posts by matt
matt

The Big Scene

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Well, I finally understand how Nick Callaway felt when attending a party over at the late, great Jay Gatsby’s house on Long Island. On Friday morning, I traveled down to the Nintendo World Store to attend the Q&A session that a few of the IGN editors were going to have there, but that was just the tip of the iceberg.

I got to the store at around 10:45 a.m., completely exhausted from the anxiousness I had the night before. This would be the first time I’d ever met anyone from the journalism side of the video game industry, and I have to say I was nervous. These people are my celebrities; I’ve read their articles every day for the last 6 years. →  It was the best of games, it was the worst of games

Wii Sports: Bundle or Stand-Alone?

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This question has plagued my brain for the last few days. Should Nintendo bundle Wii Sports with the actual system, or sell it as a stand-alone product?

You can come up with several reasons for both sides of the argument, but the real crux of the argument is what Nintendo will do. Bundling the game would essentially define the Wii as Wii Sports. If people think they will get it in the bundle, then their immediate experience of the Wii will be formed around the experience they have with Wii Sports.

This is exactly what Nintendo needs to do if they want to justify their route they took with the Wii and its controller. This will show the public that the controller is indeed a worthy way of handling gameplay for video games. →  Video games are bad for you? That’s what they said about huffing paint.

Weekend Spotlight

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What will I be playing this weekend, you ask? Why, only the great Indigo Prophecy, of course. I do thank you for asking.

I played the demo on the PC around the time of the game’s release, and simply loved how the game unfolded. I never purchased it, due to constraining circumstances (no money), but a friend at work let me borrow his Xbox edition.

Right from the moment you start the game, you’ll notice that Indigo Prophecy is heavily story-based. Think Metal Gear Solid. Actually, Konami’s spy game actually has more “game” to it than Indigo Prophecy does, if that’s hard to believe. You seriously are just watching this game with a few bits of gameplay thrown in for variety. →  All the lonely gamers, where do they all belong?

Next-gen.biz apparently reads videolamer

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Is it me, or does Next-gen.biz report on everything that I’ve said, only later?

Exhibit A

This is an interview of Raph Koster of Star Wars Galaxies fame at the Austin Game Conference where he talks about how much better life in PC development would be without publishers. He apparently read my second episode on game testing where I said the same thing. He’s definitely right, though.

Exhibit B

This second article was an interview with Charles Deenen at the same conference where he talks about how powerful sound and music are to a video game and the pursuit of emotional response. I think I read something like that on videolamer somewhere. Oh wait, it’s here! We’ve got some eerie similarities in our arguments, too. →  Read more, before it’s too late!

Games that shed a tear

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The issue of whether or not a video game can make us cry has been tackled several times in the past, but the issue has still not been given its due. Can video games truly impact a player with a fury of emotion, causing them to cry? Depending on the game, I say yes.

Many people say that games are wholly incapable of causing emotion in people, as seen in Margaret Robertson’s speech at this year’s Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival. She cites games that made her feel a lot of emotion, but states that video games as a whole are not emotional. They’re just ones and zeroes. The players are the source of the emotion, and that you have to tap into their emotion to get a response. →  Ys: The Article of Napishtim

Review – Phoenix Wright

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Phoenix Wright has turned into somewhat of a cult classic in the past few months. I remember hearing about Phoenix Wright in Japan (named the Gyakuten Saiban series) for the GBA back in the day. The games (there are three in total) were immensely popular, going straight to the top of the charts. I really didn’t understand why, though. I just thought it was a Japanese thing, like those pachinko and horse betting games they have there. I mean, how fun can it be to play as a lawyer? Apparently, pretty damn fun.

On the outset, Phoenix Wright is merely a point-and-click text adventure. It’s heavily based on its storyline, well, because pointing and clicking is as fun as milking a cow (not to make fun of Harvest Moon fans). →  Read Read Revolution: Disney Channel Edition

The Power of Music

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Music is the one power that the majority of developers never seem to grasp and implement correctly. Music in a game can enhance every aspect, be it story, setting, mood, or even gameplay, but for some reason, it always takes a back seat to everything else in a game, especially the graphics.

Kondo: the Japanese French Stewart?

Let me give you an example of how music, implemented to its fullest, can be beneficial to a game’s overall feeling. Shadow of the Colossus. How epic and strong did you feel when that music kicked in, when you finally started climbing the back of one of those monstrous Colossi? You felt something, didn’t you? It wasn’t visual feedback that created that feeling, or the fact that you overcame a puzzle. →  The gamers have only interpreted the games, in various ways. The point, however, is to change them.

Review – Ikaruga

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Is the game really about black and white or red and blue? It really makes you think.

Old-school shooters are a dying genre. There are only a handful of franchises left today, but there used to be countless shooters at your local arcade. Were they too hard for the masses? Did the arcades take something with them when they were given the final blow? It’s probably a combination of a lot of things, but at least one thing is for sure: Treasure knows shooters and Ikaruga is testament to that. Filled with excruciatingly difficult gameplay, Ikaruga makes you work for your fun.

If you’ve ever played Gradius or Galaga, you essentially know how to play Ikaruga. It’s an old-school shooter that pits you against an entire army of ships wanting to decimate you. →  Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing memory cards.

Polarity

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Welcome to the world of tomorrow!

If you ever asked yourself why video games were invented, you probably answered that the original creators just wanted to have fun. And, in fact, you’d be correct. The very first video game was created in 1958 by a scientist named William Higinbotham to let people have a little bit of fun at a science fair in Long Island, NY. The fair was mostly centered on nuclear theories and revelations, but Higinbotham thought it made the exhibit a bit scary for the general public, so he made what is now known to be the very first video game: Tennis for Two.

Suffice to say, it was a hit at the show. People were amazed that they could control something on a screen (which was actually a 3-inch radar screen). →  Go ahead, read my day.

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