CCU Soapbox - RS 79

Author: Dan_Lero

"Improving system responses, changes the relationship between computers and humans."- Ken Kutaragi

Gaming has become one of the major phenomenon's of today's world, i will take a brief but detailed look at how it has evolved.

First Generation (1972-1977)

So as many of you know, computer and videos games have come along way in terms of graphics and game play. It all started when Atari Games (Midway) created a game called "Pong" in 1972 and is one of the earliest games to date. With it's simple game play and a "basic" array of visual effects, Pong became the key fundamental stepping stone for bring about today gaming world and graphics.

Second Generation & Crash (1976-1984)

The second generation saw the lights of the 8-bit cartridge, which didn't really come into use till 1983, but brought consoles such as the Fairchild Channel F, RCA Studio II, Atari 2600, Magnavox Odyssey, Atari 5200 and the Sega SG-1000. But by 1982 a flood of consoles and over-hyped games began to emerge. Overflowing the shelving capacity of toy stores, because of these oversupplies the video game industry crashed as of Christmas of 1982 and through all of 1983

With the hit of the video game crash, it brought bankruptcy to companies producing video game consoles and the crash marked the end of second generation of video gaming.

Third Generation (1983-1987)

The third generation or the "8-bit era" was considered by many to be the first "modern" generation of console gaming. It began in with the release of the "Famicom", mainly known well as "NES" (Nintendo Entertainment System) which gave birth to well known games like Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Metroid, Mega Man, Castlevania and Bomberman. It also introduced Hideo Kojima's well-known "Metal Gear" series that became on to be a worldwide phenomenon.

It also was the mark of the first console war between giants Nintendo and Sega, which saw Nintendo claim the victory with it's console the NES that sold around 60 million units worldwide, while Sega's Sega Master System sold only 13 million. The less hyped Atari 7800 failed to make an impression.

Then we were introduced to the handhelds: Nintendo's Game Boy, Atari's Lynx and Sega's Game Gear, which brought a whole new feel to gaming because not only could you play games in the arcade and at home, now you can play them whilst on the move away from home!

Fourth Generation (1987-1996)

With the forth generation upon us, it was time the "16-bit" cartridge was to be put in use. With the main competitors being Nintendo and Sega again, gaming was still looking good. The two consoles this time were "SNES" (Super Nintendo Entertainment System) and the "Sega Mega Drive" or Genesis with the addition of the "TurboGrafx-16" which didn't go on to do as well as Sega or Nintendo. The two consoles current sales figures stand at 49 million for the SNES and 29 million for Sega, yet again Nintendo won the forth generation.

But by now, graphics and gameplay had altered with games like the popular Mario and Sonic series and the addition of stealth games like Metal Gear; gaming had taken a path down a new road. Graphics had become even sharper, giving games a better feel and understanding and with games from third generation becoming major titles, gaming had took a turn for the best.

Fifth Generation (1996-2002)

The introduction of the 32-bit, 64-bit and 3D graphics, the 3D era had now materialised. With the arrival of the CD, gaming had now really revolutionised, with handgun controllers and with the appearance of Sony to the market with their "Playstation", gaming had new rivals. With Sony now entering the war, things started to get a little more difficult for Nintendo and Sega with them being the current top developers.

Kojima's NES and SNES hits Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2:Solid Snake had now ported over to the Playstation, bringing Metal Gear Solid; a whole new stealth action game. Shipping over 6 million copies worldwide Metal Gear Solid had become one of the Playstation's best selling games along side Gran Turismo.

But there was now a format war CD vs. cartridge. Nintendo had stuck to using cartridges on it's N64 while Sony and other major systems moved towards the CD-ROM, because CD was cheaper to produce than cartridges. Though the major disadvantage of CDs was piracy, this became a selling point of the PlayStation. And the fifth generation had started a turning point for optical-based storage, as games grew more complex in content, sound and graphics. This had pushed the cartridge format to the limits of its storage capacity. Nintendo's N64 was the last cartridge based console to be produced.

Alongside the Playstation, rivals Sega had designed the Sega Saturn, Nintendo the N64 and smaller consoles like the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, Amiga CD-32 and Atari Jaguar had also made an appearance. Nintendo's handhelds "Game Boy Colour" and "Game Boy Light" were also released. But in this generation, it was Sony and Nintendo that where the top competitors, while Sega had took a turn for the worst only selling 9.26 million consoles worldwide, while Sony had sold a staggering 102 million consoles, clearly winning the fifth generation console war.

Sixth Generation (1998-2004)

The 128-bit era! Here video game platforms of the sixth generation which included Sega's "Dreamcast", Microsoft's "Xbox", Nintendo's "GameCube" and Sony's "PlayStation 2". With Microsoft joining the battle in 2001 with the Xbox, things started to get a little more harder for Nintendo and Sony. But it was Sega that suffered the most. With Sega doing poorly in the previous generation, things hadn't got any better for them; the Dreamcast, the first console of the sixth generation which had introduced several innovations including a controller with a screen in the top, internet gaming as a standard feature which would only be later adopted by Xbox and PlayStation 2. But it was unsuccessful due to the much hyped PlayStation 2 and later the Dreamcast was discontinued in March 2001.

With the Playstation 2 now using DVD as its format, it managed to get exclusive licensing for games like Grand Theft Auto III, Metal Gear Solid 2 and the Kingdom Hearts series making the PS2 outperform its competitions. But the PS2 remains to outsell most of today's consoles.

But Microsoft's Xbox had by now has attracted a large fanbase and a strong third-party developer support. With its addition of "Xbox Live" an online service aimed at online multiplayer gaming and content delivery, Microsoft had a good inning in the sixth generation, though it was not enough to threaten the PS2. But it had created the best-selling Halo 2, which went on to sell 8 million copies sold worldwide. But in Japan, sale figures were far worse.

Nintendo, now struggling to keep up against the might of the Xbox and PlayStation 2, which had now captured the majority of the audience that preferred more mature titles, but Nintendo still had its array of franchises, history in the industry and its loyal fan base. But as a result, the GameCube had failed to match the sales of its predecessor Nintendo 64 but still grabbed second place in Japan, and third place in the US and Europe.

But suddenly, the handheld game console market had exploded, with the introduction of new handhelds from many different manufacturers. But it was Nintendo that maintained its domination of the handheld market with the release of the upgraded Game Boy called the "Game Boy Advance" and "Game Boy Advance SP".

And yet again, it was the Sony with the Playstation 2 that won the sixth generation selling 120 million units. Xbox took second place, selling 24 million units, GameCube in third selling 21.6 million units and in last place Sega's Dreamcast only managed to sell 10.6 million consoles worldwide.

Seventh Generation (2004-Present)

Now moving on, and by now many companies including Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft have all started to create their next consoles and games to compete for the "ultimate" console. With Microsoft joining the previous generation in 2001, it was time that Nintendo and Sony would have to create something with a new design and innovation. The Wii had brought motion sensitivity into gameplay and the PS3 had brought the power of Blu-Ray, a revolutionary new cell broadband engine, HD and also motion sensing.

Microsoft had released the Xbox 360 a year before Sony's Playstation 3 and Nintendo's Wii, giving them a headstart on the sales figures. Graphics however, had come a very long way, with each game improving the standards of graphics through every release. Who knew that graphics of a simple game like Pong would have turned into superb masters of art such as Metal Gear Solid, Halo and Gran Turismo to name a few. But with all the new latest equipment being used to make games, a new form of definition had arrived.

But as of now, it is hard to tell who will win the seventh generation because of all the upcoming games and hardware releases. But so far the consoles best selling games are as follows: PS3- Resistance: Fall of Man, Xbox 360- Gears of War and the Nintendo Wii- Wii Sports & The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

Handhelds however had really improved, with the first release of Sony's first handheld the "PSP", which provided the best graphics seen on any handheld to date, with legendary games such as Grand Theft Auto and Metal Gear Solid making an appearance on it, Sony had entered another market in gaming. But it was Nintendo's "DS" handheld that had managed to capture audiences from around the world with family orientated games and brain training, but it didn't have the power, graphics and capabilities of a PSP.

But before we knew it, with the released of HD(High-Definition) an upgrade of SD(Standard Definition), gaming and graphics had hit a new high. The Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 had been released, bringing High Definition to the comfort of your own home. With 1080p resolutions and 60 frames per second, HD had brought a new age to gaming, making the graphics and visuals better than ever before. Using the power of the Blu-Ray disc and HD-DVD, greater storage capacity was available and used to propel the force of HD, yet there was another format war upon us. Just like VHS and Sony's Betamax in the 70's and CD vs cartridge, the war was all over again, but this time Sony's "Blu-Ray" seems to be the more hopeful contestant. But there was still one problem, not everyone owned a HDTV.

But there was still something not right....the storylines. Although games had brought awesome graphics and entertaining gameplay, some developers just couldn't just get the storylines right; with games failing because of it. With the big games such as Metal Gear Solid, Halo and Gran Turismo, it was hard to create new games without the creators being told that they had mimicked or stolen ideas from other games or their new games didn't live up to the standards of the big games. So with everyone saying something different from every angle, it's hard for developers to try and get their games balanced with new ideas, old ideas and the audience's high standards.

So as gaming evolves, the community and world of gaming evolves with it. But gaming in general has come along way since the 1970's, with new ideas arising, hardware becoming available and on demand services being broadcasted by the major industries. With all this and more arriving so often, there has become a lot of money, competition and rivalry involved within the gaming industry as a whole today.

CCU Soapbox - RS 78

Author: AlexChec

Once again the headlines rage about a man in China who died after a gaming marathon, and so once again I am compelled to revisit this subject.

Internet and gaming addictions are fast becoming media targets of choice, particularly with the World of Warcraft phenomenon. My personal opinion is that the causes and effects of gaming addictions are poorly understood, and thus I think that, while generally well-intentioned, reports on these matters will always be incomplete and only manage to vilify either the addicted or the medium, or both.

I'm not inclined to discuss whether or not CNN's or any media outlet's coverage of the gaming community is biased or not -- as any such discussion lends itself to a tedious examination of stories with sides being chosen based on one's own biases rather than an objective examination; nor am I going to discuss whether or not Internet and/or gaming addiction is a pervasive or serious problem -- again, the discussion would be overly lengthy and not appropriate for this format.

Instead what I want to talk about is how I believe the gaming community should respond to gaming addicts, pervasive or otherwise.

On the one hand, there are the appeals of Internet-based gaming. You're exposed to a wide array of challenges in the form of human players at multiple skill levels, you can network with existing friends without being near them by sharing a common experience, and you can develop additional friendships with people whom you otherwise wouldn't have met. In short, Internet gaming allows one to basically engage in a social forum while at the same time participate in an entertainment venue.

On the other hand, however, is that the social experience is incomplete -- it's virtual and emotionless. Our human experience is defined from birth onward by our physical interactions with others: first our parents, then other children, adolescents, adults, coworkers, spouses, and ultimately our own children. It's why neglected or abused children can and do so often grow up to be something of deviants in society; their interactions are perversions of the social development that the rest of us experience.

We understand our world through our senses, of which only two, audio and visual, are satisfied by the Internet or gaming, and in no small part by our proximity to and interactions with others; and technology alone will never satisfy the very human need to be in touch, quite literally, with other humans.

I'm not denying the networking power that the Internet has, nor am I trying to undermine the bonds that can form among friends during gaming sessions. All I'm saying is that these experiences are incomplete, and one of the driving factors behind an addiction, any addiction, is the flawed understanding on the part of the addict that further exposure to that which they are addicted will satisfy his or her ever-growing deficiency, physical or psychological, when in fact they're just furthering their own destruction.

I'm not here to get into the nuances of defining addiction or dependency. All I mean to establish is that it is perfectly plausible that someone could become addicted to gaming as a perceived way of satisfying the need for social interaction.

The question then is: How should the gaming community respond to this phenomenon? Browsing the GameSpot forums, I was somewhat disturbed to see how people responded to the topic of gaming addiction. It seemed as though people largely took the idea as a joke, as though anybody who was addicted, or even thought that he or she was addicted, was either off-kilter to begin with or was trying to be funny; and the comments were, therefore, dismissive.

I haven't seen any reliable studies about how prevalent gaming addiction is among self-described gamers or Internet users in general, much less recent studies to be sure, but even if the prevalence is low, I think this is a topic which the community should be casting a more serious eye to. Whether it's a rare event or widespread, for me the pivotal point is this: The presence of gaming addicts in the community means that we are at some point deriving our entertainment at the very physical and psychological expense of someone else, while at the same time we may be just as susceptible to becoming addicted ourselves.

I believe we're past the time for outreach on this issue. If any community has the resources on hand to create a means by which gaming addicts or at-risk persons can go to be brought away from their dependencies, it's the gaming community. We number in the millions, we're spread over the globe, and we've absolutely utilized the infrastructural capabilities of the Internet.

Quite frankly, I think it incumbent upon us, the gaming community, to launch this outreach rather than end up having it dictated to us by either misguided legislation or a biased media blitz. If we don't take the steps now to address this issue, then we're going to be subjected to one "Shocking expose!" after another about our beloved hobby and story after story about gamers so far gone that they died after week-long gaming sessions; and true or not, sensationalized or not, those are going to have a cumulative effect which will only damage the industry's reputation and, by extension, the gaming community's.

We don't need to run out and build a gaming wing to the Betty Ford Center, we can handle this matter very simply: take a break for a while and go for a walk; call someone you haven't seen in a while and arrange a lunch; go out and meet some other gamers. Make the effort to be with people physically rather than virtually. Whether through informal, regional get-togethers or attendance at the major conventions, a person-to-person encounter and check-up can go a long way to head off an addiction that is based on a social deficiency.

The bottom line is that if we are going to use in our defense that Internet gaming is not a destructive hobby because it allows us to build friendships across the globe, then we need to start cashing in on those friendships and reach out to those among us who are in need of a helping hand. To do no less is irresponsible and exploitative of other people's problems, it is the antithesis of friendship, and to that end it will be difficult for the mainstream to not vilify us.

At least, that's where *I* thought the bottom line should be. A friend of mine and avid gamer pointed out to me after I originally aired this complaint that there are more issues at work, though, that could each be a blog post in and of themselves. Specifically she raised concerns about parenting, and a person's drive for gratification.

On the first issue, she contended that those who engage in gaming marathons to the point of fatal overdose might be the results of bad parenting. While that is a contention which is near impossible to prove or disprove, I am inclined to disagree with it carte blanche. There comes a point in a person's life where he or she is old enough to gauge for him or herself what is beneficial and what is harmful behavior. While these determinations might in part be influenced by one's upbringing, it strikes me that most healthy people -- however they were raised -- would be able to determine that sitting in front of a computer for days on end is harmful behavior. Those who can't, in my opinion, have an illness which requires outside influence to correct.

There one might find evidence of negligent behavior on the part of a parent in not recognizing the problem early on, but what if the symptoms didn't show until later in life? In the cases I have examined, the victims have been 26- and 30-year-old men from China. Whereas in Western society it could be expected that a 26- or 30-year-old man could have displayed signs of gaming addiction in his youth due to the proliferation of electronic games in our society, could the same be said for China? Or even removing the cultural aspect, what if the symptoms didn't manifest themselves until after these men moved out of their homes (as we gamers know, contrary to popular belief, we don't all live in our parents' basements)? Who is to blame under these circumstances?

On the second point my friend brought up, I do have to admit that it is a driving force of the human experience to want to feel a sense of purpose, more specifically validation and gratification. We want to know that our lives mean something not merely to ourselves but to other people. Some people might satisfy this desire by achieving a high profile on the Internet, and in so doing fin themselves caught in a web of gaming addiction. But this, to me, only reaffirms the point I have made that the community has an obligation to identify these people and help bring them back from the brink, an obligation to show them that they can find validation by other means.

A slight aside here, I am a fan of zombies. I love them. So I was quick to buy World War Z when it came out, in which there is a character who illustrates the point I am trying to make here. He is from Japan, and he defines "l33+," as he spends every waking our hacking into government networks and spilling their contents out onto the Internet. He admits that he does this in order to feel a sense of worth. However, as his friends are one by one consumed by the zombie horde, he can only feel anger that there is nobody around to congratulate him on uncovering the secrets of the government's evacuation plans. Only by luck does he end up escaping the zombie menace, but not after taking out no small amount of rage on his laptop.

What that illustrates to me in the context of this conversation is that those Internet personas we admire for their skills in games might well display other traits we could, and should, just as readily celebrate, and in so doing might help a friend come back from the brink of a fatal addiction.

Again, the points my friend raised could themselves be very long posts, but if you have read this far, I will thank you by sparing you from reading more.

CCU Soapbox - RS 75

Author: m0zart

I realize that the primary focus of the majority of the rather large base of Samus fans anxiously waiting on Metroid Prime 3: Corruption's imminent release is naturally concentrated almost entirely on the gameplay the title promises. This is to be expected. After all, it is an extremely important entry in the series as far as gameplay is concerned. This is true not only because it expands significantly on core gameplay that is now commonly known by Metroid Prime players, but also because it is the first game to showcase the abilities of the Wiimote for potential influence in games similar to this, such as FPS or other FPA. As both a full entry in one of the greatest gaming series of all time and simultaneously a powerful proof of concept for the Wii's suitability in games approximating this genre, it has a lot on its shoulders.

But while I am completely sympathetic with those who feel that gameplay is the most important element with a lot riding on it, my mind is also firmly on the story, something usually overlooked by Metroid fans as peripheral to this series. And as someone who obsesses over this to a fault, I haven't been able to hold back the concern that Metroid Prime is going to continue to be oddly placed as a subseries. And by "oddly", I mean chronologized in ways that don't really destroy anything, but don't really add anything significant either. I love this series, and I want it to do well, so I feel like I have a stake in this, albeit primarily an emotional one.

I saw for the first time yesterday the "Aurora" preview on the Metroid Prime 3 Preview channel on my Wii, and I have to say it really blew my mind. I had to watch it several times to get the significance of what was being said. For those of you who haven't seen it yet and need context, I have posted it to Gamespot here. Take a look before reading if you haven't seen this short sequence already. Also please be advised that this editorial WILL contain SPOILERS for the series, and possible spoilers in describing my own thoughts on what Aurora means not only to Metroid Prime 3, but to the series as a whole.

With that out of the way, I can begin.

Being a long-time Metroid fan, I was left amazed and frankly, a little relieved by this preview video, which was as astounding to me as it was short. I know that many people will argue this point with me -- that Metroid is not about story but gameplay, and really I do agree to a large extent, but Metroid has still ALWAYS had a reasonable backstory to provide detail for what was going on through each iteration of the traditional 2D game series. The plight of the baby Metroid that mistook Samus for its mother was one that left me teary eyed at the end of Super Metroid -- having been there when he was discovered and bonded with the suit-clad beauty of a bounty hunter, it choked me up to watch him give up his life in order to save what he perceived to be his mother. Heck, I guess I am an overly sensitive guy, as I still get all teary-eyed thinking about it now. In any case, all but the first of the original 2D Metroid games involves the baby Metroid in some way, even Metroid Fusion, where he indirectly saves Samus' life for a second time and even has his DNA merged with Samus', the significance of which was not lost on me.

When the first Metroid Prime game was announced and went through the punches, I was FAR too concerned about the gameplay mechanics in a 3D world to worry about something as seemingly trivial as the backstory or the chronology at the time. I was much more worried about the game being touted as an FPS. I realize the FPS genre is a popular one, and for the need to make a spash after so many years absent from the gaming scene, Metroid in 3D almost had to do something to gain ground. But that didn't mean that I would necessarily like it. I am not a fan of FPS. It's just not a genre that works for me, and I was fully prepared to just write off the 3D series as something that violated my almost religious observance of the series.

So when Metroid Prime was finally released, I reluctantly decided to give it a chance. Much to my surprise, and great joy frankly, it wasn't like an FPS at all. Other than being told from the first-person perspective and having some shooting involved, it eschewed almost every FPS convention made to that point, and dared to be at its heart a Metroid game first, and everything else only a distant second. For that I was thankful -- I could love the series in 2D and 3D, and not have to do any kind of selective filtering of white noise entries from the overall picture in my mind, as I usually have to do in expanded universe sets (such as Star Wars).

Having gotten that worry about the first Metroid Prime out of the way, it suddenly occured to me one day that the series does NOT actually take place after Metroid Fusion, but in between the original Metroid and Metroid 2. I had always known this really, but as I said, my concerns were on other things, and it took time for me to realize I might have some objections to this chronology. And while the Metroid Prime story itself was truly touching, particularly in the previously unclear part of her role in the history (and prophecy) of the Chozo, it still wasn't clear how the main storyline fit into it all.

My objections only grew as the chronology grew -- with a full sequel and a handheld iteration, it suddenly seemed to me that a LOT more had happened in between the original Metroid and the rest of the 2D series than I had ever anticipated, and it wasn't really making that much sense to me. The Metroid Prime series in a way had to happen before Metroid 2, simply because Samus had destroyed all of the Metroidsafter that point, but still it seemed to me that there had to be SOMETHING linking these things together, and that this something had to make sense. And while I didn't anticipate Metroid Prime 3: Corruption giving those details needed for that something -- that "Aurora" preview has given me hope that the Metroid Prime subseries will indeed fit into the main series in ways I couldn't have hoped for previously. I think this is definitely opening up some possibilities here to the storyline. In fact, things are starting to come together for me in a way that I hadn't anticipated. This is all opinion of course, but I think it's plausible.

So let me go through my list of presumptions and state where I think things might go:

(1) It's obvious that the original Mother Brain in Metroid was an Aurora dedicated by the Space Pirates to be their director/leader. This is evidenced by the preview's statement that the Auroras were made twenty years prior, making it impossible for Mother Brain to have been the first or unique in any way, or if not impossible, at least not very likely. We know that the original Mother Brain in Metroid was basically JUST a biological computer. She had a defense mechanism in her tunnel (the part of the Aurora video that looked like Tourian from the original Metroid, where Mother Brain rested), but she didn't fight back herself. She used her defense mechanisms instead.

(2) The Mother Brain in Super Metroid not only had her defense systems in place, but after being defeated in that manner, she mutated into another form with a body, a face, eyes, etc. How did an Aurora do that? It doesn't seem to be a function of an average computer. The Mother Brain in Super Metroid behaves differently than her predescessorin ways that are unmistakeable, not the least of which is her ability to mutate into a Japanese mega-monster and defend herself by means other than her surrounding automated defense system.

(3) As stated previously, the Metroid Prime is a subseries takes place between the original Metroid and Metroid 2: Return of Samus. (At least, I hope we all know that at this point as it has been broadcast like crazy since the original release of Metroid Prime).

(4) The Metroid Prime subseries deals with the Metroid Prime in every instance except for the ubiquitous Metroid Prime Hunters. The Metroid Prime is at first a Metroid which was mutated by the dangerous Phazon substance and as a result BECAME the source of Phazon. After her defeat in Metroid Prime, she mutates into Dark Samus, and returns to fight Samus in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. She is now returning in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption with the express purpose of corrupting all of the worlds with Phazon, which again, she is the source of.

(5) The initial premise of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is that the Auroras have been infected with a virus that causes them to malfunction, while simultaneously, Dark Samus is corrupting the worlds with Phazon. This is a double threat that Samus and the other bounty hunters have to face and eradicate. But it could also be that the virus isn't a virus at all -- perhaps what is corrupting the Auroras only *seems* to be a virus on the surface, but turns out to be the effect of Phazon contamination?

Given these assumptions and possibilities, my theory is that the Mother Brain in Super Metroid is a new Aurora, not the one which was destroyed in the original Metroid (and Metroid Zero Mission). And this new Mother Brain gets corrupted by the Phazon contamination leaked by Dark Samus, becoming the new Mother Brain that could mutate and make such a tough battle in Super Metroid.

There are several ways this could happen. One is that the virus that they are trying to combat in the Auroras is actually a mutation brought on by Phazon, which requires that that one Aurora be captured by the Space Pirates and thus not cleansed by Samus, to then be used by the Space Pirates in its mutated form. Another possibility is that the Aurora itself merges with Dark Samus (again, Dark Samus is the same being as the Metroid Prime was, only mutated), meaning that the new Aurora/Mother Brain actually is partly controlled by the Metroid Prime/Dark Samus, and sees gain in an alliance with the Space Pirates. But a third possibility also exists, and it's not only the most daring one storywise, but also the most likely given the history of the Metroid Prime in the subseries so far. That possibility is that the Metroid Prime mutates INTO an Aurora, and takes on the role of Mother Brain, in much the same way that it mutated into Dark Samus after coming into contact with and being defeated by Samus Aran. This last possibility, put more clearly, means that Super Metroid's Mother Brain may actually be another iteration of the Metroid Prime/Dark Samus/et. al.

It's just a theory, but it seems plausible at this point. I don't want to overanalyze this before I actually get the game and can start playing it, but I have to admit that the possibilities are drawing me in and tempting me to do just that.

And that's something I've missed from the Metroid series for a while -- consistency. I suddenly realize that the last five years may have been a build up to something more consistent than I realized -- and it all started with this little trailer that runs at less than two minutes. Even if I am completely wrong, I have some hope now that things will resolve in such a way that will make the Metroid Prime subseries more than just a last-minute addition and mythos revisionism; the subseries is finally starting to show some value in being not just a great self-contained subseries, but an excellent bridge between the original Metroid and the rest of the games in the original 2D series.

And of course, we can only hope that the gameplay will be great too.

CCU Soapbox - RS 75

Author: Oilers99

There's a fundamental problem with most videogames. It's excluded from some genres by their very nature, but the vast majority of games suffer from it. It's an aspect of gameplay that we often spend 90% of the game struggling against, blissfully unaware. It's one of the key things that stops non-gamers from easily enjoying many of the games hardcore players love.

It's simply moving the playable character from a third person viewpoint.

Before you jump on me, citing examples of games with fluid control, consider the following hypotheticals. How many times have you inadvertenly moved a character off a cliff? How many times have you had to spend several seconds tweaking a character's position to line up just right for a jump? How many times have you bumped into the walls of a level simply because you moved the analogue stick a little off? How many times have you had to change the camera to move your character accurately? Dozens, hundreds, even thousands of times. It's so common, that we don't even notice it. Do you have such problems moving your own body? No, we can generally accurately judge where we are, and move accordingly, accurately. If you're near a cliff, you don't "accidentally" run off it by giving your muscles some slight misdirection about where they should take you. The fact of the matter is that videogames are currently incapable of giving the player accuracy of control we are used to in real life.

What is to blame? I can't say I blame analogue sticks entirely, though certainly, they are part of the problem. They seem accurate enough most of the time... you can move your character through 360 degrees, and the direction you press moves the character in a direction that seems fairly intuitive. The problem with analogue sticks is that you can send your character off in a totally different direction with the slightest change in how you move your thumb. The subtlety of the movement that can affect the overall direction of the character makes it extremely easy to make entirely unintended moves, especially in videogames that require a lot of precision jumping. Still, for the most part, I think the analogue stick serves its purpose.

I think this is especially apparent when you look at a game like Metroid Prime, which employs a first person perspective (without clumsy second analogue stick use). Moving around in that game is a relative breeze. You still have to struggle against the sensitivity of the analogue stick, but it's very easy to move. You can move forward or back, and you can turn left or right. Because your path is always directly before you, all you got to do is turn until you've got your path lined up, and hold forward.

To me, this suggests that the real problem is the third person perspective itself. The primary problem is the camera. I'm not refering to managing it, that's a separate (and very real) issue. What I'm refering to is a camera that, by its unstable nature, will consistently mess up direct control of the playable character. The fundamental problem is that since the player is consistently moving on to new areas, the camera has to change its position. Whether this is done by the player, or done by the videogame, it will cause the player to mess up. If the player has to change the camera themselves, then they will either have to stand still while they re-align the camera or move while they're re-aligning the direction. Since the analogue stick control is relative to the angle of the camera, this means that holding right will make the player run in a different direction from one moment to the next if the camera is moving. This is even more of a problem if the videogame changes the camera automatically, because then you have to response to camera adjustment that occurs whenever it bloody well pleases. Most alarmingly, the player needs a new camera position quite frequently, simply because the player moves very quickly through areas generally, meaning that this camera-based movement problems pop up repeatedly.

I believe that the videogame industry is moving into an era where accessibility to new and casual players is going to become increasingly important, now that the videogames themselves are sophisticated enough to appeal to anyone. For something as fundamental as moving a character, it's going to become very urgent that designers find a way to put an end to this problem. Perhaps videogames start using the first person perspective more frequently or take a page of inspiration from point-and-click graphic adventure games, a control system, while hard to imagine, might actually work in more action-oriented games. Or maybe they'll come up with something entirely new, using the broad motions of motion sensitivity now appear in videogame controllers to better manage movement. Whatever it may turn out to be, it's a change that we, as hardcore gamers, may not notice for our extensive experience with the system. But videogames need to become more inclusive, and struggling with something as fundamental as controlling a character is counterproductive to that goal. Controlling characters as naturally as we control ourselves, a simple, fundamental part of gameplay will simply be better. We should therefore take every opportunity to vocalize to the videogame industry that controlling characters in videogame is simply not done well enough. If they listen, we'll all be better off for it.

CCU Soapbox - RS 74

Author: Garudoh

Okay, first things first, let's get this out of the way. This is the face of evil.

Bet you didn't think it came in box form. Well it does. In fact, I'm fairly certain that it's even more potent that way.

Now, when I was a younger kid, I was pretty stupid. Stuff that was shiny impressed me, and I never figured out how the hell uncle Bob managed to rip my nose straight off my face and then proceed to put it back. You know, a typical kid. So it's almost to no surprise that when I first saw Final Fantasy Mystic Quest in a local shop, I did what any fan of FF and FF2 did, I simply crapped my pants. For me, it was even moreso intriguing because the game brandished both the "Final Fantasy" and "Quest" monikers, something that blew my fragile little mind at the time. When I got home and popped the cartridge in, I was practically salivating at the prospect of questing in a Final Fantasy world. Well, instead of that, we all got this, this thing. Ready yourself, then click play.

(See video inblog.)

You know, the box itself was even trying to tip me off that the game wasn't sporting a full deck by actually stating that it was an "Entry-Level Role-Playing Adventure". This game was so ridiculously dumb and simple, after falling asleep playing it one night, my cat kept tenderizing the controller with his paws and finished the game. True story. Anyway, I won't go into the details of just how crappy it is, but suffice it to say that if you're one of the lucky people that doesn't still have nightmares about this game, then don't pursue it any further. In fact, that video above is enough for a lifetime, maybe two. One thing to keep in mind is that MQ came out after the awesomeness that was called Final Fantasy II at the time, which successfully made it even more terrible by comparison.

Ah, FF2 (correctly known otherwise as FFIV), now that's a Final Fantasy game. Just look at that box art, so red and confident, it's like the game just knew it was going to kick ass. And did it ever, props to my homeboy Cecil. Anyway, I apologize for the tangent here, but I had to break up this wallowing in crap gaming with a shiny gem. Check. Moving along.

So what was the point of Mystic Quest? Well, if you ignore Squaresoft's BS reasoning that Final Fantasy was somehow too complicated for our feeble North American brains, the short answer is money. Now, I'm well aware that this is the primary function of every video game from a publisher's point of view, but this game provides one of the best examples of the proverbial milking of the cow. They slapped a franchise name on a vomit-inducing game just to fill up the Square vaults with gold coins and swim around in them like Scrooge McDuck (well, that's how it plays out in my head anyway). Being part of the first generation of console gamers exposed to this type of markerting trickery, I accepted that I had totally been part of the very demographic they were aiming for and would move on. Now, you would think that a putrid pile of donkey turd like FFMQ would've thought us a valuable lesson in life, like when you stick your tongue to a frozen pole or something, and that we would all be better people because of it. Well, not so, apparently.

So, fellow gamer, this is what truly saddens me about gaming today. Squint so to not intake it all at once.

Vincent man, what happened to you? You used to be a cool guy, but now, it's like I don't know even know you anymore. You've been dealt a tough hand, brother. Yep, Dirge of Cerberus is one bad game. We all know that, sure, but in case you didn't know or had doubts, read a review. Any one, doesn't matter. But you know what makes this bad game even worse? The fact that it has the name Final Fantasy strapped on it, with the fabled, holy roman numeral VII attached to that, no less. Whenever I see this game in any form, I can't help but to think of Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, and how it points out a truly sad reality in the world of gaming.

We've kept buying those crappy off-shoot games, and even though they manage to suck every single time, somehow we feel compelled to simply like a game based on its name, presentation or even supposed pedigree. And apparently, even as my generation of gamers grows older and are having their own kids who play games, we don't seem to learn from our past mistakes. Square Enix is now on a tear with side-story games, and I can only imagine an employee somewhere setting up the diving board for the coin pool and writing big dollar signs on the side of bags. Square, just like many other gaming companies, have understood that we are by nature consumers, always hungry for the next thing, so as long as they produce anything that has a semblance of your expectations, they know they will get your money.

So what can we do to stop this seemingly perpetual deluge of craptacular games? Well, for one, don't buy them. I know it seems like an over-simplification, but there's no question that this is where the whole issue lies. Some people are completists and want every Final Fantasy game, while others, and these are the ones who baffle me, will keep coming back in a false sense of hope that the next one will be good. Look, when I was fed the turd-filled donut that is Mystic Quest, it became pretty clear to me that I needed to be a little more discerning in my tastes. Don't blindly purchase a game just because it has a franchise name attached to it. In fact, I would advise you to be even more weary of those titles, and look for new franchises that don't have to be tapered down by fan expectations. For every Tony Hawk out there, there's a Shadow of the Colossus. And I sure hope you put your money down on the latter.

The undeniable truth is that this is a system that will likely never change, as mass-market consumers will continue to buy anything the publishers shovel their way. Spider-Man 3 sells like crazy, and that's simply the gaming world I've accustomed myself to nowadays. I guess we should be thankful that it's not worse, and that there are games like Psychonauts or Katamari Damacy for us to enjoy. Who knows, maybe if my generation had bought into off-shoots even more, today we would all be playing...

CCU Soapbox - RS 74

Author: MrCHUP0N

"E3: Eww, Eh, Excellent" is a running feature detailing my impressions on the big things, the little things, and everything in between from E3 2007. It should be noted that these impressions are written from my viewpoint as an industry outsider and a simple enthusiast - one who cannot be at E3 in person. Also, at this point, E3 is so two weeks ago, but there's still something to get off of my chest. Thus, this will be the last full Eww, Eh, Excellent before I close out with a blurb of the smaller things. This will be posted everywhere I have a (sad, little, unnoticed) presence - trigames.net (always first), Gamespot.com, 1up.com and MySpace.com, and cannot be re-posted elsewhere without my permission.

E3 Awards: Eh

Every videogame publisher loves awards and distinction. Editors' Choice. Random Website's Game of the Year. Platinum Seller. As readers, we appreciate the information and dinstinction that these awards provide. Didn't play Gears of War or Twilight Princess yet? Not too keen on reading their full reviews or even looking for reviews in the first place? Surely, Gamespot and 1up's 2006 Games of the Year (respectively) are surefire hits for the discerning consumer.

There's one set of formal awards, though, whose merit comes into question depending on who you ask. These are awards for conventions and trade shows - awards that are given out to games that aren't even complete yet. Most famously, and recently, we've got our E3 Game of the Show and Best of E3 awards.

At E3 (and other similar conventions), a multitude of games are shown and in multiple stages of completion. Sometimes the game is merely teased - take 2005's Killzone 2 trailer for the Playstation 3 platform, for instance. Last year, Halo 3 had a similar teaser.

Many of the awards given out are explicitly described with what they are actually awarding - the above teasers would have qualified for "Best Trailer" at many websites. That's all well and good. A trailer is a trailer - no one (I hope) will mistake that for a full game that you can buy off of retail shelves and actually consume.

The E3 Games of the Show awards, however, start to bring us into misleading territory. Imagine, for a minute, that you're a journalist at E3. You've just played the latest build of some game that seems to be shaping up remarkably well. The game isn't slated to ship for quite a few months, and the only play time you've been given is the few minutes on the show floor or at the interview session with the publishers. But for what you've played, and for what stage of development it's in, the game is enjoyable through and through.

Your readers demand to know what your opinions on E3 were. They demand awards be doled out, because - hey - everyone likes to see a fancy website or magazine layout with trophy graphics and lists upon lists of game names. You're assigned to the awards committee, and you're tasked with voting on your game of the show. You throw a vote in for the aforementioned game, and it ends up winning E3 Game of the Show. This is great - your readers now get to understand which games were shaping up very well and what to look forward to. There's certainly nothing wrong with giving information and laying down your opinions, after all.

The problem starts to creep in when information starts to be used in misleading ways. Take a look at the box art for Sigma Star Saga, a hybrid shmup-RPG for the Gameboy Advance. On the right-hand side, there's a huge "BEST OF E3 2005!" stencil. As it turns out, the game didn't end up being an incredible experience. It's certainly a decent game, a game that innovates and takes risks by combining two worlds-apart genres. However, it's received a "good but flawed" critical reception.

Assuming that we're taking critical reception as a proper benchmark for quality, does "good but flawed" sound like a game that screams, "OMG THIS WAS GAME OF THE SHOW U GOTTA BUY NOW"? Of course not. But such tempting top-billing on the box might convince you otherwise if you haven't had the chance to catch up on the in-depth reviews. You grab it off the shelf and open it up only to be hit by the sobering fact that it's not as hot as you thought it was. Like that guy or girl you spotted in that bar's dim lighting, the morning sun doesn't shine too kindly upon the game and you're now questioning why you jumped at it so eagerly.

Whose fault is it? No one's, really. The show is meant to showcase up-and-coming games - not necessarily those that are already complete. The journalists are here to inform us in the simplest, most efficient way possible about just which games are coming along nicely. The publishers? They're here to sell, and I'll be damned if they should "refuse" the awards they've been given. In fact, in Sigma Star Saga's case, Namco probably needed all the help it could get in promoting the WayForward-developed game; as a low-profile, no-name IP effort, it was likely that your average passerby wouldn't pay any mind to the game without some kind of box-art hype.

I certainly can't - and won't - cast any blame on anyone for the entity that is the E3 Award and how it affects consumers. That's why I'm not decidedly "ew" on the awards. It's just simply unfortunate that the end result of logical use of this type of information ends up being misleading.

How do we fix this? Do websites and magazines stop drawing up pretty emblems and graphics for these awards, so that publishers no longer have an easy way to slap a new sticker on the box? Do we shift to a sty1e that Electronic Gaming Monthly has tried out, where E3 coverage is contained in a very deliberately titled "Opinionated Guide to E3" sporting a disclaimer that no, these are in no way awards or "Worst Of" demerits? Do we get rid of the awards altogether and reduce the coverage to editor roundtables, where opinions are given but labels are withheld?

Perhaps the better questions are, can we fix this at all - and do we even need to fix this? Maybe it's futile, and consumers simply need to buckle up and rely on more than the front of the box or any pre-completion awards. Perhaps we'll all develop a Pavlovian response to box cover pull quotes and award stickers and, after getting burned at the cash register a few times, learn to not judge our books by their covers.

CCU Soapbox - RS 74

Author: MrCHUP0N

"E3: Eww, Eh, Excellent" is a running feature detailing my impressions on the big things, the little things, and everything in between from E3 2007. It should be noted that these impressions are written from my viewpoint as an industry outsider and a simple enthusiast - one who cannot be at E3 in person. This will be posted everywhere I have a (sad, little, unnoticed) presence - trigames.net (always first), Gamespot.com, 1up.com and MySpace.com, and cannot be re-posted elsewhere without my permission.

Rock Band: "Eww"

What a rotten disappointment. Just kidding.

Rock Band: "Excellent!"

This one's an easy one for me. As a self-proclaimed loser who knows nothing about playing the guitar or the rock genre in any way shape or form, Guitar Hero allowed me to live out a fantasy I never knew I wanted to fulfill - rock out. With it, I could (pretend to) play songs that I could never play in real life while still applying some modicum of skill - at least on Expert difficulty. It even somehow made me feel less dissatisfied by the fact that I never attained a cello-playing skill level proportionate to the number of years I played.

Then, Rock Band showed up on the horizon - and the promise of learning how to legitimately play the drums by climbing up the difficulty ladder with the game's mock drum set became even more enticing. All the information that poured out before and during E3 2007 increased my fervor for this game with each and every web page refresh. Leaked promo videos. Snapshots of the instruments. Full album downloads of songs to play. Track list announcements, so that I can look up the songs and preview how to play them by ear. The once tight-lipped EA and Harmonix were now giving us pieces of the puzzle.

Peter Moore - bless his heart - tried to step in with Harmonix at the Microsoft presser at E3 2007 to demo this wondrous game. We saw the leaked video. We knew of its potential. But here was the erstwhile Microsoft exec Moore (now heading to EA Sports), pressing pause at the most inopportune moments and almost resetting the entire song. Sitting in our chairs and glaring at the screen, a lot of us probably wanted another demo since we couldn't see it for ourselves.

Enter Gamespot.com's live feed, which capped the entire week off with a live proper demo of Rock Band on its Santa Monica Pier stage, and the romper room performance of Bon Jovi's "Dead or Alive" by Joystiq.com staff captured by 1up.com. Now things were heating up.

"The Harmonix"

At Gamespot's event, the Harmonix team stepped up and delivered a performance that allowed us to witness the joy of playing a videogame in perfect (ok, almost perfect) musical harmony. We got an up-close-and-personal view of the drum set, taking a pounding from Harmonix CEO and co-founder Alex Rigopulos, and how it really - and I mean, really - looked like he was playing a real drum set. No, not just wailing away on five frets and one "string" - but four drum pads and a bass drum pedal, the same as most real-world drum setups. And did you notice how comfortable Gamespot associate editor (and drummer) Alex Navarro was when he took his try at the drum set? Never even touched the thing before this, and already he looks like he's playing comfortably on his practice pads at home.

Gamespot's"The 6.8's"

Sure, Rock Band isn't for everyone. Some people feel that they'd rather play a real instrument in a real band with songs they wrote than play with (admittedly, good-looking and well-constructed) toy instruments with a predetermined set of songs. Duly noted. But come on - it looks like a hell of a lot of fun with your friends after a brew or two. In 1up's Gamevideos.com clip of Joystiq staff playing in a Harmonix room full of happily buzzed cronies, the entire audience - drinks in hand - sang along, "I'm wanted... WANTED! ...dead or alive!" That's a party game if I ever saw one.

Joystiq and Crew, dead or alive

The bigger thing here - as far as conventions and product demonstrations are concerned - is that Harmonix and EA successfully showed off Rock Band to both the press and the consumer (at least those watching the Gamespot stream or the 1up video) in smashing fashion. This is important in the face of the juggernaut that is Activision's Guitar Hero III, which boasts the brand recognition that gets the attention of Everyday Joe. Regardless of whatever features there are that may push Rock Band over Guitar Hero III, you'd have to explain Rock Band - if only slightly - to the casual passerby gamer. Mention Guitar Hero - "Oh yeah, I love that! When's the next one coming out?"

Now it's time for Harmonix and EA to spread the word past the enthusiast gaming consumer - that is, past E3 press events and website streams - and truly into the public's eye. For once, I feel that the spectacle created by E3 events of old would have helped to truly push Rock Band in front of everyone's eyeballs. Maybe, just maybe, "From the Creators of Guitar Hero" on the box would help.

CCU Soapbox- RS 74

Author: argianas

It's kinda funny. Back before this generation started we were mostly looking forward to extra downloadable content, otherwise known as microtransactions. That seems like so long ago; now we're about a quarter of the way into the generation at best and we're already sick of it. Or so we claim. The publishers say otherwise.

One of the most annoying things about PC gaming back when I just played on PC's was the day of the game's release. You got home, installed the game... then patched the game. Yes, the first patch to fix bugs and other issues was almost always released before the game actually released. Never a great sign, is it? It's not quite that bad for consoles yet, but in a sense it's arguably worse. These days many games are obviously being sold incomplete, with new modes and maps and so forth being added after the release, to "finish" the game to be like it should have been when it released in the first place. The worst part is that they're charging us extra in order to get this content. No, strike that, the worst part is how eagerly we pay for this content the moment it's released.

We complained when new games jumped from $50 to $60. Now we're paying $70 or more for an incomplete $60 game that shouldn't be priced that high to begin with. Or, in some cases, we have to buy another version of the game at full price for a few extra levels. Did Gears single player seem a bit short? That's because it was, but if you want the complete game you'll have to buy it again for the PC. MotorStorm missing some single player modes and lacking in tracks? Download the mode, and buy the extra tracks pretty soon. Want to play online co-op on Halo 3? From the sounds of things, the feature may not be finished in time for the release. Given how much pure profit is made off of all this, would anyone be surprised if they're intentionally leaving stuff out just to charge us again later? After all, people may cringe at a $75 game, but most seem happy to get a game at $60 and the extra content at $15.

Remember all the complaining at the pricing structure of the Guitar Hero II song packs? Not only are they overpriced, but they're bundled together to force you to get three for triple the price than just the one song. But so far they have this tendency to group songs in the weirdest way, usually one popular song with two totally unrelated mediocre songs. The complaints were rather vocal and universally against it. Well, they're about to add more song packs to Guitar Hero II, and Activision says that gamers overwhelmingly voted in favor of the "value packed" pricing structure in a press release.

Or why even charge more for game content when you can toss in a lame DVD for $10 more? The Final Fantasy XII DVD was rather disappointing, as were many others. They were ok at best, but $10 ok? Not so much. I did end up getting the Ninja Gaiden Sigma Collector's Edition due to the DVD containing some behind the scenes footage of the development. It's less than 30 minutes long, and they say pretty early on in the DVD that Team Ninja does not allow anyone to document their development process. Uh... gee, thanks, can I get my money back for that entirely misleading feature? Oh, the Collector's Edition also has some extra missions available as well. No, scratch that, it has a CODE that unlocks the extra missions. A code that was published all over the internet before the game even released, and works on every version of the game. A code that I ironically can't even find in my Collector's Edition anywhere. Thanks Tecmo, I will certainly remember this in the future. Now some Collector's Editions are done pretty well - getting the whole Hard Boiled movie with Stranglehold, which is essentially a video game sequel to the movie, just seems so logical and you know exactly what you're going to get. But the majority of said editions are just pointless. You want us to pay how much for a $2 spartan helmet? Ironically, perhaps the best included DVD was "free" with God of War II.

And here I am, adding my complaints to those of everyone else, and I still bite on these tricks sometimes. I'm getting a lot better at holding back, but I'm not totally where I want to be yet. It's really hard to hold back on content if a game is really fun, even if you know you're rewarding them for not finishing said game in the first place - I know I'm going to break down and buy a new MotorStorm track as soon as its released, sigh. Publishers must be happy as hell this generation - they can put less money into finishing a game, and make more money in the process. While we have a choice with the special editions of games, everyone is suffering from the increasingly unfinished games that have been on the rise this generation. The problem is that despite all our complaining, we buy the content anyway, so they have no incentive to stop this. Man, I miss the last generation.

CCU Soapbox - RS 73

"E3: Eww, Eh, Excellent" is a running feature detailing my impressions on the big things, the little things, and everything in between from E3 2007. It should be noted that these impressions are written from my viewpoint as an industry outsider and a simple enthusiast - one who cannot be at E3 in person. This will be posted everywhere I have a (sad, little, unnoticed) presence - trigames.net, Gamespot.com, 1up.com and MySpace.com, and cannot be re-posted elsewhere without my permission.

The Halo 3 Special Edition Xbox 360 Color: "Eww"

There's something eerily familiar about the upcoming Halo 3 Special Edition release of the Xbox 360. It's not that it's an Xbox 360 (no, that'd be too obvious). It's not that the original Xbox was similarly released in a green, Halo-themed SKU. No, there's something about its color - its sickly Ninja-Turtle-green colors.

Ninja Turtles. Hmm.

I've got it:

Xbox 360, Halo and Michelangelo: Springtime Love

Trigames.NET cohort Alfred seems to think it rather looks like an original Gameboy threw up on an Xbox 360.

Happens to the best of us, 'boy.

Either way, the message is clear: the Halo-themed Xbox 360 primed for Halo 3 is all sorts of ugly.

To be fair, this is the type of custom job that would rock as a case mod for a PC. First, take a look at the flat side of the unit. It's got a decently attractive etching job, and I'm a sucker for anything that looks like circuitry. Then, take a look at the top and bottom of the unit by where the ventilation holes are. Those war-torn burn marks are a really nice touch, though I wonder if that's Microsoft's meta little way of saying that its console indeed has heating problems. Ha, ha.

Here's the thing though: I just can't get past that color scheme. All the awesome mod-gaudiness in the world can't make up for a poor color choice, and this creation is enough to make ol' Mikey renounce his orange Ninja Turtle bandana. The green evokes this... "icky" sensation. It's not a vibrant, rich green the likes of which you've seen on tree leaves or grass. It doesn't even use the balanced, even green of the Boston Celtics' uniform. This is a special edition SKU, guys. Make this thing special for your clientele - throw in a little bit of richer metallic-looking paint while you're at it. Give it some sparkle.

To wit, this green isn't exactly offensive - it's just plain ugly. Matched up with this faux-copper/gold whatever-you-want-to-call-it, it looks even uglier. It's certainly not something that goes along well with the rest of your entertainment center, and I'm guessing that this is the biggest aesthetic concern for people looking at videogame consoles.

All the awesome mod-gaudiness in the world can't make up for a poor color choice, and this creation is enough to make ol' Mikey renounce his orange Ninja Turtle bandana. The green evokes this... 'icky' sensation.

This is the type of box that the rabid Halo enthusiast would snatch up, color scheme be damned. So perhaps it's not so important - or it's not ugly enough to be worried about - after all, where the target audience is concerned. But then, wouldn't the true enthusiast want to go all out? HDMI is a definite plus - but why the 20GB hard drive? Wouldn't the enthusiast want that extra 120GB for massive damage and pwnage? Sure, there's a solution. 1up.com's Patrick Klepek sarcastically noted on 1up's E3 Day 1 Summary that the problem could be "fixed" with a $179 accessory. Right. In any case, this is more of a minor nitpick than a real downer.

When all is said and done, put the announcement of this box into context with the rest of Microsoft's press event and you'll come away underwhelmed. Games we already knew about in quite a bit of detail were showcased on stage, with nary a glance to the future. Mentioning Alan Wake and then leaving it as just a stamp on a Powerpoint slide was a major buzz kill, and I'll never forget the shudders that traveled up my spine when the infomercial-creepy Jeff Bell took the stage and said, "I love Golden Axe." The Halo 3 Special Edition Xbox 360 simply topped that all off with a lackluster, "Oh! A new announceme- oh, it's just a spinach-green Xbox" moment.

For all intents and purposes, this isn't about the press conference and Microsoft did have a decent showing at E3. But as far as this green box is concerned? Eww!

CCU Soapbox - RS 73

Author: PAJ89

First of all, I'd like to say thanks to GameSpot for such a thorough and detailed coverage of the biggest video games event in the world. To all the people on my friends list, forgive me if I haven't kept up with all your blogs. I'm approaching a sixty-strong friends list, and at such a busy time like E3, the "Tracked Blogs" bar on the right of the screen is always changing.

Now that's out of the way, you may have noticed E3 2007 has come to a close. I'll use this time to reflect on what the show has brought, the things that I found most exciting, and a couple of predictions.

Battle of the Bands: Guitar Hero III vs Rock Band

It's no secret that the original Guitar Hero on the PS2 was well-received and it's sequel even more so, but after seeing Slash talk up GH3 and Peter Moore fail at bass in Rock Band, it's amazing how much these two games are doing for the music game genre. Both games have had impressive showings this year, and both have ambitious plans for the future.

Neversoft may be taking over development duties of Guitar Hero, but they seem to be right at home. A graphics overhaul, wireless guitars, and a good master:cover ratio are all good things. We've also got online play to look forward to, and battle mode where we'll be able to face off against Slash and two other mystery guitarists, or shred solos with friends locally or over Live. Any GH veterans who feared that the challenge would drop shouldn't worry too much. If the Knights of Cydonia demo is anything to go by, there will be plenty of challenge there.

Rock Band is definitely taking the more ambitious approach of the two games. Rocking out on lead, bass, drums, or vocals expands the standard Guitar Hero formula three-fold, and if the current line-up is anything to go by, Rock Band will have an even greater master:cover ratio than GH3 (I guess those are the perks of being owned by MTV). Authentic, high quality controllers may ramp the price up a bit, but it definitely seems worth it. The Harmonix team who demoed it to open Microsoft's press conference and closed GameSpot's live coverage were great, and show just how fun this game has the potential to be.

It's an exciting time for this new-look music game genre. Both games are looking impressive and will make for an expensive Q4 2007, provided there are no delays.

Dude, where's my games?: The Nintendo Story

Apologies about the title; it's really poor and probably not all that true, but I couldn't resist. Much has been made of Nintendo's showing this year, particularly in their press conference, about the casual direction they are headed. Some people are a bit skeptical (myself), some people have congratulated Nintendo, and some people have condemned Nintendo.

Of course Nintendo did show some "real games", like Mario Kart Wii and The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, but the crux of their showing was Wii Fit and the success they have found through games like Wii Sports and Brain Age/Brain Training. It's undoubtedly a new approach that is expanding the market, but it has some core gamers worried. Are Nintendo abandoning the core gamers in favour of the casual crowd? Definitely not, but looking at the focus on Nintendo's show, it makes you think. This is quite a heated topic and I've already put forward my view on it, so I'll leave this one at that.

Just Communication: PS3 Pricegate

This one really is a puzzler. After Sony America dropped the price of the 60GB PS3 by $100, it was announced that Europeans would not get a similar deal, instead being offered a "starter pack" bundle. Sony Europe then claimed that the American price drop was simply to shift stock and make room for the 80GB PS3, which would replace the 60GB. Sony's communications man then said that the comments of Sony Europe president David Reeves were inaccurate. And then... Well, I think that's it. Maybe? Read the story here to see if you can make any sense of this mess.

Whatever the end result is, Sony's communication has been a mess. If the price drop was indeed merely to shift stock and get the 60GB out of circulation, then that's disappointing for the customer. The $100 price cut was just a deception, not a move to make the PS3 more attractive to potential customers. If the 60GB and 80GB models intend to stay on the market together, that isn't so bad. But this whole mess still asks the question: "what the hell happened here?" Why is the president of the European side of things announcing plans for America? Is there some kind of tension within Sony between the divisions? Was it simply a case of misfortune? I'll leave that for you to ponder.

What you gonna do for money, honey? : A costly conclusion to 2007

Again, forgive the title. It's a slight twist on the title of a song on a CD I recently bought. I promise, no more crappy titles. Perhaps the best thing to come out of E3 this year was the amount of games that will be hitting this year (for America anyway, add 2-3 months to the release date and you have Europe's dates). The sheer amount of quality titles scheduled to hit between now and the end of the year is staggering; Microsoft's press conference had a single game which wasn't expected to ship in 2007 (Resident Evil 5). Anyway, I hope your wallets are ready.

The Guitar Hero lovers out there will have plenty to hold them over for the year (and for years to come if DLC promises are kept). Both Guitar Hero III and Rock Band are hitting in Q4, and will probably hit you the hardest regarding the matter of money. There are plenty of mega-blockbuster games due out too. Halo 3, Mass Effect (hopefully), Grand Theft Auto IV, Super Smash Brothers Melee, Assassin's Creed, Haze, the list goes on. If that list isn't enough for you, I don't know what is. Looking at those games, it's probably the best line-up I've ever seen over a roughly six-month time period. The quality is there, the quantity is there, and it's spread over all the big formats for everyone to enjoy.

So, what are you gonna do for money? Beg parents? Get a job? Continue working at your current job? I don't have a job, so I don't know what I'm going to do. There are some games I haven't played for a while which I could definitely sell. Whatever I do, I think I'll need to pick and choose my games carefully this year.

E3, but not as we know it: How good was the new-look E3?

We GameSpotters are still getting great E3 coverage like we did last year, but it has changed as most people (okay, everyone) knows by now. The new look E3 was smaller and more intimate, compared to the full-on madness of previous years.

Open to the media only, gone are the days of E3 with more than 50,000 people visiting over the three-day period. Again, this is not something that the majority of us who have never been to the show can comment on much, but I'd guess it allows the editors to get things done quicker. Watching parts of the live coverage early this morning (time zone stuff, E3 finished early Saturday morning in the UK), a lot of GameSpot editors said they were able to see the games without waiting in massive queues and get their news and preview write-ups down quicker. That can only be good for us, the readers.

On the other hand, the down right madness of past shows is, to me, part of what makes it E3. And yet again, yes, I've never been there so I didn't experience the sardine-tin environment or the pumping music or the booth babes. You got an idea of all that stuff last year and I'm kind of sad that it was toned down. Still, I was very much satisfied. We had an appearance from Chewbacca, for crying out loud! Seriously though, the live stage demos were great and crazy enough for me (Harmonix wrecked that couch). What do you guys think? Better or worse than the past? Don't really mind? Didn't notice? Let us know.

And that concludes my run-down of events at E3. Sorry if I picked boring ones or left out some good ones, but these are the ones that I found great (or interesting at least). To close this thing off (if you're still reading), here are some of "PAJ's Picks" of E3 2007.

• Game of the Show: Rock Band
• Honorable Mentions: Guitar Hero III, Assassin's Creed

• Moment of the Show: "The GameSpot" rocking out on Rock Band
• Honorable Mentions: Harmonix opening and closing out E3 on Rock Band, Miyamoto-san intimating Reggie is fat in the Wii Fit demo

• Most likely to win GOTY 2007: Halo 3
• Honorable Mentions: GTA IV, Rock Band, Crysis, Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect

• Biggest Disappointment: Lack of Smash Bros. Brawl
• Honorable Mentions: No KOTORIII announcement, Lack of firm European release dates

Thanks for reading. Hope it was somewhat worth reading and not a waste of time!

"E3: Eww, Eh, Excellent" is a running feature detailing my impressions on the big things, the little things, and everything in between from E3 2007. It should be noted that these impressions are written from my viewpoint as an industry outsider and a simple enthusiast - one who cannot be at E3 in person. This will be posted everywhere I have a (sad, little, unnoticed) presence - trigames.net, Gamespot.com, 1up.com and MySpace.com, and cannot be re-posted elsewhere without my permission. (Permission to post in CCU allowed by MrCHUP0N)

The Wii Zapper: "Eh"

This year at Nintendo's E3 press conference, I was quite disappointed with much of how it went and pleased with very little. (I'm proud to say that Shawn Elliott of Games for Windows Magazine was wrong about this particular Nintendo Fan - no, not all of us always walk away satisfied!) However, there was one thing I hadn't decided on until hours after the conference ended. Some could still say, given this 'Eh' rating, that I've still not decided on it.

Well, I've decided I, personally, probably won't be buying it - isn't that decisive enough?

I'm talking about the new Wii Zapper peripheral that was debuted during the conference. From the looks of it, the Wii Zapper is a piece of plastic into which your Wii Remote and Nunchuk snap into. The result is the union of the two controllers into a single unit that can be held in a fashion similar to an SMG or rifle. There are no moving parts, thus keeping the cost of the peripheral - which will come packed with supposedly value-add software (notice how Reggie didn't say "game" explicitly, beh) - at $19.99.

So, great. We can now actually hold our Wii Remote and Nunchuk controllers as if we're really holding a gun. Cue the word "immersive". While playing Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, Ghost Squad, or any other similar light-gun-sty1e game optimized for the peripheral, we can actually feel like we're in the arcade with a badass fake gun instead of some disjointed, mock handgun consisting of a remote controller and a glob of plastic with an analog nub sticking out of the top.

Image courtesy of Nintendo.com

Question is: how much sense does this really make? The easiest reaction to this - besides, "Damn, that's ugly-looking" (okay, so that was MY response) - is, "Dude, sweet. It's a gun." But let's take a step back and analyze the perceptive problem that the Zapper causes.

We know that the Wii Remote utilizes pointing technology that doesn't exactly replicate the "aim down the sight, point and shoot" mechanic of light guns. (In fact, it was a source of criticism by a journalist - not exactly up on his research - who didn't realize that it wasn't supposed to be a light gun at its core.) It relies on an approximation by two infrared lights that sit atop or below your screen. In essence, you're not truly pointing at the screen. Where you think you're pointing if you look down the "barrel" of your remote, then, isn't where you're necessarily going to actually be pointing.

That's all well and good. In this age of computers, many of us have gotten used to abstracted approximations of pointing devices whose movements and related output are simply proportional to each other rather than identical (think a mouse, or the stylus in Metroid Prime: Hunters). The basics of the Wii itself wouldn't be so user-friendly if this concept of "proportions as opposed to exactness" was too hard for people to grasp. I take no issue with the fact that you use the Wii Remote more like a laser pointer and less like a light gun.

"You're actually aiming at this little bar here," you tell him, but what he really wants to do - what he thought he was going to be able do - is aim... point... and shoot.

The problem, really, is in the perception of the Wii Zapper and its intended use, and how it'll resonate with any casual "blue ocean" fish that want to pick up Umbrella Chronicles for the first time, compared with how the Wii remote works. You know these fish - they're the ones who play videogames but almost exclusively at Dave & Buster's or the ESPN Zone; the ones who pick up the House of the Dead 4 gun, literally take aim, and have a blast; the ones who stare down the barrel of their mock shotgun in Extreme Deer Hunter 2. They're likely ones who don't really know much about the Wii platform except that it's really fun, it's really simple, and it's really hard to find. God forbid they should know exactly how the Wii Remote works.

Imagine one of your friends - who swims with the aforementioned school of fish - coming into your home, seeing the Wii Zapper, picking it up and going, "Aw, hot ****! Put on something to play!" The instant he brings his gun up to fire away, the remote is out of range of the sensor bar. Or maybe his reticule is too far up or down relative to where he wants to point. He looks down the barrel of your Wii Zapper and aims to the left, only to see the reticule zoom off screen (and into the kitchen). Your frustrated friend tries to follow along as you explain that he's not supposed to be aiming at the screen, but following the reticule and basing his movements on that. "You're actually aiming at this little bar here," you tell him, but what he really wants to do - what he thought he was going to be able do - is aim... point... and shoot.

So now he's got the concept down - don't point at the screen; keep everything relative. He does fine, but he's keeping this device kind of by his waist. He's shooting from the hip, Tony Montana sty1e. That's still kinda rad, sure. But he's still experiencing the problem wherein he can't really aim it with large motions - he has to keep it more subtle, or his reticule flies off the screen.

Well, crap. If he's not going to really be able to handle it like a fake gun, then why bother?

I understand that this kind of thing definitely will have some sort appeal, and it certainly isn't junk. But it won't be as easy for some people to grasp as was implied in the press conference. It might not even be comfortable - already Chris Kohler, of Wired Magazine's videogame staff, is complaining that your hands end up being held too close together, and that the minute movements normally associated with Wii aiming just don't translate well to the sensation of holding, say, a Steyr TMP. In fact, for all the people who actually want to be lazy and sit their butts on the couch but still enjoy mass zombie genocide, it's much more comfortable to sit back with your Wii Remote hand resting on your knee or thigh and your Nunchuk hand slacking off to the side. In the end, I just don't see the point in a device that is meant to emulate an experience that you likely can't properly execute in the first place.

As far as that blue ocean fish is concerned? Maybe Nintendo should invest in a Wii Remote technology that responds to no less than six infrared lights placed about the screen. Carefully check out the House of the Dead 4 cabinet next time you walk past it and you'll see why.

CCU Soapbox- RS 73

Author: m0zart

This is written off the cuff, more as a rant than anything else. It isn't as well organized as I usually write, but that's to be expected. I just need to get this off of my chest about the recent E3 performance, particularly how Sony performed this year vs. Nintendo and how that contrasts with previous years' performances.

Judging Sony's presentation strictly as a show, it was SO much better than what the other two companies put out there. It was energetic, fast-paced, wasn't built on a numbers game, and showed new things I hadn't really seen before. I know the PSP redesign isn't fantastic, but I really liked it personally. I like its smaller design, that they kept the screen size, extended the battery life, and added a feature to use it as a console so you can play the games on your TV while at home. Given that that's the way I prefer to play any handheld (except for the DS), I really appreciated that feature. Hell they had Chewbacca, and that simple PSP game they showed where the physics of your environment changes based on the player's viewing angle -- I almost had a nerdgasm for those two things alone. But the biggest thing is that, unlike last year's Sony show, this year's didn't work as hard on offending my sensitibilities with viral marketing ads. Regardless of whether or not you liked or were impressed by what Sony showed, they very clearly took charge and made the experience one of strictly showing what they had to offer rather than endlessly talking about numbers.

My worst memory of the Sony show from last year was that stupid and needlessly long montage video of "real people on the street" talking about how great Sony was. It stinks of treating gamers like dumbies who can't identify a viral marketing ad when they see one. It had a huge negative reaction from gamers similar to the reaction from that dumb "I want a PSP for Christmas" website they set up which came back to bite them in the behind only five months later. This year I think they learned their lesson, but Nintendo seems to have failed to learn it by observation. I honestly hated that Nintendo had to follow suit this year and put those dumb youtube-esque video montages up -- not just one mind you -- every time that Reggie wanted to take a break, there was yet another low-IQ commercial popping up there full of viral marketing hype. It was so Sony-from-last-year's-E3 -- they almost made me feel played to. I think just by removing those dumb things they could have improved their presentation -- that's how much of a negative I think they were.

I love Nintendo's direction. I really do. It's my favorite console this gen. so far. I don't like being negative about Nintendo. But that conference was simply underwhelming, with the only thing saving it from being a total loss being that they showed clips from some of their anticipated upcoming games, showed some new peripherals and games that looked interesting, and gave a real timeline for online play experiences. Even then, the gameplay they showed of Zelda DS and Metroid Prime 3 was so short and full of talk, that it was hardly noticeable -- it almost seemed like an ad for that couple's "hardcore gaming website" more than a glimpse of those games. I doubt the time they spent showing actual gameplay during those segments was as long as even one of those youtube-esque video montages. Now obviously, the "hardcore gaming website" couple were brought on stage and featured in a video because Nintendo is concerned that they might lose that group of people. But you don't do that by adding more wallpaper to your marketing presentation -- you do it by SHOWING us what you have coming up that caters to us.

I believe that this year Sony had the best presentation. They may not have "stolen the show" overall the way Nintendo did last year, but their presentation was the most enjoyable and did the least to insult my intelligence. And even after all I said about Nintendo's show, I could easily say much more negative about Microsoft's, which I thought was even worse with all the dubious number throws that were intended to prove to me that Microsoft is "driving the industry", while targetting becoming the new Wii with a Disney sign-on. Obviously I still think Nintendo has the better overall direction, at least from a business standpoint, and my comments here are strictly related to the show they put on at E3. But that's really what E3 is anyway -- a show, and the level at which a particular company talks down to its audience in their part of that show has always been one of the biggest factors for me.

I think what I am looking for in that kind of show is excitement -- a clear, compact, and fast-paced presentation of exciting things to come in the future. In the past, Nintendo was clearly on the prowl in their shows. They intended to steal the show, and they did it, even though they weren't sure at that point they would win the market. They had no marketshare to lose and could only really go up rather than down. There was this energy to it that the other two didn't have. Now it seems like it's been reversed. Nintendo almost seemed like it was in protectionist mode, like they were doing their best to protect their new marketshare from intrusion rather than keep it by demonstrating it was viable for the future. As someone who really believes it is viable, I find the failure to demonstrate it on stage to be almost inexcusible. I wish they remembered from before that the best way to do that is by showing us real things that are coming up in thick, long segments that concentrate on them as new content to be excited about, instead of viral marketing displays and number crunches.

In the vast scheme of things, it's better that Nintendo has actually gained marketshare this time around and lost the E3 performance rather than the inverse condition, which has been prevalent for the last couple of years. But Nintendo needs to remember that E3 was one of the biggest vehicles for their current success. It was at trade shows like E3 that they were able to demonstrate their direction and generate the interest they are currently enjoying. It got their ideas out there and showed they were viable. The best approach is not to tell us your numbers and how viable you are from a financial perspective -- let us, the buying public worry about that. Instead, show us what you have coming down the pipeline. Convince us that you have things worth taking a look at, things that are coming in the future, things we won't want to ignore. We don't need another hard sell at our door with you wearing your Sunday best and handing out quasi-religious pamphlets about the Kingdom of God. We want to see the Kingdom in action.

CCU Soapbox - RS 71

Author: MrCHUP0N

Life was good for the ESRB - let's call it by its preferred nickname, Essy. Every day, Essy got to see footage of the hottest (and, let's be real, crappiest) videogames with its own eyes. Its job was to inform the people of the world what the suitable audience for each of these games were. Essy was content, knowing that fans of videogames, men, women, mothers, fathers and children alike would be informed enough to make the appropriate decision with the games they were buying. This was all thanks to Essy's job - a noble cause.

Then one day, a game called Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas from developer Rockstar and publisher Take Two fell into Essy's lap. The content was similar to its older brothers, Grand Theft Auto III and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Violence, thugs, gunplay, mayhem. Surely a "mature" game if Essy ever saw one. Like your typical Rated-R film, this Grand Theft Auto game wasn't necessarily appropriate for young bloods to play without caution or parental guidance. Yet, it was critically acclaimed a work of solid videogame design and quality gameplay. The subject matter was harsh, but one of sound mind could handle it without a problem.

The "M" rating got affixed to San Andreas' box, courtesy of - who else? - Essy, and the world continued to turn. Until "the hax0rs." With a software modification, fans of the PC version of the game were able to activate a hidden sex minigame that showed the game's protagonist, CJ, fornicating with a lover. Both avatars had their clothes on, but the minigame was complete with exposure to the happy mating dance that nature channel veterans are so fond of.

Oh the horror, oh the indecency! At the very least, the God of War videogame kept the hot and heavy visuals of its sex minigame - which was a secret but easily-accessible part of the overall game - OFF the screen. Sure, female characters all over the game - including the ones in the humpty dumpty dance - bared their breasts in the open for all to see. But it was polite enough to keep the activity hidden!

Shamed was San Andreas, for not long after the PC modification came to light, more "hax0rs" managed to unlock this very same content on the Playstation 2 version of this game. CJ's amateur adult film was available for 40 million people to see! Fame and fortune were his! So much attention for a clothed non-sex scene - CJ must have been an Oscar-worthy actor.

But instead of the fame and fortune CJ got, Essy received infamy and misfortune. Essy wasn't doing its job! Essy didn't catch this malicious content. Essy was clearly shirking its responsibilities. How on earth could it have not seen the hidden, disabled content that was only accessible through code-altering means? And now, San Andreas had to be re-rated to the abominable "Adults Only" rating until San Andreas could be fixed.

Things were about to get worse when The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - also from Take Two under the "2K Games" label - produced similar results. More PC "hax0rs" found a way to introduce horrible, horrible nudity into its game. Just as with San Andreas, Essy took the heat for not understanding how to account for user-made content. With dragons breathing fire down Essy's back every moment of every waking hour, catching flak from just about everyone, Essy was in a rut.

Like a child being spanked for doing something "wrong," Essy had to proceed with caution. Should it mis-handle another situation, it would be just one more strike against it. The public would have no more of its irresponsibility, its ineptitude to do its daily job carefully, its complete lack of thought for the children - the future of our world.

Not long ago, Take Two surfaced again with another Rockstar-developed project: Manhunt 2. A game featuring gruesome kills and an apparent sadistic streak, sequel to a game that basically boiled down to a murderer fighting for his life on camera as a psycho was filming a snuff picture (which was Rated M for Mature by the way), Manhunt 2 was dangerous territory. Essy had truly learned from its past mistakes this time. No longer would the children suffer, and no longer would the pundits throw flaming daggers at its back. No, Essy would do its job RIGHT this time!

Essy would issue Manhunt 2 - out of the gate - with an Adults Only rating, a rating that effectively rendered Manhunt 2 un-publishable by the only platforms that it could appear on.

Essy was just watching its back, see? Essy's critics, in their infinite wisdom, succeeded in making sure that the Olympic-sized pool of videogames was safe for everyone to swim in. Essy's critics, you see, are the heroes of this story. They shone the guiding light for Essy to follow - the path of righteousness. Because of these critics' - these politicians, these lobbyists - because of their efforts and their constant pressuring, Essy was able to do its job.

Because imagine the horror of the parents of the world having to do Essy's job for it.

[Note: Obviously this "tale" doesn't cover all the bases, nor does it discuss in-depth the problems surrounding the whole Manhunt 2 fiasco. You can contribute to the discussion in the comments section below or by hitting up our mailbag, where your thoughts will be read on our podcast. Be the first to chime in.]

CCU Soapbox - RS 70

Author: digi_matrix

While I was reading Bozanimal's opinion of why we shouldn't feel guilty over killing in a video-game, a certain mikebarnhardt questioned the notion of removing violence from video games:

mikebarnhardt's post got me thinking about "Equilibrium". In that movie with an Orwellian-like future, emotion is stripped out of everyone and they need to take pills so they don't get any emotions of love, guilt, happiness, anger, or anything else. This was the government's solution to addressing violence. Of course, it didn't work out that way, and they realised violence is just another part of our primitive and still present human nature. Who wants to live in such a numb world? We need our senses tested. Violence is one of those things that makes us feel alive.

I don't think any game will desensitise me to real violence. Why?

1. A pixelated character is not detailed enough or expressive enough for me to give two ****s about him/her.

2. When will you ever go against a guy with a rocket launcher like in Unreal, and feel justified to use self defence?

It's all about context.

COMPARING TO OTHER MEDIUMS
Video-games are an active medium. Video games don't desensitise anyone to real violence, they actually make it more active because it's actually you making the decision, not you seeing someone doing it like in a movie, art, or book. Think about it for a second. You're the only person who's actually controlling the in-game character. The camera is directly behind you, and you're well aware of your surroundings. You make him/her move, climb up walls, pick up objects, and eventually shoot people. After all, shooting people is the only way you'll get out of a tight situation and move on forward. Some games actually force you to do this by putting up barriers e.g. Devil May Cry series, and Ninja Gaiden in some parts.

In another medium like TV or movies, you're a passive force. No matter how big the TV is, or might seem like a foreboding inanimate creature, it can't influence your decision of watching it without consequences. What I mean is, you can watch an episode of 24without seeing the action scenes containing violence. You can look away, and be happy in the knowledge that after that event, Jack will come out alive and it's just another way of solving a problem in a drama. Jack solves his problems by shooting people in the face; Dora solves problems in her disturbing interactive cartoon by asking you rhetorical questions. Dora is one messed up little girl, as SNL likes to point out. The point is, you're not controlling the characters on the screen. They go about their own business, and the only real active, emotional part on yours is to think of their decisions, like whether they were right or wrong. No matter how engaging a program or movie can be, even American History X or Schindler's List doesn't have the power to make you be completely involved with the characters and their gruesome actions.

Video-games, unfortunately, do have that power. The only parts of a game that can be similar to passive entertainment like TV, are the cutscenes. Other than that, you'll always have full control of your character and it's can only be your decision that will resolve how to get further in a level, or how to get past a boss.

There's a wealth of difference between the above video-game situation and watching TV. Now, 24 is a pretty graphic program, with lots of violence. And there have been pretty gruesome shooting. But all of that is done by Jack Bauer. Not you. You're not playing Night Traphere, it's just plain Jack using his one-shot kill handgun and pwning some guys in the face. In Splinter Cell: Double Agent, you play Sam Fisher. Hey, that's similar to Jack Bauer! But you can control Sam. So, not so same. And then later on in the game, you are faced with a moral decision. JBA wants you to kill a young helicopter pilot they caught. You're handed the gun, and in this interactive cutscene you have to shoot the guy. The camera goes into a 1st person mode, and you can see that poor guy, all bloodied up, quivering and moaning like a helpless victim.

At this moment, you have the choice of whether killing a character or not. This is not some main character of a game, but with the emotional intensity put forth, you can't help but feel something for the sap. When you do eventually shoot him, you hear the BANG! And the guy limps over to the ground like a piece of dead meat. For a second, it just stuns you. That's the power of the interactivity of a game. There are many more difficult moral dilemmas later on in the game, one in which whether you want to save one person close to you, or save 3000. Examples of games like this and another recent one like Indigo Prophecy, tell us why mediums like TV and movies can never match the active process of playing a game.

The active process enables a game to be possibly more engaging and making you feeling even more guilty than possible, of killing in-game characters. Sure, the argument of polygons will come up once in a while. But not now, in this generation of realistic graphics, shaders, shadows, mo-cap, and other technical hoo-hah. Developers of this generation have the chance of making movie CGI a reality in-game, and making Spiderman 3's CGI-filled action sequences look like a joke. Hey, movie critics compare 300 to videogames, so there must be something going right .

However, violence plays a huge part in the gaming industry. There's an alternative to violent drama on TV. That's soap drama. Instead of fists, you can abuse people with WORDZZZZ! An alternative to violent videogames? Barbie Horse Adventure . In the videogame business, you'll rarely find any game that doesn't encourage violence as a means to solving a dilemma. Just like what they say about sex, in this business, violence sells. Everything else is for kids, apparently.

There's violence even in the most kiddy-friendly of games, Mario (won't someone think of the turtles on their backs?!!!). The only game I can think of that doesn't have violence, whether significant or insignificant to a cause (Sims 2), and that is Animal Crossing.

MOMMY, I CAN'T TELL THE DIFFERENCE!

Children. When they grow up, they like to touch stuff. Try to put it in their mouths. Just in case it doesn't kill them. Unless if it kills them. Which is kinda counter-intuitive. But they're children, not super baby geniuses! Anyway, their development about reality and fantasy is not so heavily researched. If we could become 2 years old again, put a camera into our mind, read our thoughts, and still have our 19 year old brain at the same time, then such a controlled experiment would tell us all about whether children can recognize that Barney isn't an actual dinosaur, you can't actually jump that high like in Unreal multiplayer, and that Mario isn't anti-animals when he smashes on turtles and puts them on their backs just out of pure, senseless pleasure. But we don't have that. Yet.

A 2 year old kid can barely talk. Let alone describe what he thinks something in a game is real or not. I don't think we're giving children enough credit. Sure, they have the same brains of a chimpanzee, but that's not to say that a chimpanzee's brain is stupid or anything. After all, apes are better than monkeys.

Then there's the argument that disturbed people might think the game is real, and get inspired from murdering thousands of innocent bystanders in GTAto kill RL people. While I really want to understand serial killers and why these people have no sympathy over killing people, I can't do that right now. So, I'll use common sense. Think about this for a second. Which medium is more desensitizing? Video games or TV? Of course, it's TV. Because they're passive entertainment. You're not emotionally involved (some movies can do this, though like Children of Men recently), and once you've seen enough violent horror movies, blood and guts just kinda seems like normal fare.

Blood and guts are trivialized highly in most Epic games and Mortal Kombat, but they're so laughably bad that you'll know you're playing a game and not the real thing. No one could ever say that the blood effects in Gears of Warmimic anything in real life. It's awesome, but highly exaggerated and OTT. Examples like above about Double Agent tell us that violence in games can be the complete opposite of desensitization. Games can make you feel guiltier about choices, and as part of a child's development, it can teach those critters more about right and wrong than any book. Children love interaction. Words don't sell. So what better way than to put some realistic setting in a game like a simulation, and have the children experiment. In fact, I've heard that there are beta-like programs being run to make games for kids in UK, and they're trying to teach children stuff you learn in books. Plus, those children can make their own games, and learn to become like developers. Not exactly relevant to the discussion, but it definitely shows that children would rather play with games than watch TV.

Cases where murderers have recently played games or watched violent media are suspect at best. As found out recently, the people who shot up Virginia Tech, had never played Counter Strike. What I truly think about the minds of these killers is that first, they have an inability to sympathize with their victims. They have an opposite view of life, and usually have had disturbed childhoods where enough attention was given to them. They want attention or feel unattached to life, so maybe they go on a killing spree. None of us is exactly sure what's going on in their heads. Maybe they're overly paranoid, and just need someone to talk to. We've all had those thoughts of wanting to killing your boss; hurt someone for what they said, put up some celebrities for a shooting squad, or slap every single politician. But we've got something called a superego that helps us inhibit these homicidal thoughts and rationalize our behaviour. Maybe some people don't have enough social interactions to understand that they should only do onto others what they'd want done onto themselves.

Regardless, all of that is pointless when you realize that most killers aren't playing games all the time. They don't go to videogames or movies or books for inspiration to kill. They usually already have that thought in their head like OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder), and when it doesn't go away, they gotta hurt people. They're too busy thinking of killing someone than sitting down and playing GTA. It's common sense, why would they? I play violent games, but I don't get the urge in RL to 'nade some people in the head just because they took my kill. You gotta contextualise this, and unfortunately, most politicians don't have that many brain cells to do that .

Reality and fantasy are concepts very similar to each other. Like the Matrix warns us, some things are not what they seem. Our minds are fragile pieces of meat, and our consciousness is a tricky affair, so it makes sense when people do go insane or break down.

HUMANS vs. ALIENS

Until we actually meet aliens and they become a part of this world just like people from other race are, we won't give two hoots about blasting a Locust's head in with a shotgun. Or sticking a plasma grenade on a Covenant Elite. These are fictional creatures, which don't have the right to think, and certainly not the right to kill us. We do. The hypocritical nature of human beings is very similar to the very real situation in serial killers. We all forget the virtue of doing onto others what you'd want on yourself. But in a game, that's fine. Aliens ooze green blood, not red. They gotta speak in a different, incoherent tongue. They should look like fugly *****es who you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley. Make them as vile as possible, so then killing millions of them would be justified in a game.

But when you place humans as the baddies in a game, things get very complicated. The Tom Clancy games walk this edgy plank of using terrorists as justification for killing them. They're all thoughtless bastards who want to get rid of our freedom. No Rainbow Six or Ghost Recongame has ever disputed that. Mexican rebels? They're probably evil, right? For a very inoffensive person like me, even GRAW crosses the line. I'm not sure the action to ban the game thanks to the Mexican mayor is a wise decision, but clearly someone's getting offended here. How do you make sure not to cross that line? Replace Mexican rebels with aliens? Sure that could work, if this wasn't Tom Clancy. His games have mostly dealt with the realism aspect of videogames i.e. they should be as authentic as possible. Everything is totally realistic. All the guns in Rainbow Six are just like their RL counterparts. So what makes this any different from a 'murder simulator'? Why don't the Mexican rebels get to have any say in the matter? What if a game came out that targeted American rebels and was made by another country? How'd we feel about that? Clearly, the subject matter should be taken seriously, or we could be going down another road of GTA gangster clones of murdering and running over humans. Oh wait, we already have those (Just Cause, Crackdown, Saint's Row, Ride or Die, etc.) .

Is violence in video-games BAD?

No, dude! Selling M-rated games to kids is bad. But then, there's something at fault already.

[continued...]

CCU Soapbox - RS 69

Author: Draqq_Zyxorian

The age-old question of whether games are art arrived once again at the 2007 Game Developers Conference, and the answer of yes was met with little resistance. The game industry is reasonably confident in this assertion and continues to develop methods that analyze them as such. Now this message needs to be rearticulated in terms in which other art forms can relate without underplaying any of the many facets which make video games unique. To this end, the question of who receives the credit for creating a game must be resolved. The concept of game authorship needs further examination if the interactive medium is to be respected beyond the margins of the industry.

Unfortunately, the specific matter of game authorship is not at the forefront of discussion about games, though it is an abstract space that needs to be anchored down before the industry can proceed with its "games are art" theory. What is at stake when we claim that certain games are authored or, for a more appropriate word, designed? Is a game foremost a creative expression of the lead designer, the individual who has the most control over the production, or the singular yet indiscrete company name of either the developer or the publisher, or both? The inherent complexity of game-making - which can involve teams of designers, modelers, programmers, composers, quality assurance personnel, and subteams thereof - confronts us with theoretical dilemmas in which various definitions of the author clash.

As opposed to the film industry, corporations are traditionally held as the dominant authorial agency for a game rather than any individual. Gamers mainly want to know what the next Bungie, Rockstar, Square-Enix game will be. Interestingly enough, despite the surge in name recognition - Will Wright, Ken Kutaragi, Peter Molyneaux, and Shigeru Miyamoto (recently named as one of the Top 100 Most Influential People in Time Magazine) - many of the industry's luminaries are hidden behind company names, brand names, and fictional characters. When will the next Mario game come out? How effeminate will the next Final Fantasy main character be? The lack of exposure to flesh-and-blood game celebrities in a social context has significant influence on where the authorship is placed in a game. Collaborative mediums, unlike novels or paintings, are already not readily filtered down to definite points of authorship, though there is a visible lack of recognition attributed to individual figures in the industry. This reveals points of intellectual friction between the individual, the collaborative production, and the socio-economic contexts that frame the trade that tangle into layers of unsettling theoretical abstractions.

However, marketing a product through the brand name instead of the designer or creator is not a novel idea, and can be pinned to the early days of the computer industry and to what harkens back to the studio system that existed in the film industry during the 1930s. During that time film studios, akin to first-party game developers, controlled nearly every facet of the film - the production, the distribution, the marketing, and the employees. To be sure, the analogy does not fit completely: actors and actresses, writers and directors, would also receive credit; however, this was only after producers, who wanted them to remain anonymous for the sake of low salaries, realized that most movie-goers spent their nickels on films with star power. Not surprisingly, computer software companies - not just game companies - have continued the denial of individual authorship, with weighted emphasis upon economic insurance. If any of their talented employees ever resigned, the name brand with which they worked under would remain untarnished. Unlike the film industry, however, any rise in individual authorship in the sphere of games cannot cement itself on actors and actresses as the stars in games are fictional.

This has sparked numerous critics to stand up for these voiceless artists, decrying the inhumanities of commercialism and calling for a movement not far from the emergence of the auteur in film. Even if game stardom rests almost solely on lead designers, the evidence of their impact cannot be refuted. It is particularly odd that developers - who occasionally give commentary and interviews before and after the game release as well as during gameplay in the form of bonus features - are not given credit when their visibility as an author is clear. On the quality of design, how they express their vision, by the very fact that they face limitations of economic pressure, genre conventions, and technology, shows the extent to which their artistic value has merit. Those designers that are able to go beyond satisfying the bare technical minimums of game-making and leave a tangible imprint on their games should be heralded as grand as the studio and fictional characters they help bring to success. On a broader scale, intentionally or unintentionally, critics insist on a realignment of game authorship centered about the lead designer which satisfies the author-as-artist condition prevalent in other established disciplines for valid authorship. If lead game designers are given as much attention as film directors, then a structure for establishing games as art becomes available and obvious. The quests for art and authorship are two intertwined paths leading to the same place.

In other words, individual authorship can be the key for games to be recognized as an art to the mass media. In general terms, there are two ways for a medium to be recognized as an art form: (1) by analyzing how other mediums justify themselves as an art and cultivating a parallel train of thought within the context of the given medium, or (2) by highlighting what makes the given medium different than the rest and place those differences on a pedestal in a declaration of independence. Within the context of the game industry, the first method draws comparisons to film, traditional storytelling, music, and painting - and attempts to declare games as an art form in the same way as they do. Counter to that, the second method circumvents this need for a connection to other art forms and concentrates on the distinguishing points of interactive media - ludology (to mean game mechanics) and non-linear storytelling, to name a few - thereby proving the place of games as a craft outside of the ostensibly narrow definitions of what other art forms constitute as art. Nonetheless, with politicians Hilary Clinton and Jack Thompson pronouncing video games as a promoter of violence, film pundits such as Roger Ebert vividly portraying them as "not art," and even industry luminaries like Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear Solid) viewing games more as an economic product than art itself, the industry's game designers, researchers, and critics certainly have an uphill battle. Thus, it is understandable to find game advocates following the second method insofar as a naturally rebellious response to the general oppression by popular media.

In fact, this approach is not surprising given the early histories of other art forms, most notably and most surprisingly, the film industry. Former GameSpot editor, Carrie Gouskos, mentioned in her blog that she was alarmed by the number of film critics who referred to the gore-drenched Spartan action movie 300 in terms of video game violence. The irony is that cinema's status as an art form received similar subjugation nearly half a century ago. At that time, as commented by Paul Watson in Introduction to Film Studies: "film was thoroughly ignored by scholars as beneath serious critical attention and was often vilified as a blemish on art and even a dehumanizing agent of cultural oppression," not far from how video games are accused of destroying the youth of today. Watson goes further to describe the quest for cinematic authorship, unintentionally revealing uncanny parallels to the trials that the game industry now faces (italics placed for emphasis):

"Despite attempts to designate film as 'the seventh art' ... cinema's search for artistic legitimation was more of a hope than a prospect. Cinema, and Hollywood cinema in particular, was seen first and foremost as a business governed by economic logic and the conventions of product marketability. And, as Gallagher notes, 'conventions have nothing to do with art. Art is original, individual. Conventions are collective - what everyone knows'.

"As such, the origins of cinematic authorship may be understood as a response to three simultaneous lines of argument which conspired to exile film from artistic and intellectual respectability. First, cinema's technological means of production preclude individual creativity. Second, the collaborative nature of industrial filmmaking and the specialized division of labour it entails forestalls self-expression. Third, the need to entertain a large audience necessitates a high degree of standardization and conventionality which are incompatible with original artistic expression. In all of these propositions, the blanket rejection of cinema as artistically illegitimate depends on the idea that art is necessarily the result of the creative activities of an individual, and can be appreciated and understood as such."

No wonder why individual authorship has been given so much attention in the game industry. Rooted beneath the resistance against the current monetary model of corporate authorship is a ready-made strategy for vindicating games as an art form precisely by installing in games the figure of the individual artist. By doing so, games can be shown as being just as profound, beautiful, and important as any other kind of art, and can be separated from each other by analyzing the quality of that art. Moreover, game criticism that acknowledges and evaluates the artistic merit of the lead designer, which is often not explicitly highlighted in game reviews, can be shown to have value. It is important, however, not to completely adhere to traditional models of art and remain firmly connected to criticism derived from the practices of game design. Sidelining the craft for stardom would be damaging; both the dynamics of the gameplay and the vision of the lead designer matter.

Similarly, it would not be prudent, as fair as it may seem, to dismiss corporation authorship in our fervor for an individualistic, essentialist viewpoint of game criticism. Indeed, recent studies have restated a central question: "What model of authorship is able to account for both artistic and commercial concerns while simultaneously acknowledging the political dynamics which frame all authorial claims?" Perhaps auteurism need not be relegated to a singular unit but rather be rejuvenated by an acceptance that a whole range of criteria could be considered "an artist." This era of digital visual culture, in which game innovation is realized by technology, has seen some company names, such as animation studios Disney and Pixar, become an indicator of artistic merit in front of individual creative agency. Some might recognize the name John Lasseter, but for most, all that people need to establish an expectation of an animated film is to mention the studio.

So why cannot Nintendo, Sega, Midway, Clover Studios, or any other developer or publisher create and maintain that same effect? Some companies have already become synonymous with an entire genre as Square-Enix is to console role-playing games. Furthermore on a finer point, each developer can be said to form its own genre within already-established genre conventions through the games it creates, making an artistic imprint that varies in vision and in potency but which exists nonetheless. The company name becomes a symbol of a highly specialized and distinctive form of industrial aesthetic practice. Thus, it might even be desirable to locate authorship at not just the creative personnel on a collectively level, but at a corporate level; that is, in parallel to the search for individual authorship. Indeed, the emergence of real-life celebrities in the industry, though generally wanted, would cause game designers to become more of an object of commerce than before, a name to be dropped to excite fans and increase prospects for game consumption. In the same vein as auteurs in other mediums, an undeniable portion of a game designer's worth would stem from their ability to promote, market, and publicize their game to an extent that gamers access lead designers through websites, award ceremonies, and guest appearances rather than the game itself. In an effort to escape economic restraints, individual authorship opens more avenues for economic value.

What legacy will the designers that have shaped the game industry leave when they are gone? Without a developed system for individual authorship, what will we neglect when we begin to search for the humanity in the game? Despite whatever social, economic, or personal consequences auteurism might bring, respect for the designer has equal, if not more, importance to profit margins. If the industry can neither distinguish between game-makers and game designers, nor actively and publicly promote this concept, alongside corporate authorship, then no one else will. What is accepted as "art" is based on social perception, and authorship is the realization of that perception. Ironically, the hallmark of an exceptional designer is being able to engross players to the point at which they can no longer perceive the design. This the designer does in recognition that the player counts. It is about time we returned the thought.

CCU Soapbox - RS 67

Author: argianas

So far in this generation, we have a good idea of which console all the big name games of each genre is going to land. When announcements of each new game happen, people are rarely surprised at the destination console - especially Western games, which tend to land on every system known to man. Thus, fans of certain genres can pick up a console now with relative certainty that the games they are looking forward to will land on their system of choice.

All except for Japanese RPGs.

It's an odd situation for publishers. In the past, they were content to make a game exclusive, and the generation winner seemed evident from the start. If you liked JRPGs, you picked up a PS1 and a PS2; there was simply very slim pickings elsewhere. And why bother porting a game to another system, especially when your entire fan base owned the dominant RPG console in the first place? So it was basically imprinted on the brains of the publishers to identify the system wars winner early, then just pump out exclusives for it.

Now, we're in a generation where the winner isn't evident, and systems that are a success in one major region totally bomb in others. This seems to be causing the heads of the suits at the publishers to explode. I mean, they're in uncharted waters here, and they simply don't seem to know how to react. Do they keep making games exclusive? If so, for which of the consoles? Do they ease their standards and allow the title to be ported?

Looking at the announcements so far for the major titles, there's very little certainty. The Mistwalker games will be heading to the 360. FFXIII and FF VS XIII are seemingly just for the PS3 for now. DragonQuest IX totally bypassed the consoles and is heading to the DS.

And that's it for the major titles. Sure, there's some smaller stuff landing on consoles. The Wii is getting a DragonQuest spinoff, and some FF spinoffs that land low on the list of the many FF spinoffs. Only one current-gen JRPG is out now, and its name isn't worth mentioning here. Eternal Sonata/Trusty Bell is an interesting new concept that was announced for the 360, but the ESRB gave it a PS3 rating as well. Square-Enix just announced The Last Remnant, coming to the 360 and PS3. There's a few other minor titles coming eventually, including a Tri-ace project that's currently just for the 360, and a sequel to a mediocre Korean RPG to the 360. Basically, Eternal Sonata and The Last Remnant are the only games that will probably factor into a purchasing decision for a console, and they're both multiplat so far.

In this post-E3 environment, each company seems to be having its own private event this weekend, with lots of news coming out... except the news we want to hear. Let's take Square-Enix for example. They are, how shall we say, right in the middle of revisiting a few old games, and the list is growing daily. FFIV remake coming to the DS, Star Ocean 1 and 2 remakes coming to the PSP, a brawler FF spinoff coming to the PSP, apparently even a Parasite Eve game coming to Japanese mobile phones. There's other projects we already knew about, including FF1 and FF2 coming to the PSP, FF Tactics remade for the PSP, a few little spinoffs coming to the DS, and a whole bunch of other handheld stuff. Basically, a lot of little projects being funneled to the two established handheld systems. Which is cool and all, and not surprising given how popular handheld gaming is in Japan right now... but which console do I buy? This doesn't help.

There were two other announcements from Square-Enix this weekend, both about the next anticipated game in a proven series being in the works. One was the fact that Star Ocean 4 is in production. That's it, no other details, not even what system it's being made for, or even one system it will be guaranteed to land on. The other is the next game in the Kingdom Hearts series. The announcement was that they will make an announcement about the next game about half a year from now. Oh boy! And the rumors point to it being, imagine this, a spinoff for either the DS, PSP, or Japanese mobile phones. Shocking, I know.

And that's just Square-Enix, too. The Tales series saw two games land on the PS2 in America in 2006, but their main focus in the forseeable future seems to be a few projects for the PSP. Suikoden V has been out in America for over a year, yet no word about the next in the series has been released. Shadow Hearts? Also nothing. Grandia? Nothing. Where is Atlus going to bring Shin Megami Tensei? No idea. What about all the niche games by Nippon Ichi and Atlus that thrived on the PS2, like Disgaea and other interesting new IP's like Ar tonelico, Odin Sphere, and Grim Grimoire? If anything, they don't seem too eager to move away from the PS2 just yet.

Now, this doesn't prove much of a problem to me, as the only system I'm lacking is the 360, and that purchase is inevitable once the Mistwalker stuff starts to land over here. However, I have a lot of people asking for my opinion of which system will be the best purchase for a JRPG fan, as they can only afford one. Frankly, I just don't know at all. And neither do the people actually making them either.

CCU Soapbox - RS 67

Author: Wootex

Thanks to everyone who read and commented on my previous editorial about the best sequels ever made, it could only be characterized as a rip-roaring success, not only because it was really popular, but I also learned what a hotcake was (it's just another name for a pancake, weird huh). Anyway, I'm sure you've all been waiting with baited breath for today, the day I promised to reveal my opinion for the five worst sequels ever made. Now, the time has come.

Well, that is to say that the time has come after this paragraph. As proved by my previous post and the huge quantity of excellent and valid suggestions for it, most sequels are good. As well they should be, the developers already have a foundation of success laid out by the predecessor. All they should really have to do is build on some of the shortcomings and faults pointed out by the critics and consumers to be labeled at least a passable sequel. However, every so often, something goes dreadfully wrong, perhaps the developers move away from what made the first game good or perhaps the game simply has a rushed development cycle, but whatever the reason, sometimes the sequels just don't cut the mustard (that's another weird expression, have you ever cut mustard?). The result is bad sequels, disappointments to all involved. Now, the time has really come for the 5 worst sequels to be strung up in the center of town, have your tomatoes ready.

Let's get this over with...

The 5 Worst Sequels

5. Prince of Persia: Warrior Within

The Sands of Time was awesome, not only did it play like a dream, it also presented a story of fairly lighthearted and thoughtful whimsy that made it stand out from the crowd. Only one sequel later, Ubisoft made sure to change all that. The gameplay still held tight and was certainly improved, but to appreciate that, you had to get past the general stupidity of the storytelling. The prince became a grade A jerk and enemies spouted out fountains of incredibly fake looking blood. Not only was this a debauchery of the beauty in sands of time, but the whole heavy metal and scantily clad ladies simply felt completely out of place and forced in the context of the game itself. I knew right at the beginning, when the game took a special cutscene for the prince to spout "you *****" at his adversary, that things didn't bode well.

4. Dead to Rights 2

The first Dead to Rights wasn't exactly game of the year, but it displayed potential. It gave Jack Slate a nice variety of moves and had a high enough level of challenge to make it necessary to use them all. If the game had not leaned so heavily on repetition, it really could have been something special. Then there was this sequel. Dead to Rights 2 proved that Namco was content to make a quick buck and to flush the whole Dead to Rights franchise down the toilet. Most Atari 2600 games were more ambitious than this title. Sure, I had fun renting it and shooting countless dudes in the face for about five hours, but how would you have felt had you spent $50 on this.

3. Devil May Cry 2

It's a testament to the popularity of the franchise that Capcom was able to dig it out of this hole. Whereas the first Devil May Cry had a distinct sense of st-yle, atmospheric gothic atmosphere and enough challenge to make you work for the victories, the second one has a second disc that lets you replay the uninteresting game again with a different character. Really, this game is short and doesn't do anything to make itself the least bit notable. A purchase that thousands of people wish they could take back.

2. Actraiser 2

Remember Actraiser, I hope so, because it's an awesome game. It combined solid platforming action with Simcity-like town-building. Actraiser is still a highly unique and engaging game that is still well worth playing... the sequel on the other hand, is junk. Enix began the butchery by completely removing the city building portion in hopes of "100% pure action and excitement", but than they made sure that that action and excitement was "100% frustrating and broken", with difficult controls and ridiculous numbers of enemies make this one of the hardest games I've ever played. Actraiser 2 is both a terrible sequel and really bad game.

1. Earthworm Jim 3D

It's quite surprising that the jump to 3D went so well for so many franchises, Mario, Zelda, Grand Theft Auto, all of these franchises brought their series into the third dimension with nary a scratch. Unfortunately, the lovable and totally zany Earthworm Jim series is on the top of the list of casualties. The first Earthworm Jim was a delightful platformer with brilliant music and creative level design, the second game is completely and udderly nuts and is easily on of the best platformers ever made. Whereas that game features brilliantly creative levels such as the planet of breakfast of paperwork, Earthworm Jim 3D features hilarious levels like "spaceship" and "barn", hi-larious. As if the lack of personality wasn't enough, the game features an incredibly annoying camera and the worst boss fights ever. Rather than simply fighting the boss, you have to battle them by collecting all the marbles in a pig boarding game, which can take nearly a half an hour of frustration and anger before you are killed and get to restart from the beginning of the fight. Earthworm Jim 3D is not a funny game, in fact, it almost makes me cry that we could still be playing EWJ games today had it not been for this stinker. For that, Earthworm Jim 3D, you are the worst sequel ever made, for shame.

That's all folks, the five worst sequels ever made. I hope you chime in and comment with some of your own least favorite sequels, I would once again love to hear them. Until next time, may the sequels of your life always enhance the experience.

CCU Soapbox - RS 66

Author: m0zart

I don't know how many of you have read about the recent news going on here in my neck of the woods, but it has definitely been a sign of disturbing things to come.  Gamespot recently put out a post in their Sidebar News Blog talking about the situation in some detail.

You can read about it there, but I will summarize here.  A student at a high school in a neighboring township built a map of his school in the PC game Counter-Strike.  He apparently did this and shared it among students at his school.  It is unclear if they used the map or not, but if they did, the natural assumption would have to be that they did so for purposes of living out a fantasy of taking part in the game in the one building outside of home they are most familiar with.

But that isn't how the majority of school board members at Clements High School in Sugar Land, a few miles from the Southwest edge of Houston, Texas, decided to view it.  The hype and hysteria built around the recent Virginia Tech massacre has awakened memories of other past disasters, particularly Columbine, which involved some kids who also happened to play video games.  As a result, the school board voted to overreact in one of the more extreme manners they could have mustered.  The police searched his home and room, forced him to remove the data from his computer (without a court order, I might add), found decorative swords in his room and assumed they might be for violent purposes, and then the school board basically relocated him to an "alternate educational facility", which is a term that likely refers to a Fort Bend County First-level Reform School.

This reminded me of things we used to do when I was a young kid playing Dungeons and Dragons in the '80s in Virginia (not even two hours away from Virginia Tech).  Our Dungeon Master drew up new labyrinths to explore on a regular basis, and one of those was made out of a combination of all three of our town schools -- Elementary, Middle, and High School.  Even though D&D was more than frowned upon in school, we still brought such maps to school and shared them.  Our Dungeon Master himself collected knives and swords.  It's hard for me to imagine that in this culture of fear, but it could easily be him or even me designated as the target of just this kind of reaction.

When Gamespot posted, I thought that it would be obvious to most gamers that this was, in fact, an overreaction, and something that should be quickly undone in the name of justice rather than furthered in the name of unnamed fear.  And for the most part, I was right, but there were a few individuals who felt that the situation was in fact justified.  I responded to them in the comments rather hastily, but decided that I would probably rather do it in a blog post as well, were I can refine my thoughts a bit.  Basically, what follows is a summary of some of the comments I disagreed with the most, and my responses to them.  I think it summarizes my view on the dangers of this sort of "no-tolerance" behavior encroaching into strangleholds on the rights we have grown to love as Americans.

For the record, I am glad you ultimately came to the right conclusion on the most important part of this matter.  Still, I even have to disagree with the idea that making such a map is "stupid".  There really was nothing stupid about it. It was a fantasy, not even slightly discernible as a threat. The only stupidity is that a group of school board members can't tell the difference between violence and fantasy. I am pretty sure I'd want someone more discerning on something as important as a school board.

The School Board took the Machiavellian approach of asking questions, finding nothing to fear, and then shooting anyway.  They have no excuse for their overreaction.

It's not hard for me to call it an overreaction, when it fits every possible essential to the definition of such a term.

Even if I were to assume that it was reasonable to come in and search his house, force him to remove something from his computer without a warrant, etc. etc., I still wouldn't say it was reasonable to relocate him to a first-level reform school AFTER realizing that there was no threat.

The fact is that none of this was a reasonable course. It stinks of emotional reaction instead of thinking reaction, and we don't collectively employ school board members for their non-thinking skills.  Again, there is strong question on whether this even was cause for an investigation, let alone an invasion of this kid's life, and even after finding no real problem the school board still delivered one of the harshest penalties to this student that they had power to deliver.  There can be no better definition of "overreaction" as a concept than that.

Then why in the world are you justifying the reaction, including the punishment.  If the kid wasn't causing harm, and intended no harm, then there can't be a delivered punishment without that punishment being by its very nature unjust.

CCU Soapbox - RS 66

Author: argianas 

The last PS3 firmware update had some pretty neat features.  The big thing was that the PS1 downloadable games for the PSP are now playable on the PS3 as well.  The patch message also indicates that saves for these games on the PS3 are transferrable to the PSP as well, so you can play a game on the PS3, copy your save to the PSP, then pick up where you left off when you're on the go.  Sounded really neat, and such a system can provide some downloadable content that the VC or XBLA can't provide in terms of size and versitility.

I already purchased Crash Bandicoot back when I first got my PS3 to check the service out and how things work on the PSP (very well is the answer, at least for a game that does not use a right analog or L2/R2 buttons).  Try as I might, I couldn't get the game to my PS3 (and the game itself isn't even in the PSN Store anymore from what I could tell - thankfully it's on the download history for me still).  Each time, it prompted me to connect my PSP so it could download it there.  So what was the problem?

No games were yet compatible, nor apparently would for a few weeks.

Of course, none of this was mentioned in the patch message at all; we basically needed to figure this out through various news sites.  Once again, Sony half-adds a new feature: gives it some functionality, but not complete.

The other prime example is the PSP Remote Play, where you can essentially control pretty much everything on your PS3 other than games and movies on disc on your PSP.  It can stream movies saved on your hard drive with surprisingly good quality, stream music complete with the PS3's visualizer, manage your game saves if you do so choose, browse pictures on your hard drive, and even contact friends on the PSN.  There's a bit of potential there, but there's one problem: you cannot do this from any access point, pretty much just from within range of the PS3 itself.

OK, if the effective range of this is my house, why would I watch a streamed movie on my PSP screen when I can just watch it on my TV?  Granted, it shows promise of things to come, but its practical uses are very limited right now.  Plus, it's basically been like this since launch, as they haven't gotten around to fleshing it out more yet.

There are also a few key features that need to be added.  For one, the ability to copy music and other media from your hard drive to your PSP's memory stick directly.  After all, when on vacation, you're not going to stay at a hotspot indefinitely.  Another pain is that your PS3 has to be in Remote Play mode, meaning that you'll need to leave it on, sucking down electricity, while you are away.  The ability to remotely boot up the system from standby mode to Remote Play and vice versa would be very nice, as would the same from/to Folding@Home.

Of course, Home itself is also just potential at this point, but given the state of the PS3 that announcement just had to be made.  Apparently the Japanese consumer typically will make purchases based on such potential and promises, with such virtual demos gaining a consumer's confidence.  In the US, of course, it is different.  Few average people will buy something that is only half working - only when the feature is usable does it become a selling point.  Naturally the Japanese behemoth Sony remains stuck in their ways, leaving us with a number of half-baked features.

Going back to the downloadable PS1 games, even then it feels barely touched.  So far, PS1 games have been added very sporadically at best - the selection has barely doubled from the five initial titles provided at launch.  And even then the majority of these titles were, well, not among the best the system had to offer.  In fact, many of them were from early in the PS1's life when developers were still getting the hang of the whole 3D thing, so few titles held up well.  Crash Bandicoot is probably the best aged game they have available so far.  The second best is probably Tekken 2... but Tekken 5 is available on both the PS3 and PSP, so why bother?  The addition of more games is certainly needed, and Sony would be wise to basically put every first-party title on the service as fast as possible.  Not only that, but convincing the third parties to publish games would be key as well.  Naturally the most in-demand games from the PS1 these days are RPG's, but few would actually release them.  After all, why sell it for $6 when you can slap it on a UMD and sell it for $40, ala Valkyrie Profile?  But with the critical Gran Turismo Portable essentially dead at this point, it would make a ton of sense for Sony to get GT2 onto the PSN as soon as possible.  Then again, that would make sense...

While Remote Play and PS1 games are the biggest examples of jobs half done, there are other little things that could be addressed as well.  Also in the latest firmware update, Sony patched the ability to use PS1/PS2 accessories.  This should come as great news to Guitar Hero fans.  However, there is no first-party PS2/USB adapter, and reports suggest that some brands do not function all that well.  Why not release it, fixing this issue, and gaining some money in the process?  I'd probably be more likely to play PS2 games on my PS3 that use the L2/R2 buttons a lot with the actual PS2 controller.

And speaking of backwards compatibility, the PS3 seems to be 99% successful in that regard.  It's that 1% that's scaring me off.  After all, Xenogears freezes up at a certain point on my PS2, as did Legend of Dragoon, and Grandia had a tendency to randomly freeze up every few hours on the PS2 but worked perfectly fine on the PS1.  No big problem, as I would just bring out my PS1, plug in the memory card, and problem solved.  But what if the same thing happens on the PS3?  Thanks to the one-way nature of the adapter, you're screwed.  I don't know if it's read-only from a hardware persepctive, but if it does indeed have the potential to write to memory cards, then the ability to copy saves from the PS3 to a memory card is important to get around possible glitches.  I do want to just put my PS2 away and play everything on the PS3, but how can I be sure that whatever older game I'm playing won't randomly choke at some point?  I don't want to start over from the beginning to get by it, thus I stick with my PS2.  And that's why I have this shiny impressive PS3, yet it's being used far less than my old PS2.

Either way, Sony should pick something and stick with it.  Having a system that can donwload PS1 games, yet not actually having any PS1 games to download, is just frustrating.  So is watching a movie trailer on a small screen just feet from my bigger screen.  Thankfully it seems that Japan got many older PS1 downloads to work with the PS3 in a recent update, plus a good number more PS1 games were added.  But, as we should expect, it's not complete - those new PS1 games were PSP-only, despite being added after the firmware update enabling the feature.

Just pick something randomly and fix it until it's done.  I don't care which, just start something.

CCU Soapbox - RS 65

Author: argianas