WTF, TPS? Third-Person Shooters Taking Over

A small few of us remember the epic, mindblowing, constant explosion that was Red Faction II. If you’re like me, the first “Nano” was not an MP3 player, but a bright orange, semi-automatic death launcher (that screenshot makes my heart swell with joy). The first two installments of the Red Faction series were classic, story-based, first-person shooters which could very well have provided some idea-fuel for the booming Killzone franchise (Red Faction II was released two years before Killzone) with their propaganda-dishing totalitarian enemies and sci-fi-bordering-on-realistic weapon sets. When trying to convince friends to pick it up, I often used the comparison “It’s like halo for the PS2, except you can explode walls.”

Killzone 2: Coming Soon to My Collection

So as a huge fan of FPS (First-Person Shooters), I naturally felt like a kid in a candy shop when Killzone 2 was announced. The game came out on February 27, so as I post this in late March, you may wonder why I haven’t been raving about the game daily for the past month. Well one sign of addiction is when you allow the vice (in this case: games) to effect your relationships (negatively). It just so happened that I also had an important anniversary with my girlfriend in that time period. In my ever-lasting quest to avoid all-out addiction while constantly bordering it, I decided to leave my reserved copy of Killzone on the shelves to gather dust long after everyone had come and bought theirs in the Killing frenzy that was Killzone 2’s opening weekend. I won’t share what I spend the money on instead, as most loyal gamers would never forgive me. Sorry, loyal gamers, but the lovely lady in my life takes priority.

Anyways, knowing that I had set aside the purchase of Killzone to buy her a gift, my girlfriend graciously picked it up for me for the same occasion. A super-win! She’s happy, I’m killing, everything’s okay. So now, as I return to school with this new FPS (and two mid-terms this week), the true test begins. Can any game beat Call of Duty 4? I’m open to the idea. More to come…

Modern Warfare 2

Amidst the crazy reports of Game Developers Conference 2009 on my twitter feed, wired news, and elsewhere on the internet, one report caught my attention more than others. Infinity Ward announced and premiered a teaser for the game today. Modern Warfare 2, unlike its predecessor, will not come under the Call of Duty brand. This could open the door for a long and hassle-free line of very cool games. (Having to co-create with Call of Duty producer Activision after a beef between the two producers regarding the World at War vs. Modern Warfare rivalry would just be awkward.)

The only thing you could add to Modern Warfare to make those two words better is that single number: 2. Release date is announced as November 10, 2009. I think it’s safe to say I won’t be posting that day.

Twitter vs. Texting: Upping the Ante

As my previous posts may suggest, I’m a twitter user (tweeter?). The other day, as I eagerly hit “refresh” on my twitter homepage hoping for some new material, a new post came up from (awesome) journalist Clive Thompson and made me think. For those of you who didn’t click, the post said that twitter is teaching millions of people to become very good at “print-headline-writing” skills. This is true. America and the world is becoming ridiculously good at cramming information into small blocks of text.

Random Acts of Kindness

You may notice along the right-hand side of my page the feed I have running: #randomkindness. This is cool on two levels…

Social Gaming

CoD 4 Split Screen

So – believe it or not, I’m not a complete shut-in. I do have friends (and even a girlfriend!) and videogames is not all I do every day. However, recently I’ve been mixing the two, and with great success. Once the Playstation 3 was discovered by my friends in the residence hall here, there’s a steady flow of people coming in for “one round [of Call of Duty] before class” or a lazy night of gaming after homework. With this addition to the daily jumble that is college, I have been reminded of the fun of split-screen gaming. Sure, my 24″ monitor has been reduced to the puny 12″ section in the top left (Yes, I do demand to be player 1. What o f it?) but it’s a blast! As usual, Call of Duty 4 floats my boat just fine, but I’ve also had quite a blast with Gears of War 2 (Horde, anyone?), Guitar Hero 3, and Little Big Planet.

Textbook Fun!

As a college student in these economic times, the burden of textbook costs is a big one. Aside from my ridiculous electronics budget, textbooks are the biggest wallet-drainer I’ve got right now. Naturally, every time I go online to check what I’ll need for my classes, the word Required next to a title always makes me cringe. The worst part is: I rarely need my textbooks.

One of my professors runs great lectures, and due to his extensive knowledge of the content, he doesn’t use a textbook. On the first exam, there were only two (of fifty) questions that came from the textbook. This was obviously slightly annoying, as I had spent quite a bit of time outside of class reading the book and it yielded very few results. When I approached the professor about this, he openly admitted not using the textbook much, saying “I don’t really use the books, I just require books that were written by friends.”

…and we’re back

The dorm room setup.

After a good week-long break from the ongoing assault on mental and physical health that is university life, I’m headed back tonight. What will I miss most?

Wanted: Weapons of Fate Demo

At least the cover is cool...

Everyone has their vices. For me: lame action movies and good video games. So when Wanted: Weapons of Fate was announced, it struck me as the single most epic win since Counterstrike: Source (the combination of FPS greatness and post-90s graphics). I’m yet to play Weapons of Fate as it hasn’t come out yet, but I checked out the demo yesterday and was very unimpressed.

Little Big Planet: Intuitive, much?

Among my stack of borrowed games lies what some would call PS3’s flagship game (my vote would be towards Killzone 2 or Metal Gear Solid 4, though): LittleBigPlanet. While I’ve been waiting to explore the game more until I write a full-on review here, I feel compelled as I sit here exiled from my own PS3, to comment on the amazing intuitive quality of the game.

Being home on spring break, I’m no longer living alone in my college single. I have my 8-year-old brother in the same house, and big brother + impressive (superior) technology = must have. I do what I can to shield him from the violence that I so adore, so his options are limited. The other day, though, he found LittleBigPlanet. I haven’t seen him do anything else since. The only thing is: he doesn’t play the levels, he makes them. Before you get too impressed, I haven’t yet seen anything that I couldn’t beat it a minute or less, but still. Any level creator I have toyed around with has seemed too complicated for most computer programmers to figure out, and here is one that my eight-year-old brother can use (for days). Wow.

So, besides wishing I had my console back, I give a nice blogospere pat on the back to the creators of LBP and their awesomely intuitive level designer. Props.