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Archive for September, 2009

50% off Left 4 Dead on Steam/DLC Crash Course ready

Posted by Carl Minor On September - 29 - 2009

l4d50off

Left 4 Dead is now 50% off to coincide with the release of the new download content “Crash Course.”  This scenario connects the events between “No Mercy” helicopter rescue and “Death Toll” beginning.  I have greatly enjoyed this game on 360 but the lack of user mod community really sucks.  I recently upgraded my PC and will be biting on this $15.00 dollar purchase.  Here I come mall from Dawn of The Dead.

Featured, Gaming, News, PC, Site News, Xbox 360

Episode 036 – VDD

Posted by Kary Brown On September - 25 - 2009
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Weekly ramblings about what's going on in games, movies, comics, anime, and tech, as seen by the techpedition.com staff.

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Deals of the Week
Movie Roundup
  • Blood and Bone
Game Roundup

PC  Tips of the Week

TV Roundup (specific TV shows?)

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The Beatles: Rock Band Review

Posted by Sergio Lugo II On September - 23 - 2009

Sun_bmp_jpgcopyWell it was bound to happen, Rock Band had to step into the band specific release realm sooner or later and since I don’t count the ACDC track pack, The Beatles Rock Band is the what we get. The great thing is that with the fab four at your side you simply can’t go wrong.  The Beatles’ music is timeless and will live much longer than the Beatles themselves and probably you and I both.  So, for The Beatles to associate themselves with what some people would call the music game “fad” may seem weird at first.

I am here to ease your worries.  The music fits the Rock Band formula pretty well and on most songs is tons of fun.  What was promised last year when this title was announced was a completely new Beatles music experience, however I can’t really say that it delivered on that promise.  This game is very much a Rock Band game.  You hit the notes on the corresponding tracks with whatever instrument you have chosen to wield.  It’s got a Overdrive (curiously called Beatlemania), designated guitar solos and similar fake plastic instruments.  I can’t fault Harmonix for sticking to the formula.  It works, and the little tweaks here and there add enough to set it appart from the landmark Rock Band 2. Continue Reading…

Gaming, News, Review, Reviews

Episode 035 – I don’t wanna be a zombie

Posted by Kary Brown On September - 23 - 2009
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Weekly ramblings about what's going on in games, movies, comics, anime, and tech, as seen by the techpedition.com staff.

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News:

Deals of the Week
Movie Roundup
  • Whiteout
Game Roundup

  • The Beatles: Rock Band
  • Darkest of Days

Tech Roundup

  • Penguin United Wii Crossfire Pistol
Comics/Manga Roundup
Outro
  • Plugs
  • Fan Mail
  • Visit the Site
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Darkest of Days Review

Posted by James Knotts On September - 23 - 2009
 As some of you might remember we here at Techpedition got to interview the guys from 8Monky Labs. A first time developer made up of 8 guys from the publisher PhantomEFX. Their first game foray is Darkest of Days. A FPS that has you hopping through time.

darkest-of-days-20070621092335558-copy

 The concept behind this game is your character is a historical M.I.A. from the Battle of Little Bighorn. Also known as Custard’s Last Stand. As the game starts out your in the thick. Just you, a couple of other soldiers, a revolver, and a whole lot of Native Americans. Just before you die a time bubble opens up before you and your pulled into the future. Where your forced into the time army by KRYOTECK. The company that invented the time travel technology. It is explained to you that this was orginally used to witness the great miracles of history. But there have been fluctuations in the time stream. So it’s your job to take care of it. Luckily your not alone. You are guided through your endevors by Dexter. Another historical M.I.A.
 In creating this game 8Monkey Labs built there own game engine from the ground up. They call it MARMOSET. Now what can you do with this? Well you get 300 enemies on screen at the same time with their own A.I. each. Meaning no flocking behavior. You can spend time just shooting different enemies and see diferent reactions everytime. Also they use “Image-Based Lighting” a lighting technique used by the movie industry to give consistent lighting to scenes. So unlike some games you don’t get the random “dark as hell, bright as hell, spots”. Which for me worked out great. It really helped give a sense of story and placement.
 The gameplay is pretty damn good. The controls are standard FPS fare. Which to say pretty tight. The only problem with this game was the fact that there is no “Custom Button” option. But you have the standard options otherwise. Invert axis, Sensitivity, etc. So your in the past from the future. Where are the kickass guns you ask. The show up. In creating this game 8Monkey researched the battles they are placing you in. So if a platoon only get’s so far, that’s how far they get. Your supposed to be preserving time. Not tearing it up. But there will be times when you get the good stuff. And good it is. For me the guns are one of the selling points in this game. You’ve got the target rectile, and the iron sites for more perssition shooting. Now in most games when you bring up your iron sites the gun takes up 3/4 of the screen. Personelly I hate that. not so with this game. It only takes up a quarter of the screen. Giving you plenty of perifial vision. Also the edges of the screen blur slightly to bring the center into sharger focus. Mostly you will be stuck with weapons of the time. Which is mostly the Civil War at the battle Antietam, WW1 at the battle of Tananburg, a few levels in WW2, and a run through Pompeii as it is in it’s death throughs.
 Now when you get the kickass guns there are people you can’t kill. Well your NOT SUPPOSED TO KILL. Now how you tell who these lucky bastards that escape your wrath are they are surrounded in a blue aura. You need to incapacitate them. Either by shots in the shoulder, legs, or some little balls you carry with you that seek and knock them out. You will run accross the OPPOSITION. The guys trying to change things. At first they will not only have the kickass, they will also have shields. So it will be better to run than die. But after you get the ability to kill them you can collect their weapons. Tired of using muzzle loaders? Kill some of the guys your not supposed to. The OPPOSTITION will show up. Kill them and take their kickass. But beware. The fewer of the guys in aura die the better you points at the end of the level. Which you can use to upgrade your weapons. Your classes are rifle, and sidearm. So any  upgrade you buy is transfered to all weapons in that class.  As a personel note. Of the future weapons the sniper rifle is my favorite. The scope will calculate range, windage, and humidity. The three things that effect your aim. Once you paint a target the scope calculates and gives you a target rectile the aim at so you can hit your target. Which makes leading your shoot easy. And very much fun.
 The graphics are good. They are smooth and fluid. But not that detailed. Think Timespliters but higher res and that’s about right. The character animations are fluid. Most of the time. I did notice in one place in a Civil War level with about as many characters as the screen could hold, where there were three enemies at distant whose animations looked like the old Tecmo Bowl. Not fluid with only maybe 4 or 5 five animations. Other than that everything else was nice and smooth. I has hard pressed to notice any frame skips. Even with the screen full of chaos.
 The sound work on this game is very good. You get a great sense of distance. And you can hear every soldier talking. When there is a group if you listen and can filter out on your own you can hear every conversation within your hearing range. Every weapon has it’s own sound. Which is really good when a lot of FPS today use the same sound for similar guns. Which anyone who knows sound different.
 This game was fun from start to finish. There were a couple of places that were frustrating as hell. But I have to admit that even though I enjoy FPS’s I’m not that good at them. But once I figured out how to take care of that scenario I was able to move on easily. For those of you who are achievment whores your not going to get a bunch out of this game. But there are one or two that are interesting. My favorite was “Horse Puncher” which you get by punching a horse in the face to death.
 This game gives a few innovations that I would love to see implemented in other FPS’s. Namely the sniper rifle scope. Since I suck at sniping. But the addition of enemies you should avoid killing mixed in with a whole bunch you need to mow down was challenging in a good way. Also having to switch sides to fix what you screwed up was something I found quite intruiging.
For fun and overall enjoyment this game is great. Especially from a first time developer. The absense of a multi-player element may make some people pass this one by. But they just couldn’t figure out how to implement it the way they wanted to. I for one would rather not have one, rather than the developer throw in some half-assed multi. Now when placed up against the big titles like MODERN WARFARE, KILLZONE 2, HALO(sighs) this game is only average. So it may be just a rent for the tight belted consumer. But if you have the cash and are looking for something fun, and different than what your used to I would highly recomend this game.
3.5
As some of you might remember we here at Techpedition got to interview the guys from 8Monky Labs. A first time developer made up of 8 guys from the publisher PhantomEFX. Their first game foray is Darkest of Days. A FPS that has you hopping through time.
The concept behind this game is your character is a historical M.I.A. from the Battle of Little Bighorn. Also known as Custard’s Last Stand. As the game starts out your in the thick. Just you, a couple of other soldiers, a revolver, and a whole lot of Native Americans. Just before you die a time bubble opens up before you and your pulled into the future. Where your forced into the time army by KRYOTECK. The company that invented the time travel technology. It is explained to you that this was originally used to witness the great mysteries of history. But there have been fluctuations in the time stream. So it’s your job to take care of it. Luckily your not alone. You are guided through your endeavors by Dexter. Another historical M.I.A.
Darkest-of-Days-Physx-05In creating this game 8Monkey Labs built there own game engine from the ground up. They call it MARMOSET. Now what can you do with this? Well you get 300 enemies on screen at the same time with their own A.I. each. Meaning no flocking behavior. You can spend time just shooting different enemies and see different reactions every time. Also they use “Image-Based Lighting” a lighting technique used by the movie industry to give consistent lighting to scenes. So unlike some games you don’t get the random “dark as hell, bright as hell, spots”. Which for me worked out great. It really helped give a sense of story and placement.
The gameplay is pretty damn good. The controls are standard FPS fare. Which is to say pretty tight. The only problem with this game was the fact that there is no “Custom Button” option. But you have the standard options otherwise. Invert axis, Sensitivity, etc. So your in the past from the future. Where are the kickass guns you ask. They show up. In creating this game 8Monkey researched the battles they are placing you in. So if a platoon only gets so far, that’s how far they get. Your supposed to be preserving time. Not tearing it up. But there will be times when you get the good stuff. And good it is. For me the guns are one of the selling points in this game. You’ve got the target rectile, and the iron sites for more precision  shooting. Now in most games when you bring up your iron sites the gun takes up 3/4 of the screen. Personally I hate that. not so with this game. It only takes up a quarter of the screen. Giving you plenty of peripheral vision. Also the edges of the screen blur slightly to bring the center into sharper  focus. Mostly you will be stuck with weapons of the time. Which is mostly the Civil War at the battle Antietam, WW1 at the battle of Tananburg, a few levels in WW2, and a run through Pompeii as it is in it’s death throughs.
Now when you get the kickass guns there are people you can’t kill. Well your NOT SUPPOSED TO KILL. Now how do you tell who these lucky bastards that escape your wrath are? They are surrounded in a blue aura. You need to incapacitate them. Either by shots in the shoulder, legs, or some little balls you carry with you that seek and knock them out. You will run across the OPPOSITION. The guys trying to change things. At first they will not only have the kickass, they will also have shields. So it will be better to run than die. But after you get the ability to kill them you can collect their weapons. Tired of using muzzle loaders?
cw_09Kill some of the guys your not supposed to. The OPPOSTITION will show up. Kill them and take their kickass. But beware. The fewer of the guys in aura die the more points you get at the end of the level. Which you can use to upgrade your weapons. Your classes are rifle, and sidearm. So any  upgrade you buy is transfered to all weapons in that class.  As a personel note. Of the future weapons the sniper rifle is my favorite. The scope will calculate range, windage, and humidity. The three things that effect your aim. Once you paint a target the scope calculates and gives you a target rectile the aim at so you can hit your target. Which makes leading your shoot easy. And very much fun.
The graphics are good. They are smooth and fluid. But not that detailed. Think Timespliters but higher res and that’s about right. The character animations are fluid. Most of the time. I did notice in one place in a Civil War level with about as many characters as the screen could hold, where there were three enemies at distant whose animations looked like the old Tecmo Bowl. Not fluid with only maybe 4 or 5 five animations. Other than that everything else was nice and smooth. I has hard pressed to notice any frame skips. Even with the screen full of chaos.
The sound work on this game is very good. You get a great sense of distance. And you can hear every soldier talking. When there is a group if you listen and can filter out on your own you can hear every conversation within your hearing range. Every weapon has it’s own sound. Which is really good when a lot of FPS today use the same sound for similar guns. Which anyone who knows sound different.
This game was fun from start to finish. There were a couple of places that were frustrating as hell. But I have to admit that even though I enjoy FPS’s I’m not that good at them. But once I figured out how to take care of that scenario I was able to move on easily. For those of you who are achievement whores your not going to get a bunch out of this game. But there are one or two that are interesting. My favorite was “Horse Puncher” which you get by punching a horse in the face to death.
civil_war_field_battleThis game gives a few innovations that I would love to see implemented in other FPS’s. Namely the sniper rifle scope. Since I suck at sniping. But the addition of enemies you should avoid killing mixed in with a whole bunch you need to mow down was challenging in a good way. Also having to switch sides to fix what you screwed up was something I found quite intriguing.
For fun and overall enjoyment this game is great. Especially from a first time developer. The absence of a multi-player element may make some people pass this one by. But they just couldn’t figure out how to implement it the way they wanted to. I for one would rather not have one, rather than the developer throw in some half-assed multi. Now when placed up against the big titles like MODERN WARFARE, KILLZONE 2, HALO(sighs) this game is only average. So it may be just a rent for the tight belted consumer. But if you have the cash and are looking for something fun, and different than what your used to I would highly recommend this game. Otherwise rent or wait for the bargin ben.
3.5 out of 5
Game Reviews, Gaming, PC, Review, Xbox 360

Halo Legends Preview

Posted by Kary Brown On September - 18 - 2009

WIN!

Excuse me while I go have a geek attack…

Anime, News

Episode 034 – The Green Muppet

Posted by Kary Brown On September - 17 - 2009

You know what they say…better never than late…

Techpedition Logo

Weekly ramblings about what's going on in games, movies, comics, anime, and tech, as seen by the techpedition.com staff.

Listen Now!

 


Download Podcast

News

Deal(s) of the Week

Game Roundup

  • Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 1 Launch of the Screaming Narwhal
  • Devil May Cry 4
  • Guitar Hero 5
  • Madden 10

Tech Roundup

Podcast

Halo 3 ODST Live Action Trailer “Tombstone” Version

Posted by Kary Brown On September - 17 - 2009

Yeah…I was bored…

News, Video Feature

360 vs PS3: It’s all about the games, or is it?

Posted by Sergio Lugo II On September - 15 - 2009

Now that the two true gaming consoles are at identical prices ($299), many analyst are saying that the playing feild is now level and the winner will be decided by game quality.  While that may seem true up front, when the actual numbers are crunched I think a different story will be told.  Let’s look at a break down of each system.

PS3 Slim
ps3-slimRetail Price: $299
HDD Space: 120GB
Cost To Upgrade HDD: (Varies By Drive Price)
Wireless Adapter: $0
Extra Controller: $55
Rechargeable Battery: $0
Drive Type: Blu-ray
Online Play: $0
HDMI Cable: $10-$70 (uses any HDMI cable and supports an alt audio-out for receivers)
Headset: $15-$50 (uses any USB headset and most Blu-tooth headsets)

xbox360_eliteXbox 360 Elite
Retail Price: $299
HDD Space: 120GB
Cost To Upgrade HDD: N/A
Wireless Adapter: $100
Extra Controller: $50
Rechargeable Battery: $20/controller (not included in console)
Drive Type: DVD
Online Play: $50/year
HDMI Cable: $50 (provides an additional audio-out for recievers)
Headset: $0 (it’s free, but the default headset is crap)

When we total this up for each console with the following accessories, here are what we come up with:

Console, Extra Controller, Rechargeable Batteries (for each controller), Wireless Adapter, Online Play, and an HDMI cable (that supports 2 receiver audio-out)

Xbox 360: $539 (plus $50 each additional year you own the console)
Sony Playstation 3: $379 (w/generic non-Sony accessories) $474 (w/Sony accessories)

So, looking at the hard numbers the PS3 is obviously the better deal (who saw that coming?). Other things consumers might want to take into account are the video options, and storage options.

For video, Xbox has Netflix and the Xbox Live video store, while Playstation has the PSN video store and Bluray.  Sony has chosen to focus on the tangible (discs) and Microsoft the intangible (video streams). This is obviously personal preference seeing as I would rather watch a Blu-ray disc, and Carl is content watching terrible Netflix movies constantly.

For storage, Sony has made it super easy to swap out the hard drive of the PS3, while right now Microsoft doesn’t have an upgrade option.  On the PS3 the sky (and your wallet) is the limit for storage, outside of a rumored 250GB Xbox 360, you are pretty stuck with the 120 GB you have, so use it wisely.

You might look at this and see Sony-esq propaganda, but I would like you to see it more as a buying guide. I love my 360 and would recommend anyone pick one up, but if you are on a budget and you really have no preference I think this should help you make a more informed decision.

Gaming, News

Penguin United: Wii Cross Fire Review

Posted by Carl Minor On September - 11 - 2009

buy-Design-

The Wii Crossfire Pistol is definitely aesthetically pleasing. Button layout feels natural and accessible. Weight distribution is also good. With the battery compartment in the pistol grip, the bulk of the weight is in in the palm of your hand. Unlike most Wii gun shells which, because of the Wii remote are significantly more top heavy.

The Crossfire also has the ‘A’ button on both sides for easy thumb access, pleasing both righties and southpaws. The groove for thumb access to the ‘A’ button is also very comfortable. The ‘+’, ‘-’, ‘power’, and ‘home’ buttons are all located on the left side and easily accessible by a second hand. Also located on this side is the four blue player indicator lights which are very bright, which can be contributed to them being blue. On the back we have the d-pad, ‘1′, and ‘2′ buttons. They are easy to access with a thumb or second hand and the directional cross is concave making it okay to rest your thumb in the groove. The d-pad shape is also like that of cross-hairs, circle with a cross over the top. This is good for comfort but could be a problem for pressing diagonals but this is a gun not a fight pad so I can not fault them there.

The trigger is a little clickier than I would have preferred and feels sort of narrow, but I have a rather fat thumb, so it would probably feel okay to others. Unlike some gun shells the Crossfire also has a sight for precision aiming in games that allow calibration and turning off of the aiming reticule. The Wii sync button(orange dot) is located recessed in one of the faux backfire vents on the right side of the gun. The speaker is also located on the right of the gun and is much louder than the standar Wii remote speaker. All in all you will not be shamed to hold one of these.

-Performance-

Here is where the Crossfire loses significant points. One problem that will be experienced by all users immediately after connecting the Crossfire to their Wii is the over sensitiveness of the infrared camera. In games the pointer will move great distances with even the most minuscule of changes in hand position. The gun’s motion sensing technology is no where near as sensitive. Games which require certain hand gesture, such as swipes and swings will have some trouble registering them, but this could be no fault of the gun and more the fault of the hand orientation, since you hold the gun quite differently than your Wii remote. I also noticed a compatibility problem with two games. Sega’s “The House of the Dead 2 and 3″ and “Metroid Prime 3: Corruption” have trouble communicating with the Crossfires speaker. Instead of audio cues there is a constant hissing sound coming out of the speaker. I did not experience this with Wii Play but the sound of the gun firing was somewhat distorted. Its possible that Sega and Nintendo may be purposely creating incompatibilities with third party hardware.

141PUW_3

-Durability-
The Crossfires appears to be constructed of the same shiny plastic that first party Wii remotes are composed of. This gives the gun a good feel, and belief that it could handle multiple drops and collision with nearby furniture. However the buttons with their overly clicky presses alludes to possible early failure. The Crossfire is held together with seven standard philips screws, one residing under the battery cover, lending itself to possible deconstruction by the curious and creative. This may be necessary to rectify the Crossfires failing grace, which I will speak on below.

-Value-

The Crossfire currently retails for $39.95 at www.Buy.com. This is the same price as a Wii remote.  Normally third party peripherals retail for less than what the console manufactures themselves sale peripherals for.  If the Crossfire did what its designed for and you have every Wii light gun-esque game then I would recommend this controller wholeheartedly.  Who knows, maybe this gun functions well with a one-hundred plus inch display with an infrared sensor powerful enough to be received at 50 feet and the user able to be 50 feet from their television.  I can tell you that I do have access to a 100 inch screen but I can only get about 24 feet from it and at that distance it was difficult to maintain the infrared light.

-The Problem-

After some testing and comparison to a standard Wii remote in my video below, I think I have determined the problem with the Penguin United Wii Crossfire.  On the Wii system menu for sensor sensitivity, one can definitely see that the the Crossfire’s infrared camera is detecting the two points of infrared light as being about two times as a far apart as what the first party Wii remote reports to the system.  The space between those two dots is how the Wii determines how close to your TV you are sitting and the angle/slant to which the remote is pointed.   It appears the Crossfire’s camera is zoomed in.  As everyone knows when you zoom your video/digital/film camera in, even the slightest movement of ones hand is translated into wild shakes.  The Wii is translating this data into what one can relate to as a “PC mouse set at max sensitivity”, but since the Crossfire is not on a tripod or a mouse pad the user receives very erratic motions on the Wii.  Also attributed to an overly zoomed in camera is loss of peripheral vision.  For example, in a first person shooter when you zoom in with the sniper rifle you are unable to see someone standing in front of you off to the side.

-Solutions-

One option: is to install a lens in front of the infrared camera to widen its field of view.  Option two: games could come with a sensitivity adjustment setting.  Option three: would be to program the Crossfire to halve the distance reported between the two sources of infrared light.  This would fix the ’shakey cam’ over sensitivity but not the limited peripheral view.

-Conclusion-

I really wanted to like the Penguin United Crossfire but it fails to do its sole purpose for being constructed. It will need to be and possibly will be recalled to rectify this problem.  But from my findings it could be an easy fix.  It won’t be cheap, but nothing ever is.

Featured, Gaming, News, Nintendo, Reviews, Technology Reviews