I used to watch G4 back in college, when a roommate and I first discovered reruns of Starcade while flipping the channels. Though we enjoyed other shows, namely Icons and Cinematech, I was never quite sure what to think of X-Play. Here we had the extraordinarily geeky Adam Sessler, reviewing video games with the undeniably pretty Morgan Webb. The chemistry never quite worked out for me, but it remains the only show to survive G4’s merger with TechTV and, according to a somewhat dated source, one of the highest-rated shows on the channel.

But let off the leash on his own, you’ve got to admire Sessler’s aggressive ranting, as displayed in his weekly “Sessler’s Soapbox” Web video. This time, he goes after a recent New Yorker profile of Gears of War designer Cliff Bleszinski. Particularly, this passage:

It is unusual for any game company to allow an outsider access to its meetings, for fear of the game’s features being prematurely disclosed. While discussing Gears 2’s new “crowd” system, which will allow an unprecedented number of individually functioning enemies to flock across the battle space, Bleszinski mentioned how excited he was to open fire upon them with a certain weapon. Within minutes, I was pulled aside by a Microsoft representative and informed that this weapon’s existence would not be confirmed until later in the summer and could I please refrain from mentioning it. The gaming media is largely made up of obsessive enthusiasts, and the carefully planned release of information tantalizes them with the promise of insider knowledge. “How do you reach the core?” Jeff Bell, who used to oversee global marketing for Microsoft’s interactive-entertainment division, asked me. “How?” I asked. “Secrets,” he said, his eyes sparkling in the manner of a supervillain announcing his plan to poison the Eastern Seaboard’s water supply.

It’s best to listen to Sessler’s response in whole, but the highlight comes during his direct counterjab at the New Yorker.

And last I checked, the New Yorker’s been trying to make a name for itself with exclusive articles written by Seymour Hersch trying to talk about the Pentagon’s secret plan to invade Iran. Guess what, you guys engage in secrets too and you engage in those same kinds of exclusive content. I’ll be frank, that’s a little bit more pertinent to the existence of every American in this country then if there’s a new weapon that we haven’t talked about in Gears of War. And you know what? As a result, That’s why sometimes there’s a little bit of bargain-making when you go out and you do these interviews.

Anyway, Sessler’s rant, though an eloquent and exciting listen, gives the impression that Tom Bissel’s New Yorker article generally treats the gaming industry with a bit of condescension. I didn’t find that to be the case. If you can wipe aside that one paragraph that Sessler so despises — and which, I’ll admit, left a bitter taste in my mouth as well, probably because it’s true — the rest of the New Yorker Piece is pretty good, showing a side of Bleszinski and Epic that’s hidden from 1UP, Gamespot and Kotaku.

In fact, when the oft-feared Mainstream Media (said in deep, echoing voice) delves into video games for long-form magazine pieces, they usually handle the reporting and writing with a panache that, face it, you just don’t get with the enthusiasts. We “game journalists” fawn over CliffyB, but has anyone but Bissel bothered to talk to Bleszinski’s mother?

Gears of War, Media, Rants | 1 Comment »

Halo’s Elites and the Locust in Gears of War are similar. They’re big and tough and speak in growls and grunts. They’re also — at least in Multiplayer — cast as equal in ability to the heroes. But there’s a key difference between the two, and when you realize it, Gears of War’s single player seems kind of cheap.

The Locust’s shields do not regenerate. I know, this seems like a little thing to complain about, but think about what it says about your odds for survival and what you have to do to win. Even on Insane, the game’s highest difficulty, the you only have to find good enough cover to sneak the occasional potshot at the Locust in the distance. Even if they duck and cover, eventually you can wear them down. It just takes a little longer because they’re more accurate and their shots hurt more. This is lame.

In the Halo series, the Elites have the same abilities — and the same instincts — as you. They’ll fire at will when they see you, but they’ll look for a place to hide if they know they’re beat. This means that you really must outsmart them. You have to deliberately focus on taking out one Elite at a time, otherwise they’re back in a safe zone and you’re out another round of ammo. When you take down a pack of five elites, especially on Legendary difficulty, it’s a big deal.

On a related note, a lot of people complained that the multiplayer in Gears was poorly balanced. Critics didn’t like the frantic up-close combat, and they wanted more machine guns. In other words, they wanted the multiplayer to be more like the single player, where they could do their fighting from afar. With regenerating health, this simply would not work. Even if the long-range guns were stronger, no one would would ever stay up long enough to go down. You’d have a stalemate — two sides firing at each other until their clips are empty.

On one hand, maybe Gears should have done away with regenerating health altogether. First of all, there’s no logical explanation for it to begin with. Second, would even the odds in single player and make players more cautious. Instead of having players keep an eye on that red patch that indicates damage, their focus would simply be to not get shot. However, I don’t think this is the kind of game that Epic wanted to make. Some tactics are fine, but leave the overly cautious stuff to Ghost Recon and Counter Strike.

On the other hand, the current strategy in multiplayer works. You use the machine gun to keep people from wandering into the open, or to keep them pinned while your buddy sneaks up with the shotgun. This would have worked for the single player as well, had the teammate AI been a little smarter. In other words, if the single-player had been more like the multiplayer, perhaps there would have been less griping overall.

The bottom line is that Halo’s regenerating health system changed the way we think about shoot-em-ups. I’m not saying that any time it’s used, the enemies should have the same abilities — that’s certainly not the case for all of Halo’s foes. But when players can simply hide for a second or two and face no reprecussions for their cowardice, the entire experience is weakened.

Halo, Gears of War, Theory | No Comments »