Chaotic Thoughts: The Birth of a Gamer

Today, I’m happy to announce a true miracle of life: the birth of a gamer. No, I’m not a dad (thank God), but in a way, I did help create a new life in the gaming community. This new gamer to join our community of Cake jokes, interactive storytelling, and fanboy-fanaticism is my girlfriend.

This is a feat that most gamers in a relationship can only dream of. Videogames are the point of contention in most relationships—a veritable TV hog, monopolizing the screen while favorite shows are missed. For the longest time, I thought she would never accept videogames outside of Flash games or PopCap creations for the iPhone.

But I realize now that I had approached gaming for her in a completely wrong way. I was asking her to jump into games that I liked rather than pick games we could both enjoy. The first thing we ever played together was Halo ODST’s Firefight mode. I thought this would’ve been perfect; after all, we would be on a team. What better metaphor could there be for a boyfriend/girlfriend gaming team?

Not exactly a casual experience

Well, that experience ended badly. She was frustrated and angered. She fought with the controls. On top of everything, her pride was injured from the fact that the hallmark Halo announcer proclaimed my Killtrocities, while being frustratingly quiet on her side. This was such a setback that it would be a year before she played a console videogame again.

While she certainly didn’t suck playing Halo, I realize that asking her to play a game like Halo would be like asking a toddler to run before it could crawl. Gamers my age grew up as videogames did: we saw the Nintendo classic controller, the first ever dual-analog stick controller, and now motion controllers. I remember playing Ape Escape, the first game to really use the dual-analog sticks, and having the exact same problems as my girlfriend did: while competent with the controls, I lacked the fluidity required to perform well. It would take years of practice before I could shoot 10 Grunts in the head while on the move.

DAMN DIRTY APE!

I think many people in my age demographic—the (once?) primary demographic for videogame developers—forget what it was like to start playing games. We expect others to play as well as we do now; we laugh at our parents and loved ones as they fumble with controls. Instead, we should embrace their first venture into gaming. Even if they never play a game again, their experience should involve fun and not frustration.

That’s one of the reasons why I think the Playstation Move and Microsoft Kinect (and to some extent the Wii) are great for the industry. Hardcore gamers can complain about the crappy games, but in the end, what these platforms are really doing is opening the door to the total gaming experience—what I define as a blend of hardcore and casual games. I think the videogame industry needs to open up. Not every game has to be about shooting or killing an enemy. Games like Heavy Rain, LittleBigPlanet, and basically every Mario game are popular because they offer experiences almost everyone can get into, whereas Halo, Call of Duty, and Gears of War simply cater to a small group.

So this last time I introduced gaming to her, I showed her LittleBigPlanet. She loved the art direction and gameplay mechanics. From there, she started playing Super Mario Galaxy 2. I hopped in as the second player, but soon she was asking me to let her go it alone. I feel confident now she can play any game she wanted on any system.

When we were in GameStop the other day, she said something I never thought I’d hear. She was looking around the store and spotted a poster for Fable 3. Then she began to tell me why she wanted to play it. At the same time I thought about all the grief hardcore gamers give the Fable series, how we complain about Peter Molyneux’s typically exaggerated promises, and yet somehow I didn’t care. The only thing I thought of was experiencing a videogame with someone special, not some anonymous jackass on Xbox Live but a loved one.

Thanks Sir Pete for everything (even if you never live up to your promises)

Written by Neutrally Chaotic

Alan Wake: The Creep Take

Disclaimer: This game gets extra points from me simply because it has witty character dialogue. I guess I’m just easily amused by lines like, “I think my tongue just took a crap in my mouth.” But I digress…

It’s been speculated that this game was in creation back as early as 2001, and Alan Wake was officially unveiled by its developer, Remedy Entertainment, at 2005’s E3 show. At first Remedy stated on record that this would be a free roam, sandbox-style  adventure much like any of the Grand Theft Auto games, but they scrapped that in favor of focusing on a compelling story with limited amounts of free roaming exploration. In 2006 the developers announced that Alan Wake would be released on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC – until Microsoft teamed with Remedy to make it an Xbox 360 and PC exclusive title. In yet another twist of fate, Microsoft made an announcement in February 2010 that the game would be released solely on Xbox 360, stating that it would be “more compelling that way”. (Umm, okay?)

The story follows fiction writer Alan Wake as he unravels the mystery of the disappearance of his wife Alice while they’re out on vacation in a small town called Bright Falls. As he makes his search Wake must deal with numerous physical blackouts and visions of characters and ideas that spring to life from his most recent novel, which he can’t even remember writing. There are six episodes in the game and each one is reminiscent of a television mini-series, complete with a recap at the beginning of each subsequent episode. Although this may be considered as nothing overly earth shattering, this presentation totally matches what Remedy’s vision must have been – giving the video gaming experience of a novel that’s being presented to the gamer as a television show. Being a fan of such television shows like “The X-Files”, I think this game has the perfect blend of creepy atmosphere and excellent storytelling, and brought me back to the days when that TV show dominated weekly viewer ratings.

The solid combat in Alan Wake builds upon the stellar storytelling, assuring there aren’t any sluggish moments during the roughly 12-14 hour adventure. Wake has a handy way of dealing with the Taken (the dark, shadowy enemies): shine any kind of a light source on them. For the most part, you sometimes carry these light sources in your left hand, and use that to weaken enemies who stand in your way. By aiming it on them for a few seconds, you destroy the darkness that controls them, making them vulnerable to normal firearms. This gameplay mechanic is not only original, but it also leads to some rather intense moments throughout the course of the game – and builds lots of tension to boot.

When you’re being surrounded by a group of the fiendish Taken, you have to choose one individual at a time to spatter with your darkness draining light, and keeping your aim balanced in the hopes of staving off all other attackers is pretty damn exciting. If enemies get too close to you, you can dive out of the way at the very last second, which triggers a cool looking slow-mo evasion that lets you quickly return fire before they have get the chance to attack Wake a second time. Because there is an abundance of ammunition strewn about and your health slowly regenerates after each battle, you’ll rarely submit to their attacks; but nevertheless, each encounter with the Taken is pretty slick.

Exploring the haunted woods becomes just as important as the game’s combat when making your journey to find Wake’s missing wife. Venturing off of the forest’s paths is the only way for you to find all of Wake’s missing manuscript pages, television programs, and hidden weapon chests (which contain goodies to aid in fending off the Taken). Aside from a standard revolver, you can scoop up a hunting rifle, shotgun, or flare gun, which makes short work of the Taken when they are advancing on you. Throwing a flashbang grenade into a group of enemies results in a neat animation of them melting away into nothing… but for me, that almost always results in a “hell yes!” kind of moment.

Alan Wake

As a writer, I found that I have a certain familiarity with the mindset and journey of Alan Wake. Whether it is the dark tortured soul struggling with the ominous white void of the blank page or the ability to look good in a tweed jacket, I felt a strong connection with this character. Alan Wake is a famous novelist who hasn’t written in two years. He goes on a getaway with his wife, who is trying to help him relax and start writing again. Everything seems quite pleasant until Mrs. Wake is kidnapped and Alan wakes up with no memory of the past week. From here, the story unfolds like a Steven King novel, pitting you against a mysterious darkness whose source you must investigate and eventually defeat.

The story plays out quite beautifully and is almost seamlessly blended with gameplay. The best feature of the game is that it really feels like you are playing a horror thriller novel. You move through the chapters and are constantly listening to Wake narrate his journey like an audio book. Another narration tool is the manuscript pages you find throughout the world. You learn pretty early on that some of them describe events that haven’t happened yet. When those events do happen, its like you just found the hole for a puzzle piece you’ve been trying to place for hours. It’s quite brilliant. The writing is spot on, with one notable exception (a mock late night talk show that is painful to watch).

Without spoiling anything, I should say the ending was extremely confusing. I played through it a second time and I still am unsure about what a lot of it meant. I guess I’ll just have to wait for the DLC coming at the end of this month.

As you hunt down your wife’s kidnappers, you are attacked by the darkness and the enemies possessed by it. At first, you just take down a few axe wielding lunatics, but later you are dodging flying objects and trying to avoid slightly larger chainsaw wielding lunatics. The unique combat system has a heavy reliance on light, adding to the motif of light vs. dark. Enemies are invulnerable to attack until you have used light to destroy the darkness surrounding them. Sometimes there will be environmental objects like spotlights that help with this, but the majority of the time you are using your trusty flashlight, followed by a few rounds from your pistol. If you get overwhelmed, you can pop out a flare to force enemies back or toss a flashbang grenade to annihilate a group of enemies quickly. The game has all the right enemies to keep up the feeling of horror and you are given all the right tools to survive without getting too comfortable.

Bright Falls gives the game a great small town feel, but also takes away from the experience at times. Though there are some interesting environments scattered throughout, the vast majority of the game involves running through the woods. I can only take so many trees before I want to burn down the forest and punch Smokey the Bear in the face. Why couldn’t they throw in some creepy docks or a slaughterhouse?

Only you can bury the corpses of your enemies!

The environments are quite pretty though. You will look off at gorgeous landscapes and then be harassed by moving shadows later, but no matter what you are looking at, it will look cool…unless you are looking at the character’s faces. The facial modeling and animation is just plain bad. People are ugly and can’t seem to show emotions [insert joke about Keanu Reeves]. Lip-synching in Alan Wake is equally horrible. Eighty percent of the time, it doesn’t match up with the audio.

Having no emotions keeps you from aging.

As with every game I ever play, I need a working online component in order to justify spending fifty bucks on a video game. If it doesn’t have online multiplayer then there is almost no way the two days of enjoyment the game gives me is worth the money. Alan Wake has no online multiplayer, BUT is going on the list of single player games I feel are worth the money, regardless. It’s a very short list that includes games such as Uncharted 2 and Fallout 3, but it does exist. Hopefully Alan Wake 2 will feature multiplayer modes like King of the Well-Lit Hill or Flashlights vs. Darkies (not racist).

I give Alan Wake the nod of approval.

The Good: A strong horror thriller feel. Alan Wake is a writer. Interesting light vs dark dynamic. Fun combat system. Mostly well written story.

The Bad: Poor facial models. Lip synching issues. A couple of poorly acted voiceover lines. Not much Environmental diversity.

The Verdict: Buy. It’s rare for me to recommend the buy on a single player only game, but guess what. I just did it.

Written by NotJudas

Batman Arkham Asylum: I Am The Darkness

The problem with making a superhero game is the same regardless of the figure. How do you 1) make the player feel super powerful, and 2) challenge the player? Every superhero video game represents a struggle to balance these too elements. As gamers, we don’t want to just press the A button over and over again—that’s what Final Fantasy 13 got wrong (ZING!). At the same time, we also don’t want to be playing as Batman and not feel like we’re playing as Batman.

Developer Rocksteady gets really close to the perfect balance between the two sides. Really, really close. There’s only a few problem that keeps this from being the perfect superhero game. As such, it is a fantastic game that offers some amazing fun, but don’t expect to be too challenged. See, maybe I was playing this game on too easy of a setting, but outside of the boss fights, I didn’t die. There’s a part of me that wants to think I didn’t die because I’m awesome, but I know that’s not completely the case. Arkham Asylum’s combat system is just too easy, I think. This doesn’t break the game, honestly, but it does make me feel not like Batman, but just someone controlling Batman.

Of course, I’m not Batman, but video games to me represent a way to become something you’re not. I want to feel like Batman because I’m not Batman in real life (or maybe I am, and I’m just trying to throw you off the trail of my secret identity). Arkham Asylum’s combat basically comes down to pressing the attack button and knowing when to counter attack. It’s a simple, streamlined system, but like most fighting games, the straightforwardness of the system made me neglect a lot of the things I could do. There’s no reason to get into the upgrade system when you’re basic punching attacks work well, and in fact, I didn’t; I invested all my upgrades into the health system, and once I maximized that, I went onto combat upgrades I rarely used.

It’s a problem inherent in any fighting game. Some games, like Too Human, reduce their combat system to nothing, while others try to make the enemy AI so punishing that you have to used advanced combos. In Batman, that latter option wasn’t available: Batman seldom fights just one grunt. Maybe one boss, but a game of just boss fights would be equally dumb. Regardless, I felt that the fights were just too easy. However, I do have to say, the fights themselves look awesome. Onlookers think you’re doing something amazing, even though you’re just pressing one button. I think that’s why more people don’t mention the easy combat system: it looks so damn cool, it’s easy to forgive.

Blur Review

Blur is a racing game which was created by the masterminds behind the Sega Dreamcast’s Metropolis Street Racer game, as well as the Project Gotham Racing series released on both the original Xbox and Xbox 360 – Bizarre Creations. They also happen to be the creators of one of my all-time favorite Xbox Live Arcade games, 2005’s Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved. At its most basic, this is a racing game that’s built around vehicular combat while utilizing many different real life car makes and models. Some have likened this game to a Mario Kart on steroids racer, but in my humble opinion, it’s a thousand times more quick and chaotic than what I remember Mario Kart ever being. No offense aimed at the Mario Kart uber fanatics out there, but that’s just my humble opinion.

The first time that I played Blur was when the public beta was released on Xbox Live Marketplace, after it went live on April 6, 2010. Nothing much about the game in general has changed as far as looks and controls are concerned. Now that I’ve actually had the opportunity to play the PS3 version they look virtually identical. To be completely honest, it’s been just as much fun playing it months ago on my 360 as it’s been having played it recently on my PS3… and this is coming from a guy that vehemently swore off racing games many, many years ago.

The first mode of the game that I immediately dove into was the career mode. You encounter and race against boss characters after completing certain demands – demands such as “evade three shock fields,” “complete two fan runs,” or “complete four fan targets,” etc. There is a wide variety of cars that can be driven in Blur, including the Ford Focus RS, Dodge Challenger SRT8, Nissan 350z NISMO S-tune, and even a classic like the Volkswagen Beetle. Once you best one of the boss characters, you unlock their vehicle and vehicle modification for your use. After getting past the first boss character Shannon I wound up unlocking her Renault R230 F1 Team R26 (try saying that five times fast) vehicle, as well as her “overbolt” mod, which grants its user with an extra bolt round every time a bolt power-up is picked up. In order to unlock the higher difficulty boss characters, primary goals need to be met (finish in 1^st, 2^nd, or 3^rd), fan targets (the number of fans you gain) must be obtained, and fan runs (driving through marked gates on the track) need to be accomplished. Basically, when you complete more of these goals during a course, more playable content will be unlocked down the road (no pun intended).

A Poorly Written Rant from Not Judas

Casual Old People

I keep noticing the phrase “casual v. hardcore gamers.” I am slightly bothered by such an ignorant statement. Why is this a versus? People seem to think we are drifting from a world of hardcore games to a world of casual games. That is completely untrue. The world of games is transforming into one of choice. The biggest problem with people identifying with video games has always been range. The main goal right now is to change that. Developers are trying to make something for everyone. Just because they are devoting resources to a project that doesn’t appeal to you, as an individual, doesn’t mean that those resources were wasted. Quit being a narcissistic little wanker and share the wealth. If Kinect creates a new way for a forty-year-old accountant to connect with his twelve-year-old son who hates math and loves boys, then let it happen. Call of Duty games are still going to be released and no one is denying you your right to be a bigot in Halo.

That being said, why do all the motion games have to look like a big steaming pile of retardo. They all have you performing such wild tasks as jumping over things and hitting balls. It’s almost like developers took a bunch of arcade games from the 80s and turned them into 3D motion games. There is so much untapped potential here! I want the new F.E.A.R. game to use Kinect. Now THAT would be a frightening experience!

AND ANOTHER THING, while I am fake-mad! What is up with Nintendo making side scrollers again? Did they just give up on the free world games? I’m surprised that the new Zelda game with the ugly graphics and seemingly no innovation isn’t a side scroller. It’s okay though. At least they have the unnecessary Goldeneye remake that looks just slightly prettier than the original and stars Daniel Craig, who wasn’t even in the movie. Why not just put Keanu Reeve’s face in the game?

KeanuEye

Sorry for the short rant this week (not really, because I hate you). I have been extraordinarily busy, BUT…next week I return to reviewing (btw, I was totally kidding earlier about hating you) (psych).

P.S. If you are a stand-up in the Dallas area and interested in working on a secretive project that may or may not involve the demons in your head, then shoot me an email at onemanbukkake@gmail.com

Demon’s Souls: 9 Lives Aren’t Gonna Be Enough

Arcade games were designed to be tough so that you had to keep shoving quarters into the machine, and early game design took up that mantra for some reason. Maybe Nintendo was secretly thinking about adding a quarter slot in its Nintendo Entertainment System? Before all the “casual” gaming trends, achievements, and trophies, there was difficulty. If you could beat Contra (without using the Konami Code, mind you), you were awesome. If you beat Battletoads, you were a god.

Now, I know I sound like one of those jerks that think participation trophies are for losers, but video games have gotten easier over the years. Don’t believe me? Try Demon’s Souls. It is one of the hardest games I have played since Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (the version for the NES, not that XBLA crapfest). However, Demon’s Souls is hard because it was designed to be hard, not because of broken game play mechanics. This game takes the difficulty dial and cranks it up to 11. There aren’t difficulty sliders here or enemies that level up with you. There are only two types of people in Demon’s Souls: the dead and the dying. And you’re dead.

Dramatic, yes, but Demon’s Souls is all about death. In fact, in the tutorial at the beginning of the game, you will die. Death is a central game mechanic, and it helps the game set the difficulty for you, but not exactly how you expect. When you die, you return in a spirit form—with half your health gone. Ouch. The only way to get your body back is to beat a boss. Not only that, but the more you die, the stronger enemies become as the world becomes “darker.” Defeat the demons like you’re supposed to (and stop whining about how much you’re dying) and the world becomes “lighter,” making enemies easier, but also reducing the good loot enemies will drop. Oh, and if you die, you lose all the souls you’ve collected—souls that you spend on buying attribute points and weapons/armor. You can retrieve these souls by returning to the place where you died, but chances are, what killed you last time is going to kill you again, unless you’ve figured out a new strategy.

And there’s no pause button. Ever.

This one is going to kill you...

If the system seems unfair, it is and it isn’t. The controls are tight and battles are intense; in fact, they’re the most intense battles I’ve experienced in a while. When I fight demons—and not even the towering, intimidating demons, but just normal grunts—it’s an epic struggle, the likes of which Inigo Montoya has never seen. Blocking, parrying, and attacking roll into this deadly dance that is exhilarating, because you know if you fail, you will die, the game will be harder, and you will be weaker. The bigger the demons, though, the more souls they’ll yield when you kill them. Risk and reward, my friends, risk and mother-effing reward.

...and this one...

Crackdown 2 Demo Impressions

Even though this is technically a direct sequel to 2007’s original Crackdown, Crackdown 2 was developed by an entirely different company, Ruffian Games. Ruffian Games is made up of several of the people from the original Crackdown’s developer, Realtime Worlds, and some of the staff from Xen Studios. The team’s developers have worked on games like Crackdown, Fable II, and Project Gotham Racing in the past.

In the same mold as its predecessor, Crackdown 2 is a third person shooter based in an open world environment. From the information that I have read about this game, it’s supposed to offer an increased amount of character customization when compared to the original game. Also making a return to the sequel are the skill orbs to be collected in order to help enhance your Agent’s abilities. Another addition in the demo is a small taste of the checkpoint racing that will be scattered throughout the entire city, once the retail version of the game’s released in July. Once again, co-op play will be available in Crackdown 2, but this time around, up to four people will be able to join forces to help take down the undesirables in the city. Last, but certainly not least, another first for the series will be the addition of competitive multiplayer modes – for up to 16 people.

I consider myself as being one of those gamers out there who puts great gameplay above how well a game looks, but simply put, Crackdown 2’s environment comes off looking a bit flat. Hopefully for the hardcore fans of this series this is only an issue with the demo, but the more that I played the demo, the more I felt disappointed with the game’s presentation. The buildings throughout the playable section of the city look very nondescript, and have little to no texturing added to them. This, in turn, makes each and every building that you come across feeling about as bland as a bowl of unflavored oatmeal. With high-end, visually remarkable games like God of War 3, Red Dead Redemption, and Uncharted 2 on the market, one would think that Crackdown 2 should offer something along the same lines, but sadly, the demo does not offer such quality.

Along with the environments not offering much detail, the variety of enemies was poor. I noticed maybe four or five different looking mutants, and the same lack of variety can be said for all of the members of “The Cell” that are trying to shoot your Agent dead. It’s also worth mentioning the fact that the sounds of your weaponry firing sound pretty weak, all things considered. If I wanted to hear a pop-cap gun fire, I would walk down to the local toy store and buy one for $2.50, and save myself an additional $57.50. These are but a few problems with the game that I encountered, which I hope for the Crackdown faithful, will be a non-issue once the full version of the game lands in July and the entire landscape of the city is opened up for complete exploration.

Released on June 21^st to Xbox Live Gold members, the Crackdown 2 demo offers 30 minutes of exploration in the Hope Springs section of the city. Also included with this demo is the ability to unlock more than a handful of the retail game’s achievements, and they’re “officially” unlocked once the full version is played on your Xbox 360 for the first time. Personally speaking, if I didn’t find the overall variety of enemies to be so meager and the backgrounds so bland, I probably would have tried much harder to unlock a few of these pre-release achievements. Simply put, I found this demo to be a hundred times more boring than the Crackdown 1 demo that I played almost three years ago. Again, I hope that these gripes I have with the game aren’t a problem with the full version; otherwise it could very well be one of the fastest Gamefly rental turnarounds I have yet to encounter.

The Good: Thirty minutes of exploration is available, and running people over with vehicles is still loads of fun.

The Bad: A weak variety of on-screen enemies, an overly bland environment, and lame sounding weaponry.

The Verdict: Worth a download if you’re into unlocking achievements before the full version releases in a few weeks.

Written by N3GAT1VE_CR33P

Little Big Planet Game of the Year Edition Review

With the announcement of Little Big Planet 2 at E3 2010 and the fact that Sony is now offering Little Big Planet Game of the Year edition bundled with its PS3 console, fans of the original have a lot to look forward to. While not as versatile as its upcoming sequel, Little Big Planet has the best level creator available right now. But the big question is, how does the platform elements hold up? After all, this is a game and not a level editor.

The answer to that question is mixed. One of the interesting approaches to Little Big Planet is the division of foreground and background space. Instead of having the ability to move freely between foreground and background (think the 3D Mario games), there are layers to every plane. The game will move the character automatically between the planes depending on the environment. Very infrequently, for example, will you jump for a ledge and the game decides you want to jump in the foreground, falling to your death. The auto system works pretty well, but it’s not perfect, and like I said, there are moments where the game just goes insane and thinks you’re a suicide jumper. About 85% of the time, my character moved to the right plane, which isn’t bad, but that 15% can get irritating.

I don’t think I’ve ever used the term “my character” (outside of the RPG genre) and meant it as much as I do in a Little Big Planet game. Your little character, affectionately called Sack Boy, can be customized with a variety of outfits and decorations. As you play through the levels that come with the game, you’ll find prize bubbles that unlock more costumes and pieces to build levels with. It’s a smart system, as players will have to replay levels again and again to find all the pieces to complete their collection.

Cute little fellow, isn't he?

Music in a game for me usually is only a detractor. Sometimes the soundtrack can become really annoying, but it rarely ever adds character to a game for me. In Little Big Planet, the soundtrack is seriously awesome. It fits the context of the game, and makes everything seem that much more polished. Plus, the British voice over work brings out the Anglophile in me (that’s love of English, for those who saw the ending -phile and got scared of my tastes).

The level designs in the Media Molecule-made (try saying that three times fast) levels are fantastic, and it should be worth noting that they made the level editor first, and then made all their levels. Everything that you play, you could hypothetically make. How easy to use is the level editor? It depends on what you’re trying to do. Every time I tried to make something, I always thought of the most complicated solution as possible. I guess it’s just the way my brain is wired. For instance, one time I made a level where players had to climb up until they reached a ceiling of sorts. They had to get on top of the ceiling. The easy way to do this would be to make platforms that they could jump up, but platforms are for Mario, right? So I made a rocket car that would propel the character around to the other side. That took about 30 minutes to make, when making platforms would take about three minutes.

But that’s the beauty of Little Big Planet. You can make your levels as complicated or simple as you’d like. You can use stickers and background elements to give your level some flair, or leave it looking like wood cutouts glued in an elementary school panorama project. It’s entirely up to you. You can cram your levels with a lot of cool designs. I made a Plinko part to one of my levels (think Price is Right), and every time the ball hit a spoke, a sound effect played and lights went off. Conceivably you could make a pinball level—your imagination really dictates what you want to do.

And that brings me to the final part of Little Big Planet: the community. There are some truly awesome creations on Little Big Planet’s servers. The levels range from difficult to cinematic. For instance, I played a level that recreated the Apollo 13 disaster. I barely did anything in the level itself, but what amazed me was how cool the level was—it felt like a recreation, and it was all made from the same bits and pieces I had collected while playing Little Big Planet. I can understand why Media Molecule is giving players more freedom in the next version, however: so many times players have to come up with convoluted ways to achieve an effect that could’ve been easily done if they had been given the right resources. It’s obvious people want to create games, not just levels, and Media Molecule deserves a real pat on the back for listening to and being perceptive of its community.

In the Game of the Year edition of the game, players receive all the downloadable content, including the Metal Gear Solid pack, which adds a paintball gun. The paintball gun adds a lot of interesting options, as players can now effectively attack objects from a distance. You’ll also unlock some sweet Metal Gear Solid 4 swag for your Sack Boy, including a Cyborg Raiden outfit, which is sweet. The other packs are great, but I suppose I’m biased towards the MGS pack since I’m such a fan of the series.

On a personal note, this is the game that got my girlfriend into videogames in general. Media Molecule should receive an award for that one—we now no longer fight for control of the TV, but rather play co-op Little Big Planet. Kudos to Media Molecule on LBP, and I’m looking forward to Little Big Planet 2.

The Good: the most versatile creating tools in any videogame right now (until Little Big Planet 2), great level variety, fantastic community support in levels that can be downloaded and played.

The Bad: sometimes the auto-detection for foreground/background movements is off; the camera in level creation can be fickle.

The Verdict: so with Little Big Planet 2 releasing in November 2010, you’d think I’d tell you to wait until that came out. Wrong! You should at least rent this game. You could also probably pick it up used somewhere, but you definitely want to try this sucker out, get your platforming on and make some levels before LBP2 drops in November. You don’t want to be rusty when the new one comes out, right?

Medal of Honor (2010) Beta Impressions

Medal of Honor is a well-known first person shooter series that dates back to November 11, 1999; released on the PlayStation 1 console. Created by Steven Spielberg, the series created various spin-offs and expansions over several different home gaming consoles, PCs, and Macs. This most recent Medal of Honor title is scheduled to release on October 12, 2010 across various platforms (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC). Developers have decided to ditch the setting of WWII in favor of a more recent setting; this time around it is set in Afghanistan–complete with modern day technology, modern day weapons, and modern day vehicles.

For this closed beta, there are only two available game modes that can be played, as well as two different playable maps. First, there is mission mode, which is akin to Battlefield: Bad Company 2’s “rush” mode where certain objectives must be accomplished before the attackers can advance further into the map. Then there is team assault… which is, well, exactly like team deathmatch. Available maps on the closed beta include Helmand Valley (mission), and Kabul City Ruins (team assault).

Aside from a slightly different controller button layout, this game basically feels and controls much like Battlefield: Bad Company 2, but that’s really where their similarities end. Most importantly, the hit detection in the MOH closed beta could definitely use some fine tuning, as well as the minimal amount of recoil that each available weapon has. The weapons just don’t have a “lifelike” feel to them in this early version of the game. Luckily for those interested in the upcoming MOH, the game won’t be released until the middle of October – so there’s a lot of time for the developers to tighten this up.

Having been mentioned several different times on the EA forums, the MOH closed beta is prone to having game crashing freezing issues. More times than not, and for some strange reason, this issue of freezing almost always happens to those people playing on the Taliban’s side once they get a multi-kill streak, mostly after three consecutive kills. Although while I was playing the beta for several hours yesterday afternoon, I started to notice the same kind of freezing would happen while playing on the U.S. team. Yet another glaring weakness of this closed beta would have to be the underpowered explosives. If you hit a tank from behind with two RPG rounds in BFBC2, the tank’s destroyed. If you hit a tank from behind with two RPG rounds in MOH, the tank’s still functional. If EA plans on selling more than four copies of their newest first person shooter game, I really think they had better straighten out these game breaking issues before its scheduled release in October.

Another issue that I noticed while playing the MOH beta is the fact that you are unable to have settings saved in the options menu of the game. Undoubtedly this major issue will be fixed before its October 12^th release, but I think it’s worth mentioning now for those people who want to play this once it becomes an open beta. It should also be noted that you’re unable to pickup other people’s weapons when you run low on your own ammunition. Here’s a warning for all the MOH snipers out there… your rifles will feel very, very underpowered. Upon first use, they could very well make the sniper rifles in Socom: Confrontation seem beastly than they actually were when that game first launched, almost two years ago.