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.

Why Microsoft Should Make DS Games3
Matt posted in Games, Xbox 360 on March 22nd, 2007

Now, many people may not be aware, but Rare has continued to make games for Nintendo handhelds after their purchase by Microsoft. Since the Microsoft purchase, Rare has published through THQ Banjo Pilot (GBA), Sabur Wulf (GBA), It’s Mr. Pants (GBA) and Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge (GBA). Nintendo has also published Donkey Kong Country 1 and 2 for the GBA and Diddy Kong Racing DS. It’s unclear to me whether Rare actually developed these ports or if Nintendo had someone else do the dirty work, but the THQ titles were original work done for the GBA platform. It’s unlikely that the THQ contract was signed before the purchase because otherwise Nintendo would have published them. It’s possible they were already in development before the purchase, but wouldn’t it have been in Microsoft’s best interest to bury them? Alternately, Microsoft could use the quality titles to push their platforms like Windows Mobile for handheld computers and phones. Sure, they’d make a whole lot less money by releasing it for Windows Mobile, but Microsoft is a platform company. Any profit or loss on a game barely has any effect on the profits of Microsoft, which are largely driven by Windows and Office sales. Any games that further cement Windows’ grasp on home computers or  make Microsoft’s Windows platforms on consumer devices (either Xbox 360, or a Windows CE derivation) more successful is a good move, since Microsoft stands to make more money by growing their platforms.

So, Rare’s handheld releases don’t really make sense to me. Microsoft’s licensing of their IPs (MechAssault and Age of Empires) to DS developers is a questionable move also. But, when Microsoft’s Shane Kim said that Viva Pinata makes sense on the Nintendo DS, I was confused. Now, my first thought was that they are merely trying to hurt Sony in the portable market. That may be, but the more profitable Nintendo’s handheld market is, the more losses they can sustain in the console market. Because of their continued handheld profits, Nintendo was able to easily rebound from a relatively unsuccessful GameCube console to create the Wii, which for the time being, is selling much faster than the 360 ever did. So, despite Peter Moore’s Wii love, Microsoft should start thinking of Nintendo as a rival since the Wii’s market penetration is rapidly approaching the 360s. Analysts have been quick to change their tune about the Wii after it’s been getting the warmest consumer reception out of the big three.

So, I’ve pointed out many reasons why the Microsoft/Nintendo alliance doesn’t make sense. Judging from the title, there clearly must be a reason why I think Microsoft SHOULD make DS games. The title wasn’t a clever trick – there is a reason in my opinion. It’s to successfully gain some of the kid market share, which  Microsoft has been unsuccessful in doing. Viva Pinata is similar to Pokemon. They are both targeting children. They both have video games. Pokemon is a lot more successful than Viva Pinata. The main difference? The Pokemon series is primarily a portable video game franchise whereas Viva Pinata currently only exists on the Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 costs a minimum of $300, where Nintendo’s handhelds are usually around $100. Every kid has a handheld, whereas many kids don’t have Xbox 360s. Kids are usually late adopters to the video game console war since they don’t have the disposable income of adults. So, it seems that the best way to get more kids interested in Viva Pinata would be a DS game.

Viva Pinata DS games might get some kids interested in the franchise, but it may not achieve the ultimate goal of expanding the audience of the Xbox 360 system. What Microsoft needs to do is make playing the DS game reveal secret codes for the 360 version. The codes can give you downloadable items for free or unlock exclusive content on the disc. It doesn’t really matter what it does, but if a kid is playing a game and the rewards are something in a different game, all of a sudden the kid is going to want the other game. I don’t know if there’s an official child psychology study to back that up, but here’s an example. If you tell a kid you’re giving him a present, but he has to go to his Aunt’s house in another state to receive it, I bet you that kid is going to spend the rest of the day begging you to take him/her there. So, cross promotion although it may seem pretty shameful to adults (especially having an NPC in Dungeon Siege 2 shill the PSP game), but  I think kids are less sensitive to that. In a game like Viva Pinata, I don’t think it would be bad even for adults. Viva Pinata is not an role playing game. Although it may be a very compelling game, I wouldn’t describe it as immersive unlike most RPGs. It doesn’t ruin the Viva Pinata universe to mention the fact that it’s a game. Although the pinatas may be cute and lovable, I don’t think they are trying to convince you that they are living breathing entities (do pinatas breathe?) unlike most RPGs, which are about playing a role  in another world. 

So, although I question some of Microsoft’s current handheld endeavors, creating Viva Pinata games on the DS that give you special gifts or features in the 360 version seems like a really intelligent strategy to grow the Viva Pinata brand, which Microsoft is interested in doing.

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.

Wii-actions and Wii-views3
Matt posted in Games, The Industry, Xbox 360, Wii on November 21st, 2006

I have had about an hour of time to play with my brand new Wii. In the limited time that I’ve played Wii Sports (about an hour), I’m not very impressed with that game. My overall impression is that the motion control doesn’t work as well as I would like, there’s a lot of randomness, and there’s no way to get feedback on how to improve your technique. I’ll break it down by sport.

Baseball – Baseball could have been cooler, but I think they dumbed it down to the point that it’s not very interesting to play. All the players do is pitch and bat. Pitching could have been more interesting if they tried to interpret your motion as an actual pitch, but instead if yo u want to throw a curve ball, you hold down a button combo. Batting just requires swinging. I think that it’s all about timing and how fast you swing (but again, I’m not sure because they don’t give you any feedback). Up and down motion doesn’t matter. The outfielders’ behavior seems random. Will they catch your pop fly? Not if you are lucky.

Bowling – I found this frustrating. I’m not exactly sure how it determines the direction the ball will curve from your motion. Your throws don’t always go straight and I’m not sure what I need to do physically to curve the ball. Also, in this game, the Mii’s gestures don’t match yours. Rather, to bowl properly, you have to match the on screen character’s motion. I found this frustrating also. I thought the whole point of the motion control was so that the in game avatar could match your motions, not the other way around. Rather than informing you that you have to match the character, it gives messages informing you that your timing is off, but doesn’t really explain you should look at the position of the Mii’s arm for an indication of the proper timing. Maybe I’m just slow to pick up these things, but if I, a video gamer for life, have trouble getting it right, won’t non-gamers? Maybe not. Maybe it’s naturally intuitive for non-gamers, and I am inhibited from approaching it in the same way because I’ve used traditional gaming interfaces, but I doubt it.

Boxing – I didn’t play this for very long, so maybe I’m a bad judge, but I had trouble getting the different moves working, so I decided to resort to my Mocap Boxing technique of flailing wildly, and I managed to best my friend who was trying to play for real.

Golf - This is probably the best of the bunch. I’m not huge into golf games, but I can see how actually swinging the club is more fun than stopping a moving bar at the right location. I still ran into a bit of frustration when trying to swing softly. I would swing slowly, and it wouldn’t pick up the motion. Then when I finished my swing, the character was holding the club in the wrong position relative to mine. Again, there isn’t much to this game as far as user control and all that. You can’t hook the ball. You just control the speed at which the ball is hit. The nice part about this game is that it seems clear that swing speed is all that matters.

Tennis – This suffered from similar problems as baseball in terms of what motions are taken into account. You don’t have to move your characters. They move automatically, which isn’t as annoying as outfielders that can cost you the game, but it seems like it always play doubles, and you can’t control which character swings if you are playing for both of them. Several times, I wanted the front character to dive for it, but instead the rear player swung, and there wasn’t time for the rear player to swing again when the ball was close to him. I suppose I could get used to the timing, but it was still a bit frustrating. The game seems like pong with gestures. Although pong was a great game for the time, if I have a sophisticated input device, I’d like to have more control of the game than when the character hits the ball (and maybe how hard).

So, all in all, I’m a bit disappointed with Wii Sports. The motion controls usually work more like gestures than actually having control of the object. Moving the Wii-mote is more fun than pressing a button, but these games don’t seem all that good regardless of input mechanism. Hopefully, more interesting titles will come out that use the wii-mote better. I’m interested in Trauma Center. I haven’t gotten a chance to play it, but I might enjoy that better.

I also got a chance to play Zelda for about an hour, and I’m surprised it’s getting such good reviews. It would have been good two years ago, but now it seems dated both graphically and gameplay-wise. The graphics don’t even seem that great for a GameCube game when compared to something like Resident Evil 4. That’s certainly excusable though. Graphics don’t make a game fun, but they do help create an immersive experience. The gameplay seems dated for many reasons. Firstly, there are no voice overs. I don’t think this is excusable. In order to have good graphics, it’s hard work because developers have to squeeze the maximum performance out of the system. Playing voice overs is not very difficult at all from a technical standpoint. Sure you have to get voice actors to record them, but it adds a lot to the game in my opinion.

Another main reason the gameplay feels dated is because there is only one solution to every problem. Hopefully, you won’t mind the small spoilers, but this example is hardly a plot point. When you go into the first city, there are two people with problems that obviously need fixing. One problem is the shop owner is missing her cat. The other problem is a woman is missing her baby cradle. I figured I’d try and get the shop owner her cat first because I wanted to actually get a weapon. (The store sells a slingshot) So, the cat ran away from me when I walked over, so I tried to herd it over to the shop. I did this for a while and almost got the cat where I wanted it to go, but it eventually got stuck under the bridge, so I figured that wasn’t the best way to go about it. I tried talking to the shop owner, but I had no choice to try and tell her where the cat is. I talked to her husband, and he didn’t mention the cat. Of course there is no dialog tree at all since Link is apparently mute. Okay fine. I figured I’d do the baby cradle thing. That got me the fishing pole. I caught a fish, and the cat followed me. I tried to walk into the store with the cat following me, but when I entered the store, Link was unable to communicate to the melancholy shopkeep that the cat was just outside. Her husband was outside, but he apparently isn’t interested in recovering his wife’s cat. He just said the same thing he said to me 5 minutes ago when I wanted to talk to him.

There’s no camera control, and the camera has a lot of collision problems. I can understand that implementing a camera with proper collision can be difficult on something with limited CPU time like the Nintendo 64, but the Wii has a lot more horsepower. A good camera can be done without taking too much of the CPU on the GameCube, so it definitely should be feasible on the Wii. Although The Incredibles, which I worked on, may not be the most enjoyable game, it had a darn good camera on all three previous gen SKUs (including GameCube). Not having camera control is really frustrating. It was always nice to line up the camera behind your character before attempting a jump to ensure that the character will make the jump distance. Unfortunately, this is not possible. In the limited time I’ve played the game, I’ve already missed a jump because I couldn’t line the camera up with the gap.

On top of all this, the game starts off slllllllllloooooooooooooooowwwwww. I’m not saying it won’t get better, its just that usually you want to grab the audience with some exciting stuff, so that they’ll want to play more. There was an interesting article in Game Developer Magazine about this (The Power of Pacing in the August 06 issue), although I disagree with some of the examples the author gives. (I loved the beginning of Psychonauts, which he criticizes) Upon watching me try to lure a cat to the shopkeep, one of my friends said that he was no longer interested in the game anymore. I’m going to bear the boring beginning in the hopes that it picks up soon, but I don’t know how many menial tasks I can stand.

Another flaw is that it’s Zelda. Although that may not seem like a flaw, I’m trying to say that it’s the same Zelda that you’ve been playing every iteration barring Zelda 2 and Majora’s Mask. Interestingly, the two titles where they changed the formula are the most hated of all the Zelda games (besides the CD-i atrocities). The Zelda formula never changes, and frankly, I’m getting sick of it. The Wii-mote is just an input mechanism to control exactly the same things that all the Zeldas have. I want innovation! I want gameplay advancements. Besides changing the way you do the actions in Zelda, it’s the same game as Ocarina of Time with an added wolf mode, and although I haven’t gotten the opportunity to play as the wolf, I’ve read that it’s nothing all that special. If I wanted to play as a wolf, a friend has mentioned that Okami has better lupine combat. Is Zelda a bad game? I haven’t played enough to judge. I doubt that it’s bad. But I can say that it is not worthy of the the A+ reviews it’s getting because many of the problems I have will persist throughout the game (especially the camera problems). Why is it getting such good reviews? Because it’s Zelda. Gamespot posted a review giving it an 8.8 and fans freaked out so much that one editor wrote the following:

“It’s the same damn game we’ve all been playing for the last 15-odd years. Hey, guess what? You get to go into dungeons…and find items…and put together pieces of heart to make new heart containers. I haven’t gotten very far into it, but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that Triforce is in the mix at some point. There’s a difference between tradition and ossification, and Nintendo’s been content to let this series stay the same for too damn long. What’s more, in a lot of ways it’s actually getting to be pretty annoying.”

Interestingly, the post has been pulled down, but kotaku posted a quote while it was up.

Gamasutra’s column Blogged Out, referenced a blog post by Stuart Roch from Treyarch that suggests that Gears of War’s 95% percent was undeserving. Now, I absolutely love Gears of War, but I have only played the first half an hour, so it’s quite possible I haven’t played enough for the issues he mentions to get on my nerves. (However, I managed to have some issues with Zelda that got on my nerves during that same duration). Now, assuming Gears of War was not deserving of its 95% review scores (which Stuart admitted he hadn’t played enough of the game to rule that), and I feel pretty safe in saying that Zelda doesn’t deserve a 96.5% on gamerankings.com, which it currently has. Why would it be that reviewers would rate them so highly?

Part of it is that the scale seems very skewed. A 70% is considered bad. If I don’t know anything else about the game other than the review, I don’t want to play a game that receives a 70%. If the scale ranges from 0-100%, you’d think that 50% would be average. I suppose the way it works is like the way we are graded (at least in the US), but with 50% being the norm, there would be more room for reviewers to point out inadequacies with an otherwise great game. Also, I think reviewers want to give ratings that the fans will agree with. Although this may go against journalistic integrity, fans don’t like reading reviews that they don’t agree with. 1up.com had some backlash with its review of Neverwinter Nights 2, and of course, as Stuart mentions, Eurogamer had backlash about its review of Gears of War, and Gamespot about its 8.8 favorable review of Zelda. I imagine some fans might want to turn to other news sources to find one more in line with their own preferences in gaming, so it may not be in site’s best interests to alienate the readers. 1up although they took down their review of Neverwinter Nights 2, they still gave it a relatively bad score in its re-review. So, what can we do? Who can we trust on reviews? I think all too often people forget that there is no way to objectively review a game, since whether a game is good or not is a matter of opinion. I really enjoyed Sudeki, but it only has a 73% on gamerankings.com. Does that mean it’s a bad game? Does that mean it’s an only okay game? Well, no. That just means reviewers didn’t like it as much as I did. Sudeki certainly didn’t have a lot of hype or fans following it, but it was similar to Zelda. Had Sudeki been released as a Zelda game, would it have gotten higher reviews? I’d say so because people would want it to live up to their expectations. Sure, Sudeki may have changed too much of the Zelda formula, (which I think is a good thing) so Zelda fans might have complained (like they did about Majora’s Mask and Zelda 2), but I guess Zelda fans don’t mind playing the same thing over and over again.

So, Sudeki would have gotten higher reviews if it were a Zelda game because of all the Zelda fans that would want it to be good. I know I wanted Sonic Heroes to be good since I really love Sonic, so I thought it was a pretty good game while playing it, but in hindsight, it wasn’t very good at all. What about Gears of War? It is a new IP. That’s very true, but it had a lot of expectations before it came out. Everyone I work with can tell you that I have been raving about Gears of War since I saw CliffyB’s demo at E3. Certainly there were a lot of expectations because of all the hype, and I’m sure people who were excited about it wanted it to be good. Now, I’m not trying to say that Gears of War wasn’t deserving of its high marks. When I play more, I can be a better judge of that. But, I think people who are excited about any title want it to turn out good and that includes the reviewers. It can skew the results. If you listen to the 1up yours podcast for 11/17, one journalist goes on at great length about how Twilight Princess is the best game ever, but another seems to have the same viewpoint as I. Could it be that the huge Zelda fan had a lot of expectations, and he wanted the game to live up to it? It’s hard to say, but I would say yes. I may be guilty of the same thing for Gears of War.

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.

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.

Xbox Content Creators Club: A Great Way for Beginners to Start Game Development2
Matt posted in Xbox 360, Getting into Games on August 21st, 2006

It’s no secret that a lot of console developers look down on PC game developers. PC games have frequent patches (although to be fair, Xbox 360 games have seen their share of patches too), large quantities of memory to waste (especially with virtual memory paging out anything that you might have leaked), and are designed for $3000 hardware. PC game developers have plenty of hardships that console game developers don’t face. Supporting a wide range of hardware is quite difficult. They have to make a game that can work with hundreds of video cards and drivers each with varying capabilities and performance. Making a game look good with infinite combinations of target hardware is always a challenge, let alone designing a game engine for hardware that will be out two (or in Valve’s case 5) years from now.

Microsoft has offered a great solution to this. Although Sony pioneered the idea of user created games for their systems with the Net Yaroze (a special development Playstation 1) and the Playstation Linux Dev Kit (a special linux distribution for Playstation 2 that would allow development), Microsoft is taking it a step further since you can do it on a regular Xbox 360 without any difficult setup. Although it seems a bit expensive ($99 a year), hopefully the price will come down quickly, and ideally, they’d offer it for free. Now, it should be easy for anyone interested to get console experience that developers expect. No longer will amateur game developers have to worry about designing a game that works on all sorts of different video cards with different features. They can make a game that works on one target hardware configuration and focus on squeezing every ounce of performance out of it.

The beta version of XNA Game Studio Express (the development tool used to make games for the 360) isn’t out yet, so I can’t comment on the API, but Managed DirectX simplified DirectX development somewhat. No longer will developers have to check a multitude of HRESULTS to figure out what was wrong. Exception handling greatly simplifies handling all the error cases, but let’s hope they improve the API to take advantage of the string in the exception, so you won’t spend hours trying to figure out which parameter was incorrect when you get an invalid call exception. (If you haven’t done Direct X programming, oftentimes a bad function parameter will return an HRESULT that corresponds to invalid call. That’s all the information you get, so it’s tough to debug.) Console development with a learning curve that’s potentially less steep then PC game development (since you no longer have to check the capabilities of the system and come up with a backup plan) will hopefully make it easier for amateur game developers to express themselves creatively without getting hung up on the technically challenging aspects of game creation.

Another good aspect of the Content Creators Club is that publishers might be interested in commercially publishing the best games. Sure, you could create a freeware game and hope that someone is interested in making a commercial version of it like Every Extend Extra, or you could try and earn revenue by making it shareware, but with both of those avenues, it’s going to be difficult to stand out from the huge numbers of freeware/shareware PC games out there. With the Content Creators  Club, they’ll be one place to check all the games available, and I imagine that Microsoft will rate them by popularity. Also, Xbox Live Arcade is a much better way to sell an indie game than on the PC because the attach rate is very high, and you don’t have to worry about piracy. Microsoft has made it easy so that people without credit cards can buy marketplace points at their favorite game stores.

All in all, the Content Creators Club is a very exciting opportunity for everyone who is not already professionally developing games. It even may work well for professional game developers trying to put together a demo to pitch to publishers. Hopefully, Microsoft will lower the price to reduce the cost of entry and streamline the API, so it’s even easier for people without a lot of experience to start making games!

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.

Xbox 360 Dash: What the next update should include0
Matt posted in Xbox 360, Wii on July 19th, 2006

I love the Xbox Dash. Microsoft is really turning the Xbox 360 into more than an ordinary video game console with it. They have committed to bi-yearly updates, which is really great because the platform is constantly improving and innovations/new features can be introduced over the life cycle of the product. I think everyone will agree that the ability to queue up downloads was a much needed improvement. But what other improvements are needed? Here’s my thoughts.

More Marketplace Content – Microsoft has created a great platform. I really think they should use it for more. Why not be like iTunes and create a whole new way to distribute sell TV shows in HD? I’d pay to download my favorite shows in 720p just the movie trailers they offer for free. Why not offer more movie trailers? I’m sure the movie studios would host them to get the free advertising. Plus, I can’t get enough of the “Snakes on a Plane” trailer.

Using Live Gold at a friend’s house – I wanted to play The Outfit online with my friend. The Outfit (unlike Perfect Dark Zero) REQUIRES that you have two Xbox Live Gold accounts (one for each player). We had our accounts, but we still couldn’t play. Why? Because he can’t sign in with his Live account. The only way he can do that is if he moves his Live account to my machine. The problem with that is that the next time he tries to connect his own Xbox to Live, it will delete all of his saved games as well as his Live profile. I can understand that Microsoft doesn’t want two people using one Live account, but the way it works is completely ridiculous and ruins the whole idea of Live. The whole point of Live is so you can have your gaming profile shared across games. If you can’t share your profile when you are at a friend’s house, then Live isn’t really an advantage over storing local settings on your machine. Also, I think it’s pretty lame that you HAVE to have two Live Gold accounts for games like The Outfit. I don’t know why they didn’t let you log in as a guest for the second player, but they really should have.

More Classic Live Gaming – Microsoft bought Rare. Now I’m not sure how the publishing contract worked, but I imagine they own some rights to their old IP. (I know Nintendo sued about Perfect Dark, and I believe they lost) Why not release classic Rare games through Xbox Live Arcade? Nintendo is touting their virtual console as a killer app, so why shouldn’t Microsoft steal some of their thunder by re-releasing (or doing simple remakes to avoid copyright issues) classic Rare games?  Here’s what I’d like to see: Battletoads, Killer Instinct, Blast Corps, and Banjo-Kazooie.  (Let’s hope they don’t rerelease Taboo: The Sixth Sense) If those appeared on a Microsoft platform, that would hurt one of the Wii’s big selling points. That would show that Microsoft can release some classic games that appeared on Nintendo systems. Since Microsoft has bought Bungie, why haven’t they re-released Marathon? (I don’t think Pathways into Darkness is worth re-releasing, but maybe there are some Pathways fans out there) Why don’t they get a deal with Sega also to release their classics on the Xbox 360? Sega has a deal with GameTap also, so it seems like anyone can get the old Sega IP if they pay for it… (That’s assuming Nintendo doesn’t have an exclusive deal, which they may) Nintendo doesn’t have the rights to everything that was published for the Nintendo consoles, so why not get a deal for exclusive rights to the Konami back catalog? I can’t be the only one who wants to play Contra at 720p! Why not get Capcom classics on Xbox Live Arcade? Capcom is already re-releasing everything they can think of (except the classic Chip and Dale’s Rescue Rangers and Ducktales. Those games are awesome).

Remove copy protection on saved game files – I borrowed an Xbox 360 from a friend because it took me a while to get one. (I preordered mine, but apparently, I didn’t preorder it early enough) I created my gametag and Xbox Live Gold account on his machine and started playing Dead or Alive 4. I wanted to move my saved game, so I bought a memory card. I was disappointed to find that I couldn’t transfer it to my new Xbox 360. I ended up buying a SATA Xbox 360 hard disk adapter that would allow me to transfer my Dead or Alive 4 saved games. The saved game was still tied to my Live ID, which was a bit annoying because I couldn’t use ones that I downloaded off the internet, but at least I could back up/transfer my saved games. With hard disk failure rates being what they are and how important saved game files are to some (all?) gamers, you’d think Microsoft wouldn’t prevent someone from backing up their own saved game. So, I’m fine because I bought a SATA Xbox 360 hard disk adapter, but it is relatively involved to install (it takes a PC SATA cable and an internal power plug), and if you flip the connector around, it’ll fry the hard disk because it’s a symmetrical plug (one side is power and the other is the SATA signal). Datel has made an Xsata transfer kit, which I imagine is a lot easier to use, but also costs $50 as opposed to the $10 or so I paid for my little circuit board.

VCDs – Maybe I’m the only one who likes VCDs in the United States, but VCDs are quite popular in Asia. Almost all DVD players will play them, why not the Xbox 360? If you are trying to make it an entertainment hub, I would think supporting as many formats as possible would be the way to get this point across.

Web Browser - Why isn’t there a version of Internet Explorer available for Xbox 360? You can use a USB keyboard and with HD resolutions, surfing the web won’t be so bad. It’s not an essential feature, but it’s definitely a useful one and probably one that Sony will offer on their Playstation 3 since they even offer it on the small PSP screen.

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.