TimeSync's Blog - GameSpot

Title	Score
Lumines	9.5
F.E.A.R.	9.1
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time	8.8
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time	9.7
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem	9.6
Spy Hunter	8.8
Final Fantasy X	9.1
World of Warcraft	9.0
EverQuest II	6.8
Lemonade Tycoon	8.4

27Dec 05

The Rise of Co-Dependent Video Games

You guys miss me? I've been M.I.A. for a while as I worked out some of my issues. I had to work out that whole incarceration thing (I swear to God I never dropped my soap in the shower and you can't prove that I did). Then there was the whole straight jacket incident... yeah, let's not discuss that. But I'm back now. And you know what that means? It means you're going to have to live with my gaming pontification once more. Deal with it; you know you love it.

Someone out there has to tell me what is with the proliferation of co-dependent video games? I'm going to use two (arguably) excellent games to explain my point: Nintendogs and Animal Crossing: Wild World. I'm going to reserve my judgment on these games for the moment I've actually played them enough to give suitable judgment on them. However, the little I have played begs the question "why do I want to feel as if I have gaming obligations?"

I play video games because I want to, not because I have to. However, with these two games there are time-dependent obligations that must be fulfilled. If one of your neighbors in Animal Crossing tells you to come back tomorrow, they really mean come back tomorrow. If you leave your dog alone for a couple days in Nintendogs, it reacts with such utter sadness and despair that you literally feel guilty.

It's a video game, for pete's sake! It's not even an MMO where I can understand that kind of behavior given that there are real people behind the characters and real relationships are affected by your presence (or lack thereof). However, I do not want to get guilt trips from a polygon puppy who doesn't understand I have bills to pay and women to chase. Ok, so maybe I just have bills to pay. A man can dream can't he? (And if they told you I was stalking them, they're liars, I tell you. Liars!)

The concept of having real-world tangibles such as your voice or the time of day affect your in-game experience is certainly an interesting idea; but I'm not sure how much I'm going to be able to jump on board with it. I don't want to feel obligated to play a video game. The beauty of World of Warcraft was that even with being in a guild I didn't feel obligated to play every day. In fact, there were whole months that went by when I didn't touch it because the real world demanded my attention.

I play video games for one reason alone: because I want to. And unless there's more to this new generation of guilt-tripping video games, I don't think a lot of them will be on any of my top ten lists.

Posted Dec 27, 2005 3:29 pm PT
Category: N/A
6 Comments

2Sep 05

Hurricane Katrina

I'd been going out of my skull all week long because one of my close friends live(d) in New Orleans (he's a freelance writer for GameSpot Mobile). Ironically enough, he was supposed to move to Southern California in the middle of September. I tried calling him and emailing him to no avail (understandably so). Then last night he contacted me. He and some of his friends had gotten out just at the start of the storm and he was doing ok.

Then he started telling me stories. Some of his friends had gotten out later than him and showed up at the house where he was staying a day or two after he did... and they inevitably came with horrific stories detailing the decline of human behavior in the region. 80% of the city was under water. Corpses were floating past rooftops. The details he gave me were so much worse than anything I'd envisioned that I can't even repeat them.

I put up a bulletin in the 4th Wall about what you can do to help if you want to. If you have three weeks of your life to give, the Red Cross is offering two days intensive training followed by three week deployment in New Orleans. If I could, I would be there in a second. But there are other ways to help and the first place to start is to contact your local Red Cross or a local church group. I'm an atheist, but this transcends my feelings about God.

The whole week, I've been sitting here in relative ignorance of what's going on down there. I'm pissed off at myself because I didn't fully understand the magnitude and the depth of things going on down there. The news reports are obviously disturbing, but it's a layer of abstraction that allowed me to not be as concerned about it about as I now am. I mean, outside of my own friends, I wasn't too concerned because I was under the mistaken impression that our disaster response would be adequate enough to handle it.

Now I'm less upset with myself, but I'm definitely more upset at what I see as a lack-luster response by the federal government. The media has done a (surprisingly) excellent job of keeping us up to date on the happenings. But the federal government took four days to appropriate funds for disaster relief; they took five days to get the National Guard there in any significant numbers; they took five days to get the airlines to start offering flights to affected residents to places where they could get help; and all Bush can do is go on TV and say something to effect of "it looks bad now, but we'll be stronger after it's over."

I'm telling you, I was not a lover of our President before this disaster. But his lackluster response to a disaster of this magnitude on American soil doesn't have me pissed off at him any more; it just has me completely and utterly disappointed. I disagreed with him on Iraq. But if there was one thing I never doubted it's that somewhere in his warped mind, a part of him thought he was doing the best thing for the country. Emotionally, I was in sync with him when 9/11 happened and in the days surrounding 9/11 he was nothing if not Presidential. During the immediate weeks following 9/11, I was actually proud to have him as our President. I thought about what it would have been like if Gore were in office and I was actually happy that Gore lost the election because I couldn't see Gore speaking to the American people on the emotional level that Bush was.

But now I'm just completely disappointed almost to the point of feeling broken. I was hoping I would have the opportunity to get that feeling back again; that feeling of American pride that was so obviously present in this country post-9/11. It was a feeling that stemmed directly from the leadership of the federal government. But I've been unable to find that feeling during thie crisis because our national leaders are dropping the ball. I listened to the Mayor of New Orleans address the nation on the radio and I've never heard a politician more... I used the word "raw" when speaking with WedgeWu earlier, but I think the word I was searching for was "real". I've never heard a politician more real. And he's nothing if not upset.

Two buildings fall down in New York, thousands dead, and the federal government's response was swift, sure, and decisive. A whole city sinks under the sea like Atlantis and it takes four days, an upset mayor, and corpses floating in between rooftops before the federal government gets the National Guard mobilized in any seriousness.

Before, I just strongly disagreed with Bush; now I'm just fed-up. I'm done with this administration. If you guys see me mouth off about Bush and his policies again remind me I said "I'm done with this administration". I'm done writing about them and I'm done caring about them. I'm just done. My tirade is over.

Posted Sep 2, 2005 8:25 pm PT
Category: N/A
1 Comment

20Jul 05

The 4th Wall

It's alive!

For a little while now, I've been talking about getting a few people together to put together a union to end all unions! Well this one is it. It's a place of opinion put together by a small group of us, including Oilers99, Adam_B, Andrew_A, and wedgewu. More will most likely be added over the next couple weeks.

What's the idea behind the whole thing? Well to get different members of the community speaking out about what's important to them in gaming. The first week of opinions is on a very tame issue: what gives a game value. Don't worry, it probably won't stay tame for too long... after all, Oilers99 isn't exactly a tame guy.

We will be adding new opinions every weekday (and if we get enough people, eventually every day). There are new features which we're thinking about adding to the mix as well... so this is only beginning. Check back daily (except this week Adam's not available, so he's probably not going to be posting)...

.. and let me know if you're interested in joining up and posting regularly.

Posted Jul 20, 2005 8:36 pm PT
Category: N/A
11 Comments

2Jun 05

Where TV Shows Go To Die

As this is my first posting on TV.com, I figured I should give a tribute to the shows I care about that will no longer be with us.

Well, there's only one, really; Star Trek: Enterprise. This will be the first time in almost 30 years where there won't be a Star Trek on TV (not counting the ones in syndication) and it hurts my heart. I admit, I was skeptical of Enterprise in the beginning when I first heard that Scott Bakula of Quantum Leap fame was going to inherit the giant shoes of William Shatner and (more importantly) Patrick Stewart. But he surprised me; he was perfect.

The premise of the show was really cool (for lack of a better word). I mean, as a Trekker (note: not Trekkie), I always wanted to know about the evolution of the transporter and warp drive. The way the Federation was formed always intrigued me. And Jolene Blalock definitely intrigued me.

Seriously, though. What did Paramount expect when they put Trek on a Friday night? Friday nights are where television shows go to die. Another show I watch right now taken a serious drop in the ratings most likely due to their Friday night time slot (Joan of Arcadia). No, I am not even in the slightest bit religious. However, the show is very well done. But I mean come on! How many people really sit at home on a Friday night and watch TV? Not too many people I know.

In the case of Firefly, Fox figured out after-the-fact that they made a big mistake taking it off the air. Yes, the show had low ratings while it was on the air... but dammit, it was put on a Friday night time slot! One of the only shows I know that did well on a Friday night was the X-Files. And not all shows are as exceptional as the X-Files once was.

I was already pissed off by UPN's overly-stereotypical portrayal of African Americans, but cancelling Enterprise has pushed me over the edge. I have actually removed the station from my DVR listing in protest and unless it's a Star Trek, I'm never watching anything on UPN ever again. I would boycott Paramount altogether, but they make too many movies... I can't avoid them in the theater.

Oh well, enjoy TV.com everyone. The crew here worked really hard to get it out the door and up and running. This is just the beginning of things to come.

Now let's have a moment of silence for Friday night shows past, present, and future...

Posted Jun 2, 2005 3:49 pm PT
Category: N/A
3 Comments

7May 05

So close, yet so far...

Lumines has taken over my gaming life for the past couple weeks...

Last week I couldn't get above 638k. Today, my good friends, I'm here telling you've I've now hit 859,127 points. Now I know there are people who have already reached the 999,999 limit. Fortunately for them I don't have the time to play this game as much as I would like (what, with E3 approaching and all that).

999,999 is now within my grasp!

Posted May 7, 2005 9:55 pm PT
Category: N/A
9 Comments

3May 05

Final Fantasy VIII ...

...is the second worst Final Fantasy in the whole series. What's the worst? Final Fantasy VII.

I'm going to wait for the fanboys to calm down before I continue.

So now you're going to ask why I think these two are horrible Final Fantasy games? Well it all centers around one theme: choice. In both VII and VIII there's just too much choice. The graphics are great. The stories are up to Final Fantasy standards (read: excellent). But there's just too much choice.

My particular flavor of Kobe Beef with these games have to do with the materia system. It took away all attempts of character differentiation. In both games using the materia system I was able to give everyone Ultima and Knights of the Round Table making the battles a complete joke. My black mage had excellent white magic abilities. My fighter could toss lightening like nobody's business. All around character differentiation went down the tubes. The idea that each character had a particular strength appealed to me. But once the materia system came in to play each character could have the exact same strengths and then the only thing to differentiate one character from another was their back story.

That, my friends, is my beef with Final Fantasy 7 and 8. With that said, one of my favorite Final Fantasy's to date is Final Fantasy 10. Why? Because they gave you limited choice. Sure, you could spend an ungodly amount of hours giving everyone the same skillset through the sphere grid... but at the end of the day, Lulu was your black mage for most of the game given that she started out in that section of the grid (unless you moved her off that section way in the beginning). This limited choice is something I prefer. I have the freedom to tweak her in-game skills but not to give her (and everyone else) the powers of a deity.

Character differentiation is important to me in a role playing game. I want to know there's a reason for me to level up one person over another. I don't want to feel like I can just have three or four main characters who are unstoppable and can do everything -- because if I feel that way, I have no inclination to play with anyone else. As it is I have my favorite characters, but I still use everyone.

Is Final Fantay VII still a good game? Yeah, it is. But it's the worst one of the bunch.

And hey, none of them even hold a candle to Chrono Trigger.

Posted May 3, 2005 6:32 pm PT
Category: N/A
10 Comments

13Apr 05

The Rebirth of Video Games

Let's face it, I've been a video game slacker for years now. I don't know, for the most part, they had lost their pizzazz for me. That's not to say I wasn't playing them any more (because I certainly was still playing them a lot). However, I was playing them more out of habit than any fiending need for it. Whole months used to go by without me picking up a controller. Too many clubs to go to, too many movies to watch, too many girlfriend-related activities to attend to, and too many different things to arrange in the apartment.

Well I'm now re-dedicating myself to my second love (that being video games). I have removed the girlfriend-related activities from my life by removing the girlfriend (who would have thought a simple tactic like that could work); and let's face it, Hollywood hasn't been at it's best in the last couple years; and the apartment is all set (in fact, it's totally pimp). Why am I re-dedicating myself, you may ask? Because the PSP has fanned the flames of my passion for video games. I don't know why, but there's something about a new console that just gets me going again. In case you all haven't noticed there is now quite a long list of games on my "Now Playing" list. And yes, I am playing all of them at least twice a week.

And honestly, this isn't all due to the PSP... it's actually more due to Lumines. That game has single-handedly been responsible for reminding me why I love(d) video games so much: the multiplayer action. For the past couple weeks I've been locked in a heated point-scoring back and forth with Justin Calvert, a GameSpot editor. After a week or so of hard core Lumines we passed the honorable Greg Kasavin. Then it was just the two of us battling for the top slot in the office.

I've managed to hold him off for a little over a week now, but he's gunning for me. Until last night, I had a score of 303k points which he had yet to beat. Then he came back and beat that score by over 10k points. Luckily I had picked up Lumines again last night and put up a chart-topping 368k. Clearly I have to stay on my toes with him, otherwise he might regain the top slot he only recently lost.

This is why I love video games... the competition.

Posted Apr 13, 2005 10:06 pm PT
Category: N/A
11 Comments

28Mar 05

Sony Did It Right. Period.

For all of us serious gamers, it's not about the system, it's about the games. Right? 20+ games at launch, five of which have massively multiplayer online play. I myself have purchased 4 games: Lumines, Twisted Metal: Head On, Metal Gear Acid and WipEout and there are still a handful more that I need to purchase. But before I go in to the games, let's discuss the device.

The first thing everyone mentions is the sexiness of the device. But after days of using the PSP, it's not the sexiness that I'm impressed with, it's the ease of use. I don't know why, but I had expected things to be more complicated. Even though I've been playing with the PSP for a few months with the Japanese units lying around the office, it's different now because I actually own one and can experiment. First off, I expected the wireless setup to be more difficult than it was. I've now set up two different wireless hotspots (one with encryption and one without) and both times it was easy as pie. It was dirt easy to connect to the WipEout download site from inside the game. Playing Lumines and WipEout against local players was even easier. But there was one thing which I approached with complete trepidation: connecting to the Twisted Metal: Head On network and playing a game. My fear was completely unnecessary as I booted up Twisted Metal, logged in to the server (it automatically created my login with the password I supplied) and I was able to play immediately. My reaction: "Holy crap! Online works!" But the games? What about them?

Lumines. Wow. Those of you that know me from the forums know that I've been raving about this game since I first played the Japenese version in December. I was afraid that it might lose it's flavor once I bought it for myself. Boy was I wrong. It's just as addictive now as it was when I first played it. For those of you who haven't checked out one of the more recent Penny Arcade strips, check it out (I would just put the strip image in here, but I don't want to take away their ad impressions). While there are definitely some technical flaws with the game, replayability and enjoyment is at its peak whenever I play it. The few flaws I've noticed are the following:

The music takes a little bit of time to spin back up whenever I put the game on pause. While this doesn't really bother me or disturb my gameplay, it is something that's pretty obvious and I wish they had fixed it.
I don't know if this is a flaw or deliberate: if I'm pressing down to drop a block, once the block has landed the next block will continue to drop fast unless I take my finger off the down arrow. I would prefer it that the next block doesn't drop fast regardless of if my finger is still on the down arrow or not. Again, I'm not sure if this is a bug or deliberate, but it's a pin in the butt, especially when it gets to the point where I'm dropping things close to the top.

WipEout. Again, wow. This is one of the graphical powerhouses of the launch titles. While I agree that a game is more than just graphics, for all you DS fans, a good game with excellent graphics is better than a good game with crappy graphics. And WipEout is an excellent game with excellent graphics. The D-Pad is responsive; the speed is intense; the racing competitors are cutthroat; and the multiplayer is a nailbiter. I'm more than satisfied with this launch title.

Metal Gear Acid. You know, there isn't a single game I purchased at launch that actually has not made me say "wow". I haven't played MGA as much as I would like to, but I'm shocked at IGN's low score and bad review of the game. It's not what you would expect from a Metal Gear, but after playing it for the little time that I have played it, it definitely has the feel of a Metal Gear. The emphasis on stealth is there; the need to strategize in order to avoid confrontation is just as strong as in every other MG. The high end graphics you've come to expect from MG is also there as the PSP is definitely no slouch in that department. And the story, so far, is very much in the style of a MG game. I have a hard time not agreeing with Brad's review of the game. Gamerankings is putting the game in the mid-seven's. If you're a Metal Gear fan, just keep an open mind about this game. The card mechanic is different, but it fits very well.

Rather than go on to speak about Twisted Metal, instead I'm going to speak about Sony. If there are any Sony reps out there reading this journal (which I doubt), I just want to congratulate you guys on a launch well done. You have put out a group of games which is not only enjoyable in the short run, but some of them even have long-lasting replayability (specifically Lumines and Twisted Metal out of the ones I own, IMO). Not only that, but you didn't rush the launch and you managed to give your publishers and developers enough time to launch titles with online play. You've developed a device that's easy to use; easy to configure; and very sleek.

My only wish now is that you will figure out the media portions of the PSP. Getting videos and MP3s on there is too difficult for the layman. And as of yet, there's no way to purchase music from Sony Connect. Also, I need a 1 gig memory stick. And no, I refuse to pay the $230 price tag that you guys are charging at your store. That's only $20 less than the price of a PSP. No way. You should have had the SanDisk sticks available at launch.

Sony: don't screw up. Nintendo will be gunning for you and while you guys are going after different markets, there is overlap and all you need is the perception of competition. You have a golden opportunity to make a foothold in the handheld market. I don't care whether you take over the market or not. I only care that I get to play my PSP for years to come. I also care that you keep the games coming. Do not under any circumstances make the same mistake that Nintendo has been making with the DS. Keep a steady stream of new games coming to the device and I'll be a happy camper. I don't mean just 1 game a month. I mean at least 5 to 10 within the next four weeks and I want to see a ramp-up in games after that too. I expect E3 to be big for you. So don't let me down. You're off to a great start... don't screw up.

Posted Mar 28, 2005 10:07 am PT
Category: N/A
6 Comments

18Mar 05

Gaming Journalism: Is it broken?

Over the course of the last couple months, there's been a lot of talk in the media about the state of journalism. Most of that started due to the revelations that the Bush administration was paying journalists and pundits to push certain agendas. It continued when it became known that the very same administration has been paying actors to produce news, paying journalists to write propaganda, and paying Republican party members to pose as journalists. It was only a matter of time before someone in the gaming industry turned their eyes to gaming journalism and asked the question "is gaming journalism broken?"

In the recent Game Developer's Conference here in San Francisco last week, there was a very interesting session basically allowing developers to rant and rage about their issues with the industry. Jason Della Rocca, director of the IGDA, briefly hinted at the fact that gaming journalism was broken. Of course, everyone on the panel had quite a mouthful to say, but for some reason, he just glossed over this point. Unfortunately, that's the point I was most interested in hearing more about.

So instead, I decided to take a close look at our industry and see exactly how it might be broken. As with any industry, there are problems. I myself have only been in this industry for approximately two years. So while I don't have nearly as much experience as the irreverant Greg Kasavin, I might have the unique perspective of a being new and fresh. I guess I should start by saying that I have come to have the utmost amount of respect for the editors here at Gamespot. I had no idea how difficult their job was until I started working here. I had been a long time patron of Gamespot before working here and I always thought to myself "It would be the best job in the world to play video games all day long and write about."

While I think all of our editors would agree that they absolutely love their jobs, there's a lot more to it than just playing games and writing about them. It takes a certain amount of integrity and strength of character to stay as objective as they do. After all, we all have the innate potential to become a little fanboyish at times. But somehow the GS crew manages to keep their fanboy tendencies out of their reviews and impressions. They approach each game with a fresh pair of eyes and that's something I'm not sure I would be able to do. You guys are lucky I don't write reviews and just write the occassional opinion on Gamespotting.

But is game journalism broken? I think we're much less broken than the rest of the media. However, there are a few points that need to be worked on. First of all, we're one of the few forms of journalism that have a very obvious effect on sales. If Gamespot, Gamespy, or IGN say a game sucks, chances are that game isn't going to sell too well. While you can think of it as "educating the consumer", I see the potential for it to take away a lot of choice from consumers. Granted, the games are expensive so you should get as much information as possible on a game before you buy it. But who's to say that just because we don't like a game that you won't like it?

Then there's the whole quantification issue. Maybe it's just me, but looking around GGD and System Wars (I know... not the best example) there are a lot of people who pay more attention to the score than they do the review. When Greg gave Metal Gear an 8.7 the community flipped out. Most of them didn't seem to care that he said it was a great game in his 4 page review (in more ways than one), all they cared about was the score. I understand the need to quantify these things, but to me, gaming sites might be doing the industry a disservice by putting such a strong emphasis on that number and not as much on the 4 pages of review written about the game. While Gamespot editors will always tell you "read the review", visually on our page there's a lot of emphasis on the score. That's not just on Gamespot, that's on most other sites.

I have a lot more to say, but I've already written a fair amount. I'm going to end with one more point, though. Before I started working here, this was the only site I came to for information on games because they didn't pull any punches. I think the purpose of a gaming site like ours is to report on the industry. However, we also have an ethical responsibility to make sure that through our efforts we're adding to the industry in a positive way. Maybe it's by telling publishers they can't keep giving us the same crap and expecting us to swallow it. Maybe it's by educating users on exactly how hard the developers and publishers work to get a game good for you. But we have a moral imperative to make sure that through our efforts, the industry is better at the end of the day than it was at the beginning. While the rest of journalism has slowly decayed in to long-winded paid advertisements for one politician or another, gaming journalism on the whole hasn't devolved to that level. We're all still very independent voices speaking out about the industry which we all love. And I think that given all that, we're not nearly as broken as Jason Della Rocca may believe.

Posted Mar 18, 2005 11:06 pm PT
Category: N/A
4 Comments

23Feb 05

Isn't it about time for the ladies to get on board?

It's no secret that women do actually play video games. So the question is where are they hiding? I used to pride myself on the fact that I have converted more than half of my girlfriends to the worlds of the Prince of Persia, Windwaker, and yes... even Starcraft and Quake. Now as I look around the gaming sites and as I play this year's MMORPG of choice, with few exceptions, I still see the same misogynist, heavy-handed, sexist talk I've been seeing since I was roaming around IRC during my early teens.

The gaming industry has taken on a life of its own in the past few years and has grown at an incredible pace. SpikeTV is now putting on garbage award shows to appeal to the audience of gamers who don't know what it means to be a gamer (I apologize if you actually enjoyed that debacle during which your favorite gaming site won the best gaming site award - I certainly didn't). Meanwhile, parent organizations are making wild claims about how their kids are getting screwed up by the messages given to their kids in mature games like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (here's a thought - try being a parent and pay attention to the things your kids are doing). The entertainment industry on the whole is seeing the threat of piracy on the horizon and I'm sure they're salivating at the pubescent gaming market as their ticket to new untold fortune and fame (it'll just be too difficult for them to start making good music and movies again, so why not steal ideas from those who are still innovating).

I can't help but wonder if now isn't the time to get women more deeply involved in this land of testosterone-filled chest-thumping. For anyone who's played an online game, you know how sexually intolerant the community online is. Most of that is because the community hasn't been forced towards tolerance. What I didn't find out until recently is that in the UK, approximately 25% of gamers are women. In the US that number grows to 39%. And in South Korea that number skyrockets to an all time estrogen high of 69%. So if 39% of US gamers are women, then why do we in the gaming industry (and the gaming community at large) consider their influence insignificant?

It's a chicken/egg problem all over again. When I do my own informal polls, the games I find women most laying claim to are the following (in no particular order): Pac-man, Bejeweled, Zelda (any of them), Mario (any of them), Mario Kart, Soul Caliber 2 (yes you read that right), and many many more. And yet, the industry is putting out more GTA and Halo clones every day. In the mobile space (my current bailwick), over 50% of gamers are women. However only under 30% are actually purchasing games. Many people have come up with theories as to why this is. I personally think it's because men are the only ones stupid enough to pay $50 a pop for a less-than-stellar game (or $5 a pop in the mobile world). (Ooops... did I say that out loud?) But you can come up with your own equally sexist theories as to why this may be.

I look around the industry and there are very few women in sight. On the development side of things, they seem to be few and far between. I wonder how many women are truly in positions of power in the gaming companies? And if there aren't any, what's the barrier to entry? Tell me if you guys read the same Wired article I did which stated that companies with women in senior management have a 35% higher return on equity than those with the fewest women. Those same companies paid their shareholders 34% more than the companies with the fewest women.

Alright, alright. By now you're all rolling your eyes and telling me to get down off my soapbox. Well I'm about to, so hold your horses. It just so happens that I enjoyed the hell out of almost every single game my informal poll of women brought up. Most of them are among my favorite games of all time. If getting women in to this industry means that I might be able to get more games like those, then I don't see why we're wringing our hands and shaking our heads wondering when the women will come? They're already here! We (and by "we" I'm speaking specifically of the 90% of you out there reading this who are men) just need to start being a little more welcoming. We're a young industry, but we have a history of moving faster than any other industry out there. We have the entertainment value of the movies (when they were good) backed by the fast-paced advancement of the computer industry. We can adapt -- and we can adapt well.

And I think to get video games to the next level of innovation, we need to adapt. Not only for the monetary returns the industry will see, but also for the sanity of all us gamers out there. Come on guys! This challenge is no more difficult than beating Ninja Gaiden (maybe even slightly easier) and the rewards are ...

... well you get the point.

Posted Feb 23, 2005 12:43 am PT
Category: N/A
22 Comments

5Nov 04

True Heros, Part One (A Tale of the Craft of War)

We started out as a five-person crew. Hot to trot and ready to kill, we started running towards the dreaded dungeon known as Gnomeregan. I was bored and I didn't have anything better to do, so when they called out asking for other members to join their party, I enlisted. They needed the help of a more experienced person, so I decided to help them out. Before we even got there, our mage fell never to be seen again. That left the four of us: me (SkyKlawdia) a rogue; Jorb, another rogue; and the two warriors Wargoddess and Lorqueak. They said it couldn't be done without a healer. We were there to prove them all wrong.

We weren't interested in all the trimmings, so we went straight for the boss. I took the lead and we just started slicing our way through the enemy. It was a slaughter. Gnomes were piled high around us as we made our way through the mechanized dungeon. Every time we killed one, it seemed as if three more took it's place. Despite the odds, we championed on. The floor was littered with bodies of the enemy and if you looked closely after de-stealthing, you could see the blood dripping from Jorb's poison-tipped blade before she began her frenzied assault on the enemy. Wargoddess was a true deity of vengeance as those pesky gnomes impaled themselves on her blade while Lorqueak stood the silent tower of resolve and calmly dispatched gnome after gnome. And still they kept on coming! It's as if they refused to acknowledge the mass genocide we had already perpetrated on their race.

Finally, with the end of the line in site, Jorb fell. After sneaking up on a mechano-frostwalker, she had opened with gut-wrenching ambush attack that clearly left the enemy reeling in angered surprise. Before we knew what happened, though, three of his friends appeared out of nowhere. We rallied and took them down one by one. With one of them remaining and all of us clearly winded from the exchange, we resolved to finish him off and sit down to rest. Lo and behold, behind us appeared an automated alarm system. Before we had the chance to deactivate it, two more gnomes riding mechanical ostriches lumbered in from behind. Jorb's screams of agony sliced through my heart like a knife. I looked over only to see her crumpled form lying in a pool of elven blood next to the two new enemies. That was it. She was never to return to us.

Angry at my ineffective attempts to help my comrade, I jumped straight in to the fray slicing and dicing my way through all three of the remaining enemies in a fit of blood-curdling rage. When they lay dying all around me I turned around and looked at my two remaining compatriots and sheathed my two daggers. Without a word, without a drop of healing and steely-eyed with resolve we continued our quest in search of the boss; there was no time to mourn the loss of our comrade.

Posted Nov 5, 2004 8:50 pm PT
Category: N/A
5 Comments

29Oct 04

Competition Is A Lovely Thing

This fall, there are three different major competitions which either have taken place or are currently taking place: the World Series; the Presidential Election; and last but not least, the Nintendo DS and the Sony PlayStation Portable. Let's deal with them in order. If any of you have strong opinions about this, please feel free to summarily disregard every word I'm about to say if you don't agree with me... I'm sure most of you didn't need my permission for that.

Let me start off by saying thank god the Red Sox won. Now us Yankees fans out there no longer have to listen to their incessant whining about there 86-year inadequacies. The whole nation can breathe a collective sigh of relief now that one of the nations two biggest under-dogs has won the World Series. I don't really care about the Cubs winning, though, because they don't blame the Yankees for the fact that they've spent the last 87 years being the biggest losers in baseball.

Everyone is just waiting and wondering about what Red Sox fans will do now that they no longer have their disappointing losing streak to hold on to. After living in Boston for the last 11 years before moving here to San Francisco, I know exactly what's going to happen. For the next week, the Boston fans are going to be elated at their championship victory. For two weeks after that, they're going to walk around scratching their heads trying to figure out how to deal with the fact that they don't suck anymore. And then on the very day the first snow falls in Boston (by first snow, I mean anything over 6 inches) Boston fans are going to return to their grumpy defeatist attitude and see if they can find anyone to fire on this year's team so that they can turn in to losers again.

Now on to the election. Have any of you played Bush vs Kerry Boxing yet? Neither have I. But I must say the premise of it certainly seems like an adequate depiction of the election's current level of absurdity. Never in my long quarter-century of life have I seen such a farce of an election. It's so unfortunate that it is one of the most important elections in recent political memory. If Kerry wins, we run the risk of changing the sitting president during a major military campaign; while if Bush wins we run the risk of four more years of world-wide hatred. Neither is an appealing thought to me at the moment.

The country is evenly divided on an issue that has torn the world assunder. A recent op-ed piece in The UK Guardian illustrates what's at stake here. When Charlie Brooker of The UK Guardian openly joked "John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr - where are you now that we need you?", he expressed openly what people in other countries are currently feeling about this administrations political agenda. While I can't echo the feelings of Charlie Brooker (who has since apologized), I find it extremely disheartening that America's reputation has sunk to such depths of disregard. What happened to the country that used to be the envy of the world?

And finally, on to the DS and the PSP. Sony came out with guns blazing and fists of fury when they announced the Japanese pricing of the PSP. Nintendo fanboys across the world took a few steps back when they realized that the battery life was decent (although not optimal) and the price was more than decent. Coming in at a little less than $40 more than the DS pricing, the world stopped turning while DS fans around the world tried to determine a way to deal with the potential backlash of a decent handheld competing with Nintendo. Sony has determined they're willing to take a bath on the PSP by pricing it so low. Unofficial and completely unconfirmed estimates put their loss at over $250 per unit.

What does all this mean? That Sony is making a serious play in to this market and is not going to be satisfied with a small piece of the market. Not only do they want to take away market and mind -share from Nintendo's existing fan base, but they are in the process of establishing a completely new market; a market centered around multimedia not just video gaming.

Yup, this fall is all about competition. The Red Sox have proven victorious against incredible odds. In one fell swoop they changed their image, their city's hope, and the country's expecations. In less than a week from now John Kerry goes in as the under-dog to face a president who has been forced to make some tough and unenviable decisions during his tenure. He's hoping for November 2nd victory in which he'll be able to point to his home state of Massachusetts and say, "we did it twice in one year." And Sony came out of the gate hard and fast hoping to repeat their success in the home console market in this new market of their own choosing.

Only in today's world can one quarter's turn of the earth change the face of the world so completely. By the middle of December, this country would have ridden the coat-tails of unlikely victory only to watch the breathless hopes of an incumbent President teeter-totter on the hopes of a tie-less, decisive election. Thank God that by this time two months from now gamers will have two more handheld consoles in their hands... otherwise I'd have a heart-attack with all this turmoil.

Posted Oct 29, 2004 6:33 pm PT
Category: N/A
0 Comments

21Oct 04

The Curse

Hi, my name is Kurt and I'm a Yankees fan.

Yes, I freely admit it. I often get incredulous stares and snide remarks in response to any proud announcement of my affiliation with the Evil Empire (as some people refer to them), but in the end, I don't care because every year my team has a one in three chance of winning the World Series. Yes, the Yankees have won approximately 33% of all the World Series ever played.

Before you go off whole hog and say "it's not fair, you guys have all the money!" let's get something straight: over the course of the last few decades, even the Red Sox have started sinking as much money in to their team as the Yankees. So that argument no longer holds water, my friends. I got in a "discussion" (I use that term loosely) the other day with a Red Sox "friend" (I also use that term loosely) of mine during which time they said the reason they're a Sox fan is because the Sox have history. She proceeded to pontificate on how every time the scoreboard changes in Fenway, some old guy gets up and changes the numbers by hand. There was some other nonsense she spouted but I just tuned her out. The Yankees have more history than almost any team in baseball. In my opinion, only the Dodgers have more history... and their recent history is more than questionable.

So why do people hate the Yankees so much? No one has ever been able to give me a suitable reason besides the fact that they don't play fair. Come on! If the Cubs or the Red Sox had ever had enough money, they would have bank-rolled a team like Steinbrenner did long ago. Jealousy, then? Yes. Jealousy. Because not only do we have the money, but we have the history. Where would baseball be without the Yankees? No where.

I wasn't always a Yankees fan. When I was young, I used to be an Orioles fan. I lived in a household in which my mother was an Orioles fan and my step-father was a Yankees fan. That rivalry is also quite lively (believe me... the two of them in one house during baseball season was something to be feared). Even though I was a momma's boy when I was young (still am, actually) I eventually switched my affiliation to the pinstripes. Why? Because in the end, despite the fact that I had lived in both New York and Maryland, the Yankees just had more history...

...and they never lose.

Let's not kid ourselves here; the Red Sox may have come back from a three game deficit, but in the end whether we win tonight or not, we're still the Yankees. What does that mean? It means we win. The Red Sox have been losers for over 8 decades. They deserve to win one here and there.

So for all you Sox fans out there, I'm rooting for you. I'm tired of your belly-aching and your griping over your cursed mistake with The Babe. You screwed up, not us. And we've been hated for it ever since. You should never have traded him in the first place. If this is the year you guys do it, do me a favor and make sure you win the World Series. Because if all you win is the League Championship and you don't win the big one, I'm going to be mighty disappointed...

...although I would be expecting it - because you guys just aren't winners.

Posted Oct 21, 2004 12:27 am PT
Category: N/A
1 Comment

11Oct 04

Am I getting old?

Alright, let's face it... I'm no spring chicken anymore. I mean, at the ripe old age of 25, I already feel like I'm out of touch with my 14 year old sister and 11 year old brother. That's fine with me though. I don't mind being the older brother and keeping all the young whipper-snappers away from my little sister (after all, I remember exactly what I was thinking about in study hall at that age... you guys can't fool me). And I also don't mind being the older brother and making sure to keep my little brother in his place under my punishment and reminder that I am bigger, stronger, faster, and smarter; that's just what big brothers are supposed to do.

Where I do mind being out of touch is in the realm of music and video games. I was thinking about what my little sister would have in her mp3.com collection just recently and to tell you the truth, the only names I would recognize on there would be Lil Bow Wow and Brittney Spears. To tell you the truth, I find no real appeal in either one of them. Actually, that's a lie. I find no musical appeal in either one of them. To say that Ms. Spears doesn't have other sorts of appeal would be to deny myself all those thoughts I had in study hall when I was my sister's age. But Lil Bow Wow? I mean really. No no, really... someone has to explain that one to me. Those two young idiots Kris Kros back in the day were bad enough with their lame attempts to dictate style by hanging their jeans low and wearing them backwards. Rarely was there a day when my mother would let me even dream about walking out of the house in that way, much less actually pull one pant-leg on incorrectly.

Music today is abysmal. Which is why I've taken to listening to old school hip hop and jazz. With old school hip hop, at least the culture stood for something more than beamers, benzes, women and standing on the street corner bobbing your head to the beat. Back in the day, rappers knew how to rap. They could flow from a simple beatbox supplied by their boy. Freestyling was an art-form to be respected and practiced over and over again... not something be shunned. Dancing was something more than just grabbing the closest girl and grinding her to death. It was something that showed your rhythm and creativity.

And video games! Jeez, don't even get me started. If you look at my "now playing" list, you'll see two games on there. That's actually not including the World of Warcraft Beta I'm playing. However, once you take the MMORPGs from my list, you're left with one game: NBA Showtime. Why? Because it's damn fun to play. I'm currently having a conversation with a GS member online and he's bored because he's beaten all the games he has and he doesn't have the inclination to play them again even though he has a day off from school. I remember when I got holidays from school, I'd spend half my day riding my bike and doing useless things with my boys before running back to a friend's house to play video games for hours at a time. Even if it was a game we had beaten fifty times, it was always just so much fun to play that we'd do it again and again.

I would trade almost anything in the gaming industry if I could get back that fun factor. Why in the world am I playing an arcade game released before the turn of the century? Because as fun as Metroid is, it still gives me no reason to go back and play it over and over again. It's just not as fun over and over again. How many of us would gladly break out Super Mario again after all these years? When was the last time you did that with a recent console release? I can tell you when and what it was for me: Castlevania Symphony of Night about 4 months ago.

I beg of you publishers and developers... get rid of the graphics (well, not completely), the sound, the strategy, and the plot if you have to. Just give me back my fun. My little brother and sister don't truly know what fun is. They play a game, they beat it, and they never pick it up again. But they don't remember the real games; the good games. They don't remember Super Mario Bros or the original Mega Man released for the Nintendo. They don't remember Burger Time.

Give me back my Donkey Kong, Nintendo. Give it back. Donkey Konga just doesn't do it.

Posted Oct 11, 2004 10:36 pm PT
Category: N/A
2 Comments

6Oct 04

My First Tirade

Do any of you know who I am? Doubt it. I barely even know who I am. As I try to explain it to myself, I figure I might as well explain it to you. For those of you that don't like to read, I'll explain everything I'm going to say in a few bullet-points and then you can click off to the next journal:

I work in mobile games... more or less.
I code for a living (along with a few other things here and there).
I've played video games for decades now (by decades, I mean two... but that still counts, right?).
I respect and like Nokia.
I respect but dislike Microsoft.
I think Nintendo is the best and worst thing to ever happen to handheld gaming.
Last but not least, I will play anything except for Dungeons and Dragons (I just finished the 12 step recovery program for that and I still have my sponsor on speed dial).

I figure it's about time I explain a few things about myself to the Gamespot Community as a whole. First, none of you has a clue what I do here and I think it's time I remedy that. Second, many of you may think things about my stances that are incorrect (such as I'm an n-gage fanboy). I intend to remedy those impressions also.

I am a recent transplant from Gamespot's acquisition of WGamer. Steve Palley (our mobile editor), Avery Score and I were the only three employees who joined Gamespot from WGamer in addition to the two co-founders of the company. I was a developer for WGamer and I am a developer here at Gamespot. On occassion I drift over in to the world of industry analysis mainly because the product I develop for Gamespot is a tool used by industry professionals and I'm a sucker for putting my ideas out in the world. In short, for those of you that have ever gone to WGamer and looked for games available on your phone, I develop the tools that gather that data and keep it up to date. This data is used in a variety of different places including your Sprint cell phones, your Verizon phones, and soon here on Gamespot (shhh.... you didn't hear that from me).

That's what I do. So on to my stances on some controversial issues.

The electronics industry in general is moving in two directions: miniaturization and convergence. The most successful example of these two ideas put in to one device was the Sony Walkman. That device put a tape player and a radio all in one miniature device. Sheer brilliance would be an understatement. Unfortunately, since then there hasn't been a single convergence device that has taken off even remotely as well.

Do I think the N-Gage is better than the GBA? No. But I think there's a better answer to that question is best given by a quote from a movie I once saw named The Contender: "There is no idea as powerful as that of one whose time has come." Even though I think Nokia didn't come out the gates as strong as they could have, I give them lots of credit for having made it out of the gate. The N-Gage has many features not seen in any other portable handheld out there. And the potential for it to make a big splash is the important thing. Will the N-Gage succeed? I don't know and frankly I don't care one way or the other. I see the N-Gage as a prototype concept of what this country/world is moving to. As far as I'm concerned, with the N-Gage on the market, the concept of a wireless world without boundaries has finally reached the masses.

For those of you that know me, the following is something I've said before: years ago, Microsoft's entrance in to the gaming world received some very passionate and haughty responses of "oh, I'll never get an x-box" or "do you think I want to get a blue screen on my television too?" Where are all those people now? Those very same people have caved and eaten their words. Me? I still don't have an X-Box. It may be my loss, but that's my one bit of defiance in this market. However, I'm not so blind to see that Microsoft capitalized on a much needed item in the market: they brought online gaming to the console world and with it, the gamers came in droves.

Nokia's hitting a market, too. And despite the fact that I'm not a big fan of the N-Gage, I do believe in the idea. "Final Fantasy on a cell phone? It'll kill the battery!" At the risk of being rude, grow up people. The Japanese have managed to pull off putting three Final Fantasy's on to their cell phones and they're going to bring more to the medium. Mobile gaming is coming in to it's own and Nokia is just the company to bring this new gaming format to the forefront. Let them work out the kinks and then see if three years down the road you're saying the same thing.

And one more thing: Nintendo has single-handedly hampered the growth of the mobile console market. I spoke to a former employee at Nintendo who told me that before he left Nintendo six years ago he had seen plans for the DS. By plans he specifically said he had seen the same specifications minus the wireless component. Why does this bother me? Well, to put it simply, it means Nintendo is not coming with their best work. The brought out the DS in response to Sony entering the market. I have no problem with that. What I do have a problem with is that given that they had no competition, they saw no compelling reason to come out with anything but the same old tired platform that they already had. I understand all the business reasons for it... but I don't like it. As a gamer, it offends me.

Just think about it. Right now, sitting on a shelf somewhere, Nintendo has plans for a kick-@$$ handheld console that is at least two light years ahead of everything else out there right now. And if Sony hadn't come in to the picture, would they have even released this one? No.

Someone, somewhere, even the Nintendo fanboys, should be angry about that.

Me? I think I'll just wait for mobile gaming to take off. At least with the handset manufacturers I can count on a new phone every six months that will blow away the last phone they made. At least with the handset manufacturers I know that they're working to bring me the best they can possibly give me. And that will just lead to very quick advancements in cell phones... and even faster advancements in games.

Posted Oct 6, 2004 6:13 am PT
Category: N/A
0 Comments

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