The TalkGames Podcast has gone LIVE!!! We’ve been going live for the past few weeks but haven’t really mentioned it here on the website yet. So for every Saturday, until the end of time, tune in to our JustinTV channel (www.justin.tv/dinosaurpizza) and you can listen to our beautiful voices and terrible opinions live as we say them! There’s a chat feature worked in so fans of the show can speak to one another while also giving feedback or live questions to the hosts of the show. It’s some cool stuff.

If you want frequent updates of what the show is doing (say for example it gets cancelled for one week) you can follow the twitter account DinosaurPizza. If you can’t make it to the show live, we’ll still be uploading the recorded podcasts to our XML feed so you can catch them every saturday afternoon like you usually would. Anyway, we’re going live in thirty minutes! We’re talking about Fallout New Vegas, Fallout Online, the fall out of Xbox Silver Membership and professor layton falling onto the Pheonix Wright series. PUNS AWAY!

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OH MAN. Did you guys know that BioShock Infinite was announced? We did. Because we talked about it for forty minutes. If that game interests you, than our talk about it should interest you even more. If not, we still have some discussion on new releases such as Monday Night Combat and the end of the Medal of Honor beta. I also think this was a shortest show in a long time, here’s hoping we can keep the runtime down, for future episodes. Show notes:

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This week’s podcast is full of new releases and our listener’s emails. Alien Swarm, Limbo, and Medal of Honor just to name a few of the games we talked about. We of course always welcome listener emails, and this week we answer what our favorite type of music/band is as well as detail our thoughts on downloadable distribution, and our favorite games of all time. Also we talked about Mass Effect 2 again. Here’s the show notes:

Huh? Kotaku is reporting that despite the usual tactic of retail pricing– Medal of Honor’s Limited Edition will cost the same amount as the regular edition, which leaves me saying “Dude what?” Why? Why would it be cheaper? Does that mean the regular version could be $50 dollars? Why don’t they do that? Who wouldn’t get the limited edition? Why not just make the limited edition the regular edition? Does this please their quarterly figures? What is this I don’t even.

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TalkGames goes elementary on this podcast as the cast learns how to pronounce words like “anonymity” as well as other wonderful vocabulary including lethargic, and destitute. When we’re not learning word pronunciation we’re talking about the wonderful games we’ve been playing and news we’ve been hearing. Recent releases such as Ancients of Ooga, and Lego Harry Potter, as well as older titles including Darksiders and Ultima VI. Here are the show notes:

Frequent readers of TalkXbox may be aware of the Two Worlds II contest that we mentioned a short time ago. Well we weren’t the only website participating in the contest, and after several weeks and hundreds of submissions Topware has finally nailed down the five winners who will receive a free copy of Two Worlds II on release date. The winners are from multiple sites but unfortunately it doesn’t seem like any of our readers won:

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This podcast is so full of content that it had to be split into two parts. We talked about a huge amount of older games thanks to Tanooki being late to the party about everything and the Steam sale going on right now. However, the second half that is being posted right now is all about a few articles that were released over the past few days that have to do with the importance of cutscenes in video games, how death is handled, and the ability to kill buffalo, take a look:

Slow news day means time to post YouTube videos of overly-enthusiastic video game fans. Such as this young man Kevin, who apparently is very excited for Gears of War 3. He shows off his excitement within four minutes and twelve seconds of unadulterated enjoyment of doing his best “FRAG OUT” impression whilst playing with Gears of War action figures. It’s certainly a treat to watch:

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Another week goes by which means another episode of TalkGames has been made. This week is full of GAMES TALK, but not necessarily new releases. After all it is the week post-E3 so almost nothing has been going on, and it’s probably better that way. Although we did get our hands on a few upcoming releases including Crackdown 2, and Raven Software’s Singularity. If you like hearing about Ps1 and N64 games, this is the podcast for you:

The news that nobody wanted to hear, so they announced it quietly through the website: Kinect is $149 dollars. We’re gonna go ahead and assume this isn’t speculation or a mishap since this information is coming from Microsoft’s own website, and that pre-ordering the item does in fact work. This isn’t some item that’s up for sale before it’s supposed to, true as the blue sky… $149 is the price.

Our current console generation has become enamored with player control limitations, or rather the lack thereof. As a result, the free-roaming open-world genre has exploded in popularity. From new franchises such as Saints Row capitalizing on the ability to do anything to veteran series adopting the design thoery to liven up their formula (Red Faction: Guerilla). An unfortunate fact of the recent escapades through the free-form design philosophy  has been the lacking attention to detail of the world players roam within. Instead of successfully becoming a believable environment, these cities and landscapes serve as an excuse to backtrack across the map several times at a monotonous rate. How can developers possibly solve the complaints of “too much traveling?” By making the city more interesting to travel through.

Or at least, that’s the ideology developer 2k Czech has stuck with when creating Mafia II. The game may be free-roam, and detractors of the core idea might degrade to calling it “Grand Theft Auto: 1940.”  In reality, there are many levels of depth and detail present in the world of Mafia that other open-world games strive to achieve. I was able to personally play hands-on with Mafia II during E3 last week, and the title went from being off my radar to one of the more intriguing concepts I saw at the show.

My experience with Mafia II started in an undisclosed house that I could only assume belonged to my main character, Vito. After taking a quick peak around my surroundings, I decided to walk out the front door and see what adventure the developers had in store for me. I went from the highly-detailed indoor environment to street-side instantly, no load times or drop in frame rate (a small nuance in design that makes all the difference when remaining immersed). As I walked towards my car I was notified by a blip on my map on where to meet up with the other family members. Unfortunately, this demo also had a ten minute timer for me to spend in the city before I’d be forced into the mission, at little off-putting at first. I soon realized that without the timer, I would’ve been in front of that demo’s TV all day.

Vito starts off as a Sicilian immigrant, but gradually becomes involved with the Mafia

Mafia II is all about the city and how you interact with it. This immediately became clear when I began my commute to the destination predetermined for me. Typical of my reckless tendencies in game-worlds, I sped off on the opposite side of the road, slamming on the gas to cover the most amount of distance in the shortest amount of time possible. The local authorities didn’t take too kindly to this, as I was instantly pursued by a traffic cop police car. Road rules are not usually enforced in video games, so I was a little surprised by this first encounter with the law, but instead of being upset I decided to have some fun and kept the chase up.

However, I didn’t last very long since I had forgotten the laws of motion seconds prior to my car wrecking into a telephone pole. My car’s engine began to exude black smoke from its battered innards.  It was around this time that I chose to ditch the car and make off on foot. The officer in pursuit arrived at my accident and watched me duck into an alleyway; the chase immediately ensued. It was at this point I discovered how the “wanted” system operated in Mafia II. Instead of the Cop AI having Hive Mind intelligence where every officer is somehow telepathically connected, each individual person only knows what they can see. In this case, my pursuing officer couldn’t see where I went once I hid in the alley, breaking the line of sight, and my HUD notified me that he didn’t know where I was.

Your mini map illuminates blue when the police can see you

I decided to take advantage of my situation and chose to run to a nearby alley that double-backed towards where I just was, and from there I headed towards the clothing store across the street hoping to change my street appearance. This temporarily worked as a throw-off for my opponent, but his AI soon calculated that, at the speed I was running, he would have been able to see me unless I had used the alleyway that I did. This led to him pursuing my track that I had thought was so cleverly fool-proof. Luckily for me, his streak of brilliance mattered not, I had already changed clothes from a T-Shirt and pants to a decked out business man’s suit accompanied by a bowler’s hat.

With my new spiffy look, I walked around the corner towards an isolated vehicle and jacked it before anyone noticed. Without a stressful car chase occupying my attention I discovered another interesting factoid of my car’s condition: the gas meter. As it turns out, every car in Mafia II has a gas meter, a customized amount in the tank, and what the MPG is. The vehicle I had just commandeered had around 3/4s of its tank, but I decided to get a fill up anyway. There are numerous gas stations littered around the map in the event that you’re running low, but the process of refilling takes a decent amount of time. This of course means if you’re in the middle of a high octane car chase, you’re better off ditching whatever car you’re in instead of filling up.

If you can’t get away, you can always surrender peacefully by holstering weapons

After juicing up, I finally made my way to the mission marker. This particular mission was a few hours into the game, so the story wasn’t very coherent considering I just started playing. The basics were laid out in front of me before it started, we’d be assaulting a winery to kill a specific person who apparently screwed us over somehow. However, we had to make an impression on these rivals of ours, so instead of covertly entering the building, our contacts managed to set up an MG42 in the window across the parking lot, which allowed us to reign terror down on our arriving adversaries.

Once we finished recreating D-Day on a city street, it was time to assault the winery itself. For the most part the mission and its mechanics were straight forward and easy to grasp. Third person, cover based, featuring Tommy Guns and revolvers, what’s not to get? Our sledgehammer of force was felt on every floor as we eviscerated any opposition to our overwhelming power. The loud booming sounds of shotguns and strong cacophonies from Tommy Guns echoed in the cement-based structure, and despite the harsh frequencies being blown into my ears, I couldn’t help but be impressed by the sound design.

Gunplay in Mafia II is straight-forward.  To truly understand the appeal of participating in these vicious and destructive battles, they have to be experienced firsthand. Dynamic shadows change the shading of nearby objects with each burst of muzzle flash. Physics are directly affected when bottles or weak pieces of concrete are broken up by bullets whizzing past and through every piece of terrain. Each individual element helps build a spectacle that’s pleasing to the eye and adds to the tension and excitement of gunfights.

Screenshots are nice, but the game in motion is infinitely more impressive looking

By the end of our mission in the winery, it was revealed that one of our members had been shot and must be rushed to the hospital. Life as a gangster was proven to be difficult on route to our destination and countless squad cars harassed our goal with aggressive ramming and tactical PIT maneuver attempts (My awesome driving skills kept them at bay). Eventually we reached a police road block as a cutscene played to show us our out-matched odds and the reliance on quick-second thinking. The demo ended with the question, what would I do next?

Although I never mentioned it in any official form, I saw Mafia II at PAX East back in March and walked away somewhat unimpressed. Looking back on my two experiences with the game, I noticed the first demonstration had no open-world interaction at all, where as this latest presentation allowed some freedom on the order which I’d do things. It seems obvious that the main drawing point for Mafia II is the city it takes place in, similar to the first Mafia game where the single player was compelling, but players decided to spend countless hours roaming around because of the detailed world. It’s for that same exact reason that I eagerly await the full release of Mafia II on August 24th, later this year.

For those who missed it, a Saw video game was made early last October in 2009. The game was alright, but it was pretty close to being something really worth playing. Apparently the developer Zombie Studios and publisher Konami recognized this and decided to give the game a sequel. I’m assuming the sequel will include puzzle elements mixed with horrific imagery for every Saw fan to enjoy. For now, here’s some screenshots featuring nails in a dude’s arm:

Imagine you weren’t restricted to constraints of the human body and could simply rip your limbs off whenever you felt like it. That seems to be the pitch for Konami’s recently announced “NeverDead.” We don’t have any information on what this game is about, but if the screenshots are to believed, it seems that you’ll be spending a lot of time detaching your limbs and rearranging them in ways that fit your current situation. Kind of like a modern day, moody looking Ray-Man. Have a look for yourself, because I’m already sold:

Jimmy Fallon is continuing to be relevant to the gaming industry by getting on the developers at Treyarch to show off Call of Duty: Black Ops live on his show tomorrow night. Fallon’s show was also the place where Kinect was first shown on television back when it was known as Natal, and also had Cliff Bleszinski for an interview talking about Epic Games and Gears of War 3. Treyarch’s appearance will either be the revealment of something big, or just a testament to Fallon’s geekiness. Late Night with Jimmy Fallon airs tomorrow at 12:30am EST.

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AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH So much E3 madness it can’t be contained in a singular podcast, it has to be split between eight co-hosts and three parts! Listen to the extravaganza that is E3 as we go over the press conferences, make fun of Konami, and finally go over every game that I (Artie) saw at the show. XCOM! DEUS EX! THE 3DS! So many other things. Here are the shortened show notes with no timestamps because I never have enough time to figure them all our for this four hour madness:

Six years have passed since I  invested any significant amount of grandiose interest in an anticipated video game release. The last game bestowed with the honor of grabbing my attention was none other than Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for reasons that seem juvenile when placed within the context of contemporary game design. Although my own personal disinterest in the latest modern blockbusters could be explained by a variety of reasons, I believe the last half decade of video games have been lacking in unique ideas. That is until around 1:00pm this past Thursday, when after viewing the thirty minute presentation of 2K Marin’s XCOM that familiar feeling of boyish wonderment and excitement stimulated my senses.

Developer 2K Marin has been on top of the world lately… well, most of them. The team originally stemmed from the crew that brought the world of Rapture to life in the first BioShock. A few corporate decisions later, the developers became known as “2K Marin” and helmed the prodigious task of following up BioShock with a proper sequel. Once that project was all set and shipped off, the team began work on XCOM. Considering the history of these very talented creators, it shouldn’t be a surprise that XCOM gives off a similar vibe to  the first BioShock.

The setting is idyllic 1950s America.  Society lives during a post-wartime with little to worry about other than cutting the grass and painting white picket fences. This is also a time for conspiracy theorists and superstitious folk to begin an era of UFO sightings and alien abductions. However, are these reports the result of hysteric citizens who have become afraid of their own shadows? Or are these interactions with the unknown truthful experiences? That’s the question the Extraterrestrial Combat Unit plans to answer.

XCOM is all about uncovering the unknown, no matter the cost

XCOM is a task force branched from the Federal Bureau of Investigation with a goal of discovering the substantiality of these otherworldly reports; if necessary they will prepare America to battle the mysterious and unknown. The player takes on the role of the leader of XCOM and discovering the secrets that our extraterrestrial visitors are hiding. This press-presentation of the game was played by 2K Main’s own James Sharpe a developer working on the game, while another developer, Martin Slater, narrated the events that occurred.

The demonstration started at XCOM’s headquarters, an airport hanger that acts as a front for the entrance to this task force’s base of operations. The first thing I noticed about XCOM was its art style. Colors are strong and vibrant, character models are exaggerated with elongated limbs matched with cartoonish faces, and every asset in the game seems to have been the product of a Team Fortress 2 and Pixar Film marriage.

As I was marveling at the stylistic art direction, Slater explained each individual section and room within the headquarters. There was a team of busy worker-bees perusing files and using type writers, determined to learn more about their objective. We moved through the corridors and came across the laboratory where scientists examined an alien artifact to dissect useful information about its design and make. Finally, we stopped by the weapons expert who notified us that a new weapon had been conceived thanks to the research the player had gathered in previous missions.

The art style has the uncanny ability to look cartoony and realistic at the same time

It was in this room we learned about the artillery XCOM agents were equipped with to combat alien forces. The weapons expert handed us a grenade-sized glass ball of goo that, when thrown, enflamed the inside contents. On the way out, we picked up a shotgun and the intriguing “lightning gun” which had been described as “extremely effective” against our adversaries. After suiting up for what dangerous deeds were to come before us, we made our way to the national map.

Slater explained that all missions in XCOM would be in response to paranormal activity reported by citizens of the United States. Small blips across the map indicated mission locations.   Upon choosing which location we’d be visiting, our agent was briefed with the mission’s objectives and what intelligence we had about the surrounding area. The 911 call that was made at the site was played for us, whilst we were provided with a clipboard filled with notes. Following a trip back to the airport’s garage and picking up two fellow XCOM agents, we were on our way.

Upon reaching our destination, the sense of obscurity and mischief was palpable. The joyful streets were vacant of neighbors and children, and true to spy-film nature, it was quiet… too quiet. Slater explained that much of the level design was dependent on investigating the environment and being on top of your senses, using your brain, not your gun. A scream was heard from one of the nearby houses which prompted us to explore what caused the shriek of terror.

Victims’ deaths can be examined to research important advancements for your goal

Unfortunately we had arrived too late and found a dead body covered with black goo that stood out when juxtaposed to the colorful surroundings. It was at this point that the investigating we had been hearing so much of was finally shown in gameplay-form. Our agent took out a flash-photography camera and snapped a picture of the poor-soul who became victimized by the ominous goo. Instantly, bullet points of what this photograph could possibly reveal was explained to the right of the finalized picture.

However, we didn’t have time to examine the information here on the field, there were still other people in the nearby houses and a trail of black goo exited the corpse’s resting place and made way towards the house next-door. After following these subtle clues, we made our way into the compromised house and were ambushed by a plethora of creatures.  A firefight ensued that left the once beautiful household marred by remnants of black tar. Amidst the chaos, one of our teammates was taken over and killed, it was time for the lightning gun.

With a booming thunder, the once fear-inducing antagonistic foes fell to the fury generated by our extremely effective lightning gun. We made our way from room-to-room until we finally reached the young woman under attack. After a successful rescue, it was hinted at that our struggle was not over, we would still have to return to our vehicle and exit alive. Seemed like a simple task, but once we left the premises of the goo-ridden household, a new threat pended before us.

Spoilers: The guy in this picture dies

An enormous monolith referred to as “The Tile” levitated over the street that would be our way out. Before we were given a moment to assess the situation, The Tile changed forms into an intimidating ring of doom and reigned terror on our last remaining squad member. It was at this point in time that Sharpe, the developer playing the game, demonstrated that without knowing what we were facing it’d be impossible to harm it. The lightning gun was ineffective and our shotgun would have trouble competing with Pea Shooter.

The only answer was run, retreat and return to our laboratory with our newly acquired information and hope it would reveal the weakness of this new enemy type. After a slew of graphical effects that manipulated gravity and a strong pulling force that brought us closer to the threat we were desperately trying to outrun… the demo ended with a title card: “XCOM.”

2K Marin has a strong pedigree for fantastic game design and narratives that are often referred to as some of the medium’s best. In a day and age where every game is about making explosions bigger, muscles thicker and thinking less important, XCOM seems to be going against the grain by believing that players want to do more than count headshots. The investigative aspects of XCOM’s central core design seem very interesting to me and, if done right, could lead to a very compelling experience. I’m also interested in uncovering the mystique of the extraterrestrial, and with all that in mind: XCOM is easily one of my most anticipated titles for 2011.

Since the original release of Medal of Honor for the Playstation 1 in 1999, the war-themed shooter genre has erupted into an onslaught of competition and rivalries. Franchises have begun and died off; some have improved while the less capable become forgettable impulse-buy fodder. Most recently the industry has focused its eye on the Modern Warfare series for propelling the genre into contemporary time. Modern Warfare 2 has gone on to be the best selling video game of all time and its juggernaut of PR and reception makes it difficult to look past its supposed competition.

So when I say “a Medal of Honor reboot is coming out this year” most people reply with “What is Call of Duty doing?” Although an unfortunate fact of the consumer base, it’s difficult to persuade people on a product they’ve never seen before. This is why back in May, Electronic Arts flew myself, along with a few dozen other journalists to see single player, and play multiplayer. Based off of my personal experience of seeing the campaign, and playing the multiplayer extensively, I can say there is not a doubt in my mind that Medal of Honor will dethrone Call of Duty this fall.

Now that’s an obviously very bold statement to make about one of the biggest franchises in video game history, so I should explain where I’m coming from. First of all, the game’s single player is being handled by EALA, and takes place during the early phases of the Iraq War (2003/2002) before it was even called the Iraq War. Medal of Honor doesn’t hide from its recent history, so you’ll be hearing about reasons why the war started, and you’ll know you’re fighting the Taliban and Osama Bin Landen. On the flipside of that, the developers assured us that the game is not trying to make a political statement, they just want to make a good game.

Medal of Honor takes place in Afghanistan 2003

The meat and potatoes of the game are split up over multiple characters. EALA only confirmed that you’ll be playing as both the Army Rangers and Tier 1 Operatives, but hinted at the fact that there would be multiple characters past these two. Greg Goodrich of EALA compared the Tier 1 operatives as the “Scapel,” a group of highly trained and deadly warriors who covertly infiltrate enemy lines and tip the balance in our favor. The Army Rangers act as the “Sledgehammer,” an unadulterated force that can bring down the thunder when required.

Despite the promise that there will be multiple characters, the real focus is on these Tier 1 Operatives. The rank “Tier 1” actually exists in the real American Army, but goes by a codename that most civilians do not know about. EALA did extensive research on this rank, the people in it, and even got a chance to speak directly to a few people who served under this elite title. The influence of speaking to these soldiers has apparently affected how the game was designed. The team is steadfast in creating a war game that is both respectful to the individuals portrayed in it as well as making it enjoyable to play through.

Speaking of which, how does the campaign work? For the most part it plays out as a linear first person shooter. In each mission you have set objectives that have to be completed in the order they’re given to you. What’s different about Medal of Honor compared to other competitors is that it isn’t as focused on set pieces. The minute-to-minute gameplay is more tactical and can play out differently depending how you approach situations. You’ll be clearing houses with your team, and sometimes you’ll decide to take a stealthy approach with knife kills and melees, or other times it’s just best to go in guns blazing.

The only time you’ll see a door, is when you’re about to kick it down

It’s entirely possible to play through the same mission two different wants depending on how much you want to rely on your teammates. That said, there are no direct squad commands in Medal of Honor, your friendly AI will carry out their own procedures and flank/charge accordingly. The teammate AI has also been tuned to actually be helpful in firefights. Unlike previous entries in the MOH franchise, your squad members can actually pick off enemies that are giving you a hard time and overall are very reliable.

Although there is an obvious focus on the tactical gameplay and clearing houses or traversing through valleys and mountains, there are still going to be a few memorable set pieces within the game. One particular demo we got to see was the Army Rangers taking down a machine gun emplacement. The Rangers pushed forward as the gargantuan gun obliterated walls of cover and rained terror on unfortunate allies. The team eventually got close enough to call in an air strike, after popping smoke and a short wait the gun’s location was replaced with an enormous explosion. The dust that was generated as a result ended up covering the entire battlefield and reduced visibility for a short amount of time. Needless to say, it was very cool, and really pushed the graphical fidelity to its fullest.

In fact Medal of Honor as a whole looks like a very good game on the graphics front. The art designers put in a lot of work of surveying areas similar to Afghanistan and making the level design believable and close to how it is over in the Middle East. There’s an obvious rigidness to the terrain and the landscape is filled with mountains, hills, canyons, valleys, and all sorts of height differential environments. The level design also doesn’t follow a strict corridor pathway. There are some obvious restraints on how far you can go in any one direction, but it still very much feels like a big open desert, even if you can’t walk across the entire thing.

The environmental design is jaw-dropping

The more important part of the technical side of development is the Artificial Intelligence. An entire section of the community day was dedicated to looking at the AI of Medal of Honor. On a very basic level, the animations and mannerisms of both the friendly and enemy units have been overhauled from Medal of Honor’s last release, Airborne. Every AI now has a variety of movement abilities, they can still walk and run, but they’ve also added full-on sprints as well as limps and crawls after being shot. Even whilst running, the AI will react to nearby fire by attempting to duck away from the bullets or make a sharp turn to avoid incoming fire.

In the event the AI does get caught by a bullet, there is realistic implementation of hit-detection. Every unit has a different animation depending on where it was shot and how lethal of a hit it was. Units that manage to hold on to dear life will attempt to limp away, or if shot in the stomach they will curl up in the fetal position and hope for survival. It’s sort of odd to talk about all the ways your enemy can die, but it adds a realism layer to the game that most other releases tend to forget or not bother with.

However everything so far is peanuts compared to what the audience is really looking forward to: Multiplayer and the big hook of Medal of Honor. Unlike every game ever made, Medal of Honor is actually being created by two different developers simultaneously. The single player is handled by Electronic Arts Los Angeles, while the multiplayer is being created by DICE (Digital Illusions Creative Entertainment), the famous creators of the Battlefield franchise. DICE wanted to make a multiplayer game that was not related to Battlefield since the fanbase of that series demand a certain type of gameplay and additions. This means big ideas such as increasing how fast the pacing in the game is and how important the vehicles are wouldn’t fly in Battlefield, but are free-game in Medal of Honor.

Multiplayer is very fast paced and tense

We got to play multiplayer extensively over two maps. One was entitled “Helmand Valley” and the other was “Kabul City Ruins.” Multiplayer supports 24 players online, and both games modes we got to play were team based which meant 12v12. We first played Helmand Valley, a large-scale objective map that had one team attacking five objectives while the other defended. The valley was enormous and had several stages depending on which objective the defenders were on. The game ends when either the defenders complete the last objective or the defenders lose the total amount of lives they were given at the start.

This game mode was a lot more similar to a Battlefield-style type of game, but the pacing of the game is very fast in comparison. The controls go for an obvious arcade-like feel and grip as opposed to the Battlefield slow and heavy inertia. There was also one tank on the map that only the defenders could use to help take down the numerous walls and outposts they had to breach to get to the final objective. I personally felt that the balance between infantry and vehicle was perfect. The tank didn’t seem all that important, but when it was used at the correct time it was vital to the success of the defenders. That being said, the tank is also relatively easy to take down as long as you gear up correctly.

Speaking of which, the other big thing for Medal of Honor is the loadout options. The obvious comparison is made to Modern Warfare, but instead of picking perks and extra grenades, you modify what type of gun you’re bringing and how you want it speced out. You can choose between a grenade launcher for extra efficient, or maybe a silencer and go covert? There were also numerous options for scopes, magazines, and other variations that can be matched up with any play style.

This man is pointing a gun at your face

There is also a leveling system that unlocks more guns and accessories, but we didn’t get a good look at how that was planned out or what the higher levels got in comparison to the lower levels. However DICE did say that any person who reaches the highest rank will acquire the ability to grow a beard on their character model to show the rest of the world how they’ve conquered the leveling chain.

The second map available was Kabul City Ruins. This map was played in Team Deathmatch mode, and it was vicious throughout the entire experience. Kabul City Ruins is a map that is designed to have no safety ever. Every corner can be flanked, every building has at least four entrances, and there is no safe haven for anyone. This forced players on both teams to be constantly moving and raiding other sides of the map and rely on their quick reflexes instead of methodically paced tactics. In comparison to the Valley, this map was much smaller but made sense considering the design was made to evoke that tension of being snuck up on at any second. The Kabul City Ruins map was not only fun to play, but probably one of the better designed multiplayer maps I have played over any game, let alone shooters.

Finally, there is one final modification to the multiplayer formula made in Medal of Honor, and that is the offensive and defensive actions. Whenever a player cumulates enough points by doing actions such as reaching objectives, killing enemies, or assisting allies they are rewarded with a tier of abilities. Offensive actions are triggered with the left D-Pad direction, and defensive is deployed through the right D-Pad direction. Offensive gives the player more and more advanced explosive actions. It starts with mortars, then artillery, and eventually if the player is killed enough they can unlock the S.C.U.D. missile and beyond. On the defensive actions, players can choose to help their teammates out in various ways. The first level is a simple UAV (that can be shot down), but further down the line abilities such as body armor, or instant ammo are granted to your teammates for an extended period of time.

This guy could probably use a defensive ability

Although these abilities sound like a pretty insignificant change to the formula, they actually make a sizable difference when it comes to the overall battlefield. If you’re on an objective map and have to rush a machine gun, it’s probably easier with enforced body armor, at the same time other play styles could choose to launch a SCUD missile at the machine gun and hope that fixes their problem. This small variation to what has been tried and true proves to work out for the better in the grander scale of things.

I played Medal of Honor multiplayer for three or four hours straight. When given the option to eat lunch or keep playing, I kept playing. As someone who isn’t that big into multiplayer games in general, that means a lot. Maybe it was because I was destroying everyone else in the game (doing TalkXbox proud, 32 kills 2 deaths in one match! WOOT WOOT) but I believe, at its core, Medal of Honor has an edge on the competition. Two developers mean twice the amount of effort, it’s a benefit that not many developers have and it seems to be doing a lot of good to the final product.

Medal of Honor is scheduled for release this October 12th 2010.  There is also a multiplayer beta that is supposed to be released relatively soon.  Look for a news post on that later in the coming weeks. When I landed in Los Angeles, I had the assumption that this community day would just be an effort made by EA to seem relevant in a majorly dominated Call of Duty market. But after leaving three days later (and seeing Black Ops recently, I mean… come on) this Fall looks like it is going to be very competitive.

Watching the Microsoft Press Conference, with all the Kinect voice activation, got me thinking about what other commands they should have available for the device. I mean if this is future tech, we’re going to have to start thinking about future abilities right? Anyway, here’s what Kinect should have installed come this November, some are practical, others are… not.

The Microsoft Conference just ended with big news, a new sku of the Xbox 360 is shipping to retailers today and will be on sale for consumers later this week. Everyone in the audience was lucky enough to get this new model for free, but the rest of us schmucks will have to buy this new model for $299 dollars. Here are the details of what this new console will have:

Microsoft just finished up their huge Kinect section of the press conference. After showing a bunch of games (shown below) they announced that Kinect will be launching November 4th 2010 with 15 unique games. There were a few games shown off, but more importantly there was a bunch of nuances about the device itself that were very impressive: