barely fatal

The new America’s Army game is out. I like action games, and simulations, but the real reason why I’m interested in this game is that it’s one of the world’s most elaborated military recruitment tools – well, at least the US Army seems to think so.

We’ve had the ridiculous discussion going on in this country how the “military-industry-media congeries” was trying to use violent video games to desensitize young people and prepare them for future wars (Kölner Aufruf, in German). Here we have a game that seemingly really tries to do that – totally in the open. You have to go through several training courses that teach you how to walk, look around, use guns and so on (also called “tutorials” in other games), before you can participate in the real action. All nicely presented in the most army-glorifying way you have ever seen. Blurry, painted cutscenes with lofty music, drill instructors shouting at you – well, all the stuff you would expect from the Army. The game uses the latest Unreal engine, and comes for free. Sounds like a recruiter’s dream!

I tried the first AA for fun and out of curiosity, back in the day. The trainings were horribly boring, the game looked dated, and multiplayer was a pain. And the newest reincarnation? The trainings are horribly boring, the game looks dated, and multiplayer is a pain. Well okay, I take the last thing back, I cannot even tell how the multiplayer is, because it does not work.

The menu is bugged. The training is bugged. I cannot join multiplayer servers. Anti-aliasing does not seem to work. The controls feel sluggish. Call of Duty 4 (which is three years old now) still looks better. The cutscenes are hilarious at best. If this is how the Army works, I’m surprised they even found Iraq on a map, let alone get there in one piece.

And it certainly didn’t help that they closed down the development studio one day after release. I might try multiplayer again after a couple patches, but I’m pretty sure AA3 will still be only a mediocre shooter with sub-standard graphics, boring mandatory tutorials, unskippable crappy cutscenes and a thick layer of propaganda even the most simple-minded redneck will look right through like through an 4x ACOG. Mission accomplished.

Update: I managed to play a few rounds. Laggy, short viewing range, but tactical game play could be fun. If there was respawning. This way, you usually get shot, and then you wait for the round to end. For a long time. The whole things feels like a mod.

Just recently I decided re-visit gametap.com to see what they are up to, and looksy there, they are still around. On Gametap you can download games directly to HDD – through their player, that means “emulated”, or should I say DRMed to hell and back.

The idea is that you sign up for a monthly subscription of their Premium or Classic packages which go for 10 and 5 bucks respectively, in order to play the games. Biggest problem is, while the price seems reasonably low, most of their games are old-ish, like 3 years at best and mostly older. They have a very few newer titles like GRID (of course “Premium-exclusive”), but not as many interesting or high-rated ones.

But, if you’re into some classics like Psychonauts, Deus Ex, Tomb Raider Legend, Just Cause or American Deer Hunting 2000 and maybe don’t have the latest high-end machine, this might be a place worth looking at: They also have a free-to-play package. Unfortunately they have just announced that most of the more interesting titles will stop being free soon and the “fresh” replacements are a sorry excuse. So my new visit to their site will probably be a short one – currently there’s nothing I’m willing to pay for (or that I didn’t finish years ago) amongst the other old titles.

One thing I noticed, the last time I tried this they I had to download their software in order to start downloads and play, now they have a browser plugin. Now that’s a step back. I mean the idea is all well meant and nice, but it took me half a day to find out what to make of an error message that prevented me from playing (the message was totally misleading). The plugin is also slow and unresponsive, shows wrong data at times, and you cannot configure where the downloaded data is supposed to go to. Guess what, my c: partition is kind of filling up –> registry hack required.

They have all Sam & Max, Overlord, Pirates!, DoW 40k Gold, Freelancer, Titan Quest … hm maybe if I ever run out of other media and finally decide to give up on finding a new girlfriend after all …

Today I could go on and about how Snakes On A Plane made my brain hurt even after watching only the last 15 minutes. I could complain about Matrix Reloaded not being any better after all the years. I could thank the Bloms for letting me enjoy The Wire Season Three. Also I could rant about work, politics and my landlord. Or how cake makes me fat.

Instead, since I just watched all the fancy new game trailers from E3, I’ll talk about those. Real quick.

Aliens vs. Predator – No “3″ in the title? How to tell it apart from the first AvP (which was gold)? If they asked me, they should get rid of the Preds. And the humans.
The Old Republic – Bioware wins by default. Thought they tried something new though, not warm up the sets from EP3 and hire wannabe Vaders?
Just Cause 2: LOL WTF
Splinter Cell: Conviction - From and with and for Tom Clancy. Seriously. It better be better than Double Agent, bro.
APB - GTA with more custom tattoos. Nobody needs. Open worlds don’t work with this.
Alan Wake - Uhuhuhu – fancy horror adventure action shooty game. If it ever comes. Spring 2010.
Modern Warfare 2 – They dropped the “Call Of Duty”, but not from the game, just the title. Looks sweet. Graphics a little dated by now.
Left 4 Dead 2 - Now with two numbers in the title. More zombies, more levels? I’m down.
Tales Of Monkey Island – Reviving a corpse? Well it’ll come in episodes *shudders*. S’cuse me. Next.
Blur - Is an action shooty racing game. With cars even.
Lego Harry Potter - Please.
Mass Effect 2 – Bioware. … more? Okay: The trailer’s way too short to say anything. High hopes.
Mafia 2 – I’ve never been a big fan of the original Mafia, but this could be interesting.
Borderland - Now has comic graphics. Meh.
Dragon Age Origins - Bioware, *again*. It has everything: Blood, sex… Uhm. Sex. Swords! (Still not 100% convinced)
Lionhead’s Milo Project – Is outright scary.

Oh and pleeeeeze can SOMEONE tell the industry not to release every fraking title in the same gorram month – no one has the money to buy them all, let alone the time to play them. They kill each others’ sales numbers this way. They are advertising the bargain bin strategy: Buy one long-lasting title like an RPG, then wait for the prices to reach buyable levels.

PS. I quite like Bing.com, despite the stupid name and it being a search engine from Microsoft.

PPS. Yeah I’m also curious about Arma 2 and Operation Flashpoint 2, but those are not at E3, are they. Still want to go to GamesCom in Cologne in August. Will Codemasters be there and maybe bring Jumpgate Evolution?