The Gamer’s Paradox

When it comes to video games, there is a particularly bothersome conundrum that must be faced for each new game: whether to play the game on a lower difficulty and have tons of fun or to play on the hardest difficulty for the prestige and glory. You can definitely not have your cake and eat it, too, because no one will raise an eyebrow if you clear the game on normal and you’re bound to have several angry breakdowns if you try to run through on insane.

This problem was highlighted even more so with the release of MW2. No sooner had I brought the game back to my dorm and into the 360′s eagerly awaiting tray when my roommates urged, “Do it on Veteran!” The tag line next to the Veteran difficulty says “You will not survive.” True statement. Ignoring their nagging I proceeded to play through the game on normal. Having played it’s predecessor, MW, I was all to aware of how hard and frustrating Veteran can be. Thinking of my sanity and already high stress level, I decided normal was better, and as expected, I had little to no trouble beating the game.

In fact, it was too easy. Withing a few solid hours of gaming I was done. Looking at the achievement list, I decided that I had far too few and embarked on the campaign, this time on Veteran. Sure enough, despite the upgrade in the game play bugs and annoyances from the 2007 MW, there were sections in both Spec Ops and campaign that made me want to walk away and never play again. I finally managed to overcome the odds, but it didn’t stop there. Buoyed by my recent success, I decided to take on my longtime nemesis, the infamous Modern Warfare original. Hundreds of deaths and gallons of sweat later, I was done. Did I have fun? No, not really, but now my profile proudly boasts a higher score and nearly all the achievements.

Thus the Gamer’s Paradox: to have fun or to have the glory. Choose wisely.

All Hail MW2

Ladies and Gentlemen, the all important November 10, 2009 has come and gone leaving in its wake canceled appointments, skipped classes, lost sleep and annoyed roommates. Yes, I’m referring to none other than the release date of quite possible the most highly anticipated game since Halo 3: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (MW2). This game in only 5 days of sell through, has shattered preceding video game and even box office incomes with an outstanding $550 million gross. This game has become a pop culture phenomenon. Infinity Ward and Activision have truly outdone themselves.

The game more than lives up to the hype. Rising above and beyond the call of duty, this Call of Duty is the best by a landslide. With an intense storyline, excellent game play, awesome new guns, perks, equipment, vehicles and missions, there is literally nothing to let you down. The plot is challenging, engaging and fun as all hell broken loose. Quite possible the best addition to the new game play is the end of the infuriating “infinity spawn” dilemma. In past games, players had to cross an invisible line in the linear playing maps before the enemies would stop spawning. Now the players can actually take a more tactical approach and eliminate enemies before exposing themselves to danger.

The online play is fantastic, with a whole new set of perks to boost your characters prowess, a whole menagerie of new guns to play with and so many achievements and challenges to play that you’re looking at months and months if not years of replays value. I cannot recommend this game highly enough. Get it. Get it now.

Q&A with Paul Semel

Paul Semel has been writing professionally since 1990 and writing about games since 1993. Since then he has written for such magazines and websites as Entertainment Weekly, Bikini, EGM, OPM, GamePro, FHM, Maxim, Premiere, 1UP, Nintendo Power, Stuff, Men’s Journal, Vibe, Wired, and Teen People. He currently writes for Metromix, G4TV.com, Rides, Complex, and Paste.

Van: Would you consider yourself an avid gamer?

Paul Semel: I think my 60,000+ gamer score speaks for itself. Which is my snarky way of saying yes, yes I would. I play a couple hours every day for fun, on top of what I have to do for work, and find myself getting more excited about new games these days than I do about new movies, music, or episodes of my favorite TV shows. Not by munch, mind you, but enough to make it worth mentioning.

V: 60,000 is an extremely impressive gamerscore, how long has it taken
you to accumulate all those points?

PS: Well, I got my Xbox a week or so before it came out, so since then. I think it’s so big because I play a lot of different games. I tend not to play them more than once, and don’t play a lot of multiplayer, so I go from game to game to game.

V: How long have you been into gaming?

PS: I’ve been into games since I was a kid in the ’70s. I used to steal quarters from my dad’s dresser and go to the community center to play Tempest or to the Ground Round to play Asteroids.

V: What’s your favorite genre?

PS: I like to shoot things. More so from the first-person perspective than the third, but again, not by much.

V: What, in your opinion is your favorite game out of any genre?

PS: I always have a hard time with these sorts of questions because I don’t like dealing in absolutes. But some of my favorite games include the Halo series, Resident Evil 2 and 4, Half-Life 2, F.E.A.R., and the good Tomb Raider games.

V: Do you support one console more than others?

PS: Not really. I got into writing about games, in part, because I didn’t want to have to chose, I wanted to get all the consoles.

V: How often are you required to write?

PS: For games, our monthly coverage usually consists of two to four reviews, two or three screenshot galleries, a developer Q&A, and the occasional celebrity Q&A. These are split between the movie section, where we do movie-related games, and the TV section, where we do regular games.

V: Are there any video game perks that come with the job?

PS: You mean besides getting free games, game consoles, t-shirts, action figures, stuffed animals, and trips to cities foreign and domestic, as well as invites to parties like the Assassin’s Creed II — which was co-hosted by Kristen Bell and Maxim magazine — that I just got home from?

V: What’s the best part of reviewing video games?

PS: The first obvious but still true answer would be, “the friends I’ve made being a game journalist.” The second obvious but still true answer would be, “being able to make a living doing something I love.”
But the third answer, which may not be obvious but is, yes, true, would be that I’ve gotten to do things I wouldn’t have had I not been a journalist. Like getting to meet and interview such cool people as Aisha Tyler, Pauley Perrette, and Clive Barker. Or getting to shoot a sniper rifle. Or, most importantly, getting to play a game that I probably wouldn’t have gotten to try if I had to pay for it. I wasn’t at all interested in Mass Effect…until I played it at an event and fell in love with it. Had that not happened, I not only would not have ever played Mass Effect, but I never would’ve tried Fable III or Fallout 3, either. Oh, and yeah, the free stuff is cool, too.

V: Do you buy into the hype for the “blockbuster” games like the Halo, Call of Duty and other such franchises?

PS: Well, I’m kind of responsible for creating it, but I only do that when I’ve seen the game, or gotten to play it, and think it’s good. If I play a gamer early on, and I’m not into it, I don’t add to the hype. So I guess the answer is no, I don’t. I wait and see if a game is worth the hype.

V: There are people out there who say that video games are linked with violent and antisocial behavior. How would you respond to that?

PS: You cannot deny that media has an effect on people. If it didn’t, no one would’ve followed the Grateful Dead around, no one would line up for a new game machine or Star Wars movie, no one would buy Bill O’Reilly coffee mugs. What no one has ever shown, though — and I doubt they ever will — is that media can make someone do something they’re not inclined, even slightly, to do already. Consider all the people who’ve ever tried to blame their violent behavior on violent media. They always have social, mental, developmental, emotional, or psychologically problems. Same for kids who shoot up schools. The common thread is not Marilyn Manson or Grand Theft Auto, but a kid who has problems. Though, on a side note, isn’t it interesting that you only hear about what pop culture a school shooter is into if it is so-called violent music or games. You don’t hear what they’re into if they’re into country music or board games. Which is why you rarely hear what school shooters are into. But I digress. Look, I don’t think little kids should play GTA. No one in the industry does. I’m okay with the rating system and I’m okay with consoles having built-in parental controls. If more people paid attention and used them, we wouldn’t have these problems. But if you’re an adult who was raised right — who knows right from wrong, fantasy from reality — then some GTA isn’t going to do any hard. If anything, I put more blame on parents. Parents need to do their jobs.

V: If you were forced to drop all your video game collections except for
one platform (anywhere from the Sega Genesis, Gameboy, or Xbox) and one
game, what would it be?

PS: I’d probably say I’d want to keep Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, because I could play multiplayer for a very long time before I got totally bored.

Why I don’t Buy Into the Racing Genre

Ever since Cruisin’ the USA was removed from my local Rudy’s Tacos and the outdated N64 fell behind the console revolution, I have not subscribed to any of the “realistic” driving games. There are many, many different suppliers of these games: Forza, GRID, Need for Speed, Project Gotham Racing and Burnout Paradise all had their glory days. They all based off the same basic elements for a “good” racing game: realistic traction and handling, sweet cars you’ll never, ever afford, the feeling of actually being an accomplished driver and the belief you actually know stuff about cars.

Racing games in general have never thrilled me, except for Crash Team Racing and Pod Racer: Sebulba’s Revenge. Not only are these games creative and fresh, but they don’t take themselves totally seriously and allow for good old fashioned, mindless fun. The driving simulators of today try so hard to be realistic, they actually become harder than real life. They’re not fun, they’re frustrating and they have caused a very aggravating intrusion on my personal sanity

Ever since my friend, who shall remain nameless, and his cronies got their mitts on Forza, all they talk about is how awesome the cars they see on the street are. They even throw random stats, which for all I know they’re making up. They talk about how they’d spruce up their cars and be professional drivers and have actually gone so far as to attempt some of these maneuvers. The game made them car snobs. They literally would sniff at the cars normal people drive and put people down for their opinion of nicer cars. Oh, yes, the ungodly amount of time that you put into your VIDEO GAME makes you an expert.

Not only are the games repetitive, redundant, and full of the same crap over and over, but they make people feel like they know all about the auto-industry, and my inner cynic just can’t live with that. The only fun racing games are when you get to throw banana’s and explosives at the competition while utilizing outrageous booster packs and unlimited quantities of NOS. So please, if your only point of reference in the automotive world is a video game, don’t even talk to me about it.

There Ain’t No Rest For the Wicked

Today’s game is the infamous Borderlands, possibly already famous for its theme song by Cage the Elephant. This new release by Gearbox Software is an interesting FPS RPG (First Person Shooter Role Playing Game). Ordinarily RPG and action don’t go hand in hand, but there have been successful real time RPGs from past days (Kingdom Hearts).

In this story you take control of one of several bounty hunters newly landed on the chaotic planet of Pandora. Colonized by miners seeking precious stones and raw material, a recent warm snap has awakened vicious creatures that have driven off all but the rough, tough and insane. Each hunter has a different specialty whether it be brute force and artillery, toughness and shotguns or speed and marksmanship. You are instantly contacted by a mysterious Cortana-esque (Halo reference, look it up n00bs) vision to look for the Vault, a mysterious place of untold awesomeness. Now you have no choice but to go on quests, collect phat loot and generally save the day.

While I personally do not adhere to the RPG game type, there are several things I like about the game. First off, it doesn’t take itself super seriously. Creative RPG elements are incorporated into the real time shooting, like the amount of damage you do with each shot flies off in a different colored number from the victim. Secondly, there is a lot of room for personal characterization of your character, and you can literally sculpt your character to be completely different in powers and levels from the other players in the game. There are tons of customizable guns and lots of room run around and test them out. It’s a lot of action mixed with tedious quests that somehow find a good balance.

So if you’re willing to take a chance and try this bizarrely engaging game, rent or buy it now and go crazy on Pandora

An Ode to COD:MW

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare or CoD4 was one of the best shooters to ever come out on the 360 in my opinion.  A first person shooter of truly epic proportions, Infinity Ward made a great leap in the CoD universe by introducing the first game to leave the World War 2 timezone.  The game offers a diverse array of tactical situations and shooter scenarios.  From covert ops aboard a cargo ship to sniping a target from a mile away to piloting a massive gunship, CoD4 does not disappoint.

Alternating between the British SAS and United States Marines gives the player alternate characters and missions and different equipment to keep things interesting.  There are very few glitches and the game play is smooth and engaging.  The one flaw that has plagued the whole series is the re-spawn rate.  Enemies that are killed don’t stay dead.  They continue to run in from every direction.  Only once the player crosses an invisible line in each scenario will they stop.  They game forces you to keep moving, which I suppose is only fair to prevent people from camping a mile off and never getting in harms way.  The problem is, for a game that claims covert op missions and stealth elements, you can’t really sneak around when you’re forced to run head long through a group of terrorists in order to stop their multiplication.

In addition to an intriguing storyline the game sported one of the best multiplayer games for the XBox Live.  With over a dozen different missions types ranging from 3 on 3 tactical matches to 9 on 9 super team death matches, CoD4 leaves room in between for all types of gamers.  There are no official clans (teams) online, but there is a spot for a clan tag.  This gives players a feeling of solidarity with their players when they face off online.  If you’re ever in the neighborhood and you’re feeling up for a challenge, my gamertag is Zhoungguo and I guarantee that myself and the (oRLY) clan will show you how it’s done.

So if you want to shake up your boring shooter collection, pick up CoD4 and be looking for the highly anticipated sequel this November.

Red Faction: Guerilla

Red Faction: Guerilla was released in June of this year and was produced by Volition, Inc and THQ.  This game drops the player behind the controls of Alex Mason, a demolitions worker newly landed on Mars.  He meets up with his brother who instantly suggests that he join the Red Faction, a group of resistance fighters attempting to liberate the terraformed Martian planet from the Earth Defense Force.  The EDF has gone become a tyrant, killing civilians and generally ruling with a harsh, iron fist.  Within 5 minutes, you go from new arrival to guerilla extraordinaire as your brother is killed and you vow vengeance.

The game is another openworld, sandbox type.  You can run anywhere you want in your current active center and destroy EDF property at random, save hostages, aid in guerilla insurgencies or complete the missions to the advance the plot.  It’s a third-person game which makes navigation more manageable.  The main point to the game that Volition flaunted was the completely destroyable environment.  Any building, any car, any crate can be annihilated with very satisfying effects.  This makes getting from point A to B easier because walls can simply be leveled with your trusty sledgehammer.  Your objectives are to make life miserable for the EDF by lowering their control of different areas and raising RF morale.

The kinks in the game are a very finicky driving system, a very aggravating weapons control system and a general slow paced nature.  On easy difficulties the AI is numbingly boring but any higher and they become killing machines.  While it is very enjoyable at first, the amount of time one can spend running through endless quests is limited.  Gameplay is repetitive and leaves no real room for strategy.  You run in, you drop a bomb, you run out.  No real thinking here.

This is a good game for beginners and quest fanatics.  It’s not a full blown shooter, so action isn’t it’s real calling card and it’s not  totally RPG either.  Overall it’s pretty solid gameplay, with a few hiccups here and there.  It’s not everyone’s cup of tea,  but if sandbox games are your thing and you don’t care about it not really being a full RPG or shooter, then by all means, sign up with your local Red Faction group today.

Troopers, we are green and very, very mean.

Thanks to the generation donation from one of my friends, I was given the opportunity to play Halo: ODST.  This latest expansion from Bungie drops you back into the Halo universe as the alien Covenant forces threaten to destroy the last bastion of humanity: Earth.  Instead of taking the role of the genetic super-soldier John 117 aka Master Chief, you are now “the Rookie,” the newest member of the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers.  The Covenant are attacking New Mombasa for an undetermined goal…a goal that after completing the game…I still don’t know.  You and your team are separated in the drop to Earth and it’s now your job to piece together the clues left behind by the team.

The plot in this game runs more like a bizarre sci-fi soap opera.  Instead of non-stop heavy paced action, this game feel more like a GTA sandbox game.  You run from beacon to beacon, alone inside the city, alternating between flashbacks of the individual member’s experiences.  While those moments are fast-paced and more like the old games, when you go back to being the Rookie, it’s slow, boring and frustrating.  I’ve never been lost inside the Halo world before, but this game had me running in circles for a while.  There’s a love connection between the female CO and your team leader and the characters almost try too hard to be likeable, something left relatively unattended to in the past games.  I don’t care about the characters; everyone who plays Halo doesn’t care about the characters.  We sit down and flip on the 360 to waste alien scum, not to get sucked into the love story of the ODST grunts that always die.

Gameplay is mainly the same, with some new additions.  The ODST have “VISR” mode.  Basically a glorified night-vision, the VISR highlights friendlies in green and enemies in red.  VISR modes aides in finding extra ammo, guns and clues to your teams disappearance as well.  There are a couple new weapons, but nothing ground breaking.  The biggest change, for me, however was the health system.  The health system hearkens back to the first game.  If your shield is damaged, you begin losing health until your find a spot to hide and recharge your shield.  They improved this in the next two games by having your health recharge along with the shield.  ODST is a step backwards, returning to the frustrating element of looking for health and running away from fights right in the middle.  The health system was almost a deal breaker for me, as it changes all basic strategy.

All in all, the game is good, but not good enough to buy at full price.  If you must own it, buy it later.  A simple rental will suffice for this one.

No School Like the Old School: A Review of Dead Rising

Due to lack of availability and funds required to rent/buy Halo: ODST, this week I’ll be taking a big jump back in time to one of the breakthrough games for the Xbox 360 console: Dead Rising.  Released in August of 2006, this Capcom game broke down the preconceived limitations of what consoles were capable of doing.  It is a “sand-box” type game meaning that the player is literally turned loose in a vast, interactive world where there is a linear plotline, but the player is not forced to adhere to it.  The player can choose to either complete tasks and missions to advance the plot, or literally just play forever.

The plot revolves around Frank West, a photojournalist sent to investigate why the fictional Colorado town of Willamette has been sealed off by National Guard.  He’s flown through the roadblock on a private chopper to the town’s mall.  While en route, he notices that the population seems to be aimlessly wandering around the town.  After landing on the mall’s helipad, he makes plans to join back up with the pilot in 72 hours.  After this moment, the plot rapidly develops as it becomes apparent zombies have taken over the town and break into the mall.  Frank now has 72 hours to uncover the truth and save anyone he can, while dodging thousands of mindless zombies.

What makes this game so refreshingly unique is it’s style of gameplay.  Anything you pick up can be used as a weapon, with varying degrees of effectiveness.  Plates, benches, umbrellas, guitars and even the trust shotgun are at your disposal.  There are also several gag elements where you can place cones on the zombies heads and take a picture for extra points.  It combines horror with humor as Frank fights through endless hallways of the undead.  As simple as it sounds, you can have a lot of fun just meandering the mall, investigating different areas, interacting with different actors and just finding creative ways to dispose of the zombies

All criticisms of the game at this point are null and void because since it’s relatively old as far as a game goes, all comparison’s are made on a purely biased basis.  The graphics aren’t fantastic, the shooting element is weak, parts of the game are definitely glitchy.  For it’s day and age though, Dead Rising soared above the rest, pretty much defining the sand box genre.  Saint’s Row, Grand Theft Auto and Mercenaries all took a very large piece from DR’s genius.

So if you’re in the market to kill some series time, become a hero and destroy a few zombies, pick up Dead Rising and look for the sequel coming out next year.  It’s a game that’s truly to die for.

A Look At Franchises

In order to be successful in the gaming world, game producers need to create consumer loyalty.  New games can come out and try to push the envelope, but as far as net sales, you’re going to make more money if you make more than one game.  The most notable of these franchises is Bungie’s Halo series and the collaborative efforts that have gone into the Call of Duty (CoD) series.

There are both very good and very bad things about having a long-running franchise.  First off, there’s expectations and precedents.  If you make a killer game and let word get out of a sequel, you’re instantly competing with yourself to up the ante.  Having a second game that exactly mirrors it’s original is a bomb.  The stealth game Splinter Cell is at fault for this.  Even though they have made at least 3 or 4 games, they haven’t greatly differed from each other and became a bit of a lost sensation.  Producers need to take what they learned in the first game and apply that knowledge the making the sequels even better.  If they go the wrong direction or maybe a carbon clone, they’re going to lose fans – lots of them.  One unique aspect to the CoD series is that the games, while all under the same name, are produced by three different companies at different times.  Treyarch, InfitityWard and Activision have all taken a stab at making their version bigger and better.  Treyarch’s Call of Duty: World at War was nothing special as far as campaign play, but the mini-game “Nazi-Zombies” actually became the selling point for the whole game.  InfinityWard broke the decade long precedent of World War II combat only to make the game modern.  In the end, this makes the game even better, because by changing creative ownership for every other game, they don’t fall into a rut and each game is completely different.

To conclude, franchises where it’s at in the gaming world.  Halo fanatics will drop tons of money on the newest games and expansion packs without even blinking because of how much they loved the previous game.  It’s all about customer loyalty.  But sometimes, it can lead you astray with a bum game in a successful line.  For my next issue, I hope to review ODST, the newest in the Halo line, to see if they can hold up to their own reputation.