Rock Band 2 is already a good deal…

There is a bit more information that’s coming out regarding Rock Band 2 now, and while everything is mostly positive, I guess most people are thinking that it may not be quite as big an update to warrant a “2″.  Instead, 1up, for instance, is wondering why, outside of the obvious instrument improvements, a lot of the new features couldn’t have been released in a title update.

Now, if you’ve been reading our site for awhile, I think you know how often I like to complain about how things are priced.  But I’m just really not sure what the problem is here.  Most Madden games are basically roster updates, yet people continue to shell out $50-$60 every year for them. Regarding Rock Band 2, let me break it down as simply as possible for people:

For $60, you get 70 new songs.

Read the rest of this entry »

Men Are From Mars

Multiplayer Blog asks an interesting question: should female characters and male characters be treated differently, if those differences are reflected in real life?  For example, should men be stronger than women?  The responses are interesting but, largely because the readers fail to state the question they’re answering, inconclusive.

To me, this is really three different and related questions:

Read the rest of this entry »

Sci-Fi Shooter’s R’ Us

A new rumor popped up regarding Call of Duty 6 (yes, the one after the next one that’s going to take place in both the Pacific and Europe) that states that rather than returning to the “modern combat” of Call of Duty 4, it will instead be transplanted to a futuristic sci-fi setting.

Now, I like sci-fi as much as the next guy, but if there’s one setting we’ve seen more of than World War II, it’s sci-fi.  Not that I think Infinity Ward couldn’t make a great game with a sci-fi setting, but do we really need even more of these? And I’m not even including 3rd-person games or sci-fi set games that don’t use some version of a space marine on my list (yet).

It’s possible that, if the rumor is true, they could go in a more GRAW-like direction and simply use a slightly post-present setting.  This could work fairly well within the “Call of Duty” formula without substantially changing the setting that most gamers found so engrossing in CoD4.  Perhaps a more futuristic setting would also still work, but as a lot of gamers just got their first taste of “Modern Combat”, I wonder whether shifting to something else so quickly will upset them (particularly when they’ve already gotten such a generous filling of WWII shooters).

How much is too much?

With Guitar Hero: Aerosmith coming out in just a few weeks and Guitar Hero IV/World Tour expected later this year, you’d think Activision would be happy with their current Guitar Hero slate for the year.  Apparently not, as Kotaku points out that Guitar Hero: Metallica is slated to hit before the end of Activision’s fiscal year, (by March 31, 2009).

Let’s leave aside, for a moment, whether Guitar Hero: Metallica is a good idea or not.  Does this seem like a bit much to anyone else?  Not only is that going to be 3 Guitar Hero games within a year (4 in roughly 1.5 years), but with Rock Band continuing to offer weekly content, a likely full-fledged Rock Band sequel almost definitely going to be announced sometime soon (no inside info, just a hunch), and even a THIRD Guitar/Band franchise coming from Konami, is anyone worried about over-saturating this market?

Read the rest of this entry »

GTA who?

If you thought the GTA IV Hyperbole was great, you haven’t seen anything yet.  Now that it’s been about a month since GTA IV’s release, we can safely put that game in the rear view mirror.  The hot new ticket is here in the form of Metal Gear Solid 4.  Are you ready to be blown away?

First out of the gate, and therefore the most important review ever, is this leaked Gamepro review that says “It is, without a doubt, one of the greatest games of all time” as it awards it a 5/5. It also says, “This is videogame storytelling at its absolute best, and represents a new high watermark for the craft, easily surpassing the superb BioShock and the subversive Grand Theft Auto IV.” It must be those feature-length movies that really must represent the great advance in “interactive” storytelling.

Read the rest of this entry »

Color Me Skeptical

Nolan Bushnell says that a new computer chip will “absolutely stop piracy of gameplay.”

Really? Just like the XBox 360, eh?

Is it just me, or do these people constantly forget the golden-rule of software security: claiming your software is unhackable will only motivate hackers to hack it even faster.

New security steps like this one will certainly slow down some piracy for awhile, but it’s only a matter of time before it’s broken. When it is, expect the “next big thing” in software security to also be “unhackable” until it is, of course, hacked as well.

Read the rest of this entry »

GTA IV’s Blueprint for Cross-Platform Titles

Destructoid points to a Eurogamer analysis that somehow determines that GTA IV runs at roughly 33 FPS on the XBox 360 and 28 FPS on the PS3. Like Destructoid, I don’t see this making much, if any, appreciable difference to the experience. Despite this difference, as well as the PS3’s slightly worse resolution, most people who have played both versions seem to think that the PS3 looks slightly better than the 360 version due to some extra filtering that’s done on the PS3 version. My guess is that this extra filtering can be done on the PS3 because of it’s extra CPU power. With this new information, though, the strategy for successfully creating apparent visual parity between the 360 and PS3 versions of the game becomes apparent:

Read the rest of this entry »

Videogames as Simon

When I read that the top-rated Ikaruga player said that the “XBLA version is horrible“, I figured that perhaps there was a problem with the graphics or the controls were somehow less responsive than they should be.

Instead, it turns out that the reason he believes it’s so bad is because of some slight tweaks made to some of the levels:

“I can confirm they screwed up Shigi. They swapped the colours of the initial position of the lasers and inverted the direction in which they rotate. The best strategy seems to start from the bottom left (which is now red), stay to the right of the laser as blue and release as red when you have no room left.

Unluckily, because Shigi initially moves to the left and the lasers rotate to the right, the laser trail is much more “vertical” and it’s a lot more difficult to shoot it as blue without freaking die.

This whole thing is SO SO SO annoying.

I also noticed some changes in the delay with which the ships come in in 4-1 and possibly the timing is more strict to make enemies coming from the background locked by our homing laser…”

Wow, that sounds pretty serious. How could the developers make these crucial and amazingly damaging changes to the game? It’d be like Nintendo changing the Super Mario Bros. 7-4 Castle pattern in a remake of that game, which would just be tragic.

In all seriousness, I can understand the player’s frustrations. Obviously, when you play a game and get really good at it, it’s annoying when something changes that suddenly makes you WORSE at the game. But it also brings up an interesting point about what we want in our games.

Read the rest of this entry »

Going through the motions with Mario Kart Wii

IGN wasn’t too thrilled with the Wii Remote “wheel” motion controls for Mario Kart Wii in their preview a few weeks ago:

“However, it’s much more fun with a GameCube or classic controller, I’ve found. The Wii remote makes an already loose control scheme feel even looser and it is particularly difficult to quickly switch from a right curve or a left one (or vice versa) using the peripheral. After some frustrating rounds in which my Kart became very friendly with the barriers surrounding the tracks, I plugged in the GCN controller and found a much tighter experience waiting. I immediately noticed a dramatic improvement in my rank throughout the courses, too.”

Ok, so, the motion controls, as I have feared, apparently don’t work all that great.  So, it’s a good thing that it supports the GCN and Classic Controller, right?  Well, according to Kotaku, the GCN and Classic Controller won’t really do, well, everything.  From the press release:

 • Classic Controller: Mario Kart veterans can let their thumbs do the driving with the Classic Controller. However, players cannot perform certain moves with this control scheme.

• Nintendo GameCube™ Controller: Experienced Mario Kart fans may also enjoy this familiar scheme, although some maneuvers cannot be performed.

Ok, so the question is… what exactly can’t be done, and how does it affect the racing? It sort of sounds like you may not be able to pull off the “tricks” that need a “shake” of the remote to pull off, that also give you a speed boost upon landing.  That would seem to be a major disadvantage for people using GCN and Classic controllers, so they couldn’t do that, right?  Well, according to IGN’s preview, they didn’t:

“I know that Bozon had mentioned in our podcast that he couldn’t find a way to perform tricks or wheelies in Mario Kart Wii using a GCN or classic controller. You can, though – the functionality is just mapped to the D-Pad. So when you go off a jump, tap up on the D-Pad and you’ll trick. Same for wheelies. That seeming omission was the biggest drawback to using the old controllers, which otherwise offer improved maneuverability mapped to the analog stick, but have no fear because it’s all good. It’s in there.”

Ok… so, if it isn’t the tricks, what is it?  Or if it is the tricks, then this would appear to be a recent change as the feature was available in IGN’s pre-release build.  Or, is this just a mistake in the press-release?

If it’s correct (and it actually refers to the tricks), I wonder whether this is a way to counter the “advantage” the traditional controller has over the motion controls.   So, if you use motion controls, you can get your boosts, but you may have trouble steering.  Use a GCN or Classic controller and you’ll probably steer better, but you won’t get your “trick” boosts.  Is that a fair trade-off?  I’m not convinced.

Why I haven’t played Smash Bros. Brawl in over a week

Super Smash Bros. Brawl’s launch last week was a huge success for Nintendo, selling a record breaking (for Nintendo) 1.4 Million units. I, myself, even went to pick up the game at Gamestop for their midnight launch and was amazed to see in the realm of 75 people lined up outside waiting for it. Clearly, there’s been a lot of enthusiasm for the game.

And now that it’s out, the reviews have also been glowing. So now that I finally have it, I should be playing the hell out of it, right?

Well, I haven’t. In fact, I haven’t played the game since the day after it released. What’s wrong with me?

Aside from my traveling this weekend (and actually trying to play the game on a Wii that unfortunately has the disc reading problem), I just haven’t felt all that motivated to play it. It’s not that I don’t like the game: it’s exceedingly well polished, a chock-full of content, and perhaps the most amazing celebration of (mostly) Nintendo gaming ever made available. But for me, the single player game is just not all that compelling. Yeah, the “story” mode is kind of fun, although there’s nothing particularly amazing about it. Playing it for more than 30-60 minutes is about all that’s interesting to me. It’s clear to me, as it sort of was with the previous games in the series, that this is a multiplayer game.

Perhaps this is a sad sign of just getting older, but other than a couple rounds and some coop with Megan, I’ve barely had a chance to play it multiplayer. It’s difficult for me to get all my (interested) friends together in one place for some Smash Bros. Everyone obviously has their jobs and obligations to attend to, they live in different places, and obviously Smash Bros. isn’t necessarily the only thing that people like to do on a social occasion anyway. Not only that, Smash Bros. has a somewhat specific target audience, and won’t necessarily appeal to all of your friends in the same way that a game like, say, Rock Band might. I think this is, in a way, why online multiplayer gaming has become so important, and why it’s become so popular via XBox Live. The Nintendo crowd that grew up with the great Nintendo multiplayer games like Mario Kart and Goldeneye are getting older and don’t have the ability to necessarily get together a gaming night with their friends so that they can play the latest multiplayer game. Instead, while not exactly the same, Xbox Live has still given the ability for friends to easily play together, chat, trash-talk, etc… almost as if they were playing with each other in person.

This is why I, at least, had a lot of hope for Smash Bros. on the Wii. At least in this generation Nintendo has some online gaming, so I’d still be able to play with friends and others online when I wasn’t able to in person. Unfortunately, as I detailed last week, I’ve had major problems with the online multiplayer. I’ll give it another shot this weekend, but even if it worked as intended, it’d still be severely flawed. As I ranted a long time ago, friend codes still suck, as does the lack of voice chat. I don’t expect the online Brawl experience to completely replicate the in-person experience, but as we all know, the best Smash games are the rowdy ones. Nintendo’s response to this is a complete joke. Not everyone has Skype readily accessible to them near their Wii’s, and even if they do, what an unnecessary pain in the ass. Online play with your friends, therefore, won’t be all that much different than online play with strangers. They’re both completely devoid of vocal interaction, removing the “personal” feeling that you’re actually playing with other humans, and the silence is deafening.

In any case, like I said, it’s not that it’s a bad game. I’ll be bringing it with me on an upcoming trip where it’s sure to get a lot of use for multiplayer, and I’m sure it’ll be a complete blast. Nintendo still dominates the hardcore, in-person multiplayer scene. It’s just sad that they’re still stuck in the minor league when it comes to online play.