• 23May 07

  My Life For Aiur!

  Starcraft 2.  Starcraft 2.  Starcraft 2.  I could fill a whole blog post with just the words Starcraft 2 and it'd be completely satisfying.  Blizzard's unveiling of Starcraft 2 is the megaton announcement of the year...at least for me.  Within the contents of this post, I will take a trip down memory lane and relive my experiences with the original Starcraft, then talk about my reactions to Starcraft 2.

  You see, way back in the game-filled year that was 1998, at the tender age of 13, I finally managed to acquire a PC of my very own.  No more sharing one with my parents.  With this PC, I was allowed to pick out 3 games to go with it.  I chose Final Fantasy 7, Command & Conquer: Red Alert, and Starcraft.  I'd never really heard of Starcraft before, I just thought the box looked cool and the description on the back made it sound promising.  When I got the games home, I promptly started a file on FF7, then messed around with Red Alert before finally installing Starcraft; the landmark RTS that would become my favorite game of all time.

  I was hooked immediately.  I spent the next couple of weeks alternating campaigns between my 3 games, but Starcraft took up the majority of that time.  I was so absorbed in the story and the perfectly balanced gameplay that I frequently shirked other responsibilities like homework and chores.  After a few months of playing the campaign and skirmishes, I decided to finish up Red Alert and FF7.  Then we "upgraded" our internet service to 56k, so I thought I'd give Starcraft a shot online.  Little did I know at the time that this was the moment when Starcraft became my favorite game of all time.  As I started playing matches against people, Starcraft took on a whole new level of awesome.  For the life of me, I could not stop playing.  I'd sit for hours and hours and hours just coming up with strategies and trying them out on people.

  Then came Brood War.

  When Brood War was released, it took Starcraft to a whole new level of awesome.  New units, new maps, new plot details, and most importantly, new strategies to use.  I spent the next 3 years completely addicted to Starcraft.  I would equate it to a modern World of Warcraft addiction, except I'm not into MMOs.  I would host and attend LAN parties on a regular basis and I faked sick countless times so that I could stay home from school to play. 

  Eventually, Battle.net's Starcraft servers became clogged with Koreans.  More importantly, it became clogged with Koreans who could wipe the floor with my apparently sorry ass on a regular and consistent basis.  Eventually, this caused me to give up Starcraft, as I could no longer compete on the same level as the majority of the players.  When Blizzard announced Warcraft 3, I was very excited initially.  Once I picked the game up, I discovered that it was nothing like Starcraft at all; with a focus on heroes and smaller skirmishes.  I was disappointed, even though Warcraft 3 is an excellent game.

  And so the waiting game began.  First came Diablo 2, then Warcraft 3, then World of Warcraft, all with barely a mention of Starcraft.  After 9 years of waiting, Blizzard finally lifted the veil on Starcraft 2.  I'm extremely excited for it to say the least.  The gameplay demonstration highlights the areas that Blizzard has always excelled at: polish and balance.  Even at this "early" state, Starcraft 2 looks amazing.  Everything from the physics to visual effect of the Protoss Mothership's Black Hole ability look great and retained Starcraft's visual style while still bringing the game into 3D.  More than anything, I'm excited to see where the story goes, since Brood War ended on a cliffhanger. 

  Don't let me down Blizzard.  There's millions of people waiting eagerly for Starcraft 2.  Let's just hope the legacy of the original Starcraft doesn't prove insurmountable for Blizzard.

  • Posted May 23, 2007 12:58 pm GMT
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• 3Apr 07

  Back From The Void, or, Why PS3 and 360 sell so poorly in Japan

  Hello everyone, greetings to all of my adoring fans...all 2 of you.  It's been a while since I made a blog entry, I was forced to delete a few...inflammatory posts of old, but no matter.  You'll be surprised, possibly ashamed, to know that I now work for those whom most gamers consider the anti-christ: EA.  I've gotta say though, they treat me quite well over here, much better than I'd expected when I started here back in September.  And no, I can't discuss the project I'm on...it's unannounced, you don't know about it, so don't ask, I won't spill even a single bean.  And before I get started in earnest here, let me just say that the following opinions are in no way endorsed or representative of the opinions of EA, this is MY opinion.

  Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, let me say what I came to say.  Japan, you disappoint me.  Deeply and profoundly.  Everyone knows that the reason Xbox 360 doesn't sell in Japan is because of poor marketing.  But there's something deeper...something that affects the sales of both Xbox 360 AND PS3 in Japan.  That something is inexperience.  The majority of Japanese developers couldn't conjure up a game worthy of being called "next-gen" if their freakin' lives depended on it.  Sure, tons of people buy the Wii in Japan, but that's because they know not to expect amazing visuals.  The Wii is delivering exactly what Nintendo promised: innovation.  PS3 and 360 in Japan are different stories.  The promise has been high-def visuals and massive processing power, but who wants to buy into those claims when Japanese developers aren't backing them up?

  Case in point: Microsoft just announced that Vampire's Rain and Project Sylpheed are coming to the U.S. this summer.  The problem?  Both games look like they were made for PS2, not Xbox 360, even though they were built from the ground up for it.  Bullet Witch and Earth Defense Force 2017 are the same way.  All of these games have 2 things in common: they were all developed in Japan, and they all look like someone crapped in their hand and wiped it on the screen to create the textures.  Another, possibly even better example would be Namco's cancelled Frame City Killer.  It boggles my mind to think that someone could make an engine as powerful as Unreal Engine 3 look as bad as Namco did.  It seems like the only Japanese developers who are putting forth the effort to make their games look good are Capcom and Mistwalker.  As blasphemous as it may sound, I don't even think Metal Gear 4 looks all that good.  Everything is brown or grey and it all blends together to create a very muddled look overall.

  In conclusion, my belief is that PS3 and 360 don't sell well in Japan because they aren't living up to their potential or the promises made about them, and the developers are to blame for this.  Why should anyone buy a console that isn't delivering on its promises?  I sure wouldn't.  The consumers have spoken and until Japanese developers start making good use of this new, more powerful hardware that's available to them, the sales are going to continue to be slow in Japan.  Now don't get me wrong, I realise that graphics aren't everything, but when new hardware is expected to deliver a visual experience above and beyond anything seen previously, they need to do so or people aren't going to buy into it.  Period.

  • Posted Apr 3, 2007 5:58 pm GMT
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• 26Nov 04

  No one has an opinion

  I spend a lot of time in the System Wars forum. Don't ask me why, or what I'm thinking, because I simply don't have an answer. Maybe it's because it's amusing, I don't know. What I DO know though, is that there is a general lack of opinion on System Wars, even though the whole point of it is for people to voice differing opinions. This is not how it works in practice, however. In actuality, System Wars is mostly a collection of bumbling fools who must rely on the opinions of the humble Gamespot editors in order to shape their own. The sentiment is rarely "I think this game is better than that one because...". Instead, it usually sounds more along the lines of "Greg Kasavin says it's better so it has to be true!!"...only with worse grammar and spelling.

  One major quote of contention comes from good old Greg K. (my favorite GS editor), in reference to the ongoing Halo 2 vs. Half Life 2 debate (which is a stupid thing to argue about in the first place since they're both awesome). The first part of the quote goes like this: "The content of the games is different. Half-Life 2 is apparently a significantly better, longer single-player game than Halo 2." This quote is often used by hermits, the PC fanboys to prove "their" point. However, what they fail to do is use the rest of the quote, which goes like this: "However, Half-Life 2's multiplayer component is the already-established, love-it-or-hate-it Counter-Strike: Source; there was a missed opportunity to include an original multiplayer component, but it's obvious that the focus on the single-player campaign paid off. Meanwhile, Halo 2's best feature is its online multiplayer component, which, in the context of consoles, is pretty revolutionary in its implementation. So, in addition to being two different games on two different platforms, these games' respective feature sets are actually not very similar, nor are their greatest accomplishments." The hermits never use the rest of the quote because it disproves what they believe. Greg K. is right though. They are both great games with completely different focuses, and shouldn't really be compared in terms of which one is better.

  But you know what? It isn't necessary to use these quotes at all. If you're having an argument about one game being better than the other, there can be no winner...no one is right, because opinions are not fact, which is why we call them OPINIONS. One isn't suddenly going to make the other see the "error" of their ways, and quoting Gamespot editors who agree with them isn't going to make a difference either. It all comes down to opinion, and the people in System Wars need to start coming up with opinions of their own.

  • Posted Nov 26, 2004 6:45 am GMT
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