XBox 360 Durability

Truth is Stranger than Arnold

2012-01-13T13:10:00.002-05:00

Apparently Kindergarten Cop took place in Silent Hill.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/gallery/view/26/115208/612.6

See Your Death

2011-12-27T00:54:00.000-05:00

I don't know what it is that makes gamers so whiny. Probably the prime example recently was the ridiculous backlash against Diablo 3. Also Fallout 3, a game I consider one of the greatest ever produced, has been proclaimed to be an atrocity against sensibility for having the audacity to be more than mod of Fallout 2. And you will find dozens of write-ups about how Front Mission Evolved is an awful game because it's an American produced action game rather than a Japanese tactical RPG. Yet in all those write-ups there isn't a single complaint about the terrible story, awful acting, and annoyingly dull gameplay.

By that same token, many Ace Combat fans are decrying Assault Horizon as the worst thing to happen to the franchise since the American localization of Ace Combat 3. But these people are mostly being whiny jerks.

It's not that people aren't making valid observations about Assault Horizons (well, some of their observations are invalid), but they seem to be coming to the wrong conclusion. They complain that Assault Horizon doesn't feel or play like an Ace Combat game. They are correct on this. They say that this makes Assault Horizon a terrible game. They are very, very wrong on this.

The first change players will notice is that the game doesn't take place in Strangereal. I thought this was a mistake, since Strangereal allowed the writers to use fictitious countries with fictitious histories. You can tell any kind of story you want and simply invent a geopolitical situation out of whole cloth to justify it. By setting Assault Horizon in the real world, we got stuck with the same, tired Russian civil war story. When future historians look back on games as a reflection of our culture, their going to think the Russian Federation was about as stable as Rhodesia.

Another big change up is the combat, surprisingly. Besides the startling assortment of non-airplane vehicles you get, the actual combat has been radically altered with Dog Fighting Mode. Dog Fighting Mode focuses you on a single enemy and almost turns the game into an on-rails shooter. It's a neat little gimmick, especially since your computer controlled plane does some pretty crazy shit. I'm pretty sure a lot of enemy flight paths in Dog Fighting Mode are scripted for cinematic effect.

Unfortunately, a lot of complaints that are leveled against this game are just pure bullshit. For example, the most glaring complaint you'll see is that the controls are dumbed down. First of all, that control scheme was available in every Ace Combat game since the PS1 days. Secondly, the more 'conventional' control scheme is still available. It's right there in the options menu. It's just that the 'novice' controls are set by default. So really the controls are only an issue if your THE TYPE OF FUCKING IDIOT WHO DOESN'T CHECK THE GAME SETTINGS.

The most bullshit complaint of all, though, is that the game isn't realistic enough. I'll never understand why people seem to think the Ace Combat games are supposed to be ultra-realistic flight sims. Your missiles only lock on if the target is less than 800 feet away. Your plane can carry over 200 missiles AND a particle beam cannon. And you fought the Stonehenge anti-asteroid cannon on the continent of Usea. If any of these players join the Air Force they are going to be sorely disappointed. They complain that Assault Horizon is too arcade-like and unrealistic when every single game in the franchise is arcade-like and unrealistic. I thought that was the point. I thought that's what made it fun.

So let's all step back from the (apparently) horrifying revelation that this isn't Ace Combat 7 and judge the game on its own merits. It's a faced past flight shooter that actually gave me the shakes whenever I finished a session. I'll admit I miss the 'Operations' mechanic from Ace Combat 6, but Assault Horizon doesn't really leave you time to think. You'll be running on instinct and tweaked nerves. This is somewhat exacerbated by the lack of mission briefings. Instead, you just have to deduce your mission objectives based on cutscenes and radio chatter. No, this isn't hard to do. If the radio lets you know that a base is under attack, and a whole slew of targets show up around the base in question, you should probably go blow those guys up. I want to know how much of a 'spergy retard you must be to face that situation and start screaming "What are my mission objectives?! There was no briefing!"

The story for this game (one of the two things done by a westerner) is decently played out. It's not as good as Ace Combat 5, but it isn't sleep inducing like Ace Combat 6. The characters are a bit shallow, the aforementioned Russian civil war is becoming cliche, and Makarov... wait, I mean Markov gets his character development too late in the game for my tastes. But the twist was handled well enough, nobody in the military rambles on and on about pacifism (why would pacifists join the military?) and despite the cliches the Liberation of Moscow was very satisfying.

And just one closing note of praise. There are great soundtracks that stand alone as songs and music, and there are great soundtracks that can't stand alone but wonderfully compliment what is happening on-screen. Assault Horizon's music is arguably not the former, but as the latter this is probably Keiki Kobayashi's greatest work to date.

Assault Horizon doesn't feel like Ace Combat. Then again, Guilty Gear doesn't feel like Street Fighter. I think this is what most of the complaints stem from. If you noticed, I haven't even referred to the game by it's full title; Ace Combat: Assault Horizon. If H.A.W.X. was Ubisoft trying to copy Ace Combat and everything goes horribly wrong, Assault Horizon is Namco trying to copy H.A.W.X. and everything going horribly right. This isn't really an Ace Combat game, but that doesn't make it bad. Far from it, this is one of my favorite games to date. So as a game unto itself it's absolutely fantastic. As an Ace Combat game it seems like the red-headed stepchild of the franchise. Albeit a red-headed stepchild that went to MIT and put a man on Mars. Frankly, I think this game should have been marketed as "Assault Horizon (from the makers of Ace Combat)". That would have been a more honest title, and there would have been less bitching an moaning. So to all the haters out there, no this isn't an Ace Combat game. It's amazing and fun and wonderful, but it doesn't feel like previous games in the franchise. So I guess everything this game got right doesn't really matter. Fanboys are assholes.

Attention Whores

2011-11-16T09:13:00.000-05:00

As you may have deduced from previous comments, God knows I'm not a fan of Mario games. Not that they're bad, that style of platforming action just isn't my scene and from an objective design standpoint I'll attest to the quality of most of them. Still, like racing games, no matter the quality it just isn't something that interests me. So if something somewhere were to go wrong with Mario, I'd have no qualms about leaping into the fray to destroy it. Unless, you know, PETA were the ones to point out the problem. Assuming this whole thing doesn't die as quickly as their "sea kittens" campaign, expect to see protesters outside of GameStop with "fur is murder" signs. According to PETA the Tanuki suit sends the wrong message to children. They say it tells children that it's okay to wear fur. I say it tells children that wearing the skin of a raccoon-dog will allow you to fly. And I tell that to children all the time. So is PETA overreacting? It's PETA. It isn't about the animals, it's about getting people to look at PETA. And if it sounds like I haven't really addressed the issue, it's because I refuse to dignify this artificial controversy with a proper response. Mocking response, sure. But not proper.

Great Moments In Nerd Pranks

2011-10-29T17:12:00.000-04:00

For those of you who don't know, Coast to Coast AM is a radio call-in program that generally deals with conspiracy theories, aliens, and the supernatural. They are not gamers. As such, describing a video game as an actual event may very well get taken seriously. What can I say, George Noory doesn't think with portals.

Directed By Kenneth Branaugh

2011-10-24T00:48:00.001-04:00

The same guy who did this is also doing a rather silly LP of Vampire: The Masquerade-Bloodlines.

Constantly Treading Old Ground

2011-10-19T13:02:00.000-04:00

I almost feel bad about even mentioning it (and I'm not providing a link), but the GameOverthinker is promising another Metroid: Other M video. The defenders of Other M are few and far between, and the general failings of Bob's arguments aren't helping his cause (of course, when it all goes to shit he claims he was trolling us for the website hits).

First things first, his rampant Nintendo fanboyism is so well known it's not even worth discussing. Suffice it to say Metroid: Other M is a Nintendo game, therefore he will defend it. Secondly, he seems to be one of those people who mistakes personal opinions for objective facts. Bob likes retro-gaming, therefore retro-gaming is the best gaming, and anyone who disagrees is wrong and a jerk. It's the same logic as 'I think guy-on-guy is icky, therefore homosexuality is an abomination before the Lord.' Lastly, and the point I really want to address, good ol' fashioned argument redirection. Apparently if you think Other M is misogynist, then you are a racist.

Stereotypes have some basis in truth, the problem is that it's wrong to assume that the trait in question applies to all members of a group. Not all Asians are terrible drivers, though my Dad happens to be a terrible driver. Not all Russians are alcoholics, but my Uncle is. You shouldn't judge an entire people based on the actions of a few, but at the same time it doesn't mean that the few aren't guilty. It's a stereotype and a fallacy to assume all Japanese men are misogynist. It's just as much of a fallacy to assume that NO Japanese men are misogynist. Really you shouldn't assume anything at all, the actions and words of the individual in question should speak for themselves. So I don't assume Metroid: Other M is misogynist because it's made by Japanese people, the game itself demonstrates that it hates women.

Now, Bob does have some semblance of a point that Samus Aran hasn't been fully developed as a character until recently and most of what we assume about her are just that: assumptions. Actually, more like educated guesses. She's a space bounty hunter with a preference for armor and big guns. And she works alone, always. I'm sorry for assuming, based on all that, that she had deep-seated co-dependency issues. As Extra Credits pointed out, bad characterization is not a step up from no characterization.

If you really want to see a female game character that got screwed by their parent company, feel bad for Aya Brea. Really, if the Parasite Eve games had done better, she should have been the poster girl for strong characters who are female. Unlike Samus, Aya is from an RPG so she has pages of dialogue and characterization to fall back on. She was strong, independent, took no shit, and her constant JRPG yammering meant that all of this wasn't just the audience putting words in her mouth. Then came The Third Birthday, a game so shameful it wasn't even allowed to be called Parasite Eve 3. Now she's suddenly a simpering girl-child who likes to strip down and bake muffins for all the boys.

When we first discovered that Samus was a woman, it was supposed to be a surprise. Back then female characters weren't the leads, especially not in action-adventure games. Her gender quickly became a non-issue, whatever you thought of women you still accepted Samus as a character. Most of us assumed she was about as feminine as Ripley as portrayed in 'Aliens'. It should be noted that, in the original 'Alien', the writers were told to have another female character so they simply changed all references to Ripley from 'he' to 'she' and that's all the changes they made. With Other M, it's not really that Samus is particularly feminine, it's that she's particularly weak. She has dependency issues and wangsts constantly. That feels like the writers hated the character. That the character is a beloved symbol of empowered women makes it look like woman hating. And the game could have been made in Sweden and we'd still be making the same observations.

Stranger In A Strangereal Land

2011-10-13T09:16:00.000-04:00

Once again I haven't picked up a game because doubts existed. I'll likely get it later this year. That game being Ace Combat: Assault Horizon. For starters, Ace Combat has always been very anime. There are at least half a dozen videos splicing Ace Combat with Lyrical Nanoha (I posted some of those here) and a Let's Play of Ace Combat 6 had a commenter openly compare it to a mecha anime. Assault Horizon is much more grounded in American sensibilities regarding war games. Right down to taking place in the real world. Yeah, we abandoned Strangereal. Which might be why this isn't a numbered sequel (not too American though, as there's already fanart splicing Assault Horizon with Macross). This might be a significant shift on Bandai/Namco's part. Ace Combat has traditionally sold rather poorly in its native Japan; most of their sales were in North America and Europe. At first a lot of us were worried this was some kind of cycle of crap: Namco makes awesome Ace Combat; Ubisoft makes shitty HAWX trying to make a western Ace Combat; Bandai/Namco makes shitty Ace Combat trying to make HAWX. It doesn't look like that's the case. The overall production quality suggests that either Bandai/Namco is invested in this game's success or the director is a genius with getting more out of less in terms of budget. I was very nervous when looking at the announcements, everything was pointing to this being the death of Ace Combat. Instead it looks like we're getting an American approach to story telling with a Japanese approach to game design and presentation. Which is the exact opposite of what happened with Front Mission: Evolved. Which means it will be good?

GrimDark Fandango

2011-10-06T10:52:00.000-04:00

I was torn between getting Dynasty Warriors 7 or Gears of War 3. With the assistance of a coin toss I split the difference and got Space Marine.

The story for Space Marine is actually pretty good, containing fun double crosses and betrayals. And the clever player can understand the plot even if you're not a Warhammer 40K fan. You just have to pick up on what everything is supposed to be. Space Marines are super soldiers, Imperial Guard is the Army, and let's say Inquisitors are intelligence agents (not the most accurate analogy, but it works for the story). Once you get past the vocabulary the story makes sense even to non-fans of 40K. Unfortunately the dialogue isn't so accommodating, and the non-fan will have to muddle through discussions on heresy, the Warp, xenos, and the Codex Astartes.

As for gameplay, Space Marine is nominally a third person shooter. I've found this to be a lie, as it's actually more of a Dynasty Warriors game than Dynasty Warriors 6 was. Once I got within melee range and started banging out X, X, X, Y combos things started to feel oddly familiar. The game is designed to reward aggression, and it does so admirably. While there are some enemies who sit on unreachable ledges demanding ranged weapons, most are content to sprint directly towards you. Ranged weapons seem more for thinning the ranks of a horde or softening up a tough enemy before you get into close quarters. And there is no cover system, unless manually strafing behind a wall counts. And no ducking, you stand up at all times. If anything, melee is safer for you. Like the original Halo, you have armor that regenerates over time and health that does not. To restore health, you have to perform melee executions on enemies. This is where presentation makes all the difference in the world, as the animation, tasteful use of slow motion, and giving the player free camera control all make the execution animations very satisfying. Presuming there isn't a weird clipping issue that has your enemy four feet to your left while being killed or disappearing behind a concrete wall. It still satisfying, as I've found myself performing executions, yelling some variant on "fuck you" at the television, and coming away from the experience feeling strangely fulfilled.

The game isn't flawless. While new enemies are introduced at a healthy pace, weapons are not and you'll sometimes find yourself replacing a weapon with a new weapon before you've even learned how it works. The reloads are annoying as well. Reloading while you have ammo is faster than reloading an empty clip (for some reason), but if you manually reload an empty clip you can mistakenly think you're reloading a partial clip, which throws off your timing. And the timing is hard to learn because the reload animations are so subtle I'm not entirely sure they exist at all. And melee attacks or firing a partial clip cancels the reload, which just further confuses things.

Space Marine isn't a game that's going to revolutionize the industry or even the genre. The setting is too niche for the mainstream and being the bastard child of Dynasty Warriors and Gears of War is too niche for it's own genre (which is...?). Great game, no. Good game, yes. Enthusiastically yes. I'm having fun with this game. And isn't that the point of games in the first place.

Clausewitz "On WAAAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!!"

2011-09-12T10:45:00.000-04:00

Still no new hi-def TV, but I got sick of waiting and hooked up my 360 to my old TV box. And then I downloaded "Kill Team". Let's just say you get what you pay for.

I personally enjoyed the game a lot. Of course, I haven't played a good two-stick shooter since "Smash TV", so the market was a bit dry for me. Part of my enjoyment of the game was the price. Seriously, it was 800 Microsoft points. Had it been pricier, I might have felt ripped off. I mean, there isn't a whole lot of game here. It's only five levels, making the whole game maybe three hours if you do a straight run-through and don't die too much. There's no on-line multiplayer, only local co-op, for all the good that does me (I don't do multiplayer). And there's a survival mode that's even more shallow than the campaign, and that's quite an accomplishment.

It's painfully straightforward: you are a Space Marine, there are orks, you shoot them. Nearly every mission objective is some variation on "go here and kill stuff". The games biggest break from that formula is "stand here and hold a button for five seconds". But, as I keep bringing up in just about everything I write, what were you expecting from a cheap-ass game called "Kill Team". It's uncomplicated shooting and explosions, so the only question is how well it does that. And frankly some things could have been better. Primarily it's balance issue regarding the various Marine classes. This is a very shooty game, and half of your character classes are melee focused. Maybe this would work better in co-op, where the Sternguard and Tech Marine do all the heavy lifting (completing mission objectives and the like) while the Vanguard and Librarian run around killing orks and covering the other guy's ass. I beat the game in single-player with every class, but it was noticeably easier with some than with others. Also, grenades are shit. Good luck tossing those with any accuracy with this game's camera.

That's really the only technical complaint I had with this very simple game, the rest is mostly about presentation. First, I'd have liked more Space Marine chapters to be available. I know it only affects your color scheme, but some Space Wolves would have been nice. Also, I personally find Orks very boring as an enemy. There a great faction, don't get me wrong. I just find them dull to fight for some reason. Maybe it's because they're as uncomplicated as this game. True, there is another faction that shows up later (spoilers), and I'd frankly would rather have spent an entire game fighting them rather than just the one level. They could have gone with Chaos cultists, and if you said they were a Khorne cult they wouldn't even have to change the AI for the enemies. Also, making them Chaos kinda ties in with having more playable Space Marine chapters since it would justify having Grey Knights.

At the end of the day, it's a great game for 800 points. Had it been more, it would have been a rip-off, but at that price a game that was deeper and more complex would have been a miracle. It's like how my biggest complaint against Front Mission: Evolved was paying $60 for it. Had it been $20 I'd have been fine. Kill Team is cheap and plays cheap. But then again, you don't get pissy if your McDonald's hamburger doesn't taste like prime rib.

And I haven't even touched Space Marine yet, I'm still waiting on the reviews. Mostly because I'm having bad flashbacks to Fire Warrior.

I've Harped On This Before

2011-08-04T14:40:00.000-04:00

Oh yes, it's the "games as art" shpiel again. I'm not saying the folks at Extra Credits are wrong in their arguments per se, I'm just saying that they're starting from an incorrect premise. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe this is just a symptom of me being that "I like it but..." type of gamer, the guy who likes a game but can't recommend it because it's objectively indefensible. Like those Dynasty Warriors games I like.

In any case, one thing that art shouldn't have to deal with is audience participation. Look at a game like Metal Gear. I was about seven when I first played that game, and I hated it. The reason? I was playing it wrong. We've all seen it, we've all recommended a game to friend only to have said friend not like the game. Upon hearing their critique of the game, you realize he was playing it wrong and that's why he didn't like it (although sometimes it's a failure of common sense because AIRPLANES DO NOT WORK UNDERWATER MATOUSHIN).

Art should not have to function like this, and it's serious points against anything that does. I mean, I like Evangelion, but my biggest complaint is that it's possible to watch it wrong. When has "you're watching/reading it wrong" ever been a reasonable defense for films or novels? It's an automatic mark against a piece of art if my participation is required for it to function. And games, by default, require player participation. Unless they have hour long cinematics, which is rightfully a complaint against games because we're supposed to be playing them.

If anyone reading this disagrees, I'm throwing down the gauntlet. You write up how football is an art from the player's perspective (actual art, not just a series of complexities) and I'll start to seriously listen to the "games as art" argument. Until then, Bioshock might have been an awful awful game without the literary references, but I'm just trying to shoot libertarians.

It Got Worse

2011-07-15T14:10:00.000-04:00

Someone once summarized the complete history of Russia as "Somehow, it got worse."
I like to summarize things with video games, because Tetris was actually a complex metaphor for the Soviet Union.

The Greatest Game Ever

2011-06-30T17:47:00.001-04:00

I would like to emphasize that the game I'm about to describe is real. It was published and sold for profit. It is not some Flash game made by a 15 year old indy developer. I swear before Xenu that this is true.

The greatest game ever has the eerily accurate title "Vinnie Vole's Existential Nightmare." In it, you control Vinnie the vole. At the start of the game, you are given the controls and told what button starts the game. Starting the game informs you that your actions have damned Vinnie, which is technically true (you monster). If you hadn't pressed start then Vinnie wouldn't be in this mess. Anyway, Vinnie is trapped in some kind of box/oubliette/thing and cannot escape. Within the first thirty seconds you will realize that there is no way out of the box. Vinnie will also realize that you can't help him (Hell, you're the reason he's here) and will stop being controlled by you. He'll glare menacingly at you (again, you're the reason he's here) while trying to think of a way out of the box. Unfortunately, Vinnie can't think of one and ends up bouncing off the walls in frustration. After this little fit, Vinnie will crawl into the corner and cry. Unbeknownst to the player, Vinnie has an inventory that you can't access (it's Vinnie's, not yours). Having reached the final extreme of destrudo, Vinnie goes into his inventory and pulls out a gun. He places the barrel against his temple, and pulls the trigger. And a giant flashing "Your Fault" screen appears to let you know the game is over. Why don't more mainstream developers pick up on this breed of meta-gaming?

New From Nintendo

2011-06-21T13:48:00.002-04:00

heh heh heh

"Because Americans Are Retards"

2011-06-18T09:46:00.001-04:00

I haven't been following E3 that much. I'd complain that Nintendo continues to disappoint (let's make our hardware ridiculous to cover up that we're re-releasing a 15 year old game due to a lack of creativity!), but they always do. And I'm not sure Microsoft was even there.

So instead, I was reading Doctor Sparkle's (the Chrontendo guy) revisionist history of Super Mario Bros. 2. The traditional story about SMB2 was that the Japanese SMB sequel showed up in the Nintendo of America offices and was declared too hard for stupid American gamers. Then an idea was hit upon to take a game, Doki Doki Panic, and swap out the character sprites for Mario Bros. characters. And we'd all be none the wiser because Americans are retards.

Doctor Sparkle took issue with that theory. First, the development team for Doki Doki Panic was effectively the development team for Super Mario Bros. So the game had that pedigree to its name. And secondly, a heavy dose of the game's characters were instantly added to Mario Bros. canon (such as it is), giving us Bob-ombs, Shy Guys, and Birdo. If you doubt the canon thing is an issue, look what Sega did to Sonic the Hedgehog. They had a kind of split-canon where America and Japan had entirely different stories for the games. Then when technology meant that much of the story was in-game rather than in-manual, they effectively declared the American canon invalid. Despite the traditional story about SMB2, Mario never had this split-canon issue.

Chrontendo has linked to a recently released interview that adds greater weight to the idea that Japan was already planning to embrace the American SMB2 as a canonical Mario Bros. game. The original prototype that would become Doki Doki Panic was originally designed as "Super Mario, except vertical." Seriously, SMB2 was a lot of climbing and directed falling. In fact, the games horizontal sections were added at the request of Miyamoto specifically to make the game more Mario-esque. The game was, by design, aggressively Mario. Then Fuji TV cut a deal with Nintendo to release a game as part of this big hoopla they were doing. This aggressively Mario game was still using placeholders for the player-characters, so Fuji TV's mascots of the year were tossed in. Nintendo of Japan had already designed the game to be Mario-esque and, tying in with Doctor Sparkle's original theory, they couldn't hope to sell Fuji TV mascots to an American audience. Fuji TV may have owned the characters, but Nintendo owned the game. So sprite swap the characters and congratulations, instant best-seller. So yeah, everything you knew was wrong.

Weather: Snowfall Predicted for all Circles of Hell

2011-06-08T13:38:00.003-04:00

Dynasty Warriors 7 has free DLC for Japanese Voice Actors.

I can hereby report that even after rigorous hours of play my XBox 360 is still working wonderfully. Also, Dynasty Warriors 7 so far is basically 3 but better. Seeing as how 3 is my favorite in the entire series, this is a good thing.

I'm also convinced that the reason all these reviews are decrying DW7's "presentation" is because playing with the English voice actors is like watching Lord of the Rings dubbed over by your local middle school drama club.

While I Countdown To The Apocalypse...

2011-05-21T13:07:00.000-04:00

I normally rant about how the GameOverthinker has done something horrible and stupid and he's a bad person. Well, I still think he's a bad person ("I didn't like 'Scream' because I wasn't special anymore!") but I think we should hear out his ideas on cartridges. In short, bring back the cartridge. Not the exclusively cartridge based consoles, God no. Simply as an extension on existing consoles (the hardware's already in place for flash drives) to add a bit more convenience between now and the singularity. See his video on the topic for more details (note on the new opening: how's that ego going?). Meanwhile, if you're a PC gamer who thinks that the home console is dying out; why do you hate me? Seriously, hardware isn't cheap. That's what I hated about Extra Credits video on the future of gaming hardware; it's great if you don't live in a deadzone and can afford all that shiny new tech. Meanwhile, I have food and utilities to pay for.

Rewarding Failure

2011-04-21T13:10:00.000-04:00

I'm not going to start complaining about Extra Credits topic today. They opened it with a disclaimer that the games they were discussing were "interesting", not necessarily "good". And I can vouch for that, I've played some of those games and two of them (that I played) were utter crap. But they seem to have ignored one aspect of gaming journalism and fandom these days; "unique" is a code word for "excellent". The long and short of it is that an excellent game can be criticized for not being new and different enough, while an awful game can be lauded for doing something different irregardless of actual results. Let's say I did something different, like hunting tigers. That would be wildly different for me (and I'm pretty sure incredibly illegal). So I go on a tiger hunt, but instead of bagging a tiger I accidentally shoot and kill one of my porters. Well, props for trying something different I guess.

Frankly, I don't care how much effort and thought went into it, I'm not a fan of rewarding failure. Actually, if that much effort and thought went into a failure, that's even sadder. And if there wasn't much thought or effort put into it, then it's just a gimmick. And the gimmick failed. I don't want to reward that either. It may sound like this kind of thinking will stifle creativity, but think about it. You tried something new, you failed, try again and do better. As opposed to trying something new, you failed, but you tried something new. And that's just as complacent as Yet Another Call of Duty.

Now I'm Just Being A Jerk

2011-04-11T22:37:00.000-04:00

The Bad Old Days

2011-04-08T12:48:00.000-04:00

I've been watching a lot of Chrontendo lately. The big problem I have with the retro-gaming thing is that so much of it is built on nostalgia. Everything was better back then because we were too young and stupid to know any better. Chrontendo (as well as the side series by the same guy, Chronsega and Chronturbo) is an almost academic look at every video game to ever come out on the NES (or Famicom). It's a shockingly good reminder of just how much soulcrushingly awful crap came out on that system. And it's also a reminder of why the Super Mario Bros. games are considered classics. It's probably gaming blasphemy to say that Super Mario Bros. didn't exactly age well, but when it first came out that game was a goddamn masterpiece in every conceivable way. And that's made all the clearer when you see everything that came before it. So Chrontendo is a great, non-nostalgic look at the old days of gaming, warts and all.

And MovieBob made made me think I should watch "In the Name of the King" again. Not because it's good, but because it was so appallingly bad it's hard to imagine that kind of awfulness happening accidentally. It's a hilarious movie, even more so when you realize it was trying to be serious. And to be fair, Uwe Boll can be an okay director when you puts his nose to the grindstone and puts some honest-to-God effort into his movies. The problem is that he's so convinced of his own genius that he thinks he doesn't need to put any effort into directing. He clearly thinks he shits gold, so if he shits out a movie it must be gold. But it's just shit. Unintentionally hilarious shit, but still...

I'm As Shocked As You Are

2011-03-19T10:26:00.000-04:00

Apparently they decided to make a sequel to Earth Defense Force 2017. This one seems to have a bit more money backing it than the original budget game, but as it isn't out yet time will tell. I'm probably the only person actually anticipating Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon.

UbiSoft Never Learned

2011-03-03T20:33:00.000-05:00

The Ace Combat games, despite being awesome, are constantly on the verge of being killed by Bandai/Namco for not being profitable enough. Once again, Cooked Auto has given us a completely valid reason to support the Ace Combat franchise: it isn't HAWX.

Showdown Of Ultimate Destiny

2011-03-02T09:10:00.000-05:00

I'm starting to wonder of Ben Croshaw isn't somehow my subconscious id that escaped and got a job as a gaming journalist.

Someone over at The Escapist thought it was a good idea to have a weekly debate between Ben Croshaw (Zero Punctuation), James Portnow (Extra Credits), and Bob Chipman (GameOverthinker, MovieBob, The Big Picture). This week's debate is about the state of console gaming. In the first round, just about everyone was agreeing with everyone else. In response to this, Yahtzee decided to show his origins as a Something Awful goon and decided to call motion controls a dying gimmick just to piss people off. The long and short of it is that you have a troll, a half-troll/half-fanatic, and a mediator all trying to have a debate. I do enjoy Yahtzee's work.

We WERE Controlling The Transmission

2011-02-23T10:20:00.000-05:00

I'd probably be saying something about BulletStorm right now, but my TV crapped out. And I was kinda excited about this game (well, as excited as I get). It was made by People Can Fly, and Poland has never steered me wrong.

But alas, I have learned to never trust a Samsung. No, really. There's a lawsuit pending on the grounds that there ought to have been a recall on their craptastic TVs. On the one hand, I'm enough of a Luddite to be taking my sweet time getting a new television. On the other hand, I'm too much of a tech snob to hook my XBox 360 up to anything with less than 1080i. It's gonna be a while.

Call Of Duty: Giant Killer Robots

2011-01-04T14:21:00.000-05:00

A lot of people hated Front Mission: Evolved before it ever came out. Personally I thought the "Evolved" subtitle was stupid, and having played the game I have been vindicated on that point. But most of the hate came from people who hated that a Front Mission game was going to be an action game rather than a turn-based strategy RPG. That is totally unprecedented in the franchise! Except for Gun Hazard. Gun Hazard was a game we all loved, because it was a Front Mission action game. That's why we hate Evolved, because... okay, I'm saying the haters are hypocrites. That's not to say the game is undeserving of ire, it should just be properly focused ire. Don't hate it because it's an action game, hate it for its mediocrity.

I should probably start with a list of everything the game does right before I go off on its failings. First, it's a competent third-person shooter. Yes, competent. Not outstanding, but not bad either. As a shooter it is satisfactory. In fact, I'd argue its a better game than the Armored Core games or most Gundam related shooters out there. The reason being is that it's an action game about giant robots rather than a giant robot game. It's one of those design philosophy things. Games like Armored Core try to be giant robot simulators, and as a result the controls are clunky and stiff, especially for a third-person shooter. Front Mission: Evolved was designed as a shooter first and foremost, it's just that all the onscreen characters are giant robots. That works out wonderfully in my opinion.

Second, I'm rather surprised how well various concepts from the turn-based strategy games translated into a shooter. While the mech customization is obvious, they even kept in the concept of "battle skills", special abilities that randomly buff you during battle. My only complaint is that most of these battle skills are better suited for multiplayer than for the single player campaign. The ability to add damage over time to your attacks is nice, but most enemies in single player won't live long enough to make use of it. But hey, I'll take a 50% boost to melee damage when I can get it.

Lastly, I should mention that the music is pretty forgettable. The only reason I'm bothering to mention it at all is because it kept giving me flashbacks to Space: Above and Beyond. I half expected T.C. McQueen to fly in on a Hammerhead and start strafing the baddies. So the music was forgettable, but it reminded me of an awesome TV show, so it gets points by proxy.

But, of course, there is a laundry list of problems. The most glaring thing for most players is going to be the infantry sections of the game. In a game about piloting giant robots, there are sections that require you to run around on foot to shoot enemy soldiers. Why? Like most of the gameplay, these sections are not bad. They handle well and are a decent shooter experience. But why are they in this game? They feel very tacked on and the gameplay would be fine, in fact better, without them. While these sections do nothing wrong in terms of gameplay, they're so generic that if we gave the enemy soldiers Nazi uniforms then the circle of stupid would be complete. These sections don't have the depth to stand on their own, and they have no right to be in THIS game. I'm here for robot fights, dammit.

The most glaring problem for me is the customization system. For starters, there's no inventory. Whenever you buy a new part to equip you immediately sell the old part. If you decide your new load-out doesn't work and want to switch back, you have to buy your old parts back. Some missions force you to swap out parts. In short, your going to be bleeding money for most of the game. Secondly, the single player campaign forces you to go a "jack of all trades" route for your mech. In the traditional Front Mission games you commanded a team. This meant each team member could specialize for certain functions: the melee guy, the artillery guy, the sniper, etc. If you go into multiplayer with a pre-arranged team, then you can set up to fill a specific role in the team. But that's presuming the team is at all pre-arranged. And in single player there's no room to specialize like that. You need to be at least competent at everything instead of focusing on one skill set. And even then, it means that some weapon load-outs like sniper rifles are relatively useless because of the emphasis on mid- and close-range fighting. Personally, I probably would have gone with a well-rounded and adaptable load-out anyway, but that the gameplay doesn't really provide you with any real options about that annoys me.

Lastly is the story and voice acting. The acting is bad. Consistently bad, with the occasional patch of terrible. I think one character actually changed accents about three times in one sentence. As for the story, I'd like to apologize to the writers for the Gears of War games for making fun of their dialogue. I've found something much worse to complain about. Okay, actually the story needs a bit of perspective. Take your favorite story from a JRPG. Now, realize that this JRPG story is told over the course of about 40+ hours of gameplay. Now reduce that story to a series of bullet points. Then reduce it further if that bullet point list probably wouldn't fit into a 6 hour game. You just wrote the story to Front Mission: Evolved. The broad narrative isn't far removed from your standard JRPG story, but it's so rushed with time constraints that neither character nor story is ever developed. There's a romantic subplot that's crammed in without any explanation except to maybe give our hero a reason to save the girl. But if the romantic aspect were cut entirely we could easily argue he's going to save a comrade and, considering how well developed the romance is, it would actually make more sense. The villain is gleefully evil for no other reason than simply being a jerk, and I'm assuming that much because his motivations are never fully explained. Events seem to occur for no other reason than that they must, and then a half-baked explanation is stuck on as a coda. It's just awful writing. Looking at the synopsis of the story and comparing it to a good JRPG or anime it looks like it has potential, but without any development of anything it just seems like a random series of events strung together because we need a jungle level now.

I complain, but I still like this game. The acting is bad, the story is worse, and a lot of the game elements needed more polishing. But it's still fun to pilot a giant robot and shoot other giant robots. And really, aren't games supposed to be fun before all else? It's just not $60 worth of fun. Yeah, I paid full price and regretted that. If you've got an open mind about this game then it's worth a rental, Hell if you've got a GameFly account your paying the subscription fee anyway so it might as well go in your queue. If your a Front Mission fan who isn't offended that this is an action game then it's definitely worth a buy, if you see it in the bargain bin. It's a fun game, but it isn't $60 worth of fun. Maybe $30 worth of fun. And if your looking for a really good buy you should check out Mount and Blade: Warband. It's like 8 bucks on Amazon and I haven't been this manically addicted to a game since Alpha Centauri.

EDIT: Mount and Blade: WarBand was 8 bucks when I got it. I checked today and it's up to 14 something. Still worth it.

The Spirit Of The Season

2010-12-20T17:51:00.000-05:00

I love to give. Unfortunately, I'm a big ball of spite, so I'm going to be giving out big spoonfuls of spite. Here's LordMune's Let's Play of Heavy Rain. Heavy Rain: the two-word refutation of the entire "games as art" argument. Fuck you, David Cage.

How About A Nice Game Of Chess?

2010-12-16T14:36:00.001-05:00

So watching Extra Credits this week reminded me of something. Not that games aren't art, I already discussed that. Video games will be art when we start discussing the artistic merits of Monopoly. Video games are games, they're not art just because I really really like them. And it's not that most people on the interwebs seem to grossly overthink the simplest things. Seriously, watch this weeks episode and tell me you're not thinking "Riiiiiigggghhhhhhttt" most of the time.

What it reminded me was that Missile Command is probably one of the most terrifying games out there. Seriously, that game was some unsettling shit. In large part this was because it was one of those old school arcade games that never ends. It just keeps getting incrementally harder with each level. For those of you not familiar, Missile Command was a simple game where you had three SDI (strategic defense initiative) missile silos with finite missiles and six cities chock full of civilians. And then thermonuclear warheads start falling from the sky. You have to protect the cities from wave after wave of atomic death. Oh sure, you got your ammo resupplied after each level, but attrition weighs you down something fierce. Eventually your going to lose a city, and it's gone forever (actually I think one citiy magically rebuilt every 10 levels or something, but I could be wrong). Or you could lose a missile silo, rendering your cities more vulnerable (if you got a silo back after a set number of levels, I didn't live that long). At long last, the sheer volume of warheads being thrown at you is going to win. And all you can do is sit and watch helplessly as your empty silos try and target the warhead that is about to wipe out millions of people. And then it hits, and you get the game over screen. Actually, it wasn't a "game over" screen. It said "The End" within the games pixellated, circular nuclear blast. The game wasn't over, it was the end. Everyone was dead. Humanity died on your watch. And there were no continues, more quarters just started a new game. Now that was some scary shit, especially when you consider that the game was made at a time when it could have really happened. Oh sure, today we play DefCon because no one realistically expects a global thermonuclear war, but in 1980...

Back then you couldn't really "win" arcade games. That's what hi-score lists were for. You were competing against other gamers in your area for the top score. To that extent Missile Command was no different from its peers. But that subtle change from "Game Over" to "The End"... damn. And it wasn't a frantic firefight to survive until the end, but all too often you ran out of missiles or all your silos got hit, and all you could do was sit and wait for the inevitable. For such an old arcade game, that game was dark.

If Games Are Like Movies, And Movies Are Art, Then I Still Hate You

2010-12-02T13:05:00.000-05:00

The folks over at Extra Credits today kept hammering home a point I find myself strangely hostile towards; games as art. Mostly because, on my end, it went something like:

Extra Credits: "Games are art! Games are art! Games are art!"
Me: "BOOM HEADSHOT! I'm sorry, you were saying something?"

If games are art, I'd consider them something like movies. Except RPGs, those are more like novels. Except Final Fantasy, those are more like shitty mangas. Anyway, I consider film to be an artistic medium. At the same time I love things like Die Hard (except Die Hard 2) and I even have a soft spot for the craptacular Starship Troopers movie. If I wanted to draw parallels (and I love doing that), then Dragon Age is the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Okami is Millenium Actress, Modern Warfare is Live Free Or Die Hard, and StarCraft is what Starship Troopers SHOULD HAVE BEEN (I wanted to compare something to Schindler's List, but that ain't happening in gaming anytime soon).

You'd think the parallels would make it easy for me to side with the games-as-art crowd, especially since I'm a gamer. So why my hostility? I don't really know. Maybe it stems from my feeling that some of us are taking a hobby way too seriously. I also build Gundam models but I'm never going to take the time, money, and effort to paint them and build custom stands for them. I suspect, though, that my issue is that I feel art should be more academic and less visceral. When I'm watching a Let's Play, I can take the games-as-art argument more seriously because I'm more detached. I can see artistry or lack thereof is level design because I'm not trying to navigate it. If I'm navigating the level, I'm not concerned with artistry as I am with functionality. Fuck elegance in design, I'm lost and the camera seems more concerned with ceiling patterns than helping me out. But then, I always judged architecture more on its usefulness than it's artistic merits (unless you want to argue pragmatism as artistry, but I'd have to punch you at the moment). It's like an argument I once had regarding pornographic "art"; if I'm masturbating to it, it's not art. If I'm appreciating the human body, it is art. Pretty much what I'm asking is whether or not the "artist" is actively trying to give me an erection. Masturbation was probably the worst analogy to use, but the idea of the visceral reaction is the same. I can appreciate the art in an action sequence where the hero skillfully headshots his enemies. When I'm playing as the hero, that artistry got jettisoned out the window the moment I took some level of pleasure and/or pride from my skillful takedowns. When I'm personally and viscerally involved, it's not about art but about my in-game accomplishments. Accomplishments the designers obviously facilitated, but I, the player, am the one stepping up to the challenge. Video games are games, and while we can praise a players abilities or the fact that football is infinitely more pleasurable and interesting than baseball (proven fact), nobody talks about the artistry in football's rules. Because we're focused on the player and whether or not the game is fun.

That's my piece, and if anyone cares I'm willing to elaborate, but I think I have all of one reader anyway. Maybe one day our children will talk about video games the same way I talk about movies and books. Maybe one day video games will have televised industry award shows that aren't sponsored by Mountain Dew. Or maybe on day competitive gaming will have the same broad appeal as professional sports, complete with televised matches, leagues, and championships. And I said "or" there because I consider these things mutually exclusive.

Gears Of Voldemort

2010-11-17T09:04:00.000-05:00

I like Gears of War. I don't like Harry Potter. That being said, I think they ruined the new Harry Potter game by making it Gears of War. When a Potter hating Gears fan tells you that was a mistake, you know you fucked up. Also, one of my favorite book series uses Vancian magic as a substitute for artillery, and I still think third-person shooter was a horrible mistake for a Potter game. Christ, I hate the books, I hate the movies, and I'm still pissed off about this game ruining Harry Potter. I need to go calm down with some Lovecraft or something.

Rights And Privileges

2010-11-08T21:47:00.000-05:00

Before anyone comments on this; read the whole thing first rather than shooting a comment off the moment you see something objectionable, and even if you read the whole thing take two or three deep breaths first before commenting.

I really liked the Rally to Restore Sanity. It wasn't as political as I expected, it was more focused on the tone of the discussion. Even when you're arguing for the right cause, the point of the entire discussion can be lost in all the shouting. So I haven't been following that case about California wanting to ban the sale of games to minors. Sometimes you've been fighting so goddamn long that you get sick of the whole thing. It's an annoyingly semantic debate. On the one hand, I do support the banning of selling games outside their intended age group. If a game is to be given to someone outside the intended age group, it should be purchased by an adult. If a parent thinks an 8 year old is mature enough for, say, Manhunt then that's the parent's decision. If an 8 year old thinks he's mature enough for Manhunt, he's a fucking idiot and ought to be smacked by his parents. On the other hand, this ought to be an industry regulation, not a government one. And on that note, the government is trying to get this through by comparing Rock Band to hardcore pornography, which strains credulity to my mind.

I don't know how many of you are old enough to remember the shit storm that came up around the time that Mortal Kombat 2 was getting its console port. There were hearings and investigations, and Sega took the lead by instituting their own ratings system. Then the government gave an ultimatum to the industry: regulate yourselves or we start regulating you. I took the unpopular position amongst my peers of fully endorsing the ESRB and their ratings system. Most of the censorship debate sounded like lazy parenting to me. "I can't be bothered to check what my children are doing, so just censor everything I object to so I don't have to do it." With the rating system, there was no excuse. You couldn't complain about your child playing a violent video game because you were the parent was the one who bought it.

Of course, that assumes that the industry is working right. For starters, the ESRB is the gaming equivalent of the MPAA, and Jack Valenti's moral monstrosity is an ethical mess which the ESRB threatens to mimic. Secondly, many stores know that you shouldn't sell or rent R rated movies to minors, but take a more nonchalant attitude (or, in some cases, a subversively guerrilla attitude) towards selling or renting M rated games to minors. Right there the industry has failed to regulate itself, but it's the distributor, not the developer at fault. This is yet another problem we face in this discussion. If Larry's Gaming Dungeon sells Gears of War to a six year old, then someone will launch an outcry against Epic Games for ever having made the title. If Larry's Video Hut sells Night Shift Nurses to a six year old, it's Larry who's getting lynched in the street. I can't explain this discrepancy but it does exist.

I might support California's law if it made the argument that the industry is welching on it's agreement to self-regulate. Instead they're comparing video games to pornography, when games should be regulated like movies. Just because I have an extensive collection of pornographic games doesn't mean we should stop children from buying Mario Galaxy. The biggest problem I see is that the gaming community is so wrapped up in screaming about censorship that we've forgotten our own responsibility in this mess. The industry, with responsibility falling primarily on distributors, was supposed to keep M rated games out of the hands of anyone under 18 and T rated games away from anyone under 13. If a parent bought it, then it was the parent's decision that it was suitable for their child, but the child alone could not purchase it. Instead we've cried "Censorship!" at just about anything and everything and now find ourselves in a nightmare scenario where Sonic the Hedgehog is being compared to... well... 90% of Sonic fanart actually. The game distributors have a responsibility that they haven't bothered with, but we haven't helped much. Take a look at every censorship argument you've made in the last twenty years, then consider the context of what was really going on. Were you helping? See, this is why I argue that we ought to leash our passions.

WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS!?

2010-10-28T14:05:00.001-04:00

This is, simultaneously, the greatest and worst thing in the world.

A Modicum Of Professionalism

2010-10-23T19:26:00.001-04:00

I got pissed off playing Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2 again. And the weird thing is I don't even get pissed off at the game or anything. It's that some random line of dialogue somehow gets me thinking "my childhood kinda sucked" or some such thing and suddenly I'm pissed at various not-Gundam things. I don't know what it is about that game but it pisses me off at everything but the game itself. Maybe it's that all the in-game compliments sound like the same kind of insincere flattery you get when someone is saying something nice because they're supposed to be nice but they don't really mean it. I don't know. Maybe I just have issues.

Anyway. Call me a cold-hearted Yankee bastard, but culturally I'm a westerner. An American, specifically. And it's a statistical fact that we like our game heroes stoic and aloof. Which is quite the opposite of what Japan likes in their anime and video game heroes. And it's even odder since our hero preferences are the opposite of our cultures. Relatively speaking, western culture is very emotionally open while Japan is emotionally repressed. We like stoic heroes, they like more "emotive" (i.e. angsty) heroes. I'm not going to try to understand the hows and whys of this, I'm just positing an argument because I think I'm right. I like my heroes stoic, which might be why I came down off my DW:G2 anger rush by playing Gears of War of all things. I think it's because stoic heroes just seem more effective to me. Consider a scene from Ace Combat 6 (Japanese game, if you didn't know). We're going into spoiler territory, so if you care stop reading. Anyway, the player-character is a silent protagonist, so Talisman's dialogue is pretty much what I would be saying. And I like to imagine any competent leader would be thinking the same thing (even if they didn't quite say this).

Shamrock: "My wife and daughter are dead."

Talisman: "Oh... I'm sorry. Do you need to take some time off or something? Medical lea..."

Shamrock: "HOW COULD I LET THIS HAPPEN!"

Talisman: "Okay, your taking some time off. See a grief counselor or something, but your grounded. You're flying 200 million dollars of tax-payer aircraft, with enough jet fuel and warheads to destroy 15 city blocks. If you're going to start crying every 10 minutes then you're now a liability to get someone killed. As your flight leader, you are hereby grounded until further notice. Return to base."

Call be a bastard, but sometimes we all just need to calm down before we angst ourselves into an early grave.

Goddamn Newtypes

2010-09-30T08:58:00.000-04:00

I haven't played Front Mission: Evolve yet, but based on the review I just saw it's probably inevitable. Based on that review, it seems the franchise has transitioned surprisingly well from a turn-based strategy/RPG into a third-person shooter. The review pointed out three potential problems, one of which isn't a problem for me because I like to win and another isn't a problem because I don't do multiplayer. First, multiplayer sucks. With that out of the way, another problem is balance. When fighting as infantry against giant robots the player seems strangely effective at knocking the behemoths down. When fighting in your own giant robot, the game turns into a war crime as your advantages over your enemies make it less like a battle and more like a murder. The last problem is the story. Apparently the hero is a newtype or he has Trans-Am or he has the EXAM system or [insert another Gundam reference]. In any case, super powers wouldn't be terribly out of place in most giant robot stories, but Front Mission has built itself around believable geo-political intrigue. Cut out the giant robots and most Front Mission stories would read like a good political pot-boiler set in the real world. The sudden inclusion of newtypes or something seems very out of place. So story wise, Front Mission: Evolve is the best Gundam spin-off never made.

Incorrect

2010-09-25T15:38:00.001-04:00

Part of me thinks I should stop posting these videos, but that Heavy Rain LP has been a comedy goldmine.

Metroid: Other DOAX

2010-09-22T12:33:00.000-04:00

Well, GameOverthinker had another fanboy rant desperately trying to defend depictions of femininity in Other M, thereby completely negating his comments regarding the same topic in Bayonetta. I love third-wave feminism as much as the next guy who doesn't want his porn taken away, but sometimes you're not being feminine and just being a whiny emo puss, gender notwithstanding.

Rather than post a link to Mr. Chipman 'sperging out over how Nintendo can never do anything wrong (I shouldn't say that, he made a video talking about how Sony only made it big because Nintendo was being retarded. On second thought, I think he made that video to deflect accusations of being a fanboy), I'll just link to Yahtzee's review of the game. It's pretty much what I would say, only funnier and more popular.

Scott Pilgrim Versus XBox Live

2010-08-31T22:45:00.000-04:00

I keep trying to write up a decent review of the Scott Pilgrim game, but every time I try I slip into a sort of malaise. So instead I'll just say that it's a really good beat 'em up, especially for $10. In terms of gameplay it's the bastard love-child of Sengoku 3 and River City Ransom. Visually, it's like playing a Paul Robertson movie. If I have any complaints, it's a bit grindier than I'd like, but I think that comes with the River City Ransom thing. Also there was a reference to Crash 'n The Boys, so I'm obligated to like the game.

EDIT: This picture is one of the least fucked up things on Paul's site. Now imagine a 12 minute video.

I Shouldn't Do This...

2010-08-10T01:50:00.001-04:00

I know I'm supposed to be posting about XBox 360 games, not bitching about PS3 games. But I couldn't pass this up.

I Demand Spoilers

2010-07-26T16:04:00.000-04:00

My PC would probably burst into flames if it tried to run StarCraft 2. I suspect that my co-poster on this blog will probably be waiting in line for a midnight release or something, and since I won't have a chance to speak with him before launch I'll say here that I want story details from the campaign. All of them. Who dies, who lives, and how vindicated am I in never reading the StarCraft novels (actually I read one StarCraft novel. That experience taught me to never read any of the others).

Totally Missing Out

2010-07-05T09:57:00.000-04:00

I must be honest with you all. Since I don't own a PS3, I can't partake in such brilliantly designed games as Heavy Rain. So sad.

Hey Look! Someone As Bitchy As I Am!

2010-06-30T14:12:00.000-04:00

And in all the right ways.

An Addendum

2010-06-28T11:55:00.000-04:00

After the previous post I had a discussion with a friend and felt the need to clarify certain issues. In regards to Nintendo's "casual" gaming versus the "hardcore" FPS scene: GrandPa doesn't get Kirby. GrandPa does get sighting down a barrel and shooting bad guys in the head.

I think that we, as gamers, should consider things from a more detached viewpoint whenever we talk about whether a game is intuitive. A non-gamer can quickly grasp the concept of "pick up gun, shoot target" without having to experiment too much or refer to a manual. The moment you say that experimentation is part of the experience, you have ceased to be either a casual or non-gamer. In all seriousness, go find the old manual for the NES version of Super Mario Bros. That whole thing reads like a drug fueled fever dream, doesn't it. Grab the mushroom to grow large, grab the flower to shoot fire. And you lose them if a turtle catches you. You can talk about imagination and creativity, but we were supposed to be talking about casual gamers. Does the casual gamer have the interest in gaming necessary to embrace the elaborate fantasy logic at work here?

Back in high school we used to joke that Mario games were full of hidden drug references. I still like that fan film that depicted Mario as a 'shroom addict living with his abused girlfriend, Peach. Meanwhile, Luigi had quit the 'shrooms, married Daisy, and gotten a job. But yeah, we gamers are used to game logic. For us, it's not a huge intuitive leap to accept that crashing your airplane into a giant, floating "P" will somehow make your guns bigger. We're not terribly weirded out by the idea of gaining a cape by grabbing a feather, then riding a dinosaur that eats mushrooms, fish, and turtles. And the cape lets you fly. We're cool with that, but then again we're gamers. This is the kind of weirdness that scares off the normals. This is why games like Kid Icarus are, in truth, hardcore games. This is the kind of game that tries to keep gaming an exclusive club. This doesn't bring in the non-gamer, it confuses them. Some of us, GameOverthinker I'm looking at you, have been playing games for over 20 years now. We get this stuff. But GrandPa only started playing games when we got him that Wii. And GrandPa doesn't understand why his magic sword shoots lasers while his health is full. So for his sake we're switching out the magic sword for a rifle. GrandPa gets that. Because GrandPa isn't a gamer.

Explaining My Hostility

2010-06-28T00:59:00.000-04:00

First things first, maybe it's purely anecdotal personal experience but it feels like the defenders of casual gaming are a lot more hardcore about their gaming than I am. And, in theory, I'm one of those hardcore-Halo-playing-gunjocks (side note: fucking hate Halo). I honestly don't get in the requisite time to finish a Mario game these days. Maybe that's why I never got into Super Mario World; if I wanted a platformer, I could beat MegaMan X in about an hour. Super Mario World was a backtracking project. I had RPGs to soak up hours, I didn't need a platformer to do it. I think this issue somehow goes back to my argument that it's not casual versus hardcore, it's accessible versus impenetrable. Grandpa will never play Zelda. Ever. Chad from the basketball team will play Call of Duty. And probably stuff you in your locker, but that's besides the point. Somehow the game that the traditional non-gamer is playing is hardcore, while the game that the non-gamer will never play is casual. Go figure.

Meanwhile, I'm almost sorta nerd raging over the 2.5-D thing. Which is weird considering my undying love for Street Fighter. I continue to blame nostalgia. It's like those guys who look back at high school as the best years of their lives. Yeah, I was an unemployed virgin without a car. Good times. Everyone always likes to think about how things were better back when we were younger. My problem was that I had an unhealthy interest in the gaming industry when I was younger. Not just the gaming, but the actual industry. So back then I had some pretty good ideas of what I wanted to see in games to come, and looking back I have a clear vision of how we got here. Remember when we loved 3-D? Technology is always advancing, and back then the limitations of gaming were limitations of technology. Of course our games were 2-D, we didn't have the tech for 3-D. But someday, someday we would. And then that day finally came, and an army of nerds simultaneously creamed their pants when we saw Super Mario 64. It was Mario, in 3-D! At the time this was a clear and unambiguous step forward. To my mind, it still is. But for some reason we're retreating to the 2-D again. We're fleeing from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

It's all the difference between looking back and looking forward. I've explained my evolution before: Contra to Metal Slug to DOOM to Gears of War (and, as a Mac user, a few years experimenting with Marathon). I remember sitting at home playing Contra 4 on my SNES and thinking "Gee, wouldn't it be awesome if this was in 3-D." And then Gears of War came out. And then about half my generation decided the 2-D was better. If this was purely emotional, I could get it. If all the involved parties just said "Yeah, it's nostalgia because you think everything was better in 1988" I'd call you an idiot, but at least you'd be an honest idiot. But this is argued as the intrinsically superior game design and I don't get why. What were we waiting for all those years? Were the rest of you sitting at your gaming consoles thinking "I hope nothing ever changes for 25 years"? From my standpoint it looks like Gradius->Colony Wars->Ace Combat 6->Oh-Jesus-it's-scary-I-want-Gradius-back! Someone explain!

If I seem hostile it's because I'm opposed to nostalgia on most levels. It's like how everything was better in the 1950's. We were young and happy and there was never any crime in our neighborhoods. And black people knew their place. And you don't have to give gay people rights if you pretend they don't exist. Weren't the 1950's great? Here's an idea for a retro game, Star Fox. Yeah, it's great because it was on the Super Nintendo, then it was on the Nintendo 64. And it's great for retro-gaming because it's big selling point when it first came out was that it's in fucking 3-D! We are now what gaming back then was striving to be. Don't let a generation worth of effort go to waste.

Blast Off To Adventure!

2010-06-09T16:46:00.000-04:00

To continue my tradition of non sequitor first paragraphs, I discovered I have a copy of Garou: Mark of the Wolves. It's not a bad game, but I have no idea how I got it, where it came from, or why I have it. I never cared about the Fatal Fury/King of Fighters franchise before, so I don't know what happened. Anyway, I should get to the point that made me sit here in the first place.

I started playing the Orange Box edition of Half-Life 2 again, a game which has a sort of odd place in my collection. Half-Life 2 is an excellent game, but while games like Gears of War or Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2 are in constant rotation, I haven't touched Half-Life 2 or it's episodes in about a year and half. I think I've figured out why. I think.

Like many in my generation, there was a time when the First Person Shooter was called the Corridor Shooter. Mostly because the first game we had played in the genre was Wolfenstein 3D. I had Wolfenstein 3D on my Mac (LC II, oldschool) and I had the special edition of DOOM on PSX. FPS's in general, though, were more of a PC genre and I was a console guy. So I generally had to wait for an FPS to come out on a console before I could play it. Enter GoldenEye and Perfect Dark. These two games shaped what I looked for in a good FPS, and I think it still colors my preferences. PC shooters had technological advantages over consoles, and the design philosophy tended towards big, expansive worlds to explore. Without the hardware for big, expansive worlds, many console shooters tended to be smaller. GoldenEye and Perfect Dark were effectively fully interactive 3D shooting galleries where the targets could shoot back. The levels were small and had a habit of being fairly linear. This is the shooter I grew up with. Today my favorite shooters are Gears of War and Modern Warfare. If you've played those last two then I think you can see the connection.

Meanwhile, the PC FPS had big open worlds filled with enemies, secrets, and places to explore. The console FPS only had enough room for the enemies. This was a major difference in design philosophy. It is this difference in design philosophy that makes me objectively acknowledge the quality of Half-Life 2 while still rarely playing it because each new level makes me think "oh Christ, this level...". One design philosophy isn't better than the other, it's just a matter of preference. I grew up playing Double Dragon and listening to The Doors, so I'm not as big a Mario fan as someone who played Super Mario Bros. and listened to whatever the Hell 8 year olds listened to back then. We all have different tastes.

In private I've thrown around the term "First Person Adventure with Shooting Elements" to describe games that lean more to the PC FPS philosophy. It's how I've described BioShock, and part of the reason Fallout 3 was so refreshing is that it was a straight up RPG which could only be confused for an FPS if you've never played it or seen it played. Half-Life 2 falls into this category. A lot of the problems we sometimes have with something are the preconceptions we go into it with. Cloverfield wasn't a monster movie, but a disaster movie in which the disaster was a giant monster. I can understand how that can kinda piss people off when they went to see a monster movie. It's this same problem that made me not appreciate Half-Life 2 as much as I should have. To me, Half-Life 2 isn't a First Person Shooter, it's a First Person Adventure. If I go into it with the same mindset I go into Gears of War or Modern Warfare, I'm going to find a noticeable lack of ammo and a crippling lack of monsters to use it on. But if I approach it less as a shooter and more as an adventure game, suddenly I'm not seeing a lack of enemies but instead a wide world where the enemies that do show up are a tangible and exciting danger.

I have different tastes in First Person Shooters. My favorites are the linear shooting gallery style games. Half-Life 2 is still an utterly fantastic game. I just have to think about it not as a shooter, but as an adventure game (that, and ignore that escort quest near the end of episode one). If I start to think of Half-Life 2 as a shooter, I might as well start complaining that Dragon Age had horrible flight mechanics and dog fighting. It's a personal issue, but by addressing it I can better appreciate the game for what it is rather than what I expected from it.

I Secretly Hate All Of You

2010-06-07T18:58:00.000-04:00

Hehehe... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Rental Considerations

2010-05-28T15:37:00.000-04:00

As is my way I've been watching Let's Plays, and I've decided I may yet rent Dante's Inferno, but I will never buy it.

First things first, it's derivative. But if you've read anything I've written about Gears of War you all know that simply being samey has never put a damper on my opinions. It's got everything I should love: button mashing combat (see also: all those Dynasty Warriors games) and blood, guts, and horror (see also: my porn collection). It's a God of War rip-off, but God of War was awesome so it's OK. The problem seems to be that they took awesome elements from games they liked, but never gave consideration to what made them work. Gears of War 2 had you hijack a brumack in the last level, making you effectively invincible and packing huge guns. For maybe fifteen minutes in the last level. Dante's Inferno does something similar twice in the first hour of gameplay. Devil May Cry gave you guns for ranged attacks, but the guns were horribly underpowered because they were meant more to add flavor to the combat than to be a viable combat option. Dante's Inferno made its ranged attack powerful enough that you could theoretically never use your melee attack. They were so concerned with copying awesome game concepts that they never thought about what made them awesome and just piled them into their game. The result is that something that was once awesome becomes common and base.

The biggest complaint that anyone even remotely literate is going to have is the way the game rapes the original poem. Let's suppose someone made a game story about some generic fantasy kingdom that is taken over by some interdimensional chaos demon, and so some half-demon knight who can shoot lasers from his eyes has to cut his way through monsters to save the land. It's dumb, but a serviceable plot for an action game. Now imagine someone took that story, renamed the fantasy kingdom Denmark, made the half-demon laser-knight William Shakespeare, and called the game "Hamlet." That wouldn't work and would make something that started dumb end up epically stupid. That's what Dante's Inferno did. They took a dumb but serviceable story about a disillusioned Crusader launching a one-man invasion of Hell, and changed the names to make references to The Divine Comedy. Having your main character die, then having him kill Death and stealing his scythe, that's kinda stupid. Making this same character Dante Alighieri is offensively stupid. Also, all of this is taking place some three or four hundred years before Dante Alighieri was born.

So why would I consider renting this drek? Well, like I said, button mashing ultra-violence. But it's also a visual treat (I realize this says something about my taste). It's a visually brilliant game, which may be why a Let's Play might hold up better than an actual rental. I should point out that I was completely unfazed by things that horrified the Let's Play commentators and rendered one speechless. It's weird, but I want to rent this game less to play it and more to see it. And before anyone starts complaining about graphics becoming more important than gameplay, I said I'd rent it. I'm never buying this monstrosity.

Let's Be Honest For A Sec

2010-05-28T15:31:00.000-04:00

MovieBob gave a pretty good review to Prince of Persia. But he said he was surprised that he wasn't more thrilled that a good video game movie had been made. His explanation for his lack of thrills? It wasn't Mario.

If I ever develop the same degree of fanaticism for Gears of War, or Ace Combat, or... Hell, let's say Lyrical Nanoha, consider that an open invitation to shoot me in the head.
(It's kinda like those ads that were disguised as polls on anime sites. "Do you eat Pocky while watching anime?" No, but if I ever do I'll have to kill myself out of shame.)

Protest

2010-05-11T18:14:00.000-04:00

In protest against Obama's assertion that playing Xbox will turn me into a mutant star goat, a serial graffiti cleaner, or a disused lavatory (I assume it had to be something offensive like that, as otherwise there wouldn't be an uproar), I now thoroughly counter-assert that my Xbox is still working.

Exciting New Levels Of Apathy

2010-05-10T16:28:00.000-04:00

This just in: President Obama says mean things about XBox. Nation shocked to learn that politicians don't trust gaming. More on this when I can feign outrage.

Mainstreaming

2010-05-05T11:20:00.000-04:00

Depending on how I feel after this, my other blog will have a similar, if less coherent, rant about anime. So here goes.

Not surprisingly, the Game OverThinker's latest video did something to piss me off. Surprisingly, it wasn't the primary content of the video. I largely agreed with what he said. It was his continued dichotomy of brightly colored, old school platformers versus pseudo-realistic military shooters. He seems to be under the impression that anyone who honestly enjoys Modern Warfare 2 is also a fratboy jock who masturbates to Glenn Beck. All TRUE gamers prefer the Mario games (and all TRUE Americans don't live on the coasts). He states he has no problems with the casual gaming image Nintendo is building for itself, but considering his Nintendo fanboyism I find it hard to take this statement at face value. Instead of dividing gamers into casual and hardcore, let's instead divide game culture into "accessible" and "impenetrable". The question isn't whether grandma can figure out the controls, but if a non-gamer would play the game to completion. I begin to suspect that the more militant aspects of the platformer crowd (some people just prefer platformers, but some douchebags believe it's the One True Path and Miyamoto is it's prophet) would prefer games to be impenetrable, that special thing that only the nerds have.

People have a habit of categorizing themselves. The nerds, the jocks, the gamers, whatever. It goes beyond the stereotypes of the high school cliques and is proudly on display at any sci-fi convention or baseball game. We divide into Us and Them, and any overlap makes us uncomfortable. There is the crowd that consistently got 100% runs in Super Metroid, and the crowd that only knew the consoles as that thing to play the new Madden game on. Then came the game that changed that for a generation of gamers, specifically my generation. Suddenly there was a game that the football players were playing to completion on the higher difficulty levels, a game that could finally unite the jock and the nerd in an ultra-violent nerdgasm of alien carnage. Yes, I speak of Halo. Finally, there was common ground. Many have embraced this common ground, others have recoiled in horror. The sacred ground of the nerd, the video game, had been sullied by the uninitiated.

I'll be honest, I don't like Halo. Halo 2 failed to impress at launch, and while the original was impressive at the time, it hasn't aged well. But suddenly there was a whole new market in a revamped genre, the FPS had found a new niche on the console (let's not get started on how the PC nerds reacted). Gaming was undergoing yet another evolution. And by that I mean you young'uns wouldn't believe what we had to put up with in RPGs back in the day, I still shudder to think of those interfaces. I don't say this often, but thank God for Final Fantasy. Gaming was evolving, and many of us rode with it. Others retreated to their cabins in the woods to await the End Times.

This, I believe, is the primary cause of friction between the old school and the young bloods. Well, this and that the young bloods seem to be brutally ignorant of history. But the problem was that previously impenetrable games that only nerds could tolerate were now accessible to the mainstream American. The club was no longer exclusive. Anyone could be a gamer. The modern argument of casual and hardcore first started out as gaming nerd battling lacrosse player. If "hardcore" gaming today is a club, then old school gaming back in the day was a clan. You weren't in unless you were born in and marrying in only meant your children were in, you were still out. It was that exclusive.

Part of me wonders if this doesn't also have to do with national cultures. Domestic, American game companies didn't really start to hit it big until the PSX era. Prior to that, everything came from Japan. A lot of platformer enthusiasts make the arguments about colors versus real-is-brown, and to a shocking extent that's a cultural barrier between west and east. Japanese games still have a market in the west, but not on the same scale that American and European games have. I'd buy Idolm@ster if it ever came out here, me and ten other people (four of whom are convicted sex offenders). Meanwhile, American games (and to a lesser extent, European games) don't do well in Japan. The primary reasons cited by Japanese gamers is that they look too hard (this from the country that brought us Ninja Gaiden and Castlevania) and the main characters aren't cute enough. I wish I was making that last part up. It's all part of the kawaisa aesthetic. They like things cute and colorful, while we like big manly men. That's why the military shooter has done so well in America amongst people who previously wouldn't be considered gamers. It's muscular men grasping long, hard objects and shooting off in other guys' faces. If that seems overly harsh to American cultural preferences, I point you to Japanese sociologists who view all this colorful cuteness as a dangerous cultural neurosis and symptomatic of an entire society refusing to grow the fuck up. My point is that the nerd was dedicated enough to gaming to leap over these cultural boundaries (or embrace them, but that's a whole other rant) whereas the less traditional gamer wasn't. But then games were produced that played to his own culture, and suddenly he was a gamer. Much to the horror of some older gamers.

Gaming has gone mainstream. It is part of our culture now. And that means it's not exclusive anymore. The gamer isn't a specialized class of nerd, but a noticeable portion of the American market. That scares some people. They have lost all special entitlements and considerations. Gaming has come to the masses. Nearly every gamer has publicly argued that gaming should be recognized and respected by the mainstream of American society. But now that it's happening, some of us are afraid that we're not so special as we thought. We can march forward, or we can insist that everything was better when I was younger. As a guy who still owns the original Super Mario Bros. trilogy on that front loading NES that's still plugged in (okay, Bionic Commando is in there now, but that's not the point), I'm marching forward.

Overdue

2010-04-29T11:19:00.000-04:00

In the event any of you cared, I wanted to share that my 360 is still full of pith and vinegar, figuratively speaking.

Natal Is A Terrible Idea

2010-04-15T18:10:00.000-04:00

If I gave a flying fuck about motion controlled games, I'd get a Wii. If I wanted to flail around like I was playing tennis or running outside, I'd got outside and play tennis or run. That's what I never understood about motion control, we're trying to make the controls feel like you're really doing the action that's on-screen, or you could just go outside and get some sun you fat fuck. It's like when The Sims first came out:
"You can make friends and get a job!"
"Wow, and here I thought we could just do that in real life."

While I'm bitching, could someone who's into the 2-D platformer retro-gaming explain the appeal to me? Without referencing nostalgic everything-was-better-when-I-was-young. It's the same twitch reaction gameplay you'd see in, say, Modern Warfare 2. There's a crippling lack of story that we've been complaining about for nearly twenty years. The only appeal I can imagine is nostalgia. It's like "Hey, remember how 'Contra' was awesome?!" Yes, I do. In 1987. Then I started playing Metal Slug because it was better. Now if you'll excuse I'm going to play Gears of War because the technology means we don't have an excuse anymore. At least with retro-style strategy games or RPGs there's a depth of design that allowed them to hold up over time. Platformers don't have that depth, and I liked Super Mario Bros. 3 too but fuck you it didn't have depth. It's a fucking platformer.

I really should stop watching Game Overthinker, his Nintendo fanboyism does this to me.

We Called It "Total Annihilation"

2010-04-10T10:31:00.000-04:00

I'm not a big RTS fan, but I'm told Supreme Commander 2 (spiritual bastard child of Total Annihilation) is one of the few console RTS games that get the controls right. And considering that much of the action and resource management is taken directly from its illegitimate parent, my inner fanboy is probably obligated to play it at some point.

It Can Never Die

2010-03-31T12:11:00.001-04:00

I can't tell if this is the most awesome or most terrifying thing I've seen.

I Drive A Tank

2010-03-26T09:40:00.000-04:00

Don't tap the fucking glass!

About As Nostalgic As I'm Getting

2010-03-23T09:35:00.000-04:00

HOLY SHIT "PERFECT DARK" ON XBOX LIVE ARCADE! CONSUME! CONSUME!

Have You Noticed I Like Anime?

2010-03-15T12:01:00.000-04:00

Considering the type of fellow Tom Clancy seems to be, this entire video almost feels like a giant "fuck you" to him.
Note: You should probably full-screen this in order to see anything.

Still Alive

2010-03-05T20:55:00.001-05:00

Portal 2 has been announced, and my 360 is still alive.

Fictitious Chatter-Boxes

2010-03-03T16:23:00.000-05:00

It's not uncommon in games these days for characters to either compliment or chastise you based on your actions. I don't know what it is about Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2, but something in that game is pushing my buttons. Let's compare:

GhostBusters
NPC: "Hey! Good job!"
Me: Thank you.

Fallout 3
NPC: "Thanks for the help. Here's your reward."
Me: No reward needed, just happy to help.

Ace Combat 6
NPC: "Nice shooting, Talisman!"
Me: Damn straight it was.

Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2
NPC: "Great job! You should take more pride in your accomplishments!"
Me: I HOPE YOU DIE IN A FIRE!

Steve Blum Is In Everything

2010-03-01T13:07:00.000-05:00

Remember when I posted a link to that Ace Combat 6 Let's Play? Apparently Viddler decided that they hated all that was good in the world, and yet TyrantSabre continues to use them. So until the relevant parties realize that the .flv movies border on unwatchable, let's watch an LP of Ubisoft's Ace Combat knock-off: Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.

Cooked Auto uses blip.tv, so the streaming quality is significantly better. And he's apparently quite the Ace Combat fan, as the PC version of the game he's playing has him using several fan made Ace Combat skins. And Macross skins. And Lucky Star.

EDIT: In the latest video, he honest-to-God uses a Lucky Star skin on a MiG-29. Just as Tom Clancy intended.

TUGBOAT!

2010-02-26T01:24:00.000-05:00

This is the greatest assassination plan ever!

Who Needs Shrinks?

2010-02-22T20:38:00.000-05:00

I was playing Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2, when an off-hand bit of dialogue caused me to yell at the TV for about 5 minutes before crying in the corner for half an hour. I'd say this probably isn't normal behavior, but who can define normal in the age of LOLcats.

Did You Have Fun?

2010-02-19T07:48:00.000-05:00

Watching reviews for games, I'm noticing an annoying trend. Whenever I engage the entertainment industry I want to do something enjoyable (playing Silent Hill games notwithstanding). Many reviews lately have complained about everything under the sun; the game wasn't realistic enough, it didn't do anything new to revolutionize the genre, Jesus didn't come down from on high and inject pure liquid joy into my eyeballs.

First off, a lot of reviewers seem to expect a gaming revolution every three months. If we applied those same standards to other aspects of our lives then we should have turned into demi-gods of pure energy two centuries ago. As for the realism issue, I'm not a huge fan of realism in my gaming. Many people have complained about how Modern Warfare 2 is less realistic and more like a Michael Bay movie. This is true, but if I demanded more realism from my war games I'd go enlist. Nothing's more realistic than honest-to-God dying when you get shot.

I don't know about other folks anymore, but when I play a video game I want to have a good time playing it (again, Silent Hill doesn't count). It reminds me of an argument I had back when Gladiator and Traffic were competing for Best Picture. Traffic was, in technical terms, the better movie. It was better written, better acted, and better directed. But it was an odd experience, I respected it from an artistic stand point but I wasn't terribly entertained. Gladiator, on the other hand, was over the top and about as historically accurate as Lord of the Rings. But I had fun watching it. And it's kind of the purpose of the entertainment industry to entertain. I'm not saying that an entertaining film can't be intelligent or artfully crafted, I'm just saying I put greater emphasis on enjoying the movie or game. I'll be the first one to admit that some of my favorite games are rather generic, just look at the stuff I've written about Gears of War. But it's a fun game. Hell, I play Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2, which is essentially Dynasty Warriors 2, 3, 4, and 5, but with giant robots (and sadly it's more of a traditional Dynasty Warriors game than Dynasty Warriors 6, but that's another argument). So to all the people who complain that a video game didn't move them to tears or make them re-evaluate their principles, I have one question. Did you have fun?

SIDE NOTE: I start to wonder if reviewers don't have these complaints because video games are ultimately trivial time wasters, and they have to validate their hobby by depicting it as high art. Even though the definition of a hobby is "an activity or interest pursued for pleasure or relaxation and not as a main occupation" (emphasis added).

WHY CAN'T I HATE THIS?!

2010-02-05T10:50:00.000-05:00

WHY?!

Just Reading It For The Articles

2010-02-01T16:45:00.000-05:00

So I was playing DOA Beach Volleyball and joking that "I'm just here for the volleyball, honest." But it occurred to me, how many volleyball games are there? I mean, what if you honestly really wanted to play a volleyball video game? How many outlets do you have? I know the DOA volleyball games have a shockingly large female audience that plays it for the relationship building aspect, but maybe there are actual volleyball enthusiasts who play it less as a choice and more as a lack of options. Or they could go play actual volleyball, but it's 31 degrees Fahrenheit out here.

Let's Play Recommendations

2010-01-29T10:18:00.001-05:00

Following on his entertaining Let's Play of Red Faction: Guerrilla, TyrantSabre is now doing a Let's Play of a personal favorite of mine, Ace Combat 6. He admits he hasn't played any of the other games in the series (HERESY!), but he's apparently done his research enough that he can talk about the setting of the games irregardless. And download the original videos (requires a Viddler account), the streaming videos on Viddler are almost unwatchable.

Also, since the original video got deleted, I'd thought I'd fag this up a bit and post the completed version of this little horror show:

Strange And Terrifying Developments

2010-01-26T13:07:00.000-05:00

Corporations have had the limits on their political contributions removed. Corporations can now legally buy out politicians, thereby allowing them to re-write American law as they see fit. Pray that Sony doesn't become too ambitious AND become aware of this blog.

So Why Not?

2010-01-14T09:54:00.000-05:00

I can sorta kinda understand why Metal Wolf Chaos never made it to the US. But it's been a few years, American politics have changed. I say we should get this game on XBox Live. I know I'd download a game about the Vice-President leading a coup-de-tat and the only way to stop him is for the President of the United States to pilot a giant killer robot and liberate America. Admit it, that sounds fucking awesome.

Danger Close

2010-01-06T09:59:00.000-05:00

The first proper paragraph of this is going to be a look at the plot and politics of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, so if you care that much about spoilers you should skip the next paragraph.

Based on what some people have been saying, when I opened up the case for Modern Warfare 2 I expected a bald eagle to fly out and land on an M1 Abrams tank that was firing into Stalin's face. No such luck. The game does fulfill the right-wing fantasy of having another "good war", a war without any ambiguity where America is clearly the good guys and our enemies are explicitly evil. We are not the invaders overthrowing a sovereign government because it doesn't live up to our political ideals. Instead we are the invaded, fighting off an army more interested in carnage than military conquest. But that's where the right-wing politics end. The story of how we reached that point sounds like something out of the 9/11 Truth Movement. The villain is an American general who engineers the invasion of America for the purpose of putting America on a 'total war' footing and using that power to liberate the rest of the world from the shackles of not being American, all to sate his meta-historical(?) ego. If this were something from the Glenn Beck Show, that conspiracy would be a red herring to distract us from the evils of brown skinned people. But in the game the conspiracy is the truth, which is decidedly less Sean Hannity and more "Loose Change" (if you don't know what that is, Google "loose change 911"). So before we start having a kneejerk reaction to the games right-wing militarism, maybe we should look more closely at its left-wing narrative.

Gameplay wise, what you heard about Modern Warfare 2 is true. It is criminally short. Admittedly I had all the free time of Christmas Day, but after sinking my teeth into Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2 and watching Rebuild of Evangelion, I still finished Modern Warfare 2 the same day I opened it. There's a new "Spec Ops" feature that can lengthen gameplay a bit, but it was built with co-op in mind. You can play most of the missions solo, but the ones that really interested me (shooting from an AC-130) are co-op only and I don't do multiplayer. But make sure you play Spec Ops with a friend, some of those missions are frustrating enough and griefers aren't going to help ("I swear I'm not aiming at you, you're running into my line of fire"). I'm sure Spec Ops and multiplayer add countless hours to the game, but I'm a single player kind of guy and Campaign mode was short as Hell.

The actual game mechanics are little changed from the previous game. Most of the guns are new, or at least sport new target sights. There are some new toys, like thermal sights for some rifles and a heartbeat detector on one gun. The biggest change is the action flick style chase scenes. I'll agree with the harsher critics, all pretense to realism flew out the window after the snowmobile sequence. But, if anything, I've been a critic of realism in games so that didn't bother me. It's essentially the same game with a new story, but like the Gears of War franchise, too many changes probably would have angered me more than anything.

Of course the game carries over one of my chief complaints about the first game. The enemy AI seems very aware that you are the player, and so long as it can kill your character it "wins". It doesn't matter if you're in a platoon of over a dozen other soldiers, every RPG and machine gun in a three mile radius is trained squarely on YOU. This game even created something new for me to complain about. In the first Modern Warfare, if you took too much damage the edge of the screen would turn red and you'd have to go hide somewhere until magical tissue regeneration saved you. Often, it was a good idea to take the second before you might die to kill the guy shooting you, thus giving you plenty of time to heal up. In Modern Warfare 2, every hit you take splatters raspberry jam on your eyes, and if you're near death everything turns into a blurry red smear. Good luck finding cover when you can't see a damn thing, let alone defend yourself.

And these games are tough. It's bad enough that your character seems to have a twelve foot high "KILL ME" banner stuck in the top of his head. I normally play the original Modern Warfare on normal difficulty, but occasionally I get frustrated enough with cheap deaths to play it on easy. Modern Warfare 2 is harder, combining the "everyone decided to kill you and only you" problem with the raspberry jam in the eyes and I died about two dozen times in the same exact spot on that damn oil platform. Often I'll beat a game on a difficulty I don't like, and henceforth swear to only play it on lower difficulties. In Modern Warfare 2, the difficulty I beat before swearing it off forever was normal.

If you're like me and only play single player, the game's length feels less like a sequel and more like an expansion pack. But it's certainly fun, and if you play multiplayer it's probably much longer. If you haven't yet played this game, give it a spin. If you haven't yet played the original, you might want to try that first so the story has some context. Of course the sequel has Kevin McKidd, the original doesn't. Makes all the difference in the world.

God Damn Newtypes

2009-12-30T09:32:00.000-05:00

Despite having picked up Modern Warfare 2, most of my time has been spent with Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2 (because I don't do multi-player).

To make my co-contributor to this blog feel vindicated, there is no Japanese voice option in DWG2 (that's what I'm calling it from here on), not that I really mind. I've been developing a lot more respect for Brad Swaille lately, and this game sees the triumphal return of Michael Kopsa to the role of Char Aznable. Char's Japanese voice actor has a bad habit of not having any vocal inflection (which annoyed the Hell out of me in Utawarerumono), and the english VA they got from Blue Water followed in his footsteps.

The game doesn't so much build on the house of the original Dynasty Warriors: Gundam, instead it burns the house down to the foundation and re-uses the foundation. There were two sets of fans clamoring for various changes. One group wanted more Gundam SEED, and another wanted Char's Counterattack (there was a group that wanted Gundam Deathscythe to show up, but they were ignored for writing slash fics about Duo and Heero), both groups got what they wanted. DWG2's "Official" mode is massive compared to the original game, despite actually having fewer characters. While Scirocco and Haman got cut from Official mode, the remaining characters get a minimum of five missions, most getting seven or eight, and Char and Amuro both get a 2-3 mission CCA bonus scenario.

"Original" mode got cut in favor of Mission mode, which is... bigger. I do sorta miss Original mode, since the story they wrote for it was this fanfic thing where it felt like they put a bunch of Gundam nerds in a room and told them to come up with ideas, but everything they said had to be preceded by "wouldn't it be cool if...". That's how we got such interesting set-ups as: Elpeo Puru becoming a Domon Kasshu cheerleader, shonen cliche Judau Ashta apprenticing himself to space dictator Paptimus Scirocco, Heero Yuy getting suckered into training under Master Asia, and pacifist cross dresser Loran Cehack getting into a relationship with genocidal schizophrenic Puru Two. I wanted to see how that all panned out, but it was cut. Not that the story missions in DWG2 don't do some odd crossovers. In Kira Yamato's story, Jerid Messa seems to take personal offense at Lacus Clyne for some reason, and Kira and Athrun steal the Gryps 2 colony laser from both the Titans and Char's Neo Zeon. If you're not a Gundam fan then those people and factions are not even words but jumbles of letters. If you are a Gundam fan then you can see the continuity snarl in all that. And those are just the scripted encounters, most of the enemy aces you face off against are randomized.

Which gets into the whole relationship thing. As you shoot down pilots they tend to dislike you, while fighting along side them makes them like you more. Barring story issues, of course. The pilot randomization seemed to be under the impression that Kira and Lacus wanted to murder each other, but Lacus' friendship with Kira never dropped out of the top tier. This comes into play as you get invited to join various Gundam factions, such as Zeon, Axis, Neo Zeon, the Earth Federation, the AEUG, and Diana Counter. To get in, pilots for those factions have to like you (you can also get Nanai Miguel to "mess around with your egg salad", to quote BioShock). If you're worried about the randomization thing forcing you to fight pilots you wanted to befriend, there are also "Friendship" missions that exist solely to let you farm relationship points with pilots who don't like you.

I enjoyed the original game, and my complaints about the sequel are few and far between. First off, the mobile armor fights need some serious balancing. Some of the mobile armors have attacks that can cover a whole field in fire, and they sometimes spam that. Also, it's nice that the camera locks on to a mobile armor whenever one shows up to fight you, but it's not so helpful when Quess and the Alpha Azieru launches funnels that shoot you whenever you try to do anything. You can shoot down the funnels, but with the camera fixed on the mobile armor that's easier said than done. Then there's the learning curve. It's not especially bad, but it's especially noticeable for a Dynasty Warriors game. Despite all the changes between Dynasty Warriors 5 and Dynasty Warriors: Gundam, DWG was still a pick-up-and-play experience for me. But the changes between DWG and DWG2 had me combing the manual for a half hour before playing. The learning curve isn't bad, it's just shocking that one even exists. And, of course, DWG2 retains the original game's problem of making you keep allies alive despite said allies having the survival instincts of lemmings.

If you liked the original game, you'll like the sequel. If you were on the fence about the first game, the improvements and added depth of this one really make it worth your while. If you've never seen or heard of either Dynasty Warriors or Gundam, it might make an interesting rental. It's certainly a treat for the eyes after all that "real is brown" that permeates games lately, Gundam has the Amazing Techni-Color Battlefield. If you didn't like the first game, though, the core complaints you probably had weren't fixed here. Of course it's starting to feel more like old school Dynasty Warriors when some random grunt interrupts your combo, leaving you vulnerable for an officer/ace pilot to ram a musou attack down your throat. Thanks for that consideration, guys.

Curse You, Stupid-Cheap-Hard Game!

2009-12-22T17:53:00.000-05:00

I was cheating at video games since I can remember. Hell, I was the first kid in my county to get a Game Genie for the NES. Just about everyone has pointed out that games have gotten easier, arguably to make them more accessible to people who aren't going to devote 5 hours, 2 liters of Mountain Dew, and a pound of marijuana to beating them. But no one has pointed out that cheat codes are dying out. The few games that have cheats don't even have the invincibility thing going anymore. Modern Warfare had infinite ammo, and Red Faction: Guerrilla just gave you increased damage resistance rather than total immunity. And all of these cheats had to be earned. I think that is the measure of difficulty in gaming, we don't get cheats anymore. The games are easy enough that we don't need them. How many of you, back in the old days, used to beat a game out of spite? The game wasn't good and you stopped having fun days ago, but turning off the console and walking away somehow meant that the game had "won", and by God you weren't going to give that smug little bastard the satisfaction. On a vaguely related note, Battletoads was a hard enough game that I can honestly brag that I beat it, even with a Game Genie. Yeah, the game was so hard that beating it WITH cheats was considered an accomplishment. Beating it without cheats was just a legend. I've seen it done, though. And I still can't beat Ninja Gaiden. Any of them.

Free Online Pedophiles

2009-11-17T10:01:00.000-05:00

The FBI has been using Playstation 3s to hack the passwords on the computers of suspected pedophiles. Sony and it's proponents trumpet this as part of the "it only does everything" ad line. I like to point out that no one has yet bought the video game system for playing video games.

HAH

2009-11-11T14:42:00.001-05:00

A coworker said recently, "I don't know anyone whose 360 hasn't broken down."

Ah, sweet superiority, how I love thine taste. Oh how I relished breaking his heart, letting him know that in fact he did know someone who'd had a 360, for three years now, that hadn't broken down.

Mmmm... smugness.

Neutral Good

2009-10-30T19:39:00.000-04:00

A lot of games lately have a karma meter of some sort to allow the player to either be a hero or villain. I've noticed that most reviewers (and gamers in general), seemingly nice people, seem to gravitate towards being evil bastards. Meanwhile I, epitome of asocial bastardry that I am, seem to play as a paragon of justice and self-sacrifice. Are we all playing to our opposites? Or are dark hidden truths being revealed through our hobbies? Do we unleash the hidden jackass that we would never show in the real world? But then what of us who play the hero? I have no answers, but I thought I'd raise the question. And perhaps we can all ponder what our playstyles say about ourselves.

Ad Finitum

2009-10-28T10:51:00.000-04:00

"Dear Playstation 3,
I've been playing Uncharted 2 and my girlfriend won't stop watching because she thinks it's a movie."
Then either Uncharted 2 is a criminally short two hours or your girlfriend is clinically retarded.

You have to love the backhanded honesty of Sony's "It only does EVERYTHING" ads for the PS3. Look closely at the list of things it does. You know what's NOT on the list for their video game console? "Plays video games."

Heresy

2009-10-13T11:59:00.000-04:00

I still haven't played Left 4 Dead. I'm going to be eviscerated by an angry mob, aren't I?

Remember The Marathon!

2009-09-20T15:07:00.001-04:00

After seeing some media on Halo: ODST, I think I might actually rent that. Yeah, I've been a bit of a Halo hater of late, but that was mostly because Halo 3 felt less like a game and more like some slap-dash obligatory fanservice that only existed to milk more money from the franchise. ODST, by the looks of it, appears to be an actual attempt to make a game rather than a quick buck. It also feels like they stopped pretending that they're still Bungie Software. The post-Microsoft exodus from the company hit their creative departments hard, but it looks like maybe (just maybe) the kids are starting to go out on their own instead of trying to fill the old man's shoes. In the words of one old Bungie veteran, "FROG BLAST THE VENT CORE!"

Things To Do In Manhatten When You're Dead

2009-08-14T22:06:00.000-04:00

So I finally got around to playing more recent games. All of two. I'll put up a review of Street Fighter 4 at some point, but right now I'll talk about Ghostbusters.

The story takes place after Ghostbusters 2, but feels more like a direct follow-up to the first movie. In short, Ivo Shandor and his crew of ethereal Gozer worshipers are back from the dead and reeking havoc in New York (which has an oddly post 9/11 skyline for a game taking place in 1991). The script was written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, the writers for the original movie, and generally speaking it shows. Ramis and Ernie Hudson give solid performances in the game, but Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd are a bit askew here. Part of what made Murray's performance in the original Ghostbusters so great was that so much of it was improvisational, to the point where they considered giving him a co-writing credit. You can't improv a video game script, and the result is that Bill Murray isn't so much acting as he's acting like he's acting. Meanwhile, Dan Aykroyd is having way too much fun for his own good. Maybe it's because he's a Spiritualist and honestly believes this stuff. He's having as much fun here as John Travolta seemed to be having in Battlefield Earth. It's not that Murray's or Aykroyd's performances are bad, it's just not their "A" game.

The mood of the game is certainly reminiscent of the original movie. It's written as a comedy, but much of the atmosphere puts it closer to the horror genre. I got more chills from this game than from what passes for horror games these days (the exception being Silent Hill, which I still don't like to play after sundown). Perhaps this is a result of knowing for a fact that a dangerous entity is in the room, you just don't know where. Also, it can move through walls and you can't.

In terms of gameplay, James Rolfe put it rather succinctly when he said that had this been any other franchise the game would have been average, but as a Ghostbusters game it was brilliant. What is simultaneously the game's greatest strength and weakness is that much of the game mechanics are just like the movie. If you're not a big Ghostbusters fan, the game mechanic where you have to wrangle ghosts into the ghost traps could start to feel like it breaks the flow of an otherwise fast-paced shooter. The game's accuracy to the movies arguably hurts the gameplay. I, on the other hand, spent a good part of my childhood running around the backyard with a plastic "proton pack" strapped to my back. In the case of myself and people like me the fact that gameplay mechanics are "just like the movies" is the whole point of the game mechanics in Ghostbusters. If you're a big Ghostbusters fan then dragging ghosts into your traps with a particle gun isn't a break in the action's pacing, it is the action. I enjoyed hunting down ghostly clues with a PKE meter, but I can see how others might find it tedious.

If you're a fan of the movies (or, to a lesser extent, the cartoon series) then this game is probably a worthwhile purchase. If you didn't like Ghostbusters as much as folks like me or are otherwise unfamiliar with the franchise, you may still have fun with this game. The key word is "may". In the case of non-fans, a weekend rental is highly recommended before you take the plunge and buy it.

Remember When SNK Playmore Was Relevant?

2009-07-29T08:33:00.000-04:00

I've been slow to get any new games, so updates have bordered on non-existent. I can tell you what I won't be getting though, King of Fighters 12. As someone who grew up on Street Fighter 2, I found the King of Fighters games to be unintuitive. Hell, I'm trying to play the older ones and I still don't get it. And then there's a story so convoluted it puts the Marvel multiverse to shame. It had started out as an SNK franchise crossover, but they eventually started adding original characters and part of my brain shut down. But King of Fighters had one thing going for it, a huge roster of characters. Say what you will about the game, somewhere within that legion of characters is someone you like playing as. And 12 felt the need to trim the roster. It seems like we should appreciate that they left in the old Fatal Fury team of Terry Bogard, Andy Bogard, and Joe Whatshisface. Maybe for me the game's appeal was as much in fanservice as anything else. No Mai, no King, no Kula, no interest. I guess I'll just have to wait till I can get my hands on Guilty Gea... I mean BlazBlue.

Breaking Stuff To Look Tough

2009-06-23T13:56:00.000-04:00

I was planning this for a while, but with today being the launch day for Overlord 2, I decided I had better get around to discussing the original Overlord.

The story (written by Rhianna Pratchett, daughter of Terry Pratchett) is that a bunch of Tolkien-esque cliche RPG heroes have killed the previous Overlord and wrecked his evil tower of evilness. Of course, the minions of evil aren't going to stand for that, so a bunch of years later they find themselves a new evil Overlord. I would also like to congratulate you on your promotion to management. Your job as the new Overlord is to re-establish a dark domain by rebuilding your tower and butchering the heroes who had inconvenienced the previous Overlord by killing him.

As the Overlord you're a pretty tough dude capable of taking on nearly anything in single combat. Of course, almost nothing attacks you one-on-one, you are NOT expendable, and what's the point of being the Overlord if you have to do all the work yourself. Hence your minion armies, who come in four unlockable flavors for the purposes of puzzle solving, as each type of minion has specific strengths and special abilities. This becomes one of the driving factors of linearity in the game, putting obstacles in your path that you don't have the requisite minions to get past. It's like an evil version of Pikmin, as your minions perform every task from heavy lifting, getting you presents, murdering peasants, and dying in your name (they're very loyal). There are health and mana "pits" that allow you to kill your minions for health and mana refills. And the minions will willingly die for you. Hell, they even throw themselves into your smelter if you so command it.

The game gets one of those karma meters that's so popular these days. From a practical standpoint the choices are between good or evil. From a story standpoint it's a choice between gathering devoted followers or acting like a genocidal lunatic. This choice is best played out in the personalities of the mistresses you can get for your tower. One is a stoic organizer, the other is gleefully homicidal. Neither is "good". Both want power, but while one sees power as a means of living out her every evil delight, the other sees evil as a tool for maintaining power. Those are your moral choices in this game, a reign of terror or a reign that will last a thousand years (events of the expansion pack not withstanding).

It's a fun adventure puzzle game all around, but there are, of course, some complaints. Like all puzzle games, what was a fun puzzle the first time around becomes an exercise in rote memorization on all subsequent playthroughs. And while the game's chief gimmick is commanding your minions in all things, including battle, the upgrades you can make to your Overlord can quickly make you more powerful than anything the game can throw at you. At that point strategy and tactics get thrown out in favor of self-healing faster than the enemy can damage you. Lastly, I would complain about the limitations of the minion controls, but I have yet to come up with a better control scheme that doesn't involve a keyboard and terribly annoying hotkey setups, so I guess they did the best they could until we somehow develop a means of telepathically controlling our games.

What's best in this game is the presentation. Your standard infantry brown minions can wear and wield anything they find that can be used as armor or weapons. So it's not uncommon for minions to wear pumpkins, dead rats, and chef hats as armor, as well as arming themselves with frying pans and zombie limbs. The zombie plague is actually a venereal disease that started when someone thought it was a good idea to summon a succubus into the brothel. And you get to kill hobbits. That's probably the chief selling point right there. Hate elves, dwarves, and hobbits? Kill them all! It's actually possible to consign the entire elf population of the region to extinction by killing all their women (the choice was between saving the elf women or a giant sack of gold. Elven genocide or getting gold? Did I mention I fucking hate elves). And don't worry too much about that karma meter. There are more things to effect the meter than it can actually be affected. That is to say, if you want to play as a "good" Overlord, you can still commit genocide against entire races and still perform enough good acts that the game lists you as having 0% corruption. And it goes both ways. Feel free to help out those villagers in Spree, you can make up for it by slaughtering everything that lives in the next town. So by all means, be as bad (or not) as you want to be. Be the Overlord of your choice.

Just Because You Can Doesn't Mean You Should

2009-06-15T16:22:00.000-04:00

Please, people, if you're going to make a Let's Play of a game, be competent. I've never even played Left 4 Dead and I can still tell I'm better at the game than this guy.

In Case You Were Wondering...

2009-06-15T14:58:00.000-04:00

Yes, my 360 still works.

Although a friend of mine reported his finally died, making my 360 an increasingly unique piece. Maybe one day it'll fetch millions on ebay.

Back To The Front

2009-06-13T15:48:00.000-04:00

The Front Mission franchise has had rough times this side of the Pacific. The first game to get a North American release was Front Mission 3, a game who's greatest accomplishment was getting a North American release. Seriously, these geniuses made a flamethrower that functioned precisely the same as the machine gun weapons. Also, it contained the blatant impossibility of the Philippines ever having a space program. The giant robots and lasers I was fine with, but that broke my willing suspension of disbelief. Front Mission 4 also got a US release and was, in my opinion, one of the best strategy-RPGs I've ever played (though, to be honest, I haven't played very many). But it sold poorly, because most people were trying to figure out where Front Missions 1-3 were. Front Mission 5 never made it over here (though from what I've read, good riddance).

Square-Enix has decided that the best way to get Americans behind the Front Mission series is to make an action game made by a western developer. Surely nothing can go wrong with this concept. So now we're getting Front Mission: Evolved, from a long line of games which have evolved. I don't quite understand where this idea came from, but putting "Evolve" or some variation thereof is the modern gaming equivalent of putting "eXtreme" at the end of a title back in the late 90's. Games that have evolved include every racing franchise that has been and ever will be, Halo, and E.V.O. Maybe they'll make a kick-ass action game out of this and properly bring the Front Mission franchise to American audiences, or they could botch it and ruin the whole thing. Of course, one could argue that action games featuring giant, customizable robots already exist, they're called Armored Core. Frankly, my money is on us seeing militarized giant robots in real life before American audiences embrace Front Mission.

Still Ticking

2009-06-11T10:39:00.000-04:00

I'm convinced my 360 is a bomb, ticking away in the night, waiting to destroy me.

In the mean time, all systems green.

I Break My Own Rules

2009-05-12T13:31:00.000-04:00

I intended this blog to be almost exclusively about the XBox 360. Then I found a video and decided that, since the franchise had moved to the 360, a PS2 game wasn't completely out of the question.

A Game In There Somewhere

2009-05-06T14:03:00.000-04:00

For all my fanboy gushing about how Ace Combat 6 perfected the gameplay of the franchise, I have to admit that the story is dull, lifeless, and told through cutscenes that could serve as the most powerful sedatives known to man. In fact, for a game in which you are the hero, you are a startling non-entity within the cutscenes. In AC4 the story centered around YOUR arch-rival, in AC5 the story centered around YOUR squadron, in AC Zero the story was told in the form of a documentary about YOU (complete with interviews where your former enemies discuss how wonderful/terrifying you are). In AC6 I think one of the supporting characters mentions you in passing. And to top it all off, AC6 has probably the highest cutscene-to-gameplay ratio in the series. So it has not only the most boring cutscenes, it has the most of them.

Unreal

2009-04-29T14:46:00.001-04:00

So I've taken out Unreal Tournament III from Gamefly. This has to be the only old school FPS I've played where the addition of vehicles didn't feel like a bulbous tumor growing on an otherwise healthy entity. Maybe it's because the expected life span of anyone in combat is -3 seconds anyway, so the awesome power of the vehicles doesn't feel out of place.

And yes, my 360 still works.

It'll Never Happen

2009-04-17T19:09:00.000-04:00

Do you think they would bring Idolm@ster to the States if we sold it as Left 4 Dead? I can always hope...

LIES

2009-04-02T15:35:00.000-04:00

In case you hadn't noticed, I lied. April Fool's.

My 360 is still better than all of yours because it works. It would have been better even if the story were true, because only 360 would have been awesome enough to take out an apartment building.

Surreal

2009-04-01T19:25:00.000-04:00

Today my 360 finally bit the dust. Upon returning home from work I booted up the previously invincible bastion of hopeful Microsoft PR executives to find myself greeted by three red rings and small whiffs of smoke.

Unfortunately I forgot to turn the system off or unplug it before I went to look up the Microsoft helpline. As I was dialing the number there was a loud bang and the distinct noise of violent sparking. When I rushed to the living room the carpet was on fire. I do not have a fire extinguisher on the premises.

Due to highway traffic, the firetrucks didn't arrive in time to save my apartment, or the apartment building. It was a mixed blessing that I'm such a hermit, as standing in the crowd of displaced people was extremely uncomfortable under the circumstances, but being identified as the responsible party would have likely made the situation notably worse.

The rough estimate I heard being thrown about was somewhere around 2.3 million dollars, but that was only the building and facilities themselves. Including the personal losses of all involved should push that higher.

I'm not sure what to say at this time other than the experience has been increasingly surreal, and it's hard to digest that I'm in a similar position to Tyler Durden. Lacking all my worldly possessions, it's simultaneously painful and oddly liberating.

I might go by a lottery ticket, it's not like I have anything to lose at this point.

Sequel Ahoy!

2009-03-24T16:27:00.000-04:00

What could this be?
I thought perhaps something Lovecraft related, what with a quick reference to Innsmouth. But no, it seems to be something far more human. And just as sinister.

Off Topic

2009-03-17T14:09:00.000-04:00

Not my idea, but I like it. Create your own album cover! Go to Wikipedia and pull up a random article. The first article you get is your band name. Then head here, the last 4 or 5 words of the last quote on the page is your album name. Then go here, the third image you pull up is your album cover. Post your results.

Cataclysm! System failure!

2009-03-09T18:14:00.000-04:00

On Friday the week before last... my PC blew it's power supply.

Oh wait, you thought my 360 RRoD'd didn't you? Alas I disappoint. However there was another cataclysm that took place of late.

On Thursday of last week, my other PC OS decided to delete itself.

Ahahaha. At least my 360 lives.

I Finally Piss Off My Readers

2009-02-20T09:17:00.000-05:00

Today, children, I'm going to talk about BioShock. No, it's not a review. I'm talking about Objectivism and its portrayal in the game.

For those of you who don't know, the city of Rapture is meant to be a deconstruction of fictitious places like Galt's Gulch. You know how some people talk about more regulation and point to children being killed by peanut butter? Imagine that multiplied by 1000, as the deregulation of science and industry has lead to most of Rapture's population becoming a cross between the X-Men and the RAGE zombies from "28 Days Later." Some people point to the fall of Rapture as meaning that things could have been utopian if villains hadn't sabotaged everything. I'll discuss why the actions of the villains are a direct result of this Objectivist utopia in due time, but on the more immediate level if you replaced the gene splicing industry with, say, cocaine you'd be seeing the same kind of societal breakdown. Just with less teleportation and lightning fingers. The message I think the developers were going for was that if you get this libertarian style deregulation of industry, most industry moguls are more concerned with making money now than in long term profitability. I have seen, first hand, corporations screw over their own long term profits in favor of immediate returns. So if you let pharmaceutical companies sell people narcotics, chances are they will. And thus you get BioShock's Splicer problem.

Then there are our opposing villains; Andrew Ryan and Frank Fontaine. One commentator argued that both of them are archetypal Randian heroes. I disagree. To some extent, Ryan is a Randian hero while Fontaine is a classic Randian villain. At the same time, the fact that they both can be mistaken for Rand-style heroes is an intrinsic flaw with all Objectivist fiction. Objectivism, grossly oversimplified, is the philosophy that people should work towards their own "rational self interest" irregardless of the needs and wants of society and other people. Hypothetically, if we all did then society will enter a new golden age of prosperity. Never mind the fact that 2 people seeking their rational self interest could come into conflict, at which point it becomes good ol' fashioned survival-of-the-fittest. Ayn Rand's (and by extension, many Objectivist authors') heroes are all ambitious, ruthless, and amoral. Unfortunately, these are often the traits of a villain. So the hero is often openly ambitious, ruthless, and amoral, while the villain hides these traits behind a facade of charity and communalism. The only difference between the two is that the hero is exploitative while the villain is manipulative. So Andrew Ryan is an oppressive, autocratic corporate overlord, and Frank Fontaine is a gangster who built an army by extending a cynical hand to the poor. Both are megalomaniacs seeking to control the city. If this were The Fountainhead or Anthem, one's the hero and one's the villain. But this is BioShock, and both come across as villains. Yes, Ryan built a city and Fontaine only stole what he could not create. But he did it for himself and he succeeded. By the very tenets of Objectivism, doesn't that vindicate Fontaine? Honestly, by Objectivist standards, how is Fontaine any different from Ryan?

The developers of the game have openly said it's a criticism of Objectivism, but this seems to have gotten lost in internet arguments over whether the game is pro or anti-objectivist. I would simply point to the game's built in karma meter, the little sisters. Let's all be honest with ourselves, "rational self interest" is greed. Greed is usually myopic. So you can kill a little sister and get 160 ADAM, or you can rescue her and get 80, along with a promise that Tenenbaum "will make it worth your while... somehow." As it turns out, Tenenbaum does make it worth your while, and if you crunch the numbers rescuing the little sisters is arguably more profitable in the long run. But if you didn't consult a walkthrough or played through the game at least twice, would you know that? The player only has Tenenbaum's word that saving the girls is a worthwhile endeavor, you only see the results of it for every third little sister you save, and the third one doesn't show up until the second level. So, if the player were acting in his "rational self interest," would he kill the girl for 160 ADAM or save her for 80 ADAM and the knowledge that he did something nice? The Objectivist player is expected to be slaughtering these girls at every opportunity. If that seems morally reprehensible then you're not a very good Objectivist or you would have known that morality gets kicked to the curb in favor of results (or profits). And if THAT seems morally reprehensible then you are not an Objectivist.

The option between saving and murdering children will earn you one of two endings, the depiction of which firmly cements that the game is meant to be anti-objectivist. If the player was a staunch Randroid Objectivist (which, in game terms, means killing children. A little anvilicious, I know) then the player is depicted as the clinical psychopath you played as who sets in motion, what may become, a new dark age for the world. This isn't something that's parsed and analyzed, you declare yourself ruler of Rapture and steal nuclear weapons, all while sinister music plays in the background and Tenenbaum (the former Nazi researcher) calls you a monster. If you go the non-Objectivist route, then all the girls you rescued grow up to lead healthy, happy, productive lives, and you quietly die decades later surrounded by your loved ones. All with bright colors and happy music. Never mind all this pseudo-philosophical analysis of the game, just look at the endings and guess if the designers were in the Ayn Rand fanclub.

I'm sorry to have inflicted this on whoever reads this, and I swear this is the closest to political I will ever get on this blog (because I always have the other one for that).

Never Fear!

2009-02-19T15:50:00.001-05:00

In care you all were wondering where I've been, I'm not going to tell you.

I will tell you that despite any hopes or dreams you might be having of my 360's imminent demise, it's still ticking along wonderfully.

At Least The Trains Ran On Time

2009-02-16T10:55:00.001-05:00

8 Processors And No Excuse

2009-02-11T10:44:00.000-05:00

I've linked to this before, but it bears repeating. And yes, they are playing the PS3 version, but I can't imagine the 360 version being any less fail. In fact, in purely technical terms, the PS3 version actually features more fail.

http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/Sonic2006/

Huzzah!

2009-02-04T18:55:00.000-05:00

My 360 is still functioning. Therefore, Huzzah!

Flashback

2009-01-30T13:42:00.000-05:00

In the wake of a lack of updates and realizing that I wrote a review for Gears of War 2 and no other games, I decided that the rest of my collection needs some love. Welcome to some self-indulgent reviews of old 360 games.

The Japanese game market has this concept of budget games. They're games that are dirt cheap, but you should know that you get what you pay for. These games rarely make it to America because translation and localization kinda kill the whole "budget" aspect (though some have trickled into European markets). But occasionally we get one, specifically on the XBox 360. At ridiculously low prices is Earth Defense Force 2017. The predecessor to this game got a European release on the PS2 (I don't remember the title) and in some ways the 360 version is noticeably less complex.

The plot is simple. Sometime in the near future (guess what year "EDF 2017" takes place in!) aliens show up, although SETI gave us about 5 years forewarning. The government codenames the aliens as "Ravagers" and then tries to figure out whether or not they're hostile, though I would think judgement has already been passed if you call them Ravagers. And then the aliens drop every 1950's era invasion scenario on us. Giant ants, giant spiders, flying saucers, Godzilla, and giant robots that look life refugees from "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow." You've been given an assault rifle and a rocket launcher. Go fix this.

Each mission is pretty much identical in concept; there are aliens, kill them. You're given weapons with infinite ammo (or, more accurately, infinite reloads) and get dropped on large, sprawling maps where any and every manmade structure is destructable. Hypothetically, this is to both highlight the destructive power of the aliens and to make navigating cities easier. In practice, the players is often a greater threat to civilization than the aliens. But there is no score and no penalties for property destruction, and on the rare occasion that civilians pop up they have the magical ability to make bullets pass harmlessly through them. Your NPC teammates don't get the same invulnerability benefit and will routinely die at the hands of aliens and malicious players. Like I said, no penalties.

While every single mission consists of "exterminate the enemy," they at least try to create some variety. For example, defending a beach head from waves of robots, getting ambushed, and hunting for the giant ant queen underground. Or my personal favorite, shooting down flying saucers. But all of this is pseudo-variety. For all the nuances your mission briefing tries to instill in the mission, every mission is completed when you're alive and all the aliens are dead (teammate casualties optional). Not terribly tactical, but this is a game that gives you INFINITE FLAMETHROWER.

There is a massive armory of weapons in this game, but once again the variety is illusory. There is some variety in your weapons, off the top of my head I can think of 5 variations on the assault rifle alone. This sounds impressive, but it's rather sobering when you realize there's something like 200 assault rifles in the game, so the vast majority are simply improvements over earlier models. So that's 200 rifles, 5 variations. There are other weapons and their own variations as well; rocket launchers, missile launchers, grenade launchers, sniper rifles, shotguns, and hand grenades. And that doesn't count the specialty weapons that don't comfortably fall into a category, such as the laser rifle and sentry guns. But since every enemy in the game is killed by simply shooting it until it dies, you have access to nearly a thousand weapons and you will only ever be using 3.

Continuing with the faux variety are the vehicles. Nearly everyone who has played this agrees that the vehicles are useless. The air bike is too fast for it's own good and you're likely to crash into a building as you race past the spot you wanted to be. The helicopter has some of the clunkiest controls I've personally ever encountered, and the robot thing is too slow and stodgy that it's faster and more efficient to just go on foot. The tank is the only one that's even remotely useful, but even then your rocket launcher can do the same kind of damage and with greater mobility (and, depending on the rocket launcher, higher rates of fire).

The only real variety is in the aliens, as every type of enemy offers a unique challenge, and they will often mix and match the aliens you face just to make things hectic. There are the black ants that spray acid, the red ants who have ridiculous amounts of hit points and will simply bum rush you by the thousands, the spiders who have a ranged attack and can jump long distances. And the flying saucers (complete with overtly hidden weakpoint) which deliver your enemies to the battlefield, and the giant robots that can come with a myriad of weapons including scatter guns and plasma artillery. And fire breathing dinosaurs. And cyborg fire breathing dinosaurs. This is the only variety in the game, but it's a damn good variety. And it's a good thing too, because enemy AI is lacking. Most enemy strategies consists of rushing towards you as fast as they can (which isn't very fast in some cases) and firing constantly if they have ranged weapons. The designers seemed to take this into account, some people enjoy this kind of no-thinking twitchy gameplay, and if you stuck with it for 50 levels then one of the last levels is simply a massive blitz against you by damn near everything in the game's beastiary. And with the variety of enemies it really doesn't get boring.

Bottom line, it's a fun game that's more dependent on how you play than how the game is designed. If you're a weird little mutant like me you can sit down with this for hours with the goal of completing it and have a ball. Others could see it as a kind of stress relief; sit down, blast alien bugs for a level or two, move on to other things. It's not a deep game in the slightest, it's just monsters, guns, and property destruction. If you really need depth in a game, a game like this can still be fun in 15 minute intervals when you just feel like blowing shit up. Or maybe you're like me, a person who will compensate for a lack of depth in a game by filling it in themselves, and as a result I've got a novel worth of story for this game squirreled away in my head. It's mindless fun, with an emphasis on the mindless.

Right5Life

2009-01-05T11:51:00.000-05:00

Hahaha... I'm so witty.

My 360 is working, and I have the following suggestions for those who want to play Left4Dead on any platform.

1. Quick Match for Versus mode is a Bad Idea (TM) as is looking for a game in progress. The primary reasons for someone leaving a game in progress are cheating, losing, and nerdrage. You will never be filling in for a brilliant player on a team of intellectual peers. You will always be stuck with the morons who haven't figured out that zombies and humans are not friends. Do yourself a favor and always look for game lobbies.

2. The same is not necessarily true of Campaign. Plus even if you do get put on a team of morons it doesn't hurt to have the ego boost of knowing you're the sole reason any of these idiots is going to survive past the first zombie.

3. Killing zombies is fun.

Gears of Woar 2

2008-12-27T21:56:00.000-05:00

In all that I do I like to think I follow only one command: serve the Queen. So while the Lambent storm the Nexus and groundwalkers infiltrate our cities I follow orders and lead my troop off to guard an evacuation route in the middle of nowhere. I follow my orders, I don't have to like them. The humans have a saying, "Ignorance is bliss." I think that may be true. I understand the reasons for our variations; we all have a purpose, and we all know our purpose as it was the purpose we were born to. From the day I was spawned I have been a Theron Guard of the Queen. The drones fight and die, the generals command and plan, the wretches get distracted by shiny objects. The Theron Guards lead by example. My skill is the sword of the Queen, my strength is Her shield, and as the avatar of Her will I inspire the drones to victory. I often think the drones have it easier. They get to voice doubts about the orders they are given, since at the end of the day the responsibility to compel them to battle falls on the Theron. But if a Theron voices doubts about his orders, then General Skorge will reduce your head to a thin paste and wear your fangs as hair ornaments.

As we marched to wherever the generals seem to think is important we hear the constant commands of the Queen. We continuously hear Her promises that we shall seize the surface and destroy the Lambent, both at the same time. Personally, I thought a two-front war was a bad idea, but as stated I couldn't really say anything without being processed into snacks for the Boomers and Grinders. Then another voice cut in over the loudspeaker. A human voice came on and promised to whup all our asses as well as the ass of our Queen. This colorful rhetoric continued for about a minute before the loudspeakers were all shut down. At first I was annoyed that our defenses had allowed the groundwalkers into the palace grounds, but then I was relieved that I didn't have to listen to Her Majesty's constant prattle about our inevitable victory.

I turned to see if the troops were having the same thoughts on this as I was and, I swear by the Great Worm this is true, one of the drones was crying. I looked past him and saw that nearly the whole team was somewhat teary eyed, even that old grenadier who had served under me in no less than two campaigns. I knew drones weren't the sharpest bolt in the quiver, but I didn't expect them to really be that affected by some human's over emotional banter. The sobbing drone looked up at me with pitiful eyes and hiccupped "Are they really going to hurt the Queen?" As I looked into those sad, pathetic eyes I asked myself how the late, great RAAM would have handled a situation like this. With my left hand I patted the drone on the shoulder, and with my right hand jammed a torque bow arrow into his temple. I don't know enough about anatomy to know if a sharp object at that depth and at that location would cause immediate death, but I like to think that he lived long enough to contemplate his treason. From the look in his eyes I believe his last thoughts were of repentence before the warhead in the arrow removed the offending extremity from his body and liberated him from the need (and means) to contemplate such things.

I looked over his corpse and at the other drones under my command before barking "Who doubts the Queen?!" With that, they stifled their last sniffles and snapped to attention. I hissed "March!" and we continued. We marched off the defend some cave somewhere from humans or lambents or maybe magical rainbow colored kryll. It didn't really matter, I only had the one duty. Serve the Queen.

I Couldn't Be Bothered On Launch Day

2008-12-27T18:30:00.000-05:00

Never let it be said that I don't like innovation. If it were not for innovation we'd still be living in caves and killing each other over the few available women. But in gaming, there is a bad habit of confusing innovation with quality. I can say with a completely straight face that Daikatana was a very innovative game for its time. Unfortunately, most of the development of that game was spent playing Quake while the designers pondered why the game hadn't magically created itself yet. Another very innovative game was Jurassic Park: Trespasser, a game so innovative it actually inspired alot of what we saw in Half-Life 1 and 2. Unfortunately they were trying so hard to be innovative that they didn't try to make the game good in any way, thus bringing us graphics so cruel to processors that a decade later the graphics are only a marginal improvement over Quake and still it manages to suffer slowdown on modern machines, and the physics engine hilariously lacked friction.

And all of that to say that I played Gears of War 2. I mentioned all of that because Gears of War is the antithesis of innovation. You play as a big tough manly man who wields the largest guns a human could realistically carry and battle subterranean mutants and there's lots of blood. There's a good amount of backstory, but that's all squirreled away in supplemental booklets that have been hidden on the dark side of the moon. In short, it's every shooter you've ever played. I would argue that they did a fine job of it. Okay, so nothing is new or groundbreaking, but at least I had fun making heads explode.

I was worried during some of the pre-release stuff. Mobile cover? More vehicles? While we're at it, let's just call it Halo. But everything seemed to work out for the better. The shields you can pick up only work with pistols, so your trading security for firepower. The heavy weapons have enough limitations that they don't turn into game breaking monsters. And I once compared Gears of War to a rail shooter and the vehicle sections stick to that tradition. Of course, some things have changed. The Unreal engine has been streamlined so textures don't spontaneously appear, instead they fade in creating the illusion that the camera is simply focussing. Also, the first Gears of War was about a single team on a single mission and the battlefield felt rather lonely. This time around it actually feels like you're part of a major campaign and you're not fighting alone out there. And then there are the difficulty levels. The original Gears of War had Casual, Hardcore, and Insane difficulties that were supposed to correspond with Easy, Normal, and Hard. Instead they corresponded with Normal, Hard, and Fuck You. Gears 2 adds the unimaginatively named Normal difficulty, with Casual being demoted to Easy. Between the two the enemies are just as smart and durable on Normal as on Casual, but with Casual the player has enough hit points to catch a nuclear warhead between his teeth and only be slightly singed.

To sum up, if you liked the original Gears of War then you'll like Gears of War 2 since they made everything better. If you didn't like Gears of War then nothing in Gears of War 2 is going to change your mind. And if you haven't played the original Gears of War then what are you using your XBox 360 for?