The Gamer’s Quagmire #58: An Uncomfortable Good Time
Everything you wanted to know about gaming, and less.
by Jamison DeLorenzo
As a person who tends to run screaming from social situations it’s hard to fathom how addicted I have become to social gaming. Okay, you’re not going to catch me looking for people to play High School Musical with. What I mean is that Guitar Hero and Rock Band have both worked their way into my main gaming rotation. Or, to be more accurate, they’ve moved in, taken over the living room, require regular meals, and demand constant attention.
All this talk about things moving in, taking over my life, and recovery this must sounds like a thinly veiled venting of moving past a bad breakup. This is uncomfortable- let’s just move on.
Despite the circling overtones of negativity the attention is well deserved. Any recovering online addict will tell you that a distraction is needed to remove the taint from your system until you’ve moved on. With World of Warcraft banished from my gaming realm I needed something to fill the sudden and uncomfortable void, and two games have done that for me. Rock Band et al has a dark power of allowing one to move past the always embarrassing air guitar or steering wheel drumset while providing soothing music to play along with (yes, there are days that transform classics from Iron Maiden into digital audio therapy). Sure, you’re still playing a fake instrument but now it is a popular video game so you have nothing to worry about.
I realize that I am very late to the party- not just for the aforementioned musical games but for getting into games that change how we interact with them. I never disliked the control ideas that drove the creation of the EyeToy, DS, or the Wii. The Dance Pad brings something to the table also, and while I would not be caught dead playing DDR, anything that brings hoards of females into gaming is not something I would initially call a bad thing.
For the record, any male gamer who claims not to have enjoyed watching women play DDR once in their life is a liar. Please understand that normally I would not feel the need to defend myself for being entertained by certain games. If this makes you think I’m nothing more than a juvenile pervert then go ahead and enjoy, but know that least I am the one being honest.
… let’s keeping moving on.
The real reason these games are compelling isn’t just because they provide a different way to play or because they let you think that you are a music superstar performing on stage. These games are a draw because you can hang out playing these games with friends and have a good time. It is true that not all songs in these games are gems (for example, anyone who feels the need to do a cover of Ballroom Blitz is inflicting unwanted and excruciating pain on society), but when you get multiple friends embarrassing themselves along with you playing these games it is strangely impossible not to have a good time.
The revelation for me isn’t that I enjoy this type of game or even that getting friends together to play these games is now an enjoyable experience. Normally what encourages me to spit out a few thoughts about a game or related idea is something I read online or in some gaming magazine that forces me to either cheer loudly because somebody else agrees with my point of view (which is admittedly rather uncommon) or to go on some long tirade about how insane something is. This time I felt the need to share this sudden love affair with you all. If you have been hesitant to give these games a try you need to find someone who has them and give it a go. I honestly believe you will not be disappointed.
Wait- I’ve gone from breaking up to being a pervert to admitting to an affair. I better call it a week before this goes any further.
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December 10, 2007
The Gamer’s Quagmire #56: Rocks, Bricks, and a Vision
Everything you wanted to know about gaming, and less.
by Jamison DeLorenzo
Two big games have hit the shelves within the past months that have been riveting millions of gamers - Guitar Hero III and Rock Band. So-called “rhythm games” have been becoming very popular since the initial outbreak (yes, it has spread like a virus) of Dance Dance Revolution. Once this event came to pass it was only logical that instruments were the next great controller concept for these types of games. I’d like to say that bringing the guitar into the fold was a stroke of genius, but in reality it was the next logical move. Any fan of music at one point in their life is a stone cold liar if they claim they never played the air guitar.
With the release of Rock Band we now have a microphone and a drum set - the other two major components of any relevant air band. Harmonix has been central to getting these games to where they are today. They were behind Guitar Hero 1 and 2 and used MTV as a publisher to get Rock Band out the door. While these games, and all rhythm games suffer from this, make you look completely ridiculous when outside viewers happen to see you (including the government through their spy satellites, which is probably why they’re in existence in the first place), I do admit they are a lot of fun.
The concern with these games are two-fold: price and repair. It is usually quite simple to replace broken controllers for most games, but sending out a guitar or drum set for repair is by no means trivial or quick. Guitar Hero games are a little more expensive than most current console games, but Rock Band chimes it at $170. In other words, if you have any interest in the latter it is best to find a group of people that want to play the game and pool money for it.
My overall concern isn’t even with the games, however. Instead, I am concerned that companies besides EA are working hard to become the most hated company in the industry. I mention this because of the guitar compatibility with these games. Red Octane makes the guitars for both games- and an interesting side effect of this is that if you have one game your guitar should work with the other game.
Aaaah… note the keyword “should.” Once it became known that there were some problems with guitar compatibility in Rock Band for the PS3 the good people at Red Octane got to work on the problem, only Activision has decided to not move forward with the update yet. It has been noted by several people that Activision is the publisher for Guitar Hero 3 and bought Red Octane. MTV is the publisher for Rock Band. At this point you should not need a road map to see what’s going on. In short, everyone looking at playing both of these games now has an axe to grind.
(Double-puns are so hard to resist)
Given our current corporate culture it should not surprise anyone that Activision sees no reason to issue a patch for a competing product. Logically, why should they provide a service for a competing product? That is counter-productive to their business, but at the same time there is a huge conflict of interest. Red Octane does the hardware for both games, so my only question is why is this type of devious behavior allowed by companies? Clearly it was design intent that the guitars work for both games.
Rumors or not, it disturbs me that this type of behavior can happen. What’s more is that there is not much customers can do about it. I don’t expect corporate or even personal self-interest to disappear from our culture any time soon as a central focus. Companies need to work on their bottom line before anything else. What troubles me is that so many businesses, in and outside of the video game industry, almost seem to rely on self-interest as a business model instead of providing a product and great service for it. That type of thought process almost requires all companies to work from that standpoint, effectively draining goodwill out of industries as a whole.
Given my tendencies to be an alarmist you may want to take what I’ve written here with a grain of salt, but I urge you to at least look at how video game publishers respond to customer problems to get an idea of where the next great gaming experiences might come from. If Activision is acting in the way they appear to be in this case you may be waiting a long time before they provide something a gamer will really want to have.
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October 15, 2007
The Gamer’s Quagmire #52: Pets, Guns, and Magic Wands
Everything you wanted to know about gaming, and less.
by Jamison DeLorenzo
If you ever want a truly enigmatic experience, at this point you just may need a video game vacation. It does sound quite cliché, but it does a great job at soothing the body, the mind, and the soul. The gaming aspect about such a trip is always interesting (otherwise, why are would you ever plan one?), but the best part is invariably a discussion about the gaming itself. If you have a good group of people who can philosophize about this for several hours, you have yourself a winner.Replaying the week in my head this morning while on the way to work (maybe daydreaming along with cell phones need to be outlawed in cars- can we do that?) forced me to link two concepts that I originally thought were completely unrelated. Think about the success of the current consoles and health of the PC gaming market. Nintendo struck a chord with the Wii that tons of people did not expect, and that is the way in which we interact with video games. No, I am not referring to smashing a controller against a wall when the CPU defeats you.
People like to point to the PC gaming market as the place where all the best cutting edge games go, but is that really true? If you think purely about graphical achievements then you would be right on because looking at the video arms race, even just with a small reference window of this past year, you will see a gigantic leap in video card power… processing power and power consumption (remember, puns are our friends). Perhaps we have gone too far with the 2 PCIe slot graphic cards that you can easily use to bludgeon someone to death. Aside from pure power, the last real innovation the PC gaming market brought to the table was the online RPG.
Consoles have been the stage for the biggest innovations within the last several years in gaming. Look at the success of the EyeToy, Wiimote, DS, and the DDR pad. The world’s most successful games have largely been the result of a combination of any of these innovations, and that is discounting the Guiter Hero guitar (I cannot think of a quick catchy name for it, hence its earlier omission). It is true that there are games that just work on their own steam, such as a blockbuster console release like Halo, but the way I see it the truth of the matter is that gamers are tired of the dual analog and the keyboard/mouse.
If you don’t believe that the interaction is the latest big idea in gaming then you are missing out on some important things. First you should look at the stock price of Nintendo over the last year. If you are one of those ‘numbers are boring’ people or just don’t feel like doing the research then all you need to know is that your investment would have tripled in the past year. This is far more than just Nintendo getting lucky at the race track.
I am in the camp of people that need some graphical innovation, so shiny things do easily distract me. Unfortunately, cost of development is a big barrier for many companies that want to make a lot of successful games. This was easy when the gaming industry was just getting started because all you had was one button, a joystick, and 8-bit graphics. Games like Tetris don’t succeed because of graphics- they succeed because they are easy to understand and play.
So what did Sony and Microsoft miss this time around? Multimedia and online play do have a market, so they have put very good systems together (minus alarming hardware issues). Video game consoles in the home was new to everyone in the 80’s, and when games have one button and a joystick everyone can get in on the action. Bring a controller with 10+ buttons in front of your parents now and many of them will be scared away. Did you really thought DDR and the Wii were successful because the games were good? Seriously?
This has been the argument from the Sony and Microsoft fanbots almost since the consoles were first announced and to an extent it still happens today. Look at the games that were coming out in the 80’s and honestly tell me how games with such a simple notion could ever succeed today. Adventure was a horribly cheesy game, but the technology was so new that people had a unique experience playing it. What is very strange is that the dragons guarding the keys in the game still scare me.
Fast forward to today. Look at the stylus and the DS. After two years of struggling, Nintendo has finally found the games that sell the system. What, did you think Nintendogs sold because it was a deep and interesting game? Part of the reason for the game’s success is because of the previous success of Tamagotchi, but it is also one of the first video game translations of it. DDR is a sweeping success because everyone understands dancing to music. Girls will generally run away screaming from complicated controllers (almost as though you are trying to solicit a date), but throw down a pad where you can dance to modern music and they’ll have fun all day long. Put a guitar in the hands of people who are not used to it and they will be entertained for hours on end. Put a light gun in someone’s hand and they will be happy to shoot at anything that pops onto the screen. Put a magic wand in front of someone and they will do whatever they can (including embedding it in the TV, but that isn’t recommended).
The next time you catch yourself defending your PC for gaming because your graphics are always better or your keyboard and mouse will never be beaten you need to ask yourself when you became a dinosaur. Gaming innovation is now in the hands of new controllers, and any developer that does not seriously take this into consideration is going to endanger themselves with possible extinction.
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January 31, 2007
The Gamer’s Quagmire #38: Start Baiting Your Breath
Everything you wanted to know about gaming, and less.
by Jamison DeLorenzo
It may have taken a couple months to catch on, but I think people are starting to find their way over to my camp on the new Nintendo console. It is entirely possible that Nintendo is going to land a haymaker on Sony and Microsoft this time around, but if it is going to happen it better start happening soon. Launch lists are always a telling sign as to what is happening with a console. Right now the only one that looks to be getting games that I am eager to play is the 360, which not so coincidentally is thriving right now (in no small part thanks to Gears of War). This situation will only improve once Halo 3 hits the market.Things are not as one-sided, however. The Wii had a phenomenal launch and continues to sell very well. Sure, the install base for it is quite impressive, but that is hardly the stat you want to point to for success of a console. It is a great way to kick things off, but you never win a war by winning the initial skirmish. You may want to ask Dreamcast fans how that one turned out (especially the bitter ones, it’s very entertaining). Still, even someone as turned off by the Wii as I am, admittedly I am thinking about picking one up to test out Zelda because a person who loves puzzle and adventure games can only hide from the franchise for so long. In some respects I feel like a caveman just thawing out from an ice chamber.
As a Nintendo fan you need to move past this initial victory. Sony is still gaining profit as a company and the PS3 is anything but dead (it is best to ignore people who think the PS3 is already dead because these people may be more deranged than the people who think NASA faked the moon landing). The 360 now has PGR3, Oblivion, and Gears of War under its belt as major gaming titles that have produced huge sales figures. Twilight Princess has done very well indeed, but looking at the Wii launch list you can’t help but wonder when the next game is coming out that will compete with these figures.
Despite my apprehension towards giving Microsoft more money, it looks like we are in the throws of the Xbox becoming the new hot console for this generation. It is the only console that is generating new franchise names without completely killing them off. Nintendo had Mario, Zelda, Metroid, and Pokemon. Incidentally, I would have included Viewtiful Joe in with the household franchises had it not been whored out beyond belief on the Gamecube. I have no problem with turning successful games into franchises, but inventing a new side-scroller in this era of gaming is dumb because the staying power simply is not there anymore. Side-scrollers officially died when Castlevania, a franchise whose success is completely dependent upon 2D, switched over to 3D (Castlevania now exclusively resides in the realm of handheld gaming, the only place side-scrollers have any remaining clout).
If the death of the side-scroller bothers you at all you should be upset that there was never a ceremony to bury the icons of the genre. Contra, Gradius, Mega Man, and Castlevania each deserve a fond farewell. Mega Man transitioned into the Battle Network series that is now more overplayed than the Macarena. Castlevania was able to find a home on the handhelds. Contra III was the last memorable installment and the two soldiers were put out to pasture. Gradius and the rest of the space shooters, let’s face it, as popular as the once briefly were, just met natural selection.
All this is not to say I hate the Wii. This is far from the truth. I may hate the name. I may hate the naming scheme that generated for the Wii’s peripherals. I may hate the Nintendo fanbots more than anyone else. The problem is that it is hard to ignore generations of really enjoyable gameplay and the new controllers are relatively intriguing. What is preventing me from jumping in, aside from a heavy and potentially lethal World of Warcraft addiction, is that past Zelda I cannot see myself playing any of these games. Maybe the new major Mario title would be worth checking out. I say this because after having a lot of fun with Mario Brothers 1, 2, 3, Super Mario World, and Mario 64 seeing the new Mario adventure game with a fresh control scheme would be entertaining. The only problem is that two games does not make buying a console worthwhile. We have a term for where that purchase makes sense, and it’s called a garage sale.
Not knowing any people firsthand who own a Wii I am forced to rely on everything I can find online to formulate an opinion on why people love this console (or any console or game for that matter). Filtering out all of the expected posturing, warped logic, bandwagoning, and straw men I am left with a pretty good idea as to why Nintendo is doing so well. And so you know, it has nothing whatsoever to do with why the PS3 is doing so poorly (that reason, in case you’re confused, is cost). There is more than one reason at play here, so this will not be quick. The primary reason is the innovation in the control scheme. Right now I do want this to succeed because controllers may be the next part of gaming whose development truly evolves even past the Wii controller. The graphics capabilities are going to level off very soon, so controls seem like the next logical step with the possible exception of AI.
I think there is another driving force at play that people seem to be ignoring. This ties in with a lot of the negative press video games have been getting and the swarm of anti-gaming legislation that a plethora of state legislatures are looking to pass. Nobody is ever going to accuse Nintendo of producing a violent game or one that sparks enormous controversy (or not in the foreseeable future at least). No, I don’t think that gamers are really worried about that part of it. Swarms of people talk about the fact that over the Christmas holiday season, something that all consoles look to capitalize on, they were playing the Wii with their parents, relatives, girl friends, and friends who would put about just as much stock into gaming as they would Euro Disney.
What I am struggling with is why would I even care about that? When have I ever purchased a game so that my family would want to play games with me? Call me crazy, but when my parents were purchasing games for me I had no troubles playing with them. I was also under 10 at the time so it also helped that the games that appealed to me then were the much simpler ones. They bought at least two games every year that we all could play and have fun with, but the number of people that purchase consoles so that they can play games with their relatives is miniscule. I’ll be honest, having party games like Wii Sports is a good thing and party games are, for the most part, underrated. When you have several friends over the party game is almost always a great option. However, if you’re going to venture out onto a limb with that as a reason to buy the console you are going to plummet to your untimely demise.
A console with family entertainment is a market, but it is hardly, at this point in time, the dominating or sustainable market. Maybe these games will catch on and maybe the controller will too. Right now it is just a fad with a bunch of people making excuses. If you think a company like Sony would not get raked over the coals for making a controller whose wrist strap kept breaking thusly causing the controllers to be winged across the room then you are in complete denial. Maybe the games will become more appealing for someone like me. Anything’s possible.
As a closing thought, I will state that I was in this exact position around a year and a half ago with the DS and the PSP. The DS felt more innovative and the PSP had more potential. The only difference was that the DS had the game library because of the GBA cartridge input. Now, if anything, the PS3 will eventually have the games advantage. Both handhelds basically failed in terms of promise. Despite the overwhelming sales advantage for the DS the stylus simply isn’t going to take off as a good gaming peripheral. When I can read my own writing at the supermarket checkout with a stylus then, maybe, I’ll believe it is a good thing for gaming. In the meantime, enjoy the next several months as we will get a crystal clear view of which consoles are going to deliver the gaming experiences we hope to enjoy.
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