Sad Reflections.

It's 5am, and as I sit here, fresh off a couple of hours attempting to subjugate my people in Tropico 3, I happened to come across this post by Michael Abbott over at Brainy Gamer. It's worth a read. But, sadly, it made me think about what the Call of Duty franchise has ultimately become: a five-second thrill rehashed ad-nauseum. My first confession should be that I'm not nearly as big a multiplayer competitor as I used to be. Turn back the clock just a couple of years and you'd be likely to find me playing a lot more Halo 3. But nowadays, I simply can't do it. The experience of standard multiplayer has become so stale and uninteresting to me that the thought of entering a match doesn't usually cross my mind at all. I need something more out of games at this point, and a game like Modern Warfare 2 just doesn't cut it.

You can call me ignorant, out of touch, pretentious, or any number of other things; one thing you can't accuse me of, however, is having a knee-jerk reaction or hypocritically enjoying the game while unabashedly, well, bashing it. My tastes have slowly evolved to where they are now, and I no longer see any value in what the Call of Duty franchise has to offer. In the Brainy gamer post, Abbott gives reactions he's heard, mostly decrying the single-player campaign as an add-on to the real meat of the game: the multiplayer. Curiously, one person said that he would play the campaign "at some point", but directly after said it would be cheap of them not to include it. But if he doesn't really care about it, then why is it cheap? His only care is obviously the multiplayer, so what's the deal? I muddled my point a bit there, but what I'm getting at is that the whole attitude about the campaign being a throwaway for the player to eventually sift through is incredibly disheartening to me.

I remember playing both Call of Duty 2 and the original Modern Warfare and being thoroughly engrossed by both. Sure, they were all about pushing the player from set-piece to set-piece, but I never felt as though I was being talked down to by the developer. I never once felt like they knew I would buy their game no matter what. If they wanted my $60.00, they had to earn it. And earn it, they did. Their stories were powerful not just because of their intensity, but because of the worlds they were grounded in. Things made sense; cause and effect seemed real; I was engrossed in what was unfolding before me, and I couldn't have been happier. Fast forward to Modern Warfare 2, and it's been turned on its head. No longer do I believe what I'm seeing - not in the least bit. No longer do I care - at all - about characters dying. I'm not moved when something supposedly shocking occurs, because I expect something ludicrous to come out of left field.

Why do I expect it? For one, in the industry's current climate, the double-edged sword of great success demands that sequels be bigger and more bad-ass. Take, for instance, the scene in Modern Warfare where your character is slowly clawing his way out of the flaming wreckage of his chopper, only to look up and see a nuclear holocaust whisking its way straight for him. That scene had impact; it meant something. Compare it with the airport scene in Modern Warfare 2, and I think you catch my drift. Again, your character gets killed, but the impact is greatly retarded by the lack of context. Sure, you know you're a sleeper agent of some sort, but who are you? You don't get to find out before the back of your skull meets the pavement. It's just no good. With the narrative style Infinity Ward employs, that very context is integral to leaving a lasting impression on the player. Without it, the meaning behind the action deflates to nothing more than a cheap trick. Anyone can do a cheap trick; it takes real artists to create something worth discussing.

I don't want to give the wrong impression; Call of Duty has never been the pinnacle of storytelling. Far from it. Still, the older games' presentations coupled with how the stories unfolded made for a really great experience. It just seems like Infinity Ward's priorities have changed now. They're not as dead-set in crafting a believable world anymore, and for people like me, that's a sad thing. Good thing there are plenty of other games that at least attempt it.


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The "Airport Level" and Other Musings in Modern Warfare 2 or, What's the Big Deal?

So a friend spontaneously brought over his copy of Modern Warfare 2 tonight, and I played it for a couple of hours or so. I must say, my initial impression of the game doesn't do it any favors. You can say I'm just hating all you want, but I honestly haven't found the experience rewarding enough to warrant a purchase up to this point. For clarity's sake, I just finished the "Wolverines" mission, and I'm playing on Veteran difficulty (which I do for all CoD games).

Now I'm not saying there's a full-on outrage over the airport scenario, but I did read a few articles talking about how controversial it is. Really? I don't see that at all. What makes this thing so different than, say, Kane and Lynch? Or Grand Theft Auto 4? You could say the GTA series has built itself on scenes just like the one in Modern Warfare 2. Sure, Rockstar is no stranger to "controversy", but I can only take so much faux outrage before I throw up my hands and surrender to stupidity. Does the controversy stem from the player being forced to act as a terrorist? I can say that I didn't personally gun down a single civilian in the airport, but I had to protect myself against the S.W.A.T. team with riot shields. Can you name another game that put you in the same scenario? If you said one out of about 800 games, you're probably correct. I just don't see why this even made the news.

My gripe comes in two parts: the situation is set up so poorly that it defies all pretenses of realism and relies solely on shock value, and it also feels like a feeble attempt by Infinity Ward to one-up either themselves or Treyarch in terms of creating the next "wow" moment. No one can honestly argue that this dumb shit is portrayed realistically at all. You're telling me that 3 or 4 armed men would be able to walk into an airport in this day and age and gun down hundreds of people, including S.W.A.T. and police officers, and make a clean getaway? If your answer is yes, then you are full of shit. Sorry. The whole thing is so ludicrous from start to finish that I mostly found myself rolling my eyes and making that "wtf" motion with my hands as I watched dozens upon dozens of people being murdered in a supposedly high security area with no repercussions until we made it to the runway area of the airport. Even then, it was a simple matter of grenading the shit out of the opposition until a suitable path was made through them.


In my mind, in order to make something like that in any way controversial, there has to be an underlying context that warrants emotional investment. You just don't get anything like that in Modern Warfare 2. There's a level of detachment which I find uncanny in its knack for making me not give a shit. Who are you playing as in the airport? I don't know - it's just some dude. What sacrifices did you have to make to infiltrate such a disgusting operation? I don't know - it's just some dude. The stunning lack of context in this game makes it nigh impossible for me to connect with the story in any way. And with that, I'd like to talk about the last mission I took part in: "Wolverines".

First of all, this mission reeks of WWII. I can't be led to believe anything but nostalgia for Infinity Ward's pre-modern era style of games is to blame for being impressed by this. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, you're telling me that I'm supposed to believe any of what's going on is a semblance of reality? There are cargo planes lazily drifting along in the air while hundreds of dudes with parachutes float around like this was still the 1940s. Really? This is, as close as analogies allow, Invasion U.S.A.: The Game. If the baddies came across by means of speedboats and 18-wheelers, the effect would be the same. Modern Warfare 2 is the video game equivalent of a big, dumb 80s action movie. What possible redeeming qualities could it hold? So far, the only thing I can say that I appreciate about it is its graphical prowess and fantastic presentation (rock-solid framerate included). But with so many shooters out there, I need to get something more out of a game. Yes, the gameplay is pretty much as good as it gets, but what's my motivation? Does that sound pretentious? The question itself might be, but at this stage in my life, I'm not impressed by snazzy effects and shock narratives. It's a sad state of affairs when a storyline like this can pass for entertaining. This game is the epitome of that whole "we fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here" line of horseshit that certain people tried to feed us. I'll play the game to completion, but I'm really only getting superficial satisfaction out of it. Oh, well, Bioshock 2 comes out in about 3 months.

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Life Will Find a Way.

Well, I just finished Jurassic: The Hunted. It's a short game; it couldn't have taken me much more than 4 hours to complete. Despite its length, I left satisfied with the experience, and what I'd like to see now is a similar game with a little more time and money thrown behind it. And if that ever happens, it will need a LOT more marketing than this game got.

Jurassic was only about 4 hours, like I said. But I think if the game went on for too much longer with no variations on the gameplay, it would become repetitive pretty quickly. As is, it was a blast to kill dinos, and I was elated not to see any other enemies to distract me from doing so. There are gigantic scorpions, but I lump those into the same category as the dinos. As anyone with any credibility on the subject knows, wherever you find dinosaurs, you'll also find bugs and insects that are at least 10 times their normal size. Durh.

There were a couple parts that were pretty poorly designed, though. First off was one of the most dissapointing sequences in the game: my first encounter with a T-Rex. I knew the situation would inevitably come up, but I was expecting a much more dynamic experience. Instead of having to fend it off using my reflexes and skill, the developers decided a better use of my time would be with a generic turret sequence. The T-Rex charged, and I blasted it in the face. It ran away; rinse and repeat. In-between the T-Rex's charges, flying assholes would swoop down and distract me from my patient waiting. The turret would overheat if used for too prolonged a time period, but it was never very challenging. I didn't necessarily want an uber-challenging fight, though. I just wanted something dynamic and intense. Instead, I got neither. The salt on the wound, however, was that once the fight was over, I had to do it all over again. Ah, but it was different the second time around. This time, the T-Rex was colored red. Thanks, Cauldron. Thanks a lot. King Kong did it a lot better........4 fucking years ago.

The T-Rex sure looks impressive. Too bad the fight was shitty and I did it with one hand while watching water boil.

The game redeemed itself, however, with the next "boss" fight. Forget T-Rexes, this time I was up against a Spinosaurus. The fight actually went almost exactly how I had pictured the T-Rex fight before that debacle happened. I had free reign to run around, dodging the Spinosaurus' lunging jaws of death while popping slo-mo and aiming for his vitals. It was much, much more exhilirating, let me tell you. Again, the dinosaur character models and their movements are a thing to behold.

This guy, however, was bad ass. I RPG'd him like 8 times.

The second obnoxious part was a little sequence involving me running across a bunch of rope bridges while the same flying assholes from the T-Rex bit were flying around my face. Sorry, but it wasn't thrilling at all, just annoying. To kill them, I just had to aim my gun sightly upwards and hold down the trigger. Great. Luckily for me, it was a short sequence, and the only one of its kind.

Oh, I guess I'll tell you about a fantastic death I had. You see, when you're firing a weapon and it runds out of ammo, it will automatically switch to the next weapon in your inventory. Well, the next weapon in my inventory happened to be an RPG. Yea....I was holding down the trigger, shooting a big fucking monster when, oops! I blew myself up. Brilliant, yet again. If a gun runds out of ammo, it should just make that clicking noise and make you manually switch weapons. Otherwise, dumb shit like that will happen. I learned my lesson, though.

Those few points were really the only true negatives in Jurassic. Sure, it's not the most intense game I've ever played, and its budget roots show sometimes, but overall I'd definitely recommend you check it out when you get a chance. Cauldron obviously spent a lot of time and effort on the dinosaurs themselves, because they were fucking awesome. They moved and behaved like I thought they should, and were a little frightening, especially when more than one was running full-speed at me. I guess I wished there were more unique encounters with bigger foes, but I think the whole game would have to be lengthened and changed up a bit more for that to work. And for that to happen, more time and money would be needed, etc. But as it stands, if you have 4 hours to waste with a pretty atmospheric shooter with enemies you don't see very often, give Jurassic a shot.


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"That's a Navy Seal campfire if I ever saw one."

The quote I used for my title is uttered by the main character....Dwayne? Chris?....I don't know his name, but that was the first thing that came to his mind when he saw burnt ash and smoke coming from the ground. Fucking A - you can't make 'em like a Navy Seal. Someone's skull is probably at the base of that campfire. I think my brain is now capable of thinking like Dutch in Predator.

Please, do read on.

In case you were wondering, the game I'm talking about is Jurassic: The Hunted. What? You've never heard of that game? Wow, that comes as such a shock to me. You see, it appears that Activision decided to publish it, despite the fact it didn't put any marketing behind it whatsoever. It's a budget title that released November 3rd for $39.99, but if Activision had its way, I guess you would never know even that much about it. Why? I don't know. It probably has something to do with Bobby Kotick being a fucking tool.

Meanwhile, back in reality, Jurassic: The Hunted is a pretty damn cool game. Yes, the title is pretty stupid and the box art makes it look like a light gun game from 1996. Despite that, it's a relatively unique FPS experience that is highly in danger of going under every single person's radar until it's made obscure by both time and the sheer volume of shooters on the market. But what makes it cool? Well, it sure as shit isn't the fact that it's published by Activision. If you read this blog at all, you'd know that I hate them. I hate them so much, in fact, that I'm currently under a boycott of all their games. Well, until now. You see, this is EXACTLY the kind of game I want to spend my dollars on. And if there were ever a reason to give Activision money, it would be to reward them for publishing a game like this. I bought this game new, and I'm proud of it. But enough politics - what's the actual game like?


Well, for starters, I'll get some of the budget-obvious stuff out of the way. I've only played a couple of hours so far, but I think I have a pretty good handle on how the game feels. One of the first things that clues you in on this being a budget title is the music. The ambient soundtrack is really good; it's suitably creepy, but nice to listen to at the same time. However, when a dinosaur comes into view, a generic rock track suddenly kicks in. Once you kill the dino, the song disappears just as suddenly as it appeared. Scripting like that is just a small indicator of the budget-consciousness of the developers. It's by no means horribly distracting, but it is noticeable. Also, when you switch weapons, you have to wait for the animation to finish before you can go to your next weapon. Again, it's a very minor gripe, but worth noting. If you're used to flipping though your arsenal like a crack fiend in fast-forward, then you might give up a curse word or two. But the rest of humanity can suffer through that slight annoyance. The last critique I have is with the voice acting. But, honestly, I don't know if it's a critique so much as it is an asset. Basically, it's so fucking bad that I think it's intentional. It sets itself up as some sort of sci-fi B-movie. If that was the goal, then mission accomplished. If the developers were trying to be serious with the material, then they just crashed into the fail boat head-on. But either way, we as gamers win. In my mind, whether or not they intended it to be hilarious, it nonetheless is fantastically bad. So that's up to you as to whether it's a plus or minus. It's a plus in my book.

So, now, on to the positives, of which there are plenty. The first thing that struck me were the visuals. Like I said, Jurassic: The Hunted is a budget title, but by the looks of it, you could hardly notice. The textures are surprisingly crisp, even up-close. I dare say they're even better than some full-priced games with highly-touted graphics. Maybe not on the technical side, but artistically, this game goes above and beyond the call of duty (pun intended). To put it plainly, the game oozes atmosphere. The air is thick with anticipation as to when a huge dino is going to spring out of the brush and into your face. Speaking of into your face, there's one thing that this game does not do that another recent dinosaur shooter decided was a fantastic way for players to waste their time: being continuously knocked on their ass by enemies, only to be killed while trying to simply stand up again. Yes, Turok, fuck you. So far, Jurassic: The Hunted is much, much better than Turok. And if random people on Youtube are to be believed, this game also doesn't have annoying human distractions. It's all about dinosaur slaughter. But I've played a couple of hours, so that's second-hand information at this point.


One other cool feature of the game is the slo-mo shooting. Yes, I'm well aware that slow motion is OOLLLLDDD NEWWWSSSS. I know Max Payne came out like 10 years ago or some shit. But I think it's implemented in a very streamlined way that enhances the gameplay while at the same time not feeling like a gimmick. There is a small meter on the bottom left-hand side of the screen that indicates how much slo-mo juice you have. When the meter is full, you'll get maybe 5 seconds of slo-mo out of it. Yes, that's it. There are no upgrades for the power; 5 seconds is all you get. And that's precisely what I like about it. The mechanic seems designed to be a supplement to the normal shooting; if you maneuver around and get a good side angle on an enemy, you can pop slow-mo and take one shot for the kill. Whenever you enter the magical world of half-speed, you can also see the dino's skeletal structure and vital organs. If you aim for the vitals, you'll have a much better chance of killing them. So the mechanic, at least for me, works like a sort of headshot. Get the angle, pop the slo-mo, shoot the vitals and your enemy drops. It's instantly gratifying without even needing to upgrade and get a longer duration out of it. Awesome.

The quicker you finish reading this article, the quicker you can go buy the game, so I'll make these couple of points quickly. The game is obviously linear, but I never felt like I was being funneled though a tunnel. The environments have a little bit of space to them, so whenever I'm in an encounter, I can always run around the area and get good bearings on myself and my enemies. For comparison with another budget title, Legendary gets it all wrong. Oh, wow, that rubble fell in the exact pattern of a pathway for me to follow until I reached a suitably shitty encounter with a minotaur that only charged at me head-on without any other attacks whatsoever. Fuck, that game blew. Jurassic: The Hunted, at least so far, utilizes its space well and just lets the enemy encounters happen. Dinosaurs will run at you and constantly try to leap at you, but you can get out of their way, and if need be, run away like a puss until you get a good angle on them. If you question the difference between these dinosaurs and Legendary's minotaur, I wouldn't fault you. But the difference is in believability. I sincerely believe these assholes are jumping at me and trying to kill me. The minotaur in Legendary was just following a line of sight and bumbling towards me. Big difference.


The last cool feature I'll mention is the weaponry. Due to some amazingly contrived plot sequences, you have access to both modern and old-school guns. See, you're in the Bermuda Triangle, and that place is like a time-warp. One minute you're in the present, and the next you're in 1941. Based on that information, it would seem logical that your inventory might consist of a BAR next to a semi-auto pistol. As I mentioned, you can't take the plot seriously. Instead, you really just need to embrace the fact that the game lets you have guns from different time periods at the same time, and go kick some fucking dinosaur ass. It's that simple. Are you up for it? If not, then go play some god damned Modern Warfare 2. It released today, or so I'm told.


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Take This in your Pooper, Kotick.

I just thought I'd share the fact that my crusade against Activision DEO (Douchey Executive Officer) Bobby Kotick has officially started. I was able to, by way of simple explanation of the situation, convince a hardcore gamer to boycott Activision products. That's called a win.


[adding...] Yes, I'm aware that I only convinced one person, but I'm hoping to start a meme here. I tell him, he tells his friends, they tell their friends, etc. It can happen.

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Bobby Kotick Thinks You Are a Moron.

Bobby's early years, before heading up one of the country's biggest games publishers. He is on record saying it was a "dark, yet extremely rewarding time in my life."

If you haven't read this story on Gamespot, do so now. The quotes attributed to Activision's CEO, Bobby Kotick, are despicable and unethical, to say the least.How this man is allowed to leave his house without checking in with a parole officer is beyond me, but I don't make the rules. If I did, I'd make sure ol' Bobby was trading places with the kid actors from Slumdog Millionaire. What a douchebag.

"I think what the untethered Guitar Hero does is equal the playing field a little more and give you some leverage with first parties when it comes to downloadable content and the business model," said the crotch-sniffing asshat Kotick, during the Deutsche Bank Securities Technology Conference. Sure, that quote sounds innocuous enough, but read it again and then think about it. What he's actually saying is that if Guitar Hero winds up not requiring an actual console to play it on your T.V., then they can do whatever the hell they want as far as pricing their DLC. At least that's what I'm reading into it. Maybe I'm reaching. But then again, maybe Bobby Kotick is an evil cock that doesn't deserve the title of Head of Custodial Arts, let alone his actual title of CEO.

Promotional material for my upcoming Docu-Drama, "Life With Bobby, or; How I Learned to Like Not Being a Rich Cunt"

That quote alone wouldn't even remotely approach the sound reasoning that he deserves the scorn and ridicule I'm doling out to him. Nay, I say to you who doubts his assholeishness. Observe another gem of wisdom when Kotick says, "We have a real culture of thrift. The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games."

Exqueeze me? Baking powder? What the fuck did he just say? His life-goal with Activision "...was to take all the fun out of making video games." Way to go, asshole. You're not SUPPOSED to say that shit in public. That's the type of thing you say to your secretary over an early morning breakfast of infant appendages and A-1 sauce while twirling your moustache with grease made from aborted Christian fetuses.

Here is Bobby Kotick, clearly not looking like a tool.

And, astonishingly, he didn't stop there. To quote the Gamespot story, "The executive said that he has tried to instill into the company culture 'skepticism, pessimism, and fear' of the global economic downturn, adding, 'We are very good at keeping people focused on the deep depression.'"

You'd think something would fire up some neurons in his brain and involuntarily keep his fat fucking mouth shut before he was able to get out that utterly ridiculous "company culture" bullshit. That's no way to run a company, and I don't care how big that company is. If that's how you treat your employees, then Activision can't be a very nice place to work. In all seriousness, this kind of attitude is absolutely unacceptable. It's unethical, immoral, and whatever other synonym for shitty you can think of.

In an article from Edge dating back to August of this year, the Prince of Darkness decided to chime in when Activision executives were asked about retailers' reactions to their pricing, saying, "…You know if it was left to me, I would raise the prices even further,” before pulling a giant lever which opened up a cavernous hole beneath his #2's plush office chair.

Here, Bobby is seen celebrating his random sale of stock, which happened to make him $17 million in a single day. He later admitted he is going to use the money to nuke us into oblivion. Victory!

As if you need any more proof that this dude is a jerkoff, The Business Insider picked up on a little financial transaction by Bobby from around May, in which they found "Kotick, who had sold a big chunk [of Activision stock] in March, filed to sell 1.5 million shares worth about $17 million..." Let me be clear about this kind of thing: I don't think that there is anything inherently wrong with anyone selling stock that they own. But I will raise questions when you are the CEO of a major corporation who makes millions every year, and yet you still think it's a good idea to sell an ass-load of stock in your own company. Why, you ask? Well, the final sentences in the article sum it up pretty well for me. "It could be that they[sic] execs need to do some 'estate planning' or some other functional reason. It could also be some ill winds blowing across the gaming sector. Retailer GameStop said on Friday that same store sales were weak and its outlook cloudy for the second quarter." You see, when I read something like that, all I can think of is random opportunity for Bobby. He makes a lot of money. Durh. So why would he sell millions of shares of stock in Activision? On a whim? And if that's the case, did he even bother to think of what this might tell people like the writers of that article? He's putting artificial doubt in the minds of financial analysts for the sole sake of making $17 million on a whim. That's ridiculously unethical in my not-so-humble opinion. Like I said, there's nothing illegal about doing what he did, but I think it's pretty telling as to his character and ethical center.




I'd already swore off Activision-published games, as the poll on the right-hand-side of the blog points to. I'll admit to buying the odd game published by them, but that's only because I didn't know the full extent of Kotick's insane beliefs. I already knew he didn't want to publish a game unless he could franchise it, but Jesus, I had no idea he was this far down the rabbit hole. Fuck this guy, and fuck everything that comes from Activision. It's too bad I won't be able to enjoy Call of Duty 6 when it comes out, but Infinity Ward should really consider moving on to greener pastures at this point. Activision is ruining their franchise by watering it down with inferior products every other year, and the trend is only going to continue. With CEOs like Bobby Kotick lurking around the dungeons of corporate depravity, it's no wonder sometimes I feel like the games industry is lagging behind where it should be in terms of creativity.

Seriously, fuck Bobby Kotick and Activision. Don't support this type of bullshit by buying their games. It has to be done.
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