Call of Duty: Black Ops?

On 03.29.10, In Video Games, By AC Slater

Could this be the title of the new entry in the Call of Duty series? Various websites are reporting these latest rumors for the Treyarch developed game. If you're a fan of the Call of Duty series you would know that since Call of Duty 3 Infinity Ward and Treyarch have switched off in the development process essentially giving each studio a 2 year development calendar, but still giving Activision a CoD game to release each year. Infinity Ward was the developer behind Call of Duty 2, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2 where Treyarch has developed Call of Duty 3 and Call of Duty: World at War. This latest entry, Call of Duty: Black Ops, is rumored to take place between World War II and present day, meaning that we will travel all over the world and fight battles throughout history and could be a "Cold War-era" based game.

This isn't the first rumor surrounding the next installment in the series, earlier this year there were rumors of a Vietnam based game which would still give us that nostalgic feeling that Treyarch has always given us, but without a World War II setting which I think everyone is just about sick of (or at least I am).

I will be honest, I've never been a huge fan of the Treyarch developed Call of Duty games. I thought Call of Duty 3 was a huge disappointment coming from the amazing CoD2. And then when Infinity Ward gave us Call of Duty 4 the bar was raised even higher. Although I will say that World at War wasn't nearly as bad as CoD3 was. I actually played through the entire single player and then stuck with the multiplayer for a good amount of time after getting sick of CoD4. But again, when Modern Warfare 2 came out I completely dropped World at War, even going so far as to sell it on eBay, so I'm still a little skeptical when we are on"Treyarch Years". But we'll see, I really just want something different, I feel like we've been fighting World War II for longer than the actual war lasted... time to move on.

So again, these are all just rumors nothing official has been announced so take it with a grain of salt. The only thing that is official is that we will get another Call of Duty game this Fall and it will be developed by Treyarch.

And don't forget to register to Get the new Call of Duty(R). for free!

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God of War III First Impressions

On 03.17.10, In Video Games, By AC Slater

God of War III was released yesterday for the Playstation 3 and it may be the most anticipated game yet for the system. I know for me it now holds a place on my shelf next to LittleBigPlanet as the only other PS3 game that I own. It's not that I'm anti-playstation gaming, it's just that I really can't stand the thumb sticks on the Playstation controllers after coming from the Xbox 360. I'm sure if I just sat around and got used to it, it would be fine, but I can't, so I just don't buy too many games for the PS3. But seeing as how God of War is a Sony exclusive game, I had no choice.

I have only played through God of War 2 in the past and was currently in the middle of both God of War [1] and God of War: Chains of Olympus (PSP) over the past few weeks. Needless to say I never finished either of them, but didn't want to wait to jump into part 3... and I'm glad I didn't. My very first impressions for the game, even before the actual game started, was pure amazement, and this was just the opening credits. The clarity of everything and the design elements were incredible, I couldn't wait for the game to start, but prayed that I would not be disappointed by the hype that I'd built up in my mind. Once the familiar title screen came up it was time to start raping skeletons with my massive blades.

Now to be fair I am only about 2 hours into the game, but I couldn't wait to write about it because, yes, it's that fucking good. The graphics may be some of the best graphics I've seen in a game... ever, and the gameplay is incredible. Sure it's a lot of the same hack-n-slash type style, but the amount of enemies, the variety, the mini-game kill cam things and the overall brutality of everything makes this game extremely entertaining. (From here on out there are a few spoilers regarding the beginning of the game) The game starts off with Gaia the earth goddess along with the other elemental "gods" climbing up Mt. Olympus to wage ware on Zeus, with Kratos tagging along for the ride. Eventually Gaia is attacked by Poseidon and an incredible battle is brought to Gaia's limbs. As you run around different parts of the huge goddess, you encounter these massive horse-like crab, water things that Poseidon is ultimately controlling and you must free Gaia from their grip. This is all within the first 20 minutes of the game and is probably the most fun I've had with a video game in a long time. And just when I thought the game couldn't get any cooler I got to beat the ever living shit out of Poseidon as the camera switched between the normal view and Poseidon's first person view. Kratos literally beats the shit out of him in a set of mini-game button sequences, but I just couldn't believe how brutal the whole scene was. This is definitely not a game for young children.

So that's basically the opening of the game. Kratos then falls down to Hades and has to fight his way out. I don't know much else about the story since I'm still in Hades fighting lost souls and minotaurs, but I still can't believe how amazing this game is. I remember being blown away by games like Gears of War and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (and to a lesser extent MW2, if only because CoD4 was the true game changer), and I never thought another game could top those in terms of graphics and incredible gameplay... boy was I wrong. So my hats off to anyone and everyone that had any part in the development of God of War III, you guys have truly outdone yourself and deserve all the recognition this game will bring you.

Update 3/22/10: Since writing my first impressions I have no completed the game and instead of writing another post with a full review I will just say that the rest of the game lives up to the beginning. I never got bored and the game continued to impress me. 10/10 from me, probably one of the best (if not the best) game I've ever played.

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Playstation Move…And Other Motion Sensing Gaming

On 03.11.10, In Video Games, By AC Slater

Yesterday at the GDC Sony gave a more in depth demo of their motion sensing controller dubbed Playstation Move. Basically it's a rip off of the Wii controllers with large glowing balls on top. Now I don't really care for this type of gaming, sure the Wii was kind of cool when it first came out, but how many of you actually still play your wii? *chirp* *chirp*... Count me amongst those that bought a Wii when it first came out, played it for a month and then went back to real gaming on my Xbox 360, PS3 or PC. As much as I feel there needs to be some sort of new breakthrough as far as how we control and interact with game systems these days, I don't think that these motion sensing controller wands are the way to go. And honestly I don't think Microsoft's Project Natal is necessarily the way to go either. I just don't think motion sensing controllers of any sort, whether it has a wand or not, is going to get the hardcore gamers to put down the normal controllers that they are used to.

For one, based on demos of the Playstation Move and my experience with the Wii, there's not the same sense of accuracy with a motion sensing wand that there is with a controller. I tried to play Call of Duty 3 on the Wii and just found myself getting a wicked headache due to the fact that my screen was constantly flashing red from getting shot at. Maybe I'm just bad at utilizing this type of input controller for a first person shooter, but it seems more of a distraction and annoyance to have to point and aim a controller at the screen to get your gun to aim... not to mention way too tiring. There's no way I could sit there for hours and play a Wii game like I can with a normal Xbox controller, and this is going to be the same for Sony's Playstation Move.

Didn't Sony revamp their Dual Shock controller with motion sensing capabilities (or at least accelerometers) once they realized what Nintendo was doing with the Wii? How well did that work out? How many games out there actually utilize the accelerometers in the six axis controllers? I can think of one, Lair, and from what a co-worker has told me, it's a little hard to control and there's no way to turn off the movement control and just use the thumb sticks.

There's also a problem with lag in these games, the Wii seems to handle it pretty well and is actually fairly responsive, but it's still there. And now from what I'm reading and what I caught on G4 yesterday regarding Playstation Move, there is quite a bit of lag between when you perform the actions and when your character on screen reacts. This would totally kill the immersion into the game for me. The brief demo I caught on G4 yesterday, before going to dinner, was some fighting game that resembled something like Final Fight (I don't know any recent fighting games, not a fan), but obviously a bit more updated. The movements that the guy demoing the game did were fairly accurately performed by the character on the screen, but about 1/2 second after the guy did them himself. That seems like a whole lot of lag, and while it could have just been lag from the fact that it was a camera recording a TV I still feel like there is going to be some lag in games like that.

I don't know, overall I'm not a huge fan of this "motion sensing" gaming revolution that Nintendo started, but I am kind of curious to see where it will lead. I know there's got to be a different way for people to interact with gaming systems, but I don't think this is the way to do it. Maybe Microsoft's Project Natal will come out and blow everyone away, but again from the articles I've been reading lag seems to be a bit of a problem, so we'll see.

What are your thoughts on all of this motion sensing that is making it's way into modern gaming? Do you feel like these companies are abandoning their roots and their original fanbase to try to cater to the more casual gamer? Obviously it's a business so if they can round those people up and get them to buy a PS3 or Xbox 360 they are going to, but do you really see this as the next revolution in gaming? I mean the Wii has been out for years now and most people that I talk to don't even play theirs anymore unless they are having a party or something, otherwise it sits and collects dust.... like mine.

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Modern Warfare 2 DLC aka Expansion Pack To Be Released March 30th, 2010

On 03.10.10, In Video Games, By AC Slater

You can finally stop wondering when we're going to get some new content for Modern Warfare 2 because the date is official, March 30th, 2010, although we still don't know what we are getting. I think it's safe to assume that we will be getting at least some new maps based on the new viral site that Infinity Ward has setup to promote the DLC, www.mapathy.com , but other than that it's still a mystery. I'll keep everyone posted here when more info leaks or you can keep an eye on the site mentioned above as I'm sure that'll be the first place to have the info. If anyone hears anything else let us know!

Oh yeah and this is just for the Xbox 360, the PC and PS3 DLC will come at a later date...

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MAG Beta Impressions

On 01.05.10, In Video Games, By AC Slater

The 256 player FPS MAG went into public beta yesterday and I had a chance to sit down and play for a few hours so I thought I'd give you a quick rundown of my experience. Normally I would wait until I've had a little more time to experience all that a game has to offer, but I wasn't that impressed so I don't know how much more of the game I will be playing.

First of all let me start this by saying that my PS3 was purchased mainly as a Blu-Ray player and I currently only own 1 game for the system (Little Big Planet), which has not gotten much playing time. My main reason for not playing games on the PS3 is the controller. I've never liked the way the analog thumb sticks felt in my hands. It just seems like they are too loose which causes my movements to be a lot more erratic than with the Xbox 360 controller. So with that in mind I already knew that I was probably going to suck at MAG and get very frustrated.

If you haven't downloaded the beta yet from the Playstation Network you may want to set aside some time to do that before you get the urge to play. The demo itself only takes a few minutes to download and install, but once you launch it there is a 2gb "update" that begins to download and can take quite a bit of time. Once you get past that it's time to make a character. There are 3 different groups  you can choose from and this group will determine which team you fight with, RAVEN, VALOR or SVER. I don't know if there's a difference between each group as when I made a character in VALOR (the US group I believe) I could not get into a single match, it kept erroring out. So after reading a bit on the internets I determined that if I chose SVER I would be able to get into a match right away, and I was right.

So once I got into the main screen there were a bunch of options that I didn't have any clue what they meant so I just chose Deploy as I wanted to get into a game quickly. I tried to play the tutorial so I could get a feel for the controls and adjust my sensitivity, but for the life of me I could not figure out how to get into it. So despite the fact that I had no clue what I was doing, the only other option was to play Sabotage ( I think that's what it was called), as all the other game modes are locked until you hit higher levels. So Sabotage consists of one team guarding 2 bases and the other team trying to capture them, once the capturing team as done so to both bases a 3rd base appears on the map and they must plant explosives there while the other team defends.

The game mode itself isn't bad, it's only 24 players or something like that, not the full 256 like advertised (I guess that's only for certain game modes), but I still found myself dying almost as soon as I got to any of the bases. And the gun selection didn't help me either. You start off with 3 guns, an assault rifle, a sniper rifle and a machine gun and in order to get new guns you need to level up and then spend those skill points (1 per level) on different upgrades and/or weapons. It's a decent system, but I definitely think there should be more than 3 guns to choose from at the start of the game.

The maps and graphics looked pretty good. I've read some other people saying that they didn't think the graphics were up to par with games like Modern Warfare 2, but I think they are still pretty good, especially considering how massive some of the maps are. I still feel as though the Playstation 3 controller is a huge crutch when playing FPS' on the system, but again it's probably just because I'm used to the Xbox 360, so those of you that are used to the PS3 controller and it's response time and movement will probably be just fine. Other than that, I can't really comment on the lag issue in a 256 player game because I have yet to get into a game with that many people, but there was no lag that I noticed in the Sabotage games that I was playing in. I may have to play some more just to unlock the other game modes to see what a huge game like that plays like.

So overall I'm not terribly impressed with the game, I'd much rather play Modern Warfare 2 to get my FPS fix. I had considered purchasing this game as a blind-buy when it comes out later this month, but I think I'm going to hold off now and just wait for God of War III which will probably be my first and only PS3 game considering the new Final Fantasy is coming to the 360 this year as well.

Has anyone else given the beta a run through, what do you think so far? What did I miss? And are the other game modes more fun than the Sabotage one?

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