I achieved a couple of milestones this weekend. I completed the single player storyline of Call of Duty 4. I sold Halo 3. I played Burnout Legends and rekindled my love of speed. And I picked up Half-Life 2 again.
I finally wrapped up Call of Duty 4 and really enjoyed the experience. While playing on normal difficulty, I found that the game wasn't incredibly hard. The experience is more akin to an interactive movie than a game. That's fine because I know that the harder difficulties add that aspect and there's never-ending multiplayer gameplay available.
I sold Halo 3. The game has been sitting on a shelf alone for weeks now and I didn't expect that to change any time soon. Perhaps if new single player modes are added I might pick it back up. For now it is time to move on.
I cracked open The Orange Box for some more Half-Life 2 and Team Fortress 2 goodness. TF2 is a great fun multiplayer experience kind of like Halo-lite. It has the complexity of a high end game without the seriousness. I think making the game look like a Looney Tunes cartoon helps.
In regards to Half-Life 2, I've kind of lost grasp on the story but the game continues to give me chills. I've reached a prison area that even in daylight is creepy. I can't have a whole lot more to play - so, at least I have Chapters 1, 2, and 3 to look forward to.
Lost Planet received some multiplayer face time. I played two games, one of which was over in nearly 30 seconds. I wish I had more time to invest in this game, but like Halo 3, I think it is time to move on. Lost Planet wound up being a far better experience than my earlier impression - however, nowhere near as fun as the demo lead me to believe.
Two retro games I plugged in were Burnout Legends for the PSP and Super Mario Land. Burnout Legends is a great game for the PSP and in my top 3 games on that system. It takes all of the great levels I played in Burnout 2 & 3 and condenses them on a tiny UMD disc.
In retrospect I have fonder memories from playing Super Mario Land than from Super Mario 3. Each game brought more complexity to the simple Mario design. However, Super Mario Land had so much to do that I could play it for quite a long time without feeling repetitive. Nintendo took a lot of bold leaps with the game and most worked out in the long run. I love playing this game again on the Wii and look forward to playing Super Mario Land 2 if it ever comes out on Virtual Console.
Showing posts with label Halo 3. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Halo 3. Show all posts
Monday, January 28, 2008
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Playing This Weekend: Halo 3, Lumines
Despite my original plans, I wound up playing a TON of Halo this weekend. Multiplayer is exactly like in Halo 2 except that the competition is clearly better organized. Your opponents seem to be better matched and closer to your skill level making games closer and more enjoyable. Also, a majority of the players are not annoying little kids screaming in your ear. Hurray for that.
Co-op seems... easy. I also find that it takes a lot away from the story when you have friends chattering away in your ear how are you supposed to follow what's going on. Even worse, co-op lags a lot. You can tell that this game was not designed to be co-op and that it was just added in to make players happy. Gears of War is a game designed with co-op play in mind.
Finally, I've continued to play Lumines on my PSP. This game is a great time killer and would be perfect to waste time while on the go. Easily one of the obvious must haves for PSP owners.
Co-op seems... easy. I also find that it takes a lot away from the story when you have friends chattering away in your ear how are you supposed to follow what's going on. Even worse, co-op lags a lot. You can tell that this game was not designed to be co-op and that it was just added in to make players happy. Gears of War is a game designed with co-op play in mind.
Finally, I've continued to play Lumines on my PSP. This game is a great time killer and would be perfect to waste time while on the go. Easily one of the obvious must haves for PSP owners.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
An Open Letter to Microsoft
Microsoft,
Your Interactive Entertainment Business division is floundering. Specifically, two areas are obviously in need of a major re-haul. First, your initial XBOX 360 hardware is fundamentally flawed. Secondly, your support services are under-staffed, under-educated, and insufficient for the amount of traffic they are receiving. To fix these problems I offer you three solutions: recall, relaunch, or red ring. These three solutions can be implemented individually or collectively. Hell, for all the general public knows, you may already be implementing these changes. If that's the case, all we ask for is more transparency.
RECALL. The XBOX 360 hardware launched was flawed. Every owner of a XBOX 360 sold at launch is guaranteed a broken console. To make matters worse, every owner of a refurbished XBOX 360 is guaranteed another broken console. We know this not because you've admitted this problem but because of the preponderance of evidence. If the Internet is used as a trustworthy source of information and compare the amount of broken XBOX 360 claims to those of every other current console on the market, it is apparent that the XBOX 360 owns the market of hardware failure. If your own corporate admittance as the basis of this argument, Peter Moore's (former Corporate Vice President of Interactive Entertainment) three year warranty extension should suit just fine. Logic indicates that making such a drastic financial sacrifice for your customers is an open admittance of failure. Unfortunately, this program is not enough.
One solution is officially recalling all affected (infected) consoles. No one outside of Microsoft corporate knows how many XBOX 360s will initially fail (8 million? 10 million?) and that number will increase even higher if you calculate the number of broken refurbished consoles. Instead of slowing down customers by forcing them to call 1-800-4-MY-XBOX, a separate recall would sacrifice short term financial and public relations momentum for long term customer satisfaction. If you want to create your own recall department to handle the bulk of these issues that would assist. Allow consumers to send back their broken (or soon to be broken) consoles when they are ready and show some skin instead of hiding in your trench coat. It's not as if you're running an illegal dogfighting ring.
RELAUNCH. Instead of a full-fledged recall, you could just completely relaunch their console. After the holiday season, perhaps in January and February, you'd halt all new XBOX 360 shipments. Clear all remaining inventory, stockpile redesigned (and functioning consoles), and tell the world that the XBOX 360 will be coming back soon. Tell software manufacturers that they can still sell their games except that new consumers won't be able to buy new consoles. In fact, if implemented fast enough, this plan could be used to spike console sales for the holiday. Drop prices $100 just to clear the shelves and parents will have no reason to sit back and disappoint their video game starved kids.
You might be wondering why a relaunch will work? Three recent examples provide evidence that a relaunch can help revitalize your presence and broaden your audience. The release of the DS Lite, the PSP 2000, and the PlayStation Slim all pushed slowing console sales back to where they need to be. In fact, the PSP 2000 might just save the lagging console from irrelevancy. Find a new game (GTA IV?) or peripheral (HD DVD) to bundle with the system, price it competitively and show the world that they can be confident with a functioning console. With a relaunch you'll lose a bit of ground short term, however, you will be better off in the long run. Your momentum should pick up with superior software and you'll have much happier customers.
RED RING. The failure of your warranty extension is hampered by slow service response, poor customer service, and the overwhelming number of broken consoles. Your customer service department either needs to be complete nuked or expanded extensively. Instead of removing all of your current agents, how about creating a division that only deals with red ring failures? If a consumer sees the red ring, they can call 1-800-RED-RING and speak with an agent about sending back their console. Eliminate the obnoxious computer agent and send customers straight to a team of representatives that only deal with the red ring. This will lighten the load of your other support agents so that they can deal with all of the other (less rampant) issues with the XBOX 360.
At this point it is apparent to everyone that things aren't getting better any time soon. This fact is even more troublesome because the greatness of your software is obvious. Gamers want to play BioShock, HALO 3, Dead Rising (still), and Gears of War. Nintendo apparently hates adult gamers and Sony is too busy trying to sell BluRay to the world. You, Microsoft, needs to step up to the plate now and make further changes. You need to make these changes soon and make them public. You already have an excellent grasp of community and some wonderful PR mouthpieces to utilize. Your faithful fans are losing their patience and it will only take one great game to change the tide.
Hopefully and yet jadedly yours,
Alex
Your Interactive Entertainment Business division is floundering. Specifically, two areas are obviously in need of a major re-haul. First, your initial XBOX 360 hardware is fundamentally flawed. Secondly, your support services are under-staffed, under-educated, and insufficient for the amount of traffic they are receiving. To fix these problems I offer you three solutions: recall, relaunch, or red ring. These three solutions can be implemented individually or collectively. Hell, for all the general public knows, you may already be implementing these changes. If that's the case, all we ask for is more transparency.
RECALL. The XBOX 360 hardware launched was flawed. Every owner of a XBOX 360 sold at launch is guaranteed a broken console. To make matters worse, every owner of a refurbished XBOX 360 is guaranteed another broken console. We know this not because you've admitted this problem but because of the preponderance of evidence. If the Internet is used as a trustworthy source of information and compare the amount of broken XBOX 360 claims to those of every other current console on the market, it is apparent that the XBOX 360 owns the market of hardware failure. If your own corporate admittance as the basis of this argument, Peter Moore's (former Corporate Vice President of Interactive Entertainment) three year warranty extension should suit just fine. Logic indicates that making such a drastic financial sacrifice for your customers is an open admittance of failure. Unfortunately, this program is not enough.
One solution is officially recalling all affected (infected) consoles. No one outside of Microsoft corporate knows how many XBOX 360s will initially fail (8 million? 10 million?) and that number will increase even higher if you calculate the number of broken refurbished consoles. Instead of slowing down customers by forcing them to call 1-800-4-MY-XBOX, a separate recall would sacrifice short term financial and public relations momentum for long term customer satisfaction. If you want to create your own recall department to handle the bulk of these issues that would assist. Allow consumers to send back their broken (or soon to be broken) consoles when they are ready and show some skin instead of hiding in your trench coat. It's not as if you're running an illegal dogfighting ring.
RELAUNCH. Instead of a full-fledged recall, you could just completely relaunch their console. After the holiday season, perhaps in January and February, you'd halt all new XBOX 360 shipments. Clear all remaining inventory, stockpile redesigned (and functioning consoles), and tell the world that the XBOX 360 will be coming back soon. Tell software manufacturers that they can still sell their games except that new consumers won't be able to buy new consoles. In fact, if implemented fast enough, this plan could be used to spike console sales for the holiday. Drop prices $100 just to clear the shelves and parents will have no reason to sit back and disappoint their video game starved kids.
You might be wondering why a relaunch will work? Three recent examples provide evidence that a relaunch can help revitalize your presence and broaden your audience. The release of the DS Lite, the PSP 2000, and the PlayStation Slim all pushed slowing console sales back to where they need to be. In fact, the PSP 2000 might just save the lagging console from irrelevancy. Find a new game (GTA IV?) or peripheral (HD DVD) to bundle with the system, price it competitively and show the world that they can be confident with a functioning console. With a relaunch you'll lose a bit of ground short term, however, you will be better off in the long run. Your momentum should pick up with superior software and you'll have much happier customers.
RED RING. The failure of your warranty extension is hampered by slow service response, poor customer service, and the overwhelming number of broken consoles. Your customer service department either needs to be complete nuked or expanded extensively. Instead of removing all of your current agents, how about creating a division that only deals with red ring failures? If a consumer sees the red ring, they can call 1-800-RED-RING and speak with an agent about sending back their console. Eliminate the obnoxious computer agent and send customers straight to a team of representatives that only deal with the red ring. This will lighten the load of your other support agents so that they can deal with all of the other (less rampant) issues with the XBOX 360.
At this point it is apparent to everyone that things aren't getting better any time soon. This fact is even more troublesome because the greatness of your software is obvious. Gamers want to play BioShock, HALO 3, Dead Rising (still), and Gears of War. Nintendo apparently hates adult gamers and Sony is too busy trying to sell BluRay to the world. You, Microsoft, needs to step up to the plate now and make further changes. You need to make these changes soon and make them public. You already have an excellent grasp of community and some wonderful PR mouthpieces to utilize. Your faithful fans are losing their patience and it will only take one great game to change the tide.
Hopefully and yet jadedly yours,
Alex
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Playing This Weekend: Halo 3 Beta, Spider-Man 3, Rayman's Raving Rabbids
I finally received Spider-Man 3 and Rayman's Raving Rabbids in the mail today. They are two completely different games and only of them is worth playing.
Spider-Man 3 is the poster child for crap games based on good licenses. Basically, the game is GTA III, Crackdown, and Superman Returns rolled into one. It takes places in the midst of NYC and spends a lot of effort encouraging vertical gameplay. Nothing is new here and a lot of the gameplay is flat out broken. The camera is super buggy and the swinging mechanics don't seem to have been tested. Fighting is even worse because there is no lock-on system to speak of. When fighting, often, you'll get stuck behind a tree or building because of a crappy combat system. The graphics are low grade, the music is repetitive and boring, and the voiceover work is unenthusiastic. This game is worse than games like TMNT and Cars because of how little the company cares.
Rayman is a collection of fun mini-games akin to those in WarioWare and other titles. I especially love the timing game that is similar to Guitar Hero, Parappa the Rappa, and DDR. The game goes by pretty quick, but it seems like tons of fun for kids and groups of people.
Spider-Man 3 is the poster child for crap games based on good licenses. Basically, the game is GTA III, Crackdown, and Superman Returns rolled into one. It takes places in the midst of NYC and spends a lot of effort encouraging vertical gameplay. Nothing is new here and a lot of the gameplay is flat out broken. The camera is super buggy and the swinging mechanics don't seem to have been tested. Fighting is even worse because there is no lock-on system to speak of. When fighting, often, you'll get stuck behind a tree or building because of a crappy combat system. The graphics are low grade, the music is repetitive and boring, and the voiceover work is unenthusiastic. This game is worse than games like TMNT and Cars because of how little the company cares.
Rayman is a collection of fun mini-games akin to those in WarioWare and other titles. I especially love the timing game that is similar to Guitar Hero, Parappa the Rappa, and DDR. The game goes by pretty quick, but it seems like tons of fun for kids and groups of people.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Playing Today: Halo 3 Beta, Fuzion Frenzy 2, Gears of War
Let's see, not a lot played today but enough Halo 3 Beta to start changing my mind. Fuzion Frenzy 2 saw about 12 seconds of action from me. Meanwhile, thanks to some friends, Gears of War was back in rotation. It took a second to re-readjust to the controls. Sniper felt natural but that shotgun still threw me off.
After spending more time with Halo 3 Beta, I've found some things I enjoy. The Assault Rifle is much more comfortable to me than the Battle Rifle. I'm still enjoying the Spiker (aka the Klobb of Halo), especially when double fisting. And Territories was really cool on the mountain level. Now if only I could mater turning with the Mongoose.
Coming soon in the mail, Spider-Man 3 and Shrek the Third!
After spending more time with Halo 3 Beta, I've found some things I enjoy. The Assault Rifle is much more comfortable to me than the Battle Rifle. I'm still enjoying the Spiker (aka the Klobb of Halo), especially when double fisting. And Territories was really cool on the mountain level. Now if only I could mater turning with the Mongoose.
Coming soon in the mail, Spider-Man 3 and Shrek the Third!
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Playing Today: Halo 3 Beta, Fuzion Frenzy 2, 300
After a bit of a delay, I finally worked my way into the Halo 3 Beta. So far my impression is that this is Halo 2 with new menus, better capabilities (engine-wise), new maps and weapons, and a full-on video recorder. The video recorder is easily the most innovative part of the game and probably going to be the hardest feature to be copied. The most frustrating part of the game is overcoming months of Gears of War training. Because I was never great at Halo or Halo 2, I quickly adapted to Gears and now forgot all of the essential buttons in Halo. I'm still not sure how to change weapons. But that's just me.
I cracked open Fuzion Frenzy 2 and was surprised at how not-awful it was. Sure the voiceover is atrocious. But some of the minigames are a blast. I can't wait to get four people in the same room to play it. And best of all - it was free!
300 is still 300. However, my earlier comparison to Eragon is starting to fade away. This is (just a bit) better than Eragon. Hopefully, Spider-Man 3 will arrive soon.
I cracked open Fuzion Frenzy 2 and was surprised at how not-awful it was. Sure the voiceover is atrocious. But some of the minigames are a blast. I can't wait to get four people in the same room to play it. And best of all - it was free!
300 is still 300. However, my earlier comparison to Eragon is starting to fade away. This is (just a bit) better than Eragon. Hopefully, Spider-Man 3 will arrive soon.
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