Sleepy Gamer

I know the Net is already saturated with God of War III info, but I thought that I should share my 2 cents.  Being a huge fan of the God of War franchise myself, you can probably take my opinion with a grain of salt.  But when you have tight controls, beautiful graphics, and the hi-def boobies … who isn’t a fan of that?  Show me a game with all those qualities that didn’t make your top 10 list.  Garret and I waited well over an hour just to play this game at E3, so was it worth the wait?  Hell yeah it was.

Story
If you’ve completed part 2 of the series, you must have wanted to kill yourself after witnessing that disappointing cliffhanger.  Seeing Kratos leading the Titans to Mount Olympus for the climactic battle with the Gods sure was exhilarating.  Until you were abruptly left with: “The end begins…”  It might as well have said, “Please reserve God of War 3 at your local Gamestop”.  Unfortunately, this 20 minute demo doesn’t reveal anything new about the story either.  As soon as you press the Start button, you’re immediately thrown into the heat of the battle with no where to go, but forward.  You only see the fire Titan in the background throwing fireballs and wrecking havock in the city below.  But other than that, the entire demo doesn’t explain where your other Titan buddies went.
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With the phenomenal sales of the original PS1 and PS2, Sony was once way ahead of the curve.  So it’s come to be quite a disappointment to see the PS3 limping along this generation.  When Ken Kuturagi unveiled the PS3 back in 2005, it was touted as the most powerful and revolutionary gaming system ever made.  Apparently, all that power and revolution didn’t mean squat.  Looking at the December 2008 sales figures, we can see that the Wii completely outsold the PS3 almost 3:1, with the Xbox 360 outselling almost 2:1.

* Wii — 2,150,000
* Xbox 360 — 1,440,000
* PlayStation 3 — 726,000

Sony needs to do some damage control, and they need to do it fast.  Here are some suggestions to make 2009, the year of the Playstation.

PS3 Price Drop
Since there’s no way for the PS3 to compete with the Wii, the best that they can do right now is fight for 2nd place.  With the current recession, it’s obviously not a good idea to be the most expensive system on the market.  With the PS3 models retailing at $399 and $499, it’s much more expensive than the Xbox 360 at $199, $299, and $399.  Sony justifies this price difference due to the built-in blu-ray player capabilities, but it appears the general public is still quite happy with their DVDs and can’t justify paying the extra premium for this feature.  To top it off, most PS3 versions of a game often look worse than its Xbox counterpart.  So why pay more when its competitor is providing a better gaming experience at a lower price?  Sony needs to drop the price to $299 to simply compete with the Xbox 360.
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Brand new game series’ are usually few and far between, and good ones are even more unlikely.  The current generation has seen it’s fair share of potential new franchises, but many new notables have yet to have produced proper sequels.  The cycle of innovation, refinement, then innovation is the foundation that the games industry is built upon.  So, here are some recent gems that are definitely worth revisiting.

Dead Rising (Xbox360)

You, trapped in a mall with thousands of zombies and the freedom to use practically anything as a weapon.  It’s no wonder we haven’t seen this game concept done earlier.  The zombie playground idea could be applied to almost anywhere too. Amusement park, airport, or even a small, open-world town would all be great locales.  Throw in a bunch more interactive objects for creative, new ways to kill the walking dead and you’re all set.  Oh yeah, how about some online co-op, please?

Zack and Wiki (Wii)

It’s the brilliant, Wii, point-and-click adventure that was a critically success, but a retail failure.  Sadly, we probably won’t ever see a sequel any time soon.  Some of the later puzzles were down right diabolical, but when you finally did figure it out, that “eureka” moment was pure magic.  The cute, lovable animations, the multiple solutions, and the clever use of items and enemies all worked to create an experience that could only be compared to the days of playing an old-school, LucasArts adventure game.  More of the same is all I ask.

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The gamble that Bethesda made in acquiring the rights from Interplay seems to be paying off. The fanatical outcry from the incredibly vocal Fallout fans has died down. The game is finally out and available for the masses to judge for themselves. And yet, as I log yet another hour in this wonderfully crafted, post-apocalyptic vision of Washington D.C., heading into the credits of my second playthrough, it’s apparent that the game lives up to every bit of the hype and then some.

Destroyed Beauty

There’s just something about the meticulous attention to detail of Fallout 3, how the environment was lovingly created and just as lovingly destroyed, that gives it that personality that is so rare to find in games. The Fallout series has always had a brilliant art style, mixing old 1950’s-inspired culture with the futuristic technology of tomorrow. With Fallout 3, Bethesda truly outdid themselves by presenting a world of hauntingly beautiful structures that spell a cautionary tale of nuclear war at every turn. Every corner of the game’s world is enriched in amazing little touches; torn-down walls, pieced together suits of armor made of shopping carts and old tires, tons of humorous, fake products and advertisements. There are even a handful of in-game radio station broadcasts with a wonderful selection of music from the ’40s and ’50s that help in immersing you in the alternate-history dystopia that the series is known for.

The characters themselves offer an incredibly rich selection of voice-acted dialog, whether or not you recognize the Liam Neesons or Malcolm McDonalds of the bunch. And just like Oblivion, there are naturally some repeats here and there (for example, three ghouls outside a vault all had the same exact voice and slightly different thing to say), but it’s never quite as noticeable, possibly due to the smaller amount of settlements and survivors that the Fallout setting lends itself to.

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Be sure to check out Part I for the Wii and PS3 breakdowns.

Xbox 360

None of the current consoles have fragmented the consumer experience more than the Xbox 360.  One could argue that the tiered offering of the of Xbox 360 line of consoles was designed to appeal to a broad range of gamers, from the very casual to the hardest of hardcore.  Unfortunately, most of the omitted features in the lower end models tend to be components you’ll regret buying piecemeal at a later date.  To make things a bit clearer, the Xbox 360 breakdown will be done in two separate parts, based on what Xbox 360 model you “jump in” with.

First things first, let’s get the common stuff out of the way.  Every Xbox 360 system comes with one wireless controller, and supports up to a maximum of 4 controllers at a once.  Each additional wireless controller costs $50, or if you prefer (although I’m not sure why anyone would want to), $40 for wired controllers that plug in via the USB ports.  Like the Wii’s wiimotes, the wireless gamepads also require either a steady supply of AA batteries or you could spring for a set of rechargeable battery packs made specifically for the controllers themselves.  The battery packs can cost as much as $15 a piece, and the charger itself can be bought as a USB “Plug & Play” cord for $20, or as an AC adapter plug-in “Quick Charge Kit” that comes with one battery pack and charges 2 rechargeable packs at once, all for $30.

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Upon receiving a beta key for Resistance 2, I was really eager to rush home and download the beta.  However, after 3.5 hours for 2GB download, in addition to the 10 minute install, plus another 15 minutes for an update, I was finally ready to play.  So is this game worth that 4 hour wait?  Read on.

Beta Basics
Just to clarify, this beta only provides the multi-player feature.  You won’t get a sneak peak at the single player campaign until you buy it.  Starting the beta, you’re introduced to 2 game play options: Cooperative and Competitive.  In the cooperative mode, you have the choice to play online or offline with friends.  This mode allows casual fun play without affecting your ranking stats.  The competitive mode is where the meat of the game is focused on.  Similar to Call of Duty’s “Perks”, Resistance 2 has the “Berserks/Loadout” system.  As you gain more experience and rank up, you can unlock additional “Berserks/Loadout” that enhance your abilities.  The default beserks/loadouts provide small enhancements like upgraded radar or electric burst shots.  But leveling up will provide much better abilities, such as force fields or healing rings, that will help keep you alive longer.

The main appeal that Resistance 2 has over other shooters are the 60 player skirmishes.  When you jump into a 60 player battle, things can get really chaotic.  The first time I jumped in, my average lifespan was less than 10 seconds.  However, as you get more accustomed to the map layout, you’ll realize how grand and epic these matches are.  It’s quite exhilarating when there’s a stand-off between the two factions fighting on opposite sides of the ravine.  One side is desperately defending the beacon, while the other is trying to overtake it.  The whole beauty of this is that this grand experience is practically lag-free, so any deaths that you encounter is because of your own noob skills.

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