More Wii-actions and Some P-Wii-dictions4
Matt posted in Games, The Industry, Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Wii on April 6th, 2007

Although the Wii has been getting a crap ton of positive feedback, many people seem disillusioned with the system. Chris Hecker had a head-turning rant at Game Developer Conference about how “the Wii is a piece of shit.” His main complaints being that the console isn’t powerful in terms of CPU to do much interesting and that Nintendo doesn’t take games seriously as an art form.

Now, Chris has seemed to do a 180 on the issue and retracted his statements, which to many websites appeared that he was pressured by EA to mollify Nintendo and their fanatics. Whether that is true or not, he doesn’t seem to have much fondness for the system.

Also, the God of War 2 director, Cory Balrog, whose blog was linked on Kotaku, was not impressed with the Wii. His comments are as follows:

“Here are some pics of the sweet wii…though I must be honest it was not everything I had hoped it would be. It was fun…but the wow factor wore off fairly quick. The one game I wanted to play, Trauma Center, was definitely a bit of a let down. The wiimote was woefully inaccurate and sapped the fun of the game. The Wii sports golf and bowling was cool…the boxing is freaking terrible though. In the end I hope to see some cool games come out of it, though it has me worried that the whole “what new thing can you do with the controller” fad will wear off after awhile and I will have left is a much slimmer wireless gamecube. Though the gamecuvbe gave me some great gaming moments so I am not all that bummed. I am still happier playing Zelda on my Gamecube…maybe I am just a luddite like that. Who knows?”

Now, since Cory has posted a response to all the negative feedback he’s been getting. He basically clarified that he wasn’t writing off the Wii – just that he was disappointed with his initial play.

Joystiq recently posted a link about a Microsofter saying that no Wii game’s controls kicks ass. Although that might not seem so surprising, it was surprising to me to read that the Joystiq editor agreed. I thought that I was in the minority. More interestingly, Joystiq mentions Wii remote issues in cooking mama and extends them to the general case. These remote issues are largely what I’m going to talk about in this very long blog post. They also discuss one of the other problems I have with the Wii here: “It still looks like Nintendo won’t back up these amazing sales figures with some real, original Wii titles for quite some time. We’ll just have to enjoy this constant string of Gamecube ports and mini-game based Wii titles apparently.”

Now, I’m not going to say the Wii is a piece of shit. The hardware is not very impressive both from a CPU standpoint as Chris Hecker mentions as well as from a graphics perspective. I have an HDTV and standard definition just doesn’t look good anymore. But, graphics don’t make a game. I was just discussing with a co-worker how much I loved Nights: Into Dreams for the Sega Saturn and how much I love the Sega Saturn in general. Just because the graphics are bad doesn’t mean that the gameplay can’t be fantastic. Much to the chagrin of PSP developers like myself, the Nintendo DS is far outselling the PSP because it has a bunch of really appealing games even though the hardware pales in comparison. I strongly dislike the touchscreen, but I still am tempted to get a DS for games like New Super Mario Bros. and Yoshi’s Island 2. I don’t have very many games for the PSP and the only one I’m really passionate about is Loco Roco (although I do enjoy playing my own game, Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters, but I’m biased). The PSP is a tremendously power piece of hardware. Comparing to the PS2, games two years in the lifecycle of the PS2 don’t look nearly as good as Final Fantasy XII or God of War 2. Likewise, PSP graphics will be much more amazing in three or four years. DS graphics can get better, but since there’s a lot less hardware to work with, the jump won’t be as significant. But again, graphics aren’t consumer’s largest concern.

I’ve been playing Wii for quite a bit since launch trying to get into it, and so far, I’ve been unsuccessful. I’ve played a lot of Wii tennis because my girlfriend (a non-gamer) was really excited by it. I didn’t have a second controller, so we took turns playing – my girlfriend out of her love of tennis and me to defend my game playing honor. I couldn’t have her get a higher score, could I? We both ended up with scores in the 500s. Not terrific, but not terrible (Half way from newbie to pro). We both fancied ourselves as pretty decent Wii athletes. She was really pleased because she thought it felt like real tennis. I have played about three tennis games in my life, so needless to say, I’m a terrible tennis player outside the Wii. Even still, I am frustrated by the lack of feedback that is provided (as I blogged before). I don’t know what part of my swing is taken into account, how to get better because trial and error with no feedback is frustrating. There is no training mode in game to show me how to improve. Perhaps I need to hire a Wii Tennis instructor to educate me on improving my technique. Maybe that’s Nintendo’s plan. They want to start selling video game lessons, since good sport lessons are expensive. Perhaps Reggie can come to my house and coach me. If he’s busy kicking ass, and/or taking names, maybe those “Wii want to play” guys can show me how it’s done. I don’t think it’s too much to ask to have a training manual or an instruction manual that describes what input is taken into account and how to do a successful swing.

On top of that, the lower difficulties also seem to make the actual game play easier, not just the AI. When we took turns playing, we could return the ball most of the time (at difficulty 500). When we played each other, we swung and missed most of the shots. This to me is indicative of the swing timing changing based on your skill level. Although it is nice that they are trying to make it easier for people with less practice, it’s frustrating that doesn’t carry over to multiplayer. The problem with that is I can’t practice without my girlfriend to get extra skill in multiplayer unless I work up to whatever difficulty level multiplayer plays at. Probably the best solution would be to play the game at the skill level of the weaker player. That way the weaker player could stand a chance, but the stronger player would still have an advantage. Another option would be to take the average of both players and use that as the skill level. I could be way wrong about this skill level thing, but regardless of the cause, it didn’t “feel” right to either of us, and it’s up to the game developer to make that so.

Also, I strongly dislike the Wii’s screen positioning system (the thing it uses the IR sensor for). I want to be able to calibrate it like a light gun. I want where I’m pointing to be where it registers. That is what  is intuitive to me. For Sega Dreamcast, I actually taped a laser pointer on top of my light gun, then calibrated the impact point to where the laser pointer hit. I thought that was really cool. The light gun handled it perfectly, and I could aim exactly at the screen. The Wii is the opposite. I get a targeting reticle all the time, but it doesn’t match where I’m pointing the remote in screen space. Maybe I need to experimentally determine a better position for my IR sensor, but I’m really sick of “please point your cursor at the screen” messages. Isn’t Wii supposed to be easy and intuitive? The Wii does have a sensitivity option buried in the poorly designed settings menus, and I was able to decrease it’s sensitivity so there was less jitter, but I wasn’t able to calibrate it the way I’d like. I don’t find that easy to play with, and most if not all of the Wii sports doesn’t use it like that. So, maybe Nintendo’s most “accessible” and easy to play game omitted those controls for a reason.

The first time I played the air hockey game in Wii Play, I beat my friend who had more experience playing the game than I. Sure, I could attribute it to my great skill, but I think it was really that the he kept overshooting the sensor’s boundaries and missed all of the shots. Now, potentially, calibration is an “advanced” feature and maybe the casual gamers won’t understand, but if the first time you play with your Wii, you calibrate it, or maybe a per game calibration, it seems that it would help make the Wii easier to use.

Actually, the sensor boundaries did come in handy for WarioWare’s balancing games. I have horribly shaky hands (maybe that has something to do with why Wii doesn’t work as well for me), so the balancing game was be my bane, but when my cursor was not pointing at the screen, it just saved the last position which could be flat, and I kicked it’s ass.

As a game developer, I’m not impressed with the Wii for the same reason Chris Hecker states. There’s not much CPU to work with. I really like nice graphics, but the most important thing to me is to make a fun game. With extra CPU, I can do a lot of fun things. Perhaps this is because I’m a programmer, and what I want to do is constantly constrained by the limits of the hardware. If I want to have an object with good collision, I may not have the CPU resources to do so. Now, one might argue that fun games don’t hinge on good collision, but I think it helps a lot in many situations. For example, the camera is something that requires very complex collision. If you have more CPU time, you can come up with a  really good camera algorithm that is smooth and never blocked. Doing physics based gameplay or fluids is also very CPU intensive. Now, I’m not saying every game has to be physics based and you can’t have a fun game that has no physics at all, but being able to do some really neat physics tricks definitely can create a lot of fun gameplay. Good pathfinding can be processor intensive. All too often due to CPU constraints, the pathfinding in games ends up with situations that it cannot handle. That restricts design, which is frustrating as a game developer. Doing really advanced AI algorithms is also tricky. Sure, we can have little state machines for every enemy, and that goes pretty far, but what if you want to have an AI co-op player? We had one in the Incredibles: Rise of the Underminer, and it wasn’t very smart. Even the teammates in Gears of War aren’t very smart. Now, oftentimes, that is limited to schedule pressure and not CPU time, but if you want to do something that is processor intensive, like have your AI do a whole bunch of collision checks to discover things about its environment, you will rapidly exceed your budget and have to resort to cheating.

Now, here’s my p-wii-dictions. I think the Wii has a lot of steam right now, but before the end of the year, its sales will level out to around the Xbox 360 and PS3s sales. Why do I think that? Firstly, I think the line up for the immediate future is pretty weak. Minigames, minigames, and more minigames. Nothing is coming out that really delivers on the promise of new, deep gameplay experiences. On top of that, the new controller, while potentially liberating, has many frustrations that I as well as other gamers (at least the joystiq’ers) are enduring. It’s possible that over time, developers will get better at sensing motion, but it seems that some problems are inherent in the design (like not being able to judge the sensitivity bounds of the IR sensor). The heavy hitters for this year, Super Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3, are penciled in for the end of the year, but I’d say there’s a 50% chance that one of those titles gets pushed into next year. I don’t have any evidence to support that, but Nintendo’s big first party titles are known for frequently getting delayed. (Take Twilight Princess as an example) I think in 2008 and 2009 more people will own HDTVs and be craving content to display on them. Wii won’t deliver, and they’ll grow tired of the gimmicks and minigames and turn to Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. Now, keep in mind that these predictions are for the United States only. I think Japan is nuts for the Wii and will stay that way, and I’ve heard that Europe doesn’t have much HDTV penetration (although strangely, PS3 has sold quite well).

One may wonder how with so much hype how can it fizzle out? That is an easy one. Tickle Me Elmo. Two Christmases different models of Tickle Me Elmos have been the “hot” toy and everyone HAD to have one. They were very difficult to find (similar to the Wii) and very hyped (also similar to the Wii). But, once the hype wore down, no one cared. I don’t hear very many people talking about how great their Tickle Me Elmo is. As long as supply is less than the demand, people will feel pressured to buy it if they can find it. Hell, I’ve bought some stuff I don’t really like because it was “limited edition”, and I’ve worried I couldn’t find it later. I didn’t care much for Steel Battalion, but when I found out the first run completely sold out and they were issuing a second, I figured I had to pick it up, just in case I ever wanted to play it. Now, I have played it, and I found it pretty frustrating especially when it deleted my saved game. I plan on playing it more now that I have a modded Xbox with the ability to back up my saved game. A worse purchase was the Omnimusha Katana controller, which is absolutely terrible, but it was a limited run and although I couldn’t find a description of what it does, I figured I’d better drop the $70 in case it was really awesome. It turned out to be much worse than I could have possibly imagined. It was a dual shock controller on the handle of a sword, and if you swung the sword, sometimes it would register as the circle button being pressed. Even with Xbox 360, when the Elite model was supposedly limited edition, myself and a friend decided we had to buy it right away! When we discovered it was a whole new SKU, we figured there’s no rush to upgrade to the HDMI capable model, so we are both thinking about holding off. Perhaps they’ll be a price drop or a larger hard disk bundled with HDMI later. So, my point is that the demand for a product is higher when it’s the “hot” thing and hard to find. It seems that the COO of GameStop seems to think that Nintendo is holding back units.  As joystiq reports, “Compared to the PS3’s fluid supply and the fact that the Wii is comprised of cheap, proven and occasionally duct-taped parts, this is not a story that many have found easy to buy. In fact, it’s about as easy to buy as a Wii, which to this day, still seems to be a retail phantom (much like the DS Lite). Managed scarcity is a good technique for keeping your product desirable, but it comes at the expense of leaving people with empty hands, tightly clenched in frustration.”
Now, I agree completely with Joystiq’s assessment. There is no reason that Wiis should be this difficult to find. They’ve been manufacturing GameCubes for over 5 years and duct tape is cheap. In all seriousness, the hardware of everything but the remote should be trivial to manufacture since it’s just a version of 5 year old technology. Honesstly, I’m amazed how fast Sony solved the Playstation 3 manufacturing problems since the cell is brand new technology and an enormous chip. There is no excuse Nintendo can possibly make for producing so few Wiis. Just like the Tickle Me Elmo craze, the manufactured scarcity makes it a “must buy”. For now. But just like Tickle Me Elmos, when that pressure is lifted, there’ll be a lot of disillusioned consumers and bored gamers, I think. The platform will start showing it’s age when consumers buy HDTVs, which prices are dropping quite rapidly. On top of this, the FCC is regulating that by February 17th, 2009, all broadcast television is in HD. Now, I’m not sure if the FCC can regulate cable and satellite television, but if all content providers are already mastering their shows in HD, then I imagine HD cable’s penetration will increase. The two things that are preventing people from upgrading are cost, which is always dropping and already beginning to be reasonable. (For example, Amazon.com has a pretty affordable 27″ LCD for $419.99.)

Now, I’m not the only one who thinks that the Wii is overhyped. Brian Hastings, (who is falsely listed as Insomniac’s CEO), thinks it’s just a fad. Now many people are quick to dismiss his opinion because Insomniac’s PS2 and PS3 outings have been published by Sony. Although I think it’s in his best interest for PS3 to succeed, I think that he would have some say as far as what games Insomniac develops. Many people forget that they are an independent studio. They can make games for whomever they like. It just so happens that they’ve aligned themselves with Sony, and that’s been a very good alliance in the past. If Brian Hastings genuinely thought the Wii was the future of gaming, then wouldn’t it make sense for him to align himself with Nintendo?

The author, Chris Kohler, argues that the Wii is for real. Even though he makes some convincing points, I still don’t agree. Firstly, he loses credibility points for getting the title of Brian Hastings incorrect when it was even presented correctly on the Neogaf post he linked to. Firstly, he compares the battle to the DS. I think that’s a very bad comparison. The DS’s main competitor at least initially was not the PSP but the GBA. Nintendo has been the ONLY one to maintain a profitable handheld game console. All the rivals have failed spectacularly except Sony, which is putting up a darn good fight. Secondly, Nintendo in the home console wars is coming off a loser. Playstation and to a much lesser extend have gobbled up a lot of mindshare, which is similar to the PSP fighting the DS. Nintendo has the portable game mindshare, and in the portable space, Sony is the under dog.

His second main point, I also think is a bad one. It hinges on “research” showing that consumers with HDTVs aren’t ordering High Def channels and are using DVD players with composite cables because “it looks fine”. Well, firstly, I’m skeptical of this “research” since it isn’t cited. There are many studies that are conducted in a very poor manner in order to provide convincing numbers to someone who would benefit a certain result from a study. Secondly, (even if that is true) I think this is a completely separate issue. As far as High Def channels, in my area it costs an extra $10 a month to get any High Def channel, and there aren’t many of them at all. Plus, many programs (such as the news) don’t really benefit from High Def. So, I think that’s the real reason they don’t upgrade their cable. I think people who DO have an HDTV are interested in HD content. If they weren’t, why would they buy an HDTV? Using composite cables is a symptom of that the HD revolution confusing the average consumer. A good example of this is try asking your parents or girlfriend if they should use S-video or composite to hook up their DVD player. They probably won’t know which is better. If you check behind their TV, they’ll probably be using composite because that’s what the player came with or what they have lying around. With HD formats, it has only introduced more wires, and to the non-geeks, it’s not clear which is better. For example, my parents bought an HDTV. They also bought a Blu-ray player. (I’m not clear why they bought Blu-ray over HD DVD, and upon asking, they claimed I told them to, which I didn’t because presently, I’m a bit more partial to HD DVD, but that’s a story for another article. Since I have both, I’m not really taking sides, so I may be partial to Blu-ray more later.) Anyway, The salesperson at Best Buy claimed they need a $100 HDMI cable to display the 1080p signal. They purchased it. Now, if they knew what HDMI was, they would know it’s ludicrous to spend $100 on a HDMI cable. Since it is a digital interface, as long as the cable can conduct a signal, the cost doesn’t matter because it’s binary. Either the signal is there or it isn’t. That’s the big advantage to digital over analog. Noise cannot be introduced. I have a $6 HDMI cable that works perfectly. Now, what was even more interesting was that their Blu-ray player INCLUDED an HDMI cable, so they ended up returning the insanely overpriced cable. Now, if you think my parents are dumb, you’d be wrong. My dad has a PhD in electrical engineering. It just so happens that he isn’t particularly interested in home theater equipment and is unfamiliar with HDMI, and they probably didn’t do much comparison shopping for HDMI cables either. Perhaps this was a bit long-winded. Although, I imagine if you are reading this, you are accustomed to my writing style, which is wordy to say the least. My point is just that people who buy HDTVs buy them for a reason. They are interested in HD content. I’m guessing they’ll be able to tell the difference. Maybe it’s not worth buying a next gen DVD player. Probably not. Progressive scan DVD players are better, but I imagine it’s not enough of a difference for the average viewer to notice. So, if HDTV owners want HD content, I think they’ll turn to video games. And Wii doesn’t deliver.

Similar to discrediting Brian Hasting’s opinion, one might speculate that since High Impact’s first game was published by Sony, I might be rooting for Sony. On reading my blog, it may seem that I prefer Xbox 360. If you looked into my bio, you might realize that I worked for Microsoft on the Xbox Software Services team as an intern. Maybe my loyalty stems from there? Maybe those two biases combine to a hatred of Nintendo? That’s funny to me because I never owned a Playstation 1, and was often accused of being a Nintendo fanboy in high school because of my love for SNES and Nintendo 64. So, you can suspect I’m biased towards whomever you like. It would seem by Occham’s Razor that the answer to this would be that I’m just being honest. I fancy myself as an honest person – perhaps to the point that it’s a weakness. I was let down by GameCube and as I am describing here,  I’m not fond of the Wii yet.

I’m not giving up on my Wii. I’ll continue to pick up games here and there and play them from time to time, but most of my gaming time in the immediate future will be dedictated to PS2 and Xbox 360 because there are a number of titles that I’m excited about playing. I will however pick up Super Paper Mario soon, although that’s essentially a GameCube game and probably rarely uses the Wii controls, which I suppose I can’t complain, except everyone who has a GameCube and not a Wii is pretty much out of luck. I’m also mortified of Nights for Wii. If you are unfamiliar with Nights, let me say that it’s not a horror game. It’s an amazing game for Saturn unlike anything else I’ve ever played that is getting a Wii sequel. Now the reason this has struck terror into my heart is that as much as I love Sega (and I most certainly do), their output recently seems to be eroding all my favorite Sega franchises. Sonic, their most beloved, has been destroyed. Who even thought that was possible? The EyeToy Nights minigame was completely unplayable. I’m also very nervous about the new Golden Axe Riders, in development by Secret Level. If they destroy those two franchises, all they have to do is ruin Panzer Dragoon and Samba de Amigo, and my very soul will be crushed.

The Future of Trailers1
Matt posted in Games, The Industry, Xbox 360, Playstation 3 on December 10th, 2006

The big news this week was the Halo 3 trailer came out. Now, I don’t like FPSes on consoles (I find the controls frustrating), so I was never really into Halo. I played through about half of the single player campaign in the first game and got bored. After seeing the trailer, I was really excited about Halo 3. I started reading about the plot of the Halo saga and the Halo universe, and it actually seems quite interesting. I never thought I’d pick up Halo again, but now I’m tempted (although I probably won’t have time… I have a HUGE backlog of games). That seems like really effective advertising if it can get someone with no interest in a game more excited. Another example is the Gears of War trailer with the version of Mad World used in Donnie Darko that many people are talking about. I was already quite excited about Gears of War when it came out, but that was a really well done trailer. (David Fincher, director of Fight Club, was a consultant on the trailer. Many sites erroneously credit him with directing it, but that’s not the case.)

Now, if you are one of the few gamers who hasn’t seen either of these trailers, you definitely should check them out. The Halo 3 trailer is not in game footage. In fact, it’s not even done by Bungie. It’s done by FX shop Digital Domain, that worked on many movies such as “The Day After Tomorrow” and “X-Men”. Digital Domain is no stranger to commercials. They have quite a few commercials under their belt. When I was at University of Michigan, an employee from Digital Domain came to give a lecture and talked about what the visual effects industry was like. He said that the only reason they did features was to get the name out there and earn a reputation to get more commercials. So I guess if you are going into visual effects, commercials are where the money is at. At any rate, it starts with an apparently live action shot of two kids discussing the possibility of aliens. I say apparently live action because the shot was dark, and I watched it super low res. (I haven’t had a chance to download it off Xbox Live in 720p) Part of the trailer was live action according to Bungie, and this is the only candidate for live action section. Then, there’s a battle scene that was rendered using in game assets, that is really exciting. It didn’t explain anything. It just showed a quick glimpse of fast paced combat that really gets your adrenaline flowing. Well, why don’t you just watch it?

The Gears of War one is really cool because they are even showing it before movies in the theater. As I mentioned, it uses the version of Mad World featured in Donnie Darko (an amazing movie, in my opinion), and really builds on the theme of Destroyed Beauty. Marcus Phoenix, the protagonist of Gears of War, walks through a destroyed town on the planet Sera and looks down at a half destroyed statue in a puddle. One might even say a tear splashes down into the pool of water, but we all know Marcus is so badass he probably cut his own tear ducts out. Soon, Marcus ends up in a firefight with the locust only to find himself completely outnumbered. The end completely implies that if you want to find out what happens, play the game. If you would like to see the trailer for yourself, check it out. I recommend you do so.

Now, neither of these trailers show anything from inside the game. The Gears of War trailer was actually created in the game engine, but isn’t actual game play. Despite the Halo 3 trailer featuring some in game assets, I expect that it looks nicer than the actual game will (the particle count seems a bit high to me). Bungie never fails to push the performance of the hardware, so maybe we’ll actually see that level of visual fidelity, but I doubt it.

So, if these aren’t accurate depictions of the gameplay, are they worth releasing? Are they things gamers should get excited about? I’d say yes. One might say the trailers are dishonest because they are showing things that aren’t actually in the game. That is true, but I wouldn’t say they are dishonest. Although Halo 3 is not out yet, so I have no idea what the game will be like, I think the trailer for Gears of War was more effective at expressing the theme of “destroyed beauty” than any minute of gameplay would. The theme of Gears of War is subtle, but it’s prevalent throughout the game (or at least the sections I’ve played so far). It’s more about the ambiance of the world and the experience, so it’s hard to express that in a minute. Honestly, I think the theme of the game is one of the things that really makes it such a great experience. The beauty of the civilization is juxtaposed against the destruction and violence. That stark contrast really makes you hate the enemy all the more and want to fight them. This emotional investment adds to the immersiveness of the game world and is gripping.

Sometimes, trailers or sizzle reels for games are shown off and the game clearly doesn’t match the prerendered footage’s visual quality. Motorstorm is an example. The sizzle reel shows off the burnout style crashes combined with all the dirt and mud of off-road racing. The visual quality of the game, although good, doesn’t look nearly as good as the prerendered footage. There’s a larger disparity between that footage and the real game than between the Gears of War trailer and the game. (Perhaps Halo will suffer from the same thing) Does this seem dishonest about it? Maybe. It’s pretty sad when people are claiming either the PS3 or the Xbox 360 has more graphical horsepower based on a pre-rendered movie. They both can play video at 1080p (although Blu-ray has a lot more space for it), so that’s a bad comparison. Here’s the question – when a video simulates gameplay similar to Killzone 2 or Final Fantasy XIII, then it becomes more deceptive. It’s easier for game developers to recognize which the video is, but I imagine it can be confusing for people outside the industry. Another example is White Knight Story. A number of people are REALLY excited about it (including Jerry and Mike from Penny Arcade), and the trailer does indeed seem quite cool. Whether it’s indicative of the actual gameplay remains to be seen (in my opinion). It’s a very short trailer and could just be a mock up of what they are actually planning on doing. Yes, I’m definitely interested, and its refreshing to see something that resembles gameplay, but I’m not convinced that is actually a video of gameplay. This generation, it seems wise to remain skeptical of anything that isn’t playable. Hopefully the game will be as exciting as they plan, but I’d rather be pleasantly surprised than disappointed.

I can imagine you are wondering what I’m getting at. Basically, I’m trying to say that showing a video that is not representative of actual gameplay is a double edged sword. On one hand, it can express things that gameplay clips can’t like the theme in Gears of War. On the other hand, it can set up unrealistic expectations about gameplay and visual fidelity. Regardless of whether showing off trailers that aren’t from the actual game is a good idea or not, I suspect we are going to see a lot more of them this generation. The target video or sizzle reel is an effective way to pitch a game to both publishers and the general audience. I heard the “theme” or the new idea that the Assassin’s Creed development team was trying to push was “crowds”. Now, when I heard that the game’s big feature is “crowds” I had trouble visualizing how that could be an entertaining premise for the game. In fact, it sounded kind of silly. But, on seeing the E3 trailer, I started to understand how that would work and the potential for a new style of stealth – blending into crowds.

Now, selling your games to audiences isn’t really important before you sit down and code the gameplay. Getting a game green-lit is very difficult especially with the cost of next gen games. If a pre-rendered movie or sizzle reel can help get a game funded, then it’s worth doing from a developer standpoint. Is it best off for the industry for publishers to expect them? That’s harder to say. As I mentioned, it can demonstrate to a publisher what a game is trying to be. A design document isn’t as effective at communicating the spirit of the game. A picture is worth a thousand words and at 30 pictures per second, a 2 minute sizzle reel has the value of an encyclopedia. Yes, sizzle reels take money and time away from actually developing the game. But, from the publisher’s side of things, they’d rather invest a bit up front to see if the product is something they think they can sell. My guess is that sizzle reels are here to stay.

I am the proud owner of a shiny new PS32
Matt posted in Playstation 3 on November 18th, 2006

I got my PS3 today! I know it is a day after launch, but they made a mistake and shipped my PS3 to the wrong EB games, so I wasn’t able to get it today. All in all, it’s pretty darn cool. I signed up for the Playstation Network. My handle is PlayerZero, but I imagine I won’t be online for quite a while since I am very busy with work. Signing up for the Playstation Network was a bit tough because they gave no information about what is a valid user name or not. Can your user name be 3 letters? 35? Are numbers okay? How about symbols? It seems you can enter them all, and it only gives you a message saying the user name is invalid. Sometimes this is because players have taken it but as a test, I typed in a whole bunch of random symbols to make sure that it was something that wasn’t taken, but it rejected that too. I was really hoping for Player One, but I think spaces are invalid and PlayerOne was taken, although I have no way of knowing any of that for sure.

Before signing up for the Playstation Network, you have to update your console to version 1.10. That took a bit of time to download and once it’s done, it reboots your PS3 and actually does the installation. During this time, the video was corrupt. It was black and white (this may have been on purpose) and display two different flickering images on the screen, which made it a bit harder to read the prompts and complete the installation.

I downloaded the Motorstorm demo. It was running at a pretty smooth 30, which was a big step up from what I played at EB last week. The only thing was I had my PS3 originally set to 1080i (the native resolution of my TV), and it downsampled it to 480p without giving me any mention of changing my PS3 resolution. Interestingly enough, when I set my PS3 to run at 720p, the audio for Motorstorm stopped working. What gives? The motion controls are kind of cool, but I found the car harder to control than with the joystick. The demo gets bonus points because one of the two events included in the demo is called “Massive Damage”.

I watched a bit of Talladega Nights and Blu-ray looks really good. I think it is a bad choice for a pack in movie because a comedy isn’t any funnier with higher resolution whereas an action movie is more exciting with the increased pixel count. Unfortunately, the version they included is not the same version as the Blu-ray edition that will soon go on sale. This is the PG-13 theatrical cut, not the unrated and uncut version that will be available in stores. Interestingly, it seems that the theatrical cut is only available with a PS3 or on DVD. I couldn’t find this version in any online stores (although the packaging says “not for resale” and “for promotional use only” all over it, so it wouldn’t be the same exact version).

Also, I ordered an HDMI cable, but it hasn’t come in the mail yet. I used my PS3 component cables, which were made by Mad Catz or something like that, and the video was pretty poor quality. It looked a bit grainy and there was a moving wave of subtle discoloration that would go from the top to the bottom and then wrap around again. I haven’t noticed this for PS2 with these same cables, but that only runs at 480p. I have the official cables for Xbox and Xbox 360, and I haven’t noticed these problems on either console. I’m looking forward to getting an HDMI cable because a digital connection can’t be noisy. I only hope Microsoft releases an HDMI cable for the 360, although I think that might be tricky since the video card may not support digital out. More to come when I get more of a chance to play around with it. I’ll be sure to post my thoughts on the Wii when I pick it up later tonight.

I’m getting a PS3 on Friday!0
Matt posted in Playstation 3 on November 13th, 2006

As many websites are reporting, Gamestop cannot fill all their preorders. I expected this because of the Xbox 360 fiasco, so I figured I would preorder the 20 GB model since no one else did. Well, it turns out that it was a good decision because I’m getting a PS3 only because I ordered the 20 GB model. The store took 16 preorders, and are only getting 8 60 GB and 2 20 GB. Now, if you are thinking I’m screwed because games start taking 5 GB installs, for $100 you can get a 100 GB 2.5″ SATA hard disk and a USB wireless card. If you really want the card reader, it’s an extra $6.99, which would probably be the cost of tax on the extra $100 that you are saving by spending the money online. Now, I haven’t read any reports confirming that generic USB wireless adapters work, but Sony did say they intend to support them, and 2.5″ hard disks do work.

Gears of War (and a little Motorstorm)0
Matt posted in Games, Xbox 360, Playstation 3 on November 8th, 2006

CilffyB came to the EB Games at Universal City Walk, so I got a signed copy of the Gears of War collector’s edition. Although I am really busy with work, I managed to play about a half an hour, and all I can say is wow. I don’t know when I’ll get a chance to play more or write more, but this game is worth buying a 360 for if you don’t already have one.

Also, I played Motorstorm on the demo PS3 and although the environments looked really nice, the framerate was pretty poor. I don’t know why everyone was excited about the graphics when the framerate is so choppy.

My PS3 Preordering Adventure0
Matt posted in Playstation 3 on October 12th, 2006

So, as most of you are probably aware, EB Games and Gamestop had preorders for the Playstation 3 Tuesday morning. The news was only announced Monday. The first I heard of it was through the gamestop mailing list. I called four EB stores as well as gamestops close to my apartment. The first one I called said they were doing it, and they had 16 units to give out. I couldn’t get through to the second and third stores. One didn’t answer the phone and the other’s line was busy. (I did call back to no avail) Another store said they would call me if I preordered a PS3 title, so I put $5 down. I called up that store to ask about their deal, and they said, “call back tomorrow.” I told them that I already heard from another EB Games that they are doing preorders tomorrow. He said they were only calling people who preordered a PS3 title about the deal. I told him I had preordered a title, and he said they were allowing preorders tomorrow morning. I asked why I hadn’t received a call, and he said he was going to try to get them done before he left today. Otherwise, he’d call tomorrow. I certainly wasn’t going to wait around to get called (and they did not call me anyway). I was hoping that the information wouldn’t get spread all over the web until Tuesday or at least late Monday, but soon, gamestop.com put it on their website, and Joystiq and Kotaku both had posts about it. So much for trying to reward people for reserving games and signing up for their mailing list. I am rather busy with work, so I wasn’t really planning on spending the whole night in line. On my way home from work at about 12:20 am, I checked out the line at the EB by my house. There were already 12 people camping out. I figured if I had any chance to get a PS3 at launch, I’d have to start waiting now. The only problem was I was still wearing shorts and a T-shirt since I came from work, and it was going to be a bit of a chilly night. I called my friend, and he was kind enough to bring a sleeping bag, blankets some snacks and a DS to keep me occupied. I certainly wasn’t going to leave for fear of losing my place in line. I was 13th, and that’s very close to 14, which may be how many they are giving out to customers since the employees can buy 2. (I don’t know if the 16 included the 2 for the employees or not, but I didn’t want to find out on launch day)

My friends stayed from about 1 to 2 am chatting, so that was pretty cool. Then, I figured I’d try and get some sleep. I have trouble sleeping in my own bed, and this certainly was not a good sleeping environment. Cement is unfortunately rather hard, and the sleeping bag wasn’t able to soften it enough. It was rather ironic that there was a mattress store right next to the EB games with big comfy beds on display taunting me all night. There were very bright lights in the parking lot that made sleeping much more difficult too. Although I am eternally grateful to my friends for bringing me some supplies, the sleeping bag I was using was  rather hot. It was rated to be comfortable at -20 degrees Fahrenheit. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make it comfortable at 50 degrees Fahrenheit. If I unzipped it, I’d be too cold. Otherwise I felt like I was roasting in an oven. The EB Games I waited at (Overland and Venice Blvd) is by the 405, and Venice Blvd is rather busy also, so the traffic noises weren’t relaxing. There were other noises like a very old woman with a very squeaky small cart that slowly pushed it across the parking lot in the middle of the night. I thought it was rather odd for her to be out that late because it was 3 am or something like that, but I didn’t question her about it.

I ended up getting a half an hour of sleep from about 4 am to 4:30 am. That was it. There is a Ballys close by, and apparently there’s a mad rush to get there at 5 am. By about 7:30 am, everyone started putting away their camping equipment, bedding, etc and forming a line since a lot of people were showing up in the morning. The EB games guy showed up at 9 am, and said they were going to let 3 people in at a time. They didn’t have the SKU to reserve Wiis, but they were going to reserve them anyway if you put $50 down. (They marked you down as reserving Sonic, but they were going to transfer the balance over when they got the SKU) People from IGN showed up to see how things were going. Apparently, their office is right across from the Best Buy that is in the same complex as the EB. They were nice and gave out IGN shirts. They took a lot of pictures, which I can be seen in. All of them are here: (I’m the one with red shoes that looks half dead)

I look terrible as most people with 1/2 hour of sleep do, but for most of the other pictures, I at least tried to pose.

I’m also peeking my head out in the back on kotaku, but I’m not as visible as I would have liked. I thought it was really amusing that one guy asked the guy who went over to talk to IGN where Jessica Chobot was. It turned out that the guy had already asked the IGN people, and apparently she was on G4 that morning. If you don’t recognize the name, I don’t blame you. Jessica Chobot is a reporter at IGN, but she’s female, so that has made gained her a lot of notoriety in the gaming community I guess. I don’t really have a desire to meet her, but if I did, I’d ask her why she was so nice to Uwe Boll in the dinner with Uwe feature. She didn’t treat him like the criminal he is. The dinner is like an hour long, so I imagine she didn’t want to tear into him at the beginning, but  she could have at least told him that his movies sucked at the very end of the interview. I can’t imagine anyone at IGN liked any of those films, so they should have told Uwe how bad they are and watched him complain about how everyone was unfair. He certainly did complain about people on the internet being unfair, and Jessica agreed with him instead of telling him how right they are about his poor excuses for films. I should try and train in boxing, so the next time he wants to beat up his critics I can give him what’s coming to him. Too bad I have better things to do than beating the crap out of bad directors. But, I digress.

Several people in line were much more excited about the Wii, yet they still wanted to pick up a PS3. One guy was buying a PS3, so he could ebay it and get a Wii from his profits, but most people weren’t really interested in ebaying it at the EB I waited at, which was reassuring. That or they were denying it to avoid a potential lynching. I’d feel really bad if I didn’t get one, and everyone who did put it up on ebay to make a quick buck. People are already ebaying the PS3s guaranteed at launch, although it seems stupid because they aren’t guaranteed to get it. Looking at the numbers, EB games only preordered 28,800 and 57,600 units nationwide at 3,600 stores, it seems reasonable to expect that EB Games and Gamestop will be able to get that many, but who knows. Apparently, the EB games I preordered at didn’t get any Xbox 360s at launch due to some sort of mistake. So, anyone who spends over a thousand dollars on something they aren’t guaranteed to get at launch isn’t very prudent.

People kept showing up from 9:30 am to10:30 am, and they seemed genuinely surprised that they wouldn’t be able to get a PS3. These people were in the older crowd, so I imagine that they were buying for their children and weren’t in touch with the gamer news. It’s a bit hard to feel sorry for them though after waiting in line for 10 hours and only getting a half an hour of sleep. I was able to preorder my PS3 with no problem. I was unsure which PS3 I’d have a better chance getting, the 20 gig or the 60 gig. Since the cheaper model has HDMI and all the parts are upgradeable, I don’t really feel like paying an extra $100 if I don’t have to. All you get is 40 extra gig, card readers I’m never going to use (PS3 doesn’t have a PS2 card slot built in, which is what I’m really interested in, although they are selling that), and I’d rather use wired since I have a switch downstairs for my Xbox and 360 already. Once I fill my hard disk up, I can probably swap in a huge, fast hard disk for cheaper than $100 and have the coolest PS3 on the block. The guy behind the counter (as well as another guy who preordered) seemed shocked, and they tried to persuade me otherwise, but I stuck to my guns once I found out no one else reserved a 20 gig. That way, if any 20 gigs come into the store (which is likely), I’ll be the first they call about it.

Reserving a Wii was a bit more of an ordeal because they were only planning on letting the people who they called reserve it, but I told them I reserved a game at a different EB (which is true) and that EB didn’t call me about the Wii either (which is also true). They talked it over and agreed that they’d let me preorder it. They said they only had 20, and once those were gone, that was all they were taking for the Wii at this point. Since there is over twice the numbers of Wiis planned to ship to North America than PS3s, you’d think they’d at least reserve 32, but I guess it was before they were officially supposed to reserve them, so it seems reasonable that they were reluctant. Finally, after 10 hours of waiting, I was able to preorder both systems. Since we are very busy at work presently, I took a shower, got in my car, drove for a half an hour to work, and ended up at work at 11:15 am. It was a bit tough working on 1/2 an hour of sleep, but I’ve worked through the night a few times, so I could deal with it. I put in about 10 hours of work before I went home to catch up on some rest. I talked to a co-worker, and he said he got one by showing up at 7:00 am at a EB games up in Ventura. That was a bit frustrating because I had to go through a terrible ordeal to get mine, but at least I was able to preorder one. There were people who showed up to the EB games where I camped out at 7 am, and they certainly did not get a PS3. Was it worth waiting? I think so. It will be if I get it at launch. I’m not convinced I will, but I can hope.

Why is the Mouse PC Only?4
Matt posted in Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Wii on September 20th, 2006

I haven’t had too much time to game recently because of work, but I did buy Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus, and I’ve enjoyed it so far. Sure, it doesn’t live up to Final Fantasy VII. Yes, its gameplay isn’t original in the least bit, but if you’re like me and can’t wait for Final Fantasy XII, it’ll definitely help you pass the time. My favorite part about it is that you can actually use any USB keyboard and mouse to play with the preferred FPS controls. If you are running out to the store just because of that, let me first caution you that it doesn’t work all that well. I think they are just mapping the mouse input into joystick commands, so it definitely feels a bit wonky. I was very eager to try my preferred first person peripherals out (I got some amusement that I was using a Microsoft keyboard and mouse with my PS2), and once I adjusted the sensitivity to where I wanted it, I had to pick up the mouse  about 10 times to complete a 180 degree turn. So, I had to jack the sensitivity way up in order to turn around at any reasonable speed, but then it was too sensitive for me to aim. Luckily, there is a forgiving auto-aim that made the game playable with the poor mouse controls. Sure, it’s definitely not ideal, but I still prefer that to playing with a gamepad. (Although, when I had to do the third person melee combat, I picked up my DualShock 2). All of this has really made me wonder, why do console game developers shun the mouse?

Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 both have USB ports. You can already play at least one PS2 game with a keyboard and mouse, so I’m sure it will be possible for Playstation 3 also. Xbox 360’s dash already supports USB keyboards for entering in Xbox Live information, so I’m sure it would be easy for Microsoft to expose mouse and keyboard drivers to developers. Heck, you could even play first person shooters for Dreamcast (Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament) with a keyboard and mouse. Then why can’t I play any next gen first person shooters the way that I want to? I would enjoy Perfect Dark Zero much more if I could use a keyboard and mouse to control it. I can understand that Microsoft didn’t want to do it with the original Xbox since they were trying to fight the idea that the console was just a Windows PC in the living room. I think they managed to shake that idea, so what is the hesitation with Xbox 360? Sony is trying to convince the world that the Playstation 3 is more than just a console – it’s a PC. This may be to justify the price tag. $600 may seem like a lot for a video game console, but is quite cheap for a PC with as much processing power as the PS3 packs. But if it’s a PC, then why can’t I play games with the keyboard and mouse? Why is the PC the only system that can have the best input devices for real time strategy and first person shooters?

Some might argue that the Wii-mote will help bridge that gap. Maybe it will. I haven’t played a RTS with the Wii-mote, but I have played a first person shooter (Red Steel), and I much prefer a mouse to the Wii-mote for a first person shooter. Even if the Wii-mote is heaven for strategy and first person games, I imagine making a similar peripheral for the PS3 and the Xbox 360 would be a bad idea because of both the cost, patent infringement and segmenting the market (not everyone would buy one), but who doesn’t have a keyboard and a mouse? Maybe they aren’t USB, but I can’t imagine the USB adapter would be expensive.

I’m not purposing Resistance: The Fall of Man and Halo 3 should be mouse only. I’m just suggesting that they support the keyboard and mouse also. There is a large population of gamers  who primarily play PC first person shooters who really don’t want to play an FPS with a gamepad (myself included). Many of these gamers own a console. Why not make your console first person shooter accessible to them also? It wouldn’t be all that much work, and it can only help sales. With this generation of consoles, PCs have lost their other FPS advantage: higher resolutions. Maybe if Resistance: The Fall of Man allowed the usage of a mouse, some PC gamers would buy a PS3 also.

Now, I imagine there are some console first person shooter fans screaming, “That’s not fair!” But, let’s stop and think about that. I’m sure plenty of people playing with a keyboard and a mouse will be a lot more accurate at aiming. There is plenty that the game developers can do to balance it out by doing some auto aiming for gamepad users, but even if they don’t, why is that unfair? I could play Halo 2 online with Microsoft’s new force feedback steering wheel. If I tried to complain that it was unfair that everyone else wasn’t using a steering wheel too, I’d get laughed off Xbox Live. If you think that’s ridiculous, I’d argue it’s the same way for keyboard and mouse vs. gamepads. If you want, you can play PC FPSes with a PC gamepad (you can even use your wired Xbox 360 gamepad, and when this adapter comes out, you can use your wireless), but you’re not going to get very far. For all the console gamers that don’t want to bother learning how to aim well with a more accurate control scheme, I’m sure they could create gamepad only servers on Xbox Live, so that you could continue playing with your controller of choice. It would be easy for them to enforce that on the game side, so you wouldn’t get a griefer on your server getting headshots by using the mouse.

Until the mouse gets more support from console game developers, all hope is not lost. Lik Sang has created mouse and keyboard to PS2 and Xbox controller adapters. I haven’t used them myself, but I’ve heard that the performance ranges from quite well to not so great depending on the game. But, I imagine it couldn’t really be worse than Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus’s keyboard and mouse support, so it can’t be too bad. Once they come out with a version for next gen systems, I may have to pick one up.

Next Gen Price Wars2
Matt posted in Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Wii on July 21st, 2006

Next gen seems to offer the greatest spread of console pricing since the 3DO was released. How can you get the most bang for your next gen buck? Let’s look at the price points and see what you can get for it.

$200-$300
The Wii is confirmed to cost less than $250. This is absolutely no problem for Nintendo because the hardware is an incremental revision over the 5 year old GameCube console. Assuming that Wii is coming out for $249.99 (which is less than $250, and I have a feeling that they’ll release at this price despite that all their other consoles came out at $200), Xbox 360 may look mighty tempting. The problem is that if you buy the $300 Xbox 360, you don’t have any storage for your saved games. (Wii comes with 512 MB of internal flash memory). For some reason Microsoft has seen fit to charge $40 for 64 MB memory cards, which is quite expensive (Not as bad as the $30 I paid for an 8MB PS2 memory card a couple weeks ago though). For comparison, a 64 MB USB pen drive, which is basically the same hardware as Microsoft’s memory card (you can actually rewire a memory card to interface with your PC using USB) is $10 on www.pricewatch.com. So, a potential consumer concerned with price is looking at $250 vs. $340 comparing the two platforms if they want to save their games (which I think everyone does). Although traditionally, console makers make a lot of money back on the peripherals, I think Sony has the right idea allowing generic hard disks (both USB and internal, although I imagine internal 2.5” hard disks are going to be trickier to find) as well as compact flash/memory stick readers. So, that $40 memory card really hurts Microsoft for people in the budget group. If it were $300 with some sort of storage alternative vs $250, I think that would really cut into Wii’s sales with the budget gamers. Maybe Microsoft should open up their platform and allow other storage devices for saved games.

$400-$500
If you aren’t interested in either Blu-ray or HD DVD Microsoft is the clear winner in this price range because besides Blu-Ray, the $400 Xbox 360 System and the $500 PS3 console are functionally equivalent. If you’re interested in a next gen media format, the Xbox comes out behind because the 360 HD DVD add on is going to cost $200 according to quickly removed information on the Microsoft site (which unlike other Xbox 360 peripherals seems like a good deal). For $500, you could get the 360 Core System and the HD DVD add on, but you wouldn’t have the 20 GB hard disk that the $500 PS3 includes. It’s possible that Microsoft might create a new bundle where you can get an Xbox 360, HD-DVD and a hard disk for $500, but that’s unlikely.

$600
This category is the interesting one. If you are interested in all the features that Sony offers, the Playstation 3 is a much better deal. For $700, you can get an Xbox 360 premium pack, an HD-DVD drive and a Wireless Ethernet adapter (which costs $100. For comparison, you can get a wireless USB adapter that will work with the Playstation 3 for $13.59). The Playstation 3 still comes out ahead because it has HDMI and the 60 GB hard disk. Microsoft should really lower the price of their wireless adapter, or allow 360 owners to use adapters from generic vendors. Even still, there’s no way to get HDMI output on the Xbox 360, which could cripple the HD-DVD player should content providers start using iCT, which will downsample the source material if the media is played without every device that relays the signal to have HDMI (except of course the wires). There are rumors that Microsoft will release a Xbox 360 with an HDMI port on it. As much as I would love to get HDMI, I don’t know if I’m willing to buy another Xbox 360… Nintendo was pretty sneaky in actually REMOVING their HD port on GameCubes manufactured after a certain date, so maybe most consumers don’t distinguish hardware by its video out capabilities, but in the case of HDMI, it can cut the resolution in 1/4 for viewing an HD movie. (Although, that’s assuming that Xbox 360 with an HDMI port could actually display HD DVD movies at 1080p rather than 1080i)

So who gives you the best value for your money really depends on what features you want and what price range you are looking for. If you don’t care about HD and price is important to you (and you like playing games with the Wii-mote) then obviously the Wii is your best choice. But if Wii is $250 and you aren’t sold on the controller, the core pack at $300 for Xbox 360 might be tempting. Xbox 360 is the only console at the mid price range, which could prove to be the sweet spot for next gen pricing. The main downside problem with Xbox 360 is that Microsoft has a lot of markup on potentially desired upgrades (700% on the wireless adapter, 400% on the memory card and 200% on the hard disk versus the equivalent hardware prices from www.pricewatch.com), so if you don’t like what you get out of the box, you’ll have to pay quite a bit for the additional functionality. One of the great things about Playstation 3 is that if you don’t like your original configuration, you can upgrade it using PC hardware (so you don’t have to overpay for your components), but you cannot upgrade to the HDMI port, which is really bad if studios start using iCT for next gen media. Playstation 3 seems to offer the most features if you are prepared to drop $500 or $600 mostly because the Xbox 360 extra peripherals are expensive. Which one is the winner? It’s hard to say. All three have wildly varying configurations and there’s little overlap in the price points. All I know is I love my Xbox 360, and I’m looking forward to both the Playstation 3 and the Wii.

What I’m Excited About for the Rest of the Year0
Matt posted in Games, Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Wii on July 13th, 2006

August
Ninety Nine Nights – I wrote a long post about how great I think Ninety Nine Nights will be, so instead of reiterating that here, check it out.

Rule of the Rose – This game is promising to not only be scary, but also some sort of psychological thriller. Regardless of how the game turns out, it seems worth playing just for something refreshingly different. Something that worries me is that Gamasutra mentions the game’s “prepubescent erotic undertones” (although they don’t go into specifics), but the trailers look like a cross between a David Lynch movie and “City of the Lost Children”, so I’m excited regardless. It definitely seems genuinely creepy instead of ghosts popping out and saying “boo!”. One thing that I have to wonder is are Japanese people afraid of children? I’ve seen the Japanese versions of The Ring, the Grudge, and Dark Water (all of which have been remade in America) and I’m beginning to think that Japanese people (at least the ones that make horror movies/games) are afraid of children.

Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus – I had to look up what a “Dirge” is, and I have no idea what Cerberus’s has to do with Final Fantasy VII, but I love RPGs and action games and this seems like a good combination of the two. I played it for a while at E3, and it seemed to preserve all the good aspects of the Final Fantasy games (items, lots of weapon customizations, pre-rendered cutscenes) with a pretty solid action shooter. On one hand, I really feel like Final Fantasy VII was a closed story and there’s really nothing more interesting to say about it, but on the other hand, I certainly loved Final Fantasy VII, and I want more because I loved the characters so much.

October
Final Fantasy XII – Although I’m not sure why the lead character looks so effeminate, and I’m frightened that the character Fran was added to cater to furries, but other than that, the art looks absolutely amazing in FF XII. The world seems completely unlike any other game I’ve played, which is definitely a good thing. I believe the team said they were using middle eastern style architecture or something, but whatever it is they are doing, it certainly looks unique. and GOREGEOUS. As far as gameplay, I played this game quite a bit at E3 2004 and was very disappointed. Combat wasn’t any fun at all. When the demo disc came out with Dragon’s Quest VIII, it was clear that this is a completely different (and better) game. I haven’t heard anything but praise for the final game and it’s new take on the traditional Final Fantasy mechanics. 

Forza Motorsport 2 – Although I’m horrible at racing sim games, and I’ve barely found time to play PGR3, I’m really excited about Forza Motorsport 2. I’ll tell you the reason. It’s being designed to use the Microsoft Wireless Racing Wheel. Although there’s really no reason it has to be wireless, it has force feedback (when you use it with the AC adapter). I have the second version of the Microsoft Force Feedback PC steering wheel, and it is ABSOLUTELY amazing! I’d play a bus driving simulation game if I got to use that force feedback. I can only imagine how great of an experience it will be with a real racing sim and an amazing force feedback steering wheel. With PC games, there are many different force feedback wheels and they all behave differently. When Microsoft releases the official steering wheel, all racing games will have one steering wheel to use in order to calibrate gameplay (and force feedback effects). I imagine developers can query whether it is a steering wheel or a gamepad, so they can tune gameplay to the steering wheel, rather than the steering wheel manufactures trying to appropriately map the steering wheel’s function to the analog joystick. So, I can’t wait for a really good steering force feedback steering wheel and the flagship title that showing it off.

Gears of War – I went into the Microsoft E3 theater not really expecting anything. I figured it’d be another lame video showing how Xbox 360 brings people together or something like that. I was way wrong. CliffyB was there actually explaining what was cool about the game and what he was trying to accomplish. Now, I think it’s cool that CliffyB was giving the demo not because he’s a “name” in the video game industry, but more because he’s the lead designer, so he should know the game better than anyone. It’s too often that you have someone who doesn’t understand the spirit of the game demoing it. For example, some of my friends recounted a story about how someone demoing Viva Pinata beat a pinata to death because it was in the way of the two pinatas that were supposed to mate. This completely violates the spirit of the game, and is a bad thing to show. For example, I can’t imagine Shigaru Miyamoto beating his Nintendog to death for a demo because it didn’t smile at him when he turned on the DS. Viva Pinata is all about growing and taking care of the pinatas on your island, and beating one to death because it was in the way, certainly doesn’t convey that. At any rate, Gears of War is trying to create a whole new style of action game based on cover. Sure, maybe that doesn’t sound appealing to you, but that’s what was so great about the demo. Gears of War may not be impressive on paper, but when you see the fluid movements that the player character can do, you’ll understand why I’m so excited about it. CliffyB showed that you could duck behind cover,  then shoot from either side or the top,  and go from either side or jump over it to get to the next cover point. He also explained his main design goal  - to make the controls simple. I wasn’t playing the game, so I don’t know how simple the controls are, but it really seemed like a lot of amazing moves happened because of the context sensitivity of the A button. I wrote in an earlier blog post about how this idea of simplified control scheme will make games more accessible to non-gamers. Anyway, this is defiintely a game to look out for.

Super Paper Mario – There hasn’t been a GameCube title I’ve been excited about for a while. I loved all the old Mario platformers, so I’m really excited about a new one. On one hand, I’d say that Nintendo isn’t really innovating gameplay by releasing another platformer similar to their NES releases, but on the other hand, those games were really fun, so I’d be happy to play a game like that again. It does sound like there’s some cool new things in this game, so we’ll see how good it is. At least it’s better than a rerelease, which Nintendo has a habit of doing.

November
Warhawk – This was the Playstation 3 game at E3 that I enjoyed the most. I thought the motion sensing worked better in this game than it did in any of the Wii games. The gameplay didn’t seem all that innovative, but the aircraft handled really well, and it was fun to fly with the tilt sensing. Sure, apparently you could play the original Warhawk with a motion sensitive controller, but I have a feeling the new Warhawk works a lot better.

Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess – I’m feeling quite torn about this game. Firstly, I didn’t really enjoy Windwaker all that much. It seemed like Ocarina of Time only with cell shading and sailing, and I liked the cell shading, but the sailing was really annoying. I’m worried Twilight Princess will have the same gameplay only better graphics and a few Wii minigames. But, despite my worries, I’m hoping this will be a title that really proves that the Wii input can be fun.

Sonic the Hedgehog – I love Sonic. Sonic Adventure is what sold me on the Dreamcast. That game was unlike anything out at the time. In the Mayan level, I was so amazed when Sonic was sprinting unimaginably fast through winding passageways. Sonic Adventure 2 was also amazing, and Sonic Heroes was okay. I will not speak of the abomination that is Shadow the Hedgehog. With the 15th  anniversary of Sonic, Sega is trying to return to his roots. I was super excited to play it at E3, and it was a real let down. The controls were very wonky. The newest Hedgehog, Silver, had very wonky telekinesis powers, and was difficult to platform with. That’s understandable because he’s a new character. The unforgivable sin was Sonic was also very difficult to control. Sonic has always been a bit hard to control since he goes very very fast. As much as I love the original Genesis games, I have to admit that oftentimes you run at full speed until you hit an enemy that you never could have seen. You have to collect your rings and then keep running. The main problem is the autotargeting for the jump attack is really bad. They had a section where you had to land on a small rope, and then it would spring you up, and then you had to land on the next small rope and so on. Unfortunately, the jump attack auto targeting didn’t find these ropes, so either you had to land on a narrow rope positioned in threespace, which is quite tricky, or you could hope that your jump attack would take you to it, but the several times I tried it, it took me straight into the bottomless pit. So, although the E3 demo was disappointing, I still have a lot of hope.

Why We Can’t Be Hollywood and What We Need to Do to Innovate0
Matt posted in The Industry, Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Wii on June 15th, 2006

Many people compare the video game industry to Hollywood. Most recently, Chris Crawford in an interview with Gamasutra, explained that Hollywood has less expensive “indie movies” that innovate. He as well as others asks why can’t the games industry do the same?

The answer while not obvious is really right before our eyes. As the cost of a movie goes down, the quality doesn’t diminish nearly as much as with games. For example, I could spend a few thousand on a good DV camera, get some friends together and make a very good movie. That hinges on me and my friends abilities. The lightening might not be as good, we’d have to film on location, and we wouldn’t have any big name actors, but it could be a very good movie that is competitive with a Hollywood film. Now, there are restrictions. We couldn’t have special effects, big name actors or anything like that, but it wouldn’t have to look really amateur if we had the talent. For example, one of the funniest movies ever is “Cannibal: The Musical”. Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park fame made it over their spring break when they were still in college. IMDB.com estimates there budget was $125,000. The movie had some really bad special effects, but it contributed to the campy fun. Napoleon Dynamite had an estimated budget of $400,000, and it looked perfectly professional. Sure, it didn’t have any big name actors, but I think Jon Heder is funnier than a lot of big name comedians. Garden State is another one of my favorite films and IMDB estimates their budget at 2.5 million. Sure, that seems like a lot of money, but compare that to the $40 million or more that many Hollywood movies cost.

Now, here’s the other important thing. These indie movies cost the same to see in the theater and the DVD pricing is usually about the same too. So, despite that the Blair Witch Project cost $35,000 to make, it was able to make $140 million in the United States because the ticket prices were the same as a huge Hollywood blockbuster. If tickets cost 1/10 of that of a blockbuster (similar to how indie games cost $5 when regular games are $50), then the Blair Witch Project still would have made a profit, but it wouldn’t have been the giant hit that it was. The fact that a company can make so much money off of something so cheap means they can invest in a lot of failures and still come out ahead. If the profit margin isn’t so incredibly high, then it’s more of a risk and not worth doing.

Games aren’t the same as movies. If you make a game for $400,000, it’s not going to be anywhere close to the quality of a next gen game that costs $20 million. This is why the film model doesn’t work as well when it comes to games. A better analogy would be the CG film industry. Almost all of the CG films are really high budget, and the ones that aren’t, really show. Hoodwinked cost $15 million to make and it doesn’t look nearly as good as Pixar or Dreamworks animated films.

So, good indie or cheap games aren’t going to be very appealing to consumers because due to budget constraints, that prevents them from making them at the same quality as other titles. Now, quality means a lot of different things to different people, but one of the things that adds to a game’s immersiveness is a lot of characters populating the world. An indie game can’t have that. An indie game probably can’t afford to have a lot of unique human characters. This is something indie movie producers get for free, but it’s a great cost for video games since they either have to be painstakingly motion captured or more often than not, modeled by an artist. Now, some people say that good graphics don’t matter for games. Nintendo is betting a lot that people don’t want better graphics. I think that’s incorrect. Just as some people won’t watch a black and white movie now that color movies are available (even if it’s Citizen Kane), many people might not be interested in old generation games when they can get the latest and greatest looking games. If you can have realistic looking characters, they make it seem more real, and that lends to the immersion. Even if it’s a cartoony world, if everything doesn’t look like it’s made out of polygons or plastic (unless you’re playing a next gen Army Men game), then that really adds to the experience. I think people want that immersion. As much as I love Katamari Damacy, the graphics are pretty bad to look at and the loose collision bothers me just because it takes away from the immersion. Katamari has innovative gameplay that can overcome that especially because the games were budget priced. But, I imagine its sales weren’t several orders of magnitudes greater than the cost like for some movies. Because of that, indie games aren’t as appealing to the publishers as they are for movies.

Here’s the question that the industry is asking: is there anything that can be done to reduce the costs of next gen development so innovation isn’t as risky? I’d say yes, but definitely not the extent that it is feasible in film. Middleware helps cut the costs. Before EA bought Renderware, Criterion was trying to position themselves as the common platform that would drive costs down. No graphics library has risen up to replace them, but presumably, one could be developed. Common objects and characters could be sold/rented or publishers could come up with asset systems to share across their developers. Potentially, generic characters could be developed to meet certain clothing sizes, and then clothing could be applied just like a costume. In the end though, the benefit a company gets by using their own custom technology and art styles always makes a game significantly better, so it might be worth going the extra mile in a lot of cases.

One of the reasons that Nintendo Wii is so appealing to developer and publishers is that the cost of development is a lot less. Since the hardware is similar to previous gen, the cost of development will be on par with last generation unlike the almost astronomical cost of the new generation. This will allow each product to be less of a financial risk, so developers can afford to innovate. Whether publishers will allow them to innovate or whether any creative uses of the controller remains to be seen. I didn’t think there was anything all that “innovative” at E3 for Wii, but it may take developers a while to get accustomed to it. Unfortunately though, any gameplay innovations developed for Wii that are based on the controller (which is probably where any innovation would happen) won’t be too applicable to Xbox 360 and may not be too applicable for PS3. Despite what Nintendo thinks, I think the future of the industry is going to be with bigger budgets and better graphics because as I mentioned before, they aid to the immersiveness. Sony and Microsoft suggest buying Wii as a second console, but even if Wii is a financial success, I think most gamers will buy a PS3 or Xbox 360 also because they want to get lost in a realistic world. Only time will tell in that regard.

In the end though, I’m not as pessimistic as most when it comes to the state of the industry because I see titles looming on the horizon (Gears of War, Assassin’s Creed, etc) that are new enough for me to be interested in playing them. Yes, I agree that overall the industry produces a lot of sequels, but honestly, who hasn’t bought one? Who isn’t planning on getting God of War 2 or playing the next gen Sonic the Hedgehog? For all Nintendo talks about innovation, their staple games have changed very little since the NES days. Other than I may be able to use a pointer to shoot an arrow in Zelda: Twilight Princess and transform into a wolf, the gameplay looks identical to Windwaker, which was identical to Ocarina of Time, which was the same gameplay of the original Zelda only with an extra dimension. The two Zelda games that tried to innovate (Zelda II and Majora’s Mask) are usually regarded as people’s least favorite in the series. So, it’s almost as if consumers reward companies for NOT innovating. Mark Cerny said in the GDC panel on “What’s Next?” that with every new IP, you don’t get a return on your investment until the 3rd sequel. This is part of why there is so little innovation. People will usually buy a sequel if they like the first game, so what incentive is there for publishers to innovate? If we as consumers really want innovation, then stop buying sequels! If enough people get sick of it, then the economics will change and so will gameplay. As game developers, its a lot harder to have a say about what we work on, but if we tried to put one new gameplay element or innovation that hasn’t been done before, hopefully, it will help the industry from stagnating, and it will be similar enough to an established game or genre such that publishers won’t be afraid of funding it. For example, if your publisher wants you to make a GTA clone, put an original spin on it by having some levels that allow you to be a modern day pirate in international waters. Maybe you can take the passengers of boats hostage, or pilfer their possessions. Maybe you can work your way up in the size of boats you can steal. Maybe you can put enough unique mechanics in it that your publisher will allow you to do a game based on that mechanic for the sequel. (My apologies if GTA or some other crime game already did that. I don’t play them because I find the content offensive…) Maybe my maritime piracy game mechanic doesn’t sound all that great or it’s been done before, but it’s just an example I came up with quickly. If your entire development team tried to think of an original gameplay innovation within the context of your project, then I’m sure you could come up with something.

Maybe the key to changing the industry is evolution not revolution. CliffyB in his Game Developer magazine article talked about how he was glad other games came out that used cover as a gameplay mechanic because Gears of War revolves around the concept of cover. The fact that other games are using it warms people up to the idea. Maybe if Gears of War showed up and was the first game to use cover, people might not be interested in it. “Hiding sounds lame! Screw that!” That might be the reaction had they not seen how it worked in Perfect Dark Zero and wanted more. All in all though, as consumers and developers we drive the industry. If innovation makes financial sense, then publishers will start supporting innovative projects. If people want to buy the same game over and over again, then why shouldn’t publishers give it to them? It’s a lot easier to do that then to come up with something truly innovative. Game developers like many artists, don’t get paid to create great art. They get paid to make money for the people funding them. This is an unfortunate truth, but within these confines, I still believe we can make great games.