G-pinions

What a weird industry we work in. This morning I picked up an extra copy of Resident Evil 4 (GC) for $10 at a Toys 'R Us clearance sale. A phenomenal game, recognized by many to be the best game of 2005 (it was second for me, but we'll get to that closer to the end of the year), up for clearance to free up a bit more shelf space. Is this not incredibly bizarre? The always interesting Greg keeps telling me we need a unified industry-voted Game of the Year, and an accompanying respctable awards show. I wholeheartedly agree. When movies win Oscars they're often re-released in theaters, yet when video games receive recognition it doesn't affect their sales significantly if it's not within a couple weeks of release. Even worse, fantastic games like King Kong fall completely off the map once their accompanying hype dies down, regardless of their initial reviews.

I know it's a tough situation, but I think enough bias, allegiances and good ol' fashioned fanboyism could be set aside long enough to make an informed vote and put forth a significant effort to get a deserving title recognized universally. I can appreciate that the nature of the industry relies heavily on brand recognition and marketing hype, but that doesn't mean a game can't be sold through other methods. I know I'm preaching to the choir when I mention how word of mouth and great press coverage got Katamari out there and into people's homes, but I don't think people stop and appreciate that situation very often.

I guess there's no consistency either; a very good point was made on last weeks CAGcast, about how EGM has about a dozen reviewers who cycle out quite a bit. If you can't follow an individuals' gaming habits, tastes and criticism, how can you fully appreciate and anticipate their review of a given game? Having the same two or three voices (ahem) from every media source would do a world of good; while I doubt Adam and Morgan play more than a couple games a year, I'm always interested to see what "X-Play", emphasis on the quotes, thinks of a game. I read PLAY because Dave Halverson is insane and does things like give Legend of Kay Game of the Month, but I love him for it. Passion leads to consistency, and consistency leads to reader validation.

Especially after playing the outstanding Kameo, moreso than usual, I have very little trust in the opinion of some editors, and even less in certain groups of my fellow gamers. But you know what? it doesn't have a bad composite review score, and I'm glad that a good number of people genuinely loved it. The downside to this? One very negative review from a random EGM contributor can ruin the chances of a game selling slightly more than it should. We need unified voices and names that we can associate with opinions we don't necessarily have to trust, but are at least interested in. It's obvious in discussing Perfect Dark Zero with Tom that expectations for a game can vary too drastically, depending on what you're looking to get out of it. That doesn't come across in reviews though, and it's too subjective not to make a note of it.

I know I'm a bit all over the place here (it's late), but I needed to at least attempt to justify to myself why RE4 was so damned cheap. When there's so little recognition by a major retailer for a game that's been so positively recognized in almost every other regard, there's a problem. It's in the publisher's hands, it's in the consumer's hands, and for the purpose of wrapping up this argument, it's perhaps most squarely in the presses' hands.

Way back on my birthday, Nick said "And I'll say it now - Zelda at Revolution launch. You'll see." I, of course, scoffed. Nintendo had repeatedly said that The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess will be a Gamecube title. It was envisioned as one and was only delayed to ensure that this is the best game ever created. (I actually still hold by my belief that Zelda: TP will be the pinnacle in which all current gen games are compared and next gen games strive to overtake). Since they announced the massive delay, the only news that has leaked regarding why it has been pushed back is about the music. Sure, it's exciting that a fully orchestral soundtrack will make my ears smile throughout this 100 hour quest, but surely there has to be something else, right? It's admirable to delay a game past the Christmas season in order to make it as good as possible, but there had to be something other than a re-recording of the entire score to make the extra six month wait worthwhile, right?

Don't worry, Z:TP will still be on the Gamecube. However, players will apparantly have the option to use the Revolution controller to guide Link. Obviously, you'll have to actually play it on the Rev for that option to be relevant - unless Nintendo is planning on packing a magic controller with this game - but this is still a major development. I still expect it to come out a few months before the Rev launch, but Nintendo could very well be positioning this as a selling point for their new system. "Check it out: we have an easy to use controller that will change the way you play games, a huge catalog of classic titles, and the new Zelda that will make all previous incarnations seem obsolete." Heck, this might come out a few months before the Rev launches for those who still just want to play it on their GC, only to be included with the new system later on. To alleviate the problem of people already owning it, Nintendo could just let you have any game for free with the purchase of a system. Under $200 with a free copy of Zelda or Mario you say? Doesn't sound too bad to me... Might not be as good as Sony's pitch of "Look how awesome our games look! Can you believe you were impressed by Battle Arena Toshinden ten years ago?" but will probably sound good to Nintendo fans who never bought a Gamecube and needed something killer to convince them to buy a Rev.


I love this picture

Honestly, I still have no idea how Zelda would control with the RevCon (to steal an abbreviation from the Gaming Age Forums). Most people just assume that you will have to wildly swing the controller to mirror Link's moves in the game, but I still find this idea ludicrous. Pointing the controller like a gun in first person shooters sound great, but swinging it around the room like an epileptic baboon sounds tiring and gimmicky. But how else will they implement this crazy new control method? Furthermore, does this make Zelda Revolution completely obsolete before it is even officially announced? Considering the power of the new system is nothing special, why would I care about a new Zelda game when Twilight Princess is essentially their next generation Zelda title? I know I'm looking very far in the future with that, but, while this may help initial sales of the system, I'm not sure this will be a positive leap for the franchise.

Although, there is a chance controlling Link with the RevCon will be poorly implemented. For instance, objectives in Goldeneye were added late in the development cycle. This means that harder difficulty levels had more tasks, but it didn't feel very different. Perfect Dark, however, was a significantly different experience depending on the difficulty setting because levels were actually designed around having more objectives the harder it gets. This is the difference between having entire new rooms open to you in PD versus GE's style of having no interaction with a safe on easy, but needing to open it up on hard. Zelda probably wasn't imagined as a Rev title so Nintendo may just be throwing this control method into the game, rather than imagine how Zelda could be even better with the RevCon and building an entire game around that idea.


Nevertheless, it's a great time to be a gamer and I simply cannot wait until E3. Oh, and if you're wondering, I am going to play through Zelda as soon as it comes out. I will not wait so I can play it with the Revolution controller. I'm sure anyone who played Zelda at E3 will agree that even waiting a second longer than is absolutely necessary would be torture more than most could stand.

Even with all the product testing and bug scanning, some games still get released that have game killing glitches. When you're dealing with a tight schedule and millions of lines of code, things like this happen from time to time. What's interesting to me is how two major American publishers are handling this issue. Both Electronic Arts and Activision, the two biggest publishers in the US, released an important title with a game killing bug imbedded within. Only one publisher has actually done something about it, though. I'm sure you can guess which by just looking at the title of this post, but I am going to string out the suspense for at least one more paragraph.

I know there aren't many sports fans who read this site, and even less who own a PSP, so this may come as news to you: the PSP version of Madden '06 is riddled with bugs. The most damaging was a little problem that caused the system to crash randomly during Franchise mode. For those who don't play Madden, let me explain the importance of Franchise mode for a second - it's the most crucial feature in the title. By far. If you own Madden and you're not in Franchise mode, you're most likely in the options menu or waiting for the game to load. So the fact that this game crashed in what can be considered the only real mode, erasing any progress you made, is devastating.

Moving from war on the field to war on land, Call of Duty 2 for the X360 also had a huge bug in it. Because of a clash with the operating system, this most evil of titles will randomly delete your save if it decides you're having too much fun. Generally, this happens two thirds of the way through the adventure and is usually caused because your profile was loaded at the wrong time.

Clearly, both of these problems are huge.

Activision responded to this issue - one that Nick has suffered through as well as many people not associated with G-Pinions - by essentially giving players the finger. If your game has crashed and destroyed all your progress, you can go to Activision's website and download a level select code. Yes, this will let you continue at the last level you played, but, unfortunately, your actual progress will not be restored. If you were going for achievements, which most X360 gamers seem to enjoy, you're simply out of luck. You can either start a boycotting campaign against this ultra lame corporation until you get results or start up a different campaign, one that is located in the game itself (like the always diligent Nick has) and just pretend the Nazi's are really Activision employees. I'm sure you can guess what I would have done if I owned this silly war title.

Electronic Arts, on the other hand, a company I have bashed countless times through the years, is actually trying to rectify this issue for its faithful consumers. (Side note: EA and Nintendo probably have the most diehard followers of any company. How weird is that?) They heard about the problems in the new Madden title, checked it out for themselves, and decided to actually fix it. Yay! Any PSP owner who has had their game inexplicably crash on them can just swap out their crappy, broken Madden for a brand-spanking, bug-free version.

I am surprised with the hypocrisy of gamers sometimes. People are generally indifferent towards Activision and tend to love Call of Duty (people love war...) so when this horrible bug surfaced people complained a little and moved on. If it had happened in Final Fantasy or Perfect Dark, franchises with many fans but a lot of active detractors, you would never have heard the end of it. People obviously complained a lot about the problems in the PSP Madden, but there are so many EA haters out there I can't imagine this story about EA's generosity will get much publicity.

(((IN STEREO!!!)))

So, remember when I said I would fix that problem where Ep.2 plays automatically when you open the player? I just tore my hair out trying to fix it, to no avail. Anyhow, I'm sure you can figure it out, you're a quick group.

Things covered:

- Lots and lots of 360

- Daigasso! Band Brothers

- Not a whole lot else

Thanks for listening.

As you have (hopefully) already read on this site, Nick and I played through the entirety of the new Gauntlet title yesterday. It lasted less than 3.5 hours and produced not one memorable moment. Afterwards, we both agreed that Gamespot's score of 5.2 (one of the lowest scores you'll see a publication hand out to a major developer like Midway) was far too generous. There is literally not one good thing in Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows. There are certain things it does adequately, such as control I guess, but nothing solid enough that I would be able to truthfully say "well, at least this is good." I love Hack and Slash titles; Nick and I sunk about 80 hours into the two Norrath games and had a blast with Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks until it crashed an hour after the last save point. But Gauntlet is just a horrible attempt at a shallow genre.

Oh, by the way, thanks Midway for sending Nick and I a review copy.

Anyway, I clicked on the IGN review that Nick linked to last night, anxious to find some good-natured ribbing, and was shocked to see they had given it a 7.0. A 7 out of 10, not out of 100. I was so surprised, I interrupted my quest for grammatical perfection in Instant Messenger by screaming to Nick, in all caps "SEVEN POINT OH!?" I couldn't believe it. Granted, their score system is so skewed that 7.0 merely means the title is decent, but Gauntlet is most certainly not even worthy of that kind of praise. Maybe if it was a $20 budget title I could excuse its brevity and simplicity, but at a full $50, I simply cannot let this stand.

First of all, I am aware that everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I don't like using numbers to quantify how good a game is, but I respect that major publications have to fuel angry message board feuds. But video game journalists have a responsibility to their readers. Yes, how much fun a title is should weigh into your overall take on the game, but it is possible to objectively look at a game and say if it is truly good or not. Psi Ops, for instance, is one of my favorite games this generation, but it isn't particularly good. It's short, the last quarter of the game is quite lame, it has a horrible story, bad AI, linear level design... it has a lot of problems. But I had fun with it. So, whenever I write about it, I make sure people know this is not a good title, but it can be fun if you can ignore all its faults. Of course, Psi Ops also had an awesome and completely new system of controlling people and objects with your mind. I'm sure if it was just another generic title, like Gauntlet is to hack and slash, I wouldn't have liked it nearly as much. However, even if IGN did like G:SS, they could have listed Gauntlet's faults and said "But I still had a blast." That would be fine. But, as quotes from their review will show, they didn't do that.


Ug - Lee

Here we go!

"Thanks to the wonders of Xbox Live Arcade, we've been able to go back in time and play the original Gauntlet on the 360."

Nick didn't mention you could go back in time with the new Xbox. Tell me, can you go back to the future as well? What are you, chicken?

IGN's take on the story:

"If you haven't already guessed, the advisors turn on the emperor, steal his power, enslave the world and transform themselves into evil forms like the Scarecrow and the Twisted Man. The Emperor, having seen the error of his ways, frees the four heroes and sends them after the six evil advisors to mend the sorrows he has wrought."

See, this is where most people would have taken the time to rip the ridiculously uninspired nature of this game. The first boss you fight has the body of a scarecrow with a pumpkin head. Nick immediately said, as the introduction cut scene was still rolling, something like "What is his name? Barn Pump Crow Man?" See, that's funny? We were both pretty disappointed when we found out his name was "Scarecrow." How lame is that? And since when do scarecrows have pumpkin heads? Wouldn't that actually attract crows? Not to mention the reek. Oh the smell! It would have at least been ironically funny if he commanded crows, sending murder after murder at you. But, alas, he just walked around while we hit him with our weapons of might. Ho hum.

Oh, and this is also the first passage in the IGN review that reads like a press release. "Mend the sorrows he has wrought," eh? Do people actually write like that?


Ah! Death! Quick, hit the Black button!"

Back to IGN's review:

"Try as they might, though, it's almost as if the people at Midway just haphazardly threw some story together just to have a story. The four heroes don't talk or have any personality, so there is no way to relate to the characters and no reason to care about what happens."

I guess this is the part where the IGN editor was like "Be more objective. Insult the story, damnit!" Of course, this comes after the reviewer already said that "Seven Sorrows is just good old-fashioned, three-dimensional Gauntlet" and had already determined that the original Gauntlet was "one of the all-time great quarter-suckers. There was no story. You would just grab a friend and mash."

So they said that the original Gauntlet is great, even though it doesn't have a story, and the new game is just a 3D interpretation of this "classic" title, yet they rip the story? Huh? They clearly are content with no story at all. Why not just pat Midway on the back for including a story for those who want it, and make a note that you can easily skip the narrative if you just want mindless hack and slash action?

I'm so disgusted I'm going to quote IGN some more:

"The heart of Seven Sorrows, like its predecessor, is the on-screen, hack and slash action, which can be a lot of fun."

This is perfectly acceptable. Gauntlet: SS can be fun. Heck, every co-op game is fun. The reviewer certainly had fun. Furthermore, this game will definitely appeal to some people. If more than 100 people actually beat Clocktower 3, it's not too surprising that a few will like this as well. This review would have been fine if the reviewer accurately described the experience. Unfortunately, this is not what actually happened.


Yawn... block pushing puzzle

"The four characters each have very different fighting styles, each equally enjoyable in their own way."

Complete lie. "Very different fighting style" is not a subjective opinion like "fun." It is an objective, definitive fact. The fighting styles in this game do not vary at all. I was the Valkyrie and Nick was the Warrior, we had an identical fighting style. Nick was also the Elf for a brief period, and he just ran around swinging a sword like the other two characters. How, exactly, are these characters different? Let's ask IGN!

"The Warrior is a hulking brute with powerful combos and close attacks, with limited magic and projectile attacks. He wields a giant axe that has good range and looks pretty dang cool. The Valkyrie is a slippery little swashbuckler with a short sword and a strong projectile attack. The Elf is a swordfighter and uses a fencing style to stave off enemies."

Um... yes. To quote Brendan "This one picks the enemies off from a distance, while that one prefers to use projectile attacks." The Valkyrie and Warrior both have semi-homing projectile attacks. If they did a different amount of damage, I sure couldn't tell. And the length of their weapons seemed the same as well. What made these characters different? They even moved at the same speed! Also, I played enough Soul Calibur 2 to recognize a fencing style. The Elf did not utilize this art; instead he practiced running in blindly, swinging his sword wildly like every other character.


Note: Soul Calibur 2 has nothing to do with Gauntlet

In IGN's defense, we didn't use the Wizard. But even if he is drastically different (which I doubt) that would mean 3 characters were the same and one was different.

"Midway also implemented an upgradeable combo system with which you can purchase increasingly devastating attacks which look awesome."

The upgrade system, as they call it, was as simple as you can imagine. You acquire gold throughout levels, and afterwards you can spend gold on new attacks. The combos are something like "Hit XXX to do a sweeping move that hits backwards as well" or "XY hits multiple enemies into the air." They had hardly any affect on the game at all. You can just hit buttons randomly, without these combos, and have very similar results. The fact that IGN thinks they "look awesome" is quite subjective, so I'll let that go, but making it seem like the combos you purchase have an actual affect on the gameplay seems slightly misleading.

"The large number of combos coupled with the variety of the attack styles of the four warriors make for a deep hack and slash experience, if there is such a thing."

The combos are worthless and the warriors all fight the same. Deep hack and slash experience, eh?

"Possibly in homage to old-school Gauntlet, health in Seven Sorrows is replenished by eating turkeys, ham and giant wedges of cheese."

Not to mention a piece of meat which looks like a horse's head... Remember playing Bubble Bobble and questioning what kinds of food you were eating? That was funny. Not being able to figure it out in a current game just shows laziness on the part of the developer.

"In multiplayer, conversation can get pretty hilarious as you scream out to your teammate, 'Save me that cheese!'"

Wow... pretty hilarious. I thought it was funnier when I would see my low health and say "I don't care if I die." Because dying doesn't actually hurt you in this game. There are respawn points everywhere, and if you lose all five of your lives (which only happened once when Nick was distracted by paint drying) you can just remove your character and then reload them again. In fact, Nick and I were able to cheese our way through boss fights by standing on respawn points while we fought. I'm fairly certain the developers never even heard of the phrase "game design."


This is more than 2,000 words long. Have another picture

"While the single-player mode can be repetitive, multiplayer let's you team together with friends to take out enemies in different ways."

Oh, what kind of different ways are there IGN?

"We enjoyed launching enemies into the air with the Warrior then shooting a barrage of arrows with the Elf at the enemies' flying bodies."

Ok. Anything else?

"..."

...

"..."

...

Moving on

"The bosses, which can be frustratingly difficult if you fight solo, are a breeze in multiplayer -- almost too easy, in fact. All hell breaks loose when you have all four heroes going at once."

Is it just me, or do they make "almost too easy" boss fights seem like a good thing?

Ok, that's enough. I'm sure some of you are wondering why I wasted my time writing this post that tries to take down Gauntlet and IGN in one shot. First of all, you should know the average rating of G:SS is actually higher than the 7.0 IGN gave it. Clearly, a lot of journalists are out and out lying to people. However, IGN's review was the first I read and they had a lot of misleading info in it. Also, I actually like IGN for the most part, so this is not just trying to make them look bad. Their review of Gauntlet is inexcusable.

So what were my reasons for writing this? For one, I want people to know that G:SS is a legitimately bad title. This is the second worst game I've played all year, behind only Snood 2. Second, there is a reason that people bash video game journalists. Either Jonathan Miller of IGN didn't play the game or just has such bad taste in games he can't even recognize a poor title. I don't even want to think of other possibilities because we could be charged with libel.

A few more notes from the experience Nick and I had while playing through this game. First, we were so bored by the end that we just ran through the last two levels, only fighting when it was completely necessary (i.e., not too often). Nick said it best "These enemies are more like environmental hazards than actual enemies - you just have to pick the right angle and you can run right by them." Keep in mind, we were able to run by twenty or more at a time just by hugging the wall.

Also, the graphics are so bad, Nick and I actually stopped running through levels from time to time so we could make fun of them. The grass looks like paper and moves in one massive clump. The textures are blurry, eerily reminiscent of the N64. Finding your path through the level is difficult because what Midway lets you walk over and what is impossible to pass is completely random. Everything looks the same so it's quite hard to know where you can actually walk. Also, this game only lasts three hours because they threw in some lame backtracking towards the end.

This title is a complete disaster and should be avoided at all costs.

Ouch. Remember when Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows was looking good, with the allure of four-player online co-op? Well, things didn't turn out so hot. In fact, it's quite easily the worst game I've played through in several years. Yes, Tom and I vanquished said sorrows in more or less one sitting today, topping it off in no more than 3.5 hours. We skipped all of the cutscenes, which I suppose could have had hours more content within, but after watching the first one I think any rational biped would do likewise.

It's not that it's completely awful, it's just too similar and entirely inferior to Midway's last co-op action game, Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks. In fact, considering SS looks and plays like a teddy bear found in the garbage, they would have been a lot better off just using the Shaolin Monks engine. And gameplay. It's quite impressive just how bad the game looks actually. Dark Legacy was excusable for it's arcade port status, but this is just embarrassing. The art is decent to good for the most part, but with such low poly models and muddy textures, you want to vomit once everyone starts moving. Consider Spartan: Total Warrior had loads more characters on screen, all looking great, this is just inexcusable.

IGN calls the game "button mashing refined", which I don't quite understand. If it's refined, it becomes something else entirely; regardless this doesn't have much more variety than the original. They also state that "hard-core fans of the original will not be disappointed", which I protest on the grounds that there aren't any hardcore fans of the original. Sure, I've played half a dozen games on my 360 with some pals, but that's because co-op is inherently fun (which is why we finished the game), not because the gameplay was particularly compelling in any decade.

To be fair, I can't put my finger on why the Norrath games are so much better, but they are. Maybe it's because there's the constant promise of new items and upgrades (compared to Gauntlet's three-choice character development tree, and completely redundant move list). Maybe it's because there are challenging enemies (as opposed to Gauntlet's "death", who dies at the touch of a button within half a second of appearing every time). Or maybe it's because Norrath's randomly generated levels are infinitely more moody and interesting than Gauntlet's backtracking, switch-flipping borathons.

In the end, I can't fault a game for trying to emulate classic gameplay, but Gauntlet's fault is that it had none. It was mindless fun with your buddies, and there are far too many glaring imprecisions for that to be viable in a broken 3D environment. Buy Shaolin Monks, track down Dark Legacy, but please, avoid this three hour grinding bowel movement.