Forza 3 is a racing simulator exclusive to the Xbox 360, rated E for everyone. So far it has been a game that does not disappoint. Like in previous Forza titles, you start the game with a set amount of money (credits) when you step into the racing world. Buying cars, competing in races, and then using your winnings to upgrade your car so you may compete in more difficult races is what Forza is all about. One feature that sets Forza 3 far from its competitors (see: Grand Turismo, Need For Speed) is that players have the full ability to take a car and not only customize it, but also go further and fine tune the car. You can adjust everything from tire pressure and gear ratios to suspension and braking. The full list allows players to tune their cars to their own preference, for the way they drive, in order to gain their own advantage on the race track.

Now another thing that pushes this game beyond the others is the ability to do more than just paint your car.  Forza 3 allows you to take the ideas in your head and gives you the ability to put it onto the car.  Other games such as Need For Speed have let you also do this, but theirs is much more limited in scope.  Forza 3 allows you to use thousands of layers,  different shapes, different colors and sizes to build a masterpiece.  Players can make anything from stick figures, to actual characters.  This alone is one of the key features that should go with any racing simulator that allows customization.  If you can’t let players do anything to their cars, well, the experience of the whole ‘buy and tune‘ really gets dulled down.

Next upon this long list is going to be Forza 3’s brand new addition of the storefront.  Before, in Forza 2, players only could use the auction house which, just as the name states, players can place up a car of their own up for auction and other players would bid upon those cars.  This used to be the old way for players to buy car designs and tunes, but with the addition of the storefront, all of that has become obsolete.  The storefront allows plays to search specifically for paint designs, vehicle tuning configurations, or pre-made images created by the other players.  This helps players who don’t have that keen sense of tuning or painting to make their own car better.  It really helps the whole feel of the game, balancing it out to a new level that gamers really haven’t seen before.

The graphics in Forza 3 are unlike any I have ever seen.  I can only hope and pray to someday see this game on a 1080p high definition television.  Even on my standard definition television though, this game looks drop dead gorgeous.  Colors and reflections just shine off of every curve of the car.  The cars seem to have a certain realism to them as you drive around the tracks.  What’s even more amazing than the graphics is the engine sounds of each and every car.  No two cars sound the same.  Each vehicle has its own pitch, rumble, and growl that gamers will easily notice when they play the game.

Finally time to talk specifically about the game play.  Just like all track based racing games, you and other cars (game controlled or other gamers) line up to race a set amount of laps around the track and first one around wins.  The game handles and feels like you’re driving an actual race vehicle.  As you upgrade your car you will start to notice that it will have increased power, quicker shifting,  and better acceleration than it did before.  Forza took the time to create a very realistic simulation to the point that if you accelerate too hard into a turn, you have the very good chance to spin out and wreck.   Slam on the brakes too hard and they lock up.  Of course there is still assistance for those who aren’t as skilled at virtual racing.

Overall, Forza 3 brings us what other racing games lack, and that’s the room for a massive online comunity that goes further than just player contact, taking you all the way to player generated content.  A large racing fan community will allow for countless items to find and download.

If you’re a racing game fan and you don’t own this game,  I highly advise going to your local store and picking up a copy.  Even if you can only rent the game, you will find it a great value for your money if you do.

I give Forza 3 for the Xbox 360 a 10/10.

Beholders? In my Indianapolis Convention Center? It's more likely than you think

I had a blast at this years Gen Con. For those of you not familiar, Gen Con is a gaming convention held in Indianapolis every year where gamers, publishers, artists, and cosplayers show up to celebrate all things gaming related. Its a great way to find a new pen and paper RPG, talk with vendors about new and upcoming games, and meet fellow gamers who might just like the same games as you.

The costumes were great this year as always. I ran into Ghost from Modern Warfare 2, an actual 7 foot tall viking, the cast of Robin Hood Men in Tights, some dude with headcrabs, and many well endowed women with costumes that accentuated those features.

What made this year better than last for me was actually a couple of things.

1. Meeting Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, two of my favorite authors and extremely nice people. Tracy was more than happy to talk to you for a while and very approachable.
2. Seeing Felicia Day in person, DAMN!

This year I had the opportunity to try out tons of new games and I’d like to share them with you.

First, my favorite game of Gen-Con so far is Ergo by Catalyst Games Labs, the same people who also have the Shadowrun and Battletech franchises. This is a card game where up to 4 players are represent a variable A-D and try to prove themselves while disproving their friends using operators such as and, or, then, and not. It is a lot of fun and a unique game that can be quick or long, depending on how much your friends will argue with you on the premises of the proofs.

We spend one night getting acquainted with Shadows Over Camelot, a game designed to really just beat the piss out of you until it ends. Each player chooses a knight of the round table and draws a card determining whether they will side with evil or good (this is not revealed). Each turn a player has to advance evil by one of 3 ways and then quests to fight back the evil. While the game is a lot of fun, it can be frustrating as sometimes fighting evil is about as easy as trying juggle chainsaws on a unicycle during an earthquake.

I sat down for a quick game of Bump In the Night, a horror board game where the idea was to play your ghosts in a chess like manner to get points by scaring random placed kids out of the house or terrorizing them to death. Both of which are hard to do as you can’t move into a room with kids and they can’t move into a room with ghosts. The game forces you to herd kids into the path of ghosts.

I also picked up a dice game from Steve Jackson games, Cthulu Dice. Simple quick game where you have sanity tokens and you attack other players with the roll of the dice trying to steal their sanity while maintaining yours.

A friend of mine also bought a katana from Dragonsong Forge. He threw in a carrying case, tatami mat, and 60 days repair warranty. We had the opportunity to test the sword when we got home and here is the result.

That thing is sharp, you can feel when it cuts through something how smooth it is. He’s very happy with the purchase and we’ll be chopping things up for quite a while with this sword.

Gen Con is a great experience if you’re a gamer and if you’re near the Indianapolis area I highly recommend a 4 day badge even if you only go for 2, you’ll get your moneys worth and you’ll have a great time.

As a software developer, a gamer, and someone who knows plenty of lefties (left-handed individuals) out there, I’m kind of at a loss to explain why modern video games are so inaccessible to a demographic that makes up 7 to 10% of our population.  I really can’t comprehend why a game studio looking to put out a blockbuster game and sell millions of copies would choose to ignore that large a chunk of their target audience.  If designing a game to work for lefties were such a big hurdle to overcome, that would be one thing, but it’s not.  Programming a control scheme that caters to lefties is such a simple addition to a game that every studio out there should be doing it.

Some game studios are better than others, but most still fail miserably at implementing a control scheme for lefties.  I’m even willing to bet there isn’t one single game studio executive out there that’s left handed.  If there were, they would definitely be pushing all of their games to be lefty friendly.  One of my gamer friends, whose Xbox Live gamertag is Dez1013, has this to say about lefty controls.

It’s frustrating, when I go to get a new game or just browse the shelves for something new I can’t buy it immediately. I usually have to check with friends or search online to see if a game has control customization, then go and either get the game or listen to my friends talk about how much fun it is while I sit in the party chat. If you think its easy, try switching to lefty and see how well it works for you. It’s quite frustrating, you can’t react as you normally would, and you have to think about every action before you do it.

I’m not sure if it’s flat out ignorance or deliberate prejudice against lefties that causes game studios to leave these options out of their games.  It’s not as if most of these games don’t already have some alternative control schemes in them, but almost all of them are catered to changing a controller’s button preferences and not movement control schemes.  Modern video game consoles and PC’s have some of the most advanced computer hardware on the market today.  The ability to handle that minute little extra processing power it takes to interpret different control schemes is there.  Game studios need to design their games to be usable for all gamers, not just the 90% of us that are right handed.  To do otherwise is to lose potential sales and fans.

The problem doesn’t lie solely at the feet of game studios though.  Personally, I would say most of the problem could be fixed by game console manufacturers.  At first, I thought that the console could have default lefty controller mappings set on the console itself that each game could read in, but there are simply too many games out there with too many slight variations for any platform wide default to be feasible.  No, the simple solution that console manufacturers could do is to put out alternative controllers.

This image was used as an April Fool's Day joke by one website a few years back.

Why can’t Sony, Microsoft, or Nintendo put out alternative lefty controllers that are literally mirror images of their current controllers but have the hardware wired up so that to the console, the input is the same?  All a controller does is send specific signals to the console telling it which button was pressed or what direction a thumbstick was moved.  A mirrored controller would allow lefty gamers to enjoy every single game out there on that console without causing developers the time and effort (however little it may be) to implement alternative controller schemes.

I would like to issue a call for all game studios to implement controller schemes that cater to left handed gamers, until such time as the game console manufacturer decides to market the hardware that makes controller schemes unnecessary.  Gaming is a past time that is meant to be enjoyed by all.  Game designers and hardware manufacturers need to get on the ball and stop ignoring that segment of our population.

Edit (8/11/2010): I’m adding these diagrams for those who are not avid games and unfamiliar with the standard default layout, legacy, and southpaw layouts.

Legacy Layout - Sideways motions of thumbsticks swapped

Standard Layout - Left thumbstick controls motion, right thumbstick controls the direction you're looking.

Southpaw Layout - Thumbsticks are swapped from the standard layout

That video should have answered most of the questions about how Monday Night Combat will play.  The only big questions left are when will Monday Night Combat be released and how much is it going to cost?  The release date has not been officially announced but rumor has it that Monday Night Combat will be out within a few months.  The cost has not been officially announced, to my knowledge, but it is rumored that Monday Night Combat will cost $15.  With those questions answered there is one burning question that is up to you to answer.  Do you think you can get $15 worth of fun out of Monday Night Combat?

In Crackdown 2 you get to play as an Agent of the Agency again.  The Agent is a nameless, faceless silent mook that engenders about as much sympathy as a gun toting brick.  Character customization is a joke.  You can give your Agent one of four or five butt ugly pre-made faces but there is no point because after you get your first level in your first skill your Agent gets fitted out with a helmet.  The only other nod to character customization is that you can pick a color for your Agent’s armor.  Their is little point to choosing a color of your armor because you can choose from about four different colors ranging from blue to gray and they are all samey and boring.  That is the extent of character customization.  Character customization is like a vestigial feature that got carried over from Crackdown but Crackdown 2 barely has enough customization options to make the claim that it has character customization.  The result feels lazy and pointless.  The story in Crackdown 2 has the same lazy, pointless feeling.

Crackdown 2  is a sandbox action game where you are tasked with clearing a terrorist group and a mutant zombie horde out of Pacific City.  The only reason there is a terrorist group or a mutant zombie horde in Crackdown 2 is because Crackdown 2 can’t really have a game without bad guys.  The in game explanation for why the bad guys even exist is brief and quickly forgotten.  The only thing you need to know about the terrorists is that they are called The Cell and they have some strongholds that you need go shoot up.  The only thing you need to know about the mutant zombie horde is that they are called The Freaks and they have some holes in the ground that you need to drop bombs in.  That is all there is to Crackdown 2.  After you shoot up you first stronghold and bomb you first hole in the ground all there is to do is lather, rinse, and repeat until all the strongholds are shot up and all the holes are bombed.  Or in my case you just shoot up a few strongholds and bomb a few holes in the ground until you get bored and go play something else.  In a nutshell, the game play is fun for the first few hours but it quickly gets boring.  The only thing that gets boring faster than the core game play is the graphics.

Crackdown 2′s graphics looks good but it is like a good looking bowl of fruit.  It is nothing you have not seen before and it gets old pretty quickly.  Crackdown 2 shamelessly reuses the same city from the original Crackdown.  The only change is that Crackdown 2 has made the city a little more drab and added a bit of rubble.  The enemies are the same drab, gray chumps from the beginning of the game to the end.  At least they were the same sorry bastards when I quit playing and I only had about three more strongholds to shoot up and two more holes in the ground to bomb when I quit.  The only things to look at in Pacific City other than the boring Cell and Freaks are the civilians and the police.  The civilians are vaguely annoying non-entities that occasionally get run over.  The police are bland, blue annoying chumps that will shoot at you after you accidentally run over a few pedestrians.  That is all there is to look at in Crackdown 2 so all of the modern graphics rendered in their HD glory that Crackdown 2 offers are wasted on bland, drab, and boring things.  Crackdown 2′s controls are a lot like Pacific City itself.  Both Crackdown 2′s controls and Pacific city are a direct port from the original Crackdown.

Crackdown 2′s controls and play style is exactly the same as the original Crackdown.  Crackdown 2 does not bother to fix the auto targeting system that likes to aim at innocent vehicles instead of the thugs with rocket launchers that just got out the innocent vehicle.  Every other thing you liked or hated about the original Crackdown’s controls are in Crackdown 2 in all their glory.  The driving controls are, not surprisingly, an exact port from the original.  The only difference is that the cars in Crackdown 2 do not transform or do anything interesting like they did in the original Crackdown.  In fact, everything else about the game play in Crackdown 2 is like the original Crackdown but less interesting.  That Crackdown 2 is like the original but less interesting is about the best summary that will ever be said about Crackdown 2 so lets put this review to bed and get on with our lives.

Crackdown 2 is an extremely lazy remake of the original Crackdown that is not worth playing.  Crackdown 2 could have been good if it had taken the original game and improved on it but Crackdown 2 actually took the original Crackdown and made it worse.  I only played Crackdown 2 because my roommate bought it and he only bought it because he was hoping that Crackdown 2 would be better than the original.  It turns out that my roommate needs to do a little more research before he drops sixty bucks on a game with only the hope that it will be good.  In the end, the only thing left to say about Crackdown 2 is that my roommate is planning to sell his copy to Gamestop the next time he goes there.

Epic Games decided to keep it in the family in Gears of War 2 by having Delta Squad reinforcements include Anthony’s brother, Benjamin Carmine. When I saw that in my initial play through of Gears of War 2 I thought Ben Carmine would be just the typical worthless soldier like his brother was and die fairly quickly. Fortunately I was mistaken on that count and Ben Carmine turned out to be one damn fine soldier. He was always rushing into battle, taking out more than his fair share of the Locust horde enemies. It took a building sized worm eating him and digesting him alive to take down Ben Carmine.

Sticking with tradition, Gears of War 3 will feature the 3rd Carmine brother, Clayton. And, following the trend as well, Clayton Carmine will be and even more bad-ass soldier than either Anthony or Benjamin was.

From Epic Games:

Fans to Decide the Fate of Carmine in Gears of War 3

Place your vote for the fate of the newest Carmine brother through the purchase of avatar gear on Xbox LIVE Marketplace, with benefits going to charity

The fate of Carmine lies in your hands! For the first time in franchise history, Epic Games and Microsoft are giving fans the chance to decide the fate of a character in Gears of War 3. By purchasing avatar gear on Xbox LIVE Marketplace, fans and gaming communities around the globe will decide the destiny of the newest Carmine brother set to appear in Gears of War 3, with all the proceeds going to the Child’s Play Charity.

Keeping with the series’ tradition, Clayton Carmine will be introduced in the trilogy’s final chapter, and like Anthony and Ben, the newest rookie brother runs the high risk of meeting an early death. However, unlike in the previous games, the Xbox community will choose whether Carmine lives or dies by purchasing special Gears of War 3 avatar gear on Xbox LIVE Marketplace. Starting July 29, two new avatar t-shirts will be available on the Avatar Marketplace on Xbox LIVE—one shirt reads “Save Carmine,” and the other reads “Carmine Must Die.” By purchasing the “Save Carmine” shirt, you’re casting your vote to let Carmine live in Gears of War 3. Conversely, purchasing the “Carmine Must Die” shirt means you want to see Clayton follow the fate of his brothers.

Child’s Play is a community-based games industry charity dedicated to improving the lives of children around the world. Through their network of more than 60 hospitals and through the generosity of their community of donors, Child’s Play raises millions of dollars each year to donate games, consoles, and toys to sick children. The proceeds from the sales of the “Save Carmine” and “Carmine Must Die” avatar gear and limited edition NECA t-shirts will go to Child’s Play, so cast your vote, donate to charity, and get cool Gears of War gear! Fans can get up-to-date information about the fate of Clayton Carmine by visiting www.gearsofwar.com.

Published by Microsoft Game Studios and developed by Epic Games, the Gears of War franchise has won over 30 “Game of the Year” awards, sold more than 12 million copies worldwide, and redefined the third-person shooter genre for this console generation. The Gears of War series is exclusive to Xbox 360, and its riveting multiplayer action makes it one of the most popular titles on Xbox LIVE. The trilogy finale, Gears of War 3, will release on April 5, 2011, only on Xbox 360.

http://www.bungie.net/projects/reach/vidaudio.aspx?c=58&i=27524

Take a deep breath, its going to be ok. For the measly price of $1 you can own a throw back RPG in the style of Final Fantasy or Dragon Warrior. It’s available on the Xbox Live Indie game marketplace.

The game takes about 4-6 hours to complete, you level quickly, and its completely worth your time to talk to everyone because you’re bound to be laughing til you cry, I know I did. You can choose one of two abilities each time you level which gives you a little customization in your characters. It doesn’t stray too far from those styles of the late 80s so I won’t say too much here because hey, its a dollar and you will get your moneys worth so check it out.

Gamer is an action movie and has the kind of story every action movie should have, a simple one.  In an action movie the story should never get in the way of all the action.  The story goes that in the near future Ken Castle, played by Micheal C. Hall, creates a way to control people remotely and uses that technology to create games that use people as game avatars.  The movie revolves around two games, Slayers and Society.  Slayers is a third person shooter that uses death row inmates as its game avatars.  Society is a real world simulator like Second Life or the Sims that uses the downtrodden and dispossessed as game avatars.  In Gamer, Kable, played by Gerrard Butler, is a wrongfully imprisoned death row inmate that is forced to fight in Slayers.  Kable’s wife Angie, played by Amber Valletta, is a game avatar in Society that is forced to do all kinds of hedonistic and depraved things.  Both Kable and Angie are used and abused by their respective games and have to escape from their games.  That is Gamer in a nutshell and the games Society and Slayers provide the perfect set up for the two things that every great action movie must have, explosions and boobs.  Gamer understands that good action movies are built around boobs and violence and delivers two tons of both.

Gamer has these

And a lot of these

Boobs and explosions are important to making a good action movie but to be a great action movie there needs to be some humor.  The humor is where Gamer becomes great for gamers but I doubt it can be more than good for non-gamers.  Other than a few clever one liners and inspired musical numbers most of the humor in Gamer is video game specific.  For example, non-gamers would not get a tea bagging reference or the utterly ridiculous screen  names that are not to far from what gamers regularly use.  There is more video game humor than those two things but I am not going to spoil it.  There is one funny bit that I am going to spoil a little.  I hope I just give away to make it a teaser.  Micheal C. Hall has one truly off-beat and hilarious scene where he does a song and dance number.  All humor aside one of the good parts of Gamer is the is cast.

Gamer has a great cast for an action movie.  Gerrard Butler plays a stoic hero out to rescue his family and he does it very well.  Gerrard Butler might not be able to play anything other than a stoic hero but if he keeps making movies like Law Abiding Citizen and 300 then I hope he keeps doing what he is doing.  The other very well cast actor in Gamer is Michael C. Hall.  Michael C. Hall is not as well known as Gerrard Butler but most of you would recognize him as Dexter.

Michael C. Hall aka Dexter

Michael C. Hall is cast as the big bad guy Ken Castle.  In Dexter like in Gamer Michael C. Hall plays a completely charming bad guy.  Michael C. Hall might not be able to play anything other than a charming bad guy but if he keeps giving us stuff like Dexter and Gamer then he should keep on doing it.  The rest of the cast plays their parts well but the big focus of Gamer is on Gerrard Butler and Michael C. Hall and they deliver.

Gamer delivers a good action movie with a solid cast and a well done video game twist.  This is not to say that Gamer is a great movie.  At the end of the day Gamer is a cheesy, campy action movie that somehow managed to get  big budget.  The only question that remains is whether you should go see Gamer or not.  If you want a fun action romp with some boobs and big ka-booms then you should check Gamer out.  If you turn you nose up at a movie that is held together with nudity and violence then forget Gamer and go watch Barney again.

For a slightly more professional opinion of Gamer try here.  Movie Bob has a solid, entertaining review of Gamer.

Movie Bob reviews Gamer for the Escapist

]]> http://www.commonsensegaming.com/archives/809/feed 0 http://www.commonsensegaming.com/archives/815 http://www.commonsensegaming.com/archives/815#comments Fri, 09 Jul 2010 18:44:02 +0000 SSG CodeMonkey http://www.commonsensegaming.com/?p=815 I’ve gotta say, Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. has been one of my favorite fighter jet games of all time, both from my perspective as a gamer who enjoys fast paced action as well as from my perspective as a software developer. The realism the game gives you with the real life satellite imagery used in creating the landscape textures is something unique. The wide variety of fighter jets available to you gives everyone a chance to fly the style they want to, whether that be as a flying fortress with an A-10 Thunderbolt, or as a supersonic precision fighter with the F-22 Raptor.

With that said, I’ve already pre-ordered my copy of H.A.W.X. 2.  Here’s the newest trailer for the game that just came out today.  Enjoy.