The PC master race is up in arms with Infinity Ward over certain specs of the PC version of Modern Warfare 2. These basically bring the PC in-line with the console versions in terms of networking much to the consternation of the tweak everything crowd.
So if you run the PC version you now have:
a maximum multiplayer game of 9 on 9 (same as 360 and PS3)
no ability to lean in MP (same as 360 and PS3)
having to connect to a master server to authenticate (same as 360 and PS3)
no dedicated servers, but peer to peer networking (same as 360 and PS3)
matchmaking rather than server browser (same as 360 and PS3)
I am not rabidly going to rant about these changes, but by the same token I am not particularly pleased. The thing that made me buy the PC versions of WaW and CoD4 was the fact the P2P networking of the 360 versions was just not up to scratch compared to Halo 3. There was almost always a very noticeable lag between firing a weapon and the hit being registered on the 360 version of both CoD games. Yes, Valve’s p2p code is far worse but there was one reason why I was looking forward to the PC version. Also, where I live, we have pretty low internet quotas from ISP’s mitigated by the fact that if I play on servers hosted by my ISP- that is ‘free’ bandwidth. So, poo.
On the other hand, there seem to be many issues with CoD games of people ‘hacking’ the game. Though most calls of hacking are against people using ordinary in-game perk combos that the 1337 players are apparently above using (unless they’re losing). Oh dear. So you will connect to IWnet and then the matchmaking will begin. This is what I dread most as the thing that made WaW particularly bad in this regard was the fact that I would end up playing in games with a host who was in another country, leading to a frustrating time playing a game I knew could be good with good pings.
Some developers will see the reaction and make concessions. IW seem loathe to do this based on the time it has taken them to patch their games in the past. Do I think there’s a chance there will be something in the future? Yes and no. After all, PC players made such a small proportion of the overall CoD4 and WaW population that I think IW may just ignore them. Thing is, the thing that I used to love about CoD1 and CoD2 was that the ‘hardcore’ PC players stayed away from the game in favour of CS, Unreal and Battlefield, meaning it was pretty easy to get into. CoD4 becoming a hardcore as well as mainstream hit kinda killed the fun for anyone not in a clan.
John Carmack has also hinted at Rage not supported dedicated servers as well. DICE, however are using this as a wedge to drive PC players to Bad Company 2, which is not a bad thing since for everyone since BC was a really great game and would be great on PC.
So do you listen to your player base or do you use your extraordinary power to enforce your will? Let’s see how this plays out this week when the game is released
So, the two hottest games of October are Brutal Legend by Psychonaut’s Double Fine and Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 2. I’m not currently playing either of these high quality games.
The question is why?
Well taking Brutal Legend first. I played the demo and I read the reviews. So it looks and sounds amazing and I would kill to play that game just to experience the story. Thing is the gameplay on the demo didn’t excite me very much. I have gotten very bored with brawlers having worked on a couple in my day. The music and visuals are great but the hack and the slash gameplay in the demo didn’t give me any sort of warm gooey, pant-changing feeling. Then in the reviews it apparently becomes a strategy game with units and resource management. Even if it is simple, I think I will pass. Maybe later when it is cheaper and I can justify breezing through it on easy just for the experience, but for now… Next!
Which would mean Uncharted 2. I liked Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune when it came out in 2007. I felt it was the best PS3 title available at that point and until now I still think it, MGS4 and the new Uncharted are the three best reasons to own a PS3 if you like to play games. I have bought Uncharted 2, I still haven’t played it. Mainly because I haven’t had time to play it with work commitments recently, and the other sticking point is I started to replay the original game earlier in the week. Part of me is berating myself for getting Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, a game which disappoints in more ways than a Nintendo Press conference. If I hadn’t have bought that (despite the good word of mouth and the fun I had with the original), I would have finished it time to play the sequel. Part of me still hopes I can blast through the original before sticking part two in.
The trouble with that is, I’m still fairly on through the first game, when it was still a Tomb Raider Clone. I’m only just now reaching the point where the game becomes a Gears of War clone. Maybe I should just put it aside and play the new game. Maybe I will.
Of course, I’ve been playing CoD4 for the last few months on PC. This is a game I have put aside and come back to on many, many occasions. For some reason I get completely frustrated with it and quite for a while. Then I come back to it. There are several silly reasons why I am playing this over WaW on PC right now.
1- The only gaming PC I have available is my work’s PC, a HP quadcore machine with a decent video card (a 260 something something). I typically play for around 30-40 mins after work each night before I go home
2- I have finally managed to get a profile high enough to unlock weapons like the Barret 50.cal sniper rifle. I have had to restart at level 1 without ever restiging several times over the last 2 years (new PC, playing PC and 360, etc)
3- Only a few games are set up to work within my Work’s firewall. CoD 4, L4D, TF2 and WoW are set up since they are popular. WaW needs an online profile to work and there are enough people wanting to play it to bother
4-MW2 is out in a few weeks. I’d love to reach level 55 at least once.
So I’m playing against random kids on the net some days and at others with my colleagues. It’s clear the colleagues are very bored with CoD4. They love the gameplay but the lack of new maps has really added to the fatigue. That said, I expect each of them to have MW2 within a week and hopefully, it will be at least 3 hours before they start complaining about hax.
My plans for the next few month in terms of picking up games looks quite slim. Modern Warfare 2 on PC and 360, Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time. Maybe Borderlands and of course All New Super Mario Brothers on Wii. Fuck Assassin’s Creed 2, Forza 3, Need for Speed and the rest.
I’ve never been a huge Tomb Raider fan but I did get through most of Tomb Raider Legend and enjoy it for the most part. Underworld was cheap so I picked it up and have been going through it rather languidly. That is to say. I’m playing it because I have nothing else to play and I’m not really compelled by it.
Don’t get me wrong, its very well made and I’ve found it quite polished but I’m not champing at the bit to play it like some other games I’ve been playing this year (Fallout 3, Infamous and Red Faction). I think I’m over exploration and constantly falling, not to my doom, but down to a lower level that requires a lengthy hike to get back to where I was. So I’m done with it already (it was a cheapie).
Here are some pics in lieu of me wasting any more time on Tomb Raider (click on the segment to see the full pic)
I’m waiting for Call of Juarez to show up and to see whether Wolfenstein is worth getting so I’m in a gaming-lite mode. I was ging through CoD4 SP again, this time on PC, but then the PC decided to lose my save game and I thought “fuck that.” I had a day off work this week so I popped in CoD2 (360) for a play of the SP campaign. Wasn’t feeling it but then I had played the single player manay times and the first half of the game has had a lot more playtime than the end of the game. Oh well.
So really Battlefield 1943 has been getting the most playtime though I’m starting to get a little frustrated. It seems 360 players locally are meant to be on local servers but this is not the case just yet and I find the one thing that dents my enthusiasm for online games is lag induced by a Host in another country. Last night the Japanese team were based in Japan. Awkward much? I must have been playing all seven 360 owners in Japan. And they were quite good.
Trials HD is likely to be purchased over the weekend. I’m working on a video ATM and Trials seems perfect to pop in and out of while I need to Render files.
We’re securing some more people to interview in our “The Developer” series in the coming weeks so stay tuned.
My recent DLC binge netted me the Lost and the Damned and the CoD World at War Map Pack 2. I had intended to skip the GTA DLC since I had not come close to finishing GTA IV before getting sick of it and moving on to fresh gaming pastures. I think the reason I got it was some need to use up my Internet Bandwidth quota since 25GB a month goes a long way if you aren’t into Bit Torrent. Infamous also made me feel that going back to the slower moving GTA IV engine might be a step backwards but I tried it anyway.
I like it so far. I’m only a few missions in but it seems to be a nice take on Liberty City without feeling like a simple retread of IV.
The storyline with the bikers seems a lot easier to get into, less introspective than Niko and Roman, played less for laughs and more for drama. The guys of the Lost MC are fucking assholes of the first order but they make great videogame characters. Of course as a member of a motorcycle gang, you will be riding around on a hog for most of the time and unless you preferred these in GTA IV, they take a while to get used to riding these and firing a shotgun at the same time. Its also got that custom GTA difficulty about it but then I’m finding I’m enjoying it in this post-infamous world.
Johnny Klebitz, your hero for want of a better word, is a little more obviously fucked up thank Niko. He’s a biker and he just wants to keep to business. The leader of the gang, Billy, has just come out of rehab after being busted and is aching for action, such as starting turf wars with rival gangs etc. This being a GTA game, there ares no tea parties, group hugs and wondering if this is what its like When Doves Cry.
Also, despite me saying I’d had enough of WaW with a PC playthough, a 360 playthough and months of multi on both systems, I got the extra maps anyway. And because I’d been away from the multiplayer for so long, I immediately sucked more than a Wii game called Let’s Tidy Up After Ourselves in the NPD top 10. But after relearning not to suck, I’ve started to enjoy the new maps and not just stick to the three zombie maps. We have Corrosion, which seems to be some sort of refinery level where its Soviets v Nazis; Banzai, aan outdoor jungle level with a wooden bridge, waterfalls, tunnels and bamboo huts; and my favourite, Sub Pen, a really nice US verses Japan level that’s small and intimate but large enough for small or medium size groups.
Its interesting to note how in both of the map packs released for WaW so far, Treyarch have shied away from the larger tank based levels which were the more popular ones in CoD3. The tanks in WaW are just irritating since they dominate the levels and the anti-tank options are limited. The jury is still out on dogs but they are preferable to fucking helicopters, which is what I dread most about the upcoming Modern Warfare 2.
Just as a site update: The site has had fewer updates due to my work moving offices this last week. My studio is in disarray so there’s nowhere for us to record a podcast yet. Hopefully we can have something for you by next week. The first one might be a tad echo-ey.
After a few relatively game-lite weeks- I’m playing a bit more regularly. I’m off on a vacation in a fortnight’s time (the site will still have updates) but in the meantime I’ve had some fun with a few titles.
The Club, subject of a recent focus test, is a silly score-attack shooter. Take PGR and Tony Hawk and make it about shooting and you have The Club. If you’re not a score attack junkie, you might find there’s not much for you since multiplayer doesn’t have a thriving community and the single player is a few hours at best. Its a repetitive title to be sure, but once you start playing, you’re there for longer than you’d expect. It’s not ugly, but there are much prettier games on the market. Its also being referenced left right and centre “oh, its like The Club.” Hey, great, you used a commercial flop as the basis for your big title. Its like how those in the know reference Kill/Switch as the game that Gears got much of the stop and pop actions from. I recommend renting this for giggles, or buying it outstandingly cheap (which should not be hard)
Of course, the big game in this post is the PS3 exclusive title inFamous, from Sucker Punch, makers of Sly Cooper games. Some say InFamous is just Sly 3 with a new skin. I can’t say that for sure since, although I own Sly 3, I haven’t played it for more than 30 minutes. InFamous has a far grittier aesthetic but you can see a lot of Sly Cooper in this game. Apart from Sly Cooper himself.
It also channels the ghost of Crackdown. A few days after this post goes live, we may have some news of Crackdown 2. My sources assure me its in the works. My sources also assure me that you can’t catch Swine Flu from a toilet seat unless an afflicted piglet used it previously. If you liked Crackdown, you should also have a ball with this game. I like Crackdown, and from I’ve played of the demo, this is a fun substitute. Our next Focus Test podcast features this game so give it a listen (links at the right of the page).
There’s climbing up buildings, jumping, popping a zap in the asses of the baddies. Its got it all. And ANGST! Games need more whiny bitches as the protagonist. Of course, I can’t play the full game for three more weeks since it doesn’t get released here before I go away for my break. The zinger is, this game comes out at the exact same time as a another similar game, Prototype.
Prototype is a multiplatform gamer from Radical, the makers of Hulk games and before that, some Simpsons games a few years back. They know their open-world blow shit up routine. Prototype is a gorier version of the Hulk game from all accounts. Its the release of Infamous and Prototype that has clogged the net with Prototype verse Infamous blogs. “Which is better? Which should I play first?” I don’t really have any interest in Prototype just at the moment so we shall see what it is like once its released.
I had decided earlier in the year that I would like to replay the single player campaigns of the Call of Duty games. Apparently the original game is being released as a downloadable title soon and if it does, I could have all 5 games on my 360. Which would be nice. I’ve been replaying the most recent, World at War, in single player mode. My first run through was on PC and this time, its on 360. I think WaW get’s trashed a bit too much for not being made by Infinity Ward, but I found it a highly enjoyable game in its own right. CoD4 is still better but the differences are enough to make it feel like a different game, and close enough to keep the CoD4 whore in me smiling.
The last biggie from 2008 that we’ve not done yet. CoD be praised.
Possibly the lst time controller1.com posts about god damned Banjo Kazooie Nuts and Bolts. We’ve reviewed it. We’ve focus tested it and now we bury it. I post about it because it its now gone. The spectre of playing it any more has lifted and now we can concentrate on the road ahead.
So I guess I’ve been dividing my game playing time between CoD WaW on 360 and CoD4 MW again on PC. Yes, I’ve got back to playing Modern Warfare. This is about the 6th time I’ve resumed playing it. Through a set of circumstances too circumspect to subscribe to in order to circumvent the circumference of, er, um. Basically, on PC, I’ve had to restart several times, so I’ve never reached level 55. I think the highest I got was about level 40 on 360 but on the current PC install, I’m at 35. I still don’t have any of the fancy guns like the Barret 50 cal or the P90 or the G3K. I still don’t have the three frag grenades perk which makes Wet Work such a ‘nade fest. I also don’t have my favourite perk, overkill- which gives you two primary weapons.
I’ve written way too many times about CoD so here’s some Peggle. Peggle
I am still playing Peggle. I’ve barely touched World of Goo so far and I’d like to play more of it. How do I break the Peggle hold? Are there Peggle interventions? Peggle Exorcists? Peggaholics Anonymous?
“Hello my name is George and I’m a unicorn.”
Prince of Persia is the last 2008 single player game on my pile. It sits worryingly unplayed. The little I have played was good, but not enough to suck me in. Maybe over Easter. Maybe not.
Its one of those weeks. I just don’t feel like playing Single player games (Peggle aside) right now. So I’ve been playing a variety of multiplayer games online. Killzone 2 was not enthralling enough to keep hooked so I went back to a few old standbys. Its pretty barren for new games over the next few months so its a good time to indulge in MP shenanigans.
Firstly on 360, I picked up the map pack for CoD WaW, which offers three multiplayer maps and one new map for the awesome zombie Nazi mode. The maps are very nice and are a blast to play. No tanks which means one of the more common complaints is not as much of an issue as is in the main game. For a game that supposedly meant to be from Activisions ‘B’ shooter team, CoD WaW manages to offer very playable maps.
I’ve been playing a bit more PC CoD 4 Modern Warfare multiplayer and alternatively getting frustrated and enjoying myself. It basically sucks enjoyment out of a game if you just want to have some fun and you play with serious players. Apparently its considered cheating to use either the rifle grenade or the Juggernaut (extra strength) perk. The Last Stand and Martyrdom are also often frowned upon. Its not cheating children, its not even a ‘sploit. Its just that people who have level up can’t stand being killed by anyone with a lower ranking. I even dipped my toe into some Hardcore and found I played better that normal servers. Is it because I’ve been playing a lot of Day of Defeat as well?
Day of Defeat Source is such an old game with such little depth. I am still intrigued why updates to TF2 also mean updates to DoD:S but either way this is a game that has a grip on a select few who play every day. You don’t level up but choose a class and yet the in game chat isn’t full of cries of noobs with rifle grenades and rocket launchers. I mean, yes people complain about being owned by snipers and machine gunners but it’s generally restrained. There’s so much anger in CoD 4 players.
And I’ve been playing Peggle. I like Peggle. It is fun. You should play Peggle on whatever platform you have access to.
I’ve just bought World of Goo as part of MacHeist so I expect to give that a spin over the weekend. Also, there’s the Modern Warfare 2 (note no CoD) teaser and even cooler, the original Call of Duty is coming to PSN and XBLA soon. Day 1 purchase! It will be really cool to have access to all of the major Call of Duty games on Xbox 360 (since I also have CoD, 3, 4, and WaW on 360)- and 1, 2, 4 and WaW on PC as well. That’s nothing, I have one colleague who has CD 4 on PC, PS3 and PC.
CoD be praised!
Activision have started the PR for what looks to be Infinity Ward’s next Call of Duty game. Whilst other companies seem to have learnt their lesson about yearly updates, Activision obviously haven’t. EA seemed to have stopped the annual release of Medal of Honor games, id aren’t churning out yearly updates to Quake and Doom. Halo, Gears, Resistance and Killzones aren’t being squeezed out every year. But Activision seem content to have a Call of Duty every year, as well as multiple versions of Guitar Hero annually. But curiously enough WoW is still the original with only two expansions in nearly four and a half years.
Iterating till doomsday has seen a lot of game series being ruined, but you can predict when this going happen very easily- People start referring to it as a franchise as if its a frozen yogurt stand in a mall. The more often you make the same game with only minor upgrades, the more likely you are to suffer from boredom and deja vu. With games like Madden, there’s evidence to suggest that many football fans buy the game every couple of years, rather than every installment. With Madden, there’s also no other choice if you want an NFL game.
With shooters, its perhaps more perilous because there is so much more choice. Call of Duty has to compete with Resistance and Killzone on PS3; Gears and Halo on 360; Tom Clancy shooters on all systems; Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress on PC as well as the ancient juggernauts of Counterstrike, Battlefield and Unreal games. Valve didn’t release TF3 a year after TF2, they added new content (free or not) but Activision took the success of Call of Duty 4 and threw it away by release the almost as successful Call of Duty World at War a year after. If there’s a new CoD game every year, how long before people get sick of it? You can argue that they sold a large number of CoD4 boxes and then a year later sold a large number of CoD WaW boxes. But they also had to devote two of their best teams to making a new title in two years, rather than smaller teams making expansions or DLC.
You can tell the tide of the Guitar Hero Rock Band style games has turned a little bit. People seem a little less enthusiastic about those games these days. Perhaps the lure of being a Rock Star fades after a while? Or the sight of fat geeks rocking out gets old after a while? You know how everyone groans about “another WWII game?” That’s because there was a time when you had Medal of Honor, Commandos, Brothers in Arms Wolfenstein, DoD, CoD, plus dozens of strategy titles and smaller PC games set in the same settings. There are dozens of SF or fantasy based games but the difference is they have freedom to make up new worlds whereas games based on actual events or settings (such as WWII or Modern Combat games) have to adhere to a certain aesthetic and conform to real world experience and expectations. You couldn’t have Gaz pull out a BFG and keep a straight face.
Look at Battlefield. First there was a WWII game and some expansions. Then there was Battlefield Vietnam a few years later, the Battlefield 2 with its mini expansions and console versions and then Battlefield 2142. The SF sequel fizzled pretty much and now the series is drifting backwards in time like some kind of ass-backwards Buck Rogers. Bad Company is back in current times and Battlefield Heroes and the new downloadable games are in WWII (ish) times. EA tried to iterate by innovating but really what they needed was space in between releases.
We’ve already mentioned Blizzard and WoW. But look at Starcraft. It was a huge hit in the late 90′ s but here we are, a decade and change later and we’re still waiting for the sequel (Just suppose EA had bought Blizzard in the past. We’ve have had Starcraft 2-5, Diablo 3, 4 and Origins and Warcraft 4-6 before EA shut them down). Of course, they are releasing SCII in three different versions. Kotick, you magnificent bastard! The clamouring for new SC is such that people will buy the three versions and not bitch too much about triple charged. WHy? Because Blizzard let the demand for a sequel build organically over time. Maybe 11-12 years is overkill, but its worked.
Personally, I am happy to have a new CoD game each year. But I know the series probably won’t be what it is if it starts fatiguing gamers to the point Activision mandate harmful changes in order to fix the malaise. “Have you guys considered adding giant robots?”
Well, its the saviour of the PS3 and very pretty but how is it as a game? Very good. Before I started this, I had the last level and a half of Mirror’s Edge to complete since my backflip. That done, it was time for some Killzone. Being sceptical of the lacklustre original, I was very pleasantly surprised (I knew the positive critical reaction wasn’t down to people being blind fans of the original but the first one didn’t leave me with much hope the sequel would play well).
So in essence:
The Good: Looks great. It does lighting and particle effects very well, even if the textures aren’t always that crisp (apart from when they want to show off something in extreme closeup in a cutscene. It makes the flat-looking mess that Resistance 2 look like a PS2 game. Oh wait, Insomniac already did that. Sound is phenomenal. Online is very smooth.
The OK: The gameplay is very, er “tried and true.” That means its not only familiar, but a little too familiar and unadventurous. Large parts of the game consist of two standbys-
STANDBY 1: Kill X number of enemies (sometimes its X number within a timeframe) to progress
STANDBY 2: Infinitely respawning enemies until you reach a certain point on the map
We will give grief to a licensed game for using the rinse-and-repeat level design cliches so its appropriate to mention it here. The game is still fun, you just realise that it doesn’t change very much while you play. Its not full of gimmicky tech like the god awful mess that is Resistance 2 (Yes, I went there).
Multiplayer was very good apart from one gripe. The gameplay mode would constantly change from simple Team Deathmatch to Control points to Assassination, etc, making it hard to get a rhythm on one mode before it changed again. I’d rather have shorter rounds.
The Bad:
Control is not particularly tight. It is rather loose and hard to target (If R2 and Battlefield can do it on PS3- why not this?). The field of view is rather narrow, meaning enemies are right on top of you before you know it. Story is barely there and makes the criticism of Gears 2′s story and dialogue seem as bad. The dialogue is just as macho cheesy. One character looks familiar though…
His name is Farcus Menix.
One thing KZ2 did was make me wish I was playing CoD WaW. So after going about halfway through the single player campaign and a few rounds of MP, I popped this into the 360, patched it, DLed a free map and hopped online. Yes, I still get stuck on servers where everyobne else is in North America, which kinda kills my ping, but it didn’t seem as bad as it used to be. I hope to play a bit more of this before I put it away. I think the world has to live with the fact that I seem to respond to CoD multiplayer more than anything else, console or PC.
Before KZ2 was begun, I finished Mirror’s Edge (PS3 version). I had to add parts to my original review since I felt the break from it made me want to finish it so much. Game has problems to be sure but it was a worthwhile experience.
Lastly I bought Peggle for $3. Popgame games website, coupon code blitz1. That is all.
