It’s been 3 days now since I last got to play Modern Warfare 3, and I have to admit that it’s been a little rough. I thought it was a better idea to not bring my 360 with me when I flew with my wife to my inlaws’ house to spend Thanksgiving week, but now I’m not so sure. I’m practically counting down the days until I can get back and play, but luckily, outside of being able to read the official Modern Warfare 3 guide at Target when we go out shopping, I have access to Call of Duty Elite in the evening. Seeing as this is all I have for my Modern Warfare 3 entertainment in this week away from my 360, I figured I’d share my impressions on it for those of you wondering what it’s all about.

Some Background
When Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 first launched, a website for Call of Duty Elite was also launched around the same time. Elite was part of a “service” that Call of Duty players could access through their web browsers and check their info when they were away from the game (i.e., at work). Unfortunately, the team behind Elite did not adequately prepare for the huge influx of gamers that hit the servers hosting Elite, and ever since the Modern Warfare 3 launch, the Elite website has been unresponsive for most of the time. Fortunately, things are starting to function a bit better now, and the goal is to have Elite up and operational by December 1st. For now though, it’s working pretty decently for me so far, so here are my thoughts on the various sections of the Elite website.

Career
The Career section of the website is where I have been spending the most of my time.  In this section, it’s broken up into several parts that are all quite interesting to study when you’re away from the game. The first part is Recent Matches. Here, you’re able to study the last several matches you played, and besides your overall stats for the match, there are detailed kill-logs and heatmaps for each one as well. The next section, Custom Classes, is where I found myself spending the most of my time. I thought it was no big deal when it was advertised that you could tinker with your custom classes on the website. “Why would anyone want to do that?” I asked myself. But now I’m in a situation where I can’t get to the game, and customizing my five classes is the closest I can get. It’s actually pretty fun and a very welcome feature.

There’s also a Challenges section where you can view all challenges and the progress you are making on each one to sort of plan out your Challenge attack plan if you are going for them. Changing your custom classes as you study the Challenges all from a website is great stuff when you are away from the game. There’s also a Vault where you can upload videos and screenshots from your matches, as well as  Leaderboard tracker where you can add other players you want to compare yourself to. Finally, at the bottom of the section, is the Weapon Performance section. I like this a lot, as it tells you right away how you are doing with each weapon. For weapons you’re not doing so well on, it’s probably worth considering either switching to a different one or learning how to use it effectively.

Connect
The Connect section consists of two primary sections: Groups and Clans. Groups allow you to add yourself to open groups that are not locked down in any way. You can create any group and others can join it if they decide to look for the same group name. There are current Groups associated with cities and countries and by joining any group, you can basically compare yourself to others in the Group. There’s really not much else there since it’s so informal.

Clans is the big part of the Connect section, and in this section, you can create or join Clans. What’s neat about forming a Clan is that the Clan has experience levels to gain as well, so when the clan levels up, clan members receive benefits like Double XP and the like. In order for the clan to level up, the clan needs to enroll in operations and competitions, and it seems like only paying members of Call of Duty Elite ($50/year) count and can access the clan rewards.

Compete
The Compete section appears to be about scheduled events of varying nature that you can enroll in as a player to compete. Some require a screenshot, others require scoring the highest in something against everyone else that enrolls in that competition, etc. Personally, I don’t find myself anywhere skilled enough to enter any of the competitions.

Improve
Surprisingly, I found this section pretty interesting. Under Improve, you can read view the maps and objective markers for each gameplay mode, tips on every customizable item in the game, and tips on every gameplay mode. While it’s unfortunate that it doesn’t seem like much more verbiage is going to be added to this section, it’s definitely a good place to read up on the different weapons, perks, and strike package rewards to understand them better. Some of the weapons also have video guides – hopefully all of them get them since I enjoyed watching the ones that were already available.

Elite TV
Elite TV seems similar to Improve since it’s basically several videos and many of them are videos on how to improve: videos that teach you how to effectively use different weapons and how to play each map. Currently, only about 7 or so of the maps have videos  available and only a handful of of weapons have videos. I’m guessing with time these will continue to grow. If I were near a 360 now, I would probably be playing, but away from home, these videos are great!

Parting Thoughts
So, there you have it. For someone away from Modern Warfare 3 but still with access to the Internet, Call of Duty Elite is great. Granted, games like Halo and Battlefield have already been providing stat-tracking via websites, but neither of those games has the fan following that Call of Duty does, so I’m glad that Elite has been created. It’s going through some growing pains now, but when everything gets straightened out, the website looks like it definitely provides some good value for fans of Call of Duty such as myself.

I left work during lunch, grabbed a slice of pizza, and then picked up Modern Warfare 3. Unfortunately, I had to stay late at work for an emergency, but as soon as I got home, I scarfed down dinner, quickly listened to Mrs. cmfl3x’s rundown of her day, pet my dog for 1 minute and BOOTED UP! Two hours and many deaths later, I finished my first taste of Modern Warfare 3: and it was good. Tiny spoiler warning.

An Old Friend
Modern Warfare 3 is really like seeing an old friend. Everything pretty much feels the same, but at the same time, there are enough subtle changes that it remains interesting. For starters, I really like playing on new maps. I can’t tell you right now whether I think the maps are balanced or well done, but it’s just fun to do the same things in a new environment. The maps are also hints about the single player campaign, which intrigue me! African militia? What???

Other than that, this is the Modern Warfare you know and love. The frame rate is sublime, the guns feel great, and there are a lot of different ways to play the game. It does seem like more people are running and gunning these days, but that might also be a product of all the n00bs who are out there right now.

I was worried initially that Modern Warfare 3 would feel different due to all the staff changes at Infinity Ward. Luckily, that doesn’t seem to be the case, the game definitely is delivering the same well polished multiplayer suite that the first two gave us. The chance to see a player’s prestige progress in the last four Call of Duty games is a nice touch as well.

New Touches
Even though everything is pretty much the same game, there have been some changes, which I won’t go into here since espion4ge outlined them on Tuesday. I will say that the changes seem positive to me for the most part. I like the idea of leveling up my guns, allowing me to focus on specific guns. My favorite change, however, is the different strike packages you can choose from, specifically the support package.

In the previous Call of Duty games, I’ve always felt a lot of stress when I’ve had six kills in a row sitting on seven. That stress was a lot of fun – it made things exciting, nerve wracking, and enjoyable all at the same time. Now that I’m more leveled down, I’m not sure I need that stress anymore. That’s where the support package comes in. Your kill streaks persist even after you die, which I am really enjoying – especially when you can unlock an advanced UAV (just like the SR-71) with 12 kills.

So far, all the new changes seem pretty good to me, they make the game fresh and don’t take away from the tried and true gameplay. The Elite website leaves a bit to be desired, but since I can’t check that stuff at work it doesn’t affect me too much anyway.

Parting Thoughts
The worst thing about Modern Warfare 3? I’m going out of town today and won’t be back until Monday. Everybody is going to level up without me! But yes, hopefully you’ve already purchased this game and are enjoying it as much as I am!

Longtime readers of this blog probably know by now that my plans get screwed up a lot. A LOT. I had planned to play Uncharted 3 for two days after release on Tuesday, but like a genius, I left it at work. So, unfortunately, I’ve only played through six chapters of the game – hit the jump for my impressions so far.

Run, jump, punch, shoot
The Uncharted Series has featured three main types of gameplay: climbing/running, punching, and shooting. Six chapters in, I’ve gotten to do all of these things. The core of Uncharted gameplay is here, and it’s more or less the same as it’s always been. Basically, it boils down to any trilogy – if you enjoy the previous two…

There are some nice tweaks to the standard fare, but one thing I found frustrating was a chase sequence early on the game. It was thrilling, but whenever I took a wrong turn, it would abruptly end or I would die. It’s one of those things that would feel awesome if it worked the first time, but it didn’t. It’s jarring to fall out of an adrenaline rush filled sequence like that. Luckily, the game reloads its numerous checkpoints very quickly, but trial and error still isn’t as fun. I don’t really play Uncharted 3 for the gameplay though, but for the story and feel of the game – does it deliver?

Indiana Drake and the Last Crusade
A lot of comparisons have been made between Uncharted and Indiana Jones and they’re very fair. Playing as Nathan Drake and hanging out with his companions feels like you are a real treasure hunter and it’s awesome. I’ve really enjoyed the setup for this game so far. Uncharted really has some well done story elements: I’m not totally sure where things are going, but I’m really curious to find out. It doesn’t open as well as Uncharted 2 (untoppable in my opinion), but it still starts strong.

I haven’t gotten to any major set pieces, but I know they are coming and I can’t wait. Really, I’m only playing this game for the story, I’m hoping for another enjoyable adventure with plenty of twists and turns. I don’t even think I’ve even met all the main players yet!

The final thing I’ll note is the presentation is excellent once again. Things look great, I was hanging off some window and took some time to marvel at the beauty of the night skyline in the background. The voice acting and character expressions are excellent – the motion capture has really paid off.

Honestly, you probably have already decided whether you are purchasing Uncharted 3 or not. So far, it hasn’t disappointed me. I’m sure at some point I’ll get annoyed at something, but right now, I just want to finish this post and get to playing it. Hopefully I’ll have a more detailed review in a week or two!

Unfortunately I don’t have time for a full post, but I wanted to share some quick impressions about FIFA 12, the latest in EA’s sports franchise. I bought the game to relieve some stress from my crazy life: unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out that way.

FIFA 12 is a lot of fun, and I’m having a great time playing it. HOWEVER, the game does not reduce stress as I had hoped. I was thinking, well, I just want to play an easy game where I don’t really need to think so I can just enjoy myself. Unfortunately, my body is not wired in a way where I can just play the game to enjoy myself. When I start a new game, I want to WIN.

The problem is, I don’t want to win if the computer is on the easiest setting. So instead I have set the difficulty to the medium level, a level in which I win some and lose some. The problem? Whenever I lose, it makes me pretty upset, and I get all worked up and end up playing another three or four matches. My goal to play FIFA 12 as a low stress game has completely backfired – every pass, tackle, and dribble makes me more tense, like watching real sports. Mrs. cmfl3x hated the game within about 15 minutes, because she said it makes me even more cranky and ornery. Woops.

In terms of actual gameplay, FIFA 12 is great. The AI is pretty serviceable for a sports game, it looks beautiful, and scoring goals is difficult enough to make you feel awesome when you do it, but easy enough that it doesn’t feel impossible. I don’t know much about soccer games, but the new tactical defending system that EA has implemented is supposed to be a real game changer. Whatever that means! I just am like, “kick ball into net, say yay, rinse and repeat.” It works pretty well.

One thing that bugs me about the game is it doesn’t seem as refined as I would hope. I was bummed out I couldn’t play in the Champions League (I guess that’s a PES thing), but what’s worse is there are long loading times between menus. What do you have to think about, video game? Just snap from screen to screen for crying out loud! Once you get in the game, there are tons of real life rosters to choose from though, so I’m not complaining too much.

The other complain would probably be the fact that true soccer fans probably will need to shell out money for DLC to get the full experience. I don’t totally know how it works because I don’t care, but there is some online team thing that you have to pay for, not to mention a code with the new game box that you need in order to play online. The nickel and diming continues, but this is EA, so I didn’t expect less. Luckily, I’m enjoying the game enough to not bother with online stuff – I’d get my butt kicked anyway.

All in all, I’m enjoying FIFA 12 a lot and it actually was taking up enough time that I decided not to buy Arkham City. I might start playing something else when Uncharted 3 comes out next week, but until then, I like kick ball in net. Download the demo if you’re interested, and you can kick ball in net too!

In Batman: Arkham City, you’ll be doing a lot of traveling – but fortunately, with some fun toys

I have so little time to game nowadays, and I’m not yet done with Gears of War 3 yet, but the combination of K-Mart offering a $30 gift card with Batman: Arkham City and reviewers going gaga over the game had me impulsively buy it. I’ve been able to sink a few hours into it so far this past weekend, and my plan was to try to beat it and trade it in quickly before switching back to Gears of War 3. But I guess it’s not going to be as quick as I thought.

The Best Superhero Game Ever?
I thought that Batman: Arkham Asylum was a great game. Not game of the year material, but obviously the best superhero game ever released. Outside the lack of creativity for boss fights in Arkham Asylum, it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. Arkham City is the sequel to Arkham Asylum, and in many ways, it’s better. As a bigger (and what seems like a more improved) game than the previously best superhero game, Batman: Arkham Asylum, it’s easy to understand why Batman: Arkham City is now the best superhero game ever. The combat system that was so unique and enjoyable in the first game returns, and the presentation for Arkham City is breathtaking. Fans of the first will certainly enjoy the second.

Sandbox Gameplay – Yay and Nay
The single biggest change with Arkham City is the switch from distinct levels to sandbox style gameplay. Batman: Arkham City is basically Grand Theft Auto with Batman. You can finally play a Grand Theft Auto game as not only a good guy, but a superhero. It works. The kids will love it. The ability to use the grappling hook and glide across building tops as you quickly move through the dark city really makes you feel like Batman. If you look down and spot some thugs, feel free to pounce on them and bust them up. For those with a lot of time, you can basically just spend countless hours simply moving around the city and fighting thugs indefinitely. Or if you want more, you can take on all the various sidequests that come with sandbox style games: collectathons couresty of The Riddler, hostages and civilians to be freed, etc.

For those such as myself that don’t have a lot of time (I get maybe an hour to game on most weeknights nowadays), it’s frustrating that half of my coveted gaming hour is spent just moving around the city over the same buildings back and forth. Doing sidequests where you answer a public phone and then have to rush to the other end of the city within a certain time period may be fun for some, but is more a waste of time to me. Of course, the core missions are still there and general take place indoors. From reviews, it looks like if you skip all sidequests, you can complete the core missions in about 7-8 hours. I’ve probably sank about 7-8 hours already since this past weekend playing the game, but I have spent time on the side missions and my % complete in the game is still like at 7%. There’s a LOT of things to do in this game, and while I consider them time wasters, there’s just something so enjoyable about doing them as Batman.

Other Random Musings
I’m surprised this game is rated Teen. It’s pretty dark and if I had 13 year old children, I’m not sure I would want them to play this game. Then again, the film, The Dark Knight, was rated PG-13 and that was a bit mature as well. The most awesome part about the game so far: the batclaw hookshot. The gameplay feature is designed so well; you can hook onto pretty much anything and it pulls you up. No more scaling windows and poles like Assassin’s Creed or Infamous. You just hit a button and off you go. It never gets old. I also like that in this game you get to play as Catwoman for certain parts of the game. She’s a different enough to feel interesting, while still adhering to the general gameplay design for Batman so I think it’s a nice touch for variety.

Parting Thoughts
This year, Batman: Arkham City is going to be considered among the front runners for game of the year. As the best superhero game ever created, I can see why it should be on the list of nominees. Maybe it’s just because I’m old, but I’m not a fan of sandbox gameplay. In fact, I’m not a fan of any game that makes me travel back and forth across the same areas over and over again, since to me that’s not gameplay but travel time. I’m enjoying Arkham City for what it is – an overall improvement over its predecessor in terms of sheer scope, but I personally feel like this switch to scope has reduced the tightness that the first game had. Of course, there are players on both sides of the fence here, just like some prefer the huge maps and vehicles of Battlefield to the smaller infantry only excursions of Call of Duty. If you like sandbox gameplay, you’ll be in heaven with Batman: Arkham City. Only the biggest sandbox haters will have a problem with how well it’s done.

espion4ge and I don’t usually write about the same games, but since Gears of War 3 is the end of a pretty important trilogy, I figured I’d make the exception. It’s funny – I always anticipate the threequels more, but it seems like espion4ge always ends up enjoying them more than I do (see: Halo Reach). I don’t disagree with his review, Gears of War 3 is a fine game, but I felt the campaign lacking in points. Yes, it is probably the best Gears of War campaign to date, but I feel like overall the Gears of War series’ campaigns are weak in general. I know you don’t play Gears for plot, but I still found myself wanting more after I finished the campaign the other day.

A Fun, Enjoyable Romp
I’ll start with the enjoyable stuff first. Like espion4ge said, Gears of War 3 is a lot of fun to play. I had a lot of fun playing it on Normal, probably more fun than I had playing Gears of War 2. The nice thing about playing on Normal is you barely have to use the cover system at all. Well, I guess that’s nice depending on your perspective.

From where I was standing, it was a lot of fun. I just ran around shooting Locust/Lambent with no regard for my safety. Every once in awhile I ducked into cover, but after that I’d just jump out and run around again. Sometimes, when I got bored of that, I just ran from enemy to enemy chainsawing them. Yay!

I also agree with espion4ge: Gears of War 3 looks beautiful. It’s great to be walking around Sera, the game really does a good job of showing the effects the long war has had on the planet. From destroyed cities to underwater ruins, the game looks amazing. It’s also incredibly epic, and brings the trilogy to a satisfying conclusion. There are some aspects of the campaign that do bug me though.

Fetch!
I think the campaign was a little too long. What seems to make it long are pointless fetch quests. I spent an entire act looking for fuel. When it was over, and I finally reached my destination, I had one more thing I had to do: FIND FUEL. Not only did I feel like an entire act was wasted (though there were some powerful narrative beats in there), but it makes me feel like it’s all so pointless.

Part of me was like, well, maybe that’s what the game is trying to say: war is pointless, and you have to do pointless things in order to survive. If that’s the message they were trying to send, then I applaud them for trying to be so deep, but since the point is unclear, I don’t know. They could have done a lot better job driving the point home.

Up Close and Personal
The only thing that bothers me about the core gameplay is the number of enemies that get up in your face. In a cover based shooter, it’s weird having to deal with enemies that get right up against you. Making things worse in this game is the fact that the Lambent EXPLODE when you kill them, so if they are up in your grill, they blow up in your face even if you kill them.

Things didn’t get too bad on Normal difficulty, but I’ll be curious to see how espion4ge feels about it on Insane. In general, I hate fighting the Lambent just like I disliked fighting the Flood in Halo. I’m not sure why these games insist on bringing a third race into the mix – I was perfectly happy chainsawing Locust. Now if I want to chainsaw a Lambent I gotta worry about it literally blowing up in my face!

Still, a Great Game
For the record, I still really enjoyed the campaign, and definitely felt the storyline was a step up from the past. In Gears of War 2 they tried to make things feel a little more serious and 3 really takes the next logical step. I didn’t love it as much as espion4ge, but I’d still give it a solid B+. Also, the game deserves points for its ending – it wraps up the game, and the trilogy, in fine fashion. I don’t remember being impressed with the end of Halo 3, but Gears ends with a nice cinematic. I’m not sure if we’ll see Marcus Fenix again (probably), but if this is his last showing, he’s gone out on a high note. NICE!

When espion4ge and I booted up the new (free) Portal 2 DLC Peer Review, it was NOT like running into an old friend. The game seems so foreign now! It’s kind of crazy since it’s only been a few months, but it took awhile for me to get used to playing again. So how is the free DLC? The price is right, but Portal might be starting to dim for me.

My biggest impression from Peer Review is this: either Portal got harder, or I got dumber. It took espion4ge and I an hour to get through three of the nine levels. I’m not sure if we just weren’t seeing things, but it seemed really hard and we had to do a lot of experimentation. Furthermore, I’m not sure if it’s because I was feeling cantankerous, but some of the puzzles felt more cheap than they did clever.

Peer Review picks up an undisclosed amount of time after the end of the first co-op campaign. It’s nice to hear GlaDOS again, although obviously all that is just a means to an end: the puzzles. So far, the puzzles have used most of the new features from Portal 2, like the hard light bridges and the excursion tunnels. All in all, playing this DLC has reminded me that I am not the biggest fan of the new stuff – I’d rather Portal just challenge me with clever puzzles that I can feel smart about when I finish. Instead, last night sometimes I just wanted to give up.

I’m still looking forward to play through the rest of the DLC, but Portal has lost some of its shine for me. I think I’d rather play as Chell, or better yet, I’d just like to see the Portal gun make an appearance in Half Life 3. The original Portal will always hold a place in my heart for blowing my mind – I look forward to Valve doing that again. I’m just not sure it’ll be with this franchise, but I’d love to be wrong.

After finally making replaying through the campaigns of Gears of War 1 and 2, I am now able to start Gears of War 3. Talk about some waiting time eh? I might have to think twice about replaying Modern Warfare 1 and 2 before jumping into Modern Warfare 3. Regardless, now that I’ve got a chance to put some hours into the Gears 3 campaign & multiplayer, I do have some thoughts to share on it.

Campaign – Bigger and Better
Replaying through the Gears 1 and Gears 2 campaigns on Casual difficulty may have been the most fun I had with both games, as it took fewer shots to bring down enemies and I was able to actually use the Lancer rifle to kill so that was nice. It was so nice that I decided to stick with Casual difficulty for my Gears of War 3 campaign. At this point in my life, I just want to play games with as much enjoyment and little frustration as possible, so I’m thinking easiest difficulty may now be the way to go. As I currently play through the third Act, I feel like Epic was really influenced by other popular games, since I see nods to games like Halo, Left 4 Dead, and Resident Evil. I couldn’t be happier.

So far, I’ve completed the first two of the five Acts, and I really like the direction that Gears of War 3 takes compared to the first two campaigns. It feels a lot more epic – bosses are huge and entertaining, the level design is interesting and different (no longer underground and in abandoned derelict homes like the first two games), and the game seems better refined. One thing I love about the game now is that there are 4 players throughout the campaign since the game has 4-player co-op support. But as I play with the AI, it just feels like a big party as we’re all tearing through enemies. And the thing is, my AI controlled teammates in the campaign are no slouch! I’m competing with them for kills since they aren’t letting me have many! Real AI teammates that help kill is a welcome change in Gears 3 – something that I don’t really see too often in other video games. There are new characters mixed in with the old ones, so it’s really cool to see something like 8+ Gears running around and fighting together in the storyline.

Another major thing I noticed that is different is the weapon system. For the most part I’m happier with it. My favorite weapon now is the Hammerburst, which is an assault rifle that now has iron sights, so you can aim through it like you’re playing with a red dot sight – it certainly helps Call of Duty fans such as myself. One of the most drastic changes I noticed was the limited ammo for various weapons. It seems like Epic wanted to encourage the Lancer rifle more, because while the Hammerburst only has something like 140 rounds, the Lancer rifle has 400+ (but still a little less than the 550 rounds it used to have in the previous games). I’m not a big fan of the Longshot being “promoted” to Boomshot and Flamethrower status. In Gears 3, when you pick up a Longshot, the sniper rifle since the first game, you no longer get ammo for it from ammo crates. This is kind of annoying since the Longshot has always been my secondary weapon throughout the first two campaigns, but it looks like Epic wants the shotgun to be my secondary.

Multiplayer – 3rd Time’s a Charm?
I only got to play a little bit of the multiplayer for Gears 3, and it was only offline against bots, but I enjoyed it a lot this time around. Starting with the Hammerburst and its iron sights, having the ability to tag enemies for my teammates, and the multiplayer being easy to get into all contribute to me wanting to play more. I enjoyed my time playing with bots but I will next have to see how human opponents actually play. I actually liked the simplicity and straightforwardness of Gears 3′s multiplayer. I tried my hand at the Battlefield 3 demo, and it was a lot more difficult to get into and honestly didn’t seem as enjoyable to me. Gears of War 3 is tight and action-packed in comparison.

The Meta Layer – Awesome
What I love most about Gears of War 3 so far is the entire Halo Reach style meta layer of experience points and unlocks across all modes of play. Whether you’re playing the campaign, multiplayer, Horde Mode, Beast Mode, against bots, against humans, with bots, with humans co-op – whatever…you get experience points. As you play more of anything, you level up, get new unlocks and the game just seems much more huge this time around. It really adds a lot to the game and basically encourages you to just play whatever you want to play in Gears 3 instead of just focusing on the multiplayer as in previous games.

Parting Thoughts
I’m digging Gears 3 a lot. While I was relatively “meh” about the first two games, the 3rd game is knocking my socks off and it seems like a huge improvement over the previous games. I haven’t even gotten to playing co-op, Horde Mode, Beast Mode, or Multiplayer against human opponents yet, and I’m already really enjoying what I’ve played so far. And this is all coming from someone that had to force himself to get through the Gears of War 1 and 2 campaigns when they first came out! I’ll be definitely putting in some time into Gears 3 over the next several weeks, and I doubt anything I see as I continue to play the game will make me less positive about the game. It rocks!

Even though I’m a Call of Duty player at heart, I’ve always held some interest in the Battlefield series (console versions). I really enjoyed Bad Company 1, and when 1943 came out, I put a lot of time in it, especially considering it was just a downloadable game. I have enjoyed the different feel of the game along with the different game types which have previously provided much needed variety in my multiplayer experiences. Admittedly, I don’t understand what this means as much as PC gamers might, but supposedly the words “Battlefield” and “3″ being put together into one phrase is supposed to be a pretty big deal. With that in mind, I jumped into the Battlefield beta over the past week, both on PC and Xbox. Unfortunately, I’m not sure the beta lives up to the hype.

Testing out the PC Version
As I’ve noted before, I’m not that good at FPS games on the PC. But with my new rig and love for PC gaming, I went to the PC to try out the beta first. Unfortunately, EA has made it a little difficult to get into the beta. Actually, it is kind of a lot difficult (to me, at least).

Strike one: You need to download Origin. Origin is basically EA’s new digital release platform, like Steam or something like that. EA makes you download Battlefield 3 from Origin. It’s a little bit of a pain, but not too bad. Still, it’s a hoop I needed to jump through to get the game.

Strike two: For some crazy, unbelievable, inexplicable reason, EA has set BF3 up to be launched through your browser. THROUGH YOUR BROWSER! I’ve never heard of anything like this! It seems so asinine to me. You boot up Origin. Then to play BF3, it pulls up a browser window. You launch the game via pushing a button. Your Origin friends need to be imported into the BF3 browser window. In my time with it, this was incredibly frustrating.

Strike three: My videocard supposedly isn’t good enough. Which makes no sense, since I just purchased it like a few months ago! So I had to update my drivers and jump through all these other hoops, so now I’m further annoyed. Can I just play the game!? Comes with the PC territory I guess. Acceptable losses. Until:

Strike four: After I finally started playing, I found that I was having trouble getting into games. I also got kicked out a lot. I also sucked. So in the long run, on the PC, I “played” for about two hours, of which I spent one and a half hours just troubleshooting annoyances. Not impressed. What about the Xbox version then?

Xbox Version: an improvement?
The nice thing about the Xbox version is the fact that the game actually has a menu and I don’t have to run it from a stupid browser. However, as I entered my first game, the first step I took – the FIRST STEP, resulted me falling into a glitch in the map. Greaaaaat.

I finally got to play the game after all this. And despite all my annoyances, it’s pretty good! I enjoy the Rush mode – there is an attacking team and a defensive team. The attacking team needs to control two points, after that happens, you move on to the next section of the map. Each section of the map is pretty different, you start in a courtyard type area, then move into the subway system. It’s pretty cool and an enjoyable mode. The attacking team has a certain number of respawns – once they run out they lose.

The gameplay is pretty fun, the guns feel good, and there is of course a leveling up system to help you unlock new guns. One thing I noticed was that you die pretty quickly (or maybe it’s just me). Still, the game seems pretty well made, and I think it can be a lot of fun. I am still thinking about checking it out – although I’m not sure on which platform.

Unfortunately, I have one more negative thing to say about this game. You can’t edit your loadouts or even access the menus or even quit out of the game unless you are alive in game. You can’t even change your video settings! It seems a little bit ridiculous. Anyway, like espion4ge has said, these days I might not have time for these kinds of shenanigans. Originally Battlefield 3 had been a must buy, but we’ll see now. I’ll try the beta a little more, but right now, this is an example of a beta that has made me want a game less.

Someone told me that Deus Ex: Human Revolution = Alpha Protocol on steroids. I’m not sure if that is accurate, but I know I loved Alpha Protocol so I was pretty excited about this game. I’ve gotten to play through it a bit over the past weekend, so I thought I’d put up my impressions.

In the far flung future…
Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a prequel to Deus Ex and Deus Ex: Invisible War, cult classics on the PC (or so I hear). Human Revolution is available on the big two consoles plus the PC. It takes place in a future where humanity has discovered how to make genetic implants – the next step in human evolution.

You play as Adam Jensen, head of security for Sarif Industries, a biotechnology firm at the forefront of the genetic changes. As you can imagine, everything starts off all hunky dory, and then of course everything hits the fan setting off the chain of events that makes up the main game. The storyline seems pretty interesting, if cliche. Deus Ex has branched dialogue similar to Mass Effect or Fallout.

The branched dialogue seems to be okay, although I haven’t played long enough to tell how much of an effect it has. One thing I don’t like about it is how you pretty much say exactly what the dialogue branch says. After Mass Effect and even Alpha Protocol, I’m kind of meh about that. The game could be more clever about it.

The characters seem pretty interesting, although I am pretty sure who I don’t trust (who I’m supposed to trust) and vice versa. I am interested to find out whether I am right or wrong, but it’s been a long time since a game has thrown me a real curveball.

Everything is a Role Play
It seems like every single game in the world these days has role playing elements. Deus Ex: Human Revolution is no exception, but in its defense, it kind of is a role playing game. As you level up, you can choose what genetic enhancements you like, which of course determines how you play. You can be combat focused, stealth focused, or technically focused (hacking). I’m curious as to whether all three branches are equally balanced – Penny Arcade comics like this one lead me to believe otherwise.

Still, the genetic enhancements make you feel pretty powerful, and they do a decent job justifying them story wise. It’s a game where you definitely can’t get every single power up, so it’s nice that your choices do have ramifications.

Also, like any good role playing game, there are billions of sidequests, many of which flesh out some aspects of the main story. You can get caught up in these sidequests for awhile, although it’s not like Fallout where you can spend fifty odd hours on the sidequests.

Parting Thoughts
I don’t really play these kinds of games for the gameplay, but for the story. So far, Human Revolution seems pretty interesting, although it’s a bit annoying that you have to pick up e-books around the world to flesh out some of it. I’m enjoying the game so far, though there are definitely minor annoyances that mar the experience. We’ll see how I feel about it at the end of the game – like I said, it’s all about the story, so if that fails…all bets are off.