At least judging by the massive disappointment shared by all PC gamers, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is a big fat let down. Lets site the reasons why this game is being touted as the worst release this year for a game so highly anticipated.

The absolute biggest and most disappointing part of this game is the multiplayer. First off, Activision has done away with the Dedicated Servers. Really?? Why would anyone in their right mind pay for a game where you are force to play on a peer to peer network. There is already a petition in place with roughly 200,000 signatures to have this feature reincluded. Easily this form of online play caters to the host of the game itself and pits every other user at a disadvantage.

The other big dump on our faces was the drop in the allowed players in each match. Now the game only allows 9 vs. 9 gameplay. Not 64 vs 64 or not even 16 vs 16… 9. You and eight other people get to wander around ghost town’s of maps while you kill each other in host lagged combat. YES!

The single player gameplay doesn’t even make up for this travesty. The single player mode is at best an eight hour experience. I have already read reports of people powering through the single player mode in five hours. Why will anyone pay $60 for a 5-8 hour experience? I certainly will not.

Infinity Ward is dead in the water as it stands. You can see the reaction by every gamer who was has been thoroughly disappointed. Throughout every major site the game is receiving some of the lowest rating and reviews around. I will not be surprised if at this rate Infinity Ward shuts it doors tomorrow, because they must be seeing the disappointment through the sheer poor sales volume they are seeing right now. What are your reactions?

While I was playing this I couldn’t help but think back to games like Roller Coaster Tycoon. While I never played that one I did play Zoo Tycoon, which kept me occupied for hours on end. I think what I liked most about it was it was something that was appealing to both me and my Mom (yeah, I like playing video games with my Mom). Unfortunately it was a little too frustrating for her, although not nearly as frustrating as the Facebook Application versions.

Zoo Tycoon had similar problems to the first Sims game. The animals got sick and whined way more than they should have, and it was almost impossible to make them happy once they got depressed. If you tried to decorate the front of the animals cages by planting decorative flower patches the zoo keepers had a hard time getting to the animals, unless you gave them a clear path to walk on. But then the people would complain they couldn’t see the animals. That wasn’t the only thing they complained about. Too much garbage, bathrooms or not enough trash cans/ bathrooms, being hungry, being thirsty, being tired… These people never stop complaining. Eventually after looking up hints and cheats I got so good at the game that I had over a million dollars at one point (which was pretty amazing for me).

The Tycoon games are really good for kids because their clean, not impossible to understand, and they’re actually fun. If you really like “sim” games but don’t want to invest money in a game you haven’t heard about (like the Tycoon Series) then here you go. I would suggest any of the “Tycoon” games for sim lovers for the reasons stated above. While the originals have their flaws, one can assume that like the Sims 2 and 3 the developers managed to get out the kinks and annoying whining (at least a little) that make the original games a pain. It will be worth your money to avoid the annoying “click” games.

This brings me to my main point which is; Why are kids games so hard? When I think of all the Disney games I used to play as a kid, I can’t believe I even kept trying. The Lion King, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, Toy Story etc… They were all impossible! Why do they make games for kids so hard? Do game developers think that it needs to take 2 decades for a kid to beat a game for the parents to get their money worth out of it? Playing difficult games like this is discouraging for children, and it’s not fair to give them a challenge that they can’t beat just because someone decided the game controls should suck. “Oh they’re just kids, they won’t notice.” No, they won’t, until they grow up and realize that the people who made these games were jerks who decided that a games worth was based on its difficulty.

On the flip side I’ve played games for “kids” that were way too easy. I did a video review of the game “Crystal’s Pony Tale” for the Genesis a year ago. I mostly complained about how ridiculously easy but stupid the game play was. But that’s my point, why do the games have to be dumbed down? Why do they have to be short and easy, or long and hard? I believe that the reason why games like Mario or Zelda go on to be popular for decades is in fact because they are games that are challenging, but not impossible, with decent controls. This is what I’m dreaming for the future of gaming (as well as the decline of “shooter” games. There are way too many). As they say at Disney; “Dreams do come true.”

The story is based on Japanese mythology, specifically about a boy (Kisuke) on the run looking for a certain sword and a girl (Momohime) possessed by the soul of a swordsman assisting this young man. The game play is similar to Odin Sphere (2D side scrolling). You collect different types of swords that each have their own unique capabilities, but can only be used for so long before breaking. Don’t worry, the swords can be repaired. Also like Odin Sphere you have the option to play different characters to learn different parts of the story.

This game is amazingly beautiful and the character designs are so far from what we see on a game to game basis that I can’t help but be thankful for the variety, even if some do seem a little odd at times. Another good thing about this game is that you have the option to play on a Game Cube or Classic controller if you hate the Wiimote as much as I do. Which brings me to my one complaint about Muramasa; Why was it only published for the Wii? If you’re fortunate enough to own one, I strongley suggest picking this game up, you won’t be disappointed.

One of the other things I really enjoyed about this movie was that they left it open for a whole series of “Zombedies” (Zombie Comedies) as I like to call them. Not only for movies now. I hope that we get flooded with awesome Zombie games that can now compete with things like Left 4 Dead or Resident Evil (they aren’t really Zombies). I want to see games with 10+ hours of game play that’s similar to Nazi Zombies from Call of Duty – World at War. I would be okay with a new series of video games based on Zombieland. No Zombies with abilities, no weird experiemental undead nonsense, just people shooting Zombies in the most awesome, over the top, action packed scenes ever. Yes Please.

Conceptually I would make love to this game…
Let’s start with the concept of Dungeon Fighter by Nexus. The idea is great. Six classes, side scrolling action with navigational elements in a dungeon once the area was cleared. For those who are unfamiliar with D&D SoM from the old school arcades, it works very much like Castle Crashers mixed with Guardian Heroes on Sega Saturn, but with a bit more depth like what you would expect from an MMO. Characters get the usual slots for items, and stats are allocated and skills are earned as levels increase. Everything is sprite based giving it a great 16-bit artistic feel to it. And like a mmo, you have to play to your characters strengths, making casting classes something to get used to the first couple of times you play. So from the get-go, on paper I was hooked.

Execution was a different story…
When I logged on to this game, I was immediately reminded of two things. 1) This was beta. 2) This game is set to run on a free-to-play platform. So in a beta, you can expect lag, un-finalized animations, quests that don’t really make sense…. you get the idea.

The graphics were the first thing to cheese me off. Okay, I am not talking about the 16-bit goodness. Good lord no. I love that style, and the way that this is executed was brilliant. But the problem was that you were stuck in a 640×480’ish style setting with no option to re-adjust the size. The result, on my 1920×1200 monitor caused my character to be larger than life with pixels the size of legos. This caused the UI to be unnecessarily big, which I thought for a 2-d side scrolling fighter, was just a little bit larger than it needed to be. I looked around the limited amount of options, but nothing was in there to adjust.

Now let’s talk about the controls. Oh god the controls. Way back when, my dad got our first 186 IBM machine, I played Double Dragon on a floppy disk and I had a joystick for player one. If a friend came over, well the poor unfortunate person got the privilege of using the keyboard. Using a keyboard in a beat ‘em up is hard enough as it is, but in DFO, the controls are sticky to top it off. Attacks happen a split second after they were inputted into the keyboard (perhaps from the lag?) the walk cycle is slow as hell, making it really hard to get away from enemies, and the patented “double dash” (that’s a tap-tap in the direction you want to go) barely worked. The skills on the UI, similar to WoW would execute with the usual 1 – 0 fashion, but cool downs in a side scroller just don’t work. Further more the animations lasted way to long and would get “stuck” toward the end (much like Phantasy Star Online… veterans will know what I am talking about). So if you went in for the kill and executed your amazing sword technique and missed, this left you completely open to an attack for about 1 – 2 seconds. Giving a close-quarters opponent plenty of time to set up and lay down a combo. This is guaranteed to piss off hard core veterans for the Final Fight or Street Fighter series.

Then there were the characters; or lack there of. The problem? Way too many Demon swordsmen. I blame this almost entirely him just being way to fricken cool. He is essentially a lone swordsman, with a possessed “demon” arm and a complete rip off of Sol Badguy from the Guilty Gear series. And don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with that. The style is great. But when I started up a game with my Priest and went into a dungeon. I was 1 Priest for 4 Demon Swordsmen. And heading into town, nothing but demon hunters for as far as the eye could see, or at least for as far as my screen could span on the X-axis, which as I already explained in the graphics part of this review, not very far.

His [Demon Swordsman] coolness factor is through the roof, whether or not he is an amazing class to play I will find out, but this created a sickening unbalance of dungeon exploration for me. The Gunner would be a distant second, who actually seems to be a better class since he operates from a distance.

And I will finally end with the big one and a general MMO pet-peeve of mine. Nexus’ very own “Noob-o-Meter.” What is it? Wikipedia put it best, “a feature which punishes players who attempt to play through dungeons with players of a significantly lower level, unless the higher level player is the mentor of the lower-leveled player (a feature which was present in the Closed Beta version of the game, but which became shortly-thereafter mysteriously absent).”

So if you are a week into the game, and essentially light years ahead, there is no point in even bother to play with your buddy who just started, short of making a new character yourself short of the mentor system… or wait but they removed that. If this article could pick up sound, you would be hearing a slow golf clap right now.

Dungeon Fighter Online is like I said, worth every penny depending on how you want to look at it. Sure I just ripped into it for fun, but at the same time it’s free. Should I really be bitching so much about something that provides hours of entertainment for next to nothing? Perhaps not. But standing alone as a game, it is far from done, and maybe shouldn’t have even been released into the beta stages yet.

Demon’s Souls first lets you make a customizable character, which is a big plus for me. Games that let you choose your appearance makes the player feel more attached to their character and so they invest more into the actual game play. Unfortunately this can quickly be destroyed by poor controls, A.I. etc. The demons are neat because the developers made them look more like zombies. The A.I. does seem a little confused though.

The story is presented to you at first as a narration, and as you play you realize there isn’t as much of a storyline as there is just you running around in this world. It feels over the top at first, but the artwork is beautiful and panning still shots of scenes is a good way to cut costs on budget but still effectively tell your story. A lot of the game play is played with you as a “spirit” in the “nexus” which I thought was odd and a little cheap. I might have missed something during the intro, but I was under the impressions that the demons got stronger when humans died, so I would assume that all of the creatures would be stronger when you’re in spirit form.

The actual game world is very impressive. The environment like; the water, texture and lighting variances they decided to put in the level is incredible. I’m really not a fan of medival fantasy. However, I like how enormous the creatures and bosses are. Big beasty things are fun to hack up, and the game does a good job of giving you a decent defense (if you play a knight, your shield will be your best friend). The Knight character seems clunky and slow though in comparison to the other classes. There is a lock on system though which is a big plus. For me, trying to focus on a 2D screen with a 3D perspective makes it difficult for me to hit enemies without a lock on system. I was only really good at Kingdom Hearts because of the lock on system, and eventually became second nature after I played it for so long.

I would say this game is worth picking up if it’s the kind of theme and game style that you enjoy, otherwise try something else, or just rent it.

Now I’m not just talking about reading the Halo or Gears of War novels (For more on this check out VGCats newest update), I’m talking about books about designing, playing, and the history of video games. For some of us this is sheer nerd trivia, but for others (like myself), it means knowing our industry and market that much better. Here’s a list of recommended books about the video game industry and it’s related history.

The Ultimate History of Video Games (ISBN: 9780761536434) by Steve Kent.

Game Creation and Careers (ISBN: 9780735713677) by Marc Saltzman.

Power Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life (ISBN: 9780744004241) by Chris Kohler.

Game Design: The Art and Business of Creating Games (ISBN: 9780761531653) by Bob Bates.

The Medium of the Video Game (ISBN:978029279150X) by Ralph H. Baer.

Supercade: A visual History of the Videogame Age 1971-1984 (ISBN: 9780262024926) by Van Burnham.

Postmortems from Game Developer (ISBN: 9781578202140) by Austin Grossman.

Paid to Play (ISBN: 9780761552847) by Alice Rush, David Hodgson and Bryan Stratton.

(For other books like these check out Amazon.com and type in “Video Game” or “Game Design” under the “Books” selection field. Enjoy!)

What is a “game”?

Think about it for a minute. What are the essential parts of a game that make it a game. A lot of the time you get answers like; entertaining, storyline, rules, objectives, challenge, user interface, environment, etc. But are all games entertaining? Do all games have a storyline? When you play games like “the floor is lava” (which means you’re probably broke) there is no user interface. Same with sports. There’s nothing between you and the game.

Generally in these discussions we manage to break down the term “game” into two things; rules and objectives. And that’s all a game really is. You have a set of rules that you must follow in order to complete an objective. The challenge in the game comes from the rules and the objective. Everything else is subjective material that isn’t necessary for you to be able to play the game. Given of course you need chess pieces to play chess, or cards to play Solitaire.

Here’s my next question; What is the difference between a game, and a sport? For this, I have no answer for you. Generally people consider it something in which your body must be involved to be a sport, aka not video games. However a lot of people consider Chess or Poker as a sport (I don’t). I encourage you to think about this, and explore how limited we are by our use of language to convey ideas that seem so easy to grasp in our minds.

Which brings me to the one point that irritates me about updates like this. I’ve already invested so much money into this series, and now Wizards is making a game expansion that  I cannot play unless I spend 20 more bucks (for a premade, themed classic deck, with a planes deck as well)! That’s pretty sad for kids like me who just started playing. On the other hand though, I probably will invest the twenty dollars in it so I can play with my friends who have it. It is sort of exciting to be able to get on this new schtick while it’s in it’s infancy. The decks seem pretty cool (I’m particularly fond of the Zombie deck), although I do think this planes change nonsense is just going to confuse me even more.

For more details and the rules to this set, check out Planechase: Wizards of the Coast