2007 a great year for new Video Game IPs

Here are some of the best:

Mass Effect - Xbox 360

One of the most engaging Sci-Fi RPGs to come out in a long time. Mass Effect, by Bioware is perhaps the best selling of the new IPs and for good reason. An epic story line combined with visceral combat and an engaging chat system make this game hard to put down. Some deficiencies have been noted like a spotty frame rate at times, a confusing inventory management system and long elevator rides, but those are minor issues compared to the game as a whole. I would look for at least two more games in this series and I am hoping these minor issues will be addressed.

Uncharted: Drakes Fortune - PS3

This game is stunning in almost every way that one can measure in a Video Game. Stellar graphics with zero slowdowns, fun intuitive gun fights and Tomb Raider-esque puzzles make for an experience no gamer should miss. This game took me totally by surprise. I got a PS3 for Christmas and having been mostly an Xbox 360 guy, I hadn't kept up on the PS3 exclusive games very much. I have been playing this game for the last week and I don't want it to end. One great thing I like about it is the fact that if you make a mistake and fall to your death on a climbing puzzle, you don't have to go back and redo a half hour or more of the game you just went through. The cut scenes are gorgeous and the gun battles are very fun albeit there are a lot of them. PS3 owners finally have something to crow about and show their Xbox 360 buddies a reason to upgrade their old PS2s.

Assasin's Creed - Multi-platform

This one might have gotten a tiny bit of a pass since the producer, Jade Raymond is such a hottie. However, there is a solid game here with the addition of a much needed control scheme to do the kinds of things the main character, Altair can do. The controls are extremely tight and I found myself doing some free running through medieval cities like Jerusalem and Damascus with ease. Ubisoft should be commended for doing such an excellent job on the control scheme. Overall I think the game is fun with a few minor annoyances. For instance, it is way too easy to hide right after you have killed someone. I could brutally murder a guard with another guard standing within six feet and as long as I held down the "blend" button, the other guard would leave me alone. Also, guards seem to hate horses being ridden too fast. I guess there is some sort of Crusades Era speed limit I never read about. With that being said, this IP has a lot of potential and since it sold so many copies I think there is no doubt that we will see more.

PORTAL - Multi-Platform

I guess you could call this one a new IP although it is set in the Half Life Universe. This game is too good and too much fun to go without mention though. You will need to play it for yourself to see why. I would expect to see more from this IP in the future as well as being integrated in the upcoming Half Life games. Best computer voice in any game ever.


Bioshock - Xbox 360

Seriously, if you haven't played this game. Go out and buy it now and play the damn thing! This was my vote for game of the year. It has incredible graphics, an engaging storyline and tight game play. When you fight your first Big Daddy, be prepared to change your underwear. The sense of weight and power that they have is amazing. Once you kill your first Big Daddy, you will take a deep breath and gleefully plan your next assault. This game has some very interesting moral choices (I saved all the Little Sisters), a great soundtrack, excellent dialog and a lot of variety. Bioshock 2 has already been announced although without Ken Levine unfortunately. If the sequel is half as good as the original, gamers are in for a treat.

I can't remember a better year for new IPs or for gaming for that matter. It is gonna be hard for 2008 to compete with 2007. I think it is a bit telling that there were no Wii games on my list. Don't get me wrong, I love my Wii, but at this point it is distancing itself from mainstream gaming which can seen as either good or bad.

End Game

I finished Bioshock today (great game) and that got me to thinking about how nice it is to actually finish games. It's like a good book, you don't want it to be over, but there is a satisfaction and sense of accomplishment there that feels good. During my long MMO addiction, I went years without finishing a game. I just drifted from MMO to MMO and made new friends. It all got rather boring and so I quit playing them. But, what if you could incorporate a sort of End Game option in MMOs?

I have long lamented that fact that the player in most cases leaves no impact on the MMO world. They are merely filler and exist to give other people a pool of players to group with. Eventually, in every characters MMO life there comes a point where they stop being played either due to player boredom, lack of content, or because the player moves on to the next best thing. What if there was a way for the player to "retire" their character and have some sort of an impact on the game world?

Some sort of point system could be set up that the player earns by doing various things in the game. Adventure points, crafting points and perhaps social points are just a few things off the top of my head. All of these could be accumulated in the background while the player goes about his normal MMO routine. When the player feels he has done as much as he wants to with the character he could choose to retire that character. This means that the character becomes unavailable to the player. The game would then look at the points accrued and assign that character a place in the world depending upon how much the character has influenced the world. They could become an NPC that owns an Inn or Weapon Shop or is encountered by other players in the game world via quests or random encounters. Or they could have not made enough of an impact to be remembered.

This system would at least give the player a chance to impact the world and give them some sense of closure with a character. Controls would have to be put in place to avoid having an Innkeeper named Luvs2spwg and other issues, but those things should be a part of every MMO anyways.

I'm not shocked...

PRESS RELEASE

New York, NY – September 10, 2007 –2K Games, a publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO), announced today that BioShock, its hit title exclusively available for Xbox 360™ video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and Games for Windows®, secured the position of all-time top ranked Xbox 360 game* and the year’s highest ranked game across all console platforms on Metacritic.com, the popular site that aggregates review scores from the leading video game publications and websites. In addition, the title has set a new record on Xbox LIVEÒ as the fastest downloaded demo to ever reach the 1 million mark. The gaming community first learned that the Xbox 360™ demo version of BioShock became available to download on Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE Marketplace via a surprise announcement on August 12.


While many games receive high praise for a specific feature, BioShock’s rave reception revolves around all of its key components. This includes the unique art deco design, the eerie ambiance of its full orchestra score and the 40’s era soundtrack, the interactive quality of the environments, dripping and flood-rushing water effects that have set a new standard for realism, a deep and engaging story line, and gameplay that involves moral choices, an array of options for surmounting obstacles and adversaries, and a power-up component that involves biologically altering your character.

In only nine days since its release on Xbox LIVE, BioShock had outperformed every other demo release on the service, demonstrating both the incredible anticipation for the game and the growth of Xbox LIVE’s community.

“We are really pleased that Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE Marketplace has managed to attract a record number of gamers to its site to download and check out BioShock,” said Christoph Hartmann, President of 2K. “The overwhelmingly positive response is not only reflected in the traffic to Xbox LIVE, but the record breaking score reported by Metacritic. We’re excited about the reception the fans have given BioShock and are honored that the game has been recognized as ‘Game of the Year’ material.”

With an overall review score of 96 (out of 100) based on more than 50 different critical reviews, the Xbox 360 version of BioShock has earned “Universal Acclaim” status* on Metacritic. Among the leading video game enthusiast outlets that awarded one or more versions of BioShock with a perfect score are Game Informer, 1UP, Games Radar, GameSpy, GamePro, Yahoo! Games, Games Daily, and Electronic Gaming Monthly.

Developed by 2K Boston and 2K Australia for 2K Games, BioShock is a "genetically enhanced" first-person shooter that lets players do things never before possible in the genre. Gamers enter the game as a castaway in Rapture, a decaying art deco underwater utopia torn apart by civil war. Caught between powerful forces and hunted down by genetically modified "splicers" and deadly security systems, players have to come to grips with a deadly, mysterious world filled with powerful technology, fascinating characters and morality defining choices. To make it to the end, players can turn everything they encounter into a weapon, biologically modify their body with plasmids, hack devices and security systems, upgrade weapons, craft new ammo variants, and experiment with different battle techniques. No encounter ever plays out the same and no two gamers will play BioShock the same way.

Rings of Death

There you have it, folks. Take a gander at what I was welcomed to when I got home yesterday itching to try out the Tiger Woods 08 demo. Yep, the dreaded Three Rings of Death have struck me again. I called up Micro$oft and they are sending me a box to ship my baby in to them for repair. Luckily, I took my own advice and have a regular xbox and PS2 to play until it comes back. I am worried it might not make it back for the Halo 3 launch though. But what REALLY pisses me off is I was right in the middle of playing Bioshock for Crissake! I probably could pull a few strings and get it replaced at a local Gamestop, but I want to make sure I get the permanent fix and don't have to go through this again. Here are some tips if this happens to you:

1. If you get these three lights AND the light on your power supply is green you are screwed. Don't bother trying any of the troubleshooting tips. They won't work.
2. If you are an Xbox Gold Live subscriber get them to refund the amount of time that you are without your Xbox 360 while it is being repaired.
3. Remove your hard drive. They don't need it. You want to make sure you keep all those hard earned saves.
4. Make sure you eject whatever game you have inside the Xbox 360 BEFORE you ship it out.
5. Always have a backup plan for gaming. In my case having the Xbox 1, PS2 and DS will get me through the repair time.
   
   

Little Sister ethics. What would YOU do?

In the new game Bioshock, you are presented with a nasty dilemma. In the twisted world of The Rapture things have gone quite wrong. Without going into details, one thing that has happened as that little girls were transformed by an evil scientist into something other than human. They go around collecting something from dead bodies that is called "Adam". This is a major currency in the game used to upgrade your character's abilities. In order to get this "Adam" from them, something you have to do in order to complete the game, you have two choices. You can either kill the "Little Sister" as they are called our you can "save" them so they revert back to being little girls. If you kill them you get a great deal more "Adam" than you do if you save them. What would you do? Personally, I couldn't bring myself to kill the cute little girl. The game makes it even worse because they squirm away and beg and plead not to kill them. I'm sorry but there is no way I am gonna kill a little girl even in a video game. So hopefully I can get enough "Adam" from saving them in order to finish the game.

Bioshock info you need to know. Curtesy of Tom Chick

Five Things I Wish I`d Known about BioShock (spoiler free!)
TomChick - 08/20/07

1) Look at your map during recordings
Sometimes you’ll pick up a diary recording, only to get into a fight while it’s playing, at which point you might miss what’s being said. But the diary recordings are worth hearing. So note that you can bring up the map to pause the game without pausing the playback. Take this time to get a look at where you are and where you’re going, while listening to the story unfold. Or you can sit tight and rejigger your weapon loadouts at that point, as the weapons menu won’t interrupt the recordings either.

2) That silver cage is an elevator and there’s a "call elevator" button next to it
If you find yourself stuck at a clear door that isn’t opening, even though it’s obviously between you and where you need to go, this would be the time to note the elevator system in Rapture. I know of at least three people who got stuck at this point and assumed the game was bugged (me being one of them). The problem is that BioShock hasn’t yet showed you that elevators have call buttons, much less what closed elevators look like.

3) "That’s telekinesis, Kyle!"
Some areas that look like you should be able to reach them. After all, there’s stuff in there you'll want to pick up! But trust me: you can’t get in there. Look around as much as you like, come back and visit to see if you’ve somehow triggered a door, or waste all your ammo trying to blast your way in. No dice. You can’t get in. It’s not going to happen. Instead, you can get those items with a particular plasmid that lets you reach out and touch something.

4) Yes, the game will get harder
Don’t make any assumptions about BioShock’s difficulty level based on the early game. It’s not necessarily that it gets more difficult as it forces you to play more carefully and make more choices. The early parts have a more carefree approach. That’s the honeymoon. Don’t get too used to it.

5) Avoid spoilers
I’d actually recommend avoiding reviews, some of which are revealing too much information and even playfully giving away plot points in an attempt to be clever (fuck you, Game Informer). And for Pete’s sake, stay out of the official forums, which are crammed with retards splashing important information around. There isn’t necessarily any Big Twist or Super Secret Sixth Sense Reveal or Amazingly Awesome New Thing You've Never Seen Before. But there are some really nice surprises that help drive the game. The less you know about these, the better.