The first Mass Effect was a great game, it had an amazing back story, suitable combat mechanics, and an great choice system. This was the first game I’ve played that I felt that my choices actually altered the game (sorry Fable). The only flaws in the game were poor conversational paths, extremely repetative side missions, graphical glitches, and an extremely ineffective inventory system. Although overal I had an extremely enjoyable time when playing Mass Effect. Enough fun that I felt it necessary to beat the game four times. It’s a bit obvious that I’m a big fan of immersive RPGs, so hearing news about Mass Effect 2 naturally gets me all wet and excited, and what better to get me moist than small teaser that Bioware has released for the game on their Mass Effect 2 website.

Watch over the trailer, it doesn’t take that long. If you’ve played the first Mass Effect you may be a bit concerned about the “Status: Killed in Action” that flashes on the screen. Does this suggest that Shepard (the main character from Mass Effect), is dead? I hope not. Shepard is one bad ass dude, at least the Shepard I created is. Still, Well we can see a Geth creature in his suit, which could mean perhaps he’s been captured by the Geth and has been reconstructed as one. That’s just wishful thinking though. One this is for sure though,  if Mass Effect 2 is anything like the first, I’ll be a happy customer.

On a side note, what the hell is up with the whole trend of adding boxes to your logos, I mean first Mirror’s Edge and now Mass Effect 2? Boxes are pretty trendy.

Who doesn’t remember Goldeneye on the N64? Well except for those who never played it. Answer: Almost no one. I’m sure that most of you that played Rare’s Goldeneye back in the day remember the good times in the campaign and in multiplayer, and with a good purpose too. Goldeneye was one of the most revolutionary console first person shooters ever released. Not only that though, the game was outrageously fun with friends.

Now that Microsoft owns Rare, and you have Banjo Kazooie on Xbox Live, with Banjo Tooie coming in April, you’d expect there would be some kind of project happening regarding Goldeneye, like there was a project involving Perfect Dark. If you did expect it, you were right, if you didn’t..  well there were plans. Sadly the project was started then aborted due to some shit regarding Nintendo having a sore ass wanting some funds out of it. Of course that has come and pass, and even though I really wish it had happened, there’s not much a person can do about it.

Let’s move on now to Goldeneye Source, a clever remake of Goldeneye made by some fine gentlemen using the Source engine. The beta has already been released, and frankly from what I can see, the remake is amazing. Only multiplayer at the moment, but hell, even that is awesome. There is some speculation that singleplayer may be worked upon in the future, and if this is made true, then my dreams will be fulfilled.

My only worry about this project is that Danjaq, LLC and United Artists Corporation have exclusive rights to the James Bond franchise, and in the past there has been some legal issues with obtaining rights to the franchise. Not to mention that Rare owns intellectual rights to the game itself.  I can tell you this much though, if these gentlemen were to pay royalties to the folks over at the UAC, they’d be paying a pretty penny. Anyhow, here’s to hoping that Goldeneye Source continues grow and develop into more than it already is, and here’s hoping that I buy Half-Life 2 sometime to access it as well as other mods.

Platform games have always been around, from Super Mario Brothers, to Banjo-Kazooie, to Portal, to Mirror’s Edge.  These games are great and all, but those titles are adventure platforming, not just pure platforming (except for maybe Super Mario Brothers). Most titles that offer platforming only use it as a means to base gameplay, often offering similar challenges and repetitions. Well platformers now are not as popular, but throughout the last few years, there has been one title that resorted my faith in platforming games. That title? N, just N.

N is an indie computer game developed by Metanet Software. It’s 100% free, and for a free game, it packs a hell of a lot of content. The levels are each unique and challenging and what I truley love about this title is that it’s just pure platforming. No storyline, no background story, no cutscenes, no bullshit. Just pure running and jumping.

So you play a ninja, or ninja shaped man-person, and your goal is to get to the exit door. Sounds easy enough right? Well now throw in some switches and buttons and some frustrating enemies, and hey, you have N. The enemies are very well designed, and well suited for each level, and the challenge each enemy offers is unique and often times frustrating. You have: Automated Robots, Lock-on Robots, Lock-on Missiles, Targeting Lasers, Snipers, Steel Thwomps, and Sliding Rocks. All of these can kill you, and you can’t do a damn thing about it except dodge and run. That’s what makes N unique from other platforming games, in most games you have the option to eliminate enemies, in N you must run to survive. Oh yeah, don’t forget the landmines, sit there waiting for you to fall or jump into them.
(continue reading…)

Once upon a time, I saw a friend playing F.E.A.R. on the Xbox, and I remember thinking “This is kind of creepy”, of course I was a couple years younger at that time. Here comes F.E.A.R. 2, and I decide to go out and get the first one so I can play the second one right after it. So after playing the game fully through, here’s what I have to say about it.

F.E.A.R. is in fact not a horror game, but a first person shooter with paranormal and horrific undertones, you’ll run into the occasional freaky occurrence here and there but it’s more shooter than anything else. That being said, the game is still pretty creepy with random occurrences of ghosts or demons popping up and voices being heard. However you don’t feel this creepiness throughout the game, actually when you are in combat, you feel none of it, the paranoia becomes fun for a while.

The scariest or creepiest parts of F.E.A.R. lie completely in the sounds, and the lighting. Even when you are not in combat there is intensive music playing, and often you’ll find yourself jumping at bit at sounds of yourself moving and sounds of the environment. There were many times throughout F.E.A.R. when I jumped because of my own shadow, it’s unnerving. (continue reading…)

Now I don’t usually like to report news, because let’s face it, you can get that from just about anywhere. However, when it comes down to StarCraft 2? I’m down. The first StarCraft was amazing, I mean the game was an instant classic, and sure times have passed and there have been better RTS’s released, but I still find myself going back to StarCraft because of the level of depth it through the story, and how well it plays. If StarCraft 2 (now SC2 because typing it out is a bitch), is anything similar to the original SC, then we could see another instant classic.

I know that open betas doesn’t signify the game will be released any time soon, but what it does signify is that people like myself are going to be able to get into it and start playing the project that many people have dreamed about for years. You can still find maps on the original SC that are named StarCraft 2, because at that time it seemed Blizzard had given up to pursue other interests in the Warcraft Universe. Earlier this week, there was news that Blizzard had an all-star title coming up sometime this year. With the open betas in the months range, I think SC2 is a good guess as to Blizzard’s 2009 title. Man I hope Battle.net is still free, spliting the game up into three parts was bad enough.

You thought it ended at Myst? Oh you foolish fool! Six years later, we have Riven, Myst’s sequel, and it lives up to and maybe even outlives the expectations that Myst set. How you ask? Well I’ll explain!

Myst had some amazing visual features for it’s time, here comes Riven that pumps even more into the graphics department of the game, the scenery of the island looks much more realistic and majestic than the first Myst. Textures are lifelike and colourful. Of course better graphics would be expected from a newer game.

Graphics are never the issue of a adventure game, it’s all about the puzzles, and boy let me tell you, if you were frustrated by the mysterious contraptions in Myst then prepare to multiply that frustration by 2. Riven takes Myst’s puzzles, multiplies the number of them by 2, and adds a more grand level of contraptions. Instead of separate lands with individual puzzles, you are now on one island, where each puzzle has the possibility of affecting another. You know how bewildering it is when you pull a level for one puzzle and half the island changes? Bewildering like fuck.
(continue reading…)

The real time strategy (RTS) genre has been popular on the PC for ages now, hell, it’s even a sport. When Halo Wars was first announced you got the general consensus from people that it’s going to fail horribly because it’s an RTS without the use of a keyboard and mouse. However, is that the case? Can it be possible for a genre almost extremely exclusive on the PC to be done well on a console? I went to find out when I downloaded the demo for Halo Wars.

Most people remember the monstrosity of StarCraft 64, I remember renting it for my Nintendo 64, and I remember loving the game for being StarCraft but hating how it was done. If you have never paid StarCraft 64 let me tell you this: Don’t. The consoles are a huge deal in RTS games. StarCraft 64 takes good controls and decides add a nice layer of shit upon it. This isn’t about SC 64 though, so let’s get to Halo.
(continue reading…)

There's the save point!

Save points have existed for a while in jRPGs, but what is their real purpose? I know it’s something we don’t see nowadays so much but there was a time where save points were existent many video games. Personally I though save points were one of the worst ideas ever, and now that we are able to save anywhere in most games, I’m not sure why some games decide to use them. There is something to be said about the level of suspense and success feeling when you come upon a save point but there’s more wrong with the idea, then there is right with the idea. The pros have already been stated: easier to code, adds some level of suspense, and surprise, but let’s weigh down the cons to it.

• Ruins the surprise of a big event

You know what I mean. You’re fighting your way through a massive dungeon and suddenly you see a savepoint, you know that something funky is about to go down. Either you know that you’re going to be facing some kind of boss, of you’re half way through the dungeon, which can be kind of depressing if the dungeon is fun. Though save points ensure you save before possibly getting your ass kicked, it ruins the surprise.

• Pressured to find a save point when playing for a while

This point is also a no-brainer, you’ve been playing for an hour or so and you’ve gotten far, the first thing you want to do is save your progress. Well what happens if you’re cut low on time? If for some reason you have to go somewhere and you don’t have time to find a save point? What then? Then you have to force yourself to continue playing or start again another time.

• Some save points disable the ability to backtrack

Now I never saw the appeal of doing this. Why would a developer not want you to backtrack to explore the game more? It’s like asking someone into your home then restraining them to the backyard, you have no good reason to do it unless you hate your consumer.

Dynamic saving (saving wherever you like) is the best option, it’s not baby-ing your consumer. It’s giving them the ability to save for themselves, so they can take the responsibility to save wherever needed. If you didn’t save for an hour and then you lose a boss fight, then too bad, it teaches you to save more frequently, and personally I like a game a lot better when I’m given as much freedom as possible.

I mentioned in another article that World of Goo was my personal game of the year. Now I’m not the only one that has that point of view because World of Goo truley is an amazing experience. This physics-based building game was created by 2D-Boy, which is made up of two people, and as an indie game, it’s one of the best out there right now.

When I first bought World of Goo on the Wii Shop (after hearing about it from some friends), I thought it wouldn’t be that spectacular. I mean how much fun can you have if all you’re doing is building towers to get goo balls into pipes? The answer: a whole lot. The game progresses in such a way that even if you get frustrated with one of the levels, you’ll keep trying and trying out of sheer satisfaction. One of the great things about World of Goo that as you start the game doesn’t give you any instructions, it just starts you out and says “here are some balls, get to it” , and because you have only your intuition and brains to go on, victory is that much sweeter.
(continue reading…)

Imagine getting a dollar for every gamerscore point you got in a week. That’s a potential 5000 or more dollars if someone really set their minds on it. Over at redvsblue one staff member made a bet with another that went something like this:

Achievement Marathon begins

Just fifteen minutes ago, Geoff began his week long marathon to get 10,000 Gamerscore in seven days. This all started during one of our DrunkTank sessions a few weeks ago when Geoff claimed he could “easily” score this monumental total during any given week. Here are the rules:

1. Contest runs from Friday Dec 26th to Friday Jan 2nd @ 10AM (Central times).
2. Geoff has to use his existing Gamertag (DGGeoff). He cannot start a new one.
3. At the end of the contest, for every point that Geoff has over 9,000 points, Burnie will pay him $1, up to 10,000 total points or $1000.
4. Geoff must pay Burnie $1 for every point under 9,000 points, down to 8,000 points.
5. Geoff sucks.
6. There is no rule six.
7. Burnie can do anything he wants to distract Geoff or derail his attempts to achieve gamerscore. (Addendum: Burnie may not burn down Geoff’s house or sabotage the Austin power grid),

It’s an interesting bet don’t you think? I’d love to start one of these with a friend someday. If you want to track it, you can from Geoff’s Gamerscore

I admit that the competition would have been much more spectacular if it had been a dollar for every gamerscore point he had gotten in a week with no limits to the maximum and minimum. Still it’s an interesting idea that even Microsoft could adopt for a fundraiser? Though it does preach some achievement whoring. That’s something you see quite regularly on both the PS3 and the Xbox 360 community, you have people who play games so they can better their gamerscores so they can totally SHOW PEOPLE ONLINE, it reminds me a lot about this (May be NSFW).