I’ve been playing Battlefield: Bad Company 2. I wrote a story about the multiplayer. I keep forgetting single player’s even there. I default to the Engineer kit because I like the M2 Carl Gustav recoilless rifle. I can’t hit helicopters with it yet, but it has a larger blast radius and less regard for gravity than other launchers. This makes it good against infantry and lightly armored vehicles. Players say Carl is overpowered. I think they’re forgetting the 40mm grenade launcher, the M60 light machine gun, and the mortar strike. Rock, paper, shrapnel — every kit has its gimmick.

I only wish DICE would fix auto-team balance. Many games are ruined when a team loses and half its players quit, leaving the remainder overwhelmed. And then the server’s dead. It happens every day and it’s terrible. But I love this game.

I played Final Fantasy 13 much more in March’s first half than I did in its second. My schedule has been disrupted both by Flipsy and my growing love of Bad Company 2, and I prefer to only play RPGs when I know I have at least two hours before I plan to do something else. I plan things that way.

But I like this game. I like Sazh and the baby chocobo he keeps in his ‘fro. I like that new mechanics were introduced across multiple sub-plots until 25 hours into the game. I’m 32 hours in now, on Chapter 11, and I still don’t feel I’ve mastered the combat system. I haven’t read any reviews yet; do other people like it too? I think Final Fantasy 13′s design was a bold thing. I only wish either that preemptive strikes were easier to achieve, or that they felt less essential.

I’ve been playing King’s Bounty: Armored Princess as well. It’s a more convenient game than its predecessor now that it has fast travel and few quests require turn-ins to complete. It’s also a more balanced game now that Rage is useful from the start and it’s harder to specialize in multiple skill trees. Class choice has come to matter. I may replay it if a third game isn’t out by the time I finish a first time.

I’m not as scatterbrained as I was in February. Three games has been enough. A Dragon Age expansion came out and I barely noticed. I’ve heard it’s good; I’m waiting for it to go on sale. Sam & Max Season 3 (I’m calling it that even though TellTale isn’t) and the Skate 3 demo release on April 15. I’ll probably work on finishing Final Fantasy 13 by then.

This is the worst that PC game DRM has ever been. I shouldn’t be as jarred as I am, considering Ubisoft’s history with StarForce. At the same time, I’d also think they’d have learned from how customers responded to those practices and not gone on to worse ones. Read as they try to justify it, and give major respect to PC Gamer for grilling them. They expect me to pay $60 for a game that was released on consoles 5 months ago in addition to being treated like a criminal? No. Fuck that.

These are better reasons (half-truths, as opposed to total lies), but it’s probably best for everyone if Remedy and Microsoft just stopped talking about the PC version of Alan Wake until they’re ready to announce it.

This is just wonderful. I’ve been worried that the console, hand-held, mobile, and social versions of Civilization were indicative of the future of the franchise. Civ IV has aged so extraordinarily well that it almost made sense. But Firaxis is simply colonizing every platform; I’ll consider all of those as practice games for this, a new, proper Civilization game. With hexagons.

This is Stardock using known gaming personalities to show games to customers. I love the concept, but I’d prefer if they did second takes (Bob Came In Pieces) and sound checks (Sins of a Solar Empire) for some of the videos.

An indie contest sponsored by Activision? Ah, I see Master Kotick has developed an appetite for the young and uncorrupted.

Yep, yep. Yep.

Jul. 15th 2009: “Remedy has a deep heritage in PC gaming and would love to see a PC version available to its PC followers, ultimately however this decision lies with our publisher.”

Feb. 12th 2010: “Some games are more suited for the intimacy of the PC, and others are best played from the couch in front of a larger TV screen. We ultimately realised that the most compelling way to experience “Alan Wake” was on the Xbox 360 platform, so we focused on making it an Xbox 360 exclusive.”

What a heap of bovine excrement. By what logic is it not preferable to have a more “intimate” experience with the game Remedy is billing as a “psychological action thriller”?

Hooray. Take a cue, Redlynx, and give us a PC version of Trials HD.

I’m not sure that the first Bioshock had color blind accommodation, but it definitely had gamepad support and (after a patch) proper widescreen scaling. How and why do you remove such functionality in a sequel built on the same technology?

This is a fascinating feature about the best character in Mass Effect 2. For some nice shots (and potential wallpapers) of Thane, check out my Mass Effect 2 screenshot collection.

Still bracing for disaster.

I’ve liked and used SteelSeries mice and mousepads for the last few years because of their quality and customer service; now their chief marketing officer is publicly decrying one of the most effective marketing terms in his industry? SteelSeries, be my Valentine.

Have $5 worth of fun for $0.

I sympathize with those CS 1.5 players who refused to accept change; Steam had earned a reputation for being buggy, ugly, and for being a drain on system resources. These sentiments were so strong that their echoes can still be heard in backwater message boards today. But Valve, like Microsoft, believed in their service; they forced upon their customers a necessary change — they insisted on progress. That’s to be commended. Unlike Microsoft, however, Valve brought about change without forcing players to buy a new system or to buy a new game.

I also sympathize with those Xbox Live players who don’t get to continue playing Halo 2, a game for which anyone playing today (in addition to service fees) would have bought several map packs. They — just as the 40,000+ people playing CS 1.6 instead of CS: Source as I write — still play Halo 2 either because they love it, or because they can’t afford a new system that runs the newer games.

Closed multiplayer systems are why I and so many other PC gamers are apprehensive when we hear StarCraft 2 won’t have LAN or Direct IP support, or that Modern Warfare 2 won’t support dedicated servers. Whether we have the resolve to not buy these games is irrelevant: our apprehension is valid. These games — despite our service payments, our buying DLC, and our loyalty — can and will be taken from us, and they won’t all have a “WON2.”

See my Bearly Commentary article for my thoughts on this news.

It took some time to get all three items, but I’ve gone to more trouble to get worse free stuff. It helps that you don’t have to input valid info. Worth it.

This skin is amazing. Opera should really make it an official option when version 10.5 is final.

Good or not, 3D Sonic has never made sense to me, so I haven’t played a new Sonic game since Sonic & Knuckles. I’m ready for this new game to be good; I love 2.5D. I only wish Sega had mentioned a PC version in their announcement.

Best headline of the week. Also, California is coming.

I love Black Box’s developer diaries, especially since they’ve affected a more casual, less scripted tone.

“Hold on,” the candy-colored cues decree, “I’ve got this — just give me a nudge.”

If I obey the cue, I leap, and I dodge. If I disobey the cue, I fall, and I’m crushed. So I obey; I leap, and I dodge. Did I have control? No, I merely had influence. That’s because the Quick Time Event is an anti-player design device; it interrupts, it distracts, and it controls.

XXYABYX

I’ve never heard of anyone who enjoys Quick Time Events, so what’s to blame for their ubiquity? Perhaps developers use the QTE as a compromise, something between a non-interactive cut scene, and a playable contrivance. I see no reason for compromise, though, especially after playing 2008′s Prince of Persia.

There, unprompted and properly timed, I make the Prince and Elika perform an elaborate attack combination with complex animations. To start, the Prince slashes the enemy twice with his scimitar (X, X), and Elika blasts it with magic (Y). The Prince then flips over the enemy’s head (A) and throws it into the air (B) where Elika is waiting: she blasts it up farther (Y). Finally, the Prince leaps up and slashes downward at the enemy, surrendering it to gravity (X).

Such maneuvers are possible in other games, and they require similar button presses, but they come wrapped in QTEs. They require little timing, merely reaction. They’re imposing, rather than gratifying.

John McClane Wannabes

We can also attribute the Quick Time Event’s prevalence to developers chasing the “cinematic experience,” their goal to make us feel as if we’re heroes in an action movie. But I’m typically unimpressed by my character doing something which I don’t have direct control over. I want to leap the chasm, and to dodge the boulder. I want to fail, but not because I responded incorrectly to a prompt.

If your choice as a designer is either to limit control or to deny control, deny it; at least then I can relax and enjoy a cut scene without anticipating orders. Better still would be to keep me playing: do within the medium what’s possible without forgetting or betraying the medium. Even when I’m “in control,” I’m at the mercy of your design — make me think otherwise.