Today is Friday, and so the weekly update from Bungie has been released. This update answers a lot of questions, especially in light of the recent news updates from Shacknews. The Bungie update can be found here: Weekly Update. If you haven't read it and care at all about Halo: Reach, then I suggest you go read it.
This update is great compared to the recent offerings from Bungie. News has been rather light concerning Halo: Reach and it was a pleasant surprise to have a bit of new information to chew on. Urk provided a lot of new aspects on Reach, things such as:
New Voting System - Players are able to vote on an option of choices if the given map and gametype doesn't satisfy
Changes to Matchmaking - Players may choose a range of values to describe themselves and these values help match the player up better with others (Chattiness, Motivation, Teamwork, and Tone being those values). Also, connection options can be put in place to help players find specific people to play with (Good Connection, Language, Skill)
Active Roster - Basically makes finding friends a whole lot easier to do. Just select your friend from a list (which also includes what they are doing presently) and you can join them right away, or if they are busy the system will join you up with them as soon as they are available.
What has me most interested is all the information released concerning The Arena. Now, if you want an in-depth look at exactly what this is, then I suggest you head to the Bungie update and follow the link to Shacknews, as they have an extensive look into just what Arena is as well as deeper explanations of the other additions I've mentioned above. So far, Arena sounds like it's going to be incredibly fun despite the way I've often shied away from overly competitive matches. With the way Bungie has mentioned that player skill will be more accurately rendered and used to match up players, I and many other players will probably end up having more fun playing against others who are actually on the same skill level.
Be sure to go check out the update for everything I've missed (which is a lot, honestly).
Friday, March 19, 2010
Monday, March 15, 2010
What I Want: Arkham Asylum 2
Earlier today I was looking through a Batman fan group on Facebook, and there was a discussing going on about Arkham Asylum 2. The posts in the discussion got me to thinking about what I personally would like to see in the game.
First off, the first Arkham Asylum was a fantastic game. A lot of what I will be talking about are what I, personally, see as improvements to the game, but don't think that I'm saying the first game isn't great because it lacked these. I like to think that my suggestions are more along the lines of improving an already great game, not fixing a bad game.
So, without further ado, on to what I want in Arkham Asylum 2:
Improvements to Batman Himself:
There is really only one area for Batman to improve, and that has to do with the upgrade system. I would like to see many more upgrades that have a real, tangible effect on the gameplay. Many of the upgrades from the first game were useful to use once or twice, but were quickly forgotten. Upgrades like the proximity feature for the explosives were nifty but I just never had much use for them. I'm not sure where the creators can go now without just rehashing all the previous upgrades, but I trust that they're thinking of some cool stuff.
Combat Upgrades - Combine tools (Explosives and batarang, for instance), more moves for combat (expand the counter move. While countering, if the player points in another direction and presses counter again, Batman will quickly throw the enemy in that direction, or the player can press punch and do a regular counter)
Predator Upgrades - More uses for tools such as the bat-grapple. For instance, as Batman is standing on a walkway above an enemy, he uses the grapple to grab the enemy and hang him from the railing. This wouldn't put the enemy out of action like when Batman hangs the enemy from a gargoyle. Also, simple actions like being able to pick up a stone and throw it across the room to distract guards would be nice, or even just using a batarang to knock a bit of stone loose to make some noise.
Suit Upgrades - If this game is taking place soon after the first like the trailer seems to show, maybe Batman hasn't been able to completely fix his suit since his last battle with the Joker. Maybe this would allow for different upgrades to the suit to take place. Also, I'd like to see the health upgrades have a visible effect.
Improvements to Enemies
Most of the ideas I have for Batman's enemies seem to be along the lines of making Batman's life harder. It seems like after a little while, I grew bored with the enemies in the first game, particularly because they often reacted the same way. Adding more variety to the enemies would greatly increase the amount of fun to be had when both fighting and hunting down enemies. What I would likely to see done to the enemies is an increase in variety of equipment and a change in the way they act, as well as possibly a few more enemy types.
For instance, enemies could be equipped with flashlights so they could look up into the shadows, eliminating the safety of the gargoyles. Another improvement would be the way the insane inmates act, specifically when they jump on Batman's back. I would like to see more of a pack mentality applied to these inmates. Multiple enemies could pounce on Batman's back, driving him to the ground, and beating him senseless. Also, if someone like Ras al Ghul is going to appear, trained fighters would be interesting to fight against, especially if they counter and jump around like Batman does.
Improvements to Bosses
I've seen many great suggestions when it comes to the boss fights in Arkham Asylum 2. What I would like to see is more fights that reflect the relation those enemies have to Batman. For instance, the encounter with Killer Croc was interesting in that it was a change of pace from the usual fight with the titans that this encounter could have been. Bosses that would provide interesting variety in AA2 would be Man-Bat, who would provide an opportunity to use the platforming aspect to chase him down and fight him on rooftops, and Ras al Ghul, who would be more than a match for Batman in a fight.
Also, and this is one many people would probably agree on, is that the final boss shouldn't just be another titan-like fight. Joker was cool and all, but his final fight was somewhat lacking in comparison to the rest of the game.
Last but not least, fan-service
I personally enjoyed the Riddler collection quest, and so I would like to see something similar appear. In particular the clues were fun because they allowed the player themselves to try to solve a puzzle, showing that Batman/Detective aspect of the game. I'm not sure whether the creators could just bring back Riddler or have someone else take his place, but some sort of collection quest would be fun to have.
I'm not quite sure how the unlockable profiles will go about, since I'd assume the player wouldn't just be unlocking the same profile, so maybe add more artwork for the characters or more details to their character. Something to give players motivation to continue unlocking stuff.
Finally, alternate costumes for Batman and alternate characters to play as in the Challenge modes. I would love to be able to play as Nightwing, Robin, Batgirl, or Huntress, and having alternate costumes for these characters as well would be amazing. The move set doesn't necessarily have to change much, but just having the option to play as these other characters would be a great service to the fans.
Those are all of my suggestions. I apologize for the scatterbrained feel to the end of the article, I kind of fell off-track while writing.
First off, the first Arkham Asylum was a fantastic game. A lot of what I will be talking about are what I, personally, see as improvements to the game, but don't think that I'm saying the first game isn't great because it lacked these. I like to think that my suggestions are more along the lines of improving an already great game, not fixing a bad game.
So, without further ado, on to what I want in Arkham Asylum 2:
Improvements to Batman Himself:
There is really only one area for Batman to improve, and that has to do with the upgrade system. I would like to see many more upgrades that have a real, tangible effect on the gameplay. Many of the upgrades from the first game were useful to use once or twice, but were quickly forgotten. Upgrades like the proximity feature for the explosives were nifty but I just never had much use for them. I'm not sure where the creators can go now without just rehashing all the previous upgrades, but I trust that they're thinking of some cool stuff.
Combat Upgrades - Combine tools (Explosives and batarang, for instance), more moves for combat (expand the counter move. While countering, if the player points in another direction and presses counter again, Batman will quickly throw the enemy in that direction, or the player can press punch and do a regular counter)
Predator Upgrades - More uses for tools such as the bat-grapple. For instance, as Batman is standing on a walkway above an enemy, he uses the grapple to grab the enemy and hang him from the railing. This wouldn't put the enemy out of action like when Batman hangs the enemy from a gargoyle. Also, simple actions like being able to pick up a stone and throw it across the room to distract guards would be nice, or even just using a batarang to knock a bit of stone loose to make some noise.
Suit Upgrades - If this game is taking place soon after the first like the trailer seems to show, maybe Batman hasn't been able to completely fix his suit since his last battle with the Joker. Maybe this would allow for different upgrades to the suit to take place. Also, I'd like to see the health upgrades have a visible effect.
Improvements to Enemies
Most of the ideas I have for Batman's enemies seem to be along the lines of making Batman's life harder. It seems like after a little while, I grew bored with the enemies in the first game, particularly because they often reacted the same way. Adding more variety to the enemies would greatly increase the amount of fun to be had when both fighting and hunting down enemies. What I would likely to see done to the enemies is an increase in variety of equipment and a change in the way they act, as well as possibly a few more enemy types.
For instance, enemies could be equipped with flashlights so they could look up into the shadows, eliminating the safety of the gargoyles. Another improvement would be the way the insane inmates act, specifically when they jump on Batman's back. I would like to see more of a pack mentality applied to these inmates. Multiple enemies could pounce on Batman's back, driving him to the ground, and beating him senseless. Also, if someone like Ras al Ghul is going to appear, trained fighters would be interesting to fight against, especially if they counter and jump around like Batman does.
Improvements to Bosses
I've seen many great suggestions when it comes to the boss fights in Arkham Asylum 2. What I would like to see is more fights that reflect the relation those enemies have to Batman. For instance, the encounter with Killer Croc was interesting in that it was a change of pace from the usual fight with the titans that this encounter could have been. Bosses that would provide interesting variety in AA2 would be Man-Bat, who would provide an opportunity to use the platforming aspect to chase him down and fight him on rooftops, and Ras al Ghul, who would be more than a match for Batman in a fight.
Also, and this is one many people would probably agree on, is that the final boss shouldn't just be another titan-like fight. Joker was cool and all, but his final fight was somewhat lacking in comparison to the rest of the game.
Last but not least, fan-service
I personally enjoyed the Riddler collection quest, and so I would like to see something similar appear. In particular the clues were fun because they allowed the player themselves to try to solve a puzzle, showing that Batman/Detective aspect of the game. I'm not sure whether the creators could just bring back Riddler or have someone else take his place, but some sort of collection quest would be fun to have.
I'm not quite sure how the unlockable profiles will go about, since I'd assume the player wouldn't just be unlocking the same profile, so maybe add more artwork for the characters or more details to their character. Something to give players motivation to continue unlocking stuff.
Finally, alternate costumes for Batman and alternate characters to play as in the Challenge modes. I would love to be able to play as Nightwing, Robin, Batgirl, or Huntress, and having alternate costumes for these characters as well would be amazing. The move set doesn't necessarily have to change much, but just having the option to play as these other characters would be a great service to the fans.
Those are all of my suggestions. I apologize for the scatterbrained feel to the end of the article, I kind of fell off-track while writing.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Welcome to Midwestern Gamer
This is the debut blog for this midwestern gamer. I have been playing games for most of my life, and it is a passion that I don't see ever going away. Not only will I be posting my impressions on games, but I will also be looking at movies and comics, since these often go hand-in-hand with gaming. Other articles I am looking to write have to do with what I think that certain games should do for a sequel, my own in-depth looks at newly released trailers and news, and oftentimes just whatever happens to be on my mind at the moment.
This may be slow-going as I get into the swing of things, but I hope to update multiple times a week, so check back often.
Thanks for visiting and hope you all enjoy your time here!
This may be slow-going as I get into the swing of things, but I hope to update multiple times a week, so check back often.
Thanks for visiting and hope you all enjoy your time here!
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