There have been many Call of Duty games released over the years, Black Ops, Modern Warfare, World at War to name a few. With the series selling tens of millions of copies I thought it would be an educational gaming experience to visit the first game bearing the iconic title, and how it holds up by today's gaming standards.

Honestly, a copy of Call of Duty: Game of the Year Edition had actually been sitting around un-played in my home and I just decided to give it a whirl. I am not sure how long it was in my possession before I rescued it from the bottom layer of past plundered videogame booty. Knowing my buying habits, it was probably picked up for no more than 3 dollars on some thrift store excursion.

This article comes after completing the main campaign on the hardened difficulty.

Point # 1: Cheapness

A major problem that this Call of Duty has is overall cheapness. The player is bound to die many ways from unpredictable and unpreventable sources. I find that it is best in games to leave the deaths and failures due to a lack of skill or unfamiliarity, not unfairness. Call of Duty disagrees.

Like any game worth its salt, Call of Duty is programmed not to spawn enemies in front of you. This is good, as it should prevent the player's removal from emersion into the laws of the gaming world. Since this game portrays World War II as it happened, this means a basis of realism, so much that it doesn't step over good gameplay. The implementation of enemies appearing though is garbage. The game spawns enemies behind the player and in sectors previously cleared. I'm not talking about purposeful spawning, such as during backtracking in a level, and finding new enemies awaiting. This is about unexpected spawning to even a knowledgeable player on the level. As a showing of this point, on a boat level, the worst offender, the player could climb a set of stairs and if staring at the next doorway, there would be no enemy present. Stop and rewind. (Or use a save) Walking up that same set of stairs but this time turning to face the wall before the door, would result in the player coming face-to-face with an enemy punching his eyes out. Also bad is clearing out an area, trying to move forward, but now being shot in the back. How did they appear so silently and quickly? It appears that most of this ninja spawning occurs on non-linear areas. For better or worse, most of the levels are linear meaning this occurrence is contained to the few open-spaced levels, Dam, Boat Etc. Could not a better implementation have been done?

Other cheap deaths occur because the AI is incredibly good at picking out your head as you learn out for a quick view. Granted, this may have been factored in because of my playing difficulty, but that doesn't curb the frustration when an enemy solider "activates" and rushes out from behind cover machine gunning the player to death because their reaction time is devastatingly quick. There is no way that they knew I was there! Since the game has many hallways, you have to take EVERY hallway with a quick glance around the corner, or a pre-emptive grenade, to avoid damage.

What else is le cheap? Call of Duty is not a heavily scripted as the other games in the series, but the instances it is are extremely obvious. The worst of the scripting were the on-rails missions. While being ridden around, you are supposed to shoot at the enemy vehicles/infantry and stop them from busting your ride. The drive-by shooting is fine. Call of Duty's methodology for damage distribution is the bothersome portion. Sections of the driving missions can be played without a single shot, and the player will not take any damage. The enemy bullets will plink harmlessly off the vehicle or whiz overhead. On other parts of that same mission, the enemies will snipe the player with deathly precision and magnitude. Whole health bars can be reduced to slivers in seconds. The player can be crouched down hidden from viw, and the enemies show no variation in their striking.

The damage dealt during these "damaging" segments do scale up with the quantity of enemies left standing, yet it is far too difficult to kill every enemy while moving at high speeds past them. On hardened the player must be extremely selective of the targets, waiting for the enemies to disappear in a "passive" moment so you have the full clip of ammo to remove enemies in a "damaging" moment. Having to predict these moments, even dying multiple instances to be forced to play the moment again and again to learn them, is not entertaining, especially since it feels out of the player's control. Instead of epic escapes, these moments were tedious memorization shooting galleries.

Lastly, irking me a lot while completing objectives, the enemies show no remorse. It is as though the level-designers and the AI programmers didn't sort out their objectives. What do I mean? Well, there are a couple occasions where player must sit on a stationary gun emplacement and kill objective targets, usually tanks and planes. Now, these guns are slow, and are meant for their specific targets. I can attempt to kill infantry, but this is very inefficient and I will be overwhelmed quickly by their numbers. Now, I can try to clear out the infantry, before attacking the objectives but this is usually limited by two things. Either A) The enemies infinitely respawn, or B) there is a time shortage. This makes dispensing all the infantry unfeasible. With all these factors in mind, why couldn't the player have been granted some "passive" enemy shots that plink harmlessly? I ask because I died trying to do what the game was telling me to do. The parts are not impossible, as I passed them, but the level of annoyance to pass them far exceeds the reasons for playing them. Thanks to the increasing maturation of gaming, all of the points made up to now have been addressed in more recent offerings from Call of Duty, as well as general gaming.

Point # 2: Graphics

Call of Duty is both blessed and cursed with a long draw distance. This allows for seeing the MG42 firing on the advancing German forces, or the fallschirmjagers protecting a mansion in the evening. This same draw distance affirms the plainness of the levels. Absorb the wide-open landscape of barrenness. The remote tundra of blocks, and the fine blocky architectural marvel of Europe. The Quake III engine was never that great at doing environments. Walls and floors are made primarily out of blocks or curved splines, with some diagonals cut out for flexibility. Such fundamentals result in levels that are noticeably blocky, and so Call of Duty has blocky environments.

To alleviate this visible shortcoming, the Call of Duty developers have added many texture details such as pictures, boxes and rubble, which help to liven up the landscapes. Less blocky models imported into the engine such as trees, characters and ergonomic objects further even out the scene. Some indoor settings will look almost up-to-date graphically, a compliment to the capabilities of the game/developer for the gaming generation. There were times when I also stopped to enjoy the fine texture-work, such as the cobblestones of a building, or a fallen German's paper, of which I could make out the portrait. Sadly, I try to do the same the Rage demo for the PS3 and I find a blurry mess. Are graphics really improving over time? the Rage demo's blurriness could be viewed from quite a distance away, but in Call of Duty I usually had to plug my nose against a surface to see the blur at a resolution of 1680x1050.

Character models were another highlight in the graphics sector. Friend and doe alike would blink and visible breath in and out as they awaited their next motion. They would also react to shots fired by flinching, recovering, and returning fire in smooth motions, having enough animations to keep the enemies interesting. Now some of these animations are a little awkward. I still can't accept the running while couched animation to be natural. It looks like they are hobbling to their destination without functioning knees. Animations also move too fast to be considered possible by a real human. Despite its age, the graphics in Call of Duty are strong enough that you can still hate on the Wii graphics in peace.

Point # 3: Story, what story?

If I had to make a direct comparison of Call of Duty's story to any of the later Call of Duty games, the closest would be Modern Warfare 2. Both games suffer from a severe lack of a clear guided story. In the case of Call of Duty, I could piece the setting with what I knew about World War II history, but that alone doesn't make game compelling. The game includes a few reoccurring named characters which carry along from mission to mission, but most of the soldiers are generic clones. As an interesting design choice, pointing the crosshair at one of these friendly soldiers gives a name and rank, that's color represents health quantity. These names do not make me feel any closer to these characters who disappear or die as easily as I spotted them. In a real military company I would have a moment to ask fellow recruits where they were from, a hobby of theirs, or even just learn their nervous tick. These attributes are what made the movie Saving Private Ryan good, getting to know the characters. You won't find that in this game.

As a demonstration of the failed storytelling, I will now give a SPOILER induced demonstration. After the rescue of Captain Price from a prison, rocking an even more British sounding voice than in later games, we join him on the raid of a German frigate. He is wounded and we are told to go on without him. Upon rallying back at our escape craft, the pilot shouts, "We lost the Captain?". Did the mantra "Show Don't Tell", mean anything to the developers? Captain Price was one of the few characters that received more than three missions worth of screen time, and he was offed as easily as a Star Trek redshirt. What were the particulars of his death? Did he go out guns blazing or succumb to his earlier wounds? This wasn't even a pivotal moment where he may not be truely dead but the player tells the pilot he is, then the player must weight the chosen sacrifice the rest of the game. Without a chance to cash in on the emotional investments, I just stopped caring about what happened on any of the missions. Instead of the game's narrative being fed to the player, the "story" are just the general themes about war based on the perspectives given rather than some overarching plotline.

Building on the poorly constructed story, also just like Modern Warfare 2, the developers chose scenarios that would appear as epic as possible without always constructing the scenario logically to it. One mission might be on a dam, another on a boat, one in a tank, another raiding a prison. These missions are varied but what holds them together is a short pre-mission text. Since the player has to read, yes reading in a Call of Duty game, there is a slowdown of the pacing. Unacceptable! Furthermore, I hardly ever had to look at the objectives list the levels were so linear. I would usually just stumble forward, following allies, until I came to something to blow up or orders were yelled at me. Each level was the same, keep moving forward. The Russian campaign did this better, since the Russians had a known destination they were fighting to, Berlin. The Russian push was also the most dramatic with the scale of the explosions and quantity of allies around the player, but even then, I didn't feel invested. For the American and British campaign, there was little connection between most of the levels except the end of one level might begin the next segment. Even then, those level segment connections only barely explained more than three missions worth of why anything was happening. Even the final American mission did nothing to tie up any apparent story better than any of the ones before. Blow up a V2? Sure why not. Yay, the war is over!

Point # 4: AI and General Gameplay

Breaching a building with comrades beside the player is a thrilling experience and any of the levels where the AI supports the player creates a dynamic battlefield where Call of Duty shines. These allies point out targets and draw the enemy fire to give a chance to strategize and pick targets of interest. When the game is reduced back to a solo-navigating experience the game limps back to mundane standard shooter mechanics. The AI in general is good but with noticeable quirks. One of these quirks is how friendly soldiers will throw grenades with abandon, killing themselves and allies. Their attempts to get out of the way of grenades are also laughable, and nearly always fatal. When it comes to gunplay, the AI is much better. The AI will pop out from behind boxes and corners to take fire. If the player tries to fire on an enemy soldier and misses, the soldier will realistically take cover. This suppression tactic is especially important on some of the later missions indoors, where spraying bullets allows the player and allies to advance. Only one level in the single player acknowledges that suppression works, but it is programmed on all the levels, and is delightful to see being used in unscripted engagements. The AI is also knowledgeable enough to re-man empty machine gun emplacements. For the enemy this isn't so good, since I knowingly waited till they re-maned and then sniped them off as easily as the first guy. However, focusing on other targets and then being fired upon by a previously cleared emplacement keeps the player on their toes to a changing combat zone.

I've already gone through some of the faults of the AI in the cheapness point, so I won't go into detail again about it. Just be reminded that the AI appears out of nothingness to strike the player down, are placed in every hallway to much fatigue, and have insane accuracy.

Most of the gameplay can probably be garnered from what has been previously mentioned, though I wish to call out a special portion of the game that stood out. I'm referring to the Russian tank missions. In this only driving segment, the player commands a Russian T-34 as it kaputs Panzer IVs and mows infantry to their arrowless kneecaps. What made these moments so memorable was the destructibility permitted, drive over trees and they collapse. Shoot at infantry in a building and parts of the building blow off. Not since Battle Tanx had I been allowed such Tank devastation and that was a game especially emphasizing tanks. Comparing to other FPS, I likened the experience to Bad Company, which was still many years from existence. I was glad that when running into a tree the tank/vehicle didn't just stop like Battlefield 2 and other classic first person shooters.

Point #5: Multiplayer

The pacing of Call of Duty's multiplayer is of Quake status and ferocity. There are no perks available, and no World at War style vehicles. Instead, all the soldiers choose from a common set of weapons and duke it out. The kill cam that has become a status quo in all the other Call of Duty games makes its appearance to good results. Since all the equipment comes standard, a couple mechanics make multiplayer interesting. Firstly, there are no claymores as Modern Warfare fans would be aware of, but grenades can be rigged as booby-traps. By sacrificing the ability to throw them, grenades can be attached to the ground, or the wall protecting the flank. Another feature allows bodies to be searched to find replacement equipment, but players don't know what will be found until the search is complete. Scavenging these bodies is generally a waste of time since fallen weapons can be found in great supply on the ground. Lastly, and this took me by surprise, you can shoot people's heads off. The first time I saw it I was shocked, wait…is that a head? Yes, it is Jimmy, that is a man's head. People's heads will pop off if you get a head shot. Considering this effect doesn't even appear in the single player, I found it to be a very unusual choice. It is a bit cartoony to see the heads come off so cleanly, but I appreciate that the developers did not shy away from including due to possible rating. I don't recall any of the other Call of Duties including this cosmetic feature. Why wasn't it in single-player though?

In its classic status Call of Duty should be looked at much differently from modern cinematic shooters. Don't come looking for a well-told story with memorable characters. Instead, if you enjoyed the old arcade feel of gaming with room after room of enemies to slough through than this is the game for you. Just be sure to stick around your allies and keep them alive. Don't find yourself taking the enemies alone and you should have a good time.

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by Zott820

Skyrim is one of those games where everyone loves it because the world is huge, objects can be interacted with, people say strange things and there are like infinite quests and things to do in the world. For my first 15 hours in Skyrim, I decided to take some in-game screenshots when I noticed nice graphics, unique glitches and epic moments. Yes I know 15 hours is nothing compared to some people, I've been really busy recently. The screenshots are native 1440 x 900 recorded on High graphics settings; I've changed the default .bmp to JPEG be more web friendly:

Potential Game Beginning SPOILERS, really nothing revealed in my screenshots though. No dragons yet since I hear they like to fly backwards after the patch and I decided to not let them out into my world yet. The screenshots numbers indicate progression through the game so screenshot 2 is the start of the game while screenshot 50 is me raiding a random dungeon. Behold 52 screenshots for your viewing pleasure.

Notice I like to put objects on people's heads. I also like to use pies when I find them to either channel enchanting or just have royalty sleep with them in their bed. No matter what I do, I'm always ready to Print Screen when the time is right.

What's your favorite in-game screenshot you've taken from Skyrim?

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by BlueZero

So anyway Capcom is still doing what they do best: mooching for money with cheap DLC costumes and should-have-been-in-the-game add-ons. That's not why I am writing this post though. Capcom has managed to finally take Phoenix Wright out of the courtroom and put him onto the street. He is a new character for the much expected Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 After the break, see his unique fighting style in in action:

Now I now some people think this is the fake video, though they are wrong since it captures Mr. Wright perfectly. Look at all his acrobatic skills with the spinning and flipping. Never underestimate the power of the Giant Phoenix Finger. Who can forget back-to-back OBJECTIONs at 1:38 in the video followed by a victory coffee break.

Official Video

Now for you folks who want the real video, here it is in all it's splendor (make sure to toggle that 720p) :

You do realize two defense attorneys are battling each other over a single client. Phoenix Wright really should be doing his Lvl 3 Hyper Combo against She-Hulk instead of Doctor Doom.

Phoenix Wright may be able to almost break the 4th wall like Deadpool though I know She-Hulk is already top-tier and has much more functional stun moves. Just imagine She-Hulk doing her anti-air Hyper combo and whipping Phoenix around in the air. I hope Capcom includes a coffee drinking taunt for Phoenix which also does damage so he can KO She-Hulk with that move.

Phoenix plays a lot differently than other fighters in that he needs to search for three pieces of evidence in order to do his final hyper. He has the option of throwing away "bad" evidence and there are two modes for Phoenix. There is the evidence mode and the courtroom mode, each with their own moves.

From a gameplay standpoint, Phoenix appears to be too difficult to use when compared with Nemesis who just does tons of damage to people with simple combos. Phoenix Wright's best move I can see is the Objection Finger, though he can only use it when he has three pieces of evidence and it has a countdown timer. Otherwise, I would be spamming "I will submit the evidence" as much as I could as well as whatever his blue projectile is supposed to be.

It's obvious I'll be playing Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 just for these new characters. It's still a huge travesty Capcom has the guile (heh) to still charge for Jill and Shuma-Gorath as DLC characters when there is no reason to not include them with this really unnecessary expansion game. Next I'll be expecting to see Super Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 next February since the original game came out then.

*Images from the Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom site.

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by BlueZero

Medal of Honor was an attempt by EA to reinvigorate its Medal of Honor franchise by moving the timeline to the modern day and one-upping that, surrounding its story to the still present context of the war in the Middle East. EA went as far as marketing the game around the experience of actual Tier 1 combatants. However, amongst its marketing for realism, Medal of Honor doesn't quite provide the realism nor the fun I was hoping from the game. Luckily, depending on perspective, the game is short and can be completed in one or two sittings. As a bonus, Tier 1 mode takes the campaign, and chooses slices to turn into a time trial mode for those who wish to get a little bit extra out of the solo-experience.

The genre follows standard first person action procedures, but unfortunately, it appears to be using the standard from years back. By this, the game is heavily, in fact 100%, linear and most actions of the game are scripted in precisely. A wandering soul will find many invisible walls, and worse, invisible gunfire. If I tried to progress too far I would be gunned down nearly instantly, even if the enemies were not in sight and I was behind a barrier. Not to stop at gentle guidance, sometimes the scripting would fail (Horrible in a solidly scripted experience), allowing progress far beyond the commentary of allies, or failing to work at all. One instance I was supposed to hide and use stealth, but I was constantly being detected despite many reloads and efforts to follow my ally's instructions exactly.

The game pulls a Call of Duty approach to the narrative, switching between combatants in the war. I must say that the transitions between characters were very smooth, and unlike Call of Duty, do not constantly fly up to an overhead map between each plot line. One transition pops the player from a squad under fire, to the sniper covering them in the hilltops. The various stories are all interlinked, and while some let you escape ground combat by AC-130 bombing, or helicopter runs, all were quite shallow.

For a game with realism in its advertising, I was hoping for paralyzing moral struggles and heavy character development. How about a heavily populated village where you have to avoid collateral damage? How about the hesitation of shooting young teenage soldiers? I only recall about one situation in the story that bothered to approach something other than tension, and it was a polemic to unknowingly bomb some allies. All the other time it was about senseless killing. Perhaps I was supposed to pepper the game with my own morals, being a United States citizen and knowing of the atrocities committed to my home nation, but since the game is linear to a T, I can't even decide to go AWOL or sacrifice a squad member to save another. Worse still, you don't even have to follow the orders of your commanders. While the dialogue may go through the process of getting clearance to fire, you can go ahead and kill people regardless. Nobody debunks you for jumping the gun, which I felt just removes more from the military discipline that game is trying to craft.

Even it comes to describing the parts the player has control over, it too is lacking. I wouldn't choose this game for its single-player shootouts, for which did not depend on skill or technique to surpass. You either just kill all the enemies, or you kill the "special" scripted danger enemies to advance the scene. There are no tactics, and the enemies will either pop endlessly behind rocks, or rush blindly towards their scripted positions. It was times I was out of control of the characters that the game was told best. Had this have been a movie, it may have gotten superior reviews from me, but instead the lulls of the firefights actually cut out the excitement of the cinematic. Having to be revived is a punishment and not a learning experience, one mode space between the next cutscene and me. At least when death does come Medal of Honor has a very short loading time upon first load and reload after death. Why can't more games work this way?

My favorite of the non-interactive sequences would have to be near the game's end. A helicopter comes under fire and all the garrisoned troopers were thrown like they were in a child's Popper Push Toy. This was real. This was something I felt was rarely told and I wanted to experience more. The game's ending was also quite refreshing with a somber attitude and cinematography. Just following it was an exigent final text too forceful for the game it followed.

To wash the flavor of the gunplay out of my mouth, let's talk graphics and sound. The guns and sounds are great. Pow Pow! "Enemy down!" you hear from a nearby squad member, reacting to your combat, while explosions ring out. As you return fire with your rifle, the sounds differ from scoped and no-scoped situations. Voices are of high quality and acting but the effect of the character speaking both next to you and though the mic is jarring. Who is speaking to me? Still, there are many speaking lines as your fellow soldiers chatter, shout out targets and orders. If you are taking heavy fire, they will warn you to take cover. There is a lot of military lingo going on, which helps set up the setting, and is well done overall. Accompanying all these moments are a soundtrack or ambience that is suitable for the situation but will occasionally become too noticeable outside the cutscenes.

Graphics should be better considering the linear-ness and not having to provide a large battleground to render. Some trees are 2D, and not in the sense of being far off and unnoticeable. Rocks and scenery are there for cover and not decoration. Some cover is destroyable under fire, a nice touch, but the specificity ruins the advantage of just hounding fire on a position to flush an enemy out. When it comes to those cowering behind the rocks, we find that the character models look detailed, especially the beard rendering on the soldiers. Following those stone runners as they flee, when you fire on an enemy they have a very clean transition to flinch animation whether they are running, standing or couching. Medal of Honor did this one thing better than others. When I shoot enemies, I should not know if they are dead or not immediately. I should treat the enemy as though they are still alive. Soldiers would fall over and then gradually rise to their feet again to fight back. With lead now scratching bone, they limped, wounded and slow. Disappointingly, the game opts to have soldiers "Goldeneye" their weapons, dropping them to the ground when they die. Had the player needed to rip them from the foe's dead hands, this caution of survival would have been greater.

Enemies also appear to have suppression fire animation. I hadn't seen this before from other games, but it seemed that if I fired on enemy positions when their heads were out, they would visibly cringe and try to dodge. It could have been my imagination, trying to add more to the game than actually exists however. I didn't seem to notice this happening if the enemy was running around as I fired upon them. (Except for the hit animations discussed moments ago.)

Who should play Medal of Honor? Those who enjoyed the senseless shooter. The game that leads them from point A to point B with interesting snippets of uncontrollable visuals to mix it up. If you don't want a thinking game, then Medal of Honor is for you. For some this is fine. Take a couple hours to relax and just shoot up some enemies, get the anger out. May I recommend spamming the knife button as many times as possible? Its rapid stabsure fit my pallet. If you do want something more deep, perhaps Multiplayer is the answer.

Multiplayer:

Initially I hated the multiplayer. Just hated it. I died a lot, and it didn't seem believe it could be fun at all. Comparatively, it reminded me much of Counter Strike, which is not a fan favorite for me. I persevered and here's what I found: You have to slow down. Call of Duty has success with running around and having confrontational battles from 2 ft away from the person. Medal of Honor is about the long range, the covering from point to point as you move and go in for the kill.

Take, for example, the assault class. It is provided with a smoke grenade. Now smoke grenades are very under-utilized in shooters, but in Medal of Honor, it is a powerful asset. Why? Because there is no reaction time for dodging. Pop in the enemy's iron sight and pop, you are dead. Due to bullets still flying, so might be the enemy. The trick then is to engage from proper angles and cover. Throw a smoke grenade, run to new cover and engage and unknowing antagonists from afar. Doing this correctly feels quite rewarding, as you were able to outwit the human enemy.

Nevertheless, this is also what Medal of Honor gets wrong. The maps are too cramped, so maneuvering around the enemy is very limited. The game also throws too many enemies on the map. The best games are those that have fewer than 24 players, and are on maps with lots of cover to move between. Also, teamwork, which would seem vital to this type of game, appears non-existent. Your friends would run out to die and then so would the next guy since you can't easily warn them of the dangers ahead.

The game also commits another misstep by flipping spawns on deathmatch maps, but makes timing predictable. The enemy spawns on the side opposite the majority of the team. This does two things. First, it allows teammates and enemies to spawn camp as long as the rest of the team is elsewhere. Additionally, it spawns enemies behind your team as you advance into enemy territory. You might think you have cleared an area only to be shot in the back. If there were rounds where the spawns changed sides only once, or completely random spawns, these problems would have been better.

There is also a (1/3) fun Combat Mission mode where one team has to defend an objective, and the other tries to destroy or capture it. What makes this mode great is the rush to plant the bombs uninterrupted after a successful assault or the rush to wipe people off the point ASAP. The level of death and ease of killing fits better with the maps in this mode. Sadly, all but Airfield Assault are horribly cramped and camp-havens, making them not quite rated for fun. Even with the good map, these attack-defense games are not suitable for low tallies of players due to the ticket counter not adjusting for player count. The large tickets available for just a few attackers give them a better chance of pulling off their objective than the meat-grinder of an entire army faltering.

With all that advice, find yourself a nice control-point game with about 12 players total and you should have a great time leveling up the three distinct classes. Both Assault and Special Ops are similar with varying side weaponry that makes them good for situations like crowd control or anti-tank. Sniper is the most diverse, but also probably the hardest, except on large maps where it is unnaturally cheap.

Racking up a set amount of points yields a bonus power, either team-based or offensively oriented. The team-actions are very subtle, with flak jackets seemingly adding nothing, and match ammo taking the enemy out with perhaps one fewer bullet. Offensive actions allow the calling down of mortar strikes and missiles on specific positions. All of these powers while devastating if used correctly don't really change the flow due to the game's short respawn timer.

One neat surprise the multiplayer takes towards realism over the single player is by killing the player for jumping off even a one-story height. Novice players will be taken aback by this, and yet it feels ok over time. Light tanks are also severely limited in power and can be dispatched easily, glass cannons of the game. Yet, even with the attempts towards realism, the game keeps the regenerating health. Coupled with the 1-4 bullet kill, and even double-KOs from still-flying bullets, the heath recovery only serves to prep you for the next fight and is fine in the multiplayer environment. Voices from the single-player remain, and now serve extra tactically. Take note of your own language, for as the enemy reloads, he may announce it to his teammates, just in time for you to identify his position and seal his blunder with lead. (Or maybe an airstrike)

Graphically, the multiplayer segment seems stronger than the single-player offerings. This may be due to the multiplayer using a different graphics engine, though I'd imagine the assets should be the same. The landscape appears more detailed, with littered debris around and objects to interact with. Also, noting the graphics being dull colors, it is surprisingly easy to identify foe from team-mate, which is mandatory for this game, where twitch action does matter.

Multiplayer has more life to it. There are levels to advance, allowing more weaponry choices, and an alternative skin for high-level players. Level and weapons largely make little impact, and your success in the multiplayer will depend on how well you can react to forces, and pick them out of the environment. If you are looking for a counter-strike experience with different game-types and setting Medal of Honor may be what you are looking for.

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by Zott820

Every once in a while, Generation Y looks back on their childhood and remembers how Pokemon defined it. Then after a nostalgia overload, they will do one of three things.

• One: Continue looking for a job.
• Two: Play the newest Pokemon games and complain how it was so much better with 151/251.
• Three: Continue to live in a fantasy world in their mid-twenties and create an awesome Pokemon video.

My friends, we have a number three on our hands:

This (NSFW due to lyrics?) video does a decent job interpreting Pokemon meets underground fighting. Just look at everyone fighting for the top 1 million pokedollars.

I had to laugh when Team Rocket said they were there for Pikachu and Ash said, "He's mine." I guess Ash is just as blind as Brock. James knows how to hold his gun gangster style while Ash really doesn't care. I'll give big props to Misty for "I catch them all like disease on a pornstar" and for Brock keeping his eyes closed and "Ladies pretty, I go dumb."

Who else thinks the plot is actually really plausible in the world of Saints Row meets Pokemon?

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by BlueZero

Without a doubt, there are so many games coming out at the end of this year. Here is my list of all the games I want to play this holiday, but won't have the time due to being busy. What games are you guys most excited about this year?

They are in order of release:

Gears of War 3: September 20th

Yes I want to play the new Gears of War game since I have played the previous two and they were enjoyable. I haven't been keeping up-to-date on the latest news; the last thing I remember hearing is there are now female Gears.

If I had to improve on the expected gameplay, there needs to be special moves added for Hoard mode. Who doesn't want to see character specific moves like Coletrain spiking a grenade into an enemy, passing an enemies head to another player or jumping aboard his train ala Egoraptor's Gears of Awesome. I want the game to realize it can't take its self and plot serious when Marcus and Co. can just brush off bullet holes with a revive.

Resident Evil 4 HD: September 20
Yes, as one of the biggest RE4 fanboys, this is one of those games which I have to mention, even though I most likely won't play it. I've played it enough, the HD doesn't look "HD" to me and going back and playing it after Resident Evil 5 makes me miss the "Straight" action command. Priced at I believe $10 on both XBLA and PSN, this is a good value for the 4 people who haven't played the game.

Batman: Arkham City: October 18
I really enjoyed Arkham Asylum and from my E3 behind closed doors demo, I will be playing this game. Since I have some notes written down from E3, I should save them for an actual dedicated post. Fun fact: Did you know Nolan North is voicing the Penguin? It's like for once he is actually a voice actor instead of Nathan Drake.

Battlefield 3: October 25
The big kahuna returns. The Battlefield series has always done FPS multiplayer better than Call of Duty. I'm hoping the game will be more balanced and require more skill than the classic grenade spamming. I have big questions requiring big answers. Are jets returning? Will the Medic class still be godly? Is there still a Commander, team punishing and the ability to drop jeeps?

A quick synopsis of Battlefield 2 for people who didn't play: Battlefield 2 has/had overpowered jets which could literally do everything in the game because the people driving the jets were incredible. Want to take down another jet? Nah, I want to snipe infantry on the ground with the miniguns. Could you provide cover while I capture the point? Nope, I've got it covered while I hover in my jet and capture the point for my team. Enemy tank? Of course not, you just dropped your payload two seconds ago and have already boosted back to base to refill ammo and now are spawn camping the enemy base.

Console versions? Never going to sacrifice 32v32 battles, graphics and large multiplayer maps.

Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception November 1
This is another game where I intentionally avoid most trailers and plot points so the game will be fresh. The plot can be so out there I won't mind. Here's my very believable plot from the first two games as well as a possible forth game detailing the early years of Nathan Drake as a circus performer:

I trust Naughty Dog so much I would buy Uncharted 4: Clown Circus Adventure without hesitation or Drake's fear of clowns. Perhaps in my game the truth that Nathan Drake is a robot/cyborg will be revealed; Drake 1.0 was created and raised for the circus trapeze act and general acrobatics. After one close call involving the circus clown's juggling interfering with his trapeze work, Drake fell 5 stories and managed to hang on to the edge of the circus tent support. Thus Drake realized his acrobatic feats were beyond human and he left the circus to test the limits of his mortality. But not before fighting multiple clown bosses and becoming Donut Drake, the worlds fattest acrobat.

Now you understand how Drake is able to jump upward more than his own height while hanging on to a ledge the width of a piano key. My story also explains the glaring flaw of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves of how Drake was able to do so much climbing on frozen ice surfaces. He was wearing no gloves and his hands should have been extremely number and useless. At least in Tibet, Drake met Tenzin, another cyborg like him.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3: November 8
I got to play it since it's Modern Warfare 3. I have low expectations for the single player game. I assume more nukes are going to go off and all the characters you play as will die at some point in the game. I'm still disappointed all the cool people left Infinity Ward and created Respawn Entertainment.

The multiplayer is the reason why people will play the game more than 6 hours. I'm pessimistic because in every Infinity Ward Call of Duty game there are unbalanced aspects. Call of Duty 2: Bolt-action guns, Gewehr 43 and laggy smoke. Call of Duty 4: MP5, P90, M16, M4, RPD, grenade launcher, half-second scope sniper technique gun, martyrdom. There are so many in Modern Warfare 2: All explosives (mm grenade launcher), RDP (again), Dual 1887 shotguns (pre-patch), Commando, Commando, Commando, ONE MAN ARMY! Also the Domination mode turned into "Get the Nuke first"

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim November 11
Not much to say here except it's Elder Scrolls, the game with infinite replay and mod-ability (on PC). This is a must buy for the choir songtrack and the ability to take on dragons. I want to same story and enviroment quality of Morrowind, the better combat of Oblivion without its stupid enemy auto leveling system. I have no hesitation of dropping my $60 for the PC version even though PC games should be $50.

Assassin's Creed: Revelations: November 15
So many questions I need answered. Why did so-and-so die, is there alien magic at work and will Desmond ever climb the future New York buildings and jump into a small haystack? Maybe the Templars learned to always put traps in hay piles or they just made all hay instinct with science.

So Enzio is going to be doing his own animus thing to explore Altair's past. Gentlemen, we have entered an Inception type moment where Desmond exploring Ezio's history of Ezio exploring Altair's history. My body is ready.

Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary: November 15
I demand to know how the developers are going to handle the health system. Are they going to stay accurate to healthpacks or are they going to pretend Halo 2's shields were always there? I know some of my friends are going to get it so I look forward to reliving the fun of the first Halo with a lot of multiplayer tinkering.

Saints Row: The Third: November 15
My most wanted game of this year, possibly even more than Skyrim and Battlefield 3. The pre-order trailer with Professor Genki was the icing on the cake (even though the pre-order stuff should be in the game originally…)

We now return to "Battling Seizure Robots"

The gameplay of Saints Row 2 was soooo much fun and I loved the humor which was a throwback to Rockstar's GTA humorous undertones. Saints Row 2 was the game GTA 4 should have been. Extreme customization, better combat, better driving, helicopters, silly minigames, gang recruiting and an overpowered pimp cane shotgun. Plus they had Michael Dorn, the voice of Worf from Star Trek, play the leader of the Brotherhood.

For Saints Row: The Third, I was sold in a matter of about 10 seconds when Volition showed off their first gameplay demo and the character stylishly just beat up a random pedestrian.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword: November 20
It's Zelda and it explains what happens before Ocarina of Time. Nintendo totally explains the wings on the logo and other things. My guess is Ganon is able to crash the sky realm into the place we now know as Hyrule. Err, it's a console Zelda, I'll play it eventually. I'll probably wait a long time before I play it since it's surprisingly low on my list of games to play and it is also coming out too close to Thanksgiving where I will already have so many other AAA games to play.

After such a large wall of text, I am interested to know which games you are looking forward to this year and early 2012. Let me know in the comments.

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by BlueZero

Bulletstorm is a first person shooter, mashing a point earning system into the killing of enemies. I had low expectations from the game even though other reviews had crafted favorable impressions. The feeling I could not shake was that any game made by Epic was going to be another Unreal Tournament or Gears of War clone, and I had little interest in such things. To my utter surprise, the game led me to movements of genuine glee and amazement. Perhaps the setpieces were crafted just right or the character's consistent dick jokes wore me down, but I grew an attraction to the game.

The game has a couple modes. There is a single player campaign which follows Grayson Hunt and troope as they lead countless innocents to death, countless enemies to slaughter and revenge at every possible moment.

Echos takes single player levels, breaks them down into chewable bits and makes a fine Call of Duty-Esque Time Trial/Operations mode.

Anarchy is the multiplayer component, though a solo version is available. The player and buddies fight in close combat against spawning enemies. Netting the proper skillpoints rewards the player with progression into the next round.

The following shall be a list of the best and worst of the game summarized in list form. Items to the beginning of the list are more of a benefit or nuisance depending on which list they belong

The Best:

1. Points Points Points: This game revolves around killing the enemy in absurd and original ways accompanied by equally absurd taglines. Games have been rewarding points for the killing of enemies for ages, from way back in the NES era and before. What makes Bulletstorm fresh is that it rewards the points not only for just killing enemies but the finesse of the kill. Similar to Madworld, kills earn points through the method of mutilation, but differs in that Bulletstorm doesn't give combos based on kills/time. Instead the game awards more skillpoints for original kills, rather than repetition. I felt this was superior because it didn't force me to try and rush to the next kill as soon as possible to keep the combo up. Instead there was a strategy to lining the enemy next to hazardous objects in return for a more profitable kill. There are over 125 skillshots, the game's identifier for the means of murder. More difficult to achieve kills are awarded with more skillpoints. There are general skillshots available at any time, and there are those that are specific for weapons of mass destruction. This was a strong design choice coupled with the unique bonuses for fresh skillshots. It makes players want to try out every weapon, and experiment with killing the enemy different ways. I often consulted the in-game guide that lists the skillshots so that I might unlock them all. This is a game you can enjoy to play rather than rush through the rooms and stages as fast as possible to clear the next room.

2. Outrageous Zany Fun: The game throws in the whole kitchen sink when it comes to action. At one point your characters outrun a giant wheel while on a train. That's right, one of the bosses is a wheel, a giant. rolling. wheel. If I haven't won you over with that awesomeness yet, have I mentioned you get to pilot a robot dinosaur? How about drunk fighting? No? Drunk fighting in a disco? Monorails, helicopters exploding, and a zombie-enemy type! The game even knows what it is. One part has a setup for a boss battle, hinting of it over and over and over again. When the enemy appears, it dies on its own, no action required. At this point it is should clear that the game did not grow stale in its offerings even if the game is just about killing enemies at heart.

3. Weapons of Mayham: There's no hiding it that the weapons in Bulletstorm are overpowered. THAT is in comparison to any other shooter out there. But Bulletstorm can get away with it precisely due to the design element mentoned. You don't just want to kill the enemies, you want to specialize in the weapon, and because of how powerful each weapon is, you can still enjoy harnessing exploding bombs and 2-hit kill magnums with glee. Luckily the game's weapons are not so unbalanced in that you won't be able to pull of the tricks on still breathing bodies, but enough that if you wanted too, and there's an achievement for it, you could just run and gun your way through the levels easily. The weapons themselves are varied and feature alternative fire that usually takes the base feature of the gun and adds Michael Bay explosions to it: Exploding sniper rounds, bouncing bombs, explosive flares, and the occasional liquefy effect. I had a special spot (In the heads of the enemy) for the sniper weapon as you could guide it towards targets ala the movie Wanted. Heck, the gravity defiance was so much that sniper bullets could almost pull 90° turns around the chosen target.

4. Slick Controls: For a console/gamepad game, and especially for a shooter, I found the controls to be incredibly precise. I never struggled with want I wanted to do that was control based. There is natural lock-on as you aim towards enemies, but this was soft enough to permit headshots and specific body parts being targeted on the fly.

5. Piss Boot-licking Dick Llama: The dialogue in the game is just as outrageous as some of the levels. I've heard "Dick" more times in this game than any other. Its vulgarity borders on satire though. What the characters attempt to speak as insult comes out as an overly grandiose way of saying "You Suck". I'm not a big fan of games with swearing in them, feeling them unnecessary, but this game's blatant overuse of them and in such non-seriousness made it entertaining to listen too. I don't think it quite takes the cake from Mafia II in terms of overall swears, but it sure took a shot at that game. In this vein it once again echos Duke Nukem, and makes a suitable replacement for successor. If you don't know what to say, add more Dick. Here's a flowchart for what the developers used to design most of the insults.

Past the kitsch swearing, the overall creativity and wittiness of the dialogue was strong. Sure most involved the most commonly referenced bodily organs in comedy, but it felt fresh through the whole game with plenty of commentary on most of the game's happenings.

6. Time distorting fun: I have to call out this one feature for being innovative. Leashing, booting or sliding into an enemy will result in them flying into the air. Now normally in any other game the gravity would pull them back down to the planet following proper kinematic formulas. However in Bulletstorm, the enemies glow with a blue hue and will float for about 2 seconds in the air. What purpose could this defiance of Newton possibly give? Reaction time. The player now has the opportunity to line up enemies for special skillshots, enemy bowling, juggling and more. The effect isn't quite like the gravity gun in Half Life 2 however, the one downside. You can't grab any object, just make them hover in front of you momentarily. If you leash a far off explosive container, it will fly towards you and slow down in front of you, but you can't hold it there. So you have to work fast! The advantage is a strong one, but its advantage keeps you on your toes.

7. Le Boot and Leash: Some individuals on the interweb drew the connection between the Duke Nukem inspiration of the boot from Duke Nukem 3D. Others christened that Bulletstorm was the superior Duke Nukem Forever, with equally crass humor, but with the fabled Duke Boot (absent from Forever), to back it up. Without playing enough Duke Nukem, I won't argue except booting the enemies of Bulletstorm was fun and rewarding as I smashed their bodies into cactus neetles. Besides Mr. Boot, Grayson Hunt is also equipped with a leash, a device allowing mild gravity manipulation. Leash enemies to pull them towards the player, boot them push them away. Grayson Hunt also features a power slide, which works much like you'd expect, slide on the ground towards the enemy to trip them. The trippy part was not the sliding, but just how fast you go. It's like the player has wheels on their butt, moving incredibly fast, but also very maneuverable, zipping around corners with ease. Sliding was my preferred travel method through open areas. Vrooom!

8. Sensational Environments: Bulletstorm has beautiful environments. I say that sincerely. Arriving in new environments, the developers often perch the player on cliffs overlooking expanses of land which the player will be exploring later. The views are immense and detailed, and since the gameplay will likely take you to those places, it isn't just for show, but preparing you mentally for the journey ahead.

9. Collectables Suckas: Bulletstorm has functional collectables, not just wall ornaments. What is meant by functional? Think about Battlefield Bad company 2 and its gold bars or communication stations that you collected, did they do anything? No. They had really no point in the game at all. Bulletstorm has three primary collectables, electric-flies, Coffe…Beer, and news robots. Electric-flies will kill enemies that you can throw into them, and better yet, they are a little hunting/accuracy minigame as each fly killed in the swarm yields slightly more skillpoints until the whole swarm is finished off. Destroying them all in the game yields a trophy/achievement, though that, ala gold bars, are not the carrot to killing them. The beer also results in skillpoints, but in a different manner. Blast the bottle and net a boring 100 skillpoints. But consume the bottle and you have a drunken-murder simulator that seems to be oh-so prevalent in the news these days. Your drunken rage nets the skillshot "intoxicated" and moves Hunt wobbly through the levels. And the Newsbots? They felt like homages to the cleaning robot from Time Splitters: Future Perfect, but besides that they were explosive little chatterboxes. Collecting these collectables is no onus, but something you WANT to do, because it is fun, and that is the strongest point there is to make.

10. Bitchin' Theme Song: The first time I got the game I popped in the game disk and left the room to tend to something of a non-videogame nature. About 10 minutes later I heard noise. A noise I could not identify that sounded like choir music. But no, what was it? It was very triumphant and enchanting I moved close and closer to its origin until I discovered it was Bulletstorm's main menu theme. I stopped immediately what I was doing elsewhere and moved to play the game. That's right, the main menu music immediately drew at least 3 hours of gameplay out of me. If only the music can do that, then you know it has hit its mark.. In fact, hopefully you listened to the theme that I placed at the top of the article and it convinced you to read more!

The Worst:

1. Network Woes: When I attempted to play Bulletstorm online I was met with long waiting times in the lobby. It would take approximately ten minutes or more to get into a game. Worse yet was when some online peeps and I were smashing the enemy together online. I would become disconnected from the Playstation network about 6-7 rounds in. This was infuriating as I couldn't get just start at higher levels in Anarchy mode online. Luckily, the game retained my level progress despite the disconnections. However, this was not true for Echo's progress. After one such disconnection, I took to playing Echos, earning my 3 stars on a bounty of the levels. I left the game and came back with an internet connection. The game decided that the internet progress was different and all my off-line work went to waste. Perhaps they didn't want hacking the scores by syncing, but I did not like losing my hard fought Echos star earning process!

2. Buggy: Occasionally the player may get stuck on objects by sliding onto them. They can usually slide off of them though, and so the trouble is not game-breaking. What was game-breaking was the failure of the game to trigger its level scripts. In one Anarchy match I could not continue because 2 enemies wouldn't spawn. On some single player missions and Echos levels, the enemies may be dead, but the NPCs guiding the player won't activate the next section of the game. Compared to the network annoyance, most of the bugs were quite tame, and I didn't notice many until I reached the latter section of the game. It is an annoyance though to lose progress on new skillshots unlocked and be forced a checkpoint reload because the scripts didn't activate correctly.

3. Cliffhanger Ending: This is not a game that deserves any kind of sequel. If the developers wants to add more skillshots, weapons, enemies they can do it on the DLC side, which they have already begun doing. The engine is competent enough for pretty much of anything, using the Unreal 3 engine which has proven itself thus far. I was slightly peeved by how what seems to be the end of the game plays a Battle LA type move (the movie version), giving all the signs that the game is over, and then revving the engine for one more go. I don't want to say that the game was stale at that point, but the addendum before the true cliffhanger ending didn't really add much except for an excuse of 15 more minutes of gameplay and a chance for a sequel if sales were good.

4. Pop-in: This can't be written into the good category, but it isn't that bad. Pop-in is when the textures load after the surface is visible. I'm sure there is some processing benefit to it, and the Unreal 3 engine is synonymous with the name pop-in. Bulletstorm is no different but takes an effort to try and minimize the effect. The textures are cut into what appear to be triangles, and various texture passes are made. What happens then is when the player becomes in view of the texture it slowly appears more and more clear over several passes, as if it were materializing in front of you. In any game striving for realism even this would break the immersion. Luckily, Bulletstorm left realism at the door just about the moment the main characters survived a spaceship crash-landing.

6. Uneven graphics: Environments are good, as I discussed but not everything is as good. Many of the textures are overly shiny. Object and their textures become blurry and blocky up close. Character mouth movements are also awkward and unnatural. Blur appears in the wrong places on occasion. If the game had the style of Mad World, with black and white or cartoony textures I might let this slide, but the game goes for some realistic tones. I don't want this game with cartoony graphics, I think the choice they made was a good one, it's just unavoidable factor. For this reason I cannot ignore the inconsistency. The creed of this game is good from afar, but far from good. As long as you play the game and ignore the extreme details you will find the game a large cut above the rest in visual fidelity.

6. Nitpick: You've executed what appears to be a perfect juggle going on, with a couple enemies in the air and you send them flying with some blasteous attack. And when the enemy lands you are given 10 pts, the lowest skill point amount given for kills. What happened? That is the disappointment that sometimes results from this point driven games. Although it looks like a visual feast going on, the game may think that it was just a regular kill, and plop out the petty. On the one side, I wish there had been more skillshots to explain the situation and award special points. Though the game is quite gratuitous with the kills allowed to give points. Perhaps then it is a failure to recognize the proper conditions. I remember having a hard time getting the skillshot where you shoot an enemy in the crotch with a sniper rifle. I looked around online and someone mentioned that it only worked on certain enemies, not all the enemies have "balls" apparently. Also, it is a little unclear when some conditions override others. I've seen then stack, but have come across situations where I'm sure I've done a skillshot, but the game decided it was one but not the other.

• Screenshots are from the Bulletstorm Fansite Kit and so don't match up with this PS3 review exactly. However I did not have access to the capture card for direct PS3 screenshots.

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by Zott820

It was about time I finally posted some of our uploaded E3 footage. After successfully predicting the existence of the sequel to Luigi’s Mansion some two years ago, it felt downright eerie to play it on 3DS at the Nintendo Booth. Luigi likes to take his time as evidenced by the long development time and by the very liberal no time-limit demo from E3. Sit back and watch as we play more than 15 minutes of Luigi’s Mansion 2:

The Sound:
The first thing you will notice from our video is there is no game sound due to one of us listening to it through headphones. Instead you get to hear the booth sounds which include trailers, ambient music and easily recognizable jingles. I can tell you Luigi is just as vocal as ever as his voice wavers as he enters locked key doors. A only downside from the sequel is I couldn’t find a button to yell phrases such as “Mario!” I guess this is because Mario is no longer missing and Luigi is just going into mansions for fun.

The Story:
I’m not sure what the story is for the second game. Based off our recorded introduction with Professor Egadd, he is studying ghosts. Perhaps the kooky professor has conscripted Luigi to capture the boss ghosts because they could have special properties. For this level, Luigi must capture the Librarian ghost who some has compared to Roger from American Dad.

Gameplay:

When I was playing the game, I didn’t focus on collecting money/gold since I knew it wouldn’t matter in the demo. I was more interested in using the suck/blow dynamic on different objects. Most objects did not seem to respond to being blown with air from the vacuum. Luigi can also tilt his vacuum up and down to target out of reach money.

New features include Luigi being able to recover his heart health like Master Chief. He also can charge his flashlight for an overpowered stun attack which hits the entire room. As one of our staff mentioned, you can flash gold spiders with your flashlight charge to turn them into gold bars.

If you played the original, then the control and gameplay will be second nature. The bottom screen conveniently shows the mansion map for rooms which you have explored. It also shows your money and keys.

Graphics:
Luigi’s Mansion 2 has some wonderful lighting effects. From the flash of lightning to the flashlight appearing to shine in your face when Luigi looks towards the screen, sheer outstanding visuals. The game slightly suffers from a framerate which I would estimate to be around 25 FPS due to some minor jerkiness in Luigi’s animation. Considering the visuals Nintendo is pushing on the 3DS, it’s a minor gripe. The 3D effect when we later played with the 3D slider set to max was very effective in creating depth and immersion.

Considering I spent about 30 minutes filming and playing Luigi’s Mansion 2, Luigi got the love he so desperately needs to be a hero. We explored the “Secret Pocket”, stole people’s money and flashed a lot of ghosts. It’s a wonder we were actually playing a Nintendo game with that description. This was my second favorite 3DS game behind Super Mario 3DS for being able to replicate a similar console experience on handhelds.

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by BlueZero

Another year, another Anime Expo. For Anime Expo 2011 I decided to go on Friday July 1st. This was my first Friday and I wanted to see if there would be a difference in the number of cosplayers as compared to the weekend. Enjoy the photos we took of the cosplayers and the random wackiness which always happens during Anime Expo. To see the full gallery, click the image gallery link at the bottom of the page:

Marvel Vs. Capcom 3Cosplay:

I just can't get enough of Magneto's costume. The muscles are perfect. Next we have two different Deadpool cosplayers. The first is using his 4th Wall Crisis Hypercombo. His health bar prop was spot on and the image was on both sides to allow photography from all angles. The second Deadpool-er gives us the thumbs up.

BlazBlu Cosplay:

Everyone loves to play BlazBlu and fans enjoy the characters.


We saw another Noel cosplayer who had her shotgun. The Rachel cosplayer had bright red eyes which you can't see in the photo.

Portal 2 Robots and Chell Cosplay:

The Aperture Science employees have been hard at work designing the best way to put a human inside the Atlas and Peabody bots, ala the Cooperative Testing Initiative. The goal is to attain the extra second of cooperation needed to make humans once again better test subjects than robots. As for the orphaned test subject, we see she is using the newest model of our Quantum Tunneling Device, which simple people call a portal gun. This year's model comes equipped with optional science fair potato holder for when you need to do science on the run or just need easy snack access. Test Subject Chell is also using our outdated prototype, the Long Fall Boot. Good work boots!

Aperature Science rewards 9001 Science Collaboration Points, you monster.

High Quality Cosplay Worth the Effort:

I do not know who or what this cosplay is supposed to be. I'm guessing a Bone Demon or Succubus probably not inspired by an anime or manga. Her makeup is outstanding with the red blood making it look like her nose is damaged and the scary left eye. A lot of time and effort has gone into this costume. The results are a good kind of creepy.

No contest for the cutest couple here. Nah, there is no competition. It's been a while since I've seen a blue Link cosplayer and I only noticed her was wielding the hookshot as I was about to walk away. I believe this is the Twilight Princess Princess Zelda (yes that's a double princess) as she is wearing shoulder spaulders.

The woman is blue is none other than one of Lady Gaga's little monsters. The costume is good and feels mainly inspired by Lady Gaga. For some reason I expect more mascara, even bigger glasses and backup dancers. I'm going to guess the guy is the Red Beetleborg from Big Bad Beetleborgs but I'm probably wrong since I'm also thinking about VR Troopers. If it weren't for the helmet. Otherwise I would have thought it was a Commander Shepard since technically any person could correctly cosplay as Commander Shepard.

Anime Vehicle Paint Jobs:

Merchant Hall Booth Shoutout:

** + Click to Show the Complete Image Gallery **

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I always enjoy taking photos of cosplayers more than shopping in the merchant hall or attending events.We are attending at least two days of the convention so maybe we can post a second gallery of pictures taken Saturday when they are ready.

*I'm interested to know what is your favorite cosplay and has the costume quality improved compared with prior Anime Expos?

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by BlueZero

Thursday is the magic day where the Meet the Medic video has finally been released for Team Fortress 2. There really isn't much to say before you watch the video so please watch it after the click. I'll also give some brief analysis of the video which may include things you missed as well as what it means for the Team Fortress universe:

Now that you have fully met the Medic, you can understand why I play as him so often. He is able to keep the Heavy alive with his medic gun while performing the most intensive heart upgrade surgery ever performed. The white doves are an excellent touch and at 55 seconds you can see the Administrator observing the progress in the upper left window. She knows the value of implanting each class member with an uber heart. Next item of note is the brief exchange between the Medic and the Spy head:

Blu Spy (head attached to battery) : "Kill me."
Red Medic: "Later."

After the Heavy is now upgraded with a Mega Baboon Heart, it was time to practice medicine against a huge army of Blu soldiers. The top YouTube comment by salley94 is valid "So why DOES the Demoman's eye not grow back?" My answer is the eye did grow back and the Demoman is just too drunk to realize the there is now a perfectly good eye under his eyepatch. Just look at the Scout who has his knocked out teeth replaced instantly.

I'm more concerned with all the Blu Soldiers who all look almost identical. Usually Valve seemed to avoid showing the same class more than once if he was on the same team. I guess they needed a powerful army to warrant the uber as the Heavy stood his ground in his own video. As the heavy climbs the piles of Soldiers, notice the three star hat shown at 3:34. I hope it becomes available in the game as it looks cool.

The Heavy/Medic duo really is powerful (just like in the game) and I approve of Valve attempting to explain the Ubercharge. For the last film of Meet the Pyro, I hope Valve starts with the Medic attempting to perform the heart upgrade surgery and asking the Pyro to remove his clothes to begin. This will kick off the rest of the Pyro's video and we will see what lurks beneath the gasmask. With no origins and a impossible to decipher voice, it will be extremely challenging for Valve to meet the community's Pyro expectations. I'm guessing the Pyro is either Hispanic (sombrero hat), female (Scout's Mother anyone?) or a robot (limited speech capabilities).

Free to Play
The end of the video says Team Fortress 2 is now free-to-play forever and ever. Our guess why Valve decided to make the game free-to-play forever is because they have been raking in a mint on the microtransactions, namely the hats and weapons. When they can sell a virtual hat for $10 a pop, which is more than the game costs, it makes perfect sense to invite everyone into their store to increase their customer base.

Thank you Valve. I'm glad you have supported Team Fortress 2 for so long and I know you are happy with the virtual content money rolling into your pockets.

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by BlueZero

Biased Gamer was lucky enough to be able to attend E3 last week. We decided before we went we wanted to film and photograph as much of the action as we could. What you are seeing is exclusive, unique video footage recorded by us on the first day of E3. Everyone was so tired and busy after expo it has taken us until now to start uploading footage. After the click, take a look at our 1080p video of the Los Angeles Convention Center minutes before the doors of E3 opened on Tuesday June 7th:

Make sure to click on that 1080 instead of the default 480p. 1080p video took us a while to render and a long time to upload to YouTube. This 2.55 gig video took 5+ hours to upload on a fast connection.

We were all excited by being at our first E3 that we rushed all over the place with our handcam. The first minute of the video is the outside area around the NOS booth. Their DJ was competing with the kitty people dancing.After the first minute, we were on second floor of the South Hall convention center. You can really take in the amount of people filling up the lobby. At this time, it was probably about ten to fifteen minutes to noon when the doors opened. The footage where we walk in front of the stairs is a mere five minutes before noon so the staff were trying to clear the area so no on would cut the line.

The final portion of the video is near the foodcourt. There were a ton of people near that IGN booth and a lot of people standing in what appeared to be a Starbucks line. At the end of the video, you can see their attempt obscure the expo booths from snooping outsiders before it officially opened.

Stay tuned as we continue to slowly assemble our E3 footage and photos. There is a lot of good media and we had a lot of hand-on opportunities to preview new games.

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by BlueZero

While watching the Sony Press conference, it was a complete snorefest until the last 15 minutes. Ken Levine gave us an early look at the NGP before finally Kaz stepped out and let us know the name would be call PS Vita. Then Sony decided to punch Nintendo’s 3DS in its face by announcing the same price for the PS Vita when it releases this holiday.

Good

• Uncharted 3 Live Demo
• Uncharted Golden Abyss
• Mod Nation Vita –The track builder appears to be very easy to use. The presenter used his finger to draw out a simple track with his finger and then edited it to add a jump.
• LittleBigPlanet Vita – Yes for sharing costumes and content between the ps3 version of LittleBigPlanet 2.
• $249.99 for the Wifi Playstation Vita – It’s an obvious marketing attack on Nintendo. Well done Sony, you love to lose money on hardware to gain a market share.
• Cole in Tekken X Street Fighter – the image of Cole mashed between the two universes was awesome. The only time I honestly laughed.
• Unnamed Create Your Fighter game on Vita. It seemed like you could take a screenshot of yourself and then choose the fighting style type.

Meh

• Resistance 3 – The three minutes of gameplay felt extremely bland to me. The game engine is back to a grayscale look with yellow accents. The visual theme and gun movements look very similar to Killzone 3.

Bad
2K Basketball Move with Kobe Bryant - Kobe got his ego hurt by being booed and a snarky comment. Then he says he is going to show us “how it’s done”. Kobe ends up directly turning over the ball to the other team and takes about two minutes before he scores with the Lakers. What a waste of a celebrity appearance when Kobe seems to not be familiar with the Move controller and the game.

The best part of the Sony conference was Vita gameplay and price information. The most exciting trailer was for Sly Cooper 4 1 minute in when we think it's Sly Cooper being the thief when it is really "I'm not your cheesy-macaroni Sly Cooper, you got DIMIIIIITRIIIIIIII!" What an unexpected surprise which made me laugh out loud and I don't even play the Sly Cooper series.

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by BlueZero

I missed the first thirty minutes of the Microsoft E3 Press Conference so I had to go back and watch the Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 footage. He should have picked up the P90 in the demo. I came in during the Ghost Recon Kinect title and here are how I feel about the games Microsoft has announced:

New Xbox 360 Features That Don’t Matter

• Watching Live TV on your TV (like it should)
• Voice Controlled Bing Search
• Voice Controlled Movie Watching
• YouTube Integration

All these features are on a computer and smartphone so barely any reason to add them to yet another device. I guess good to have but won't impact their userbase as much as say Netflix did.

Good

• Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary - Time to play the same game again with better graphics. Watch no longer four player multiplayer on one console like the original Halo on Xbox 1.
• Halo 4 – it sells itself in 2 years. Pre-rendered cutscenes are easy.
• Mass Effect 3 voice commands. Meat-shield move up.
• Disneyland Adventures - It made me want to go to Disneyland so that's effective marketing
• Kinect Sports Football – Those actors/developers on stage really are into the football. Even though the plays feel scripted, the game looks like fun.

Bad

Kinect Star Wars – graphics much worse than Rogue Squadron
o Horribly slow Kinect gestures
o Force “Nudge” barely moved the Droid Tank
o Reflect all lasers by swinging lightsaber crazily
• Welcome to your destiny of a mediocre game

Fable Journey - I would describe it as an on-rails Kinect “shooter”

Meh

Sesame Street : Once Upon a Monster - We learned cannibalistic tendencies of Cookie Monster. He ate the delicious pink fluffballs and show had gained like 300 pounds in this game.

Gears of War 3 - The only part of the live demo which was interesting was when Marcus and company shot the boss's eye and there were eye guts falling out. The rest was on par with previous game and the graphics looked slightly dated.

Best moment was where the Dance Central 2 guy came out and left the dancing to the professionals. It was just too bad the Dance Central 2 footage was soo short but at least it will be on the show floor to play later. Please remember I care about big budget titles and action so of course most of the Microsoft conference wasn't targeting my demographic. Overall I was satisfied with Microsoft's presentation and of course am super interested in Sony's Next Generation Portable and Nintendo's new Wii 2 (whatever it will be called). I will be posting the Sony conference later in the day hopefully since am super busy.

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by BlueZero

For those users who were freaking out for the last month as the Playstation Network was down, today is the day when you grab a tissue and wipe away those tears. As Sony has promised, the "Welcome Back Program" is now active as of 3pm for me. I just popped onto the PS Store and noticed it is extremely slow and is throwing random number errors (like 80023103) when I try to download items. Hurry to your precious PSN and login to the PS Store to get started. For everyone else who is still in front of the Internet, here's my guide on what to download:

Since I am now getting error (80710D36) when I try to enter the Playstation Store, I can't see the current options. Therefore I go to the news feed and select the new DLC button to get in the store that way. So far the store has been sooooo bogged down I haven't been able to download anything. The closest I've gotten is where the store item has the shopping bag icon showing it's now in my content folder.

PS Plus Free Games

The first stop is to browse over to the Playstation Plus area and select the free 30 day item from the menu. Next you will want to download all the "free" items thanks to the PS Plus subscription. This includes awesome games like Comet Crash and Sonic 2. You will see a lot of the games and content in the Playstation Plus part of the menu but do take a look for other free DLC like the new Socom ones. I'm going to download the Killzone 3 map pack since it is made free by PS Plus and it should still be around when my free subscription runes out.

You can also play any of the 60 minute full game trials though I see this more as an extended demo session. I mean the normal demo of Infamous 2 probably lasted me 45 minutes and was an extremely long demo. Kuddos to Sucker Punch for giving me a boss fight and allowing me to see the Uncharted engine in action.

• Choose Your Two Free Games

I'm personally choosing Dead Nation and Wipeout HD when I can download the free games. I already own LittleBigPlanet and have already played through my friend's copy of Infamous. I also already own the excellent Super Stardust HD. To get the best value from your free games, I would suggest picking Infamous and Wipeout HD if you don't already own these.

Here's the list of free games for the US PS Store (You get to choose two out of the list):

• Dead Nation
• inFAMOUS
• Super Stardust HD
• Wipeout HD + Fury expansion
• LittleBigPlanet

Dynamic Themes

Now here is the goldmine ready for you to start blasting away with dynamite. Simply browse through all the dynamic and premium themes and look for the ones which are now free thanks to PS Plus. The first theme that comes to mind is the Playstation Plus theme since it makes perfect sense. Of course go for the popular dynamic themes like the fire log and fishtank.

Avatars

Go to the avatar section of the store and download all the premium avatars which are now free thanks again to Playstation Plus. I can't get to that menu area due to the errors and no content showing up, so please explore on your own leisure.

Saved Games Cloud Backup

The final thing to do is to go through your super long list of saved games and choose to add them to Sony's saved game cloud server. There doesn't appear to be a quick way to just select all your games and throw them on the server. So I would suggest backing up the saves which are locked or saves which are extremely valuable (I'm looking at you Mercenaries 2 and Resident Evil 5). Make use of the save backup so if for some reason you lose the saves, all it takes is a month subscription to Playstation Plus to recover your saves. As someone who has spent hundreds of hours gaming, I protect my saved game files because I can never get that time back.

Whenever you can get on the Playstation Store, make sure to go crazy downloading all the free content and games on the PS3 and PSP. With Sony getting hacked again, this time on their Sony Pictures website, it's going to be a rough fifty years of cyberwarfare between corporations and legions of hackers. I guess I'll be on the sideline enjoying my personal 3D gaming system created by SoNinSoft.

• Small Additions: There are also three free movie rentals in the US Playstation Video Store. You can choose between HD and SD of Ghostbusters, Final Fantasy: Spirits Within and Bad Boys
• You can also grab the "100" free items for Home. There are two free estates and tons of clothing for both your male and female characters. The Home store interface is still just as laggy and errorprone for me on a Saturday (June 4th).

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by BlueZero

A bit late considering the game came out March of 2010, but who cares anyways.

Unlike other sites who have given it ridiculously high scores, I definitely don’t agree with its high ratings. And certain elements which have been criticized for other games are applauded for in God of War III seem biased, which may be ironic considering we applaud our biases. Those reviewers don’t claim to be biased.

The game is chock full of invisible walls, and Game Trailers, a site that has criticized other games for invisible walls, calls it a streamlined experience that directs you in the right direction. I personally never had an issue with invisible walls in games, but this is just ridiculous.

The game is absolutely linear, and the game play is pretty intense, but it also gets pretty repetitive. Battles are constant with flames, bodies, and blood flying everywhere, but it gets tedious after a while. Furthermore, the weapons are all fairly similar, so play styles won’t really differ much. Once you get the Nemean Cestus, you won’t really use any other weapon.

The controls feel a bit too loose. For a character who’s known for his battle prowess, you would think that Kratos would understand how to be able to roll out during his attack or quickly block half way through his swing. Instead, Kratos has to finish his animations, which lead to a lot of pummeling. I’m used to quick twitch reflexes to move along to the action. Kratos winds up getting beaten mid attacks, or even though you have such long and incredible chains at your disposal, you’re not supposed to make use of them.

Kratos’ character and motivation also make no sense. For a man who seems to be hell bent on retribution, the idea of redemption seems a bit out there. I liked the idea that hope always exists, but the execution was poor and choppy.
Kratos meets Pandora, origin of the Box used in the first game and main focus of the last game. For half of the game, he’s dismissing her, but when he’s told to save her so he can access Pandora’s Box again, it’s only so he can kill Zeus. Somehow, when he finds Pandora beaten, his voice shows remorse and sadness and even tries to save her. There’s really no reasoning behind this. It’s arguable that he sees his daughter in Pandora, but that seems like a far stretch for his character. He’s more like the Saint of Killers from Preacher.

God of War is full of amazing set pieces, but really, it’s putting a lot of style over substance. It’s a good game, not great, and certainly not godly.

God of War III - more like God of Whore: Aphrodite’s Revenge. (Seriously, Hephaestus/Hera/Daedulus/Pandora/Gaia/Zeus/Kratos all die because of her actions.)

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by Shihnong

Discover the newest mobile and Xbox 360 Kinect game development from the Spring 2011 USC GamePipe Demo Day. This is the second part of the event coverage and includes all games shown after the catered lunch as well as Dance Pad. Most of the Kinect presentations are in the first part while there are a few in this collection. A lowered disco ball means it’s time to dance:

Dance Pad

Dance Pad was demoed before the lunch break but it makes more sense to include it with the other mobile/portable games. The team summoned the mighty disco ball from the ceiling and bathed the auditorium with music and spinning lights. The main speaker for the team came out dressed up in a light blue tuxedo reminiscent of the disco era and really captured people’s attention.

The premise of Dance Pad is to use your fingers to “walk” the dance floor of the iPad while following the step bubbles ala Elite Beat Agents. You use your index finger as the left “foot” and your middle finger as the right “foot.” The game signals each finger by using a blue circle for index and a purple circle for the middle finger. Yes, it is possible to cheat by using a different finger but the game is more fun when you feel like your two fingers are dancing. The team said the game was inspired by YouTube videos of people using their fingers to mimic popular dance moves like moonwalking and breakdancing.

The team showed off the three different modes lives: Play, Watch, Create. “Play” is the main mode where you can play the story with up to 2 people at once. “Create” allows the player to create their own dance moves by touching the screen with their fingers. There are advanced features like a level editor and head-to-head competition where one person has to re-create the other players moves. You can choose to publish the levels and/or record footage to upload to YouTube. The “Watch” menu allows you to look at posted videos on YouTube of people showing off their impressive skills on different levels.

In the “Create” mode, two Dance Pad team members competed against each other by creating their own dance steps by using just their fingers. Each round alternated the creator but both people had to be able to do the routine to prevent someone from going crazy with impossible moves. The “Create” editor allows for full recording and fine tuning of step types to make more choreographed moves.




Like

• One of the most “ready to sell” and complete games shown off
• Excellent menu design and overall sense of style
• Afro disco man is cool
• Level editor is advanced enough to give extensive replay value
• Ability to upload user created content to YouTube from within game

Room for Improvement

• Each single player level was shorter than I expected.
• The dance steps after a hold title were difficult to see when blocked by my hand
• Ability to import own music for local only custom created dance routines

Overall
The game package overall is impressive and should be able to sell well on iPad. The team is developing achievements and will have to decide how they want to proceed with Dance Pad.

Immersive Game Development Class for Kinect

Michael Zyda introduced the three Kinect groups who had very limited development times to create a functioning game. Therefore it's not right to critique their work in a similar format as above:

Air Hockey

After a few points scored, a second puck appeared. Shortly after, the team member gained access to a second paddle and more pucks. The game then became really chaotic. The AI player could not defend against all the multiple pucks and when four appeared there was no way anyone could know what was happening.

Pod Racer

The development team used Kinect to simulate a person holding the pod racer controls. The person put both arms out straight in front of them and would pull one arm back towards him to turn in that direction. To boost, the person pushed both hands forward at the same time or move their pod racer over a boost pad. The controls seemed to work well with the wide level. I’m not sure the Kinect is accurate enough for the punishing turns and traps of the original Star Wars Episode I: Racer courses but the controls worked well in this game.

Wind Story

The development team showed off their tutorial level which introduces basic platforming and the wind ability. The main puff guy can jump and then the second player can moves their arms in a direction to cause wind to move the guy further in his jump. The team had a little trouble getting past the required jump+wind area. Later in the level there were enemies moving around which could be killed by fireballs. The second player puts their hands into the air to summon the fireballs and then uses the wind gestures to control their tragectory.

The entire game had a cuteness vibe with the snow puff guy, the “boink” sound every time he jumped and the fuzzy enemies. It seems like the Kinect controls could be tightened to make it a better platformer overall.

Cosmopolis

Cosmopolis is a MMO world created by graduate students for both scientific and recreational goals. The speaker talked about a UN simulation where the MMO player could interact with different groups and try and change ideologies through repeated discussions throughout social networks. He then showed a trailer and unfortunately did not show any live gameplay of any sort. Instead we got a lot of powerpoint slides.

The goal of Cosmopolis is to eventually be an open MMO where people can develop their own games and social science experiments. One game under development is where there are robots battling each other and there is some sort of artificial intelligence routines being traded or upgraded to give a robot an edge. Again, since there was no live coverage, there really wasn't much for me to see and analyze this project.

Fruits Vs. Veggies

The live gameplay was a lot better than the footage shown in the trailer. The team showed off the competitive two player battles where each player chooses their units and spells before battling. I watched an apple with boxing gloves punch celery with some awesome punch sound effects every three seconds. Each player added units to the 8 x 5 grid on their side and the units did battle with whatever unit they encountered. Something unique is each player has magic spells and traps to make the battles more dynamic.

When Pigs Fly

The live demo shows the player controls the pigs up and down movements with the iPad touch screen. The pig needs to collect apples and bananas to stay alive and should collect flies to ward off birds. The pig can ram into birds to stun them and the stunned birds can be launched at other enemies. You didn’t forget the pork and beans did you? The pig collects pork and beans to create a gas cloud which protects itself from the floating wolves. If the wolf is able to eat the pig, the pig is able to fart in the wolf’s mouth to survive. Ah, what class!

The game was a lot of fun when I had a chance to play it later in the day. I liked how some of the gameplay elements seem farfetched while working so well together.

Spectrum

Spectrum is a side scrolling platformer for iPod Touch where a woman called Spectra must navigate through a colorless world to reach colorful platforms to keep her life force up. The speed of the game was excellent and the controls seemed exclusive to be moving and double jumping.

Once Spectra cleared the colorless world, she got to repeat the same level with it fully colored. The game seems like one you would play for a few minutes while waiting for something. I will remember it for the smooth framerate and jumping mechanics.

Magic Eden

Magic Eden is a mobile RPG for iPod Touch where you control a girl who can perform both good and dark magic. For each quest, there are at least two different resolutions based on the player magic type choice.

In the live demo, the player started the quest to confront a slime about doing something illegal (I think it was eating crops or something similar). The main character could not understand the slime because it was speaking in a beast language. The player decided to attack the slime with magic and it was dispatched.

The team decided to reload the save and showed another outcome of the quest. After starting the quest and meeting the slime, the main character used different beast language magic to understand the slime. Of course it was all a misunderstanding. FRIENDSHIP! The game is targeting a younger audience based on the gameplay and artwork.

Incrediballs

The final team showed off their game called Incrediballs through a video. It showed a ball with a comical face being launched from a cannon and the goal was to collect as much gold and powerups before it ran out of momentum in a 2D world. The game also boasted features like Options, High Scores, Training and the like. Since there was no live footage, I really am not sure of the game complexity.

Collection of Game Posters:

I want to congratulate the USC students who have worked so much on these games. There were a lot of new ideas shown off and it’s a great thing when I want to play most of them if/when they come out. I later attended the First Move 2011 hosted by the USC School of Cinematic Arts and had a swell time trying out even more unique games. There is nothing better than spending the day playing new unreleased games with complimentary catering.

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by BlueZero

On May 4th, I attended the University of Southern California Game Pipe Demo Day for the Spring semester. The Game Pipe Demo Day is a bi-yearly event to showcase the latest student game development projects for PC, Xbox 360, Kinect, and mobile phones/iPads. USC student programmers work in tandem with art students from the Laguna College of Arts and Design to create unique games. With development times as low as 6 months to only a year, all the groups did a marvelous job of building a game robust enough to be demoed live:

I want to first offer a congratulations to all students who presented. Please do not take my impressions of your projects as being too critical. I realize you were on intense deadlines and each group members have different levels of game development skills. As I discuss each project, I will give my gut overall feeling and describe what I liked and the things which may need improvement if you choose to further work on your projects.

I'm including the links to the individual project websites found on the main site so readers can get more information on the games. Also forgive the picture quality as I took most of the pictures without flash in a dark auditorium.

Mother Nature

I arrived at the end of the Mother Nature demo and wasn’t sure what was going on. So here is some footage I found where we can both see the full thing for the first time:

The Bridge

I luckily did see the entire The Bridge demo. I would describe The Bridge similar to the Star Trek Bridge Commander where you can give orders to your crew and pursue missions in space. The draw for The Bridge is you can give orders to your crew and ship by using your own voice.

The person demoing the game started a mission where an alien merchant captain was requesting to come aboard and speak to the captain. Instead of selecting the traditional “Yes”/“No” dialogue options from a menu, the person replies with a voice command from shown dialogue options. For example, the player decided to let the alien captain come aboard and said “Yes, you may come aboard”. The voice control system did a excellent job of understanding what the player was saying and if it did not completely understand the phrase, the person could say each word individually. The only issue was the presenter was trying to say the phrases loudly so the audience could hear him which was probably causing distortions for the voice engine. When he spoke the phrases normally, the game had no problem understanding him.

In this mission, the aliens had a large amount of ship weapons which only humans could operate. The alien captain wanted the player to help them deliver their cargo in exchange for four new ship turrets. The player played hardball and asked for eight turrets to which the alien agreed. Next in a total betrayal move, the player chose to report the merchant ship and could collect 50,000 credits for destroying it. Of course the presenter decided to vocally move within striking distance of the merchant ship before yelling to his ship “Weapons, fire everything!” The captain then used the newly acquired turrets to destroy the unarmed merchant ship with a ton of red laser lines. I enjoyed the crew banter afterwards trying to get their individual departments a cut of the space credits.

Like:

• Good spoken dialogue options
• Appearance of multiple ways to beat each mission
• Lots of windows on the bridge so you can see ships outside flying around
• Ability for the captain to walk around his ship instead of being glued to his chair
• All team members were wearing custom shirts with the phrase “Fire Everything”

Areas for future improvement:

• The bridge vertex graphics were good for being 3D while textures were too minimalistic
• Crew dialogue voice quality

Overall
The Bridge is successful in allowing people to live out their own Star Trek captain fantasy. Voice commands appear to work well and I enjoyed hearing the person speak out the responses.

Quicksilver: Infinite Story

In the two player demonstration, the team picked a mission and begun the combat section. Each person could navigate the three battle planes and attack enemies. The team said the town level was procedurally generated using random town art assets and enemies. I’m not sure if the action segments dialogue was randomly generated or would always appear. The battle elements included the ability to lift enemies into the sky and attempt to aim them at the other player to do extra damage. There was also a special attack which varied for each character. After clearing about two screens of enemies, the game shifts back to the train for mid-mission dialogue.

The conflict for the train during this mission was a reformed demon (which looked like a cat) wanted to join the crew. One of the crewmembers was very suspicious of her and didn’t want her aboard. After the brief dialogue, the game returned for more arcade combat before returning once more to the train. This was the time for the red headed train captain to decide if the demon would join the crew. The team asked the audience if we wanted her to join the crew and we said “yes”. Thus she joined the crew and the player assigned her to the medical compartment of the train where she would be able to increase her skills. The team said all actions have consequences and because we let her join, the suspicious crewmember lost respect for the captain and I remember overall train moral or some other stats dropped.

After the train decision, it was time for the boss. The boss spoke to the party briefly before she charged her lasers. Her big laser attack completely missed and hit only the middle plane. Then she teleported and left herself open to massage damage from the team members. It took only two repetitions of the boss movements before the party meleed her to death. I did enjoy the boss’s “No, this is impossible” dialogue since to me she was probably barely stronger than the prior enemies (perhaps for demo purposes).

Likes:

• Apparent complex procedural generation of enemies and environments
• Side “B Plot” segments to flesh out other party members
• Randomness of which person wants to join your party and who is suspicious
• Anime inspired opening video with team created lyrics, singing and art

Room for improvement:

• Idle animation is too “active”. I wouldn’t expect a character with two axes to spin them every three seconds or for a person to keep sliding their hand up and down their legs
• Lifting an enemy into the air looks like the character sprites move upward. Perhaps implement jumping sprite animation for the four party members
• Enemies being hit don’t appear to flinch or attempt to block

Overall
There is definite appeal for each mission to play out differently with different characters joining the crew. I would maybe focus on tightening up the arcade combat as the train dialogue/class portion seems robust.

Paradox Shift

Paradox Shift was described as a first person perspective, puzzle solving and a small amount of action. The game is using the Unreal Engine and tells the story of a dam being built on the Grand Canyon using time travel elements to speed up construction. The player is a female inspector tasked with making sure the company is not breaking any temporal rules which I am sure they are. By using the T3 device, the main character can jump forward (one week) and back to the present to get around obstructions and solve puzzles. Pretty interesting it only takes a week to build a dam when there is infinite time within that period of time.

The team showed off one of the later levels where the player can use the gun to “tag” objects and move them through time to solve puzzles. Eventually the player reached an office lookout where a crane collided with the building causing it to buckle. The player then jumped to the crane and there was a spectacular collapse of the building the player was standing on moments ago. At this point, the crane also starts faltering and the person moves toward the dam scaffolding. I really enjoyed the dynamic feel of the building and crane coming down in such a short period of time. I later asked a member of the team what would happen if the player decided to teleport during this sequence and he said there would be no building which would cause the player to plummet to their death.

On the scaffolding, the player chases down a mysterious man who just appeared. The man also has the time gun and shifts between the periods as you move along changing walkways. At one point the player jumps on a metal chute and slides down the ramp shifting to avoid objects. Unfortunately at the end of one of the ramps, the game was hitting an invisible wall or having some collision detection issues. The team tried to use console commands to go around the issue but it resulted in the game crashing.

Like:

• Idea of using time as your “weapon”
• Team using Unreal Engine for some impressive graphics
• Not being able to shift into solid matter. The gun will be red when an object is in your current location in the past or present
• Scripted dynamic feeling elements like the building collapsing and person chase

Room for Improvement:

• The time shift element may result in too many unavoidable deaths since the player has no idea if the ground they are currently on will exist after the time shift
• Working out glitches and other technical problems which cause freezes and crashes
• Difficulty may be too easy. I don’t know if other levels have fearsome enemy robots or challenges

Overall
I was impressed the development team could create an exterior dam level with so much scripted destruction. The hybrid Portal + Mirrors Edge inspired game works well and I want to play through the game if/when it is released publicly.

Unchained

The development team said they spent a long time building the game and graphics engine. It definitely shows with a detailed, lush world with a slight amount of cell shaping. The artwork is top notch for this game and the team’s concept art shows they spent a lot of time making sure everything was thought out. Unchained seemed like it had one of the largest team sizes and their website shows they have at least 15 dedicated artists.

The team showed off one of their air missions where Mira was attacked by air pirates. The main gameplay appeared to be destroying the circling pirate fighters while being able to individually man one of the ship’s cannons. By interacting with the robot butler, Mira can switch out different turrets as she collects new ones. There are cannon locations on the bow, port, starboard and one in the crow’s nest. She could take an elevator to the top level where she can target in the full 360 degrees.

One caveat of the gameplay was there just appeared to be waves of pirates coming in and there wasn’t much difficulty aside from running from cannon to cannon. The demo ran into a minor glitch where the airship was getting shot at by an invisible enemy. The person playing the demo tried to find the ship for about two minutes before giving up.

Like

• Game engine and concept art was gorgeous
• Impressive emphasis on working from scratch
• Dialogue was good
• Robot butler seemed inspired by Iron Man’s Jarvus

Room for Improvement

• Shooting down pirates shown in the demo seemed a little shallow and I couldn’t tell if this was the entirety of the game
• Technical issue with collision and enemies
• Feels like game needs other players to man the empty cannons

Overall
The graphics, character modeling and design and world look amazing for being one year worth of work. I really would have liked to see what else the game could offer as there seems to be a lot of potential.

A new form of dancing that warranted bringing out a disco ball? Well, I’ll talk about Dance Pad in a future article as well as the other mobile games shown after the catered lunch. I thank the major companies like EA, Microsoft, ActivisionBlizzard, Bungie, Konami, Intel, Zynga, Bally, Wild Needle Games and CorpInfo for giving everyone attending a free lunch. Such delicious stuffed mushrooms!

* Part 2 of the USC GamePipe Demo Day is done. It includes all the mobile and iPad game demonstrations as well as the remaining Kinect class games.

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by BlueZero

It's only a matter of time before others are inspired to recreate all the other mechanical units from the Starcraft universe. May I suggest building a fully working Thor with deployable 250mm cannons. Then after the entire army has been built, we can have an epic pretend battle with intense robot action. This would be the only way I could win in Starcraft against the endless Battle.net hoard.

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by BlueZero

Nintendo is going to be officially announcing the development of Super Smash Brothers 3DS, the next entry in the Super Smash Brothers series for the Nintendo 3DS portable system at E3. HAL Laboratory is currently in the pre-production phase and is discussing key features and additions. Planed hardware features wanted to be implemented include:

• Local and WiFi Battling
• Friend Messaging
• StreetPass and SpotPass Connectivity
• Augmented Reality

Masahiro Sakurai is not the Director for the 3DS version since his company Sora Ltd. is focused on completing Kid Icarus: Uprising for launch later this year. Mr. Sakurai had also promised to not direct another Smash Brothers due to the grueling development schedule and destructive lifestyle. Masahiro Sakurai will indirectly involved as a creative consultant for HAL Laboratory.

The Nintendo 3DS system is seen as an excellent opportunity to evolve the Super Smash Brothers series. An idea currently being tested is using augmented reality so any real world surface can be used as a fighting stage. By having the 3DS stationary or contained in a cradle, characters can fight on tables, shelves and other similar flat surfaces. By adding books and other items to the surface before the match, augmented reality can create platforms and obstacles to change up the battlefield.

For the character roster, there are current talks with third party companies like SEGA and Konami to include more guest characters in Super Smash Brothers 3DS. Based on fan feedback and continuing negotiation with the publishers, Nintendo will most likely announce Tails (Sonic the Hedgehog series) and Raiden (Metal Gear Solid series) as playable characters. First party characters currently being discussed include:

• Little Mac
• Balloon Fighter
• Samurai Goroh
• Skull Kid
• Tingle

Nintendo recognizes fans have spent tons of time customizing their Miis and want them to join the battle. A new feature is the ability to import your Miis into the character roster to fight alongside Nintendo greats like Mario and Kirby. The Miis will have a default moveset with some possible customization to allow any Mii to be compatible. Nintendo has already implemented Miis in a similar fashion with Mario Kart Wii with tremendous success. I can already see it now with a Michael Jackson Mii teaming up with Wario for the ultimate unsightly Ness domination.

Let’s hope Super Smash Brothers 3DS doesn’t take more than three years of development like Super Smash Brothers Brawl. If Nintendo puts Tingle in the game as a playable character, I’m not going to be happy if they don’t include Issac from Golden Sun. My body is ready for the 3D, I just need more games like this to make me buy a 3DS.

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by BlueZero

My favorite part of the video is when Pac-Man is eating his way through the frozen section where you can see the other ghosts running the opposite direction. This is as faithful as you can get to the original even with the underused cherry costume being tackled. As you watch the video, as you amazed at the collateral damage this prank caused? I certainly was nervous as soon as Pac-Man knocked down the circular rack. All was forgiven by the ghost tripping over it. Even the film crew couldn't contain their laughter.

A second moral of the story is golfers are really testy when someone runs up and touches their ball. I mean Pac-Man was supposed to be invincible since he picked up the large pellet golf ball. Pac-Man really should have lost two lives for being hit with a golf club because only Ms. Pac-Man can dish out that kind of tough love.

At the final story location, I'm also impresses Pac-Man barely knocks anything off the shelves and only does so because a woman is in the way. The security guard earns major props for containing both ghosts and the eventual pileup of Pac-Man. He has earned the high score in Pac-Man and is so humble he doesn't want to be filmed during his greatest moment. I can't speak or read French so I'm sure at the end of the video everyone is happy, especially the cherry costume guy since it's his second appearance.

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by BlueZero