OMG GUN GAME MONEY WAGER BETTING OMG GUN GAME.
Sorry about that, sometimes I get the douchey meathead version of Tourrette’s Syndrome.
Anyway, even though Infinity Ward has long left the Call of Duty franchise, Activision is still planning on releasing new CoD titles like clockwork. Developer Treyarch unveiled the multiplayer portion of the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops last week and it looks like it’s taking the “earn xp in a gun game” mechanic to the next logical step – wager battles.
That’s right, instead of simply being content by earning the first person gaming equivalent of participation medals, you can now bet all those hard earned points you’ve built up from playing Call of Duty on blood matches.
Personally, I’m a bit sick of the grindy leveling up mechanic for multiplayer shooters, but you do have to hand it to Treyarch – no one’s done what they’re doing here before.
Watch the developer walkthrough video above for more info on the new gametypes in Call of Duty: Black Ops.
Windows Mobile has become somewhat of a a joke in recent years, no thanks to the proliferation of Android and iPhone phones topped off by the utterly disastrous Microsoft Kin launch earlier this year. However, after watching this walkthrough video, I admit I’m warming up to the idea that Windows Phone 7 could actually be a good product. (Especially given that its release is imminent.)
I’m particularly interested in the Xbox Live implementation on a mobile device because from the looks of it, Microsoft’s clearly ahead of Apple, Google, Sony, Nintendo, and anyone else in terms of gaming platforms on the go. Not only is there seamless integration with your existing Xbox Live profile, the potential is there for real time multiplayer gaming with not only other mobile users, but with Xbox players.
It’s just too bad it’s confined to Windows Phone 7 devices at the moment. As much as I don’t mind Microsoft establishing another great smartphone platform, I sure as hell aren’t buying a new phone anytime soon. If it works out as promised, I wouldn’t mind paying for the Xbox Live functionality on my iPhone, though. Perhaps it may behoove Microsoft to be the go to service for all mobile gaming, rather than tying it to a potential dead end product.
Start watching at around 9:30 for the Xbox Live stuff. If you want a run down of the entire Windows Phone 7 experience, feel free to start from the beginning. Just try and tune out the awkwardly nerdy interviewer.
Let’s get one thing out of the way first. The worst Metroid game is better than 90% of all the single player action-adventure games out there. The sense of discovery, progress, and frenetic action that you get from playing a Metroid game offers a feeling of fulfillment that few other gaming franchises can.
That being said, Metroid: Other M is definitely one of the weaker entries in the series. (Metroid Prime Pinball nonwithstanding)
It’s a little odd because Other M looks and smells like a Metroid game, but somethings a bit off with it. Perhaps part of it is the game’s focus on “storytelling and character development.” It’s the first Metroid game to utilize CGI cutscenes and voice acting heavily. And I do mean heavily. Some of these scenes clock in upwards of ten minutes.
Now, the length of the cutscenes isn’t so much the problem as the content. As the story was unfolding, I couldn’t help but feel like it was as awkwardly written and campy as Resident Evil. For example, one of the introductory movies explained at length why everyone in Samus’s old military unit gave the “thumbs up” sign after hearing mission orders. Then, in an incredibly melodramatic fashion, we got a very solemn monologue voiced by Samus as to why she gave the “thumbs down” sign instead as a symbol of independence.
At least, that’s the gist of what I remembered. Frankly, the entire thing played out to me as “blah blah thumbs up blah blah thumbs down.” I welcome engaging storylines and characters in my games, but Other M just reeked of B-Movie quality/self-aggrandizing-Japanese-Video-Game-Director-aspires-to-write-best-space-epic-ever. As I played through the game, I found myself pitying the poor localization dude who had to translate pages and pages of melodrama into English without making it into a complete joke. He tried his best, but putting frosting over poop is still poop.
That’s not to say the cinematics were shoddily presented; they actually look quite amazing for a 480p Wii title. The voice acting is also well done, with Samus sounding exactly like how I had imagined her. However, this leads to another problem, which is her characterization.
Other than some hints dropped here and there (she’s a girl!), the character of Samus has largely been left up to the imagination for the last 24 years. I’d wager that many people would consider her a badass no-nonsense bounty hunter who leans towards the side of angels, if anything. Making Samus’s past the focus of Other M‘s story ends up weakens the character because it pulls back the curtain to reveal one person’s interpretation of her (the director who thinks he’s a better storyteller than he actually is). She comes off as petulant, juvenile, needy, and emotionally inferior to her male counterparts. Instead of feeling like I was playing as an unfathomably hot Boba Fett, I began to feel like I was babysitting a needy girl who’s in way over her head. Not cool.
As for the actual game itself, the best thing I can say about it is that it kept my full attention (well, other than the cutscenes) throughout the 8 or so hours it took to complete. It’s a Metroid game so there’s thrilling shoot outs, timed escapes, tricky platforming, and creepy atmospheres. While some purists may cry foul at the forcefed waypoint directions, I did appreciate their purpose in keeping the game moving along at a nice pace. Rare was the case in which I was genuinely stuck.
However, the most egregious offense on Nintendo/Team Ninja’s part was shoehorning in a hybrid 1st person mode into the game. I’m talking about the gameplay mechanic where you have to constantly flip the Wiimote from a horizontal position in your hands to a position where you’re pointing and aiming at the screen.
In three words: It. Doesn’t. Work.
Not only is this motion awkward, it must be done in the middle of frenetic action moments! So you’re not only performing a complicated motion with your hands, you have to shift from a 3rd person view to a first person view on screen where you’re completely rooted! I don’t know about you, but this took a heavy cognitive toll on my brain. It wasn’t so much the concept of swapping back and forth, but the frustration I felt in having to run around an enemy, stop, flip the controller, get the aiming reticles right, and press the right button. More often than not, by the time I got the complex series of motions done, I had lost my opportunity to damage the boss’s weak point or had to reposition because enemies had caught up to my rooted position. It may have sounded like a good idea in the brainstorming session, but I can’t believe that this got through any sort of hands on testing.
It may sound like I’ve spent the last 900 or so words just blasting Metroid: Other M on its faults, but understand that it comes from the viewpoint of a series fan. The game is still worth playing if you’re into the series; just dont expect something on par with Super Metroid or Metroid Prime. If you’re a newcomer to the franchise, you could do a lot worse than Other M, but I strongly recommend you play the aforementioned first as a better showcase of what a Metroid game is really capable of in both 2d and 3d. Playing through either one of those games should leave you with the feeling that you’ve experienced some of the best titles the medium has ever produced.
Now this is what I’m talking about.
Sticklers may point out that this Portal 2 extended co-op gameplay footage from PAX doesn’t show anything mindblowingly different from the very short teaser a couple weeks ago, but they can go stick it somewhere else. Something about seeing the game in live action makes the whole idea that they’re making a sequel to Portal more… tangible.
Watching this video, my mind began to race with all of the devilishly clever puzzle solutions that could be possible with four portals to play with. Plus, hearing GLaDOS deliver its acerbic, yet oddly charming post-test comments just brings a smile to my face. Like I’m coming home again.
Oh, and don’t forget robot hugsies.
It just goes to show how accomplished a salesman Steve Jobs is with his introduction of Apple’s iTunes-based social music network, Ping, this past Wednesday. From the way Jobs presented the service, many people felt Ping was the future of music consumption and interaction, calling it a “Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, <insert internet juggernaut here> Killer.” In fact, I believe my initial reaction during the presentation could be paraphrased as “gave me an erection.”
It turns out that all anyone got out of Ping so far was a severe case of blue balls.
If you’re a music fan and you’re wondering if Ping is worth your time, it’s not. You’re much better off with Pandora or last.fm right now. They offer music discovery options that make Ping look like BP of music sites. Don’t bother signing up if you don’t have an iTunes account. If you are already signed up, I guess it couldn’t hurt to opt in to reserve a name/profile just in case Apple improves the service, but no one would blame you if you didn’t care.
In it’s current incarnation, Ping is utterly useless for music consumers and here are ten reasons why:
1. It doesn’t help you discover music in a meaningful way.
According to Apple’s own page for Ping, music discovery is the chief goal of the service. If that’s the case, why are there so few opportunities to discover music?
The first thing your eyes gravitate on the Ping welcome page is a section Apple calls “Artists We Recommend You Follow.” Great, new musical artists to discover! Then you realize that the artists “recommended” are some combination of 50 Cent, U2, Lady Gaga, Diddy, Daddy Yankee, and Keith Urban. By now, if you haven’t realized that this section is just a list of major label artists populated by a iTunes content manager and not actually personalized to you, I have a bridge I’d like to sell you.
It doesn’t get any better when looking through the profiles themselves. Artists or friends alike, the only components of music discovery on a profile are a static ten song/album list and a ten song/album chart generated from the top purchases of people you “follow.” If we drill in a little further, that list of ten musical selections on your profile is either done automatically through scraping your previous purchases or manually. I think it would be safe to say that automatically picking out ten of your previous purchases is not the best way to represent your musical tastes or discover others’. The best thing to do right now is manually pick out ten of your favorites, but it can be time consuming to update and with the small userbase, there’s no incentive to do so unless you like the flashbacks to picking out your “top friends” on Myspace years ago.
Let’s say you manage to find a cool friend or artist and want to listen to their recommended list of ten. You can’t even listen to complete songs! The best you can do is listen to a 30 second preview. Can you name a time when a 30 second preview has ever been a good way to discover music?
Where’s the dynamic list of songs someone’s listened to over the course of the last year (last.fm)? Where’s the suggested artists or songs based off of what you like (Pandora)? Where’s the ability to listen to actual music?
2. It only works with songs sold in the iTunes store.
If you want to use any of the “social” features of ping, such as “liking” or commenting on a piece of music, it has to be done within the limitations of music in the iTunes store. That cool unsigned artist you’ve been listening to on repeat? If they aren’t on iTunes they may as well not exist. Oh, the same goes for The Beatles, AC/DC, or any other artist that refuses to sell their wares on iTunes. I bet those guys were nobodies anyway.
Let’s take this one step further. How many people do you know purchased their entire music collection on the iTunes store? I don’t know about you, but I barely know anyone who’s bought more than a handful of tracks lifetime on the iTunes store. These are what most Ping profiles are going to be populated with: handfuls of novelty singles.
Sounds like a great way to discover new music, huh?
3. It requires client software.
Despite the huge install base of iTunes across the globe, it’s still a fraction of music lovers with internet access. Without a browser-based implementation of Ping, the growth potential of the network will be severely stunted. Let’s also not forget that it’s a pain in the ass to share links to profiles or content when an external application is required to view them.
I own multiple Apple products and even I find iTunes a necessary evil to transfer content to them. Having to run a separate piece of software just to access a website is both insulting to its users and a crippling annoyance.
Sure, you can argue that it’s a business decision by Apple to get people to use their products. But a social network is not an iPhone 4. It’s only as useful as the people using it. And it certainly isn’t doing any favors for me or many of the people already “in the Apple family.”
4. It’s already full of spam and noise.
Within a day after its launch, I was already seeing multiple spam accounts commenting on artist pages and featured profiles with links to “free iPhone 4! click here!!!.” Not exactly the scintillating music discussion I was looking for.
Now, let’s give Apple the benefit of the doubt and say that they’ll figure out how to filter out the spam effectively. There’s still the problem of profile noise.
Right now, every piece of activity on the site constitutes its own “post” on your profile. So whether you follow someone, like a song, purchase an album, write a comment or review, it’s all jumbled together into one cluster of spam. There’s no easy way to separate out the important activities (writing a detailed comment) from the mundane (following 134 individual bands). Why bother adding to a conversation if it’s just going to be buried under an avalanche of irrelevancy?
5. There’s nothing to do on the service.
Seriously, there’s nothing to do right now on Ping once you’ve set up your profile. Since listening to or discovering music isn’t in the cards, what about starting a conversation about it?
You could, but it’s a bit kludgy. You can’t make a post or a comment without doing it from a piece of content being sold on the iTunes store. You can’t post pictures or video from that time you met limp bizkit, nor can you write up a concert review of that great Staind show in Biloxi last night. Well, I guess you could write a comment under the iTunes page for “Outside”, but it’d be akin to writing your memoirs as a Youtube comment. In other words, not possible.
I suppose you could put down that you’re attending an upcoming show, but whats the point? There’s no incentive to do so other than to notify the world that you could be robbed more easily that night.
Where’s the interesting stuff like shared playlists? Hell, just include that one feature and you already have enough music discovery/sharing activity to warrant signing up for the service!
6. It’s a restrictive way for artists to interact with fans.
Artist Profiles are a little more useful than “normal” profiles in that they can post videos, pictures, and text without referencing a potential iTunes sale. However, other than posting content and a listing of upcoming tour dates, they’re not much better than a normal profile. Artist Profiles are still limited by the same spam and feed noise pitfalls in engaging with their fans.
In fact, once the initial hubbub of Ping dies down, I can’t think of a good reason why a band would want to regularly update its Ping profile once it’s up. Without a way to import content in from other outlets, I can’t see bands devoting the resources to provide original content on Ping when they could do it so much better on Facebook, Twitter, their own sites, or even Myspace.
7. It does nothing better than any other existing service.
Artists can disseminate media and tour dates better on their own website. Fans can interact with each other and their favorite artists better through twitter or tumblr. Music lovers can see what their friends are listening to better on last.fm. They can discover music through listening to full songs on Pandora or even FM radio. Concert goers can meet up through message boards, Facebook, or even last.fm with greater ease.
So tell me, what exactly is Ping good for, other than act as an interactive advertisement for $1.29 iTunes songs?
8. You can’t listen to full length songs.
This was touched upon in reason #1, but it bears repeating. Any “music discovery service” that doesn’t allow me to listen to complete songs is useless.
Utter deal-breaker.
9. It’s a pain in the ass to find your friends.
Right now you have to manually put in your friends’ email address to follow them on Ping. Initially, Facebook Connect was enabled, allowing you to import your Facebook friends with a couple of clicks. However, due to some dickswinging on the parts of both Apple and Facebook, that feature was disabled.
It’s 2010. I don’t a) know everyone’s email address by heart and b) have any desire to manually type in emails for any reason whatsoever.
10. It’s a pain in the ass to get set up as an artist.
Mashable brought this up in a recent post, but it makes sense why there’s so few artist pages up on Ping right now. Apple’s going through a laborious process by having artists apply for “artist profile pages” and going through each one approving them.
Come on.
We’re not even talking about curating Apps here. It’s going to take weeks if not months for Apple to get all of the artist profile applications sorted out. And for what? So your band can have a restricted social media network platform for a limited userbase?
Honestly, I’m a little burnt on the Assassin’s Creed franchise. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the gameplay and the plot of the series has been fairly fascinating, but Ubisoft’s planning on releasing Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood barely a year after the last title came out.
Since there’s no new number in the title, it may be confusing as to what Brotherhood is exactly. Essentially, it’s a continuation of Ezio’s story from Assassin’s Creed 2. However, a multiplayer mode has been added along with a more robust territory/army building metagame.
Much like Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, you can recruit assassins, send them on missions, and upgrade them like Pokemon. It’s an interesting wrinkle in the series, but I’m not sure it’s that compelling to draw me back into the the world of the Renaissance again.
Perhaps you’ll be more inclined after watch the developer walkthrough above.
The Crysis franchise has long been known for incredible graphics and an open ended single-player experience.
So why am I posting a video of multiplayer footage?
Simply put, it intrigues me. See, Crysis also incorporates interesting suit powers such as super strength, speed, or cloaking. That in it of itself is grounds enough to separate the game from the sea of Call of Duty clones out there right now.
Decide for yourself it’s enough to take a look.
One of my favorite games from E3 2010 was Vanquish. I won’t rehash my E3 preview, but offer you this reminder: Think Gears of War but with blazing fast Japanese robot suits, mechs, and explosions everywhere.
The demo is basically the same demo I played at E3 with an additional tutorial component. You’ll get the beginning of a mission plus an incredibly epic boss fight. Seriously, if your heart doesn’t pump while facing it, you’re not alive. My only complaint with the game so far is that it’s really hard to tell how close you are to death at any given time. I do like to play fairly recklessly, though, so if you’re the conservative type, maybe this wont be a problem for you.
You can grab the demo from the Xbox Live Marketplace or Playstation Network and I implore you to check it out if you are a fan of action games or shooters. It’s a fun, original title that’s definitely on my list of anticipated games this holiday season.
Unless of course, you don’t like fun.
Hot off the announcement of their first iOS game (Project Sword – check out the clip at the end of this post!) this morning at Apple’s iPod event, Epic Games (Gears of War, Unreal Tournament) sends word that a playable tech demo of Unreal Engine working on the iPhone is now live on the iTunes store.
Entitled Epic Citadel, the demo gives you a sneak peek as to what kind of graphics you can expect from Project Sword when it releases later this year. As you can see from the screenshots below, the graphics are jaw-droppingly good. It reminded me a little bit of the wonder I experienced when I saw the first Unreal engine fly through way back in the 90′s before the first Unreal game came out.
Now, don’t expect much of a game with Epic Citadel, it’s basically a really pretty graphics tech demo. You can move around using virtual dual analog sticks or you can let the software take over and provide a “Guided Tour”, which is basically an autopilot demo. You can also navigate by tapping anywhere on the screen and the character will automatically walk there.
I gave it a short test drive and the frame rate was locked in at about 30fps for the most part, but dipped below during a flyby or when a lot of the environment was in view. Nevertheless, it’s a real impressive piece of software and might be worth keeping on your iPhone/iPad just to show off to your friends. Plus, at “free”, its the right price.
We’ve already got a cool gyroscope control proof of concept with ngmoco’s Gun Range. Epic’s Epic Citadel shows us what the graphics capability of the iPhone/iPad is. Come on devs, enough with the demos. Let’s get a real game out now, eh?
Download Epic Citadel for free on iTunes
| US | |
| Current
1M Gold: $7.99 3M Gold: $19.99 12M Gold: $49.99 |
Starting Nov 1, 2010
1M Gold: $9.99 |
A couple of days ago, Microsoft announced an across the board price increase for its Xbox Live service that will go into effect on November 1, 2010. You can check out the price increase for the US in the handy table above. Basically it means a $10 increase in the yearly price (because if you use your Xbox with any degree of frequency, it’s silly to pay the inflated rates for anything but the 12 month rate).
Now, get up in arms about it if you want, but there’s really nothing much you can do about it other than stock up on 12 month Gold cards if you see them at a deal. Diligent bargain hunters have never had to spend more than $39.99 for 12 months of LIVE. In days past, $29.99 12 month card deals were more common than not.
Maybe this whole thing is a stunt to get a whole bunch of people to pay up front for multiple years of LIVE because Microsoft has so magnanmously set up a page where you can lock-in a $39.99 rate through them directly.
There’s no two ways about it, it sucks. And having a price increase on Xbox LIVE isn’t exactly a good way to ingratiate yourself back in the good graces of the gaming community after the debacle that was the Kinect pricing announcement.
But at the end of the day it’s $10. We’ll have to just deal with it and move on. Maybe take some mental notes like Lebron James.
Don’t worry, MSFT, your day will come.
