Why does it seem that Nintendo fanboys first line of defense is to cite “first-party” titles? Mario is just a platformer. The Legend of Zelda is just an adventure game. If you were to replace all key Zelda elements with Final Fantasy elements, and slap it on the PS2, no one would think it was spectacular.

The only reason Nintendo’s first party exclusives are so “spectacular” is because they are the home to the names (and only the names) that we have grown up with since the 80’s. As such, “names” are the only thing keeping Nintendo afloat right now - if first party titles is the only available defense.

The Revolution is not entirely Revolutionary. Controllers that react in 3-dimensional space have been engineered and marketed before, with limited success. All in all, the Nintendo Revolution controller is simply a glorified wireless mouse (not to be confused with an optical mouse). Beyond being an extension of a wireless mouse concept, the Revolution controller is as much a gimmick as the Nintendo DS touch screen.

On the DS, the touch screen/stylus functionality is used in so few of their best-selling and highest rated games.

Mario Kart DS only uses the stylus for menu selection. In no way, shape or form is the stylus required for racing.

In Animal Crossing: Wild World, the usage can be global for the stylus, but it is frustrating when you click an item to turn it, and end up picking it up. In AC:WW, I only use the stylus to put items from my inventory into Nook’s money grubbing hands.
In Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, the stylus is again featured as a gimmick. Drawing seals to completely defeat your enemies? Bogus. It is completely unnecessary, and was merely added as a flourish to remind people of the stylus’ existence.

In Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time, the stylus is used once - to wipe mud off of a picture. Could the game have operated without stylus functionality? Absolutely.
The only games that regularly use the stylus are gimmicky products like Trauma Center: Under The Knife, which is essentially a collection of stylish stylus mini-games (operations).

The stylus, to date, has not been effectively used. The dual screen has been used with some interesting effects (the map in Mario Kart is incredibly useful), but in other games, it is hardly necessary.

So, I ask the question: Why innovate if you do not intend to use? Why bother with a stylus if there are so few games to properly exploit its power? Why use a motion sensor controller if it may be doomed to the same fate?

Simply put, Nintendo is using these “innovations” as gimmicks to hook gamers into buying their products on impulse. While this may be an effective business strategy - hence the booming market of Nintendo DS sales, and the mind-bogglingly gimmicky Nitendogs title - it is not as impressive as people often portray it.

Even now, Nintendo is covering for their mistakes with the Nintendo DS by releasing a redesign a year after the original release. Was that necessary? No. It is certainly going to grab a mountain of cash as gamers trade in their old DS for the same system in a sleaker package. And so, Nintendo executives will sit back laughing at how you’ve been manipulated into buying the second version of a system with no added benefit. Brightness adjusting to save power? Probably because they added a smaller and more cost efficient battery. In order for battery life to be competitive with the current DS, they NEED you to run the DS Lite on a lower power setting.

Furthermore, Nintendo is trying to encorporate mp3 playback and web browser functionality into the Nintendo DS. Why weren’t they included from the start? Perhaps it shows a failure on the part of Nintendo to get things done right the first time around, and now they have to patch all the holes in their design.

Even the Revolution is rumoured to have multiple controller attachments for various games. Why? Why doesn’t their base controller have the capacity to function for the entirety of their gaming library? Because the design is flawed. Nintendo is beginning to operate like some computer game companies, who sell you a disk that directs you to gigabytes of patches for their initially unsuitable product. Why can’t companies be patient and get things done right?

And for any XBox or PS fanboys reading this, do not think I am on your side entirely. The XBox 360 launch is just another stunning example of a company diving into something they were not adequately prepared for. Shortages, shortages, shortages…

Yet, despite this, XBox is going to have an increased market presence this time around. It is likely that Sony and Microsoft will dominate large portions of the market, and Nintendo will be squeezed into the small flow of monies that constitutes little children buying games through their parents. Teenagers have the most disposable income Nintendo…why are you targeting the youngin’s and - according to some press releases - older people?

In short, Microsoft and Sony fanboys need to lay off the Nintendites for a short while. The Revolution will not be a flop, but it will not be a stunning success either. It will be another stepping stone towards Nintendo’s inevitable failure. The only hope they have is that Microsoft and Sony will inevitably price themselves out of everyone’s pockets, and Nintendo will be the fallback boy.

- The Box

Although I have owned SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo for several months now, I have only opened it recently. My gaming life has been constantly consumed by the task of completing a substantial list of games (see sidebar). However, I am hesitant to push triumphantly through SOCOM, as it signifies the end of the good PSP games.

Looking over the release titles they have announced almost through to the end of 2006, there is very little that is intriguing. Even though the PSP has been around for a year or so, the release title slump where every game is a port or a remake continues without faltering. Megaman Maverick Hunter X was recently released, and it is a remake. Prince of Persia Revelations is a port of Prince of Persia: Warrior Within (a game I still have to beat). Tales of Eternia was scheduled to be released, but that idea has been scrapped (unfortunately). At Zellers, we have more UMD videos in stock than we have PSP games. In the future, all we PSP owners can expect are a massive amount of sport games, and the occasional first person shooter. The game I am looking forward to the most is Monster Hunter Freedom, scheduled for release in May. MAY! That is a long way off.

Why hasn’t Capcom released a PSP exclusive Resident Evil?
Why hasn’t Namco released a PSP exclusive Tales game?
Why hasn’t Konami released a Castlevania title for the PSP?

Why are we - even now - getting ports of 007 games released on the consoles four months ago (From Russia With Love)?

And more importantly, with the PSP’s power, why are the developers just squandering it on letting good games fall by the wayside while UMD movies dominate the PSP’s interior.

It is a damn shame.

Cheney’s Got A Gun

Cheney’s Got a Gun

(Parody of Janie’s Got a Gun by Aerosmith)

Dick Cheney’s got a gun
Dick Cheney’s got a gun
The safety’s come undone
Squinting in the Texas sun
What did our leader do?
Who’d he put a bullet through?

They say when Cheney goes to Texas
You’ll find him huntin’ fish and game
His buddy had it comin’
Cuz when Cheney’s got a gun
He’s just not that good at takin’ aim

Cheney’s got a gun
Dick Cheney shot someone
Cindy Sheehan better run
Better watch her liberal buns
Tell him that the war’s not through
He’ll probably put a hole in you

He tracked a little bitty birdie
Hopin’ to blow out its brains
They say the spell that he gets under
From double barrel thunder
Makes his eyes pop out like he’s insane

Run away, run away from the Vice President
Run away, run away, run from Dick Che-ee ay-ee nee

Dick Cheney’s got a gun
The safety’s come undone
Cindy Sheehan better run
He’s a weapon of mass destruction
Cheney shot someone

Recently on GamePolitics, Jack Thompson posted this interesting link to a 9 minute video from the Christian Game Developers Foundation.

Watch The Video

This is probably the most unworthy charitable cause in existence. In a world where we are experiencing untold devestation at the hands of natural disasters and foreign wars, not to mention local effects of homelessness and poverty, the fact that people would ask for your money to make a game to then charge you MORE money is sickening, to put it lightly.

I also chuckle at the fact that a clip of Sonic The Hedgehog for the SEGA Genesis was displayed in their brief violent montage before the children’s interview. And, Super Smash Bros. has no real violence whatsoever. Oh my! Before you know it, people will be throwing Bob-ombs at eachother and hitting their friends with frying pans.

And that interview with the children was such bullshot. Those kids had to have consumed record amounts of sugar and juice before that interview began.

And how can you ask if they have any Christian video games? How the hell do you even make a Christian video game?

Rockstar Games really fucked things up.

Granted, the games they make are a real treat, and a quality experience because of their open-ended nature. Andreas owns Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories for his PSP, and has hardly completed any missions. He simply drives around on his motorcycle all day, taking it off some sweet jumps and crashing into a pile of steel, flesh and tacky Italian fatigues from the 90’s. But I’ve explored the allure of GTA games in previous articles.

What I cannot fathom - at this point in the game - is why the National Institute for Media and the Family is turning to the Electronic Software Ratings Board - hellfire burning in their pupils - and constantly trying to demolish and rebuild the rating system as they see fit. Over the past eleven years of its existence, they have done an insanely good job in providing fair ratings to all games presented to them.

Then, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas comes along and threatens to collapse the entire infrastructure of gaming and bring it crumbling down onto the heads of other developers, publishers, and geeks worldwide. The controversial Hot Coffee modification has upset quite a few powerful people. Senators Hilary Clinton and Joe Lieberman have become quite outspoken about video game rating systems.

However, even the two senators gave the ESRB the credit they deserved when they re-assessed the rating, and influenced Take-Two Entertainment to refurbish Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas so that the Hot Coffee sex mini-game was absent. Now, consumers who are interested can still purchase Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas in its re-released form, devoid of strange pixelated deviance.

So, why doesn’t the NIMF cut the ESRB a break? Anyone who has been following the issue has seen in every related article that the NIMF claims that the ESRB rating system suffers a staggering flaw. The reviewers at the ESRB do not actually play through the entirety of a game to review it. Essentially, the review system works as follows:

A game developer has reached a point in development where their end product is presentable, but not polished. However, elements like the story, content, graphics, etc have already been hammered out. The only remaining tasks before the games final release are bug checking, beta testing, and other related touch-ups. It is at this point that it is submitted to the ESRB for review.

The developers take footage of the most violent, disturbing, sexual and controversial parts of their products gameplay - if any, as is the case for E titles - and submit it to the ESRB. Footage of regular gameplay is included as well, to confirm that the four aforementionned qualities are not evident throughout.

Then, reviewers with no affiliation with the industry (i.e., they do not actually work full-time for the ESRB, ESA or any affiliated companies) are brought in and assist in the reviewing process by guaging the severity of the game based on the “worst parts”. These reviewers are sensitive to the effects of dangerously violent material, as the ESRB insists that reviewers have some previous experience with children (parents, teachers, counsellors, etc). The reviewers assess the content of the game - independantly of eachother, I might add - and submit a final judgement to the ESRB. The final rating, including all rating descriptors, are submitted back to the developer so that the game publisher can add them to the packaging before they are produced and shipped.

In the case of Hot Coffee, the controversial code in question was not part of the actual gameplay. That is to say, there was no way to access this code unless some sort of modification tool was used. Hot Coffee - without the aid of Action Replays and online mod communities - would have never been witnessed by consumers. In this sense, neither Rockstar nor the ESRB did anything wrong by their regulations at the time. Rockstar submitted all in-game footage, and the ESRB fairly and accurately reviewed it. Done deal.

A mistake was made. However, it was quickly fixed. The ESRB now insists that even code which is not accessible in regular gameplay must be reviewed to decide the rating of a game, which is likely to make developers hesitate from even contemplating blatantly graphic or sexual games of any type in the future. As any developer knows, serious sexual content in a game leads to an automatic “Adults Only” rating, which results in many retailers across the continent NOT carrying your product. If your product does not end up on store shelves, it does not sell. Therefore, an “Adults Only” rating = death of game.

In a recent article on 1-UP.com surrounding the issue - which actually inspired me to write this blog post in the first place - the NIMF are quoted in saying that the rating system for the ESRB is constantly sliding. Blois Olson claims that “a Mature rated game in 2005 is more violent and contains more explicit content than an M-rated game from 2003″. And that can be true. But M is all encompassing of violent material, whether it be several missions involving gunplay or blowing up an entire city block with explosives, violence is violence and it falls under Mature. The ESRB cannot be creating infinite strata for every discernable degree of violence. In that rating system, would M to the power of 3 really mean a damn thing to anyone?

Video games are not given ratings in relation to eachother. They are rated independantly. The 2005 title may be extremely violent, and the 2003 title mildly violent, but they are still violent, and thus, are Mature. Specifically, they would be given different descriptors to accompany that rating. Perhaps the 2005 title would feature the descriptors: “Intense Violence, Mature Humor and Nudity” while the 2003 title would feature the descriptors: “Mild Violence, Animated Blood”.

The problem is retailers and child advocacy groups intensely stress the importance of the rating, but hardly focus on the value of the descriptors. If people knew what the descriptor “Animated Blood” meant in relation to “Blood and Gore”, they would be able to better guage whether a game is suitable or not for their child.

And, in essence, that is what it boils down to: parenting. All of this controversy about violent content in video games is just another example of my favourite anomaly in the world: hands-off parenting. So many couples seem to want their kids to be raised for them by other people. Whether it be leaving the kids with a babysitter, grandparent, daycare or playgroup - parents are spending less and less time with their kids and more and more time at their jobs, or just being apathetic to the child raising experience. As a result, parents are developing this “hands-off” approach to parenting. If they knew what they were purchasing their kids, or actually took an interest in the types of media their child was regularly consuming, everyone would be better off.

So many times, a parent and child have come into Zellers looking for video games. The child greedily tugs at their parents coat and says, “I want that one”. The parent groans and says, “Are you sure that is the one you want?” The kid nods enthusiastically, and the parent hands over the cash without even looking at the back of the box. Honestly, a child could easily walk out of our store with a copy of Killer 7 or Grand Theft Auto if Zellers did not have rules in place to not sell M-rated games to anyone under 18. If a parent goes to purchase one, we have to explain to them the violent nature of the game and how it may not be suitable for people of that age. Usually, the parent just cuts me off and waits for their receipt.

Yet, when something goes wrong, apparently the video game industry is the one dropping the ball. The ESRB can only take on step further to protect the children of the US and Canada: give me a taser to zap all the idiot parents out there who do not give a damn.

————

Source

Source

Coming Up Later…

Why Aren’t Developers Doing Anything With The PSP?

Hands-Off Parenting: This Entry Will Make Me Sound Like A Chauvanist

February 1st had been a night that I’d been anticipating since Christmas time, when my father in a tone drowned in fatigue and apathy for the holiday season drolled on about Great Big Sea tickets for their Stratford concert. Nevertheless, the news hit home. I ensured that I wouldn’t be called to work, and cleared my schedule (it was covered in lint).

Any reader possessing a calendar, or a keen sense of logic that first read the date of this entry, will quickly realize that February 1st was two nights ago. Yes. Great Big Sea has already come and gone. And you weren’t there. What is your malfunction?

The band was awesome. I’ve been listening to them - through the divine influence of my parents - since early in their career. Their blend of Maritime folk songs with modern rock is very refreshing, and the rhythm that their tunes convey makes you want to dance (and sing, if you have the pipes for it).

Despite the passion for their music, my family had never had the luxury of seeing them in concert during their original formation. This left me a little crestfallen because I thought Darrell Power was an essential item to the band. And indeed, his playing of the bass guitar will be missed. Yet, when listening to the new group, you can hardly distinguish the Torontonian replacement - Murray Foster - from the East Coast boys. And then, of course, Kris MacFarlane - percussions - is an extremely silent and creepy addition to the band. I say this because he does not speak, and for the entirety of the concert he had a hat pulled down over his eyes.

Perhaps he has stage fright.

Nevertheless, the concert Wednesday night was seriously kick ass. I was worried that it would discourage GBS from ever returning to Stratford in future tours as I expected our audience to be full of uptight fans of the group, who would rather sit and absorb the music than tear the place apart with jumping, clapping, cheering and singing. My fears were almost a reality three minutes into the first set, when I saw a woman walk two rows up to tell a younger fan to sit down. It made me sad. However, by the time they busted out Lukey’s Boat, people were jumping and dancing and you couldn’t stop them. There was even a heavily pregnant woman right up by the stage shaking her swelling belly to the sound of the music. My prayers go out to the baby, who may have serious brain damage considering the volume of the music (due to inept sound guys, there was crackling and cutting out of instruments and microphones during the first four or five songs).

Overall, the first set was mellow songs, and a lot of their slower stuff. The second set was classic GBS. All their fast songs like Mari-Mac and A Boat Like Gideon Brown, as well as Ordinary Day, Consequence Free and Helmethead turned up in the second set, to the delight of everyone (especially myself, because Mari-Mac is my favourite song). Through all these songs, everyone in the audience was up on their feet. For Mari-Mac and Gideon Brown, I was belting out the lyrics. Kevin Branson - who I discovered that night was a big fan - belted out the lyrics to Rant and Roar. My father applauded enthusiastically at the end of The Scolding Wife because he claims it reminds him of my mother. Tut tut tut. Needless to say, the second set was enjoyed by all. There wasn’t a seat used during that set.

They graced the crowd with a double encore, which featured their new songs The Twelve Apostles from their “The Hard and The East” album. They also sang another favourite, Excursion Around The Bay. However, I can honestly say that song sounded better with Darrell’s voice behind it. All the ladies in the crowd screeched a their a cappella singing of Old Brown’s Daughter. Frankly, I think it was because the boys moved closer to the front of the stage.

All in all, this concert rocked hardcore and I’ve got the T-Shirt to prove it. It has the cover of “The Hard and the Easy” on the front, and the tour dates on the back. I will treasure it always. Another thing I can treasure is the numbness in my hands and my scratched leg - both wounds from clapping too hard and stomping my feet too much.

We’re going to see them again, when they hit K-W area in May. Rock on!