More E3 Footage of COD Modern Warfare 2 that’s due out November 10th. This is some great action from a special forces winter mission.

This is a great vid showing the editions of Modern Warfare 2 that are due out November 10th. Check out the prestige edition – it comes with night vision goggles!

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Red Faction: Guerrilla

Join the Faction!

I was prepared to pass on Red Faction Guerrilla, but then I saw some of the trailers. This looked just like something I’d like to play. So I picked it up, and sure enough, it’s a really fun ride. This video game sets the bar for destruction.

First of all, RFG has a story, but you probably won’t care much about it. There are supporting characters, and you won’t care about them much either. The story and supporting characters are not really well fleshed out, but you won’t care.

RFG is set in an open world version of a future Mars that has been made hospitable through terraforming. Soon after you arrive, you find that all is not well on the red planet, and before long, you find that you’re the one to help set things right. To do that, you have to blow stuff up.

Lots of stuff.

RFG is really all about destroying as much as you can – and I’m pretty sure that everything in the game is destructible, so you’ll have plenty of opportunity to create mayhem. In fact, Red Faction Guerrila shines in the destruction department. You can hack away at structures with your hammer, or blast anything you like with a cornucopia of damage dealing weapons and vehicles. While the environment is fairly stark (it is Mars, after all) – I really enjoyed the many hulk-smash moments in this game.

The multiplayer modes are all combat related, and are all pretty straight forward, and there’s enough depth and options to give RFG some re-playability legs. As in the single player, the multiplayer environments are also fully destructible, which opens up some interesting possibilities for new tactics and gameplay.

RFG is available on XBOX 360.

[starreviewmulti id=1 tpl=26 element_stars='starrating' average_stars='starrating']

Modern Warfare was an amazing gaming experience. MW2 looks like it will continue the tradition. Look for more coverage as the November launch date approaches!

The Targeting Icon

The first step in estimating their damage is to look at the hash marks on the frame around the target – not the damage progress meter itself. Depending on the brightness of the sky, the target frame is sometimes easier or more difficult to see. Here’s the target frame in false color:

The Targeting Frame

Notice how there are two vertical ticks surrounding the middle of the X axis on the target frame. Using the 20:20 vision of your mind’s eye, put an imaginary line right smack between these tick marks. This is the 50% spot. Notice that in this enlarged view, the damage meter no longer appears to provide a distinct boundary between red and grey. This is probably antialiasing (that’s a guess) and may not reflect real damage done to the target. If anyone has information about this, it might be helpful.

The 50% Point - Click to embiggen

The 25% and 75% Points - Click to embiggen

Zooming in even closer (and adding 1px gridlines) you can see some additional details. If you want to determine the amount of damage shown, you really just need to know what the two tick marks around the 50% spot indicate. If you count pixels, you’ll see that they’re between 6 and 7 px from the center line. Since the total width is 64px, we know that we could divide the meter into 10 equal parts if we could split it into 6.4 pixel divisions. We don’t need to go that far, however, since that information is enough to tell us that each of those tick marks are almost exactly 10% above and below the 50% spot.

In other words, those two ticks indicate the 40% and 60% spots on the damage meter. Once you know that, you can guesstimate the amount of shield or armor remaining on a target.

More Detail - Click to embiggen

* A: In this example, the shields are 2px above the 60% mark – which means there are approximately 63% shields remaining.

Among the new features, Eve player will find wormholes that provide access to thousands of new systems and technology. Some of that technology will allow players to create and customize Tech3 Strategic Cruisers.

The Apocrypha patch has been on the Eve test server for weeks, and CCP even changed everyone’s skills so they could try out Tech3. That was nice of CCP, but they’re pretty good that way – generally trying to put the player first.

So, in a game as big as Eve, with a scope that is literally astronomical, just how do you improve upon it? You do what CCP does – listen to players and give them what they want. And in Eve, that means more systems to explore, more ships to fly, and ultimately more options for corporations and alliances to alter the balance of astropolitical power.

View the trailer (click through for HD version).

Watchmen opens with a brilliant visual montage set to Bob Dylan’s Times They Are A Changing that sets the stage in an alternate 1985 in which the superheroes who walk among us have been outlawed, and tricky Dick Nixon is elected to a 4th term after America wins the Vietnam war. Now – if you think that one sentence was too complex for your simpleton’s brain to grasp, you’re going to want to skip the Watchmen. This isn’t a film that you should sit through and half-pay attention to while you’re texting. Unlike just about every other movie based on a “comic” (and we’ll use the term loosely here), the Watchmen demands your full attention. It’s not just a visual feast – it’s also the most darkly intense film I’ve seen in a very long time, and it’s not for the kiddies.

The mood of the film is dark as we follow Rorschach, the only active costumed hero, as he tries to solve the murder of another masked hero – the Comedian – who is tossed through the window of his high-rise apartment after a brutal fight with an unknown assailant. As the story unfolds, you meet other former masks – now retired from crime fighting – many of whom are living lives both anonymous and bland. The characters are complex, and appear completely realized. Rather than flat, comic book heroes, we find Watchmen populated with exceptional people that have histories, who have made mistakes, and who have regrets and their own self-interests in mind.

Visually, Watchmen is a stunning piece of filmmaking. There is beauty – a rough, gritty, broken-tooth sort of beauty in nearly every frame set in New York. The digital effects aren’t overpowering and add a layer of otherworldliness to the character of Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup) – who is something that is no longer human and someone whose is losing touch with ties to the rest of us and our mundane existence

One of the things that separates Watchmen from other films based on graphic novels, is this one is based on what is arguably the best of the best in the genre. Fans of the novel will be satisfied – although die-hard fanboys will spot the places where the film veers off the course set by the original novel. As a film, Watchmen stands far and away above nearly every other “comic book” adaptation. Even so – you can’t really compare Watchmen to most other films, other than to say that it deals with some of the same themes that other films touch on: life vs. death, good vs. evil, etc., but Watchmen does this in a way that would never work in another “comic” film. Here, there are no solid lines between heros and villains, because the heros don’t just have a requisite “fatal flaw” – they have very real flaws that everyone has.

Of course, not everyone likes complexity. Idiots, for example, tend to like their fiction in a nice, neat package where you can spot the good guys and the bad guys using the color of their hats. If you fit in that category, go re-rent a copy of Electra or Daredevil. If you’re smart, please do yourself a favor and go see the Watchmen on the biggest screen you can. You’ll thank me later.

MPAA RATING: R for strong graphic violence, sexuality, nudity and language

Starring Jackie Earle Haley, Patrick Wilson, Matthew Goode, Billy Crudup, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Malin Akerman, Carla Gugino, Stephen McHattie, and Matt Frewer

WRITTEN BY: Alan Moore (graphic novel)
Dave Gibbons (graphic novel illustrator)
Alex Tse
David Hayter
DIRECTED BY: Zack Snyder
RELEASE DATE: Theatrical: March 6, 2009
RUNNING TIME: 163 minutes, Color
ORIGIN: UK | USA
- Warner Brothers

Two years after the Helghast assault on Vekta, the ISA is taking the fight to the enemy’s home world of Helghan. The ISA goal is direct: capture the Helghast leader, Emperor Visari, and bring the Helghast war machine to a halt. Assuming the role of Sev, a battle-hardened veteran and a member of the special forces unit known as the Legion, players lead a group of highly trained soldiers on a mission to take out the Helghast threat. For Sev and his squad, the invasion of Helghan is just the beginning. Tasked with securing Pyrrhus, the Capital City, the team quickly discovers that the Helghast are a formidable enemy on their home planet. Not only have they adjusted to the planet’s hostile conditions, they have also harnessed a source of power they can now use against the ISA. Sev discovers his squad isn’t just fighting enemy forces – their fiercest opponent may be the planet itself.

What are critics saying about it? Some are talking about this as a Game of the Year contender, while others throw around phrases like “brilliant in its execution”, and “you don’t want to miss this game”, although G4 TV puts it in a way that I can appreciate:

Probably the tastiest part of the Killzone Cocktail is the Multiplayer. Imagine if Call Of Duty 4 and Team Fortress 2 had a baby, which they then abandoned and as a result had to learn a few new tricks to survive. That’s what Killzone Multiplayer is like.

Mmm … multiplayer goodness. Help fight the global economic collapse and go buy Killzone 2 today.

I can tell you, we’re pretty excited. We’ve grown up with Star Trek – it’s like part of the family. With J.J. Abrams at the helm, the new Star Trek film may well be the blockbuster that all of its predecessors aspired to, but never quite attained. The production values from the trailer look slick and – dare I say – futuristic. The action also appears to be there, with enough conflict, tension, and explosive space combat to make any Trek fanboy spill his Romulan Ale.

There are several trailers available on Apple.com, all of them in HD as well.

Also, check out the official Star Trek movie site as well as the discussion forums.

This May, it will be cool to say, “Live long, and prosper” once again.

OK – maybe not, but the movie should be a hoot!