Beyond good and sequels
Beyond Good and Evil 2 was recently released much to the joy of gaming forums everywhere. Sequels are exciting because it means more of something good. That we long for sequels seems to stem from a few things but most of them point to problems in the industry. It means we expect crap and usually get crap and when a game that’s worth playing actually comes out we want more because the other option is crap. We want sequels because we do not trust developers to make good games. If Ancel is given full reign over his next project and allowed to do what he wants, then let the man create something new. Shadow of the Colossus is the perfect example – a great game by the same designer as a game you love is even better than a sequel. → Read the rest
Month: May 2008
Another design mechanic that should die – Remaining lives
This one has been on my mind lately after finishing the New Super Mario Bros. game on the DS. The little icon reminding you how many Marios remain with which to complete the rest of the game remains ever present. I guess it’s there because, well, it’s always been there, and this is a game about pulling some strings of nostalgia.
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What happens when you run out of Marios? You get a screen that asks if you want to continue playing from your last save point. If the ‘penalty’ for running out of lives is the exact same thing that would happen if the user just turns the machine off perhaps you should rethink why, exactly, you are going to the trouble and expense of putting it there in the first place. → Read the rest
Gametap tightens the faucet
As reported by Game|Life, Gametap’s editorial website and video content is getting axed less than a year after it was started.
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I have voiced worries about Gametap in the past, and this is another bad piece of news. The problem the service has is that it seems to be run by individuals who know what the hell they are doing. This brings a level of knowledge and communication with users that you would not expect from a branch of Time Warner. Of course, this makes Gametap stand out like a sore thumb, which is bad when it comes time to knock out anything unrelated to the bottom line.
In any case, losing the editorial section likely has nothing to do with the fate of the service itself, but it still makes me worry. → Read the rest
Short RPGs for fun and profit
Almost a month ago, Persona 3: FES was released. It not only contains the definitive version of my favorite RPG, but it has an extra “epilogue” chapter as well.
This is a cause for much rejoicing. I started playing it immediately, and so far I’d say I would pay the $30 just for the improved first game. But herein lies the problem, and the crux of this article: It has been a month and I am still playing it. Not only that, I’m still in the first section; the remake.
I love RPGs. I love playing lots of RPGs. But I also like having time for other, trivial things, like working, sleeping, eating, and the occasional shower. Most games in the genre are long; sometimes the length necessary for fleshing out the story, but more often it is just padding. → Read the rest
Review – Sam & Max: Night of the Raving Dead
I’ll be honest with you. When I started writing this review, I was only doing it to get this game out of the way. I really wanted to review episodes 4 and 5, and it just didn’t seem right to skip this tale of the emo undead, no matter how mediocre I may have found it upon first playthrough. As I began writing, however, I realized that this game taught me something. It taught me why I play Sam and Max. Not a deep, meaningful life lesson by any means, but a lesson nonetheless.
To catch people up who haven’t played the game already, New York is invaded by hoards of zombies, and Sam and Max must travel to Stuttgart in order to stop them at their source: a castle-turned-goth-club called “The Zombie Factory.” → Read the rest
Memorial Day Post
A couple of things on my mind that I decided to condense into a tidy post for you to ponder over the weekend.
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-First of all, the biggest piece of gaming news on videolamer for 2008 – I bought Zak and Wiki. For $20 new! I know taking a risk and waiting for a price drop was suicide with this game, but everyone gets lucky sometimes. Now I am part of the club, and can smoke with all the cool kids in the bathroom.
I’ll be honest with you – I think part of the reason I did not jump for the game immediately was my own inability to read more on the subject. I had no idea the game used crazy wii-motions to help solve puzzles. That makes it a little more exciting! → Read the rest
News We Care About Wrap Up – 5.23.08
Too early to declare a console victor
Ignore that Microsoft recently declared that history has shown us that the first system to 10 million historically wins the race, thus heavily implying their console is the winner as it’s sold a little over 10 million in the states. Their new PR line is that declaring a winner between the PS3, Wii and 360 will be impossible until one of them reaches 100 million in sales. By this logic the only systems to have ever “won” a generation are the PS1 (barely) and the PS2, and they did it after many years on the market, long after it became apparent to everyone who doesn’t work for Microsoft that Sony had won those generations.
The long term angle behind this absurd criteria for victory may be to prevent Microsoft acknowledging any victor this generation. → Read the rest
Call of Duty 4 Update
After several months of playing, I am still not done with Call of Duty 4. Chalk it up to its still solid gameplay, and a more “PC” feel – that is, the griefers and assholes exist in the same numbers as I have seen in the past in PC shooters, and there are still some decent folks that you will run into. This is opposed to Halo 3, which I quickly learned last winter has a very distinct community. Nowhere else have I played with so many assholes, who constantly complain about maps and weapons as if every single item placed in the game was done so as a cruel joke.
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But we are here to talk about Call of Duty 4. I bring it up again because I just earned my first Prestige point. → Read the rest
I’m so sick of Noble Deaths, I could sacrifice myself for the good of others! — Part Trois
The only thing that frightens people as much as life without meaning is death without meaning. For some odd reason, we find it difficult to cope with the loss of a loved one to an open manhole. The fact that random, absurd turns of events can end life does not sit well with people because we do not want to think we are ultimately irrelevant. Our desire for purpose in death has pervaded art and culture as a whole.
Movies, books, and games – really any narrative-heavy medium – have fought this feeling of irrelevance by pitting heroes against their mortal enemies, giving the lowliest peasant a worthy cause to die for, and offering everyone in between the comfort of knowing the creator of the universe himself decides their fate (and unless they have some loser god, it just so happens that their fate is endless life). → Read the rest
Review – LostWinds
As I searched for the final area of LostWinds my entire family died in a flaming plane crash. I mean the game crashed as I was going from one area to another. The controller stopped responding and I was once again forced into physical activity by the Wii. I made my way to the system and shut it off, annoyed that I had stumbled upon one of the LostWinds glitches I’d read about but still psyched because I knew I’d finish the game in the next half hour. So I rebooted the console and loaded up the game again. All the save files were gone. Crashing and being turned off during the hang up removed all the progress I had made. It’s safe to assume I am reviewing a game I did not finish. → Read the rest
Ubisoft publishes crap on Wii, crap doesn’t sell, Ubisoft confused
North American Ubisoft president Laurent Detoc recently showed concern over his company’s Wii titles. According to a recent Gamasutra article –
“He acknowledged the Wii in particular has been difficult for Ubisoft to find success with. Pointing to the console’s generous sales, he noted that games published for the Wii made up only 10 percent of Ubisoft’s sales last year, and added that the company will need to work harder to create games that will ‘sell as well as Nintendo’s own Wii titles.'”
Let us run through the list of games Ubisoft has published for the Wii as it may elucidate the company’s problems.
No More Heroes – A great game, by far Ubisoft’s best reviewed Wii title, also made by a talented developer (so obviously not Ubisoft). Given zero marketing, guaranteeing this quirky ultraviolent title’s demise. → Read the rest
Platinum Games – What should they make?
Clover Studios is back – after one resurrection and two name changes, they now exist as Platinum Games, and have some actual games to show us (all being published by Sega).
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The one getting the least attention is their DS RPG called Infinite Line, which we have the least amount of info on. The other two are causing mixed feelings, a response that I woefully anticipated. Mad World and Bayonetta both look to be new action games, and in traditional Clover style will likely be rather tough. They also seem a bit unoriginal, at least by their pitch; Mad World includes Sin City style visuals, a chainsaw arm, and loads of violence. It is also on the Wii, which makes the No More Heroes comparisons fly. Bayonetta involves a leather-clad witch fighting fallen angels with guns on her hands and feet. → Read the rest
Tales From Behind The Counter – Lost Treasures, Trade-Ins, and Drugs
I should preface this installment by saying that I am a pack rat. I always have been and probably always will be. When I die, my relatives will come to clean out my house and find stacks and stacks of old newspapers, every wrapper of the slices of Velveeta cheese I had eaten over the past twenty years, and journals of every major weather event from 2025 on with my hand drawn renditions of how things went down. I keep everything. Having said that, it baffles me that most people have no problem trading in all of their old video games and accessories, and for extremely pathetic prices at that.
The other day, two guys walked into the store and told me they had a couple of items that they only wanted cash for. → Read the rest
Quick Impressions – The World Ends with You
I’ve put around five hours into The World Ends with You and besides the “I cut myself to see if I can still feel pain” emo moniker I am very pleased. The battle system makes use of both DS screens simultaneously and though movement of your character via stylus is sort of spotty, everything ultimately works together nicely. The music is absurd Japanese pop that’s both infectious and terrible and the graphics are very stylized – this is one of the few DS games that has a AAA presentation and Squeenix deserves praise for actually trying. Of course the game flopped in Japan and will likely follow suit worldwide, so their effort will be entirely unrewarded and they will realize what a huge mistake taking a chance was. Life is back to normal. → Read the rest
I’m so sick of Good Guys, I could arrest a pedophile! — Part Deux
After my rant about the depiction of globally destructive forces of Evil in video game plots, I should like to turn my attention to the other side of the ancient coin: the Good. That’s right, I’m sick of that too. I am sick of the way in which the depiction of the Good Guys in the majority of games, movies and popular novels, usually serves to reaffirm people’s faith in figures of authority.
Let me ask you a question: you know how at the end of a story, after the hero defeats an evil, all-mighty villain, in a lengthy battle that completely obliterates several city blocks or maybe even Paris, just before the credits start rolling, a fleet of cop cars swarm onto the scene? This is usually when they cut to a helicopter shot, slowly zooming out to reveal flashes of blue-red sirens of ambulances, police cruisers and black FBI SUVs speeding to offer aide that is no longer needed. → Read the rest
A survey of 2007s role playing games
Last year was a fairly interesting one for RPG fans. Some of the biggest names in the genre finished their PS2 swan songs long ago, and went off in search of new platforms. This left 2007 as a year for new ideas and lesser known series to take root and grab the hearts and money of fans. 2007 may not have had a big new Final Fantasy, but perhaps that is a good thing, as it allowed these other games to stand out, rough edges and all. While it comes a bit late, the following is an assessment of some of 2007’s biggest RPGs from both Chris (vl’s resident RPG expert) and Christian (who continues to look for the genre’s masterpiece). We also included FF12 in the mix. It may be a bit old to us modern folk living in 2008, but it is such a major departure from Square’s usual offerings that it deserves a bit more discussion on the site. → Read the rest
Firing Back at Worthless Interviews
These days there is a lot of junky gaming news. One cause of this is the obsession with giving every member of a development house a chance to sit down and shout out. You don’t have to be an artist, programmer or designer – if you deal with the corporate side, you are just as eligible, and if you make one successful game, you will be held in higher regard than other hard working members of the industry, regardless of your future sales or if your ideas have any merit.
Some fans are getting tired of this situation and are mouthing back. For example, one of the worst recent offenders is BioWare CEO Ray Muzyka. While he has been a name and a presence in the industry for a while now, lately he has been spouting off some of his least insightful “wisdom” yet. → Read the rest
I’m so sick of Evil, I could murder an innocent child! — Part Un
This post, like all of my ramblings, has to do with specific complaints about videogame plots and story premises in general. (Don’t worry, I’ll try to keep the use of the word ‘narrative’ to a minimum.) First, on my list of narrative annoyances: Evil. As the title of this piece suggests I’m sick of it. Every game, (and movie, or popular novel) it seems, features some sort of an ancient, newly discovered, supra-galactic, underground, Mayan, divine, satanic, it-was-man, undead, insectoid, magic, mechanical, cybernetic, EVIL force, character, or organization bent on destroying everything in existence. Worlds, galaxies, universes and parallel universes are ceaselessly under threat of obliteration. Existence as any one has ever known it or imagined it is constantly in jeopardy from some conscious Agent of Doom. This ensures that the stakes are always at their highest. → Read the rest
Tales From Behind The Counter – An Xbox In The Bathroom
To be truly honest, this week has been pretty tame in Video Game Store land. No crazed pedophiles, no extremely stupid customers, just a couple of stores full of video games and me, tooling around behind the counter like robot in malaise. This is the perfect time to give you an honest glimpse of how a video game store runs when weirdos aren’t coming out of the woodwork.
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Like all tertiary jobs, this one comes with its fair share of retarded and mindlessly repetitive tasks. The biggest one is disc cleaning and re-surfacing. Just about every disc that gets traded in to us gets a thorough cleaning. How people get substances like butter on discs is beyond me; what I have learned is that most people care as much about their game discs as they do about their fourth cousin, twice removed on their mom’s side of the family. → Read the rest
Blockbuster gaming – what a difference
You may have seen some of the recent news pieces on how Blockbuster is attempting to get more aggressive with its game offerings, starting with putting GTAIV on their coveted front wall of new releases – the first for a game. An interesting step to be sure, but I had to take a trip down to my waterfront store to see what else was changing.
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I have written in the past about this Blockbuster and its lack of quality. Few new games and an absence of organization drove me away from it as a rental avenue. About two months ago this started changing for the better. The games section was reorganized and expanded, and for once it looked like it was supposed to. The store also started selling PS3s, and for a little while actually had two 80GB models (which I would have jumped on if my taxes were done earlier). → Read the rest