Headsets and Headaches: Xbox Live's Redemption

I learned something today. It was a truth that sunk in slowly and reluctantly; that my years of conditioning fought until it could deny the obvious no more. I had long trained myself to believe precisely the opposite, but through little more than sheer luck and a sudden revelation, I discovered what should have seemed plain but that was hidden by my ingrained biases. 

The overabundance of headsets on Xbox Live isn’t actually a bad thing.

Hear me out. I know it may sound crazy at first. Before today I would have thought the same thing, but I now believe there is validity to the argument that Microsoft’s widespread dispersal of headsets with all their consoles may been a boon instead of a burden. 

The argument has long gone that gaming on Xbox Live is a chore. You slap on your cheap headset and have to suffer through countless arrogant morons spewing profanity and racial slurs while kicking your ass and making you wonder what’s wrong with the world. 

Let me be clear. All of that is still true. Dealing with the lowest common denominator on Xbox Live is still a cause of many migraines. There’s something about the aggression of online competition coupled with the relative anonymity of the online setting that seems to bring out the worst in people.

Most people.

It’s in this qualifying statement that we begin to see the upside to the proliferation of voice chat.

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Maniacal Microtransactions

I was once a strong proponent of downloadable content (or DLC). I loved the very concept. The lifespan of my favorite games could be extended, giving me more reason to play a beloved title. New ideas could be injected into a finished product. Fresh concepts could be brought to a game already solidified and stamped on a disc.

Increasingly I find myself disillusioned and disappointed with what the reality of this idea has become. I find myself struggling to find things to spark my excitement in a digital marketplace strewn with blatant examples of publishers using DLC in all the wrong ways. Even when it’s used in the right ways, which is rare enough these days, it still brings some troubling trends to light.

Perhaps it would help to begin by demonstrating what lies at the root of the problem: cost. DLC could have been a fantastic way to extend a gaming experience in a meaningful way beyond what was possible on the disc, and indeed you do occasionally see it used for this purpose. More often than not however, it seems to be little more than a way to increase the cost of the game without actually having to mark up the price tag in stores.

As one example, consider the fighting game BlazBlue: Continuum Shift. It is but one example of a game simply riddled with DLC that overcharges and under-delivers, complete with a side dish of greed and deceit.

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Tales from Reach: Death from Above

Whilst exploring the vast expanses of the planet Reach, my cute little Spartan caught the daredevil bug and decided it would be fun to jump off of a cliff. At first I just thought she was nuts. Maybe the beautiful view had overloaded her brain with too much pretty and she just couldn’t take it any more?

It was certainly a nice view all right. Well, except for the looming inevitable doom represented by the Covenant ships hanging in the background. But besides that very pretty.

It didn’t take me long to figure out what she was after, however. At the bottom of the cliff could be spotted the orange outline of an Elite, minding his own business, probably being bored because he hadn’t killed anything in quite long enough. 

She wanted to assassinate the bastard. From the top of the cliff.

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First Impressions - Halo: Reach

My First Impressions articles so far have been a little too much like reviews under another name, which was not the original intention. I wanted to  accurately chronicle my thoughts at the beginning of a play experience to analyze what games could do better from the outset and why, after just an hour or so of play, some games leave me drooling for more and others leave me cold. 

 
In order to better reflect my intention and not confuse these as reviews written far too early, I’m trying a format shift. I will record, via my trusty iPhone, my thoughts as I go along my first hour or so. I will then transcribe them here for you as accurately as I can so you can get a true picture of exactly what it was that was going through my head as I played. Nothing more, nothing less.
 

Let me know what you think of the change.

 

 

Halo: Reach

Single player campaign

Release date: September 14, 2010

Date of play: September 14, 2010

• I’ve just started the campaign and I’m already immediately noticing some graphical glitches. This is hardly a new phenomenon for Halo, as I remember similar graphical weirdness with Halo 3, but I’m disappointed it hasn’t been cleared up. I see screen tearing, a little bit of choppiness, and other such distractions. I’m hoping it will go away, because I also immediately notice that this is a substantially better looking Halo than what I’m used to.
• I haven’t heard but maybe two of the music tracks so far and I’m already impressed. I’m going to have to pay close attention to the music because I have a feeling it’s going to be good.

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Mass Effect: Gaming's Star Trek?

Just about every medium that tells a story seems to eventually develop universes - collections of lore and history originally attached to particular stories, but that stay relevant long after those initial tales are completed. The allure of the universe is stronger than any individual story told within it, so people come back time and time again, demanding new stories told within its confines.

Television gives us some of the most numerous and obvious examples. Star Trek, for instance, is a terrific analogue for what Mass Effect could be. Its universe has sustained multiple television series, books, movies, games, and more. While the original show that started it all still remains popular, clearly there is more draw here than just Kirk and his crew.

Another obvious example, this time from the world of film, is Star Wars. There should be no need to explain the importance of this one. It is one of the most influential story universes of all time. It strongly centers around the original movies which made it famous, but has produced countless examples of other forms of entertainment only related by the universe they share.

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