Thursday, April 30, 2009

Cheaper... cheaper... not?

Games depreciate faster than cars. You drive a brand new car off the lot, and it loses half of its value. You open a game, and then it's just not worth much anymore. That's why you can get an open copy of Chrono Trigger on the SNES for $50-100, but a sealed one will net you over a grand, easy. I just got Far Cry 2 on 360 for $10 on a clearance at Target. I can go on Xbox Live and get N+ for $10. Both are quality games. But Far Cry 2 started at $60 then lost 83% of its retail value. N+ was released before Far Cry 2 and maintains its original $10 price tag, all whyile not offering the benefits of tangibility. You can't bring it over and show your friends. You can't read the instruction manual in the bathroom. You can't pass it down to your children someday like I hope to do with my NES and Atari 2600 games, proving to them just how far we've come and just how lucky they are to live in a world with more than 8 colors. Why are downloadable games able to maintain their value so much longer while not even being real? They are real in the fact that you pay for an experience, and you control it like a normal game, but you can't hold it. You don't get to rush home, break the seal, and take a huge whiff of that "new game smell" (you know the one). I've wanted to download Cloning Clyde since I first played the demo on my new 360 a few Christmases ago, but it was ten bucks. It's still ten bucks. Games that were available at retail at that time have prices that have completely plummeted. It's not fair. It makes it really hard to want to download games when full, expansive retail games are available for the same price.

Also, I seem to be blogging about game prices a lot. With the economy in shambles, it's easy to get hung up on how much things cost. I don't want to sacrifice quality, however. A $20 year-old 360 game is almost always better than $20 Wii shovelware. But downloadable titles... they're almost all the same price, regardless of quality or age. Money is harder to come by nowadays, and I could use that $10 on rent, or to eat, or to fix my car. Even in America, our expendable income isn't as expendable as it used to be.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Ha.

I want to play a funny game. When things are humorous in real life, it's because I made light of whatever bad/normal/good situation I was in. I enjoy watching Comedy Central Presents, and comedy movies are fun once a year or so, so you have time to forget the gags and punchlines. There have been a few attempts at funny games in recent memory (Penny Arcade, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Armed & Dangerous), but it was always humor, then gameplay, then more humor, then more gameplay. I want comedy and good gameplay to be entwined in a way that one would not succeed without the aid of the other. Sure, it would be tough because not everyone has the same sense of humor, but no art has ever been created with the intent of pleasing every last person in the world. Grand Theft Auto caters to mature gamers exclusively, and it sells reasonably well (except on the DS, apparently). I want funny people to write funny things for funny games. The Daily Show: Stewart's Revenge, now on Xbox Live! Something like that. There are lighthearted games (Mario, anything on Wii), and there are serious games (GTA, Call of Duty, anything on 360 or PS3). In the middle, there are games that try to be funny. Even if they are clever, I have rarely, in my entire life as a gamer, laughed aloud at something that happened in a game. Movies and TV... all the time. Why? The Harvey Birdman game was just like the show, only without the need to laugh, ever. I enjoyed it, despite it's obvious flaws as a game, but I didn't laugh. And that's sad. Why is it so hard?

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Six Days No More

Konami has been working on a game called Six Days in Fallujah, a recreation of one of the bloodiest battles of the Iraq War. My father was in the military and even served overseas for months at a time, so this particular topic strikes a special chord with me. But most of the points I would make about the game, or its recent cancellation in the face of numerous outraged protests, have already been said for me, very eloquently and passionately, here. Have a read, and see how far our favorite entertainment medium has fallen.

Art. Yeah, right. Not if it can't even be allowed to make a point about life, the universe, and everything in it.

Monday, April 27, 2009

We'll fix it later.

When Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was first released on PC, it was apparently a buggy, near-unplayable mess. Instead of thoroughly beta-testing, Bethesda released an unfinished product and then released patches throughout the months following its initial release, eventually forming it into the masterpiece it is today. PC gamers have been dealing with this for years. A game ships, there's a lot of problems with it, people complain to the developers, the developers release a downloadable patch to fix the bugs. Console games didn't have that luxury, until recently. When a game was released on any system before this current console generation, that was it. If there were bugs or glitches, they stayed in consumers' games and minds for eternity. You made sure you released a finished product, because there would never be another chance to restore the public's confidence in you. Now that every system is connected to the Internet (except the Wii... ha!), game companies can release patches even before a game hits retail shelves. I've bought games on release day and ran home and popped it in, only to be informed, "An update is available for this game from Xbox Live. If you decline the update, you will be signed out." What the crap is that? A game is broken before it even ships? In today's disposable society, nothing is immutable anymore. Now, it appears that games are called "software" because they are always susceptible to outside forces molding them into something other than their original form. I don't like it. I miss the days of good ol' fashioned game cartridges: sturdy and eternal. Now... sometimes it just seems that nobody tries as hard as they used to.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Black Sunday

Best Buy had a $10 game sale today. The details were leaked on the web a few days ago, but it wasn't until the Sunday newspaper ads came out that the clueless public knew about it. There were about 100 games for $9.99, spanning Wii, PS3, 360, and DS, and I was most excited for Devil May Cry 4 and Infinite Undiscovery... two cool games that I just didn't want to pay full price for. By the time I showed up at Best Buy at about noon however, I was too late. Sold out. People that read the newspaper get up early! Sure, there were still plenty of copies of Quantum of Solace and Alone in the Dark and even the crappy Wii version of Samba de Amigo... but who cares? I almost settled for GTA: Chinatown Wars for $20 (what a steal!), but then I remembered that I don't ride buses or planes enough to get handheld games. And when I'm home, I can pop in GTA IV and be infinitely more entertained. So I bought some new shorts instead (not at Best Buy) and went home to play some of the stellar games I own yet haven't even opened. Americans are so wasteful and greedy! Sucks to be us, I guess.

Saturday, April 25, 2009

They look the same! Weow.

New games on PS3 and 360 pretty much all have the same price: MSRP $59.99. The boxes are the same size, and they take up the same amount of shelf space. The covers have the same generic border, and the manuals all contain the same legal mumbo jumbo. But games are not all the same value. The latest Wii shovelware is obviously inferior to the latest Bethesda masterpiece. Yet they cost the same. Games are like books - eventually, they all just sit on the shelf, collecting dust. The money you spent on them is not spent on a product, but an experience. If it wasn't worth the price, then what was the point? You just wasted your time on an inferior product, and your money, and they time you spent to get the money. Game decisions are important. Should I buy this one or this one? You are stuck with your choice; you can't resart from your life's last checkpoint. Sure, you can always trade it in, or get a new one, but that time will never come back. Good luck making the right decision.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Good things come to those who wait

If you have Xbox Live Gold and you're not an automatically renewing member, sooner or later, it will expire. After that time, you will log into Xbox Live one day and it will demand of you, "Give us money or revert to (gasp!) Silver status!" Honestly, I didn't play many games online. Sure, I spent a good chunk of time climbing the Rock Band leaderboards, and there's plenty of SF IV achievements that you can only get by playing online, but it was never really a big deal to me. Growing up, I was one of those gamers that lived in his parents' basement, gobbling up the latest RPG's while effectively ignoring the fact that there was a big glorious world right outside full of girls and war, happiness and regret. Now that seemingly everyone is online, it's hard to keep myself from even not having the option. I started looking around for a new year-long Gold card in stores, because if you buy it in real life you get the 13th month free! I found it cheapest at Sam's Club - $43 for 13 months. Not too shabby, less than 4 bucks a month, even after tax.

Then today, I got an e-mail from Microsoft itself! "Come back, we miss you. Here, have a year of Gold for $40!" Sold. Now I can go back to ignoring my "friends" and playing online once every few months. At least my dashboard won't continuously remind me that I don't have Gold and am not hip enough to hang with their crew. Passive aggressive Microsoft jerks.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Game Musicality

In Japan, video game soundtracks are pretty huge. Sure, even over there, Nobuo Uematsu's latest epic won't top the charts, but at least Japanese gamers care. In America, the only way to get most soundtracks is to import them. A few companies like Atlus will include it in a collector's edition of a particular game, but they're all about the fan service. It's not an everyday occurrence.

Th problem is that good music in a game may not be the kind of music you want to listen to in real life. Plenty of RPG's have sweeping orchestral pieces that may interest people that are into classical music. But besides that... much game music is just game music. It's ambient and it makes a point. You don't want a climactic point made at you while you're driving down the interstate. You just want to enjoy yourself. Instead of being crafted solely for your listening pleasure, game music is supplemental to game action. Taken as a whole, the game experience can be incredible, dramatic, and moving... a total greater than the sum of its parts.

I love the music in Quentin Tarantino films. It plays into the action perfectly in every instance. It's actually one of the things his movies are most well-known for, his perfect ear for scene-stealing music. But I listened to the Pulp Fiction soundtrack the other day, and it's kind of lame. The songs are too long, and they're mostly slow oldies. When taken out of the context of the film, the songs really lose their luster. The same can be said about a lot of game music. Metal Gear Solid had sharp, interesting music. But without Solid Snake's supplemental stealthy shenanigans, it's just hard to care.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

A Possible Future

One thing I might want to do when I grow up is open a retro video game store. It's not going to be a lame little mall kiosk. There will be cartridges upon cartridges, all organized into beautiful alphabetic rows. I will know what I have, and if I don't have what you're looking for, I'll know where to find it. Behind the counter, I'll keep the super-valuable games behind bulletproof glass under lockdown so people can ogle them while also knowing there is no way they'd ever be able to afford my unopened copies of Dragon Warrior 4, Chrono Trigger, and Final Fantasy VII.

I'm not sure how to go about starting a store like this. Historically, game stores always felt like they were charging way too much for many of my favorite games, while in my head, I knew they were actually worth the sale price. Every so often, I scour eBay for a huge game collection that I can scoop up for pennies on the dollar. Most of the time though, even large collections are too expensive, and I would never be able to make back while re-selling what I spent to buy them. Like this one. $32,000, over 1,600 games... but that's almost $20 a game. Too much! I want to pay like $2 a game and then sell them for $5 to $10. I should start hunting through pawn shops for deals now. Fortunately for many game collectors, most pawn shops are oblivious to game values, opting instead for the "All Genesis games - $4" type of business model. Works for me. Should I just go to pawn shops and buy out their old game inventory, filling my car and apartment in hopes of a future that may not even occur? Maybe. There are worse ways to spend money... If nothing else, I'll have shelves and shelves of games on my walls, ensuring that my nerdy friends are jealous and my female friends won't talk to me again once they see my shrine to geekery. Yay!

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

What is perfect?

Throughout history, there have been attempts to create the Perfect Game - the one game that you will be able to play forever without ever having to buy another (Spore, WoW, etc.). They have all failed. Not for lack of ambition - it's just that citizens of today's disposable society are always looking for something bigger, better, brighter, and newer. There is no perfect game, as there is no perfect person.

The same problem can be seen when trying to determine the Greatest Game of All Time. Even determining the Greatest Game of the Year is problematic. Someone will always complain that this game is better than that one, or they'll complain that the voters were influenced in a digital payola scandal. As technology advances, what we expect out of our games changes. We want bigger, better, more. And we should. After 30 years of video game history, game developers should know what works and what doesn't while still being unafraid to try something new and innovative. (I hate how the word "innovative" is tossed around so recklessly nowadays as well, but that will have to be saved for another post.) Also, now that consumers are spending more money on games than ever before, it's not too much to expect that we get our money's worth. Otherwise, we will find a more economical distraction like drugs or old muscle cars.

Games can be artistic, but first and foremost they are software. A person is interacting with a computer in a way that evokes some kind of emotion. Without a seamless amalgamation of man and machine, the other aspects of the game are rendered pointless. The Great Games control well, and they are pleasing to the eyes, and the music suits the gameplay. Besides taste and smell, games cater directly to our sensory experiences. The best games are here for us and with us. They do not exist in a vacuum.

Think of your favorite game. Well, favorite games. It's far easier to choose from a specific genre than from the complete collection of all software ever produced. And the more specific the category, the fewer choices. This is why many lists on the 'Net often go by a format like "Top 10 PlayStation Racing Games" instead of "10 Best Games of All Time." The Best Games of All Time list is totally subjective, yet numerous titles from throughout history appear on nearly every list. Super Mario Bros., Tetris, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Half-Life 2, Final Fantasy VII, Space Invaders, Pong, Ms. Pac-Man, Super Metroid, Resident Evil 2. What do they have in common? Not much, except that they all appeal to our basest human instincts: run, hoarde, kill. Instead of video games being used as a form of escapism, they represent a world we will never know, and we are okay with that. Even flawed digital worlds are more orderly and palatable because everything is in it's place. Every piece of trash littering the digital streets was put there for a purpose, even if that purpose is merely ambiance. What purpose does garbage on our real-life streets serve? Ambiance for our real-life, crappy lives. Sometimes it feels that even the worst games have higer lows than our highest highs...

Monday, April 20, 2009

Things to do on the toilet besides play games

You can read books about games! After my initial repulsion at the Gamer's Edition of the Guinness Book, it has become my new favorite bathroom reading. It's full of weird little facts about games across all different genres since the dawn of time, and it's the kind of knowledge that you can use to impress your nerdy friends. After adding it to my game knowledge database, I'm pretty sure I could do very, very well at Jeopardy: Gamer's Edition or Trivial Pursuit: Gamer's Edition. If only game shows were able to survive on TV! Alas, woe is the nerds. It's odd that no company has made a mass market video game trivia game yet, what with the industry as a whole having surpassed the movie industry years ago in terms of sales... and now we have Scene-It, a video game about movie knowledge. Where's the movies about video game knowledge? Who knows...

There are some other cool video game books to put on your coffee table next to your controllers and game cases. I thoroughly enjoyed High Score! 2nd Edition, which is full of pretty pictures and neat tidbits. Also, The Ultimate History of Video Games will get you up to speed with the industry better and more entertainingly than any other book/movie/website I've ever seen. Also, Lucky Wander Boy. The greatest piece of video game fiction ever written. You need to find it somewhere and buy it immediately. I hope D.B. Weiss writes another book someday! I'd also love to read Supercade someday... but it's hard to find MIT Press books in Southern Minnesota.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

I'm the world's greatest!

A while back, I complained about the Guinness Book for having not enough beatable records in it. Then I remembered, oh yeah, there's already a place where all the game records in the world live: Twin Galaxies. So what's the first thing you do when you're a serious gamer and you see a bunch of scores you can beat? You find out which ones you already have. Apparently, I'm already the world record holder on about half the songs in Amplitude on PS2, and I'm sure I have beaten some of the records on Frequency if I could just find out where my game disc went! However, to actually beat the record and have it verified, you have to film yourself doing it. You can't just mail in picture of the high score screen. Since most of the Amplitude playing was about 5 years ago, I'm a little rusty and I'm having a hard time recapturing my ultra-high scores. But even today, I was able to play a few levels and almost double the world record scores on a few of the songs. It looks like it may not actually be the highest scores in the world, just the highest scores of a person that had the time and energy to submit a score. That could be me.

One guy on the site currently holds 5,019 records across all different types of games. In second place is 890. I may not be able to top Mr. 5000 but I think I could at least get in the top 10... I mean, how hard can it be to get 400 world records? Ok, maybe it would be tough. But, like Steve Wiebe from King of Kong, everybody wants to be good at something.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Soundtrack of my life. Or at least my games.

When you repeatedly hear the same music with the same actions, you forever associate them with each other. I always listened to Sugar Ray's self-titled CD when I mowed the lawn or played Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 on the Game Boy Advance. Now, certain songs on that CD make me feel like I'm out mowing in the hot hot heat or skating around the rooftop level as Tony Hawk. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was a sublime game, but the music was... lacking. The minimalist soundtrack with a heavy emphasis on ambient nature sounds and footsteps was a huge turn-off for me. Luckily, 360's let you import your own CD's onto it to make a custom soundtrack for your games. I would travel all across Cyrodiil while bumpin' Cold War Kids. Now, whenever I hear their music on the radio or play their CD in my car, I picture the beautiful landscapes of Tamriel and the often ugly faces of the hundreds of NPC's in the game. It's like a subconscious music video. It's hard to hear Nirvana's "Smells like Teen Spirit" and not picture the dark gymnasium from the music video. I have unintentionally linked Oblivion and Cold War Kids in my mind, and it's not a bad thing. It gives imagery to the songs, even if the images conjured up are not the intended ones.

Another game I've remixed is Fable II: Pub Games. Barely a game at all, Pub Games' tedium is almost eliminated by listening to Beck's Modern Guilt while spinning the slot machines ad nauseum. Almost. Also, I want the prizes and achievement points! Anything that helps me mellow out after a long hard day is a winner in my book.

Fallout 3 is an improvement over Oblivion, I guess. There is a radio on the game that constantly loops often-humorous reinterpretations of old-time music. If I would hear that music in real life, I would be transported in my mind back to the world of Fallout 3, the way the game makers probably intended. Still, I wonder how long before I started playing some Radiohead in its place...?

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

PSPorn

A mom in Florida recently bought a brand-new PSP for her son... and it included a memory stick filled with porn. (See the story here.) It was all over the news, and many gamers were questioning whether it was a new PSP or a trade-in. With a trade-in, you expect less than 100% like new quality, despite keeping your own games at home in pristine quality - box, manual, the whole shebang. However, I don't know any Wal-Marts that allow you to trade in your PSP. This PSP obviously wasn't new... what does that imply for Sony?

Sony is refurbishing used PSP's and selling them as new. That doesn't sound ammoral at all! It's all about making the money.

I realize times are tough, and the easiest way to make more money is to cut some corners and spend less to make more. Pizza places skimp on toppings. McDonald's raised the price of their double cheeseburger. Why not sell a used video game system for a new price? It's as good as new right? It's like buying a used car. Even one that was taken very good care of is still used. There is wear and tear, and parts that you don't even know you need may fall off. PSP's have very, very small parts. One drop may jar something loose on the inside. It's not sturdy. It's not a DS, where any collision with the ground short of a perfect corner landing will leave it with little more than a scratch. (Yay solid state electronics!) It's a PSP. It's fragile, but it's made for grown-ups that know how to take care of their crap. But when a kid gets his sticky little hands on it, who knows the kind of calamities that may befall it?

Maybe the guy was looking at porn on his boat and dropped it in the lake then had to send it in for a new one. Sony repaired it and reboxed it like new. Then one day, the kid's mom bought it as a 4-month late Christmas present. The kid will be looking at the same porn, and the machine will heat up, and it will act like an incubator, and it will hatch all the shrimp eggs hiding inside it! And the shrimp will crawl into his brain and eat out the back of his eyes! Then where will Sony be? That's right: ULTRA-LAWSUIT 3.0! I can picture it now: Blind kid vs. Sony. Unanimous decision. Yay for blindy!

But maybe I'm blowing this out of proportion. Maybe.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Shot down...

About a month ago, I applied to be a Localization Writer/Editor at Nintendo in Redmond, WA. I would basically take poorly translated Japanese games and make them sound beautiful and English. And now the job posting is gone. Shot down... not even a call. What did I do wrong? Probably everything. Must make this blog better, more impactful, and more meaningful! Especially if I will be putting it on my resumes...

So I will.

Tomorrow.

Good night for now, world.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Patapon 2 = not for me...

The next Patapon game will be a download ONLY. Like Echochrome. That's two awesome PSP games I can't even play because I don't have a PS3 to transfer them from. Ugh. That's like not being able to play the new DS Zelda game because I don't have a Wii. Just kidding, everybody has a Wii. We just don't use them (until Punch-Out!! comes out!).

Apparently, Sony is testing the idea of distributing games completely digitally. It will be greener for the Earth, and maybe it'll even be cheaper for gamers and developers because you don't have to worry about all the manufacturing costs associated with the actual creation of a video game product. But no "new game smell"? Weak.

The digital disribution concept may also pave the way for a new PSP that doesn't have a disk drive, just a hard drive that you can download new games to. Spooky, but not that far off. And don't forget the eventual PS9, where we can just plug our game directly into our brain stem. Won't that be just a blast. Can't wait to get that surgery.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

GameCrap

Now that GameTap has made its transition to its new model (the "capitalist model"), it's no fun anymore. Instead of hundreds of free games, you can currently choose from 31. If you want to play what you could once get for free, it's $5 a month. If you want to play the complete collection, it's $10 a month. Instead of a delightfully sized free sample, you now get a sip. Instead of providing a public service by giving classic games to people that might otherwise not get the chance to play them, GameTap has become a drug pusher. First hit's free, then it's very, very expensive. Bleh.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Records... or not.

I just picked up the Guinness Book of World Records: Gamer's Edition, and I gotta say... it's not quite what I expected. Sure, there's a list of high scores in the back to try to beat, but the majority of the book is records like, "Biggest town in Age of Conan," or "Number of calories burned playing fitness games." Oh boy. The actual records, like "Fastest-selling video game of all time," are buried in between piles of innocuous jibba jabba. The facts are interesting, but I was totally thrown off by the title. Most Guinness books are pages and pages of text with records that are achievable and beatable by everyday, normal people with a lot of practice. This book isn't records. This book is facts. It's still a neat coffee table read... it's just misleading. Oh well, at least there's lots of pretty pictures!

Friday, April 10, 2009

Cocky.

The new Batman game, Batman: Arkham Asylum, is claimed to be "close to perfect" by Eidos bigwigs. Sony execs are calling Nintendo's new DSi "a failure" that doesn't cater to more than a demographic of children.

Can we get back to focusing on the games? Please? There's enough hate in our world, and it's going in the dumpster. We don't have to light that dumpster on fire as well.

If you really think you're the best, prove it. Actions, not words.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

I fell in love with the majesty of colors.

Today I found this game on IGN's Indie Picks of the Week - The Majesty of Colors. It reminds me of the old Flash game flOw because of its simplicity. It's also very Braid-like with its storytelling - simple yet beautiful. I connected in mere moments with Majesty's sea creature more successfully than I have connected with any character in any game in recent memory. This game should be used in the "Games are art" debate, because, while the graphics are totally retro, the game feels beautiful. It's hard to describe just how easily it evokes an emotional reaction without relying on Hollywood standards like classical music and a slow fade out. Even though there is a slow fade out. Whatever. You should play it. Also, I managed to find all the endings except "C." Any clues?

In fact, the other games by this guy Greg are also super cool... particularly Bars of Black and White. I have really never played games on the computer, let alone weird, artsy, indie games. But that is probably going to change after tonight. Cool. My world just got a little bigger.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

SotC: The Movie


Shadow of the Colossus is getting its own movie! However, it's being written by the guy that wrote the Street Fighter movie that just came out last month. Looks like Shadow will go the way of Max Payne - take everything awesome about the game and throw it away, then make a big-budget movie which in no way captures the spirit and essence of the game. Too bad, because Colossus was mesmerizing and beautiful, and the power and money of Hollywood should be able to make something as mesmerizing and way more beautiful because movies aren't limited by PS2's graphical prowess. At least the movie poster is sweet...

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Where can I bring this thing?

Portable games should be portable. You have some headphones and a long bus ride, and you should be able to be entertained while still doing well in a game. Patapon is not portable. It is a delightful rhythm game with fun colors and a neat premise. Also, I vote that last sentence as having the corniest adjectives of all time.

Anyway. If you miss one button by a half second, you lose your combo and may lose the level. It's rather harsh to punish a player so severely for something that may be as trivial as driving over a speed bump. Also, if you don't have headphones, there is no way that the wimpy PSP speakers get loud enough to hear over the hustle and bustle around you. (And even if they could, would you even want the guy next to you hearing your "Pata-pata-pata-PON!"?) Patapon can only really be enjoyed like a home console game - at home, on your bed/couch, with no distractions. You will bob your head to the beat and immerse yourself in the 4 square-inch screen. But it's on the PSP - that's PlayStation Portable. And it's not. Epic fail!

Monday, April 6, 2009

Game Daze

It's time for GameStop's annual Game Days celebration, where they try to shell off a lot of overstocked games by offering up to half off selected titles. I picked up some old ones, including Namco Museum Virtual Arcade for the 360 and Final Fantasy II for the PSP for $15 and $10, respectively.

I like old games. They were simple, they never tried to do too much at once, and you didn't feel bad about setting them down for the night to get some sleep. Yet, they can still be tremendously addictive, especially if you're just a few points shy of the top of the leaderboards. When the first Rock Band came out, I got up to #6 on the Bass Score Duel leaderboards. When you're that close to the top, you make sure you don't lose. If your phone rings, you ignore it. If someone trys to get your attention, you say, "HEY I HAVE A 12X MULTIPLIER HOLD ON I'LL TALK TO YOU IN A MINUTE!" In Call of Duty, if you get shot, you still have a chance to come back and win the match. When you're plucking your fake bass strings, you can't miss. One wrong note and you can lose the song, and then you've wasted hours of work climbing the boards, 1 TrueSkill point at a time. On Rock Band, you didn't know how many hours you had wasted, or how many matches you had played. You knew your TrueSkill score, and your rank on the national leaderboards. Get suckered in, and it's hard to get free.

Everyone wants to be the best.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Sick day...

When you have a debilitating cold, you get to sit around the house, listen to your cockatiel sing along with Primus, and catch up on video game news on the Interweb while considering paying $55 to see Wrestlemania 25.

Remember "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters"? The documentary about the guy trying to beat the Donkey Kong world record. His name was Steve Wiebe and he was ultimately denied the record because he used a DK circuit board that may have been tampered with. Well, he will get another chance to usurp Billy Mitchell's reign at this year's E3. This time, Twin Galaxies (the official video game high score record keepers) will provide the board so there will be no chance of tampering. Also, it will be live on G4 on June 2. Hopefully they don't play the whole thing... that would just get boring. I can't watch people play video games because I always know that I'd play them better! Maybe it'll be different when I can see a guy that actually knows what he's doing for once... but probably not.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Feature done!

Ba-DOOP! 10 game essays = 10 gamerscore. Seems like a good amount, no? I covered most all the major genres, and it was actually kind of fun. I didn't have to come up with a new topic every day, I just wrote about what I knew. Hopefully, there were some insights there. If not, oh well. I'll do it again, I'm sure. But for now... back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Friday, April 3, 2009

Part X - What makes strategy games so great?

Power.

Strategy games can give you a bit of a Napoleon complex. In fact, in some games you can actually play as Napoleon. You are in charge. You alone control armies upon armies of soldiers, or ninjas, or zombies, or bugs, or lemmings, or whatever it is you control. And you can order them to live for you, or die for you. Sometimes you mess up too much and have to hit the mushroom cloud button at the bottom of the screen. Oh well.

When your armies succeed, you succeed. Even simple-looking games like Advance Wars (notice I said simple-looking, not actually simple... Advance Wars has been an incredibly deep Game Boy Advance/DS game ever since its first iteration) can give you a great sense of accomplishment when everyone does exactly what you tell them to do and you quash a rebellion of uprisers, or overthrow an oppressive tyrant, or finally make it to the moon.

One neat thing about strategy games is how you need a PC to play almost all of the relevant classics. Point-and-click is still the way to go for strategy, although the overwhelming success of Halo Wars and the intuitiveness of Civilization Revolution may finally signal an emergence of strategic love for consoles. Still, people are still playing Warcraft III and Starcraft to this day. We'll see if Halo Wars (or even Xbox Live on 360) last that long, or they will simply be replaced by something newer, shinier, and better. Until then, bring on the orcs! And not the WoW ones... the original gangsta versions in their full isometricly viewed glory. Mmm.... mining is fun.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Part IX - What makes puzzle games so great?

Two things: accessibility and addictiveness.

Puzzle games, by there very nature, are simple. They have simple mechanics and a simple goal to work toward, even if that goal is "get as many points as you can." Some require fast reflexes, some require lateral thinking, and some require just a lot of practice and a little luck.

Anyone can enjoy Tetris. It's a classic for a reason, and it still tops many "Greatest Games of All Time" lists. It has catchy music, simple, tight mechanics, and there is no end point, giving it unlimited replayability. It brought handheld gaming to the public in a huge way because you could be an adult and not feel bad about being seen with it on the bus or subway. Kids loved Tetris, grandparents loved Tetris, hey, even girls loved Tetris. Imagine that. Girls. Today, 30-45 year-old moms send their kids to school then play a quick game of Bejeweled while they check their e-mail. Casual puzzle games are still video games, and they are basically the sole reason gen-x moms can be considered gamers. If mom can do, anyone can do it!

The other puzzle factor is addictiveness. All the best puzzle games have that "just one more match" quality. You feel like you can do better this time - all you needed was a blue block! - and pretty soon you realize it's 5 in the morning and you have to be up at 8 for work. RPG's keep track of how much life you've wasted in their fictional worlds. Puzzle games are sneakier... the developers know that when you're in the zone and every color matches just right or every piece falls perfectly into place, you don't notice how quickly your life is ripped away. Imagine how much time is wasted on Guitar Hero at four minutes a song. It adds up quick. Puzzle games are the same way.

But I wouldn't want to play a game that didn't give me a reason to come back for more. Puzzle games are eternal. Since the graphics are generally so simple, the bright colors hold up just as well in 2009 as they did in 1985. It's not Call of Duty. It's Tetris, or Puzzle Fighter, or Pokemon Puzzle League/Tetris Attack, or (my favorite bathroom time waster) Puzzle Quest. These games are eternal. How many games can say that? Very few. How many genres can claim that? Just one.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Part VIII - What makes mini-game collections so great?

Ummmm... the whole family can enjoy them? They cater to our society's increasingly A.D.D. attitudes? They come with a free Wii-mote? (ZING!) They're easy to learn and easy to master?

Wait, mini-games suck and are the biggest downfall on the Wii. Their only appeal is that collections of them are $30 less than quality games like Mario Galaxy or Twilight Princess.

April Fools. Thanks for ruining video games' core demographic, Wii.