I hate to see a perfectly good killer app be turned into a cash mongering, greedy, spin off producing whore fest, which is why I was so upset by many of Microsoft's recent decisions about the Halo franchise. It seems that Microsoft will put the Halo name on just about anything and everything if it will bring in a few bucks. There have been plenty of Halo spin off products, some awesome and appropriate, others disappointing and disgusting, and now to continue that long line is...Halo 3 Laser Tag. Actually, it's not laser tag, it's Laser Command by Jasman Toys.
Now I don't mean any offense to Jasman Toys (since I've never played Laser Command), but how many Halo related products are going to be made before people realize how much it's starting to resemble a genetically enhanced, high class Bordello?
The books? Awesome, always good to get some more story from a good game.
The movie? Cool, as long as they don't ruin it like most in Hollywood do.
The action figures? Nice, I guess, for collectors and those who like to play with them (I'm guessing there are more of the earlier than the latter)
The spin off RTS not even made by Bungie? Sigh...
And now Laser Command.
I'm sure there are people who enjoy these products and are happy to buy them for either collectible reasons or for the purpose they were made, but Microsoft (and every other company out there, I know it's not just MS) needs to stop milking every last penny out of their franchises. It completely drains the integrity of the game and the series, for me at least, and makes it harder and harder to keep saying "Bungie is different from other developers."
I love Bungie. They're awesome. They've made so many great games they should win a Nobel Prize. But it's getting hard to defend them from those who accuse them of being sellouts. It is my honest belief that the guys at Bungie are good and honest men and women who care about their customers, and that Microsoft is solely responsible for the whorish activity that abounds, but when they announce Halo Flakes or blow up Cortana dolls, it's going to be near impossible for me to be proud of being a Halo fan.
Let me know what you think about this one. Is Microsoft whoring Halo to an extreme? Does Bungie have any responsibility? Has this whole world gone mad? Ok, not so much the last one.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Crackdown Released
Today, Crackdown came out in stores, and I picked up my copy. I know I complained about Microsoft packaging the Halo 3 beta with the game in my first post, but that was before I played the demo. After trying it out, I was hooked.
Some call it a GTA clone, but it's actually not. The story is pretty basic; you're a genetically altered super soldier who works for the sole crime fighting organization left, known only as the Agency. You use your skills to assist the cops (Peacekeepers) in fighting gang violence around Pacific City. There are 3 gangs in the game, Los Muertos, The Volk, and the Shai-Gen. By taking out low ranking gang bosses, you can weaken their forces, ultimately allowing you to take out the kingpin. However, you won't just be handed missions and told where to find your target, and then move on to the next. Instead, while exploring the city you will be updated with information on nearby gang bosses, who you can then choose to eliminate or not. It is possible to take on the kingpin before eliminating the underlings, but it will be considerably more difficult.
Another aspect that makes this game unlike Grand Theft Auto is that it allows the player to level up like an RPG. There are five skills you can level up: Driving, Firearms, Strength, Agility, and Explosives. Each can be leveled up by killing gang members in a particular way, except for agility, which is leveled up by collecting orbs on the rooftops. There are also vehicle races to increase driving ability, and rooftop races to increase your agility. These aspects alone have provided me with hours of entertainment so far, and it's only the first day. I can't explain how enjoyable it is to jump from rooftop to rooftop exploring Pacific City.
After playing the full version of Crackdown for a number of hours, and experiencing the normal rate of skill leveling, I'd give Crackdown a 4 out of 5, for a game with solid gameplay, great cell shaded graphics (it looks like a freshly inked comic book), and an expansive world to explore. This game is a definite buy.
Some call it a GTA clone, but it's actually not. The story is pretty basic; you're a genetically altered super soldier who works for the sole crime fighting organization left, known only as the Agency. You use your skills to assist the cops (Peacekeepers) in fighting gang violence around Pacific City. There are 3 gangs in the game, Los Muertos, The Volk, and the Shai-Gen. By taking out low ranking gang bosses, you can weaken their forces, ultimately allowing you to take out the kingpin. However, you won't just be handed missions and told where to find your target, and then move on to the next. Instead, while exploring the city you will be updated with information on nearby gang bosses, who you can then choose to eliminate or not. It is possible to take on the kingpin before eliminating the underlings, but it will be considerably more difficult.
Another aspect that makes this game unlike Grand Theft Auto is that it allows the player to level up like an RPG. There are five skills you can level up: Driving, Firearms, Strength, Agility, and Explosives. Each can be leveled up by killing gang members in a particular way, except for agility, which is leveled up by collecting orbs on the rooftops. There are also vehicle races to increase driving ability, and rooftop races to increase your agility. These aspects alone have provided me with hours of entertainment so far, and it's only the first day. I can't explain how enjoyable it is to jump from rooftop to rooftop exploring Pacific City.
After playing the full version of Crackdown for a number of hours, and experiencing the normal rate of skill leveling, I'd give Crackdown a 4 out of 5, for a game with solid gameplay, great cell shaded graphics (it looks like a freshly inked comic book), and an expansive world to explore. This game is a definite buy.
Friday, February 16, 2007
Let's Go Outback Tonight
Every so often while driving, I'll hear radio commercials for Outback Steakhouse. Usually I can't stand radio commercials, but the song is just so catchy I find myself wanting to go Outback tonight and see if life really will be there tomorrow. I usually get this song stuck in my head for at least a day afterwords, and I couldn't figure out how a commercial for a theme restaurant had such a good song. Well, I finally figured it out. The song in the commercial is actually a song titled Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games by Of Montreal, an indie band from Georgia. They simply replaced the words "Let's pretend we don't exist" with "Let's go Outback tonight".
The song actually is quite good, as is the rest of the album, The Sunlandic Twins. As an extra treat, here's the music video, which reminds me of a calmer version of Happy Tree Friends. Enjoy. I'm having trouble embedding it from YouTube, so here's the link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PoJv4N1Too
Let's pretend we don't exist, Let's pretend we're in Antarctica, indeed.
The song actually is quite good, as is the rest of the album, The Sunlandic Twins. As an extra treat, here's the music video, which reminds me of a calmer version of Happy Tree Friends. Enjoy. I'm having trouble embedding it from YouTube, so here's the link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PoJv4N1Too
Let's pretend we don't exist, Let's pretend we're in Antarctica, indeed.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Go See 300
In 480BC, 300 Spartan hoplites were given the duty of holding the pass at Thermopylae to allow the rest of the Greeks to retreat and prepair for battle. Who were they holding it from? Between 200,000 to 2 million Persian soldiers, depending on which historian you believe. The result was the death of all 300 Spartans, including their king Leonidas, and the slaughter of 20,000 Persians.
On March 9th, this famous battle will be depicted on the big screen, as an adaptation of a Frank Miller graphic novel. Frank Miller is the artist responsible for many graphics novels, including the recently adapted Sin City. Now, I could go on and on about how cool the Spartan hoplites are, or about how awesome Frank Miller is, but instead I'll just let you watch this...
Upon returning to Leonidas, a scout told him "Their archers are so many, their arrows will blot out the sun." Leonidas, hearing this, simply smiles and said, "Good! Then we shall have battle in the shade."
On March 9th, this famous battle will be depicted on the big screen, as an adaptation of a Frank Miller graphic novel. Frank Miller is the artist responsible for many graphics novels, including the recently adapted Sin City. Now, I could go on and on about how cool the Spartan hoplites are, or about how awesome Frank Miller is, but instead I'll just let you watch this...
Upon returning to Leonidas, a scout told him "Their archers are so many, their arrows will blot out the sun." Leonidas, hearing this, simply smiles and said, "Good! Then we shall have battle in the shade."
Monday, February 12, 2007
Swords, Shields, and...Fairies?
The Legend of Zelda series has given us some of the greatest games of all time. With Ocarina of Time on the N64, Wind Waker on the Gamecube (Hey! I liked that game so back off!), and Twilight Princess on the Wii. Now, Link will get shrunken down to handheld proportions once again in his first adventure on the Nintendo DS, Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass.
Phantom Hourglass is set to release in the fourth quarter of 2007 and is a direct sequel to Wind Waker, complete with cell shaded graphics. Now I know what some of you are thinking. You're thinking, "Oh man, Wind Waker was too cartoonish. Not that again." Well, shut it. It's time people stopped looking at games with less "realistic" graphics (I've never seen anyone with the body proportions of Marcus Fenix in real life) as lower quality. But that's a whole other argument. The point is, Wind Waker turned out to be a great game, and that's how Phantom Hourglass is looking, too.
The game takes place a few months after the events of Wind Waker, but there are some changes this time around. Many of the areas that were either tedious or just not fun in Wind Waker are different or gone altogether. For example, the annoying task of sailing for hours from island to island, and then having to drop anchor everytime you had to fight an enemy, is luckily gone. There is still a boat in Link's newest romp through Hyrule, but it's now steam powered. W00t for technology. That means now you can plot out your course ahead of time, so you can pay more attention to fighting seaborn enemies.
Another new twist is that the gameplay in Phantom Hourglass is entirely controlled almost entirely by the touch screen and stylus. You can move Link around by tapping locations on the screen, swing your sword by sweeping the stylus in a circle, and even write notes and useful information on the in game maps, allowing you to easily recall a hint given earlier in a dungeon. An on-screen fairy will act as the point for your stylus, but unlike the Wii version of Twilight Princess, it will actually have a part in the story. This immersion in the DS software is something that we haven't really seen from other games quite yet, with most titles using the second screen for nothing more than a title screen, or often having no touch capabilities. Finally, a developer is using the DS for what it was made for.
My only fear is that fans will be turned away from the game because of its Gamecube-esque graphics, without even trying to enjoy the new gameplay elements that will likely be copied by multiple future DS titles.
The moral of the story: Solid, fun gameplay is more important than shiny graphics and a lot of explosions.
Phantom Hourglass is set to release in the fourth quarter of 2007 and is a direct sequel to Wind Waker, complete with cell shaded graphics. Now I know what some of you are thinking. You're thinking, "Oh man, Wind Waker was too cartoonish. Not that again." Well, shut it. It's time people stopped looking at games with less "realistic" graphics (I've never seen anyone with the body proportions of Marcus Fenix in real life) as lower quality. But that's a whole other argument. The point is, Wind Waker turned out to be a great game, and that's how Phantom Hourglass is looking, too.
The game takes place a few months after the events of Wind Waker, but there are some changes this time around. Many of the areas that were either tedious or just not fun in Wind Waker are different or gone altogether. For example, the annoying task of sailing for hours from island to island, and then having to drop anchor everytime you had to fight an enemy, is luckily gone. There is still a boat in Link's newest romp through Hyrule, but it's now steam powered. W00t for technology. That means now you can plot out your course ahead of time, so you can pay more attention to fighting seaborn enemies.
Another new twist is that the gameplay in Phantom Hourglass is entirely controlled almost entirely by the touch screen and stylus. You can move Link around by tapping locations on the screen, swing your sword by sweeping the stylus in a circle, and even write notes and useful information on the in game maps, allowing you to easily recall a hint given earlier in a dungeon. An on-screen fairy will act as the point for your stylus, but unlike the Wii version of Twilight Princess, it will actually have a part in the story. This immersion in the DS software is something that we haven't really seen from other games quite yet, with most titles using the second screen for nothing more than a title screen, or often having no touch capabilities. Finally, a developer is using the DS for what it was made for.
My only fear is that fans will be turned away from the game because of its Gamecube-esque graphics, without even trying to enjoy the new gameplay elements that will likely be copied by multiple future DS titles.
The moral of the story: Solid, fun gameplay is more important than shiny graphics and a lot of explosions.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Ruckus Review
After spending the weekend browsing Ruckus' library and downloading over 1,000 songs, here's my review.
Ruckus is a decent digital music store, and the fact that it offers free and legal music is very nice. Downloading is also quite easy; you simply need to select the tracks you want, or the entire album, and hit download. However, there are some bad points to this service.
Selection: 2.5 million songs may sound like a lot, but there were multiple occassions where the band I was looking for wasn't included. However, most artists that I had trouble finding were of the "classic rock" genre, including The Beatles and Led Zeppelin, so for older tunes this might not be the best choice. I suppose the creators felt that college students were only interested in more contemporary music. Also, many of the bands that are available for download have only a few songs from a few albums, often excluding the most popular tracks.
Mp3 Players: Yeah...as for mp3 players, they're pretty much useless with these files. Because of the DRM Ruckus has to put on its files to make them available for download, their songs can't be burned to CDs or transferred to most mp3 players including the iPod. So if you want to build your computer's library go ahead, but don't get rid of iTunes just yet.
Searching: The Ruckus web site used for searching for songs isn't all that great. Sometimes when searching for a band or an album I got strange results, and had to instead search for a specific track and follow a few links to the right place.
Overall I would rate Ruckus a 3 out of 5, for a mediocre music store with a decent library of songs. Its only real saving point is that it's a legal alternative to other free services like Limewire.
Ruckus is a decent digital music store, and the fact that it offers free and legal music is very nice. Downloading is also quite easy; you simply need to select the tracks you want, or the entire album, and hit download. However, there are some bad points to this service.
Selection: 2.5 million songs may sound like a lot, but there were multiple occassions where the band I was looking for wasn't included. However, most artists that I had trouble finding were of the "classic rock" genre, including The Beatles and Led Zeppelin, so for older tunes this might not be the best choice. I suppose the creators felt that college students were only interested in more contemporary music. Also, many of the bands that are available for download have only a few songs from a few albums, often excluding the most popular tracks.
Mp3 Players: Yeah...as for mp3 players, they're pretty much useless with these files. Because of the DRM Ruckus has to put on its files to make them available for download, their songs can't be burned to CDs or transferred to most mp3 players including the iPod. So if you want to build your computer's library go ahead, but don't get rid of iTunes just yet.
Searching: The Ruckus web site used for searching for songs isn't all that great. Sometimes when searching for a band or an album I got strange results, and had to instead search for a specific track and follow a few links to the right place.
Overall I would rate Ruckus a 3 out of 5, for a mediocre music store with a decent library of songs. Its only real saving point is that it's a legal alternative to other free services like Limewire.
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Ruckus provides free music for students
If you're looking for a free and legal way to get music, check out Ruckus. It's a service that allows free music downloads for college students and alumni.
http://www.ruckusnetwork.com/
http://www.ruckusnetwork.com/
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