I don’t want to think I am an elitist when it comes to video games; there are certain things I don’t particularly enjoy, turn-based strategy for example, but I can understand why others might have an interest in those types of games.  But I find that a multiplayer experience nowadays, which almost always means online, is like going to watch a Michael Bay film.  Full of explosions, high octane chases, but very little substance.  While single player campaigns, if any good, can evoke emotion, and feeling, and draw a player into another world.  It is used as a powerful narrative to tell a compelling story.  Now the Michael Bay movie will rake in millions of dollars and that is why they continue to be made, while the powerful story rarely gets to be seen by a large audience.

Where did things go so horribly wrong?  I think a large distinction has to be made between multiplayer and online gaming.  There is still something to be said by sitting in a room with 3 or 4 friends together and playing a game together.  There is immediate social interaction, you are bonding with friends, and the focus isn’t really on the game but rather on each other.  I still have a large affinity for cooperative gaming, because it requires a team to communicate well, strategize, and reinforce each other in the virtual world.  But for this to really work, the team needs to be physically in the same room.  If this is done completely online, then really everyone starts doing whatever they like and it’s not so much a team as people just running around with their own agendas.

The large culprit in this whole mess of meaningless action games has to be the Call of Duty series.  A series that was held in such high esteem before has become an annual event of people lining up to play the same game that they picked up the year before.  Personally, I love a first person shooter because there is something interesting and satisfying about experiencing an event from that perspective.  But without a meaningful story, or compelling characters, or good environments I can’t be engaged.  When I reviewed Call of Duty: Black Ops, I thought it was one of the most interesting stories with a great twist I had seen from the series.  But those types of experiences nowadays seem to be rare, and they’re getting rarer as we go along.

While Call of Duty is the big name when it comes to online gaming, we can’t forget others such as Battlefield, or dare I say Halo.  All are very similar in the way they play and while they have their differences, their core game play is simply to “kill the other team”.  Of course we haven’t talked about the Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games (MMORPGs) which is a huge market out there.  I have played two MMORPGs, Star Wars Galaxies and City of Heroes, some years ago and while I found the experience much better than I had with the online shooters I still found the game play to be very repetitive in the end.  I felt like I was doing the same missions over and over again until I could level up in order for me to do a new, harder mission over and over again until I could level up some more.  The exception I do have to make in this genre is Star Wars: The Old Republic because I haven’t played the game but have been told that even though it is an MMORPG, they have an excellent story line and some great voice acting.  However, the largest problem with the majority of the most popular MMORPGs (World of Warcraft, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and Final Fantasy XI) is that they still have a monthly subscription cost.  And while this model is not being used much anymore (Star Trek Online has dropped its monthly cost), it is still abhorrent in this day to ask gamers to cough up a monthly fee when they have to pay $60 for your game to begin with.

But I think that the ultimate problem I have with the online gaming experience is that there doesn’t seem to be any point to it.  There is no clear structure that a typical story would have.  You, as the player, jump right into the action with no background, no development, and no purpose other than to ‘win’.  A good video game is like any other story out there, it’s like a good movie, or good book, that when it is over there is a certain sadness because you enjoyed the time you spent in the world.  And every year or so, you feel like coming back to it and reliving it and enjoy it all the same.  And don’t get me wrong, there are some terrible single player games out there.  Just like there are terrible movies, or really boring books.  But I have yet to find an online experience that can rival the best single player experience.

And I haven’t mentioned the quality of people that do play online yet.  This is where I want to tread carefully because I know many people who play online, and 95% of people who do play are really great.  That being said, with a lot of people, when they have anonymity and an audience they tend to act like complete ass-hats.  When anyone plays online, you will inevitably get a 12 year old (or someone acting like a 12 year old) making obscene comments to me, or my family.  Not that I take any of that personally, it would be ridiculous to do so, but it makes the whole experience negative.  It is a kin to going to a movie theater and having someone with their phone on the whole time.  I can block it out and ignore it but it is really just annoying and makes me not want to come back.

I don’t care that games are designed strictly for online gaming.  Because on the flip side there are quite a few games that developed as a single player experience only as well.  The problem that I see with the current trend is that more and more developers are sacrificing the development of the story and characters in order to include a multiplayer experience, a recent example of that was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, which was just a rehash of what came before.

Why do people who play online not constitute as real gamers?  Gamers have taken a lot of slack for the past 30 years, whether it’s because video games are not considered a ‘legitimate’ form of art, or gaming is considered a lower form of entertainment.  The reasons are irrelevant, but true gamers are highly adaptable, and often highly intelligent.  They can form a variety of different strategies to conquer a given situation, they are required to solve all sorts of different puzzles and riddles, and can change their style of gaming dependent on the situation.  Those who almost solely play online are often not required to do any of these things.  The online gamer often figures out a particular strategy and uses it again and again for hours upon hours because (a) it is effective, and (b) the goal of an online game rarely changes.  While single player campaigns (good ones at least), try to throw different situations at the player and therefore require you to be adaptable.  For example, in Batman: Arkham City (one of the best games ever), the strategy to defeat Mr. Freeze would be different than how you would approach Ra’s Al Ghul.

Anyone can enjoy anything they like, as long as they take some satisfaction from the medium, then by all means enjoy yourself.  Online gaming does have a place in the world, but I will warn you that if the quality of single player narratives starts to wane, so will the quality of the online experience.  If your entire gaming experience revolves around online play, then you can’t really call yourself a gamer.  Just as much as people who rank their favorite movies as Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon, or Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, or any one of the Twilight films, can’t really call themselves cinephiles.  You can enjoy these films to be sure, as much as I have enjoyed playing some games online, but I can also recognize that these are not quality experiences and that true gaming comes from the single player narrative.

Now that I have finished my piece, let the attacks commence…

This is our routine.

Day and night, all we do, is survive.

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Naughty Dog is undoubtedly most known for their Uncharted series on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita. But with that series wrapped up (as far as we know, that is), the team is moving on to a new IP, The Last of Us.

When you first see it, you’ll likely think of Will Smith’s 2007 movie I Am Legend, but this game looks to have an even more human story than that. But you be the judge, and get yourself caught up with the reveal trailer:

Ellie and Joel are the main protagonists in the game. She’s probably about twenty while he is at least in his forties, and it’s not clear whether they’re a father-daughter team or whether they were thrown together as the last survivors of what can only be assumed to be the apocalypse of sorts.

On first glance (and second, and third), The Last of Us looks nothing short of stunning. In fact, we’re not sure there is a better looking game out there for console or PC. we’ve never seen this level of detail in a game. Facial expressions are photo-realistic, blurring, lighting, and shadows are akin to what you’d see in a Michael Bay epic (i.e. real life), and motion capture looks nothing perfect, for lack of a better word.

You can tell that Naughty Dog is doing something different here. They’re going after a few different audiences. There’s the survival-horror genre they’re tackling with the scarcity in the game, the zombie-alien genre, and the oft-forgotten emotional gut-wrencher genre as well. We may have made some of those category titles up, but nonetheless, they’re there, and they’re all effective.

What we have yet to see about this game is just how we can expect to control the characters. When we see cinematic storytelling this good, we almost wish that it wasn’t a game and it would all play out for us. Then, of course, we come to our senses.

In all seriousness, though, the game has the grittiness of the latest Tomb Raider stuff we’ve seen, and while it is clearly a different game, we wonder if we’ll be relegated to quick time events a la Uncharted or if we’ll see something a little more fluid and user-interactive.

The trailers we’ve seen so far have in fact been running in real time on Sony’s PlayStation 3. However, these are almost certainly not what the final in-game playable graphics will be like. While we would love them to look this good, we’re just not sure it’s possible on the current generation of systems. And with Sony supposedly staying hush hush about the PS4 for at east another year, we’re going to come right out and say that the game will be launching on the current crop of consoles.

So, a game this ambitious has delays written all over it. We know some things about the storyline, but not a whole heck of a lot, and the game is supposedly launching by late-2012. We’ll be surprised if Naughty Dog actually manages to hit that target, but we certainly won’t be complaining about it. That said, we fully expect this game to pull an invisibility cloak over itself a la The Last Guardian for at least a year until E3 2013. Fret not, though; we’ll keep you posted.

Following that trend, 2K Games has released details on its Borderlands 2 Collector’s Editions, called the Deluxe Hunters Edition and Ultimate Loot Chest Limited Edition.

For a penny under a hundred bucks, the Deluxe Hunters Collector’s Edition includes the following (in addition to the game, of course):

• An art book detailing the game’s creation
• Stickers (promoting the developer, not the game, but hey, free stickers!)
• Map of Pandora
• Digital Comic Download
• Marcus Kincaid Bobblehead figure
• In-game downloadable content (unknown what this is at this time)

Now, if that wasn’t enough (are you crazy?!), there is also the Ultimate Loot Chest Limited Edition for just $149, in which you get everything from the Deluxe Hunters Collector’s Edition, plus:

• A scale replica of the Red Loot Chest (individually numbered, by the way!)
• Steelcase
• Creatures of Pandora Identification Chart
• Postcard Set
• Sir Hammerlock’s Field Notes
• Cloth Map

Now, with everything that you get in the $149 Ultimate Loot Chest Limited Edition version of the game, the deal is one of the best we’ve seen in a very long time. It’s hard to imagine that the extras will be of very high quality since there are so many of them, but we haven’t seen too many horrible limited edition extras lately, so here’s hoping this one doesn’t buck the trend. Hell, even if the quality sucks, who wouldn’t want that Red Chest on their shelf?

Borderlands 2 ships this September, but you can expect to hear more at E3 in a couple of weeks.

But I do know that it is a third-person shooter … that is also a flight game … with some real-time strategy elements?  I’m already confused.  And unfortunately, I felt that through most of the game play experience.

Starhawk takes place in the future when humans are going around and colonizing various planets.  A source of energy, called Rift Energy, is being harvested on various planets; however, being exposed to Rift Energy turns humans into mindless monsters that are called Outcasts.  You play Emmett Graves, a human who has been exposed to Rift Energy but has not fully succumbed to its effects thanks to the help of a device that has been implanted into him.  In this setting, Graves is just as much a monster to other humans as the Outcasts, and this could have been an interesting point to begin the narrative but the concept of being stigmatized by society is only tackled at a very shallow level.  Graves is asked to come to a town called White Sands, where Outcasts are attacking the Rift Energy mining town.  You are to fend off various waves of Outcasts all around town in order to protect the mine.

The game suffers from a lack of identity trying to be multiple styles of not just gameplay, but in the environments as well.  The game begins with a comic book style cut scene that was very reminiscent of Infamous in both format and visuals.  Then you are introduced very quickly to the main characters and dropped onto this dusty planet.  That’s when the game feels like the western it is trying to be.  The story is very forgettable, and the characters feel so clichéd and cookie-cutter that you don’t really care about any of them.

The game play for the most part is focus around a third-person shooter.  But throughout each onslaught of Outcasts, you’re able to drop down or summon various buildings like walls, or bunkers, or vehicle depots.  So while you have lots of shooting, there is a certain amount of real-time strategy involved when deciding what type of building to help your defense.  And while that may all be interesting, nothing works as it should.  The shooting mechanic feels very clumsy, and much of the time it feels like you’re trying to hit a small enemy who is taking cover a ways away.  I found summoning the building to build would take me out of the action and break my focus.  Overall, I did not enjoy the ‘battle and build’ style of play and found it tedious.

Game play throughout the entire game didn’t change much.  It basically is some disembodied voice on a “call” with you telling you that some part of White Sands has been attacked.  Then you have to find this place, and defend it from various waves of Outcasts that slowly get more difficult as time progressed.

This is an utterly forgettable game, and that is very disappointing for PlayStation owners because it could have been a defining brand if they made it more meaningful, or a richer universe.  The characters are not memorable, the planet is bland, dreary, and ultimately boring, and the story seems pointless and derivative.  This was a big let down for me, and could have been more interesting if the developers focused on a stronger narrative rather than more multiplayer.

While nothing is confirmed, the list does make a lot of sense. It is rumored that the game’s world is about five times the size of the world in the last installment of the game, which means we should expect to see more cars, boats, and helicopters alongside it. However, the list also includes vehicles like planes, trains, cable-cars, subways, and chair-lifts that seem to be user-drivable, which is all new for the GTA series.

We haven’t seen much information about the game since its debut trailer a little while ago. While we know Rockstar will put out an incredible title, we can only hope it brings us back to the days of the original few Grand Theft Auto titles, at least in the way they feel to play. Those games always had our hearts and we’re looking forward to playing a modern classic like that once again.

Of course, if you haven’t seen the reveal trailer for the game (what are you, crazy?!), peep it below, followed by a complete list of the leaked vehicle names.

CARS

• BENSON
• BIFF
• BOBCAT
• BOBSLEIGH
• BOXVILLE
• BUCCANEER
• BURRITO
• CARGA
• CASCO
• CADGE
• CARGA
• CAVALCADE
• CHAVOS
• COGNOSCENTI
• CS2000
• DUKES
• FEROCI
• FLATTY
• FORKLIFT
• FUTO
• FURZEN
• FXT
• GANT
• HAULER
• INFERNUS
• MINIVAN
• MULE
• PATRIOT
• PHANTOM
• PRAIRIE
• POLICE
• RAILMU
• RANCHER
• TAXI
• TRASH
• SCHAFTER
• SEINOVE
• SKIMOBILE
• SNOWPLOUGH
• VANPONY
• WILLARD
• CABLECAR
• SUBWAY
• MONORAIL
• MONORAIL2
• MONORAIL3
• TRAIN_CARG
• LIGHTY
• DUNE
• RHINO
• APC
• CAVIERAO
• CAVIERAO_VAR
• CAR_BRZHATCHPLC
• CAR_BRZSEDANPLC
• CAR_BRZHATCHJNK
• CAR_BRZSEDANJNK
• CABLECAR
• CHAIRLIFT
• SUBWAY_LO
• SUBWAY_HI
• TRAIN_CARG
• TRAINF_CARG
• TRAINR_CARG
• TRAIN_INT
• LIGHTY
• WINKY

BIKES

• Z75
• JZ125
• ENDURO
• FAGGIO2
• SPIKE

BOATS

• SQUALO
• MARQUIS
• REEFER
• TROPIC
• DINGHY
• TUG
• CONTBO
• BASSBOY
• BAYER
• CHIKA
• FISHER
• FISHBOAT_A
• FISHBOAT_B
• FISHBOAT_C
• FISHBOAT_D
• GUNBOAT
• SABS_BOAT
• BOAT_CHASE
• DRUG_BOAT
• SMALL_GB
• MARQUIS
• MINI_ORIG
• MINI_BOAT
• SKIVVY
• PH_BOAT_S
• PH_BOAT_L
• SPORTO
• TINNY
• WHALER
• WOODY
• SMUG
• EDSBOAT
• BOAT_RS
• FISHBOAT
• BOTSAB
• SPORTO

HELICOPTERS/PLANES

• ANNHIL
• MAVERICK
• PH_HELI
• ANDROM
• FIGHTER
• AUTOGYRO
• HIND
• NAPALM
• SCAMP
• BENTHAM
• HELI_LUXURY
• HELI_VCPF
• HELI_CP
• HELI_TFE
• HELI_UFE
• HELI_CS
• HELI_REBEL
• PH_HELI
• DODO
• CUBAN800
• FIGHTER
• BCHOPPER

On November 6th of this year, fans of the Halo franchise can nab the Halo 4 Limited Edition for $99 and get the following in return:

• War Games Map Pack Access including three future competitive map packs available post-launch via Xbox LIVE.

• Specializations including early access to higher ranks in the player’s Spartan career. Specializations also unlock options for customizing your character. Limited Edition buyers will get these on launch day while others will have to wait, although how long they’ll have to wait is unseen at this time.

• UNSC Infinity Briefing Packet which includes an armor customization schematic, a blueprint of the massive ship, and insight into what it means to be one of the UNSC’s finest.

• Bonus Content will also be included in the Limited Edition. Players will get a unique in-game armour skin, rifle skin for the Assault Rifle, emblem, avatar prop, and avatar Spartan IV armour set.

• Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn is a live-action digital short that will also be included in the form of a never-before-seen extended 90-minute version of the film. We’re not really sure you can call it a ‘short’ if it runs longer than Spice World, but we’re not arguing for them to not include it. This add-on will also include a making of the short.

What remains to be seen is whether or not the game will have a Legendary Edition as Bungie used to release alongside their titles in the franchise. Sure, there is still time for 343 Industries to announce something, but it doesn’t seem like they will between now and the game’s November launch. As we head into a new trilogy for the series, it would be great to begin collecting massive monuments to the games as we have done since Halo 3′s MJOLNIR helmet in the Legendary Edition of the game.

An interesting tidbit that we don’t believe has been revealed before: the press release states that Halo 4 takes place just under five years after the events of Halo 3, which means the Chief has been in cryostasis for a heck of a long time and Cortana really is nearing the end of her life cycle.

Before we begin, if you haven’t got yourself caught up on all the major Halo 4 videos you should be watching, please click on the videos below to get yourself caught up.

With that out of the way and you finally understanding just what is going on here, we’re excited to say that 343 Industries has announced major details about the multiplayer mode of the game today.

First off, you command an all-new Spartan IV in the multiplayer mode of Halo 4. You are aboard the UNSC Infinity, the largest ship in the entire UNSC fleet, and progress through a new multiplayer campaign mode. The UNSC Infinity actually serves as the hub for all your multiplayer actions, including competitive and co-op modes, but the ship’s presence intersects with Halo 4′s main campaign, essentially delivering two campaigns in a single game. The multiplayer experience is actually known as Spartan Ops, an episodic adventure “that blends immersive storytelling, high-quality cinematics, and action-packed gameplay to deliver an unprecedented serialized experience” to the player, according to 343′s press release introducing the new game mode.

This sounds a lot to us like what we saw in Splinter Cell: Conviction back in 2010, but we’re not complaining – that was a fantastic game mode then and still continues to be one of the most unique things in gaming we’ve seen in a long while.

The usual competitive game mode in Halo 4 will now be known as War Games and take place on the combat deck of the UNSC Infinity while reviving the “visceral and immersive experiences that “Halo” multiplayer is famous for.” Unfortunately, those are the only details of that mode that we have to go on for now, but expect more to be unveiled at E3 in just a few short weeks.

If 343 Industries manages to pack as much content into Halo 4 as they’re alluding to, they might just have the best Halo game yet. Back when the third instalment of the franchise was released, we were nothing short of astounded by the amount of content in that game, and to this day, it ranks a perfect ten. But to see that 343 Industries is taking the reigns in this way and really trying to deliver with even more content than we’ve seen before is a blessing if they can really pull it off. November 6th can’t come soon enough.

Let’s start out with something obvious: this game is beautiful. It’s not ridiculously realistic to the point where you’d think you were watching live baseball, but when you take everything into consideration, the game looks pretty damn good. Facial animations aren’t the greatest, but you’ll rarely be looking at those anyways. What you’ll be noticing most while you play is the incredibly fluid sliding motions of the players, as well as the shadows and real-time lighting. There’s really no way to describe it better. Of course, in 1080p, it better look this good.

Other visual techniques that Sony San Diego managed to get into this game includes the automatic switching of camera angles immediately following pitches and hits to really make the game experience seem like a live broadcast. We’re not huge fans of watching sports on TV – we’d much rather be there – but we could tell that this is exactly what we could expect if we had turned to Sportsnet while we were playing. Each stadium is recreated in beautiful high-definition, and while there could be a bit more detail here and there, the game more than makes up for it with quick camera-swaps for a close-to-broadcast experience.

Audio in The Show is also nothing short of incredible. Audio commentary seems to be much improved over last year, and there are very few noticeable breaks between phrases when you’re batting, pitching, fielding, or watching from the stands.

Controls are a bit of an issue in The Show, and most of you are probably thinking that that would be more than a minor gripe here. The fact of the matter is that, while the learning curve for MLB 12 is rather steep, there are so many options for control schemes and layouts that once you pick one and learn it, you can master it. There is also PlayStation Move control throughout the entire game this year, and while it’s even a bit trickier to master over traditional DualShock controls, it does offer a pretty fun way to play the game, especially with a bunch of friends. Be aware, however, that you’re not actually swinging a heavy bat, so it is really easy to throw your arm too hard and feel the pain of an eighty-seven year old at your tender age of thirty-two. Just be careful, grandpa.

Last year, analog batting was the new addition to the control stable, focusing on timing rather than the position of the bat. This year’s version sees the inclusion of analog aiming which lets you adjust the position of the bat as well. On the one hand, it gives you a lot more control, but does it ever make things a ton more complicated. Needless to say, we couldn’t play with that control scheme, but we did our best.

Pulse Pitching is the new way to control the pitcher in the game, and it’s a similar mechanic to most golf games we’ve played, believe it or not. You can control the position of the ball, but as you do so, a circle pulses around that point, and it is up to you to time your button press to the time when the circle is smallest, giving you the greatest chance to throw the ball right through that point. It’s an interesting mechanic, but it makes playing feel more like a game of chance than one of skill. Additionally, you can’t control how hard you actually throw the ball, but maybe they’ll add that next year to make things that much more complicated.

There is a version of MLB 12: The Show out for PlayStation Vita as well as the PlayStation 3 version we tested. Save for some things like PlayStation Move functionality, the game is almost identical and supports the CrossPlay feature which lets you pick up and play your game on the go as you left it from the couch. That in itself makes this game worth it if you’re a baseball buff. Sure, it means you’re buying two copies of basically the same game, but you can go from the bus to the couch to the car to the couch again without having missed out on being able to play.

Last but not least, if you were one of the seven people who bought Sony’s PlayStation 3D Display (we make fun of it because nobody bought it even though we secretly love the thing), you can take advantage of SimulView Technology when you’re playing head-to-head and don’t want someone else peeping your screen details. We’re not exactly sure just how much they would be able to glean by looking over your shoulder anyways, but it does make for an interesting application of the technology.

The menu system when you first start up the game is our only other major gripe. It is rather convoluted and takes more than a few simple button presses to get into a game. But once you do, you’re pretty much all set for the series. A minor gripe, but we’re fans of developers that just let you mash a single button a couple of times to get right into your game.

Want to make up for every problem we have with the game? Get the Canadian version. The content on the disc itself is the same, but the cover athlete is Jose Bautista of our Toronto Blue Jays. He’s got a .302 batting average, making him the highest hitting player on the Blue Jays, and he’s all around a great guy. If you didn’t check out our coverage of the launch event for this game, be sure to give it a look here.

However, it is certainly not out of the picture that we might see a Gears game that begins a new storyline akin to what Halo 3: ODST was for Bungie’s franchise.

Sure, Epic Games is hard at work on their other stuff like the rumored Unreal Tournament follow-up and their iOS platform goodies, but that doesn’t mean that Cliffy B hasn’t begun work on something a little more Marcus Fenix in the meantime.

Of course, we have no other details at this time given that this is really all speculation born of wishes, but given that even Fable got a spinoff last year – and another this year – we’re pretty sure we’ll be seeing something from Epic and Fenix this year.

Crystal Dynamics reports that their massive reboot of the Tomb Raider franchise with a new game of the same name has been delayed to early 2013. The game was given a massive unveiling at Microsoft’s Press Conference last year and gave us some of the most heart-pounding moments in any game we’d seen in a long while.

While the title originally had a release date sometime in Fall 2012, Lara Croft’s new makers have said that they want to deliver the best game of their lives and won’t release Tomb Raider until it’s ready. They have confirmed, however, that the game will be shown off at E3 2012 in just a few short weeks. Here’s hoping we’ll still be able to get our hands on the game or at least a brand new look at Lara Croft’s new adventure.

As we’ve said many times before – with The Last Guardian, for example – we’ve always been on the side of developers who delay their game in the pursuit of making it better. If it takes until 2014 for Tomb Raider knock our socks off, we’ll wait. But we’d rather not have to.