The Gamer’s Quagmire #46: Pauly Shore and EA
Everything you wanted to know about gaming, and less.
by Jamison DeLorenzo
Who doesn’t enjoy bashing companies like EA? Memorial day weekends bring that type of thinking to my mind. Anyway, judging by sales figures over the past couple of years it seems lots of people not only have been annoyed by a lack of good games from EA but many people have been also quite annoyed by many of their acts (overworking employees, buying out competition, destroying good gaming franchises, and creating monopolies with exclusive gaming licenses to name a few). As someone who has been steadfastly against anything EA has done for the past 3 years, I believe it is time to, at the very least, look at the cesspool that is their company and see if there is anything worth being salvaged.
It is true that avoiding their games has only been exacerbated by an unhealthy addiction to World of Warcraft. It is easy to avoid games when you only have interest in playing one. I am a much happier gamer now that I have moved on from that addiction. I still refuse to buy any new games with the EA logo on them, but enough time has passed where I can at least examine their current franchises to try and find something that may make me say that they are not operating at a 100% evil capacity anymore. They did pull the plug on their James Bond games finally, so they are starting to figure something out.
I will not make it a secret that the impending release of Spore next year is part of my motivation. I won’t even try to deny that Warhammer Online has piqued my interest. There have been a couple games that I would have given a chance recently had it not been my credo to avoid any of their products. I have not gone as far as convincing myself that what they spit out is covered in e-coli (yet) because most of their games have been garbage. Madden and NBA Live have been their most shining examples of trash games for three years running. This has made their exclusive license push all the more aggravating. It’s like the old saying goes- you cannot force feed your customers garbage. As they were topping the garbage with sewage I have not been hungry for any of their services.
Let us look at their main franchises to get an idea of what they can do to turn their name around (in terms of quality games).
Madden- Their most popular series in terms of units sold, this franchise has been dead to me since 2002 and many joined my way of thinking once the Sega 2K series started taking off and surpassed Madden in overall game quality and presentation. For many this series became dead once the exclusive license hammer dropped. I published a list of fundamental problems with the gameplay within the past year that I have had since 1999. The way I see it, until these problems are resolved and the exclusive license expires the franchise will stay dead.
NBA Live - If you are a sports junky like me you have been pained by this series for a good chunk of time. NBA2K has been the better franchise for 3 years (despite Shaq being on the cover), and really the problem is that Live dropped the ball after 2004. The 2003/2004 timeframe for Live presented great gameplay for basketball, only the franchise has regressed since then. The franchise mode does not feel as complete anymore, the constant changing of the jump step is annoying (first it was overpowered, and then it never resulted in anything but a charge or travel- make up your friggin’ mind people!), and the AI is terrible. I’m happy with 2K and have no intentions of going back. The Live games need to be completely revamped before I can consider giving them a chance again.
SimCity - To be fair this game was so good I didn’t even know that EA owned Maxis until SimCity 3000. I didn’t know Maxis made it until deep into my SimCity 2000 phase. I didn’t care. While there have been a plethora of Sim titles over the past 10 years SimCity is the flagship and the best of any of the other Sim games. That is, until SimCity 4 came out. By the grace of God I managed to borrow the game from someone before simply buying it. 3000 is my favorite of all the iterations in the SimCity franchise, so seeing 4 fall flat on its face was, in fact, heartbreaking. The economy in the game was completely broken- the fact that you needed to build a city whose sole purpose was to take in garbage and power from the city you wanted to build was very annoying. I was in the group of people who never had a problem making money in any of the City games in any of the first 3 titles, but somehow in 4 generating revenue became impossible. Sure, the integration with Sims to get people to give you feedback on neighborhoods was quite cool, but when you can’t have fun building a city you know the game is broken. Maybe the next title in the series will be fine, but until then nostalgia will win out on this series.
Sims - If you want to talk about addictions, this is a great place to start. The appeal of playing a game where you simulate someone’s life is difficult to explain. In college I coined the Point Blank Theory, which states that some games look less appealing than a Pauly Shore movie until you sit down to play them. The overall definition of the theory is still in flux because those movies are still highly unappealing when you sit down to watch them, which blows apart the gaming theory as a whole. Anyway, people went from openly mocking the game to refusing to give up the controller after 30 minutes. I mention this because the game didn’t look fun until I sat down and gave it a whirl. After years of playing the original I came up with a list of changes that I thought would be good shifts in game’s fundamentals. Three of them made it into Sims 2, which, to me, proved that my advanced degree in computer science paid off (nevermind the whole job thing). The downside is that the number of expansion packs for these games is a running joke in the gaming community, despite their high sales numbers. Reducing the number of expansion packs by making the packs larger would go a long way to rebuilding the character issues people have with the company.
Command & Conquer - One of the staples of the RWS (Real-time War Simulation) genre (a.k.a. RTS, but as I’ve said in the past real-time strategy is a horrid genre name because that name applies just as well to Tetris as this franchise). Quite honestly I was never as big of a fan of this franchise as WarCraft (before WarCraft 3), but these games have been genuinely solid. There has not been a lot of fresh ideas in the genre as a whole in a while, let alone this franchise, but if they did make the next game as fresh as the first and second games were people would eat it up. People are dying for a great new RWS- evidenced by the fervor surrounding the announcement of StarCraft 2.
Battlefield - Not being much of a war game fan it is hard to really get behind them and defend them as a good potential cornerstone for EA, but Battlefield 2 was a fantastic game at its core. There were some issues with multiplayer that hurt its reputation before some early patches, but this game was very well done as a FPS. Commandeering vehicles was fantastic, but the coolest part of the game for me was the ability to play the role of a general and drop in supplies and reinforcements. It isn’t that hard to bring in fresh ideas into such a young genre, but when you throw down the improvements that Battlefield 2 did you a great franchise starting to catch steam. War games are not my thing, but I can tell you that the reception the gaming community gave the last installment in the franchise will only serve as a launching point for fans and production budget for Battlefield 3.
Need for Speed - If you like driving games at one point you had to have given one of the Need for Speed games a shot. If you are like me you waited until Underground 2 in 2004 before you bothered looking at it. Right now I am knee deep in my used copy of Carbon and am loving every second of it. I used to think that GTA and Carmageddon were the only games where you just drive around and cause vehicular mayhem. Within the past two years I discovered this game and one other. The car customization combined with the street racing is entertaining. I don’t know how much fresh air can be breathed into this series considering the numerous iterations to date, but if EA keeps this franchise breathing then they can start to win people over again.
Burnout - This is the other game that involves vehicular destruction. This game is so similar to Need for Speed I wonder why EA continues to make it- other than to milk money off of a franchise name. This game doesn’t have a career where you build up a car like Need for Speed, but you do have several challenges for races and destruction. This franchise made sense to me when Akklaim held it, but right now it feels like the only thing this game has going for it is the destruction challenges. The game felt old to me after one iteration, and in my opinion this franchise should be buried and forgotten.
If you include the upcoming Spore release, the only positive things I can see coming down the pike from EA revolve around simulations, probably Need for Speed, and maybe Command & Conquer. Nothing else under the EA franchise name holds any appeal for me at all. Really the message I want to send here is that I want to lighten up on EA and give them a shot, but their lineup is not helping me get there. So while my earlier movie analogy failed, right now I honestly can state that this sentiment makes think of EA as the gaming version of the Wachowski Brothers.
No… that wasn’t a compliment.
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April 18, 2007
The Gamer’s Quagmire #44: The Gaming Motivational Spectrum
Everything you wanted to know about gaming, and less.
by Jamison DeLorenzo
Sometimes all you need is a little motivation. Even when your job is completely draining you and you have no mental energy when you get home to do anything but stare at the wall sometimes some slight motivation is all you need to do something you have been meaning to do for months. Don’t get me wrong, staring at a wall is a lot of fun and soothing and everyone should do it every day. The fact that I have not been in the mood to even look at video games at all in over 3 weeks has been consternation and I have been struggling to understand why. Wrestling with your conscience sucks.Okay, the fact that I have not written anything in 3 weeks because of a severe lack in downtime is also a motivator. In case you were wondering why I felt compelled to release an article in the middle of a week, there’s why.
In all fairness I know exactly what the problem is and have been unwilling to admit it for several months now. Like any addict in need of help it is time to face the problem head on. World of Warcraft has completely drained my willingness to play games. It’s a lot of fun to play, collecting gear, killing stuff- everything an RPG fan wants for online play (outside of a coherent universe). I regret none of the time I have spent playing this game. The problem is that after playing it for close to 2 years I really have to question what I am still logging in for. I’ve got multiple level 70 characters, a couple more in the 60’s, and have been into and through mostly every dungeon. Finding the motivation to play more is quite a struggle.
When I wrote about Gaming Connoisseur Detachment Syndrome and Adventurer’s Perfectionist Disorder I apparently knew more than I realized at the time. APD kept me playing World of Warcraft for such a long time that the tightly wound ball of perfection that kept me playing for so long finally unraveled. I want to keep playing as there are still plenty of different challenges left uncompleted (the APD side of the equation), but caring enough to complete them has not happened. The problem, once again, is motivation. It is comforting to finally know what my own breaking point is for such games.
Misguided or aimless motivation is much worse than no motivation, however. After discussing the intricacies of the gamer points systems for the current generation of gaming consoles there was one question that currently remains unanswered- what do these points really buy you? Can you use achievement points to retrieve prizes or are these points nothing more than a way for gamers to measure their egos? Do 20,000 online points make you a good gamer or does it simply mean you are a mindless points zombie? Granted, it is very comforting to know that Microsoft managed to create a system where people mutually started an arms race for points which has turned into nothing more than an inflated revenue stream for gaming rental outlets.
This point, by the way, needs to be the lynchpin for anyone who wants to write a gaming industry doomsday article. I’m not saying this just because I miss reading these silly articles either. The internet and housing bubbles have burst and there is a pattern to it. I’m not one of those people that looks to blame the worlds’ ills on Microsoft (the unbearable console hard drive is enough for now), but you cannot dismiss the effect gaming points have on rentals.
Incidentally, the virtual king of the mountain is an exciting event to witness. Honestly I am having trouble believing this is anything but a virtual Cuban Missile Crisis game. People are stockpiling points that, as of this point in time, they will never use. It’s not like you can unlock content or download special items if you have an obscene amount of points. I have about 2,000 and I’m already completely disinterested in collecting any more. Granted, there is no impending doom or worst-case scenario of massive fallout or a nuclear winter with online gaming points, but when gamers force themselves to play games of the Fusion Frenzy 2 variant. Note the word choice- this points race is viral and you need to understand that. Anything less than accepting this is… unacceptable.
Is there a challenge out there that is worth chasing? I have fun playing many different games, but when you feel like you are simply biding time until the release of a couple games for the PC can there really be any motivation to play what is currently available? This poses a major motivation threat to online games. You see the ticker on the clock for when you know you will stop playing the game, so is there a real point to running yourself into the ground when, after you leave, you know you aren’t coming back? Sure, online game developers have the great ability to add new levels of content to appease the hardcore player, but there’s only so much you can do to distract a gaming connoisseur before he realizes there are about 30 different games he needs to catch up on.
What the sickening part of the online points system is that I have been looking for ways to lay down may gaming credentials against everyone else. I’ve had a knack for racing games for a long time, and while both Gran Turismo and Gotham City Racing provide good challenges, GTR provides a great online challenge system up to a point. When the toughest challenges in a game boil down to can you keep your car in a skid for 5 minutes you are forced to ask yourself why you would be proud of being the best at driving like a complete moron. This is a challenge I’ve convinced myself that people in Rochester have an ongoing competition for (with the current winner being someone driving around half a mile in reverse on the highway in the middle lane because they missed an exit), but that doesn’t mean I want to enter my name in the running. Believe it or not, not all challenges need to be faced. This lesson is usually learned by the time you inflict massive amounts of damage during a psychotic bicycling or skating stunt or you realize afterwards you really shouldn’t have attempted. With any luck you stopped during the dares to eat certain spoiled foods… something those on Fear Factor never quite figured out.
But I digress. Yes, the game also has the multiplayer race challenges which do provide the exact challenge I’m looking for and I’ve done very well in those, but that challenge is quite old. It is very easy to find challenges in games when you look for them. I really need to ask myself what the happy medium is for me. I’m stuck with no motivation but fear the arms race of achievement points. What do I do?
The most troubling act is that I have locked myself into waiting for Hellgate: London, Spore (which forces me to consider making a one-time exemption to give EA money), and GTA IV. In the meantime I’ve reverted back to playing Sims 2 on the PC and Final Fantasy VI on the GBA. While I will defend those games to the bitter end as 2 of the top 20 all time games I still have games like several games on the bench with unresolved challenges. This includes completing Civilization IV and The Movies on the hardest levels (although I haven’t unlocked everything in The Movies on the lower levels), San Andreas (when the only open mission is gaining favor with a dominatrix to get into a bank vault- the quintessential example of no motivation), Final Fantasy XII (I have no explanation for why I don’t plug this game back in), NBA 2K7 (my franchise hasn’t run long enough to get my player into the Hall of Fame), PGR 3 (I don’t have all of Platinum Medals in the true racing challenges), and Crackdown (collecting all of the orbs can be an infuriating task).
On the plus side every Diablo II challenge was completed several times over, so thankfully there’s no going back to some games. What I have to realize is where that line is for online games much sooner than I already have.
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March 12, 2007
The Gamer’s Quagmire #43: Getting What You Ask For
Everything you wanted to know about gaming, and less.
by Jamison DeLorenzo
Something struck me this past weekend that I feel that I should share with you. No, I didn’t get run over by a tour bus (although that almost did happen). I have been spending an extravagant amount of time looking over launch lists for each of the consoles wondering about which console looks like it is going to be the most promising this year. I decided that it was possible for a console to become my primary gaming platform in lieu of my PC. The Sony online Home announcement aside the launch lists are going to be the most telling. It will tell me which console will be naughty and which will be nice.
Wait- did I just make a Christmas reference in March?! With a list and everything else?!!!?! Sigh…
It struck me that every game I was most likely to want to play, with the big exception being Spore, is a sequel in a franchise. Granted, it is hard to see which new games are going to be good and it’s hard to plan for those. Assassin’s Creed, as interesting as it sounds, is on my list of games that may be rented at some point. I believe I have mentioned this problem here before so I am not going to elaborate on it. The reason I bring it up is that I started to walk down the path of what games would sound the most appealing to me if they were to be released.
Hearken back to Knights of the Old Republic II if you will. It is a quality game that was not finished in time of its release and there is plenty of content the developers at Obsidian completed that we never saw. However, because we have hints and bread crumbs in the game as to what this missing content is, people are working on the restoring this content. It is this type of news that has been the most intriguing in a while. Find a game that has some extra content in it that I have not seen before you and I am probably on the line ready to bite at purchasing it.
This is a strange notion for me to consider. I am not the person who jumps at the extra content that is on a DVD or looks for Director’s or Extended cuts of a movie. Music, on the other hand, does grab me that way. Finding several concerts and unreleased Dave Matthews Band tracks pretty much made my week despite a stomach virus, more Mets drama, insane work hours, a leak in my ceiling at home, almost being run over, and no gaming of any kind. Somehow this idea of viewing previously enjoyed media with some added bonuses has struck a chord with me.
Now, do I really want to see all of my past favorite games with some added content? Hardly. Several of my favorite games have been re-released within the past couple of years that I simply have no intention of getting (especially any of the Square games with added Anime). Most of these re-released games are simply fluff on top of the same game. Fables: The Lost Chapters, on the other hand, is in the ilk of the type of game I am very much interested in playing. That offering was a little too shallow for me to consider picking up because they finally made the game a decent length for an RPG and it was still not a whole lot more than the original offering.
In general I love seeing new takes or extensions on old ideas. This is still tricky to pull off with games because adding enough content to a game that makes it worth buying again is always tough. Fans of the Rainbow Six series should understand what I’m talking about here. Every once in a while a new release in the franchise does make the campaigns and the multiplayer vastly different experiences. Meanwhile Madden is still bogged down with the same gameplay that existed in 2001 (aaah, another cheap shot at EA). When you whore out a cool game, such as what happened with Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, you go in the opposite direction of what I’m looking for.
As that is one of my least popular phrases, which is true with any phrase that is beyond tired, I feel I should elaborate on what I mean by that. After all that comment is highly subjective. The only real difference between “good new content” and a “whored out franchise” is a highly subjective opinion on the new release. They sound completely different. The latter even sounds like I’m saying something extremely poignant instead of just being guilty of something every radio shock DJ does on a daily basis.
Take Sands of Time- the game was designed from the ground up by the creator. Everything about the game was brand new for the franchise. The next step, The Warrior Within, had a gutted story and a deeper battle system. Overall the game did not really offer anything new. After this came The Two Thrones which, although it offered an interesting story device, did not offer anything new to the game worth getting excited about. I am not saying that the games are not worth looking at if Sands of Time provided a good amount of enjoyment for you (it is in my all-time Top 10 for games), but after a ton of incremental changes you are effectively beating a dead horse.
Hmm, that’s still pretty subjective. Maybe I have no idea what I am looking for. Not knowing what I want could be my real problem. Maybe there is no winning formula for expanding on an old game. Maybe I only want expansion packs for games I love and complete rewrites for everything else. Maybe I just need to take a closer look at the titles available now and give them a try instead of being a chicken. Either way, I am starting to get a sense for why not too many games are appealing to me right now and that online games have a tendency to nuke one’s ability to find other good games to play.
Or I just may need to be 10 years old again and get a slew of video games for Christmas one last time.
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