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Retrospectives – Metal Gear Solid series part 3

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Continued from part 2.

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

Metal Gear Solid 2 is impossible to discuss nowadays without at least establishing what the game is “about”; the message that Kojima intended for the player. First, we need to understand that Raiden, everything about the character and his experience, represents the player (more specifically, the modern Japanese gamer/otaku, but it works well enough for Westerners). Second, the game’s surreal nature, crazy AI and double crosses are all commentary on the Information Age, which has made information not only more widespread, but has changed how one can wield it. The final message from Snake (the hero we aspire to, but cannot control for long) is clear; just believe in something, and pass your beliefs and your genes on to the future.

It is a double edged message, as anyone wary of religious fundamentalists would tell you, but it is still rather powerful for a videogame. Finally, the story and ideas behind MGS2 depend on the fact that this is a videogame. →  Readbot Chronicles

Retrospectives – Metal Gear Solid series part 2

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Continued from part 1.

My first experience with anything related to Metal Gear was the MGS cover story in Next Generation Magazine. Like any feature on the game should have, the article mentioned that this was not a new series, but the resurrection of an old one. It even gave a brief history of the past Metal Gear games, which made me feel like hot shit in my eighth grade mind, as if I knew something the unwashed masses that would eventually buy the game never would.

Oh how wrong I was. Remember the amazing boss fight with Liquid Snake in the Hind D? Or how funny and strange it was to meet Meryl in the bathroom? How about those great fights in the elevator and the stairwell? We were all blown away by what seemed to be unique moments, but the truth is that Kojima was just refining his older vision. Metal Gear Solid was as much a project to bring Metal Gear 2 to 3d as it was its true sequel. →  This post are sick.

Retrospectives – Metal Gear Solid series part 1

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Because this is a discussion of the game series there will be significant spoilers. Read and weep.

I have a strange relationship with MGS. If you take away a few enhanced releases, I have played (or am playing) just about everything MGS related, from the mainline trilogy to Twin Snakes and even the Game Boy Color game. Something tells me I’ll have finished MGS4 within four months of release, even if I have no PS3. I seem to be an absolute whore for Kojima. And yet, I’m not sure I entirely love MGS. In fact, I know I don’t.

The only game in the series that I would consider truly brilliant is 3. The rest may simply be problematic postmodern experiments. Everyone heaps praise upon the stories and storytelling present in MGS, yet it seems to me to be mostly anime fueled sci-fi schlock. Everyone is in love with Hideo Kojima’s role as gaming’s conflicted auteur, but other whispers in the game industry paint him as an egomaniac with more bark than talent. →  PaReader the Reader

Numbers are fun – November ‘Nihilation

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There has been a lot of good sales news for the industry over the past month. Enough numbers have been released that PR people from all three console manufacturers are able to claim some victory. We have all grown accustomed to hearing that Nintendo’s grandparent-friendly hardware is setting the world ablaze, but recent information has shown that its competitors may be gearing up to offer a viable challenge. The biggest headline probably has to be the fact that Nintendo DS sales set the record for most systems ever purchased in a single week with 653,000. This, combined with 350,000 Wiis sold during the same period adds up to…a lot of stuff sold by Nintendo during Thanksgiving week. The Wii is still supply constrained so it’s tough to say how many units Nintendo could be moving, but the Wii reached five million units in the US sold faster than any other system in history, doing so in a mere 12 months.
This game sold almost 600k in one week.
 →  Some say the world will end in fire, some say in read more

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 11.30.07

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Gamespot editor allegedly fired for giving a bad review
Jeff Gerstmann was supposedly let go because he gave Kane and Lynch a mediocre review (recent updates indicate the firing was a culmination of multiple reviews that angered sponsors). The story goes, Eidos was paying CNET a ton of cash to promote the title and threatened to pull future ads because of the review. It’s true that when this story broke yesterday, the Gamespot site was covered head to toe in stupid K&L ads. The people who say the firing happened because of the review range from Penny Arcade (who confirm the comic isn’t simply a joke in their forum), to a freelance Gamespot writer (who gave Shenmue a bad review…breath in…), to mods in the Gamespot forum who said things like – if we tell you what happened we will be fired, and don’t blame us, it’s all CNETs fault.

First of all, many people use this news to confirm “conspiracy theories.” →  I regret learning to read.

Retrospectives – Halo Single-Player Campaigns part 3

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In this continuation of the Halo single player retrospective I will look at…

Story/Presentation

Again, the most enjoyable Halo in regards to story and presentation is Halo: Combat Evolved. In 2001, we didn’t know what a “Halo” was or meant. With the first game, we were introduced to the Forerunners, the Covenant, and the Flood for the very first time, and it feverishly sparked our imaginations, with the player trying to figure out what kind of universe Master Chief was living in. This happens a lot with games in general. The first game is far more potent in terms of story than the sequels, as you’ve already experienced the same style of storytelling in the first game. From our perspective, the most innovative is the first one. All the rest are just walking down the road that the first one paved.

Of course, the general story isn’t something you’ll find in a Shakespearean play or anything. Watching a human warrior dressed up in mechanical armor that takes on an entire army of alien marauders by himself is pretty much a cliché in cinema and video games at this point. →  It’s dangerous to read alone, take this.

It’s the end of Civilization as we know it, and I feel fine (I think)

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There has been a recent hullabaloo about the pending Civilization Revolutions game. Having realized that the hardcore 4X PC gamer market is not as lucrative as say, every other platform, Firaxis has set about developing a new “made for console” version of Civilization.

Because a move like this smacks of “selling out” and “destroying the game concept,” and it coincides with what can only be described as criminal negligence of the Beyond the Sword expansion, the community has been at best, suspicious, and at worst, behaving like forum trolls at a n00b feeding frenzy. And they have every right to have this attitude.

For starters, Firaxis is cultivating as much ill will as humanly possible with the Beyond the Sword expansion. The launch version (like all PC games these days) was bug ridden, requiring a patch. A second patch was forced upon gamers by developer constraints, and broke a variety of things. User-developed patches saved the single player game for a time, but a long awaited “official” patch was riddled with bugs that literally 20 minutes of QA could reveal. →  [link only works on even seconds]

Retrospectives – Halo Single-Player Campaigns part 2

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In this continuation of the Halo single player retrospective I will look at…

Level Design

Halo has never been one to “wow” a player with its level design. One of the core examples of why Metroid Prime was cited as being better than Halo was its superior level design, which, in retrospect, is not a huge accomplishment. Levels like The Library seem to be a test for the level designers to see how many times they could use the Copy-Paste function in their level editors.

To be truthful though, Bungie makes really good outdoor environments. This seems to be because it is usually devoid of any Forerunner architecture. When Master Chief travels through a Forerunner structure, there is very little in the way of detail. It’s an artistic choice, but it doesn’t lend itself to variety. Buildings usually just consist of metal rooms. For gameplay it’s not really an issue, as a table would just be something to move around while fighting enemies. →  Sounds mildly entertaining, I guess.

Retrospectives – Halo Single-Player Campaigns part 1

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When people think of the Halo series, they’re quickly reminded of the college dorm-room deathmatch. Halo is the quintessential multiplayer experience on consoles, but it wasn’t always like that. Before 2001, Halo meant nothing to people. It was just another FPS game that Microsoft was using to launch their first console, the Xbox.

To really get players talking (and ultimately spending their hard-earned money), Bungie had to create a compelling single-player campaign. If the core game was bad or run-of-the-mill, no one would care about multiplayer. And a launch game’s success is usually dependent on word of mouth. Look at Wii Sports. The more people that enjoy it, the more they talk, and the better it sells (which basically means more people to play multiplayer with).

Contrary to popular belief, Halo was originally all about the single-player, story-based campaign, which is the complete opposite of what it is now. People bought Halo 2 and 3 for the Xbox Live online-play. You’ll see a few players that have “finished the fight” on Legendary, but I’m willing to bet it’s the minority of Halo 3 owners, and Live was the real reason they bought it. →  Lamers so loved the world that they gave their only article, so that everyone who believes in reading won’t perish but will have eternal lives.

Mario Galaxy and gaming mindshare

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Super Mario Galaxy is officially out. With any luck, I’ll be the first person on Videolamer to discuss it, though I am probably the only one who doesn’t yet have it (though you are all welcome to buy it for me during my almost ended state of unemployment). That’s okay however, because I’m not really here to discuss the game proper, but the buzz surrounding it. Simply put, this is being called a return to form for Mario, a game that is the rightful successor to Mario 64. This sounds eerily similar to the remarks made about Twilight Princess, which fits the mold created by Ocarina of Time better than any other Zelda to succeed it, even Majora’s Mask. For most people’s money, these are the top two games on the Wii, Metroid Prime notwithstanding.

Suffice to say that I find this a bit alarming. It isn’t that I insist on believing Mario Galaxy is a bad game; my mind is practically set already that it’s a good game. →  Post of Tsushima