G-pinions

While I think that Mr. Wong's article that Tom brought up (required reading for this post) makes some good points and is intelligently written and fairly humorous, I think it ultimately misses it's mark. It feels like it's written by a jaded gamer, trying to come to terms with their waning interest in gaming by putting together an argument against the industry and against the fans. My main two points of disagreement are these:

First of all, the videogame industry "crash" of the mid-eighties was mostly a result of the market being flooded. No matter how big of a fad game systems were at the time, the market couldn't evenly support the flood of software that occurred. I mean, christ, they buried thousands of copies of E.T. in the desert to get rid of them. Games today, well, it's a different story. Usually the worst that happens nowadays is that a good game will get lost in the holiday shuffle (BG&E, for instance), which will force the price down. Companies rarely pump out total crap prolifically - you just can't do it, it's too expensive. You have to have good graphics or a big name to sell a game, and that takes money. Atari games could easily make their development costs back even if the game didn't sell too well, to a point (the point when consumers stopped buying the crap altogether). But if a game doesn't sell well today...well, don't expect a sequel, or another game from that company for a while. I'm not saying that the overall quality of games released is higher now than ever (although that's a whole separate argument), I'm saying that the same company can't afford to suck regularly, because the market won't afford them to. Games were a fad back then, and an industry can only grow so much based on a fad. But with 90 million current generation systems sold, as he mentions, videogames are most certainly not a fad anymore. So as far as an industry-killing software flood goes, forget about it.

Secondly, his statement about "original gamers," late twenty-somethings growing up and out of gaming, well, that might be true. But you know what else is true? Kids are playing games, and in very large numbers. And guess what? More children are born every day. I know, I was shocked to hear that too. So for every OG that loses interest, five more eager young rapscallions are there waiting to take his place. And with videogames only a couple more years away from officially being a "cool" hobby, I don't think adult gamers of the future are going to get the same disrespect they get now. They'll be the ones running the country, because hey, "How many non-Amish friends do you have under age 30 who don't have a game console in the house?", right? And besides, the average gamer is 24, so there's that whole argument out the window already.

I have a lot more issues with the article, but between Tom and I it's safe to say we don't agree with it, and that's good enough for me, unless I feel like spouting off some more later. Hoorah for videogames!

First, read this article. Ding!

Did you read the whole thing? It's long, I know, but you can do it. Go back and read the paragraphs you skimmed. Pop quiz: what color was Batman in the Atari screenshot? What was that? Black? No, that's the real Batman. Go back and read it again, I can wait...

So, I've never skied before, but I imagine I'd be real bad at it. I don't know, it just seems like my knees would freeze and I'd fall down or something. Can't that happen? My knees sometimes freeze when I walk down the street. Yeah, I sometimes fall...

Ok, you done now? So what did you think? A video game crash is imminent? Imminent you say? You agree with him? Fuck you, you're both wrong. And I'll tell you why.

First and foremost, we live in a rich nation. Yeah, Bush put his peeper in our outholes pretty good, but money is still plentiful. We have money to spend. How else could Starbucks stay in business? They charge 5 Bones for coffee you know.

And, since we have an excess of money, it has to go somewhere, right? We're not rushing to our Bank One's, throwing our money at them yelling "Please! Take my money before I spend it on more crap I don't need!" Nope, we buy the crap.

Oh, I don't know on what exactly, but many things. We buy the good kind of peanut butter for one, not that store brand. That's an extra dollar every week or two. We see movies we really shouldn't, just because we're bored. Some of us even donate money, just giving it away. Those of us with girlfriends or bum boyfriends have to buy lavish gifts for them to ensure fun time in the sack. And, of course, we buy video games.

There really isn't enough cool stuff to buy if you take video games out of the equation. So, that's my first reason why video games will not have another crash.

Second, there are so many fucking sweet games that come out every year that one can't help loving our industry. There are entire companies who consistently release very good to great games with every single release. Bungie. EAD. Ubi Soft. Rare (Shut up!). Blizzard. Konami. Capcom... The list goes on and on. All of these companies are committed to quality and consistently produce amazing games we, the video game buying public, can't wait to sink our teeth into.

And then there are those licensed games. I talk a lot of shit about them but, guess what, people love them. They love being James Bond or Mary Kate or The Bearenstein Bears. Yeah, it's cool being a random secret agent trying to save the world, but how much cooler is it to be Jack Baurer, saying "No, Chappell, I have to do this to save lives! I get results!" while you go kill terrorists. That's what we want. That's why we play games.

And yeah, maybe Mr. Bitter didn't love Rogue Sqadrdon, but what about Knights of the Old Republic? Remember the part where that guy goes "Nevermind" and you reply "You got it."? That was priceless. You didn't get that kind of entertainment in the last two Star Wars movies combined.

And, despite what this loon thinks, people don't see movies or buy games because they revolutionized the world. The most popular stuff in both mediums is usually something that has been done a million times before but this one has Snoop or Online Play.

And that brings us right to Online Play. This bitter little man would have been the same guy, 10 years ago, saying AOL should just cut its losses, no one except teenaged nerds will want to go online. Now my mom plays people in Switzerland in Scrabble every night. You don't think that will catch on in the console world as well? Right now their are two problems why online isn't successful: 1) People don't want to shell out $50 for Xbox Live and 2) People don't want to shell out $40 for a PS2 network adaptor. If they were free, like games on the PC are, then maybe you'd see more than 28 million people playing.

People like this piss me off. I still play old FPS, Goldeneye is one of my favorite games ever. Doom 2 sold really well for the GBA. People play old games if they are still great. And, sure, there hasn't been a huge leap in football games the last two years, but remember that first year with Dynasty Mode? That was pretty amazing, wasn't it?

All I have to say is that video games are alive and well. Nintendo is right that you can only go so far with graphics before gameplay comes in vogue again, but there is no reason to believe enough companies won't follow Nintendo's lead and make games great.

Ladies and gentleman, I am pleased to announce that The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra is finally coming out. Even better, it's coming out this week! Yay! Finally something we all can agree about. Except Dan of course. Someone has to play Devil's Advocate for every frickin' good movie. He likes Jackass but not Human Nature and expects people to take his opinion seriously?

Quack!

And, of course Nick, you know that Conker Live and Uncut isn't a rehash. The focus of the game is online play. Consider it Rare's version of Quake 3 Arena.

I'm not going to argue anymore about licensed games with Tom "I speak objectively" McShea. "So, when all is said and done, licensed games are just not as good as original games." How can I even begin to argue with such a statement?

Anyhow, as far as Rare losing their touch...well, I haven't played a Rare game in a while, but I think that that fact alone says something about their last couple of games. And I don't think much is going to change this year with the Conker rehash (although Kameo might have a shot if it's actually ever released). I agree with the theory that Perfect Dark 2 (or 0, or whatever) will end up as an X-Box2 launch title, but it's gonna be hella weak if they don't release a great game between now and then. It might seem silly, but I fear the same thing is happening with them as happened with Oddworld Inhabitants. They're bought out by Micro$oft, and shit goes downhill. In general I applaud Microsoft as a game company for green-lighting more creative, original games than I thought they would when they got into the console business, but I just don't think they're willing to take too many risks with their first and second party software, so I don't imagine they encourage companies like Rare as much as Nintendo did. At this point it almost seems like it's more about having the name for them, and taking a big piece of cheese from Nintendo and Sony, respectively. I'm glad that Bungie didn't end up with quite the same fate, but considering how awesome the Marathon games were as early as 1991, I expected Halo to be even better than it is. I just hate to see a good developer go down the tubes, is all.

I've been playing Metal Arms multiplayer over the last couple of days, and I have to say, it's pretty great. It's just pure fun. The multiplayer options are myriad (they remind me of Halo in terms of depth), and the gameplay is fast, creative, and visceral. Being able to jack into other bots to control, as well as drive tanks and ride mechs, is not only sweet, but really makes the game. The developers only decided on adding the 'jacking' feature late into the development cycle, but it drastically changes gameplay, and helps it stand out in a relatively stagnant genre. I actually caught a really interesting program on G4 a while ago about the game, which led me to purchase it. The developer, Swingin' Ape Studios, just seem like a bunch of passionate, knowledgeable guys, and are all about cramming as much fun as possible into their work. They kept cramming more and more features and weapons and environments into Metal Arms up until the last minute, and enjoy playing it as much as anyone else. I myself can't wait to break into the single player game (tomorrow, perhaps?), and will mos def be reporting back on it. Check out their website in the meantime, you'll see what I mean when I say they're a company that's all about the fun.

I usually don't take much of an interest in PC games (although I do wish I had one right now to play Farcry on), but two have stood out to me recently based on what I've read and seen, and so I deem them discussion worthy. The first is The Matrix Online. Now, I liked Enter the Matrix more than most people, but considering Shiny had been working on it for like seventeen years, it was still a big fucking disappointment (they should have just put in Earthworm Jim). So I figure maybe the license would be better off in someone else's hands, but it would seem not. TMO is a new MMORPG developed my Monolith, and it looks like crap. I mean, I don't see what the game consists of (or can consist of) besides wandering around and fighting, as nothing else has even been hinted at. For that matter, I have absolutely no faith that the fighting engine will do the Matrix universe justice. I mean, two players moving faster than physics allows should kinda cancel each other out, right? So much for cool bullet time battles. And based on the video that I've seen of it, every character that you can be (or design, whatever) just looks like a lame ripoff of one of the movie characters. The worst part about it all, and what really convinces me that the game will blow goats, is that Ubisoft pulled out of the project as the publisher during the development (Warner Bros. is now the publisher - ha!). And these days I have a hell of a lot of faith in Ubisoft thanks to their new "commitment to quality" (which is grossly evident in their last couple of games). So, when they drop off, so does my interest level. Here's to hoping.

The other game I wanted to speak briefly about is World of Warcraft, a MMORPG of a different sort (the good sort). I played a fair amount of Warcraft 1 and 2 back in the day, and a spot or two of Starcraft and Warcraft 3 before I stopped playing computer games, and I have a fairly huge amount of respect for Blizzard. I would fully expect that a MMO Warcraft game be top quality, but a video which I saw of a player riding a gryphon around the various environments made my jaw drop. Soaring over gorgeous landscapes like that is the stuff of gamers dreams, and I commend Blizzard for so far surpassing my expectations, even if it is just graphically at this point. Speaking of which, the rendering for the cutscenes also looks to be coming along swimmingly, with textures and muscle movement on par with FF: The Spirits Within, the Animatrix, and anything else you can imagine. But then again, the "craft" series has always had some badass cutscenes, so I should expect no less. Still check out the video though, it's mighty impressive.

Well, that's all for now, loyal dans.... I mean fans. I'm off to fight the lumbering dinosaur that is sleep.

I entered a contest to see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and won! Weeeee! Free ticket! I don't know how many, but I'm going to see it next Thursday! Yay!

Just a little more about what I said yesterday. I don't know why I didn't stress that enough.

It's probably not too surprising that, in the history of video games, the only company that IGN felt made a licensed game worthy of the Top 100 Games of All Time list was Rare with their FPS masterpeice Goldeneye.

Right now, a lot of people are down on Rare. They say they are in a slump. They say they've lost something. They've lost their edge. They've become soft this generation, since Microsoft bought them out. Since they sold out to the man.

I say that is bullshit. Rare has consistently been one of the top developers in the world for more than 20 years. 20! Since before the NES came out. Since video games were even a popular medium. I hardly doubt they lost all that talent in only a few years.

Yes, you can look at the fact that they've lost many people from their talented staff over the years. But, guess what, they are one of the best developers in the world, of course they're going to lose some of their talent over the years. The key is brining new people in.

After Goldeneye they lost a number of key artists and programmers. It may have caused Perfect Dark to come out a little later than they would have liked, but it certainly didn't hurt that game any. Perfect Dark was Goldeneye but better in every aspect but one: balance. With all the new weapons, with 2nd functions on every gun, it was hard to have a completely balanced match. But that was easily remedied by allowing the user to create their own weapon set.

Other than that, a short handed Goldeneye development team blew one of the greatest games ever out of the water. A longer and harder story mode. Co-op and Counter-op play. 8 computer controlled bots, something no other console FPS was able to accomplish until a year ago. Not too shabby. The first FPS with a Challenge Mode, which the Timesplitters team has adopted as their own. A shooting range mode. The list goes on and on and on.

Rare hasn't lost a thing.

So, you can say that Grabbed by the Ghoulies was repetitive, even if you haven't played it. You can say the GBA Banjo-Kazooie isn't as good as its N64 brothers, but that's obvious. Kazooie and Tooie are two of the top 20 games of all time. You can say that Conker wasn't even fun, to which you'd be wrong.

While it's true Rare hasn't made a great game since Conker's Bad Fur Day, that was only in 2001. They've only released a few games since then.

Anyway, I just felt the need to defend my favorite video game developer. If Conker: Live and Uncut and Perfect Dark Zero come out and suck, maybe they have slipped. But for right now, it seems more likely they will continue their greatness rather than let 20 years of being at the top go down the toilet.

I think I'm going to play some Jet Force Gemini for a bit now.

But first, the last say on the whole licensed game talk. If you look at any Top 100 Games of All Time list you won't find many licensed games. Take IGN's list. They have nine licensed games on their list, and all but one of them are sports titles. The only one to not be a sports titles, and the only one to crack the top 20, was Goldeneye. So, when all is said and done, licensed games are just not as good as original games. Regardless of how fun they may be for a short time, they are not classics. They are not great. So what's the point?

Anyway, I've had a hankering for finishing some unfinished games of late. I had this same hankering last month, actually, and went back to my unfinished Mario Sunshine. That game still pisses me off with its horrible camera (Mario 64 and the Banjo series never had this problem. Don't tell me a good camera in a 3D platform game cannot be done) and annoying controls. I would have been much happier with a straight Mario 64-2. Sure, innovation is what got Nintendo to where they are in the first place, but you have to just recognize what is and is not ultimately fun, and Mario Sunshine is just too frustrating to really enjoy. So, alas, that still sits on my shelf, unfinished and unloved.

But, I am opening my heart to a trio of other currently unfinished games. Granted, I already have a bevy of games I need to tackle, from Orta to FF8 and Ape Escape 2, but these 3 games... I can hear them calling to me in the night. Crying. Moaning. Screaming. I need to complete them. I need to put them to rest.

First up, because it was released first and I feel I owe it to myself to finish, is the much maligned Star Fox Adventure. I will be the first to admit this game is far from perfect. The gameplay is somewhat repetitive, falling into a Donkey Kong 64 area of gaming where collecting objects is the only thing the keeps you playing. Not a good system to build the rock of your church.

But, upon starting up the game again today, at the 45% mark, I was very pleased to see what lay in front of me. As it had been more than a year since last I played it, I had no idea what I was supposed to do exactly. Luckily for me, as soon as I entered the next room the game cut to an in game cut scene showing me my task at hand: Kill dinos and play your magic flute for the cute birdy. Nice.

What really surprised me, though, was how quick I picked up the controls again. I figured I'd have to thumb through the instruction manual to remember what button did what, but the game is so darn intuitive a moron could figure out the controls. A is attack, B is the action button, X evades. L is camera and R is block. Oh, and the C stick, like in Metroid Prime after it, is your inventory. This always messes me up a little since I want C to stand for Camera, but it's not that hard to use.

Anyway, you'll probably hear more about this game as I get closer to completing it. For those of you who don't know, Rare is still my favorite developer, with EAD coming in at 1A. Even if SFA and Grabbed by the Ghoulies aren't great (though I haven't played GbtG yet to have an opinion) any company that gave me Blast Corps, Goldeneye, Battletoads, Anticipation, Snake Rattle and Roll, not to mention the great game show games of the past, and the highly underrated Diddy Kong Racing, will always have a place in my heart.

Oh, and did you hear the rumor that Rare has a secret game they will debut at E3? To quash two rumors before they start, the Banjo-Kazooie team just finished GbtG so don't expect them to unveil a new Banjo. Also, Perfect Dark Zero was announced 18 years ago, so that hardly qualifies as new. Plus, I fully expect PD0 to be an XBox 2 launch title. So... let the speculation begin.

My hope/prayer/need is a sequel to Blast Corps. Imagine a 4 player co-op game! Or, I shouldn't even say this... Xbox Live...

If it's original let's hope it's not a racer, First Person Shooter or platform game. Rare has already made at least one great game in each genre (Diddy Kong Racing and RC Pro Am for racers, GE and Perfect Dark for FPS and, of course, Donkey Kong Country and the Banjo series for platformers). I'd love to see them take on a new genre, or maybe even invent one. I'm getting giddy just thinking about it.

Whew, it's been a while since I posted last. I've been working on the site design and such though, so at least I've still been contributing to the G-pinions universe, per se. Since one of my main purposes on this site is to argue and discuss with Tom, I shall proceed to catch up with the topics of the last week or so. Enjoy.

Licensed games - Yes, they have historically blown. And as a genre, they will probably always lag a bit behind of the rest, simply because their time constraints and prerequsites are different for developers than most. But I still think that they have a place in videogames, and that for the most part, they've gotten better. The Lord of the Rings games are great for the most part, and mirror the high production values of the movies. The Hulk game was pure fun, aside from a few frustrating battles, and Wolverine's revenge was badass if you were even a slight fan of the character. I even enjoyed Enter the Matrix, which is quite the taboo opinion in the industry it seems. I'm sure at least that many licensed games were released in the same time span that were virtual excrement, but I must have steered clear of them because I haven't played a bad licensed game for quite a while. As far as the Fight Club game, I'm all for it. It's being developed by a group of guys and gals who understand it's a delicate license, and want to do the movie justice as much as we want to see them do the movie justice. And the game covers timespans in the movie that you didn't get to see, such as Tyler Durden fighting in all of the cities that he travelled to, which is just badass. As long as a developer has the interest of the fans and not the publisher in mind, I'm behind them all the way. Some games that use an old license for a completely different type of game can be hit or miss with their audience I imagine, such as the upcoming Seven Samurai 20XX. The game looks decently cool, but I don't think any hardcore Kurosawa fans are gonna be stoked to kill hordes of cyborgs in the future in his name. And I have yet to see a great game based off of a TV series (except maybe Simpsons: Hit or Run), so I wouldn't get your hopes up about the "24" game, Tommy boy.

Tom busting his shit playing Mario Party - That's what you get for playing it by yourself.

The new Splinter Cell - Stealth games are obviously an acquired taste, but I'm a big Metal Gear fan. I don't think the combat needs to be deep and thrilling, otherwise there would be no motivation to sneak around. I like knowing that I'm almost surely fucked if I get caught. I can totally understand the appeal of the first Splinter Cell, but it was just a bit too slow for my tastes. There's stealth, and then there's crawling along a ledge for fifteen minutes only to get spotted by some moron who was standing behind a lightpost when you jumped down. But it was very well done for what it was. Pandora Tomorrow, on the other hand, is a totally different story, thanks to the online multiplayer mode. I'm sure the single player mode will be the tits, and I might even play it if I get the game, but the online mode just sounds mega-awesome, as Tom mentioned. Two on two, spies (third person with stealth and gadgets galore) versus mercenaries (first person with guns and anti-spy shit) online action. Check out these videos for a taste of both sides, it's pretty fucking spectacular what you can do. The guys playing in the videos talk like professional douchebags, but they get the point across of how crucial communication is. And Tom's point is well taken about how it might be tough to find four fairly intelligent people to play with online, but if I can sometimes manage it with sixteen people in Socom, I figure I'll be able to pull it off in PT. The balance of sides just seems so perfect; the spies can knock out the mercenaries but not kill them - they have to complete an objective (such as setting off a bomb) to win, while the mercenaries just need to find spy ass and beat spy ass until spy ass is no more. Sweetness.

That about brings us up to date. I'll have some more original thoughts tomorrow, I've got some good stuff brewing. For now, I'm off to watch my cat fight with a rubber cockroach and a speaker. Bring it speaker, bring it.

Yesterday, while browsing Gamespot, a site a rarely venture to, I happened upon a preview of the multiplayer mode of Splinter Cell: Pandora's Tomorrow. And I got a little excited...

You should know that I hated the first Splinter Cell. I got the first one after reading every publication drool over it and Penny Arcade name it the 2nd best game of 2002. I couldn't resist buying it. But, when I finally started playing it I was bored out of my mind. I hate stealth games. I hate stealth games more than I hate story in video games.

I hate the lack of action. I hate having to crawl along a pipe or sneak up on someone from behind to get anywhere. I hate how, if I do get caught, there is no way I'll be able to escape. I hate the lack of action. I want to run and jump and kill people.

In certain games, like the all mighty Goldeneye, stealth can work. Mostly because you don't need to be stealthy to win. While it's very cool to be able to sneak up on a sleeping Russian soldier and shoot him point blank in the head, if you do get caught chances are you'll be able to kill the approaching troops faster than they'll be able to kill you. At its core, Goldeneye is still an action game, albeit with stealth elements.

Back in 1999 I played Metal Gear Solid for the first time and had a similar feeling to when I played Splinter Cell. The gameplay seemed solid enough, and it was cool knocking on walls and using boxes as cover, but the combat skills Solid Snake possessed were far too limited to make actual combat fun and useful, which meant a whole lot of sneaking around with no action.

Anyway, when I got Splinter Cell last year I was horrified to see that it was everything I hated in MGS, times a million. The game was so difficult and unforgiving when spotted it sucked the fun right out of the game. I pretty much gave up after a couple hours of frustrated game play.

But now, after reading about the online mode of Splinter Cell 2, I'm getting a little exciting again. But I know I should. It sounds amazing though. 2 on 2 gameplay. Spies versus mercenaries. Two basic objectives that stand between winning and losing. It just seems like it would have enough action to keep me happy while including a ton of cool stealthy touches, like dust falling from the ceiling tiles when a spy is crawling through the air vents.

But I know if I do end up buying this game it will lead to nothing but frustration. I hate the way Splinter Cell controls. It felt like a next generation version of Tomb Raider. A wide assortment of moves that were a pain in the ass to pull off because of choppy controls. And I know that it would be hard to get a game with 3 people at random who really know what they're doing and are good. Can you imagine how brutal a 2 on 2 game would be if you're partner sucked? If he refused to work as a team? If he continually gave away his position? Unless you're teamed up with a friend against two other people who are friends, I can't imagine this game actually working.

Anyway, I guess I'm just frustrated at this whole idea. It sounds like such a great game, but I know there are just too many potential flaws to make this game worth playing. Even if they cleaned up the controls and insured a competent teammate, two things I doubt will happen, there will probably be another fatal problem that keeps this game in line with the Metal Gear series and the first Splinter Cell.