The cinema of Call of Duty 4

The Call of Duty series has something going for it. It’s not stunning AI, it’s not solid replayability… in fact the whole series has really lacked those things. What is has is a very rich sense of cinematic feel.

As you play, you know the game is heavily (completely) scripted but you really just don’t care. In CoD4, like all the other games in the franchise, if you die and go back to a previous save you know full well the same enemy dude is going to pop out from behind the same wrecked car and shoot at you. This time though, you’re ready for the little bastard. That predictability is almost a part of it’s charm. You might find it frustrating that the enemy caught you out with a grenade the first time through, and the second time was even more frustrating… but by the third go through you are completely ready for him, and the little digital bugger doesn’t have a chance. Payback is a bitch.

Where other games put you in a free open area and give you many ways to get through a given encounter, CoD4 and the rest generally present you with a script that you get herded along to follow whether you like it or not. That doesn’t sound appealing, but it’s no different than a movie. You don’t go see the latest action flick and walk away disappointed that you didn’t get to choose how the hero killed his way through the plot. You’re presented with it, and you take it in as presented. CoD4 is exactly like that, but instead of watching you get to take part. Yes, it’s scripted but if done properly it doesn’t feel like you’re being told what to do so much as it feels like your actions are advancing the action movie along. When you talk about it with friends who’ve played you don’t ask what happened to them in the game, you know what happened… the conversations are more about “I liked the part when…” just like a film. That’s not a bad thing at all.

Sometimes it’s nice to be presented with an open ended sort of game where choices abound, but honestly sometimes you just want to sit and take part in an action movie. CoD4 is the latest in the franchise to provide just that, and it does so surprisingly well.

Crysis and the coming let down

I’m still playing Crysis, which is a huge comment in it’s favor as I tire of most games very quickly. I think it’s the sheer beauty of the game on my new rig more than anything else, but regardless I’m still at it. The jungle fights are great, battling those pesky Koreans but sadly I suspect my enjoyment may be coming to an end. Yes, it’s because of the aliens.

I’m still mostly alien-free in the game. I’ve seen glimpses here and there but generally it’s just me and the Koreans in the jungle and that’s the way I like it. I don’t want aliens, I don’t want giant mutant monkey-things ala FarCry, I don’t want zombies or undead monsters from the deep. Sue me if it’s politically incorrect, but I just want to shoot Koreans… well… people. Wow, that sounds bad.

The point is, I like the realism aspect to Crysis. The graphics, the physics and for the most part the AI are all great but when the aliens start appearing (as they’re sure to do soon) I fear my level of immersion in this game may fade away. It did with FarCry as soon as those damned apes started showing up.

That’s something Call of Duty 4 has going for it, no sci-fi/horror weirdness. Just people shooting at other people, as God intended.

Skynet in my basement

I picked up my new system yesterday, and compared to my old rig I’ve now got serious concerns about Skynet starting up in my basement. Well, it’s not the fastest machine in the world by any means but it’s the fastest I’ve ever had and a huge improvement over what I had prior to this.

My previous system;

Pentium 4 2.8ghz
1.5gb of some sort of ram
nVidia 7600GS
150gb worth of assorted hard drives

My new system;

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.40GHz 8MB
Reaper 2GB (2X1GB) PC9200 DDR2-1150MHz
Dual BFG 8800GT OC2 512MB PCIe Video Cards (SLI)
Dual Western Digital Raptors 150Gb 10000Rpm WD1500ADFD

As I said, a decided improvement. Some real world numbers…

Old system:

Crysis
1280×720 (widescreen)
Physics and water detail – High
Everything else – a mix of low/med (mostly low)
FPS on average : 20 to 30

Call of Duty 4
960×700 (widescreen)
Settings – a mix of low/med (again, mostly low)
FPS on average : 20 to 30 with a generally laggy feel

New system:

Crysis
1680×1050 (widescreen)
All settings max + a tweak to enable very high settings in DirectX9
FPS on average : 40 to 50, with the odd dip down to near 30

Call of Duty 4
1680×1050 (widescreen)
Settings all maxed
FPS on average : 150 to 160

Very happy with my purchase so far.

-ab

Ghostbusters gameplay footage

Younger gamers out there might not fully appreciate everything that Ghostbusters was. I was 15 when the original hit the theaters in 1984, and it was the first film I went back to see twice. The happening soundtrack, the characters with that great 1980’s lazy-adult vibe to them mainly thanks to Bill Murry, the storyline was fresh and interesting and the special effects were absolutely terrific. To a 15 year old in 1984, the movie really offered the full package. The sequels never really lived up to the high of the original, but now thanks to the miracle of modern computing we get another go at it.

Ghostbusters is coming to every gaming platform you can think of… DS, PC, PS2, PS3, 360 and Wii. Take a peek at some gameplay footage over at G4TV.
Now it’s admittedly going to suck mightily, because movie games always suck mightily. Also, on a personal level I’m guaranteed to think it sucks because as good as Ghostbusters was to my 15 year old self back in 1984, it just doesn’t hold up well. This 38 year old me recently watched it again and it was… lacking in a lot of departments.

I wonder how long until we get a Back to the Future title?

-ab

Half Life 2 : Ep2 Stats – Neat but invasive

I like stats for some reason, and apparently the guys at Valve do too. To go along with the Hardware Survey Results they released recently, here are the Half Life 2 : Episode Two Stats as collected by the steam client. (EP1 stats are here)

Some interesting numbers in there for ep2, such as the average play time being 4 hours, 45 minutes and the average completion time is now 6 hours, 12 minutes. I guess not everyone is finishing. I know I didn’t though I plan to sooner or later. It’s admittedly still pretty early to get much out of these numbers, but it will be interesting to see how ep2 stacks up against ep1 in a few months.

The ep2 stat tracking has a few new items being tracked as opposed to the stats for ep1, the neatest of which is the “death maps” that graphically show where people have been dying on each level.

Again, this sort of statistical information is cool for those of us into that sort of thing but it also raises my eyebrows a bit. I wasn’t aware steam was collecting this level of detail about it’s player base. The hardware survey is fine as it’s an easy opt in/out, but this other stuff is a bit more murky to me. Do you get an option to opt of of this level of data gathering? I don’t recall seeing it anywhere, though I may have missed it. It’s a bit invasive if you ask me, unless there’s an easy opt out option.

I suspect the next time I play a Valve title I’ll have this strange sensation of being watched. Sadly, it will be a valid sensation too.

-ab

9.3 million donkeys

Eurogamer.net reports that the over-popular MMP title World of Warcraft has just hit 9.3 million active subscribers. In my book, that’s 9.3mil donkeys because if there’s ever been an effective carrot and stick title it’s WoW.

I played WoW for awhile back just after release and while it was entertaining, it wasn’t that entertaining. At the time I recall saying it offered little or nothing I couldn’t get in a single player Neverwinter Nights module, and for the way I played I still stand by that. Sure it’s “massively multiplayer” (I hate that label) but from my point of view it wasn’t much more than a lot of people playing the same single player game off of the same server. I thought I was alone in this feeling, but I’ve heard it said elsewhere as well. Yes, I tried more interaction with those around me, but for the most part I was alone in a group of people just like everyone else.

So, congrats WoW, you’ve got 9.3 million people playing the same single player game… online.

-ab

Crying over Crysis?

Like most gamers, I’ve been waiting for Crysis for some time now. Early reports showed stunning graphics and spoke of deep gameplay, and rich AI. Finally, after a lot of hype and videos, it’s here. Of course, not everyone is happy.

Despite much hoohah about how scalable Crysis is towards older systems, there seems to be a couple of vocal groups in the various forums who just aren’t satisfied. The first of these two groups consist of guys with super computers trying to run it a ‘very high’ settings and ultra high-def resolutions. “I just bought a new double quad core 1000gb system with 18 linked BFG 8800 Ultra’s for this game and it runs like crap! I want a refund!”. Cry, cry, cry. To these people I say this, why not put that super computer of yours to better use and try running the game a decent, yet very attractive resolution such as 1680×1050 and turn the graphics “down” from ‘very high’ to the still pretty spectacular ‘high’. There’s no shame in that you know, and you might actually get to play it at 30fps. It’s quite fun from what I understand, and it looks absolutely terrific.

The other group who seem to be complaining are the poor sods with 5 year old systems and overly high expectations. You know the sort, the fellows with the PentiumII with 512mb of RAM and an ATI 9600Pro. Yes people, this game is very scalable but there are limits to that and you really can’t expect to play games these days with ancient systems. Well, you can expect it but you’re going to be disappointed.

So far I’ve been playing the demo on a P4 2.8ghz system with 1.5gb ram and an nVidia 7600GS. Not a super system by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s new enough that Crysis is very playable. My 21in widescreens native res is 1680×1050 but 1280×720 always looks nice and crisp on it and at that res, with physics and water detail set to high, and the rest at a mix of medium or low I’m getting very smooth frame rates. Yes, two of the low settings happen to be textures and shaders which take away almost all of the photo-realism this game is so well known for but hey, I get to play it and it’s fun. I guess the point of this is, tune your settings to your machine and try to enjoy the game rather than whacking everything up to max and then bitching. Also, if you’ve got an ancient rig, save some cash for an upgrade before spending too much time complaining about what very impressive game at any graphics setting.

I’ve got a quad-core Q6600 with 2gb, dual 10k Raptors and two 8800GT OC2 running in SLI coming next week. Super computer? Maybe, but it’s going to run Crysis (and everything else) a lot better than my current rig and you won’t hear a peep of complaint out of me about it.

-ab