Spec-Ops: The Line is a third person shooter that takes place in a post-apocalyptic Dubai. The monkey theme seems to continue here also, namely plopping a 1000 typewriters in front of an equal number of simians. I thought I was immune to ridiculous plots and premises in shooters by this point but Spec Ops proved me wrong. The game is shipping this holiday season and is currently conducting a closed beta for it’s multiplayer modes. Usually I feel lucky to be a part of a beta and help in providing some feedback on a game before it hits the masses. Plus there are the bragging rights that come with playing anything early. In this case the people on my friends list didn’t know or care what the hell I was playing and I quickly commiserated with them. Spec Ops plays like a mash-up of Gears of War, GRAW and Modern Warfare 2. On paper that sounds halfway decent. Actually on paper that sounds like a mess, and if that’s the paper Spec Ops built itself on then mission accomplished.

Players start off split between 2 groups, The Exiles and The Damned. They are as none descript and redundant as their names suggest because no matter what faction you choose your avatar ends up face covered and goggled with the biggest difference being one group having fatigues while the other team wears, what appears to be, form fitting Underarmor uniforms. This leads to identification problems on the field but we’ll get to that in a little bit. Spec Ops has a load out and leveling system that unlocks new weapons and talents as you gain experience. You know the deal by now. You get your choice of 2 talents, which are analogous to perks, and the ability to unlock an overarching specialty after earning enough rank. The specialties grant abilities like increased health regeneration and improved aiming. The weapons fall into the usual assault, shotguns, sniper rifles and SMG’s. Earn enough experience by racking up kills and winning online matches and you'll be presented with shiny new weapons and abilities to blow other people’s faces off in new ways. This system has been popularized in the last few years and there is something undeniably primordial about seeing little numbers pop up on the screen and counting up XP at the end a match. Everyone loves getting new weapons and shooting stuff over and over, that is, so long as the game does a good job of making those guns feel powerful and by extension making the repetitive act of shooting people over and over again fun. This is where Spec-Ops drops the ball and commits the most grievous sin when it comes to making a modern day FPS. The guns you fire in the game, regardless of classification and level, make you feel less like you’re armed with high-level ordinance and more like you’re having a very elaborate spitball fight out in the middle of the desert. Guns lack heft and pop, and the sounds of gunfire are not so much explosions in your ear than someone gently tapping you on the shoulder. This is definitely one game that won’t have your significant other asking you to turn down the volume. Feel free to stick your head in one of your speakers to improve the sound. Firing the guns is about as much fun as listening to them. The targeting reticule is awful. Spec-Ops borrows Gears of War’s ideas of small maps and a cover system but then plops into the mix the type of long range targeting reticule from GRAW. Trying to line up shots becomes an exercise in frustration as you fight to keep your aim trained on your target as they dance 6 feet in front of you. Combine this with incredible amounts of lag and herky-jerky character animations and it feels like everyone including you, is either having a massive seizure or is being electrocuted while playing.

One of the more “innovative” ideas Spec-Ops tries to include in their online duels is that during battles desert storms will suddenly kick up large amounts of sand into the arena, blinding all the combatants. This isn’t exactly a new idea as, again, games like Gears of War have dabbled in this same space, and every time it’s met with varying amounts of success. While a map like "No Where" in Gears features a sporadic dust storm that helps to conceal enemies slightly for a short time, Spec Op’s storms last much longer and involve everyone’s visibility dropping to zero, as the screen is blanketed by an ugly reddish orange haze. It’s like being caught in a Doritos dust storm. The only plus side to this is that for a good 3 minutes the numerous bland, badly textured environments you’ve been running around in disappear. It’s almost impossible to spot anyone when this occurs and in a 10 minute match it’ll occur at least 3 times grinding game play to a halt each time.

To say Spec-Ops isn’t a good-looking game is to put it lightly. As mentioned above, the dueling factions are too identical in terms of appearance and when you add visibility-killing storms with horrible draw distances and the aforementioned lag it becomes a question of how much frustration you can take. There are only a few maps to play in the beta, but they are about as nondescript as the people you’re playing as. Call me crazy but if you’re going to go through the trouble of developing an elaborate reason to place a game in an exotic location like Dubai and then destroy it, you should at least get a wealth of interesting and diverse terrain to battle on. Instead you get bland glass buildings with some sand dunes and about a handful of nonsensical boxes sprinkled throughout. Rinse, lather repeat. The craziest omission is the lack of directional damage indicators. Have fun trying to guess where you’re getting shot from and by who in the middle of that sand storm because the game isn’t going to help you. About the only thing Spec-Ops gets right is not using a single button to take cover and perform other actions, as Gears did, but considering how many other things you have to frustrate and cause your demise this is the thinnest of silver linings.

As horrible as the game is I haven’t been exposed to it for long periods of time since it takes forever and a day to locate a match. I did the following while waiting for a match to load: 1) Went to the bathroom 2) Got some juice 3) Loaded laundry into washer 4) Made some popcorn chicken 5) Ate said chicken with juice. The oddest bit of the game is something I’m not sure constitutes a negative or positive. During the post game wrap up an announcer comes on, something which isn’t out of place in a shooter, except this announcer sounds exactly like Tom Hanks. And not "Saving Private Ryan" Tom Hanks. Just plain old Tom Hanks. It’s crazy and distracting and honestly is about the only interesting aspect of the game.

There is a lot of time between now and the games release but from what this beta has shown Spec-Ops would have to undergo a massive evolutionary leap to compete in a crowded field.

Post contributed by Bobby Rivera. Questions for the author? Send an email to inserttoken01@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter: @Insert_Token.

Once again, the team at Games Abyss will be covering E3 this year live from the  2010 Showroom. Be sure to stay tuned to this page for hourly updates as we will be streaming all the live footage right to your computer screen. You can also check out our editor Twitter accounts for split second updates and our witty commentary as we cover gaming's most anticipated event.

Managing Editor – Andreas Asimakis: twitter.com/pantsguy
Contributing Writer – Jayce Diaz: twitter.com/Jayce_Face
Video Editor – Ryan Farrenkopf: twitter.com/Rankopfpro

E3 photos can also be found by clicking here.

This year's E3 promises to be bigger, louder, and full of surprises. So join us and double check your internet connections,  It's going to be one wild week!

Coverage date and times are as follows:

Monday 6/14
Microsoft (1pm EDT / 10am PDT)
EA (5pm EDT / 2pm PDT)

Tuesday 6/15
Nintendo (12pm EDT / 9am PDT)
Sony 3pm EDT / 12pm PDT

Wednesday 6/16
Konami (4pm EDT / 1pm PDT)

Have you been keeping up with the Zynga and Facebook saga? The feud between the casual game maker and the social networking site that hosts its games has escalated wildly over the last year.

It all started last October when Facebook announced a credits system that meant it would be taking a 30% cut of all in-game purchases on the site. Zynga angrily retaliated with the launch of Farmville.com, threatening to leave Facebook to form its own independent platform. The months after that saw a flurry of statements and threats from both sides as Zynga repeatedly refused to do a deal to keep games like Farmville, Mafia Wars and Cafe World on Facebook.

However, six days ago Facebook and Zynga finally came to an agreement. Zynga will keep its games on Facebook for the next five year, meaning their games can still only be accessed through the Facebook site.

This may seem like trivial shenanigans within a world far away from mainstream console gaming. However, when you take a look at the numbers involved you start to wonder which side is actually the mainstream. There are 65 million active daily players of Zynga games, while cutesy farming sim Farmville boasts its own massive userbase of 83 million. That's a large proportion of the 500 million Facebook users out there, which by the way is a pretty staggering number too.

Then there's the money involved. Analysts have predicted that Zynga will reach $1 billion in revenues in two years time. Social network games are not just where the players are, it's where the money is too. Facebook and Zynga's deal is of huge importance.

The question, though, is whether or not the deal will last. It's a funny kind of timing, then, that just a day after the Ts being crossed Facebook became embroiled in controversy over a user-created page causing the whole site to be banned in Pakistan.  

The page in question is titled 'Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!' and it has over 100,000 supporters. It was created in protest to how Islamic extremists have responded in the past to depictions of their prophet in other media. The page outraged Pakistani officials and subsequently Facebook, and hence Zynga games, has been banned in the country until May 31. The ban may be extended beyond that date. 

Pakistan is the sixth largest country in the world with a population of over 169 million, so that's a lot of potential users who have no access to Zynga games. While this isn't likely to have any great effect on the deal's future, it does highlight that the communion Zynga and Facebook have entered into is unlikely to be a smooth one. 

After all, Facebook is fighting ongoing criticisms of its privacy issues, and the site will clearly continue to be a hotbed of controversy and speculation for many years to come. It's a wholly new kind of deal that Zynga and Facebook have negotiated, but their story is one that certainly doesn't stop here. It will have been through clenched teeth that the two companies announced their venture, and I cannot see there being no trouble in paradise. Whatever happens next between these two burgeoning behemoths will likely have a huge effect on the entirety of gaming. Watch this space.

I’m not trying to start the rumor mill here – that’s just asking for trouble.

But let’s face it: all eyes will be on Valve at June’s E3 event in Los Angeles. The Half-Life developer astounded us with the announcement of Left 4 Dead 2 last year, when many were (possible foolishly) expecting the long-awaited unveiling of Half-Life 2: Episode Three. Nearly a year later and Portal 2 has unsurprisingly been announced, and we know that Valve will be showing it off at E3. And if you’re not excited about Portal 2, then you haven’t played Portal – or there’s something seriously wrong with you.

The question remains, though: will Valve be announcing anything new at E3? What they do this year will only come under increased scrutiny, and the patience of Half-Life fans is only wearing thinner.

Valve boss Gabe Newell has been very talkative about Half-Life in British games magazine Edge recently, going on about a scarier future for the franchise and how the next Half-Life won’t change Gordon Freeman. Newell is usually tight-lipped regards actual disclosures on the much-loved shooter series. With E3 on the horizon, this is surely a ray of hope for those of us who’ve been waiting for Episode Three since forever – or more accurately, 2007.

But we’ve been burnt before. And while Valve professes that it’s no longer a one-project-at-a-time developer, externally we only ever hear confirmation of one project at any one time. So should we wait until the end of 2010 and the release of Portal before we start hoping for Episode Three?

Will it even be Episode Three? There’s been idle speculation that the long development time between Episode Two and now might translate into a fully-blown Half-Life 3. That might be enough to shut up the detractors that Valve gained during the boycott of Left 4 Dead 2.

Of course, things could go in reverse. It seems incredibly unlikely, but it was this time last year when Left 4 Dead 2 was announced. What are the chances of Left 4 Dead 3? For all the nonsense of the boycott, Left 4 Dead 2 went on to match the 3 million that its predecessor sold. Clearly fans at large are not disinterested in yearly updates so will Valve and EA be tempted?

Maybe there’ll be a completely new Valve IP at E3? Hmm. I’m going to stick my neck out and say ‘nuh-uh’.

My totally speculative and meaningless prediction is that we’ll hear no announcement from Valve at E3, but we will see the next Half-Life game by 2011. If not, I’m officially throwing my toys out of the pram. You heard it here first.

Pulsewave ends the month once again by bringing you four sets of chipmusic topped off by Blip Festival 2009 breakout The J. Arthur Keenes Band. Sievert will be there as well all the way from Houston, Texas and of course, local up-and comers Kris Keyser and exileFaker will be there as well.

So save the date and remember… Don't stay home alone that weekend and head on down to The Tank for some 8-Bit music fun!

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -

Saturday, February 27, 2010
8 PM – 12 AM
$10
All Ages

The Tank
354 West 45th Street
Between 8th and 9th Avenues

Click here for more info.

On February 14th at 1pm, Trekkies, Trekkers and anyone else with a penchant for wearing pointed ears should show up to London's Millenium Bridge to set the record and commemorate the launch of new MMO, Star Trek Online.

“This should be an absolutely fantastic fun filled day and definitely one all fans of Star Trek should get involved in,” said Lee Kirton, Head of UK PR Namco Bandai Partners. “This is the chance to become part of history with a ‘World Record’ for the largest group of dressed up Star Trek characters in one place. Namco Bandai will also have a bunch of fantastic prizes up for grabs on the day for the best dressed ‘Trekkers’ and some prizes for just being part of the day should make it a trip worthwhile!”

Best dressed fans stand to win things like lifetime Star Trek Online subscriptions and DVD's of the recent Star Trek movie.

February 14th is just around the corner and remember, it's Valentine's Day. And what's more romantic than standing on a bridge along with thousands of other polyester-dressed fanatics, freezing your hinder off?

According to product descriptions, two more vinyls are on they way: Elec Man and Cut Man. They aren't in stock yet, but its only a matter of tiem before these robot bosses become nothing more than plush toys for gamers to embrace before bedtime.

Available now at Toys R Us.com:

Proto Man Vinyl Figure 5" – $9.99
Mega Man Vinyl Figure 5" – $9.99

Last night's fight was one of the biggest for Manny Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto. As always, amongst the spectators there is usually a good hand of celebrities and last night the celebrity cast included Derek Jeter, P. Diddy and Will Ferrell. But I couldn't help notice another familiar face at ring side. Could it really be that Hideo Kojima was at last night's fight at the MGM Grand? I'd be the last person to know that Hideo was into boxing. Check out the picture and you be the judge if its really him.

Finally, now I don't have to stop playing video games when I need to clean my room! Some super smart dudes have rigged 4 Roombas and programmed them to emulate a simple version of Pac-Man on the floor. A human controls Pac-Man while the 4 ghosts are completely computer controlled, switching between "chase" and "flee" modes. Pac-Man suckes up pellets as he makes his way through the game. On top of that, once Pac-Man eats a power pellet and touches a ghost, the ghost Roomba returns to the starting point.

Now if they could just emulate Prince of Persia so I can clean off my desk.

project website

(Warning: Flute playing is really loud!)

Yes she's playing Rock Band with a flute, and admittedly she pretty great at it too. Using a glitch in the game's vocal mechanics, MsFrizzyHair was able to match the on-screen vocal parts with her graceful flute playing. How is this doable? Basically, it comes down to the game's very forgiving vocal registration; which as long as you stay on key, you can pretty much hum through without even singing one word. Now just substitute the humming for fluting and you've got the above video of MsFrizzyHair playing along to Avenged Sevenfold’s Afterlife or Smashing Pumpkin's Today demonstrated below.

(Again Warning: Flute playing is really loud!)

MsFrizzyHair's Channel [Youtube]