How Killzone Multiplayer should have been

By now, regular readers will know that I don’t like Killzone 2 and the fact that the biggest disappointment lies within it’s unbalanced multiplayer. Truth is, once you unlock all your classes, you won’t feel completely rewarded. For example, I felt he same amount of frustration that I did when I unlocked the medic as I did when I unlocked the Saboteur as opposed to when I finally reached the maximum level in World of Warcraft. When that happens, you feel like you accomplished something and that now you’re ready to take on the tougher challenges.

Well, in Killzone 2, you still have to prepare to get killed by basic soldiers because your abilities will still match that of a soldier with the exception that you have one or two new abilities but you won’t have any real benefit. Sure … you can customize your classes to an extent, but you’re still at the same disadvantage as you were as when you first started.

That’s why, in my opinion – Killzone 2’s multiplayer failed not including the fact that the game mechanics are unfair. But I was thinking awhile back that if the game took a page out of Resistance 2’s book, then the outcome for Killzone 2’s multiplayer may have been different.

First Impressions: Street Fighter 4

So, clearly not learning my lesson from Killzone 2, I picked up Street Fighter 4 last night. However, the mentality behind it involved the fact that I had birthday money and if I put it in the bank it would go to bills. So when I went to Wal-Mart, I picked up Bioshock and Street Fighter 4.

Outside of the disappointment that was SSF2THDR, Street Fighter 4 was the first fighter that I picked up for myself. All the other ones were for my wife. There was something that I liked about Street Fighter 4 and I wasn’t sure what. Originally it was going to be a rental, but I figured that this was my birthday money, so I’d buy it on a game that I technically wanted.

And while Street Fighter 4 may not be my renaissance of gaming, it does show promise.

Publishers, stop whining about PSN fees

Oh, didn’t you hear? The PSN apparently charges game companies 16 cents for every gigabyte of download. This means, according to my calculations calculator, that if 1,000,000 people download something from a specific publisher … let’s say the GTA4 expansion pack, then Rock Star has to pay $160,000 to Sony for hosting. Now, let’s say Rock Star charges $30 for their content and 1,000,000 buy it. That’s a profit of $30,000,000.

Take that number minus Sony’s fees and what do you have leftover? Around $29,840,000. And, I’m no game publisher, but I doubt production costs for addon content cost anywhere near $29 million. So … why are publisher’s whining about how it’s unfair and costly to do?

Because they’re becoming more and more like scam artists.

Video Game endings suck these days.

If there’s anything I’m an advocate for … it’s about being rewarded for your work … Your hard work needs to be acknowledged. Whether it be by respecting your hire date and getting your raise on the right date even down to being thanked for making dinner … your work should get some form of reward. Even if it’s when you’re playing something that’s ultimately supposed to be fun. And that leads us to video games.

And honestly, with today’s technology … endings should be presented in a grand and epic manner. You want a nice closure to your game. And it matters even more when your games are big budget and big hype games. It’s a double-edged sword that game companies create – they make these big budget games that are supposed to be awesome but what is barely mentioned thoughout all the bragging is a nice, fulfilling ending. Companies can brag that graphics are great, sound is excellent, multiplayer is revolutionary, and all that fun stuff but when you finish the single-player you want a nice rewarding finish to what could have been a very hard game.

Ever since getting my PS3, I have only been satisfied with one or two game endings: Uncharted and Heavenly Sword. Everything else has been a pretty big letdown. And we can all thank Final Fantasy VI for that!

Review: Resident Evil 5

Why so quickly after my first impressions post? Well, I had the weekend to myself and all I did was play Resident Evil 5. There are some good things about the game and some bad things about the game. The game itself is under much criticism from all directions, apparently. The obvious one is the racism issue but then you also have people saying that the controls need to evolve and the issue that Resident Evil seems to be straying from it’s scary, puzzle-solving roots into more of an action-paced game.

So while many people review it as a great game, it still has a tendency to bog down opinions just because everyone has a gripe about the game – and it always revolves around those three topics. Still, it’s nice to see a big-name game getting criticism – because you don’t see that with Killzone 2, which definitely doesn’t have its flaws pointed out.

And again, maybe it’s because I’m recovering from that terrible game, but Resident Evil 5, in my opinion is a step in the right direction with the series and is still a blast to play.