Just Cause 2: A Second Look

I posted earlier that I anticipated Just Cause 2 with equal amounts longing and fear. A demo was recently released on XBox LIVE, and I took a look at it, just as I said I would.

Remember, if you will, that I cited several major and glaring problems with the first Just Cause, just from the demo alone. I'm totally willing to admit that the demo is not the same as the finished product, but the release date for Just Cause 2 is later this month, surely the recently released demo is a good gauge of the final product.

I hope that's not so. The demo had a few minor technical bugs: mainly, that when I pressed the buttons the demo told me to press, nothing happened. I think I stood in the middle of an empty field slamming the "Y" button on my controller because the demo told me doing so would call the Black Market. Now, maybe they didn't include the Black Market in the demo and that's why it wasn't working, which wouldn't surprise me. If it's not included in the demo, though, please don't tell me it is. That's misleading, and aggravating: when I say "stood in the middle of an empty field," I'm talking about both my character's physical position and my own mental state.

I can look past technical errors, but there were a few more fundamental errors that ate at me. First, the demo was timed. I had a half an hour with it, and after that, fuck off and die. Buy it or don't, asshole, but you're not getting something for nothing. What if I can't make my decision in just a half hour? I mean, I did, but what if I had been unable to?

Both Just Cause and its sequel share one fundamental problem, for me. There's no real apparent storyline, or at least not one strong enough to be present in the demo. It has a free-run mission select system reminiscent of the Grand Theft Auto franchise, but the difference is that GTA managed it flawlessly. The amount of sheer and vast expanses of land in Just Cause and Just Cause 2 make the free-run system a chore; I understand that all I have to do is go to Village A for my next mission, but right now it's on the other side of the fucking island and there's a God damned mountain in my way, and there's not a fucking car in sight. Then the game becomes virtual hiking, and guess what? I'd rather actually hike--it's free.

I see the gameplay videos and think about the amount of agency inherent in a system that allows you to steal a car, hop on its roof, fire your weapons, jump to another vehicle, hang on to the bumper, pop that driver in the head, slide into that driver seat, speed up to 80 mph, hop back on the roof and take off on your parachute as the car heads over a cliff. That appeals to me--every sense of me. But it just doesn't deliver in a package that's manageable and playable, and that saddens me.

Save your money, kids. Splinter Cell: Conviction drops April 1st.

Assassin's Creed 2: Revisited

I recently revisited Assassin's Creed 2, and I have to say that it was a welcome change of pace from my recent gaming schedule, and almost like seeing a friend from long ago. I was in love with the game from the trailers, truthfully, and played it straight through to its end in about 5 days after having waited for it with baited breath for months. It has a great many improvements over its predecessor: an interesting storyline that's relevant to the gameplay, a whole host of new killing instruments, and decidedly less linear mission timelines. Assassin's Creed broke a lot of barriers and blew a lot of people away; Assassin's Creed 2 demolished the standard set by its progenitor. Plus Altair's black armor is just motherfucking bad ass.

All of that being said, I'm sort of sad to say that it took purchasable DLC to bring me back to the game. For a modest sum, these game add-ons opened up new missions and memories, and in addition to providing several more hours of play, they reminded me why I had fallen in love with the game in the first place. All-in-all, money well spent, to be truthful. The only real nagging question for me is, why did it take DLC to bring me back to the game? I quite literally jumped at the chance to purchase the DLC so that there would be new missions in the game, but what if--and bear with me here, because it's going to get crazy--what if these games were just built with more replayable features? I know, it really does seem crazy to most of our brains, but what if you just didn't get tired of playing a game? Wouldn't that be crazy? Yes, it would destroy the market for DLC, which I understand is pretty profitable, but wouldn't it also revolutionize the way we look at the old games we keep on our shelves?

For now, DLC does a reasonable job of providing new content for old beloved titles, and I'm reasonably satisfied with it, for the moment. I'm anxiously looking forward to playing through some DLC for Batman: Arkham Asylum, as soon as I get my copy of the title back (ahem!), as a matter of fact. That said, the operative part of these statements is "for the moment." I don't want to live in a world where game developers release half-finished games for full-price, and then tack on a ton of DLC to generate extra revenue. It's dystopian, sure, but what's stopping them? The success of DLC has demonstrated to developers, I believe, that we're willing to shell out more dough for after-market parts. Where does it end?

Battlefield: Bad Company 2

I'm currently quite disappointed with Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Deeply disappointed, in fact, because when I first started playing the multiplayer online demo, I was in love. Extensive vehicle combat, completely destructible landscapes, and trace RPG (level-up) elements. It was a blast to play, and I stayed with the demo for a few hours, despite having access to only one type of match and only one map. "Squad Rush" was a great mix of tactical objectives, team cooperation, and good ol' fashioned shoot 'em up. Class differences, level up and weapon enhancement opportunities...I was hooked.

And then it all changed. I had trouble logging on the next day, and I thought that was odd. It looked like EA authentication servers were having some trouble, and EA's unresponsive website confirmed this, in my mind. But I was wrong, it wasn't mere authentication server issues, it was...perfidy! They were altering the game, making it different... When I next logged on, my engineer had more RPG rounds, which was nice, except...I rarely got the chance to use them, as I was being air-dropped without a parachute. Tank rounds were melting faces entirely across the map and shooting through mountains, engineers were throwing Hail Mary passes with their RPG rounds with unprecedented success, and the game became, for lack of a better word, dismal.

The graphical layout of the game pales in comparison to Modern Warfare 2, and I would think a "hotly anticipated" title such as B:BC2 would understand that MW2 had already achieved something close to full-market saturation, and not on gimmick alone, but merit. Why release, in the wake of what was probably the most successful title of 2009, an FPS that's graphically less pleasing, mechanically less functional, and significantly less customizable?

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 has two advantages over Modern Warfare 2: increased vehicle combat, and fully destructible landscapes. That being said, those advantages are minor. Modern Warfare 2 was a masterfully orchestrated title that quite literally distilled the carnage, chaos, and violence of warfare into something dimly recognizable as beauty. In Battlefield: Bad Company 2, you can knock down walls. You tell me which is better.

Modern Warfare 2

First of all, let me say that I know I'm way past the point where this post could be considered timely or relevant. I know that, OK? So lay off. That being said, it wasn't until recently that I started playing the XBox LIVE aspect to the game. I was turned off by the fact that, unlike games like Halo: 3, MW2 doesn't have the ability for players to play split-screen LIVE, which was without a doubt my favorite aspect of Halo: 3. So, it may have been out of spite that I waited this long to play.

I'm hooked. I can't help it. It oscillates between deeply satisfying and bone-jarringly frustrating so quickly I almost vomit in the back of my mouth, and I like it. Bring it. Bullets flying, airstrikes ripping apart the map, sentry guns shearing enemy soldiers in twain. It's like melting down violence in a loving spoonful and injecting it into your eyes.

Beyond the universal, gory, and visceral appeal that the whole game exudes, I'm a sucker for one particular aspect of the online play: leveling up. I think it's a residual imprint from playing World of Warcraft for two and a half years, but there's something very satisfying about being rewarded for how you play. Ah, great, I specifically used this inferior scope on my sniper rifle, and now I have the thermal scope, and motherfuckers are sticking out on my screen like a Swede walking through Harlem. Wtfpwned.

I suppose I'm not surprised that the LIVE portion is a masterful blend of raw FPS action and trace RPG elements. The single-player campaign elevated FPSs to an entirely new level; it moved the player into the whole body of the soldier, and not just the finger on the trigger. Story elements pushed some boundaries as well: in an FPS, it's game over when your character dies, not part of the storyline. I was surprised the first time they killed off my character. The second time I was offended (well, they did light my corpse on fire). And when I thought they were going to do it a third time, I ended up the victor. I was sure they were going for the hat-trick.

This isn't all there is to say about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, I'm aware. I'm not sure that I could say all there is to say. This is a start, though, and for now I think I've hit all of my main points.

Heroes of Newerth

I just got an Email from HoN support reminding me that I have three more beta invites to hand out. Now, I seem to recall several months ago signing up for the beta when I'd first heard of the game, but I can't seem to remember sending out any invites... With account hackers going wild for WoW accounts I wonder if this plain email is really from the good people at HoN. Either way it has reminded me of HoN's existence and I'll hopefully be able to sneak in the beta soon.

It makes me really want an authenticator.

And the Wait Begins

Last Sunday I joyfully watched as Peyton Manning threw a Pick-6 ending the Colts' chance at winning the Super Bowl. As I watched the game clock tick away I knew to savor the last moments of football for a few months. Now that the season is over, all that us football fans can do is wait until August to fill our fix for the sport. No, I'm not referring to the pre-season, that excuse for football the NFL calls its exhibition, I speak of Madden NFL 11.

While my other contributors may not give sports games the time of day (although Kevin did just post a review of the Vancouver Winter Olympics game which I could've told him would most likely suck considering the Torino installment sucked), I greatly enjoy the thrill of sports games. It gives un-athletic gamers like myself the chance to throw a football 60 yards, run a 4.2-40, and give Peyton Manning a shoulder injury.

The Madden franchise has proven time and time again to be among the year's best games and has only gotten better since the people at EA realized no one wanted to listen to John Madden. And if you are like me, you consider the release of Madden to be the unofficial start to football. There is a lot of hype about the upcoming edition, what changes will we see, who will be on the cover, and the like.

What I am waiting for is there to finally be trick plays thrown into the mix. It seems odd that such a large component of any team's play book would be absent from the game. I hope the creators have given the idea some thought and they finally add in some. I would also like to see the default game time be switched back from the 7 minute quarter time it has now; it's just way too long. Oh, and give kickers enough leg to make a field goal over 45 yards; they shouldn't be easy, but come on kickers make them all the time. For now, though, all we can do is wait and hope EA does something awesome like putting big ol' Vince Wilfork on the cover because it's about time D-line gets some respect.

Review: Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games

I can't help it: there's something I really like about the Winter Olympic Games. Maybe it's the pride one feels in cheering for one's nation, maybe it's the inspiring spirit of competition that transcends international boundaries, or maybe it's just Curling. Yeah, nevermind, it's Curling. That's what I like about the Winter Olympics.

I caught the biathlon yesterday, which has always been favorite of mine ever since I first played it on the 1994 Winter Olympics Sega Genesis game. The sheer nostalgia involved in that moment was almost more than I could bear--I could feel the Sega Genesis controller in my hand. I could smell the RF Switch tied into the co-ax cable. As those biathletes shot the wimpiest and yet most complex .22 rifles I think I've ever seen, and the little black circles turned white, I knew what I had to do. I had to download the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games demo.

I was almost embarrassed to start it up. I'm not a huge sports video game fan, and I'm not a fan of blockbuster-movie-based video games, and frankly this felt like a little bit of both. I had to relive my childhood though; I had to try.

The demo is disappointingly sparse: there is one Olympic event (downhill skiing) and one "Challenge" event to play (ski jump). The downhill skiing course takes roughly 2 minutes to complete, assuming you make it through the course in a reasonable fashion. The ski jump Challenge is futile--they provide no tutorial on how to land once airborne, and I thoroughly refused to look it up online; it would have taken more time to do that than to play the demo start to finish. After three attempts at the ski jump, the demo shuts down and returns you to the XBox dashboard. Let me say this: it made for a bad demo. How does one make a judgment of the game if you can barely play it? I refuse to purchase this game for several reasons, but not least of all out of spite: it's insulting to be fed the slightest morsel of mediocre gameplay and have there be any expectation at all that you might want to purchase the game, and I think it shows a supreme arrogance on the part of the demo designers.

I'm not done. My resentment grows: the demo shows the player the entire list of playable Olympic games, and "grays out" all but the downhill skiing. You're made aware of the fact that there are way cooler events to be played, but they're not going to give them to you. Solid marketing is to show off your best stuff. Arrogance is to say, "you want something better? Pony up the dough, asshole."

The worst, however, is by far this: there is no biathlon in the Vancouver 2010. Not even a little bit. Are you fucking kidding me? The biathlon has to be the single easiest event to make appealing to a video game community. It has fucking guns in it. You discharge a firearm, which has to be the single largest pull for most gamers anywhere. Unacceptable. Without the biathlon, there's pretty much not a single chance that I might actually play the game if I ever were to buy it.

I have felt my resentment grow throughout this post, and no, I don't think I'm working myself up into a nauseating rage. I think I'm finally understanding what about the demo turned me off: it was literally crushing. It was a being of unimaginable and terrible malevolence, a dark and vicious specter cloaked in familiar and friendly garb, that chinked cracks into one's very soul and extended spindly tendrils of evil through that gap to suck out the very soul-marrow of the player.

My fond memories of the 1994 Winter Olympics video game have been sullied and tainted by the terrible experience; never before have I been closer to the sublime and abject truth that innocence is dying than I was during the Vancouver 2010 demo. I long for the opportunities of my youth, and I am denied.

I should have known it was a bad idea.