Author: Matt Byrd (Page 21 of 34)

      Hello Sony? It’s me, Common Sense

      January 3, 2013 /

      Hey there Sony, it’s your old friend common sense. Long time no see right? Well, listen, I know we haven’t talked much since you didn’t invite me to that 2006 E3 conference, and I’d love to reminisce about those times we hung out and you moved to the CD format and revolutionized the industry, or added a DVD player to your system and changed how a game console was viewed as the central home entertainment piece, but the truth is that I came here to talk about something serious.

      I heard about your new patent you see. You know, the one that in only a couple of years could theoretically allow you to end the sale of used games by flagging them and preventing the discs from being used on other systems? The one that sent Gamestop’s stock tumbling down 5% at just the idea of it? You know the one right? You do? Oh great man. Great.

      It’s just, I thought I should be the one to tell you it’s not a good idea. Take it from me that it just doesn’t make sense. I know you grind your teeth (a practice I also don’t advise) every time you think of the used game market and the money that Gamestop alone takes from it that you essentially don’t see a dime of, just like I know that it makes your blood boil to think of it as anything less than organized piracy. And hey, you don’t need to tell me that if all of those used game profits went back into yours, and the developer’s, pockets, then you could theoretically change the literal fortune of the industry either. Remember, this is your old pal common sense. I get that.

      But you can’t honestly believe that you wield a position of unscrupulous power that would allow you to get away with this do you? You do understand that Microsoft and Nintendo (who at least call me for drinks once in a while…just saying) have equal or larger market shares worldwide to boast about , and used the entire last generation for the lone goal of making people forget the name Playstation was once synonymous with video games right? I mean, you know that actually implementing such an idea would only drive gamers to those systems in droves, and as they make the kind of profits you only dreamed about with this act precisely by not implementing it, you could only sit and watch as every loyalist you had jumps ship?

      What are you thinking man? Do you believe that you somehow have enough exclusive titles that gamers will still stick with you through this? I got news for you pal, “Uncharted” and “God of War” don’t come out that often. Or maybe you think the massive fan support that the new kid on the block the “Ouya” generated with exactly the opposite kind of philosophy that you are proposing was just a fluke? Or that should Valve release the Steam Box it wouldn’t be the most anticipated console to hit the market in years? Did the Playstation Move, Home, the PSP and Vita, and Wonderbook somehow become amazing successes when I wasn’t paying attention, so you’re not worrying about the repercussions of your actions anymore?

      Ok, that was harsh. I apologize.

      I Mean, Just Because Someone Else Had It First Doesn’t Mean it Isn’t a Good Idea Right?

      But really my point is this. You’ve changed Sony. You used to be cool. You brought people a system in the Playstation that for the first time got the kids who used to beat up other kids for playing video games, playing the same video games. You changed the world overnight by supporting “Final Fantasy VII”, and shaped a new generation of controller design with the Dualshock. You’ve given countless runaway and unwanted developers and properties homes and turned them into favorite sons. Hell, you invented the Playstation 2!

      Yet look at you now. Drawing up papers that would screw over the little guy the world over so you can maintain your finger grip grasp on video game mountain, rather than lend a hand to consumers in greater need. You’d rather sink retail stores, and make gamers pay a premium on all titles they buy, and force parents to work harder to afford the games their kids want for their birthdays or Christmas, just so you can theoretically see profits grow without any creative effort on your part. Also, even just selling this technology to developers for their optional use as you’re rumored to do, doesn’t make this any better than peddling drugs rather than using them.

      Maybe this whole idea is just a bluff, but let me tell you something most people know. Puffing up your chest to look bigger, doesn’t really make you bigger.

      But hey, I don’t want this to be a fight between us Sony. I just want you to know, that I know, that you would never actually do something so monumentally stupid as attempting to ban the sale of used games. I know that, because should you go through with it, there won’t even be the need for a fight, because in every respect in which success in this industry is measured,  you will have lost right out of the gate.

      How do I know that? Well, far be it for me to brag, but it is just common sense.

      News

      Games to Avoid During a Hangover

      January 1, 2013 /

      HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

      *shhhh!!*

      Oh, right…sorry. I almost forgot most of you are probably dying of hangovers today after the biggest drinking night of the year. Hopefully, you’ve managed to secure the day off to rest and recover, and maybe you’re even taking the time to catch up on some video games.

      If so, that’s a great choice. However, not all video games are created equally, and some were most certainly not designed with a hangover in mind. That being the case, if you’re truly looking to recover from your misery, I would suggest avoiding the following games, in the way you couldn’t avoid that last shot of tequila.

      Hotline Miami

      I haven’t had much of a chance to talk about “Hotline Miami”, but it is one of the true hidden gems of 2012. It’s a no holds bar killing spree, that provides  a variety of tools of death for the player, and set them loose in an ultra stylish retro Miami to cause unchecked havoc while wearing a variety of power inducing masks. It’s flashy, intense, and full of the best kind of mayhem.

      In other words, it’s exactly the type of game you should avoid today. Besides all of the flashing lights irritating your headache, you’ve also got to deal with a pretty serious challenge level that can frustrate you even in times of saintly levels of previous alcohol consumption. But by far the biggest reason you should stay away from “Hotline Miami” is the out of your mind storyline. “Hotline Miami” is designed to play with your sanity, and is not the kind of thing you want to wrap your head around when it’s busy swimming in a sea of jackhammers.

      Definitely play “Hotline Miami”, just not today.

      Fez

      I’ll sing the praises of “Fez” to anyone who will listen. Not only does it carefully and casually re-invent the most classic of genres (the 2D platformer), it does it while still producing a very entertaining game. It’s one of the best of the year, and possibly beyond.

      Avoid it like the plague with a hangover though. Fez’s multi-dimensional worlds require you to put some serious thought into the layout, and makes every movement, and decision a puzzle in its own right. Considering you might be having trouble getting your head around making a properly laid out sandwich at the moment, you probably don’t want to tackle such a mind, and level, bending journey today.

      FTL

      Much like “Hotline Miami”, I haven’t had much of a chance to talk about “FTL” yet, and hate to only do so here when telling you to avoid it.

      However, as brilliant as “FTL’s” spaceship simulation gameplay is, it also requires a series of life and death micromanagement decisions. In its most intense moments, it’s like playing several games of chess at once, and can be unbelievably frustrating as you hopelessly try to salvage what remains of your mission around every turn. Considering you may currently be trying to re-build every aspect of your own life after a night of personal destruction, I wouldn’t try to take on intergalactic problems as well.

      Borderlands 2

      Everybody has hangover cures, but truthfully the best way to go is some vitamins, some liquids, maybe a couple of aspirin, and of course plenty of rest.

      You’ll get none of this with “Borderlands 2”.It’s a game that begs you to devote hours and hours into exploring its unique and incredibly deep world filled with jokes, style, and weapons galore. Playing “Borderlands 2” is signing yourself up for another long night filled with misguided debauchery, and will only serve to making tomorrow just as miserable as today. It’s siren song is irresistible, so go nowhere near this time consuming temptress.

      Spec Ops: The Line

      In general, you should avoid shooters on a day of a hangover. They’re loud, big, intense, and don’t offer the kind of serene environment of recovery you could so desperately use right now.

      A special mention must go to avoiding “Spec Ops” with a hangover though, as it’s storyline forces you to really face the atrocities of war head on as you dive into a plot that will see you, and everyone around you, grow in impactful ways as the horrors of the modern world re-shape them. Since you’re probably wrestling with some moral conundrums of your own after last night, you should probably not shoulder these burdens as well.

      News

      Five Reasons 2013 Will Be One of Gaming’s Greatest Years

      December 29, 2012 /

      While individual  game releases will always (deservedly) get most of the love, there is nothing like a truly great overall year of gaming. Even though it’s never an intended effect, it’s amazing when a group of independent properties come together to create an incredible 365, or 366 if we’re talking leap years, days of gaming. Years like 2001 (“Halo: CE,” “Grand Theft Auto III,” “Final Fantasy X”), 2007 (“Bioshock,” “Portal,” “Mass Effect”), and, of course, the greatest of them all, 1998 (featuring the holy trinity of “Metal Gear Solid,” “Half-Life,” and “Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time”) represent some of the best times ever to be a gamer.

      And 2013 has the potential to join, or even exceed, all of them. Thanks to some fortunate timing, and a few delays, it’s looking to be a landmark year of video gaming that will be remembered for many, surely lesser, years to come. While there are many, many reasons for this, here are five that lead me to believe that 2013 in gaming will be one for the ages.

      Mobile Gaming is Coming Into Its Own

      “Serious” gamers may look down on the mobile gaming market, but it’s time that all gamers realize that we’ve come a long, long way from “Doodle Jump”. Now, instead of being an outlet for puzzlers, tower defense titles, and slightly lesser console ports, mobile gaming is producing intriguing and inventive titles at a rapid pace, due in large part to a sea of developers making use of the simpler programming on mobile devices, and the still interesting touch controls, to provide a constant, and often cheap, flow of amazing games on the go. Since the explosion in tablet sales over the last couple of years, we’re even starting to see more titles developed specifically with their larger sized screens and more powerful abilities in mind.

      There hasn’t really been a truly noteworthy traditional handheld gaming system since the Nintendo DS, but thankfully an ever growing community has slowly turned a platform that was only used for brief sessions of “Snake” in your downtime, to one of the most exciting fields for surprising high quality video game releases. Expect this to continue in 2013.

      The Next Generation Begins

      As the Wii U is proving, a new console doesn’t have to blow minds to still produce some genuine excitement and huge sales numbers. While nothing from the other major gaming companies is official, it’s looking more and more likely that 2013 will bring gamers the next generation of Xbox and Playstation consoles (even if it is only a preview at the least). While that means that gamers will have to soon be plucking down some serious cash on new consoles, accessories and games (not to mention still trying to keep up with the releases still to come for the previous consoles), there is nothing more exciting than the promise of a new gaming generation.

      Soon battle lines will be drawn once again as gamers choose their alliances, and new specs and features will again re-shape what we thought was possible in the medium. This has been a great console lifecycle, but it’s gone on for longer than usual, and it’s time for a new day to begin.

      People Are Choosing the Games They Want, and What They Want in Games

      One of the biggest changes to gaming over the last year or two has been the influence of sites like Kickstarter (or more recently Steam’s “Greenlight” program). Now, developers have open forums where they can present their ideas and let the community decide their interest in them, and even help by directly funding the titles. Even though the road to success is not guaranteed, it’s now easier than ever for a good idea to see life, and for gamers to help make sure the games they want get a chance.

      But this isn’t just about sites like those. It’s also about events like “Mass Effect 3’s” optional new endings, or “Bioshock: Infinite’s” alternate cover. Now, more than ever, gamers have the ability to directly influence the decisions of major developers, and have a word about the final product. While this is a controversial move, the fact that the average gamer now has so much power to directly influence the titles available to them will have some major, and intriguing, implications in the coming year.

      Influence of 2012’s Biggest Games

      2012 was not one of those all-time great years of gaming I mentioned, but it did have some all-time great games. It’s natural to build off of what came before, and in the case of 2013, that could mean some exciting and sweeping changes across several genres.

      Particularly, look for the success of “The Walking Dead” to lead to a revival of the traditional point and click genre, as well as a greater focus on the effect of storytelling in games. I also wouldn’t be surprised if the indie hit “Slender” put horror game developers back to the drawing board to come up with some fresh ideas for the genre (and veer it away slightly from the growing action elements), and if the praise that “Far Cry 3” is garnering expands the aging FPS market into more of the sandbox gaming territory.  Other less likely, but equally welcome innovations would be if more all-star developers got together on independent properties like in “Dishonored,” or if other long dead franchises get exciting resurrections like “XCOM,” or even if “Journey” inspires people to look towards developing with art, and not violence, more in mind.

      Whatever the final influences may be, 2012 showed there are still some exciting places for gaming to go. 2013 might just take us to all of them.

      That Lineup…

      Oh sweet heaven, the amazing lineup of 2013. While you can never guarantee that any game will be great no matter how it may look, with 2013 set to deliver no less than “Grand Theft Auto V,” “Bioshock: Infinite,” “Last of Us,”  “Watch Dogs,” “Crysis 3,” “Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time,” “Simcity,” “Command and Conquer Generals 2” and the new “Tomb Raider,” it’s very likely that we are going to get a host of instant classics.

      Of course, that’s just some of the games that we actually know about. Many of the best games of this year came out of nowhere, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the best game of 2013 is one that no one is talking about yet. Even in an ever expanding industry, at the end of the day games are still king, and the games set for 2013 are some of the most exciting that I’ve seen in a long time.

      News

      Blizzard is Abandoning Diablo III’s Team Deathmatch Mode

      December 27, 2012 /

      Game developers have had to apologize for a lot of things over the years, from content to characters to endings, and in the case of the recent “War Z” debacle, pretty much the fact that their game even exists.

      Now it’s Blizzard’s turn to taste humble pie, as they are admitting defeat, and yanking the imbalanced and unpopular team deathmatch mode from “Diablo III”. Citing numerous shortcomings, Blizzard admits they just couldn’t find a way to get the mode to work, and will be removing it, ultimately, because it wasn’t really any fun.

      However, they are working on a temporary mode that will still allow for player duels which should arrive with the next patch, and are also apparently designing an entirely new mode that will replace, and hopefully surpass, team deathmatch. The only details know about this new mode is that it will be a free addition to the game, available sometime in the new year.

      Considering the numerous failures surrounding “Diablo III” at its release, it’s easy to look at this news as a further embarrassment, or a little more dirt on the grave. However, Blizzard is spot on that the mode just didn’t work in any entertaining or creative way, and even though the work on implementing team deathmatch apparently took up a sizeable amount of the development time leading up to “Diablo’s” release, its best that they admit their failures now and improve them, rather than skirt the issue entirely and rest on the laurels of some sizable sales figures. It’ll be exciting to see what they come up with instead, now that they have some more perspective on what works, and what definitely doesn’t.

      Reviews

      Ubisoft is Interested in Buying THQ

      December 21, 2012 /

      The ongoing financial situation plaguing THQ Games has been well documented, and recently resulted in such actions as the company hosting a prolific, and somewhat successful, humble bundle sale, but still ultimately filing for bankruptcy and selling their assets to the Clearlake Capital Group for $60 million. It’s a sad situation not only for the employees of THQ, but for gamers as well, as THQ still has quite a few high quality franchises to its name, including “Metro”, the WWE games, “Darksiders”, “Company of Heroes”, “Warhammer”, and “Saints Row”. Now, though, the future of those titles, and more, is cast in serious doubt even as THQ seemingly remains active for the moment.

      However, some hopeful news has emerged from the whole matter recently, as there is a rumor that Ubisoft is seriously interested in buying the properties of THQ. While the early reports suggest they will be waiting until THQ is a little more certain (and, frankly, desperate) that they will be selling their properties in order to get a better price, Ubisoft has been clear with their interest in the assets should they have the opportunity.

      “We are always interested in good brands.” Says Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, “For sure, it’s something we can consider, but I can’t tell you more.”

      While the option is out there for Ubisoft to snatch certain titles, it’s looking more likely they will be eyeing the entire line up. From an outside perspective, this would be a real win, win for all parties if the buyout happens, as it would not only save the reeling developer, but Ubisoft would add some substantial games to its already stacked repertoire. For gamers who are interested in THQ’s titles, there couldn’t be a better interested buyer than Ubisoft, as the two company’s philosophies concerning quality development are very similar, and Ubisoft has proved to be one of the most consistent developers and publishers of the last decade.

      As bad as this whole ordeal has been for THQ, it’s good to know that it may not be game over for the company just yet.

      Reviews

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