Matt Swider
Matt Swider has been writing about video games for 12 years, starting Gaming Target in 1999 and contributing to G4TV, GamesRadar, GamePro, PlayStation: The Official Magazine, Machinima and UGO. He lives in LA and earned his journalism degree from Penn State University. Read more articles
Positive News
Sales figures are in for CoD MW3 in the US, UK. It breaks the record number of CoD Black Ops day-one sales.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has, unsurprisingly, achieved record-breaking sales figures for its first day on the market in the United States and United Kingdom, according to Activision. With an estimated sell-through of more than $400 million and 6.5 million units in 24 hours, CoD MW3 is now the biggest entertainment launch ever. Which sales king is it replacing in the number one slot? None other than last year’s Call of Duty release, CoD Black Ops. Which game did Black Ops replace last year? The previous year’s Call of Duty release, CoD MW2. I think you’re beginning to see the trend.
"We believe the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is the biggest entertainment launch of all time in any medium, and we achieved this record with sales from only two territories," said Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick. "Other than Call of Duty, there has never been another entertainment franchise that has set opening day records three years in a row. Life-to-date sales for the Call of Duty franchise exceed worldwide theatrical box office for ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Lord of the Rings,’ two of the most successful entertainment franchises of all time."
The consecutively higher sales totals make this the third year in a row that Call of Duty has set day one launch records across all forms of entertainment. Activision boasts that “this is something no other entertainment franchise in any medium has ever accomplished.” That proud statement comes from the same company that claimed for the game that this was “the biggest video game in history” in its MW launch trailer. I guess there’s some merit to that ridiculed claim now.
Positive Review
WW3 has been declared, so Matt and Alex review the game to help you determine if you should join the fight or stay neutral.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 opens with the invasion of New York City by Russian forces, a result of the American-blamed terror attack that occurred in a Moscow airport during MW2. With world-famous buildings being annihilated and iconic-looking yellow taxi cabs set ablaze by falling skyscraper debris, the gutted streets of Manhattan already look lost to the series’ persistent Russian enemy. However, the same can be said about Call of Duty’s fight againt its exterior opposition. Battlefield 3 launched two weeks ago with strong support from the PC community, the original Call of Duty developer, Infinity Ward, lost a chunk of its founding staff during development, and a few outspoken gamers are calling this eighth edition of Call of Duty “more of the same” and “merely downloadable content.” However, the fall of Call of Duty is as likely as the Russian’s winning in the end of MW3. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3’s thrill-ride of a campaign, impressive Spec Ops additions and greatly expanded multiplayer mode makes this the easiest $60 you’ll spend in 2011.
The Campaign
Beginning the game by gunning your way through bombed-out buildings of New York’s Financial District strikes a nerve, one that FPS rival Homefront wasn’t able to deliver earlier this year. You’ll navigate your way through the twisted steel of the city’s forever-changed concrete jungle, snipe enemies while taking cover behind the statue of George Washington in front of Federal Hall and flank Russian soldiers holdup in the booths of the stock market trading floor. Ending this NYSE-located battle with “Your stock has gone down, comrade” is entirely up to you.
What’s not your call is the tempo of the action; it’s always intense. The MW3’s six hours touch all parts of the globe, notably countries that are typically terrorism-free. Watching New York, London, Paris and Germany fall in their own unique way, then touring the globe to take revenge is riveting enough to keep you playing through all six hours in one sitting. The campaign’s seamless transition between missions never gives you a chance to be bored and the mission structure itself offers a good amount of variety. The second level, for example, has you scuba diving through a submerged Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, storm the cockpit of an enemy nuclear submarine and make your getaway in a speedboat. Subsequently, you perform a little bit of quick-time-event surgery on a fallen buddy in the third level. This means that in a half hour’s time, you’re a scuba diver, nuclear sub captain, speedboat pilot and doctor - it’s hard not to feel as if you’re a jack of all trades and Call of Duty is the master of fun.
Positive Preview
None of the 7 reasons contain VII as a reason.
The number 13 is almost universally considered unlucky, but for Square Enix and its flagship franchise, Final Fantasy XIII is bound to be another million-plus seller on March 9. That’s day one for the U.S. version of the game. Gaming Target was given the afternoon to play test it in English at Square Enix’s Los Angeles offices, so we can tell you first hand why you don’t want to avoid this superstition-free title and why it’ll be next month’s most popular videogame.
Reason 1: PS3, Xbox 360 (superior systems, fresh audience)
Generally, FFVII and FFX are considered the highlights of this successful JRPG series, and, in both cases, they were the debut FF games for their respective systems, PlayStation and PS2. Likewise, Final Fantasy XIII marks the debut of the franchise on Sony’s third console, PS3. By premiering on such a high-end system, FFXIII is open to similar benefits of new gamers and more advanced technology. At the same time, it’s also the first story-based Final Fantasy game to appear on the Xbox 360. While 360 owners did receive FFXI, it was an MMORPG and one that released two years after the PS2 version. Again, a fresh set of players and hardware that’s leaps and bounds better than the previous generation.
Reason 2: HD Graphics from the ground up
Continuing with the game’s sequence of firsts, FFXIII is the first FF to be developed from the ground up for high-definition consoles. From our time with the nearly complete English version, we got to experience a portion of the Pulse underworld, an open field ripe for battle. It was full of detailed enemies, including large-sized Behemoth Kings and massively-sized Adamantoise. But as rich as these animated beasts looked while roaming through the vast grass environment, it pales in comparison to what we didn’t see in the demo. That’s what has us excited the most. Besides Gran Pulse, the game boasts another world, Cocoon. It contrasts with Pulse in that it’s a high-tech, man-made city built above the forest underworld. Because a majority of the countless hours you’ll put into FFXIII take place in Cocoon, there’s a lot we have yet to discover.
Positive Review
Problem-solvers will love getting to the bottom or, often times, the top of these elaborate puzzle designs.
If the French film pioneer Georges Méliès had an Xbox Live Arcade game, it would be The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom. Like his 1902 movie “A Trip to the Moon,” this downloadable game illustrates the silent film era with black-and-white graphics riddled with film grain and an energetic theatre organ soundtrack to back them up. The gameplay is comparable to a handful of flash and downloadable titles of the same genre, so developer The Odd Gentlemen may not go down in history as being as groundbreaking as Méliès. Nevertheless, the team’s artfully crafted presentation makes for a puzzle platformer that’s timeless in every sense.
P.B. Winterbottom is a pie-obsessed thief who wears a top hat that’s as long as his nose and carries an umbrella that allows his short, stocky body to glide to normally out-of-reach treats. Each of the game’s 75 levels is short, sometimes to the point of showing the entire stage in a single frame. Levers, switches, springs and seesaws assist Winterbottom in his quest to collect every pie in sight. Fire, water and heights get in his way.
However, it’s Winterbottom himself whose the biggest aid and obstacle. The crux of the gameplay is recording his actions so that clones can help him climb and cross the levels, just as long as clones don’t cross each other with a whack of the umbrella. Sometimes it’s as simple as holding down the Right Trigger to record, then pressing A to leap, which results in a continually jumping clone who’s top hat you can climb on to in order to acquire a pie in the sky.
Positive Review
There's a lot going on in the CoD MW3 trailer, so give you the YouTube play-by-play.
Last night's Call of Duty: Mondern Warfare 3 reveal trailer took us from United States to Germany, with both countries under attack and more devastation in between than we could keep track of in one viewing. This minute-and-a-half trailer opens with New York City under attack, specifically Manhattan's south side. From this vantage point along the East River, the camera moves inland to the Financial District along Wall Street. There, the flag-draped, world-famous New York Stock Exchange building is shown with a tattered, torn and partially burned American flag. With a flip of an ammo cartridge between two members of the US Armed Forces, then a submarine firing a series of missiles, the trailer turns to England.
At first, England experiences the same sort of chaos set against the backdrop of Big Ben and Parliament. But the trailer quickly turns its attention underground, where a pickup truck is racing alongside a subway, only to slam into the lead train car. This sends the train hurtling into the many support columns that line the Tube.
In France, American forces arrive in Paris via helicopter to storm the streets that surround the Eiffel Tower. At the same time, there's a helicopter gunship shooting at a terrorist-driven van that's driving through one of the city's museums with a glass ceiling. Sorry, tourists. The paintings of Vincent van Gogh might be van Gone when WW3 begins.
