We are on the cusp of the end-of-the-year game deluge, so I went over some release lists earlier today to see just when some games I want were slated to hit shelves and, to my dismay, I found a ton of goddamn games. I copied them down anyway and decided to go through and give them some kind of priority. Which games do I really want? Need? Will die without? Once I started I decided just to make a blog out of it and share it with Destructoid.

Shadow Complex -- August 19, 2009
Purchase likelihood: High



Shadow Complex being a download game, lower price and all, really bumps it up. I was initially pensive about a purchase and I still plan to try a demo before spending my Silly Bill Fun Bux, but every trailer has made it seem like a great combination of retro style and modern development.

Batman: Arkham Asylum -- August 25, 2009
Purchase likelihood: Already Paid Off

I was almost sold when I heard Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill voicing their respective characters; I was even closer when I saw gameplay videos of combat and stealth; I made a run to Gamestop the day I heard about the demos on PS3 kiosks and I wasn't disappointed. I'll admit a bit of enjoying this title was due to the license, but I genuinely had fun cracking Arkham inmates in half.

I just can't bring myself to get the batarang edition though.

Muramasa: The Demon Blade -- September 8, 2009
Purchase likelihood: Pretty High

Much like Shadow Complex, Muramasa looks like it combines oldschool style with modern design ideas. It has pretty graphics and everything I've seen makes it look like a ton of fun. I don't know what else to say about it, but I'll probably be suckered into one of those Classic Controller Pros. Maybe I'll wait until I can get my mitts on the controller first, since I have no idea when they'll be letting us roundeyes buy them.

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 -- September 15, 2009
Purchase likelihood: Mediumish

I am a sucker for comic books, Marvel, goofy match-ups and anything that includes more obscure characters. This seems to do all of that, present a hopefully less Liberal-bullshit laden (DA GUBBERMINTS IS BAD!!!) version of the Civil War plot and, with any luck, will have a more cohesive end quarter than the last game. They've got my attention at least, but this might be one where I wait for a review just to be safe.

WET -- September 15, 2009
Purchase Likelihood: Medium High

I may have mentioned it at several points in the past, but here it is again: I love third person action games. They are exactly what I look for. I can see the character and form a connection, they can have lots of variety while maintaining the basic framework I like (Uncharted vs Devil May Cry vs Armored Core) and they're just plain fun to play. Wet does that, and has the very “unserious” grindhouse over-the-topness that made any plot issue irrelevant in HotD:Overkill. If only more developers would learn that a game that rocks easily replaces a game with some extra-grim story they demand be taken seriously.

Unless it gets really atrocious reviews, it will end up on my shelf.

Katamari Forever -- September 22, 2009
Purchase Likelihood: Medium High

I likes me some Katamari rolling and I would love to have a new one in HD, but this really isn't “new”, per se; it's revamped old levels It's in HD, but it doesn't look like the current-gen power has done anything but pumped up the resolution. A bit of a tangent, but what I always want from new generations is not fancier graphics—those are easy—it's better physics and environmental interaction. This doesn't really have that, but I have no idea if a Katamari game could even exist with fancy physics anyway.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 -- September 29, 2009
Purchase Likelihood: Medium

Once again, third person action. Unfortunately NG2 took itself far too seriously for my taste and was a technical abomination. Some of it seemed like it was easy to fix; make it not freeze, make the framerate not blow ass and for god's sake, fix the camera. If they can fix the horrible technical problems, I can get past the completely stupid story and writing easily enough to enjoy the combat.

Alpha Protocol -- October 6, 2009
Purchase Likelihood: Medium with a dash of Low

There's a lot about Alpha Protocol that has me interested, and nothing that has me sold. For all the variety and dialog options and customization, it just hasn't hit me as particularly smooth in operation. Trailers seem stiff, but there's time to fix that, and who's to say the age of the build used for trailers in the first place? It looks like Mass Effect with spies, and like a game I can play through a few times without sinking back into the same methods I did as with Fallout 3.

Demon's Souls (Deluxe Edition) -- October 6, 2009
Purchase Likelihood: Medium

Demon's Souls looks pretty awesome, but a big draw for me is the multiplayer. This is something I'm going to echo with Borderlands when we get to that, but I like teamwork, I like classes and I like customizing to work with your team. Demon's Souls would be all about that if it had a straight up multiplayer component. It doesn't, but it still has a dark, foreboding atmosphere and tons of character customization. Want it, but I'm skeptical of my own ability to stick with it when I really want to play with someone and have to some crazy phantom stuff.

Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising -- October 6, 2009
Purchase Likelihood: Medium Low

Really, what does this one in is my own lack of necessity for another shooter. I do think the concept of the game is awesome though. A big, open area that's almost impossible to navigate on foot, teamwork, lots of ways to approach objectives. It all looks good, but I'm just not as excited for this one as I am for others.

Brütal Legend -- October 13, 2009
Purchase Likelihood: Very High

Over at Gamersyde, and on several other sites to boot, you can watch about 35 minutes of gameplay from Brutal Legend that covers everything from combat tutorials to the headbanger minions to the upgrades. If you don't see why I, or anyone else, would drop $60+ on this game as soon as they get the chance, go watch. You will know. And if you still don't know, then you need to go listen to Motorhead until you figure it out.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves -- October 13, 2009
Purchase Likelihood: Just waiting to see if there's a special edition beyond the preorder bonuses



No, it's not a typo, I actually just made this one bigger than the rest. Uncharted was, and still is, one of the best games released this generation. It is an interactive summer action blockbuster that I enjoyed all the way through. It never got old, it didn't drag in the middle and having recently played it again, it is an example of such expert tuning I can't think of another game that truly accomplishes what Uncharted did. Revolutionary? No. Can I complain about anything? Also no. Now they're making another one and between the trailers and the beta, they seem to have made it more impressive in every way. If I had to pick only one game to buy for the rest of this year, this would be it.

No, really, I'm just waiting to see if there's an option that lets me pay Naughty Dog more.

A Boy and His Blob -- October 14, 2009
Purchase Likelihood: Medium

I was in love as soon as I saw the hug button pressed, but my decades old attempt at playing the game on the NES has made me slightly hesitant to charge head first into this one. It looks amazing, but there is a platformer I want more.

Borderlands -- October 20, 2009
Purchase Likelihood: Medium

I find this a bit more interesting than Operation Flashpoint just for the setting, but the ability to scrounge up a firearm fit for Super Jesus puts it over for me. Teamwork, support sniping, RPG elements but with the assurance that when I aim at someone I'm going to hit them and a sweet style make this a pretty attractive game. But, and a big one, it's still a shooter and good god do I have enough of those.

Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time -- October 27, 2009
Purchase Likelihood: Sure Thing



This is the platformer I want more than ABahB. [Late night edit: Double negative that sounded more entertaining in my head hours ago feels like I'm saying I don't love R&C now. Fuck that! Ratchet & Clank rocks.] I don't know what to say about it. I think my only disappointment is that this new one isn't titled “Clock Blockers” in the goofy fashion of it's predecessors.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Ultimate Sith Edition -- November 3, 2009
Purchase Likelihood: Sigh... pretty high

I am such a goddamn sucker, but I loved the first release of this game. I attempted to objectively review it, but I just love smashing enemies into walls that dent differently every time. I love super-scary sith armor. I love playing the bad guy. I don't know if I'll grab this one right away, but I'm probably just sucker enough to do it.

Modern Warfare 2 -- November 10, 2009
Purchase Likelihood: Low

What? Yeah. I know a few things about Modern Warfare 2. 1. It's Modern Warfare. It will be fun, it will be familiar, and it will be some third f thing. 2. It will be around for a good, long time. Really, people are still playing COD4, so I don't expect MW2 to go away anytime soon. 3. I'm not going to be the first to the top rank with everything unlocked so why fucking rush it?

I'm sure, absolutely so, that I will buy Modern Warfare 2 someday. I'm just kind of set on shooters at the moment, and there's no shortage of new ones this fall. It's not necessarily a lack of interest in Modern Warfare 2, but a lack of urgency. I've got a burning need to get my hands on MAG (especially since someone on my friends list is in the beta, taunting me with NDA filtered informational goodies it would be rude to blog about) and because it's new. Modern Warfare is a sure thing, and will be a sure thing in six months too.

The Saboteur -- December 8, 2009
Purchase Likelihood: Medium Low

There's plenty about The Saboteur that I like and plenty that I am ambivalent to. It's a new take on a setting that I couldn't care less about, but it's got a cool style and I love stealthy gameplay. It's another third person action title and I've said before that those are my bread and butter. I'll need to see how this one pans out, especially after that metric assload of titles.

This isn't even every game. I didn't list anything with a TBA or a Q4 note, only games that had a day locked in. I even did my best to root out all the delays and I'm still left with a ton of games. I love being excited about games but... damn. That's a lot of them and I'm going to have to make some difficult cuts; "can afford" and "should buy" are not the same thing. Many of the games I really, really wanted, such as Bayonetta and Dark Void were pushed to next year where they can make friends with even more games I want like God of War 3.

It's two maps and there's not some plot twist in them, so it's a review. I only played them for an evening, so I feel like it should merely be impressions. It's... whatever. I don't know if there's a difference for this kind of content. It's actually kind of hard for me to say this, but these new maps aren't very fun. It isn't the fault of the maps themselves; the people playing on them being camping douchebags is clearly what ruined the experience for me, but it was significantly marred regardless of the reason.


Here's the video again. What do you want, pictures of dirt and hallways?

The first map I found myself on was Sujeva Cliffside and as much as I like the atmospheric outdoor maps we got previously, this one seems to be specifically built for spawn camping. The map isn't especially long and feels decidedly cramped no matter where you go; it just isn't an open map, which is fine. The trouble is that all that cool junk piled outside is great cover for a team to rush up to the building on your side of the map. The buildings, while 3 stories are actually pretty useless for scouts due to a big rock formation and general clutter cutting down the visible range of the map. The trouble really comes in when someone gets a spawn point on the top floor. It's plenty of blind corners and easily camp-able stairways, only to get up to the top to meet half a team and turrets. This will be a cool map for dtoid private games because I can generally count on fellow dtoiders not to be total cunts, but the dregs of the internet make this one a waste of time. If you thought Tharsis Depot or Radec Academy were bad for spawn camping, good luck with this one; the distance you have to go to even see if someone is out there means your spawn-invincibility can't help push them back.

Arctower Landing is better, but still kind of iffy. Instead of having a bunch of junk, it's hallways. It's less about spawn camping and more an instance of what I always hated about FPS games before: pac-man. HallwayhallwayhallwayhallwayDEAD. Unless you can psychically predict the path someone will take and have the spaghetti plate of a layout memorized, the best way to take out a speaker-carrier is to wait by the goal; one unexpected turn can make them all but un-catchable so the safe bet is to ambush them. Once again, it will likely be killer fun with dtoiders, but random groups from the intertrons makes for an exercise in how many times you can die because someone hopped in front of you to soak up all the bullets meant for the other team, died, and obstructed your view in the process to make it easier for them to kill you. For once, I want friendly fire on not just as a novelty, but as a way to kill people that get in my way. It will make them not be in the way anymore, at least. I don't want to seem too down on this one, or for either map give the “I only lost because of my team” impression. I played for a good chunk of the evening and really only on these maps and it just didn't feel as good as map pack #2. Of course, Southern Hills and Beachhead are also awesome so topping them might have been a difficult task. I was right. It's a hell of a battle to get the boltgun. I don't know if it ever respawns though; it might end up just lying around the map after whoever has it gets taken out.

After the quality additions of the previous two DLC packs and the apparent thought that went into the on-disc maps, I'm left wondering if there is just some path or strategy (other than “sit with gun pointed at door” or "try to make sure no one else has fun") that I am missing or if these simply aren't as nice. The maps are as aesthetically pleasing as any of the other ones and they could be a ton of fun if you were going to play them with people that don't think winning at the cost of fun in an online FPS makes them important. In short: ehhhh. Hopefully the bullshit drains out for double XP this weekend.

I know we all love hearing about more comics even after every game, developer and developer's cat has their own comicbook on the way. This one has nothing to do with video games at all. Shocking, I know. I picked up an Amazon Prime membership about a month ago in the interest of prolifically but responsibly expanding my meager collection of comics without buying a stack of trades at a time and not really reading them. Ah, comics, I heart thee so. Much like games, they can range from dumb fun to a very impressive presentation of story. They allow for many different styles, effects and even controlling the pace of the reader/player. I've been intermittently working on blogs about why I love Nextwave and Marvel Adventures: Avengers, and I've already somewhat obtusely told you why Shakara: The Avenger kicks ass (and is in fact pure ass-kicking pressed into a book by design; just check the banner and consider that I didn't even use the panel with cyborg dinosaur space-commandos). More recently, I took a chance and ordered a book based only on the sparse mention scattered across the internet and the sweet cover image. The Marquis: Danse Macabre, written and drawn by Guy Davis was worth it. Judging a book by its cover? A-OK.



If you're familiar with BPRD comics, you may already have read some of Davis's work. I was, though I didn't realize it having really only thumbed through a couple issues of The Universal Machine. If you aren't familiar with his previous work, there's nothing to worry about because The Marquis is wholly isolated and finite series. For the record, I like that. I will never, ever end up having all the trades and individual issues needed to collect longer running series like Spider-Man or what have you, so I won't really get to read them. Danse Macabre is the first of five books (the first four telling the story of The Marquis and the fifth being a prequel book for the setting). Each will be an individual story and the others won't be required and stand alone.

The art (for the most part) is black and white. The very conservative use of dark shading in characters and scenery and nearly solid black of The Marquis very effectively portrayed as the ominous, looming figure he is perceived as in the story. It's hard as hell to find a decent page scan online, especially one that I like, and the book is too thick to scan well myself. Lame. Here's a panel though. It's definitely Guy Davis's style and gives an ok look at the shading I was talking about, it's just a boring one.



The plot isn't groundbreaking, but it is enjoyable. Vol de Galle, former inquisitor fights devils hidden amongst us with a sword and some very impressive looking turret pistols—there are monsters and they are bad. I liked it and the way it handled a supernatural/religious horror feel. It was familiar enough that I didn't feel entirely fish out of water, especially after a particular Guy Davis BPRD story, but it still felt fresh. I really have trouble talking about the quality of a plot without mentioning the thing I liked about it and dropping spoilers in an entirely casual manner so I won't say more. The dialog, for a story set in 18th century France, is colorful without being too overdone. You won't get any Thor-style “say thee nay”s, but the fearful mention of “de Marquis” makes the otherwise simple title feel like a solid name for the character.



The book is available on Amazon right now, but if you can hold out (You mean on buying this thing we've never heard of or didn't care about when we found it ourselves, Trev? Sounds hard.) until September you'll be able to get it and the apparently completely out of print Intermezzo in a single book, with an expanded sketchbook and a cover gallery for each issue including all original covers, variant guest covers and the covers from the French versions (damn!). For anyone that finds themselves interested, the next book, The Marquis and the Midwife, is due out sometime next year.

This feels like it made the announcement-release trip faster than the other map packs. That works for me. I would love for retail games to follow suit. As much as I like hearing about games, the whole "this should be released three years from now" thing has been bothering me more and more this generation.

Back on topic, where I should have stayed in the first place, I couldn't care less about the flamethrower since exactly what I need to do as an invisible sniper is relatively short-range weapon that shoots really conspicuous jets of flame everywhere. Yeah. Super plan. The boltgun, on the other hand, has got to be the single coolest gun from the campaign. Punching exploding, metal sidewalk chalk into people is going to be that much more fun when they're the assassination target.

Two new maps, which look just as cool and atmospheric as the other DLC maps come in the pack. Suljeva Cliffside features the flamethrower, which looks like a great way to capitalize on the assault class's extra armor and rushing ability and Arctower Landing has the Boltgun 4400, which I imagine will make disguised saboteurs dangerous for the assassination mode, provided they can get their hands on it. I have a feeling it's going to be very popular.


Screw you, not-cblog-sized video!

Also hitting the store is the DLC bundle which will have all 3 map packs for a cool $12. It's like getting one for free. I'm picking them up, but I won't get the deal myself since I already own the other two. If I didn't own the other two already, I would probably have hosed things up like usual and thought “I'll just get these now and get the new one tomorrow”, oblivious to the bundle. I hate doing that so fucking much (curse you Fallout DLC!), yet I end up doing it all the time.

Any other dtoiders going to grab this? Friday Night Fights material? I know that excludes a couple people (and we don't want to do that) so, omitting official inclusion, I might start up an open-to-the-world DLC game while other people play 1943. I love that gameplay, but 45 minutes of waiting just to have the game freeze is going to require a sappy greeting card and a tray of brownies to get me feeling positive about it again.

I'm just going to pretend I didn't get this all from the ps.blog.

About the time of Resident Evil 5's demo release, an issue arose. The game, whatever your opinion on the following is, was remarkably similar to Resident Evil 4. Not just in the sequel way, but in the “are you sure half of this isn't a reskin?” way. Reapers instead of Regenerators, N'desu instead of El Gigante (and apparently it was even named “el gigante” in the game files), pretty much every basic enemy was the same except black, and we got tentacle zombie dogs instead of... tentacle zombie dogs. The mechanics didn't progress at all even after Dead Space showed us that survival-horror, scary atmosphere and an extreme sense of danger can easily be provided in a game with more actiony controls. Should it have just ripped off Dead Space? No, that's not what I'm suggesting. Just pointing out that it was a $60 price tag on a game with less difference from it's predecessor than some Homeworld 2 mods introduce.

We were also treated to this, on the topic of control complaints:

“If you don't like it, and certainly that is your prerogative, at least have the self-awareness to recognize it as the twisted, petulant sense of adolescent entitlement that it is.“



Jerry, despite coming off like a cockhole here, can have his opinion and it seems like it was the one held by most of Capcom's defenders. Is “Guffaw! How dare you ask for more from our ever-generous Nihonjin masters?! All is as it was meant to be!” really the best response here? There are times I really think that sentiment applies, but this is not one of those times. This was not a game being criticized for not being some other game like “Why isn't MGS4 exactly like Gears 2 but with Snake in it?”, it was a game clinging to mechanics from four years ago. No one (smart) was demanding they make it exactly like something else, just that they try to improve on their already great game. I could buy $60 worth of groceries, or save that little bit more toward a new car, but you want me to dump it into twelve to fourteen hours of this thing that doesn't really improve my life in any way. Is it inappropriate to ask things of the companies that rely on us pumping millions of dollars into them for things we don't actually need?

I say it is not. We may and, in fact, should tell these companies what we want. They should listen. Us: "Hey! NEW gameplay!" Them: "Alright, we'll give it our best shot!" Everyone: "Hugs time!"

Capcom is not the only culprit, but they seem to receive a big portion of the attention for it. No developer should be without criticism. And not professional criticism, no, but pure feedback from the gamers they expect to feed them money to stay alive. Ubisoft did it with Assassin's Creed by opening a forum right after the game's release, and now we have a sequel coming with more mission types and, presumably a less-Hitmanish system so there can be more than one right way to do things. I'm just going to stick with the Capcom/Resident Evil example so things don't get confusing.



Video games can be art, but most of them are not one man's creation that expresses some story or emotion that he wanted to share. Games generally lack the intrinsic value and freedom of other forms of art. A song costs nothing to write or sing, and can be personal and meaningful. Whether or not anyone ever hears it, someone can write it just for themselves. As much as I love Killzone 2, it is not someone's catharsis. Killzone, like most games, is for us to buy with our money. Killzone is a pizza, and though you might not like the mushrooms, you can switch on high precision mode to pick them off (Hey-oh!). You see, Guerrilla Games listened to their audience and, while I thought lots of people were being whiny because it wasn't a COD4 clone, they attempted to appease them by tweaking the controls without hampering the unique, weighty feel of their game. It was not from the Capcom pizzeria where they make what they feel like and say fuck you if you want extra cheese. Games are made for us to consume and should be made, in effect, to order. They obviously can't customize them for every individual, much like buying a pizza generally results in some disagreement over toppings, but a consensus can be reached that doesn't involve plain cheese or hostage situations, pizza-math not withstanding. (“You had your slices already and I will fucking. CUT. YOU.” Haven't we all been there?). I don't need or want to dictate every aspect of game development, but, especially with people whining about poor sales, you think they could have done better had they known what we wanted and given it to us.



If Capcom puts some real effort into Resident Evil 6, fans of the series won't be driven away just like they weren't driven way by Resident Evil 4's shift to a less archaic style. People that love Resident Evil will still love Resident Evil for the aesthetic and story and Capcom would look like champs for turning out something that's actually new for RE6 instead of just the rumored story reboot.

As though on cue, someone has handed me an example of not just doing it right and listening to your potential audience and customers, but being proactive about it. Fellow dtoider kitae has gone right ahead and asked us what we like in games. This is perhaps the best thing I can imagine. We are not just able to give a developer input, but we can do so before the new game hits the presses. We can share what we like without stifling creativity on the part of the devs. You know what? I don't like RPGs; just not a fan. I missed the Mass Effect boat and never got around to trying it later. You know what else? I now care about Mass Effect 2. I'm going to add it to my sidebar as soon as I post this blog. I want to see it. I don't expect ME2 to be fundamentally changed by the comments on her blog, but I now know someone, anyone at all, at Bioware is listening to us. That it's someone with the word "lead" in their title is even better. If they will actually ask for input on anything at all, I can't believe they would have been deaf to any criticisms of the prior game. I was having trouble coming up with a conclusion to say how it should be done, but I just had it written for me.



Bravo, Ms. Norman. Your attention has won mine. I think lots of developers could take a lesson from this: even casual interest in your audience can help, and it makes a great impression.

I've received a few messages on PSN in regards to my standing comment message and decided to set down my thoughts on it rather than send individual messages (award for most uses of the word "message" goes to...). I wrote a lot and then threw most of it out to cut it down to just the issues that bothered me. I like the gameplay, the sound is amazing and the graphics are fine—no awards will be given out, but I don't sit and wonder how they thought this was a current-gen game. The scale of the game is huge. Going on about the things I like neither explains the message nor makes for a concise blog.



My message: 194Shit. To the point and unambiguous. Not three, shit. I feel that, in spite of enjoying many things about it, it fails in the aspect I hold most important in multiplayer gaming: being able to play with my friends.

I bought the game so I could play it in Friday Night Fights, but sadly, it seems to actively discourage trying to play with your friends. Private matches can't be started unless they are completely full. We didn't actually get to play for FNF because we were three people short. After bullshitting in the lobby for a while, we finally gave up and went to play a different game from a better developer. BlazBlue, for the record, lets you start a game whenever you damn well please. WOAH. Maybe if we ask really nice the Japanese will share this super-advanced “start the game button” technology with us! I'd swear this is narcissism, like everyone on every online service will be playing it so clearly there are always people to invite. How could your game ever not be full?!

Compounding the issue with starting a match is the fact that, even if you do, you will only ever be able to talk with three of your teammates a a time. Good luck telling someone to join you in a landing boat or coordinate at fucking all with other squads. If you and three friends just want to play, that would be great except for the part where you can't select which squad you'll join, so even if you get into the same game and onto the same team, it's still completely up in the air if you'll really be able to play with someone from your friends list or just in the same game as them. Since most of the vehicles don't seat four, you generally get split up as the game goes on, negating the point of even trying to team up in the first place. Four man squad, three man jeep; peachy keen, DICE.

Hypothetically, even if I do what I have not done at all yet and get onto the same game, team and squad as three of them, and manage to stick with them for the match so we can actually act as a team, it gets reset at the end of the match. I've had enemies shuffled onto my team fairly regularly.



Seriously, do you know how to do these things? Can you, in a reasonably reliable way, join games and teams and specific squads with people you actually know and play with them? Tell me! I would love to have this information so that I can derive the same kind of enjoyment from this game as I do from others like Killzone 2, COD4, and Warhawk that don't give me such a fucking runaround. DICE, just open up the damn chat so we don't have to deal with this bullshit and can really work as a team.

[Edit:Rather than hide this sentiment in the comments, I'll tack it on the end. I really do enjoy playing this game. It's uncomplicated fun. I guess the planes are kind of tricky, but beyond that all you have to do is hop on and shoot guys. I know what I'm in for every time I start the game, and it's fun. I'm a fan of evaluating games as unique entities, but other games have such similar styles or squad systems and DICE just didn't get that aspect of it right. In fact, they got it very, very wrong and it makes for a hefty blight on an otherwise great experience.]