It’s bad news, but somebody’s got to break it: due to malfunctioning software, the back half of this week’s Pod Shot was eaten by a computer. To our legions of fans, be strong, this too shall pass.
On a somewhat related note, if you could recommend us a cheap-to-free Skype call recorder which works both awesomely and consistently, hit the comments and give us a shout. We’d love to know.
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1up: The Phoenix rises! EGM returns from the Beyond. I don't think anyone saw this coming. More to be found at www.egmnow.com.
Gamasutra: Ian Bogost looks at why most iPhone games are cheaper than a cup of coffee and how it's affecting consumer expectations.
Gamespy: Someone finally decided to Old Yeller The Matrix Online. Thanks for the good times, Neo.
Joystiq: Set phasers to bored – be prepared to be underwhelmed by another Star Trek game in 2010 or so.
Joystiq: The rumored PSP Go! is officially revealed in an issue of Qore, a magazine in desperate need of a U. My old PSP’s self-esteem is in the toilet.
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Gamasutra: Japan takes a giant cultural step forward by NOT allowing the sale of rape simulation games.
Destructoid: Dante's Inferno plans to send us to voice-acting hell. Resident Evil 5, you are relieved.
Destructoid: Rumor: DSi will be able to download Gameboy and GBA titles. Next stop, Metroid 2.
Joystiq: The unthinkable has happened! A non-Japanese game is selling sort of okay in Japan!
Joystiq: Ubisoft crap is selling well, but that doesn't mean they're making much money in the deal.
Joystiq: I've never even heard of this game, but at this point even the faintest sign of a good traditional game on the Wii makes me happy.
Gamasutra: Should games make us uncomfortable? Sam Gilbert says yes.
GameDaily: Apparently people can’t wait to get their hands on Sims 3.
MTV: Do your ill rhymes fall on deaf ears as your friends pluck away on plastic instruments? Take a look at Def Jam Rapstar. Oh wait, no details yet? Tease!
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I’m a fan of multiplayer shooters. I can generally find amusement in even the twitchiest of twitch-shooters, even if I have to scrape the bottom of the fun barrel. Hell, I spent a week playing Mechassault 2: Lone Wolf online before allowing myself to admit it was a janky piece of trash.
The general problem with the genre is saturation. Every game has multiplayer now. And if you really enjoy Halo or Killzone multiplayer, do you need anything else? Occasionally - if that something else provides gameplay lacking in other top-tier shooters. Valve, not content to simply be the go-to developer for PC gamers, delivered two unique takes on the formula with Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress 2. By lovingly invoking Romero clichés, L4D forces players to work as a team, reserving no sympathy for people happy to set off car alarms and strand other survivors. TF2’s art direction and carefully-balanced characters help separate it from the growing pack of class-based shooters on the market.
So what stones could Valve and the AAA Boys have possibly left unturned? What game could possibly give us something we don’t already have? A week ago, I couldn’t have answered that question. But now I can. Look no further than Red Faction: Guerrilla.
Exactly a month ago, Rob tipped his hat to RF:G’s single-player demo. Despite being skeptical of its “GTA-on-Mars” vibe, he quickly became enamored with Geo-Mod 2, the game’s terrain-deforming engine. See a wall you don’t like? Bash it with your hammer. Did it not come down after one swing? Maybe you should take out its supports. The physics with which things crumble is sort of astounding.
If you couldn’t tell already, I wholeheartedly agree with Rob’s assessment of the engine. Plus, there’s a certain genius to the setting of Mars’s terraformed surface. There are no rules to which Volition needed to adhere in their level design. They’ve nothing in the real world to be compared to. Set a game featuring Geo-Mod 2 technology in New York City and you’ve got some problems if you can’t render every building falling (or every chain link fence breaking). Set in on Mars, where the game’s fiction dictates that all structures be pre-fabricated, and you’ve untied your hands. You can blow up whatever the hell you want.
As Rob pointed out, how RF:G will succeed as a single-player sandbox experience (see our Sandbox gaming podcast for more thoughts on this genre’s unique challenges) remains to be seen. Will a middling storyline distract from an otherwise enjoyable experience? Or will it find someway to make me care about Communist miners on Mars? Frankly, I’m not sure it matters. I’ll be playing the multiplayer.
After just a few days with RF:G’s multiplayer demo, I’m convinced that its solid. Far more solid than any of the structures on Mars. Let’s check the prerequisites first. A litany of weapons, including specialized goofy ones like a gun that shoots saw blades (unfortunately not in demo): check. More maps than you can shake a hefty, space-sledgehammer at (21 promise, 2 in demo): check Multiple game modes to cater toward different subsections of your run-and-gun brain: check again. And it is the game modes that warrant special attention.
The demo gives you a look at a mode titled Damage Control, which seems to have perfectly integrated all of the game’s most promising elements. Instead of simply slapping on a simple game of Territories, Volition merged the tried-and-true multiplayer mode with their Geo-Mod technology. I reclaim a contested property not by standing in a circle waiting for a meter to fill but by launching a rocket or swinging my freakishly powerful hammer. Then, I rebuild it with the Reconstructor gun, a magical weapon capable of turning a pile of rubble into a tower in mere seconds (FEMA would die for one of these). What a great way to tangibly manifest my success and/or failure.
And the two maps available demonstrate a keen understanding of how to design for this mode of play. In games like this, there’s a fine line between frustrating and boring. Damage Control deftly tiptoes across the line between the two by balancing the size of the maps with number of players. With teams of five and three control points, its nearly impossible to properly defend and capture all three. But that carrot never quite disappears from the end of the stick. You’ll spend your time running from one point to the next: fragging some enemies, rebuilding a structure, then moving on to whichever one the enemy’s attacking next. The pace is often just a hair slower than breakneck if you really stay focused on maintaining possession.
Other modes hinted at in the demo are your stereotypical (Team) Deathmatch, a CTF variant, Siege (attacking/defending a host of structures), and Demolition (which promises to give one player on each team some kind of freakish destruction capabilities). I hope each are balanced and designed with the same care and thought they gave Damage Control.
So what else does RF:G multiplayer have to offer? A customizable Backpack power-up system. Your character can equip a number of different backpacks, each with their own capabilities. Among other things, you can heal, dash, fly, cloak, and break through walls Juggernaut-style all with the help of backpacks. One of my favorite things to do is equip the jetpack and rocket launcher, then fly over an enemy’s control point and just firebomb the area. Or you can equip the Concussion backpack, knock your opponent down with a shockwave, and then beat them to death with your hammer (it has a number of uses).
On a more technical note, I’m already impressed with RF:G’s Matchmaking UI. I appreciate that it gives me status updates as to each game it tries to connect me to. I’m sure things will be a bit different come retail, but it appears as if they’ve taken some pages from Bungie’s online book. A wise move, since Halo 2 (while possessing a thoroughly underwhelming campaign) helped set a standard for online console multiplayer.
Rob may be right to worry that RF:G’s single-player will disappoint. Hell, I’m not sure how you turn miners-on-Mars into a worthwhile sandbox experience. But what I’ve seen of the multiplayer gives me hope for the title. The clever Backpack system working in tandem with Geo-Mod-ready levels promises an unprecedented type of sandbox-infused multiplayer. It’s different but not so crazy that it isn’t accessible. I just hope Volition can live up to their potential, now that they’ve gone and made me want their game so much.
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Cnet: We already have warring DJ-game peripherals?
Web Pro News: Blockbuster is going to war with GameFly. Their test market? Cleveland.
CNN: Of course when CNN deigns to discuss games, it's about current-event-inspired Flash games like Hero of the Hudson and Made Off.
Joystiq: Are there seriously people who are still interested in purchasing these ancient, silly relics?
Joystiq: Someone’s writing a goddamn Bioshock book. Get your wallet ready, Rob.
Destructoid: Rumor has it Valve is set to announce Left 4 Dead 2 at E3. Maybe this one will have enough content to justify its price tag.
Destructoid: Destructoid says Activision's E3 lineup "impresses." Aside from Modern Warfare 2, I'm rather meh. I can't wait for DJ Hero to be no fun at all.
Gamasutra: Brandon Sheffield interviews Titmouse Games, the folks who brought us Aqua Teen Hunger Force. I imagine where this will go, and I shudder.
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We looked it up yesterday – E3 2009, the first Electronics Entertainment Expo since 2006 to interest anyone anywhere, is happening from Tuesday June the 2nd to Thursday June the 4th. The ridiculous spectacle promises to pack more news into three days than we’ve had in the last three months, which is simultaneously exciting and terrifying for those who enjoy playing and talking about games. Expect at least some effort on our part next week to keep up – we do it all for you. In the meantime, I want to take a minute to discuss one of those rumors, those nasty, pervasive things that start at one site and is then repeated in every corner of the Internet until it’s treated as indisputable fact.
It’s no secret, Sony ain’t doing so good these days. In 2009, they’ve lost money for the first time in over a decade, reflecting their slow but steady decline across the board – Canon outdoes them in digital cameras, Sharp, Panasonic and Samsung are giving them headaches in the HDTV space, Blu-ray won’t be replacing DVD anytime soon, Apple’s iPod completely destroyed the once-popular Walkman brand, and I could probably sell computers made of cardboard and paperclips that would prove more popular than the Sony Vaio line. All of this, and then to add insult to injury the Nintendo Wii and the Xbox 360 have outstripped the Playstation 3’s sales, whereas the PS2 had a more than comfortable lead at this point in its lifespan. Sony’s doing something wrong, and they need to turn it around. The PSP Go!, if it exists, could be just crazy enough to work.
Deconstructing a rumor
I don’t know if this is the way news stories work in real journalism, but in game journalism this is about how I’ve got it figured: first you need a “source” who is either an “insider” or someone “close to the project” – it is, of course, a no-no if you can name the person or any of the people or companies with which he or she is affiliated. If you can’t get a “source” an “analyst” will work almost as well. Next, you need to get that source to pull something arbitrary out of his or her ass, something like “price cut for X expected at Y time” or “unannounced thing X will be unveiled at Y” – in this case, our rumor is that Sony will announce the PSP Go! at this year’s E3.
Once your source has said something unsubstantiated but potentially interesting to your target audience, flesh it out with some of your own writing and report it as news. It may come to pass or it may not, but either way every news outlet on the Internet will pick the story up and run with it, and by the time a week has passed you’ll have read about it in so many different places that you think there’s got to be some truth to it, right?
Check those links – every single one of them cites the original 1up report. To get news, these outlets all watch each other tirelessly. This has its advantages, mainly its twilight bark-like ability to get information from one place to another very quickly, but one error begets a hundred errors, and one rumor spawns thousands of words of copy on just that – an unsubstantiated rumor. And we wonder why no one wants to take bloggers seriously.
But it might be true
Now that we’ve examined the internal structure of a rumor and the way in which it propagates (and completely tearing apart it credibility in the process), lets actually spend some time talking about the PSP Go! and why it is a very real possibility. In case you couldn’t be bothered to click any of the links above, this new device is an optical drive-less version of the PSP which downloads all of its games from Sony’s online Playstation Store, more or less doing away with retail product. According to those same rumors, Sony would offer most of the PSP’s current game library up for download at launch.
For me, the clearest proof that the PSP Go! or something like it exists is the fact that Sony has been moving this way for quite some time now. An October 2008 firmware update to the device allowed the PSP to directly access the Playstation Store, where users could download original Playstation games, game demos, and complete retail PSP games like Jeanne d’Arc and Loco Roco. The service has only been improved since then, and if it weren’t for the relative dearth of content it would actually be pretty compelling.
Also, consider that Patapon 2 was released earlier this month as a download-only title, offering it up on the Playstation Store and also offering it via download vouchers in retail stores – clearly Sony is testing some new waters here. The numbers seem to indicate that this pilot was a success – scroll down to the bottom of that sales data and you’ll see that Patapon 2 edged out several big-name disc-based products the week of its release. If they go all-digital, the move would be financially sound.
We also must consider, here, the failings of the UMD as a storage medium. Sony had positioned it as an all-purpose media disc for an all-purpose media device, but today the dusty, picked-over UMD movies on your local retailer’s clearance rack attest to the fact that nobody wanted to pay more money for a disc with fewer special features that worked only in its own tiny $200+ player. The format was not the success Sony wanted it to be, and as such they are working to bury it.
Hurdles to overcome
So the PSP Go! makes sense, but there will still be problems. First and foremost in this economic climate, there is the matter of price. With fewer moving parts and, presumably, improved and cheaper manufacturing techniques, can we finally get the PSP down to that $99-$129 impulse-buy sweet spot that the Nintendo DS has rested happily in for more than three years? Because that would be great.
You’ll also run into the problem of storage space – 1up’s “source” mentions either 8 or 16 gigabytes of built-in storage capacity, and one can imagine that they would retain the Memory Stick slot for additional memory. The UMD can hold up to 1.8 gigabytes of data. If you want to have a lot of full games stored for play at all times, you’ll need to shell out for the extra space. This is a problem that PC and console owners will be used to by now, though – if you’re running out of space on your hard drive, you either clean some stuff up or get a bigger drive. Simple, and the song remains the same no matter what system you’re talking about.
Hard as it is to believe, there are also people out there whose Internet connections aren’t ready for the new PSP – I work with a lot of people who still request good old 56k modems in their brand-new laptops because they live in rural areas that don’t offer feasible high-speed Internet prices. Even some DSL customers might balk at having to download a 1 gigabyte file, which would take several hours at the common 768k speeds. That being said, the group of people living with dial-up in 2009 and the group of people interested in purchasing a PSP Go! are pretty unlikely to overlap much, and any problems that do exist with the download-only model will fade as broadband becomes faster and more widely available.
Just what I needed
Problems aside, I think the PSP Go! would perform well. Digital distribution platforms like Steam have proven that the system works, that gamers are willing to send their cash out into the Cloud and get sweet, sweet games in return. As long as Sony’s system sports similar features – keeping track of what you’ve bought, allowing you to re-download at any time, keeping your games patched for you, etc. – I don’t think anyone will be too upset about it.
This is uncharted territory for consoles, though – downloadable content is usually restricted to old games, small or indie games, patches, or add-ons to retail content. Most big ticket items are still sold by dead-eyed Gamestop employees. For Sony to eschew the middleman with the PSP Go! could signal the beginning of troubles for brick-and-mortar game retailers, and Sony just might pass some savings on to us while they’re at it.
The new PSP also has the benefit of not leaving the existing userbase in the cold – current PSP owners can buy more or bigger memory sticks and start downloading just like everybody else. Early adopters may be upset that their old game discs will be incompatible with the latest and greatest, but early adopters who still get upset about being burned need seriously to reconsider some of their choices.
It’s also just plain important that the PSP become a contender again. We need competition in the portable space. Lack of competition made Nintendo complacent in the past and history repeats itself, as is evident in the aggressively yawn-worthy DSi refresh. The DSi has few compelling new features, especially if you compare it and the DS Lite to the Game Boy Advance and the original DS – the first DS was a risky new product that was taking some chances, and it came about because Nintendo felt threatened. Sony needs to get back in the game so that Nintendo feels threatened again.
To regain some of the ground it’s lost in this generation’s console race, Sony needs to pull a rabbit out of its hat. The PSP Go!, while still residing only in the realm of fantasy at this point, is exciting enough and innovative enough to give the platform the push it has needed since it launched in 2005. I’ve always thought that the PSP deserves and is capable of more success than it has seen so far, and I find myself hoping not only that the Go! exists, but that every single one of the rumors about it are true.
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Joystiq: Ryan Pearce rejoice - they're changing the way PC gamers get new Team Fortress 2 weapons, but not everyone is happy about it.
Philly Daily News: Christine Flowers writes in defense of the Army Experience Center's use of video games as a tool to inform those interested in military service. As we've written, though, games do not always give us an accurate picture of war.
Joystiq: Big Bioware news coming down the pipe.
Gamasutra: Activision execs unload almost $60 million in company stock before GameStop's earnings report nicked trading values industry-wide. How is this okay?
Gamasutra: Leigh Alexander thinks devs should drop jargon and tell it straight. Perhaps Charge Shot!!! can start by saying "developer" instead of "dev."
GameSetWatch: I think the Bioshock 2 concept art might give me nightmares.
Gamasutra: Tim Sweeney thinks photorealistic gaming is only 10-15 years away. I don’t know…that bridge across the Uncanny Valley looks mighty rickety.
GameDaily: Analysts see in-game advertising ballooning to a billion-dollar industry by 2014. Who are these analysts and do they know I don’t want to see pictures of Geico cavemen when I’m trying to frag 11-year-olds?
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Given a choice between German electronica and Belgian-born Celtic jig music, which would you pick? If you’re not sure, it’s okay. I’m not, either. Good thing both are on tap this week on Radio. I’ll get a chance to decide.
Sebastian Kretzschmar, DJing under the name Chill Carrier, hails from Germany and specializes in Breakbeat, an electronica sub-genre characterized by the inclusion of syncopated and polyrhythmic drum beats. On the flipside, the Belgian group Ceili Moss uses very little in the way of electronics, instead employing plenty of wind and string instruments to create some Celtic-sounding “acoustic folk-rock.”
Genres and nationalities aside, this week is all about the beats. Whose are catchy enough to keep you riding? Whose are obscured by fancy jig dance music? Hit the jump to find out.
Recommendations
Excluding one floaty uphill section two-thirds in, “Boo” is driven by one lick, spun out through various electronic/percussive voices. Your enjoyment of this track may very well hinge on your feelings about the main riff. Like most techno, the traffic spawns mostly from the drum beat, putting you in a love-it-or-hate-it relationship with the ride. I happen to love it. It feels like something out of a Boondock Saints imitator. With this music, I should be walking down the sidewalk with a briefcase of guns, about to kick in some teeth and collect on some debts. The rest of the ambient noise remains supportive of this main theme while also being active enough to generate plenty of visual stimuli in the track. I could zero in on the main loop’s traffic, while the rest of the music took care of tunnels, twists, and bumps. This hypnotizing verse structure got upended in the final downhill, when the percussion levels off into less syncopation. Instead, you simply slide down through the traffic, nabbing blocks as best you can. Play this song if you enjoy feeling like a badass.
Again, Chill Carrier’s beat-writing proves their greatest strength. At first listen, I can’t say I’d think much more highly of this song than any other random electronica thrown my way. It’s got some ambient noise (again, pretty reminiscent of “Flat Beat,” which I’ve referenced before). And it’s got an uphill section where the song catches its breath before hurling you into the downhill recapitulation of the verse, sans bumpiness. Pretty standard fare, no? Well, I’m not sure if it’s a live drummer writing this or some guy mashing the keys on his laptop, but the drum beat sells “Galactic Valley.” It’s got that give and take that helps break up the flow of the ride. Each phrase alternates between a standard 2-4 gesture and a little bit of a fill to bring us into the next bar, which means a constant mix in traffic volume. You’ve no choice but get comfortable with the fact that this traffic abides no comfort zone.
There are a handful of reasons why you might ride “Hug.” You might be eager to toss a Steep tag on anything, so why not a completely uphill electronica track? You might like to use Audiosurf to zone out (not in a badass zen vigilante way [re: “Boo”]). Or you may enjoy the layering of chill techno over creatively used Latin percussion. Don’t go into this one expecting “Boo” or “Galactic Valley.” But you needn’t go in expecting to be bored. It actually develops quite nicely, with some surprising traffic volume in the latter parts of the ride.
Other Selections
Take a trip to the Renaissance Faire, ladies and gentleman. That’s where you’ll find music like Ceili Moss’s “The Bee.” Sure, there’s a truckload of traffic, and it moves at a substantial clip. But unless you really enjoy Celtic(ish) music, you may want to pass on this one. Because of the style – jiglike, heavy on wind instruments – it lacks a real visceral connection between the beats and blocks. “Dancing Lonesome Men,” however, sports a mean link between its beat and its traffic. While I still enjoyed “Hug” a bit more (thus knocking “D.L.M” out of Recommendations contention), “D.L.M.” features two strong, stop/start breakdowns with some furious flouting to top it off. If you’re looking for some real hard-driving Celtic percussion, I’d give Albannach a listen and a ride (though I’d probably skip any of the songs with vocals).
Author’s Note
All songs were given their due on the Pro difficulty using Eraser and Vegas. I must admit to not actually having ridden any of Albannach’s stuff, though I have seen them live. Yes, my family is so proud to be Scottish we’ve gone to festivals.
New York Times: Seth Schiesel thinks we should all give Free Realms a try.
Touch Arcade: Ian Bogost (yeah, that "Videogames Are Art if you'll just listen to me" guy) developed a meditation game that is one part historical artifact, two parts sounds-interesting-for-99-cents.
Destructoid: Prime suspect: Male. Age 23. Brown hair, brown eyes. Equipped with "COVERED IN BEES" plasmid.
Cheapskates rejoice! You can get a metric shitload of 2K games, including Charge Shot!!! favorite Bioshock, for a measly $10 until the 31st of May.
Joystiq: Someone made a controller for Katamari Damacy that is just a ball.
Hey! Stop. Check out the full-length trailer for Modern Warfare 2 right now.
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The Playstation 2 outsold the Playstation 3 in April and a large portion of May, finally proving that for all intents and purposes, Sony is fucking up on a monumental scale. To lose against an older version of your own machine is embarrassing on a level that can only be topped by getting your pants pulled down in the middle of co-ed gym class and realizing that not only are you not wearing underwear, but you’ve been inexplicably transformed into a woman.
Way to pants your system, Sony!
I’m going to elaborate, simply because this bears elaboration. For the PS3 to get beaten by the PS2 in 2009 means that their current generation system is less effective at selling games than the previous system. Y’know, the one that was released in 2000. I will concede that this phenomenon might have something to do with the PS2’s recent price drop but still, come on. There are zygotes who’ve grown to eight-year-olds – children who are oblivious of the PS2’s existence – who prefer the Playstation 2 to the Playstation 3. The mere concept of another system is more enticing than Sony’s newest offering. Plus, it’s older. The cougar of video game systems is beating out the sexy cheerleader.
By God, this is a hilarious time to be alive.
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Okay so let’s make this one short. I have been at my parents’ for the weekend, watching my little brother graduate from high school (!), so I’ve been flitting about and making lame attempts at small talk and spending Valuable Time with family members. It is a pleasant change of pace, but it has also means that I am away from most of my major gaming platforms and that I am hitched to their DSL, which I swear feels more like dial-up with each passing month. Obstacles: Find something that’s quick, will run on my laptop, and is small enough to download in less than three days. Oh noes.
I know that Petri Purho’s Crayon Physics and Crayon Physics Deluxe are sort of old news around these parts. I looked at Wikipedia. I saw the date. But I have those aforementioned limitations to work within, and the game just went up on Steam, so pretend that this game is as new to you as it is to me and let’s move on.
A recipe for Crayon Physics Deluxe: One part physics puzzle, one part Mario Paint, two tablespoons soothing music, half a teaspoon of vanilla extract (this shit is in everything). Add cuteness to taste. Serves bunches. The first level drops a ball on a flat plane, across from a star. Words write themselves in the air: “draw a box.” You draw a box. The box pushes your ball toward the star, which it picks up when it touches. I present to you your game. Get a star in one level, and you can move onto the next. Get enough stars, and you can start visiting other worlds, here represented by islands. Each island has a certain star requirement, so you’ll need to rack up quite a few of them to explore the entire world.
Things ramp up gradually as the demo moves on, though if there’s a difficult part of this game, it doesn’t show up on the first two islands. Instead, the demo primarily focuses on showing you how the physics of the world work – drop a box into the other end of a catapult to send your ball flying, draw a shape around a small, round peg to make it swing around and around, sometimes knocking your ball toward a star (but often knocking it right down a hole). Like so many of these simple indie-developed games, it’s as soothing as it is easy to pick up.
Unlike last week’s Star Trek D-A-C, the presentation on this one is top-notch for an indie game – working on a canvas of crinkled, folded paper, all of Crayon Physics Deluxe’s visuals do actually look as if they were drawn in crayon, and you can leave your mark where ever you please – even the world map allows you to doodle on it. I drew a hungry (but sort of vacant-looking) shark next to the ferry that takes you from island to island, but those of you who enjoy overcompensating for your own latent homosexuality can also draw giant dicks all over the place if you want. It caters to all kinds, you see. The sound is also perfectly suited for the game, mostly pleasant filler with some occasionally beautiful high points. If you’re feeling stressed, take a deep breath and play this game.
One thing Crayon Physics Deluxe does that I really like – many game puzzles are really only solved one way. No matter how clever you think you’re being, the only way to overcome an obstacle is the way that the programmer programmed. Braid is like this, though it was exemplary in its ability to make you feel like a genius. Crayon Physics is another animal, though – Braid was all about an ever-changing but ultimately inflexible set of rules – each action has a reaction, and learning and exploiting the rules of each level was key to solving it. With Crayon, since you can draw shapes that look like absolutely anything, there actually are different ways to solve each puzzle, and while I saw no evidence of this in the demo, word on the street is that the game actually rewards you for thinking outside the box.
Buy or pass? First, a word on the pricing of independent games – most of them are short enough and simple enough (and cheap enough, from the developer’s standpoint) that they should not exceed $10, lest the barrier to entry become too high. Some are polished enough and deep enough that they merit the bump up to $15, which most people seem willing to forgive in the age of the $60 game. Crayon Physics Deluxe’s PC asking price of $20, though, strikes me as just a little grabby. Still, fact of the matter is that I desperately wanted more when the demo was over, and iPhone owners can get the game for a much more palatable $5 – if you can get over the price tag, this one’s a buy.
Crayon Physics Deluxe is available for the iPhone and iPod Touch for $4.99 from the iTunes store, and for the PC, which can be downloaded via Steam or from the game’s Web site. Downloaded PC demo and played single player mode to completion.
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Years and years ago, I took a class called Microeconomics. My teacher, let’s call him Jay, was fantastic; he regularly employed “real-life" examples: the fluctuating price of PBR, the negative demand relationship between Cotton Candy and Pokes in the Eye, and how much would I pay (literally right then and there) out of pocket for a Milano Cookie.
However, I can’t recall how much he taught me about the Risk/Reward ratios. I’m sure he discussed it. Maybe if he’d used Epic Shadow’s Tower of Greed (hosted by King.com) as an example, I’d remember.
In ToG, your pasty avatar (a mix of Glover and a Ninji) is tasked with collecting as many gems as he wants in the ever-vertically-scrolling Tower. However, he can only exit on every fifth floor. If he gets stuck offscreen, he (presumably) perishes.
Risk: you might squished by the moving screen. Reward: $$$. Could it get any simpler? Not really, and that’s part of the charm. The aesthetic is 8-bit. Colorful sprites bounce around to catchy, NES-style music. Items and enemies factor in occasionally, but most of the tension will arise when your desire for that extra blue gem overtakes your desire to continue moving up the Tower.
I could nitpick about the marginal difference between the game’s two modes (Arcade just seems like a less interesting version of Survival). Or I could talk about how, after a handful of attempts, the “random” individual floors start to repeat. But I won’t. It’s a fun game. Fun for an afternoon or an unwinding evening. Plus, it’s got one of the best Game Over phrases I’ve seen in a while: A winner isn’t you. Maybe a winner isn’t me, but I did learn something about Econ.
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As always, find the latest Pod Shot via our feed, or subscribe to us on iTunes.
This week’s Pod Shot (three in a row, we’re on a roll!) primarily concerns itself with old-ass (and one newer-ass) games that deserve sequels but didn’t get them. In an industry obsessed with making sequels to and rebooting games that dropped off the face of the earth years and years ago, it is only a matter of time. Custer’s Revenge 2, anyone?
We also get into quite the lengthy discussion about what we’ve been playing lately, and at the end we make a strange analogy about kitty litter. Hence the photo.
Tunage this week is supplied by Yoshi’s Island, a Super Nintendo game of which I am quite enamored. Billed as a sequel to Super Mario World, the game introduced more new features to the sidescrolling platforming formula than any game since Mario 3, and featured quite the unique art style to boot. It came late in the Super Nintendo’s lifespan and as such was sort of overlooked until it was re-issued in 2002 for the Game Boy Advance, where it flourished and earned a sequel of its own. The song has no name that I can find, but if you’ve played the game I’m sure you’ll recognize it.
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“War. War never changes,” declares Ron Perlman in the opening of Fallout. War may not change, Ron, but I wonder if we should change how we treat it.
Memorial Day comes hot on the heels of another AAA-wargame release. Originally called “Decoration Day,” the holiday was first officially observed on May 30, 1868, following a proclamation by General John Logan. Perhaps because Logan was a Union general asking that we remember fallen soldiers on both sides of the war, his holiday (already spreading state by state in the North) went unrecognized by Southern states until after World War I (when the holiday stopped being exclusive to the Civil War).
In recent years, there’s been talk about changing how we (fail to) observe this holiday. In 1999, a bill was introduced to move Memorial Day from the “last Monday in May” back to its original May 30th date; many believe that the current three-day weekend has contributed to turning Memorial Day into a generic, “Start of Summer” holiday and to diminishing the importance of the date. Ten years later, no progress has been made regarding the bill.
I’ll refrain from weighing in on the May 30th/Last Monday debate (I love my three-day weekends as much as the next guy). But I do agree that restoring the day’s original intention is important, especially given the current state of US Foreign Affairs.
So imagine my reaction when I fire up my Xbox and see a Community video about how Xbox Live is celebrating Memorial Day. In fact, you don’t have to imagine. Just hit the jump.
Let me begin by saying that I have nothing against the WeTheGamerz guys, who are featured in this weekend’s Community Playdate . These guys are trying their damndest to bring civility to online gaming (a feat whose very attempt should warrant a medal). My beef is with the promotional video, hosted by trixie360.
Am I wrong to take umbrage at this promotion? We’re going to “celebrate this holiday Xbox Live-style” by blowing each other up in Battlestations: Pacific, a game hyped in press releases for the ability execute Kamikaze attacks? Am I the only person disturbed by the marriage of a holiday created to honor the dead with a sweepstakes whose entry requires the creation of virtual dead?
Now, I’m not trying to begrudge anyone their war games. They’ve been around for centuries (check out the history of Chess when you’ve got the time). And I do play and enjoy them. I blog about games of Starcraft, for god sake. But the message sent by this event just seems so wrong, so insensitive. Granted, games have a history of being insensitive (e.g. Punch-Out!!), but that’s no excuse to continue such behavior.
I’m reminded of Emanuel Maiberg’s “See No Evil” article in The Escapist (which we linked in a previous Marginalia). In it, Maiberg recounts his childhood in Israel, which he spent (among other things, I presume) blasting virtual Nazis in Wolfenstein 3D. He remembers how uncomfortable his grandmother seemed “watching her grandchildren casually gunning down her former oppressors with the click of a mouse.” He argues that Call of Duty: World at War, a game praised for its elaborate limb destruction, does the war (and those who lived through it) a disservice by completely ignoring the Holocaust and including (this is true) a Nazi Zombies mode. How can this game be “respectful” (term from 1UP review) and honor servicemen when it glosses over what they were fighting for and turns a frightening, complex enemy into extras in a George A. Romero film?
This is not to say that games cannot/do not honor those who have defended our country. Much of the hubbub surrounding Six Days in Fallujah seems to be the tension between the people crying “Too soon!” and the reports that Iraq vets support its development and release. I personally am tired of games set in Unnamed-Middle-East-istan, but I understand why developers do it: as developer Borut Pfeifer wrote in his blog, “The notion that you can make a game set in modern day Iraq without making a political statement is complete nonsense…” I suppose that by avoiding actually naming the country, you can say you’re not commenting on the war (though I think anyone with half a brain can connect the dots).
But why don’t games want to say things about war? Why do we have to settle for blanket, generalized assertions like “War is bad. Can’t you tell by our bump-mapped blood spatters?” Why can’t we use the unique qualities of a procedural medium to explore how specific wars are started, fought, and won/lost so that we might actually learn something about them?
How all of this relates to Xbox Live’s Memorial Day extravaganza is a little shaky, I’ll admit. I’ll also concede that on Microsoft’s webpage for the event there’s a sidebar titled “Support Our Troops.” You can donate games to deployed soldiers via Cheap Ass Gamer, send more generalized support via the USO, or get involved with Homes for Our Troops. This is all in good taste. But it’s overshadowed by the promise of run-and-gun fun and a sweepstakes whose image tag reads: “Here’s your chance to claim some killer swag!” (Not to mention that the term ‘swag’ isan acronym for Stuff/Shit We All Get – if it’s a sweepstakes, we can’t all get it, Microsoft.) If Microsoft actually wanted to do some good on Memorial Day, they could charge for entry into the sweepstakes and donate the proceeds to one of the aforementioned charities. Anything would be better than this we-want-Live-traffic, promotional bullshit.
Unfortunately, we’re stuck with this version of Xbox Live Memorial Day. And it’ll be a year before this bothers anyone (or perhaps just me) again. But Microsoft can do better. They can set an example in the industry in how they (Microsoft) approach serious topics and charity work. Not encouraging us to kick off Summer by celebrating war would be a welcome start. War may never change. But we can definitely change this.
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Joystiq: EA wants to take risks on the Wii. You know what that means – riskiest Madden ever!
Gamasutra: The Terminator wants to uphold an (unconstitutional) California law restricting sales of M-rated games to minors.
Joystiq: THQ sent a gold-plated Wii to the Queen of England – if only they’d put as much effort into their games.
1up: Kat Bailey's been grinding through Valkyria Chronicles. Good to know there's an RPG worth playing on the PS3.
Greenpixels: Need a good gateway game (aka a way to trick non-gaming friends into hanging out with you)? Look no further than Rock Band 2.
Gamasutra: Despite record Q1 profits, Gamestop is bracing for decline, Gamasutra reports. Bracing how - by Scrooge McDuck-ing their way through swimming pools of gold?
Destructoid: Get yer free Team Fortress 2.
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First, a preface, because that is where prefaces normally turn up: I bought Next Level Games’ and Playful Entertainment, Inc.’s Ticket to Ride with not one, but many misgivings. I had been recommended it by one of my friends whose opinions on games I did not trust, and had said No to him many times in the past. What was it, then, that made me break down and buy this silly digitized board game? Maybe it is the fact that I am easily pressured by my peers. Maybe it was the “if you buy this I will buy this” pact that I entered with Craig just moments before the deed was done. Look, it could have been anything, okay? The point is, I bought Ticket to Ride earlier this week, and much to my surprise I found myself getting sort of into it.
Anyone who buys it should be aware: Xbox Live Arcade’s Ticket to Ride is a pretty straightforward conversion of a German board game of the same name. I will explain: you are presented with a map of the United States (and the lowermost bits of Canada). At the beginning of the game, you draw some cards with cities on them – you must create a route, via train, from the one city to the other. Doing so will earn you precious Points, failing will penalize you. It is pretty simple and pretty game-like, as games go.
Give this one a minute to sink in, because its presentation does not sell you on the game. Silly music and boring graphics are all you'll see until you actually dig down into the gameplay, but once you're there you'll find where the game truly shines.
Woo woo!
I can understand how the single-player mode on a game like this one could be considered shallow. It’s like playing against AI in any board game game – it is occasionally challenging, but it can’t act like real people. Playing real people in a game like this is downright treacherous – not only will they try to connect their own cities with trains, but they’ll also actively block your own moves to further their own cause. Maybe AI can do this in its own, limited way, but defeat stings much more when delivered by a human opponent.
I, frankly, love Ticket to Ride. I’ve never played the board game upon which it is based, but I found it to be as deep and strategic and tense as many real-time strategy games I’ve played – it’s sort of a cross between Risk and Diplomacy and Monopoly – equal parts luck and skill, sometimes rewarding players for taking chances and sometimes punishing them severely. Choosing five different destinations could just as easily win the game for you as it could seal your ultimate demise, and you and your adversaries know this the entire time. It can be quite tense, and there were long stretches of radio silence as my friends and I planned our next moves across the map.
As I was thinking about this write-up, it struck me that Ticket to Ride perfectly demonstrates objectivity’s function in game reviews. Let’s take IGN’s review as a case in point. They gave the thing a 6.5 – allow me to break down what this means. Game reviews don’t work on a scale of one to ten, but more or less identically to grading in any given school, perhaps owing to the fact that many game journalists got to where they are today by starting a Legend of Zelda fansite when they were in the eighth grade. This means that a 5.9 is a failure and a disgrace, that a 6.5 is cause for grave concern, that an 8.0 is the minimum for a game that anyone should even consider buying, and that a 10.0 means that the game in question’s publisher was generous with their advertising money.
So, that scale in mind, IGN’s 6.5 means “there is no reason why you need to buy this game.” But maybe they’re missing the point? Maybe the person who played and reviewed the game saw it as an imperfect six-five, but maybe board game aficionados would rate it an eight-oh instead. Maybe someone who played it with a particularly conniving and competitive set of friends would have given it a different score. “Hardcore” gamers seem to set a lot by these often arbitrary review scores, and game publishers actually validate this useless metric by pressuring sites to withhold scores below a certain threshold.
I’m not saying we should use Ticket to Ride’s generally low-to-middling review scores as proof that game journalism needs a bottom-up restructuring, but I am saying that letting one person slap one arbitrary score on any given game (sometimes sealing its fate at retail) is disingenuous at best. Maybe the IGN reviewer in question would have liked Ticket to Ride more if he had played it with his old college friends, or if he had listened to some Daft Punk instead of the tunes that come with the game by default, or if he had gotten more sleep the night before. Really, if we decide to trust his review score, we should be taking all of these things into account.
I think it’s about finding a way to let the gamer make his or her own judgment, independent of the arbitrary review score and commercialism that are holding game journalism back. Maybe some underpaid reviewer at Gamestop would give an RPG a low score, but that doesn’t mean that RPG fans will dislike the game – all that score means is that the reviewer disliked the game. With demos and trials becoming freely downloadable for PCs and consoles alike, we’re ushering in an age in which it is easy to try before you buy, and I think reviews and reviewers need to start considering this before they rate the next entertaining game into an early grave.
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1up: Bethesda’s Sean Brennan recently spoke up about an impending Bethesda release for the Wii. It would be “churlish to ignore that space,” he said. Nice use of churlish, dude!
Gamasutra: Just Cause dev Avalanche lays off employees. Why? Just 'cause.
Crispy Gamer: Ever wondered about the small time starts of big time developers?
Destructoid: The king is dead. Long live the king, baby.
Destructoid: DICE's Team Fortress 2 won't be heading to consoles. What's that? It's called Battlefield: Heroes? My b.
Joystiq: Want free press coverage for your stupid game? Turns out all you have to do is develop it for Dreamcast.
Gamasutra: Sony's in trooooublllllle. How they could regain some of what they lost.
Tom’s Guide: Sam Walton's here to mistreat his underpaid workers and sell used games, and he's all out of underpaid workers!
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Step right up! We’ve got some Rumba tunes! We’ve got some Robot tunes! We’ve even got something guaranteed to make your eyes bleed! All this and more (okay maybe not much more) in this week’s Radio recap.
Your Rumba (not Roomba) comes courtesy of El Perez, a Spanish Flamenco guitarist who also enjoys techno. Heet Seas provides the industrial Robot Tunes. These Frenchman don’t mind calling themselves “Post Punk” – whatever that means. And KraftiM, a DJ from the Netherlands, is the one planning to give your eyes a workout.
I know my lead was a little crazy, but I’m pretty sure KraftiM knocked me a bit off-kilter. Let’s just get to the rides.
Recommendations
Once again, an intimate instrumental benefits greatly from the Steep tag. Orchestration is light in “Rumba Francesca”, but I guarantee it doesn’t detract from the ride. With the tag on, the track, bull-like, bucks with the rhythmic strumming of the guitar, attempting to dislodge you from your course. The bass adds welcome depth to the music but refrains from generating too much of its own traffic (save for a bitching lick in the heart of the bridge). The final phrase of the bridge builds suspense well, winding the track in an uphill corkscrew before the last descent – down a bumpy hill covered in tunnels – begins. The star here, however, is El Perez’s frantic finger- and fretwork. I’ve been a fan of the Gipsy Kings for a long time (I’ve even seen them live), so I’m already inclined toward this style of music. If you’ve never listened to classical or Flamenco guitar but you happen to be a fan of the instrument, play this song. The upbeat songs (like this one) generally have great grooves that are often physically infectious to the point where I become That Weirdo On The Subway when it pops up on my iPod. Look at it this way, if you play it on Audiosurf, you won’t have to suffer stares on the train. Or at least you can decide if the music is worth the sideways glances of uneasy strangers – which it (in my opinion) most certainly is.
There’s more of a traditional rhythm section on “Rumba Alemana”; castanets and/or clapping punctuate the beat in the verse sections. It’s a nice, driving background to a gentler, more melodic rumba than its “Francesca” counterpart. But the real highlight is how the strums following each phrase seem pull your car forward. Buckshot rounds of traffic fire and quickly recede as you lurch over the hill. It’s a real challenge not to overload a column just because an extra block shoots over the horizon in a lane you hadn’t expected. In the bridge, the percussion drops out, leaving you with introspective guitar work. The track crests and then you’re back travelling downhill, the percussion returning joyously. Good luck getting a Clean Finish on this one, as the traffic’s pretty light after the last slalom ends. On my second run, I was lucky enough to find a yellow paint lurking in the shoulder. All rides should be so kind.
In further efforts to cull the wheat from the chaff, I’m introducing a new section called…
The Maybe Pile
I just can’t make up my mind on this Heet Seas stuff. “Kink Drop” takes you on a ride through traffic hell at relativistic speeds. If you’ve got yourself an adequate graphics card, take advantage of it on this one. I’m pretty sure over 80% of the track is under neon red tunnels. Musically, it’s a tune of ugly, fuzzy industrial noises, but it presents one of the most difficult rides I’ve ever seen.
As for “POAWL”… Why are the choruses so full of noise yet so devoid of traffic? Why must another techno/industrial/trance/something-robots-would-bone-to song subject me to children (or in this case what sounds like the singer imitating children) singing ceaselessly some looped creepy lyric I can’t understand? At many points in the song, I sympathized with Steam user SteleGrey, who commented, “What a bunch of racket.” But I can’t ignore what JaguarFiend, king of comments, pointed out: “These guys don’t mess around. The ending was like driving 90mph into a big fat tree.” He’s right. The song’s super intense, and the ending’s super abrupt. A big fat tree, indeed.
Other selections
Um. I don’t know what I can say about “Divan,” the eight-minute trance track. By trance, I mean that this song wants to hypnotize you. The particulars of the ride remain foggy, but I do have a strange urge to blow off work and listen to “Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta.” The music is all warbly sounds and sitar (which is apparently the most Intense instrument, as it constantly generated red blocks on its own). And there are weird voices that I’m sure implanted code words in my brain to turn me into a fashion model slash killing machine. Another Steam user, Telessys, put it best: “Do that without blinking and your eyes start talking to you…seriously.” Thus, I will never ride this song again. But if you like to chill out while playing (and by chill out I mean take drugs and lose your mind), you might want to give it a shot. Otherwise, would you kindly pass over this one?
Author’s Note
Each song was played on the Pro difficulty using Eraser and Vegas characters, except for “Divan,” which I was afraid to ever ride again. I didn’t have time to pull a particular song for Recommended Riding, but any fans of El Perez’s stuff should definitely give the Gipsy Kings a try, especially their Roots album. Also, in the future, I’d love to do a round-up of reader suggestions. If you’ve got any favorite rides, email them to me at craig@charge-shot.com and maybe they’ll make it in. I, of course, reserve the right to refuse any songs as bad as or worse than “Oh Mickey You’re So Fine.”
