Video Games

The Juggernaut in Call of Duty has always been one of COD’s more interesting opponents.  Almost all enemies in the Call of Duty franchise have always acted the same: shoot, take cover, flank, throw grenade, repeat.  Not the Juggernaut, it runs relentlessly at the player constantly hip firing and never slowing down.  Juggernauts are one of the more “video gamey” parts to call of duty.  They don’t take cover, they are bullet sponges, I have seen one survive two RPGs to the chest and I have never seen one reload.  They are cool from a game designer’s perspective because they are disorienting to the player.  When a Juggernaut enters the combat you immediately have to change your strategy.  If you don’t have the right gun it will take a long time and many grenades before even one is dead.  In Call of Duty multiplayer Juggernauts seem to have the same effect.  They dislocate campers, are a brick wall to the run and gunners and are really hard to kill unless your team has a sniper or air support.       

You might be thinking that Call of Duty is by no means the first game to have a “bullet sponge” type enemy and you would be right.  The “tank” has always been a video game stereotype since almost the beginning of shooters.  I just find it interesting that despite it being such a cliché the Juggernaut is one of the most recognizable enemies from the best selling video game franchise ever.  

Call of Duty, possibly one of the most hated and loved video games ever.  After spending around five hours with Ghosts I am happy to report that yep its more Call of Duty, nuff said.  However, out of the most recent installment in the franchise Ghosts is at least one of the bigger steps forward although there is one small step back.  To this day one of the most played Call of Duty game types is team deathmatch.  The problem is one of Ghosts biggest changes is its maps.  They are much bigger and more complicated than ever before.  This is a problem when I am playing TDM.  The bigger maps mean I will sometimes be running around aimlessly and very infrequently run into an enemy, especially on some of the biggest maps.  Lately I have been playing ground war, the larger player count and more objective based game modes prove to be more exiting.  I should point out my last Call of Duty game was Modern Warfare 2 so most of Ghosts is new to me.  Ghosts has become quite complicated with four different game modes each one tracking xp separately and if you have played a COD game before it can be quite daunting.  One of its strengths is for sixty bucks you get a lot of content I expect it to last around five years before I will buy another COD.

In the end, if you are sick and tired of Call of Duty, COD Ghosts won’t change your mind.  But if you haven’t bought one in a long time or buying for the first time, or just a FPS fan, Ghosts is totally worth the sixty bucks.  

The fallowing contains spoilers to both The Last of Us and Season 2 of the Walking Dead the game

Video games are popular.  Duh right?  Of course video games are popular; they are designed to make the player want to keep playing and lots of people enjoy playing them.  What happens when a video game makes you do things that you don’t want to do?  I am not talking about poor game design.  I am talking about games like The Last of Us and Telltale’s The Walking Dead.  It is relatively new but both of those games force the player to do things that either step over moral boundaries or are simply hard watch besides actually doing it yourself.  In The Last of Us almost all of Joel’s less flattering moments are handled with cutscenes and the player has no input.  However, the operating room scene at the end of the game could have easily been handled by a cutscene.  But it is not, instead the game forces the player to pull the trigger.  In fact a good social experiment would be to observe how players react to the end scene.  Do they bust in and shoot the doctor without even thinking?  Or do they wait and only shoot when they realize there is no other way to proceed?

Telltale’s The Walking Dead takes a different approach to making the player uncomfortable.  In episode 1 of season 2 there are two scenes that easily qualify as uncomfortable.  If a movie has a dog it will either not die no matter what.  Or it will be killed just to pull at the audiences heartstrings.  In The Walking Dead, Telltale decided that not only will the player become immediately attached to the dog.  But it is partly your fault that it died and if that is not enough Telltale gives you a choice to either mercy kill the dog or let it suffer.  Was any of that fun or did it make me want to come back and play more?  The answer is a resounding NO.  Another scene makes the player stitch a dog bite on clementines arm.  It was horrible, uncomfortable and made me want to stop playing.

Why would video games make the player do uncomfortable things?  I think it shows that video games as a medium are maturing.  Clearly video games have come a long way since the coin devouring arcade games of yore.  Now developers are comfortable enough with the medium to experiment.  The strange part?  Those scenes from The Last of Us and The Walking Dead are some of my favorite in a video game ever.  It seems counter intuitive, but it is because those type of scenes are so rare in video games today.  It is strange but I did enjoy those scenes because they made me do things I would never do if I had the choice.  Today many of the video game buzz words are things like “player-driven choices” and “open world” but it is good to remember that sometimes having no choice can be the most memorable.

 

Boom, headshot.  Having just walked around a corner I died instantly from some unseen asalent.  Only to find my attacker used my new worst enemy the LS70 Fors the only sniper rifle in Killzone Shadowfall that can manage a one shot kill.  Maybe it’s just me, but it seems strange that a series renowned for its multiplayer to have a seemingly overpowered sniper rifle.  This raises a question that I have been asking for some time now.  Should there be a one shot kill sniper rifle in an online FPS?  It seems call of duty MW2 should have taught us that those type of weapons create quick-scoping aggressive snipers that induce rage quitting.  I think it all comes down to regenerating health.  If you are a sniper and you shoot someone from across the map and it doesn’t kill them it feels like you have accomplished nothing because they duck back into cover and their health regenerates.  On the contrary, in The Last of Us’ multiplayer there is no regenerating health so even though the sniper rifle is a two shot kill it feels like an accomplishment if you only connect one shot as it forces the enemy to use a health pack.  However, in order to counter any problems like this Killzone allows you to create your own fully customizable game types.  So if the LS70 Fors does becomes a big problem someone can simply create a gametype were that gun is disabled kudos to the developers for this feature.  

It is good to take frequent naps

Despite my gripes about the LS70 Fors Killzone Shadowfalls’ multiplayer is still a blast.  Not only that but is also looks amazing the graphics being on par with the campaign.  So far the create your own warzone option has not seemed as fun as I thought it would be.  Especially since most of the custom warzones don’t allow the use of your custom classes.  For me half the fun of an online FPS is the fine tuning of a class to fit my play style.  In short, Killzone Shadowfall is a highly polished first person shooter with beautiful graphics and there also lies its biggest flaw.  It is a really good FPS, it doesn’t break any new ground or have any gametypes that haven’t been seen before.  The guns are all standard variations of shotguns, assault rifles, sub machine guns and sniper rifles.  The biggest disappointment is that it does not take any chances it simply does everything really well, admittedly not an easy task but still unimaginative.  Unfortunately, as this generation of consoles rockets forward Killzone will soon be overshadowed, no pun intended, by the likes of Titanfall.  Even now, I am only using it to make the wait for Infamous Second Son seem that much shorter.        

Note: this will have major spoilers for both Burial at Sea and Infinite you have been warned.  After finishing Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea episode 1 I wanted to play more.  Irrational games have done a amazing job in recreating pre fall Rapture.  I loved the first half hour of the game just being able to walk around rapture and appreciate its beauty without having to worry about being beaten to death by a splicer is very interesting.  My only real problem with the game is the second half; as with most Bioshock games its weakness is the combat.  I do not mean the combat is bad or broken what I mean is it broke the immersion for me.  Once the bullets started flying I felt disappointed in the “Oh yeah, this is a video game I have to shoot people.” sort of way.  However, besides that the story does have me intrigued although also a little confused.  Let’s recap, in Bioshock Infinite we learned that the entire Bioshock universe is broken up into alternate realities each one feel different yet familiar, “Constants and variables.”  In Burial at Sea it seems Elizibeth is the same Elizibeth from Columbia.  However the Booker seems to be different, although at the end he does remember he used to be Comstock.  The ending was so fast I actually can’t remember all of the details.  Or at least I can’t seem to explain all of the details.  YOU TRY TO EXPLAIN IT!

Rapture looks WAY better than the last time

However, despite my confusion and nitpicking I still had a lot of fun playing through Burial at Sea.  This is a shining example of what dlc should be like and although $15 is a little steep for 90 minutes of gameplay it is still a worth addition to the Bioshock franchise.

“Clementine will remember that.”  those words will be burned into my brain for years to come after having just finished The Walking Dead the game season 1.  Yeah I know it has been out for a while now and I am a little late to the party but man am I glad I played it.  Telltale has really taken storytelling in video games to the next level.  I have never wanted to just listen to what other characters say more than in the walking dead.  Although most of the gameplay is choosing what Lee will say and dealing with the consequences, there is a surprising amount of dialogue that is optional.  I wanted to talk to Clementine just to see how she was doing even though the game was not forcing me to.  However, the naysayers will tell you the choices you make don’t carry any real weight; no matter what Ben will still die and Kenny will still disappear in a swarm of zombies, although the circumstances are very different depending on what choices you make.  But you know what?  It doesn’t matter.  Take Ben’s death  for instance, you either don’t save him and drop him into a hoard of zombies, or he dies simply by accident.  Later in the episode your morality is questioned based on the fact that you let ben die.  Another side affect of the choice is that it  is impossible to make all the right choices.  I tried to make my Lee act based on my conscience and morals.  And you know what?  There are many things I did in that play through that I regret.

Yes I did cry during the ending

 

But let’s not worry about what has already happened.  The Walking Dead the game season 2 has been announced and it looks amazing.  You are now playing as Clementine the very person you spent all of season 1 teaching and protecting.  She appears to be several years older, around 12 or 13, and I think that is what will make season 2 very interesting.  You are now playing as a child so that means your opinions will not carry as much weight.  In season 1 Lee was almost the leader of the group your the other characters valued your opinions, no longer will that be the case.  Not surprisingly, Telltale has openly said you should keep your save files from season 1.  My theory is that the advice you gave Clementine at the end of episode 5 will have an affect on the way she survives.  Especially choosing weather or not you told Clementine to leave Lee or kill him.  If you decided she just leave him will Clem be haunted by not being sure if Lee is dead or not?  If she shot him will that give her closure knowing Lee’s fate?  Season 2 episode 1 will be released before the end of 2013 then all of our questioned will be answered . . . hopefully.

(your readers will remember that)    

Just battlefronter3 and Crazy White Boy this time.