So a change I have meant to write about for a little while in Gears of War 2 is the effect that Smoke Grenades now have when they detonate. It used to be that when a smoke grenade detonated, if you were caught within the blast radius, you got knocked to the ground. This made it very easy for anyone to finish you off before you could get back up. Some loved it as it gave them more options for how to attack the enemy and could also be seen to even the odds against a better player. Some also hated it and felt it was very cheap and changed the gameplay way too much. Instead of straight out firefights, many players spent time turning the playing field into a series of traps using smoke grenades.

So a change has been made, now when you are too close to a smoke grenade when it goes off, your character cringes, and puts there hands up. You are stuck like this for maybe a second or so, but you do not fall down. This drastically changes the way people use the grenades, if you are planting grenades in order to disable opponents and make them easy targets, you better be VERY fast. Recovering from the stun is very quick and usually if you were not already rushing in when the grenade went off you will not get there in time and your opponent will be fully mobile again. While I am not completely comfortable with the new workings of the blast of the grenades (I will have to spend more time using them) I feel that the most important part of smoke grenades has still been overlooked. One change in Smoke Grenades between Gears 1 and 2 is that that actual duration that the smoke lasts has been shortened. So when you throw a smoke grenade you do not actually get much time or volume of smoke to really be able to take full advantage of it. This was one of the main reasons I liked the knockdown, if the smoke is not enough to screen the battlefield and hide what my team is doing, then at least I can use it to disable them with the knockdown. My main desire for smoke grenades especially now that they have been made less effective with their blast, is that the amount of smoke and duration that the smokes lasts be increased. That is the whole point of a smoke grenade to begin with isn’t it? Hide portions of the battlefield either to allow strategic maneuvering without being seen or to allow a rush on a cover position when outnumbered or outgunned.

So overall, do you think smoke grenades should actually put out enough smoke to be useful in their intended purpose? Do you like the smoke grenades how they are now? Not trying to start the whole cringe vs. knockdown debate back up, my focus is mainly assuming that the cringe is here to stay. And if so, what needs to be done for smoke grenades to be truly useful?

Feel free to leave your ideas/thoughts on the subject in the comments.

So for this first bit, I want to dig further into how skills work in Sacred 2. One major thing to remember is that Skills are different than Combat Arts. Combat arts are individual moves or spells you can learn. Skills allow you to choose the way that your character plays and what their strengths are. For example, a Skill might be Sword Weapons. This skill makes your character more proficient with swords by increasing the speed and attack rating of your character when using a sword. This skill also makes it so that you can use higher level swords than you normally would for your level.

On the other hand you have combat arts. These typically are moves or spells that you can use in combat, for example the Shadow Warrior has Demonic Blow. This combat art (called CA in the rest of this article) does a single hit on an enemy that does a great deal of damage. It does not matter what weapon you are using, it simply works with whatever you happen to hit the enemy with.

In this article, I am going to focus mainly on Skills.

While adventuring in the world of Ancaria, you will run into many monsters to battle and while fighting you will inevitably level up. At certain levels you will be given the option to learn a new skill. In total, you can learn 10 skills on any one character. Now there are many more skills than this available, but you can only learn 10. You cannot unlearn a skill, so choose wisely. The levels in which you are given the option to learn a new skill are:

Levels at which you get to learn a new skill: 2, 3, 5, 8, 12, 18, 25, 35, 50, 65

As you level you will also be given points that you can use to increase the power of your skills. Each point you put into a skill increases it’s influence. For example, once I learn the armor lore skill, each point I put into armor lore increases the of armor bonus I get from my equipped armor, but it also increases the level of armor I can wear, that way I can wear stronger armor that is made for higher level characters. As you level, the higher you get, the more skill points you get per level. Below is a listing of the number of skill points you get at each level.

Level 1-4: 1 Skill point per level
Level 5-11: 2 Skill points per level
Level 12-24: 3 Skill Points Per Level
Level 25-49: 4 Skill Points Per Level
Level 50-200: 5 Skill Points Per Level
So all together a little over 900 skill points will be gained if you take your character all the way to level 200.

When learning new skills you will also notice that some skills are grayed out at first. These are called secondary skills and they can only be learned once you have put 5 points into any of the primary skills in that group. So for example, if I want to learn the Dual Wield Skill as a Shadow Warrior, I first need to spend at least 5 points in other offensive skills like Sword Weapons, Tactics Lore, etc… It does not have to be 5 points in any one skill, just a total of 5 points spent between any of the other skills in the offensive skills category. This adds to the planning you need to do. If you want a particular skill, and it is a secondary skill for your class (grayed out) then make sure that you pick a skill to put some points in that you are actually going to use. Don’t just pick any skill, and dump 5 points into it just to get to the skill you want, if you do that, you have just wasted a skill slot.

There are 4 Categories of Skills:

Class Skills – These are skills where most of them are specific to your class, Shadow Warrior, Seraphim, etc…
Offensive Skills – These are skills usually tied to combat and weapons, Sword Weapons, Hafted Weapons, Ranged Weapons, etc…
Defensive Skills – These are skills usually tied to keeping you alive, Armor Lore, Constitution, etc…
General Skills – These are skills that do not fall into the other categories, Alchemy, Devine Devotion, Blacksmithing, Riding, Enhanced Perception, etc…

Depending on your character class, the skills in the Class Skill category will be different. The other categories will be mainly the same, but your class defines which skills are primary (available to learn right away) vs. what skills are secondary (require 5 points in other skills in the category before they can be learned). So while dual wield might be available right away for an Inquisitor, it is a secondary skill for Shadow Warrior and so requires that you have 5 points in other skills in the offensive skills category before your Shadow Warrior can learn it.

When choosing your skills first think about how you want to play your character, look at each skill and read the description of it. You cannot undo skill choices so make sure you plan ahead. The next article will go a bit more into how skills work with your Combat arts and how they can effect your character overall.

Till then…

So for anyone who got the “Invalid Code” message when trying to use the code that came in the box with Sacred 2 for the 360 should be good to go now. I have now successfully claimed my new carrier imp…

Once you get him, he is basically a mobile version of the Hero’s chest that you have in some towns for stashing your goodies.

That’s it for now…

So if you logged into Sacred 2 today on the 360 you may have noted that the game had an update. This update fixed some issues including the addition of local coop trading. So if you are playing locally with two players on the same Xbox, you can now trade! Also included in the update were the following:

· Player-Trade on a single console added
· Preparation for future DLC via the new implemented in-game marketplace added. This also affects the IMP that will be available after Microsoft has done some internal changes tonight. Please try this out later today.
· A change to the save game routine has been made to avoid a loss of the user’s save game (if this ever happens)
· A fix for a teleport problem when entering a specific dungeon (“Undead Legion” quest)
· A fix for a calculation problem in the leaderboards has been added
· Changed the names of the invite option from “everybody”/”friends only” to “public”/“private”

These details and more info can be found at the official Sacred 2 forums which are on the Team Xbox site here: http://forum.teamxbox.com/forumdisplay.php?f=152

There is another patch in the works, no details on what it does yet, they also mentioned the carrier imp codes should be working soon…

More later…

So figured I would drop a quick note on what the survival bonus is in Sacred 2 and what happens when you die. This is mainly targeted at the Xbox 360 version but most holds true for the PC version (the main difference on PC is you have hardcore characters who can only die once.)

Survival Bonus in Sacred 2 can be seen by bringing up the General Information Screen (Right Shoulder Button, then choose General off the radial menu). In this screen you will see your characters survival bonus. This bonus goes up whenever you are in combat. Basically when you are attacking or being attacked. It does not matter how much damage you do or how much damage is done to you. It simply goes up whenever combat has been engaged.

What does it actually do for you though? The higher your survival bonus is, the stronger and higher level the enemies around you become. So instead of fighting enemies that are your same level, you start to fight enemies that are above your level. This in turn increases the amount of experience you get, as well as the quality of the items/loot that drop off of killed enemies. So to put it simply, survival bonus is your best friend! The longer you stay alive the more experience and treasure you find.

Dying however will reset your survival bonus to 0%. So in effect there really is a penalty for dying in Sacred 2. Some people have said many times during our online sessions, “Man I am glad there is no penalty for dying in this game…”. Then they wonder why I keep finding better gear and leveling up faster than they do :)

So to get the most out of Sacred 2… use common sense, try to stay alive… currently my level 52 Shadow Warrior has as survival bonus of 85% and the enemies are roughly 10+ levels higher than me. I tend to find a good deal of 3 star treasure as well….

Anyway, this was just to answer some questions I had gotten in game from friends lately… If you are playing Sacred 2 on the 360, feel free to message me if you want to play. Gamertag = BluePhaze v2

Later…

So last week Sacred 2 released for the 360 and Playstation 3. I have been playing the PC version of the game for months, and honestly after a few days with the 360 version, I don’t know if I will ever need to play the PC version again. I will be doing a series of articles covering some of the basics of Sacred 2 gameplay as there many details that are easy to miss or just plain misunderstood. Most of the info can be found in various forums and wikis on the net dedicated to the PC version, but I figured I will start sharing some tips and hints for successfully playing sacred here, since I have nothing better to do right now :)

This article though, is simply an summary of what Sacred brings to the 360. Sacred 2 is a hack N slash dungeon crawling RPG. If you like any of the following games, you will most likely find something for you in Sacred 2:

Diablo
Diablo II
Titan Quest
Dungeon Siege
Too Human
Baldur's Gate(Console Versions from Xbox and PS2)
Champions of Norrath
Neverwinter Nights
Loki
Fate
The Witcher

And anyone who likes MMO style RPGs will most likely enjoy it as well since it has a HUGE wide open world where you are free to do anything including ignore the story line. The gameplay is most similar to the Diablo games, and this is about the best compliment I can give an RPG. Your main goal is to go around killing monsters, collecting better equipment, so you can kill even bigger monsters for better gear. One thing that quickly sets Sacred apart from games like Diablo is the shear size of the world! There are over 40 separate towns/cities, and multiple regions and environments. Forests, Swamps, Deserts, Islands, Caves, Dungeons… etc…. The size of the world is amazing. It is actually possible to complete the entire story line without having seen more than 25% of the world. There is actually an achievement for it. There are literally hundreds of side quests in this game that have nothing to do with the story. Each character has there own storyline as well outside of the main campaign. So you have the Campaign Story line with it’s quests, this is the one that would count as “beating” the game when it is completed. There are two versions of the main story line (light, dark) which changes the overall story and some of your other options. Then you have each classes story line quests, these are different for each character type. You then have the hundreds of side quests. So not only is the world HUGE, but the amount of quests you have the options of going on are nearly endless.

Another huge place where Sacred allows you to really dig in is customization of your character. In most action RPGs that I have played your characters can reach a maximum level of somewhere between 50 and 80. In Sacred 2, your character can reach a max of level 200! That is a lot of time to work on perfecting your character. Also, besides the typical system most games have a letting you increase a couple skills, Sacred has some crazy options for beefing up your character, I will go more into these in another post, but the basics are this:

Attributes:
At each level you will gain a point to add to your attributes (Strength, Dexterity, Willpower, etc…) These allow you to improve your characters stats, HP, damage, etc…

Skills:
As your character levels you get Skills. Each character can have 10 skills and these can differ between classes. Skills help you to shape what type of character you are playing. For example some skills are Sword Weapons (Increases your abilities with all types of swords), Armor Lore (Increases your bonuses from armor as well as allowing you to where higher level armor than you normally would), etc… So skills allow you to shape your character, there are over 20 skills, however you can only choose 10 of them to specialize in. At certain levels you can learn a new skills, at every level you gain points to put into your existing skills to increase their power/affect.

Combat Arts:

Combat Arts are individual “Moves” that you can learn and use in battle. These are what most games would refer to as skills. In Sacred, each character class has 15 combat arts that they can learn. These CA’s (Combat Arts) are broken into three categories or aspects. You might have a CA that allows you to shoot fireballs, or hit multiple enemies at a time with your sword. You do not have to wait till you level up in order to improve these arts. As you kill monsters in the world, they will drop runes. Using a rune will increase the associated combat art by one level. In this way, you can quickly beef up some of your combat arts even at a lower level. You can also put your combat arts into combos. This allows you to assign one button to launch a series of combat arts.

You also have an amazing amount of equipment that can be found and used in Sacred 2. Similar to Diablo and other games, you have regular items, magic items, rare items, unique items, legendary items and set items.

In order to allow you to actually utilize all of this, there are multiple difficulties in Sacred 2. You can start in Bronze or Silver difficulty, once you have defeated silver, you can then take your character and start them in Gold Difficulty. This way you can continue with your existing character and continue to build and improve them against harder and harder enemies. After Gold there is also Platinum and Niobium difficulties…

You can play alone, or you can play co-op with another person on the same Xbox, or online with up to 3 other people in your game. There is also a leaderboard that tracks the top players in the world.

Well that is about it for now. I will have more later and will start with an article covering the leveling/skills/combat arts system in the game in more depth. Stay tuned…

Here are the games currently installed and being played on the new beast machine:

So my new computer arrived last week and is finally setup and ready to go. Had to take a few extra days since the wrong version of Vista Shipped with it (32 as opposed to 64bit) and I had to wait for a 64bit disk to arrive in the mail. I now have everything setup and most of my games installed. Over the coming days I will be doing some write ups covering some of the games I am playing as well as some info on performance for this machine as well as the SideWinder products (x6 Keyboard, X8 Mouse, Sidewinder Mouse (Original), etc…)

Can’t wait to jump back into some games with everyone, feel free to let me know what you are playing right now. Most recently I picked up Crysis Maximum Edition (Includes Crysis, Cyrsis Warhead and Crysis Wars) and Demigod (AWESOME GAME).

Alright, just a short not for now… see you later.

So the time has finally come for me to bury my gaming machine. I built it 3 years ago and while it has served it’s purpose well and with honor…. it is dying and I must put it out of it’s misery… The motherboard finally started going out on me not too long ago. I have done much testing across all components and it is the Motherboard… I am running a Athlon 64 X2 4800+, 4GB of DDR 500 (OCZ Platinum), a Geforce 8800GTX, X-Fi Xtreme Gamer, and a variety of optical and Hard drives. All sitting in a nice case. Rather than simply replace the Mobo, I figure it is about time to upgrade. While not having enough free time due to work and travel to build another behemoth, and with my second baby on the way (Alexander James – Due August 17 ‘09) I can’t really justify going all new so I took a middle route.

Dell recently had a sale on their Dell Outlet site. If you are not familiar with it, Dell takes machines that have been returned/scratched/dented/ or that were ordered and then canceled and sells them for a much lower price on the dell outlet site. The site is update pretty much hourly with whatever machines Dell has available. With enough patience and a good idea of what you want, you can within a few days get a REALLY good deal on a computer. This time around I figured I want something that will handle all my gaming and not have to worry too much about upgrades… and while I am at it, why not make it sexy?!!?!?! So I figured I would target the XPS gaming machines, the latest models are the XPS 630, 730 and 730x. So each day I would go to the outlet site a few times and put in my criteria… I wanted at least 4 GBs of Ram, Video card with 1024MB (1GB) of memory, a decent speed hard drive off 500Gb or more, and hopefully a good processor. Now it can be easy to find an XPS 630 on the site with specs almost matching this for around $800 but they disappear very quickly and usually the video card is not that good. The 730x machines have Intel’s newest Core i7 Processors which are amazing, but, those machines even refurbished tend to run around $2500+. My goal was to spend around $1200. Once in awhile their would be a 730x for around my price range on the list, but it would be gone before I could even add it to my cart, I swear there are people who constantly monitor the site for these deals… Anyway… this mainly left me targeting the 730 systems. While the 730 does not have the i7 chipset with the new processors, it does have the Nvidia 790i chipset that allows for some really nice processors as well as DDR3 memory and will support multiple Nvidia (SLI) or multiple ATI/AMD (Crossfire X) cards… which leaves room for a very powerful system with some really nice graphics options. So after a couple weeks of checking the Dell outlet site a couple times a day, I finally saw the perfect system pop up on the list, the following are the specs for those interested:

Dell XPS 730
Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme QX9650 (Quad Core 3.0 GHz w/ 12MB cache)
4GB DDR3 Memory (1333MHz)
NVidia GTX 280 (w/ 1024MB video Ram)
500GB SATA II Drive (7200 RPM, NCQ)
16x DVD/RW Drive
Creative X-Fi Extreme Music
Dell XPS 730 Case in Stealth Blue Anodized Aluminum

The Listed Price was about $1500 but Dell was also running a 15% off coupon which brought it right down to about my price range. Add in free shipping and I call it a great deal! I will of course be salvaging what I can from the old machine Namely my Lightscribe DVD/RW drives and my SATA HDDs. The new video card will be able to push my new 24” Samsung Monitor(1920x1200, 3MS, 20,000:1 Contrast) pretty good in some of the newer games. I will be pairing it up with some of my other new goodies, Sidewinder X6 keyboard and my newest toy the Sidewinder X8 mouse. Needless to say I am drooling waiting for the machine to land at my house. I am pretty sure with how powerful it is, it will most likely waste no time in demanding I take it to my leaders so that it can officially announce that it has conquered our little planet… yeah…. uh…. yeah….

Once the machine arrives and I have had some time to actually get it setup, I will do some reviews of some of the new sidewinder products as well as some comparisons based on actual gameplay. I may also just slap Windows 7 RC on their since it has released to MSDN and Technet Subscribers… though by the time it does arrive, Windows 7 RC will be available to the general public as well.

Anyway… while I sit here in Phoenix waiting to find out when the latest flight delay will finally allow me to go home… I figured I would share… that’s about it for now. More soon….

Frag you later…

So the last major refresh of the Games for Windows Live platform added a couple things I have been waiting for, for quite some time. A dedicated desktop client and marketplace similar to what you have on the 360. This now gives you the ability to download demos, media, add-ons, etc… for your favorite Games for Windows Live titles.

On other thing that happened a ways back that also made some major changes, was that Games for Windows Live became a free service. The same features that you would get with a Gold account on the Xbox 360 Live network. The ability to have a shared pool of achievements, friends list, matchmaking, etc… all for free. Good stuff.

The next major refresh of Games for Windows Live is coming later this year. A few of the features that I am really looking forward to are:

• Game Saves that travel with your profile. You log into another computer, your saved games and preferences are there for you. You roam, so why shouldn’t your saved games go with you? Now they will.
• DRM Free – The Games For Windows Live system will not care how many computers you install your game on, it just cares that you are logged into your account. Now there is some inherent protection in the system since you can only be logged in at one place at a time. Also the game developers are still free to build in their choice of DRM schemes, but the platform itself will not impose any DRM on your games. Your license is tied to your account, not the machine.
• Games will now have the ability to have their own in game storefront similar to games on the 360 network (i.e. Burnout Paradise, RockBand 2, etc…). This will allow for a more seamless experience where you do not have to exit the game and launch the G4WL client in order to download or purchase DLC (Downloadable Content), patches, add-ons, etc…

For some more good info you can always drop by the Games for Windows Site, and you may want to check out this interview with Drew Johnston the GPM of the Live engagement team on Windows, you can find it HERE.

There are more announcements coming as well at GDC and other events in the year ahead, new games coming to the Games for Windows Live platform, more features, etc… Looks like it will be an exciting year. I still have some items on my own wish list that I would love to see… In no particular order:

• Music Integration – Similar to what you have on the 360, I would love to be able to specify music or playlists from my library as my own custom soundtrack to the game. Done intelligently as it is on the 360 where it is transparent and seamless once it has been started and replaces only the in game music.
• Direct Integration with the Vista Game Explorer interface. The ability to see content available to the game access friends lists etc… right from the game explorer. Especially with gaming products like the Sidewinder line which have a dedicated button that brings up the game explorer, this would make the overall user experience that much more cohesive and seamless.
• Media for Games – Offer Windows Themes, Wallpapers, Icons, Messenger Icons and Themes, etc… for games in the G4WL marketplace. I love my games and instead of hunting around on the net for media to help me enable my computer to reflect that, give me access to it all in one place.
• Arcade Games – I would love if some of the arcade games were offered in the G4WL marketplace.
• Zune integration – Of course the crowning jewel… let my live profile work on my Zune and give me a gaming experience that allows me to use my profile, friends, etc… and of course get achievements… I understand there are technological hurdles here… but hey… A guy can dream right?

Coming soon, I will be doing some reviews/write-ups of some of the Sidewinder products… I happen to have quite a collection of PC gaming peripherals and figure it might be good to share my experience with them to see if it can help anyone else make some decisions on what tools they want to bring to their next fragging session! Now outside the fact of where I work, I have traditionally been a Logitech fella. I was very thrilled when the Sidewinder team and Brand were resurrected and have spent a good deal of time working not only with some of the products that the team has put out but some of our other products that preceded them. I still have a good deal of Logitech stuff, I also have some of our products that were made in partnership with Razer (i.e. The Reclusa Keyboard and Habu Mouse) as well as some other gaming keyboards… So I have had a good chance to try them all and have come to some conclusions that I will share soon.

Gears of War 2 Rankings Revised: A change is coming…

So this month is going to be a huge month for Gears of War 2 fans. We are getting some new systems introduced into the game that should mostly satisfy those that are not happy with the current true skill ranking system. We are also getting a new map pack with a winter theme (just in time for spring?), that includes what is probably the most requested Map from the original gears (Hint: There is some fuel, and maybe a depot…).

First lets look at some of the changes to ranking that are coming. Currently in Gears of War 2 the rank that is displayed next to your name is based completely on the true skill ranking system. This means that your rank is based mostly on your win loss ratio. Other factors contribute to it, mainly the rank of the players on each team determines how far up or down your rank moves based on who won or lost the match. Winning moves it up, losing moves it down, if your team ranks above or below the average rank of the other team it will affect how far up or down your rank goes as well.

There are some issues with this that most people have experienced, it can be really hard to move up in rank. This is mainly due to the fact that your win loss ratio is the contributing factor and that it is controlled for the most part by how well your team does. So no matter if you are the highest scoring player in the game, if your team loses, you lose rank. So the only sure fire way to rank up is by winning. Some people figure that the best way to control this is play a game with smaller teams like wingman, where you only have to count on one other person. The problem with this is that in wingman you have 5 teams so at best you start with only a 20% chance of winning. With elimination matches you have 2 teams so you start already at 50%. Some people have developed ways of cheating to rank up by lagging other players or by dropping out if they think they are going to lose.

The new system that will go into affect on March 24th (2009) will change the ranking system, and change the rank that you see next to your name in the lobby. Instead of 5 ranks, there will now be 100 levels. Similar to an RPG, or the ranking system in Call of Duty, you get points based on how you perform in game. Let me repeat… You get points only based on how YOU did, not the rest of the team. This means that at the end of each game, you get awarded points (Experience points) that go toward your next level. Now due to the way that some game modes score things, Epic has come up with a way of making it so that the points awarded are even across all game modes, that way those playing game types like king of the hill and Annex do not rank quicker than those who play game types that have lower average scoring options. So the score you get is not directly the points you will get at the end of the match towards your next rank. Most likely they will cap the number of experience points you can get in a game. This should stop people from gaming the system and coming up with exploits to increase there points per match. Also, there will be penalties enforced now for those that drop out of matches so that those who rank up by only staying in games they are winning will no longer be able to use that tactic. About damn time, if you have to cheat to rank up, your rank doesn’t really reflect your skill.

The trueskill system will still be used for match making, you just won’t see your true skill rank anymore, it will just be used behind the scenes to make teams even when matching them up. There will also be achievements related to your level going forward. Also included in the patch is logic to help identify those using lag/standby on their routers to cheat. I have been waiting for this for quite some time. I can’t stand it when I get some idiot who isn’t good enough to win normally and has to lag everyone to win and boost their rank. Your rank should reflect your skill, if you have to cheat, you don’t have enough skill to earn the rank anyway… so what's the point? Also to help balance out the game, when someone does leave, a bot player will be spawned in their place! Awesome, now when someone leaves the game won’t be as one sided. Here are some more notes on the patch from the GearsofWar.Xbox.com site:

• New experience-based ranking system: The new system gives you 100 levels of player experience, gained through scoring in Public matches. The game still uses TrueSkill to set up the most competitive matches possible, but skill ranks are now hidden. Players who quit matches early see their experience docked as a penalty.
• Public Match autobalancing: Bots now automatically join a Public Match to fill any slots left vacant by players who quit early or disconnect.
• Improvements: You get region preference for matchmaking, improved standby detection, playlist optimization, plus nine new achievements—six of which require the Snowblind Map Pack—worth a total of 250 points.
• Exploit fixes: Title Update 3 eliminates the ability to mantle greater distances by swapping weapons during cover slide and to melee attack through walls while holding an enemy weapon, plus adding many more fixes.
• General fixes: These include more reliable chainsaw interruption detection, improved headshot detection for certain character model heads, improved flag AI in Submission games, plus other fixes.
• Balancing: Title Update 3 makes changes to Subway weapon spawns for greater balance, reductions to smoke-grenade stun duration, an increase to the forward angle that triggers chainsaw duels, and several other balance revisions.

Of course, that’s just some of what’s in store for players in Title Update 3. For the complete skinny, be sure to check out the complete patch notes.

Melting the Snow: Fuel Depot makes it’s return!

So on March 31st a new map pack is coming our way. This is the third map pack from Epic and like the previous ones, has some new and some new old! :) This pack is called the SnowBlind Map Pack. It includes three new maps and a remake of a classic. First the good news… Fuel Depot is finally coming to Gears of War 2. It is being redone to match the theme of the new map pack so it will have a winter slant to it. I am hoping that the new maps might actually have snow falling to make visibility a bit rougher, but you never know. I have been waiting forever for fuel depot to make a comeback and was pretty disappointed when the combustion map pack came out and the map Fuel Station was not a remake of Fuel Depot. But now my favorite map (outside of Mansion) has made it’s way to Gears 2 and I am very pleased. So besides fuel depot there are also three new maps coming along with it bringing the total to 4 maps in this package. Below is the description of the map pack from the GearsofWar.Xbox.com site:

Continuing on our look at upcoming action RPGs for the 360... Let's jump right in. More hack and slash on the 360 is needed almost as badly as more cow bell!

The Witcher

Originally a PC game based on the first Neverwinter Nights engine(if I remember correctly). The team at CDProjekt have done an amazing job by completely overhauling the entire game engine for the consoles. They describe it more as an entirely new game that follows the same story of the original more than just a port of the PC game. The move to consoles has led to the complete reinvention of the combat system making it much more dynamic and fluid.

The world of the Witcher is very dark and gritty. The main character is a Witcher, basically a super powerful hunter of all things dark and evil. The witchers are not human, they are in a way, mutants. They are not well liked by humans but are needed when there is a job that needs to be done. The decisions you make effect the world around you and you will find that not all decisions are simply right or wrong. Many fall into a grey area with cases of "Lesser of two evils..." sprinkled in as well.

Overview of the Game from the Official web site:

Welcome to a world that knows no mercy – none is received, and none is given. Only physical and mental agility can keep you alive, though they are by no means a guarantor of life. You play the role of Geralt – an already legendary monster-slayer, but this, my friend, is not a gift and is certainly not given lightly. “The Witcher” is an immense computer game. Within its realm, you will have to assume the burden of choice. And this burden of choice, as light as it may appear, is the very thing that will both permit you to wield influence over the fate of the world, as well as get you slain prematurely.

Be assured, my friend, combat with all its attendant viciousness and brutality will not let you pass by, unchallenged. However, the path before you isn’t simple; you are about to be entangled in an intense and intricate plot, which will constantly require instantaneous decisions on your part. Decision-making, therefore, is the real challenge here, so get ready to confront it. For, regardless of the choices you make, the path you choose to tread, and the infamous sang-froid of your character, it will all take its heavy toll on your moral conscience. You shall quickly discover that the difference between Good and Evil, provided it even exists, is as thin as the edge of a blade, if not more so. And it is you who ultimately decides what path Geralt, the White Wolf, shall walk.

The story of “The Witcher” is set in the realm of bestselling fantasy saga by the same title, conjured to life by Andrzej Sapkowski – one of the most acclaimed Polish contemporary writers. It is into his unique world of pervasive magic, bitter conflict, and occasional dark humor, that you will be immersed. Bare in mind, however, that your voluntary entry into this world will most definitely not allow for any trace of compassion or leniency – esteem and the right to live are hard to come by.

For more information on the Witcher, you can go to the official site: The Witcher

Two Worlds: The Temptation

The original Two Worlds for the 360 was a fun game but had some flaws that kept it from being a hit. A large open world automatically drew comparisons to Oblivion. This would have been a good thing if not for the rough graphics and some other issues (Lag when every autosaving comes to mind...). While it was still a fun game if you could get past the issues, the new game was built from the ground up on a much better engine and looks very promising. New physics, new graphics, new everything and it shows. I am really looking forward to this as I am hoping it will be everything the original was meant to be and more.

Here is some more info:

... Return to the vast world of Antaloor in Two Worlds: the Temptation, the stunning sequel to 2007's Two Worlds for Xbox 360 and the PC. After their deception by Gandohar, the orc hordes are out for bloody revenge - along with a powerful female partner. Travel the lands and towns of Antaloor including an expanded area Southeast and experience breathtaking landscapes, lively cities, and the thrilling call of ferocious battle.

Two Worlds: The Temptation features a completely new gameplay engine built specifically for the Xbox 360, as well as a revised combat system, new enemies, improved animations and an enhanced AI. This combined with the extremely detailed, interactive environment, a totally revamped inventory and spell-management tool, and an improved physics system, will be sure to make Temptation a must-have title for RPG fans.

GAME FEATURES:

• Explore new, uncharted areas of Antaloor with the ability to sail the seas, delve into new underworld dungeons and caves, and traverse expanded lands to the Southeast
• Expanded arsenal of weapon and magic, new monsters and animals, and a restricted magic and inventory management system
• Finely detailed textures and exquisite artwork combined with a band-new engine built specifically for the Xbox 360
• Set up four complete armor sets to swap into at the press of a button

You can find out more on the official site: Two Worlds: The Temptation

Well that's it for now. Can't think of any more action RPGs coming to the 360 this year. If you have any that I am missing please feel free to let me know and I will add them to this.

So one of the things I am the most exited about for the new year is the shear number of RPG's coming to the 360. And I know we have a good deal of them already, but I mean Hack and Slash Style RPG's in the vein of Diablo. Looking forward there are so many good looking options coming down the pipeline. I figured I would take a few minutes to look at some of the games I am most excited about for this year. As some of these may tend to get a bit long, I will break this up into a couple posts so I can focus a bit on each game.

Sacred 2: Fallen Angel

This Game looks amazing. I had the original Sacred for the PC and while it had some issues it was a great game and provided many of the things I had been craving from the Diablo days. The sequel looks to improve on it in every way. The graphics are amazing (for this type of game), the world is huge! And the classes are very interesting.

Here are some of the features:

• A massive, seamless and dynamic world delivering hundreds of hours of free-form exploration
• Two campaigns: play as the “Light” or “Shadow” side, complete with distinct skills, rewards and story-elements tailored to the chosen path
• Six exceptional, playable characters, each with a distinct look, capabilities and in-game motivation
• Modifiable combat arts: change, upgrade and link together your alter ego’s combat skills to match your playing style
• Fight effectively from the back of a number of mounts under your control; equip and upgrade your character’s unlockable special mount.
• Deities offer unique combat disciplines and unlock additional quests.
  The ultimate multiplayer experience – seamless transition between single- and multiplayer gaming modes via LAN, the Internet, or Xbox Live
• Captivating online modes of play challenge gamers in cooperative, PvP and PvE play
• Extraordinary, cutting-edge graphics and Dolby™ 5.1 channel surround sound utilize the latest technologies for a truly immersive experience

You can find out more about the game and the Story at the official Site. Sacred 2 Fallen Angel

Dragon Age: Origins

While this may not be a true Hackfest, it is more akin to the Baldurs Gate games for the PC. Not the ones for the Xbox and PS2 as those were actually very good hack and slash games themselves. But a more story driven game. If you have played any of the following games you should be awaiting Dragon Age eagerly: Baldurs Gate (I and II), Ice Wind Dale (I and II), Planescape: Torment (One of the most amazing PC RPGs ever created), NeverWinter Nights (I and II). Dragon Age is the Spiritual Successor to Baldurs Gate. It does not stick to the Dungeons and Dragons ruleset that so many of the others have. Bioware has decided to go with their own IP on this to give them freedom of creativity. I can't wait to see how this game turns out on the consoles. These are also the same people responsible for games like Knights of the Old Republic and MASS Effect, so you know they are good with consoles!

Here is a summary:

Origin stories are a major feature of the Dragon Age experience. You choose your origin, and from that starting point, your story begins. You play through your character’s early days, defining his or her background and motivation and begin to learn more about the world of Ferelden from your own distinct perspective. Your choice of origin defines how you will view the world and how it views you. Choose a sneaky, disrespected commoner and you will play a story that focuses around subtle skills and careful wordplay. Choose a noble origin and the world will be much more positive and helpful, but those jealous of your status will not be afraid to take what you have, violently if necessary. More will be revealed on these stories soon…

In Dragon Age, your choices change the world and affect the people around you. Certain situations, storylines, and conversation options will change drastically depending on your origin and your motivations.

Every journey through Ferelden will be unique.

For more information on Dragon Age: Origins check the official site: Dragon Age: Origins

I will have another article with some more Action RPG goodness very soon... stay tuned...

Things have been a bit hectic lately. Between Layoffs at Microsoft (Luckily I still have my position), my mother passing away last week and other things in general, life has been a bit challenging of late. I am luckily doing better this week and figured it was time to update the blog. I will be posting some new articles shortly (as in tonight for starters...) and will hopefully get to start doing some gaming again with some of you. Right now I am going to eat some dinner, then I will be back with stuff that is more interesting for you.

So after much experimenting and also talking to co-workers… I have gotten a nice little list of some of the more useful desktop keyboard shortcuts for Windows 7. I will post the list here just in case you might find it helpful. If you have found or know of other useful keyboard shortcuts in Windows 7 please feel free to let me know and I will add them. These ones mainly deal with manipulating windows on the desktop in Windows 7:

That is about all I can remember off the top of my head, if I think of or find any more I will update this post, also if you have found any new ones, please let me know via comments, and I will add them to this list as well. I will also do another post this week, that covers some of the changes to the way other bits within Windows 7 desktop function. Hopefully this is helpful for you.

So I figured I would start out slow, I have to remember the hardware on this machine is not the latest and greatest so I figured I would start with something that I am sure this hardware can handle, Dungeon Siege II should be a good first test.

I never did get to far into this game originally since at the time I was on a team where my job was mostly travel and I just didn’t have time to sink into an RPG. Though I still don’t have a lot of free time, I figure that this is as good a time as any to start.

The install is running now so once it is up and I have some time put in, I will have more info. I have also installed the entire Windows Live Suite of Software on this machine and it seems to be playing well with Windows 7. Messenger, Live Writer, they all work very well and I have seen no issues yet. More later…

So I am writing this from one of my old laptops that I haven’t used in a couple of years. With the release of Windows 7 Beta, I felt it was time to start seeing how it would work by first testing it on an older laptop. I figure I will start using this laptop as a test bed for Windows 7 and see if I can use it for my daily tasks like I do my Vista machines. Now this machine is a bit out of date compared to most of my machines, it is running a pentium 4, 1.25GB of Ram and a Mobility Radeon 9700 graphics card. While the machine is no slouch, it is definitely a pre-Vista machine. Fujitsu does not even make vista drivers for most of the components so I am already surprised that I was able to get Windows 7 up and running. With a bit of sweat and magic, I was able to get some drivers loaded for the video card even, so I have the nice new Glass UI in full effect… I have to say that so far I am impressed. This thing almost seems faster than my gaming machine which is a desktop running a AMD 64 x2 4800+ dual core processor, 4GB or DDR and a Geforce 8800GTX. Though I am not currently running anything super resource intensive right now, I am still very impressed with how snappy it is.

Any way, work in the morning so I had better get some sleep.

Finally got Left 4 Dead on the 360. I haven't gotten very far yet, I got it used with no box or manual so I started going through the "No Mercy" campaign on easy to get used to the gameplay and controls. I have found 2 safe rooms so far so I figure I am about half way through the scenario. I have managed to get 3 achievements in my first 30 minutes of playing, they are:

Achievements
Gamerscore

Witch Hunter
Kill a Witch without any Survivor taking damage from her.

20
Acquired 12/8/2008

Cr0wnd
Kill a Witch with a single headshot.

30
Acquired 12/8/2008

Tongue Twister
Free yourself from a Smoker who has grabbed you with his tongue.

20
Acquired 12/8/2008

Since these are the first three I got I figure they must be the easiest, I was surprised I didn't get any for clearing an act/chapter of the story. But oh well, 70 points for about 20-30 minutes of play aint too bad.

I can't wait to play online, I just actually want to get used to the game first, I still haven't figured out how to use health packs, pain killers or explosives yet.

I think I got lucky on the witch. I walked into a room and there she was right in front of me. One of my computer controlled teammates yelled, "Cut your lights!", so I killed my flashlight and walked up to her slowly and she look right at me, I put the muzzle of the shotgun right between her eyes and pulled the trigger.... DING DING DING... Two achievements popped up! NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICE!

Anyway... I will report more once I have had a chance to play some more and get used to things.

So here is a breakdown of how my stats look this week. My Win/Loss ratio is finally starting to turn around, while it is still in the down side right now, playing a lot of Warzone and Guardian have really started helping. I still end up being a top scorer on the losing team much of the time. The first game below shows this pretty well, top scorer in the game, but we still lost. But now that I have more friends to team with, the wins are starting to add up. First here are my latest two games from Last night, not too bad at all:

Taken from my stats page at www.gearsofwar.com/Webstats

 
Of those 33 kills between those two games, 28 of them were from frag grenades planted just right... or thrown at just the right time... :)

And here are my overall stats for Gears of War 2 Multiplayer so far:

And yes... I suck at Chainsaw Duels... I just am never ready when they start... sad...

Also to show just how effective you can be with grenades by following my Field Tactics Guide (Located HERE), this is what my current Grenade Stats look like:

Not bad with only 250 total games played so far, I have almost as many frag kills as I have games played. I will leave out Ink Grenade stats in order to not make this post too long and I almost never seem to get to them first on many maps, but currently I am at 34 kills with ink and 13 deaths by ink grenades.

Feel free to share your stats too. Also anyone looking for some public matches feel free to send me an invite!

So lately I have had a good deal of frustration in Gears of War 2. My kill/death ratio is good, I have about 2 kills for each death. But my ranking is not going up. Now this is the part where I have to get more specific about the rankings in Gears of War 2. Similar to Games like Halo 3 and COD 4, Gears of War 2 has two separate rank systems.

True Skill Rank:

The symbols you see next to other players names in the lobby and in game are true skill rankings. These are not related in anyway to the leaderboards. True skill ranking is used specifically to match up evenly skilled teams in multiplayer Public (Ranked) matches. The ranking goes up as your win/loss ration does. This means that outside of your team winning, your individual performance does not get accounted for. Take for example something that has happened to me many times. You are the top scorer in the match, but your team still loses. In this circumstance, your true skill ranking drops. For me (as well as others I am sure) is extremely frustrating. This means that my individual true skill rank is entirely dependant on the players I end up teamed with. While this might not be a big deal for those that constantly play with the same core team of players, it gets real disappointing for those of use that don't always get to play with the same group and who go into match making alone.

There are some ways to minimize the impact of your teammates such as playing WingMan where you only have one teammate. This I thought would be my way of upping my true skill ranking. I would go into WingMan matches and if my partner sucked, it was much better than having 4 partners that sucked. While in theory this sounds good, the facts are that statistically the odds are against you in WingMan. You have 5 teams of 2. Which means you have 20% chance of winning. In game modes like elimination where you 2 teams of 5, you have a 50/50 chance of winning right off the bat since there are only 2 teams and one has to win.

Winning a match against a team that has higher ranking than your current team gets you more point than winning against an overall lower ranked team. Losing takes points away from your true skill ranking and with enough points lost you can lose rank. Unlike Halo you do not get as large a number of ranks in gears 2. What you get are 5 overall rank buckets. You have no good way of knowing how close you are to ranking up or down since each rank covers a pretty big range of skill levels. Here are the ranks:

While I now realize that I can pretty much ignore the true skill ranking as being an indicator of someones true skill (I know.. haha...) since it is in fact more about their teams skill, it is frustrating to me to know that my true skill is not in any way shape or form reflected in the rank that others see when I enter a game...

For more information on the True skill rank system in Gears, check out the post by SixOkay over in the official Gears of War Forums... Here is the link so you don't have to dig through the pages of whining and complaining to get to the useful information. Understanding your Gears Ranking

Leaderboards Rank:

The other ranking you get in Gears of War 2 are the leaderboard rankings. These are the rankings that all of your kills and points count towards. Each game type has a leaderboard. You can see them in game in the war journal. These are completely a reflection of what you have done as an individual in Gears of War 2 and a much better indicator of what your actual skill is in the game. Every time you get points they get added to your overall score for that game type and adjust your standing in the leaderboards.

Stats:

You can check your overall stats on the Gears of War website HERE. This will let you see a breakdown of kills, deaths, wins, losses, etc... and even let you dig into more detail and display your stats on a per map basis or per game type basis. This is a great way of figuring out what game types and maps you win/lose the most on which also gives you a good idea of what you may want to improve on to become a better player.

Anyway... hope this clears up some of the confusion around rank in Gears and helps to get the word out.