“Hidden Fronts” map pack free on the 3rd

I’m not going to lie, I’ve grown quite fond of GOW’s online multiplayer. With the addition of these four free maps, I’ll be more than occupied until the 25th.

BUT…I’ve got a serious unrelated bone to pick with this game…

WHAT IS UP WITH THE ACHIEVEMENTS!?

For all of you achievement whores out there, I’m sure you’ve already come across this problem.

If an achievement reads (get 100 headshots), you should expect to have it by your hundredth head shot…not forty some odd kills later. Apparently, this unattainable achievement nuisance has become a raging epidemic that has “GOW-’ERS” everywhere frustrated. I’m starting to think that the achievements might be reached through some sort of a chronological order (chainsaw first, execution, curb stomp etc.). Or quite possibly, you can’t get these achievements at all unless you sell your soul to the gaming gods. Oh well. At least Process will be kick-ass.

Blarghhhhh.

p.s. Watch my gamerscore fly. =)

Halo 3/Mountain Dew commerical [update]

I’ve said it before and i’ll say it again…Halo 3 is on it’s way to complete and total world domination.

Now add some Vodka to that Mountain Dew as well as some controller breaking and you’ve got me.

For those of you brave enough to get the Legendary Edition, look closely at 00:13.

“What kind of world is this where they advertise things not everybody can afford?” -Phillip J. Fry

Update: Justin here hijacking the post. I wanted to add this Halo 3 commercial, but didn’t want to flood the site with halo 3 ad posts I saw this ad on tv tonight. I love it!

Call of Duty 4 Beta registration still open

Due to the fiasco that was yesterday, registration is open until 7pm PDT tonight (Tuesday 7/28). It’s no longer first come, first serve, so go get your name in the hat. Get over there and register, and while you wait, check out our impressions of the beta here.

Impressions of Call of Duty 4 Multiplayer Beta

The CoD4 beta officially comes out today (on a first come first serve basis), so I thought it was a good time to share my impressions thus far. I’ll try to hit all the points that matter. Keep in mind that this is only a beta… not even a preview or demo. Things are likely to change a little.

Graphics: They rock. Technically speaking the game is excellent. The art style is solid, with a few caveats. Despite the new “Modern” setting for the CoD franchise, the three levels included look like they could have been in Call of Duty 2. I personally liked Call of Duty 2’s landscapes, so it’s not so much a complaint as an observation. Overall the games geometry is rather boxy, generally lacking an organic, curvy appeal. It looks very raw, as would be expected in a gritty war shooter. Again, this is more of the games art syle, which is well executed and technologically sound. The game wont disappoint in the looks department.

Gameplay: I’ll be honest and let you know I’ve never played too much Call of Duty online. I was disappointed with Call of Duty 2s matchmaking (or lack there-of), which has been completely revamped of Call of Duty 4. If you are a friend of Halo 2/3 matchmaking, you will feel right at home, since it is practically identical. You’ve got party support, playlists, ranking, etc. It’s buttery smooth and should be easy to get together with your friends, find a match, and get in the game.

Game types in the beta in Free-for-all, Team Deathmatch, Team Tactical, and Team Objective (these are essentially the “playlists”). The first two are self-explanatory, both supporting 6-12 players. Team Tactical is for smaller teams of 2 to 3, doing both team deathmatch and Search and Destroy. Team Objective is again 6-12 players and includes Search and Destroy, and Domintation.

Search and Destroy is essentially like Counterstrike. The team on offense has to plant a bomb at one of two locations that the opposing team defends. The offence team wins by planting and detonating the bomb, or killing all of the opposing team (no respawns). Defense wins by killing all of the opposing team or defusing the bomb. Domination feels similar to Battlefield 2, with numerous flags or control points which you must control for the most amount of time.

So far everything is tried and true, essentially the best of numerous games. Where CoD 4 gets creative is with it’s “Create A Class” mode. You can create and save your own classes, complete with weapon selection and upgrades, and the all new perks. In a typical shooter, each class has their own perks inherent to them. A marksman may have truer aim, and a demolition expert may have increased explosives skill. With Create A Class, you pick your own weapons and skills. Do you want to be a stealthy snipers packing a UAV jammer, and how about an RPG just for the hell of it? Done. Increased health? Increased bullet damage? Faster reloading? Longer sprinting? It all sounds great, but of course you can’t have it ALL. You can really customize your playing style, and carefully pick the perks you want.

One of my favorite things about the game is that not everything is available right off the bat. You want to upgrade the scope on your M4? You’re going to need to earn that! If you visit the Barracks, you will see your current goals. You have goals for each of the weapons in your arsenal. If you want to upgrade your M16, you need to use it. The Barracks will tell you at your current level, you need 75 more kills with the M16 in order to get that new scope. There are numerous upgrades for each weapon (ranging from grenade launchers, camo, improved sights, and scopes), so there are numerous sets of goals for each weapon. When the full game comes out, if you want the most coveted gun in the game with the most upgrades, you’re going to have to work for it.

While this is a great reward system and even adds to replayability (who doesn’t want to get the upgrades for ALL the weapons?), I can see it also being a bad thing. If a guy on your team is working on getting upgrades for his Shotgun, he might decide to use it on a level not so fit, and bring down the rest of your team. Ideally you would just be patient and get the upgrades naturally, using weapons as fit, but I can definitely see this happening. Last night I was getting my last 50 kills for an M4 scope upgrade, and I was using that gun whether or not it was the best choice. My kill/death ratio suffered, but I got my scope!

The ranking system also has its ups and downs. You gain experience points for everything you do right in the game. Get a kill, +10. Activate the team UAV, +10. Get an assist, +2 (it softens the pain of someone stealing your kill). You need xxx number of experience points to reach the next rank (not unlike and RPG). The bad thing, is there is apparently no way to LOSE experience. That means if you kept playing and never got better, even if you continually lost, you would slowly but surely climb the ranks. Just imagine if in Halo 2 if you couldn’t level down from losing… ranks wouldn’t be as telling of skill. On the bright side, being on the losing team doesn’t hurt you as much, as long as you perform well on your own. But this kind of tears apart the whole fabric of a team based game.

What really matters is that Call of Duty is fun. It’s shaping up to be a great game, and even with the currently limited map, weapon, and perk selection, it’s a good time and leaves you wanting more.

Medal of Honor Airborne demo parachutes onto XBL Marketplace

If Medal of Honor is your cup of tea, a demo for the latest brew is now up for download. While I’m feeling FPS over saturation onsetting, a demo is always worth checking out. Plus, I can’t think of many better ways to start a level then jumping out of a plane. The demo weighs in at 970+ MB, so prepare for the usual Xbox Live download agony.

Mass Effect either kicks ass, or blows

Depending on who you ask, that is. Gamespot and Destructoid both posted their impressions of Mass Effect being displayed at GC, and they couldn’t be more polar opposites. What Destructoid calls “emotionless voice acting and subpar facial animations,’ Gamespot calls the game dramatic, innovative, “exhibiting a lot of polish and flowing smoothly.” Destructoid says that it’s at worst, disappointing, and at best “not that bad.” Gamespot thinks it looks great at this point.

So who do you believe? (My vote goes to Mr. Brad Shoemaker. I’m not sure I’ve ever disagreed with him).

Update: Fixed all my gramatically errors. I wasn’t drunk when I wrote this, I swear.

More Halo 3 footage, Bungie walkthrough

Gamersyde has got the goods. Check out all four parts below, or download them each in 1280×720p glory. These videos show more of Tsavo Highway, and the replay value in the single player campaign.

Read the rest of this entry »

CoD4:MW Beta registration starts Moday

Mark it on your calendar, set a reminder, do what you’ve got to do. On Monday the gates open up at CharlieOscarDelta.com. There are a limited number of “tokens” (download codes) being released on a first come, first serve basis. That means be there at 12 noon, Pacific Daylight Time (thats 3pm for those of us on the East Coast). The current wave is restricted to 18+, with Xbox Live Gold, residing in the US.

I am presently in the friends and family wave of the beta, so I can tell you with assurance that this game kicks ass. I don’t want infinityward slapping my wrist, so I’m keeping my shut until the beta goes public.

You best study up on your Call of Duty 4 knowledge, because you are going to need to answer some trivia questions to get in. CharlieOscarDelta.com has all the info you will need.

Update: Time for East Coast corrected… thanks Hypersteric.

New Halo 3 footage (Campaign and Multiplayer)

Here’s some pretty decent shaky cam footage from GC 07. First up is a short clip from the campaign level Tsavo Highway (Click video to play). I’ve got to say the environment looks pretty gorgeous. That transport hog should also be good from getting you and your 3 buddies around.

Next is some footage from the map “Sandtrap.” When you’re done playing coop, this is what it will look like owning said buddies in mutiplayer:

1 month to go…

The BioShock review you don’t need

I don’t normally write reviews, and you surely don’t need another review (97 average review on Metacritic should tell you everything). So I will more or less give you my abbreviated opinion of the game.

To start off with, I have played the game through to completion, but only once. There are no less than to two endings to the game. And I think it’s safe for me to assume they are rather different endings, too. I’ve just completely ODed on BioShock in the past week so there isn’t a chance I’ll be repeating the whole game any time soon. Which brings me to my next point–game length.

Trusty old shotgun.

The game is pretty damn long. Not too long you can’t beat it in a couple days like I did (if you can forgo having a life). I didn’t time myself, but it was probably somewhere near 20 hours. This was on normal difficulty, and exploring as much as I could. If you want to find all the audio diaries and gun upgrade stations, you’re going to need to scour the place. I believe there are ten weapon upgrade stations (one time use, two upgrades per weapon) and a whopping 122 diaries (give or take). Getting the “Historian” achievement will not be like finding 20 measly COG tags. No, these diaries can be anywhere. Including in the bottom of a trashcan in a closet. In case you can’t tell, I’m a little bitter because I was hoping to get this achievement by being diligent on my first pass. While you can go back to find them, there are a few that if you don’t get them at the first opportunity, you never will. Plus, at the end of the game, it warns you that if you go on from there, you will not be able to return. Fair warning, except for the fact that even if you turn around at this point to go back in the game to look for things you’ve missed, you are already locked in the final level. I was forced to go back to an older save in order to backtrack.

Backtracking is going to be something you do quite a bit. It’s actually not so bad because the environment changes in a few instances, plus the fact that the whole game is just so gorgeous, you won’t mind. BioShock has open environments (meaning you can pretty much explore an entire environment at will), but not an openended story. You need to follow the games action in order. The entire story is driven by the radio you pick up at the beginning of the game and the audio diaries you find along the way. Some of those 122 diaries we talked about earlier are required to progress the story (these are differentiated by glowing gold). It’s actually a very effective way to tell a story, and quite enjoyable.

Not a good idea. Trust me.

My biggest disappointment has to be the games biggest selling point. All they showed off in the trailers and videos was how many ways you can set traps and kill your enemies. While you CAN do this, there is really no point. None of your enemies are hard to defeat. Maybe it’s my years of FPS training that is holding me back. My mind thinks resource and ammo management… it doesn’t seem effective to use a proximity mine, tornado trap and trip wire to take out an enemy when a wrench to the back of the head would do. There was really only one point in the game where you are encouraged to set up a trap. While you are locked in a room waiting for something (no spoilers), your buddy Atlas tells you Ryan is sending some bad guys after you and you should get ready for them. At last! I went all out… proximity mines behind all the doors, followed by tornado traps, and a spider web of trip wires. A spider web, I tell you! I swear, all it would have taken was a single mine or grenade. All I did was effective trap MYSELF INTO the room. The game REALLY could have used more scenarios like this, with bigger/longer waves of enemies. In that 20 hours, there were only maybe 3 cases like this. You could potentially set up traps for big daddies, but they have a weak point that makes it all too easy to kill them.

Much better.

Complaints aside, BioShock is an unbelievably ambitious game and it pulls off just about all it set out to do. It creates an environment with an atmosphere that is completely untouched. The game seriously could not have a better art direction. I don’t even want to touch the story because there are too many things to give away. A lot of people seem concerned because there is no back story for your character. I can’t tell you much, but there very much IS a back story. Any questions you might ask yourself manage to seamlessly answer themselves in the game. I can’t remember a game that is so compelling and left me so engaged. This game deserves the acclaim.