I had recently shaved my beard off and was regretting the decision… perhaps playing Demon’s Souls would be faster than re-growing it?

So, at risk of being redundant to every paragraph ever written about it, Demon’s Souls is hard. But while I did get frustrated at points (many, many points), I never felt that the game was being unfair. No situation could not be overcome with a different approach (or, at worst, choosing another world to explore).

Make no mistake—if you don’t like being challenged (read: Failing 10 times before succeeding), Demon’s Souls is not for you. Lori loves RPGs, and Demon’s Souls is not for her (which might be for the best, given that I’d prefer my wife not be turned into a man). As she watched me play, I could feel her patience stretching to the breaking point as I replayed sections over and over, punctuated only by simulated bouts of Tourette syndrome.

But its difficulty also creates a tremendous sense of accomplishment—highs that match the lows. Returning to previously traversed areas to absolutely dominate foes which had caused you so much trouble in the past is incredibly satisfying. Likewise, the game is filled with fairly complex systems that require considerable effort to understand (or the help of online fan sites and wikis, of which there are many) but offer considerable rewards for their mastery. It is a game that requires your full attention, patience, and commitment—something not everyone looks for in their recreation choices. In the current console gaming climate, Demon’s Souls is a unique experience: an undeniably hardcore game in an era when game design has shifted decidedly towards mainstream accessibility.

Ultimately, the name of this site has the word “couple” in it.  This isn’t ManGamer.com (domain available!) and, while it is a game I wholeheartedly recommend to hardcore RPG or 3rd-person melee-combat gamers, Demon’s Souls is not a game for most couples. Lori and I enjoyed it greatly, however, and she can rest assured that her mate is indeed a man… though I’m hoping there was enough evidence of that beforehand.

Demon’s Souls is a 3rd-person (you see your guy in front of you) action-RPG exclusive to the PS3.

For those not familiar with the God of War games, they’re third-person action games that take place in a world (loosely) based on Greek mythology. They’re extremely visceral, incredibly violent, and awesome—and I mean that in the literal sense. These games have had the ability to make eyes widen and jaws drop, the first two console versions pushing the graphical capabilities of (the now 10-year-old) PlayStation 2 to their pinnacle; thus, many fans of the series have waited expectantly, wondering what spectacle could be accomplished on the first iteration available for the much-more-powerful PS3. In my brief time with it (about an hour, perched about three feet from a 50-inch plasma screen), it did not disappoint.

Dave: For context, I’ve played both God of War and God of War II, and I thought that both were superlative console action-gaming experiences. In both cases, while Lori did enjoy taking the controls at times, she generally preferred sitting back an watching me take the reins. Neither of us tried the PSP entry God of War: Chains of Olympus, though I’ve generally heard that it’s a worthy portable version of the experience.

Lori: Indeed. Though I did enjoy watching Dave play through the previous iterations of the God of War series, there’s nothing like the pure button-mashing goodness that these PlayStation titles have afforded me thus far.

Like the first two games, God of War III doesn’t waste time or start slow. Within the first few moments, you’re treated to the sort of daunting scale and thrilling action we’ve come to expect from God of War only, this time, paired with a level of graphical fidelity rivaling any entry of this console generation. The combination is impressive.

The gameplay and action itself are slick and smooth, worthy of a franchise that’s had some time to refine its mechanics. Indeed, there are a few welcome tweaks present; for example, during the frequent interactive cinematic fight sequences (QuickTime events—”QTEs” in gamer-speak), the button prompts are positioned on the edge of the screen that corresponds to the button’s position on the controller, allowing the player to know what to press whilst keeping their eyes on the action. And you’ll want to keep your eyes on the screen for this one…

… unless you’re not big on graphic violence, that is. Make no mistake: This is not a game for kids—or for kids to even be in the room. Maybe the next room. Playing as ex-Spartan Kratos, you do horrible, brutal things—and I’m told these sorts of actions (and, indeed, violent vengeance as a theme) persist throughout the game. On the flip side of the mature-themes coin, there’s plenty of partial nudity, and it’s also been confirmed that a sextastic mini-game is present, as in previous God of War titles.

Ultimately, God of War III is clearly poised to be the biggest (and most violent) of a series whose hallmark has been being very big (and very violent) and in doing so, it may become one of the biggest core console releases of this generation. For the many who have enjoyed the God of War games and wanted more (or maybe “MORE!”), GoWIII would appear to be all that—and a pound of flesh.

God of War III is a Playstation 3 exclusive and will be in stores on March 16th.

Photos by Michael Pierson.

Dave: This is a look at Battlefield: Bad Company 2 for Xbox 360 (also available for PS3 and PC). For context, I’m a fan of FPS games. I did not play the original Bad Company, but I have played and enjoyed most of the other games in the Battlefield series. Lori had little-to-no interest in playing or watching me play this title (having already recently played other similar games), though I did catch her laughing at some of the dialogue.

Much to Lori’s chagrin, I’ve cut short our virtual trip to Renaissance Italy to return to modern times so that I can point a gun at things in Battlefield: Bad Company 2, the latest big modern military first-person shooter.

This time around, the soldiers at the wrong end of the barrel are Russian military—again showing that, when they want a conventional military adversary, game developers seem most comfortable creating a sort of neo-cold war gone hot. I should note that I’m only vaguely aware of the fiction established in the original Bad Company, and this sequel does very little to help me out with this—other than to show swaths of red and tiny Russian flags growing to cover regions on a map that I’m quite certain aren’t part of present-day Russia.  That said, I play these games for the action, not the plot, and I’m not too keen on sitting through a lot of unnecessary exposition anyway.

Dave: If rumours that the next Call of Duty will actually take place during the cold war era are correct, I’m not sure if we’ll be able to tell the difference… other than that they’ll be calling the enemies “Reds” and they can use trendy Soviet iconography.

The single-player campaign centers on the exploits of Bravo (“Bad”) Company, a squad of four US soldiers who, in the first game, went looking for gold (in a similar vein to the protagonists of films like Kelly’s Heroes or Three Kings). I’ve gathered from various game previews and marketing materials (rather than the game itself) that, having been reeled in, the crew is forced into military servitude once again. The members of Bad Company are a fairly colourful cast, where the player fills the shoes of Preston Marlowe, more-or-less the straight man of the bunch. Compared to most FPS games, the other three characters (Sarge, Sweetwater, and Haggard) offer a decent amount of entertaining dialogue, both in cutscenes and gameplay—the latter mostly during the slower moments between the more common frenetic combat sequences.

Lori: “You had me at ‘interesting.’” That still makes me chuckle. Evidently, it doesn’t take much to amuse me.

And the combat in Bad Company 2 is about as frenzied and chaotic as is comes. A key feature of the Battlefield franchise in recent years has been fully destructible environments, and they’re not afraid to show off that feature throughout the campaign.  Buildings explode and collapse, trees and wood fences splinter and disintegrate—in turn filling the air with dust, smoke, and various flying objects. Of course, the most relevant flying objects are still bullets, and the gunfire zings and pops with great effect—aided in no small part by some superbly deep and detailed sound effect design. The sights and sounds of battle are all there, and they’re usually coming at you from all angles. No doubt: when it comes to graphics and audio, this game is at or near the top of the pile when it comes to console games. From start to finish, I was treated to rich settings, impressive set pieces, and glorious expansive backdrops unmatched by most games. It may not have a particularly compelling narrative, but the action is in no short supply.

Indeed, BF:BC2’s campaign has got all the spectacle that military shooter fans have come to expect, but that’s also a clue to what is, perhaps, my only letdown: that I’m starting to get the feeling that I’ve done this all before. After all, it was just a few months ago that I was the nervous gunner in a Humvee convoy, or that I watched as jets streak through the sky to strike at entrenched enemy targets, and that I was faced with the threat of Russia invading the continental US—all in another game: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Of course, the developers of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (DICE) deserve a ton of credit for meeting the extremely high bar set by the developers of Modern Warfare (Infinity Ward), but the reality is that I played this one second, and the highs didn’t seem quite as high this time around.

Dave: As a note, I played the campaign mode on “Normal” difficulty and, as an FPS veteran, it was not particularly challenging (when compared to MW2 on the middle “Hardened” difficulty, for example). It took about 6-7 hours to complete at a fairly leisurely pace (I didn’t “review-rush” it). There’s no doubt that some may find that short, but I was reasonably satisfied in knowing the amount of content and entertainment present in multiplayer (next page)…

]]> http://www.coupleofgamers.com/2010/02/battlefield-bad-company-2/feed/ 3 http://www.coupleofgamers.com/2009/11/new-releases-modern-warfare-2/ http://www.coupleofgamers.com/2009/11/new-releases-modern-warfare-2/#comments Tue, 24 Nov 2009 04:07:43 +0000 Dave http://www.coupleofgamers.com/?p=939

I’ll get this out of the way: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is good.

With accomplished first-person-shooter developer Infinity Ward behind it, and with the backing of 800-pound gorilla-slash-publisher Activision-Blizzard (and the expectations of their shareholders), there was very little chance of the game being bad. Modern Warfare 2 is too big to fail.

Recognized or not, the understanding that MW2 was a “sure thing” appears to have made its way into the public consciousness in the form of mammoth first-day and first-week sales (perhaps the most successful entertainment launch of all time).

As a gamer—an FPS gamer—and perhaps as a member of the more violent sex, I was probably as guilty as the next guy in those assumptions. And there were a lot of “next guys” on my Xbox friends list: on the game’s release, the colourful array of Dragon Age, Lego Rock Band, Forza 3, Borderlands, and FIFA 10 box art that populated the list of games my friends were currently playing immediately became a uniform phalanx of pale brown Modern Warfare soldiers. It wasn’t exactly peer pressure, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t influence the urgency of my purchase or cement what platform I’d be purchasing it for.

And with a game like Modern Warfare 2, friend availability does come into play. Call of Duty games have always had very well-crafted single-player experiences—perhaps even best-of-breed in a crowded class of WWII shooters (the setting for the first few iterations of the franchise). Increasingly, however, the real meat and potatoes of these games have been their robust and addictive multiplayer features—both competitive and cooperative.

Modern Warfare 2 continues this trend by offering a single-player campaign that I completed in somewhere around six hours, and multiplayer in which I’ve logged eight hours so far and still feel that I’m just getting started.

I don’t feel cheated by a campaign that’s short by current standards, nor did I feel the need to lengthen the experience by playing at a harder level of difficulty (I played on “regular”)…

Dave: OK, so at this point those who play these games are likely questioning my gamer cred, if not my masculinity—so let me go into overly defensive man-talk mode: Fuck that. I can compete just fine in multiplayer, but when SP gets hard it doesn’t get more fun—it just makes you play the same short sequence until you manage to sprint to where the next damn checkpoint is or find the perfect spots to exploit the endless stream of AI. The Ferris wheel in CoD4 was the last time I will do that.

Like an action flick, I don’t really play Call of Duty campaigns to be challenged—I want to be thrust into spectacular circumstances, locales, and scenarios. Infinity Ward knows this, or they wouldn’t constantly steal scenes directly from movies (like the shower scene from The Rock) or call chapters “Wolverines!” (Red Dawn). In action movies, the hero rarely dies; in games, dying now and then is necessary. Dying more than 20 times in a row, on the other hand, only kills my suspension of disbelief and spoils the cinematic experience.

Like watching a movie, Lori can appreciate a well-orchestrated single-player campaign when she sees one. When it comes to action games, she’ll happily defer to my hand-eye-coordination to facilitate the experience—especially when the game has a compelling story or art style (Bioshock being an excellent recent example of a shooter with both). When at its best, Modern Warfare 2 is like watching a Michael Bay/Tom Clancy collaboration for a summer blockbuster—an “action-packed thrillride.” However, just like that theoretical crazy Michael Bay/Tom Clancy blockbuster, Lori isn’t too excited about watching it.

Lori: I actually don’t mind watching the single-player campaign if that’s what’s being played, and I don’t mind providing the occasional “sniper on your left, sweetie” during multiplayer. However, the removal of party chat in some modes forces one to listen to ten-year-olds sing “This Is How We Do It” perhaps more often than my limited tolerance for such things will allow—and that’s when the DS comes out.

So this one, like an over-the-top action movie, I’ll enjoy with just the guys. Virtual soldiers will be shot in the head, there will be bright flashes and loud bangs, and we will yell a lot. If someone asks, I won’t say it’s a masterwork that advances the medium and forces one to consider the nature of 21st century armed conflict; I will simply say that Modern Warfare 2 is good.

Photo by Andrew Spearin.