Leveling Down

In Half-Life 2: Episode 1, you fight the Eye of Sauron……just kidding.

I ended Half-Life 2 on such a high note that I decided to jump straight into Episode One (though Episode Two will have to sit on the sidelines for a while since Modern Warfare 2 is out!). Half-Life 2 ended on an incredible cliffhanger, so I can’t imagine having to wait to see what happens next. Luckily, these games came out years ago so I could just move my cursor over one game to the right on the Orange Box and see what Episode One had to offer. Was this groundbreaker in “episodic gaming” (/sarcasm) as good as its predecessor?

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Yesterday was the official release date of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, and like Halo 3: ODST’s release, I took a screenshot of my friends online during prime time last night to see how much of a hold Modern Warfare 2 has taken on them. While not 100% like Halo 3: ODST’s release, 10/13 isn’t too shabby. We’ll see what happens next week with the release of Left 4 Dead 2 and Assassin’s Creed 2. But in any case, today I will share my impressions of Modern Warfare 2, after playing about four hours of it last night. Ugh, and I have a headache for staying up too late. Haven’t done that with a game in a while, but it was worth it…

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That was the question I found myself asking for the past few months ever since I started seeing news about it. Is it a game? Is it a stat tracker? Is it just an easy way for Microsoft to try to sell me crap? And, most importantly, does it deserve to be on my “Nav”? Well, since it was a free download, I put it in my queue and gave it a whirl last week, and this is what I found.

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Ever sit down and think what your ideal engagement range for first person/third person shooter games is? I was musing over this thought myself recently after playing several of these games with some friends and thinking about why I’m excited for Modern Warfare 2 tomorrow. I noticed that most of my friends play differently, and for a shooter, there seems to be an ideal range that people prefer to engage enemies at. This “epiphany” may actually lead me to understand the primary reason why I am not a huge fan of hugely popular online shooters like Halo and Gears of War – my ideal range doesn’t seem to be handled the way I like.

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I just reacquired Call of Duty: World at War. Yeah, it seems silly with Modern Warfare 2 right around the corner, along with the fact that I did not enjoy the multiplayer for Call of Duty: World at War much at all, but the zombie mode had me wanting the game again.

This past weekend is the first time I’ve ever actually paid money for map packs to a game on the 360.  With all the map packs on sale for $5 each, I sprang for all three. Ironically, I wasn’t even buying the map packs for the 9 multiplayer maps that all three map packs gave me access to. I was buying the three map packs because each of them had a new zombie map with new features and gameplay. The zombie mode in Call of Duty: World at War is serious business!

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Playing as a Siren is a lot of fun since her phasewalk ability is a great super!

I’ve never played an MMO. I don’t know what it means to “Ding!” a level. I’ve never been too into getting “loot”. So when espion4ge starting peer pressuring me to get Borderlands, I wasn’t really buying. But with all the positive press out there, and my friends all going nuts about the game, I decided to give it a shot, and figured I’d might as well write about it. So – was it worth it?

Well, to keep this short: the jury’s out. Borderlands is a great game, but it definitely hasn’t gripped me like it has the rest of my friends list. I keep thinking about Modern Warfare 2, and even played a game of Halo Wars the other day. I definitely see how the game is addicting: it’s fun to turn in quests, to level up and to trick out my character (I’m playing as a Siren) in a way that suits my playstyle. It is very satisfying to phasewalk and burn a bunch of bandits up in the process.

At the same time, I find Borderlands a lot less fun to play by myself. I spend most of my solo time just getting to a point where I can play with others. The game isn’t really fun to me unless everyone is at around the same level, so I’ve spent time on my own to level up to a point where I can play with my friends. That being said, going on missions with friends is a lot of fun, and the enemies definitely drop more interesting loot. I really dig playing this game with friends, and if some of your friends are playing it you should definitely consider picking it up. I’m just not sure I’ll still be playing it when (Ding!) Modern Warfare 2 comes out, but I guess I’ll find out next week!

The Left 4 Dead 2 demo hit the marketplace yesterday for Live Gold members, and I was able to give it a spin. As someone that really enjoyed the first Left 4 Dead, I felt it would be good for me to share my mixed thoughts on the demo. But first, what is the demo all about? The Left 4 Dead 2 Demo features the first 2 (of presumably 4) parts of The Parish campaign, one of the five new campaigns in Left 4 Dead 2. You are able to only play those two levels – either offline with AI (as well as split screen with a buddy) or online with others. The demo menu also shows various other modes that are not available in the demo: Versus, Survival, Scavenge, and Realism. Scavenge and Realism are new to Left 4 Dead 2.

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Half Life 2′s HUD is pretty simple, but gets the job done

The month of November, 2004 was quite a month if you were a fan of first person shooters. Two highly anticipated sequels, Halo 2 and Half-Life 2, released within a week of one another and gamers rejoiced. Since I wasn’t into PC gaming anymore (I haven’t really played a FPS on PC since Doom II if you can believe it), Halo 2 owned my time back then, and actually warranted me getting my first Xbox. Five years later, I have finally gotten around to playing Half-Life 2. It was highly praised 5 years ago, but does it still hold up now?

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If you have been a reader of Leveling Down since back to the early part of this year, you’ll probably remember when cmfl3x and I listed the five titles we were each anticipating most for this year. Sadly, Dragon Age: Origins remains one of the only two from my original list of five that are actually going to make it out this year.

Before I was an Xbox gamer, I was a PC gamer. That meant Doom, Quake, Tribes, Unreal, Command & Conquer, Starcraft, Diablo, Warcraft, etc. I was also a huge fan of PC RPGs like Baldur’s Gate, Planescape Torment, Icewind Dale, etc. To this day, Baldur’s Gate 2 may be my favorite PC RPG ever. Then Bioware moved on to Neverwinter Nights, which I tried but disliked due to the fact that it was heavily online-based and there wasn’t a strong single-player game. Bioware further moved down on my list when they decided to start making console RPG games like Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire on the Xbox. I tried out Star Wars KotOR and was shocked at how simplified it was compared to Baldur’s Gate, and just couldn’t get into it. Bioware was practically dead to me in the early to mid 2000′s.

A couple years ago, Bioware released Mass Effect on the Xbox 360, and for the most part, I enjoyed it. Granted, it nicely appealed to my shooter and RPG loves, so I was able to set aside its simplistic RPG gameplay design (such as the equipment system). Once Bioware announced Dragon Age: Origins as a “spiritual successor” to Baldur’s Gate, I couldn’t help but weep with glee. I’m sure there are many of us out there that are applauding this return to form for Bioware as well.

The problem is, now that Bioware is firmly entrenched in developing for both the PC and Xbox 360, they’ve decided to release Dragon Age: Origins for both systems (as well as the PS3). That puts me into somewhat of a conundrum over which system to buy it over: buy it on the PC to respect my love for playing Baldur’s Gate on the PC, or buy it on the 360 where I enjoy most of my gaming today. Sadly, it’s not so simple – there are specific features inherent to both versions of the game that make it difficult to judge.

First off, Dragon Age: Origins is not like Mass Effect where you’re controlling just the protagonist – you’re controlling a party and need to strategize over what each member is doing. How can you do that on the 360? This especially makes me wonder because the PC allows you to zoom out so you get the classic Baldur’s Gate view on all your characters, instead of the over-the-shoulder style view that console gamers are forced to play. And of course, the use of a keyboard and mouse may make the PC version more enjoyable to play as it’s kind of a hardcore party-based RPG. Some may argue about all the fan-made downloadable content on the PC, but I never cared for that stuff (also why I never got into the Neverwinter Nights franchise).

The 360 version has one of the “strongest” reasons to buy a 360 version of any multiplatform game’s release today: Live. This means not only Achievements, but the fact that your friends can see you playing the game (so I can advertise that I am playing a game I love) or communicate with you as you’re playing. And of course, you can play the game from the comfort of your couch. It’s a tough decision, but the Live support has me leaning slightly more towards the 360 side – even if the controls and the graphics won’t be as good. If only Dragon Age: Origins was released on the PC with Live support – then I would have easily picked up the PC version. Ah well…it looks like I may wait for some initial reviews first to see how the 360 version of the game controls just to be safe. Expect me to write up on one (or even both!) versions at some point in the future…