Author - Ripper71

Red Faction: Armageddon Review (OnLive/PC)

2011/07/10
Ripper71
News, Reviews

When I first started playing Red Faction: Armageddon I was a little confused.  Wait I am supposed to take a hammer and smash a wall?  Ok…BOOM goes the wall.  Pretty darn cool.  So for a while I went around all smashy smashy.  Well what do you know, this game rewards you for smashing everything in sight, smashy smashy smashy.  And boy do I wield a mean hammer!  Thor eat your heart out.  Let’s try the other weapons, not bad there either.  Then along came monsters and I got a little nervous.  Heck there I was following a trail of very ugly corpses to get here, this was going to be creepy and nasty.  Only it isn’t really, the beasts, though creepy looking, are all the colors of the rainbow and when I start swinging my hammer the walls and heaven above thunder and quake.  If I miss the beasts I might hit a pillar, then they get crushed by debris.  Nice!  They start attacking in great numbers causing me a harder time but as long as I have a good working concept of cover and don’t try to charge through every fray I move up through the levels fast and fun, though without a lot of fear maybe partially because of the fact that it is a third person shooter.  I think a lot of it has to do with amazing weapons and the plentiful ammo. It just kind of renders the enemies inferior and I feel like a juggernaut as I tear through them over and over again, varying it up, finding what works best for each particular weapon but I just keep moving along, collecting corpses and upgrading attacks.  There is a fun, large variety to choose from but in the end it really comes down to one.  the Magnet Gun.

Once the Magnet Gun came into play I started clearing levels using just it and my hammer. All the other weapons remained on full ammo as I went through and beat everything in the distance with buildings, yes I threw whole buildings at the aliens and watched them smashed against cave walls, then took the aliens corpse and threw it at another alien.  Some may try to compare it to an energy grapple gun in another game but this is both harder to control and much more amazingly destructive.  In that one you had to grab a piece of metal or an enemy’s body part, something small, and hurl it at something else with sometimes with a weapons precision.  With the Magnet Gun however, you pick what to pull and where to anchor it. Say you pick a 4 story metal walkway and pick a single enemy and suddenly a whole walkway is smashing into it.  I even forgot about the hammer at one point and threw various buildings own walls at each other from the inside like an implosion. I would throw the base of the tower into the top of it crushing it like a can. I could also shoot an enemy then shoot a beam high in the caves and cause it to go flying through the air like a rag doll and crush its head on the beam.  When all wreckage was on the floor I would sometimes take the corpses and slam them against a steel wall.  Just because I could and because in a sick way it was kind of funny.

There are a few other vehicles you get to use, such as a mech walker, a spider tank and a compact flyer.  The mech walker and spider tank are pretty dang impressive as long as, once again, you take your time and don’t rush into the middle of situations. They are practically invincible and can do massive amounts of damage and destruction as you move along with them.  Their unlimited ammo also makes them fun for just shooting and blowing up every single scrap in sight.  The flyer is a little different story, the rockets are outstanding but slow to re-power, the gun is a little weak and the armor is downright weak.  I came really close… ok I can swallow my pride and state that I got killed in it a lot.  Most of the game takes place in tunnels or caves which means you just follow the path in front of you, one way in, one way out.  If you try to backtrack it considers it desertion of mission and kills you.  In the case of the flyer you are in an extremely tight tunnel, very much a Matrix-like feel to the tunnel and the flying, and enemies blast the crud out of you with little room for maneuverability.  This was probably the most painful part of the game to work through and unlike your godlike fighting status throughout the rest of the game you feel like a fish getting shot in a barrel.  Even when you are a fish in a barrel you are a graphically great looking fish, the visuals are incredibly crisp, the sound is excellent and the destruction shows amazing detail in every single piece of debris.

Last Call:

This game is an absolute blast.  I guess I was expecting more of a survival horror and this game falls somewhere between Dead Space 2 and Halo, which when you think about it is truly not bad company to be keeping.  The creatures are scarier than Halo but not as creepy as Dead Space 2, the weapon variety is actually better than either and the enemy toughness falls somewhere in between the two.  The key is this game has massive destruction capabilities and provides the perfect weapons to destroy just about everything in sight.  You get your hammer for smashing through walls and even the floor if the doors or the stairs sound boring and they have the Magnet Gun which is almost like a wrecking ball in it’s destructive nature and takes your damage possibilities to the limits only of your imagination.  Honestly this game, partially because of the quirky dialogue and mostly the damage system, doesn’t take itself as serious as the other two and is mostly about giving you big guns, fun targets and letting you destroy the world.  There are even special game modes such as Ruin which it literally just designed to destroy everything in sight and four person co-op multiplayer where you get to see what happens with four Magnet Guns and hammers getting wielded at the same time. Talk about destruction and chaos!  This is the part where I have to decide whether or not I would recommend buying this game.  Is it just a stamp of another that you might already have?  I think you have probably already figured out that I think it is a game of it’s own, designed with fun destruction in mind so that it doesn’t take itself quite as serious as some other games in the genre.  The game has over 10 hours of playthrough just on campaign mode if you play through once, and then there are achievements to be had and different weapon combinations to be tried and that is without even bringing the multiplayer mode into consideration which can be as different as the players who play it. Red Faction: Armageddon is totally worth its price.

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Metro 2033 Review (OnLive/PC)

2011/07/09
Ripper71
News, Reviews

2033 will not be a good year for human beings if Metro 2033 has captured our future right, but it is a good time for gaming.  Based on the 2003 (get the year?) book of the same title by Dmitry Glukhovsky, Metro 2033 is set in a bleak underground world beneath a frozen wasteland that was once a thriving city and takes us to the dark edges of survival where every bit of light is welcome and almost everything that goes bump in the dark wants you dead.  Though it mostly takes place in poorly lit tunnels where corpses abound, the game never really seems to repeat the same scenery and for such a bleak environment it is very rich in detail, every section tells a story even if it is not the one you are traveling through.  You may stumble upon the corpse of a apocalypse time soldier and by the destruction around him and the blood smears on the ground you can figure out how he died even though he has become nothing more to you than an ammo bucket.  The game is incredibly rich in such details, visually and audibly, making it quickly immersive especially if you find yourself like I was on an addicted marathon play of it through the night.  The darkness is not just darkness, it is danger and oppressive doom and in every shadow you may find a reward in the form of a cache of weapons or you may have something knocking you on your back and chomping at your neck trying to tear it out.  It has lots of jump factors but doesn’t just rely on them.  The mutants though very canine like will sometimes stand erect on their hind legs and look at you and let out a long woeful wail.  After which mutant beasts descent on you from all directions.

The game isn’t all doom though there isn’t much that doesn’t have gloom. There are sparks in the dark in the form of soldiers, like yourself, and others who still hold out hope for humanity winning.  More often than not you will encounter what you would expect to see in such an environment, the mutants truly aren’t mankind’s only enemy.  There are those who want to rule, warring factions who can’t give up their grudges just because they have a common enemy, those who prey upon others in times of disaster, all the bad elements of mankind that we would expect to rear their ugly heads in our greatest times of need.  This game provides them all, well created and very believably, almost sadly believable and they prove obstacles on your journey as well.  Without giving away the story too much your journey could almost seem a bit simple for what trials you have to endure but they show the character of the character you are playing and proves to be a value of their own.

Resources are very scarce in the game so weapon upgrades and ammo are cherished and sometimes used sparingly.  There were a few times where I found myself relying on my knife rather than my gun in some dangerous battle because I knew something nastier was around the corner and I needed to make every round count.  Ammo is so valuable that it is currency in the game, the pre-apocalyptic military grade ammo is the coin of the land so when you get it you have to decide do you buy a weapon upgrade or more of the inferior mutant day ammo or is your survival in this situation dependent on some well placed shots with some good rounds?  It is a choice you have to make throughout the game and you definitely want to not take it lightly. Use up too much of the better ammo and you could find yourself wishing you had it when some scavenger in one of the few lit and populated train stations, the only bastion of civilization left, offers you a shiny item for the military ammo you have left.  Another tip I learned the hard way, check all the scavengers in these hubs before you purchase, you may be excited to see new weapons to be had, but sometimes you might find something to provide light in the dark of the tunnel.

Since ammo is so valuable and scarce sometimes avoiding the conflict all together is the best way to go, though usually not the only way.  The game is good about giving you options on how to get past situations.  Generally what it does is present you with a situation such as a bunch of guards sitting around listening to their commander speak.  You are watching from the dark and all the choices on how to proceed is up to you.  You can try to cling to the ever present shadows and try to slip down the stairs to one side.  You could try to take up a offensive position and start tearing them apart.  You can take a defensive position and pick them off as they separate after the meeting.  You can try walking past them and hope to get back into the shadows before they see you.  Literally all these options are available to you and there is no wrong choice, some are more difficult than others, but they are all up to you.  This freedom to clear obstacles is one of the most addictive parts of the game and had me playing the same sections over and over just curious how each scenario might play out.  I wasn’t alone in my fascination of it either, the OnLive system has a feature called Arena in which people can spectate on other player’s games to see if they like it or to cheer or jeer them on.  During the hours I played Metro 2033 I don’t think a single minute went by (no exaggeration) where I didn’t have a spectator watching the game and most of the ones that left wound up coming back to watch some more.  The game isn’t just addictive to play it is also addictive to watch.

Few games are absolutely perfect and this one had it’s occasional issues.  Sometimes with the animation you couldn’t tell something was dead already and so wasted a few extra shots of ammo though this might have been intentional.  Melee combat can be awkward with your swipes appearing to land but missing entirely or the enemy walking right through you to suddenly be behind you even if you are in a dead end with no side to side movement room which in a first person game in particular can be frustrating when you find yourself trying to fight something basically underneath you.  For the most part though these issues are very easy to overlook.

Last Call:

Metro 2033 paints a dark future for mankind with little sparks of light traveling through it though not all of them with bright intentions.  The atmosphere is immersive and addictive, the gameplay mechanics and situations are extremely enthralling.  I picked this game for the little bit of talk I had heard about it before it came out and I am extremely glad I did.  It has replayability due to the great number of possibilities in each scenario and each play through will be over 10 hours.  I think this game might be one of the best plays of the year and I know it is probably one of the best stories, heck I plan to order the book now.  Now if they would only make a video game based on World War Z…

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AI War Alien Bundle Review (PC)

2011/07/03
Ripper71
News, Reviews

Humanity has already fought its war against the machines — and lost. AI death squads stand watch over every planet and every wormhole, the few remaining human settlements are held captive in orbiting bubbles, and the AIs have turned their attention outward, away from the galaxy, to alien threats or opportunities unknown.  This inattention is our only hope: a small resistance, too insignificant even to be noticed by the AI central command, has survived.  These are the forces you will command.  The AI subcommanders will fight you to the death when they see you, but your glimmer of opportunity comes from quietly subduing those subcommanders without alerting central processing to the danger until it’s too late.

You do have a few things going in your favor. Your ships are much faster. You have safe AI routines to automate defenses and mining outposts. You have production techniques that can churn out fully-outfitted unmanned fighters in seconds. There will never be more than a few thousand of your ships versus tens of thousands of theirs, but through careful strategy you must somehow reach and destroy the heavily-guarded AI cores.

Go forth into the galaxy, steal AI technology, recapture those planets you must in order to achieve your ends, and save what remains of humanity. But draw too much attention to yourself, and the full might of the AI overlords will come crashing down.

The Details:

AI War is a strategy game that plays like an RTS but feels like a 4X with tower defense and grand strategy bits, too.  More specifically, this is a game that you can either play solo, or in 2-8 player co-op.  You always play against a pair of AIs, and you can configure an enormous amount of things about the experience. The AI is excellent, the longer you play the better the AI plays.

The only way to play is in procedurally-generated “campaigns.” There are quite literally billions of possibilities, and every campaign has a really different feel to it.  They also last a good while: most between 7 to 13 hours, about the length of time it takes to play through an FPS campaign once. This means your decisions, victories and blunders alike, have really long term, interesting consequences.  You can save and load at any time, even in multiplayer, so you could have one campaign going for weeks or months if you like.  This is foremost a game about cleverly picking your battles, evaluating scout intel for weaknesses and opportunities, and executing really long-term plans despite the monkey wrenches the AI is sure to throw into the works. It’s about thinking on your feet and evaluating each situation, rather than memorizing stats.

Game Play:

So the details above sound like quite a bit of boasting on behalf of the developers but they are really just stating the facts.  This game is like playing a chess game where each expansion they add more chess pieces.  If you are looking for action games where you tear through levels this is not the game for you.  I have played this game for a dozen hour stretch more than once and still not had the campaign completed.  This is a very solid strategy game with a very, very strong AI and if you try to zerg you will die.  This game is in a sense an act of contrition, you have to be willing to stick it out, no matter how long it takes, days, weeks, if you ever expect to win a single campaign.  I have played for hours, gone to dinner with my wife, then come back and picked up for hours.  Taken a couple days off, then gone back and played an hour here and an hour there.  There really is just that much to the campaigns.  And because of randomizing and different building and strategic approaches I know that every time I play it will be different.  You can even choose which, if any, of the expansions are active for your round.  The strategic scope of this game, when at first it seems a simple colonization strategy is pretty staggering.  When I first saw the galaxy map I wasn’t particularly impressed, but once I got down to the actual building and moving I realized this is an exceptionally deep game.

Graphics:

At a wide galactic level the graphics seem simple.  Then when you build ships, and there are so many types of ships to build, you see that there are actually some very nice graphic details. They are all just concentrated on the most important parts of the game.  Once again I want to compare it a bit to chess, the board is often nice but not necessarily special, but the pieces can often be beautifully crafted and detailed.  That is just the way the game works, the galaxy may not be thrilling, the background at the worlds may seem almost like a wallpaper of a planet, but every ship and every aspect of it from what it fires to it’s destruction is all beautifully detailed.  I still find myself occasionally building a ship just because I like how amazingly bad ass it looks, though often its actions don’t disappoint.

A Good Cause:

When you purchase the AI War Alien Bundle, you’re not only getting a great game and three huge expansions, you’re also supporting an important cause.  Arcen Games is a platinum sponsor of the Child’s Play charity, pledging 100% of the profits from sale of Children Of Neinzul (excepting any taxes and distributor fees) to helping sick kids in need.  That works out to 9% of the purchase price of the AI War Alien Bundle.  So since the Bundle is an affordable $29.99 you get a great deal on a game while helping others.

Last Call:

This game is for hardcore strategists only.  This game is extremely time consuming and if you try to rush it you will probably lose.  With that being said if you have the patience for a long game, the strategic nature and desire to step up to a real mental challenge, this is the game for you.  The price is right, the game is great and you even help a good cause.  And there is another expansion in beta at the time of this writing… Science!

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Gatling Gears Review (PSN)

2011/07/03
Ripper71
News, Reviews

When the Empire begins its reign of destruction in a thirst for natural resources, it’s up to Max Brawley, a retired Gatling Gears pilot, to stop them.  Together with his niece and his trusty Gatling Gear unit he must fight his way to the heart of the Empire and eliminate the destruction at its source.  A top down rail shooter this game is most unique in it’s theme:  a steam punk land from the past.

A Whole New World:

The game is set in the land of Mistbound which is a rich fictional world that was created as a platform for the studio’s multi-format downloadable games and other media.  Greed Corp is the first in a series of games situated in this universe.  Inspired by the industrial revolutions of the 19th century and its subsequent destructive effects on the environment, Mistbound tells stories of a beautiful world once rich in resources and now on the brink of collapse.  Automated industry has brought great material wealth, but relentless harvesting and mining has forever altered the world and its inhabitants. The last unspoiled lands are at stake in new conflicts between four factions, while the stripped and barren earth around them slowly succumbs to a thick mist that creeps ever closer.  The result of all this in Gatling Gears is vehicles that look like DaVinci may have drawn up but never saw the light of day in reality. But due to industrial development the world progressed faster than technology and beautiful and strange vehicles and buildings result which are terrific examples of steam punk.  I look in wonderment when a new steam punk unit arrives, enemy or ally, and it cost me some lives that I still feel were well worth it.  I see this world being a great launching platform for many, many more games, my greatest hope being a strategy game in the vein of Star Craft where you don’t just fight against the units but get to build them as well!

Come Get Some:

Gatling Gears is a twin-stick top-down shooter for Xbox LIVE Arcade, PlayStation Network, and PC.  It is disguised as an open city environment but if you pay attention it really is a game on rails, you can blast the heck out of the world around you and can move at your own pace but you still go where they want you to go.  You don’t mind too much because of all the eye candy between the vehicles and Mistbound and you are kept pretty busy with the tons of enemies and allies all over the screen.  There is a fairly short tutorial at the beginning which gets you started and gets the general idea of how to play but you still better pay close attention to it otherwise you may find yourself going “wait how do I do that again?” or worse “how do I do that with hundreds of missiles flying at me at once?”  Once you get comfortable with the controls you do fall in love with the weapons and vehicles around you and you just want to push on to see the next enemies and the next boss.  Sure you have to be careful in your game play to stay alive, but honestly it simply comes down to it being a two stick shooter set in an amazing world where even your own vehicle is a beauty to watch.

One Is Great, Two Is Better:

This game is great by yourself and fun to play and amazing to look at, but at soon as you get to throw your niece into another war machine that your buddy or a stranger online controls the game play just goes to the next level and it becomes a whooping good time.  It is a great party game because of the eye candy of the land and the craziness of the game play.  Do yourself a favor and invite a friend over to play with you, if you don’t have any then make one on the network of whatever system you pick it up on and play with them.

Take That!  Or Not!:

When things get kinda hectic, aiming your grenades and missiles can be a little difficult to say the least, especially when you are dodging hundreds of missiles all aimed at you.  You find yourself relying heavier on your Gatling which is just fine for the most part and use your special bomb attack on occasion though it is limited use and can leave you blinded for a moment and vulnerable to anything that showed up on the screen conveniently right after the blast.  So you click on your grenade, start moving the targeting spot and notice hundreds of missiles are about to hit you and you just randomly toss the grenade and hope for the best.  I did that a lot and believe it or not that was more effective than you would think simply because of the massive swarms of enemies you fight sometimes so cover the map that you can’t help but hit some.

My Dreams For Mistbound:

As I mentioned earlier in the article I would really, really, heck one more-really, like to see this beautiful steam punk world made into a strategy game.  I want to build the slightly awkward looking helicopter with gun turrets bulging from strange locations.  I want to make the glider from DaVinci’s drawings and have them bomb bulbous enemy tanks as they cross a beautifully rendered meadow.  I want to see the world taken off the rails, and creation for destruction placed in our hands.  Steam Punk Strategy.  I think it’s time has come!

Last Call:

The game is absolutely a whole lot of fun with steam punk eye candy galore.  I love Mistbound and all the strange and yet familiar creations which populate and destroy it.  This game doesn’t try to be a grand adventure, it is a twin-stick top down shooter on rails and it works very nicely in this niche, giving great game play in a great environment.  I highly recommend it for the $15 that the different systems charge, but I dream of the future possibilities this steam punk world holds.

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Wargaming.net And DAVA Sign Deal

2011/06/30
Ripper71
News

Wargaming.net, the developer and publisher behind World of Tanks, Massive Assault series and Order of War along with DAVA Consulting, LLC, a highly-acknowledged developer of mobile games and applications, have announced their strategic partnership and signing of a long-term co-development agreement.  Partnership with DAVA gives Wargaming.net the exclusive opportunity to step into the rapidly-growing market of mobile games and applications.

“Having known the DAVA team for some time, we are thrilled to have them spearhead our efforts in the mobile games and applications development,” said Wargaming.net CEO Victor Kislyi. “We are looking forward to establishing a strong presence on the mobile market and DAVA is the best partner to assist us.”

“We are honored to be working with such a world-renowned developer and publisher,” said Oleksandr Alex Fomenko, Founder of DAVA Consulting, LLC. “The strategic partnership with Wargaming.net is an excellent opportunity for us to develop innovative content on a global scale and we are extremely excited about it.”

Captain America Marvel Pinball Table Review (PS3)

2011/06/27
Ripper71
News, Reviews

ZEN Studios has announced the Captain America Marvel Pinball table downloadable content just in time for the movie which is also set in the classic World War II environment inspired by Ed Brubaker’s Captain America, 65th Anniversary Special.  The table has Captain America, Bucky and members of the resistance movement the Howling Commandos fighting it out with Baron Zemo, Red Skull and even The Sleeper as the Captain and his crew storm Zemo’s Castle.

Atmosphere: When it comes to pinball machine atmosphere there needs to be a combination of animated entertainment and real life physics if the machine is going to work.  And just like most of the Marvel Pinball games it manages to do just that.  It has animated mini-games to keep it entertaining but the ball, flippers and ramps all follow real life pinball machine physics.  Add to this a variety of super hero musical scores and this game is instantly entertaining and can appeal to the hardcore pinball wizard and the Marvel video game fan.

Graphics And Sound:

The game simulates a pinball machine very well showing outstanding graphics but at the same time when a part of the machine comes to life and performs actions outside the realm of reality all the graphics are beautifully detailed and very realistic.  You see Captain America block Zemo’s Death Ray with his shield then watch as a very realistic looking pinball starts hitting bumpers and flippers causing the characters to react.  The graphics are well done for a video game and excellently done for a pinball machine right down to the details on the inside walls of the table and the jeep and barbed wire resting at the bottom behind the flippers.  Other wonderful graphic details include the ball launch as a machine gun barrel and periodically Zemo just walks onto the table from out of frame.  The sounds of the game all add to the setting too with bumpers that sound like rifle fire to ramps that sound like airplane flybys this game doesn’t miss an opportunity to wow the player with a sight or a sound.  Even the ball lost voice changes as does the phrasing to keep the game fresh while playing addictively over and over.

Gameplay:

To a certain degree gameplay on all pinball machines that follow the rules of physics are all the same.  However this game forces the balls, bumpers and flippers to follow the rules of physics and just has fun with the rest of it.  And this introduces the idea of mini-games which are there to keep the game fun and challenging and give the player a break from the regular play to try what amounts to video games inserted into their pinball table.  In one of the video games the Captain America figure standing on the table jumps up on a platform and starts blocking balls coming at him with his shield.  Another has him blocking Zemo’s Death Ray with his shield and losing his strength which he recovers with the players help by scoring bumper hits.  Each game involves Captain America’s figure on the machine to come to life and fight one of his foes in one way or another while you help with your flippers or the ball.  I could go right down the list of all the special mini games on the board because I had a blast finding them all but it is far more fun for players to be surprised and find them themselves rather than be a spoiler.

A Good Addition?:

The Marvel Pinball tables all work off the same physics design for the principle table play it is just the extra animated games and the table design itself that make them different.  If you like a table crowded with things to do this is probably going to be one of your favorites if not becoming your favorite over all the other tables.  I am still a huge fan of the Blade table but I think this one easily outshined the Fantastic Four and Wolverine tables and actually was not only a good addition to the set but improved it.

Add Another Token:

The table and the whole game in general also includes multiplayer in two ways, hot seat and online.  Those who have never heard of hot seat multiplayer the idea is pretty simple, someone sits in the “hot seat” in front of the television, plays player 1’s ball then hands the controller off to someone else putting them in the “hot seat” as player 2 for up to four players.  The online is pretty straight forward too, they have a game lobby, you log into it and wait for enough players to match up and away you go into a game.

Cost/Playtime:

The table is going to cost about $3, which when you consider how many hours of play you can get from it by yourself yet alone playing your buddies or making it a party game is a very good deal.  Heck at that price you might as well add on any other tables you don’t have.

Last Call:

Captain America Marvel Pinball Table is coming out at a perfect time to get people interested in the franchise again with the movie right around the corner but even if the movie wasn’t on it’s way this new table is an excellent addition to the Marvel Pinball set and is a whole lot of fun while keeping true to the physics of a mean pinball.

Supreme Court Strikes Down Violent Game Law

2011/06/27
Ripper71
Articles, News

Looks like video gamers and video game makers have once again prevailed against a law that would ban the sale of violent games to minors, with Justice Scalia writing:

Video games qualify for First Amendment protection. Like protected books, plays, and movies, they communicate ideas through familiar literary devices and features distinctive to the medium. And “the basic principles of freedom of speech . . . do not vary” with a new and different communication medium.

More From Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Supreme Court struck down on Monday a California law banning sales or rentals of violent video games to minors as a violation of free-speech rights, its first ruling in a video game case.

By a 7-2 vote, the justices upheld a ruling by an appeals court that declared the law, which also imposes strict video-game labeling requirements, unconstitutional.

The law was challenged by video game publishers, distributors and sellers, including the Entertainment Software Association. Its members include Disney Interactive Studios, Electronic Arts, Microsoft Corp and Sony Computer Entertainment America.

The law, adopted in 2005, has never taken effect because of the legal challenge. It defines a violent video game as one that depicts “killing, maiming, dismembering or sexually assaulting an image of a human being.” Retailers who sell or rent a violent video game to a minor could be fined as much as $1,000.

The nation’s video game industry has about $10.5 billion in annual sales. More than two-thirds of U.S. households include at least one person who plays video games.

Six other states have adopted similar laws, and all were struck down in court.

The Supreme Court rejected California’s argument that the Constitution’s free-speech guarantees under the First Amendment do not prevent a state from prohibiting the sale of violent video games to minors under 18.

“Our cases hold that minors are entitled to a significant degree of First Amendment protection. Government has no free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which they may be exposed,” Justice Antonin Scalia said in summarizing the court’s majority opinion from the bench.

Talk of E3 – PAYDAY: The Heist

2011/06/26
Ripper71
E3, News, Previews

PAYDAY: The Heist is a premier quality downloadable game designed to deliver a unique spin on the First Person Shooter genre. As an intense, gritty and unapologetic episodic co-operative shooter, PAYDAY is packed with cocky attitude, epic Hollywood-inspired action and endless replayability.

With six action-packed heists to complete at launch, players embark on a spectacular crime tour of heists, including shooting their way through a downtown bank vault robbery, trading hostages in an armored car hijacking and even a moonlit infiltration of a high-security headquarters.

Additionally, PAYDAY: The Heist challenges players with dynamic environments and adaptive enemy tactics meaning no scenario will ever play out the same way twice. Players will have to work together, assigning team members to various tasks guarding key positions, keeping civilians in check and cracking through various security measures, while surviving wave after wave of law enforcement that shift their strategies based on player actions.

Key Features:

Six High-Intensity Heists to Pull: Whether you’re blowing the roof off a building to extract a safe via helicopter or emptying the vault at the First World Bank, these action packed heists will have players checking their six in the living room.

Interactive Co-op Gameplay: Whether AI or live, your crew of four must operate as one to bring home the bacon. Sharing extra ammo and medic kits, helping regen wounded partners, distributing tasks like guarding key positions, taking civilian hostages or cracking through various security measures. It’s one for all and all for one.

Endless Replayability: Dynamic, adaptive environments combined with non-scripted enemy behavior, shifting entry points, FBI agents repelling down on ropes through the skylights, SWAT teams crashing through the windows or special units crawling through the ventilation shafts makes play-through of every heist a unique fight.

Massive Character Progression Tree: Choose a specialty – assault, sharpshooter or support – players gain weapons and equipment that fit their preferred form of violence. Unlock trip mines, silenced pistols, machine guns and much, much more.

Shout Out Button: Players need to be vocal and shout commands and directions to the co-op crew, as well as hostages and the police if they want to survive to spend their cut of the take.

Hostage Trading: Hostages can be a lifeline. If anyone in the crew is taken into custody, trade hostages to get crew members back and increase the odds of completing your objectives.

PlayStation or PC: For keyboard and mouse marksman, as well as handheld controller snipers, PAYDAY is the uber FPS for a high intensity shooter fix.

More DLC in the form of additional heists, weapons and equipment means PAYDAY—a digitally distributed AAA quality title for less than half the price of a retail game—is total OVERKILL.

E3 Impressions:

I was walking around E3 and heard a couple guys talking about a game saying “It’s like they watched the beginning of Batman and based the game off the Joker’s robbery.”  That sounded kind of interesting to me so I decided I would keep an eye out.  I went on about the conference and later heard a couple guys talking and saying “Hey did you try that heist game?  That thing is so much fun!”  Not realizing it was the same game I kept an eye out for that too.  Then I came around a corner and saw this:

Well that kind of grabs your attention.  And right behind it is a kiosk full of gaming stations all full with players and onlookers.  As I looked on each player took on a role in the heist, some being overly aggressive and getting themselves caught, others playing it cool, trying to control the bank employees while watching for the police.  It is a scene from many movies though obviously an homage to one.  As I stood there watching, a man in a black suit with the red word “Overkill” across his back stood beside me and started talking about it.  Had I ever wanted to be running through traffic trying to get to the van like in the movie Heat?  Did I like the beginning of The Dark Knight and wish I had been one of the Joker’s henchman?  So they had planned homages and had planned to come into E3 quietly and become the word of mouth sensation by their theatrics and dynamic demo.  They didn’t announce the existence of the company until a short time before E3 then didn’t announce they were going to be there until the week before.  It seemed this tactic worked pretty well for them because the gamers weren’t the only ones paying attention, so were the judges and nominations got heaped upon the game.  But did it play as well as it looked?

The game’s premise seems simple on the surface but is more sophisticated when you got hands on.  Much like an actual heist things can go down a lot of different ways.  As a result there is a bit of a learning curve, especially for casual gamers so a bit of patience is required while you get the hang of things.  Once you do though this game sucks you in, the idea and the plot one that every guy who has every seen a heist movie has entertained at least in a daydream.

Last Call:

This game snuck into the show and soon stole a good portion of the FPS crowd’s attention.  Was it because of the novelty of playing the robbers from a scene from a movie or the theatrics of the costumes on the representatives?  It’s hard to say but I do know I will be looking forward to the full game’s release and seeing if the play lives up to the hype.

OnLive Gaming System Demo (E3)

2011/06/26
Ripper71
E3, News, Previews

OnLive is the pioneer of instant cloud gaming, delivering real-time interactive experiences and rich media through the Internet.  With groundbreaking video compression technology, OnLive harnesses cloud computing to provide the power and intelligence needed to instantly deliver the latest, premium game titles to any HDTV via the OnLive Game System or nearly any PC and Mac via a small browser download. The OnLive Viewer app is available for the iPad and full gameplay is coming to both iPad and Android tablets. OnLive is currently available in North America, and has launched in the UK and  will be expanding into Europe later this year.  More than 100 games are available today, over 60 are available as part of the Playpack Subscription bundle for $9.99 a month.  All OnLive games played using the OnLive Player App will play seamlessly across all OnLive-compatible devices, including iPad, iPhone, Android, on HDTV via the OnLive Game System, on connected HDTV and Blu-ray/media players and on PC and Mac.  Full voice chat-enabled multiplayer is supported, both in-room and with others throughout the world, providing a complete multiplayer experience whether at home or on the go with a mobile device.  Core patent-pending exclusive OnLive cloud gaming features such as massive spectating of live gameplay throughout the world, instant no-obsolescence gameplay, Facebook integration with Brag Clip videos, etc., will work seamlessly on both tablets and HDTVs and will continue to distinguish OnLive from consoles, both in 2011 and beyond.  The Intel Atom Processor cE4100 provides the processing power for the system and allows the OnLive Game Service to be experienced on HDTVs and soon will support 3D games.

“The power of the cloud is definitely the theme this week, displacing what had been assumed to be platforms that could never be displaced,” said Steve Perlman, Founder and CEO of OnLive. “The OnLive Player App for iPad and Android shows how with the power of the cloud, the question is not whether cloud gaming will be able to catch up to consoles, it will be whether consoles will be able to catch up to cloud gaming.”

OnLive is also unveiling as part of this experience the first 10 gigabit cloud-based full-featured browser for iPad, Android and HDTV; bringing the full richness of the Web loading from ultra-fast 10 gigabit/second Web connections to OnLive’s cloud-based servers, including support for full-featured Flash and video sites. Mobile and home devices will no longer be limited to the speed of their local connection for Web browsing or Web plug-in compatibility, opening up access to Flash games and social gaming for tablets and HDTVs.

Here’s a presentation from CEO Steve Perlman on the OnLive capabilities.

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E3 Impressions:

This was one of the first companies I talked to at E3 and it all started in the press hospitality room.  OnLive had a small booth set up in there to give the media a chance to check out the system in a far quieter environment than the conference hall floor.  It was nice to get a little hands on with it before the meeting so I took the opportunity to put the system through it’s paces.  I chose Borderlands GOTY edition to try out first since I had just recently been playing it on the Xbox 360.  There was no noticeable lag or latency issues or at least no more than would happen when playing multiplayer on the XBox 360.  Considering the game was actually being played on a server in Santa Clara and each of my moves on the controller were sent there performed in the game, then the information sent back and it all reacted in about the same time frame as a system in the room with you I was immediately impressed and at first a bit leery.  How could that be possible?  Also how could this game be running so well through a little box slightly larger than a deck of cards?  So I headed out, stood in the sea of people waiting to get into the main halls and had a nice sweat going as I went toward the OnLive booth to get a much more in-depth look.  After being among all the other folks I was a bit overheated and they were nice enough to head me straight upstairs where it was cooler and I could talk to Bruce Grove, Director of Strategic Relations.  Bruce had been a computer builder before he joined them, building huge high end gaming systems.  When they showed him they could do with the little OnLive box the same thing the high end computers were built for he thought his head would explode and he was quick to join up.

“Since we launched the real focus has really been adding titles , really getting the service off the ground and bringing it to more and more users.  We launched something no one has ever been able to do before which is the PlayPack bundle, so all of a sudden you have a Netflix type approach for games.  The great thing about this model system is we can disrupt all the traditional delivery and pricing mechanism and experiment and bring new ideas to people.”

“What we are doing now is expanding the play anywhere theme.  We have the micro console, the PC, the Mac.  We actually have a fully working IPad client.  We’re bringing it to IPad, android devices, we took investment from HTC who are launching a variety of tablet devices through various carriers.  It’s the same service, the same games, the same product and you come into the service exactly the same as you did from the TV or your PC or your MAC, it’s really a play anywhere.”

“The game controller we have today will work with tablets or work with TVs or work with blu-ray players and now I have a gaming device and now I am on the road with my tablet having the same gaming experience and carrying on where I left off earlier.”

“We’ve also been working with a lot of chip vendors so the idea there is to get ourselves into more and more devices. blu ray players, TVs, what we’ll do is have a universal control that will just talk to those devices, you don’t need a game console, your blu ray player or your TV just became the console, and it’s OnLive and again it’s the same service wherever you go.  We are seeding ourselves into as many places as possible, we want to be platform agnostic, we want to be on everything, we want to play everywhere.”

“When you go onto OnLive online you are on line with everyone else, one big social network, we want to create a world wide gaming environment and based on different countries they will have different preference and you will be able to see them so you can imagine we go to Europe, we go to Asia and you will see things you have never seen before.”

“It’s just getting bigger and bigger, it’s snowballing, really exciting times for us.”

“Voice over IP everyone said you can’t do that. streaming videos, everyone said you can’t do that, I remember all the press around Netflix and how Netflix wasn’t going to make a successful business out of streaming videos, how many times do we say these kinds of things?  OnLive comes along and they say you can’t do that and we say we are doing it, look at that! ”

“Everyone will come up with a reason why you can’t do it and we just keep pushing forward and saying we can and we are just going to keep pushing and pushing.”

“New cell phones are starting to have hdmi wireless built into them so you will be able to have OnLive come through to your cell phone then onto your TV.  Tablets are starting to have hdmi out so your tablet can be the device.  The game’s up in the cloud and we will just deliver it wherever we can.”

“We’ve had to look at every single piece in the chain, we have had to look at the controller, we’ve looked at the protocols, we’ve looked at how we code and decode, we built our own codec from the ground up, everything about the network from beginning until end had to be thought about. How do we do graphics processing?  Everything.  So what we have been able to do is not just have one magic piece that breaks through but it’s lots and lots of interactive pieces that really all come together and have just completely rethought how you shape latency.  So as a result you can put us on a good, decent network, you can put us side by side with console and we’re comparable.  And that’s where we want to be, we want to be in a place where somebody tries it and they stop caring about the devices and they care about the games and the content and what OnLive is.  We want people to look at the service and go ‘That’s the service I want’.”

“As we increase the multiplayer content you can find what your friends are playing and jump into the game or into what they’re doing and it really helps your interactiveness with other player’s in the network because everyone’s there.”

“We want to get away from this how did you do it and get to I don’t care, I want to play games.  At the end of the day that’s all it is, we all just want to play games.”

Last Call:

If you ask anyone around me, I rave about this company.  In all honesty I think it will be the Netflix of gaming, it already has a very solid base and it is moving across devices with amazing speed.  If you need the box to play it the box is small and perfect for traveling.  The game base for their subscription set up is great already and always growing and at $9.99 is really, really affordable and you don’t have to wait for it to arrive in the mail.  You can rent titles and if you like them purchase them and have them available on the system at any time.  They are teaming up with Disney, SquareEnix, THQ and many other game developers to have games on their system release at the same time as stores.  I love that I could start a game on my TV, play it on the car ride somewhere on my phone or iPad and then on my laptop when I get there.  Or if I get bored playing one game I have over 100 other titles to choose from.  Interacting with the representatives of the company they had an excitement that was contagious and I think for good reason since I truly believe I was witnessing the future of gaming.