Author Archives: Anders

About Anders

Anders Howmann works as a city reporter for the Orange County Register by day and a contributor for Pixelegends.com by night.

GOTY 2014 — Anders: Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

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Shadow-of-MordorThis year’s holiday video game release schedule seemed too predictable.

Destiny was set to draw my attention through October, and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and Halo: The Master Chief Collection  would dominate a busy November. I’d dive back into Grand Theft Auto V in December and hopefully scratch the surface of Dragon Age: Inquisition by the end of the year.

But I pleasantly surprised by a sleeper hit: My time with Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor were some of the best hours I’ve spent this year. This third-person action game offered one of the most enjoyable open-world experiences in recent memory.

My initial expectations for Shadow of Mordor were low. Licensed properties have long been marred by mediocrity, and  the Lord of the Rings name has been scathed by a few of these less-than-deserving entries. But the most recent murderous romp through the badlands of Tolkien’s universe has rekindled a dormant love for third-person swashbucklers.

Shadow of Mordor borrows from genre giants. The speedy parkour platforming is an improvement on Assassin’s Creed’s mechanics, and the free-flowing combat chops follows piggy-backs on the late, great Batman games.

But hacking and slashing hundreds of uruks would be mind-numbing without Shadow of Mordor’s most excellent “nemesis” system.

The game randomly generates a hierarchy of uruk officers, each with their own appearances, combat abilities and personalities. Players are free to eliminate enemies as they please, and if an uruk is assassinated, a lower-ranking soldier moves up to fill the power void.

This mechanic kept me invested through the 20-hour campaign. Each battle kicks off with a mini-cutscene in which the uruk captains taunt the player and recall details of the last meeting on the battlefield. The uruks’ appearances change based on how the last fight with the player panned out.

This mechanic brought the bleak world of Mordor to life. The story missions eventually became an after thought as I focused on eliminating as many uruk officers as possible.

It’s fair to assume we’ll see versions of the “nemesis” in other third-person action games.

New-gen gamers would be remiss if they missed the uruk-eradicating glory of Shadow of Mordor.

 

Runner-up: Destiny

Destiny is half-realized aDestiny_Planett best, but this shoot-and-loot continues to dominate my time and attention months after its September release. I still log on regularly to grab bounties with buddies and run the weekly strikes.

While Destiny doesn’t clinch my “Game of the Year” selection,  it’s impossible to ignore. I’ve spent most of my Fall gaming time leveling my character, guns and gear.

The shooter certainly does a few things right: Destiny’s art direction and gunplay are both sublime. The game’s four main areas are a testament toBungie’s world-building abilities, and nailing headshots on alien foes is immensely satisfying.

But there’s gripes galore, too: Gear drops like drips from a broken faucet, just frequently enough to keep you wide awake at night — I might as well run that daily mission since I’m still online.

The raids, challenging nuggets of endgame content for upper-echelon players, require hours of grinding and farming to access. Many consider raiding one of the best experiences in Destiny, but many players will not progress far enough to access this content.

The greater gaming community has also been captivated by Destiny’s frequent trials and occasional triumphs. November’s AAA flurry of game releases came and went as gamers were busy talking about Destiny’s laundry list of problems and Xur’s weekly offering of exotic gear. Incremental updates continue to dominate the home page of major video game news sites to this day.

I held out a sliver hope that the expansion pack would flesh out Destiny’s barebones offering of endgame content. The paltry set of missions, strikes and a raid barely managed to satiate players’ hunger for more Destiny content.
Still, I continue to log on.

Halo: MCC multiplayer groans on launch day

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Were you excited to dust off those rusty old battle rifle and grenade-throwing skills in “Halo 2” multiplayer today? I certainly was.

But alas, “Halo: The Master Chief Collection” is suffering from some unruly multiplayer issues — surprising, considering Halo’s solid record when it comes to handling server load on launch day.

Matchmaking is currently down across all three games; Halo: Combat Evolved multiplayer doesn’t have a playlist just yet. Players trying to match up in a playlist will be stuck in a “finding players” purgatory.

It’s likely that 343 and Microsoft will sort out these issues soon. In the meantime, there’s plenty to enjoy about Halo: The Master Chief Collection. Take a moment to fire up the Halo 2 campaign; the cutscenes are breathtaking and the gunplay is still sublime.

Take a gander at the controls before you start, though. You may have forgot, as I did, that the left trigger throws grenades. Sorry Sgt. Johnson…

BlizzCon 2014: ‘Overwatch’ impressions

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The announcement of “Overwatch” took many BlizzCon attendees by surprise — myself included.

The game is reportedly being built from the remnants of project “Titan,” a near-future themed MMO that was cancelled after seven years of development.

The upshot: for the short time I played it, “Overwatch” was captivating. The multiplayer shooter is frenetic, twitchy and thoughtful, all at the same time.

“Overwatch’s’ cartoonish-but-sharp art style and class-based gunplay is likely to strike a chord with fans of “Team Fortress 2.” But the game has a character all it’s own.

It’s whimsical but explosive — think Pixar’s “The Incredibles” mixed with the aesthetics of “StarCraft II.”

Teams of six square off against each other in objective-based matches. Attacking teams are tasked with capturing zones and delivering a slow-moving bomb to the enemy base. The defending team must hold the attackers at bay until the match timer runs out.

The game includes four hero classes: offense, defense, tank and support. Offense heroes are nimble but weak, while tanks are powerful but lumbering. Support heroes heal teammates from behind the front lines.

Each hero has an ultimate ability which can be charged by dealing and receiving damage — the latter is handy for tanks and defense heroes who absorb fire with shields.

Reaper, an offense hero, is a speedy, dual shotgun-toting death machine. His “wraith mode” allows him to pass through characters and avoid damage for a short period of time.

After activating the Reaper’s ultimate ability, he becomes a spinning instrument of death, dealing damage to all nearby enemies with a powerful but short area of effect attack.

The camera pulls out to a third-person view, so players can watch Reaper’s chaos.

But offense players won’t survive for long in the open. The class is best used for hit-and-run attacks.

The tank, on the other hand, is built to control the flow of battle. Reinhardt, an armor-clad behemoth with a battle hammer, can handedly push back enemy advances with his forward-facing shield, and kill enemies with a devastating charge.

But tanks are slow and vulnerable to defensive classes. Bastion, a bipedal robot who can transform into a stationary turret, tears through Reinhardt with ease.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of “Overwatch” is the number of heroes, classes and abilities. The floor demo felt surprisingly balanced, however.

While Blizzard hasn’t confirmed the pay structure, some suspect “Overwatch” will be fueled by a micro-transaction model.

If successful, “Overwatch” could bring a colorful, hero-focused flavor to a mostly olive drab genre.

BlizzCon 2014 kicks off with a bang

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BlizzCon 2014 kicked off Friday morning with a flurry of announcements.

Major expansions were detailed for titles such as “Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft” and “StarCraft II.” The Irvine-based publisher also had plenty to say about the upcoming Warcraft movie and an entirely new, team-based first-person-shooter, “Overwatch.”

“Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft,” a wildly popular digital-trading-card game, is getting it’s first major expansion next month. Titled “Goblins vs. Gnomes,” the expansion will feature 120 new cards and “explosive” gameplay.

Players can win cards in the arena, or buy packs with in-game gold or real money.

A “Heroes of the Storm” closed beta has been announced for next year. The multiplayer online battle arena will feature a few new, but familiar, heroes. Notables include Jaina Proudmoore and “World of Warcraft’s” Thrall.

But fans cheered loudly when The Lost Vikings, a trio of quirky Norse warriors from a 1992 SNES game of the same name, were announced in a sizzle reel.

“Legacy of the Void,” the third and final expansion for “StarCraft II,” will be released as a standalone game, Blizzard announced. The game will focus on the technologically advanced Protoss faction and will feature a new co-op/PVP mode called Archon Mode.

A release date for “Legacy of the Void” was not mentioned.

Finally, and with much crowd anticipation, Blizzard announced it’s new first-person-shooter franchise, “Overwatch.” Set on a near-future Earth, the Pixar-like trailer shows cartoonish heroes battling through a war museum.

“Overwatch” takes cues from the class-based warfare of “Team Fortress 2.” Players can choose between offense, defense, tank and support classes to battle through 6v6 objective matches.

Each class contains a handful of characters with unique abilities. For instance, the offense character “Tracer” can dart across the map to get the drop on enemies, while tank character “Winston” lumbers along with a shield, dealing massive melee damage.

“Overwatch” gameplay is fast and frenetic, but streamlined abilities keep it simple. The hero-focused format has led many to speculate whether Blizzard will release the game under a free-to-play model — Blizzard could not comment on pay structure of the game just yet.

Sign-ups are currently open for the “Overwatch” beta, which is set to open next year.

Look for more Pixel Legends coverage today on the show floor!

Tomb Raider: Is Lara Croft a champion in feminism?

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Hard to believe this is the same girl who was so remorseful over killing a deer.

Hard to believe this is the same person who was remorseful over killing a deer.

Boobs and sexual innuendos.

Those are the anchors that game developers Core and Crystal Dynamics have used to develop one of the few, and most popular, female protagonists in video games: Lara Croft. After nine major entries in the series and a slew of spin offs for mobile consoles, Lara has always remained scantily-clad and ever so flirtatious.

While this shallow character may have sold well against equally shallow characters of the ‘90s (ahem, Duke Nukem), video games have changed drastically since Lara’s PSOne debut. Now, games require budgets that rival movies and capture audiences that far surpass those of ‘90s.

More importantly, or at least I would like to think, we expect more than cleavage and sexuality from female characters. We want to see characters develop, their struggle and their eventual victory. When developers are too focused on refining boob physics and writing lines of sexy banter to create a deep character, the result is a flashy gimmick, not a protagonist.

There are so many opportunities that are missed by relegated females to supporting roles and making them objects to be saved. Leading ladies in movies like Zero Dark Thirty, Kill Bill, and the Alien series are groundbreaking and feature powerful characters that, I’d argue, are much more captivating than their male counterparts.

While there admittedly there are some standout roles in video games for female supporting characters, gamers are hard-pressed to find a strong female protagonist. Alyx Vance from the Half-Life series is beyond charming, but she’s still a sidekick. And yes, she subtly flirts with the silent Gordon Freeman throughout the game.

One of the only notable female stars is Samus Aran of the Metroid Prime series, was portrayed as a man throughout most of the original game (which is available in CoinLooting site) until she finally takes off her armor. The result is shock value, not a breakthrough in video game feminism.

After Tomb Raider was announced by the new publisher Square Enix, I was hopeful. Covered in blood and dirt, this new Lara seemed tougher yet fallible.  Her movement and animation was poised but aggressive. She no longer had the showy flair of a gymnast as she scaled rock faces and slid down a mountain, dodging flaming debris from a crashing plane.

There was no sign of campy flirting or any slow tilts of the camera showing off Lara’s figure. And while the final product is not without character development flaws, it has delivered one of the finest female protagonists that I have seen in a game.

Sure, many have cited Lara’s abrupt transformation from innocent survivor to stone-cold killer as one of the game’s major flaws, but we should focus on what Crystal Dynamics did right: create a protagonist that can stand-up to the adventure game greats such as Nathan Drake and Lee Everett.

In the Tomb Raider reboot, Lara is captivating because she is human. The initial escape scene where she is impaled by a piece of rebar is harrowing and wince-inducing. Player’s feel for her as she cries out in pain, and cheer her on as she collects herself and manages to keep moving forward. At first she runs and hides from enemies. By the end of the game, she’s facing them head on, jeering and antagonizing them as thousands fall to her arrows, bullets and climbing axe.

A hero we can be proud of.

A hero we can be proud of.

Not once does Crystal Dynamics portray Lara as an object of sexuality. She has no love interest in the game and no vampish dialogue. Her primary motivation is saving her platonic, female friend, Sam.

As players, we are attracted to Lara as a character because she is a badass, not because she can cartwheel while shooting dual pistols in a tight bathing suit. There is no sheen of overt sexuality that keeps us from appreciating the humanity of Lara.

While games have a long way to go in terms of improving the stories they tell and the characters that they develop, this new Lara is a step in the right direction. Because few developers have attempted to create strong female characters, there are so many opportunities to explore and so much potential.

I believe that by creating deeper characters, both male and female, video games can become more than a pastime of male twenty-somethings. It’s my hope that they will become narrative works of art, that can have as much of an impact on our society as films and literature.

And one of video game’s bustiest broads is spearheading the way. What  beautiful irony.

Impressions: PS4 announcment

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While PS4 has impressive hardware, strengths will be software and functionality

Even though the public has not seen the shiny new box that will be the Playstation 4, at least gamers have a detailed sketch of its hardware and functionality.

Its been seven years since the release of the Playstation 3. This console generation, while not the longest in gaming history, has been substantial considering the innovations and changes that the industry has experienced. The graphical improvements have been significant and a slew of motion controllers have changed the way that the mainstream demographic thinks of games. Mobile platforms and digital distribution have also changed how consumers access and play games.

Internet communities have been inspired by the work of game developers. In addition to playing games, gamers look for videos of games on YouTube and share their own experiences over streaming platforms and social media.

Innovations such as Xbox Live Party Chat (which is in my opinion one of the greatest accomplishments of the last generation) change the way that players interact with each other over the internet. Online multiplayer services have become their own social spheres, allowing players to keep in touch with their existing friends and meet entirely new ones online.

It seems as though the Playstation 4 has accounted for all of these improvements on paper. And if Sony’s claims are true, there are a lot of things to be excited for when the new system releases:

Dedicated processor for downloading games in the background:

While the Xbox and Playstation both have the ability to do this now, a dedicated CPU for completing this task will make the interface much smoother. If the PS4 can incorporate its own version of party chat with this extra chip  while simultaneously playing games, the results will be awesome.

Social media integration and dedicated video compression and uploading:

While there are currently many capture devices available that allow gamers to share and edit gameplay, a system that is integrated into the console operating system would be much more convenient. The ability to hit a button on the controller and capture footage would be much better than setting up a laptop and worrying about logging and capturing footage.

The additional processor that can be seen in any music video production unit also handles video uploads and compression, allowing players to quickly cut a clip, and go on playing the game while the video uploads in the background.

Playstation’s partnership with Ustream does not seems ideal however. An incredibly strong community of YouTubers has been built over the past couple of years and its difficult to foresee audiences making the switch to a new video platform. But of course, it is impossible to predict how internet audiences react come launch day.

Software:

While a launch lineup has not been confirmed by Sony, Watch Dogs, Killzone: Shadow Fall, Drive Club, InFamous: Second Son, Destiny and The Witness all look like excellent contenders. The success of a console launch linked to its launch lineup, and PS4 should have a strong one.

Gaikai, game streaming and backwards compatibility:

While the PS4 will not be backwards compatible, Sony Computer Entertainment has partnered with the game streaming service, Gaikai, to provide gamers with hundreds of titles. Sony’s goal is to make all PSone PS2 and PS3 titles available over this streaming service.

While pricing has not been announced, it will allow players to try games out for free.

For consumers that have a large collection of PS3 games, the lack of backwards compatibility will be very disheartening.

While Sony may be reveling in the exposure, nothing has been heard from the Xbox corner. It will be very interesting to see the two behemoths duke it out come E3 this year.