This weekend, I was lucky enough to get some time with the newly released Medal of Honor: Airborne demo and it really impressed me. After being unseated by Call of Duty as the premiere WWII shooter, then sliding into the dumps with the terrible Pacific Assault, the MoH series was hurting in the eyes of gamers. This new installment may put them back in the race.

So, Capcom is developing the fifth Resident Evil videogame in the series. The Resident Evil series is about various misdeeds of corporations and cults that lead to zombies. In the fifth installment, it appears that there’s an outbreak in Africa, and the lead character who you play as has to kill African zombies in Africa. This worries a woman named Kym Platt, who writes a blog that focuses on African Women’s issues. She writes:

The new Resident Evil video game depicts a white man in what appears to be Africa killing Black people. The Black people are supposed to be zombies and the white man's job is to destroy them and save humanity. "I have a job to do and I'm gonna see it through."

This is problematic on so many levels, including the depiction of Black people as inhuman savages, the killing of Black people by a white man in military clothing, and the fact that this video game is marketed to children and young adults. Start them young... fearing, hating, and destroying Black people.

Don’t start playing Pop Cap Games’ Peggle. Doing that will require you to stop playing.

That is hard to do.*

If you’ve got some spare minutes, Peggle’s a lot of fun. It’s a buffet of bite-size levels that offer variations on a simple mechanic: fire a bouncing ball into a Pachinko-like game field. Throw in zany power-ups, lots of good audio and visual feedback, and it’s a recipe for an addictive “just one more level” game. Peggle is a PC-only game, so you Mac-only people are safe from the bottomless pit of sugar-coated gaming fun.

But be warned, at some point you will have to stop playing. And that is hard.

*But I do manage to stop. I swear.

So, I have a DS Lite, the first portable gaming console I’ve owned since my Game Boy, and I love playing it. It’s a great little system, but that’s a whole other saga. Right now, I’d like to discuss a particular game I picked up a while ago, based almost entirely on the discussions and reviews from these guys. The game is Hotel Dusk: Room 215. And to put it simply, Hotel Dusk fails where Fla-vor-ice pops succeed.

I’ve been reading, over the past week or so, about all of the ridiculous human behavior here in the U.S. (and elsewhere, but I’m focusing on my fellow citizens here) related to and surrounding the launch of Sony’s newest game console, the Playstation 3. Robbery, fights, waiting in line for days in the cold, acrimony, shadowing people to smash and grab from their cars, etc., etc. All of this and more. I have one thing to say to you all, both the law breakers and the line waiters.

You are all idiots.

I’m a bit late in getting to it, but Valve released their much-anticipated expansion to Half-Life 2 on June 1st, and it is pretty damn great. I played through it when I got home that evening, and really enjoyed it. With rich level design, new game mechanics, a new enemy, a newly improved partner, and more of the wonderful Half-Life universe, Episode One delivers as promised. But that isn’t to say I don’t have a minor gripe or two...

SPOILER WARNING: There are some spoilers ahead, so don’t read on if you don’t want to know anything about Episode 1.

The original Tomb Raider is one of Those Games. You know, a game that people remember. A game whose main character non-gamers know the name of; one that launched a franchise that cut a unique groove for itself and created its own sub-genre, in a way. However, the series began to flag as sequels became not only repetitive but also lacked quality and strayed too far from their progenitor’s strengths. Legend, which I played through a few weeks ago on a weekend, is a very clear move to reclaim the name of Lara Croft and bring it back to its place of prestige in gaming. Many have hailed it as a successful return with a rare shortcoming here and there. I’m not so sure about that. Entertaining and visually lush, Legend is also flawed and diminutive in the face of its heritage. I see this installment as a proof of concept: Tomb Raider is still an IP with life and possibilities. I do not see it as the revelation some are stretching to tout it as.

“When it comes to the top World War II shooter, that battle’s over. Now we’re on to the top shooter, period.”

—Thain Lyman, executive producer at Activision, the publisher of Call of Duty 2, in the April 2005 issue of PC Gamer

For most games, that’s bold talk; unrealistically bold, in fact. But for Call of Duty 2 it was what we all wanted to hear, I’m sure. It certainly has the pedigree for that kind of talk. The original CoD emerged when the WWII shooter-fest was in full swing. The Medal of Honor series had recently swept the FPS scene with a whole new world of visceral and intense experience. The WWII experience straddled the line between high-tech and no-tech, real-life heroism and gritty on-the-ground situational tactics, and I loved it. It was a great series (excluding that Pacific drivel). Then, 22 members of the team behind MoH broke off and showed us what a WWII shooter really looked like with CoD. I was a full-on MoH devotee right up until the demo for CoD was released. In the short time it took to play that demo, it ruined MoH for me completely. I bowed at the altar of Infinity Ward. This was a new world for action shooters. It was the Band of Brothers you could experience. In fact, I enjoyed it (the demo) so much I wrote about playing. I’ve included an excerpt below the fold.

The weekend before last I beat F.E.A.R. and it was one hell of a game. It’s one of those games that exceeds expectations in enough ways that it’s easy to understand why so many gaming journalists were slavering over it and hailing it as the best thing since sliced Half-Life (or something). I agree that it’s setting some new standards. However, when it strayed from its strengths, its weaknesses were glaring. Fortunately, those weaknesses were more scenic and secondary as you progressed through the kinetic audio visual blast of the game’s core.

Spoiler Warning: While I don’t reveal any significant plot points you won’t already know, I will be discussing certain elements of the game that might give away some of the experience.

Last week, Inifinity Ward posted a pre-release demo of Call of Duty 2 on their site, which was a surprise to me since there seemed to be no preceding announcements. This was probably motivated by the recent release of the Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood demo, and the release of Valve’s Day of Defeat: Source and is more of an effort to maintain their presence in the gaming media and gamers’ heads, particularly since they’re investing very substantial efforts in a genre (WWII games) that many people are growing weary of...or so they say.

Without a doubt, I’ll be buying CoD 2. The graphics are sharp, the gameplay is solid, the enemies are compellingly scripted (in terms of A.I.) and, as always, Infinity Ward has created what looks like the next step in WWII games, and perhaps more. However, the demo didn’t wow me in the ways I thought it would, even though I’m still replaying it after a dozen times through.

I woke up this morning to a freshly downloaded copy of the installer for F.E.A.R. – First Encounter Assault Recon, after failed attempts to download it yesterday (It came out at 1 PM EST, so I wasn’t surprised). So, here are my first-time impressions from my first play through of the demo.

As some of you may know, I’m hopelessly addicted to Half-Life 2. Well, now I can feed my twin vices of HL2 and comics by reading Concerned: The Half-Life and Death of Gordon Frohman. It is hilarious and witty, with tons of subtle I-get-it-because-I-played-the-game humor. The prologue alone will give anyone who waited for the much-delayed release feel warm and gooey inside. But there’s usually enough generally-accessible comedy that non-gamers will probably get something from it. If you’ve played HL2 or are familiar with it, go read it now. If not, there’s a premise page to get you mostly up to speed. You may not get 100% of the references, but the comedic timing and construction is very well tuned and it still holds together overall, even if the humor of a few strips is lost on you.*

Thanks to Jon Sung for this one.

*This may be false.

I bought and beat Project: Snowblind a few weeks ago, and it had its moments, but is ultimately not worth replaying. The reviews it’s getting say something similar: it’s not very original, but it's a fun, solid shooter. Well, I agree and disagree.

Snowblind is a first person shooter that repeatedly reminded me of Halo (one of my favorites), but lacks the tight, clean integrity of Bungie’s classic in terms of gameplay, interface, and story. I’m going to guess that the developers either: had planned a great game and lacked the time/money to work out the flaws and polish it, or a bad game that benefitted from a lot of love and appreciation for great shooter gaming. I can’t tell which, but the project did start off as a Deus Ex spin-off, and became what it is now, so perhaps that shifting prevented Crystal Dynamics (which is related to Eidos of Tomb Raider fame) from giving it the amount of attention and refinement it really would've benefitted from.

But first, let’s focus on what Snowblind does right.

I just watched the trailer for Lego: Star Wars today. This is the greatest thing ever, I swear. On top of that, whoever came up with this idea needs to be promoted. The combination of these two nostalgic power centers into a game creates a white-hot poker of consumer lust that stabs directly into my soft, yielding pleasure center.

I’ve been casually watching this game since I first heard of it a few months ago, but my deep-seated excitement is far from casual. I won’t bore you with my own exposition about what this game actually involves, just check out Gamespot’s hands-on or the official site if you have trouble with more than 1 oz. of information.

Prima Games’ making-of book Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar is a good read and a worthwhile purchase, if you really enjoy the Half-Life series, the story of the universe Valve has created, and are interested in game design.

Unfortunately, the most interesting part of the book is also the least prevelant: the writing. While the sketches, early character, vehicle and monster models, level designs, and other visuals are gorgeous and fascinating, and provide the subject matter for the text, they are just a large collection of pretty pictures without the narrative. And, frankly, the text that is there is great.

They’re right, the critics are right. Half-Life 2 is one of the best games, if not the best, I’ve ever played. The original Half-Life is probably the only game that offered such a rich, full experience. But HL2 exceeds it in almost every way, and not merely because it’s newer. It has the crafted, focused thrills of a well-designed game, the gritty, intense roughness of combat, and the bleak, varied immensity of a ravaged Earth.

Because of this, HL2’s greatest weakness is also its greatest strength. Valve has created a world bristling with such variety, intensity, struggle, possibility, and life, that I ache for more. I want to break the fence and drive over the mountain, smash down a new door and walk an unseen avenue of City 17, or see the rest of the Earth through the eyes of Valve. HL2 feels like the stunning beginning of something that will balloon into a universe beyond even its creators’ expectations (largely due to their openness to the gaming community and the modders). There’s no way for HL2 to encompass every desire it creates, even after exceeding so many expectations.

I’ve beaten the game over 2 times now, and I can see already that I’ll be playing it over and over for quite some time. There’s so much to cover and so many surprises that I’ll warn you before you continue reading: SPOILERS AHEAD. Don’t read below if you want to play HL2 with an unformed view.

Picture taken at 1:55 PM: I can smell the ashes already...

Note the bandage on index finger. I showed that motherboard who's boss!

Just to clarify, the motherboard is the boss.

The news is out and it's official, Half-Life 2 has gone gold.

The release date is set at November 16th. If I can get the new PC funded, built, and running by then, I am taking the day off and getting my game on like never before with the game that's being called the "best game ever."

I will never sleep again.

Because my brother is fortunate enough to have a system that doesn't completely gag on heapin' helpin's of data dished out by high-end games, I got a chance to play some of Doom 3 on his laptop* for the first time. My first impression is that it's an intense game that amps up the fear and adrenaline, not by demanding a twitchy finger, but by keeping you in a constant state of fear. However, the rush of combat and breaking tension is dampened by the fact that fighting ghouls on Mars is like firing ammunition into an unlit closet.

*In the interests of honesty, I'll add that his laptop could only play with medium-to-low settings, but with Doom 3, this still means great graphics.

I recently (a few days ago) had a dream about Half-Life 2. I dreamt that I had a copy of the game (only in my dreams is this game released yet) and was playing the opening parts of the game.

The specifics of the dream are unimportant, what's important is that I was dream-playing it on our current PC, which is far too under-powered to play this game. So, in my dream, I stopped playing the game in order not to spoil it for myself, in anticipation of upgrading the PC for the full experience.

So, to review: I have lame videogame dreams in which I am so lame that I can't even dream myself a decent system, and, in a bid for lamest man alive, I stop playing it because I don't want to see the game with less-than-optimal graphics...

In my dream.

Apparently, Doom 3 is ready to go for shipping, the week of August 2.

Prepare for large-scale productivity slow-down, particularly in the tech sector.

Doom 3 will require some serious horse-power, which will limit its immediate impact, but this title will definitely move hardware. Hopefully, id Software's latest release can compete with the Earth-crushing hype.

Update 7.22.04
With their exclusive review, PC Gamer gave Doom 3 a 94% and pretty much foamed at the mouth about how great it is. Sounds pretty good. Keep an eye on the Game Rankings page to get a good aggregate impression as others get their hands on it.

In 1998, I developed an unhealthy obsession. This obsession lay dormant for a few years, having waned for a time. However, sometime last year, it came back with a vengeance. The urges and cruel patterns it now carves on my waking mind are becoming insatiable and all-consuming. I thirst for succor, for sweet, sweet release from the exquisite pain of waiting... no... needing. This need has a name. Its name is Half-Life 2.