A while ago, a service on Xbox Live Arcade was released called "XNA Game Creator's Service". Basically, it was a small devkit people could use to make little games and release them for paid download on Xbox's Live service. It was a way for any little schmuck with a dream and some programming talent to showcase their ideas to the world.
There was an article released today that showed that the service was a miserable failure as far as profit margins go. I mention this here because just a few days ago I was thinking "man, whatever happened to that XNA service. I wonder if it shaped up and if there are any gems on there", and then here comes this article, almost in unspoken telepathic response. At the end of the article, regardless of what source you grabbed it from, the poster was like "what do you think, community? Why don't people buy XNA games? Is it because MS didn't advertise the service or is there just too much stuff there? Is it pointless?"
I like how there's no third option: "I don't pay attention to the service or the games because literally every single one of them is absolute trash". Seriously, the other day I looked through the selection of games they had available, and the second one in the list was "Fart Explosion" or something. There's roughly four billion games on the service, and even if it was possible to rate or to categorize the sheer amount of them, it doesn't matter becuase i'm not paying MS Fun Money Points for something that's basically a poorly made cell phone game from four years ago.
This is the indie scene, you guys. You give people cheap devkits and a forum, and they'll pump out nothing but garbage and one or two gems, years apart. In my life i've only seen two games from indie developers that were either good, or not some elaborate twenty minute long joke.
Here's a funny contrast: During the same time period, there was an article talking about how much every developer is excited for making projects for the iPhone. It's the big thing they can't wait for. As an addition to that, there was *another* article talking about how two developers who had made it big on the iPhone basically said quality means nothing when making an iPhone title. There's no rhyme or reason to any given product's success. Which, if you're paying attention in the studio audience, is why every developer is so excited. They don't have to give a fucking damn about these products and they'll make so much money. Someone like Pandemic could code in a weekend a little flashy bloopy thing for the iPhone and it would probably make back half the earnings of one of their big boy titles.
So, we have the iPhone, a licence to print money. Then you have the XNA crowd, who are largely ignored. They're pretty much the same thing: Shit. So why is one successful and one not?
Quality, thankfully. When consumers are sitting on a machine that has the best the industry has to offer, both in retail and downloadable games, no one gives a shit about Fart Explosion 9000 from some idiot with twenty dollars and a C++ book. When you're on the iPhone, you're already a fucking moron that spent way too much money on an Apple product. Apple costumers are notorious for buying whatever Apple tells them to, because all of their products work together plus holy shit look how white and slick they are. You're not going to hop onto the Apple download store and all of a sudden be picky with what you put on your ExpensaPhone. If they had the ability to discern quality and pick out the best products, they wouldn't have an iPhone in the first place.
You know, at least MS tried. At least they gave you guys a forum to post your works. It's not their fault that all you were able to come up with was worthless idiocy.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Yeah, pretty much that
Here's an article that pretty much sums up how I feel about games today and the future of games. It's a great read, I suggest you give it a go.
One of the things they talk about in there is the sex scene in Mass Effect. Its been talked about a lot on both sides of the fence, and the big controversy came when detractors took the scene out of context. What no one talked about is how the scene looked IN context, at least if you wooed Liara, the blue alien chick: absolutely silly.
It looked silly with her because Liara was a terribly acted member of a joke of a race that suffered from Wikipedia syndrome. Bioware tried their goddamnedest to make us take their race of hot bisexuals seriously, but no matter how much you have characters blather on about their race and culture and history and blibbidy bloo, you still end up with a blue bisexual Data straight out of a juvenile Trekkie's puberty explosion dream.
In the end, when that scene comes up, it looks like (as so many games do) that someone took a team of professionals and millions of dollars to realize in expertly rendered videogame form a 13 year old fanfiction writer's story. The other versions of the scene aren't bad: Female Sheperd with Captain Carth Round Two is normal, as it's the culmination of a bunch of flirting and pretty interesting backstory between two normally written humans. Male Shepard and Christian Fundie Space Racist also makes sense, as it's two meatheads getting together. Liara's terrible though: It's all about the writing.
One of the things they talk about in there is the sex scene in Mass Effect. Its been talked about a lot on both sides of the fence, and the big controversy came when detractors took the scene out of context. What no one talked about is how the scene looked IN context, at least if you wooed Liara, the blue alien chick: absolutely silly.
It looked silly with her because Liara was a terribly acted member of a joke of a race that suffered from Wikipedia syndrome. Bioware tried their goddamnedest to make us take their race of hot bisexuals seriously, but no matter how much you have characters blather on about their race and culture and history and blibbidy bloo, you still end up with a blue bisexual Data straight out of a juvenile Trekkie's puberty explosion dream.
In the end, when that scene comes up, it looks like (as so many games do) that someone took a team of professionals and millions of dollars to realize in expertly rendered videogame form a 13 year old fanfiction writer's story. The other versions of the scene aren't bad: Female Sheperd with Captain Carth Round Two is normal, as it's the culmination of a bunch of flirting and pretty interesting backstory between two normally written humans. Male Shepard and Christian Fundie Space Racist also makes sense, as it's two meatheads getting together. Liara's terrible though: It's all about the writing.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Jim Sterling Is A Fatty Fat
I wanted to write a short little note on my Facebook account after Jonathan Holmes over at Destructoid wrote yet another article that made me want to murder him in front of his loved ones about how much half the Destructoid staff are unfunny, idiotic twats, but stopped writing halfway through because I realized that I was basically just making a list of people I hated and calling them stupid dumb faces. I didn't have much concrete stuff to throw out there.
Leave it to Jim Sterling to toss out something a few hours later that provides a large, ample target to riddle with bullets. First off, here's the link: Read it, and go nuts. Ready? Good, here we go.
He starts off the article saying that while gamers crave different experiences, they keep buying the same old big game sequels every time they come out, leading to a pervading sense of generic-ness. It's a good start if a somewhat flawed premise (which I'll get to in a second) but then he jerks the wheel of his article hard to the left and careens into a tree at ninety miles an hour, totaling the article and ejecting him from the driver's seat.
He then goes on to talk about a couple of subjects that have absolutely nothing to do with the premise of the article: Gamers complaining about Killzone 2's and RE5's controls, and gamers complaining about lack of Co-Op in Killzone 2. Let's address his first point.
First off Jim, you're fat. Second off, not a goddamned bit of the generic homogenization of the games industry is gamers fault. Not a fucking bit. You know why? Because when a good game comes out it sells well, provided it's been advertised well, is on the proper system for its audience, and is priced accordingly. Valve is one of my favorite companies because they're pretty much an unmovable, immutable wall against all the bullshit game pundits tend to toss around. Piracy killing PC games? Valve embraces pirates, calling them "customers we haven't met yet". Gamers won't buy anything different? Gamers bought a 4 hour long first person puzzle game with a sense of humor in droves. Why? Because it was good.
Now, there are tons of projects that are different, good, and don't sell, but there's usually a reason. Beyond Good and Evil didn't sell because it was released the same day as Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. Psychonauts didn't sell because apparently no one told Tim Schaefer that platformers died ten years ago, and those that didn't sure as fuck weren't on the Xbox. No More Heroes didn't sell because it wasn't any fucking good. There's the big thing: You can't just be different and wacky and get straight tens, doesn't work like that. You have to also make a game that plays great and is fun too, otherwise I don't give two fucks about your goofy premise.
No Jim, if you could somehow manage to get game designers to crawl out of their shells and make some different shit for once, and make it well, it would sell. They just don't. They're getting BETTER (just look at EA this year) but they're still not I think the firing and blackballing of anyone who's been in the industry more than fifteen years would be a great start to that, Miya-fucking-moto included.
Now, let's mosey onto his next couple of points: The RE5 controls and the lack of Killzone 2 Co-Op.
First off Jim, you're fat. Second off, RE5 has shitty controls. Your character is a stiff wooden board of a person who moves slower and worse than the "zombies" than they're trying to kill. Those are bad controls. Now, I know the de-facto argument for those controls is "it's to add tension", which is a good point, and why Valve made the controls in Left 4 Dead shitty on purpose as well.
Oh wait they didn't, did they? Again, they just made a good goddamned videogame, and they added tension how people normally add tension: by including tense scenarios. Which would you rather have: a situation that's tense because it's genuinely difficult for your badass character, or a situation that's tense because your character's a fucking retard and your AI partner's even worse. Jim, the reason that RE5 has the controls it does is that it was made by Japanese developers from Capcom who A) hate change and B) painted themselves into a corner. They basically evolved the RE series into Gears of War, which is a fucking retarded thing to do to a franchise that's about zombies. In order to keep it from being just a straight up Gears of War clone, they had to keep something different. The one consistant thing in all RE's has been shitty controls, so there you go. Controls don't have to be unresponsive to be shitty. If there's a clear, industry recognized stadard for what you're trying to accomplish and you deviate from it just to be different, and it's less intuitive that what other people have been doing, your controls are shitty. The end.
Third off, what the hell does that have to do with your point of gamers helping along the homogenization of games? RE5's controls aren't exactly a different, bold new step forward, unless you finish that sentence with "...into becoming Gears of War". If they do support something like RE5, well, that makes Capcom disinclined to try anything but sequels. If they DON'T support RE5, then Capcom's disinclined to try new things with established franchises. It's a terrible example.
Then he talks about how people complained about no co-op in Killzone 2, and how it's retarded to expect it in every game because look at Bioshock, that game didn't need co-op or multiplayer! To be fair, he's got a point here. Multiplayer is pretty much the worst thing to happen to videogames ever other than the Wii. Not every fucking game needs a tacked on multiplayer fragfest mode that people will play once and forget about. Mostly because you cannot, repeat cannot have a good story in a multiplayer game. Doesn't happen. No, WoW doesn't have a good story, sorry. Maybe the KOTOR MMO will change that, but the way Bioware's been going lately I'll be surprised if the thing has dialog trees at this point.
However, once again Jim Sterling makes the mistake of making the right point with the wrong example. First off Jim, you're fat. Second off, Bioshock and Killzone 2 are two very different games with very different goals. Bioshock is meant to be an atmospheric trip through a wholly unique dilapidated setting. Killzone 2 is an excuse to shoot your buddies in armor ripped wholesale from anime over PSN, with little thought to story, or innovation, or anything other than being the poster child for just exactly everything wrong with gaming today just as hard as it possibly can. In a multiplayer fragfest game like Killzone, especially one exclusive to the free PSNetwork, co-op should be a given. It should be an out of the box standard issue feature at this point, unless of course you're talking about a game that gives a fuck about story, and then it shouldn't feature multiplayer of any kind.
In short, Jim Sterling's fat and shouldn't have a job blogging. Maybe i'll tear apart one of Jonathan Holmes' articles one day, if I can prevent it being just one big page filled with nothing but RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
Leave it to Jim Sterling to toss out something a few hours later that provides a large, ample target to riddle with bullets. First off, here's the link: Read it, and go nuts. Ready? Good, here we go.
He starts off the article saying that while gamers crave different experiences, they keep buying the same old big game sequels every time they come out, leading to a pervading sense of generic-ness. It's a good start if a somewhat flawed premise (which I'll get to in a second) but then he jerks the wheel of his article hard to the left and careens into a tree at ninety miles an hour, totaling the article and ejecting him from the driver's seat.
He then goes on to talk about a couple of subjects that have absolutely nothing to do with the premise of the article: Gamers complaining about Killzone 2's and RE5's controls, and gamers complaining about lack of Co-Op in Killzone 2. Let's address his first point.
First off Jim, you're fat. Second off, not a goddamned bit of the generic homogenization of the games industry is gamers fault. Not a fucking bit. You know why? Because when a good game comes out it sells well, provided it's been advertised well, is on the proper system for its audience, and is priced accordingly. Valve is one of my favorite companies because they're pretty much an unmovable, immutable wall against all the bullshit game pundits tend to toss around. Piracy killing PC games? Valve embraces pirates, calling them "customers we haven't met yet". Gamers won't buy anything different? Gamers bought a 4 hour long first person puzzle game with a sense of humor in droves. Why? Because it was good.
Now, there are tons of projects that are different, good, and don't sell, but there's usually a reason. Beyond Good and Evil didn't sell because it was released the same day as Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. Psychonauts didn't sell because apparently no one told Tim Schaefer that platformers died ten years ago, and those that didn't sure as fuck weren't on the Xbox. No More Heroes didn't sell because it wasn't any fucking good. There's the big thing: You can't just be different and wacky and get straight tens, doesn't work like that. You have to also make a game that plays great and is fun too, otherwise I don't give two fucks about your goofy premise.
No Jim, if you could somehow manage to get game designers to crawl out of their shells and make some different shit for once, and make it well, it would sell. They just don't. They're getting BETTER (just look at EA this year) but they're still not I think the firing and blackballing of anyone who's been in the industry more than fifteen years would be a great start to that, Miya-fucking-moto included.
Now, let's mosey onto his next couple of points: The RE5 controls and the lack of Killzone 2 Co-Op.
First off Jim, you're fat. Second off, RE5 has shitty controls. Your character is a stiff wooden board of a person who moves slower and worse than the "zombies" than they're trying to kill. Those are bad controls. Now, I know the de-facto argument for those controls is "it's to add tension", which is a good point, and why Valve made the controls in Left 4 Dead shitty on purpose as well.
Oh wait they didn't, did they? Again, they just made a good goddamned videogame, and they added tension how people normally add tension: by including tense scenarios. Which would you rather have: a situation that's tense because it's genuinely difficult for your badass character, or a situation that's tense because your character's a fucking retard and your AI partner's even worse. Jim, the reason that RE5 has the controls it does is that it was made by Japanese developers from Capcom who A) hate change and B) painted themselves into a corner. They basically evolved the RE series into Gears of War, which is a fucking retarded thing to do to a franchise that's about zombies. In order to keep it from being just a straight up Gears of War clone, they had to keep something different. The one consistant thing in all RE's has been shitty controls, so there you go. Controls don't have to be unresponsive to be shitty. If there's a clear, industry recognized stadard for what you're trying to accomplish and you deviate from it just to be different, and it's less intuitive that what other people have been doing, your controls are shitty. The end.
Third off, what the hell does that have to do with your point of gamers helping along the homogenization of games? RE5's controls aren't exactly a different, bold new step forward, unless you finish that sentence with "...into becoming Gears of War". If they do support something like RE5, well, that makes Capcom disinclined to try anything but sequels. If they DON'T support RE5, then Capcom's disinclined to try new things with established franchises. It's a terrible example.
Then he talks about how people complained about no co-op in Killzone 2, and how it's retarded to expect it in every game because look at Bioshock, that game didn't need co-op or multiplayer! To be fair, he's got a point here. Multiplayer is pretty much the worst thing to happen to videogames ever other than the Wii. Not every fucking game needs a tacked on multiplayer fragfest mode that people will play once and forget about. Mostly because you cannot, repeat cannot have a good story in a multiplayer game. Doesn't happen. No, WoW doesn't have a good story, sorry. Maybe the KOTOR MMO will change that, but the way Bioware's been going lately I'll be surprised if the thing has dialog trees at this point.
However, once again Jim Sterling makes the mistake of making the right point with the wrong example. First off Jim, you're fat. Second off, Bioshock and Killzone 2 are two very different games with very different goals. Bioshock is meant to be an atmospheric trip through a wholly unique dilapidated setting. Killzone 2 is an excuse to shoot your buddies in armor ripped wholesale from anime over PSN, with little thought to story, or innovation, or anything other than being the poster child for just exactly everything wrong with gaming today just as hard as it possibly can. In a multiplayer fragfest game like Killzone, especially one exclusive to the free PSNetwork, co-op should be a given. It should be an out of the box standard issue feature at this point, unless of course you're talking about a game that gives a fuck about story, and then it shouldn't feature multiplayer of any kind.
In short, Jim Sterling's fat and shouldn't have a job blogging. Maybe i'll tear apart one of Jonathan Holmes' articles one day, if I can prevent it being just one big page filled with nothing but RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
The Top Ten Games You Missed Because You're Not As Cool As Me
So I grabbed Eat Lead today, and am currently going through it. I'll probably add it to this list when I'm done with it, but for now, here's a list. These games are ones that either fell through the cracks, or ones that did okay but bear emphasizing based on their sheer importance. Without further ado, The Top Ten Games You Missed Because You're Not As Cool As Me.
10. Burnout Paradise
A few years ago, downloadable content was a non-existent phrase. To console gamers, it was a theoretical "maybe" of the far flung future, and to PC gamers it was an every day reality called "mods" that had existed for a decade or more. Over the last few years, downloadable content has burst onto the scene, and with it comes many the sticky, grubby hands of capitalism. The industry's already produced many sordid, almost comedic examples of how to do DLC wrong; thankfully, there's one company out there who knows how to do it right.
Criterion Game's Burnout Paradise is not only the finest racing game this console generation, but a shining example for all other publishers that actually give a fuck about their customers on how to do DLC right. Since the game came out, there's been many updates, both free and paid, that have evolved the game to a higher level and won them many fans, and they show no signs of slowing down. Burnout Paradise is only $19.99 at a retailer near you, so you have no excuse not to own this game. Did I mention one of the updates lets you drive the General Lee, K.I.T.T., the DeLorean and Ecto-1? Yeah, there you go.
9. Braid
Braid is a unique gem. A game that does what few indie, downloadable games are able to do: transcend its roots to stand on its own amongst the big boy titles. The game, more than any other I've seen, is a work of art in every sense of the word. The story is painfully pretentious, but gives the game a feeling unique to the medium. The art is unparalleled. The puzzles in the game are second to none in terms of sheer mind-fuckage and creativity. It's superior on every level. There are some of my friends who don't like the game because the main character looks stupid or the story's too pretentious, but they have dumb faces that are dumb.
8. Gotcha Force
Back in the mid days of the Gamecube when Nintendo still sort of cared about trying to pretend they weren't a massive failure, Capcom was their biggest supporter. One year, they touted the Five, a list of games that were exclusive to the system and blockbusters. This list included the sublime Viewtiful Joe, the forgettable P.N. 03, and the canceled Red Revolver. What it DIDN'T include was Gotcha Force, a game that was also exclusive to the Cube and better than all the other games combined. Capcom didn't advertise it whatsoever, didn't put out very many copies, and it got poor reviews from people who routinely suck the dick of the far inferior Pokemon franchise. The result? To this day it remains the best game no one's played on the system.
So what's it about? You control Gotcha Borgs, little toy-sized robots that fight each other. The battles take place in various arenas (backyard, gutter, playground, etc.) and whoever you fight and defeat during that particular skirmish, you have a chance to either win outright or win a piece of them. You assemble your fighting force from the robots you've won. Each robot has a cost, and each fight you win adds ten points to your spending limit, so you can either have a team of a bunch of small robots, or a team composed of one badass robot. Those robots are then sent out, one at a time, to deal with the waves of enemies in any given battle.
Here's the fun part: There are over 300 playable characters, each one with a unique playstyle. All of them are easy to pick up and use, hard to master. They run the gamut of everything possible: There are dragons, knights, cowboys, witches, nurses, transformers, sentai-style robots that combine, insects, battleships, UFO's, superheroes, jeeps, tanks, you name it. The thing that sets it apart from the pokemon franchise is that while your units can level up and get more HP based on how many battles they win, it's by no means stat based. You're controlling all the fast paced action. If you're good enough with your scrawny little basic Ninja, you can make him worth much more than his measly 150 points would suggest.
I've already typed too much on it, so let me say this: If you can manage to find a copy, it's the best fun you can have with your Cube.
7. Crackdown
A few years ago before Halo 3 came out, word got out that there was going to be a multiplayer beta. The only way to get into the multiplayer beta was via the menu of an otherwise little touted game called Crackdown, to this day one of the only truly exclusive titles to the Xbox360. Crackdown itself ended up being tons more fun than anything Halo could ever do.
Crackdown is an open-world game much like GTA. That's where the similarities stop. You play an Agent, a genetically engineered supercop who has superpowers, namely the ability to leap high in the air, the ability to take four billion bullets to the face and not die, the ability to throw cars like they were made of marzipan, and a super secret agency that provides you with morphing supercars. Your job? Take a rifle, take a rocket launcher, take your sweet-ass morphing car and shoot the fuck out of any dude who sort of looks like a gang member. Not only is the game a blast and action packed, but it's revolutionary in several key aspects.
While you level up most of your abilities by killing people with them, you level up your agility by hopping over the city rooftops and collecting orbs. The more orbs you collect, the higher you jump, and the higher you jump, the more orbs you can reach. It's more addicting and useful than any other "collect this shit spread all over the city" mechanic I've ever seen.
Each gang lieutenant you take out affects the final boss of that area. For example, take out his personal trainer, and all his guards have their health reduced. Take out his recruiter, and there are less guards. Assassin's Creed was basically a dumbed down version of Crackdown: Instead of killing subordinates you did stupid little minigame missions, and instead of affecting the final showdown of an area, all you got was info. While there were flags and other things to collect cleverly spread out throughout the cities and countryside, they didn't do jack shit.
Last but not least, Crackdown has the most unique open world city I've ever seen. It's not New York or Faux New York. It's its own city with its own neighborhoods, architecture, and culture. The game is dirt cheap right now, so buy it if you don't own it.
6. Freedom Force
Long before Bioshock was even a twinkle in Ken Levine's eye, he happened to make the best superhero game ever made using characters he made up himself. That game was Freedom Force, a game belonging to a genre that has yet to be duplicated as far as I know, although the X-men Legends series and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance come close in an arcadey sort of way. Freedom Force is Levine's love letter to the silver age of comics, what most of you would refer to as early 60's comics. The art style, storyline, characters and dialog are all absolutely spot on perfect, in addition to being totally revolutionary. Freedom Force has the best character creation system I've ever seen, albeit one that requires you either download or make a 3d model and skin yourself. After you do that, you can edit a character's stats, attributes, body material, voice, and every aspect of his powers, from damage type (of which there are hundreds), to effects, to type of power (ranged, melee, etc), and more. It, and its sequel Freedom Force vs. the Third Reich are truly groundbreaking games that have no equal.
5. Blood
Everyone's played Duke Nukem 3D. If you HAVEN'T, you're not really a gamer (looking at YOU, Chambers). Duke Nukem was revolutionary in its day, because not only was it a groundbreaking FPS with an unprecedented level of interactivity, but because it was truly funny. Most of it was juvenile retard-humor, but an FPS with a sense of humor was unheard of back in those days. Well, Blood was that game but transposed into a horror setting and better in every way.
Blood ran on the same engine as DN3D, and featured a story about a jilted cult member rising from the dead to take vengeance on a dark god that spurned him. The thing that sets Blood apart is that there are secrets roughly every two steps you take. Some of them are just little walls that come down to reveal health or weapons, but most of them feature great jokes. One that sticks out in my mind is wandering through a hedge maze in the snow, an astute player will find a frozen body holding an axe, and the player character will say "Heeeeere's Johnny!" (in reference to the Shining). Zombie heads can be kicked if they fall off the zombie's body. Disembodied hands come after you, squealing "I'll swallow your soul". Weapons include the standard shotgun and machine gun, but also feature crowd pleasers like "lighter and hairspray", "flare gun" and "voodoo doll". If I remember correctly, it was also one of the first games that made use of the secondary mouse button for alternate fire purposes as well. To this day, it's the finest FPS experience ever crafted, and has yet to be touched, although Serious Sam came close.
4. Shadow Warrior
Everything I said about Blood? Ditto on Shadow Warrior. A sister game to Blood, Shadow Warrior also ran on the DN3D engine, and transposed that type of game to an asian kung-fu motif. Shadow Warrior also had tons of secrets and in jokes, as well as a couple of innovations of its own: Shadow Warrior is the first FPS to feature Dual Wielding, and is one of the earliest appearances of anime influence in a western game (during many of the secrets, the player will stumble upon a naked anime chick covering herself, either bathing or going to the bathroom, and she'll open fire on the player after he utters some ridiculous sexist pickup line).
3. Elite Beat Agents
The DS has largely squandered the good name it worked so hard to get in its early days. The platform, who used to be a hotbed of true creativity and innovation, is now largely a dumping ground for truly terrible embarrassing shit. One of the last great games to come out of Nintendo, Elite Beat Agents is the best music game you'll ever play. The premise goes that when you're in trouble, when you're at the end of your rope and feel like you can't go on, the EBA will show up in some radical vehicle to help pump you up and inspire you to achieve your goal through the power of rockin' songs and awesome dance moves. Weird? You bet. Fucking awesome? You also bet. Gameplay consists of you tapping dots, dragging your stylus on a track, and spinning discs in time to the beat of a song. Each song is broken up into three sections and before, after, and during each song there's cutscenes that set up your current mission. Your progress is shown on the upper screen: Do well, and the person you're cheering on does well in whatever they're doing. Do poorly, and they fail.
Missions include shrinking down to cheer on a white blood cell (shown here as a sexy nurse) to fight off viruses, traveling back in time to make Leonardo DaVinci fall in love with Mona Lisa, cheering on a treasure hunter trying to strike it big, and empowering a mother to do whatever it takes to make tomorrow a sunny day so she can take her son on a picnic. It also has the saddest and raddest moments in any videogame ever: A little girl's father has died, but he promised to be there for her for Christmas, so the EBA bring the father's ghost back to her through the sheer power of being fucking awesome, and then the EBA unite the world in rocking out to repel an alien armada. The ending consists of everyone on earth rocking so hard under the guidance of the EBA that the earth shoots out a beam of pure rock energy that destroys the alien mothership.
No, I'm not joking.
Everyone in the videogame industry can go home, that is officially the most awesome thing that will ever happen in a videogame. The fact that Nintendo never greenlit an EBA 2 despite its Japanese counterpart Ouendan 2 burning up the sales charts is the most damning piece of evidence for Nintendo being a lame company that cares little for innovation.
2. Knights of the Old Republic II
I debated whether to put this on the list: A ton of people have played KOTOR I, but I think a lot of people avoided the sequel because it got lackluster reviews and wasn't done by the same team. A mistake, as while the game is ridiculously buggy, clearly unfinished and lacking any sort of real ending, what IS there is probably the best written game on the planet. Each character in KOTOR II has hidden facets to their personality that don't come out unless you talk to them and really dig. Truly fascinating philosophical questions like "what exactly is good and evil?" permeate every moment in the game. Every action you make effects your teammates, and they react accordingly. HK-47 and G0-T0 are some of the most entertaining characters I've ever seen in a game, and Kreia is the best written female character I've ever seen in a game. The game's not for everyone: It was rushed, so there are bugs galore, the combat is piss easy even on the hardest difficulty, and as was stated before, there is no real ending to the game, but everyone at least needs to play through it at least once, but probably more than that, as it's impossible to see everything in even two playthroughs. There is a fan made patch in the works that will restore large, important chunks of content, but it's been in development for four years, so odds are it will never come out. Assuming it does however, it will (almost) complete one of the best games of all time.
1. Chrono Trigger
I almost put Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard here because I think it's literally going to sell five copies, but I've already talked about it. It's good stuff, go buy it. No, instead I'm going to talk about a game that most people reading this haven't played but should.
Let's face it: The Japanese can't write for shit. Any time they try and tackle anything more complicated than basic high school drama, you get pretty sounding, metaphor-laden writing that doesn't mean anything and talks about how the stars are our friends and friendship is like an ocean of happiness in the sky and bullshit like that. This is why most JRPG's fail and Chrono Trigger stands tall among the rest: It keeps it simple. No one talks about how birds are like dreams of the heart that soar: they talk very straightforward and normally, like actual people.
The cast is also one of the greatest in game history: Where else in one game can you have a robot from the future, a knight who's also a frog, a cavewoman, and a scientific genius on the same team? The game also revolutionized turn based combat by eliminating random battles and having them take place instantly with no battle transitions. It's also immune to the tragic effects of homo-fication that so many other JRPG's suffer from, as it features character designs by Akira Toriyama, he of Dragonball fame. To top it all off, the story is epic like none other, chronicling the entire history of a world, from its infancy to tragic death through the power of time travel.
All these factors combine to form a game that blows every other Final Fantasy game out of the water, and it still stands as the best thing Square has ever made. Everyone who loves JRPG's should play this game to see what they could be if people would stop buying games that feature gay ladyboys.
10. Burnout Paradise
A few years ago, downloadable content was a non-existent phrase. To console gamers, it was a theoretical "maybe" of the far flung future, and to PC gamers it was an every day reality called "mods" that had existed for a decade or more. Over the last few years, downloadable content has burst onto the scene, and with it comes many the sticky, grubby hands of capitalism. The industry's already produced many sordid, almost comedic examples of how to do DLC wrong; thankfully, there's one company out there who knows how to do it right.
Criterion Game's Burnout Paradise is not only the finest racing game this console generation, but a shining example for all other publishers that actually give a fuck about their customers on how to do DLC right. Since the game came out, there's been many updates, both free and paid, that have evolved the game to a higher level and won them many fans, and they show no signs of slowing down. Burnout Paradise is only $19.99 at a retailer near you, so you have no excuse not to own this game. Did I mention one of the updates lets you drive the General Lee, K.I.T.T., the DeLorean and Ecto-1? Yeah, there you go.
9. Braid
Braid is a unique gem. A game that does what few indie, downloadable games are able to do: transcend its roots to stand on its own amongst the big boy titles. The game, more than any other I've seen, is a work of art in every sense of the word. The story is painfully pretentious, but gives the game a feeling unique to the medium. The art is unparalleled. The puzzles in the game are second to none in terms of sheer mind-fuckage and creativity. It's superior on every level. There are some of my friends who don't like the game because the main character looks stupid or the story's too pretentious, but they have dumb faces that are dumb.
8. Gotcha Force
Back in the mid days of the Gamecube when Nintendo still sort of cared about trying to pretend they weren't a massive failure, Capcom was their biggest supporter. One year, they touted the Five, a list of games that were exclusive to the system and blockbusters. This list included the sublime Viewtiful Joe, the forgettable P.N. 03, and the canceled Red Revolver. What it DIDN'T include was Gotcha Force, a game that was also exclusive to the Cube and better than all the other games combined. Capcom didn't advertise it whatsoever, didn't put out very many copies, and it got poor reviews from people who routinely suck the dick of the far inferior Pokemon franchise. The result? To this day it remains the best game no one's played on the system.
So what's it about? You control Gotcha Borgs, little toy-sized robots that fight each other. The battles take place in various arenas (backyard, gutter, playground, etc.) and whoever you fight and defeat during that particular skirmish, you have a chance to either win outright or win a piece of them. You assemble your fighting force from the robots you've won. Each robot has a cost, and each fight you win adds ten points to your spending limit, so you can either have a team of a bunch of small robots, or a team composed of one badass robot. Those robots are then sent out, one at a time, to deal with the waves of enemies in any given battle.
Here's the fun part: There are over 300 playable characters, each one with a unique playstyle. All of them are easy to pick up and use, hard to master. They run the gamut of everything possible: There are dragons, knights, cowboys, witches, nurses, transformers, sentai-style robots that combine, insects, battleships, UFO's, superheroes, jeeps, tanks, you name it. The thing that sets it apart from the pokemon franchise is that while your units can level up and get more HP based on how many battles they win, it's by no means stat based. You're controlling all the fast paced action. If you're good enough with your scrawny little basic Ninja, you can make him worth much more than his measly 150 points would suggest.
I've already typed too much on it, so let me say this: If you can manage to find a copy, it's the best fun you can have with your Cube.
7. Crackdown
A few years ago before Halo 3 came out, word got out that there was going to be a multiplayer beta. The only way to get into the multiplayer beta was via the menu of an otherwise little touted game called Crackdown, to this day one of the only truly exclusive titles to the Xbox360. Crackdown itself ended up being tons more fun than anything Halo could ever do.
Crackdown is an open-world game much like GTA. That's where the similarities stop. You play an Agent, a genetically engineered supercop who has superpowers, namely the ability to leap high in the air, the ability to take four billion bullets to the face and not die, the ability to throw cars like they were made of marzipan, and a super secret agency that provides you with morphing supercars. Your job? Take a rifle, take a rocket launcher, take your sweet-ass morphing car and shoot the fuck out of any dude who sort of looks like a gang member. Not only is the game a blast and action packed, but it's revolutionary in several key aspects.
While you level up most of your abilities by killing people with them, you level up your agility by hopping over the city rooftops and collecting orbs. The more orbs you collect, the higher you jump, and the higher you jump, the more orbs you can reach. It's more addicting and useful than any other "collect this shit spread all over the city" mechanic I've ever seen.
Each gang lieutenant you take out affects the final boss of that area. For example, take out his personal trainer, and all his guards have their health reduced. Take out his recruiter, and there are less guards. Assassin's Creed was basically a dumbed down version of Crackdown: Instead of killing subordinates you did stupid little minigame missions, and instead of affecting the final showdown of an area, all you got was info. While there were flags and other things to collect cleverly spread out throughout the cities and countryside, they didn't do jack shit.
Last but not least, Crackdown has the most unique open world city I've ever seen. It's not New York or Faux New York. It's its own city with its own neighborhoods, architecture, and culture. The game is dirt cheap right now, so buy it if you don't own it.
6. Freedom Force
Long before Bioshock was even a twinkle in Ken Levine's eye, he happened to make the best superhero game ever made using characters he made up himself. That game was Freedom Force, a game belonging to a genre that has yet to be duplicated as far as I know, although the X-men Legends series and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance come close in an arcadey sort of way. Freedom Force is Levine's love letter to the silver age of comics, what most of you would refer to as early 60's comics. The art style, storyline, characters and dialog are all absolutely spot on perfect, in addition to being totally revolutionary. Freedom Force has the best character creation system I've ever seen, albeit one that requires you either download or make a 3d model and skin yourself. After you do that, you can edit a character's stats, attributes, body material, voice, and every aspect of his powers, from damage type (of which there are hundreds), to effects, to type of power (ranged, melee, etc), and more. It, and its sequel Freedom Force vs. the Third Reich are truly groundbreaking games that have no equal.
5. Blood
Everyone's played Duke Nukem 3D. If you HAVEN'T, you're not really a gamer (looking at YOU, Chambers). Duke Nukem was revolutionary in its day, because not only was it a groundbreaking FPS with an unprecedented level of interactivity, but because it was truly funny. Most of it was juvenile retard-humor, but an FPS with a sense of humor was unheard of back in those days. Well, Blood was that game but transposed into a horror setting and better in every way.
Blood ran on the same engine as DN3D, and featured a story about a jilted cult member rising from the dead to take vengeance on a dark god that spurned him. The thing that sets Blood apart is that there are secrets roughly every two steps you take. Some of them are just little walls that come down to reveal health or weapons, but most of them feature great jokes. One that sticks out in my mind is wandering through a hedge maze in the snow, an astute player will find a frozen body holding an axe, and the player character will say "Heeeeere's Johnny!" (in reference to the Shining). Zombie heads can be kicked if they fall off the zombie's body. Disembodied hands come after you, squealing "I'll swallow your soul". Weapons include the standard shotgun and machine gun, but also feature crowd pleasers like "lighter and hairspray", "flare gun" and "voodoo doll". If I remember correctly, it was also one of the first games that made use of the secondary mouse button for alternate fire purposes as well. To this day, it's the finest FPS experience ever crafted, and has yet to be touched, although Serious Sam came close.
4. Shadow Warrior
Everything I said about Blood? Ditto on Shadow Warrior. A sister game to Blood, Shadow Warrior also ran on the DN3D engine, and transposed that type of game to an asian kung-fu motif. Shadow Warrior also had tons of secrets and in jokes, as well as a couple of innovations of its own: Shadow Warrior is the first FPS to feature Dual Wielding, and is one of the earliest appearances of anime influence in a western game (during many of the secrets, the player will stumble upon a naked anime chick covering herself, either bathing or going to the bathroom, and she'll open fire on the player after he utters some ridiculous sexist pickup line).
3. Elite Beat Agents
The DS has largely squandered the good name it worked so hard to get in its early days. The platform, who used to be a hotbed of true creativity and innovation, is now largely a dumping ground for truly terrible embarrassing shit. One of the last great games to come out of Nintendo, Elite Beat Agents is the best music game you'll ever play. The premise goes that when you're in trouble, when you're at the end of your rope and feel like you can't go on, the EBA will show up in some radical vehicle to help pump you up and inspire you to achieve your goal through the power of rockin' songs and awesome dance moves. Weird? You bet. Fucking awesome? You also bet. Gameplay consists of you tapping dots, dragging your stylus on a track, and spinning discs in time to the beat of a song. Each song is broken up into three sections and before, after, and during each song there's cutscenes that set up your current mission. Your progress is shown on the upper screen: Do well, and the person you're cheering on does well in whatever they're doing. Do poorly, and they fail.
Missions include shrinking down to cheer on a white blood cell (shown here as a sexy nurse) to fight off viruses, traveling back in time to make Leonardo DaVinci fall in love with Mona Lisa, cheering on a treasure hunter trying to strike it big, and empowering a mother to do whatever it takes to make tomorrow a sunny day so she can take her son on a picnic. It also has the saddest and raddest moments in any videogame ever: A little girl's father has died, but he promised to be there for her for Christmas, so the EBA bring the father's ghost back to her through the sheer power of being fucking awesome, and then the EBA unite the world in rocking out to repel an alien armada. The ending consists of everyone on earth rocking so hard under the guidance of the EBA that the earth shoots out a beam of pure rock energy that destroys the alien mothership.
No, I'm not joking.
Everyone in the videogame industry can go home, that is officially the most awesome thing that will ever happen in a videogame. The fact that Nintendo never greenlit an EBA 2 despite its Japanese counterpart Ouendan 2 burning up the sales charts is the most damning piece of evidence for Nintendo being a lame company that cares little for innovation.
2. Knights of the Old Republic II
I debated whether to put this on the list: A ton of people have played KOTOR I, but I think a lot of people avoided the sequel because it got lackluster reviews and wasn't done by the same team. A mistake, as while the game is ridiculously buggy, clearly unfinished and lacking any sort of real ending, what IS there is probably the best written game on the planet. Each character in KOTOR II has hidden facets to their personality that don't come out unless you talk to them and really dig. Truly fascinating philosophical questions like "what exactly is good and evil?" permeate every moment in the game. Every action you make effects your teammates, and they react accordingly. HK-47 and G0-T0 are some of the most entertaining characters I've ever seen in a game, and Kreia is the best written female character I've ever seen in a game. The game's not for everyone: It was rushed, so there are bugs galore, the combat is piss easy even on the hardest difficulty, and as was stated before, there is no real ending to the game, but everyone at least needs to play through it at least once, but probably more than that, as it's impossible to see everything in even two playthroughs. There is a fan made patch in the works that will restore large, important chunks of content, but it's been in development for four years, so odds are it will never come out. Assuming it does however, it will (almost) complete one of the best games of all time.
1. Chrono Trigger
I almost put Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard here because I think it's literally going to sell five copies, but I've already talked about it. It's good stuff, go buy it. No, instead I'm going to talk about a game that most people reading this haven't played but should.
Let's face it: The Japanese can't write for shit. Any time they try and tackle anything more complicated than basic high school drama, you get pretty sounding, metaphor-laden writing that doesn't mean anything and talks about how the stars are our friends and friendship is like an ocean of happiness in the sky and bullshit like that. This is why most JRPG's fail and Chrono Trigger stands tall among the rest: It keeps it simple. No one talks about how birds are like dreams of the heart that soar: they talk very straightforward and normally, like actual people.
The cast is also one of the greatest in game history: Where else in one game can you have a robot from the future, a knight who's also a frog, a cavewoman, and a scientific genius on the same team? The game also revolutionized turn based combat by eliminating random battles and having them take place instantly with no battle transitions. It's also immune to the tragic effects of homo-fication that so many other JRPG's suffer from, as it features character designs by Akira Toriyama, he of Dragonball fame. To top it all off, the story is epic like none other, chronicling the entire history of a world, from its infancy to tragic death through the power of time travel.
All these factors combine to form a game that blows every other Final Fantasy game out of the water, and it still stands as the best thing Square has ever made. Everyone who loves JRPG's should play this game to see what they could be if people would stop buying games that feature gay ladyboys.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
MORE LIKE CRAPCOM AMIRITE
I have a love/hate thing going on with Capcom. Capcom is much like Nintendo That Was. When they give a shit about what they do, they turn out solid gold. They churn out diamond encrusted platinum games. Games that define and/or create genres and go down in history.
Problem is, Capcom only does this sometimes. They go in bursts. They'll create something huge, like Megaman, or Street Fighter, or Beat-'Em-Ups, or Resident Evil, or Devil May Cry, They'll milk it for years until the public's aboslutely sick of it, and then they'll drop it like it's made of superheated plutonium covered in butter. Here's the sad part: The stuff they put out in their "milking" phase isn't that bad. It's just not nearly as good as what could be. See: numerous fighting game iterations using the exact same sprite sets, fourteen billion Megaman Battle Network games, Onimusha and Dino Crisis trying and failing to be a hit, Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop, etc.
The other thing that's clearly evident to me now is that Capcom has literally no idea what they're doing. The only way any money is ever made by that company is when some high up exec begrudgingly lets one of their people make their idea into a game. Their only strategy is to throw money after projects that have either made money in the past (Resident Evil) or throw money at projects that look like projects that have made other people money (Lost Planet). Beyond that, they greenlight only what they're begged to greenlight on hands and knees, and even a greenlight doesn't mean that the project is going to be advertised once it's completed.
I'm not going to list Capcom's numerous crimes right now, mostly because half of them are perpetrated by Keiji Inafune, who's not really the target of my wrath here. However, it's clear that the people in charge of Capcom have so little idea what they're doing, there's no reason they shouldn't be fired at this point. Need proof? Look no further than SFIV. 2 years ago, Capcom flatly stated that Street Fighter was a dead franchise, no one cared about it anymore, and they were absolutely convinced the most profitable route was to move on to other things. Capcom of America BEGGED Capcom to make another Street Fighter, saying that "hey, it still has a pretty big fan following, you know". Cut to today, SFIV has made millions. I'll be surprised if RE5 makes as much money for them. Same deal with Bionic Commando. Factions within Capcom said it was like pulling teeth to get the project greenlit, and it went on to become one of the highest selling XBLA games of all time.
Now, i'm aware that part of the reason that SFIV sold so much is that there hadn't been a proper Street Fighter game in over a decade. Had there been a yearly SF game, something like SFIV would have sold like balls. I highly doubt that was part of their master plan, however.
On the flipside, you have Capcom's mind-boggling dogged support of the Lost Planet franchise. Before the game was even released, they shopped out the movie rights, planned a collector's edition, ports to other systems, the works, all before seeing public reaction. The game sold well so I hear, but got piss poor reviews for a Capcom game. Trying to make a movie out of the story of that fucking thing is going to be like trying to write a book about some kid's MSpaint drawings. Good luck with that, guys. They just announced Lost Planet 2 to an overwhelming "Uh, so?". And still they press on with the attitude of "WE'LL MAKE YOU LIKE IT DAMMIT".
The depressing thing is that they probably don't care if it's a hit or not. As long as it's not a loss money-wise, they don't care. They don't even do the greedy corporation thing of trying to maximize profit, if it makes any profit at all, they're good. Meanwhile, they're sitting on about ten franchises right now they could dust off, inject with a little marketing and effortlessly make billions with instead of this Halo rip-off garbage. Morrigan and Felicia are still instantly recognizable video game icons, despite being from a fighting game that only had three installments in the US, none of which sold incredibly well and the last of which was fifteen years ago. Is Capcom currently planning a game about the big-chested succubus sex queen? Fuck no guys, it's time to shoot angry fireflies in the snow, here we go. Are you fucking kidding me? The thing that really overloads my plasma cannon about all this is that it's not fucking hard to see what would be a hit. You toss a PM to any random fucktard in a gaming forum and they'll give you a five year plan for projects that would enable Capcom to climb to the goddamned moon on a pile of money.
You know what? Keiji Inafune, much as I hate his fucking guts, has wanted to make Megaman Legends 3 for what, ten years now? The answer from Capcom HQ has always been the same: "We can't see that making a profit". Well, guess what faggots, you didn't see Street Fighter making a profit either, and it just paid for your gold plated hookers to tell you your tiny Japanese dicks aren't really that tiny for another month, so maybe you should shut the fuck up, listen to your goddamned talent, throw your advertising department behind him and let him make his fucking game.
Of course, knowing good ol' Inafune, he'd make a Megaman Legends where the entire game has a time limit, and if you fire your Mega Buster more than five times without saving your console explodes, but at least give the man enough rope to hang himself with.
Problem is, Capcom only does this sometimes. They go in bursts. They'll create something huge, like Megaman, or Street Fighter, or Beat-'Em-Ups, or Resident Evil, or Devil May Cry, They'll milk it for years until the public's aboslutely sick of it, and then they'll drop it like it's made of superheated plutonium covered in butter. Here's the sad part: The stuff they put out in their "milking" phase isn't that bad. It's just not nearly as good as what could be. See: numerous fighting game iterations using the exact same sprite sets, fourteen billion Megaman Battle Network games, Onimusha and Dino Crisis trying and failing to be a hit, Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop, etc.
The other thing that's clearly evident to me now is that Capcom has literally no idea what they're doing. The only way any money is ever made by that company is when some high up exec begrudgingly lets one of their people make their idea into a game. Their only strategy is to throw money after projects that have either made money in the past (Resident Evil) or throw money at projects that look like projects that have made other people money (Lost Planet). Beyond that, they greenlight only what they're begged to greenlight on hands and knees, and even a greenlight doesn't mean that the project is going to be advertised once it's completed.
I'm not going to list Capcom's numerous crimes right now, mostly because half of them are perpetrated by Keiji Inafune, who's not really the target of my wrath here. However, it's clear that the people in charge of Capcom have so little idea what they're doing, there's no reason they shouldn't be fired at this point. Need proof? Look no further than SFIV. 2 years ago, Capcom flatly stated that Street Fighter was a dead franchise, no one cared about it anymore, and they were absolutely convinced the most profitable route was to move on to other things. Capcom of America BEGGED Capcom to make another Street Fighter, saying that "hey, it still has a pretty big fan following, you know". Cut to today, SFIV has made millions. I'll be surprised if RE5 makes as much money for them. Same deal with Bionic Commando. Factions within Capcom said it was like pulling teeth to get the project greenlit, and it went on to become one of the highest selling XBLA games of all time.
Now, i'm aware that part of the reason that SFIV sold so much is that there hadn't been a proper Street Fighter game in over a decade. Had there been a yearly SF game, something like SFIV would have sold like balls. I highly doubt that was part of their master plan, however.
On the flipside, you have Capcom's mind-boggling dogged support of the Lost Planet franchise. Before the game was even released, they shopped out the movie rights, planned a collector's edition, ports to other systems, the works, all before seeing public reaction. The game sold well so I hear, but got piss poor reviews for a Capcom game. Trying to make a movie out of the story of that fucking thing is going to be like trying to write a book about some kid's MSpaint drawings. Good luck with that, guys. They just announced Lost Planet 2 to an overwhelming "Uh, so?". And still they press on with the attitude of "WE'LL MAKE YOU LIKE IT DAMMIT".
The depressing thing is that they probably don't care if it's a hit or not. As long as it's not a loss money-wise, they don't care. They don't even do the greedy corporation thing of trying to maximize profit, if it makes any profit at all, they're good. Meanwhile, they're sitting on about ten franchises right now they could dust off, inject with a little marketing and effortlessly make billions with instead of this Halo rip-off garbage. Morrigan and Felicia are still instantly recognizable video game icons, despite being from a fighting game that only had three installments in the US, none of which sold incredibly well and the last of which was fifteen years ago. Is Capcom currently planning a game about the big-chested succubus sex queen? Fuck no guys, it's time to shoot angry fireflies in the snow, here we go. Are you fucking kidding me? The thing that really overloads my plasma cannon about all this is that it's not fucking hard to see what would be a hit. You toss a PM to any random fucktard in a gaming forum and they'll give you a five year plan for projects that would enable Capcom to climb to the goddamned moon on a pile of money.
You know what? Keiji Inafune, much as I hate his fucking guts, has wanted to make Megaman Legends 3 for what, ten years now? The answer from Capcom HQ has always been the same: "We can't see that making a profit". Well, guess what faggots, you didn't see Street Fighter making a profit either, and it just paid for your gold plated hookers to tell you your tiny Japanese dicks aren't really that tiny for another month, so maybe you should shut the fuck up, listen to your goddamned talent, throw your advertising department behind him and let him make his fucking game.
Of course, knowing good ol' Inafune, he'd make a Megaman Legends where the entire game has a time limit, and if you fire your Mega Buster more than five times without saving your console explodes, but at least give the man enough rope to hang himself with.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Eat Lead!
There's a game coming out March 9th that you may or may not have heard of; it's called Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard. Every single person reading this should buy this game, and I'll tell you why: It's the first game I've seen in literally about a decade that is a parody of the games industry itself, barring independent games like Barkley Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden (which is another must play. Google it, seriously. It's free and one of the best free games ever made).
Here's the deal: Matt Hazard (played by Will Arnett) is a washed up 80's video-game star, think the dude from Contra crossed with Duke Nukem. He had a big career, but faded from popularity and retired. Now, a game CEO (played by Neil Patrick Harris) wants him to star in a new game... except it's a trap designed to kill him. The plot is pretty much an excuse to go nuts and have fun at the expense of the game industry. There's a fight against a JRPG character, a level that's basically Wolfenstien complete with pixely blue walls and sprite based soldiers, plus other wackiness galore. It looks like an absolute blast, and already has the best jokes in a retail videogame that I've ever seen.
If anyone ever asks about my severe lack of motivation, I'll point them to this game. Why? Well, It's pretty much the game I would make had I the money, talent, and time. What's the point of following your dreams when everyone's doing what you would do but better all the time? I'm not bitter though, far from it. It's uplifting to see that a publisher greenlit and funded this, gives my ideas validation. I'll be happy to just play it. Here's hoping it doesn't suck ass to actually play.
Going back to the "story in games" theme, this game is probably the most important game of 2009 in that respect. If you look at gaming's short history from the perspective of a kid growing up, you can clearly see the industry's current maturity level. This is why I'm fascinated with videogames as a medium: It's the only medium whose birth I was present for. Gaming so far has literally grown up with me, although entire mediums tend to grow up slower than a single human. In the beginning, and for close to fifteen years afterwards, story in games rarely went beyond "save the princess". That's fine. The industry was in its infancy, and thus created stories a child might when playing in the backyard. There were rare flashes of early maturity ("Custer's Revenge" comes to mind) but unfortunately videogames had their progress stunted for a few years by the great Atari crash.
In the early 90's, you had the PC gamer boom, and with it a clear leap into early adolescence. Stories shifted from "save the princess" to "please kill everything you see isn't blood so awesome by the way" very quickly, and that in turn quickly gave way to sophmoric, crude humor. That's important, because it showed growth and advancement, but more importantly the first sparks of parody were showing, which is a literary and developmetary milestone. I'm of course talking about Duke Nukem and his bretheren Blood and Shadow Warrior, three of the best, most original FPS's ever made. (There also was of course the point and click boom of the late 80's/early 90's. This era was important but less so, as that genre is largely forgotten and dead. Still, it is to this day a repository of game's best writing and humor).
Seriously guys, I hate to sound like a retrofaggot, but those FPS's have yet to be surpassed by anything released today, graphics be damned, mostly because they combine great graphics, awesome action, and (this is the important part) loads of humor. They're truly funny games, albeit crude. Then Quake 1 hit, and it was forever more uncool to be funny in videogames. This was a great step backwards in terms of games coming into their own as an art form, because you can't grow if you can't make fun of yourself. Some of literature's greatest writers have been masters of satire. Without parody, all your serious stories are really just navel gazing.
So all through the mid to late 90's and up until today, games have largely been stuck in their late teen years: so wanting to be taken seriously that they eschew humor and instead try (and fail) to be deep. Occasional bright spots show through, but games are stuck firmly in action and drama obsessed early adolescence.
A few years ago I took a chance on a wacky looking, cheap FPS called Serious Sam. The first chapter (of two) was twenty bucks new, from an up and coming dev team from Croatia. It was the best twenty bucks I ever spent, because it was basically Duke Nukem reborn. Tons of secrets, tons of humor, truly unique gameplay. At the time, I thought a savior had arrived: Funny games were back. (Not only that, it was the best argument i'd ever seen against bloated game budgets. These upstarts from a poor European nation made a radical, powerful game engine from scratch, made a truly unique game experience filled with tons of creativity, sold it for twenty dollars new and made a profit. You need a million dollar budget and hundreds of people to make a game and that's why it costs sixty dollars even though it lasts 6 hours? Fuck you).
Unfortunately, CroTeam (Sam's devs) really didn't have much staying power. When the time came to make a true sequel, Serious Sam 2, they just didn't have any steam left. It wasn't funny, it looked like crap, and it wasn't fun. They (along with Sam) have yet to resurface, which is a shame, but here's round two in the wings, and here's hoping the industry sits up and takes notice. Regardless of how it plays, it's already the most clever game of 2009.
I have a sneaking suspicion that Matt Hazard is going to sell like crap because it's only getting the most meager of coverage, but at least it's getting released. One step at a time games, and one day you'll be able to sit at the big boy's table.
Here's the deal: Matt Hazard (played by Will Arnett) is a washed up 80's video-game star, think the dude from Contra crossed with Duke Nukem. He had a big career, but faded from popularity and retired. Now, a game CEO (played by Neil Patrick Harris) wants him to star in a new game... except it's a trap designed to kill him. The plot is pretty much an excuse to go nuts and have fun at the expense of the game industry. There's a fight against a JRPG character, a level that's basically Wolfenstien complete with pixely blue walls and sprite based soldiers, plus other wackiness galore. It looks like an absolute blast, and already has the best jokes in a retail videogame that I've ever seen.
If anyone ever asks about my severe lack of motivation, I'll point them to this game. Why? Well, It's pretty much the game I would make had I the money, talent, and time. What's the point of following your dreams when everyone's doing what you would do but better all the time? I'm not bitter though, far from it. It's uplifting to see that a publisher greenlit and funded this, gives my ideas validation. I'll be happy to just play it. Here's hoping it doesn't suck ass to actually play.
Going back to the "story in games" theme, this game is probably the most important game of 2009 in that respect. If you look at gaming's short history from the perspective of a kid growing up, you can clearly see the industry's current maturity level. This is why I'm fascinated with videogames as a medium: It's the only medium whose birth I was present for. Gaming so far has literally grown up with me, although entire mediums tend to grow up slower than a single human. In the beginning, and for close to fifteen years afterwards, story in games rarely went beyond "save the princess". That's fine. The industry was in its infancy, and thus created stories a child might when playing in the backyard. There were rare flashes of early maturity ("Custer's Revenge" comes to mind) but unfortunately videogames had their progress stunted for a few years by the great Atari crash.
In the early 90's, you had the PC gamer boom, and with it a clear leap into early adolescence. Stories shifted from "save the princess" to "please kill everything you see isn't blood so awesome by the way" very quickly, and that in turn quickly gave way to sophmoric, crude humor. That's important, because it showed growth and advancement, but more importantly the first sparks of parody were showing, which is a literary and developmetary milestone. I'm of course talking about Duke Nukem and his bretheren Blood and Shadow Warrior, three of the best, most original FPS's ever made. (There also was of course the point and click boom of the late 80's/early 90's. This era was important but less so, as that genre is largely forgotten and dead. Still, it is to this day a repository of game's best writing and humor).
Seriously guys, I hate to sound like a retrofaggot, but those FPS's have yet to be surpassed by anything released today, graphics be damned, mostly because they combine great graphics, awesome action, and (this is the important part) loads of humor. They're truly funny games, albeit crude. Then Quake 1 hit, and it was forever more uncool to be funny in videogames. This was a great step backwards in terms of games coming into their own as an art form, because you can't grow if you can't make fun of yourself. Some of literature's greatest writers have been masters of satire. Without parody, all your serious stories are really just navel gazing.
So all through the mid to late 90's and up until today, games have largely been stuck in their late teen years: so wanting to be taken seriously that they eschew humor and instead try (and fail) to be deep. Occasional bright spots show through, but games are stuck firmly in action and drama obsessed early adolescence.
A few years ago I took a chance on a wacky looking, cheap FPS called Serious Sam. The first chapter (of two) was twenty bucks new, from an up and coming dev team from Croatia. It was the best twenty bucks I ever spent, because it was basically Duke Nukem reborn. Tons of secrets, tons of humor, truly unique gameplay. At the time, I thought a savior had arrived: Funny games were back. (Not only that, it was the best argument i'd ever seen against bloated game budgets. These upstarts from a poor European nation made a radical, powerful game engine from scratch, made a truly unique game experience filled with tons of creativity, sold it for twenty dollars new and made a profit. You need a million dollar budget and hundreds of people to make a game and that's why it costs sixty dollars even though it lasts 6 hours? Fuck you).
Unfortunately, CroTeam (Sam's devs) really didn't have much staying power. When the time came to make a true sequel, Serious Sam 2, they just didn't have any steam left. It wasn't funny, it looked like crap, and it wasn't fun. They (along with Sam) have yet to resurface, which is a shame, but here's round two in the wings, and here's hoping the industry sits up and takes notice. Regardless of how it plays, it's already the most clever game of 2009.
I have a sneaking suspicion that Matt Hazard is going to sell like crap because it's only getting the most meager of coverage, but at least it's getting released. One step at a time games, and one day you'll be able to sit at the big boy's table.
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