Leveling Down

Matchmaking has come a pretty long way in the last few years, but it looks like it’s going to be moving forward thanks to Stardock’s Impulse gaming service (Steam’s competitor). A Gamasutra article notes that in the next Impulse update, a new matchmaking feature is going to be introduced that allows for more “refined matchmaking”:

You [rank] a bunch of categories, like how competitive you are,” explained Wardell. “What matters to you in someone you want to play? Are they a similar age to you? Do they have a good PC? How competitive are they? Are they all about winning, or are they about having fun? Do they value their time? You don’t just get to say, ‘Yeah, max them all out.’ You put them in order of importance.”

Those self-identified traits are used to match up gamers. If you aren’t online when a match with your game is found, you’ll see the notification when you log in, and you can send a friend request if you choose.

“I say, ‘Alright, I want to play Sins of a Solar Empire or World of Warcraft or Team Fortress,” Wardell continued. “I can choose either a particular group of buddies I want to play with, or everybody on my friend list, or someone who’s similar to me, even if I don’t know them.

“Then it will tell me, ‘So and so, who is 84 percent compatible with you, is going into Sins of a Solar Empire. Do you want to launch Sins of Solar Empire?’ It launches the game, you find that person, you get together, and play with them.”

Added the CEO, “The idea is that now you can play with people who are similar to you, rather than some 14-year-old griefer who’s shooting you in the back every time because he thinks it’s funny.”

Initial reactions to this seem to be jokes along the lines that the gaming service is now combining with a dating service site to figure out people to “connect with” to play video games. In a sense, that’s very true, but I think it can definitely add value if implemented correctly. Of course, I don’t know if Impulse has any games that are so popular online that it can afford to really nitpick about the matchmaking, but I wouldn’t mind playing with similar minded people as me in Halo 3 or Left 4 Dead. The current rating system is just not working on the 360. What’s the point of picking which group your gamer profile belongs to if it just matches you up with everyone in every group anyway?

First off, let me just say that Bionic Commando was one of my favorite games on the NES. When I learned that it was being remade with new graphics I had to get it. Now that my brother and I have played through most of it, I have to wonder just how sadistically difficult NES games were back in the day because Bionic Commando Rearmed may be the least forviging game I’ve ever played in recent times. The last game I can remember being this unforgiving was Battletoads on the NES.

Of course, we were playing the game on Hard difficulty, but I don’t see it being that much more different than on the NES. The gameplay revolves around the use of a bionic arm – there’s no jump button, so you need to use your bionic arm to grapple onto platforms and swing where you need to go. Of course, one error in the swing and you’ll fall to your death in the spikes below. The game is brutally unforgiving, giving you only 3 men per stage and when you die, even at the boss of the stage, you have to play through the entire stage again. (This was considered normal back in the days of the NES though.)

We gave up on the final “stage” of the game, which composed of five lengthy and challenging areas and then the boss. If you died at any point en route to the boss, you would have to play through all of the five areas again and hope you can even get to the boss with some life left. This final stage (and I guess a lot of the game) was almost like a sidescrolling “bullet hell” game, where you’re a ship shooting from top down and dodging bullets all over the place with limited lives. In the case with Bionic Commando Rearmed, you’re swinging and killing enemies, hoping not to get hit by bullets as well. And there’s even one more difficulty that gets unlocked after you beat it on Hard mode!

I must not be the only one complaining about the extreme difficulty in the game, because Capcom released a patch a couple months ago allowing for infinite spawning on Easy and Normal difficulties. Think about how games have changed in this day and age. Since when did we still have “men” or lives remaining? These days it’s all about checkpoints and save spots, not a total of 3 men to try to clear through an entire stage. Thankfully, at least Easy and Normal will now allow me to beat the game.

Those of you that start the game now post-patch, I highly recommend just playing it on Normal. The game is quite imaginative and feels very classic if you don’t have to replay the same stage over and over if you die (which still remains for the Hard difficulty setting). The bosses are quite imaginative and provide for some innovative encounters, and I even thought it was nice how their difficulty was balanced more for co-op play (with 2 players, the bosses would often require both players to be in sync in order to do damage to the boss, and each player only did half the damage that one player playing solo would). If you felt Shadow Conspiracy was too easy, I dare you to try Bionic Commando Rearmed…

Apologies for the short post, but this six and a half minute video should more than make up for it. I don’t think I’m a big enough nerd though, because I couldn’t name all of the songs. Can anyone help me out? Also, they didn’t form a complete Tetris. Come on!

My family is in town so the TV has been relegated to crime drama duty, so it’s been a lot of Dragon Quest V on DS for me. For some reason, in some ways I prefer the Dragon Quest series to Final Fantasy. I think it might be that Dragon Quest is a much simpler game…more on Dragon Quest sometime in the future, I’m 8 hours into it and I don’t even think I’m halfway yet!

I turned on my secondary Xbox 360 last night to get ready to watch something, and lo and behold, the 3 red lights appear. I tried turning it off and on a few times, but it was down for the count. I was pretty shocked, since this 360 was a Falcon model, and I always assumed that Falcon’s were a lot less impervious to melting down. But alas, my secondary 360 bites the dust, only two months after my primary one did. My percentage numbers don’t exactly equal the 54.2% 360 failure rate that GameInformer has reported (and Microsoft doesn’t deny it) – it’s actually greater. Of the five different 360′s that have come into my possession, 4 have RRoD’ed on me, while the 5th one I returned because it scratched my discs. That sets the tally on my 360 fail rate to 80%, at least from a RRoD perspective. It’s 100% if you count a faulty disc drive as a console that has failed.

This latest one to fail on me is a Falcon model, which surprises me since it should be less susceptible to failure than earlier models (and I guess it was, since it lasted longer than all of the others). It’s funny because people that aren’t “serious gamers” don’t understand how people like me can go through five or more 360s failing and still continue to buy the system. My secondary 360 failed last night, so I just printed out the shipping label and packaged it in the box that Microsoft sent me with my other repaired console, and will drop it off at UPS today on my lunch break. The PS3 cannot offer what the 360 does, so I’ll just keep replacing and/or buying new 360s because the games and the software are just too good.

For those considering buying a 360 but are getting scared off by my tales of woe, keep in mind that I’m not paying for any of these repairs, so it’s really a two week inconvenience. In a sense, that’s why I have two 360′s – because I expect them to break. Of course, the newest hardware revision is definitely the safest one yet, so let me alleviate your fears a little by pointing you to the chart above.

First of all, I believe the primary reason why 360s give the 3 red lights/RRoD is due to the GPU chip getting too hot so it just melts down. Note that the original Xenon model (the 2005 launch model) had a 90nm CPU chip, a 90nm GPU chip, and 175W consumption. The Zephyr was no different hardware-wise when it was released months later, save for the HDMI port. Those two models died a lot, and are probably the brunt of the 54.2% that GameInformer reports. When the Falcon came out in the latter half of 2007, it sported a smaller and cooler CPU chip, running at 65nm, and thus a lower power consumption of 120W. This helped in keeping the 360 a little bit cooler, but in the end, my Falcon Arcade model just died so the Falcon isn’t exactly impervious. After all, it’s the GPU that melts down, and its size hasn’t changed. Finally, the most recent released model (end of 2008), the Jasper, now contains a cooler and smaller 65nm GPU chip, resulting in even less of a power consumption, at 100W. With the shrinking of the GPU, the 360 should be quite reliable now – but even if it were to fail, remember that there’s a 3 year warranty on it.

If you buy a 360 today, you are most likely buying a Jasper unit since they’ve been out on the market for almost a year now, giving plenty of time for the older revisions to get cleared out. In any case, if you’re worried you might buy a 360 that’s not a Jasper, try to buy it at a store where the inventory moves quickly, such as Amazon.com or Dell.com (people have reported Jaspers from Dell). I think if the failure rate poll was run today on just 360 Jasper models, it’d be a lot closer to the standard, and not the staggering 54.2%. As for me, I don’t even use my secondary 360 for gaming – just streaming media so I’ll be ok in this two week interim.

The foam gun looks like it comes straight out of Metroid

The term “Metroidvania” has been around for decades, referring to the Metroid (or Castlevania) non-linear side scrollers that were all the rage in the last millenium. Chair Entertainment has brought Metroidvania games into the new century with Shadow Complex, a download only XBLA title that can be had for $15. The short of it is, this game is a great deal, and a no brainer if you are a fan of the aforementioned.

The weakest part of the game is the story, which is told every once in awhile through Unreal Engine cut scenes. They look great, but they are few and far between, and the story is kind of generic, something about some evil faction trying to take over America (there is some sort of civil war going on). It’s decent enough to move the game along, but where Shadow Complex really shines is in the gameplay.

The easiest way to describe the game is to call it an homage to Metroid. You are navigating through a complicated maze of a base, in two dimensions, and new areas of the base open up to you as you power up and get more equipment. The only difference is there is a pseudo third dimension: you aim using your right analog stick and can fire at enemies in the background that way. The aiming is kind of finicky at first, but as you get better and level up, your aiming gets smoother. You gain experience by killing enemies and discovering new areas, and every level increase results in an upgrade.

There are tons of collectibles hidden throughout the game world, which is what I am having the most fun finding. If there is a collectible in a particular area of a map grid, a question mark appears in the grid and it’s up to you to find it. As the game progresses, you really need to start using your new weapons, sometimes in conjunction with one another. There are some small puzzles that are really fun to solve. Of course, you can skip all this and just plow through the game with the guidance turned on (a blue line that tells you where to go) if you wish.

But that would really be missing out on the charm of this game. With a ton of collectibles to find, a challenge mode, multiple difficulty settings, an achievement for beating the game with a MINIMUM of upgrades, speed runs, etc., there are hours of enjoyment to be had in this game. It’s an old school product in a new school package – try it out and you’ll know what I mean.

With my brother in town visiting for an extended stay, I’ve started looking into games that we can both play together online off the same 360. He’s into competitive games (especially fighting games), while I’m more into co-operative games, so I figure we can meet in the middle with games that we can play against other people while still being on the same team. The trick is finding these types of games that allow for us to both play together on one console and still fulfill those requirements!

It’s slim pickings but here’s the list I’ve compiled:

Halo 3
This is probably the highest rated and most popular game of this list that allows for both of us to go online and play adversarial modes off the same console. Of course, you either like Halo or you don’t. I’ve come a long way in that I don’t find Halo 3 as bad as the first couple, but ultimately, I’ll always end up choosing a Battlefield or Call of Duty game over it if I were playing online alone.

Gears of War/Gears of War 2
I believe that both games allow for us to play on the same console in adversarial matches, as well as the Horde mode in Gears of War 2. Unfortunately, I’m not a fan of the adversarial in the Gears of War games (too imbalanced since the gameplay design doesn’t work well for multiplayer) and my bro isn’t too into the Horde mode (he finds it too mindless).

Left 4 Dead
Every mode is available for us to play online with split screen, but I don’t enjoy the Versus mode so this is more co-op friendly than “co-op adversarial” friendly. The problems I have with the Versus mode is that it doesn’t really reward skill as much as it does figuring out where all the glitches and optimal “smoker pull spots” are. In other FPS adversarial games if you just go in completely new, you actually stand a chance based on your FPS skills alone. But in Left 4 Dead Versus, if you don’t know all the glitches/spots or how to deal with them, you’re done before you even started.

Unreal Tournament III
The 360 version is the only one with split-screen online, allowing us to play adversarial modes. Unfortunately, there’s no matchmaking in the game and the userbase is tiny. No one plays ranked anymore, and for unranked games, you’ll be lucky to find one or two matches. Game is practically already dead.

Age of Booty
From the same guys that did the matchmaking code of the Halo games, Age of Booty is an Xbox Arcade title that I felt my brother and I would enjoy. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a big following for the game so practically no one plays it online anymore, just like Unreal Tournament III.

In short, it looks like very slim pickings. I would have loved to see one of the Call of Duty games or Battlefield games offer split-screen online, or even older titles like the Rainbow Six games, the GRAW games, Team Fortress 2, and Shadowrun. Maybe we will have to get back into Halo after all, since it’s the best of what’s available. Perhaps it’s a good time too since Halo 3: ODST “drops” next month.

I never thought this would happen, but Amazon has succeeded in pulling me away from Gamestop to become my primary video game supplier. Just look at this list of pre-orders I have!

With no tax in my state, release date delivery on practically any big game (thanks to Amazon Prime), a 10% discount on all video game purchases (ECA membership), $10-$15 gift certificates for several big games releasing this Fall, and various trade-in promotions such as 50% off any game, Amazon has converted me. What kills me is that I have hundreds of dollars in Gamestop credit, but why buy any of these titles new for $64 at Gamestop when I can get them for 1/3 less on Amazon?

The tricky part now is that I’m trying to convert my Gamestop credit to Amazon credit, and this involves buying used games from Gamestop with my credit and trading those same games into Amazon so I get credit there. I’m hoping for a chance when Gamestop runs a B2G1 free sale or 20-25% off coupon on all used games, and Amazon is running something like +50% trade-in credit so I can actually even make some money when I transfer my credit.

But as you can see, it looks like my gaming for the rest of the year is set. Now I just need to figure out what to do with Alpha Protocol, Dragon Age Origins, and Left 4 Dead 2. Will they be bought this year, or bumped back to next year?

The USS Arizona Memorial – a reminder of a world at war

When Call of Duty: World at War was released, I remember reading a bit of hubbub about how the developer Treyarch wasn’t treating the source material with enough respect. Some people had a problem with the Pacific theater, where fighting was much more brutal. I didn’t think much of it at the time, though I did think a little bit about how video games treat historical wars properly.

Last week I visited the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor, the one ship they never raised out of the water, and I began thinking about video games’ treatment of war again. It is a very solemn place - 1,277 American soldiers lost their lives there in an instant, and it is a memorial in their honor. The two hour experience is spent mostly in quiet contemplation (by design), and it’s one of the few places you’ll ever see where there are hundreds of people but barely any talking. At a few times during my trip around the memorial, I was reminded of Coral Sea, the air-only map in Battlefield 1943. As I imagined Japanese Zeroes coming over the mountaintops towards Pearl Harbor, the images in my mind were formed using what I’ve “experienced” on Coral Sea.

I wonder whether it’s okay to have so much fun recreating events that caused such pain and loss. I can see how war veterans might be offended that legions of kids are “killing Japs” and getting a rush out of it without necessarily understanding the significance or cost of such wars. I’ve never bought into the argument that playing violent video games makes people more prone to violence, but I do think it can desensitize us a little.

Anyway, I still have Modern Warfare 2 on preorder and I’m not canceling it, although I did consider it briefly. What is important to me, I think, is that video games do their best to honor the source material just as some war movies do the same. In that sense I think World at War did a decent job highlighting the large costs and losses that were experienced in the Pacific theater. Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway also tried to highlight the psychological damage that soldiers experienced.

In the end, video games are just games, and I’ll continue to enjoy them as just that, but like any form of media, I think it’s a good idea for the industry to consider some of the “deeper” things every once in awhile.

Just when I thought I was done buying music games altogether (especially anything in the Guitar Hero franchise), Amazon and Activision have to both offer concurrent deals that are making me reconsider my stance.

Guitar Hero 5 for $60 is far too expensive considering how many music games I already own. But now Amazon is giving away a $10 gift card with pre-orders of the game, and ECA membership (10% off on all video game purchases at Amazon) make this net out to $44. This is also not to mention Amazon giving a free $5 credit for MP3 downloads off their site as well with this pre-order.

In addition to the Amazon deals, Activision is giving away Guitar Hero Van Halen free with the purchase of Guitar Hero 5. While I don’t really care much for Van Halen, the soundtrack has plenty of contemporary guest bands that I’m digging such as Foo Fighters, Weezer, Blink-182, Jimmy Eat World, The Offspring, Third Eye Blind, and Fountains of Wayne.

So in the end, if you buy this Guitar Hero 5 off Amazon, you’re basically paying under $50 (or $40, in some cases) for Guitar Hero 5 and Guitar Hero Van Halen. Part of me suspects that Activision is running this promotion because they suspect Guitar Hero Van Halen won’t sell well, and I guess that makes sense considering the music game genre is oversaturated by this point. Ugh maybe I have to pre-order this after all. With all these $10 gift cards, Amazon is quickly becoming the main vendor that I’m pre-ordering all my games from this Fall season!

A few weeks ago, espion4ge talked about Borderlands being his potential sleeper hit of the year, so I thought I’d share mine as well. Scribblenauts is a game that got a huge amount of press at E3 - it seemingly came out of nowhere and was essentially the best in show.

Scribblenauts is essentially a puzzle game: your job is to help your character reach a certain goal (usually getting a star or something). To help your character get there, you have to write a word to give the guy an item to help him get the star. The crazy thing is, there are over 5000 words in the game’s “dictionary”, so almost anything you can think of goes! The trailer pretty much speaks for itself, but the cool thing is some of the things you drop into the game world interact with your character.

For example, if you write in “zombie”, the zombie will kill everything on the screen. You can also write in really random things, and a lot of them show up in the world as well, as you can see from the trailer. The developers basically had 4 people sit in a room for 3 months combing through the dictionary and brainstorming pop culture words as well. It’s like almost everything you can think of that is rated PG goes.

This game not only has the potential to be super cool, but also could be a little bit of a game-changer for the industry in general if it does well. It’s a puzzle game that puts a lot of power in the hands of the player, which could (hopefully) lead to some intriguing gameplay down the line. Hopefully this game lives up to its potential…early returns on preview builds are pretty good, so I’m optimistic!