I left out Alone in the Dark 3 because 1, 2, and 3 all look very similar to each other. Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare had a significant jump in graphics quality, but it controlled very much like the originals. All the games were good, but by the time The New Nightmare came out it all felt like it had been done before with the widely successful Resident Evil and Silent Hill series. When I heard of a new Alone in the Dark game I thought that it would be another clunky survival horror game, but with some great atmosphere that is the staple for the genre. Fortunately, the new game has a little more than just a facelift and looks to be some of the best survival horror gameplay to date. Check out the video below to see what I mean because still pictures do not do the graphics justice.

The good thing is that if the game is completely broken and turns out not to be very good, at least it won’t be as bad as this.

The only real drawback of Frets on Fire is that it is single player only.  You cannot jam out with friends like in Guitar Hero and… you still aren’t playing a real guitar.

Also, Condemned 2: Bloodshot is a mere four weeks away from being released. The first game was great, but this one promises to tighten up the story telling and include a more immersive experience with the forensic tools to further the story, so I am on the edge of my seat to see if it really delivers the same gritty experience as the first. The artwork alone looks worth the ticket price since it seems to want to put up a good fight with Manhunt and the Silent Hill series for most awkward enemies.

Image from IGN

I admit I’ve been fairly inconsistent with my posts, but I’ve been catching up on a lot of other work around the apartment and getting myself ready for my new job. Whoo!

Here is where things stop making sense. In Crysis, by the middle of the game I have easily figured out that it takes a couple rockets to take down a helicopter. No one told me this, I just figured it out. So, when I hear a helicopter I make for the closest rocket launcher and start firing away. Also, I figured out that shooting a guy in the noggin’ is going to be the easiest way to kill him (who would have known!?). So, like Crysis, most modern games require you to learn some simple gameplay mechanics to progress through the game. If gamers can figure all of this out, then why the hell do we still get stupid little messages like “Press F to trade Gun A for Gun B” or “Press E to Open Door”? These are the simplest actions in any game and we usually figure this all out in the tutorial and give it no thought throughout the rest of the game. To me, its just like saying “Press Mouse Button 1 to Shoot Bad Guy”. I don’t get it.

Games should be intuitive enough that we don’t need little messages like that to hold our hand throughout the experience because in reality they take away from the immersiveness of the action. I mean, if you have to tell people how to switch guns or open doors on the 6th Chapter of the game, then maybe your game is too complex or you aren’t giving us gamers enough credit.

Dark Sector appears to be built on the newest version of the Unreal Engine since the graphics have a similar feel to Gears of War and the cover point system appears to work exactly the same. The graphics look gritty and realistic, especially the blood splatter. Though the triple bladed boomerang weapon looks a little strange since it can pick up attributes from your surroundings like electricity or fire, the rest of the melee attacks are fluid and very cinematic. The overall feel of the game reminds me of a slightly more sci-fi version of the Resident Evil series. The one thing I am very curious about is if the suit that the main character, Hayden Tenno, wears has any special abilities that were hinted at in the original Dark Sector trailer.

The coolest, though smallest, innovation in the game is the fact that there is no heads up display at all. Everything you need to know is told to you from your character. Ammo levels are displayed on the guns and when your health is low the screen flashes red like you’re at a bad rave. Though I think the flashing red needs to be toned down a bit, it is a good concept.

Anyways, there seems to be a lot left to find out about this game, so I look forward to playing it when it is released in March.  Of course, I don’t own an XBox 360 yet, so I’ll be fighting 12 year olds for playtime at the local game store.

Anyways, here is a list of games I am looking forward to in 2008 and hope they don’t fall short of my expectations (dates from IGN).

2/12 – Penumbra: Black Plague – Moody, psychological thriller

2/19 – The Club – Bet on Soldier meets Counter Strike

2/26 – Lost: Via Domus - The fantastic television show gets its first game.

2/26 – Turning Point: Fall of Liberty – Alternate telling of WWII where the Nazis invade NYC

3/18 – Turok – Guns and melee versus dinosaurs in the middle of a lush jungle… sweetness

3/25 – Assassin’s Creed – I heard mixed reviews about this game, but since I want to dress up as the lead character for next Halloween I guess I better play the game. And I’m curious as hell of how the combat system works.

3/25 – Farcry 2 – No monsters? In Africa? Dynamic, sandbox gameplay? This ought to be interesting.

Q1 2008 – Legendary: The Box – What happens when Pandora’s Box is unleashed on modern civilization? Gamecock is going to let us know.

May 2008 – Alone in the Dark - Have you seen the videos yet? Wow, just wow.

May 2008 – Age of Conan – This game looks completely brutal, but in a fun way.

June 2008 – Left 4 Dead – Humans vs. Zombies taken to a whole new level. This looks like a heart attack waiting to happen.

Q2 2008 – Wall-E – I usually stay away from movie tie-ins, but the movie looks fantastic, so who knows…

Q3 2008 – Fallout 3 – I hate to admit it, but I have never played the first two. I better get caught up because this game looks to dethrone Oblivion (even though I didn’t like that game).

TBA -American McGee’s Grimm – I want this just so I can say American McGee’s name with pride like I did back when Alice came out. No offense to him as he is a talented guy, but Bad Day L.A… really? C’mon…

TBA – Ghostbusters – ‘Nuff said

TBA – Gore: Special Edition – I didn’t like the Gore series when I first played it, but I played the pre-release of the SE and was very surprised.

TBA – Half Life 2: Episode 3 – I must know what happens! How is Alyx? Who is the G-man? Can I finally rid the world of the Combine? Where’s Barney!?

TBA – Project Offset – This looks like someone took Dark Messiah of Might and Magic and gave it a makeover, got it drunk, and made sweet, sweet love to it. To say this game looks good is an understatement.

TBA – Rogue Warrior – Tactical Shooter that looks pretty fun to play from the screen shots I’ve sen in the past. Developed by local Seattle company, Zombie Studios.

It’s obvious that I can’t buy and play all of these games, so choosing which few to buy will be hard. Assassin’s Creed for sure, but the rest are still up in the air. If you have any suggestions or think I missed a game, let me know.

Also, if you are a game developer/publisher and want me to review one of these games for the site, feel free to pass me along an email at eric.doty@aberrantech.com.

We are so passionate about our gaming that we even have a platform war, which is really nothing more than drinking the proverbial [sugary beverage] of your favorite console’s marketing campaign. We have Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft all vying for our undying attention and obviously our money. Each company’s marketing campaign is a bit different, but overall they just want to get their console into your home. In reality, anyone that plays a game is a gamer. If you can sit down and enjoy a video game and want to play it again and possibly branch out to other games, then you are a gamer. Don’t believe this crap that someone playing a casual game is less important to the industry than someone who plays Halo for 30+ hours a week. Both are gamers and both are equally important to the evolution of the industry. People that fight over which platform is better are ignorant fools who have joined the cult and have stopped thinking for themselves. We need open-minded individuals to be aware of big picture and take advantage of the industry’s strengths. The industry is constantly growing and changing, mostly for the better, so you are either with it or against it.

The big three companies responsible for gaming in your home are Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft. Nintendo’s Wii has the Wii-mote which allows control through motion sensing. It even has a little speaker built into it. Sony has incorporated motion control through its Six Axis Controller, which is fairly intuitive, but it still hasn’t been taken advantage of to the degree it should be. Microsoft’s XBox 360 controller is a slightly more streamlined version of their last controller. It doesn’t have any major features as far as intuitiveness goes, but it is a solid controller and can interface with a headset and a small add-on keypad. The XBox Live! service allows for decent network play and voice chatting, which has yet to be match by the other two consoles. Each system has its weakness, but they are fun to play nonetheless.

This brings me to my main point. Each console has its target demographic, but overall they want to win everyone over. They have made advancements in wireless controller technology, networking. voice chatting, and intuitive gameplay with motion sensors and analog controls. A lot of the technology is something similar to what PC gamers have had for years, but it is in a more streamlined and in an easily accessible package. The unfortunate thing about PC gaming is that it is the equivalent of the crotchety old man of the industry. We buy our fancy and expensive hardware, monitors, and speakers to make us feel like we really are in the game, but we have been using the same controls since the “dawn of Doom”.

You can buy mice and keyboards that cost a hundred dollars or more a piece, but they are pretty much the same thing as their $10 siblings from 10 years ago. Buying a laser mouse and fancy keyboard doesn’t make you better… it just proves you have more money and you like having “new” technology. We use the WASD keys to move around and the mouse to look or navigate menus. Need more buttons for new gameplay features? Just assign them around the WASD set. Now, I’m not saying that PC gamers should drop their keyboards and mice and pick up a controller, but for all the engineering prowess that we have in the PC industry, you would think that we could invent some better equipment to interface with. To think that in ten or twenty years people will still be playing first person shooters with a mouse and keyboard is ridiculous since a handful of keys and a mouse will not be enough to control a realistic character in a digital world just as complicated as our own. The controllers of the future may resemble mouse and keyboards, but they will be more intuitive, more ergonomic, and have all the bells and whistles that we should already have today. I’ve been a huge fan of Counter Strike: Source and Team Fortress 2 and can’t imagine playing them any other way, but for newer games that keep trying to revolutionize the way we think in games (Bioshock and Crysis, for example) why can’t we include gameplay and peripherals that make our movements just as intuitive as our brains solving the puzzles?

All of our games are getting more intelligent, but we continue to play harder, when we should be playing smarter. Imagine the freedom that PC game developers would have with making drastically new gameplay dynamics if we started using more intuitive peripherals instead of continue using peripherals for that old school-button pushing-linear gameplay that we have grown so accustomed to.

Moral of the story: We need to play smarter, not harder, and we won’t be able to do that until we work together to have the right tools to do so.

Ideally, I feel the map is best suited for 2 or 4 players, but more is obviously acceptable as well. It will just make it even more chaotic. There is bot support if you can’t get enough people online for a full match. Anyways, feel free to download my first map and give it a whirl. Just unzip all three files into Documents/My Games/Unreal Tournament 3/UTGame/Published/CookedPC/Custom Maps (Directory may be slightly different for those on XP).

Download DM-Doomz_TwinAngelsv10

Besides the whole next-gen issue, there are a lot of problems that I have with games. Mainly, First Person Shooter (FPS) games, but some of the issues show up in other genres as well.

Guns

Since 1999, FPS games have made little progress except looking prettier. All FPS games give you a set of guns which are always similar and usually have a pistol, a shotgun, a rocket launcher, a crossbow/railgun, and grenades. The only difference is if the game is set in the extreme levels of sci-fi the guns look different but serve the same exact purpose. There have been some advancements in gameplay enhancing guns liek the Gravity Gun and the Portal Gun, but you’ll hear more about those later on.

Story

Ever play a game that feels like another game? Maybe this story sounds familiar. You are just a lonely scientist/loner/badass and something bad happens involving the military/aliens/generic bad guys and you have to beat them and stop some big event from happening and most likely go home. The only thing more frustrating than a regurgitated story is a story with no real ending hoping to get your money on the sequel. If I just spent $50 on a game to play through 15+ hours of story and then have it leave me hanging just to wait two or three years for the sequel is terrible. Go ahead and hint at a follow-up, but don’t get lazy and make us wait years for anything resembling a conclusion. Half-Life’s episodic content is pushing it, but playing a few hours and waiting a year isn’t too bad, but definitely not ideal. A game that really frustrated me was Indigo Prophecy (a.k.a. Fahrenheit) for a slightly different reason. I was playing it and about 80% in the story was getting really good and I was blown away at how different this game was to other adventure games. Then the game introduces a whole new villian with a weird sci-fi twist which was the complete opposite of where the story was going before. I don’t mind stories that change direction, but don’t take me in two directions at once without leading up to it.

Graphics

I don’t mind if companies buy the license to use the engine from another company’s game or a company using the same engine from one of their other games, but I’m getting sick of having games that look exactly the same. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed Gears of War and am currently engrossed in UT3, but they look the same. Sure there are minor differences here and there, but they are both gritty futuristic dystopias filled with musclebound warriors set on a mission to kill aliens. The level design is different for each game because of their respective gameplay require different layouts, but the dull gray broken down buildings just feel too much alike.

Special Feature

Half-Life 2 has the gravity gun, F.E.A.R. had the sweet slo-mo ability, and Portal added the gravity gun. All three of these games added a new dynamic to the gameplay and they looked great while really adding to the experience. Games are an experience and should always aim to be new and exciting. The only problem is that these games were hailed for their achievements and now you can bet that every generic shooter to come along is going to copy one or all of these features.

Marketing

This hasn’t effected me too much, but I know others that are really peeved about this. You’ll see a commercial for a game or a preview where the game looks absolutely amazing with advanced graphics. Then you get the game and realise that the commercial was only a prerendered cutscene and the in-game graphics look terrible in comparison. Or, you watch a commercial and it shows promise of a huge epic battle and then you play through the game and its just the same ol’ linear gameplay you’ve played a million times over. C’mon, I know the developers and publishers need to make money by selling these games, but don’t lie to us. You don’t see commercials for movies that advertise for a completely different plot or show a pretty actress and then not have her in the movie. That just doesn’t happen.

Multiplayer vs. Single Player

Too many times though the multi-player almost looks like an afterthought and doesn’t play nearly as well as the single player. It seems that the developer could have saved their time and not even made the multiplayer component and spent that time on making the single player experience better or making more add-on content. The opposite is true with multiplayer-centric games. Don’t tell me there is a single-player component if the game is really meant as a multiplayer game. The best example of this is UT3. I really enjoy playing UT3 online, but was surprised by the single-player option. I fired it up and got an amazing rendered cutscene that put many of hollywood’s CGI movies to shame. Then when the cutscene was over I was essentially playing the same online portion of the game, except against bots. The only story is in the cutscenes and the rest of the game lacks that same character. Halo is one of the few games where everyone seems to enjoy both the single player and the multiplayer experience. Its not often that you can play co-op through the story, and I would like to see more games adopt this.

Extras

What is with the retailers offering extra character models, or a USB thumb drive, or a spork with a logo on it (I haven’t seen this, but it would be sweet). Why should I have to decide what extra character I want by choosing which retailer I want to make richer? I shouldn’t be forced to shop at a store I don’t like just to get that cool little extra. If you are going to make it available, just ship a limited number of them to every store. That way you can improve first-day sales across the board and everyone, especially me, will be happy. Also, what is up with giving people special codes to unlock an extra character? From what I have seen these are not exclusive to the actual game you bought from the store, so if you tell everyone what the code is they get the character too. After getting the collectors edition of UT3 I found that people that bought the game from Best Buy got a certain extra character. A simple search online took me to a forum that listed all the bonus codes to unlock those characters in my game. Why even market it as a Best Buy exclusive when it obviously is not?

Digital Distribution

Many of today’s gamers have decently fast internet connections, so giving us the option to download the game instead of buying it is a great idea.  Even being able to pre-load it and activate it when the game is released saves us the hassle of traveling to the store at what usually turns out to be midnight releases.   The downfall of digital distribution is that the game usually cost the same as its retail kin.  Why should we pay the same amount when downloading the game when we do not get the media or any of the booklets that come with it?  The thing that really confuses me is that I would assume that it would cost the company more money to produce the physical media than it would to just put the game image on servers.  Another problem with digital distribution is that you cant trade it in for credit on buying your next game.  It was bad enough that most game stores have stopped letting you trade in PC games, but now you can’t even sell them to your friends because everything is tied to your online account with all your other downloaded games.  $50 used to buy me a game and I could sell it for anywhere between 50% and 75% to allow me to buy my next big game.  Now I have to decide whether the game I’m going to spend $50 on is really worth having forever.

Collectors Editions

Collectors Editions are a great product to have if you are a diehard fan of a series, but sometimes it looks like it is an afterthought just to get people to spend an extra $10 or $20 on the game. If I am spending a lot of extra money on a game I want it to look like they spent a lot of time adding the extras. Two games that really took it up a notch were Halo 3 and UT3. I think everyone knows by now what diehard fans could get if they had the money, but UT3 is a different animal. Instead of going all out on extra products, they went fairly subtle and being a UT fan from way back I was very pleased with what I got. I little book with some art and a bonus DVD with a couple behind the scenese videos and a 20+ hours series of Unreal Engine tutorials. As someone who enjoys games beyond just playing them, this made me feel that the company wanted me to enjoy the game to the fullest and create some content of my own to play and share. It was way more satisfying that getting a 2″ tall toy that I’ll probably toss in a closet a couple months from now.

Game Manuals

Where have all the game manuals gone? If you buy a game today you are lucky to get more than a single sheet of paper explaining the controls. Having zero documentation really doesn’t bother me as I generally never read them. All the game mechanics should be explained to me while playing the first level of the game as well as any backstory, but there is no reason that you should not include proper documentation if there is going to be a $20 guide sold next to it at the game store. Granted these guides are walkthroughs and no one should really need those (especially with the internet around), but they also usually offer some more insight into the game’s stories or characters. Would it have been too hard to include that with the game?

Don’t get me wrong, I really love playing video games. But I am not going to ignore the fact there are some major flaws that constantly arise in them. I cannot wait until technology and graphics programming reach a point where developers literally can do whatever they want. Then they can start focusing on areas where they are truly lacking and that generally turns out to be the story writing and the mechanics which effect the experience much more than graphical “smoke and mirrors”. I do have one game mechanic I would like added to many newer FPS games, but I will save that for another post.

The game industry, for the most part, is a completely different breed than most other markets. Its not like selling an iPod or Zune and you just have to have a sweet ad to attract both the techies and the plebs. Gaming is full of sub-genres that attract different groups of gamers and even non-gamers. And worse than the high-risk behavior of the movie industry, games cannot rely on both box-office sales and then the residual revenue from DVD sales. In games you get one shot and then it gets tossed into the bargain bin.

I shouldn’t even have to mention this, but Nintendo has made it clear that they have completely owned the industry in both hardware and software sales this year with the Wii constantly selling-out at retailers. The smart thing about Nintendo is that both their Wii and DS handheld are easily accessible by both enthusiast and casual gamers. Even people that haven’t played a game since Pac Man can pick up one of these new devices and get the hang of it relatively easy. If I had an award to give out Nintendo’s UI/UX designers would receive it for their ability to bring in outsiders into what is usually a “Members Only” club. The problem with these systems is that beyond the hardware, they do not sell a lot of games. The average person buying a Wii is buying it for the experience of playing Wii Sports or Mario Galaxy. The same goes for the DS where a lot of “older” gamers probably bought the DS for Brain Age and have yet to buy another game for it. There is nothing wrong with this as selling the experience is important, but it is pushing profit and not the actual advancement of the industry. The tidal wave of terrible third-party software doesn’t help much either, but that is a whole story of its own. Now, before I get hatemail I want you to know that I do like Nintendo and always have, but I feel that they carved themselves into a niche market and it will be interesting to see where they go from here.

Okay, so we are four paragraphs in so I better start getting to the point. In November 2002 (Wikipedia) the Xbox video game console received the now infamous Xbox LIVE service. It was suppose to create a community among console gamers that had only been available in PC Gaming. It allows Gamertags and it tracks what games you played and what achievements you have received. Since you can see anyone’s Gamercard, it make you want to be the best you can and get as many achievements as possible to avoid looking like a “n00b”. The advantage for Microsoft and game developers is that when they track achievements, they can see how easy certain tasks are for the majority of gamers. If a certain achievement was meant to be obtained easily, but not many people who played that game got that achievement then that could mean that the developers need to make their next game slightly easier. Simply put, achievements can help fine tune the difficulty of future games for better playability. Today, no other console has a service like this can offer what the LIVE service does. Sony is releasing Home for Playstation 3, but nothing that I have seen makes me think that it will have the same success as the Xbox LIVE service.

Recently, Microsoft released the Games for Windows platform which is supposed to offer a way for all the games released under the GFW label to go through certain QA tests which is a great thing because I can recollect two distinct games that I purchased that flat out didn’t work without first applying a patch. That’s right, I’m looking at you Chronicles of Riddick: EFBB and Chaos Legion. With the GFW label comes the Windows LIVE service, which is almost identical to the Xbox version. It tracks what games you have played, what Achievements you have gotten, your reputation, etc. Its been a tough sell to PC gamers who have had online play for free for over a decade and already have clans and voice chat available to them, but overall it has been successful. The promise of the ability to play against console gamers was very intriguing, but the first Windows LIVE game Shadowrun fell short. It was a deathmatch only game for $50 and to play against console gamers you needed to pay for the Gold service (beyond the first free month). My only real issue with the game is that it took upwards of 15 minutes just to get connected to an online game. Since Shadowrun, Halo 2 and Gears of War have come up to the PC and done the job a bit better. I personally bought Gears of War for PC and found it to be very enjoyable. Connecting to a game only took a couple minutes and it played well with the mouse and keyboard. It still wasn’t as convenient as firing up Counter-Strike and just connecting to a server in a massive list, but it was definitely showing progress.

So you’re probably thinking to yourself that you already knew all about Xbox LIVE and Windows LIVE, so why am I babbling on about it? Because what is going on behind the scenes is absolutely genius and just as important as what you are seeing on your screen. Each and every game you play is tracked as well as every demo you play or game trailer. Microsoft can keep track of how many people download and play a game demo. Then they can track how many of those same people buy the game after playign the demo. This can be compared to how many people that buy the game without playing the demo. This can guide them in deciding what content should be in the demo to sell the game and if some games shouldn’t have demos if they feel that it might jeopardize the sales. I’m sure there are a few shovelware titles out there that have done better than they should have because people weren’t sure what they were getting into. Also, having complete access to the number of hours that people play the game can be used for selling in-game advertising to outside clients. Being able to tell your client there is potential to have gamers see their ad every few minutes as they drive around in a game for an average of X amount of hours is a great selling point. As a gamer I really don’t mind in-game advertising as long as it makes sense in the context of the game. Seeing billboard ads for Axe body spray in GRAW didn’t distract me, but the fact that EVERY billboard had an Axe ad did. I think once more companies realize that in-game advertising is valid and we get some variety then games will be one step closer to looking realistic.

They can also track how much of a game is played online vs. offline (or even co-op).   If a majority of gamers play online only, then that could mean that more games could be released catering to your preferences. I know a lot of people get paranoidabout software that tracks them, but this is one of the handful of cases where it is very beneficial to the user.  They use the stats about how games are played to make sure that games that come out in the future cater to the preferences of their customers.  If used properly, that can mean more top-notch entertainment for you and less shovelware wasting developers time and money.

The ability to track all gamer activity and use it for sales and future game development is a priceless tool to have at your disposal, but the ability to sell games via digital distribution puts it into the “genius” category. Allowing independent developers to distribute their games in a centralized area without worrying about the hassle involved with retail packaging and sales. Also, with internet speeds finally picking up in the U.S. (don’t even get me started about how slow internet in America is) we can now download classic Xbox games that we might have missed the first time around. They might be a bit pricey compared to buying them in the bargain bin at your local games store, but ask any PC gamer and they’ll tell you that playing games directly from the hard drive is the ideal way to play.

With the success of Xbox LIVE and the emergence of Sony’s Home and Steam’s Community, it is obvious that the video game industry is truly going next gen. Because even though every fanboy is head over heels in love with their fancy new graphics, it is the community and extras that are constantly evolving the industry. Those of us who don’t get caught up in the hoopla know that graphics will always continue to be next gen as each new piece of technology comes out. It is the ability to accurately predict sales, advertising, and the reception within the community that really determines the success of a game and that in turn affects the development of the next game to come out after that one. Even Facebook and MySpace run with the same goal in mind and even though they appear to be simple online communities, you can bet that a lot of numbers and sales talk is going on in some dark conference room regarding their traffic and their next big improvement or ad campaign.

So, next time you play a demo on LIVE and then go buy the game, or spend hours playing against your friends online, you are quite possibly effecting how the industry will approach its next big game. Now if they could only figure out a nice simple filter to properly(and permanently) mute the screeching 12 year olds that I always seem to get paired up with.

You can get more information about the game over at 3D Realms website.

“I think the reason UT3 isn’t doing as well as it should have is because they dumbed down the game. My first online gaming experience was with the multiplayer portion of the original Unreal, then I moved on to UT. Eventually I got UT2K4 and became obsessed with it. I learned all the moves, the maps, weapon damage, and the power up timings. Hell, I knew where you could double jump off of an elevator and then wall jump off of a tree and totally blow away the competition. The game was obnoxiously complex and that is what made it stand above much of its competition. I can’t think of any other game off hand that has had so many intricacies.

UT3 looks gorgeous, but like I said before the gameplay is dumbed down and much more vehicle based. I’m not saying thats a bad thing, but it just wasn’t what the diehards wanted. Also, being released around the time many other FPS games were released doesn’t help it’s sales either. There may be hope for UT3 in the future when the mod community gets a firm hold on the game, but right now I just can’t justify spending $50 on a game that doesn’t stand out in an already crowded FPS market.”

Now, I have only played through the demo, so I obviously can’t speak for the whole game. I did however get a general feel for the movements and the vehicles, so I am hesitant to continue with the same enthusiasm that I had when I first saw screenshots for the game back when it was still being developed. Apparently, I have UT3 coming in the mail, so hopefully some of my criticisms are forced aside by the fun game play. I really do want to like this game.

That said, the game is one of the most beautiful games I have ever seen as far as character design goes and it is much better than Halo. The only part that Gears of War falls short on is character development. It feels like the main character never really changes much and is pushed into the background by the supporting characters who have tons of emotion and great voice acting. I think this surpasses Halo as it is grittier and more “hardcore”, but Halo was more epic and that’s what people want.

As for the Windows Live service… it is much better than what I saw on Shadowrun, but you are asking a lot from PC gamers to pay for online services when we have been getting them for free all these years. I do like that it supports text messages for those of us that do not want to use a microphone.

According to FedEx, the NVousPC laptop is almost her, so you can expect a review for it popping up in the coming week or two.

Also, I think I need a better PC to test games as it can barely run Crysis on all the lowest settings. If things go well, I can get a rig together with a Dual Core CPU, 2GB of memory, and an nVidia 8800 or ATI 2900XT. Any sponsored (read: provided) components will get featured in every game and software review, so any assistance in piecing the system together would be a great help.

By the way, the cake is not a lie… and it was chocolate!

Also, if you’re as immature as I am and watched the Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror and Family Guy tonight then you saw the impressive commercials that Sony put out for the Playstation 3. Given the small number of games compared to its competition I haven’t been convinced yet, but damn were those commercials cool. Microsoft did sneak one commercial in promoting the social aspect of the XBox 360, but it wasn’t even close to Sony’s ads. I don’t think Microsoft has anything to worry about though as I hear that the new Metal Gear Solid got pushed back into 2008 meaning that the PS3 has very little in way of “killer apps”.

Anyways, just before typing this I caught this ad on the tube and only made me want to play Guitar Hero III more.

By the way, they did an interview with Slash at the place I work at. He seemed like one very interesting dude. I’m guessing that featuring him in GH3 isn’t going to hurt his reputation any.

The first sign that Kingdom Elemental is a little strange is during the tutorial where the narrator starts out in a booming voice typical of the fantasy genre. Then he coughs and in his regular speaking voice says, “this isn’t one of those games”. The tutorial takes you through moving and rotating the map and zooming with either the mouse or the keyboard. Also, you cover buying and placing units, and selecting them for battle. The whole tutorial takes around 5 to 10 minutes at most, so you can imagine how simple it is to control all of the game’s mechanics. Throughout the tutorial, the narrator is lighthearted and many of the jokes make fun of the game or you. Even the map to show your progression throughout the game is filled with some interesting humor. Another example is from a loading screen that says, “There was a skill that ended up being cut from Kingdom Elemental called “nag”. The sound clip for the skill was to be the developer’s girlfriend asking him to pick up some things from the store on the way home. The skill would kill all enemies on the board.”

You begin with three possible classes to unlock and each one has three skills/spells to unlock. You can only unlock a character once you get a key for completing a set of waves. Obviously the first class, the swordsman, is unlocked for you. Once you buy classes with a predetermined amount of gold, you place them one by one on the battlefield within your designated area. Once you are ready, the first wave attacks you. After a set amount of time another wave comes, so you benefit from quickly dispatching the previous wave of enemies as soon as possible as not to become overwhelmed. Most sets have five waves and when you beat the last wave you move on to the next part of the level. Sometimes you will meet up with a boss, where the boss is the only wave, and honestly that is enough. Watching my characters get stomped to death by the infamous Flaming Bear is both hilarious and painful.

As you can see from the screenshots above, the game isn’t going to win any beauty awards. The character models remind me slightly of Final Fantasy VII and other Playstation games, but given the games indie status and the emphasis on strategy I think the graphics are very appropriate. Each class has their own voice and have a small handful of different dialogue they spout out as you give commands. The funniest line that I found so far is the Archer’s comment as she dies that lets you know of her disappointment in her complete lack of armor.

The only part of the game that really irks me is the fact that the characters seem to move kind of slow, but the levels aren’t that large so it isn’t a real big deal. While playing you can pause the action to compose yourself and to issue orders to your small army. Unfortunately, you cannot queue up commands like other strategy games. You can only issue one command per character at a time. I did notice that this limitation made me care a little more about individual characters and in what order they were going to execute their skills. If you do not issue any command they will either attack freely (default) or hold their ground, but they will not unleash their special skills, such as the Archer’s Flame Arrow, unless commanded by you. The best tactic I have found is use the swordsmen to taunt like many MMOs, and let your support crew like the Necromancer pick the enemies off from a safe distance as they tend to have the least hitpoints.

I will admit that I am not a huge strategy or RTS gamer. I have been known to play some Rome: Total War and Supreme Commander, but I have to admit that even on “Normal” mode (the easiest mode) Kingdom Elemental is quite difficult for me. This game will definitely challenge you, but it is quite refreshing compared to many games where I have to crank the difficulty up just to have a real challenge. With all the combinations available with the classes and the difficulty of the game you will feel a great sense of accomplishment if you can even finish the game on the Normal difficulty setting. I couldn’t even keep track of the number of times I tried the dungeon over and over with various lineups only to get completely destroyed on the last wave of enemies.

I thoroughly enjoyed Kingdom Elemental and will continue to play it as a casual game since it is possible to play it in small spurts or for long periods of time in either the campaign or the skirmish mode. I would suggest that if you hate RTS or strategy games then stay away from this as it will definitely not be your “cup of tea”. If you like strategy games at all then this game is worth picking up for the reasonable price of $20 as it will challenge you and provide some decent entertainment. People that really like strategy games will find this game to be a steal as they will get the full benefit of trying out numerous class combinations until they find a set that truly compliments their play style. Unlocking classes and skills offers a little variety to the replayability. For more info go check out Liberation Games (especially the hilarious FAQ) and go here to purchase the game from Chronic Logic.

Pros:

• Very easy game mechanics
• Tactics are as complicated as you want them to be
• Great humor
• Ten different classes to unlock
• Giant Flaming Bear

Cons:

• Fairly difficult even on easiest mode
• Addictive
• No multiplayer

To comment on this review click here.

If you hadn’t guessed by our website’s name yet, we like being a little different (just look at the main page’s About section). Lately, I have been working on getting some very unique hardware and accessories that you don’t usually see reviews for. I am currently in discussion with companies to review a mid-range gaming laptop, a DIY Kit, and an all in one PC that slightly resembles a project I almost did for my Senior Project while in college. If there is any product in particular that you think would make for a good review, feel free to send me an email at eric.doty[at]aberrantech.com and I will check it out.

The woman made it sound like her son was fairly young, so I would guess he was in his early teens. Violent games with blood are always rated T, for teen, or M, for Mature. These ratings are meant to guide parents in picking out software that is age appropriate for their kids, and games that are rated M cannot even be purchased unless you are 17 or older. Every time I go into a store and buy a Mature rated game, I am asked to show them my identification, so I know that at most places the rules surrounding the ESRB are enforced. Even with this in place I see young kids everywhere talking about very violent video games that they cannot buy. I am curious to know if their parents are buying the games for them and even paying attention to what their child is playing.

The political debates about video games always tend to sway towards the opinion that video games should be rated harder and that really violent video games should be banned from being sold. This always angers me because the ESRB is actually a very complicated process and for some game developers it is the bane of their existence. In fact, Manhunt 2 was slated to come out recently, but was given an AO (Adult Only) rating for its over the top violence and thus the game had to be revised because many stores wont sell Adult rated games. So, in almost every sense, games are going through a very tough system and extremely violent games are kept in their place. And yet, children still play these games. Why is that? Well, maybe it is because the parents don’t know what their kids are playing or don’t care.

So the answer could be that parents who buy the games for their kids, not knowing what they are, or possibly they just don’t care what their kids play. That doesn’t give us many options. There is a small campaign where I have seen signs up with the rating letters and explanations of what they mean right where the games are displayed for sale. If people want to make a change, I would suggest they donate money to the ESRB so they can have a bigger educational campaign to teach parents what these ratings mean. They could really use it so people are educated about the system. As for the parents that don’t care, I don’t think you can do anything about that. You can’t really tell thousands of parents how to raise their children.

I’m not really sure where to go from here. I just know that a lot of politicians are in the heated debate over video game violence and children. There is a rating system in place, and they do have some sort of campaign to teach parents what the ratings mean. Children cannot even play Mature rated games unless someone buys them for them. There is a system in place, and yet instead of helping the ESRB campaign by donating to their educational promotions, people give money to these daft politicians who seem just as clueless as the parents.

Video games, like movies, are entertainment. I am an adult who is fairly sane and I love spending my time playing video games, which may or may not be violent. It shouldn’t really matter because I am an adult and know the difference between reality and fantasy. I know how to cope with my emotions and know what is socially acceptable in the way of expressing myself. I do not need to be told what I can and cannot play, because little “Johnny” down the street was seen playing something like Carmageddon or Doom and someone didn’t approve of it. Sometimes the argument of school shootings is brought up and the fact that the shooters played video games. This argument seems a bit lame because I don’t know many young people that don’t play video games. Also, how many shootings are there that don’t involve video games? Probably a lot because some people are just crazy and are mentally incapable of handling the stress of life. Being a teenager just amplifies this feeling and its even worse if they come from a poor home life.

So, who do we blame? The gaming industry? The kids? The stores? The parents? I say we blame everyone equally and find a decent compromise instead of constantly pointing fingers and wasting money on political debates that go nowhere. The gaming industry will make games that they want to make and the ESRB will rate them accordingly. The stores will sell them to people that are age appropriate for the game’s content. And the parents will be educated about the system and actually participate in their child’s life. Knowing what your kid is playing and restricting what they play could be a huge step toward keeping kids from seeing overly violent content. And who knows, maybe that extra time spent interacting with your child will keep them from shooting their classmates. Maybe they’ll do better in school and end up making a decent salary working in the video game industry.

Click Here for information about the ESRB and their “Educate and Outreach Program”. Also, feel free to send your local congressman or congresswoman a nice letter asking them to promote the education of the ESRB ratings and responsible parenting instead of just constantly debating about the limits of creativity that should be brought down upon gaming developers.

Please talk about this to your friends and family. Like any other entertainment market (Movies, Television, etc) video games are a source of entertainment and to blame them for disgruntled children is unfair to everyone involved. Here are some other resources for parents on other topics like internet use and and finding family friendly entertainment.

Clive Barker’s Jericho (10/23) – I know I wasn’t the only one that almost soiled themselves playing Undying “back in the day”. It will be interesting if ol’ Clive gets another gaming masterpiece.
Hellgate: London (10/30) – A hack and slash about demons released on Halloween. Seems like a winner to me. A lot of comparisons to Diablo have been made, so let’s see if it really lives up to the hype.
The Witcher (10/30) – An RPG based around some very interesting stories. I predict this will do much better in Europe since the U.S. is not familiar with the story and is also getting a toned down version of the game. Certain mini-games and adult content are reportedly being pulled from the U.S. release.
Gears of War (11/1) – Unreal Engine 3.0 looked amazing on the XBox 360, and we can only hope that its homecoming to the PC makes it even better.
BlackSite: Area 51 (11/5) – There was a very forgettable Area 51 released a year or so ago. This game looks to pay respect to our alien attackers with better visuals and A.I.
Viva Pinata (11/6) – A sim game about living pinatas that started on the XBox 360. Strange, but very cool.
Crysis (11/13) – Besides Vista, this will be the number one reason why people upgrade their computers. Check out the videos, if you don’t know what all the hullabaloo is about. It looks to match the production values of BioShock in both graphics and original gameplay.
Unreal Tournament 3 (11/19) – The best of the UT franchise and it is the only game that I know of that is even close to giving Crysis some competition. The franchise goes back a decade, so there’s not a whole lot to explain.
Kane & Lynch (11/20) – Playing as the bad guys has never looked so good. This has fallen off the radar a few times, but nearing the release date has put the sales department in overdrive.

I’m sure I missed a couple, but these are the big ones that have the most rumors and anticipation. Hell, I’d be happy with a 3D version of Gish.

I contacted the company and I should be receiving my Keyboard Quiver in a few days. I will make sure to take plenty of pics and give you a good review since there aren’t too many gaming accessories like this. More great reviews to come and if I have some time, a TF2 video. Unfortunately, I do not think my computer can handle playing UT3 and capture video through FRAPS.

The demo download is surprisingly small at about 750MB. I am not sure what the difference is between a “beta demo” and a regular demo, since this seems pretty solid and only crashed on me once due to my graphics driver going haywire. My rig is currently a little underpowered with a 1.6GHz dual core Core Duo (not Core 2 Duo) with 2GB of Crucial DDR2, and a nVidia 6800GT. Luckily, I got things running smoothly at 1024×768 and all the bells and whistles turned down to their minimum settings. Admittedly, I was a little disappointed to see that the graphics options are very limited. In past versions of the UT franchise, you had extensive control over various graphical options, but UT3 just gives you a couple sliders to raise and lower the overall graphical appearance. Honestly though, even with everything turned down, this game looks great.

Since it has been a few months since I have played an Unreal Tournament 2004 game, I decided to give my best shot to the bots before jumping into online play. The controls are very responsive and no problem getting back into the groove of executing dodges, double jumps and wall jumps. All the best weapons from all versions of UT are present and look the best they ever have. Of course that doesn’t last long as I always play with the weapon hidden to see everything in front of me. The weapons sound incredible and make you feel like you are really using highly powerful weapons. This adds to the immersion factor, since many games’ guns sound weak and have almost zero recoil.

It was nice to see that they implemented the feign death option again, but as I promptly learned, bots don’t fall for that trick. The bots are smart even on the lower AI options and dodge appropriately. Even when you are racing at them full speed in the Scorpion (a.k.a buggy of death) they tend to stick to the walls and other obstacles to make it harder to run over them.

There are only a few vehicles in the demo, but the most fun has to be the hoverboard. Using the hoverboard, you can latch onto any vehicle to go a little faster. Unfortunately, to counter the extra speed, you cannot fire any weapons from the board and if you are shot even once you tumble awkwardly off onto the ground. It will take you a second or two to gather yourself, so you are at a serious disadvantage if you are shot off of your board in the middle of the battlefield. Other vehicles in the demo include the Manta, Scorpion, Goliath, and the Darkwalker. There might have been one other vehicle, but I was too busy fragging to remember.

Overall, the UT3 Beta Demo delivered everything I expected and more. Hopefully I can get a new video card soon to be able to play with higher details. Also, I think I will spend the extra $10 and purchase the Collectors Edition with over 10 hours of tutorials for the unreal editor. I would like to get back into map making as that is what keeps many popular games feeling fresh years after the original release date. A strong, intelligent modding community is a great thing to have, and I want to be part of that again. Also, hopefully they will release a nice UE3 runtime demo for my demonstrations of DoomzPunk in the coming couple of months.

The main portion of the game consists of 19 levels. The first 14 proved fairly easy and really only exist to show you what you can accomplish at a gradual rate so your simple human mind can absorb it. The last 5 levels become agressively more difficult until the last level where it will take you longer to complete than most of the other puzzles combined. The “boss battle” and ending are among the best you will ever see as you will try your best not to break concentration from a fit of laughter.

The most fun I had in the game came in the form of perfect placement of the portals. I set both portals direcly in line with each other vertically on the ceiling and floor. When I fell through the floor portal, I continued falling and falling… and falling some more. If you are good at timing your shots, you can propel yourself incredible distances just by using your built up momentum to throw you out of the exit portal.

Even in the most tense moments of the game, the robot guide’s lack of any emotion is hilarious especially when congratulatory messages are filled with generic phrases that were obviously suppose to be customized for Chell. Some real surprises in the game are the somewhat hidden easter eggs where you can find little areas where past participants stayed and wrote on the walls. I don’t want to ruin the story for anyone, but let’s just say that all is not well at the Aperture Science Enrichment Center. Also, at the very end of the game make sure to look for the lonely board room. There you will see a slideshow playing that will tie Portal in to another game included in the Orange Box.

Here is a very short video I made to give you an overall feel for the game. I didn’t want to ruin all the jokes or the puzzles for you, so it’s just a taste. Hopefully, it will make you a little more curious.

Portal is a short game (2 to 3 hours of main content), but it also has advanced levels, challenges, achievements (Thanks XBox), and commentary. This all adds up for a decent amount of content that I could easily place at around $30. Since it comes in the Orange Box with a handful of other games for $50, this is really a steal. The game should be mind blowing to just about any gamer, and even if you find the puzzles bland, the voiced guidance and stellar ending should make you want to complete it just to know what everyone else will be talking about. Also, for another added surprise, the ending credits have a hilarious song that will probably be showing up on the web as a standalone download because it is just that well written and… “sung”.

Pros:

• Clean and Simple Graphics (“Mac-like”)
• Hilarious robot guide
• Mind-bending puzzles
• Easter eggs and plenty of extra content

Cons:

• Shorter than expected
• Might cause motion sickness
• Starts off a little too easy

To comment on this review click here.

Yesterday was the 10th and everyone should know what that means… Orange Box is out! I pre-ordered the Orange Box a week ago and have been playing the hell out of Team Fortress 2, but now I can move on to playing Portal and continuing the great Half-Life 2 saga through Episode 2. I played both last night for about an hour and I have to say that I was blown away. Expect a Portal Review to show up here in the very near future because it exceeded all of my expectations.

Until then, here is a great video that was created using the Team Fortress 2 engine. I hate to say it, but it is really “cute” (2:52 to 3:25 had me laughing out loud). It also helps that the Pyro is one of my favorite classes due to its hilarious taunts and the fact that Valve increased its flame damage at close range. Too bad they nerfed the Demoman a couple days ago.

Next I wandered over to the Portal setup and hopped on after some kid left the station with a big grin on his face. As soon as I moved my character I fell through a hole in the floor and my momentum threw me out of the exit hole which was right beside it. It was trippy and I’m sure will make some people a little nauseous. Luckily, before moving on to the next area, I snagged a free voucher for Day of Defeat: Source.

I also wandered around to check out Samsung’s UMPCs which are very cool looking. The keyboards look a bit hard to type on, but I’m sure it just takes getting use to. Thermaltake and Sapphire had huge displays showing off all of their new products. Kingston was there as well, with a small display with their enthusiast memory and flash drives. They also had a display PC with Kingston DDR3 and a nVidia 8800 Ultra. I figured the probability of me getting out of there with that PC without getting tackled was pretty slim. Razer mice and keyboards were everywhere as I assume they donated them to each of the companies to use with their display PCs. The mice were nice, but the keyboards seemed really big and clunky. It seemed like they had a lot of unused space on them.

As I left they were beginning to have a big opening ceremony with some crazy guy and a human beatbox… it seemed a little out of place. It was a whole lot of fun for the limited time I spent there, but I met some cool people and got a free game. I’d say I got my money’s worth.

Now that I have played as every class and on every map I think that I can reasonably argue that TF2 is Jesus (or any other deity). First off, the game looks amazing, even when the graphics are turned down low. All of the classes are easily definable from a distance and each contribute equally to the team. Most importantly, the game is just plain fun. I generally play a bit more as a Heavy. Even though they are really slow, there is nothing like standing your ground and firing away at five guys while a medic stands behind you keeping you alive. What puts it over the top is after you fire off so many bullets in a row, the Heavy starts laughing and insulting the other team while they topple over like dominoes. Each class has a moment that is just undeniably fulfilling whether it be the Spy’s cloaked backstab or the Sniper’s deadly headshot on an advancing opponent.

The Orange Box is $50 or if you buy now on Steam I think you save $5. You get HL2, Episodes 1 and 2, Portal, and TF2. Even if you already have HL2 and Episode 1, that is still a deal since I know that I’ll be playing TF2 for at least a year and with the possibility of user generated content for Portal, there is a lot of varied content for the price of just one regular game. Much better than paying $50 for Quake Wars only to play the same type of gameplay over and over (and over). If you happen to spend your hard earned monies on TF2, feel free to find me on Steam. My Community ID is Doomzilla.

Now I just need to decide whether I want to get Crysis or Unreal Tournament 3. Both are going to be around $50, so I have to decide which one to buy. I think that UT3 is the best bet since I’m not sure that I can even run Crysis until I get something along the lines of an nVidia 8800GTS or better.

Some new news regarding DoomzPunk coming soon!