Friday Night Fail: Halloween Edition

It's Halloween (my favorite holiday), so it's only right that I present a special Halloween edition of Friday Night Fail.

This started as a search for costumes, more specifically bad costumes that relate to video gaming. It culminated in this:This, my friends, is an Asteroids costume. I'm not sure when it was made, though based on the old plastic-mask-with-vinyl-printed-bodysuit style I'd say it came out back when Asteroids was still a somewhat relevant game in pop culture. However, that does not excuse the timeless fail of this particular costume.

The biggest fail actually has nothing to do with the style of costume. When I was a kid I wore some of those types of Halloween get-ups, they were popular back in the day, so the mask/ bodysuit thing isn't the issue here. The biggest problem is that there are no characters in this game to speak of. It's not like you get to dressed up as Darth Vader or Spider-Man or Ponch from CHiPs or someone. No, you get to wear a costume designed around a little triangle that shoots dots at jagged round things.

"Who are you supposed to be, sweetie?"
"I'm Asteroids."
"Oh, how... nice. Here's... ummm... some raisins for you."

The bodysuit looks like it's a screenshot from the game. Again, with no character's outfit to replicate, there's really not a lot of content to work with here. You're not the hero of some epic tale when you wear this, you're a poor representation of the game itself.

Plus, what the hell is up with that mask? Is it an asteroid? Is it a mass of eyeballs? A pile of Life Savers mints? I'm really not sure, but I'm reasonably sure that whatever it is never appeared in the actual game. I've played multiple versions of the game, on a variety of gaming machines, and I never saw anything resembling a calamari sushi plate.

So there you have it. Quite possibly the most fail-tastic example of a Halloween/ video game convergence: the Asteroids costume.

Bonus fail points, incidentally, for this store-bought gem:It's an arcade machine, which could almost be seen as somehow clever on some level. However, the choice of game (Snake) is a little silly. The biggest issue, though? The placement of the controls. The stick, adorned with a red ball on the tip, is sticking straight up from around crotch level. Meaning that, if I were wearing this atrocity, I'd spend my entire evening going around to hot girls trying to get them to play with my joystick.

Life Imitating Art, or the Other Way Around

In yesterday's post, I made up a few entertaining news stories intended to show... well, to show that I'm a real odd duck whose brain doesn't always spin in a normal orbit. It was also poking fun at the media that often blames tragedies on video games simply because some messed up kid happened to play Left 4 Dead.

So imagine my surprise when I read a news story that sounded like something I could have made up for yesterday's piece. However, this is a real tale, reported by GameSetWatch, involving a confused man and the game Silent Hill.

According to the story, a man shut off the electricity to a hospital because he thought he was playing the game. This actually happened last April, at Sophia Hospital in the Netherlands, and the man in question is a 35 year old known only as Jan H.

Seems Mr. H was looking to acquire a toothbrush, which he believed could be done by manipulating the levers and switches in the basement of the hospital. These rather important switches, of course, controlled the medical facility's electricity. Nobody was seriously hurt during the blackout, which involved forty-five minutes of doctors manually respirating patients and being stuck in elevators and other fun power outage activities. The man, claiming he was suffering a psychosis, was found not guilty last Tuesday. The court believed that he "had no idea the true consequence of his deeds".


So there you go. I slave over a hot laptop, trying to create some amusing news stories about video games and people trying to imitate them, and then reality goes and tries to one-up me. Damn you, reality!

Badly Influenced

To any gamer who follows industry news, it's an old story: stupid person commits a crime (usually one of violence against another person), stupid person happens to be a video gamer, video games get blamed for stupid person's stupidity.

Generally there are specific games that are used in the news to indicate why one of these morons committed the crime. Halo and Grand Theft Auto are two of the most common ones, Left 4 Dead came up not too long ago; Generally the media will pick out a game or two from the person's collection and then form tenuous connections between the crime and the interactive entertainment the dumbass enjoyed playing.

Now, anybody with half a brain knows that the criminals in question were pretty fucked up to begin with, and that their games really played very little to no part in the unfortunate situations that occurred because of this fact. No rational, reasonably well adjusted person is going to sit down and play Halo for an hour and then go to the local mall and start shooting it up. Although playing Halo online, to be fair, has made me want to commit acts of violence more than once, but that's just against the doucheknocker kids that also play Halo online.

It got me thinking, though, what if games were the reason? What if these electronic adventures were so persuasive that they could cause a person to actually imitate the actions of their in-game avatars? Then, we could see stories like this:

--Rash of Thefts Occur in Small Town, Final Fantasy Blamed
A young woman was arrested today for walking into strange houses and rummaging through their dressers and desks. She in no way threatened any of the occupants in any of the homes, and when confronted by police she stated that she was looking for "money or other goods that could help her on her quest".
One resident whose home was invaded by the girl had the following to say:
"It was strange. We had left the door unlocked, and she just walked right in and started opening drawers. When I approached her, she just asked me if I knew how to get past the ice at the entrance to the frost cave. She then took a handful of change from my dresser and walked out the door."
When the young woman was put in prison, she didn't seem at all surprised or upset. Reports from the precinct indicate that she said "the heroes always end up in jail at some point in the adventure".

--Domestic Disturbance Call, Man Found Yelling at Inanimate Objects
Police responded to calls last night from residents of an apartment complex who claimed that another tenant was yelling and moving furniture around late last night.
When officers responded they found that the man had in fact stacked all of his furniture, obviously trying to fit it all together without any spaces in between.
"It was weird," one officer told our reporter, "He had stacked the long couch next to the square ottoman, and was trying to fit the L-shaped corner desk in when we arrived".
The man was reportedly very agitated, and yelling that he had "made a line" but it "wasn't disappearing" and that if he reached the ceiling he was going to die.
A search of the man's home uncovered a Nintendo DS system with a copy of Tetris, which officials believe caused this unusual scene.

--Man Arrested for Bringing Whip to Castle
A man was arrested yesterday while on a tour of a historic castle. Witnesses say he had brought a whip, and was using it to destroy all of the candelabras and sconces that lined the walls of the building.
When questioned, the man stated that he was hoping to find coins and "hearts" within the destroyed candles. These items, he claimed, would make it easier to "defeat the vampire master of this evil castle".
The man also assaulted two employees of the castle when they attempted to stop him, whipping them repeatedly. Each time they stood back up he whipped them again, and witnesses state he was yelling about the "damn zombies".
At this time, the man's obsession with the video game Castlevania is believed to be what sent him into such a state.

--Man Removed From Zoo, Possible Drug Use Involved
A man was removed in handcuffs from a local zoo yesterday afternoon after climbing over the wall of an enclosure and leaping onto the backs of tortoises.
Witnesses stated that they had seen the man, described as short and sporting a heavy black moustache, eating what looked like mushrooms shortly before the incident.
The man, who told police he was a plumber, had climbed into the large open tortoise habitat and jumped onto the back of one of the animals. He then jumped onto the next, and had made it to one more before security managed to catch him and remove him from the exhibit.
A search of the man's home, conducted to determine what would cause such behavior, found that he was an avid player of the game Super Mario Brothers. While gaming advocates firmly state that there is no way this caused the man's delusions, state psychologists assigned to the case feel it may be more than coincidence.


If gaming were truly the cause of some of the violent acts we see in the real news, then it's only a matter of time before we see stories like the ones above. A chilling look at the possibilities, to be sure, and one that this humble reporter hopes never comes to pass.

Friday Night Fail: Seriously? Edition

Crimson Skies. Beyond Good and Evil. Eternal Darkness.

These games are definitely not fail, but they do share one commonality: they all deserve (worthy) sequels. The original games were great examples of their genres, and the fact that nobody has brought these series into the new generation is actually pretty surprising.

However, what is fail, and the focus of tonight's post, is the fact that Two Worlds 2 is happening.

The first game was a disaster, one of the lowest rated games if this generation (and the subject of my second FNF), and simply an experience that makes the average gamer want to stab their eyes out after just a few minutes of play. You would think that, given these facts, the developer and publisher responsible (Reality Pump and Southpeak, respectively) would want to distance themselves from the title and let it be forgotten amid the annals of gaming history.

Like a moth who gets burned by a porch light and then goes right back, though, that dynamic duo has teamed up again to unleash a sequel upon the world of interactive entertainment.

Of course, is it fair for me to announce Two Worlds 2 as a failure, given that the game is still some ways away from release and I haven't even played a demo, much less a finished product? Ordinarily I would say no, that I'm just judging without cause, but in this case I think my statements are valid. After all, we are talking about a sequel to Two Worlds.

A recent press release very proudly announced the game, and offered up a glimpse at the fail on the horizon. They showed a couple of screenshots (which I have very little faith in, as there were some nice pics from the first game), and then offered up some "sweet" information: that when you walk through the swamps there's a squishy noise.

Yes, the marketing department felt that the biggest announcement they could make about their game was that "...the marshy ground sucks at the character’s feet hindering his movement more so then if he was on dry land. Additionally, dynamic sounds have been constructed to further demonstrate the game’s attention to detail. When the hero steps into the marshy ground, he will hear a terrifyingly disgusting squishing noise that will make the player cringe with delight."

So your big reveal, the first information that is supposed to make gamers get excited about your project, is that they move slower in mud and it makes a squishy noise? Wow. Let me rush out today and preorder this exciting gaming experience.

What they don't reveal, though, is whether or not any of the myriad faults from the first game have been addressed. You know, little flaws like: terrible graphics, some of the worst voice acting in gaming history, abysmal controls, a laughable story, et cetera, et cetera.

Is it fair for me to condemn a game that hasn't been released yet? Probably not, and ordinarily I'd like to think that I have just enough journalistic integrity not to do so.

In the case of Two Worlds 2, though, I think I can make an exception.

Tomb Raider: Arkham Asylum

Dear Eidos and WB Interactive,

Recently I have been playing a game that your companies published, by the name of Batman: Arkham Asylum, and I can say that it is truly an amazing experience. I'm not the biggest fan of Batman, but this game has really taken my breath away.

As I play this excellent title, though, it makes me think of another franchise that your companies are known for. I am speaking, of course, about Tomb Raider. Yes, I understand that these games are developed by different studios (Rocksteady and Crystal Dynamics, respectively), but since you published these titles I am going to bring this discussion directly to you.

Batman: Arkham Asylum has done very well in terms of sales. Of course, a large part of this success is due directly to it being a Batman game, but strong reviews and a solid gaming experience are certainly helping. The fact is, if it were simply a piece of licensed trash, the sales would have reflected this. The other game in question, Tomb Raider Underworld, did not do nearly as well as you had hoped. Reviews were mediocre, and subsequent press releases by your company stated that sales fell short of expectations.

One of my earliest posts discussed this, as well as your decision to rework the franchise and take a more "family friendly" approach. In that post I had expressed my fear over what this could mean for the venerable series. I had stated, and I still believe, that you are going completely in the wrong direction in this case and need to get your collective heads out of your asses and rethink this issue.

Now my point here is this: Batman is a spectacular game. Tight controls, amazing graphics, smooth combat, action, puzzles, adventure, et cetera. There are wide open spaces, there are claustrophobic caves, and there's a pretty cool story tying it all together. It is, to be blunt, exactly what a Tomb Raider game should be.

So I believe that, to fix the fallen franchise, the answer is actually pretty simple: take it out of the hands of Crystal Dynamics and give it to Rocksteady. Let them use the same brilliant less-is-more mentality, the same attention to detail, and the same engaging gameplay that they used in Batman: Arkham Asylum. Rather that make the Tomb Raider series more family friendly, how about treating it with a bit more maturity?

Thank you for your time, and have a lovely day.

--The Grumbly Gamer

Downward Slide

I've been working my way through Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, which I'm going to state now is not a terrible game by any means. Regardless of whatever ranting I do after this point, I have been enjoying my time with this title.

I was a really big fan of the first game, and had been looking forward to the sequel from the day it was announced. I spent my hard-earned birthday money to buy it, and very eagerly jumped right into the adventure.

Like I said, it's definitely a decent game. It's just... not as good as the first game.

Which brings me to tonight's discussion: when a good game is brought down by a sub-par sequel. When you purchase a game based on your enjoyment of the first one, hoping that you'll be playing an experience that takes all the great concepts laid out previously and expanding upon them, and finding that you're actually being let down.

Like I said, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 isn't a bad game when considered on its own merits. It has a decent roster of super heroes and villains, a cool storyline that splits and encourages multiple plays to see everything, and the same frantic action-RPG gameplay that made the first one so much fun. You can now switch team members at almost any time without looking for a special access point, as well as save just about anywhere, and the "fusion" attacks are a cool addition.

When compared to the first game, though, it definitely falls short. The second one isn't as long as the first, there are fewer heroes and they just don't seem as fun (I miss Ghost Rider and Moon Knight in particular, but the entire roster seems to be a shadow of that of its predecessor), and some of the key strategic elements have been pulled out. Sure, we have the inclusion of the team boosts, which is pretty cool, but the whole costume thing bothers me.

For those who haven't played the first game: throughout the adventure, you'd unlock costumes for your characters through combat. Each hero had four costumes available to them, and changing these costumes actually changed the powers the hero had. So there was a strategic element to the game in deciding which costume you wanted your heroes to don, based upon the abilities they would get as a result. The second game completely pulled this, making the costume changes nothing more than cosmetic and subsequently removing part of the strategy involved in the first game.

Of course, MUA2 is hardly the first game to take a downward slide from its predecessor. It actually made me think back to a similar situation: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. The first game was amazing, a deep RPG set in the Star Wars universe. The sequel, which had been done by a different studio, fell short of the expectations set by the quality of the first. Sure, there were some cool new touches (like the ability to sway the alignments of your team members), but overall it was a let down when compared to the first title. The story didn't flow as well, and there were just a bunch of little issues that made it less fun than the first.

Part of it, I suppose, is the fact that there's an expectation that the sequel is going to be an improvement from the first game. Not only in graphics and the technical aspects, but in the gameplay and the experience. In something like KOTOR, the first game was something new and exciting, something that we really hadn't seen before. When the sequel rolled around, we had already seen it, meaning that initial amazement was gone and therefore we required more to keep our interest. It wasn't a terrible game, it just wasn't a great follow-up to the previous title.

Of course, games aren't the only form of media where this happens. Movies (*cough*Transformers 2*cough*) have the same issue, perhaps even more often than games do. Which adds nothing to the point, but I wanted to state how atrocious Transformers 2 really was.

Sadly, I think that there's an inherent assumption that fans are just going to buy the game no matter what (and in most cases we do). Sometimes in an effort to preserve what made the first game special there's no advancement, or maybe it's a marketing decision to keep things the same because that's what sold well the first time.

It's too bad, because I do like MUA2, but while I play all I can think is:
"The first game was better."

Preview: Bayonetta

Preview time!

I'm not usually one for writing previews, but every now and again a game comes along that I'm excited enough for to make an exception. Right now, that game is Bayonetta. Originally slated for a holiday release in the US, it has been pushed back to early next year, but a demo was recently released on Xbox Live in Japan and I got my greedy little hands on it.

Bayonetta is an action game, and a lot of the press on the title compares it to another fast-paced action title: Devil May Cry. As I have never played DMC I won't be making any such comparisons, and will instead be judging Bayonetta without any preconceived notions.

The demo opens with a cinematic done in a sepia-toned movie style right down to the perforated edges seen on strips of film. Thus far I have very little idea as to what's going on in the story, but I do know a few things. As the character Bayonetta, you're a witch who is battling "halos", but these are no feathery angels. In fact, they're horrific monsters who happen to have shining halos hovering over their misshapen heads.

Let me see if I can describe this and have it make a lick of sense. I've tried, and so far I'm not sure if I've succeeded: Bayonetta is a sultry, leather-clad, woman with pistols in her hands and a gun strapped to each ankle. She also has melee weapons, so she can slash and shoot as she tears through her opponents. However, the skin-tight catsuit actually isn't leather, but it's made up entirely of her hair. As she fights and performs longer and more elaborate combos, the hair starts whipping around and becomes a weapon itself, which also means that it's stripping away from her body until she's virtually nude and there's giant fists or boots of black hair pounding on enemies. When the combo string stops, the hair resumes its place on her body and once again looks like black leather.

Nope... still no sense at all.

The action in Bayonetta is fast and brutal, and what I really like is how easy it is to pull of crazy combos and feel like a bad-ass. The controls are pretty simple: one button kicks, another punches, and there's also shoot and jump buttons. One trigger locks on, and the other performs a dodge move. As you string together combinations of kicking and punching your attack gets more brutal, and if you've got some magic energy stored up (which generates by attacking) you'll unleash a powerful move at the end of the string. An example would be a portal opening behind your character from which a giant stiletto boot (made entirely of writhing black hair) emerges and kicks you opponent right as your own boot strikes him. You can also, right as an enemy is swinging at you, dodge and avoid the attack. If done right this will send everything into slow motion that for a few moments that will allow you to attack almost unimpeded. Really, you can (at least in the battles presented in the demo) button-mash and still feel like a killer action hero. The combat is fluid and visceral, blood splatters as enemies explode from your assault, and at no time was I stopping to try to remember a specific combo. I also really liked that these magic attacks happened naturally: there was no stopping to cast a spell or engage some sort of extra button presses to make something happen. It's a natural part of the combat, which means you can keep attacking and the combat will keep flowing.

At times you can pick up a fallen enemy's weapon for a few minutes, and they'll also drop items that you'll pick up just by being near them. You can pick up health herbs that give your meter an immediate boost, as well as purple butterflies that will fill your magic meter. You can also pick up "halos", money that presumably will play into the final game for upgrading weapons or abilities. There were also points awarded at the end of each stage.

If you've got some energy in your magic meter, and you get close to an enemy, you can perform a "punishing attack" that has you hit two buttons at once and grab onto your foe. You'll then rapidly press the button indicated to power up the attack, and when the timer hits zero you'll unleash a brutal move that generally obliterates your opponent. There was also an opportunity to perform a similar move at the end of one of the demo's boss battles: when you had the boss down to virtually no health, there was a chance to hit the correct button (shown on the screen) and start a punisher. Rapidly pressing the X button filled the power meter, and then a cinematic finishing move ensued in which a giant black dragon made of hair appeared and chomped the enemy in half. This ended in a gratuitous skin shot of Bayonetta, as her hair swirled back down around her and reformed into clothing.

The demo consisted of two levels. In one, the sultry star was on a falling clock tower, fighting as debris rained down from the sky. It was weird and gothic and fit the motif of witches battling angels. The second took place in a city garden, amid pleasant white cobbled streets. Both featured a ton of enemies coming at you, the combat rarely letting you catch your breath. The graphics were impressive, the action smooth even with all sorts of things happening on screen. There's plenty of detail, and everything is crisp and colorful. The sound is what you'd expect: pistols firing, swords clashing, the roars and grunts of combat. Bayonetta herself is prone to spouting comments (like a chiding "naughty" as she pounds a foe into oblivion), and from what I've seen in the demo and the videos the voice acting looks about on par for this sort of game.

The game is fast, fun, and bizarre. The combat is easy to pick up but complex for those who are really into learning combos. It all looks gorgeous, and runs smoothly.

This demo has done nothing to curb my enthusiasm for Bayonetta, in fact it only serves to make the wait for the US release even tougher. Hopefully, the full game will be as impressive as these two short levels are.

Ninety Nine Friday Night Fails

It's no secret that I enjoy playing bad games. In fact, some of the more reviled titles in recent history (Too Human, Bullet Witch, Grabbed by the Ghoulies) I actually had quite a good time with. I mean, I draw the line at really horrific (I'm looking at you, Two Worlds), but I can often look past the flaws and glean some measure of fun out a game.

That doesn't mean that I don't acknowledge their flaws, and know damned well that I'm playing a piece of crap and enjoying it. Such is the case with tonight's victi... umm, I mean... subject, Ninety Nine Nights.

Often referred to as N3, Ninety Nine Nights is a hack-and-slash action game. Over the course of the adventure you'll play as several characters, tearing through hordes of enemies using a variety of attacks and magical powers. On paper it sounds just fine, and even at the start the game seems promising. The graphics aren't that bad, the controls work, and the storyline may not be inventive but it serves its purpose.

After a little while, though, the initial positive impressions give way to the major flaws of N3.

First off, while the game does have an impressive amount of enemies onscreen with no slowdown, there are actually only a small handful of different monsters throughout the entire adventure. The same four or five are repeated by the hundreds throughout the entire game, and with the exception of the occasional boss you won't see any variety regardless of which character you're playing.

Next up we have the combat. While fast and furious, it really boils down to just hitting the attack buttons a lot and occasionally unleashing a super ability. There are some light RPG elements: levels and items that can enhance your attack and defense or offer up some other buff, but they're reasonably superficial in the end. There's one single choice of direction you get throughout the game. With all the levels, the different characters, and everything, there's only one point where you actually get to decide which level you go to next. This choice affects whether or not you get the secret level at the very end, but other than that doesn't really make any major differences. At the start of each level you choose your back-up army to lead from a small selection of options (archers, pikemen, etc), but they mostly serve as cannon fodder and don't really add anything to the combat.

The game mostly seems full of ideas that were started, but never seen through.

Then, we have the story. I'm willing to overlook some flaws if the narrative is gripping, but N3's story is maddeningly incoherent. There are seven different characters that you'll play throughout the game, each one with his or her own tale. The different stories do intersect at times, but more often than not they actually contradict each other. Characters that you kill off in one story are playable characters later, and you'll be striking down the characters you were playing in the earlier tale. So it's impossible to really get into the narrative, since the next story could completely disagree with what you just accomplished. Granted, there are two "main" characters, so I think their stories (which do mostly coincide with each other) are the real ones, but in the end even that narrative wasn't strong enough to make me care about any of it.

I had fun with Ninety Nine Nights, but that's hardly an endorsement of quality given some of the other games I've enjoyed. It's repetitive, nonsensical, and most of the good ideas aren't fleshed out enough to make a difference. It's too bad, because with a stronger story, more variety, and more choices to make throughout the tale it could have been a pretty impressive title.

The Sad Panda

If you're into the show South Park, like I am, you may remember the episode that featured the character "Sexual Harassment Panda". If you're unfamiliar: he was a man in a panda suit that went to schools to educate the kids about, obviously, sexual harassment, a subject that made him a "sad panda".

That reference is only there to lead into the subject of tonight's post: game-related things that, lately, are making me a sad panda. So, in no particular order:

Games that looked better than they play: I'm going to just come out and give a solid example here... Scribblenauts. After E3, every press outlet was hailing this game as one of the year's best, heaping awards onto it and raving about it in previews and hands-on articles. Everything I heard and saw made me want it more and more, so I reserved it and bought it day one.
It's... not great. The controls are pretty crappy, some of the puzzles are needlessly esoteric, and it has a lot of issues. I still find it fun, and I do play it, but it looked way better before it came out.
Scribbenauts is hardly the only example, though. Lots of titles look amazing in preview, get cool videos and write-ups based on only the little bit of game the press are allowed to see, and when they finally hit retail they're disappointing.
Maybe it's the fault of the "show us more" culture in the industry, that need gamers have to know as much as possible about a game before even playing it. Maybe it's the hype machine that marketing departments need to unleash in order to even get noticed on crowded shelves. Maybe it's both or none of those.
Either way, playing a game I was uber-excited about only to be let down makes me a sad panda (see how I worked that in there?)

Concepts that don't translate into good gameplay: Again, I'm going to pick on Scribblenauts for a moment. As I said, it's not really that bad, but when compared against all the hype it's certainly a let down. In this case, the concept of "writing anything" to solve puzzles just doesn't translate as well into gaming as I had hoped. It can get entertaining, but it's very clearly an example of the concept being more than the game could ever be.
Another offender is Last Remnant, an RPG that had some unique concepts for the battle system that could have been pretty cool but ended up being frustrating and overly complex. Whatever the designers had in mind on paper just didn't work in the virtual sense of the game.

Sequels that let down the original: I'm looking at you, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2...
I'm playing this game now, having been really excited for its release because I greatly enjoyed the first one. While the sequel is a decent game, it's actually less fun than its predecessor. They took out some cool aspects (like different costumes offering different powers), and didn't really replace them with anything. The end result seems like a watered down follow-up instead of a sequel that added to the franchise.
Another offender, going back a ways here, is Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2. Now, I loved this game, but compared to the original title it simply didn't hold up. It did add one cool new feature: the ability to sway your companions to the light/ dark sides, but other than that it failed to capture the excellence of the first game. The narrative was weaker, there were technical issues that had been present in the previous game and were never corrected, and throughout the adventure I couldn't help feeling like number one was superior.

Kids games that treat kids like idiots: I bitched about this yesterday, but it bears another mention, as does the game I focused on in my last post: Star Wars: Republic Heroes. Poor gameplay, graphics that look like an early Gamecube title, and not much of a fun factor all add up to a game that isn't much fun to play regardless of age group. I'll probably still play it (it does have Kit Fisto as a playable Jedi, after all), but I'll be really grouchy about it the entire time.
Realistically, though, you could replace that title with any licensed kids game and the basics would still hold true (except for that Kit Fisto part).

Amazing games that are overlooked while crap games sell tons: This is less the fault of the games themselves, and I'm more looking at consumers who are afraid to take risks and marketing departments that pour all their focus into the "big" titles and steamroll over the smaller ones that (in many cases) are way better.
I recently completed The World Ends With You for the DS. It was, hands-down, one of the best things I've played all year. Original, challenging without being frustrating, and just fun to play, but it didn't sell nearly as well as it should have. Meanwhile, the latest movie-licensed shovelware is selling like crazy. People cry out that they want innovation and quality, but quite often end up sticking to the "safe" games and never give some of these more unusual titles a chance.
Right now I'm playing Super Robot Taisen for the DS. Just picked it up because I thought it looked cool, and it turns out that it's a lot of fun.

New game return policies: Again, something that I grumbled about recently, but again bears a quick mention again. More people would take risks on games if they weren't scared of wasting their hard-earned gaming dollars on something they wouldn't necessarily like.

There's at least a small list of gaming woes that make me sad. I'm sure there are others, and I'm sure I'll eventually make another one of these lists to complain about all of them.

Dumbing Down

I just downloaded and played the demo for Star Wars: Republic Heroes. While I don't think it's very fair to judge a game based on a fairly small bit of play, a couple of things became very obvious very early: This game is obviously designed for a younger crowd, and this game is not very good.

I really want to like it. I mean, it's Star Wars, which is inherently awesome, and I do like to find fun multiplayer games that I can play with my daughter. We get quite a bit of enjoyment out of playing the various Lego games, and I was really hoping that Republic Heroes could be another good time. Really, though, I think we'll stick to those little brick characters.

At which point did a "kid game" translate into a "puerile and bad game"?

[Random anecdote alert] When I worked at a game store, I had a woman come in and purchase a PS2 console. She was planning on surprising her 9-year-old son with it when he got home from school that day. She was probably early 30's, pleasant, and seemed fairly well educated. Typical suburban soccer mom in every way.
She called me about an hour after leaving the store. She and her husband had decided to hook it up before the son got home, but it was her suspicion that there was some sort of malfunction with the hardware as it wasn't coming on or anything, so I offered to hold her one of the (at the time) fast-selling consoles so she could exchange it later in the day.
She called back a few hours later, apologizing and letting me know that I could sell the held system. When her 9-year-old son came home, he quickly rewired the set-up and everything worked perfectly.

My point with that story is that kids these days are way more tech-savvy than most adults are. Yet there are way too many "kids games" out there that treat them like brain-dead zombies without functioning thumbs. While the Wii is often seen as the worst offender of this, in reality many games geared for kids suck on any console. They're simplistic, with poor controls and dumbed down goals, and generally bad graphics and overall quality. They're quite often churned out to coincide with a licensed property, depending on the license to move the product.

There are, of course, exceptions. The Lego games are classified as "kids" titles but are really good for any age group. I own all three (Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Batman) and intend to purchase Harry Potter when it's released next year. I play them with my kid, sure, but also have put in plenty of hours on my own. The Pokemon games are deep, long, requiring strategy and thought, and are seen by most as meant for kids. Hell, one of my daughter's favorite games was Dragon Quest Monsters: Rocket Slime for the DS, an action RPG full of puzzles and some pretty involved combat.

Kids aren't dumb (well, some are), but the industry continues to see them as such. Games insult their intelligence, expecting them to like the title just because it features a "popular" character, and developers rarely take into account that these kids have been weaned on technology. I consider myself a hardcore gamer, and have been playing since my childhood, but my kid regularly beats me at games like Mario Kart and Dance Dance Revolution (OK, that last one is because I'm out of shape and as coordinated as a drunk walrus).

People are very quick to write off this nation's youth as morons and losers. Maybe if we stopped treating them like that, we'd see a change.

Friday Night Fail: Flame Broiled Edition

In terms of really creepy spokespersons, there's a good chance that the King from Burger King tops the list. However, the glassy-eyed meat monarch is apparently a gamer, since his empire released some Xbox 360 titles a few years back in a pretty unique cross promotion between Burger King and Microsoft.

Three games were released, all of them working on both the original Xbox and Xbox 360 consoles (complete with achievements on the 360). They were cheap enough, just $4, and were sold exclusively through the Burger King restaurants. The promotion was a huge success, the "adver-games" selling like crazy.

The question is, though: were the games any good?

It should be pointed out that, in some cases, "entertaining fun" and "good game" are sometimes not the same thing. These titles are perfect examples. They're cute, and amusing for a short while (partly due, of course, just to the concept of Burger King games), but they're hardly quality experiences.

Sneak King: My fave of the three. Play the creepy king through a variety of levels, sneaking up on people and handing them Burger King... food. Use the environment to hide, then jump out at unsuspecting passerby and shove a burger in their face. You have to only offer meals to those who are hungry (depicted by a word bubble with a pic of a sandwich over their heads), you have to do so before they faint from hunger, and you can't get caught by anybody while doing so. Also, you can "flourish", in which you perform one of three elaborately animated dance routines when offering their burger.
It's really entertaining at first, but the concept wears pretty thin after a few hours of doing the same thing over and over. There's nothing more to the game than handing strangers food after jumping out of a porta-potty. The graphics and sound are below original Xbox standards, and the controls get a little wonky on occasion (which is frustrating when you're trying to avoid detection). Once the novelty wears off, you'll realize that the game itself isn't very good, and stands entirely on the absurdity of the idea.

Pocketbike Racers: Various Burger King spokes...creatures (the King, the Subservient Chicken, Brooke Burke [?], and a handful of others) ride around tracks on little motorcycle things.
I couldn't get past the loose controls on this one. I kept getting stuck on random environmental objects. To be fair, though, I pretty much suck at racing games, so maybe that was just me. The game has the same low production values (graphics, sound, etc) as the others, but of course they were available for four bucks at a fast food burger joint, so I don't think anybody brought them home expecting Gears of War.
The problem here is that Pocketbike Racers isn't a very good game on all fronts, and doesn't have the bizarre concept to keep it afloat (for a while, anyway) like Sneak King. Unless you're a huge fan of some of the characters in the game, it's nothing more than a sub-standard bike racing game.

Big Bumpin': Part racing game, part bumper cars, part last-man-standing sort of competition, this one (like Sneak King) survives for a while on its concept if not its basic quality. It's also perhaps the most raw fun of the three, especially when playing with friends. Strap into a bumper car and slam into your opponents through a variety of stages. In some, you'll be just shooting for points, while in others you'll be knocking your competitors off the edge or navigating a bumper car maze. There are a variety of mini-games, and as a result this one feels like it has more content than it. It really doesn't, but this one will take the longest to get bored with. Plus, it has the benefit of being the most fun for multi-player.
Still hardly a great game. It survives on a bit of entertainment value, some laughs when you sit down with your friends to mess with it, but it won't be long before you've all moved on to something with some more... ahem... meat to it.

The games were worth the four bucks each, at least for novelty value (well, maybe not Pocketbike Racers so much), and it's still entertaining now and again to point out that I own them, but I can't say that I find myself putting down Lost Odyssey for a heated Sneak King play session. Then again, the games don't exactly aspire to much and they know it. They serve a purpose, they for the most part succeed at this, and that's pretty much it.

Then again, if I ever get the urge to hide in a barrel at a construction site so I can pop out and hand strangers a burger with an elaborate dance routine, it's good to know I have an option available to me.

Overload II

So yesterday I spoke of the upcoming holiday season, and the fact that many publishers may have finally realized that flooding the market with hundreds of games a week could actually be counter-productive in the long run. In many cases, high profile titles are being moved into next year so that other games can shine and not be cannibalizing one another for precious gift dollars.

One reason I'm thrilled by this decision is, quite simply, that I may have the time to play the big holiday games without being totally overwhelmed.

It happens every time there's a big glut of releases: a bunch of hot games come out within a few weeks of each other, I buy all of the really cool looking ones, and then don't have time to get to them all. I get involved in one, another sits shrink-wrapped on the shelf for far longer than it should before I ever find the time to give it attention. Then I just feel crappy for spending the money on the game in the first place, when I could have just waited until I was actually going to play it.

There's not much worse than buying a game at full price, not playing it, then finding out later that it's been marked down and if you had waited you could have saved cash.

This year, I'm pretty glad that games are being spaced out. There's one tough stretch in November when I plan on picking up Dragon Age Origins, Assassin's Creed 2, and Phantasy Star Zero, but other than that there's nothing that I need to purchase day one. There's other games I want, like Brutal Legend and maybe Star Wars: Republic Heroes, but I don't feel the need to have those in my hands day one.

As much as I want to play it, I'm glad that Bayonetta got moved to early next year. It'll give a chance to work through the aforementioned titles (not to mention all the games I still happen to be playing), and by the time I'm done with those I'll be ready for a new game to play.

This spacing out can only be good for the consumer, in my opinion, and for those who want their games to be enjoyed by the people playing them.