Driving Speed 2, é um jogo de corrida completamente gratuito, mas esse facto, parece não pesar quando reparamos na qualidade gráfica e no nível de condução, que foi incluída neste título.
É um excelente jogo multiplayer, mas quanto ao single player, ainda não atingiu um nível satisfatório, uma vez que ainda só existem dois circuitos disponíveis.
DOWNLOAD (122.12MB)-> Brothersoft ||Download.com||Gamershell

Lançamento: Setembro 2009
Requesitos Mínimos:

• Windows 2000 / XP / Vista / Windows 7
• 1GHz CPU or higher
• 256MB RAM
• 228MB Hard Disk
• Graphics Card with Pixel Shader Support
• DirectX 9 Drivers

Einen Tag früher als geplant ist Rogue Planet erschienen. Was es zu bieten hat und ob es die gehobenen Ansprüche eines Gourmet Zockers erfüllt seht ihr im folgenden Bericht. Für Unentschlossene gibt es sogar die ersten beiden Missionen als Video!

Was nur drei Menschen in 8 Monate harter Arbeit geleistet haben, übertrifft selbst meine Erwartungen. Erhofft haben wir uns ein gutes Strategiespiel, bekommen haben wir die Creme de la Creme unter den iPhone & iPod Touch Apps. Sobald das Intro startet wird man in eine aufregende aber dennoch glaubwürdige Geschichte gesogen. Es geht darum, dass eine Crew, nach Jahrzehnten im Weltraum ,wieder zur Erde zurückkehrt auf der die Anzahl der Menschen stark dezimiert wurde. Jetzt sind mysteriöse Maschinen an der Macht und müssen bekämpft werden. Mit weiteren Details halte ich mich jetzt zurück um euch gewisse Überraschungen nicht zu verderben.

Grafik:

Den Preis für das coolste Menü hätte Rogue Planet auf jeden Fall verdient. So etwas aufwendiges hat man bis Dato noch bei keinem iPhone / iPod Touch Spiel gesehen und verdient es erwähnt zu werden. Die Spielgrafik selbst ist auch nicht zu verachten. Obwohl das Spielgeschehen genretypisch in 2D abläuft, kämpft man auf 3D Karten, in denen es sich hinein- und hinauszoomen. Auch das Drehen der Karten ist mittels der bekannten Gestik mit zwei Fingern möglich. Zwischen den Kämpfen hat man die Möglichkeit verschiedene Abschnitte des Raumschiffes zu besuchen und mit seinen Kollegen zu reden. So erfährt man interessante Informationen zur Story. Die aufwendigen und handgezeichneten Figuren tragen zur Atmosphäre von Rogue Planet viel bei. Die Details, mit denen Rogue Planet glänzt, sind derzeit einzigartig im AppStore.

Sound:

Dieser befindet sich auf einem professionellen Level, was für “1112 – Episode 01″ Kenner zu erwarten war. Man erwischt sich oft selbst beim Brummen des Main Themes, welches das ganze Spiel über begleitet. Mein Tipp: Am besten mit hochwertigen Kopfhörern zocken, denn der miese Lautsprecher des iPhones wird dem guten Sound von Rogue Planet nicht gerecht.

Gameplay:

Rundenbasierte Strategie vom feinsten. Auch, wenn es von der Mechanik her an Nintendos Advance Wars erinnert, es gibt sehr viele Elemente die beide Spiele voneinander unterscheidet. Das Zerstören und Reparieren von Brücken spielt ebenso, wie das Heilen von Einheiten eine grosse Rolle in Rogue Planet. Derzeit ist der Multiplayer Modus per lokalem WLAN & Bluetooth möglich. Agharta Studio verspricht jedoch ein bald kommendes Update um Online Muliplayer zu ermöglichen.

Fazit: Rogue Planet von Agharta Studio ist ein Muss und bisher einzigartig auf der iPod & iPod Touch Plattform. Geringe Preis von nur 3,99€ bei der gebotenen Qualität mit einem Umfang von 34 Karten, 2 Armeen und laut Agharta Studio, einer Spielzeit von ca. 100 Stunden um alles Karten auf jeder Schwierigkeitsstufe zu schaffen, ist kaum zu begreifen.

Rogue Planet Video (1/3)

Rogue Planet Video (2/3)

Rogue Planet Video (3/3)

AppStore Link: Rogue Planet (3,99€)

Bom pra quem é fã de Need for Speed como eu que está sempre atrás de novidades desse grande sucesso da EA , ja pode se prepara pois não deve demorar mto para o lançamento final de Need for Speed online ,este terá estilo MMO, as configurações da tela de jogo visam favorecer as particularidades do PC — já que, como já é bem sabido no momento, o título não deve aparecer nos consoles tão cedo. Segundo o produtor Scott Henshaw, “a chave para o conceito de NFS World Online é a interface com o usuário, que foi desenvolvida a partir do zero para levar vantagem com a arquitetura do PC”.

Descrição do game que traduzi no site da EA.com

Need for Speed Mundo on-line para o PC é a maior  Game de mundo de Need for Speed, com uma lista extensa de carros licenciados e modos de jogo – tudo em um ambiente online multiplayer.

Os jogadores irão competir, comparar e colaborar no clássico Need for Speed modos, bem como thrilling novos eventos, a fim de adquirir e personalizar seus carros de sonho. Need for Speed mundo online é uma nova experiência de entretenimento que oferece excelente jogabilidade, gráficos impressionantes, sofisticados e recursos on-line que enfatizam a interação social entre os jogadores.
Mundo Online irá iniciar o processo de beta neste inverno e será aberto a jogadores de todo o mundo no outono de 2010. Need For Speed World Online é um jogo de computador multiplayer desenvolvido em conjunto pela Black Box, o desenvolvedor da franquia Need for Speed, e em estúdio da EA em Cingapura.

No dia 05/10, a EA Taiwan inicio de uma nova fase de testes para o Need for Speed World Online que deve permanecer ativa até o dia 14 deste mesmo mês. O Open Beta é exclusivo para usuários orientais previamente cadastrados e tem como objetivo testar um novo patch que implementará algumas correções no cliente do jogo.De acordo com a EA Taiwan, este patch deverá solucionar problemas encontrados pelos usuários durante o primeiro Open Beta como perdas de conexão com o servidor, logoffs aleatórios e lentidão.

Na minha opnião este game tem tudo para dar certo,no video poremos ver boa qualidade de graficos e a maior interatividade trazida de MMO vai dar um ar a mais no jogo!

E agora pra finalizar confira o trailer de Need For Speed online.

Hey guys,

I have some awesome news to share with you! Recently, I have made Stick World into a program!

What does that mean? Well, it means you can still play Stick World from our blog, and chat.

It also means that now you can download the game and play directly from your Desktop!

If you want to download the game, click here!

Hope you enjoyed this cool update!

~Hygt5
Stick World Team

There are no just good or just bad buildings

Even though the title suggests different, there are basically no just good or just bad unique buildings (and units). Every UB and UU has to be evaluated in the context of the game settings and overall strategy it´s supposed to be used in. A (fictional) unique unit archer that gets +100% against melee units is useless in an game played on Islands, where you have no (military) contact with your opponents until Astronomy is researched and archers are long obsolete. A unique building is good if it significantly supports a (playable) strategy.

Bad

Forum
Unique building for Rome; Replaces Market
+25%
Can turn 2 citizens into merchant
+1 from fur, ivory, silk, whale
+25% Great Person birth rate

This is a market that provides a 25% bonus for the birth of Great People. While this sounds like a significant bonus at first, it really is not in any strategy that circles around or involves a focus on getting Great People. That is because any such strategy takes advantage of all or a combination of the Philosphical Trait (+100% on GPs), of the Pacifism Civic (+100%), of the National Epic (+100%) and of the Golden Age (+100%). An additional 25% are insignifanct – they do not result in any additional Great People, even over the course of a long game like an Ironman.

Also take into account that the market is a very low priority, but expensive building (100 on quick game speed) that only finds some use (mostly for its additional happiness) in Ironman games.  Whenever Great People play a role, much more significant bonuses are available without the additional big investment of 100.

Good

Baray
Unique building for Khmer; Replaces Aqueduct
+1
+2
Available for free on Renaissance and later starts

The baray is an aqueduct that provides an additional food to the city that builds it and especially that gets it for free in Renaissance and later then that era starts. The key aspect is the “free on Renaissance and later starts”. Mainly in Renaissance and Industrial games the baray is equivalent to a bonus on buildup, quite similar to an Expansive or an Imperialistic trait. Initial cities grow (and regrow after slaving [or drafting]) faster, new cities get going better.

A simple practical example – imagine you planted your first city in a Renaissance start game, it is size two. You work two 3-food tiles (for example a flood plain and an unimproved corn), that is a surplus of four food. The baray does 25% of that just like that. You probably slave down those cities at first to size 1 for workers for example. Even if you improve a tile (which you probably don´t do till a couple of turns into the game since you are probably chopping forests at first) the baray still provides a significant increase of the food your city accumulates. Overall Khmer´s cities grow sligthly, but significantly enough to matter faster.

Also, the baray makes Khmer the number one pick in OneCityChallenge (OCC) Renaissance (and probably Industrial) games. You grow faster initially (faster initial research allowing to gain an advantage from the start) and in the end can most often grow your city one size bigger then non-Khmer opponents.

The baray is the only unique building – next to the dike – that provides an absolute, not percentual bonus where usually none exists.

For Good UB – Bad UB part #1 click here
For Good UB – Bad UB part #2 click here
For Good UB – Bad UB part #3 click here


Earlier, Nicki and I were talking about 360 achievements, which I realize is something that’s been discussed to the point of nausea, but I’m going to talk about them now anyway! At first I thought the whole achievement system seemed kind of silly. My first 360 game was Oblivion and all it did with its achievements was chronicle how close you were to beating the game. Then there were the horror stories about some ill-conceived achievements, like the NBA Live 07 one that grants 100 points for being signed in at the same time as 100 other players, or how about the Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter achievements for being number one ranked on various leaderboards or for playing for 8 hours straight. Back then achievements were just some obligatory thing developers threw in without thought, and occasionally made near impossible to achieve to infuriate completionists.

But over the course of that first year, something shifted. People became addicted to achievements. Everyone wanted more points than their friends. It did brilliant business for Microsoft. People bought games just for achievement points. In those early days, King Kong became popular entirely due to its easy 1,000 points. I’ve had friends go rent Disney games for the points, or the most notorious one of them all, the Avatar: The Last Airbender game, with it’s 1,000 points awarded in under a minute. RPGs like Mass Effect and Dragon Age now reward you for playing through the game several time with different types of characters or for choosing different paths in the story. I know I personally held onto games that I otherwise would’ve sold, hoping to one day go back to go scoop up a few more achievements. I had never bothered to play a game on hard mode until achievements came around, nor had I ever rally replayed a single player game.

Arguably the game to really set achievements on fire was Dead Rising, which started the trend which now dominates gaming of short but replayable titles that reward the player not so much for getting to the next plot point, because that should be reward in and of itself, but rather simply for doing all the random little things there are to do in the game. It encouraged exploration and experimentation, and made you think about the game and your tactics in ways you never would have before. Had it not been for that game’s achievement system, every time the game reached the night phase where convicts roamed the mall in a military jeep, I would’ve just tried to run past them and hope for the best. Achievements encouraged you to find all the food and all the costumes in the game. Collectibles are a hot commodity in the achievement era. And thanks to the games restrained time system, getting all of these achievements required multiple playthroughs, each one usually dedicated to a specific goal.

A year into the 360’s life came a little game called Gears of War. It took the philosophy of using achievements to change how you play, and worked it into multiplayer. Now you were tasked with getting 100 kills with each weapon, but when you change how people play in a team game, you ruin team cohesion. People stop playing to win and instead forsake their team to focus on nothing but pistol kills, even if the team would be better served if you had just picked up that sniper rifle right next to you and taken that guy out. When you spend hours in Geometry Wars trying to survive without firing a shot for the Pacifist achievement, that’s fun and creative. When you run around in Gears multiplayer constantly dying because you need those pistol kills, it might be fun for you, but you ruin it for everyone else.

Or another example, in The Darkness, if you wanted to get all of the achievements, you had to leave behind the game’s good single player to play the awful multiplayer, and that was if you could find anyone else playing it. Good luck with that. Developers became convinced of three points this generation:

1. You must do everything in your power to stop your buyer from reselling this title to Gamestop.
2. Multiplayer modes will make them keep their games longer.
3. Achievements will make them keep their game longer.

Multiplayer modes are now tacked onto pretty much everything, and are usually awful. It was considered shocking when BioShock decided to go without multiplayer. For developers, combining points two and three with multiplayer achievements seemed only logical. But now they force us to play the horrible tacked on multiplayer in games like The Darkness or, I’m willing to wager, the upcoming BioShock 2 multiplayer.

The solution to this problem came a year later in the form of Call of Duty 4. There are no multiplayer achievements in CoD4, yet I don’t think anyone would argue it hindered the popularity of that game’s multiplayer modes. Just like I argued earlier that single player achievements for completing story missions are unnecessary because advancing the plot should be reward in itself, CoD4 made multiplayer a reward in itself through its system of leveling and unlocks.

Unfortunately, while developers seem to have latched onto CoD4’s RPG-lite multiplayer mechanics as the wave of the future, few seem to have noticed the lack of multiplayer achievements. Post-CoD4 multiplayer modes like those in Chronicles of Riddick and Wolfenstein still featured multiplayer achievements, not to mention some of the more ludicrously awful shooters out there like Turning Point: Fall of Liberty or Legendary: The Box. Now, I don’t own any of those games, but I would bet that it would be fairly difficult to even find a match to earn achievements in any of them, let alone to build up the willpower to subject yourself to such a thing.

I’m sitting here on the 4th anniversary of the 360s launch, and it’s really kind of shocking that something as seemingly trivial as achievements have become one of the dominant features of the new generation, being ripped off from everyone from Sony to Blizzard to Valve. They’ve completely changed the way we play games, and the system has come a long, long war since it’s inception. But it still has a ways to go, and I hope developers continue to refine it. And by that I mean lose the multiplayer achievements. Please.

Es ist Zeit für eine Eilmeldung. Rougue Planet (Entwickler: Agharta Studio / Publisher: Gameloft) ist heute, zwar vorzeitig, veröffentlicht worden, allerdings erst in und Neuseeland. Der Preis beträgt 6,49 Australische Dollar, was in etwa 3,20€ sind. Ob Rogue Planet heute Abend noch in Europa erhältlich sein wird, wissen wir nicht, aber haben wir schon die Bilder und Beschreibung der AppStore Seite!

Eine News zum Europa Release und ein Erfahrungsbericht von Rogue Planet folgen demnächst!

The PS3 beta started Thursday, and the videos I’ve seen all look pretty sweet. It definitely looks like it’s going to be a kick ass game. The game comes out in February 2010, and a PC beta begins in December followed by a multiplayer demo for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 sometime in January.

Any of you get a beta code and have played this game? If so, tell us your opinions of it in the comments. If you played the first Bad Company and are currently playing the beta, are you liking the second one more than the first one?

Hey Guys,

Recently, me and my friend have coded the game, so that you can play it directly
from our chat!

Don’t know what the chat link is? Just click here!

While your on our chat, scroll down to play the game!

That’s all for now!

~Hygt5
Stick World Team

The entire gaming community went nuts, when Microsoft released the first edition of the video game console, the Xbox 360, Xbox, and since then 360 games on the shelves of videogame stores full throughout the world by the United States of America to the UK and various Asian countries.

There are a lot of features in the Xbox 360, that the average playing experience have upgraded from the 90s are incredibly built,impressive and interactive, and one of them is the multiplayer feature in certain games, where you can play in a split screen, with a maximum of three other players.

The multiplayer functionality in the Xbox 360 completely rebuilt, what people were used, as it firmly with the older generation of video game console. The only downside to the multiplayer feature of the Xbox 360 is that not all games have this feature, and ifYou do not have a good eye for these types of games, you could end up an expensive game and risking the possibility of playing it without the help of friends. Well, to be able to tackle this problem, Xbox 360 fans who know a thing or two to examine the site development would be another fellow Xbox players a chance to see if a game has this feature or not .

This is the gateway to all of these games, the World Wide Web, so if youplanning on adding another 360-game to your collection and want to play multiplayer with friends, checking these websites is the first step. Believe it or not, there are over a hundred Web sites with lists of the latest multiplayer games for this year, so you do not have to worry about my mistake a game that did not play for the multiplayer game is still determined to worry .

You can take a look at some of these search engines like Google, MSN,and Yahoo. In a particular website you will find the ability to browse, multiplayer games based on their genre, such as strategy, role playing, racing, action, family and even online games.

Display lists of the first games before you buy from video stores (offline or online) has its advantages and disadvantages. How can we check whether a certain first game is worth the purchase to the multiplayer experience in our minds, we can not help but wonder if this gameis really interesting, has high ratings from gaming experts, and positive comments from other Xbox 360 players.

This argues for the need to watch the Xbox game and that's the next thing you have to look out for. Reviews are written by either Xbox gaming professionals already addicted or regular Xbox players can already the key to your Xbox 360 multiplayer experience memorable with your family and friends. What's more, you willSave yourself from unnecessary spending on a game that is not even worth your time and keystroke.

Is this the best Modern Warfare 2 kill ever? That’s what some on the Youtube community are  saying. Have a watch then discuss. Wow…

(baogame.vn) – Những ngày qua, làng game thế giới đang rất hoan hỉ bởi hàng loạt các tựa game có dấu hiệu “ngủ đông” đã chuẩn bị thức giấc. Và sau đây là những tin tức mới nhất về những tựa game không thể bỏ qua này.

Source: Tin vắn cập nhật (chiều tối ngày 21/11)

During my family leave, I’ve gotten some time during 2.0’s sporadic sleep schedule to play a ton of games. The majority of those games features a common, popular gameplay element – set collection.  You know what I’m talking about, right?  It’s that optional gameplay element in which you’re invited (usually unsuccessfully) to “collect them all” or “find them all”.  A few examples:  Okami’s stray beads, Gears of War’s COG tags, Fallout 3’s bobbleheads, Ratchet & Clank’s golden bolts, Super Smash Bros.’s trophies, Pokemon’s… pokemon.  There are also other, more subtle forms of set collection that you may not have thought about: multiplayer titles, skill sets, armor sets, crafting recipes, beastiaries, codexes (I’m looking at you, Bioware) – even Xbox/PS3 achievements/trophies can fall into this category.  Since I’m a bit OCD and somewhat of a collection nut, I spot these collection opportunities rather quickly.  I also tend to determine rather quickly that the vast majority of such opportunites are not worth my time investment.  And I’m sure many of you have done the same thing – shelved a game without even giving a second thought to those things you left uncollected in that bygone world.  There’s a reason for that – it’s because most games implement set collection badly.  In this series of articles, I’d like to use personal experience from playing various games to examine how other games could improve the quality of these collection mechanics and give players more incentive to participate in these peripheral activities.

First, let’s define what comprises a “set collection mechanic” to restrict the scope of this article:

• Players must be able to complete the set: this rules out procedurally generated things (eg. Diablo/Torchlight loot) or a continually growing set of user-generated content (eg. Spore creatures or Second Life sets).
• Completion of the set should be a peripheral activity and NOT be required to progress through the game: otherwise, our examination of the player’s motivation to complete a set overlaps with other motivating factors; so this restriction prevents applying our study to things like the various mandatory devices in Zelda games – technically, it’s a set of devices that can be collected in its entirety, but (excepting upgrades to bag sizes, etc.) it MUST be completed to progress through the game; heart pieces, however, qualify as a valid set.
• The set must have some easily accessible, manifested representation in the game: in other words, the set must be an intentional collection placed by the designer; this rules out user-defined meta-sets.  Such sets are contrived by individual players who have clearly already conjured up the necessary motivation to attempt collecting the set.  For instance, in Animal Crossing: Wild World, I attempted to find and purchase all of the instruments in the game to make a music room – nothing in the game actually lists the set of instruments; neither are they denoted by some special icon.  It’s an arbitrary set I made up for which I had already mustered the necessary motivation to collect.

Now that we’ve defined the bounding conditions, I’d like to start this series with an examination of a game I only recently had the opportunity to play: the original Assassin’s Creed (and just in time for part II!).  As much as I enjoyed playing the game, I ran into a rather irksome collection mechanic – the city flags.  Of all the collect-them-all mechanics I’ve experienced in games thus far, the city flags are probably the worst of the bunch (at least as far as I can remember).  It didn’t take long after leaving the confines of Masyaf for me to swear off the entire collection altogether.  Here’s why:

• There don’t appear to be any gameplay or narrative rewards for procuring flags except for meta-rewards (i.e. Achievements and 100% completion with the filled “Additional Memories” DNA bar).  Even if such a tangible reward existed at the end of the tunnel, it’s so elusive that it doesn’t really factor into the typical player’s drive to collect the flags.
• Aside from their location, flags are indistinguishable from one another, making the experience of finding one identical each time.  This was exacerbated by the fact that there are 420 of those indistinguishable things!  So finding one was an altogether insignificant and homogenous (read: boring) experience.
• Flags are not particularly challenging to acquire.  Reaching them is simply a matter of hidden knowledge rather than a test of skill or logic.

I’m going to take a look at each of these three points and examine how other games have remedied the problems with Assassin’s Creed’s flag-collection gameplay.

Collection Rewards

One could argue that completing an in-game collection is reward enough.  That may very well be true.  I think that such collections generally fall into the category in which each individual item in the set is distinct enough to provide sufficient player motivation (see the Collection Distinction section below).  But in any case, it doesn’t hurt to provide some extra incentive to the player to collect a set of things.  These extra incentives can typically be categorized as either a gameplay reward or a narrative reward.

Gameplay rewards consist of additional skills or abilities (or some currency toward the purchase of skills or abilities) that expand and augment the player’s gameplay experience.  The most recent example that comes to mind is Brutal Legend’s bound serpents, which, when found, each provide a small amount of fire tributes that can be used to purchase upgrades at the motor forge.  Furthermore, for every ten bound serpents that are freed, the player character Eddie Riggs gets an upgrade to some element of his stats.

Alternatively, collections can grant narrative rewards in several different forms. Again, Brutal Legend provides a convenient example of such a collection: the “legends” scattered across the landscape.  For each one the player finds, another cutscene detailing the Brutal Legend mythos is revealed.  Coincidentally, I also discovered that Halo 3: ODST contains an identical mechanic in the form of the audio logs that follow a story indirectly related to the main plotline.  Yet another example of a narrative collection reward is BioShock’s audio diaries, narrated by multiple characters related to the main story.  However, ODST and Brutal Legend’s narrative collections differ in that each piece of the collection is not associated with a specific piece of the narrative reward.  In other words, whether you find piece A before or after piece B, you’re always going to get story reward A before story reward B.  This is not true for BioShock’s narrative collection, in which specific audio logs are found in specific locations.  This is an important distinction that we’ll revisit in the next section.

There is, of course, no reason why a particular collection can’t give both narrative and gameplay rewards, as is evident in Brutal Legend’s “legend” collection (which I neglected to mention also gives fire tributes for each legend discovered).  Another game I’ve played recently (after putting it off long enough) is Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, in which every five pieces of treasure nets the player medal points that are used to unlock various metagame rewards (tweakable game modifiers like infinite ammo, faster run, and weapon select) and bonus content such as concept art and development videos.  I’ve lumped extra-game content into the category of “narrative rewards” in that they don’t actually augment the game experience.  In all of these examples, I think it’s safe to say that these various rewards can often be an effective incentive to the player to collect the entire set.

Collection Distinction

There is an important element of set collection that seems to be a no-show in many of its incarnations: distinction.  Each element of a set should be easy distinguishable from each other, via its textual, iconic, or geometric representation and/or some titular or numeric label.  As I’ve already observed, all of the flags in a particular area in Assassin’s Creed are identical except for where they are located.  This makes collecting each and every one the exact same experience.  There’s no sense of novelty in finding another one.

As I mentioned earlier, collecting a set of objects can be reward in itself – but this is generally a strong enough motivation to the player only when a distinction is made between the elements of the set.  The word “collecting” carries the connotation of collecting distinct elements.  How often do stamp collectors attempt to find every copy of only one type of stamp?  Or how often do card collectors try to acquire every copy of one particularly rare card?  While these real-world examples present collection goals that are obviously marred by real-world obstacles and impossibilities that don’t exist in the virtual space, art reflects life.  And in life, the appeal of set collection is in the diversity of the set’s various elements and in how those elements complement each other.  The set is a puzzle whose pieces, as they come together, become a clearer and more magnificent picture (even if that picture’s got a few missing spots).

I’ve always liked Nintendo’s first-party approach to collections.  I’m specifically referring to the trophies of the Super Smash Bros. series.  Each trophy is fan-service at its best – each with a unique, nostalgic 3D model of some Nintendo character, object, or setting and a short description of the subject.  All of the player’s trophies are displayed together in one place, literally becoming that magnificent picture I described.  It’s like looking at that Edge Magazine cover with all of the video game shoutouts.  I also played The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker recently (picked it up on the cheap a long time ago and only got around to playing it a few weeks ago).  In that game is a similar collection that the player can complete by using a camera to take pictures of the game’s enemies and NPC’s and showing them to a particular sculptor, who crafts figurines of the photographs’ subjects that are put on display throughout various trophy rooms.  Each figurine can be viewed in three dimensions and contains a short description of the subject’s place in the game universe.

And then, of course, we come back to Pokemon.  While each captured Pokemon simultaneously serves as a gameplay reward (with the new pokemon’s abilities at the player’s disposal), I would argue that the vast majority of pokemon are caught for the sake of completing a player’s Pokedex.  After all, the catchphrase (at least in America… not sure if it’s translated from Japanese) is “Gotta catch ‘em all!”, right?  And since the distinction between each pokemon is both visual and interactive, the drive to collect each one is that much more powerful.

Which reminds me of Endless Ocean (which I’m not ashamed to admit is one of my favorite games on the Wii).  At some point in the game, the player is allowed to populate a personal aquarium with creatures that he or she had already discovered.  It’s yet another fantastic Nintendo example of an interactive collection.

In fact, it appears that the common factor between these Nintendo games’ collections is the extent to which the player is allowed to appreciate his or her collection.  3D models that can be viewed from all angles, textual info and categorization, and in some cases, interactivity all contribute to the player’s connection to the collection and his or her drive to complete it.  It sure beats a little check mark or a line in a book or even a little icon.  And that is why, when Sony announced Playstation Home, something inside me grew giddy at the thought of 3D trophy displays.  Too bad it didn’t turn out that way…

There’s also one oft overlooked property that distinction imparts to a collectible set – it allows each element in the set to be described individually.  The reason this is so important is this: FAQ’s – of the GameFAQs type.  Not everyone can be expected to find every single element of the set on their own.  For those collectors that don’t wish to invest the required time, they should at least be able to look up the locations of the missing pieces.  This is impossible to do when the individual pieces are indistinguishable from one another.  This is especially problematic in Assassin’s Creed because in order to use a guide, you must use it for every single flag.  Otherwise, unless you have picture-perfect memory or you’re using a video guide (which I imagine would be ridiculously lengthy), you cannot possibly know whether you’ve already found a particular flag or you’re just looking at a slightly incorrect location on a flag map because there’s no way of knowing whether you already found “flag 53″ on the map – you only know that you’ve found 178 total flags, one of which may be the anonymous “flag 53″ in question.  I know this isn’t a purely ludological reason for set element distinction, but it’s a valid one nonetheless.  I’m rather confident that all but the most hardcore purists fall back on external sources (strategy guides, FAQ’s) to complete a collection.  I do it all the time.  So even if the “distinction” in a collectible set is just a numeric label or a dull identifier (like Okami’s stray beads), it’s still an important thing to have for the sake of simplifying the collection process itself.

Collection Gameplay

It’s important to ensure that the gameplay surrounding the collecting of objects is as solid as the elements of the collection itself.  I can group collection gameplay into at least three broad categories: steady-stream, challenge, and exploratory.

• Steady-stream collection: these are the sets of the type where the player gets a relatively steady stream of random elements of the set, and completing the collection becomes all about either trading for the missing elements or just investing enough into the game.  Examples: Smash Bros. trophies, Culdcept Saga’s cards (or any CCG’s cards, for that matter), Treasure World’s treasures, Animal Crossing’s fossils, a good number of Free Realms’ collection components.
• Challenge collection: these are the sets whose elements take actual gameplay skill to acquire.  Examples: Street Fighter IV’s multiplayer titles, Modern Warfare 2’s Spec-Ops mode stars, Braid’s stars (yeah, you might not have known about them; I sure as heck didn’t), Xbox 360 achievements and PS3 trophies.
• Exploratory collection: these are the types of sets whose elements are found by exploring the game space.  Typically, you’ll find these kinds of collections in shooters and action games.  Examples (there are tons of them but I’ll just name a few): Gears of War’s COG tags, Modern Warfare’s intel, ODST and Bioshock’s audio logs/diaries, Fallout 3’s bobbleheads, just about everything in Brutal Legend.

Assassin’s Creed’s flag collection can basically be classified as an exploratory collection.  It is this class of collection that I believe is most often (and most disappointingly) implemented.  The big problem that I’ve experienced with these collections is this: they break immersion by forcing the player to think not as the protagonist or the player character but rather as a designer.

For most of these exploratory collections, the elements are often placed with little to no narrative sense.  They’re usually either strewn about randomly or hidden in obscure corners of the map that oftentimes don’t even seem accessible.  As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, completing such a collection is an excercise in hidden knowledge more than anything else.

When searching for elements of such collections, I almost always find myself thinking things like, This corridor doesn’t lead to anywhere meaningful – there must be something there, or, This ledge is out-of-the-way, but it’s accessible – there must be something there.  The only logic behind these thought processes comes from putting myself in the designers’ shoes rather than doing what makes sense in the context of the game and the narrative.  My wife can even attest to this fact as she watched me play Uncharted, exclaiming, “I smell treashuz!” whenever my designer sense started tingling.  And it netted me 50 out of 60 treasures on my first run-through.  I had similar moments in ODST.  When a path led indoors and to some seemingly irrelevant balcony, I could usually count on finding an audio log.  And there’s no reason to think this Sophie character was actually at any of those audio log locations.

Brutal Legend, however, contains a great example of an exploratory collection with at least some measure of contextual sense – the landmark viewers.  They’re around landmarks!  If I saw something in the world that looked like a landmark, I knew there was a landmark viewer nearby.  I didn’t have to go probing the mind of some sadistic designer.  Another simple way of limiting the breaking of immersion would be to give the player character some in-game way of “sensing” nearby elements of a collection – some blinking UI element or controller rumble feedback to indicate the proximity of the element.  I can’t immediately think of any games that have really done this, although I’m absolutely sure someone must have.  The closest example I can think of is Ocarina of Time’s use of the rumble pak to signal to the player that something was hidden nearby.

Application

So how could Assassin’s Creed have improved its flag collection gameplay?  Personally, I think the most unintrusive way would have been to tie flags to labeled chunks or chapters of historical info (fictional or otherwise) about the city.  Such a change wouldn’t involve adding abilities or tweaking/rebalancing character progression to accommodate gameplay rewards – and the change would fit well with the game’s prominent narrative delivery and historical setting.  Of course, this would probably involve cutting the number of flags down significantly – a most welcome change.  In fact, why not change the flags altogether and instead make them distinctly crafted relics in the vein of Uncharted’s treasures?  They would probably fit into the world a little better that way.   (Really – why are there random flags all over the place, anyway?)  Along those lines, the seeding of these “relics” could be in more logical locations: at the top of notable landmarks or inside obvious places of importance rather than in the shadows of some inconspicuous alley or atop a nondescript rooftop.  Furthermore, the designers can spread clues regarding the locations of those relics throughout lesser “eavesdropping” opportunities in the game.  I found the eavesdropping mechanic to be rather contrived, as the player can only eavesdrop for an investigative mission.  It would have been much more interesting if there were other groups of conversations on which the player could eavesdrop to get clues – much in the same way that pickpocketing is used for both investigations and for acquiring throwing knives.  And, being the valuable relics that they are, some of them can be guarded by hostile templars who must be circumvented or defeated, while others can be locked away in trap-laden rooms requiring a touch of finesse and dexterity to traverse.

And for the record, I have not yet touched the second title in the series.  So now someone who’s finished playing Assassin’s Creed II can tell me whether Ubisoft did, in fact, add a more compelling collection mechanic.

So that covers the shortfalls I noticed in Assassin’s Creed’s flag collection and how one might possibly improve that segment of gameplay. In my next post, I’ll be exploring the importance of community and recognition and how those things have strengthened the player’s drive to collect – especially with the most recent console generation’s emphasis on online play.

(baogame.vn) – Một công ty có trụ sở tại Texas vào ngày hôm qua đã chính thức đệ đơn kiện 4 nhà phát hành game là Sony, EA, Ubisoft và Disney vì hành vi vi phạm bản quyền.

Source: “Không hẹn mà gặp” cả Sony, EA, Ubisoft, Disney đều bị kiện

Reason for sending warriors/archers

During the early stages of an ancient start game, especially during a teamer warriors and archers are send to the opponent in order to slow down his build-up (= “choke”) or sometimes steal worker or even kill him. Of course the warriors and archers can be followed up by chariots, axes and more. If metal isn´t hooked till then, it´s not necessarily game over, but it´s probably looking grim. I´ll try to focus on how to deal with the first couple of units you get early into your land in a 1 vs 1 situation.

The defending player has one worker and warrior each. He cannot hook his corn without at least another unit, preferably an archer if he does not want to give the player who send a warrior to him odds around 50% on winning the game or at least stealing the worker.

What you are trying to achieve when warriors/archers are in your land

Playing well with a couple of units in your land that block off some tiles or form a bigger choke is one of the greater challenges in multiplayer civilization. Your goal is to try to keep up in build-up in relation to your opponent who send or is sending you those units. Remember he spend early hammers on building them, so you probably have a small build-up advantage at first which he is trying to overturn in his favour with slowing you down while not being slowed by any units himself since your are busy dealing with his stuff in your land.

Overall you first don´t want to invest more hammers into getting rid of opposing units then the opponent invested to build them. Killing a chariot with 2 archers, losing one, is a gain of 4 hammers. Second you don´t want to get slowed down in setting up your empire (hooking ressources, expanding …)

1. The first warrior
First thing you need to consider is a potential warriorstart of the opposing team. As long as the starting technologies of one civilization on the other team include Hunting, it´s a scoutstart.
List of civilizations that have Hunting as a starting technology:

• Ethiopia
• Aztec
• Germany
• Greece
• Holy Rome
• Celtics
• Khmer
• Mongolia
• Persia
• Russia
• Vikings
• Zulu

I recommend printing or writing a list of those if you play ancient start on Team_Battleground regularly or plan on doing so – here is my old one, which by now I don´t need anymore

If you are facing a warriorstart and you yourself start with a scout – you are behind turn 0. Warriorstart vs. Scoutstart is one of the most unbalancing factors in an ancient start teamer game. In that case get some units early, don`t go worker first unless you know what you are doing . Try not to let the other team build up without any opposing unis in their land after just having send their 5 initial warriors. Even if you get choked or slowed down, try to send at least a unit or two to do the most basic choking job. Especially the first unit you send counts – see also the above picture for an exemplary reason for that. One unit send means opponent having two build at least two units to be able to work his land freely.

2. Determining what will be thrown at you
Scout your opponent, especially the fatcross (=the 20 tiles a city could potentially work) of the capital.

• Did he plant his capital on a tile (plains hill, plains marble/stone elephant) giving him 2 hammer instead of 1 ?
• Does he have a 3-hammer-tile to work ?
• Is he Expansive, is he Aggressive ?
• Does he have a civ with an early ancient unique unit ?
• What are his habits (knowing his playing style required here) ?

All those are factors that can help you predict or at least take into consideration what your opponent will do, helping you to plan better what you yourself  should be doing. An expansive leader with a 2 hammer plant (and a 2 hammer tile to work) will almost always build a worker first. An aggressive leader with a 2 hammer plant and a 3 hammer tile to work will most probably send you one or two 2-turn warriors first, before starting production of his first worker. Another indicator might be the unique uint available to your opponent. IF he is Inca, he will try sending Quechuas early, if he is Mali, he will probably not send more then one warrior, if that at all and instead get a worker and only then spam out skirmishers. If someone is Maya or Natives, he might save money from turn 0n and upgrade his first warrior to a Holkan/Dog Soldier.

While no factor alone can provide you wiht certain information by itself, with some experience you start making better and better predictions about your opponent´s behaviour.

3. Don´t die to a warrior
Whatever you do, whether you go worker first, whether you send out your first and maybe even second warrior, keep in mind your own safety. It is solely a question of skill (with the very, very rare exceptions from the rule) whether you die to a warrior or not.

Checklist:

• How long would you need to build a warrior in case of emergency ?
• In an ancient start Team_Battleground 5v5, are you on the 3-people or 2-people-side ? If the first, front or middle ?
• Does the opposing team have a warrior or scout start ?
• In what way can a warrior move in on you – what´s the minimum amount of turns you will spot it before.

I recommend the article on vision range at this point. There are three basic situations in regard to how many turns of warning you have on an approaching warrior, namely one, two or three unless you have spotted the unit before for example with your initial scout or a warrior you build and send out yourself.

In most games you know turn 0 towards which direction the front is (where the opponent can come from). Check what can happen. How many turns warning will you have in worst case scenario ? Do you have a cornre, which would unguarded give you only 1 turn warning ? Maybe send the scout up there as a sentry. If you feel your land provides you with less then 3 turns warning, preproduce a wrarior for one turn – put enough hammers into it, so that you can finish it in 2 turns if needed and only then build your worker. Don´t just blindly go worker first. Also don´t just blindly send away your own warriors not keeping in mind possible ways your opponent might move in on you. Especially if you don´t have hundreds of games of experience, better be safe then sorry (earning you a place in the Hall of Shame of the league ).

A pretty high level trick (that requires some practice and experience) is to keep the mouse over a warrior in city production screen while the end of the turn approaches, changing the production to a warrior at last second in case an opposing warrior suddenly appears, effectively giving you one more turn of production. Of course for that you cannot go into the city to change produciton, but keep the city bar clicked.

Keeping the city bar open with the mouse over a warrior in order to respond faster to a suddenly appearing unit.

4. Blocking off tiles
In many games you will get warriors and archers into your land. Don´t panic – so far your opponent put early production into building those units, while you potentially made a worker. You are ahead for the time being. The goal is to keep that advantage or not lose too much of it.

Don´t take unnecessary risks by hitting his units with odds of 50 or 60 percent – when a loss results in you being slowed down a lot. Focus on getting your workers to work. Block of tiles so that you can work a food or especially chop a forest, while the opponent has to move around your city + a unit standing next to it in order to be able to hit the tile where the worker is standing on. Build up normally, just spread a couple of archers into your build order. Don´t try to control everything, focus on hooking one food, on being able to consistently chop and on getting metal. Opposing archers and warriors will have a very hard time trying to hit out your archers from forests, especially when you get more units to cover consistently,while his support routes are much longer.

If possible, don´t let the opponent sit on strategic spots. Hill metal is akey target here, another one being forested hills. The last one you cannot always prevent though and on average 2 axes should be able to clear out an archer there.

Most important, try not getting slowed down too much – just get those additional units in order to move and work with your workers and protect a settler for a second city for metal. If your opponent build a couple of warroirs and archers very early and you build a couple more then him, but a little later in the game, the buildup situation should be about the same. Remember that it´s better to manoveur around those units then taking unnecessary risks – though sometimes the situation can be so, that you have no other choice. For example, when the opponent has metal in his capital´s fatcross and will follow those warriors and archers up with axes soon.

5. Odds
When playing under choke, you need to know what you on average require in order to kill a unit sitting in your land on which you probably have bad odds with your first hit.

As a rule of thumb, having around 10% twice should take care of a unit. Meaning if your first archer has 9.9% on an opposing archer, two identical archers should take care of the situation. Don´t count on killing with less then those ~10% twice unless in special circumstances.

In general, try taking advantage of situations where your opponent gives you “good” odds while moving around your land. If he for some reasons moves on a flat tile for example, giving you 40 or 50 percent already with the first unit (example 2 archer vs a protective archer, 2 warrior vs an aggressive warrior etc.) – consider the situation, but in many situations it might be better taking a little risk here, then letting him slow you down more turns until you can hook metal and take a “sure” kill.

I have been playing this for a while now and have to say that it’s probably the best game that i have played this year. If you liked the first modern warfare game then you will love this one even more. A lot of people have said that the campaign mode is too short but i disagree- its longer than the first. The levels are varied and the graphics are absolutely stunning.

There are a huge range of weapons that can have various upgrades such as silencers, scopes and lasers. There are sniping levels, arctic levels, underwater, space and river missions. The game has a unique style where you play as various characters in different stories.

There is also the multiplayer option which is awesome for playing with friends in co-op mode and also playing on Xbox live is brilliant- worth getting the game just for this. The maps are far superior to the first game.You can also play spec-ops mode where you can take on various challenges.

Overall i believe that this game is a must have this Xmas for anyone that owns a console.

Game Rating: 9.5/10

This tutorial show some gameplay to the players who are interested in this game. eRepublik is a combination of a massive multiplayer online game (MMOG) and a social network. It’s a totally new world, with a multiplayer simulator from the current world, based on a website and textual elements with a search for easy navigation, reflecting a version of the real world where citizens of different countries interact.

eRepublik is an online real world simulation game, available free of charge. Some of the features include: Getting a job, fighting for your country’s military, joining a political party, running for Congress, and owning your own company.

War is one of the most interesting aspects of the game. From day 2-3 you can train your strength, and join your nations Armed Forces. Once you get to a battle you answer trivia questions, and your score impacts the amount of damage you do.

The main currency of the game is ‘gold’, which can both be earned in game, or can be bought for real life money. There are also the various national denominations. I have played the game for almost seven months, and have yet to pay any real life money – and I have bought a company, which you have to use gold to buy! You receive gold when you get certain achievements, or you can exchange national currencies for gold on the monetary market.

eRepublik is a text based game, but it is still very fun to play. You can spend anywhere from five minutes to five hours on the game every day, with much entertainment coming from reading/writing newspaper articles and the forums.

Step 1 – Welcome to eRepublik

eRepublik is massively multiplayer social networking and online strategy web-browser game. It provides a realtime model of the modern world and allows players to simulate their political, business or military aspirations, in so doing potentially changing the course of history. This tutorial covers the points mentioned by Plato in his introductory video, the first issue of which is the homepage. Familiarize yourself with the homepage.

Step 2 – Upload your avatar picture

Experience points unlock eRepublik’s features and the easiest way to achieve your first two is to upload a avatar for your citizen.

Step 3 – Your profile page

You’ll find the information about your citizen’s career and biography on the profile page. The wellness indicator and the inventory area should be closely monitored as they’re vital to the day-to-day routines of your citizen’s life in eRepublik. Learn more about your profile page.

Step 4 – Buy / Consume food

Just like in the real world your citizen must eat daily in order to survive. You can acquire food from the marketplace, and once a day the highest quality food unit from your inventory will automatically consumed. See more details about buying and consuming food units.

Step 5 – Get a job

Working daily is essential as your citizen needs money in order to buy products, so visit the job market and find a job. Find out how you can get a job.

Step 6 – Work

In order to work you’ll need to visit your employer’s headquarters. Your citizen will receive a salary for each day worked… and don’t worry, working in eRepublik is more fun than in the real world! See more details about working in eRepublik.

Step 7 – Train

Serving your country in a war is important in eRepublik as it helps you to receive the recognition of your fellow citizens, one of the key concepts of the game. To achieve a higher score when you fight you should train daily. Find out how you can train.

Step 8 – Exchange money

In eRepublik you can exchange any currency (including gold, an intermediate currency in it’s own right) for other currencies, each of which is particular to one country. You can do this by accessing the “Market” tab in the main menu, followed by the “Monetary Market” button. Learn more about the Monetary market.

Step 9 – Fight for your country in eRepublik

You can see if your country is involved in a war or Resistance War by viewing the wars list, accessible from the homepage. After you decide on a battle to fight in, click the green “Fight” button on that page. Learn more about the military system.

Step 10 – Vote in eRepublik

There are three major political events occurring monthly in eRepublik where a citizen can vote to elect party presidents, members of congress, and country presidents. You have the ability to express your choice in these elections once you reach experience level 6. Learn more about the political system.

Original article: Here

Esta madre esta que arde!!!

Tan solo en 5 días este juego ha vendido más que las superproducciones de Hollywood, la cifra del dineral que ha acumulado este juego en estos pocos días es para un record guiness sin lugar a dudas.

Activision ha hecho un trabajo espectacular para que este Modern Warfare 2 haya vendido lo que vendío [y seguirá vendiendo por supuesto por que aún no compro mi copia...] obviamente todo esto es gracias a lo que la compañía ha venido haciendo desde el primer Call of Duty aquel de PC que competía codo con codo con Medal of Honor de EA [que apenas quiere levantarse de nuevo...] pero sin duda la base de este éxito lo tiene  Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

Modern Warfare 2 a vendido alrededor del mundo y para las consolas XBox 360, PlayStation 3 y PC nada más y nada menos que 550 millones de dólares, si… en solo  5 días.

Felicidades Activision / Infinity Ward… ya se estarán limpiando la cola con puro billete verde, ¿no?… XD cabrones.

Fuente | ºvidaextra.comº

by ChiefJimbolaya:

©2009 Aaron Klein:

It only took 24 hours for Activision to sell 4.7 million copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in North America and the United Kingdom. The video game publisher estimated first-day sales in excess of $310 million. That is a little more than $215,000 per minute, or $3,529 per second.

So Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 made a lot of money, but is it any fun to play? Yes, it is a lot of fun to play, if you play online. It will keep you up into the wee hours of the morning. It will have you daydreaming at work. It will strain your relationships.

• Modern Warfare 2 Vid 2

Infinity Ward built on the success of 2007’s widely acclaimed Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, considered one of the best multiplayer games ever.

It sold 14 million copies, won more than 50 game of the year awards and has been recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the Most Played Online Video Game in history.

Players earn experience points for performance in multiplayer matches. As you level up, you unlock new guns, perks and equipment. Your arsenal can be further customized to match your style of play through attachments such as a heartbeat sensor or thermal scope.

There are a number of enhancements to multiplayer in Modern Warfare 2. Most notably there are more than a dozen killstreak rewards, which you can customize. New rewards include powerful predator missile strikes, a sentry gun, a Harrier Jet airstrike and even a tactical nuke (which kills everybody and gives your team the instant win).

On the flipside, deathstreaks will give players respite after being killed several times in a row. One of the more helpful is the Copycat perk, which allows you to steal the weapon outfit of your killer.

New equipment includes a riot shield that can be used to soak up bullets in diversions, throwing knives for stealth kills and tactical insertion smoke grenades that allow snipers to create their next spawn point.

Certain perks that were considered cheap, such as Last Stand and Martyrdom, aren’t unlocked until higher levels. Perks can now level up with use to provide additional benefit. The level cap, too, has been increased to 70.

Players can also further tailor their characters by unlocking call signs that identify a player onscreen with a picture and a nickname. Call signs are distributed based on how you play the game.

Infinity Ward also added an entirely new, cooperative mode called Special Ops. These are a collection of missions that include new missions and highlights from the single player game and even missions based on Call of Duty 4. Between these two online modes, expect to spend dozens if not hundreds of hours with this game.

If your system is hooked up to the Internet, Modern Warfare 2 is one of the best values in gaming.

November 10th was the busiest day in the history of Xbox Live. More than 2 million players logged on that day, undoubtedly many of whom were playing Modern Warfare 2.Many gamers who stood in line for midnight launches in Omaha relayed plans to stay home from work or school and dedicate an entire day to playing online.

Microsoft took advantage of the fervor by simultaneously banning from Xbox Live hundreds of thousands of users who had consoles modded to play pirated games.

Microsoft has not released official numbers, but estimates have ranged from 600,000 to 1 million banned accounts.

Without doubt, the company was hoping to send pirates to retailers to purchase new consoles so they wouldn’t miss out on the biggest video game release this decade.

The story-driven campaign mode is not nearly as refined as multiplayer. But since multiplayer sells this particular game, Infinity Ward decided to take larger gambles in campaign mode, evident in the level called, “No Russian.”

In that level the player assumes the role of a deep-cover CIA agent. Your character infiltrates a Russian terrorist group and participates in the brutal slaughter of civilians in a Moscow airport.

There is an option to skip this level, presented at the beginning of the game. But that it can be so easily skipped by the squeamish betrays the fact that its true purpose is to shock and generate controversy.

If you don’t skip the level, you are forced to walk through the airport watching the your terrorist comrades spray bullets into frantic civilians and inept security guards. While you don’t have to participate in the massacre, you can’t prevent it.

The level elicits grotesque feelings and immediate comparisons to tragedies like Virginia Tech and Westroads Mall. Anybody who lost a loved one in a mindless act of violence will surely be sickened and emotionally distraught by seeing the “No Russians” level.

The first-person viewpoint increases the shock factor. But while Infinity Ward could be condemned for being insensitive to victims of mass shootings and their families, it could also be commended for brave experimentation by forcing players into uncomfortable situations.

All great art must elicit an emotional response in the viewer, and the “No Russian” level does accomplish that. But it does so with the brutality of a jackhammer and visceral images compared to thoughtful nuance and introspection of higher art.

And while the presentation is alarming, the act is not entirely gratuitous. The airport massacre is a lynchpin in the plot, providing the Russians a motive for retaliation. Unfortunately, the rest of the plot is so discombobulated it minimizes any message Infinity Ward might have been trying to communicate.

• Modern Warfare 2 Vid 3

None of the characters has anything that might be mistaken for a personality. Their motives are cloudy and irrational. Unless it is directly portrayed on screen, the larger plot is vaguely described and difficult to follow.

Video games as a medium are still discovering their narrative strengths. Movies are strictly passive experiences allowing for strict directorial control over presentation, but novels can sometimes deliver richer experiences by relying on the reader’s imagination.

Video games, on the other hand, are interactive, meaning that players can project their own motives on the character and effect changes in the narrative landscape. The games that are the most successful at spinning engaging stories are those that experiment with interactive aspects.

With the “No Russian” level, Infinity Ward is experimenting and pushing the boundaries of interactive storytelling. The attempt sadly fails because the effort is fleeting as chaotic action and a “shoot everything” mentality supplants plot in importance as the game progresses.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is a brilliant multiplayer game that will reign supreme through 2010 and beyond. The addition of Special Ops cooperative mode offers new challenges for online play. But the single player mode is short and squanders opportunities for relevant commentary on war and conflict through muddied storytelling.

©2009 Aaron Klein:

Note: Aaron Klein is a U.S.-based freelance video game writer. Read more of his reviews at cornfedgamer.com.

• Average press score accoring to TestFreaks: 9.3/10

“8.5/10

• Other games in genre at discount $’s for ALL OXCGN readers + Bonus Points

9/10

I got my Xbox 360 back Tuesday night, and I’ve been grinding on Modern Warfare 2 ever since, which is why my blog post is pretty late.  Currently, I’m enjoying the game, and I plan to write two reviews for it; one for the campaign, and the other for the multiplayer.

Other than that, life seems to have taken a few unnecessary twists and I’m trying to work out the kinks while staying sane.  It’s really tough shit, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out one way or the other.

I’ll try to have the reviews up by Sunday, barring anything crazy happening. <3