Call of Duty 5 (a.k.a. Call of Duty: World at War) has several things that Call of Duty 4 did not. Like Capture the Flag and War. And an online four player co-op campaign. Oh, and a local splitscreen co-op campaign! Nice! I’ve long been looking forward to playing this, and last night before going to see Quantum of Solace (mini-review: not nearly as good as Casino Royale), Steve and I played us some CoD:WaW splitscreen co-op.

The Good

• Its Existence
  The developers didn’t have to put this into the game, but they did, and I’m grateful. I really enjoy playing splitscreen co-op games with Steve, and I’m glad that this game gave us the opportunity.
• It’s Fun
  The co-op campaign, so far, has been fun to play. I chose the competitive mode, where you compete for points. This is on by default, so I’m maybe I should have said “didn’t un-choose” the mode. But I like racking up the kills and seeing my points total go up as I work through the level. The levels so far have been somewhat interesting, though very scripted (but I didn’t expect otherwise). I ran out of ammo for my machine gun a lot, and had to use a rifle, which I’m not so good with. The flame thrower is fun, but of limited use. And I lost it going to the next mission.

The Bad

• Character Differentiation
  Usually I don’t have any problems trying to determine who to shoot. But in this game I do. I often shoot anyway, and let the score (minus red or plus yellow) tell me if I’m hitting a good guy or bad. That’s ridiculous.
• Mission Fail from One Death
  Playing these games, you typically fail the mission when both you and your partner die. Once, however, I was still alive after Steve died, and we failed. How does that work?

The Ugly

• Doesn’t Use Whole Screen
  Playing splitscreen, the two screen are beside each other. But there is area both above and below each screen that is unused, and it’s quite annoying. Screen real estate is precious - please use it!
• No Leveling Up
  Back when Treyarch first started talking about this game, they gave the impression that you’d be able to level up your character from any of the game’s modes (except maybe competitive splitscreen). I’m here to tell you that this is not the case. You do not get to level up your character playing this game in splitscreen mode, which is quite disappointing.

The Rest

That’s after playing for about an hour. If my opinion changes any after more playtime, I’ll add a follow-up post.

wow. just wow.

Yesterday after my daily walk I picked up Call of Duty: World at War at the Blockbusters right beside work. (My new place of work is in a handy location!) I popped it in around 8pm last night, and after a software update, I was ready to go! I played for about two hours and got to level 9.

I didn’t try anything except for competitive online multiplayer, and looked around the menus a little to see what else was available. Here are my thoughts:

Pros

• Four Player Splitscreen
  To be honest, I was worried about this one. No released info prior to this game’s release indicated that there would be a four player splitscreen mode, and believe me, I looked! So I’m quite relieved to see that it’s in there. While that’s great, it also hasn’t changed at all from the way Call of Duty 4 did it. It would have been nice to have profile support so that my buddies and I could level up our players.
• Nice Level Design
  I didn’t get to see all the maps, but I was very impressed with the maps that I did see. I spent a lot of time just looking at the level design instead of shooting enemies. It was especially enjoyable to see the Japanese themed levels. I have no idea yet how well the levels are play balanced, because my experience so far is so minimal. But so far so good.
• Gore High/Low Setting
  I forget, actually, what this setting is called, but the game allows you to tune down the gore effects. I haven’t turned on this setting yet, because I want to see how bad it is. But I like knowing that this is here in case I want to use it.
• Much Like CoD4
  This game plays much like CoD4 did, which is a good thing. The controls are the same, so there’s nothing new to learn. Any CoD4 fan can jump right into this game and feel at home. It’s like a huge expansion pack, which some might quibble with, but I don’t mind. I knew that when I was buying the game.
• Lots of Modes
  You can play the single player campaign. You can play the same campaign co-op splitscreen with a friend. Or you can play it co-op online with up to three friends. Then you can turn on competitive online co-op mode where you compete for points. Or you can play competitive multiplayer online. Or you can play competitive multiplayer splitscreen. Whew! Nice!

Cons

• Menus Navigation is Slow
  The game spends a lot of time loading menus, which is strange. Why can’t it load them in the background? Menus don’t take up that much memory…
• Server Disconnect
  At the end of every game I played last night, I got a warning that the server has disconnected. I seemed to maintain my stats, but this was still a bit worrisome.
• Same Maps
  The matchmaking system kept putting me on the same two or three maps, and I rarely got to see some of the others.
• No War in Splitscreen
  I did check out the splitscreen options, and noticed that the game type War isn’t available in splitscreen! Usually we play DM, TDM, or HQ, because the other game types don’t lend themselves very well to our style of play and the fact that we’re only four players. But I thought that War could have been a good mode for four players. Unhappily, I’ll never find out.
• Connection Issues
  Playing the beta at my friend Todd’s house, he had a lot of connection issues. We assumed it was the internet connection. But I had connection issues twice last night, and usually my internet is rock solid. I don’t know if this is the game or my service provider or my home network, but it was annoying and I thought I’d mention it.
• Zombie Mode?
  Now I haven’t experience this first hand because I haven’t completed the game yet. But seriously. Zombie mode? Is this a FPS horror game or a FPS war game? I think that the developers could have spent their time on better things than this. I’m not into horror, but if I was, I’d should buy a horror game, not a Call of Duty game.

Final Thoughts

I like this game a lot, just as I liked Call of Duty 4 a lot. It brings up good memories of playing Call of Duty 2, but it has all the cool stuff from Call of Duty 4. Best of both worlds. Now I can’t wait to get to level 14 so that I can play Headquarters and War online!

I do wonder one thing though, and I hope someone out there can answer this. Playing splitscreen co-op, does player two get to level up and progress? Is this information saved?

Here’s a video showing some of what’s in the CoD:WaW multiplayer. (Though they incorrectly state this CoD5 has the first appearance of tanks.)

Three friends and I gathered last night to play some PS3 games. We played some CoD4, some MotorStorm Pacific Rift, but first and foremost, we played LittleBigPlanet. Here are some impressions.

Pros

• Fun
  Darrin already mentioned this, but this game is a lot of fun to play. With four of running around like maniacs trying to collect stickers, punching each other (the best part of the game!), and otherwise being nuisances, it was a time to be remembered.
• Creative Genius
  Playing through the levels brought me a sense of wonderment. How do people think up this stuff? The giraffes and monkeys really impressed me.
• What They Said
  I could go on and on, but it’s been covered before by Darrin and others. You know how great this game is.

This game may be great, but it does have it’s problems:

Cons

• Control Scheme
  I recently complained about how hard it is to control the Sackboy, and I wasn’t the only person having problems. Suffice it to say that it would be good for the developers to fix this problem in LBP2.
• Got Stuck
  We got stuck! On the level with the giraffes and monkeys, we got stuck and didn’t know where to go next. We aborted the level.
• Four Player
  Another friend of mine was online last night, but he couldn’t join us because there were already four of us. Too bad the game doesn’t support six players. Nitpicking, I know, but I thought I’d throw it out there.

Final Thoughts

So there you have it. LBP is great, but not without its issues. I don’t plan to play it much without my friends, though I might in order to pick up those stickers Mike hogged.

The reviews of MotorStorm: Pacific Rift (MSPR) all suggested to me that it was a good game, but that there was nothing earth-shatteringly new about it. Since I recently bought LittleBigPlanet, and am about to buy Call of Duty 5, I thought I would delay my purchase of this game. But my finances worked out in my favour last week, so I picked up MSPR anyway, and I’d say that the game is a driving success!

Sure, it’s not a huge change over the original MotorStorm, but they’ve streamlined everything and improved the UI across the board. It’s easier to get where you want. You have the options you want. You can find them where you expect. Everything about this game is an improved version over the original.

Playing the campaign, you first choose a category. Earth, Water, Air, or Fire. Once you do so, you can see a list of all the events that must be completed in the category. You can see which ones you’ve raced, which ones you’ve yet to race, and which ones are locked. There’s also a progress bar across the top, though I’m unsure as to its purpose. (I haven’t read the manual. )

In addition to campaign more, Wreckreaction makes a comeback as well. It includes splitscreen, time trial, and quick race modes, in addition to the ability to view the leaderboards. You can add ghosts to time trial races, and you can add bots to others, which is actually pretty cool. Often racing games don’t allow bots when racing four player splitscreen.

Pros

• Four Player Splitscreen!
  MSPR missed being the first current-gen game with four player splitscreen support by only a few weeks. (Beaten by Baja: Edge of Control). However, it does look like it’s the first good current gen game with four player splitscreen support. (Sorry Baja!) My friends and I played this last night, and it was a blast! They had a lot of fun (except for maybe Todd, who usually finished last ), and so did I.
• User Music
  At any time, whether it be from the menus or during the game, you can hit the PSN button on your remote and choose some of your own music for the game to use. This rocks!
• More Tracks
  One of the strongest criticisms against the first game was its small number of included tracks. In MSPR they do much better by including many more tracks. I think the total is around sixteen, if I remember correctly.
• Good Looking!
  I would say that PURE definitely looks more lush than MSPR, which is a great achievement considering that PURE is a multiplatform game. But that doesn’t detract from MSPR’s accomplishments. This game looks great, except for the pop in.
• Music Controls
  This game allows you to turn the volume of the music up and down, and go to the next and previous tracks, using the d-pad. Great stuff!
• Faster GUI
  You don’t get the full 3D models of the vehicles anymore, but at least you don’t have to wait for them to load! All in all the GUI is much faster.

Cons

• Pop In
  Pop in effects was quite evident, and it detracts from the game. I never noticed the pop in as much in PURE. Ah well. It wasn’t so bad that I don’t want to play the game!
• Music Controls
  Sometimes the music controls don’t work. I set it to ON in the preferences, but when playing they’re off again.
• Online is Slow
  I haven’t played an online game yet, but I did enter the lobby, and it’s slow.
• No Track Overviews
  When choosing a track, there’s no depiction of the track layout. When racing, there’s no track with any indication of where you are versus your rivals. This is quite the oversight.
• Some Tracks Aren’t Great
  The quality of the tracks varies too much. I’ve only played about half of them so far, but there are definitely good tracks and bad ones. At least you get more to choose from. But it’s too bad they didn’t put the same amount of effort into each.

Final Thoughts

I was hesitant about picking up this game right away, but I’m glad I did. This is a really fun game, and the fact that I can play it with my friends is all the more rewarding!

With all the games coming out around this time, I decided to rent Resistance 2 before buying, and my friend Steve came over last night to try it out with me. Steve and I played splitscreen last night, and to sum up, I won’t be buying this game until some issues are addressed.

So here are my impressions of playing 2 player splitscreen (co-op) with Steve. I also tried to play 2 player splitscreen (competitive), but that didn’t work, see below.

Pros

• Nice Graphics
  I was in the beta, and the graphics there were very underwhelming. I thought that there was a long way to go to make Resistance 2 live up to expectations. Well it looks like they did it, and everything looks great.
• Class System
  You choose among soldier, medic, and special ops. It turns out that you have to have a medic in order to provide healing services. And you have to have a special ops to provide amo. So those are the two classes Steve and I played (I played medic). The classes are a lot of fun. I enjoyed being a medic and healing my teammate. He enjoyed providing ammo.
• Leveling Up
  Since Call of Duty 4 introduced me to leveling up in a first person shooter, I’ve been addicted. I love the incentive that it provides, and I love the rewards of getting new things with each level I go up.
• Good Level Variety
  We had fun completing the different objectives in the Chicago level. It was nice that there were different objectives to complete and that they would be strung together.
• Just Plain Fun
  The most important one! This game is just plain fun to play. Steve and I played this game over and over again (see the cons below as to why) because it was fun.

Cons

• Class System
  The class system was obviously set up for an eight player match, where there can be more variety in who chooses what class. But if you’re only playing two players, you don’t really have a choice but to play medic and special ops. There’s no way to have a heavy hitter playing, because he’ll either run out of ammo or run out of health. This was severely limiting, and Steve and I between us had much less firepower than was needed. We died a lot. And I mean a lot. This was more than a little frustrating.
• Leveling Up
  When I leveled up to level 2, I got a load-out that gave me a carbine. I also got an area-effect berserk. This was great. When Steve leveled up to level 2, he got… nothing. I don’t know if this was because special ops don’t get anything at level 2, or if it’s because he was playing as player 2. Either way, it was disappointing. EDIT: Oops, I was mistaken. I remember now. The problem was in how we looked for his information. He did indeed get the bullseye, but we didn’t see it at first. Somewhat confusing.
• Player 2 Progress Not Saved!
  I saw online that Insomniac was thinking about tying player 2’s progress to their own PSN account, which would be cool. But at least the game would store progress locally, right? Nope! At one point during the evening last night I exited Resistance 2 and restarted my machine (see why below). Upon re-entering splitscreen co-op, all of Steve’s progress in leveling up his character was lost! This was a deal killer. Why put in all that effort to level up a character when all that work is lost? Crazy. This has to be fixed ASAP.
• Mission Objectives Not Tracked??
  Starting the Chicago level, it says that there are 0 of 10 objectives completed. We played this game over and over until finally we didn’t die long enough to see us go from one objective to another.. We recognized it immediately because we started the game so many times. (Each time you start, you are randomly given one of several objectives.) Upon dying, however, and trying again, it said that we still had 0 of 10 objectives completed. Is this a bug, or are objectives a lot bigger than we thought?
• No Checkpoint Saves
  Steve and I played this game a lot last night, but not once did we hit a checkpoint, so we had to start over every single time we died. Quite frustrating.
• Online Connection Problems
  I’ve researched this, and see that lots of other people are having these connection problems. It happens predominantly with two player splitscreen online. I noticed that I had NAT Type 3, which was new. So I fixed that up so I went back to NAT Type 2 (required a reset of my router and PS3). But this didn’t fix the issue. I never had any connection issues with any other online game, so this is very new to me, and quite frustrating. This needs to be fixed ASAP. We tried to play splitscreen online competitive, but this prevented us.
• Unused Screen Real Estate
  The splitscreen for two players is horizontal, not vertical like in Resistance 1. But there’s some area on both sides of the screen that go unused. This is annoying to say the least. Why do I have a large widescreen television if the game doesn’t even make use of the whole screen?

Bottom Line

So there you have my frustrations with this game. I’ll be trying this game on my own before I return it, and I’m sure that portion will be great. But there’s no way I’ll be buying this game until most of the issues above have been solved.

PS Darrin: I hope you don’t mind that I copied your format!

I got back from vacation on Tuesday evening and soon secured my pre-ordered copy of LittleBigPlanet (and got a free T-shirt too that my daughter is wearing to school today). I didn’t get much time to play it on Tuesday night, but I managed to put in some more time last night.

It’s not that fun.

I mean, it’s alright. The Sackboy is cute and all, and the levels I found online are somewhat interesting. Some of the stuff users are coming up with is quite clever. But I find the game more frustrating than anything. The jumping mechanic is very loose, and I find it hard to jump to exactly where I want. And the three levels of depth can get very frustrating too. And the levels often become a matter of missing a jump and trying it again. And I always fall off that stupid skateboard and have to walk to the end of the race. (And because the jumping mechanic is so frustrating, sometimes I miss getting on it once it’s moving in the first place.) And I complete a level only to find that I found 36% of the goodies, even though I tried really hard to find them all.

So now I’m wondering what’s wrong with me. Why do I find this game so hard to enjoy? Everybody seems to love it, why can’t I get into it? Why doesn’t anyone else have these problems? Beats me, but it’s quite annoying.

So I’m shelving the game until some friends come over. I’m sure it’ll be a lot more fun once there’s four of us playing it together. But for now, I find it more frustrating than anything.

Head over to the Japanese PlayStation Store to download the MGS4 demo, it’s about 1400 MB.

LittleBigPlanet was recently released, and I picked up my copy yesterday. So the question of the day week is: are you going to buy LittleBigPlanet?

Vote in the sidebar as always.

Oh, and BTW, LBP does have profile support.

Last poll’s results:

Are you looking forward to home?

* Yes, I think it will immediately provide a huge benefit.: 36% (81)
* Yes, but I think it’ll need to mature.: 36% (82)
* No, but it may suprise me.: 21% (48)
* Home? Junk!: 7% (15)

Total Votes : 226

Firmware 2.52 is now out, it’s just a minor update. See here for details

Konami is giving a reward to the one million worldwide MGO members. Just log into MGO between November 25 - December 9 and you get 10,000 reward points. Then 10 people from each region (North American, Europe and Japan), will get an additional 100,000 reward points. So good luck to you.

There is also a Gene/Meme bundle pack for $14.99 during the “holiday season”. I haven’t played MGO for a while, I’ve been so busy with other things. I want to get back into it, but LittleBigPlanet has my full attention for a while

Konami launches ‘Commemorative Campaign’ for MGO

Check it out below, the animation in this game is top notch. You could probably use this to animate the actual series it looks that good. I think I saw somewhere that it covers Episode 1 - 133 or so, basically when the massive filler episodes started. The demos plays pretty well. The game comes out this week if you interested.

.. Still waiting for my Bleach PS3 game

Games are usually designed around a fundamental challenge of completing objectives, whether it’s defeating enemies, building an empire, or escaping from danger. Great games engross the player in the challenge and get them hooked and poor games usually try to do this, but fail because the challenge feels too repetitive, or too frustrating, or the game just fails to draw them in.

LittleBigPlanet has that core element of challenge as a traditional platforming game but that’s really not what the game is about. The basic platforming elements are generally very easy. Merely beating the levels or getting points isn’t very satisfying by itself. The fun part about this game is discovering all the cool designs, and tricks, and ideas that go into each level. Even with the pre-packaged levels, I’m constantly surprised and amused with what I discover. And, obviously, with the user-created levels, it’s a ton of fun to see all the different concepts that people were able to execute.

Already, there are a ton of completely entertaining user levels. A good example is a level that someone recreated from the first level of the classic NES game, Super Mario Brothers. The level isn’t challenging and I definitely wouldn’t want to play a whole Mario Brothers game like that, but it was fully entertaining to play the level, and see how many little touches they were able pull off and how they did it. And that level isn’t even close to the best user level I played (Touch of Color is an easy favorite level so far).

The other fun part of this game is using the level editor itself. Most regular players probably won’t take it so far that they are making polished, prize-winning levels, but plenty of people will have a ton of fun making simpler goofy levels and just having a blast while doing it.

Most gamers remember the previous era of user-created content for games like Lode Runner, Eamon, Wolf 3D, Doom, Quake, and Marathon. One big difference between that era of user-created content and something like LittleBigPlanet is that previously, there was a big lack of professsionally made games. Today, there is just so much more content on the market and it’s so much easier for regular gamers to get. Previously, user created content generally aimed to fulfill the lack of games to play, while today, user-created content is more about providing community expression that is missing from more traditional games.

Everyone is wondering, will this game be a commercial hit? Will this title unleash tons of entertaining ideas and concepts from the community? Is this title going to start a new a new genre of gaming? No one knows, but this game delivers the most novelty we’ve seen all year and this title is clearly the first to usher in a distinctively new era of user-created game content.

That’s pretty lame Sony …. at the very least the open beta is still set for 2008.

As an update to the PLAYSTATION(R)3 News email sent on Friday, October 24th, the special invitation to PlayStation(R)Home’s closed beta is available only to Qore annual subscribers who purchased subscriptions by 10/29. Qore Episode 06 purchasers will not be eligible for the special PlayStation(R)Home beta invitation at this time. We apologize for the miscommunication.

Qore Episode 6 Home Beta Update