So why don’t I want it? Basically because there’s no reason to.

One of the big issues with Call of Duty 3 developed by Treyarch was that COD 2 from Inifinity Ward was so good, that any differences and/or short comings were going to get jumped on by the community. There’s really no reason to think that Treyarch couldn’t create an excellent shooter in the COD franchise.

So even though I don’t believe that Treyarch deserved the skeptism they’ve received prior to releasing COD: World at War, I none the less feel that everyone’s concerns were accurate.

So, looking at what I’ve seen of their new release’s multiplayer, I can see that they have done everything possible to lose the “not as good as the other one” argument. In fact, from what I can tell, the game is basically the same only with WWII weapons and perks. Even the menus that I’ve seen in the videos look just like COD4’s.

Therefore, yet again, there’s no reason to pick up this title (unless you’re way obsessed with WWII weapons, or never played COD4). So although Treyarch did what they could to “be as good as”, the problem with that is they are “only as good as” COD4.

So Activision, forget the yearly COD releases and just let Infinity Ward handle it. The fans will accept no less.

And I will start with a common theme among what I’ve heard. It is the same as the original, just better. More enemies, more executions, bigger levels, better visuals etc. It is the same game. If you liked the first, you’ll like the second.

To me the story is better, not great. I’m not really playing Gears for the story anyway, so the improvements are fine. There are sections in the game where I’m quite interested in what’s going on in the story arc. It doesn’t change how you play the game (if you could skip the cutscenes, it wouldn’t change anything about how you play, just take cover and shoot stuff). There was one particular section that was quite creepy and really interesting, but I haven’t seen or done anything along those lines since. I’m unsure if that part of the story will be completed in this game. I’m going to assume there’ll be a Gears 3 since it’s a successful franchise (I’d bet as a launch game on the NEXT xbox console).

The texture poping that was quite prevalent in the original is still there, but rather than sudden changes from no texture to full texture, there’s a subtle fade effect so it doesn’t catch your eye unless your looking right at it.

They have added some interesting things so far. One particular scene that I thought was interesting was a section where you and Dom must carry something together while fighting. I felt that section was something new and fun I hadn’t seen in other games before.

The boss battles have been quite fun. And there’s certainly no shortage of new bosses. Nor is there a shortage of new enemies. One thing I’ve noticed, and I could be completely wrong since I haven’t played the original at all in probably a year, is the difficulty of the enemies feels different to me. The normal guys (the drones and grenadiers, the ones that you’ll kill millions of) seem to be harder to kill than previous incarnation. This is good. The enemies from the last game were textbook bullet sponges. The fresh units still take a lot of bullets to kill, but they seem harder to hit. Plus, many times they’ll just go down, and one of their teammates will revive them. Conversely, the tougher enemies like the Boomers, seem quite easy to take out this time around. Maybe it’s because I’ve learned how to attack them properly, but even some of the new similar style enemies seem to be easy to take down as well (save the Bloodhounds, those things require your attention).

Another good example of expecting a bigger problem than you’ll actually have is the section where you fight 3 corpsers at the same time. I died a couple times quickly, but once I did what I was supposed to do, I killed all three in 5 seconds. Victory there was just too easy, especially with the setup that section receives.

Which reminds me of the one scene in the original where you face the Brumak (I didn’t play the pc version). I can’t tell you of how many Brumaks I’ve dispatched already. Four or five by now I think. That just seems weird.

Now I realize it really sounds like I’m complaining about the game, but I’m really not. I’m really enjoying it. And I’ll be playing it a lot the next couple days. Then I’ll start to dig into the multiplayer, which I hear is awesome. We’ll see if it can pull me away from Call of Duty 4’s online multiplayer.

Update
I’ve beaten the whole game now. For those of you that would complain about the final boss battle, I think you’re thinking about it wrong. It’s not a boss battle, it’s an interactive cut-scene. That being said, I felt a little underwhelmed myself.

Therefore, go play Horde mode with 4 friends. That is pure sweetness.

So I finally finished HL2: Episode 1 this last weekend, and now I’m digging into Episode 2. This game is magnificent. I had kind of forgotten about the Orange Box for my 360 that I had yet to complete (basically because of COD4). Never the less, I really really really like the gameplay.

I’m playing on the hard difficulty, which means to need to be on your toes when 3 hunters and a bunch of combine soldiers pop out of nowhere. Anyway, what I like most about the game are the sections where you need to stop and think. Of course, this is nothing new to Half Life.

I can remember Shawn Elliot talking on the GFW podcast way back (at least a year ago, probably a bit more) about Episode 2. He was referring to a specific section of the game where a grenade jump is needed to reach some locked up weapons and ammo. And as Shawn pointed out, only Valve could create such a puzzle (especially on the console). Now I didn’t realize I was in the room he was referring to until I had figured the puzzle out for myself.

***SPOILERS***

Basically, I will re-hash in my own words what I did and what Shawn said on the podcast. You enter the room, you have some items you want, a box of grenades, and a metal sheet that’s hinged on the floor that covers a 1 foot deep slot in the floor. In addition, there’s a switch up on a catwalk that is seemingly inaccessible that will unlock the loot you want.

And as Shawn said, once you figure it out, you’ll realize that as usual, Valve has provided you with all the necessary tools and info to solve the puzzle. Most developers will force you one way or another to walk somewhere (or give you a point on a radar) and will tell you to “hit A to activate” or some other garbage like that. No thinking involved.

Well, in this case, the metal sheet is hinged up, revealing that the area where it would cover has a blast mark on the floor. It took me a while to figure out that I need to fold the metal down, drop a grenade underneath it, and then stand on the metal sheet to grenade jump up to the switch to free the rocket launcher etc.

Valve had literally provided me with everything I needed. And my sense of accomplishment when I successfully figured out the puzzle was awesome. Sure there are plenty of other puzzles in the game that I solved, but this one was different because never before have I ever seen a developer purposely put a grenade jump into their gameplay.

I only wish that other developers would be bold enough to let their users figure out their own solutions to games, rather than hold their hands through ever single process.

Really looking forward to Episode 3 now. Hopefully the wait will soon be over.

Personally, looks like an expanded single player campaign. If that’s the case, that’s awesome. Halo 3 obviously has great multiplayer, but I feel too often once developers release their games with multiplayer components, only the multiplayer section receives any post-release love.

I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Anyway…

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Android - Boing Boing.

1. Quickplay setlist creation - Select up to 5 songs to play without going back through the song list to select a new one. Awesome.
2. “Fast” navigation between categories to avoid scrolling through the massive song list. Jump down to the hard stuff in like 3 or 4 presses rather than 80.

I haven’t played the battle of the bands mode or anything like that. I play Rock Band pretty casually. There are a lot of new songs that are awesome (Everlong, Eye of the Tiger, Living on a Prayer), and I’m glad the songs are generally harder (some are silly hard).

What I’d like to see is lots more music from the mid 90’s, but that’s probably because of my age.

And like so many others online, I want to play Guns ‘n’ Roses (the real GnR, not the abomination they are now) and Led Zeppelin. Harmonix, please, make it happen. I suppose I want to play the stuff in my Last.fm profile.

My Xbox 360 had online issues with NHL 08 (poor performance getting into games and downloading rosters). Luckily, those issues have been solved. And in addition, they added the most obvious online feature that I wanted in 08; Play a Friend. It’s simple, you click it, you select someone from your friends list, and boom, you’re in a game.

They’ve also added Be a Pro mode. It’s really cool, and you should try it (apparently it’s been in baseball before?).

And there’s a slick thing where you can manually select the “arena music” for a hockey team (or all of them) from your 360 or from your computer. A really neat touch.

All that being said, here’s the one thing that needs to be said.

As with many new features that make it into video games, the first year implementation of them is frequently massively over-powering. So for this year, I’m referring to the defensive stick lift.

Of course this is a typical defensive move for a defender, but if you’re good at it, you can completely dominate the game.

One such game, a friend of mine and myself were playing online. We were sharing the controller, switching each period. We are both pretty good at the game, we beat most people online. We played one fellow who was SO proficient at the stick lift, it made the game super frustrating and nearly impossible to play. He controlled the puck probably 80% of the time. We were lucky to only lose by a goal.

One feature I’d like to see online is a mode where both players are forced to play a random team. I’m really tired of seeing the same 4 teams online (this year it’s Detroit and Pittsburgh, last year was Anaheim and Ottawa). Seriously, I’m really sick of playing Detroit.