Much like most gamers who own the system, my relationship with the Xbox 360 is best described as a love-hate affair; a bittersweet mixture of absolute gaming pleasure and heart-wrenching misery. The system plays host to such amazing titles as Bioshock and Mass Effect, and continues to outperform the PS3 on multi-platform titles like Assassin’s Creed and GRID. We all love our Xbox 360s. They’re just swell.
Alas, our undying affection is not reciprocal. The Xbox 360 hates you. It hates you more than that girl you obsessed over in your freshman year of high school. It spits the Red Ring of Death in your face on the release day of your most anticipated game and has the hard drive capacity of a laptop circa 2002. Least troubling, but not far from our minds: it cannot play its predecessor’s games for shit.
I’ve recently become addicted to Goozex. As much as I love the current staff of the Bend Game Crazy and GameStop stores, they simply can’t compare to the trading experience I constantly enjoy through Goozex. This addiction was fueled by my desire to ditch a considerable amount of older games that simply don’t appeal to me anymore, and the wish to replace older games that either ran terribly on the 360 or looked better running on the PC. It began with the Xbox-era Splinter Cell trilogy. These games essentially run in true widescreen, high definition resolutions on the PC at higher frame rates and with better controls. Once I played these games on the PC, I couldn’t go back to the way they looked on Xbox. 480i/p just doesn’t compare.
When the multi-platform games of yore were released, the Xbox was the far superior to the PS2 in graphics and audio. Each game was visually sharp and vivid, while the audio blasted us away in amazing Dolby Digital 5.1. Yet my relatively recent acquisition of an HDTV has all but destroyed the notion of the Xbox as the superior last generation console. And it’s all Xbox 360’s fault.
Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance isn’t compatible with Xbox 360. While it is understandable that this title would take a back seat to development for Xbox 360, it is one of the most infuriating instances of last-gen neglect. Substance was praised for the mountain of additional content included in the Xbox exclusive version, at least for a few months, and many a gamer purchased this version over the PS2 Sons of Liberty.
While there are many titles in the Xbox library that, like MGS2, have gone neglected, there are some 360-compatible titles that should have been left alone. These games, when played on Xbox 360, serve only to insult the gamer with a mediocre-at-best technical experience. Reach high speed in Project Gotham Racing 2 — a Microsoft-published title, no less — incites hellish audio glitching and frame rate drops. Silent Hill 4 is missing textures at every turn. Fable runs at a miserably low frame rate.
I understand why the Xbox 360 doesn’t run older titles as well as the PS3 does. The lack of hardware emulation significantly hampers the console’s technical compatibility. But why, for the games that work well, am I forbidden from stretching 4:3 ratio images to 16:9 widescreen? Why can’t I smooth the images out so they look a bit less pixelated and old-school? Why do the black levels seem so out of whack compared to an upscaled PS2 title?
Thankfully, Goozex and the PS3 have me covered, but not without a sharp, flavorful note of irony.
When Sony announced Qore, a video magazine product delivered via PlayStation Network, I was intrigued yet cautious. All of the content included in each issue — interviews, concept art, gameplay footage and betas — are readily available on sites like Gamespot, IGN, etc. Betas can be obtained through PlayStation Underground, which I have been a member of since god knows when. At the same time, however, I’m a digital distribution whore and a big fan of collector’s edition bonus DVDs like those included in Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and Halo 2. I took the plunge and bought the first issue.
Each issue is priced at $2.99, or you can opt for an annual subscription for $24.99, in which case you’ll also receive a free copy of Calling All Cars. Included in the first issue are interviews for SOCOM: Confrontation, Soul Calibur IV, Afro Samurai, Secret Agent Clank, and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. SOCOM and Star Wars also contain less entertaining tidbits like concept art and a preview of an upcoming comic series. Rounding out the issue is guaranteed access to the SOCOM: Confrontation public beta and a theme for said game.
Qore is definitely a good idea. I was a subscriber of GameSpot for a while, during which I enjoyed high quality ad-free video (prior to Gerstmann and Davis leaving) and speedy patch downloads. Qore, on the other hand, is absolutely devoid of any worthwhile content. The entire time I was watching videos, I felt like I could have been watching videos on any number of review sites without being charged a dime. And speaking of Jeff Gerstmann, a guy who I’m sure we’re all very fond of for his excellent charisma, Qore features a hostess that is completely devoid of a believable personality. Instead, she brings to mind the nerve-grating hosts of GameStop TV. Yes, the ones you wish you could punch every time you stop by to pre-order your next fix.
In addition to the lack of content and the $2.99 per issue charge, Qore is ad supported. The shortest ads are at about 5 seconds long, while the longer ones are sometimes equal to a full trailer in length. Luckily, the longer ads can be skipped after a few seconds, but if I’m paying for it — like GameSpot — I shouldn’t be watching video advertisements. In magazines, I can flip past an ad in under a second, so if they’re going to continue support Qore via ads, I should be able to skip them immediately.
Qore is laden with issues that could be labeled simply as bugs or, more likely, design oversight. The PS3 remote cannot be used to control any aspect of Qore whatsoever; you must use a PS3 controller. Qore looks like a DVD menu, so this is perplexing. Additionally, videos can only be paused, restarted or stopped. YouTube has more advanced player functionality than this.
Is Qore worth paying for? Unless you’re dying to be a part of the SOCOM: Confrontation beta, absolutely not; at least, not the first issue. We’ll have to wait and see what the future holds for the product before passing further judgment. Until then, go hit up your favorite game video site and watch their videos knowing you’re not missing out on anything worthwhile.
If you’re a BendBroadband customer or if you read the Business section of the Bend Bulletin in the past few weeks, you’re no doubt aware of the changes to the broadband internet services for both residential and business customers coming July 1st. Residential customers are limited to 100GB of total usage, both up- and downstream, while business customers are limited to 150GB. The upside is that download speeds are doubling for faster access to content.
But you’ve heard all this before, so why am I talking about this on a game site?
It’s no secret that I am an advocate of digital distribution. It saves space on my shelves and provides me fast access to a large selection of games and music, including titles that are no longer available locally. I save money by not driving to Best Buy or Gamestop, and I don’t have to pray that a popular new title is in stock if I didn’t pre-order. Those are just some of the benefits the consumer enjoys by purchasing media from a digital distribution service.
The developers and artists receive many benefits from digital distribution as well. They make more money from each sale because they don’t have to pay packaging, shipping, or even publishing costs. At most, the digital distribution service takes a small commission from each sale in order to keep the service active — much smaller than the costs of producing and selling physical media. Since the media is digital, there is no chance of selling out, resulting in more sales.
Let’s say you’re an indie game developer with the next big indie sleeper hit. It’s a 2GB download priced at $10, delivered from your BendBroadband business connection. It’s got all the bells and whistles: DirectX 10, voiceovers, great music and gameplay. You’re not sure how well your game will sell, if at all, but word of mouth spreads and you do pretty well for yourself at 500 copies sold in the first month. You’ve just made a cool $5,000 — and your internet bill contains $1,275 of overages, over a fifth of your profit. If you’re working full time on your project, these overages would hurt much more than if you were working on it after your everyday nine-to-five.
Coming back to the consumer point of view, and a decidedly geeky one at that, we’re seeing new content delivery systems like Apple TV and streaming Netflix video begin to surge in popularity. We like our content served up hot, fresh and made-to-order. I’m one of those people that dreams about paying for products in “credits” as I swipe the chip embedded in my palm over an automated scanning device. I dream about how cool it will be when I can buy all my favorite products without having myself or anyone else pour hundreds of dollars into their gas tanks for transportation to the stores.
The digital lifestyle is the future everyday lifestyle for every person on this planet. To simply stand aside and allow a company that feels threatened by the next revolution in content delivery smash to pieces what so many have worked very hard to achieve is unacceptable. Help fight for digital distribution and the future of the internet. Call BendBroadband at 541-382-5551 and tell them what you think of their absurd usage caps. If you’re able, cancel all of your cable services and call for DSL or rural wifi installation. Join us at the protest at noon on June 7 at the entrance to BendBroadband on Empire Ave, and show them that we won’t put up with their desire to choke the last breath from the emerging digital lifestyle.
I’ve just finished playing through Half-Life 2: Episode Two for the second time — first on the 360 back in October 2007, then on the PC. As soon as the credits started rolling, I knew it was time to dethrone the Marathon trilogy and elevate Half-Life 2 and both of its episodes to the coveted status of Favorite Game of All Time. I haven’t been so absolutely enthralled by a game since I spent countless, sleepless nights building maps for Marathon Infinity with Forge.
If you’re a fan of Half-Life and haven’t played Episode Two yet, you need to launch Steam this instant and purchase the game, preferably as part of The Orange Box. Go ahead, I’ll wait. You can read the rest while it’s downloading.
Episode Two picks up right after Episode One; Dr. Gordon Freeman and Alyx Vance have gone careening off a cliff in a passenger train that left City 17 after the Combine Citadel’s portal has exploded. What once was a towering obelisk of doom, inspiring a very cold feeling of oppression and despair, is now an unstable super-portal, causing the occasional portal storm to ripple across the terrain like a violent, electric shockwave. Gordon and Alyx have survived the crash, but have a long way to travel in order to deliver an important transmission from Dr. Judith Mossman that could very well turn the tide of the war against the Combine. However, though the Combine has suffered a severe blow to their operations, they are far from wiped out, and at times it would appear that this has done nothing but strengthen their resolve to wipe humanity from the universe.
Half-Life 2 introduced us to the ever-popular physics based gameplay with the gravity gun and threw in a couple of vehicles for good measure. Episode One focused primarily on the gravity gun, but also developed a stronger connection between Gordon and Alyx. Episode Two continues and expands upon the relationships you’ve built with other characters in the previous titles. Your emotional ties to Alyx are stronger than ever in this episode. You’ll feel chills when you inevitably meet up with the G-man once again. Valve has shown us time and time again that they are incredibly skilled at not only creating games that are fun to play, but breathing life into the most human characters I have ever seen.
These characters are the absolute core of the Half-Life series. This is a story about their struggle, their resolve to endure and fight back against a horrific, seemingly unstoppable force. Every second is better than the last, up until the amazing ending that I simply cannot put out of my head. Those who deny that games are art have clearly not played Half-Life 2.
The Source engine has been updated to include some subtle, welcome new features, such as more realistic HDR lighting, flashlight shadows and a subtle motion blur. It doesn’t sound like much to write home about, but these seemingly simple additions to an already fantastic game engine do wonders to enhance the realism of the game world. The flashlight shadowing does tend to tax your PC hardware a bit, so if you’re running older hardware like myself (6800 GT and AMD Athlon 64 3500+), you’re going to want to knock the shadow setting down to Medium.
Along with Portal and Team Fortress 2, Episode Two introduces achievements to the Steam Community. While they currently have no point value like Microsoft’s Live achievements, they’re just as addictive. You’ll want to play through the game again to get the Little Rocket Man achievement by carrying a garden gnome from the beginning of the game all the way to the end. Valve has also confirmed that at some point, in Valve Time, Half-Life 2 and Episode One will be updated via Steam to include the achievements that are in the Xbox 360 version, along with the 2007 Source engine upgrades. Good news — I had a blast obtaining The One Free Bullet achievement.
Half-Life 2: Episode Two is a game that will stick with you. There is a very good chance that you will play it again as soon as you finish it. It will make the wait for Episode Three even harder. It is, by all means, one of the greatest games I have ever played. Go buy The Orange Box on your preferred platform — or ala carte via Steam — and experience it for yourself.
When I purchase a new multiplayer game, I take into account things like framerate, downloadable content, controller configuration and which system my friends will be purchasing the game for. All of these are important factors that make up an enjoyable multiplayer game, and they’re usually enough to make an informed decision.
The framerate and controller configuration will determine if the game is playable at the most basic of levels. The downloadable content and achievement systems add extra value to the game and extend the life of the title. But during most of my online time, there’s only one or two of my close friends online and they’re usually playing something else. That’s OK, that’s what online gaming is for — being able to find people to play with at any time of the day or night.
However, I’ve noticed that the greater community as a whole has a profound impact on the game experience. Communities are extremely difficult to predict. Most online games don’t suffer from the types of people they attract, but there are a few titles that are significantly impaired by their players.
Halo series (Xbox 360): Let’s get the obvious one out of the way. Many people I play Halo 3 with — I’m guessing more than half — are dicks, or worse yet, 12 year old dicks. They throw out sexist and homophobic slurs left and right, and I’m not just talking about The Other F-Bomb. Sexism directed at women. You’re constantly informed that because you won the last match, obviously you like men and are a cheater. If you lost the last match, you still prefer the company of your fellow man, and you just plain suck.
Team Fortress 2 (Xbox 360): Team Fortress 2 is a wonderful game, and you should play it no matter what system you choose to buy it for. That being said, about 40% of the games I’ve played lately on my 360 have been filled by people who seem to be Halo emigrants and have no concept of strategy. There’s little defense on either side. Nobody builds sentry guns in the intel room. It’s frustrating.
Live TrueSkill (Xbox 360): I wrote about this on the old site. TrueSkill hurts the community when your game hosts are given the option to kick. Hosts should be able to kick in Player Matches, but not Ranked. Halo 2 and 3, and Call of Duty 4 got this right, but Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter and Rainbow Six Vegas allow the host to discriminate against ranking. The real problem is that the ranking does not always reflect, ironically, the players true skill. If I bought R6V yesterday instead of on it’s release date, I’d be Private First Class rank. If everyone kicked me for being a lowbie, I’d never gain ranking — much less be able to play the game. Nevermind that I completed the game on realistic difficulty.
It’s not the features or controls that make the difference in online games. It’s the people. Compared to Steam, or the PC in general, Live is simply lacking in mature gamers. Thankfully, the Playstation Network is a happy middle ground; I haven’t encountered half the community problems on PSN that I have on Xbox Live. Granted, it’s all relative to the market: Xbox Live is the easiest and least expensive service to join and the system is populated with amazing titles, which means it’s a hit with the mainstream. With the mainstream comes all ends of the spectrum — from downright racist ignorance to the enlightened zen gamers who somehow manage to ignore the former.
Truths aside, it’s still frustrating. On my PC, I can join a game of Team Fortress 2 and expect intelligent gamers on the other end of the line, building defenses and talking to each other about how to grab the intel from the bridge when it’s being guarded by two Heavy/Medic pairs and a Sniper. On the 360, they talk about how this guy’s sister is setting you up with some chick, but you’d better get a look her first because she might be a fat chick, and that would totally suck.
Welcome to deadgopher.com — the Bend gamer blog. No, you’re not lost: you’re looking at what used to be redgopher.com, my personal blog. Things are changing fast here and hopefully everything will be for the better. Don’t be afraid. What, you want a hug? A little comfort?
Too bad.
deadgopher.com is the new-and-improved, serious-face, journalist-style blog direct from some of the not-so-darkest recesses of my mind. I’m going to be pushing this site as the Bend, Oregon gamer blog, shooting for updates 2-3 times a week. Think of it as your own local haven of organically reprocessed RSS feeds.
On this site, I’ll be providing commentary on game industry news — not actually reporting it, there are plenty of sites already — reviews on games as I play them, and hopefully a profound article or two. Check the About page for more information.
So keep an eye out, your ears open and your controllers charged. Welcome to the brand new deadgopher.com.
