Archive for January, 2008

After having finished the fight last September, rabid fans of the Halo franchise had to be content with sticking their friends with grenades online and waiting for the next game set in the Haloverse, the first RTS in the series - Halo Wars. Though the continuation of the story (or rather, the prequel) was expected long before Halo 3 wrapped up (or not) the Master Chief saga, few expected it to take the form of a real time strategy game that Bungie, in collaboration with Age of Empires legend Ensemble Studios are expected to spring on us later this year. RTS games on the Xbox 360, like Command & Conquer: Tiberium Wars before it, have always been iffy, what with the level of control and freedom that a conventional keyboard-mouse combination offers, but Ensemble Studios, like every other console RTS dev before them, have claimed to have worked out the nuances of controlling the game using a standard Xbox 360 controller without frustration levels peaking into the red-zone.

While we wait for the official demo of the game to check out the control scheme for ourselves and speculate on the possibility of wreaking havoc with the Covenant war machine, one of our friends over at Microsoft, like many of us from time to time, developed a case of verbal diarrhoea and slipped us some really interesting information. Now, while we are never in the habit of starting rumors, this one comes from someone on the inside who swears on its authenticity on pain of death, and we’ve been sitting on this one for almost a couple of weeks now, trying to verify it before we say anything about it.

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Back when Computer Gaming World (now collectively known as the official Games For Windows magazine) was still available in India, I remember coming across an article compiled by the staff on what type of games they’d like to see in the future. Most of them sounded like the stuff you’d expect in a B-Grade movie, but that’s never really stopped developers from implementing such “concepts” in today’s games, now has it? Which is why when I saw Italian-based Molleindustria and their recent religion-poking Flash game, Faith Fighter… well, take a look at the screenie above. Yes, that is supposed to be Muhammad.

Okay, so it’s not terribly deep. Nor does it even warrant any real replay value, save for wanting to see how much of a bar-brawler Jesus really was. Not to mention it is a Flash game. But look! It’s Ganesha! Attacking gigantic deities while riding on a mouse! That must hold a tad of potent value. Still, some people may just prefer Bible Fight when it comes to these sort of things. That Eve chick sure was feisty. Or so they say.

Back in 2007, Penny Arcade released their “We’re Right” Awards, stating the best writing, soundtrack and new game mechanic awards. Predictably, the winner for all of them was Portal – something that we and many other gamers agreed on back then.

However despite this, it is in my opinion that at the very least, I have made a grave error. Portal’s story, despite being an amazing adventure with a compelling story and some of the best characters around (not to mention being responsible for spawning quite a few internet memes) was NOT the best story of 2007. It was NOT the best writing of the year, surprisingly.

So you may ask, what pray tell was the best story of 2007? What game could be better than GLaDOS or those incredibly cute turrets that let out the innocent “Whyyyyy?” whenever you toppled them over? Was it Bioshock? Andrew Ryan and Rapture were awesome after all. Was it maybe C&C 3? If those were your guesses, then I’m afraid your dead wrong. Hit the jump to find out just which game managed to trump GLaDOS and was an even bigger lie than the cake.

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I’ve forgotten how painful Xbox LIVE can be when it completely refuses to behave - a memory that was more than brought to the front again the last couple of weeks, after my Halo 3 experience sank down the drain because LIVE thought it would be really hilarious to drop me from the match when I least expected it. But to make up for all those lost days on LIVE, and to coincide with the first Xbox LIVE Arcade community awards, Microsoft had announced a couple of days back that the award-winning Aquanox-meets-Unreal Tournament Domination underwater shooter Undertow would be made available to all Gold and Silver members from Wednesday through Sunday. As announced, the game, regularly priced at 800 MS Points, is now available for free download to everyone on Xbox LIVE until Monday, 28 January, 2008 1:30 PM IST.

Now, while I appreciate the gesture, I just can’t condone the fact that this game is taking the place of a regular Xbox LIVE Arcade release every Wednesday, not to mention that the LIVE service isn’t working right even now, after a whole damn month of problems. And what’s worse is that the game, apparently an appeasement for a service that wasn’t working the way it was supposed to (10 million new subscribers notwithstanding) has a small download window on it, after which it reverts to selling for its usual 800 points. Why not run the promotion for at least a week? Wouldn’t it have been better to have users register themselves at the Xbox.com page and get 800 Points instead of having a game thrust onto them that they may already have or not really want?

And what about the Indian Xbox LIVE users who might have already bought the game? We called up Xbox Support today morning and when we got through to a rep, we dropped the bomb and asked Microsoft about what happens to people who have already paid for Undertow. After acting completely clueless about the whole thing at first, and after reintroducing us to the annoying hold music for some time, they came back and said that they would indeed credit the 800 points into our account once they verified our Download History to make sure we had bought the game before yesterday. So, if you’ve already bought the arcade game, then all you have to do is call the Xbox support lines listed here, give them your gamertags and get your 800 points to spend as you please. You lucky dogs you!

I’ve always been a huge fan of quizzes, having been through hundreds of contests all through school, college and even the workplace. I’ve even spent a small fortune on Microsoft Encarta just so that my brain can be treated like a soft punching bag for hundreds of hours by the MindMaze’s dungeon dwellers. So when I first saw Buzz! almost two years back, it was head-over-heels love at first sight, with other games getting completely ignored until the disc gave up the ghost from overuse. But for all us Indian gamers that can’t wait until around March for the next-gen version of Buzz! Quiz TV for the PS3, SCEE, eager to duplicate the SingStar Bollywood experience, has launched an Indianized version of Buzz! The Mega Quiz, finally bringing the cheesier-than-cheesecake Buzz and his lovely redheaded assistant Rose (you know, the one with the exploding bustline in a Size 6 dress) officially to the country.

Working with the local quizzing legend Derek O’Brien and his talented team, Buzz! The Maha Quiz - now with 40% localized content (yum!) - looks like its set to complement the thousands of general knowledge questions already in the game with an assortment of questions that should be “more relevant to the Indian audience”. I guess that probably means that they’ve swapped out a lot of the Hollywood and Western music content for Bollywood films and songs (uh-oh!) and replaced a lot of the general knowledge trivia geared towards the Americas and Europe in favor of India - which is something that we’re really happy to see.

Launching the game at the swank Vie Lounge in Mumbai last Thursday, Sony Computer Entertainment India’s Country Manager, Atindriya Bose joined big-ticket personalities (what, no David Amor?) including cricketing firestorm Sreesanth, Radhakrishnan from NEO Sports, Rajeev Masand from CNN IBN and Bollywood celebs Neil Mukesh and Sonia Mehra in the first official Buzz! quiz in the country. We’re not really sure who won that round, but in an official press release sent our way, Atindriya Bose quipped:

Buzz enjoys a tremendous fan following across the globe because of three key elements - accessibility, character and sociability. It’s the live-in-your-living-room game show experience that everyone can enjoy, thanks to the Buzz! Buzzers. The cheeky personality of Buzz guides the tone of the game and related communications, setting it apart from bland competitors. Rose with her vixen-like appearance and appeal, also adds glamour to the game. After the success of Singstar Bollywood, it is only natural that we bring in Indian game contents in such a popular franchise as Buzz! ™: The Maha Quiz.

Amen, but wait… “bland competitors”? Was that a dig at the terrible voice acting and the annoying IR-based “Big Button Pad” controllers for Scene It? Lights, Camera, Action that turned out to be infuriating ripoffs of the Buzz! Buzzer? Oh well, we’re just happy that Sony India has released a great party game for the PS2 and has gone to enough trouble to show that they care about actually generating localized content for their games, instead of just importing the generic UK versions we are so used to getting. We’re still to get our most eager hands on the game, but this definitely looks like it could knock Guitar Hero off from its “Most Played Game at Parties” throne. Buzz! The Maha Quiz is priced at INR 1499 and is available now at all game outlets.

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Mix in the speedy loop-dee-loops of F-Zero, the block-matching of Tetris Attack, and the psychedelic funkorama that is Frequency. Do all that, and have it done on whichever song you’d like. Invisible Handlebar’s AudioSurf is like that (well, close enough) and more. In fact, I’ve already laid down the defenses on this one. It’s all I played yesterday from my day off work, and I’m stilling playing it now knowing I’ll have to get ready in a few hours. But no! Every second wasted is every second not being put into trying some other mega-repetitive J-Pop track with it, and seeing what happens. Which is why I’ll have to resort to a quick quote from the developer’s home page and condense enough effort for this blog post to go and play more AudioSurf. It’s all descriptive and shit, assuredly.

In Audiosurf, you race down a futuristic and colorful highway. The highway, the traffic patterns, and the scenery are all synchronized to the music you have chosen from your own collection. You earn points for clustering together cars of the same color on the highway, and can compete with others on the internet for the high score on your favorite songs. Audiosurf builds a highway for any music CD, MP3, iTunes M4A, WMA, or OGG song you choose, so the experience that you have is totally up to you.

Great. Mission accomplished. Now that you know what’s the whole deal, here comes the part where I hastily drop a download link and scamper off for another play session. Starting here.

Gah, me and my big fat motor. Oh well, February is just around the corner. I think I’ll be able to handle not having to murder any first-borns before then. I’ve been practicing!

Now that I have your attention…

I’d like to make it absolutely clear that I do not hate Guitar Hero 3. Nor GH1 or GH2. In fact, Guitar Hero is probably one of the best games out there that money can buy. Enjoy the game alone or get together with a bunch of friends. Drunk ones are better. But the game is quite literally for everyone - at any time, at any age.

But what’s got me pissed off, is that while Guitar Hero 3 for the PC is a good game you can invest your hard earned cash into, it’s also something that pretty much asks you to reinvent the wheel and buy a new guitar controller! Now while this may sound retarded (how are you supposed to play the game without a guitar!!? I hear ya), it’s just a tad insensitive towards the good folks who have Guitar Hero 1/2 and their controllers. Why on earth would I want to buy 2 guitar controllers for 2 different systems!? Sure, the 360 is a different story, but for the poor saps who want to enjoy the game on the PC - there is no hope. You MUST buy the controller.

Now here’s my problem - I’m not a cheap bastard. Well, OK, so I am. But the game ought to respect the fact that if I’m plugging in my PS2 GH controller via a USB connector, it better recognize it! But no! So if you can’t afford a second controller, you play with the effin’ keyboard!

The question really is - why couldn’t Neversoft or Aspyr build in support for a GH PS2 controller via USB? It’s no big deal - I mean Frets on Fire can do it, right? So the only other way you can get around this is by installing a program such as Pinnacle Game Profiler or something similar. Go through the pain of mapping each key to the buttons. Get humiliated because of the obvious lag for the game to pick up the controls and the ultimate realization that there is no whammy bar support! It sucks.

I wish game companies learnt a lesson or two from the Indie scene. Low budgets give us great games or at least a flawless gameplay experience. Sadly, with all it’s good looks, (crap songs), mega endorsements and hi-res models, Guitar Hero 3 for the PC has left me with a bitter aftertaste. I don’t want to buy it for a console because I have GH1 & GH2. I don’t want to buy a new controller because I have one. One that can work, if supported.

I want to uninstall the game and ask for a refund. Goddamn. Frets on Fire is better.