, with class.  The movie also caused extreme controversy, and was one of few films that actually got a rating of X.  (And not surprisingly, seeing as how standards change, is now just rated R today.)  While the violence does not even compare to today’s films, the swearing has become ironically a preview of what we got today.  (Pacino had evidently “layed down the fuck” 181 times in the movie, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,951028-3,00.html)  He’s become a pop icon in the recent years ever since they released a new edition DVD, and a video game.

It’s just too bad that his video game is extremely underrated.  “Scarface:  The World is Yours” is the official video game to Scarface, released around the same time the PS2 was just dying out.  It plays out an alternative to the film’s ending.  The game starts out near the end of the film, where Tony is trapped in his office with Sosa’s men just outside.  You come out and start blasting away and the enemies downstairs, only this time, providing your not actually  high as well as Tony is, the game gives you a chance to turn around and blast the fuck out of the movie ending Schwarzenegger wannabe.  For kicks, you can also just wait to die and see Tony’s death scene in blurry texture form.  That’s right, the game’s graphics is nothing to cry home to.  In fact you might be crying anyway that because the game is darn right ugly, even for it’s time.  The best graphic is Pacino’s ’s face, probably because we all recognize him, and it’s better looking than the women in the game, scars and all.

The game’s storyline adds a fourth step to the three steps to making it in the business: Revenge.  (Sadly, a lot of the content you see in this trailer didn’t make the final cut, including for some reason Motley Crue’s “Kickstart My Heart,” the song being played during it.)  You start by reclaiming your mansion, buying out different business to act as your fronts, and then finally putting a well deserved bullet to Sosa’s head.  (And then let’s you continue on playing so you can get $999,999,999 if your so inclined.)

But wait, haven’t we all played these kind of games before?  Yes and no.  Unlike the GTA series and Saint’s Row series, (as different as the two in terms of realism) this game is radically different.  And we need more game’s like this.  Often in a crime game, your a gangster who’s ultimate goal is to work your way to the top, whether it’s doing missions to earn money, beating up people, racing, robbing a bank, or even throwing feces at people.  This game’s main draw is drug trafficking.  While Saint’s Row does have drug trafficking, it’s only a mini-game.  The World is Yours uses this concept to the fullest.

What made this game different from all the others is what you could do while not a mission.  GTA and Saint’s Row all had minigames to do, but most of them were all optional and yielded very little money, (compared to story missions or property income.) They both had story missions that when completed, would earn you a fat wad of cash.  Both game also let you buy property that when bought, would net you income overtime.   In Scarface, a typical gaming session is usually a series of minigames but they all follow suit:  (remember this is NOT a story mission)

-You (Tony) call Felix to find a lead.  More or less, this is a randomized mission generated every time you want to make a deal, which is great so it’s different every time you do it.  These missions usually involve either assassinating targets, dropping off packages, or defending a target.  In exchange, you are hooked up to make a deal with someone.

-You then find that dealer, who’s location is also randomly generated.  Upon confronting him, you’re shown a meter that fills up when you hold down a button.  When it reaches the top, it starts over from the bottom, going faster and faster each round.  When you let it go, the meter stops growing.   The higher the meter is when you stop it, the less you have to pay to buy the “yeyo.”  The lower it is, the more you pay.  If it’s too low, the deal is off all together, and a fight breaks out.
-If you managed to strike a deal, you can then go to random crackheads and sell them your yeyo, using the same meter minigame mentioned before.
-Go to a bank to launder you money, and save the game.  (Any money and yeyo grams you have on your will disappear when you die.  Saving the game puts all that money in the bank.)
-Further into the game you can do these same deals again, only to buy kilos instead.  When you buy kilos, you store them to one of your storehouses, possibly being attacked while doing so.
-Kilos are the big kahunas, the real money makers.  A kilo distribution run makes you go to all the business buildings you own for you to sell your kilos to them.  (So they can do some “under the table” work on the side.)

These missions don’t further the storyline, but they are required to do.  You need money to buy exotics.  Cars, boats, investments, fine china, all that good stuff.  Buying exotics give you respect.  Gaining respect, furthers the game.  (It’s just too bad that most of these exotics you buy are just furniture.  The game has a “The Sims” like store section in which you can exotics all over you mansion, but aside from that, sitting there is all they do.  You are rarely home in your mansion as it is.)  In addition, the quality of all these drug deals factor in “heat.”  The game has Police heat.  Police heat is usually a meter that fills up when you cause trouble, and the higher it gets, the more difficult it is to avoid the police.  This game handles heat differently.  Police heat only rises when you successfully evade police.  While you are being chased, a separate heat meter shows up.  If this meter goes all the way and you still haven’t evaded the cops (shooting them all day will solve nothing) a huge “YOU ARE FUCKED” sign shows up on screen and it’s game over instantly.  So what’s so bad about the permanent police meter?  It affects your interest rate at banks.  When you save your game at banks, the same meter minigame pops up.  The higher you stop it, the lower the rate you have to pay.  If your police rate is too high, the maximum and minimum rate you can possibly pay increases.  The same goes with Gang heat and making deals.   Gang heat is accumulated from shooting gang members that randomly attack you, or during kilo distribution runs.

This is where Tony’s henchman come into place.  You can use these henchman to do different kind of missions that actually lower your police or gang heat.  Unlike Tony, the henchman can actually harm innocent civilians.  Tony cannot, will not, and will even cuss you out, the player, for trying so.  This is another thing that I like about The World Is Yours.  You actually have threats.  Shooting innocent civilians who can’t fight back is getting old.  There is just no challenge to it.  Then I have to fend off police men that will increase in numbers if I try to defend myself.  I haven’t played a single GTA game where people will actually come up to you and start attacking you, giving some kind of threat or green light to make it feel ok to actually shoot them.  This game will have gangsters attack you providing your gang heat is high enough, and they drop money, ammo and sometimes even yeyo.  And even if you defeat all the gang hideouts, you will still run into them in the never ending mini games.

Somehow I don’t feel the game got the respect it deserves.  The game was horribly ported to the PC.  Not just in optimization, but the controls, were rather…odd, and even after a patch, it didn’t fix the problem.  Not to mention this game doesn’t work anymore on Vista, until someone found a workaround.

I certainly wouldn’t mind a sequel to this game in the near future, hopefully with better support.   The whole drug trafficking thing to me is done really well here.  It needn’t be Scarface again, as I am a bit tired of the 80’s, and it would be hard to continue his storyline once again, but another one of these gems is just begging to be made.  Until that happens, though, it’s time to say good night to the bad guy.