written by Blain Newport on Wednesday, July 1, 2009
I added my name to the "written on" line. Apparently at least one person copied one of my reviews for their own blog. How sad is that?
For no apparent reason I finally polished off the last couple levels of Brute Force, a semi-tactical third person action game. My understanding is that the game was a victim of huge hype that it couldn't possibly live up to, so it got torn apart critically. As someone who generally hates tactical games, I found it satisfying (3 of 5). I think that's mostly because it gives me pretty good toys to play with. Squad commands are simple. Jumping between squad members is simple. I've got sniping, cloaking, and heavy weapons. Who wouldn't like that?
The game does somewhat shoot itself in the foot in the end by getting overly difficult. When you've got rocket guys in towers, ground troops, turrets, snipers, and mines to contend with, it starts to bog down. Plus there are guys with multi-rocket launchers who can almost kill the toughest guy you've got with one shot when he's using his special defensive power. That's lame and forces a dull, overly careful play style. Maybe they were worried the game would be too easy in co-op, but that's no reason to bog down single player. Plus the resolution is so low that just seeing what's going on is challenging in split screen co-op.
The other main problem the game has is that it's painfully generic. I don't remember the names of any of the enemy races. The tough guy on your team is a lizard man. The sniper is an android, not that she looks it. None of it goes anywhere or means anything. The coolest thing about the game's theatrics is that Susan Eisenberg (Wonder Woman from Justice League) is one of the main characters. Having that voice in the squad made me happy. Just like one of the best things from Dark Sector was having the main character voiced by Michael Rosenbaum (Flash from Justice League) doing his Deadshot voice. Just the like the best thing from Mercs 2 (if I ever get around to playing it) will be playing the character voiced by Phil Lamarr, doing basically his Green Lantern voice. If he, even once, yells "Light 'em up!", I will have a warm memory of that game.
The other other main problem with the game is that it's pretty much always the exact same scenario. Assault. One of your characters can disarm enemy mines and then reposition them. I felt really devious stacking them up in my inventory until I realized I'm never on defense, so I'd never get to use them. Maybe the stealth character could have managed to put them in front of a patrol, but since she can safely and quickly slice up the patrol with her energy blade, why bother? Regardless, the game desperately needed some variety.
I popped in Spider-Man 2. It hung. Maybe the hours I'd been playing Brute Force were the problem (which would mean the Xbox was overheating). Maybe it is the Spider-Man 2 disc. I'm befuddled.
Showing posts with label xbox. Show all posts
Showing posts with label xbox. Show all posts
03 July, 2009
09 May, 2009
Review: Phantom Dust
written on Saturday, May 9, 2009
Full Disclosure: I'm at the final boss fight, but I think it's safe to call it here.
The going gets tough near the end of Phantom Dust. There was one fight where I had to take on two heavily armed opponents by myself, and I had to use a special power that only works on opponents on the ground, so I had to survive long enough to take one of them out of the equation, knock one down with enough energy left over to execute the ground attack, and survive to win the fight. There were other difficult fights in the home stretch, but that was the worst. Although it must be said, when I stunned the last guy with his own attack, waited for his Aura to regenerate just enough so that my Aura Backflow attack would knock him over but not kill him, and finished him off with the required ground attack, it was gratifying.
I've built three decks so far. The third one is really just for messing around with. By and large my two main decks haven't changed significantly in a long time. This is partly from information overload.
I've got 250+ powers to choose from. I'd definitely spend more time doing it, if it wasn't such a pain. Having to back out of a fight, run down to the card machine, and then dealing with the giant wall of powers is just too much. As it is I just keep buying new cards, pondering what kind of deck they'd do well in, then forgetting I ever bought them.
But it's a very well made game. I only wish it'd gotten a sequel so it could have been refined even further.
4 of 5
Oh. I almost forgot. The story is worthless tripe with cardboard cutout characters and no real point. In other words, it's a video game. :P
Full Disclosure: I'm at the final boss fight, but I think it's safe to call it here.
The going gets tough near the end of Phantom Dust. There was one fight where I had to take on two heavily armed opponents by myself, and I had to use a special power that only works on opponents on the ground, so I had to survive long enough to take one of them out of the equation, knock one down with enough energy left over to execute the ground attack, and survive to win the fight. There were other difficult fights in the home stretch, but that was the worst. Although it must be said, when I stunned the last guy with his own attack, waited for his Aura to regenerate just enough so that my Aura Backflow attack would knock him over but not kill him, and finished him off with the required ground attack, it was gratifying.
I've built three decks so far. The third one is really just for messing around with. By and large my two main decks haven't changed significantly in a long time. This is partly from information overload.
I've got 250+ powers to choose from. I'd definitely spend more time doing it, if it wasn't such a pain. Having to back out of a fight, run down to the card machine, and then dealing with the giant wall of powers is just too much. As it is I just keep buying new cards, pondering what kind of deck they'd do well in, then forgetting I ever bought them.
But it's a very well made game. I only wish it'd gotten a sequel so it could have been refined even further.
4 of 5
Oh. I almost forgot. The story is worthless tripe with cardboard cutout characters and no real point. In other words, it's a video game. :P
01 May, 2008
Review: Destroy All Humans! 2
Destroy All Humans! 2 (Pandemic, 2006) is a darkly comedic action game set in an alternate version of the 1960s.
DAH2, unlike its predecessor, is pretty much a straight up action game. Shoot stuff on foot. Shoot stuff from a flying saucer. Then run missions to get more guns to shoot stuff with. As such the game is fairly satisfying. Throwing people around with psychic powers and hucking tanks into buildings with the saucer's abducto ray is always good for a laugh. The jumping mechanics are a little hinky, as are the shooting mechanics. The control never feels tight like a Ratchet & Clank game. But it works.
There's a pronounced collecting element to the game. In the saucer, abducting people lets you improve your psychic abilities (like taking over their bodies when you need to pass undetected). On the ground there are two types of collectibles. One lets you upgrade your weapons. The other gives you access to a special weapon (and maybe something additional if you collect them all. I never bothered). Overall, it's mediocre collecting. There's nothing fun or engaging about it. There's never any new challenge to the abducting or finding the other collectibles. Eventually the collectibles show up on the mini-map, but I prefer the no nonsense approach of putting them on the big map. If I want to power up. Just let me. Forcing me to scour the place does not leave me liking the game.
It doesn't help that the game really doesn't look very good. Part of the issue is that DAH2 is trying to support seamless transitions from street level interaction to flying saucer rampages. It may also be a case of designing for the lowest common denominator (PS2, in this case). Regardless, looking at Stranger's Wrath (which came out a year earlier) makes DAH2's visuals hard on the eyes.
But that all makes sense, once it's understood that DAH2 is exactly what it's name would imply, an homage to cheesy old sci-fi flicks. This being the 60s version (the first game being the more classic 50s style), there are all the requisite jokes about dirty hippies and, as much of the game takes place abroad, plenty of cold war and racial stereotypes. Oh, and there's sexism. It's kind of an Austin Powers vibe. Some of it was funny. Some of it wasn't. That's above average for a video game. Some of it was also hurt by a very weird dialog system. The game gives choices for what you want the character to say, but often the one line of text doesn't actually reflect what comes out of the character's mouth, and the conversations often don't flow naturally, changing topic at random and making the comedy seem artificial.
All griping aside, the game does essentially work. There are enough weapons and powers that experimenting with them was fun. The mission objectives were just varied enough to keep me playing. And I did laugh once in a while.
Final Score
3 of 5
DAH2 also keeps track of your statistics, who you used certain weapons on the most; who you abducted the most. I killed well over 2000 humans (possibly over 3000, I'm not sure if the main figure was a grand total or needed to be added to the civilian count). But I don't feel at all bad, like I did about the 800 pikmin. And I wouldn't be surprised if I hadn't killed that many people in all the PS2 Grand Theft Auto games combined. (Well, I actually killed a boatload of people in the gang wars of San Andreas, so maybe not.) There are some double standards at work here, but I'm too tired to think about them now.
DAH2, unlike its predecessor, is pretty much a straight up action game. Shoot stuff on foot. Shoot stuff from a flying saucer. Then run missions to get more guns to shoot stuff with. As such the game is fairly satisfying. Throwing people around with psychic powers and hucking tanks into buildings with the saucer's abducto ray is always good for a laugh. The jumping mechanics are a little hinky, as are the shooting mechanics. The control never feels tight like a Ratchet & Clank game. But it works.
There's a pronounced collecting element to the game. In the saucer, abducting people lets you improve your psychic abilities (like taking over their bodies when you need to pass undetected). On the ground there are two types of collectibles. One lets you upgrade your weapons. The other gives you access to a special weapon (and maybe something additional if you collect them all. I never bothered). Overall, it's mediocre collecting. There's nothing fun or engaging about it. There's never any new challenge to the abducting or finding the other collectibles. Eventually the collectibles show up on the mini-map, but I prefer the no nonsense approach of putting them on the big map. If I want to power up. Just let me. Forcing me to scour the place does not leave me liking the game.
It doesn't help that the game really doesn't look very good. Part of the issue is that DAH2 is trying to support seamless transitions from street level interaction to flying saucer rampages. It may also be a case of designing for the lowest common denominator (PS2, in this case). Regardless, looking at Stranger's Wrath (which came out a year earlier) makes DAH2's visuals hard on the eyes.
But that all makes sense, once it's understood that DAH2 is exactly what it's name would imply, an homage to cheesy old sci-fi flicks. This being the 60s version (the first game being the more classic 50s style), there are all the requisite jokes about dirty hippies and, as much of the game takes place abroad, plenty of cold war and racial stereotypes. Oh, and there's sexism. It's kind of an Austin Powers vibe. Some of it was funny. Some of it wasn't. That's above average for a video game. Some of it was also hurt by a very weird dialog system. The game gives choices for what you want the character to say, but often the one line of text doesn't actually reflect what comes out of the character's mouth, and the conversations often don't flow naturally, changing topic at random and making the comedy seem artificial.
All griping aside, the game does essentially work. There are enough weapons and powers that experimenting with them was fun. The mission objectives were just varied enough to keep me playing. And I did laugh once in a while.
Final Score
3 of 5
DAH2 also keeps track of your statistics, who you used certain weapons on the most; who you abducted the most. I killed well over 2000 humans (possibly over 3000, I'm not sure if the main figure was a grand total or needed to be added to the civilian count). But I don't feel at all bad, like I did about the 800 pikmin. And I wouldn't be surprised if I hadn't killed that many people in all the PS2 Grand Theft Auto games combined. (Well, I actually killed a boatload of people in the gang wars of San Andreas, so maybe not.) There are some double standards at work here, but I'm too tired to think about them now.
18 April, 2008
Review: The Suffering
The Suffering (Surreal Software, 2004) is an action / horror game about a strange prison island where something turns people (living and dead) into monsters.
The Suffering is a strange hybrid. First off, it's a horror game, but unlike most horror games, the hero is powerful. This undercuts the scary, but I didn't mind. Having to play an FPS with thumbsticks was scary enough.
There are also a lot of scenarios which offer a choice of helping people or killing them. Helping them also helps you as they often know how to find shortcuts or equipment stashes. Killing them is, I assume, fun for some people and a bit less work. I didn't really go that route, so there might be other benefits I don't know about. I do know that saving them earns praise from ghosts of the hero's family (who he was imprisoned for murdering). It's also worth mentioning that there are some bugs with the AI, so I sometimes had to reload the game when someone I was helping would get stuck.
I myself got a little stuck from time to time. There were a variety of reasons for this. Sometimes the blurry visuals would make it hard to see where to go. There was one area where monsters kept spawning forever that I just had to run through, but there were other areas where they spawned a lot, but all needed to be killed to proceed. There was a similar inconsistency with environmental hazards (fire and electricity) which were usually deadly, but not always. The same went for things that were sometimes supposed to be shot, but not always. The game was mostly consistent, but just inconsistent enough to send me to GameFaqs a few times. (I already mention when I cheat to finish a game in these reviews, but I'm thinking maybe I should also record the number of GameFaqs visits I make to give a sense of whether a game's puzzles are more troublesome than fun.) At the end of the day, the puzzles have enough variety and make enough sense that they feel like a worthwhile part of the game, not just padding. Let's move on to the action.
Like I said, I am not a fan of thumbsticks for first person shooters. The Suffering can also be controlled in third person, but given that head shots matter, I found first person much more useful, though even then, every time I shot for the head, I missed having the fine aim a mouse provides. Overall, that was a minor annoyance as the game (on medium difficulty) isn't really hard. You may be picking up on the fact that I'm not praising any element of the game too highly. That's okay, though.
The Suffering is more than the sum of its parts. The visuals were only okay, but they worked. The action was only okay, but it worked. The characterization was only okay but it worked. When it all came together with the variety of settings, the continued revelations about the horrors in the island's past, and the idea that the choices I made would affect the ending, I always wanted to see what would happen next (and went online to purchase the less well reviewed sequel as soon as I finished the game).
Final Score
4 of 5
The Suffering is a strange hybrid. First off, it's a horror game, but unlike most horror games, the hero is powerful. This undercuts the scary, but I didn't mind. Having to play an FPS with thumbsticks was scary enough.
There are also a lot of scenarios which offer a choice of helping people or killing them. Helping them also helps you as they often know how to find shortcuts or equipment stashes. Killing them is, I assume, fun for some people and a bit less work. I didn't really go that route, so there might be other benefits I don't know about. I do know that saving them earns praise from ghosts of the hero's family (who he was imprisoned for murdering). It's also worth mentioning that there are some bugs with the AI, so I sometimes had to reload the game when someone I was helping would get stuck.
I myself got a little stuck from time to time. There were a variety of reasons for this. Sometimes the blurry visuals would make it hard to see where to go. There was one area where monsters kept spawning forever that I just had to run through, but there were other areas where they spawned a lot, but all needed to be killed to proceed. There was a similar inconsistency with environmental hazards (fire and electricity) which were usually deadly, but not always. The same went for things that were sometimes supposed to be shot, but not always. The game was mostly consistent, but just inconsistent enough to send me to GameFaqs a few times. (I already mention when I cheat to finish a game in these reviews, but I'm thinking maybe I should also record the number of GameFaqs visits I make to give a sense of whether a game's puzzles are more troublesome than fun.) At the end of the day, the puzzles have enough variety and make enough sense that they feel like a worthwhile part of the game, not just padding. Let's move on to the action.
Like I said, I am not a fan of thumbsticks for first person shooters. The Suffering can also be controlled in third person, but given that head shots matter, I found first person much more useful, though even then, every time I shot for the head, I missed having the fine aim a mouse provides. Overall, that was a minor annoyance as the game (on medium difficulty) isn't really hard. You may be picking up on the fact that I'm not praising any element of the game too highly. That's okay, though.
The Suffering is more than the sum of its parts. The visuals were only okay, but they worked. The action was only okay, but it worked. The characterization was only okay but it worked. When it all came together with the variety of settings, the continued revelations about the horrors in the island's past, and the idea that the choices I made would affect the ending, I always wanted to see what would happen next (and went online to purchase the less well reviewed sequel as soon as I finished the game).
Final Score
4 of 5
06 April, 2008
Review: Crimson Skies: High Road To Revenge
Crimson Skies: High Road To Revenge (FASA Interactive, 2003) is a period sci-fi aerial combat game.
You know what? I'm bored with how I usually write reviews. Let's try something different. Um... Hmm. I hadn't given this a lot of forethought.
Crimson Skies is set in an alternate past right out of the old pulp magazines, with dashing sky pirates fighting for the various city states of the former United States of America. The game does a good job creating the feel of pulp reality with crazy plane designs, a brash, brawling, womanizing hero, and zeppelins. You can't have an alternate reality without zeppelins.
When I started Crimson Skies, I thought I was going to hate it. It took forever to take down enemy planes, and the upgrade tokens I was hoping would turn my plane into something worth flying were a huge pain to get to. The first island has blimp wrecks all over, many of which have upgrade tokens in them. But the collision detection in narrow spaces is pretty iffy. Sometimes I would bounce off a wall and keep going. Sometimes I'd get stuck nose first in the wall and grind to death. Luckily, most subsequent levels put the icons in easier to reach places and didn't have so much finicky architecture. There was a cave complex near the end that sucked, but mostly it was fun. Flying between (and through decorative holes in) buildings in Chicago was especially keen.
The fighting itself wasn't bad once I upgraded my plane. The planes are all built for multiplayer, so once they're upgraded, there's nothing they can't fight one on one. I actually never used anything besides the upgraded starting plane (unless the mission required something else). Well, actually, that's not entirely true. There are a lot of gun emplacements in the game, and no plane has enough endurance to get through many of the missions, so a third of the game is a shooting gallery. But there was generally enough to shoot at and enough switching from one gun position to another to make it fun. Plus shooting at stuff from a zeppelin does feel different than shooting at stuff from an emplacement or a truck or a boat or a plane, and the variety adds a feeling of depth to the world.
There's no on-foot action, which I didn't mind. All the "human scale" interaction takes place in cut scenes. Maybe my history is off, but I thought the cut scenes were very well done for 2003. They weren't impressive or spellbinding, but they made me smile from time to time.
The music was also a standout with a stirring period sounding score. It would occasionally play action music when there wasn't any action, but for the most part, it significantly improved the feel of the game. It sparked my imagination, which more than compensated for the mediocre visuals.
A lot of the game takes place in natural settings, which look fairly bland. I have some mixed feelings about FASA going out of business. On one hand, my first experience of them was Battletech, a pen and paper wargame with giant robots... all stolen from a Japanese cartoon show I was very fond of (Robotech). Part of me never forgave them for that. But the thought that there won't be any new Crimson Skies games, with shiny planes, billowing smoke, and simulated cloth zeppelins to shoot makes me sad.
Final Score
3 of 5
P.S. I forgot to mention the controls. Trying to control a plane with anything other than real plane controls is always a compromise. Being unable to steer and look around at the same time or correct my orientation and keep a hand on the throttle at the same time was a bit of a pain. Maybe there was an alternate control scheme in the menus. It's an arcade style game, so perhaps I'm asking for too much control, but it would have made the game better. I am one of the weirdos who actually liked the interior view in the Rogue Squadron games on GameCube because it let me use the right thumbstick to look around.
Come to think of it, the PS3's controller might be perfect for Crimson Skies. The tilting could be used for what the right thumbstick is used for in the Xbox version, and the right thumbstick could be for looking around. It might even be better to put the throttle commands on the L1 and R1 buttons. Yeah. That could work.
Oh, I've been talking a lot lately about game length. Crimson Skies is a good length. I almost thought it was too long. There was a plot twist I would have been happy to see "To be continued" after. But the game didn't go on super long after that, and had a big giant action finish which was cool. Also it wouldn't have made much sense to end at the earlier twist, since the revenge from the game's title hadn't happened yet.
You know what? I'm bored with how I usually write reviews. Let's try something different. Um... Hmm. I hadn't given this a lot of forethought.
Crimson Skies is set in an alternate past right out of the old pulp magazines, with dashing sky pirates fighting for the various city states of the former United States of America. The game does a good job creating the feel of pulp reality with crazy plane designs, a brash, brawling, womanizing hero, and zeppelins. You can't have an alternate reality without zeppelins.
When I started Crimson Skies, I thought I was going to hate it. It took forever to take down enemy planes, and the upgrade tokens I was hoping would turn my plane into something worth flying were a huge pain to get to. The first island has blimp wrecks all over, many of which have upgrade tokens in them. But the collision detection in narrow spaces is pretty iffy. Sometimes I would bounce off a wall and keep going. Sometimes I'd get stuck nose first in the wall and grind to death. Luckily, most subsequent levels put the icons in easier to reach places and didn't have so much finicky architecture. There was a cave complex near the end that sucked, but mostly it was fun. Flying between (and through decorative holes in) buildings in Chicago was especially keen.
The fighting itself wasn't bad once I upgraded my plane. The planes are all built for multiplayer, so once they're upgraded, there's nothing they can't fight one on one. I actually never used anything besides the upgraded starting plane (unless the mission required something else). Well, actually, that's not entirely true. There are a lot of gun emplacements in the game, and no plane has enough endurance to get through many of the missions, so a third of the game is a shooting gallery. But there was generally enough to shoot at and enough switching from one gun position to another to make it fun. Plus shooting at stuff from a zeppelin does feel different than shooting at stuff from an emplacement or a truck or a boat or a plane, and the variety adds a feeling of depth to the world.
There's no on-foot action, which I didn't mind. All the "human scale" interaction takes place in cut scenes. Maybe my history is off, but I thought the cut scenes were very well done for 2003. They weren't impressive or spellbinding, but they made me smile from time to time.
The music was also a standout with a stirring period sounding score. It would occasionally play action music when there wasn't any action, but for the most part, it significantly improved the feel of the game. It sparked my imagination, which more than compensated for the mediocre visuals.
A lot of the game takes place in natural settings, which look fairly bland. I have some mixed feelings about FASA going out of business. On one hand, my first experience of them was Battletech, a pen and paper wargame with giant robots... all stolen from a Japanese cartoon show I was very fond of (Robotech). Part of me never forgave them for that. But the thought that there won't be any new Crimson Skies games, with shiny planes, billowing smoke, and simulated cloth zeppelins to shoot makes me sad.
Final Score
3 of 5
P.S. I forgot to mention the controls. Trying to control a plane with anything other than real plane controls is always a compromise. Being unable to steer and look around at the same time or correct my orientation and keep a hand on the throttle at the same time was a bit of a pain. Maybe there was an alternate control scheme in the menus. It's an arcade style game, so perhaps I'm asking for too much control, but it would have made the game better. I am one of the weirdos who actually liked the interior view in the Rogue Squadron games on GameCube because it let me use the right thumbstick to look around.
Come to think of it, the PS3's controller might be perfect for Crimson Skies. The tilting could be used for what the right thumbstick is used for in the Xbox version, and the right thumbstick could be for looking around. It might even be better to put the throttle commands on the L1 and R1 buttons. Yeah. That could work.
Oh, I've been talking a lot lately about game length. Crimson Skies is a good length. I almost thought it was too long. There was a plot twist I would have been happy to see "To be continued" after. But the game didn't go on super long after that, and had a big giant action finish which was cool. Also it wouldn't have made much sense to end at the earlier twist, since the revenge from the game's title hadn't happened yet.
05 April, 2008
Review: Oddworld Stranger's Wrath
Oddworld Stranger's Wrath (Oddworld Inhabitants, 2005) is an alien western.
Gameplay
The controls in the game aren't very good. Movement is floaty. The camera moves slowly. And I found the amount of controls cumbersome, especially when you add in buttons that work differently in first and third person.
In addition to managing the controls, you have a bunch of different types of ammo to manage. There's a crossbow which can hold two types of ammo at a time. The ammo is small animals, which must be captured. But for the most part it doesn't matter. None of them are fun to use.
I guess what it boils down to is that everything in the game is slow. Everything feels like a slog. I'm guessing that in an effort to make the game as long as people wanted, the developer removed all the fun. I'm glad that Portal and Call of Duty 4 are encouraging observant publishers and developers not to let their games drag on. I'm hoping we'll actually get to a point where designers are constantly asking why a section of a game needs to be included, instead of just trying to put busy work in front of the player. Poorly placed save points also made the game longer, making me replay sections I'd already cleared.
I actually cheated to finish the last fight in the game. There was nothing rewarding about the gameplay, so why master something dull? It's also worth mentioning that the game took all of my stuff at a certain point, some of which it never gave back, further emphasizing the pointlessness of trying to play well.
Theatrics
Uh... yeah. Oddworld games always think they're delivering some sort of environmental message, even going so far as to include a quote from a Sioux chief at the end of the final cinematic. It's pretentious and makes all of their games that I've played depressing in tone. It also doesn't help that there are no characters to speak of. Every character of a particular race (males and females) are voiced by the same person. The acting is bad, to the extent it's even present. There are a few funny lines from some of the townspeople and one type of ammo that insulted me while sitting on my crossbow.
Aesthetics
As one of the last Xbox games to come out (before Microsoft dumped the machine like a bad habit to try and push it's lead with the 360), OSW looks good. As with most consoles, there are some issues with blurry, low res textures, but for the most part the visuals do the job.
The audio is good, but not great. For the most part it works. Footstep sounds, gun shots, and other environmental sounds work. But a lot of the dialog, especially from the townspeople, sounds like 8-bit samples (the way PC games sounded in the early 90s).
Final Score
2 of 5
Gameplay
The controls in the game aren't very good. Movement is floaty. The camera moves slowly. And I found the amount of controls cumbersome, especially when you add in buttons that work differently in first and third person.
In addition to managing the controls, you have a bunch of different types of ammo to manage. There's a crossbow which can hold two types of ammo at a time. The ammo is small animals, which must be captured. But for the most part it doesn't matter. None of them are fun to use.
I guess what it boils down to is that everything in the game is slow. Everything feels like a slog. I'm guessing that in an effort to make the game as long as people wanted, the developer removed all the fun. I'm glad that Portal and Call of Duty 4 are encouraging observant publishers and developers not to let their games drag on. I'm hoping we'll actually get to a point where designers are constantly asking why a section of a game needs to be included, instead of just trying to put busy work in front of the player. Poorly placed save points also made the game longer, making me replay sections I'd already cleared.
I actually cheated to finish the last fight in the game. There was nothing rewarding about the gameplay, so why master something dull? It's also worth mentioning that the game took all of my stuff at a certain point, some of which it never gave back, further emphasizing the pointlessness of trying to play well.
Theatrics
Uh... yeah. Oddworld games always think they're delivering some sort of environmental message, even going so far as to include a quote from a Sioux chief at the end of the final cinematic. It's pretentious and makes all of their games that I've played depressing in tone. It also doesn't help that there are no characters to speak of. Every character of a particular race (males and females) are voiced by the same person. The acting is bad, to the extent it's even present. There are a few funny lines from some of the townspeople and one type of ammo that insulted me while sitting on my crossbow.
Aesthetics
As one of the last Xbox games to come out (before Microsoft dumped the machine like a bad habit to try and push it's lead with the 360), OSW looks good. As with most consoles, there are some issues with blurry, low res textures, but for the most part the visuals do the job.
The audio is good, but not great. For the most part it works. Footstep sounds, gun shots, and other environmental sounds work. But a lot of the dialog, especially from the townspeople, sounds like 8-bit samples (the way PC games sounded in the early 90s).
Final Score
2 of 5
18 December, 2007
State of the Industry
The NPD sales figures for November are out (well discussed on the 1UP Yours podcast and disected on Next Gen). Since all the big games have already been released or pushed to next year because they couldn't make the holiday window, it's a good time to talk about what happened this year.
Nintendo
Nintendo mostly rules, except where they completely fail. The DS outsold the PS3, PS2, and PSP combined in November, moving 1.53 million units. Part of that had to do with them bundling either Zelda (kind of for gamers) or a pet sim (for normal people). In fact, no DS game sold in the top ten. When you consider that the DS installed base in the US alone is probably around 18 million, over double the Xbox 360 installed base, that's an epic fail.
The Wii's kind of the same story except they can't even put the hardware out there. GameSpot is selling IOUs (for the full price of the system, no less) to give desperate parents something to put under the tree. I heard a gal in the cafeteria at work talking about the supplies the big box retailers hoarded for sales last Sunday lasting for two whole hours. Again, these are stories of epic fail. But Nintendo's a conservative Japanese company, and there are Wii's sitting on store shelves in Japan, so they may have a fear that they're on the brink of bursting the bubble and having the Wii market implode. I really don't know. The truth is that gamers only have Wii's because of Zelda, Metroid, and Mario. Now that those games are out, Nintendo has one more game (Smash Brothers) the gamers are looking forward to.
Once there's nothing left but the alpha moms and mini-game lovers buying these things, who's to say whether they'll move on to some talking stuffed animal next year, forgetting all about the Wii? I thought the people calling the Wii a fad were idiots. Well, in fairness to myself, many of them aboslutely were idiots. But maybe a couple of them were ahead of me on this. Maybe they realized that the people Nintendo's marketing to now are fickle. Last year the novelty of the system and the family fun of Wii Sports sold it. This year Mario sold it. Wii Fit (a game which lets you stand on a fancy scale to control exercise games by shifting your weight) is out in Japan this holiday season. Are they going to hold it all year in the states so that they have something to generate holiday buzz next season?
Microsoft
Technically the 360 still has the installed base over the Wii, I think. But the truth is, they're not really in the same markets... at all. The 360 lovers are basically crack whores. They will let you do anything to them as long as they can see their next fix on the horizon. The thing still eats disks. The optical drives still fail. There are still folks waiting many weeks to get their refurbished, fail prone replacement in the mail. And it's kinda sorta working for them. By taking the repair bill as a huge hit in one quarter and releasing Halo 3 the next, they showed their first profitable quarter ever. They say they expect to be profitable in 2008 as a year overall. Doesn't sound like winning, does it?
Then you look at software. Four of the top ten games for November are on 360. Two of them are on PS3, but they're just PS3 versions of the far better selling 360 games. Call of Duty 360 outsold Call of Duty PS3 3.5 to 1. Assassin's Creed 360 outsold Assassin's Creed PS3 2.6 to 1. I'm guessing that's partly because Call of Duty is online, and the 360 is where gamers know their friends are, so they're less likely to want the PS3 version. Beyond that, the numbers seem to reflect the installed base, which is around 3 to 1.
Sony
As has been mentioned before, Sony's losing money like crazy. Any time one of their executives opens their mouth, only the most ignorant doublespeak falls out of their mouths (which I assume are surrounded by clown make-up). If gamers aren't so awestricken by Metal Gear Solid 4 that they're willing to drop $400 on a non-backwards compatible PS3 to play it, what has Sony got? Seriously, the best games on the system aren't selling for crap. Uncharted and Rachet aren't in the top ten at all. Next Gen said Rachet sold less than 150k copies. That's A) criminal and B) freaking bleak.
As the latest example of ignorant doublespeak, a Sony exec said they felt Sony was on a good course for their projected ten year life cycle. Do you think you can lose the better part of a billion dollars a quarter and have a ten year life cycle?
The Rest of the World
Shane Bettenhausen brought up something scary on the last 1UP Yours. These figures we look at are for North America, mostly. In Japan, it's very different. Japan's moving away from consoles to mobile platforms. There are Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy games you'll probably never see because they run only on Japanese phones (which blow ours away). And in Europe, apparently the PS3 is actually doing well enough that it might be the winner there. When a hit driven market becomes that fragmented, what does that mean? Even more first person shooters for the 360? Even more soccer and rally racing games for the PS3? Even more crap I don't care about for Nintendo systems? Blegh.
Nintendo
Nintendo mostly rules, except where they completely fail. The DS outsold the PS3, PS2, and PSP combined in November, moving 1.53 million units. Part of that had to do with them bundling either Zelda (kind of for gamers) or a pet sim (for normal people). In fact, no DS game sold in the top ten. When you consider that the DS installed base in the US alone is probably around 18 million, over double the Xbox 360 installed base, that's an epic fail.
The Wii's kind of the same story except they can't even put the hardware out there. GameSpot is selling IOUs (for the full price of the system, no less) to give desperate parents something to put under the tree. I heard a gal in the cafeteria at work talking about the supplies the big box retailers hoarded for sales last Sunday lasting for two whole hours. Again, these are stories of epic fail. But Nintendo's a conservative Japanese company, and there are Wii's sitting on store shelves in Japan, so they may have a fear that they're on the brink of bursting the bubble and having the Wii market implode. I really don't know. The truth is that gamers only have Wii's because of Zelda, Metroid, and Mario. Now that those games are out, Nintendo has one more game (Smash Brothers) the gamers are looking forward to.
Once there's nothing left but the alpha moms and mini-game lovers buying these things, who's to say whether they'll move on to some talking stuffed animal next year, forgetting all about the Wii? I thought the people calling the Wii a fad were idiots. Well, in fairness to myself, many of them aboslutely were idiots. But maybe a couple of them were ahead of me on this. Maybe they realized that the people Nintendo's marketing to now are fickle. Last year the novelty of the system and the family fun of Wii Sports sold it. This year Mario sold it. Wii Fit (a game which lets you stand on a fancy scale to control exercise games by shifting your weight) is out in Japan this holiday season. Are they going to hold it all year in the states so that they have something to generate holiday buzz next season?
Microsoft
Technically the 360 still has the installed base over the Wii, I think. But the truth is, they're not really in the same markets... at all. The 360 lovers are basically crack whores. They will let you do anything to them as long as they can see their next fix on the horizon. The thing still eats disks. The optical drives still fail. There are still folks waiting many weeks to get their refurbished, fail prone replacement in the mail. And it's kinda sorta working for them. By taking the repair bill as a huge hit in one quarter and releasing Halo 3 the next, they showed their first profitable quarter ever. They say they expect to be profitable in 2008 as a year overall. Doesn't sound like winning, does it?
Then you look at software. Four of the top ten games for November are on 360. Two of them are on PS3, but they're just PS3 versions of the far better selling 360 games. Call of Duty 360 outsold Call of Duty PS3 3.5 to 1. Assassin's Creed 360 outsold Assassin's Creed PS3 2.6 to 1. I'm guessing that's partly because Call of Duty is online, and the 360 is where gamers know their friends are, so they're less likely to want the PS3 version. Beyond that, the numbers seem to reflect the installed base, which is around 3 to 1.
Sony
As has been mentioned before, Sony's losing money like crazy. Any time one of their executives opens their mouth, only the most ignorant doublespeak falls out of their mouths (which I assume are surrounded by clown make-up). If gamers aren't so awestricken by Metal Gear Solid 4 that they're willing to drop $400 on a non-backwards compatible PS3 to play it, what has Sony got? Seriously, the best games on the system aren't selling for crap. Uncharted and Rachet aren't in the top ten at all. Next Gen said Rachet sold less than 150k copies. That's A) criminal and B) freaking bleak.
As the latest example of ignorant doublespeak, a Sony exec said they felt Sony was on a good course for their projected ten year life cycle. Do you think you can lose the better part of a billion dollars a quarter and have a ten year life cycle?
The Rest of the World
Shane Bettenhausen brought up something scary on the last 1UP Yours. These figures we look at are for North America, mostly. In Japan, it's very different. Japan's moving away from consoles to mobile platforms. There are Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy games you'll probably never see because they run only on Japanese phones (which blow ours away). And in Europe, apparently the PS3 is actually doing well enough that it might be the winner there. When a hit driven market becomes that fragmented, what does that mean? Even more first person shooters for the 360? Even more soccer and rally racing games for the PS3? Even more crap I don't care about for Nintendo systems? Blegh.
25 October, 2007
State of the Consoles
All facts courtesy of Next Gen. All lies and baseless speculation courtesy of me.
Sony
Sony lost $847 million on the games unit last quarter. (I believe both italics and bold were necessary for that word. :) I've often thought that Sony simply needed to suck up the financial losses and lower the price on the hardware enough to move units. Looking at numbers like these... They lose this much at their current, outrageously high price ($500 and $600). If they sold more units and lose more money on each unit, they would easily be losing more than a billion dollars a quarter. Combine this with the fact that the Unreal engine still isn't up to speed on the PS3 (Epic is being sued by licensees over this issue, and even Epic's own UT3, which was supposed to be the PS3's FPS savior this holiday season, was delayed until next year.) and you've got real trouble. There are rumors that Sony is going to developers to ask them to please not cancel the PS3 versions of their games. Who knows? Maybe a bigger portion than we think of those losses are the cost of paid exclusives. In the meantime they're releasing a cheaper ($400) PS3 with no backwards compatibility. Morons. Who do you think cares the most about backwards compatibility? That's right! Cheap asses! Never mind that Sony lied to our faces, making commitments to back compat and chiding Microsoft for going with software emulation. They deserve what they're getting.
Nintendo
The house that Donkey Kong built is still going great guns. The problem (and it's always been on Nintendo systems) is that it's mostly just Nintendo profiting. No titles from other publishers made the top ten this week. Admittedly the publishers don't seem to put their best teams on the Wii, so it's partly their own fault. You'd think with an example like Resident Evil 4 out there, they'd have learned that quality games (even ones that kids can't play) sell, regardless of platform.
Microsoft
Halo 3 destroys all. 3.3 million copies sold in the last eleven days of September. Just barely more 360s than Wiis were sold in September, as well. Third party publishers still see the 360 as the place to make money. Live Arcade and downloadable content is apparently raking it in. The funny part is that Microsoft, uncharacteristically, doesn't seem to have any further plans. They're not relaunching Viva Piñata or otherwise pushing any kid friendly brands to try and take some of Nintendo's demographic. They're not dropping the price enough to make the 360 the one true set top box. Don't tell me Microsoft is just going to improve their efficiency at wringing money out of young males when there are still worlds out there to conquer. Not my Microsoft!
Sony
Sony lost $847 million on the games unit last quarter. (I believe both italics and bold were necessary for that word. :) I've often thought that Sony simply needed to suck up the financial losses and lower the price on the hardware enough to move units. Looking at numbers like these... They lose this much at their current, outrageously high price ($500 and $600). If they sold more units and lose more money on each unit, they would easily be losing more than a billion dollars a quarter. Combine this with the fact that the Unreal engine still isn't up to speed on the PS3 (Epic is being sued by licensees over this issue, and even Epic's own UT3, which was supposed to be the PS3's FPS savior this holiday season, was delayed until next year.) and you've got real trouble. There are rumors that Sony is going to developers to ask them to please not cancel the PS3 versions of their games. Who knows? Maybe a bigger portion than we think of those losses are the cost of paid exclusives. In the meantime they're releasing a cheaper ($400) PS3 with no backwards compatibility. Morons. Who do you think cares the most about backwards compatibility? That's right! Cheap asses! Never mind that Sony lied to our faces, making commitments to back compat and chiding Microsoft for going with software emulation. They deserve what they're getting.
Nintendo
The house that Donkey Kong built is still going great guns. The problem (and it's always been on Nintendo systems) is that it's mostly just Nintendo profiting. No titles from other publishers made the top ten this week. Admittedly the publishers don't seem to put their best teams on the Wii, so it's partly their own fault. You'd think with an example like Resident Evil 4 out there, they'd have learned that quality games (even ones that kids can't play) sell, regardless of platform.
Microsoft
Halo 3 destroys all. 3.3 million copies sold in the last eleven days of September. Just barely more 360s than Wiis were sold in September, as well. Third party publishers still see the 360 as the place to make money. Live Arcade and downloadable content is apparently raking it in. The funny part is that Microsoft, uncharacteristically, doesn't seem to have any further plans. They're not relaunching Viva Piñata or otherwise pushing any kid friendly brands to try and take some of Nintendo's demographic. They're not dropping the price enough to make the 360 the one true set top box. Don't tell me Microsoft is just going to improve their efficiency at wringing money out of young males when there are still worlds out there to conquer. Not my Microsoft!
18 June, 2007
In Case I Wasn't Clear
First off, the case against the 360, as I understand it, is as follows. Every news post about it elicits a dozen horror stories. How many are the same horror stories, I don't know. But there's far too many. There generally aren't horror stories about the PS3 or Wii. The Wii had a console killing firware update the first week it was out. That's it, to my knowledge. Plus, many of these horror stories are the newsposts themselves. Joystiq, Kotaku, Penny Arcade, and Cheap Ass Gamer have all had at least one staffer with a failed 360, and those last two only have two staffers (who are "customer facing" at least). If we gathered nothing but press statistics, it would be pretty damning on its own.
Most of these horror stories aren't just about a failing 360s. The early ones were about Microsoft charging customers lots of money for fixes and shipping and sending them broken (or quick to break) refurbished 360s. Then they charge them again. It's almost like Microsoft found a way to derive revenue from faulty products. Even after they released a new policy saying they'd replace launch units for free, they're probably making money on this. They also agreed to replace any destroyed disk for $20. None of this can be considered generous. Microsoft took almost a year to not admit they'd released significant amounts of faulty product with the initial 360s. But the $20 disk thing is extra insulting. The scuttlebutt is that if your 360 remains completely still, it won't destroy disks, so Microsoft apparently chalks this up to user error. Here's a hot tip, Microsoft, anyone who buys a CD or DVD player, you know, well over ten years after the technology became standardized, has come to expect that moving it while playing will not completely *#$%ing destroy their disk. I know, I shouldn't say it so coarsely, but no one is listening, so who cares what I say?
Okay, so you could still be thinking "this is just bashing from fanboys in other camps". Yeah? Then explain Microsoft running out of cardboard return boxes. How desperate do people have to be to try and eek out a couple of hours of gameplay at a time with the towel trick? Had a look at the informal UPS numbers? How about this article with a sound clip of a Microsoft service rep listing off the service numbers of the eleven wrecked consoles one guy had to go through? Wombat (of Cheap Ass Gamer) had a 360 (his second) which wouldn't load games without the game being inserted three to five times. It eventually became unusable, so now he'll be trying out his third refurb. The CAG podcast has thousands of downloads a week. Major Nelson (Microsoft's community manager) knows of the podcast and had a beer with Wombat at a Microsoft event. If Microsoft won't take care of Wombat, you might as well just die.
And it's gotten worse, in the way it always gets worse, compounding the offense by denying there was any offense. Do this to a woman, and you'll sleep alone.
Gamers are obviously not women because they tolerate this behavior. They're more like crack whores who'll let you do anything to them for that next fix.
Dean Takahashi is a game journalist for the San Jose Mercury News. He spoke with Todd Holmdahl, Corporate VP of Gaming and Xbox Products Group. Todd denied everything. I'm not a religious man, so maybe this means less coming from me, but I believe Dean deserves a sainthood.
Dean gave Todd an absurd number of ways to admit that maybe things aren't entirely perfect around 360 reliability. He even asked if there was any way he could ask a question that would allow Todd to comment on the reliability issue in any way, and got no response (outside of the prerecorded "people love their xboxes" loop). If the problem wasn't that bad, or if a solution was forthcoming, Microsoft would happily appear to take one on the chin to score some PR points.
They're not. They're too scared. The European Union is already investigating 360 reliability issues (specifically disk destruction, but I'm guessing they'll widen the scope when they start digging). My guess is all communications out of Microsoft are being heavliy controlled by the legal department, and with good reason. This is the same EU that fined Microsoft $357 million just for delaying Windows Vista. And as much as they don't want to suffer the pain of a lawsuit, one of the few pieces of info Todd does relate makes the situation even worse. They don't know how to fix it.
Todd makes a point of saying that the problems with the 360 are not systemic, as though that's a good thing. If there's no one problem, there's no one fix. Microsoft can't just add heat sinks and fix this.
That means a major redesign or spiraling down more layers of refurb hell (multiple broken 360s in a row, delays because they've run out of return boxes, etc.) which scares the crap out of me. I could pay $400 and have to go through that? I know early adopters get burned, but this is over a year and a half later. It's not so early anymore. Additionally, the 360 "elite" reportedly has just as many problems as the regular 360s. If Microsoft has learned anything about how to improve reliability, it's apparently too expensive to implement in a $480 product.
I hope the new heat sinks help, but it seems that the failures are so "unsystematic" (disk read errors, disks getting destroyed, CD trays locking up, overheating, dead power supplies, etc.) that it will be at least an entire hardware rev (possibly when they switch to the 65nm process) and a good three months of solid performance in the field before I'd seriously consider shelling out for a 360 without a lifetime warranty.
At the end of the article, Todd describes customer satisfaction as "one of my No. 1 responsibilities." You are obviously a lackey Todd, a toolbox; corporate cannon fodder. Let's hope someone else inside Microsoft has the guts to admit that these strategic desisions may well cost them the war and do something about it.
Most of these horror stories aren't just about a failing 360s. The early ones were about Microsoft charging customers lots of money for fixes and shipping and sending them broken (or quick to break) refurbished 360s. Then they charge them again. It's almost like Microsoft found a way to derive revenue from faulty products. Even after they released a new policy saying they'd replace launch units for free, they're probably making money on this. They also agreed to replace any destroyed disk for $20. None of this can be considered generous. Microsoft took almost a year to not admit they'd released significant amounts of faulty product with the initial 360s. But the $20 disk thing is extra insulting. The scuttlebutt is that if your 360 remains completely still, it won't destroy disks, so Microsoft apparently chalks this up to user error. Here's a hot tip, Microsoft, anyone who buys a CD or DVD player, you know, well over ten years after the technology became standardized, has come to expect that moving it while playing will not completely *#$%ing destroy their disk. I know, I shouldn't say it so coarsely, but no one is listening, so who cares what I say?
Okay, so you could still be thinking "this is just bashing from fanboys in other camps". Yeah? Then explain Microsoft running out of cardboard return boxes. How desperate do people have to be to try and eek out a couple of hours of gameplay at a time with the towel trick? Had a look at the informal UPS numbers? How about this article with a sound clip of a Microsoft service rep listing off the service numbers of the eleven wrecked consoles one guy had to go through? Wombat (of Cheap Ass Gamer) had a 360 (his second) which wouldn't load games without the game being inserted three to five times. It eventually became unusable, so now he'll be trying out his third refurb. The CAG podcast has thousands of downloads a week. Major Nelson (Microsoft's community manager) knows of the podcast and had a beer with Wombat at a Microsoft event. If Microsoft won't take care of Wombat, you might as well just die.
And it's gotten worse, in the way it always gets worse, compounding the offense by denying there was any offense. Do this to a woman, and you'll sleep alone.
Gamers are obviously not women because they tolerate this behavior. They're more like crack whores who'll let you do anything to them for that next fix.
Dean Takahashi is a game journalist for the San Jose Mercury News. He spoke with Todd Holmdahl, Corporate VP of Gaming and Xbox Products Group. Todd denied everything. I'm not a religious man, so maybe this means less coming from me, but I believe Dean deserves a sainthood.
Dean gave Todd an absurd number of ways to admit that maybe things aren't entirely perfect around 360 reliability. He even asked if there was any way he could ask a question that would allow Todd to comment on the reliability issue in any way, and got no response (outside of the prerecorded "people love their xboxes" loop). If the problem wasn't that bad, or if a solution was forthcoming, Microsoft would happily appear to take one on the chin to score some PR points.
They're not. They're too scared. The European Union is already investigating 360 reliability issues (specifically disk destruction, but I'm guessing they'll widen the scope when they start digging). My guess is all communications out of Microsoft are being heavliy controlled by the legal department, and with good reason. This is the same EU that fined Microsoft $357 million just for delaying Windows Vista. And as much as they don't want to suffer the pain of a lawsuit, one of the few pieces of info Todd does relate makes the situation even worse. They don't know how to fix it.
Todd makes a point of saying that the problems with the 360 are not systemic, as though that's a good thing. If there's no one problem, there's no one fix. Microsoft can't just add heat sinks and fix this.
That means a major redesign or spiraling down more layers of refurb hell (multiple broken 360s in a row, delays because they've run out of return boxes, etc.) which scares the crap out of me. I could pay $400 and have to go through that? I know early adopters get burned, but this is over a year and a half later. It's not so early anymore. Additionally, the 360 "elite" reportedly has just as many problems as the regular 360s. If Microsoft has learned anything about how to improve reliability, it's apparently too expensive to implement in a $480 product.
I hope the new heat sinks help, but it seems that the failures are so "unsystematic" (disk read errors, disks getting destroyed, CD trays locking up, overheating, dead power supplies, etc.) that it will be at least an entire hardware rev (possibly when they switch to the 65nm process) and a good three months of solid performance in the field before I'd seriously consider shelling out for a 360 without a lifetime warranty.
At the end of the article, Todd describes customer satisfaction as "one of my No. 1 responsibilities." You are obviously a lackey Todd, a toolbox; corporate cannon fodder. Let's hope someone else inside Microsoft has the guts to admit that these strategic desisions may well cost them the war and do something about it.
12 April, 2007
Because I Felt Like Being Snarky
I read too much gaming news, and there was a lot of it today. I guess the fiscal quarter transition brings it out. I'll never write for Kotaku or Joystiq, but for some reason I felt like writing for myself today. This post is simultaneously quite informative (if you don't read as much gaming news as me) and pointlessly snarky. If you enjoy that sort of thing, read on.
- Sony is halting 20GB PS3 production after less than six months on the market. I guess even pretending they had a low low entry point of half a grand was too much effort.
- Nobody is excited about the 1337 edition of the 360. (Maybe if it doesn't eat disks, charge for multiplayer and cheat codes, and break down in under year like many of the regular 360s seem to...)
- Sony is increasing production, which I guess is to reflect that they're now selling units in Europe, since they seem to have more than they need in the US.
- Microsoft is getting called out on horrendous channel stuffing. They put so many units in the channel last Q4 (4.4 million) that they're estimating only moving 1.6 million for the entire first half of this year.
- There are rumors that with the fiscal quarter sewn up, Nintendo may decide to unleash some secret stash of Wiis into the marketplace. On some level it seems reasonable since the Wii should be the easiest of all the systems to build, but it seems like Nintendo has been doing their manufacturing on the cheap to wring out every last penny.
- EA, and I think a few others, basically admitted they screwed up by not putting enough resources into Wii dev. The PS3 (which they put full resources behind) had production problems with blu-ray and slow adoption at a $600 price point. What $16 billion dollar company could have afforded the analyst coverage to have foreseen that?
In the interest of fairness, I've never made a game console. I'm guessing it's really, really hard. But even with that, I can see one simple thing, all three console makers got greedy, and it's probably costing them millions. In fact, I'd almost say game consoles are over. Sony and Microsoft are selling home media centers and Nintendo is selling to grandmas.
See if you can enjoy this analogy. We're gaming city. We're not the envy of the living room entertainment nation, but we've got a respectable economy. Our little city is just fine. Oh shit.
Everybody is screaming. Stuff is blowing up left and right. The news is going apeshit. Godzilla and Mechagodzilla (after all, they're largely interchangeable) are fighting for control of the nation. They're throwing DVR lightning bolts and myspace missiles at each other. Downloadable content is raining down like a friggin' meteor swarm. Although in this already laughably broken analogy, their real effect seems to be driving up real estate prices so that no one can afford to live here anymore. :) In the meantime, the army is trying to herd us (and everyone in the rest of the nation) into trucks to take us to some ghetto ass voting channel minigame refugee tent city.
So what do you do? Where are you going to be when the dust settles? Where do gamers really end up in the battle for the consolidated living room?
First to go. Last to know, eh?
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