Second Story Gamer

The Halo 3 Heroic Map Pack became free on Tuesday, which finally gave me a reason to download it, and thusly made me put in Halo after a long hiatus from the game. I don’t usually do reviews of maps or map packs but since this one was free and it is very popular, I decided to do a little write-up. There are three maps in this Map Pack of Heroism (very generic name by the way Bungie, mix things up a bit will you guys). I’ll start out with Standoff.

Standoff is a map that strikingly reminds me of Blood Gulch and Coagulation from Halo 2. Standoff is like a mixture of the two maps. The color tone of those two maps is basically identical to to Standoff’s. All three have a very sandy, dirty feel which huge orange-brown boulders littered across the level. They not only look alike, but they play somewhat alike too. Blood Gulch is a small map with boulders littering the ground between two bases. Coagulation is basically a larger version of Blood Gulch with proportionally by size less boulders. Standoff is a medium sized map with a medium proportion of boulders on it. It plays similar to Blood Gulch on a larger scale, though because there are few vehicles on it.

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Rat’s Nest is the name of the second map in this trio. The visual style is similar to Crow’s Nest from the campaign (coincidental name, I think not). It is designed like a huge race track with a wide circular road around the level. This is wide enough for Scorpions and Wraiths to drive on, but the map defaults with only ghosts, warthogs, and mongooses. There are paths through the center of the race track that cut the oval into fourths. There is a well placed rocket launcher used to take down warthogs, racing around the track just picking people off.

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Foundry is the last map in this pack and it is certainly the most interesting. The map is heavenly for any hardcore Forge user. It is basically a blank slate that allows you to put anything you want on it in any place. Of course, Bungie has there own default setup of the map, but it’s not a great position. If Bungie shipped this map setup without Forge functionality, it would be a pretty bad map. Thank god for the Bungie community though, because there are tons of great user made Foundry maps with accompanied unique game types.

Rating:

Overall it is a decent map pack now that you don’t have to pay for it. If I was writing this in November, it would be a definite don’t buy these maps. But now that it’s free what do you have to lose? Except for the 500 MB on your hardrive to fit these maps, that is.

Overall Rating:

The Wiimote is good for many things: training surgeons to have steadier hands, playing WoW without a mouse and keyboard, and occasionally playing Nintendo published games on the Wii.  The U.S. Military is adding another use to our favorite white accelerometer rigged remote.  They are actually using it to control iRobot developed “Packbot“.  The Packbot is designed to disarm explosives and mines.  Anything done to save soldiers lives is a good thing.  I wonder if it would work better with a Gamecube controller though?

Mass Effect is another game I was able to acquire from a friend recently. I have played about three hours of it so I’ll give you my first impressions of the game. Now remember, like my Army of Two first impressions, this is only from playing the first few hours of the game. My full review of it should be up as soon as I finish the game.

The game is another gorgeous game to come out this fall, joining the ranks of Bioshock, Assassin’s Creed, etc. My tip to anyone playing this game is to go into options and turn off the grain filter effect. It is set as the default for some reason, and makes the graphics look muddier. Take it off, and everything is vibrant and glorious.

The musical score for the game is very good. It may never be as recognizable as Halo’s theme, but it is perfect music for the situation. All the guns sound great and so do all the character’s voices and movements.

The story is so far very good. I have been very hyped for this game as I read the novel written by the writer of this game, Drew Karpyshyn (it was pretty good by the way). The book provides some background about Captain Anderson and Saren the Spectre. It is especially good if you like science fiction. I have never really been drawn into obscure science fiction, but this has me wanting to play more and more.

If I had to rank this game on a 1 to 10 from the first few hours, I would give it a 9. The only reason it’s not a 10 is that it was slightly tedious about 2 hours in. Then, the story picked up and I’m sucked back in. Stay tuned for the full review.

Banjo Kazooie 3 information has been revealed to the public. No, this info is not from some hacker or an “insider source”. This is straight from Rare community manager George Kelion who responded to a few statements made on a NeoGaf message board about a new Banjo site. When asked if it would still be a 2008 release he responded:

“The game is scheduled for a Holidays 2008 release - barring the coming of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, you should be playing Banjo 3 before the end of the year (providing you buy the game, that is).”

So the game will be out before the end of the year. That’s great news as I loved the first game. He also went on to say that the original team of the first two Banjo games is working on this game. And when posed the question about if this game was for four year olds he retorted:

“I can assure you that we haven’t been focused on 4 year-olds when creating the new Banjo game. We hope that you’ll be pleasantly surprised at what we’ve cooked up.”

Another good sign. I was afraid they were going to kidify Banjo more than it already is. I played Banjo when I was about 6 or 7. If I could learn the controls then, anyone should be able to handle them without them being dumbed down. So things are definitely looking up for this desperately needed platformer for the Xbox 360.

Oh yeah, he also said there would be more details in the very near future.  E3 2008 looks like a good place to be if you want to see Banjo 3.

Microsoft, you once again bumped up in my list of cool people (it’s fake so don’t ask about it). Unreal Tournament III user Organ has created a mod for the game that allows you to play as Master Chief (and Marcus Fenix, and the Locust Horde).  The Gamerscore blog had an inside scoop from Microsoft lawyers.  The lawyer said:

…Many people are surprised Microsoft is “allowing” this.

Actually it’s nothing more than the Game Content Usage Rules in action. When these were developed, people all thought they were focused on machinima. The truth is that while they do address machinima they also allow for a lot of other things. Mods like this are one of them. The developers aren’t selling the mod, they’re not monetizing Microsoft’s IP, they’re just creating something to share their love of the Master Chief on a new platform. It’s a great thing for us and a great thing for the gaming community.

Thank you Microsoft for proving to me once again that not everyone on this planet is sue happy.  Oh and thank you Game Content Usage Rules for the same thing.

Major Nelson recently announced that Microsoft would be punishing cheaters of the Xbox Live Gamerscore system more severely.  He stated that if you were caught cheating Microsoft would:

• Reset the entire Gamerscore for an account to zero
• The account will be unable to regain all previously obtained achievements and Gamerscore, however, the players will have the ability to gain future Achievements by earning them fairly, like the majority of the Xbox LIVE community does.
• The account will be clearly labeled as a cheater for the community to view on xbox.com. You can see an example here. In dash, the personal view of the gamercard will be labeled as well.

Thank you Microsoft.  Modders aren’t the only ones that should be punished.  Take down those people with no lives who constantly manipulate the system in order to have a little title of highest gamerscore on the planet or whatever.  FYI you guys, no one likes you.  Now maybe we can have a fair ranking system.  Unfortunately, those hackers will probably find a way around this in a few days.

Army of Two, as you may remember, was scheduled to come out last fall. EA saw that it needed more time in the oven and delayed it a few months. From what I’ve heard, it was a very good decision as the previous build was not great. That being said, the released game is not that great. But that doesn’t mean its bad. Well, you’ll see:

Gameplay

The gameplay is a definitely improvable part of this game. Army of Two centers around the aspect of an Aggro Meter. Aggro is basically the attention of the enemies. For example, if your teammate is firing everywhere, he would get all the Aggro causing the enemies to fire at him continuously and making you invisible. This is a very clever idea, but it gets old after a while and begins to feel like a gimmick. The other central idea is the use of co-op actions like Back to Back mode where you and your partner are firing at enemies back to back. This mode feels like a huge gimmick because you can only use in scripted areas. The actual shooting is decent but the cover system is irksome. Whenever i try to just peek out of cover, my character just jumps out in front of fire.

Graphics

I have to take back my earlier statements about the graphics of Army of Two being mediocre. They are definitely good. There is no framerate hiccups and the characters and environment looks good. That being said, the only really good looking part of this game are the cutscenes. They are drop dead gorgeous looking and the people’s emotions during the cutscenes are very well made. When Alice Murray gives a quick smile, her face looks real. I’m not sure whether the cutscenes are in-engine or not, but they look very good.

Sound

The actual gameplay sound in Army of Two is very generic. There’s nothing bad about it, just nothing sticks out. One thing that did slightly annoy me was the fact that whenever you clear an area of enemies, a gong sounds like in Gears of War. Come on guys, invent something new. The voice acting in this game is pretty bad. The two guys are overdoing their characters which adds to some of my problems with the story.

Story (Some Spoilers)

Army of Two’s story was surprisingly immersing. The story revolves around two soldiers, Elliot Salem and Tyson Rios, and takes place over the course of about 15 years. These two soldiers were in the military and were offered a job in a private military organization called the SSC, which paid double or triple what they were making. They accept the offer and continue doing missions for the SSC until they realize they are in the middle of a conspiracy with the CEO of SSC involved.

There is a secondary plot of politicians arguing whether or not to pass a bill that would disband government controlled military and make everything privatized. This is very relevant to todays news with the Blackwater controversy swirling around not so long ago. The bill looks like it will pass, but then the conspiracy is revealed and it is rejected. I really like this aspect of the game, because it is laden with political references that games have really not done before. This is another example of games starting to move ahead.

The story other than that is kind of done before. There have been plenty of movies that have done the whole caught in a conspiracy type of thing and they’ve done it much better (Shooter, Bourne Series), but I admit games don’t do this much and it was a decent story.

Characters

The characters are my biggest problem with the Army of Two. I hated the two characters you could play, Salem and Rios. They were both annoying, stereotypical, bad voiced characters. Everytime Salem opens his mouth, Rios screams out “Shut the hell up with your conspiracy theories” even when Salem makes sense. Reminds me a lot of people who think global warming is a hoax. I just felt like slapping Rios across the face (also like those people) because it was very obvious at this point that there was a conspiracy going on. And they also constantly yelled at each other not very kindly. I don’t see how they could have worked together. I actually like the antagonist Clyde more than these two.

Multiplayer

Army of Two is another one of those games where the multiplayer is just slapped on to add another bullet point to the game. The games multiplayer is not horrible but it isn’t great. And with multiplayer games like Call of Duty and Halo out, why would anyone bother playing this.

Overall

Army of Two is a good game but it’s not great. I would definitely recommend a rent for this game or wait till it hits the bargain bin before you get it because it is most certainly not worth $60. A game based totally on co-op play is a very interesting idea, but they didn’t do a great job implementing that idea. Hopefully, the sequel will be a much better game.

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Gaming is an expensive hobby, everyone knows that.  My question is, why does it have to be?  The makers of movies, music, and books have all realized that if something is sold at a cheaper price, people will buy more of it.  You can get brand new, quality forms of those medias at a fraction of the cost of new games.  Why should gaming be any different?

Is it a problem with the install base?  Are there just not enough users of a console to be able to make a profit from selling a game at a lower price?  If there aren’t, this is the console developer’s fault, as they should make their consoles as cheap as possible to attract new users.  Look how fast Blu-ray players have lowered their prices in about a year.  You may say it’s because of their competition with HD-DVD, but I seem to remember there being three consoles on the market.  Why is it that Sony is the only company that has significantly worked to make their console as affordable as possible?

Or is it a problem with the rising cost of game development?  Games are now costing nearly as much as movies to make.  Publishers see a high price tag as the only way of making a profit.  They don’t realize that they could sell many, many more copies of the game by lowering the price tag.  There are plenty of consoles in the market right now and publishers could make a profit by selling twice as many copies at $30 instead of half the amount at $60.  So why haven’t companies started doing that?  The truth is that companies have been doing that for a while now.

But they’ve been implementing this strategy in the wrong way.  Companies have discounted the price for budget games (AKA “bad games”), instead of offering their great titles at a lower price.  This makes gamers uneasy when they see a $40 price tag on a brand new game.  They immediately think the game is a budget game and will instead pick up a $60 game, even if the $40 one is better.  This type of thinking only promotes selling games at higher prices.

So is all hope lost for lower prices of games?  Not necessarily, says I.  If a company like Valve, which is always willing to try something new (look at Orange Box, possibly the best deal in gaming history), was to continually release quality games at discount prices, it would change the whole “$60=quality” mentality.  Gamers wouldn’t scorn at games whose prices are less than $50 and eventually the industry would be much healthier as more and more people bought games.

Sadly, my pessimistic side says this day will not come in the near future.  This concept will take years and years to catch on, if it even does.  But the gaming industry has repeatedly “anything you can do I can do better”ed (yes, I just made that a verb) the movie industry.  So if you can get movies for under $10 these days, hopefully before I die, the same will be for gaming.  Then maybe I could afford another 2007 of gaming.

I rented Army of Two and just finished the first couple levels so I’m just going to give early my impression of the game. My full review should be up in a few days after I’ve completed the game.

The game starts out with a skull on the screen and a rough sounding man yelling at you. Yes, it was as strange as it sounds. He explains the Aggro system to you and proceeds to tell you to go “kick some ass”. Duly noted sir. After this strange beginning, the game began on a normal track. You do a training mission and then your dropped into a real mission and the game begins.

From the hour or so I’ve played it, I’ve come to a few conclusions. First of all, I think the actual shooting is not that fun. It is really bland and with the plethora of great shooters out why would you pick an average one. The cover system is okay, but I’ve not been able to get into cover multiple times. Maybe these two aspects of the game will get better as I progress to further levels, but I highly doubt it. The graphics are good, but not spectacular and the storyline has been average so far.

The co-op portion of the game is nowhere close to what it was hyped up to be. The Aggro meter seems like a good concept, but so far it has just been gimmicky. The back to back feature is only available in certain areas, which detracts from the experience.

My conclusion from this small impression is that this game is a very average, normal game. So far, it has not jumped from the status quote very far and it has definetly not lived up to what I thought it would be: a co-op shooter where you have to work with your teammate to strategically kill enemies and give each other cover etc. So far it has just been a plain shooter with a few co-op gimmicks in it. Hopefully, it gets better.

Bungie recently announced that the Halo 3 Heroic Map Pack will be free on Tuesday at 2 A.M.  I am one of those people who waited instead of buying these maps and it looks like it was a good decision.  I’ve heard mixed reviews of each map and Call of Duty 4’s multiplayer has been holding me out for the time being.  So I can tell you right now, I will not be one of those who stay up till 2 to get these maps (if your that hardcore, why didn’t you just buy the maps).  And these maps will probably only temporarily bring me back to Halo.  Then I’ll probably jump back onto Call of Duty and get my level up and finish the single player on Veteran.  Wow this was an extremely pessimistic post.

I did the multiplayer portion a couple days ago, and now it is time for the single player.  These two games have very different single player games.  The storyline of both games is different, yet the same.  Both is about soldiers fighting for their country, but both are on very different scales.

Halo 3 is about the galactic battle between two (or three?) alien civilizations across the universe.  You are playing as supernormal Master Chief whose duty is to reverse the inevitable.  Occasionally, you feel the grandeur of the situation your placed in, but it’s usually just shoot here, move on, shoot here, move on.  The storytelling is very bad to normal players; if you aren’t a hardcore fan, you probably don’t know what’s going on.  That, mixed with an already convoluted and complex story makes this impossible to understand from a casual perspective.

Call of Duty, on the other hand, has a fairly simple storyline.  You are placed as the role Sergeant Soap MacTavish and Sergeant Paul Jackson.  These two are members of different forces who end up having the same goal.  They are after a group of terrorists, which seems pretty bland.  But there are huge twists in the game, including a nuclear bomb that explodes with you in the vicinity, that make this game gripping and heart wrenching.  It is much shorter than Halo 3’s single player, but it is much more action packed, and faster paced.  It will continuously keep you on the edge of your seat and the action will never let up.

All in all, Call of Duty 4 has a better single player campaign.  Halo 3’s just seems too similar to the previous two games and did very little in innovate and change things up.  CoD4, on the other hand, is one of the only games with a very gut wrenching storyline mixed in with great gameplay.  Before Halo 4 comes out (if it comes out), Bungie should definitely look at what other games like Call of Duty 4 did to change things up.

      I know I’m a bit late on this whole Call of Duty vs. Halo type article, but I had to comment on them. I’ve been playing both frequently these past few weeks and I’ve noticed many distinct advantages and disadvantages. Oh yeah and a disclaimer to all you fanboys: I’ve played both nearly the same amount of time, which is about 30-40 hours, so I definitely know what I’m talking about.

Let’s start out with the way you play with friends: the matchmaking system.  This system is almost equal for both parties.  Both games have great party systems that match you and your friends up with people with around the same skill level.  Of course, you always get the random game with the super-elite, ultra hardcore man in the basement, but what game’s matchmaking doesn’t do that.  One advantage Halo does have over Call of Duty is that it supports split-screen play online.  I know I have wanted to play Call of Duty with my brother on the same TV multiple times, but have had to resort to playing Halo 3 because of the lack of a split screen online play feature.  It’s weird that Call of Duty 3 had this feature, yet Call of Duty 4 doesn’t (yes, I know they were made by two different developers).\

Now, the leveling system.  This one goes to Call of Duty 4 easily.  The whole ranking up by EXP and having challenges to unlock EXP is brilliant.  It always makes the next level seem just in grasp and never leaves you frustrated that you can’t reach the next level.  And the fact that you unlock new weapons and upgrades just adds to the “5 more minutes” factor.  Even if you do horribly in a match, your guaranteed some bonus points afterwards that go towards your next level.  Halo really needs a revamp in this area.  The number leveling up thing is too random and the fact that you can go down in levels discourages many gamers, myself included.  I sometimes feel I shouldn’t play ranked matches alone because I might go down in level.  There should never be any factor in a game that doesn’t make me want to play it.

The weapon balancing issue was a slightly trickier subject, but still quite easy to distinguish a winner.  Halo 3 has much better balancing of weapons, with the default weapon, the assault rifle, able to kill most weapons and the power weapons scattered around the map.   They have almost perfected that area after three iterations of the game.  In Call of Duty, the M16 with a red dot site dominates all the competition.  That gun can take out every single gun in the game at most ranges.  Fortunately, it is available at the start of the leveling process so everyone can use it.  Unfortunately, it is mostly used by clan gamers, who are good enough without an elite gun.  Normal gamers are focused on leveling up and try to use all of the guns to get the challenges.

The quality of levels was a strange topic.  Call of Duty has better levels than Halo, but both games’ levels aren’t great.  Call of Duty 4’s levels don’t vary in appearance as much, but they play a lot better.  There is always perfect spots for great, intense firefights.  Halo 3’s levels look a lot prettier, but play worse.  They are all generic in the way they play with wide open spaces in most of the maps.  Of course, there are a few gems in both packs, such as Crossfire and High Ground, but overall, they aren’t great.  Hopefully, some new downloadable content will fix that.

The only one of these that really matters is this one: longevity and re-playability (that’s what she said).  If you play a game’s multiplayer for a long time, you know it has to be good.  Adding up Call of Duty 4’s leveling system and actual levels makes it much more re-playable.  You will be hooked on Call of Duty’s multiplayer far longer than Halo 3’s.  The only reason I play it online anymore is that I have to play with someone on the same screen and obviously I can’t do that in Call of Duty.  If you want a game that is crazily fun and addicting get Call of Duty 4.  Halo 3 has very good multiplayer, but it just isn’t as good as Call of Duty’s.

    The February NPD numbers were released recently and they were very good for the month of February.  The gaming industry as a whole made $1.3 billion.  But if you want to hear about that read this article.  I’m going to talk about Microsoft’s problem with the Xbox 360.

Right off the bat, let me say that the number of 360’s sold is not that bad.  250,000 for February is very good.  The problem is that they were trumped by the PS3 for the second month in a row.  Some may say that this is just an after effect of the Blu-ray ordeal, but I think its a mixture of a few things.

First of all, the PS3 has gotten fairly affordable through its past few price cuts.  It is now $399 and $499 which is much better than its original pricing.  The normal average Joe looks at the Xbox 360 as inferior to the PS3 (which it is, in several ways) and would much rather buy a PS3 than a 360.  The good model of the 360 is only $50 cheaper than the PS3, which makes me think that average consumer would plop that down if he thinks he’s getting a far superior machine.  Microsoft needs to cut it’s price again and make the Core model more appetizing.  If the whole 60gb rumor is true, than give the Core model a 20 gb hard drive standard.  It would make all of their models seem a better value to consumers.  Add that and a $50 price cut, and they will be much better off.

Microsoft also needs to push their online video service more.  Having an online video service where you can download HD movies (I know their not full quality) from you couch seems like a much better alternative to Blu-ray.  Adding a Blu-ray drive is not a great plan, because most consumers won’t buy it.  Just look at how successful their HD-DVD drive was.  If they advertised the fact that you can download and watch movies straight from your Xbox, movie fans, who have been buying the PS3 for Blu-ray, would be interested.

I still don’t think the Xbox 360 is dieing off.  Just because the PS3 overtakes it for a few months doesn’t mean that the sky is falling for Microsoft.  If they just switch a few things, drop the price, and advertise a bit more, they could be right back up there next month.  I’m curious to see who gets the most sales during April, when GTA IV comes out.

    Nintendo really needs to get their whole Wii shortage thing together.  After being on the market for a year and a half, there should be atleast a few Wiis in the market.  But no, I haven’t seen a Wii in three months.  It was bad enough having to sit through Super Mario Galaxy without one, but now Super Smash Bros Brawl is out taunting my lack of Wiiness.  How hard could it really be to make those things?  Just go to Gamestop and buy all of their used Gamecubes and take out the processors and jam them into white boxes.  That’s all there is too it isn’t there?  Yes, Wii fanboys, I went there.

But seriously though, I know plenty of people who would buy a Wii in a second if they could find one.  I’ve got to give Nintendo credit though; if they artificially sustained the flow of the hardware,  it sure has had a great effect.  It has become the Tickle Me Elmo and now everyone wants it, even if they aren’t gamers.  It’s the same reason people wanted PS3’s or Xbox 360’s crazily when they came out.  As soon as they became readily available, the hype died down and so did the sales.  I wonder when that day will be for the Wii.

    I think it’s safe to say gaming as a whole is growing exponentially. Game sales have past $17 billion just last year and look to continue growing. But that doesn’t mean that we can just sit idly by and let it grow on its own. There have to be a few things done to the industry before it will really become more than a niche.

“Video Games” just sounds childish and will automatically alienate people who think themselves above such things. Movies and Music both have original names that have nothing to do with other art forms. Video Games are the only media that has the same of two medias jumbled together, which would work for Pac-man or Tetris, but today’s games are so far ahead, that they are above the name.

Another reason that games are called “video games” is because developers are still fixed on making it a movie like experience. In my opinion, gaming should be seperate from movies in the way the story is told. Cutscenes just remove the player from the experience they were having when they were the character and force them to watch a clip of their character talking to other characters.  Developers need to think of a brand new experience of games that is totally interactive and seamless.  Only then will video games be a big contender against film.

Even if these things don’t happen, I still think games will expand on thier own.  The problem now with them is that all of the people holding power (old people) never played games when they were young.  As soon as we get people in power that enjoy games, they will spread faster and become more accepted by the mainstream media.

But that doesn’t mean we should just sit around and let them expand on their own because that could take many, many years.  If we want it to happen sooner, we need to be more vocal.  Gamers cannot constantly take crap from people who have no idea what they are talking about.  We have to stand up for our rights; fortunately, some companies are doing just that.  Do that and gaming will become much more mainstream much faster than movies ever did.  And now is the perfect time, as ticket sales are going farther and farther down the drain.

    Yes, you heard that right: Microsoft is winning the console wars.  According to a Microsoft representative, Microsoft rakes in 42% of the revenue of all the current-gen console and game sales (and peripherals and online services).  Now the question is: are they telling the truth?  Hey, I’m not calling Microsoft liars but they have been known to twist the truth at times.  If this is the truth, this is a remarkable number.  It just proves once again that even though Nintendo sold many, many more consoles than Microsoft, software is really what makes money.  And considering that they do have the most sold game of 2007 exclusively on their platform, who would really argue that they haven’t sold the most games.  I doubt that number will be as high this year, because Sony looks like their library of games will drastically improve and Nintendo just can’t seem to do wrong.  We’ll see in a year or so I guess.

Gaming Narrative is still very far behind other forms of narrative, such as books or movies. This may be one of the reasons that many people (including most mainstream media) look down upon gaming and gamers as a whole. Those people want engaging, heart-wrenching story lines like No Country for Old Men or the Kite Runner. So far gaming has failed miserably in that area. Most games try to be very violent or quirky to appeal to the people who are gaming now: men in their 20’s and 30’s and children. But how is gaming going to evolve and expand if there are just two types of categories most developers want to fit into. First of all, developers have to fix gaming narrative as a whole.

There are multiple problems with it, but it all originates from the fact that developers are borrowing too many ideas from other forms of media. Developers are unwilling to forge ahead into new territories with their games, because the price of development has gone so high. But someone has to do it because the continual borrowing of ideas just hurts the nature of gaming wholly.

Cutscenes are taken straight from movies. They are used by almost every developer in almost every game. Games used to need cutscenes, as animation technology and graphics weren’t good enough to render people talking normally. Nowadays, the technology is so advanced that there is no need for cutscenes. All cutscenes do these days is detract from the experience and interrupt the gameplay. Why do you think so many people skip them?

There are ways of making good cutscenes. The key is to make these interactive But that doesn’t mean developers should pull an Assassin’s Creed and just give gamers a ten foot radius to mess around in. This distracts the players from the storyline and eventually bores them. Two great examples are Mass Effect and Call of Duty 4. Both had types of cutscenes in them. Mass Effect used a dialogue tree to keep you engaged and in the storyline and you never felt like you were not in the experience. Call of Duty, on the other hand, put you in very gut-wrenching situations like (SPOILER) when you were the President and were effectively killed under a coup or when you were crawling around before you died from a nuclear explosion.

But that doesn’t mean that all games need some sorts of interactive cutscenes to succeed. Bioshock and Half-Life are both very highly critiqued games and both give their narratives through in-game sequences. These are both games in which you can spend four hours in before realizing it’s been that long. That’s because they constantly keep you engaged in the experience and never interrupt it with cutscenes. The future of gaming is, in my opinion, cutscene-less.

Another example of being slammed back down to earth from your game experience is Lost Odyssey. Lost Odyssey has multiple short stories in the game. If people wanted to read a book, they would go to the bookstore, not their local Gamestop. This is a form of abuse on the media, because it just retracts from what games look like they will be in the near future: interactive experiences, in which you control a character or group of characters. All entertainment is supposed to help you escape into another person’s life. People just like to get away from their life and into the life of a virtual character for a few hours. Stopping the game and forcing the player to read pages of texts, just detracts that experience and the player gets slammed back to earth.

Developers are slowly getting better at narratives. With games like Bioshock, Mass Effect, and Call of Duty 4 out in recent times, it looks like games will continue to get better and better narratives. Hopefully developers that are continuing to use sloppy forms of narrative will read this article and realize that their forms of narrative are just other forms of media forced around gameplay. If they try to do a better job with their next games, we should see widespread results within a few years.

    Next-gen.biz has just released a chart showing the averages of review scores of various publishers from 2005 to 2007. Unsurprisingly, SCEA and Nintendo top the list with very respectable average scores of 77.9% and 75.1% respectively. But a surprising third is Capcom. There’s another reason why Microsoft should just buy them. Speaking of Microsoft, they are seventh on this list with an average rating of just 69.2%. I guess that’s surprising because we only get coverage of their good games. You have to remember they also release garbage like Fusion Frenzy 2 and Viva Pinata Party Animals (and who develops those games?). The rest of the list is relatively surprise less, with Take Two right below Microsoft, and Ubisoft and Activision (who both release very bad licensed games) far below them. I have never even heard of Conspiracy, the company on the very bottom of the list, which probably speaks to the quality of its games. And yeah, that’s about it. I know, it’s a slow news day.

Microsoft hasn’t started out 2008 so hot. Their console sales are falling and the PS3 outsold them in the month of January. But that doesn’t mean the world is coming to an end for Microsoft’s gaming division. They still have a chance to repair things, but they have to start fast.

Rebuild the First Party

Even Microsoft, who is amazing in their third party relations, needs some sort of a first party. As more and more developers are making games for all consoles, as the cost of developing games is on the rise, Microsoft can do two things. They could either continue to buy exclusive agreements with third parties or they could rebuild their crumbling first party. My personal suggestion is (as you can see from the title) to build the first party. Exclusivity money will only get you so far when you are competing against the powerhouses that are Sony and Nintendo’s first party. Microsoft needs to buy another developer or two (Capcom or Epic, anyone). Just use some of that money that you were willing to use to buy Yahoo.

Make Live Flawless, or Free (or both)

The argument for paying for Xbox Live has always been “you get what you pay for”. Well this holiday season, and a few times after that we haven’t got what we’ve payed for. The service has been sketchy and all we got was an arcade game(albeit, a fairly good one). Microsoft needs to increase the quality of the service or make it free, which should be done either way. I think if Sony gets their online act together, then Microsoft will be forced to make Live free. Hopefully, the service will still be great.

Cut the Price already

I don’t know about you, but I don’t think a $50 price cut is a very substantial one. Especially since the PS3 has been cut $100 and it came out just a year ago. This is the perfect time for a price cut because GTA is about to come out and it will help swing the momentum back to Microsoft. If Sony sell a PS3 at $399 and still make a profit, Microsoft should easily be able to cut the price.

Decrease the Failure Rate

You know I had to mention those red rings sometime in this article. Those damn things are costing Microsoft more than $1 billion. That shouldn’t be happening anymore. I don’t know what they are doing at Microsoft’s technical center but they need to fix this problem now. Unfortunately, I have a feeling they are just letting this problem ride out this generation of consoles and just make sure the next generation of Xbox’s are perfect. At least they extended the warranty to three years.

Get a Secondary Feature

Microsoft needs to sell their systems to more than just hardcore gamers. Nintendo has been doing this and so has, surprisingly, Sony. Sony’s plan to install a Blu-ray drive in their console has payed off for them, as many movie lovers are buying the PS3 just to watch movies on. That doesn’t necessarily mean Microsoft should release a Blu-ray drive. I don’t think the 360 will ever be a great movie player for the simple fact that I’m scared it will either red ring or the DVD drive will break or that it’s too loud etc. It just isn’t built to be a movie player. I think they had something good going with IPTV and they should continue pursuing that goal. If that doesn’t work out, they need some type of appeal to non-gamers to keep up with Nintendo and Sony.

Even though Sony surprised everyone with their January numbers higher than Microsoft, hopefully Microsoft can pull back from that defeat. Hopefully that battle will be like the Halo 3 vs. Call of Duty 4 Live battle, with both sides doing well.

Isn’t strange to be saying Nintendo is the top dog this time around? Just a few years ago, Nintendo was flopping around pathetically as their Gamecube was stupid and their DS looked like it was going to be a flop. How does a company have that big of a turn around? Nintendo has been booming in recent times and looks like it will continue to keep up the success for a long time coming. But, even Nintendo’s success isn’t never ending. The gaming industry is very innovating and slightly fickle and if Nintendo doesn’t fix some mistakes they could fall too.

Help the Third-Parties

If you thought Sony was arrogant about their third party support, look at Nintendo. Most of the time, I get the feeling that they don’t even care about the games coming to their system other than the ones published by Nintendo. This has happened for every one of their systems (the DS is getting better though). It is true that Nintendo’s games are always the best but to have a healthy library, the Wii needs good third party support. Most of their third party games are garbage.

Fix the Online

Believe it or not, adults actually play the Wii. And adults do not like to mess with friend codes to play with their friends. All multiplayer online gaming problems have been attributed to Sony, but Nintendo’s service makes the PSN look like…well Xbox Live. Nintendo has a pathetically primitive service that needs to get better. And the recent announcement of the Pay and Play service is only a step backwards, as no one wants to pay to play only certain games online. Either make it free, or make it subscription based, like Live.

Make More of the Damn Things

How can a system still not be readily available almost a year and a half after its launch. All conspiracy theories aside, Nintendo needs to boost the production of these babies, so every person who wants one can get one and they also need to make more Wiimotes and Nunchucks, which are still not fully available.

Attract Hardcore Gamers

Most of the people who are buying the Wii right now are not hardcore gamers. That means that they will probably buy only one or two games a year and that’s it. Although Nintendo makes money for every Wii sold, their real money comes in the long run from software sales, which they are not getting right now. Their highest selling game in 2007, Wii Play, was a gimmick with a Wiimote sold with it. If they have more hardcore games on their system, the attach rate, and the sales of the software, will go up.

The Wii is the most successful out of the three consoles as of now, and it looks like it will win this generation by a significant amount. If fixing these things will increase Wii sales, it’ll only be icing on the cake for Nintendo. Be sure to check back tomorrow for Microsoft’s tips and check out my tips for the PS3 and the PC.