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      GAME REVIEW: Syndicate

      March 2, 2012 /

      Over the last few years, the FPS genre has become so oversaturated that you really have to deliver something special to stand out these days. And though Starbreeze Studios’ sci-fi shooter “Syndicate” boasts some pretty great ideas on the surface, the game’s sum is never quite equal to its parts. For starters, the story is a complete mess. Set in 2069, it imagines a world run by three mega corporations that are at war with each other for market dominance. You play as Miles Kilo, a bio-engineered enforcer for leading syndicate Eurocorp, which has tasked you with uncovering a mole working within the company. There’s not much else to the story beyond that, aside from a few incredibly predictable plot twists (hint: you’re not working for the good guys and you know it) that make the single-player campaign even more laborious to slog through.

      The game’s combat system offers some innovative ways to take down enemies – by hacking into the bio-chips implanted in their heads, you can persuade them to commit suicide and switch allegiances, or even cause their weapons to misfire – but it eventually grows old, especially when you’re forced to rely on the same three tricks over and over again. Although that doesn’t make for a particularly memorable single-player experience (despite the involvement of actors like Brian Cox and Rosario Dawson), the online co-op mode fares better by turning each mission into a team-based effort for up to four players. There are nine missions in all, some of which have been re-imagined from the SNES cult classic, that tell a separate story revolving around a new syndicate on the rise.

      Along the way, you’ll earn chip upgrades and weapons to use in future missions, providing a level of customizability that pales in comparison to the single-player campaign. But while online co-op may be the highlight of the game, it’s still just a sideshow to the main attraction. Players will certainly appreciate the added value that co-op delivers, but if you don’t enjoy the nuts and bolts of “Syndicate,” it won’t make much difference.

      Reviews

      My fond farewell

      March 1, 2012 /

      Press Start.

      I spent entirely too much time looking for an image that would suit this post, but I settled here and I’m happy with it. The time has come for me to cast off from this site. I have really enjoyed writing here, but I’ve enjoyed our discussions even more. I’m going to keep this short. I want all of the regular readers here to know that your engagement has shaped me as a writer and critic and will continue to shape my writing into the future.

      To that end, I’m not totally done. I’ll be doing some writing in the near future, though it will likely be just for me, will likely be a bit less consistent than this site, and will likely span a number of topics. If you’d like to stay in touch (and I hope you do), I have an about.me page that I will update when I’ve landed somewhere.

      Until we meet in the virtual reality sim that is almost definitely our future, keep calm and game on.

      News

      Want to design video games?

      March 1, 2012 /

      USC is still your best choice if you’re looking at this as a possible career.

      In another sign that video games are growing as an entertainment medium, the number of colleges offering degrees in video game design is on the rise.

      But the school most recommended for its video game design curriculum remains the same: The University of Southern California in Los Angeles. USC has held the top spots in The Princeton Review’s annual “Top Schools to Study Video Game Design” list each of its first three years now.

      “USC comes out on top because of our focus on the artistry of game design,” says Tracy Fullerton, chair of the Interactive Media Division at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts. “Our faculty and students see beyond the trappings of technology and we are constantly driving the form forward.”

      With the explosion of videos games and platforms it’s not surprising that universities are finally paying attention.

      News

      Mojang finally hiring more people to work on Minecraft

      February 28, 2012 /

      Mojang/bukkit.

      In the nearly three years Notch has been developing Minecraft, hires what is now his development company, Mojang, have been few and far between. The lack of hires certainly wasn’t need-based (or lack-of-need-based). It’s pretty easy to make the case that Minecraft has been in need of more developers for at least the past year. There is still no modding API, despite the fact that Minecraft enjoys one of the most active modding communities in the world. The game still feels like a bit of a fragmented mess. All of this could be solved with more manpower. Yeah, I said it. All they needed were a couple warm bodies with a basic knowledge of java.

      Well they finally picked some, and it just so happens to be the fine folks at Bukkit. For those that don’t know, the Bukkit team produced an alternate version of the Minecraft server code that was more stable than the original, had a modding API, and required fewer resources to run. Luckily for the four fellows who ran the project, the Bukkit team won’t be working for free any longer. They’ve officially joined the Mojang team.

      Their first project will be to write a brand new API. Now, I don’t claim to be a programmer, but I can only imagine one good reason to do this: Mojang didn’t want to pay for Bukkit. I have nothing but respect for the Bukkit guys. They started on a project for fun, they kept it going after it grew into something huge, and now they’re reaping rewards. Without knowing the details of their employment agreement, I think they’re getting the short end of the stick, and unfortunately so are we.

      Again, I don’t know exactly what I’m talking about here, but I would imagine there’s a legal case for Mojang to say hey, stop doing that to our code or we will sue you. There certainly would be if Bukkit tried to sell their server package. As such, Mojang doesn’t really owe the guys at Bukkit anything. Wouldn’t it suck, though, to be such an integral part of the Minecraft community–as in, so big that you’re essentially synonymous with multiplayer gameplay–and be compensated with just a job offer? I know, job offers are hard to come by right now, but the guys at Bukkit have done more for multiplayer than anyone else, including Mojang. All of the notable multiplayer Minecraft servers run Bukkit. Now they’ll be forced to migrate to the new API developed in-house with Mojang.

      I’m hopeful that the new API will be pretty much the work of those four guys, because I stopped trusting Mojang to build one a long time ago. The Bukkit guys certainly know what they’re doing and, who knows, maybe starting from scratch will be nice for them. It won’t be nice for players, though. Certainly not in the short term. Yes, they’ve pledged support through 1.2, but the transition probably won’t be super slick, to say nothing of the additional wait time we now have for development of this new API. For being a “released game,” Minecraft is in critical flux an awful lot.

      Seriously though, congrats to the guys at Bukkit. You deserve all of your success.

      Minecraft

      Guild Wars 2 beta takes 1 million sign-ups

      February 28, 2012 /

      Guild Wars 2.

      I was more than a little mad at myself when I realized I missed the Guild Wars 2 signup window. ArenaNet had only made it available for 48 hours and, though I knew about it well in advance, I neglected to get myself into the pool. I feel a bit better about things now. I just found out that more than one million players signed up for the beta over those two days. That’s 4,000 interested players every minute. That’s a lot of people.

      Granted, beta sign-ups are free, so its a bit dubious to compare the numbers to something like, oh, SWTOR. Still, I can’t help but wonder what would bring about that kind of feeding frenzy. I’ve dipped into various SWTOR communities here and there over the past couple months and found a lot of discontented players. Players are already bored with the game, a situation I find totally unsurprising given the careful cloning process that spawned that familiar beast.

      If anything, I think we can definitely say that gamers are on the prowl for the next big game, and they have yet to find it. A million PC gamers rallying around anything in 48 hours is a big deal. The fact that they’re looking at the one MMO that really promises to do things differently tells me that players are bored, tired of the MMOs they’ve been playing for the last decade. I’m right there with them. I’m ready to be plucked from the clutches of weeknight boredom and shown a compelling game experience. I certainly hope ArenaNet can deliver.

      MMO, News

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