The Rumble Pack

I’ve spent a good deal of time with the Bad Company 2 beta on the PC, and I’ve got some initial thoughts about the multiplayer and the new mode showcased in the beta called “Squad Rush.”

It’s kind of weird to consider this beta as anything more than a glorified demo. I’m sure the DICE team is hard at work using this as a stress tester for online play and using the large pool of players to verify stability on a variety of setups. I have a hard time imagining that any significant tweaks will be made two weeks prior to release. (Is a last minute change like that even possible?)

The big question: will this be worth your money?

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It is times like this that make me wish I had a better memory.  Now, when 2011 rears its ugly head, I’m going to have to think all the way back to Jan 26 when I contemplate the games that defined 2010. Thank you, Mass Effect 2.

As I sat down to type this review the first time, I found myself trying to go down a bullet list of pros and cons of ME2.  I found myself able to list out a disturbing number of cons that I could easily put into words. The pros, however, weren’t so easily wrangled. As we’ve mentioned numerous times on the podcast, BioWare games have a knack for making you think about the whole, rather than discrete parts.

I’ve never played a game that is so clearly disjointed. Shooting, dialogue, cut scenes - each segment is completely isolated from the rest. You’re never caught off-guard by the action, unlike in Uncharted 2, where you sometimes don’t realize when the cut-scene is done and it’s your turn to play. In ME2, the game jerks from dialogue  to third-person action.  The game is very clear here: now is the time to start killing things. The talkie bits are done. Read more

If you listened to our show last week, then you know that our “What is an RPG?” discussion somehow became pretty heated. Kaz, frustrated over a recent installment of Active Time Babble, suggested that perhaps it’s time to redefine our game classifications. In this installment of Forced Feedback, he and Justin debate whether or not we need new terminology to define our favorite experiences. What exactly does this moldy acronym mean anymore? Read on and see if you can figure it out.

Kaz: I’m bringing this back up from the show for a couple reasons. I was irritated listening to games journalists, a group that frequently complains that there isn’t an audience for serious game discussions, sidestep and give up on an important discussion. To say that we can use vague, ill-defined words and “get what we mean” from them is copping out.

All too often, gamers fall into the trap of not wanting to engage in difficult discussions because “games are for fun and what fun can be had of serious discussion.” I don’t think that discussing how to define a game precludes having fun with it. I like to think about how to better define genre-bending games like Bioshock. Trying to define the experience lets us develop a means to express the value of a game beyond the obvious “because it’s fun.” Read more

I just spent the better part of the last two days blowing through Assassin’s Creed II, which is a credit to the game’s design and execution. I do have some complaints about the game that carry over from the first one, but aside from control issues, I think they’re intentional.

I don’t want to talk about the game’s quality here, though. I just wanted to make it perfectly clear that what I want to talk about isn’t a condemnation of Assassin’s Creed II - merely a strange phenomenon I’ve been experiencing.

Similar to when I blew through Modern Warfare 2 and Arkham Asylum, I feel thoroughly “vegged” out. I also feel a pang of guilt. Guilt that I played through a good game too fast and didn’t properly enjoy it. Guilt that, while I was totally enthralled and entertained, I may have just wasted precious time that could have been better spent. Guilt that I’m not having as much fun as I should.

I’m sure sometime around 1 p.m. on Wednesday, when I’m back at work after a two week break, I’ll be begging for a six hour chunk of time to game non-stop. I’ll be daydreaming of one more Modern Warfare 2 match or a long, arduous play of a Left 4 Dead 2 campaign. But for now, I’m left wondering if any game in recent memory has made me smile throughout. I seem to recall being irritated by little issues in games more than entertained by the good parts.

For a while, I had chalked up my displeasure with gaming to unemployment. It’s hard to enjoy anything when, in the back of your mind, you’re always thinking about how you’re going to make it to the next rent payment. But a month and a half into employment (at a job I find 100 times better to boot), I’m still not hitting up that gaming magic. What happened to joyously playing through Crackdown and laughing all the way?

I need to find that again. Even when playing Forza Motorsport 3, I’m not giddy like I want to be. And I’m probably going to pin that game as my favorite of the year.

I suppose I’ll leave these musings to my blog and keep them off the podcast. But if you’re wondering why my opinions seem depressing even when I think highly of a game, you’ll know why. Nothing seems to be sparking the way I want it to.

Welcome to America: Land of the free and home of the First-Person Shooter. Let’s face it – if you’re an American gamer, you’ve probably played an FPS in your life. You know the deal, grab the gun, go for the headshot, lob the grenade, “Terrorists Win!” At a rudimentary level, the genre seems crude, overly-violent, and twitch-heavy. These are “gun games” made for “gun fans.” Is it really a surprise that we see so many shooters like this, especially living in a country where you can buy a gun at Walmart?

As someone who doesn’t play a lot of FPS (I’m pretty awful at Halo, and haven’t owned one since Goldeneye), I’m kind of sick of seeing one mindless shooter after another being crapped out of western game studios. The angsty inner teenager within me’s“why should I care?” attitude was quickly taking over my thought process. Then a little game called The Orange Box (you might have heard of it by now) came out, and for the first time ever I stepped into City 17. Read more

2007 was the year of games that you start playing casually and end playing like a cocaine addict. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was no exception.

I spent a good part of the summer addicted to the beta of the online component, in spite of the fact that I would have to do it all over again when the game came out proper. Surprisingly the part of the game I thought I would play the least of is the part I could not put down.

The single player story gripped my attention for three days the way the multiplayer had when I first downloaded the beta. The campaign did all the things you’ve read in reviews elsewhere–it was immersing, intense, vividly realistic at times and didn’t lose momentum from start to finish. What was most impressive about the game is it was the first shooter in a while where I’ve felt for the characters in your squad. Something about the representation of soldiers felt more real in this game than in any game prior. Read more

At first I thought the title of the game was a utilitarian way of describing the game as a rudimentary dual stick shooter that was made for the working man.

After playing it, however, the title appears to be creator Jonathan Mak’s way of telling everyone he does drugs every damn day.

He describes this “game” as an album of games that examines “the expressive power of abstract shooters.” Which isn’t helping his case; were you to play his game and have him standing behind you as you groove to the abstract guitar noises and tell you about the expressive powers the game had…you would most certainly know he was on heroin. Read more

Note: I experienced all Half Life 2 and Orange Box titles via a gaming PC and Steam. Opinions may vary based on the quality of the version being played.

The first reason that I would list for wanting to purchase The Orange Box is the last component I ended up playing. I went after Portal almost immediately, in spite of the game being an afterthought in the package. Then I transitioned to Team Fortress 2 having played a lot of the beta on my steam preorder. Finally I got around to cracking into Episode 2.

As a testament to its fantastic quality I beat the game in two sittings. For my own record I refer to these parts by two different names: Part 1, “The really good part” and Part 2, “The effing mind-blowing portion”. No amount of telling myself to stand up and walk away from the monitor could tear me away. Especially once I had gotten into the really effing mind-blowing portions. Read more

Warning: Some people may consider seeing screens of a puzzle game spoilers, I do not think this simple puzzle ruins anything, but if you are spoiler sensitive then you might want to play Portal before you read this review.

How do you get that box onto the switch in the center of the room? With Portals of course! Read more

Pretentious use of punctuation in a game title aside, I can’t stress enough how much skate. made me smile while playing.

Somewhere between the 10th and 30th time I tried to nail a certain trick off a ledge onto a rail the game did cease to be fun in a traditional sense. But fun in a strangely satisfying way. Hitting a spectacular trick wasn’t common like it is in Tony Hawk, wherein you routinely bust out crazy tricks jumping a 200 ft. gap between buildings, but instead a rarity that seemed to be reward all it’s own.

I stopped trying to beat the “story” mode on several occasions and began idly skating around Vanelona looking for interesting ways to test my skill and the game’s limits. It wasn’t until much later in the game when you unlock the mega ramps that the realism of the game breaks down, until then I found myself trying to constantly test the game for when I would see a sign of the old Tony Hawk style automated gameplay. Read more