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After short hiatus, as for GameSpotting being exciting, in the time slot of new weekday, the return!
After short hiatus, as for GameSpotting being exciting, in the time slot of new weekday, the return! As for us returning, very happy we the exaggeration advertisement this week which has been expressed, standard of portable type gambling, are the healthily good game, and other very special topic! We of GameSpotting are helped, your yourself column the embankment is produced! Concerning our columns of the community of GameSpot speak to us! OK!
Greg Kasavin/Executive Editor
"The message is clear. Big developers and your ultrahyped games: Beware."
Steve Palley/Associate Editor, Mobile
"Perhaps a better title for this column would have been...ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGH!!!!"
Bob Colayco/Features Editor
"I couldn't pick just one topic to touch on in this week's edition of GameSpotting. So pardon my randomness as I attack from all directions."
Andrew Park/Senior Editor
"It's going to be a great year to be a strategy fan."
Greg Mueller/Associate Data Producer
"Although I prefer the simplicity of console gaming, I am jealous of the PC gamers because there are so many cool, quality peripherals and upgrades to enhance the gaming experience."
Avery Score/Games Editor, Mobile
"Given the success of modding as a means of improving and extending the half-life of PC games, wouldn't the console world find equal benefit in opening the door to would-be modders?"
Kurt Collins/Wireless Research Analyst
"What does the integration of wireless networking into cell phones mean for gamers? To put it simply, it means the world."
John M. Warenda/GuestSpotter
"The flaw in the mission statement of these companies is that "wholesome" usually translates into preachy and inoffensive (by their very specific tastes)."
Doc/Boxing Trainer
When I'm not making prizefighters wear pink running suits or touting the virtues of the Nintendo Fun Club, I make sure to check out the latest edition of GameSpotting. Want a piece of the action? Read the GuestSpotting FAQ to learn the rules of the ring!
| Greg Kasavin Executive Editor |
Here Comes the Tidal Wave
Even if it isn't the best, Doom 3 is certainly by far the biggest game to be released so far this year. And by biggest, I mean the raw energy leading up to and immediately following the game's release date surpassed that of most other games this year combined. Maybe that's to be expected from a five-years-in-the-making sequel to arguably the single-best-known shooter franchise. But to some extent, all the fervor took me by surprise. I was surprised, mostly, at how enraptured so many people seemed to be with the game, when to me, it clearly wasn't as strong in certain respects as some of this year's other, similar games--games like Unreal Tournament 2004, Far Cry, Painkiller, and The Chronicles of Riddick. UT 2004 excepted, these other three games were honest-to-goodness sleepers. For the most part, they weren't at the top of everyone's must-have lists months or years before their release dates. They also come from previously unknown or little-known developers. The message is clear. Big developers and your ultrahyped games: Beware. The little guys out there are willing to take bigger risks than you, and bigger risks--even if they don't always translate into bigger rewards--seem to help make for better games. Doesn't make the bigger games any less exciting, though.
What staggers me is knowing that Doom 3 is only the first of a number of other such super-high-profile releases slated for release in the next several months. You've got Half-Life 2. The Sims 2. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Halo 2. Maybe World of Warcraft. Those I consider in the highest tier. Will those games live up to the hype? Where does the hype even come from?
Let me answer those questions in order. The answer to the first question is: Who am I to answer that question? It entirely depends on what you've set yourself up to expect. Two weeks ago, we billed our Doom 3 review with a rhetorical question: "Was Doom 3 worth the wait?" I purposely avoided answering it in my review, because the answer is not for me to decide. I'm just here to tell you how I think the game finally turned out, rather than try to judge or guess what you, personally, were expecting from the game. Meanwhile, I understand that it's very easy to get excited about the next Half-Life, GTA, or Halo, based on positive past experiences with previous games from the same developers. But it's very important to remember that past success is no guarantee for future success. Statistics have no memory, and every new game is a throw of the dice to some extent. So to put it in perspective, consider Doom 3--I believe Doom 3 is a great game, but as mentioned, I also don't think it's in the same league as a number of other games released this year, and I think it serves as an important reminder that big-name games are not guaranteed, surefire, best-of-the-best, hands-down successes. Doesn't make it any less exciting when they're released, though. It can be very interesting to watch the dust settle.
As to where the hype comes from, it used to be (before the days of the Internet) that gaming publications tended to be responsible for building much of the anticipation surrounding particular games via their preview coverage. Then, if those games turned out to be disappointments, the publications were blamed for getting people's hopes up. Fair enough. I think the situation is quite different now. Publications, including sites like GameSpot, are in a reactionary mode to the aforementioned super-high-tier games. They desperately grab at each new bit of information about these games that they can, because their audiences want that information so badly. The hype is already there--it's not caused by the publications; it's caused by legions of actual game players, and, by my best estimation, about one viral marketer posing as an actual game player per every several thousand real ones. I guess what I'm trying to say is: If any of these upcoming games doesn't turn out to be by far the greatest game of all time, well, don't blame us. We're not the ones losing our heads over these games, though we're very hopeful for each of them.
Getting back to Doom 3--it's a remarkable case for any number of reasons. One of them is this: The game's inevitably huge player community is producing mods that "fix" the gameplay. I'm seeing mods that directly address some of my specific issues with the game's design, such as how you can't use guns and a flashlight at the same time, how the weapons pretty much all sound underpowered, or how enemies instantly disappear when they die. It's as if the mod makers themselves were disappointed with what they got out of the game and are working together to turn the experience into what they truly wanted it to be. More power to id Software for making the game so malleable, though I'll be interested to see if any more-ambitious mods emerge; so far, most of them have just tweaked little things here and there. But try those mods and you'll see that the tweaks can make a big difference.
It's the small stuff that's important. So I'll be very interested to see what happens with each of these remaining blockbusters-in-the-making, since they've certainly got all the clout and all the attention--but what remains to be seen is how well the execution of all those exciting-sounding aspects we've heard about will come together. Regardless of what happens, there's no denying one thing: Gaming seasons don't get much bigger than the one looming on the horizon.
| Steve Palley Associate Editor, Mobile |
A Formal Invitation
Perhaps a better title for this column would have been...ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGH!!!! If you're wondering what the sound of one mobile gaming editor fuming may be, there you have it. There's nothing particularly metaphysical about bloodcurdling frustration.
I've always been quick to extol the virtues of mobile games. I still believe that these little downloadable pastimes constitute a brave new frontier for developers, consumers, and gaming aficionados alike. I've said it many times before: The potential for mobile games is almost limitless, given the continuously accelerating rate of technological uptake in cellular phones--and the huge pool of consumers (numbering into the hundreds of millions presently, and soon to crack the billion mark) willing to spend money on good games.
Good, great, and best. But for this process to function smoothly, so that consumers can identify which games they want, purchase them in a convenient fashion, and start turning their Nokias, Samsungs, and LGs into the highly touted next-generation entertainment devices mobile guys like me are always talking about, there's an industry's worth of work that needs to get done behind the scenes. At the moment, said work is sadly incomplete, and I'm beginning to think that many of those that hold the reins in the mobile gaming business have no real incentive to rectify the situation.
Allow me to specify. In the US, mobile games are primarily sold in downloadable format, meaning that they have no corporeal product to deliver. In most cases, therefore, there is no substantive information about a game readily available at the point of sale, other than its title and perhaps a two- or three-sentence blurb buried in a menu somewhere. If you're buying an Xbox game from, say, Best Buy, you'll be able to at least look at the back of the box to view some screenshots, a paragraph or two of marketing, or maybe even some quotes from a review.
The game you wind up buying may very well be awful, but at least it has been marketed and distributed according to a consistent standard. More importantly, GameSpot and its competitors will have received all of the necessary assets, information, and preview and review materials well in advance of its release--meaning that the review of a particular game will be available as soon as the game is on sale, or very soon thereafter. You will have the opportunity to read expert evaluations of a particular console game before many people have had a chance to spend their money on it.
This is not yet the case in the mobile gaming business, where consumers do not usually have the information they need to make informed buying decisions. Hence, my use of the term "business," rather than "market." A strong correlation between quality and success is integral to the creation and sustained growth of a market, and I'm not certain mobile games have demonstrated this link. Part of this is certainly our responsibility; simply put, we (the critics) collectively need to do a better job of getting on top of new games as they come out. WGR pioneered the mobile gaming review process (we were also the first to put our reviews on Sprint and Verizon handsets, so that mobile consumers could have a better idea of what they were buying in a more immediate fashion), and now GameSpot Mobile is carrying the torch to a new range of consumers. However, like it or not, our progress toward our goal of reviewing every mobile game released in the US will proceed at a snail's pace without the cooperation of mobile developers, publishers, and carriers.
As matters currently stand, few mobile developers are capable of telling us with any degree of certainty when their games will be available for purchase, let alone where the consumer will be able to get them. If we lack even this elementary information, imagine how difficult it is to get screenshots as well as other assets and review materials on a timely basis. Simply put, mobile games creators have never really needed to concern themselves with marshaling and disseminating these resources in a proactive fashion--and although they've made great strides in this department recently, there is still no standardized, cross-industry methodology, as console and PC games have enjoyed for years. The more time we spend trying to figure out where we can get screens or clarifying cross-handset issues for a game, the less time we have to review.
Admittedly, much of this confusion has been generated by deep-seated structural issues that developers and publishers cannot begin to fix by themselves. The most fundamental issue is the handset problem: There are a huge variety of handsets currently for sale and already in circulation, few of which have similar gaming capabilities. Game makers must frequently develop a number of versions of the same game, which can change each game's feature set, the presence of sound effects, the number of playable levels, or whether a game will even run at a playable speed, so that the versions will be nothing alike. Technically speaking, the mobile "platform" is really more of a cosmology, with different versions of a product being released at different times on different carriers. The second barrier to cohesion are the carriers themselves, which hold ultimate control over which games are released on their download decks at what times--and in what relative position. A particular carrier's release schedule is closely held proprietary information; the carrier may choose to push a game to the top of its download deck if it believes that it will boost mobile data revenues, regardless of the game's quality. There's no doubt that carriers are concerned by the long-term implications of alienating the mobile consumer base with poor content. However, in the short term, these carriers must continue to demonstrate that mobile gaming is a feasible part of their overall data strategy, which in turn fuels the expansion of their next-generation networks.
But not all of the problems stem from these essentially uncontrollable circumstances. Some of it is based purely upon the bottom line. It's troubling to see mobile developers and publishers base their entire production strategies upon the distributional weaknesses and informality of the mobile platform. I can think of countless examples of games that were created (and named, more properly) to tempt consumers from their spots on the mobile download deck; after all, there's no facile way to return a mobile game once it has been purchased. Punishing this kind of disingenuous production is one of gaming journalism's primary functions--but I believe that some developers and publishers would rather we not review their products at all, and they are therefore more than content to let us do the job on our own.
I don't want to suggest that mobile exists to purely make a quick buck--the preponderance of evidence suggests that most mobile developers and publishers are working in earnest to produce good games, and they would be thrilled to cooperate with journalists to the point of drowning them in assets. After all, mobile is a brand-new business and we need to make allowances for the lack of resources and experience that has inhibited this exchange until now.
But that's not going to stop me from urging mobile game makers to formalize mobile gaming; competition shouldn't prevent them from getting together and helping to create an industry out of a business. If every mobile developer and publisher were to join a loose consortium, they could begin hashing out a standardized way to promote mobile games--possibly starting with a release calendar, for instance. Such an organization could help to put content makers on more of an equal footing with handset manufacturers and mobile carriers politically, too. Mobile gaming has too much potential to devolve into a jumbled, state-of-nature advertising vector, but a little foresight would make for a nice insurance policy.
| Bob Colayco Features Editor |
GameSpotting ADD Vol. 1
I couldn't pick just one topic to touch on in this week's edition of GameSpotting. So pardon my randomness as I attack from all directions, and apologies to the late Herb Caen and other newspaper columnists who have done this style of writing a lot better.
- Convergence sucks. Call me a Luddite if you like, but I don't want my PlayStation to be my TiVo. I don't want my cell phone to be my Web browser. And I don't want my refrigerator to ever fry my eggs. I've tried owning convergence devices before, such as a T-Mobile Sidekick, but I find that these gadgets merely manage to do a whole lot of different things, but not do any of them particularly well.
- For. The. Love. Of. God. Stop. The . Madness. I would threaten to run out of the office screaming and pulling my hair out by the roots the next time we post a story about a game-to-movie translation, but at the rate things are going, it will happen tomorrow. Is Hollywood stupid or are they just gluttons for punishment? Super Mario Bros., Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, House of the Dead. All of them putrid films, because they all relied on the license rather than oh, you know...a good plot and decent acting? But hey, there are still dozens of game licenses to desecrate. I'm sure one will make money.
- I know I'm probably going to get reamed for this by someone more inclined to flag waving and nationalism, but does anyone really care about the Olympics? I think they were under way for two or three days before I realized they had started. And then I remembered, oh, I really don't care. I don't think it's any coincidence that my interest in the Olympics has declined along with the relative quality of video games based on them over the years. I'm sure many of you remember the greatness of Epyx Summer Games and Track & Field. Today, games like Athens 2004 just don't seem to measure up.
- Is it just me or does anyone else think that Tecmo's awesomely massive and free Hurricane Pack update to Ninja Gaiden acts as a symbolic, extended middle finger aimed at other developers who want to charge money for a few lousy maps? Show them how fan service is done, Tecmo!
- Two words: home invasion. If it's even half as fun as it sounds (along with all the other crazy new features), GTA: San Andreas is already my personal game of the year. Eating, working out to improve your strength, kicking down doors and carrying out TVs, exploring three huge cities...so who needs MMORPGs? San Andreas sounds like it delivers just about everything you'd want in an MMO, but in a fun setting that isn't completely played out. Let's all pray that it lives up to the hype and that Joe Lieberman didn't read last weekend's preview.
- ESPN NFL Football 2K5 is a great example of what happens when you develop a game with the more powerful hardware in mind, as opposed to the lowest common denominator. If you have a chance to walk into the store and see the Xbox and PS2 versions side by side, view the halftime and postgame shows on both machines. Then try to tell me with a straight face that the Xbox's superior presentation doesn't impact the overall effect of the game.
- Have you seen the new combat footage for Prince of Persia 2? Go to our media page and check out Official Movie 2. Clearly, the designers at Ubisoft Montreal have been playing Ninja Gaiden and taking careful notes. Combine the visceral action of NG with the satisfying puzzle design of last year's Prince of Persia, and you've got the game of the year. Oh. I already awarded that? Dammit.
- What marketing genius decided that December 28 would be a great day to release MechAssault 2? The Christmas presents have been bought. Ugly ties are being returned to stores. Those same stores are trying to clear out their winter fashions. Nobody is buying more games because they're busy playing all the games they just unwrapped three days prior. And more importantly, gaming editors are on vacation, getting their Hawaii or Las Vegas on and recovering from a brutal holiday season.
| Andrew Park Senior Editor |
Bring on the Strategy
If you're just joining us, Doom 3 has been released to the public, and excited PC game fans everywhere are either playing the game like mad or skeptically comparing it to 2004's other graphically impressive, DirectX 9-enabled shooters: Far Cry and Painkiller. That's all well and good, but in the meantime, we've been fortunate enough to get our hands on some excellent strategy games that have not only featured terrific, fast-paced real-time strategy, like Ground Control II, but have also introduced real innovation, like Silent Storm (which features great tactical combat in fully destructible 3D environments) and Perimeter (which features a truly unique resource model and a beautiful, modifiable 3D world). And to paraphrase the great Jack Palance in the cinematic triumph City Slickers, year ain't over yet. Let's see what else we can look forward to in the coming months.
The Sims 2
Not a whole lot even needs to be said about The Sims 2, the sequel to the best-selling PC game of all time and one of the most highly anticipated games on any platform. And we've even got a confirmed release date of September 14 for it. Apparently, The Sims 2 will take everything that was great about The Sims, including autonomous characters with different personalities, house and building design, and unpredictable relationships, and crank it all up a notch. The fact that your sims can grow old, die, and have children that go on to lead full-on adult lives should be great for those hardcore fans who can't get enough of exerting their will over those little computer people. Or maybe you'll just spend your time designing a pricey three-story mansion and building out a neighborhood using the sculpting tools of SimCity 4. Or maybe you'll attempt to play it as a carefully managed role-playing game where you meticulously try to fulfill all your sims' aspirations (or cruelly try to deny them). Or maybe you'll just sit back and watch them go nuts, as you could in the previous game, except that this time around, the sims will have memories and even psychoses that may cause them to go into shock or just do something ridiculous. The designers at Maxis seem to understand that one of The Sims' greatest strengths was that you could play it in many different ways with many different goals (if you even chose to set goals for yourself), and The Sims 2 will, by all appearances, only add to that freedom.
Rome: Total War
Take a look at the screenshot to the right. It's just one example of the impressive-looking 3D battles that will be featured in Creative Assembly's next strategy game. (You may also have seen Rome: Total War's battles on the History Channel's Decisive Battles TV show if you're in the US or on Time Commanders on BBC if you're in the UK.) The developer's Total War series has always been about huge battles, but Rome will feature individually modeled soldiers who break off into one-on-one melees with enemies as your forces meet on the battlefield. If the thought of thousands of individual soldiers marching, fighting, and dying at your indulgence doesn't appeal to you, Rome will also feature an enhanced strategic mode that builds off of everything that was great in Medieval and Shogun. You'll have an army of commanders with numerous abilities and personal qualities that will make them helpful--or harmful--in your bid to control the ancient world. Rome will even have an enhanced "historical battles" mode that will let you play through some of the most famous skirmishes in history.
The Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle-earth
It's a real-time strategy game based on Peter Jackson's award-winning Lord of the Rings motion pictures. In fact, it's being produced in conjunction with New Line Cinema and Jackson (and his collaborators). The Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle-earth will feature big battles between orcs, nazgul, elves, and the men of Rohan and Gondor in some of the most dramatic battlegrounds from the movies, like the mines of Moria and the walls of Helm's Deep. Aside from big battles with mumakil, ents, and trolls, the game will have a dynamic campaign and an "emotion" system that will make your armies cheer when you're victorious or panic when they're routed.
I'm running out of space here, and I haven't even had a chance to mention other very promising strategy games like Sid Meier's Pirates!, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, Kohan II: Kings of War, and Evil Genius. Strategy game fans know that it's already been a great 2004, and the best is yet to come. It's going to be a great year to be a strategy fan.
| Greg Mueller Associate Data Producer |
Peripheral Envy
Gamers are usually categorized by their gaming system of choice. Check the system wars forums and you will see the battle lines clearly drawn between the various consoles. The division reaches beyond the big three though, with distinct segregation between PC and console gamers. There are plenty of people who play PC games as well as console games, but for the most part they don't really mix. I consider myself to be primarily a console gamer, probably because I started on the Atari 2600 and the NES rather than the Apple IIe or the Commodore 64. I do cross over once in awhile, especially if there is a lull in the console releases. Although I prefer the simplicity of console gaming, I am jealous of the PC gamers because there are so many cool, quality peripherals and upgrades to enhance the gaming experience.
There is a rule in console gaming that states the first-party peripherals are always preferable to the cheaper alternatives. Throughout the history of console gaming there have always been third-party controllers, and none of them have ever been better than their first-party counterparts. The Nintendo 64 exaggerated the phenomenon more than any system before or since. The system only shipped with one controller, but with four ports, so of course gamers eager for non-multitap gaming with their friends headed to stores to fill those leftover ports. Almost immediately there were a plethora of cheap--and awful--N64 controllers on the market. I had a few of these that became literally unusable after only a few hours of use, and none of them improved my game in the slightest. The first-party controllers eventually went bad as well, but they lasted much longer. The problem still exists today because some gamers are swayed by turbo buttons (I haven't needed turbo since Track and Field II and the NES Max controller), stylized rubber grips, clear or neon casing, and slightly lower prices.
In contrast to the console market, the market for PC peripherals is, in many ways, more vibrant and varied than the actual games. In the PC market, there is no standard equipment. The usual input consists of a mouse and keyboard, but those can differ radically from the budget gear to the high-dollar performance items. There are optical mice with configurable buttons, scroll wheels, and Bluetooth capabilities. Even something as simple as a mouse pad can vary in size, shape, color, and substance, and they can even connect to a USB port, light up, or make you a margarita. Once you have the basics you can explore a veritable wonderland of extreme modded cases, specialized joysticks, trackballs, mouse bungees, gamepads, and much more. There is even a product on the market called a gaming glove--and no it's not like a Power Glove for the PC--it's more like those wrist supports bowlers wear to let other bowlers know they mean business.
The reason for such variety is that there is no first party in the PC market. As a result, there is a broader range of products forced to compete for the attention of serious and casual gamers alike. Simply putting a lower price on a product is not quite enough to guarantee sales, since there are already so many other products offered at competing prices. At the same time, a person who spends thousands on a gaming rig is more likely to spend a little extra for some performance peripherals than someone who gets an Xbox or PS2 for his or her birthday. In the console hardware market, the only way third-party products sell is by being cheap or gimmicky. When people buy consoles they already have controllers, so all the third-party accessories are competing for second place right out of the gate. Other than a few fancy arcade sticks, there are no console peripherals that are more expensive than the first-party standards. Is it possible to make a PS2 controller that is comfortable and will actually improve my scores in Madden or help me pull off quicker combos in Guilty Gear X? Better yet, will a $50 mouse, $30 pad, and $20 glove raise my frag count in Unreal Tournament 2004 or give me better control of my troops in Warcraft III? These questions will have to wait until the GameSpot hardware site launches to help us sort this stuff out--but in the meantime, gaming peripherals aren't really meant to make you a better gamer as much as they make the gaming experience more enjoyable.
PC gamers are undoubtedly at an advantage in terms of hardware selection and quality, but that does not mean there aren't bad PC products out there. There are just as many if not more poorly made products for the PC simply due to the sheer volume of different manufacturers and hardware categories. Another problem with increased selection is figuring out whether or not a particular item is compatible with your system. You can plug in a PS2 controller and start playing immediately. PC inputs, on the other hand, sometimes require you to install drivers or configure buttons. Thankfully, manufacturers have made this process fairly easy, but once in awhile users still encounter problems. Also, with technology moving along at a brisk clip, the expensive top-of-the-line gaming gear of today is quickly eclipsed by newer, more advanced products. This means that if you want to keep up with the coolest new gadgets, you will have to spend more money on hardware than on the games you want to play, which can present a problem for those on a budget.
Still, I am jealous of PC gamers because of the sheer number of options available to them. I don't particularly want the console peripheral market to become as varied as that of the PC, because I usually like first-party gear just fine--I just want the option to upgrade if I ever happen to feel so inclined. Even just a couple of quality alternatives that are actually worth the money would be satisfactory. Alas, I think it would be easier for me to just start playing more PC games. And why not? There have been some great PC titles recently, with more to come soon, and when you work at GameSpot it's easy to play new games; they are everywhere. It's easy to get a sense of what is worth playing and what isn't just by listening to the office buzz. Plus, there is a whole mod scene to get into if the game alone isn't enough. For now I will play some Unreal Tournament 2004, Warcraft III, and maybe move on to Painkiller or Far Cry. With any luck, my hardware will wear out just as I start getting better, and then I will have a legitimate reason to blow some cash on the cool gaming gadgets I have missed out on for the past few years.
| Avery Score Games Editor, Mobile |
Mario Mod?
Doom 3 hasn't even been out half a month, and the crafty mod community has already sunk their collective jaws into the title, releasing several mods (amateur-created modification packs) for the game, some of which mitigate gameplay issues Greg wrote about in his recent review. One of the more popular of these early mods makes zombie bodies remain in their corporeal state after they're killed, instead of phasing out of existence à la Blade.
The PC community at large has come to rely on these home-grown additions to boost the longevity and playability of their games. As an overture to would-be modsters, many PC game makers ship their titles with a collection of editing programs, designed to give armchair developers similar tools to the ones the game's actual development team may have used. In exchange, those companies get free publicity, a dedicated online community, and increased replay value for their games.
Perhaps the most famous example of this is the Half-Life mod Counter-Strike, which was created by 20-something modders Minh "Gooseman" Le and Jess Cliffe. Since its 1999 beta, Counter-Strike has grown to become the most popular online action game in the world and has been ported to the Xbox (albeit poorly).
Given the success of modding as a means of improving and extending the half-life (har har) of PC titles, wouldn't the console world find equal benefit in opening the door to would-be modders? Consoles like the Xbox, which is essentially a set-top PC--complete with a hard drive and an Ethernet connection--would be perfectly capable of supporting a console mod community. When Half-Life 2 finally ships, you can expect the mod floodgates to open anew. Some version of Counter-Strike: Source will likely make it to home systems, but what of the numerous other mods that HL2 will undoubtedly spawn? Here's to hoping. Xbox Live-enabled games already see updates and additional content from their developers, with the Ninja Gaiden Hurricane Pack being one of the more prominent examples, and there's no reason this system couldn't be extended to include user-submitted additions to retail titles.
It's important to remember, however, that the ability to patch and update console games, after their releases, may be a mixed blessing. For the most part, when a console game hits shelves, it is in its complete and final form. Though, as many had predicted, we're starting to see functionality-based patches for console games--the Xbox version of EA's recent NCAA Football 2005, for example, had to be patched before its Live features worked properly. It could well benefit from an additional patch fixing its slowdown issues. This may set a dangerous precedent, but the upside is that broken console games are getting fixed. Now, if only people would release balance tweaks for fighting games and weapon refreshes for shooters...
In general, the PC gaming experience has always been more customizable, with games running on heterogeneous hardware, differing drivers, and omnifarious operating systems. The criminally underappreciated Dreamcast was the closest consoles have come to this model. Not too many commercial developers took advantage of the system's Windows CE functionality, but numerous enterprising amateurs certainly did. Homebrew games, apps, and a variety of emulators abound. Many Dreamcast owners even installed internal VGA adaptors into the machine and used it as a PC or server. This is the kind of thing that happens when the PC tinkering mentality is applied to what would otherwise be viewed as just some piece of consumer electronics.
While the Xbox lacks the Dreamcast's keyboard and inherent hardware modifiability, it is connected to a kind of Internet--not the same one that hammers your inbox with inappropriate spam, but close enough. It would certainly be technically possible to use a PC to post mods or software to official Xbox Live servers, to be downloaded by content-hungry gamers. This is, of course, should Microsoft ever allow such a practice. Perhaps a few, open-minded game designers might agree to release their development tools. A Microsoft-sponsored contest could then sort out the best of the resulting mods and post them on the Live servers.
Although it's doubtful that this dream will be realized in the foreseeable future, certain console games have already relied on user-generated content in some modest way or another. Amplitude basically follows my model in the anteceding paragraph, allowing players to remix the game's included music, track by track, eventually yielding songs that sound little like their originals. These can be posted online, for other users to download and enjoy on their PS2s. The Tony Hawk games have let players upload custom skate parks in a similar way since Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3. While these aren't exactly mods, this model brings us one step closer.
As the PC market is ironically becoming divided into two console-like platforms--based on the great driver divide between ATI-friendly games and games built for Nvidia chipsets--the console world continues to move closer to its PC brethren. These formerly separate worlds are merging and converging, and open game mods may just be one of many ways this happens in the future.
| Kurt Collins Wireless Research Analyst |
Wi-Fi Is Here--Buckle Up
As a new member of the GameSpot community, I often find myself having to defend mobile games. It's usually a very difficult thing for me to do, given that I tend to agree with a lot of the things that are said in the forums. The graphics quality in mobile games is pretty poor; the gameplay is often less than stellar; and yes, the original N-Gage did leave a lot to be desired.
But the real promise of mobile games is not a duplication of what consoles offer. I would be extremely upset if five years from now I ended up carrying around a mini-GameCube for a cell phone. No, the real promise of mobile games is a gaming world without wires. Imagine being able to whip out your cell phone while you're in line at the grocery store and being able to play a quick game against someone halfway around the country. I don't want to have to carry a PSP or a DS if I want to impulsively play a game in line at the grocery store. I just want to take out my phone and play a quick game against some poor sap who doesn't realize I'm the best player he's played against since his older brother first whipped him at the age of 6.
The time of gaming without wires is now upon us. Within the past couple of weeks, Hewlett-Packard, NEC, and Motorola have all announced the release of Wi-Fi-enabled phones this year. These are not the PDA hybrids that have been on the market for the past couple of years but could only use Wi-Fi for Web surfing and nothing else. Instead, they are true cell phones with Wi-Fi capabilities. On the voice side of things, these phones will allow users to place a call using their office's internal wireless networking combined with voice-over-IP. They will be able to continue that same call on their carrier's cellular network when they leave the office, and finally complete it at home, back on their own Wi-Fi network.
I don't really care about the calling functionality, though. What I do care about is the games. Everyone who's waiting with bated breath for the Sony PSP and the Nintendo DS is excited about the wireless functionality that comes packaged with these two devices. However, neither of these two devices offers true play-against-anyone-anywhere technology. The DS and PSP will each allow for short-range gameplay with those who are within a few hundred feet of each other and for multiplayer play using a Wi-Fi network. However, in order to use these capabilities on either device, they'll need to be in range of an established wireless network, or the device will have to create one for the few people who are within range. Of course, the people you're playing against will have to have either a PSP or a DS as well.
Mobile gaming, on the other hand, can use the expansive cellular network already developed by the cellular providers--and a majority of Americans already have cell phones. With 30-million-plus people on Verizon's network alone, that's a lot of different potential opponents. Granted, we're still battling issues of latency and speed, but all of the providers currently have plans in place to implement more-extensive high-speed networks within the next two to three years (most have them pending within the next year, if not sooner). In addition, a majority of the US carriers have already established roaming agreements with Wayport, a national Wi-Fi provider.
What does this mean for mobile gamers? The most obvious improvement will come in the quality of the games. The handsets themselves are going to have more RAM and MMC space to play with, allowing for larger games. With the addition of Wi-Fi, consumers can then go to a Wi-Fi hotspot and download a larger game directly to their phone at much higher speeds than the carriers can promise on their cellular networks. The next improvement is the network: We now have access to the largest wireless area coverage for gaming ever established. Those of us who are craving first-person shooter multiplayer games won't have to wait for the carriers to finish the implementation of their high-speed networks. And for those of us caught on the freeway waiting for the tow trucks to clear a massive 50-car pileup, we can still break out our phone and play against whoever happens to be online.
Although the Wi-Fi phones will initially be marketed toward corporate customers, it will trickle down to us lowly consumers soon enough. And when that day comes, I'll be waiting. Mobile gaming's about to get a heck of a lot nastier, and naysayers may be surprised what the new, Wi-Fi-fueled generation of phones will be capable of.
| John M. Warenda GuestSpotter |
Good Clean Fun?
When I read GameSpot's article reporting the formation of the new "Christian-themed" developer Digital Praise, it struck me as déjà vu all over again. If you've had your ear to the ground for any length of time, it isn't a concept that should smack of newness. It has been done, or rather tried, before. It came as no surprise to me when GameSpot followed with a poll inquiring what readers thought--only to provide responses that could be summarized as "against," "for," or "indifferent." To me this seemed like a sweeping oversimplification that must be addressed.
As I said (and was noted by the July 10 Spot On) this isn't a new idea. There is actually a small sector of the industry that has been devoted to this concept for years, though efforts to create widely received popular hit titles have come and quickly gone. With each article or "special report" comes a slew of numbers telling us that this is a growing sector of the industry that has high hopes of continued rise in popularity (which shouldn't be shocking given the flourishing industry in general). Many if not most people are surprised when they hear this for one reason or another, and much akin to the poll, they are either for or against...or just don't care. What no one ever seems to realize is that every time this comes up in the media it's being reported as news. Being rediscovered year after year by the media isn't a good thing. It means that over the course of a year everyone forgot about you.
And why wouldn't they? Forgettable products tend to be, well, forgotten. Now don't go misreading me. I have no problem with Christians--my priest would probably be pretty peeved with me if I did. Even the vast majority of non-Christians I know are keen to the idea that the J-Man was a decent fellow regardless of where they come down on the whole "worship" thing. This is about video games, and when you make bad games with pious themes, they're still bad games. Just look at the reasoning...that the industry is "hurting for good clean family entertainment." I didn't realize that we actually were hurting for games that were wholesome and fun for all ages (or for that matter that Christians held a patent on the idea). Nintendo has built an empire specializing in it; in fact, some of the best games ever are good at any age. When the day comes that I have kids old enough to pick up a controller, I'll be happy that they can play some of my favorite titles ever made.
The flaw in the mission statement of these companies is that "wholesome" usually translates into preachy and inoffensive (by their very specific tastes). In order to try to make titles that will be well received by Joe Gamer, they generally just take a currently popular theme, genre, or paradigm and try to transmute it into something that meets their strict standards. Look at 1999's The War in Heaven by Eternal Warriors. Anyone remember that game? Probably not. It's entirely possible that I'm the only one who ever played it. This was when I first heard the "news" about Christian game companies and their goals of producing great, Christian-themed games. The War in Heaven may have been Christian-themed, but it certainly wasn't great by any measure. Though it came out the same year as Quake III Arena, it looked about on par with the original Quake (and by "about" I mean "probably worse"). It ran terribly on my computer at the time (which ran QIIIA well) and featured "art" that was less than good. For that matter, it was less than bad and possibly less than terrible. The "gameplay" wasn't even worth wasting words on.
Does this mean that religious themes have no place in a first-person action game? Well, it worked for Painkiller. For that matter, it worked for Doom. There's a plethora of perfectly pleasant games where God and his legions (or more frequently his enemies) have a starring role. These fail to satiate the palates of the "Christian developers" because they don't try to double as edutainment and/or they feature imagery that is considered inappropriate. Herein we can see the flaw: Who among us that is old enough to enjoy Painkiller or Diablo II wants the game to take breaks to go to Sunday school? What about having Diablo just beg for forgiveness and convert after pummeling him with a frozen orb and static field?
Now I know what some of you are thinking...of course that would be absurd, but that doesn't mean it can't work elsewhere. And of course you'd be right. It can work elsewhere, but these developers need to be willing to allow some creative freedom to make a game that, like the Painkillers and Diablo IIs of the world, have religious themes but don't constrain and censor themselves into blandness, or they need to be willing to find other areas where their ideas are better suited. Otherwise we'll keep rediscovering them every year until they finally realize that games like The War in Heaven are a square peg trying to fit into a round hole...nothing you do is going to make it fit without breaking it.
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