Holiday Crysis

I was looking forward to picking up Call of Duty 4 for the PC, and then I read that it would have the 4-6 hour long campaign. Believe it or not, I was looking forward more to the single player part of Modern Warfare than the multiplayer even though I enjoyed the MP Beta on the 360. I had already gone through MOH: Airborne and finished it faster than I had Allied Assault, but the multi was incredible garbage, so I’m not really looking at plunking down a wad of cash for what might turn out to be a short experience even though it might have tight multiplayer. Now, that might have changed if there was co-op for the single player game…two black ops soldiers tackling multiple objectives, but I suppose Army of Two will have to take up that slack. Or a really ambitious mod. One thing that I want to know if it’s true is whether you can have as many players on the PC version multi as your bandwidth can allow.

Hellgate: London is another game that I was looking forward to playing. I finally had a taste of the beta in the past week and it’s definitely a lot more fun than the demo. Harvesting the dead for relics and other discarded toys to turn my character into a juggernaut of death was something I had enjoyed with the Diablo series and it’s there as well, but as I mentioned earlier, I was hoping they’d do more with it than give us the formula wrapped in 3D graphics. After grinding through it and trying out a few neat skills, I’ll have to say that I’ll pass on this one until later. Others may like it, but I’ll hold off on that one unless I really feel the need to grind through a post-apocalyptic version of London as a techno Templar.

Crysis, on the other hand, is something that I might actually pick up next month. The sci-fi story, War of Worlds medley, and its daring attachment to the real world via using North Korean soldiers as cannon fodder is something out of the norm. That, and it actually runs reasonably well at its highest settings on my rig. The suit also gives you a few options to play with. Should you go in and blow through that checkpoint or jump up the side of the mountain and get the drop on them from behind? I did that in the demo which was pretty exciting stuff. I might not be fighting a Soviet hardliner or killing dribbling hellspawn after my soul, but I did have more fun with it than with the COD4 demo. I guess I’m just in one of those moods where I want something akin to Crysis’ alien invasion with suped up nanosuits filling in for ‘roid rage and bulletproof skin.

My brother in gaming arms has also hopped onboard my blog as you’ve probably read below. With his powers of journalism, you’ll get to read up on what he’s witnessed from the dark corners of entertainment as long as it doesn’t involve being the KFC manager in R6: Vegas. Or it might. Man, I could use a Snacker right about now.

back from E for All … oh, and who the hell am I?

Greetings. The new words you are reading belong to me, known as “bensaki” on Xbox Live and in chat at www.allgames.com. The real name is Redmond. I’m a writer for the Los Angeles Newspaper Group who USED to write weekly game reviews for them, until it was decided by the higher ups a week or so ago that game reviews were a waste of time. So, here I am.

While here, I will do my best to not only review games, but also share musings and observations about stuff I see in the industry. I’m fortunate enough to still see some cool things, and I’m not one to be selfish. If you want to know more about me, hell, just find me on MySpace.

On to something more productive. I was able to check out the first two days of E for All at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The paper thought it’d be cool to check out, and I just wanted the chance to be around gamers.

OK, I’ll admit … I was a little worried about E for All when I first heard about it. No Sony, no Microsoft, rumors that the damn thing wasn’t even going to happen — is this what the next “big gaming event of the year” was supposed to be?

At least Nintendo was still coming, and there was also a playable demo of Metal Gear Solid 4 (gurgle). On this news alone, I decided I wasn’t leaving there without grabbing statue nuts or putting someone in a homoerotic CQC submission hold. Anything less would have been unacceptable.

Essentially, my first day of the show was spent getting a lay of the land and gathering quotes for my short blurb for the newspapers. My apologies for any lost punctuation … apparently it got lost in the ether of system transfer.

When I walked into the South Hall, I first thought I walked into the wrong building. That’s how sparse the crowd was at 11 a.m. I’d attribute a good part of this to the fact that only media and other pre-registered types were allowed into the hall from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. But it was still staggering to witness — no cluster of fanboys, not many cameras, not even a lot of noise. It was exciting, yet sad.

When the gates opened, people went to three places: the stages for Rock Band, the Nintendo booth, or the Konami booth to get in the MGS4 line, which was by far the biggest line of the first two days. EA also had a presence there, but it was mostly to play games like The Simpsons and The Orange Box.

My focus for Day One (other than filing my small story) was to get hands-on time with MGS4. Thanks to some aid from Kevin Kelly of Joystiq, me and one of my AGI partners in crime (producer Lawrence “Mayor” Young) were able to bypass the line. The uber-clutch PR person (Audra) didn’t hurt, either.

No vids or pics were allowed in the mini-demo space, which was decked out like a guerilla briefing room, with piece of straw or nature bits all over the floor. They sat us down on some beanbag-like, sack-covered seats that were deceptively soft-looking. They hurt.

Each seat was accompanied by headphones and a controller, which was our “ticket” into the playing area later. This part of the presentation was a video showing off some of the play mechanics, as well as the tweaked Codec system, where you could fast-forward or rewind messages. It showed off the “threat ring,” which replaced the radar system, as well as the benefits of Snake’s Octocamo suit. We got to see Snake bypass a seeing-eye tank (called a Stalker), drag some bodies around and pull out a few stealth kills.

Then came 15 minutes of play time, where we were all essentially put in the same spot as the demo video. I spent a few minutes just looking at the scenery — damn, this game looks good. However, it didn’t control as well as it looked, at least not for me. You can toggle between auto-aim and manual aim by pressing the square button and holding one of the trigger buttons. Awkward. Auto-aim was a pain in the ass, especially since every time I tried it, the camera seemed to flip to a funky angle. I felt bad for the person next to me, who seemed to keep getting discovered and then cut down in a hail of gunfire.

Overall, the experience left me with the feeling that the game was stuck in the transition to being fully 3-D. It felt a little clunky. That’s not to say I had a bad time, but I’m a fan of the series (like many others) and I expect a lot from a title that a lot of people are going to base their PS3 purchase on. I know it’s early and that you can’t judge a game on 15 minutes — but I was a little underwhelmed. Sorry.

Time is short, and sadly, I must go for now. Once I get my camera back, I’ll dress this entry up with pictures. I’ll also go into more detail about my time with Super Smash Bros. Brawl as well as Igarashi, the creator of the Castlevania series.

Until then, thanks for the welcome. I’ll try not to make a mess.

London is Burning

Played some of the Hellgate: London demo that was released on Thursday. It’s a pretty huge demo, weighing in at 1.5GB of demonslaying and dungeonbusting fun with a tutorial and a few of the side missions that you can play around with. It doesn’t end, leaving you to wander around and farm the torn up neighborhoods around Holborn station for more exp if you’re really into the combat. Two classes are available to try out, the Blademaster and the Marksman, although I was hoping that they’d give us a taste of the Cabalist classes for the spellslinger crowd.

It was pretty fun while it lasted, I just wished that there was a bit more to it than clicking and killing stuff. Now before you say “But that’s what it was supposed to be like, didn’t you know that it was from the same guys that did Diablo?”, yes, I did. I loved Diablo when it first came out along with the sequel which is why I’ve been waiting to see what they’ve done with it. And it IS a demo, so maybe my expectations were a little too high. But I guess I was hoping they’d tweak the formula to bring in more than just Diablo in 3D. While walking down the wrecked streets of London was pretty cool, a lot of what you see is just window dressing. You can’t go in and explore abandoned apartments, delve into basements burned out by hellfire, or try and get any of the vehicles working. My time with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. might be to blame. That game wasn’t as much of an action RPG like Hellgate is going to be, but it at least felt like you were exploring everything around you instead of getting the feeling that you were in a long corridor made up of streets or tunnels.

Still, I can’t deny that it was pretty fun slashing away at bloody zombies and collecting loot, so I’m still looking forward to getting the full version and in seeing what it has for the online crowd. From the snippets I’ve read scattered around the ‘net from those that were in the beta, it’s supposed to be a lot of fun.

Bloody Payback

Activision’s rolling out a new Soldier of Fortune title called “Soldier of Fortune: Payback” for the PC, PS3, and the 360 in November and there’s word out there from the various news outlets that it’s going to be, unofficially, part of their “Value” line which translates over to a game with a lower than average price. At least, that’s what you’d think. Gamestop has it priced at $39.99 for PCs but the 360 and PS3 versions are listed at $59.99. Some value.

That might change before it’s officially released, but I wouldn’t be surprised if console players were screwed over again in the price department. As for me, I might pick it up for the PC if only because I can save that $20 for other games, or even a chicken sandwich. If one thing hasn’t changed, it’s the gore thanks to the clip that Kotaku has showing the next-gen touches that the series has gone through. But I wonder if the multiplayer will be any good.

The Empire expands

So, it’s true. According to the Wall Street Journal, EA has added Bioware and Pandemic to its stable of super studios for a whopping $860 million bucks. Although being absorbed by EA has usually resulted in the kiss of identity death (see: Westwood Studios, Maxis), here’s to hoping that the Empire recognizes that these two studios have become successful thanks in a large part to their independence. I’d really hate to see Bioware’s storytelling edited by bean counters or Pandemic’s titles strained through a politically correct refit just to reach those target audiences that EA is trying to woo.

One immediate benefit that I can see to this are the deep pockets and the Tinseltown moxie that EA brings to the table with their habit of using Hollywood script doctors, musicians, and voice actors for many of their key properties, but that hasn’t been something that either studio have really had a problem with. EA’s resources could also come in handy for Bioware’s original fantasy IP, Dragon Age, or the online plans that they’re working on developing. I only hope that EA leaves behind the assembly line mentality that they have been known to subject their past acquisitions to, whether EA will decide to leave their money mitts out of the creative process that the two studios have honed into the properties that they are known for.

If Diablo had Guns…

…it might be something like Sirius Games’ Escape from Paradise City. It has a few fun moments, but the combat can be pretty boring. For one thing, after you click on a bad guy, the gunfighting has everyone just standing around while filling each other with lead, and when you search the bodies afterwards, they’re not carrying the shotguns, machetes, baseball bats, or tire irons that they were beating on you with. You also can’t steal any of the cars in the game, and it’s definitely not a third person Oblivion. The graphics aren’t bad, though.

The demo takes you through a few chapters of the game, each one starring one of the three main characters that the story is set up around, and it looks like the game will have stats you can build up, experience to earn, and skill trees. Will I get it? It has some interesting ideas, but it’s hard to watch your guy basically wage a one person war in the street when everyone looks like they can soak up more bullets than Rambo.

Another WW2 game where you’re not shooting Nazi scum

One game I’ve been keeping a watch on is Akella’s upcoming adventure game, A Stroke of Fate, which puts you in the jackboots of someone in the Third Reich that apparently has a connection to Hitler’s inner circle. No, it’s not as Tom Cruise in his film debut as Stauffenberg, and I don’t think it might be one of the other generals that wanted Der Fuhrer dead. But whoever you are, as a true “patriot of Germany”, you’ll have the chance to assassinate him in an adventure game. The last one I had played based on WW2, Wintersun, was alright but not exactly what I was hoping it could be. I’m hoping that Akella’s game could be better.

Then again, I could always wait for Operation Darkness to come out here on the States from Japan. After all, a tactical RPG that brings together panzers, resistance fighters, super soldiers, vampires, and werewolves, and giant fists summoned from the sky definitely sounds a lot more different than having another WW2 FPS on tap.

Be the Dread Pirate Roberts! Arrrrgh!

The Hollywood Reporter has a blurb about a game that will help commemorate the 20th Anniversary DVD release of “The Princess Bride” which I thought was a fun movie. A teaser will be released on disc and the game itself will be available for download. This could be interesting depending on what the gameplay is like. I mean, you could get jumping action in the Fire Swamp, clubbing goodness with the Rodents of Unusual Size, dialog puzzles with Vizzini, and dueling swords with the Six Fingered Man. And if you’re really good, you might even be able to convince Billy Crystal that you weren’t cheating at cards. You could even swap between different characters, switching to the late, great, Andre the Giant for when you need to stomp on some puny bad guys.

Then again, it could get pretty silly. Remember the button mashing that you had to do to help Snake survive when Revolver Ocelot in Metal Gear Solid tortured Snake? Someone might want to work that in for Wesley’s turn on the machine that sucks his life out, you know, just to try and give him a chance to survive. Or not.