Company of the day: Valve

There are hundreds of developers in this world that have contributed to the gaming medium and community. id Software created essentially the backbone of the modern Fps and multiplayer spectrum. Rockstar games have created and refined the sandbox genre. And then there's Valve software, which has not really invented as it did innovated the fps as we know it. Valve has done a good amount for modern games, they showed that a protagonists voice does not even have to be heard to move the plot in a story along(more notably HL2 than the original),that thinking whilst acting is crucial for survival, and a gun is just a gun...that is until you know how to use it to your own advantage.

                                          

Two men who had dreams of owning there own Video game company was fulfilled in the mid nineties. That dream was also helped by the fact that these two men were quite wealthy, discarding there jobs at  Microsoft

to make games would not have been possible without there financial backing. Ensuring a game was overall "fun" and "polished" were the new companies' main concern, rather than finishing it early and releasing it to make an easier dollar.

There the company also were quite content with allowing for modding of the game engines of which they created off a heavily modified Quake engine named GoldSrc and the companies main engine soon was replaced or modified and renamed Source. This engine would help create some of the most advanced physics and facial expressions of its time. But during the days of GoldSrc three of Valves biggest games would soon be realized. After Half life released modders from all over started using the code to create there own games.

 Counter Strike(a realistic counter terrorism shooter) Team Fortress( class based shooter)Day of Defeat(WWII shooter) all three were multiplayer only respectively although when Valve bought the rights to Counter Strike they added singleplayer missions as well.

Even to this day Valve strides itself on making highly polished and well crafted games while using an advanced game engine which can create large amounts of particle effects and textures at once and still run fine on a minimum rig. They are a company founded to make great games while maintaining a good amount of humor in themselves and are very good at using recurring jokes about their games and company as a whole. They listen to there community and know where they are going to take their next game in the series whilst still focusing on previous games(ie TF2 is still getting updates and its over 3 years old) There commitment to the enjoyment of the player is welcome to all and paying back their loyal fans with enough free updates to keep there games going for a very very long time.

First impressions: Aliens vs Predator(demo)

The new sci-fi horror shooter Aliens vs Predator is coming out within the month (feb 16 to be exact) but although the game demo that was released yesterday was in its own right fun. There were some problems that need fixing. For instance the executions are awesome, at least when you're the one doing them. Its not that its not fun dying like this, its the fact that your guy will not bleed when a giant tail goes through your stomach or when your face gets bitten off, what would have been smarter is if when that happens(ie. face bitten off)your screen should go black as the mouth lunges. In any case the game is very good, a lot of good controls, 3 playable characters(my favorite is the alien) all with their own abilities and weakness's. The Alien is good at getting the drop on players from above, the Pred is good at stealth and stalking, and the marine is kinda in the middle of the other two hence Aliens vs Predator and not Aliens vs Human vs Predator. Can't wait for the game to release so I can play the singleplayer which looks just as promising as the multiplayer.

The problem with Multiplayer. (rant)

10 years ago gaming was at a turning point. consoles had been successful for some time, and Doom had just been released, creating the first popular first person shooter, and in turn created a new craze.....Multiplayer. and even after this new system, many developers would not include multiplayer for the fact they did not see it necessary. But when it would included it would be well crafted or just a reskin of singleplayer levels that have been closed off as an arena type area.

Today multiplayer is almost always in every game, due to the assumption by developers that their game would not be bought or even played by anyone without the added replay value to it. Most developers spend most of their time working the multiplayer portion of the game they don't focus on the singleplayer, thus creating a low level multiplayer experience with a poor singleplayer one. 10 years ago id software did not focus on the multiplayer, they worked on the rest of the game and got an idea to put the multiplayer part in. 10 years ago most developers worked on a game to make it fun not to put money in their pockets.

Games like Halo or Call Of Duty are seen as the best multiplayer games among others such as Quake, Counter Strike, Etc. But there are other games that have a fun multiplayer that no one plays after the first month of release(Ex. GTA lV, Far Cry 2 etc.). People need to put down the overplayed games and try something new trust me CoD isn't going anywhere but these gems give a great experience that CoD and Halo will never satisfy. 

Battlefield Pc beta details

the pc beta for Battlefield Bad company 2 has new details!! go to www.blogs.battlefield.ea.com for more details

here's a comic to celebrate!!

Sad News...

That momentum system that was supposed to be in an update for Modern Warfare 2 is in fact, a hoax.
O well we cant always get what we want now can we.

Modern Warfare 2 News

I have yet to learn if this is true or if it is just a speculation but Infinity Ward have Announced a New "Momentum System" For Modern Warfare 2

This morning, Robert Bowling (@fourzerotwo) tweeted that a new "Momentum System" would replace the killstreak system in Modern Warfare 2, setting the internet abuzz. To the best of this GGM editor's knowledge, no modern video game has ever made such drastic changes to its core multiplayer structure in this manner, and you, dear reader, are in luck. Only GGM has the exclusive details about what you will see when the next title update hits on January 20th for both Xbox Live and Playstation Network.

No More Killstreaks

Yes, you read that right. Those precious killstreaks that you spend hours camping in the corner to earn are all going bye-bye. In their place is a brand new "Momentum System," which rewards you for actively, yet smartly, pushing on objectives and playing as a team. In practice, it's very simple: every time you earn a kill, capture an objective, plant a bomb, or do anything to help your team's cause, you gain points to fill your momentum meter. When your meter reaches key points, you can choose to "cash in" your meter for one of those precious bonuses, like a UAV, Sentry Gun, or the dreaded Chopper Gunner. But be careful: cashing in your meter will cause you to "spend" all of the points you've currently accumulated, bringing you back down to zero. So you'll have to decide if you think that a UAV now is better than a possible Predator Missile later.

Lest you think this isn't fair when compared to the old system, wait until you hear this: getting killed will no longer reset your streak. That's right. If you die, your momentum will not be reset to zero under most circumstances (Bowling tells us that suicides or teamkills in Hardcore modes will reset the meter to zero). Rather, you'll incur a penalty to your meter. We pressing Bowling to tell us exactly how much you would lose, but all he would say was "it depends." Apparently they have some super-secret formula which takes into account what exactly you were doing when you died. For example, getting killed while running around in the open would cause a greater loss than getting killed while pressing on an objective.

Speaking of deaths, we were also very excited to learn about the new "Noble Sacrifice" accolade, which rewards players who risk their lives to complete objectives. Said Bowling: "We noticed that many players wouldn't play aggressively because death is such a huge punishment in this game; the new 'Noble Sacrifice' award takes this away." Simply put, if you and two teammates work on capturing a flag in Domination, but you get killed while trying to grab it, as long as that flag is captured for your team, you will get a "Noble Sacrifice" message and won't incur a loss of momentum. This works in all objective based modes, and will hopefully encourage the more cowardly of you to actually put yourselves on the line for your team.

But this brings us to the biggest change in the new system: Team Momentum. Not only will each player have an individual momentum, but so will each team. This momentum will swing back and forth as the match progresses based on how well each team is doing relative to the other. If the bar swings too far in one direction, one of the more devastating momentum bonuses will be automatically released. Yes, you guessed it: the dreaded "Tactical Nuke." In fact, the nuke is no longer an individual reward. It can only be earned by the team as a whole and serves as a sort of "Mercy Rule" for those highly lopsided matches. "We always viewed the nuke as a sort of mercy rule anyway," Bowling told us, "and we were very disappointed to see the way that the community reacted to its inclusion. With this new system, we feel that the tactical nuke will fit more naturally into the flow of the game."

News

I might be doing game news every now and again, so yeah lets go over some.

The recently presented game Spec Ops the line has released some footage over at www.ign.com and the game is shaping up to be pretty darn interesting, check it out.

The iPhone and Ipod touch game Backbreaker got a new trailer over at www.Gametrailers.com and its thankfully coming to Xbox 360 PS3 and PC in the near future.(in case you don't know its a American Football game with the help of the Euphoria engine from GTA4 which doesn't sound too bad does it?).

and the new Zelda game has been confirmed for 2010.
(info gotten off of IGN.com)

And finally the Dark Void demo hit Xbox Live marketplace today and the PS3 people will have it tommorow.

Far Cry 2 Review

This will be my first review on a game that i find very enjoyable even to this very day. In this day of constant shooters and almost exactly identical games, developers must find a ploy in order to break away from the average slew of Call of duty and Halo lookalikes. Ubisoft Montreal did in Far Cry 2 with a very well done tactics ploy.


STORY:Far Cry 2 takes place in a small country within Africa(the developers stated that it got its bearing from their trip to Kenya)in which a civil war has erupted. The main cause, The Jackal, an arms dealer selling guns on the cheap after the collapse of the Communist bloc in Russia. Unfortunately though your player catches malaria on his drive into the town where your hotel is.you pass out and awaken to a little surprise. Afterward a huge firefight breaks out between the two main employers/enemies in the game. The UFLL or the APR, Both look exactly the same and do not discriminate when it come down to who to kill. You try to either escape or get gunned down by the unending foes. Both ways you end up in a random HQ(when you escape the town you pass out) of either of the two opposing sides. When you awaken yet again you find an angry sounding man telling you your objective to fulfill in order to repay for the men he lost. Thus the story begins as you complete objectives for diamonds(paper money is worthless there) and gain buddies (or other mercenaries who you save from sticky situations).


GRAPHICS: What to say about the graphics, well they do look a bit dated(especially because the game came out in 2008) but overall they're very well done. A few pop-in textures notably trees and mountains at long distance's. the game overall looks very polished and get on a high hill or mountain and stand in awe at the vista's and every bit of which you can explore. the character models are fine at a range but the animations are a bit strange. For instance shoot a enemy dead and they'll do a small jig before dying, now there are good animations but for the most part there all a bit silly. There is a full day/night cycle in the game and the shadows never cease to amaze me. If you look up at the sun and your guns in the way the rays will bend around the gun blaring and obscuring your vision of the gun, its hard to understand but its small details like this that set it apart.


GAMEPLAY: This is where the game gets its edge over others. First off the game features a huge map of which you can explore and travel via car, boat, or glider. Also with a surprisingly fun multiplayer that features people made levels, o yes did i forget the easy to use level editor ,silly me. For the level editor think Halo 3 forge but you make the level from the ground up, you control terrain, water, tree placement, and buildings. And with the amount of creative minds out there people have made the Eiffel tower, Venice, and even giant Robots. Back to the gameplay, there is 1 rule in Far Cry 2 always think out your attack, now this may sound like a burden to some but it plays out fairly well. Like to attack head on? Explosions and big guns blazing, that's fine. Want to sneak around taking out guys silently? Also fine. Far Cry 2 is perfect for whatever kind of gamer you are. Now the only problems are far and few, but still problems none the less.
There is absolutely no way to drive all the way to an objective without being attacked. You see the game features guard-posts that enemies respawn in constantly, which means direct means of travel is dangerous. Off roading around posts isn't much better though mainly because these "off road vehicles" almost always get stuck on a rock or fall into a ditch, which is sad because the driving is fun and simple to master which confuses me why this game doesn't have a racing mission or anything of that matter. Dealing with buddies is a double edged sword because all though its an interesting concept of helping wounded friends by either shooting them or healing them via syringes that you use in order to heal yourself and are at a limited supply. The buddies get quite annoying, not because of their AI which is not really necessary to have because they barely ever fight. But the fact that they'll give you a completely different way of tackling a mission, usually more complicated though. And doing these missions give you no extra reward that I'm aware of. The shooting is simple but a little difficult to master if your not used to the game right away, and with a large sum of weapons all of which you can upgrade in areas such as ammo, accuracy and reliability. The reason for this is because the game features a gun deterioration system in which the guns dirty and eventually jam or break all together, and with no gun cleaning system, in which you have to buy a gun once and just grab a free new one off the wall, its not exactly logical but it works.


STORY:8.3


GRAPHICS:9.2


GAMPLAY:9.1

OVERALL:8.7

Welcome...

Welcome to the GameCritic gaming review blog!

every now and again i will be updating this blog with games i find worthy to talk about. Or anything that is on The Xbox 360 or PC. In any case i will be doing my best personal review on games past and present. So stick around for my first review on Far Cry 2 later on. Until then i hope you will enjoy this blog,

Also i might also do reviews in other mediums such as TV or movies when ever i get around to it.