Tales of Valor

Company of Heroes has been one of my favorite RTS since Relic's last war game - Dawn of War (DoW). I've been playing the first game without the expansion (Opposing Fronts) since last year with my friends. Even though there were only two sides compared to the 9 factions in DoW, the game still had the depth. Since there was only two factions, the balance between both sides are far better.

A few months back, Relic released the latest stand alone expansion called Tales of Valor. This expansion gives the player 3 new single player campaigns, several "new" units and 3 new multiplayer game modes. I've read a few reviews of the game when it came out and it wasn't so positive since there wasn't anything game changing. I bought it only a few weeks ago over at Gamers Gate when they had a special deal - CoH Gold with Tales of Valor for $29.99 basically, you're just paying for the gold edition and you get the new expansion free. Now this certainly was a good deal as I get the Opposing Front factions and missions and the latest Tales of Valor stuff. However, I agree with the reviews I read months ago... there is nothing that makes me go wow with this game expansion. (also all you need to unlock the Tales of Valor content is the product keys after patching to 2.600)

What would make me go wow? Actual new units. The game adds "new" units which makes me feel like they are reskinned versions of existing units. How about a mechanic which allows a player to blow up bridges and require players to rebuild them if they want that bridge to be used again. Why can't buildings (the neutral ones) be rebuilt to be used as a bunker? How about a spy unit which is permanently cloaked yet will reveal themselves if they are near a unit. The spy is used to disable buildings for a short period of time. How about attack dogs?

Where is the Company of Heroes: Rising Sun Growling Bear (or The War on the East for short)? That would add 1 new faction for each side (and a whole slew of balance problems but hey it's new). Company of Heroes has been solely focused on the western front why not add the jungles and beaches of Asia, the hot desert of Africa and the cold Siberian Russia. Russian units could be similar to the orks and imperial guard of DoW where they would have a lot of population but not very powerful infantry. A commissar unit would certainly be great. The Japanese could use ambush style tactics with a lot of their units having the camouflage ability and a kamikaze ability that would let planes act as flying bombs.

What happens now to the series? Will there be a new expansion pack? I'm thinking Relic will probably focus more on their newest title – Dawn of War 2 rather than go back to this 3 year old game.

Braid The First Rewind

I can't stand this game - Braid. I can hear people chime on how good it is and I can tell you they are wrong. A year ago I heard that this game was tough and they were right! Damnit!

Rewind a few seconds back.

Braid is definitely interesting. Instead of a spatial platformer, you get a chronological one.

Rewind a few seconds back.

Braid is definitely amazing. Instead of a spatial platformer, you get a puzzle game where you can change time. Redoing your missed jumps and changing it that you avoid the little ball of hair walking towards you. I'm over at world 4, and I managed to complete world 3 perfectly. The last stage of world 2 has me stumped as I can't get the final 2 puzzle pieces. I have this urge to go look over a FAQ of the game for a hint or two yet that would break the whole purpose of this game.

Braid makes you feel smart when you successfully pass each stage collecting the puzzle pieces. It makes you go 'oooh' whenever you stumble upon a solution by accident. The experience of every time altering mechanic of each world is definitely something one should try. Not to mention certain tributes to classic games like 'Jump Man'.

Walking in the painted world feels almost dreamlike. Walking in a painting collecting puzzle pieces to form a painting. If only I could reach that last puzzle over the door. I've been trying everything for hours now....

Rewind to the first sentence....

Virtual to Physical

Virtual Games Getting Physical

There is a trend for video games getting more interactive and immersive. From the development days of the Wii (or the Nintendo Revolution as it was known back then), I got excited for the possibility of actually being to have some sort of physical control. Jump forward to 2009, Nintendo is releasing the Wii motion plus controller which is a more accurate controller for movement. Microsoft is planning a camera motion sensing device known as Project Natal. This devices allows motion control without controllers just body movements and the camera. Sony has a similar product which is an enhancement of the eye toy. It's a camera with full motion capture and items are held to simulate game items.

Now we can have virtual bowling, basketball, tennis and sword fighting. Yahoo! Doesn't that get tiring though? Games of old were done solely on buttons. The fun part of games is that we could control a character and do so many different things by just pressing a button. Slashing an enemy, throwing them up in the air and blasting them while they fall down with dual pistols are extremely fun to do in Devil May Cry. What if these controls eventually required a motion control. You'd have to make slashing motion down then up then press the button on the controller rapidly. Cool right? Not unless you have to do that to several hundred enemies. You'd get tennis elbow or carpal tunnel ten times as fast.

I never really enjoyed playing complicated realistic sports games. I always thought that playing basketball is more fun in real life than playing a game of basketball (unless it's unrealistic where your players could do half court slam dunks in old basketball games). The next step would be to add immersion by requiring motion control. Playing any of the Wii sports games require motion and real physical exertion yet the game doesn't feel like the real thing cause there is no physical resistance when you hit a virtual ball. Certain groups of people will welcome motion controls as great since it allows them to exert effort and maybe even lose weight. Yet how much weight is actually lost carrying a very light controller and swinging it around?

I'm certain that games that just require a directional pad/joystick and buttons will never go away. The only thing I can't stand is when they make a perfectly good game and try to force in motion control. It's certainly fine if the game can have normal controllers and the motion controller is a bonus. It's also fine if the game can create a good motion control that fits well with the game. The bad thing, however, is when development teams try and waste their time in making motion controls when normal controls are sufficient. That will just cost them money and time that might impact the overall quality of the main game.

Will games be fun if in the future one actually has to walk in real life to move the character? How about jumping in real life to jump? What if it was a platformer with so many jumps required? What if you get tired? Game over?

Playing the Enemy

Is playing a certain character in a certain setting important to making a game great or is a great game always great regardless of the setting?

I was thinking about race, nationality, gender - anything that can be used as a discriminating factor. I've been on the Geekbox forums topic called ethnicity and race (link here) in games but I wanted to take it further. What if nationality and religion was involved? What if there was a game the level of a Call of Duty 4 where you played as a terrorist?

The single player story might go like this. You are a regular middle class Arab in some Mid Eastern country. While leaving the apartment you live in, several missiles strike your building and the surrounding neighborhood. Some of your family, friends and wife are dead due to this attack and the reasoning to the bombing was the Western nations found out that a terrorist leader was suspected in living in the building you lived in. In a dramatic scene of seeing your wife and kids dead, you declare jihad on the western world. During the game, you join a terrorist cell and perform missions (similar to the SAS parts in CoD4). With a couple of more people, you attack army bases and defend your city against a war with the Westerners. The final scene is when you are told to infiltrate the Western army HQ to take out the general of this operation. You manage to reach the room wit h the general but run out of bullets and soldiers surround you. You reveal to them you carry explosives around your body and show you have a triggering device. End with a white flash of light.

What if the gameplay, graphics and drama are at par or even superior to the 1st Modern Warfare game? Will this game where you play a terrorist change your mind that it's a great game regardless of who you play? Or will the setting be too disturbing that even buying the game (assuming you are a Westerner) cannot even be justified?

How about if the game had no "human" characters but still had the same story? What if you're an ordinary green alien when a missile blows up your home and you found out that the brown aliens did it. You join with the green martian army to fight the brown aliens. Full of drama and action yet you aren't playing a human. Will that change the perspective again of the player?

I think that games in a certain setting will definitely affect people. Just as a movie, say a slasher horror flick, you might notice how dumb the characters are and not be able to fight of some guy in a mask with a small knife. How about another movie where you thought that it would end a certain way but it doesn't so you end up hating the movie cause of how it played out. How about where the main character of a movie is so annoying but all other characters are so good you still end up liking the movie even if the protagonist isn't worth mentioning.

I think games should be similar in a way that we get to play the "enemy". How would it feel as a zombie to always get killed by the hero? There should be zombie rights on the fair treatment of undead humans. Joking aside, we shouldn't bash away at a game for it's setting or the characters we play. There should be games where we play the "bad guy". Playing a regular soldier in the Nazi army should be no different from the Allied side. The soldiers were merely being told to do their job, defend their own families and their freedom. We do get the occasional play the "bad guy" game in Overlord, Evil Genius and Dungeon Master (funny how they are all sort of strategy games). Why aren't there realistic games - shooters and action games where you play someone who isn't morally sound or other realistic games where the supposed bad guy is just a victim by the threads of fate. There are certainly non-realistic games - Prototype and in open world RPGs - Fallout, one can play a morally depraved character. Also, why aren't games showing the morally gray areas. It seems it's always good or bad.

Starcraft in a Blizzard

Starcraft 2 is the one of the most anticipated games that will possibly come out by the end of 2009. However, even at this point, several news reports is making me think twice about buying it once it comes out.

A year back, there was an initial announcement that Starcraft 2 would be split into 3. The single player missions would be totally separated. My initial reaction to that is it's Blizzard's attempt to really milk the franchise and since Blizzard games have always been good - people will still buy all three. After some thinking, I changed my mind. If it will get the game out earlier, then that's a good would be better than waiting another 3 years. I also thought that probably the news didn't come out right - they could have said that 2 expansions would follow up the original Starcraft 2 which continues the story.

Recently (well not so recently), a new piece of news have made me think twice again of Starcraft 2. There would be no LAN multiplayer and only Battle.net would be for multiplayer. I initially read something like LAN would still be available but would require people to still login over to Battle.net in order to play. If that was the case then I'm fine. Logging on to an online account to play a LAN game may be a hassle but it serves its purpose as an anti piracy tool and maybe have some battle statistics recorded over one Battle.net account. However, Blizzard has never really stated that - all it stated that there will be no LAN completely. I looked over at several sites...yup no real mention of the possibility of LAN that required a Battle.net entry.

Not having LAN just kills LAN parties and what started Starcraft in the first place. Aren't Koreans playing the game in computer shops linked by LAN? So people would have to connect to the internet and play in lag against another player a couple of feet away from you? It also makes imitation Battle.net servers home to more pirated compies. Not everyone in the world has high speed internet and Battle.net even when playing Warcraft 3 gets a bit laggy sometimes. If that was a decision to prevent piracy then Blizzard is just doing it all wrong, pirates will always have a work around. It would even be really bad for Blizzard if pirates manage to patch the game to allow LAN gaming.

Also if there won't be LAN, can Battle.net really handle all the new players without crashing or slowing down? Well I guess Blizzard probably has so many servers to spare with WoW still getting bigger.

Wonder what's next for Blizzard? Securom? Starforce? Limited activations? Why won't Blizzard make it work like Steam does? Is this Blizzard talking or has Activision managed to finally take control of Blizzard and turn it to a mindless zombie cash cow?

For anyone wanting to sign a petition for Starcraft 2 LAN, go HERE.

Entropy Gamer Online

I've decided to dump all my gaming ramblings and writings from my personal blog over here. I was thinking that Dear My Futureself, my blog, was getting cluttered up with all the personal posts, philosophical, political ramblings and random everyday trivia.

So I'll be putting any gaming related rants and reviews over at this blog while keeping my old blog free from the wacky or random world of gaming. I'll also post my older gaming posts here just to be complete.