Bad Design 3

by

It’s been a while since the last entry in this series. Last time, and the time before that, I promised Gladius, Second Sight and Kingdom Hearts, so here they are in all their poorly designed glory.

Blah blah blah blah blah.

Gladius: Irrelevant Plot — We always hurt the ones we love, but I cannot ignore that the setup of this game made any plot unnecessary. I have a friend who believes plot in all strategy RPGs is unnecessary. I disagree, but not in Gladius’ case. There are two major problems with the game’s plot, neither of which is that it’s poorly written. Nearly all of the dialog is based in the history of the regions and of the arenas. Back story in a game can be very enriching, but not when there is hardly any active story. →  Read the rest

Review – Morning’s Wrath

by

Hey, where’s the doll I put my equipment on? What kind of second rate Diablo clone is this?

Morning’s Wrath is an RGP put out by Ethereal Darkness Interactive, a tiny independent game studio, which I am willing to bet is less of a company and more of a dedicated group of friends who collectively thought, “What the hell, lets do it” and made a videogame. Let me make it clear off the bat; making a video game is HARD. Anyone who has managed to do it deserves a tremendous amount of respect, especially when they don’t have the resources like other mega-gaming studios have. Even if they have the resources, making a good video is still hard, as EA demonstrates every single day.

After that all too easy dig against EA, I have to say this: Morning’s Wrath is just another mediocre videogame that should have come out a couple of years ago. →  Read the rest

A rant about fanboys

by
He shaves his head because he's mostly bald

Microsoft’s J Allard is paid to be a fanboy. For no extra cost, he is also a tool.

Fanboys remind me of the villain from the Serenity movie. He was sharp and eloquent but also utterly and completely blind. His faith was clearly proven wrong by the reality before his eyes, but rather than rethink his faith, he simply changed his perception of reality. Intelligent people who believe weird or extreme things are very dangerous because they’re able to make their faith sound rational. Thus, a fanboy is a force to be reckoned with. A forum of onlookers is often persuaded by a fanboy’s arguments, much like an intelligent design proponent can easily confuse and place doubt in the heads of smart, rational people.

One of the sure signs you’re speaking to a fanboy is that he refuses to allow reviews to influence him. →  Read the rest

Weekly News We care About Wrap Up – 4.14.06

by

Video game skills do not usually transfer to real life skills
Man in his 30s attempts to outrun cops in a car because he did it in GTA. Instead of putting age restrictions on games, there should be an IQ test. Is anyone else waiting for the guy who played too much Trauma Center to show up in the news?

photoshopped

Too good to be true?

Two Revolution games announced
Red Steel is coming to the Revolution, and check out the fake screen shots. Maybe they’re not polished, who knows. The game seems to be another attempt by Nintendo to convince gamers that they can appeal to an older crowd. The choice of a FPS is slightly odd, though. They tend to do terribly in Japan and if the Revolution is to stand a chance, my guess is that it’d have to repeat the DS’s and Allied Forces strategy of dominating the homeland. →  Read the rest

Best Game Ever – Streets of Rage 2

by

Developer: Sega
Publisher: Sega for the Genesis
Released: 1993

Stomp

Mr. X is significantly shorter when you fight him at the end of the game.

If I had a choice between playing a new Xbox360 game and playing an all time classic like Streets of Rage 2, I would of course pick the Xbox360, naturally. When I got bored with that though, I would bust out my emulator, sync up with my brother Rick and play the hell out of some SoR2.

Streets of Rage 2 was by far the best and greatest, nay the pinnacle of the brawler “beat em up” style game. Double Dragon, the Ninja Turtles games, Bad Dudes, Ikari Warriors? All the pond scum on the bottom of SoR2’s boots.

If you don’t believe me, then it’s clear that you haven’t played this game. →  Read the rest

Market research is stupid

by

A few days ago I got a call from a friend looking for “hardcore gamers” who were willing to be part of a focus group. This friend has a friend who works for a research group, so through a friend of a friend, I ended up taking part in a video game focus group. The important part was I’d be getting paid.

Hmmm... I wonder

It would be wrong of me to tell you what company the commercials were for, so I’ll just give you a hint.

I was a little disappointed that the group was just to get feedback on some commercials; I’d hoped to get to influence the design of a game (“more explosions, bigger breasts, less reading!”). I’d penned a few crazy sounding comments with Pat before the meeting, but sadly didn’t get to recite them. →  Read the rest

Review – Disaster Report

by

Developed by Irem
Published by Agetec Inc.
Released 2.15.03

car falling off bridge

I hope he has collision insurance.

Disaster Report begins by introducing your setting: a completely manmade island with a newspaper that needed a reporter. While crossing a bridge from the airport to the city en route to filling that role, the main character, Keith, suffers a major setback in the form of an earthquake, the aftershocks of which continue throughout the game. A helicopter sees you, but is not able to rescue you and instead drops some provisions (this is a recurring theme). If Disaster Report were a movie, we would probably consider this premise clichéd, and dismiss it. It is a very fresh idea for a game however, and is therefore intriguing.

There are some very ambitious aspects to the game. →  Read the rest

The Videolamer Guide to In-Game Advertising

by

Video games are an exciting new medium, primarily because of the potential for huge profits. These profits won’t just fall into our laps, though. Video games are unlike other media, and as such we cannot rely on the same tired marketing tactics. An annoying tagline like “can you hear me now?” may work on TV, but that’s because TV viewers are morons. The gamer is slightly more clever and we must treat him as such. Because most marketing is aimed at stupid people, most ad agencies will not have the know how to target a gaming audience. This guide, specifically tailored to the advertising needs of the video game advert, will lead you step by step to your ultimate goal: Take money from the ignorant.

1. Target your demographic

An ad, no matter how clever and well thought out, will not make an impact if it is seen by the wrong audience. →  Read the rest

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5

Weekly News We care About Wrap Up – 4.7.06

by

Bloated cash cow, I choose you!

Nintendo engineers talk about the process of designing the DSLite
I personally find this article to be fascinating. More interviews with hardware designer’s would be a welcome thing.

Nintendo has great year financially
Despite having a dead console, Nintendo made a lot of yen this past year, thanks to the “favorable” performance of the DS. Maybe one day they’ll stop living off of handhelds and Pokemon and be a real player in the console wars again.

First Amendment bitch slaps anti-game lobbyists
Said the judge, “Video games are a form of creative expression that are constitutionally protected under the First Amendment. They contain original artwork, graphics, music, story lines and characters similar to movies and television shows, both of which are considered protected free speech.” →  Read the rest

Guilds and You

by

How do you know when you’re in a bad guild? Well, I am going to tell you a few things that you may want to consider before joining any guild and help you etch out in your mind if the one you are in currently is right for you. First a little background; I am not a big MMO player, nor do I play many FPS style games. When I do, I usually just go with random folks on random servers. I do, however, play World of Warcraft, and I assume that guilds on WoW are no different in theory than guilds on other MMO’s. And that is what we are dealing with here, MMO and RPG guilds as opposed to FPS game Clans/Guilds.

I have been in over 10 separate guilds in my travels in Azeroth. →  Read the rest

Review – Wipeout Pure

by

Wipeout Pure
Developed by SCEE
Published by SCEE
Released 3.16.05

Wipeout Pure is one of my first PSP games. I must say, not being totally into racing games (I’m more of a RPG person), I found this game to be pretty exciting and entertaining for my daily commute to work. From the get-go, you have a choice of ten or so “spacecrafts” to choose from. I put spacecrafts in quotation because they look more like pen caps and paper clips then anything that resembles what people typically think a futurist spaceship will look like.

It’s like someone updated F Zero and didn’t call it F Zero GX.

The graphics for this game are excellent, but I use that term loosely because, honestly, I have no idea what is considered “good” graphics or “bad” graphics. →  Read the rest

World of Warcraft Endgame Analysis part V

by

Parts: I | II | III | IV | V

Endgame Analysis

Hardcore instance running is essentially the “endgame” of endgames. As a result, it is subject to a few annoying things. First off, whatever the “toughest” 40 man instance is starts out at a near impossible level to complete. This is because Blizzard doesn’t want you to be able to “beat the game,” so to speak.

Molten Core’s first pull, for example, initially required battling three very tough “trash” monsters that were harder than all of the other trash up to the first few bosses: thus effectively cockblocking the instance for most guilds. After a few months, this pull was broken into two pulls: and Blizzard announced this as a “bug.” This “bug” fix allowed dozens of guilds previously stopped to pour into MC as a whole. →  Read the rest

Review – Megaman Powered Up

by

Megaman Powered Up
Developed by Capcom
Published by Capcom
Released 3.14.06
Here, Megaman faces off against Cutman, who would later go on to challenge a variety of social norms by becoming the first gay hairdresser robot.

I often wonder whether games have gotten easier over time, or if I’ve just gotten better. This weekend I picked up Megaman: Powered Up, Capcom’s PSP remake of the original Megaman, and I can now definitively answer this question: old-school games were, and still are, hard as fuck. Still, a potent combination of 1337 gaming skills, perseverance, and far too much free time on my hands allowed me to conquer (at least a significant portion of) the game and bring you this delectable review!

For those who didn’t catch the Blue Bomber’s debut back on the NES, the game takes place sometime in the year 20XX, which I guess is a really long time from now because we still just use numbers for our years. →  Read the rest

Pages: 1 2

World of Warcraft Endgame Analysis part IV

by

Parts: I | II | III | IV | V

Hardcore Instance Running

Ok, you’re a l33t powergamer. What is there for you when you hit 60 th level? Find 39 other friends and you’re ready to form a raid group for the baddest of the bad:

Red
This lovely lavafront property can be had for a cool $499,999. Dragon not included

Molten Core
The “original” hardcore dungeon, Molten Core was the first 40 man dungeon available. However, because it has been around for so long, it has been successively “nerfed” (made easier) in difficulty as new content has become available. As a result, at this point in time, the hardest part of Molten Core is finding 35-40 other people to get together at the same time and go raid it. The encounters, compared to the other 20 and 40 man instances, are fairly trivial (although still a challenge for someone who hasn’t worked in a 40 man team before). →  Read the rest

Weekly News We care About Wrap Up – 3.31.06

by
Must miss
I did my part to support UMD movies by buying 25 copies of this classic story about a girl who wakes up a slut.

UMD movies failing
Is it possible Sony somehow is responsible for a failed format? Of course it is, they love failing, and I love to see their new formats fail. This is a good sign for those of us who want game systems to focus on playing games. To read more complaining, read this.

Blizzard sued by some guy who wants to sell Warcraft guides on the internet
This is a very interesting and possibly important lawsuit. The guy suing Blizzard sold his guides on eBay until Blizzard complained and they were taken down. They say he is trying to make money off of their good will and recognition they’ve built with their games, whatever that means. →  Read the rest

A falling Star(craft)

by

So it seems that Starcraft: Ghost, has been put on “indefinite hold” (meaning “canceled”) after four years in development. An interesting turn of events to be sure, but what is even more intriguing is the community’s reaction, or should I say non-reaction to the news. I expected message boards to light up with threads and comments, but instead it seems that very few gamers are troubled by the loss. I gave it some thought, and I came to a few conclusions that might explain why no one cares (or has ever cared) about Ghost.

1 – *Blizzard Fans are like Enix fans*

And by saying this I mean no insult. It is simply that Blizzard’s fan community is much like Enix’s in Japan; they are used to certain kinds of games with certain kinds of features from their favorite developer, and anything outside of that realm may not be greeted kindly. →  Read the rest

World of Warcraft Endgame Analysis part III

by

Parts: I | II | III | IV | V

Casual Instance Running

Thousands of gold in epic gear… and I’d trade it all for a can of raid.

For those not inclined to PvP (or to augment their PvP activities), the bulk of their end game is spent in casual instances. These instances are capped at 5-15 players (about to be reduced to 5-10 depending on the instance in the upcoming 1.10 patch of World of Warcraft). One thing to point out about World of Warcraft, is that initially, dungeons can take quite long to clear out, especially if the group is not competent. An adventuring group needs to learn how to the “trash monsters” (non boss monsters in a dungeon) as well as the bosses. Due to the age of the game, the process to beating most encounters and dungeons in the game are already well known. →  Read the rest

Review – Super Princess Peach

by

Super Princess Peach
Developed by Nintendo
Published by Nintendo
Released 2.27.06

Waaa

“Why can’t I have more than one line of dialogue in my own game? Hey look a vine… neato!”

I have to admit I wasn’t too excited when I first heard about this game. I mean, of all the characters in the Mario universe I’d want to have there own game, Princess Peach wasn’t at the top of my list. My girlfriend, on the other hand, bought it the day the game came out and I haven’t given it back to her since. This game is seriously addictive.

The story starts with Mario, Luigi and Toad being taken prisoner by Bowser’s hench-turtles using their newfound Vibe Wand. The wand’s vaguely-explained powers are related to emotions, and allows the normally bumbling koopas to take down an entire castle of Toads and subdue our usual heroes. →  Read the rest

World of Warcraft Endgame Analysis part II

by

Parts: I | II | III | IV | V

PVP

Player versus Player (PVP) primarily occurs through three “instanced” battlegrounds: Warsong Gulch, a capture the flag game that features 10v10, Arathi Basin, a king of the hill game that is 15v15, and Alterac Valley, which is an objective based wargame which is 40v40. There is some “world PvP,” on PvP servers, but for the most part, PvP grinding is accomplished via these three PvP games.

Players
PvP

PvP advancement occurs in two ways. The first is the honor system. As you win PvP games and kill other players, you are awarded “honor points.” Every week, your honor points are totaled and compared against the rest of the server’s grisly accomplishments. Depending on your performance, you are promoted or demoted in rank (or more likely stay the same). →  Read the rest

Weekly News We care About Wrap Up – 3.24.06

by

PS3 to be region free.
Woohoo. Now I can buy RPGs I can’t play without getting the system modded. I expect this will increase the number of gamers who import titles from Japan, but also eat into sales of Western releases by a little, which is part of the reason console manufacturers always used region encoding.

GameStop makes huge profits.
Buying your competitors and selling used games as new really works.

Errrr
This pic of Representative Keeley is really a stronger argument against her position than anything I could write.

Jack Thompson and Delaware Representative try to brand violent games as obscene, thereby getting around that pesky First Amendment.
According to them games are not speech so they shouldn’t be protected. Since when did artistic expression need to be in the form of spoken words? →  Read the rest