Video Games: PC, PSP, PS3, xBox, and Wii Gaming News

The biggest video game launch ever, selling 5 million units within 24 hours of release, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 isn’t as good as the hype. As a big fan of COD4: Modern Warfare on the PC, I was biased towards the game before I ever unwrapped it. However, I have big problems with the short, unsatisfying single-player campaign and the lousy multiplayer support on the PC. The $10 increase in price from $50 to $60 for the PC version also does little to assuage my dissatisfaction.

There’s a large section of the MW2 Wikipedia entry which details criticism of the PC version, which I would rather cite than rewrite:

Criticism has arisen of changes made to the PC version of Modern Warfare 2 including the lack of dedicated servers, latency issues of the listen server-only IWNET, lack of console commands, lack of support for matches larger than 18 players, and inability to vote towards kicking or banning cheating players immediately. Ars Techinca writer Ben Kuchera wrote, “At launch, this will be one of the most locked-down, inflexible, and gamer-unfriendly [games] ever created.”

This is immediately evident in the Amazon reviews for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which are hovering just above 1-star. Reviewers complain about the tiny multiplayer matches (9v9 tops), the fact that Steam is required (no resale value), horrible multiplayer latency, and poorly planned out single-player campaign. The official steam forums are ablaze with outrage over the bad multiplayer, especially. Still, the game has peaked at over 95,000 concurrent players multiplayer (according to steam stats).

MetaCritic gives the game a 89% rating, but actual humans have knocked that down to a miserable 16%. On other platforms the spread is narrower–after all, this is a console game, ported for the PC. Infinityward, perhaps trying to emulate the design decisions between multiplayer in Left4Dead, screwed up on their tried-and-true FPS multiplayer scheme. On the console your bad lag, join-in-the-middle, and 9v9 matches might be OK, but on the PC we like big maps, lots of players, and dedicated servers with low latency.

We’re PC gamers. We want a long, immersive single-player campaign. We want a good storyline. We don’t want to be babied with chicken-screens for the “good parts” of the game. We don’t want to be pandered to with juvenile “shock screens.” And, we get tired of being shot in the head and dumped to die in every mission.

Bethesda announced today that its ”Winner of E3 2008’s ‘Best of Show‘” will be released to eager fans in North America on October 28, and to European fans a mere 3 days later.  10 years ago Fallout 2 riveted RPG enthusiasts with its balanced yet open-ended adventure set in a post-nuclear wasteland.

Bethesda assures us in no uncertain terms that Fallout 3 will maintain the vision of the previous Fallout games while delivering even more freedom of choice, but plot-wise is “[a] different story unto itself and isn’t directly connected to any of the other storylines.”  This has allowed Bethesda enough creative license to reinvent the details for Fallout 3, in what will undoubtedly be the biggest single-player RPG hit of 2008.

The full press release is as follows:

August 20, 2008 (Rockville, MD) – Bethesda Softworks®, a ZeniMax Media company, announced today that its highly anticipated title, Fallout® 3, will be available on store shelves and online in North America on October 28, 2008 and in Europe on October 31, 2008. Developed at Bethesda Game Studios – creators of the 2006 Game of the Year, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion® – Fallout 3 is slated for release on the Xbox 360®video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system, and Games for Windows.

“We are very excited to let gamers get their hands on Fallout 3, the latest chapter in this beloved and highly acclaimed franchise,” said Vlatko Andonov, president of Bethesda Softworks. “To meet the huge demand for this title by our fans worldwide, we are planning one of the biggest launches of any game released this year.”

Fallout 3 features one of the most realized game worlds ever created. Set more than 200 years following a nuclear war, you can create any kind of character you want and explore the open wastes of Washington, D.C. however you choose. Every minute is a fight for survival as you encounter Super Mutants, Ghouls, Raiders, and other dangers of the Wasteland.

Hailed as one of the most anticipated games for 2008, Fallout 3 has already won numerous awards including Best of Show from the official Game Critics Awards at E3 2008, a selection voted on by an independent group of journalists from 36 leading North American media outlets that cover the videogame industry.
Fallout® 3 has not yet been rated by the ESRB.

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR) may be the most highly anticipated MMORPG slated for release this fall.  Despite the chagrin that has surrounded WAR during its shaky 3-year development, WAR has won the acclaim of critics at every stage of production.  Mythic Entertainment recently announced that the North American open beta for WAR will start September 7, 11 days before servers are launched worldwide.

“Players can get into the North American open beta by pre-ordering Warhammer Online from select retail partners. Participants of the North American closed beta will automatically be granted open beta access.”

Update: EA Games just published their latest Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning cinematic trailer, that features stunning RvR:

Finally, after a long, patient wait, EA has officially released a PC demo for their new epic-FPS Crysis.  The demo is single-player only, weighs in at a bloated 1.77GB, and requires NVIDIA driver updates to play, but it’s a small price to pay to kick some virtual alien ass!

There is a hilarious zero-punctuation review of Bioshock floating around which actually hits hard and true:

Splicer: Go ahead and hack, I’ll politely wait until you are done to attack you voraciously

The review touches on the drastic dumbing down of the game for those consolers (hacking anyone?), the actually limited use of weapons / splicing / other skills, the unlimited regeneration points EVERYWHERE that make dying fun, and the storyline mirrors the original system shock to a T. But still, it’s a gorgeous game with a terrible ending, so enjoy the experience of it all.