I’ve taken a lot of requests of things to check out and I’m going to spend all Saturday playing those games and talking to the developers if at all possible and that’s it. It’s far too easy to make your PAX a blur and miss out on enjoying anything in favor of trying to see everything. I’ll make a note of what I see and dump raw audio and photos in this article as fast as I can.

Honorable Mentions

Even with an expanded top 10 list there are some games that just don’t make the cut but merit your attention anyways. I could say this under the pretense that all gamers should expand their horizons but I imagine I’d get harassed for such a closed minded statement (“How dare I use the word ‘should’!”). In fact, my lack of turning on my Wii more than once this year indicates that I’m less than open minded, I just feel like there’s a greater appreciation to be gleaned from the games that you do love from the games that won’t make the cut but still have something important to add to gaming.

Happy trails, pardner'

Nothing screams honorable mention like the game that many others list at the top of the games of the year. Red Dead: Redemption stands as an accomplishment in gaming for many reasons, most important of which: it’s the only Rockstar game I’ve ever played to completion. There’s a lot to love about the way the story handles itself, but unfortunately there was a lot to hate about how it mishandles all my good will with an inexplicable (and somewhat random) ending and a sagging middle section in Mexico which left a bad taste in my mouth for the rest of the game. A wise developer would take the good points of the game–the strong protagonist, complex themes and unique setting–and marry it with more compelling supporting characters and a more grounded plot. In fact, I’m really hoping the other Rockstar game coming out does this.

Another game of note accomplishes the impossible. Being a movie tie-in, albeit to a movie from the eighties, and a great game is a most difficult task. A task that Telltale accomplishes with ease in Back to the Future the Game: Episode 1, anyone else would have churned out a complete disaster. And while it was hard to the the notion seriously when A.J. said it on the show; after playing the game it’s almost impossible to imagine BttF continued as anything other than an adventure game. It doesn’t make my top 10 list but certainly is worth a play through for anyone familiar with the movies (which is everyone).

Top 10

10. Metro 2033 -

Life's not much better above ground...

I didn’t say much more on the show about Metro beyond whatever I felt would compel someone to give it a try. You can drone on for hours about all the things it does wrong. What makes the game stand out, however, is its uncompromising design. The designers stop at nothing to make you feel like you’ve entered the gritty underground tunnels of Moscow, the NPCs are dirty, the guns are crude and broken, you are dirty. Everything is covered in the filth and disgusting grime that a post apocalyptic should be coated in. Very few games can walk you through linear levels nowadays without losing something to the magic of more open environments, yet Metro delivers. It delivers with scripted sequences that immerse you in the world rather than take you out of it, a feat only Valve seems to be able to do in todays post-GTAIII world. So while it’s easy to pass on the game because the whole “bullets as currency” idea doesn’t execute perfectly, or because you don’t like having to flick on the lighter to read the map in the dark; it’s much, much more rewarding to play Metro 2033 instead because it isn’t perfect.

9. Amnesia: The Dark Descent -

Playing through Amnesia again is giving me a lot of perspective about what actually frightens me while playing a game. I imagined a repeat playthrough would yield less tensions and dread. What I found out was that the terror this game causes doesn’t lessen even when you know what’s going to happen. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m playing through it again with my new headsets but the things Amnesia does with the soundscape of the game is down right unbelievable. Even when I turn off surround sound mode the faint whispers in the background feel like they’re right behind my ear. If you want to see a company that is slowly finding out how to creep into my nightmares: find a way to get your hands on Amnesia and, as much as it pains me to parrot a statement made in the game, play with a pair of headphones in a dark room.

8. Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit -

Connected. The easiest way to describe the best part of NFS:HP is with the word connected. In addition to being a racing game with the same amount of exhilaration and fun as the recent Burnout titles Hot Pursuit is the most online enabled game this console generation. The wall and leaderboards show you where you rank and the game taunts you with friends who’ve beaten your score. The fun of the cat and mouse chases of previous Need for Speed titles is back, all of the cops and robbers dreams you had playing with micro machines is represented on the screen with every race and chase. Admittedly some of my fond memories of playing older Hot Pursuit entries with my younger brother springs to mind each time I play, no doubt pushing this game higher on my list that gameplay alone. But that’s why this is my top 10 list, so neener neener.

Voyage across a frightening land.

7. Limbo -

I still need to go back and find the remaining few eggs in Limbo and I never thought hanging around in the afterlife would be so much fun. Or is it the subconscious of an injured child? I guess that’s what I loved about the game, game design in concert with art direction creates a wonderful experience even if it is macabre. A puzzle platform is nothing special to write home about, but Limbo is something bigger, something better. From the way the main character clings to each ledge or interacts with objects in the level, Limbo seems to be designed to help you play. It’s as if the character has a mind of his own and wants to make it to that ledge, reaching right when you want him to reach.

The small touches of the animation seem to fill a dark foggy world with character, and it’s not limited to the main character either. The strange lost boys running around the world. The large spider you encounter early in game. The insidious worms that wrest control from you. All these 2D sprites were created with such care that they become something much more than black and white sprites. They inhabit a world that you can explore. Sure it’s not a nice place, but it sure is pretty.

6. Halo: Reach -

Even though it’s a cookie-cutter story of doomed soldiers valiantly perishing one by one, I liked the story in Reach. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one that did because I was willing to give it a chance. The fall of Reach is an incredibly important part of the Halo mythology, a mythology that I’ve never been that deeply invested in, but important nonetheless. Despite never falling in love the Master Chief and Cortana I’ve been a party to their story because of the gameplay. After playing Reach to the bitter, and I mean bitter, end I’m glad I was there for the whole trip. The knowledge of the story past the fall of Reach seems to lend more gravity to the proceedings of Reach. Besides, the characters that inhabit the Halo universe have never looked so…human-ish. Tack on the best multiplayer matchmaking interface in the FPS business and you have a game that put up a good fight to get into my top5, but ultimately fell short.

5. Alan Wake -

I’ve finally gotten to the part of the list that has been covered on the show. So I’ll try to sum up what makes each so special.

Alan Wake is uncompromising in its homage to Twin Peaks and Stephen King and backs up its ambition with the best interplay of light and dark I’ve seen in a game. Light and feels like salvation and an oppressive thick blanket of darkness that doesn’t obscure what you need to see to make you jump out of your socks.

4. Star Craft 2: Wings of Liberty -

As I mentioned this week on the show, the map editor and tools are more complex than the average gamer may be capable of using but they provide an endless amount of flexibility that seems to rival and maybe even outdo Justin’s future game of 2011 Little Big Planet 2. Oh, and the story mode is a 60 dollar game all by itself, the unending content you can find online is just a bonus.

There goes the neighborhood.

3. Civilization 5 -

One more turn, a mantra that most avid board gamers are familiar with is foreign to most gamers. The concept of something not working in real time can be daunting, but rest assured ADD riddled gamer, good things come to those who wait. Civilization V will pay dividends to those who wait, with a single match taking as much time to complete as some entire story modes of other games on this list; you might never need another game.

2. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 -

In a single multiplayer match of Bad Company 2 you will find yourself parachuting onto the battlefield, working with your team to push down objectives, resuscitating fallen teammates, sheltering yourselves in a building getting blown apart by an enemy tank and sneaking around to flank the final enemy hold out and win the war. Each match of Bad Company 2 can feel like an entire war, except you’ll be jumping right into the next war as fast as you can hit reload.

1. Mass Effect 2 -

There is nothing left to say about Mass Effect 2 other than: “When is Mass Effect 3 coming?”

The most frustrating part is compiling a list of contenders among all the games that come out in a year. In an effort to help myself in January 2011, I’m trying to write down all of the games from January to June that I played and feel deserve my consideration or that others feel merit playing before I decide my top 5.

Here it goes:

Bayonetta (Release: January 5th) – I’ve tried to play through this game. After playing God of War more recently, I’ve come to appreciate how much better a game this is than other character action games. Nonetheless, I couldn’t get through the insipid dialog to force myself to the end. Unless something goes terribly wrong for the remaining titles this year, I don’t foresee this game being much of a contender.

Mass Effect 2 (Release: January 26th) – The first game this year that I couldn’t stop once I started. I don’t think I’ve ever had so much fun comparing storylines. Barring an unbelievably good times with a lot of titles this fall, Mass Effect 2 is in a good position to be a top contender. (Note to self: play through this game again before the end of the year.)

Bioshock 2 (February 9th) – The return trip to the underwater world of Rapture didn’t seem to click with me as much as the first. I tried to power through but I’m not going to force myself to play a game when there’s so much else that doesn’t require force feeding it to myself. Others may consider it Top 5 material, however, so I’ll keep it here as a reminder.

The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom (Release: February 17th) – I’ve got this game sitting on my hard drive untouched since the Steam summer sale. I don’t think it has a chance of hitting my top 5, but it’s a bit of 2010 required reading anyway.

Heavy Rain (February 23rd) – Not sure how I’m feeling about this one, I might need to play through again with Move support when it comes out to make a final decision on how this game shakes out on my Top 5. It’s an important game, no doubt, but it wasn’t a particularly good game.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (March 2nd) – What started out as a sophomoric series became something magical in its second outing. I still come back to the multiplayer frequently and the single player story, while juvenile again, knew better than to try as hard as Modern Warfare 2. A roller coaster from start to finish.

Toy Soldiers (March 3rd) – The first downloadable game that gripped me from the beginning, the setting and unique take on tower defense made for an engaging title that seemed bigger than its file size and price indicated.

Final Fantasy XIII (March 9th) – I didn’t play it and it has some polarizing reviews, but there are some out there who had a good time with this game. I absolutely adored Final Fantasy X, making part of me wish I could enjoy this adventure, but that long playtime is certainly a barrier to entry for me.

Pokémon HeartGold/SoulSilver (March 14th) – It’s Pokémon – not much more needs to be said. I’m glad I had it for PAX East, but not much has happened in my Johto since then.

Metro 2033 (March 16th) – The first game that I love despite itself in the year. I love the unique take on the Half Life 2 linear formula. Some gripping and honest scripted scenes play out in a magical way. I just wish it didn’t have so many intimidating PC game characteristics, so that I could trick people into playing it.

God of War 3 (March 16th) – Slowly working my way through this beast of a game, but after powering through GoW2, the formula is wearing thin on me. Maybe if I had more time between the two, I’d appreciate this game more.

Splinter Cell: Conviction (April 27th) – Justin seemed to like this and despite the outcry at the demo, I had fun with it. Maybe I’ll play through this sometime.

Super Street Fighter IV (April 27th) – The only 2D fighter I’ll play. Now that we’re a part of the Platform*Nation podcast family, maybe I’ll get to getting beaten down Friday nights with fellow hosts.

Picross 3D (May 3rd) – An entire trip to D.C. and back to see Nicolo devoted to playing through as many levels as possible. It’s just as addicting as the first DS title, but is that enough to break the Top 5?

Skate 3 (May 11th) – Probably not a contender but it came out right before some big titles so I didn’t get to give this game a proper playthrough. Maybe I’ll get back to it on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Bit.Trip Runner (May 17th) – A game good enough to make me dust off my Wii. I just wish there was a place for small games like this in a big Top 5 list.

Red Dead Redemption (May 18th) –  The glitches in the Wild West were awesome. Mexico is a drag and I don’t know if I’ll get back to it. Ten minutes in, this was a GotY shoe-in, but the game overstayed its welcome. I need to see the ending apparently; maybe that’ll sway me.

Alan Wake (May 18th) – Better than people give it credit for, Alan Wake manages to provide a type of game that isn’t out there right now. It’s the direct middle ground between Resident Evil and Gears of War. Engaging and action-packed and atmospheric all at the same time. If only the story wasn’t so confusing. We’ll see if the DLC helps clear the story and a space for Alan Wake in my Top 5.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 (May 23rd) – Obscenely high reviews and recommendation from friends necessitate I play this at some point. But I don’t wanna…

Let me know if I missed any titles. I’ll add them to the list.

Nelson is a puzzle-solving superstar.  He is sent to the strange town of Scoggins to investigate an accident at an eraser factory that has affected the White House’s supply. The hand of previous LucasArts employees is clearly evident with such a preposterous mission given to the player, but it sets up some of the cleverest writing and animation I’ve seen in a game in a while. Creative director Graham Annable employs the same wit and style found in his Grickle animations to great effect, given this nearly impossible setup.

What stands out the most in the game is the amazing comic timing found in the cut-scenes between puzzles. The animation in the game has an unusually low frame rate (which worried me that something was amiss with my PC), but the long pauses caused by holding a single image still across several frames made me laugh due to the sheer awkwardness. In this way, the game’s story is equal parts “Twin Peaks” suspense, “Fargo” Midwest humor and “The Office”-like uncomfortable pauses.

It is directly because the story is told so well that I wish the puzzling gameplay lived up to that high mark. Unfortunately, the puzzles rarely feel as engaging or genuinely challenging as those found in the Layton series. Often, the puzzles themselves fit into the physical actions they mean to replace, but sometimes they feel arbitrary. You’ll either breeze through them or find yourself spending lots of gum – the pre-chewed fuel for Tether’s puzzle solving prowess – to get anywhere with them.

The player’s ability to solve these puzzles directly relates to the overall time that they’ll spend with Puzzle Agent. This was about 3.5 hours in my case, but your mileage may vary. Based on the price of entry, this doesn’t seem too steep and the strengths of the story, animation and atmosphere in the game mean that anyone with an interest in seeing more logic-puzzle-based adventure games should rush to download this title.

Full disclosure: I am so desperate to see where the story of Scoggins goes after the “ending” in this game that I’m partially recommending a purchase in an effort to assure a sequel is made.

Early takeaway - Call of Duty: Black Ops is not that bad looking, especially once the player was out of the tunnels. The spooky gameplay didn’t do it for me, but the jungle looked lush and great, and the chopper gameplay was nifty. It reminded me a lot of the main campaign of Bad Company 2. Metal Gear Solid: Rising looks interesting but I’m not all that excited to go back into the confusion that is the MGS universe.

Gears of War 3 looks like - hold on to your hats - Gears of War 3 (not that that’s a bad thing).

I’m actually mildly interested in Halo: Reach‘s single player. I love the move to space combat. Count this as the first title I’m genuinely interested in.

Crytek will be making a game. I love me some Crytek, but that trailer is nothing to get excited for.

Fable 3 will be Fable 3. My girlfriend will sink way too much time into it, and I will enjoy playing it.

Then there’s Kinect. I’m loving the interface options, but the big question is whether or not the price is going to be low enough for a purchase for merely that. I watched the press conference with my girlfriend and she was really excited for Your Shape and Dance Central. I’ll admit that Kinect Adventures looked nifty as a stupid party game, and Kinectimals is admittedly interesting as long as it’s roughly as feature-complete as Nintendogs. (Spoilers: it probably isn’t.)

New 360? Sure. Makes Kinect not need a power plug? Sure. Will I get it this week? No. (I’m secretly hoping for a red ring on my Elite though…)

Handing out free Xboxes is cool if the sites give them away, but you know that people are just keeping them. I’m mostly indifferent to the Oprah ploy, though.

Overall - A workman-like appearance. Not much surprise there. If only ESPN anchors could have hosted the whole presser.

Nintendo:

New Zelda? I can dig the art style, but my experience with the “evolution” of Zelda is that there isn’t much. I’ll wait to get my hands on it before I judge it. As far as the on-stage wonkiness, it may have been interference, but at my home I get “interference” all the time, so I’ll remain skeptical. Then there’s Mario Sports Mix. Moving on. Nintendo reminds us that their games sell well and I remark how only their games sell well (caveat: Just Dance).

Golden Sun, not for me. GoldenEye, don’t need to relive that one. Epic Mickey – boom! – and I’m interested again. I was listening to the show at first and didn’t have a video feed, so I was initially uninterested. But when I watched the game in motion, I was instantly impressed. Mark this as game two I’m interested in. I’ll add Kirby’s Epic Yarn – what’s with the word “epic” on the Wii? –  merely because I was enamored with Kirby Canvas Curse back in the day; game three on my list.

Nothing else jumped out at me. I’m not a huge Donkey Kong Country fan, so I’m not really the person to talk about it, and Other M has me cold until I see something good from it. Then the 3DS deluge began, and I’ll probably be picking one up, but it’s so dependent on seeing one myself that it’s not even fun to read about for me. “Oh man, it looks so good!” Sure, rub it in, why don’t you?

By the way, why is everyone bat-shit crazy for Kid Icarus? I couldn’t care less about it, yet some people act as if it’s the best thing since sliced bread. That being said, the new game seems so far removed from the old game that it might as well be an entirely different IP.

Overall – Games I’m interested in for my Wii? That’s a big W for the big N.

Sony:

For Killzone 3, the non-3D feed looked less sharp than KZ2, but that may just have been the way Sony was streaming. I wasn’t super fond of KZ2, so I’m not on pins and needles waiting for KZ3. I feel like the “pretty and vapid” FPS category has been gobbled up by Rage and Crysis 2. I want to see how trying to focus in 3D works for a game. I know I was pretty irritated watching “Avatar” for a while because I couldn’t choose what to focus on with my eyes. Hopefully, the game will more accurately guess what I want to be in focus.

On to Move. Sorcery looks like the first game to pull off the motion control in a non-gimmicky way, but I’m saying that assuming there is more depth to the gameplay than what was shown. I enjoyed watching someone struggle to hit a golf ball in Tiger Woods, but moments before watching the conference, I had walked to the driving range that’s 500 ft. from where I live.

The Kevin Butler experience? Funny, then awkward and lame. What’s with the buttons thing? Why preach gamer unity and take stabs at other platforms?

The new Time Crisis might sell me on Move before Sorcery. Then we confuse ourselves over God of War PSP game subtitles. Some stuff is announced and I’m running out of typing strength so I’m skipping to the stuff I want to put my two cents on.

Theories concerning Portal 2? Considering the reasoning behind Left 4 Dead 2 not coming out on PS3, and the fact that it’s not even been a year since then, I’m beginning to suspect that Portal 2 may be running on a new version of the Source Engine in some capacity, one built to handle the PS3 architecture.

I’m not into LittleBigPlanet 2 as a creator, but I’ll wait to see how the community fares at making content and how that content rises to the surface. And then there’s the Twisted Metal reveal. Justin talks about this on the show, but having Jaffe make another Twisted Metal seems like such a waste. For me personally, a very strange ending to a show that has me pumped with the release date for Gran Turismo 5, which might be my most anticipated PS3 exclusive.

Overall - Very hit-or-miss for me, but resonates with the Sony base. Very solid showing.

Next time: E3 Miscellany

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?

How does it play?

The game feels like a Battlefield game. The movement and aiming feel like BF2, the whole setup mirrors the control scheme of BF1943 and the controls retain all of the boons and flaws of prior BF games. I’ve never felt like I was completely connected to the character on-screen – a sort of floaty feeling – and it’s in full force in Bad Company 2 as well.

The guns seem to have little feedback and the small “X” that appears to let you know that you’re hitting your target seems arbitrarily hard to get at first. Yes, this game has a steep learning curve like all previous BF games, but when things start to work out for you all at once, magic happens. No other multiplayer experience can generate such heroic tales as the ones the Battlefield series can. Defending a single point against an onslaught of 50 attackers generates the kind of “one-man-army” drama you barely find in single player shooters these days.

So what has changed?

More. Someone must have told the developers to take the BF core gameplay and sprinkle in the best bits from other shooters. The game meets the minimum requirement of level-ups and unlocks that is required of a major multiplayer release in a post-Modern-Warfare world. BF1943 had a leveling system but there was no reward beyond having a bigger number next to your name. Now leveling up you class unlocks extra gear and overall levels can present perks or cross class weaponry.

There’s significantly more weaponry available than what was found in the last BF to hit the consoles. Having some weapons that any class can grab at any respawn is a nice touch. Don’t like the engineer’s (who’s forte is fixing or blowing up tanks) machine gun? Level up past the weak starting gear with a shotgun earned from hitting overall level 2.

The squad rush mode is new and does not impress at first. I was kind of peeved that I couldn’t engage in the same old conquest mode I’ve been enjoying for years now.  Let the new mode simmer for a while and the benefits of it become clear. The teams have different objectives – attack or defend – and the map constantly alters as the teams face off. The defenders have unlimited respawns and win if the attackers’ tickets run out, and the attackers need to destroy objectives two at a time in a march across the map’s four stages.

The game mode does an excellent job creating a living battlefield; I feel like a soldier in a larger fight from the ambient sounds and the tracer fire shooting off into the sky at times. Each area has a different challenge, with the starting area being challenging to hold onto and the final area being incredibly difficult to take down.

Almost every battle ends at a fevered pitch – relentless attackers desperately throwing themselves at the final objective, entrenched defenders counting down the kills till game over. When people are working together and calling out enemies (accomplished by aiming at them and pressing a button, not simply aiming at them as in 1943), it feels great. As with any team-based game, the loyalty and skill of your teammates factors heavily into how the game plays.

Frostbite 1.1?

Apparently the Frostbite engine has been improved? The graphical fidelity seems there, but I’m not noticing a large difference in how the destruction engine is different.

I seem to be able to destroy the environment to create barriers for normal munitions, but no fence can stand up to a tank (as, well, it shouldn’t). In fact, some of the greatest moments I’ve had online have consisted of running from destructible cover to cover while a tank mortar reloads. Each barrier destroyed seconds after I left it. Even houses crumbled as I tried to escape the tank. (Spoiler: the tank got me.)

The destructibility is also a way  for attackers to slowly crawl over the defenders. Each zone will be a wasteland after the battle is over. the attackers can shell the area with tank fire until there are no more areas to hide for the defenders. There’s something particularly satisfying about the state of the area after a particularly hard-fought battle.

Conclusion

There are two kinds of people who will enjoy Battlefield: Bad Company 2 from a multiplayer point of view: Battlefield fans and Modern Warfare 2 fans looking for something different. I’ll be on my PC playing medic and dropping drugs all over the battlefield like there’s no tomorrow, but then again, I liked BF1943 and love Team Fortress 2, from which squad rush borrows its concept. I was pretty much guaranteed to like this one.

Do we have a contender for “best multiplayer shooter” on our hands? I’ll need to play all the modes and maps to see for sure.

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.

I stress this disjointed construction because it makes the ultimate impression the game leaves on you all that more impressive.  As I think about the game days after completion, daydreaming while doing other things, I find all the segments of the game meld together.  I’m left thinking about the experience that was the game.

And that sums up the most compelling thing about ME2: it is an experience.

The experience was compelling enough to zombify my girlfriend, someone who usually detests merely watching me play a game, and glue her to the couch next to me for the entire 25-hour adventure.  No, she was not mistaking the game for a movie; she was caught in the same strange gravity well as me. If I neglected to visit a crew member in between missions, both my in-game personal assistant and my girlfriend were eager to hear the next dialogue.

It’s important to point out that the game designers felt that you might want a reminder in the CIC, the bridge and information hub of ME2, of all the characters that want to talk to you. This is a feature that would have been useful in the original Mass Effect, in which I wasn’t sure when I was supposed to talk to crew members, but it is unnecessary in the sequel due to the well-defined structure of the game.

That well defined structure is actually a point of contention; some people find it the worst part about the sequel, and others find it the strength of the game. I’m in the middle of these two camps. On one hand, I wish that the game afforded you more leeway with handling the relationships you develop with your crew. On the other hand, I understand that framing conversations in an interesting way means that the game designers could be more creative with direction during the dialogue.

It’s very clear that the design focus of the game was altered from the first. An in-game satire of a game store makes BioWare’s direction very clear: “big decisions and visceral combat.” Everything that gets in the way of these two things was on the chopping block for ME2.  Cumbersome inventory?  Gone.  Plodding Mako missions?  Gone.  Complex character statistics?  Simplified.  Poorly implemented cover mechanic?  Overhauled.

As a result, if anything besides dialogue scenes and decision making was your favorite part of the original Mass Effect, you will not like the direction of the sequel. This isn’t to say that you’ll dislike the game as a whole, but I just don’t think you’ll be as excited about the game as others. I was a big fan of the dialogue and story of the first game, and as a result, I couldn’t be more satisfied with the result of BioWare’s pruning.

The variation between each player’s story becomes the most compelling discussion topic among those who’ve completed the game.  I sought out message boards, an act of desperation, in order to share my experience with other players.  The fact that I didn’t want to expose my fellow podcast-mates to my version of the ending, even in vague terms, is a credit to the power of the game’s narrative.  Suffice to say, the game delivers the parameters of its final mission in a way that had me holding my breath every step of the way, actually afraid of the consequences of the actions built up over the course of the game.

In the original Mass Effect, the sum total of the decisions you made in the game seemed to matter less. While there were “big” decisions to be made, the consequences weren’t represented. It was very easy to see the structure of the game – make X decision to see X cutscene; make Y decision the second time, see Y cutscene. There may be an easy explanation for how ME2 determines what your ending will be, but as the gamer, I’m completely mystified. If there is a pattern, I don’t see it.

And that’s the beauty of the refined system in ME2, as I’m left contemplating the possibilities I skipped over.  I genuinely regret some of the decisions I made in the game. Normally, I would consider reloading an old save and fixing my mistake – gaming the system. In any other game, I wouldn’t think twice about optimizing, but in ME2, I left those regrettable decisions untouched. I feel like they only add depth to the character I’m creating.

It’s that ownership over the character who you create that cements this sequel’s status as far superior to the original.  Other games allow you to customize the appearance, name and voice of the main character. Mass Effect 2 goes one beyond that – you can shape the identity of the main character, too. 

It’s been more than five years, but we’re finally seeing games that are more than just “next-generation” in graphics alone.  And this one isn’t a small step – it’s a giant leap.

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.”

That’s why I don’t want to avoid a simple question like “what is and RPG?” It’s a more complex answer than the question’s brevity would lead you to believe. And my thought process wasn’t well developed on the podcast but I’d like to discuss the question further here.

Justin: Well, to be fair, I’m not really sure they were “giving up on an important discussion” so much as they were leaving it open for future podcasts. Like you said, reclassifying games is a tall order, and I don’t think it’s something that can (or should) be accomplished within a two-hour chunk.

That said, when I think about what makes an RPG, my answer now would be considerably different from what it would have been 10 years ago. Whereas I originally associated it with leveling up, status ailments and upgradable abilities, those elements have gradually been adopted by action, adventure and even first-person shooter games. And while I’d say that the sweeping stories and multiple quests have come to differentiate RPGs in recent years, a game like Mass Effect 2 calls even that into question. Sure, it’s being billed as an RPG, but the shooting segments feel right out Gears of War of to me.

I’ve been seriously pondering this question since episode 122, and I keep coming back to my “drama section at Blockbuster” analogy. Movie critics don’t really get hung up in arguing whether or not a film is a drama or not, because it’s generally assumed that they all are dramatic to some extent. You do have genre flicks (horror, sci-fi) that I think serve as the movie equivalent of sports or racing, but the bulk of releases out there are aimed at a broader audience. I guess my question to you then, Kaz, is why does taxonomy matter here? How do we benefit from this classification?

Kaz: The benefit is twofold: practical and philosophical. I’ll admit that in the grand scheme of things this difficulty in taxonomy and nomenclature is meaningless. But then again we spend a lot of time talking about video games. I’d like to think that they merit the amount of time I put into discussing them every single week.

The practical benefit, the more important of the two for me, is not for the podcasters, journalists and bloggers of the video games industry, but rather for their audience, people who listen to games journalists for consumer advice. Someone listening to our podcast is going to hear us call something an RPG or claim something is very “RPG-like,” but if those terms have lost all meaning, then the listener does not gain any insight into the game.

Example: my girlfriend dislikes RPGs but fell in love with Fable II, a game that blurs the line between genres. If she hadn’t seen the game or played it for herself, she wouldn’t have had that great experience. I think listeners benefit the most from really putting thought into the language we use to describe games.

I’ll have to admit that the philosophical benefit is weak, but I’d hazard that a game designer worth his or her salt spends some time defining the desired experience for the player. However,  the designers of Mass Effect 2 didn’t define genres and tailor the game to fit them. Determining the classification is our job, and I (and others) are dissatisfied with the current genre definitions; that’s reason enough for me to want to talk about it.

Justin: Well, to answer your first point, I don’t see how not having rigid genre definitions would somehow take away from the “merits” of the medium. Again, I feel like getting hung up on these minor details seems pointless when you can talk about so many other elements of game design, world building and story telling.

But even on a practical level, I think that boiling down game types to their methods of input – as you suggested on a recent podcast – would in fact do many games a disservice. In the case of Fable II, there are so many different facets to the game that I think calling it an action adventure or a real-time RPG or whatever else doesn’t truly do it justice. I think when it comes down to it, sometimes a more detailed (but still succinct) approach is the way to go.

And as always, my analogies come back to other media. When your girlfriend visits Barnes & Noble’s “new paperback” section, how does she figure out what she wants to read? And when you take her to the theater, do the trailers explicitly explain which ones are for action flicks and which ones are for rom-coms? No, because marketing folks know how to communicate what they’re trying to sell, and if this problem falls on anyone’s shoulders, it would land solely on the game publishers themselves. We can take the time to identify these genres if we want, but I’m not sure I want this to be “our job.”

Kaz: We keep coming back to comparisons to movies, books and music, and I have to refute those comparisons with the same argument we use on a monthly basis. Games are different – you interact with games, and that interaction is different than merely watching a movie. It’s more akin to music genre preference if anything. I think for most people a good movie is a good movie, but good music is less universal.

I realize now that while I wanted to have the discussion “how to define games if the genre designations we have today didn’t exist,” but it instead came out as “let’s argue the semantics of the genres!” And that’s totally my fault, as I haven’t been able to put my finger on the discussion I wanted to have. Even so, we’ve gone down this path so I’ll see it through.

I know this is scatterbrained, but I just realized that when I play Dungeons & Dragons (4th edition), we discretely break up the game into two chunks, the “RP” and the fighting. And this distinction is not limited to our group alone. We’ve parsed out the talking to NPCs and shopping, and advancing our characters from the battles. Mind you, the combat and the conversations are driven by the same exact mechanic: say some stuff about what your character is doing and roll some dice to see if you succeed.

Table top gamers can break down the game into finer parts to more accurately describe what they want to do. Yet, I can’t convince video gamers that it might be worthwhile for them to do the same? The medium is far more akin to D&D than it is to cinema.

Justin: Well, while I disagree on a few of your points – objective quality of cinema? really? – but I will at least concede that the term “role-playing game” is a bit outdated; I’ll play ball here. When D&D was still fairly underground and video games were in their infancy, it made sense to differentiate the story-based number crunchers from more arcadey fare. But as more of these elements have been adopted into other genres, the term “RPG” has become pretty vague. Rather than falling back on “JRPG,” maybe we should use “menu-based” or “turn-based” as the new genre. Not sure where something like Final Fantasy XII falls in this setup, but again, I think it’s silly arguing over these quibbles. I don’t think it cuts through the message board crap so much as it adds to another layer of obfuscation.

Satisfied by our sparring session? Want to get in your two cents? Be sure to chat it up on our boards.

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.

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.

Perhaps the first thing you’ll notice when you step into the original Half Life 2 is how detailed the face of the mysterious G-Man is. His eyes shift back and forth, you can see every little indentation in the skin on his face, and his lips are perfectly in-sync with his wavering voice, eerily calling you to “wake up.” From the train you first begin on to the climactic enemy Citadel, everything in Half Life 2 looks crisp, detailed, and alive. Although definitely not the best graphics by today’s high-definition standards, the environments you traverse throughout Half Life 2 are still great enough to make you say “wow.”

“So Wake up, Mr. Freeman. Wake up and smell the ashes.”

But there’s tons of beautiful games out there, let alone FPS (see Crysis). What can Half Life 2 offer in terms of gameplay? Two words: Gravity-Gun. To meet someone who has played Half Life 2 and doesn’t gush about this simple yet incredibly innovative contraption is an extremely rare occurrence. Literally, it’s a gun that lets you pick up items (from a distance, like a high powered vacuum) and then shoot them at extremely high velocity at whatever gets in your path. See that barrel? Send it through the window. How about that piece of wood? Now it’s a spear. And is that a saw blade? Uh oh…

It’s easy to see how creative one can get using the gravity gun, and it’s an excellent medium through which to view the entertainingly realistic Havok engine. But what about the other guns? They behave normally, no qualms there. Unfortunately, the platforming aspect of the game doesn’t hold up quite as well as the shooting portion. Although you have access to sprinting and jumping abilities, getting from one small beam to the next tiny platform can be quite the frustrating affair. Needless to say, you’ll have quite a few unfortunate falls.

So there’s some really nice graphics and solid gameplay. Still kind of sounds like your typical FPS, right? Here’s where that line of thinking falls apart: the story and storytelling techniques used in Half Life 2 are nothing short of incredible. The game begins with a few curious words from the enigmatic “G-man,” and you soon find yourself exiting a train and thrust into an Orwellian city, complete with what seems to be a totalitarian regime and the face of Dr. Breen, (the “Big Brother” if you will) talking at you from monitors as you’re hustled along at gun-point to each new location. But things change quickly, and you soon meet the incredibly charismatic Alyx Vance, Barney, Dr. Kleiner and the rest of the cast and become wrapped up in a struggle bigger than you can imagine. Of particular note is the fantastic character development throughout this relatively short game. If you become attached to the Half Life 2 characters at all (and Valve will pull every trick in the book to get you to that point), you’ll find yourself slightly sad every time you get pulled away from them…and all the more anxious to fight through whatever stands in your path to become reunited. Their voice acting is amazing and their emotions are palpable. Absolutely breathtaking.

But perhaps the most fantastic part of Half Life 2 is the main character, Gordon Freeman. After setting into motion the incident at Black Mesa in the first game, it’s easy to see why fans around the world have come to cherish the thin, goateed man. You see, this MIT Ph.D. is a hero in every sense of the word – he’s brilliant, he’s strong, he’s fearless…but most importantly, he’s you. Half Life 2 does a brilliant job of fulfilling what seems to be the exact purpose of the genre: making you feel like you’re really there. When the amazing characters speak, they don’t speak at you, they speak to you. You’ll be hard pressed to refuse a request from them when they gaze at you with their sad, war-exhausted stares. And they know exactly how much of a legend you are. As the Vortigaunts say, you are “The one free-man.” From the very outset, you’ll feel as if you’ve wandered into something completely epic, but trust me, you’ll never feel more at home than you will in that Hazard Suit.

You are the legend.

That being said, Half Life 2 is not an incredibly easy game – reaction speed, shooting skills, and puzzle solving capabilities will all be put to the test at some point throughout this 15 hour experience. But don’t despair, the game does an excellent job (at the standard difficulty) of providing you with ample health, bullets, and supplies. The game’s also quite obvious at times; you’ll know exactly when you’re about to run into a boss – you’ll see four health packs, a stack of grenades and 60 shotgun shells in front of you. The only real problem here is that one might be tempted to rely on the game’s “quicksave” system, in which you can literally save the game at any moment, and load exactly from that moment when you die. Imagine saving with 1 percent of health, staring at an enemy with a full clip directly in front of you. Do you really want to reload from that point? I didn’t think so. Overall, Half Life is very fair; although it can be challenging at points (and should be), you never feel powerless. Between the amazing weaponry and the ample supply of health items that you accrue throughout your journey, you’ll stand more than a fair chance against the hordes of enemies out to get you. That, and you’re Gordon Freeman. Better get that crowbar ready.

You’ll need all the help you can get.

Whether or not you’re fine with the FPS-ridden western game market, you’re going to have to face facts – the genre is popular, and it’s here to stay. Thank you God (and Valve), for bestowing upon us such incredible gems of gaming as Half Life-2. The game is not only a shining example of how incredibly immersive an FPS can be, but a masterfully woven narrative that rivals nothing short of the pinnacle of story-telling. To say that I fell in love with this world, its people, and its story would be an understatement – it’s easily classifiable as an experience that will change the way you not only look at the FPS genre, but all the games you’ve ever laid your thumbs on. Valve set the bar extremely high when they originally released Half Life 2 in 2004 – the fact that the game still outshines almost every high-definition, motion-controlled, rumble-enabled game released today is a testament to its’ timelessness. As a gamer you’ll be hard pressed to find a more worthwhile way to spend 15 hours of your life. Welcome to city 17.

Just. Incredible.

Art Direction: Not the best today, but still great enough to take your breath away. You’ve never been so intimidated by the huge enemies found here.

Sound Design: Awesome. A riveting soundtrack that kicks in *just* at the right moment to get you pumped for battle…or scare you like a little girl. Very well done.

Gameplay: Solid, fast paced, and overall just extremely satisfying. Although the platforming can be a little rough, it’s still absolutely one of the finest First Person Shooters ever made.

Story-telling: This is where I think Half Life 2 shines the brightest – although there are games out there which contain better stories, the way in which Half Life 2 conveys its plot is absolutely incredible. Just wait and see what they have in store for you in Episodes 1 & 2.

Overall: One of the best games I’ve ever played. Cool on about every level you can think of, this is one that you absolutely cannot afford to miss if you want to call yourself a gamer. If you’ve played it, you know exactly what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, you really have no excuse. Find a copy. It’s that worth it.

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.

After the terrible characterization of Rainbow Six: Vegas the characters in this game seem fully fleshed out and entirely believable, almost. There is still very little character there to get attached to in the main story. It’s telling, however, that there is untapped potential in games as a story medium in just how attached I got to two-dimension characters in the course of the game.

This game most certainly wins my “greater than the sum of its parts” award. In almost every case the game is mediocre. The gunplay is solid but average, the graphics are impressive, but when you look at them they aren’t all that more advanced than CoD2, the sound isn’t anything special, it’s just polished. Put together the parts somehow seem more impressive. The visuals and the audio combine to immerse you in the battle like never before. Doing all of this without other worldly sound design and without 6 layers of pixel shaders and bump mapping.

It’s probably the utilitarian design and presentation that makes the game so gritty and stomach churning.

Oh, and the multiplayer is really good too.

Art Direction

Sound Design

Gameplay

Immersion

Overall: 5 Stars

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.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m entirely too thankful for all the drugs he has to be on. Everyday Shooter is an expressive experience indeed. But not for the reasons that Mak probably wants it to be.

If his goal was to move people with the simply gameplay of a 2d shooter he most certainly has failed. I’m more than a little irritated that he chose to limit the direction of fire to 8 dicrete choices–N, NW, W, SW, etc. Sometimes I feel more defeated by the lack of control subtlety than by the ridiculous amount of random crap float across the screen. Abstract shooters are good for expressing two emotions: anger and addiction. Which Mak has provided in spare.

Luckily most other area of Everyday Shooter stand out to overshadow the shallow, even for an “abstract shooter”, gameplay. The main focus of the game is the sound and the experience more so than the gameplay, in fact, there is an entire mode devoted to just experiencing the levels and not playing to survive. The sound is so interesting each level stands to tell a story of its own, a short musical story, but a story nonetheless.

Everyday Shooter is a game that you show to others. The experience is worthy of being shared, if only to share some of the pain of trying to pick up tiny dots for points with your infinitesimally small craft you pilot. More so to share the music.

Art Direction: Trippy, but hard to comprehend what’s going on at some points.

Sound Design: Worth the price of admission alone.

Gameplay: Did I mention you’re a tiny dot of the screen full of tiny dots that shoot large and small dots at you? Plus the combo tricks are cool the first time you figure them out, and then get stale after that.

Games as Art: A step in the right direction.

Overall: 4 Stars

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.

For the sake of those who haven’t treated themselves to this interactive digital feast of a game I will not mention any story point in the effing mind-blowing part. The first half of the game is fair game, nothing happens that you hadn’t seen in the teasers for the game.

Okay, well, that’s not true either. Suffice it to say: the storyline that Valve has woven into the Half Life series is nothing short of amazing. Even though the character models and graphics are showing signs of aging, the characters in Valve’s creation are more life-like and believable than any other game on the market, Mass Effect included. you get a warm feeling as the player when a character turns to Freeman and gives a smile, as if they are smiling at you and not another digital character you control.

In most sequels and expansion packs the requirements are about additive game design–add a new environment or two, add at least two weapons and at least one new enemy type.

Episode 2 is not like most sequels or expansions. It is, in fact, very unlike the average expansion. The environments in Episode 2 aren’t new because they have a new texture pallet or they take place in a new area, they are new because each square foot in Half Life 2 is unique. A standard that has been set since the beginning of the Half Life 2 arch. Episode 2 starts off, environmentally, exactly where Episode 1 ended.

There are no new weapons in Episode 2 to be seen, only news ways to use old weapons. The closest approximation to a new weapon is the Magnusson Device, or “Strider Buster”, that you are charged with using. I can’t tell you when or how, because, well…because. But the way Valve chose to implement new combat ideas is so much more evolutionary than the tradition of adding new versions of guns you’ve had before.

The only way the Episode 2 expansion seems traditional is that Valve chose to add new enemies. Actually, there is only one true “new” enemy, the Hunter, all other new enemies are variations of things you’ve encountered before. The only difference is the new enemies make sense in the universe of the game. They aren’t added in to make the game harder and make you wonder: “Gee, why weren’t these guys attacking my in the city back when the Combine sure could have used them?” Instead they seem to appear where you would expect them to appear. Different versions of Antlions appear in the Antlion caves, the Hunters are used out in the open where they would be more effective than the Striders.

It’s these common sense applications of game design that make Episode 2 shine. Where most games try and outshine others with flashy graphics and fancy terms for AI, Episode 2 outdoes them all with pure polish.

It’s a rare game that has me on the edge of my seat for 3 hours straight. But Episode 2 does it with ease. The storytelling is so tight I find myself on pins and needles for the next installment, and I’m filled with rage at how ling I’ll have to wait, luckily, it’ll all be worth it.

Or else, Valve, or else…

Art Direction: Every step is littered with character, imagination and polish rarely seen in game design.

Sound Design: Music kicks in at just the right time to break the tense silence and to let you know it’s time to be a hero. The voice acting is as spot on as always, you’ll find yourself attached to characters more than you thought you could ever be.

Gameplay: Good in Half Life 2, still good now.

Storytelling: If only every game’s story was this well crafted, you’ll find yourself more drawn into the world of Half Life than any other game world, and Valve does it in 6 hours.

Overall: 5 Stars

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

Trust me, this is the first puzzle where you have both portals, it rocks your world. The portals only work on regular surfaces–concrete and the like–nothing shiny. You would be relatively familiar with this concept had you played Narbacular Drop. If you haven’t gotten around to trying the game that spawned Portal, don’t fret, it’s roughly the same experience with worse graphics.

This is the main type of puzzle you will encounter while playing Portal, you find yourself trying to diligently bend space to your will in order to escape from increasingly complex and hazardous challenges. The environment you travel through is sparsely decorated, a mix of grey, black and blue that remains constant for a good portion of the game. Even with desolate environments the game stands on it’s own because of the merits of the gameplay…but Valve never stops there.

In fact, while the least charming of The Orange Box package; Portal manages to be more clever and entertaining in it’s short play time than most other games on the market today. Which reminds me, the song for the credits is hilarious, if you don’t plan on purchasing The Orange Box at least find a video of the credits.

The experience is a short one, which makes reviewing a lot easier, but the overall satisfaction you get from completing the game in a sitting or two makes the length of the game very palatable. Story is kept to a minimum and you’ll find no complaints here, the character the game does introduce is so compelling and hilarious that any other attempt at story would have paled in comparison. Apparently, The Orange Box is the first time that one person has been a voice actor in five games releasing on the same day, or something to that effect.

Make sure you click on the pictures to see them in the highest resolution I could achieve (a paltry 1024×768), and make sure you at least try Portal. I highly recommend purchase in order to experience a unique game, not to mention the tantalizing user created content on the PC and the inevitable downloadable puzzles for the 360 and PS3. Just don’t expect Portal: Episode 1 for a long time.

Art Direction

Sound Design

Gameplay

Game Mechanic/Narration

Overall: 5 Stars