Gaming To-Do's Before GTA 4 Comes Out

Yes, yes I'm eagerly anticipating GTA 4 along with several million other gamers world wide. If my excitement was such that I could go through another week without posting about this game, I wouldn't be excited enough. Of course, once this monumental game event has been unleashed upon the public, my anticipatory posts will give way to first impressions, a review, game play analysis and (hopefully) mountains of gushing praise.

It's a list post today because frankly, a list needs to be made to outline those niggling, delayed tasks that still need to be finished prior to April 29th.

1) Whore up a few more Achievements in Assassin's Creed.

2) One last hurrah for Crackdown : And maybe find those 9 remaining Agility Orbs.

3) Get unstuck in Saints Row, because some of those main missions are starting to grate on my patience.

4) Beat level 2 of Ikaruga. (Very do-able now that I clued in and actually discovered the Settings menu to enable additional lives and continues...)

5) Make Elite in Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (yeah right!)

6) See my girlfriend one last time

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This is Vegas: Bringing Next-Gen to Clubbing

The open-world genre is a potentially crowded one this year. Leading the charge is of course Rockstar North's GTA4 along with some A-list competition in the form of Radical's Prototype, Realtime World's APB, Volition's Saints Row 2 and Midway's This is Vegas.

This is Vegas is interesting because it not only deals with a very distinct, real-world setting but it seems to be a much more tightly focused experience compared to other open-world games. Gamespot has a video feature up now that showcases the breadth of gameplay available in a typical TiV dance club environment.

It's clear the developers are going for a fun, light-hearted approach to their game if this demo is any indication. The highlight of the reel for me was the dancing system. There's not a quick-time button sequence in sight, much to my relief. In place of that, there is an extensive move list for stringing together dance move combos that not only look cheesy but fun to play as well. I look forward to the thrill of doing the running man and finishing it off with a smooth back spin flourish.

The club activities don't end on the dance floor. You're also tasked with playing bartender which requires you to alternately serve drinks, light cigarettes or smash drunk's faces against the bar counter. As a sort of deputy bouncer, you also have the opportunity to rough up undesirables by beating them senseless with a standard-looking fight system. Last, but certainly not least, another mini-game involves soaking down tight tops for a wet t-shirt contest.

Clearly, the dev team knows their target demographic: pervy men of all ages. The club segment of the game looks pretty fun, although like all mini-games, it also looks very shallow. There's not enough information on the game's story or overall mission structure to really put the club sequence in full context. What I see so far does look promising, if only because someone out there is willing to take the winning GTA formula and dissect it a little bit more closely to come up with some intersting, if not entirely original game play experiences.

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Saints Row Will Do Until April 29th.

I've had intermittent internet connectivity this week, which has made me feel very useless, isolated and bored. It's also put a slight kibosh on my renewed committment to keeping this blog alive.

If there's an upswing to this sad tale, it's that I've had some extra hours to sink into my latest bargain bin obsession, Saints Row. Being quite late to the party, I won't delve into too much detail about this game as I'm sure many of you have long since played it out and shelved it alongside your copies of Oblivion, GRAW and anything 2006.

It took me a good 4 or 5 hours of play time before Saints Row got its hooks into me. As eager as I was to enjoy some open-world action before the release of Grand Theft Auto 4, SR just felt so derivative and dinky, for lack of a better word. Things lacked oomph, whether you were driving a car, shooting a gun or smacking a pedestrian upside the skull with a crowbar. I felt like I was controlling a toy man in a toy world, which really took away from the immersive open-world feeling that these games typically aim for. The lackluster graphics don't help either. There's no doubt that SR looks better than all the last-gen GTA games, but that's about it. It only looks good in comparison to these games, but as a current-gen title the quality is baseline at best, with frequent texture pop-up, vanishing objects, poor draw distance and merely average sound design.

But wait for it. Despite all of these grumblings, I've finally managed to get into the game's groove and enjoy myself to the point where I'm logging in some late hours after work playing through the various story missions. I love the map and navigation system. It's not perfect but it's a tremendous improvement over the cumbersome map provided by the likes of Vice City or San Andreas. The writing and mission design is also decent. While quite as clever as the GTA games, I am finding the dialogue to be reasonable entertaining. Missions seem to be a lot more focused and forgiving but you also lack the quirky mini-games that are a hallmark of the GTA series.

Can I stop comparing this game to GTA? Hardly. SR is such an unabashed clone it would be insane not to mention GTA with every breath that I utter Saints Row. For better or for worse, it's a shameless copy but also a very competent and entertaining one. It's got the content, style and design refinements that let it stand alone and I for one will be playing as much of it as I can before the juggernaught lands in 10 days... and counting!



And here is the rest of it.

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Starting to Feel the GTA 4 Hunger Pangs: UK OXM Gives a "10"

With little over 2 weeks remaining until the release date of Grand Theft Auto 4 I started to steep myself in GTA hype today. After being destroyed again in Ikaruga, I fired up the 4th "Move Up Ladies" trailer on my Xbox for the 50th time. I then skipped on over to the official website which has seen massive updates in the last couple months. There I watched the video character vignettes, downloaded desktop wallpapers and generally could not help myself from feeling like the giddy, anti-social gaming dork that I am likely to become once April 29th rolls around.

Earlier tonight I knew I needed to scratch my open-world crime spree itch and picked up Saints Row on the cheap. How cheap? How does $20 Canadian sound to you? This was during my dinner break at work. I'm naughty. I also can't wait to get home and play the poor man's current-gen GTA...

Back at my desk, the obsessing continued unchecked when I wandered over to Xbox 360 Fanboy and found their story about OXM UK's exclusive review of GTA 4. A "10" is a rather lofty score and can be looked upon with some suspicion. After all, critics heaped "10"s at Halo 3 like the world was coming to an end. The review, while glowing, describes some faults that obviously could not dimish the overall quality of the game. My biggest reservation lies with the aiming system. The GTA series has always been famous for serving up "a bit of everything", mashing up genres and integrating wacky mini-games into the core game play. In this latest installment, they seem to be trying to make inroads into the shooter genre. I'm curious to see how the cover system pans out, however, from what I've already read in the previews, the aiming system sounds positively unintuitive. You're essentially depressing the left trigger button partway in order to free aim and depressing it completely for the classic lock-on targetting. It makes me wonder who is going to bother using free-aim unless there is some design decision that will penalize players for over-using lock-on aiming. Bizarre.

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Realtime Worlds Secures Funding; Continues to Work on Pure Awesome

In a press release published earlier today, the Scotland-based games developer announced they have raised $50 million USD in second round funding. This money, of course, will be used towards the growth of the studio and for the continuing development of their upcoming MMO-style open-world action game, All Points Bulletin (APB):

DUNDEE, Scotland, UK and BOULDER, Colo. – April 14, 2008 – Realtime Worlds, a leading independent video game developer, today announced that it has raised $50 million USD in Series B funding. Maverick Capital, the renowned investment firm founded by Lee Ainslie, led the new investment round with existing investor New Enterprise Associates and WPP, a world leader in marketing communications services. The Series B investment will support Realtime Worlds’ continued growth and expansion as the company develops new creative properties and brings innovative online gaming experiences to market.

“Securing funding of this size from partners that are leading the financial and marketing communications industries further affirms Realtime Worlds’ position as one of the most creative, respected and successful game development companies in the world,” said David Jones, founder and CEO, Realtime Worlds. “Since our founding, we have been fortunate to have some of the gaming industry’s top creative talent crafting amazing, groundbreaking interactive entertainment products. With this new infusion of capital, Realtime Worlds is poised to deliver new original experiences to gamers around the globe and to push the boundaries of online gaming.”

About Realtime Worlds
Founded in 2002 by CEO and Creative Director David Jones alongside gaming industry veterans Ian Hetherington and Tony Harman, Realtime Worlds is one of the largest and most successful independent game developers in the world. With an exceptionally talented staff of more than 200, its experienced teams have a tremendous history of creating some of the world's bestselling video games, including the global hit franchises 'Lemmings' and 'Grand Theft Auto'. In 2006, Realtime Worlds received a US$31 million investment commitment from New Enterprise Associates, one of the world's leading venture capital firms. This investment enabled Realtime Worlds to develop new and innovative videogame franchises and recruit top game development talent from around the world.

In an exclusive partnership with Microsoft Game Studios, Realtime Worlds launched its first title, Crackdown, on Xbox 360 in early 2007. The debut game broke records for demo downloads, sold approximately 1.4 million copies, and won multiple awards including prestigious BAFTA and Develop Industry Excellence awards.

Realtime Worlds is currently working on All Points Bulletin, a massively multiplayer online game in the urban action genre.

This news comes as a relief to me. There was a game footage blitz for APB during the last GDC and what RTW has done so far looks extremely promising. The new injection of funds will hopefully be put to good use and provide the team enough backing to complete this title for their projected "sometime in 2008" release date. Missed the GDC video blitz? Here's a sample.

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Playlist and Why the Lack of Updates

The blog has been very silent since the new year and I blame my own creative rut as well my waning motivation to keep up on the game news. In my own defense, there hasn't been anything especially noteworthy to blog about save the usual weekly Arcade releases, some interesting DLC and some grist for the occassional snarky opinion piece.

Okay, I'll stop the bull. I've been negligent.

The blog hasn't seen a steady stream of updates in a long, long time. I'd like to change that soon. When I first started PMB, I wanted to stay away from game politics and insider industry coverage and focus on my personal gaming experiences. I think that formula worked for a while but now even I'M bored of just being confined to my own gaming sessions. The dazzle of having an Xbox 360 has long worn off, so I'm not apt to gush breathlessly about playing co-op in Crackdown or setting a new time trial record in Rainbow Six Vegas Terrorist Hunt on LVU Campus. I admite now that game politics and general industry news, never gets boring. There may be a slow news week on occassion, but things are rarely dull.

I''d like to steer PMB more towards that direction. I won't have any illusions of being the next Kotaku or Joystiq. I am after all one solitary man doing this in his free time. I do still want to open up the conversation on important news topics that affect us as gamers and especially those that focus on the Xbox line of products. It's a crazy, media-saturated time now, a time where you can stumble onto most any gaming blog and find a comments section stuffed with industry analysis done by armchair Michael Pachters. Opinions abound in the blogosphere and while I do wish to throw my lot in with the rest of 'em, I also want to maintain a close feeling of comaraderie and brotherhood in the way I present news and editorials.

We are, when you get right down to it, a bunch of boys and girls gathering around a water cooler or bar counter and gabbing about something we hold near and dear to our hearts. It may not be about the upcoming election campaign, who diddled who in Hollywood or the sagging fortunes of our local sports franchise (lookin' at you, Canucks!). No, at this here bar, we talk about games, the people who make them for a living and all the crazy cultural, economic and socio-political issues that spring up around this industry as a result.

Starting with my next post, you can expect more frequent, but more bite-sized updates that will revolve around anything, whether it is news, opinions, reviews or previews. If I get carried away and begin sermonizing about a topic that I'm very passionate about, that's how it will be. I think I'd just like to get into a rhythm of doing small, more regular updates instead of thinking that I always need to throw down a minimum of 500 words or more in order to feel like I've made a substantive update.

And now, to ring in my renewed dedication the blog, I will do something very ironic and just talk about what I've been playing. No news or scandal, just my own personal playlist.

It's really all been about Rainbow Six Vegas 2 and Army of Two for the last month. Both are very solid shooters. The general critical census for these titles is an "8/10" and "7/10" respectively. These are fair ratings and pretty accurate. RSV2 was obviously the highlight of March and continues to be the game that keeps me up 1-2 hours past my sensible bedtime, even during my days off of work. Having finished the single-player story, I'm still chasing down some Achievements and doing the familiar grind up the ranks by playing ridiculous amounts of Terrorist Hunt with some of the versus game modes thrown in there for variety.

Ikaruga is the most recent Live Arcade release and I bought that for 800 "space bucks" (credit to EGM for coining that term). The scrolling shooter classic is mercilessly difficult, just like they used to make'em and I'm currently polling my friend's list to see if there are any other Ikaruga novices looking to play some co-op with.

I've also recently started to replay BioShock. There are a slew of relatively simple, if time-consuming Achievements that I'd still like to add to my gamerscore. I abandoned my save game on Hard difficulty and I'm now taking things easy on, well, Easy. I thought about toughing it out in Hard, but I think the game is woefully unbalanced at that level. Even the lowliest splicer in Rapture shrugs off your gunfire and plasmid attacks as if they were nothing. It's not exactly fun and all I really want to do is earn some of those Achievement points I should have gotten during my first playthrough on Normal. So far so good. The breezy, casual difficulty level has allowed me to soak in the great atmosphere of Rapture all over again and it's hit me again just how breathtakingly beautiful the graphics are.

On the Army of Two launch day, I also picked up LoTR: BFME2 on the cheap and I've been popping that in when I feel like I've had my fill of shooters. The controls may not be as refined as the ones found in C&C3 but they are a very elegant solution for the console platform nonetheless and I'm enjoying what I've playe dso far in the Good Campaign (on Easy difficulty of course; I suck at RTSs).

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Game Novels Are a Revelation

I normally do not read novels based on video games. You can take my favourite gaming franchises, novelize them and I wouldn't touch them with a ten-foot pole. I guess I've given them a stigma of being poorly written, juvenile and just plain bad literature.

So my attitude is all the more surprising because I recently finished reading the first novel based on Mass EFfect, simply titled Revelation. Let me correct myself: I finished reading the book and I damn well enjoyed myself while doing it. While it did not shatter any of my long held prejudices against game novels, I still found a way to appreciate the art form and gain a better understanding of the game intellectual property as a whole.

The author, Drew Karpyshyn, is the lead writer for the BioWare RPG, Mass Effect which was released last November. As a games writer, Mr. Karpyshyn is great. He's been able to craft a convincing, fully developed sci-fi universe. Not an easy task in 2008, when you have 30-year old franchises like Star Wars still ruling the pop culture zeitgeist. As a novelist, Mr. Karpyshyn could work on his writing chops a little more but to his credit he still gets the job done by writing a fast-paced and exciting prequel to the video game.

Yes, Revelation takes place a few decades before the events of the video game and as such provides a massive amount of background information on many different points of interest touched upon in the game. We are taken to the early years when humanity first discovered the Prothean technology on Mars, the bold exploration of their first mass effect relay and an in-depth examination of many of the alien races. The author puts in the passenger seat next to Lieutenant Anderson, who fans of the game will immediately identify with as your player-character's mentor, Captain Anderson. Anderson isn't the grizzled and haunted father figure that we got to know in the game. In the book he's a whip-smart N7 lieutenant in his late twenties and he's sent on a special mission to track down a supposed traitor of the human Alliance. His mission eventually has him cross paths with Saren, the most feared Spectre agent in the galaxy and the main villain of the Mass Effect game.

I won't outline the entire plot of the book for fear of giving away spoilers both minor and major. Plot summaries are also difficult and boring for me to write! As a whole, Revelations works as a nice addendum if you've already finished the video game and is invaluable reading if you have yet to try the game. Reading it after the fact, I thought the quality of the game carried this book and made me overlook some of its faults. The book is not high literature by any stretch of the imagination but sometimes even compared against the pulp science-fiction genre, I found Mr. Karpyshyn's written to be quite clunky at times. There was an adjustment period for me during the first few chapters as I shook my head at the hackneyed writing on display. After a time, however, I got into the book's groove and soon forgot about the writing style, focusing on the content instead and appreciating the author's slant towards action and suspense.

I'll give him credit where credit is due. Mr. Karpyshyn has a flair for describing action and violence. There are a few very graphic scenes and they were handled very deftly by the writer in all their tortuous, bloody detail.

This book has my recomendation, whether you're a fan of the game or a novice looking to gain some background information before jumping head-first into the Mass Effect universe. I'm impressed enough by this first novel that I eagerly await the next one, which is supposed to set up the events that are to be included in Mass Effect 2. Talk about synergy!

And here is the rest of it.

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