44 days, to be exact, when I was still evaluating the PS3. Since then it basically went Demon’s Souls – Uncharted 2 – Dragon Age – Little Big Planet (PSP). I didn’t finish Demon’s Souls, but hope to someday. I totally loved it, and would consider it one of the better games of the year. Many have said that of Uncharted 2, and I can see why, as it has great writing, excellent pacing, and plenty of gameplay variety. However, it seems a little old-fashioned. Perhaps it’s me personally rather than the industry as a whole, but I feel like we’ve moved on from linear story-based games that are trying to be like movies. The game does not allow you to make any choices other than which order to shoot the bad guys. I realize this was the case with Halo as well, and many other A-list games. But my tastes have gradually shifted.

Oh yeah, Halo ODST. Almost forgot about that one, as it was a bit of a flash in the pan. It’s interesting to note that said linear storytellers Bungie actually shifted to a non-linear, architectural model for the sections of ODST. It was certainly well-made, but short, and not really worth a full game price. Had a few epic sessions of firefight though – one game lasted two hours. Damn.

Not that it’s much different from what Bioware has been doing for years, but Dragon Age is more where I see the future of games, where every aspect of the game (gameplay, story, etc.) changes based on the player’s choices. It’s a party-based action RPG with excellent writing, mission design, and an extremely detailed world to explore. Sure, it’s elves and wizards which is a little played out, but despite that the material is strong. I’m nowhere near finished it, but still plugging away.

I rarely buy full-price PSP games, but I made an exception for Little Big Planet for some reason. I’ve never played more than the demo of the big boy PS3 version, so I don’t know how the portable game compares, but I’ve really enjoyed my few hours with this one. It’s generally a pleasant, relaxing experience playing through the story missions – I’m not a huge platformer fan but this is good stuff. I’ve played very few player-made levels, and haven’t tried to create them yet myself, but I aim to, and that’s all that counts, innit?

All the while I can never resist buying and barely playing iPhone games. The iPhone is an amazing games platform, blah blah. Great, your game uses all your batteries and then your phone is dead. A phone call interrupts your game and when you go back, it didn’t save. Or the game takes five minutes to load. Or the touch controls suck, again. Or it’s a dumbed-down version of what would be decent on another platform. I’ve definitely played some great iPhone games, but most of them I never spend more than half an hour with.

Not sure why I keep buying them.

The latest is Rogue Planet, gameloft’s attempt to rip off Advance Wars. Gameloft is like the iPhone’s Asylum studios, churning out cheap knockoffs of well-known franchises. Some of them are good in a workmanlike, the-gameplay-is-engaging sort of way, but they all feel soulless, with no originality or inspiration to be found.

It’s december – there are a million games out, and no time to play them. I’m hoping to try out the new Zelda, Assassin’s Creed 2, Borderlands and even Modern Warfare 2, but I probably can’t do everything I want to between now and the release of Mass Effect 2 and whatever the latest Final Fantasy is. But whatever – when it comes to video games, too much of a good thing is still a good thing.

Everyone’s favourite games conference aka press release orgy is here! The most concise way to catch up on E3 press conference porn is to read three posts from Offworld:

• Sony
• Nintendo
• Microsoft

Sony and MS are both trying to catch up to the Wii’s motion-sensing Wiimote, and MS’ Project Natal seems most interesting, as it’s a controller-free system, relying entirely on cameras to sense your body position and even recognize faces. That said, until practical questions can be answered (how much? how many games will support it?), it’s best to consider it as a rhetorical salvo in the PR wars and not an actual, tangible thing. Sony and MS both trumpeted their lists of exclusive games, most vague and ages from shipping. Some of them no doubt will be good, but neither could get through their presentations without showcasing some cross-platform games as well.

Nintendo, meanwhile, renewed its license to print money. No, they tried to make nice with the hardcore by announcing a truckload of Mario games.

A few things caught my eye. On the Microsoft side, more details of Halo 3 ODST are welcome (sounds like The Killing with space marines), and I’m happy that Bungie is doing another game in Halo Reach, but I was kinda hoping they’d give the Halo thing a rest for a while and try something new. Alan Wake looked cool, and I really hope Natal works and doesn’t cost a mint, but judging from MS’ track record, that’s unlikely. How much for that 160 gig hard drive again….?!

Sony’s PSP Go! was of course no surprise. But it looks slick, and it sounds like Sony is doing all the right things (woo developers, improve media experience, ditch UMD) to keep the PSP alive. And boy are there a lot of games coming for it, including a new Metal Gear, Assassin’s Creed, and Little Big Planet. But I’m of two minds about Sony. They’re currently fighting two losing battles and I wonder if they shouldn’t just cut their losses on the PSP and concentrate on overtaking MS for 2nd place in the living room. They’ve got so many first party developers tied up with PSP projects, it’s hard to see the logic. I was also really hoping for a price cut on the PS3. Why, why, why, are they not doing that. It’s insanity. I say that selfishly, because I’m looking to get one of the damned things, but it also seems crazy that Sony is sitting in third place with a console almost twice as costly as the competition, and not slashing their price.

In Halo Wars, two worlds collide, and not just the Covenant and human space forces as they space-battle for space-supremacy. No, I’m talkin’ real-time strategy buttin’ heads against the juggernaut Halo franchise. So is it peanut butter and chocolate, or… peanut butter and bacon?

Note: I’m cross-posting this from the Space blog over here, where I’ve been contributing. It being my employer, and I being a blogger, it seems only natural. I’ll probably continue to cross-post here, at least for longer stuff.

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I’ve sampled two recent real-time strategy games on the 360, Tom Clancy’s EndWar (also available on the PS3) and the demo to Halo Wars.

RTS is a genre born on PCs that rarely works on consoles, despite many noble attempts. The key problem is control. There simply aren’t enough buttons on a console controller, and something designed with rapid mouse movements in mind doesn’t necessarily translate to analog sticks.

EndWar presents a possible solution to the control problem: voice control. Using a simple subject-verb-object palette of grammatical chunks – “unit one attack hostile two” – it’s possible to fight a battle without using the controller at all. I played through the bulk of the single-player campaign this way, and it works surprisingly well, with maybe 90% accuracy. Sometimes, you wind up using the controller because it’s quicker. But voice control is not only more graceful, it’s actually more true to what the game is simulating.

Unfortunately, EndWar has little else to offer. The missions are all the same and the difficulty curve leaves a lot to be desired. If there’s ever a sequel, it could theoretically kick ass, though.

The Halo Wars demo has only two levels, so it’s hard to judge the game at this point. But what you are presented with is a slick, carefully packaged narrative experience with simple, almost casualized gameplay. The control is traditional for console RTS – the left stick controls your cursor, and so press one face button to select units, another to give them a target. The levels required very little actual strategy. You could beat them without anything other than ‘select all units’, and so the feel was more like an action game with a little base-building than an actual strategy game.

Not to get all Sun Tzu here, but that’s a problem with console RTSes. Because the control is a lot harder and slower, the developers can never assume you’ve figured out how to command more than one group at a time, and so the combat never requires much in the way of strategy. A certain level of difficulty is required for strategy games to make sense. It’s not just the usual rock-paper-scissors system of unit strengths and weaknesses, it’s feinting, luring, splitting the defence, etc. Select all and attack isn’t really a strategy.

After watching an “Inside Xbox” video about Halo Wars (which seems to be a console exclusive, so I can’t share it with you) I can say that the potential for more advanced control is certainly there. The developers seemed to have thrown a bunch of possible control schemes at the wall in hopes that one or more actually sticks. Problem with that is the controls can get confusing. I think that Lord of the Rings RTS (Battle For Middle Earth? MiddleWar? Lord of the Wars? EndFrodo? can’t remember what it was called) had a much touted control scheme, and you could in theory assign groups and send them this way and that, but in the heat of fake battle I could never remember how to do it.

Time will tell. I’ll almost certainly buy Halo Wars, if only go get a fresh dose of Halo story action. Let’s hope the controls work out.

I’ve been struggling with Fable 2 – struggling with a dying Xbox and some frustrating bugs – but enjoying it greatly. I was originally going to compare it to Fallout 3, but it seems somewhat unfair. Suffice it to say that even as someone who vastly preferred Oblivion to Fable 1, I feel Fallout 3 – as the belle of the 4th quarter Western RPG ball, earning review 9s and positions on “Best of the Year” lists – is tremendously overrated, and poor Fable 2 is fabulously under-.

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The big three’s announcements were a little underwhelming. The least underwhelming was Microsoft’s; besides the stream of sequels that were all the rage for all three, they had a couple worthwhile things to announce – the Netflix deal, the Final Fantasy coup.

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Prolly the big ones are: a dashboard update to feature Mii-like avatars; a Netflix partnership – netflix members will be able to access the Netflix catalogue from their 360s; and Final Fantasy XIII will be on 360 as well as PS3.

The 360 will see an upgrade to 60GB of hard drive (it used to be 20). Also, there were release dates for Fable 2 (october), Gears of War 2 (november 7), and Resident Evil 5 (march 13 2009). A new Portal game, Portal: Still Alive, will come to Live Arcade sometime in ’08. The Rock Band track list is revealed (“Livin’ on a Prayer”, sweet!) In non-sequel news, a karaoke game called Lips is on its way, and a camera-enabled game called You’re in the Movies.

There’s still supposed to be a big Bungie announcement today.

We came, we played, we slayed. Halo 3’s Legendary Map Pack dropped yesterday, and the Robot Crew gave them a test run. Here’s what we each thought about the new maps, Avalanche, Ghost Town and Blackout.

It’s also the subject of this week’s Robot Sounds, so if you’d like to absorb more or less the material you can read here in convenient audio form, go check it out.

Blackout

D – I consider Lockout the best of the Halo 2 maps – it’s not my personal favourite, but it’s almost a perfect map from a more objective standpoint: it’s well balanced, small but not cramped, allows for different play styles and gametypes, and it’s got depth to it, mostly in the form of different jumps you can learn.

Beside the obvious visual overhaul, the main areas and paths of Lockout are largely unchanged in Blackout. But the details are different. Some spaces are slightly adjusted – the little lip underneath that was often used to hide with the oddball? That’s gone now. Also, there’s a modicum of cover down in the shotgun tunnel. A couple platforms underneath are closer together, making jumping easier. It’s a little harder to get cover on top of the BR tower. Most of the trick jumps have changed.

All told? If you loved Lockout, you’ll love this.

Nadine – Lockout was one of my fav maps of all time, up there with Headlong, Ascension, and Foundation. The ease of jumping, the dynamics of close combat with the added bonus of so many great long distance shooting points was brilliant. I loved Oddball, Slayer, and Crazy King on that map. Since this is almost an exact remake, save for a few adjustments to the lower levels for more distance shooting points, I was not disappointed. The odd thing for me was I thought they had actually overdone it visuals-wise. There was no need to add all the UNSC consoles and noisy, garish textures on the walls. I find them distracting and ugly, give me Forerunner tech any day, but even in High Ground the UNSC stuff isn’t that overwhelming.

Maybe it’s because it’s a weird kind of oil rig they had to mess with it so much, but I just find the noise unnecessary. I did love the backgrounds though, the added details of the sky and the coastal cliffs really gives you a better sense of “oh shit I could fall off on all sides into icy cold waters” whereas in Lockout I only felt that in certain areas. Now you really feel that isolation at every point on the map.

Toku – I never liked Lockout in the first place, but maybe that’s because I was never really good at it in the first place. I’ve been told that once I learn the jumps I’ll love it, but I don’t understand the point of a map that you can only play if you happen to know the little tricks that go along with it. To me, I find it too tight quartered and narrow for my own enjoyment. I don’t mind learning a map, but I think a design that requires you be able to play it blind just to be able to compete competently is…well…shitty.

The remake, Blackout, is the same map and I still have the same problems. My style of gaming gears toward more of a military style. This could be from a long history of playing such gems as Halflife, Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell, Gears of War, and so on. I like being able to strafe without falling off the map, I like to be able to crouch and dodge using the terrain, and I like to think my way laterally out of situations without the risk of being sworded by a camper hiding around a corner. The Blackout map leaves little room for any of this and for that reason it’s going sit slightly below Guardian and Midship on my list of Halo maps…

…I’ll still play it though.

I am indifferent on the new look, personally I don’t mind the gritty oil-rig look… but it still doesn’t make up for the fact that some asshole will always shotgun my face from some little perch he found from playing the map ten trillion times.

Ghost town

D – Ghost town is a medium-small asymmetrical map. We were divided on this one; I found it overly complicated. For a small area, there’s a lot going on. Not only are there up to three levels, multiple entry points to every room, and compromised sightlines, but there are bits of wreckage all over the place that I found myself tripping over when trying to make timely retreats.

That said, it looks great, and it does present some interesting possibilities. We had white-knuckle thrills and moderate success holding down certain areas, like the base and the ‘green room’ (where the sniper spawns). I’m just not sure I’ll ever prefer it to some of the other maps.

Nadine – I thought I was going to hate this one, but I really like it. Almost instantly I took to its broken, bombed out corners and gutted floors. It reminded me of an overgrown Turf that had the shit kicked outta its bawls. We played some games online against some pretty heavy hitters, way beyond my skill level, but the map gave us hope and kept us in the game with some dignity to boot. The level is made for offense/defense objectives for sures. There is one main base with several ways for enemies to get in on the right, center, and left but if you have your points covered and a man to back you up, things can work out.

Grenades are also great on this map. Long distance throwing is kinda moot, but tossing around corners and into all those openings I mentioned is super sweet. You can really do above and below attacks on this one, you can be surrounded by three guys from so many sides in such a short time the desperate guerilla feeling is painfully present. If that’s how all those Call of Duty 4 dudes feel when they are playing, well, damn. But I guess you need to feel high anxiety levels to get that exquisite chemical victory flush in your brain. This map is a goodie, I’m looking forward to lots of Assaults, Capturing Flags, and Zombies.

Toku – Huzzah, a map that appeals to my combat sensibilities, unlike Blackout, Ghost Town makes me feel at home and it could be a simple case of “I like the way it feels.” I tried to explain why I like this map poorly on the podcast, but I’ll give’r a better shot here.

The map feels like playing in a block of Swiss Cheese, and that’s a good thing…It’s chock full of holes. If you are playing Team Slayer you can get with a group of friends and defend any number of points on this map with some degree of success, but not so much so as to ruin the challenge. If you are playing on the attack it is very easy to invade any “base” on this map through any number of side passages.

I was afraid this would be a “shotgun” map, and that the Guru’s online would just camp with each other and wait for the one shot kills, yet this doesn’t seem to happen, and I think it is because it is very difficult to stay in one place for any length of time. Any hideaway you might find is most likely easily accessible from other points. I can’t see playing King of the Hill or Hammer matches here enjoyably, but Zombie and Carry the Skull would be a riot.

Avalanche

D – Avalanche is a ‘re-imagining’ of Sidewinder from Halo 1. The improvements come in the form of teleporters and man cannons, ensuring footsoldiers can move about almost as quickly as their vehicle-borne counterparts.

I love this one, but as a large map I’m not sure how much I’ll get to play it. You’d need a lot of people to get a good custom game going on it, and outside of Big Team Battle I can’t see it showing up in the matchmaking playlists much. The vehicle mayhem is fun, but we think the Hornet might have been nerfed just a little bit too much.

Nadine – I adore outdoor maps with wide spaces for dog fights and tank busting. Avalanche was a surprise because I really did not like the original Sidewinder that much, kinda too big and too barren. This horseshoe shaped map is a great size with excellent tunnels, lots of great default weapons, and an interesting base design. The bases are very small, pretty much just a ramp up to a man cannon and a teleporter to a turret and rockets. In Assault you gotta haul ass to grab the rockets and get back to base, station a man at the turret to block the midpoint overpass from enemy vehicles, while another person should most def man cannon out to the mountain tunnel entrance to either get the spartan laser, or guard that entrance.

See, that’s just basic strategy though, there’s a lot of variation depending on how many players you have. I’d love to play six on six flag on that map, it would be crazy town. I’m very pleased with the look of this map and I really enjoy it. It’s that outdoor feeling, I love the big open spaces, makes me feel like I’m playing campaign I think. Great map, most awesome indeed.

D – Just wanted to add: Yeah, that campaign vibe. You hit the nail on the head.

Toku – Oh, sadly this is not going to be a often played map and I can see why. It will be a hard one to jump online and play with a few friends because you really need the numbers, and joining with strangers really runs the risk of matching up with TARDS who think driving mongooses headlong into enemy territory yelling “Take this you bitches!” is a fun idea… and then of course DYING on the vast expanse that is Avalanche because a much better player pops him with a well placed sniper shot. The map is VERY open and vast, and yet allows for quick movement on foot using a variety of teleporters and man-cannons. There are also plenty of tricky little tunnels and ridges which means a guy on foot won’t immediately die to another guy in a wraith or hornet. We proved this week through some random playing that vehicles DON’T mean you have the upper hand, and that is a nice change (Valhalla Anyone?).

That said… I DON’T like the fact that you practically have to ONLY play Team Objectives if you want to get any use out of this map. Social Slayer would bite steaming piles of ass, and don’t even get me started on Zombie or Crazy King.

Oh yeah…and to the guys who want to play Rocket Race in this map. If there weren’t so many jerks out there who just play beat-downs and don’t race it would be fantastic on this map. To all those who DO do that, screw you and the horse you rode in on, you ruin Rocket Race for the rest of us.

Word is in on the remaining map from the Halo 3 Legendary Map Pack: it’s Blackout, a remake of Lockout. I didn’t think that would happen as Guardian is so similar, but there we go. Bungie producer Allen Murray says “Lockout was leaps and bounds ahead of every other map in terms of games played and the public demand.” It’s a classic, that’s for sure.

Hey, Team Halo! Your new, expensive maps are here. Or rather they’re coming April 15th. The New Legendary Map Pack includes the huge “Avalanche”, an update of Halo 1’s Sidewinder (with Hornets and tanks and Men Cannon).

There’s also Ghost Town, a new, asymmetrical, smaller map.

There will be a third, as-yet unrevealed map that the press release describes as a “returning classic… fans of smaller Slayer maps, it’s time to get excited.” I don’t think it will be lockout, so.. Foundation? The Map Pack costs the same as the Heroic pack did, 800 Microsoft Points. There will also apparently be some new Forge options.

Okay…I’m not done playing this bitch yet but I’m determined to push my way through. There are many ‘chievies which come easily and I want them, even if the rest of the game leaves me wanting.

And leaves me wanting it does! But not in the way you might think…

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I’m now about 7 hours into Lost Odyssey and my feelings are mixed. On the one hand this is a quality traditional Japanese role playing game with many powerful, emotional moments. On the other hand, it’s got a massive learning curve issue that goes by the name “Bogimoray”. But I’ll help you beat that bastard in another article (over here).

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Bogimoray. Bogmeister. Bog-sucking bog-fucker from the planet bogg. Man did this dumb worm piss me off. (This is the boss in Lost Odyssey that’s waay too hard waaay too early.) So I wrote this up to spare some poor souls the grief. If you’re not a google searcher for ‘bogimoray’, you probably don’t want to read this, but if you are, read on for the Angry Robot patented anti-bogimoray success™ recipe!

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Winter is made for gaming. With the blizzards we’ve been having in my city, gaming has practically been hibernation for me, allowing me to fully enjoy the season’s hottest games while snow slowly tries to bury me alive. One of my favorites has been the recently released Devil May Cry 4.

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Last week, Nadine and I attended the launch party for N+, the Xbox Live version of N, Metanet Software’s kickass ninja platforming flash game (which you can get right here) N+ is coming to the ‘Arcade on wednesday. It’s also in development for the DS and PSP.

The party was at the Gladstone Hotel. There was a little play area for trying out the game. Why not experience it in video form, it’s like you’re really there!

And then read on for the interview with the creators of N and N+, the charming Reigan Burns and Mare Sheppard. Symbolically anyways, it’s robots interviewing ninjas.

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To double-dip in the ‘NPD group sales reports’ dip bowl: January sales reports are in, and the PS3 has outsold the 360, PSP and the DS for the month. And with 269,000 units to the Wii’s 274,000, damned near beat out the Wii, too, which would have taken a dump in everyone’s “casual games are the future” theories.

OK let me never again mention dump-taking and dip bowls in the same paragraph.

Why did this happen? Well, there’s that thing called Blu-Ray. Also, supplies of both other consoles may have been constrained. And I do think the 360’s hardware problems are catching up with it – more than once, people asking me for console-buying advice have voiced concern that the 360 would fall apart on them.

Now I know why we get beat on Live so often when we play Halo 3 – there are actual soldiers playing that shit. It’s an interesting article, not really because it talks about soldiers playing games, which we know they do, but because it places it in the therapy context. It’s really only one quote: “video games are a way of calibrating and managing the overwhelming pulses of stress that comes with combat zone living.” Normally that sort of statement gets lost in the noise of the videogames-and-violence debate, but that obviously doesn’t apply to soldiers – or maybe if they didn’t play so many violent games, we wouldn’t have war in Iraq? Yeah.

So are games good for regular people? Do we calibrate and manage our stress by playing them? I think so. Shooters like Halo 3 or Call of Duty 4 are indeed stressful situations, requiring situational awareness, lightning-quick perception, and tranquility in the face of multiple stressors, not just motor skills. They’re almost training for multitasking. And then there’s the quick communication and group coordination required to advance in their multiplayer modes.

Okay so like what a year ago this trailer was released and I went crazy insane over the song. The trailer had me, I didn’t need to know anything other than I wanted to play it so badly. The music was epic and struck right to my core.

The recent ads have given me pause, however.

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First off, speaking of Sid Meier, Sid Meier’s Pirates will be released as a download in the Xbox Originals category next week, along with Black and Ninja Gaiden Black. I’ve been meaning to play that bastard for some time, but have been unable to track down a copy, so I’ll give it a whirl upon release.

In other sort-of Xbox news, Xbox Media Center has been ported to Intel Macs. I say sort of because you don’t actually need an Xbox to run the software. It’s free, open source media center software developed for the original Xbox, but has been ported to Linux and now Mac OS X. Why would you run that and not Front Row or the AppleTV? This interview with lead programmer Elan Feingold gives some reasons:

• Resolutions up to, including and even surpassing 1080P (AppleTV is currently at 720P)
• DTS/AC3 passthrough (which is great for playing DVD/BluRay/HD-DVD sourced audio). This means if you have a surround receiver you can have it decode multichannel audio
• Almost unlimited video and audio format support since we can play anything ffmpeg supports
• A great virtual file system layer with support for protocols like UPnP
• There is a great looking weather item that puts very useful info in front of your eyes.
• Since it is an open platform, the sky really is the limit, things like Youtube browsers, RSS readers, visualizers, MAME/Other emulators are all being integrated seemlessly. Heck, one could even imagine running an Xbox emulator on my quad-core machine…now that would bring us full circle!

So there ya go.

I love my x-box. It makes me almost as happy as my MacBook Pro and Sex makes me (separately, of course. The USB ports are not nearly big enough.) However, the other day my rage nearly got the best of me.

Naruto induced my rage.

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