Geek Corner

Modern Warfare 2

I have a prediction: game developers are going to soon be mimicking Infinity Ward when it comes to storytelling and multiplayer, and it all hearkens back to IW's absolutely awesome Modern Warfare 2, which came out just 2 weeks ago.

I have to stop a moment and thank my bro-in-law Chin, who let me borrow this fantastic game until I bought my own copy.

What an amazing game! Every level ends like a movie, with some of them being action film-esque throughout entire scenes. Good guys leap for helicipters, slide down icy mountains on the brink of death, slam badguys into cars from a two-story shanty, launch nuclear weapons — just crazy stuff, and that's just the single player campaign!

Multiplayer is a whole 'nother story. In addition to the co-op special ops mode where you and a buddy can take on different missions outside of the main story, the explosive Modern Warfare multiplayer is back and waaaaaaaay better than the already-awesome Call of Duty 4.

(The weapons are eerily similar to my list that I published May 15, showing that IW must have copied me....that or similar sources, but the copying thing sounds better, so we'll go with that ;))

Perks have been tweaked, with each becoming pro perks that allow for an extra "ability" once you've used that perk enough times....for instance, get a certain amount of kills with Stopping Power unlocks Stopping Power Pro, which increases your damage against vehicles as long as you have that perk equipped.

Everything in multiplayer has a counter. Heartbeat sensors, thermal scopes, AC-130s, the ability to gun from a chopper, harriers, sentry guns, counter-UAVs, dual-wielding pistols/SMGs/shotguns, auto shotguns....all make appearances, and all are fantastic to use and to try to outwit as well.

Maybe talking about my custom classes would help:
My favorite setups for now are a mid-long range assault using my FAL w/ Holographic Sight (an upgrade from getting kills with the Red Dot Sight) and the Striker automatic shotgun as my secondary weapon, with Scavenger for picking up ammo; my ghost/ninja class using a silenced UMP45 w/ Red Dot Sight thanks to the Bling perk, as well as Cold-Blooded and Ninja perks making me invisible to all electronics in the game; my all-around assault class using a SCAR-H assault rifle with Holo Sight and Full Metal Jacket, an attachment similar to the Deep Impact perk from CoD4, Bling, Stopping Power and Steady Aim; and my killer close quarters combat class: the Mp5k with my trusty striker, Stopping Power and Ninja to be invisible to the silly Heartbeat Sensors ;)

A must-play through and through!

Arkham Asylum

Been a while since I've been on here, due to me leaving the Imperial Valley Press and beginning my new job as a freshman Algebra teacher at a local high school. But I'll try to keep up and give you all something to read from time to time =)

So. Big Batman game. Arkham Asylum. Good things have been said, but were they suitable or embellishing remarks?

Let's put it this way. I have never played a video game this good. Ever. Don't misunderstand me, here: this isn't simply the best superhero game I've ever played. It's the best video game period. =)

Game developer Rocksteady did a fantastic job of blending the Batman mythos with stunning gameplay that combines brutal action with stealth and even puzzle-solving.

The storyline is nothing short of epic. The Joker escapes from captivity on Arkham Island and then very cleverly unleashes his plan, which I won't divulge here for spoiler reasons ;p

As the game progresses, you readily gain various gadgets, each befitting the Dark Knight. Some items will be unlocked once you reach a certain point in the game (such as the Explosive Gel), while others, such as the Sonic Batarang, can be earned when you ugrade Gotham's Greatest Detective using experience points.

The all-out action parts of the game, where you take on 20 thugs or more, are brilliant. The free-flow combat system is beautiful to behold and to use, with just a single face button each to strike, counter and stun (using your cape, of course!) Building up huge strings can be simple at times and challenging at others, with various enemies wielding different melee weapons making things interesting.

Just as fun, however, are the truly awesome stealth sections, where you must take the Caped Crusader and sneak up on machine-gun or shotgun-toting baddies who can quickly make mincemeat out of our hero, in a nice realistic touch to the game. Setting traps and utilizing vantage points to pick apart your enemies is ridiculously cool, with each of the remaining bad guys getting more and more freaked out as you quietly subdue their cohorts. Truly a blast!! ;)

The little details in the game are just icing on an already-delicious cake. Solving the Riddler's, er, riddles - which are voluntary, by the way - involves you taking pictures of different hints and nods at famous and not-so-famous Batman villains. For example you might need to take a picture of Two-Face's abandoned prison cell, or a photo of the lesser-known Scarface. Also, Batman's suit and cape get all kinds of jacked up throughout the game, giving Arkham Asylum a very realistic vibe ;)

All things considered, there is nothing about this game that I wouldn't recommend! Play it to remember how video games ought to feel like and to have hope for future video games based on comic book characters ;)

Upcoming Science Fiction movies

I really can't wait for District 9:

YO JOE!

Do yourself a favor. Watch G.I. Joe the movie.

My lovely bride Nora and I decided to "pull the trigger" yesterday and hit up The Movies in Imperial, where we paid our paltry $5 each to watch the 80's cartoon and toy franchise come to life on the big screen.

Now, Nora and I weren't expecting much. The trailer looked "meh" for lack of a real word, the buzz was ugly, critics were hatin' on it. Yet the movie made $54.7 million in its opening weekend. Go figure, huh?

So we sat down with a big cup of diet coke (thank goodness The Movies does its customers right, giving a free refill to a large soda......*cough* the mall theater *cough*), enjoyed a few previews that looked good, including a surprisingly funny-looking Robin Williams and John Travolta comedy called Old Dogs, and got ready for the silliness.

By the end of the movie, I'm in awe. This movie actually does G.I. Joe right. Ridiculous vehicles for air, land and sea that have far too many explosive projectiles attach, crazy science fiction ray gun-esque weapons wielded by people and vehicles alike, surprisingly non-campy yet....different villains, and plenty of swordplay from Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow.

Hands down, I enjoyed this far more than Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, despite this movie really being a tad bit sillier. Transformers 2 seemed like it went for "awesome" and devolved into silly. G.I. Joe starts at silly and gets awesomely silly, you know what I mean? The vehicles and weapons are truly preposterous, but the plotline holds up pretty well, the twists are nicely executed, and the movie leaves you with a clear definition of bad vs. good, with a great "yay the good guys won" feeling left, just like the cartoon.

The actors play their roles loosely, looking comfortable with each other and not screwing things up horribly (thank you Channing Tatum for not changing your feet!). The shots are heroic; no confusing wiggling, no leering zooms (I'm looking at you Michael Bay, you 13-year-old cad!).

Overall, watch this movie and feel better about the summer, 'kay? ;)

Jonathan Dale and the Half-Awake Night

So a while back my lovely wife Nora and I promised my sister Aly, a huge Harry Potter fan, that we'd go see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince when she got back from Oklahoma.

That fateful day, dear readers, was yesterday, and as I struggle to focus on typing this, I have come to a conclusion: I'm getting too old for midnight showings.

Our whole Imperial Youth group gathered together for the event at the I.V. Mall, with my wife and I catching an hour-long catnap after Vacation Bible School before heading to the theater.

After waiting in line for more than an hour, we finally headed in to grab our seats; after 14,000 or so previews, the movie begins....

My first impression? Lots of people, and lots of screaming. I kid you not, every time Harry or recently buffed-up pal Ron Weasley take the screen (not to mention Draco or some dude that had his eyes on Hermione and was referred to as a "git"), seemingly every girl (that discounts my wife, of course ;)) used their lungs to full capacity....I still hear a ring in my ear.....

All kidding aside, this was easily the best Harry Potter movie done, to both wife and to myself. Prisoner of Azkaban felt freshly dark in comparison to its two preceding movies, Goblet of Fire was cool but kinda boring in the middle parts, and Order of the Phoenix let me down at the end.....but Half-Blood Prince did pretty darn well!

It helps that the casting is the same as it has always been, save for Dumbledore, of course....but we see longtime characters Hagrid, Prof. McGonagall, Prof. Flitwick, Prof. Snape, Remus Lupin, and Fred and George Weasley, as well as peripheral characters such as Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Seamus, Neville, Filch, and Draco's goons, not to mention to three main characters along with Draco and Ginny, all portrayed by the same actors throughout the movies.

The acting is done well, the direction is tight and doesn't get lazy until the very, very end, and all the dramatic portions are here. One action scene is missing that kind of bugged me, but that's cool: all in all, great movie. My wife seemed to enjoy it, as did I, and of course the youth group was into it, too ;p

Now to find some sleep.....lol

Shoot or be shot

Whoaseph (see what I did there? I combined "whoa" with "Joseph"...made up a NEW WORD!)

For reals though: the sheer quantity of quality first person shooters coming out for the Xbox 360 this year has me SALIVATING. I can't remember there being this many very good-looking shooters since the days when Counterstrike, Quake 3 Arena, Unreal Tournament and Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight ruled the PC world. Let's count 'em down:

Modern Warfare 2:

In my mind this is the big one for the year. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare easily won game of the year for 2007 from many game magazines and websites, so the sequel SHOULD be a surefire thing. I love the inclusion of vehicles, most notably snowmobiles that have you careening down an icy slope in the extended gameplay trailer Geek Corner posted here last week.

FEATURES THAT LOOK SWEET
>> More modern weaponry from around the globe, meaning multiplayer will feel even more different than a simple infusion of new maps would make it
>> New technology including an attachment for a new weapon that appears to be an Aliens-esque motion tracker, complete with that haunting "pinging" sound
>> The further adventures of "Soap" MacTavish: he's the British S.A.S. protagonist you play as in the first Modern Warfare game, but now he's the (Scottish!) captain in charge of your protagonist in the coming game
>> Breathtaking near-death and "escape" moments. Hopefully the two I've seen (nearly falling down the cliff in the gameplay video and being yanked out of a silo-esque structure via helicopter in the trailer) aren't the only such moments in the game. The first Modern Warfare had the very striking sequences where Capt. Price saves you from slipping from the helicopter at the beginning, the nuke in the Middle East and, of course, the extraordinary ending.
>> Story: The Modern Warfare story has it fairly easy compared to the World War II Call of Duty games in that there is no preset storyline that must be adhered to. Infinity Ward can make it all up (within the realm of this world plus a few years), which means we'll see truly unique and hopefully surprising situations.

OUT OF LEFT FIELD
Please please please PLEASE Infinity Ward: Include an Ultranationalist Zombie mode with zombified rogue Russians and ambiguous Middle Eastern baddies! Please?

Halo: ODST

See, at first I was leery of this game. The campaign isn't supposed to be too long, you aren't the Master Chief...it just seemed like a cheap excuse from Bungie for them to print money, so to speak. And that's just not the Bungie I know.
Thankfully I was most definitely wrong. Halo: ODST definitely makes a departure from Halo 3, but in a good way: your "Helljumper" is NOT a one-man army. His shield is much weaker than a SPARTAN's and he cannot use any of the X-button-activated items from Halo 3 — despite the fact that the Covenant can. Your character(s) (you play as more than one) can't even dual-wield; but they carry silenced submachine guns and silenced pistols — allegedly the very same scopable versions from the original Halo! — and they have a cool HUD that highlights enemies.

FEATURES THAT LOOK SWEET
>> Less run-n-gun, more sneakiness: these guys can't take out a squad of Covenant by barreling into the fray tossing grenades. You'll have to be smarter, which hopefully in turn means smarter players ;)
>> Optional vision: your ODST troopers have three different vision modes to look through that will help you deal with varying light and oncoming enemies
>> Firefight: definitely the coolest feature about the game, Firefight is a four-player co-op slugfest in the form of Gears of Wars' Horde mode or COD5: World at War's Nazi Zombies; you and three buddies face wave after wave of Covenant forces in an arena-esque plot of land. If you survive long enough, various Skulls will be activated (such as Grunts and Brutes making a final grenade throw upon death, or their weapons hurting you more, or grenades having more explosive of a radius), making each wave harder and harder!
>> Special features: the game will contain a second disk that has every single Halo 3 multiplayer map, as well as a key to play the upcoming Halo: Reach beta...;)

OUT OF LEFT FIELD
I would give any of my toes to see this multiplayer Firefight mode reskinned with everything from the original Halo. Ask my brother: there's nothing like trying to snipe grunts and jackals while avoided hunter blasts and at the same time keeping an ear out for invisible elites, all whilst in an open air snowy landscape.

 

Left 4 Dead 2

I've played a couple hours worth of Left 4 Dead and I have to admit I enjoyed every bit of it, after I got used to the unique aspects it brought up. There is no going solo in this series, which flies in the face of the traditional first person shooter, and that took a lot of getting used to for me. But then it got fun, as jbrad can attest to, seeing as it's one of his favorite games.
This next game takes place in the southern United States and has me grinning ear to ear in anticipation, with five new "movies" to play through and reportedly up to 20 (twenty?!) weapons and even new special zombie classes, the latter being the highlight for me of the first game.

FEATURES THAT LOOK SWEET
>> Melee weapons: whether it be axe, frying pan, chainsaw or apparently 7 other items, it oughta be fun smacking, chopping and cutting up zombies from the first-person view.
>> Number of weapons: seriously though, 20? That's ridiculous. In a good way.
>> Special ammo: taking a cue from Bioshock, Left 4 Dead 2 will for sure have incendiary ammo, which has been demoed as lighting foes on fire. The creators at Valve said there will be more than just incendiary ammo, but no news on that front yet.
>> New zombies: we've seen the Charger in the trailer; he'll apparently try to slam into your team and if he connects with any of the members they'll be momentarily stunned, but still on their feet. He'll be no harder to kill, though, than a Hunter, which keeps things balanced. Supposedly a couple more new zombie types as well....
>> Super-smart A.I.: The "Director" is the name of the A.I. system that in the first game would see how well you were doing and depending on your success would adjust the difficulty accordingly. Well in this game, the Director 2.0 apparently has the power to move pieces of the map around to confound good players and even send a storm in the face of experienced players to confound them. According to Valve, if the level was easy then basically the Director 2.0 thinks you suck, haha!

OUT OF LEFT FIELD
Being a fan of RPG's, which invariably use the elements in attacks, I have a mini-wish list for the new ammo types: The old standbys (fire [already covered by the incendiary rounds], ice and lightning), as well as a Holy type? The Coach said he's a praying man in the trailer; I think a few bullets that have been blessed by a preacher and have a cross engraved on them that would make them instant kills for a hand gun would be great, just like From Dusk Till Dawn ;p

 

Bioshock 2

Sure you get to play as a Big Daddy in a revamped Rapture, and sure the Splicers are more mutated, and sure, you get to combine plasmids and dual wield plasmid with weapon. But the multiplayer is where it's at: in this mode you'll play as a weapons and plasmids tester before Rapture fell, and with each subsequent kill or victory in multiplayer matches you'll get experience that will let you upgrade your weaponry and unlock new plasmids and guns (like Modern Warfare).

FEATURES THAT LOOK SWEET
>> Combining plasmids: say it with me now — tornado + fire = fiery tornado. Yay!
>> Big Daddy suit: not only does the campaign mode see you in a Big Daddy suit for its entirety, but the multiplayer will have a randomly spawning suit that will turn a player nigh-invincible for a short while.

OUT OF LEFT FIELD
Whatever happened to the pets in Rapture (did anyone have any to begin with?)? What would a Rottweiler all spliced up be like....

Don't forget: Alien vs. Predator is on the horizon, as well, and ooooooh yeah that is going to be great! Imagine the fun you could have playing coop with a buddy and deliberately shooting a xenomorph close to a friend, dousing your buddy in acid ;)

E3: Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO

I have no time to play an MMORPG, but I do have an interest in all things Star Wars, and frankly this is one of the BEST Star Wars scenes I've ever seen!

E3: HAAAAALO!

We've already talked about Halo 3: ODST, the mini-game letting you playing as a helljumper just before Halo 3; here's some sweet new video!

But even more exciting than that? The fact that Bungie lied. They ARE making a new Halo game: about the fall of Reach! Feast thine eyes!!!

YEEEEEYAAAAH!

The smart move there, of course, is that if you buy ODST, you get an invite to play Reach's multiplayer beta testing......sooo stoked!

E3: LEFT 4 DEAD 2!

HUUUUUUUGE surprise, this one, as I hadn't heard ANYTHING about this until E3.

Except more ravenous zombies, four new survivors with five new playable "movies", and — get this! — melee combat in the form of chainsaws, axes, even frying pans!!

I really enjoy playing Left 4 Dead from time to time with my cousin, but really though I might look into getting this one.

Comes out THIS November 17!!!!

Could the next Transformers game be this good?

Is it possible that Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen will be as fun to play as it is to look at?

Early reports from E3 suggest some very well-versed controls, with attacks capable during vehicle mode and three different weapons available at any time in robot mode. Each robot has it's own specific size, too, so taking on Megatron with Bumblebee would be and understated challenge. A flick of the right trigger lets you go from vehicle to robot form and vice versa, with the four face buttons doubling as special attacks when going from vehicle to robot mode (i.e. you can use a ramp to clear a building as Bumblebee's Camaro, then hit the trigger and a face button to attack a baddie WHILE you're turning into robot form)

PLUS the multiplayer looks to be even more stunning....four on four battles between Decepticons and Autobots!! Deathmatch, capture the All-Spark and territories modes seem to be included, and I for one am excited about using teamwork to go toe-to-toe with some of the bruisers on the bad guy side (like the first movie, where they teamed up on the tank!)