Leveling Down

How many times do we have to tell you Blizzard – Battle.net isn’t Facebook!

These last couple of days, Blizzard and Starcraft 2 have been in the gaming news in a big way. With Starcraft 2 less than a month away, Blizzard has seen fit to provide fans with good news and terrible news. The good news is, Blizzard has released “Phase 2″ of the beta test for Starcraft 2, so those of you that have been undergoing withdrawal from the Starcraft 2 Beta can get back in and play (add me – account name: espionage, character code: 315). I’ve played a couple games myself and it looks like the beta is certainly back with a lot more stuff going on such as new Achievements and the ability to play AI on all difficulty levels. The terrible news, however, is their announcement that any forum participation in the official Starcraft 2 (and soon to be World of Warcraft) forums will be posting with your RealID – your real first and last name. Terrible terrible news.
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Microsoft’s vision for the future of gaming: wild and crazy dancing.

I don’t know if it’s because I’ve leveled down or what, but I actually felt that the E3 this year was not that great. For many years now I’ve always looked forward to what Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo say at their keynotes, and like many other gamers, I like to determine which of the three of them “won” E3 that year. I guess in most instances, winning E3 is more about making announcements that actually excite gamers, so let’s review what the big three console companies had to share and my evaluations for each of them.

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Contra + SMB?

I was going to write about Halo Reach’s Invasion mode (which I have a LOT of thoughts about), but I figured this might be more time sensitive (Nintendo has a history of shutting down unsanctioned projects). So Invasion will have to wait for next week! Some of you might have seen this already, but if not it is BEYOND worth checking out.

Super Mario Crossover is an awesome old school NES mashup which you can play here. The premise is simple: play through the original Super Mario Bros. using Mario and a slew of other classic NES characters. Samus Aran, Simon, Mega Man, Link, and Bill R. from Contra. The unique thing about this game is each of those characters brings the unique moves from their games. Samus can drop bombs, Bill R. can shoot in different directions, etc.

The amazing thing about the game is that a lot of stuff has been reworked to accommodate different characters. You can shoot blocks out, the different characters have different jumps, and each character gets their own unique powerups when you get mushrooms and things like that. All the different characters feel exactly as they did in their respective games. It really is a lot of fun, and there is a save feature so you don’t have to play the game all in one sitting. You might not be able to play at work, but check it out: it’s a blast from the past and a lot of fun!

Also, this has nothing to do with anything, but if you are a fan of action movies you need to watch last week’s Community, entitled “Modern Warfare.” The title alone should be enough to warrant your interest.

First: less plastic. Next: no instruction manual. After that? Maybe no disc…

Today is Earth Day, so I am writing on a topic to celebrate. There has been a lot of effort in the games industry to try to make things more greener, which, coincidentally, also makes things cheaper for game companies. Xbox 360 games now use less plastic in their cases, and of course the move to more downloadable games and content saves the environment as well. So now game companies are taking the next step, completely eliminating game manuals!

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With the firing of Infinity Ward CEO Jason West and Infinity Ward President Vince Zampella, will we ever see another Modern Warfare game as good as the first two?

Video games news outlets were all a twitter about the strange machinations going on at Infinity Ward, the Activision owned developer responsible for Modern Warfare. A quick summary of what went down:

- Late Monday night, rumors come out that bouncer-types showed up unannounced at the Infinity Ward offices, unnamed staffer states Infinity Ward staff is “freaked out”. Two senior employees not seen since they had a meeting with Activision big shots [Kotaku]
- Tuesday morning, it is confirmed that President Jason West and CEO Vince Zampella are no longer with Infinity Ward, and that they were let go for “insubordination” (Did they not properly execute a Code Red?) [Wired]

- In an official press release, Activision announces that Treyarch will release another COD title this year, Infinity Ward is working on two downloadable map packs for Modern Warfare 2, and a third studio, Sledgehammer Games, is working on a Call of Duty ACTION ADVENTURE game [Giant Bomb]

Now, we don’t usually report news here on Leveling Down, but this story is so crazy and has me freaked out in multiple ways. Here’s why…

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BioShock 2′s multiplayer is about to take a turn for the worst.

Earlier this week, Take-Two announced that the first of several DLC packs for BioShock 2 would be released starting in March. I’ve been digging BioShock 2′s campaign so far, even if it does feel a bit unnecessary, but multiplayer is still up in the air for me. If you’ve read my initial impressions on the game, you’ll remember that I thought the multiplayer was playable as it’s set up just like Modern Warfare’s rank progression and unlock system, but it still doesn’t compare with Modern Warfare 2. Take-Two’s recent announcement of DLC has sort of infuriated me in a way, on two counts. Read on to to see what gets me to proclaim that this series has sold out.

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Toshiba’s prediction for the future of gaming.

Sometimes, I wonder if espion4ge and I are being controlled by the same hive mind, since I started this post before I saw his on Avatar. The title says it all: Do we really need 3-D games? At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas last week, Sony and a bunch of other companies showed off their 3-D technology. For many companies, it was 3-D TVs that don’t require glasses, for others, it was showing off technology that can run current games in 3-D. Samsung had a display where you could play Gears of War 2 in 3-D, with the TV doing all the work, not a specialized build of the game.

But honestly, I don’t care about this! Don’t make us waste money on this new technology, and even though it will be “optional” for a while, the high development costs are still going to affect us somehow. Aren’t we in a recession? People STILL haven’t fully adopted HDTVs, and now these companies want us to get 3-D ready TVs? Is Avatar awesome? Yes. Is 3-D cool? Yes, every once in awhile. But we don’t need games to go the 3-D route…at least not until TWO generations from now. And please don’t try to give us 3-D games if it means making us wear stupid stereoscopic glasses.

Personally, I like my life in 3-D and my entertainment in 2-D. This is why I find all this 3-D tech annoying and stupid. Maybe I’m ignorant? What do you all think?

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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Many of you probably have seen this already, but if not it’s totally worth checking out. Purportedly this is the opening cinematic from Left 4 Dead 2, and it looks amazing. The first game’s cinematic actually told a lot about the gameplay in the game, something we only realized in retrospect. What does this cinematic have for us?

First, I think the setting looks great: the survivors are in the deep south near New Orleans (or in?) which is pretty awesome, and the music in this trailer does a nice job of setting the tone. In general, it seems like there is a chance that Valve might be expanding the storyline a little more - this time you could play Left 4 Dead without even knowing that the campaigns were linked, but the scene on the bridge where the government is bombing the zombies makes me hopeful there will be more of a storyline in this one.

Secondly, you get a look at some of the new special infected, such as the Jockey who can jump on the survivors and steer them around, and some freaky witch-like character. It also seems like there are going to be zombies with hazmat suits on, so I’m going to assume that molotovs aren’t going to work on them. You also get a look at some of the new melee weapons, such as the chainsaw, frying pan, and bat (there’s another video with the GameStop exclusive baseball bat out there as well).

There also seems to be the same campy humor that was present in the first game, and the survivors seem like they’re going to be as fun to play as the original cast. All in all, I’m getting pretty pumped for this game: my gaming time is going to be SERIOUSLY crunched in a few weeks. Looks like I know what I’ll be spending my $40 Amazon credit on!

Maybe somewhat old news for those of you that are fighting game fans, but I think it’s worth mentioning anyway.

Here are notes on it to consider:

- Eight additional characters including T. Hawk, Dee Jay, and a new characted named Juri
- Balance changes for existing characters (most likely Sagat will get nerfed)
- Improved online experience (could that mean quarter matches?)
- Retail release, but not full priced ($39.99 price point?)
- Bonus for those that hold onto original Street Fighter IV disc (alternate costumes is my guess)
- Not being released for arcades

I’m actually somewhat excited about this, since I may get back into Street Fighter with the hope that one of these eight new characters will be up my alley. I am surprised though that this is not coming out for arcades. There were already several console-only characters in the release of the original Street Fighter IV back in February so an arcade release of Super Street Fighter IV would have brought both the console and arcade versions back to parity. Instead, now we have the original Street Fighter IV in the arcades, but a suped up version for consoles with nearly double the characters as the arcade version and balance changes as well. Is Capcom really telling us that we shouldn’t be playing fighting games competitively in arcades anymore, but on consoles?