If you wish to assume readership of my post-ENC4930 blogging, here's the link for my regular blog. (Yes, there is such a thing as a "blogging class".)
http://www.ghetto-overlord.com/
Cheers.
This Blogger weblog is now condemned to "time capsule" status, forever locked in stasis.
What’s it gonna cost you to get Rock Band into your Euro-party central?
270 dollars for the European installment of Rock Band? I know the Euro is strong, but I’m not sure nine extra songs covers the price hike over the 170-dollar American version. And the game’s an X-Box exclusive? Well, whatever Electronic Arts has to do to get this game to the continent...oh wait, I forgot to mention:
“Instrument Edition” is your guitar, drums, and microphone. The game’s gonna cost you another 110 dollars. Have fun, Europe: you got fucked.
My only MMORPG sweetheart was 1999’s Asheron’s Call. Lost to history behind Everquest and Ultima Online, the world’s go-alone mentality and skill-dependent gameplay are still unique to the genre today. But it set itself apart by offering subscribers a first: an ongoing storyline wrapped around monthly content updates that continued the battle between the god-like Asheron and devil-figure Bael’Zharon. Although uber-nerds expended the new content on patch day, the top-to-bottom impact on casual gamers was exhilarating.
MMORPGs set themselves apart from other games with their epic tales of in-game culture. World of Warcraft fans know Leeroy Jenkins, and Ultima Online fans will recall the untimely death of Lord British. Likewise, those who played Asheron’s Call will remember the unforgettable “Defense of the Shard”. Many occurrences become synonymous with their MMO, but few shaped their game’s lore like this event did in November 2000.
At the year’s beginning, floating crystals inundated the game world. While most players valued them for their valuable fragments, their backstory cumlinated during the november update. In months prior, players were vocal about the monthly updates, which assumes a “well, so and so happened, and here’s the result” feel that lacked an interactive feel. So in this month, players were set with the task of freeing Bael’Zharon back into the world by destroying the Shard of the Herald. Although players were given the choice to destroy or defend “Harry”, the developers were confident he would be destroyed in time for the next monthly update.
In order to enter the dungeons where the Shard lay, players had to swear allegiance to Bael’Zharon and enter the world of player vs. player combat. The Shard quickly fell on each server...except that of Thistledown, where those who became known as the Shard Vigil manned day-and-night shifts to defend her. In addition to their successful defense, the players sacrificed themselves to the crystal, causing it to grow even more powerful.
The developer Turbine found themselves unprepared to live with two parallel universes of game lore. Playing within the rules of their own game, the company called in a backup plan they established their in-game content months prior:
“But the Shadows loyal to Bael'Zharon had planned for such an occurrence. Months earlier, they had snatched up several of the most powerful monarchs in the land and deposited them on a distant, unknown island. Those willing and able to survive the brutal gauntlet of unforgiving terrain and formidable beasts would be granted power beyond their wildest dreams in exchange for unwavering loyalty to their new lord. Of these monarchs, only two, by the names of Vidorian and Blackthorn, were able to complete this task, and the new "Dark Masters" entered the Hopeslayer's services.
The two warriors who completed this “gauntlet” happened to play on Thistledown, and for two of the game’s most powerful player-characters, Bael’s favor was to be rewarded. The day prior to the December update, the plan came together. In an interview post-Shard, Nik Davidson recalled the effort and chaos that ensued:
“The reality of the matter was that we tried something that we had never really done before — get directly involved in the action, and tell a bit of the story ourselves, so that the plot could continue...[t]o make this all happen and, most importantly, to make it happen in-game and ‘on camera,’ we brought in two admin characters to take care of business.
“To set the scene on our end, imagine Jesse at his desk, two computers running. Crowd about four people around him. In the conference room, pile in twenty people, watching a live video feed of the action on a television...[t]he conference room and Jesse are connected via speakerphone. Shouting, chatting, cheering. Add in Dave Namerow, better equipped than most fighter pilots, with a couple messengers and observers on hand. The word is given, and the camera rolls.
“Oh, you should have heard the laughter and jeers when Jesse died. (Which paled in comparison to our reaction of people jumping up and down on his corpse!) Let’s just say that this did not exactly run according to the script. Truth is, the event was scripted to be a lot shorter and cleaner — summon the Black Breath, which, aided by Jesse, would clear the room pretty quickly. We’d debuff Harry, to make the crystal mortal again, bring Vidorian in to get the kill, and then get out. Nice and simple.
“What actually happened was a little bit eerie. Harold resisted our attempts to alter him. And then, he refused to die. We were worried that perhaps the Shard had achieved sentience. I guess we’ll never know, because we finally figured out how to make Harry vulnerable again, and after an extended struggle, he fell.”
Thistledown’s efforts didn’t go unrewarded; the Shard Vigil’s efforts earned a server-exclusive monument for the people who went around-the-clock to ensure a fictional character in an online video game could not be released from his solitude. In a well-played, in-character interview with Gamespy, Bael’Zharon declared he would get his revenge against the Vigil:
Bael’Zharon noted in a well-played, in-character interview with Gamespy what he felt of the Shard Vigil:
shaithis: Here's something I've been wondering about. When players discovered the Shard of the Herald, the device that kept you imprisoned, there was a massive player conflict where people tried to protect the shard while your minions attempted to smash it open. In almost all cases, evil triumphed, as it should. Except on the Thistledown server, where people kept you imprisoned for the duration of the event. How do you feel about that?
Bael'Zharon: Mind your tongue, boy. Only the prejudice of the Yalain calls me evil. I am a force of righteous vengeance for the sufferings my people endured at their hands. Evil? Letting a generation starve in the cold rains was evil! I have only visited upon them the same death they condemned my people to. Is that evil? No! It is justice!
shaithis: I mean, seriously, those bastards are going to pay, right?
Bael'Zharon: Those who protected the Shard pretended allegiance to me. It is clear that they served the interests of my rogue general Isin Dule. Dule will be dealt with. So shall they. The Black Breath shall boil the flesh from their bones. They will become One. They will join the Body, and they will serve us. In one form or another.
Although the popularity of Asheron’s Call has faded, it’s possible no company will match the psychology that defined the Shard of the Herald. If you’re up for seeing a synopsis of this event in all its graphically-dated glory, here’s the official Turbine teaser released for the December update.
What made the Warcraft universe special? Playing the role of universal defender in 1997’s Men in Black, Tommy Lee Jones states that “[t]here's always an Arquillian Battle Cruiser, or a Corillian Death Ray, or an intergalactic plague that is about to wipe out all life on this miserable little planet”. Warcraft III’s single-player campaign allowed players to realize Azeroth’s fragile nature. It took Azeroth’s greatest warriors, three major alliances, and shattered world stability to repel a threat that was pretty low on this universe’s terror alert level. When we were done playing, we realized a ball of galactic spider monkeys could destroy the personality and history of this insiginificant world in an instant.
What’s one of the reasons I despise World of Warcraft? To convince their player base to pay a subscription fee and contribute to rebuilding Azeroth, Blizzard redefined the fabric of the Warcraft universe. This wave of first-time Warcraft players now discovered twenty-five-player raids could take down the characters who tore the world apart in previous Warcraft games. To them, they are the heroes who shape the world. They are powerful entities in a world desperate to heal itself. They, as the subscriber base is known, are fucking idiots. Telling gamers that they can change the fabric of history by grouping in twenty-five and forty-men raiding parties has all the charm and sophistication of a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book. And since the combined intelligence of the WoW player base couldn’t serve tables at Denny’s, they bought this bullshit by the shovelful. As pulled from this bucket of laughs on the World of Warcraft forums:
The World of Warcraft Census at WarcraftRealms.com catalogues every character between level ten and the level cap of seventy that has been logged on in the last thirty days. This may shock the WoW fan base, but forty percent of all characters are “some of the most powerful beings in history”. Need a chart to get this in your head? Here you go:
Nearly all of Zimbabwe’s citizens are multi-millionaires because the poverty line is set at seventeen million dollars per year. Similarly, if every subscriber has achieved the most powerful level, the entire player base is rendered brutally average. And what happens when average characters are allowed to kill Illidan, the Demon Hunter who was the entire focus of the Warcraft III expansion pack? It's like opening a bottle of wine and pouring out a dead rat.
(Isn't it incredible how I used a country's tyranny to vent my anger over the corruption of a video game storyline? It’s a heck of an internet we live in.)
Portable gaming has advanced, but here’s the precedent for fearing a portable version of Guitar Hero. This Japan-exclusive (the first of five DDR games for the Game Boy) shows us you can run the series’ best music through a low-quality synthesizer and fuck up what made the series fun: moving in-rhythm to CD-quality music.
Wondering how you play the game on a device unintended for up-down and left-right directional commands? This was the only picture I could find of the in-box peripheral, which is similar to another plug-in that stretches the intellectual boundaries of its franchise. But it’s not my job to impose opinions on you. That’s the job of this video:
Well, it could be worse. You could have bought this:
A “finger pad” for the versions of DDR you can play with your feet. How decidedly mediocre.
Once you start gaming online, you assume the risk of being killed by an ally. The gameplay in many genres renders this unpleasantry irrelevant, but you can’t press a key to respawn in a real-time strategy game. There’s not much that can be done to stop this. Remove the ability to attack allies and the Great Wall of Supply Depots will encircle your base. Rules for in-game bans will be exploited. And damned if you believe a company wants to outsource revenue into a dedicated anti-griefing team. Understand I write this from the perspective of a disenchanted Warcraft III player, but anyone who plays the genre on a team level knows they have it tough. I don’t condone teamkilling, but I can supply you three reasons to do it:
- You go beyond the typical reasons for backstabbing (“I hate my life”, “you’re a fucking moron”, etc.) and give your best performance of Shakespeare’s MacBeth.
- You are Warcraft III player Charbroiled. Trust me, he fucking deserves it.
Or, more interestingly...
- Killing your teammate gives you a better chance of winning the game.
My question is: is it ethical to kill a teammate if doing so gives you a better chance of winning? Based on real world feedback, “play to win” is the unanimous sentiment. Take it from a realist’s standpoint: a bad basketball player isn’t getting the ball thrown his way, and he’s not getting his name called when the next pickup game starts. But what company condones this? Casual players are the group most likely to face teamkilling, and they pay these companies’ bills. I wish I could delve further into this subject, but I’m actually quite curious to get some feedback on the issue.
Sandy Duncan, the former head-of-business for Microsoft Europe, has a bold statement: consoles have five to ten years before they’re an ancient business model. He pins most of the blame on evolving technology, but its implications are interesting:
“[Look] at how quickly Popcap or Oberon are growing, or look at what has happened to World of Warcraft in the last 3 to 4 years as so many more homes have easy access to decent broadband services. Maybe you’ll see YoYo Games competing with EA in 5 years… [and] why not ?”
Casual gaming’s behemoths given a chance to usurp console gaming’s Nazi Germany? May seem absurd, but Wikipedia’s article on the Game Crash of 1983 presents a similar, actually-did-happen secnario:
[Since console-makers were unable to restrict third-party production of games for their systems], [t]he release of so many new games in 1982 completely flooded the market and most stores did not have, or decided not to allocate, sufficient space to carry all the new games and consoles. Inside Mattel, one Intellivision sales executive explained the problem: “Two years of products have been pushed into the channel in one year, and there’s no way to re-balance the system.” As stores tried to return the surplus games to the new publishers, the publishers had neither new products nor cash to refund the retailers’ money. Many publishers, including Games by Apollo and US Games (the ill-fated Quaker Oats games unit), quickly folded.
Unable to return the unsold games to defunct publishers after Christmas 1982, toy stores marked down the titles and placed them in discount bins and sale tables. Whereas the typical game of 1982 cost US$34.95 — about US$75 in 2007 when adjusted for inflation — the discount bins quickly settled on the price of US$4.95 per game. By June 1983 the market for the more expensive games had shrunk dramatically and was replaced by a new market of rushed, low-budget games. Consumers’ trips to the store often began and ended at the discount bin, the uninformed customer seeing cheaper games as more appealing regardless of quality. After a while however, the consumers began to tire of the substandard quality of the cheaper games, and rather than pay the high prices for the dwindling number of high-budget, quality games, they quit gaming entirely.
Budget games have destroyed interest in the quality product once before. It’s happening again for PC gaming, where Epic’s Tim Sweeney argued the little guys got help from those at the top:
The industry, he says, has changed dramatically over the last decade, and that the constant advancements in technology have given game creators an excuse to cater specifically to the tiny portion of PC gamers who own high-end systems.
This shift leaves all those with lower specifications -- what Sweeney calls the "mainstream PC" -- out in the cold with computers much better suited for "Facebook, MySpace, pirating music or whatever," and as a result, that becomes those computers' sole function.
As of today, Civilization: Revolution isn’t slated for a PC release, but it will be on the Nintendo DS! I’m not trying to be the bearer of the gaming apocalypse, but budget games have already found a way to compete with the pay-to-play PC product. With console gaming the only ship above water, what happens if they can compete with the X-Box and Playstation 3?
Don’t say it can’t happen.
So I woke up in a Birmingham dumpster on Wednesday, and realized I had a blog to update! Curse the Confederacy and its dumpsters! In exchange for your patience, I’ll just hope this conversation is a well-played troll:
“It was bound to happen. How many times have you masturbated to this so far?”
“Zero?”
“What the fuck? You’re not a true Guitar hero fan.”
“Yeah, my bad, I prefer my rhythm games with a little less 'jumped the shark.'”"The game's battle mode will feature similar gameplay as the mode created in Guitar Hero III, with power-ups created specifically for Guitar Hero: On Tour. For example, players can activate power-ups that'll send raving fans to the other screen, and the opponent will have to sign autographs on the touchscreen to get rid of them. Or out-of-control pyrotechnics will be set ablaze, and players will have to blow them out using the Nintendo DS microphone."
“What, raging fans?”
“As in a power to fight the other player in battle mode...yeah, it’s stupid.”
--
“I’m curious what bands are gonna be on there, that’s a bout it. As for the idea itself? Fail. Four buttons = lose. Mobile piece-of-shit-looking thing = fail.”“On Tour will contain a line-up of more than 20 licensed songs from bands as Nirvana, OK Go, and No Doubt; Activision will most certainly reveal the full list of bands and songs as we get closer to the game's summer release date.”
“Yeah, well...the graphics look fucking awful for a DS title.”
“At least they have the catchy ‘On Tour’ idea to compare it to being mobile...there’s a positive.”
“Guitar Hero is not a game made for mobile. Ever. God, what a horrible layout. Four buttons? Yeah, that’ll put asses in seats.”
More on this tomorrow.
- From the web site for the 2008 Blizzard World Wide Invitational: “In addition to other exclusive goodies and welcome presents, your goody bag will also contain an access code for the beta test of an upcoming Blizzard game. Enter the code on our website and sign up to be contacted when the beta test is ready for you to join. While beta tests give us a chance to fine-tune our work, they also allow participants to try out and give feedback on a Blizzard title before it becomes available to the general public.” Reminding ourselves this year’s WWI is being held in Paris, this is just what Starcraft II needs to be successful: a legion of Frenchmen being handed the keys to a game built around war. This can’t end well.
- Luke Plunkett of Kotaku relays an MTVGames video showing the power of the Wii Wheel in further convincing gamers the Wii-Mote may have been a mistake.
- Asshole of the Week: Cory Van Arsdale. Remember how X-Box Live subscriptions were theoretically designed so companies could fund stable servers and ad-free online gaming? Then Massive Inc. signs a multi-year deal to pump advertising into E.A. products, and then Van Arsdale, the company’s chief executive, says this is a “great deal for us and a great deal for the industry”? Really? Inundating an escape from reality ? The Canadian Press states he “defends the ads, saying gamers find the video games’ environments less realistic without them.” He’s right on this one: when I’m toying with the unrealistic, arcade-style physics of Need For Speed, a Tostitos ad will balance things out.
- 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals shuts down a law that would prohibit the sale of Mature-rated games to minors, with Judge Roger Wollman stating that “[i]ndeed, a good deal of the Bible portrays scenes of violence, and one would be hard-pressed to hold up as a proper role model the regicidal Macbeth”. As a bonus, the article also reports that 13-year-old Jack feels Halo’s violence is “not that bad because it’s not with humans”. No word on whether Jack has ever actually played Halo.
- Scottish teachers begin to explore whether Brain Age is good for your math ability. Honestly, I don’t see how a game built entirely on the basis of mathematics and logic can help you with your schoolwork.
From the September 1995 edition of Computer Gaming World:
It's always great to see a "little guy" go toe-to-toe with the Big Boys of the industry and hold its own, which is exactly what Blizzard accomplished with its first in-house design, WARCRAFT. The best real-time strategy game since DUNE II (Virgin), WARCRAFT won several awards, and was so commercially successful that Blizzard has released both shareware and Macintosh versions. Needless to say, WARCRAFT II: TIDES OF DARKNESS is one of the most anticipated titles of the year.
It’s 1995: Dune II is the class of the Real-Time Strategy Genre, and delivering your product to the shareware circuit means you’re made it big. How the times have changed. So tell me: how will this no-name upstart turn Warcraft II into 1996’s revolutionary strategy opus? Flavor? Charm? Exploding sheep? The satisfaction of knowing all of those got in the game?
The biggest difference between WARCRAFT II and its prequel will be smarter AI for the various Orc and Human troops. This time around, your soldiers should be much less likely to wander into trees when you aren't micro-managing them. Also, the computer opponent should be more adaptive, meaning that you can't get the AI to walk into obvious ambushes time and again.
In case you’re wondering, they’re referring to the artificial intelligence in this picture, showcasing the finer points of the enemy's last-mine-on-the-map-despite-a-wall-of-tower-based-death gold rush:
Computer Gaming World caps the article with a word on Blizzard's future:
...it is refreshing to see a small company continue to take chances, because this can only mean richer experiences for gamers in the long run.
This way, when they become a behemoth, they can sacrifice the depth and integrity of their games for a couple extra bucks. I miss the old, fragile, cared-about-its-customers Blizzard.
When freedom-loving Allies converged with baby-punching Soviets in 1945 Berlin, eradicating the Nazi ideology became the essential goal in rebuilding the German social conscience. Denazification was designed to forge a nation “conscious of moral and political responsibility for German policy”. Germany now stands as a pacified European superpower, an example of reconstruction gone right. But for Germany’s gamers, that success pits them against a losing political battle. Today, this country stands as a gaming mecca, comprising a ninth of Europe’s population and accounting for a quarter of the game sales. But it now faces a video game Kulturkampf that makes Joe Liebermann’s Mortal Kombat witch hunt seem farcical.
From 1984 to 2003, 380 games were placed on Germany’s “restricted list”, virtually halting their sale within the country. Mortal Kombat, and Crackdown got this nod for their bloody depictions of below-average gameplay, while Command and Conquer: Generals received a restricted rating for (and you may want to laugh when reading this) portraying war as the only acceptable means of resolving conflict. The first game actually banned by the country was Wolfenstein 3-D; its depiction of Nazi ass-kicking was an easy ban under Section 86a of the Strafgesetzbuch, the portion of the German penal document which prohibits the “Use of Symbols of Unconstitutional Organizations”. In July of 2006, Dead Rising was refused classification by the German software-rating organization Unterhaltungssoftware (USK). While the company’s refusal to classify the game didn’t place it on the German restricted list, Microsoft pledged not to publish any game that was refused classification, effectively making it the first X-Box 360 game banned. Four months later, Gears of War would earn the same fate.
This censorship is not a new issue in Germany, but April 26, 2002 turned it national. 19-year-old Robert Steinhäuser had been expelled months prior for forging doctor’s notes and missing classes. Probably pissed off at his asinine expulsion, he retaliated by moving room to room through the school and gunning down his former teachers. Fourteen of the school’s fifty-two teachers, two students, a policeman, and Steinhäuser were dead by the end of the day. Europeans were shocked that an American epidemic could hoist itself into a country prided on its gun control record. Four years later, another school shooting occurred in Emsdetten, a town of 35,000 near the Dutch border. Over thirty people were injured and the gunman, presumably irate with his inability to actually kill anyone, took his own life. What game drove these children to madness? The German media reported both kids had played Counterstrike, and the notoriety was on.
In January of 2007, a pair of German teens were charged with murder after a couple was stabbed to death in their home. The police reported the two used the names “Reno” and “Sepheroth” [sic] as their aliases, giving Final Fantasy VII cosplayers relief from their role as the fanbase’s biggest scum. Square had little reason to worry, given the game’s ESRB Teen rating and lack of graphic violence. I’m just kidding, the German people went ballistic and the game is now one of the country’s most notorious “killer games”.
The cumulative of these events left anti-censorship supporters reeling. After the Emsdetten incident, a survey found 72 percent of the respondents believes video games were attributable to the violence, and 59 percent were in favor of a ban. In December of 2006, legislators of Bavaria and Lower Saxony proposed a law that would punish gamers who committed acts of “cruel violence on humans or human-looking characters.” That’s right: politicians wanted jail time for the murderers of virtual humans. In February of 2007, Wired Magazine’s Bruce Gain warned of the precedent set by Germany’s censorship of the medium: “Politicians are pushing new legislation that would ban games deemed violent or that incite hatred. Not only that, this decidedly pacifist nation is lobbying the European Union to impose continent-wide censorship of especially inflammatory games.” As he put it, Germany’s past now comes to haunt a generation of gamers.
According to public perception, the Gamecube failed because Nintendo couldn’t grow up; the company rooted in a first-party development cycle that pandered to youngsters and lost out on an aging audience. So why is it that Super Smash Brothers Brawl will easily go down as the Wii’s most popular game? Few people doubt that the fighting engine is superb, but does anyone actually believe the franchise would have achieved the same popularity without a twenty-five year roster of Nintendo nostalgia?
Consider this: upon Super Smash Brothers’ original release for the Nintendo 64, the game received lukewarm reviews and has a Gamerankings average score of eighty percent. Does a game with original characters, a unique fighting system, and eight-out-of-ten average review score generate the same word of mouth? It certainly didn’t happen for Fighters Destiny, which bore a lackluster sequel and faded into obscurity.
“LOTS OF FUN”, huh? Perhaps next time, the seller shouldn’t copy-paste IGN’s posthumous Superman synopsis into his own auction description:
Based on the famous DC Comics character, this game became a legend itself when it released for the N64 in 1999. Superman 64 was often held up as an example of everything wrong with gaming at the time. Its underpowered graphics engine showed the downside of that era's rush towards 3D, with few on-screen enemies and severely limited draw distances. At the same time, the developers created the game around compromises (the game's pea-soup visuals were explained as being "Kryptonite fog"), rather than focus on the strengths of the Superman character.
Here, The Man of Steel is lured into a virtual version of Metropolis by the evil Lex Luthor to save Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen. Unjustifiably, much of the action in that rescue mission consists of Superman flying through floating rings in the city’s open air. The game did feature many of Superman's super moves in combat, and a four-player extra mode (with players inexplicably riding on flying vehicles), but the poor control and poor use of the license earn this game the title of "worst game ever" from many critics and fans.
LOTS OF FUN.
Buzz abound in the Starcraft II community due to Blizzard’s March 10th announcement at Seoul’s Grand Intercontinental Hotel. Unconfirmed sources have held conviction that a playable build of the Zerg will be introduced into the game, but the inside information I have obtained would like to digress. I'm disappointed the microfilm was damaged by Combat Walkers as it left Blizzard Headquarters, but I will still let you, the reader, decide what to make of the undamaged information.
When me and my friends join up for a game of Risk, my status as “geopolitical knowledge bucket” predictably leads me to play with the demeanor of Earth’s unqestioned leader, George W. Bush. I’ll just say that spreading freedom is a tough task when random dice rolls dictate the game, even with God on your side. It may seem odd I’ll give the occasional game of Risk a go, given my way of gaming is all about sensory overload, but I’ve tabbed out a soft spot for the global war genre. I mentioned Extreme’s “The Third World War” in a prior entry as “criminally underrated”, and it’s a damn shame, because no developer since has successfully replicated it. It’s time to introduce you to what might be the Sega CD’s best game.
The Third World War features five diverse scenarios which require you to conquer the planet through military or economic means. The catch? Do it without sending the world into nuclear war. The difficulty level is dependant on the scenario and which of the game’s sixteen playable countries you choose to lead towards superpower status. Pushing the planet around with the States may be easy, but try walking into Europe with Libyan gun-mounted wheelbarrows...if China or Japan isn’t already wiping you out.
Blue: United States; Light Blue: Japan; Everyone else: Fucked.
The turn-based, month-by-month overworld screen offers you three decisions a turn (the number increasing as your global influence expands) and covers the gamut of international and domestic decision-making. Your advisors will routinely point you towards criticial affairs, which should help give newer players a handle on keeping things stable. All countries take the same approach, but each country plays a drastically different style that gives the game its beauty. As the United States, you can go postal with a military matched only by Russia’s. During my game as China, my commitment to economic expansion paid off with a handsome trade surplus. As Libya, my stomping out of Israel culiminated with my chemical weapons attack on Jerusalem. When my country's population was reduced to 100,000 people by the retaliatory nuclear strike , I took that as my cue to start a new save file.
Pictured: Israeli Dream Scenario
After every turn, you’re updated to a depressing list of world events that will make you second-guess whether world domination is worth it. The lack of diversity in world events will get repetitive, but good players will readily exploit what they mean to their own interests. It may not seem important that Tanzania won the Olympics or that Romania is planning to declare a new holiday; but when the government of Angola is overthrown four times in three years, you should consider that your cue to stop tossing your budget into the country.
All of the above is set to a spectacular musical score that will convince you to play a few more turns before shutting down the console. The lack of neutrality succeeds in capturing the grit of war. While your command console is placed alongside march-to-war music, world events are presented alongside the dark reality of military conflict.
Now, The Third World War is not perfect, particularly in the realm of combat, where the game’s problems can range from “borderline imbalanced” to “as boring as this blog”. Waging invasions across boundaries you don’t control (the seas included) requires at least one aircraft carrier, and culminates in failure against any very powerful computer player. If you manage to make it to the battlefield, the bare-bones combat will leave a bad taste in your mouth. Enjoy shipping 3,800 planes into a version of Tripoli that could be easily mistaken for an autumn day in Birmingham. No matter how many planes you send into battle, you only get the option of using them for one bombing run. You’ll also notice in a game that has put emphasis on WMD combat, the computer will only retaliate against your own wall of nukes. You would think marching your army towards Baghdad would result in some sort of nuclear--bad example, carrying on.
Just be aware that none of these shortcomings knock down the substantial quantities of awesomeness smelted into each copy of The Third World War. A couple companies have tried to recreate this model, with the little-known Superpower series being the best example of how difficult nailing down this genre is. In 1994, Micronet could have virtual Britain attack virtual Moscow with no real explanation, particularly with “a war like no other and a world in chaos” being the entire premise of their game. When Dreamcatcher pushed their follow up to the critically-panned Superpower, IGN’s review read something like this:
I played Iran in SuperPower 2, and predictably it's current government is viewed as a pariah regime by quite a few other nations. What I don't understand is why, at one point, after I'd increased the size of my military, Spain declared war on me. That's right: Spain, and nobody else. The Spanish actually invaded my territory, leading to the expected solidarity that led several other Middle Eastern nations, including Afghanistan, Jordan, and Syria, to back me up. The last time I played that unbelievable scenario of mine, the Spanish had taken over the northwestern quadrant of my nation, and my allies were swarming them from all sides.
...
In another game, as Brazil, war was declared on me by Taiwan and Saudi Arabia. Nobody else made a move, either against me or for me. No reasons were apparent why my relations with these two nations suddenly took a nose dive from the 50% range down to subterranean levels.
Game developers should take notice: if you want to do a global conquest simulator properly, pop The Third World War into any Sega CD and take notes. This is a game whose flavor needs to be brought to next-gen entertainment.
When people point fingers at Guitar Hero III’s ridiculous difficulty, the scapegoat is usually Through the Fire and Flames, but that song has nothing on the game’s heavy metal remix of The Devil Went Down to Georgia. When the game was released, the song was only playable in the take-turns-playing-the-hard-parts Battle Mode. Gamers complained, and the developers turned it into the hardest single-player experience the Guitar Hero franchise may ever witness.
What happens when you take a classic guitar solo and render its Guitar Hero counterpart needlessly difficult? You get a fan-made version of Van Halen’s Eruption, which only sounds pretty due to the technical limitations of these hacked note charts. When you miss every other note, the music is supposed to stop playing.
Unable to find the master track, Living Colour prepared Guitar Hero III with a Cult of Personality redux, complete with an extended guitar solo. Having Guitar Hero III’s most entertaining note chart is like being the best Republican candidate for the presidency (I don't like the direction the series is going in, sue me), but here she is, played to perfection.
You could top off a barrel with raw awesome and it wouldn’t surpass the excellence of this fan-made powerhouse.
As a bonus, the most difficult drum chart currently featured on Rock Band, combined with some pretty sweet editing.
In researching the Sega CD, I found this revolution in CD-based bullshit: the CD+G format. This revolutionary format combined—get this—CD-quality sound with integrated graphics. What console developers were lucky to take advantage of this format and forge a history that would not include them? Take Wikipedia (the reliable encyclopedia anyone can edit without abandon) for what it’s worth, but here’s the list:
Among the consumer devices that play CD+G format CDs are the NEC TurboGrafx CD (a CD-ROM peripheral for the TurboGrafx 16) and Turbo Duo, the Philips CD-i, the Sega Saturn and Mega-CD (Sega CD in North America), the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, the Commodore Amiga CD32 and CDTV, and the Atari Jaguar CD (which was an attachment for the Atari Jaguar).
All that lineup needs is a lack of commitment and bad defense and we’ve got the ultimate gaming metaphor for the New York Knicks. In the console world, expensive underachievers don’t come cheap.
The Sega CD should not have failed. If ever a system screamed “wasted potential”, this add-on to the Sega Genesis would have shattered glass. Game developers were using a French Restaurant to sell burgers, and believe me when I say they made you sick. The slight advantage of having hundreds of times more storage capacity than a Super Nintendo cartridge was being used to give us the scraps from Hasbro’s maddening attempt at a VHS-based gaming system. Ever played Night Trap, the full-motion video game where you stop intruders from dropping in on a pre-teen slumber party? If your neighbor is a sex-offender, you can bet he has!
By the time Sega realized Kriss Kross: Make My Video wasn’t going to be the hot Christmas toy (and God, do I pity the parents that did), the damage was irreparable. Rather than becoming top-tier titles, Lunar: Eternal Blue and The Third World War became best described as “criminally underrated”. Three years after releasing the Sega CD, Sega released the 32X (another Genesis add-on) in 1994 and the Sega Saturn in 1995. If you think today’s console market has no room for three systems, you’d be crazy to think 1995’s market had room for three from the same company. Well, Sega thought the 32X and Saturn could coexist, but that’s a lesson on 1991’s top gaming company becoming 2008’s ancient gaming history.
Looking back, it’s baffling how the media and gaming were sucked into this marriage. Certainly, sales and creativity were on no decline. After the Sega CD was unveiled at the 1992 Chicago Consumer Electronic Show, consider the blowjob the Associated Press gave the console:
Take a video game, add CD-quality sound and live-action video and mix in a few Hollywood connections. The result: a new type of home entertainment system, the latest round in the battle between video game makers Sega and Nintendo...Sega...is moving ahead with its CD-based unit, a sophisticated machine that allows manufacturers to create games using live-action as well as animated characters and backgrounds.
How did Nintendo respond to this early leap into CD gaming?
"We believe that bringing a product that offers superior playing is the key to success in this business," said Bill White, marketing director for Nintendo's Seattle-based video game decision.
Nintendo has done some smart things, but no response could have topped that one. The company has seen sex, violence and production values all try to change video games, but I’ll be damned if a good Mario game isn’t the most fun you can have with a console.
Perhaps the most bizarre snippet:
Sega and Nintendo won't be alone in the CD video game market. Sony has said it, too, will make a CD game system, Play Station, for introduction in the first half of 1993. Sony plans to make its system compatible with the Sega unit.
Cross-console functionality? Sorry Sony, I can't see you making a splash with ideas like that.
Ever heard of Ping Pals for the Nintendo DS? Ever see the reviews for it? THQ might want to check if Nintendo’s next portable system has a wireless chat function. That way, they won’t publish another game built around a wireless chat function. It took three years for a game to threaten the Ping Dynasty, but Diary Girl may just snatch the “Worst Game for the DS” crown.
You’re a girl on the go and need help keeping track of your busy social life. Diary Girl is the answer to all your problems! Diary Girl is the only password protected electronic journal/PDA for the Nintendo DS. It is the perfect way to organize your daily life, interact with your friends, check daily horoscopes and play mini-games.
- Avatar Creator let’s you completely customize and dress your character
- Use your journal to record secrets, remember birthdays, parties and more
- Voice chat via Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection lets you talk to your friends in real time
- Contact list lets you save your friends’ contact information, birth date and personal likes/dislikes
- Mini-games incude matching, jig-saw puzzles, personality quizzes and more
Here’s a personality quiz for you: why the hell does this shit keep getting published?
Note: For the purposes of this article, the actual third game in the Guitar Hero series, the half-assed and contractually obligated “Rocks the 80s”, will not be treated as though it does not exist.
Corpses are scattered from the war over Guitar Hero’s musical value (SPOILER: It’s not a real guitar), but the decidedly-average third installment didn’t stop the series from choking out video game culture. The leadup to mediocrity began with Harmonix, creators of the first two Guitar Hero games, was interested in starting a new franchise. “Evil Gaming Overlord” Activision gave them their wish, paying 175 million dollars for the Guitar Hero name. Neversoft used their Tony Hawk development skills to create Guitar Hero III, while Harmonix developed Rock Band, as published by “Evil Gaming Overlord II” Electronic Arts. Activision took a chance and now knows “the greatest rhythm game ever created” as their competition.
So today, Activision countered by announcing an all-Aerosmith version of Guitar Hero. No word on whether console gamers will adopt the expansion pack model, nor if people will still purchase anything with Aerosmith music on it. Not that Rock Band's downloadable content roster won't include entire albums from Nirvana and The Who, but I didn’t see Electronic Arts throwing a dinner social to brag about that.
If you need any indication of how bad this may turn out, consider the last video game to feature Aerosmith's legacy.
One double take at World of Warcraft’s community size shouldn’t leave you wondering why Blizzard wants to get their cornerstone into the professional gaming scene. If recreation is in-fact a reflection of prevailing social conditions, then the march into a computer-dominated era makes “e-sport” a no-brainer. Also, e-sport is only the second stupidest term ever invented, trailing “cyber-athlete” by a small margin.
Blizzard succeeded at creating World of Warcraft by finding ways to take a skill-less genre and dumb it down. So it may shock them to realize that a dumbed-down video game probably won’t succeed at being a pro gaming commodity, no matter how much money you throw at the effort. The company already dominates the one genre capable of producing watchable gaming, and I’ve got an entire nation willing to dispute any digression to that claim.
This course of desperation is simply greed and profit-gobbler being perpetuated as radical changes for the community to enjoy. A good competitive game has three requirements: dynamic player-versus-player interaction, a level of skill that can be measured by the casual fan, and a mode of observation that makes the game as fun to watch as it is to play. The suits are in for a sore welcome if they think World of Warcraft can achieve any of these.
Anyone that has followed Kurt Angle since his 2006 departure from World Wrestling Entertainment to upstart Total Nonstop Action now knows it takes two broken necks to drive a man insane. Well cut him some slack for calling out UFC poster boy Chuck Liddell to a fight. Now, Kurt has gone on-record to call the upcoming “TNA Impact!” video game “the biggest hit of any video game ever, especially in the wrestling industry”. That’s correct, kids: Super Mario Brothers will be a fart in the wind when Midway finds a way to botch another wrestling game. He added that “[t]he game is so realistic, it looks like our television show.” That’s a relief. I’ve always wanted a game that looks like a free park attraction filmed at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida. In the meantime, I’ll continue reminding myself to not watch TNA programming.
I’ve stated many times that the best reception doesn’t require the best product. Enter Digg, a site that approves internet content on the basis of consumer-driven quality control. Like an article? “Digg” it. Two articles from Retrojunk.com and their 3,100 combined Diggs have caught my attention. An article on the hardest Nintendo games ever, and the best Super Nintendo games ever. These debates are the “abortion” of gaming discussion, and usually showcase the most broken keyboards and hollow death threats. The only thing that separates the linked articles from any other video gaming-related list is their propensity for suckage. If you ever want a primer on how not to write an article like this, click the links above. They’ve become the inspiration for a project I’ll have going in the future . Hey, if a horrible opinionated article can get that kind of reception, imagine what a below-average opinionated article can reap!
Please stop putting “McLovin” in your name. I’m sure Superbad coughed up the funny, I’m sure your stoner friends laughed very hard, but stop.
I’m tired of whoring my Guitar Hero III stats with your namesake. Of the 403 “Mclovin” and 27 “Mcluvin” Live accounts, 9,655 games have been played. In an online setting where disconnect abuse and the inflated statistics are the norm, your combined win percentage of 51 percent is a travesty.
The legacy of Assassin’s Creed says it all: if these high-risk products continue to gain the same hype as low-risk gaming mainstays, will you blame the consumer base for sticking with what works? This problem will have to be addressed if the gaming industry wants to keep that record-shattering revenue pumping in.
Oops, look like that never happened. Don’t know if the line in that graph is going to continue turning north, but for the moment, looks like the call for “journalistic integrity in gaming” took a giant dump on you and your mother.
Obviously, I’m not defending CNet’s fumbling of the Gertsmann saga. But as a well-informed member of the gaming community, how do you expect to fight through this, and where do you draw the line? Use the latest slew of MetaCritic and GameRankings reviews to make your game purchase? It’s a damn shame CNet runs both of those as well. How about IGN or GameSpy? Will you take the chance the NewsCorp-owned answers to GameSpot are between “bacteria shit” and “amoeba piss” on Rupert Murdoch’s To-Corrupt radar? I guess that leaves you to 1UP, but when your best bet is “media parent with nine-figure revenue”, it’s safe to say capitalism has a problem beyond some petty fight over video game journalism.
