• 18Jul 07

  I Quit!

  I decided that GameSpot is not a place that I want to devote my efforts on anymore. From now on, I will be spending my time at GameTrailers. If you want to go to a place where is it friendlier than here and they pay you for it, join me.
  • Posted Jul 18, 2007 10:45 am PT
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• 15Apr 07

  Fanboyism: Hardcore Love or Misguided Effort?

  When something comes around that strikes a chord in people, it develops a loyal following. This can cause them to have strong feelings for their material. Unfortunately, it can also cause them to be blind to what lies beneath the surface of other things related to it.
  
  When a reviewer gives a game based on (insert license here) a one- or two-star rating, fanboys instantly get angry with the reviewer. They think that because the reviewer does not know or care about the source material, they gave the game a bad rating because that person is bias. If they were to think about it, this makes that person the perfect choice to do the review. Because the reviewer does not know or care about the game is based on, they can focus completely on the game itself. If they were fans of what it is based on, then their review would be as good as one from the game's developers. In order to get an accurate review, you need a neutral one.
  
  Insanity can also found on the other end of the scoreboard. When a reviewer gives a new game in a series a four-star rating, the fanboys are still angry about it. Since they have been playing the series for years, they feel that the game is perfect and it deserves a five-star rating. Even if the game did get a five-star rating, it is still not perfect. Since humans made the game, the game will have flaws. If it gets a five-star rating, it means that the game is so good that any flaws that the game has are minimal. To prove my point, here are some excerpts from some five-star games.
  
  

  Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

  Jeff Gerstmann of GameSpot.com

  It's good that Twilight Princess' world and puzzle design can carry it, because the combat and boss fights aren't very deep at all. Most enemies just require you to swing your sword at them, which is done by shaking the Wii Remote or shaking the Nunchuk for a spin attack. You can lock onto enemies with the Z trigger and strafe around them, hop back and forth, leap in for a jumping attack, or jump back and out of the way--the same basic moves as past installments. But normally you can just keep on shaking the Wii Remote like a maniac and come out on top against most enemies. There's no finesse to the way the Wii Remote is used, and at times, you'll wish that you could just hit a button to swing the sword instead of dealing with all the motion-sensing nonsense. This is especially true in the rare cases that require you to time your sword swings properly, as well as once you start learning a few extra moves, like the shield bash, which is done by shoving the Nunchuk controller forward. Most of the time, performing this move resulted in a spin attack. The combat controls using the Wii Remote may feel somewhat different from past games, but it doesn't draw you into the experience any more than using a standard controller would, and at worst, it's imprecise.

  Final Fantasy X

  Raymond Padilla of GameSpy.com

  While the graphics are congruous, the music is not. Nobuo Uematsu is joined by a team of composers, and you can tell they aren't on the same page. Although Uematsu's earlier work in the series was limited to MIDI sounds, you could always tell that the roots were in clasical instruments. His work in later FF games were large orchestral and piano compositions. In FFX, you can tell which pieces were composed by him and which were composed by his cohorts. The latter, while certainly not bad, have a more modern feel with heavier guitar, J-pop, and jazz influences. It very much reminded me of Andrew Lloyd Weber's compositions in The Phantom of the Opera, which features clasical instruments and inexplicably blended in distorted guitar riffs. I would have preferred a score entirely by Uematsu rather than the perplexing potpourri of tracks gathered here.
  

  Halo 2

  Bungie's Jaime Griesemer to Edge Magazine
  

  One of the things that stuns me when I think about it, and I can't believe this is true -- we had none of that for Halo 2. Take that polish period and completely get rid of it. We miscalculated, we screwed up, we came down to the wire, and we just lost all of that. So Halo 2 is far less than it could and should be in many ways because of that. It kills me to think of it. Even the multiplayer experience for Halo 2 is a pale shadow of what it could and should have been if we had gotten the timing of our schedule right. It's astounding to me. I f***ing cannot play Halo 2 multiplayer. I cannot do it. And that's why I know Halo 3 is going to be so much better.
  

  If the creators say that the game is bad, then you have to admit that the game is not perfect.
  
  It is the reviewer's job to tell you how good or bad a game is, not to cater to any fanboys the game might have. If you do not like what one review says, then get reviews from several sources. If you are getting mixed signals, then rent, borrow, or demo the game first before you buy. If all the reviews say that the game is bad and you buy the game anyway, then the only person that you can blame is yourself. If you use a little logic beforehand, both you and your wallet will be happier afterwards.
  • Posted Apr 15, 2007 1:11 pm PT
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• 15Feb 07

  Microtransactions: Nickeled and Dimed to Death

  With the introduction of the internet and hard drives, companies have been trying to find ways to use them to make games even better. One of the ideas that came with it was to create extra content after the game is released. This has become a common part of modern gaming, for better or worse.
  
  Before the internet, when a company decided to make a video game, they had to make sure that everything was ready before they could ship the game. If there was anything that they wanted to do after it was released, it would be saved for a possible sequel. Once the internet became part of gaming, companies now started releasing games faster and faster. This allowed them to release a barebones version of the game and then continue to work on it until it is truly finished. In order for the original Quake to be considered complete, you have to download six separate upgrades. This was good for those with internet connections. However, for those that do not, it meant that they only get half a game. The only way for these people to get the true version of the game is to buy a later version of the game with all the upgrades included.
  
  With raising development cost, companies needed a way to increase their income. One way they came up with to do so was to charge for the post-release content. Paying five dollars for a few more maps or a couple of new missions sounds like a good deal, but if you did that for each of the Quake upgrades, you would have to pay 30 dollars. At that cost, it is almost like buying another game. If you are not careful, you could end up draining you wallet completely without knowing it. This is something to think about before paying for the latest download.
  
  It is one thing if you want to download new content, but what about if you did not download the extra content. Lately, some of this “new” content has a dirty secret. If you examined the data that you downloaded, you will discover that some of these files are only 108 kb big. Nowadays, you need more memory just for a single texture. That new content you gotten are in reality on the game disk. What you really downloaded was a key to unlock the data. This means that they planned this “extra content” before they finished the game. For Need for Speed: Carbon for the Xbox 360, if you paid for all of the keys it requires, it will cost you 91 dollars and 50 cents. For that much money, you spent one and a half times the cost of the game just to unlock stuff that is free on any other version of the game. With tactics like this, you might even think of it as extortion. Paying for new content is one thing, but it feels just plain wrong to me to charge for things you already own.
  
  The next time that you decide to download anything, ask yourself this question. Do you really need that new content? If it is a new outfit or accessory, then most likely do not need it. If it is a new map or mission, then it might be worth it. Just remember that you may have already bought it and not know it.
  • Posted Feb 15, 2007 11:03 am PT
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