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Very Vague Impressions From My Trip to Valve

I had the unique pleasure of spending sometime after work today in Bellevue, Washington with Valve Software. It had been quite a while since the last time I was up, to playtest Half-Life 2: Episode 2, so I was excited to come back, this time to play the upcoming co-op shooter Left4Dead. This marked my seventh trip to Valve and unfortunately my first without my good friend Steve, who was out of town.

Without going into really any detail at all, I think Left4Dead is shaping up into a good game. I've never played an online co-op game in the past that has felt very engaging to me, so Valve is taking on a big challenge in creating a game that is going to live or die by the success of the online co-op experience. As always, Valve is putting a lot of time and effort into the details to make sure it is an experience worthy of the label. The game is certainly gorgeous (of course I was playing it on, like, the beefiest computer on the planet!) but Valve has never relied on its graphics to sell a game and this is no exception. They have so far crafted an experience that will keep you on the edge of your seat, ready to shoot anything that movies, while forcing you to rely on the help of your teammates to traverse through each map.

Aside from playing the game, the highlight of my trip was finally getting to meet Jess Cliffe, co-creator of the best multiplayer game in the history of gaming. I've had the chance to meet a lot of people at Valve who have been there since the early days, but I had never met Jess before. The fact that Jess is now working on Left4Dead shows that Valve is really pouring a lot of their top resources into making sure the game is as good as it can be. Thanks again to Valve for the opportunity to visit, I always enjoy it.

Mild Dissatisfaction in an Elevator

Driving home the other day, I got the spontaneous notion to drop by Blockbuster and see if they had the new Guitar Hero yet. I was a little cautious to buy it because of the $50 price tag; I wanted to make sure it would be worth the money before taking the plunge. I hadn't read any reviews on it but I thought it was possibly something that would get old quickly. And since Blockbuster is extraordinarily lax on late fees, I thought there was a good chance I would be able to get enough GH goodness to satiate my appetite with just a rental. As it turns out I was right.

I have to say I'm a bit disappointed by the game. There are a few glaring faults that make me feel like this should be more of a $30 game than a $50 game. It's too bad, too, because I have always loved Aerosmith's music. I'm also a big fan of Guitar Hero, so I was pretty excited when I heard it announced. My disappointment comes from the following faults:

• No Co-op career mode
• Short track list
• Presentation is rehashed from Guitar Hero III
• Difficulty is significantly reduced
• Crowd claps off the beat during Star Power segments

The rehashed presentation was the first thing that I noticed. The menus look the same, the default characters are all the same, the menus and game structure are all the same and even some of the messages that appear on the loading screens are the same. This just shows a lack of effort on Neversoft's part, which is discouraging. In fact, the one thing that is different from the main menu is that there is no option for Co-op Career mode. Debbie and I really enjoyed playing through GH3 in Co-op Career. There is still a co-op mode, which is good, but we were limited to 8 songs (and not great ones at that) until I spent some time unlocking songs. It may be something that people don't care about, but I certainly did.

The track list for single player is reduced to 31 tracks, which is a little more than half of Guitar Hero III. About 19 of these are Aerosmith songs. I was glad to see "Dream On" and "Rag Doll" make the list, but there are some glaring holes as far as I'm concerned, including "Cryin'" and "Janie's Got a Gun", which are great songs. There are some decent selections in the vault, but it still leaves me wanting more. Couple the short track list with the decreased difficulty level and it makes for a short experience. I still haven't been able to beat the last 4 songs in GH3 on hard, but I ran through GH:Aerosmith on hard in about 4 hours without having to retry any songs (save the guitar battle, which I suck at). This is particularly disturbing because I hadn't heard of a lot of the songs on there, I was site-reading.

The last point might sound a little nit-picky, but it actually gets extremely frustrating. Neversoft has added a clapping sound to Star Power segments of the game. The idea is that the crowd is clapping along with the beat. The sucky part is that the crowd doesn't clap along with the beat! They clap at the same tempo no matter what song you're playing! The result is that Star Power segments end up being extremely difficult, having to try to pick out the actual beat over the sound of the crowd. I really find this to be a huge problem and I won't be happy if I see it in the future.

While I wasn't satisfied with the game, that isn't to say it was an unpleasant experience. I'm definitely glad I rented it and I will be playing it a considerable amount over the next couple of weeks (sorry Blockbuster :-P). I love Aerosmith and there are some great songs in the game. In addition to the Aerosmith classics, there are one or two great songs by other bands, including Cat Scratch Fever and Sex Type Thing. Another cool feature was the interviews with the band and the history lessons. But, like, 10-minute-VH1-segment interesting, not $50-video-game interesting.

Will I be buying it? No, at least not until it's $20 and probably not even then. It's not an experience worth $50 as far as I'm concerned. I like the idea of band-specific Guitar Hero games (as long as they're as good as Aerosmith) but I hope Neversoft spends a little more time on the next one. Until then, I'll keep renting.

Smash Bros. Brawl: Day 1

March 9th has come and gone, and seen the release of Smash Bros. Brawl, my personal most anticipated Wii title of them all. Sure, I was hugely stoked about Zelda and Metroid, among several others, but I knew that when it's all said and done, I will spend more time playing Brawl than I will any other Wii title, probably by a factor of two or three even. So I reserved my copy at my local GameStop and showed up at midnight to get it. I've had a lot going on today (that time change didn't help things, either) so I haven't spent the entire day playing it, but I thought I would share some thoughts here for anyone considering a purchase. I know there are a lot of reviews and impressions online already, but I think I've probably played more Melee than basically any reviewer (mostly because they're forced to move from game to game, whereas I played Melee for three hours a day, every single day, for about a year). I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who had the same questions I did and those questions may not have been answered in the reviews. The big new features like the level editor and third party characters have been covered by the big sites, but a lot of little things get overlooked. Hopefully this will be helpful to some.

As you've probably heard, Brawl keeps the same feel as its predecessors. This was really important to me, and it's true. Thankfully there are also some improvements. One improvement that is monumental but I think has been overlooked is the camera. No longer does the camera pan out to alert everyone to the (gasp!) wooden box! Or...rolling barrel! No, there is so far one item that I've seen the camera pan out for and it is pretty much the most important powerup in the game. I think there are others, but they're at least limited to items of importance. And not knowing that there's a stupid pig head on the other side of the map because the camera didn't pan out to show you is totally worth it. The other overlooked improvement is that you can use the C-stick to perform smash moves. Yes, I use the C-stick. Sue me.

Now the levels. I typically would play all my matches in Melee at Hyrule Temple, so I was really interested in how it would come out in Brawl and I'm happy to report that it is entirely unchanged, and it is available from the start (ie; you don't have to unlock it). As for the new levels, I don't see myself playing many of them, because in most of them the environments get in the way too much. That being said, some of the levels are really inventive. The Pikmin level had a little token in the level that would appear at one point and when you hit it, it would flip like a coin. Depending on what side it landed, the level would stay dry or become flooded. This is an interesting concept, but the flooded version resulted in a lot of hoax suicides, which makes the level undesirable for me. The one level that I will probably play a lot even though the environment is very involved in the outcome is the Wario Ware, Inc level. This is because it's hilarious. If you like Wario Ware, you'll certainly like this level, it had me laughing out loud.

Next on to the characters. So far I've only got a couple characters that were not in Melee, and none of them were very impressive. However, the comeback characters all play very familiar, which made it easy to pick up and play right away. I played with a buddy who I've played a lot of Melee with and once we unlocked Marth and Falco, the showdown at Hyrule Temple was classic. It felt like we were back playing Melee, with the graphics just touched up a bit. A few things have changed about the character moves. For instance, instead of Marth charing up his sword when holding the B button, he charges up a little jab move, which I find a lot more useful than the charged sword. Also Falco's roundhouse smash move has been replaced by a headbutt, and now his deflection move (down+b) is sort of tossed like a yo-yo. It's hard to tell if that is going to be quite the same. The other original characters vary in similar ways but I was glad to find that they all seemed like improvements. Of the new characters, I liked Meta Knight and Pit. I'm looking forward to getting Snake and Sonic but haven't yet. I'm glad to see that no meaningful Melee characters were cut.

There are several new item types in the game and while I appreciate their addition, some of them can certainly randomize the game a bit more. This is good for beginners playing with seasoned veterans, but bad for veterans playing against veterans. On the other hand, they also offer a bit more strategy and finese in some cases. There is one item that will pretty often get you at least one kill (depending on how many people are playing, you may get more) but to pull it off you have to collect a set of three items. If you get hit hard enough, you'll lose one of the pieces, so it can make for some interesting scrambles. I think veterans of the game often play with little or no items so it doesn't matter to most, and the option of removing an item pretty much takes away any gripes about a certain item being in the game.

Unfortunately I haven't had much luck with the online play yet. I haven't tried entering friend codes, but playing with strangers did not work for me because it was never able to find a match. Very frustrating. Also, it's really irritating that Nintendo is making us enter new friend codes since we've all already entered our friends into our Wii's a long time ago. And who wants to enter long strings of numbers and letters? Nintendo is still discouraging online play, as far as I'm concerned, although this is a step in the right direction. They needed to take it further, however, because playing single player just isn't very much fun.

Oh yeah, the single player mode. I'll give them credit, they worked a lot on the single player and it does show. Really, though, this was never meant to be a single player game. The character movement was never made for moving through obstacles and beating the crap out of a computer player is unsatisfying. They've made major improvements in the presentation, the cut scenes look fantastic, but the gameplay is very meh. The great thing, in my opinion, is that you don't need to play the single player to unlock anything. From what I could tell, all the unlockables can be found by playing VS. mode, which is a breath of fresh air. The challenges and punching bag mode is back, which are more fun than the adventure mode, in my opinion.

Having just gotten about four hours with Brawl, I'm happy to report that I am completely satisfied with this new iteration of the game. They have definitely kept the same feel as the last game, but with some needed additions. If I can get the online play working, I expect that I will be investing an embarrassing amount of time with the game. The real test will be whether or not the game can stay fresh since it is so similar to Melee. I have a feeling that it will get old quicker, but it's also been five years since I heavily played Melee, which is enough time to miss it. Let me tell you, it's good to be back.

Update 3/13/2008: Finally got online to work! Apparently it was a problem with Nintendo's servers. Still, though, the lag makes it relatively unplayable. Thank you, Nintendo, I now know what it's like to play Smash Bros. in slow motion. Ever seen a 2 minute match last 10 minutes? I have...

Half-Life 2, How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways.

Given the nearing arrival of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, I thought I had better get to finishing up the remaining portion of The Orange Box. While it did come out last November, I hadn't quite gotten to Half-Life 2: Episode Two- not because I don't like Half-Life, mostly because I played Episode 2 at Valve's office over a year ago. Still, playing a game a year before it comes out always means you're not playing nearly a finished product so I needed to go back and play it for real. And after finishing it a few days ago, I'd like to take some time to identify why I think this is the best Half-Life 2 iteration yet.

The first thing that struck me was the graphics. Certainly my new toys have given me a renewed appreciation for the graphics on a technical level, but the awesomeness of Episode Two's graphics were more than just that. It was the object design, character interaction with objects, characters interacting with each other, landscapes (clearly drawing some significant amount of inspiration from their local surroundings in the Pacific Northwest), special effects, and the lighting! The whole package comes together with the physics system to be what is the most immersive video game experience on Earth.

The second thing that impressed me about Episode Two was the balance between gameplay experiences. It successfully intertwined extremely intense firefights with mind bending puzzles. This is something that Valve does extremely well and I think they've never done it better than in Episode Two. In particular, it had what I consider to be the best Half-Life puzzle in the entire series (shown at right, so those of you who have played it can remember). It was simple, it was clever, it was original, and when I figured it out it brought a smile to my face. To go along with the great puzzles, there were several intense fire fights but none better than the final battle, which is one of my favorite battle sequences of the whole series.

The most impressive thing to me out of all aspects of the game was the way the writers at Valve told the story. There has been a lot of criticism that Half-Life 2 did not do as good of a job telling the story as the original did. And in fact, after playtesting Episode Two at the Valve office, I told them the story was still pretty hazy in my mind. But since then, the game has come a long way in terms of how the story moves along. In fact, I have to think based on the version of the game I played back in September of 2006, that most of the remaining months of development was spent figuring out how to communicate the story to the player. They did this by adding a lot of cutscenes (although they're all told from the first person and you often maintain control of Gordon throughout, so I don't think they're technically cutscenes), but spaced them out in a way that didn't make the game feel like it was dragging along. And because the Source Engine allows the designers to give the characters a level of emotion not found in any other game, the scenes are all really enjoyable to watch.

Ultimately, I couldn't believe how much I enjoyed Episode Two. It's almost easy to overlook it tucked in with the rest of the tremendous content in the Orange Box, but now it stands out amongst the rest as one of the best parts. It was obvious after Episode One that the people at Valve had gotten really good at making Half-Life content- the puzzles and action were great. After Episode Two, it's obvious that they haven't gotten complacent; they're still striving to make better games. Once just before the first Half-Life 2 came out I was visiting the Valve office to playtest that and there was a note on a cork board in the kitchen area. It said "Budget: none. Release date: none. Just make the best game ever made." The whole series is the collaboration of a lot of people who are brilliant and passionate about what they do, and it shows. There is not a better example of this than Episode Two.

The cake is a lie

I've been pretty busy since October 10th. Valve released The Orange Box yesterday and it's pretty much all I've done since I got it (...aside from watching The Office of course!). In fact, I just finished Portal and I have to say I am blown away. This is flat out the most jaw-droppingly impressed I've been by a game since the Source Engine made its first appearance. I don't want to give anything away and everyone should absolutely finish the whole game on their own so I'm not going to say much about it, except that it's 90 minutes of innovative and exhilarating gameplay. It's going to spawn a subculture- people will be making Portal levels 10 years from now.

Also from the 'Box, Team Fortress 2 has totally won me over. It's a lot faster paced than CS but I like that it lets people choose how they want to play. I've always loved shooting rockets, so I mostly play soldier. If it's exciting for someone to have a high score and play sidekick, they can be a medic. If someone likes being sneaky and getting cheap kills, you can be a spy. What I like most is the group effort when you're all defending or attacking a capture point- but you have to have a good team. Your team makes or breaks your experience, so hopefully that will encourage people to get good or stop playing. Right now my favorite levels are Gravel Pit, Dust Bowl, and Hydro. I believe the pictured map is Hydro but I could be wrong. Oh yeah and as you look at the screenshot, notice the massive carnage in the upper right hand corner of the screen, dealt by yours truly (my first quad kill).

Rounding out the Orange Box is Episode 2, which I already played during a playtest a year ago so I'm not rushing to get into it. I'll definitely play it, I found while playing Episode 1 that a lot can change since a playtest. It's good to see that all the games are getting really good reviews and I recommend everyone to try them out...even if it has to be on XBox :-)

Team Fortess 2 Impressions

I finally took the plunge on The Orange Box and preordered it in order to start in on the Team Fortress 2 beta right away. $45 (with $5 preorder discount) is a pretty good deal if you want the whole pack, but given that I already have Half Life 2 and Episode One, it's not really a great deal. I would have preferred for them to be cheaper individually ($30 for Episode Two and TF2 each seems a little steep). At least they give vouchers for the games you already have- which means they're probably never going to sell a copy of Half Life 2 again.

Anyway, I'm about 3 hours into Team Fortress 2 now and so far I am...not disappointed, but not blown away. I really haven't gotten into it enough to tell if I will end up being blown away. The thing that Valve definitely nailed is that this game has character. It probably has the best personality of any game I've ever played. The animations are fantastic. I talk to a couple artists on the Team Fortress 2 team (and previously Half Life 2 team) whenever I go up to Valve (I like to sneak that in whenever I can. ...seriously.) and they have knocked it out of the park in the environment and character design department. When I saw previews for the game initially, I remember thinking that the cut scenes they showed could not translate into a game. I am happy to say that I am wrong.

A cool thing about the game is that all the in-game sounds really give the game a feeling of camaraderie. The narrator's voice (the voice that keeps you informed about how much time is left, etc) speaks as though she is on your team, which makes it more personal. Also, the characters in the game all have comments they make from time to time, which are appropriate for the situation such that they add to the atmosphere rather than take away from it. So even if there's not a lot of microphone chatter (which is probably a good thing), it still feels like the people you're playing with are alive. I especially like the ruckus that is heard when the game goes into "Sudden Death" and the whole team starts shouting like they're about to run through the human tunnel after halftime.

I have a hard time telling whether I'm ultimately going to stick with the game because I don't know enough about it. I've gotten to know the levels and the play modes well enough, but I still feel like I'm just going out and killing as many people on the other team as I can, without directly helping the team fulfill the objectives. The roles that you can choose from seem balanced for the most part, although I notice I mostly only dominate with the heavy machine gun guy. It seems a little unbalanced there; I think the weapon power vs. speed trade off is not quite as important as some people at Valve think it is (this is also judging by the AWP in Counterstrike, which is slow but powerful, and horribly unbalanced). I need to spend some more time with it before I really make up my mind about it. One thing is for sure, I hope Valve goes back to Counterstrike Source and kicks the kind of life into it that Team Fortress 2 has. It's polished- not necessarily in the number of bugs (it is in beta, afterall), but definitely in style and it makes it a lot more fun to play.

There have been a lot of exciting games lately. Metroid Prime 3 is good so far and I just picked up Zelda for the DS today. I only had time to watch the intro but I just love the graphics! I usually downplay graphics, but this is the kind of visual achievement I really like: obviously the DS is underpowered but Nintendo puts that in the back of your mind with incredible art style. Then again, I've yet to see a Zelda game that didn't look incredible so I should have expected that. I'll add some impressions here once I've played it more.

Behold, CameronHinkle.com!

The time has finally come for me to have a legitimate personal website, which you can now find at www.cameronhinkle.com. My previous site, which I created to get a job, was at cs.pdx.edu/~cch/. I put a lot of work into it but at the time, I didn't realize what had happened in the 6 years since I had made a website (what is...."css"?!). So now that I'm a little more up to speed, I've created a whole new layout and new site. I've been reading a lot of books on web design, CSS, XHTML, and useability so hopefully it shows in my new layout.

Of course now I need to consolidate. I've got a blog here and a website there, so my next project is going to be to somehow get this blog to look like the new site. I spent the evening figuring out how to do that. After hours of struggling, I decided to take all the CSS from my current site and paste it into Blogger's template box and it is closer than anything I've come up with so far. I'm trying it out on my other Blogger account so take a look at if you're curious. I hope to have it finished soon. In fact, I hope to have the whole website finished soon because starting August 27th, I'm going to be sitting in front of my television playing with my Wii for a really long time. I stopped at GameStop to get a copy of Sonic for Debbie (which she is surprisingly good at!) and asked the clerk when Metroid Prime 3 was due out. To my complete shock, he said it was a mere month away. That made my day.

On a side note, the fact that I did not know when Metroid Prime 3 was coming out- especially given that it was a month away- says a lot. Save about a 1 year phase in high school, I was the most knowledgeable Nintendophile I knew. There's part of me that's a little disappointed, but there's also a big part of me that is happy. And just think, if I hadn't spent that fourth year at GameStop, I might still be trolling the System Wars Forums every day. So thank you to GameStop for helping me quit cold turkey.