Quest to Nowhere

Playing Red Dead Redemption I found myself thinking a lot about the story, specifically within the context of the objective vs. subjective storytelling (which I discussed in a previous post.) The one thing that I kept coming back to was that within the game it seemed that there were two John Marstons, the one that Rockstar created for the game, and the one that the players create for themselves as they play the game. The players’ John Marston exists between the cut-scenes and in-game dialogues between characters, while the Rockstar John Marston exists in those scripted moments.

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I have spent more time then I care to imagine playing videogames, a lot of that has been playing multiplayer shooter games like Counter-Strike, Unreal Tournament, Perfect Dark, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, and the like. As such, over that time I’ve come to some derive some theories on how multiplayer levels should be designed, based on my experiences.

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I finished Bayonetta a few nights back, but I couldn’t really rationalize it until the day after I finished it. See I completely enjoyed the game while I was playing it, not just the fighting but every part of it, but I couldn’t figure out why.

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Well its that time of year again, when everyone is putting out their lists of the best videogames of the year. I contemplated putting out just a list of my favorite games from the past year, in no particular order, but even so there was still one game for me that was just seemed to be better then all the others, in my mind. So I’m going to do both, honor my favorite game of the year as well as give a list of my best games of the year.

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I’ve been having trouble getting into Brutal Legend, not that I’m having trouble in the difficulty level of the game, but rather that I’m not really wanting to play it. I haven’t been able to figure out why, I figured that perhaps playing it after Uncharted 2 was clouding my judgement of games. I mean everyone I know has been raving on it, and I feel like I should really like it, but for whatever reason I couldn’t figure out my problem with it. Then I watched Yahtzee’s review of the game, and it all sort of gelled together … Continue Reading

With E3 just wrapping up its hard to not be excited for all the games set to come out this year, especially in the fall. When you actually look at them all though you’ll likely begin to realize that this fall may in fact be the best one for videogames ever. In terms of quality games that is. Here is just a partial list of what is going to be released this fall, between the end of August and the start of 2010:
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With Amazon and Toys R Us muscling in on GameStop’s almost monopoly of buying back videogames, and selling used copies, the discussion of used games has popped up in a lot of the podcasts I listen to again. Now I’m not going to say that it’s not fair that video game developers/publishers don’t get a cut from these sales, because it is fair. Which is to say this is not a industry vs. retailer issue, but rather a secondary market/right of first sale issue for consumers.

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I was listening to one of my normal podcasts recently, called In-Game Chat, the show’s hosts ended up talking about the differences between console multiplayer and PC multiplayer in games. Specifically talking about their problems with matchmaking systems in console multiplayer games where the game tries to find people of similar skill for you to play against. As compared to what you find in PC multiplayer, which are dedicated servers run by players that act as sort of hubs or places for people to gather.

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Figured since I did these last year I should do them again this year, although this year I’ve decided to not make it completely about videogames since the site isn’t completely about videogames anymore. Also I had a hard time coming up with nominees for all the categories I came up with last year. Also I decided to be lazy and not do any write ups for the awards like I did last year, so anyway on with the awards.

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A Critical look at Team Fortress 2 and the Badwater Basin map.

Introduction:

Team Fortress 2 is an online team based first person shooter, (FPS,) where players battle each other as either members of the RED team or the BLU team, in order to achieve an objective that allows them to win the match. The objective is dependent upon the game mode in which the players are playing in, and what game mode is being played is dependent upon which map, or level, the match is taking place on. Possible game modes include capture the flag (CTF,) control point (CP,) payload (PL,) and arena.

Aside from choosing which mode, map, and team the player wishes to play, the player also has the choice of nine different combat classes to play as. Each class has its own unique abilities, weapons load out, and attributes. Thus no two classes play the same, and in fact each class fills a specific role within the team. Finding the right combination of classes for a given map, at a given moment, is one of the key strategic problems each team has to deal with while playing.

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