Holiday 2007 Message Center

FAMILY TIES

My wife likes to watch me play certain games. She’ll play Xbox sometimes, but when it comes to shooters, it’s all me. We both really got into BioShock — it was funny early on in the game when Splicers would jump from around a corner and attack, my wife would nearly jump out of her seat. (They gave me goosebumps, too. I like games that spook me like that.) But what really got her was the good ending, earned by saving all the Little Sisters. After the cinematic ended, I looked at my wife and she had tears in her eyes. Literally crying. I asked her what was wrong and she said, “It’s about family.” I’ve never seen any game touch anyone, let alone my wife, like that before.

This is something Halo would be hard-pressed to do on that level only because we “know” the ending: You’re a space marine and you’ll save the planet/universe/humankind. Don’t get me wrong — I love the Halo series, but BioShock has raised the bar for gameplay immersion.
— Diego Knyte

We say: Well, that settles it. The hypothetical question “Can a game make you cry?” now has an answer.

MEGA CHIEF?

As a longtime and devoted fan of the Halo series, I don’t think there should be a Halo 4. There’s little room left to innovate in the FPS genre, and any more Halo games would just be milking the franchise. I’d hate to see Master Chief turn into Mega Man.

On the other hand, Master Chief is too compelling a character to be allowed to go quietly into the night. He just needs to evolve beyond the run-and-gun Space Marine–style gameplay. Bungie should decommission Master Chief, take away his weapons and armor, and make him survive by his knuckles and wits. If you’ve read the books, you know he has serious hand-to-hand skills.

Set this game against the backdrop of a Cold War between a near-devastated, post-war Earth and the separatist colonies, with a mad scramble to find and harness Forerunner technology, and the story and gameplay possibilities become practically limitless. You could have everything from Tomb Raider exploration to Fight Night fisticuffs to Knights of the Old Republic moral choices, all in one game.
— Cool C

We say: For better or worse, Master Chief is the Xbox’s answer to Mario — he’s the character icon that people associate with the entire brand. He might be given a little time to go AWOL for all his service, but we don’t expect him to disappear entirely. As for your stripped-down-for-survival remix idea, it could work as long as it doesn’t look like Metal Chief Solid: Grunt Eater. Nor would we want to see Xbox Live Arcade Spartan Big-Head Kart Racing as an excuse to keep him around as a spokes-soldier.

We know the real-time strategy game Halo Wars, currently being developed by Ensemble Studios, will fill in the gaps of the early Covenant War era. We’re curious to see what aspects of Spartan-117’s pre-history will be revealed there.

LOSING SIGHT

I was excited to hear all the great things that we were going to be able to do with the Xbox Live Vision camera. It was only when I bought it that I was disappointed. Yeah, I could take pictures of myself for my profile and have a live video chat, but it seems that this has been the extent of the camera so far.

I was hoping developers would take games where you make your own avatar and let you put your face on them. I saw your article about face-importing in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 and was pleased to see the Vision camera pop up again in the magazine; it was also nice to realize that other games like World Series of Poker and Rainbow Six Vegas offer this feature as well. Will more developers allow you to do this, or will the Vision camera become just another novelty item? 
— Anthony Caudillo

We say: Camera support is up to individual developers, but adding it sometimes comes with a cost. For instance, the Xbox Live Arcade version of Texas Hold ’Em announced support for the Vision camera, but this functionality didn’t come for several months after the game was released…and then it turned out that camera-enabled sessions couldn’t accommodate as many players as non-camera ones. Understandably, pushing that video data costs bandwidth. So whether it’s a question of bandwidth or simply human resources — should a programmer work on incorporating camera support, or spend that time tweaking animations or squashing bugs? — when a developer considers how (or if) they want to include Vision, it’s usually a question of what else they want to cut or do without. We’d certainly like to see more face-mapping stuff, too, but we think it’s often an either/or situation.

One thing we can definitely do without: using the Vision camera for motion-controlled gameplay, as in Live Arcade games Totem Ball and Pinball FX. Honestly, this poor man’s Wii-play just isn’t very fun.

FREE NOW, PAY LATER

Recently, I’ve noticed that more and more gamers have been putting “XboxLiveShouldBeFree” into their mottos to try to get Microsoft’s attention. Personally, I can’t really see how this would be a good thing. If we didn’t have to pay for Xbox Live, it wouldn’t receive nearly as much maintenance as it does now. All those updates, Video Marketplace, MSN Messenger support, and glitch-fixing would probably never have happened. If Live is made free, the Live you play today is as good as it’s gonna get.

The people that I’ve talked to about this all say, “Well, PlayStation is doing it.” Well, one look at Sony’s online network should be more than enough to convince you that these services are better with a price.
— TJ Wittke

We say: The only thing that travels faster than a Spartan Laser shot on Xbox Live is a good urban legend. We thought that 360 owners were smarter than to fall for this variation on the old “Bill Gates wants to give you $5, just forward this email” tactic, but sure enough, we saw plenty of this on Live, too — not to mention several pleas urging us to change our mottos because “If OXM does it, it will happen!” Um, no. When asked directly about PlayStation 3’s free online play, no less an authority than Microsoft Game Studios Corporate VP Shane Kim confirmed that Xbox Live is a product Microsoft thinks is worth its price, for all the reasons that you mention, TJ. If Kim says Live won’t be free, we believe him. And we also think he’s right.

A TRUE LONE WOLF

I enjoy Halo 3 Lone Wolves Matchmaking as much as anyone, and I’m pleased that I haven’t been a victim of any form of cheating. However, I’ve now discovered that the game has the same problem as Gears of War multiplayer: Achievement hounds. The last four games I’ve played have all had people asking, “Do you newbs want to do Achievements?” And everyone but me has gone along with it.

Since I won’t stoop to the level of cheating for an Achievement, I play the matches like normal and win all four, because half the time the others are lining up and getting killed with an energy sword. After each match, I’m cussed out to the point where the F-bomb becomes every other word. My avoidance rating is somehow 75% now when it used to be 25%. Mostly the negative feedback is for “Unsporting Conduct.” My question for you is, what do I do? Was I right to play the match like normal, or should I have become a moral pansy and cheated to get an Achievement?                     
— Biff Smith

We say: Tough call. If the room seems to have come to a consensus, the best course of action would probably be to simply leave that game and look for another. We assume you’re stating loudly and specifically that you don’t feel comfortable playing that way. Or you can wait it out — after a few weeks, the Achievement hounds (that’s a nicer word than what we were thinking) will be in the minority. The grubbers will get their points and leave or fade into the background, leaving you to get those Achievements legitimately.

This situation falls into a gray area — Achievements are devalued if people take advantage of the system to earn them, but at the same time, they don’t really mean anything anyway. Except that, you know, they mean something. So you get props from us for standing your ground, but maybe you should pick your battles from here on out.

HALF-BAKED

So Halo 3 came out and I had a party that weekend to celebrate. I had two cases of Game Fuel, some pizza, and hot wings, and most importantly, I made Halo 3– and Xbox-themed cookies! They looked so good and they tasted even better! They were definitely a hit at the Halo 3 party, and they were gone faster than a group of grunts hit with a plasma grenade.
I want to give you a big thanks, because without your wonderfully detailed stories, the wait for Halo 3 would’ve been so much longer. So if there’s anything I can ever do for you guys (like ship you a box of my famous Halo 3 cookies), you just let me know and it’ll be done.
— Matt Davis

FACE IT

Because it’s the obnoxious thing to do, I thought I’d write just to say: I told you that wasn’t Master Chief’s face that we saw in the Halo 3 teaser trailer!
— Edward W. Swan

We say: You did, Edward — way back in our December 2007 issue. And you may be right…but maybe not. We didn’t see John’s face in Halo 3, but who knows what changed or was nixed between the trailer and the published game? Could there be a lost scene somewhere that shows us Chief’s pasty visage? Only Bungie knows for sure.