Microsoft’s E3 press conference has come and gone, and what an event it was. In what turned out to be a star-studded journey down a magnificent lane of computerized entertainment, Microsoft set the bar incredibly high for Sony and Nintendo.
No charts or graphs this year, just a straight up bevy of game announcements from a procession of companies ranging from UbiSoft to Bungie, and even a sneak appearance by Hideo Kojima.
First on the gravy train was to be the announcement of Beatles Rockband, and who better to announce it than Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney? The game looks pretty good, playing on the myriad sets of imagery used by the Beatles throughout their long career. Over 45 classic Beatles songs will be featured on the disk, and some more coming to X Box LIVE.
For Rockband enthusiasts, this was certainly an exciting announcement. I’ve never been a big fan of the Beatles, but I can see why their appeal is so large and multi-generational.
After the Beatles made their announcement, skateboard poster child (man) Tony Hawk took the stage to describe how the next game bearing his name in it – Tony Hawk: Ride – is going to revolutionize skating games. To that effect, he demonstrated Ride’s motion control board, which will probably function a lot like the Wii Fit board. In essence, it will be like actual skateboarding, but without the risk of either breaking several bones or getting laughed at by teenagers. Whether or not this will breathe new life into the Tony Hawk series remains to be seen, but I can imagine that this game will not be cheap. Prepare to shell out some cash for the opportunity to get the closest to physical activity that Tony Hawk fans have ever come.
A couple developers from Infinity Ward hit the stage to show off Modern Warfare Two, which consisted of scaling a cliff with ice picks, using a UAV radar attached to a rifle, and firing your pistol “derty” style while riding a snow-mobile. If IF’s success with Modern Warfare one is any indication, this game is going to sell like hotcakes. Hopefully, they’ll change it up enough that it doesn’t feel like MW 1 with a few minor changes.
Final Fantasy Thirteen, announced last year amid much hullabaloo, is going to hit in Spring 2010. No surprise there.
After a couple X Box LIVE Arcade announcements, Microsoft revealed that Ruffian Games (who said that they were not working on Crackdown 2) is – surprise - working on Crackdown 2. Crackdown one was a massive hit among the “hardcore”, and Crackdown 2 looks to be a further extension of what fans loved about the first one. Unfortunetly, it’s following a current trend for open world games to have some sort of zombie/hideous monster plague hit the city. Maybe being a super-cop will be enough to off-set it, but I doubt that you really need to add a zombie disease to make your game feel innovative.
Left 4 Dead 2 was announced, being set in the southwest of the United States. No idea why this is a full game; it would have probably made more sense for this to be branded as Left 4 Dead: Ragin’ Cajun expansion or something. Valve is adding melee weapons this time around, including the ever-requested chainsaw.
Splinter Cell: Conviction, after being stuck in development hell (it was rumoured that a team of “closers” were brought in to get this game back on track), made an appearance with a brand new look for the game. This is definitely a Sam Fisher who’s out for revenge, and it features some sweet objective update interfaces. At one point in the trailer, “Find Sarah’s Killer” popped up on the wall as a reminder of what your ultimate goal is. Pretty slick, and marks a definitive change in the HUD heavy Splinter Cell games of the past.
Next, Bungie story crafter Joe Staten took the stage to give the world its first look at Halo 3: ODST, and does it look fantastic. Instead of playing a SPARTAN super-soldier, you take on the role of the “Rookie”, an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper, who are basically the far-future equivalent of Seal Team Six or Delta Force.
After ODST “dropped”, Bungie also revealed that they are working on Halo: Reach, a prequel of sorts. The novel Fall of Reach chronicled what happened before the events of Halo: Combat Evolved, so one could assume that this is the interactive entertainment retelling of that story. It hits in 2010, however, so we have a lot of time to see how it will develop.
Then, Hideo Kojima, developer of the Metal Gear Solid series took to the stage to announce that he was proud to bring his venerable series to the X Box 360. Nothing much was revealed about the game besides the fact that development is currently taking place, and it is going to star Raiden, girly man turned cyborg ninja from Metal Gear 4.
As excited as many people are to see the Metal Gear franchise finally make the jump to the 360, I doubt that many of the “purists” are excited about playing as Raiden, who is infamous for stealing the spotlight from series star Solid Snake in Metal Gear 2.
All in all, Microsoft revealed a very impressive line up for the coming holiday season and beyond. They also revealed a whole bunch of technological improvements for the LIVE interface, which I’ll discuss in part two of my Microsoft E3 breakdown.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
The Passenger 1.5
“Hi, you dumb mother-fucker.”
With that curse, the passenger lifted his pistol in a blurred motion, and snapped off a quick shot, which took the man in the door way in the head. As the man’s head snapped to the side, the shooter jumped off the ground, aimed toward the other four antagonists, and fired four more shots in quick succession.
Each shot took the intended target cleanly between the eyes, dropping them backwards as the dull thud of lifeless bodies punctuated the gunfire.
The reaction from the soldiers outside was immediate. Even before the last corpse had hit the pavement, a barrage of hot lead began perforating the Starbucks, tearing into decorations and patrons alike.
The passenger rolled out of his sitting position, and bolted for the rear exit. One customer was still standing in the middle of the shop, staring dumbstruck at the destruction raining around her. As the passenger passed her, he paused to push the woman down, away from the rain of fire.
“Get down, idiot!” The delay in saving the woman’s life enabled the gunmen outside to draw a bead on the passenger, and he pitched forward as a bullet passed straight through his arm just above the elbow.
Cursing a blue streak, he turned the tumble into a roll, trying to take away as much of the impact as possible from his wounded arm.
The passenger came to his feet, and shed his jacket. Blood streamed copiously from the wound in his arm, but he didn’t dare break his momentum. Just as he reached the back door to the alley behind the coffee shop, the door slammed shut in his face.
Rebounding off the solid wood door, the passenger hit the floor with a dull thud, and lay there groaning. Bullets whizzed over his head, shredding the various pieces of eclectic art that had been hanging on the wall, and utterly demolishing the pieces of furniture that had been scattered throughout the cafe.
The passenger took the time he had while he was on the ground to rip a strip off of his t-shirt and tie it in a tight knot around his elbow. With the flow of blood staunched, he began edging his way to the door. The gunfire had finally stopped, which meant that his attackers were going to try infiltrating the establishment for another look.
With that curse, the passenger lifted his pistol in a blurred motion, and snapped off a quick shot, which took the man in the door way in the head. As the man’s head snapped to the side, the shooter jumped off the ground, aimed toward the other four antagonists, and fired four more shots in quick succession.
Each shot took the intended target cleanly between the eyes, dropping them backwards as the dull thud of lifeless bodies punctuated the gunfire.
The reaction from the soldiers outside was immediate. Even before the last corpse had hit the pavement, a barrage of hot lead began perforating the Starbucks, tearing into decorations and patrons alike.
The passenger rolled out of his sitting position, and bolted for the rear exit. One customer was still standing in the middle of the shop, staring dumbstruck at the destruction raining around her. As the passenger passed her, he paused to push the woman down, away from the rain of fire.
“Get down, idiot!” The delay in saving the woman’s life enabled the gunmen outside to draw a bead on the passenger, and he pitched forward as a bullet passed straight through his arm just above the elbow.
Cursing a blue streak, he turned the tumble into a roll, trying to take away as much of the impact as possible from his wounded arm.
The passenger came to his feet, and shed his jacket. Blood streamed copiously from the wound in his arm, but he didn’t dare break his momentum. Just as he reached the back door to the alley behind the coffee shop, the door slammed shut in his face.
Rebounding off the solid wood door, the passenger hit the floor with a dull thud, and lay there groaning. Bullets whizzed over his head, shredding the various pieces of eclectic art that had been hanging on the wall, and utterly demolishing the pieces of furniture that had been scattered throughout the cafe.
The passenger took the time he had while he was on the ground to rip a strip off of his t-shirt and tie it in a tight knot around his elbow. With the flow of blood staunched, he began edging his way to the door. The gunfire had finally stopped, which meant that his attackers were going to try infiltrating the establishment for another look.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
The Passenger, part 1
The window splintered inward with the force of the blast, decapitating the driver with large shards of glass. Even before the remains of the windshield had passed backwards from the driver’s compartment into the rest of the limo, the passenger in the back had already opened the door, and had hit the pavement running.
As the passenger ran towards the cover of a near-by Starbucks, his assailants adjusted for his sudden burst of movement, and began tracking a hail of destructive fire towards him. Rooster-tails began to kick up all around him, the impacts of bullets fired in a hurried attempt to mark the target.
Not even bothering to use the door to the building, the passenger hurled himself through the window, arms covering his head. The plate glass shattered with the force of his impact, giving way and allowing the passenger to tumble into the coffee shop and come to a rest at the foot of a table, where its inhabitants promptly jumped up, spilling their lattes onto the surface, causing the liquid to spill over onto the passenger, covering him with piping hot beverages.
The passenger rolled away from the table, back towards the shattered window, where he came to a low sitting position with his back towards the wall. Reaching into his latte covered jacket, he removed a black and olive hand gun and racked the slide. The gunfire coming from the street outside had stopped, so the man took a deep breath, and waited.
On the busy intersection, chaos reigned. Cars that had been caught in the initial attack were flipped onto their sides, windows blown out. The occupants still conscious inside their cars were screaming for help, but no one who had witnessed the ferocity of the strike were rushing out to assist. Far in the distance, sirens began to wail, announcing the imminent arrival of emergency services.
At the epicenter of the blast stood a smoking husk of a car, which trained observers would recognized as the cause of the explosion. When the car had detonated, it had been directly in front of the target limo, and had been designed to either immobilize or destroy the luxury vehicle.
A large trail of pock-marks stretched from the wrecked limo to the Starbucks, tracing the passenger’s flight into the shop.
Emerging from vantage points all around the blast radius, various figures clad in black paramilitary uniforms advanced cautiously towards the coffee house, readying their assault rifles. A group of five assailants posted up beside the door, opposite of where their target was currently taking refuge.
With a silent hand signal from his commander, the lead gunman lifted his rifle to shoulder height, and pressed the door open.
As the passenger ran towards the cover of a near-by Starbucks, his assailants adjusted for his sudden burst of movement, and began tracking a hail of destructive fire towards him. Rooster-tails began to kick up all around him, the impacts of bullets fired in a hurried attempt to mark the target.
Not even bothering to use the door to the building, the passenger hurled himself through the window, arms covering his head. The plate glass shattered with the force of his impact, giving way and allowing the passenger to tumble into the coffee shop and come to a rest at the foot of a table, where its inhabitants promptly jumped up, spilling their lattes onto the surface, causing the liquid to spill over onto the passenger, covering him with piping hot beverages.
The passenger rolled away from the table, back towards the shattered window, where he came to a low sitting position with his back towards the wall. Reaching into his latte covered jacket, he removed a black and olive hand gun and racked the slide. The gunfire coming from the street outside had stopped, so the man took a deep breath, and waited.
On the busy intersection, chaos reigned. Cars that had been caught in the initial attack were flipped onto their sides, windows blown out. The occupants still conscious inside their cars were screaming for help, but no one who had witnessed the ferocity of the strike were rushing out to assist. Far in the distance, sirens began to wail, announcing the imminent arrival of emergency services.
At the epicenter of the blast stood a smoking husk of a car, which trained observers would recognized as the cause of the explosion. When the car had detonated, it had been directly in front of the target limo, and had been designed to either immobilize or destroy the luxury vehicle.
A large trail of pock-marks stretched from the wrecked limo to the Starbucks, tracing the passenger’s flight into the shop.
Emerging from vantage points all around the blast radius, various figures clad in black paramilitary uniforms advanced cautiously towards the coffee house, readying their assault rifles. A group of five assailants posted up beside the door, opposite of where their target was currently taking refuge.
With a silent hand signal from his commander, the lead gunman lifted his rifle to shoulder height, and pressed the door open.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Self-Fulfilling Prophesy
Straight off the dome, words polished like chrome,
I’ll hit you where you live; my ideas will follow you home.
My words are my weapons, the internet my machine,
It's never ending, like a gossamer dream.
You’ll sit around, scratching your head, waiting for my next trick,
It’s coming at you soon, Max Becomes Electric.
I’ll hit you where you live; my ideas will follow you home.
My words are my weapons, the internet my machine,
It's never ending, like a gossamer dream.
You’ll sit around, scratching your head, waiting for my next trick,
It’s coming at you soon, Max Becomes Electric.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Pittfall
The second batch of Fallout 3 goodness was released today and... Oh, it looks like there’s an internet shitstorm calling for the blood of the Bethesda staff. It seems the English language version of Fallout 3: The Pitt for X Box LIVE is extremely messed up, with crashes, bugs and missing texture meshes abound. Fortunately for the higher class- i.e. PC players- The Pitt works fine.
The Pitt begins much the same way as Operation: Anchorage, in which you wait for a radio signal to appear on your Pip-Boy and follow a way point to the beginning location. There, Wherner, escaped slave, will enlist your help in sneaking into The Pitt (the remnants of Pittsburgh) and stealing a cure for the rampant mutation among The Pitt’s residents. On the way in, you slip into an unintentionally sexy slave uniform and have all your awesome weapons stripped away.
In order to maintain the facade that you’re just another dull-eyed worker, your co-conspirators have you collect iron ingots from the steelyards. Sounds easy, but the yards are full of mutated Trogs and Wildmen, beings who want nothing more than to tear you limb from limb. Thankfully, you get one of The Pitt’s new weapons, the Auto-Axe, to help you out. The Auto-Axe is essentially a car motor with a rotating saw blade attached to it, so it’s perfect for making turducken out of the Trogs.
The minimum number of ingots you have to collect is ten, but you can go all the way up to one hundred for some nifty prizes. After you finish your fetch quest, you’re given a chance to fight in the Hole, a death-match arena where you must defeat your foes before you succumb to radiation. If you’ve been a successful ingot collector, you should have some nifty weapons to help you out. If not, beating them to death with your fists is just as good. (The final combatant drops a new weapon as well, making The Pitt already more of a treasure trove than Operation: Anchorage.)
Winning three fights in the Hole grants you your freedom, your gear, and an audience with Ashur, the head honcho of the slaver operation. Here’s your chance to pick you side in The Pitt: do you stay the course with Wherner, or do you take Ashur up on his offer. It’s up to you, but the nature of the cure may influence your decision a little. (No spoilers here, but Bethesda has made this deliciously evil.)
What you do from that point is up to you. I sided with the slaves, so in the end I ended up with access to the ammunition presses and an opportunity to go back and search for a few remaining ingots. I imagine the ending for siding with Ashur is just a lucrative, it all depends on how big a bastard you want to be.
The Pitt clocks in at roughly the same time as Operation: Anchorage, but it has a lot more goodies and the tried and true Fallout morality to go along with it. Overall, The Pitt is a solid addition to Fallout 3’s lore, and should help tide you over until Broken Steel is released.
The Pitt begins much the same way as Operation: Anchorage, in which you wait for a radio signal to appear on your Pip-Boy and follow a way point to the beginning location. There, Wherner, escaped slave, will enlist your help in sneaking into The Pitt (the remnants of Pittsburgh) and stealing a cure for the rampant mutation among The Pitt’s residents. On the way in, you slip into an unintentionally sexy slave uniform and have all your awesome weapons stripped away.
In order to maintain the facade that you’re just another dull-eyed worker, your co-conspirators have you collect iron ingots from the steelyards. Sounds easy, but the yards are full of mutated Trogs and Wildmen, beings who want nothing more than to tear you limb from limb. Thankfully, you get one of The Pitt’s new weapons, the Auto-Axe, to help you out. The Auto-Axe is essentially a car motor with a rotating saw blade attached to it, so it’s perfect for making turducken out of the Trogs.
The minimum number of ingots you have to collect is ten, but you can go all the way up to one hundred for some nifty prizes. After you finish your fetch quest, you’re given a chance to fight in the Hole, a death-match arena where you must defeat your foes before you succumb to radiation. If you’ve been a successful ingot collector, you should have some nifty weapons to help you out. If not, beating them to death with your fists is just as good. (The final combatant drops a new weapon as well, making The Pitt already more of a treasure trove than Operation: Anchorage.)
Winning three fights in the Hole grants you your freedom, your gear, and an audience with Ashur, the head honcho of the slaver operation. Here’s your chance to pick you side in The Pitt: do you stay the course with Wherner, or do you take Ashur up on his offer. It’s up to you, but the nature of the cure may influence your decision a little. (No spoilers here, but Bethesda has made this deliciously evil.)
What you do from that point is up to you. I sided with the slaves, so in the end I ended up with access to the ammunition presses and an opportunity to go back and search for a few remaining ingots. I imagine the ending for siding with Ashur is just a lucrative, it all depends on how big a bastard you want to be.
The Pitt clocks in at roughly the same time as Operation: Anchorage, but it has a lot more goodies and the tried and true Fallout morality to go along with it. Overall, The Pitt is a solid addition to Fallout 3’s lore, and should help tide you over until Broken Steel is released.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
A Boxful of Grunts
Recalling surface squads so we can all die together, aye sir.
As a series, Halo owes a lot to the real time strategy genre. Back before Microsoft bought Bungie Studios, they were working on an RTS game for the Mac, and they had it developed to the point where the models were already recognizable, the Warthogs and Pelicans standing readily apparent. The game moved into a third person shooter early in its life, but the memory of a one-time strategy Halo lived on.
Back after Command and Conquer: Generals was released, a home brewed mod began to take shape, molding the Generals engine into a Halo RTS. Called Halogen, this digital alchemy had progressed to an early beta stage before Microsoft slapped the developers with a cease and desist. Rumors broke out on the internet claiming that the legal documents had been issued because Microsoft was cooking up a Halo strategy game within its closed citadel.
The rumors turned out to be true at X06, where Microsoft revealed Halo Wars, being developed by long time Microsoft team and RTS pros Ensemble Studios. Well known for the venerable Age of Empires series, Ensemble Studios are old hands at making well thought out strategy games, and the Halo franchise was deemed to be in good company, even if the game was being made to fit on a console.
Though doubts were raised over the viability of “shoe-horning” the typically complex control scheme of a strategy game onto the X Box controller, Ensemble studios pledged to bring the magic of their PC games to the console. In this vein, they created a very friendly “My First RTS” control scheme, where the manipulations of your forces boil down to two very simple button presses: left bumper selects all your units, and the X button makes them both move and attack. Contextually it’s very straightforward, and that’s why it works. Of course, the controls are a bit more varied than that; Y button gives you access to your units various special attacks, and the D-Pad has shortcuts to your bases and units and gives you access to your various selection of leader powers. Easy to learn and easy to master would be the best way to describe the scheme, and that applies to the game’s mechanics as well.
The first stop for Halo Wars players is going to be the campaign, and, to its credit, Halo Wars’ story mode is actually quite good. Ensemble Studios fully immersed themselves in the Halo lore, so much so to the point where Halo Wars fairly oozes with the presentation one has come to expect from Halo games. Sound effects are lifted straight out of Halo 3, and when you hear the Warthog’s familiar high-pitched whine, you’ll known that not a single audio or visual aspect is going to be out of place, something that will no doubt placate the attention-oriented Halo fans.
The mission set is standard RTS fare in which you build up a sizeable force and take the hurting to the enemy. To its credit, the game does try to mix it up a few times, even if it does enforce the hated enemy of RTS players who like their games to be well-considered: time limits. A high point in the mission set has you solving a puzzle, and over-all the game is well-built and solid, even if the tried and true strategy of overwhelming numbers trumps all other tactics.
Between missions, you’re treated to a series of extremely good looking cut scenes that tell the story of the UNSC Spirit of Fire, a large scale combat support ship thrust into the middle of an interstellar chase. Even though the cut scenes will have you drooling in your seat over their sheer jaw-dropping beauty (especially the fight between the SPARTANS and about fifteen Elites; you’ll know it when you see it) it still comes off as fragmented, and leaves you wanting more. Often times, you’ll be wishing that Halo Wars came with an animated film to complement the game as opposed to a series of short vignettes.
For action outside of the story mode, you can turn to X Box live, or take on the AI in skirmish mode. In multiplayer, you select a certain leader for either the UNSC or the Covenant and in doing so you gain access to a certain set of Leader Powers and special Super Units. For example, Captain Cutter of the UNSC gives you access to the Spirit of Fire orbital cannon and upgraded Marines, while using the Prophet of Truth gives you Elite Honor Guards and a cleansing beam of light to wipe heretics off the map. Multiplayer is carefully crafted if a bit shallow; like the campaign, it gives you a glimpse of something better. Hopefully forthcoming downloadable content will expand on the foundation and give Halo Wars some serious longevity.
For a series that once had a tenuous link to a genre outside of first person shooters, the Halo universe serves a great backdrop for strategy games. The Halo Trilogy created by Bungie always gave the impression of a war going on outside the purview of Master Chief and friends, even though it was never properly expanded upon. Halo Wars gives a greater sense of weight to the galactic conflict that provides the basis for the series, and gives credence to the theory that a story exists in this franchise beyond giant rings in space.
The bottom line is that if you’re a Halo fan, you’ve already bought this, and you’re enjoying it. It has all the trappings you love, and you’re willing to forgive its flaws simply because it’s Halo. If Master Chief has never done it for you, you still might get a kick out of this concrete entry into the 360’s disappointingly small library of strategy games.
As a series, Halo owes a lot to the real time strategy genre. Back before Microsoft bought Bungie Studios, they were working on an RTS game for the Mac, and they had it developed to the point where the models were already recognizable, the Warthogs and Pelicans standing readily apparent. The game moved into a third person shooter early in its life, but the memory of a one-time strategy Halo lived on.
Back after Command and Conquer: Generals was released, a home brewed mod began to take shape, molding the Generals engine into a Halo RTS. Called Halogen, this digital alchemy had progressed to an early beta stage before Microsoft slapped the developers with a cease and desist. Rumors broke out on the internet claiming that the legal documents had been issued because Microsoft was cooking up a Halo strategy game within its closed citadel.
The rumors turned out to be true at X06, where Microsoft revealed Halo Wars, being developed by long time Microsoft team and RTS pros Ensemble Studios. Well known for the venerable Age of Empires series, Ensemble Studios are old hands at making well thought out strategy games, and the Halo franchise was deemed to be in good company, even if the game was being made to fit on a console.
Though doubts were raised over the viability of “shoe-horning” the typically complex control scheme of a strategy game onto the X Box controller, Ensemble studios pledged to bring the magic of their PC games to the console. In this vein, they created a very friendly “My First RTS” control scheme, where the manipulations of your forces boil down to two very simple button presses: left bumper selects all your units, and the X button makes them both move and attack. Contextually it’s very straightforward, and that’s why it works. Of course, the controls are a bit more varied than that; Y button gives you access to your units various special attacks, and the D-Pad has shortcuts to your bases and units and gives you access to your various selection of leader powers. Easy to learn and easy to master would be the best way to describe the scheme, and that applies to the game’s mechanics as well.
The first stop for Halo Wars players is going to be the campaign, and, to its credit, Halo Wars’ story mode is actually quite good. Ensemble Studios fully immersed themselves in the Halo lore, so much so to the point where Halo Wars fairly oozes with the presentation one has come to expect from Halo games. Sound effects are lifted straight out of Halo 3, and when you hear the Warthog’s familiar high-pitched whine, you’ll known that not a single audio or visual aspect is going to be out of place, something that will no doubt placate the attention-oriented Halo fans.
The mission set is standard RTS fare in which you build up a sizeable force and take the hurting to the enemy. To its credit, the game does try to mix it up a few times, even if it does enforce the hated enemy of RTS players who like their games to be well-considered: time limits. A high point in the mission set has you solving a puzzle, and over-all the game is well-built and solid, even if the tried and true strategy of overwhelming numbers trumps all other tactics.
Between missions, you’re treated to a series of extremely good looking cut scenes that tell the story of the UNSC Spirit of Fire, a large scale combat support ship thrust into the middle of an interstellar chase. Even though the cut scenes will have you drooling in your seat over their sheer jaw-dropping beauty (especially the fight between the SPARTANS and about fifteen Elites; you’ll know it when you see it) it still comes off as fragmented, and leaves you wanting more. Often times, you’ll be wishing that Halo Wars came with an animated film to complement the game as opposed to a series of short vignettes.
For action outside of the story mode, you can turn to X Box live, or take on the AI in skirmish mode. In multiplayer, you select a certain leader for either the UNSC or the Covenant and in doing so you gain access to a certain set of Leader Powers and special Super Units. For example, Captain Cutter of the UNSC gives you access to the Spirit of Fire orbital cannon and upgraded Marines, while using the Prophet of Truth gives you Elite Honor Guards and a cleansing beam of light to wipe heretics off the map. Multiplayer is carefully crafted if a bit shallow; like the campaign, it gives you a glimpse of something better. Hopefully forthcoming downloadable content will expand on the foundation and give Halo Wars some serious longevity.
For a series that once had a tenuous link to a genre outside of first person shooters, the Halo universe serves a great backdrop for strategy games. The Halo Trilogy created by Bungie always gave the impression of a war going on outside the purview of Master Chief and friends, even though it was never properly expanded upon. Halo Wars gives a greater sense of weight to the galactic conflict that provides the basis for the series, and gives credence to the theory that a story exists in this franchise beyond giant rings in space.
The bottom line is that if you’re a Halo fan, you’ve already bought this, and you’re enjoying it. It has all the trappings you love, and you’re willing to forgive its flaws simply because it’s Halo. If Master Chief has never done it for you, you still might get a kick out of this concrete entry into the 360’s disappointingly small library of strategy games.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
It's Like Star Wars, But With A Hell Of A Lot More War
Show me what passes for fury among your misbegotten kind!
Since the dawn of PC gaming, real time strategy games have always included one essential element: base building. From Dune to Starcraft and up to the most recent Red Alert game, part of being an effective commander always included building up a collection of barracks and vehicle factories to produce the cannon fodder you’re going to be sending into battle.
Relic, far from accepting this old RTS convention, has taken a chain-sword to the notion of base building and has eviscerated it completely from Dawn of War II. Instead of spending half a game constructing the structures necessary for combat, Dawn of War II has you micromanaging your troops constantly instead of jumping back to your base every minute or so to pump out more grunts.
By adding an RPG element with upgradable wargear (DoW speak for loot), Relic hopes to breath fresh life into the RTS genre, and for the most part they succeed admirably. In the campaign, you’re given control of a small force of Space Marines, led by one Force Commander, who is essentially your avatar. Other squads are added along the way, following the typical Games Workshop army set: Tactical Squad, Devastator Squad and so on. Each squad has their own specialty, whether it’s range combat, or getting up close and personal with the enemy. The wargear that you collect is suited to making the squads better at what they do, and all pieces of armor or weaponry add combat bonuses and stat multipliers.
Furthering the RPG connection, DoW2 includes a leveling system, where your Marines earn experience for defeating enemies and completing objectives. Stats are divided into four categories: Health, Ranged Combat, Strength and Will. Perks are added along the way, depending on which skill tree you level. The perks serve to make your Marines more effective at their assigned roles, and if you’ve got an Assault Squad, it makes more sense to add skill points to the Strength tree. Every Marine squad also has a certain number of slots for their inventory, so you can equip your Marines with everything from grenades to health packs and the ability to call in orbital bombardments.
As far as game play in the campaign is concerned, it’s fairly straight-forward if not highly entertaining. The mission set is pretty standard, with little variation between the different scenarios. Your Marines are tasked with eliminating enemy bosses, defending an important location or wiping out general enemies. The mechanics are what really differentiates the combat from standard RTS fare. As you’re constantly managing your troops and not worrying about a base (you’re dropped in from an orbiting ship every mission), you’re free to use cover, or flank the enemy and take them out. DoW2 feels like it has a lot of strategy to it, as opposed to using a giant force to overwhelm the enemy with numbers. More often than not, you’re the one who’s severely outnumbered, so the use of cover and careful squad management is essential.
The plot for the campaign isn’t anything special; it’s mostly there as an excuse to throw the four races of DoW2 together in one sitting. You’ll fight Orks, Eldar and Tyranids, jumping from planet to planet in an effort to prevent the system you’re in from falling into complete chaos. Character-wise, the squad leaders you’re commanding are fairly likeable, even if they are all gruff military types. After every mission, you’re treated to a few minutes of bickering between your various underlings, and a lot of it is talk about honor and duty, and what that means. Some of it is a little groan-worthy, but it all helps to flesh out the story of the campaign, if you’re interesting in anything more than slaughtering aliens, which the story has in heaps.
Overall, the story line is highly enjoyable, especially if you’ve got a friend to play co-op with. Controlling two squads each, it’s a lot of fun to plan assaults and use the benefit of two minds to confront the enemy.
For the player versus player portion of DoW2, Relic changes it up again. Each player picks their own unique commander, and the three different leaders for every race offer up different abilities to use on the battlefield. You have offense, defense and support commanders, and savvy teams will use the abilities to complement each other. There is no base building here either; everything you need is built out of one structure. Resources are gained by capturing power nodes and requisition points, which is carried over from the first game. This creates several hot-spots as your enemies will be hankering to take your resources points away from you.
You always have an eye on the action in multiplayer, so the game play is fast and furious, leaving little room for breathers. For such an engrossing game, Dawn of War II ships with a rather small number of maps, so you’ll be treading familiar ground for a while before Relic releases some new maps.
For all the praise Dawn of War II is getting, it’s also weighed down by a hefty number of bugs and glitches. Relic has patched a large number of these bugs (such as the one that ate saved games), but crashes are still fairly frequent, especially if you’re playing on Windows Vista 32-bit with the setting on High or Ultra High. For those Vista owners with their machines built specifically to destroy even the most graphically demanding of entertainment software, playing on medium graphics can feel a little insulting. Relic has said that a fix is on the way, but for now you’ll have to tone those graphics down if you want to play DoW.
Another low point is that the game requires the use of Windows Live, Xbox Lives’ inbred cousin. Disconnects are frequent, and it sometimes feels like you’re fighting the Live interface. Windows Live games have always been plagued by this, but this game would have benefited with a smother interface.
Dawn of War II takes everything you thought you knew about strategy games and throws it out the window. The game does so many things right with its mechanics that it’s hard to fault it for the number of bugs and repeated missions that it has. Even if you’re not a fan of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, you’ll find plenty of good game play to occupy you in Dawn of War II.
Since the dawn of PC gaming, real time strategy games have always included one essential element: base building. From Dune to Starcraft and up to the most recent Red Alert game, part of being an effective commander always included building up a collection of barracks and vehicle factories to produce the cannon fodder you’re going to be sending into battle.
Relic, far from accepting this old RTS convention, has taken a chain-sword to the notion of base building and has eviscerated it completely from Dawn of War II. Instead of spending half a game constructing the structures necessary for combat, Dawn of War II has you micromanaging your troops constantly instead of jumping back to your base every minute or so to pump out more grunts.
By adding an RPG element with upgradable wargear (DoW speak for loot), Relic hopes to breath fresh life into the RTS genre, and for the most part they succeed admirably. In the campaign, you’re given control of a small force of Space Marines, led by one Force Commander, who is essentially your avatar. Other squads are added along the way, following the typical Games Workshop army set: Tactical Squad, Devastator Squad and so on. Each squad has their own specialty, whether it’s range combat, or getting up close and personal with the enemy. The wargear that you collect is suited to making the squads better at what they do, and all pieces of armor or weaponry add combat bonuses and stat multipliers.
Furthering the RPG connection, DoW2 includes a leveling system, where your Marines earn experience for defeating enemies and completing objectives. Stats are divided into four categories: Health, Ranged Combat, Strength and Will. Perks are added along the way, depending on which skill tree you level. The perks serve to make your Marines more effective at their assigned roles, and if you’ve got an Assault Squad, it makes more sense to add skill points to the Strength tree. Every Marine squad also has a certain number of slots for their inventory, so you can equip your Marines with everything from grenades to health packs and the ability to call in orbital bombardments.
As far as game play in the campaign is concerned, it’s fairly straight-forward if not highly entertaining. The mission set is pretty standard, with little variation between the different scenarios. Your Marines are tasked with eliminating enemy bosses, defending an important location or wiping out general enemies. The mechanics are what really differentiates the combat from standard RTS fare. As you’re constantly managing your troops and not worrying about a base (you’re dropped in from an orbiting ship every mission), you’re free to use cover, or flank the enemy and take them out. DoW2 feels like it has a lot of strategy to it, as opposed to using a giant force to overwhelm the enemy with numbers. More often than not, you’re the one who’s severely outnumbered, so the use of cover and careful squad management is essential.
The plot for the campaign isn’t anything special; it’s mostly there as an excuse to throw the four races of DoW2 together in one sitting. You’ll fight Orks, Eldar and Tyranids, jumping from planet to planet in an effort to prevent the system you’re in from falling into complete chaos. Character-wise, the squad leaders you’re commanding are fairly likeable, even if they are all gruff military types. After every mission, you’re treated to a few minutes of bickering between your various underlings, and a lot of it is talk about honor and duty, and what that means. Some of it is a little groan-worthy, but it all helps to flesh out the story of the campaign, if you’re interesting in anything more than slaughtering aliens, which the story has in heaps.
Overall, the story line is highly enjoyable, especially if you’ve got a friend to play co-op with. Controlling two squads each, it’s a lot of fun to plan assaults and use the benefit of two minds to confront the enemy.
For the player versus player portion of DoW2, Relic changes it up again. Each player picks their own unique commander, and the three different leaders for every race offer up different abilities to use on the battlefield. You have offense, defense and support commanders, and savvy teams will use the abilities to complement each other. There is no base building here either; everything you need is built out of one structure. Resources are gained by capturing power nodes and requisition points, which is carried over from the first game. This creates several hot-spots as your enemies will be hankering to take your resources points away from you.
You always have an eye on the action in multiplayer, so the game play is fast and furious, leaving little room for breathers. For such an engrossing game, Dawn of War II ships with a rather small number of maps, so you’ll be treading familiar ground for a while before Relic releases some new maps.
For all the praise Dawn of War II is getting, it’s also weighed down by a hefty number of bugs and glitches. Relic has patched a large number of these bugs (such as the one that ate saved games), but crashes are still fairly frequent, especially if you’re playing on Windows Vista 32-bit with the setting on High or Ultra High. For those Vista owners with their machines built specifically to destroy even the most graphically demanding of entertainment software, playing on medium graphics can feel a little insulting. Relic has said that a fix is on the way, but for now you’ll have to tone those graphics down if you want to play DoW.
Another low point is that the game requires the use of Windows Live, Xbox Lives’ inbred cousin. Disconnects are frequent, and it sometimes feels like you’re fighting the Live interface. Windows Live games have always been plagued by this, but this game would have benefited with a smother interface.
Dawn of War II takes everything you thought you knew about strategy games and throws it out the window. The game does so many things right with its mechanics that it’s hard to fault it for the number of bugs and repeated missions that it has. Even if you’re not a fan of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, you’ll find plenty of good game play to occupy you in Dawn of War II.
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