November 2009 Archives

Every few weeks we get another story about Microsoft framing Natal as the way to interact with the 360, and this is no different. Speaking at the Streaming Media West show, XBL GM Marc Whitten spoke of the Natal as a replacement for a TV remote as well as the 360 controller.

Now, I think Natal is a great idea. I even went so far as to outline some neat possibilities in one of my articles on KOMBO. But just as in that case, I think Microsoft’s handling of the technology is a little misguided.

I think some of the examples in the article are great. something like Jeopardy or a Scene-It style game would be great on Natal. Acting out charades, yelling out answers fast, those would work spectacularly well. Going through parts of the Xbox interface would work quite well, too, as it’s a fairly simple interface.

But a replacement for the TV remote? I think not. “With the power of my voice I can start a movie,” he says. “With the flick of a wrist I can change channels.” Now, I’ll admit that not having to find the remote would be fabulous, but then again I haven’t lost my remote in years. Maybe spending nearly two hundred dollars on it played a role there. Just throwing that out there.

However, remote in hand, i can change channels by twitching my finger. I can bring up a guide, my recorded shows, any of that, with a couple more twitches. With all the things modern remotes can do, I think that Natal, regardless of the fidelity of the motion tracking, just is too simple to work as something control your tv watching. I feel like we’d have to start doing flag semaphore to operate the system. Here are a few possibilities:

Kidding aside, I think the technology has great potential to add a lot to games. I just don’t think it’s going to replace, well, anything. I do think it has the potential to cut down on the amount of peripherals required to play games. Nintendo could take a page from that way of thinking.

Talking about the ideas he presents regarding delivery of user content, my feelings are mixed. He suggests it delivering what we want to watch instead of us having to look for it. But then there’s a few questions. It’s a chicken and egg thing. We have to be able to find the content we want first, and wading through a content library that big could get annoying.

Secondly, and I’ll be the first to admit I’m not exactly the biggest tv watcher, how does someone find something new if its just sending them stuff they’ll like? It’s sort of a confirmation bias thing. If you only rate mecha anime and it only sends you mecha anime, you’re never going to find anything unique to watch. Of course, this comes from the guy who only watches Attack of the Show and Community.

My hopes for Natal are high, but my expectations are more tempered. If a game or aspect of the Xbox interface are going to be Natal only, it’s going to have to work REALLY well to keep me from doing the third option above.

This review is a bit late coming, since I played the game in October, but after ordering these guys, I felt the need to give the game a quick review.

DSE is a light-gun game done right. Guiding the player through the corridors at a certain pace puts control in the hands of the developer to pace the scares just right for maximum effect. Sadly, just like Dead Space, I didn’t find the game particularly scary beside a few jump-scream moments. I just think the whole fiction of Dead Space is so cool, and that’s what keeps me coming back.

DSE puts you in the shoes of a few survivors of the initial attack on the colony and Ishimura, and acts as sort of a prequel to Dead Space. You witness the moments preceding the mass suicides on the colony before finding a way off the planet. Once you get up to the Ishimura, things become a bit more familiar. You cross a lot of the same floors Isaac did in the original title, though you never run into him.

The game looks great. I don’t even mean for a Wii game. It just looks good. Not as good as Dead Space proper, but still quite good. Some of the strongest texture and lighting I’ve seen on a Wii title, and the atmosphere is as strong as it was in the original. If you’re sore for some strong Wii games, and especially mature titles, this one shouldn’t be missed.

I think there are a lot of unfortunate missteps plaguing not the game itself, but its chance at success. First and foremost, it IS a light-gun game. While the only mature games that have sold well on the Wii are light-gun games, even those haven’t sold terribly well and I think the genre is seen as a bit anachronistic nowadays. Second, it’s a mature title—on Wii—from a third party. Both of those factors doom it to pretty poor sales despite generally positive critical reception. Third, it’s a continuation of a game that appeared on Xbox360 and PS3. Segmenting the game franchise across platforms makes it hard to build a consistent audience. While it may seem like everyone has a Wii, I don’t think that’s nearly the case, and I think a lot of people missed out on the game for just that reason.

The game sold 9000 copies according to the last set of NPD numbers. I think more people than that were already playing Modern Warfare 2 before its midnight release last week. It’s disappointing to see mature titles doing so poorly on Nintendo’s system, but honestly I think the Wii is more intended to be a Nintendo Game Arcade than anything else. Their games are best suited to their controls, and the brand match gives them instant recognition.

Anyway, all Dead Space fans should check this game out, even just a rent or borrow. People unfamiliar with the series are probably better of not bothering until they get to go back and check out the original, which they definitely should. It was one of the best games of 2008!

Aside from more yardwork, I spend most of this weekend hammering through the Modern Warfare 2 single-player on PC. It lives up to a lot of the hype, but for me it was more a rent than a buy.

My PC Specs:
Intel Q6600 Quad Core Processor
EVGA GeForce GTX260 Core 216
Windows 7 Professional
4GB RAM

I think the most impressive part of the game is the graphics. This is the first game that’s really pushed my newly built PC hard, and it was a lot of fun to see something look so good on my system. The textures, fog, flora, and animation were all spectacular. Infinity Ward’s really got the hang of dropping characters realistically when you shoot them. They don’t ragdoll all over the place, and it really helps keep you immersed.

As with the last MW title, you jump all over the place, from Washington DC to a South American shantytown, to snowy tundra in Russia, and it all looks amazing. One of my favorite levels places you in a snow-covered forest, and when I say sneaking through the forest was a chilling experience, I mean that in the best way.

The campaign really doesn’t take long at all. On Normal mode, I think I finished it in 8 hours. There were a few spots that I had to retry quite a bit, but again, I didn’t get stuck anywhere for too long. The story, which I won’t go into here, has enough twists and turns to keep any conspiracy junkie happy, but it can be hard to follow at times. The motivations of some of the characters were lost in the shuffle, and one of the later twists really had me scratching my head.

Of course, it’s impossible to talk about Modern Warfare right now without talking about “The Airport Scene.” Get ready for spoilers, if you weren’t already. This level has you infiltrating a terrorist cell. Participating in one of their strikes, you accompany three other men to an airport. Calm and cool, the four of you step out of an elevator, machine guns held at a relaxed height. The three begin mowing down civilians and it’s your choice from here whether to pull the trigger or not.

Sadly, that decision has no bearing on the game. You end up the same way—and here’s the spoiler—dead on the floor while the terrorist leader escapes, leaving an American accountable for the death of thousands of Russian civilians.

To be very clear, I have no issue with the scene existing. I think games approaching these kinds of scenes is great, and it’s a step in the right direction for an M-rated game. However, I don’t know that it actually worked. First and foremost, the leaked information, something I didn’t even pay much attention to, really blunted the effect of the scene on me. I wish I could play it without any inkling of what’s coming. Instead of a reaction like “Whoa, what’s going on here? They’re really asking me to do this?” I said “Oh, here’s that controversial part everyone is talking about.” And it’s not like games don’t affect me. I felt looming terror in Silent Hill 2, genuine remorse in Shadow of the Colossus, and simple, real happiness playing Flower. The first Modern Warfare’s nuke scene also affected me deeply, leaving my jaw dropped as I crawled out of the helicopter, saw my dead friends through my fading vision. That scene really stayed with me and was one of the stronger scenes in I’ve seen in a game. Unfortunately, the terrorist level in Modern Warfare reaches for that but doesn’t quite make it. Terrorists mowing down civilians is certainly horrible, but here it felt telegraphed.

Further, I have to repeat something Arthur Geis of Team Xbox said: I think that the terrorist killing you at the end of the level invalidates a lot of what was said on the way into the level. It’s hard to feel like you’re giving up a piece of yourself when you just end up with a hole in your head at the end.

Lastly, let’s not talk multiplayer, because I didn’t play it at all. I know, blasphemy. I’m just not interested. Even after just a couple days the level of play’s going to be way too high to make it fun.

Overall, I thought it was an excellent game. Every aspect of the visuals stands out. The guns are especially fun to try out, and I think I probably picked up half of them, if that. The story is a solid continuation of the last game, with some weird but not game-breaking twists. In fact, some of the scenes that followed them were the best in the game. I look forward to checking out the guaranteed sequel in, oh, about a year when Activision craps another one out.

Every once in a while (every 10 minutes or so), the death knell of PC gaming is cried out by someone or other. And once in a while, it seems like they might be right. PC gaming is not, however, going anywhere. With such an open platform that allows anyone to get in without buying a dev kit, there will always be something to play. Nonetheless, the release of Modern Warfare 2, to me, signals one of the loudest shots fired from the bow of a major publisher against PC gaming.

Freelancer Mitch Dyer commented on his twitter feed earlier today that he was ranked one million something in Modern Warfare, meaning that in just 12 hours, the game has sold over a million copies on one platform. Any doubt that this game would be huge should be a distant memory by now.

The two console versions are pretty much feature-identical, as far as I know. It comes down to preferences for controllers and online service. Beside that, they're the same game.

But then there's the PC version.

Check out the full article.

Over the years I've owned or played every console incarnation of the Mario and Zelda primary franchises, and a number of the handhelds even. Over the last few years, I've realized something. My appreciation for Mario games is actually growing as I play more of them (even if Mario Galaxy did make me feel a bit ill) while my interest in Zelda games is rapidly waning.

I could end this with one word—variety—but that's not fair to either franchise. There's a lot more to say.

Check out the full article.

In case it isn't clear just looking along the top bar, Kombo is a console-focused site. So why are we reviewing Champions Online? Other than just wanting to, I wanted to take a peek at a PC massively-multiplayer game that lists a console as its next destination, see what works, what doesn't, and take a look at its prospects for making the jump to consoles. Though I won't be giving it a traditional review score, I'll review it in the usual Kombo format.

What the Game's About
Champions Online is the newest MMO from developer Cryptic Studios. Taking notes from their first outing, City of Heroes, they've returned to the Superhero genre once more in hopes of perfecting the formula. Licensing a classic pen-and-paper RPG, Champions Online brings the characters and stories of Champions to life for players to experience firsthand.

What's Hot
Champions Online does a lot to break out of the MMO mold from which it was cast. When you login for the first time, you'll notice that you don't have to pick a server. No more grumbling about how your high school friends are on StormRend and your college friends are on RavenCrown, or whatever. Instead, Champions Online uses instances of the same zone that you can switch between at a moment's notice. If your buddies are in another instance, just hop over and team up.

And if you don't want to team up, Champions Online is friendly there, too. While there are some missions that require (or at least strongly suggest) two or more heroes, much of the game is quite playable on your own. Especially with the lack of death penalty in the game — unless you consider being zapped back to the nearest checkpoint a penalty — playing alone is a more viable option than it has traditionally been in MMOs.

Check out the full article.