Edward Pollard

Call of Duty 3

November 30, 2006

Reviews / Xbox 360 / by Edward Pollard Make a comment! / Tweet it!

In northern France, near the towns of Vimy and Givency-en-Gohelle, at the top of a hill marked on the war maps as Hill 145, sits a piece of Canada. It is a small piece, about a kilometer square, given in perpetuity to Canada by France in 1922. On this hill sits the Canadian National Vimy Memorial, a testament to the 66,000 sons Canada sent to the first great war and never got back. An impressive edifice of marble stretching 27 meters skyward, it is a poignant reminder of the totality of such global conflict and the dedication of the Dominion of Canada in securing world peace while still finding its place in the world as a country.

While many countries participated in the first and second world wars, few had the conflict play such an extensive role in national self identity as Canada. While their homeland was spared the grim realities of war, the Canadian solders who fought, both the the ones that came back and the ones who did not, left an indelible mark on the construction of the Nation. This might seem an irrelevant history lesson, but Call of Duty 3 will always have a very special place in my heart, as it is the first game of the oh-so-many World War II shooters to acknowledge the involvement of Canadians.

But if you’re not a Canadian, I doubt you’ll find swelling patriotism a compelling issue in regards to Call of Duty 3. So what does Call of Duty 3 offer everyone else? Well, plenty.

Despite a much-ballyhooed switch in development teams, Call of Duty 3 comes off as a sincere and genuine continuation of the Call of Duty franchise. Everything you knew from the last iteration is back. The control is the same, level structure is the same, and the quality and attention in the visuals are all on the same level. Call of Duty 2 was a premiere title for the Xbox 360, and fans of it will take considerable comfort and feel right at home in Call of Duty 3. For the most part it is just more of what we all loved the first time around.

Indeed, it is where Treyarch deviated from the previous chapter that Call of Duty 3’s rustiest spots are found. A new melee combat mode drags you from time to time into single hand-to-hand combat with the enemy. One is then prompted with on screen directions as to what buttons to press to emerge victorious while simultaneously being filled with an emotion that could only be called disinterest. It’s certainly a new feature, but its integration comes off as shockingly incidental and entirely trivial. That being said, that is a hell of a lot better than coming off as intrusive and obnoxious. The criticism, if one can even call it that, is how unnecessary it feels, rather than accusing it of bringing the title down.

Levels this time are on occasion quite a bit more open than the last game. And the super-scripted AI tends to show its occasional ineptitude more often due to this. It will not be uncommon to find yourself recovering from a frenzied conflict with no clue as to where your team has gotten itself – they’ve moved on to the next slickly produced cinematic encounter, you just need to catch up. The map design this time out also includes more confined combat, down narrow corridors and alleyways. Again the AI proves slightly embarrassing, as traffic jams are much too common in these environments.

But the gameplay on the whole is still the same frenzied, inspirational, and enthralling World War II combat we’ve come to expect from the franchise. While the human sacrifice of the encounter is glossed over – this is entertainment, not history – it is still a real and rather foreboding presence that has blessed the Call of Duty franchise with an enriching atmosphere despite the disjointed arrangement of missions.

Indeed, what Call of Duty 3 mostly feels like is Call of Duty 2, with new scenarios, pushed further and harder. While the resulting pressure causes quite a few more seams to show in the cloth, the overall effect is just as enjoyable. Gears of War may have defined some new paradigms for the shooting genre, but Call of Duty 3 is a solid expression of mastery in the older style. Is it as compelling as Call of Duty 2? Perhaps not, but only because it very much follows in footsteps already trodden, and Call of Duty 2 made such an impact due to the competition (meaning the lack thereof) at the time of release. World War II is undoubtedly overdone as a thematic element in games, but when you are the best of the field you’re still a darn fine game well worth playing.

But in multiplayer are where the best enhancements to the game are really found. While the last edition topped out at 8 players, this time 24 can join up. As you can expect, the team combat modes are all the more impressive due to this simple improvement. This is further enriched by the class based modes – drawing on tried and proven mechanics found in so many other games – as well as the inclusion of vehicles. Call of Duty 2 had an extensive run as an extremely popular Xbox Live game, and Call of Duty 3 will undoubtedly take that torch and keep running.

Visually, Call of Duty 3 absolutely trumps the previous game. While profound launch titles like Call of Duty 2 always strike a special cord, it is exhilarating to see the console mature and develop so far after only a year. There a deep satisfaction to be found in Call of Duty 3 on 720p, and while a few odd collision and occlusion bugs nag the attentive eye, Call of Duty 3 easily earns some chevrons as a title to show off the visual abilities of the 360.

Without a doubt, Call of Duty 3 is likely to take you down familiar roads and into familiar scenarios with familiar enemies. Attempts to change things up in the single player campaign mostly fall flat, but in a way that is innocent rather than detrimental. While this won’t win over anyone who has already passed on the Call of Duty franchise, Call of Duty 3 is extremely solid and a lot of fun, with undoubtedly a substantially long shelf life on Xbox Live. There are going to be some people who won’t really find this their cup of tea, but for the established audience this is an easy sell that will stir hunger for the next iteration of the franchise.

Score: 85%

Gears of War

November 26, 2006

Reviews / Xbox 360 / by Edward Pollard Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Your unit is under heavy enemy fire, and to guarantee victory you need to advance to a key position to give your fellow Coalition of Ordered Government (COG) forces the edge. You blindly blast out some covering fire, and then you run as if everything depended on it. And it does. You sprint ahead, but come up against a low bit of wall and, before you can blink, you snap down into a huddle and take cover rather than pushing straight on to the linchpin position.

This is how real men learn how to swear.

By the time Gears of War opens, the Locust menace has decimated the populace of the planet Sera, leaving a wake of chaos and destruction, and delivering a battle of horrific ferocity to the COG. Early in the war, Marcus Fenix – the game’s protagonist of focus – was court-martialed and imprisoned for disobeying a direct order in an attempt to save his father. Fourteen years of horror have passed with Marcus locked in a cell. But the decade long conflict has now arrived at his cell door, which has been opened, and a gun has been thrust back into his hands. Old friends and enemies both demand Marcus answer the call to arms yet again.

Lifting the best notions from classic action films, Gears of War is light on the narrative while still being incredibly thick on subtext and implied character development. Rather than being laid out in a long, elaborate, melodramatic cut-scene (everyone wave at Halo 2!), Gears of War instead hints at a back story, but its emphasis is on action, throwing Marcus back into the war with a handful of quirky and detailed characters who know exactly what the fourteen years of his imprisonment have been like. Indeed, this isolation from exposition serves to enhance the feeling of detachment that years of imprisonment would undoubtedly inculcate. In war, everyone has their own reasons to fight, and this is a vein that runs thick through Gears of War.

The game itself is a tactical third-person shooter. Conflict orients itself around the idea of cover and suppression tactics. Progress through the game hinges on using cover effectively, and advancing to key positions to press the battle on the enemy. As some cover is destructible and even inflammable, there is an impressively large strategic element to the game in selecting your cover and exploiting its advantage to the battle. Even on the easiest difficulty levels, you’ll feel that battles will hinge on your ability to be in the right place at the right time.

While your armaments are by and large incredibly straightforward, Gears of War offers them up in a manner that can only be described as tactile. You feel your weapons, you love your weapons, if you had to sleep in this game you’d gleefully tuck them under your pillow and kiss them before bedtime. While the Lancer Assault Rifle seems almost entirely straightforward, you will develop a relationship with this gun bordering on the romantic. Even though Gears has a full array of armaments, including some hilarious Locust technology, the default firearm is so deeply ingrained in the fundamental elements of warfare as to be perhaps the premiere basic firearm in the history of games. This notion is only enhanced by the chainsaw bayonet (I said “almost entirely straightforward”, remember?) that offers some incredibly vicious and effective melee damage.

In single player, the game revolves around a mix of atmospheric survival-horror style levels and large-scale open battlefields, delivering in the end a provocative and compelling experience. Just like the best in action films, Gears of War shows rather than tells, and while the narrative could be considered a bit light this is not really a criticism but an observation. Gears exists in the best league of video games, where you experience rather than are shown, although some people may find it a bit too literal in that regard.

However, too often single player campaigns in action titles are treated as perfunctory elements necessary to sell the games’ multiplayer, but here the campaign mode is an absolute treat that can be played over and over again. Difficulty settings range from the oblique to the obscene, and while it could take 10 hours or so to complete on the easiest settings, double or triple that as you turn the difficulty up. And to its credit, the advanced difficulty doesn’t come across as cheap or manipulative, but a deeply gratifying experience where you are combating an ever-superior multitude and, if you emerge triumphant via diligence, patience, and a little luck, you will feel like the sun rises and sets from your Xbox 360.

This is made even better by co-operative multiplayer, either via split-screen or over Xbox Live. This is comparative to other games featuring co-operative play, however the reliance on co-operation and the integration between cover and suppression fire make co-op mode in Gears of War feel like an entirely natural fit. If not the best co-operative game, this is certainly among the best.

In terms of technology, it is arguable that Gears of War is the best looking video game on any platform this holiday season. Offering the highest caliber of visual and audio effects, this game simply looks and sounds amazing in every way. Moderately destructible environments send rocks and dust across the screen while bullets whiz past your ear. While I’m not in love with the over-bulk aesthetic, there is no denying that the execution is simply the best thing I’ve ever seen.

There is only one thing to dislike in Gears of War, and that is the over-use of the A button. As presented in the introduction, A is used to both run and find cover, so when one runs past some cover occasionally one tends to be surprised when the character stops doing what was intended (running) and does something else (covering). This is easily overcome with a bit of forethought and learning, but it would have been even easier to overcome if Epic Games had thought this through. But if you’re looking for the dirt on Gears of War, that’s as bad as it gets.

If we drew the line at the above, Gears of War would already seem a compelling package that almost every Xbox 360 owner should own. Anyone who has ever enjoyed any type of shooter will absolutely be taken in by Gears’ atmosphere, attitude, and immersive qualities that present an entirely new take on well-trod ground. To put it simply, it is a must buy. To exploit a nasty and over used phrase, this is a killer app. People will and should buy consoles just to play it.

But there’s more, as we’ve not delved into the competitive multiplayer offerings of Gears of War, which may look limited in name, but are designed to capture the essence of the game’s mechanic and translate that to extreme fun. Up to eight players, in two teams of four, can compete in round-based combat. Though there are only a dozen or so maps and there are only a few configurable options, Epic Games has done what they could with the tools available to offer the best multiplayer experience possible. The limited formats may or may not affect long term play, but in the short term Gears of War offers an unparalleled experience over Xbox Live or System Link. Admittedly, local competitive multiplayer (limited to two players) falls a bit flat.

Gears of War is exactly what the Xbox 360 needed to remind gamers that while the PlayStation 3 has just recently become a retail reality, this holiday season is not all about the new Sony monolith. It is a shooter of unparalleled grandeur and scale, featuring graphics that put the PlayStation 3 launch lineup to shame. Gears of War is without question one of the most significant games of 2006, and is a definite contender for prestigious Game Of The Year accolades. It features absolutely unique game play, atmosphere, and an incredibly high fun and replay factor. While Epic Games really could have polished out the one grievance I claim, it is an incidental one that is easily worked with and does almost nothing to detract from play. If you buy one Xbox 360 game this season, well, then something is wrong with you. But if you had to, Gears of War would almost certainly be that game.

Score: 97%

Interview: Peter Olotka, Cosmic Encounter Online

October 20, 2006

Features / Interviews / by Edward Pollard Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Thank you for taking the time to speak with us today about Cosmic Encounter Online. Could you tell us a bit about yourself, your background, and your current role with Cosmic Encounter Online.

I have been designing since the 1970’s. I have designed games, products, exhibits and experiences in virtually every form of media including: museum kiosk, computer, Internet, board, card, kit, large group experience, VCR, CD-ROM, laser disc, interactive cable, interactive movie, TV game show, and radio. I have consulted as game and exhibit designer for dozens of companies including AT&T, Disney, CBS, Children’s Television Workshop, Boston Museum of Science, National Inventor’s Hall of Fame, Discovery Networks, Electronic Arts, Ford, IBM, Lucas Arts, Scholastic, Sundance, WGBH TV and WNET TV. I have a BA in History from the University of Colorado and a Masters Degree from Emerson College in Mass Communications. I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Marshall Islands in Micronesia in the 1960s.

My role in Cosmic Encounter Online is to keep it alive in its new home. I am President of Future Pastimes, LLC which has the non board game rights to Cosmic Encounter Online and President of Eon Products Inc., which has the boardgame rights to Cosmic Encounter.

In 20 words or less, could you describe Cosmic Encounter?

Use alien powers with strategy, cunning, and diplomacy to encounter opposing aliens. Millions of alien combinations make every game unique.

Taking as many more words as you want, what else would you say is integral to describe Cosmic Encounter?

When you play Cosmic Encounter you will become an alien with a special power. Your goal is to establish a colony on four planets outside your home system. Cosmic Encounter is a highly social experience. Players can win alone or share a win with others. Clever use of your special power, a judicious balance of diplomacy and
strength and a healthy dose of Cosmic luck are the keys to victory. Cosmic Online games take about 30 minutes, making it easy to stop by at any time for a quick dose of Cosmic Encounter. But beware! All of your games will rapidly blend together into a collection of surprising social experiences that you’ll savor for a lifetime. As a Cosmic Encounter Online member you get monthly, yearly and lifetime rank- based on how
well you’ve fared in every game that you’ve entered.

No online game has the diversity of the Cosmic Encounter Online
audience. Cosmic players are drawn from gamers of all classes: casual, serious, male, female, younger, older, newbies and veterans. You may not know who is behind any given alien. But one of the many surprises of Cosmic is that veteran and newbie players all have a chance to win on any given Sunday. And to sweeten the pot, our ranking system rewards you when you defeat someone ahead you in overall rank.

Cosmic Encounter has a substantial history, practically a mythological entry into the world of board games. How did it all begin?

Cosmic predates D&D and Magic: The Gathering. When we released it in 1977 under our Eon Products label there was no game like it. I took cartons of newly minted Cosmic games to the Sci Fi WorldCon in Miami and gave away free copies on the first day with the caveat that players had to play in the lobby. The next day we sold all I had brought.

Now thirty years later there is still no game like it. But there are a host of game designs that are derivative of Cosmic. The very first Cosmic Encounter game prototype was created on a beach in Truro on Cape Cod by me and my partner Bill Eberle. We just imagined what it would be like if there were these aliens finding each other in the
vast universe. Key to the design were a set of principles, like there would be no dice in the game, no one could be kicked out the game before it ended, you could always come from behind, it had to have compromise as well as attack as way of making progress, everyone would have to be different.

One thing that emerged from the design was that it created situations that WERE NOT FAIR. So I have added that to the list. It would not be fair.

FAIR IS BORING.
NOT FAIR IS FUNNY AND SURPRISING.

Bill still works on Cosmic Online as one of the three Future Pastimes partners. The third partner is my son Greg who is currently managing the NBA’s new FanVoice website. Greg had been working on Cosmic Encounter Online nonstop for a few years before leaving for the NBA job this month.

Cosmic Encounter is, to a large extent, very much about breaking the rules. How much trouble was it to design and play balance a game that is about rule breaking?

It was very hard in the early days with yellow legal pads and hours of cross checking. Recall that with 75 aliens and 4 players there are 1.4 million different alien combinations. Add FLARE effects and 6 players and its staggering and uncheckable. Play balance, is not an issue with us. We don’t try to balance (see being fair above). We don’t care if some of the 1.4 million games are unbalanced. The universe full of aliens must be unbalanced by definition. The fun part is to win a game where the odds were against you. The gloat factor is exponential.

How do you involve the Cosmic Encounter Online community in the evolution of the game?

We have a cosmic forum set up and run by the players, I post up in cosblog, and a Founder (lifetime member, TheDulester) runs blogmic encounter, we are linked to the board game forum which predatres Cosmic Encounter Online run by Cosmic Encounter Online player hadsil. And I am online nearly every day chatting and IMing with the cosmic masses.

Do you have any plans to bring Cosmic Encounter Online to another format? Xbox Live Arcade, or the PS3 or Nintendo equiavlent?

As I am writing this I am working on an XBLA proposal submission that was requested by us of a developer.

Will we ever see a tabletop version of Cosmic Encounter in print again?

As I am writing this I am responding to a publisher (FunAgainGames) who is interested in republishing Cosmic Encounter and perhaps the whole Eon line under the Eagle brand, which they acquired.

The Godfather

October 16, 2006

Reviews / Xbox 360 / by Edward Pollard Make a comment! / Tweet it!

When Electronic Arts announced that they were going to create a game out of The Godfather, groans and flippant criticisms were not far behind. It took director Frances Ford Coppola 18 years to construct his gangster trilogy, and there was deserved apprehension over the licensing of such a classic, timeless film (even if Part III was only so-so).

But when it finally landed on Playstation 2 and Xbox, fears were put to rest as Electronic Arts had, for once, used all its resources to craft a very loving and enthusiastic homage to the series. Not only did they create a respectable game out of a classic name, but they also created one that also served as an extremely solid entry into the dense library of Grand Theft Auto III clones.

Months later, it arrived on Xbox 360, and Electronic Arts deserves even more praise as this is far from a shovelware next generation upgrade. Instead, it stands as a exemplary testament to how games should be upgraded to the next generation level.

Starting on a solid foundation (you can find our Xbox review here) The Godfather for Xbox 360 is replete with subtle enhancements that are the definition of polish. Graphics are the obvious upgrade, and they do not disappoint in the slightest. Models and textures are more detailed, the world is more densely populated, and both substantially enhance the game. The story of The Godfather is very character driven, and even though this is an action title the extra attention to character details really pay off. Enhancements to explosions and particle effects are also incredibly substantial.

But the true excellence of the 360 iteration is the upgrades EA made to gameplay. There are many subtle changes one wouldn’t notice without playing the original game. AI has been noticeably tweaked for the better and there are new weapons and abilities. While they strongly advertised three extra missions, all these alterations play second fiddle to two major changes that really stand out and shine.

Merchants can now be brought into line via small side quests to earn their trust and respect, and you now have the ability to recruit a crew of gangsters to help you complete your missions. It’s not that The Godfather was really missing these elements before, but adding more options in how one completes a task certainly enhances the depth the game already had.

Oh, the game is still leaning toward the linear, and Michael Corleone still looks and sounds nothing like Al Pacino (ahh, lawyers). However this is the definitive version of The Godfather, and it is a tremendous accolade for EA’s reputation that this respects and honors the original material so well. It would be a bit much to say that this is good enough to drag people back for a second look, but if you’ve not already experienced The Godfather, this is most definitely the version to experience it with.

Score: 85%

Bomberman Act: Zero

September 16, 2006

Reviews / Xbox 360 / by Edward Pollard Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Bomberman is a bit of a cult icon of gaming. For over two decades, his adorable little mug has graced pretty much every gaming platform in existence, delivering comedic, frantic, and addictive violence. Bomberman became a staple of multiplayer console gaming because Bomberman is timeless in its charm and it its fun.

So, it must be asked, what the hell happened with Bomberman: Act Zero?

Pretty much tossing out everything that made Bomberman worth playing, Act Zero plops itself down as the first certifiable dud in the 360 library. Everything it does it does wrong, and it stands as an insult to the audience as well as the simple graces of the previous Bomberman games that this is what Xbox 360 gamers have been burdened with.

Its most obvious changes are its least offensive. Stripped of bright colours and anime design sensibilities the new Bomberman: Act Zero uses the metaphor of some dystopian future prison to explain the recurring conflicts. The player takes the role of some cybernetically enhanced prisoner who must obey his masters and fight for his freedom … or something. While heavy on the aesthetic influences such a scenario brings with it, Bomberman: Act Zero is extremely light on the exposition so while you get the general gist of what is going on there are few firm, declarative sentences.

You’re not likely to find out the reward for success through experience, as while Bomberman: Act Zero’s single player game is reminiscent of the Bomberman of old they have completely stripped the ability to save your progress. No passwords, no save slots, and no continues. Completion of Bomberman: Act Zero demands perfection all the way from level 1 to 99 in one sitting. The classic gameplay is very similar to the classic Bomberman, but feels sluggish, be it the actual controls or just the new edgy models and animations. As a puzzle game, Bomberman could have been serviceable, but this retro throw back to leaving my console running to “save” my game is ridiculous. Combine this with the zero tolerance for failure and solo Bomberman: Act Zero is an exercise in frustration and repetition with little redeeming value.

To spice it up a bit, the new Bomberman also features a “First Person Bomber” game mode that … well … it sure is different. Single bomb kills are replaced by a life bar and the ability to block to reduce damage. Contradicting the name, you now are playing Bomberman in the third person and must move the camera around as you hunt for victims and powerups. The gameplay is similar, but the ability to withstand – and thus have your enemies withstand – multiple bombs eradicates a good deal of the franchise’s simple charms. Perhaps some will really take to the ideas, but it feels like a streamlined puzzle/action game dressed up in modern contrivances for no damn good reason at all to me.

And while this First Person or Third Person or whatever you want to call it mode is unappealing, its debatable merits are nothing compared to the most flagrant offense a Bomberman title could possibly commit: no local multiplayer. Yep, read it again – one person per console per disc. If you’ve come this far and have not yet decided to abandon any idea of purchasing this title, please seek professional help. For some inexplicable reason the only saving grace this title could have had is missing in action.

Bomberman: Act Zero does feature Xbox Live multiplayer, but a game this simple is for friends to crowd around and enjoy together – it’s simply not as much fun with strangers over the internet. Who cares about rankings and scores? Lets have some fun! But even if you do want to join in on the Xbox Live scene, this reviewer had consistent difficulty finding opponents, especially ones interested in the vastly superior retro-“classic” game mode.

It’s a bloody insult that this entry in the franchise does absolutely nothing to capture the reasons this franchise exists in the first place. The “eXtREmE” visual and audio makeover is stupid, but not a deal breaker. The game play, unfortunately, is. It would be trite to close with “Bomberman: Score 0%” and really there is nothing here to enjoy; there is simply monotony, pain, and a deep feeling of loss. However, since there is a single player game that didn’t crash my console, one some masochist may find enjoyment in, that would be dishonest. However, you have been warned. Don’t even pick this up when it hits $20 just in time for Christmas.

Score: 20%

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