Gaming

Man, it sure got here in a hurry. Not that I’m complaining. I’m waiting to travel home (my flight is most likely going to be delayed — LaGuardia is the place where flights go to die) so I can only dream about gaming right now. But when I finally do get home, I’m planning on picking up Shadow Complex and giving that a play-through. I’ve also got a couple games coming from Gamefly, but they probably won’t get here until next week.

So I have a decision to make. I recently finished Fallout 3, so I could pick up one of the DLC packs (probably Broken Steel) or I can go back to Mass Effect, something I’ve been meaning to do for a while. I’m planning on starting over with a fresh new character and playing it start to finish. Any suggestions?

I also will be playing some NCAA 10 as a primer for the upcoming football season.

What will you be playing?

Overview: The videogame adaptation of one of the best comic book movies ever made.

Pricing: This one is scattered but I think $15 is a good median, typically used. Can be found for $20 new.

Rip-Off Warning: Very little danger here. $20 across most console platforms is pretty standard.

Platform: DS, Playstation 2, Playstation 3, PSP, XBox 360 (Reviewed), Wii, Windows

Is it worth it?: Let’s get a giant disclaimer out of the way. Iron Man is one of my favorite superheroes. The very concept of using technology as the basis for superpowers instead of magic, radiation, genetic mutation, or “scientific” accidents was different and creates a whole new wrinkle in the debate over what makes a hero. Is Iron Man a person or a gestalt entity that you can become by possessing the armor? Is it Tony Stark himself a hero at heart even without the armor? These issues were barely brushed up against in the movie and the game doesn’t acknowledge them at all. Despite the film being heralded as one of the greatest comic book movies of all time, similar care was not taken with the game.

This is a shame because there is a ton of potential for Iron Man in a video game context, but the game doesn’t seem to know what to do with the character. One suggestion made to me was to treat Iron Man like a “jet fighter that can walk”, and this is a fair analogy but it doesn’t work well. Iron Man is not a plane even though he often controls like one. Your three basic modes are fly, hover, and walk, there is no in between. You can strafe targets on the ground but trying to engage them at slower speeds is nearly impossible. In fact, most problems are solved by merely hovering in place and using repulsors until the target explodes.

Combat should be more satisfying than this, but it’s difficult to enjoy because even if you accept the jet fighter conceit in flight, the controls are just too imprecise to be useful in making Iron Man a tiny dogfighter. He is too vulnerable running on the ground and it also feels silly when he has boot jets.

The missions themselves are repetitive and the difficulty curve is all over the place and often hampered more by the poor controls than intentional design. For instance, a base defense mission is nigh impossible even on the easiest difficulty because of the shoddy controls but the final boss is easily defeated using the same hover in place and blast away tactic used throughout the game. Granted, you might have to fly away and let yourself repair for a bit.

The one highlight of the game is the ability to unlock other Iron Man armors, with the XBox 360 version having the “Silver Centurion” (A personal favorite) and the Playstation 3 version having the Iron Man Armor from “The Ultimates”. Various other suits like the “Classic” or Hulkbuster can also be unlocked.

Final Judgement: Unless you are just a die-hard Iron Man fan I would PASS on this game. It is another typical hasty movie cash-in that completely squanders its potential.

Overview: Proof that some people think all they need for a massive success is a “me to” attitude

Pricing: $5, new. Seriously, that’s it. You might be able to find it for $10 if you search hard enough.

Rip-Off Warning: Considering the criteria for “Cheap Game of the Week” this might sound odd, but it can be found for $20. However, when it sells for $5 new that is a huge difference!

Platform: XBox 360 (reviewed), Playstation 3, Wii, Nintendo DS

Is it worth it?: Konami has a history of music rhythm games long before we had Guitar Hero or Rock Band, so it would seem that Rock Revolution is more of a continuation of their GuitarFreaks franchise and less of a cheap cash-in, right?

Well, in truth this game has zero to do with GuitarFreaks and is an attempt to jump on what seemed like the insanely popular music rhythm bandwagon. The big oversight on Konami’s part was failing to notice that Guitar Hero and Rock Band were both created by the same development studio and that Guitar Hero’s ongoing popularity had more to do with Harmonix starting the franchise than Activision’s attempt to cram plastic controllers down everyone’s throats (or up other orifices if you prefer cruder visualization)

Rock Revolution is essentially Rock Band with a poor interface, no vocals, and terrible covers of well known songs. Worse, pretty much every song in Rock Revolution is in some iteration of Guitar Hero or Rock Band. This could well be the most unnecessary game ever produced. There is an attempt at a career mode which isn’t half bad, but does anyone care when the actual gameplay itself is so lackluster.

To be fair, the game isn’t terrible, it’s just superfluous. I will say that it is incredibly difficult to calibrate an HDTV with the controllers, but once that is accomplished you can begin a fairly safe journey of mediocrity.

Final Judgement: This is a pass. If you already own guitar or drum controllers there are plenty of cheaply available Guitar Hero and Rock Band copies out there for every platform that Rock Revolution is on. There is no point to owning this game at all. Even with the price difference you are much better off spending anywhere between $10 to $20 more for a much better music rhythm game.

I’m not so curmudgeonly that I don’t understand that gaming trends will change as demographics do so I understand why turn-based strategy games aren’t as hot as they once were. Believe it or not, there was a time when playing a game with alternating turns against the computer was quite popular. Not only did we have strategy and tactical games that did this, but a majority of the computer role-playing games were done this way as well. In many ways the modern Japanese RPG is a throwback to this bygone era.

I’m sure my fellow contributors are waxing nostalgic as they read this.

Oddly, while adventure games were pushed out of the market by technological advances and hardcore sims pushed themselves out by their cost, turn-based games are likely a victim of their own inability to adapt. The last three turn-based games I played all shared the same problems and flaws of every game I’ve played in the genre. Turn-based games will never have the same fan-base as say, first person shooters, but they still have a niche if someone could properly exploit it. Just consider changing the following.

Mission Time
Let’s not beat around the bush, getting a single mission done simply takes too long anymore. A standard mission can easily last for an hour and as the game introduces grander set pieces I have spent four hours trying to get through one mission. When I say “trying to get through”, I don’t mean attempting, getting beaten, and then trying again. I mean the cumulative time I’ve spent between the saving and loading of the same mission because I simply did not have the time to do it in one sitting.

Even worse if you have to replay a mission. If I spend four hours to fail a mission and the game doesn’t allow mid-mission saves, I’m going to walk away. I simply don’t have that kind of time to spend.

The problem with the length of time per mission is that there is no feeling of progress. A minor scuffle with a random encounter or a minor force should not take more than half an hour. Oddly, tactical games are often worse than strategic games. These games lack pacing, which makes even a well designed game a complete slog. Remember, this is a GAME, something to be done as a recreational activity. As much as I love turn-based games, when it becomes work I’m going to move on to something else!

Difficulty
Like the old arcade shooters, turn-based games or all stripes have continually focused on their more hardcore players. This is a grand mistake that will only shrink your customer base. This is not a difficult concept.

“Easy” should be easy. This should be a difficulty that casual players have a reasonable chance of beating the game at without going through some of the intense strategic exercises and elaborate resource management that a game might offer. Easy does not mean the game is without a challenge, it simply means that someone who has not read Sun Tzu’s Art of War still has a reasonable chance of victory.

Also, in all cases you should include difficulty levels. A huge mistake is trying to make a single difficulty for all players. What usually ends up happening is the difficulty curve fluctuates between “casual stroll through a warzone” to “apocalypse now!” and frustrates everyone. I know it takes more work, but “Easy” for casual players, “Normal” for experienced veterans, and “Hard” for obsessive compulsive fans.

AI
I’m going to pick on tactical games here specifically, but this still applies to their more strategic oriented cousins. Any attempt at “realism” goes out the door when I am assaulting a force twice my size or greater. If these games were attempting true guerilla style warfare, where I could perform more “hit and fade” attacks I wouldn’t mind. Since the victory condition is often to wipe out every enemy though, the idea that my group of six soldiers is going to defeat thirty enemies who are often better equipped and completely fresh for the fight is ludicrous.

Also, if hits are based on a skill percentage against a random number generator, then that means at optimal range my trooper with a 75% marksman ship should hit 3 out of 4 times, not 1 out of 5. On the flip side, if the enemy is supposed to represent an untrained militiaman they should not hit 4 out of 5 times. If I’m the skilled force of soldiers able to take on five times my number then their performance should indicate some competency at combat. Either that or the level of incompetence should be spread equally between my troops and the enemy.

Furthermore, and this ties into the pacing problems, my victory condition should be met without having to find the one enemy guy hiding in a closet or hiding in the bushes.

Modern Graphics
For the most part the recent games I have played actually had serviceable graphics and that is all I am asking. However, I continue to see attempts to do things on the cheap. If you think “This is a Strategy game so graphics aren’t important” then you need to go play Dawn of War. That game makes it feel like there really is a battle taking place in front of your eyes rather than having a bunch of pixels who simply move to your commands. Real-time strategy games have figured out that what happens on screen can affect the level of immersion.

I want to be drawn into these battles, I want to care about the units, I want to see what is happening on screen. The technology has been available to go beyond wooden animations and obtuse sprites. The graphics don’t have to be spectacular, just “good enough”.

Recognizable IP
How many more people would play a game if it was G.I.Joe vs. Cobra instead of an obscure historical campaign or a bunch of mercenaries we’ve never heard of before? Without doing a specific movie tie-in, there are plenty of recognizable IP’s to be licensed that are a perfect fit for this genre. Even without taking something like Star Wars, Transformers, or G.I.Joe, the genre still needs a new franchise. The Panzer General series had many spin-offs and sequels, Jagged Alliance was a name so strong that we still see derivatives trying hard to associate with it. (“Jagged Edge”, “Jagged Union”, etc.)

Fix the above problems and find an audience. Quit focusing on a handful of grognards who still worship a time before fully realized 3D graphics were even possible. Make the genre modern, make a quality game, and then focus on building your audience rather than pandering to a tiny niche. It’s probably too late to do a new Jagged Alliance or Steel Panthers. Above all, quit trying to copy the old games because all we’re cranking out are pale imitations that make the same old mistakes but can’t claim the same level of quality.

So I’m on my way home from my last (hopefully) two-week business trip to New England (this time I’m in Maine) and I’m looking forward to a nice long weekend of gaming (and taking my wife out for our anniversary, of course).

I picked up Pure a few weeks ago, which is the greatest racing game you didn’t play in 2008, so I’ll be putting some more time doing my best to not fall off my four-wheeler while racing at insanely high rates of speed. I also started back up with Fallout 3 before I left for Maine, so I hope to get back to the Capital Wasteland this weekend. Other than that, I’ll be playing some New Super Mario Bros. and NY Time Crossword on the DS as I travel home. Oh, and some Punch-Out!! on the Wii.

What gaming does your weekend have in store for you?

Overview: The game Battlefield: Modern Combat was supposed to be.

Pricing: All over the map. I’ll just say anywhere between $9 to $20 used and new depending on retailer. The Windows version tends to be about $20.

Rip-Off Warning: Unfortunately, this is one of those titles that doesn’t realize it’s now in budget status and can easily be had for $40.

Platform: XBox 360 (Reviewed), Windows

Is it worth it?: Open battlefield shooters are a fascinating genre because they rely on actual combined arms and military style objectives. Unfortunately, the single player portion of these games is usually done with brain-dead AI and objectives identical to multi player. While I enjoy being able to decide which objectives I am going to fight for, the concept of providing the player with no real direction is not suited for a dedicated single player experience. Thus, open battlefield games continue to try and bring the experience without multi player while giving players some guidance.

Despite the success of the Star Wars: Battlefront series, developers insist on providing some story and restricting player choices. I’m actually amenable to that so long as you provide me with a good game. Unfortunately, by trying to give that additional guidance to the player in the form of more ordered objectives you end up diluting the experience. What I’m trying to get at is that the approach that Battlefield: Modern Combat, Battlefield Bad Company, and Frontlines: Fuel of War all try to do is extremely difficult to pull off. Surprisingly, Frontlines actually does it pretty well.

The missions are not strictly linear, but you are given an objective and a “set of tools” to get it done. Tools may consist of a different starting loadout, vehicles, drones, and/or support options. In general, the maps are all well done and the objectives are surprisingly logical. The story is somewhat throwaway, although towards the end the battles feel truly epic. I will give it credit that while the intermission story didn’t grab me, the actual action sequences were engaging. An impressive feat when you’re basically playing “Generic Soldier #3981”.

The concept of battlefield drones makes me groan a little since it seems like it defeats the purpose of a shooter, but they are actually handled fairly well. Although it’s not entirely realistic, you do have to maintain some proximity to a drone you are controlling. I suspect this is for balance purposes, especially in multi-player, so that players don’t exploit the ability to do combat through remote controlled robots.

For me, the real joy in any shooter is the toys they give you to play with. Despite the obvious multi player focus, the weapons actually perform quite well. The trend in these games is often to make all the weapons watered down and have the accuracy of a rusted BB gun. All of the hardware works as expected and is actually useful. Even more interesting is that it all seems plausible in a “near future” kind of way on both sides of the conflict.

Typical for this kind of game, your starting equipment is tied to your loadout. Nothing special here, but it all works.

I’d love to give similar props to the vehicles, but they’re really not as well done. Oddly, the drones control better than their vehicle counterparts, which is a little maddening. There is one section that is a dedicated tank battle and it is one of the few controller throwing temptations in the game.

The bad news is that while multi player is an obvious focus for this game there is no bot support. So either you’re playing the story missions or you’re picking out a handful of available games. See, the problem with making a multi player game on ANY platform is that people tend to gravitate towards a handful of dominant titles. Actually finding a game will be an issue. There is nothing really wrong with the on-line portion, in fact it’s very well done. Unfortunately, the game plays very much like something you’d see all the way back to the granddaddy Battlefield 1942. There are no rewards or incentives to play other than the game itself. Some would argue that would be enough, but when all of the more popular games (Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, Battlefield 2) incorporate some kind of reward system it does seem like Frontlines is lacking. In fact, I was more interested in Battlefield Bad Company’s multi player simply because there was some incentive to keep playing.

Despite the lack of any additional incentives to play on-line, it is worth noting that Frontlines is developed by former developers of Trauma studios, the wonderful people who brought us the Desert Combat mod for Battlefield 1942 and were instrumental in getting Battlefield 2 off the ground. This is a team who understands their craft and if you enjoy playing this sort of game on-line and can actually find a decent match then it’s probably one of the better games out there. The closest game that plays similar, Battlefield Bad Company, doesn’t seem to achieve the same sense of combined arms, balance, and controlled chaos.

Final Judgement: This is a solid purchase, and honestly I’m a little disappointed in the price drop. This game is easily worth more than what it is selling for. The single player is solid and the multi player makes it one of the best open battlefield games on the console. Unfortunately, on the Windows platform it suffers from much stiffer competition. Let me add this one caveat to an already verbose review. If you’re more of an XBox 360 player, you should get this game on the cheap because it’s worth every penny. If you’re more of a dedicated PC enthusiast there are plenty of older games that are actually better for a similar price. I’d still recommend it if you’re looking for something new and have already gone through the Battlefield series on the PC.