Fun Friday: Failing at "Life"

Video games never really get a chance when it comes to popular media. New show, Life, manages to incorporate a plethora of stereotypes and inaccuracies in just under three minutes. Ignorance of technologies: check. Gamer stereotypes: check. Picking a game loosely based on the antagonists ethnicity: check. Phantom controllers: check. Girl gamer shows up male gamer: check. Obligatory game montage with vaguely connected music: check. "You win!" text: check. Beating the game unlocks Excel documents on the Xbox: ch... wait, what? You got to be kidding me! Try not to let your eyes roll out of your head as you watch the following video.

'Amping Up the Difficulty

Guitar Hero III and Rock Band are two juggernauts that will be duking it out for this holiday's undisputed rock champ. Since Rock Band is the spiritual successor of Guitar Hero, one might wonder how the difficulty stacks up against each other. Games Radar did the leg work for us and put together some side-by-side comparisons of the songs that the two games share in common. Check out the first video below or here for a second video.

The overall conclusion is that Guitar Hero III is much more difficult than Rock Band. I think this is too be expected and a excellent design decision. While many of Guitar Hero's gamers will be well versed in the ways of the guitar and ready for challenge that expands on the last iteration, many of Rock Band's gamers may not. There's a good chance that when getting people together to play as a "band" there will be a couple of non-gamers, or at least some who have never played a rhythm game before. By keeping the difficulty level toned down a bit, it's more accessible. This allows for less frustration and more time dedicated to rocking out.

On a side note, I'm a bit bemused by the art direction for the actual game play in Rock Band. I much prefer the aesthetic in Guitar Hero, especially when they're placed side by side. The flat note indicators remind me of Beatmania and evokes an electronica feel, not rock 'n roll.

When Did Sports Games Forget to Add the Fun?

I used to play a lot of sports game back in the day: Tecmo Bowl, Double Dribble, Blades of Glory, Genesis versions of NHL, Joe Montana Football, International Superstar Soccer on the Nintendo64. But for my taste, the genre has gone down hill. In an effort to make the most realistic simulation of sport gaming, developers has consistently piled more and more features and controls on the player. They also seem to build off of each other forcing a player to master last years iteration before he can move on to the newest game.

Luke Plunkett at kotaku made this observation while playing NBA 2k8 a while back and then Zack Hiwiller expanded on the idea by pointing out the ridiculousness of the compounded complexity of sports games.

Your friend tells you about this movie he is really excited about and he convinces you to buy a ticket and see it with him. The theater is mostly empty when you sit down, except for a few kids in the front row holding those big foam #1 fingers. Before the previews start, your friend tells you it his ninth time seeing the movie. It starts and immediately you find it incomprehensible. There are dozens of characters whose origins and motives aren’t explained, you have a rough understanding of the plot, but the movie seems distracted with minor plot points and half the movie seems to be overwrought establishing shots.

When the credits roll, your friend applauds but you sit there confused. He nudges you and tells you, “Don’t worry. I didn’t start really “getting it” until the fifth time I saw it. Hang in there!” You are a bit dumbstruck: “Five times? I’m not wasting my time and paying to see that mess again!”. Your friend then gets angry with you: “Whatever. You just don’t want to put in the time to struggle for something sophisticated.”

That’s basically the game industry’s sports genre.

He goes on to say that there is "a push each year to add new features" which really just translates to "complicate this for the reason of depth." FIFA has done the same thing as the Madden franchise in an effort to catch up to Pro Evolution Soccer, which has been held in higher esteem for its "realism."

The developers may have eliminated aspects that took away from the purity of the game, adding layer after layer of complexity to create the most realistic sports sim ever, but the sacrifice has been too great. Gone is the debauchery of high-scoring, rowdy gaming encounters with friends and family. I still play competitive soccer when I need my fix of "realism" and I watch Manchester United with fanaticism. In much the same way the racing genre lost me when RC ProAm and Out Run gave way to Gran Turismo, the sports genre lost me when they cut the most appealing feature of all: fun.

Fun Friday: "Still Alive" by GLaDOS Edition

I borrowed a copy of the Orange Box this week and booted up Portal straight away. Although it's short, it was a great from beginning to end. Thinking about how my actions will be effected by the actual physics of jumping through rips in the space/time continuum was a lot of fun. I didn't get as attached to the Companion Cube as some people, but I really felt for the lonely (and hilarious) computer in the end. When the credits role, they are accompanied by a very catchy and brilliantly awesome song. Some spoilers are contained in the lyrics but they aren't too bad. This game is a highly recommended diversion.

Fun Friday: Adorably Sweet Halloween Edition

I have never been a huge fan of Halloween and I haven't dressed up in years. But I love Bioshock and apparently the following dad does as well. He dressed up as a Big Daddy and got one of his daughters to be a Little Sister. Ahhh, family bonding at its best. I look forward to many moments like this with my own children.

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!

Fun Friday: Kick Ass Videos Edition

This week saw the release of two awesome teaser trailers. Street Fighter II is one of my favorite all time games and I plan on owning a arcade cabinet as soon as I can afford one (or my wife lets me buy one, which ever comes first!) They lost me when they started adding hyper and super and turbo stuff; I guess I'm a purist in some ways. Capcom announced Street Fighter IV with a simply sublime teaser. In my opinion, they don't even need to make a game. Just make a Street Fighter movie in the same art style and I'll buy two.

The second video is fro Tim Schafer's newest project, Brutal Legend. They game looks awesome in so many ways. After reading the article in Game Informer, this game is definitely on my radar. And while his movies have struggled as of late, Jack Black will be voicing the lead character. It will probably come off like some of his Tenacious D stuff, but that's a good thing! I wonder if Kyle will make a cameo as well?

Nintendo: You Were Bored Before the Wii

The blogosphere has already pointed out the cogency, or lack thereof, in the recent statements from the outgoing Nintendo VP of Marketing, Perrin Kaplan. She, as well as Nintendo, saw that before the Wii was released, "gamers were getting bored, even though they didn't know it yet." Well, I'm sorry to say that, as a gamer, there has been plenty of games that have kept me quite entertained. Unless of course, she was referring to the GameCube. Only three titles were able to keep me entertained long enough to play through them: Wind Waker, Metroid Prime, and Resident Evil 4.

What many gaming news outlets didn't really comment on was the further statements by Robert Matthews, Nintendo's senior director of consumer marketing.

Just look at the way people consume entertainment today. The idea that you would spend hours playing videogames is just not real anymore.

While I do agree that people attention spans are shrinking and, as I get older, my time is split among many things, this blanket statement doesn't seem true in light of media in general. Movie times have steadily lengthened over the last few decades. The hour long drama is increasingly dominating the television line-ups as the sitcom seems to wither away. The Internet is absorbed in smaller chunks, but mostly due to the sheer volume of information out there.

On the other hand, epic games of forty hours or more are also diminishing. These are being replaced by the moderately paced ten to twenty hour campaign. So while there is a market for short attention span gaming, it is not the industry's savior. Games are adapting, allowing players to jump in and out of the game at any time with better save systems and level design. Besides, my 360 is played on a near daily basis. From what I understand, many people are starting to notice that the Wii may be collecting dust. At least until something better than Wii Sports comes along.

Feed the Dog, Take Out the Trash, Collect Trinkets?

While playing a game, gamers are asked to do many things. Some of those things are fun, others are not. Juuso Hietalahti, at Game Producer Resource, posted a quick article suggesting seven simple elements that can be added to your game can make it more fun. I agree with six of them.

As a kid, I collected all kinds of crap: baseball cards, Star Wars figures, soccer pins, comic books. Eventually I grew out of it (except for a resurgence of Star Wars figures around 1999) except I still have what I consider collections, like my video games, books or DVDs. I always had fun while I was doing it but I never really got too crazy.

However, I hate when a video game asks the player to collect things. In my opinion, it is not fun. It's busy work, a chore. It distracts from the game at hand. It has become one of the worst video game clichés and a crutch to synthetically lengthen game play.

While playing through Gears of War, I could never suspend my disbelief that Marcus would stop and look for COG tags while the Locust are bearing down on him or while he's in a hurry to save humanity. The same goes for Master Chief and the golden skulls. It seems that every platforming game to has the player collecting hundreds, if not thousands, of random, shiny object all in the name of meeting some goal of 100% complete. It has also become quite fashionable to create achievements around collecting. I hate collecting achievements. Which is saying something because, in general, I love achievements.

At least in the original Mario games, collecting 100 coins would earn the player an extra life. In Grand Theft Auto, collecting secret packages makes items spawn at your safe house (although, I usually stopped actively searching for them once the body armor was unlocked). These days, collecting things nets you a few gamer points and some concept art. If I'm going to be collecting something, it better be necessary to advance the story line and provide my character with new abilities. When a game play mechanic is no more important or as enticing as chores around the house, I'm not really have any fun any more.

Fun Friday: Wet

I absolutely love this new trailer for the upcoming game Wet. As I went to post it for Fun Friday, I noticed that it was my 69th post. Oh, the irony. While there has not been any in game footage for this game yet, I am really digging the Taratino vibe in this trailer. It sets a tone that I can only hope that will set it apart from other action games. I have faith in the developer as well. A2M worked on our Monster House games, and the GameCube and GBA versions actually came out pretty good. I am looking forward to more info on this game. In the mean time, enjoy the video.