Syndicate doesn’t tell you something very important:  it may walk like a shooter, and talk like one, but the ebb and flow has more in common with MMO endgame Raiding than some latter-day inheritor of the action mantle.  I had to fight the “final boss” at least twelve times before defeating him, with three different “pub” groups, and when it finally happened it was because we ported over broadly defined RPG roles like grabbing adds, tanking, and main heals.

Playing the Syndicate demo was a bit like being thrown to the wolves in the future. You’re matched up with four random people and have to fumble your way through the cyberpunk-infused environment. There’s no tutorial or explanation on how to play the game or what makes it different from other shooters. It looks great because it uses the same Frostbite 2 engine that Battlefield 3 does, but also has a pretty low framerate which feels like it’s in the low to mid 20′s. Be prepared to squint, too, as the font sizes for everything are about 6 point. Woe betide you if you don’t have an HD TV at this point. Fortunately, the game does let you fumble your way through if you’ve played other shooters before, as many of the basic maneuverability controls are the same. Beyond shooting bad guys, I basically followed the waypoint markers on screen and hit the context sensitive buttons when prompted.

That being said, I ended up with the same conclusions that Tycho did after making it through. There’s a lot of parallels with MMO Raiding, as the enemies aren’t your run of the mill fodder waiting to be killed. They’re essentially military squads in a sort of bizarro version of Rainbow Six Vegas. There’s often “boss” enemies that have an insane amount of health and it’s up to one guy on your team to grab his attention while staying alive. “Adds” will spawn and teammates will have to heal and revive each other. Playing the game like a typical shooter won’t get you really far unless you’re pretty damn good at them and even then, I too had to deal with several “pub” groups before I took down the final boss of the demo. (and that was a miraculous win too, after being revived in the middle of combat several times)

I’m a little unsure as to how I feel about the game. On the one hand, the coop mechanics are really deep and interesting. If you’ve ever raided in an MMO before, you know how positively gratifying downing a boss is. Unfortunately, you need to know and trust the people you’re playing with first. I imagine that trying to pub your way through Syndicate may lead to your fair share of quitters and “bad players,” leading to a frustrating time. However, if you’ve got a good group of four to play shooters with, this could end up being one of the sleeper gaming experiences of the year.

via Penny Arcade – The Creative Spark.

Capcom’s finally released Ghost Trick on iPhone/iPad as a universal app (with iCloud saved games enabled!) today. I haven’t actually played through the original version on Nintendo DS yet, but hear it’s a pretty good game. It’s a detective adventure game where you try to solve your own mysterious deaths as a ghost. There’s a bunch of parallels with the Phoenix Wright series, if you’ve ever played those.

You get the first two chapters of the game as a free download, and can purchase the rest in app for $9.99. It’s a pretty good steal, given the fact that Ghost Trick just came out barely a year ago as a $29.99 retail Nintendo DS title. Plus, you’re arguably getting a better gameplay experience as you don’t need to use a silly stylus or carry around a Nintendo DS with you.

I’m midway through the first chapter now and will most certainly be buying the rest.

Updated Protip (2/3): The iCloud interface is really ambiguous and scarily written. (“There is a chance that you might lose your progress” on both options?? Come on Capcom!) I’ve tested it, though and you want to hit “Sync iCloud backup data” to upload your current save to the cloud. Tapping “Sync this device” brings the save from the cloud down to whichever device you are using now.

Download on iTunes

Pre-order Twisted Metal with GameStop and receive a code for $10 orders of 39.99 or more on 1800Flowers.com!

In for two.

via Twisted Metal for PlayStation 3 | GameStop.

A Sony representative has confirmed the discount. “I can confirm that there will be a discount on the downloadable PS Vita titles from PSN. Exact details have not yet been revealed, but be on the lookout for an announcement in the very near future.”

The discount will apparently be 10% off the retail price for the equivalent retail boxed version of the game. It’s an interesting first step in the transition to a completely digital consumer experience for the games industry.

I’m not sure if 10% is enough, given that many retailers routinely offer 20% or greater discounts/promotions for new game releases. (Anyone who’s pre-ordered new video games from Amazon in the last two years is fond of their $10-$20 promotional credit offers) But the fact that Sony is willing to discount the digital version is at least acknowledgement that charging full retail price for it is folly.

If you’re able to delete and re-download games for free at will, it might actually give consumers an interesting purchasing decision to make assuming they have a decent sized memory card. One of the most annoying things about carrying multiple games on trips is physically carrying those games. Being able to load several games onto your memory card would cut down on travel weight significantly.

Now if Sony would only get rid of their comically overpriced proprietary Vita memory cards…

via Shacknews.com.

“We won’t be making any more Resistances,” Insomniac CEO Ted Price told VG247 during an interview at Southern Methodist University’s Game::Business::Law Summit today. Short, sweet, and to the point.

Guess Insomniac finally came to the conclusion that Resistance… was futile.

Seriously, though, the Resistance games were among the best shooters available on the PlayStation 3. I’m a little wistful that they won’t be continuing the franchise, but happy to see that Insomniac isn’t content with just making sequels. Here’s to bigger and better new IP’s from one of the best studios in the game right now.

via Insomniac: “We won’t be making any more Resistances” | VG247.

I suppose it was only a matter of time before Valve jumped into mobile. Right now the features list looks pretty basic, offering only friend status updates, chatting, and access to the Steam store. While good for impulse buys or checking up on deals, I was actually hoping for at least an achievement viewer. There’s nothing I like doing more when I’m away from my computer than wistfully reflecting on all of my gaming accomplishments.

Obviously, the mobile app’s functionality will only grow from here. After all, Steam itself started off as a pretty basic client, too. It’ll be interesting to see if Steam expands its tendrils into the mobile gaming distribution arena, given that both Android and iOS already have exclusive channels for that. Perhaps Steam will become more of a content curator? There’s certainly a lot of trash to wade through in those marketplaces.

Though the app is still in an invite-only beta mode right now, you can still download it and poke around the offline mode. If you’ve used the iOS Gmail app, the Steam app UI looks very similar.

Download on iOS and Android

Last fall, Microsoft and 343 Studios released a “remastered” version of the original Halo with online coop play, achievements, a smattering of Kinect-enabled voice commands, and a complete graphical overhaul. It’s somewhat of a transition title for the franchise as the baton of Halo development has been passed from Bungie to 343 Studios starting with the upcoming Halo 4. As a longtime Halo fan, I hope that this “Anniversary” edition of Halo isn’t any indicator of what the future of the franchise will be like because it’s an absolute turd bomb.

Why? Because the online co-op is completely broken. Here are three reasons why:

1) You can’t save and quit your progress mid-level.

That’s right. For some unfathomable reason, 343 has or could not implement saving your game when you’re playing online cooperatively. The game does record when you complete a level, so if you’ve managed to completely finish a level, you can start there the next time you start a session. However, that’s little solace in situations when you invest a good 2 and a half hours inching your way through 80% of a level on Legendary difficulty and your coop partner has to stop playing. At that point, the game flashes text on the screen taunting you for wasting the last 2 and a half hours of your life and teabags your face.

Ok it doesn’t really do that, but it may as well. I had to resort to some late 80′s console playing tactics by having my buddy leave his Xbox on while I completed the level solo just so we wouldn’t have to find another 3 hour time slot to redo the level. But that wasn’t the only danger in our quest to achieve game progress. We also had to live constantly in fear of 343′s next failure:

2) Random disconnections and stuttering connections.

Halo: CEA can’t handle cooperative gameplay when there are too many enemies on screen. How do I know this? The game lags and stutters when there are more than 6 enemies on the screen or whenever there is an encounter with the Flood. Making matters worse, these things happened to me as the game host. I could only imagine what unholy slideshow my poor coop buddy was experiencing on the other end.

The game also can’t handle achievement unlocking elegantly either. You know you’ve unlocked an achievement because you experience a 5-10 second game freeze as the game experiences a stroke because it can’t believe you actually accomplished anything within it. As heart-palpitating as a game freeze is for the host, it’s an even greater disaster for your remote friend, because they see a flickering “connection lost” error message. In other modern multiplayer games, this would most likely be a minor annoyance at best because you would just try reconnecting to the game at the next save point. But in the high stakes world of Halo: CEA, a disconnect means an abrupt end of the game for everyone involved. An unceremonious dump to the menu screen also means, you guessed it, a loss of all progress you’ve made in a level because the game is incapable of saving.

3) Kinect Voice Commands are Wonky

I’ll keep this one short and sweet. Halo: CEA’s voice recognition feature kept randomly tossing grenades at the ground because it kept thinking I was yelling “Grenade!” in normal conversation. Game, I can assure you that I do not want to toss grenades when I am telling my friend about the poop that I took this morning. At least this one is an easy fix, as you can turn off Kinect voice commands through an option setting.

If you’re keeping score so far, out of all the new features promised in this Halo repackaging, 343 has failed (in one way or another) at implementing online cooperative play, achievement unlocking, and voice activated Kinect controls. That leaves the new graphics overhaul. Surprisingly, they pulled that off more or less.

The new graphics engine bring it on par with Halo Reach’s campaign graphics level, which is to say, “good enough” for a modern shooter. The frame rate slows down at times, but overall it adds a lot to the visual presentation of the original Halo, especially in large outdoor set pieces like the beginning of the second level, “Halo.” 343 didn’t clean up any of the original AI, though, as Covenant move around awkwardly. At times, it feels almost like playing a brand new Halo campaign, especially with the addition of 10 “terminal” cutscenes that flesh out the game’s story.

In fairness, the single player game works as advertised, which shouldn’t come as a surprise since the original Halo had a robust checkpoint system and the ability to save and quit at any of those. The adversarial multiplayer content is handled competently, with remakes of old favorites like “Hang ‘em High.” However, playing these maps launches the multiplayer portion of Halo Reach, so Halo: CEA’s “multiplayer” essentially amounts to a map pack for Halo Reach. It’s probably for the best, as I can’t imagine Slayer being very much fun with constant disconnects and abrupt boots into the main menu.

When you think about how 343 was just simply tasked to add modern Xbox 360 features like achievements and online coop to an existing design completed game, it’s pretty appalling to see the results. Add in the challenges of actually designing new levels, story, and balancing new weapons, and I have a tough time believing these guys are going to make Halo 4 anything short of a disaster.

Yes! A Resident Evil set in a dense modern urban environment! President Zombie!

I don’t care that it’s looking more like Gears of Evil 6 than a “true” survival horror game. Resident Evil has never truly been terrifying to begin with and I, for one, welcome a franchise that’s willing to change its formula for the sake of gameplay.

Plus, did you see that part in the game where Leon slides like he was a skinny Steven Seagal and kneecaps some zombies? Tell me that’s something you don’t want to be a part of.

Tycho’s description:

There’s plenty of asynchronous tactics games available on mobile platforms, but this one hits the sweet spot in so many tradeoffs that each turn is like munching a little stack of Pringles.  For example, the “playfield” is small, like a boardgame.  It could be bigger, but it’s not; at the same time, it’s not so small that positioning is minimized.  Each turn consists of five – and only five – actions, and you can play your turn over and over again locally until you’ve found the optimal investment of those actions.  Maybe a single unit takes all of them.  Maybe it’s a turn you use to equip for the countercharge.  Turns are never onerous, they always consist of some scientifically optimized volume of input.

Simplifying the description of the game further, you might just call it “Tactics With Friends.” It plays like a very polished, welcoming version of your favorite turn based strategy game (Final Fantasy Tactics, Advance Wars, Jeanne d’Arc, Fire Emblem, etc.) combined with a little card game intrigue. See, in addition to commanding different kinds of units, you always have a “hand” that you can use to either deploy new units, equip them with bonuses, or play effects on the board. Some tricky schemes can be set into motion by playing out unseen resources.

It’s a free download and though it’s got some microtransaction upselling and interstitial ads, it’s never onerous. As if you needed another reason, the game’s developer, Robot Entertainment, consists of some of the people who made Age of Empires and Halo Wars from Ensemble Studios.

Give it a shot. Keep in mind that it’s a “multiplayer only” game, though. There’s no single player campaign, but random opponents have proved to be worthy adversaries.

Forget her, she’s boring.

Wouldn’t you rather have GLaDOS from Portal as the voice of your electronic assistant instead?

That’s what I thought.

via dcoreythomas.com