There Be Finger Pointing

Posted on by

finger pointing

When SimCity first released, those people who did publish official reviews clearly had reviewed a demo copy.  Eurogamer Sweden published a 100% rating on the 4th, when the servers were taking a pretty large poop and a true play test of the multiplayer portions had not really begun.  A few days after launch, the metacritic score was around 85.  Now it’s 67.  Let’s not even discuss the user score.

I know that most publishers tie a revenue bonus or tier percentage on returns based on the metacritic score.  This can clearly be gamed if the review sample is small, such as what happened with Fallout: New Vegas, where a single % cut off all bonuses for what was arguably one of the best games that year.

Now let it be clear that I like Maxis.   They’ve made some pretty amazing games over the years, one of which I’m pretty sure is still the all-time best selling game (The Sims).  Darkspore, to me, was their first toe step into the multiplayer arena.  Again, the reception for that game was mediocre.  Given that, it’s hard to imagine that it was EA that was pushing the muliplayer aspect of SimCity and that a portion of the blame of what was delivered sits squarely in their lap.

So here we are, 1 week after launch and the game 10 years in the making is most definitely going to cost EA a few million in lost sales, Maxis any possible bonus and likely quite a few people their jobs.  It’s a business after all and one with next to no tolerance for failure.  I do feel bad when people lose their jobs, but at the same time, you can look at SimCity and see nearly everything wrong with games today:

… in one package, that’s Sim City 5. To wit:

– Overpromise
– Underdeliver (bordering on flat out fraud)
– We still buy a lacking product

Aging Gamers

Posted on by

First, the gushiness, I have two adorable children.  If you’re a parent, you have the same problem I do.  Children make you feel old and out of touch, like you’re 2 steps behind the pack.  It’s an effort to be at the same pace they are since every generation moves at a quicker pace than the last.  Which brings me to this post which has been simmering in the back of my mind for some time now.

In general, the blogging generation is older.  Few people take the time to sit down and write something down that has more than 140 characters or isn’t a cut and paste from somewhere else.  I tell people I write a blog and most think that’s quaint, as if I was writing an op-ed piece in the newspaper (which is my reaction to those who do just that).  Being older brings with it a sense of nostalgia and entitlement.  Things were better back then and gosh darn it, I put in my time and I deserve something better.  You know why they don’t make cars with carburetors anymore?  EFI is better.  It’s the same reason that you need to be 40+ to own any car with a carb, today’s generation simply never knew it existed.

Gaming isn’t much different.  There are quite a few blogs out there that mourn the loss of gaming of old and put out such amazing pieces of hyperbole that you’d think Chicken Little was at the keyboard.  While I appreciate dissenting views, sometimes you just have to shake your head and wonder what planet these people are on.  Torchlight 2, Borderlands 2, Ni No Kuni and Tomb Raider are recent examples of near perfect gaming, each embodying a particular facet of their genre and shining it to golden luster.  The difference is that these games aren’t designed for us (the older folk), they are designed for the core gaming audience, the low to mid 20s.  They might have features we like but their targets are much different.

Ni No Kuni is a great example.  This is Pokémon meets JRPG/FF13 combat, with a sprinkle of Tales story telling.  The individual elements are all fairly recent, the cutesy characters aren’t meant for realism but the whole of the game, the final package, is just pure fun.

MMOs aren’t much different.  For the vast majority of MMO players, their first game was World of Warcraft.  UO, EQ, DAOC, AC – it all means bunk to them.  Bygones of a forgotten era.  Heck, I played AD&D for years before version 3 came out.  By the time 4 came out, no one really remembered what THAC0 meant anymore.  MMOs today are simply not designed for the people who played those first games.  The originals were not built on gameplay, they were built on social structures for people who had 4-6 hours to invest in one session.  You’re kidding yourself if you think there is an infinite pool of those types of players.  They are all already playing some game and invested in it.  You think Blood Legion (a hardcore WoW raiding guild) has the time to play another MMO for 30 hours a week?  You think they are going to drop years of investment in a game for another one with 10% of the content?

Today’s gaming generation plays short sessions with quick rewards.  Their lives move at an incredible pace and they have other things to do.  They certainly won’t sit for 4 hours a night in front of a computer and wipe continuously on a boss for 2 weeks.  I daresay they aren’t the crazy ones.  I certainly don’t have the time to commit to that with kids in the house.  I barely have time to commit to one 2 hour session a week, especially if it’s in my own house.

As aging gamers, perhaps it’s just time to take a backseat to the sky-is-falling attitudes and simply enjoy the fun games that we do get to play.  There are plenty of them out there and I bet for most of us, we don’t even have time to play half of them.

Tomb Raider

Posted on by

Hard to believe it’s been 17 years but I played the original Tomb Raider back in the day and aside from being impressed with the fact that Lara has amazing back muscles to keep her from falling forward with that weight up front, I was relatively pleased with her first few outings.  Then the franchise doldrums hit and hit hard.  Single player rehashes are hard sells.  Mutliplayer ones are simply exercises in peer pressure.  When the 2nd Lara Croft film hit the cinema, you could see the bottom of the pit the franchise was in.

Fast forward to today and the reboot of the franchise is a welcome sight.  This is one of those games where the Croft name is more important than Lara, as for all intents this could be Lara’s daughter running around instead of the original one.  Gone are the linear tombs with massive puzzles and repeated deaths.  Welcome are the relatively open zones with succinct puzzles whose solutions are within eyesight.  I remember some of the nasty puzzles in the past that had you moving for what seemed like 5 minutes, into some sort of Rube-Goldberg machine and then die at the end from a missed jump.  Today’s game has less instant death and more “think it out” and act.  A bit like the Assassin’s Creed 2 tombs I guess, but smaller in size.

I play on the PC, which apparently at the lowest setting still gives better performance and art than any console.  I can play moderately well at Ultra and it seems more like a movie than a game.  The sound is amazing, I find myself shouting in surprise at events where guys jump out of nowhere and the scenery is simply the best of this generation.  When you do play it, and you will, take the time to look around on the Radio Tower.  Jeebus.

Tomb Raider

Everyone and their kid is talking about how the bow is awesome.  I am here to tell you they are correct.  Sure, you will use it to shoot people in the head but you can shoot them in the arm, the belly or the leg for various effects.  You can shoot ropes to slide around.  You can shoot walls to make distractions and shoot lamps to start fires.  Shooting from a dark corner, sniping 2 or 3 enemies before they realize what’s going on is amazing.  Shooting a flaming arrow into a gas pocket and knocking 6 of them down in a single attack, amazing.  The bow is practically perfectly implemented.

While the story isn’t something amazing, the progress of Lara’s character is.  Small and timid, injured without end, she continuously, if reluctantly, surmounts every challenge in her path.  Often times I found myself at the edge of my seat, wondering what was going to happen next.  I think the one facet that makes her relate-able to the masses is that anyone can see themselves in her shoes and acting in the same way.  This isn’t some episode of Lost where you’re screaming at the TV “Don’t go in there stupid!”.  Each and every action and reaction is similar if not identical to the one you’re having while playing.  Quite an accomplishment.

Tomb Raider is a must buy.

SimCrappy

Posted on by

To the surprise of no one, SimCity launched and then fell flat for many players.  Either failed downloads, failed connections, server queues or just plain old bugs, many people were unable to play the recent installment in the classic series.

While I think the concepts behind the game are pretty cool, I do have reservations on a few items:

  • It requires Origin to play, no matter where you buy it.  I have a dislike for Origin for many reasons, the least of which is their EULA and shoddy customer service.
  • It’s from EA, a company who is charging players for a priority queue to play the game.  Now that’s brass balls folks.
  • The city size is 80-90% smaller than in previous versions.  Hitting 500K population is an achievement.
  • Due to the former, cities must work together in a region to support each other.  Cool concept until one of those cities decides to stop playing and you suddenly lose all your power.
  • You can “finish” your city relatively quickly, in a few hours.  Past Sim games took quite a while to reach a prosperous city.  To me, this is going to hurt the longevity of the game as once you’re at maximum capacity, every corner is filled and you know a change in direction (say from Power to Knowledge) would destroy your region, why bother?
  • Always on DRM.  If Diablo 3 taught me anything, it’s that always on DRM for a single player game is one of the stupidest things ever seen.  If it’s single player, I want to be able to play offline for when I don’t have the internet.  That’s why I have a laptop.

It just seems like a wasted effort on a game that had a lot of potential.  I am hoping that EA and other companies learn from this and find some middle ground between letting players actually play the game and securing their games (like a once every 2 week ping to the server).

March Madness

Posted on by

March is going to be one heck of a month for gaming.  I can’t remember the last time there was so much coming at us the same time.  It will be interesting to see how this month profits for companies and perhaps we’ll see a 2 month year stem from it (the other being November).

Tomb Raider is out this week and is getting some very nice buzz.  I’ve been a fan of the series for many years and thought the puzzle element was always the best part.  Uncharted does the story/movie aspect a lot better.  Apparently this new one is meant to provide both and it looks like I’ll be getting it on Steam shortly.

Sim City is back, though the focus this time is on single cities rather than large metropolises.  Sadly, it’s an EA distributed game, and my wallet says I won’t be buying it.  Mind you, this is the first game where I thought of changing that principle, in over a year.  Says something about EA…

Bioshock: Infinite is out too and by George, that series has a stranglehold on philosophy in gaming.  While there are balance issues with the game, the story portion and pacing is the bar others try to replicate.  Fingers crossed it does a good job with the idea of freedom vs. religion.  All signs point to yes.

The next installation of the Starcraft 2 trilogy is out.  I played the crap out of the original Starcraft and Broodwar.  Starcraft 2 was essentially a new coat of paint and having it split in 3 never sat well with me.  Has a great following and will be interesting to see how Blizzard includes micro-transactions into it.  I do remember them saying they wanted to MOBA it a bit more.

Gears of War and God of War are out too.  Both have protagonists I can’t stand and acted more like tech demos than actual stories you cared about.  They are console exclusives too, and bets are on to say GoW sells better.

A Nice Quiet Weekend

Posted on by

I finally had a weekend to spend with the family, or more specifically a chance to recharge my batteries.  I spent Friday on the couch, in between bouts of sleep, finishing up Ni No Kuni and watching a few flicks.  With a 5 month old in the house, going out to the movies isn’t really in the cards so much, so the wife and I try to catch something on Netflix or a rental once a week.  With every rental store within 40 clicks closed, that second option is a bit harder to take.   So here’s a quick rundown of the relaxing weekend.

The Avengers: I like the Marvel universe; it’s full of tropes and exaggerations of character faults.  I like Joss Whedon’s ability to create realistic dialogue.  If this was the first time I was meeting these characters, then the pacing of the movie made sense.  Each has had their own movie before so it seemed like rather long exposure to get to the meat. At least the first half had Coulson and the second half had Hulk.  That part was really well done and I’m looking forward to seeing Mark Ruffalo try his hand at Banner again.

Prometheus: Alien/Aliens are amazing movies that had helped define the sci-fi horror/suspense genre.  Prometheus was co-written by Lindelof, of Lost fame, so you kind of know where the movie is going to end – with question marks.  The movie ended a little too quickly for me and could have used more exposure in the half-way mark of the story.  You can see that the ending is trying to tie into the first Alien movie (scene for scene) but then you remember this is a different planet.  Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender are the real reasons to watch it.  Just be prepared to leave logic at the door.

Brave: I wanted to see this at the cinema but never had the chance.  Pixar doesn’t make bad movies and this one is no different (it won an Oscar after all).  Brave takes the Disney princess trope and turns it upside down.  Merida is a strong willed girl being groomed to being a queen.  I am a massive sucker for Scottish lore and this one has quite a few bits in it, so I went along for the ride.  Good mix of comedy and heartstrings but perhaps a little too dark for the wide public, Brave is a movie I’m going to go out and buy on BluRay soon.  There is too much artistic quality here to leave to DVD and the story is something I want my girls to see time and time again.

Skyfall: A return to basics for this 50 year old franchise makes for some rather poignant scenes.  For some reason, I pay way too much attention to the scenery in a film and give massive praise to the directors of photography when well executed.  The entire movie is filmed in yellow or blue, with the odd spot of white.  Bond has some odd lines, but the film’s villain is the real joy.  Instead of trying to kill Bond, he tries to convert him to his cause.  Maybe a bit off the deep end, he’s methodical, intelligent and resourceful.  It’s sort of like the Mirror-universe in Star Trek, an anti-Bond.  One of the best films I’ve seen in quite some time.

That’s a lot of movies for one weekend but I really wanted to put the brakes on big plans and just sit back and enjoy the company.

Now That’s a Game

Posted on by

I was able to finish Ni No Kuni yesterday.  As I mentioned a few weeks ago, the game is a more modern take on the traditional JRPG.  I can honestly say I haven’t had that much fun playing one since Final Fantasy X in 2001.  I played FFX from start to finish at least 20 times since I bought it and I think Ni No Kuni is going to be in that list for a long time too.

There are 2 items that defined a JRPG – the leveling aspect (or need to grind I guess) and the crazy stories.  If you follow all the side quests in NNK, you’re still going to be under-leveled for the rest of the content.  If you actively hunt to find more familiars (of which there are over 400) to fill out your party, then ya, you would have a better chance.  Having  1-3 more levels makes a world of difference, where the stats of a character have a major impact.  Or, you can hunt Tokos, who give piles of experience, are rare and run away as soon as you see them.  The hardest of them all gave my team 2 levels per kill, even at level 70.

The story part of JRPGs is the stuff of legend.  Final Fantasy usually sets the bar on linear for 75%, then the last 25% is over the top.  FFX made sense until you fought Sin, for example.  Well NNK isn’t a whole lot different.  The boss you thought was the end was only 80% of the game.  You get to fight the “god” of the world and that’s a heck of a fight.  The final boss was a real challenge and when it was all over, you really feel like the book is complete.

For the other items that make the game, balance is great, tons of side quests, lots of charm, amazing music and a fairly open world after the first 20%.  The art though, that’s the kicker.  Amazing.  This is a must play.

Great Art

Ni No Kuni

More EA Kerfuffle

Posted on by

A while back I had mentioned that I was voting with my wallet and no longer buying anymore EA games.  SWTOR and Mass Effect destroyed BioWare, PopCap hasn’t had a single release since being purchased and Origin still makes me feel dirty.

Dead Space 3 is the most recent example of money grabbing, where you had micro (or macro really) transactions in game to help you create better gear.   And a few days ago they said that they were going to focus even more on this type of business model for all future games.

Now, I’ve seen arguments that these “quality of life” features are just that, innocuous unless you want to boost past something and from some companies, I would agree.  Guild Wars 2 follows this path and does a decent job.  So does Path of Exile and Star Trek Online.  Games that don’t?  Everquest, LOTRO and every EA game that has an online store.  And I think this comes down to a basic design problem.

Games that are designed from the bottom up to have an online store tend to have a better ability to control the items in the store.  The core systems are designed around a consistent vision.  Games that convert either mid-design or post launch have very little chance to have unobtrusive stores and mechanics.  The game simply never accounted for it in the first place.  Clearly there are exceptions to this rule as Zynga has never made an acceptable store and DCUO has made a pretty solid conversion.

I’m not saying that EA is the devil of all games.  I am saying that their business practices (and those of Activision) are such that they are hollowing out the gaming population’s wallets and patience.  I am not ignorant that they will make millions on another CoD or Battlefield but hopefully the lesson with Medal of Honor, SWTOR and BLOPS2 can have them focus more on making quality games rather than finding a new way to nickel and dime.

Playstation, whatsamajigger

Posted on by

Pardon the lack of posts lately, work is taking an incredible toll on everything – including sleep.  It was bad enough that I completely forgot that Sony was announcing the PS4 and I didn’t get a chance to read up on it until this weekend.

Disclaimer here, I have a Wii, XBOX 360 and a PS3.  I played a fair amount of the first with friends but haven’t really touched it in nearly 2 years.  The second was my go-to console for a few years if only because of price and some mods I had put on the box.  I only picked up a PS3 a couple years back (since the launch price was astronomically stupid) and that was driven primarily for the Blu-Ray drive price point. The games lately have all been pretty good, especially the exclusives.  My quibbles with the console though are the following.

1)      You can only run 1 thing at a time and that one thing isn’t voice chat unless it’s part of the game

2)      Every week has some sort of update that takes 5 minutes and provides no noticeable effect

3)      Every game takes 10-45 minutes on first load due to the install

4)      The controllers have no changeable batteries, meaning a 2 year old controller has half the life of a brand new one.  Irksome.

5)      No effective way to chat type (keyboard)

6)      No non-proprietary remote control for movies

What I like about the PS3 includes:

1)      Netflix and its UI.  I just find it works better here than the Wii or XBOX 360.

2)      Blu-Ray player.  I’m thinking this is the reason that Blu-Rays are so common now.

3)      The Dashboard is clean and includes everything you want.  And it loads quickly.

4)      The games are better.  This is subjective but what’s the last XBOX exclusive you played other than Halo?

5)      Free multiplayer.

I should also include the fact that I have a gaming notebook PC.  The thing is a beast, I paid a pretty penny for it and I have dozens of games on Steam that I can play through HDMI and a controller.

So the PS4 announcement certainly had me taking note.  From what I can read about it, it’s essentially a computer with a custom operating system.  Cloud-based gaming, check.  Download games to play, check.  Integrates with Steam library, seems to be a check.  Ports and doo-dads, check. Games, sort of check though the list went from 58 to 23 this week.  More powerful than my laptop, nope.

And that’s the kicker isn’t it.  It seems as if Sony is going to launch a service rather than an actual console.  I’m ok with that, really I am.  I am concerned as to how they expect to bill us for it.  Microsoft makes a lot of money with XBOX live, though they are the only ones making money in a F2P world.  If Sony launches earlier and provides great games and no fee for multiplayer, I see a massive advantage for Sony.  If they can solve the cloud gaming issues (lag, day 1 launch load, etc…) I think we’re in for one heck of a fun ride.  The only downside I see with it, and this applies to all consoles, is that I take up the TV when I want to play.  This is not good for the wife.  Find a workaround to this, and I’m sure you’ll sell billions.

Risky Business

Posted on by

I have a quick story to tell about PvP and item loss.  Back in the day, Ultima Online had open world, free for all PvP.  When you died, no matter how you died, anyone could loot your corpse clean.  If you died to a bear, another player could loot you and they would take a reputation hit.  If they had killed you, then they already had the hit.  Take too much of a hit and you turned red and people could kill you without worry.  Most PvPers had a main character for PvP and then alts that were “clean”.

My characters had houses.    Before the Trammel split, you needed a key to open the door and you needed that key to be on you.  Most players had multiple bags, in bags and hid their keys deep down.  That way, when someone tried to loot you, they had to find the key.  My crafter character (mining, lumberjack, smith, tinker and more) had no ability to fight.  He did have the ability to create and sell items from the house.  One day, out cutting lumber he was killed and lost the key to the house.  With that key, the PvPer took ownership of the house, then sold it on eBay.  I remember quitting that day.

When I did get back, again before the Trammel split but after the housing updates to no longer worry about keys, when I did get killed I lost time.  Since items degraded on use, and a super weapon was perhaps 25% stronger than a regular one, the difference wasn’t huge.  That part didn’t bug me as much.   The game had items that provided a boost but not such a boost that items were prized over all else.

I don’t mind PvP and item loss, if the item loss is reasonable.  I consider reasonable as a measure of time to get back to what would be competitive, not to where I was.  Losing a house and vendors, I would have to work for weeks to get back anything close to the competitiveness I had.  Losing a set of weapons and regeants, I’d be out 30 minutes.  I like having some risk involved with PvP.  I don’t like forced risk with no options to mitigate it.  I mean, imagine if EvE didn’t have clones.  You think people would still be playing today? 

PvP without risk is pretty boring as you can’t really invest into it.  Planetside 2 has no risk but plenty of benefits (which is why there are so many aimbots).  WoW PvP is even worse, with no link at all between PvP and the rest of the game.  I do have my fingers crossed that Camelot Unchained it able to find the right balance between PvP with risk (therefore investment) and not causing people to quit with rage.