Today’s guest post comes courtesy of Steph Wood, a copywriter from Splashdirect.com:

April has been an interesting month for digital distribution of PC games. On the one hand we’ve had Gamestop’s purchase of the ‘Impulse’ distribution network. Meanwhile, market leader Valve Software have been running a complex, innovative and rather obscure promotional campaign for their upcoming Portal 2 game, getting fellow games developers in on the joke by updating their games with Portal 2 themed goodies and hidden code.

So, what is the future of digital distribution? Gamestop’s $1.5 billion in revenue by 2014, or Valve’s undisclosed money piles, made palatable to the people buying their games by their ‘community spirit’ and developer-lead model? The answer is inevitably ‘both’, but might it not as well be neither?

And does it really matter?

In asking what the future of Digital Distribution is, we first have to question how far what we have currently is going to lead us there. Is this not a battle over an increasingly small slice of the pie? At the turn of the millennium, the true hardcore of gaming went to the PC first, and the consoles second. It was the only way to play online, with the best graphics, with the best product-life extending content, with the best control scheme.

True, the platform’s importance has always waxed and waned in cycles, but with the current generation of consoles now five years old, that’s precisely why the PC’s continued obscurity is so significant. Because consoles now do online, have refined their controllers, are increasingly embracing user-generated content and because fewer developers focus on PC titles, the obvious benefits of PC gaming are now no longer there. The PC, consequently, occupies little to no space in high-street video game stores.

Digital distribution is the only way in which the PC is truly ahead of the game. Steam and its equivalent services successfully filled both the retail void and the demand that people increasingly have for ‘down the wire’ content. But this surely means that when the consoles move more decisively into this territory (instead of just offering smaller straight-to-download titles), the PC will again be muscled out.

Is a Head in the Clouds Really the Answer?

Purchasing Impulse was undeniably a good move for Gamestop: there is still money to be made from PC games, and Gamestop will be able to transform Impulse into a price-competitive business. But making inroads into the console market is essential in the long term. Gamestop has also simultaneously purchased Spawn labs, an obscure name in the cloud gaming arena. In practice, existing services like OnLive have focused on PC games, but theoretically, cloud gaming could offer any game to any machine capable of displaying a 720p video feed. This would include living room ‘media centre’ PCs, as well as games consoles and possibly even low spec netbooks and tablets.

Valve’s alternative gambit has been to offer a Playstation 3 version of ‘Steamworks’ with Portal 2. At this early stage, this merely means that Portal 2 related content will be accessible on PC, Mac and PS3 with a single copy of the game, but a close working relationship with at least one of the console manufacturers could pay untold dividends in the future.

Open Platform Consoles

The next generation of video games consoles are an unknown quantity, assuming they even exist at a conceptual level. Sony have already attempted to force the digital distribution agenda with the rather ill-advised PSP Go. Publishers continually bemoan the fact that second-hand disc copies are undermining first hand sales. And like the typical suite of public toilets, anything done to increase the modern console’s airflow (like removing a bulky optical drive) would be a significant improvement.

Therefore, it wouldn’t be all that surprising if the console manufacturers decided against disc drives in their new consoles. But would it really be in the consumer’s interests for these platforms to launch with only one, manufacturer owned storefront? Defending their above-retail prices, Microsoft recently went on record claiming that their Xbox 360 ‘Games on Demand’ service was about ‘convenience’ and nothing to do with good deals. Sony were similarly criticised when pricing Mass Effect 2, a game that had already been ‘conveniently’ available to 360 and PC gamers for a year.

My pessimistic side says that both manufacturers will try to maintain total control in a digital-enabled console market. But Sony, Microsoft, even Nintendo must acknowledge that competition drives innovation and stagnant marketplaces are bad for consumer interest. This is no longer being driven by retail, where there are fewer and fewer brands, or even the differences in the consoles themselves (this generation has been characterised by a total lack of exclusives). It could (and perhaps should) be driven by inviting traditional games publishers and services like Steam and Impulse onto a console that offers multiple marketplaces.

Steph Wood is a copywriter who also writes about Splash Direct, a UK based Bathroom company who offer clouds of Steam through Shower Enclosures only.

Of course, none of this really means anything, other than the fact a lot of people wanted to play it.
I played the first COD:MW game, and I did enjoy it. However, the main failing I had with it was it’s single-player mode was far, far too short.

Unfortunately, the same problem exists here too. That has to be got out of the way first, as it’s the main failing with the game – especially as I’m not really a big online gamer.
That doesn’t mean that it’s a bad game, however.

The campaign is fantastic fun to play, and is also really, really good.
I mean, really good.

The story is standard fare for any plot based around the military, especially since the Cold War has ended. But nonethless, it’s still better fare than many other games, certainly, of a similar style, and much better than a lot of movies that would attempt to do similar things.
The characters also remain interesting and are quite varied, so much so that they have some personality throughout the proceedings too, and get some individuality.

It’s also not without moments of humour, or bleakness, or sadness.
And there are a number of incredibly well-staged, and visually delicious set-pieces to savour – all of which make you a part of them, which is the

perfect thing for a game to do – make the player feel a part of what’s going on.
All of them also dovetail neatly together, and each setup gives you (if you have any feeling about anything you play), the drive to perform your goals in the next mission, wanting to get the enemy back for what they’ve done.

It is of course impossible to write a review for this game without mentioning one aspect of it though – the infamous ‘No Russian’ mission.
For those of you not in the know – the mission involves one of the player characters (as you play several throughout the games’ storyline) in deep cover as an Ultranatonalist Russian terrorist involved in a massacre at an airport.

When information about the missions’ content was leaked, there was of course masses of controversy, and most of it ill-informed, knee-jerk reactions.

The mission itself, as you play it, doesn’t require you to shoot at the civilians you encounter. You can walk through the first half of the mission without firing a single round, as no-one shoots back, save a few security guards – whom your computer-controlled compatriots will gun down.

You also receive no ‘score’ for gunning down anyone in the mission, and no achievements or bonuses for completing it – it serves simply to bridge the story, and to expose the player and the character to the horror and terror of the act.
That could open arguments itself – but perhaps that’s a better discussion for The Forums, than a review.
The level does have the effect, however, it is supposed to – assuming you have any normal level of human faculty and decency. It makes you feel repulsed, disgusted, and sickened, by the callousness of the people you are undercover with, and the ends they go to. Which is the point. The game also allows you to skip the level before you start playing the game, and at any point during the level itself, should you not want to play it.
From the point of the plot, it is also essential in establishing several key things that happen, and without it, much would be missing.
All the same, it is certain to raise many arguments long after the game has come and gone.

But on the lighter side – the game is full of callbacks to movies and other sources. There are obvious references to movies such as The Rock, Red Dawn (in spades), Behind Enemy Lines, Blackhawk Down, and more, as well as references to other games, such as Splinter Cell, and the earlier Call of Duty

games as well.

The game does do a very good job of providing the chaos and confusion of battle, as well as showing the dirty, grim, and uncompromising nature of warfare, but blending it with cinematic spectacle and tense, smart, plotting that makes you feel at the heart of the action.

It’s all too much of a shame, then, that the campaign is such a short affair, and can be finished in only a few hours of pushing yourself.
It seems such a sad shame that so much attention is paid to the far more dull and repetitive strokes of Multiplayer gaming, when the single-player campaign is such a joy to play through, and that Infinity Wards’ people obviously have such a great talent for developing gameplay, story, and set-pieces, that they do so little with the single-player aspect of the game.

That said, when the only complaint you have about a game is ‘there’s not enough of it, and I want more’ then that’s not that much of a complaint.
If anything, the real complaints would be that there are moments when the maps are confusing, or the games AI (allied AI, that is) gets confused – at one point, it was telling me to laser-designate a target for supporting fire, which wasn’t available, because the script had moved on from that part of the game. But that’s only a minor bug, and easily moved around.

And besides – any game that lets you participate in a snowmobile chase can’t be that bad, right?

So imagine my glee when I got my pre-order copy so I could tear it to shreds for your amusement… Now imagine my disappointment that it turned out to be pretty damn good!

Now don’t get me wrong, the story is complete wank! Two secret factions, the Umbra Witches and Lumen Sages did… something and are now all extinct with the exception of you, Bayonetta. A woman with a predilection for phallic lollypops and wears nothing but her own hair and a pair of guns strapped to her shoes. Your mission is to remember your past, but Bayonetta herself seems to care about that almost as much as you do and seems to be just out for the giggles of this little adventure.

Where the game itself comes into its own is in everything else. The gameplay fits the character of Bayonetta perfectly by being more about toying with the enemies and mocking them mercilessly. Dodging an enemy attack would put everyone apart from you in slow motion for you to wail on them with impunity for several seconds. If you play well you won’t get hit by a single attack despite the enemies doing their level best to kill the hell out of you.

It’s easy to pick up but very challenging to master, and the game does a masterful job of easing you in to the experience by drip feeding you your moves with mini-tutorials where you can practice your new skills for as long as you want before getting back to the fight, you can also practice any extra moves you want to buy for Bayonetta before paying for them. Why haven’t any games done this before?

The graphics are beautifully detailed, showing an incredible amount of effort went into the levels themselves even when you’re passing by it at seven hundred miles an hour driving a motorbike along the supports of a collapsing bridge. And it flows at a silky sixty frames a second with nary a moment of slowdown even if you’re fighting on a moving missile in the middle of a city (on the 360, the PS3 has several issues, go for the former if you can). This game sets out to assault your senses and by god it will work.

If there is anything to complain about it’s that the game should have maybe trimmed the cutscenes down a little, the amount of sheer exposition in between levels can get rather baffling when all you want to do is electronically cocktease a bunch of angel themed monsters, but it does give you a chance to catch your breath from all the frantic action, maybe if the game stopped wondering if it was supposed to be serious or stupid and just went all out stupid then the game would have been perfect.

All in all, if you’re friends with the Spectacle Fighter Genre with titles like Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden, God Hand or God of War then this game is definitely worth the price of admission, because in many ways it’s pretty much perfected the formula. If you’ve never played this type of game before, then Bayonetta is a great way to get into the concept since it’s much friendlier than something like Ninja Gaiden which takes glee in killing you. I’ll save discussion of whether it’s offensive to women for the comment section or the forums since I couldn’t really bring myself to have an opinion on the matter, I was too busy having fun!