Gamestop is Retarded.

There's not much I can add to this story if you've read about it somewhere else already, but I just feel compelled to comment on how stupid this is. So, let me get this straight. I'll be able to walk into a Gamestop store, pick out the DLC I want to buy, go to the register and pay for it, and then.......go home and still have get on Live and download it? Why the fuck did I just waste my time and gas money driving all the way to Gamestop? Stupid and pointless. They also said something about a large market for full game downloads being a ways off. You mean, like, Games on Demand? Right, Gamestop, good job.

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Well Then, Thriftweed....

Have you ever been in a situation where you're with a group of friends and they're all talking about a specific, awesome thing, and the only sentence you can contribute to the conversation is along the lines of "I never did that." Well, take out the group of friends and an actual conversation, and you end up with my situation. I feel like I've missed out on something amazing for the last 15 or so years. I never gamed on my family computer when I was young, and man, did I ever miss out. Playing The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition on Xbox 360 is like discovering a lost world where humor was genuine and characters were interesting. The complexity of the world isn't the most important thing; so far, in the first 7% of the game, pretty much everything has been instantly memorable. I can't say that for the first 7% of a lot of more modern games. I wish those very same, graphically intense modern games instilled this sense of awe and curiosity in me. I love you, Tim Shafer (yes, I know other people worked on it as well).

The game starts out with the main character, Guybrush Threepwood, telling some dude that he wants to be a pirate. Fair enough, I figured. I, too, want to be a pirate. So, right off the bat I have something in common with Monkey Island. The mysterious dude tells Guybrush to go to the local tavern in order to converse with the pirates within. Guybrush then sets off, and your adventure with him begins. I haven't really done anything in the game yet, but in the 51 minutes I spent with it so far, my mouth was almost permanently fixed in a full-on grin.

I'd like to acknowledge all the work that went into making this edition of the game. You can press the "back" button at any time during play to instantly switch between the revamped version and the original. The difference is striking - not only visually, but also in the full voice work that accompanied the graphical overhaul. Both aspects are impressive and worthy of all the praise in the world. I can already tell that I'm in for a damn good time, and I have absolutely no idea where this story is going to take me. Like I said, I never got the chance to play games like these when they were brand-spanking new, so right now I'm like a kid in a candy store. I guess for that analogy to work, the candy would have to be 15 years old. And I would also have to enjoy eating rotting food. Forget the analogy and focus on how awesome The Secret of Monkey Island really is:

The opening 10 minutes or so of the game. Epic, really.

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Deadly Premonition - More Horror Bang for your Buck

In keeping with my promotion of budget titles, I give you another probably little-known game that's slated for a March 2010 release at $19.99. Developed by Access Games (the guys who made Spy Fiction) and published by Ignition Entertainment (they also published Muramasa: The Demon Blade in North America), Deadly Premonition is a survival horror game where you play as Francis Morgan, a detective out to solve a murder in - you guessed it - some fucked up place where weird shit is going down. All I've seen is the trailer that I'll have below, so I'm only slightly more informed than you are. But from watching it, the game looks interesting. One could say the graphics aren't cutting-edge, and they would be right. But there were parts in the trailer, such as the women whispering in each others' ears while some weirdo children with wings or something sit on swings, that had a suitably creepy vibe to it. I hope the game turns out well, because I love the horror genre - be it in movies or games. If nothing else, I've never played anything that, as a contextual game mechanic, had you trying to pull a woman's arm out of your mouth. That's fucked up.





For more info on the game, their website is pretty cool. There's a blog from the game director which is obviously translated into English from Japanese. Good times.

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"That's a Navy Seal campfire if I ever saw one."

The quote I used for my title is uttered by the main character....Dwayne? Chris?....I don't know his name, but that was the first thing that came to his mind when he saw burnt ash and smoke coming from the ground. Fucking A - you can't make 'em like a Navy Seal. Someone's skull is probably at the base of that campfire. I think my brain is now capable of thinking like Dutch in Predator.

Please, do read on.

In case you were wondering, the game I'm talking about is Jurassic: The Hunted. What? You've never heard of that game? Wow, that comes as such a shock to me. You see, it appears that Activision decided to publish it, despite the fact it didn't put any marketing behind it whatsoever. It's a budget title that released November 3rd for $39.99, but if Activision had its way, I guess you would never know even that much about it. Why? I don't know. It probably has something to do with Bobby Kotick being a fucking tool.

Meanwhile, back in reality, Jurassic: The Hunted is a pretty damn cool game. Yes, the title is pretty stupid and the box art makes it look like a light gun game from 1996. Despite that, it's a relatively unique FPS experience that is highly in danger of going under every single person's radar until it's made obscure by both time and the sheer volume of shooters on the market. But what makes it cool? Well, it sure as shit isn't the fact that it's published by Activision. If you read this blog at all, you'd know that I hate them. I hate them so much, in fact, that I'm currently under a boycott of all their games. Well, until now. You see, this is EXACTLY the kind of game I want to spend my dollars on. And if there were ever a reason to give Activision money, it would be to reward them for publishing a game like this. I bought this game new, and I'm proud of it. But enough politics - what's the actual game like?


Well, for starters, I'll get some of the budget-obvious stuff out of the way. I've only played a couple of hours so far, but I think I have a pretty good handle on how the game feels. One of the first things that clues you in on this being a budget title is the music. The ambient soundtrack is really good; it's suitably creepy, but nice to listen to at the same time. However, when a dinosaur comes into view, a generic rock track suddenly kicks in. Once you kill the dino, the song disappears just as suddenly as it appeared. Scripting like that is just a small indicator of the budget-consciousness of the developers. It's by no means horribly distracting, but it is noticeable. Also, when you switch weapons, you have to wait for the animation to finish before you can go to your next weapon. Again, it's a very minor gripe, but worth noting. If you're used to flipping though your arsenal like a crack fiend in fast-forward, then you might give up a curse word or two. But the rest of humanity can suffer through that slight annoyance. The last critique I have is with the voice acting. But, honestly, I don't know if it's a critique so much as it is an asset. Basically, it's so fucking bad that I think it's intentional. It sets itself up as some sort of sci-fi B-movie. If that was the goal, then mission accomplished. If the developers were trying to be serious with the material, then they just crashed into the fail boat head-on. But either way, we as gamers win. In my mind, whether or not they intended it to be hilarious, it nonetheless is fantastically bad. So that's up to you as to whether it's a plus or minus. It's a plus in my book.

So, now, on to the positives, of which there are plenty. The first thing that struck me were the visuals. Like I said, Jurassic: The Hunted is a budget title, but by the looks of it, you could hardly notice. The textures are surprisingly crisp, even up-close. I dare say they're even better than some full-priced games with highly-touted graphics. Maybe not on the technical side, but artistically, this game goes above and beyond the call of duty (pun intended). To put it plainly, the game oozes atmosphere. The air is thick with anticipation as to when a huge dino is going to spring out of the brush and into your face. Speaking of into your face, there's one thing that this game does not do that another recent dinosaur shooter decided was a fantastic way for players to waste their time: being continuously knocked on their ass by enemies, only to be killed while trying to simply stand up again. Yes, Turok, fuck you. So far, Jurassic: The Hunted is much, much better than Turok. And if random people on Youtube are to be believed, this game also doesn't have annoying human distractions. It's all about dinosaur slaughter. But I've played a couple of hours, so that's second-hand information at this point.


One other cool feature of the game is the slo-mo shooting. Yes, I'm well aware that slow motion is OOLLLLDDD NEWWWSSSS. I know Max Payne came out like 10 years ago or some shit. But I think it's implemented in a very streamlined way that enhances the gameplay while at the same time not feeling like a gimmick. There is a small meter on the bottom left-hand side of the screen that indicates how much slo-mo juice you have. When the meter is full, you'll get maybe 5 seconds of slo-mo out of it. Yes, that's it. There are no upgrades for the power; 5 seconds is all you get. And that's precisely what I like about it. The mechanic seems designed to be a supplement to the normal shooting; if you maneuver around and get a good side angle on an enemy, you can pop slow-mo and take one shot for the kill. Whenever you enter the magical world of half-speed, you can also see the dino's skeletal structure and vital organs. If you aim for the vitals, you'll have a much better chance of killing them. So the mechanic, at least for me, works like a sort of headshot. Get the angle, pop the slo-mo, shoot the vitals and your enemy drops. It's instantly gratifying without even needing to upgrade and get a longer duration out of it. Awesome.

The quicker you finish reading this article, the quicker you can go buy the game, so I'll make these couple of points quickly. The game is obviously linear, but I never felt like I was being funneled though a tunnel. The environments have a little bit of space to them, so whenever I'm in an encounter, I can always run around the area and get good bearings on myself and my enemies. For comparison with another budget title, Legendary gets it all wrong. Oh, wow, that rubble fell in the exact pattern of a pathway for me to follow until I reached a suitably shitty encounter with a minotaur that only charged at me head-on without any other attacks whatsoever. Fuck, that game blew. Jurassic: The Hunted, at least so far, utilizes its space well and just lets the enemy encounters happen. Dinosaurs will run at you and constantly try to leap at you, but you can get out of their way, and if need be, run away like a puss until you get a good angle on them. If you question the difference between these dinosaurs and Legendary's minotaur, I wouldn't fault you. But the difference is in believability. I sincerely believe these assholes are jumping at me and trying to kill me. The minotaur in Legendary was just following a line of sight and bumbling towards me. Big difference.


The last cool feature I'll mention is the weaponry. Due to some amazingly contrived plot sequences, you have access to both modern and old-school guns. See, you're in the Bermuda Triangle, and that place is like a time-warp. One minute you're in the present, and the next you're in 1941. Based on that information, it would seem logical that your inventory might consist of a BAR next to a semi-auto pistol. As I mentioned, you can't take the plot seriously. Instead, you really just need to embrace the fact that the game lets you have guns from different time periods at the same time, and go kick some fucking dinosaur ass. It's that simple. Are you up for it? If not, then go play some god damned Modern Warfare 2. It released today, or so I'm told.


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The Wrong Kind of Challenge: Why Demon’s Souls Represents Rudimentary Game Design

Based on the title of this article, it may be assumed by those reading that I would take the stance that Demon’s Souls is not a game worth playing. The reality is quite the contrary. More than anything else, Demon’s Souls is a game that ultimately challenges players to examine the notion of game difficulty, and asks us to consider several questions regarding the relationship between game design and game difficulty: What aspects of a game make it difficult? What is the difference between challenging and difficult? Is there a difference?

The answers to these questions, particularly if you agree that there is a difference, all eventually lead us to the ultimate consideration that Demon’s Souls invites gamers to consider:

How difficult is it to make a difficult game?

The answer that Demon’s Souls relates to that question is one that could not be understood without the existence of, and comparison to, another game of a different genre: Ninja Gaiden. With both games in mind, the answer becomes quite simple.

It is not difficult to make a difficult game, but it is challenging to make a challenging game.

Everyone agrees that this is a hard game...

In the case of the two games above, Demon’s Souls would be difficult; Ninja Gaiden would be challenging.

I realize that based on the overwhelmingly positive reviews for Demon’s Souls, my statement may get under the skin of the game’s fan base. However, it is important to note that nowhere have I stated that Demon’s Souls is a bad game. I have simply stated that it is much easier to make a game like Demon’s Souls than a game like Ninja Gaiden.

Think about it. Reconsider the questions I posed above. How hard is it to make a game difficult, and what tools do game designers have at their disposal to make this happen?

What is actually being asked with these questions is how easy is it for game designers to kill you in a game?

Very easy. At every step through every part of a game, the designer plays God. Their power is limitless, and what becomes possible and impossible in the game world is entirely in the designer’s control. The player, on the other hand, is the guinea pig. While some aspect of player choice may be perceived by the player, the reality is that those choices have already been predetermined by the designer.

Therefore, any possibility of player death within a game is entirely under the designer’s control, and making a game difficult simply means the designer makes it easier and more frequently possible to die. This accomplishment is rather easy, and the choices the designer has to make this happen is varied: Increase the damage dealt by the enemy. Decrease the player’s damage dealt to enemies. Make more enemies. Make more traps. Decrease the amount of checkpoints between saves. Take away checkpoints. Take away saves. Decrease the amount of healing items. Decrease health.

This list could go on even longer, but the general principle will always revolve around one central concept: the manipulation of numbers. In each of the examples given, the designer is able to increase or decrease a game’s difficulty simply by manipulating a set of numbers.

In the case of Demon’s Souls, and with many games of the early consoles, this tool is the backbone of the game’s concept and design, and in most cases, the system is praised for its risk/reward factor. While the sense of accomplishment may exist from completing such a game, the reality is that not much thought or skill is needed to create a game with this type of difficulty. In theory, any designer could create the most difficult game ever made simply by setting the numbers against the player unreasonably high, and dropping the numbers associated with the player unreasonably low. As a result, the player would deal little damage, but take a lot; the player would have very little health to fight with, but have to deal with fighting enemies who could absorb a lot of damage.

I’m certain that this game would be very hard to beat. I’m also certain that this game would get praised for how punishing it was.

With Demon’s Souls, this results in only one real tool that the player must utilize to complete the game: memory. The player must memorize where the enemies are, and slowly and progressively take them out one by one. This is rudimentary game design.

However, the days of rudimentary difficulty in game design have long passed, and superior forms of player manipulation have surfaced that favor challenge and complexity over punishing difficulty.

Examine the aspects that make Ninja Gaiden challenging and you notice that none of the design principles have anything to do with memory of enemy locations, excessive punishment of the player with a lack of checkpoints, or overwhelming damage of enemies. Yet nobody disagrees that Ninja Gaiden is one of the most challenging games ever made.

... but this game is actually challenging.

The reason why Ninja Gaiden achieves that dichotomy is that the game designer gives the player more tools than simple memory: skill and variety. In order to be successful, the player has many methods for taking out the enemies, and survival has nothing to do with memory, and everything to do with reflex, reaction time, and dynamic strategies of using the wide array of moves and combos available to the player.

Simply put, the game favors complexity as the catalyst for challenge, not number manipulation. As a result, Ninja Gaiden is only as challenging as the player’s lack of skills and reflexes. No battle will ever play out the same, even when the same battle is fought several times after death, because the game does not allow memory to become a factor.

Moreover, when the player dies, the game does not elongate itself by placing the player at the beginning of the level, instead using checkpoints to encourage the player to experiment with new techniques without worrying about unreasonable risk.

It is no secret that gameplay is unrealistic to the way the real world works. No matter how difficult a game is, it never truly reflects the impossible realities of the scenarios that we as gamers play out in our games. It will never be realistic to assume that any one, ordinary soldier could slaughter hundreds of equally skilled soldiers. Games will always favor the player (the protagonist), much in the same way that movies do. Otherwise they wouldn’t be very fun.

But as long as we strive to make the notion of game completion an actual accomplishment, the decision on whether or not a game should be difficult or challenging must be addressed.

Should game difficulty be designed with challenging complexity in mind, and not simple difficulty? Should game design favor player skill and dynamic gameplay over player memory and numbers manipulation?

We can thank Demon’s Souls for making that a question to ask.

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Take This in your Pooper, Kotick.

I just thought I'd share the fact that my crusade against Activision DEO (Douchey Executive Officer) Bobby Kotick has officially started. I was able to, by way of simple explanation of the situation, convince a hardcore gamer to boycott Activision products. That's called a win.


[adding...] Yes, I'm aware that I only convinced one person, but I'm hoping to start a meme here. I tell him, he tells his friends, they tell their friends, etc. It can happen.

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Do You Like to Read?

If so, there's a very long, but very worthwhile article at Kotaku by Tim Rogers. I couldn't begin to describe everything he talks about, but he starts off with guns and zombies and works his way through Uncharted and Tomb Raider. I guess I did begin to describe it. Anyways, if you can read and you like games, go read this article about games. I know I've told you jack shit about it, but whatever, you know I know what I'm talking about.

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Bobby Kotick Thinks You Are a Moron.

Bobby's early years, before heading up one of the country's biggest games publishers. He is on record saying it was a "dark, yet extremely rewarding time in my life."

If you haven't read this story on Gamespot, do so now. The quotes attributed to Activision's CEO, Bobby Kotick, are despicable and unethical, to say the least.How this man is allowed to leave his house without checking in with a parole officer is beyond me, but I don't make the rules. If I did, I'd make sure ol' Bobby was trading places with the kid actors from Slumdog Millionaire. What a douchebag.

"I think what the untethered Guitar Hero does is equal the playing field a little more and give you some leverage with first parties when it comes to downloadable content and the business model," said the crotch-sniffing asshat Kotick, during the Deutsche Bank Securities Technology Conference. Sure, that quote sounds innocuous enough, but read it again and then think about it. What he's actually saying is that if Guitar Hero winds up not requiring an actual console to play it on your T.V., then they can do whatever the hell they want as far as pricing their DLC. At least that's what I'm reading into it. Maybe I'm reaching. But then again, maybe Bobby Kotick is an evil cock that doesn't deserve the title of Head of Custodial Arts, let alone his actual title of CEO.

Promotional material for my upcoming Docu-Drama, "Life With Bobby, or; How I Learned to Like Not Being a Rich Cunt"

That quote alone wouldn't even remotely approach the sound reasoning that he deserves the scorn and ridicule I'm doling out to him. Nay, I say to you who doubts his assholeishness. Observe another gem of wisdom when Kotick says, "We have a real culture of thrift. The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games."

Exqueeze me? Baking powder? What the fuck did he just say? His life-goal with Activision "...was to take all the fun out of making video games." Way to go, asshole. You're not SUPPOSED to say that shit in public. That's the type of thing you say to your secretary over an early morning breakfast of infant appendages and A-1 sauce while twirling your moustache with grease made from aborted Christian fetuses.

Here is Bobby Kotick, clearly not looking like a tool.

And, astonishingly, he didn't stop there. To quote the Gamespot story, "The executive said that he has tried to instill into the company culture 'skepticism, pessimism, and fear' of the global economic downturn, adding, 'We are very good at keeping people focused on the deep depression.'"

You'd think something would fire up some neurons in his brain and involuntarily keep his fat fucking mouth shut before he was able to get out that utterly ridiculous "company culture" bullshit. That's no way to run a company, and I don't care how big that company is. If that's how you treat your employees, then Activision can't be a very nice place to work. In all seriousness, this kind of attitude is absolutely unacceptable. It's unethical, immoral, and whatever other synonym for shitty you can think of.

In an article from Edge dating back to August of this year, the Prince of Darkness decided to chime in when Activision executives were asked about retailers' reactions to their pricing, saying, "…You know if it was left to me, I would raise the prices even further,” before pulling a giant lever which opened up a cavernous hole beneath his #2's plush office chair.

Here, Bobby is seen celebrating his random sale of stock, which happened to make him $17 million in a single day. He later admitted he is going to use the money to nuke us into oblivion. Victory!

As if you need any more proof that this dude is a jerkoff, The Business Insider picked up on a little financial transaction by Bobby from around May, in which they found "Kotick, who had sold a big chunk [of Activision stock] in March, filed to sell 1.5 million shares worth about $17 million..." Let me be clear about this kind of thing: I don't think that there is anything inherently wrong with anyone selling stock that they own. But I will raise questions when you are the CEO of a major corporation who makes millions every year, and yet you still think it's a good idea to sell an ass-load of stock in your own company. Why, you ask? Well, the final sentences in the article sum it up pretty well for me. "It could be that they[sic] execs need to do some 'estate planning' or some other functional reason. It could also be some ill winds blowing across the gaming sector. Retailer GameStop said on Friday that same store sales were weak and its outlook cloudy for the second quarter." You see, when I read something like that, all I can think of is random opportunity for Bobby. He makes a lot of money. Durh. So why would he sell millions of shares of stock in Activision? On a whim? And if that's the case, did he even bother to think of what this might tell people like the writers of that article? He's putting artificial doubt in the minds of financial analysts for the sole sake of making $17 million on a whim. That's ridiculously unethical in my not-so-humble opinion. Like I said, there's nothing illegal about doing what he did, but I think it's pretty telling as to his character and ethical center.




I'd already swore off Activision-published games, as the poll on the right-hand-side of the blog points to. I'll admit to buying the odd game published by them, but that's only because I didn't know the full extent of Kotick's insane beliefs. I already knew he didn't want to publish a game unless he could franchise it, but Jesus, I had no idea he was this far down the rabbit hole. Fuck this guy, and fuck everything that comes from Activision. It's too bad I won't be able to enjoy Call of Duty 6 when it comes out, but Infinity Ward should really consider moving on to greener pastures at this point. Activision is ruining their franchise by watering it down with inferior products every other year, and the trend is only going to continue. With CEOs like Bobby Kotick lurking around the dungeons of corporate depravity, it's no wonder sometimes I feel like the games industry is lagging behind where it should be in terms of creativity.

Seriously, fuck Bobby Kotick and Activision. Don't support this type of bullshit by buying their games. It has to be done.
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How to be truely InFamous...

Oh Ps3... Nobody loves you like I do. Rather than give me sequel, after sequel, you give me new I.P. And not just average new I.P. You deliver the best of this generation. Heavenly Sword, Valkyria Chronicles, Uncharted, and now InFamous.

Let me just say firstly that InFamous doesn't do a whole lot new when it comes to open world games, it just does everything BETTER. From the first time you pick up the DualShock, you will find that our hero moves around so fluidly. He is fast, jumping from building to building feels fantastic. Sucker Punch nailed control and movement in their first outing since Sly 3.

The gameplay is a mix of platformer and third person shooter, with the latter more prevalent. You have upgrades that you can use to empower Cole, and even your decisions, good or bad, will give you different abilities.

The story is great if you take it for what it is, a comic book style narrative. I found myself often playing just to see what happens to Cole. With one of the better endings I have seen in a few years, there was no disappointment in finishing the tale.

So, without going on too much longer, I will leave you with this: In a sea of yearly sequels and reboots, its nice to see new games come out that are truly new and refreshing. If you pass this gem up, it is you who will become InFamous!!!

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Killzone 2's Controls Are Fixed!!!!!

Yea, this is old news. I just thought I'd share this bit of information for those who didn't know. I knew about it since the patch went live, but I was waiting for the opportunity to pick it up again cheap used. I already bought it once, so I'll be damned if I'm going to give Guerrilla my money TWICE. Anyways, the controls are totally fixed now, and I'm having a fucking blast with the game. I'm not done with it yet, and I'm not going to review it since we already have an ass-load of Killzone 2 shit up on the blog. I'll only say that my happiness level has increased immensely with this much-needed fix, and now I'm definitely going to finish the game. Kudos do Guerrilla for not being total douches and owning up to the fact that they fucked up. That's something I can't say for every company. Read more...