Year: 2008

Digital Distribution in a Not so Ideal World

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I don’t like getting into personal anecdotes, so I’ll make this part quick. I was a strong supporter of digital distribution when it started popping up as a legitimate method of buying games. I was a Steam apologist when it was new and buggy, and I used Sam and Max as staunch proof that episodic content could work.

Digital Distribution has so many strengths that seems hard to argue against it. Quick access to games as soon as you want them, with no trips to the store and less physical hardware to strain. Plus, its digital nature should theoretically reduce prices and put more money into the right pockets. This last part is not happening, as theory is not becoming reality.

As easy as it is to make digital games cheaper, the technology can also be used to nickel and dime us. I find myself realizing that my past defense was based on an idealized situation, and that the current reality about digital distribution looks a lot grimmer from the consumer standpoint. →  Read more, before it’s too late!

News We Care About Update 12.29.08

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Nintendo to offer streaming videos, just not here
Nintendo is bizarrely slow to adopt some aspects of technology. Their latest console, the Wii (pronounced “Why”), has only cursory online abilities, and lacks both a practical storage device and the ability to function as a time machine.

As a curmudgeon who spouts things like, “Game systems should do nothing but play games” I was once on board with Nintendo’s seemingly similar stance. Their real position, which they have revealed at glacial speed, is game consoles should do a lot of things poorly and much, much later than other game consoles.

Whether this half-assed approach to new technology will be their ultimate undoing as Sony and Microsoft take over your living room in 2010, your wine cellar in 2015 and your apiary in 2020 is yet to be seen.

3D games coming to the PS3?
Blitz Games, the technology experts/ design wizards behind some of the industries most beloved and respected series such as Bratz: Girlz Really Rock, Barbie Horse Adventure and the newly famous Zapper (get it now on Xbox Live!) →  And so it games…

Golden Jew’s Nuggets of Wisdom #3

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Am I getting pickier, are developers getting suckier, or am I a fanboy?

I’m definitely gaming less, largely due to an increase in non-gaming activities eating my free time. As a result I’m finding myself particularly discriminating when it comes to what I actually buy and play. Video games aren’t my primary outlet these days, I’d say they consume 25% of my free time whereas in the past it might have been as high as 75%.

This has worked out well for me, because if I were a bored Golden Jew, I’d have trouble taking a strong stance on developers who have either pissed me off, or not managed to beat out the competition. Etrian Odyssey 2, for example, has turned me off to future installments of the game because of Atlus’ crass laziness in developing a sequel.

I’m on a huge hate binge of Firaxis because their business model revolves around the fact their community is made of Sid Meier felaters and talented modders who do his work for him (see Colonization and Civ 4 BTS as examples where this model succeeded, and Civ Revs as an example of where it did not). →  It might come in handy if you, the master of reading, take it with you.

Review – Gears of War 2

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When the first Gears of War was released, I wrote a little rant about Cliff Blezinski’s introduction to the game found in the instruction book. For a game about large meatheads shooting albino insect meatheads, the intro sounded far too pretentious and lofty. Commenters took me to task, and they convinced me that I was overreacting.

Thankfully, Gears 2 doesn’t put me in the same situation. This time, Cliff’s intro makes no bones about the fact that this game wants to emulate the feeling of “being in a summer blockbuster film” better than any other game out there. Shallow as it may be, knowing a developer’s intent can have a large impact on how I view a game. An over the top setpiece becomes more palatable when I know the creators aren’t presenting it as a work of gaming art.

In order to achieve its goal, Gears 2 features slick new weapons, better firefights, and a lengthier campaign. As a sequel to the best 3rd person shooting since Resident Evil 4, these changes make Gears 2 shine even brighter. →  Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol. 5: Golden Post

Review – Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World

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Tales of Symphonia is one of the Gamecube’s greatest RPGs. I only got around to finishing it a couple of months ago at the urging of several friends. I was further encouraged to play through it by the impending release of its sequel, Dawn of the New World. Unfortunately, DotNW does not live up to its predecessor’s legacy and instead spends much of the time in its shadow.

Some of this is inevitable. Tales of Symphonia ends with the merger of two worlds, and much of the sequel deals with what happens afterward. The two lands of Sylvarant and Tethe’alla do not really get along, and bizarre weather events trouble the entire world. A lot of blame is naturally cast at the heroes of the first game. Lloyd, in particular, seems to have gone off the deep end as he instigates a massacre of a town during the game’s beginning.

Much of DotNW is spent traveling the world, usually with one or two of the original ToS heroes. →  All I want for Christmas is my PSP.

Review – Dead Space

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In April of 2007 a man by the name of John Riccitiello began work as the new Chief Operating Officer of Electronic Arts, one of the two largest video game conglomerates on earth. EA had fallen victim to its own massiveness in the years prior. In order to grow it had purchased and then cannibalized smaller, more imaginative game developers, absorbed the talent into their own offices, and centrally ran all operations.

As a result, the people and projects they assimilated became infected with the shortcomings of the company entire: there was too much bureaucracy and too many levels of hierarchy. This took decision making and creativity away from the game development teams. As a result EA earned a rather poor reputation for making nothing but thin sequels, movie tie-ins, and sports games that did little to differentiate themselves from year to year.

One of Mr. Riccitiello’s first tasks was to issue a surprisingly frank mea culpa for the company. The big, bloated, centrally operating model was called a mistake. →  The review for ‘Shark Sandwich’ was merely a two word review which simply read ‘Read Sandwich.’

Review – Call of Duty: World at War

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As expected, Activision has pimped the hell out of 2008’s yearly Call of Duty release, World at War. The savvier gamers out there have not been fooled, and have spent their energies trashing it before it even got a chance to prove itself. They know that WaW was developed not by series creator Infinity Ward, but by Treyarch, whose two game Call of Duty pedigree has been viewed as less than stellar.

I assert that this judgment was unfair. Big Red One was developed for last gen platforms, and managed to be very clever given its hardware limitations. As for CoD3, the snarky blog commenters betrayed their true lack of intelligence. It should have been obvious to anyone that the game was a stopgap, a way for Activision to “exploit” a favorite moneymaker with a yearly release. World at War has twice the budget and development time that CoD3 did. If you truly want to judge Treyarch’s ability compared to IW, this is the time to do it. →  Prince of Postia: Article Within

The Ever-Evolving State of Gaming, part 1 of 327

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Here it is, December 2008. I am setting here typing this up on a computer I rarely use for anything other than playing music and scouring the internet for unseen porn. If you would have told me ten years ago that Chinese Democracy would actually get released and that I would play console games more often than computer games, I would have laughed at you.

I just glanced over at my shelf and spied my little black DS Lite snuggled into its cute little sock carrying case; who would have thought that a fifth of Japan would come to embrace such a gaming device and that millions of them now occupy the United States as well? The old school Gameboy was popular…for little kids. Now men, women and kids play them. Speaking of women, they play games now! Jesus, my parents even play games now! What in the hell happened?!

Over the past year, this is something I have put a lot of (too much) thought into. →  An article approaches.
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Pachter predicts the PS3 is fucking awesome

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Sony is something special. Any other console with the combined hardware and software sales of the PS3 would be considered solidly in third place. Somehow when it’s Sony in third, however, it is simply a strategy to take advantage of a grandiose ten year plan. Imagine how violently you’d have laughed had Microsoft announced a ten year plan for the Xbox.

Predictions from analysts and insiders are only now slowly starting to show that the PS3 may not come out on top this generation. The initial prognostications from ’06 can be forgiven but many refuse to treat Sony like another console maker.

The newest example is in this gamesindustry.biz article. Analyst Michael Pachter has gone on record saying, “There was likely some substitution of Xbox 360 for PS3 purchases, due to recent price reductions for the Xbox 360 and the bundling of the console with two free games,” and “In addition, we believe that PS3 sales are being impacted by lower demand for HD televisions as a result of the recession.” →  You fool. Don’t you understand? No one wishes to read on…

Golden Jew’s Nuggets of Wisdom #2

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Cooking Games

This is a slippery slope I’m about to embark upon, but what do I care, you clicked this link, so you’re stuck with me. I can’t be any worse than doing your job, right?

I get video game escapism. I was a nerdy kid before blooming into my awesome alpha male self, so I understand the appeal of being a wizard, or space marine fighting space aliens, or a pirate ninja. Even though sports games don’t appeal to me, I understand why someone wants to play football and play like Tom Brady, or manage a college football team like the UF Gators, or rape a girl and get away with it like Kobe.

But where I get really fucking confused is when games like Cooking Mama become popular. I understand that there is this genre of “casual” games for people, where instead of trying to decide the proper build order for Protoss to rush Zerg, they want to just hit a tennis ball around with the Wii controller. →  All this can be yours, if the read is right.