Monthly Archives: February 2009

Feb 23 2009
Games

Flower

Flower is just one of those games which would never fly at retail.

To be honest, I feel like it belongs in an art museum, one of those high ideal “interactive journeys” that would be placed between the room sized ceramic Chuck Taylors and the minature wrought iron diorama of Main Street USA in the 1980s.

There would be several stations, each with a monitor and some headphones and a simplified gyroscopic controller with one button instead of a PS3 control pad.

Really, it’s that esoteric.

I don’t think that the mainstream gaming audience is ready to drop $10 on an experience of this nature.

Made by the fine, fine people that brought you Cloud and Flow, the people who work at That Game Company.

You know, that one.

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Feb 22 2009
Uncategorized

Untoten, Nacht de

Call of Duty: World at War was another World War II game.

I know, everytime I say I’m done with World War II as a setting, they come out with another WWII game and I pick it up.  This one, I picked up because it was on sale, and it has a cooperative game mode wherein you fight an unending horde of zombies until you are overwhelmed.

There is no “winning” this mode.  Eventually the undead will outnumber you and you can’t hold them back any longer.

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Feb 21 2009
Games

The Breakfasttime of Conflict (Dawn of War II)

Dawn of War II might as well be named an entirely different game.  It steps just to the side of being a Real Time Strategy game and gives us something different, something a little more micro oriented.  Micro, while normally an unwelcome task is actually made enjoyable by the persistent leveling up that the characters (note: characters, not units) experience over the course of the campaign.

There’s even bits of dialogue between them during the battles.

I had my doubts, to be honest.  The micro levels in most RTS games were the ones I hated the most.  I enjoyed base building and sending units out en masse.   What I’m finding in Dawn of War II is that micro is the focus of the game.  Instead of having to constantly switch gears between macromanaging an economy and tech tree, to the micro oriented play of giving commands to individual units, I can actually use units to set up flanking situations, set traps, and use concealment and cover effectively.

In this way, it’s more of a strategy and tactics game than it’s predecessors.  I never played the tabletop, so I’m not sure if this is closer to playing it, but it’s certainly compelling, and fun to play.

I played the campaign for a couple of missions so far it’s pretty standard Warhammer 40k fare.  Exterminate the Xenos, mankind doesn’t really know what it’s dealing with, WAAAAAGH!!, etc.  Not that that’s bad, it’s just that it’s not doing anything different storywise, which is good.

I bought it on Steam, because Valve needs my money more than Gamestop does, and I found out that the retail version requires the Steam platform to play.

Well played, Valve.

Well played.

Feb 20 2009
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Games

Fighting! On the Street!

First things first.  I have the opening theme for Street Fighter IV stuck in my head.  It has the infectious poppy feel of both a boy band and a teen idol earworm, and I’m kind of stuck with it.  The menu has it looping around and I tonight I found myself starting up the game and then making dinner.  While I kept the music on, I just wanted to dance.

I know.

But, back to the game.  There is a feeling of coming back home, while also finding out that while you were gone, some incredible remodeling took place.  The new Street Fighter IV is a 3d fighter with a true 2d feel.  It just feels like street fighter, but with this fantastic aesthetic with some great special effects.  The collision detection for the fighting is great, and I never feel like an attack should have hit when it didn’t.  Soul Calibur and its sequels had that issue sometimes.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great 3d fighter.

There’s just something about coming back to a two dimensional fight plane.  Continue reading →

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Feb 19 2009
Games

Gamestop Woes

I didn’t preorder Dawn of War II fast enough on Amazon, so I had preordered it on Gamestop’s website and had them deliver it to the Whiteflint Mall store.

This was a mistake.

The mistake was ordering from Gamestop in the first place.  Now, I don’t know what happened.   I’m sure there’s another side to the story, but long story short, I did not walk away from Gamestop with Dawn of War II.

I called earlier today, to check to see if they had it in.  I am informed that they are sold out.  I state that I had preordered said title and was promptly referred to a manager.  I asked why I was not called.  He stated that the automated system did not call anyone.

Note:  Gamestop has a policy where if you do not pick up a preordered game within 48 hours, they will charge a $5 restock fee.

The manager was apologetic, but then stated that he would call another store and make sure they had one on hold for me, today.  He took down my name and assured me that there would be a copy waiting for me at the Montgomery Mall location.  I asked about the restock fee and canceling my preorder and he stated that I would have to come in person to cancel the preorder to avoid the restock fee.

I canceled my pre order at White Flint, and then promptly decided that I didn’t need to purchase Dawn of War 2 from Gamestop, but another person might want that other copy.  I call the other store to free up the copy that was on hold for me.

I’m told that it is the last copy, and they don’t hold games.  I ask if the manager called ahead and either the message never got through, or there was no call.

I wasn’t really surprised.  Either way, Gamestop lost pretty much all of their future sales from me. They won’t miss my money, considering that they posted $8.8 Billion dollars in sales last year.  I saw the business model in action tonight.  Someone traded in a copy of Forza for one dollar and thirty cents.  They sell it for $14.99.  I should have bought that copy for five dollars and given it to someone.

Dawn of War II did get released a bit earlier than expected, and I’m guessing that the automated call system can’t handle variables outside of its schedule.  I guess that’s a plus for the “filthy human” column.

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