Author - Ripper71

Diablo III Beta First Impressions (Preview)

2011/09/15

I was one of the lucky folks who was able to get to go to last year’s BlizzCon and see the information about Diablo III beginning to seep out. Goosebumps shot across my flesh as I got to see the video on the giant screen of the new class: Demon Hunter. Now fast forward to almost a year later and I am sitting at my home computer firing up the beta test. I was surprised when word went around that there was no NDA on the game anymore but after a bit of play I got the point. Having beta tested many games I have seen what a beta looks and behaves like and this game is more of an elongated demo. Is that a bad thing? Nope! I would have been more than happy to help test environments and collision issues but this very polished game gives a good idea of what we can expect when the game comes out. It was just enough of a taste to keep a person playing it over and over to see how the experience changes, even after hitting the level cap.

The game is incredible looking with excellent animations and rich environments. Periodically I stopped and just looked at how nice thing were and how clean and crisp every single aspect of the game is. It is a polished look that even in this demo mode looks better than a lot of games out there. It was also nice seeing “the seed” system at work. Every time you play when you walk through an area or into a dungeon there are a bunch of possibilities that can happen at the location, the spot has a seed for an event or dungeon to grow from and it will randomly do that. This system with the seeds planted all over the game means the game should in theory never be the same twice, only the storyline will remain the same.

The storyline is already going along nicely to the point in the game it lets you go to. Without spoiling it, familiar names make themselves known in this game that is a real treat if, like me, you played the last game for years online while at the same time being a fun play for new entries to the series. This isn’t a surprise since a lot of the interface for the new game was borrowed from World of Warcraft to allow new players just there for the hack and slash or trying to get into the system for the first time can have some familiar controls. Just about every change that is made in the gameplay is towards the WoW format with one odd exception which I am not sure how much I like. In both WoW and Diablo II players had a bank/chest in which to store their favorite items or items they want to pass onto another character. In the case of Diablo III the chest is shared between all of your characters which means no logging in and out to pass items from one character to another but limits the amount of storage you have. More storage can be purchased with in game money but it isn’t cheap.

There are new character classes as well as a revamp of the old ones and in the current demo game they are all very over powered, my guess is so that players can experience the game without a lot of deaths getting in their way. I talked to players who took magic classes and meleed with them doing massive amounts of damage, in some cases more than the melee classes themselves. As I mentioned though it is probably so that you can experience all the classes and skills the game has to offer. One of the skills that will be more familiar to WoW players is armor crafting which, until a player is able to start finding legendary gear for themselves, is a really good way to start getting decent and more class efficient armor.

Last Call:

This demo is definitely too polished to feel like the beta it is presented as, but is a terrific way to get a feeling for what we can expect in the future. This game will feel a lot like Diablo II with a more WoW style interface that combined with its own innovations should make it a huge hit with a wide variety of players. I look forward to the next piece of the game!

Warhammer 40k: Space Marine Review (OnLive/PC)

2011/09/15

Ripper71

News, Reviews

Anyone who knows anything about the Warhammer world knows that the Ultramarines are the near immortal destroyers of Chaos. When things get too nasty and platoons are getting wiped out you call in a handful of Space Marines and watch them even the odds or overpower the enemy. So the idea of getting to play ultimate bad asses is exciting and has had me counting the days to release since I saw it at E3. The only problem I saw offhand was how do you balance a near-unkillable killing machine and make it a challenge worth playing?

Before getting into the details of gameplay I have to write a bit about the beauty of the game itself. The cinematics and actual gameplay have the same amazing detail, which creates wonderfully-seamless transitions back and forth between them. When you add the fact I was playing it via OnLive so I could play with high detail it was almost like playing a movie that I controlled while having no tearing or lag issues. The gore factor isn’t very high but there is even a certain flow to the blood splatters that not only implies great bodily devastation, but that the Ultramarines are artists when it comes to killing. When Fury or Execution comes into play the slow motion kills again take on a beauty all their own and show the awesome power of the Space Marine. The music is great and fits the action and backs the battle force that is tearing through the game. Part of me wanted this to be a first person game rather than a third person, but watching Titus move and blood splattering his armor you find yourself just removed enough to root for him. Also when using a scoped weapon you get a bit of first person play so it is the best of both worlds.

Gameplay-wise Warhammer 40k: Space Marine controls are pretty straight forward for the PC: WASD, weapons assigned to the numbers, and lots of mouse clicking. That doesn’t mean the game is just a charge in button mashfest. The Ultramarine is very, very tough but if you charge into battle without strategy and proper weapon choice you will find yourself dying time and time again. Usually there is a weapons cache right before hitting a particularly rough sections allowing you to decide what would be the best way to approach each enemy onslaught. Sometimes you had to learn this the hard way, by dying and revisiting the cache for a change up. Another way of amping up the difficulty, and therefore increasing your need for strategy, is for you to face a difficult boss, then when you face the next boss he has two minions of the previous boss. The weapons, shield strengths and health recovery increase for you Ultramarine as the game progresses giving you the tools to take down the new enemy challenges though it is still a game of strategy for weapon, technique and fight location.

To mix up the fighting style a bit there are a few times during the game that you get a jump pack and a mighty hammer and over the top killing really kicks in! I almost didn’t want these sections to end though I know that after a while it would get boring from being too easy but while jumping and destroying I felt the true power of the Space Marine as all in his path was smote. I would welcome an even larger section of jump pack usage in the next game because I just couldn’t get enough of it. There is another change of fighting style that you can expect that I won’t spoil but is is fun and challenging in it’s own way.

Players can decide for themselves how much they want to commit to the storyline, cutscenes can be skipped and the collectable item in the game is a skull with a recording to push the storyline that can also be skipped. Personally I highly recommend following the storyline, it is really well written and unfolds nicely to an ending I won’t ruin but definitely surprised me. The gameplay is long enough that you begin to invest in the characters if you follow the story so when the ending is less Hollywood than the average game I was caught off-guard and really pleased.

Last Call:

If it hasn’t already come through I loved the game, I got caught up in it, lost hours of time and did the “just one more checkpoint” thing when it was time for me to do something not game related. The developers managed to make a great, strong lead character that grows stronger to match the threat against him yet at the same time has a very humane sense to him, especially for a character that kills thousands of enemies over the course of the game. If you just want to play the game to hack and slash that can be easily done, or if you just love finishing achievements that can be there for you too and worth your time. I recommend taking the time to follow the story, invest in the game and get a very rich experience out of it.

Men of War: Vietnam Review (PC)

2011/09/12

Ripper71

News, Reviews

1 Comment

I’ll be the first to admit it, with my love of strategy games I am kind of surprised I missed the original Men Of War. The game had everything that fit me, hard as a Drill Sargent but addictive fun gameplay. So when I got the chance to give Men Of War: Vietnam a play I was excited not only to try out the franchise but also see if the sequel lived up to the franchise name.

Set in Vietnam MOW:V takes a slightly different approach than most war games by first having the gamer play from the point of view of who is traditionally from our standpoint considered the enemy. The first campaign that unlocks is from the point of view of Russian special forces training North Vietnamese on how to fight the South Vietnamese and their allies, the Americans. Now this isn’t the first game where you play “the enemy” but the game tries to be very historically accurate and so shows us losing a war. Onlookers watching me play the game found it a bit disturbing to watch me overrun heavily fortified American bases during the Tet Offensive, one of the most famous North Vietnamese attacks and pushes of the war. Having studied the Vietnam War extensively it was very interesting to be playing from a point of view I had very little knowledge of, especially the Russian involvement and time spent in Cambodia. Any historic war gamer out there who really tries to have a better understanding of this war should play this game to get a fresh perspective. I will get into the gameplay I promise, but the perspective in the game is a key draw, and I think worth playing the game for alone.

The story is mostly told in diary entries between the missions or in briefings with voice-overs. The voice acting is excellent, which I guess is a bit of an improvement over the first which was known for the opposite, particularly the voice acting of the Russians which followed their speech pattern when speaking English very well. When you are successful in a mission you get a historically accurate summary of that period of the war and how that particular mission would play into it. The story is written really well to allow gameplay to be fluid and each decision made to be your own but for the final outcome to follow historical events. Gamers who don’t care about history can skip over these cut scenes and still be able to play the strategic aspects of the game without problem, but I have to say that is missing out on a very big part of the game.

Graphically Men Of War: Vietnam does something I very seldom see in games, the cutscenes aren’t as crisp and detailed as the play sections. The detail given to every tree, bush, uniform, expression on character’s faces are very deep and sometimes makes you feel like you are playing an animated movie rather than a game. You can have a top look down on the action or you can swing your camera down behind a troop or follow bullet path toward a target all very smoothly making it so that once you put events into motion you could watch them like a movie where you pick the views and angles you want to see it from. The camera movement is one of my only with the game as well, because though you can do nice sweeping movements around the field sometimes just looking more up or down can be difficult and you find yourself backing out to get a view of something that is right above your screen’s eye view.

Controlling the troops is very standard strategic movement style where you move your mouse over an area and move all of them or select one particular unit and move just that one. You can decide how they move and what position they hold by clicking on standing, kneeling or prone which each have their own advantage in both movement and combat. One interesting thing about movement is when you pick a location to move to the game will give you suggestions on deployment, so if you move behind a rock it might suggest a couple standing while others kneel and maybe some go prone and with a click of the mouse when they arrive at that position they will take up those stances. This can be very, very handy when you are deploying into a hot zone with limited cover and the need to immediately go on the offensive. You also have the ability to search corpses, crates and around on the ground for supplies and weapons upgrades with each unit having specific talents and so you pass weapons around until you find the unit that can use it best. You may have two machine gun experts and one is better with the a grease gun while another is better with the M60. The game takes great pains to make sure that the weapons are accurately represented both by how they look and by their specs such as clip load. That is just a word that comes up more and more when discussing this game: accurate. They want the game to be strategically fun but as historically accurate right down to a grenade’s damage radius as possible. Controlling the troops is the only other area of concern I had with the game, sometimes when you would pick a unit and order it to fire a grenade launcher for example, it might change weapons on you and start unloading with a machine gun. Or you may order a unit to toss a grenade in a bunker and instead the unit will run into the bunker and stand right where you wanted the grenade, which usually happens to be right in the middle of a bunch of enemy units, not the best place to hang out. I imagine a patch could fix this (or it might get fixed by release date even) so it doesn’t necessarily prove to be a huge problem, in some ways it can kind of be comical as long as you saved as you went.

This brings up a really important aspect, save often. I may have saved too often, but I got in the habit of saving after every kill or before any major planned engagement. The reason is this game is tough, probably as tough as the original and though there are only technically 5 missions per campaign additional objectives are added constantly and there are very, very few spots where you get reinforcements. So if you go into a mission and lose one of your four guys while fighting off 18 enemies, you are only going to have three guys the whole rest of the mission and the number of enemies are only going to increase as well as the challenges on approaching them. Considering each of your units has it’s own specialty both with weapon and use in deployment you might find that dead fella is exactly what you need on the 10th objective of the mission. The game is hard and challenging but not impossible which makes it very addictive play. You try an approach to a situation, it fails, you think of another, load the last save point and give it a run. You have to have the strategist’s endurance to play this game, a single mission may take hours when all the objectives and side objectives and failures happen but if you have that puzzling kind of mind this game is excellent.

There are also vehicles that can be played, each one has it’s own benefits and shortcomings, but I will let you discover that for yourself since honestly discovery in this type of game is second only to strategy and all I have done in this article is tell you how things are not how to get them done.

Last Call:

This game is a top-notch, difficult as heck strategy game which combines beautiful graphics with historic gameplay and accuracy. It gives you a point of view on a war that we seldom get and provides challenges at every turn. If you like this kind of game and have the patience to try different strategies over and over until you make it work then this is a great game for you. Just. Save. Often! Time for me to go pick up the first game.

GameSpot and OnLive Partner for Content Sharing

2011/08/31

Ripper71

News

GameSpot announced it is giving players the ability to instantly demo games directly from a GameSpot review, resulting in a try-before-you-buy experience. Powered by OnLive, the on-demand, instant-play demos give gamers access to over 100 games and are playable within seconds, merging the process of learning about a game with the experience of actually playing it. In addition, GameSpot video content such as game reviews and in-depth interviews will be included in the OnLive platform, providing OnLive users with a trusted point of view as they go through their own discovery process. The enhancements are part of OnLive’s continuing efforts to provide players with an advanced gaming platform seamlessly integrated into their overall gaming experience.

“For as long as video games have existed, consumers have sought out information that helps them make smart purchases and get the most out of their gaming experience,” said Simon Whitcombe, Vice President, Games, CBS Interactive. “Now, the next big innovation is here: merging the editorial with the experiential. By making demos available from our review pages, GameSpot is now the ultimate one-stop destination for gamers to read reviews, news, watch videos, and actually try out the latest games.”

“By integrating OnLive-powered instant game demos, GameSpot has deepened its user experience and further distinguished itself as a premiere gaming destination,” said OnLive Vice President of Games John Spinale. “We streamline the process of sampling a game, making it an integral part of discovery and evaluation by the GameSpot reader—not a disjointed one that forces the customer to go down to the store or wait several hours for something to download to their hard drive.”

OnLive game demos are available now on GameSpot instantly, without any downloads or credit card data.

Free OnLive Consoles At PAX

2011/08/26

Ripper71

Articles, News, PAX

So anyone who has read a review of a game on OnLive or the review of the system itself knows that I am a pretty big fan of them and I tend to particularly suggest getting involved with the system at this time while they are still relatively small and working on not just advertising on places such as YouTube but using word of mouth as much as possible by getting free consoles out to the players. A lot of their new titles have come with the consoles for free giving you PC and console play from one game purchase. Well now they have upped the ante.

Attendees of PAX can follow this link to OnLive and signup for an account then just stop by their booth at PAX and get a free console. They are giving thousands of them though you will probably want to get there as soon as possible, at conventions and expos thousands of anything go quick. If you sign up today they are selling Borderlands GOTY for $5 with all the DLC packs included so that if you are going to PAX you can sign up, try a game for $5 while being able to demo over 100 other games and if you like it at all you can pick up the console at PAX and play on your PC and console.

The consoles retail for $100 so getting one free while they are relatively unknown is a great deal. After PAX I imagine word of mouth and review is going to start blowing up for the system, if you have any doubts Time Magazine voted them one of the top 50 Best Websites Of 2011. Word is getting out so the time to get in is now.

OnLive Gaming System Review (PC/Console)

2011/08/14

Ripper71

News, Reviews

How E3 Made Me A (Near) Believer

I heard about Onlive Gaming before E3 2011 and honestly it sounded too good to be true. I read reviews, none very recent, thoroughly read the press releases and website and went to E3 with plans on checking it out. Well by sheer luck my editor assigned me them as my first visit of the day so while in the press room making last minute notes I saw they had a demo booth hooked up in there and so I figured I would double check a few facts and get some hands on before my interview. I had just played some Borderlands GOTY two days before so I decided that would be the game for me and instantly I was blown away. I thought there must be some kind of trick going on, the response time was better than my XBLA game, I had almost zero lag, and I was in a multiplayer environment. I blasted the poor booth techies with my facts to double check them all while tearing through the same game from a couple days before constantly comparing them in my mind. Amazed I went and joined the throngs of people crowding the entrance to the halls who were steamy, hot, and a few already on the ripe side. By the time I got to the main OnLive E3 booth I was dehydrated, wearing other people’s sweat and realized for the rest of the show I was going to need to always bring a towel (I had forgotten my Hitchhiker lore). I was greeted quickly and run upstairs to the VIP area where they promised to get me water and sat me down with Bruce Grove, Director of Strategic Relations. The interview and E3 experience can be found here so I won’t repeat the details except to say I drove our review team nuts with news of them, went back regularly to try it some more and get progress reports and basically when I wasn’t supposed to be somewhere else I could be found there. I had only one problem, I needed to know how it truly performed in a home environment. They surprised me by not only giving me a glimpse of the system at home, but giving me terrific access to both the PC and console versions so I could truly become a believer.

A Very Cloudy Future

“Cloud Gaming” is a fairly new term in the gaming industry but has actually been around in the online community for longer than most would realize. Those of you out there that stream Netflix might remember that when the streaming first started you had some pretty poor picture quality a lot of the time and even had buffering issues. I remember going to watch “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” back in those days and being unable to stomach getting through the opening cartoon without a ton of frustration and giving up. Then, at some point I wasn’t aware of, Netflix joined a few other companies on Amazon’s Cloud Service and Amazon’s stock rose while Netflix streaming went from barely watchable to incredible and soon a staple in many households. If Netflix is ever blamed for the fall of video stores it will be this one move that did it. There are articles on how some cloud computing is done and if you are very techie you might want to search for them. In the end there are different ways of doing it, but video games had the hardest path to overcome. Let’s face it if you go to start a movie on Netflix and then pause it and there is a bit of delay on how long it takes you really won’t care. If you are in a game with 31 other players and 16 of them want to kill you your reflexes and game response time is crucial in keeping you alive. Too much lag and you will eventually give up in frustration. Here’s a chart showing what a cloud video game system has to go through:

Now of course the “broadband internet” is a very simplified way to describe a proprietary multi-step system which had to be developed from scratch to make this possible but the general principal of cloud gaming is here. You make a move on your PC, Mac, console, iPad or soon the Android and that movement has to be sent to an Onlive Hub location, performed in the game playing at that location then the information transmitted back, all in fractions of a second. Ten years ago people were saying video streaming at such a capacity was impossible then Netflix and Amazon proved them wrong and while they were in that process Onlive started 9 years ago to develop this system. As recently as a year ago it was still suffering from some buggy issues and there was a question on whether or not it would make a successful leap to the iPad, tablet systems and smart phones. Then literally during E3 they made a huge breakthrough and the booth was full of palpable excitement and I got to chat with such wonderful folks as Jane Anderson and have a great time with Joe Bentley (VP of Engineering) as he told me some really cool stories leading up to that moment. They were solidly on tablets, and the walls of the booth were soon lined with all forms of them, as well as a dozen other demo stations all showing play from which in and of itself showed the technology off because it wasn’t being all run on site, it was being run in Santa Clara, California. I tried different systems and devices and while they were all amazing, home was where the excitement really took off for me.

OnLive On The PC

First I will start with the system requirements: your computer must be able to play video and have internet access. That’s all. You don’t need to meet a game’s minimum system requirements because you are not playing the game on your system. You are just hitting buttons to tell the server what move to make and then the server is sending back video of the game from the server. In essence you are playing the game by remote control and the only big limitation would be your internet speed. I have a decent internet speed so I have never had a problem in my house. I went somewhere where the internet was weak and tested it and got some tearing and the slightest lag but the games were still playable. Admittedly if you have a system that can display video nicer you are going to have a much more rich picture, but that would be the case with any game.

The game system starts you off with this home page which really is an excellent setup though there is another interface available with turning pages by hitting Escape. But this presentation nicely sets up a point and click path to checking out the system. If you are new it is a good idea to go to the profile and set it up the way you may want it. This is available for others to see unless you set it as private and is a solid way to make new friends and to check for common interests in gameplay. It lets you tell others and know if others are Hardcore or Occasional gamers, your Motto and how long you have been with OnLive. You can also cruise their friends to see if you have mutual ones or they are friends with people you don’t like and most importantly it allows the viewing of Brag Clips they have posted. Brag Clips are a 10 second clip of something they did in game which they thought was awesome or funny. You can also see what games they have in case you want to invite them into one you are playing. This is not stuff which is only available on this system but the fact that it is all nice and neat on one page is a big bonus.

Another way to check out what others are playing is the Arena. This also shows off OnLive’s amazing system time. You can watch dozens of games on little screens, mousing over them to see what games are being played and who the player is and that way you get an idea on what games are hot right now and how full games are. Sometimes you can see multiple players in the same game hunting each other which can be a lot of fun. You can also see if people have been saying they are playing good (cheers) or horrible (jeers) which gives you an idea, though possibly skewed, of how good the player is and how much of an aid they would be to your team. It also tells you if anyone else is watching the game in “Spectator Mode.”

This mode allows you to actually go in the game and follow the player’s action around as if you are actually the player. It is a great way to get an idea if a game is for you, how good the player is and what kind of player they are. This is really nice in case you are planning to buy and individual game instead of going through the PlayPack Bundle (I’ll get into that more later). If you like what you see you can click on the game and if you already own it it will launch you right in, if you still need to buy it it will open a Marketplace screen, that simple.

Playing On The PC

The controls are standard for the game and most are pretty standard for most games with WASD and the three mouse buttons. There are often weapon trade outs for the FPS games at the number locations but otherwise playing the game is just like playing the game on your computer, just without taking up the hard drive space.

Playing On The Console

The console is tiny, a little bigger than a deck of cards and fairly lightweight. It comes with one controller which can be wireless through charger pack or battery pack or hardwired into one of two ports. The console is also compatible with Microsoft Xbox 360 Controller for Windows, Microsoft Xbox 360 Wireless Controller for Windows, Logitech Chill Stream, Logitech F510, Satie P3200 Rumble Pad, and Mad Cats Gamepad in case you want to go a different route for additional controllers, though this controller is not only set up for play but for recording and playing with brag clips so you probably want at least one of these in play. The console supports four controllers so you aren’t losing out on buddy playtime by using it. What at first is so remarkable is how simple the setup is and how small the box is but when you think about it this doesn’t have to hold a game or handle great graphics, it just needs to transmit your moves and receive video, though when it comes to receiving video it is capable of not just HD but 3D once the price of those TVs becomes affordable to you.

The image above gives you a pretty good idea of how big it is, look at a USB cable or plugin, this system is only about 4 of them across. This also makes it insanely portable. I recently took a trip and decided to travel with the whole thing in it’s original box and in box presentation. The box is smaller than a shoe box and stores easily in a carry-on with tons of room to spare. If you took the system out of it’s presentation case it would easily fit into a small makeup bag. The cables come down to power, internet and video out so there aren’t many and they almost take up as much room as a controller and they system. The cool thing is if you are going to a buddy’s house to play and they have one of the controllers and a hdmi cable you could literally fit this stuff in your pockets. The rechargeable controller charges in the USB port making the system even more self sufficient.

What probably worried me the most after playing the games so much on the PC was if the games would feel like a port when played on the console. It didn’t. Once you got used to the controls, which were very similiar to the XBox 360, you were away and flying forgetting you started playing it on a PC. I played a while on the PC then sat down in front of the television, picked up the same game at the last saved place and went right into the fight. This game is really designed to be playable anywhere with a good internet connection. I don’t own an iPad but it has definitely been put on my Christmas List so I have one more way to play.

Cost and Ownership

Cost gets knocked out of the park pretty quick simply because they have a pack right now called the PlayPack Bundle which allows you to play 70 different games and they are regularly adding more for $9.99 a month. You can pick up additional new titles, some that have additional add-ons, some which come with the $100 console for a competitive price (Saints Row: The Third comes with add-on items and the console at time of this publication for $49.99). It is when it comes to ownership that people get nervous. It has been brought up to me a few times that what if OnLive goes under, they will lose their games. That is a fair worry, since none of the games are on your equipment and they do have competition in the PC market with Steam. The best way I think of it is the company is expanding, they have an amazing business setup with big titles signed into contracts with them so that their future looks really bright, honestly I would love to get a job with them or even buy their stock. I would buy a game that comes with the console and start the $10 a month service. At that point you would be out about $60. You have no contract and can quit anytime you like. You can also do a free trial to make sure it and it’s games are for you. For that initial $60 you will be able to play the game you bought for as long as you want (or for worriers for as long as they are around) and have access to over 70 other games with no play limit. You can also rent new titles when they come up once you are a customer, especially if you are the kind of gamer that only plays through once and does it in a couple days. Spending $5 might be the better way to go and you never have to worry about it being in stock or available, it is ready to play at the time the game launches without any loading discs. I know I sound a bit like a salesman with this review but I am honestly trying to stay neutral in this, it is just that impressive of a system. It is like being one of the first who heard of Netflix streaming being handled by Amazon clouding, it is looking into the future of gaming, maybe to the point that the game stores go the way of the video ones.

Final Thoughts

Some may say I have looked into the future of gaming, others may say I “drank the punch,” but whatever you think you can give it a free trial, if you like that fork out $10 for a month of service. If you like that, buy one game that comes with a console for the same price you would pay competitively and try out the portability and space saving of the console. I think in the end this review will prove prophetic for the future of gaming. OnLive are the pioneers and they are heading into ever more amazing territory. I plan to go along for that ride, I will give reviews of games through them for a long time and I will be able to play console, PC, laptop, tablet, smart phone and who knows what next and review them all on the same account.

Images

Spy Net Video Watches and Snake Cam Review (Hardware)

2011/08/05

Ripper71

News, Reviews

Jakks Pacific has been a regular at E3 for a while now, though they are fairly quietly showing their products so that their name hasn’t quite spread as fast as the technology in their toys should have carried it. When I got a glimpse of some of their goods though I arranged with my editor to give their products a look like we had some in the past. It’s one of those little companies that has put out higher quality consumer products in a child’s design so that instead of pretending to have James Bond toys kids could have the real thing at a reasonable price. So I got the opportunity to have fun testing the Spy Net Secret Mission Video Watch, the Spy Net Multi-Media Night Vision Video Watch and Spy Net Flex Neck Snake Cam.

Spy Net Secret Mission Video Watch:

This watch would have been a dream come true growing up and even as a grown adult my mind dances with possibilities. The design looks a bit more like a kid’s design which is their primary market but they have made a band that is adjustable to all children’s sizes and large adult sizes as well. There have been plenty of quality adult watches I have purchased over the years that didn’t fit or the face looked small. As an adult it was around the right size for my wrist and the strap fit comfortably. Before I get to the video aspect which is the main feature most people would buy this watch for I want to go over the tons of different features this watch has. To start it has the time and date in a futuristic video screen but also can be changed to any time zone with the hit of a button. You can also change the sound level (important) and the video level between low medium and high. Once you have all this important but rather boring parts set it is time to have some fun. Hit the Games Mode selection in the menu and you find your choice of Spy Net Defense or Spy Net Combat, two mini games built into the watch. When you are done occupying your time with them you can move onto the amazing features which at first I thought might be a joke but upon testing turned out to be real: Spy Apps. First comes the Lie Detector, in which you ask a bunch of base line questions and once a pattern is established you ask questions you want true answers to. I found that it predicted my truth very accurately, when I lied it said there was a 90% chance I was lying and when I told the truth it gave me a 50%+ chance that I was telling the truth. Now I have to go on record that I am a terrible liar, hideous really, and even the watch seemed to mock my abilities. When I tested it on friends who were accomplished liars it was a little less predictable and explains while though this technology is fun, it isn’t perfect. But heck we can always hope that our friends or children aren’t good enough liars to beat it right?

Bug Detector is the next trick on this watches list and it is one that works on a simple principle but people often pay good money for and this watch seems to work as accurately as the other models I have seen. I would pass some rooms without any electronic transmitters and no bugs were detected. Considering the unique nature of my former day job I would then walk into a room with microphone transmitters and the bug detector went off right away with a warning alarm. Now admittedly the average person doesn’t have to worry about bugs but I do know that I have been in work places that were wired for video and audio surveillance so that private meeting locations to discuss sensitive issues could be hard to find and this watch could give some degree of comfort. It probably wouldn’t detect a hardwired listening device (such as itself) but it is a little peace of mind. As kids playing with it I imagine keying a toy walkie talkie and hiding it would work as a bug and become a game of hide and seek for the walkie in a yard or house.

Also under Spy Apps was Voice Manipulation which is a simple trick but a fun one, the SpyNet Voice Manipulator is even sold as a separate item by a couple different companies and can be a lot of fun. To test it out I did a standard count in from a commercial break at my day job and recorded it. I then ran it through the Voice Manipulator and then played it back for countdowns manipulated, the first time set to higher frequency. My count time remained the same but my voice changed dramatically enough to not be recognizable by the crew. After letting them know what I was up to my crew then listened to a deepened pitch of my voice, which is already deep and it sounded a bit like a slowed record playing of my voice but still difficult to recognize. That application was popular with the crew, especially the ladies who had their voice changed almost to a man’s by the pitch change and a bit of change in their voice cadence. How would kids use this? They could pre-record things and call their friends and repeat them back with the voice changer or record a bunch of things and use them as answers to each others questions or quote famous movie lines and see how they sound in grown up male and female voices.

Now from the fun features of the watch to the reason people buy it, recording audio, still picture and video. The Audio recording option is pretty straight forward and well done, the microphone is very sensitive and picks up both directional noise and environmental (omnidirectional). It is a bit sensitive to contact which can be a little rough since it is in watch form but once you get the hang of it the microphone works really well in most situations and you learn to not keep it too close to your mouth so it doesn’t sound like you are… umm having cause for heavy breathing off camera. So as audio goes the microphone is good and pretty standard.

Still Pictures is particularly good as well, even when the camera is in motion it has a very clean capture system that is quicker and more reliable than my cell phone which I found to be a bit of a surprise. It also has a great light sensor that keeps the pics just right and the time lapse works perfectly and can be programmed to take at different times. Examples will be included in the gallery at the bottom of the article.

Video quality can be decent and adjusted between low, medium and high quality for the balance between record time and video quality. The hard drive could be a bit bigger and eventually I wouldn’t be surprised if a version with a larger drive comes out or they make it so that it takes micro SD cards to give more options. For projects 20 minutes of recording can be kinda short but for kids that is pretty good, especially around the house where when the camera is full you can just plug it into a computer and download it and clean it off. This also works well for if you are doing one of the missions and just need to download them too and the number of pictures you can save is very decent, up to 20,000 on the lower quality which is an amazingly large amount and will get you through just about any night and gives you a nice long time for time lapse as well.

Spy Net Multi-Media Night Vision Video Watch:

This is the upgrade to the previous video watch so most of what was covered above I will just skip over and go over the new goodies. The games mode has the two games mentioned in the watch above plus 7 new ones as well as new missions that can be downloaded from SpyNetHQ.com. The Spy mode has also been added to so that now it includes a sound level meter like they used in “Mission Impossible,” a flashlight, spy detector which scans images for enemies and image overlay which allows you to put select captions on images such as “Wanted” or a target. There is also a section where you achieve awards and ranks for completing games and missions.

All this is a lot of fun but if you are upgrading to this watch odds are you are doing it for it’s key feature: night vision recording. This works remarkably well and the camera is equipped with night vision lights (in the human eye visible range) and they can be shut off to just use the low level light available (which makes it more discreet). The design is slightly less obvious as well that it has a camera and microphone than the previous watch and when you turn on the night vision lights they aren’t extremely obvious and seem to illuminate around 15′ in pure darkness. This was actually better than I would have expected from such a small source.

Spy Net Flex Neck Snake Cam:

This is definitely a James Bond or maybe even SWAT Team type of electronic! We have all seen in the movie the SWAT commander sticking the little camera under the door to see what is happening before they bust it in or they guy who is wired with a camera that goes through his shirt button hole. This is the camera for those moments, this is also a web cam, a great cam for peeking around corners or over the back of furniture, sticking out a window while driving, basically it is a little camera that can be used in any place that would be hard to get a normal sized camera into. This is great for kids playing hide and seek, spy games, heck I think this would be great for playing paint ball, you could peek around a corner and see your target and shoot them without them ever seeing you. It is a very affordable addition to the watches, it plugs right into the side of them to give you a visual display of what it sees and the imagination is the limits on what you can do with it. The lower half is standard cord and the upper half is bendable so you can bend it into whatever shape will work the best for you. It makes an fairly inconspicuous watch camera completely inconspicuous.

Drawbacks:

The watches are designed to fit a very decent size wrist but it does kind of look a bit like a kid’s watch. I wore it a couple of days without anybody commenting on it though until I went to check the time and the video screen came on. This really nice feature also draws attention to the watch though and it’s brightness can distract people and make them wonder why it is so bright and what other bells and whistles it might have, especially in low lighted areas. I kind of wish the video screen came with a cover that could be closed down on it to make it less noticeable during recording. Spy Record mode helps, it makes it so that you are recording without the image being on the watch face, just the time with the dots between the hour and the minutes blinking red periodically to let you know it is recording. But the screen is still really bright, wish there was a dimmer function.

The Snake Cam has both a drawback and a plus in the sense that the edges of it’s video screen are rounded visually so that it looks like you are looking through a hidden camera, which can be fun for playing spy but a little less fun for using the video as part of a source for a longer project.

Last Call:

I already have plans for the whole year mapped out for use with the video part of this camera, I plan to particularly use it during October visits to haunted attractions where I can record without an obtrusive camera and time lapse in scare zones to get a feel for how they run over a longer period of time. I have even thought of getting new ones in case I need more record time in one evening. The Snake Cam can be purchased for under $20 which is a great price if it was only ever used as a webcam let alone all its other uses. Shopping around can get either of the watches in the neighborhood of $50 which when you consider all the features and fact that you have a video camera and webcam that is completely portable, tiny and fits in your pocket or on your wrist they are a great deal. Since they are both about the same price some people may ask why go with the watch with less features but if you have a kid the more features it has the more confusing it can be so they may want the simpler watch. I will try to post videos from haunts and such using the cameras so you can see just how effective they can be. I have a couple of examples below of picture time lapse and videos and look forward to making more!

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AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! – A Reckless Disregard for Gravity Review (PC/OnLive)

2011/08/03

Ripper71

News, Reviews

Ok much like the title this game doesn’t take itself too seriously, in fact it thrives on being silly and yet at the same time it is surprisingly challenging and addictive. In 1982 Polystructures fall from space into the air over Boston and people take to populating them and building around them. By the year 2011 you can no longer look up from a city and see the stars, but you can look down from the top of the Polystructures and base jump off of them. Hence a new dimensional timeline and lifestyle is born. Base jumping is literally taken to new heights as you leap down hugging and kissing the sides of building and other structures until you get to the bottom where you deploy your parachute fin before become a “sack of calcium” or a bunch of other amusing but dead options and try and land inside a red circle.

So for each time you succeed at hugging building, shattering glass panels with score values and landing without becoming mush you earn a score which is then applied to a star system. The more stars you get for equaling or increasing your star rating on a map earns you teeth. Yep, the currency of this dimension is teeth and the more you earn the more map drop points or special goodies you can unlock. Now one person’s special goodies is anothers bizarre and just plain hilarious moment so make sure to spend your money wisely. One of the unlocks, for example, is a glowing glove that makes it so that as you plummet past onlookers you can encourage your supporters with a thumb up or your protestors with a nice red glowing middle finger. Another allows you to spray graffiti, remember you are doing all this while plummeting to the ground and dodging buildings and structures at an alarming rate. If it all gets to be to much though you can listen to relaxation sessions (there are no insects on you… not on your face getting ready to crawl in your nose, not at all) or learn how to debristle a pig or get grandma’s special recipe for cookies (the secret ingredient is a dead relative’s ashes).

The wackiness of the game, the fact that no two jumps are ever the same and that this is a game with real skill and practice necessary to do good at it makes it addictive to watch and to play. I was trying it out on the OnLive service and I was constantly getting spectators watching and would sometimes try (and sometimes fail) spectacular moves to entertain my audience. I got friends request on the service as well by people who just wanted to be able to know when I would be on and playing it again. This game is perfect for parties, it is so visually engaging and the difference between a high score and becoming a bunch of femur paste is the slightest of moves. Also it is on OnLive so you can play the game on any PC anywhere, play it on tablets or use the tiny OnLive console and all you need to do is get it an internet connection and plug it into your TV and suddenly you can be playing it on a huge screen at someone else’s party. The OnLive system lends itself to portability and versatility anyways but this game showcases it so nicely. This next weekend I am heading out of town to visit friends and the OnLive system is going with me and going to get some serious play and I really see this game shining.

Last Call:

At first glance this game looks easy and silly, but it actually can be very challenging and no two jumps are exactly the same. But it is also silly, and has as much fun with itself as possible. If you have ever been interested in the history of base jumping there are factoids tucked in as well but this is really about having the American version of Monty Python-esque fun and laughing while sweating your jumps. Dying doesn’t bother you, it makes you laugh. My wife was at her computer laughing at the sound effects (there are old school arcade sounds in it very similar to Sonic) and the different odd things said in the game. When she walked by she stopped and just started staring at my game like so many OnLive spectators drawn into the visuals as well as the sound. This is a great party game which you can try for free at OnLive and it is included in the over 70 games on it’s play anytime PlayBundle so it would be at your leaping leisure for $10 a month. I picked it because of it’s funny name to be honest and now it is in my regular play rotation. Heck even the companies website is fun to go to!

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Limbo Review (PC/Steam)

2011/08/03

Ripper71

News, Reviews

If you are a console player you have probably already given this game a run but if you are pure PC or you had a friend who said “that game sucked” and that was enough to keep you from trying it then you may have only heard of the game. Just about everyone has at least heard of Limbo due to it’s incredibly stylized presentation and haunting mistreatment of its little boy hero. Every game magazine tried to write it up at one time or another without giving too much away and that can be extremely difficult to first get the style and feeling across but then also make someone feel the need to play it. It honestly reminds me of foreign movies and animations that I have experienced over the years. Anyone who watched the short film “Deadsy” (the band and most of my game characters’ names have been based off it) and got the beauty and horror of it might have some understanding. So instead of trying to tell you why you should play it or shouldn’t I will try to tell you what I felt while I played it, why this side game turned into a marathon playing for me and much like a foreign film, you will have to decide if this is where your tastes lie. To start here is a screenshot.

I purposely chose one with no action, no traps or big challenges in sight, just an average moment in the game. This is one of the brighter moments, the shadowed areas increase, the screen flickers like you are watching an old silent movie and usually the brightest thing in the whole game are the eyes on the little silhouette of a boy that you are helping through the journey. When you discover a new trap or fail a test those little white eyes blink out for a moment and then come back at the last checkpoint. He never screams in pain or terror, never complains, he just moves along to the next task and horror at hand. Music is sparse and the notes tend to resound, most of the game relies on ambient noise of frogs or flies or water splashing. If he falls off a tall cliff you will see his eyes shining in the thickening darkness, hear a crunch and then the eyes go out as the scene fades to darkness and he is standing in front of one of his tests again.

The tests are plentiful and seem to come from the mind of a child, one with some learning but also who has seen enough action movies and played Cowboys and Indians to have an imagination ripe with its own torments. The Lord of The Flies, arachnophobia, saws slicing people up, all in a world where flipping a switch can make gravity reverse or magnets can hold giant metal block in mid air. If a child were to place tests of horror in front of itself it would play out a lot like this game.

And you want to help this little boy who is lost in this dark place facing more and more moments of possible death. Knowing that death is not the end, but only a step back into the journey that is so dark and that he faces alone except for a little help from you. All the other boys are out to torment, sabotage or just plain destroy him on his journey through this dark land so you feel compelled to keep helping him. It becomes difficult to take a break especially after night falls and you are in the same darkness he is. This may sound somewhat melodramatic but the game does pull you in if you let it and it can be very much like you are helping a character on it’s way through a movie, wanting to see how it ends and having the satisfaction of no matter who finally lies in store you helped the little lost boy get there.

The game is just haunting to put it simply, generally more like nightmares than dreams but it is a dreamscape nonetheless and one that had me with my face 8 inches away from my 23″ LED monitor, the speakers pulled close, the lights off, fully entranced. The standard game controls are the arrow keys and Ctrl which I usually find confining in computer play but seemed very much to fit the game’s confined environment you are trying to help escape.

The ending will be a matter of debate for a long time, I am not showing you it in any of the screenshots nor do I plan to show you any. If you want to go to YouTube and watch it you can but to me it is like reading the last page of a very deep and surreal book, you won’t really get it unless you take the journey through the game and then you may come up with a different theory than the many, many ones that are out there and discussed on endless threads. It is this ending with such an opening to interpretation that really throws some people for a loop and makes them sometimes hate the game. These are usually the same people who hate every minute of a foreign or strange film because it made them think, made them wonder and in some ways just gave them questions and left them to fill in the answers. I find a certain beauty in this, a certain maturity that can be very difficult for someone just out to have a fun play and escape reality for a while to accept. It is a foreign film in game form and leaves questions instead of giving a tidy, clean and happy Hollywood ending. I love it for that as much as the great puzzles and gameplay.

Last Call:

This game is different, it is for a certain taste, I could see people watching others playing to experience the story as much as the action. The action of the puzzle solving may appeal to gamers and they may enjoy it simply for that but this was a game that was designed to engage you like a movie. A movie where you have to commit yourself to helping the main character, in this case a lost little boy, find his way to the end, whatever ending it may be. Much like many Hollywood remakes of movies I could see how the temptation to have a spelled out, The End kind of ending to this game could have been tempting but I think this game will live on in the imaginations of those who played it more as a result of the simple fade to black.

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood Multiplayer Madness with the Frag Dolls (OnLive)

2011/07/29

Ripper71

News

So those of you who have succumb to my barrage of game news and reviews from OnLive Game Systems and those who just want to check out what the fuss is all about have a great opportunity this Friday night to take on or watch the general chaos, chewing bubble gum and kicking ass the Frag Dolls are famous for as they tear their way through OnLive players leaving a grin on their pwned faces. This reminds me of a time when I got a chance to become one of Stephen Segal’s “sparring” partners.

Me: Sensei, that means he will just kick my ass around right?

Sensei: Yes, pretty much… but if he likes you he kicks your ass in a movie!

Me: Pass. Thanks.

True story. So if you haven’t had a chance to check out OnLive or Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood or the Frag Dolls (get your ass kicked by a hot chick, just like back in school!) this is a great time to do it! Prizes for the ones who spill the least of their own blood! (actually I don’t know what the prizes are for I have to work… DANG YOU REAL WORLD!!!) And remember it is only a game, they won’t kick your ass in a movie or school, I don’t think, that’s something you have to work out with them. But to give you at least a sporting edge, here is Frag Doll Phoenix with some Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood Multiplayer tips and a link to OnLive’s collection of the Frag Doll’s brutal stats (game stats guys!).

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Hope to sneak off at work and see you there! *looks around shifty eyed*