The Online Pass

It's no secret that EA along with many other publishers hate the money passing around for used game sales.

So EA has decided to start including a code with every new copy of its games called Online Pass, which would effectively make online multiplayer locked for every gamer until they enter the code. (article courtesy of Kotaku)

The used game market is flourishing, especially with a nostalgic interest towards classic consoles and the internet offering cheaper ways to get brand new games at lower prices. However there is also quite an annoying trend of sports games being exactly the same every year, and why pay full price when you could trade in last years game?

That is where gamers might become frustrated at EA, how often do sports gamers trade in their old copies of the game nowadays? Plenty. With this new strategy by EA, those trade in games become practically worthless. Replayability and popularity determine street value of a game, and for a series of games that is the same every year this online pass hurts used AND new games sales for EA.

Think about it, if online multiplayer is locked out without a code why buy a used copy of the game? EA will charge you $10 to allow online multiplayer on the used copies, so without it the game isn't going to sell as fast from the store. In a few years the game chains will give you less for sports games as well as many games since EA will probably push this onto all of their games in the future. So now theres a $10 dollar surcharge if you buy it at the store used, and its completely useless if someone is selling it online unless its still shrinkwrapped. Well the problem is that's a new copy not a used one, so that won't happen very much. It'll probably cost just as much with shipping as a new game from the store, unless the seller likes giving stuff away.

I'm not going to assume every game has to have multiplayer to be replayable, but after a couple of days sports games will certainly get boring. Xbox Live pretty much made going to your friends house unnecessary, and I don't think many will keep buying the game to resurge that interest in Lan parties. I would cheer on anyone who does though, but its inconvenient and it devalues games to lock out the replayability factor of most sports games. Will it pay off for EA? Sure it will because now less money is being made on the side, I can't really blame them for doing this either. Should gamers stand for this?

Not being a fan of sports games I say don't bother upgrading your copies of MLB and NFL ever year. Quite a few people do, and I wonder how much of a backlash this will present to EA, we'll see.

Left 4 Dead 2 16 player Co-op

Yes you read that right, someone designed a mod to allow 16 player Co-op on Left 4 Dead 2 for the PC.



As much as N4G highlights the chaos of having a crazy match like this, it looks pretty damn fun to me. There's so much going on that if you aren't pro then you would probably be beaten to every zombie that could fit in that game. I'm already laughing at how many people have a chainsaw in that match, and how "efficient" it would be if everyone stood in a group with chainsaws and cleaned out the rooms. Ha!

Here's the server if any L4D 2 PC owners are interested:
128.61.84.131:27015.

Dead Space 2: is it worth it?

IGN reported a while ago that Electronic Arts COULD be making a sequel to Dead Space in 2010 While it is total speculation (still)at this point, I took a while to contemplate the idea of a Dead Space Sequel. Yes Dead Space Extraction came out, but that didn't sell very well despite the good reception from people who played it. I had previously looked upon the idea of a sequel with some encouragement, now that has seemed to change for me.

Dead Space was creepy, I liked it. But despite my NEED to grab a copy of Dead Space, I haven't. This isn't due to my opinion of the game when I tried it so long ago, it's merely a title I intend on getting as an afterthought. That, and the fact that Extraction didn't sell well on the Wii leads me to believe a sequel to the game won't do any better. There are complaints of very few replayable titles on the Wii, Dead Space Extraction seemed like one you could play consistently. Especially since it took advantage of the Wiimote motion control.

Another reason I don't think a sequel will be successful is the Dead Space movie. Video game movies suck, and I hope Dead Space can break that chain as well as the others coming. Bringing another game won't help that as far as i'm concerned, the producers might look towards the sequel more and mess up the storyline for the movie. The screenplay for video game movies are an integral part, and make it harder when sequels come out.

Above all, Dead Space is a title that should be a stand alone game. It's not a game of discussion very often, but should there be a sequel, I hope for the best.

Microsoft Announces Natal Partners

Here is the list

On that list, I note possibilities I want to see.

EA: Right now the only game published by them that I care about is Valve's Left 4 Dead, I want EA to give a Natal development kit to Valve. Wouldn't it be awesome as hell to motion control claw at people you smoke or hunt, I'm liking the idea. And since Left 4 Dead is only on Xbox (yeah yeah PC too), it's likely they will try Natal.

Activision: *hate this company* Well let's see, will they make Modern Warfare 3? If they do, it'd be nice to throw a knife at someone by motion control. Or throw a grenade, or pretend you have a satchel detonator in your hand. You guys get the idea.

Disney: Hold a Mickey Mouse doll in front of Natal and get an acheivement. Lulz.

MTV Games: They are involved with Rock Band, how about having the avatar mimic how you react while holding the guitar?

That's some of my ideas but take the news as you will of who's involved, including Hideo Kojima.

More Left 4 Dead 2 content news

Joystiq's overview of Dark Carnival Gameplay

Left 4 Dead 2 has been debated for being released too early, most of us at Geeksquisite think quite the opposite.

So with Jostiq's hands on experience of the Dark Carnival level I gleaned a few nice things to look forward to in Left 4 Dead 2 within their article.

First, we were introduced -- rather suddenly -- to a brand new special type of Infected, the Jockey. The Jockey is a small hunchbacked creature pulled straight out of Frankenstein's laboratory, complete with a crazy little laugh. True to his name, once the Jockey gets close enough, he will jump on a survivor's back and proceed to ride him.

This reminds me of the feature in the Activision Spiderman game, based on the movie, where you could jump and pound on the head of a criminal as he runs around the room. I'm sure the Jockey's actions will be similar, and be an annoying Pain in the Ass to kill as well as something entertaining to watch your fellow players go through.

We also are told there is a katana which seems an unusual and unfair advantage to survivors. But Joystiq maintains it doesn't:

Of course, running around with a melee weapon does limit your ability to help teammates escape from the Horde and special Infected, so you might want to keep a decent long range weapon as a backup

Zombies aren't exactly going to care if their arms are cut off.

A few other details: There's a new magnum pistol that downs enemies in a single shot (and blows holes clean through them). There is a grenade launcher available too, though we never actually saw it.

Sweet, I love the molotovs and pipe bombs, but we need some tools like the grenade launcher to make the body parts fly off the infected. Remember kids, hurting people is wrong but zombies make a nice tossed salad of limbs. HAZZAH!

I cannot wait for this game.

Perfect Dark coming to XBLA

It's not just a retro listing

Well here is another XBLA Arcade game coming this Winter, Perfect Dark, and from the looks of the pictures it gets a graphical facelift from the N64 version. And when I read that I was thinking wow cool another Turtle in Time Reshelled story, especially considering it will have co op multiplayer. Thats about all Turtles in Time Reshelled had too.

Well there is something to make fans of Perfect Dark happy enough to buy it at the likely 800-1200 Microsoft points it will be, the Face Mapping Technology removed at the last minute before its original release will be put into the game. That should get some of us interested.

New Left 4 Dead DLC

campaign and survival related

Coming on the heels of Left 4 Dead 2, new DLC!

A new Campaign titled Crash Course and its new environments being available for survival mode. PC users get it for free, but Xbox 360 owners must fork over 560 microsoft points to have it.

It is good to know Left 4 Dead isn't going to phase out anytime soon when Left 4 Dead 2 is upon us. If the DLC is as decent as this from now on, Left 4 Dead will definitely be a game to go back to.

Brutal Legend might be Delayed?!

Not for the same reason as other games

Okay, if you don't get why they are suing the developer even though they gave up on the game, I will make it very simple. Think Fox and the Watchmen case, Activision is exploiting loopholes for its gold digging pleasure. Now recently we got news that the judge threw out their case

Take that Activision

Of course they will appeal this, but unlike the Watchmen/Fox case there was no victory in the preliminary case and lets hope there isn't. There are way too many games being delayed, and I know people are excited for the game. I recently became interested in the game, very interested, and now Activision is trying to cash in. No offense to Activision but....

*insert cursing rant here*

What is odd about the game being delayed is that its mostly because they want to make money on it but I guess delaying it will make EA want to settle and give Activision a piece of the profits. Well, I hope Activision wastes their money on the lawyers that lose this case.

Dead Space Movie

See who's directing

I've had mixed signals regarding video game movies, all of them suck. The Gears of War movie recently made it back onto my list to possible see, now that the idea of Dwayne Johnson as Marcus Fenix is gone. The Bioshock movie by Gore Verbinski is moving, but is halfway near development hell with budget concerns. Now there is talk over a Dead Space movie, since I have been itching to get a game copy for the last year I am EXTREMELY INTERESTED in a movie. Even better, the director of the movie has been named as D.J. Caruso who made movies such as Disturbia and Eagle Eye. I happen to enjoy these movies and shortly have become a D.J. Caruso fan, having him direct a Dead Space movie is a good match in my opinion.

The developers are seeking a writer, *cough* Joss Whedon *cough*, nah doubt that. But I am excited nonetheless about this movie, because someone I actually like is making the movie. Yes, I liked Gore Verbinski's first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, the next two sucked so my enthusiasm for his directing of Bioshock isn't there. And I don't know the helming director of the Gears of War movie, I put my support behind Caruso to make a good Dead Space movie.

The Dead Space world is pretty gritty, and there is a lot of room for improvement in the story for writers to make it better. So an adaption would probably work really well. *crosses fingers*

Battlefield 1943 Demo Impressions

In the Xbox Live Arcade store, 1200 points is expensive, and the game better be really good to earn that price. There is a very big judgement difference between a game worth 800 points and one worth 1200, Battlefield 1943 is a heavily online multiplayer oriented game. So how does it shape up?

Battlefield is actually pretty damn decent, so decent that the only reason it is not on my hard drive is because I am not fiscally sound at the moment. It is that good, especially considering it turns something as simple as a 3 island area into a fun and chaotic warfare ground.

With the ability to choose what type of soldier you want to be, there are different weapons given to you with different strengths. Your character can drive turret mounted vehicles around the island, and when neither plane, boat or bridge exists you can simply swim across to another island. The planes are especially regarded as fun by most players, so fun that I could not ever get in one in the 30 minute demo I had. Although the plane seems cheap because it has nuclear bombing capability that pretty much covers half the island.

However the game definitely is not your run of the mill shooter either, you cannot just shoot and run. It has a much slower killing rate than other games, and I unlike some actually appreciate the amount of attention you DO need with your health being that resilient. If there was any trouble I had, its the difficulty to keep up with friends if you lose them. The mapping and lack of a good hud to indicate friendlies caught me off-guard at times.

EA fakes Dante's Inferno Protest

Link

Apparently EA had set up a fake protesting group against the game Dante's Inferno in order to promote their game.It was a fake CHRISTIAN GROUP, which didn't go over well with Christian activists.

It's pretty stupid to do a thing like that, especially with such silly protesting like TRADE IN YOUR PLAYSTATION FOR A PRAYSTATION. Sure it was meant to create interest over an apparently "controversial" game because of the protesting, but EA may have also been spiting Christian activists as well.

From what I've seen, they are no more guilty than the Christian activists. Between the killing of the abortion doctor and the protest at a gay persons military funeral, they are definitely not innocent either.

EA did it to promote their game Dante's Inferno, and sadly for those who are angry about this, it will probably work. Why do I say that? Well watch this video and understand bringing attention to individual games helps them sell. Gamer's buy recommended and highly praised games, but will also respond to controversy and overhyped news about a game to buy it.

So make of it what you will, EA did this and it's likely to garner a lot of criticism and sadly sell more games. I really don't care about the game selling because I haven't demo played it yet. If I like it, should I feel bad with the negative advertising criticism? No, and you shouldn't either unless you feel this was a low move or you hate the game when it arrives in 2010.

Left 4 Dead 2 Hopes

I've been excited for Left 4 Dead 2, there I said it angry L4D fans :)

I only bought Left 4 Dead a month ago, and I might sell my first one after getting the second one. And I don't care, Left 4 Dead is just simply that good.

Now while I enjoy Left 4 Dead immensely, i'm focusing on the future of the sequel. From trailers, extended demos and the like, it looks good. New weapons, maps, zombie types, and characters. All good stuff, but there are a few things i'm hoping will or will not happen.

For one thing the blood looked a lot more like ketchup, not a big deal but that will seem a bit cheezy. Maybe they'll fix that.

A more forward hope is that they lower the respawn time when your on the zombie team, 30 seconds IS too long. trim it down to 20 seconds, and it will save a lot of frustration for gamers.

Lastly, It'd be kinda cool to have the four survivors fight zombies while DRIVING through town. You can shoot, whack as you pass and in the driver's case, ram them.

Those are my hopes, can't wait to see what else the game will have.

Geeksquisite #30 Game Edition: E3 Coverage for Monday (podcast)

We started podcasting very late but hope it was worth it. I bring you our first podcast covering E3. The podcast is nearly 3 hours long because we touch on just about everything that happened at the 3 press conferences. Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft, and a bit more. We also have some new music to start the show since it's been over a year now it's time for a change. So with that enjoy the show.

Episode 30 is here

EA Press Conference Thoughts and Reactions

So The new day has come but lets one last time go over the events of the EA Press Conference. So the Conference started with a trailer for the game Dante's Inferno. The problem with the trailer was the fact that it was the same one that was shown on Spike TV sunday night. So sadly it started the conference with a bit of a been there done that feeling. They didn't do a great job of getting the show off the ground either, because shortly after Dante they showed their EA girls line of games.  

The girls games included Imagine Pajama party, prom, mall, and show. They talked about the Charm Girls Club and did a good job of making me fall asleep. I honestly can't tell you what happened I wish I could for those who cared but I just didn't have it in me.  

Finally though they got to some "manly" titles like the new Need for Speed: Shift game coming this fall. They talked about how they are now having a leveling system that looked pretty impressive. You can get your profile up to level 50 which is determined by winning and having rivals. The game itself looked really good and in my opinion even better then Forza Motorsport at least from the small amount of footage I saw.  

They then went on to show a few trailers for upcoming games. Including Dragon Age: Origins from Bioware. They showed this new trailer that was super gory and very MTV style. The trailer didn't really reflect the game but I can see how it would get the kiddies all excited watching it on G4. They gave the game a release date of October 20th which sounds good to me. Bioware of course continued their incredible showing at E3 with Mass Effect 2. While I have to say the game itself didn't look that great from the trailer since like Dante it had been pretty much seen before. There isn't anyone out there that played the first game that isn't excited to see how this story continues.  

As Bioware left the floor (for now) Peter Moore took it. EA Sports had a big presence as the conference as is to be expected. Starting with Fight Night Round 4 which got it's release date moved up a week. Also came the announcement of a 2010 title EA MMA which seems like it's going to be a similar title to UFC 2009 from THQ. They then continued to get us looking at fitness games as the next big thing. While they are selling well I have to ask myself, do i actually know anyone with these games? Answer is no, and why? Answer, I have feet and can walk.  

So next in the lineup was The Saboteur which I personally didn't enjoy at all. It was way to "gamey" for my taste. The city of paris is black and white and as you free areas from the Nazi's the city gets it's color back. Assassin's Creed + De Blob = The Saboteur. That is just a game I'm not interested in.  

EA partners finally hit the stage with some of the highlights of the show. Including Brutal Legend which was discussed by Tim Schafer. We got a new trailer for the game showing all the heavy metal stars and the roles they will have in the game. Then APB a new IP from Realtime Worlds was shown in trailer form. From what we can gather it is almost like a MMO with a city consisting of 100 players living within the world. I got a Mad Max type of vibe from the preview.  

EA ended the show with a band having Jedi's walk up onto the stage to introduce a new trailer for Star Wars: The Old Republic. The trailer was a fight between a Sith Lord and Jedi. The only sad thing was that they mentioned that the game will be released when it's ready. Here's hoping that day comes soon. So the conference went pretty well after the rough start and I'm really excited to see more of a few of these titles.

EA Press Conference (E3 2009 Live Blog)