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In this second edition of the lamecast, our hosts put Capcom’s two biggest franchises over the coals and EVE Online gets a new patch. In the thrilling conclusion, a discussion on in-game advertising erupts into violence when the importance of being told to buy Old Spice while playing Quake Live is questioned.
This Best Game Ever is brought to you by developers making their old games open source, which is a wonderful thing. Toys for Bob, the developer of Star Control I and II, released the game as open source in 2002 under the “Ur Quan Masters” title, since the name Star Control remains a copyright of Atari. The game is now up to version 0.6.2, giving an incredibly robust, bug free experience that surpasses the original 3DO version. I played the 3DO version back in the early 90’s, and I was overjoyed to find the Ur Quan Masters project and replay Star Control II. It’s free and fun – who could ask for more?
Star Control I set the stage for the franchise. The concept was fairly simple: a galactic strategy game with ship vs. ship combat. The game was fairly simple: green planets for crew, red planets for minerals, build up your fleet and kill the enemy. Because all fighting was done 1v1, it created a rock/paper/scissors strategy of different shiptypes that put emphasis on the player’s battle skill; fights could not be won through sheer numbers. → [link only works on even seconds]
This Monday the Virtual Console got its first batch of Commodore 64 titles (in the states). Though I haven’t played the released games, it was a momentous occasion for me because the C64 was home to my first gaming experiences. While the other kids were playing their Nintendos, I was learning run “*” ,8,1 (only with the shortcut of “u” plus the shift key that yielded some bizarre symbol I don’t remember).
The majority of American gamers likely haven’t even touched a Commodore so VC sales will probably be pretty slow. Honestly, I’m not sure they deserve to be brisk – most of the titles I remember were fun at the time but seem archaic and shallow now. Still, I feel a responsibility to present a list of favorites just in case the planets align and Nintendo releases good C64 games and you happen to find yourself with five bucks to burn.
There is a robust lineup of classics for the computer that I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend. → Please sir, can I have some more?
Why Ensemble Closed
Once designer at Ensemble Studios, Bruce Shelley explained what went wrong at the DICE 09 conference. He kept it overly civilized and focused on what they should have done differently internally. Things like working on games in different genres and not expanding too quickly made his list, though he forgot to mention “Don’t be owned by a giant evil corporation.”
It must have taken an abundance of self control to not simply declare Microsoft the sole problem Ensemble faced. The studio created some of the best received and selling strategy games in the industry and sold millions of games. Despite being profitable, they were apparently not profitable enough for Microsoft to keep open. Just when I thought I was beginning to understand economics…
Single Player Games on their Deathbed
David Perry is more famous for saying controversial things than making good games. Once upon a time he worked on the excellent Earthworm Jim series and some lesser appreciated gems like Cool Spot and the Genesis version of Aladdin. → We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we play.
In this, the premier Lamecast, Christian and Don discuss Quake Live, Fallout 3, Resident Evil 5 and the importance of keeping the Sabbath.
Remember – not only is this happening live but it works two way and they can hear you. Please be respectful by not speaking or making any loud noises.
Like most industries, the gaming industry is bound by the conventional economic wisdom that you must spend money to make money. Historically, that’s meant taking a loss on every game system sold (with the notable exception being most Nintendo consoles) in order to tap into selling game after game to console owners. This measure of success is known as the “attachment rate” or “tie ratio.” A somewhat (November 2008) dated Gamasutra chart shows that the Xbox was in the lead, with 6.6 games/system sold, followed by the Wii at 5.5 and the PS3 at 5.3.
This statistic has historically been a powerful metric for measuring market penetration and overall success for a console. After all, what’s the point of selling a console if you can’t sell game after game? But as with many things in today’s integrated media world, the lines have blurred and traditional metrics don’t necessarily tell the whole story.
This generation of consoles has produced systems that have significant secondary revenue streams contributing to the bottom lines of developers and console manufacturers alike. → Garou: Mark of the Posts
You don’t catch someone by running slower (than they are running)
Eurogamer is one of my favorite sites but they’ve hit on one of my many pet peeves – inaccurate sales language. In Japan, the PS3 has been doing a little bit better lately while Wii sales have been slowing down. Eurogamer describes this as Sony catching up to Nintendo.
The Wii is actually pulling away from the PS3 at a less dramatic pace but every week it outsells its competition, the Wii is indeed putting more distance between it and the PS3. In order for Sony to even begin to catch up, more PS3s need to be sold than Wiis.
I think this stuff may actually be calculus, which would possibly explain why so many paid writers can’t grasp sales shifts. The other explanation is that, “Sony catching Nintendo,” is a slick headline whereas “Sony being beaten less badly by Nintendo,” is not.
What the implications of the sales shift are is still unclear. → I regret learning to read.
Games, I have always believed, would benefit from acceptance into mainstream culture: once the stigma that video games entertained only troglodytic nerds disappears, the scope of what games are allowed to be would increase. This has started to happen, as, despite the whining and hand wringing of those who want games to remain in their and only their basements, gaming has expanded over the past several years. Part of this has been in the form of non-gamers picking up controllers, but my bet is that most of it is ex-gamers picking them up again, or twenty-somethings not putting them down as they (we) age.
This expansion has meant that the collective entity known as “gamers” now has much broader tastes: broader in terms of theme and maturity as well as content. I am not writing to dole out credit (or blame, if you prefer) to the Wii and DS, or even PS2 for doing this, but rather I am writing because among all the dreck that this expansion has created, it has provided a platform and audience for a couple of real gems that do not contain the worst trappings of games (but do not belong in the silly and ill defined non-category “non-games”). → Final Post VII
Being an optimistic person, I’d like to discuss some of the things I was disappointed with in ’08. Last year must have been the first since I reached financial independence that I played games on only one publishers system; in 2008 I was a Nintendo fanboy.
Oddly enough, I am not adding the Wii in ’08 to my list of disappointments. No More Heroes, House of the Dead, Mario Kart, Boom Blox, Strong Bad, World of Goo, De Blob, and Dokapon Kingdom all came in ’08 and while I may have quirky, Japan-centric (or shitty) taste, I was content.
I am disappointed that I refuse to learn lessons from past game purchases. The following are games that aren’t necessarily bad, just games I should have known I didn’t need:
Endless Ocean – The idea that games can be anything they want and don’t need to fit into a pre-defined mold is noble. After seeing EGM dismiss Endless Ocean as a non-game because it lacked health bars and points I rushed out to prove them wrong. → 2 h4rdc0r3 4 U.
Many folks are saying that 2008 was a bad year for games. I think this is true in the sense that almost no Triple-A release lived up to their hype or potential. However, if you embrace a wide range of consoles and genres, there was a lot to love this year. Here are some of the more remarkable games from this year. Note that I don’t like them all, but each left a mark on my mind.
Burnout Paradise
Don’t let the hate fool you – Burnout Paradise is the future of “open world racers,” or whatever the hell you want to call them. One reason is that it plays like a spiritual successor to Midtown Madness, a game that existed before “open world” and GTA3 were in our vocabulary. Midtown was striking in that it made its city the spotlight of the game. The city streets were not ever walled off during races, and traffic didn’t vanish. The game also gave you a solid lineup of vehicles to play with from the start. → Postlanser: Heritage of Read