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Freakin' Call of Duty: Black Ops Trailer. Now, I did play MW2 for some time, it didn't last though (4th prestige, how sad) but then I moved on to Perfect Dark. I'm probably not going to play this one for long. All I have to say is hidden thermal cameras? Okay, cool. Crossbows? Wow, just like Half-Life! Ballistic knives? I saw those on Deadliest Warrior! RC CARS?? Ok, this is not a lie people.
While you're at it, why not just whip out some ninja stars, nail guns, tranquilizers, rubber shotgun slugs, Han Solo's Mauser laser, chainsaws, potato guns, shrink rays, a kick melee attack/Duke's "mighty boot," missile balloons, Rick Roll mines, stuffed teddy bears (those can be lethal); I mean this is MW2 but with more toys. Seems like IW always painstakingly makes the good game (I say this loosely, rushing the game doesn't help) and Treyarch copies. This game will have Zombies in it too which is good. I don't really care that much, but I guess you should know. Game will still be inexplicably good.
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Well, Turn 10 is cutting off Forza 3 for good and canceling all remaining DLC packs. As someone who actually played Forza 3 for quite a while and I loved it (even went out of the way to make the Daytona 2 cars), but now I'm probably cutting it off too because of one reason...
4WD cars are overpowered. The game takes off too much PI because it assumes your car is fat and sluggish when it in fact is OP. Now you can't play online anymore without a bunch of Audi S5/Dodge Viper 4WD cheesers ruining the game. Assuming that RWD handles the same as 4WD, yes 4WD would be overpowered, but to rub salt on the wound, 4WD cars don't have to worry about spinning out if you drive without TCS. I play with all driving aids off (ABS, TCS, STM) and I can usually handle the cars I drive, but if I'm going with a RWD slippery car, then the fact that I can lose traction and speed just makes it even more difficult for RWD to compete.
I saved up 20 million credits just so I could buy the Ferrari 250 GTO and now I can't even use that (or any other Ferrari for that matter) because I play to save face, never to reach Victory Lane. Yes, tuning your car--I at least have a knack at it and considering the skill level of the people I play with, there's no excuse to lose that bad. So I'm just gonna save for Forza 4. It was fun while it lasted.
I'm sorry I let you down.
Why is it that other racing games have so much trouble with balance issues? In Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, lightweights were OP. Using Jacky Bryant was the equivalent of running a marathon with a pair of crutches. And Mario Kart Wii--oh man, what a piece of crap, 10x worse than SaSASR. Bikes are so OP it's ridiculous. The name of the game is Mario KART Wii, but everyone uses bikes because you can wheelie for top-speed down straightaways. I'm not going to lie--I did like this game a lot but I just couldn't play it anymore because of this.
Why do game designers have to drop the ball this way? I know I sound nitpicky, but if you're going to go out of your way to include extra details, at least make them viable ones. Don't taunt us with useless extras that are more frustrating to use than fun.
But wait, Nintendo can do no wrong, right??
This also reminds me of how other games can be lopsided--fighting games are notorious for this, but that's an incredibly complex genre to balance. Racing games are nowhere near as complicated. Another game that comes to mind is Advance Wars, which I think is awesome regardless. Let's just say that some characters allow you to produce really cheap, effective units that overpower the enemy. I'm not going to go into detail since I'm fairly certain lots of people haven't played it.
I know that game devs can't always catch game balance issues for two reasons...
One, they usually don't have enough time to test the game. Devs would rather get the game out and make a profit, which is the truth like it or not (save a few dedicated folks). Wait too long and money is wasted and everyone loses interest. Sadly, a game community can more fairly balance a game over a month of playing than the devs can.
Two, because "game balance" doesn't look good on paper. When selling games to a publisher and to the public, it's better to say "This game has hundreds of cars in it," than "This game has about fifty cars in it, but we made sure they're all balanced." I mean, look at Marvel vs. Capcom 2--56 characters, tiers are all over the place, but still, people eat that up like fried chicken (I'd like some Chicken McNuggets right about now).
Enough of this, you get the idea...
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