G-pinions

It's the damnedest thing: I finally have a computer complete with an ultra modern internet connection in my very own home. Don't be alarmed - the movers have still not completed the task they were hired to do more than twenty four days ago. They are still in Las Vegas, with all of my material possessions. It's the little things you start to miss. I long to throw some trash into my old 49ers garbage can I fear I will never see again. I've also grown tired of drinking from an old Taco Bell cup. I require elegant crystal! Thankfully, the items filling my apartment are not all refuse. One of the useful items, a laptop donated to me by a longtime G reader, has been most kind in delivering the kind of services I expect from a computer. Namely, I have finally had the pleasure of going online from the comfort of my new abode. However, and here's where the "damnedest thing" I mentioned at the start of this paragraph comes into play, I can't access my email. Sadly, Gmail is tied into my Blogger account which means I cannot check my email, send out my resume, nor update my website. The world continues to weep for the pain I am going through. Does the term "Punitive Damages" make anyone else smile?

I have still been spending hours of my time cradling my precious Nintendo DS. After finishing Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime last week, I was momentarily left without a single game to call my own. I nearly cried from boredom. I raced to my local EB Games, a place so heinous I will now spit whenever its distasteful words leave my mouth, to fill the huge void the completion of DQH:RS had left in me. I raced there the day Phoenix Wright: Justice for All came out, a game I have been anticipated since the last entry made me realize why so many people yearn for the glory days when adventure games roamed the gaming landscape like Raptors on trained T Rexes. I said, "Can I have a copy of that great new lawyer game?" "Did you preorder?" the hippie bastard asked?

Can you believe we live in a world where there is only one major retail chain that specializes in video games, and yet they do not even stock new releases the day they are made available to the starving masses? Can you imagine if every movie theater required an advanced ticket purchase to see a new release within the first week? Or, in a world where people actually bought CDs, people were forced to wait a week to listen to their favorite artist if they didn't slap down $5 a few months in advance?

I called EB Games the day PW:JfA shipped. I wanted to clarify the release date and make sure they were getting copies. I was urged to put money down in order to secure a copy the next day. As if, twenty hours before release, they had not actually ordered copies yet. I was so desperate for a new NDS game at that time I actually would have put down $5 to make sure I got a copy as soon as possible. But it would have been quite the inconvenience. At the time, I did not have my car yet. I could have walked 2.7 miles into the city and then walked all the way home. I could have taken a train. I could have spent a lot of time walking or $3 riding the train to reserve a copy. But that would have been completely ridiculous. Why should I have to go through this trouble? Why is it so hard for a video game retailer, who sells nothing but video games and video game accessories, to stock new games? And why, if you insist on collecting people's hard-earned money to fill your god awful preorder quotas, would you refuse to take a credit card order over the phone?

I understand EB Games' philosophy, but that just makes me more angry. They do not care one iota about pleasing the customer. They don't make much money off of new game purchases. If they are really lucky, they'll take in $1 on a $60 game. So, they don't want you to buy new games. They want you to buy used games. They want you to purchase the games they have bought from desperate consumers who were all too happy to receive $7 for a game they had grown tired of. EB Games marks the title up to $30 and is just praying you'll plunk down a $23 profit for their salivating pockets. Why would they go out of their way to get the newest titles when they have so much more to gain from used ones? If you want to secure a new game, you have to give them money, interest free money, so they will be kind enough to order one for you on the day of release. Why would I do this? It would be easier for me to just use Amazon.com, not have my credit card charged until the game is in my possession, and not have to put up with backasswards business policies.

I ended up buying a copy of Yoshi's Island DS, priced $5 higher than anywhere else, because I was so desperate to have a new game. It honestly caused me pain to hand over my money to them. I would like to start a boycott of EB Games, but they are simply not worth the effort. Anyone with half a brain will realize their anti-consumer actions can be avoided by frequenting less hostile stores. However, EB Games is no longer getting a cent of my money. They are a greedy, heartless corporation that can go the way of those dinosaurs no one thinks about anymore. You know, the ones that are smaller than a chicken. Bah, who needs tiny dinosaurs anyway?

Bear with me, I'm excited.

For all of Sega's grievous crimes against mankind since their inception as a software-only company, they still manage to get lucky and publish the odd gem once in a while. Crush, announced today and developed by Kuju (Reign of Fire, Battalion Wars, Weird Gory Bobblehead Game) intrigues me in such a way usually reserved for Turduckens and the golden ratio. When it comes down to it my favorite genre is puzzle games, by a landslide - it's just not something I usually bore people with. Crush is a puzzle/platformer of sorts (think Intelligent Qube meets the aesthetic of Psychonauts), whose primary game mechanic involves transforming the world around you back and forth from 2D to 3D.

I'll let Scott Steinberg, Sega's head mouthpiece, describe it to you:
"The spatial concept of the crushing mechanic is something truly unique that encourages users to think back and forth between 3D and 2D objects and environments to engage different parts of their brain, and see beyond what is literally in front them."

Now have a look:



Pretty fantastic, right? Right now it's only for the PSP, so I won't be able to play it until I rob Brenda...I mean, not rob Brendan. Definitely not robbing Brendan. Now that we're done talking about robbing Brendan, I can tell you that this is exactly the type of thing I'm expecting from the Wii. Imagine the same game, where the Wiimote controls your character movements and the nunchuck shifts the world between dimensional planes as you tilt it in your hand. PSP to Wii ports aren't something I should be actively encouraging, I know, I'm just saying this is exactly the kind of out of the box thinking we need on a system that is built on that philosophy. Someone suggested on GAF long ago that Mario Galaxy should involve manipulating the world around Mario instead of the character himself; I thought that was a brilliant concept, and while I'm excited for the actual game I fear it will ultimately do no more than prove platformers can be done pitch perfect on the Wii.

I am indeed excited about Super Paper Mario now that we know it's coming to the system in April, but that still doesn't seem half as innovative as this - when you're attached firmly to an existing property, you can only stray so far from the initial concept. Crush is a bit more bland visually, but had my mind reeling with possibilities by the end of the trailer. Kuju aren't really known for any sort of consistency (outside of producing three equally horrendous PS2 games with the word "fire" in the title), but this immediately excites me about their future.

See how that works, everyone in the industry? Small team, small budget (I would sensibly imagine), one very big idea - and I'm looking forward to it more than toast tomorrow.