Comic-Con 2010

Comic-Con 2010 just finished a few days ago and it was a pretty interesting year. It was the first Comic-Con where someone was stabbed. STABBED?! Yep, that's right. Stabbed. Apparently some convention attendees got into an argument about sitting too close together while waiting on a panel featuring Seth Rogen. I think this is the first person I have ever seen wearing handcuffs and a Harry Potter shirt. Haha.

Ok. Enough about crazy fans. Not only does Comic-Con have comics, costumes, and fans, but it also has movies, shows, and now stabbings. And the best one...GAMES! One of the game showcased at this year's Comic-Con that I have been curious about is the new Assassin's Creed game.

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is the next game in the Assassin's Creed series. The second one came out last year so why does this have a November release date? This game is being produced by a very large company. One of my professors, who was in the industry before teaching, told my class that there are 1,500 people working on this new Assassin's Creed game. 1,500 PEOPLE! That's a lot more than most game developers have. I'm not too interested about the single player part of this game. It takes place in the same Renaissance time period in Rome and follows the same main character.

The aspect of the game I'm looking forward to is the multiplayer. The multiplayer in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is similar to the real-life game Assassin in which many people play and you try to hunt down your target while, at the same time, you are being hunted by someone else. The last man standing wins. In Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, everyone will play an assassin and can choose their appearance. Then everyone is given a target that is displayed on the screen. Each player tries to get rid of their target without attracting too much attention. If you give away your position while killing your targeted player, they player who is hunting you will have no trouble finding and killing you. It sounds like it's gonna be an awesome addition to the series.

I am still addicted to Alien Swarm. If you want more info, I explained about it in my previous post. If you haven't tried it yet, do yourself a favor and go try it! It's free so you have nothing to lose!

Thanks for reading. I probably won't have any new posts for the rest of this week because I will be out of town, but I will post new stuff soon. If you have any suggestions, I'm always open to ways I can improve my blog. If you have any questions about anything, please feel free to leave me a comment and I will try to answer it.

Alien Swarm

About a week ago, Valve released Alien Swarm for free through their Steam client for PC and I've been strangely addicted to it since I downloaded it. Alien Swarm is a tactical, co-op shooter with an overhead view.

Normally, I don't play too many tactical shooters, but this one is fast-paced so I don't fall asleep while team members are planning everything out. It is also easy to get into the action and plenty of variety becomes available early on. The missions are pretty short with each one lasting about 10 minutes on average. In fact, the whole game is pretty short and can be played through in an hour or so with a good group, but the game is free so there shouldn't be any complaining. Even though it is a short experience, there is a lot of replay value with 4 different difficulties, 4 different character classes, and a ton of weapons and items to unlock.

In the game, you will begin to see more items and weapons become available as you play. Your Steam account saves your progress in the game as you level up. When you level up, more stuff is unlocked and you can use it. This becomes useful because there are items that are improvements upon standard equipment (i.e. the medic can unlock an item that heals group members faster). The difficulties are similar to those of Left4Dead2 if you are familiar with another great game from Valve. Normal difficulty will provide a nice challenge for new players and the higher difficulties will do the same for more experienced players who have unlocked more equipment.

My favorite part of Alien Swarm is the co-op aspect. I love games that involve working with other players to accomplish an objective, and this game does it very well. The co-op aspect of this game also helps to shorten the learning curve because other experienced players can tell you what weapons to use and when to use them. I highly recommend trying this game. It is a great product from Valve. And why not try it? Since the game is completely free, you have absolutely nothing to lose.

Thanks for reading. If you have any suggestions, I'm always open to ways I can improve my blog. If you have any questions about anything, please feel free to leave me a comment and I will try to answer it.

Is EA Crazy?

In my last post, I talked about the free third-person shooter, Battlefield Heroes, released by EA. Is EA crazy?! Why would a huge company like EA release a game for free?

Well, EA is not crazy. The game is free but they are still making money from it. The money is being made through the ads and through micro-transactions. Micro-transactions are small purchases within a game using real money. For instance, you may pay $1.00 of real money for a better weapon or some unique armor. The game industry has seen a lot of micro-transaction activity lately and it will only get bigger.

Blizzard Entertainment is a large company we see beginning to use micro-transactions. They are allowing players to spend real money on unique mounts but they also have the subscription fee in place which might stop most players from using their micro-transaction system.

On the other hand, Dungeons & Dragons Online from Turbine was a subscription based MMO but they have stopped charging a subscription fee. Instead, they have switched to a completely free game with a store where you can buy things for your characters using real money aka micro-transactions. According to the MMO Report on G4TV.com, Turbine has found that they actually make more money now using the micro-transaction system than they did when it was a subscription based game.

Facebook is another large market for games with micro-transactions. Farmville, one of the most played games on Facebook, has a micro-transaction system and it actually makes a decent amount of money. There are many other Facebook games that use a similar system. In fact, most every game I have seen on Facebook uses a similar system.

I don't think that micro-transactions with be the only thing in the future of the game industry. I do, however, think that they will become a large part of the future of the industry, and we should get used to seeing them and maybe even using them because it looks like micro-transactions will be around for a long time.

Thanks for reading. If you have any suggestions, I'm always open to ways I can improve my blog. I am still working on the design of the blog so please just give me some time. If you have any questions about anything, please feel free to leave me a comment and I will try to answer it.

Battlefield Heroes

Hello, again. Recently, I've been playing Battlefield Heroes from EA. For those of you who have not heard of this game, I would recommend trying it if you enjoy the other games in the Battlefield series...especially since this game is FREE! What is Battlefield Heroes? That's a good question.

Battlefield Heroes is a free to play game for PC release by EA. It is part of the Battlefield franchise but its system requirements are much lower than others in the series. Since the system requirements are lower, the game is not limited to only people with gaming machines. There are always people playing and you can jump in and play regardless of the amount of time you have. Does this mean it is a casual game? No. It's not a true casual game, but a full sized game aimed at both hardcore gamers and casual gamers.

Unlike the other games in the franchise, Battlefield Heroes is a third-person shooter and has a light-hearted, cartoon feel to it. Some people might not enjoy this style but it's hard to complain because it's Battlefield action for free. The game controls well and truly does feel like a Battlefield game. It also has a lot of content for being a free game. I think my favorite part about the game are the vehicles. Players can take advantage of jeeps, tanks, and airplanes to achieve objectives. These objectives pretty straight forward game modes, including "capture the flag" and "king of the hill". My favorite vehicle is the airplane. The airplane is a bit difficult to fly but once you have the hang of it, it's be a lot of fun to fly around the maps and shoot at enemies. There is also an experience system and a mission system. The mission system allows you to choose which personal objectives you want to complete (i.e. 10 Kills in one round). Completing missions along with dealing damage to enemy players grants experience points that let you spend on different skills for you character class. Each character class has its own unique abilities that can help them in combat. This adds a bit of depth for those who are looking for something more.

Battlefield Heroes is being updated often with new content. For instance, they currently have special gear to use to customize your characters for the world cup. There are new weapons, items, and bonuses added regularly to keep the game fresh and exciting.

Enough talk, the only way to truly experience a game is to try it. If you are enjoy the Battlefield franchise or similar games, you might like this game...especially since it is free. Here is the link to the game. Battlefield Heroes

Please feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think. I'm always looking for advice to improve my blog. Thanks.

First Post

Hi. I'm new to this blogging thing so I thought I would give it a try and see what everyone likes about it.

Everyone always says to blog about something you know about or you enjoy. Well I know about games and I enjoy games. It doesn't matter if it's a video game, a board game, a card game, or a yard game, I enjoy them all. I'm even studying Game Development in college so I learn more everyday. My focus on this blog...along with my thoughts about different games...will be many aspects of games from design to mechanics to market to one of the most important questions..."Is it fun?"

I am still working on the design of the blog and the color schemes and stuff but I will try to post things fairly regularly. I hope you enjoy my post today and my posts in the future. If there are any questions you have or if you want to know what I think about a game, I will do my best to tell you.