Maokai:
“I do your bidding, for now.”
Tank, Mage

Sap Magic

Passive: Each time a champion’s ability is used near Maokai, he gains a charge of Sap Magic. When he has 5 charges, his next basic attack will heal him for 7% of his maximum health.
Although I think Sap Magic is an interesting skill, I feel it would be stronger if it were a passive included in his skill Arcane Smash.

With his passive moved to his Q this leaves room for a new passive.

Revamped Passive: Force of Nature
Maokai’s cooldowns are reduced by an extra 10% while he moves through brush.

Q: Arcane Smash
Active: Maokai smashes the ground and sends an arcane shockwave forward, dealing magic damage and slowing enemies hit for 2 seconds. Enemies within 100 range of Maokai are also briefly knocked back.

RevampedPassive: Sap Magic: Each time Maokai lands an Arcane Smash on an enemy unit he gains two charges of Sap Magic. If he does not hit an enemy unit with his Arcane Smash he gains one charge. When he has 5 charges, his next basic attack will heal him for 7% of his maximum health.

W: Twisted Advance

Active: Maokai transforms into a cloud of arcane energy, becoming untargetable while quickly travelling to a target enemy. Once Maokai reaches the target, the target takes magic damage and is rooted for a short time.

E: Sapling Toss
Active: Maokai hurls a sapling to a target area, dealing magic damage on impact within 175 range. The sapling becomes implanted in the ground, granting 350 range vision of its surroundings for up to 35 seconds.

After a 1 second delay after landing, the sapling will seek out nearby enemies. When an enemy comes within 250 range, the sapling will chase for up to 2.5 seconds and explode in an arcane blast that deals magic damage to enemies within 175 range.

R: Vengeful Maelstrom

TOGGLE: Maokai creates a great vortex of natural energy in a 575 radius area, reducing non-tower damage done to allied champions in the area by 20%. Maokai can prolong the effect as long as he has mana to spend on it.

When the effect ends the energy is released, dealing magic damage to enemies within the vortex, plus bonus magic damage based off the damage stored by the damage reduction effect.

Revamped Passive: If an enemy champion is killed from the released energy, maokai is refunded 20% of the mana cost per champion killed.

Poppy
“Valoran will know harmony”

Fighter, Assassin.

Poppy’s kit overall is pretty solid it is just to heavily reliant on landing a stun with terrain on heroic charge and ulting perfectly in team fights. The biggest change with Poppy I would like to see is her ultimate:
R: Diplomatic Immunity
Active: Poppy focuses intensely on a single enemy champion, dealing amplified damage to them, and becoming immune to all damage and abilities that are not from the marked champion.

Revamped R: Demacian Challenge
Active: Poppy challenges a single enemy champion, dealing amplified damage to them and taking reduced damage from towers and champions depending on the number of champions and towers present.

Passive: Poppy gains 15% movement speed bonus after landing a Devasting Blow or activating Demacian Challenge. The passive is not in effect when Demacian Challenge is on cooldown.

Zilean

“I knew you would do that…”

Support, Mage

Zilean’s kit relies on early poke with bombs and a slow with his E. Unlike many other current supports, Zilean doesn’t quite bring enough to a teamfight to justify choosing him with most team compositions. His damage scaling falls off rather abruptly mid to late game. In order to better provide for his team throughout the duration of the game a subtle change to his E would be enough.

E: Time Warp
Active: Zilean bends time around a champion, slowing an enemy champion or increasing an ally champion’s movement speed by 55% for a short time.

Revamped Time Warp

Active: Zilean bends time around a champion, slowing an enemy champion or increasing an ally champion’s movement speed by 55% for a short time.
Passive: Using Time Warp twice on the same target within 5 seconds causes that champion to experience temporary chrono-dysplasia. Allied champions are rejuvenated gaining back 10% of their health over a short time. Enemy champions take 5-6-7-8-10% of their current health as magical damage over a short time.

Zilean already experiences permanent chrono-dysplasia and as a result does not receive the healing effects.

Sion

“I do it.”

Fighter, Mage.

Sion is a classic champion and has an interesting skill set. His skill set however is not as fully developed as it could be. There was a time where AP Sion was overpowered and ridiculously strong. There are still people who play a strong AD Sion as well. However Sion struggles from a kit that is primarily AP based with only one non AP ratio on his E: Enrage.

Passive: Feel No Pain

Sion has a 40% chance to ignore up to 30 / 40 / 50 damage each time he is hit by a basic attack. The damage reduction is calculated before armor and percentage damage reduction benefits are taken into account.

Q: Cryptic Gaze

ACTIVE: Sion’s gaze terrifies a single enemy, dealing magic damage and stunning it for 1.5 seconds.

W: Enrage

TOGGLE: While toggled on, Sion has increased attack damage at the cost of some health for each basic attack.

While Enrage is active, Sion permanently increases his maximum health whenever he kills a unit with either his attacks or abilities (doubled against champions and large units).

R: Cannibalism

ACTIVE: For 20 seconds, Sion gains bonus lifesteal and 50% attack speed. Additionally, Sion’s basic attacks will heal surrounding allies for a percentage of the damage dealt.

Sion’s kit needs to a rework. For a kit as messy as this, I’ll leave it up to Riot to find just exactly how they want their classic champion and his axe Chopper to find his way back onto the fields and into the meta.

Viktor

“Join the glorious evolution.”

Mage

Viktor’s kit is pretty usefull and he isn’t even that far from being viable. In a meta with where assassins primarily dominate the mid lane where most mages find themselves, Viktor is just not quite ready for battle.

Passive: Evolving Technology
Viktor starts each game with The Hex Core, an item that takes up one of his item slots, but provides him with stats and can be upgraded in the store to augment one of his abilities and improve its stats. The Hex Core can only be upgraded once, for 1000 gold, and cannot be sold back to the store.

This is one of the core characteristics about VIktor that makes him both unique and also makes him weak. Finding a balance between Viktor’s Hex Core being too strong and too weak is a difficult one. However, much like the changes made to Rengar’s Bonetooth Necklace, I think it’s more logical that Viktor evolves his hex core in a similar way that Kha’zix evolves his abilities. Making The Hex Core an item that he is forced to use that cannot be sold back to the store and costs 1000 gold limits his item choices.

To try and discuss the variety and depth of the iOS app store would be like trying to categorize all the organisms in the deep blue sea. It’s unending in variety and quality. Instead of suiting up and diving in, I’m going to do the academic thing and choose three large categories of games to compare: Intuitive Time Wasters, Classic Ports, and Board/Strategy games. These three typologies will do well to foil the iPad against the iPhone, traditional consoles, and old fashioned tabletop entertainment, respectively.

Intuitive Time Wasters

Angry Birds, the game that started it all. Okay, so there was brick breaker on the classic iPods or snake on old cellphones, but Angry Birds smashed and crashed open the door to simplistic games with addicting depth and satisfying gameplay. I played AB before it was cool, and was raving about the seeming consumer surplus of my purchase. “All this gameplay for only $1!” Starcraft 2 came out the same summer, but I found myself more wrapped up in destroying green pigs than green Kerrigan. Mind you, this was on an iPhone, the perfect platform for this type of genre. These Intuitive Time Wasters can be picked up instantly, and played at any moment when waiting silently might be the other option. The iPad is however, despite what Apple’s world traveling marketing campaign would have you believe, a home use device. For me at least, the iPad has transformed my laptop into a station that only gets opened up when necessary, i.e. to write long emails or update my iTunes.

Because of this home use trend, Intuitive Time Wasters don’t feel like they belong on the massive iPad screen, which yearns for something deeper and lush. Enter Smash Hit, an indie arcade project out of Sweden. This game, which was on the top of the app store for a time, blew me away. The physics and textures astounded me along with every satisfying crash that came my way as I zoomed through geometric corridors. I was in a trance that was difficult to snap out of. The later stages were so frantic that my finger was having difficulty keeping up with the obstacles in my speeding path. Just as frustration began to rear it’s head came a truly magical moment in my gaming experience, something that I don’t recall ever happening before. The entire time I was using one finger to throw the metallic balls at my targets, but I had not tried using both hands to utilize a double tapping action. The results were immediate. I was able to advance further than I ever had before, and my skill level rose immensely. It’s the very essence of Apple’s iPad philosophy, just touch it yourself and figure out how it works, use your intuition. There was no instruction or helpful tips, just a ridiculously simple modification of my technique that had profound results on gameplay. I just had to discover it myself.

Classic Ports

If there’s one thing that proves the iPad is a totally different gaming experience than older gaming consoles, it’s classic ports. Games like Crazy Taxi, Sid Meiers Pirates, and Megaman can be purchased for a price so low you think you might be crazy not to have them all on your sleek device. But the low cost of these classic ports doesn’t necessarily translate to amazing value. Let’s face it, games designed around tactial button presses control horribly with touch screen controls and gyroscopes. These games cost so little because they are no fun. Or take Sonic & All Stars Racing, a console like game that I bought for the absurdly low price of $2. Never mind the micro transactions, the real tragedy here is the gameplay. It just feels sloppy, whereas the console version I played (Wii U) was actually very enjoyable. The iPad is not a traditional games console, and developers shouldn’t pretend like it is one and gamers shouldn’t expect it to be one.

Board/Strategy

Find the irony in this, perhaps the greatest contribution that the iPad, the pinnacle of today’s consumer technology, has on the gaming landscape is in the realm of old school board and card games. The big screen that can be passed around works wonderfully for on the go games of Settlers of Catan or Ticket to Ride. I’ve spent many hours exercising my influence in the fantastic Lords of Waterdeep app, which allows for both online play and affordable expansions. Perhaps the loveliest of all though is Blizzard’s Hearthstone. This is a card game which debuted on the PC, but feels far more at home on the iPad, which stunning presentation, cross platform functionality, ultimate portability, and most of all deep addicting gameplay. Leave it to Blizzard to design an original game that works ideally for a new platform. It’s not some watered down port of Warcraft or Lost Vikings, but a modern game with longevity based upon an ancient trading card concept.

The Future of iPad and gaming

Tablets are coming faster than PCs and traditional gaming devices are going. This overlap is causing chaos in the gaming market, with free to play, pay to win, DLC, full games, lite games, big games, small games, old games, and new games all swirling around in the app store. The iPad as a dedicated gaming machine has the potential for amazing experiences that trump the throwaway apps we have come to associate with mobile gaming, but it takes more than lazy ports. What worked before won’t necessarily work again, but if Hearthstone or Smash hit are any indication, dedicated gamers in the HARDCORE niche may be enamored with the beautiful alternatives offered by the platform.

Before we begin, the full schedule of conferences is listed here, and please be advised; this preview does NOT contain any “spoilers” or rumored games appearing at any of the conferences. This edition of the Sanchez Soapbox is intended as a preview to E3; the road the big three console makers took leading into the big show, what they might show off, and what they might need to do to make an impact at E3. First, we’re going to start with Microsoft.

Spotlight: Microsoft

The road to E3 for Microsoft has been among one of the more strange journeys in recent memory. After announcing the console last year and showcasing several games at their conference, they’ve since rescinded a number of policies. Most recently, Microsoft has announced a version of the Xbox One without the Kinect. I’ve made a running joke that Microsoft should have a sign at their office saying “(x) Days Since Last Public Incident”.

Being that Microsoft is going on first, they’re in a little bit of a tough spot. They have to basically open the show with a bang, and make a deep enough impact to be memorable through the first couple days of the show. Being that sales are slightly lower than their Sony counterparts, I expect Microsoft to put some kind of PR spin out there. I expect a heavy showcase for games such as Halo and the latest installment of the Call of Duty franchise. I would expect the new titles such as Sunset Overdrive and Quantum Break to have some of the spotlight on the show.

Quite honestly, I think this is what Microsoft needs; a focus on the games. With all the backtracking, Microsoft had a lot of publicity problems and now that they’ve rescinded some policies, there is almost no major difference to between the Playstation 4 and the Xbox One. This is why they’ll need those exclusive titles to really put the Xbox One over, where they’ve kind of fallen flat before.

Spotlight: Nintendo

Nintendo had a rather quiet year since last year’s E3…And to be honest, that’s not a good thing. With almost a full year’s advantage over its competition, Nintendo had a great opportunity to strike while the iron was hot. They had the chance to show the Wii U would be a worthy successor for the Wii, and put their competition behind the sales numbers early. Instead, Sony’s PS4 overtook Wii U sales within a few months of launch, and the Xbox one should soon follow, if it hasn’t already. So where does Nintendo go from here?

Well, for the second year in a row Nintendo will not have a live press conference at E3 and will instead opt for a Nintendo Direct type conference. This will most likely include their lineup of games throughout the year; including the new Smash Bros. and the new Legend of Zelda game. Here’s what I think is interesting though; rather than holding demos at E3, Nintendo is working with some Best Buy retailers to have their own demos (and possibly tournaments) of the new Smash Bros. So if you can’t make it to the west coast by June, Nintendo will bring a little slice of E3 to the public outside of L.A. Honestly, I think it’s a nice touch and I wouldn’t be surprised to see other companies employ this as soon as next year. This is a nice way of opening up for Nintendo when they’ve been viewed as closed off or behind the times.

What Nintendo needs to do to blow everyone away is showing off something completely new. Something that isn’t linked to Mario, Zelda, or any of their established franchises. I don’t think too many opinions will be swayed toward buying a Wii U unless something spectacular is shown off during their presentation. Even if something does captivate the audience, I have to wonder if that will be enough for Nintendo to make it a three console race again.

Spotlight: Sony

Since last year’s E3, Sony has had a strong year for the Playstation brand…Financially speaking, not so much. The PS4 is leading home console sales right now and now are in a position to really put the PS4 over the competition. However, that is going to take a lot of work, because their competetors are set to make a comeback, how does Sony ensure they’re staying power atop the console market for another year?

I expect a press conference akin to Microsoft’s. I think the people over at Sony are going to give some heavy spotlight to their established titles that are due out this year. I’m expecting the next Uncharted game to be featured, but I think they’re going to show off more of the multiplatform Destiny. I also expect a little bit more in-depth details about the Playstation Now streaming service and possibly a look into their virtual reality endeavor, Project Morpheus.

Sony does seem to have a lot on its plate, serving both the gaming public and investors concerned with profits. I think it will be interesting to see just how many risks they take. Also being the last conference on Monday afternoon/evening they may use that time to observe what Microsoft has done then come up with something that will get some attention their way.

So now I’ll turn it over to you guys. What do you think the big three companies need to do to make an impact at E3 this year? Do you think its Microsoft’s year to shine? Will Sony try to steal the thunder again? Is there hope left for Nintendo? Let us know in the comment section or talk to us through our Facebook or Twitter pages. Also, keep up with all the E3 coverage with us here on New Gamer Nation.

It’s also a fantastic introduction to a game I’m calling: “They want what for it?!”. Okay, perhaps that’s a bit of an unfair introduction to Bethesda’s newest release: Elder Scrolls Online. After all, it packages the legendary graphics, amazing landscapes, and immersive gaming experience that Bethesda has accumulated over the last 12 years with a completely new MMORPG adventure.

It’s something fans have been asking Bethesda for since the introduction of MMORPG’s. With every subsequent board meeting, the new guy, Fred, eyes some new online game of medieval garbage charging players $10 bucks a month to storm the gates of Mian Tillerioff and says:

“We could do that Jim”, and everyone there gives him a condescending look before returning to painstakingly designing the left buttock cheek of the troll that appears once in that dungeon north of Winterhold. It finally seems, however, that it’s Fred who gets the last laugh.

Laugh It Up Fred. Laugh it up.

This month marked Bethesda’s plunge into the abyss. For many years, the world of MMORPG has been dominated by Blizzard’s World Of Warcraft, which in the wake of it’s massive money feeding spree, leaves enough scraps for lesser games to survive off of. Yet, if there’s one contender well suited enough to take on the iron-crushing grip of WOW, its Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls series. A fact they are deftly aware of.

In fact they were so confident that success was a mere formality that Bethesda launched Elder Scrolls Online with the average starting price of $60 AND a $15 monthly subscription fee. If you’re a fan of numbers such as myself, you might note that it equals a yearly cost of $240 for the first year and $180 going foreword. After three years, you would have amassed enough in online fee’s to afford a cheap used car, or a high-end 5.1-surround sound system.

Or more man rings and cheap sunglasses…

Of course, that number isn’t entirely fair to our console gamer friends. After all, they also have the cost of yearly subscription fee’s to access online content, so add an extra $50 if you’re a PS4 or XboxOne gamer.

That $240, or $290 respectively, gains you access to the world of Elder Scrolls Online. Of course, it gets one character on one system access. I hope you were not naïve enough to believe you could manage several characters from one account, or one character from several systems. That’s for amateurs. You also can’t expect Bethesda to be generous enough to allow your PC subscription to carry over for your XboxOne or PS4. No, if you would like to enjoy Elder Scrolls Online on multiple platforms, you will be doubling the cost.

So for me, an avid PC enthusiast who also enjoys occasionally sitting in my living room to be a tad social while I play my single player games, the yearly cost for two subscriptions to Elder Scrolls Online would be $530. The cost is literally more than my console, two controllers and a year PSN membership.

The most common reason PS4′s are returned? “I didn’t know you had to pay for PSN now”.

So the question is, should Bethesda be given a hard time for the costs associated with playing Elder Scrolls Online? The answer is a confusing yes and no.

WOW has certainly set precedent by charging a monthly $15 fee, but they remain one of the few, if not the only. While Elder Scrolls Online looks to be an impressive start for Bethesda, it is not WOW yet. WOW is limited to PC. It also set standard when it premiered, offering a gaming experience that had truly never been done. Free copies were given out, discounts for longer memberships were awarded as it blazed a path for future MMORPG’s. Even today, WOW allows free to play until a certain level cap.

Bethesda has an excellent track record for making beautiful games, but it is untested in the field of MMORPG’s. It will be attempting to build it’s own empire on the mountain of bones already established for it. More than that, Bethesda is going to hop on top of the pile charging the same monthly fee as the biggest dog in the yard, the industry standard, and scream “We deserve this”.

But, the truth is, that they don’t yet. Elder Scrolls Online, no matter how impressive, is bound to borrow game mechanics from existing MMORPG’s. The comparisons will be inevitable. There is no longer a field left to revolutionize. It does not have the built in fan base that WOW has acquired over the years and the new pricing structure is bound to alienate plenty of their existing customers. Bethesda is the new kid on the block, and their naivety shines thorough in their pricing structure. Further, it asks you to have blind faith in a company known for the gaming bugs they seem to miss in every title.

The most common expression I hear when I talk to people about Elder Scrolls Online is “I’m just going to wait a few months and see if they lower it.” Why? Because a video game should not cost as much a year as a brand new cellphone purchased off contract.

A small price to pay for style.

Bethesda had many options to alleviate the higher cost. They could have charged less initially for the game, reduced the monthly, or even allowed multiple accounts for those who wished to play over different platforms. Yet, their too busy climbing to the top of the mountain to dethrone WOW, claiming that it’s where they’ve belonged all along. Meanwhile, the majority of those who are interested in the game are patiently waiting for it to get knocked to ground so they can just play.

So no, technically speaking, Bethesda had every right to go nuclear with pricing right from the start, but they are incredibly naïve for doing so. Only the future can tell if the move will pay off and I’ll go into the record books as one of the great naysayers, or if the pricing structure will crash and burn so hard that they can only hope people are willing to pay a fraction of what they once asked for Elder Scrolls Online.

Well, you might have heard Ultra Street Fighter IV is going to come out this summer, as it will extend an already deep fighting system and roster. The Red Focus attacks are pretty interesting and the additional use of both Ultra attacks (thus the name of the new edition) instead of picking them will develop a new twist. Combofiend of Capcom-unity shared a bunch of pertinent info including balances, nerfs, buffs, etc on the blog here. The roster will also grow to 44 playable characters by adding five more: Elena, Rolento, Hugo, Poison, and the last to be mentioned (probably sometime in the middle of March at the fighting game tournament, Final Round).

I think it’s okay to revert into fanboy-ism every once in a while; ya know, getting excited over a favorite game to imagine the possibilities, and nothing gets the blood flowing like a new character. I grew up loving everything Capcom, as Street Fighter II was the seminal franchise that sparked the most passion for me. Playing “Guess Who” and uncovering clues of who is always a treat for me. Plus, the internet is the perfect space for an adult who no longer has the school ground to conversate about it. I have seen everything from Cammy clones from the comic book to one of Sakura’s school friends to Hakan’s wife. In essence, nobody knows.

What we do know thus far:

-The new fighter will be a female character that has been in the Street Fighter comic books
-She appears within the Street Fighter world but has yet to be playable until now
-Out of the 6.5 billion people on the interwebs, only four people guessed her identity correctly
-Yoshinori Ono has said she is “speedy”, a “nuisance”, and “probably nobody will be happy with it” via an Eventhubs interview

In true DB N fashion, I am going to going to ignore useless things like logic and truth to tell you who really ought to make an appearance. I mean, a fighting game is like a party that characters are invited to and you want to see your favorites there, right? Even though what I have posted beneath this intro is impossible for their various reasons, it’s still a shame they won’t make any final cuts. So, without further ado, let’s do this!

Ultra Street Fighter IV Should Really Include:

Alex Street Fighter III series

What is there not to love about the Street Fighter III? You get fluid animations, jazzy fat nasty background music, intense parry system, and a whole slew of new characters thrown in the mix. One such character became a de facto face of this new incarnation and Alex was it. You can’t help but think Abel borrows from Alex, but Alex is more “RRRAAAHH”. I can’t necessarily translate what “RRRAAAHH” is. The French say “Je ne sais quoi” when they cannot find a tangible word to describe something. So, since I can’t speak French and Abel can…maybe that’s what makes Abel a better wrestler over Alex. Maybe.

It’s a damn shame Alex hasn’t been given much form of leeway to translate into many recent fighters up to this point. The only other fighting games he has cameo’d in was Capcom Fighting Evolution, sadly that game was badly executed and failed commercially; the other was Tatsunoku vs Capcom but you had to own a Wii to play it. C’mon, he wrassles, grabs, throws, and he was an imposing dude. On top of all that, his natural rival would be Hugo. Oh, well.

Why wasn’t this player included in USFIV: Capcom is stupid? [My quick-jerk reaction] Well, probably not stupid. However, they seem to be stubborn with the inclusion of a nucleus of characters while totally leaving gems on the shelf to collect dust. Hopefully, we will see Alex somewhere again like possibly in Namco’s Tekken vs Street Fighter (if that ever gets made).

Asura Asura’s Wrath

Okay, I know what you’re thinking: Asura was never in a fighting game. It wouldn’t be the first time Capcom ported characters into a Street Fighter title from a non-fighting game. Final Fight was a side scrolling beat’em-up from the late 80′s (which oddly enough was going to be called Street Fighter II initially) that featured a couple of current favorites like Cody and Guy as well as newcomers Poison, Rolento, and Hugo. If they did it once then why not again. He seems pissed off enough to fight S.I.N. and would easily fit in with the God characters such as Oni and Akuma. It’s hard to forget the charming section of Asura’s Wrath where he fought Ryu, so, why not do it for reals. Not to mention, the Udon art would be amazing.

Why wasn’t this player included in USFIV: Despite not being of the Street Fighter world, Asura would be lucky to get a sequel…much less a character spot in Street Fighter. He would be cool to see in a Marvel game though.

Charlie Street Fighter Alpha series

I know, I know. Guile has a Charlie costume and they are the same character. Or it seems that way. Charlie is still very much distinguishable and of his own persona, fighting style, and moves. The makers of Ultra should give Guile the crescent downward moon kick Charlie had as an homage at the very least. When it comes down to it, Charlie is Guile’s Ken.

He was a perfect compliment to Guile unlike Remy; the bastardized sonic boom-flash kick character who was made for the flashy SFIII: Third Strike. The problem for the usage of Charlie is because Guile’s main motivation to fight as a world warrior comes from his death by the hands of Bison. But hey, we live in the future now and can’t we just give him 6 Million Dollar Man surgery? It works for all of those hags on the “Real Housewives” shows.

Why wasn’t this player included in USFIV: There is a whole death element that might prevent his appearance. What about a Mecha Shadow Charlie? Just imagine lazer eyes, android arms, sonic fire booms,…..

Ingrid Capcom Fighting Evolution

Finally, a female makes this list but who the hell is she? Her name is Ingrid and the only life she had in a fighting game was Capcom Fighting Evolution. She was going to be used in a 3D Capcom collaboration fighting game (Capcom All-Stars) in the mid 2000′s, but once that project was scrapped they must’ve threw her in trash bin as well. I will be the first to admit that I haven’t read a lick of the Street Fighter comic books and she may have popped up; however, I doubt it. Regardless, she did fight along them once. Ya know, a friend of a friend sort of a thing.

A new set of characters is the perfect time to go dumpster diving and she could have very well been a decent fit. Ingrid is Capcom’s version of Athena of the King of Fighters because of her mystical moveset whilst donning schoolgirl characteristics and youth. Wait, is the use of magic taboo in a Street Fighter game? Rose. Dhalsim seems fine with the hot curry that magically shoots fire from his belly. If Ryu can throw a blue ball of fire-energy without articulating what force allows it to happen, we can use the creative license for Ingrid’s abilities too.

Why wasn’t this player included in USFIV: Ingrid is currently lost in Capcom’s character dumpster fire hidden beneath the heroine from Dino Crisis, Proto Man, and R. Mika. There isn’t enough magic in this world to retrieve her from the abyss of that bin.

That pretty much sums it up. The inner fanboy would love to see Q make a damn appearance sometime. Some other successful yet under-utilized characters would be Maki, Eagle, Sodom, and Birdie as well, but all I am doing is lamenting to the cloud at this point. I will admit that Capcom has definitely undertaken quite a process by adding more and more pieces to an already set table; expanding the field of possibilities on the battlefield by introducing brand new characters while roping in favorites from the past is more than admirable.

Check out the trailer below for more detailed insight on what Ultra Street Fighter IV will offer. The new additions to the fighting system is fairly dandy as I think this will grow the series overall. The online is improved for Team Battle, all of the current costumes will be available by purchasing the hard copy disc, and the option to upgrade your current version is given at an affordable price. At the end of the day, this whole thing is a business and I am a happy customer that’s willing to fork over the dough. Even if it’s for a couple of extra characters.

The developers of Tomb Raider definitely went soul-searching for Lara Croft and they must have found her in a darker place than usual. Instead of essentially picking up Lara from a Hooters wet T-shirt contest to star in her latest game; we have her attempting a terrifying escape from a cursed, evil infested island. For the kind of girl Lara Croft was, you won’t find her here. What you have is a mature and more realistic approach to a franchise that once craved the wrong attention. You can say Lara Croft has finally grown up.

This thought comes out on the heels of the Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition where the franchise expands to the next-gen XBOX ONE and Playstation 4 consoles. The Definitive Edition may not add a bunch of new content (or any) but it does look pretty on the new toys, especially with her redone facial structure where she looks less like a young Catherine Keener (which is good either way). But that’s not what this is about. After playing and finishing the new Tomb Raider, I felt like the journey was one that I want to go on again, and also one I want to see expand throughout the years with this current incarnation of Lara Croft.

That does look like me!

The first time I played Tomb Raider was on the Playstation, and I was in the high life of my non-dating career of high school. Meanwhile, Lara Croft, an expedition loving vaguely aged twenty/thirty something, was on her way to Peru searching for the Scion (not the car).

Now, she is eying her first tomb while I am home with a full-time gig and a child of my own. That’s what I like about Tomb Raider, I get older and she stays the same age…errrgh, younger? Badly butchered “Dazed and Confused” quote aside, I really love the progression Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix took on this once troubled series.

Regarding Tomb Raider, let’s be honest. Back when Eidos was crafting Croft’s basic identity, style, and visual appeal, you could tell they were going for an eye grabbing vixen that was addicted to the rush of adventure. You could also tell they were banking on the idea of sex selling and that whole aspect has probably pushed the brand even more so than her exciting tales in ancient dungeons. The egregious perverted-ness hasn’t been exploited to level of, let’s say, the Dead or Alive fighting game franchise, but the Angelina Jolie movie roles and skimpy outfits displaying her physical figure has positively affected the sales figures.

So, getting away from the naughty and moving onto the nice of Tomb Raider. I’m talking about the brain pinching puzzles, testosterone pumping adventure, deep exploration, and a whole lot of action inside of sacred atmospheres. Regardless of your sex, it’s cool to live through Lara’s passport and travel exotic exploits to try to discover new artifacts in foreign lands. She is a good and semi-believable vehicle to do so, even though she probably would have been bruised and bloodied up a little more. How her clothes stay intact and clean was as mysterious as the treasure down the torchlit hallway, but anyways that is one of the biggest jokes on video games in general. Sadly, at times the series disintegrated to make it feel like you were playing a game entitled “Barbie’s Bikini Cave Adventure” where the focus was completely out of whack. Bleh.

This is how we remember Lara, right? Scroll the page down! Your girlfriend is standing over your shoulder.

Enter Tomb Raider circa 2013. This reboot (prequel esque) is a unique and fresh take on TR as it looks back to her roots. Where more of the previous games were stories told on the outside of Lara Croft, this one directly flashes to her inner traits and true feminine character. What you see is a strong woman who is sensitive to her surroundings and, most importantly, the relationships she is attempting to preserve. As a mission I gave to myself, I played the original Tomb Raider and the new game nearly side-by-side to see how, where, and what correlates between the two outside of name and accent. I found a lot of growth and maturity that is now able to be conveyed to newcomers and fans of original alike.

Okay, I didn’t finish the original game this time around. I didn’t do it in high school either, but I would have if the game had not glitched on me after I made a save in the dungeon right before the last level (it’s a love/hate relationship with those floating blue crystals). This happened to me in the Prince of Persia for XBOX as well, though, luckily it happened in an earlier part of the game where I didn’t mind going back to the beginning. This time, however, I didn’t complete it because of a couple of other reasons.

For one, I spent most of the time playing the new TR which is just fabulous and was a strong contender for best game of 2013. Really damn good. The other main reason is that it is just clunky compared to where gaming is now. Tomb Raider for PSX is outdated, plain and simple. It holds up and is still playable, it’s just one of the original 3D games and suffers from its era, but it is a lot better than so many others from that time. It’s something that the AVGN would have screamed at for inadequate and illogical button design, camera inconsistencies, very touchy item pick-up points, and hard to calculate jumps. The name of the game is control.

Doesn’t it look like she is screaming for Hugo from Lost? Geez, what a good show.

Where Tomb Raider classic frustrates, Tomb Raider current prevails. It should. The games are only separated by about 15 years, a couple of console generations, and the rise of overall standard in gaming. But this is not the difference I honed on, it spurned from a growth in story telling and the story itself. Maybe those chaps from Square Enix influenced Crystal Dynamics with all them pretty Final Fantasy games. I don’t know nor I do I really care that much. This TR inherits a good mix of Far Cry, Resident Evil 5, Arkham series Batman, the show “Lost”, and of course borrows from its own canon. The overall product is what gets my head nodding in appeasement.

Granted, the new TR definitely uses a lot of the gaming mechanics that are popular today and doesn’t reinvent the wheel on button layout, which actually makes this a seamless jump from most any AAA title to this one. You have your Batman stereo vision, the good usage of Quick Time Events (QTE), fast travel, and all of that jazz. The developers intuitively put together all of these components to reinvent the Croft instead. They did it as this new variation works really well. Even though the sales figures are lower than anticipated a sequel is in the works (4 mil sold versus the 5 mil expected). This new Lara outshines the old one by showing her inner grit and personal strength without sacrificing her femininity as sex appeal.

You see, Lara Croft was outdated as well. She was less of the deep thinker type and more of the rock ‘n’ roll, shoot’em up, and reckless icon with confidence oozing out the khaki short shorts. She may have come up a little shallow but Lara Croft also came off as a badass.

After playing twenty minutes you are reminded that Lara is still a badass but with many more dimensions this time around. If Lara was a real person, she could be a person to look up to and not just a faceless renegade caricature of Duke Nukem with boobs raiding a tomb. Think about it, Boob Nukem.

This turned out to look like a PSA on why I love Tomb Raider but really it’s more of a “you gotta play this game if you haven’t yet” piece to read. The game itself handles perfectly but you could read that in a review, I just wanted to let you know that somebody is paying attention the person and not just the game. The Multiplayer isn’t anything to talk about (another new age module implemented though TR wasn’t successful at all with it), but playing through the story again or just going back to find the hidden goods are fun enough. Tomb Raider does a good job of driving on your emotional side of gaming, either in feeling the hurt of loss amongst your group or in the high tension of being chased and then climbing a radio tower to its dizzying peak.

That’s what I truly love about Tomb Raider. Lara Croft is not taking us on an external travel throughout the world, mainly because she is trapped on a cursed island; however, it is more of an internal voyage to the depths of her perceived soul while traversing along the murky and diverse terrain. Lara lays everything on the line for the people she cares for and we are right there with her to watch it unfold.

And hey, she is soft on the eyes too.

Flappy Bird, created by .GEARS Studios(a small Hanoi-based game developer) has overwhelmed your news feeds, RSS supplies and game related content articles over the last week. The controversy stems from the games developer, Nguyen Ha Dong, pulling it unceremoniously from the App Store and Google Play store at the height of its popularity. Why? Currently, we have only the twitter feeds from the eccentric creator to go on, but a few assumptions can be made.

Let’s rewind briefly and address the question: what is this game? Flappy Bird is a 2D, side-scrolling mobile game that artfully “borrows” its main graphics from Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. You play a small bird whose only mission in life is to fly through a series of openings between pipes, unendingly, until you die. Fun right? Yet, the addictive nature of the game and the ability to compete with friends for flapping superiority quickly boosted it to the top of the App and Google Play stores.

Yep, this is about how far I get every time.

Although it’s not exactly game of the year candidate, credit is due. Flappy Bird is free and supported completely by ad revenue. The game was never meant to be the next Angry Birds, but a simple game for some quick entertainment. Its success was as much of a surprise to the inventor as to the rest of us.

Suddenly, the 29-year old inventor Dong Nguyen awoke to a daily revenue stream of $50,000. In ad revenue, people, not sales download.  Needless to say, he was a bit shocked. “I am sorry ‘Flappy Bird’ users, 22 hours from now, I will take ‘Flappy Bird’ down. I cannot take this anymore,” Dong Tweeted. “It is not anything related to legal issues. I just cannot keep it anymore.”

The it he’s referring to is the massive amount of emails, complaints, death threats and general craziness that tends to come with that type of money; because while nice people will certainly download and play your game, crazy ones will yell loudly about it. Dong is the sole creator and operator of the game; it’s that simple and insane.

This is not him, but I imagine he made a similar face.

So the world awoke one morning to find it gone, and the craziness that’s ensued is the stuff of video game legends. Petitions, more threats and even copies of Flappy Bird selling on eBay for thousands of dollars have swept mobile game users up in a tide of crazy.

Yet, why? Sure, the game is addicting, but that describes many solid games. The appeal is classic and controls are incredibly simple. It’s well made for parties and easy enough a small dog could do it if smart phone manufacturers would just design for their paws already.

But does it deserve this level of insanity? That’s for you to decide. For those in the know, the game is already safely seated on your phones removable storage where you can lavish attention on it for the rest of your life. For those outside of the loop though, you may have missed your chance to be apart of one of the weirdest gaming phenomenon to come around in years.

If you’re a fighting game fan, you know we have it pretty good right now. Fighters released today are innovative on their own but still borrow so much from the past. If you’re like me, then you found it extremely gratifying that Killer Instinct was a big deal on the XBOX One launch title list! Things weren’t like this, even when original XBOX came out. It’s no secret Capcom gave us the formula with Street Fighter II back in the day. High end players still bend the rules in taking every frame advantage possible and display it in videos and tournaments. It’s up to us to keep the ball moving.

But where did all this momentum build from?

And it all starts here: Every Street Fighter II (1991)

There were many 16-bit fighters, however, there was only one Street Fighter. The game was so dominant that a huge disparity was created for a long time. There were several 16-bit Street Fighter variations in the arcade cabinets (due to remakes and expansion versions), several console versions, and we can’t forget the beloved pirated Rainbow ROMs. There were some fighting games that would come close in that era, though they were few and far in between. Capcom seemingly knew what they were doing as they played the Pied Piper of the genre. Competitors like Midway and SNK, eventually caught on to what Capcom was doing and tried to eat some of that success pie. Before the days of SFII, the genre was not the one-on-one affair we are now used to, as games like Final Fight and Double Dragon had been lumped in for their hand-on-hand combat styles and action oriented stimuli, and games like Street Fighter (the original) were all but urban legend.

I could go on for days and days about how it changed gaming forever, the specific growth of the franchise, and technical expectations it put on gamers, but I’ll couch that for another day. The same couching goes for the two beautiful series’s proceeding SFII (Street Fighter Alpha & Street Fighter III) as the game grew into the great game Street Fighter IV is today. To sum it up, Street Fighter II set the stage for what every game fighting game now expects to be, but is it the most influential? I would say so.

Test your Might: Mortal Kombat II (1993)

A Fatal mistake would be to ignore the contributions of Boon and Tobias. It seemed at first, Mortal Kombat would just be a controversial flash-in-the-pan. You had real-life graphics, violent depictions of people fighting, and a sense of gore and brutality that had not yet been realized up that point. Add a touch of Street Fighter mechanics, and infuse the most gruesome ways to dispose of your opponents, via fatalities, and now you have something that really garnered some attention, while simultaneously pissing off parents. Won’t somebody think of the children! This franchise became so big it even made the big chief in the east, Capcom, submit their own fighting game to attract MK fans away in their offering of Street Fighter: The Movie. Mortal Kombat took over the world, boom, bang, the world.

However, it would not have been a commercial success without its solid follow-up to the original tournament. I’m not talking about the movie either (another thing MK battled SFII at). Mortal Kombat II enhanced an already great fighting system, added some “accidental” code, hidden content, gore, and interesting story that expands the original to another level making the sequel a neatly polished product. MKII was the game that showed people the attention to this new franchise was well deserved, and was the springboard to where the tournament was headed. The game was just overall solid as the engine was being perfected while growing the roster to bring more of their lore into reality. The new Mortal Kombat and Injustice:Gods Among Us owes every ounce of worth to the past.

Ring Out: Virtua Fighter (1993)

Viruta Fighter’s intent was to knock you out cold or knock you out of the ring. Of course, a rundown of 3D fighting ain’t a list without Tekken and all their versions, variations, and sequels; but there is something to be said for being the first. Spacing is always the utmost importance in fighting games but being in the corner never meant an automatic loss. Virtua Fighter was the first major fighting game where your actual environment played a vital role because you could fall right out of the ring.

As more fighters were developed to use better advantage of the environmental space, the elevated tech found itself raising the stakes beyond Sega’s Virtua Fighter. Be it the plane shifting Battle Arena Toshinden, realistic swordplay of Bushido Blade, beastly ambitions of Bloody Roar, deadly stage transitions of Dead or Alive, bobbing and weaving of Ready to Rumble, or Capcom’s Rival Schools and Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha. It’s pretty amazing Sega predated so many other Z-axis based brawlers, despite the fact that fighting in a 3D ring was so inevitable. Sega also made it a credible franchise that still thrives today.

It all began in ’94….:King of Fighters ’94 (Just try guessing the year)

Sometimes it is easy to see the big boys operate and you can assign a region to where the target demo is. Capcom was able to be a worldwide brand, Midway was mostly a western staple, while SNK had a majority of its focus in the east (SF2 announcer: Japan!). Us stateside commoners were given access to SNK’s fruits of labor, but usually at a commodity of rarity and price or both. The Neo Geo home console wasn’t cheap, it was however the truest way to play your arcade games at home. Where is this all going? Well, SNK had a lot of fighting game titles, where the Fatal Fury and Samurai Showdown franchises were there biggest name amongst the group, but none really stood on its own as being great. That and people usually played the SNK games while waiting their turn at Street Fighter. Ha!

SNK wasn’t done yet. They essentially said, “Screw it. Let’s just make a game with everyone in it.” They did just that and we are all better for it. How awesome is that? You take character sprites from the Art of Fighting, Fatal Fury, Ikari Warriors, and more games, add new protagonist (Kyo) and deadly antagonist (Rugal), and now you got yourself a game. This feat took on the ambitious endeavor of keeping the former characters in the truest states possible when ported from previous games all the while bringing big roster battles and even DREAM battles to light. Capcom tried doing this with Capcom Fighting Evolution and found out that it just isn’t that easy to do.

Aerial Rave!: X-Men vs. Street Fighter (1996)

There’s nothing more Uncanny than a tremendous crossover uniting separate universes. Our fascination was satisfied back in the old days of X-Men: Children Of The Atom. COTA used comic book visuals, Street Fighter moves, Darkstalker free connecting combos, and little help from a secret Akuma appearance. No true sequel was to be made, though, sprites and mechanics were to be imported to Marvel Super Heroes. The heavy hit wasn’t struck until the ante was raised tagging Capcom legends with Marvel heroes, which found its way to many incarnations.

Tagging is the key word here. The idea of X-Men vs Street Fighter was to pick two characters at a time, which you could switch mid-battle at any time, turned the feature into a phenomenon. Almost every current fighting game title has tinkered with the idea from Tekken Tag Tournament, Skullgirls, SNK Battle Coliseum, and so on. It didn’t matter which game it was, King of Fighters XI tried it and Street Fighter incorporated it in Street Fighter EX3. Even though the tag system was experimented with and included in seemingly all fighters after it; much like a multiplayer mode was tacked on to every 3rd person adventure and shooting game last year (Tomb Raider and Mass Effect 3, for reals?). This became a popular trend in the fighting genre, but nothing could equal the beast X-Men vs Street Fighter would culminate.

It’s Mahvel baybee: Marvel vs Capcom 2 (2000)

Where to start? First off, Marvel vs Capcom 2 had 56 playable characters. Are you freaking kidding me?!? You mean Capcom stripped every sprite based game and just slapped them all together in one title, de-dimensionalized Hayato, and added a cactus, a female pirate, a monkey, a rando X-Man lady, an unplayable alien boss thing, and called it a day? Yes. Three person teams? YES! It was the ultimate love child between Capcom and Marvel, it just felt so right and natural. Marvel vs Capcom 2 was awesome, epic, hype in theory and quickly became an instant classic.

Ironically, MvC2 stayed essentially the same game that was released initially without much in updates throughout the years of its existence. Marvel vs Capcom 2, ahem…excuse me, Mahvel vs Capcom 2 was never technically the best fighting game of its generation (I can close my eyes and hear Capcom vs SNK 2 and Street Fighter III:Third Strike muttered under people’s collective breath), it is treated as such. I am not saying this as a slight; rather it is great with forgivable flaws like a fairly unbalanced roster, abused gameplay to nearly broken levels, and famous glitches galore (goodbye, Gambit). The way Versus games were being produced, you thought the next Marvel game would wrap characters all the way around the character select globe. However, after this hurrah of releases pretty much a drought dizzied gamers faster than an instant-overhead and fighting fans were cut out. Just. Like. That.

Extra Content: Marvel vs Capcom 2 Pretty Much Saved Fighting Games

Other fighters of Marvel vs Capcom 2′s time frame and ilk were fantastic and popular but nothing to the affect of Mahvel. Websites like Shoryuken.com and iplaywinner.com, players like Justin Wong and Yipes, and tournaments like EVO gathered all the ingredients with MvC2 being the centerpiece. It’s the most vital because it carried the fighting scene from arcades in the malls, through the dark times of no arcades, to the period of now. Capcom seized the opportunity during this hype build-up to revive their staple fighting game franchise (Street Fighter IV) bringing back classic fighting styles with a newly overhauled outlook. The fighting game scene hasn’t looked back since.

All of this resulted in a resurgence, a renaissance if you will, for a once dying breed. I am talking about the new Mortal Kombat, Injustice:GAU, KOF XIII, Soul Calibur V, Street Fighter Cross Tekken, and at least ten others since. On top of that, improved netcode for online play has done wonders in giving players the opportunity to shine the way it was for years: turning living rooms into mini-arcades again. You get the same amount of shit talking with less time waiting your turn, though, you do have to trade it in for buttholes who rage quit every once in a while (sigh, you can’t have it all, I guess). Now, we are hot on the heels of the Ultra Street Fighter IV edition to be released summer ’14.

Even Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 is damn good however nothing can replace a classic nor can it fill the shoes of its legacy. Marvel vs Capcom 2 has been the most important fighting game of its short history by being the gateway to the present. It connected gamers like combos, spanning worldwide like it was first contact to people like yourself all over again. This new age of separated locales revived a decaying sect into the strong grass roots movement it is today. I’m happy to see fighting games take some of that spotlight again.

Now, if we can get a damn Mega Man game already……

Thanks for playing!

Let’s face it, everyone always complains about the newest Call of Duty when it first releases. Then, as time goes on people come to accept it. I’ve given Call of Duty: Ghosts several months to grow on me, and I still claim it is the worst Call of Duty multiplayer I have ever played—and yes I’ve played all of them. The main reason why is simple: the maps. The maps are poorly created and made in such a way they enforce camping, which is the one thing everyone hates in Call of Duty. Yet Ghosts has made it entirely acceptable, in fact, camping is practically encouraged in the latest title. Ghosts’ combination of map design and gear that specifically supports campers has made it the most frustrating multiplayer yet.  

Let me start off right away saying this is not going to be some angry COD gamer rant. There are enough of those kicking around the internet. I am not the biggest COD player of all time, in fact, I prefer Battlefield over Call of Duty. I also won’t pretend that I’m amazing at it. I’m really weird in the fact that I play COD for fun, and I don’t care about my KDR, patches, or anything like that. However, I firmly believe this is the worst Call of Duty multiplayer yet, and I’ll explain why soon. Before that, let me defend myself a little more by saying I am decent as far as COD gamers go. I have good games and bad games, and for those that care my KDR currently is 0.948. I’m saying this for one reason. I’m trying to establish some credit before I complain about Ghosts, because the first think everyone always thinks is, “well you just suck.” That very well may be the case, and I will admit, Ghosts is my worst Call of Duty by far. But that made me wonder why I’m so bad at it.

I’m not going to complain about the typical things COD gamers hate. Things like: shotgunners, riot shields, no-scopers, quick-scopers, jump-shooting, drop-shooting, aim-assist, throwing C4, hit detection, or any of the other hundred things people whine about when it comes to COD. I won’t attack specific play styles apart from one, and that’s camping. Now, there’s a difference between someone sitting in a window overlooking the map – which may be annoying but fair – verses someone lying down in a corner staring at one doorway the entire time or looking down one hallway the whole match. You know the people I’m talking about. The kind who sit in one spot, get an I.M.S, then get a Sentry Gun after that, and refuse to move the entire match. People camp, it happens, especially when they are close to getting a killstreak. So I understand why it happens, but never before has a Call of Duty game supported campers so blatantly with gear and features.

I’ll start with the ability to lean. I know leaning doesn’t sound like that big a deal, and the point was to have a realistic way to look around corners. The problem is it gives people an even better way to stay in one place and look down a hallway the entire game. Stay hidden, then pop out, then go back to hiding. I’ve seen countless people never move the entire game and continue to lean around the same corner through all of it. If they die, then they run right back to that same corner. Without leaning, the person had to at least expose most of their body to poke out around a corner, now they can protect themselves even more.

Protecting them from another entrance is the I.E.D. These insanely unfair devices have a big blast radius that can detect people in any direction. There have always been mines in a Call of Duty game, but not like I.E.D’s. Claymores only fire in one direction and you can see the red lines. You can sneak around Claymores, and more importantly, you can’t throw them! This is the same with Bouncing Betty’s. You couldn’t throw them like a football across the map, and if you had fast enough reflexes to duck, you could avoid the explosion. There is usually a counter and balance system in place, but I.E.D’s are powerful explosions that can detonate from any direction. To be fair, there is a beep that gives you some warning, but you have to be really quick about it. Luckily, there was a very recent patch that nerfed the power of I.E.D’s by making your whereabouts to their location more precise. Jumping over an I.E.D on the ground or ducking when one is over your head should reduce the damage you take. I think it has made a difference, but I’m still calling them an overpowered camping weapon.

I know my complaint against thermal scopes may sound a little harsh, and I am happy there is a perk that prevents you from being highlighted in a scope, but they are still too good. Above I’ve put a picture of a thermal scope from Modern Warfare 2. You can see how people are highlighted in white, but the person is blurry and the lens is grainy. This is some counter balance to being able to highlight enemies. Now, below the next paragraph I have a picture of the thermal scope in Ghosts. There is almost no real disadvantage to using this scope. The enemies are still highlighted, but they aren’t blurry, and using the site doesn’t lower the vision clarity in any way. They are too good and a little too efficient. So naturally everyone uses them.

Now if you combine leaning, I.E.D’s, and thermal scopes, you have one grade ‘A’ camper. They will sit in room, toss out an I.E.D or two to protect their flank, lean around a window, door, or corner, and then use their perfectly clear thermal scope to shoot whoever they see. That’s not even including the people who lie down in a corner and stare at one doorway. This puts everyone else at a huge disadvantage who wants to run-and-gun, use shotguns, tactical knifes, or basically wants to move around the map. Not to mention that regular grenade damage has been reduced in comparison to I.E.D’s and C4, and tactical grenades are practically useless making it almost impossible to get those rats out of their holes. Ghost has tipped the favor so heavily towards camping that it is becoming the accepted norm in the game.

Okay, I won’t go so far as to say that people shouldn’t ever use the tools that are given to them. I may be extra hateful towards this because I am a run-and-gun type of guy. Give me a submachine gun and I’m good to go. I have never had a problem with using this setup until Ghosts. The problem isn’t just all the snipers and campers that are littered through the map. The real problems are the maps themselves and how they encourage camping exclusively.

Yes, I said it, we have gotten to the real issue at hand here. I will definitively claim, without hesitation, that these are the worst maps in Call of Duty history. So what’s the problem with them? They are a complete mess. First off, they are enormous most of the time and far bigger than they ever need to be. Call of Duty is all about fast-paced action that moves incredibly quickly. I lost count how many times I run around maps and can’t find anyone. Siege is one of the biggest maps with all sorts of corners, corridors, bushes, and other places to search through. In Team Deathmatch I have only experienced a handful of games where a team was able to get 75 kills before the time runs out. The map is simply too big and covered with too many obstacles to traverse through.

Big maps aren’t automatically bad. Having a big map is fine, but you need some sort of focal point so everyone runs there to fight. Generally in the past, maps were made with a focal point in the center that people could always find each other. Then there were also paths all around that point so people could flank. In Ghosts, most of the time there is no focal point in the center; actually, it is usually an open space so running into it will end your life. I think they were trying to have the two sides fight back and forth over that open territory. What they got, was chaos with people running around not finding each other, except for the campers who don’t move and wait. It’s hard to blame them when the maps make that the best way to play.

Usually, maps are made in a linear rectangular fashion, even if the technical playing area is a box, the important locations are all in a line, making the playing field feel more like a rectangle. There is usually one main path up the center, then two side paths that go around the left and the right. This is best seen in the Domination mode. One team controls A, the other controls C, then everyone fights over B, because it is between the two bases. Playing Domination in Ghosts is all over the map, because there is no order to it. The maps are all one big box and there are no real lines or paths.  You use to be able to figure out the battle-lines where the two teams are coming together, but that’s almost in possible in this game. It feels like chaos half the time where you never know if you are on your teammates side or behind enemy lines.

That brings me to the other biggest issue: the terrible spawns. The game spawns you out of the immediate line-of-site from the enemy team, but there could be an enemy about to turn the corner, so it doesn’t do much good.  I discovered that if I could survive long enough – not even killing people, just not dying – then I would be more likely to be in a better position to fight. When I die, the game spawns me in a horrible position that I can – and have – fallen into a perpetual cycle of death. Spawn, die, spawn, run, die, spawn, die, spawn, shoot, die. The game has some of the worst spawning I’ve seen in a long time. I have watched people on the other team spawn directly in front of me, and I know when people spawn directly behind me. I think the point was to try and prevent spawn-camping, since you never spawn in a corner of the map where your team could get stuck, but in doing so, you spawn in random places throughout the map—making for easy targets. This is on big maps or small maps, it doesn’t matter. The spawning system is broken.

Not every map is horrible, of course. The small maps like Strikezone and Warhawk are good ones. Whiteout is probably the best big map, because there is a main center point that people can focus on. A big map is fine if there is a focus in the center for people to run to. No one likes running around trying to find people for the entire game. Slowly people are realizing what maps are best, and I can tell based on which ones are voted for in the lobby. That makes me wonder, because you think that the developers had enough statistics to know that people love maps like Nuketown, Summit, Hijacked, or any other small one. Yet, they went ahead and made giant maps. I don’t want to just throw all the blame at Raven Software, because it certainly can’t be their fault entirely, but a new development team could explain why this multiplayer is so different from previous ones—in a bad way.

Ghosts’ multiplayer has been overhauled to support campers almost entirely, with I.E.D’s, leaning, thermal scopes, and even some other stuff I didn’t mention. The maps only make it worse by being enormous, which makes guns with longer range better, so once again, Marksman class or snipers have an advantaged. Then the sheer unorganized maps littered with crap, or designed with no focal point lead people all over the place looking for each other, instead of directing everyone to one another. Which I also believe causes more people to hide in corners and wait, instead of traversing the map to find people. Having said all that, I still find Ghosts really fun, I enjoy it a lot, and I already have two days of game time online. I don’t plan on stopping anytime soon, and since I own a PS4, I haven’t been able to play the DLC yet, so maybe those maps are a lot better. At the very least I hope to be able to run down a hallway without seeing someone lean around a corner and aiming a sniper at me—with a thermal scope attached of course.

For the last month, I’ve been a victim of two wars being fought simultaneously and without regard for each other. Two headstrong competitors insisting each other have failed in their duties to the American public. Yet, these insistences are merely a rouse to cover for their own fear of being inferior.

Of course I’m not speaking about health care, I’m talking about the war between Call Of Duty: Ghosts and Battlefield 4 that has raged on through old and new consoles alike. Released on the same week to the same core group, they’ve been silently exchanging blows back and forth for the last two months in the form of ad campaigns and sales figures.

The final months of 2013 saw Ghosts taking first place in overall sales, with Battlefield behind as a close second. Ghosts claimed a one billion dollar opening day, while the only numbers leaked from behind Battlefield lines were a 67% loss compared to 2012. Financially speaking, the numbers give a claim of supremacy to Ghosts.

Yet fans have continued to war on each side of the spectrum, claiming varied and legitimate reasons for their preference. Battlefield wins over dedicated “First Person Shooter” gamers, preferring large maps, plenty of opponents, more realistic warfare and lots of giant machines to fly through the sky. Call Of Duty, as it always has, wins over the casual and party gamers, allowing better split screen options, quicker matches, and a more campy overall feel that lends itself better to the occasional gamer.

“Come at me bro”

It has been the same divide for the last few years. Hope came when a new generation of consoles offered an excellent point for each game to start redefining its technique and market appeal. So, along with my PS4, I purchased both games and spent the last month bouncing between them. After a lot of blood, cheesy storylines, and underage children screaming at me through headsets, I have come to a winner, and sadly, it favors the numbers.

While Battlefield gives me a decent online experience and a more realistic weapons handling system, Ghosts is simply a better-made game this time around. Let’s take a look at a more categorical comparison of the two so we can decisively lay it all out on the line.

 Story Mode:

I realize few purchase these games for the single player option, but I still do. As much as I like sniping real people, I also enjoy not having to interact with anyone by playing story driven arcs that give me a reason to pick up a gun. Battlefield’s storyline focuses around a pending war with the Chinese, and Ghosts an invasion from a prominent war force called “The Federation”

While both story lines contain a satisfying amount of explosions, slow motion kills and impossible chintz, Ghosts emerges a clear winner here. It starts with WW3, a spaceship disaster, and sprinting through the woods with a father you wish you had in real life.

“Let’s go shoot guns and not talk about our feelings”

You assume the role of a Ghost, an elite tactical unit as mysterious as it is deadly. It pushes you through a very set storyline, but one that delivers everything from space travel to underwater scuba shooting.

Battlefield, in contrast, burns through their story mode as though they couldn’t wait to get it done. Covert missions to Chinese locals find you spending your time in a lot of warehouses, submarines and office buildings. It’s not the ideal place for breathtaking scenery. In fact, minus the submarines and Chinese, that’s pretty much my average day. Sometimes, it’s just the submarines missing.

I finished Battlefield 4 in two days of casual play. Predictable twists, bad dialogue and a forced lie of being able to choose how the story progresses have it all come across as extremely lazy. You play to simply win, and not to enjoy the trip along the way.

Call Of Duty, however, gives you every type of kill, explosion and environment you could dream of firing a gun in. While the dialogue is not much better, the characters are more endearing and the plot is better conceived; as a result, the game becomes much more involving to play. I want to stop “The Federation” and make dad proud. I will not allow Spanish to become the primary language of America. I am a ghost.

“I just don’t get masculine and feminine nouns.”

Multiplayer

            Multiplayer on both games is stellar, as always; plenty of maps, death, and new players to go around. Battlefield favors larger maps and more people, Ghosts a rapid death multiplayer perfect for bum rushing. Everything is very much the same. Yet EA did nothing to fix the biggest complaint of their last title, no local multiplayer. Nothing reaffirms my opinion of EA being the best example of a company that hates their clientele.

One person per console for online play; the standard EA policy. Let’s backup for a minute to fully explain why this degrades the experience for me. Say I were to tell you that I had a wonderful new game that required little thought, mostly hand dexterity, and you were able to empty your frustrations into another human in the form of a clip. But, only if everyone you know has a copy of the game. Also, your roommate will need a separate PS4, game, and TV in order to play with you. It’s also useless for parties, since it doesn’t support a local multiplayer option. You would wonder why the company who makes it hates you so.

This is Frank. Frank hates you.

That’s the point: EA hates you. They love your money, but they hate you. Call Of Duty may have a campier multiplayer experience, but for that $60, they’ll give you everything they’ve got. It’s never going to matter how good Battlefield’s multiplayer experience is, they are going to keep loosing in sales. At the end of the day, this type of FPS is best used for casual play with friends. Battlefield, after four games, still doesn’t feel you deserve that.

Extras

           For Battlefield, this category might as well be titled “What extra’s?” There are none. There is a short, terrible story line and a multiplayer. That’s all you get. Ghosts sneaks a few more modes in, including the survival mode that’s bled over from their last couple of games and an alien hunter mode great for parties. Activision understands flexibility here, and while it’s not perfect, it’s something. Call Of Duty has realized an age-old idea here: something is better than nothing.

Overall, I am disappointed in Battlefield 4. I expected EA to learn from their mistakes last game, to redesign and reinvent for a new console. I knew Ghosts would deliver the same thing in a new package, it’s been incredibly financially successful for them and it works, but after the failure of EA’s online mode and after seeing how much the Call Of Duty franchise has stepped up in recent games, I expected Battlefield 4 to revamp, rework and produce the best of both worlds. Instead, I got a new version of Battlefield 3 with destructible environments. I got the same stern, unbendable multiplayer mode and a sham of a singer player storyline. But, jokes on me right? They already have my money.

“He actually PAID for the same game!?”

Comparing the two games, it’s not surprising Battlefield suffered a 67% loss from Battlefield 3. EA deserves every percent of that. While Ghosts is far from perfect, it gives me the experience I came to get out of a popcorn FPS. With redefined modes, weapons and an engaging storyline, it crushes its competition. Perhaps by Battlefield 5, EA will have caught on to the trends of their own market, but judging by this offering, it’s not likely. Maybe another 67% loss will do the trick.