The PATHETIC State of the Gaming ‘Media’

This is basically about reviews, I was going to make it about how it sucks as a whole, but it got too depressing. We all know that Gamespot / IGN / 1up etc. all offer completely terrible reviews, have crap staff, and just plain embarrass themselves on a daily basis in almost every “opinion” piece they put up. But I came across this review and had to say something.

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Wii Want Our Money Back

As Wii tops sales charts worldwide, experts fear the current domination of Nintendo’s Wii system is a major threat to the stability of the gaming industry. A new study proves that if Wii continues to dominate, people will spend less money on gaming, which could force an alarming percentage of gaming developers out of business.

“I have Wii Sports, I don’t need any other games,” insisted a local resident we contacted, in a worrying statement. The general consensus from the gaming community is that Wii has downgraded videogaming from a serious hobby to merely a “fun” distraction.

Nintendo admits their main priority with Wii is making people have fun, but remain arrogant on its success. When questioned about the survival of other videogame makers, President of Nintendo of America Reggie Fils-Aime replied with “not my problem”.

Analysts previously felt that Wii was just having its moment and believed the fad would pass before doing too much serious damage, but uncertainty is starting to develop in even the most positive, and most industry analysts are now admitting things haven’t gone as planned and are closely monitoring the situation.

Observers are starting to discover loopholes in Nintendo’s strategy, as Wii owners currently endure a serious lack of new content. Experts warn that supply of Wii could be restricted for some time, and with consumers losing patience and PS3 getting more games released each year, things could very well get back to normal.

A former Nintendo employee agrees it’s only a matter of time before their “moment” is over. Keen industry observer MikeUS backed that up with his insight, “haha wii sounds like wee”.

Wii Breathes Life Into Gaming Industry

After suffering a steady decline over the last few years, sales of videogames are up over 55% over last year and there’s one key factor: the introduction of Nintendo’s new Wii system. Nearly six months after launch, keen consumers are still lining up for hours outside stores whenever a new shipment of Wii arrives. Such demand is unprecedented in the entire history of the gaming industry.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” commented local store owner John Fredward. “People are so excited when they can finally secure themselves a system, even when they have to trek here at 6am in the snow to get it.”

The key factor to its success is the introduction of a new way to play, which has given people who previously felt alienated from videogames a second chance. Nintendo’s Wii allows people to play games with unrestricted 3D movement simply by moving around the remote shaped controller. Son of a father of at least one, George Beating, proudly remarked, “my friends and family are actually excited about games again; Wii has a real friendly attractive vibe that just lets everyone let loose and have fun.”

Not only are consumers benefiting from Wii, but game developers are in heaven. “This system has given us a lot more to work with and given life to many ideas we’ve always wanted to realise.” Wii is much more developer-friendly than other systems and doesn’t require a huge money investment by the publisher, which is resulting in a huge barrage of games being released. The success of Wii is a win-win situation for the gaming industry and gamers, and it looks set to continue as Nintendo stocks rise to record highs.

OUTTA THE WAY DICKHEADS! Gran Turismo is here to save the next gen!

Oh man can you believe there are skeptics out there who doubt the revolutionary power of PS3’s Cell™ chip to change the way we think about games? I mean no game is a better showcase for Sony systems than Gran fucking Turismo, right? They haven’t even put gameplay into the previous four releases ensuring they totally focus on the graphics and hasn’t it shown?

Personally, I’m glad Polyphony Digital took the brave step of removing cars from the latest version of the game, which is also the first version of the game but now in HD! Genius. And don’t the latest screenshots just affirm this as the correct course of action? I’ve annotated all the new features of the game in case you’re an idiot who can’t see them from the crystal clear high definition screen capture. It’s fidelity is so high, in fact, that we can’t even contain it in our tiny column-based blog!

Gaming will be fun again!

I can’t wait.

Four years of Gamecube: Disappointments

Since Microsoft seem intent on ending this generation a year early with their Xbox High Res™ I figure it’s a good time to look back on the Gamecube up to now. Sure there’s Zelda coming next year but we’ll all be far too elated in the months following its release to look at anything objectively. Not even Linkin Park could bring us down! Er what? Oh yeah Gamecube. Although I’ve had endless niggles, I have four (4) big let downs with this console and I’m going to cry about them here. They are: online, third parties, marketshare and incomplete games.

Online

Ok so, Dreamcast showed us it was possible. PC online gaming was becoming commonplace and Nintendo announced two online adaptors. It was all looking very promising. People on forums were creating Perfect Dark clans, F Zero racing leagues were discussed, MMORPG Pokemon was dreamed about. And what do we get? A crappy Dreamcast port hampered by exorbiant monthly fees and an almost concerted effort from Nintendo to destroy the chances of people obtaining the nessesary adaptors not to mention them maligning the entire concept of online gaming on monetary grounds. I was expecting a lot more and I’ve always been envious of Xbox Live.

Third Parties

These guys are fuckheads. Again it looked promising at first but it wasn’t long before games began to be announced for PS2, Xbox and PC. While we are partly to blame because we refuse to buy their appalling games that sell so well on rival consoles, but we also rewarded them with sales sales when they did put the effort in. And what do we get? Nothing. While PS2 and Xbox get to enjoy Burnout 3, or Pro Evolution Soccer or Soul Caliber 3. Ubi Soft, Acclaim and EA (to an extent) deserve the full fist for continuing supporting us and Nintendo.
Oh and while we laugh about it now, at the time losing Rare did hurt.

Marketshare

Shit we got demolished this time round. The Playstation juggernaught got stronger than we could possibly imagine. And while Microsoft may’ve lost billions of dollars on Xbox, they got what they wanted; our marketshare. Nintendo simply weren’t persistent enough and couldn’t drop the kiddy tag as fast as they would’ve liked. While even without cult game turned biggest franchise in gaming (GTA) the PS2 would’ve still won this generation, Halo carried Xbox far further than it should’ve even been able to. It’s hard to pin exactly where Xbox got the upper hand or all the factors involved but somehow we lost this.

Incomplete Games

I can forgive Luigi’s Mansion, it needed to be there for launch. But Eternal Darkness, Zelda: Wind Waker, Super Mario Sunshine, Star Fox Adventures… What was going on? This isn’t the Nintendo that polished and cherished it’s games! Eternal Darkness dropped all the really amazing aspects that were planned. Wind Waker dropped countless dungeons and resorted to an elaborate treasure hunt to lengthen the game. Mario Sunshine degenerated into a blue coin marathon. Star Fox just seemed to veer into a wall mid way through the game and never really recovered. The Gamecube library as a whole seems marred by rush jobs, half games and wasted potential.
Mind you, the games I mentioned all stomped weakness wherever it was found.

Ok I think I’ve wasted enough of your time now. Tell me what you were dissapointed with or any particular game that shamed it’s legacy. Or tell me I’m a wanker.

Controlling Shooters on Revolution: A Bluepaper

Ok. It all came to me in a rush so it could be a bit blah but here it is.

Revolution’s controller is going to revolutionise first person shooters more than we initially think. The genre has been dying all over again, having to resort to horror themes and generally making everything bigger and longer to improve itself. When people get excited over the ability to hold two different pistols at the same time you know we’re heading towards a brick wall.

Everyone’s already thought about simply aiming with the controller by tilting, as we would a mouse or second analogue stick. I propose however that with the revolution controller FPS games can move beyond that, beyond even what light guns offer, and offer true realism in handling firearms as done in real life. I’m talking blind shooting, shooting around corners, behind ourselves, over objects.

So far. Most people have accepted the obvious idea, to simply map the motion sensor as you would a mouse or right thumbstick. To look up and down and turn left or right. To aim. You gun remains shooting towards the middle of the screen.

I believe this to be a flawed approach. If you consider turning in the keyboard/mouse setup. You move the mouse towards the desired direction then lift it off the surface and back to your central position. If you do not do this and move back to centre, your character does the same, facing the original direction. When you apply this to a motion sensor, should the motion sensor be on at all time, we have no way to ‘cancel’ our movements as we can a mouse by lifting it. Therefore when we turn around a corner in a game we would have to hold the controller or our whole arm at 90° until we face our initial direction again. I dread to think of the difficulties we’de face holding our controller backwards, pointing away from the screen, should we ever need to backtrack. Because of this I suggest my own scheme.

Detachable Thumbstick
Move forward and back and turn left or right. *

Motion sensor.
Moving the ‘remote’ left and right across a horizontal plane to reach left or right.
Tilting the ‘remote’ up down, twists left and right to aim.
Moving the ‘remote’ up and down to raise and lower your gun.

Crosspad
Left and right: to strafe. Up and down to look up or down*

Under my scheme, we wield the controller as we would a real firearm. My approach  intergrates the precision aiming of lightgun games and the player controlled movement of traditional first person shooters. But it takes it up another notch.

Imagine a situation we’re you’re taking cover behind a wall. Around the corner to your left, enemies are opening fire, awaiting for you to appear. In a traditional FPS you would have to move out into the open and take out the gunmen while standing in the way of their gunfire. But now, with revolution, you could just edge up with your back pressed against the wall. Then at the corner. Reach around, moving the controller around your shoulder, and just firing. In person you would be holding the controller behind you, pressing the B trigger. In the game your character would we shooting blindly into the room, with only their arm exposed. Maybe you might be lucky, but if not you can still just swing around and run in firing at enemies as you would a light game game.

But there’s much more you could do. Taking cover behind a crate you could raise your arm to shoot over the top, or failing that, lob a grenade, simulating a throwing action with your arm, pressing the trigger to release the explosive. In multiplayer while running past an open doorway you could fire into it, just incase you hit someone, while not breaking stride or changing direction.

In case you just skipped all this or didn’t understand. To put it simply, in shooters, you should use the motion sensor to replicate the movements of the characters arm. Use the crosspad and thumbstick to take care of his feet and head.

*I say this because I’m used to the “Goldeneye” setup. For those who want to strafe with the thumbstick or walk with the cosspad it really doesn’t matter, they could map it like that. I just find speed and precision in turning to be more important than strafeing.

Sonic Heroes

Sonic Team sat down and listened to the fans for this game. “Actually make Sonic the main focus, ditch the crap-rock, fix the camera!” they cried in absolute pain as Mr. Naka ran them over in his race car while listening to Crush 40.

“I DISLIKE YOUR COMMENTS AND WILL BECOME A SUCCESS IN THE UK, A HAW HAW HAW”

About an hour later, Sonic Heroes was finished and on retail shelves. What’s this? Sonic’s got team based sex antics going on now? Oh okay. This obviously requires several teams of freaks. Remember those idiots from Knuckles Chaotix? Of course you don’t, because the world was trying to forget them. BUT NO, Sega will jog your memory. “HERE’S ANGSTY PURPLE THING, HAPPY BEE AND BIG SLOW CROC” they yell as crumbs stick to your face.

In total, there’s four teams of three characters. Each fart around the very same levels, but with silly different bits of storyline that all eventually cross over. It’s a game about talking to dead people. Every team has a fast character, a flying character and a ANGRY BREAK DOWN WALLS character. ‘Cept Big the Cat’s angry in a ‘where’s my brain’ kind of way. You need to switch between these characters all the time. This manages to totally destroy the whole Sonic feel. You might be running really fast for a few seconds then UH OH it’s time to switch over to slow breaking down walls character to.. you know.. break down some walls that are there for no reason. I’m sure Robotnik (or Eggman as Sega like to call him now, another delightful decision) has nothing better to do than stroll down to the beach and put up some walls. “I enjoy long walks on the beach. So I can put some walls all over it”. The flying characters are typically there just so you can fly for a few seconds only to somehow glitch up and end up falling into an endless background JPEG. How can Cream even manage to lift Amy and Big? His name is Big for a reason (THIS IS NOT SEX RELATED). Cream’s arms should totally break off and blood would cover the entire level. Knuckles would be all “hooo-waaaah”.

Sonic Team attempted to give some of the levels a retro look. The checkerboard textures that were very present in Sonic 1 are back on the Seaside Something or Other level, there’s a new Casino level. And um. There’s a level that’s.. er.. has the word Metropolis in it. Sadly, the levels are very VERY poorly designed. Very. They drag on for far too long, typically have very little checkpoints and require more rail grinding or breaking stuff than running. In fact, you won’t be running much in this game at all. Doing so could result in death, thanks to the return of terrible camera man (Lakitu’s confused cousin) and some shocking clipping. There’s an entire level called Rail Canyon. Can you guess what this level requires you to do? Sell ice cream. The fun part is where bomb trains crash into you and you witness the Game Over screen for the 7th time in the last three minutes. Jumping from rail to rail should of been easy, it’s not. There are times when you press left or right + jump and UH OH YOU’RE NOW SPAZING IN THE AIR? Death. To top this all off, Tails feels the need to yell “I’m falling!” when you’re falling. They’ve changed his voice actor for this game, too. I think they’re going for that three year old feel now.

When you get to a switch, one of the characters will insist on blurting out “I wonder what this switch will do?” WELL JESUS, I DUNNO. MAYBE IT’LL MAKE ENEMIES APPEAR LIKE THE OTHER SEVEN HUNDRED HAVE? Music is another sore point. Once again, we have the pleasure of dreadful rock music and other depressing lack of melody lack of meaning music to fall down holes to. Though I did rather enjoy Casino Park’s music, it was catchy as hell. Too bad the level involved confusing pinball machines of doom.

The game will last you a long time, I spose. If you can be bothered to play the same levels as the other characters (which you’ll need to do in order to actually complete it). There’s a sad 2 player mode where you fall down holes together, also. I think the game also has an options menu. Some stuff just doesn’t work in 3D. Sonic’s that stuff. I can’t wait for the Shadow the Hedgehog game. WATCH OUT PRINCE OF PERSIA.

This game gets two breadrolls out of a bakers dozen.

Fuck the Nokia N-Gage

There is nothing engaging abut the N-Gage. Seriously, fuck this sideways taco phone. $600 bucks? Are you fucking shitting me, Nokia? I’m hating their ads the most though. Lucky they’re just way too easy to make fun of.

One of the shittier websites I sometimes visit incorporated the N-Gage into their entire layout.

And they’ve got their fucken social website for whatever where you have to post a picture of yourself with your N-Gage. God, if I ever see someone with an N-Gage in real life I will just outright laugh at them. Fucking morons.