Chris Paladino - Video Games and More (But Mostly Video Games)

A guy at work described our team as being made up of fans with press passes.  I love that description.

Since my last blog article I've had the opportunity to interview several bands at the Mayhem Festival in support of Gears of War 2, including Disturbed, Mastodon, Black Tide, Slipknot, and Five Finger Death Punch.  As a fan of metal, this was a pretty amazing experience for me.

My Mayhem highlight was the interview I got to do with the lead singer of Five Finger Death Punch, Ivan Moody.  The guy was funny, and sincere.  As I approached him to ask for an interview a fan was shaking his hand, and the dude was sincerely moved at how happy this fan was.  It's hard to stay humble the more popular you get, and Ivan knows his roots.

I also had the opportunity to attend E3 in Los Angeles.  The show was pretty grueling as our crew schlepped around video gear capturing interviews, but again - as a fan of games, this was an unbelievable chance to share the behind-the-scenes questions with the gamers out there who couldn't make the show.

Those that know me are aware that I really look up to Cliff Bleszinski.  He's one of the first guys in the industry that I followed before I got into the details and the news the way I am today.  At the Gears of War reception Cliff was rushing past me, and took a second to tap me and say "Hey Chris, what's up".  That was a pretty exciting moment for a guy who grew up playing UT and UT2k4.

I may sound like a fanboy, but the point of this article is twofold:

1. I want to express my thanks and appreciate for the job that I have.  I don't take it for granted.
2. I want to bring access and opportunity for folks who won't get it otherwise.  I love asking questions from the gamers, and I hope to do my best to bring entertaining content back from these events rather than the typical boring questions that others may ask.

I've played a few games recently that I expected to suck based on their Metacritic ratings.  My experiences and Metacritic scores usually correlate, but in the case of Army of Two it was night-and-day.

This got me thinking about some of the other Xbox 360 games that I enjoyed despite the low scores of Metacritic:

Game	Metacritic Rating	My Comments
	72	Maybe the comparisons by the dev. team to Gears of War put people off, but I played through it in 3 sittings - I was that interested. Looking forward to going back to beat it again on Professional.
	74	I can't think of a game that has a more cinematic feel to it. While the boss fights took slightly too long, I really dig playing this game.
	72	I love Advance Wars, and similarly, I love Commanders. The retro art style, the unit balance, it all just works for me.
	69	Reminds me of God of War (which I loved). The combat was deep, and admittedly a bit bit repetitive.  The gore and fun combat system hooked me.
	76	Metacritic says "favorable review", but I think The Club got a bad rep. It's a racing game + shooter, and it's a blast.
	71	If you hate mech-games, then you won't like ChromeHounds - it is sort of a niche game, but it's VERY well done, and has an immense amount of strategy and teamwork in the combat.
	66	The list wouldn't be complete without one of the most strategic, and unique team-based combat games ever created. Shadowrun nailed it, and the multiplayer-only + low map count killed it before it could grow.

 

All the recent Gears of War 2 talk had me itching to jump back into Gears, so I did.  After all this time, it's still a blast - that's a sign of a good game.  Now if they can just nerf the shotgun-roadie run it'll all be good.

And another thing - for being my favorite Xbox 360 game, I'm sure missing lots of achievements!

I'm the type of guy who usually buys 1-2 games per year, even if I never play them.  I enjoy seeing different mechanics in games, and how they work, so I am always on the look-out for games in genres that interest me - like sports.

The issue with some sports games is that they get so bogged down in details and rules that they take hours to play.  Blood Bowl is a good example of this - I love the game, but it simply takes too long to play, and it gets away from the quick-paced, high-action game it's trying to simulate.

Two games that I recently became aware of NHL Ice Breaker, and Card Football.  These games both take standard 54 card decks (including Jokers) and simulate the games of Hockey and Football.  The big difference from most sports adaptations is that the play very fast, and are not over-burdened with rules.

Each player has a hand of 5 cards, and much in the same way as you would in the game War, you each lay a card from your hand down - higher card "wins" and that player performs the action on the winning card.  To avoid ties, and the "useless" cards in War (2-5 for example) you can also play poker hands (pair, flush, straight, full-house, etc.) which mean that two 2s can beat a K.  It adds hand management, and power decisions into the game.

That's it.  All the infomation needed for different situations is on the card.  For the football version, there is a dice you roll for fumbles, and field goals - but my assumption is that because it's the first of the D54 games, they didn't get all the rules down.  It would have been just as easy for them to include a small section in the corner of the cards with the info that the dice holds.

I'll be picking these games up likely this week (as soon as some of my ebay auctions sell), so I'll let you know how they are.  The reviews are pretty high, so I'm not worried.

They do, however, have me thinking if it's possible to have a baseball version of the game - complete with rules for seasons, and player creation.  While the mechanics would need to be worked out, baseball - being so statistical - would be a great fit for the D54 system.  In the meantime, I've downloaded the free Out of the Park Baseball v5.

Dungeons and Dragons, the pen-and-paper role-playing games, is due out in June in it's 4th iteration.  This is a pretty cool, and historic event.  Knowing that I'm away from my usual gaming crew, however, made it something that I wasn't going to take part in.

D&D plays best (and almost exclusively) with friends gathered in the same room.  With 4th edition, they are developing some tools that will allow gaming groups to play on a virtual table (complete with graphed maps, and dice rolling) over the internet.  From the site:

the D&D Game Table will provide you with the ability to essentially play at an online kitchen table—allowing groups to play across the country (or even countries) and for old gaming groups to reconnect. Other online tools will provide resources for all users, regardless of whether they play live or online.

Wow, this is pretty amazing.  The issue comes when you look into the D&D tools - the game table, character creator, dungeon builder, and others - are available to D&D Insider subscribers, at a rate of $14.95/month.  Yes, the same price as World of Warcraft.

So after you spend $105 on the three core books you would need to spend $10/month (paying for a full year gives you a discount) to use the online play features?  That's $225 in the first year - are you insane?

I guess I am better off sticking with video games, and if I really need to roll dice, the D&D Minis.

Full Story - Official D&D Insider FAQ