Small Life Update and BF3

So I haven't been that active lately due to being sick, school, job, interviews for new job, big LAN party (will post about later), and all of the responsibilities of living. Since then a lot of gaming stuff has happened and I am working on some new material I should be getting out shortly.

Oh wow...

I did pick up Bulletstorm this past Tuesday but the PC version is quite buggy and it's difficult to enjoy so I am putting it off until a patch or a community fix comes down. I haven't found a lot of time to continue my play through of the Halo games. I've also started playing some S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky and that is starting to suck away all of my free time. Oh also a Minecraft patch...

Though I do want to make some comments on the new Battlefield 3 trailer. If you have not yet seen it here it is. Watch it now. Anyways it's due out on the PC, PS3, and 360 this fall and while the game going multiplatform may scare away PC gamers, I'm sure this trailer has put all of their worries to rest. I know mine are now gone. The trailer maybe showed 15 full seconds of gameplay but from what we can tell, it looks awesome.

Drool...

DICE has gone out of their way a few times to say that the PC is the primary development platform for BF3. However before announcing much of anything, during the Medal Of Honor launch we found out that there would be a PS3 and 360 version of BF3. This scared me and many of my PC brethren as Battlefield Bad Company 2, while fun, was a completely different experience than Battlefield 2 or Battlefield 2142. The fears we would see more of a squeal to BC2 rather than the other PC BF games took a hold and promptly flooded the internet gaming boards.

However, a few weeks later DICE announced that BF3 would be a DX10 native game and would not support DX9. While many PC fans still loyal to Windows XP cried, the rest of us sighed relief, or at least the non-paranoid ones which seem to be less and less these days. What did DX10 native tell us? Well DX10 has been around for awhile but no game has really taken advantage of DX10. Crysis was supposed to be the flagship title for DX10 but most of the "DX10 features" were nothing more than disabled DX9. DX10 seemed to do nothing more than kill our FPS while not improving graphical quality of our video games. However no native DX10 games had been made.

Nice try there Crytek...

The first native DX10 game that I can remember is Just Cause 2. While it appeared on the consoles the PC version stood out with it's amazing graphics and scalability to hardware. It ran well and looked great on older DX10 hard (old as in being 2-3 years old). This is because they dropped the DX9 libraries and took full advantage of the DX10 hardware found on modern graphics cards. What does this have to do with anything? Well since Just Cause 2 showed us a native DX10 game has major advantages over the consoles and can scale much better to hardware than any of us thought, BF3 being DX10 means that BF3 is the real deal. This is where my fears of BF3 being a equal to BC2 more than BF2 faded away.

To put the rest of the non-believers worries to rest, a few weeks ago Game Informer was able to play a level of BF3 on the PC and was more than happy to report that all of the features that PC gamers miss from the series make a major return as well as some new ones. The ability to lay down (prone) is back, 64 player servers are back, and jets are back. While I hated jets in BF2 I guess a proper sequel would still need them. Some new features were also announced like the ability to drag fallen comrades out of the firefight (which if you've done it in ArmA 2 mods it is an excellent addition), fully destructible environments to a level we have never seen before, and a full single player which isn't just a bot match.

With the improvements in place BF3 is shaping up to be this years true killer app. There isn't a game announced that I am more excited for. I can only hope over the past few years of console games they have figured out the formula to complete the Battlefield experience. On March 1st they will be showing us more at GDC and I'll be glued to my PC all day (probably more-so because I have a big program due for my CS class)

I want this game...

A Different Look at the Universe

Okay Mr. Hawking, enough is enough. I refuse to sit here and watch all of my childhood fantasies of traveling the infinite universe on my spacecraft that can make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs because we cannot move faster than the speed of light. Next, you’re going to tell me that a parsec isn’t a measure of time, but rather a measure of distance that’s about 3.75 light-years across. Well you answer me this Mr. “Best-Selling Physics Author”, if we can’t travel faster than the speed of light, how did the Starship Enterprise escape from being sucked into a massive black hole that was created from dark matter in the latest documentary of the voyages of the starship Enterprise? Wait, you also say that it’s impossible for light to escape the gravitational pull of.... wait, I don’t want to hear it!

Stephen Hawking’s book A Brief History of Time has been crushing the hopes and dreams of future space heroes and smugglers since 1988 with theories and evidence that keeps the popular science fiction firmly on the fiction shelves. Since its publication, the book has become one of the best-selling non-fiction science literature ever written and has received world-wide recognition and praise from both the general public and scientific community. Hawking has also published a number of other books on his latest findings and theories, some of which challenge the theories and explanations that appear in this book, yet the content found in A Brief History of Time is still highly relevant to modern astronomy and physics.

In A Brief History of Time, Hawking outlines mankind's pursuit to find a unified theory of the universe. Starting off with the original theories of the universe as theorised by Greek philosophers and scientists before taking the reader on an expansive journey that traverses the edges of the once infinite universe down to the unpredictable sub-atomic realm. The range of subject material covered in the book is quite impressive. New topics seem to appear quite frequently, yet gracefully, as the book progresses and makes you appreciate both the complexity of the universe and the brilliant minds behind the discoveries and theories that make up our current understanding of the universe.

With each passing topic, the sci-fi nerd inside you is sure to be even more excited (even after the major blow of no faster-than-light travel) as more and more of the once unexplainable universe is explained through its well written passages, textbook like chapters, useful metaphors, and some pretty bad jokes. An illustrated version of the book was originally published in the late 90s and revised in 2001 to it’s current state. This illustrations provide the reader with excellent graphics and photos to help visuals the complex theories covered. Still while extremely well written in a lighthearted nature, some of the content covered is quite heavy and difficult to understand on the first read through, especially at the rate that Hawking drops the information on us. On more than one occasion I found myself re-reading paragraphs just so I could catch all of the information.

That said, the amount of information in this book is mind-boggling considering its length. Not only are many topics covered but there is quite a bit of detail on each without being too detailed oriented that would put all but the most devoted physicists asleep. While most of the book is comprised of the general theories and some detailed information about them, there are a few sections where the information gets overbearing. One notable section about the structure and composition of an atom, the quarks that build each proton and neutron, the way they spin having a direct impact on their energy, the particles and antiparticles, and the different quarks designated by different colors is enough to make your head spin yet. While difficult, all of the information Hawking presents feels necessary to get the right ideas across and is forgivable because the very nature of the topics being covered is extremely complicated.

The man.

The complicated nature of this book requires each chapter to complement one another. While the book has a textbook-like feel instead of a centralized narrative revolving around a single topic or event, chapters have a logical linear progression with multiple topics building up and carrying from one to another. This linear progression would make this book very difficult to pick and choose which chapters to read if someone would want to skip around instead of reading through the entire book cover to cover and it is highly recommended to read the book from beginning to end to give yourself the best chance at understanding the topics.

A Brief History of Time also focuses on a subject that is heavily debated: the origin of our universe. This controversy seems to be brought up throughout the entire book as an annoyance to Hawking. While this is far from a religion vs. science debate, Hawking does mention the possibility of the creation of the universe by some omnipotent being and that what we currently understand about the universe is simply be the work of this higher power. However, reading this book with the intent of picking up knowledge and evidence that can be used on either side of the argument (religious or scientific) would seemingly ruin the idea that Hawking had when writing this book. Simply put, this is a book about our scientific knowledge of the origins and inner workings of our universe from the perspective of scientists, any other interpretation would only serve to go against its true purpose.

Aside from a few small hiccups, A Brief History of Time is a very real and refreshing look at our universe and the field of modern physics. Of course skewed by my personal preference, the book really starts to captivate the mind around the chapters dealing with general relativity and black holes, two subjects that Mr. Hawking has specialized in throughout his illustrious career, and continues to pummel the brain with near science-fiction level topics until the book has reached its conclusion. However, any science geek (fiction and non-fiction) should be able to find something to enjoy in this book. While prior knowledge of the subject material is not needed, it’s very difficult to recommend this book to somebody who does not care about the origin of or the deeper workings of the universe, or a person who is deeply rooted in their religion as the very foundation of the subject is deeply rooted in controversy. Nonetheless, A Brief History of Time is a thoroughly informative and highly interesting book on the subject of our universe and one that is consistently brilliant and thought provoking.

The First Step of the Great Journey

About three weeks ago my journey through the Halo series began with Halo Wars on the Xbox 360. Since school, work, and life generally tend to impeded on my gaming time, it took me awhile to finish up the game. My initial impressions of the game were quite negative with my second impressions of the game being a little more positive with hope of good things to come. Unfortunately the hope was a close to those good things as I was ever going to come.

Halo Wars is an RTS (Real-Time Stratagy) game which is a major departure from the rest of the Halo series which are all, to this date, FPSs (First Person Shooter). As with 99% of all other RTSs ever made, the main objective is to build a small army of a variety of little dudes and command them to make the opposing little dudes dead. This genre, who's formula hasn't changed much over the past 15 years, has always had a cushioned seat PC's round table of game genres due to the precise controls the mouse and keyboard offer. While this genre has been attempted before on the consoles by other studios as early as the PS1/N64 era, there has never really been a successful RTS on the console, Halo Wars does nothing to change this trend.

See the enemy base? Kill it and you win.

Halo Wars does nothing to try to distinguish itself from other RTSs in the genre. The gameplay at the core is pretty much what we have come to expect from an RTS. You're given your starting base and amount of resources. From there you can upgrade your base to give you more supplies, build units, and build new facilitates to unlock more research and new units. There are three major types of units: infantry, armor, and air, with some scouting units available that don't really fit into any of these categories. Provided you have enough resources and reactors, units can be upgraded several times to unlock a special secondary attack or upgrade some attributes of the unit.

While there is a decent variety of units to play around with, the cumbersome controls make any form of tactics an ineffective chore. There are three options for selecting units: holding X allows you to select a number of units within an area, the right bumper selects all units on the screen, and the left bumper selects all of your units on the map. Once you have a number of units collected you can select all of the units of a certain type by quickly pulling the left and right analog stick to the unit icon you want to select. While this is a major improvement on any other RTS I've ever played on the console, these controls are still not enough to give the level of control needed to use the units tactically.

Tanks indeed kill everything.

Not that tactics are ever really needed. Most objectives can be completed by simply massing a small army of tanks and marching them across the maps killing everything in the way. Despite the lack of tactics required, a lot of the missions are still quite unique and fun. One has you escorting waves of civilians to evacuation ships during a Covenant invasion of a planet, fighting off waves of Covenant attackers who are landing on the main UNSC capital ship as you repair the main hull, and dragging a massive bomb up a hill against waves of enemy soldiers.

Some of the levels will put you in control of hero units. During the campaign the hero units usually were the series signature Spartan warriors. Spartans are extremely powerful units that could hijack enemy vehicles and usually blast waves of enemy soldiers to piles of goo. It's quite awesome to see a handful of Spartans doing what your waves of infantry guys couldn't. If you are a fan of the Halo series, you'll probably enjoy watching the Spartans clean up after playing as one for nearly every other Halo game in existence. It is just one more element of this game that really makes this game fit in the Halo universe.

I've mentioned before how well the atmosphere fit the series and I was very happy to see the game's consistency to match the others in the series. Halo's unique art style and color scheme are instantly recognizable by any fan of the series. Most of the audio has been taken straight from previous Halo titles so that every weapon and vehicle seen in the other games is authentic to the series while the new weapons and vehicles feel right at home. The musical score is mostly original and fits the spacey, orchestral musical style that has helped define the series.

Kind of makes me want a Halo movie.

Also fitting with the Halo series is the extremely weak writing and story that pushes the single player campaign along. While Halo has never been known for a particularly strong story, the story has never gotten in the way of gameplay (unless we want to include the "Cortana" level from Halo 3). In Halo Wars, the story is moved along by way of CGI cutscenes, which are a first for the series and are quite well done, and by short in-engine cut scenes that break up in-game events. Without spoiling anything, the game takes place on the planet Harvest, a battle that takes place 10-15 years before the events in the first Halo game that was released in 2001. While unique it seems that the writers went for the "kitchen sink" approach and threw every single story element from the previous games into this one in an attempt to fill it with Halo lore. The Covenant are still after some super weapon, the Spartans still kick ass, the extremely bold ship captain, and the heroic marine that has to make the ultimate sacrifice for humanity (ok minor spoilers, but it is Halo after all, we should know to expect these things). The Flood even make a return although they are never explained well as to what they are or why they are even there.

While the art style really fits the Halo universe, the graphics did not seem to hold up very well throughout the campaign. Aside from some excellent explosion effects and the varied environments, the framerate often struggled to keep up with the action, the textures were pretty low resolution, and the unit detail left something to be desired.

I think it would be to rash to say that Halo Wars is a bad game. The gameplay and story (and my love of the Halo series) were enough to keep me going throughout the story. I would say that Halo Wars had a lot of potential to be great, but the limitations of the platform held it back from being an RTS to remember. Halo fans will find something to enjoy while the rest of the world wouldn't miss anything if they decide to skip this title.

Some neat levels kept it interesting enough to play through once

To tie this all in with the Halo series story and to continue with my play through of the Halo games in the order of their storyline, Halo Wars has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the series. It gives some background on the war, but really the events that happened in Halo Wars never even get mentioned in Halo 3 ODST or Halo Reach which were released after Halo Wars. You would think after discovering the Flood they wouldn't be so damn shocked in Halo Combat Evolved. Halo Wars was really full of plot holes, bad ones. It's sad to see. I know the story of Halo has never been the strongest, but I've always really enjoyed the universe they've built. The Flood and the Covenant are some of the coolest sci-fi enemies I've ever seen and there is a lot of history to human expansion and colonization of the galaxy. It reminds me a lot of the first Matrix movie when it comes to this huge history of events that have unfolded.

The next game on the list is Halo Reach. This was the last Halo FPS that was released by Bungie. I've played through it a few times but never did a full review of the game, so expect both a full review with a bit more in-depth look at the story elements. Primarily the back-story as the characters are about as interesting as brick.

(images courtesy of Gamespot)