It’s Almost Free Video Game Day!

What’s that you ask?  It’s the day of the year where gamers everywhere tell their friends and family the games they want, and their friends and family buy those games for them.  Most people simply know this day as Christmas.

This year was a bit of a slow year for gaming.  Yes, Uncharted 2 birthed its own religion and there is not a single RPG nerd in the world that won’t shut up about how great Dragon Age: Origins is (I’ll be picking it up for PC next year), but for the most part 2009 was a bit…slow.  There were some good games out this year, but not the AAA year that last year was (which, by the way, was the best year for gaming since 1998).

If my family loves me as much as they say they do, I’ll be getting Borderlands and Left 4 Dead 2, both for 360.  And with some Christmas money, I’ll be getting a new processor and mobo for my PC.  You see, I kind of…broke…my processor while making a good-hearted attempt to clear it of dust (PROTIP: Don’t think you can remove the cooling unit without pulling the processor with it), so I might as well upgrade.  I’m also picking up Windows 7 64-bit.  Yes, this means two clean installs in a year, but hey: what else am I gonna do but start Half-Life 2 and of Dawn of War II–again.

While I’m looking forward to my new games, I’m still heavily engrossed in Assassin’s Creed II.  It has its faults, mainly somewhat sloppy and imprecise controls, but it is a visual feast and offers up a fairly compelling story.  Not to mention all of the hidden stuff to find that doesn’t feel just like side quests; they actually feel integral to the plot, a method of deeper understanding and discovery, the equivalent of reading between the lines of a novel.  And of course, Modern Warfare 2 remains addictive, despite me rarely playing it lately given my attachment to AC2.

The real question, however: what does 2010 hold for us?  There are some good-looking games ahead: Aliens vs. Predator, BioShock 2, the sequel to Batman: Arkham Asylum (here’s hoping), Halo: Reach, Mass Effect 2 (not my cup o’ tea, but a big game none-the-less), God of War III, the next expansion to World of Warcraft, and Splinter Cell: Conviction–and that’s just off the top of my head.   For me, it also holds a PS3.  Yes, I’m finally getting one.  The cheapest one I can find, only to play Uncharted 2 and the God of War series (and possibly DC Universe Online).  You see, I don’t hate Sony after all.  Well, I do.  But I also hate Microsoft, despite the fact they have a far superior product overall (I’m not just talking about what’s under the hood, Sony fanboys).

What, you didn’t expect the Christmas spirit to grab hold of me did you?

Actually, it has.  Merry Christmas everybody, if I don’t speak to you before. 

“What’s that? Game-Breaking Glitch? Yeah, you’re just gonna have to suck that up.”

Sony fanboys: they’re a dedicated lot.  They love to belittle Valve for not being able to program for the Playstation 3 (they can, they just choose not to); they love to talk about how they have had features like Twitter and Facebook since day one (through the use of a web browser); and they love to talk about how their online service is free (crappy download speeds and unstable servers included with the price of admission).  They ignore the invasive Terms of Service that strip you of your copyrights on user-created content and pretend that Sony loves their customers like a mother loves her child, and they want only sunshine and brightness and cookies for them all.  Meanwhile, they have built this mythology about the terrible, horrible tyrannies of Microsoft, and how you have to pay $50 a year–A YEAR!–to be able to play with your friends online and have early access to demos, downloadable content, and digitally-distributed games if you own an Xbox 360.

Well, news flash Sony lovers: sometimes, Sony does things worse than Microsoft.

There’s a game-breaking glitch in Modern Warfare 2 that allows players to explode a Javelin missile after they die.  The resultant blast radius is such that you could easily take out 5-6 players on the opposite team by exploiting said glitch.  Infinity Ward, of course, is hard at work on patching this.  Why?  It upsets the balance of the game.  It allows one player to dominate a game by simply running around and absorbing bullets (even those Marathon-Lightweight-Commando guys have to flip their knife out to get a kill, and they don’t explode when you kill them), letting them rack up killstreaks quicker and have their team (or themselves) sprint to the win.  It forces other gamers to have to play in such a way that they are unreasonably handicapped and quickly creates a game environment of which nobody wants to be a part.

In the meantime, Microsoft is banning players who exploit the glitch.  It’s not a perma-ban, but it’s a ban.  It’s something.  It’s a punishment for being a bully who is exploiting something the developers didn’t intend to happen.

Sony is, of course, doing jack about it.

True, it is the fault of the developer for the glitch, and not the company managing the online community.  But that’s just it: Sony is managing the online community.  It’s their job to make sure that the players on PSN are playing fair and not cheating.  This is cheating.  Of course, PS3 fanboys will be quick to praise Sony for holding Infinity Ward responsible, but come on: they’ve just told everybody on PSN that cheating is okay, so long as you’re exploiting a loophole in the game to do it.  Is that really fair to those who are not exploiting said loophole?  Is it fair that, until Infinity Ward fixes this, players will rack up wins, kills, and XP at the expense of everyone else?  Is it fair that some gamers won’t even want to play the game they paid for on the console they paid for because they don’t want to get ganked by glitcher?  Infinity Ward is doing their part to set this right, but they don’t have the power to hold the glitchers accountable: that power lies with Sony and Microsoft, and only one of them is doing their job.

But then again, online play on PS3 is free, so who is to complain, right?  By the way, those of you that bought the collector’s edition of Dragon Age:Origins on PS3: how is that MP3 soundtrack working out for you?

God of War III makes me want a PS3…kinda.

After reading Game Informer’s feature on God of War III (from the magazine, not the Internet), I’m re-thinking my decisions to stay away from the Playstation 3.  LittleBigPlanet didn’t impress me (it’s called a level editor, and it’s been around for years), Resistance 2 is fun but I like Gears of Wars 2 better (getting in multiplayer games much better now), and Home is a big fat joke.  Sure, the PS3 has a web-browser and it plays Blu-rays and it cooks delicious hamburgers with less fat, but I want games.

God of War 3 could be the saving grace of the Playstation 3.  It looks to bring back the visceral action and innovative thinking that made the first God of War such an amazing experience.  God of War II was God of War all over again (except for the Colossus level, and the extended fight on the gryphons–that was awesome), and the only reason I played through Chains of Olympus was because I needed something for which to use my PSP.  That’s the challenge of sequels, really: how do we innovate?  Sure, narrative is great but if I want narrative I’ll read a book.  Give me game play and let me look up how the previous game ended on Wikipedia.

God of War III looks to satisfy that request, with what sounds like some incredible level design and invigorating presentation.  One boss battle had Kratos taking on Zeus while Gaia rips up the colosseum-like structure on which they are fighting.  Also discussed was watching lay the final beat-down on a boss from the boss’ point-of-view.  With high-def graphics and the series trademark of making cut scenes interactive, those things could be the very definition of jaw-dropping.

We’ll wait and see when my tax return comes in.  Maybe I’ll pick up a PS3.  Maybe I’ll wait and see if any of those awesome arcade sticks are available first.  Maybe somebody who enjoys this blog (I know you’re out there!) can just buy me an extra-early birthday present.

Little Big Planet: What’s the Little Big Deal?

I don’t own a PS3 (yet), so I will not be playing Little Big Planet any time soon.  That doesn’t mean, however, that I have not been following the game’s development with any less interest, and I have to ask: why is everybody chomping at the bits to get a hold of this title?

From what I know of the game, it’s essentially a highly advanced level editor, yet so many gamers (and critics, and journalists) are acting like they have never seen a level editor before.  PC games have had level editors since the days of the original Doom, and they are not exactly new to consoles either.  Even more so, to take full advantage of the tools available in the level editor one has to play through the game proper: a platformer that is not without its shortcomings.  Indeed, the editor itself doesn’t seem to be what it’s cracked up to be.

Like most overhyped games, I’m sure that Little Big Planet is great fun despite its faults and allows players to fully explore their creativity–as far as level design goes.  I wish, however, that gamers would stop talking about how this is something exciting and new:  it’s a level editor.  You can’t create your own characters, storylines, and original fictional worlds–this isn’t a game editor.  You can make new levels for an exisiting game, and that’s not a new thing.

Plus, Sackboy is just plain annoying.