Some people say that there isn’t enough innovation in our games today, that all the games we play are the same, that all first person shooter’s are the same shooter, that all RPG’s are the same RPG. Well, I’ve got to say maybe having lots of innovation isn’t always such a good thing.

Games are criticized for not doing anything new, that there just clones of another game and they need to innovate. But is too much innovation a bad thing? Look at the Wii. Motion controlling hasn’t been done on a home console before and I think it’s a little too much. I don’t want to wave my arms to play a game. It just doesn’t work that well. We’ve been using normal controllers to play games for decades and maybe there is a reason for that. Most Wii games are minigame collections. Is that because motion controlling isn’t a good idea? And so far, none of the consoles FPS’s have been impressive which is surprising since motion controlling would sound great for them. Is innovation just a buzz-word? Is there such a thing as too much innovation?

With console games, innovation is a lot harder to find then with PC games. It’s easier for an indie developer to release a game on PC. Lots of games doing completely new things are released on PC all the time. Rag Doll Kung Fu was a fighting game released a couple of years ago where you controlled all your attacks by dragging you mouse. But, unfortunatly, it received mediocre reviews for getting boring quick and being a pain to control, a real pain. After playing for 30 minutes or so your hand felt like someone had smashed it with a bowling ball. A couple of months ago another game where you control attacking with mouse movement was Penumbra which was also given average reviews due to the fact that it was hard to control.

Is innovation something that actually works in games or just something we think we would like? Now I’m not saying there should be no variation in games, but maybe its only good in small doses like the Gears of Wars cover system. But I don’t think that its something we want to use all the time in games.

Many times in the gaming industry, you see games often pushed and sometimes even cancelled. The question I have is, why must they be the games I care about?

Yesterdays push of the next chapter of the ever popular Grand Theft Auto series left me a bit shaken, since this has been the first time in years that a GTA has been delayed for more than two weeks after original launch date.

As I look around at games, I wonder… what do I care about buying this holiday season, now that a few of my most anticipated have been pushed into the abyss. I know, I’ll probably get a lot of flak for saying that I’m really not excited about Halo 3, and it’s probably deserved. However, multiplayer is the only thing I care about with Halo 3. Let me make a psychotic Warthog Wars gametype that all players involved will love, and you’ve got me hooked… but the slayer and team slayer matches have just been overplayed.

Along with my Grand Theft Auto fix being Car-Jacked, I’ve recently read that The Wheelman has been pushed to 2008 also. Now I guess I can’t really complain much in this situation, because we’ve never even seen gameplay for this title. Maybe something critical is being tweaked, so the core gameplay mechanics will be fixed. Speaking of Midway games, Blacksite: Area 51 also was pushed to November 5th. That isn’t as bad, as it is still this year, but the constant delays have me going loopy.

Don’t get me wrong, there are things I am looking forward to, for example: Guitar Hero 3, Mass Effect, Half Life 2 Orange Box, Stranglehold, and Bioshock. I just wish a couple of my most anticipated would be available, but I suppose I have others to tide me over until then.

Speaking of Most Anticipated, What is your ‘Top 5′ for this holiday season?

Yes, you read it correctly. Today, Take Two Interactive announced that Grand Theft Auto IV will be delayed until the second quarter of 2008 for both the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3. Such a highly anticipated title for this year and the cornerstone of Microsoft’s “perfect storm” has now been pushed back several months due to “additional development time required to complete the title.” However, this announcement should not be viewed as unfortunate; but we now know that Rockstar Games cares enough to launch a quality AAA title. It is also understandable that Grand Theft Auto in particular would take a long time to develop due to high expectations and a likely hood of a plethora of tech issues. Being able to manage so much AI and physics at one time on a console must be difficult and it would require a long time. At least this is the first big title that is known to release for sure in 2008.

I know that I am not supposed to really bring anything out again until Monday, but I couldn’t pass this story up. This comes from an article I found on both filefront.com, and also on myfoxdc.com today. What this article gives is five after-school alternative activities for gamers, other than playing video games.

Here are the five suggested alternatives, and my interpretation of them:

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All the big sites, such as Major Nelson and Kotaku, didn’t post anything about it. But for the 6 of you that care, Xbox Live casted a long awaited (and much needed) update that mightily improves the online essence of Shadowrun. What did take 4-8 minutes to find a game, now calls for less than one, with a 99% success rate, and here is proof (video).

As the video above illustrates, the update introduces a new information pane at the top right corner of the screen that gives you up-to-the-second status. Way cool! But for every tree you chop down, you must also plant one.

While the lag has not changed (there was never much to begin with) the dissconnects seem to have increased. With the 10 hours of gameplay that I have with the new patch, I experienced half of my total disconnections in Shadowrun. And I’ve amassed almost 48 hours under my belt. So while I enjoy this game very much, I can’t say the patch is perfect. But it is admirable that the developers have not given up on Shadowrun, while so many gamers and even gaming websites have.

And to add to my shameless plug for the game, here’s a cool trailer you might have missed…

Catch you L8ER, -Rust.

Yes, believe me, this was some big news for me as well as any other halo fan out there, the campaign in halo 3 is finally going to have some replay value other than just beating the same game on three difficulty levels. And they better, because gamers need designers to be more creative than “You beat the game on easy, well try it out on hard mode now”.

According to an article released by the Canadian press on Friday, Bungie announced that there were two all-new single player missions that were not shown at any of the major gaming events this year, but yet shown behind closed doors to members of the Canadian press.

One of the missions, called “The Storm”, has a part in it known as “The scarab conflict”, which is set in a factory complex. And according to the article, this level has more enemies than bad guys and allies in the first mission of the original Halo:Combat Evolved combined.

The other mission, called “Tsavo Highway”, is set to be the first vehicle mission in the game, and takes place in a dark tunnel cave, and mountain landscape. No more details were released on this level, but let’s hope it has just as much excitement as the other mission mentioned, or gamers are going to be bored. The lead sandbox designer from Bungie, Jaime Griesmer stated that “This just gives you an idea of the scale that we are going for”, he also said,”and these are not even the largest encounters in the game, the size really ramps up as you got through”.

Now where does the replay value come in you ask? Well, there was also talk about halo 3 having a point system to help increase replay value. Things like headshots, boarding vehicles, and assassinations will all be figured into this system, and then posted on leaderboards on Bungie’s website.

If somehow this was all configured to gaining achievements for each type of kill you get in online multiplayer and the campaign, then this could give the game more replay value than it has ever had in the past, and that could be a very good thing, especially if you’re a halo junkie like myself. Sept. 25th isn’t too far away, and if the game is anything like the article stated, than we have a lot to look forward to. But I am out for today, see you next time gamers.

Take care,

Mr B4

Seems like GOW will still be the dominant go-to-game for Co-Op Fans of the FPS genra. In a recent quote from CVG; Bungie’s spokeperson stated:

“‘We’re not dumb,’ says Bungie’s Frank O’Conner. ‘We know that people want it and we’re trying to make it happen. I think the biggest problem for us for online co-op is that we have a situation where you can be in a Warthog with five troops, almost a mile away from the other player. That’s a significant challenge. And there’s lots of design things you could do to prevent that from happening, but they would make it not feel like Halo anymore. If we can make it happen in a way that works well, we will - and if it works badly, we won’t.’”

So perhaps all those months of beta-testing and feedback fell on hushed ears. Or did Bungie not realize that Co-Op on GOW (the one game we’ll be comparing Halo 3 to) was the highlight of the game?

To be fair though; Bungie has been under a deadline for the past 3 years to get this game out. And with not much feedback from the community, during the open-beta, it’s hard to feel the pulse of what gamers want!

*For die-hard Halo Fans: The last statement was known as sarcasm to most Gamers.

Welcome back to the 2nd part of the comparison. This time were looking at the multiplayer and the extra/other features so I hope you kept your seatbelt buckled. If you missed the first part you can read it here.

Multiplayer
This is where Forza simple destroys DiRT in every way. DiRT only has one mode online-play mode and it’s a dismal one. You and up to 99 other players race at the same time! But, each on your own track competing for lap times on a limited amount of tracks. Now I don’t understand why they couldn’t include real racing with multiple cars on the track in this game; but, according to Codemasters they were too busy making the single player portion of the game. I would have preferred the game to be delayed then ship with this horrible online play. And along with that comes horrible voice chat, think about private chat but set up by the game where you invite 1 other person to talk to them. Now I understand 100 people talking would not only be laggy but extremely loud. But why limit it to only one? A better option would be to choose a channel system (like in PDZ or Solider of Fortune 2). I’m disappointed to see the online play so limited in this game as I think that often gives the bulk of the replay value. But hopefully DLC will be released containing full multiplayer or DiRT 2 will have it.
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With the recent release of two big racing games, here is an in depth look on which game is a green light to buy. In this two part article, we’ll examine these racers in three categories: single player, multiplayer and extra features. So strap on your seatbelt and let’s take a ride through the 360’s latest top racers.

Forza Motorsport 2 is a simulation racing game offering extremely accurate physics with extensive upgrading and tuning. In this simulation racing game, you are allowed to visually upgrade your car with body kits, an extensive unique vinyl system and performance upgrades. In FM2, developed by Turn 10 Studios, performance upgrades are stepped up from the first game allowing you to change surpassing details of the ride, including the drive train. You can modify your car by changing every little detail, like down force, camber angle, tire pressure and of course fine tuning the engine like a real street mechanic.

Since Forza is a sim racer its damage modeling is extensive, but more in the performance area then visual. Most people, including myself, are disappointed in the visual damage which has set levels of damage offering much less then advertised. On the other hand you can completely ruin your car, performance wise, breaking or damaging each part. The Physics seem to be worse than the original over-stressing the effect of driving off road and sometimes seeming to extreme or almost random. The lack of a cockpit cam is rather disappointing but perhaps understandable considering the 200 or so cars in the game.

DiRT is more of a arcade racer and has some of the best graphics I’ve ever seen on the 360 and more forgiving performance damage but better visual damage where every crack and bump affects you. This game is a much different than the previous Colin McRae game that is much more arcade like and lacks some of the things most rally games have including weather effects which is surprising, and while it has hill climbs there are no descents which would easily have been added in by reversing the climbs. DiRT offers more camera angles giving you two cockpit cameras with one allowing you to looks all around the inside which sadly is the only cam you can do that with. I had though a completely controllable camera where you can rotate 360 degrees around the car was a standard feature but apparently Codemasters doesn’t think so. I don’t know the exact number of cars in the game but its around 50 with various types of cars. There are normal rally cars, CORR Buggies, Rally raid T1 and T4 cars which are huge trucks and SUV’s. (more…)

Check this out, new levels, new enemies, and probably several other new things too. Now this is for the Games for Windows platform but who knows, maybe they will release some kickass expansion pack for the Xbox 360. I’m sure more news will follow next week during E3.