Come for the MMO, stay for the RPG.

From the beginning, Champions Online drops you right into the thick of things. Having recently re-read some of the Skrull Invasion and Green Lantern books, the tutorial alien-invasion storyline caught my attention immediately. And unlike most other MMORPG’s I’ve played, I actually read every single quest. I usually stop doing that after 10 or so quests.

Unfortunately, I only had 5 hours or so before I was unable to continue playtesting, and I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface of what Champions Online could offer, story-wise. And interestingly, following in the footsteps of City of Heroes, Champions Online will feature user-generated content. This is a Good Thing™, and I would love to see how this plays out.

Combat: as twitchy as ya wanna be

World of Warcraft has more or less set the standard for what traditional MMORPG’s are supposed to do as far as combat is concerned, and while on the surface Champions Online seems very much like WoW in spandex, there are some nuances that make Champions Online a bit less twitchy and just a bit more tactical.

The main difference is that most powers are either “on” or “off”. Since there is an all-purpose endurance bar that fills as you deal and receive damage, you can activate a power and as long as you have enough endurance, the power will continue to activate as long as possible. So, you don’t have to be constantly clicking keys and mouse buttons to be effective in combat… although you CAN be if you want to as the endurance bar system performs a bit better if you optimize your attack rotation a little bit.

After you’ve killed something, the enemy will sometimes explode into little orbs that will either temporarily buff you or will even refill your health and mana bars. I love this, because one of my biggest pet peeves about WoW is that you are sometimes required to sit and consume food and water to regain health or energy. Why is is absolutely necessary to sit still for 30 seconds between combats? In Champions, if you get enough health orbs, you don’t have to pause at all, and you can just plow through the baddies. If you don’t get enough orbs, don’t worry, just staying out of combat will replenish your health in a few seconds.

Now, we are still a few months away from launch, and this is typically the period of time that most MMO’s are balancing and re-balancing the various mechanics of the game, so I would expect some aspects of combat could still change dramatically. Let’s not forget this IS a beta version.

“It must have good graphics!”

Most of the Beta MMO’s I’ve played have had horrible graphics and bland looking environments. While a bit glitchy and far from being fully polished, Champions Online looks pretty good, all things considered. The environments look, for lack of a better term, “lived-in”. The city streets don’t feel empty, with debris, smashed up cars, ambulances and other objects strewn about for good effect. And interestingly, many of these objects can be picked up and thrown if you’re strong enough, which is handy when you need to vent some stifled rage. This could be one of the most immersive environments for an MMO, to date.

At the end of the tutorial level, I purchased some rocket boots for my character and immediately zoomed around the starting zones. While looking beautiful, the zones do seem a bit small. I say they “seem” small mostly because these zones are on par with City of Heroes (I think) but the rocket boots allow you to fly so fast, I launched across them in a matter of seconds. I won’t be surprised if they nerf some of the travel powers before launch. But if rocket boots aren’t your thing (which is weird) you can choose super jump, teleportation, Spider-man style swinging, or even just plain ol’ flight. There are a several different travel powers to choose from so, there’s sure to be something for everyone.

WARNING: Major Geek-out imminent!

Which reminds me that I need to talk about the character creation process. Apparently, Cryptic purchased the rights to the HERO pen-and-paper RPG system and then licensed it back to the original publisher to publish the 6th edition. I’ve never played the HERO system, but apparently, Champions Online is loosely based on the HERO system, and you will be able to adapt your Champions Online character into a valid PnP RPG character using the 6th edition HERO system rules.

I know that PnP RPG’s are a bit of a fringe discipline amongst gamers, but this makes my little geek heart go pitter-patter. I’d love to be able to meet up with my guild for some PnP RPG action between endgame missions.

These bugs taste like Win

Of course, the game is not perfect, and it’s hard to find the problems after only one playtest session. With any MMO there is always a honeymoon period where everything seems happy. You feel like you could spend the rest of your life with this game. Admittedly, I am in that state with Champions Online right now.

However, I will say this (and you can shoot me later for comparing Champions Online and City of Heroes) but I’ve had more fun with Champions Online in this one session than I did with my first session of City of Heroes. After one session of City of Heroes, the compulsion to keep going just wasn’t there for me. With Champions Online… I WANT MORE.

Overall, I’ve had a good experience with the Champions Online beta, despite the bugginess. I hope this can be a relationship worth sticking with for the long-term.

These three ingredients, gameplay, panels, and exhibition hall, help make PAX what it is, the mecca for the nerdcore of ALL disciplines. Unfortunately, there are only three days to get as much gaming in as possible. Added to this scarcity of time is the fact that there are even MORE panels and the exhibition hall is almost twice as large as it was last year. 

Forced to choose, I spent the lion’s share of my time on the exhibition floor checking out whether Gears 2 has as much chainsawiness (it does), whether Starcraft has advanced at all in 10 years (it hasn’t), and whether Left 4 Dead has as much zombie chewiness as I was hoping (oh man, does it). I also managed to spend a lot of time with some of EA’s upcoming titles, including Warhammer Online, Mirror’s Edge, Dead Space, Spore, and Crysis Warhead.

Spore

Will Wright, the ultimate sandbox game designer, has done what Peter Molyneux couldn’t with Black & White. There is so much game here, I don’t even know where to begin. If you’ve liked fl0w, Black & White, Civilization, or Galactic Civilizations there will be something here for you.

I talked with EA about Spore and they explained that the game has been specifically geared towards “creative types” which explains why everyone at my office is excited about it and none of them (except one) are gamers, let alone “core” gamers. There was an entire afternoon lost to everyone building creatures in the Spore Creature Creator. This is probably the main reason that there is a Mac client.

I’m not sure if the chainsaw and energy sword-wielding Xbox Live denizens are going to want to break out their gaming rigs for Spore, but if you’ve even MODERATELY enjoyed a Will Wright or Maxis game, you owe it to yourself to check out Spore.

Crysis Warhead

Gameplay-wise, the standalone expansion pack for Crysis, titled Crysis Warhead, doesn’t bring anything too terribly revolutionary to the table. However, there are some MAJOR technical upgrades. At PAX, Crysis Warhead was running on a $700 machine with a Geforce 8800 GT and 2 GB of RAM. And even on this machine, Crysis Warhead looked phenomenal. I am very impressed with what they were able to do. IMHO, this bodes well for the future of Crytek releases in the console space.

If you enjoyed Crysis as much as I did, this is another EA title you’ll need to pick up.

Dead Space

I’ve been lukewarm about Dead Space. At first glance, it appeared to me as nothing more than trying to cash in on the success of Bioshock. “Oh here we go,” I said, “EA is back to their old formula. Copying what they can’t create on their own.” 

Holy crap, was I surprised. 

The level they showed us at PAX highlighted the qualities that make Dead Space truly unique and original. The weaponry is not more of the same, but actually helps control the environment or creatures is interesting ways, such as the stasis beam that will slow enemies down, allowing you to chop them up into little pieces.

The level design itself focused on the physical aspects of moving and interacting with zero-gravity environs. Since you wear magnetic boots, you can walk on just about any surface. When I asked them about level design, they explained that creating levels that don’t cause the player to become totally lost during zero-gee is a major challenge. No wonder they chose to go the single-player-only route. Remember Prey multiplayer? You do? I feel your pain…

But if I were to amend my list of great physics games, I have a feeling Dead Space will be added to that list. Hold on though, there’s another great physics game that EA showed off at PAX…

Mirror’s Edge

There is something visceral that is tapped by Mirror’s Edge. That part of the gamer brain that causes one to endlessly bunny hop across the map, or roadie run whenever possible. The part of the brain that loves Jet Set Radio Future and grenade jumping in Halo 3. Careening over fences and pipes or running across walls is just… fun! 

I’m not even sure what else to say about Mirror’s Edge. You better have seen the videos. If you have, then you know what my expectations were. The gameplay at PAX was what we’ve already seen, but what stood out to me as I played was how smooth the controls seemed, even at this unfinished stage.

But wait, apparently, a major ingredient of Mirror’s Edge is the story. That’s great, because I love story… and based on everything else I’ve seen from EA at this year’s PAX, I am actually hopeful that Mirror’s Edge will deliver on what it promises.

Wait, what? Did you just use “hopeful” and “EA” in the same sentence?

I sure did. After getting so much hands on time with EA’s titles, and playing a Madden 09 that isn’t completely horrible (albeit, far from perfect) I am ready to make an announcement.

I am throwing out my EA haterade… flushing it right down the toilet. If these titles are as good as they seem right now, then EA will once again be known (at least in my household) as a company that can publish high quality original content. I honestly never thought this day would come. I figured EA would fade into nothingness like so many bloated, soulless publishers before it. It seems though, that EA has been able to throw a scroll of resurrection on itself and (I can’t believe I’m saying this) created a holiday lineup that is going to be downright awesome.

At this point, EA kind of reminds me of the vampire Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. As a vampire he had lost his soul, but eventually he is humbled by continually getting his butt kicked by Buffy. After some questing he manages to regain his soul, but some questions remained. Was he truly redeemed? Would he be able to leave his past behind and move forward with purpose?

Now, the pessimist in me is SCREAMING that it’s too good to be true. And that may be, but EA was at PAX 07 as well, and this truly feels like a new beast. I’m sure I’ll still have plenty of chances to call EA on it’s BS, like microtransactions, but all things considered, I like what I see for EA in 2008.

I was ecstatic to finally be able to sit down and play Left 4 Dead. Even though I was already extremely hyped about this title, what I played completely blew me away. The greatest feature of Left 4 Dead is the adaptive AI. As you progress from checkpoint to checkpoint, if you are doing really well, the game starts throwing more and more zombies at you. Thankfully, there are points in the mission where you can resupply, rearm, and heal up before heading back into the fray.

As a consummate shotgun fan in almost every FPS that offers them as an option, the shotgun was my first choice, and I really feel like it’s the BEST choice for zombie smashing. Some people really liked the M16, but nothing compares to unleashing 12 gauge destruction at point blank range into the rotting face of the walking dead. errr… running dead.

Zombies in Left 4 Dead are fast. You have to be constantly on your guard because zombies can be up in your face before you even have any idea what’s going on. If you DO get caught by zombies, don’t worry! I will rush to your aid and unleash a fury of melee blows that’ll have those zombies off you in no time. It’s all because the melee blows are actually amazingly effective at clearing zombies. It puts you dangerously into close range where they can grab you or vomit on you (thus attracting more zombies), but when you need to clear zombies off a team mate, it’s really a great choice. And that’s what is so great about this game.

Those of us that played it could not agree on what the best method was for killing them. THAT IS THE MARK OF A WELL-BALANCED FPS. Kudos to Valve and all the Left 4 Dead developers! Another must-buy title!

Because, they have done an AMAZING job of melding RPG elements from the originals into Fallout 3. The old stats like Action Points and Perks are, of course, adapted for the new 3D platform, but far from feeling tacked on, I felt very much the same as I did when I played Fallout for the first time.

The level that they had available was basically just the area outside Vault 101, and as you step out into the wasteland the landscape looks pretty good. Bleak… desolate… And you can even see the shelled out remains of the U.S. Capitol building off in the distance. Since there were no real objectives in this demo beyond “go see what you can find” I headed off down an old abandoned highway. As I sauntered into the midst of some shelled out buildings the game chimed “You’ve discovered Springvale!” Huh. Cool.

I continued further down te street and I saw a large sign that said Springvale Elementary. I decided this might be worth checking out. I approached the ruined building and was told “You’ve discovered Springvale Elementary!” Sweet. I’m gonna sneak in there. I clicked down on the thumbstick to enter sneak mode (which was an integral part of both Oblivion and Fallout, in the past) and began checking out the school. It was pretty dark, as I suppose you would expect for the post-apocalypse, and I started picking up bad guys on my indicator. As I approached, they detected me and started unloading on me with revolvers. This is where the combat system kicked in, which you’ve hopefully seen in the game

“Playable Starcraft II? I better check this out!”

And… it is exactly as I feared. This is basically original Starcraft with some updated graphics and new units. I was surprised at how much this plays and looks like the old Starcraft. They are definitely not straying far from their roots, but considering that Starcraft is still insanely popular in other nations such as South Korea and Peru, this is not surprsing.

I’m probably not going to be buying Starcraft II. That could change, I suppose, depending on the strength of the multiplayer side of things, but I still prefer more modern titles like Dawn of War and Company of Heroes.

However, Phoenix410 of talkingaboutgames.com, who has played Gears in te MLG tournaments had a very different experience. He felt that the gameplay was VERY different. And I suppose that it might be like me playing Halo 3 vs. Halo 2. If you’ve not played much Halo, you might have said Halo 3 was just “Halo 2.5″, but Phoenix assures me there are many improvements. I’m not necessarily sure if everyone will notice the changes in Gears 2, but I felt like my expectations for Gears 2 were met. This will be a great title, and I feel like a pre-order of this game is completely appropriate.

I am slowly becoming an EA convert. It’s been happening slowly, but Dead Space looks fantastic here at PAX, Madden 09 has actually been pretty decent for a football title, and after spending some time talking to EA Mythic about Warhammer Online, I’m almost ready to declare EA to be capable of something other than mediocrity.

Regarding Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (aka WAR), the NDA has been lifted on the Beta for quite some time, now, so there a lot of reviews out there, already. Now, is it a WoW clone? Well, there are going to be similarities, but compared to what I’ve played in the past, there are SOOOO many more layers that they’ve built up for WAR.

RvR (aka PvP) actually has some pretty interesting implementations, both as World PvP and instanced PvP. Taking and capturing entire faction cities just seems too awesome for words. I won’t go into deep details here, you can find out more from some of the in-depth Beta reviews out there. Suffice it to say, that Mythic has put a LOT of thought into WAR, and some of these guys have experience going back to EQ and Dark Age of Camelot.

That being said, there is one area of concern that has been mentioned by a number of beta testers. That deals with Mythic’s systems for automatically grouping people together to tackle content within the different tiers. In theory it’s a great system, but it kind of depends on there being a steady population of players at all the various levels. I asked EA Mythic what would happen when the majority of people moved on to the end-game content, leaving many of these automatic systems unable to cope with the much smaller population levels.

Mythic doesn’t have a solution, right now. They are looking into some possible solutions, but they see it as unnecessary right now. They MIGHT implement some changes, 6, 9, or 12 months down the road, but there is nothing definite at this time. This concerns me, because I hate grinding, but Mythic has included so many different things to do (all of which will give you XP, including PvP) that maybe I won’t even notice.

Another MAJOR selling point for me is interface customization. The first thing I do with WoW is strip out the default interface, reposition my action bars, and customize the player frames. With WoW, this must all be done with 3rd-party interfaces.

WAR offers this right out of the box. (Star Wars Galaxies was pretty good about this, too, but WAR goes above and beyond even SWG in terms of interface customization.) For the hardcore UI modders, WAR does offer a Lua/XML based API, but again diverging from Blizzard, they are starting with a very restrictive set of functions, and will slowly open this up more as time goes on. This is 180 degrees from what Blizzard did, as anyone who learned to rely on the old Decursive will tell you. Blizzard allowed maybe too much to occur in interface addons, then restricted it later, causing huge amounts of angst and frustration at now having to basically relearn to manually do things that had been automatic before.

If Mythic starts out as restrictive, then you can only move in a positive direction. And being more restrictive would normally be an annoyance to me (like in LOTRO) but with every detail of the interface ALREADY opened up to customization, I pretty much have everything I would want from a UI right from day one.

All I need to do now is convince my WoW guild to give WAR a try… because I will be there!

It was fully playable for anyone that wanted to give it a whirl, though this doesn’t appear to be final code as it was running from a dev kit. First of all, the new guitars feel much more responsive. The versions we played on were much crisper than the original Rock Band guitar. Also seemingly improved is the default drum kit (not to be confused with the uber premium drum kit). These drums are wireless. They also sport a metallic foot pedal and a drum surface that didn’t seem to make much extraneous noise at all, though honestly it was hard to judge in the noisy party atmosphere we were playing in.

From a gameplay standpoint, nothing about Rock Band 2 differs much from its predecessor. An interface tweak here or there, but otherwise this is essentially a $60 song pack. Though, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

All in all, Rock Band 2 seems to be just as much fun as the original, but we didn’t see anything that would make it much MORE fun, either. However, this may not have been a final build, so who knows what surprises the finished product may contain.

The Kranz, one of our long-time podcast listeners called me out on my wish for the Madden series to just die. In our forums, he wrote:

Millions of people love Madden, yet you want to kill it and without solid reasoning George. Don’t cop out and say “competition” because you didn’t come to that til you were prodded by other podcast member. Do you just hate sports in general?

Oh, Madden, how I hate thee… let me count the ways…

There are SO many reasons why the Madden series should die. Madden 06, 07, and 08 all come to mind as the top reasons. It has taken 5 years… 5 YEARS before they even STARTED approaching the featureset that was present in NFL 2k5.

In fact, I STILL play NFL 2k5 quite regularly. No other football game since then has even approached it.

One main beef with Madden has always been the playbooks and other elements of the interface. I hate the way they lay things out in that stupid EA Sports interface they have in all their games, now. And when it comes to pick a play, (at least on previous versions) the interface gets herky jerky. That’s inexcusable.

I’ve also hated not having online leagues. NOW, this year will be the first time a Madden game has online leagues, so I’ll reserve judgement on Madden until I actually play it, but every year… EVERY YEAR I plop down $60 for the next roster update because I AM A FOOTBALL FAN and I’ve been disappointed EVERY TIME.

And I’ll tell you what… judging by the awful horribleness that is NCAA 09, I am not optimistic.

From a gameplay standpoint, Madden has always felt turnover-heavy. I guess that can make for an exciting game, but it mainly just detracts from the overall experience. There also seems to be no gradation between deifficulty levels. You’re either completely destroying the CPU players or it’s OMG HOW MANY INTS IS THE CPU GOING TO GET? 20 IS ENOUGH! Oh, I should also mention that the AI is horrible when it comes right down to it. Also, in 08, lineman are pretty much useless for who knows what reason.

Don’t even get me started on owner mode. With 05, you could manage ticket prices, and all sorts of other aspects of your franchise. Still can’t do that.

Oh, and 08 had no formation substitutions! W! T! F! SRSLY??? Yeah, so you can’t move LB’s and WR’s around on different formations. THAT IS PURE GARBAGE!

Should I go on? Should I start mentioning the game-freezing bugs? Or the framerate issues on the PS3?

Also, John Madden is a complete babbling tool. I wish they would take him back OUT of the game.

Wait… do I hate sports? So now, if I hate Madden I must automatically hate sports? What kind of sense does that make?

That is the mantra of “A Boy Who Learns What Fear Is,” the first episode of American McGee’s episodic adventure/platformer. Not necessarily in a bad way… American McGee’s breakout title Alice received great reviews in its time, due mostly to some fantastic graphics. Grimm has taken a very different tack, in more ways than one.

Gameplay primarily consists of maneuvering the narrator, “Grimm,” through shiny happy scenery filled with sunshine and kitty cats that crap rainbows. As you move through the levels an aura of decay and putrescence leaves a defiled trail behind you. Flower beds turn into gravestones, quaint cottages become houses of horror, and the goal is to darken as much of the level as you can.

As you proceed, some citizens are “cleaners” and will be able to undo some of the plague and awfulness that you are trying to spread. However, as you infect more and more objects, you’ll be able to infect larger creatures and items than you were able to previously. This lends itself to a kind of “Katamari” style gameplay, where, instead of collecting random junk, you are spreading filth and corruption.

From a technical standpoint, Grimm is not going to melt your video card with its magnificent graphical prowess. The graphics of Grimm could best be described as… simple. Nothing in the way of snazzy shaders or dynamic range lighting here. It looks and feels more like a pop-up book than a modern video game.

But then… that’s kind of the point. This is Fractured Fairy Tales on acid. At first I was thinking, “oh, maybe this will make a great kids’ game.” Then, the flowers started spurting blood, people were being hanged and burned at the stake. This was when I started getting the hint. “Not a kids’ game!”

As I mentioned previously, this is more or less a “Katamari” game with a few platforming elements thrown in for good measure. This brings with it some advantages and disadvantages.

First of all, Katamari games are fun. Trying to gobble up as much junk as possible as quickly as possible, for some reason, it just plain fun. The same kinds of things that make Katamari enjoyable also apply here… I just wish there were more of them. The episode is divided into 6 scenes, and each one, while well designed and fun to move around in, also felt cramped. I wanted to really break out and spend some time with this gameplay, but before I knew it, I was running out of level.

And this gets right to one of the major issues with Grimm. It’s trying to do too much, with perhaps too little time. Granted, the 23 episodes of Grimm will be released on a weekly basis, but it might almost make more sense to have each episode divided into fewer scenes, with more terrain and gameplay in each scene.

Another issue I have with Grimm is the writing. I feel like a game using Grimm’s fairy tales as a backdrop should really have some stellar storytelling. Unfortunately, I felt like the cutscenes got in the way of gameplay. They were sometimes jarring and disjointed. There was the semblance of a narrative, but it didn’t seem to have any flow. That being said, the opening and ending cinematics were done in the style of a puppet show, and were actually kind of fun to watch. They presented a before and after version of the tale. First, the drippy, saccharin of the “light theater” contrasted against the gothic, gritty “dark theater.”

Right now, the first episode of Grimm is free. So, I encourage anyone that is interested in seeing what I mean to go get it and test it for yourself.

I’m not sure that Grimm is enough for someone to subscribe to Gametap merely on the strength of this property, alone. However, you don’t subscribe to cable for any single television series. Like all of the modern Star Trek series (except for Enterprise… it doesn’t count), I have a feeling that this is a game that could get better as more episodes are produced. It certainly has a lot of potential, even if much of it is unfulfilled from a writing standpoint.

I give Grimm Episode 1 a respectable score of 3 out of 5 Aeropausonauts. And as always, I like to point out that this should not be equated as a “60%”. It means that it’s at least worth checking out if you like platformers or Katamari-like games. Or heck, even if you just like Grimm’s Fairy Tales. But, unfortunately, it does have some drawbacks that keep it from being a true work of gaming art.