Gaming Addict

Grand Theft Auto IV’s next episode, The Ballad of Gay Tony was released today, and if you haven’t yet, I’d recommend downloading it immediately.  Ballad of Gay Tony represents everything right with Grand Theft Auto, rolled into one fantastic package.  From the start Ballad begins by doing everything with a bang, a much larger bang than you’ve seen in GTA up till now.  

 Here you enter the world of Liberty City’s drug junkies with money.  You’ll encounter socialites, and trust fund brats, all with ridiculously expensive sports cars, and just as expensive drug problems.  As Luis Lopez you’re a part of this world, but you definitely aren’t accepted just yet.  Basically Lopez is a thug, and the only good thing that’s happened in his life has been title character Tony Prince taking Lopez under his wing.

From there you’re tasked with helping your benefactor rebuild his crumbling nightclub empire.  Tony Prince is riddled with debt from trying to make ends meet.  The sort of debt owed to some of Liberty City’s shadiest sources, the kind you’d never want to owe money.  Luis Lopez is tasked with doing the necessary dirty work to keep Tony Prince in business. 

From there the game picks up into the most fantastic wild ride you’ll find in a Grand Theft Auto game.  Most of the missions are larger than life, as well as the great military weaponry you’ll be able to use.  All in all Ballad of Gay Tony makes many promises, and delivers on all counts.  Definitely worth a try if you’re looking to prolong your Grand Theft Auto experience.  

Borderlands isn’t without it’s share of problems.  Actually, Borderlands has many games share of problems.  Seems there are more than a few bugs that Gearbox Software hadn’t fully worked out before the game shipped, leaving many gamers to suffer their wrath.  These bugs range anywhere from minor glitches, like ammo clip shortages.  To much more devastating bugs that cause your save files to be corrupted, and your skill points to be reset.  

Of course most of these are tied to multiplayer.  Many players have reported disappearing loot, experience, and many other glitches upon entering and exiting a multiplayer session.  Considering one of Borderlands big selling points is the awesome drop in-drop out co-op, this is a pretty severe problem.

Gearbox maintains that they are hard at work on fixing all the bugs, and you can keep up on the details via their forums a:

http://gbxforums.gearboxsoftware.com/showthread.php?t=77748

For now Gearbox’s list of  known issues is as follows:

Both Consoles

Issue: (360, PS3) Save file is corrupted
Frequency: Very Low
Status: A fix is being investigated

360 only

Issue: (360) Aim-assist does not toggle on and off properly
Frequency: Very Low
Status: The cause of this problem is being investigated

PS3 only

Issue: (PS3) The console freezes during play
Frequency: Low
Status: The cause of this problem is being investigated

Issue: (PS3) Error codes displayed when attempting to sign into multiplayer
Frequency: Low
Status: The cause of this problem is being investigated

Issue: (PS3) Frame rate drops in a game with 3+ players
Frequency: Moderate
Status: The cause of this problem is being investigated

PC

Issue: PC users experience a “General protection fault” error
Frequency: Low
Status: This issue is being investigated

Issue: PC version locks up in server browser
Frequency: Low
Status: The cause of this issue has been identified and a solution is being investigated

All Platforms

Issue: Lilith’s Phase Strike not functioning as intended
Frequency: n/a, all users
Status: A fix is being investigated

Issue: Skill points or items disappear, or skill points are gained, usually after a multiplayer game
Frequency: Low
Status: The cause of this problem is being investigated

Issue: Weapon proficiency progress is lost upon leaving a multiplayer game
Frequency: Moderate
Status: The cause of this problem is being investigated

I’m fresh off playing the new demo for the upcoming PSP game Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron.  What I’ve seen and done here really disappoints me, I have to say.  The concept seemed larger than life, and I just don’t think that the PSP was the place for such a concept.  In Elite Squadron the big hook is more massive battles, in which space and land skirmishes take place at the same time.  You’re able to travel to the ground, and into space to wage war.

Of course the PSP isn’t powerful enough to house a battle like this, so what you’ve really got is two different battles going on simultaneously.  Through a starship you can choose to enter a nice little pre-rendered cutscene that shows you either entering space, or entering the atmosphere to join the ground battle.  That’s a very cool concept, unfortunately I’m just not impressed with the end result.  

When you’re in space with your starship, the battles are nice and big, plenty of open flying space, and enemies to blast.  Then you transfer to ground, and the game’s “massive” scale battles are exposed for being nothing but small skirmishes.  It’s pathetic trying to fly a starship around the miniature ground battle environments.  The level I played might have been the smallest ground skirmish area I’ve ever seen in fact, in a Battlefront game.

From there you discover that the controls have become a right mess, if you’re trying to fight on the ground.  Space combat plays as well as ever, which has been a series shining accomplishment since Battlefront II.  But here the changes made to ground combat are just horrid, and mar the experience as almost unplayable.

Because you only have one analog nub on the PSP your aiming depends on auto targeting the enemies around you.  The problem with this principle is that in big firefights, you frequently target the wrong enemy, over and over again.  I died more than once trying to target a closer enemy, finding I could only target the same far away foe I had been shooting.  There really is no useful means of target switching on the fly, that could be considered effective. 

All in all this is a mess, and serves as a fine example why Lucasarts is slipping in the gaming world.  Starting with Force Unleashed, continuing with Fracture, and all the way into Battlefront: Elite Squadron, everything feels cheaply thrown together and rushed.  Elite Squadron has a fantastic premise, but portable systems just aren’t the place for such a massive idea.

Elite Squadron is screaming for a console release, where the game can take on the massive feel that it really deserves.  But here on PSP, the game rots in the inferior processing power, and small fight environments available.  Maybe Lucasarts will finally learn though, and give us the Battlefront game we’ve all been waiting to see.  Just make the 360/PS3 version everyone wants.  PSP is not the place to take this game online, or try to emulate shooter gameplay. 

If you’re a fan if Ikki Tousen, you already know of the common theme that the anime series carries, of school girls getting their clothes torn apart whilst fighting.  Well the new Ikkit Tousen game Ikki Tousen: Xross Impact picks up where the first PSP game left off, only now with clothes shredding fighting as a feature.  That’s right, now as you pummel your opponents, not only with they receive the wrath of your beating, but they’ll also lose their clothing.  

Of course, as with the show, there is no actual nudity beyond quite a bit of flesh between clothing shreds.  But still, I suppose that’s entertaining to Ikki Tousen fans.  The new game is in the same vein as the first, a side-scrolling beat-em up, in which you’ll face wave after wave of clothing tearing enemies.  As I’m on the outside, not really a fan of the series, this just sounds like a hilarious feature.  That destructible costumes is a big plug for Ikki Tousen: Xross Impact seems like there can’t be a whole lot of great gameplay otherwise. 

But I guess a game with violence and half naked girls that you can make more half naked, the better a fighter you are, is great motivation for someone out there.  

The next downloadable episode for Grand Theft Auto IV hits the market next week, and what’s a new Grand Theft Auto release without some controversy?  Apparently Rockstar feels that they must keep pushing the limits of what could offend anyone, concerning the content in their games.  The newest spark arises from the inclusion of sex scenes aplenty in the upcoming The Ballad of Gay Tony. 

Reportedly the sex scenes do not contain any nudity, and only featured fully clothed characters.  But considering a large portion of the storyline takes place at a night club, those sex scenes will most likely be peppered generously throughout.  Also, after having pushed the boundary in The Lost and Damned, there’s going to plenty of digital cutscene penis once more.  

I’m sure we all remember the shock of meeting Congressman Stubbs for the first time, during his massage, in which he chose to allow his flaccid penis to breathe throughout the cutscene. 

Expect more of the same I guess.  So if videogame sex and flaccid penises offend you, The Ballad of Gay Tony might be something you want to avoid. 

Lionhead CEO and Creative Director for Microsoft Game Studios Peter Molyneux announced that Fable 3 will fully support Project Natal.  No details as yet for how Molyneux is planning on including the technology, so I can really only speculate.  As long as the motion control doesn’t get too crazy, I think it presents an interesting addition to Fable’s gameplay.

I think where Molyneux would be smart to make use of Natal as an option is with jobs.  Make them less tedious and more entertaining.  Instead of hitting buttons to hammer out swords, how about doing a hammer motion or something.  The same principle could be applied to everything.  As for the combat, I think you have to keep it to a controller for now.  Maybe a few motion controlled special attacks, but for the most part combat shouldn’t be messed with, as it’s a strong point in the Fable series.

Beyond Natal Molyneux also had another announcement to make…well more of a speculation actually…that is Fable 3 will make use of micro transactions.  Ala many MMORPG’s out there on the market now, Fable 3 looks to take advantage of the concept.  Meaning while you’re playing the game, you could go into a store menu and purchase items on the go with your real life money.

Case in point, the Mass Effect “expansions”.  Both are simple side quests that have no justification as DLC episodes.  I don’t see why those couldn’t have been included with my original $60 investment.  

 But this is where I’m guessing Molyneux is only speculating.  He has a habit of doing that, as we’ve all noticed over the years.  Remember all of the promises made about the first Fable?  And how none of them came to life and you were left feeling slightly disappointed at first?  Well I do.  Then I played Fable II’s ending and I found out what disappointment in a game really means.

Hopefully Molyneux can stop focusing on micro transactions, and even Natal, and just give the game a great story again. 

So I just played Wolfenstein for Xbox 360, and wow was that a bad game.  Normally I try to be more professional in my assessments of a game, but I just can’t muster anything beyond saying that Wolfenstein was severely disappointing.  The whole campaign just felt very unimaginative, given the power of the current generation of consoles, and everything else that is available on PC.  You’ve got an FPS here that feels like a port of an older game…but it isn’t. 

Everything from the textures to the fights with the bigger enemies just feels so hack.  When compared with games like Modern Warfare which is pushing the boundaries of FPS brilliance, Wolfenstein isn’t even worthy of an afterthought.  The textures look original Xbox quality at best, the AI seems right out of an older Xbox game as well.  The gameplay all feels like something you’ve done before in F.E.A.R., only with a worse presentation.

All in all, this is a rental if you must, but you’d be better served playing CoD 4 again while you wait for MW 2. 

I really wasn’t prepared to like Saw as a game.  I’m a big fan of the movie series, but normally games based on movies turn out to be terrible.  But what I got with Saw really impressed me more than I would have thought.  Of course the Saw game isn’t anything ground breaking or spectacular, but what you get is definitely worth of your play time.

The game starts out just like a Saw movie.  You’re introduced to the game’s protagonist Detective Tapp, who finds himself in a rather precarious position.  The gameplay picks up with Tapp regaining consciousness in a dark room, finding that Saw’s famous reverse bear trap has been affixed to his jaw.  You are then tasked with matching the button sequences on the sides of the trap to disarm the reverse bear trap.  You’ll have to do that quickly, or else Tapp’s skull will be pulled apart in a nice little gory game sequence.  

The first trap is very easy of course, but serves as a good set up of things to come.  Not to mention, including one of Saw’s most popular traps in the first few moments of gameplay is a brilliant stroke to capture the feel of the movies.

The gore won’t make you feel as queasy as anything in the films, as the game’s graphics leave something to be desired.  But they do stand up just enough to disturb where intended.  All in all not a bad game, but once you’ve gone through the traps for the first time, you won’t need to do it again.  So I’d suggest renting Saw, because you’ll only play it once if you buy the game.  

I should be really excited that there is a new Star Wars Battlefront game coming out, but I’m just not.  Probably because Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron is planned as a PSP, Nintendo DS release.  I’m getting really tired of playing Battlefront on my PSP, and I’d like to switch to consoles now please.  I don’t understand Lucasarts.  You have this amazing medium of PS3 and better yet Xbox 360 for it’s Xbox Live set up, which would be perfect for Battlefront.  Yet still, no announcement on the game every Star Wars fan is waiting for.  

For what Elite Squadron is, the game still looks decent.  The big changes this time around are space and land battles that happen simultaneously, so you’re able to affect a space battle from the ground, and vice versa.  That means blasting ion cannons at a star destroyer, or taking the big guns in space and shooting at the ground, or even flying your X-wing or TIE fighter from space to the battles below.  Of course you’ll have to deal with a 5 second loading screen when you transition from land to space, but small price to pay.

Elite Squadron promises a revamped single player campaign as well.  We all know Star Wars Battlefront games in the past had throwaway senseless single player campaigns, but Elite Squadron promises to change things this time out.  No details on how that will change, just that the story spans the entire 6 episode Star Wars saga.  

But really, give us Star Wars Battlefront for consoles already.  I’m dying to take the game out on Xbox Live, where I can talk to friends and formulate strategy while we take down some hopeless chumps in multiplayer.

I knew for a fact that if I played Halo 3: ODST that I would be disappointed.  So I’ve tried to avoid playing the game, despite my love for the Halo series.  But alas my efforts were completely in vain, as this weekend I gave in and bought a copy.  What a waste of $60…

I’m seriously disappointed here, more than I feared I would feel.  Bungie and Microsoft have collectively slapped me in the face this time.  I’ve been a loyal Xbox and Halo customer over the years, and I’ve been rewarded by being given underwhelming content at an overwhelming cost.  Put simply Halo 3: ODST is a DLC expansion pack at best, not a standalone box $60 FPS game.

The biggest disappointment here was in the campaign, which just feels uneventful, unfulfilled, and for the most part unexciting over the astounding 5 hour length.  Seriously, 5 hours for a standalone game?  Even by today’s horrid standards that’s a short experience.  Multiplayer doesn’t do much to justify the cost either, with modes that won’t make you forget your old battles on the original Halo 3…not by a long shot.  Basically what we get here is a disappointing short campaign with a main character that’s infinitely inferior to Master Chief, a terrible storyline, and slightly tweaked graphics.

The best thing I can say about ODST is that you should rent, or better yet borrow this from a friend, and give it a shot, so that you can avoid spending full price like I did.

Bungie may have finally killed my interest in the Halo franchise…which is a huge shame, because I was a very big fan.  But now I just feel cheated…and cheated for the last time.  I’ve paid for crappy map packs before…but this is a whole new level of fan misdirection and abuse.

Thanks Bungie and Microsoft.