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EGM Review: The Amazing Spider-Man 2

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May 18, 2014

Spider-Man No More

If you’re like me, Beenox is a developer still relatively fresh on your radar. Sure, they ported some Spider-Man games to the PC in the mid-2000s, but it wasn’t until 2010’s Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions­, when the studio took point on the web-slinger’s gaming presence, that they really grabbed my attention. Since then, they’ve delivered three solid Spider-Man games in a row, a feat that hasn’t been done, in my opinion, since the LJN/Acclaim days. Unfortunately, it seems that all good things must come to an end, because Beenox’s latest, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, is one of the worst Spider-Man games I’ve ever played.

Right from the get-go, the game may confuse more casual fans, since it’s not a true “movie tie-in.” Instead, you need to go back to Beenox’s first Amazing Spider-Man game. There, they didn’t follow Marc Webb’s first take on the character beat for beat, but rather continued the story of that movie: You played through the fallout of Dr. Curt Connors’ cross-species research and fought several new creatures that resulted from it. Since Sony Pictures seemingly wasn’t enamored with the idea of having their blockbuster movie franchise follow the story a game created, Beenox continued their story from The Amazing Spider-Man, thus crafting an alternate continuity from the films. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 game, therefore, only has the loosest of tie-ins to the new movie in that Green Goblin and Electro are there (Rhino isn’t, because in Beenox’s Amazing Spider-Man universe, he’s a cross-species monster).

Still with me? Once you wrap your head around the multiverse idea, it’s not the worst thing that could’ve happened. This allows Beenox to still have a little creative freedom with the story and not be regimented to following a movie script. After the complicated setup, however, things quickly become mundane in regards to the narrative: Each chapter devolves into loosely tied-together boss battles. In fact, there’s barely any narrative cohesion, period. Most of the story relies on your ability to find audiotape collectibles instead of actually telling you as you progress through the game.

And the dialogue is some of the worst I’ve ever heard in a game, from both Spider-Man as well as his foes. My favorite was a thug screaming out “I like to hurt people!”—truly the bad-guy equivalent to “I like turtles” if I ever heard one. At the very least, the actors who deliver these miserable lines try the best they can with a script that clearly lacks any sort of entertainment value.

The weak narrative isn’t the only thing that makes this the worst Beenox Spider-Man yet; nearly every aspect of the gameplay is inferior to previous titles by the developer. The “menace” system, touted when the game was announced, is a joke. This is your typical “good guy/bad guy” meter that you see variations on in games like inFAMOUS and Mass Effect. As expected, it hinges on doing good deeds in the open world, or ignoring them and seeing the people’s view of you diminish. Only a handful of the same crimes repeat, however, so they become as boring as the boss battles. Meanwhile, there are usually so many going on at once that it’s a neverending uphill battle to keep Spidey from being viewed as a threat. The worst part is that all this has no influence on the narrative, and the reward for being lauded as a hero is minimal stat boosts and fewer enemies in the world. Why even bother at that point?

Also, going back to the boss battles for a brief moment, while it’s nice to see some of Spidey’s most iconic villains again in a videogame, the battles themselves are of the worst “rinse and repeat” variety, wherein the bosses don’t have more than two or three easily avoidable moves, causing you to repeat the same pattern over and over until you whittle away their health.

The developers also emphasized how much time you’d be spending in the open world this time around compared to the last Amazing Spider-Man game. That’s as blatant a lie as I’ve ever heard. There are just as many “dungeon” segments in Amazing Spider-Man 2 as there were in the previous game, and you probably spend even less time web-swinging down Manhattan’s concrete canyons than that one due to the shorter story. Beenox can do indoor sequences perfectly fine, as proven in previous games developed by them like Edge of Time and Shattered Dimensions, but when you stress that you’re going to keep players more in the open world, do it.

Speaking of web-swinging, though, this is the worst gameplay change. Talk about trying to fix something that wasn’t broken to begin with. I understand there’s a movement for “realism” in comics and games, but this is a story about a man who has spider-based powers fighting a man made out of electricity. The need to be grounded in reality isn’t necessary, but Beenox tried anyway and now web-swinging requires a solid surface to stick to. While this design has been done in games before, this iteration of Spider-Man’s Manhattan—already a bland and lifeless shell of the hustling, bustling metropolis—doesn’t lend itself well to this tweak. I’d often shoot my web at some ridiculous angle, if I could find one at all, in order to adhere to this rule. Thus, I never really got into a great rhythm with my web-swinging, which was especially frustrating during the game’s racing side missions, which require a lot more precision than the game allows.

But wait! There’s more! While it’s clear that the combat/counter system is a rip-off from the Batman: Arkham games, it seems Beenox couldn’t resist to steal a little more from the Dark Knight. Amazing Spider-Man 2 sees stealth rooms make an appearance, and they just reek of the “predator room” designs from Rocksteady’s games. And, like everything else in this game, they’re inferior in every way. Spider-Man’s Spider-Sense replaces Batman’s Detective Mode, and much like Arkham Asylum, players will run into the problem where they’ll feel like they never have to turn the power off. This means that even if the levels were beautifully designed (which they aren’t), they’d only see them in the red-and-blue hues this mode paints everything in. On top of all this, the combat upgrades from the first game have been simplified into only eight powers, with three upgrades each. So much for doing everything a spider can.

My final issues with the game come from the technical side of things: Glitches galore, folks. Not only are the character models bland—and only half a dozen of them are scattered throughout the game—but many of them love just vibrating themselves through walls, sidewalks, and rubble. Throw in three late-game crashes in the middle of boss battles, and I almost had enough to never look at this game again.

Despite the abject time I had playing the game, I was able to finish it, however, because flashes of the competency Beenox illustrated in their previous games do appear sporadically. These came in the form of tributes to some iconic moments from Spider-Man comics—like Cletus Kasady being wheeled into Ravencroft at the start of the Maximum Carnage storyline—that, as a lifelong fan, I understood and instantly recognized. But that only made me more frustrated, because it meant that Beenox had to know them, too, and yet they still let this miserable pile of data get stamped onto a disc and sent to stores. If you’re a Spidey fan, hope that Activision lets Beenox out from under this movie-licensing deal and gets them back to making original Spider-Man games.

Developer: Beenox • Publisher: Activision • ESRB: T – Teen • Release Date: 04.29.14
2.5
Easily Beenox’s worst outing with the Spider-Man brand. Nearly every game system is a step backward from the previous three Spidey games—this one isn’t worth your time or effort.
The Good The story has its moments.
The Bad Web-swinging takes a huge step backwards, the “menace” system is a joke, and the dialogue made me want to stick a pencil in my ear.
The Ugly 40 years of comic book history was diluted down into a less than 10 hour game.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is available on Xbox One, PS4, Xbox 360, PS3, PC, Wii U, 3DS, iOS, and Android. Primary version reviewed was for PS4. Review code was provided by Activision for the benefit of this review.
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EGM Review: Call of Duty: Ghosts (Current-Gen)

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November 27, 2013

Ghostbusting

Even a billion-dollar franchise like Call of Duty feels pressure sometimes, and this year’s entry, Call of Duty: Ghosts, probably had even more than usual. Fans were concerned about Infinity Ward stepping away from the Modern Warfare series and introducing something new—not to mention rival Battlefield 4 raising the stakes on next-gen with 32-on-32 multiplayer.

Infinity Ward also felt competition from fellow Call of Duty developer Treyarch’s huge success with Black Ops II last year. Even with all this pressure, though, Infinity Ward looked to maintain a steady course and reach their customary peak at the top of the FPS food chain. But sometimes, more change is needed to reach familiar goals—and I couldn’t help but feel that Ghosts doesn’t do enough to keep the formula fresh.

Ghosts’ campaign starts when a South American alliance called the Federation hijacks an American space station armed with ODIN, a kinetic bombardment system. Turning their own weapon against them, the Federation thrusts America into a decade-long conflict that instantly flips the global balance of power.

Logan Walker—the son of a former member of a U.S. Special Ops unit designated as “Ghosts”—quickly rises up the ranks along with his brother, Hesh, in a resistance group led by their dad as they help protect the ever-shrinking American border. But the Federation isn’t the only threat Logan and his family needs to deal with; an ex-Ghost named Rorke has allied himself with the Federation for the express purpose of making the lives of his former squadmates a living nightmare.

While Ghosts may tread familiar ground, it’s certainly not a bad experience overall. In fact, its single-player campaign is on par, in many regards, with Black Ops II, and it has the added bonus of not including those broken RTS side missions. Most of the levels impart that big-budget, adrenaline-fueled, action-movie ride players are looking for. It’s just that there are enough blemishes here—and a lack of overall innovation—to make it a good game, not a great one.

The major issue comes with the disconnect between the action and the narrative. Ghosts takes players all over the world and throws them into some insane scenarios that further the parallel between this game and action movies. But, like many action flicks, when the protagonists are placed in cool places like the Antarctic, dense jungles, underwater, or deep space, the narrative starts to come undone. In at least four of the game’s 18 missions, you’ll probably find yourself having flashbacks to college philosophy classes when you ask, “Why am I here?” I don’t know, Plato—but you might as well blow it all to kingdom come while you’re at it!

While the narrative reasoning leaves something to be desired, there’s certainly plenty of gameplay variety this time around. Whether it’s high-speed chases or subterranean subterfuge, Ghosts makes sure there’s never a dull moment. I did take issue with one activity, however—and that was playing as Riley, the German Shepard.

Don’t get me wrong—it’s awesome having Riley as a part of your unit, and it’s a blast issuing him commands. If you’re not good enough in multiplayer to ever earn that new perk, at least you get the satisfaction in single-player of having your pooch bite off a bad guy’s face. It’s nothing short of stupid, though, to have sections where you’re actually playing as the dog himself. Sneaking through the grass and silently taking down enemies isn’t something you need the dog for. Looking through a camera on its back is completely unnecessary, too, and considering that Riley’s only in three of the 18 missions, he’s not all that important, giving his segments a tacked-on feeling. I will say, however, that Riley’s voice actor is probably the second-best in the game after Rorke’s.

Despite these issues, the five-hour campaign still managed to pull me in with some excellent action sequences and enough of a cohesive narrative to make me want to keep going. But even with all its cool moments—unless you miss some Achievements or want to go through on harder difficulty levels—you probably won’t be going back to the campaign again and again. No, it’s the multiplayer that makes Call of Duty stay in our systems for months on end until the next chapter hits store shelves. But while this portion is technically sound—much like the campaign—it does little to make the experience feel fresh again.

Unfortunately, all the “new” multiplayer options in Ghosts are simply mashups of previous game modes, direct ports, or minor rule changes. Most of them are still fun, but I expected more than just a bunch of rehashes. The worst part of the multiplayer, however, is the new UI. The new character customization is a huge bonus this year, but the screen’s a mess, and most players will have to look long and hard at their TVs just to find the simplest of options, such as making the character male or female.

The UI problems continue when setting up your perks. While the few limits of Black Ops II’s Pick Ten system have been thrown out the window, so has the ability to quickly and conveniently make changes to your loadouts between matches. Due to tiny icons and a cluttered menu screen, if you really want to change your guns and perks, you should leave your respective lobby, since it’s going to take some time to really figure everything out.

All that said, the maps are more intricate than ever. Many of the larger areas have a multitude of lanes you can use in order to reach your objectives, providing some interesting variety when you spawn on these new killing fields.

The biggest surprise with Ghosts comes in the co-op mode: Extinction. The idea here is that up to four players have been inserted into the remains of a town that was hit by one of ODIN’s orbital strikes. It seems this strike unearthed something that had been long been buried…something alien. Now, you and your teammates have to get to ground zero, plant a nuke, and get the heck out of Dodge, all while trying to fend off this alien horde.

More focused than Zombies and far more creative than anything Infinity Ward has done with a co-op mode before, Extinction may be my new favorite co-op mode for the franchise. My only concern comes from the lack of replayability. Once you beat this section with your buddies, there’s little to make you come back, but hopefully some more maps and other add-ons come down the line.

When compared to the Call of Duty games that have come before it, Ghosts has a few problems, primarily in regards to innovation and moving the franchise forward. There’s no denying this. There’s also no denying, however, that the game’s still really damn fun to play—and even with the issues I’ve outlined, Infinity Ward has proven they can still hold the line, no matter the pressure.

Developer: Infinity Ward/Raven Software/Neversoft • Publisher: Activision • ESRB: M – Mature • Release Date: 11.5.13
7.5
Narrative issues and a lack of ingenuity in multiplayer plague what could’ve been an all-time great Call of Duty game. As is, Ghosts is still an enjoyable experience and shows that Infinity Ward can still hold the line—but the concept falls short of its true potential.
The Good Gorgeous set pieces with tons of action; the new bad guy is excellent; Extinction mode adds something new to multiplayer.
The Bad Some levels feel tacked on for the sole purpose of lengthening the campaign; multiplayer UI is awful.
The Ugly Riley’s whimpering actually had an effect on me.
Call of Duty: Ghosts is available on Xbox 360, PS3, Wii U, and PC and is a launch title for Xbox One and PS4. Primary version reviewed was for Xbox 360.
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Call of Duty: Ghosts Trailer Explains ‘Squads’

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October 29, 2013

With only a month left before Call of Duty: Ghosts drops, Activision has released a trailer highlighting a new multiplayer option for players called “Squads.”

Call of Duty: Ghosts’ multiplayer features 10 different loadouts for players to customize and level up via experience points earned in battle. Squads allows you to take all of those loadouts at once and play alongside them in four AI-driven modes: Wargame, Squad vs. Squad, Squad Assault, and Safeguard.

To get the full rundown on each mode in Squads and what it entails, be sure to check out the trailer below.

Aside from being an interesting option in its own right, Squads has the dual purpose of allowing players to learn maps and get some practice under their belt if they feel intimidated by the more hardcore Call of Duty players out there. They can learn against bots that scale to their skill level without having to worry about their K/D ratio getting demolished right out of the gate.

Call of Duty: Ghosts will be available on Xbox 360, PS3, PC, and Wii U worldwide on November 5, and will serve as a launch title for both the PS4 and Xbox One.

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EGM Review: TMNT: Out of the Shadows

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September 5, 2013

Oh! Shell-shocked!

Like many people my age, I grew up with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Movies, comics, cartoons, and action figures depicted the lean, green, fighting machines everywhere I looked, so it’s no wonder that I’ve remained enamored with the franchise throughout the years. It helps that they’ve maintained some measure of success in many of these mediums since their mid-’80s inception. But there’s still one area the Heroes in a Half-shell continue to stumble in: games.

Sure, we all remember how awesome Turtles in Time was in the arcade, but that was more than 20 years ago. And, yes, we’ve seen some mediocre-to-above-average TMNT offerings since then, but we haven’t had that huge blockbuster hit that harnesses the magic of Turtles games from decades ago. TMNT: Out of the Shadows hoped to be that game—the one that could marry nostalgia with the expectations of a modern audience. The good news? It did succeed in avoiding being average. The bad news? It’s downright awful.

I was cautiously optimistic when I heard about Out of the Shadows. Unlike the middling offerings based off the second cartoon from the early 2000s, Out of the Shadows is based on the latest animated incarnation of the TMNT. A downloadable title sounded like a good way for Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael, and Donatello to dip their toes back into the digital waters, especially with a new iteration like the Nickelodeon cartoon fresh in everyone’s minds. After playing the game, it felt like Red Fly Studio had a bunch of ideas on a board in the planning stages of Out of the Shadows and instead of paring them down like most developers would, they tried to cram in every idea they had and ended up with this confounding mess.

The most glaring and obvious flaw comes from the gameplay, which tries to channel the Batman: Arkham series with buttons assigned to weapon attacks, kicks, jump, counters, and gadgets (usually just shuriken, but other Turtle specific items later). In theory you were supposed to feel like a true ninja badass. Each Turtle would have their own style based on their weapon and personality, and you could switch between Turtles with the D-pad like some multi-character action-RPGs do (think Marvel Ultimate Alliance).

Instead, the combat is busted—the first of many broken things you’ll notice in this game. There seems to be a delay between your button inputs and when your character actually performs the action, causing you to frequently break your own combos with an extra button press intended to make up for the game’s inconsistent speed. Because the Turtles don’t automatically lock on to their nearest foe when fighting, it’s difficult to aim many of your combat maneuvers, especially when you’re just dealing with a single opponent. Worse yet, if you’re using projectile weapons, you’ll sometimes hit a friendly instead of a foe.

Tying the game further into the action-RPG genre, the Turtles can also gain levels and earn points to be put into the most elaborate bunch of skill trees you’ll ever see in a downloadable game. Some may relish the challenge of trying to earn the dozens of points it’ll take to max out a single Turtle, but I’m of the mind that it’s just overkill. The convoluted system feels a microcosm of Red Fly’s development approach: Come up with up way too many ideas and never stop to cut the fat.

This isn’t to say Out of the Shadows doesn’t have a couple of highlights, though. The arcade mode, which features seven stages taken from the game’s campaign, utilizes four-player local/online co-op so that you and your friends can get a hint of how things were back in the 8- and 16-bit TMNT glory days. Even this, though, is tarnished by the odd, realistic art style that tries to make the Turtles look like they did in their 1990s live action movies and a horrendous camera that glitches and gets caught every time you turn a corner.

And don’t think that the questionable art direction and busted camera are limited to Arcade Mode, because they only get worse in the campaign. The off-putting visual style only becomes more pronounced via the cutscenes, where voice acting is done over animation-style stills that look a lot more like the cartoon the game is supposed to be based off of. This transition from realistic gameplay to cartoony cutscenes and back left me completely befuddled. The incongruity becomes more dramatic if you try the “classic” option that then turns everything black and white like the original Eastman and Laird comics.

The voice acting, at least, is a bright spot. The actors from the cartoon are not present, but a solid cast led by voice acting veterans like Yuri Lowenthal as Donatello and Catherine Taber as April O’Neill do their best with a script and dialogue taken straight from common TMNT canon. The only problems with the audio come from the fact that every time you pick up an item, a line of dialogue is spoken corresponding to the Turtle you were controlling. As an unintended side effect, sometimes story sensitive lines will be triggered at the same time you pick up a pizza and you’ll have two separate lines played simultaneously as an incomprehensible, garbled mess. That’s not to mention how quickly it gets annoying to hear Donatello lament the fact that he’s eating pizza off of a floor every time you pick one up. Maybe it’s some weird Pizza Hut propaganda.

The campaign’s problems don’t end here, however. It also suffers because it only supports two players locally. Considering you can play the arcade mode locally with four players—which, for all intents and purposes, is nearly as long as the campaign—there is no reason to not have this feature in both modes.

At least, that’s what I thought until I tried playing the campaign locally with a friend and was presented with a split screen. That’s when I realized that there had to have been two different teams working on the two modes separately, with no communication between them. To have all four players presented relatively comfortably from a single viewpoint in arcade mode, then to squish the third-person action point of view into split screen in campaign is quite simply one of the most boneheaded things I’ve ever seen in a game like this.

But even that’s not the crux of Out of the Shadows‘ stupidity. I’ve never spent so much time being lost in a game so linear. There are several massive arena-like enclaves where you’ll have to face countless classic Turtle baddies including Mousers, Foot Ninja, and Purple Dragon gangsters. Once you clear the area, you’ll then waste a lot of time running around and mashing the A button to see what is or isn’t climbable and just what will open up the path way to the next area, since there are no indicators or mini-map to help you along. The worst, though, is when a single enemy will have glitched into one of the boundaries of the arena and you don’t realize that until you do your lap, knock him out so you can advance, then have to run around mashing the A button again, still hoping to find the right path out.

But then again, maybe this is all just part of Red Fly’s lack of self-editing. There were some decent core ideas here that ended up getting lost under the piles of gameplay garbage thrown on top. (One of those bad ideas includes spending some of their budget on getting the rights to Partners in Kryme song “TURTLE Power” from the 1990 movie to serve as their main title theme, by the way.) There are references to the comics, the movies, the cartoons and previous games. There’s split-screen, local co-op, online co-op, skill trees, action-RPG character selection, and Batman-like combat. At the end of the day, TMNT: Out of the Shadows doesn’t know what it wants to be and doesn’t do anything it tries to be well. It doesn’t make the younger Nickelodeon fans or the older, nostalgia-driven fans like myself happy. All it ends up being is a mess and a waste of time.

Developer: Red Fly Studio • Publisher: Activision • ESRB: T – Teen • Release Date: 08.28.13
2.5
There seem to be the beginnings of some good ideas in TMNT: Out of the Shadows, but none of them are properly fleshed out. Instead, these shortcomings are simply covered up with more half-followed-through mechanics, resulting in a mess of a game.
The Good The arcade mode will feel nostalgic for some. 
The Bad Lots of glitches, loose combat, and an identity crisis.
The Ugly Everything visually about this game.
TMNT: Out of the Shadows is available on Xbox 360 (XBLA), PC (Steam), and coming later for PS3 (PSN). Primary version reviewed was for Xbox 360.
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Hands-On: Call of Duty: Ghosts’ Blitz Multiplayer Mode

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Blitzkrieg Bop

While the first two of seven new multiplayer modes were revealed last week, Activision saved another one for Gamescom. I checked out Blitz mode and the new map, Chasm, that was revealed during the Xbox One press briefing.

Blitz feels like a twist on Capture the Flag, but instead of grabbing a flag, now the players are the flags. This mode sets up two points on opposite ends of the map, with a simple objective: Any player on your team must get into the opponent’s scoring zone, and vice versa. If a player walks into the zone, they’re teleported back to their base and score a point for their team. This means that, essentially, both teams are on offense and defense at the same time.

An interesting little catch, though, is that the developers are already one step ahead of players and have built in a preventive measure to guard against massive scoring from a team working well together—say, four guys moving in tandem across the map. Once a player enters the scoring zone, a 10-second timer starts before someone else can enter. This gives the opposing team time to regroup, and it could put some folks’ survival skills to the test if they’re waiting out the timer near the zone.

This makes Blitz seem like a potential favorite stomping ground for lone wolves. Since you can only score with one person at a time, staying away from teammates might prove more useful if you can hold your own in a firefight. You’ll still have to work together to see who’s making their way to the base, but sending only one or two guys out a time and having the rest camp out near the base might prove a fruitful strategy.

What was most interesting about my hands-on time at Gamescom, however, was that the new map and mode were kept separate. So, I played Blitz on Octane and Strikezone, but I didn’t get to explore Chasm until I went back to Search & Rescue. This makes me think that Blitz may be limited to small to mid-sized maps.

Chasm’s probably my favorite of the new maps we’ve seen thus far. While it’s not as spread out as Whiteout, it’s got a lot of verticality: You’ll work your way through the rubble of a collapsed building and down through the street into a subway system. Since the map features several layers of small platforms, high ground will be critical depending on the modes you play, and several points are perfect for camping and protecting objective points—in this case, placing bombs for Search & Rescue.

The new audio system for Ghosts really shined on Chasm. During my session, players would shout out targets near cubicles or on railway lines rather steadily. I don’t know if the excess noise at last week’s event prevented the system from working as flawlessly as it should’ve, but I heard everything loud and clear at Gamescom.

So, three down, four to go on the Ghosts multiplayer reveals. As of right now, Search & Rescue remains my personal favorite, but Infinity Ward is certainly capable of topping it with something surprising down the line.

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Hands-On: Call of Duty: Ghosts Multiplayer

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The more things change, the more they stay the same

At this point, everyone has seen the trailer or at least gotten the cliffnotes to everything announced at the Call of Duty: Ghosts multiplayer press conference. If you haven’t though, be sure to Chris’ write-up on all the new multiplayer details.

For the rest of you, though, you probably want to know how a lot of these announcements actually affect the gameplay. Well, we’ve got you covered. I was able to sit down with Ghosts’ multiplayer for about 90 minutes and put the new modes and maps through their paces.

Let’s start with the new modes. Two of seven new modes being added to the game were shown to us, and the first one I saw was Cranked. In this twist on Team Deathmatch, players who get a kill are given a speed boost as reward. The speed boost lasts for 30 seconds, but if you don’t kill anyone else in that time, your character literally explodes. Talk about messing with your K/D ratio.

After playing several matches, I realized a couple of things. The speed boost doesn’t stack, so there are only two speeds—normal and fast—and if you explode, there’s no splash damage that can hurt opponents. So anyone thinking that a suicide bomber strategy might help win the match or salvage that K/D, think again.

Also, 30 seconds is a lot more time than you might think. I saw a lot of people who started running around like a chicken with their heads cut off when their timer began and got mowed down by enemy fire before they even came close to running out of time. Panicking doesn’t help you or your team.

After Cranked, we got to try out Search & Rescue. This is a twist on Search & Destroy and Kill Confirmed–style matches. Kill an opponent, then collect their dog tags to remove them from the match altogether. If an ally grabs the dog tags first, the person will respawn. Since I love both of these modes, I had a lot more fun with Search & Rescue than Cranked. Just like classic Search & Destroy, you don’t have to eliminate the entire enemy team if you are on the offensive, since there are also two points where you can plant a bomb.

Honestly, the modes may be described as “new,” but neither reinvent the wheel. All we’re seeing is some unique little twists being added to classic modes, or modes being combined and passed off as something revolutionary. But, I can’t deny that these modes, especially Search & Rescue, we’re a lot of fun to play.

Aside from these new modes, we also played Domination a couple of times, which remains the same as ever.

We also got to play on three brand new maps: Strikezone, Whiteout, and Octane.

Octane is a medium-sized map based around an abandoned gas station and a western ghost town. As demonstrated in the trailer, this map featured destructible walls and structures. Players can blow apart the supports to the gas station roof, causing it to collapse into new cover, or crush players underneath. While I didn’t see anyone stupid enough to get squished, the few times we did level the station it definitely caused a huge shift in strategy. Terrain morphed and closed off some old paths, while new ones opened up. When we played Cranked on Octane, the disorientation proved deadly—a few players found themselves lined up in enemy crosshairs after not being able to find a way through the rubble.

The next map was Whiteout, and was easily my favorite of the event. It was a massive, open map that afforded players plenty of sniper perches in abandoned vacation cabins, as well as cover through twisting, ice-covered caves. While playing on this map though, I admit to having flashbacks to the White Pass map from Battlefield: Bad Company 2. While the attention to detail here was much higher (as I would hope with next-gen on the horizon), the feeling of sniping from a second floor window overwhelmed my nostalgia factor at times as we played Search & Rescue.

The final map was Strikezone. Easily my least favorite, this was probably the smallest map I can remember in recent history. It seemed comparable in size to Hijacked from Black Ops II, but with even less cover and a square layout overall instead of Hijacked’s elongated corridors.  There is nothing more frustrating than spawning in maps like these, since—with everyone running around in such a confined space—you’ll often pop up right next to an enemy and be dead again before getting your bearings. It also had very little going on in it. While the idea of a firefight breaking out in a stadium hot dog stand sounded fun, it turned out to be anything but.

After exhausting the modes, I attempted to go in-depth with the customization, but we were on an unforgiving rotation that prevented me from truly messing around with the new point-value perk system (where some perks are worth more than others) or really mess with my character.  I was able to cycle through some pre-assigned camo options like arctic, desert, urban, and the classic jungle, and gave my soldier a badass helmet before being whisked into another match. But it was nice to see so many of Ghosts‘ new female character models on the maps. Ultimately, these customization options are more about personal tastes than anything else, since they don’t change things like movement speed or health. It’s just another way of putting a personal stamp on your Call of Duty experience.

I also got to experience the new Field Orders feature, where a blue briefcase will randomly appear on the body of a felled enemy and provide you and your team a Care Package if you complete certain extra objectives, ranging from getting a kill while jumping to performing so many headshots. This was an interesting addition, but not one that most people I played with cared about. I’d often see the briefcase just sitting there, so lonely, waiting for a player to try their hand at its challenge. But no one ever bothered, because there’s so much else going on in a multiplayer match to worry about.

At the end of the day, the new modes and maps were nice, but it’s still the core Call of Duty experience that millions of people have come to love. There was little here to make me think that what we’ve grown accustomed to over the years, besides the next-gen prettiness of it all, will be getting a massive change. Some of the things announced at the press conference, like Clans, weren’t available to me when I wanted to check them out, but the idea of making clan tags more official and rewarding players as a group for doing well on top of individually has a lot of potential.

Overall, if you love Call of Duty, I don’t see anything here that will turn you off to Ghosts. On the other hand, if you’re looking for a true game-changer, what I saw suggests that you’ll probably have to keep looking.

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EGM Review: Deadpool

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July 23, 2013

Don’t forget your syrup! We’re making pancakes!

It’s never easy turning a licensed product into a videogame, but it can be especially hard when it comes to comic books. Developers typically have a wealth of history from which to draw, but that also leads to fanatical fanbases who love to criticize the slightest bit of “creative interpretation.” Or, on the flipside, you’ll see projects commissioned to be made with half the budget and half the time—and then publishers wonder why we, the game-loving public, trash the end result.

But every now and again, the stars align. With time, money, knowledge, respect for the product, and understanding from the fanbase, you’ll have an experience worth playing. The guys at High Moon Studios are familiar with this; they’ve done it twice now with a pair of original Transformers videogames. But can they possibly handle the biggest challenge they’ve faced so far in the form of Deadpool?

Based on the Marvel character best known for breaking the fourth wall and spoofing a flurry of other comic-book characters, Deadpool is a love letter, plain and simple, to the fans who’ve supported him since the Rob Liefeld/Fabien Nicieza days in the early ’90s. Luckily for us, though (no offense to those guys—well, maybe Liefeld a little), High Moon asked Daniel Way to write the script instead. Fitting, since Way’s run with the character is probably why Deadpool’s now at the height of his popularity.

And the game unfolds exactly how Deadpool fans might expect: Everyone’s favorite Merc with a Mouth decides he wants to be in his own videogame. Yep, fourth wall already smashed to smithereens. So he calls up the guys at High Moon, threatens them (a lot!), and gets the green light. We then begin stage one, where Deadpool must hunt down a big-time executive type in order to rake in a big bounty. Unfortunately for Deadpool, this particular fat cat is doing business with the Marauders and Mister Sinister, and he’s under their protection. Deadpool can’t be having that—no, sir!

Thus begins one of the wildest gaming rides I’ve had in quite some time. Sure, Way’s comics made me laugh for a couple of minutes each month, but this game had me in stitches for almost the entire eight-hour experience (give or take an hour, depending on your difficulty).

Aside from the smartly executed script, the game looks solid; it’s firmly entrenched in Marvel lore, yet it’s also got a splash of Looney Tunes when it comes to animations, character reactions, and general tomfoolery. The excellent voice work certainly adds to the atmosphere, too. Nolan North channels every ounce of Deadpool (and the voices in his head) he can muster through that red-and-black mask and when grouped with other voice veterans like Steve Blum as Wolverine and Fred Tatasciore as Cable, the acting is top notch.

But not everything about Deadpool is a perfect mile-high pile of pancakes. Deadpool loves guns. He also loves swords. In fact, any tool that can deal death is a high priority in his fractured mind. So High Moon faced an understandably difficult undertaking in finding the proper balance between guns and melee weapons. Unfortunately, the Deadpool game doesn’t quite get that balance right as the action ebbs and flows back and forth between having to use guns and then use melee weapons, instead of blending the two together more to craft a smoother combat experience. Also, while the combo system works fine and sees Deadpool transition smoothly from enemy to enemy, the broken camera and floaty platforming sequences serve as unseen foes that ultimately detract from the experience.

Still, Deadpool also features a few combat tweaks that definitely add to the experience, such as a “Momentum Meter” that fills up with continued success. The upgrade system that requires you to cash in “Deadpool Points” earned from massive combos is a decent touch, and being able to wield a variety of handheld, throwable, and projectile weapons helps keep the experience from becoming a complete button-masher. The game also offers eight challenge maps—with four levels of difficulty—that offer some replayability.

Even with a few gameplay issues, Deadpool hit just about every note I wanted. The campaign offers enough hysterical choices that I played through it several times—and I even watched as others in the office experienced it for the first time. Ah, so many fond memories.

If you’re a fan of Deadpool, you’ll certainly appreciate the experience, but if you’re really unfamiliar with the character (even though I don’t know how that’s possible at this point), you might be a bit wary of having this game be your first experience with Wade Wilson (Oh, no! I revealed his secret identity! Spoilers!).

Developer: High Moon Studios • Publisher: Activision • ESRB: M – Mature • Release Date: 06.25.13
8.0

You’ll be fighting the camera sometimes as much as enemies, and the balance between guns and melee needs a bit more work, but most of the time, I was laughing too hard to care. The script is a love letter to Deadpool fans, so if you love the Merc with the Mouth, this game will hit your chimichanga-flavored sweet spot.
The Good Hysterical story that channels the best of Deadpoool.
The Bad Balance between melee and guns needs work; camera can be a hindrance.
The Ugly WHERE’S HYDRA BOB?!
Deadpool is available on Xbox 360, PS3, and PC. Primary version reviewed was for Xbox 360.
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Fariko Impact Wins Call of Duty 2013 Championship

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May 10, 2013

They were the odds-on favorites coming in, but after hitting a speed bump in the form of Envyus on Day 2, Fariko Impact’s hopes of a trifecta of 2013 Call of Duty championships were in jeopardy. But they would not be denied.

After being relegated to the Lower Bracket Championship against OpTic Gaming, Fariko knew that the road would be tougher, but not insurmountable. And so after getting a good night’s rest and making sure to come together as a team, they began working their way to $400,000, a big trophy, some sweet gold rings, and ultimately the 2013 Call of Duty World Championship.

Led by team captain, Parasite, Impact started off neck and neck with OpTic in Hardpoint. There were seven lead changes in their opening match before Impact locked down the final Hardpoint and won 250-190. And things would be just as hard in Search and Destroy. Going to the 11th round after Impact let OpTic back into the match, a trend we saw across the whole tournament, one man was left on each team. Parasite would again get the clutch kill that would seal the game for his team.

After letting CTF get away from them some, Impact kept their cool, knowing it’s not their best game mode, only winning 20% of their CTF matches in the tournament to that point. But Hardpoint is. And they showed why on their favorite map in “Hijack”. Dominating from the get go, Impact cruised 250-137, never letting the map get away from them, and crossing the finish line 3-1 in the Lower Bracket Championship, leaving OpTic with the $120,000 3rd place prize.

After a ridiculous two and a half hour “break” between matches, it was finally time for the World Championship where Envyus would look to repeat their performance from the previous evening. By the way, easily the worst thing about this weekend was the huge delay between the Lower Bracket Championship and World Championship. The CodCasters were wondering why the energy in the building had died down so much. It’s simple. The live crowd took a nap because there was no reason to take so long there. Not to mention all the cut-ins between the games of the actual World Championship match and I’d be surprised if most of the audience watching at home online didn’t turn it off and go watch Wrestlemania. It was as if we had a power outage every five minutes in the Super Bowl.

But I digress. Since Envyus and Impact met already in the tournament, instead of playing another best of five match, they played as if their series was now a best of 11, picking up where the match from yesterday left off. So right off the bat, Impact knew they had to win four and not three games since Envyus had a natural 3-2 advantage going into the championship. And the first game would be CTF, Envyus’s strongest game type and Impact’s weakest.

But against all odds, Impact forced Stopwatch, CTF’s version of overtime, and pulled off one of the most improbable victories of the entire tournament to tie the series at three. This then brought us into Hardpoint, where Impact again dominated 244-138.

The two teams then traded victories to bring the count up to 5-4, and Impact was going to be playing Hardpoint again. But much like they had shocked Envyus with a win in CTF, Envyus pulled the wool over Impact’s eyes much like they had in their Upper Bracket Championship match and stole a close 220-200 victory.

This set up another all-deciding Search and Destroy match. Envyus again started strong here, winning 3 of the first 5 to take an early advantage. But their nerves seemed to get the best of them because this is when Impact hunkered down and rolled over Envyus in 4 of the next 5 rounds to win Search and Destroy 6-4, and to win the Call of Duty 2013 World Championship six games to five.  The comeback was complete and Impact had finished their personal Call of Duty Triple Crown.

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Call of Duty 2013 Championship – Day 2 Analysis/Final Day Predictions

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On the second day of the Call of Duty Championship, the final 16 teams were cut down to just three as double elimination bracket rules were put into effect. Meaning the fastest route to the top spot would be to keep winning, but should your team falter, you had a second chance to make it back to the finals should you rediscover your winning groove.

The matches for the second day were now set in a best of five format with Hardpoint, Search and Destroy, and Capture the Flag remaining the first three games. Should they be necessary, however, Hardpoint and Search and Destroy would return for games four and five, respectively, if needed. And once again, instead of giving you a perfect play-by-play, here are just the biggest things to take away from Day 2’s action.

Perfection Lost

As alluded to yesterday, I’ve watched enough sports over the years to know that everyone would be gunning for Fariko Impact. Not only had they won the previous two professional Call of Duty tournaments, as a team they were undefeated in the game. Not a single match had been dropped by this group of guys. Until now.

Although they faced stiff competition against Complexity, Epsilon, and OpTic Gaming in the winner’s bracket, Impact was able to sneak out some close, yet still impressive victories on the way to the Upper Bracket Championship Match. A victory there would ensure nothing worse than a second place finish. But fate would not be on their side as Envyus, who had not really impressed, but not yet faltered up to that point either, would follow their captain’s lead and constantly change strategies to keep Impact on their toes. And it worked.

The first Hardpoint match was the second closest of the event thus far, and both involved Envyus. Although Envyus beat Killerfish to win Group 4 on Day 1, they lost the Hardpoint game to Killerfish, 220-217. Utilizing a nearly identical strategy to what was used against them, Envyus pulled off a similar narrow victory with a 244-239 win that immediately got a buzz going around the Palladium Theater.

Impact would not have it, however, and would easily handle Envyus in the Search and Destroy match. Envyus would then earn another narrow victory in Capture the Flag to take a 2-1 lead. Impact would not make the same mistakes twice, though, and the second Hardpoint was close again, but this time favored Impact 229-192 and would tie the match at two games apiece.

And this is when things got really interesting. In this final Search and Destroy game, Envyus came out strong and jumped out to an early lead. Impact would catch up though and tie it at 4 rounds apiece. Both teams would trade rounds then to set up an epic tiebreaking round where Envyus’ genius would shine through.

For many of the Search and Destroy rounds Envyus had played the games tentatively, often splitting up to move through multiple map corridors. But in the final round, Envyus bum rushed Impact as a single cohesive unit. I’m not sure if it was planned or came to Rambo, the captain for Envyus, late in the match, but Impact, who had stuck with their tried and true method used in previous rounds, were scattered, trying to rely on their own individual skills whereas Envyus had become something greater than the sum of their parts and polished off Impact in near-record time in that final round.

The crowd then erupted for the mighty Impact had fallen. At least to the Lower Bracket anyway, due to the double elimination rules. But no longer was Impact invincible after we witnessed a match that may be one of the greatest in competitive Call of Duty history.

Stiff Competition

Whereas you could not escape the clean sweep on Day 1, Day 2 mostly had anything but. Aside for a few early sweeps against lesser teams like Pain Gaming, nearly every match went back and forth and we had several instances where, much like the Envyus vs Impact match, we saw a 2-2 game, 5-5 round tie. Everyone in attendance was on edge as we saw it happen time and again, including between Complexity and OpTic to decide who would finish in fourth place, and who would move onto the Lower Bracket Championship Match against Impact and have an outside chance still at the overall title.

We also saw a couple teams flirt with those matches once too often as Killerfish would advance in the Lower Bracket Championship and bring Quantic back down to Earth with a 6-5, 5th game win, but then see the clock strike midnight as they would then fall the very same way in their next match against vVv, missing the money matches by literally a single round of Search and Destroy.

Europe Represents

Speaking of Killerfish, they were just one of the European teams to show up and provide a very good show, and give the typically more dominant American teams a run for their money. Inferno (Italy) and Epsilon (Ireland) would both wow me, and garner quite an underdog following, as they made runs into the money matches and put up strong fights against some of the more elite competition like OpTic. All of the European teams would eventually fall, but they were often in the most exciting matches and surely made their home countries proud. And for Inferno and Epsilon, well, I’m sure we’ll figure out the conversion rate for their winnings before sending them back across the pond.

Money Talks

With so many teams having fallen today, a lot of the money winners were decided before we even get to the major championships. Below is an official breakdown of the million dollars up for grabs and who has won what so far:

  • 8th place: $25,000 – Inferno eSports
  • 7th place: $35,000 – vVv Gaming
  • 6th place: $50,000 – Epsilon
  • 5th place: $70,000 – FEAR
  • 4th place: $100,000 – Complexity
  • 3rd place: $120,000 – ???
  • 2nd place: $200,000 – ???
  • 1st place: $400,000 – ???

Predictions

So yesterday I made some prediction about the first eight matches we would see and went 6-2, including 1-1 in my upset picks. Not bad. Here’s a better breakdown of where I went right and where I went wrong:

  • Complexitiy vs Killerfish – I saw the problems Killerfish gave Envyus on Day 1 and thought they could’ve done the same to Complexity. They did, but just like their match with Envyus, it was close but ended with a losing result. RESULT: WRONG 
  • Soar vs Quantic – Everyone saw that Quantic had taken advantage of a weakened Unite team to claim their group and Soar put them back in their place, with help from Killerfish who then knocked them out of the Lower Bracket. RESULT: RIGHT
  • Fariko Impact vs Epsilon – Epsilon made a nice run in the Lower Bracket to get some cash, but they were never on Impact’s level. RESULT: RIGHT
  • OpTic Gaming vs Pain Gaming – Another clear mismatch as OpTic crushed Pain before they were, unsurprisingly, expelled from the tournament altogether as the first team eliminated from the Lower Bracket. RESULT: RIGHT
  • Donut Shop vs Enigma – Donut Shop came out on fire and crushed Enigma, but I think a lot of folks were secretly hoping both teams would’ve gone farther than they did, each coming up one round shy of the money matches. RESULT: RIGHT
  • Envyus vs The Stand – I had no idea Envyus was as strong as they ended up being, but I knew enough to trust them against The Stand who barely even showed up on Day 2. RESULT: RIGHT
  • Fariko All-Stars vs FEAR – I fell in love with the All-Stars after the fit they gave OpTic on Day 1 in a losing effort. I thought they’d be able to handle FEAR, but they succumbed as the first of FEAR’s victims, as FEAR was well on its way to a 5th place finish. RESULT: WRONG 
  • vVv Gaming vs Inferno eSports – A sign of things to come as both these teams would face off again to determine 7th/8th place with vVv winning both times, but I think many would agree vVv underperformed, while Inferno might’ve over performed, in this particular tournament overall. RESULT: RIGHT

So the stage is set for the final day. OpTic Gaming gets a rematch against Impact after Impact sent them down to the Lower Bracket to begin with, and the winner will take on Envyus for all the marbles. I still have a good feeling about the OpTic guys, even if they hit a rough patch yesterday against Impact, because after that loss they played ticked off and crushed everyone in their way. If they come with that fire from the get go, Impact ,and then Envyus, will have their hands full.

If you want to watch the results of these ensuing, epic battles, then watch the action live by heading over to http://www.twitch.tv/ or http://elite.callofduty.com/esports starting at 12 PM PT (3 PM ET).

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Call of Duty 2013 Championship – Day 1 Analysis/Day 2 Predictions

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In just the first day of action at the 1st Annual Call of Duty Championship, we saw 32 of the best teams in the world whittled down to 16. This first day was set up in a Round Robin/Group format similar to the FIFA World Cup. Each match-up was decided when a team won the best of three games. The first two games played were Hardpoint followed by Search and Destroy. Should the teams split these two games, Capture the Flag would decide who would win the match.

Even though I was on the floor watching all the matches (or as many as I could at one time), instead of giving you a play-by-play of everything that happened, here are some of the storylines/highlights that we saw emerge from Day 1 as well as who to keep an eye on during Day 2 as we move into the bracket stage of the tournament!

The Odds-On Favorite Dominates

After coming off a pair of Call of Duty tournament wins at EGL9 and MLG – Dallas, Fariko Impact came in as the heavy favorites to cap off the hat trick with a 1st Annual Call of Duty Championship Trophy. Placed into the first group on the center stage of the tournament, Impact rolled to a clean sweep over their group mates in Team Pain from Spain, Immunity from Austrailia, and the up and coming Team Phoenix who qualified through Call of Duty: Black Ops II’s League Play.

Fariko Gaming as a whole couldn’t pull off the sweep like their golden team Impact did, though, as Fariko Dragons fell away in the evening matches. Fariko All-Stars were able to join their fellow Fariko mates at least, but as the second team from their respective group.

Don’t Sleep on These Under the Radar Teams

OpTic Gaming was the group who took the big prize at Call of Duty XP back in 2011 and they’re hoping the smog-filled skies of LA are friendly to them once again. But because of Impact’s incredible roll of late, they were placed inconspicuously in Group 5. And it wasn’t until they wiped the floor with Fariko All-Stars to decide the Group 5 winner that people realized the OpTic team had brought their “A” game to this tournament. Familiar to the bright lights, the big stage, and the fat purse, OpTic is letting Impact hog the limelight…but for how long?

vVv Gaming also came out of their respective group clearly head and shoulders above their competition and could be another team that takes advantage of all eyes being on Impact. It’s not easy having a target on your back and how Impact handles the ever-increasing pressure will be put to the test  once again should they run up against OpTic or vVv later in the tournament, especially since both of them look to advance quickly with favorable Round of 16 match-ups.

North America Asserts Itself, But Doesn’t Pitch a Global Shutout

As seen in most Call of Duty tournaments, the North American teams came in as heavy favorites and for good reason. Many teams from other countries including xTaz from South Africa, a pair of teams from South Korea, Millennium from France, Immunity from Australia, and SSOF from Brazil all fell to the wayside as they ran up against seemingly sharper North American competition.

But a trio of teams from overseas caught my eye. Enigma from Sweden, Killerfish from Germany, and Inferno eSports from Italy were all able to sneak into the Round of 16 as the second teams in their respective groups. Killerfish in particular gave heavily favored, and eventual Group 4 winner, Envyus a fight that went to the Capture the Flag round. Inferno and Enigma have huge uphill battles against vVv Gaming and Donut Shop respectively in the next round, but I would not be surprised if Killerfish came out with a strategy that would shock Complexity out of the winner’s bracket. I got a feeling Cinderella likes Oktoberfest.

Surprise, Surprise

There was a fair share of surprises that came out of the first day of competition. Several of these came from the European circuit as described above, but another big surprise was Quantic. Although given a fair chance to advance as probably the second team from their group, they instead started hot against Unite and never looked back as they dominated.

And speaking of Unite, they were the one surprise on the negative side. Expected to have a strong showing after giving Impact a run for their money at MLG – Dallas, Unite dominated South African team xTaz right out of the gate. Jaws hit the floor, however, when Unite got burned by Inferno and were ultimately bounced from the tournament.

Not that excuses mean much in eSports, but in Unite’s defense, they had an odd situation on their hands as three of the four team members were not allowed to participate due to the rules of the tournament dictating participants must be 18 years old or older. This led Unite’s captain to calling up some buddies from Europe in the hopes of putting together a hodgepodge team that might shock some people. But the lack of experience playing together ultimately looks to have contributed to Unite’s downfall after their fast start.

Posers vs. Players

Although the tournament was set up for best of three games in each match-up, it was rare that the deciding Capture the Flag games came into effect. More often than not, the teams that were going to win established themselves early and dominated throughout. This means that, for the most part, the truly best of the best have advanced to the Round of 16.  With matches now going to best of five for Day 2, though, I’d be surprised if we saw too many more clean sweeps, especially as we don’t know the game types yet.

Can a Controversial Second Chance Be Taken Advantage of?

The first day of the tournament came off without a hitch. Mostly. The big moment that had players, managers, and press alike scratching their heads was when Group 1 had a three-way tie for second place. Fariko Impact had easily won all three of their matches, but the other three teams had all beaten each other in turn and were left with matching 1-2 records. And because everyone’s head-to-head was the same, and they all won the same amount of games, the tie-breaking rules had been exhausted. No one knew what to do.

What was most unsettling was that several attendees, including yours truly, informed several high-ranking officials at the tournament of what was setting up to transpire at least 15 minutes before it actually happened. Group 1 was on center-stage after all and if you had even been remotely paying attention to those matches, you could see what was unfolding after Phoenix got off to a slow start they couldn’t recover from in the group’s final match against Immunity. It took another 20 minutes after the match had ended before a solution, and not a very good one, had been realized.

Now, logic would dictate that if games were even, the next basis you would look at, much like professional sports where similar situations could arise, would be to look at points forced. People had been tracking scores all day and it couldn’t have been hard to look at the footage or look at players’ previous match results had they not been handy.

First, you’d look at Hardpoint. Then Search and Destroy if still necessary. Then CTF. And then, if somehow, someway, there were still ties, you’d look at Kill/death ratio. It’s very easy when you have all these stats to institute tiebreakers to prevent what actually ended up happening that even the tournament’s own Codcasters called a “debacle”.

Instead of looking at points forced, where Team Phoenix would’ve been the winners, a mini-Round Robin tournament was set up amongst the three teams with a coin flip deciding who played who first. The first team to two wins would advance. Unless of course everyone beat each other once again and then the organizers’ heads would likely explode.

Fortunately, that didn’t happen and Pain Gaming edged out Phoenix in the final match after both Phoenix and Pain trumped Immunity. And, as haphazard a process it may have been to get there, they were some of the best matches I saw all day.

But this was definitely one moment where things did not go as smoothly as planned as match schedules then needed to be shifted and managers for the later teams seemed frustrated because their teams were moved from the center stage to secondary stages. I’m sure part of this frustration stemmed from the thought of the sponsors of said teams loving the idea of Phoenix, Immunity, and Pain all getting extra center stage matches over their teams.

When all is said and done, unfortunately, I think it will all be for naught because Pain Gaming now has the dubious task of trying to upset OpTic Gaming. So, even though they were pulled back from the brink of elimination, I can’t see them progressing past the Round of 16.

Predictions

So we have eight epic match-ups in the Round of 16. Here are my quick picks for the start of Day 2:

  • Killerfish’s Cinderella run isn’t over and they upset Complexity.
  • Soar brings Quantic back down to earth with an upset of their own.
  • Fariko Impact continues to roll as they crush Epsilon.
  • OpTic Gaming sends Pain packing even after their second chance.
  • Donut Shop shows there are no questions there as they crush Enigma.
  • Envyus sits down The Stand.
  • The Fariko All-Stars are brave enough to edge out Fear.
  • vVv Gaming extinguishes Inferno eSports.

So that’s it for Day 1’s analysis and Day 2’s predictions. Day 2 will feature best of five matches now between teams, with double elimination rules coming into effect. This means that teams that lose their first matches will slip into a loser’s bracket and we will advance from there. With the cream looking to rise to the top, we should expect even more contested contests here on Day 2.

If you want to check out the current bracket, check out http://elite.callofduty.com/esports and to watch the action live, be sure to head over to http://www.twitch.tv/ starting at 9 AM PT (12 PM ET) for the start of today’s matches.

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