Gears of War 2 Multiplayer Interview

As you may have seen in my previous post, Gears of War 3 has been delayed for the sake being the representing force of the Xbox 360 at Holiday 2011. This is actually more like developer diary than a multiplayer interview, but nonetheless it's on gamespot and I recommend you to check it out. Did I mention that yo ucan beat someone to death with their own arm in this game? Yeah, their own arm...awesome!

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/gearsofwar3/video/6281064/?hd=1&tag=topslot;watchlink;1

Killzone 3 Public Beta October 25

Killzone 2 had solid multiplayer, but there wasn't much about it that distinguished it from shooters like Call of Duty. That and Killzone 2 had a control scheme that I could never get used to, and there are those like me that will agree. PS3 owners, get ready to gear up and test out the brand Killzone 3 multiplayer this October!

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/112/1126395p1.html

Force Unleashed 2: Soul of the Force trailer

A solid looking action game. I have never played the first Force Unleashed, but I have watched all of the cutscenes on youtube. This game does have a great storyline. I bet that this will be a very good rental when it comes out the 26th of this October.

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/soul-of-the-force/705778

Gears of War 3 Multiplayer Coverage

with Gears of War 3 delayed (ONCE AGAIN!) to Holiday 2011, Epic will be devoting this time to putting up a multiplayer beta. I think this is absolutely what Gears of War 3 needs because both Gears of War 1 and 2 had extremely buggy and unbalanced multiplayer. That, and Gears of War 1 & 2 are complete shotgun fests. This may be fun for some people, but personally I had a gripe with all of the shotguns that were involved. Yes I did suck at Gears of War online, very much. That does not change the fact however, that I am extremely exited about the fact that Gears 3 is having a multiplayer beta. Make sure to check out all of these very interesting articles from Shacknews to get more details. Any Gears fan should check these articles out.

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/65911
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/65912
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/65913

Fallout: New Vegas and a rant

Check out the latest developer diary on the new factions you will be interacting with in Fallout: New Vegas. Personally I am very excited about this because neither faction is particularly good or evil (as the developer diary highlights).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf-GUhc6Wco&feature=sub

And while I am on this topic I would like to talk about my problem with video games having a moral meter (and why I am excited about the way Fallout: New Vegas is dealing with this pet-peeve I have with most roleplaying games.

One of the main problems with most role-playing games is that there is generally an element of good OR evil, and actually that's a huge pet-peeve I have developed with RPGs recently. In Mass Effect 2 there was a moral system called Paragon/Renegade, but it pretty much parallel's with good and evil. You can either be a nice person, or you can be a dick. Yes there were actions you could do that were neutral on the moral scale, but you needed to raise your paragon score so you could raise you're "charm" level to talk your way out of certain situations. It would eventually serve in the player's best interest to play a Paragon character because you needed that high charm score to avoid otherwise bad situations within the game.

Likewise with Fable 3, I didn't play an evil character because it didn’t serve in my best interest to be evil. Sure you could get a little extra cash from murdering someone, but why don’t I just buy houses and rent them out, and use that rent money to buy even more houses and rent them out? Sure I could have raised the rent and gotten evil points, but the concept of raising rent and getting more money seemed completely defiant of the concept of supply and demand. People don’t raise their rent prices in real life because they’re evil! They do it because it serves in their best interest! People always want something, I liked it when after I escaped the Spire in Fable 2 (after spending 10 in-game years there), that the Temple of Light that I protected earlier expanded its influence and was accompanied by surrounding structures. The Temple of Light that I protected long ago became prosperous, and I get good points, and apparently the temple of shadows was decimated. I went against the Temple of Shadows because they were a bunch of idiots that killed people for no reason; I didn’t do it because I am a good person! Let’s be honest here, why would you fight against the crazy Temple of Shadows? Would you say “because it’s the right thing to do”? I would say I went against the Temple of Shadows because that organization didn’t serve in the best interest of Albion (the country in which Fable takes place). If my decisions in Fable 2 did have an impact in Fable 3, how can I diplomatically engage with other countries if the Temple of Shadows is my central religion? If my religion specifically specializes in sacrificing people for treasure, then other countries would want nothing to do with me. That’s my outlook on the situation anyway, and you may have a different outlook. This is great because that’s what a role-playing game should be meant to accommodate.

This is why games like Fallout and Dragon Age truly represent what a role-playing game is. A game where you get to make the decisions that you would truly make, and not every decision is black and white. Think about it! In games like Grand Theft Auto we still people’s cars because it serves in our best interest. There is seldom punishment for stealing a car in GTA because the likely hood of getting caught and getting 1 star wanted level (which deteriorates fairly easily). In Dragon Age Origins I aim am nice to my companions. Why? Because it serves in my best interest to have my companions on my side. It’s not because I am good or evil, I am choosing the choices that I believe are best suited for each situation.

Some of you may be shocked or mortified by my amoral outlook on how a role-playing game should be, but can people truly judge what is good and what is evil? The Fable games and Mass Effect games do that to some extent. They tell you what is right and what is wrong. In games like Dragon Age only you’re companions tell you what is right and what is wrong. And that’s the truth right there, your companions and the people you react with judge your morality. And if your companions likes you’re morality then you have done a good job having people trust you.

In the end, what I am saying is that the game shouldn’t judge you’re morality, it should just let you make the decisions you want to make. Games shouldn’t give you a black or white choice; they should just simply give you choices. It’s the people in the game world itself that should truly judge your choices and decide whatever you do is good or evil, justice or injustice, right or wrong.

Onlive has no monthly fees

In other (potentially) great bits of news. Onlive now has no subscription fee. For those don't know OnLive is a cloud computing gaming platform: the games are synchronized via the internet through a console. The games themselva rendered, and stored on remote servers.

In layman's terms, you can stream and play video games through the internet. This type of technology can fail miserably if not correctly executed, so here is to hopping that OnLive kicks ass.

http://www.gametrailers.com/news/onlive-loses-monthly-fees/2518

Call of Duty: Black Ops going 3D

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/3d-feature-call-of/705647

This is a huge deal and it helps promote the fact that 3D games will become more common. If big budget games like Call of Duty are pushing this type of technology forward, then it will eventually be sooner or later that we will all be buying 3D televisions. Ok it will be later that we buy 3D televisions. Right now 3D televisions are way too new and expensive, that we just have to wait for all of the rich idiots to buy them first so that producers can sell at a more reasonable price. Love it or hate it, 3D will likely be the next evolution in gaming.

Bungie is going to make an MMO?

That is the first thing I thought when I read this Gamespot interview. Writer-director Joseph Staten of Bungie Studios talks about what he wants to accomplish on the upcoming Bungie-Activision project.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6280864.html?tag=latestheadlines%3Btitle%3B1

Games of October 2010

Here are the games I am presently keeping my eye on. I am also preordering Fallout: New Vegas and Fable 3 for my Xbox 360, but I recommend that anyone visits metacritic to get a basic overview on which of the games are worth buying. While I don't normally play sports games, I have heard a lot of praise for NBA 2k11 and this perhaps might be the sports game of the year.

October Games:

NBA 2K11 - October 5

Medal of Honor - October 12

Fallout: New Vegas - October 19

Vanquish - October 19

Fable – October 26

SIMS 3 (Xbox 360/PS3) – October 26

Deciding on what to do with my life...

It's been my first year in college, and it wasn't until I was a junior at high school that I had real thoughts about what I wanted to do when I was older. I want to break into the video game journalism industry, and I need to start thinking less about playing Reach and more talking and getting prepped up for the new games. Right now I am a freshman at a small liberal arts college called Pitzer, but the college newspaper only seems interested in local college affairs as opposed to hobbies like gaming. As a result, I have decided (as of now), that I won't push in articles of video game coverage because there doesn't seem to be much genuine interest of video games in my college. As of now, my present goal is to update this blog’s looks and aesthetics while getting back to posting. I haven’t been posting recently because I have been trying to get acclimated to college life and making friends (while also having my life get taken over by Halo Reach).

On another note, I am also considering getting a name change because “Game Prober” is somewhat of a creepy name for someone that’s covering video games. I am sure if I ever did live interviews, the interviewees would be a little thrown off by the title this blog has fallen under. So without further ado, let the revision begin!