The Full Circle: 360 News Report 06.12.09
Posted by Joe Roche on 06.12.2009
As the week winds to a close there is only one thing left to do. It's time to talk about Xbox Live going down, Criterion working on a new racing game, exclusive Beatles content, and a slovenly Max Payne plus everything you've come to expect as we go around The Full Circle.
I can't think of a clever way to open this week's column so why don't we all just celebrate the fact that it's once again Friday and you merely have to whittle away the clock before the weekend. As a precursor to this weekend I wanted to send a shout out to all the graduates in our midst. I know we're entering prime graduation party season and as a person who has now been out of school (after 7 years of college) for an entire year I say welcome to the real word, keep your head down.
On the gaming front I spent most of the week playing Velvet Assassin for a review that I intend to have done soon. I won't spoil anything about the game, but if you have ever played Metal Gear Solid but thought it was far too easy then this might be a game you want to pick up. I'm not willing to give it the honor of most difficult game I've ever played, but it's easily in the Top 5, and provides plenty of moments where you will just stare at the screen yelling "WHY?"
Not much else to cover right now so why don't we sit back, crack a cold one and go around The Full Circle.
Forza 3 VIP Package It appears as if Gamestop will have a special U.S. Forza 3 exclusive limited edition bundle when the highly anticipated racing game hits store shelves in October. What can you expect from this exclusive limited edition bundle? Well a 2GB USB dongle, a few extra cars, a dashboard theme, and a Forza Motorsports VIP Membership. Apparently the VIP Membership will grant you access to special treatment inside the Online Auction House and on the Forzamotorsports.net forums, as well as five exclusive cars.
This limited edition bundle will be sold for $79.99 and I'm curious as to how many people will shell out the extra bucks for these special features. At first I was ready to completely write this bundle off as a stupid waste of money, but the fact is that I still play Forza Motorsports 2, and the third installment looks really great so I can anticipate people playing FM3 for a good long time. I am sure there are plenty of people who will want to have the special VIP privileges that come with this bundle, the question is are any of those people Full Circle readers?
Max Payne is a John McLane? The new cover of Game Informer Magazine shows a picture of a worn out, slovenly looking Max Payne for their cover story on the upcoming Max Payne 3.
Ok the picture is right there below this story so take a second to look it over (go ahead, I'll wait) Here is why I am excited about Splinter Cell: Conviction, and not Max Payne 3. When Rockstar announces that they will introduce a "more cynical" Max Payne who is dealing with the "downward spiral" of his life, they deliver a fat, bald, dirty shirt wearing stereotype. When Ubisoft delivers the same thing they give us awesome Sam Fischer who just looks like Sam Fischer, only pissed. I have no idea why the fallback trick for making a character "more cynical" or "world-weary" is to throw a dirty white tank top on them but that seems like the "get out of jail free" card for lazy writers. Look I am sure that Max Payne 3 will have an interesting storyline, Rockstar is too good at what they do for it to suck. But I haven't even read the Game Informer column and I already hate Max Payne 3, and if the game ends with him ripping a shotgun off his back and saying "yippie-ay ki-yay motherfu*cker" (spelling is an issue but you know what I'm talking about) then I might lose faith in Rockstar forever.
Xbox Live Maintenance June 16 Expect your Xbox Live to be down on June 16th for regularly scheduled maintenance.
According to Major Nelson's blog the highly trained wizards who perform these maintenance's on Xbox Live will have you not playing the new Call of Duty World at War map pack for an entire day (that's 24 hours for those of you operating on Stonehenge). This update is for scheduled maintenance ONLY Major Nelson stresses that when Xbox Live comes back you will have no new features. Apparently this down time will be used to prep the system for some of the E3 announcements that you can expect in the future on your Xbox Live Dashboard facebook, twitter, Netflix updates, Last.fm and all the other fun tools that will make your Xbox even of the central point of your living room. According to Major Nelson you can expect Xbox.com to be partially working during the downtime.
Gamestop Beatles Exclusives If you pre-order Beatles Rock Band through Gamestop you will receive three exclusive tracks, as well as a code for an in-game photo album.
The exclusive tracks are not mentioned in the story, however we already know that Abbey Road will be released as a DLC album, and All You Need Is Love is exclusive for the Xbox 360 so you can cross those songs off the list of what these mystery tracks might be. I've made it well known that I have a hard time caring about Beatles Rock Band, but I have to mention again that they're the #2 selling artists of the 2000's. I am flabbergasted by that fact. I seriously can not get over it. I have two things to say if the members of Hermans' Hermits were good looking they would've been the Beatles, and the Beatles are not a Rock Band so every time I see this title it makes me retch. If the Beatles are a rock band then N'Sync was a rap group.
Need For Speed: Criterion EA COO John Pleaseants has announced that a new Need For Speed game is in development at Criterion Games, the developer behind the highly successful Burnout: Paradise game.
This is an interesting story for a couple of reasons. First of all how many effin' Need For Speed games should we expect over the next 12 months? I'm pretty sure this makes four, with Shift, Nitro, and Need For Speed: World Online all previously announced. Secondly, what does this mean for the Burnout series? This is no knock on Need For Speed, but wasn't Burnout: Paradise more popular then every NFS game combined? At least for the last generation and this current generation of consoles. Thirdly, should we expect the very recently (today) released Big Surf Island add-on to be the swan song of Burnout: Paradise? and finally, will Criterion still be allowed to release oddles of free DLC for their new Need For Speed game? I don't think I'm breaking any news when I say that the reason Burnout: Paradise has been so successful for such a long time is that fans are loyal to developers who treat them well, and nobody has treated their consumer better then Criterion Games when it comes to killer DLC for cheap (or FREE). I wonder if that trend will continue in the NFS series, because if you took away the free DLC (and awesome DeLorean related DLC) from Burnout: Paradise I think most people would have stopped playing that game about ten months ago.
The Viewing Room
The Call of Duty: World at War zombies are no longer just Nazi's. This is the trailer for the new zombie level in the upcoming DLC Pack, Shin no Numa.
The new trailer for Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood featuring the guns of the game including a pretty sweet old timey cannon.
Reader Rants
Drew Robbins:Microsoft's was definitely the most well put together of the conferences. Nintendo screwed up by having something neat so start off, then having the conference go straight to hell for about an hour, and then return with two awesome games. Sony was just flat-out boring, outside of the Uncharted 2 demo.
Best press conference is definitely MS, but I think my favorite as far as announcements go was Nintendo, because honestly, when I play the Wii its usually Brawl/Galaxy or a VC game or a Gamecube game. So the fact that THREE awesome games are coming to the Wii thrills me.
After further reflection I might even go ahead and agree with you Mr. Robbins. While I loved the MS press conference because of how it was presented, and laid out the announcements from Nintendo, who put on a horrendous press conference, might wind up being my favorite games of the event. I love the new Super Mario Brother Wii, because I am always looking for games that I can play with my wife and that looks like a must have when it releases. I'm also excited for Super Mario Galaxy, and Metroid: Other M. Plus you have to take into account that a new Zelda was announced (though not shown) and it seems like Nintendo did all the right things, just wrapped in a boring event that nobody wanted to sit through.
Todd Vote: Alan Wake looks awesome, I can't wait to finally be able to play, what was originally supposed to be a launch title.
All three consoles did a good job at this years show. There is something on all three systems that I want to get my hands on.
David... Kojima announced the damn MGS game for the 360. That says something of his involvement. You think there is anything that goes out of kojima studios that Hideo himself doesn't have his hands in? Come on man, take off the blinders.
Milo is scary as hell. At first I was really blown away by the little bastard but then I thought of The Matrix, and Skynet.... after that I went to bed and curled in a ball muttering something about "no fate"....
Quick note I am not touching on the David/Rod Oracheski feud that was brewing last week over Metal Gear Solid: Rising. I will comment that Konami and Kojima have said that they have a band new new "young" developers working on Rising, however if anyone thinks that Kojima doesn't have the final say on what comes out of his building with the title "METAL GEAR SOLID" on it then you're an idiot. The game is going to be cross platform, and David is the same person who will be here next year talking about how superior the PS3 version of the game is, and so on and so forth.
As for Alan Wake, I am excited that it's playable, and I'm excited that we're finally going to be able to get our hands on it (hypothetically) in 2010 but I'm not that excited for the actual game. It looked pretty basic, and while the storyline and presentation seemed interesting I'm not entirely sold on the overall package. What makes Alan Wake better then Silent Hill, or Condemned? That's the question that I'm going to need answered before I fall head over heels in love with the author.
dogpound7382:I hate first person shooters, but after seeing the trailer for Modern Warfare 2, I might give it a try. Splinter Cell looks great too, never played the franchise, but might try this one out too. I agree that Milo might take over the world in a few years, its like something out of "Maxium Overdrive". It looks really cool though. But playing "human breakout" or whatever that ball game was when debuting the motion sensor doesnt impress me. Playing "Fight Night Round 5" with it WILL impress me.
If you hate first person shooters then I'm not sure you'd be a huge fan of Modern Warfare 2. I know that they've improved a lot of stuff, but it does seem like an extension of Modern Warfare 1 (a game that I loved). However, if you do wind up getting into the game dog you're always welcome to be stabbed in multiplayer by yours truly. As for Splinter Cell it just looks awesome. The difference between Conviction and the previous games in the series is night and day and I can't wait to play as a bad ass Sam Fischer. If anything the new Splinter Cell looks like a Grand Theft Auto style espionage game with a deep storyline and Sam effin' Fischer.
Wii60:Where was the Hulu announcement or at least a browser? My Xbox is becoming more and more the critical hub in my entertainment strategy (yes, I work in consulting). Netflix, content directly from USB connected drives, and streaming through PlayOn. What I hate is while Microsoft wants to make the Xbox a central part of the home entertainment experience, they seem to ignore the biggest thing out there, the internet. The web is fast replacing tvas the entertainment medium, just look at viewing patters against increased web browsing.
And yes, I realize that browsing the web from your tv kind of sucks, but at least offer the ability to go to Hulu, YouTube, CBS.com, and other video sites directly if you aren't going to integrate them within the dashboard like Netflix.
One more suggestion, cut a deal with DirectTV here in the US. Similar to their deal with Sky, it would make sense for those that don't want to or can't put up a dish.
I think Microsoft is really on to something with their strategy, I just would like to see them push it further and faster in the entertainment space.
Oh yeah, cool games as well.
I absolutely agree with Wii on the necessity of a browser. This is Microsoft we're talking about, they have Internet Explorer at their disposal how do we not have that integrated with the Xbox Live browser? The only reason that I can think of for this not being done yet is that Microsoft likes the idea of rolling out new and exciting features for the Xbox Live dashboard every year as a big update. I like the idea of Hulu and various other streaming media sites being integrated onto the dashboard like Netflix, but the fact remains that the best system would be to allow for web browsing on the 360. Once I can access the internet from the 360 I think I will have finally reached a point where my console is the center of my home entertainment unit.
Jake G:While I give credit to Microsoft for having a slightly more original Wii ripoff than PS3, I think it's pretty safe to bet that by the time Microsoft gets their thing working, it'll be too late and won't have any games supporting it.
The Wii Motionplus is going to be much better because it's going to have the kinks worked out, it'll work and have games for it. Whereas Microsoft and Sony will just be putting out another $100 attachment for their systems that work spotty at best or have no support.
They should just focus on their own strengths instead of trying to rip off Nintendo.
I don't necessarily have much to argue about here Jake but I want to make a point. I hate when people throw around the phrase "ripping off X" whenever someone creates a product that is similar to something that a different company already did. The Wii made the waggle/Wiimote popular, and they have had huge success with it. Wouldn't Microsoft and/or Sony be stupid to not try their hand at motion controls? As a consumer I'd be furious if one company had a feature that I liked but my company was too "proud" to create their own version of that property. It's not like Nintendo invented motion controls, they just happen to be the company that first comes to mind so you automatically equate the two. Frankly I'm not a huge fan of the motion controller and while Natal and/or the Sony motion controller don't excite me as a person who loves getting value of his consoles I can at least appreciate that they're going to try motion controls. A $100 add-on is still cheaper then buying a Wii just for the waggle feature.
The Hot Button
Today's Topic: Fix It
Honestly I just flat out ran out of time this week. I am in the process of starting a new job that involves about 100x more responsibility and actual work which for a lawyer isn't surprising but for a slacker who writes two weekly columns on 411mania it's a bit difficult. I fully intend to come back next week with an awesome Hot Button, but this week I want to throw something out there for you the people.
How could developers fix your favorite game?
I thought of this as I was playing Fight Night Round 3. In anticipation of Fight Night Round 4 I have been playing the shit out of FNR3 and I fell victim to the invisible wall. You see I love to create a fighter who can bully his way inside, and then rock his opponent with shots to the gut and vicious uppercuts. Call it the Mike Tyson approach to boxing, or the Julio Cesear Chavez approach because I take about five hundred head shots in a normal ten round bout. The problem with FNR3 is that you can't get inside. So if you're fighting a taller fighter, with power you're essentially screwed. There is an invisible wall that keeps you about two feet outside, just far enough to fall victim to some vicious uppercuts.
Well Fight Night Round 4 fixed that problem. They "fixed the glitch" as two Bob's might say. It's brilliant really you can now get right up close and exchange body blows with your opponent. It's my single favorite upgrade in a sequel of all time. It completely changes the way that you can play the game and it makes fighters like my CAF and/or Mike Tyson valuable in the game.
With that in mind how could designers fix your favorite game? Everyone has something they hate about Halo 3, or Civilization Revolution that they wish could be tweaked to just fix that one problem that they have with an otherwise perfect experience. So leave it in the comments and we'll talk about it next week.
Punching Out
DON'T FORGET TO CHECK OUT 411MANIA'S BEST OF E3 AWARDS THIS MONDAY JUNE 15TH
This is a war now, Roche. I'm going to show you what the Rams should have done to the Patriots in the Super Bowl!
Posted By: Drew Robbins (Registered) on June 12, 2009 at 12:00 AM
The Beatles ARE a rock band, Moron. John Lennon is arguably the best singer that the genre ever has ...
Posted By: Mike (Guest) on June 12, 2009 at 01:06 AM
Of course, everyone has different tastes in music. I understand that. But I do not see how you can classify the Beatles as "not rock".
They started off covering classic "rock" songs (Money, Rock n Roll Music, Roll Over Beethoven) while adding to the new genre with their own sound (She Loves You, I Want To Hold Your Hand). Over the next seven years (or so) they constantly reinvented themselves and took the rock world with them.
Like I said, If you don't like the Beatles, bully for you, but to say that they were not a rock band is plain ignorance.
Posted By: Rick (Guest) on June 12, 2009 at 02:00 AM
Ummmmm...Joe? Why do you think I will say the PS3 version is going to be superior? Are you jumping the gun, mate? I just said that MGSPW is (probably) going to be a superior game to MGSR because Kojima (and the MGS4 team) are making THAT game. >__> It seems that you are completely missing the f-ing point. *throws up hands*
Do you even understand the reason I have such little faith in MGSR? I explain it to you because your ability for deduction is severly lacking at this point and time. I guess you save it all for work...
Reasons why I think MGSPW > MGSR is the most likely scenario:
1) MGSR is being made by a new team.
2) Kojima is only a producer on MGSR. He is NOT directing/writing MGSR
3) Kojima is writing, producing, directing MGSPW.
4) MGS4 team is on MGSPW. A new developing team/writing team is making MGSR.
Here is information on a game producer. Look it up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_producer
Posted By: David (Guest) on June 12, 2009 at 02:29 AM
You lost all credibility after bashing The Beatles.
Posted By: Ultra Gepetto (Guest) on June 12, 2009 at 08:48 AM
DUDE funny you mentioned lazy writers regarding max payne 3- i jus found the plot line and it sounds jus like man on fire with denzel
Posted By: TAZZ (Guest) on June 12, 2009 at 09:10 AM
The Beetles were the first boy band. Nothing more.
Posted By: Todd Vote (Registered) on June 12, 2009 at 10:11 AM
David, since when has not having Kojima write a game been a bad thing?
Posted By: Drew Robbins (Registered) on June 12, 2009 at 11:42 AM
Oh and Todd, the Beatles are definitely not just a "boy band." Sure, some of their earlier songs could be assigned to that genre (though those are still great songs), but their later work is waaaaay too deep for a mere boy band.
Posted By: Drew Robbins (Registered) on June 12, 2009 at 11:45 AM
Drew,
It is bad when you take in account the whole Metal Gear Solid story... Kojima may have a better undrestanding of the characters; thus, he would have a leg up when it comes to writing a story comparing those characters....
Posted By: David (Guest) on June 12, 2009 at 01:33 PM
If the Beatles ain't a rock band, Elvis Presley was never a rock-&-roll singer (hell, it never existed), The Clash were also a pop band and Bob Dylan is just a mediocre single with good writing.
I know people are entitled to their opinions, but I fucking despise people raving about their "controversial" (yet incorrect) thoughts just to stir the proverbial pot (the device that holds stuff being cooked, not the thing us commenters smoke).
Posted By: JA Toro (Guest) on June 12, 2009 at 07:12 PM
Even if he did say he wasn't doing much with MGSR, that can change if he doesn't like what he sees. There's no way Kojima is going to let someone take his baby and do whatever they like with it without him getting involved. We'll just have to wait and see
Posted By: Guest#0937 (Guest) on June 13, 2009 at 09:36 PM
Not touching the Beatles debate, other than to say it'll be the first rhythm game I buy because "Hey Jude" trumps anything on Guitar Hero: Metallica. Of course, that could change depending on which Kings of Leon songs make Rock Band 3 or Guitar Hero 4 (whichever one they've been announced for).
Anyway, as for the Edge of Twilight trailer, looks to me like the game will feature some social commentary if nothing else. Starting with a cooling tower for (I'd imagine) a nuclear power plant and then oil derricks stopping, following by what I presume to be the complete degradation of civilization, the game's got storyline potential.
As for how the developers could fix my favorite game for a sequel, it's simple really - put Randy Couture and Shane Carwin in UFC 2010. In all seriousness, the two games I play the most are the annual updates of NCAA Football and Madden, and the only way to really fix them, especially Madden is to purchase the studio that did NFL 2K5, take the best simulation aspects of that game (I'm talking the complete weekly training regiment for each position group mainly), mix it with what Madden does best, and go from there. After reading about the changes they've made to Madden in Game Informer, I'm actually looking forward to Madden 10.
Oh, and on a completely unrelated note, Prototype is a tremendous game. I bought it Thursday, played for about four hours, went to bed, got up Friday and drove 9 1/2 hours (actually 11 1/2 including the two-hour delay while they cleared a wreck off of the interstate in Kentucky), and hooked up my XBox and threw it in as soon as I got home. I haven't played Infamous, but I can't see how it could possibly match up. I'll be playing this game almost non-stop until I beat it (or until Arkham Asylum comes out, whichever comes first).
Posted By: Wyatt Beougher (Guest) on June 13, 2009 at 10:37 PM
Joe, you are now my favorite writer. Congratulations. Oh, and thanks for putting my column in twice! Please don't change that.
Posted By: Sam Pow (Registered) on June 14, 2009 at 12:37 AM
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