Month: June 2006

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 6.30.06

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Hot on Sony’s heels, Bill Gates has hired Xzibit to be the spokesrapper for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

MS copies Sony, says Sony
First of all, let me make it clear that I will never trust anyone named Kaz, Baz, or Waz. Chaz from Phantasy Star IV and Raz from Psychonauts are alright, though. Moving on, Kaz Hirai has told the Official PlayStation Magazine “Every time we go down a path, we look behind and [Microsoft is] right there – we just can’t shake these guys. I wish that they would come up with some strategies of their own, but they seem to be going down the path of everything we do.”

What is he talking about? I’m not sure; I guess I’ll have to buy the magazine to see if he actually gives a single example. →  Drakenread 2

11 Rules for making a successful gaming website

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This guide will enable you to climb to the top of the internets.

Successful gaming websites don’t make themselves. They are created by webmasters who follow sets of rules posted at other websites. To help you bring your site to the forefront of the internet, here is a list of what must be done.

1 – Make headlines more misleading
A rumor may only be a rumor, but why run the risk of losing hits by clearly marking it as so in a headline? The best aggregator sites understand that when someone clicks on a link to one of their articles and the story turns out to be different than they expected, the reader is thankful that the site has cleared up any misconceptions due to the inaccurate headline. Thus, misleading headlines are a way to engender trust with your readers. →  Think outside the post.

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Lame Discussion: Immersion – Part 2

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Continued from yesterday’s part 1.

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Jay: Golden Jew, tell us more about your controversial theories on immersion.

Golden Jew: My view is, as with anything, there are many ways to skin a cat, and target a particular gamer… one thing I’ve been frustrated with and responded to before is the lack of good demographic analysis of gamers. And I think that’s because although gaming has been a huge industry for a long while, only when our generation started slamming the work force did it start getting respect and I think now the industry is struggling with ways to better design games and target the right audiences. So we end up with these semi esoteric questions– what is immersion– because designers think that answering that question with a silver bullet will mean big bucks and nothing, in any industry, (except for the fact sex sells) is that clear cut. →  Reading. Reading never changes.

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Lame Discussion: Immersion – Part 1

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The Lamer staff instant messages their arguments to each other.

Welcome to the first Lame Discussion. We gathered half a dozen Lamer staff and had a rousing discussion on the concept of immersion in video games. Hopefully, we will be able to bring you discussions like these every few weeks. Because we are a bunch of nerds we had a blast analyzing one of video games more cerebral concepts and went on far too long. In the effort to keep the discussion’s points intact but keep you from falling asleep, I’ve added this long intro. Also, I edited the crap out of the actual discussion. You can bet your ass we said a ton of hilarious things you’ll never get to read. The article is in fact so long I had to chop it into two parts to make it at all palatable. →  Videolamer does what IGNotDoes.

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Review – Killer 7

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There was once a silly, fluffy intro here, until I realized it wasn’t necessary for Killer 7. No matter what pages of forum analyses may claim, this is a simple game, both gameplay wise and story wise. Yes it is weird as hell and artsy in structure. And no, I don’t claim to “get” everything about it, but if you ask me there are a lot of people out there that don’t understand what this game is all about. Here’s a hint; all you need to do is stop thinking so damn much.

First things first; Killer 7 is not an action game. It is not a rail shooter. And most importantly, it is not survival horror. I’ve heard all of these names applied, and none of them make sense. Why is it action? →  When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called a game.

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Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 6.23.06

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A CNN reporter grades the current generation of consoles
Apparently the tone he takes (he treats the systems like school kids) is supposed to be funny and/or clever. He gives the PS2 an A, the Xbox a B-, the Gamecube a D and the Gameboy Advance an A. The Xbox actually sold worse than the Cube worldwide, but since when do American journalists bother themselves with other countries?

This article reminds me of a feature in the newest EGM where they give grades to the future of each system. Somehow the Gamecube ends up with a lower grade than the Xbox despite the Xbox getting no new first party games and one or two 3rd party exclusives. The Cube gets the new Zelda, Super Paper Mario, a new Donkey Konga game, and from Namco the sequel to Baten Kaitos. →  Read like G did.

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Best Game Ever – Suikoden

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Growing up I always played games, but only recently would I have ever thought of myself as a “gamer.” I had a Nintendo for several years, then a Genesis, but until Playstation (and High School) I played mostly NBA Jam, and whatever the rest of the kids from school/the neighborhood were playing. This included a lot of games I would now scorn, such as games licensed from movies. I always noticed Genesis games on the shelves that looked as though they might be interesting due to the dragons and medieval knights on the covers, but I was apparently unable to take the plunge at the time.

He’s a goner.

Come high school, I met a bunch of people different from myself (basically I hadn’t met anyone not Irish- or Italian-Catholic) who did different things (other than play baseball and basketball). →  If you die in the article, you die in real life.

The Videolamer game

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Last night I took a 20 minute break from my busy work day and designed a Videolamer video game. It’s going to star the lamer guy (look at the top of the page, that stunning svelte green man is the lamer guy) in a Zelda-esque adventure.

The plot is something along the lines of the lamer guy jumps out of a monitor, leaves your bedroom (YES, YOUR BEDROOM!) and ends up in a randomly thrown together fantasy world full with Porn Hell (you’ll have to wait and see). I really can’t reveal too much because I don’t know how many rival designers are reading (according to my stat counter, four people have been here in the last week, but I assume the hundreds of designers who visit don’t use cookies).

And when I say I designed a game, I mean I drew a map. →  Get lame or get out.

Review – La Pucelle: Tactics

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When hippos attack.

There was a period around two years ago when it was impossible to not read about Disgaea. Every forum, most sites, and many magazines were praising it as the strategy RPG you’d never heard of that you need to own. For reasons unknown, I never took the worlds advice. I have La Pucelle in my collection but not the reportedly amazing Disgaea. The company behind Disgaea, Nippon Ichi, made La Pucelle first but it was only brought to the West after Disgaea’s success.

And how. Mastiff has done a wonderful job translating the game and most of the voice acting is excellent. Although there is an awful lot of meowing in the game I could’ve done without. These guys should localize more RPGs, but tone down their animal impressions. →  I’ll read you, my pretty, and your little dog, too!

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Chords and Kawaii: The State of the Music Genre – Part 2

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While the rest of the kids played DDR in gym, joey here was practicing chords and meeting groupies.

And now, I present The State of the Music Genre

1. Passing the Torch

Let’s take a quick look at what makes a game like Guitar Hero click. Rather than dancing on a pad, you imitate playing a guitar by pounding down on different buttons and keys on a plastic replica of a Gibson SG. There are chords, sustained notes, and a whammy bar for adding your own bit of personal flair. In order for the song to actually play, the player must correctly perform the notes, or else face failure. Particularly good play can net you Star Power, a technique that allows you to increase your score. As for future installments, it looks as if we will see music, more styles, and possibly even more instruments that will all be able to join together for a virtual jam session. →  The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Read

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