Weekly Update 8/10/09

At long last, the new layout is finally complete! I'd like to thank PaddSolutions.com for the wonderful Mahusay template, as well as Btemplates.com for its adaptation of Mahusay for use with Blogger. I'd also like to blame Call of Duty: World at War for delaying the move to the new template - it's always so hard to get anything done when there are n00bs to be fragged.

I've been meaning to write a post about tomorrow's Xbox Live update, but I feel that there simply isn't enough to devote an entire post to. Unlike the New Xbox Experience (NXE) of last year, the summer update feels like just what it is: an update of existing functionality and features as opposed to NXE's complete restructuring of the Xbox 360's user interface and capabilities. This isn't a bad thing at all, but I feel that the advertisement behind tomorrow's update paints it in an entirely different light, and people should know what to expect.

Many of the update's changes are "under-the-hood," such as improvements to the party system and solutions to existing connection problems, and I feel that your time would be better spent experiencing these firsthand tomorrow than reading about them from me. However, the update does bring three new changes to 360 experience that I feel are compelling enough to talk about.

Firstly, 360 gamers will now be able to access new clothing and props for their avatars via the Avatar Marketplace and Avatar Trophies. While Microsoft periodically releases new - and free - avatar clothing, the Marketplace and Avatar Trophies system finally makes available game- and brand-specific avatar swag. While I found the Marketplace a bit overpriced, I do find a bit of joy in having my avatar tricked out in Halo 3 gear, and I'm looking forward to unlocking additional swag in Halo 3: ODST and other future titles.

Secondly, the Netflix interface has finally received a much-needed update, allowing users to browse Netflix's online catalog using a number of genre-specific lists. This is an overdue feature addition that has already helped me discover a number of titles that would have probably remained buried in Netflix's inelegant online catalog. Additionally, users will now be able to see what movie or tv show their friends are watching, further allowing users to discover new titles that may interest them.

Lastly, Microsoft has introduced its new Games On Demand program, offering complete downloads of Xbox 360 titles straight from the dashboard. While Microsoft has been offering full Xbox title downloads for over a year now, this is the first time that Xbox 360 titles have been available for digital download. The lineup is actually quite impressive, featuring a number of blockbusters including Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect, Oblivion, Call of Duty 2, and Burnout Paradise, and prices seem to be competitive with current new and used prices at Gamestop and Amazon.com. I haven't tried downloading a title from this list, and I'm curious to see if these titles will suffer from many of the same technical issues that the Xbox Originals suffered from, but I'm hopeful that this is the first true steps towards the direction of a fully digital game distribution model for consoles.

In other news, I've been playing the IL-2 Sturmikov: Birds of Prey demo released on Xbox Live last week. So far, I'm impressed that IL-2 has kept its promise of delivering a true flight simulation to the Xbox 360. While the game does scale difficulty back to give more casual players an arcade-like experience, it is clear that the arcade settings are but training wheels for the true bread-and-butter of the title: simulated combat aviation. I only fear that the title won't garner the market penetration it deserves. I've always considered combat flight sims as candy for the masochistic - gamers who enjoy logging hours just to learn a particular plane and maneuvers, stalling because they took a sharper turn than their aircraft could handle, or spending 5 minutes hurdling to earth in an unrecoverable spin because the plane's steering column had been shot. I am, in fact, one of these gamers, but I fear that I'm rather niche.

Gluttons for punishment unite!

-- Mike





Banner image courtesy of 505 Games and www.il2game.com.

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Impressions: Point Lookout

Point Lookout is the fourth of Bethesda's expansions for Fallout 3, and their third non-Wasteland expansion for the title. While similar in length to the Pitt, Point Lookout stands out due to its emphasis on open-ended exploration, preserving Fallout 3's spirit while showcasing Bethesda's storytelling strengths.

Like the expansions before it, Point Lookout gives the player an opportunity to leave D.C. to explore other locations in nuclear war-ravaged United States - this time the marshlands of the real-life Point Lookout State Park in Maryland. While I've never visited Point Lookout, Bethesda did a great job in translating the Park's natural beauty into the Fallout universe. In stark contrast to the windswept brown barrens and urban rubble of the Capital Wasteland, Point Lookout features foggy, deep-green swamps ringing with insects and other sounds of life, broken only by the occasional isolated shack or detritus. This creates a truly unique identity for the location, and gives the expansion a visual style very distinct from the main game.

Point Lookout's true aesthetic strength, however, is the influence of the expansion's chthonic themes in its scenery and presentation. In a preview with IGN, Bethesda developers revealed the influences of H.P. Lovecraft's literature on the expansion, which emphasized the presence of terrible evil and dark deities dwelling just beyond the veil of normalcy and perception. Point Lookout does a wonderful job in translating these themes not only into the expansion's story, but also into its visual style. Point Lookout's dense, fog-filled foliage and natural hills, cliffs, and sinkholes present the player with a very limited visual range compared to the barrens of D.C., and I often found myself stumbling upon smugglers, swamplurks, and ferals alike. The result is a fairly tense experience that left me wondering what, exactly, I would find past the next tree.

Point Lookout's explorative gameplay is a welcome return to Fallout 3's signature open-ended wanderings, and allows the expansion to truly capture the feel of Lovecraftian horror. Lovecraft's protagonists often stumble upon the supernatural entities and circumstances they encounter, and Bethesda's mastery of weaving stories through artifacts and self-motivated exploration is a natural fit for this style of storytelling. I often found myself stumbling upon not only unexplained fetishes and ritual grounds, but also several named and unnamed side-quests that explored the location's back story, Chinese espionage, and even an homage to the Lovecraftian Necronomicon. This open-ended gameplay allowed Point Lookout to capture the essence of Fallout 3 - the creation of a world where every debris-filled corner and ruined building seemed to have a story of its own.

Despite my praise, I feel that Point Lookout could be improved in a few areas. First, I was disappointed with the small number of uninspired new items presented in the expansion. Operation: Anchorage and The Pitt both did a great job of creating atmosphere through items, allowing players to bring distinct aspects of both settings back to the Capital Wastelands. Point Lookout, however, only gave me access to a handful of new items, all of which I found rather bland. In contrast to the Gauss Rifle or the Auto Axe, I returned to the Capital Wastes with a double-barreled shotgun and a lever action rifle, which was identical in look to Lincoln's Repeater! Given the isolationist nature of Point Lookout's inhabitants, I can understand Bethesda's reluctance to add outlandish new weaponry and items to the expansion, but given the supernatural entities and rituals referenced, it's reasonable to expect to leave with a more interesting weapon than an axe or a shovel.

Second, I felt that Bethesda could have done more to explore Point Lookout's real-life preternatural events. For those of you unfamiliar with Point Lookout State Park, it served as a Union prison camp during the Civil War. It saw the deaths of over 4,000 Confederate P.O.W.'s and is considered by many to be haunted by the ghosts of these dead soldiers. I would have liked to see Bethesda do more to explore and integrate the Park's real-life supernatural phenomenon and reputation into the expansion.

Ultimately, my biggest protest is that I had to eventually return to the Capital Wasteland. Like the Shivering Isles expansion for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Point Lookout created a vibrant and engrossing setting that could easily accommodate a full-length title. While I can't speak to Broken Steel, I find Point Lookout to be the strongest of the non-Wasteland expansions (including Mothership Zeta, which I will talk about in the coming week) and a definite must-buy for any fan of Fallout 3 or H.P. Lovecraft.

-- Mike





Image courtesy of IGN.com.

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Penny Arcade's Tycho and Gabe on 1 vs. 100 this Friday

Tycho and Gabe of Penny Arcade will be guests on 1 vs. 100 this Friday on Xbox Live. If, like me, you have yet to try 1 vs. 100, this will prove to be a great opportunity to give it a go while enjoying commentary and banter by two of the games industry's biggest celebrities.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2009/08/05/1-vs-100/

-- Mike





Banner image courtesy of IGN.com.

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We're Back!

After an extended hiatus, I’m happy to announce that Untitled Thoughts is back, and will be featuring three new blog post series:

The Backlog will cover titles that have previously slipped from Matt and my attention. While we don’t have any hard-and-fast criteria of what games will be covered in this, this series will focus primarily on games released in 2008 or earlier and titles that have fallen by the wayside or been forgotten in the wake of high-profile releases.

Budget Gamers will be an advice column on how to get the most out of your gaming budget. As a recently unemployed gamer, I’ve been exploring ways to get the most out of my Microsoft Points and gaming dollars, and will post guides on how to game in this rough economy.

Lastly, I’ll be posting Weekly Updates covering everything from what we’re currently gaming, news stories on the week, or anything worth saying that doesn’t fit anywhere else.

And, as usual, we’ll be posting our usual opinion, impressions, and discussions on our gaming experiences.

As you’ve probably noticed, Untitled Thoughts is also undergoing a few cosmetic changes, including a change to a new layout. Everything should be up and running within a few days. Thank you for bearing with us and staying tuned!

-- Mike





Banner image of 1 vs. 100 on Xbox Live. Image courtesy of IGN.com.

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