A long time has passed since I’ve waited for the release of this one game, and upon its release, well, I really couldn’t be happier. Forza Motorsport 3 brings to the table what other games seem to completely leave out. Now before I get into that, let me just break down the game.

Forza 3 is a racing simulator exclusive to the Xbox 360, rated E for everyone. So far it has been a game that does not disappoint. Like in previous Forza titles, you start the game with a set amount of money (credits) when you step into the racing world. Buying cars, competing in races, and then using your winnings to upgrade your car so you may compete in more difficult races is what Forza is all about. One feature that sets Forza 3 far from its competitors (see: Grand Turismo, Need For Speed) is that players have the full ability to take a car and not only customize it, but also go further and fine tune the car. You can adjust everything from tire pressure and gear ratios to suspension and braking. The full list allows players to tune their cars to their own preference, for the way they drive, in order to gain their own advantage on the race track.

Now another thing that pushes this game beyond the others is the ability to do more than just paint your car.  Forza 3 allows you to take the ideas in your head and gives you the ability to put it onto the car.  Other games such as Need For Speed have let you also do this, but theirs is much more limited in scope.  Forza 3 allows you to use thousands of layers,  different shapes, different colors and sizes to build a masterpiece.  Players can make anything from stick figures, to actual characters.  This alone is one of the key features that should go with any racing simulator that allows customization.  If you can’t let players do anything to their cars, well, the experience of the whole ‘buy and tune‘ really gets dulled down.

Next upon this long list is going to be Forza 3’s brand new addition of the storefront.  Before, in Forza 2, players only could use the auction house which, just as the name states, players can place up a car of their own up for auction and other players would bid upon those cars.  This used to be the old way for players to buy car designs and tunes, but with the addition of the storefront, all of that has become obsolete.  The storefront allows plays to search specifically for paint designs, vehicle tuning configurations, or pre-made images created by the other players.  This helps players who don’t have that keen sense of tuning or painting to make their own car better.  It really helps the whole feel of the game, balancing it out to a new level that gamers really haven’t seen before.

The graphics in Forza 3 are unlike any I have ever seen.  I can only hope and pray to someday see this game on a 1080p high definition television.  Even on my standard definition television though, this game looks drop dead gorgeous.  Colors and reflections just shine off of every curve of the car.  The cars seem to have a certain realism to them as you drive around the tracks.  What’s even more amazing than the graphics is the engine sounds of each and every car.  No two cars sound the same.  Each vehicle has its own pitch, rumble, and growl that gamers will easily notice when they play the game.

Finally time to talk specifically about the game play.  Just like all track based racing games, you and other cars (game controlled or other gamers) line up to race a set amount of laps around the track and first one around wins.  The game handles and feels like you’re driving an actual race vehicle.  As you upgrade your car you will start to notice that it will have increased power, quicker shifting,  and better acceleration than it did before.  Forza took the time to create a very realistic simulation to the point that if you accelerate too hard into a turn, you have the very good chance to spin out and wreck.   Slam on the brakes too hard and they lock up.  Of course there is still assistance for those who aren’t as skilled at virtual racing.

Overall, Forza 3 brings us what other racing games lack, and that’s the room for a massive online comunity that goes further than just player contact, taking you all the way to player generated content.  A large racing fan community will allow for countless items to find and download.

If you’re a racing game fan and you don’t own this game,  I highly advise going to your local store and picking up a copy.  Even if you can only rent the game, you will find it a great value for your money if you do.

I give Forza 3 for the Xbox 360 a 10/10.

Beholders? In my Indianapolis Convention Center? It's more likely than you think

I had a blast at this years Gen Con. For those of you not familiar, Gen Con is a gaming convention held in Indianapolis every year where gamers, publishers, artists, and cosplayers show up to celebrate all things gaming related. Its a great way to find a new pen and paper RPG, talk with vendors about new and upcoming games, and meet fellow gamers who might just like the same games as you.

The costumes were great this year as always. I ran into Ghost from Modern Warfare 2, an actual 7 foot tall viking, the cast of Robin Hood Men in Tights, some dude with headcrabs, and many well endowed women with costumes that accentuated those features.

What made this year better than last for me was actually a couple of things.

1. Meeting Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, two of my favorite authors and extremely nice people. Tracy was more than happy to talk to you for a while and very approachable.
2. Seeing Felicia Day in person, DAMN!

This year I had the opportunity to try out tons of new games and I’d like to share them with you.

First, my favorite game of Gen-Con so far is Ergo by Catalyst Games Labs, the same people who also have the Shadowrun and Battletech franchises. This is a card game where up to 4 players are represent a variable A-D and try to prove themselves while disproving their friends using operators such as and, or, then, and not. It is a lot of fun and a unique game that can be quick or long, depending on how much your friends will argue with you on the premises of the proofs.

We spend one night getting acquainted with Shadows Over Camelot, a game designed to really just beat the piss out of you until it ends. Each player chooses a knight of the round table and draws a card determining whether they will side with evil or good (this is not revealed). Each turn a player has to advance evil by one of 3 ways and then quests to fight back the evil. While the game is a lot of fun, it can be frustrating as sometimes fighting evil is about as easy as trying juggle chainsaws on a unicycle during an earthquake.

I sat down for a quick game of Bump In the Night, a horror board game where the idea was to play your ghosts in a chess like manner to get points by scaring random placed kids out of the house or terrorizing them to death. Both of which are hard to do as you can’t move into a room with kids and they can’t move into a room with ghosts. The game forces you to herd kids into the path of ghosts.

I also picked up a dice game from Steve Jackson games, Cthulu Dice. Simple quick game where you have sanity tokens and you attack other players with the roll of the dice trying to steal their sanity while maintaining yours.

A friend of mine also bought a katana from Dragonsong Forge. He threw in a carrying case, tatami mat, and 60 days repair warranty. We had the opportunity to test the sword when we got home and here is the result.

That thing is sharp, you can feel when it cuts through something how smooth it is. He’s very happy with the purchase and we’ll be chopping things up for quite a while with this sword.

Gen Con is a great experience if you’re a gamer and if you’re near the Indianapolis area I highly recommend a 4 day badge even if you only go for 2, you’ll get your moneys worth and you’ll have a great time.

An open letter to all game development studios and console manufacturers regarding alternative control schemes.

As a software developer, a gamer, and someone who knows plenty of lefties (left-handed individuals) out there, I’m kind of at a loss to explain why modern video games are so inaccessible to a demographic that makes up 7 to 10% of our population.  I really can’t comprehend why a game studio looking to put out a blockbuster game and sell millions of copies would choose to ignore that large a chunk of their target audience.  If designing a game to work for lefties were such a big hurdle to overcome, that would be one thing, but it’s not.  Programming a control scheme that caters to lefties is such a simple addition to a game that every studio out there should be doing it.

Some game studios are better than others, but most still fail miserably at implementing a control scheme for lefties.  I’m even willing to bet there isn’t one single game studio executive out there that’s left handed.  If there were, they would definitely be pushing all of their games to be lefty friendly.  One of my gamer friends, whose Xbox Live gamertag is Dez1013, has this to say about lefty controls.

It’s frustrating, when I go to get a new game or just browse the shelves for something new I can’t buy it immediately. I usually have to check with friends or search online to see if a game has control customization, then go and either get the game or listen to my friends talk about how much fun it is while I sit in the party chat. If you think its easy, try switching to lefty and see how well it works for you. It’s quite frustrating, you can’t react as you normally would, and you have to think about every action before you do it.

I’m not sure if it’s flat out ignorance or deliberate prejudice against lefties that causes game studios to leave these options out of their games.  It’s not as if most of these games don’t already have some alternative control schemes in them, but almost all of them are catered to changing a controller’s button preferences and not movement control schemes.  Modern video game consoles and PC’s have some of the most advanced computer hardware on the market today.  The ability to handle that minute little extra processing power it takes to interpret different control schemes is there.  Game studios need to design their games to be usable for all gamers, not just the 90% of us that are right handed.  To do otherwise is to lose potential sales and fans.

The problem doesn’t lie solely at the feet of game studios though.  Personally, I would say most of the problem could be fixed by game console manufacturers.  At first, I thought that the console could have default lefty controller mappings set on the console itself that each game could read in, but there are simply too many games out there with too many slight variations for any platform wide default to be feasible.  No, the simple solution that console manufacturers could do is to put out alternative controllers.

This image was used as an April Fool's Day joke by one website a few years back.

Why can’t Sony, Microsoft, or Nintendo put out alternative lefty controllers that are literally mirror images of their current controllers but have the hardware wired up so that to the console, the input is the same?  All a controller does is send specific signals to the console telling it which button was pressed or what direction a thumbstick was moved.  A mirrored controller would allow lefty gamers to enjoy every single game out there on that console without causing developers the time and effort (however little it may be) to implement alternative controller schemes.

I would like to issue a call for all game studios to implement controller schemes that cater to left handed gamers, until such time as the game console manufacturer decides to market the hardware that makes controller schemes unnecessary.  Gaming is a past time that is meant to be enjoyed by all.  Game designers and hardware manufacturers need to get on the ball and stop ignoring that segment of our population.

Edit (8/11/2010): I’m adding these diagrams for those who are not avid games and unfamiliar with the standard default layout, legacy, and southpaw layouts.

Legacy Layout - Sideways motions of thumbsticks swapped

Standard Layout - Left thumbstick controls motion, right thumbstick controls the direction you're looking.

Southpaw Layout - Thumbsticks are swapped from the standard layout

Monday Night Combat is a arena based third person shooter with customizable character classes, a dash of Defense of the Ancients cannon fodder spawning game play, and an art style that has earned it a lot of comparison to Team Fortress 2 that is coming out on the Xbox Live Arcade.  That last sentence is a fairly comprehensive summary of what to expect from Monday Night Combat but it does not tell the average gamer all that much. That is why Uber Entertainment, the developers of Monday Night Combat, have released this 14 minute video of gameplay footage that is narrated by the developers.  This video will show you what Monday Night Combat is all about better than words ever could, so here we go.

That video should have answered most of the questions about how Monday Night Combat will play.  The only big questions left are when will Monday Night Combat be released and how much is it going to cost?  The release date has not been officially announced but rumor has it that Monday Night Combat will be out within a few months.  The cost has not been officially announced, to my knowledge, but it is rumored that Monday Night Combat will cost $15.  With those questions answered there is one burning question that is up to you to answer.  Do you think you can get $15 worth of fun out of Monday Night Combat?

This review of Crackdown 2 will be short because Crackdown 2 is not good enough to warrant an in depth review.  Long story short, if you are thinking about playing Crackdown 2 you should definitely rent it before you spend sixty of your hard earned dollars buying it.  I honestly can’t even recommend spending ten of your hard earned dollars renting Crackdown 2.  Maybe if you have a Gamefly account and nothing else in your queue you should try out Crackdown 2, but you would be better off just playing Crackdown again because Crackdown 2 is just a lazy remake of Crackdown that is worse than the original.  Lets just do a quick rundown of the controls, graphics, game play and character and call it a day.  There is no point in talking about Crackdown 2′s story because there is no story.

In Crackdown 2 you get to play as an Agent of the Agency again.  The Agent is a nameless, faceless silent mook that engenders about as much sympathy as a gun toting brick.  Character customization is a joke.  You can give your Agent one of four or five butt ugly pre-made faces but there is no point because after you get your first level in your first skill your Agent gets fitted out with a helmet.  The only other nod to character customization is that you can pick a color for your Agent’s armor.  Their is little point to choosing a color of your armor because you can choose from about four different colors ranging from blue to gray and they are all samey and boring.  That is the extent of character customization.  Character customization is like a vestigial feature that got carried over from Crackdown but Crackdown 2 barely has enough customization options to make the claim that it has character customization.  The result feels lazy and pointless.  The story in Crackdown 2 has the same lazy, pointless feeling.

Crackdown 2  is a sandbox action game where you are tasked with clearing a terrorist group and a mutant zombie horde out of Pacific City.  The only reason there is a terrorist group or a mutant zombie horde in Crackdown 2 is because Crackdown 2 can’t really have a game without bad guys.  The in game explanation for why the bad guys even exist is brief and quickly forgotten.  The only thing you need to know about the terrorists is that they are called The Cell and they have some strongholds that you need go shoot up.  The only thing you need to know about the mutant zombie horde is that they are called The Freaks and they have some holes in the ground that you need to drop bombs in.  That is all there is to Crackdown 2.  After you shoot up you first stronghold and bomb you first hole in the ground all there is to do is lather, rinse, and repeat until all the strongholds are shot up and all the holes are bombed.  Or in my case you just shoot up a few strongholds and bomb a few holes in the ground until you get bored and go play something else.  In a nutshell, the game play is fun for the first few hours but it quickly gets boring.  The only thing that gets boring faster than the core game play is the graphics.

Crackdown 2′s graphics looks good but it is like a good looking bowl of fruit.  It is nothing you have not seen before and it gets old pretty quickly.  Crackdown 2 shamelessly reuses the same city from the original Crackdown.  The only change is that Crackdown 2 has made the city a little more drab and added a bit of rubble.  The enemies are the same drab, gray chumps from the beginning of the game to the end.  At least they were the same sorry bastards when I quit playing and I only had about three more strongholds to shoot up and two more holes in the ground to bomb when I quit.  The only things to look at in Pacific City other than the boring Cell and Freaks are the civilians and the police.  The civilians are vaguely annoying non-entities that occasionally get run over.  The police are bland, blue annoying chumps that will shoot at you after you accidentally run over a few pedestrians.  That is all there is to look at in Crackdown 2 so all of the modern graphics rendered in their HD glory that Crackdown 2 offers are wasted on bland, drab, and boring things.  Crackdown 2′s controls are a lot like Pacific City itself.  Both Crackdown 2′s controls and Pacific city are a direct port from the original Crackdown.

Crackdown 2′s controls and play style is exactly the same as the original Crackdown.  Crackdown 2 does not bother to fix the auto targeting system that likes to aim at innocent vehicles instead of the thugs with rocket launchers that just got out the innocent vehicle.  Every other thing you liked or hated about the original Crackdown’s controls are in Crackdown 2 in all their glory.  The driving controls are, not surprisingly, an exact port from the original.  The only difference is that the cars in Crackdown 2 do not transform or do anything interesting like they did in the original Crackdown.  In fact, everything else about the game play in Crackdown 2 is like the original Crackdown but less interesting.  That Crackdown 2 is like the original but less interesting is about the best summary that will ever be said about Crackdown 2 so lets put this review to bed and get on with our lives.

Crackdown 2 is an extremely lazy remake of the original Crackdown that is not worth playing.  Crackdown 2 could have been good if it had taken the original game and improved on it but Crackdown 2 actually took the original Crackdown and made it worse.  I only played Crackdown 2 because my roommate bought it and he only bought it because he was hoping that Crackdown 2 would be better than the original.  It turns out that my roommate needs to do a little more research before he drops sixty bucks on a game with only the hope that it will be good.  In the end, the only thing left to say about Crackdown 2 is that my roommate is planning to sell his copy to Gamestop the next time he goes there.