Loadouts – These replace Halo 3’s equipment, which could be picked up during a match. You’ll now choose from four different types of Spartan at the beginning of each match and before every respawn. Each comes with it’s own unique perk, which can be used in short bursts as well as a different default weapon. They’re an interesting tweak to the gameplay, in my mind a better addition to combat than the equipment.

So far I’ve been favouring the Scout and Airborne classes. Scout’s a great way to catch up to flag and skull holders or ducking out of fire when your shields have been dropped. Airborne carries a high risk/reward, getting up to flags and sniping positions quickly but leaving you vulnerable in-flight. It’s perfect for frustrating sword carriers and the melee-happy, though.

Customisation – The rewards system has been changed slightly to bring it more in line with other shooters. Play games, earn XP and unlock new armour.

Sadly, this is all cosmetic, with no affect on gameplay. Since stopping to look at anyone’s customisation will leave you being teabagged in four fifth’s of a second, this is pretty much pointless. I’d rather see some of the loadouts and weapons initially locked at the start of play. It would give an incentive to keep playing, as well as cutting back on the almost bewildering array of weapons the game contains.

Looks nice, but it won't actually help you.

Modes – All the usual suspects (CtF, Oddball, etc) are present and correct, with a few new interesting additions:

• Headhunter has you picking up a skull off each corpse, but get killed yourself and you drop them all. Sniping won’t win this one but scavenging might, as only picking up the skull counts towards your score.
• Stockpile is a multi-flag type. Bring flags back to the base, but a timer ticks down before they count, so they need to be defended.
• Generator defence has 3 points on the map that need to be locked down/blown into small pieces.
• Invasion is the most ambitious of the new modes, a multi-part objective-based mode on the only map big enough to contain vehicles.

While the smaller single-player modes are huge amounts of fun, the game falls apart the more team-focussed it becomes. The games of Invasion I played in particular were a complete shambles with no-one speaking or working together. Friendly co-operation has never been Halo’s strong point, so it’ll be interesting to see how this fares in the final release.

Maps – Up to Bungie’s usual high standard, well balanced with few places to hide. The close-quarters Swordbase in particular perfectly suits the fast pace and up-close gameplay that’s Halo’s signature.

So what did I take away from all this? Well, it’s Halo alright. The loadouts are fun to play with, and their tactical purpose becomes more obvious they more you play. The unlocks and Invasion mode however, feel like Bungie playing catch up with the other big online shooters, and are a bad fit.

The biggest difference to the whole experience though, is just the fact that running at someone while emptying a clip to drop their shields, then melee-ing them up close doesn’t work so much now. A small health bar’s been re-introduced, so a second strike or a couple of extra rounds is needed for the kill. That’s the most earth-shattering change to the core gameplay.

Will the changes and new content be enough to persuade the masses to move on from Halo 3? Will the prospect of paying out for the inevitable slew of DLC maps post-release put them off (it’s enough to make me think twice)? Let’s have your opinions below…

9:00am – Fire up the 360, slap ODST into the drive. Main menu still displays “Preview the Beta”. A quick trip to Bungie.net reveals the beta begins “late morning” PST (-8 GMT). Take comfort that Australians have already waited an extra 8 hours before me.

6:30pm – “Start the Beta”.  Now we’re getting somewhere. Straight into a 1.15Gb download, but that’s to be expected.

7:20pm – We have matchmaking! First up, Capture the Flag on Swordbase. Chaos ensues because no-one knows where to go in the maze of corridors. New controls result in melee/grenade confusion. Only people on the headsets are speaking Afrikaans. There are 120,000  people online.

8:00pm – That was the only game so far tonight. Party system shows everyone in my friends list, not just my party, which is nice. No-one’s in games and I’m starting to have flashbacks of  the first day of Battlefield 1943.  Someone suggests an hour of Firefight.

9:00pm – We should play ODST more often, Firefight’s a riot when things get busy and skulls are switched around. The lack of matchmaking is a letdown, but with three friends it’s a blast. Back to the Beta…

Not pictured: Me

10:00pm – There’s 150,000+ online and Bungie’s servers appear to be melting. Everyone’s split up and I’m getting a message that the server isn’t responding. I’ve had two more games, Oddball on Powerhouse and Headhunter on Swordbase. Oddball remains unchanged, but the Scout’s sprint perk comes in handy. Headhunter gives great satisfaction when a kill results in an explosion of flaming skulls. I’m reminded of Sonic hitting spikes and rings flying everywhere.

10:15pm – Enough’s enough. Start up Halo Waypoint to collect my prize. I spent an evening in Halo Reach and all I’ve got’s 400 credits and an Avatar t-shirt…

Of course, these are early days and this is just a beta. I’ll be back to Reach over the course of the Beta when things (hopefully) calm down to bring a more-in depth look at the various maps, modes and load-outs. If you see M0NK3YSDAD online, give me a shout for some team games. How’s it going for everyone else out there?

A lot of us in the community here have (somehow) managed to find that special someone and settle into a life of domestic bliss. Not all of us have managed to convince them to start playing alongside us, however. In the interest of getting us all more time in front of the TV, I’ve made a particularly unscientific survey*, added my own experiences and humbly submit to you: “The MLG Guide to gaming for couples”.

Pick your console carefully.

The Wii might seem an obvious choice here, but it may not be the right one. While it’s generally fun in short bursts, it may not necessarily keep you both coming back on a regular basis.

Guest logins are no fun.

These days everyone should have their own identity. Nothing says “commitment” to a girl like their own Gamertag, and once they start earning trophies and/or achievements, you’ve got them hooked!

Co-Op is your way in…

It’s becoming much more common in games now, and there’s no complaining about you being better than her. As much as they may seem like kids games, the Lego Star Wars/Indiana Jones/Batman games are great fun and designed for two-player team-ups. Just watch for the camera in the platforming sections, repeated falls off ledges can undo all your hard-earned goodwill. The Wii’s overflowing with light-gun games. They can start out as co-op games, but before you know it she’s trying to pull off more headshots than you.

…but you can still get competitive.

Fighting games can be great if neither are you are anticipating tournament-level play. Super Smash Bros has the simplest controls around and characters everyone who’s so much glanced at a game once will recognise. If you want to step your button-mashing up a gear, Tekken’s a solid choice. You might want to steer clear of Soul Calibur, though…

She's probably not going to appreciate this.

Mario Kart’s still the all-time winner here. Hand her the steering wheel while you use the “proper” remote-and-nunchuck controls, then you can both swear at the cheap rubber-banding and cheating AI.

Everyone loves Rock Band

Obvious, self-explanatory and a scientific fact. Guitar tracks may be intimidating to the novice, but everyone can pound 4/4 time on drums. There are so many DLC tracks you’ll have little trouble finding something you both like (P!nk, No Doubt, Slipknot…). “No Fail” mode’s a real help to start off with, too.

It’s better to create than destroy.

Nothing brings people together like building things that don’t really exist. Flower, LittleBigPlanet and Viva Piñata are your friends here.

Don’t be afraid to get casual

There’s a wealth of downloadable games with handy free demo’s on all consoles, so you can find something you both like fairly quickly. Lumines and Bomberman are multiplayer classics with that simple yet addictive gameplay we all love. I can personally speak of the power of quiz games too. “Buzz!”, “Scene It?” and “1 vs. 100” are great time-wasters (as long as you’re not afraid of her taking the piss when you miss an obvious question).

It’s Lady’s choice

To us, gaming is an end in itself. It’s all good. To her it’s the game, not the console that counts. Keep that in mind when she wants to play Super Puzzle Fighter instead of grabbing that Left 4 Dead achievement you still need.

There you have it, folks, your path to gaming happiness. If all else fails, use her as a blind-firing decoy in Gears of War or Army of Two. Just don’t be surprised if you end up single pretty quickly.

*Thanks to everyone on the boards who helped me out with it.

What I find really depressing is that so many people will pay over the odds for this DLC. Some will get their money’s worth out of it because they’re dedicated to the game, but that’s no justification for the price of entry.

Bioshock 2’s “Sinclair Solutions” pack (released shortly after the launch of the game) came under scrutiny when the size of the download was supiciously small. 2K games later confirmed that the content it contained was already on the disc and users were paying to unlock it. Their excuse was that this was they had to do that, otherwise those who didn’t have the DLC wouldn’t be able to play with those who did. The obvious point they didn’t address is that people paid for the DLC content on the disc when they bought the game, but couldn’t access it unless they paid extra.

DLC released day and date with the release of a game has become a contentious issue. In some cases it’s a pre-order bonus or an extra incentive to buy the game new instead of pre-owned. Fair enough. Extra content that couldn’t be included because the disc had gone to press? Well… maybe it happens. But asking people to pay through the nose because you’ve restricted them from using finished content they already own, that’s just sleazy.

It’s even starting to have an knock-on effect on the main game. Assassin’s Creed 2 has become notorious for having large gaps in it’s story, which were later sold as DLC. Patrice Desilets, the game’s lead designer, has admitted that those sections were originally part of the main story, but were cut because they needed to drop some pieces in order to “reduce some stress on the team”. That’s a bit rich. Epic released DLC with a chapter of Gears of War 2 they had dropped, but they smoothed out the (admittedly thin) story in the finished game to cover the gap. Instead re-working their story or pushing the game’s release back to incorporate everything, Ubisoft released a product with the equivalent of a “Scene Missing” card in two places and charged for the missing reels.

I’m fine with paid DLC, particularly when it adds to the single-player experience (Fallout 3’s extra side-missions are a great example). But with free DLC becoming an increasingly endangered species, it’s time to vote with our wallets, people. Who’s with me?

With the Project Gotham Racing series, Bizarre Creations went to great lengths to make the online portion of their games as social as they are competetive, even going as far as incorporating the online community’s unofficial “cat and mouse” game rules into an actual game mode. It’s clear that Blur is designed to continue in this tradition with as little downtime between races as possible. They’ve also looked to the other big online games for a few smart ideas. Once in a lobby the game then offers a choice of two tracks and a quick vote is taken, much like the map selection in Gears or Halo. Once set, a 30 second countdown is all the time you have to pick a car and the mods you’ll be using for the race. The mods (extra damage, better shields, etc) work in a similar fashion to the perks  in Modern Warfare and are earned through online progress.

From then on, speed is king. Every race has a rolling start, spin out when you crash into a wall and the game will instantly reset your car. The tracks are lit up by the glowing icons of power-ups, weapon trails and even the lights on the cars themselves. On a visual level, you be forgiven for thinking this was a Wipeout game. The handling on the cars is tight and responsive, but too grippy to be considered even vaguely realistic. Up to three powerups can be carried at one time and dropped if necessary. PGR’s kudos system has been replaced by “fans”, but works in much the same way, with the inclusion of weapon-based scoring. Your fan total works as XP, unlocking cars and mods as you level up.

"Shock" powerup - Like The Terminator arriving by car.

Despite this being a beta, Blur’s showing a lot of promise. I’ve not seen any teleporting or lag so far, but some rebalancing on the weapons might be in order. The frame rate has been rock-solid throughout. With Burnout Paradise now almost 2 years old, Blur looks like it could be a worthy successor. We’ll find out for certain when the game’s released in May.

They claim the charges were a pretext for Activision to fire them and withhold “substantial royalty payments”. Considering that Modern Warfare 2 made half a billion dollars ($550 million, to be precise) in it’s first five days on sale, that could be a pretty big sum.

Interestingly, they may also be laying claim to the Modern Warfare brand, too. Their lawyers refer to “the contractual rights Activision granted to West and Zampella to control Modern Warfare-branded games”. While Activision own the Call of Duty name, could we eventually see a Modern Warfare game from a different studio and publisher?

Sub-par tie-in games go back as far as the Atari 2600’s legendary E.T. game and continue to be the norm. The exceptions, like Tron and Goldeneye are few and far between. Every summer you can count on each potential event movie to have a console game backing it up. The movie studios seem to view them at best as an extra revenue stream or at worst a promotional item on par with Happy Meal toys.
The movie tie-in’s usually characterised by a shortened development cycle as games have to match the release date of the movie. This results in games that usually vary between competent and downright broken. The better movie games are released months (or years) after the films they’re tied to, but even then that’s not a guarantee of quality. The most extreme example of this so far is EA’s “The Godfather”, published exactly 34 years after the theatrical release of the film. What did the mighty EA produce with this Oscar-winning classic? A second-rate GTA clone.
The only major change in this trend has been that unlike the literal adaptations of a movie’s story back in the 8- and 16-bit days, developers now favour prequels and side-stories. While this is a commendable approach, the stories are even thinner than that of the films themselves. Most movies have self-contained arcs, so the games’ plots tend to come off like bad fan-fiction.

Then there’s the game-to-movie adaptation. Let’s face it, apart from RPG’s, story has not traditionally been the strong point of most games. No-one bought games for the cut-scenes. Did anyone play Doom 3 and think “I’d be really interested in an expanded view of this universe”?
The main attraction for movie studios is that games franchises have an in-built audience of gamers who’ll turn out regardless of the film’s quality. Name recognition alone with draw us in.

The problem is that these films require a different story structure to games, and have a shorter span of time to convey it. A twelve level, 15-hour experience has to be boiled down to a three-act, two-hour movie. It’s no surprise the end results bear little or no resemblance to the source material. Final Fantasy: The Sprits Within was written and directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the franchise’s creator, and even he produced a monstrosity that made a ten-digit loss and put paid to Square’s fledgling movie studio (though this is probably due more to it’s incomprehensible plot than a simple lack of spiky-haired androgynous teenagers and Chocobos).

“Silent Hill” was a rare example of a movie being an accurate representation of the game’s aesthetics and story. Despite that, the change of viewpoint from the subjective to the objective killed all of the sense of dread that was key to the games’ success. This also leaves room to ponder plot holes and logic gaps. In the game I was immersed in the experience of wandering through the mist-shrouded streets to find my lost daughter, with the film I sat wondering why the hell Radha Mitchell wasn’t just making a run for it. Other faithful efforts, like “Tomb Raider” and “Mortal Kombat” came from games inspired by movies in the first place (“Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Enter the Dragon”, respectively), so why not just watch the originals?

The tools game developers have at their disposal are equal to (or even greater) that of movie-makers, with the advantage of interactivity.  The potential to create a compelling experience is greater than ever. As Jim Sterling has pointed out, using movies as a model of storytelling is a fool’s errand, they can be so much more. Where Avatar uses it’s visuals to hide paper-thin characters and uneven plotting, Mass Effect 2 creates emotional attachment and a constantly evolving story unique to each player.
The differing ways that each of us plays a game is what make them such a  personal experience, even in a seemingly linear game.Videogame movies play out the same for everyone, with little or no room for individual interpretation.

So guys, sit down. We need to talk. This isn’t doing either of you any good. You’ve grown apart. This co-dependence needs to stop, you’re just hurting each other. A trial separation would be best, and a restraining order against Uwe Boll is probably a good idea, too…

There’s something I’ve been meaning to get off my chest for a while. With the launch of the new site, now seems like a good time to do it, so here goes.

I’ve been playing video games as far back as I can remember. It’s a constant in my life, same as TV or movies. I couldn’t imagine life without them (or want to, for that matter).

When I bought my first console in my teens I’d think nothing of four-hour stretches on Tekken or Gran Turismo. The combination of disposable income and a lot of free time’s a powerful thing.

Now I’m past 30, my gaming habits have changed. I’ve more bills to pay, so I buy less games. A job and a busy home life mean there’s less time to actually sit down and play. I grab an hour a day in my lunch hour at work and brief sessions at home. The games I play have changed accordingly. Fallout 3 and Dead Space are top-notch, but both have sat unfinished in my pile of shame for months. I go back to them every few weeks with the intention to finally cracking them, but it’s a pain to re-learn the controls and get back up to speed on the story. By contrast, I’ll fire up Guitar Hero or Live Arcade games because I can drop straight back in for short bursts. I rent games with shorter single-player campaigns. I have to schedule online matches days in advance. I’m more likely to be hit by a bus than get into an MMORPG!

I don’t consider myself a “casual gamer”. Between spending longer on gaming websites and listening to podcasts when I’m away from a desk or console I’m more clued-up than ever. This site’s involved me in a growing community of like-minded individuals, so my friends list is a mile long.

My problem is that I (and a fair few of us I’d think), don’t fit the “casual” or “hardcore”  stereotypes, we fall somewhere in between the two. We’re dedicated and well-versed in games, but don’t play all that we’d like to. We need a third category to be boxed into. In the meantime, I’m embracing episodic games and digital downloads like never before, at least until I have kids to school in the fine art of headshots…