Oh - And…

I’m thankful that people actually make cakes like this.

Sign of the times

Street Fighter IV has received an official release date for its North American debut on the 360 and PS3, but despite the franchise’s roots will not be released as an arcade game in the US.

Of course, this makes a lot of sense as no one goes to arcades any more, and with online play it’s never too difficult to find a human opponent.  The only arcades I see now are in movie theaters, and they’re typically just made up of DDR, Time Crisis-like games, or classic games.

I’m sure hardcore fans of the game will contend that playing a game like SF IV online screws up all of their timing, and I’m sure they’re right, but 99.9% of the gaming population probably won’t care or notice.  Will arcades ever regain their popularity in the US?  I’m guessing not for awhile, if ever.

Not a good sign…

Did you know that Call of Duty: World at War launches today?  Unfortunately, as of yet, there isn’t a single review of the game up yet.  For such a high-profile game, this seems rather strange.

I can only assume that it means something similar to when movies are released without critic screenings.  In other words: Buyer Beware.

Irritating Gaming Conventions

Since I’m already irritable from my broken 360, here’s a few random thoughts.  Playing Order of Ecclesia has made me think about some of the gaming conventions that have sprung up in the past few years across certain types and genres of games.  These conventions often - and ironically - become hallmarks of their lineage despite being largely pointless, if not actively irritating.  In many cases, these might have been initial innovations, only to become stale and valueless over time.  A few that I could come up with:

(Post-SOTN) Castlevania Games: Take a series of escalating sword-type weapons, add various fetch quests, use the same area themes, and make sure that most secrets can only be uncovered through a combination of numbing persistence and blind luck.  And all with a disturbing lack of Belmonts.  Offenders: Well, most post-SOTN Castlevanias.

Survival Horror Games: Resident Evil’s crappy movement controls come to mind; RE 5 looks like it might start bucking the trend, but this has been an irritant for ages.  Offenders: RE 1-3, plus the intermittent quasi-sequels.

Adventure Games: Modern Zelda-esque dungeons/temples feel like they’re built from a template at this point.  Insert [Fire/Water/Light/Dark] Temples at will and populate accordingly.  I love Zelda, but the temple themes need to be shaken up.  Offenders: Zelda 3, Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess, and Minish Cap on the Zelda side.  Plenty of similar problems in related games.

Insanely Difficult Games: Make a game so numbingly difficult that its difficulty becomes its only selling point and differentiating advantage.  Sell to masochists.  Offenders: Contra, Ninja Gaiden.

FPS Games: It’s been ages (since Duke 3D, possibly) since the weapon set of an FPS looked different enough from every other one to warrant comment.  Do we really need a shotgun, rocket launcher, and chaingun, people?  Can we try to come up with something slightly different?  Offenders: Lord, where do I start?

Sci-Fi Games: Let me save you some time: the problem was caused by a horrible experiment gone terribly wrong, probably aided and abetted by some shadowy government entity somewhere.  Bonus points if aliens are involved somehow.  Offenders: Half-Life 1-2, Dead Space, various Resident Evils, Metal Gear Solid…

I’m pretty sure there are plenty more out there… feel free to help me add to the list.  There are two requirements: the convention must serve no significant useful purpose that couldn’t be served in another (more creative) way, and it must appear in at least 2 games of the same type.  Thoughts?

Anyone Tried Fallout 3 Yet?

I’m not even done Dead Space, and here we go again.

Working At Cross Purposes

Via Joystiq comes the news that Midway has decided to “tone down” Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe to maintain a family-friendly T rating, primarily because they have a desperate need for a blockbuster.  While I can’t begrudge them their financial distress, it seems truly odd to me to design a game whose fundamental raison d’etre is mind-numbing violence, and then attempt to tailor it to a “mass audience.”

It seems to me like this is one of those odd corporate decisions that fails to consider its own implications.  You have one big audience for MKvDCU: people who like Mortal Kombat’s fatality-laden heritage.  DC comic fans probably figure in as well, but obviously, to satisfy them you would only need a fighting game, not one with MK’s history.  To position the game twoards that audience and then dilute its own primary source of appeal seems incoherent.

(In case you wondering, the original Mortal Kombat was one of the first to receive an “M” rating from the ESRB.)

Synthetic Telepathy

I’m not qualified to discuss the national security implications, but the video game applications are limitless.

Say It In Runic

Apparently Richard Garriott held up a sign on his trip to the space station in his fictional language from Tabula Rasa.  Aside from being insanely jealous of people who can go into space, I find fictional languages fascinating.  Truly different languages actually take a long time to develop - they’re more than just a cipher used to disguise an existing language - and they’ve been employed in everything from books (think Tolkien’s incredibly elaborate elvish) to movies, games, and tv shows. 

Part of the interest is probably due to the fact that they’re such an intrinsic part of the world creation process.  But another piece is that I find it interesting how many fictional languages tend to be elaborately pictorial in nature: Garriott, Tolkien, even the alienese from Futurama (actually a cipher rather than a language) all use some sort of complex runic stand-in for either a sound (elvish) or meaning (Logos Elements).  But not that many of the world’s actual languages are like that - most are purely alphabetic and much more functional than attractive - an exception maybe being the Middle Eastern languages like Hebrew and Arabic - and the few pictorial languages like Chinese are syllabic shorthand for complete words.  (As you can see from the poor descriptions, I’m not a linguist). 

I would imagine that this is because the main function of languages in the real world is to communicate meaning, which requires simplicity and concision, whereas their function in fictional worlds is to communicate a sense of uniqueness, which just requires being different.

All your base are belong to Obama *Update*

He has his own TV channel.  He’s bought 30 minutes of primetime on at least two major networks.  And now, he’s invaded… our games?  This is very likely a photoshop, but I’ll load up Burnout tomorrow to see if I find anything like this.  Still, whatever your political preference, I thought this was funny.  If this is real, I suppose this does target a demographic that’s historically been an Obama strength, and I guess he really is leaving no stone unturned.

*UPDATE* - It turns out that this is NOT a photoshop.  Very interesting.

Sweet, Tasty, Irony

It’s amusing to watch gamers who have consumed Zelda cereal, Pokemon breakfast products, SMB fruit snacks, and assorted beverages, become outraged - outraged! - at the idea that someone might think they wanted to purchase game-related food products.  The naming conventions are pretty terrible, but they suggest the lack of any marketable brands to bastardize rather than an inherent contempt for their audience.  Acting like the proposition somehow insults our gamer integrity strikes me as risible, especially since Red Bull has been unofficially adopted as beverage of choice by insomniac gamers everywhere.