1 vs 100 will be free to Silver Live players this weekend

Microsoft sent along a press release letting us know that Silver members of Xbox live will be allowed in to 1 vs 100 play this weekend. Maybe those Silver players who haven't joined the Gold ranks of Xbox Live will be enticed by the community game show. I've only played around with 1 vs 100 during the extended play sections. Its hard to make sure I sit down and play during the live show, but I'm always interested in trying it out. Maybe I'll hop on tonight or later this weekend.

The extended play is fun, but ultimately there's only a competitive aspect and little else. The questions are easy, and if you don't know the exact answer, an well-educated guess will usually net the correct answer.

I've always thought that the ramifications of 1 vs 100 as a primtime program are much bigger than the game itself. Having programming on a video game console certainly positions it to become the center of a family's household, and in many ways that's what Microsoft set out to do with their Xbox machine. I think slowly over time the PC and the Xbox will look more and more like eachtoher, especially with the small revisions that are sure to start with Project Natal and beyond.

Anyways, get out there and play some 1 vs 100 Silver users!

FURTHER READING / 07.15.09

FURTHER READING's delinquency is inexcusable to be sure, but I have to offer my apologies. I've been running desperately trying to find a job. I've found where to apply for some writing jobs at UGO (parent company of 1up), but I'm also trying to find how I can start getting my name out even further, or possibly finding a job at an actual game company. Several calls have got me leads to a few places, but I have to continue diligently working to find work.

Like I said, I have to say that I'm sorry for being so tardy with FURTHER READING, so I offer a super sized FURTHER READING with blogging back on track tomorrow.

• Crackdown's profits were hurt specifically by used game sales,
• Bayonetta got a release date in Japan,
• Batman: Arkham Asylum might have a lot more fan service that previously anticipated,
• Kotaku runs down some summer blockbuster games, and
• Dragon Quest IX gets a perfect score from Famitsu.
  

FURTHER READING / 07.13.09

Today was a hot day in California. I keep thinking each morning that we're going to have a nice 80 degree day and each day I'm proven dead wrong. To beat the heat I stayed inside and read (or watched) this stuff:

• Seth and Sagat might be overpowerd (but what about everyone else I faced today online?);
• Totilo looks at the effect of the summer blockbuster on video games;
• and the Modern Warfare 2 Prestige edition is rediculous.
  

WRITE UP / 07.13.09

Today was a busy day of gaming for me. Plainly put I picked through as many games as I could and played what I managed to in spurts.

1) I woke up and played a couple of rounds of Battlefield 1943, but without Zach on and playing as well it wasn't as much fun. Despite this I got through two and a half rounds before turning it off and doing something a bit more productive. The teams in each of these rounds were pretty even though, which is extremely fortunate after last night's terrible matches where a lot of the players on the other team were quitting early on and leaving one player stranded behind them. My team came out victorious of course and I even scored the highest on the last game I played.

2) A couple of hours later I tried playing Street Fighter IV online. I won two out of the 10 or so matches I tried to play. The other 8 matches I spent on the ground or frantically trying to sweep my way out of corners. One opponent spammed Sonic Booms as Seth until I cursed loudly at the end of the two rounds. Its as if a whole opened up in the universe, a boot came out, and kicked me in the ass. As much as I'd love to play more SF IV online, I can't imagine I'll be in the mood for such punishment in the near future. That play session still netted me an extra 30 gamerscore points though, 20g for winning my first match online, and 10g for setting a new title and icon.

3) I also played about 20 minutes of Mirror's Edge before I realized again why I put the game down after enjoying it so much. Before I had stopped playing ME, I was trying to complete the speed runs the game rewards achievements for. The speed run for Jacknife is about 10 minutes long, but my obsessive nature has me restarting every time I think I've wasted a second or two, even though I'm sure if I just completed the mission I'd have it cleared under the wire. My previous time on Street Fighter IV had me feeling pretty defeated though so I put the game back on the shelf.

4) I played Peggle on my iPhone for a breif time as well today while I was watching the latest section of the Bonus Round on Gametrailers. I've been trying to complete each map at 100% but Birdy's Crib continues to evad me. Each attempt I think I get closer and closer to completing it, but towards the end of the level, the pegs are too disjointed and spread out for me to get each one with my remaining shots.

PS3 Slim Video Drops in to Back Up the Rumor

I don't know how badly video game companies can keep secrets anymore, but Sony is doing a good job of raising the bar here with their redesign of the PS3. Judging from the video I think they've made a good decision in making it more like a set top box that will fit along with your surround sound system and the like.

Much of the video game community feeds on rumor and speculation like this (at least those that aren't drooling over new Madden '10 screens), so it makes sense that this slow trickle would keep the people biting at the possibility of a sleek new design for the struggling PS3. If I were still working at Best Buy though I'd have no qualms about telling people looking at buying a PS3 to wait it out and see what was coming down the line. Who knows, maybe it'll never come out. PR people love to deny things until they're white faced and falling over, but when will Sony let them off the hook?

Another question I have is when this business of design and redesign will end? It starts with 15% changes to each new iteration of the Nintendo DS, then the removal of a drive from the PSP, now the PS3 will look like a regular old Blu-ray player but still be able to play games.

In a way its a very smart business plan, what with techies and people with disposable income snatching video game machines and media players up like the last one they had doesn't work anymore. But despite this, I kind of miss completely new console and handheld iterations. When the DS and PSP originally debuted it was the kind of thing you could drool over endlessly, but now, the DSi is only barely maintaining its place at the back of my conciousness, and I shrug over the PSP-Go, wondering if I'll ever invest Sony's handheld.

Hopefully we'll see something a bit more official from the PS3 slim, but until now we can only ponder and wait to see what's coming in the next few months.

FURTHER READING / 07.12.09

It was a busy weekend of Bruno, hanging out with Jenna and Ryan, and playing Battlefield 1943 with Zach, but its not over yet.  These past few weeks have been extremely slow in gaming news, and FURTHER READING has been feeling it.  Honestly it was nice taking a vacation from looking at nothing happening on the industry news front.  That doesn't mean there hasn't been quite a few interesting tid bits though, and so FURTHER READING will soldier on.  Each weekday you can point your browser here for FURTHER READING and the usual posts, but there will only be one FURTHER READING over the weekend.  This doesn't mean that there won't be other posts, reviews, and musings each Saturday and Sunday, but FURTHER READING will post each Sunday night from now on.  Also, if you're stumbling upon this blog and you have a site that you're looking for writers on, please drop me any line as I'd love to be given regular assignments and to contribute to other places on the web which might net me new readers.  Here's what piqued my interest this weekend:

• 5 million kills are racked up in the first day's release of Battlefield 1943 (I've contributed 356 and I'll rack up some more tonight),
• the Mario Marathon is back and bigger than before,
• and this Destructoid editorial passes sage advice on to Sony.

Dragon Quest IX launch throug the eyes of Tim Rogers

Tim Rogers has an interesting write up about the Japanese launch of Dragon Quest IX, a holiday of sorts in the land of the rising sun. In said write up, he asks a specific question about the nature of gamers lining up for a hotly anticipated release.

"I wanted to buy Dragon Quest IX, and not just stare at people in a line, so I walked around the corner to the Bic Camera. Bic Camera, like all the other shops in the area, wouldn't open until 11am, though they had a table set up out front with hundreds of copies of the game — and not a single customer. This is interesting. Maybe. People would much rather wait in line for something than not wait in line for the exact same thing. Why? You know the thought experiment about what happens if you place a donkey perfectly equidistant from two absolutely identical bales of hay? He starves to death! Bic Camera and Tsutaya were not identical bales of hay. At the end of the day, however, they tasted the same. (From the Tsutaya exit, I could just barely see Dragon Quest series producer Yuji Horii standing inside, numerous flashbulbs going off like popcorn all around him. I recalled that time I saw him smoking a cigarette outside of Tokyo Game Show, and I said hello to him, and he did an amazing job of pretending that he didn't think I was a psycho.)"

Having worked both sides of this phenomenon, retail and within the line, I can offer a unique understanding of what's going on.

I see the central question as "why would anyone want to wait in line for a hotly anticipated game when you could just pick it up in an instant?" The answer would have to be that lining up is one of the few community aspects that require gamers to be in close contract with each other anymore. The death of the arcade and the advent of online gaming has only encouraged gamers to stay in doors. Game launch's or console launch's allow gamers who are already interested in the same title or console to coerce and interact with each other in a friendly manner. Friends can be made!

That's not to say lines can be a little less than friendly. In 2006 when the PS3 and Wii were launching, it was like A Tale of Two Cities. The Wii line was friendly, but the PS3 line was held up every so often and people's cars were broken into. The people waiting to pick up the PS3 weren't fans, they were scalpers.

Hopefully we'll continue to see launch day lines (for those that choose to participate) and other forms of communing with fellow gamers.

REVIEW: Battlefield 1943 for the Xbox 360

Battlefield 1943 is a sort of remake to Battlefield 1942's Pacific Theater. Redesigned maps and gameplay are letting console gamers get in on the multiplayer action that PC gamers have been enjoying for years. This new iteration takes controls, engine, and gameplay from DICE's Bad Company series (the second of which is coming out soon). This means that gameplay will have players running, driving, and flying around these maps. Plus the new game engine allows for the destruction of buildings and trees so if you see an enemy slink in through a door, just blow a whole through the wall and take them out.

I haven't played a Battlefield Game since Battlefield 2, and even then I wasn't playing that much. Messing around on the maps now has me brimming with nostalgia. The theme music is there and so is the action. While most of my kills have been coming from shooting the other team, there's something extremely satisfying to the vehicular action. Flying a plane (and being successful at it) is extremely rewarding and fun because of the sense of speed and the idea that you're scaring the crap out of the other team. Tank to tank battles are even, so you'll need skill to stand come out victorious. Of course if you have a pair of infantrymen with you, the other tank won't really stand a chance.

I guess what I'm getting around to is that Battlefield 1943 is an extremely well balanced game. I don't think I'd be having as much fun at it if it weren't. After playing all sides of the battle, I can say that when I take down a tank on foot, its not because the tank is underpowered, in fact I'll have died three times against three other tanks before taking this one down, but when I do its because I was better than the other player. Take for example my current situation with planes. I can score multiple kills with the bomber, but I can't really fly at all. I'll go up into the air, navigate a little, but my piloting gets squirrelly, or I'm shot at, and I come down. But like I said, BF 1943 is all about balance, so I find myself fairly decent at bringing planes down with anti-air guns.

The three classes are also pretty well balanced. The rifleman has accuracy without distance, middle of the road power, and mid reload speed. The infantry has a speedy reload, and a tank busting bazooka, but very little accuracy and distance. The scout has a sniper rifle with high accuracy and damage to other soldiers, but that's about it.

I've been playing the rifleman the most. Its the most well rounded and easy to learn. The nuances of balance have to be learned in order for a player to recognize what they're facing, and then take the most appropriate action. How's that work? After playing a little bit you'll recognize just how far a class's gun will shoot, how to approach a capture point as a certain class, and whether or not you should run from the tank coming over the hill or stand and fight.

After that, its just up to you to have fun with the game. Battlefield 1943 is easy to get into, easy to dedicate a lot of hours to, and easy to play. Most importantly, its fun. I'd recommend it to anyone who can get it.

PLAY READ WRITE / REVIEW SCORE: 4 OUT OF 5

FURTHER READING / 07.10.09

FURTHER READING has gone mobile today as I'm out hanging out with Jenna and seeing Bruno.  How do I get the little dots over the U anyways?  That doesn't keep me from blogging though.  NOTHING WILL! NOTHING!

I don't know what happened there, but here are a couple of interesting tid bits to look at, play around with, or read:

• Kotaku's Saboteur impressions have been posted and although this one seems to be flying pretty low under the radar, I'm still fairly interested,
• you can play Street Fighter II CE in your web browser, but I don't know if you'll enjoy it very much (I can still pull of hadoukens and shoryukens with the arrow keys, maybe I'll try it out with the 360 pad when I get home),
• and Battlefield 1943 Coral Sea challenge is underway, but I'm not doing my part today.

FURTHER READING / 07.09.09

Most of my day has been spent playing Battlefield 1943 on Xbox Live. It was interesting to see the game go from horribly buggy with terrible connections, to surprisingly good. I've been thoroughly entertained for quite a few hours today, just milling about in the pacific. It helps that my friend Zach has been playing along too. I'll keep FURTHER READING short so I can get back to the game.

• The ESRB description of Scribblenauts makes the game sound so fun,
• the Call of Duty moniker finds its way back in front of Modern Warfare 2,
• and Battlefield 1943 overcomes its launch day issues to become a summer hit.
  

Quick Battlefield 1943 Impressions

Earlier today I finally got around to entering my code for my E3 copy of Battlefield 1943. I launched the game and found that it was marred with issues. Before noon, I could barely find myself an open slot in a match, and when I did find that slot, my game was extremely laggy and buddy. When driving one of the game's jeeps, it would bounce around as if ricocheting off of rubber walls. Everything seemed topsy turvy. This was due to the many issues players had been suffering for the past 24 hours. After reading about EA addressing the issue and adding more servers all day long, I decided to walk away and take care of some work.

When I finally returned everything seemed perfectly fine. I got a spot and started to dominate the other team. Capturing points on the map worked fine, there was no lag when shooting the other players, and it was fun racking up points. The only problem was that I couldn't join my friend's game. I waited patiently and joined together in a squad with my friend. We started a match together and everything worked out alright, but it was still frustrating not being able to join his match right away. I'm guessing that'll be fixed as the server load is matched to the player load over the next week.

I'm excited to play more and I'll have the official PLAY READ WRITE REVIEW up soon.

FURTHER READING / 07.08.09

So it turned out to be a very busy vacation after all.  Of course, I wish it weren't over, but it does give me time to get back to my blogging.

While I didn't play too many games on the flight home (too busy sleeping), I'm eager to get to my free copy of Battlefield 1943.  How has matchmaking been going on that game?

With so much time away from blogging (FURTHER READING and WRITE UP included) there's so much to read (and watch) in order to catch up.  Thus, a SUPER FURTHER READING is appropriate.

• Kotaku lists their games of summer,
• The California Extreme Arcade Exhibition brings the arcade back this weekend,
• Fumito Ueda is interviewed, and then it gets translated,
• Doug Lombardi of Valve gets interviewed, but no translation is necessary,
• GTA Chinatown Wars gets a strict rating for the DS in Japan,
• Game Trailers has a new episode of the Bonus Round up,
• Neotokyo, a Source engine mod is released (it looks good!),
• Capcom sends out more strategy videos for MvC2.

Electroplankton rerelease on DSiware

A couple of years ago, I found myself in New York City. Of course this meant I was going to pay a visit to the Nintendo World Store (just a few short blocks away!). I had always wanted a copy of Electroplankton for the DS, but unfortunately they no longer sold the title there. For the longest time you could only pick the game up at the Nintendo World Store and online.

I still don't have my own copy of Electroplankton, but it remains something I look up on eBay every so often. Now it'll be rereleased in parts on the DSiware store. Too bad I don't have a DSi either. Hopefully someday, Electroplankton will swim into my collection. Until then, maybe I'll find myself downloading it at some point.

Details not in Japanese can be found at http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2009/07/04/electroplankton_dsiware/

WRITE UP / 07.02.09

I did less gaming on my flight than I thought I would.  A lot of the time was actually spent reading a book!  And that's what I'm going to do right now too, so to keep it short:

• I played a little bit of Final Fantasy Tactics A-2 on the plane.  I think I'm progressing slowly, but I'm still eager to get my soldier switched over to ninja as soon as I learn that class.  One thing that's been frustrating me is the placement of some of the enemies from quest to quest.  Today I was battling gunslinging moogles and one of them spawned on top of this huge tower.  None of my units could climb that high so I was stuck knocking 13 points off of his health every 8 turns with my single archer.  That was more than a little frustrating.
• I also played more Brain Age, but haven't touched the game in more than 24 hours.  How did my brain age actually slip from my first test I'll never know, but hopefully it'll all clear up in the next week.  The training that's open to me is kind of boring so I'll have to roll the clock back and make sure I get another stamp in order to continue unlocking new methods.
• More Wii Play Tanks.  Jenna and I are trying really hard to clear the game, but we always seems to be cut down in the final seconds.  Hopefully in the next week or so we'll get through and I'll be sure to write something up about how good it feels to finally conquer the minigame.

FURTHER READING / 07.02.09

Today was definitely a busy day.  Our flight went well, as did our evening here in Colorado.  Now that we're all set up, we can enjoy some more Wii Play (Tanks minigame specifically, Jenna and I are determined to beat it before heading home), as well as other gaming bits, like TF2 and Counter Strike: Source on a consistent internet connection.  Its too late now for that though, as FURTHER READING is about to turn into FURTHER DREAMING for yours truly.  Here's what I enjoyed reading in the past couple of days:

• $17,500 is a steep price for a video game,
• Kotaku's summer reading list has a couple of entries I'm actually interested in reading,
• Korean TF2 rip off is a little insulting and,
• this video game year book is mildly entertaining.