Appletell review - Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Section: Software + Apps, Games, Features, Review Genre: First-Person Shooter Format: DVD Developer: Infinity Ward Mac Port: Aspyr Studios Mac Publisher: Aspyr System Requirements: Mac OS X v10.5.4, 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 1GB RAM, 128MB ATI Radeon X1600 or Nvidia GeForce FX 7300 graphics card, 8.0GB free hard disk space plus 1GB swap file, mouse and keyboard Review Computer: 2.4GHz 24” Intel Core 2 Duo iMac, 2GB RAM, 256MB ATI Radeon HD 2600 Network Feature: Internet (TCP/IP) or LAN (TCP/IP) multiplayer supported Processor Compatibility: Intel only Price: $29.99 ESRB Rating: M (intense violence, strong language, blood and gore) Availability: Out now Official Website: www.callofduty.com As has been noted numerous times here at Appletell and throughout the gaming world, there are three things you can kill in computer games without fear of reproach: Nazis, zombies and Nazi zombies. If you like, you can lump aliens in with the zombies, and you can lump robots in with the Nazis. But you can’t use cops, hookers, marching bands or video game reviewers without expecting to eventually stand before Arlen Specter to explain why the downfall of modern civilization is not because of your little video game. And yet, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (CoD4) is set in a realistic, timely world in which the battles you’re fighting don’t really stray from those you might hear about on “All Things Considered.” The developers get away with this for two reasons. First, then invent militant organizations to serve as their bad guys. Second, this game is a brutal depiction of war. Brutal to an unsettling degree. It doesn’t glorify war, and it doesn’t even really lionize soldiers. If this were a movie script, John Wayne and Chuck Norris would run from it in terror. Is that the appeal of CoD4? Not entirely. It’s the gameplay itself that drives CoD4 to the upper echelon of first-person shooters. More specifically, the multiplayer gameplay, because although the single player are varied and intense, they never really feel like more than a training session for the multiplayer game. In CoD4, you play the role of a United States Marine and a British S.A.S. operative. As with other Call of Duty games, you’re sent on different missions in which you will have different roles, usually assigned to you by your commanding NPC. Sometimes you’ll snipe, sometimes you’ll lead an attack, but almost always you’ll be accompanied by a squad of fellow soldiers who help you in your quest. Keeping your comrades alive can make things easier for you, but there’s never really an emotional involvement with them. You don’t get to know the bulk of them, you just see their names over the head as they run in front of you. Although there are some powerful story elements that make this game smarter than most war games, a little more care with the story leading up to these moments would have greatly improved their emotional impact. But, the developers made the decision—and probably correctly—that a combat-based game should focus on combat. Here, CoD4 delivers. You thought previous Call of Duty games were wild? Huh uh. The action on many of these levels is just insane, with enemies attacking you from all angles and using terrain and weapons better than any AI characters I’ve ever seen. Yes, they’ll occasionally poke their head out from around the wall to give you a chance to shoot them, but by the time they do, you’ve already been killed by a grenade that seemed to come from nowhere. Even a lot of the cover provided in the game won’t protect you long. In CoD4, bullets can travel through items such as wood, so it’s no longer enough to hunker down behind a table and wait for your shot. You’ve got to create your shot by making better use of the terrain and your weapons. This makes CoD4 quite difficult. In many cases, you’ll have to die multiple times before you can even figure out who’s killing you, let alone develop a strategy for killing him/them. It’s frustrating in that matter, and I anticipate that some gamers will be turned away early. Those who stick around, however, will be rewarded with a satisfying gaming experience, and the practice necessary to compete in the multiplayer game. Thankfully, there’s a lot there to satisfy. Mac users can play PC users online, first of all. And, unlike most multiplayer first-person shooters, CoD4 is somewhat RPG-like in its approach; the character you create is rewarded for kills, assists and such, allowing you to accrue experience points that unlock further levels. These, in turn, unlock new weapons, accessories and abilities. My favorites are “Martyrdom,” in which a dying character can go all Jennifer-Grey-in-Red Dawn by blowing up the enemy with a grenade, and “Last Stand,” in which a dying character will be able to get off a few more shots before dying. It’s all very Hollywood. I expect it won’t be long before they release the “I can’t move my legs, go on without me” mod or the “Tell my wife I was thinking about her” extension. What brings all of this together, of course, are the visual and audio effects. If you’ve got the system for it, CoD4 looks fantastic, even when the action is at its most intense. The smoke and particle effects are especially amazing, and really do become strategic elements. The audio is equally stunning, totally immersing you in the action in a way that graphics alone couldn’t accomplish. Using just my iMac’s speakers, I was impressed. Playing the game with headphones, I was floored. If you’ve got a decent set of speakers, your neighbors will be hiding in their basements. Of course, all of this comes at a price. My test computer is at the high end of the system requirements, and I still couldn’t max out the graphics. My home computer, which is my normal test system, is at the bottom end, and I had to dumb things down to the point where I knew I wasn’t doing the game justice. The game still plays, but it looses a lot of its punch. I’ve read numerous reports/reviews that claim Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is the greatest first-person shooter of all time. I attribute that more to the emotional impact of the surprising turns along the way, but that doesn’t mean this isn’t an amazing game. The single player game seems shorter than previous Call of Duty games (setting aside all the restarts, of course), but flows well and serves as excellent training for the multiplayer version. There, you’ll be able to kill hours at a time, if you’re inclined to do so. You could also pop in and out within half an hour and still have plenty of fun. Well, as much fun as one can have in a game without zombies and robots. Appletell Rating Buy Call of Duty 4 Full Story » | Written by Kirk Hiner for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Rock'n'Roll maze adventure game for iPhone

Tag Games on Monday released Rock'n'Roll, an action and puzzle game for the iPhone or iPod touch. Gamers play as Roll, a character that navigates spinning mazes on Flint Island to recover musical notes to save his friend, Rock, from being imprisoned. The player rotates the entire maze using the phone's accelerometer or touch controls as Roll falls toward the bottom of the screen. After all music n...

Appletell review - Song Summoner: The Unsung Heroes

Section: iPod + iTunes, iTunes, iPod, iPod nano, Features, Review Genre: Tactical RPG Format: iPod Game Developer: Square Enix Minimum Requirements: 3G iPod nano, iPod classic or 5G iPod (video), iPod Software v1.2, 129MB disk space Price: $4.99 ESRB Rating: N/A Availability: Now I recently wrote an article for Appletell in which I wondered if the App Store / iPhone combination would kill iPod gaming. In the article, I opined that it will, and probably should, but that it saddened me to say so. For one reason or another, developers just never figured out how to program games for the click wheelbinterface, or what games to port over to the iPod. A few games stood out, a few were terrible, and the majority were simply mediocre. Then, suddenly, along comes Square Enix. Square Enix of Final Fantasy fame. Square Enix of Valkyrie Profile fame. Square Enix of Dragon Quest fame. Square Enix has released some of the best and most beloved RPG franchises—be they action, tactical or what have you—on pretty much every platform worth mentioning since the NES. And now, with the release of Song Summoner: The Unsung Heroes, they’re on the iPod. Just having this company acknowledging the iPod is big enough, that they’ve also released arguably the best iPod game yet makes it all the more satisfying. Song Summoner is a tactical role playing game, meaning players control warriors one turn at a time, positioning them on a battlefield grid and having them attack their opponent (or not), before moving on to the next soldier. And although Song Summoner will draw many comparisons to Square Enix’s Final Fantasy Tactics, it actually plays more like Fire Emblem in that you move all of your soldiers before the computer gets a turn. These battles take place on a fixed, isometrical battlefield. The battlefield designs are somewhat uninspired, but they’re at least very colorful. The graphics in general are quite nice; along the lines of what you’d expect to see on the Nintendo DS. The sprite-based characters look good enough, but it’s the small battle animations that make the graphics work. They’re not going to win awards, granted, but they come together in a cohesive package that indicates the developers understood the strength and weaknesses of the device’s graphics capabilites, and worked with them accordingly. In games of this type, you’re usually presented with characters that you level up throughout the game, giving them access to greater weapons and abilities as they face greater foes. If Square Enix had been content to bring Final Fantasy Tactics to the iPod, that’s what we would’ve gotten. Instead, they decided to embrace the iPod for what it is—a music player—by letting you create Tune Troopers based on your music. You can create soldiers from any song in your collection, and that character will get its capabilities from the song’s characteristics (check out Jenni Lada’s Four Tips for Sturdy Tune Troopers). The ability to create your own soldiers is pretty cool, but not as intelligent as it sounds. I found that songs of similar styles could create wildly different characters. On the other end, you’ll also find yourself with quite a few characters who are extremely similar in capabilities despite being made from wildly different songs. And, of course, there are only around 50 character designs programmed into the game, so it’s not as if your soldiers can be truly customized based on your choice of music. These Tune Troopers don’t level up like characters do in standard tactical RPGs. Rather than gain experience trooper by trooper, battle spheres are earned at the end of a fight, which can then be used to beef up your army. However, each Tune Trooper has a limited number of uses (determined upon its creation) before it’s gone for good. This obviously will play with your use/level-up strategies, and can be frustrating for those used to dumping experience points onto characters in an effort to make them very strong by the end of the game. Here, that work can be for naught. On the other hand, it does force you to create more warriors, which leads to more fun with your music collection. Square Enix’s use of the click wheel is quite effective, as they chose to stick with the spinning motion for selection and execution instead of relying on the more cumbersome left/right button approach. The menus and battlefield are all circular, so you can just drag your thumb around the wheel to make your selections. This may take a little more time, but it allows for simple, one-handed play, and feels quite natural. In fact, the only annoying decision Square Enix made was apparently based on the assumption that we’re all fans of Pink or Avril Lavigne. The majority of the characters are exceptionally bratty, and are based on the “attitude = funny” equation that’s just really, really not true. The story is exceptionally dorky, too; evil robot guy rids the world of humans and music in order to control the planet with his mechanized “network,” and one lone rock and roll rebel must lead the fight against him. This idea was dorky was Styx used it for a concept album, it was intentionally dorky when Queen used it for a musical, and it’s just as dorky now. But, it’s fun. And honestly, this is the first iPod game that rises above the casual gamer audience to appeal to hard core gamers. It’s not enough bring it up to the level of the iPhone or Nintendo DS, the latter of which already has dozens of games such as this available to anyone willing to look in the used section at GameStop, but it does show that a great, ambitious game can be made for this little MP3 player if developers know what to do with it. Hopefully, now that Square Enix has shown them the way, more will be willing to make the journey. And hey, speaking of Journey, I wonder what kind of Tune Trooper “Stone in Love” will give me… Appletell Rating: Buy Song Summoner: The Unsung Heroes See other iPod game reviews. Full Story » | Written by Kirk Hiner for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Keeping Up Nintendo's Momentum

After overseeing several years of rapid growth at Nintendo, President Satoru Iwata faces new challenges: how to keep players of the company's videogames interested, and how to cultivate a new wave of customers.

Action games deliver thrills

The truly great action films of our time — "Die Hard," "The Road Warrior," "Aliens," say — can be summed up in one word: relentless. Once they get in gear, they put the pedal to the metal and don't slow down. If only "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Whatever" had such single-minded drive.

Resistance 2 gives PS3 devs a blueprint for online play

Resistance 2, the sequel to the first great PlayStation 3 game, is now on store shelves. It's a force to be reckoned with, as Insmoniac has created one of the best multiplayer shooters on the platform—the game a must-buy for PS3 owners this holiday season. Read More...