The Witcher Review

The Witcher 2 is nearing its release so I figure I should get my thoughts out about the first game that I just started playing again a few weeks ago. I obtained it on a steam deal for $6.00 and I must say...I feel quite ripped off.

The Witcher is everything that is wrong with Western RPG development, and doesn't do what Western RPG's do right either. It is possibly the worst game I have ever played in my life and I don't say that lightly. There are only a handful of games that I haven't completed on the account of I hated it. The Witcher not only joins that elusive club, but is probably its new king.

From the setting, to the battle system, to item management, characters, enemy behavior, spells, crafting, and especially the quests themselves, the Witcher manages to get every single one of these wrong.

Graphics:

Going into an RPG I care about this the least of all. But the Witcher doesn't disappoint in being flawed so hard that even I can't ignore the issues it has in the graphics department. Firstly, for a next gen title of its time, it looks really bad. Look no further than the main character himself. No detail to be found, and the hair....oh the hair just stands out like a sore thumb. Not since Vaan's abs in Final Fantasy 12 have I ever not been able to ignore a character feature before for just how bad it looks. It sticks out long, no texture, just white draped over his head like someone forgot to finish it...ugh!

And the NPC's are worse in that there are MAYBE 6 different models? You see the same character model everywhere unless they're a main character with lines. You have one dwarf type, one fat merchant, an old guy, hookers, and some sparse peasants and kids. I was always one to joke and comment about Oblivion re-using character models like crazy, but the Witcher goes overboard here.

Sound:

For me it's important for an RPG to have not only good voice acting, but a great soundtrack. The Witcher has neither. The voice acting is muted and uncaring. The main character Geralt is expressionless, never getting angry or sad, and simply never caring at all. Why is he even ON this quest? He doesn't give a shit ever and neither does the voice actor.

The music is less poor, but still terrible. The main theme plays way too much, and I think mainly because they didn't have enough money to pay for a variety of tunes. The other songs drain on you since the game makes you spend too much time in one area too long.

Story:

I actually began playing this game the moment I got it from the Steam sale which was about a year ago now. The story is a bit hazy for me so I took a look at the wiki to refresh my mind. Sure enough the wiki highlights just what is wrong with the plot perfectly enough. Geralt is a Witcher, loses his memory after awakening from death...(Jesus?) and generally heals people that can't be healed by normal means...(really...Jesus?). He's held up with a band of other Witchers who allow themselves to be robbed by a Mage and a pack of thugs.

How the sequence plays out if I remember correctly is just god awful. They had every chance to stop them from stealing their shit, but they don't and instead talk with them...at length...while they're stealing shit...and they go through a portal and oooohhh no....couldn't stop them....*snaps fingers* Shouldn't have been talking with them all that time...

So the quest for the game is to...get your shit back and probably Geralt's memory in the process, but really who cares (read character section).

As I said I didn't finish this game, but I can't really comment any further on the story either. Even though I plugged maybe 20 hours into this shit-fest the game NEVER brought up any key story points from then on! Oh, except for Geralt fucking anything with two legs, which hilariously if you read the Wiki plot synopsis it DOES actually mention every time Geralt is to be fucked in the plot...why? Probably because that's the only interesting thing going on while he's fetch questing....oh yes....there's fetch questing more than I have ever, EVER seen.

Gameplay:

Fetch Questing:

So the gameplay...err...I mean Fetch Questing of this game is trash. You sword fight by clicking on your enemy, then timing further clicks highlighted by the sword icon to increase your combo. That's it! Oh, yeah there is magic too...that's the right click. Magic varies from stunning enemies...to stunning a group of enemies...to setting them on fire...or casting a protect spell.

But the combat is so incredibly basic it doesn't allow for any strategy to develop at all. If you're weaker you lose, stronger you win, the end. You can't guard anything you want, dodge anything you want. All you can do is stand there and either get beat up, or beat things up. The game gives three stances, strong, fast, and group. You pick strong stance to fight...strong things....fast to attack...fast things....and group to attack....many things...What imagination employed here!

Leveling up involves going to a fireplace to meditate and place skill points where you want. Traditional things here, nothing special, moving on.

So outside of battling what actually takes up ALL your time in this game? Why fetch-questing of course. Fetch questing of the HIGHEST order, the worst kind of all. These are the kinds of fetch quests that BREED more fetch questing. What's worse is they are ALL boring, ALL tedious, and ALL encompassing of what you do in this game.

I will take an actual in game scenario and describe it to you. Let me know if you think this is fun:

In one quest you have to find this one chick in a hospital during the day to get her to do an autopsy, she tells you to meet with her in her house at night. Please note how HORRENDOUSLY tedious it is to change to night as you have to find a fireplace and there's only one and it's on the other side of town. Then travel back to her house which is guarded by an old lady who has random things to say and over half of them AUTOMATICALLY sends you back out of her house for NO reason. Once you MANAGE to get in and talk to the chick upstairs she agrees to do the autopsy...but you're not done. You have to learn about how to do an autopsy first and find the gravedigger....but the gravedigger doesn't show up at night! So you have to change it back to daytime....(note I gave up researching autopsies as I couldn't figure out how) then you find the gravedigger and ask for the corpse you need....except he wants Dwarven Booze first....which you get from the tavern. Travel to the tavern and buy some Dwarven Booze (though none of the liquor is labeled "Dwarven Booze" you have to make a shitty guess or buy all the booze). Then return it to the gravedigger who gives you the corpse. You then meet the chick who now wants you to go to the hospital at night (GOD FUCKING DAMMIT!!!) ....find fireplace, make it night now...and THEN do the autopsy.

Was that fun? Did you enjoy that? I hope you did because the above describes EVERYTHING you do in this game from start to finish. Below is a rough chart describing quests in this game:

"I need a rare flower" "Well sir you've come to the right place....except I need "X" thing first. Go see "X" guy to give me "X" thing." You meet "X" guy. "Hello, sure I'll give you "X" thing as long as you give me "Y" thing. To get "Y" thing go kill 10 "X" enemies." Kill 10 "X" enemies. Give to "Y" guy who gives you "X" thing. Give "X" thing to "X" guy who gives you a rare flower.

(note the above scenario does not include switching from night to day, or dying from encountering enemies you're not supposed to fight yet...)

Oh right! Did I mention that at any point in the game you will come accross enemies you're not supposed to fight yet? I didn't? Well in this game you will often come across enemies you can't defeat, die trying, and have to start from wherever you saved last to continue the fetch quest. My personal experience with this occurrence was as follows:

"Oh look, a giant red plant. I have defeated the giant green plants this should be no troub-LEWTFBULLSHITISTHIS??" .....*dead*....

So there you have it, The Witcher. Enough fetch questing to choke a horse (which you don't get in the game) and WTFBULLSHITISTHIS moments where you die immediately.

The worst part about this fetch questing is how you are often not told what to do. For instance in the example I mentioned, you are NOT told the gravedigger can only be found in the morning, or how to start the quest the chick cannot be found during the night in the hospital. You are not told where to get Dwarven Booze, and you are NEVER told where the research materials for autopsies are. Many quests like this you have to make shitty guesses.

What's worse is ONLY the main quests have a tracking marker on the map and even the tracking marker is bullshit. It will point you to a place, but often not update appropriately causing you to flounder around the red dot until you come to your senses like me and shut the damn game off.

Inventory:

So...much....shit. There's SO much shit in this game. 95% of the shit you get is ingredients to make MORE shit. Pretty much just potions to heal or buff stats, nothing special. What is retarded is you have to go to a damn fireplace every time you want to make something. WHY? And your inventory fills up VERY quick, so why can't I just make shit on the fly to get more space?

But really, everything gives you something. Plants that grow, enemies defeated, bushes, mushrooms, hundreds of types and sizes. Ridiculousness. And you always have to either find a fireplace to clear up inventory, or an innkeep to store your shit, or a merchant to sell your shit. Oh, the WORST thing is you have to find the RIGHT fatass merchant to sell specific things. Like a flower merchant won't buy Gold Rings you find, or the Tavern will ONLY buy your food and booze. That is ANNOYING. If I want to turn a profit on my collectibles I shouldn't have to seek out every single merchant in town to do so.

Oh, and the worst part about your inventory is you can only carry 3 weapons. You can never sell weapons without actually removing them from some of your slots either. So turning a profit off weapons is nigh impossible because you don't have inventory space to carry shitty ones for selling. You literally end up dropping weapons and picking up better ones on the go without being able to reap money off an old one.

Characters:

If you haven't stopped playing yet, and actually want to see who you're fighting for well then meet Geralt, your hero the Witcher.

Geralt is the only character you get to relate with outside of a slew of side characters that come and go as the game goes on. Geralt has no memory, rose from the dead, but unlike Jesus he's an asshole. Not just an asshole, but one that fucks every female he can. Any time you have a conversation with an NPC chick you will see and option to fuck her, and sometimes it is done on accident. Once, I banged a chick not knowing that would be the outcome of the option "how are you today?"*cue porno music* So this is the hero, this is the guy, an apathetic monotone amnesiac nymphomaniac who can't block attacks...Really, that's it. That is Geralt, that is your hero...

Conclusion:

I couldn't continue this game for any reason. The fetch questing, the constant fuck scenes, the incompetent battle system, gathering of ingredients to make potions that I NEVER gave a fuck about, the abominable and unforgiving night/day system, the inventory...nothing was fun about this game. Not one thing kept me those 20 hours save the idea that something interesting MIGHT happen, but it never did. I don't care if the game somehow got better in the story department later on, dealing with those fetch quests wasn't worth it, and will never be worth it. The story would have to change the very foundation of my moral fiber to swath through the unending number of NPC characters I have to barter with each and every quest.

You know how in most Zelda games there is a fetch quest? A quest where you trade random shit to different NPC's like 12 times until you end up with either the greatest sword or armor in the game? Those are fun for two reasons. First, you get something amazing at the end, and second...you do it ONE FUCKING TIME. Not through the whole game, but ONCE! The END! Here's the BEST SWORD IN THE FUCKING GAME for putting up with our stupid fetch quest bullshit. But in the Witcher? Here's 150 Orens (money) for that hour of running around we made you do...uh...thanks?

*100xp for fucking a whore*
(I only wish I could obtain xp that way)

Zen Pinball Review

As a kid I used to see arcades nearly everywhere, in malls, just down the street, various arcade cabinets in Pizza parlors and restaurants, Chucky Cheese, and so on. Walking in you would hear various noises, screaming kids, music from rhythm games, ski ball, "hadoken!", or my personal favorite the sounds from the pinball tables. They drew me in every time, the lights, the bells and whistles, crappy voice overs when you did something well.


Even when I was too short to actually play these games I knew I loved them. They were so simple in concept yet so complex in execution. One silver ball, two paddles, and an endless score cap, this was the ultimate test of skill and endurance and it was alive. Not housed in a digital realm like the video games I was used to, not bound by lines of code, nor a set boss attack pattern to remember, these games were in reality boasted high speeds and ate money like nothing else. Legends were born and died on the high score board, initials were more than just people, they were gods!

Enter the future, where arcades are dead and pinball machines are relics of a forgotten past. Here we have Zen Pinball, an indie studio pinball game that came out some years back and their more recent affair Marvel Pinball. It has been quite a long time since anyone took on the virtual pinball world which took over from the arcades in the 90's. There was a long era of gaming where you couldn't go two months without another virtual pinball sim game, and more recently we would see maybe two or three a year all lackluster, all rather terrible. But Zen studios breaks the mold, they go full force, balls forward if you will. They GET Pinball, and know what makes it so great.

I can say without a shadow of a doubt these are my favorite downloadable games on PSN. Probably because I have a bias toward pinball in general as my above gushing of its history in my youth suggests, but also that these games from Zen are just really, really well made.

Graphics:

I have played probably every digital pinball game in existence at least on the PC and really dated titles on the NES and handheld systems and Zen/Marvel Pinball are the best looking pinball games I have ever seen. The ball is shiny and reflective, the boards are vibrant with color and lights, and the ball itself zooms with a tail to help track its movement and speed. Every table has a theme and the graphics reflect that theme all the way down to the paddles you use. From V-12's engine, to the red planet of the Mars table everything looks fantastic. There are some MINOR moments of frame hiccups when big events happen on a few tables, but it really doesn't hinder play as the ball is usually out of play during these sequences.

Also, I really love that they allow you so many options on these tables. You get 7 different views of the table to pick from, and you are allowed to show the score or not of everything you hit on-screen. So if you hit a ramp or anything you'll see a number like "5,000" in yellow pop up. Some people hate to see this some like it, but Zen let's you pick and that is quite rare in this day and age of gaming.

Sound:

The music for these games go from terrible to amazing and the voice acting is always bad, but really that's just a mark of a great pinball game to me. The music isn't that important though as Zen allows you the option to insert your own music to play during these long sessions of pinball madness. The sounds of the ball hitting things on the table is perfect, and hearing the ball roll around gives weight to it as well.

Gameplay:

Ah, the most important part of any virtual pinball game is how it plays. I have played so many I can tell the immediate pitfalls developers make. Many make the ball too floaty, have bad camera selections, targets that make the ball drain to the side immediately without fail, and just plain awful graphics.

Zen makes none of these mistakes. They clearly made a "video" pinball game though, and I am fine with that. The physics aren't perfect, but they are consistent. They made a fast and tight pinball game with many unrealistic tables. Tesla is a good example wherein one mission the ball becomes magnetized and sticks to other balls causing a whirring of Tesla science! Or the mechanics of the table in general where suddenly you're not using flippers but magnets to bounce the ball around.

Practically none of these tables could be played in real life, but that's exactly what makes these games fantastic video pinball games. Purists harp on how video pinball games should be as close to real life as possible, and to that I argue why? Why make something real life already has? That's kinda the point of video games, to be imaginative and fun. Let me tell you, these tables are not short on imagination. Every table presents new and fun challenges to overcome. Difficult shots and tight timing are paramount in every table. Learning every nook and cranny is very important to last and reach a new high score.

Comparisons:

If you're on the PSN though and you're wondering which set of tables to get either the Zen original or Marvel tables I would of course urge you to get both but here are the differences. The original tables come with 4 initially, V-12, Tesla, Shaman, and El Dorado. All are great, and this game has MANY DLC tables Street Fighter, Ninja Gaiden, Earth Defense, Mars, Excalibur, and Paranormal. These are also all great tables, and you can't get them through the Marvel pinball package.

However, the old Zen tables are not presented nearly as well as the Marvel tables. For one, you have to be online to see your scores, you only get ONE high score instead of the usual top 10 scores that I am used to for pinball, and the loading is atrocious. I mean it takes a solid minute to load up a table on this game. Marvel doesn't have these issues. You get a top 10 local leader board, also your online friends combine to form what is called a "hero" score. The higher scores you and your friends have all add up to give you a personal hero score. Ultimately the more friends you have the higher your score, but your personal scores matter too. It's an interesting concept and something that wasn't employed in the first game.

On the Marvel side you get 4 tables and DLC is incoming. Wolverine, Spiderman, Ironman, and Blade are the first 4 and all of them are great. My favorite is the Wolverine table so far though. This will probably be the set Zen supports in the future as we'll see Captain America, and probably the Hulk tables soon. Either choice is a good one, but I do prefer the new interface of the Marvel tables.

The best part is what a value these tables are. I remember paying $9.99 at Best Buy for the last PC pinball game I ever got called Fantastic Journey. It was ONE table...and not a very good one either. With Zen you get 4 tables for $9.99, and the DLC tables are only $2.50. For me, I put countless hours into each one, lost days at a time to just the Tesla table alone. The value is astounding if you're a pinball nut, and won't break the bank if you're casually interested.

So don't hesitate to give these a try if you've ever been interested in pinball or disappointed by years of crappy digital pinball offerings of the past.

*lock is lit!*

Game Companies or "Game Companies"?

A recent article on IGN.com sparked my curiosity on marketing and shift in business interest in this current generation of gaming. Between the PS3 and Xbox 360, recently we are being told that these systems are NOT gaming consoles but are instead "something more." More specifically both consoles are trying to become the centerpieces of the family entertainment center through increasingly more and more complex add-ons and marketing.

The reasoning behind this is simple and no more noteworthy than a fast food chain offering a new sandwich with "apple wood bacon" or "mountain jack cheese." Will the sandwich taste incredibly different than what was offered before? Doubtful. But the goal is clear, to draw in new customers, and clearly members of the gaming community are being told again and again that we are not worth it anymore. Our community is too small to keep up with the ever expanding game industry it seems.

With the additions of Kinect and Sony's Move, gamers of yesteryear are becoming all but obsolete as gaming companies strive to collect anyone remaining no matter what demographic category that person falls into. Both companies following in Nintendo's footsteps have realized the gaming community as it was, was far too small and largely unprofitable. Once Nintendo opened the floodgates of the market to nearly any demographic, Sony and Microsoft took note and are now scratching and clawing their way to appeal to those new groups as much as humanly possible.

The question, and problem I'm dealing with is will this lead to the downfall of gaming as we know it? It's really looking that way. Both Sony and Microsoft are outwardly against calling their machine a gaming system all of the sudden. Not more than 3 or 4 mere years ago they were fighting tooth and nail at how many exclusive games they had, and which system had more power and how the Blu-Ray format would fail. On and on they went, but here we are in 2011 and all they can argue about is who got Netflix and Hulu on their system first. Which has an internet browser, and which can play Blu-Ray movies. Which system can be voice activated and sans a controller.

These are not gaming movements by any means, and profitability will drive their futures. Is it more profitable to produce games like Dead Space, or video chat apps for Kinect? That's what developers will ask, and are asking. The answer if obvious for anyone following the likes of Nintendo and Pop-Cap games. But it's further escalated when these two companies are now trying to take over the hub of entertainment itself.

What's worse is consumers are buying into it and wasting their money. A decent PC off the line at HP or Dell can do what any video game console can do and much more. However, PC's don't advertise themselves like game consoles. HP or Dell won't say our PC is not a PC like game companies say our game system is not a game system. I believe that's what irks me most about this recent marketing affair. They are going so far to stray away from the idea that the PS3 or Xbox 360 actually plays video games, they almost seem to cringe at the idea that they do in fact play games.

I think the main issue I take from this is not only the idea that I and my fellow gaming community cohorts are no longer required, but the idea that Sony and Microsoft are falling into a shallow place of a cliched phrase "Jack of all trades, masters of none." Currently, both systems house credible third party titles that further push the boundaries of gaming any way they can but it's becoming less and less prevalent over the years.

Developers are closing their doors faster and faster, changing names, merging with larger developers, and normally making one game then vanishing forever. Many of them now are profiting through games on Facebook, or cell phone games to outweigh losses through making big budget games. The day is coming when these developers no longer see the need for the big budget title at all, and that may be coming sooner than we think.

Not to mention gaming is getting more and more dependent on sequels as companies become more wary on what games will bring a return and what games won't. After Nier and The World Ends with You Square openly said they would not be doing any new IP's in the forseeable future as both games sold poorly (but both were infinitely better than Final Fantasy 11, 12, 13 and 14 combined). They also just approved future game names such as Final Fantasy 13-2 and Final Fantasy Type-0, Type-1, and Type-2. What the holy hell is this? How far into sequel and prequel naming do we have to get to before people realize these games are terrible now?

Beyond that we're into so many new iterations of Call of Duty and Rock Band, and World of Warcraft expansions that they stopped numbering them all-together. Most games of a series have reached the 5's and 6's and those numbers are growing fast. Soon there won't be any creative eye driving gaming, there will only be one game to classify a genre much in the way EA did with Madden in the football sim game genre. You better love Call of Duty, because soon that may be the only series able to financially hold it's own in the first person shooter genre in the future.

...or the genre will be reduced to an Iphone app where you click on your friends and a video pops up of them pretending to be shot...then you see a "+10" added to your score.
^^^patent pending^^^

*Change is scary...ever see Lincoln on the penny? His eye is following me!*

Vanquish Review

Vanquish is a hard game to review. The score can vary wildly on perception. For instance, if your perception of a good video game must include multiplayer/be longer than 5 hours/have some co-op/has a cohesive story/likable characters, then Vanquish is probably not a game you'd want to throw $60 at.

However if you love heart stopping, break neck speed action games with flawless mechanics and a perfect interface then Vanquish has that in spades.


Story/Characters:

This game is the very definition of Japanese developers trying to have a plot/characters that appeal to western audiences and failing miserably at it. The main character Sam Gideon just got a cool new suit from this professor dude and they're looking for any excuse to test it out. Luckily, the Russians attack America with a super space death ray, they threaten to use it again unless America surrenders, and bamph we have a mission!

Other characters of note are the main villain who has a super suit as well, the American president (who is female and apparently has no advisers around her somehow), a chick that sends you maps and provides intel (I seriously forgot her name, lol), and one gruff war veteran with an arm cannon called Burns.

Sam is the exact kind of character Japanese developers will think western audiences will love. He smokes, he's defiant, and goes out of his way to save everyone. Sadly, there's really nothing else to him. He has no memorable lines, and never says anything funny or witty. Everything he says is to service the further progression of the game and that's it.

**spoilers***
The story itself is so super basic it makes Mass Effect look like it was penned by Stephen King. Not that I expected an actual story, but it would have been nice to feel involved in it somewhat. The game provides the usual Japanese twist of "oh I'm actually EVIL! and not on your side at all! (Burns)" and it comes off just as believable as any Metal Gear game which is not at all, in the slightest.

The worst part is how Sam reacts to this as after Burns makes an attempt on his life, Sam's only concern is Burn's continued safety after he has been riddled with Sam's bullets...and this is ALSO after Sam's dejected reaction to Burns killing off an entire squadron of his own marines because they had to lock down that area of the space station due to a breach. A sensible act by Burns, but Sam's "gotta save em' all" attitude abhors this action. But it's ok Burns, Sam is like a puppy and will stop hating you immediately.

Dear Japanese Developers,

Americans do not understand how a person can suddenly care about the person who just tried to murder them two seconds ago. We much prefer to kill the fuck out of them without remorse; dirty traitorous bastards.

PS - We also don't allow Presidents to be alone in a dark room making sinister deals with Russians after a full scale attack. Seriously, after something like that the President would be lucky to take a piss on their own.

**end spoilers**

Gameplay:

Let's be honest, the story doesn't matter, the characters don't matter, the logic doesn't matter. In a game like this the gameplay is all that is important right? I guess I'm having one of those moments where I want cake and be able to eat it too. This game can be closest compared to Gears of War in terms of gameplay and while that game severely lacked in story and characters too it was at least comprehensible and was somewhat engaging. You felt something in Gears rather than nothing which is the case with Vanquish.

But where Vanquish excels is in gameplay and makes Gears of War look like an old man on crutches. Really though, Vanquish is Gears of War on crack essentially. You get to use cover every five feet, the aiming/shooting is the same and so on. What makes Vanquish as good as it is though is the ability to rocket slide and go into bullet time which combined makes for some awesome amount of addictive fun. The bullet time is no gimmick either as you are penalized for overusing it. Your suit can give out and leave you vulnerable and without rocket slide, a slower dodge roll, no more bullet time, and an increased chance of dying. So it's really fun to use these options on the fly, and with this game you are ALWAYS on the fly.

The interface is another aspect I'd like to point out. It's downright flawless really. Usually I have two or three issues with how the control scheme is for a game but this one does everything very well. There is just ONE gripe I have and that's trying to revive allies. You do this with Square/whatever it is on xbox. But that same button also puts you into cover. So if an ally dies near a wall good luck reviving him, chances are you'll butt hump the wall a few times before you do.

My biggest gripe with the combat though is the melee attacks. The issue here is they use up your suit juice like slowing down time and rocket sliding does. And it would be fine if it used it incrementally like the aforementioned suit juicing abilities do, but when you hit ONE dude with a melee attack all of the sudden you're overheating immediately. WHY? It makes melee attacks completely useless. You may as well forget you even have that button honestly.

Online/Multiplayer:

As mentioned before, this game has no multiplayer and that may be an issue for some people. But I mention it has online because what this game does mainly is allow you to rack up high scores and see your rankings online. So it's a glorified arcade style "lol I have more points than you do" competition. But I put this in my review because I would like to tell you how awful it is. Just like in Bayonetta another Platinum game, you absolutely cannot see your rankings online. They just don't work, they will not appear no matter how much loading occurs. Not for me at least. I can sit there for hours on both games and nothing will ever show up. How hard could it possibly be to create a functional ranking system?

I have Zen Pinball an indie pinball game on the PSN its ranking scoreboards work perfectly. Ninja Gaiden DS has one, it works perfectly. So the fault cannot be on my end as I have countless games with online rankings and can view all of them except Platinum's games.

Lastability:

Make no mistake, this game is 5 hours long tops. I beat it in nearly under 4 hours. For me the game is fun enough to warrent multiple playthroughs on many difficulties, but that varies by person. All it has other than that are challenge rooms to play, of which from what I can see there are only 6.

Final Thoughts:

I grew up in an era where games were 8 levels long and you paid $50 for them but if the game was fun enough that didn't matter. However, gamers expectations have changed over the years and while I still consider this game to be worth it, many will not. So, for Vanquish's sake what they've done here is essentially a disaster not allowing for co-op or any sort of multiplayer or not even making the game longer or adding additional bits of fun. This is literally a bare bones game with 5 Acts, that's it. It screams rental and while I'd suggest to buy it if only to prove to the Gears of War creators that rehashing gameplay and not evolving to Vanquish standards isn't something gamers are going to accept anymore, I can't with a clear head recommend purchasing a game any normal gamer would play once then move on.

*Rocket slide > Rocketman*

Tigger the Highlander

This has nothing to do with video games. But in a podcast Kyle and I did once we made reference to Tigger being a Highlander of sorts, below is the fruit of our random banter.

What is a Video Game?

A while back I defended the notion that video games are indeed art. However, I have noticed that in my posts I often poke fun at and even coined a term "Cagms" to video games that I do not classify as video games. What makes these games less than what I perceive are actual video games? And am I right or wrong in my assessment?

What a video game is:

A video game as defined by webster "an electronic game played by means of images on a video screen and often emphasizing fast action." Ok, so by that definition anything played on a screen with a user interface must be a video game. But what about emphasizing fast action? Chess and Solitare can be played on a computer are they video games? Does their board game origin nullify any chance of them ever being called a video game? And does their lack of "fast action" dictate they can never be video games? Personally I would consider Chess more of a video game than Solitare or even the "Cagms" I make mention of. Simply because it defines the idea of strategy in a 1 vs 1 competition. Because it can be played in real life or on screen is irrelevant to me, the game itself has tiers of skill involved and isn't mindless repetition. So I guess my definition would have to include that "lack of mindless repetition," clause.

I don't care for the definition as defined by webster, but who am I to define something? At its core that is what a video game is defined as, right down to those lazy flash games that are programmed as a lame college project. Even those horrible item finding games old women buy for their computer to pass the time would be called a "video game."

What video games should be:

I believe there should be a classification for "Cagms" which are video games created for the casual video game player. It would separate at least to some degree what video games are and what they should be. They shouldn't be "Cagms" and it's unfortunate the industry has come to rely on these.

Here is where it gets interesting however. I consider a "Cagm" to be Bejeweled, however I do not consider Tetris or Dr. Mario to be cagms. Why is this? Both are puzzle games, both are meant for the player to seek a high score, both employ pretty colors with bright lights and sounds, so on and so on. Let's take Tetris for example. In Tetris the goal is to get as many lines at the bottom of the screen as you can with the pieces you are given. In this game you are given many choices and chances to plan ahead. You always get to see the piece you'll get next and in some cases you get to see many pieces ahead. Will you plan to stack your walls tall in hopes of achieving a Tetris or is the speed too high and you need to just make quick choices? These are the levels of thought Tetris allows. Bejeweled on the other hand is completely random. The pieces do not come down in any specified order, you cannot plan ahead in any way, there are no levels of thought to it whatsoever. You seek out pairs of 3 colored gems or more for a minute and see what your score is at the end.

This is probably best compared to a real video game by the name of Yoshi's Cookie. In Yoshi's Cookie you have to pair up 3 or more of the same cookie. You are given a static board and only get a certain number of moves. You have to carefully utilize all of your moves to clear the board. THIS is a puzzle game, this is a real video game, it makes you think!

What a game should be and what it shouldn't are what I describe above as one example. While that describes basically all casual games wherein none of them offer any levels of thought, planning, or strategy there are other games that I do not even consider video games.

World of Warcraft:

To me, World of Warcraft is not a video game. It is a fully interactive social network like Facebook. That's all it is. Nothing about World of Warcraft makes the user think about anything, you stay within the confines of your group, run around and play your role as Barbarian, Paladin, or whatever you may be. You grind constantly, and endlessly. Grant you there are worse players of this "game" and better players, but what it boils down to is ultimately who wastes more time on it. The more time you put in the game the better equipment, spells, and money you will get. But you cannot play this alone. You cannot conquer the toughest bosses without a large group of people. It cannot stand on its own and if the servers ever die it can never be experienced again.

But ultimately, what makes this a non video game to me is that this game is the epitome of mindlessness. Never before have I seen something that can shut off brains quite as well as this. I thought Diablo 2 was bad but apparently this is far worse. I do not have much to say on the matter as I have never touched it myself. I have only seen friends of mine and their friends fall victim to this plague. You may wonder why my opinion matters at all if I've never played it. Well, I'll tell you just why I've never played it.

#1. It's not a video game
#2. Endless fetch quests is not fun
#3. Grinding for levels/gear is not fun
#4. Douchebags inherit the "world" of warcraft
#5. It's a fleeting thing. It will die off eventually.
#6. Absurdly high monthly payments
#7. Battle system has no depth and you basically watch it play out
#8. Again the people on this game are nuts, ever see them at comic con or a Blizzard event?
#9. Playing this usually means you have no time for actual video games
#10. It's not a video game

Arguably one could point out that I spend way more money on multiple games than if I just played World of Warcraft. But that's just it, why would I ever want to just play World of Warcraft? It's a terrible game that I don't even classify as one. Of all the reviews I've written on seemingly fine video games with many inherent flaws, this one takes the cake as not only does it contain every flaw I abhor about today's western development of video games, people love it. Yes, I hate that 13 million people actually give Blizzard money for this tripe.

2 or 3 million people might agree that Mass Effect was fantastic and while I'd argue that they are wrong with valid points I could at the very least understand where they are coming from, and they would have valid points on why it wasn't a bad game. World of Warcraft doesn't have this ability. It's bad through and through. It excels at nothing other than forcing the user to grind away hours of their life. The only reason people play this is because of the mindless constant rewards and social aspect of it.

Conclusion:

This wasn't an article meant to ridicule World of Warcraft. There are plenty of casual games like this that hide themselves under the guise of being a real video game. That is the most notable one however. And some people who play it will actually consider themselves a "hardcore" gamer for playing it. All those people are, are addicts and not in the fun way.

Video games shouldn't be mindless. They should encourage new ideas, new methods of interactivity, fun challenges based on some fundamental game design. It is a shame a large portion of the industry relies on popular opinion for the sake of making a quick buck but I can't blame them in the end.

World of Warcraft and Bejeweled are just the beginning of a wave we're seeing now in western game science that understands how the human mind functions to get people to keep playing. The human mind doesn't like dying over and over again in real video games like Ninja Gaiden or Castlevania. I would much rather die 100 times in a row on Ninja Gaiden just for that one moment where I succeed. Those moments will always be with me, and nothing in World of Warcraft can replicate those feelings of excitement and triumph. No, these challenges are discouraging for the average person. Instead they prefer to see the ever constant rewards of World of Warcraft and Bejeweled where you're never EVER reprimanded for a bad choice or wrong click. They are the equivalent of hiring a cheap prostitute. She'll reward you as long as you pay for her, but at the end of the day what did you get out of it, where's the sense of accomplishment or fulfillment?

Definition:

With this rant I believe I can come up with some semblance of how I feel a video game should be defined. It goes as follows: Video Game: "A game that is played on a video screen offering challenges for the user to accomplish with a degree of strategy/skill and choice implementation employed ultimately fulfilling the user with a sense of accomplishment. Also, the game shouldn't suck ass!"

*Video games: They shouldn't suck ass*

DMC - Dante Must Cry

Last week or so Capcom announced they are rebooting the famed Devil May Cry series. Without even looking at pictures or videos I was immediately disappointed. I also immediately laughed my ass off. For those unfamiliar Capcom has seemingly been trying to steer away from the events that occurred in Devil May Cry 2 where at the end Dante rides into hell. Every DMC game since has been a prequel, and even focused on a different character entirely. It's just very amusing that Capcom has found a brand new way to avoid DMC2 (the most hated in the series) and where the character Dante went from there. But a reboot? That is going way too far.

Why Capcom NEVER should have done this:

#1. Devil May Cry is a wildly popular series, and while it isn't their #1 seller it still holds its own water pretty well. DMC4 sold extremely well, better than most of the DMC games. It was released on the Xbox for the very first time as well. Firstly, why would they introduce a new audience to Dante and his antics and then just wreck him outright for a reboot? It doesn't make any sense to do this. Now for Xbox fans anyway, all they will know of the Dante of old is what they saw in DMC4 and now this new DMC game. If they weren't already confused about what is going on, they SURE will be now.

#2. The story of DMC was never finished, period. For the most part, Devil May Cry has revolved around Dante and his dysfunctional family for story purposes. We learned of his mother in the first and third game, and see him confront his brother in all three. Throughout most of the first game he's upset with his father Sparda whom he never really got to know. Players of the series eagerly anticipated Dante finally confronting Sparda in the Demon World where Dante presumably goes at the end of the second game. It was assumed that we would then finally get to play DMC in the Demon World in the next game and possibly seeing Sparda. However, Capcom apparently wanted nothing to do with what happened after DMC2 as 3 and 4 were both prequels. And now any hope of ever having a Sparda boss battle is completely gone.

**Edit** Ok there is some conflicting reports that Sparda died and was locked away in the sword of the first game. Makes sense, I didn't pay attention all that well. However, what is conflicting is whether he actually died or not and knowing these stories of Demons and mythological figures it's easy to bring Sparda back whenever they want even if he was confirmed dead. The point is the DMC story was pretty interesting albeit lacking much like Capcom's other series's. I would have liked to see some conclusion to it. **

#3. The look. View any game forum about this subject right now and you will see essentially no one praising the new look of Dante. The consensus is he looks like a crack head, or some sort of junkie. He doesn't appear to retain any of his snarky wise-cracking ways either. While it's way too early to tell for sure, the fact is the look was altered for the worse, and for the wrong reasons. According to the lead director of the game, Dante was altered to appeal to a younger audience and was meant to look like a pop star. Note he also claims they designed the new Dante model after himself (the director)...ugh. In any event, that is just plain stupid to do. Why appeal to a "younger" audience when you have nearly 3 to 4 million current devout followers of the main series? Don't you change something up when shit quits working? I guess not if you're Capcom...

#4. There's no gameplay footage yet, however from the trailer I am already disappointed in the action. It appears slow and lethargic. In a cutscene with Dante I expect to see stupidly over the top action. With this, he shoots his pistols very slowly, there's no ninja like flipping, and his snarkyness is replaced with putting his cigarette out in an enemy...Again it's too early to tell, but I do not like what I'm seeing...and I think I know why.

#5. Ninja Theory, that's why. Ninja Theory is the developer of this reboot, and they suck. Flat out, from history, they suck. Heavenly Sword blew chunks, that's who is making this game. The makers of Heavenly Sword. There's a reason Bayonetta was as flat out amazing as it was and that's because it was behind the guys who did DMC3, the very best DMC game. Knowing who is behind this new game I am astutely aware that it has a very high chance of being terrible.

Conclusion:

I just don't get it. I understood when Capcom rebooted Mega Man in Mega Man X. The main series was losing steam with each new release, so it made sense. This doesn't make sense at all. Capcom is only doing one thing, which is losing the support of people who followed this series. Will they gain that "younger" audience on what is essentially an adult rated game? I somehow doubt it very much. Luckily I know enough about the game industry and who makes what to know that Bayonetta is the new Dante, and I greatly look forward to Bayonetta 2.

*Dante wears high heels now and kills things with his sexy long hair*

Mass Effect - Mass Garbage

Yeah, I am behind. Bite me.

Mass Effect the perennial Western RPG experience of 2007 (or they would have you believe) was supposed to be a game changer. It was supposed to usher in a new breed of "path" choosing or create endless scenarios for the player to experience hence the name Mass Effect. I do not understand the hype that this game pulled, I do not understand its legion of devout followers, I do not understand how this game escapes the endless hate that Final Fantasy 7 receives daily. This game is honestly terrible in nearly every way possible. Let's review.

Battle System:

If I can praise Mass Effect on one thing it would be the battle system...but I won't. Honestly this was the most tolerable aspect of the game, but also the least praised among fans. The battle system is simple run and gun 3rd person perspective action. You get 4 types of guns Pistol, Machine Gun, Sniper, Shotgun and infinite ammo for everything. The pistol is immediately worthless because you have infinite rounds of Machine Gun ammo and it usually does more damage per shot anyway. The shotgun is very situational and there's few instances where it's useful over the machine gun. The sniper rifle is also VERY situational as 90% of the game takes place in tiny hallways. So...effectively you get one weapon, the machine gun.

You get powers to utilize if you go the Bio route but...really almost no one plays the game like this. Literally they did a statistic on this and only 20% of players EVER opted to go anything but the soldier class. Besides your AI partners normally make for better Bio attackers anyway.

What makes the battle system terrible though is how stupidly easy it is. The AI is dumb as a log, sometimes they don't move or do anything and you can just stand there and shoot them all day. Your partners AI is also stupid and often they'll rush into battle without your say and die immediately. But that's ok because the game is so easy you don't need them. Really no normal enemies ever present a challenge. If you find cover they will never pursue you, they rarely deal effective damage, and your machine gun is accurate enough to pick off all offenders in the area with efficiency. On top of that you have skills that make you even stronger with shield boosting and an ability to just keep shooting and never stop.

The only time you can ever die is when the game decides to be an ass monkey and glitch you. I fought a boss battle who had Bio powers and I was winning consistently, but two times in a row she lifted me and tossed me in some unmanageable area where I could not escape. The character cannot jump, or warp out or anything so I had to reset this BOTH times. The last time I just ran away into a more open area just so the game wouldn't glitch me out again. Wonderful programming.

The most laughably easy parts of the game is when you're in your vehicle. That thing is deadly. You get infinite rocket shots and it nearly always kills everything in one hit...Oh and by the way I played this game on PC, so mouse control improves my accuracy 100%.

Item Management:

I figured I would take a moment on how awful the item management in this game is. I must admit for a long time in the game I was pretty lost on how to use the item screen effectively...then I realized there just wasn't a good way to use it effectively at all. When trying to replace weapons you have collected with better ones it becomes a tedious chore. The menu does not organize what you've collected in some sort of manageable order like most attack or most accuracy, so you have to select EVERY weapon you pick up and compare it to the ONE character you have selected. You have to do this for ALL three characters and that's just one of four weapons. And you pick up a fuck ton of weapons in this game. It's rare you actually get a better one though. But it's consistently annoying to see worse weapons all the time.

What I hate most about this is you have a limited inventory. Eventually you have to delete out or (reduce to omni-gel) every shitty item you get. The worst part though is every time you go to pick up a new item all it shows you is the name of it...So how am I supposed to psychically know if the Avenger 6 is better or worse than the Waveblaster 7? Oh, and my inventory is full right? So I have to go to the inventory, delete something, pick the weapon back up and....oops, it's shit... Waste of time! I hate it so hard.

Music:

There is none...that's what's wrong...

Ok to be fair the music flares up now and then during battle, or maybe on the way to battle but it has a Batman Arkham Asylum problem where it basically hardly ever shows up. But unlike Batman even when it does show up it's not even any good. I was physically startled to hear music in the end credits.

Story:

This is what everyone praises...somehow. I do not understand how this aspect of the game gets praise. The story hardly exists, it's barely there and it's full of holes. Alright, so you are a veteran space marine of some kind moving up the ranks. You go out on a mission with this creepy guy named Saren and presumably he dies in the mission (I think it's been a while since I did the first mission). Later it's discovered he's alive and is the cause of a bunch of evil shit, namely searching out these beacons of untold cosmic horror. No really, your main character touches one of these things and he is imparted the wisdom of untold cosmic horror and the entire game is you figuring out what those images mean...

So you're tasked with having to find and kill Saren and discover why he's being all evil...and what the untold horror is. The main game is about 7 missions long and it takes roughly 10 hours to do it all. Not only can I call this the shortest RPG of all time, but I don't think it even qualifies as one. Oh, but you have 30 to 40 meaningless sidequests to partake in...they can shove it!

***Spoilers***

You track down and kill Saren and stop his evil plan of unleashing the evil machine things. Seriously, that's it. There's an evil band of "unstoppable machines" that live on the outer edge of the galaxy who's sole purpose it is to wipe out all living things in that galaxy and then retreat into hibernation waiting to do it all again. Oh and they are called "reapers," lol get it, do ya get it? But you stop them from even coming through the warp gate thing Saren was trying to open in the first place, so the entire story boils down to you killing one dude. Ok, there is ONE Reaper that remains in the galaxy as a sentry of sorts named Sovereign. But he's a pussy bitch and dies in a cutscene.

So WHY are they unstoppable? The game never says why. It makes no sense as we clearly see one of them go down like a pussy bitch. In Halo their alien thing that wipes out all life makes sense. The Flood is just infinite, they never stop coming. Makes sense why they whoop ass. For a cliche' story like this where machines wipe everything out, this has to be the worst one I have ever heard. It never even plays out, you learn nothing. And at the VERY end your main character says "We have to get ready, the Reapers are coming!" HOW are they coming exactly?? I just fucked up their sentry and closed the gate allowing them access in. How pray-tell are they coming? Did the sentry even have a chance to give word to the other reapers to come? I don't think he did. THIS MAKES NO SENSE!

Game over....

Fuck you game.

Characters:

I saved this for last because I wanted to discuss the "choices" aspect of the game too. First the characters. You get two interchangeable speciesist (racist) human characters male and female. The game lets you decide which one to kill off later but it's meaningless as they're both basically the exact same. Then you get an assortment of alien characters. A spock-like female alien who's super intelligent yet socially awkward (you get to bang her). An alien chick out to check out and collect a bunch of alien technology. You literally hear nothing from this bitch after you get her. I honestly forgot she existed after a while. And two other alien guys one who has a dark brand of justice and the other who's way more down to earth.

Ultimately none of them really matter. The spock alien and one of the humans are the only characters the story likes to focus on, but it's terribly rare. So how is there ANY character development in this game at all? Your character likes to play 100 questions, that's how! He will ask literally anything and everything in this game and respond with your brand of neutral, good, or evil responses. What you say means nothing at all in the end. Nothing changes. In quests your wordy options just decides whether you kill everyone or you don't. In either case the missions get solved one way or another.

But for the character development I couldn't be more annoyed playing 100 questions. What's your favorite shoe? Where do alien babies come from? Do you have a story to tell? He literally asks that once I swear to god. "Do you have a story to tell?" I expected the response to be, "Well Bioware decided that I don't...nope just a worthless NPC right here. Sorry to disappoint." HOW is this good character development? I get the same shit reading the manual which gives the summary on the characters in any other RPG.

What irritates me most of all is your character is described as a seasoned veteran who has been on many other worldly missions right? Ok then why is he asking EVERY alien he comes across about their culture, history, backgrounds, what they do at the Citadel, what is the Citadel, on and on and on. He knows dick! Seasoned veteran? No, seasoned retard.

I get it's for the player's benefit but then WHY have the story make him out to be some weathered warrior if that's the case? Just let him be a newbie so we can be a newbie with him. It detracts from the game when I set out on a mission supposed to be Mr. Know-it-all and I don't know a damn thing about anything. I half expected him to ask a few aliens how they breathe...though he does ask the Spock-chick how they breed (seriously) so I guess that's close enough. And you get a long winded explanation of how they fucking breed with any species they come across...in DETAIL. It's so lame it hurts.

Choices:

Didn't know I'd go on that long about characters so I separated this. I'll make this brief. Choices in this game don't mean dick. You get essentially two of them. Which human do you want to kill and if you want the good ending or bad ending. Other choices in the game boil down to you ending conflicts in either violence or peaceful talks. Sometimes the choices you pick don't make any damn sense and I'll use the last one as a prime example.

Somehow, I was good through the WHOLE fucking game and I managed to pick the evil ending! How I managed to do this I can only leave up to the idiot programmers. The choice is either 1. To protect the Citadel Council (politicians that undermine you at every opportunity in the game) at all costs. Or 2. Kill the reaper as fast as humanly possible to, I believed, save more lives. The evil ending was 2? HOW, WHY??? The council are assholes, worthless alien beings who hate the fuck out of you. Why would I risk more lives to save a group of politicians? WHY? So I didn't, and now I'm evil. OK GAME WHATEVER YOU SAY.

But that's it! Where's this "Mass Effect" they spoke of? Where's the branching paths? For a game with ONLY 7 goddamn main missions you'd THINK they could have made 5 more assuming you made rippling choices in earlier missions actually causing a...oh I dunno... a BRANCHING path!? Of course not.

Conclusion:

The whole game reeks of laziness to me. Why call it Mass Effect, tout the ability to branch out and change things when you never honestly change anything meaningful ever? A game with only 7 or so main missions never even gets time to develop itself. I remember when the game began and I was appointed to kill Saren. Seemed simple enough honestly. I really assumed that would be mission one and then I'd learn all about the evil machine things and fight them. But no the ENTIRE game was just me going to kill ONE evil dude, who by the way was never evil in the first place. Nooooo he's just under mind control! *gasp!* So you never even fight anything worthy of being called a villain in the first place. Lovely.

I got Mass Effect 2 sitting on the back burner and I'll get to it...in 3 years or so I imagine.

*going to take a Mass Poop now*

JRPG's vs Western RPG's

A recent article by legendary Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune discusses the current troubles of the Japanese market and its place in the state of the gaming industry today struck a cord with me and inspired this little piece. Keiji expresses his worries about how Japanese game designers go about making games, and he is worried they are making them "too Japanese." His fear is that Japanese developers are being left behind and are not appealing to all markets as Western developers are innovating and captivating the gaming audience at large.

Keiji's worries are well warranted as these days Western developers have pretty much taken over the gaming industry from Japan on a software level. Games like Halo, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and Grand Theft Auto are more household names than Mega Man or Final Fantasy. While the Japanese aren't doing terribly, there is reason to worry.

But the question I guess is, what are Western developers doing right to capture this audience? What are Japanese developers doing wrong? Well the answer is more convoluted, long and boring for this article so instead I wanted to focus on Japanese RPG's and Western RPG's. We'll see the innovation and failures of both.

Western RPG Success:

1. Reaping the Rewards

What games like Mass Effect, Fallout 3, Oblivion, and to an extreme degree World of Warcraft do very well is create a slew of "fetch quests" for the player. I call this a success because the human mind loves to be constantly rewarded and quickly. Look no further than the success of Pop Cap games like Bejeweled. These Western RPG's are chalk full of tiny fetch quests and maybe 8 main quests. The idea is to get the player to keep playing and reaping small rewards. And they will too.

While I absolutely hate this fact, that's just how people are. They will praise a game like Mass Effect as such a wonderful game when it only has maybe 6 main quests and 30 to 40 little side quests each being no different than the last. Despite the complete lack of attention to the game's story, oh but those 30 to 40 mini quests were just so damn wonderful...

I used to be one of those people. I would play Diablo 2 at all hours of the night simply killing Mephisto over and over and over, hoping to get some magical awesome item. What's worse is after I collected everything Mephisto could possibly drop...I kept doing it. Why would I do this? The addiction of seeing my rewards is why. I'm glad I asked myself this. I haven't touched the game to this day.

2. "Path" choosing

One thing classic JRPG's never did, or never even attempted was giving the player choices. Western RPG's have pretty much always done this, even back in the days of old point and click games. While I still feel these path options are weak at best, only Western developers are actually trying it. People seem to love it too even if the differences are absolutely negligible like Mass Effect. Fallout 3 and Oblivion do better jobs at this though, and you can actually kill off important characters if you want, and even level entire cities. That's about the best I think this "path" choosing will ever hope to get.

The closest JRPG's ever get to this idea is multiple endings. A lot of JRPG's have multiple endings, but how you acquire them never made any damn sense. Most of the time you had to do random things like find the secret sword, or not pay attention to certain character in the main story, or don't die x amount of times, or DO die x amount of times. Western RPG's multiple paths and endings always made sense. Killed the female lead because of a bad choice? Ok bad ending. JRPG logic was more like, didn't buy the female lead flowers at the beginning of the game? Well she turned evil now and burned down the mana tree, too bad for you.

3. Action

Western developers have taken note, turn based combat isn't fun anymore. Or at the very least, those games don't sell well anymore. I can't name any Western RPG that employs turn based combat. Every one of them now is either first person combat or some hybrid of pausing the game to choose a set of actions which will play out as you watch. Everything happens in real time with these games though and that has been a huge success for Western RPG's. I can't tell you how many times I have heard the complaint of turn based systems and how it ruins the "realism."

Japanese RPG's: What they still do well:

1. Story/Pacing

In most cases, JRPG's still have a better handle on character development and spacing out when to employ story elements in their games. I hear the argument all the time that JRPG's only use cookie cutter characters, long swords, emo heroes, bla bla and so on. And while that is largely true, that isn't where my argument comes from, and that has nothing to do with the technical aspect of how a story is presented. For instance, western games like Mass Effect and Fallout 3 spend a lot of time...ignoring the story they set up entirely. Just flat out ignoring it until maybe mid-game and of course the end. But there is usually 10 hour periods where the story doesn't even rear its little head.

That's what Japanese RPG's do far better, they keep the player involved with the plot. They keep up the pace set from the start and characters are constantly evolving and interacting. And of course there are many JRPG's that don't abide by this, but I can't name a single Western RPG that does this at all.

2. Characters

I still believe this is a reason JRPG's are still purchased today. Generally speaking Japanese characters are simply more interesting. Western RPG's are way too into "creating your own character" so they never end up being interesting...ever. From Mass Effect to Oblivion and Fallout 3 the main character of the game is horribly boring and flat. Chrono Trigger's silent protagonist had more character in his little sprite animations than nearly all Western RPG main characters combined.

But what of side characters? Well this is where the argument just becomes opinionated, but I honestly feel there is no difference between the two. I think Western RPG's tend to do a better job at hiding their archetype characters whereas JRPG's shove them in your face. But either way, both genres employ tried and true character types which always results in a band of unlikely heroes out to save whatever it might be.

3. Music

Ok, this one might be heavily opinionated but I can't hum a tune of any Western RPG I have ever played. Oblivion came the closest to having interesting music but it doesn't hold a candle to any JRPG. I honestly feel Japanese developers care about the music score in their RPG's and I feel that is very important to set the mood of the game. Playing through all of Mass Effect, Fallout 3, and many other Western RPG's I barely remember hearing any music at all. I can't see how JRPG's could lose this category at all.

The only issue with this category is I do not believe sales are affected positively or negatively on a good musical score. I do think it gives a boost to the story and atmosphere though so perhaps on some level that helps. I know I have purchased a few RPG's because Yasunori Mitsuda has done the score or Nobuo Uematsu, but I'm sure I am in a small minority.

Conclusion:

It is painfully clear that the successes of Western RPG's outweigh what JRPG's still do well. What also hurts is JRPG's lack of innovation. For American gamers anyway, JRPG's are all the same. They all have save the world plots with character archetypes, big swords, goofy hair, inane convoluted storytelling, and overly complex battle systems. This is where Keiji is worried, lack of evolution. Western developers have discovered what works and what doesn't whereas Japanese developers are still stuck in believing a good RPG for instance absolutely needs a young spunky annoying female character that doesn't wear much clothing.

This is what Keiji is warning about and he is right. Final Fantasy 13 may still have sold rather well, but not nearly as well as it should have. It did noticeably poor in Japan which is a little startling. But it was a bad game through and through. It didn't even do what JRPG's do well either. What is funny is the game was trying to be progressive and captivate a wider audience, but instead all it did was slap the face of hardcore fans by being dumbed down, and ignored by people who still don't care about the series. It pleased no one ultimately.

Personal Thoughts:

I still prefer JRPG's, and I really want to disagree with Keiji. While I understand JRPG's need to be less Japanese to sell well in the states, that is what I enjoy about them. If they can just be themselves and not force in newfangled ideas that they think will work we won't get FF13 ever again. What came of their experimentation was neither Japanese nor Western, it was just plain awful.

What I hope doesn't happen is for JRPG's to stop being JRPG's all together. I can see it happening too. The last thing I want is for every RPG to make me go on meaningless fetch quests for 30 hours and then tell me why the bad guy is evil at the very end of the game so I can kill him...(Mass Effect)

*Stay tuned for a Mass Effect review...I really want to rip that game a new one*

Ctrl Alt Del - Holy Soapbox Retort

CAD, an online comic that makes me laugh most of the time contributed this little ditty along with a very long post calling out gamers who hate the idea of DLC and paid subscriptions for online games. I am such a gamer, but what annoys me about Tim's post is how inaccurate he is portraying the argument on the side of gamers who dislike this. In a nutshell, here is what the CAD article says, see below:

1. The most commonly used argument (and this extends to DLC situations) is "Why should I have to pay to play something I've already bought?" In response to which I generally think to myself "Umm... because that's the way some things in the world work?"

2. You can buy a car, but unless you're regularly paying to insure it and fill it with gas, you're not going to get much use out of it. You can buy a game console, but unless you buy games or DVDs to play on it, it's a decoration. You buy a tv and then pay monthly for cable so you have shows to watch. The concept of "shelling out cash to use stuff we've already bought" is nothing new. In video games, the concept is still in its relative infancy (DLC, subscriptions) but not so much that it deserves the "ohmygodwtf how dare they?!" attitude it receives.

3. I think its born of two mostly erroneous assumptions. A) That the gamer deserves things for free and B) that it's only happening because the game developer/publisher are greedy bastards who want to pocket your subscription fees while laughing and killing kittens.

4. First of all, if a game is asking a subscription fee (and this is a generalization, I'm sure there is an exception or two) it's because there are larger costs associated with running the game. MMOs for instance, require dedicated servers and constant manpower to monitor and respond to issues. The servers cost money each month, and the people working on them need to be paid. So your initial purchase of the game pays for the (sometimes many) years of actually creating the game. Your subscription fees pay to keep the servers running and the game updated, etc.

Now, to my retort. 

1. I do not buy MOST DLC, very little of it actually gives the game more life for the price. Granted, I do not have to buy DLC and again in most cases I won't. But some DLC outright ruins the expierence that a gamer gets in the first place. Let's take Blazblue Continuum Shift to prove this point. Aksys has decided to offer as DLC another character (even before they release the game mind you). So what they're telling us is to have all the characters in the game you not only have to buy the game but also buy another character. Understand that CHARACTERS are a vital component to any fighting game and not chinsey add-ons you don't need like "skins." What Aksys is telling us then is you don't get the full game when you buy it. It would be like if Nintendo released a Mario game, but he can't jump unless you buy the DLC "Jump command for $5." It's ridiculous. Map-packs are another example of DLC that ruins the experience. If you're in a deathmatch where most people have the DLC map pack but one dude doesn't, then sorry old maps for you. This is a detriment mainly to the people who actually buy the DLC maps. Further, in the instance of Resident Evil 5 where they made people pay for the online multiplayer component of the game (which was already on the disc) is also laughable. I understand that companies develop these things and should be paid for them, of course they should I'm not arguing that. But here's what Capcom essentially did, they sold the consumer a "final product" for $60. This product was then discovered to have content not available to the final user unless they paid $5 more, thus being lied to entirely. However, what would the reaction be if Capcom sold Resident Evil 5 for $65 explaining the multiplayer component of the game is what the extra $5 was for. This is as least honest business. What they are doing instead is like if I bought a car and then discovered that I was unable to open my trunk unless I bought a special key from the dealer unbeknown to me upon initial purchase. 

2. This is just laughable, and a horrible comparison. Cars are a money pit, you always have to put more money into them. Then he makes the argument that buying a video game console and then buying games for it is continuing the "paying for it after you buy it" logic, which is also flawed. You buy a car knowing it needs gas to run it. You buy a video game console knowing it needs games to play it. In my experience of playing video games you NEVER needed to buy an extra character to play a fighting game. You NEVER had to buy a map-pack to play with everyone. Games were made and developed right the first time. The car is the investment, the console is the investment, the Game is the end-product...but here the argument is the game is not the end product anymore, such is the case with DLC. 

3. The (A) assumption is where he just doesn't understand where we're coming from. A $60 game is not free and I never see anyone complaining about initial game purchases. I never see anyone saying "this should be free," either. What I see, and rightfully so, are people saying "This should have come with the game when I bought it." How is this difficult to understand? His (B) assumption is correct. They are out to make money, and I'm not scorning them for it. In certain instances though it's utter trash, like the Blazblue one I mentioned. The game isn't even out yet, and we're already told we won't get all the characters with the game. Another thing that happens is the gamer feels cheated. They set out to buy a game for $60 thinking that's all the investment required to enjoy the product. When more stuff comes out for the game, the product they spent $60 on now feels diminished, unfinished, and now they are being charged more for it. They cannot be on the same level as everyone who bought the game as now there are classes of people, those who bought the extra character and those who didn't. Those who did can use that character to win more matches on people who do not understand the properties of that new character because they don't have it. 

4. Paid subscriptions, we generally agree here. I agree that MMO's need dedicated servers to run all their data and thus a paid subscription is warranted. I for one will never play these games however, because there are so many games I can play that do not require this. It's not my kind of game. I love games that I can go back to at any moment, pop in and go. MMO's do not have any sort of "staying power." You can't even enjoy Matrix Online anymore for instance, however I can still enjoy Pac-Man whenever I want and never once paid a monthly subscription to play it. 

To Conclude: I mentioned my thoughts on DLC in the past, I don't like it. The CAD article tells us to stop living in the past when games came out complete, those days are over. That doesn't change the fact that I shouldn't be allowed to be angry over it. I am very pleased with Nintendo in this regard as they still ship out a finished product to consumers. So in that regard, the past is not dead yet and Tim from CAD is wrong. Expectations for a finished game can still be met, and not all developers are offenders of this nonsense. The CAD article also does something else that always irritates me. He basically says "if you don't like it don't buy it." What purpose does this "advice" give exactly? It's probably my most hated quote I see online of all time. It's a nothing statement, and adds nothing to the debate. Of course if I don't like it I'm not going to buy it, the ISSUE here is the game I bought is now a lesser product because I refuse to invest more money in a game that was supposed to be the finished product. I refuse to buy the key to the trunk, I should have been allowed access to the trunk in the first place. If it wasn't done yet, don't release it. The anger is toward the companies that do this, and our general wish to make them cut it out by not buying it. Maybe I'm just living in the past, expect more from game companies, expect to buy a finished product. 

    Ultimately there is no right or wrong in this argument, you either like DLC or you don't. Heck, you can even like some DLC and hate others, that's your choice. But for Tim to claim that "we want it for free" or that we should stop living in the past is outright foolish. He can't tell me what should anger me, and he's an idiot to believe that I expect DLC for free. On the contrary, I expect my $60 to buy a finished product sans the DLC entirely. *Perhaps it is Tim that expects all game companies to screw him over so he'll simply bend over and accept it. *

Porter Perspective - E3 2010

I may as well update the site with my thoughts on E3 2010. We were supposed to do a video update, but my memory is a short one (much like myself) and need to lay out my thoughts before they die in some brain cavern guarded by an evil giant earthworm...

Overall my thoughts on E3 2010 were largely positive as a Nintendo fan. However, as a fan of gaming as a whole I was very, VERY disappointed with the show.I'll begin my review with the worst of E3.

Microsoft:

No shocker here I guess, but Microsoft clearly had the worst conference of E3 2010. Ask any industry analyst or go to any major video game site that discusses Best vs Worst of E3 and they all agree Microsoft dropped a giant turd on us all.

While we knew they would go off the deep end showing us "Kinect" (shudder) what we didn't realize is that they would...GO OFF THE DEEP END showing us "Kinect." By that I mean they literally had nothing new to show other than that. We knew about Gears 3, we knew about Fable 3, we knew about Black Ops, we knew about every game they had before they showed us they had it. It was uneventful to say the least, and comprised maybe 20% of their entire show. So for all us gaming fans we got to be "wowed" by footage we've basically seen before in Gears, Black Ops, and Fable 3. Oh and some gladiator game we only saw live action footage of...*yawn*

And then their show went to "Kinect." This would be the rest of their show, sadly. Here we have a device that is touted to be for the casual gaming crowd and thus we saw many casual games, and only casual games. Games that in my eyes lack the very distinction of being categorized as such and instead I am left to call them...Cagms?

These "Cagms" were no more interesting than what Nintendo showed us years ago with Wii Sports, but Nintendo never hid the fact that those were simply just pieces of tech demo for the Wii itself and we were sold on that. But no, Microsoft wants us to believe what they have is different in some way, you get to do all that but without a controller at all. Nothing stands between you and the game....except that it does make you stand...

A quick rundown of these Cagms you'll find that you can play with animals by waving your arms around, you can paint on the TV by...waving your arms around, you can dance at the TV, you can run in place at the TV and pretend to do all manner of other sports.
Now here's my main issues with this piece of hardware.

#1: There is nothing, and has been nothing that tells me this unit can offer a decent video game.

#2: It's targeted toward the Casual game audience right? Ok, the unit has been speculated to be priced at $150, coupled with a $300 Xbox that casual gamers are sure to not own yet. And of course $60 per game and much more in untold extras. I dare say that "casual" gamers will not be drawn in by these figures when last I checked Bejeweled is still free to play on Facebook.

Casual gamers or Desperate Housewives; you decide.

#3: The lag. Even though all the Camgs on the Kinect sucked on their own merit, watching the live demos proved to me that they also lag ridiculously. I watched as the man playing jumped, then landed. I then observed his avatar begin his jump as the human landed. This is horrible. While I never expected a 1:1 play ratio I certainly didn't expect it to be as bad as it was. How can gaming be played this way? It's as if your playing an online game with someone who has a horrible connection...constantly.

Above is what Microsoft's marketing team wants you to think the Kinect can do
What the Kinect will actually do

So how else does Microsoft try and sell this hunk of junk? Why by showing us the immense power that is online video chat....that computers have had since the dawn of webcams...A teenage girl gets up on stage and sells the fact that the Kinect is great for her being able to video chat with her friends as she is not a gamer...though later mentions how easy it is to check her gamerscore *facepalm.* So Ms. Not a gamer wants to shell out $450 + $50 a year for Xbox Live to do what her laptop already does, or what phones probably do now as well.

Now I have a degree in marketing and even I know this is a tough sell. Younger teenage girls, will they want A. Top of the line Cell phone, B. Laptop computer that does schoolwork and built in web-cam, or C. A video game console with a really expensive web-cam....
Microsoft has shown us an item that will fail with casual gamers or "Cagmers" and will fail with actual gamers as there were no decent games to play.

Two positive notes came from Microsoft's show. One was being able to watch various sports games for free through Xbox Live which is amazing when you think about the savings if you have dish or cable and just want sports. And they showed the Xbox slim which cannot get the Red Ring of Death because the system now shuts down like a normal computer if it overheats. It took you guys 5 years to implement this and could have saved you MILLIONS on RRoD hardware? Morons...

Next up was Nintendo, and they pretty much just had to deliver what we all expected the 3DS to outshine Microsoft. They did that and so much more.

Nintendo:
Nintendo's show was something I haven't seen at E3 in years. They brought to the table something gamers every year yearn to see at E3 prior to the downfall of E3 some years back. Their show was quick, concise, and comprised of nothing but an onslaught of upcoming game releases and just how fricking awesome the 3DS is going to be.
Not to drone on, this was Nintendo's show in a nutshell:

New Kirby, new Donkey Kong Country, new Zelda, new Kingdom Hearts, new Kid Icarus, new Star Fox, new Animal Crossing, new Dead or Alive, Street Fighter 4 on 3DS, new Metal Gear, new Resident Evil, new Pilot Wings, new Golden Sun, remade Zelda OoT on 3DS, 3DS has Wii-like graphics, no glasses required for 3D effects, and every company and their mother is making games for the 3DS *shows heart-stoppingly large chart of top game companies.*

Me

While it seems like I mentioned a lot of games up there I'm pretty sure I missed about half of them as I don't care for a lot of games like Ridge Racer and some other stuff they mentioned. But Nintendo's show was literally an hour and a half bombardment of future game releases and gawking at just how amazing the 3DS looked.

If I have one complaint with their show it's that they wouldn't STOP telling us about new awesome games. Hours after their show ended we learned about MORE titles coming to the 3DS. The seemingly endless lineup of quality titles on the 3DS has already out-shined the entire lineup available on the PSP and Nintendo thought it necessary to continue mentioning more games. I was overloaded and just wanted them to stop so I could process this amount of awesome.

There's really nothing else to say about their show. It was perfect, what every gamer loves to see and hear. They did it well too, we saw some clips and snippets of new games a demo of the new Zelda. They didn't drone on, they weren't boring, and the show was constantly shocking at the sheer quantity of titles.

Now on to Sony who needs to learn the definition of "pandering."

Sony:

I was hoping for a lot from Sony, more than I should have been hoping for. The show started with little fanfare as Sony came out, talked, and showed a trailer. They came out and talked again, left and showed another trailer. This went on for a long time and the trailers we were seeing were nothing surprising and about games we already knew about like Killzone 3 and Infamous 2. They went on about their 3D for PS3 that no one in their right mind would try, (glasses cost a fortune and you need a 3D capable HD TV which are upwards of $3,000).

They talked more, finally brought out the Playstation Wii with a lollipop on the end that they call Move. Maybe they took note of how horrible Microsoft's show was because they didn't stick with this for very long. It came out with a few trailers that felt way more like commercials of people pretending their holding the item in-game with the lollipop and they had a few game demos though I only remember the one where the guy is Harry Potter but isn't really.

It sucked, that's really all I can say about it. It's no better than a Wii-mote now with the Plus on the end except Sony didn't really show us any worthwhile games to get with it. Basically the PS3 can now just be a Wii when it wants to now as long as you buy the lollipop and Playstation Eyetoy. They did have Time Crisis and Tiger Woods to show which was at least what I would call video games unlike all the Kinect "Cagms."

At least we can understand what the Move can do (which is exactly the same thing as the Wii) so we know what to expect. We can expect "waggle" games, games that use a pointer to aim, sword slashing stuff...and that's about it.

Then they bring out the PSP and here's where I was hoping we'd see something amazing like Nintendo with the 3DS, a PSP2? Ok, immediately we saw that they were sticking with the PSP. Fine, I'll live with that. Any new awesome games? Well they showed us a brief cinema trailer for a new God of War that we knew they were making anyway. Sweet, I loved Chains of Olympus. But what took up the majority of the PSP's time? What did they do to entice gamers to get a PSP over a 3DS. See below.Who is Marcus Rivers? He's the new spokesman for the PSP. Yeah, because a room full of gamers wanting to see new additions to the PSP will enjoy seeing two straight commercials advertising...NOT the PSP but Marcus Rivers, a young black male who underscores all the stereotypes of the late Gary Coleman because apparently Sony's writers haven't left the late 70's and apparently think these stereotypes are still somehow accurate.

I guess it's still an improvement?

At this point I was beyond bored. I've never honestly seen more commercials in an E3 show before (even though I'm astutely aware it's all one large commercial). Finally, EA comes out and wows the crowd with some Medal of Honor and Dead Space 2. I guess we were all desperate to see some actual gaming going on, but Dead Space 2 looked super sweet. Then we saw some Portal 2 action and to top it off we see the new Twisted Metal. The end of Sony's show was the best part, all those games looked decent to great and didn't involve any droning commentary, lollipops, or Marcus.

In closing:

Let's get one thing straight here about these new "Cagms" that Sony and Microsoft are trying to pull. They missed the boat, period. The Wii was a big hit for one reason, the promise. The promise that we would play games in a new and fun way. Once that reality wore off and Nintendo got all it's money everyone realized something very quickly, that the Wii would not deliver what was promised. Even Nintendo knows this now as they are putting all their efforts into real video games again as evidenced by their E3 show this year.

Sony and Microsoft on the other hand, who once panned Nintendo into oblivion are only here to wow a crowd of casual gamers that have all but left or continue to purchase software for the Wii they already bought.

They won't be fooled twice into believing this new gadgetry will allow them to accurately pretend to bowl or hit a baseball. No, they can see that the hardware just isn't up to par yet. They saw as Sony demoed the Tiger Woods game with beyond noticeable lag and wonder to themselves why not just actually go golfing. They saw how absurd people looked playing Kinect. And I'm giving the casual crowd a lot of credit here really. The very idea that they "saw" any of this is also absurd. How many casual gamers are even aware E3 exists? Nintendo spawned the Wii from E3 but got the word out through many daytime TV shows and internet blogs. Practically everyone was messing around with the Wii from Ellen to any "Early News Show" you can think of. Nintendo couldn't buy the amount of publicity it actually got and essentially steamrolled the world.

This won't happen again, this was Tickle Me Elmo, this was Pogs, this was Beanie Babies, the Wii now is what Nintendo makes it which is a video game console once again. And once again Nintendo is one step ahead of its competition as they try in vain to play catchup making "Cagms."

*E3 2010 out*