Leveling Down

Does being good or evil even matter in video games?

I’ve created a new section for Leveling Down called Discussion. In this section we will be posting gaming related discussion that either cmfl3x or I may have from time to time with members of the gaming community or even just between ourselves. In some ways, this isn’t really different from one of us posting an article and the other one commenting on it but we’ve structured it in such a way that we expect the other to sort of reply – at least to have somewhat of a conversation. These posts may be nothing more than idle chit-chat, but I guess this is what aging hardcore gamers chit-chat about. Feel free to jump into the discussion with your comments as well.

This first discussion topic was suggested to me by cmfl3x, as he asked me how I felt about how morality was currently handled in video games.

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Command & Conquer 3: Red Alert – cmfl3x and I finally completed the Soviet campaign! Slowly but surely we’re making our way through. Expect my impressions on the game soon.

Infinite Undiscovery – Only about nine hours in and seems like I’ve barely scratched the surface of the game. Annoyed a little bit that you can only save at predesignated spots, so it’s tough to stop until you get to the next one. I guess that’s typical of “old-school” Japanese RPG games though so I’m sort of used to it already.

My new PC – Most of this past week was spent messing around with my new PC. After installing my new graphics card, I started going through and installing all sorts of games that I bought years ago that ran a little sluggishly on my old system: Battlefield 2, Battlefield 2142, Oblivion, Age of Empires III, etc.

With my new machine and graphics card, I’m able to run Battlefield 2 on 1280×1024 at max settings for everything and still rock a 70+ framerate. I decided to be a little more adventurous and download the Crysis demo to see how it would go. Outlook: not good. On 1280×1024, even at its lowest settings, I had a framerate in the teens. The smoothest framerate I could get was about 40 when running in 1024×768 at the lowest graphics settings. Graphics looked kinda blocky at that level. Freaking Crysis. I can’t even run it on medium settings on 1024×768 without it stuttering haha

I also went ahead and re-installed World of Warcraft on my new machine, and my patching is fully caught up now (after several hours of torrenting through all the patch downloads). I want to give the 10 day trial for Wrath of the Lich King a shot, if anything at least to see how the game runs on my rig. Also, since I already have a level 60 I can try out the Death Knight class. I just need to figure out when is the best 10 day time for me…

In Mirror’s Edge, sometimes you have to just take a leap of faith and hope you land on that next building rooftop…

Mirror’s Edge was a game that sort of flew under the radar for me but when it got closer to launch I got more excited. Nowadays it seems like I’m simply playing one shooter after another, so I came to realize that I would appreciate something different. Mirror’s Edge was the breath of fresh air that I needed.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t have the epic storyline and length of BioShock nor an addictive multiplayer component like Call of Duty. What it does have though is pretty much what will determine whether you will enjoy this game or not: Time trials.

That’s where I think Mirror’s Edge is at its most fun since you’re actively trying to beat your best times and figuring out new methods to getting past a certain obstacle quickly. If you enjoy playing racing games and practicing courses over and over again trying to shave precious seconds off your lap time, then Mirror’s Edge should have you under a similar thrill but this time in the role of a first person game.

Good
- innovative new “parkour” style gameplay that plays intuitively
- accurate physics engine that takes into account player momentum, how much camera should shake, etc.
- interesting and aesthetically pleasing color design throughout the levels

Bad
- short campaign
- not a very captivating storyline
- combat needs a little bit of work

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Isn’t this game supposed to be scary? Then why am I completely obliterating these guys in a mech?

The F.E.A.R. 2 demo was released last week, so I figured I’d check it out. I played the game originally on the PC, but I got bored with it and never ended up beating it. I decided, why not check out the sequel’s demo? Maybe this time around it won’t be as boring. I had a hard time deciding whether to try the demo on my 360 or my new PC. I ended up going with the 360. Read on for my thoughts on it as someone that didn’t really get hooked in by the first one.

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Considering getting a PS3 for the Blu-ray? Today only, Amazon has the 80 GB PS3 on sale for $350 – a savings of $50 and for most of you, there’s no tax and free shipping.

Combine this with their current promotion where if you buy any Blu-Ray player, you can do B1G1 free on select Blu-Ray discs (up to 10 discs total) and it ain’t too bad of a deal to upgrade to Blu-Ray…

Buy a 80 GB Sony PS3 for $350 and Unlock a Buy One, Get One Free Deal on Blu-ray movies [Amazon]

Are Rock Band and Guitar Hero destined to go down in history like Ryu and Ken?

Obviously, a lot has been written in the debate between Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Everyone wants to know: Which game is better, Guitar Hero or Rock Band? As a huge music game fan, I thought I’d throw my 2 cents into the ring. I’ll try not to rehash things that have been said previously and take an objective look at the two franchises that hopefully will help you decide which to purchase if you’re on a tight budget.

Personally, I love both the finger numbing difficulty in Guitar Hero and the party oriented nature of Rock Band, so I hope this feature will be a relatively objective look at the two. This will be a three part series comparing and contrasting the two franchises. Part 1 will take a brief look at the history of the war between Guitar Hero and Rock Band and some of the best new ideas the most recent games, Guitar Hero: World Tour and Rock Band 2, have brought to the table. Part 2 will compare and contrast the two games in some key areas, including the all important content library. Finally, Part 3 will contain a wish list of what I hope to see from Rock Band and Guitar Hero in the future. Hit the jump for Part 1!

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Xbox 360
13 Month Live Gold Card [$38.99 Amazon] [$38.99 Newegg]
Assassin’s Creed [$23.99 Amazon]
BioShock [$23.99 Amazon]
Brothers In Arms: Hell’s Highway [$29.99 Best Buy]
Far Cry 2 [$39.99 Newegg]
Grand Theft Auto IV [$29.99 Newegg]
Halo 3 [$39.99 Best Buy]
Midnight Club: Los Angeles [$39.99 Best Buy]
Shaun White Snowboarding [$39.99 Best Buy]
Silent Hill: Homecoming [$26.99 Newegg]
Tom Clancy’s EndWar [$36.99 Newegg] [$39.99 Best Buy]
Tomb Raider: Underworld [$49.99 Amazon] [$44.99 Newegg]
Unreal Tournament III [$19.99 Newegg]
Wireless Controller (White) [$36.99 Amazon]

Playstation 3
Bioshock [$29.99 Amazon] [$29.99 Best Buy - $10 retail coupon = $19.99]
Brothers In Arms: Hell’s Highway [$29.99 Best Buy]
Call of Duty: World at War [$50.99 Amazon]
Eternal Sonata [$39.97 Amazon]
Heavenly Sword [$36.99 Newegg]
LEGO Batman [$36.99 Amazon] [$36.99 Newegg]
Little Big Planet [$46.99 Newegg]
Midnight Club: Los Angeles [$39.99 Best Buy]
Motor Storm [$24.99 Amazon] [$24.99 Best Buy]
Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction [$41.99 Newegg]
Resistance Fall Of Man [$24.99 Amazon] [$24.99 Best Buy]
Saints Row 2 [$36.99 Newegg]
Shaun White Snowboarding [$39.99 Best Buy]
Tom Clancy’s Endwar [$39.99 Best Buy]
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune [$41.99 Newegg]

Nintendo Wii
Cooking Mama: Cook Off [$14.99 Best Buy]
House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return [$21.49 Amazon]
Mario Super Sluggers [$36.99 Amazon] [$36.99 Newegg]
Shaun White Snowboarding [$39.99 Amazon] [$39.99 Best Buy]
Tomb Raider: Underworld [$29.99 Best Buy]

PC
Left 4 Dead [$39.99 Amazon] [$39.99 Best Buy]
Warhammer Online [$39.99 Best Buy]

I originally thought that Circuit City’s shutdown would cause the end to good gaming deals, but it looks like Newegg has stepped up to give Amazon a run for its money. And with taxing different for people (i.e. Newegg doesn’t charge tax in NY), it might even be the better alternative. PS3 owners probably see the best sales this week, most notably Newegg selling Little Big Planet for $46.99 with free shipping. This is basically the first time it’s ever been on sale since its release back in November.

Infinite Undiscovery – This game is definitely not as bad as the reviews say (never trust professional reviews on JRPGs these days) and is actually pretty fun. Too bad I have to play through it three times if I want all of the Achievements though…

Prince of Persia – Hopefully I can get through this by the end of this weekend and get rid of it next week. Fell asleep a couple times last night when I was playing it.

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 – Seems nearly impossible for cmfl3x and me to be on at the same time long enough to continue our co-op campaign these days. The AI seemed like a pushover until our last mission we just played. We nearly got worked there.

Unreal Tournament III – Decided to open this up a few nights ago and check it out. I then proceeded to drop it about 10 spots in my backlog queue as I completely lost excitement to play it. Maybe I’m just not cut out for that type of old school gaming anymore…

and finally…I got a new PC! Dell has been having awesome deals this past week, so I bit on one.

My new rig arrived with the following for $475 shipped after tax:

- slim tower case
- Intel Core 2 Duo E7300 Wolfdale 2.66GHz 3MB L2 Cache
- 4 Gigs of RAM
- 640 GB hard drive
- DVD+/-RW
- Wireless network card
- Microsoft Vista Home Premium
- 256MB ATI Radeon HD 3450 supporting HDMI

When I received the PC, I discovered that the new graphics card only had DVI and HDMI output. I run a dual monitor setup, and one of them is VGA so I was kind of screwed there. I could have gotten adapters for both (an HDMI to DVI and a DVI to VGA) but figured might as well just get a good graphics card while I’m at it. The only problem is that my PC is in one of those smaller tower cases now so I can’t use normal sized PCI cards. Instead, I had to learn about something that’s called a “Low Profile” PCI express card (I’m totally out of it when it comes to PC stuff these days). So to look for a new graphics card, I had to find ones that could actually fit in my system and still deal with my meager 250W power supply. I ended up spending about $100 (good thing my wife doesn’t read this blog) on a 1 GB GeForce 9500 GT. Apparently that’s the best graphics card for someone in my situation: low profile slot, 250 W power supply, and has a VGA port. I’ll just transfer this current HDMI out graphics card to my HTPC so everything works out. I’m all excited now though to play more PC games again. Bring on Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3!! (And maybe bring on Crysis while I’m at it haha)

You could do worse than spending 5 hours with these guys

Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Episode 2 has the longest title of any game I can think of. It is the brainchild of Penny Arcade, the long running webcomic by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik. These days there are tons of webcomics out there to provide endless humor filled (or sometimes humorless) commentary on video games, but Penny Arcade was one of the first.

The game’s biggest strength is its wacky dialogue, which makes the game feel like a 5-hour long Penny Arcade comic. The gameplay is a combination between action-adventure and RPG, with a semi-turned based combat system. Overall, Episode 2 builds on the strengths of Episode 1 and offers a solid gameplay experience. Your enjoyment will probably be directly proportional with your familiarity with and appreciation of Penny Arcade. Haters of Penny Arcade need not apply.

The Good:
- Tons of funny lines/moments resulting in an overall incredibly amusing and entertaining experience
- Action oriented battle system keeps players on their toes
- Game blends different game genres into a relatively smooth experience

The Bad:
- Lack of enemy types leads to some monotonous sections
- A lot of references to previous episode/Penny Arcade can make the story confusing and feel like a throw away
- Gameplay is beginning to feel a little stale

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This Prince of Persia reboot may not do it for everyone…

Having completed Mirror’s Edge & Brothers & Arms: Hell’s Highway this past weekend, I decided to jump next into the new Prince of Persia game that was released by Ubisoft last month. I didn’t know too much about it, but I had heard that this was another one of those “love it or hate it” type games. I figured I might as well check it out and see whether or not a hardcore gamer like myself would feel about it. After all, the graphics have a nice cell-shaded look and Prince of Persia is kind of a household name so I figured why not. However, after getting about halfway through, I gotta say that I’m not really feeling this game.

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