Cue LA13 talking price point.

In fairness there are some new details that they talk about in regards to the receivers in Madden 11.  However the tone, that we are finally fixing receivers, that was promised last year as well..

My favorite bit of news is the new queuing system that will make it easier to join friends who are already playing.  There are some other good nuggets in there such as a more streamlined presentation of friends in-game, which will allow you to not have to use the dashboard as much and an improved voting system.

Courtesy of ShackNews.com

For those that feel the need to compare yourself to other people online ( compensating for something?) there is the new Arena and monthly leader board rankings.  There are also some new items that show an interest in being sure that everyone gets matched with appropriate gamers.

Courtesy of Shacknews.com

If they could confirm there is no map that is similar to Valhalla in the game I will be in nirvana.

Yes, I gave in, and even paid for shipping though I had a code for free “saver” shipping.  I feel very Ace Venture, post Einhorn kiss right about now.  I know that once I have the two games NHL 2K10 and Burnout Paradise in hand, I will feel better about the whole thing.

The key will be not allowing this slope to become slippery.  It was just 12 minutes ago I was planning on making my way through long forgotten games in my catalog.  Now I am planning on a new game ( at least to me, it is a used sale) gorging during spring break next week.

The mantra begins again.  No new game purchases except Halo: Reach…but that Left 4 Dead 2 expansion is coming soon….

What impresses me the most is that there seems to be a marketing plan besides, ” Throw it all in Holiday”.     I am not in for Natal, but I look forward to both shooters that bookend their master plan.  Hey M$ don’t be sad,when I am buying as little as I am, ” Two out of three ain’t bad”.

The traditional ( can it be such a thing so early in the game of DLC) price point for map packs has been 800 MS points or 10 dollars.  There have been exceptions like Gears of War 2′s Dark Corners DLC, but that had a deleted scene and other rationale building features. ( Like an intro from D-Bag Blezinski).

Per map I have paid what the Modern Warfare 2 Stimulus Package Map is charging, 3 bucks a map( see all the Halo 3 Map packs). There is something gluttonous about the “top grossing entertainment property of all time” feeling the need to raise the stakes and go all in on raising the bar.  Did they have to use ” stimulus package” in the naming?  While I am sure it was meant to be tongue in cheek, it comes off as arrogant and snarky, and I know the latter for sure.

In the end I suppose it was inevitable.  The new standard for XBL Arcade games has been set to 1200 MS points.  1200 is the new 800, at least that is what I am sure M$ and all the developers want you to believe.  The line has been drawn in the sand.  And I am sure that even if you don’t cross this one that there will be one in the near future that will entice you across. We all have our sweet spots just as sure as we enjoy looking down on others for theirs.

In the end this is much ado about nothing.  What did you say when the price point went from 50 dollars last generation to 60 dollars in this one?  Yeah, that is what I thought.  Get your points ready MW2heads.

I am a Marvel geek.  I have my kids hooked on Super Hero Squad.  I buy my son Spiderman t-shirts any time I see them on sale.  This one hits me in the right spots.  Some of the things that I love about the game:

• I love the mission direction.  Click the right stick and you will know where you need to go.  I found the first MUA clunky as there were times I had no idea where I had to go next.  Feel free to comment how I suck, that this was an issue for me in the first game.
• The “boss battle” intros are great.  It is a small thing, but I think it adds a lot to the game.  They zoom in on the character and have a title ( for no comic or DC fans) of who he or she is.
• The fusions are a lot of fun to play with.  I like how you can build your team to have one of each kind ( clearing, guided and targeted).  I have read other reviews where they say there is very little difference.  They are wrong.  Clearing and guided are huge for when there are swarms of enemies.  Targeted are huge for power boss battles like Wonderman.
• I am almost through the game, I think, and I cannot wait to run through it again.  I have played this one through with Daredevil.  I look forward to trying another character in co-op.
• I have not, and will not play with Iron Fist.  As mentioned in a prior post when he was announced; Danny Rand died on cancer.  I just feel there are some ways of dying that should not get ” The comic book treatment”.  Cancer is one of them.  My boycott does nothing but make me feel better.

The game retails for 29.99.  I would say it is well worth it if you are a dungeon crawler or Marvel comics fan.

People are/were wasting time and money on something they hate, all for the sake of points that mean nothing. It just makes no sense to me.  It angers me a bit because it shows the dark side of geekdom (one that is prevalent inside me, hence the loathing, self), that we obsess over things that don’t really matter.   If you hate a game it is okay not to finish it.

I love Jack Nicholson.  The only film that I have ever walked out of in a movie theater was “Man Trouble” starring Uncle Jack.  It was awful.  I have sat through some crap in my day, but it was too much for me.  The point?  It is okay to not finish things that in the end do not matter.

The other infection that I loathe with achievements is the way they affect the way people’s online gaming.  I have played games where people have passed by my downed and wounded body all in the name of getting another step closer to gaining progress towards a MP achievement.  I know this because they proudly declared such as they passed by my soon to be corpse on their way to pointless number glory.  The lack of MP achievements is one thing that I feel IW and the Modern Warfare brand has nailed.

In the interest of full disclosure I must admit that I made a joke similar to the story above while playing GRAW 2.  It drew a sharp rebuke from my brother, rightfully so.  It was a lame joke involving my lack of interest in healing him as I had the “Heal 10 teammates” achievement. My delay in attempting to heal him cost him his virtual life.  A sniper ended his virtual life. Even discussing MP achievements can have an adverse affect on game play.

Then something happened along the way to achievement bitterness.  Cyprus Church provided me with a “Lloyd Christmas moment” or  Luke Skywalker moment in introducing me to “Trueachievements.com.  “Achievements, can serve a purpose, or there is still good in them, I can feel it. Both work for me on a film reference level, however they both have very different outcomes to their trust.

At face value Trueachievements.com ( a site that tracks and places a ratio weight on your achievements) would seem to embrace much of what I abhor about achievements.  That is certainly true, “from a certain point of view” ( Obi Wan logic FTW).  What I do like is that it puts the points in some sort of context.  Beating Gears of War 2 on Insane holds more weight than getting 1000 in Avatar ( no, not the blue 3-D one).

In getting involved in that site, albeit in a minor way, I have come to look at some games that I discarded long ago.  Not all the games have earned a reprieve, but it has been good for me to look at some that I did not give enough time to.

Forza Motorsports 2 and All Pro Football 2K8(APF) have been two of the games that the site provided a gateway for me to look at again with fresh eyes.

Forza was an extra game in the Marvel Ultimate Alliance/Forza 2 pack from a few holidays ago.  I have never been much of a racer fan.  That may be due to the fact that I like to hit the accelerator and make crazy turns.  Forza does not suffer such hijinks.  I was frustrated by that the first time around.  The second time I found the beauty of the game.  It is a decent distraction from my NHL 10 woes.

I am loving the different take on football game play that APF provides.  It has its issues.  Then again so does the Madden series.  I never would’ve given the game a  second thought had I not gone looking to work on my completion percentage.  I went for some points, I came out with a solid football game that is now entrenched in my gaming rotation.

This new relationship with achievement is tenuous at best.  I have seen too many people fall victim to the lures of useless points.  At the moment I feel vindicated by my faith in achievements, that there is still good in them.  I fear that at any point I can have the rug pulled out from me. I will be standing on the street like Lloyd Christmas trying to figure how my new found faith in old people could be so misplaced.

I am the lonely man, heart still broken.  And while I know my heart will go on, for Celine has told me so, I can’t help but miss my NHL 10 every day.

I lost the game about three weeks ago to a crack in the ring of the disc.  It played for a while, but I knew it was only a matter of time.  My beloved game was not going to make it.

Since then I have been wandering around the Xbox Live landscape trying to find something to fill the void.  Puzzle Quest, Madden, Gears of War 2, and NHL Arcade tried, but it was too large a void for them to even come close.  That Celine Dion is full of $hit.  My heart will go on, my @ss.

During the Olympics I went through a massive withdrawal.  Watching the awesome display of hockey by organic players made me yearn for some time on the virtual ice with some pixelized players.

I know what you might be thinking.  If you love the game so much, just get another?  Well, I can’t do that.  I won’t do that.  Sixty dollars is enough to pay for a game.  I am not going to double down.

I briefly considered NHL 2K10.  It would certainly scratch that itch.  I called my local Gamestop.    They were out of NHL 2K10, but full of the knowledge and wisdom that must certainly be a prerequisite to working at Gamestop.

In response to my NHL 2K10 query:

Gamestop employee: We do have NHL 10 though (dude) and I hear it is a better game ( brah).

Me: Yeah, well I already had the game, but the disc cracked and I just don’t feel like buying the same game twice.

Gamestop employee: ( Reading from the sales card, ignoring the facts of the situation) Gotcha ( dude). So did you (totally) get our ( incredibly awesome) protection plan.  (brah)

Me: No, I actually got the game at Best Buy.

Gamestop employee: (Dude) You ( totally) shoulda got the protection (brah, dude).  You still can ( brah)

Me: Would that have worked on my Best Buy game?

Gamestop employee ( confused for a moment by the question) Nah ( Dude, Brah, Amigo).  You need to buy a copy from us.

Me: Yeah that is what I figured.  As I said I really don’t want to buy the same game again.

Gamestop employee: You want me to see if we have it used? (pardna)

Click.

So I travel this lonely road, missing my beloved and appreciating more than ever that Amazon.com exists and Gamestop is an option I can punt on.  It does not help me with my current situation, but I can avoid future interactions like the above.  Gamestop’s idea of helping scratch this itch was to use steel wool.  So while I am back at step one, I appreciate the lack of abrasiveness in the online search for a reasonably priced copy of NHL 2K10.

Incredible..The beta may be worth an ODST pickup for those who do not have it.

For all the things that EA has done wrong, and there is a litany to be made, this feels okay to me.  They are protecting their intellectual property.  Why should Gamestop and other used retailers reap the bounty of EA’s ( okay DICE’s) sweat?  Because that is the way the market has worked for ten plus years?  That does not jibe with me.

Kotaku reported last week on the breakdown of who makes what off of a used game.  (See below)

Via Kotaku, courtesy of Alex Pham of the LA Times

Retailers already get over half of what publishers get on a new game sold.  That seems a bit high to me.  EA does not need the Gamestops of the world as much as they did five years ago.  There was a time when these bastions of game geekdom were it for the publishers.  That time has passed.

Why should Gamestop pocket their 50% margin on each used copy of Battlefield Bad Company 2, while EA and the other partners above get jack squat?  Amazon.com and other online retailers are gaining market share .  The chart above shows how they can present their slick deals for new games.  They are already getting 15 bucks per game, 1 quarter of the cheddar.  That is mind-blowing to me.

Movie Theatres get a quarter for each ticket opening weekend of a blockbuster.  It increases each weekend, but in the ADD world of 21st century entertainment ( outside of the rare Avatar), that ends up not being much.  The retailers of video games have a steal.  I suggest they stop pushing it before the EA’s of the world get wiser to how sickingly sweet the deal they give the retail market really is.

Having said that, I must play Devil’s advocate against EA for second.  If EA wants to sell BFBC2 as a legit contender to the Modern Warfare 2 throne why are they pulling this bush league move?  Do you see Activision ( whom gamers  can deride almost as much as EA) pulling this crap?  Of course not.  A premium game and brand eschews using such tactics.  They don’t need to.  People will come, EA, people will come…that is if the game is worth its salt.

Based on the downloads of the BFBC2 demo, people are interested.  So why would you want to come off looking cheap, desperate, and second-rate.  I agree with the principle.  The timing and the message conflict with what you are crowing about. BFBC2 looks like a step below MW2 just based on the business set up.  Blockbusters make their ancillary revenue on map packs.  If you have faith in the product and that people will have to have it Day One, then the used market is no concern.  If you feel they will love it enough to keep it, or to rebuy after they trade it in, for DLC…you have no worries.  That is the real “Project Ten Dollar” and on that end Activision has you beat.

Knowing EA they will go for it all and try to grab both.  I believe it is their right as the publisher to try to get what they can from their property.  But if they pull the typical EA moves it could quickly become “Project No Dollars” for a lot of gamers.

The Informalist plays it safe...

Stalked, post impatience

Mid pWnag3 Informalist

I wish there were more to share, but I stayed alive most games. It was a refreshing change from the earlier Left 4 Dead 2 debacle.

I find it depressing, interesting, silly, all of the above. 3 CoD titles in the top 5 played games?  Look at all the games below people.  There are some good games throughout the list and library.  Even my beloved and departed NHL10 cracked the top 20 again ( thank you Olympic Hockey, I think).  More on that in another column.  I have had a crisis of epic proportions gaming-wise with NHL 10 on the sidelines with a crack in the disc.  My sadness would consume the rest of this endeavor, lets move on.

I love that FIFA 10 is up in the top 5 ( along with Halo 3, natch), but there are just too many shooters in the top 20 ( 11 out of 20 by my count).  I think that could hurt the 360 in the long run in the next-gen console battle.  The “shooter console”.  That is not the way to get casual gamers in the fold.

I love shooters.  Check out my gamercard on the front page of the site.  But they have their place.  And their place should not be all-consuming.  My second love is sports games.  I play them alot. With NHL on the sidelines…

Sorry, I needed a moment.  With NHL on the sidelines I have been checking out some other genres that I have long dismissed.

Forza 2 that had been collecting dust. Hey, racers can be fun, especially on an easy setting.

I re-acquainted myself with Puzzle Quest and Poker Smash. Puzzle games can be cool as well…

There is a great big gaming world out there folks.  Don’t get caught in a shooter rut.  You are missing all the other wonderful diverse genres that are available to you.

I am tempted.

I think the domino falling that kicks off Splinter Cell at launch will be a Gamestop deal. If they offer me 30-40 dollars for a MW2 trade in, I am in.

Sorry MW2, I am out of infatuation with you. It was never love, if I said that I never should’ve. I get my two late nights of gaming in a week and I can’t be wasting it on a time vacuum like yourself. I wish I could say it wasn’t personal, but it is.

You tend to bring out the worst in people. Glitchers, mom worshipers and people playing so much that their perspective of MW’s place in the world is skewed ( to put it nicely), oh my. No thanks. Now it is about getting the most I can from it, as well as finishing the game on Veteran. (Curse you TrueAchievements.com).

Back to Splinter Cell. I am a huge Chaos Theory honk. Best co-op online set up ever. Your mike was tied into your in-game sound. If you spoke too loud the guards would come. It was remarkably tense, palm sweating fun. Saying “Oh my God, I think he heard us” in a squeaky terrified voice, FTW.

Conviction promises some excellent Co-op as well. I guess what I am looking for is a refreshing change. Battlefield Bad Company 2 feels like it would be more of the same.

The story mode, the MP, the actual difference in-game play dynamics has Splinter Cell back on my radar.

Mass Effect 2 was one of the most anticipated games of this year. In following the precedent set by the original; a melding of Action and RPG elements, as well as the excellent storytelling and decision-based gameplay, Mass Effect 2 had a lot to live up to. Mass Effect 2 is a tough act to follow. If anyone is up to it, Bioware is.

(Writer’s Note: Because of what I have to say about this game, I am going to depart a bit from our traditional review format and use a more “normal” approach, breaking down into sections based on subject.)

Graphics and Story

The graphics in Mass Effect 2 are a great improvement over the original. Though the first looked great, it had some issues with texture pop-in as well as some other oddities. Mass Effect 2 has fixed these imperfections. I have seen none of these issues pop-up in this game. It has been graphically seamless as far as I can tell; quality is consistent all the way through.

The story is still great. It holds your attention the whole way through, especially as you delve deeper into it. There were parts where I was doing side missions but was having difficulty sticking with them primarily because I felt a sense of urgency to get to the next mission and save the galaxy.

Gameplay

Gameplay in Mass Effect 2 is not necessarily a massive departure from Mass Effect 1, but there were significant changes made to the system. It plays a lot like “Gears of War lite”.

First off, the cover system, a bane to the experience in the first game, has been massively overhauled. By this, I mean it actually works. You can take cover, and you can jump over the cover and sprint to the next piece. It really made the gameplay feel like a pop-and-shoot experience, which is where I get the Gears reference. The AI characters are much better about taking care of themselves.

The other big change to the combat gameplay was the way the weapons work. Rather than the unlimited ammo with the “overheating” mechanic in the first Mass Effect, they have gotten rid of it with a more traditional ammo concept. Though I never had any issues with running out of ammo on my playthrough on Normal difficulty. On Insanity I had a few times where I came very close to running out of ammo.

Exploration is a huge departure from the first game. No longer do you land on planets, instead scanning them and firing probes to the surface to collect minerals and purchase upgrades. There are things about this that I like, as you don’t have to drive around in a vehicle on the surface to get minerals (and they actually have a use), but you will spend just as much time scanning as you did driving the Mako around.

Another bit is the inability to use Medi-Gel any time you want. Rather than using it as a type of health pack, it is only used to resurrect teammates if they go down in combat.

RPG or Shooter?

I think this is where I may get some contention from the hardcore fans of the Mass Effect series. I love the series, but I do have some issues with the changes they have made in the latest installment. Mass Effect has always been touted as the lovechild of RPGs and Shooters, but I think this one has gone a bit too far in one direction.

They have really streamlined much of the experience. There are fewer abilities that you need to attribute points to on your character. Also, in the case of Shephard, you have the ability to change out different parts of the armor for different benefits, as well as set your own color scheme.

Overall, though, it seems to me that many of the RPG elements in Mass Effect 2 have almost been set aside. A few things have led me to this. First is the way experience is handled. Though it truly isn’t that huge of a deal, you no longer get experience for kills in combat, only for completing tasks and missions within the game. Also, each level is a fixed amount of experience to earn, rather than a progressively larger amount. Also, the weapon system is crippled and no longer feels like an RPG element. Once you pick up a weapon, as long as the character has the ability to use the weapon, they can use it. You don’t have to have one for each character.

This wasn’t my biggest complaint, though. The biggest issue was the fact that there are very few weapons of each type in the game. I probably picked up 3-4 of each type through the entire playthrough, and they give you no stats or anything about the weapon, just that it is an “upgrade to the (insert lower weapon here)” (the exception to the is the heavy weapons).

There is also no customization of your party members, save for setting their weapons to the best ones you have and choosing between two outfits. I felt like it kind of takes you out of that “commander” role, in a way. It was nice, though, how they gave really no benefit to choosing any specific character over another for most of the game, giving you the freedom to use whoever you wanted as your squad but not seeing any penalty if you needed to use someone else later.

Final Conclusion

Even with some of its flawed changes from the first, Mass Effect 2 is a worthy follow-up to one of the best RPG-style games for the Xbox 360. I only knock the game for some of the changes that they made, pushing the game further out of the RPG arena, and more into the Shooter genre.

Even with the changes that I didn’t like, the story was still amazing and really brought the game home and setup the franchise for another blockbuster hit in the third part of the trilogy.

Grade: $55 out of $60

He also thought he would only attempt one more Puzzle Quest puzzle before bed.

A Red Leader game is one that you are sure you can put down at any time, but two hours later you are still repeating the mantra, “almost there”.

Puzzle Quest is one of those games. Two nights this week I stayed up until 5:30 am convincing myself that one more puzzle…and that will be it. My day was shot from staying up so late. Still I fared better than the namesake “Red Leader”.

If you are someone who has lived under a Gundaar your whole life, Red Leader refers to the unfortunate soul would led the X-Wing squad in the Battle of Yavin at the end of “Star Wars”.

He is well-known for brushing off the warnings of his squad mates while manning the trench run in an attempt to shoot a torpedo down the exhaust pipe of the Death Star. He missed his target, and in the end bought the farm.

Red Leader games lead you to believe that you have the situation in hand. You can quit them at any time. You will be mistaken, just as Garven Dreis was.

I am not asking for a Ninja Gaiden level of  difficulty in gridiron form, but some AI and difficulty tweaking would be nice.  I am currently 9-0 and have allowed only 70 points in those  9 games.  I am playing with Baltimore.  They are good ( okay, their defense is great.), but not elite ( at least according to the original team rankings, 11th.)

I have had a few close games.  It is not the stuff of blowouts that I found with All-Pro ( a setting on which I won the Super Bowl with the Chiefs ), but it is getting there.  I am finding myself slipping into the familiar, ” I know I am going to win, just not by how much at this point” with the setting.  That sucks.

Upcoming games will test the theory as I have Colts, Steelers and Packers ( human controlled team) in the  coming weeks.

So yeah this post was created to showing off my highlight with a 3rd string running back.

LA13 shares a pre-tea chat with a Horde member

Darth Britt pWns while Lax For Life31 looks on

LA13 handles a Horde member who rebuffed his tea party from above.

My highest rated photo from the night, 4759. Drone lit well FTW .

I cannot freakin' wait.

Click here for the details from Bungie.net

I think that this is in the number 2 position of games to ask for this Christmas. NHL 11 will likely hold the number 1 designation.

I cannot wait for more info. I am mildly perturbed that the beta is tied to buying another Ubi game. Thanks Bungie for adding that to the norm.

Here is the link with info from Epic Games forums.

Revives are double points in all game types
Wingman is double normal XP (4x XP)
Horde is double XP

I wish I could get any XP at all in adversarial modes in Gears, but I can’t flop and shotty as well that community.  I will be tearing it up this weekend in Horde.  I like the added incentive to revive.  I have some people on my FL that I will be sure to mention that to if I Horde with them this weekend.

According to the article they are giving Beta access to anyone who buys Splinter Cell: Conviction.

The game will be coming out this holiday season.  It will severely test my conviction on only purchasing one new game this year ( Halo: Reach).

There is no word yet whether it plays at all like MW2.  The fact that it was not mentioned in the release leads me to believe that Ubisoft is not taking up the EA 2010 platform.

EA is obsessed with Modern Warfare 2 (MW2). I understand why they would seek to compare the Medal of Honor(MoH) relaunch to the uber popular FPS. They are in the same wheelhouse and they want to drag whatever fans of MW2 over to MoH this fall. That would be fine. But like any good stalker, EA kept pushing.

EA then laid down the gauntlet on MW2 for the upcoming Battlefield Bad Company (BFBC2).

“The first [Bad Company] did very well in its first outing,” he said. “The next one is a heck of a lot better and it looks like a worthy competitor to Modern Warfare.”

~ EA boss John Riccitiello

This seemed unnecessary to me. Bad Company 1 sold very well. It is popular. It has its own fan base. While it’s set in the same era as MW2 and also a FPS, I feel they are two different games in how they play. The attempt to marry being a fan of one to the other seems very desperate to me. Don’t change your hair color and style John, they looked fine to me the way they were.

BFBC2 is a squad based shooter. In my limited experience with the demo and prior Battlefield games, lone wolves cannot dominate as they can in MW2. Harrier, AC130, rinse, and repeat need not apply.

The vehicles in BFBC2 help make the game a different animal. The destructible environments make camping harder. I am not saying it is better, but it is clearly different. There is no need to invoke MW2 when discussing the game unless they are talking about the units they want to move. Even those would be some lofty and unrealistic dreams.

Not satisfied to being stuck at above average stalker, EA dove in hip deep today. Their adherence to talking points no matter the relevance puts Fox News to shame. EA is now invoking MW2 while discussing Dead Space 2. It is now a space based survival, ahem sorry, space based action (JUST LIKE MW2!) horror property.

This is hitting some scary levels in trying to fit square pegs into round holes. What is next? FIFA 11 starring the long-lost cousin of Soap MacTavish on the cover?

If EA wants to try to market games so that people will see them as the same as the big dog in town, how about choosing one game (Medal of Honor) as that dog in the fight? Let Battlefield: Bad Company 2 be what it is: an alternative to MW2. And please let Dead Space 2 be its own game.

If they keep along this road, all properties they compare to MW2 are likely to come off as “kind of like MW2, just not as good” to the masses. Others will come off desperate, like the Dead Space 2 one. EA, let your games be themselves.

An EASports link with more details is here.  The choices are between Drew Brees, Reggie Wayne and the Mullet aka Jared Allen.

I know it has been a long while since there was a solo defensive player on the cover of Madden (2005, Ray Lewis). It is long overdue, and it would be great if the focus were on defense in Madden NFL 11. That being said, please do not vote for Jared Allen for the cover of Madden NFL 11.

I am backing Brees.  I think he has a better shot at Wayne to keep the cover of Madden NFL 11 mullet free.  I am on the fence buying the game. But I still want my voice heard.  There is no need for my kids to have to look at that hideous hair style throughout the inevitable summer media blitz.

It will be bad enough that there could  be a “Cool Ranch Doritos – Cool Customer of the Game” in game advert in Madden 11′s future.  It does not need to be saddled with Brett Favre’s personal handwarmer.