GIBertz Blog

A Few Of My Favorite Things From 2012

Matt Bertz — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 23:20:00 GMT

You've read our Top 50 Games of 2012 feature. You've seen our videos discussing the candidates for best game of the year. Now, check out my personal list of triumphs and failures from the past year.

Best Game: Dishonored

Best Shooter: Far Cry 3

Best Indie Game: Journey

Best Mobile/Tablet Game: The Room

Hero of the Year: Sabre Turret – Borderlands 2

Villain of the Year: Vaas Montenegro – Far Cry 3

Most Memorable Character: Clementine – The Walking Dead

Best Narrative: The Walking Dead

Best Soundtrack: Max Payne 3

Best Snack For Gaming Sessions: Pistachios

Best Drink For Gaming Sessions: Balvenie 12-Year Doublewood

Most Time Spent In Multiplayer: Battlefield 3

Worst Character: Jason Brody – Far Cry 3

Most Disappointing Game I Expected More From: Assassin's Creed III

Worst Game I Played All Year: Call of Duty: Black Ops – Declassified

Those are my picks. What are yours?

My 2012 Wish List

Matt Bertz — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 21:00:00 GMT

I'm still inundated with many great games that recently released, but once the holidays roll around I can't help but think about what's in store for gamers next year. With that in mind, here are 15 things I would love to see happen in 2012.

More Skyrim

I'm so immersed in Bethesda's spawning role-playing game that I'm avoiding the main story campaign because I don't want the experience to end. Eventually, Bethesda will announce a substantial expansion pack, which should give me the comfort to charge toward my destiny as Dovahkiin. Until then, it's guild quests and side quests for me.

BioShock Infinite

Among all this talk about social connectivity and online gaming being the future, no scheduled 2012 release has me more excited than a straight up single-player experience. I'm talking about Irrational Games' spiritual sequel to BioShock, one of my favorite games of this generation. I'm curious to see how creator Ken Levine leverages the vitriolic political climate of the floating city Columbia to inform the narrative, and I can't wait to jump on a Skyrail for some rollercoaster gun fights.

An Epic Finale For Mass Effect 3

Mass Effect 2 was one of my favorite games this generation, but I'm a little worried about how BioWare plans to wrap up the fight with the third installment of the trilogy. Pulling off a strong conclusion is crucial to the long-term legacy of this franchise, and I hope the corner cutting that was so apparent in Dragon Age 2 doesn't foretell a downfall for this series.

The Last Guardian

Where the hell is this game? I guess Fumito Ueda has one of those Kazunori Yamauchi development deals where Sony doesn't pressure him to meet deadlines and the game is "done when it's done." Team Ico announced the game at E3 in 2009, but since then it's basically gone dark. Here's hoping it returns to the spotlight soon.

New Battlefield 3 Maps

I'm anxiously looking forward to stepping back into my favorite Battlefield 2 maps with the Back to Karkand expansion pack in December, but I also expect DICE to deliver some new maps sometime early in the new year. If you want to convince your community that you consider the game a service, you can't make them wait six months between map packs.

A Decent Football Game

I couldn't have been more disappointed with Madden NFL 12, a game that promised many long overdue fan-requested features that ultimately fell flat due to poor execution. Is it too much to expect a football game on par with the leading sports franchises like FIFA, NBA 2K, and EA's NHL series? It's time for Madden to stop sucking for Luck and start living up to the quality of the sports league it represents.

A New Direction For Call of Duty

Call of Duty has dominated the shooter market this generation, but it's formula is starting to wear thin. I hope the next installment introduces some new elements to the gameplay that reinvigorate the franchise. I also wouldn't mind more variety in the style of maps they offer in multiplayer. Maybe it's time to re-introduce vehicles to the mix for a few maps like United Offensive had?

The Best Battlefield 3 Moments

Matt Bertz — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 18:46:00 GMT

One of my favorite things to do when a Battlefield game launches is find videos on YouTube of people pulling off insane feats that can only happen thanks to the game's massive scale, cool gadgets, and vehicular combat. The creative ways gamers discover to rack up kills never ceases to amaze me. Here are the best ones I've stumbled across.

Ninja Parachute
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This stealthy paratrooper drops in on an unsuspecting squad and cleans house with his pistol. The 101st Airborne would be proud.

Long Distance Death
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I'm a terrible sniper, but this guy has some major skills. Watch him drop an enemy from 961 meters with one well-placed shot to the skull. Tracking the bullet trajectory reveals the magnitude of this unbelievable kill.

Air Superiority
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This is the type of moment only Battlefield provides. Watch this jet pilot abandon his burned up bird and parachute down to a mid-air chopper like some sort of spec ops superhero.

Top Gun
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This video makes the case for letting fighter pilots keep rocket launchers in their cockpits. When your jet gets shot to pieces in a dogfight, what better way to exact revenge than by shooting your rival out of the sky with a well placed RPG while you're parachuting? Bonus points for the use of the Top Gun soundtrack.

Death From Above
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Battlefield deaths come in many varieties, but this is not the way I'd want to go. It's one thing to get a bomb dropped on your head from 10,000 feet. It's much more embarrassing when the plane pilot says, "screw this $55 million piece of advanced military hardware, I'm going to slam it right into that idiot shooting an abandoned jeep."

Jihad Jets
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The Jihad Jeep technique – the act of loading a jeep with C4, jumping out while the vehicle is still in motion, and detonating it around enemies – is the stuff of Battlefield legend. This guy takes the concept to an exponential degree by strapping the C4 onto his fighter jet, flying it straight toward a target, and jumping out just in time to detonate the charge.

MAV Massacre
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The Micro Air Vehicle was built primarily for aerial reconnaissance, but this creative lad decided to troll the opposing team and rack up an impressive amount of kills by slamming it into unsuspecting soldiers in prone position. I wonder, does the game have a dogtag for death by MAV?

The DIY Spirit
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C4 is basically the duct tape of destruction – you can use it in almost any circumstance in Battlefield. This squad chose to load up an MAV with explosives and guide it toward a helicopter. As Tenacious D would say, "that's F-ing teamwork!"

Scouting The Deficiencies In Madden NFL 12

Matt Bertz — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 18:29:00 GMT

I'm about as big an NFL fan as you're going to find. I watch as many games as I can during the season, tape preseason games and re-watch them to gain insight on position battles, play in multiple fantasy football leagues, and spend the NFL offseason pouring over scouting reports as if my opinion mattered and I could affect the decision making of my beleaguered Minnesota Vikings. Being such a football nerd, I eagerly anticipate the release of Madden each year.

After starting out with the disastrous Madden NFL 06, by and large the game has gotten better each successive edition this generation. With developer EA Tiburon's focus this year placed largely on franchise mode – the place I spend the majority of my time playing the game – I had very high hopes for Madden NFL 12. Unfortunately, a lot of the great ideas the team had fell flat in execution. After playing the game for review, I haven't been as keen to spend my free time with the game as I was with prior versions. Here are a few reasons why.

PRESENTATION
Madden art director Michael Young did a fantastic job of integrating the camera angles you see broadcasters use on Sunday into the game this year – for the most part the awkward replay angles are gone, and the close-up cams bring energy to the events. That said, there are problems abound with the presentation – most notably the rough commentary of Gus Johnson. Color commentator Chris Collinsworth's delivery sounds natural, but Johnson sometimes sounds robotic, sometimes comes across as overzealous, and most of the time is a few seconds behind the play. Gus also apparently doesn't know what constitutes someone being a game changer. Each game he highlights the Gatorade Impact Player, but apparently the only qualifications you have to meet is to be a living, breathing quarterback. Many times he has called out a QB with an abysmal rating rather than a player who just set the NFL single-game record for sacks, the stud running back who scored the only points on the board, or a defensive back who made a key interception. Way to show awareness of the game at hand, Johnson.

The crowd reacts more realistically to big plays this year, but sometimes cheers at inappropriate times as well. Late in the fourth quarter of one game, the crowd cheered enthusiastically when its defense got a third down stop. The only problem? That "stop" was courtesy of me kneeling on third down to run out the clock and preserve the victory. The stadium operators are prone to similar mistakes. When my struggling rookie QB Christan Ponder threw a pick-six, the stadium erupted with the "Skol, Vikings" celebration song while the opposing team lined up for the extra point.

Speaking of extra points, I wasn't happy to see EA remove The Extra Point weekly summary show from the franchise mode. It didn't always work in the past, with the commentators calling out worthless stats and highlighting inconsequential games instead of those with playoff implications, but with a fresh pass they could have reinvigorated the show. The NFL Countdown show in ESPN NFL 2K5 made me care more about league happenings than any other feature in a football game, and I wish EA hadn't abandoned their version without giving it a second pass.

Here are a few other problems I noticed as I played the game longer:

- The commentators made no mention of the fact they were broadcasting a divisional round playoff game
- Gus said "Welcome to Foxboro," the home of the New England Patriots, when the Super Bowl was taking place in New Orleans.
- The pre-game commentary and player introductions are way too repetitive. EA needs to embrace diversity.

GAMEPLAY
Many of the gameplay changes to Madden NFL 12 are positive, especially in regards to the running game. As I mentioned before, I love the (almost complete) removal of suction blocking. The renewed physicality during tackles is a welcome change as well, and the defensive pursuit seems better this year. Linebackers and defensive back move in more quickly to limit the potential for breakaway runs. As a gamer who tends to build off the running game, I appreciated all of these improvements (though the lack of gang tackling is noticeable).

The passing game, however, still gives me fits. EA spent a lot of time talking about the improved zone coverages, and the passing windows do seem smaller, but this tweak takes a backseat to problems I thought the franchise had done away with in the past. Quarterbacks fail to get rid of the ball even when they have enough time to complete a throwing motion before taking a sack. The ESP secondary is back too – several times I watched safeties with their backs to the play make a break toward the intended receiver a split second before the ball was released from my quarterback's hand. The leaping linebacker problem from last year wasn't fixed, either – I can't tell you how many times I swore in disbelief when an otherworldly linebacker leaped to knock down a pass intended for a receiver 20 yards away.

I noticed a few new problems, as well. Occasionally receivers don't locate passes, and oftentimes they fail to work back to the ball. Many stand there like Randy Moss during one of his ineffectual tantrums and make no effort to fight for possession; content to simply watch the defender make a play. This doesn't just apply to scrubs with low ratings, either. I watched All-Pro Larry Fitzgerald make no attempt for a pass while the mighty midget Antoine Winfield jumped to break up the play on a highly thrown ball. The odds of that happening on Sunday? Slim to none. Maybe the lazy effort of the wide receivers is why pass interference rarely gets called.

Last year EA introduced GameFlow, which promised to streamline playcalling to keep your nose out of the playbook. It worked on offense, but the defensive calls were seemingly made without regard to the opposing team's personnel on the field. Why call a base defense when the other team comes out with a four-receiver set? This year, EA gives you more control, with multiple options. Once again, the offensive system works well, and I love the option to specify if I want a run or a pass play. The changes to the defensive side of the ball, however, once again come up short. You have the option to choose between a recommended, aggressive, and conservative play. It makes sense on the surface, but in practice all logic is thrown out of the window. I'm not sure who told EA the definition of "aggressive," but Madden himself will be the first to tell you that cover four is the antithesis of the word. Since the plays often don't match the intended philosophy, I ended up calling my own shots in every game. Maybe next year they'll get it right by giving us options for blitz, zone, and man instead of these arbitrary categories.

Here are a few other minor things I noticed:

-Flipping formations may earn you an encroachment call because the nickel back's pathfinding is poor.
-Defenders staring down the quarterback in zone are very slow to react to scrambling quarterbacks once they cross the line of scrimmage.
-If a guard doesn't locate someone to block on passing downs, they'll stand around instead of doubling the guy next to them who is wreaking havoc.
-Highly rated right defensive ends are useless unless you directly control them. In three seasons with the Vikings, the most sacks Jared Allen accrued in a season was six.
-Players still don't block well on special teams.
-I watched a few ballcarriers clip right through a referee who couldn't get out the way.
-The hot and cold streaks don't always make senses during the games. If Adrian Peterson fumbles he's immediately on a cold streak, but he doesn't go on a hot streak when he has 107 yards and two touchdowns on a mere six carries?
-Poor clock management is back. With 23 seconds left in the half and the ball on the 20 yard line, a team called a running play. This makes sense given their distance from scoring position since they can run one play and head for the locker room. But after burning a few seconds off the clock, suddenly the team reversed it's thinking and called a timeout. For what? To run another run play, that's what. I also witnessed some teams who chose to run during the two minute drill when they should be throwing to preserve the clock.

How Not To Release A Game Demo

Matt Bertz — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 15:40:00 GMT

Gamers love demos because we get to try out a new title to make sure it's up to snuff before we spend our hard earned dollars. Publishers normally oblige when they believe the demo has a chance to win over players and get them to pony up the cash for the full release. But every once and a while a clunker releases that not only shatters any hope of the final game being good, it makes you question the sanity of the person who green lit the demo in the first place.

Case in point NBA Elite 11, the basketball reboot EA Sports hopes will close the gap between them and the long-standing better hoops option, NBA 2K11. As soon as the demo released, YouTube videos starting appearing that showcased just how broken the demo was. First came Lakers center Andrew Bynum striking a Jesus Christ pose at mid-court:

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That's just the tip of the iceberg. Then someone figured out a way to exploit the new shot stick controls. In NBA Elite, the success of your shot is determined by how straight you move the right analog stick upwards and the timing of your release. One clever gamer discovered that when you shoot a hook shot, which has a different shooting mechanic, it eliminates the need to time your shot perfectly. To make matters worse, you can take a hook shot from anywhere on the court! Watch the parade of threes rain down in this video:

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Then there's my personal favorite – a video that shows the basketball traveling through the head and body of rebounder Emeka Okafor. Notice the player's limbs also travel through his body. THROUGH HIS BODY!!

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Not exactly a ringing endorsement for your product. I'm not sure who at EA Canada approved this demo, but I think it's safe to say he or she's not going to have a glowing review at year's end.

Show Me The Maps! (And Guns!)

Matt Bertz — Wed, 26 May 2010 22:01:00 GMT

The Battlefield series got off to a rough start on consoles, but DICE struck the right formula with Bad Company 2. Since its early March launch, I’ve spent much of my free time climbing up the military ranks, unlocking new weapons, and collecting insignias and pins in the company of friends. Clearly I’m not alone, as the game has sold over five million copies to date, which catapulted it into the upper echelon of the Xbox Live usage charts alongside multiplayer juggernauts like Call of Duty and Halo.

But in the past few weeks, the game has started sliding down the ranks. It’s not just being usurped by shiny new titles like Red Dead Redemption, either. From April 19 to May 3, BC2 fell to the number seven slot behind older games like Call of Duty: World at War and Halo 3: ODST. There’s no shame in placing behind the perennial big dogs like Modern Warfare 2 and Halo 3, but when you start slipping behind other titles from these franchises it’s worth questioning why such a brilliant multiplayer game isn’t demonstrating the same traction as the big guns.

Xbox Live Usage Rankings

It's surprising to see the big drop off when you account for all the things Bad Company 2 does right in comparison to other multiplayer games. For instance, you can’t pin the blame on bugs or imbalances. Compared to the glitch fest of Modern Warfare 2’s first few months, Bad Company 2 has offered a relatively problem-free experience after EA solved the initial server overload issues. The occasional match suffers from lag, but nothing so crippling or frequent that it would cause a mass exodus. DICE analyzes the telemetric data frequently, and has succeeded in keeping the action balanced. When BC2 forum posters complained about the overpowered M60 and dominance of the Hind copters, the studio confirmed the imbalances in the data and responded by recalibrating the heavy machine gun and making tracer darts more useful against aerial assaults.

The community behavior can’t be held accountable for the shift away from Bad Company 2 either. Unlike the f-bomb dropping, gay bashing masses in Call of Duty and Halo, the Battlefield experience offers a respite from turbocharged, adolescent bursts of profanity. The only people you can hear while playing are the three other people in your squad, which eliminates the rancorous banter of guys talking about tea-bagging your mom and instead focuses the conversations on working together to keep your small pocket of soldiers alive.

When talking to former BC2 regulars on my Xbox Live friends list about why they aren’t playing the game anymore, two particular concerns dominate the conversations. The first is a dried up unlockable pool. Unlike in Call of Duty, most players have acquired all the weapons, modifications, and specializations by level 22 in Bad Company 2. Once you’ve secured the final weapons in the game, what are you fighting for? The carrot of continual incentives is gone. The first 20 or so ranks come quickly, but climbing from the middle ranks up to level 50 is a marathon that takes much more XP for each level. Many of the tougher pins and insignias also require long tours of duties where you must rack up hundreds of kills with specific weapons. I love the idea of a reward system that recognizes the hardcore, but to keep the less dedicated gamers immersed Battlefield could stand to adopt a bigger arsenal, more weapons-based progressions, and even character customization like Rainbow Six Vegas.

The second complaint I hear often from those who have abandoned Bad Company 2 is the lack of new maps. Bad Company 2 has some amazing levels, particularly Arica Harbor, but if you’re playing the game every night the familiarity starts to compromise the experience considering the multitude of new gaming options available to people every week. The VIP packs opened familiar maps for use in new modes, but that isn’t enough to keep people coming back. As the developers of Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, and Call of Duty have learned, offering map packs goes a long way toward keeping fans satiated, but DICE has yet to award is dedicated legions with new locales. Halo 3 gets around this problem with The Forge, a customization tool that allows players to tweak maps to their liking, but given DICE’s unwavering dedication to creating balanced multiplayer sessions a steady stream of new maps would be a better solution.

Once the Onslaught co-op multiplayer mode launches maybe gamers will return to Bad Company 2. If they don’t, EA and DICE had better start churning out new weapons, pins, insignias, specializations, and maps if they want to hold their place amongst the Call of Duties and Halos of the world. Gamers clearly took a liking to the game. We just want more.

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again

Matt Bertz — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

It all came down to a lack of preparation – at least that's what I tell myself now. The truth is much more damning.

In the snowy winter of 1988, my family was in the midst of our Friday ritual – pizzeria, movie store, and whatever shopping adventure my parents could fool us into joining with the promise of said pizza and movies. Normally the destination was a place we dreaded going to – Menards, Frank's Nursery, and Target were common, unappealing locations where my younger brother and I spent way too much time counting the black tiles on the otherwise white floor. After indulging in pepperoni pizza and Dr. Pepper, my parents revealed a surprise shopping destination any kid would gladly go to – Toys 'R' Us.

My brother and I assumed this trip to Toys ‘R' Us was going to be no different than any other visit. On a typical sojourn, we would walk down each aisle, marveling at one cool toy after another, silently listing off the reasons in our heads we needed to have this in preparation of making a desperate plea to our parents. As the elder sibling, I normally opened the proceedings.

“Could we please get this?" I asked in the most convincing voice I could muster in reference to whatever product happened to be in front of me, hoping to strike an emotional chord that would overwhelm my parents into gladly awarding us the goods. But aisle after aisle, toy after toy, our stalwart guardians would rebuff our pleas with a calmness and self-assuredness normally only witnessed in bodhisattvas.¹ Instead of succumbing to our self-interested overtures, our mother or father would B-line to whatever toy we were there to buy for whichever cousin's birthday happened to be coming up and leave us to wander the aisles imagining how much better our lives would surely be if only our parents let us indulge our every materialistic impulse.

But as we came up to the glass encasing that housed the Nintendo games, my father caught us off guard.

"Why don't you pick a game out, son?" he asked with a knowing smile as he prepared to bask in the flurry of excitement that was sure to explode from my brother and I.

Standing in front a the wall of 8-bit possibilities, I froze. How were we to whittle down the choice to one game? We already owned the heavy hitters like The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros., and Metroid. My friends had many of the other immediately appealing titles like Castlevania, Rad Racer, and Ikari Warriors. Why buy them when I can get them in a trade after my friend gets bored?

In an era before game publications like Game Informer existed, the decision of which game to buy was often determined by world of mouth, gut instinct, and the game with the most appealing cover art. Directionless and short on recommendations from friends, my brother and I narrowed the titles down to a short list that included titles like Slalom, Spy Hunter, and Winter Games.

The emphasis on athletic competition wasn't a mistake – my brother and I were extremely active children and the world was in the midst of its love affair with the XV Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta. When it was too cold to slap the puck around on the driveway, we spent each night glued to the television watching the Italian playboy Alberto Tomba rack up gold medals in skiing, the Jamaican bobsled team valiantly race in the face of superior competition, and a young U.S. hockey club led by future New York Rangers great Brian Leetch struggle to recapture the magic of the 1980 team.

Under pressure to make our decision quickly before my parents headed to the checkout counter, we went with Winter Games mostly due to the fact that it seemed to include more than one event. Why choose Slalom when Winter Games has skiing plus other events as well?

In the car, I feverishly opened the packaging to read through the instruction manual. With my brother looking over my shoulder we poured through each page, analyzing the controls in anticipation of getting a head start on one another once we popped the game into our NES. Once the car pulled into the garage, we sped into the house, popped the cartridge into the console, and began what we hoped to be an amazing recreation of the most popular Winter Olympic events. What actually happened once we pressed the power button couldn't be farther from that ideal.

Please join me in a special episode of Replay as as Reiner, Dan, Tim, and I relive the horrors of the worst game I ever had the misfortune of owning.

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After the trauma of wasting my parents' hard earned money on such a travesty, I vowed to never make a poor impulse purchasing decision again. So far so good.

Footnotes:

1: I have no real meaning to convey in this footnote, but since this blog title references to the eponymous collection of non-fiction works by the late author David Foster Wallace, I wanted to honor him by employing his most eccentric stylistic convention.

The Seedy Underbelly of Game Informer’s Tip Line

Matt Bertz — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 19:45:00 GMT

The Game Informer tip line is one of our favorite features of the revamped website. While the legit news tips help us report on rumors or stories we may have missed, we also receive a healthy dose of nonsensical ramblings. This is just a slice of what greets us in our inbox every morning. I want you to feel the full effect of the messages, so I’ve kept all the egregious misspellings, typos, and CAPS ATTACKS in place. To protect the identities of these wayward posters, we’ve made the tips anonymous.

Public Service Announcements
Some people just like to share, no matter the context. Like Brick Tamland openly declaring his love of lamps in Anchorman or our own Ben Reeves (fish, anyone?), these tippers aren’t afraid to yell their thoughts into a crowded room, even when they’re the only ones who know what they are talking about.

Tipster #1: PLAYING THE XBOX IS FUN TO ME.........
Tipster #2: the japaness game makers makes the most sexest games
Tipter #3: i aM dA Be$T aNd ALL sHaLL PeRiiSh unDER mAh hAnD...
Tipster #4: just thought i would submit this picture of me holding a playstation 3 remote.. not sure if this is the right place for it.. if not, please re-direct it. thanks http://www.flickr.com/photos/kidknapp6/4241956971/
Tipster #6: It is now 2010 which means Halo Reach will come out soon
Tipster #7: hello my gamertag is FM3 xXWAR94Xx
Tipster #8: cortney love is PISTED OFFFFFFF !!!!!!!!
Tipster #9: live off of videogames

Cries of Help From The Ether
Reality can be a cruel mistress. Ask these forlorn souls, who clearly are losing their relationship with waking life, however tangential it may have been in the first place.

Tipster #10: MY GAMES ARE NOT CAN YOU HELP ME IF YOU CAN HELP ME THAT WOOD BE GOOD FOR ME
Tipster #11: It's about SONIC SEGA ALL-STARS RACING and the fact they are not having NiGHTS as one of the main playable characters.This news has indeed shocked the NiGHTS fans from all over the globe,causeing a NiGHTS phenomenon,especially in a little NiGHTS community called NiGHTS Into Dreams.com.
Tipster #12: 370z please
Tipster #13: i want the game army of two right now :(

Two-Second Reviews
Our consumerists aren’t afraid to give honest feedback about the games they purchase. Instead of writing a user review, blogging, or posting a forum thread, these cats decided the tip line was the way to go. One tipster was so pissed at Halo Wars he offered his opinion twice!

Tipster #15: moddern warfer was short and sucked but it took up 7 hours
Tipster # 16: I wanted to talk about Halo Wars it stinks because I heard you only get to call the commands and you don't to kill any thing. Thats why it stinks.
Tipster #16: Halo Wars stinks Badly.Because you only call out the commands and you don't fight at all. Well, thats what i heard. Don't get it.It's just a waste of money.
Tipster #17: i konw that some of you know about this new game called borderlands here is something you might not know in the game there is just 3 guns. And if one is taking from you you can never get it back. So how do you get over like 566 guns I tell you why all of the guns in the game have diffrent power and accuracy. I know so cool of how they did that!!! So I think borderlands is cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tipster #18: just in i know i may be late but don't get terminator salvation if u like hardcore games because if u play a game all night don't get the game because u will beat it in one night or one day.
Tipster #19: Please rent Halo 3 ODST before you rent it I wasted sixty $ on it and I dont want other people wasting money
Tipster #20: I THINK THAT THQ WENT A LITTLE OVERBARD WITH THE NEW SMACKDOWN VS RAW BECAUSE WHAT ABOUT THE NEXT ONE? I DONT THINK THEY SHOULD HAVE PUT AS MANY NEW THINGS IN SvR 10 AS THEY SHOULD HAVE
Tipster #21: if you really like smackdown vs raw then dont get on d.s unless you have the the stick. the game is reall y dificult on d.s
Tipster #22: COD!COD!COD!I think mw2 is great so is waw.I think waw need another zombie map and the next cod should be Vietnam.Y you say.Because call of duty games so far have been ww2 or modern warfare.They need to change the game.Sher modern warfare 3 needs to come out but they should do a Vietnam.
Tipster #23: Have you played kingdom hearts re:chain of memories? It has a card system which makes it slow down the battle.

Game Tips
Our link says “Submit a News Tip,” but that didn’t stop these kids from going all GameFAQS on us and sharing the minutiae of their gameplay experiences.

Tipster #24: In Mario Bowser's inside story,when you get the drill bro`s icon,go where the area reacts when Bowser drinks water.At the entrance,use the drill bros icon go underground go to the right until you make it to the other side.
Tipster #25: On "Dead Space" alwys shoot the limbs and also always go through doors even if you are scared for there are more than likely schematics for suits and ammo for your guns.
Tipster #26: if your ps3 isn,t working on HDM1 then justin hold on the power button till eayou hear the second beep while its on
Tipster #27: On Guitar Hero 3. The cheats DO NOT WORk unless you are using the guitar. So next time it doesn't work and you are using the controller MAKE SURE YOU ARE USING THE GUITAR!
Tipster #28: In Mario Luigi Super Star Saga, shrink Mario with the hammer then use Luigi's High Jump but when he is up in the air, jump up with Mario. You will hit Luigi in the nuts but it's a great way to get coins. Just remember to have some mushrooms with you to heal Luigi.
Tipster #29: on halo 3 on high ground go on fordge and get up a tree and right there is a secret spot to snipe someone
Tipster #30: You can dual wield handguns in Modern Warfare 2
Tipster #31: on halo 3 there is a talking grunt

Questionable Understanding of the “Tip” Concept
Maybe it’s not their fault. Maybe we have a site error on obscure browsers like Opera or IE8 that replace the term “Submit a News Tip” with “Submit a Question.” That would explain these guys.

Tipster #32: i was wondering cause i dont have a ps3 about heavy rain umm is is at all a game worth playing
Tipster #33: will there ever be a new mortal kombat game
Tipster #34: do u think halo reach is going to be good
Tipster #35: I was just wondering, why is there not any RTS games on the Wii? This console seems to be able to work with a RTS, seeing how some of the RTS' graphics arent the greatest and neither is the Wii.
Tipster #36: would like to know when the wii is coming out with better games.war games.
Tipster #37: it would be nice if you would make a new game a sniper game. to were u go and do missions

Captain Obvious
This just in, Halo: Reach may not be the last Halo game! We all know certain announcements are inevitable, but that didn’t stop these soothsayers from looking into their crystal balls and stating the obvious.

Tipster #38: plyastation4 is coming but i don't know when.
Tipster #39: I heard there ia a transformer 3 movie coming soon.

Autosave Rage

Matt Bertz — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 18:07:00 GMT

It's happened to all of us. After questing for hours, losing yourself in the intricacies of an immersive role-playing world, your party falls in battle. Sometimes you're legitimately outmatched by a powerful new enemy. Other times the death can be chalked up to experimentation or laziness on the battlefield. As the battle turns against you, you drop the tactical exercise and hedge your bets on your tank standing tall in melee combat and outlasting the final opponents. After all, with the handy autosave feature backing up your every move, what do you have to lose? If your gambit fails, you can simply pick up from where you left off, right? Wrong.

A few beers and hours into exploring world of Ferelden in Dragon Age, I got careless. Wandering the back alleys of the massive city Denerim, I was approached by a band of thugs who dropped all pretenses of pleasantry and drew their swords. My party was a band of seldom used characters. Sick of Leliana's bubbly spirituality, I dropped her for the rogue Zevran (who, by the way, has the worst character introduction in role-playing history. Who adopts an assassin right after they try to kill you?!). I rounded out my band of misfit companions with the sarcastic golem Shale and the ever dismissive Morrigan, who hates me a little bit more every time I take another sidequest. As the battle started, I let my new comrades run loose see if they had the mettle to find permanent spots in my party rotation. As the fight turned ugly, I came to the conclusion that without some series tactical revision, these health poultice addicts were good for nothing but draining my supplies. Rather than waste half my medical goods, I let the fight run its course in anticipation of picking up where the autosave left off. Having taken on and completed several quests around town over the last few hours, it made sense that there would be an autosave not too far in the past. Boy was I wrong.

When my last save point loaded, my jaw dropped in astonishment when I saw my former party in Honnleath. It took me a while to recollect how long it had been since I had freed the golem in that village. Retracing my steps, since my last hard save I refitted all my companions with new equipment in the party camp, had a heart to heart with Alister about the Arl of Redcliffe, defeated the Trickster Whim on the road to Denerim, and completed countless quests within the city confines. WHERE WAS THE G@DD@*$#D AUTOSAVE?! As I sat there letting disappointment take hold, I flashed back to the countless role-playing games that burned me in the exact same fashion. Mass Effect, Final Fantasy, Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind - you name it, and I likely spewed a deluge of swear words at the screen when a save failed me proper.

I've been a fan of lengthy RPGs like Dragon Age since the first time I journeyed to Brittania in Ultima decades ago, and meticulous save files have always been a necessary part of the equation. When you're looking at an uphill climb of over 60 hours to finish the narrative and its complementary sidequests, the pain of forgetting to document your every accomplishment and the arduous trial of recompleting quests can be such a maddening experience that it ultimately breaks your spirit and makes you abandon the game altogether. Rather than picking up the pieces in Dragon Age, I ejected the disc from my console and opted for a game of Madden to cleanse the palatte.

The most frustrating part of the autosave failures is that these games are at their best when I'm not thinking of saving every five minutes. As my conversations with my companions grow deeper and the missions become more involved, I forget the necessarily mechanical dimension of interactivity, the barrier between the controller and screen disappears, and I'm left with the nakedness of the experience. With a forgiving autosave system that chronicles your every achievement or location change, this naked interaction could be preserved, even if on a whimsy I play fast and loose, falling ingloriously in a routine battle. Tomorrow I'll resume Dragon Age, but you can *** well bet I'll be hitting the start button every five minutes to make a hard save.

My Top 10 Time Sucks

Matt Bertz — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 21:50:00 GMT

Since everyone else is calling out their Top 200 snubs and personal favorites, I decided to take a different approach. Which games or series have I physically spent the most time with? These aren’t just games you play through and throw back onto the shelf. No matter what else I was playing, these games never left the side of my console or PC – these are the worlds I returned to in between new games and the cool-down games I fired up to regain my equilibrium after a long thumbstick sessions.

10. Star Wars: X-Wing

My favorite flight combat sim of all time. I bought my first flight stick for this game, and the hours I spent flying X-Wings, B-Wings, and A-Wings head on into waves of oncoming TIE fighters delivered some of my favorite gaming memories. The narrative blended perfectly with the original trilogy, with missions revolving around intercepting the plans for the Death Star, discovering the planet buster's secret location, and fleeing Yavin IV after Luke Skywalker blasts it to bits. Managing your shields, blaster fire rate, and engine resources proved to be a riveting challenge in space battles where the only guarantee was that you would be severely outnumbered. Fighter pilots received medals and patches for completing training missions and surviving tours of duty, and I kept playing until I had every one.

9. Medieval II: Total War

I’ve sunk countless hours into every Total War and Civilization game, but almost four years later I still find myself returning to my grand campaigns in Medieval II. Creative Assembly’s unique blend of real-time military tactics and turn-based political scheming has always appealed to me, but something about the medieval era keeps me coming back for more even after the stellar Empire: Total War released this year. As I expand the reach of my empire though deft political maneuvers and military conquest, I find the it's the little decisions – like grooming new generals into powerful commanders and rigging the Papal Council by filling it with priests loyal to my cause – that keep me so engaged.

8. NHL 09

Hockey games have taken a large chunk of my time since NHLPA ’93, but after years of above average efforts by EA and 2K Sports alike NHL 09 found the five hole that created a black hole in my life. EA Canada's sporting masterpiece connected with me in a way I hadn’t experienced since my childhood days spent with Baseball Stars, Bases Loaded, and Tecmo Bowl. I was determined to become a legend in the Be A Pro mode, playing through several seasons in my quest to win the Stanley Cup with my beloved Wild, lead the league in scoring, and level my player up to the point that he became best to ever play the game. Top this with the EASHL, which finally brought true six-on-six competition to life, and you have the gaming equivalent of crack for a hockey fan.

7. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Though Fallout 3 delivered a more fully realized world to explore, Bethesda’s first next-gen game holds a special place in my heart for how clearly it dominated my early days with the Xbox 360. The mother of all current-gen time sucks, I did everything you could possibly do in Tamriel two times over. I completed every guild quest, hunted down every Daedric artifact, picked mountains of alchemy ingredients (why, I'll never know), explored every dungeon, and even fought bears with my bare hands for giggles. The game proved to be the gift that kept on giving as well, with loads of DLC and the wonderful Shivering Isles expansion pack to explore.

6. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

My favorite BioWare role-playing game also happens to be my favorite Star Wars game of all time. The story featured everything the craptastic new trilogy didn’t – engaging characters I cared about, a brave new imagining of the Star Wars galaxy, and a plot twist for the ages. The game's deep battle tactics, open-ended plot progession, Hollywood quality voice overs, and wonderful characters (besides Carth) drew me in like no other RPG. After finishing my first journey with a just and powerful Jedi, I immediately rebooted the game so I could channel my inner Sith Lord and play though the story using the Dark Side of the Force.

5. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

I’m something of a GTA aficionado. From the first top-down PC game to The Ballad of Gay Tony, I’ve finished every one of Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto Games. Vice City, however, is the only one I played through several times over. The hilarious parody to ‘80s excess won me over with its fantastic sense of place, wacky cast of characters, the best game soundtrack ever created, and, perhaps most importantly, the addition of the motorcycle. I wasted hours just looking for new jumps to throw my crotch rocket off in the virtual Miami.

4. A Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past

I’ve finished hundreds of single-player campaigns, but A Link To The Past is the only one with which I need two hands to count the times I’ve played the game from beginning to end. The story of Link's coming of age, a new array of weapons, multi-level dungeons, and a dangerous parallel universe gave this game more depth and diversity than any other title in the series. Over the last decade my love of brand new Zelda games has waned, mainly because too many of them copy this thrilling adventure that they will never match or surpass in quality.

3. Madden NFL 99

The introduction of Madden’s franchise mode was the greatest gift video games offered me during college. My flat mates each adopted a team, and we spent countless hours trash talking, making controversial trades (you could trade fullbacks for first round picks!), and jockeying for bragging rights over the course of several seasons. Some of us even starting scheduling classes differently so we could have time alone on the console to hone our skills and discover new money plays in private. Even though we’re now scattered across the country in our various professions, when EA announced the addition of online franchise mode in Madden NFL 10, my first thought was about rekindling the special Madden-based bond we formed back in college.

2. Battlefield 2

I loved Battlefield 1942, but when DICE took queues from the fantastic Desert Combat mod created by Trauma Studios (now Kaos Studios) and launched the sequel in a modern setting, my dedication to the company’s fantastic multiplayer combat started bordering on addiction. The addition of squads, target objectives, weapon unlocks, level progression, and comprehensive stat tracking had me hooked. Our squad, dubbed Bear Patrol, logged hundreds of hours into striking Karkand and liberating the Sharqi peninsula. The key to this game's quality is the variety it offered on the battlefield. One night we'd rain down hell by chopper, another we'd dominate tank battles, and if we were feeling particularly gutsy we'd make a break for the opposition's base to take out their UAV and artillery with our spec ops kits. No matter which tactic we adopted, one thing was guaranteed – we had a blast.

1. Tecmo Super Bowl
No game dominated my childhood as thoroughly as Tecmo Super Bowl. Ever try to win the Super Bowl with every team in a football game? I did several times over, even taking the Mosi Tatupu-led joke of a team that was the 1990 New England Patriots to the big dance. My dedication to this pigskin triumph reached Rain Man levels – I even chronicled the history of Super Bowls and wrote down my passing, rushing, and receiving records in a notebook so I could try to best them with another team in the next go around.

So that’s my list. What are your ultimate time sucks?

Buggin' Out: What's Up With The Hoops Games This Year?!

Matt Bertz — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 20:59:00 GMT

The Internet is abuzz with backlash over the bug-heavy releases of both NBA basketball games, particularly NBA 2K10. Many sports gamers have dusted off their pitchforks over the shoddy work, and the company responses have been swift. Visual Concepts announced a patch to fix the most egregious issues with 2K10 is due any day now, and EA Sports announced today that an NBA Live patch is available for download as we speak. Hopefully the patches bring the games up to speed, because both can be fun games when they're not suffering through wack glitches. Sit back and enjoy some game development bloopers worthy of the Washington Generals.

NBA 2K10

The Wait:

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Super Glitch Juke:

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White Men CAN Jump!:

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NBA Live 10

The Assy McGee:

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Keep Your Hands To Yourself!

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My Franchise Favorites

Matt Bertz — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:30:06 GMT

Think sports fans aren’t geeks? Quit kidding yourself. If you spend your free time tracking the statistical minutiae of third down conversion percentages, buying fantasy football strategy guides, and breaking down the pros and cons of stacking nine men in the box against a running back in Madden, you have a lot more in common with D&D players than you think. Nowhere is this more personified than the franchise mode, a staple of modern sports games.

The reason franchise modes hold power over sports gamers is self-evident – it’s the one place where fans of moribund teams like the Detroit Lions, Minnesota Timberwolves, and Chicago Cubs can win a championship. The key to creating these Cinderella stories is giving players the ability to shun the idiotic philosophies of failing general managers and boldly rebuild the team as they see fit. Is your inaccurate quarterback costing you in come-from-behind situations? Trade for a new one. Want to get rid of that locker room cancer Milton Bradley? Waive him at the push of a button. The possibilities for team transformation in pursuit of a championship are endless – unless the game gets in your way. Since the franchise mode is such an integral part of the sports game experience, I wanted to give shout outs to my favorite franchise features. Here are the shining examples of excellence in the areas that matter most:

Free Agency – NBA 2K10
The Association is the most complete franchise mode in sports games, and the crown jewel of its experience is the free agency system. By giving players unrivaled flexibility in contract negotiations and arming the CPU teams and players with behaviors that reflect their real-word counterparts, developer Visual Concepts has created a unique player ecosystem that rises above simply tweaking salary sliders until your target accepts your offer. In NBA 2K10, you’re not only offering a lump sum of money to a free agent; you’re offering a role on the team that must jive with a player’s desires. While a 34-year old center whose career is waning may be comfortable being a contending team’s sixth man, chances are you won’t land that young and talented guard unless you tell him that he’s the focal point of your team.

This level of realism makes the frantic opening days of free agency much more heart pounding. As you track other offers your prized target is fielding, you start to get a better feel for what types of situations make the player the most comfortable. It’s then up to you to offer him more money to push your offer to the top, or start focusing your attention on another player who may be a better fit. Forcing the user to account for these types of variables during the negotiation process ultimately results in a more compelling experience. I would love to see other sports games adopt this approach.

The Draft – Madden NFL 10
Historically, drafts have been menu-driven experiences marred with poor graphics and unmanageable sums of information. Some games have so devalued the process that they skip the in-season player scouting altogether and simply show you the player ratings during the draft! Talk about lazy. If millions of Americans will buy pre-draft scouting guides and throw away entire weekends to watch NFL teams draft college players, don’t you think there is a market for a more well-rounded experience?

The now defunct NFL Head Coach franchise did great job of dramatizing draft day with a deep scouting system, a flurry of draft-day trade offers, and presentation that presented information in an easy to manage way. Rather than leave this progress on the cutting room floor when EA fired its Head Coach, Tiburon ported some of the game’s best qualities into Madden NFL 10. The two best additions? Introducing a new scouting system that divulges information about a player as you spend more time watching him during the season, and the handcrafted draft classes that guarantee early-round busts and late-round gems in every draft.

By placing underachievers and diamonds in the rough in each round, you feel like something is at stake as you scout players over the course of a season. Do you get a rough feel for the majority of players in the draft class, or do you concentrate on a select few and hope they are still around when you draft? That cornerback atop your big board may have the combine numbers to earn him a first-round grade, but if you don’t do your due diligence you’ll never know he has the awareness of a field goal post. Blowing your draft picks also has a trickle down effect to the rest of your roster – if you’re stuck with the bloated contract of an untradeable first round bust like JaMarcus Russell, it inhibits your ability to take corrective measures in free agency. This brings the draft tension more in line with the real-life festivities – you pray that your designated target falls to you, and if he’s gone, the pressure is on to either trade out of the spot or go with your second “he was actually at the top of our board all along” option.

Trades – NHL 10
Almost every trading system in sports games has problems, with the core issue being trying to figure out what the hell the other teams are thinking. To make the trading process both operable and enjoyable, the game needs to give more feedback than simply rejecting your offer or presenting an inexplicable counter-offer (I’m looking at you, NBA Live 10). While NHL 10 suffers from questionable trades between CPU teams, the game does a fantastic job giving us useful information with its robust trade block and rumor system. The innovative slider system lets you fine-tune the kinds of trades you are open to, whether that is for veteran players, prospects, or draft picks. Each CPU team page also displays their preferred trade parameters, which helps you find an ideal trading partner. This system is complemented by the rumor mill, which lets you know who teams are dangling as bait.

Another area the NHL devs nailed is the frequency of trade offers. As with the real NHL, most teams approach you about player swaps during two hectic periods – draft day and the trading deadline. Your phone will have no shortage of phone calls during these events, giving you a wealth of opportunities to explore.

What are your favorite and least likeable franchise modes? Discuss in the comments section.

$4 NFL Jerseys For Avatars? Child Please!

Matt Bertz — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:59:33 GMT

NFL replica jersey- $80

Xbox Live Avatar NFL jersey- $4

The NFL teaming up with Microsoft to price gouge rabid football fans- Priceless

Codec Chatter: Assassin's Creed Scribe Corey May

Matt Bertz — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:20:57 GMT

I love writing for magazines because the monthly format allows us to delve deeper into topics that blogs and websites typically touch upon as they happen and henceforth abandon. But one of the big drawbacks to the print world is the page count; we only have so much space each month, and a lot of our great conversations stay in house. Not anymore. With Game Informer 2.0 reporting for duty, the staff writers now have a forum to capitalize on our access to industry figureheads and deliver interviews that show you a new side of these talented individuals. First up is Corey May, the charismatic and passionate writer behind Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed II. So without further ado, I present the inaugural Codec Chatter column.