By Duane / 2010-03-26 10:22:41I have a question for you? What do games offer us? We've heard all the scientific stuff about motor reflexes, spatial awareness, problem solving. They're all great but still a little boring?
How about I propose to you that games, especially more modern games can offer the ability to experience an event. Movies and books can only really tell you whats happening, you become a voyeur. The experience is played out for you, but with a videogame that all becomes your own experience.
The Normandy landings are a great example of this, we all know what happened that day, we've heard the veterans tales, read news reports and been told all about the heroic events that led to the allied forces reclaiming the French coastline. Saving Private Ryan showed us how bloody, difficult and downright horrid the whole thing was (even though the man looking for his arm was kind of comical), yet games such as Medal of Honour allow us to live those moments for ourselves. Now admittedly its all glammed up a little bit, to make it entertaining. But that was the last generation of consoles, the Gamecube, XBox and PlayStation 2 era. Fast forward to the current generation of consoles and we have Call of Duty. The second Modern Warfare game, released at the tale end of last year doesn't really offer much in way of learning about the realities of war, save for the No Russian level which in itself felt a little crowbarred in to gain column inches. However its predecessor, Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare really gave a sense that the writers understood what they were writing about and moments such as the air strike really left a strange feeling. Now I'm not saying anyone playing these games would ever get a true understanding of warfare, thats impossible, but it gives the end user something closer to the experience than watching Band of Brothers.
It doesn't have to be living in a war either, games like Valve's Half Life 2 provide a living breathing world where every environment, house or person tells its own little story. Most of which without forcing it upon you, leaving you to discover for yourself, and on that chain of thought even Grand Theft Auto Iv can offer an experience unlike any movie. Whilst a films "hero" is escaping from the Police after a crime spree, he can only go where the director takes him, GTA IV gives the chance to take that back street, cut across the park or even change car and clothes in an attempt to shake the "Rozzers". It's not really true to life, but its offering us the kind of experience that pretty much most of us would never consider experiencing in the real world, and this is the positive thing games provide for us, the ability to experience something we could never experience or simply escape from our own surroundings, possibly taking any issue out on the virtual world in which the game lets us live and breath rather than suffering or forcing others to suffer if we don't have that control pad in our hands.
How about I propose to you that games, especially more modern games can offer the ability to experience an event. Movies and books can only really tell you whats happening, you become a voyeur. The experience is played out for you, but with a videogame that all becomes your own experience.
The Normandy landings are a great example of this, we all know what happened that day, we've heard the veterans tales, read news reports and been told all about the heroic events that led to the allied forces reclaiming the French coastline. Saving Private Ryan showed us how bloody, difficult and downright horrid the whole thing was (even though the man looking for his arm was kind of comical), yet games such as Medal of Honour allow us to live those moments for ourselves. Now admittedly its all glammed up a little bit, to make it entertaining. But that was the last generation of consoles, the Gamecube, XBox and PlayStation 2 era. Fast forward to the current generation of consoles and we have Call of Duty. The second Modern Warfare game, released at the tale end of last year doesn't really offer much in way of learning about the realities of war, save for the No Russian level which in itself felt a little crowbarred in to gain column inches. However its predecessor, Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare really gave a sense that the writers understood what they were writing about and moments such as the air strike really left a strange feeling. Now I'm not saying anyone playing these games would ever get a true understanding of warfare, thats impossible, but it gives the end user something closer to the experience than watching Band of Brothers.
It doesn't have to be living in a war either, games like Valve's Half Life 2 provide a living breathing world where every environment, house or person tells its own little story. Most of which without forcing it upon you, leaving you to discover for yourself, and on that chain of thought even Grand Theft Auto Iv can offer an experience unlike any movie. Whilst a films "hero" is escaping from the Police after a crime spree, he can only go where the director takes him, GTA IV gives the chance to take that back street, cut across the park or even change car and clothes in an attempt to shake the "Rozzers". It's not really true to life, but its offering us the kind of experience that pretty much most of us would never consider experiencing in the real world, and this is the positive thing games provide for us, the ability to experience something we could never experience or simply escape from our own surroundings, possibly taking any issue out on the virtual world in which the game lets us live and breath rather than suffering or forcing others to suffer if we don't have that control pad in our hands.
Why ITV's post-Titchmarsh response is inadequate
By Mark / 2010-03-23 17:14:18
Writing to ITV isn't going to change matters, it doesn't want to know- and this is why we'll never see the end of ill-informed violent videogames "debates" like that on Friday's episode of The Alan Titchmarsh Show.
I'll not waste your time taking you through the offending discussion again, the rest of the internet has pretty much handled that one for me. However, what I am going to bring up is the follow-up to the programme, and this is the way ITV have chosen to deal with the multitude of complaints.
Naturally, a programme this contentious is going to result in the broadcaster recieve a lot of complaints, and so far, the responses have left a lot to be desired.
Industry blog GameSetWatch sent an email of complaint, and this was the response they recieved:
Another, recieved by a member of pressure group Gamers' Voice, said the same thing, word for word, and other responses I've seen dotted around the web are no better.
ITV, so far, have shown no interest in acknowledging the views of those contacting to complain about the programme, preferring to stick their heads in the sand and say "We've done nothing wrong. Shut up and go away."
Now, there are a million things that could have made the debate this way- it could have been perfectly reasoned as a debate at the record, but been innocently hacked to pieces at the editing stage. It's unlikely, I admit, but I don't know that's not what happened. However, ITV have made no attempt to tell anyone that that is what happened, nor have they made any attempt to justify any specifics of the debate, or counter any accusations made against them.
There is a reason why younger generations, those who have grown up with games, are watching less and less TV- and it's nothing to do with how great games are, or on-demand content, or YouTube and Facebook or any of that. It's nonsense like this debate. This isn't some war in some far away foreign country I can't know anything about. This is something I have the facts to know it's nonsense, the evidence to know it's nonsense, and most importantly the first-hand experience to know it's nonsense.
I'm not having my time wasted by it, and so long as ITV is going to act like this, spouting ill-researched nonsense and constantly attacking games and the people who play them, then refusing to take on board any of the criticism levelled at them, people are going to continue to desert them.
By Mark / 2010-03-23 17:14:18
Writing to ITV isn't going to change matters, it doesn't want to know- and this is why we'll never see the end of ill-informed violent videogames "debates" like that on Friday's episode of The Alan Titchmarsh Show.
I'll not waste your time taking you through the offending discussion again, the rest of the internet has pretty much handled that one for me. However, what I am going to bring up is the follow-up to the programme, and this is the way ITV have chosen to deal with the multitude of complaints.
Naturally, a programme this contentious is going to result in the broadcaster recieve a lot of complaints, and so far, the responses have left a lot to be desired.
Industry blog GameSetWatch sent an email of complaint, and this was the response they recieved:
We, at Channel Television, ensure that the show complies with the Ofcom Broadcasting Code, and on this occasion were satisfied that although strong opinions were expressed it was a balanced debate overall. In addition to adhering to the standards set in the Code we have a responsibility to observe freedom of expression, as laid out in Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. We cannot, therefore, censor contributor's opinions, but can take steps to ensure that other contributors are present to challenge and debate the issues in question.
Another, recieved by a member of pressure group Gamers' Voice, said the same thing, word for word, and other responses I've seen dotted around the web are no better.
ITV, so far, have shown no interest in acknowledging the views of those contacting to complain about the programme, preferring to stick their heads in the sand and say "We've done nothing wrong. Shut up and go away."
Now, there are a million things that could have made the debate this way- it could have been perfectly reasoned as a debate at the record, but been innocently hacked to pieces at the editing stage. It's unlikely, I admit, but I don't know that's not what happened. However, ITV have made no attempt to tell anyone that that is what happened, nor have they made any attempt to justify any specifics of the debate, or counter any accusations made against them.
There is a reason why younger generations, those who have grown up with games, are watching less and less TV- and it's nothing to do with how great games are, or on-demand content, or YouTube and Facebook or any of that. It's nonsense like this debate. This isn't some war in some far away foreign country I can't know anything about. This is something I have the facts to know it's nonsense, the evidence to know it's nonsense, and most importantly the first-hand experience to know it's nonsense.
I'm not having my time wasted by it, and so long as ITV is going to act like this, spouting ill-researched nonsense and constantly attacking games and the people who play them, then refusing to take on board any of the criticism levelled at them, people are going to continue to desert them.
By Duane / 2010-03-21 10:24:54In today's "The Observer Magazine" (21/3/2010) author Tom Bissell writes an article detailing his addiction to videogames. Within the article are long descriptions of his experiences of playing Rockstars Grand Theft Auto series, and whilst large parts of the artile show a love of gaming and highlight the things that gaming can do that no other entertainment medium can its the overall negative outlook that the article creates that is as damaging to The Observers (and by relation The Guardians) mostly positive coverage of the videogames industry as it is to gamers such as you or I.
To begin with is the front page cover and photographs that accompany the article that depict males and females of varying ages (although never over the age of about 30) surrounded by black, their faces contorted in manic or even angry glares. Suggesting the habit of sitting in a darkened room and inability to control such emotions whilst playing a game.
The article itself has a heavy focus on the writers growing addiction to videogames, in particular Grand Theft Auto IV and how that had a negative affect on his writing, reading and other aspects of his life. Even linking his purchase of Grand Theft Auto IV to the use and eventual addiction to cocaine.
Despite the positive area's of the article, which essentially point out how a game can help you experience a story and the events within rather than just witness it, the overal focus on such things could easily lead the majority of people to think that all gamers are like this, that all gamers devote ridiculous amounts of their time to videogames and that all gamers have an inability to seperate themselves from their hobby and let it take over their lives. It's not hard, as a gamer, a writer and a family man, to find this article offensive, which is an incredible shame as The Guardian has seemingly been the one national paper thats always tried to be fair and just towards gaming as a medium, as a hobby and as an industry. However with this one article it could be argued that they have done themselves alot of damage.
The strong link between Bissell's drug abuse and games playing is particularly damaging, as his devotion to spending more time with his games than other pursuits that, from his article, he seem's to deem as more worthwhile than playing games. Speaking as someone who's main hobby is his gamesplaying, I still spend very little time actively playing games throughout the week compared to other things that exist in my life. In short I think I have a healthy balance between each of my hobbies aswell as my duties as a family man. The article doesn't seem to focus on balancing such hobbies, instead it focuses on his own personal addictions but makes no effort to show that his is an isolated case that maybe isn't the same for everyone that happens to play games. You don't hear stories of people who spend every waking moment reading books or watching movies, these past times are seemingly deemed as reasonable and worthy of attention, videogaming, it seems, is not and Tom Bissell is seemingly towing the line for such a belief rather than taking a stance and declaring that his situation is one that isn't the case for everybody else.
Of course its easy to say that such an assumption would be ridiculous, of course his case isn't the same as everybody elses, but videogames still aren't a widely accepted form of spending your time, note not "time wasting", nor do they offer anything valuable to the end user unlike films and books. But I'd say to those that believe such things that they are looking in the wrong places, or just not looking hard enough at what they are experiencing from such a medium.
Tom Bissell's article goes into depth in regards to the relationship he created between himself and Grand Theft Auto IV's protagonist Niko Belic, how it allowed him to reflect upon himself and society, and its easy to find other examples. Infinity Ward's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is widely regarded as an excellent commentary on warfare in our generation, Shadow of the Colossus offers an emotional impact thats impossible to create in any other medium and thats just a handful of experiences plucked from my own mind over the space of a couple of seconds, dig deeper and there's more on offer. The death of Aeris is a popular emotional link between the gamer and the game whilst games such as Fallout 3, Oblivion, Dragon Age Origins, Mass Effect (plus its sequel) and Fable 2 offer you moral choices throughout the yarn they spin in a manner thats more intelligent and certainly more viable than the efforts literature has attempted over the years, the most advanced of which are possibly the "Create Your Own Adventure" books that were written for children.
It's about time publications such as The Guardian and Observer took a stance, declared they were pro-gaming and published articles that created a positive light around games playing rather than the confused opinion they seem to be delivering when they print articles such as this.
What Do Video Games Do To US? - Tom Bissell
To begin with is the front page cover and photographs that accompany the article that depict males and females of varying ages (although never over the age of about 30) surrounded by black, their faces contorted in manic or even angry glares. Suggesting the habit of sitting in a darkened room and inability to control such emotions whilst playing a game.
The article itself has a heavy focus on the writers growing addiction to videogames, in particular Grand Theft Auto IV and how that had a negative affect on his writing, reading and other aspects of his life. Even linking his purchase of Grand Theft Auto IV to the use and eventual addiction to cocaine.
Despite the positive area's of the article, which essentially point out how a game can help you experience a story and the events within rather than just witness it, the overal focus on such things could easily lead the majority of people to think that all gamers are like this, that all gamers devote ridiculous amounts of their time to videogames and that all gamers have an inability to seperate themselves from their hobby and let it take over their lives. It's not hard, as a gamer, a writer and a family man, to find this article offensive, which is an incredible shame as The Guardian has seemingly been the one national paper thats always tried to be fair and just towards gaming as a medium, as a hobby and as an industry. However with this one article it could be argued that they have done themselves alot of damage.
The strong link between Bissell's drug abuse and games playing is particularly damaging, as his devotion to spending more time with his games than other pursuits that, from his article, he seem's to deem as more worthwhile than playing games. Speaking as someone who's main hobby is his gamesplaying, I still spend very little time actively playing games throughout the week compared to other things that exist in my life. In short I think I have a healthy balance between each of my hobbies aswell as my duties as a family man. The article doesn't seem to focus on balancing such hobbies, instead it focuses on his own personal addictions but makes no effort to show that his is an isolated case that maybe isn't the same for everyone that happens to play games. You don't hear stories of people who spend every waking moment reading books or watching movies, these past times are seemingly deemed as reasonable and worthy of attention, videogaming, it seems, is not and Tom Bissell is seemingly towing the line for such a belief rather than taking a stance and declaring that his situation is one that isn't the case for everybody else.
Of course its easy to say that such an assumption would be ridiculous, of course his case isn't the same as everybody elses, but videogames still aren't a widely accepted form of spending your time, note not "time wasting", nor do they offer anything valuable to the end user unlike films and books. But I'd say to those that believe such things that they are looking in the wrong places, or just not looking hard enough at what they are experiencing from such a medium.
Tom Bissell's article goes into depth in regards to the relationship he created between himself and Grand Theft Auto IV's protagonist Niko Belic, how it allowed him to reflect upon himself and society, and its easy to find other examples. Infinity Ward's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is widely regarded as an excellent commentary on warfare in our generation, Shadow of the Colossus offers an emotional impact thats impossible to create in any other medium and thats just a handful of experiences plucked from my own mind over the space of a couple of seconds, dig deeper and there's more on offer. The death of Aeris is a popular emotional link between the gamer and the game whilst games such as Fallout 3, Oblivion, Dragon Age Origins, Mass Effect (plus its sequel) and Fable 2 offer you moral choices throughout the yarn they spin in a manner thats more intelligent and certainly more viable than the efforts literature has attempted over the years, the most advanced of which are possibly the "Create Your Own Adventure" books that were written for children.
It's about time publications such as The Guardian and Observer took a stance, declared they were pro-gaming and published articles that created a positive light around games playing rather than the confused opinion they seem to be delivering when they print articles such as this.
What Do Video Games Do To US? - Tom Bissell
Commercial Broken
By Ben / 2010-02-22 12:31:32
Just a quick apology to start off. I've had massive computer problems the past week which resulted in my wiping my computer. That on its own was bad enough, but the subsequent reinstall has been littered with Windows Update shaped problems. Hopefully the worst is behind me and you'll actually see some news and a Halo anime review from me this week.
I wouldn't bet the house though...
I'm not sure where I stand on the whole 'videogames as mainstream media' argument. I'd like them to be treated with more respect, the higher class ones any way, and I'd certainly like them not to be the whipping boy for this generation, but at the same time I think that they aren't really worthy of Newsnight Review coverage and developers on talk shows yet. I'm sure it will happen, it already has happened in a few cases, as people who play games work through the various systems, and as those in the systems start to become attracted to games, it'll happen. More out of a desire for profit/viewers I assume, but also the dilution of media to increasingly banal and trivial lows. Not meaning any disrespect to games, by that comment, only that tv, the news and papers are all so desperate for content nowadays that Halo 3's record breaking launch is deemed worthy of coverage, so how long until the hype for the sequel to big selling game starts getting coverage, then it's not so far from the game itself.
This isn't actually what I wanted to talk about, mainstream acceptance through the news and various magazine/talk shows is a topic I've probably talked about before, along with a thousand other bloggers. The 'mainstream' acceptance I want to talk about is more commercial, literally.
Last week Film4 showed Aliens, nothing especially newsworthy in that, it's a modern classic, granted I personally may have seen it too often but I can understand why it would be on at every opportunity. The reason why I took note was that on Friday the new Aliens vs Predator game came out. I speculated to a friend of mine that perhaps the reason for the scheduling of the film was to tie into the release of the game. It seems a bit far fetched, but if you're channel 4 and you're looking at what film to put on to maximize viewers (and so revenue), then why not stick the film on a couple of days before the game comes out?
I dismissed it as semi-wishful thinking, there's no way Channel 4 would pay any attention to which games are being released. Except last night Channel 4 (for our non-Brit readers, Channel 4 own a few channels, one of which is Film4) showed Predator. Again, it's a great film, there's no reason to read anything in to it, and we can have the Arnie vs Danny Glover argument another time (Glover wins), but the timing got me thinking. Surely the same broadcaster showing an Alien film and a Predator film in the same week as the game comes out is not mere coincidence? Sure enough come the first advert break I get my answer.
I forget the exact wording from the announcer, but it was something along the lines of "here's a treat for you Alien and Predator fans", before an extended trailer for the game ran. The trailer was nothing special, or maybe I'm not fan enough to get excited by it, and maybe this is a problem with the low quality of Freeview, but it looked a little rough, but it did run for the entire ad break. I know it's pathetic to get excited about an advert. and I'm not, really, but I do think this is an important step. I'm sure at some point in the build-up to the world cup, or maybe the FA cup or Champions League final, one of the sports wear manufacturers will launch a new ad campaign by buying the entire commercial break for an extended advert. It happens every year or so, ever since Cantona smacked a football through satan's chest. In fact I've done games a disservice, I think EA may have taken the same approach with FIFA the past couple of years, but certainly this is a first for a non-established franchise, especially to have a broadcaster piggyback 2 films on its release.
It looks like it paid off too, as I type the charts have come through and AvP has taken the multi-format no.1, and in doing so it's become the fastest selling game so far this year. Quite a (surprising) achievement I'm sure you'll agree, especially as the past 3 weeks I've seen endless adverts for "the sequel to the BAFTA winner for best game" Bioshock 2. That's quite a billing for Bioshock 2, and I mean that sincerely, people. including cynics, have been won over by the game, and being able to wave a BAFTA around as a reason people should pay attention adds some stature, certainly more than "the only game to receive a Bitparade 10/10, even though none of the regular writers really thought that much of it".
During Predator, and the Dawn of the Dead remake that followed it, there were a couple of other video game adverts. While not one of them I've seen Sega's Olympics game advertised endlessly, hardly a surprise given that the Olympics are on, but aimed at a similar audience (who also love zombies and ugly mother fuckers) was Nintendo's advert for New Super Mario Bros Wii. I've had this trend pointed out to me before, but you'll find that Nintendo's advertising presence rockets whenever the kids are on holiday, and last week was half term. Granted late Sunday night is maybe a bit late to be planning your family activities, that's homework time, but the point remains. There was one other advert of note though, the advert for Heavy Rain.
As excited as I am for Heavy Rain I will admit to being a tad disappointed by it, it's content more than it's style though. For those that didn't see it, a robbery at a convenience store kicks off, the robber's got a gun and the teller isn't too keen on handing his money over. Present is one of the main characters from the game (the middle-aged detective Scott Shelby), and as the advert draws to a close he must make a decision as to how to deal with the situation. There's a few normal adverts sandwiched in between, then the second part starts up. I'm assuming they've put together a few different outcomes to this otherwise splitting the adds is pointless, but on the version I saw Shelby chooses to negotiate with the robber. Shelby convinces the guy to put his gun away and run, avoiding confrontation, unfortunately there's not a huge amount of tension in the scene, at least in advert form, hence my disappointment. Something more dramatic would have been more memorable, and maybe that's coming, one scenario could see you do nothing with the shop keeper ending up dead, another you fight and and up shot yourself.
So why the proliferation of gaming adverts at the minute, is it that games are in fact becoming more mainstream? To a point I'd say yes, I also saw an advert for a cruise yesterday that had Wii Sports golf prominently featured, and the new Alfa Romeo advert is a pastiche of Space Invaders. However the other factor is that advertising revenue is down. Whatever the reason for that is, and there's a few, the upshot of it is that it's now far cheaper to buy advertising time than it was 5 years ago. Despite the job losses the games industry is still worth a lot, it may even be still growing (I guess that depends on how well Nintendo do, given they're the ones who've set the bar so high), and as such it can afford to spend money on adverts when other industries are cutting back. Want proof, just look at the various adverts for people wanting your gold at the minute. These used to soley reside on the shitty digital shopping channels, they certainly weren't going to appear during Coronation Street or the news, now they're omnipresent.
So while there's every reason to believe that the spate of adverts is indicative of a growing acceptance of games (and a more disparate release schedule), I will just finish by saying that the longest advert I saw all night was for hair regrowth treatment, starring Shane Warne and a bunch of other antipodean sportsmen you've never heard of.
By Ben / 2010-02-22 12:31:32
Just a quick apology to start off. I've had massive computer problems the past week which resulted in my wiping my computer. That on its own was bad enough, but the subsequent reinstall has been littered with Windows Update shaped problems. Hopefully the worst is behind me and you'll actually see some news and a Halo anime review from me this week.
I wouldn't bet the house though...
I'm not sure where I stand on the whole 'videogames as mainstream media' argument. I'd like them to be treated with more respect, the higher class ones any way, and I'd certainly like them not to be the whipping boy for this generation, but at the same time I think that they aren't really worthy of Newsnight Review coverage and developers on talk shows yet. I'm sure it will happen, it already has happened in a few cases, as people who play games work through the various systems, and as those in the systems start to become attracted to games, it'll happen. More out of a desire for profit/viewers I assume, but also the dilution of media to increasingly banal and trivial lows. Not meaning any disrespect to games, by that comment, only that tv, the news and papers are all so desperate for content nowadays that Halo 3's record breaking launch is deemed worthy of coverage, so how long until the hype for the sequel to big selling game starts getting coverage, then it's not so far from the game itself.
This isn't actually what I wanted to talk about, mainstream acceptance through the news and various magazine/talk shows is a topic I've probably talked about before, along with a thousand other bloggers. The 'mainstream' acceptance I want to talk about is more commercial, literally.
Last week Film4 showed Aliens, nothing especially newsworthy in that, it's a modern classic, granted I personally may have seen it too often but I can understand why it would be on at every opportunity. The reason why I took note was that on Friday the new Aliens vs Predator game came out. I speculated to a friend of mine that perhaps the reason for the scheduling of the film was to tie into the release of the game. It seems a bit far fetched, but if you're channel 4 and you're looking at what film to put on to maximize viewers (and so revenue), then why not stick the film on a couple of days before the game comes out?
I dismissed it as semi-wishful thinking, there's no way Channel 4 would pay any attention to which games are being released. Except last night Channel 4 (for our non-Brit readers, Channel 4 own a few channels, one of which is Film4) showed Predator. Again, it's a great film, there's no reason to read anything in to it, and we can have the Arnie vs Danny Glover argument another time (Glover wins), but the timing got me thinking. Surely the same broadcaster showing an Alien film and a Predator film in the same week as the game comes out is not mere coincidence? Sure enough come the first advert break I get my answer.
I forget the exact wording from the announcer, but it was something along the lines of "here's a treat for you Alien and Predator fans", before an extended trailer for the game ran. The trailer was nothing special, or maybe I'm not fan enough to get excited by it, and maybe this is a problem with the low quality of Freeview, but it looked a little rough, but it did run for the entire ad break. I know it's pathetic to get excited about an advert. and I'm not, really, but I do think this is an important step. I'm sure at some point in the build-up to the world cup, or maybe the FA cup or Champions League final, one of the sports wear manufacturers will launch a new ad campaign by buying the entire commercial break for an extended advert. It happens every year or so, ever since Cantona smacked a football through satan's chest. In fact I've done games a disservice, I think EA may have taken the same approach with FIFA the past couple of years, but certainly this is a first for a non-established franchise, especially to have a broadcaster piggyback 2 films on its release.
It looks like it paid off too, as I type the charts have come through and AvP has taken the multi-format no.1, and in doing so it's become the fastest selling game so far this year. Quite a (surprising) achievement I'm sure you'll agree, especially as the past 3 weeks I've seen endless adverts for "the sequel to the BAFTA winner for best game" Bioshock 2. That's quite a billing for Bioshock 2, and I mean that sincerely, people. including cynics, have been won over by the game, and being able to wave a BAFTA around as a reason people should pay attention adds some stature, certainly more than "the only game to receive a Bitparade 10/10, even though none of the regular writers really thought that much of it".
During Predator, and the Dawn of the Dead remake that followed it, there were a couple of other video game adverts. While not one of them I've seen Sega's Olympics game advertised endlessly, hardly a surprise given that the Olympics are on, but aimed at a similar audience (who also love zombies and ugly mother fuckers) was Nintendo's advert for New Super Mario Bros Wii. I've had this trend pointed out to me before, but you'll find that Nintendo's advertising presence rockets whenever the kids are on holiday, and last week was half term. Granted late Sunday night is maybe a bit late to be planning your family activities, that's homework time, but the point remains. There was one other advert of note though, the advert for Heavy Rain.
As excited as I am for Heavy Rain I will admit to being a tad disappointed by it, it's content more than it's style though. For those that didn't see it, a robbery at a convenience store kicks off, the robber's got a gun and the teller isn't too keen on handing his money over. Present is one of the main characters from the game (the middle-aged detective Scott Shelby), and as the advert draws to a close he must make a decision as to how to deal with the situation. There's a few normal adverts sandwiched in between, then the second part starts up. I'm assuming they've put together a few different outcomes to this otherwise splitting the adds is pointless, but on the version I saw Shelby chooses to negotiate with the robber. Shelby convinces the guy to put his gun away and run, avoiding confrontation, unfortunately there's not a huge amount of tension in the scene, at least in advert form, hence my disappointment. Something more dramatic would have been more memorable, and maybe that's coming, one scenario could see you do nothing with the shop keeper ending up dead, another you fight and and up shot yourself.
So why the proliferation of gaming adverts at the minute, is it that games are in fact becoming more mainstream? To a point I'd say yes, I also saw an advert for a cruise yesterday that had Wii Sports golf prominently featured, and the new Alfa Romeo advert is a pastiche of Space Invaders. However the other factor is that advertising revenue is down. Whatever the reason for that is, and there's a few, the upshot of it is that it's now far cheaper to buy advertising time than it was 5 years ago. Despite the job losses the games industry is still worth a lot, it may even be still growing (I guess that depends on how well Nintendo do, given they're the ones who've set the bar so high), and as such it can afford to spend money on adverts when other industries are cutting back. Want proof, just look at the various adverts for people wanting your gold at the minute. These used to soley reside on the shitty digital shopping channels, they certainly weren't going to appear during Coronation Street or the news, now they're omnipresent.
So while there's every reason to believe that the spate of adverts is indicative of a growing acceptance of games (and a more disparate release schedule), I will just finish by saying that the longest advert I saw all night was for hair regrowth treatment, starring Shane Warne and a bunch of other antipodean sportsmen you've never heard of.
If O Had A Hammer
By Ben / 2010-02-15 18:06:41
New look site means a new look logo for God Mode On, awesome huh?
Usually when I do these, which is itself becoming increasingly rare (I blame podcasts), it's some high fa-looting piece about the future of gaming. Today though it's a little different, it's purely and simply a rant about something that's been bugging me.
Unnecessary QTE's.
This isn't a rant against all Quick Time Events, far from it, a well done QTE bridges the gap between CG and in-game as well as anything. Then there's the likes of Heavy Rain and Fahrenheit, the latter being one of my favorite games last gen and the former my most anticipated game this. Replicating the movements on screen has a certain appeal, not in a Daily Mail bothering school-shooting way, I suspect it's more a novelty. More than one 'Heavy Rain' a year and it might get a bit clichéd.
No, my issue lies predominantly with action games, and it's something that links Batman's saunter through Arkham Asylum with Dante's excursion in Hell. I am of course talking about the trend for making us mash buttons for menial tasks. In Dante's Inferno every door you come across requires him to jam his scythe into its chest, then yank it upwards, gutting the possibly murderous door demon. What this means to you is that you must press R1 (or Rb for 360 players), then hammer O (B) as though your life depended on it. Your life doesn't depend on it, it's just a door, a door that closes after you pass through it, meaning that if you want to back track for any reason, you must go through the whole process again.
In Batman, every time you wanted to pull a grate off the wall it involved much button pressing. Quite often Batman would have the leverage of the lower ground and his rope, given those conditions even I could fuck up an air-vent and I'm not the Batman (the truth is... I'm Iron Man). The whole process is arguably more ridiculous in Batman because he's Batman. He can sling people across the room, punch out Killer Croc, but a thin piece of metal held on tiny screws requires an exhaustive effort.
It's not even the absurdity of it that bothers me, it's how pointless it is. Dante's Inferno has a few moments that exist purely to lengthen the game, mainly its climbing between areas, but having to physically open a door yourself is just busy work. Most games manage fine by having the doors open themselves, or even not having doors - the crazy fools! The rest of the game is littered with artificial barriers that block your progress until requirements are met (kill everything), so why not apply the same logic to passing to the next room.
It's as though developers believe that if you're doing something, anything, that counts as gameplay. Technically they might be right, but I'd argue that "Fantastic dynamic door opening mechanic" isn't something you'd put on the back of the box, and so isn't real gameplay. You would't make a game based around that mechanic, this isn't an Olympics game, or even the bonus test of strength round on Mortal Kombat. Besides, the upcoming Muscle March has shown that you can make a game out of opening doors... kind of, they just weren't stupid enough to have you hammering O for the entirety of the game. There's a joke there about Muscle March's characters hammering something resembling an O, but I wouldn't be that crude.
The mechanic of mashing buttons for menial tasks is purposeless and dull. The sooner developers get it out of their system the better.
By Ben / 2010-02-15 18:06:41
New look site means a new look logo for God Mode On, awesome huh?
Usually when I do these, which is itself becoming increasingly rare (I blame podcasts), it's some high fa-looting piece about the future of gaming. Today though it's a little different, it's purely and simply a rant about something that's been bugging me.
Unnecessary QTE's.
This isn't a rant against all Quick Time Events, far from it, a well done QTE bridges the gap between CG and in-game as well as anything. Then there's the likes of Heavy Rain and Fahrenheit, the latter being one of my favorite games last gen and the former my most anticipated game this. Replicating the movements on screen has a certain appeal, not in a Daily Mail bothering school-shooting way, I suspect it's more a novelty. More than one 'Heavy Rain' a year and it might get a bit clichéd.
No, my issue lies predominantly with action games, and it's something that links Batman's saunter through Arkham Asylum with Dante's excursion in Hell. I am of course talking about the trend for making us mash buttons for menial tasks. In Dante's Inferno every door you come across requires him to jam his scythe into its chest, then yank it upwards, gutting the possibly murderous door demon. What this means to you is that you must press R1 (or Rb for 360 players), then hammer O (B) as though your life depended on it. Your life doesn't depend on it, it's just a door, a door that closes after you pass through it, meaning that if you want to back track for any reason, you must go through the whole process again.
In Batman, every time you wanted to pull a grate off the wall it involved much button pressing. Quite often Batman would have the leverage of the lower ground and his rope, given those conditions even I could fuck up an air-vent and I'm not the Batman (the truth is... I'm Iron Man). The whole process is arguably more ridiculous in Batman because he's Batman. He can sling people across the room, punch out Killer Croc, but a thin piece of metal held on tiny screws requires an exhaustive effort.
It's not even the absurdity of it that bothers me, it's how pointless it is. Dante's Inferno has a few moments that exist purely to lengthen the game, mainly its climbing between areas, but having to physically open a door yourself is just busy work. Most games manage fine by having the doors open themselves, or even not having doors - the crazy fools! The rest of the game is littered with artificial barriers that block your progress until requirements are met (kill everything), so why not apply the same logic to passing to the next room.
It's as though developers believe that if you're doing something, anything, that counts as gameplay. Technically they might be right, but I'd argue that "Fantastic dynamic door opening mechanic" isn't something you'd put on the back of the box, and so isn't real gameplay. You would't make a game based around that mechanic, this isn't an Olympics game, or even the bonus test of strength round on Mortal Kombat. Besides, the upcoming Muscle March has shown that you can make a game out of opening doors... kind of, they just weren't stupid enough to have you hammering O for the entirety of the game. There's a joke there about Muscle March's characters hammering something resembling an O, but I wouldn't be that crude.
The mechanic of mashing buttons for menial tasks is purposeless and dull. The sooner developers get it out of their system the better.
By Duane / 2010-02-08 16:49:02There’s alot of furore surrounding the so-called sex scenes in Bioware’s Mass Effect 2 at the moment, possibly more so than those that were in Dragon Age: Origins. For the record I’ve not seen the scenes in either, my female Shepard (whom I’m using in Mass Effect 2) did manage to sleep with Liara in the first game, although I didn’t go out of my to reach that particular goal, so maybe I’m not qualified enough to comment on the particular game in question, but fuck it, this is the internet and everyone has an opinion, just as everyone has an arsehole and I’m going ahead and voicing mine.
So Mass Effect 2 has sex scenes in it, if they’re anything like those in Dragon Age: Origins that my partner has told me about, or the ones in the original game they’re hardly sex scenes. You see more action in Tweeny favourite Twilight than I recall seeing in Bioware’s first instalment to the series. Even so, do we really want some real hardcore alien action in videogames? Especially when you recieve achievement points for your gamerscore to go along with the fact you’ve bedded certain characters. This amounts to that whole jock mentality of bragging you slept with a girl whilst acting all sweet and innocent to her face and is a rather embarassing representation of the immaturity that surrounds the games industry. What I mean is, look at the treatment Jade Raymond received whilst her team were heavily at work on the first Assassins Creed. I also think that the manner in which sex is being handled by the games industry will never be taken seriously whilst its such a male driven medium. The Porn industry has put alot of effort into making something that doesn’t just amount to a plumber turning up at some horny woman’s house and her giving him her body in return for his handy work. This has come about as more and more women have gotten involved in the directing and writing of porn films, and whilst they don’t quite have the stories that a really great film would have, you wouldn’t expect them to, they still have substance beyond the titillation.
Likewise, I don’t expect videogames to challenge the film or porn film industries in how they handle the sexual content of their products, nor do I want the sex to be interactive, after all why would I want to press some buttons on a game pad to provide on screen action when I can enjoy some quality time with my partner?
I’m not saying that sex in videogames doesn’t or will never have its place, but at the moment it feels like a bullet point thats purely designed to attract teenage boys to whatever product in question. I also think that whilst the majority of videogames stories are so weak that most Hollywood blockbusters put them to shame (although I will clarify that the exception to this is anything that Joel Schumacher or Michael Bay have ever gotten involved in) maybe writers should focus on putting together well structured, cohesive plots that are entertaining on their own grounds using solid, believable characters before tackling something as complicated as sexual relationships between humans or indeed alien races.
Or as one commentor on Kotaku put it really rather well…
People of Earth: The Internet is full of porn, you don’t need to see some Quarian breasts to get your jollies
I also published this on my own blog yesterday, just on the off chance that someone has read this more than once.
So Mass Effect 2 has sex scenes in it, if they’re anything like those in Dragon Age: Origins that my partner has told me about, or the ones in the original game they’re hardly sex scenes. You see more action in Tweeny favourite Twilight than I recall seeing in Bioware’s first instalment to the series. Even so, do we really want some real hardcore alien action in videogames? Especially when you recieve achievement points for your gamerscore to go along with the fact you’ve bedded certain characters. This amounts to that whole jock mentality of bragging you slept with a girl whilst acting all sweet and innocent to her face and is a rather embarassing representation of the immaturity that surrounds the games industry. What I mean is, look at the treatment Jade Raymond received whilst her team were heavily at work on the first Assassins Creed. I also think that the manner in which sex is being handled by the games industry will never be taken seriously whilst its such a male driven medium. The Porn industry has put alot of effort into making something that doesn’t just amount to a plumber turning up at some horny woman’s house and her giving him her body in return for his handy work. This has come about as more and more women have gotten involved in the directing and writing of porn films, and whilst they don’t quite have the stories that a really great film would have, you wouldn’t expect them to, they still have substance beyond the titillation.
Likewise, I don’t expect videogames to challenge the film or porn film industries in how they handle the sexual content of their products, nor do I want the sex to be interactive, after all why would I want to press some buttons on a game pad to provide on screen action when I can enjoy some quality time with my partner?
I’m not saying that sex in videogames doesn’t or will never have its place, but at the moment it feels like a bullet point thats purely designed to attract teenage boys to whatever product in question. I also think that whilst the majority of videogames stories are so weak that most Hollywood blockbusters put them to shame (although I will clarify that the exception to this is anything that Joel Schumacher or Michael Bay have ever gotten involved in) maybe writers should focus on putting together well structured, cohesive plots that are entertaining on their own grounds using solid, believable characters before tackling something as complicated as sexual relationships between humans or indeed alien races.
Or as one commentor on Kotaku put it really rather well…
People of Earth: The Internet is full of porn, you don’t need to see some Quarian breasts to get your jollies
I also published this on my own blog yesterday, just on the off chance that someone has read this more than once.
By Duane / 2009-09-21 17:34:42Story telling is as old as time itself, so it’s hard to imagine that the art of telling a story could evolve any further than it already has done, but never before have we been able to interact with media in the way we do in the modern age, and that is thanks to the medium of videogames. Stories have traditionally always been dictated to the end user, be it via reading a book, listening to a radio play, audiobook or sitting round a campfire sharing stories, or watching a film, play or television show. It’s only through the ability to interact with the characters, settings and plots that are laid before us within videogames and something such as a table top role playing game that the method of story-telling has begun to evolve.
As things currently stand, the vast majority of games are fairly linear, you still have set objectives to meet, even in something as open world as Grand Theft Auto IV or Fallout 3, but even with this in mind, the way we can interact with the story being told to us is not by the key elements that dictate the story, but the journey along the way, this is how we truly make the story our own. Take this for example, in Halo 3, a game that pretty much offers a rollercoaster one track ride from start to finish with no detours. The key events throughout cannot be changed, but the way in which things build upto those events can. In one particular co-operative multiplayer session, I and three other players made our way to the first meeting with a Scarab, the one on the beach. Now the normal method of bringing this guy down is to take out his legs, hopping onto its back and throwing a grenade in its “engine”, but on this particular occasion, whilst my team mates were trying various different techniques in order to bring him down, techniques they’d possibly tried before whilst playing the game in single player, I tried something a little different. I straddled one of the Mongoose quad-bikes that the Marines were riding and took it up an elevator to an elongated platform hanging over the beach, accelerated hard and threw the Mongoose off of the edge of the platform, the momentum of this was going to make me overshoot where I needed to land so I quickly jumped off and before anybody could react I’d blown the Scarab sky high with a sticky grenade in its engine compartment.
This was only one event where the approach to the scenario was completely down to the end user, and it’s something we’re seeing increasingly in videogames in lots of different forms, whether it be over-extravagant, Hollywood-esque incidents like above or the moral choices given to you in Lionhead’s Fable II we are able to shape just how the story is played out even if we only have a handful of options, if any, of the final outcome. This is something that’s even making its way into such heavily story driven yarns like the Japanese Role Playing Game genre. Take Persona 3 for example, you can’t really change the outcome of the games plotline, but you can have a direct effect on your relationship with numerous different characters throughout the game, these in turn have an effect on certain different abilities that you can use to aid you in battle. Another approach is the latest game the Japanese market has gone crazy for, Dragon Quest IX. By allowing you to network with up to 3 other friends you can join together and partake in quests in this 40 hour epic, not only that, but once the main story quest is done and dusted, Square-Enix and Level 5 have allowed you to carry on with your own mini adventures and carry on finding everything in the game whilst also providing the occasional extra sets of quest for you to download and either play on your own or play together, it seems Social Networking isn’t just altering the way we use the internet, it’s also altering the way we play videogames and ultimately how we create our own stories. Imagine how far that could go!
You could have a game where you only have one life in a huge world where everybody’s actions have some kind of impact no matter how minor, if you make a deadly mistake, that’s it, game over for that particular save file, time to start again. Whilst you’re playing, the game is also creating your own little legend on the games official website, beginning with your entry into the world and ending with your death. Detailing all of your victories, struggles and other major events within that characters lifespan, monitoring your relationships with other characters and writing them into your folktale, cross referencing their “lives” with your own, it’s a long, long way off, but with the popularity of the Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, Social Networking sites like Facebook and games that let you decide your own actions like Fallout 3, it can only be a matter of time before such a thing is a reality.
As things currently stand, the vast majority of games are fairly linear, you still have set objectives to meet, even in something as open world as Grand Theft Auto IV or Fallout 3, but even with this in mind, the way we can interact with the story being told to us is not by the key elements that dictate the story, but the journey along the way, this is how we truly make the story our own. Take this for example, in Halo 3, a game that pretty much offers a rollercoaster one track ride from start to finish with no detours. The key events throughout cannot be changed, but the way in which things build upto those events can. In one particular co-operative multiplayer session, I and three other players made our way to the first meeting with a Scarab, the one on the beach. Now the normal method of bringing this guy down is to take out his legs, hopping onto its back and throwing a grenade in its “engine”, but on this particular occasion, whilst my team mates were trying various different techniques in order to bring him down, techniques they’d possibly tried before whilst playing the game in single player, I tried something a little different. I straddled one of the Mongoose quad-bikes that the Marines were riding and took it up an elevator to an elongated platform hanging over the beach, accelerated hard and threw the Mongoose off of the edge of the platform, the momentum of this was going to make me overshoot where I needed to land so I quickly jumped off and before anybody could react I’d blown the Scarab sky high with a sticky grenade in its engine compartment.
This was only one event where the approach to the scenario was completely down to the end user, and it’s something we’re seeing increasingly in videogames in lots of different forms, whether it be over-extravagant, Hollywood-esque incidents like above or the moral choices given to you in Lionhead’s Fable II we are able to shape just how the story is played out even if we only have a handful of options, if any, of the final outcome. This is something that’s even making its way into such heavily story driven yarns like the Japanese Role Playing Game genre. Take Persona 3 for example, you can’t really change the outcome of the games plotline, but you can have a direct effect on your relationship with numerous different characters throughout the game, these in turn have an effect on certain different abilities that you can use to aid you in battle. Another approach is the latest game the Japanese market has gone crazy for, Dragon Quest IX. By allowing you to network with up to 3 other friends you can join together and partake in quests in this 40 hour epic, not only that, but once the main story quest is done and dusted, Square-Enix and Level 5 have allowed you to carry on with your own mini adventures and carry on finding everything in the game whilst also providing the occasional extra sets of quest for you to download and either play on your own or play together, it seems Social Networking isn’t just altering the way we use the internet, it’s also altering the way we play videogames and ultimately how we create our own stories. Imagine how far that could go!
You could have a game where you only have one life in a huge world where everybody’s actions have some kind of impact no matter how minor, if you make a deadly mistake, that’s it, game over for that particular save file, time to start again. Whilst you’re playing, the game is also creating your own little legend on the games official website, beginning with your entry into the world and ending with your death. Detailing all of your victories, struggles and other major events within that characters lifespan, monitoring your relationships with other characters and writing them into your folktale, cross referencing their “lives” with your own, it’s a long, long way off, but with the popularity of the Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, Social Networking sites like Facebook and games that let you decide your own actions like Fallout 3, it can only be a matter of time before such a thing is a reality.
12 Angry Bens
By Ben / 2009-07-12 20:13:56
This week God Mode On takes a goosey at how much of a crossover there is between games and films, and whether we should even be comparing
When gamers want to stress the artistic value of games they often compare them to film. Of course there's an inherent folly (that makes me sound like a twat) to this that we're all well aware of. Games aren't movies, plain and simple. The narrative is constructed in a different way, they're far longer, and they have to be fun.
Well we can argue that last point some other time, but for now lets use the example of David Lynch. I like David Lynch, I find his films fascinating, but I'll happily admit that some of them are incredibly hard to watch. If you translate that to a game, there aren't too many great games that are hard to play through. On a shallower level you could probably point to something like Megaman 9, but that'll offend fans, maybe Gran Turismo or Forza, but again there are people who would argue their depth makes them fun. They aren't hard to play in the same way Eraserhead is hard to watch, they're just hard.
There's another way that games and films differ, a less obvious way, and that's what their devotees value about them. Granted most people 'like' films, but I'm not talking about the people who'll watch Saw when it's on telly, I'm talking about the people who'll track down some obscure Romanian horror from the 1950's.
I'm not sure what to call these types of people, they're musos with an ocular fixation, and as such 'film buffs' seems a little weak. I don't want to call them anything derogatory either, as I'm right on their border. As such the 'Cinemati' (with the capital naturally) is going to have to do.
These Cinemati value films with heart, something that tugs a little, even something they can empathise with. A Farrely brothers comedy isn't really their thing, and their favourite Jim Carrey film is either 'Eternal Sunshine...' of 'The Cable Guy'. They'll watch animations where nothing happens for the sheer wonder of it, and the brief and subtle glance between the two protagonists that speaks all you need to know about their love (5 Centimetres per Second - great film).
If you take the equivalent person who plays games, the elitist type who will perhaps sigh at the sales charts and tut at peoples purchases, what do they champion? You probably know where I'm going with this, but lets go through it anyway shall we?
These 'hardcore' gamers (their name, not mine) beat their drums for the likes of Killzone and Gears of War. They nail their colours to the HD consoles and anything that comes out on anything else is shit. Unless they want it then it's wasted on whatever format isn't doing it justice. Silent Hill Shattered Memories is an example of this, the new Ju-On game too, not to mention Madworld.
They close themselves off to experiences seemingly out of spite, and fear they might like something they 'shouldn't'.
To labour my point, here's a quote I found:
Granted this person is clearly an idiot, but if he was half as hardcore as he thinks he is then he'd be playing more that Smash Bros. on his Wii.
I am being a little disingenuous I'll admit. Not all 'Hardcore' gamers think like that, and not all the high valued games are boom fests. In fact games like Ico and shadow of the Colossus (made by the same developers admittedly), maybe Killer 7, Pixel Junk Eden, Flower, Rez, Braid etc, all those games are counter to my point.
Can I ask though, what's the best war film you've seen? Schindler's List? Platoon? Full Metal Jacket? Barefoot Gen? Now what's the best war game you've played?
Love story? Tale of loss? Tale of hope? Exploration of rage? Revenge?
The values that make films great aren't the same as those for games. Yes I'd love to have more character exploration in games, deeper stories, and even deal with more serious subjects. In the grand scheme of things that would be a good thing for gaming AS A WHOLE, but that isn't what makes games great, especially when you start to look at individual titles.
We seem to have forgotten that in our protestations of the merits of videogames. We forget that we should be singing the praises of games that are fun, that that alone makes them worthy. The 'art' can, will, and has come, but lets not forget what our medium does better than all the others.
By Ben / 2009-07-12 20:13:56
This week God Mode On takes a goosey at how much of a crossover there is between games and films, and whether we should even be comparing
When gamers want to stress the artistic value of games they often compare them to film. Of course there's an inherent folly (that makes me sound like a twat) to this that we're all well aware of. Games aren't movies, plain and simple. The narrative is constructed in a different way, they're far longer, and they have to be fun.
Well we can argue that last point some other time, but for now lets use the example of David Lynch. I like David Lynch, I find his films fascinating, but I'll happily admit that some of them are incredibly hard to watch. If you translate that to a game, there aren't too many great games that are hard to play through. On a shallower level you could probably point to something like Megaman 9, but that'll offend fans, maybe Gran Turismo or Forza, but again there are people who would argue their depth makes them fun. They aren't hard to play in the same way Eraserhead is hard to watch, they're just hard.
There's another way that games and films differ, a less obvious way, and that's what their devotees value about them. Granted most people 'like' films, but I'm not talking about the people who'll watch Saw when it's on telly, I'm talking about the people who'll track down some obscure Romanian horror from the 1950's.
I'm not sure what to call these types of people, they're musos with an ocular fixation, and as such 'film buffs' seems a little weak. I don't want to call them anything derogatory either, as I'm right on their border. As such the 'Cinemati' (with the capital naturally) is going to have to do.
These Cinemati value films with heart, something that tugs a little, even something they can empathise with. A Farrely brothers comedy isn't really their thing, and their favourite Jim Carrey film is either 'Eternal Sunshine...' of 'The Cable Guy'. They'll watch animations where nothing happens for the sheer wonder of it, and the brief and subtle glance between the two protagonists that speaks all you need to know about their love (5 Centimetres per Second - great film).
If you take the equivalent person who plays games, the elitist type who will perhaps sigh at the sales charts and tut at peoples purchases, what do they champion? You probably know where I'm going with this, but lets go through it anyway shall we?
These 'hardcore' gamers (their name, not mine) beat their drums for the likes of Killzone and Gears of War. They nail their colours to the HD consoles and anything that comes out on anything else is shit. Unless they want it then it's wasted on whatever format isn't doing it justice. Silent Hill Shattered Memories is an example of this, the new Ju-On game too, not to mention Madworld.
They close themselves off to experiences seemingly out of spite, and fear they might like something they 'shouldn't'.
To labour my point, here's a quote I found:
"But the ppl tht made the wii are smart. They made sports games anD "healthy-fit" games for one reason:
to attract non-gamers.
the attention of nintendo on non-gamers as is gamers is a pretty uneven (horrible) ratio so the Makers did somethin tht no one else would:
design the console with a moving sensor.
This, along side with designing the "healthy-fit games", assured all non-gamers, including gamers (gamers atrracted to SSBB, anyway) to have build intrest into buying it."
Granted this person is clearly an idiot, but if he was half as hardcore as he thinks he is then he'd be playing more that Smash Bros. on his Wii.
I am being a little disingenuous I'll admit. Not all 'Hardcore' gamers think like that, and not all the high valued games are boom fests. In fact games like Ico and shadow of the Colossus (made by the same developers admittedly), maybe Killer 7, Pixel Junk Eden, Flower, Rez, Braid etc, all those games are counter to my point.
Can I ask though, what's the best war film you've seen? Schindler's List? Platoon? Full Metal Jacket? Barefoot Gen? Now what's the best war game you've played?
Love story? Tale of loss? Tale of hope? Exploration of rage? Revenge?
The values that make films great aren't the same as those for games. Yes I'd love to have more character exploration in games, deeper stories, and even deal with more serious subjects. In the grand scheme of things that would be a good thing for gaming AS A WHOLE, but that isn't what makes games great, especially when you start to look at individual titles.
We seem to have forgotten that in our protestations of the merits of videogames. We forget that we should be singing the praises of games that are fun, that that alone makes them worthy. The 'art' can, will, and has come, but lets not forget what our medium does better than all the others.
Motion Lotion
By Ben / 2009-07-06 19:04:09
It's been a long time away, but to replace Loading Screen for a few weeks God Mode On returns... Don't all celebrate at once
Wii Motion+ has finally arrived. We can all mutter about whether or not it should have been in the Wii remote from the start, but no one's listening.
It's here now and so are a couple of games. As it stands I've only played EA's Grand Slam Tennis. I did want Virtua Tennis, for after all, I am a Sega fanboy *clenched fist on heart* Unfortunately it wasn't too be, I had a credit note for Gamestation and they only had Virtua Tennis with 2 plastic racket add-ons for £50. this is without adding on the Motion+, which would have been another tenner at least. Why am I telling you this? We'll come to that in a bit.
To follow the 2 competing tennis games we've also got Tiger Woods 10. The talk from across the pond is that this is brilliant. Personally I'm not a big golf fan so it's hard to get excited about it, but a good games a good game. After that Nintendo join the action with Wii Sports Resort, a collection of light-sport games. It looks good, I'm not knocking it.
I've heard that Tiger Woods uses the Motion+ to the best effect, having not played it I can't really argue, but I will offer a counter suggestion. Wii Sports Resort offers more than just traditional sports games, certainly not everything involves some sort of stick. Tiger Woods and the two tennis games try to recreate the swinging mechanic required, which is fine, but it doesn't really show what the technology can do.
I'm not complaining that they don't push the technology, who cares so long as what they do is fun. However what they show is limited. The sheer variety of sports in Sports Resort (basketball, fencing, sky diving) means the remote is used in a more involved way. Fencing would be a prime example of this.
Now, those rackets I mentioned before. One of the issues I've got with Grand Slam Tennis is that it's not always clear how the motion+ is affecting the game. I quite like the controls so this isn't a massive complaint, but it was only thanks to a loading screen that I clocked that it was the side of the remote that represented the racket face. Cheap plastic peripherals, assuming they match the game, would have given me a real world guide.
What you need is something more explicit. Rather than a puny girly-boy tennis racket, why not a big fuck off sword? It's a bad example, but the Soul Calibur Legends game that came out on the Wii a few years back, something along the lines of that (except better), where the remote allowed you to parry and counter, so that what you were doing in the real world could be easily seen on screen. And that's the point, it must be easily seen. Surely that's more impressive, and what I liked about Sony's press conference.
Perhaps my opinion will change as I play more of Grand Slam Tennis, a game I genuinely do like, but it really doesn't feel like the most impressive demonstration of Motion+. If you want people to be impressed then make what you're doing explicit, as it stands it just feels like standard remote doing what it's supposed to do.
Remove the smoke and mirrors, leave the Magic Circle, let us see all the work that goes into making an elephant disappear. I for one would be more impressed
By Ben / 2009-07-06 19:04:09
It's been a long time away, but to replace Loading Screen for a few weeks God Mode On returns... Don't all celebrate at once
Wii Motion+ has finally arrived. We can all mutter about whether or not it should have been in the Wii remote from the start, but no one's listening.
It's here now and so are a couple of games. As it stands I've only played EA's Grand Slam Tennis. I did want Virtua Tennis, for after all, I am a Sega fanboy *clenched fist on heart* Unfortunately it wasn't too be, I had a credit note for Gamestation and they only had Virtua Tennis with 2 plastic racket add-ons for £50. this is without adding on the Motion+, which would have been another tenner at least. Why am I telling you this? We'll come to that in a bit.
To follow the 2 competing tennis games we've also got Tiger Woods 10. The talk from across the pond is that this is brilliant. Personally I'm not a big golf fan so it's hard to get excited about it, but a good games a good game. After that Nintendo join the action with Wii Sports Resort, a collection of light-sport games. It looks good, I'm not knocking it.
I've heard that Tiger Woods uses the Motion+ to the best effect, having not played it I can't really argue, but I will offer a counter suggestion. Wii Sports Resort offers more than just traditional sports games, certainly not everything involves some sort of stick. Tiger Woods and the two tennis games try to recreate the swinging mechanic required, which is fine, but it doesn't really show what the technology can do.
I'm not complaining that they don't push the technology, who cares so long as what they do is fun. However what they show is limited. The sheer variety of sports in Sports Resort (basketball, fencing, sky diving) means the remote is used in a more involved way. Fencing would be a prime example of this.
Now, those rackets I mentioned before. One of the issues I've got with Grand Slam Tennis is that it's not always clear how the motion+ is affecting the game. I quite like the controls so this isn't a massive complaint, but it was only thanks to a loading screen that I clocked that it was the side of the remote that represented the racket face. Cheap plastic peripherals, assuming they match the game, would have given me a real world guide.
What you need is something more explicit. Rather than a puny girly-boy tennis racket, why not a big fuck off sword? It's a bad example, but the Soul Calibur Legends game that came out on the Wii a few years back, something along the lines of that (except better), where the remote allowed you to parry and counter, so that what you were doing in the real world could be easily seen on screen. And that's the point, it must be easily seen. Surely that's more impressive, and what I liked about Sony's press conference.
Perhaps my opinion will change as I play more of Grand Slam Tennis, a game I genuinely do like, but it really doesn't feel like the most impressive demonstration of Motion+. If you want people to be impressed then make what you're doing explicit, as it stands it just feels like standard remote doing what it's supposed to do.
Remove the smoke and mirrors, leave the Magic Circle, let us see all the work that goes into making an elephant disappear. I for one would be more impressed
Insert Credit
By Ben / 2009-01-29 07:41:52
There's no doubt the global economic slowdown is a bad thing, a look at my mounting bills is enough to demonstrate that. But does it have to be the end of the world as a gamer?
The credit crunch, people losing their jobs, others struggling to find them, money too tight to mention. Things are hard and it's not much fun, the bills are all coming in and those new things you wanted to kick off the year seem further and further away. There must be a silver lining though surely, anything, no matter how much you're kidding yourself?
There sure is! The obvious silver lining is that there's sales everywhere, bargains to be had. The problem with that approach is it assumes you've got the money to spend, and to be honest a lot of the stuff that's on sale now was also on sale before christmas, like we've had a perpetual state of £20 new games. It certainly is a silver lining though, anything you missed in the over-flooded end to 2008 can be picked up now. Whatever you pick up will still feel recent enough to scratch the itch for a 'new' game that we all get, all the time, relentlessly, gnawing away until we eventually cave.
No, the silver lining that's my current saving grace is due to being completely broke. No games at all since the turn of the year, actually I bought Ninja Gaiden Sigma for a whopping £2 but have yet to play it. I got games for christmas like I'm sure most reading this did, and handled wrongly they would get ignored. One of these games I got for christmas is actually the spark for both this lining and this post. I got World of Goo on the Wii from a secret santa (which I've still not played), but I couldn't download it because I needed to update my Wii. Unfortunately updating the Wii meant ending my sporadic love affair with the Freeloader disk. There are a couple of import games I'd still like to pick up, but my real issue was that I still hadn't played No More Heroes.
I know I could eventually have picked up the pal version, maybe even matched the sale of my U.S. copy with the cost of an EU copy, and I know this is a bit of a juvenile excuse, but I wanted the blood. We can get into the minutia of this some other time, but I wanted to play the game in its 'true' state. In short, I had a deadline and so sat and played the game. Within 5 days of starting it was done, the further into the game I got the more I loved it. I'd had it for months, probably more than half a year, but never got myself together to play it. But now I had no choice.
Metal Gear Solid 4 was my next game. Borrowed from a friend it's been in my possession for a while, again I didn't start it when I got it, but when I did I made slow progress through it. I really enjoyed what I played, but the time dedication was putting me off. Again though I had a deadline, I'd promised to get it done as my next game post NMH's, and so I had to sit down and finish it. And finish it I did, it might have even usurped Yakuza 2 as my game of 08. There's problems with it sure, but as an experience there's nothing else like it, it's something that needs to be played!
I've games that will no doubt get forgotten about, and that's what this current climate is good for. I picked Braid and Rez up prior to the new year, both hidden away on my 360 hard-drive, but I've completed Braid and am inching my way through Rez due to over familiarity. leading up to the new year I bought Motorstorm Pacific Rift and Resistance, neither of which I've played since the turn of the year but illustrate my point. As does, probably more than any other game, Valkyria Chronicles, a game I've got for christmas and wanted for months, but still haven't spent any real time with.
Things being tight is forcing me to fight the itch, to go back and actually work my way through the games I've bought recently. I'm my own worst enemy when it comes to buying games, my eyes are bigger than my mouth, or thumbs, or whatever. It would be all to easy to wander off from Mororstorm, despite enjoying it far more than I was expecting, there's new games on the way, shiny things, and I'm not committed to play it for any reason. Resistance too, I was enjoying that, it's not a classic sure but it's fun enough. The thing is the difficulty just spiked (again) right when I had to stop playing, it kind of kills the motivation to go back when that happens. Valkyria Chronicles is probably the quintessential forgotten game this generation, wonderfully presented and offering a fresh take on an old genre, but it's so easy to leave on a shelf.
So it's not all bad news, and certainly being forced to sit and play some of the best games of last year is hardly a hardship. The real test isn't due until next month with the arrival of House of the Dead, Street Fighter 4, then Resident Evil 5 and Killzone 2. So I guess it's a race between how much I can get done and how much I can save. Then there's the issue of what to do if society falls apart? If I've burnt through my back catalogue in January and we're in some Mad Max dystopia by April I'm going to look quite the fool!
By Ben / 2009-01-29 07:41:52
There's no doubt the global economic slowdown is a bad thing, a look at my mounting bills is enough to demonstrate that. But does it have to be the end of the world as a gamer?
The credit crunch, people losing their jobs, others struggling to find them, money too tight to mention. Things are hard and it's not much fun, the bills are all coming in and those new things you wanted to kick off the year seem further and further away. There must be a silver lining though surely, anything, no matter how much you're kidding yourself?
There sure is! The obvious silver lining is that there's sales everywhere, bargains to be had. The problem with that approach is it assumes you've got the money to spend, and to be honest a lot of the stuff that's on sale now was also on sale before christmas, like we've had a perpetual state of £20 new games. It certainly is a silver lining though, anything you missed in the over-flooded end to 2008 can be picked up now. Whatever you pick up will still feel recent enough to scratch the itch for a 'new' game that we all get, all the time, relentlessly, gnawing away until we eventually cave.
No, the silver lining that's my current saving grace is due to being completely broke. No games at all since the turn of the year, actually I bought Ninja Gaiden Sigma for a whopping £2 but have yet to play it. I got games for christmas like I'm sure most reading this did, and handled wrongly they would get ignored. One of these games I got for christmas is actually the spark for both this lining and this post. I got World of Goo on the Wii from a secret santa (which I've still not played), but I couldn't download it because I needed to update my Wii. Unfortunately updating the Wii meant ending my sporadic love affair with the Freeloader disk. There are a couple of import games I'd still like to pick up, but my real issue was that I still hadn't played No More Heroes.
I know I could eventually have picked up the pal version, maybe even matched the sale of my U.S. copy with the cost of an EU copy, and I know this is a bit of a juvenile excuse, but I wanted the blood. We can get into the minutia of this some other time, but I wanted to play the game in its 'true' state. In short, I had a deadline and so sat and played the game. Within 5 days of starting it was done, the further into the game I got the more I loved it. I'd had it for months, probably more than half a year, but never got myself together to play it. But now I had no choice.
Metal Gear Solid 4 was my next game. Borrowed from a friend it's been in my possession for a while, again I didn't start it when I got it, but when I did I made slow progress through it. I really enjoyed what I played, but the time dedication was putting me off. Again though I had a deadline, I'd promised to get it done as my next game post NMH's, and so I had to sit down and finish it. And finish it I did, it might have even usurped Yakuza 2 as my game of 08. There's problems with it sure, but as an experience there's nothing else like it, it's something that needs to be played!
I've games that will no doubt get forgotten about, and that's what this current climate is good for. I picked Braid and Rez up prior to the new year, both hidden away on my 360 hard-drive, but I've completed Braid and am inching my way through Rez due to over familiarity. leading up to the new year I bought Motorstorm Pacific Rift and Resistance, neither of which I've played since the turn of the year but illustrate my point. As does, probably more than any other game, Valkyria Chronicles, a game I've got for christmas and wanted for months, but still haven't spent any real time with.
Things being tight is forcing me to fight the itch, to go back and actually work my way through the games I've bought recently. I'm my own worst enemy when it comes to buying games, my eyes are bigger than my mouth, or thumbs, or whatever. It would be all to easy to wander off from Mororstorm, despite enjoying it far more than I was expecting, there's new games on the way, shiny things, and I'm not committed to play it for any reason. Resistance too, I was enjoying that, it's not a classic sure but it's fun enough. The thing is the difficulty just spiked (again) right when I had to stop playing, it kind of kills the motivation to go back when that happens. Valkyria Chronicles is probably the quintessential forgotten game this generation, wonderfully presented and offering a fresh take on an old genre, but it's so easy to leave on a shelf.
So it's not all bad news, and certainly being forced to sit and play some of the best games of last year is hardly a hardship. The real test isn't due until next month with the arrival of House of the Dead, Street Fighter 4, then Resident Evil 5 and Killzone 2. So I guess it's a race between how much I can get done and how much I can save. Then there's the issue of what to do if society falls apart? If I've burnt through my back catalogue in January and we're in some Mad Max dystopia by April I'm going to look quite the fool!
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