#oneaday, Day 82: The Pile of Shame

Hello everyone! Late again. I’m just going to stop writing that at the start of my posts, as it appears that 2am is prime blogging time in my stupid world. Oh well. I could have worse vices at 2am. Or indeed at any time.

Few fun things to report. Well, one really, and one I can’t talk about yet until I know a bit more. First up, I’m going to be writing for an upcoming retro-gaming site called B4HD, which specialises in games from the pre-HD era. (B4 HD. Geddit?) It was brought to my attention by the lovely and talented Jennifer Allen, who is also partaking in this One A Day nonsense (one of the few people who are still left) and also happens to be the deputy editor of the site. So thanks, Jen, for pointing it out. It’s right up my alley. Now I just need to write something ready for its launch.

I also have several potential freelancing irons in the fire, so we’ll have to wait and see if those come to anything. I’m being more proactive about it now, though, and badgering people I haven’t heard from for a while. It’s not really in my nature to act like that, but I’m learning. Assertiveness and all that. Plus journalism can be pretty cut-throat, so I better toughen up, right?

For the remainder of this post, I think I may just be lazy and list my current Pile of Shame – in this case, games I haven’t finished – since it was Jen’s post I linked to that inspired this one. So here goes. Starred games indicate games that I have at least started and played a reasonably significant amount of in the past. Non-starred ones have either not been played at all or very little. Some of these I will probably never get around to ever. But they’re still there, mocking me.

PS1

Final Fantasy V
Final Fantasy VI

PS2

Final Fantasy XII*

ICO

Metal Gear Solid 3

Resident Evil 4

killer7

Persona 3 FES*

Odin Sphere

Project Zero/Fatal Frame*

Psi-Ops

Shadow of the Colossus*

GameCube

Resident Evil Zero*
Resident Evil Remake

Xbox 360/XBLA

Borderlands*
Numerous titles in the Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection (particularly the Phantasy Star series, Story of Thor, Shining Force II and Shining in the Darkness)
Alien Hominid*
Braid*
Castle Crashers*
Forza 3*
Lode Runner*
Perfect Dark*
Puzzle Quest*
Shadow Complex*
Splosion Man*

PS3/PSN

Matt Hazard: Blood, Bath and Beyond
Final Fantasy XIII*
Disgaea 3
Shatter’s last two Trophies
Uncharted 2 multiplayer
Building a level in LittleBigPlanet

PC – god-damn Steam sale in early January saw to this one.

King’s Bounty
King’s Bounty: Armored Princess
Mount & Blade
Uplink*
Jade Empire
KOTOR as Dark Side
Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark
Neverwinter Nights 2
Baldur’s Gate 2*
Baldur’s Gate 2: Throne of Bhaal
Icewind Dale
Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter
Morrowind* (played EXTENSIVELY, never got anywhere NEAR finishing)
Homeworld 2
Dungeon Siege 2
The entire Myst series
Gabriel Knight 3*
The Police Quest series
King’s Quest IV
The Witcher*
Freelancer*
Startopia*
Ghost Master
Martian Memorandum/Mean Streets
Realms of Arkania
Relams of Arkania 2
No-One Lives Forever 2
Unreal Tournament 3

Yeah, that’s right. Kicking it old-school with some of those PC games. It’s actually quite fortunate I have little-to-no money coming in right now as I clearly have a backlog to last me until the end of time. Couple that with the fact that I’m in a World of Warcraft phase right now (halfway to level 75 with my best character now) and there’s clearly plenty to be getting on with. So a big middle finger to all the triple-A games that have come out since Assassin’s Creed 2.

Of course, when Blur and Split/Second come out soon, this will all go to pot. Still, never mind.

#oneaday, Day 65: Step into my Game Room

This post makes me sad, because I can’t help thinking a lot of people on that thread are missing the point somewhat. I’m hugely excited for Game Room. I wasn’t at first, but since hearing that there are not only arcade treasures in there but also Atari 2600 and Intellivision games too, my interest has been steadily growing until now I’m at the stage where it’s just after midnight and moments ago, I switched on my Xbox just to see if they released things at midnight, or in the morning. (It’s in the morning, for those who were curious.)

The arguments made in the first post are ones that we’re hearing a lot – not just in the context of Game Room, but also in the context of digital distribution in general. The biggest concern people have with digital distribution is that one day, your content will be switched off and, despite having paid for it, you’ll no longer be able to use it. This is a fair concern, as no-one likes splashing the cash on things that they won’t be able to use at some point in the future – but when you think about it, in the world of tech, this is nothing unusual. Products come and go, specifications increase, chipsets change – and at some point it’s necessary to leave the old behind. Did people complain that the Amiga wasn’t backwards-compatible with the Commodore 64? Do music enthusiasts complain that it’s getting harder and harder to find a cassette deck to play those old albums that you only bought on cassette because they were cheaper?

Well, yes, they probably do, but that’s beside the point. What I guess I’m trying to say is this: isn’t the “built-in obsolescence” of digital distribution the same thing? I have a stack of PC games in a box here, some of which it isn’t possible to run any more. Okay, maybe with some tweaking and playing with software like DOSBox it’s possible to get it going – but to a (for want of a better word) “casual” user, they’re defunct and obsolete. The only difference with potentially-expiring digitally distributed products is that there’s no workaround like DOSBox. Once the content’s gone, it’s gone. And yes, that’s not a great thing, but it’s not something to be surprised about.

The other objection people have is that Game Room will charge you again to play titles you already own Xbox Live Arcade versions of – titles like Gauntlet, Smash TV and the like. The simple solution to this is, of course, to not buy them again – but there’s also the fact that the Arcade and Game Room versions are actually rather different beasts. The Arcade editions of the games are generally enhanced with leaderboards, online play and in some cases, new graphics. The Game Room versions are exactly as they were all those years ago. It may be that some people will be more than happy to buy a game again for the sake of having a completely authentic experience – others should simply avoid those games that they have already purchased.

I think the most exciting thing that a lot of people are missing, though, is that Game Room represents possibly the first fully-legal console-based multiplatform emulator out there. The constantly-rehashed argument from Game Room objectors is that “you can get all those games for free online”. Yes, sure you can, but via means of questionable legality. Downloading a ROM for an arcade title is, legally speaking, only allowed if you actually own another copy of the game in question. Of course, people ignore this rule all the time – especially for the sake of hard-to-find games – but I for one think that it will be pretty neat to have these games available legally and without having to do any command-line or front-end faffing like you have to do with emulators like MAME. Again, it’s a point in favour of the casual users, many of whom probably haven’t even heard of an “emulator”. Let’s not kid around, either – it’s also going to be nice to play some of these from the comfort of the sofa rather than the computer desk.

So I for one am firmly in favour of Game Room, particularly if the rumours of there being over a thousand games set for release in it over the next few years have any truth. Yes, it is a means for Microsoft to make money – but this is just the same as a whole lot of things on Xbox Live already are, much as a lot of things on PSN make money for Sony, and the Wii Shop Channel makes money for Nintendo.

What do you think? Are you going to be downloading Game Room and any games? Or are you going to be leaving the past in the past?

Retro or “Inspired By”?

turtles-in-time-reshelled-screenshot-now-only-10-dollars

Tolkoto’s recent Exploding Barrel rant about reviewers’ reactions to the recent Turtles in Time remake on Xbox Live got me thinking. What is it that gets people so excited about some “retro” games and not others? I agree with him, in fact – reviewers’ reactions to Turtles in Time was somewhat harsh, particularly considering it’s only 800 space dollars. Criticising the gameplay of the original by measuring it against modern yardsticks clearly isn’t acceptable… or is it? It’s difficult to say. After all, this may be some gamers’ first encounter with an early-90s brawler (although XBLA has hosted the previous Turtles arcade game along with the magnificent Streets of Rage 2 and the diabolical Double Dragon) – what gives? And how come Castle Crashers – fundamentally the same game in many respects – gets smothered in adoration?

A common criticism of the brawler genre is that it’s “too simple”. But let’s take a look at another genre in the form of the PSN’s recent brick-breaker Shatter, which has garnered almost universal praise since its release a couple of weeks ago. Shatter is, let’s not kid around here, Arkanoid. Okay, you have a “suck” button. And a “blow” button. (Stop sniggering at the back.) But fundamentally, it’s still Arkanoid. You’re a bat-shaped spaceship hitting a ball into bricks that are floating in space with some flimsy justification laughably called a “plot” buried somewhere in the Help menus. There are powerups, including one where you can just shoot down the bricks. Pretty much the sole point of the game is to achieve as high a score as possible – and high scores are something the game does well. It’s a simple game. Everyone loved it for this fact.

So in terms of gameplay, Shatter adds little to the Arkanoid formula save a few fancy bits of physics, some HD art and a kickass soundtrack that I love and Feenwager hates. So why is this game awesome and Turtles in Time a bit steaming turd to reviewers? God knows.

The important thing is, of course, what the player thinks of all this. Those who enjoy the brawler genre or have fond memories of playing Turtles in Time on the SNES will have an absolute blast with the new XBLA remake. Similarly, those who enjoy bouncing things around and smashing walls will love Shatter. But are people more predisposed to like Shatter as it was designed from the ground-up to be a new game rather than a “re-imagining” of Arkanoid? Arkanoid LIVE on the 360 released to mixed reviews and has, it seems, been mostly forgotten already. Shatter, on the other hand, gives me the impression that people will perhaps be more inclined to give it a go, particularly given its very generous price point ($7.99 in the US store, £4.79 over here) as a result of the few things it does a little bit differently.

This pattern follows us around a great deal. LittleBigPlanet for PS3 is a 2D platformer, and unashamedly so. Yet plonk someone down in front of that, then down in front of, say, Rolo to the Rescue and see which they prefer. Actually, that’s perhaps not strictly accurate. Plonk someone down in front of an HD version of Rolo to the Rescue sold for $10 on XBLA or PSN and ask them which they prefer. Would the answer still be LBP? Judging by what has happened with Turtles in Time here, it may well be, though many players, particularly those who have played and loved both, may feel a bit differently.

This has been yet another rant without any real point but do feel free to comment if you have any feelings. I’m planning a new music post very soon – those take a bit more preparation though. 🙂