Rantings of an old man....a dark soul looking into an abyss that grows by the day. Music fills his head and knowldge busts forth from his...well you get the point, the dude's smart!

• 4Nov 06

  Gears of War is 360's Metroid

  Am I the only one that sees the sense in all of this? Gears of War is not the Xbox 360's "Zelda" there is no way that Gears even fits into the same space as Zelda in terms of widespread appeal and gameplay style. The game is for the hardcore Xbox 360 fans! In that respect I feel that Gears of War is Xbox 360's "Metroid"

   

  Lets run down the list shall we:

   

  -          Metroid is a beloved series by hardcore Nintendo fans, and it is still to be argued if Metroid has wide spread appeal. The Metroid franchise does not draw the hardcore Sony fan or MS fan to a Nintendo console like Zelda or Mario would. In that sense Gears of War, like Halo, will be the hardcore fan favorite for most Xbox 360 fans. This is not to say that Halo is diminished by the mere presence of Gears, on the contrary, Halo seems more like Xbox 360’s “Mario” in terms of simple pick up and play gameplay and brilliant level design. But that’s a topic for another post.

  -          Metroid redefined platformers as Gears sets to redefine a third person shooter. Metroid offered a huge overworld that was a side scrolling adventure game. Gone were the days when people used the tried and true formula of stages and level passwords. Samus is not the typical machine gun totting badass walking the streets looking for trouble, slowly making her way through stages 1 through 20. She is progressively changing and gaining skills to help combat an unseen enemy. The same way with Gears; Marcus, as much as the chainsaw gun is a machine gun, does not seem like the typical “bald space marine” that many would peg him into. He seems to have feelings, opinions, and a philosophy on life and death, a true realist. But from the little I’ve seen of Gears, Marcus doesn’t seem like the one who changes throughout the game, but rather the player; adapting to the style of gameplay implemented by Epic’s grand visionary, CliffyB. Learning to stay behind cover is something GRAW rarely punished its players with (and the codes made it worse). GoW’s gameplay smacks the player a ton for running out in the middle of a fire fight…in that sense, Gears changes how many people play first person shooters and third person action games.

  -          Metroid also failed to overshadow Mario and Zelda in terms of appeal and even *gasp* reliability. Gears of War has failed, partly due to Microsoft’s PR strategy, to overshadow Halo 3, and rightfully so. Gears of War as of the time of this post has yet to prove itself in the community and it remains to be seen if the game lives up to the hype surrounding it, whereas Halo is a proven franchise that still makes Microsoft tons of money. Throwing Gears of War in the same faction as Halo not only diminishes the franchise’s importance to Microsoft’s overall marketing strategy, but belittles Microsoft’s first party trust and support. Imagine for me if you will if Nintendo made a killer Zelda game only to have it overshadowed by a third party developed adventure game published by Nintendo. It would be a travesty to all those who put their hard work into the next Zelda game. In the same sense, Metroid has not broken through the force field that Mario and Zelda create, but rather it has joined a Holy Trinity of Nintendo games that fans love; Mario for the casual, Zelda for the curious, and Metroid for the hardcore. The same can be said about Microsoft’s Holy Trinity, Halo for the casual and Gears of War for the hardcore. Unfortunately for Xbox fans however, the “Zelda” of Xbox has yet to be seen. Most of the good adventure games for the system are third party developed and multiplatform. This is something Microsoft needs to look into…and maybe Banjo-Kazzoie might fill that space cause Forerunner knows Kameo was not the “Zelda” we were looking for.    

   

   

  • Posted Nov 4, 2006 4:17 am PT
  • Category: Games
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• 18Apr 06

  Because We Say So!: The State of Videogame Journalism

   

  There comes a time in ever person’s life where they must examine where they are in terms of where they want to be. This is no exception when it comes to being a videogame player. There always should be time for self reflection and inward sifting of materials; important and non-important essentials. Things that we as game players must examine is what kind of media we take in and absorb, what is our output or contribution to the medium, and examine areas that we can help, or improve to make the medium better. Such is the case with my outsiders view into the gaming industry.
  
  This unapologetic, name-names, full disclosure article is one of three pieces that will examine the legitimacy, the sensibility, and the infallibility of Online Gaming Journalism. The three major websites I will examine are 1up, IGN, and Gamespot. For full disclosure, my username at 1up is “Darkkoji”; at Gamespot it is “KojiBrother”, and at IGN it is “DarkkojiIGN” of which I am a paying subscriber.
  
  This is not a contest to see which website is the best, or to chide websites for their coverage, these pieces are simply to examine the current state of gaming journalism. As an outsider looking in, I have am not prevy to inside information on the goings on of each website. I formulate my opinions based on what I see the website outputs and what the different editors have to say about their own website through their own blogs or editorials. This is an opinion piece and should be treated as such.
  ___________________________________________________________
  
  First Topic: Legitimacy 
  
  In this ever growing industry, one might argue that since gaming has always been a niche market, the journalism for that market can seem just as niche from those outside the community. That argument has it’s merits, after all car fans have car mags, and sex addicts have Maxum, or Playboy, or the good ol’ internet, why can’t “gamers” have their own media. But in this growing industry can gaming journalism be so closed minded? Are game journalists content with their jobs seen as some kind of marketing space for publishers, or free publicity?
  
  Dan “Shoe” Hsu of 1up fame has made numerous references to the open water that publishers and manufactures see in game journalism;
  
  “Recently, some publicists for another game company were lamenting the fact that they couldn't get any coverage on a certain, very high-profile website out there, because they weren't advertising with that site. To get stories written up on their games, they'd have to start spending the bucks. More editorial coverage for sale. Wonderful.”
  
  It is no secret that game journalism was created to push product. This fact stems back to the 1980s when Nintendo Power first launched. Alex Navarro of Gamespot reputation said in a video feature celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the NES;
  
  “Nintendo Power [1986], to me, always really read like state run press, you know what I mean? Like the government owns this press outlet and they’re just feeding it the propaganda and the people who report this need not bite the hand that feed and all this stuff.”
  
  But game journalism doesn’t just suffer sometimes from publisher and manufacturing perks, but also emotional responses. IGN editors in a Game Journalism Podcast of march 30th, 2006 stated that emotions play some small part in reviewing games. Douglas Perry states;
  
  “I don’t think we have ever picked a guy who hated a game to review the game…But I think the question is a good one, that Eric asked, because, you know, if you really do like the genre or a particular series, and you have fond memories of it, how do you separate your emotional response to that game from your job as a critic and your job as a critic is to look at it critically and critique it and to look at it from a certain distance so it’s kind of hard and I think there’s issues there that are worth exploring. A. If you really, really like the game, how can you see it objectively well since we’ve played so many games…I am a little separated ‘well you know, this is another game amongst many I’ve played’ and also I don’t want the review to go up and be dishonest. I want it to be an honest review that I can look at the next day and say ‘That is how I felt’ and feel good about it.”
  
  These statements put into question whether or not a game journalist today can be really trusted whenever they say a game is good or bad when reviews or news coverage could be based on company loyalties, publisher perks, reviewer emotions, doesn’t it?
  
  Wrong, on the contrary many game journalists are very fair and forthcoming when it comes to reviewing games. Even though a website is given a game in advance they are in no way pressured to give the game a high score just because they have the game before anyone else.
  
  To look at the broader scope of legitimacy, one of the things that online game reviews and online gaming media face is the question, “Is gaming journalism a legit news source, or some marketing ploy?”
  
  Why doesn’t CNN, or Fox turn to videogame journalists for opinions about games? Why do so many politicians not talk with the people who interact with games most? Why are things so disjointed between major news media and game media? In my opinion, it is because videogames themselves are seen as product, not art, or entertainment. To major news media, it seems that IGN, Gamespot, and 1up are publisher driven outlets. It’s a shame that many news publications and the major news media in general, feel that way about games. But is there a reason why they would feel that way? Are their views justifiable?
  
  Maybe. I know many reviewers receive countless blogs, message board posts, and emails saying that “Sony paid you off to review that game so high” and they are probably sick of it, but can this image be helped? For this section, let’s look at 1up (next time we’ll discuss IGN).
  
  In 1up’s case, having editors in charge of 1up’s site, EGM, CGW and The Official Playstation Magazine may put reviews of certain games in question. The cross pollinating of each department makes it seem hard to believe that Sony, or Microsoft have no say in what a review has or doesn’t have in it or even the score. Being the mangers of The Official Playstation Magazine, how can any consumer feel comfortable with 1up’s coverage of anything Sony related if the editors for that magazine’s job is write about what Sony gives them?
  
  It is not a problem if these editors and reviewers just worked for The Official mag alone, but when these same reviewers hover over into the online space and review games for the online site, or EGM, the views become tainted with doubt. How can a main news outlet not think that 1up, or any other site or game news media that has ties to the official magazine of a publisher/manufacturer, are not in bed with the company that feeds them news? These partnerships not only hurt the medium as a whole, but the entire perception of the industry.
  
  At the end of this week’s rant I end with this; even though the medium as a whole wishes to be non partial to a company and see themselves to be above media influences, If companies feel that they are not getting coverage from sites like IGN, 1up, or Gamespot, they take their wares else where. But like Dan Hsu said in response to publishers wanting favors from mags,
  
  “We've never been and never will be beholden to any outside party. If we miss out on some coverage...well, too bad. Ultimately, they're punishing their own customers (you guys), not us.”
  
  - Charles Samuel
  
  Sources:
  
  Dan Hsu’s Blog: http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=6228583&publicUserId=5379799
  
  Gamespot: Flashback NES feature
  http://www.gamespot.com/features/6144735/index.html?q=Flashback
  
  IGN Podcast Series:
  http://games.ign.com/articles/699/699392p1.html
  

  • Posted Apr 18, 2006 12:46 pm PT
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• 16Feb 06

  From 1up's _sean_.....with love.....Happy V-Day

  "dont have as many developers as sony, and both lacked in certain genres last-gen compared to Sony. Thats why sony 'won' with ps2. It looks like little has changed. Nintendo will make youth-oriented games, MS will make PC-like games (racing, FPS) and Sony will have everything else on lockdown. People who buy Sony consoles do it for the GAMES. Not because "oooh theyre available right now!!11!" Dreamcast was out before Ps2 and look at what happened to it. "

  (Darkkoji's/KojiBrother's Response)

  HE He

  It amazes me that everyone puts the blame on dreamcast comming out first for its falires. The reason Dreamcast flopped was becuase Sega ran out of money to support the system also they lacked developer support. All becuase the PS2 had a built in DVD player, the next gen of media format, at the time. The PS2 was bought becuase people assumed they could play DVD movies on thier console right out of the box at half the price of a normal DVD player. They were right...you could play DVD movies on your PS2 and people just forgot about dreamcast and its CD-ROM tech. Fastforward to the now. Xbox 360 launches first with PS3 holding the blu-ray card. No I aggree with you that ps2 won, but I dissagree that it was for games. The PS2 has a vast library of games, but let me ask you this...what is the percentage of good games. Sure any system could have a library of crap games, dosen't make the system better.

  The PS3 will rock! indeed, but that's if Sony can live up to the videos they showed at E3 2005. Do you know many people are still waiting for Toy Story like graphics for the PS2...yah...unlikely. My point, as a sony supporter you should see that backing sony in this fight is pointless because each system has its faults. The 360 does not require the HDD for every game, that's bad considering how much could be done with the extra memory. The rev and ps3 aren't out yet so it isn't fair to make an assumption of how they will turn out..but I can say that the ps3 might not have an advantage over nintendo...why i say this....Nintendo annouced that the Revolution will have a DVD add on that could be purchesed seprately and slide into the system (Iwata-san 2005 e3 keynote and GDC 2005 keynote) Reggie FA said that nintendo was expirementing with blue laser disc technology for revolution back at e3 2005...so what? Well they what here is waht if the rev cost 199 and the HD-DVD add on would cost 100 dollars. That means the rev would be able to play hd-dvd making buying a Ps3 somewhat useless. I am just saying man..calm down...there are no playable builds of any PS3 game, no ps3 system to be found (former sony employee) and spring is almost here....its a shame...some people are still waiting for the emotion enigine.

  • Posted Feb 16, 2006 11:51 am PT
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