How to ruin the chance for people to take your game seriously in one easy step

1) Make a movie of it.

Perhaps that’s not exactly fair, but the track record really speaks for itself.  It is really depressing that Shadow of the Colossus, a game that was lauded for its serious and emotionally charged tone, is now going to be made into a movie that’s being written by the same guy who wrote “Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li” and produced by the guy who did “The Scorpion King”.  This really feels like it sets the whole “Games as art” argument back, as now instead of SOTC being a beautiful, emotional, and, yes, fun experience it is now just another franchise to be milked.

Also worth mentioning is the fact that Gore Verbinski of “Pirates of the Carribean” fame is going to direct the Bioshock movie as well.  While the game didn’t pack quite the emotional punch that SOTC did, I doubt they’ll be able to, or even care about trying to produce the same level of intellectual discussion as the game did.  Just imagine how lame the “big twist” in the game would be as a passive 3rd-person rather than an interactive first-person experience.  I don’t think it’d be quite the mindf*ck that the game produced, which is really the reason why it’s a game in the first place, and not a movie.

What if you ran a beta and no one came?

A few weeks ago I signed up for the Red Faction: Guerrilla beta, which was easy enough to do.  After downloading the game, I quickly tried to see who was playing (and this was within the first day or two of the beta being opened up).  As it turned out, only one other person was playing, and as you need 8 to start a game, I was unable to try it out.  It was pretty late, though, so I figured I should just try again at a better time.

Well, I’ve now tried 3 more times since then at different times and on different days and I have still not been able to try this game out.  Only once did it find enough people to purportedly start the game, but then as soon as the game started, it ended as there was some weird connection issue and everyone dropped.  Trying to restart the game after that resulted in the same problem as before… no one else was playing.  I finally just tried again a few moments ago and was only matched up with 1 single other person… again, not enough to start a game.

So, Volition… is this really a helpful beta to you?  Not only does it obviously defeat the purpose of a beta (you know, to quash bugs and balance the game), but this is terrible marketing.  For some reason, the beta is now closed.  If they really want to tease people with the game, maybe they should open it back up again so, you know, there would actually be enough people to play the game.

Bionic Idiocy

With Bionic Commando: Rearmed’s release imminent this week, there was bound to be some interest in the original game.  You would think that the Nintendo Wii’s virtual console would be the perfect place for it, and considering that Rearmed isn’t making it to the Wii, the original Bionic Commando would be the perfect release this week to go along with the 360/PS3/PC release of Rearmed.  Apparently, you’d be wrong.  For some strange reason that Capcom doesn’t go into, Nintendo blocked the release of Bionic Commando on the Virtual Console.  Kotaku speculates that it could be the “Nazi thing” or the “exploding head”, but honestly… those couldn’t really be the reasons, could they?  Nintendo has had far worse on their systems in a far more realistic fashion than what the old 8-bit system could offer (the Resident Evil’s and Call of Duty games spring immediately to mind).  So what in the world is Nintendo’s problem here?

Snake… Are you there Snake? Snake!!! Oh, there you are…

Well, I picked up what’s apparently the new best game ever and while I’m actually quite enjoying it, I’m a little confused as to why I need to do another 3 minute install after the first act.  Yes… after the initial 8 minute install before you play the game, there’s another 3 minute install after the first act, and (I’m assuming) after every act.  I suppose this is good space conservation for those that don’t end up completing the game, but rather than make people pause for several minutes after each act, couldn’t they have just installed the whole thing to begin with?  I mean, after watching a pretty cool scene, I kind of want to see what comes next, not sit and watch Snake smoke for 3 minutes. (By the way, does smoking in a videogame automatically guarantee an “M” rating as it does with movies and “R” ratings?)

/rant off (oh, and other impressions later)

Gamestop “Overbooking” Pre-sales?

Via Kotaku comes the sad (perhaps already suspected) news that Gamestop will take your money to reserve a game, and not only will they not necessarily keep it reserved for you, but they actually are actively ENCOURAGING stores to break a calculated amount of pre-orders for “walk-in” customers:

“Your walk-in goals are calculated by multiplying your anticipated reservations by your historical Reservation Pick-up % on like titles. This amount is subtracted from your launch allocation to yield the amount of product that you can have set aside for walk-in customers. See below for the walk-in goals that have been set for your market. The number one district manager in each region in actual walk-in sales vs. goal will receive a $500 cash prize. The number one store in each region in walk-in sales vs. goal will be rewarded with a free copy of GTA IV regular edition for every associate on that store team.”

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Problems with SSB: Brawl online?

I’ll try to have more impressions up later, but is anyone else having major problems with getting into an online game of Brawl?  I’ve managed to get into a single game with only 1 other person, and that lasted all of 2 matches.  Most of the time, whenever I start up a game I end up spending a few minutes in the “practice area” while all 3 extra players are at “seeking”.  It eventually times out and I’m thrown back into either the main menu or the menu where you pick team or standard battle.

This is the first Wii game that I’ve tried an online component for, but I’ve never had a problem with any other kind of online multiplayer game, whether PS3, 360, PC, or even the DS.  Is the network just so overloaded that it can’t even match me with a single other person?  If this is what I have to look forward to for what should be one of Nintendo’s premiere online titles, you can count me out already.

Castlevania: Rondo of Hoop Jumping

I recently purchased a copy of Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles for the PSP, which proudly proclaims on the back of the case that Castlevania: Rondo of Blood and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night are “Together…At Last!”

Sounds great, right? I had read drooling accounts online of people obsessed with the never-released stateside Rondo of Blood, and combining it with Symphony of the Night, a game often regarded as one of the best of all time, seems like a no-brainer purchase. So what’s the problem?

Basically, the games advertised on the case are not immediately accessible. The Rondo of Blood 3d remake is the only game available when you first boot up. The case mentions that you can “unlock” the original Rondo of Blood, which would sort of make some amount of sense, I supposed, as some kind of unlockable for finishing the remastered game. But the case makes absolutely no mention of Symphony of the Night needing to be unlocked. It rather dully mentions that the two games are available and “Together… at last”, and even includes a few screenshots.

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Crackdown Cracks Again

Well, that totally sucks… after Geoff lost all of his saved data, I finally had a chance to check my own game.  I booted the game up and it signs me out of Live and tells me that there’s an update for me that I have to download.  That’s odd, I thought… I hadn’t heard of another update, but I figured maybe they had fixed the horrible bug that had plagued people.

I was way off.

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A Needlessly Expensive Doorstop

Joystiq pointed out this “Special Edition” Black Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive on Ebay which, at press time, is going for $385.01.

Considering the “standard” HD-DVD drive retails for $200, and can often be found for cheaper, why would anyone pay double for a black version of the exact same thing? So it was given to a member of Microsoft’s HD-DVD team… Wow, sorry Bessie, it’s time to sell the farm, I gotta get a piece of what’s sure to be an extremely valuable collector’s item!

I can understand some people have a certain aesthetic they are going for, and perhaps that’s worth something.  I suppose if the standard 360 HD-DVD drive came only in hot-pink, this would have some appeal.  But twice retail?  I’ll take my chances with performing my own paint job.  After all, if I mess up, I can just buy another one and, by the time this auction ends, probably still come out ahead.

WTF of the Week: LucasArts Sues Digg.com

1up.com is reporting that LucasArts trademark infringement suit against Digg.com on their trademark for their 12-year old adventure game “The Dig”. What?

Can we please stop this idiocy? LucasArts, your game may have been awesome (I don’t know, I never played it), but it’s 12-years old and I promise you that no one goes to “Digg.com” confusingly thinking that it has something to do with “The Dig.” Actually, Digg.com, I would guess, is far more popular than “The Dig” ever was. Within the dispute:

“THE DIGG mark is confusingly similar in sound, meaning, and appearance to the Opposer’s THE DIG mark…The Applicant’s registration and use of the DIGG Mark would likely create confusion, mistake, or deception in the minds of prospective purchasers as to the origin or source of the Opposer’s Goods associated with THE DIG Mark.”

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