A very neat little music video featuring a blend of pixel art and real world shots.  You aren’t cool unless you have corners.

Monday Night Combat looks like it will support modes for 4 on 4, split screen, and a 2 on 2 mode.  Demo to be available (as with all XBLA titles) when it is released.

Check out this trailer:

And this gameplay trailer:

High Moon Studios made a fun multiplayer title with their Darkwatch game, and proved they can think outside the box with Bourne.  Now they’ve got a transformers title in the works, and it looks outstanding.

I’m sufficiently hyped.

As much fun as I had comp stomping AI with a friend in Red Alert and Starcraft, getting together in someone’s basement to play Gauntlet or Diablo, or teaming up with someone in Team Fortress for Quake, I do not believe the recent popularity in Co-op gaming is solely due to the fun a co-operative experience can bring. I believe that its recent popularity is, at least partially, due to the fact it provides a positive multiplayer experience that can be enjoyed with friends while avoiding the general online population found in most popular competitive games.

When I was 12 tender years old playing some of these games online, no one hated me. My age had no preconceived notions of direct correlation to my skill or attitude towards teamwork.  While it was easier to hide my age due to text chat, it was also a lot easier to be permanently banned from one of the few low ping servers in my area if I acted up. There was etiquette: when joining a Mechwarrior 2 match everyone would greet each other with the phrase “Hail” and saying “Please” would often get a player to *give* you an item in Diablo. I have partaken in communal punishment of a griefer during a public CounterStrike match; without much communication we all decided to simply take turns killing him at the beginning of the round, mutually dividing the negative score for the greater good.

Nowadays, if I had the checkbox “only play with people over 21″ available to me on Xbox Live, I would use it.  I do not think I’m alone. Stardock’s Impulse service is offering a new matchmaking service called “Ready to Play” that matches players not just on ping, but also on a profile including age and favorite genres.

I would feel sorry for the few completely noble and decent young players out there, many of which are probably the ones reading these gaming blogs.  However, that feeling of guilt would not stop me from abandoning them to their peers in order to pursue an enjoyable matchmaking experience.  If they could make a wish to be big to a mechanical fortune teller and join me, they would (if they even know what I’m talking about).

The fact that this is a topic on national late night television is a good indicator at how wide spread the belief is. Whether it is true or not, people complain they do not like to play games online because of tea-bagging tweens who know more racial slurs than your grandpa. Private Party Chat has helped alleviate some frustrations found in public matchmaking, as noted by the bit of outrage that surrounded its removal from Modern Warfare 2.

In a co-operative game, I can avoid these players entirely.  I can have an engaging, challenging experience playing with 1-4 friends.  If we all have busy schedules and can rarely all be online at the same time, we can have a fun time with just two of us.  Many Co-op games include the ability to play through a story or even experience the entire single player campaign with a friend.  They allow players of varying skill level to participate, since most involve a mechanic that lets players save other players that would otherwise need to reload from a save.  Gears2 and Modern Warfare 2 include different difficulty selections for each player.

Even competitive games such as MAG and Battlefield Bad Company are incorporating these mechanics into their games. This lets a small band of players work together against human opponents while still incorporating many of the positives Co-op gaming can bring.

As a gamer, I hope for the future when we can all play together in playing against each other. As a Co-op gamer, I will enjoy the latest rise of Co-op releases with my friends.

“I was noscoped on the beaches, I was camped on the landing grounds, I was sniped in the fields and in the streets, I was pwned in the hills; but I will never rage quit. I will persevere. I will respawn.”

Churchill said that (or something to that effect) over seventy years ago. He knew that last Wednesday night in the year twenty and ten, that every action I’d take and every step I’d make would only lead to my demise.

Despite constant personal defeat, my team was often victorious.  I attribute this to the excellent “Squad System” in place in BF1943.  This system allows you to party up with 3 of your friends and join a game.  The advantage it gives is the ability to spawn not only to the half dozen flagged spawn points, but directly to any of your squadmates. I routinely spawned directly into the gunners turret of a moving tank from which I could shoot in the general direction of enemies before they would certainly kill me.

But my death would serve a purpose.  Each time I would hear one of my fellow squad members mention over Party Chat: “I got him for you.”

Battlefield 1943 is available on PSN or XBLA.  It is a full-fledged shooter at its core, but it is also stripped down to a more casual level.  While learning maps and classes is important, there are only 3 classes and a half dozen similar maps.  BF1943 appeals to the nostalgia factor of us that played the original Battlefield 1942 while offering a casual but intense FPS experience for new players.  Support for 64 players and bots has been removed, but it does offer the destructible terrain and graphics found in the latest console release of Battlefield: Bad Company.  The game mode is domination, where two teams try to capture flagged territories that also serve as the respawn locations.  This World War II shooter takes place on a variety of tropical islands, offering large open maps with an emphasis on long distance combat and many vehicles (planes, tanks, jeeps).

My few complaints with the game are mostly based around the interface.  Upon winning a map, you automatically matchmake into the next map with your squad, but for some reason the squad organization is disbanded and you are assigned to a random squad.  In order to make manual adjustments, you must press Start and Leave your current squad.  Then your other Party members must do the same. Then you can Invite them into a new squad.

In the meantime, all of the tanks and planes will be taken by the other players on your team.

The other complaint would be the odd choice of a default control scheme.  Needing a dedicated button to Enter and Exit vehicles is obvious and mandatory given the importance and availability of them.  But making that the B button, and moving the Melee attack to the Y button seems to be switching them for no reason.  Pressing Y will pull out a melee weapon and attack with it once.  Pressing RT will continue with more melee attacks and you must press RB to switch weapons back to your normal primary gun.  The reason for these concessions was to provide the ability to hop around different seats in the vehicles when you are driving by yourself (originally accomplished on the PC with the number keys).  It still feels a bit awkward, even after a couple hours of play.

As a game, it has a very high fun factor. Playing Wake Island is as fun as it always has been.  The heavy emphasis on vehicles means that while there are only 3 classes, most encounters feel fresh and unique given the location and presence of certain vehicles.  The graphics are bright and colorful.  The lush tropical presentation and open maps is a breath of fresh air in a genre primarily dominated by brown and gray hallways.

As the night went on, it became more apparent that my lack of experience was not the only thing effecting our matches.  I seemed to be suffering from pretty severe lag.  I would watch rockets miss and explode twenty feet to the side in the middle of the air; then my vehicle would also explode.

I also witnessed players of extraordinary skill.  Once I shot down a plane at point blank range with an AA gun.  As it exploded I caught a glimpse of the pilot escaping via parachute, gliding for only a second and landing directly on top of a tank.  He then used the tank to kill me.

By the end of the night, I knew I should go hunt down a copy of Bad Company.  With the sequel coming out soon, I knew I should begin to keep an eye on this as a console series.  It is unfortunate I overlooked it originally; assuming it was inferior to the PC shooters it was born from. The Squad mechanics help bring a sense of teamwork and cooperation that is missing in many other console FPS games, and a casual presentation helps with what could have been a much steeper learning curve.

Even if I spent much of my time admiring the respawn location map.

Halo 3 ODST is the latest Halo game from Bungie.  Originally planned as DLC (that’s downloadable content for you greens), there’s enough spit and polish gone into this fine example of a game to push it into prime time status.  A full retail release.

It don’t hurt that it also includes a Halo 3 multiplayer disc. The full Halo 3 multiplayer suite as if you were playing the original and it’s fully backwards compatible. Anyone out there tho didn’t jump in on the original Halo 3′s “map packs” can get them n’ more here.  That makes this disc shiny and your Halo 3 disc all manner of useless.

For the fans who did pony up the dough, you’re fan enough to appreciate the main adventure. For fans who don’t care about playing Halo multiplayer, this title ain’t for you. It may be the best Halo single-player campaign, but make no mistake: this is still Halo.

Yes, that’s right, I said the best. This isn’t with hind-sight either.  Halo 3′s campaign was disappointin’. No argument there.  Halo 2′s was alright, with a strong beginning a weak middle, and an infuriatin’ ending.

Wait. That gives it much too much credit. It had no ending.

So that leaves our shiny ODST vs the original behemoth that is Halo. Even at the time, having arrows drawn on the ground to point you where to go and massive amounts of backtracking did not make a fun experience.  What was fun was playing with a friend, either friendly cooperative-like, or a bit competitive bar brawling fun.

ODST is fun by your lonesome.  You can play this title solitary.  It still supports splitscreen co-op for 2, or 4 over live, but it ain’t dependent on it.  That *alone* speaks volumes.  Having characters you care about, having a story that’s fun to watch, and having both fun action piece levels (as flashbacks) and a whole new nighttime mechanic make for the best Halo experience yet.  Speaking of the characters, watch the above clip. Your squad is composed of Mal, Jayne, and Wash from Firefly, and Six from Battlestar Galactica.

And one other random guy.

The voice acting is well done and it’s fun to take the Serenity crew out for another fight.

As fun as a campaign can be, you can only play it so many times before it gets a mite tiresome.  ODST introduces a new mode specifically designed for friends to play together in a mode that is not entirely like the single player campaign done coop, but not entirely like other coop modes you may have seen before (ala Gears of War 2′s Horde mode).  Firefight has 4 players fighting together against waves of enemies on new maps specifically designed for this mode.  Every round introduces randomly activated skulls that’ll drastically change the way things’ll play out.  While the wave will consist of the standard Halo enemies you’ve grown to love to hate, the skulls will be your true nemesis.  A combination of skulls may make enemy shields resistant to bullet damage, requiring you to acquire an enemy energy weapon to disable them.  Combined with a skull that requires you to melee attack enemies to regain any health and you’ll find yourself in a very defensive, difficult fight.  Another round may activate skulls that cause the enemies to throw grenades as if they were fireworks on Unification Day; this leads to more enemies with a bit more vulnerability and soft-squishy parts, but it also means that wave must be taken out quickly and cleanly before you find yourself knee deep in ticking potatoes.

Unfortunately, as much fun as an endlessly generated co-op experience sounds, it isn’t without some cracks in the veneer.  Firstly, it can be a bit on the rough side.  In ODST, you aren’t Master Chief.  A single Brute is a dangerous foe and the only quick way to kill them is with a full clip of bullets to the head or a grenade up the 驴.  The waves do not scale with the number of players present, so while the first few are manageable, the game expects you to have all 4 players playing.  Which leads to my main complaint: there is no matchmaking available for Firefight.  Halo 3 has some of the strongest matchmaking services available, and unfortunately due to the architecture of how Firefight was built, Firefight mode can’t use any of them.  If you don’t have 3 friends who want to play over Xbox Live, then you are a floater in the great beyond.

Well, technically, you can bring in one other person splitscreen with you, but two ain’t enough to tackle this.

So, there you have it.  The ODST disc includes a great campaign and a strong cooperative mode, if you have three crew members you can count on and bring in with you.  The Multiplayer disc includes the best multiplayer FPS of 2 years ago, but is still one of the strongest and includes all previously released DLC + a couple more exclusive maps, allowing you to play on any playlist.

If you didn’t like Halo, then this ain’t for you.  But if you grew weary of it, this may be a title to look at. It’s fresh and different enough to provide the spice of life.

LINK

It retails for $20 normally (and on steam).  I paid $20 at launch and, while I haven’t beaten it, think it’s a blast to play around with.

If you have a tablet (PC or pad), then this is a must.  Works well with a mouse, too.

To avoid him losing money on this sale, you should probably pay at least $2. I’d recommend $5. I can’t imagine feeling ripped off at $5, even if you find you don’t like the game.  And hell, there’s a demo. Give it a try!

Only thing I’d say: back up your saved games to a shared folder.  I keep loading this game on people’s computers to show it off, and each time I have to start at level 1.

At least watch the video on the main page. Or this one:

I’ve heard of bird’s imitating what they hear repeatedly.  I’ve also heard this song on loop in game perhaps hundreds of times.  I never put the two together and thought of a bird learning the song and then singing it.

Don’t watch the whole video to get the idea; but click to the end to hear a quick alternate tune.

My name is Alex Mercer and I have a gravely voice. To understand the following blog entry, you should watch the above narration to appreciate my tone and delivery.

I’m an amnesiac hero angry at the world, and I’m on a quest for revenge to find out what was done to me.  These powers, great and awesome as they are, are a mystery that makes me angry.  And in my anger, I will hunt and kill anyone who knows, because I am not a detective; I am a monster. A very angry monster in an open world GTA-like game with super powers. I am not Nancy Drew.

New York is devastated by a biological attack. Or was devastated, since my adventure takes place entirely as a flashback sequence.  The virus turns citizens into infected, mindless zombies.

I’m different. I absorb cells and body mass, this game’s XP currency.  With this new body mass, I can change my shape to appear as them or create various melee weapons such as claws, swords, whips, or a shield and armor. I make myself stronger with their acquired knowledge; kill a helicopter pilot and I become better at piloting a helicopter, or absorb a rifleman and I become a better shot. But most importantly, I regain health. And it looks vicious when I perform the different combos with different weapons. The combat is quick and visceral. Damage input and output is high. With the exception of a few bosses, you posses the power to quickly dispatch enemies and they can to end you as well.  Think of Ninja Gaiden or God of War.

But that’s not all. Unlike most heroes in video games, my powers are limitless. I do not have artificial constraints such as a “sprint bar” or “stamina”. I am not required to eat people every 10 minutes to prevent death. Gunfire barely hurts me. If I want to sprint up the side of a building indefinitely or dash through the air, I can at will.  The only thing that can stop me are the really big hits that stun me. I hate things that stun me. They make me angry.

You see, when I get stunned, the thing that hit me doesn’t hurt me that much. Be it a rocket, a giant monster claw, a tank, or a helicopter’s missile, I can recover.  But I never get hit by just one missile. I may be just one angry anti-hero but I fight an entire army of mutants and military at once.  I’m fast and agile and I can avoid most of their fire, but if one rocket hits me I pop up into the air.  Then every other militia man fires every piece of ordnance they have at me, and in the cloud of their rockets I float in the sky. As I hit the ground a half dozen angry mutants will continue to pummel me until I die or luckily air dash to safety.  That makes me even angrier.

In fact, sometimes I feel so angry, I feel like the Hulk.  Maybe it’s because the Hulk: Ultimate Destruction devs made this game. Maybe it is because my power set is very similar to the Marvel Villain ”Carnage.”  Maybe it is because people run and scream in fear when I crash into the side walk after plummeting from the top of a sky scrapper.  I can do anything in this free roaming world. Pick up story missions, side missions, or collect people as part of the Web of Intruige.

That’s right. Instead of collecting coins or scrolls or flags, I collect people. Random people marked on the street with a Red symbol above their head. If I catch them and devour them, then I gain a 30 second cinematic revealing a small part of the conspiracy theory that makes up the plot of this game.  Optional it may be, but you have little hope of unraveling the secrets of Hope, Idaho and the plot unless you collect every single one of these people.  Tedious.

And there are stupid Location orbs to collect as well. I hate orbs.

If you like games like Assassin’s Creed, Infamous, or Spiderman, and also like combat from games like Ninja Gaiden, Devil may Cry, or God of War, then you will probably enjoy Prototype.  As Alex Mercer, I have more freedom and destructive power than any other game hero. But I also have some silly collecting mechanics and can be easily killed.

Prototype is a good game, but there are some frustrations that may make you angry.