Gaming by GlossGreen

Downloadable content is an interesting proposition for games these days. Having additional game content available for download after a game has been released is a proven way for publishers and developers to add more revenue and value to their products. It is not uncommon these days to get new character skins, expanded or new single player levels, multiplayer maps or new weapons and vehicles for games that you have already played. This is usually good for the game publishers and developers, but it's not always good for you.

Dealing with race relations has been a touchy subject in America for a very long time, and has no signs of becoming a non-issue anytime soon. Anywhere you look now you will see the remnants of ancient prejudices and outdated ideologies. I know that many ideas or programs in use today are based on race or ethnicity are supposed to help a large number of our population. I know that Black History Month was established, just as all the other designated months, to educate all people and cultures about the history of Americans with ancestry of African origins. I know that the NAACP was created to champion minorities that couldn't defend themselves and to better their lives. I know that affirmative action was designed to diversify the workforce and create a better representation of our country in job hirings. But in the end, what these groups or ideas do is to perpetuate the notion that people of different colors should be treated differently, but not what they should be teaching: That no group is either superior or inferior to anyone else.

Black history, while important, is no more vital than any other group's history and should deserve no more than equal recognition. How many people know that Italian Heritage Month is in October? The NAACP working to make lives better for people is a noble cause, but not if that mission promotes "reverse racism", meaning preferential treatment is awarded to minorities based on no more than ethnicity. My view: Racism is racism, reverse or otherwise. Affirmative action is one of those outdated policies that promotes reverse racism by specifically regulating hiring based solely on race. Again, racism is racism. That's how I feel when I see a game like BCFx on the shelves.

BCFx stands for Black College Football: The Experience. I know that the developers and publisher mean well with this game and have no negative intentions. I know that the game was created to celebrate the traditions and culture of HBCU (Historically Black College and University) teams. I also understand that the traditions in some of these institutions go back for over 150 years. What I don't understand is why in this day and age are we still touting our superficial differences instead of looking past them. I prefer to see the character and actions of an individual and form an opinion based on that. I don't find this game offensive, just unnecessary and unenlightened. I think it's time to stop identifying people based on race and focus on what really makes up an individual. And all of what makes us who we are is more than skin deep.

I've been away from my PS3 for far too long. Want to know how I came to that astute observation? Because an 8 year old kid had a better kill ration than me playing a multiplayer match of COD 5. I have been hanging my head in shame since that day. Well, at least since it happened yesterday. OK, so here's what happened. I was at a friend's house celebrating the birthday of one of his kids. The plan for the party was to show up late, give the boy (a kid I've never met before) his give, make the rounds saying hello and that it was nice to meet everyone, then leave -except that's when the PS3 controllers came out. It went something like this:

Buddy: "Have you played Nazi Zombies yet?"
Me: "No, I've heard of it, but I haven't played that yet."
Buddy: "You want to try it?"
Me: "We should be going, I've got to get ready for work tomorrow."
Buddy, handing me a controller: "Come on, it'll be a quick game."
Me, willpower caving: "Maybe just one round. It's been a while since I've played though. I'll probably suck."
Buddy: "We'll play a warm up match then."

At this point I have a controller in my hand as does the buddy. You just can't have a good multiplayer match with just two, so my 14 year old daughter grabs the remaining controller. We start the game and I pretty much am instantly lost on the asylum level. This had the effect of keeping me out of harms way for the first couple of minutes while I get used to the controls. Unfortunately, that first few minutes of practice did me absolutely no good. I spent the next 5 minutes getting killed 11 times and taking out exactly no one else. I even fragged myself once (or twice). The next couple of games went no better. Even the 8 year old jumped in there and kicked my butt.

I could complain about not knowing the maps and being unfamiliar with the controls, but what good would that do? I used to be good at first person shooters, not great, but still pretty good. I used to be able to hold my own, but that was last year. Lesson learned and humbleness restored. Now I have to get back to gaming and have a rematch. That 8 year old won't stand a chance next time.

I just finished Too Human (literally, I just put down the controller and picked up my computer just this minute) and I am not impressed. Good ole Dennis has a lot of hype to answer for. This game is in very sharp contrast to another game I recently played, Fallout 3. Whereas Fallout had interesting characters that are well rounded and have decent dialog, Too Human's Aesir are just a bunch of jerks. Balder was, for lack of a better term, an ass. He was modeled poorly, voiced stiffly and just not an engaging character. What I really want to know is why the development team thought that making their main character as acerbic as possible was good for the game?

For me, story and character are the two main ingredients to make a great game, and this one falls short on both counts. The characters I've already covered, and the story? The story doesn't make a lick of sense. To be honest, I don't know what the point of the whole game was. I know that the Aesir are in charge (self appointed and reviled by the look of things) of protecting the humans, from seemingly rogue elements of themselves. Who, or what, exactly are the Aesir? We find out early on in one of the many lengthy cut scenes that they are actually the Aesir Corporation. So, are they human or not? We have no idea whatsoever. These Aesir do have the annoying habit of refering to themselves as gods? Really? A little high on themselves, aren't they?

Controlling balder is a bit of pain in itself. The left stick controls movement and the right controls attack direction. Did I mention that there is no way to control the camera? No? Well, there isn't, and it allows a lot of cheap shots that will kill you. When I say a lot, I don't mean 5, 10 or even 50 times. In fact, if you put any time into this game at all, you will receive the coveted Valkyrie's Folly achievement (which I got) for dying 100 times during the game. Sounds like an unobtainable number, right? Not when you can't see what you are doing with a character that moves slower than molasses, and even slower when using a weapon. Speaking of the Valkyries, I'm not going to complain about how long it takes to restart after one of my numerous deaths, I actually liked that. It gave me time to write e-mails, check out news on other, better games and update my Twitter feed. Good stuff there. Attacking is a chore made worse by having a sloppy control scheme for attacks mapped to the right stick. I only managed to throw out one or two different types of attacks. What I did do most of the time was pull my guns and stay out of the enemy's range while circling and firing at them. Hey, that strategy works well most of the time. What I also hate is the fact that everyone making games today must have attended the Bungie School of Wave Enemy Design. I swear in one protracted and escruciating level I was fighting the Flood. I hate the Flood.

Graphically, the game looks last gen, and from what I understand, Too Human was conceived as an original Xbox game. Well, it really shows. I can't even say that it's close to the graphical quality of recent PS3 or 360 games, it's just not good. See the pic over there? That's from a cut-scene. Most of the levels are uninspired, plus you've already seen them in a hundred other games. What you'll see are standard hallways and bland corridors for the most part, maybe just a bit taller, but not any more interesting. Speaking about what you've seen before, I swear the Aesir headquarters looks a damn sight like the Gardens from Final Fantasy VIII. No joke, they just have less jagged edges here. One of the attempts the designers made at changing things up was the addition of a cyberspace element in the game. Basically what it ends up being is a bland outdoor environment with a horrible draw distance and a ton of fog. Fog, was that really necessary? The cyberspace element itself is not very interesting. The goal in this computer realm is to interact with it's environment to affect objects in the real world. What this entails is simply pushing the right button to, say, open a gate. Flash to a scene where a door is opened in the real world. And that's about it. Sure, there are things to find in cyberspace, like a ton of rediculously named items and weapons, but you get the point. My question is this. How would pushing a tree over in cyberspace cause a bridge to rise in the real world?

Anyway, the bottom line for this game is simple. The game itself is not horrible, it's just that there are no compelling reasons to play it. The characters are annoying, the visuals are last gen and the play mechanics are frustrating. This game is most definitely a pass.

OK, I've had a chance to replay a significant portion of the game again, and guess what? I realized that I absolutely hate this game. I hate that level design (boring corridor after boring corridor). I hate that none of the characters (save Cortana) have any personalities. But, most of all, I hate the flood (nothing else needed to explain that here).

Let me tell you first that I really did try to like the game. I started out feeling pretty good about it, not great, but good. Then I started to realize a couple of things. First off, the story never pulled me in. Usually I just fall into a good game because the story grabs me and stimulates my imagination, this game just didn't do that. I felt like that each chapter was disjointed from the last. Instead of traveling to a new area you are just kind of dumped off there. Let me explain. First, you start out on the ship. From there you jump into a lifepod and crash land on Halo. OK, can't really do anything about that. Master Chief isn't going to just jump out of the ship and free fall to the planet, right? Next you travel around the Halo (not too bad here) and end up getting picked up in a Pelican. Here's where the problem starts. From now on you are just picked up and dropped off, no actual progression from one area to another is involved. You are just taken from one place to another without any kind of a decent transition. Because of this the story feels kind of pieced together and just doesn't coalesce.

My second problem, the level designs are some of the most boring ones I've ever seen in a game. The ship is incredibly boring and sterile. I know, it's a military space ship, it's supposed to be neat and clean; but the damn thing is in a battle and severely damaged. So why aren't there more scorched walls, objects on fire, caved in walls or even bodies lying around. What, are there like 15 people on this giant ship? Things don't really get better on the ground. The Halo itself is not bad, not great though either. Then there's the buildings. Endless rooms that look like the room I was just in a couple of minutes ago is unforgivable and here's the reason why. This game has no mapping function for the levels, which isn't a bad thing in itself. Here is the bad thing: When every room or corridor or outdoor environment looks identical to what you've seen a couple of minutes ago, that is unforgivable. Frequently, in the buildings, you are attacked from enemies from all different directions. It's easy to get turned around an lose sight of which way you entered the room. You then look around and see a door; that must be where you need to go right? Wrong. Because of the fact that several of the rooms look identical, the only way I was able to tell if I was going the right way was if there were bodies on the ground, the rooms themselves are no help. Very frustrating, and it gets old seeing the same thing again, and again, and again.

I really do understand why this game was successful though. It wasn't about Master Chief. It wasn't about defeating the Covenant. It wasn't anything remotely tied to the (mostly nonexistent) story. It's all about the multiplayer. Nothing beats getting the buds together and having a little battle to see who's best, and there is nothing wrong with that. I just think that the rest of the experience (the campaign mode) isn't up to par.

I think that's enough about this game, I am starting on Halo 2 as soon as I finish this. Buy first one last question: Why don't any of the characters (especially the Covenant) have an ounce of personality in this game?

I said a while back that in commemoration of the release of Halo Wars I was going to go back and play the previous three games in the series. Well, I finally have that damn power transformer so I started this not un-momentous task last night. I'm not going to rush. I'm not going to prejudge (again). I'm going to go through and just try to enjoy the games. After all, millions of people couldn't be wrong, could they? Don't answer that. Moving on.

First impressions (the second time) are good for the first Halo. I'm only a couple of hours in, but I have realized it's a pretty fun game. Kinda ugly looking in parts, but fun none the less. Now before you get all angry at me for calling it ugly, go back and play the ship level. OK, done yet? I don't agree with the level design, it is a bit on the sterile side, and tell me why all the corridors are two rights, two lefts, then repeat? I shouldn't get all fixated on the ship levels anyway. It was only one big tutorial level after all. But, once the action hits the ground on the Halo, things start looking much, much better. Anyway, I am not trying to hate on the game, I still like it and I'm having fun playing it. Again. Now, I have to get back to the game or I'll never finish all four. More useless impressions to come.