Gaming Signal: January 2007 Archives

Wednesday January 31, 2007

Crackdown Demo: I'm All Tingly

Last week, Realtime Worlds released the demo for their upcoming super cop game, Crackdown. After playing a bit, I can say that the 'crack' part is right on.

Crackdown is, basically, a superhero game dressed up in a police outfit instead of tights. Think of it as GTA: VC mixed with City Of Heroes and Deus Ex. It's an open-ended, sandbox game, where you can do whatever you want to try and eliminate all the crime bosses scattered throughout the world. Every time you do something, the relevant ability increases a bit. This allows you to focus on certain abilities over others. Additionally, there are orbs scattered around that will increase specific abilities even more. Thus, like Deus Ex, you can focus on upgrading your guy how you want. Like CoH, you play the good guys fighting crime, and when your jumping ability goes up, look out. It's almost like Super Jump from CoH, and just as much fun. Since the demo times out at around 1 hour, I'm not sure if you will be able to max all your abilities during a complete game or not.

The other big kicker is that, like Gears Of War, Crackdown will has invite-in Co-op mode. You can be tooling around, grenading bad guys, see your buddy log in, send him and invite, and 'Bam!" he's in game playing along with you. That is sweet, and its almost as much fun seeing how much damage you can dish out on your buddy, which made my wife giggle as Tim and I were blowing each other up. See? Fun!

Now, I've seen some people online complain about the graphics. Yes, they are cartoony and yes they are cell shaded. But the look works well with the game, giving it a comic feel and the bright colors sure does make the scenery pop. Realistic graphics would have brought the 360 to it's knees when rendering 30 car explosions, and just plain wouldn't fit the theme. To all the graphics haters, its about the gameplay, not eye candy.

Crackdown wasn't even on my list of 360 games until I tried the demo. Now it's become an auto-buy when it comes out.

Things I want my 360 to do...

As I sit at work anxiously awaiting the release of Crackdown, I have learned that a new demo for Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 has been released on XBox Live Marketplace. It is a rather large file and for some unknown reason downloads on the console take much longer than I think they should (which I will address later). I would love to use the My Xbox portal to wake my 360 and start the download while I am at work. Thereby allowing me to jump in and start whooping terrorist butt when I get home, but alas I am unable to do that. This situation brings me to a list of things I want my XBox360 to allow me to do, or that should do - but for some unknown reason doesn't. So if you lovely Xbox360 devs are listening, get cracking on these things darned it!!!

Faster Downloads: What the heck is up with the download rates??? I mean honestly, I was downloading the 50 megabyte Gears of War map pack and it took far longer than a similar download on my PC. Why don't they support some sort of peer to peer torrent type client. HD movie downloads will never fly given the speed at which they come down and the size of the hard drive that is in the machine.
User upgradable hard drives: Sure I understand the whole "hacking" thing, but the drive sits in a cage that then plugs into the 360. Why can't I get a huge drive and insert it into the cage and have the machine do its "protection" thing on it. Then I don't have to worry about MS gouge factor that will occur when they finally release a larger drive option.
Remote Control via the network: This is what I touched on above. MS has stated that the details regarding my XBL account is stored not my 360 but in my Microsoft Passport account. Therefore, I should be able to initiate purchases via some secure website, and then have my 360 initiate the download. Ideally this would be all automatic, but I could handle it in two parts. First would be the purchase, and then via a Wake-on-LAN request cause my 360 to come alive and commence the downloading.
Web Surfing: The Wii does it, and why can't my Xbox do it?? I have a connected system in my living room, and I should be able to pull up some websites or at least read RSS feeds that I have subscribed to via the Xbox portal (see yet more use of that wonderful web technology). I know the control scheme will be a little off and rendering may not be perfect, but I think they could make it work. Or maybe Nintendo is just smarter than you guys up in Seattle (see taunting them should get it working.)
VOIP Calls: I love the voice chat in Xbox Live and the ability to initiate a conversation with my friends by selecting from the list is darned near perfect. Now, why can't this be extended to allow me to make calls to family similar to Skype? Sure charge me points or cash for making a call to a landline, but much like websurfing, I have a connected system that seems somewhat crippled from touching content outside the games and some media on my local network. I know some of this may come with the Live Anywhere initiative, but I want it now darned it and I don't want to install Vista to make it happen.

Now I am sure there are other things I am missing, or will somehow be handled via future updates from MS. I still want them now, but I open the floor to you (our readers and spammers) to offer some other ideas on these topics.

Monday January 29, 2007

Overyhyped Game Designers

A funny thing about games - sometimes the designer's name carries some weight. So much so, that they actually get credit on the box or, if you are among the elite, in the title! Examples of this are Sid Mier (PC games, notably Civlization), Alan R. Moon (board games, notably Ticket to Ride), and Hironobu Sakaguchi (video games, notable Final Fantasy). However there are some designers that get a lot of press and hype, yet don't necessarily produce anything that meaningful. So here below are my choices for most overhyped game designers.

John Romero has to be near the top of the list, with little success beyond his life at id Software (which he gets a lot of credit for, but has to be called into question given the post-id days.) His high-profile debacle at ION Storm where he managed to blow through millions of funding by Eidos to produce games (the terrible Daikatana and often overlooked Anachronox) that didn't recover that investment in the marketplace. Of course the reality is, John isn't a game designer at all - he's a development manager. But he is a front-man and got a lot of press as a result.

Peter Molyneux is another of the most overhyped designers. He had a great game in Populous in 1989, produced very questionable titles until Theme Park in 1994, then again went on a string of disappointments until The Movies in 2005. Certainly he gets credit from me for producing the unique Dungeon Keeper but loses a lot for the hype and failures of games like Syndicate, Black & White, the worst: Fable. He does a lot of interviews though, so the press loves him. He can always be counted on for something good to say, just not for good games.

Will Wright. There, I said it. He did in fact create two massive hits: Sim City and The Sims, and he's amazing because of it. But other than that, he has a string of highly questionable designes - like SimAnt, SimEarth, SimLife, SimCopter, and the list of Sim titles goes on. I understand focusing on what you are good at, but sheesh. And now we have Spore and the hype around it. It might be great, but who knows? It might be another SimTower, or SimIsle, or Sim: Safari. At least it doesn't have Sim in the title.

I'm sure there are more - this list just has PC game designers because those are the ones I'm most familiar with. Who are yous?

Thursday January 25, 2007

Halo Hype

Let me start by saying I am a Halo h8a (thats hater for those not in the know). I have always felt that this series which had some interesting ideas when it was originally announced years ago. Now, it is the cornerstone game for the Xbox and I remember when it was called Unreal Tournament, and that is where I start to get irritated. I am well aware that for the Xbox there is a lack of real multiplayer games and Halo and Halo 2 filled that void, but after playing it on the PC - I felt is was derivative and not all that unique, but it is still on the top ten list on the Xbox Live playlist. Now, comes the third installment in the series and the hype-meter is cranked up to 11. In what is probably marketing genius, Crackdown will include a beta spot in each copy of the game it sells at its launch. The problem I am having is that folks are looking at it just like the picture from that page over at Xbox360Fanboy in that you are paying for access to the Halo 3 beta and get the game Crackdown for free. That just makes me a little crazy.

Now this "beta" is not a beta as seen in most other software areas, it is the small taste of the game that is often used by MMO games to help ensure sales at launch. This is nothing more than a vehicle to keep the minds and hearts of the fanboys satiated while they wait for a native Xbox360 version of the game. The 360 has a pretty good set of titles out now and it will continue to get better. Crackdown is pretty high on my list to acquire when it comes out, but unfortunately it will get thrown by the wayside so we can all play the Halo 3 multiplayer beta - meh!!!

If I manage to get a copy of Crackdown at launch, I will be giving away my access code. We will do some sort of contest or something since I really have no desire to play that game.

Thursday January 18, 2007

Sequels...

This is an idea that is used so much in movies and games that it can be both a bane and a blessing. Some sequels are better than their original incarnations, but in many cases they tend to go downhill very quickly. Now we could digress into some of the worst sequels ever made or maybe go the route of greatest sequel, but instead I wanted to point to the article over at Voodoo Extreme that touches on the sequels that you would like to see. Now I know that many would like to see more original titles (but we all know how the market works) and this is an opportunity to touch on what games folks would like to see a sequel from. Without further ado, we have the list:

Alien vs. Predator 3
Anacronox 2
Baldur's Gate 3
Blood 3
Dark Age of Camelot 2
Decent 4
Diablo 3
Duke Nukem Forever
Fallout 3
Giants: Citizen Kabuto 2
Half-Life 3
Interstate 1976 Sequel
No One Lives Forever 3
Planescape Torment 2
Serious Sam 3
Shadow Warrior 2
Shogo 2
Starcraft 2
Tie Fighter 2
Ultima X
Unreal 3

Now, the list is somewhat interesting and are all PC titles. I have played most of the predecessors for these games. They are all very good but would a sequel improve the series? I would like see what other titles folks would like to see as a sequel or what they think of the list.

Exploits

Recently there was an incident in the game World of Warcraft where a pretty big group of players had their account suspended for 72 hours because they found a certain NPC they could kill repeatedly for large amounts of gold. There are plenty of people on the one hand saying 'everybody knew this was a bug and deserve it' and on the other saying 'hey it's not our fault there is a bug - why should we be punished for using it?'

It made me think again about a subject that comes up quite often in online games like this - and that's the dreaded word exploit.

Imagine this - your in an online space game flying through the galaxy questing and killing. You happen upon a starbase where you're going to sell the various loot you've gotten. When you get there, you notice the merchant is selling very high level ship items for very few credits. 'Wow,' you think, 'I've found the secret smuggler who fences stolen goods on the cheap!' You buy him out, thank him, and you're on you way with great upgrades and a smile on your face.

But then imagine a couple of days later you get an email from the company telling you that you're account has been suspended, the high level items removed from your character, and a stern warning telling you not to do it again or you will be banned.

Welcome to the world of exploits. An exploit is defined as taking advantage of a bug or other unintended side effect in an online game that benefits you in some way. Every MMO that I have played contains rules against such behavior and there have been a few high-profile examples.

In the game Everquest 2 there was a bug that allowed you to duplicate items. It had to do with selling items on the in-game maketplace that you also had on display in your home. The game would sell it to the buyer, but leave the one in your house. A pair of players found this and proceeded to duplicate items that sold well to the NPC vendors allowing them to make a lot of in-game gold in a short period of time. Of course, they were caught, but not until they had made real-world dollars by selling some of that gold to brokers. You can read all the details here if you want.

This is one of those cases where the problem was clearly understood to be a bug and exploited intentionally by the player for (supposedly huge) personal gain. More than any other type, this is one of these cases where I can understand the game company's stance on the issue. This person had a pretty negative impact on the economies of several servers and thus negatively affected the play of thousands of paying customers. It ultimately led to Sony developing specific code to be able to look at how money was entering and leaving the economy of the game and allows them to spot quickly when an aberration occurs. They can't always find what it is automatically, but once you know there is an issue it's far easier to find it.

In the venerable Everquest there were numerous problems with pathing. Pathing refers to the path the enemy takes to get to you. In order to avoid obstacles like trees or rocks, the game has to be able to plot a path to you. Today's games generally have the paths determined in real-time (there are some high order mathematics required to get it right, but it's well known.) But back when EQ was created, they decided that they would try to build the paths into the maps - meaning that enemies would always take a certain predictable path once you figured it out. This often meant there were trouble spots where the monsters would take a very round-about way to get to you, often allowing you many free shots at them before they could retaliate. Of course this was flawed, and spawned many areas where you could jump off and on a step and have the enemy suddenly take a long circuitous route to get back to you when you had hardly moved. Move back and forth a few times while attacking at range, and ultimately you would kill the enemy without him getting a shot it. This happened so many times in so many places that every player saw it eventually, but Sony issued an edict that taking advantage of it was an exploit and thus punishable. Some players were banned for exploiting pathing issues with certain bosses, especially inside dungeons.

While it didn't seem they had any way of tracking this themselves, they instead relied on other players to blow the whistle on you. Or they found about it by accident - when an invisible GM just happened to want to watch a group attempt to take down a special boss only to watch them exploit a pathing issue. But this is a different class of bug. Sure, you probably know that the round about way the enemy is tracking to you is a faulty game mechanic, but to put all players in the position due to poor game design means this problem isn't entirely with the players. They also wanted the players to police themselves - always a dangerous proposition.

Another example in World of Warcraft involved a fight in the highest level dungeon instance, Naxxramas. There was a way to get one of your tanks a buff from the previous fight where he wouldn't take any damage from the bosses special attack. This pretty much made the fight trivial since other than the special attack, this boss was a straight up fight. Lots of guilds heard about this and took advantage of it, and ultimately Blizzard fixed the problem and didn't suspend or ban anybody (as far as I know.) Certainly this was taking advantage of an unintended side effect, and was an exploit. But at least in this case there wasn't any punishment handed out despite the gains that were made.

Ultimately for me, I think game companies have to walk a fine line here. Putting the player in the position of knowing if something they have uncovered is a bug or not is patently unfair. Certain things are obvious (like a dupe bug) but there are many other cases - like the Janus one described at the top - that isn't so clear. Is taking advantage of a pathing issue smart gameplay or an exploit?

As for me, I've found exploits in MMO's twice, and both times I kept them to myself. I took advantage of them, yes, but I didn't publicize them or push them so hard I made myself a target. The scenario I described above happened to me in Star Wars: Galaxies - I found an NPC who was selling gear for far lower than it should have been. It turned out to be even lower than that NPC would buy it back for (meaning I could have bought/sold over and over to make lots of money.) I didn't push it or exploit it too much - and ultimately there was never any action by the developer against me. I got away with it, probably because I kept it quiet or try to finance a trip to Europe with my gains.

If you've got a favorite exploit story, share it below!

Monday January 15, 2007

My PS2

Help me get the most out of my PS2 purchase! Yes, a few months ago I bought the venerable Playstation 2 (that's a 2 as in T W O, not the new overpriced PC-wannabe DRM-laden console Sony is selling now.) I also got a Gamefly membership and I've been checking out titles - mostly focused on trying to enjoy the best the console has to offer. I'm willing to try anything once, and Gamefly makes it easy. Here is the list of titles I've tried and the ones in my queue - are there ones I should add? Are there 'must play' titles I'm not likely to have heard of? Help me out! Note that I'm looking for primarily the console experience - and if the game is also out for the PC, I've probably played it.

Here are the games I've played so far:

God of War - amazing, loved it!
Shadows of the Colossus - gave up after the first 3 bosses, I'm not a fan of boss fights, and this game is nothing but.
Metal Gear Solid 2 : Sons of Liberty - slow gameplay bugged me, gave up about halfway through.
Resident Evil 4 : I couldn't get past the poor graphics and hard to use control scheme.
MLB'06: The Show : best baseball game I've played in many years.
Guitar Hero : a blast, I can see why everybody raved about this one!

Here are the ones in my queue:

Kingdom Hearts II
Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King
Freedom Fighters
Final Fantasy X
Jak II
Okami
SSX 3: Out of Bounds
Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec
Devil May Cry
Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal
.hack: Infection (Part 1)
Bully

I should mention a few games that aren't in my queue intentionally because I've played them already:

GTA: loved them all
Need for Speed: enjoyed them
Call of Duty: didn't care for the first
Madden: just OK - this franchise needs the MLB'06 treatment
Burnout: fun!
Splinter Cell: loved them
Prince of Persion: enjoyed them
The Sims: not my game

And here are some games I simply aren't interested in:

No wrestling game of any kind
I'm not a huge fan of fighting games, but I'm willing to play one or two of the best
Not a fan of most sports games, however if there is a great one I'm interested in trying it

Have I missed your favorite title? Is there a little-known game that you consider a 'must play' for the console? If so, fill me in on the comments below!

PREVIEW: Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas

I picked up Rainbow Six Vegas this weekend and got to spend a few hours playing it, so I thought I would share my first impressions.

This game is not like the Rainbow Six games that I remember. I think of them of tactical combat sims with an emphasis on planning - setting routes for your teams, coordinating the execution, but overall acting like a head coach. Vegas is similar, however the emphasis on planning has been dropped, so instead of being the coach you are now the quarterback. You direct the action live, in the field, and react to changing circumstances.

The best part of the game so far is the way it treats your ability to take cover. You simply walk up to a wall (or car, or piece of house, or trashcan, or train, etc.) and hit the right mouse button - this instantly has you hiding behind it. Your view changes and your controls now let you lean out, blind fire, or simply wait out the enemy - giving him time to make that critical mistake. This is a great mechanic, and one I hope other games copy. You can be hit while leaning out to look or to fire, but it sure beats standing out in the open.

You still get to control your team, but it's more on the fly than carefully planned action. You can send your team to breech one door while you take another, and you can easily designate priority targets for them as well. All told, the interface is smooth and intuitive (although the quick reference sheet should be kept close at hand.) I haven't found the AI to be especially bright yet, but I'm barely out of the first mission (which is mostly tutorial) so that probably isn't the best it can be.

Apparently the game is a port of the XBOX 360 version but except for the menuing system, it doesn't really show. They did a really good job adapting the game to mouse+keyboard, and of course it looks fantastic at the high resolution graphics possible on the PC. I would say that if you prefer the 360 to a PC you'd find this one to be a fun game on that platform too.

Friday January 12, 2007

Cheap Gaming

Over at TwitchGuru, Rob Wright has started a series of articles about the cost of gaming these days and has the first entry titled "How to Lower the Cost of Playing Games" up. This seems to be a good thing to discuss given the plethora of games and gaming consoles available today, and that on average many new games cost in the $50 range for both PC and console. Mr. Wright states that he will not buy used games due to the small discount that is offered for those titles, but chose to try out GameFly as a mechanism to help reduce the outlay of gaming cash for console games. His article then continues on about how he managed to reduce his GameFly dues by watching ads online (which is an interesting way to reduce the cost of his subscription but I just don't see it working for me.) Now I will say that he uses GameFly as a mechanism to play games that are hard to find for some reason or another and it also allows him to earmark good games for eventual purchase, but his cost saving scheme via this route seems flawed at best.

From my point of view, cheap (or inexpensive) gaming is accomplished by a couple of really good rules and the judicious use of some web resources. I will discuss some of my rules which would work if I followed them, and then include the web links at the end.

The first rule is to avoid buying any title when it is first released. This is due to the simple fact that the game tends to be most expensive at this point. It is also the point at which the publisher realizes they will recoup the costs for the game. Now, this rule is probably the most flexible since I know many games see big sales during that initial launch, and in that case I suggest only purchasing new release titles when they are on sale.

Second, buy used games. Yes, I know that there are risks associated with that, but you want games for less money then go buy used. EB/Gamestop and GameFly both offer the ability to buy used titles and offer some assurances that your purchase will work as good as a brand new one. Furthermore, buying used from GameFly will guarantee you a case and a manual which takes a bit more work when buying from EB/Gamestop. This route is also served by the famous buy 2 get 1 free sales that are seen throughout the year. If you don't like either of those routes, look to Ebay since many use that as a mechanism to recycle their games. Any route you take will save you some amount of money off the original retail price.

Third, wait!!! Now this rule works very well with rules one and two by simply waiting some time until the publisher announces a price drop or maybe until there is an expansion. Many times the original and the expansion will be packaged together at a lower overall price which enables more gaming for less money. This combined with those big sale seasons (Black Friday and others) and you can save a pretty large amount of cash on games. This also allows you to play some older titles that were missed when they first came out (Beyond Good and Evil, Psychonauts for example), and can often be a blessing to those of us more at the back end of the technology curve and our gaming equipment.

Finally, borrow Alright this is probably a pretty weak rule since this rules out options for multiplay and MMOs, but for some titles the single player experience is the thing you are after. Furthermore, you may not be the only gamer around and chances are your friends my have titles you don't - in that case share what you have and convince your friends to do the same. This way you can reduce the number of titles you purchase, but still get access to the games through your little game sharing network. Now I am sure there are all sorts of legal/ethical issues but you should not think of it as piracy but as loaning a book to a friend.

So with those a set of guidelines, folks can enjoy a healthy amount of gaming, and many of these are assisted through the use of a couple really great websites. Cheap Ass Gamer is probably the best site out there for tracking game deals. You must register to gain access to the forums and the only rules are to support the rest of the CAG community. This site has grown significantly even in the last year and is always a great repository for information about deals and all things related to game prices. Another good site is Cheap Xbox-360 Deals which focuses more on the MS console, but is still a good site to catch some great deals out there.

Kids Just Don't Care

Over on Destructoid, they are running an article railing against the success of licensed games, in this case, the game based on the animated movie Happy Feet. Surprisingly, or not, the game has sold 1.8 million copies, which is roughly 2/3 the number of copies that Gears Of War has sold. Destructoid takes this opportunity to take to task the parents who buy these type of games for their kids, and tries to encourage parents to not buy these type of games, using the always persuavie one-two punch of sarcasm and invective.

Unfortunately, most people aren't gamers at heart, and wouldn't know what a really good game looks like. This includes children. The reason these games are so successful is that they piggy-back on successful media franchises and the kids who want these games just don't care. All they want to is to play the game of their favorite movies. And really, so what? Does this fact really affect the industry negatively? No. If anything, the success of these games brings in money needed for development of the 'good' games that don't sell as well. A necessary evil, perhaps, but then again, these games aren't aimed at us.

Secondly, the hope being that many of the kids who play these games now will outgrow them and move onto something better. Let's face it, many of the really good games aren't aimed at the younger crowd. If you can hook them with the franchised games, then you can persuade them to play something better later on.

These games will always be made, because they make money, so railing against them is fruitless. A better approach would be to say, "If your kids liked Happy Feet, you should have them try Freddy Fish', or some other appropriate good game. Maybe Destructoid is going for humor here, but it struck a bit of a nerve. Their approach certainly won't persuade many parents, not the least because most parents aren't reading Destructoid.

An ironic thought occurs to me here. The above arguments 'in favor' of licensed games are also those that are 'in favor' of media tie-in novels and why they are good for science fiction. Ironic.

Thursday January 11, 2007

Jobs Says iPhone To iPwn The PSP

OK, so he doesn't actually say that. But he comes darn close in this Time Magazine article when it is reported:

In the hours we spent talking about the iPhone, Jobs trash-talked the Treo, the BlackJack, the Sony PSP and the Sony Mylo (“just garbage compared to this”)

Trash? Trash? Lets see, while the iPhone has a nice screen, how many movies can you watch on it? 250. That's all the movies that are available from iTunes. The PSP has at least that many movies on UMD (a terrible format, but still) plus you can rip your movies to MP4s and watch them on the PSP. Try that with Mr. iPhone. Oh that's right, you can't install any custom software. Alright, so maybe movies aren't that big a deal. Lets move on.

What about music? Of course, the iPhone allows you to play any music you purchase through iTunes and of course, you get your tunes teeming with fresh, hot, steamy DRM. Sony has its own music service as well for the PSP, with its own steamy DRM, but you can rip your own music to MP3s and play it on the PSP. Will the iPhone play MP3s? You'd think so, but I can't find out for sure. In any case, the PSP will play music too, just like the iPhone. But maybe this isn't that big a deal to you either (then why, again, would you need an iPhone?). Lets move on.

To games. The iPhone doesn't have any. Yet. A betting man would wager that Apple will be making use of that nice screen to allow the iPhone to play games. But wait, there are absolutely no gaming buttons on the iPhone. Sure, you could wave it around in a manner reminiscent of a Wiimote, taking advantage of the built in sensors, but do you really want to be doing that a $400 electronic item? I wouldn't. Who knows when you'll end up smacking it into a wall, or another person, as you frantically try to dodge an enemy attack. That is if there ever are any games you'd want to play on an iPhone, which is running that stellar gaming OS, OS X. The one that has so many games on it. Clearly, when it comes to gaming, the PSP wins here, what with all the games available for it and being designed to be a game system and all. The iPhone doesn't seem to be designed with gaming in mind. Sure, the touch screen could be neat, but can you play all games using a touch screen? If the controls are built to use the touchscreen, that screen better be heavy duty to withstand the frantic mashing that will occur. I just don't see FPSes or fighting games being viable here, so maybe casual games will be the target. But will the casual market want to shell out for a $400 phone? So maybe its not fair to compare them here, but Steve started it.

Which leads to the biggest area of contention, the price. The iPhone starts at $500 with a two year contract with Cingular. Gee, that's nice. For $300, I can get a PSP, a 4GB stick,a couple of games and some movies. Of course, I can't make calls, but then again, I'm too busy playing games. Of course, the Time Magazine reporter tries to dismiss this price by saying its a handheld computing platform but it's not a luxury item, because we all have $500 plus two years of payments just sitting around in our pockets to pay for this thing. Heck, starving kids in Africa can get one. Seriously, how many people, aside from Apple fanboys, are going to drop $500 just to start for this phone? It's a phone, I want it to make calls. All the other extras are just that, extras. They aren't necessary for a phone. Apple, and others, are trying to push over priced convergence devices. Not because of any demand, but because of profit margins. Call me when Cingular, or other carriers, is giving these things away for free with a contract, then you'd have something. As it is, its just more hype for a phone with a nice looking UI. Because, as we all know, nice UIs sell phones.

Maybe I'm being curmudgeonly, but Jobs is the one calling other devices crap when you can't download songs directly to the iPhone, you can't sync it wirelessly (WTF?), no games, limited movies, DRM infested iTunes, and you have to have Cingular service to use it because it can't be operated without a phone plan. Now that's a good idea. Maybe Steve's turtleneck is cutting off the air supply to his brain.

Wednesday January 10, 2007

I am important!!!

At least according to the lovely folks over at Sony, who have decided to make me a member of the Gamer Advisory Panel or GAP for short. Now, this statement will be met with jeers and other assorted snide comments about me becoming a fanboy, but I am taking the high road (until I can find an appropriate retaliation mechanism.)

Now seriously, what does this all mean? My guess is that I was selected since I have two consoles from Sony (a PSP and a PS2) and a fair number of games for those consoles (I am a gamer after all). I do realize that this is part marketing and they believe that I will continue to purchase equipment from Sony and games for said equipment, but I have taken this and turned it into some humor by getting a photo of my Playstation Underground certificate on top of my Xbox360. The optimist side of me is hoping that Sony will use this as a mechanism for gaining valuable feedback and a way to feed the fanboys that partially drive the market, but the pessimist sees this as nothing more than a way to shmooze me to buy more Playstation games and upgrade the hardware (which I will not do since I still think the PS2 is a fantastic console with a ton of games I have not played.)

You can find the picture of my new certificate of importance placed in a location of prominence on my desk, and the text from my letter welcoming me as well after the jump...

And the letter:

Dear Tim,

Congratulations!

You're now a member of the Gamer Advisory Panel--an exclusive community of gamers with the power to shape the future of the industry. Enclosed is an official certificate verifying your elite status. Remember, this is the highest honor you can receive from Playstation--and we're thrilled to bring you into the fold.

You were selected from millions of Playstation gamers because of your passionate dedication to the world of gaming. Over the course of the next year, we will rely on you for your insight--and reward you with new opportunities to share your expertise. We'll be contacting you by email and regular mail, so be sure to keep your Playstation Underground Member Profile current by visiting www.us.playstation.com/myaccount/.

Tim, on behalf of the Playstation Underground--welcome to the Gamer Advisory Panel. You can now count yourself among the industry's most influential players. We look forward to hearing what you have to say.

Respectfully yours,

Jack Tretton
Executive Vice President
Co-Chief Operating Officer
Sony Computer Entertainment America

P.S. Don't forget: You're on the inside now, so we don't want you to miss a thing. Be sure to keep your Member Profile updated, and check the G.A.P. website often for more chances to participate: gap.us.playstation.com.

So there you have it, I am key to driving the gaming market in the future. Now if you will excuse me, I have to go deflate my ego..

Tuesday January 02, 2007

REVIEW: THE GAME OF LIFE in Bikini Bottom SpongeBob SquarePants Edition

REVIEW SUMMARY: Very basic game for the younger set, too much dependence on randomness
MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: It is the classic game Life targeted at a younger audience and set in Bikini Bottom - you pick a career, a house, and a pet and try to accumulate more wealth than your opponent (clearly the object of life in general.)

MY REVIEW:
PROS: Good use of the SpongeBob license; overall quality production value; great for the target age
CONS: Too many random elements make the game have little strategy or appeal to anybody over 9 years old
BOTTOM LINE: Fun to gamers ages 7-9

REVIEW: Rumis

REVIEW SUMMARY: A fun stacking game that delivers for family members of all ages.
MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: A bit like Jenga in reverse, players take turns collaboratively building up a proscribed shape based on the pieces they have remaining. The winner is the one whose pieces end up on top.

MY REVIEW:
PROS: Simple to learn, lifetime to master; Easy for 7 years old and up to play; Forces you to think in 3 dimensions
CONS: While overall production value is high, some of the plastic pieces aren't perfect which makes building with them a little bit harder than it should be. Pieces are overall small - increasing the size a bit would have greatly added to the stability.
BOTTOM LINE: A great family game for 2-4 players.

I picked up this game out of the 'not heavily advertised game' section at Target. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about - the main game section is filled with licensed properties (do we really need a Spiderman version of Operation?) and other games with big advertising budgets. But there is a section of a shelf nearby that holds games that fit into the other category - ones with broad appeal (usually by winning game awards) but aren't marketed as hard. It is here that I have picked up some of my families favorite games - from Sleeping Queens to Little Fish; Big Fish and now Rumis.

The game contains a rotating platform, 4 game boards that dictate the structure to build, and 4 sets of colored pieces. The pieces are all different combinations of cubes - some are a simple 4x1 square, and some are more complicated. If you think of three dimensional Tetris pieces you'll have a good idea of what the pieces look like.

After picking a board and placing it on the platform, you take turns placing your pieces. The goal is to place as many pieces as you can while having your pieces end up on top - the score awards 1 point for each cube face of yours that is on top at the end. You lose points for any pieces you can't place, so it behooves you to get those pieces on the board.

Overall, this is a very simple game to learn, and my 7 year old was playing and doing very well withing minutes. We pretty much had one sample game where we talked through the potential moves and after that he was ready to play for real. We played some two-player games and, as is common here, while the strategy is limited it was still great fun. When we added a third player though, the game took on a new tone. Also, playing with the different game boards (which dictate the footprint and maximum height of your structure) added even more depth. And it was this that surprised the heck out of me. I was able to easily master the 2-height 2-player game, but found the larger structures an enigma (and hence got my hat handed to me.)

The production value is overall pretty high. The rotating platform is very stable, rotates easily, and is well made from thicker than expected plastic. The art is just average, but the card stock for the boards is very solid. And finally, the pieces themselves are reasonably well made in bright colors.

My only knock on this game is that one of our game pieces wasn't 100% perfectly square, and thus made building on it a small challenge. Also, the pieces are just a little small given the heights the game can get to. If the pieces had been a little bit bigger this wouldn't be an issue at all. I see there is another version of this game in the UK that uses wooden pieces that might be a better version (assuming they are made well.)

However, these are minor imperfections - they haven't really prevented us from enjoying the game nor me heartily recommending it.