Beatdown #2: PC Gaming News April 07, 2003 Andrew Bub

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They Break the News, I Break it Again!

Welcome back to Beatdown. Another week, another couple bucks toward that Porsche Jakub thinks I have. It’s a Chrysler 300M actually, and I bought it with ill-gotten gains, not with game writing money. This week we see a slew of newly announced games, a bit of tech news, and Beatdown addresses a topic he’s harped on many times before. Yes, Baseball. Before we begin this week’s edition, I’d like to thank everyone who wrote me (using the email link at the end of the column and those who participate in the feedback attached to each article). I can safely say that I don’t know half of you half as well as I’d like; and I like half of you half as well as you deserve. Seriously, keep it coming.

Headline: Valve’s Many Games

In a press release Valve Software—creator of Half-Life and publisher of games other people made while using Half-Life—announced that they’re leaving Sierra for the rich green (money) pastures of Activision. Activision gains the rights to publish a retail version of the WWII classic mod, Day of Defeat. The press release doesn’t mention anything about Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, or the infamous vapor-ware known generally as Team Fortress 2, so those are probably going to be brought to you by Sierra. (Half-Life 2? Team Fortress 2? Um, don’t hold your breath there Sierra!). Since Sierra is owned by Vivendi-Universal, an evil French company, Beatdown wonders if this announcement has more to do with last week’s Newsmax ban on everything French. Nothing says America like Activision, after all.

“Wherefore are thou Freeman?”

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ANNOUNCED: Big Freakin’ Deal 1942

It’s no secret that Battlefield 1942 is one of Beatdown’s favorite games, he plays it daily, and he even enjoyed Road to Rome despite the tiny amount of new content for the price. Beatdown often haunts the Husky and Monte Santa Croce maps. But I have to wonder about the recently announced Secret Weapons expansion pack. It adds speculative weapons like a V-shaped bomber, a grenade launcher (like grenade spammers aren’t annoying enough) a (sigh) jetpack, and a jetpack. Sounds like BF1942 is becoming a Tribes game, doesn’t it? Anyway, new maps and more stuff sounds fine, even though Beatdown vastly prefers historical realism to science fiction. What the problem is is that EA is obviously trying to turn BF1942 into The Sims.

No, don’t worry, you’re not going to have to pause in combat to pee in the Berlin map, but you will have to endure marginal expansion pack after marginal expansion pack when what you really want is a sequel. Beatdown wants BF: 1917, BF: 1972, or maybe even BF:2003 instead. It says something when the efforts of your mod community are far more interesting than what you’re putting in your expansion pack, isn’t it?

TECH: Xbox Under Fire

Apparently someone has finally come up with a way to hack an unmodified Xbox. The method used was to take advantage of the EA James Bond game 007: Agent Under Fire. CNet reports that the hacker, Xbox Habibi, accomplished this by exploiting a bug in the save/load file system. He is also apparently eligible for the $100,000 reward being offered by Lindows guru and CEO Michael Robertson.

Pity you have to buy such a crappy game to exploit this and Microsoft is probably real happy with Electronic Arts right now, but Beatdown wonders why this is so important? The Xbox is an underpowered PC at best. 700Mhz, great video card, DVD player, etc., you can build a much more powerful, and lighter weight, PC. So why would someone waste their time trying to accomplish this? … Oh yeah, $100,000 from Robertson.

SPORTS: Baseball. What year is it?

Sports games are weird, aren’t they? Not only do we have to buy a new edition every year, but also, every year, it seems like it’s the wrong year. Look at Madden this year. This year was called: Madden 2003. It was released in August 2002. “Ah, but Mr. Beatdown,” you say, to which I interrupt and say, “Please, why so formal? Call me Beatdown.” To which you reply “Thank you, Beatdown,” you clear your throat, “…it was the 2003 football season, was it not? Since the NFL season ended in early 2003 the Madden year is correct.” “Quite so,” I reply, impressed with your ingenuity. And we laugh and have a drink together….

Anyway, the point is that Football is correct. Basketball and Hockey, both of which began in 2002 but end in 2003 are also correct. But baseball…. tsk, tsk, Baseball is never correct. Who knows why but the crop of 2002 season baseball games (baseball runs from April-October of the same year) are all marked 2003. Last year’s High Heat, Triple Play, and console World Series, SlugFest, All-Star, etc., all of them are incorrectly marked as 2004 (in Midway’s SlugFest’s case it’s 20-04, but that’s because they’re idiots over there). So, if you want this year’s edition, you have to look for 2004. Fine. But this year EA Sports is bringing forth MVP Baseball (they busted Triple Play to the minors) and calling it MVP Baseball 2003. Wha? I don’t get it. Kudos to EA Sports for making an effort to get it right but when fans walk into stores to pick up a baseball game and they see MVP 2003 and High Heat 2004, which one will they buy? Luckily, they’ll buy the better game. (Watch it High Heat, MVP is good, watch out next year!)



SIDEBAR: Triple Play had possibly the most ineffective pitching in the world.

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Announcements

Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons: See above!
Pirates of the Carribean: It looks like Bethesda has transformed Akella’s upcoming Sea Dogs 2 into a PR extension for Disney’s upcoming Johnny Depp pirate film Pirates of the Caribbean. Where are my Buccaneers? Right under my Buccan-hat!
Combat Mission 3: Afrika Korps: The finest 3D action turn-based strategy game heads for the desert. Let me guess, you’ve never heard of this series. It’s awesome. Visit http://www.battlefront.com .
Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy: Also known as Dark Forces IV: Jedi Knight III: Jedi Academy? A new Jedi Knight game based on the old Jedi Knight 2 engine (based on Quake 3). We hope it’s better than StarFleet Academy. Thankfully they’re not basing it on the original Jedi Knight engine. Compare the Rancors:

“Mysteries of the Sith”

“Jedi Academy”

Delayed

Rise of Nations: Beatdown likes to call it “Brian Reynolds’s Rise of Nations, a Brian Reynolds Design,” but the news is that it’s gotten a Big Huge delay to May 20th. I think that’s a good thing. The beta is playing great but any game this complex deserves as much time as at needs.
Eve Online: Delayed again, but that’s ok because it’s been in trouble for a while. No joke, Simon & Schuster has set up two separate press events to show this one off and then canceled them at the last minute due to “technical errors”. I hear a third one is going to happen. They didn’t invite me to the third one. Grumble.
Star Wars Galaxies: Rumor now has it this one is going to be delayed again until the fall. That’s fine, it needs to be as polished as possible, and it’s not like the delay will affect sales any. Besides, we were born to suffer, right?

Afterthought

When you play games, it’s hard not to think about them while watching the news. Footage of an Apache attack puts one in mind of the Desert Combat BF: 1942 mod, or Jane’s old and sorely missed Longbow series. Beatdown was able to tell his wife what “pop-up” meant before Peter Jennings could (no jokes about Beatdown’s wife here, got it?). When one sees the overall battle plan on CNN, it’s easy to hearken back to games by wargame stalwarts like Gary Grigsby. Games can make clear why logistics are as important as morale, as important as tactics, and even as important as firepower. When we heard about the British Commandos going door-to-door in Basra, or of that daring raid of 500 Special Forces who rescued 19 year-old POW Jessica Lynch made us think about games like Rainbow Six. It’s not the same thing, of course, but the game colors the news reports and the news reports color the game in the mind of the gamer. The tactics make sense, the stakes become plain, and the tension evaporates in the face of understanding, and we can imagine some of what must have gone into such an operation. To my mind, that’s what simulations are for. Tango Down.

Until next week, remember: You can’t leave without your buddy Superfly!

BIO
Andrew is a professional journalist working in the PC entertainment field. He’s been published in Computer Games Magazine, PCGamer, Maximum PC, and many others. He mocks because of his abiding love for the industry… and because of his wise-ass upbringing. So, keep a sense of humor, even if you find his lacking. His opinions do not necessarily reflect those of FiringSquad, its editors or owners. Comment? Critique? Vendetta? News Tip? Write him. Bub@andrewsbub.com



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