G-pinions

Man, thank fuck for articles like this. The industry might be accepted by the mainstream audience, but it's far from being respected. That's all I have to say about that, for now.

And dammit, Tom, whenever you try to rip EA you just sound like you're struggling to insult them. I mean, the game is obviously solid as hell. If it wasn't, you and I wouldn't have played it all night, even past the time when our gracious-yet-smelly hosts went to sleep. I'm glad that you can at least see how fun their games are in this instance though. Besides a few little control and design choices, Everything or Nothing is top tier gaming. It's nice and hard (to do well, anyhow), and the gadgets are all fun and actually useful for a change. And I don't think the expression "If it ain't broke", etc., can be applied here, because while they weren't broke, Agent Under Fire and Nightfire weren't Goldeneye-caliber by any means. They were fun and all, but the switch to third person here is more immersive (because we actually feel like Bond since we're seeing Pierce's gorgeous mug the whole game and we get to see him use his gadgets and whatnot), and allows for more dynamic level design since using the environment is crucial to success.

Tom and I argued for a while about whether Goldeneye has aged well (he is of the opinion that all good games will be good forever). I guess I'll never truly know since I can't play it anymore as a result of being way too indoctrinated in the ways of the dual-analog control scheme. But I will say that it was damn fun back in the day, and that it will always be looked upon well because of it's FPS innovations. And it sucks for you that Goldeneye 2 is being made by your least-favorite company after the first one was made by your favorite company. That's like Microsoft making the next Final Fantasy for me. Or something. I guess I just can't see your reasoning behind EA hatred, even after numerous discussions. Hating a big company that has a virtual monopoly over a segment of business is all well and good and understandable, but the fact that EA makes great games changes everything. Most people would say that Starbucks doesn't make the best, tastiest most fairly-priced coffee. If they did, I don't think so many people would complain about them opening up a new store every four blocks. Microsoft has gotten Windows onto a ridiculous amount of computers in the world, but as we all know, Windows is the AOL of operating systems. Blockbuster doesn't have the best selection, and they don't have the best prices by any means. But they're everywhere. So hate them all you want. But with EA, well, they make and publish the best licensed games, the best sports games by far, and everything else that doesn't fit into one of those two categories is usually pretty damn great too. Without them, the entire sports game genre would be years behind where it is now. They even pushed Sega to make better games, for fucks sake. Name recognition and marketing can only take you so far. Gamers are a clever bunch, and they won't keep buying something if it sucks. Enter the Matrix sold amazingly well, but you'd better believe the sequel won't do so well unless Shiny takes it up like fifteen notches. The XSN sports titles sold decently out the gate, but without most of them having any real innovation or great gameplay, they fell behind and are now taking a year off to think about what they did wrong. Crap won't last, and EA have been around for a hell of a long time. And they're not going to go anywhere unless another developer really has the talent and the balls to try and up the ante and succeeds. And the day that happens will be a great day in videogames, not because EA was trumped, but because they'll have to work even harder themselves and make even better games. And we all benefit from that.

And lastly, Street Fighter III Third Strike kicks a lot of ass. Turns out I'm fairly good at it. I've been playing every time I go to the pool hall near my house, and I must say, I missed Akuma's flying fists of cartilage liquidation for all those years. The lightning fast, thumb-destroying fights are just so strategic and fun at such a blinding speed and so beautifully animated. And the move sets are just as well balanced and thoughtful as ever. I still think throwing a fireball is one of the most perfect movements to be found in all of videogamedom. Ahh, joy is SF. I should buy it for my DC.