Medal of Honor Airborne: Botched Landing

I played through Medal of Honor: Airborne (MoH:A) earlier this year and all I can say is, "what a colossal disappointment." I fondly remember flipping open my German ID to the low resolution guards in the original Medal of Honor on the Playstation, just to have them turn their backs so I could put a bullet in them from my silenced pistol, completely undetected. Medal of Honor was one of the first great "console" shoooters; It was released in late 1999 which was a year after Half-Life, but the same year as a terrible port of Quake 2. The problem with porting many PC games is that the PS1 just wasn't that powerful and if you bought Quake 2 on the Playstation, chances are that you are still waiting for the game to load. But these were different days when consoles could only dream of the fps power and popularity that they had on their PC brethren. MoH was a giant leap forward for shooters on the consoles partially because it was a console game and not a PC port. They also just revolutionized the control scheme, using the left analog stick to move forward, backward, and strafe left and right, while the analog stick was used to move the camera (aim) (<-body / head ->). Medal of Honor had it all: Memorable environments, great mission structure, good shooting, and even a little local multiplayer. Yes, MoH was riding the big wave, and they rode that big wave into a dozen or so sequels and spin offs. Medal of Honor Allied Assault (PC) and Fronline (PS2, GC, and Xbox) were the apex of the franchise. Storming the beaches or Normandy had never been so real, so intense, and so much fun as they were in MoH. If the franchise had stopped there, it could have died instantly and painlessly, but instead, the franchise had its legs shot off in "Rising Sun." The resilient publisher then grabbed its legless comrade and tried to drag him to safety, but they found themselves in a minefield in Pacific Assault. Once clear of the minefield, they came under heavy mortar attack in Heroes. Legless, bones broken, bruised and unable to move by itself, Medal of Honor was sent into combat again with Airborne and was abruptly shot in the face.
It is this shot to the face that I would like to discuss a little further.
I purchased Airborne for 5.00 on a Steam holiday sale and got around to playing it several months after that. The game has an odd leveling mechanic that makes your shots wildly inaccurate at the outset of the game and just mildly inaccurate by the time you finish. The game is boring, but that's okay because if I hadn't played on Hard difficulty and died an unbelievable amount of times I could easily have walked my way through this disappointment in about two and a half hours, which makes a the single player in a Call of Duty game seem like the Lord of the Rings trilogy in comparison. The short time was not without its high points, but the high points were not great atmosphere or music, no, it was the most crazy ass broken physics I have ever seen in a game. I shot a guy in the leg with a pistol once and he flew 3 and a quarter miles up in the air as if he had sat on an atom bomb strapped to a rocket. When I thought of the idea for this post I decided that I would try to record how busted this game really was. I played for a little over a half hour and while I didn't record my pistol sending a Nazi to the moon, I did get enough broken physics to feel okay about quickly uninstalling the game. The video shows Nazi after Nazi falling in unnatural falls of bullet riddled death, but it is the last Nazi officer (on the left hand side towards the end of the video) that gets stuck on the environment and shakes uncontrollably and then when shot, gets his arm stuck on some crates just to have his arm extend to 6 feet before giving one last unnatural body jolt before the physics engine leaves his body to rest. This is my first foray into video editing and man does it show. I will have something of better quality and without a watermark on it soon, but this video does what it needs to.
EA tried to give enough time for wounds to heal and for people to forget about the atrocities that had happened to the franchise, releasing a reboot of sorts, but from all accounts (I haven't played it and 60.00 is just too steep of an entrance into a ride that I only want to take to verify how bad it is.) Medal of Honor was DOA, killed in action long ago in WWII. So here's to you Medal of Honor. Your 21 gun salute is in order because no matter what anyone says, you should always remember that you were important once.

More like What have you been buying? am I right? (get it?...)

Nothing says Christmas like the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, but nothing says Christmas (other than that) like the Steam holiday sales.
I have to be honest, I was more excited for 11:am to roll around to check the Christmas sales on Steam than I was to open the 42' monitor (more like monstrositor.....) that my wife got me. And although I haven't even installed some of the games that I bought last year, I can't stop myself from pouring open my wallet and just begging Steam to take anything they find. In return I have purchased:
Bully http://store.steampowered.com/app/12200/

Dead Rising 2 http://store.steampowered.com/app/45740/

Fear 2 http://store.steampowered.com/app/16450/

Mass Effect 2 http://store.steampowered.com/app/901242/

The Oddboxx (all of the Oddworld game Steam has to offer) http://store.steampowered.com/sub/6951/

I also picked up Back to the Future and while normally I don't like adventure games, I am looking forward to this one, because I am hoping that I don't like a pirates (Curse of Monkey Island) much more than I don't like adventure games.
Don't bother asking for my opinion on these games, because has my copy of Red Faction Guerrilla could tell you, some of these games will never even be installed.
I have limited time today, so here it is (Danny). Here is to staving off the urge to drive a pencil through your temple (solemn salute).

Interview with Sjoerd deJong of Teotl

I am still learning about this gaming blog thing and timing and so on. So I apologize for the long delay, but I sent an interview for "The Ball" the same day I posted my story. I got the interview back yesterday and realized, I probably should have waited on that piece. Kudos to Teotl for responding to this tiny blog of mine.

1. The Ball has some amazing architecture and managed to accomplish being in a cave that didn't feel claustrophobic. Did you have any specific influences on the architecture or was it more creativity within given perameters (ie make a huge environment in underground Mexico)?

The architecture was designed to feel large and unearthly. Primitive as well. Megalithic building methods rely primarily on heavy and primitive materials such as big stone blocks and wooden bars, see the Pyramids of Giza for example, so that is where we got our inspiration.

2. The Ball has some great boss fights and memorable enemies, but it also has non-combatative monkeys, Do you hate monkeys? and a second part to that question, why do you have monkeys?

We don't hate monkeys at all. We just needed a non-aggressive enemy to spice up the levels a bit, and that turned out to be a monkey. You don't have to kill them if you don't want to :)

3. Winning the "Make Something Unreal Competition" is quite the accomplishment. Did winning that competition change anything about your studio or the way you make games?

We partially funded the start-up of our company and the development of The Ball with that money, so yes it definitely had an impact.

4. On your website you take pride in being an "independent" studio. Beyond the literal (no corporate) definition, what does being an independent studio mean for you and how has it helped you makes games?

To me, it means you are in control of your own time and creation(s). No investors or publishers to please, just yourself. It basically means that you get to make the games you want to make, without making concessions.

5 Describe "The Ball" in two words or less.

Mystery.

The many vaulted ceilings of "The Ball"

If you have been living in a cave then you should have heard of Teotl (pronounced: tee oh tell) Studios because, as evidenced by their new game, "The Ball" they can make your cave a beautiful and fun place to be.
A team of 3 part time modders turned full time developers, Teotl won fame and a little fortune taking the grand prize in the "Make Something Unreal Contest." The money allowed these three to quit their day jobs and do what they really wanted, make awesome games. Based in Sweden, these three are the only permanent staples in the company, but do contract out in between 10-15 jobs to get the work done.
But enough about Teotl, let's talk about me. What have I been playing? I am glad you asked, I recently wrapped up my roll with Teotl's "The Ball" (pun totally and unabashedly intended). "The Ball" is the winner of 2009s "Build something Unreal Competition" and was released as a mod before its retail release on October 26th of this year.
The game has been updated technically and with more gameplay for its retail release. I finished the game in about 7 hours and while there is a survival mode that pits you against wave after wave of monsters, I was perfectly content with my single play-through.
The game starts with you (archeologist and silent protagonist) falling into an immense cave. Your partners up top say they don't have the tools to get you out right then and to go ahead and take a look around while they get ready to rescue you. Our protagonist quickly comes across a ball and a way to manipulate it (a gravity gun for all intents and purposes). While it looks like a shooter, "The Ball" is much more of a physics puzzle game. Much of the game is played without any physical antagonist and much to the game's benefit, when there are enemies on the screen, they must be dispatched using the ball in conjunction with the environment, not just mindlessly running them over (although there is some of that too).
The architecture in the game deserves special note. Not many developers could make a game in a cave that didn't feel claustrophobic. "The Ball" really nails the feeling of ancient (even alien) Mexico. I often found myself ignoring objectives to look around and just enjoy the beautiful design. The puzzles weren't easy, but I was never stumped (except for the last puzzle which I was forced to finish using trial and error and even after didn't understand it. After a little investigating on the forums I understood it (I won't spoil it).
Speaking of the end, that is one of my only gripes about the game. What seemed to be the main antagonist oversees your progress in a G-man fashion, but it leads to nothing, or almost nothing. The voice acting is a bit on the rough side. I have heard worse, but this was obviously just a member of the team that had a couple extra minutes in between other stuff he was doing., but there can't be more than a paragraph of dialogue in the entire game and given the size of the studio, the nature of the game, and the price of it all, it is easily overlooked.
I enjoyed my time with the ball and while it's already uninstalled and I have no intention of playing anymore than the 10 minutes I already played of the survival mode it is a solid trip down a big cave worth exploring.

What have you been playing?

Hello and welcome to "What have you been playing?" a blog about the video games that I have been playing (see what I did there?). This would normally be the place where I would set parameters and tell all (or none) of you out in the blogosphere or internetland what you can expect from this website, but we won't be doing that today, or probably ever because damn it, I will not be constrained.
What makes me qualified to write about video games? Readers will have to be the judge of that, but to give everyone an idea my perspective: When I was three my parents brought home the Nintendo Entertainment System© which would forever change my life (up for debate if it was for better or to its ultimate destruction). I have owned all major consoles since (sorry Virtual Boy©, you don't count and you never will. (If headgear makes you look like a nerd, the Virtual Boy turns you into "Red Shirt Guy" (no disrespect intended high master of Lore and correction. You make Azeroth a better place.))
I have a huge place in my gaming heart for small developers and have purchased many a game based on the developer, without thinking twice if I would enjoy the game (I am looking at you Nation Red). I hope to have interviews with some of these developers so we can all share in our love of games and the people who make them.
Tomorrow we will start this journey together with the game that I have been playing: The Ball