Dead Rising Announced for the Wii, Neutered

Dead Rising is in my top five games for the Xbox360. Its blend of action and story were very engrossing. It also made some surprising and polarizing design decisions. Many people either hated it or loved it. I was definitely in the latter.

The game was structured in a very open, non-linear fashion; allowing each player to forge their own path through the zombie infested mall. It allowed you to choose which bosses you wanted to take down and which people to try and rescue. Each subsequent play through could play out as a an individuals own mini zombie cinematic experience.

The save system and leveling up the character were a bit odd at first. In time, it all came together for me and made the game that much more enjoyable. By limiting the save locations and creating a very difficult decision upon death (start from the beginning with all of your accumulated stats or reload your last save), the game ramped up the stress put on the player. Some found less overwhelming and frustrating, I just like it heightened the experience. I had to weigh my options; should I save the couple with the wounded husband or the brothers who can defend themselves better? The leveling system adds another layer to the game that is not normally seen in action games. As Frank learns new moves and becomes more powerful, the game really becomes fun. And setting up crazy pictures for big points was good too. Since the experience carried over from game to game, it really encouraged multiple play-through.

Now we get word that Capcom is bringing the game to the Nintendo Wii. Only instead of a faithful, low-resolution homage to the original, we get a watered down, "casual" experience that wreaks of cashing in on the success of Resident Evil 4's outing on the same console.

They taken much of the flexibility out of the game by creating a very linear path to plot points and eliminating Otis's side quests. Apparently, the save system has been made "less frustrating" to appease the new herd of gamers on the Wii. The camera angle has been changed to the over-the-shoulder RE4 style which caused the developers so much problems they took the photography out of the game completely. Frank is a photographer, it's the whole reason he's in the mall! Not only have the elements that make Dead Rising what it is have hit the cutting room floor, the graphical power of the Wii buckled under the weight of hundreds of zombies on screen on once. This number has been significantly decreased, but I guess will have to wait to see the final game.

Lastly, they've thrown in the mandatory "because we can" motion gestures. I'm sorry, but dare I say it, increasing the player's stress and anxiety creates a better sense of immersion then waggling the controller to swing a baseball bat. The weight and pressure put on by my nervous system is much greater then wild flailing ever could be.

Fun Friday: Late, Late Edition

Not only am I late to post my Fun Friday from last week but the following video is pretty old. Oh well, I just saw it for the first time last week. It was apparently banned. I guess finger pointing is terrible and will make terrorists of us all or something. I like it because my friends and I use to play "guns" until the street lights came on and we had to be home. And that's what Live is all about, right? Having fun.

R.I.P. - My Xbox360

3/21/2006-3/17/2008

I was in denial, but this day finally came. Your life must have flashed before eyes much like the three red rings flashed before mine. You are survived by an unused DS and a dusty PSP. You will be missed...

but never forgotten. :'(

I Broke the Five Digit Barrier!

It took just over one and a half years, but I finally eclipsed the 10,000 point mark for my gamerscore. While it is a relatively low score in comparison to my friends and especially 360 players in general, I am quite proud of my accomplishment. I don't play a lot a games. For one, I don't necessarily play a lot of games. But more importantly, I'm very picky about the games I do play. I stay away from most sports games and popular franchises, as I look for games that provide new experiences and stories. Of the 483 achievements, two stand out above the rest.

• Most people get the Escape the Imperial Sewers first when playing Oblivion, I got it last. I had just received my 360 and didn't really understand the profile system just yet. I put in nearly 200 hours acquiring the other 49 achievements before I could allow myself to start a new game just to get the tutorial level achievement. So it's memorable to me because, while not terribly challenging to get all of the achievements in Oblivion, it took dedication.
• I have never been very good at twitch gaming. I always struggle in first person shooters, like Halo and Gears of War. However, on a fateful night in September, not only did I come from behind to win a Slayer match on Isolation, I did it in style; with an overkill earning achievement in the dying seconds of the match with the rocket launcher.

I've mentioned before and I'll say it again, achievements are one of the best features of the current generation of hardware. Furthermore, I find myself using websites like Achieve360Points to see what a games achievements are like before I make a purchase decision. Studies are even beginning to show that a more diverse list of achievements, meaning one that asks a player to play a game in ways they may or may not normally play, can lead to greater sales. Here's looking forward to my next 10,000 points!

Bioshock: Sweet, Sweet Demo Action

I took just over thirteen hours to download the demo (7PM last night to 9AM this morning) but it was definitely worth the wait. The game looks like awesome cherry cheesecake: sweet. It is evident that a lot of love went into the entire process. Water has never looked so hot. It is most definitely not "just another just another f**king PC FPS." The action is smooth and frantic. It took me only about forty-five minutes to get through the demo but it had a lot to offer. The game has drama, suspense, atmosphere, intrigue, sheer heebie-jeebie moments... my thesaurus has run out of adjectives. It's cliche, but I had two distinct games come to mind while I was playing the demo: Condemned and Oblivion. Since these have been two of my favorite games on the 360, this is a very, very good thing. Especially since the best elements of these two games are ratcheted up, like they're hopped up on Eve. My insatiable desire to get my hands on this game is now at a breaking point. Thankfully, we only have a week or so longer to wait.

My Heart Aches a Bit Now

Achievements are my second favorite aspect of the Xbox360 (the games are the first, duh). They are a lot of fun and add more to the experience. They make you explore a game in ways you would not have done without the them. They encourage you to give different modes of play a chance where you wouldn't have in the first place. What they don't do is entice me to buy random crap. Well they do now!!!! Well at least if I was going to play an EA game again (although skate. looks very enticing).

I don't really expect anything less from EA as they continue their reign at the top, doing what they please, and getting away with roster updates for full price. But this is quite low, even for them. I can understand the case for advertising in game if it helps flesh out a photo-realistic game environment. Still, it must be done with the utmost of care in order to not be distracting. I understand that there are only three achievements with the ad in them but it feels like they're feeling the waters. EA doesn't exactly have the best track record when it comes to Live and downloadable content.

The soft ding that accompanies an achievement has created somewhat of a Pavlovian response for me where I yearn to hear it again. Seeing an advertisement pop up when quickly shed me of the positive reinforcement that keeps me playing your game. Oh wait, I don't play your games EA. Carry on if you think that's what your buyers want.

Who is more the fool?

I hate the term fanboy. It applies to a small fraction of very vocal people. I have never been so supportive of any one hardware manufacturer that I ignore the rest. I have been a proud owner of Atari, Nintendo, Sega, Sony and Microsoft consoles. I never picked them up because I was in love with the hardware or in an way felt loyal to it; it has always been about the software. Games, in my opinion, are always the root of my decisions. I bought a 360 to play Oblivion and eventually Halo3. I was fortunate to be able to buy Twilight Princess and play it without buying the console, for which I'm glad because there has yet to be anything worth playing for me. Metroid 3 and Mario Galaxy have me intrigued but until they're out, I will remain Wii-less. There are zero games out or coming in the foreseeable future (which aren't coming out on the 360 as well) that are enticing me to drop $600 on the PS3.

Kotaku points us to an posting on the Motley Fool, an investment website, which warns against Microsoft's potential to maintain a positive investor relationship due to perceived hardware issues.

As an investor, I can't help but worry that my experience with Microsoft consumer products is not out of the ordinary. Not only are repairs an expensive waste of shareholder capital, but they risk alienating potential customers and crimping future growth. In effect, it doesn't matter if the rate of Xbotch failure is as low as Microsoft reportedly contends, because the perceived rate of failure is what matters to consumers. People trust what they hear. And if they hear enough from irate Xbotch or Zune customers, they aren't going to open up the wallet.

While agree that this image is hurting Microsoft and the Xbox brand, I can't help but see a flaw in the statement that the author himself is neglecting. Yes, he has had a problem with his 360. Unfortunately everyone seems to know someone who has fell victim to the ring-of-death. On the other hand, I know a lot of people that have a 360 and only one person has had similar issues described here. I once received the Error 74 message, but it occurred after transporting the system across the state and the hard drive was jostled loose. I once scratched a disc, but again, it was my fault.

If people report their console dies and then the message boards jump all over it causing the major blogs and websites to report it, yes it seems like every one's console is dying. There are nearly 11 million 360 sold and they are not coming back in the numbers that warrant the perceived rate of failure. I think it takes a bit of common sense to take a step back and try to give some rational thought to the subject. Who is more foolish: those that regurgitate what they hear or those that blindly follow them when they speak. If investors start jumping ship because fanboys have shaped Microsoft's hardware reputation, we have a much larger problem than a few rings-of-death.

This is not just another Guitar Hero post

The internets have been all aflutter today with video of Guitar Hero III in action, presumably, on the Xbox360. Joystiq made comment in their post that caught my attention:

It's hard to blame the team from Neversoft if the game's playing a little differently at the moment, as they didn't have access to the code (created by Harmonix) from the original two games.

While I know that when Activision acquired Red Octane they also received the Guitar Hero publishing rights. It seems odd that they didn't get any of the code in the process. It stuck out in my mind because it seems to mirror some of the things that go on at my own company.

Strictly speaking about only titles on Nintendo platforms, with all the developers under the wing of THQ, there appears to be little in the way with sharing of resources and ideas. Throughout the test cycle, some developers will continue to struggle with functionality that our other developers code with ease. Instead of communicating with each other, there seems to be more interaction with support at Nintendo. It seems like a case of one hand never talking to any of the other hands. We seem to have a system in place that should help with this but that our developers are still trying to figure out how to use it. Hopefully in the future, as they become better acquainted with helping each other, the test cycle will go smoother and the end product will be of a higher and consistent quality.

Initial Halo 3 Impressions

It took a couple of extra days to get my code, but it's finally here and I'm online. I had a chance to play about a half dozen matches, mostly on High Ground and a couple on Snowbound. My most immediate feeling was that I was having fun. FPS's are not my forte, but I was most definitely having more fun I would normally. Secondly, your character seems to move way too slow; like he's moving through molasses or something. This became especially apparent in Snowbound, where there is more open space. This may be improved if there were more people on the map. (I was in a 6-player rumble pit match getting my bearings.)

I did not see any glaring bugs or freezes. The only thing that really caught my attention is when the camera went through the ground after I died and showed the area outside of the game world. But still, nothing major. As far as balancing, I may not be the best judge as I'm not intimately familiar with the old nor the new weapons. However, it did seem that the rockets didn't fire fast enough and that the melee distance was tough to reconcile. Then again, maybe I'm just a noob!

Many people seem to be down on the graphics but I can honestly say that they weren't bad. They may not be up to hype standards but they were significantly improved upon from Halo2. The environments were crisp and detailed, things I believe to be hallmarks of a next generation game. Graphics, to me, aren't everything. It's in the details. Gone are the era of muddy, bland textures. The words now should have life and I saw that in the tease that Bungie is giving us. Furthermore, whether they improve the graphics before launch or not (I wouldn't hold your breath for a major overhaul, demos can be pretty indicative of the final product), Halo3 is about game play, pure and simple. If they can keep it fun, there is no reason to believe that this game will be a staple of Live for a very long time.

Wii: Bright or Bleak Future?

A little over a week ago, I came across a great new website: Game Producer Resource. The latest post describes Juuso's (the author) opinion on the upcoming success for the Wii.

Since I work day in and day out with the Wii, I thought I'd throw out my two cents:

I’m not as confident as you. Sales have been very strong and probably will be in the near future. But sustained growth is going to be tough.

The Xbox 360, my personal pick in the long run, and the PS3 will be better at meeting the hardcore gamer market with exceptional titles, XBLA/PSN capabilities and online gaming. The Nintendo Wii is said to try to be winning hardcore fans but attracting casual gamers as well. The casual games market is thriving, but mostly on hardware that casual gamers already own: like a computer or a cell phone. It will be a hard sell to get people to continue to purchase a $250 piece of equipment to play casual style games and that’s it. (For a far better success story, one can look to the DS.)

This leads me to another problem I see with the Wii: game line-up. Working at a third party publisher who fully intends to support the Wii, we still see it as a second tier platform. Triple A titles are going to the 360/PS3 while the Wii will get ports with tacked on Wii Remote functionality. Lackluster but strong support from third parties is going to be detrimental in the long run. Nintendo is the only company who seems to fully see the potential in their own hardware. And with a release schedule of only three or four high profile titles a year, the road ahead looks far less bright.

My pick for the greatest Next-Gen feature

Now that the dust has settled, I am absolutely positive what my favorite feature amongst the three new consoles is: achievements. No other element that has been introduced drives me harder to play games. The Xbox 360 has done for games what I have not experienced since the early days of my gaming career. Not since the NES, SNES and Genesis have I gone back and played a game over and over again, looking for every little thing and exploring every nook and cranny. Back then it was mostly due to the fact that I had limited games available to me. Later, when I began to buy my own games, I have also had a limited selection of games, but little reason to replay them. Halo 2 was probably a precursor to the achievements but I was not fully sucked in until I started to earn Gamer Points. I still play only a limited number of games, but it drives me absolutely mad that I do not have 100% of the achievements for each and every game that I have played. Achievements have driven me to rack up about 220 hours in Oblivion (including Shivering Isles) over the last year, as well as play through Tomb Raider and Viva Pinata. Although attempting to acquire all the achievements in LiveArcade titles seems to be an exercise in futility, I am persevering. (Damn you, Hexic!!)

From a design perspective, they have also really encouraged developers to flesh out their games and challenge gamers. Would I have played through every story line in Oblivion if it weren't for achievements? Would I have broken a controller over FIFA World Cup? Would I have even downloaded Texas Hold'Em? The answer is probably not. Still, achievements also allow the developers to be a little lazy. I absolutely loathe collecting achievements. I am sorry: Marcus would not stop to pick up Cog Tags while being bombarded by the Locust and there are not floating, metallic medallions throughout Lara Croft's world. Collecting is dumb, but I'll save that for another post. Online achievements are a personal gripe since I don't seem to have the time or the reflexes to compete with those that do. On the other hand though, they wouldn't be achievements if they were easy or anyone could get them. They are for the most dedicated. In the mean time, I will continue to plug away.