Free-for-all mode in Next Gears?

According to an upcoming issue of OXM Magazine the next installment of the Gears of War series will add a Free-for all mode to multiplayer.  It will be the first time a FFA game type has appeared in the series.

Though I love to see developers add new elements to a game going on it's fourth installment, I'm not sure how FFA will play out in the Gears universe.  Gears is a game designed from the ground up to played as a team.  A FFA game type seems like it would eliminate some of the game play features that make Gears such a unique MP experience.  For example, does cover become completely obsolete when you have no teammates watching to be sure no one comes up behind you with their shotgun ready to turn you to bits?  Also, Radar has always seemed to me to be a must in FFA games to serve as a cheap substitute for teammates.  Does that mean we can expect a radar in a Gears game?  Not sure how I feel about that.  

Halo Universe Explained, Part 2 - Humans

What Role Do Humans Play?

The humans that make up the Halo universe share our history.  They exist in a world that witnessed the American Revolution, the World Wars, and Apollo's moon landing.  They are what we become 500 years from now.

However, there are another set of humans that are equally important in the Halo Universe - ancient humans.

In the Halo fiction humans have existed for at least 160,000 years.  Roughly 100,000 years ago these humans had discovered slipspace travel, allowing them to traverse the Galaxy in seconds.  These ancient humans existed alongside the Forerunners, and were nearly their technological equals.

Despite being near equals, it was the Forerunner that had the most influence in the Galaxy, a fact humans came to greatly resent.  The animosity resulted in the humans aligning with a species called the San 'Shyuum.  The San 'Shyuum was humanities biggest trading partner at the time - and in a twist, they are  the species that become known as the Prophets and lead the Covenant against humanity during the trilogy of games.

Humanity and their allies fought bravely versus the Forerunner and may have even won if not for monumental bad luck.  At some point during the war with the Forerunner, humanity had first contact with the Flood.  Immediately recognizing the threat the Flood posed, humans directed a significant portion of their resources to battling the Flood.  Surprisingly, the humans prevailed against the Flood- pushing them out of the Galaxy.  Unfortunately, a two front war was too much.  Victory against the Flood resulted in defeat at the hands of the Forerunners.

The Forerunner were compelled to significantly punish both the Prophets and the Humans.  The Prophets cut a deal, and as a result were allowed to keep their technology, but were relegated to their home world and forced to live under strict Forerunner supervision.  Humans refused to cut a deal and as a result, their punishment was more severe.  Humans were stripped of their technology and the memories of how to build the technology.  They were "de-evolved"back to a hunter/gather state and were restricted to their home planet of Earth.  How humans were de-evolved is never explained, but their are hints in the expanded universe that Forerunners had the technology capable of striping memories from individuals.

Despite punishing them, the Forerunners had a great deal of affection for humans.  The Forerunner recognized a great deal of similarities between Forerunner and human DNA.  This led the Forerunner to believe they had both been created by the Precursors - the Forerunner Gods.  The forerunner were also impressed with the Humans ability to defeat the Flood - something the Forerunners had been unable to do.  The Forerunner did not want to de-evolve humanity as they were afraid the secret to defeating the Flood may be lost.  But humanity's refusal to accept a deal left them no choice. 

And so, it was these de-evolved humans the Librarian collected and stored on the Ark for safe keeping.  And after the Halos were fired it was these de-evolved humans that were used to "reseed" the Galaxy.

Fast forward 100,000 years - give or take- and humans have rediscovered slipspace travel and are once again traveling the universe.  Colonies have been established to both ease the burden of a growing population (30-40 billion), and to provide much needed natural resources.  One of these colonies is on a planet named Harvest - so named because of its bountiful agricultural resources.  In the year 2525 Harvest becomes the first human planet to be discovered by the Covenant.  The resulting battle for reach kicks off the human covenant war that is the catalyst for the trilogy of games.

There is more to discuss with the modern day humans, but what remains will be covered next week when I discuss humanities greatest weapon - Spartans and the Spartan program.

Halo Universe Explained, Part 1 - Halos

What is a Halo?

The simple answer is Halos are weapons that were created more than 100,000 BC by an ancient alien race known as the Forerunners.   But they are not just any weapon - Halos are a Weapon of Mass Destruction on a galactic scale.  

A total of twelve Halos (AKA the Halo Array) was designed to combat a particularly devastating enemy known as the Flood.    The Flood come from outside the known galaxy and predate the Forerunners.  The Flood are a parasitic life form that feeds on any biological life.  Once one Flood spore attaches itself to another being it turns that entity into a zombie-like creature.  A single spore can multiply rapidly and can quickly unleash…well…a Flood.  Despite their advanced technology and weapon systems the Forerunners had no way of combating the Flood with their conventional weapons.  

The Halo Array was the Forerunner's answer to the Flood problem.  Here's the catch, firing the Halos did not kill the Flood, it killed the Flood’s food supply.  In other words, the Halos were designed to kill all biological life in the galaxy.  Like I said, a WMD on a galactic scale.

At the time of the original trilogy of Halo games there were 7 halos in the galaxy.  Each one could be activated individually, or all 7 could be activated from a single location known as the “the Ark”.  The Ark is located outside the Milky Way Galaxy and is therefore safe from the halos devastating effect.  Each Halo installation is supervised by a Monitor - a powerful AI that maintains the functions of the Halo. For reference, 343 Guilty Spark (the floating Orb with the green eye) is a monitor that appeared in the original trilogy. Halo 3 culminates in Master Chief arriving at the Ark to shut down the remaining Halos before they fire.  

So what happened to the other 5 Halos that the Forerunners built? They were destroyed when a rampant monitor took control of the Halo Array (to be discussed in a later post) and tried to fire them near the forerunners capital world. In trying to prevent the Array from being fired, the Forerunners destroyed 5 of the Halos.

There was a great deal of in-fighting among the Forerunners over the creation of the Halos. It turns out not all Forerunners were happy with a plan to defeat the Flood by destroying all known life in the Galaxy.  In fact, many found the very notion to run counter to the “mantle”, the guiding principle that dictated the way Forerunners lived.  Think of it as the forerunner equivilant to the 10 commandments.  The “mantle is never fully explained, but the Forerunners seem to believe it involves respecting and preserving all known life.

A high ranking member of Forerunner society know as the Master Builder was the primary proponent of the Halos.  A military figure ( and the Master builder primary rival) known as the Didact opposed the creation of the halos. The Didact argued that the Flood could be contained in "Shield Worlds".  The Didact's wife, an influential Forerunner known as the Librarian, wanted to ensure that regardless of the approach taken to defeat the Flood all known life would be preserved - one way or another.

The Master Builder convinced the Forerunner governing council that the Flood threat was too great to risk containment.  More drastic measures were necessary.  As a result the Council commissioned efforts to build the ultimate weapon...a weapon that would eventually become the Halos.

However, as a compromise the Librarian convinced the Council to grant her the authority to collect specimens of every species in the known galaxy and keep them safe.  Her goal was to ensure that the Galaxy could be repopulated if unleashing the power of the Halos ever became necessary  The only safe place from the Halos effect were the Halos themselves.  The safest place was located outside the galaxy at the “Ark”.  The librarian collected numerous species and maintained them on various Halo Installations, including the Ark.

The Halo Array has been fired only once. Roughly 100,000 BC, after expending all other options to defeat the flood, the Didact (who originally opposed the creation of the Halos) ordered the Array (7 Halos) be fired as a last ditch effort to save the Galaxy from the Flood. As a result the Forerunner species and all other life in the Galaxy was eliminated. The only evidence that remained of the Forerunners existence was their advanced technology - including the Halos, their ultimate weapon.

So the Halos were and are a galactic weapon of mass destruction, that ultimately lead to all biological life in the Galaxy being destroyed. However. the Halos were also effectively zoos that guaranteed life could return to the galaxy after they were fired.

Halo Universe Explained - Prologue

Halo is favorite gaming franchise.  While I love the games multi-player the element of the game that initially sold me is the fiction.  Funny thing though about the fiction - even after playing the first two games of the franchise, I could not have told you a single thing about the games story.  The narrative of the first two games was so confusing, I basically stopped paying attention not far into Halo: CE.  I played the Halo games because they were fun, but generally I didn't care one bit about the story or the broader Halo universe.

That changed during the lead up to Halo 3... in a big way.  While perusing the internet, I stumbled on a website/blog that was dedicated to all things Halo.  The author of the blog had compiled the cutscenes from Halo 1 and 2 and provided an analysis of what was going on.  He also had posts that recapped the broader universe as depicted in the first few Halo novels.  As I read through his blog posts I realized just how rich and deep the Halo universe is.  I also realized how extraordinarily bad the Halo games were at conveying the depth and richness of that universe.

That is a shame.  I'm hoping 343 Industries is better, but in reality the universe is sooo deep that I understand how hard it must be to fit in the narrative around the structure of a game.

To me Halo is to gaming what "Lost" was to television.  Like Lost it is filled with mysteries and unexplained events.  Like lost, it is wonderfully frustrating how just when you think you understand whats going on, something is revealed that makes you question everything.  And just like Lost a good portion of the fun of being a Halo fan is wondering "what the hell is going on"

Unfortunately without a broader context of the universe, a casual Halo fan will never get to enjoy that mystery.  It would be like watching a single episode of Lost half-way through the 3rd season, being completely lost as to what is going on, and wondering what all the fuss is about.  I want more people to enjoy Halos fiction the way the thousands of passionate fans do.  But to do that one would have to be willing to dig into the expanded universe made up by the novels and movies.  For most players that is unlikely.

So, to help bring more people along for the ride that is Halo, I decided to do a series of posts that provide brief (but sufficiently detailed) breakdowns of key aspects of the Halo universe.  The goal is to provide some background and context that allows players not versed in the extended universe to better understand what happened in Halo:CE through Halo 3, and more importantly explain some of the events that lead up to Halo 4.

The first Post will go live next Monday and will start with an explanation of what exactly the Halo are (may seem obvious, but its not), what they are used for and where did they come from.  Following that I will release one post every Monday leading right up to the launch of Halo 4.

Though I will have done my research for each post, I should be clear my posts may well contain information that is incomplete or even inaccurate.  If one aspect of the game interests you check out A halo wikipedia for more detailed information of each topic.  Check back on Monday for my first entry.

Pre-Order Charts and What they Can Tell Us.

Below is data on the retailer pre-orders through the week ending August 11, 2012 as compiled by VGChartz.com.  I love game sales data of any kind, but I find this pre-order data particularly interesting.  My intention is to track these weekly charts and occasionally pull some interesting tidbits.  For example, I've always wondered how closely pre-orders reflect actual first month sales. Is there a general rule of thumb that can be applied - say for example - do pre-orders equate for 40% of first month sales? If so then Darksiders II should sell roughly 550,000 copies in its first month of release.  Actual sales data is difficult to come by, but I may try so I can develop a rule of thumb.

Secondly, measuring how pre-order numbers respond to events in the gaming media seems like a good why to see how marketing can effect game purchases.  I'd be interested in tracking how pre-order numbers change following a big MP reveal, for example.

With all the big releases coming out this fall, now may be the time to start tracking these pre-order figures and seeing what they can tell me.

1	Halo 4	X360	13	23,269	554,994
2	Call of Duty: Black Ops II	X360	14	63,367	552,957
3	Call of Duty: Black Ops II	PS3	14	41,133	335,175
4	Assassin's Creed III	X360	12	7,156	310,556
5	Borderlands 2	X360	6	18,708	289,127
6	Guild Wars 2	PC	21	8,778	221,272
7	Assassin's Creed III	PS3	12	5,517	201,356
8	Borderlands 2	PS3	6	3,645	129,927
9	Madden NFL 13	PS3	3	26,792	126,486
10	BioShock Infinite	X360	34	577	126,308
11	Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon	3DS	438	881	124,807
12	Darksiders II	X360	1	13,060	122,201
13	Darksiders II	PS3	1	6,779	98,220
14	World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria	PC	7	15,165	97,119
15	Hitman: Absolution	X360	15	1,716	88,732
16	Animal Crossing	3DS	438	595	79,544
17	Hitman: Absolution	PS3	15	1,415	75,938
18	Final Fantasy XIV Online	PS3	N/A	274	75,373
19	BioShock Infinite	PS3	34	391	73,278
20	Borderlands 2	PC	6	2,250	68,511

Youtuber Profile: Tobygames

Here is what you need to know about this youtube channel.  This guy can be annoying and you may not be able to watch for more than a few minutes.  Do you have the annoying friend who insists on constantly using multiple voices that start out funny, but quickly wear out their welcome.  Yeah, this is what happens when that guy makes a youtube channel.

So why am I recommending this channel?  Well, even though he can be annoying, I keep coming back to his videos and usually find myself laughing hysterically.   These Happy Wheel videos are great.  I also recommend watching him play through Amnesia and his Skyrim videos.

I'm not the only one who keeps watching this guy.  His videos can hit upward of 1/2 million hits, making him one of the most watched video game channels on youtube.

What was he thinking!

A 15 year old kid from Ohio was rushed to the hospital after a four day marathon of playing COD: MW3 left him dehydrated and nearly unconscious.

His mother reported that he had been in his room for four days.  He only came out to use the rest room and to occasionally grab a snack.

I know what you are going to say, what was he thinking!  How could anyone play COD:MW3 for 4 days straight...


From the local news report...

Halo 4: All UNSC weapons revealed

The latest Halo bulletin included a video showcasing all the UNSC (human) weapons available in the game.  Included are some returning favorites, along with some new additions to the Halo sandbox.

One of the ore interesting weapons in the "SAW".  It looks like Halo's version of a classic LMG. Other than picking up a turret, there has never been a LMG type weapon in a Halo game.

The railgun was revealed in the Game Informer article back in may, but there had been rampant speculation of what the weapon was.  Now we know... kind of.

Finally, one astute viewer at the Halo Council noticed that the video appears to include a split second shot of a weapon not intended to be shown.  At about 48 second in the player switches from rockets to what looks like a prometheon pistol.  It is a quick view that was clearly not intended to be there.  From the short look I suspect it will be a heavy pistol - a Halo version of the Desert Eagle.

Black-Ops MP Reveal Video

Here it is, the MP reveal of Call of Duty Black-ops 2.  In my opinion, Black-ops provided a better MP experience than any of the MW games.  This video looks like they may well establish themselves as the lead COD game.

It looks like they are trying to out "modern" modern warfare.  Some of that technology looked like stuff pulled from science fiction, with no tie to reality.  Maybe Black-ops 3 should be called COD: Furture warfare (or COD:FW). Start a whole new offshoot of the series.  Maybe with three in the rotation we could cut the release window for a COD game down to 7/8 months rather than every year.  I think that is just what gaming needs. No really.

One element of the trailer that is getting a good deal of attention from the small niche of competitive players is the "post credits" reveal of what looks like a spectator mode.  Competitive players have long championed the benefits of a spectator mode.  This could be a sign of Activision's desire to push the competitive aspect of its flagship shooter franchise.

Gamestop Used Game Prices - Explained?

I have mixed feeling on the used games market.  I generally try to avoid buying used games because I do feel that by purchasing a used game from a retailer I am cheating the developer by buying a second hand game.  A second hand game provides no revenue for the developer and doesn't count toward unit sales which is the primary metric for the success of any game.

One the flip side, I trade in a lot of games and use the money to purchase new games.  In many cases the only reason I buy those new games is because the cost is mitigated by the value of a trade in.  Moreover, every new game is a future trade in and so the cycle repeats.  If there was no used game market to make my trade-in valuable, I would buy far fewer new games.

So, all-in-all I'm glad there is a used market for games.  However, Gamestop, the leader in the used game market, can, in my opinion, go to hell.  Gamestop's practice of giving $20-$25 on trade-ins for even newly released games and then selling them for $5 under the brand new retail price is the definition of a sham.  Worse is the trade in values for older games.  I recently tried to trade in a copy of "Pure", which is a great but older game.  The trade-in value was $.78 - and that was after a 30% trade in bonus.  A used copy of the game was on their shelves for $12.99.  That is a 1500% markup!!

But not to worry, Gamestop has now explained their whacky used game pricing.  In a statement on its used game pricing policy Gamestop VP John Daugherty said: 

“[The refurbishment process] does have a cost to us, which is kind of the behind-the-scenes thing that the consumer never gets to see,” Daugherty said. “They see what we offer in trade and they see what we sell it for. They don’t see the process behind the scenes. If they were more aware of that, they would [say], ‘It makes more sense to me now. It makes more sense to me why the prices are what they are.’”

Oh, okay now I get it.  Of course wiping a few finger prints off of the week old disc I just traded in adds $25-$30 dollars to your costs.  Makes m feel much better.

Minecraft Documentary

Years ago I remember watching a television show on the making of the Xbox game Psychonauts, which came out in early 2005.  I believe it aired on MTV.  Why it aired on MTV, I have no idea.  And I should say that after searching for the last 10 minutes, I can't find any reference to the program.  Its possible I'm making this up.  But lets assume I am not.  The show was 30 minutes and it chronicled the last few months of development on the game.

The show stuck with me because it was the first time it occurred to me that there are people who made games for a living.  Of course was aware that all of those games I had played over the years didn't just appear out of thin air - but it was the first time I had thought about how they were made and who they were made by.  Had I watched the making of psychonauts video in 1995 instead of 2005, I may have decided to look into game development as a career.

The other lasting impression from that psychonauts show was just how cool it was to watch a game being made.  Being only 30 minutes long, and being produced by MTV meant that the show didn't dig too deep into the process.  But even as shallow as it was there was a lot of drama packed in those 30 minutes.  The panic over last minute bugs, the fights over what the team should focus on over the last few weeks of development, the personalities.  I remember thinking, if this was a weekly show I would tune in religiously.  A reality television show focusing on the start-to-finish development of a high profile game would be a sure-fired hit.

Which leads me to the video above.  I'm still waiting for a weekly television show, but there are some documentaries that fill the same role.  You've probably heard of "Indie Game: The Movie" which follows the development of the recent indie hits: Braid, Fez and Super Meat-Boy as their creators struggle to finish the games on their terms.   The film has won numerous film festival awards, including the Sundance award for best documentary.  Well, now Minecraft is getting a similar treatment and the movie looks just as good as as "Indie Game".

I'm amazed at the vision of these developers that put their health, their fortune, and their future on the line to develop a game they believe in.  The video above is the first of a two part trailer for the film.  It looks wonderful.