Update

Hey guys,

I've been pretty silent as of late, so I figured I'd give you all an update of what's going on.  First off, I actually have three articles on the go, and one of them is a freebie for a local newspaper to incentivise them into considering the creation of a gaming column (with my advice, of course).  This one will be kept under wraps until they've actually read the article and gotten back to me. 

The other two articles are a review for Metal Gear NES and a top ten list (I hate lists, but this was a challenge from a guy who's list I slagged, and I owe him the courtesy to return the favour) of games that I feel deserve a(n actual) reboot.

I will try to hammer out the Beyond Good and Evil review in the next couple of days.  I've beaten it before, so playing it again is more of a memory refresher.  Plus I still have the save file from when I beat it, so I could always go back to that if I so desired.

So, to the gentleman who I slagged (or at least his list), sorry it's taking a lot longer than anticipated.  Digging in the old memory sometimes requires breaking through rock with a shovel as it were.  But the articles are in the works.  The Metal Gear NES review is bottom priority, so expect it last.

That said, sally forth with "paddles" in hand and kick some ass.  When you're done, all should be right as Heavy Rain (hur hur hur).

Editorial: A Criticism on The Video Game Industry Ad War

Date: 07/12/2011

By: Nate

Ever since the dawn of gaming, there have been ad campaigns geared to sell games and systems; it's a necessary part of the sales process; whoever can create knowledge and exposure about a product will generate sales first.

In the North American games industry, these ad campaigns have seemingly turned into an ad war, selling the gamer things they “must” have instead of the games they really might actually want. This war is waged in many ways. Ads come in all shapes and sizes, including game previews and, possibly, reviews.

Why not? A review is a brilliant selling point. It's also a legitimate way to have your competition unfairly criticised. It doesn't mean that reviewers are bought – and in fact, it's more likely that they're coerced over all sorts of opinions; Kotaku, for example, has been blackballed by Sony, and one of the 2K Games' marketing tools recently blackballed the entire reviewing industry on Twitter.

This ad war, however, is so pervasive that we're starting to lose big titles from Japan again like we were between 1985 and 2001. It's a hell of a gulf, but the market also didn't exist back then. It does now. Unfortunately, the big North American players don't care. They want it all to themselves, so they are using all of their buying power to acquire as much adspace as they can to attempt to sell their product. A consequence of this is that their opponents can't sell theirs.

And they're really only selling a handful of ideas – namely first-person shooters and rehashed sports titles, although anything Microsoft, Sony, and Hollywood want sold will always find adspace.

First person shooting and sports games have always been a constant. I think part of it is because sports games are actually pretty dynamic, and there will always be fans. Especially of hockey, American football and baseball. FPS's, on the other hand, are a different kind of animal.

The reason for this is pretty simple: It's the easiest genre to get immersed in because you see it from the perspective of the character that you're playing.

Many of the best selling games are played in the first person; Call of Duty, Halo, Borderlands, The Elder Scrolls and even the rebooted Fallout franchise. Luckily, three of these five titles actually have very different things to offer, but the Halo and Call of Duty franchises are both tactical shooters. And they sell far more.

If it weren't for Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo peddling their own wares as it were, I don't think we would have as much diversity as we do. However, Sony seems to have the only legitimate ideas at the moment as Microsoft is keen on selling mediocre games for its broken Kinect, and Nintendo would rather sell you garbage games from an external developer for your Wii than make a good title based off an existing intelletual property, or make a new one.

And Hollywood is all too happy to get Activision, Sega and EA to make rushed titles based off of half-baked super-hero movies.

Sports games, like the biggest sellers, don't evolve much either. And one franchise in particular, NFL, doesn't have to. Why? Because EA somehow got the right to run an oligopoly (which is illegal, in theory) on NFL games, thus almost completely shutting out their competition, 2K Sports. While 2K has other (and arguably more brilliant) avenues of earning income, to essentially lose professional licensing to exclusive contracts is shameful.

Even when the oligopoly didn't exist, the professional sports titles from these developers obscured more interesting alternative sports games like the overlooked Deathrow for the XBox. At least sports games are more dynamic, but you're essentially paying for little more than a new roster every year.

Roleplaying games are no different; as much as I may praise the Elder Scrolls, Borderlands and Fallout, there is little room for much else when one of these monsters gets released. That said, Final Fantasy 13's ad campaign was not nearly as extensive as either of these. In any case, because these blockbuster titles took up all the adspace, other games slipped through the cracks. A perfect example was the brilliant Sacred 2, which turns Diablo on its ear.

So why the ad war?

Reason one: Cut off the competition's ability to expose potential buyers to their product. If no one knows about it, no one cares. Reason 2: Create a virtual embargo on the competition. If you make it hard for them to sell their product, they'll take it to another market – usually one that is much leaner.

Realistically, it's most likely a case of “how gullible are you?” If you, the gamer, is willing to purchase incomplete games – and you know they are when the publishers are releasing day-one downloadable content, or DLC, or worse, putting it right on the disc making you pay for it if the game is used – and keep buying new iterations of these games, why should publishers stop foisting this crap on us? Ethics has nothing to do with it. It's all about money.

And there are two reasons for this: Budgets are skyrocketing (and they really are) and anything that sells well is a safe bet. Additionally, it paves the way for simple DLC at rediculous costs to bolster profits. Even if a few people download a map pack with 3 or so maps, it doesn't take very long to make those maps unless brand new game modes, weapons and gameplay options are added – which is rare.

At the same time, how much of the cost of the game is factored into marketing? Ten percent? Twenty? Fifty? I think this is equally important if publishers are going to piss and moan about astronomical budgets, because they could take another two or three million out of the marketing budget to make a better game, why won't they?

But FPS's aren't the only games that sell well. There are still platformers that do well – Mario is proof of this – and many first person action games do fairly well, especially open-world – aka “sandbox” - games.

So how come companies aren't making more clones of Super Mario Bros. or Grand Theft Auto? Because Super Mario Bros. isn't flashy enough and open world games require large virtual worlds to play in. In case you didn't notice, Call of Duty: Black Ops and Halo don't have the square mileage anywhere near the likes of Grand Theft Auto IV, Mercenaries 2 or Red Faction Guerilla. It takes a lot of time and bug testing to build worlds of that size and depth.

FPS's have the highest technical standards of any genre. They also tend to be among the most expensive to make, which is why few even try to develop anything like Far Cry 2 or Boiling Point. And a lot of people seem to think that the pizzazz that these games offer must translate to another genre entirely for the game to even be “good”. If companies are so concerned about the bottom line, why do so many push to make this kind of game when the risk is so high? Well, because Call of Duty: Black Ops has made over one billion dollars.

The thing is, the guys that have the best profit margins are the independent developers. And they make all sorts of games. While making money is still not guaranteed, development costs are significantly lower. Mind you, the end product isn't as flashy, but you don't need flash to make a great game. Rygar and Double Dragon III on the Nintendo Entertainment System/Famicom were proof of that. In fact, both of them, while being uglier than their arcade versions, are both far superior games because of their deeper gameplay and improved story elements.

There are far more games available that have both deeper gameplay and storylines than many of the blockbuster titles. These are overlooked for various reasons, although marketing and availability both play a huge role in their success or lack thereof.

And you'll learn about what studios not owned by Activision, Electronic Arts, Disney, Warner Bros., Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony are doing.

If there's a shining ray of light, it's the independent developers.

Their games aren't like everything else, so these guys have something different to offer. While I have not played Angry Birds, a lot of people have. And they love it. A lot of people have played Call of Duty: Black Ops, too, but I highly doubt that Activision's profit margins are as good on most of their other games.

But they – along with Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Electronic Arts and Hollywood – have won the North American ad war; they seem to dominate whose ads run when and where. And they all release a lot of first-person, tv, movie and licensed sports games

The problem is, with so few genres dominating the industry – or at least the Western side of it – there seems to be less room for anything else.

I'm not going to suggest that this will lead to anything quite as radical as games being buried in the desert and an industry going into a coma for a year or so, but the fact that the biggest companies on this side of the ocean are taking the fewest risks – with every genre, not just shooters – is pretty sad.

Of course, there's no need to take risks when you've beaten your competition in the ad race, is there? And yet it's the independent developers that are either making money hand-over-fist on their little projects or incurring reasonable losses.

We need to remember that at one point in time, Nintendo was a little independent developer (at least on this side of the Pacific). Now, they're a big independent developer as well as a publisher.

While I doubt that we'll start to see an Eastern lock-out, we will lose out on awesome titles. It's already happening – think Xenoblade for the Wii. It's like the days before the Playstation 2 where a lot of titles were just not released because it was deemed a major loss to localise it for a different market. We gamers do not need another Sin and Punishment incident, where we have to wait until it's emulated to play it.

And we need the diversity. It keeps our hobby fresh. I realise that I (and everyone like me) am now the niche gamer, but there's still a lot of niche gamers who appreciate more than just shooters, streamlined adventure games and short-bus RPGs.

So, how do we fix this? Outside of behavorial modification, I honestly have no clue, but maybe this raises an important question about our culture: Do we really know what we like as individuals? It's a good question because it's taken me a long time to answer it as a gamer.

I think an inability to think critically about value versus desire is the problem here, and this problem affects more than just buying video games. It affects everything from the food that we eat to the officials that we elect.

There's a second and possibly more important question: What are the consequences if we don't fix the problem? Our need to fit in with perceived popular opinion may eventually hurt our options as far as our hobby goes – let alone our existence in the real world. We never think twice about anything unless there's definite proof that it will harm us. It doesn't matter if it's food, pharmaceuticals or elected officials.

So, to put it into perspective, many of the more unique games that cater to diverse palates come from either Eastern Europe or Southeast Asia. If they can't afford to localise because they're being economically locked out of a market, they won't. North America is less than half a billion potential buyers. What do they need us for? Plus they've already got a market to sell in. And importing isn't an option if you can't speak Polish, Japanese or Korean – let alone if region locking is imposed.

Diversity makes the world go round, whether real or virtual. It keeps things fresh. And due to the fact that we don't place an embargo on another culture's games like some other countries have been known to do, our market is one of the most diverse. The problem is, if this keeps up, it will produce an embargo – whether or not it's intentional.

This is something we need to change.

There are really only two key factors to deal with here, too: Their money and our ignorance. It's pretty easy to fix the latter point. Don't believe everything you read and hear and the hell with the hype. Do your own research. Assess the value of things based on how they relate to you, not your friends – or worse, their friends. You'd be absolutely amazed with the games that you'll find if you only look past the ad bombardments and challenges toward whether or not it makes you cool.

In short, buy for you.

A Celebrity Moment

Hey guys, I have some interesting news for you:  I now possess a game with an autograph.  Specifically, Hugh Jackman's.  No, it's not for sale.  And while it isn't Todd Howard's or John Carmack's, I won't be giving it away, either.

So the skinny:  My partner, Kris, is a fan of celebrities.  Mostly people you've never heard of like Alanis Morisette, Leah Michelle and Stevie Nicks (sarcasm).  She loves getting pictures, memorabilia, etc.

Anyway, someone else you've never heard of, Hugh Jackman (sarcasm), is performing in Toronto at the Princess of Wales Theatre in downtown Toronto. 

He's doing a one-man show, which, as far as I know, is playing until the 17th or 18th of July.  So if you're in T.O., go see it!

Anyway, Kris sees this one-man show being advertised and she wants to go and get his autograph.  I figure I can capitalise on this (not in a monetary sense so much as fame/infamy), so I decide to pick up a copy of X-Men Origins: Wolverine.  Not a bad game, either.

So, as you can see (sort of; god my phone takes bad pictures), he autographed the manual of my X-Men Origins: Wolverine game for the XBox 360.

Everyone who was there got something autographed, despite his somewhat prick of a rep who said he wouldn't sign anything other than tickets and programs.  I understand why the rep was being a prick - people get stuff autographed and then sell it.  What's the point of memorabilia if you aren't going to keep it?  Sheesh.

Now, as it happens, Wolverine in fact does not suck despite being a licensed game.  It is buggy as hell, though.  Shame on you, Raven.  You generally make less buggy games.  Like Hexen 2.  And Heretic 2.  And Soldier of Fortune.  And...you know, I'll just quit while I'm ahead.  Especially since it's not as buggy as CyClones (very old game that Raven did for SSI).  Maybe I'll give it a review.  Maybe I won't.  But it sure is fun playing a Wolverine game that's actually as brutal as the comic book can be. 

In fact, I'd hazard a wager that it's the best Wolverine game so far.  I mean, Adamantium Rage was like pulling teeth, and the Wolverine game on the NES was nigh-unbeatable.  But at least I got to Sabretooth.  Did you?

Getting back to the point, it's actually kinda neat having a signed game.  While I am by no means a celebrity worshipper, I am aware that Lance Henriksen will be in Toronto in August for a huge fan convention.  And I have Red Faction 2.  Which he does voice work in.  Rather underrated game if you bought it on XBox and/or Gamecube, which are the definitive versions - regardless of what Gamespot, 1Up or Gamespy believe.

I'm not sure if this adds credibility - after all, a gamer plays games more than collects or turns them into memorabilia (which I didn't exactly do because I got the manual signed, not the disc).

That said, I'd like to thank you, Mr. Jackman for clearly enjoying giving autographs to your fans.  While I respect your right not to, I'm glad that you didn't exercise that right.  I wish you all the best; you're a very talented man and you deserve respect for your ability alone.

Now, stay tuned for a long awaited editorial about the ad war going on in the gaming industry.  It will be up within the next 24 hours.  I'm going to be passing it by my neighbour's partner who's in marketing, so her perspective will undoubtedly be invaluable.

To quote the great Steve Smith, "Keep your stick on the ice", and I look forward to your perspective on my perspective on what the biggest companies in our favourite industry think of...well, perspective.  When I unleash it, or course.

Edit:  It does not look like my neighour will be home this evening, so I will be publishing the editorial tonight at midnight.

New Review Poll

Hi everyone, how are you doing?

Hopefully my Canadian brethren had an awesome Canada day weekened, and the same to you Americans, who are just rolling out the end of your 4th of July weekend.

I've posted the new review poll for the month.  Kind of forgot to do that when I made that fateful roll with my D6 to find out what the next game was, but it is indeed up.

No update on the editorial, though.

Play games, have fun, and dammit, get votin'! 

Reader Review Poll Results

Hey guys,

Looks like I was a little late with the review poll results; Canada Day weekend can be like that. 

So, it looks like Beyond Good and Evil for the XBox is the next candidate for review.  You can blame the dice.

Also, I'm in the process of writing a new editorial.  It's not coming along at the pace I'd like it to, so I'm thinking it'll be done in a couple of weeks.  Hopefully that's an underpromise followed by over-delivery.

Take it easy, and I'll see you all soon.

Update, June 28th, 2011

Hi everyone!  Been awhile since an update.  I must admit, I got lost in Fallout: New Vegas.  Again. 

At any rate, the review for Doom, the last game that you guys voted for (well, one of you did and it won the tie-breaker) is completed.

Also, you will notice that you have to log in to Blogger to comment.  No worries, if you don't have a Blogger account, they're free. 

Back onto the reason for this update:  The Doom review.  It can be found here.

While my review may come across as biased (and it is, I hold Doom with the highest level of esteem because few games have ever raised the bar so high), my perspective is also different because I've made a few mods for the game as well, and I briefly mention that in the review.

If you've never played the game, you really should.  It's cheap, there's a crapload of quality user-made stuff for it and the multiplayer, as simple as it is, is frickin' amazing.

And of course, the source mods make what is old new again.

The ones I recommend are EDGE and ZDoom, and they're very easy to set up.  Pretty much, you dump it into the directory where your main game file is (a .wad, or WADfile) and then run the executable for the source mod.

The only source mod I would recommend you stay away from is Doom 95, aka WinDoom (it's the one that comes with Doom: Collector's Edition).  Mouse support is broken and I've had some major stability issues.

On that note, have a good weekend, everyone.  In case I don't add anything until later next month, happy Canada Day (July 1st) to my fellow Canucks and happy Independence Day (July 4th) to my neighbours to the south.

Announcement: Censorship

Hey guys,

I've seen a few people posting comments and having links to obscene material.  From this point forth, this is not going to be tolerated.

If there are any links to pornography in any comments, whether it be the body or the username, it will be deleted.

I have no problem if your personal website is a business, but if it's not family-friendly (or at least within reason), it's not welcome.

That said, I will be actively censoring comments from this point forward.

Tech Tip: Batteries

 Date: June 1st, 2011
Author: Nate

Let's talk about batteries. Why?  Because all of the current consoles rely on controllers that use rechargable batteries. This is no surprise; they need a power source if there's no cord.  Ultimately, game systems are money-pits if you want to get the most from them, but there are a few ways to save some cash in the long run.

The first is to not buy the rechargable battery packs. Yeah, I know, Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony swear by them. However, what MS, Nintendo and Sony don't tell you is that a bad dashboard update can mess with the charging cycle, which can ultimately screw up the battery.

Further - and this came as a shock to me - my Nickel Metal Hydrate (NiMH) AA rechargables are lasting more than 50% longer than the Lithium Ion (LIon) batteries for my 360 remotes. I call shenanigans on that. Why? LIon is more stable and longer-lasting than NiMH. And yet I've never gotten the same performance. That means the batteries are low-quality, and you pay a heck of a lot for them.

Admittedly, there are different battery qualities, and I use high-quality NiMH batteries. But for 8 batteries and a charger, I paid a little less than the cost of 2 XBox 360 battery packs, so you get twice the bang for the buck.

The batteries that I recommend are The Source brand batteries and charger. Partly because that's what I use, and also because I generally found their batteries to be better overall – at least in high-demand devices. And, their rechargables have so far been the most reliable. Reliability of rechargable batteries has two-fold accountability – the first is the quality of the batteries. The second is the quality of the charger.

If the charger sucks, you're going to get fewer charges and you won't get the same life between charges as you would with a good one. And price does not dictate quality here. Crap batteries, same thing, so these are both very important factors.

Another thing to take into consideration is the rating of the battery, which is MAh, or Milli-Amp hours. The AA batteries I currently use are 2 pairs of 2000 and 2600 MAh rated batteries respectively, and the 2600's do get better life, but only by a day or so. Mind you, I'm usually 2 - 3 weeks between charges for each pair, so it's fairly moot. I maybe get 7 to 10 days with the 360 battery pack. I also play quite a bit, 2 to 4 hours a day, so both accounts reflect a lot of hours, but the time between recharges makes the difference.

Your best bet would be to get a charger that comes with two pairs of batteries. A good one is usually $30 - $40 CDN. Bear in mind that the 360 battery pack is $30 on its own, is good for 7 – 10 days – and there's only one of them.

To add more value to the whole idea, buying more batteries is fairly inexpensive, what with the better pairs coming in at only $20 for two pairs. Again, MS, Sony and Nintendo can't compete with that.
It all comes down to dollars and cents. Or is that sense?

But hey, you're the gamer, it's your call. Regardless of whether or not you get a battery pack or rechargeables, it's still cheaper than buying non-rechargeable alkaline batteries. But the rechargeable batteries are cheaper than a battery pack by over 60%, and the charger isn't attached to the system, which means it can't be affected by screwy updates.

And it goes without saying that you can use the batteries in more than just your controllers.

Update June 1st, 2011

Hey guys,

For all those waiting with bated breath, the winner of the review poll is Doom.  There was a 3-way tie, and my D4 came to the rescue to help me break it.  Good thing, I had a bugger of a time tracking down my dice. 

Time to clean the office again.

If you scroll down, you will also find the latest editorial, Video Games as Art.  Sorry it took so long, I was trying not to come off as a pompous git.  Oops, too late for that!

So, what's next month's poll going to include?  You'll just have to find out.  And vote.  That always helps.

Until next time, and don't drop your controller on the tile.  The tile will win.

Video Games As Art

Title: Video Games As Art

Date: May 19^th, 2011

By: Nate

As of the beginning of May, 2011, the U.S. government has officially recognised video games as an art form worthy of public funding from the National Endowment of the Arts.

To the outside world, this is fairly significant considering that gaming has often been more associated with long-haired basement dwelling male nerds and young children – despite the fact that as of now, most gamers are in their thirties, and there's a large female demographic, too.

It's also significant because the movie industry has been fighting against this for years, and why not? As of right now, gaming is a multi-billion-dollar industry that keeps getting bigger. Hollywood would undoubtedly feel threatened by this, and we've seen this fear through the printed opinions of revered critics/pundits such as Roger Ebert. There are even people within the gaming industry who claim that video games are not and cannot be an art form.

Ironically, Kojima Hideo also feels this way . Kojima-san has worked on many series for Konami, including but not limited to the Metal Gear series – which in many ways tries to meet and exceed artistic merits. We see this with the carefully crafted storylines as well as the deep gameplay that many of the titles in this series provide.

It's not just visuals, music and storytelling that transforms a game into art. How you play the game – character abilities, interactivity with the virtual world, characters, enemies, weapons, sound effects and how the world itself is built are equally – if not more – important than how it looks. This is because a game is very different from a movie; it can contain the narrative of a novel, a museum's worth of art, a concert hall of music and on top of that, you have a measure of control as to how it all comes together at the end. It's a culmination of most of our art forms (excluding the culinary arts, at least for now) on top of technology.

I could say without any pangs of guilt that some of the programmers of a game have to be artists; they need to have a vision, and they need to be both fearless and, I think, a little eccentric.  They need to be able to think in both the practical and the abstract.  Furthermore, they need to understand the value of language; Programming languages are still languages. It takes an estimated 5 to 10 years to become a highly skilled programmer, and while the techniques are fairly similar from language to language, you also still have to a) learn the languages you will need to use - which can change from console to console, but rarely ever with PC's - and b) keep these skills up to date.  Especially when you start factoring in middleware – software engines that are independent of a core game engine, such as the Havok physics engine – and scripting languages that operate on top of a game engine to add more definition to objects within the world such as weight and density. (editied June 14th, 2011) And thus, programmers could be seen as poets.

I think a lot of opinionated gamers are champing at the bit about what should be included and what shouldn't, but being that what defines the true art of a game transcends most concepts of art, I really don't think that anything should be excluded.

From Tennis For Two to Space Wars! to Doom, there are many games that define genres, concepts and standards. It could be as groundbreaking as The Guardian Legend (NES), as mundane as Corridor 7 (DOS PC), as overlooked as Deathrow (XBox) or as horrible as Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage (N64). It can define a genre or merely inhabit it for better or worse - and all genres are evolving.

This is a necessity for an artform, too. Architecture can't live on Baroque alone much like gaming can't be a smorgasbord of first-person shooting.

Regardless of merit, video games are an accepted art form. My intention is not to rub this in the faces of the nay-sayers. I really don't have to, the American government has already done a good enough job by showcasing 80 games at the Smithsonian that they deem to be the most important titles in the industry.

My fellow gamers, pat yourselves on the back.  Whether you know it are not, we're now art afficionados - whether we like it or not.