Review: Crysis 2

In 2007 Crytek, a German developer whose initial outing Far Cry shook up the development community years previous, released Crysis, a beautiful and smartly done shooter that, to this day, is still one of the largest graphical benchmarks in all of gaming.  After releasing a standalone expansion that took place concurrently with the game’s main storyline, Crytek went quiet and all but disappeared to focus on internal expansion, opening new studios all over Europe.  It reappeared at E3 2009 to show off the CryEngine 3, a heavily modified, multiplatform version of the engine that powered Crysis, and its flagship title Crysis 2.

With a dramatic shift toward multiplatform development though can Crytek’s latest prove that a PC game doesn’t have to be limited by having console brethren?

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They Used to Call Me ‘Prophet’

Crysis 2 picks up three years after the Lingshan Islands incident that saw a major battle between the United States and North Korea awaken a dormant extraterrestrial species called the Ceph.  As the governments of the world struggle to keep secret the fact that we are not alone in the universe a mysterious and highly contagious virus begins to spread and widely infect the citizens of New York City.  Fearing a statewide outbreak the government quarantines Manhattan Island and declares martial law.  With all communication with the outside world cut off the civilians trapped in the quarantine zone can only watch as their city slowly dissolves into chaos.  As seismic activity begins to rock the city the military realizes that the virus isn’t their only problem: the Ceph have returned and a full scale invasion of the city has begun.

Players take on the role of a Marine codenamed Alcatraz.  His mission: locate and extract Dr. Nathan Gould, a researcher for Crynet Systems, the creators of the Nanosuit.  As he and his team are inserted into New York’s bay area via submarine an explosion rocks the sub, crippling it.  Alcatraz and some of his team manage to escape but only receive a short reprieve as a Ceph gunship rises from the water and kills the survivors.  As Alcatraz floats toward shore dying he is found by Prophet, former US Navy SEAL and commander of Raptor team during the Lingshan invasion.  Dispatching the gunship, Prophet drags Alcatraz to safety.  Alcatraz wakes up sometime later wearing the same advanced Nanosuit Prophet had earlier.  Prophet’s corpse lies next to him and as Alcatraz beings to realize what happened to him the suit plays a flashback video, Prophet’s final message: he has failed and if Alcatraz doesn’t reach Gould in time it may just spell the end of humanity’s dominance of Earth.

The story of Crysis 2, much like many modern shooters, is a tale that plays out over time without many hints as to what has been happening elsewhere or with many of the series’ main characters.  Noticeably absent (and painfully so) is any information regarding what happened to Nomad, Psycho, and Helena Rosenthall, the main characters from the first game, as well as what happened after Crysis 1’s cliffhanger ending.  Unfortunately you learn little about the truth behind Crysis 1 save for a bit more information regarding Prophet’s involvement so for those looking for resolution after being stuck on the edge of your seat three years ago when the credits began to roll you’re sadly out of luck.

What you will find though is an action-packed story with plenty of bumps and events along the way.  The rescue of Nathan Gould is only but a small portion of the story and by the end of it all you really feel like the badass one man army the Nanosuit is designed to make you.  An experienced shooter player can finish the singleplayer campaign in roughly 8-10 hours depending on how they play but the game encourages replays thanks to collectables found in each level.  It’s not quite the epic adventure we experienced three years ago but Crysis 2 succeeds in leaving you quite entertained.

Let Him, Who Desires Peace, Prepare for War

Crysis 2, much like its predecessor, takes a different, welcome approach to combat.  Whereas most shooters these days have you killing wave after wave of enemies before advancing forward and while the cover, shoot, advance, repeat method still works just fine for most games the Crysis series has always been about you being able to protect yourself and survive based on being more tactical than offensive.  In essence, like the marketing tells you, the player is actually the weapon.

The elephant in the room that seperates the Crysis series from other games is clearly the Nanosuit.  As fearsome and powerful as its appearance, it is nigh a character unto itself and is only limited in power by how you play.  Crysis 2’s redesigned Nanosuit retains many of the suit’s powers form the first game while making it easier for players (say those wishing to play on a console) to use them equally.  The new Nanosuit is composed of three different modes: Power, Armor, and Stealth.  Power mode is what you’ll be using most of the time and gives you the ability to move large objects as well as sprint for a short duration and jump much higher.  Armor mode, while narrowing your field of view, increases the density of the suit’s material and allows you to take more damage out in the field before your health starts to drain away.  Stealth gives you the ability to be almost invisible and sneak past enemies, though it is a significant drain on the suit’s power source.  While in many games you are placed in the role of a super soldier with mixed results Crysis 2 makes you feel and play like one.

The great thing about the series’ gameplay is that, apart from a few specific sequences per game, you can tackle and objective almost any way you want.  Need to get into a building and detonate an explosive inside but it’s surrounded by enemies.  You could do some balls-to-the-wall gunplay and eliminate all of them with the added safety of Armor mode.  Or, if you feel like saving your much-needed ammo for later you could sneak in and extract using Stealth.  The choice is entirely yours and you can feel free to mix and match as you please.  The Nanosuit itself will also give you some tactical advice using its visor but you can choose to ignore it if you wish.

One welcome addition to the Crysis formula is the ability to further customize your suit to how you want to play.  Much like the perks system present in Call of Duty, players can purchase new abilities called modules to augment the Nanosuits already powerful modes, though only four of them can be active at one time.  Players can obtain these enhancements by recovering nano-cells from dead Ceph though you won’t be able to reap the benefits of these modules since you don’t actually fight many Ceph until you are over a third of the way into the game.  Still, they are very useful and, since they can be switched out on the fly, it is well worth your time to collect them.

One complaint that has to be ousted though is the size of the levels in the game.  While Crysis took most of its level-design ideas from Far Cry with large, open environments to explore and long distances to travel, Crysis 2 instead switches to a more linear style.  You’ll have pretty of room to maneuver and explore throughout the majority of the game but it really opens up when you enter a large arena-esque area filled with baddies.  The large, open environments from Crysis are missed but the more direct focus of the game’s combat warrants this.  Still however this redesign significantly cuts down on the amount of terrain to explore, effectively reducing the numerous ways to go after an objective.

Plenty to Prophet From

In addition to having a robust singleplayer experience Crysis 2 has taken note of today’s more traditional multiplayer experiences like Call of Duty and brought their own unique interpretation to the game.  Players take on the role of either US Marines (contrary to the Navy SEALs that the main characters were in the first game) or CELL mercenaries hired by Crynet amidst the chaos of the singleplayer campaign.  Taking place across twelve maps, players will compete with or against fifteen other players in seven gameplay modes.

The gamechanger though is, once again, the Nanosuit.  In almost every mode the player is fitted with a Nanosuit with the same abilities as Alcatraz has in the singleplayer.  Crysis 2 utilizes the familiar leveling system created by Call of Duty that has become a standard for online multiplayer.  You’ll kill enemies, collect experience points, and level up to unlock new things to enhance the overall experience.  The leveling system ties directly into the same Nanosuit module system used in the singleplayer (though with altered abilities and not carrying over to the main campaign) so you’ll notice a definite impact in your gameplay based on what you choose to enhance.  You’ll have to utilize your suit’s Stealth, Power, and Armor modes though in order to unlock these modules but in the end you’ll find that the things you want to unlock are the ones you actually want.

Crysis 2 features takes on the standard fare of multiplayer modes with their own little twist.  Instant Action (Deathmatch) is well worth playing as well as Crash Site (Domination) but the two most interesting modes have to be Assault and Extraction.  Assault tasks to opposing teams with the objective of either defending or downloading data stored at terminals throughout a map, a mode very reminiscent of Splinter Cell multiplayer’s Neutralization mode.  Extraction is similar to Assault with defending/attacking teams but this time the attackers are trying to steal Bio-ticks that give the user enhanced Armor or Stealth Nanosuit abilities.

Wherein Crysis 2’s singleplayer level design was a mostly boxed-in approach with less exploration than anticipated, the multiplayer component’s twelve levels offer a nice variety of locations of varying sizes taken from both the main game as well as entirely new levels, giving you lots to traverse and explore.  The levels also feature a large focus on verticality, something that is being increasingly featured in shooters but hasn’t yet reached a zenith level quite like Crysis 2 has.  Each map also contains killstreaks specific to each one that can be activated with the collection of dogtags dropped by fallen enemy combatants.  These killstreaks range in power and scope and can be a little hard to obtain but the reward far outweighs the frustration as a friendly Ceph gunship rains down molten lead upon your helpless enemies.

Overall players will find a delightful and addicting multiplayer experience that nicely blurs the line between Call of Duty and Halo.  For PC and Playstation 3 players who have never experienced the later, Crysis 2 is a great way to see what Xbox 360 players have been fussing about for nearly a decade.

Beauty within Destruction

Crysis was a benchmark three years ago for PC gaming and, without a doubt, Crysis 2 will be its successor for some time to come.  Simply put, Crysis 2 is gorgeous across the board and, though the game doesn’t currently take advantage of DirectX 11, when played on Extreme settings it is probably one of the most beautiful games in recent memory.  Even despite playing on the maximum settings the game is incredibly stable with almost no slowdown to be had throughout the entire experience. Textures are beautifully drawn and character animations both feel and look great.  Facial animations, particularly those on main characters, are quite believable and feel like they’ve received the same amount of love Valve put into their characters in the Half-Life 2 saga.

The work Crytek put into the game’s sound design is just as impressive.  Weapons each sound unique and give a sense of power to them and ambient sound effects really help sell the environments.  Ceph sound effects in particular are very well done and really sell you on how alien they really are.  The game’s voice acting is a little off at times but this can easily be attributed to the script and screenplay more than the actual dialog.

If you’ve been looking for a game to test out your new PC gaming rig then look no further.  Faster, even better looking, and far more stable than its predecessor, Crytek’s showcase title for their Cryengine 3 is quite the testament.

It’s Up To You, New York, New York

2011 is looking to be a hot year for shooter fans what with a jam-packed Fall and Winter season coming up but Crysis 2 may just be what you’ll keep coming back to for the rest of the year.  An exceptionally enjoyable singleplayer campaign is married to a well thought-out multiplayer component that is just as addicting as Call of Duty ever was.  If you were ever looking to find a game whose overall package could stop even the most insatiable gaming snob you’d be hard-pressed to not show them Crysis 2.  Do we have a 2011 Game of the Year contender?

We just may.

Review: Homefront

Speculative fiction and video games go hand-in-hand more often than not these days what with the average first person shooter these days revolving around a plot involving a war with either Russia, China, or pretty much any Asian country that doesn’t believe fully in truth, justice, and the American way.  Kaos Studios, still a relatively new studio on the block, is no exception as its founding members created the immensely popular Desert Combat mod for Battlefield 2 and, in 2008, created their first commercial title in the form of Frontlines: Fuel of War.  While Frontlines didn’t go on to be a commercial success the seeds were planted for Kaos to take what they learned and create another new IP, this one even more speculative than the first.

This title, Homefront, has seen some of the strongest marketing in years thanks to THQ, the game’s publisher, but can it really live up to the hype?

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They Will Not Force Us

In the bleak year of 2027 the world is in a staggeringly different state from what we see it as today.  After the death of dictator Kim Jung-Il in 2012 his son, Kim Jung-Un, steps into his father’s shoes and completely revitalizes North Korea’s public image so much so that he accomplishes something that his father never could: he reunites the country with its southern brethren to form the Greater Korean Republic.  Over the course of the next decade and a half Jung-Un goes on an annexation spree, absorbing smaller Asian countries such as Laos and Cambodia amidst the falling influence of China and the withdrawal of the United States military to focus on domestic issues.  The GKR, despite international outcry, forces Japan to surrender to annexation after Korean commandoes destroy a major nuclear facility in the country’s southern region, an event with startling parallels to that of Japan’s current troubles.

While the GKR becomes the dominant nation of power in the Pacific the United States of America on the other hand isn’t doing so well.  After high inflation causes the near demise of the US dollar and a war between Iran and Saudi Arabia leads to the crippling of the economy due to massively high gas and oil prices the US is sliding into a state of anarchy as the military struggles to maintain order and the flow of resources.  At center stage in the year 2025 the GKR announces the launch of a new satellite system under the guise of replacing the aging Global Positioning System that the United States can no longer afford to maintain.  In reality the first satellite is actually a nuclear weapon and, upon flying over Kansas, detonates releasing an electromagnetic pulse that cripples the US electrical grid.  With the US weakened the GKR invades the American west coast, toppling cities left and right.  To prevent eastern forces from rushing west to fight the Koreans irradiate the Mississippi River, preventing almost any attempt made to cross this river-divided country.

Homefront’s story takes place two years after the initial invasion.  The player character, Robert Jacobs, is a former Marine combat pilot who seeks to bide his time and survive in his occupied town of Montrose, Colorado.  After having ignored a draft order by the GKR for his services as a helicopter pilot his door is broken down as he is arrested and ordered to be sent to a reeducation center in Alaska.  He is rescued shortly thereafter thanks to Connor and Rianna, members of Montrose’s resistance forces.  After barely escaping Korean response patrols Connor meets cell leader Boone Karlson.  Boone has a plan and Jacobs is at the center of it: aid in an assault by the scattered US military forces on occupied San Francisco by helping hijack container trucks filled with jet fuel.

Despite the game’s absolutely absurd backstory (which is widely rumored to have its villains changed pre-announcement from China to North Korea due to fears that it wouldn’t be allowed to be sold in that country) US occupation is one of my favorite genres of speculative and alternate history fiction.  Sadly though the game’s actual story fails to deliver on almost all fronts.  Jacobs, a silent protagonist, sees almost no character development throughout his story and neither due his resistance counterparts.  In fact it seems that the goal of Homefront’s story isn’t so much about freedom fighters fighting against and invading army so much as it is about the state of the world around them.  Kaos seems more content with showing more about the state of the US and the evil of the GKR rather than providing a character-driven, engaging storyline.  Despite this, other than the game’s backstory, you learn very little about the main cast or anything beyond what’s happening immediately around you which is a shame considering how much potential the universe of Homefront has for a strong franchise.

Probably the most difficult aspect to come to terms with about the game’s story is the pacing that the player is forced to endure.  Throughout the game the player is subjected to what are called “Why We Fight” moments in which the action is next to nonexistent and the player “allowed” to explore a small environment or story-specific event in order to convey a sense that either your or other’s actions in the resistance have a direct impact on those around you.  While this is a perfectly good way to create an engaging storyline it fails to do so due to it usually being a linear event that cannot be skipped that doesn’t actually convey any emotion.  Short of the game’s opening sequence there is no believable or convincing sequence that pushes you on.  It certainly doesn’t help that you can’t do anything more than walk as slow as possible and only hear a few things out of character’s mouths but it just isn’t engaging at all and is more of a detriment to the overall story.

Maybe this is due to poor gameplay design but I think it is more attributable to the inclusion of John Milius as the main writer for the game.  Milius, who career as a Hollywood screenwriter has included (as mentioned on the game’s box) such famous films as Red Dawn and Apocalypse Now, should logically be well at home within the context of the game’s subject matter.  The truth however is that the lackluster job Milius has put forth makes it feel like either he (and/or his fellow design team members) does not understand how to properly craft a story within the confines of an interactive experience or that the story hasn’t been updated to reflect today’s themes and emotions and instead is an adaptation of a script that would have been well at home in the 1970s or 80s.  Whichever conclusion you side with the results are still the same: the game’s pacing doesn’t make for either or a good game or movie by today’s standards.

This could be tolerable however had the issues ended there but it seems that the ultimate insult is the actual length of the singleplayer narrative.  Despite reports that Homefront’s story would take between five and ten hours to complete this reviewer was able to complete a runthrough on normal in a little over four hours.  This last time this writer played a singleplayer game that was that short its name was Terminator Salvation and we all know how that went.  While it is too much to expect a shooter of RPG-length these days given the astonishingly high cost of game development for AAA titles there is still a bar to meet to insure the worth of a product in this competitive market.  Four hours isn’t it.  Kaos’ seven level singleplayer experience feels like it should have been far longer than it is out of the box and, if you are the kind of gamer who bases their purchasing decision on the game’s main campaign then Homefront simply isn’t a game for you.

They Will Stop Degrading Us

These days it seems like every game with a strong marketing campaign and a multiplayer component asks this question: is it a Call of Duty killer?  While this question is usually associated with the state of a game’s multiplayer it is also a question of whether a game can be as good if not better an overall experience than the series that has made Activision so many millions of dollars over the past five years.  Both one of the finest compliments a game developer can receive as well as a strong challenge to be met by the developer in question, it is a quandary that is asked far too often and almost never yields the answer that gamers wish to hear.  I like to think that this is an example of consumers seeking to have more diversity and competitiveness in the industry but unfortunately it comes down to the fact that gamers more often than not just want to know what to spend their money on instead of being willing to experience and experiment with what’s out there on the market trying to make a statement.

To answer the question though: no, it is not.

Homefront is very much like many shooters out on the market today: you run, duck, shoot, take cover, rinse and repeat.  In that view it is no different from the other major AAA shooter titles on the market.  At this point in the review I would begin to try and point out what makes Homefront stand out amongst the other titles in the genre and how it is potentially worth of your hard-earned cash.  Sadly though it seems that, other than the basic formula of gameplay Homefront doesn’t stand out amongst its peers.  In fact, if this reviewer had to choose in what context it would then I would attribute it to one of the better games should the title have arrived on the market in 2007.

When I say that Homefront doesn’t stand out gameplay-wise I mean that, as far as the singleplayer goes, it is probably the least original shooter title to come out in years.  Many of the most memorable singleplayer levels from the Call of Duty series have been shamelessly recreated.   The introduction to the final mission of Homefront plays out in almost the exact same manner as the Gulag mission from Modern Warfare 2.  You even take control of a UAV to rain fiery death upon an unsuspecting Korean armor column ala the Death From Above mission from Call of Duty 4.  For a game that’s trying to stand out from the crowd Homefront certainly isn’t accomplishing it with its gameplay.

Instead of having the potential to stand out as a game about a guerilla war against an oppressive occupying army what we are left with is a simple war game: nothing more, nothing less.  As a member of a resistance cell one should not be directly attacking the occupiers (in this case the Koreans) but instead should be doing all they can to minimize Korean influence and their ability to actually control the populace.  What missions are players sent on instead?  Several major assaults on strategic Korean targets, nothing else.  Sure your missions are hit-and-run events but, as one of the loading screens in the game says, being in the resistance should be more than about resisting.

I guess the most disappointing part of the campaign’s gameplay is the lack of focus on actually trying to outwit the Korean army passively.  Games about a resistance force should both ideologically and realistically realize that the resistance faces an overwhelming enemy and cannot afford the high-profile missions that are seen throughout the campaign.  That being said let me break it down: there are no reconnaissance, information delivery, sabotage, or infiltration missions to be had during the game’s short campaign.  There is only a single sneaking mission and even then that lasts only a short while between skirmishes.  Were I fighting along soldiers in a war effort I would feel more in line with the direction of the game’s levels but since I’m a resistance member with little to no backup to be had I feel that the missions are in no way reflective of their realistic, real life counterparts.

They Will Not Control Us

Apart from the setting for the game’s singleplayer campaign Homefront’s other prominent feature is its multiplayer component.  A seven map battle royale between regular US Army forces and occupying Koreans, the game’s multiplayer allows for up to 32 players to compete in team-based modes with nary a free for all mode to be found.  Kaos’ interesting creation ends up playing somewhere between the fast-paced gameplay of Call of Duty and the large, vehicle-based combat of games like Battlefield.

One of the more interesting components of the multiplayer comes in the form of an in-game currency system.  Called Battle Points players can spend them to activate vehicles, UAVs, tertiary weapons and abilities to increase their effectiveness on the battlefield.  You earn BP for most actions that you do during the course of a match (much like Counterstrike in many ways) and can spend them on the fly or when you respawn.  This system piggybacks on the experience points you earn but it doesn’t carry over between matches so it’s not wise to accumulate and not spend them.

While Homefront contains your standard deathmatch and territory control variants the most interesting mode to be found is Battle Commander.  Playing out initially like a standard deathmatch game, Battle Commander has enemies becoming highlighted on your map should they begin a killstreak or earn perform certain actions much like the wanted systems in Rockstar titles Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption.  As you continue your streak however you are given perks to buffer your character/vehicle, making you harder to kill.  Should you die your perks are reset to normal but you receive a large chunk of experience for your effort.  The end result feels very unique and fun, though it would probably be even more enjoyable if the game played out at a faster pace.

That isn’t to say that Homefront is without problems; far from it.  While the game is still experiencing growing pains such as lag and problems connecting with matches there are some strong issues that need to be addressed in terms of gameplay.  Currently, Homefront’s servers seem incapable of recognizing parties when entering matches and will separate your party members from one another more often than not.  Spawning doesn’t seem to take into account enemy locations effectively so you’ll encounter quite a few moments in which you’re already being gazed upon by an enemy through their iron sights just as you are entering the map.  You’ll also find that the matchmaking servers seem put priority on first available matches instead of actually balancing them based on player experience levels so new players will find themselves playing with or against significantly more experienced players instead of ones at their level.

Balancing though seems to be a near game-breaking issue with Homefront.  Kaos, much like their previous effort Frontline: Fuel of War, has put a strong emphasis on vehicular combat.  While this would not be an issue if players were given anti-vehicle weapons off the bat players must instead purchase them in order to fight back.  Given there is no actual rocket launcher  capable of tracking targets in the game and that the only approximate weapon cannot be unlocked until level 32 there is almost nothing beginning players can do to effectively take on an enemy helicopter.  Vehicles can be particularly devastating given how durable they are so it is a wonder how this balancing issue wasn’t addressed during production.

Overall the multiplayer component is definitely an interesting affair and offers veteran Call of Duty and Battlefield players an alternative but unless these balance issues are addressed they certainly aren’t going to stick with it.

We Will Be Victorious

Homefront is a title that had a lot going for it.  Releasing at a time in which there is little competition in terms of gameplay and intriguing propositions for both singleplayer and multiplayer advocates alike, Kaos’ latest effort could have become a grand affair to remember.  What has been released however is a short, unsatisfying singleplayer campaign with a convoluted mess of a multiplayer component (albeit with potential through balancing updates).  Had Homefront been released four years ago I would have said that the Call of Duty and Battlefield franchises were in trouble but it seems that Kaos Studios is still playing catch up.  While promises of new content and patches are on the horizon there is very little incentive right now to make the consumer abandon the game’s well established competitors.  Homefront is definitely worthy of a rent for people looking to try something new but with Crysis 2 on its heels and surefire gameplay experiences like Portal 2, LA Noire, and Duke Nukem Forever coming very soon it’d be best to save your money.



Musing: A Modest Proposal About DRM

In 1729 an Irish writer by the name of Jonathan Swift published a satirical essay anonymously about the growing problem of poverty-stricken children in Ireland and how they could be put to use in such a way that is beneficial to society at large.  As anyone who attended high school English classes may remember the essay was a commentary on the plight of the Irish poor and the British policies concerning them that all but prevented them from reaching a higher standing in life.  What readers of the essay do remember however is its proposition: the selling and cannibalization of impoverished Irish children by the wealthy.

While Swift’s essay about the consumption of (potentially delicious) children was designed to draw reactions of disgust and provoke thought amongst his audience Swift’s approach to it was logically-driven and played the much needed part of a devil’s advocate.  In a similar manner to the Irish living conditions in the 18^th century it seems that the gaming industry is, from a developer and publisher perspective, suffering from a funding problem thanks to pirating and the sale of used games.  What can be done about this?  Not much currently but with a little industry-wide cooperation and perhaps lending an ear to this modest proposal we could find a way to solve these issues.

Be forewarned readers as I am about to play devil’s advocate and you’re not going to like what is to be said below.

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A Boatload of Problems

The internet is a vast and widely used tool for which information can be stored, tracked, and shared between billions of people across the world.  Unfortunately though, given its open nature, it is prone to being used for illicit actions such as pirating.  Ten years ago the big problem with pirating was in the music industry thanks to peer-to-peer sharing services like Napster, Kazaa, and Limewire.  Go ahead, try and lie to me and say you didn’t illegally download or share a bunch of songs back then.  See?  You couldn’t do it because pretty much everyone who had access to a dial-up connection wanted to get their “fair” load of hundreds of songs for free without having to purchase “bulky” CDs.  The RIAA did all it pretty much could do but given that it is hard to track down the people actually responsible for distributing the music it couldn’t do much short of suing the most elicit offenders and placing near-draconian software on the discs to prevent sharing on the albums.  We all know how that worked out.

Equally as troublesome today we see digital buccaneers trolling the internet to torrent video games but whereas people ten years ago were sharing $10-15 albums of maybe a dozen songs a piece, making for an hour or so of listening time, today they are instead downloading $50-60 video games which can be made up of hundreds of hours of entertainment.  While I hate to say it the music recording industry, which has been going strong for well over a century, is something that is used by pretty much everyone on the planet whereas the video game industry has only been around for a few decades and still has a growing audience with only roughly 500 million gamers worldwide.  That may seem like a lot of other players out there but, mathematically, when your audience is only 13% of the overall population, developers have a hard enough time finding people to buy their products given that gamers are further subdivided by such things as genres, consoles, purchasing power, and online connectivity.  They don’t need pirates any less than the recording industry does but it is even harder for our game-bearing developers and publishers to continue to create content when they can’t actually make a return on their investment.

So why is it that developers spend years and thousands of man hours advancing a creative vision from paper concept to full release, sacrificing time, energy, and even loved ones for the sake of a product that is meant to bring people enjoyment when a large portion of their audience simply download an stolen version of their product?  Does it seem fair to you that the effort of thousands of man-hours do not return a monetary value, regardless of the quality of the product?  It is a shame to see people unwilling to reward a developer or publisher for the hard work they put into a title regardless of the reasons behind their actions.

Now I understand why some people pirate and the most commonly used excuse seems to be that they’d actually purchase games had they been able to afford them.  That is understandable; after all, video games are probably one of the most expensive hobbies to have.  Considering that it requires a console, controllers, a decent audio/video setup and, most importantly, the games themselves, the average gamer with a high definition system can look to be spending hundreds of dollars each year.  Given the state of the recovering global economy you can probably only afford to get a handful of games a year and you don’t want to miss out on those other great experiences your friends are raving about.  I am probably in one of the top 10% of gamers out there that has the adequate purchasing power to experience most of the great games that come out across the various platforms and I’m very appreciative of this fact.  However, I say to you, digital bandit, there are plenty of alternatives to pirating due to financial strains, the most prevalent of which are renting and waiting for the price to go down.

The other main issue pirates always seem to thrown in front of them in the face of criticism is the age old argument of not wanting to be burned by purchasing a bad game.  I could cite a dozen reasons for which you can prevent such a thing from occurring especially in an age in which information can be transmitted and received faster than any other time in history.  The answer is clear: don’t buy it on day one and listen to what your peers (and critics) have to say about it.  Chances are that if it walks, talks, and looks like a duck it probably is so why on Earth would you use such an excuse when you are downloading great games like Call of Duty Black Ops, Super Mario Galaxy 2, and Dante’s Inferno?  These excellent titles also earned the titles of being the most pirated titles on the PC, Wii, and Xbox 360 respectively in 2010 according to TorrentFreak.com so your use of being afraid of being burned by a bad game just went out the window.

I could cite dozens of other reasons for pirating video games but I don’t have the time, effort, or necessary column space to go down the checklist and say that what you are doing is wrong and why.  Suffice it to say that if you feel that your money isn’t worth investing in the existence of a development studio and the hundreds of employees therein whose goal at the end of the day is to entertain you then you probably don’t deserve to play what they created.  What you’re doing is illegal and isn’t helping anyone at all.  Stop it.

Jim Sterling of Destructoid recently released a new episode of his editorial video series “The Jimquisition” and it strong sums up my feelings about piracy in general so I’ve included it below (thanks Jim!).

Sometimes Overkill is Necessary

So how does one go about solving two of the biggest problems in the gaming industry?  The answer lies in a process that PC gamers have been all too familiar with: Digital Rights Management.  DRM is one the more controversial pieces of anti-piracy tools and has been implemented in a strong amount of PC games over the past ten years.  But the true potential of DRM can’t be realized however simply because of the platform in which it is used: the PC.  But what if you could find a way to implement it on a console?

The console space has always been considered a region in which it isn’t proper to utilize DRM because, among other things, it is perceived as such a proprietary field that it isn’t necessary to use it.  Yet, as we are well aware, thousands of players have been banned over the years for pirating games on all the major consoles.  For a recent example you can look to the Call of Duty Black Ops mass banning on the Playstation 3 thanks to its 3.56 firmware update.  If this isn’t a great example of why we need a modern reinvention of DRM for gaming I can’t think of a better one.

So with this in mind I think it is about time that the Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA) and the Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA) along with the major software and hardware manufacturers should band together to create a new version of DRM to be utilized in the console space.  Such a measure is certainly possible given the nature of the problem at hand and, while the current technology available wouldn’t support it properly, the time is right to consider its creation given that we are at the point to where hardware manufacturers are preparing to begin design work on the next generation of consoles.  But how should such a creation work?

I think that a next generation of DRM can be built upon what has already been tested and tried on the PC.  Utilizing a serial code system similar to what is used in most physical copies of PC games nowadays the collective might of the console gaming section of the industry could actually create an easily updateable, simple and user-friendly system.  After all, the foundations are there; all you need to do is to start laying the bricks and mortar.  Such a new DRM system should be composed of three main components: a serial number system, a user-friendly confirmation system, and, most importantly, a checks-and-balances system to make sure it all is maintained.

The serial code system is the easiest place to start from.  An ideal creation would be one that can allow for a theoretical maximum of several hundred quadrillion or even quintillion unique combinations per system that can accommodate both physical and digital software purchases.  Inspiration can be taken from something that’s actually quite common: bank routing numbers.  Take the American routing number system for example.  Composed of nine digits, the first two digits identify the regional federal bank in which a check is processed, the next two corresponding to the processing center and state in which it comes from, and so on.  Similarly, one can make an alphanumeric serial code composed of, say, thirty digits with certain digits within the code identifying the developer, the publisher, the type of software it is (physical or digital), the platform in which it will be played on, and the region in which this version of the software is published (I’m a strong advocate of region-free gaming but an identifier would help in anti-piracy cases).  The rest of the code would conform to a unique code tied to that disc only.

A Simple Process

Here’s how it would work in an ideal scenario.  Joe Blow gamer decides to go pick up a copy of Mega Shooter Duty 7 and heads on into his local retail store.  After selecting the game he takes it up to the counter and begins the standard transaction.  During the transaction an automated process would begin at the press of a button as soon as the customer has paid for the title.  As the receipt gets ready to print out the cash register’s system would dial into a proprietary server belonging to the developer or publisher of the game and tells it that the disc with that a certain serial number has been purchased and is awaiting activation upon the console it would be primarily played on.

Upon arriving home Joe puts the game into his Playstation 4/Xbox 3/Wii HD or whatever is on the market at the time and connects the system to the internet.  As the game is activating for the first time (whether or not there is a required installation to the system’s hard drive) the system would identify the serial number contained on the disc and connect to a server belonging to Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo.  This one would contain both the user’s account information along with the console’s ID number and would record the disc’s serial number.  Based on the key identifiers in the code it would dial into the developer or publisher’s server that the retailer from whom the game was purchased from and it would acknowledge that it is both a legitimate copy of the game and would send back to the game console’s server a unique primary response code along with five other codes that would allow for use of the game on another console (guest codes if you will).  At this point a popup will appear on screen alerting the player that this is the first time the disc has been used and will ask him/her whether he/she would like to mark this console as the primary console in which it will be played on.  Should the answer be yes the primary code would be recorded into the user’s account information and, along with the serial number and the console’s ID, the game would thereby be permanently connected with the console the player is using and would associate it as the main console in which it will be played upon.  Should the player say no to this it would instead do only assign the guest to that console.  This process would occur only once and the system would reconfirm the serial number every time the player starts the game much the same way as many PC games do.  This confirmation process could also take less than ten seconds to accomplish and could be easily hidden behind a loading screen or perhaps a logo display. 

Now let us suppose that the gamer in question doesn’t have internet access at their house or place of residence.  As the gamer arrives home and unwraps his/her purchase, savoring the sweet smell of new plastic in the process, he/she would boot up the game as per normal.  However, given that the system doesn’t have internet access a message pops up saying as much and, while containing the game’s serial number, informs the gamer that they have 24 hours to activate it on the console’s servers.  From there the gamer can continue on and play through as they normally would while the console keeps track of the time.  Should the gamer not register the game within that amount of time the console would deny the gamer the ability to play the game on that console.

In order to complete the registration without connecting the console to the internet the player would either have to log in to the console maker’s website or actually call them over the phone and, after going through the process of confirming their account information, would record both the serial code and the primary response code (obtained from the developer/publisher’s server) to his/her information.  The response code would then be given to the player who would, from the dashboard of the console, enter the system’s settings, identify the permanent memory file of the game and enter it into it.  From there the player can start up the game without hassle.

Friends and More Friends

There is always the scenario however that the player would want to bring the game over to a friend’s place to show it off.  This is easily solved in almost the same manner as the fist situation.  This time however the console maker’s server would recognize that the serial number is already in use on another system.  Should this case occur the server would assign one of the five other response codes the owner originally obtained to the guest player’s console and their information on the platform maker’s server.  This event would be recorded into the owner’s information as well and would identify the guest console by the last four digits of its ID number and the guest’s login name.  For security reasons the owner of that copy of the game would be asked to login to confirm this action is desired, lest the game having been stolen.  Should the friend not have an internet connection the owner of the game would be forced to retrieve one of the guest codes from their information online or over the phone and enter it into the memory file for the game in the console’s system settings.

In the unlikely scenario that the player decides that he/she wants to share the game with more than five people a bit of commercial ingenuity can be utilized.  Logging into the developer/publisher’s server the guest player would be informed that the main player has exceeded the five guest response codes they were allotted.  Should they still desire to play the game on that particular console the owner of that copy of the game would be asked to login and purchase another guest code for, say, $5-10, this money going directly to them instead of a retailer or the console maker’s.  Given that only an insignificantly small portion of the gaming community would end up doing this a public response about this would probably be minimal.  In the event that the owner is unwilling to purchase another game code he/she could simply log onto their console maker’s website, access their account information, and simply deactivate one of the response codes but I mean come on, who shares games with more than five friends?  Isn’t the small sacrifice of having only six game consoles to play it on before having to spend more money on it a fair trade off for preventing the game from becoming an illegally pirated copy?

Need help trying to sift through that process?  Check out this handy flowchart.

Rented and Used Games

The process I detailed above is designed to make a rather complex problem a bit more easy to understand and, in the end, help combat it.  While it does answer the question of how one can control piracy on the console side of the industry the question remains as to how one would handle rental services and the major issue of used game sales.  For those my friend the solutions are actually quite straightforward as well.

Rental services are still a big part of the gaming industry today and while many of the previously venerable institutions like Blockbuster have gone the way of the dinosaur new services like Gamefly and, most recently, Red Box, have taken the video game rental market by storm.  Providing good service for low prices in a timely manner one could play a game for a month for the same price as playing a game rented from a brick-and-mortar store for five days and not having to worry about annoying late fees.  Given the nature of the proposed DRM system one would think it nigh impossible to utilize by these types of services.  The solution however is actually quite simple: instead of just limiting serial numbers associated with discs to a certain amount of response codes to utilize these discs would have an unlimited amount of guest codes.  All one would have to do is simply include a slip of paper with the disc when it is shipped out that includes the necessary login information (which could easily be matched to that of your login information for that service) and the necessary response code.  Should someone want to purchase the game from the renter the service would only have to send the primary response code: it’s that easy!

The used games market is something of a strong divide between consumers and the content providers.  Gamers love the ability to purchase games for lower prices at almost no sacrifice to gameplay quality while developers and publishers hate them because they do not receive any of the money spent on the title.  Unfortunately there seems to be no way for content providers to force places like Gamestop from selling used games or forcing them to pay a portion of the sales fee because they are, at least in the United States, legally  considered to be a pawn shop.  With a little creative usage of this system however a developer or publisher could easily get back at least some of the money that’d come from the sale.

Let’s suppose again that Joe Blow has decided to sell his copy of Mega Shooter Duty 7 in favor of the upcoming and highly-anticipated Mega Shooter Duty 8: Personal Edition.  Should he want to sell the game to an individual and not a retail store he would need to access his account information, select the serial number and primary response code for the game and have them transferred to the account of the intended buyer.  In doing so it would deactivate the other response codes associated with that serial key, thereby preventing anyone associated with Joe from playing it and allowing the new owner to disseminate them as he/she sees fit.  This process wouldn’t affect the save file for the game but it would prevent Joe from being able to play that particular disc unless he got the game back and reinstalled it.

The process would be even easier however should Joe decide to sell it to a place like Gamestop.  Similar to the process of the initial sale a signal would be sent to the developer or publisher’s server that would tell it that the disc with that particular serial number is about to transfer ownership to the store.  With that out of the way Joe could easily continue his transaction and purchase his next big game.  Either way however developers and publishers can take advantage of this transfer of ownership by charging a transfer fee which, while not enough to recoup the cost of a normal used game sale, it does put some money back into their wallets.  This transfer fee can also be applied during or possibly after the game is resold to another customer.

Doing the Right Thing

This entire system may seem to be scary at first and overtly limiting but if you think about it this is far from the case.  DRM is something that gamers are going to have to get used to one day and while various experiments have been applied on the PC such as SecuROM and while these have met with limited success at best their attempts to prevent piracy have ended up infuriating gamers to the point of actually not purchasing those titles.  This system, in my opinion, would allow content providers to control the use of their product in a realistic manner that isn’t limiting to the player.

At the end of the day though this DRM system isn’t about making sure that people don’t pirate and play their games legitimately so much as it is about getting more money into content provider’s hands.  $60 may not seem like much of a loss when compared to that of the overall profits from a game but the fact of the matter is that when thousands upon thousands of people are doing this at a time you’re looking at millions of dollars being lost, money that could be put forward to their next project, extra game content and even perhaps keeping costs from ballooning from what they are right now.  Five years from now it isn’t hard to imagine that video games will again rise in price to perhaps $70 but a system like this could help delay such an event because more money would get back to the creators.  People’s livelihoods are at stake and when you pirate you’re denying companies the money they worked hard to earn and it could cost their employees their jobs.  Do you really want to be responsible for the termination of a game creator who could be responsible for the next great game like Call of Duty, Halo, or even Zelda?

Stop cheating the system people.  Pay for what you play and we can hopefully avoid a future like this.  Otherwise, well, I hope you’re caught up on your Orwellian novels…



Review: Dead Space 2

Visceral Games, an EA studio that’s been around for a little over a decade, didn’t have a very humble beginning.  For the first five years of its life it focused itself on creating new titles under the James Bond license that ended up being footnotes rather than becoming as famous as the quintessential Bond game Goldeneye for the Nintendo 64.  In the last year of the previous console generation though a group of designers got together and created a prototype for a survival horror game. However, seeing as it was still just a proof of concept and the console transition was about to take place they decided to flesh out their prototype on the next generation of systems.  In 2008 Visceral unleashed their first new IP in the form of Dead Space, a title that went on to rave reviews as a title that breathed a little more life into the dying survival horror genre.

Both EA and Visceral saw the true potential of Dead Space as a franchise and so while EA has been working hard to create more back story and expand the universe through books, movies, and even a comic book Visceral has been hard at work on a full-fledged sequel.  But can an American developer strike gold twice in a row in a genre dominated by Japanese giants like Resident Evil and Fatal Frame?

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A Divine Relic, Made by Man

Dead Space 2 takes place three years after the Aegis VII incident.  Isaac Clark, one of the few survivors of the Necromorph infestation caused by the Red Marker, awakens in the psych ward of a hospital on The Sprawl, a large space station built on top of the remains of the Saturn moon Titan.  As Clark comes to a man is trying to rescue him from something but before he can say what it is a Necromorph blade pierces the man’s chest and infects him on the spot, transforming him into one of them.  Isaac runs and just barely escapes the facility, learning through a woman named Diana that another Marker has been constructed on The Sprawl and was activated.  Hunted by both the Necromorphs and humans and haunted by the visions of his dead lover Nicole, Isaac sets out to escape the station before it is too late.

Isaac’s story in the first Dead Space was a slowly paced tale that was only revealed through logs and messages left behind by the dead.  Dead Space 2 on the other hand is far more fast-paced given that, instead of arriving on the scene long after the infection has devastated the area, it is occurring all around him as he progresses.  This change of pace greatly compliments an already good survival horror story and its told-on-the-fly manner makes it feel more like an adventure than a haunted house experience.

While the story does contain the usual assortment of friendships, betrayals, lessons learned and loves lost what I found to be one of the more interesting elements is the fleshing out of Isaac Clark’s character.  As is so often the case with main characters in games these days Clark was a silent protagonist throughout almost all of the original Dead Space.  In this game however Clark is fully realized with a voice of his own as well as his own motivations and desires.  Clark’s dementia also has him suffering through painful visions that warp the surrounding environment and have him constantly questioning his sanity.  Clark’s anger, frustration, and exacerbating mental condition will have you rooting him on as he makes his way through the infested station. 

The story of a game for me is probably the most important aspect of a game and I can’t help but say that Dead Space 2’s narrative is excellent.  Clark’s adventure through the dying Sprawl space station adds greatly to the already interesting Dead Space universe and keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout the majority of the experience.  The ending is especially enticing and gives cause for speculation regarding an inevitable third title and the eventual singleplayer downloadable content Visceral has coming down the pipe.

Cross Your Heart and Hope to Die

Dead Space 2’s gameplay is not so much an overhaul of the first game’s successful formula as it slight refinement with a few tweaks here and there that add to an already great gameplay experience.  After all, why mess with a good thing, right?  Many of the primary issues we had in 2008 have been addressed in Dead Space 2 if not cut entirely from the game.

One of the main issues that were universally cited was the enemy variety present throughout the original game.  In Dead Space there were only a handful of different varieties of Necromorphs that you’d encounter throughout the game.   Even in large encounters you would only fight one or two varieties of Necromorphs at a time.  Visceral has thankfully addressed this issue with several new species of Necromorph, all of which feel unique and not a rehash of previous ones.  The Puker, probably the most human-resembling enemy of the game, is encountered early on and, living up to its namesake, fires an acidic projectile vomit which also slows down Clark’s movement.  The Pack, a Necromorph infection of a child, attacks the player in groups and, though easily taken down, is fast and agile.  The Spitter, similar in appearance to the common Slasher throughout the franchise, also has a projectile attack though not as powerful as the Puker.  The Stalker though is probably both the most interesting and terrifying of the commonly-found Necromorphs as they work together in packs, hide behind cover, and charge the player intent on smashing into you with their thick skulls.  The variety presented is excellently done and makes the cast of enemies feel more rounded out and challenging than they were in the first game.

To counter these new enemies though Visceral has given us some new weapons that have quite the bite attached to their bark.  One of the more dominant new additions to the arsenal is the Javelin Gun, a weapon that pneumatically fires spears and can stick an enemy to a wall in addition to alternate fire mode which sends out a bolt of electricity, potentially frying nearby Necromorphs.  Players can also obtain mines that can stick to any surface allowing you ample opportunity to protect your flank.   The Seeker Rifle, the game’s equivalent of a sniper rifle, is particularly effective when used on long-range targets.  Other weapons have seen some much needed refinements such as the Pulse Gun which now has an alternate fire grenade launcher and the Contact Beam has become less unwieldy than it was in the previous game.

One of the big problems in Dead Space however was how much of a crutch the Plasma Cutter, the first weapon found in the game, could be.  Many players, including myself, found the Plasma Cutter to be the most effective weapon in the game and relied on it throughout the course of it.  Visceral, whether you like it or not, has addressed this as you will often find plenty of ammo for other weapons rather than then one you are currently wielding.  This thereby forces you to utilize multiple weapons and change your strategy making for some intense moments.

Of course a horror game like Dead Space wouldn’t be, well, scary without horror elements in it and Visceral has retained their previous level of scariness this time around.  The usual assortment of monster closets are as frequent if not more so than they were in Dead Space but what separates Dead Space 2 is the inclusion of what I like to call “Nicole Moments.”  In Dead Space you were occasionally guided on the right path by Isaac’s girlfriend Nicole and, though she was actually already dead, the manifestation that Isaac was seeing was actually a projection of the Red Marker’s consciousness attempting to get it returned to Aegis VII.  Though I do not wish to spoil this game’s (you’ve had over two years to play Dead Space so you have no excuse) Nicole she is far more frequent this time around is very aggressive toward Isaac.  The result is similar to the Alma sequences in the FEAR franchise in which she would appear to scare the pants off of you before you get back into combat.  Nicole will often appear to ridicule him and his relationship with her, often blaming him for her death since he actually helped get her onboard the Ishimura.  These moments will left me thoroughly crept out though not enough such that I had to stop playing the game.

We’re All Going to Burn

Despite odd looks all the way around Visceral somehow found a way to translate the Dead Space 2 singleplayer experience into a competitive multiplayer one.  Taking place alongside Isaac Clark’s journey, players either take on the role of a Necromorph, be it a Pack, Lurker, Puker, or Spitter, or a human soldier under orders to help contain the Necromorph outbreak.  An eight player team-based experience, the four human players are assigned to complete certain objective in order to complete an overall mission while the Necromorph team does what a Necromorph does best: kill in the most gruesome manner possible.

Dead Space 2’s multiplayer is certainly an oddball if there ever was one but it definitely draws some similarities to games like Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow.  This isn’t a bad thing but the problem that arises when you have an experience such as this one is that balance can be a very strong issue to address.  Unfortunately, in this reviewer’s  experience at least, this is the case as it seems that the Necromorph team has an almost unfair advantage over the human team thanks to fast respawns and the ability to choose where you want to actually spawn.  As this is an objective only affair (sorry, no team deathmatch variant to be found) and the objectives have to be done in a certain order it turns out that one of the biggest biases is the amount of time to complete objectives is far too short given the length of human respawns and the set respawn points.

For those in for the long haul though (or those who don’t have access to other multiplayer experiences) Dead Space 2 offers an apparently robust selection leveling system.  As you complete objectives, get kills, and fulfill other requirements you earn upgrades and new weapons.  These upgrades apply to both sides so you earn new abilities as a Necromorph as well.  Most of these upgrades are par for the course and will keep a dedicated fan playing long after their initial purchase but for players who haven’t experienced or are already caught up in games with more interesting multiplayer titles like Call of Duty or Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood you might find it hard to stick around for another round.

Altman Be Praised

Dead Space was a very different visual affair from what we usually associate with the survival horror genre.  While the environments in many ways had been done before the enemy and character design were top notch in my book.  Until I played Dead Space 2 I still consider Dead Space to be one of the most violent, gore-oriented games I’ve ever played; that title has now been passed to its successor.   Visceral’s “Strategic Dismemberment” gameplay design is still in full effect in the sequel but the amount of gore present seems to have been increased possibly thanks to the new amount of creatures that stand in your way.  It still amazes me sometimes to see a body explodes after being hit with a round from the Contact Beam, watching the body parts fly off in all directions.  Clearly this isn’t a game for the squeamish.

One of the wonderful things about Dead Space for me was the HUD.  As the industry goes away from a crowded on-screen display with games like Red Dead Redemption Visceral actually put it to use on the character itself, making the spine represent the character’s health and the inventory pops out on a holographic display.  Thankfully Visercal has retain this feature and has even tweaked the quality of the video displays as this time they actually look like they are rendered in real time rather than the pre-rendered sequences that looked a bit blurry in the original game.  The tracker which drew you a line on the ground to your next objective has returned improved as well as it can also point out stores, upgrade benches, and save points, perfect if you find yourself in a pinch with low ammo or a full inventory.

The design of the environments is probably one of the biggest improvements over the original game.  Though I enjoyed the layout and design of the USG Ishimura in Dead Space I couldn’t help but find myself tiring of the same corridor-crawling over and over again with little variation other than the main bridge of the ship itself.  Dead Space 2, set on the Sprawl, is a far more open and varied than the Ishimura ever was and, this time, actually feels far more like a lived-in environment than that of a deep space mining ship.  The Sprawl, home to a million inhabitants, feels as such and includes a deluge of places to explore such as a shopping mall, a large church of Unitology (the main religion in the Dead Space universe and also a main source of conflict), residences, apartments, schools, and hospitals all of which are completely believable.  Fortunately many of these are large and open and don’t necessarily give the indication of a boss fight so you can feel free to explore (mostly) without the cost of a good scare.

The best game design feature of Dead Space in my opinion, and something that just isn’t getting the fair amount of treatment it deserves these days, is the sound design.  Dead Space 2 continues this trend and ups the ante with even better design.  The background sound effects are still wonderfully done and the cries of enemies are fantastically creepy if not terrifying.  The Stalker alone has one of the most terror-inducing screams I’ve ever heard in a video game; I don’t know what they killed to get it but I certainly don’t want to meet it.  The sound design even adds to the dementia Clark is experiencing as you’ll sometimes hear his name said in the background of a sound such as a beep or even in the tail end of a Necromorph’s dying scream.  If you ever needed a reason to buy a surround sound system this is the reason to do so.

Make Us Whole

Dead Space 2 had quite a bit to live up to and it certainly meets if not exceeded those demands.  The story is great and well told, the combat is just as interesting as it was in 2008, and it contains an interesting if flawed multiplayer mode that still adds a strong amount of replay value to the game.  Visceral’s latest installment in their survival horror franchise and an excellent addition to the franchise as well as the survival horror genre as a whole so whether this is you are a seasoned veteran or a newcomer to the franchise you’ll find a lot of value in Dead Space 2.  It may only be January but we may already have a contender for the title of Game of the Year.



Musing: Great Game Ideas That Will (Probably) Never Happen

Let’s face facts people: when it comes to many original games on the market you have found yourself wishing that they would get a sequel, incorporate aspects of another title, or any other of thousands of ideas that you feel would end up (theoretically at least) making a better product out of what you had just played.  I’m no stranger to this and before I discovered that writing was my calling in life I had desires to join the gaming industry in a more focused capacity as a designer or programmer.  Two years into it though I realized something: a) I’m not good at drawing and b) I just can’t wrap my head around proper C++ code.  That didn’t stop me from dreaming up ideas for games that I felt would be well received if done properly and so over the years I’ve kept most of them bottled up within me while simultaneously asking myself rhetorical questions as to why X game idea hasn’t been done.

Though I have no doubt that the design ideas presented to you below will most likely never be done I still feel that they need to be discussed.  So without further ado I give you Hooked Gamers’ list of game concepts that will (probably) never happen.

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G.I. Joe Returns

In my opinion the most underrated NES game of all time, Taxan's G.I. Joe game was one of my favorite games growing up. If you get the chance you MUST try it.

The Concept:  Classic G.I. Joe franchise from the 1980s revitalized using modern concepts and made into a first person shooter using DICE’s Frostbite engine.

The Pitch: G.I. Joe and video games is pretty much the chocolate and peanut butter concoction the industry’s confectioners never really took advantage of.  Only a handful of titles were ever produced based on the series and even then the license jumped from developer and publisher to the next in the early 90s before disappearing entirely for over a decade.  Last year the franchise was revived when Hasbro and Paramount Pictures got together and released a live action film that, to be frank, was one of the worst of 2009.  As a G.I. Joe fan since childhood I was disgusted by both the direction of the remake, the extremely weak plot, downright dumb film design (seriously, ice FLOATS in water), and a disastrous utilization of a collection great character archetypes especially considering a decent set of actors were taken on to the film!  What was even worse than the move though was the concept for the game, a license tie-in that we here at Hooked Gamers actually refused to even bother reviewing.  It was even more troubling that the game’s development was relegated by EA to Double Helix Games, a studio whose singular previous endeavor was Silent Hill: Homecoming.

So why hasn’t G.I. Joe been given the proper video game treatment?  The question still weighs on my mind, especially so given that Hasbro has seen tremendous success over the past few years with the revitalization of the Transformers franchise.  The 90s iterations varied from an excellent Contra-esque sidescrolling shooter to a coin-op 2.5D arcade game.  What is clear though is that the formula for creating a proper G.I. Joe game wasn’t ready for consoles or arcades at the time and was only beginning to see its potential on the PC: the first person shooter.  And what better way for EA to compliment a franchise with such potential than to team them up with one of the most beloved shooter developers out there than DICE?

Just replace that Abrams with a Cobra HISS tank and the bullets with red and blue lasers and you're good to go.

Immediately it is apparent that the developers of the Battlefield series are the proper team to work on such a beloved franchise given their pedigree for human and vehicular combat.  With them hard at work on Battlefield 3 and a strong gameplay engine almost perfected at this point it is hard to not ask why DICE would be a good choice for developing a G.I. Joe game.  With DICE still exploring what they can do with a singleplayer experience the Joe series would be an especially good basis for source material given an almost excessively large meta-universe of stories to work with from both the cartoons as well as the comics, not to mention the humungous cast of characters present throughout it.  Singleplayer stories can be developed off of any number of plots from the cartoons alone, the M.A.S.S. Device and Weather Dominator miniseries in particular being more than enough to encourage full on DLC expansions to such a game.  The only really good product to come out of last year’s Joe debacle, G.I. Joe Resolute, would provide an excellent basis for updating the franchise to modern standards and giving the series a proper video game.

With almost every single shooter title on the market now nigh compelled to create a multiplayer experience for their game G.I. Joe serves the basis for an excellent competitive team-based experience.  Utilizing the Battlefield gameplay formula alone would more than serve to being fitting to the series but it is in the existing foundation of the characters and their unique abilities in which a Call of Duty perk system could be enabled.  For example your base character could be a standard Joe or Cobra soldier and as you progressively rank up you gain the ability to access different core characters like Duke, Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow, or Destro who would each have unique abilities.  For example Scarlet could use her multi-purpose crossbow to reach hard-to-access areas while Zartan could utilize his disguise prowess to have enhanced camouflage or even appear as a member of the Joe team itself.  This would provide for a unique way of utilizing the established perk system that has seen so much success in Call of Duty and, with a cast of dozens of characters, the possibilities are near endless.

In summation the G.I. Joe experience is a solid franchise that is just waiting for a proper video game experience and the proper environment for getting the maximum potential out of such a title has existed for several years now.  What’s not to love in reviving a classic franchise like this one, this time properly?

Chances of this happening: Slim.  Many X factors contribute to this rating, the most predominant one being the extent to which the G.I. Joe license remains in EA’s hands.  While EA produced last year’s abysmal title it wasn’t clear in any of the press releases whether the license granted by Hasbro was for just that particular title or if it was for a certain amount of time.  Given that another G.I. Joe film is in production right now there’s no doubt in my mind that a game is being developed.  However, given that this past year’s surprisingly good Transformers title War for Cybertron was produced by Activision I’m not betting the house on an EA published title.

Seriously, come on EA, see reason and give this series the game it truly deserves!  Cobra Commander demands it!

Seriously EA, get on it.

Pokémon the MMO

The Concept: Pokémon takes their role-playing gameplay concept to the next logical playspace: online.

The Pitch: Nintendo’s go-to cash cow for the past decade and a half has done nothing but succeed title after title with almost universal acclaim for every core title.  Sure, offshoot titles, particularly the Nintendo 64 titles Pokémon Snap and Hey You, Pikachu, have suffered critical outcry for being more of a tribute to the franchise rather than actual games to play, let alone enjoy.  So why, in the almost fifteen years since the series came onto the gaming scene, hasn’t a core title in the franchise stepped out of the handheld space for a proper console experience?

This is only one section of the overall Pokemon world. This series has the potential to have more to explore than two Azeroths combined and it STILL isn't an MMO?!

I will admit that, as a child, this author was a bit of a Pokémon addict but, being a child of the 90s, who wasn’t?  I grew out of the series after the first generation of titles for it but I don’t think I could have ever conceived of how much of an impact the Pokémon series would have on the gaming scene.  Though I didn’t have all that many friends as a kid who had a Gameboy the occasional kid in school like me who had Red, Blue, or Yellow editions of the game were a blast to play against and, though I lost more matches than one, I couldn’t help but continue on leveling up my creatures in preparation for the next battle.  In the years following I’ve always wondered why Pokémon had always been formulated as a 1v1 experience but I always chocked it up to hardware limitations but in a day and age in which millions of people can play and compete against one another in an online space called Azeroth that is no longer an excuse to make.

Think about it!  With a user install base of, conservatively speaking, bajillions, it is hard to understand why, in all the years that Nintendo has been adding on to the franchise, they have never sought to take the natural role playing and competitive gameplay elements into the online space.  There have already been unofficial Pokémon games such as Pokénet, a successful fan-developed MMO before it received a cease-and-desist letter from Nintendo back in March of this year.

Massively Multiplayer Online games start out just the same way as any core Pokémon title does: you create a character, select your class (or in this case, Pokémon) and head out into the world.  Along the way you explore the world, do battle with monsters in the environment and level up your character with experience points.  You even do battle with other NPCs for cash and items; the comparison is uncanny!

The possibilities of a Pokémon MMO are almost limitless in scope.  In the fifteen years since the series came about an entire lore has been created with new lands and regions being added on an almost constant basis leaving almost no room for the argument that there isn’t enough source material to support such an endeavor.  There are now, at the count of the latest title in the series, 649 Pokémon to collect and do battle with which is a staggering number.  The rate at which the series has expanded through its games, anime, manga, and even trading cards it is hard to not find a way to combine them in some way into a full multiplayer experience.

And that's just the first 493 of those suckers! I imagine by 2012 there will be almost 1,000..

Many common gameplay elements present in online multiplayer games and MMOs could really contribute to the overall Pokémon formula and transform it into an outstanding online experience.  Other than the NPCs present in the core titles Pokémon games have always felt quite desolate and lifeless when it comes to human characters.  Incorporating thousands of players into the experience has the potential to create a truly lush world to build upon and allows for the possibility of entire clans (or leagues as it would be in this case) to bring players together in ways that only conventions and online forums could do before.  Imagine large-scale battles between dozens of trainers taking place in a persistent 3D space, an act that could only be dreamt of by players and only ever teased in the remarkably terrible films.  Throw in the ability to customize your creatures’ appearances, actions, and commands and you’ve got the grounds for which to actually steal a portion of WoW’s population away from Blizzard.  What’s not to love?

Chances of this happening: next to none, at least for this console generation.  Nintendo has done their best to keep core Pokémon titles simple and there’s no sign of them changing their approach anytime soon.  Nintendo’s attempts to enter the online space have, as I’ve said many times in the past, been abysmal in execution, bordering on half-assed.  As long as the Friends Code system is still in place there is almost no room for innovation on the Wii’s online space outside of games that completely abandon the system like Call of Duty Black Ops and as such, since there is no core Nintendo title that has not used the Friend Code system, a Pokémon MMO is nigh impossible.  Nintendo has never even expressed interest in developing titles outside of their own hardware so a PC-oriented project is almost out of the question.  Kotaku even addressed this with Pokemon franchise director Junichi Masuda last year who was quoted as saying:

"At this point, we're not thinking of going in that direction… Trading is a core concept of Pokémon.  So when you're trading, you meet with a friend and decide which one you want and which one they want.  I would like to emphasize real-world communication.  You don't see each other online."

Perhaps five years from now we could see something like this approach a Wii 2 with an enhanced online service that hopefully comes close to Xbox Live 1.0 but I’m not keeping my fingers crossed.  Nintendo, admit it, you want to show us your Pokemans; just get it over with already!