Gearheads of War

Yes, folks, we can now get precious experience points by playing Horde.  I guess my treasured "1" ranking next to my name will need to go buh-bye now.  

So I'll be signing on tomorrow night probably around 9 p.m. PST or so.  I'm going to a big fourth of July bash with some friends and they're getting a bounce house and all that jazz, so my daughter will be pretty wound up but exhausted by the time we arrive back at the house tomorrow evening.

In the meantime, you should check out this interview with Rod Fergusson that Blankman directed us to in the TU4 post.  It's some pretty fascinating stuff and something that I was discussing with Cliff recently about how people rarely, if ever, go in and change the settings from what the designers originally have it set as.  I was telling Cliff that Killzone 2 was epic fail for me because you couldn't change the controls enough for them to be manageable.  I mean it was probably the prettiest game I've ever played.  Just gorgeous, but I kept fighting the controls over and over to the point of feeling so frustrated that I wound up shutting off my PS3 and switching over to COD4.  And for all the frustrations that COD4 brings from the camping and the nade spam and the martyrdom, well, it pales in comparison.  

Any way, some good insight into the mindset of Epic in there.  And with that, I'll hopefully see most of you tomorrow night, maybe for some Horde.  Happy and safe 4th everyone!

As many of you may know, Rod gave a breakdown about what fixes & additions were included in the Title 4 Update that was submitted to MS for certification. Well, Rod Ferguson just posted this on the official Epic forum:

Hey all,

It's time to celebrate Independence Day! And we're going to do that with some extra experience and an onslaught of our version of fireworks, the beloved Ticker. Oh and it's looking like TU4 is going to drop just in time for this event!

Starting Friday morning you'll be receiving double XP as well as a 500 XP bonus awarded to the winning team. And to give a little extra bang to Horde we're bringing the Ticker squad (a group of Tickers that all spawn at the same time) into full effect. They'll be showing up a lot more throughout all the waves of Horde and they've completely infested every 10th wave with nothing but Tickers. So if you've been having trouble with Bloodmounts, this weekend is a good time to get your Horde on and get further than ever before. And don't forget that TU4 will give you experience for every wave you beat.

The event will end on Monday morning on July 6th.

So get out there and pop some Tickers for freedom!  

Rod.

In addition, IGN ran an in-depth interview with Rod about the TU4 & the Gears Japan Launch: IGN Interviews Rod Ferguson

In the spirit of adventure, I now begin in the words of Monty Python "Now, for Something completely different..."

This past weekend was one of those that I think every father dreams of whilst they are busy changing diapers and wiping noses.

But before I tell THAT story, I beg your indulgence as I set the table from the beginning.

My parents purchased ten acres in the thumb of Michigan (about an hour and a half drive from home) when my sister and I were little kids.   A family retreat in an unlikely place.  In the country, surrounded by farms, our place was half wooded and perfectly suited for camping.  It started with a little 15 foot black n white trailer and then a well we drove that was pumped by hand.  Friends and family began to come up with us on weekends for time to breathe, campfire and swim in nearby Lake Huron or our recently dug muddy little pond.   As the years went on, our place changed into something more established with the purchase of a mobile home, landscaping, strategically planted trees.  Some friends and family even parked their trailers / campers / even a renovated bus - for summers of fun.  Church youth groups would hold a retreat weekend with us as their host.   Tents everywhere....

The Wii has started something that I've kind of dreaded for a while.  Each and every console manufacturer is moving towards having their own version of jumping around in front of your television set.  I think the idea of Natal is cool.  The Sony motion controller looks like it's true one-to-one motion.

But here's the thing.  I don't really know if I want to play games where they take the immersion level up to nearly real-life.  I don't want to necessarily want to sneak around in front of the camera like Sam Fisher.  Or pretend like I'm driving around like Niko Bellic.  Or pretend like I'm bending it like Beckham in FIFA 10.  Maybe it's just because I'm an older gamer and perhaps a bit grumpy about them trying to change the way I've interacted with games since the Atari 2600.

But I get my exercise at the gym.  My game time is my relax and enjoy myself time.  It isn't about pretending I'm an elite supersoldier or a Spartan fighting the Covenant in my living room.  Wait, actually it is about pretending I'm those things, but by controlling them through a device I use while I relax and sit back in my chair.  I know that the controller has been a barrier to entry to a lot of people through the years.  My wife is one of those who often has complained that the controller has too many buttons and she doesn't get the whole dual-stick thing.  

At the same time, there will be good options for her with these new controllers.  Natal, Sony and the Wii are working to meet that market and exceed their expectations for ease of use.  I have no problem with it, but I just hope that all games don't go that direction or they might just lose some of the old school gamers like myself.  I don't think that they'll stop with the controller interaction at all.  I just hope that they don't go totally crazy with the application of things.  Because sometimes, pushing a button is the only thing that will do.

Where do you stand on the whole motion controlled future we seem headed for?

Gearheads, my apologies for not making it last night.  Yesterday was a pretty long day for me.  It started with me getting my first ever performance review for the company I founded.  That was kind of surreal, but good.  

But later I went on a 10-mile bike ride with my new bike.  I towed my 50-pound daughter behind me in a trailer, so that was kind of tiring.  But then we went to Disneyland so my daughter could see the fireworks for the first time in her life.  She loved them, but it was crazy busy as most of the other So Cal residents were there.  It took us forever just to leave the park once the fireworks were over.  Now my daughter can't stop talking about the fireworks, so it was worth it, but I'm kind of glad I'm blacked out from going to the park over the next few months.  I need a little break from that place to recharge my batteries.  

Any way, that's a long way of saying that I didn't get home last night until about 11 and then I volunteered to put my daughter to bed since my wife was also wiped from the day.  By the time all was said and done it was 11:30 p.m. and if I'd jumped on to play some multiplayer, I might have kept my daughter awake as I'm wont to do when I have my turtle beach X4 on.  So I watched the NHL Draft on DVR and passed out half way through.  

That's my exciting Friday story.  I imagine you guys had fun last night though and I want to read about it.  So let me know what happened.  What game was the hotness?  Did SweetTea actually make a rare appearance?

As many of you know, my family has annual passes to Disneyland.  My daughter is obsessed with Beauty and the Beast (which I'm OK with as Belle is one of the few princesses who is revered for her bookish intelligence).  So we're heading out tomorrow evening to take Maya to see the Electrical Parade and Fireworks for the first time.  She's never really been to Disneyland at night.  We're going to say to hell with her bedtime tomorrow and keep her there late.

That being said, I still plan on getting online when I get home tomorrow night.  I've been alternating lately between inFamous, Prototype and Red Faction: Guerrilla.  I almost wish there was a hybrid of all of these games.  I would love the story telling of inFamous and leveling system, the movement of Prototype combined with the freaking awesome sledgehammer in Red Faction to make one huge uber-game.  

Any way, sign up below.  I'm up for anything.  Literally. Call of Duty: World at War?  Team Fortress 2?  Call of Duty 4?  Gears of War 2?  Whatever and I'm down.  I'm guessing I'll probably be on at about 10:30 p.m. PST.

I signed onto FFF this week a little early, but the Gearheads who were on already were playing in public matches, so I popped in a little Mass Effect and got some more done on the way to trying to stop Saren and his treacherous plans.  After a while, I finally sent Blankman a message asking if he was going to play public all night and we got a private room together.

Apparently the new hotness is Warzone for the play type.  I'm not a fan.  I never was in Gears 1 and I'm not in Gears 2 simply because it allows you to finish someone off from a long, long way away.  I think it's a much more strategic game if you have to get up closer to the downed opponent in order to finish them off.  But that's just my personal opinion.  It's tough to play that game type when I literally have only been playing the other game type since 2006.

Any way, I still had a lot of fun playing Gears 2.  It had been a while since I'd played with a full room during FFF so that was really nice.  I will say that I was lucky enough to pick up the Turtle Beach X4 headset for my 360 on Friday so I used it on Friday night.  I entered a contest from a local real estate agent to win a Best Buy gift card and I actually won, so it was subsidized by a real estate agent.  Woo hoo!  And let me just tell you that the headset kicks major ass even though my wife says I look like an air traffic controller now with the things on.  The sound is fantastic and the X4 wireless works fabulously well.

Tell me what you remember from the evening.  I played so poorly that I don't really have a highlight for anything I did.  But I do remember Johann, Suns son going through pretty much our entire team at one point.  Zoso had a couple of remarkable torques.  But other than that, I don't remember much else except for some great battles for the boom under the bridge on River.

I know that most of you read Joystiq, and so you probably got the heads-up and have read this already, but I figured, in case someone might have missed it, here you go.

Pretty honest and open reflection on Gears 2.  Good stuff.

I remain extraordinarily proud of the work that I do as well as the gifted team I work with. But that said, nothing's perfect and hindsight is 20/20. Matchmaking was very flawed out of the box; the game did ship with exploits, and it's an unfortunate reality when you make a product that is played by millions of players on day one.

That said, Horde was really a resounding success, and this really seems to be the era of co-op really and truly emerging as its own thing, much like versus did years ago in the Quake and Doom era. But we'll continue with DLC and keep that long tail as long as possible.

I think we did a far better job with the story this time around - I think Josh Ortega is a fantastic writer, the game had a tighter story, made a lot more sense, had some nice twists and turns, a little bit darker. That said, of course it's not Shakespeare; it's still a popcorn blockbuster.

The single-player has not a second of backtrack, but is incredibly varied, spectacularly beautiful, and highly entertaining.  Horde...well, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and everyone and their dog are making some kind of survival wave game mode (including veterans Valve and Bungie).  MP?  All they need to do is give themselves some time in the development cycle for a public Beta.  They can no longer allow marketing/publishers to tell them when the game must be released.  Good luck, Cliff and Epic!  For a company that historically focused almost entirely on MP gaming, you sure hit campaign and co-op gaming out of the park!

Update: Don't miss MDK's diary on the TU4 release notes.  Tons of info!

Gearheads, we're halfway through 2009.  It's been a pretty damn good year for gaming so far that will likely only get a lot better.  So far we've had Prototype, inFamous and Red Faction.  And that's just been in the last few weeks.

And we've got the Gears 2 downloadable content coming in just a month.  I should definitely be on tomorrow night starting around 8:30 or 9 p.m. and I'm open to pretty much anything. I've been so into Mass Effect lately that I haven't really played much else.  

So sign up below and maybe give me your half year game of the year.  I haven't really played enough of Prototype to make that call yet between Prototype and inFamous, but my initial inkling right now is to go with inFamous.  See you tomorrow, Gearheads.

I know what I'm going to spend the most time playing in 2009.  It's definitely going to be Modern Warfare 2.  That's a given.  And the majority of that time will be the multiplayer, probably once I actually beat the campaign, but maybe not.  It might be sooner than that.  I'm almost as excited about leveling up in the MP as I am about an incredible single player campaign.

But here's the thing.  Outside of Modern Warfare 2, I don't think I'm going to be playing MP very often at all because there isn't really another game out there that has the compelling MP impact for my personal tastes.  I know many of you are excited about Left4Dead 2.  And there's another segment that's pumped about Halo 3: ODST.  But Left4Dead just never grabbed me the way it has many Gearheads and the Halo franchise multiplayer has felt a bit stale to me.  I mean I'm going to get Halo 3: ODST and I might give L4D 2 a chance when it's released later this year if a bunch of Gearheads buy it (although if the controls for the infected are still balls, it will be a tough sell for me).

A game that's kind of flying under the radar right now is Borderlands.  It's a game by Gearbox and Randy Pitchford and it looks like the game is going to be really freaking cool.  The good folks over at GiantBomb.com have been pimping the game hardcore since E3.  It looks like there is a ton of customization as to what exactly you can do with your individual character.  So some of the rewards you get in single player, they come over as well to the multiplayer experience.  So by pushing your character in single player and investing the time, you can bring that with you.  How cool is that?  Not only that, but they completely revamped the art style and it almost looks Crackdown-esque now. If you want to see what it looks like in motion, check out this video.

The only other game that I will probably spend some time in multiplayer will actually be Uncharted 2.  I've played the beta and I really like it.  I didn't think I would, but it's pretty fun because it's somewhat similar to the pacing of Gears and you can be a sneaky m'fer.  I can't tell you how many guys I've killed just by quickly moving into a good position and letting a guy run by me because he's trying to play it like a regular shooter and then I'll just drop the hammer on him from behind.

But Gearheads, tell me with the upcoming release schedule, what multiplayer games have caught your eye?  What do you anticipate spending the most time with?  I added a poll to see where the Gearheads anticipate spending their MP time this fall.

I will get this re-cap going, y'all can add your tales (please do!).  :)

I am calling it the "It Wasn't Me" recap, because it wasn't me who started the evening with a TF2 room. Honest. That was Kenai.  I'm not arguing though.  As soon as he, his thirteen year-old neighbor, Johann, Timothy, Cornie, and I got going in a room (again, by his invitation), Gearheads started loggin' on and jumping in with us.  It was all very serendipitous, I think mostly because the Stanley Cup winner had just been decided, and people either wanted to talk about it or forget about it.  ha ha ha

Anyway, aamato, Boxin, CiRCuiTz, Creeper Nate, Blankman, Giggles, Zoso, rED, Jambi, and Infidel all joined and we actually needed to restart the room with all slots reserved for Friends only!  I can't tell you how happy that made me feel.

Click for more!

I believe I've mentioned before that Man on Fire is one of my favorite movies of all time.  I don't know whether it's because I'm a Dad now or what, but there's something that just resonates with me about a guy out for vengeance for the little girl who came to show him redemption and love again.

Why am I bringing this up now?  Well one of the things that I took with me from E3 was just how cool Splinter Cell: Conviction looked.  And I'm not really the biggest Splinter Cell fan.  The stealth genre in general just hasn't held much appeal to me.  But this appears like they're going to Jason Bourne route with Sam Fisher being one bad ass MFer.  But the coolest thing about the new Splinter Cell is the elements that kind of tell your story or your next objective in the environment.  It's similar to how Man on Fire does a lot of the parts of that movie, spilling text on the screen.  And Fisher is also looking for revenge in this story for someone killing his daughter.  I'm telling you, the inspiration for this next iteration came directly from Man on Fire.

So, any way to the task at hand.  Let me know what you want to play tomorrow night. Maybe some Gears 2 MP?  Maybe we can get an Uncharted 2 game going if folks are interested?  I might not be on until a little late because I might be going to see Star Trek tomorrow night.  I'm not sure yet.  But it looks like around 9 or so, maybe 9:30.

Sign up and we'll get a game going.  Hopefully we can start to get full rooms all over the place again.  I miss you guys!