Amassing An Effective Experience

One of my favourite video game franchises is the sci-fi role-playing epic, Mass Effect, by Canadian developer BioWare. I've been excited about it since before I even got my Xbox, as evidenced by a blog post that is over five years old!

So when the third game was released at the start of March, I couldn't wait to finish the story I started way back on December 9th, 2007. There was so much to look forward to. I had brought Ryan Shepard and his crew through many adventures across the galaxy, saving it from certain doom twice! And now, I was going to end the threat once and for all. No longer was I content to simply "hold the line", but my team and I would wipe their smug alien grins off the face of the cosmos.

The first thing that went wrong was when I tried to import my Shepard from my previous games. An error told me that the facial code was not recognised. Instead of the character I have had for five years, I was given something that looked like he'd been dropped as a child. Repeatedly. After checking online and confirming it as a known bug, I tried to recreate Ryan in Mass Effect 3. But he didn't look right. No matter what I did, it wasn't Ryan.

Figuring that a patch was on the way, I decided to start the campaign anyway, as I couldn't wait to experience the thrilling tale. I would play for a day or two, clock up a few short hours and then restart when the patch went live.

Two weeks later and no patch. I haven't even touched the single player since the Thursday after release, some twelve days ago at it stands. I'm having to avoid half the websites I normally read due to spoilers, and I can't even discuss anything about the game with friends, leaving me out of a lot of excited conversations that I've enjoyed from playing other games in parallel in the past.

But I'm not angry. And here's why.

When Bioware finally confirmed all the rumours that were circulating about the possibility of including multiplayer in the third Mass Effect, I was... less than enthusiastic. I didn't see the need for any extraneous flash added to my deep and engaging story. When they elaborated and told us it was going to be a co-operative experience, I was a little more interested, as I'm a huge fan of the Gears of War series Horde Mode.

With no single player experience to enjoy, I jumped into the multiplayer to try it out. And got hooked.

I've been playing it exclusively since Thursday, at times with my friends in Ireland, and at other times with my Canadian friends. I'm currently ranked 8th in Ireland on the leaderboards, which amuses me greatly! The game is fantastic fun, engaging, thrilling and hilarious. Every session is different, depending on the class and race I play, as well as the team I'm with, and even the build I choose this time to try out. I love the idea that there are only 20 Levels to gain before you get the choice to reset to 1 in exchange for a bonus to the single player experience, as it encourages players to try out new builds, new ideas and new mixes, knowing that if they don't like it, they can throw it out and try again quickly.

Experience and credits earned are entirely shared evenly, regardless of how much or how little you killed during the session. Everyone gets the same amount. There is a medal and points system that ranks the team on the final score screen, but it's only for bragging rights within that one game. It doesn't get remembered once you exit that screen. The entire experience is built around rewarding co-operative play and not punishing players for not being as good at killing as other team members.

Credits earned through completing challenges can be spent in the ingame store to buy random booster packs containing cards that award items, abilities and more. The random element makes opening every pack a thrill, and finding that rare weapon or much sought-after character a huge joy, much more than if it was just a straight up "Earn this much to buy this weapon".

So when my friends and I played a few games this evening and discovered that none of our experience or credits had been counted for the last three games, we were a little more than disgusted. This is just another problem to add to the growing list of issues we've been having with the game. Game crashing freezes, enemies getting stuck in mid-air, invulnerable to damage, an infuriating choice by the developers to map Take Cover and Revive Teammate to the same button, and now lost experience and credits all sour the fun we've been having.

It is impossible that no-one at BioWare was aware of the character import bug prior to launch. To assume such would be to assume that no-one on the team, or in their testing department tried to import their character over, and that's madness. It's one of the core mechanics and selling points of the series! Since the game's launch, BioWare are saying that a patch is on the way.

But here's the rub: In response to other issues related to the game, franchise executive producer and director Casey Hudson said "When we finish a game, we finish it many months before it actually hits the shelves..." So in those "many months", we are lead to believe that they didn't notice anything wrong, thinking they had a functional game on their hands. In those "many months", nobody thought to polish the game up and at least have a day-one patch ready at launch, as other games have done, fixing the worst of the issues.

Or maybe they knew they didn't have to. They knew it was going to be one of the biggest games of the year, selling millions of copies globally. It was already a success before it even went on sale. Why bother fixing something people have already paid for? Now I'm being really cynical, but I don't think I'm being entirely untruthful.

And that's just not how you should treat your fans.

Dear Xbox Three-Sixty

You have suffered much in my hands.

Oh, sure. It started out all sunshine and roses, an easy life, living day to day with just a small handful of games, sharing my attention with the Wii. Life was easy. You were new and shiny, young and invincible.

But all that would change. I would taste the sweet nectar of Live. One free weekend for all Silver Members. So much changed in those few hours. I became addicted, needing more. I bought a One Year Gold subscription and dusted off my old games. I had never played the multiplayer stuff before, now it was all I yearned for. Like any good narcotic (or so I'm told), the more I played, the more I wanted.

But it was Burnout Paradise that got you all hot and bothered, and left me in the cold. At first, I thought it was a random glitch in the matrix, a graphical error that caused a console freeze. But I quickly learned the truth. You were dying inside. It was only a matter of time.

I sent you away. They told me they would make you better, return you to me as if it had never happened. And they did. I remember the day I got that phonecall that you were home. I opened the package to see you lying there. It was you, not a replacement. I could tell by your serial number.

We've had some great times since then. You were always good to me. You soldiered through long nights of Rock Band with friends, twelve hour marathon sessions of the newest release or hours upon hours of watching TV shows and movies. We reached over 30,000 Gamerscore together, just you and me, dozens of games, an internet connection, Xbox Live Gold, days and weeks of playtime... ok. Maybe a bit more than just you and me, but all through you.

I even brought you to Canada. After all those years, I could never dream of leaving you behind.

For a while, you sat there waiting. Waiting. Wondering when I would show you the same attention you had been used to. Then September 20th arrived and it was just like old times. I was running you through your paces again, every evening when I got home, long, intense sessions at the weekends, not only running the game, but sometimes hosting, Party chatting and downloading all at once.

It was to be expected, really. The first time I saw those two red segments light up your face, I paused. I refused to see the truth. I told myself that you just needed dusting. It didn't help. I moved you to a new, brighter location. It didn't help.

Now I have you sitting on my sill, beside an open window. You remain cool and comfortable, sucking in the Vancouver November air. For now.

But I know it's coming. I know our time runs short. Now I cherish every moment. I don't want to start playing a new game in case that will be the one that finishes it.

I just don't want it to end yet.

Your owner forever,

Denis.

Going Live

Since the move to Canada one of the most effective systems for keeping in touch with friends back home has been Xbox Live. It'd been great to just switch on and chat to Bob and Jp, whether playing a game or not.

But it's been even more important for keeping in contact with my brother. Stephen has spent a year in New Zealand and a year in Australia, and Xbox Live has allowed us to game together and stay in touch almost every week, across half a world.

Stephen is heading back to Ireland in a few weeks, and in preparation for his trip he posted home his Xbox today. We chatted for a bit yesterday before I went to bed, and I have to admit that I was starting to get a little choked up as we were saying good-bye.

I'll miss gaming with my brother over Live. It made me feel like we weren't so far apart.

Digital Mortality

The general rule of video games seems to be that characters never ages. No matter how many adventures they have, their features remain frozen, ageless avatars, immune to the ravages of time. While their polygon count might rise and their appearances get updated, characters like Gears of War's Marcus and company, Mass Effect's Shepard and crew, even Mario and friends don't really grow old. In Lara Croft's case, the newest, upcoming release has her actually getting younger!

But rules were made to be broken, and Ubisoft decided to shatter them. After all, in video games, nothing is true, everything is permitted.

I have experienced so much of the life of Ezio Auditore da Firenze. Over the course of three games, I have been there for his birth and I have watched him grow from a carefree youth into a responsible adult. I shared the pain of his lose when his father and brothers were taken from him, and experienced the key moments in a life spanning decades as he sought his revenge. I was with him when he romanced Christina, and also when he accepted that the life he lead would keep them apart. I watched him build up a brotherhood of assassins, defending the people when no-one else would.

And now I bear witness to the closing act of his life. His hair is grey, his face covered in the marks and folds of a long life. In his actions, I can see the wisdom of decades; in his movements, the fatigue that those same years have brought. He is no longer the young man of previous games.

He has aged. Time has passed for him. He's not just the immortal avatar of a video game, but someone who has lead a full life, one that I know has to eventually, inevitably end in death, even if we don't see it onscreen in the game.

Ubisoft has crafted a story and a character spanning over three decades. It pains me that Revelations will be the final chapter in Ezio's story. But I love that it is. It has been a unique experience, one that I was honored to be a part of.

Addendum: At the time of writing this, I couldn't think of other examples of characters growing old over the course of a series of games, even though I knew there had to be others. Thanks to some friends, Solid Snake and Sam Fisher share that trait, suggesting that the stealth assassin industry is detrimental to you ability to remain youthful! Though not out yet, Max Payne appears to have aged also in his upcoming release.

What Might Have Been

Spoiler Warning! ArrOOga, arrOOga! Spoiler Warning!

The body of this post discusses major plot points from Gears of War 3, in particular a characters fate toward the end of the game. Don't read the rest unless you have finished the game. You have been warned.

Previous posts in this series:
The Coalitions Finest
User, Why?
Brothers To At Least Act Three 

Click To Read More

Hidden Blade To The Cooling Fan

I got a half day from work yesterday, so I was home early to relax and enjoy Assassins Creed: Revelations. Except my brother was also online, so we raced through Acts 3, 4 and 5 of Gears of War 3 in just short of three hours on Casual to get him his four-player co-op Achievement. It was insanely good fun, very frantic and a totally different experience from the cautious approach of Hardcore and beyond.

But once we had it wrapped up I had the evening free to enjoy the final chapter in Ezio Auditore da Firenze's life as a master assassin.

I eagerly jumped into it, having only played a short few minutes before bed the night before, and was completely engrossed in the world in moments.

I was ripped savagely out of it again when my Xbox 360 decided that it was feeling a bit hot under the collar and shut itself down, displaying a red semi-circle around the power button.

I've had the dreaded Red Ring Of Death before, and it's not fun. But my Xbox was running fine since I got it repaired, up until recently. I got this over-heating shutdown once about two weeks ago, but moved the powerbrick, cleaned the vents, did anything I could think of to help, and all seemed fine.

Today, it red-semi-circled on me three times.

Hoping that it is just a heating issue, we've moved it onto the main dinner table, next to a window we can leave open. There is a cool, early winter breeze blowing across the machine now, and I managed to get through a fair chunk of the game without any more failures.

Out house does get very warm. We have, at times, a laptop, a PC, an Xbox and the heating, which we can't adjust for our individual apartment because it's a whole building thingy, and then on top of all that we have cooking just adding to the rising heat. I find it stifling. Claire complains if I open a window. It's a definite impasse at times.

For now, the Xbox is going to live on the table. We'll have to see how long that lasts. Should it die, I'm going to either grab a second hand one on the cheap, or hold out for the matte black S model due next month and treat myself to a shiny (not gloss shiny, though) new Xbox 360.

Hopefully I won't have to choose. I really like my Xbox, and the thought of having to sort out data transfer and region coding just frustrates and confuses me.

Brothers To At Least Act Three

In my first post, in what has become a series related to the Gears of War franchise, I mentioned that my first experience of the games was through Horde Mode in Gears 2, and that I had ignored the story for some time even after I purchased it thinking I'd hate it. On the surface, it looked like everything I disliked about testosterone fueled war games turned up to eleven.

Turns out I was wrong, and right, in that order.

Make no mistake, the universe of Gears of War is a truly nightmarish place overpopulated with males who sport enormous muscles and necks that resemble tree-trunks, a thriving steroid manufacturing and distribution industry, and tech level beyond our own, while simultaneously never spotting the vast race of cave dwelling monsters that lived below their feet until they burst to the surface. There is so much wrong with the world of Sera that I find it hard to understand how it got past the design process.

I was right in thinking that I'd dislike that kind of game, I was just wrong in thinking that I already disliked the Gears series because of it.

You see for some reason, in this case, it works. It still has all those things I dislike about war games, but by turning them up to eleven, Epic managed to make them entertaining, poking fun at the absurdity of the tropes on display. It's an over-the-top universe of action and adventure, epic battles and heartbreaking personal moments. It has, in my opinion, some great incidental dialogue that characters shout in the heat of battle, fantastic characterizations, and an awesome array of enemies. 

I ended up playing both the first and second games through with friends, both through the couch-sharing, split-screen mode and the Xbox Live full-screen version. In fact, now that I think about it, I don't think I've ever played any Gears of War story by myself, and I've finished the first game at least three times, and the second game more than that!

Through Horde Mode, my wonderful wife joined me on the world of Sera, at first watching me play through the story, enjoying the story together, before playing the game herself. She never got around to finishing her own run through, but she put in hours of combat training killing Locust in Horde. 

On the release of Gears 3, I knew I wanted to experience the story together with Claire this time. We sat down and played through the entire campaign together over several nights. Our first run-though was even on Hardcore! The campaign allows for 4-player co-op, so we had two bots running and gunning along with us. In practice, this meant that they raced forward, took a tonne of fire, one went down, the other picked his fallen friend up, rinse, repeat, and Claire and I sat back picking everything off at a safe distance.

With our run-though complete, Claire and I joined Bob and Jp on Arcade Mode and played through it a second time in quick succession.

All in all, I can't say that I didn't enjoy the game. There were some spectacular scenes, loads of genuinely funny moments, fantastic dialogue, nice nods to the earlier games and some great easter eggs scattered throughout. The story moved along at a good pace, and while it clocked in at easily the longest in the series, it never once felt like that. The ending almost came too soon.

Playing it on Insane in the Arcade four-player co-op was tough. Instantly dieing instead of the usual safety net of Down But Not Out was at first frustrating, but once you adjusted to it, it simply made some scenes even more tense and nerve wracking. Adding Mutators, fun game changers such as infinite ammo, or bonus weapon damage, certainly made things more enjoyable, shifting the tone of combat from a defensive stance spending the majority of time behind cover regaining health, to a more proactive offensive ideology. There were still a number of really, really difficult-to-finish areas, but the ones we were dreading the most often proved to be the quickest to complete!

I have to say, I was well proud of our little band of heroes when we nailed the final boss without too much trouble. I want to say that we didn't even wipe out once, but I think we may have had to restart once or twice early on. But it was far less painful that certain earlier levels (I'm looking at you, Formers!). In the end, it was some awesome teamwork, combined with a sprint around the tower a few times while the three dead teammates rejoined the fight, that won the day!

Visually, the game is beautiful. The environments have a massive amount of variety, from battling in dark tunnels to stunning, sun drenched walkways. Even the darker sections of the game are brighter than most apocalyptic games, filled with torches, dynamic lighting effects and clever tricks to avoid having to play through an area with my screen brightness maxed out. The character models are crisp and incredibly detailed, with everything moving realistically, whether it's the faces as they talk and react or the solid plates on the armour.

It's also refreshing to see a game with several strong female characters, and even more refreshing to see them wearing much the same amour as the guys, instead of skimpy chainmail bikinis or a body armour that inexplicably leaves the midrift exposed! The girls are just as bad-ass as the guys here, and everything they do, say and wear reinforces that they are not just onscreen to look pretty and kiss the men on the way to battle, but could easily hold their own in any fight. The only thing I'm upset we never get to see is an all female chapter, where the girls have to defend or attack a key location while the boys are busy elsewhere. Admittedly, the main game only has three named female COG characters, so maybe I can suggest that idea for future DLC!

Story-wise, I was bitterly disappointed in some of the major choices made, especially towards the end. I'm not going to go into it here, as I'm going to leave my thoughts and ideas on that subject for another post, but suffice it to say, I still think Gears of War 2 is the stronger story, or at least the stronger resolution.

Gears of War 3 feels like the appropriate ending in the story for control of an entire planet. Unfortunately, it just seems to push itself over the thin line between "epic action adventure" into the field of "ridiculous nonsense" as it gets towards the end. There were several times I found myself close to screaming "WHY?!?" at the Xbox, and at least once when I did. Despite this, I enjoyed it then and still enjoy it now. I've played it through once on Hardcore and once on Insane in four-player co-op, yet I still enjoy joining friends games and playing through a few chapters when I have the time. There are some amazing climax moments, none better than the start of Act 3 where you have to defend a fort against a tidal wave of seemingly unending enemies. The dialogue and character interactions are funny and enjoyable, and once again the Baird/Cole buddy team-up steals the show for me.

A flawed but enjoyable masterpiece, the story of Gears 3 was enough for me to enjoy playing at least twice. While it won't keep me coming back like Horde mode does, it wasn't something I felt I could put off playing, as I had done in Gears 2. In fact, more than anything, playing the Gears 3 campaign has made me want to go back and play the story in Gears 2 again, and relive how an emotional moment in a game is done properly.

Previous posts in this series:
The Coalitions Finest
User, Why?
Still to come:
How I would have written things if I was in control (But with a much snappier title)

User, Why?

If the internal workings of a computer are anything like in Reboot, my Xbox is developing a lasting hatred of me right now.

Gears of War 3 has a plethora of unlockables that you earn for completing set tasks, such as being awarded X number of one particular ribbon, getting X number of kills with a weapon, or playing X number of matches in each multiplayer game mode.

It's this last one that has caused me to start leaving my Xbox turned on for hours while I did other things. In order to unlock a particular character skin you need to play 300 matches of each of the six modes in competitive multiplayer. As I have no interest in actually doing any such thing, I have taken to setting up the game to play match after match after match against bots while my chosen character simply stands there and dies, hopefully as quickly as possible so that I can get through another match. This has been a slow process, but as I'm not actually playing, it doesn't effect me, apart from destroying my Win/Loss Ratio.

However, there is one game mode where this system has an unfortunate outcome for someone else. Wingman is all about teamwork. There are four teams of two, and the objective is to be the last man or team standing while scoring ten kills before another team does. Because of this, I have a fully active bot teammate with me during my attempt to clock up those 300 matches.

A fully active bot teammate who hates me.

Most of the time I'm not even paying attention to the screen while it runs through the matches. However, now and then, I do catch a glimpse of what's going on. Let me give you just two examples from the 300 matches that he helped me through.

In one game our team spawned in a nice open area with lots of nearby cover. My teammate, whom I lovingly nicknamed Private Bottington The 3rd, took cover at a nearby low wall, and watched as I was taken down by some dastardly villain. Bottington raced over, providing covering fire, picked me up and dashed back into cover. No sooner had he done so when I was dropped again. Like the true hero that he is, Bottington came to my rescue once again, and once again made it safely back into cover. From the safety behind the wall he turned to look at me. He silently implored me to move, to run, to hide behind something, anything. He watched in dismay as the bullets ripped through my armour one last time, dropping me, ragdoll-like to the ground. This time, there was no reviving me. In a fit of rage, Bottington went on to hunt down and execute my assailant, his teammate and two other bots, single-handedly scoring the highest point total that round.

Just a short few matches later, Bottington and I spawned in a nice, sunny area. Bottington ran about looking for the other teams, but always stayed relatively close by. A firefight broke out around me, and Bottington valiantly attempted to defend me. He raced across in front of me and had just left my field of vision when I saw his indicator change to the Down By Not Out circle. A moment later Bottington crawled back in from right of screen, a trail of blood smearing the dusty ground behind him. He dragged himself over to my feet, pleading to be picked up. I stood there, my only movements the involuntary flinches caused by stray bullet impacts. Bottington begged for help. I did not give it. An enemy rolled into view behind my teammate and stomped his head into the ground, before turning on me and blowing me into several gooey little pieces.

Long after I get my unlock, long after I have given up grinding out match after match for something that means so little, I will remember Bottington and his heroic actions.

And every time I play on a match where the opposing team has one bot to fill out their numbers, and that bot hunts me down and kills me, a little tear will well up in the corner of my eye, and I'll think to myself "Well played, Bottington, well played..."

I Have Blistas On My Fingas!

Moving to Vancouver was always going to be tough. We left so much behind; family, friends, comics, books, boxes and boxes of action figures. But one of the things knew I'd miss most long before we set out on this great adventure was hanging out with friends.

Specifically, hanging out with friends playing Rock Band!

Yesterday I had the joy of playing a massive twelve song setlist with two friends from back home thanks to the glory of Xbox Live. Normally I play guitar or base, but as those were both claimed before I joined, I jumped onto drums for the first time in a long, long time. It was either that or vocals, and I didn't think either of the others had done anything to deserve hearing that while we played!

Twelve songs was not only the longest run I've had in Rock Band in some time, but also shattered any drum session length record I had previously set. I stayed on Easy, testing the waters of Normal for about 30 seconds at the start of the fifth track before I beat a hasty retreat back to the safety of Easy.

Playing Rock Band again with friends reminded me of all the great nights and afternoons we had back in Ireland, rocking out on plastic instruments, handing around the microphone to blast out our favourite tunes. I've brought my set to a wedding and several house parties, and every time it's been a huge hit.

I still buy new tracks that I like, but it's not the same playing by myself. Rock Band was never even really about playing the game. It was about relaxing in good company, chatting and enjoying a few snacks while listening to and interacting with some great music. Of course, it was also about jumping about and making somewhat of a fool of yourself in front of friends, acting out all those dreams of wanting to be on stage in front of a crowd of thousands of adoring fans. Playing it on a projector with surround sound certainly added to the experience.

I miss those days. I miss my friends.

I'm going to go and console myself with a few tracks on Rock Band. Guitar this time. That ring finger needs time to recover.

The Coalitions Finest

Gears of War 3 has taken up residence in my Xbox almost exclusively since it's launch in September. Apart from hacking and slashing my way through the dungeons of Torchlight and rocking out to the Coldplay pack for Rock Band 3, I've been investing an extraordinary amount of time in the third game in Epic Games' console flagship series.

My first experience of Gears of War was via the second installment. Aidan and Rob had bought the steroid abusing sci-fi action shooter and invited me to try out this new game mode called Horde.

From Wave one, I was hooked. Team based co-operative multiplayer with no competitive element! Wave after wave of inhuman enemies in steadily increasing numbers and difficulty, this was pure survival gameplay balancing edge-of-your-seat tension with frantic and cinematic firefights.

My love of Horde was so great in fact that I pointedly ignored what I thought was surely a terrible, machismo, testosterone filled, steroidal, brain dead campaign. By the time I did get around to playing it, I knew how to defeat every enemy it threw at me, apart from the bosses. This somewhat robbed me of experiencing the terror of the bullet absorbing Sires, as I already knew to simply walk around the area with my chainsaw permanently revved up!

Going into Gears 3, I promised myself that I'd get the campaign finished before trying out Horde 2.0 or the new mode, Beast. Once the surprises of the story were out of the way, I was eager to jump into my favourite gameplay mode in it's newest incarnation.

Horde has seen a vast and sweeping overhaul since it's appearance in the second game. Now you earn cash for kills, and can buy fortifications, ammo boxes or weapons across the map space. Way back when this was first announced I was a little apprehensive that they had messed with a good thing. Horde was great because it was so clean. Just you and up to four friends versus 50 waves of Locust creatures looking to decorate their fireplaces with your skulls. Nothing else.

But the new additions not only work, they work spectacularly. Earlier I called Horde Mode "pure survival gameplay balancing edge-of-your-seat tension with frantic and cinematic firefights". Horde 2.0 adds heart pounding building, repairing and upgrading of all too often meager defenses to help you survive the rising flood of enemies. The fortifications further encourage team-work, as people co-ordinate to maximise the work done in the short time they have between Waves. Players can even share cash with each other if they wish to, although while I have seen this used occasionally in private games with friends, I have yet to witness it during a random match-up over Xbox Live.

One of the best additions to Horde 2.0 however has to be the Wave 10 Bosses. Horde is still played as 50 Waves broken into five 10 Wave sets. In the first version, this meant that the number and difficulty of the enemies per Wave steadily increased up to Wave 10, where we were terrified of Bloodmounts, before resetting to the enemies of Wave 1 again for Wave 11, but making them tougher. Horde 2.0 makes that 10th Wave even more fun by giving it a random Boss, from a choice of about seven or eight. The bosses are usually bigger and badder than anything else in the mode, and standard tactics for almost every one of them is to take out all the regular enemies while avoiding the Boss characters until they are the only things left, and then combatting them. Standard tactics usually result in death. Non-standard tactics however, focusing fire on the Boss characters first and then the little guys, just results in additional iterations of the Boss character appearing. If there is anything worse than dealing with a Burmak, it's seeing its twin brother step out from the smoke of the exploding first one.

Horde kept me playing Gears of War 2 much longer than I have played any other shooter to date. Through it I made some great friends over Xbox Live, and enjoyed many frantic and hilarious moments of both victory and defeat. Horde 2.0 has successfully improved on the original design, and I know I'll be playing it for months, if not years, to come.

Mr Ryan Goes To PAX 2011

Last weekend my wonderful wife and I took a bus south across the border to the city of Seattle for the best gaming convention in he world, Penny Arcade eXpo, or PAX. We headed down on Thursday and met up with some friends, one of whom lives in Seattle now and the other two traveled up from New Mexico for the convention as well! Our charming company was a welcome bonus!

This was our second time at PAX, the first being in 2008 at the end of our Epic Holiday[TM]. I never did get around to a write-up of that stop, but you can safely assume that it was incredible, and we couldn't wait to get back. This year I decided to step things up a bit by going in costume. Thanks to my amazing mum, I was able to get my Rocketeer helmet brought over from Ireland, and I already had the jacket with me. And so, for most of Friday and Saturday at PAX 2011, I could be seen wandering the many areas, slowly sweating to death in a heavy leather jacket, carrying a heavy, metal helmet[1].

A lot of the guests and exhibitors fist bump rather than shaking hands in order to avoid picking up nasty infections. This year I even saw the more extreme version, elbow bump, used by many. It certainly worked for me. I have not come down with any PAX crud as of yet, apart from being utterly exhausted for a few days after!

The whole event was awesome. We met so many incredibly nice people, and I got to talk to people I never expected, about interests I never expected to share with them. I got to meet AJ LoCascio, the voice of Marty McFly in the TellTale Games episodic Back to the Future video game! Not only was he probably the most down-to-earth, nice, honest-to-goodness coolest guy I met at PAX, but he's also a huge Rocketeer fan[2]! He was able to recognize that I was holding a Disney Master Replicas version of the helmet from across the booth, and he recognized the Wested jacket as well! If you can imagine how blown away I was by that much, I almost collapsed when he told me that he made his own Rocketeer helmet from fiberglass. We spent about ten minutes geeking out about the movie, the props and the awesomeness of the Replica Prop Forum.

The weekend was just chock full of amazing stories, though rather like Empire Strikes Back, I feel I opened on the best of them. My costume was a huge success, and I got stopped everywhere I went by other attendees, exhibitors and even a VIP or two as they gushed over the character and took photos. It was heart warming to see so many fans of Dave Stevens creation in attendance. For me, one of the things I enjoyed most was watching peoples eyes widen as I let them hold the helmet and even try it on. Unlike the more accurate fiberglass versions available, the metal Master Replica I have is far from fragile. It was nice to be a part of fullfilling a small number of peoples dreams to hold or wear such an iconic piece from a much loved classic.

Even queuing was a fun experience. Apart from playing games on iPads, Enforcers (the PAX volunteer force that help make everything run smoothly) were handing out bits and pieces to help us pass the time. While queuing for the Saturday night concert, we all got given brightly coloured pipe cleaners and instructions to "Be creative". This resulted in hats, flowers, Portal-themed wrist bracelets, stick figures fighting, a sniper with gun, and even a helicopter with rotating blades! From pipe cleaners, people!

But of course, PAX is ultimately all about the games. And we got to try loads of them!

Welcome to Serra.
Gears of War 3 is due for release on September 20th, and it had a large presence in the Xbox area. I expected longer lines, but compared to others games on display, the Gears line was tiny. I got to try out the updated Horde 2.0 on Friday and the brand new to the franchise Beast Mode on Saturday.

Horde: My biggest worry about Horde 2.0 was that they had gone and messed with a good thing. Horde is still the best of the endless-wave styles of game modes because it is so clean and simple. It threw out customization in favour of accessibility. Horde 2.0 adds to the basics by bringing in a cash-for-kills system for that can be used to buy stuff during a small window between waves, from ammo to laser defenses and beyond. And it works fantastically! It's fast, fun and doesn't stop the games flow. We got to play waves 8 to 10 allowing us a peek at what surprises the tenth waves hold. I'm not going to spoil it, but after the terrifying horror of seeing your first bloodmount in Gears 2, they've really outdone themselves for Gears 3. It's awesome!

Beast: This is a whole other kettle of fish. Trying Horde, I knew the basics. Waves of alien monsters that I need to kill before they kill me. Beast is a set number of COGs per level and you have a very tight time limit. You start with one minute on the clock and get more for every kill. You can play as a variety of Locust, starting as low as tickers or wretches, and going up from there. I'm not going to tell you what I saw or played as, but you can assume it was fun! The gameplay is very different, and I sucked during my quick trial. This is not Reverse Horde, it requires a totally new set of skills.

The Boardgame: Not on display at the Xbox booth, this was instead being demoed on a different floor, but I've included it here for completions sake. This looked very nice. Fantasy Flight Games were running demos all weekend long and the whole thing looked impressive. I didn't play myself, but I heard lots of good things from people that were trying it out. As expected from an FFG game, the production quality was through the roof. Cards, tokens and figure pieces were beautiful. The figure pieces were especially impressive, and looked like they should be a lot of fun to paint up.

But Gears was only a tiny area in a huge, multilevel convention. I got to see and play games that are coming out as soon as this month and as late as next year.

The Gunstringer is the first retail game from Twisted Pixel, the company behind Comic Jumper and 'Splosion Man. It's a Kinect game that makes clevel use of the technology and, more importantly, it's a load of fun to play. I don't own a Kinect. Yet. There was no reason to before I went to PAX. Now I'm tempted. I might even get one for this alone.

I got up on stage with three others and had a four-player dance-off in front of a large crowd playing Dance Central 2, also for Kinect. I found that it had very good motion tracking, more impressive for being able to track four uncoordinated male players gyrating wildly. I came first, despite never playing any of the dance games before, though that probably says more about how bad the others were than how good I was.

From the ridiculous length of the line all weekend long, it was clear that there was a lot of interest in the latest game in the Elder Scrolls series, Skyrim, but I could not have cared less. Not that I have anything against it, I'm just not interested in fantasy games. One of our friends stood in line for 3.5 hours to play the 15 minute demo and got a fuzzy hat for her troubles[3]. At one point while I was talking to her in the line, I looked up at a clip of a dragon in the trailer and jokingly said "Oh. Nice graphics. What's this game?" and 40 angry nerd heads swiveled in my direction.

Last, but by no means least, one of the booths that immediately caught my attention was the TellTale Games Jurassic Park area. Not only did they have a nice small-scale replica of the entrance gates into the park, and fencing with little flashing lights on top, but they had a fan-made reproduction of one of the park jeeps! I was a child all over again standing beside it. Instead of just reading my thoughts on this however, take a break from the text and look at a video blog TellTale Games staff did during the convention. Check out the eejit at the 1:25 mark, and again at the 2:30 mark. Yeesh. Fanboys. They were everywhere at PAX.




PAX wouldn't be PAX without free stuff. We came home with tonnes and tonnes of swag. I think I got 8 t-shirts, of which I only paid for one. Baseball hats, avatar items, lanyards, pins, even a very high quality hoodie! The whole weekend paid for itself in free stuff. Claire and our friends even got themselves free OnLive consoles! FREE. CONSOLES!!![4] Insane.

If we're still here next year we'll be going again, so I'll let people know in case anyone is interested in joining us for a crazy weekend of video games, boardgames, demos, t-shirts, freebies, music, costumes, celebrities and more in 2012! I honestly cannot recommend it enough. It's the best, friendliest, most community orientated convention I've ever been to.

Hopefully you can join us and share in the love that is PAX 2012.

[1]- On Saturday morning I woke up complains of an unusual pain in my right arm. I put it down to sleeping badly in the hotel bed, as I had no recollection of having injured it the day before. It wasn't until later that same day that I realised that the weight of the helmet was causing strain on my arm muscles! I didn't feel it while I was enjoying the convention. It was only once I relaxed that it all hit me!
[2]- The earlier part of this sentence should probably be noted as biased based on the latter part. But even then, AJ was very, very cool.
[3]- She did also get to meet and have her photo taken with Todd Howard while in the queue, which she excitedly told me later in the day. She was much distraught when I shrugged and told her I had no idea who that was. Still, that first 3.5 hours at PAX in a queue was pretty much the high point of her convention, I'm led to believe. 
[4]- The catch of course is that OnLive is a subscription based service, so they're happy to give you the console for free to let you try out the service and hopefully sign up.

Silence Is Golden

Video gaming is a hobby that relies heavily on a combination of a number of key factors to produce a holistic experience that few other hobbies can match. In the modern era we have the visual graphics, the music, dialog and sound effects for our ears and even the tactile response of rumbling controllers in our hands. All these together pull us into the world that has been built within the game.

In the past, I've considered that a game should only be played when all those factors are present, with the possible exception of the force-feedback controllers. Image and sound go together to produce a complete package, and even as far back as Space Invaders and Pac-Man, the music and effects were important to the final product.

My gaming history has moved from the basic stereo sounds of a television set to a simple 2.1 sound system with an impressive bass speaker to a full 5.1 surround sound system that allows me to pinpoint the location of enemies breathing from anywhere in the room! Sound has been vital to my own personal experiences. I love the music of games, but even more so, I love the sound effects produced to compliment my actions.

The roar of an engine as your muscle car sprints off the mark. The crunch of leaves and twigs underfoot as you explore the ruined temple. The deep, throbbing hum of an enormous city-sized starship blasting through the void. The gentle whistle of air rushing by as you glide through the skies. And there are few things more gratifying in a computer game than revving a chainsaw and running screaming at an alien enemy, sawing him in half as blade meets muscle and bone, squealing and spluttering.

So when I first got the Xbox set up here in Vancouver, you can understand how anxious I was about playing it at first before I managed to organize a working sound system. As I had brought my VGA cable with me, I was able to plug the machine into Claires shiny PC monitor. Unfortunately, unlike TVs which have built-in sound systems, the monitor was silent. Claire had gotten a simple sound system for her PC, but the jack was incompatible with the current wiring connected to the Xbox.

Regardless, I still wanted to play my beloved games. I yearned to get all stabby-stabby in Assassins Creed: Brotherhood. I wanted to kick tiny villagers in World of Keflings. I wanted to play the latest tracks that I liked in Rock Band. How bad could it be. I'd give it a go.

And you know what, they weren't bad. I had played Brotherhood a lot at home, and I was only playing the multiplayer anyway, which doesn't have exposition dialog or anything. All the sound effects I needed were of the gurgling last rasps of your character as someone shoves a hidden blade through your spleen, and I could mimic them myself pretty well. The Keflings got kicked in silence. Rock Band wasn't attempted. That would just have been ridiculous, and I wasn't that desperate. Really. Honestly...

On the other hand, I had bought Bulletstorm shortly after arriving in Vancouver to guarantee my access into the Gears of War 3 Beta, so I thought I'd give it a go. I lasted all of one chapter in the first Act, and even then it was a struggle. The game is a first person shooter that relies heavily on dialog and sound effects to build the atmosphere of the setting, and I was missing all of that. It just wasn't fun.

All of this brings me to one last game, Split/Second: Velocity, a racing game from Disney. Its gimmick is that, along with racing, you can cause massive explosions that destroy the tack and wreck the opposition in your quest for victory. When it comes to cars and fast driving, they kind of all sound the same. I was able to hear the growl of the engine and the squeal of tires in my own head, and an explosion is an explosion, so I could imagine the booming chaos whenever I triggered a Course Change. It was great! The game was fun and the sound effects I imagined suited the onscreen carnage. Super.

Eventually, I did get sound. I kicked Keflings, and heard the little chirps of surprise. I fired up Rock Band and had some friends over for my first Plastic Instruments Appreciation session in Vancouver. I went back and played BulletStorm, a much more enjoyable experience with the added sound. I tried out Split/Second for the first time with the games original effects playing in my ears...

And I was disappointed. The explosions weren't as loud, or as meaty as I had imagined them. The cars didn't growl the way they did in my head. The commentator between seasons was annoying. I played a few tracks and put it to one side. I'm not sure if I'll go back.

Or, if I do, maybe I'll leave the sound off next time.

Just Plain Talented

After far too many months of waiting, Gears of War 3 took its first steps into the public light at 2am this morning, Vancouver time. Naturally, as a Gears fan since playing Horde mode for the first time at a friends house, I stayed up to get in on the action at the first opportunity. Equally as obvious, Claire stayed up with me to watch the first few minutes before tottering off to dreamland.

The Gears of War Beta allows us fans to experience an early build of the multiplayer, putting the maps and weapon balances to the test. It's only a Beta, so most of the final content that will appear on the disc is not available, and I'm not just referring to the single player campaign. My favorite more, the previously mentioned Horde Mode is not featured, nor is the new gameplay type I'm most looking forward to trying out, Beast Mode.

This first week is for BulletStorm owners and Epic Games friends and family only, and the options available are limited. Currently, there is only one game mode and two maps available, though more will be released over the course of the four weeks the Beta runs for. First up, the maps.

Checkout: This is set inside a ruined supermarket. It is very close quarters combat orientated, with lots of destructible cover and low walls to both crouch behind, but also mantel over and stomp enemies. The rows of shelving give loads of ways to get around opponents and create cross fire opportunities, as well as quickly splitting up uncoordinated teams. The lighting on this map is beautiful, with sunlight streaming through frosted of grimy glass, brightening everything. But we'll get back to that later.

Thrashball: Set in a destroyed thrashball arena from the pre-war days. This is a big, open central area with small side areas for bottlenecked combat. One major issue I have with this map is that it appears to be possible to spawn-camp a team - the spawn zone has one tunnel exit (like a team dressing room exit to the pitch) and if you get forced back to there you're pretty much boned. This happened once to my team last night. When that doesn't happen though, it's a great fun map. The grass and plant-life that has reclaimed the arena are bright and lush, a noticeable departure from the browns and grays more common in the previous games.

Play alternates between the two maps per match, not per round. As I stated earlier, currently there is only one game mode available. While Team Deathmatch is nothing new to shooters in general, it is new to the Gears franchise, and their version puts a Gears style spin on things. Each team has a pool of 15 respawns. The object of the lesson is to kill the enemy team enough times to deplete their pool, then eliminate them. This means that four great players stuck with one sucky player could lose if said sucky player dies a lot and runs though the pool[1]. It also means one player could potentially be the last remaining player on his team and still cream the enemy with skillful use of the shotgun, going on to win for his team[2].

My opinion on competitive multiplayer shooters in general: I play Gears for Horde. I love the cooperative gameplay, the team work, the shared joy of victory and the shared exhilaration of defeat. There are no hard feelings when we die to the Horde waves. No one calls "cheater" or, "unfair advantage". No one accuses the opponents of host advantage, or the game of having unbalanced weapons. But I've never played a competitive multiplayer session that lasted more than a few rounds before those accusations were flying across the chat channels. And the Beta was no different. When my team was winning, this was "the best game ever", and this map was "so balanced" and everything was "great". When same team was loosing, the other team was "clearly cheating" and the maps were "unfair" and the shotgun was "so overpowered" and yadda, yadda, yadda. Sigh. I miss Horde already.

Based on my brief trip so far, here are my two top Pro Tips for the Beta:
1- Stick together as a team!! We lost more rounds by splitting up and running every which way than by opposing skill.
2- Learn when to ignore the voices in your head. When they're being nice and coordinating the offensive, then stay in contact, work as a team. When they're being offensive and complaining about the game, shut up and don't join in. You're better than that, and must accept that chances are you'll lose more than you'll win, especially at the start. Just focus on getting a few kills per game and you'll be fine.

Graphically, the game is beautiful, vivid and lush, with gorgeous lighting. One of the promises was to make everything brighter, and they have. Vivid colours, streaming sunshine. Everything looks amazing. From what I've seen, character models look nice too, but usually they're running about or getting stomped on, so it's hard to tell for sure. If you've played Enslaved, the Thrashball arena especially reminds me of those bright post-apocalyptic areas from that game (also built on the Unreal 3 engine), and the Checkout map reminds me of a brighter, easier to navigate and more interesting version of the supermarkets in Fallout 3.

Here are some stats from my first night playing. This might be especially useful for those of you interested in hoping to unlock the Beta exclusive Gold Lancer and Trashball Cole skins.

10 matches of Team Deathmatch took me approximately 2 hours and netted me 24 Rounds played, and a total of 22 kills with the Lancer alone (the required stat to watch for the Gold Lancer retail unlock), and many more kills in total. I unlocked a bunch of stuff, including weapon skins and Anya as a playable character for just playing the 10 matches.

I originally thought the retail unlock Gold Lancer requirements (Complete 90 matches in any game type to unlock for the Beta period. To permanently unlock, score 100 kills with the Gold-Plated Retro Lancer during the Beta period) were tough, but they seem like something that is going to happen anyway over the course of 4 weeks. Even over the 3 weeks most people have. Kill stealing is a bitch, but I've given as much as been taken, so it all balances out, right? Also, I'm generally ignoring Executions in favour of laying a few more rounds in my target to guarantee no-one else gets to him first.

And finally, the weapons. I'm gonna make this fast, as Claire just hit the shower, so I have access to the PC monitor the Xbox is currently plugged into. Here goes:

Lancer is lancer, gnasher shotgun is broken, retro lancer seems ridiculously inefficient compared to the modern version (terrible recoil, massive footprint), new shotgun is crazy powerful but takes an eon to reload, incendiary grenades are hilarious (melting surfaces), flash bang grenades cause stun, blinding white light and just seem more useful, new digger weapon (tunnels underground and past cover) is cool to see in action but I haven't had a chance to try it yet, mortar is the usual splash damage hilarity, grinder is same as always, and I haven't gotten my hands on the sniper rifle yet.

All in all, I'm loving the chance to get my hands on the game this early. The game modes that will be available over the course of the Beta period are not why I am even remotely interested in the final retail game, but they give me the opportunity to see some of the maps, weapons and gameplay tweaks that is ahead of me. I'll be playing as much of it as possible, all the while yearning for the peace and man-love happy times that is Horde mode, now with female skins![3]

[1] Me.
[2] Not me.
[3] Despite female playable characters, Claire has made it very clear that she will be remaining with Marcus as her ingame avatar of death-by-sniper. Can't blame her. Even after all these years, my man-crush on Baird remains as powerful as the first day I laid eyes on his goggles.

Monday Musing

Recently I've been enjoying the stabby-stabby fun of Ubisofts latest offering, Assassins Creed: Brotherhood, which I got from my wonderful brother for Christmas. As is the norm for me, I started up the single player game and utterly ignored the multiplayer aspect until I finished the campaign and learned what fate had befallen my hero of Renaissance Rome, Ezio Auditore da Firenze.

Upon venturing into the online portion of the game just this last weekend, I was stunned by how much I enjoyed it. I was so taken, in fact, that I was compelled to write to Monday Musing, a weekly section of the UK Xbox Dashboard. Here is what I sent them last Saturday:

I've hunted Aliens through the deepest, darkest jungles. I've gone one on one against Locust Drones in dark, underground caverns. I've battled Spitters and Tanks among abandoned streets. I've fought the worst of the worst, the stuff nightmares are made from, in games spawned from the darkest, most twisted minds. Despite all this, my heart has never raced as fast as it does after a game of Ubisofts latest offering, Assassins Creed: Brotherhood.

Like most players, I played through the single player campaign first, relishing the fantastic story laid out before me, as well as the beauty of Renaissance Rome. The multiplayer sat on my menu options, untouched. Only once I had exhausted Ezios story did I venture into the world of Abstergos recruits.

And what a world they have crafted! Brotherhoods multiplayer experience is easily one of the most fun aspects of any game I have played in years. Nailing that precision kill and vanishing into a crowd is thrilling. Stalking your prey through busy streets, finger poised over the X button, about to do the deed when suddenly...BAM! Someone shoves a hidden blade deep into your back, and the world spins slowly as your own intended victim walks away, probably none-the-wiser about how close he was to death.

Congratulations to Ubisoft for crafting the most heart-pounding game I have ever played, without the need for scare tactics or shock-horror moments. No monsters, no demons, just other humans that could be as deadly as you hope you are. I'll send you my medical bill when my heart inevitably explodes.

This evening I got home from work to discover that I had 93 messages in my Xbox 360 Inbox, several of which were Friend Invites! Amazingly, the good guys at the Xbox UK offices thought my meager Musing was fit for publication on the Xbox Dashboard! Every Xbox registered to Ireland or the UK could see my thoughts on Assassins Creed: Brotherhood! I was popular!

Thankfully, my faith in humanity was upheld by the generally fantastic Xbox Live community. The vast, vast majority of messages were positive and polite. Some disagreed with my opinions, but thanked me for sharing my thoughts, one gamer summing it up nicely as "To each their own". In the minority by a long shot were those with nothing useful to add to the conversation beyond one-word insults or, in one case "Do you work for Microsoft. If so, why did I get banned?" If you're reading this, I don't know mate. I wish I worked for Microsoft so I could get all the Arcade games I wanted, but I don't, so I can't!

I've been trying to respond to as many of the nicer comments as possible, mostly just thanking them for their comment in a cut and paste format. Those who disagreed in a polite fashion got a response thanking them as well. People of all ages took the time to say hi, so I'm trying to return the favour. There have been a handful of voice messages, which have been odd to listen to. They're all nice, but range from really young kids asking me questions as if I'm some new god, to older gamers who didn't feel the need to fumble over the onscreen keyboard.

This whole strange event has happened at the start of my last week in school before we make the big move to Canada. At least I'll have an interesting story to tell people I meet when we arrive. This, and that time last week when we had dinner in the same restaurant as Dominic Monaghan and Elijah Wood, but that's a story for another post.

On The First Day Of Gearsmas Epic Gave To Me

All together now!

1. "On the first day of Gearsmas Epic gave to me, a concussion from a smoke grenade." Bringing the concuss back for day - Dec 22
2. 2 Flaming Bloodmounts (2 Bloodmounts with Flamethrowers every wave) - Dec 23
3. 3 Extra Clips (3 extra clips of ammo in every weapon) - Dec 24
4. 4 Frag grenades (Frag grenade pickups have 4) - Dec 25
5. 5 Torque Bow Tags (Many rifle creatures carry Torque Bows in Horde) - Dec 26
6. 6 Melee Monsters (All melee creatures Horde) - Dec 27
7. 7 Sires a storming - Dec 28
8. 8 Old School Gears Heads (4 v 4 MP) - Dec 29
9. 9 Boomers Booming (Boomer squads on every wave) - Dec 30
10. 10 Waves of Tickers (all Ticker Horde) - Dec 31
11. 11 Wretches Wretching (Wretches with Shotguns) - Jan 1
12. Some of the above (1, 3, 4, 8, 10) - Jan

That's 12 days of epic epicness from Epic starting tomorrow! This list was posted on the official forums, so it's not some random guesswork. On top of all this, everyone gets Golden Lancers and Hammerbursts for the duration of the event, which would matter to Claire and I if we didn't already have Gold Lancers thanks to the awesome Stacey (@iFlak) on Twitter. What does interest me is the XP bonus. Starting at 12x and going up one every day to 23x on day 12. Sweet. The last two Achievements I have left to bag in Gears of War 2 are Seriously 2.0 which requires me to kill 100,000 enemies and Veteran Gear, which requires me to hit Level 100. Seriously can be boosted in single player, so I'll get it eventually regardless. But Levels only count in Multiplayer, so XP events are a big thing to me at the moment.

I'm on somewhere around the 30,000 kill mark, but only at Level 77. Hopefully the coming days will boost that a bit closer to the magical 100, and I can earn my wings!

I'm going to be clocking in a lot of time online over the holiday season. Surely the best way to spent the cold winter nights.

A Machine Full Of Surprises

Claire was on a serious cleaning buzz this morning and we spent a good deal of the day tidying the spare room, throwing out a bag or two of waste paper, as well as sorting out a bunch of stuff that just needs to be gotten rid of, preferably for a small monetary exchange. I have boxes of comics that I don't need, mostly random single issues or stories I didn't like. We both have more books than we need. Most of the DVDs in my substantial collection are just gathering dust thanks to living in the 21st Century, and the joy of a broadband connection. Incredible!

But after hoovering the house, we were done and dusted by half three. I sat back, flicked on the Xbox and started shifting about in the menus. My 360 has been networked to my PC for years now. It's how I watch a lot of my media, on our projector screen through the Xbox rather than on the relatively tiny PC monitor. Enormous!

But today I clicked into the Music tab on the dashboard. I expected it to be empty. I have a lot of media shared to the Video tab, but I don't remember sharing any music. Instead, I found my entire collection there, as well as any Playlists I had set from the PC. This probably comes as no surprise to the majority of you, but it was a shock to me. I could suddenly play what little amount of music I do have on my PC through my 5.1 surround sound speakers. Amazing!

After spending a stupid length of time playing with the visualizer (like, more than one song!) I decided to test firing up a game to see what happens. As soon as the game started to load, the music cut out. Ah well. Fair eno- But wait! The music came back! And when I tried to load from the menu into the game, the music stopped again, but came back once the level had loaded! Fantastic!

Suddenly, much to my delight and Claires amusement, I was playing Splinter Cell: Conviction with Hanson providing the soundtrack. I was killing terrorist scum to the tune of "Penny and Me". I think the most appropriate song to pop up on the playlist while I ran a level has to be a toss-up between Chesney Hawks "I Am The One And Only" and Foo Fighters "DOA". Surreal!

Even after owning an Xbox 360 for over three years, it still manages to surprise me. Penis!

Review: Splinter Cell: Conviction Co-Op Story Ending

An open letter to Ubisoft, re: Splinter Cell: Conviction Co-Op Story Ending

Fuck you, Ubisoft. That was uncalled for. Awesome? Yes. Amazing? Yes. Fun? Yes. The perfect ending? Totally.

Still doesn't make me feel any different towards you lot for pulling that shit.

Fuck you very much,

Sincerely yours,

Denis.

Review: Splinter Cell: Conviction Co-Op Story

He's a tough American ninja spy with a mean attitude and a meaner pistol. He's a stereotyped Russian that is effectively identical to his partner save for red goggles and his accent. They fight terrorists!

Splinter Cell: Conviction delivers a fast, action packed single player campaign that takes you on a rock'n'roll ride through Ubisofts answer to Jack Bauer. But Sam Fishers story is only a portion of the complete story presented on the game disc. Before Fisher, there was Archer and Kestrel.

Archer is an agent of Third Echelon, Sams old unit. Kestrel is Archers Russian double, an agent of Voron. They get thrown together to stop an arms deal going down in Russia in a story taking place just before Sam Fisher is called back into active duty. Their story spreads over four huge chapters, each one divided into three to four large combat areas. Each of the chapters are much larger than the single player campaign chapters, but on top of that, there is now two players trying to bumble their way through the darkness to the checkpoints. Because of this, I have already invested much longer in the co-op story than I did on either of my runs through Sams story, and I've only just finished the third chapter. Chapter two alone took the better part of four hours.

I have an interesting outlook on the co-op story, thanks to the two people I'm playing through the campaign with, and how we play.

Aidonis and I play split-screen. We share a screen, couch, and verbal sparing. When one of us fails, the other sees exactly what we did wrong and can jeer and insult about how they'd never get caught like that. With Rubber Cookie, we play on Xbox Live. We have the full screen to ourselves, and have to rely on much more talking to tell each other who is moving where and what cover is safe.

Aidonis doesn't own the game, so his only practice and experience is playing co-op with me. He doesn't have the best weapons or upgrades, or the experience of the single player game. This made the first chapter particularly eventful, involving lots of running from mobs of guards and restarting over and over. Rubber Cookie owns the game and is going through the single player campaign at the same time as the co-op. He first experienced the trademarked goggles in co-op, but had a fully upgraded Five-Seven from the start. We got through the entire first chapter without a single restart, and the first stage without even being detected.

Of course, it also helps that I'm further on in the story with Aidonis, so we're learning the maps and patrol patterns through trial and error. By the time I get there with Rubber Cookie, I know the place like the back of my hand, pointing out and using all the hidden ledges, convenient shadows and overhead pipes. It helps. A lot. Practice makes perfect, and all that.

The co-op element of Conviction is, in a word, stunning. I could happily leave the review there and hope that you take my word on it. But I won't. To only play Sams story would be criminal. Ubisoft have created a complete set of maps unique to the co-op story, rather than recycling the single player maps. The co-op maps allow for a lot more teamwork, striking from the shadows simultaneously to eliminate hostiles distracted by conversations of their beautiful families and the upcoming vacation time. Foolish guards. Don't they know they can never get a happy ending? We're the heroes here!

Mark and Execute is used to full effect in co-op. A single melee takedown charges both players Execute ability. Two players with two upgraded Five-Sevens can mark eight guards in an area. When one presses Y, time slows to allow the second player to assist in a Dual Execute, taking down any of the eight marks in sight in one flurry of suppressed fire. Even in a situation where one player can see more than just the four marks he has tagged and the second player is not in line of sight to anyone, that one well placed player can execute as many marks as he has sight to by himself. Also, while a single melee kill grants both players their Execute command, using it only exhausts the one belonging to the player that initiated the action, even if the second player joins as part of a Dual Execute. This allows both players to mark four more guards and immediately take out potentially eight more as long as the second player can engage his still active Execute order! In an absolute best case scenario, that's 16 kills in a matter of seconds. But even getting ten kills this way is a rush to the system, and gets the heart pumping with adrenaline.

Along with Mark and Execute, Convictions other new feature gets a vigorous workout in co-op. Last Known Position is in the single player story, but I found it much more important in the co-op. Basically, if you get spotted by the guards, but then duck behind a corner, through a window or into a patch of inky shadow out of sight, a "ghost" image of your character appears where you were last seen, representing the guards belief that you are in that general vicinity. You need to haul ass away from that spot before they descend on you for that time you put a bullet in Kevin's head in the last section, leaving his kid without a father and his wife without a husband, but with an extra ticket to Aruba. With the Last Known Position ghost, you and your counter-terrorist teammate can set up some incredibly fun, clever and hilarious situations making use of Remote Mines and the ragdoll physics engine.

One problem I do have with the co-op story is the actual story. I'm hard pressed to tell you anything about it. Why are they in Russia? What type of WMD are they after? Who is the badguy? Mainly, this is because plot and exposition are doled out at the start of each chapter, as in the single player story. But the co-op chapters take much longer to get through, so I've already long since forgotten what I was told in the previous chapters introduction. In the single player story, I could follow the events. I got plot cut-scenes every half hour or so. I knew who or what I was after. In co-op, it can be three hours between these cut-scenes. I have to rely on the projected signposts throughout the maps and the objective marker to tell me where to go.

It doesn't help that I'm also playing a multiplayer experience, and it seems to be human nature to chat with your partner over the bits where we're not actually expected to do anything but sit and watch.

But it is great fun, regardless. I just can't fault it beyond my own inability to pay attention to cut-scenes. Every mode can be played either split-screen or over Live. And besides Story, there is Hunter, Face-Off, Infiltrate and Convictions answer to Gears of War 2's Horde Mode, Last Stand. We haven't even touched these yet. We haven't finished the Story. There is so much gameplay left on the Splinter Cell: Conviction disc. When we get around to trying the other modes, I'll post about them too. But it might be a while. I plan on playing the heck out of Story first.