Springing Gaming Forward

By Tiberius Jonez

It's April. The birds are chirping, warm breezes are blowing and here in Minnesota, people are spending more time outdoors and less time on their couches playing video games. Of course I'm not most people. Sure, I'm enjoying the Spring weather with plenty of time on the basketball court or playing softball, but I'm still getting my daily recommended allowance of gaming. With its predictable lack of new releases, Spring is a good time to catch up on games you've missed previously, and like a good multivitamin, your daily gaming diet should include a variety of nourishing ingredients.

I've been playing a smorgasbord of different games lately. I recently started playing Call of Duty 4 again after my best buddy recently bought an Xbox 360. He is addicted, and I am happy to feed his addiction with a steady diet of Headquarters and Hardcore Search and Destroy matches via Xbox Live. After a six month hiatus from the game, the truth that there is no better first person shooter on the market has been reaffirmed in my mind.

The Last Remnant has seen considerable time in my PC-DVD Rom drive and I am thoroughly enjoying it's beautiful scenery and lively combat. TLR's story is quite enjoyable too, but I really keep playing just so I can see the beauty of the next unexplored area. Honestly, this is the most fun I've ever had with a Japanese style RPG.


Fable II rounds out my big three of the Spring so far. I know the game's been out for a while, but when you play as many games as I do, you don't always get to try EVERY new release right away. In truth, I'm glad I had to wait this long to play Fable II. While I've been looking forward to playing it for a while, I did have some reservations about it. I have a long and star-crossed relationship with Peter Molyneux games, beginning with the original Black and White and continuing with Black and White 2 and the first Fable. Prior to their respective releases, I had huge expectations for these games, partly due to Molyneux's own marketing promises, and partly due to the hype propogated by my fellow game journalists. While I enjoyed all of them to differing degrees, I was also disappointed by each of them in different ways. So, while I was sure I would enjoy Fable II, I expected to be disappointed by it
on some level.

After five days of playing it, I can honestly say I've thoroughly enjoyed Fable II with very few downer moments. My only real complaint with the game is the menu system. Some actions require too many repeat trips into the menus, which tend to open a bit slowly. Other than that, the action, story, graphics and music of Fable II are all top notch.

The graphics deserve an extra mention. Walking through the world of Albion is a treat for the eyes at every moment. Aside from the occasional drab cave, the environment is stunning. I love that the game features day/night cycles, I only wish they were longer. An Albion day passes in five real world minutes, which is too short when you are enjoying a particularly beautiful sunset over Bower Lake.

The combat is greatly improved over Fable I, as is the overall story. If you haven't checked out Fable II, you owe to it yourself to play it.

I have other games on the back burner biding their time to get some time in my 360 or PC and I recently got Metal Gear Solid mobile which I've only played long enough to get through the VR training. I will have an update, and full review posted in the next couple weeks for MGS mobile.

Enjoy the warm weather and keep on gaming!

Call of Duty 4 passes 10 million units sold

By Tiberius Jonez

Infinity Ward’s smash hit and multiple Game of the Year award winner, Call of Duty 4 has surpassed 10 million units sold. According to studio head Vince Zampella, COD4 is one of less than ten titles to reach that milestone since 2000. While he didn’t list the other titles to reach the 10 mil mark, Halo 3 by comparison had sold 8.1 million copies as of January ’08 – an equally impressive feat considering it is only available on the Xbox 360.

In an interview with CNET yesterday, Zampella didn’t offer a platform by platform breakdown of sales, but he did say the game has been the most successful on the Xbox 360.

It’s impossible to say how many more copies COD4 would have sold had it been available on the Wii. But it’s a moot point as Zampella said that Infinity Ward decided not to make the game for that console because "it just doesn't fit on the Wii. We thought it would be compromised to be on (that) platform."

COD4 is the only game this writer has ever owned for three different platforms. Yes, it’s sad but true, I own the 360, PS3 and PC versions of COD4. It gets the most play on the 360 – by a wide margin, but if I am relegated to other rooms of the house for whatever reason, I can still play what I consider to be the greatest shooter of all time.

Sadly, Call of Duty 5 is being developed by Treyarch, the studio responsible for the underwhelming Call of Duty 3. Activision has decided to maintain an every-other-game development cycle between Treyarch and Infinity Ward to facilitate shorter gaps between releases. Unfortunately, Treyarch has yet to prove themselves in the same class as Infinity Ward, so I have less than high expectations for COD5. Hopefully Treyarch will prove me wrong this time around and take some lessons from their uber-talented brethren from IW. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it fellas.

PS3 firmware update 2.01 (causes) fixes problems with 2.0

PS3 owners are starting to feel like the proverbial unwanted red-headed stepchild. Last night's new firmware update for the PS3, version 2.01, seems to be the latest slap in the face. If you haven't already downloaded it, don't be in a big hurry. The ".01" just denotes a few bug fixes for those who said they've been experiencing game freezing errors with 2.00. However, it turns out there is a trojan horse in them there updates.

Unfortunately, it appears as if the patch may have created problems for Call of Duty 4 players, who took to the official forums (registration required) in force to complain of critical errors while trying to play the game online following the update. Many also report getting the same error: "DW update file error 102 - 'BD_EXCEPTION_IN_DB' " when trying to start a new character. Neither Sony nor Activision have responded to the issue. We also don't know if this extends to any other games. Are any of you having similar problems with the update?

Iranian President reviews Call of Duty 4 - Video

Sorry, this video has since been removed. Gee, I wonder why?!

Iranian President Ahmadinejad (don't look at me, I don't know how to pronounce it) has taken some time out of his busy day building a nuclear weapons program to thoughtfully grace us with his opinion on Infinity Ward's latest blockbuster, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. His video review follows after the break.

This is one hilarious video, and it's short. I wouldn't call it SFW, so you may want to wait 'til you get home to watch it, or at least shut your office door. Thanks Gametrailers!

Enjoy.

Are the AI enemies in Call of Duty 4 cheap?

Call of Duty 4 is a blast to play, there is no doubt about that, but it's not perfect. Chewing Pixels has posted a nice piece about the enemy AI and coding techniques used in Modern Warfare. Is it cheap to have enemies seemingly spawn endlessly just to increase difficulty? Does it really make a difference?

From Chewing Pixels: "In CoD4 there are sections where enemies just keep re-spawning until you pass an invisible trigger point. In one night-time escape mission from a crashed helicopter I took out the gunner in an enemy gunship stalking my team - at great risk - only for a new one to appear ten seconds later. I did this six or seven times to see if there actually were a bunch of spare gunners waiting in the back of the helicopter or if they were just spawning there to artificially keep the difficulty up. It is, regrettably, the latter."

I am also playing COD4 at a higher difficulty level (hardened) and find some parts of it do seem to be unfairly difficult, not due to any fantastically advanced AI, but due to an endlessly spawning stream of enemies. I have also found myself wondering, like the writer, whether it wouldn't just be smarter to run forward a bit to trigger the next script.

Like I said earlier, Call of Duty 4 is a blast to play for the most part, but things like this do tend to break your suspension of disbelief and hurt the immersive quality of the game. With the power of these new consoles, there has to be a better way...right?

Call of Duty 4 Review - Best Shooter to Date!

I've been playing Call of Duty 4 for the better part of the past two days, and I can tell you, it is one amazing game. Infinity Ward has returned the series to it's rightful position of genre defining leader.

Taking the risk to move the series' setting out of WWII and into modern day has proven to be a brilliant decision. The modern weapons and settings combined with the modern graphics and hard-hitting story telling make this a showcase for what shooters can be when they are designed by the most talented game makers in the world. Multiplayer is just as good as, if not better than, the campaign. Tons of game play variants and the excellent "perks" system give the online play a depth and exhilaration factor of the highest order.

For a full review of the game, check out this full length write-up from IGN. In the meantime, take my word for it...if you own a PS3, Xbox 360 or decent gaming PC, go buy Call of Duty 4 right now! I promise you won't be disappointed.

3-D Screenshot of Call of Duty 4

Now that Infinity Ward has moved the Call of Duty franchise away from the stale WWII setting, apparently two dimensional screenshots are like, soo 2K6. So, they have released this admittedly pretty cool 3D screenshot of the game. It rotates and stuff, very high tech. Enjoy. I need to get outside more.