Geek Corner

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!)

E3: Arkham Asylum excites me, then ticks me off

Just watch:

Looks great right? Give you that warm acidic feeling in your stomach as you contemplate taking out good guys as the Joker?

Well, unless you have a few extra hundred dollars to spend, or if you've been hanging on to a PlayStation 3 for a year or so now, you won't get to play as the Joker.

That's right, the idiotic almighty dollar strikes again....Sony must have bought exclusive downloadable rights to playing as the Joker, which is as stupid as when EA bought the rights to use NFL players.

What's worse, the PS3 is the worst-selling console between it, the Xbox 360 and the Nintendo Wii. This is like if they made a new game for PC and Mac, but created specific downloadable content only for the Mac version of the game. Ridiculous.

E3: Marvel Alliance 2

Or should I say Marvel Enemies? Cuz the Marvel Civil War hits us big with this sequel to arguably the best four-player co-op game in console history.

Plus the graphics look much much better; playing as guys like Venom and what appears to be Iron Fist and Siren (?!) will be interesting to say the least.....but where's Nightcrawler?!

MODERN WARFARE 2!!!!! (UPDATED)

Let's do dis!

Immersive story mode? CHECK

Modern weaponry? CHECK

High stakes? CHECK

Snowmobiles????? CHECK!

Yup, looks like a Modern Warfare game to me, with added features such as snowmobile-riding (too excited about that!) and what may be an emphasis on melee combat (?!)

The reverse-bungie out of the exploding fortress almost made me pee my.....hold on, gotta hit the bathroom ;)

See you online as Talon Banewulf in November!

UPDATE: the Call of Duty Wiki has a list of weapons supposedly verified by Game Informer magazine. There are quite a few returning weapons, but apparently I'm a tad prescient as they have a couple of the weapons I included in my "wish list", namely the FN F2000 and the TDI Vector ;) Some of the new weapons that are supposed to be in Modern Warfare 2 are the FN FAL battle rifle, a Glock 22, an H&K UMP (more powerful submachine gun than an MP5), a Steyr AUG assault rifle and the semi-auto Armsel Striker shotgun....also apparently you can equip a riot shield as a perk!

E3 Games: Aliens vs. Predator 2 first look!

The Electronic Entertainment Expo is just around the corner, and as of now there are a slew of awesome (and quite a bit not-so-awesome) games coming out.

IGN has the full list up here, so do yourself a favor and check it out!

In the meantime, feast your eyes on the glorious love triangle of action Aliens Versus Predator 2 shooter:

One thing I really hope they have is co-op for the single player campaigns, as well as some good A.I. in your teammates and of course your enemies. I think devising a way for Aliens to telepathically tell each other what they're about to do would be sweet (as in you could see a ghost-like stream between fellow Alien and prey when your A.I. chooses to attack, letting you know where you can help). Predators could have a cool guttural translation into English while we play as them, and getting to explode chests or spear enemies will be fun on the 360!

Thinking Modern Warfare 2

I have to admit: the prospect of playing as a Navy SEAL in the new Modern Warfare 2 game (sequel to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare) has me just a tad excited.

Excited enough to have done a little research and come up with what I think are some cool viable alternatives to the modern weapons featured in CoD 4, that I’d love to see in Modern Warfare 2!

SHOTGUNS

 

>> American Auto-Assault 12 Shotgun: fully automatic shotgun that can fire 300 rounds per minute; uses either 8-shell clip or 20-shell drum; uses buckshot, slug and Frag-12 rounds; near-zero recoil; slug rounds have a range of 100 meters

 

 

>> Daewoo USAS-12 automatic shotgun: fully automatic shotgun that can fire 650 rounds per minute; uses either 10-shell magazine or 20-shell drum; greater recoil than the AA-12; 40-meter range

SNIPER RIFLES

>> American Barrett M82: semi-automatic .50 sniper rifle with a velocity of 853 meters per second and an effective range of 1,850 meters; short recoil of 25 millimeters; uses 10-round magazine

>> American CheyTac Intervention: bolt-action .408 sniper rifle with a velocity of 350-380 feet per second and an effective range of over 2,000 meters; uses 7-round magazine

>> American M110 Semi-Automatic Sniper System: semi-automatic sniper rifle that shoots 7.52x51 mm NATO rounds and has a velocity of 783 meters per second; effective range of up to 1,000 meters; uses 20-round magazine

>> British Accuracy International AS50: semi-automatic .50 sniper rifle with a range of up to 2,000 yards; 5-round clip

ASSAULT RIFLES

>> American Barrett REC7: fully automatic assault rifle using new 6.8 mm Remington SPC ammunition (similar to 5.56 mm used by M16 and M4); basically an upgraded M16/M4 that fires 750 rounds per minute; range of 600-800 meters, with a velocity of 810 meters per second.

 

 

>> American Bushmaster Adaptive Combat Rifle: AKA Magpul Masada assault rifle using same ammo as REC7 and M16/M4; velocity of 792-900 m/s with a range of up to 600 meters.

 

 

>> American XM8 assault rifle: fires same ammo as the M16/M4, with a 750 round per minute rate of fire and a velocity of 920 m/s.

 

 

 

>> Belgian FN F2000: uses same ammo as the M16/M4, firing at a rate of 850 rounds/min at a range of up to 500 meters. Velocity is 900 m/s. Bullpup design means it's lighter and "quicker" to rotate.

 

 

 

>> French Poly-Arme Polyprojectile PAPOP: Uses the same standard 5.56 NATO rounds, with a velocity of 1,800 m/s for up to 600 meters.

 

 

 

 

>> Heckler & Koch HK416N assault rifle: same ammo as the rest; range comparable to the REC7, with velocity similar to the Magpul Masada; fires 850 rounds per minute.

 

 

 

>> Israeli IMI Tavor TAR-21: same ammo as the rest; fires 750-900 rounds per minute at 910 m/s with an effective range of 550 m; bullpup design.

*** On a side note, I love the unlockable Red Dot, silencer and ACOG options in CoD 4, but wouldn’t a thermal scope be fun to throw in the mix? It would allow the developers to have more than one dark multiplayer map, and it would be interesting to use as a scouting technique when attempting to breach rooms.

SUBMACHINE GUNS

>> American KAC Personal Defense Weapon: 6x35 mm submachine gun with a velocity of 739 m/s and a range of up to 300 meters; longer range than most submachine guns.

 

 

 

>> Heckler & Koch MP7 submachine gun: basically an upgraded MP5, firing 4.6x30 mm rounds at 950 rounds per minute; velocity of 710 m/s and an effective range of 200 meters.

 

 

 

 

>> Korean Daewoo K11: though it fires an assault rifle's ammo (5.56), the lower velocity of 200 m/s and smaller range of 300 meters makes this a better fit as a submachine gun.

 

 

 

 

>> Swiss TDI Vector: fires .45 ACP ammo at up to 1500 rounds per minute; less recoil and muzzle climb than the other submachine guns.

LIGHT MACHINE GUNS

>> American LWRC Infantry Automatic Rifle: lighter, more durable and more accurate light machine gun than the SAW; upgraded version of the SAW.

EXPLOSIVES

>> South African Milkor XRGL40: Wouldn't this be a nice unlockable as opposed to that shoddy RPG? This multiple grenade launcher fires 40x51 mm grenades at 2 rounds per second for a quick burst but 18 rounds per second for sustained fire at 125 m/s at up to 800 meters away!! I can even see this as taking the place of the flamethrower from World at War's multiplayer features.

 

>> Swedish AT4 rocket launcher: fires 84 mm rockets at 285 m/s; also has a dangerous back blast that could be fun to burn people with in the game ;)

 

 

 

TURRET

>> American XM307 Advanced Crew Served Weapon turret grenade launcher: c'mon, we need a better turret than the mounted heavy machine guns which do nothing except present yourself as a sniper target; the XM307 is an automatic grenade launcher that fires 250 rounds per minute at an effective range of 2,000 meters!

NOVELTY

>> Israeli CornerShot: is it just me, or is that MP44 at the end of the Call of Duty 4 multiplayer just a novelty gun for CoD/WWII history buffs? So, for Modern Warfare 2 lets have this cool tactical gun that allows you to shoot a normal semi-automatic pistol while around the corner from your target, meaning that while you can't really get any upgradeable scopeage going on here, it could be a really fun gun to unlock and play with ;)

 

 

 

 

Well, those are some of the fun things I came up with; what do you all think?