Smoke & Mirrors: How BioShock Infinite Tricks You Into Liking Elizabeth

AI sidekicks in video games are pretty uniformly terrible. They get in your way, they're incredibly stupid, and they rarely add anything meaningful to the story. That's why escort missions in games are among the most hated, and why I wouldn't begrudge a player for assuming that BioShock Infinite would be little more than a ten-hour game about babysitting Elizabeth and making sure she doesn't run into any sharp corners.

I beat the game a couple days ago, and I'm happy to say that I never needed to babysit her or worry about her during combat. She's a wonderfully written character whose interaction with protagonist Booker DeWitt forms the core of BioShock Infinite's tale and is all the better for it. She's easy to care about and hard to forget. As far as AI partners in games go, Elizabeth is probably the best.

But the developers cheated to achieve that.

I started avoiding anything related to BioShock Infinite in 2010 after the first gameplay demo surfaced, so the last time I saw Elizabeth in a fight, she was an active participant, calling out for Booker to electrify a storm cloud or telekinetically throw a molten boulder of pots and pans. Elizabeth's powers looked painful to use.

"Hey, you don't look so good," Booker said as Elizabeth, slumped against cover, sputtered and coughed like a dying car.

"I'm OK," she responded, getting up slowly. "I just... I just need a moment."

Later in the demo, after using her powers to bring down a bridge, her nose begins to bleed.

That is not the Elizabeth in the game.

You don't combine powers anymore, and the extent of Elizabeth's use in combat is tossing you supplies and opening tears in the space-time continuum to pull in everything from cover, freight hooks, and automated turrets. She can pull in any of these at the press of a button, but only one at time. It doesn't even matter what Elizabeth is doing at the time; it's an instantaneous effect. I tested it by telling Elizabeth to bring in a freight hook while she was preoccupied picking a lock, and sure enough, in popped the freight hook without delay. It never really feels like Elizabeth has anything to do with the tears, and that's because she doesn't.

There's never an element of managing how much stress Elizabeth can take, or how often you can use her powers before her nose begins to bleed. Even the horses in Red Dead Redemption could only be spurred so many times before they'd either die from overexertion or buck you off. Keep a horse alive and it would become loyal to you. It's disappointing that BioShock Infinite chose to play it so safe by letting you treat Elizabeth like a tool rather than a person.

Yeah, I never needed to worry about her in combat in the final game, but that's because everybody just ignores her. Enemies literally don't even see her. They'll run right past Elizabeth to get to me.

And yes, Elizabeth saved me more than a few times by tossing me health or salts or ammo at the perfect time, but it's just another trick. She's not actually finding anything. I'd scavenge every body for money and supplies after a battle, tapping square like my life depended on it on every interactive thing I could find until I was sure I'd picked the environment clean and was ready to move on.

"Need some money?" Elizabeth would ask, tossing me a coin.

Where did she find that? I checked everything already.

In battle, it's the same way. I have a pretty chaotic fighting style in the game, running and jumping and charging and blasting and riding and flying as much as I possibly can, so I usually didn't notice what Elizabeth was doing. Then I decided to watch her.

Elizabeth would follow me around, moving from cover to cover and chasing me whenever I got on a skyhook. But she's never checking bodies and rifling through boxes for ammo. Some if/then statement in her programming decides that since I'm about to run out of shotgun bullets, she'll toss me more. I'm almost dead, so she'll call out my name and throw me a medkit. None of these things were in the environment, waiting for one of us to find them. She just conjures them out of thin air. Maybe she's pulling them from a tear to another dimension where they have infinite shotgun bullets. I have no idea.

BioShock Infinite wants you to notice Elizabeth. It tries its hardest to keep her in frame in natural ways even when the two of you are just idly exploring Columbia. The developers said that "she'll find a way to entertain herself," but in my experience, that usually just meant she'd pick a wall I was looking at to lean against with all the practiced aloofness of a hipster trying way too hard to achieve that "just woke up" look.

The game tries so hard to keep Elizabeth near you that I'd often turn around after examining some interesting poster or sign and find Elizabeth inches from my face.

I want to reiterate: I really liked BioShock Infinite, and I really liked Elizabeth. But the ways that developer Irrational Games cut corners to make Elizabeth as likable as she is also make it really easy to see the seams in her behavior and make her a little less believable as a person.

That is, unless her constant need to get her face as unsettlingly close to my face as she can without me noticing is canon.

    Tweet    

Shrink post.

What It's Like To Buy A Game On PlayStation Network

So I bought a Vita two weeks ago and I love the thing to death. I've been having a blast with Rayman Origins, Frobisher Says!, and WipEout 2048 among other games, but really, I bought it for Lumines: Electronic Symphony.

I've been holding off on buying Lumines just in case it goes on sale during Sony's Holiday Essentials sales they've been doing, or if it gets added to the PlayStation Plus Instant Game Collection that already includes big hits like WipEout 2048 and Gravity Rush. I already have so many games to play for my Vita that waiting a few weeks seemed like a relief, honestly.

Well, here we are in the third and final week of Holiday Essentials and Lumines is finally on sale. Maybe. I think. I'm not really sure.

Here's where the confusion comes from:

The first post that announced the sale listed it as part of the last week of the Holiday Essentials promotion, giving it a sale price of $24.99 or $17.49 for Plus members. But that doesn't match up with the Holiday Essentials promotion accurately because Lumines got a price drop to $29.99 a few weeks ago. Since the Holiday sales are supposed to be 30% off normally and 50% for Plus members, the price should be $20.99 for regular members and $14.99 for Plus members, but they were using the old MSRP of $35.99. So already, there's a problem.

Then the second post comes in, this time advertising the PlayStation Plus content for the week, including the Holiday Essentials sales. This one has the same list, sans Lumines. It's just completely missing from the update. So does the sale exist or doesn't it? I asked Morgan Haro, PlayStation's Community Manager, to clear things up. He had three responses. Here's the first:

I believe Lumines may have been a typo and wasn’t part of the sale. I’ll ask that the team remove it from the Holiday Sale post. Apologies for the miscommunication there.

Okay, so that's a bummer. It's just not on sale at all. What a weird, incredibly detailed typo to make. Oh wait, hold on a second. Morgan's second response:

Actualy, [sic] correction: Lumines is sill on sale in the Holiday Sale, there just is not an extra discount for Plus members. So all should be accurate.

Wait, what? It's part of Holiday Essentials, but... not... part of Holiday Essentials? I don't really get it.

EXTRA Correction; it will still be on sale, just not part of the Holiday Sale. You’ll be able to find the discount for it under the “weekly deals’ section of the Store. Sorry, everyone is a bit on new Years [sic] break mode! =)

Okay, there we go. That's better. So it is on sale, but it's not part of Holiday Essentials and therefore, does not have an extra discount for Plus members but will be listed under the Weekly Deals section of the PlayStation Store. All right. Everything's totally clear now, right?

Not quite. Fast-forward to the third post of the day, the one explaining the PlayStation Store update for the week, including price drops, sales, special promotion, PlayStation Plus updates, everything. Ultimately, this is the post that matters. And this post doesn't mention Lumines at all. What is going on?

I logged into the PlayStation Store and checked out the Weekly Deals section and Lumines: Electronic Symphony is nowhere to be found, but Lumines Supernova is apparently on sale for $9.99. Was that the typo? Did they just totally misread which game they were putting on sale? So I looked up Electronic Symphony directly.

It's listed as $20.99, a $9 sale. That's pretty good. Given Sony's track record today, that might not be the final sale price, but I went ahead and bought it anyway. Meanwhile, there are still people in the comments of the PlayStation Store update post who are still understandably confused about whether Electronic Symphony is on sale or not.

There also appears to be some confusion over the price of Touch My Katamari and Skullgirls, but I just got out of a price discrepancy issue and don't feel like wading directly into another one, so that's somebody else's battle.

Figuring out how much Lumines: Electronic Symphony would be on sale for today (if at all) was a five-hour journey. Why was it that complicated? My best guess is to look at the authors of each post.

1. Pierre Gravereau, Sony's Senior Manager of Digital Distribution, wrote the initial post about the Holiday Essentials sale.
2. Morgan Haro, Community Manager of PlayStation Digital Platforms, wrote the next post, which outlined the PlayStation Plus update.
3. Grace Chen, Director of the PlayStation Store, wrote the final post, which went over the PlayStation Store update for the week.

I'll take a wild guess and say that these three probably don't proofread each other's posts.

But they should. Straight up, this shouldn't happen. I get that it's the holidays, but it's happened before. There needs to be real coordination between the different branches of the PlayStation Network. There's no reason that three different people working at the same company should have three different answers for "is Lumines on sale?"

Regardless, I own Lumines: Electronic Symphony now and I'm pretty stoked about that, even if it did take me five hours to figure out how much it would cost.

    Tweet    

Shrink post.

I Can't Even Tell What Dead Space 3's Monsters Are Anymore

Before Dead Space came out, I loved watching the developer diaries that came out because it showed just how much thought and care was being put into it. They'd talk about how the designs for the Necromorphs told a grotesque story of pain: bodies twisting, bones breaking, skin tearing. And that story was what made them so terrifying. You could see how the transformation happened just by looking at them, and that was my favorite part.

Now let's watch the new trailer for Dead Space 3:

Okay.

Let's just ignore how tonally different it feels from Dead Space for a minute. Let's ignore how it feels claustrophobic not from tight, dangerous corridors where you're never more than a few feet from a monster viciously stalking you, but from too many people, too much dialogue, and too much story. Let's even ignore how the power dynamic has shifted from the first game's trailers that simply showed all the gruesome ways Isaac can die to all the empowering ways Isaac (and Carver) can kill.

Let's instead focus on what the hell was that?

Seriously, just look at this thing:

What is that? I mean, I guess it used to be a baby judging by the size, but what was the transformation process? Did it just get overtaken by black goo like in Spider-Man 3 and have an allergic reaction on its back? Does it feed through the top of the baby's skull now? What?

Or this:

I don't even know what I'm looking at anymore. I don't even know which direction this thing is pointing. How can I possibly be scared or grossed out by it if I can't even tell what it is? It's just some dumb mass of flesh.

And check this guy out:

Okay, this is just getting embarrassing. The guy looks like he fell out of a PlayStation-era Resident Evil. Is he seriously holding a pickaxe? They don't even use pickaxes anymore in Dead Space; that's what plasma cutters are for. And why are his eyes glowing? Ooooooh, scary. I'm shaking in my zero-gravity boots.

Remember in the first game when you watch the body of the Ishimura's captain get turned and you witness firsthand exactly how the Necromorphs are made? Remember all the care that was put into the opening scene of the second game where a guy gets transformed just inches from your face?

Those were stellar scenes that legitimized the Necromorph presence in that world, forgoing the typical notions of "nothing is scarier than the unknown" for a detailed look into the game's monster closet, and I loved it. The way Dead Space 3 seems to be tossing all that believability out the window in favor of visually incomprehensible beasts, crusty zombies with glowing eyes, and "human enemies [with] guns" is really disappointing to see.

I want to be excited for Dead Space 3, but everything they've shown off has inspired zero confidence in me. Here's hoping that it doesn't turn out as bad as that trailer makes it look.

    Tweet    

Shrink post.

Assassin's Creed III Made Me Swear Off Digital Distribution. PlayStation All-Stars and Far Cry 3 Brought Me Back.

I can't remember the last time I actually went to a store to buy a game. Getting up, putting on pants, dealing with people... It's all just a hassle. If I can't download the game directly, I'll order it online, but even that's not ideal. Paying for shipping, checking tracking numbers, and waiting for the game to show up isn't that much better than driving to a store. It's more convenient, sure, but it's slower and I still end up with a disc.

That's right, I don't want the disc, either. I'm at that stage. Even though getting up to swap discs is the most minor of inconveniences, it's an inconvenience nonetheless and it's often enough to kill an impulse to boot up a given game on a whim.

It's like a TV remote. If you've ever had a broken remote and needed to get up and walk to the TV every time you wanted to change the channel, you know that it radically changes how you watch television. You don't mindlessly surf. You don't fiddle with the volume. You don't flip back and forth between channels during commercial breaks. You stick with what you're already on.

Sony's been doing a fantastic job recently at offering full-priced retail games, the kind you'd normally have to buy at a store on a disc, through the PlayStation Network with its Day 1 Digital initiative. It's all old hat for the PC gamers who haven't bought a game on a disc in almost a decade, but on console, it's still new and exciting.

And I can't think of three more perfect games to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of digital distribution than Assassin's Creed III, Far Cry 3, and PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale.

The only questions I had about buying Assassin's Creed III digitally were, "Should I buy the bundle with the season pass or get it piecemeal later?" and, "How soon can you take my money?" I was pumped.

But then it turned out to be a huge disappointment, and now I'm stuck with this 11GB file I don't want anymore.

I can't sell it back or give it to a friend or anything. All I can do is delete it, but that feels too much like deleting money, so instead, it just greets me every time I turn on my PS3 and reminds me how much money I wasted. An Assassin's Creed III disc would at least politely collect dust on the shelf like the latest useless trinket from Grandma and wait until it's convenient for me before reminding me how much money I wasted.

I'm pretty selective about the games I buy, so I hadn't had that problem before with a game I've downloaded. Just like that, I never wanted to download another game again for fear it would also be terrible and I'd be stuck with it.

But then Sony put PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale up for download and the temptation not to put on pants and leave the house was too strong to pass up. So I downloaded it.

Now, I find myself getting in a couple rounds of All-Stars any time my PS3 was on because, well, why not? I don't have to move or think about it at all, just tap a button and there we are. You get the same accessibility with little PSN games like Rock of Ages, but there's still something novel about a digital copy of a game that feels like I should have had to insert a disc first.

I don't like it, but because it's digital, I'm stuck with it.

Then Far Cry 3 came out as a download too, and now I'm constantly giving in to the urge to boot it up and sadistically hunt pirates in the jungle. It's just so easy.

Far Cry 3 and PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale exemplify everything I've always loved about digital distribution: Like Just Cause 2 and Need For Speed: Most Wanted before them, they're impulse plays, games that allow me to get in for a few minutes or a few hours and feel fulfilled either way. I can load them up without any consideration of whether it's worth it to get off the couch and swap out the disc.

Assassin's Creed III is the total opposite: I don't like it, but because it's digital, I'm stuck with it. And to add insult to injury, it cost just as much as a retail copy. Need For Speed: Most Wanted had a $6 discount if you pre-ordered digitally, and Just Cause 2 was free as a PlayStation Plus promotion.

The only real downsides I've had with Sony's Day 1 program so far are with the timing. You can't preload the game and start playing it right at midnight when it releases, and for that matter, you can't even start downloading it at midnight because the PlayStation Store never updates until around 6 p.m. or later anyway.

Still, it's a great start, and bodes well for the future. It's encouraging that almost all games on the Wii U are available for download, even if the system doesn't actually have the memory to support it.

It's interesting how quickly my opinion of digital distribution changed over the course of a couple weeks. I'm sure publishers are happy that my copy of Assassin's Creed III is stuck with me for life, but I'd rather there be an alternative, like forfeiting my license to the game to get a percentage of my money back in credit.

It'll be really interesting to see what Sony and Microsoft do with digital distribution with their next consoles.

    Tweet    

Shrink post.

The Art of Checkpointing, or Why I Won't Be Finishing Double Dragon: Neon

I did not expect to like Double Dragon: Neon. In fact, I did not expect to even play Double Dragon: Neon. And why would I? At a glance, it brings to mind the atrocious Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time remake that fiercely tried to sour my fond memories of that original game: it's polygonal, has a really crummy art style, and just looks slow and boring. The conventional wisdom seems to be that modern beat-em-ups just don't work anymore, so why would anyone play that?

Of course, then it debuted for free on PlayStation Plus. "I guess I have to download it now," I said, alone in my living room, covered in Cheetos and in just my underwear. "But I won't like it." So I downloaded the game, threw a controller at one of my housemates, and booted it up, totally ready to hate on the game in glorious, cynical co-op.

"But I guess it'll have to wait a second," I said, "because that intro was actually kind of funny the way the game paused and started playing a guitar riff when Marion got hit. And this music's pretty rad, too, and hell, even these backgrounds look nice with all the pink and blue colorization. And—wait just a fucking second here—am I having fun with this game that is quite clearly supposed to be total garbage?"

Well, shit.

Maybe just the first level is cool, I rationalized. But I bet the next level is going to be just terrible.

As it turns out, it only gets way better from there. Halfway through the second level, we'd (mostly) gotten a hang of the game's controls, discovered that we could high-five at any time (even if we're on opposite sides of the screen) to split our health between us, and both started singing along quietly to the amazing background music that I've embedded to the right for your listening pleasure.

"Follow me, follow me. Your love is calling me,
calling me."

The discerning reader might have guessed by now, though, that not everything in the game is good. In fact, if I hadn't been playing it with my housemate, I doubt I would have played past the first couple of levels. It's not a terrible game, but it just isn't that much fun, and it really all comes down to how the characters feel.

It's always tricky trying to describe why something in a game doesn't feel right because "feeling right" is such a nebulous and subjective concept in itself. The guns in Killzone 2, for example, were supposed to feel weighty and significant, but really, the extra momentum often just ended up making them feel like they were swimming across the screen, like the guns could never catch up with the reticle. Some people (like me) liked the "hefty" feel of the guns; others thought it felt "sluggish." Guerilla Games tried to fix that in Killzone 3 by making the guns lighter and more responsive, but to me it just felt like I was playing as a guy who was constantly overreacting to things, flinging his head this way and that way.

The Lee brothers in Neon just feel heavy to me, like they need to wind up everything they do. When you press the run button, they spend a good half-second gearing up, lifting one leg and bracing their arms. They move deliberately, ambling calmly across the screen — I guess they've done this once or twice before. There's even a mechanic called "Gleam" that gives you temporary double damage after you successfully dodge an enemy's attack, which sounds awesome, but the characters are just too slow and couldn't keep up with my commands that I pretty quickly just stopped trying to make it work. In a game like this, if the controls don't feel perfect, everything falls apart.

And sure enough, everything did.

In the old arcade roots of these beat-em-ups, when you hit a "Continue?" screen, the game really just wanted to know if you were going to put more quarters in. Pay another and the game would drop you back in, almost as though you never died at all. The quest to finally beat the game and see the ending is what kept you coming back and paying more. Today's games obviously don't have that since you own the game in full. Now it's easy to just blast through a beat-em-up and never play it again. Double Dragon: Neon tried to solve this dilemma, and as a result, I'm never going to play it again.

We made it all the way to the final boss fight, eager to put the game to bed at this point. Let me just tell you: it's a long road there, and the bosses preceding it are pretty miserable affairs. In fact, so was the entire last level that had us fighting the controls to dodge machinery and an endless stream of missiles.

But we're knee deep in the final boss fight and pretty close to beating the game when the boss pulls out a seemingly inescapable attack that instantly kills us both. Uh, what?

"No matter. Let's just press continue and knock this boss fight out now," said I, ever the optimist, just mere moments before pressing continue and having the game dump us back to the beginning of the level.

"No matter. Let's just knock this last level out now," said I, ever the optimist, just mere moments before making it all the way back to the final boss where the same inescapable instant-kill attack sends us back to the continue screen.

"Let's take a break," said I, ever the optimist, just a few weeks before we jumped back in, fought through the dreadful last level again, and were killed by the same ridiculous attack, sent back to the continue screen once more.

"What the fuck is the point of a continue screen if you don't continue where you left off?" spat I, furiously. "There's literally no difference if we hit continue or not. If we press it, we go back to the beginning of the level. If we don't, we get sent back to the level select and have to start from the beginning of the level. There's no difference."

Without a checkpoint before the final boss, or at least halfway through the level, there was no way we were going to attempt that again, so there ended our co-op playthrough of Double Dragon: Neon. I don't imagine we'll ever return to it.

In the end, I don't hate the game, and for the low price of "free," it wasn't a bad investment, but I couldn't really recommend it in any other capacity.

    Tweet    

Shrink post.

Why The Mass Delays Will Solve Nothing

It's getting ridiculous how many games have been delayed from holiday 2009 into early 2010, either out of sheer necessity for game quality or to move out of the crowded holiday season. But at a certain point, with so many games flocking to 2010, we have to recognize that we're solving problems by creating problems.

Holiday 2009: Part Two

With every developer pushing and shoving past each other to get out of the way for heavy hitters like Modern Warfare 2, Halo 3: ODST, and The Beatles: Rock Band that are definitely coming out this holiday season, it seems like no one stopped to think about how crowded 2010 has become. While there are many shifty "Early," "Q1," and "Spring" dates associated with many of the delays, there are also a lot of more specific "January" and "March" dates.

Those two months are quickly becoming problem areas where a lot of good games could get overlooked. With games like BioShock 2, Dark Void, and Bayonetta that all qualify as "triple-A" games vying for the spotlight in January, many gamers might just pass them up and go back to playing Modern Warfare 2 online.



March, lest we not forget, is already home to God of War III, which should absolutely dominate that month. Can Dead 2 Rights Retribution and Singularity really stand toe-to-toe with Kratos himself? Those games need to bank on the multiplatform sales that elude even the PS3-exclusive God of War III if they want a chance of success.

These are months that typically don't see the same kind of success as the Christmas season months when people are in the gift-giving mood, and with the recession still in full swing, it's not really realistic to expect people to shell out the cash on expensive videogames so soon after Christmas.

Too Many Cooks In The Kitchen

While it probably would've been beneficial for a few games to move out of the holiday 2009 lineup and into the early months of 2010, too many publishers all thinking the same thing quickly degenerated this strategy into merely creating the same problem for a less lucrative time of year.

It's a tough situation for everybody, but the reason why simply moving all these games two months down the line doesn't work is that there still isn't enough space between them. There are still too many awesome games coming out at once, and there just isn't enough time to digest them with the current release schedule.



Games like Burnout Paradise, Resident Evil 4, and God of War all enjoyed success releasing early in their respective years because those months were otherwise pretty desolate. They stood out. Too many games all trying to replicate these success stories practically guarantees failure for some of them.

Furthermore, what happens to the games holding firm in 2009? Sure, the juggernauts like Uncharted 2, Assassin's Creed II, and Guitar Hero 5 will still clean house, but even with far less competition, lesser known games like Borderlands, Brütal Legend, and Alpha Protocol aren't out of danger of being lost in the shuffle just yet. Let's face it: holiday 2009 is still overcrowded.

What Needs To Happen

These delayed games need to spread out further if they want to survive. The publisher of, say, Darksiders needs to realize that by sandwiching themselves between Bayonetta and God of War III, they've done themselves no favors. They and others need to bite the bullet and push back further. Maybe even to summer, which so far is still looking as barren as usual despite all the delays.



The extra time between releases means more time to polish these games, allowing them to come out stronger and farther from competition once gamers are craving their next fix. This strategy might hurt some of these publishers in the short term, but ultimately they might come away having delivered a better game that got more attention and potentially more sales by dropping in the summer months that are much freer of competition.

As it stands now, big titles are stacked right on top of each other and less popular games are going to fall by the wayside very quickly. It's going to make for a very interesting time to watch the industry and a very hectic, exciting time to be a gamer, but many publishers may not be so amused when their flagship title gets swallowed up and forgotten.

For the record, the game I'm most disappointed that I won't get to play this year is Red Dead Redemption.

Shrink post.

God Bless Innovation, aka Greed Hero

    Hey, just wanted to make a quick post to give an update on the status of this blog and just touch on some gaming news I just read today.

    So first off, as you can see, I haven't "revived" the blog yet. But I am still writing articles; for instance, I wrote my reviews for Half-Life 2, HL2: Episode One, and HL2: Episode Two a little while ago and am planning on writing reviews for Portal, Team Fortress 2, and a few others pretty soon. I've got some comprehensive features cooking up and I've already finished making the graphical banners for everything I've mentioned plus all the stuff I haven't. I've just got to keep at it and make sure I've got enough to make sure that this revival won't be futile.

    Second is that I have no idea what Activision is thinking by incorporating additional instruments into Guitar Hero IV. Well, actually, I know exactly what they're thinking: cha-ching! They're certainly not thinking about innovation, because I could've sworn I've heard of that idea somewhere before...


    But instead of corrupting the Guitar Hero franchise, why not just come out with some side franchise? Call it Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll and just take all the crazy stuff of Guitar Hero like battling against the Devil and having intense guitar fights and just run with it. Take it to the extreme. Make it about being on tour and really living the rock star lifestyle with your band. If you want to make an analogy out of it, then how about Madden : Blitz :: Rock Band : Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll.

    That'd be badass. Obviously it's a terrible idea for marketing and family value and they're smart enough not to actually do it, but you have to admit it would be fun.

    But you get my point. It just doesn't make sense to be playing drums and singing in a game called Guitar Hero. Honestly? Guitar Hero sales are good enough where they don't really need to worry about ripping off Rock Band. All they need to worry about is getting their downloadable music act together. The folks behind Rock Band are certainly reaping the benefits of it.

Shrink post.

Apologies... and also Street Fighter IV!

    So... yeah, sorry about the huge delay. I just lost the urge to keep writing because my life was becoming more hectic, (still is), so I had to make the decision. I realized that I was actually pretty irrelevant anyway, considering that I don't have enough money or time to buy every new system and game that comes out, so the reviews that came out were sometimes for games years old, and that's not exactly much of a help to anyone but me.

    And besides, now I'm writing for my school's paper, and that takes a toll on me too considering that it's pretty much up to me and a couple of my friends also on the staff to edit everyone's work since they all write like 5-year olds. I seriously have to sit there and reread people's sentences over and over just to get what the hell they're even talking about so I can start to edit it. In addition to that, pretty soon I'm going to be getting a job again and trying to get an internship at my city's paper, The Roanoke Times. One of those friends I mentioned has an internship there already, so I'm hoping he'll be able to put in a good word if/when they've got anything open.

    So what does that have to do with what is delicious? Well, it means that maybe I'll post every once in awhile if I'm feeling up to it or something big happens in the gaming world, but it's probably safer for you guys to just assume that I'm not going to be really doing much and check back maybe... once every couple of weeks or so to see if I'll be doing anything.

    But whatever. On to something more interesting: Street Fighter IV was just announced.



    Just go ahead and consider all other fighting games irrelevant, because SFIV is going to kick their asses... literally figuratively. I would just like to thank Capcom now for bringing the series back (unless they fuck it up somehow, in which case I'll strike out that thank you).

    I've been playing a lot of Super Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting (wow, long title) recently and it still holds up as way better than most of the fighting games out now, even the 3D ones. It's so fast and fluid and requires so much strategy. I can't go back to any other Street Fighter after Hyper Fighting because of how slow it makes everything else feel. I really hope Capcom jacks up Street Fighter IV to be a freaking blur, else I'm going to be severely disappointed.

Shrink post.

Fight For Your Right!

Adults-Only Games And You

    The Manhunt 2 controversy revealed something that many gamers, myself included, did not know: That Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft all refuse to even license Adults-Only rated games on their systems. I had assumed that developers at least had the option of making AO games, even if most stores would refuse to carry them.

    The reason why they don't allow AO games on their systems is so they can maintain the image of being "family-friendly." However, in keeping this policy, these companies are hindering the videogame industry as a whole, preventing games from becoming a respected art form.

    Whether or not you agree with or even like Manhunt 2, you should at least be able to see why banning AO-rated games is wrong. Why can't a game be appropriate only for adults? Why can't a developer make the game they want to make without it being censored? Why can't there be a market for adult games? Other entertainment mediums have healthy growth in that area, and by refusing those games, Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft are only limiting the industry.

    Therefore, if you feel that it is wrong to ban Adults-Only rated games, you are obligated to voice your opinion. You are obligated to send a message directly to Sony and Nintendo, just as I have. Write a calm, intelligent message expressing why you disagree with their anti-AO policy, then send it to Nintendo and to Sony. (They both have very convoluted contact forms, so send it to as many departments as you think are appropriate. I sent 3 copies of my message to Nintendo and 5 copies to Sony.)

    This is my message that I sent to Nintendo (obviously I edited it before sending it to Sony):

    I disagree with Nintendo's policy to refuse to license Adults Only-rated games. To help videogames be taken seriously as a legitimate art form, we have to accept their content as an extension of the creator's mind, whatever that content may be and regardless of whether or not we agree with it.

    Therefore, I must request that Nintendo reconsider their position to refuse to license Manhunt 2 in its current state- an AO-rated game. There is no conceivable reason why there cannot be a market for games that are appropriate only for adults. As evidenced by movies of extreme content like SAW and HOSTEL, this market can be profitable.

    Videogames are still in their infancy, and must be allowed to grow freely to develop and flourish into a true art. If we give in to those who wish to hamper this progress and who do not take videogames as art seriously, then we have done nothing more than prove to them that they are right, and that videogames are not art.

    Furthermore, with Nintendo's renewed commitment to shedding its "kiddy" image and becoming more mainstream, there would be no better way to show that Nintendo is serious about branching out to a more mature audience than having the first console to allow an Adults Only-rated game.

    Nintendo is in a position to show the world that videogames are something to be taken seriously. Please do not let this go to waste.

-Thomas Ella

    Please support the cause. Hopefully they'll listen.

Shrink post.

God of War: Betrayal Speculation/Significance

    Honestly, what gamer seriously plays games on their cell phones nowadays? Do you? I don't.

    That could be set to change when God of War: Betrayal is available within the next few months- this is a AAA franchise branching out to grace cell phones with its presence, and that could just be enough to get people to take cell phone gaming a little more seriously. Betrayal could just be the catalyst in popularizing the cell phone as a true gaming platform.

    I don't think so though. I think that this is an amazing achievement and it looks surprisingly faithful (and fun) to its console roots, but I don't see it helping cell phones that much. There are simply too many problems with cell phones as a viable platform. It's not like the console or handheld market, where every system is the same. It's not even like the PC market, where they're all different, but not so radically that games can't be produced. Many cell phones are capable of playing games, but their owners are either confused as to whether or not their phone is capable, or they're simply not interested.

    I don't see Betrayal changing that, though I'm still excited for it.

    The game looks great- the graphics themselves aren't fantastic, but the animation is excellent, especially for a cell phone. It's still as incredibly brutal and over-the-top as ever, and this might just be me, but the simpler, more to-the-point graphics actually make the game seem more violent. I know that probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but seeing someone get ripped in half when the graphics are more basic just shows you exactly what's happening in a clearer picture. I just feel like if I play this on a public bus, someone's going to look over my shoulder and go, "did he just... just rip that guy's... BLARGH!" and just throw up all over me. By no means should they tone that down though.

    Now, on the story, I've heard a rumor that it takes place between the first and second games, and involves Kratos being framed for killing the goddess Hera's favorite pet. I suppose at that point, once the gods turn their back on him, Kratos has to go on a lengthy journey to find the real killer or something. Apparently the gameplay is sort of shallow, yet still fun (it looked to me like there would be only one, maybe two attack buttons), so the story is supposed to be the real selling point.

    I really need to find out if my phone can play this.

Shrink post.

Wii Deficiency Editorial

There was a reason why my most recent WEEKLY SAMPLER included those particular three Wii stories. The Wii is unfortunately plagued with bad design choices from Nintendo executives with flawed ideas on what makes a good videogame console. Let's go over what those flawed ideas have wrought:

The Friend Codes Blight

    You know you've messed up when outside parties need to step in to solve your console's inadequacies. The site, WiiWasHere.com, makes a valiant effort to remedy the hassle of the friend code system Nintendo has put in place, and even elaborates on the idea.

    Basically the premise of the site is that you can create an account that will house your friend codes and allow you to search for other people, as well as issue game challenges to people, and if they put up a good fight, give them an "Achievement Coin." So pretty much everything the actual friend code system should've been.

    It just seems like whomever at Nintendo thought the friend code system was a good idea had gotten all their knowledge of the Internet and online gaming from Dateline NBC's To Catch A Predator show. It's absolutely ridiculous to base your friend system around keeping kids safe from child molesters.

    For God's sake, when your console is outclassed by AOL Instant Messenger in terms of ease of use and functionality, you (should) know that somewhere along the line, you really fucked up.

Out of Control

    You can argue that the Wii's control scheme is innovative and clever until you turn blue, but it won't change the fact that developers are having trouble getting "traditional" games to work on it. It's gotten so bad that many games, like Metal Slug Anthology, have to offer multiple control schemes, some variations with the Wii Remote, and others just abandoning it for the Classic or GameCube controller.

    Well, add Super Smash Bros. Brawl to that list. It's going to offer four control schemes for players to stumble through. It's completely unprecedented that a console rely on the previous controller for a backup so that games can just work properly.

    More troublesome, though, is that it begs the question, "What's the point of the Wii then?" It's a valid question. If you're playing a game on Wii that has GameCube graphics and uses the GameCube controller, then what the fuck is the point?

You Ain't Got No Alibi

    Check out the video comparison between the GameCube and Wii versions of Resident Evil 4. If it weren't for the Wii/GameCube logos in their respective corners, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

    I mean, really. This is just the GameCube's Resident Evil 4 + the PlayStation 2's Resident Evil 4's extras + motion controls. But it gets better. You can use the GameCube controller with the Wii edition, whose chief feature is the new controls. Irony huh? What a way to undermine the Wii motion controls.

    But most games on the Wii are like that. You know? UGLY. Sure, they would've looked great last generation, but instead of PS2s and XBOXs to stack up against, they've got the PS3 and 360, and as a result they just look horrendous by comparison. And the Wii is only eight months old. Imagine two years from now, when developers will have learned how to make Gears of War look ugly with the PS3 and 360.

    Imagine four.

Late To The Party

    So what am I trying to say with all of this? What conclusions can be drawn? Well, the one I hastily jumped to was that the Wii was too early, that the innovation of motion control simply couldn't be fully realized just yet. That's certainly a conclusion you can come to, and maybe it's even valid. But that's not the real conclusion to all of this:

    The Wii wasn't too early; it was too late. If it had come out in 2001 instead of the GameCube, the graphics would be above the XBOX, it would have had an innovative new control scheme, and it would have at least had some sort of online.

    The Wii is what the GameCube should have been.

Shrink post.

Guitar Hero Editorial, Part II

Less Talk, More Rock

    I don't even understand why executives talk sometimes. They've got something good going for them, but then they open their mouths and blow it half the time. Don't you remember how much fun game journalists were having listening to Ken Kutaragi utter completely ridiculous statements about the PlayStation 3? Those were good times. These are stupid times.

    Where does Activision get off calling Rock Band an "imitator" of the Guitar Hero franchise? Today, (June 6, 2007), marks the one-year anniversary of Activision owning RedOctane, the true publisher of the Guitar Hero franchise. They didn't start the series, they just took it over halfway through, and in my opinion, they've been running it into the ground a little bit, but I'll withhold true judgment until Guitar Hero III.

    Besides, Rock Band is made by the people who started Guitar Hero, Harmonix, so it doesn't make sense to call them imitators. Not only that, but Rock Band isn't just some cheap knock-off trying to cash in on the fad (like Saint's Row cashing in on the GTA-craze). Rock Band is trying to elaborate on what Guitar Hero has been doing.

    Look at the premise of Guitar Hero: Feel like the lead guitarist in a band. That's awesome. Look at the premise of Rock Band: START A ROCK BAND. That's even better! A smarter argument to use against Rock Band would've been to accuse Harmonix of just combining games together, but that still doesn't really work.

    Anyway, like the 1UP article mentioned, Guitar Hero itself is just an imitator of the Guitar Freaks franchise, which I'm sure is an imitator of another videogame (if not, then an imitator of an actual guitar). It'd be like Vanilla Ice complaining that somebody ripped off his "Ice Ice Baby" song.

    I don't see the benefit of them speaking out at all though. If they bash Rock Band, then they get the confused, negative reaction that they're now getting. If they praise Rock Band, sure, they'll be noble, but that might create more hype for Rock Band, something Activision simply doesn't want.

    Really, all it shows is that they're scared. They're afraid that people are going to gravitate toward Rock Band since it offers more, and rightly so. But the way to go about fighting Rock Band is the smart way, by which I mean just get better songs than Rock Band could dream of. That's the only way to win, since the quality of games like this is contingent on the quality of the songs in the game.

    To make a long story short, Activision needs to just be quiet. Spend less time making stupid arguments that don't make sense and more time licensing songs that we'll like.

Shrink post.

Guitar Hero Editorial, Part I

Rocks The 80s Is A Ripoff

    I've been a huge fan of the Guitar Hero series- they're fun, they've got some great music, and they give me all the benefits of years and years of practice with a guitar without, well... years and years of practice with a guitar.

    But when Activision bought Red Octane, the publisher of the series, I was a little worried, and it didn't help when the ludicrously priced downloadable packs of original Guitar Hero songs were released for the Xbox 360's version of Guitar Hero 2. But now they've just pushed a little too hard.

    The Guitar Hero Encore sub-franchise looks like it wants to be expansion packs, and that's cool. I encourage that. You can only play "Carry On Wayward Son" so many times before getting tired of it.

    But it becomes harder to justify its existence when you get into the details: With the jump from GH to GH2, you got tweaks to the formula, a Practice mode, new stages, new characters, 64 songs, and new multiplayer modes, one even offering the ability to play Lead, Bass, or Rhythm guitar.

    With Rocks The 80s, all you get is a new look for the stages and characters and 30 songs.

    That'd be fine if it was reasonably priced, and originally it was. According to GameStop's updated listing, though, the price has jumped up to $50, which is the price for Guitar Hero 2. Not only that, but read the editor's note (near the bottom) in GameSpy's preview and you'll see that one of the songs, "I Want Candy," has been removed, and with no plans to substitute in another song in its place.

    I don't see how that can be defended. Rocks The 80s is an expansion pack, with fewer than half the songs, no new stages or modes, and just a makeover, but nevertheless costing the same amount as Guitar Hero 2.

    Mind you, "I Want Candy" wasn't exactly the most compelling song on the list, but ask yourselves: Would you rather have a song you might only play a handful of times or just to mess with friends, or have the game without that song, but for the same price?

    An expansion pack is supposed to give developers the freedom to add a beefy amount of additional content without having to worry about reinventing the game mechanics the way a sequel does. An expansion pack is not supposed to be less than half the content as the original at the same price. It completely unprecedented.

    All I can say is that I hope that GameStop made a mistake and updates the price again, else I'm going to boycott buying Rocks The 80s on principle; I'm just upset that now I can't play "I Ran" by A Flock of Seagulls.

UPDATE: Don't count on GameStop updating that listing. Check out the official RedOctane listing- $49.99 as of right now.

Shrink post.

Chains of Olympus Demo/Speculation

      All right, there it is. Sony's been teasing with not one, but two countdown clocks, the first revealed developer commentary on two levels, and this is what the second has revealed: A trailer for God of War: Chains of Olympus for the PSP.

      Before I continue, you're going to want to sign up to get a free, limited edition demo of Chains. Now that we've got that awesomeness out of the way, let's speculate:

      "The ancient world tells of a mortal who once slayed a god. Such was the tale of Kratos, who in his servitude to Olympus, would one day confront the humanity he had lost on the day his dark legend was born." Sparing you all the details, I'll tell you a few of my predictions for what this trailer implies:

      Kratos had Blades of Athena but no Golden Fleece, and the ending of God of War II didn't leave room for a side-story, so it probably takes place between God of War and God of War II. However, that doesn't explain why he's not a god, or why he's in "servitude" to Olympus. The beginning of God of War II basically said that Kratos did as he pleased as a god. As for who the main enemy will be, Kratos "confronting the humanity he had lost on the day his dark legend was born" really leaves one obvious choice- his brother, who was left to die by the Spartans as a boy and became very angry and powerful while in Hades. Gameplay-wise, though, the camera appears to be a bit closer, Kratos appears to have an interesting mix of attacks (one new one and one old one from the first game are seen in the trailer), and Kratos can still roll, probably with the D-pad, but that would conflict with magic selection, so who knows? There are obviously new enemies; the beginning ones appear to be human soldiers and the later ones are more monstrous.

      So here's to hopefully Ready At Dawn won't somehow screw up the God of War franchise, eh?

UPDATE: Electronic Gaming Monthly will have a story on Chains next month with interviews from the developer regarding the game, such as control issues, so watch out for that.

UPDATE2: 1UP just posted a story on God of War: Chains of Olympus. You should read it. But the main jist of it to pull out is that technically the game will be amazing (I'm not joking) and that the story takes place in the ten years Kratos was in servitude to the gods.

      Now, I'm glad that the developers at Sony were smart and set it in that time period because I didn't want them to shoehorn it between GoW and GoWII. I realistically expected them to, but I'm glad they didn't. They do mention that you'll get insight into Kratos and what all happened to test his faith and specific events from GoW and GoWII. Therefore, I would assume Atlas is a boss, since in GoWII Atlas did say that it was Kratos' fault that he (Atlas) was forced to hold the world up for all eternity.

Shrink post.

Review Scale

      After careful deliberation, I've decided to avoid using a number or letter scale. I mean, really, what's the difference between a 6.7 and a 6.8, or for that matter a 6 and a 7? Those small discrepancies aren't helpful when you're deciding whether to buy a game or not. Trying to look at reviews as too much more than a consumers' guide is foolish and denies the nature of a review. Therefore, sticking with the theme of this blog, I've decided to use just three ranks:

            

      A "delicious!" rank doesn't mean that I'm telling you that you should buy this game, or even if it's a good game. It just means that I feel it is worthy of my own time and money. An "undercooked!" rank suggests that the game was worth my time, but not my money (as in "rent-worthy"). And as you can imagine, a "disgusting!" rank implies that I would not spend the money or time on this game again (since I obviously already did).

      Now to explain this further: Not everyone has the same tastes in games. If I review a game from a genre I don't really like all that much, and I'm using the typical base 10 scale, I'm probably going to give it a low score, even if it excels in that genre. But my reviews are personal. I'm not telling you whether or not this game is good or bad. I'm telling you whether or not I liked it. As a result, you can develop a feel for the kinds of games I like and you'll know whether or not we have the same tastes in games easier.

      So if I review a typical RPG, it'll probably get a "disgusting!" rank simply because I don't like RPGs that much, and you the reader will know that and take that into consideration. If I review an RPG and I give it a "delicious!" rank, you'll know that this game is special. And if I'm reviewing a game in a genre that you and I both like, you can trust my opinion on it. I think that this three-tiered scale is much more valuable than an out-of-date number 1 to 10.

Shrink post.