Every now and again we round up the news and articles you kids need to know, just in case you missed something.
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Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Saturday, July 2, 2011
The Legend of Bob's Game
Most games, even those developed for handhelds or phones, still require teams of skilled programmers, artists, and other creative professionals to push out a finished product.
Sometimes all it takes is one paranoid schizophrenic locked in a pitch-black room for five whole years.
This is Bob's Game.
Robert "Bob" Pelloni spent five years working on a Role-Playing Game (RPG). He programmed the game, composed the music, designed the art assets, wrote the script, and handled what passed for the "business" operations. After failed attempts to be approved for a Nintendo development kit (tools used to prepare your game for a company's platform), Bob could have done any number of things: He could have released the game for free. He could have put it on Xbox Live Arcade, Playstation Network, the Apple App Store, Steam, or any of the other outlets that now exist for smaller/garage developers.
Instead, Bob began an extended period of attention-getting behavior to try and convince Nintendo -a notoriously arrogant company- to change its mind (Recall that Nintendo let Square take Final Fantasy VII -the most hyped game in the world at the time- away from the N64, rather than utilize disc-based media). When a company rejects your work, the rational thing to do is go onto other companies that might be inclined to accept it. Bob instead locked himself in his room for 100 days as a protest. When that didn't work (he caved on day 21), he took to posting personal information of Nintendo executives online. When that didn't work, he vandalized the flagship Nintendo Store in NYC.
Surprise surprise, none of this resulted in a deal with Nintendo.
After being rejected by his fetishized icon of childhood, Bob went nuts. He trashed his lair on webcam. He posted lengthy diatribes about how the modern games industry only cared for profit (no shit?). He changed great chunks of his game's script to be about a young developer who spent 5 years making his perfect game, only to be thrown to the wolves by an evil industry that cared only for profit. He posted maniacal youtube videos where he claimed that NoA president Reggie Fils-Aime and legendary designer Shigeru Miyamoto were actually some sort of doppelganger "dark lords" who were keeping the "real" Nintendo of his youth hostage.
Bob claimed that he had written himself into Bob's Game as the end boss. Bob then claimed that all that talk about Nintendo had been a viral ad, and the vandalism video was a fake to troll the entire Internet. Bob the developer then claimed that he was now Bob the super villain, and that he had been purposely fooling people into thinking that Bob the developer was a gigantic liar.
At this point, Bob had pretty much given the impression that he thought he *was* the boss from his own game. Robert Pelloni had gone so insane that he thought himself to be a games industry equivalent of Tyler Durden.
As Bob's rants became more and more like the ravings of a madman, what supporters he had left became concerned for his sanity. Eventually, he posted something that sounded enough like a suicide note to prompt one of his forum dwellers to track down his sister to try and get Bob some help. Not long after that, viewers of Bob's webcam were treated to the sight of police breaking in his door to see if he was okay.
Unfortunately for Bob, other developers have made huge advances in pushing smaller, cheaper titles. Though he threatened to release the game into the wild many times (usually after a rebuff from Nintendo), nobody has yet proven they have played Bob's Game start to finish. Seeing as how there is a good possibility that the story of Bob's Game is more compelling than the gameplay of Bob's Game, it does not bode well that Bob's Game has now lost perhaps the only thing it ever really had going for it, Novelty: In the time Bob spent pulling increasingly creepy marketing stunts, Daisuke Amaya not only developed a game by his lonesome over the course of five years, but released it as freeware. It can now be had on multiple platforms, with an enhanced version being prepped as a boxed retail game for the Nintendo 3DS later this year.
Two developers, two labors of love, five years each. One of them has a game for a Nintendo platform, one does not. This is the ultimate tragedy of Bob's Game: It could have easily found a home elsewhere. If the game had done well on those platforms, it is likely that Nintendo - or another company with a Nintendo SDK - would have contacted Bob about retooling his title for port to the handheld.
It was Bob's fixation with Nintendo that ruined his dream, and his inability to see himself as anything beyond some kind of folk underdog. Sadly, Bob himself seems to be showing no signs of backing down: Rather than just release the game already, Bob's newest plan to stick it to Nintendo is a doozy - Pelloni claims to be releasing his own handheld game system, the nD (inDie, har har, get it?). Bob claims that the nD will be more powerful than any of the current handheld systems, but sold for $10. I think there might be a bridge in New York packaged with every box, as well.
And since every game console needs a "killer app" to drive sales, guess what comes preloaded on every nD? Yes, Bob's Game.
How does Bob intend on funding this project? It is a mystery. The nD website shows no investors, no committed industry partners, nothing much at all outside of a crude mockup video and a lot of pie-in-the-sky rhetoric and spec sheets. As best as we can discern through our hard-hitting Internet research, it is possible that Bob is being funded somehow, either directly or indirectly, by Tim Rogers - a 30 something year old games hipster who is somewhere between "comfortably entrenched in a luxury home near Pixar studios" (his words) and "independently wealthy" on the economic scale. Nobody really knows, because Tim doesn't post much about himself online. We know he has great hair, has some kind of a band, probably swapped body fluids with Leigh Alexander at some point, and spent a considerable amount of time in Japan. That's about all.
Regardless, it is likely that Tim has enough goodwill* among industry types to get funding for a project. Does he have the clout to get rational actors to throw good money down the hole to make tangible the ravings of a probable Asperger's patient with schizophrenia? Stay tuned, folks!
*(Tim Rogers' musings show us that he's probably a fun guy to drink with. Consider that Tim Schaefer still has a diehard cult among the game journalists, despite the fact that he hasn't made a relevant game since the 90s, and is now laboring on a Sesame Street Kinect game. This truth teachs us that the best way to get ahead in the games industry is to be a fun guy to drink with. Or maybe be named Tim. Perhaps both! This also explains why yours truly never landed a paid spot in the games journalism racket: Long ago, I pretty much fucked myself out of an honest to god Writing About Games For Money In A Big City position I was entirely qualified for by not being fun to drink with. To be brutally honest, I was neurotic little shit.)
Never change, Bob.
Sometimes all it takes is one paranoid schizophrenic locked in a pitch-black room for five whole years.
This is Bob's Game.
Robert "Bob" Pelloni spent five years working on a Role-Playing Game (RPG). He programmed the game, composed the music, designed the art assets, wrote the script, and handled what passed for the "business" operations. After failed attempts to be approved for a Nintendo development kit (tools used to prepare your game for a company's platform), Bob could have done any number of things: He could have released the game for free. He could have put it on Xbox Live Arcade, Playstation Network, the Apple App Store, Steam, or any of the other outlets that now exist for smaller/garage developers.
Instead, Bob began an extended period of attention-getting behavior to try and convince Nintendo -a notoriously arrogant company- to change its mind (Recall that Nintendo let Square take Final Fantasy VII -the most hyped game in the world at the time- away from the N64, rather than utilize disc-based media). When a company rejects your work, the rational thing to do is go onto other companies that might be inclined to accept it. Bob instead locked himself in his room for 100 days as a protest. When that didn't work (he caved on day 21), he took to posting personal information of Nintendo executives online. When that didn't work, he vandalized the flagship Nintendo Store in NYC.
Surprise surprise, none of this resulted in a deal with Nintendo.
After being rejected by his fetishized icon of childhood, Bob went nuts. He trashed his lair on webcam. He posted lengthy diatribes about how the modern games industry only cared for profit (no shit?). He changed great chunks of his game's script to be about a young developer who spent 5 years making his perfect game, only to be thrown to the wolves by an evil industry that cared only for profit. He posted maniacal youtube videos where he claimed that NoA president Reggie Fils-Aime and legendary designer Shigeru Miyamoto were actually some sort of doppelganger "dark lords" who were keeping the "real" Nintendo of his youth hostage.
Bob claimed that he had written himself into Bob's Game as the end boss. Bob then claimed that all that talk about Nintendo had been a viral ad, and the vandalism video was a fake to troll the entire Internet. Bob the developer then claimed that he was now Bob the super villain, and that he had been purposely fooling people into thinking that Bob the developer was a gigantic liar.
At this point, Bob had pretty much given the impression that he thought he *was* the boss from his own game. Robert Pelloni had gone so insane that he thought himself to be a games industry equivalent of Tyler Durden.
As Bob's rants became more and more like the ravings of a madman, what supporters he had left became concerned for his sanity. Eventually, he posted something that sounded enough like a suicide note to prompt one of his forum dwellers to track down his sister to try and get Bob some help. Not long after that, viewers of Bob's webcam were treated to the sight of police breaking in his door to see if he was okay.
Unfortunately for Bob, other developers have made huge advances in pushing smaller, cheaper titles. Though he threatened to release the game into the wild many times (usually after a rebuff from Nintendo), nobody has yet proven they have played Bob's Game start to finish. Seeing as how there is a good possibility that the story of Bob's Game is more compelling than the gameplay of Bob's Game, it does not bode well that Bob's Game has now lost perhaps the only thing it ever really had going for it, Novelty: In the time Bob spent pulling increasingly creepy marketing stunts, Daisuke Amaya not only developed a game by his lonesome over the course of five years, but released it as freeware. It can now be had on multiple platforms, with an enhanced version being prepped as a boxed retail game for the Nintendo 3DS later this year.
Two developers, two labors of love, five years each. One of them has a game for a Nintendo platform, one does not. This is the ultimate tragedy of Bob's Game: It could have easily found a home elsewhere. If the game had done well on those platforms, it is likely that Nintendo - or another company with a Nintendo SDK - would have contacted Bob about retooling his title for port to the handheld.
It was Bob's fixation with Nintendo that ruined his dream, and his inability to see himself as anything beyond some kind of folk underdog. Sadly, Bob himself seems to be showing no signs of backing down: Rather than just release the game already, Bob's newest plan to stick it to Nintendo is a doozy - Pelloni claims to be releasing his own handheld game system, the nD (inDie, har har, get it?). Bob claims that the nD will be more powerful than any of the current handheld systems, but sold for $10. I think there might be a bridge in New York packaged with every box, as well.
And since every game console needs a "killer app" to drive sales, guess what comes preloaded on every nD? Yes, Bob's Game.
How does Bob intend on funding this project? It is a mystery. The nD website shows no investors, no committed industry partners, nothing much at all outside of a crude mockup video and a lot of pie-in-the-sky rhetoric and spec sheets. As best as we can discern through our hard-hitting Internet research, it is possible that Bob is being funded somehow, either directly or indirectly, by Tim Rogers - a 30 something year old games hipster who is somewhere between "comfortably entrenched in a luxury home near Pixar studios" (his words) and "independently wealthy" on the economic scale. Nobody really knows, because Tim doesn't post much about himself online. We know he has great hair, has some kind of a band, probably swapped body fluids with Leigh Alexander at some point, and spent a considerable amount of time in Japan. That's about all.
Regardless, it is likely that Tim has enough goodwill* among industry types to get funding for a project. Does he have the clout to get rational actors to throw good money down the hole to make tangible the ravings of a probable Asperger's patient with schizophrenia? Stay tuned, folks!
*(Tim Rogers' musings show us that he's probably a fun guy to drink with. Consider that Tim Schaefer still has a diehard cult among the game journalists, despite the fact that he hasn't made a relevant game since the 90s, and is now laboring on a Sesame Street Kinect game. This truth teachs us that the best way to get ahead in the games industry is to be a fun guy to drink with. Or maybe be named Tim. Perhaps both! This also explains why yours truly never landed a paid spot in the games journalism racket: Long ago, I pretty much fucked myself out of an honest to god Writing About Games For Money In A Big City position I was entirely qualified for by not being fun to drink with. To be brutally honest, I was neurotic little shit.)
Never change, Bob.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
What Does The Enemy Look Like?
"...the lazy kids who whine about the difficulty in such simple games as Ninja Gaiden (the latest one, yes) or Devil May Cry 3; the casual, party gamers with their Wiis and ever-growing collections of gimmicky mini-games; the PlayStation generation that missed out on gaming's golden age and never got a chance to develop good taste in games; the hordes of uncouth, uneducated retards who practically live in videogame forums across the internet, grouping themselves into rival camps of fanboys, unquestioningly loyal -- like dogs -- to a single hardware platform, genre or developer; the "games are art" fags who won't shut up already about Ico and Rez, and who can't even tell the difference between basketball (a game) and the Mona Lisa (art); or the new games journalists and their impressionable adolescent followers who think that some flowery adjectives dug up from a thesaurus can make up for the fact that they don't have a fucking clue about what it is they are talking about -- as for all these people, as for the masses, yes, I am afraid there is no hope for them. Nothing can be done about it."
He's more than a bit of an insufferable, overly verbose prick, but he gets it and we must tip our hats to him, much in the way the most effective teachers you ever had were probably huge assholes on some level--after all, they knew some shit, and were very much aware of that fact.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Game of the Year Forecast: 2011 Edition - Part I
This multi-article edition of More Awesome Dot Net will analyze the race for GOTY 2011. We will give you the buzz from industry shills, as well as our own views on the contenders, straight from our own more refined palettes.
This first installment will be focusing on the games released from January 2011 to May 31st, 2011.
We will also be bringing to you the odds for each game taking the trophy home, both here ("House Odds") and within the greater field of game journalism ("Vegas Odds").
Keep in mind that nothing is a sure bet! Everyone expected Metal Gear Solid 2 to clean up the year it released, until a (then) little-known company called Rockstar Games dropped something called Grand Theft Auto 3. Maybe Rage will get pushed to 2012. Maybe Deus Ex will suck. Maybe Tomb Raider will make Uncharted 3 look like Tomb Raider. Anything's possible.
Without further delay...
LA Noire
Critics Say: Rockstar has the critics by the balls re: early GTA V access, so no site that wants to remain a profitable business dares say one word against their newest opus.
We Say: Luckily for you, our ink is as red as this site's trim color, so we have no problem telling you that LA Noire is a rare, absolute misfire from one of gaming's finest companies. The reason being that Rockstar published LA Noire after Sony ditched it (it was once supposed to be exclusive), but the game itself was developed by Team Bondi and Brendan McNamara, one of gaming's most incompetent artputzes. In development hell for 7 years, Brendan knew he had to do something to get this steaming pile to recoup its expenses. The solution? Slap a R* logo on the front. Alas, the strategy has seemed to work.
Vegas Odds: The critics love to hold up games like this as examples of what the medium can do, because they think that by showing off just how non-game a game can be, they're making the case for games to non-gamers. It's as idiotic as it sounds, yes, but LA Noire will undoubtedly pull down several nominations for GOTY, and maybe even win a few of them.
House Odds: We'll close shop and burn the fucker down before we put this one on top. (Unless Rockstar would like to embark on a very, very generousbribe advertising campaign.)
Portal 2
Critics Say: It's fantastic, but not as fantastic as Portal 1! It's funny, but not as funny as Portal 1! It will polish your knob, but Portal 1 swallowed whereas Portal 2 will need use of a spittoon! Speaking of knob polish, maybe if we keep at it, Gabe Newell (a legitimately amazing human being, for those keeping score at home) might give us a peek at Half Life 3. Please?
We Say: Whenever a game comes along that has moderately funny writing and panders to the tired tendency of geek "culture" to attach itself to glorified memes, critics can't help but wet themselves. Portal was a nice, 4 hour part of a much bigger package. It was what it was, but it was good for what it was. For the sequel, Valve is charging full admission.
To date, we have not finished the game. We got roughly halfway through, then we decided it was time for a break. (In Portal 1, this would have been the end of the game, as GAWD intended)
From what we did play, Portal 2, like the game before it, is a finely enough crafted piece of entertainment (not GOTY stuff), whose reputation is doomed to be besmirched by its annoying, slobbering fanbase of half-brained eccentrics living in their parents' basements until well past the time that prostate exams become a mandatory part of each new year. In this way, Portal 2 is basically Libertarianism made game.
Vegas Odds: Decent. Definite nominations across the board, with a few of the I'm-so-much-more-refined-at-being-a-geek-than-you slogs giving it the top nod.
To understand why Portal 2 may very well get to "fuck way outside its weight class" (thanks Doug "funniest comedian working today" Stanhope), you have to first understand what a sad, lonely sack of crap your average self-identified gamer is.
Please understand my claim: Playing games by itself, even obsessively (holla!) does not make you a loser, but when the only discernable aspect of your personality is your k/d ratio, homeslice might want to get some fresh air in the lungs.
Here are the criteria that make Portal 2 appear "smart" to your average neckbeard, criteria that they then hijack and use to reassure themselves that they are wonderful human beings, and it's society that has the problem.
Doesn't Use Guns: There are no firearms in Portal 2, yet it is played from a first person view! This allows the critics and members of the insufferable "gaming community" to pretend they're somehow engaging in the apex of high art by coining the terms "first person puzzler." One new to the medium might not understand it, but there is indeed a sort of affirmative action grading curve policy at play for any title that "does something new," regardless of merit. You see, gamers love to pretend they are "enlightened" by spouting about how great something is just because it is different (and not as exciting as FPS 204591). I don't get the association, it's as stupid as it sounds. You know what else is "different?" Shit porn. Let's give it an honorable mention at least, whaddya say?
British: Portal 2 has the voice of Stephen Merchant! He's British and has an accent! Accents are cool and make you smart and girls like them, or so I hear! If I continue to ride Portal 2's dick, by extension (har), I'm cool and smart!
Simmons Factor: JK Simmons is in the game! I know him from other, arguably lesser mediums that are socially acceptable to make references to in polite company (girls). Maybe the next time I hear a girl talking about Juno, I can awkwardly start rambling about cakes and lies and companion cubes and she'll fall in love with me despite my body odor and we'll fall in love and cosplay at cons together and live happily ever after!
Song at the End: Portal 2 ostensibly has some kind of song at the end of the game, like Portal 1 before it, that nerds will run into the ground, gua-ran-teed, by the end of the year. "Still Alive" was a nice, clever way to end a game that - 1 year of references, parodies, mashups, Rock Band DLC, and live performances at cons later - became "that song" you would rather eat the business side of a dick-shaped gun than hear one note of ever again.
Nerds, aspies that they are, love to lock on to one or two aspects of their favorite title and Michael Vick the shit out of that puppy. Hence, Portal 2 will stay in the collective consciousness way past its natural expiration date.
House Odds: It's hard to say before we've finished it, but based on the early goings, we probably won't give Portal 2 the nod or a nomination. We probably wouldn't give Portal 2 a nod or nom, even if the fanbase weren't insufferable down to a man. We still like Valve and wait for Half Life Episode 3 and its full-fledged sequel like Christians waiting for rapture.
Mortal Kombat
Critics Say: A strong entry for the series and the genre, but half of them claim to like it ironically because Games Are Serious Now and Serious Games Journalists can't bring themselves to cop to liking a game where one scantily-clad ninja chick puts her 10-inch stiletto through another scantily clad ninja chick's windpipe.
We Say: The most enjoyable fighting game in history. No, really.
Vegas Odds: Not a chance. It absolutely will take home some genre awards, but just as the Motion Picture Academy will never, ever give the top award to a comedy, Serious Game Journalists will never get over themselves long enough to give a fighting title GOTY, let alone one that is as unabashedly not embarrassed about being a 13 year old's wet dream.
House Odds: Good! The first half of 2011 has given us precious little to fawn over, but even with the understanding that the release calendar is always back-loaded, Mortal Kombat has a good shot. In fact, we'd go so far as to say that as of the end of May, it is the top contender.
In fact, we can think of only one game yet released that comes close to giving Mortal Kombat a worthy challenger...
Bulletstorm
Critics Say: A fun, refreshingly brightly painted shooter loaded with interesting ways to frag. A few even admit to enjoying the story, though most will claim to do so with some level of irony. All of them bitch about the lack of multiplayer, because Game Journalists.
We Say: It's pretty much Doom for the Halo generation, which is a very good thing. The weapon selection system absolutely needs work, and the action - good as it is - doesn't quite "flow" as smoothly as you'd expect for a game that places heavy emphasis on big combos for big scores. None of these flaws can take away Bulletstorm's meaty action and surprisingly awesome story, headlined by one of the best new protagonists in recent memory.
Vegas Odds: Doubtful. At best, it will get a few nominations in the shooter category awards, but to award Bulletstorm GOTY, industry types would have to acknowledge how much they enjoyed the gameplay, story and main character in a game that the lot of them went out of their way to malign as a juvenile throwback. Additionally, the lack of a "true" multiplayer suite will absolutely preclude most of the establishment games press from riding Bulletstorm's dick too hard.
House Odds: At this point, we're calling it a contender. The competition gets pretty stiff in the second half of 2011, so we'll see if it makes it to finals. Regardless, we feel pretty safe in saying that at the very least, Bulletstorm's story is a very likely finalist for Best Game Writing.
GOTY 2011 Watch - Second Half:
House Favorites:
Rage
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Duke Nukem Forever
Uncharted 3
Industry Darlings
Modern Warfare 3
Battlefield 3
Gears of War 3
Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
Zelda: Skyward Sword
Metal Gear Solid: Rising
Dark Horses
Infamous 2
Tomb Raider
The Darkness II
Saints Row 3
Max Payne 3
Resistance 3
Silent Hill: Downpour
FEAR 3
Ghost Recon: Future Soldier
Batman: Arkham City
Long Shots:
Driver
Alice 2
Call of Juarez: The Cartel
Dead Island
Shadows of the Damned
Twisted Metal
This first installment will be focusing on the games released from January 2011 to May 31st, 2011.
We will also be bringing to you the odds for each game taking the trophy home, both here ("House Odds") and within the greater field of game journalism ("Vegas Odds").
Keep in mind that nothing is a sure bet! Everyone expected Metal Gear Solid 2 to clean up the year it released, until a (then) little-known company called Rockstar Games dropped something called Grand Theft Auto 3. Maybe Rage will get pushed to 2012. Maybe Deus Ex will suck. Maybe Tomb Raider will make Uncharted 3 look like Tomb Raider. Anything's possible.
Without further delay...
Critics Say: Rockstar has the critics by the balls re: early GTA V access, so no site that wants to remain a profitable business dares say one word against their newest opus.
We Say: Luckily for you, our ink is as red as this site's trim color, so we have no problem telling you that LA Noire is a rare, absolute misfire from one of gaming's finest companies. The reason being that Rockstar published LA Noire after Sony ditched it (it was once supposed to be exclusive), but the game itself was developed by Team Bondi and Brendan McNamara, one of gaming's most incompetent artputzes. In development hell for 7 years, Brendan knew he had to do something to get this steaming pile to recoup its expenses. The solution? Slap a R* logo on the front. Alas, the strategy has seemed to work.
Vegas Odds: The critics love to hold up games like this as examples of what the medium can do, because they think that by showing off just how non-game a game can be, they're making the case for games to non-gamers. It's as idiotic as it sounds, yes, but LA Noire will undoubtedly pull down several nominations for GOTY, and maybe even win a few of them.
House Odds: We'll close shop and burn the fucker down before we put this one on top. (Unless Rockstar would like to embark on a very, very generous
Critics Say: It's fantastic, but not as fantastic as Portal 1! It's funny, but not as funny as Portal 1! It will polish your knob, but Portal 1 swallowed whereas Portal 2 will need use of a spittoon! Speaking of knob polish, maybe if we keep at it, Gabe Newell (a legitimately amazing human being, for those keeping score at home) might give us a peek at Half Life 3. Please?
We Say: Whenever a game comes along that has moderately funny writing and panders to the tired tendency of geek "culture" to attach itself to glorified memes, critics can't help but wet themselves. Portal was a nice, 4 hour part of a much bigger package. It was what it was, but it was good for what it was. For the sequel, Valve is charging full admission.
To date, we have not finished the game. We got roughly halfway through, then we decided it was time for a break. (In Portal 1, this would have been the end of the game, as GAWD intended)
From what we did play, Portal 2, like the game before it, is a finely enough crafted piece of entertainment (not GOTY stuff), whose reputation is doomed to be besmirched by its annoying, slobbering fanbase of half-brained eccentrics living in their parents' basements until well past the time that prostate exams become a mandatory part of each new year. In this way, Portal 2 is basically Libertarianism made game.
Vegas Odds: Decent. Definite nominations across the board, with a few of the I'm-so-much-more-refined-at-being-a-geek-than-you slogs giving it the top nod.
To understand why Portal 2 may very well get to "fuck way outside its weight class" (thanks Doug "funniest comedian working today" Stanhope), you have to first understand what a sad, lonely sack of crap your average self-identified gamer is.
Please understand my claim: Playing games by itself, even obsessively (holla!) does not make you a loser, but when the only discernable aspect of your personality is your k/d ratio, homeslice might want to get some fresh air in the lungs.
Here are the criteria that make Portal 2 appear "smart" to your average neckbeard, criteria that they then hijack and use to reassure themselves that they are wonderful human beings, and it's society that has the problem.
Doesn't Use Guns: There are no firearms in Portal 2, yet it is played from a first person view! This allows the critics and members of the insufferable "gaming community" to pretend they're somehow engaging in the apex of high art by coining the terms "first person puzzler." One new to the medium might not understand it, but there is indeed a sort of affirmative action grading curve policy at play for any title that "does something new," regardless of merit. You see, gamers love to pretend they are "enlightened" by spouting about how great something is just because it is different (and not as exciting as FPS 204591). I don't get the association, it's as stupid as it sounds. You know what else is "different?" Shit porn. Let's give it an honorable mention at least, whaddya say?
British: Portal 2 has the voice of Stephen Merchant! He's British and has an accent! Accents are cool and make you smart and girls like them, or so I hear! If I continue to ride Portal 2's dick, by extension (har), I'm cool and smart!
Simmons Factor: JK Simmons is in the game! I know him from other, arguably lesser mediums that are socially acceptable to make references to in polite company (girls). Maybe the next time I hear a girl talking about Juno, I can awkwardly start rambling about cakes and lies and companion cubes and she'll fall in love with me despite my body odor and we'll fall in love and cosplay at cons together and live happily ever after!
Song at the End: Portal 2 ostensibly has some kind of song at the end of the game, like Portal 1 before it, that nerds will run into the ground, gua-ran-teed, by the end of the year. "Still Alive" was a nice, clever way to end a game that - 1 year of references, parodies, mashups, Rock Band DLC, and live performances at cons later - became "that song" you would rather eat the business side of a dick-shaped gun than hear one note of ever again.
Nerds, aspies that they are, love to lock on to one or two aspects of their favorite title and Michael Vick the shit out of that puppy. Hence, Portal 2 will stay in the collective consciousness way past its natural expiration date.
House Odds: It's hard to say before we've finished it, but based on the early goings, we probably won't give Portal 2 the nod or a nomination. We probably wouldn't give Portal 2 a nod or nom, even if the fanbase weren't insufferable down to a man. We still like Valve and wait for Half Life Episode 3 and its full-fledged sequel like Christians waiting for rapture.
Critics Say: A strong entry for the series and the genre, but half of them claim to like it ironically because Games Are Serious Now and Serious Games Journalists can't bring themselves to cop to liking a game where one scantily-clad ninja chick puts her 10-inch stiletto through another scantily clad ninja chick's windpipe.
We Say: The most enjoyable fighting game in history. No, really.
Vegas Odds: Not a chance. It absolutely will take home some genre awards, but just as the Motion Picture Academy will never, ever give the top award to a comedy, Serious Game Journalists will never get over themselves long enough to give a fighting title GOTY, let alone one that is as unabashedly not embarrassed about being a 13 year old's wet dream.
House Odds: Good! The first half of 2011 has given us precious little to fawn over, but even with the understanding that the release calendar is always back-loaded, Mortal Kombat has a good shot. In fact, we'd go so far as to say that as of the end of May, it is the top contender.
In fact, we can think of only one game yet released that comes close to giving Mortal Kombat a worthy challenger...
Critics Say: A fun, refreshingly brightly painted shooter loaded with interesting ways to frag. A few even admit to enjoying the story, though most will claim to do so with some level of irony. All of them bitch about the lack of multiplayer, because Game Journalists.
We Say: It's pretty much Doom for the Halo generation, which is a very good thing. The weapon selection system absolutely needs work, and the action - good as it is - doesn't quite "flow" as smoothly as you'd expect for a game that places heavy emphasis on big combos for big scores. None of these flaws can take away Bulletstorm's meaty action and surprisingly awesome story, headlined by one of the best new protagonists in recent memory.
Vegas Odds: Doubtful. At best, it will get a few nominations in the shooter category awards, but to award Bulletstorm GOTY, industry types would have to acknowledge how much they enjoyed the gameplay, story and main character in a game that the lot of them went out of their way to malign as a juvenile throwback. Additionally, the lack of a "true" multiplayer suite will absolutely preclude most of the establishment games press from riding Bulletstorm's dick too hard.
House Odds: At this point, we're calling it a contender. The competition gets pretty stiff in the second half of 2011, so we'll see if it makes it to finals. Regardless, we feel pretty safe in saying that at the very least, Bulletstorm's story is a very likely finalist for Best Game Writing.
House Favorites:
Rage
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Duke Nukem Forever
Uncharted 3
Industry Darlings
Modern Warfare 3
Battlefield 3
Gears of War 3
Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
Zelda: Skyward Sword
Metal Gear Solid: Rising
Dark Horses
Infamous 2
Tomb Raider
The Darkness II
Saints Row 3
Max Payne 3
Resistance 3
Silent Hill: Downpour
FEAR 3
Ghost Recon: Future Soldier
Batman: Arkham City
Long Shots:
Driver
Alice 2
Call of Juarez: The Cartel
Dead Island
Shadows of the Damned
Twisted Metal
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Review: Mortal Kombat
Mortal Kombat
"The fighting game they give you in heaven as an intermission between the first 36 virgins and the second 36."
**** +1/2 out of 5
Before we begin...
"Nothing beat hearing this in the arcade, because you knew someone was about to get their ass kicked." - Random Youtube Comment Guy
There's a part in MORTAL KOMBAT'S story mode, right at the beginning, where Affliction-wearing douchebag moviestar Johnny Cage asks tall, blonde, possibly nordic Sonya Blade out on a date. When she says no, Johnny Cage starts a fight with her, and you have to win the fight, as Cage, to move on in the story mode.
Over the course of the story mode, Sonya Blade then warms up to Johnny Cage to the point where they're probably doing it off-screen when they're not fighting ninjas and monsters and sorcerers.
This is actually one of the less ridiculous things this game does, and if you got some sort of problem with a game universe like this existing, you should really get out now and fuck off back to Farmville.
See, there was a time when video games didn't try to be movies, or the game of chess, and gamers didn't try to be sociologists, and if you dared to suggest that a game had to have 90 minutes worth of cutscenes or that a fighting game had to be sensitive to women or minorities re: character designs, you'd be laughed out of the arcade like the ig'nit putz you are.
MORTAL KOMBAT is a return to that time, a simpler time, a better time. A time when ten different ninjas (who were all the same character model except with a color swap) was all we needed to have a good time. A time when the female ninjas were sexualized - I mean really, really, ridiculously sexualized with their tits hanging out and their mouths covered which is the way GAWD intended - and nobody bitched, or brought up the words "male gaze" (lol) with regards to the fact that each and every female character in the game fought for their lives, fought to da nub in super high heels (it was more like, "holy shit, that bitch totally put that shoe through that other bitch's throat, fucking AWESOME!").
Technically, this is the 9th game in the series proper (we ignore the "Mythologies" offshoot here, despite the fact that Sub-Zero and Shaolin Monks were Most Awesome), but it is not called Mortal Kombat 9. It is simply called MORTAL KOMBAT, ALL KAPS MOTHERFUKA! The website for the game is THEMORTALKOMBAT.COM, and there is a pretty good reason for this aside from standard reboot bullshit: MORTAL KOMBAT is the game the original developers would have made back in the day if they had been permitted by the times. It was never MK that lacked vision, you understand, it was the technology.
A bit of background before the gushing starts is in order: Mortal Kombat (talkin' bout the series as a whole at the moment, so we don't have to use ALL KAPS) started life as Midway's cash in on the Street Fighter II craze. The series endured because it was a fighting game like Street Fighter, except you could rip someone's heart out if you won the match. Each game became progressively more ridiculous, until the developers started throwing in go-kart and bejeweled minigames. That kind of killed the franchise, and so a reboot was necessary.
Here we are.
The absolute best thing that MORTAL KOMBAT brings to the table is the introduction of the X-Ray move. A major stumbling block a lot of people have with fighting games is the memorization and execution of movesets. As a result, you'll run into a lot of situations where people will poo poo the entire genre because they can't get their guy to do any crazy shit. Enter the X-Ray move. If the X-Ray move had been invented 10 or 15 years ago, the fighting game might be as popular in 2011 as the first person shooter. The X-Ray move in MORTAL KOMBAT is like a smartbomb for your enemy's face - press R2 + L2 at once whenever the meter is full, and KABOOOOOOOOOOOM, teeth get knocked out, skulls get clocked and cracked, organs get grabbed and squashed, ribs get broken, eyes get gauged with daggers, shit gets REAL, dig?
You don't have to be an arcade-dwelling weirdo to play and enjoy MORTAL KOMBAT. You can pause at any time and check the moves. They're so awesome, you'll *want* to put in the work to memorize them, except it won't be difficult, because most of the special attacks in MORTAL KOMBAT are as easy as down-back something or down-forward something, with back-back something thrown in every once and a while.
MORTAL KOMBAT plays smoother than something that's really, really smooth. Don't be afraid of it, it's just here to love you, baby.
Following are but a few examples of why MORTAL KOMBAT kicks so much ass. This will get a bit jizzy.
When you play as Quan Chi, the sorcerer, you will find that your powers are largely psychic based. It would not do for a man of Quan Chi's stature to sully himself with the uncouth work of hand-delivering a smackdown, so when Quan Chi goes into X-Ray mode, the other player literally goes into a trance and is made to snap his own neck.
Sindel has this X-Ray move where she kicks the other combatant right in the business with her stiletto boot that must have like a 20 inch heel, it's that ridiculous. Then she snaps your leg in half, because it's like, "you can't have/make babies, you might as well not be able to walk, either." MORTAL KOMBAT understands that overkill is the soundest of all logic.
Stryker has a projectile move where he literally fires his gun as fast as you can keep hitting back-forward-square. If you can manage to do this nonstop for an entire round, by the end, the opponent's face will be entirely soaked with blood. There will be a big red lump where his noggin used to be. Stryker has another move where he throws a grenade at your face and it explodes all KAPOW. Stryker's X-Ray move has him blinding the other Kombatant with a flashlight, cracking their skull with said flashlight after they fall to their knees, breaking their throat with a baton, and tazering them in the neck chub.
Stryker's standard fatality is him pulling out a gun and blowing your fucking head off, and the blow repeats itself one, two, three times (from as many angles) just in case you weren't paying attention.
Remember how Stryker was a pudgy cop with a Gayest Purple Under Armour shirt and a backward baseball cap in (Ultimate) Mortal Kombat 3? In MORTAL KOMBAT, Stryker is a hard, bad motherfucker, and he don't take no mess. Officer Curtis Stryker is pretty much a metaphor for MORTAL KOMBAT as a game. Understand that if you had told me that I would ever compare something to Curtis Stryker as a *compliment,* I would have kicked you in the face and then kicked you again when you stooped down to pick up your teeth.
Is MORTAL KOMBAT "the best fighting game ever?" I don't know. If we make such a claim, there will be someone to disagree. I don't know if Street Fighter or Virtua Fighter (Gag, Cough, Wheeze) are "deeper" games, but this much is certain: MORTAL KOMBAT is the Most Awesome fighting game of all time.
We're not particularly religious folks on this end, but don't let something as triflin' as your pesky atheism keep you from presently understanding the fact that MORTAL KOMBAT is the fighting game they give you in heaven as an intermission between the first 36 virgins and the second 36. The deeper implication here is that those final 36 wenches must really be something spectacular in the sack, like some kind of crazy supermodel-pornstar-gymnast hybrid demigods with the skill of Aphrodite herself, because otherwise the departed would probably opt out of the last three dozen orgasms and just keep on playing MORTAL KOMBAT until the end of days.
Honestly, if you wanted to play MORTAL KOMBAT until Meggido, you probably could get away with it, because there's a ton of content on this disc. There's a standard arcade mode, and there's online play, but there's also story mode. Story mode in MORTAL KOMBAT is the best thing I have ever seen in a fighting game. Instead of ruining our childhoods with a retcon, MORTAL KOMBAT does that alternate-timeline thing that Star Trek did. Basically, at the end of the last MK game, the canonical ending is the one where Shao Kahn killed everybody and the bad guy won. In MORTAL KOMBAT 2011, Raiden uses the last of his energy to send a message back to his past self in order to try and change the future. Story Mode follows with a combined retelling of the first 3 MK games, except it's all WHIZ BANG POW. There are CG cutscenes in MORTAL KOMBAT, to give story mode context. Story mode in MORTAL KOMBAT feels exactly like an X-Men comic serial, except spines get ripped out and assholes get gored.
MORTAL KOMBAT is a gift to our collective inner 13 year old boy. More than that, MORTAL KOMBAT enables, loves, and nurtures our inner 13 year old boy, in a way that our own mothers never could. MORTAL KOMBAT preserves our inner 13 year old boy, in the way that pectin might keep a fine jam or jelly. I've come to terms with the fact that I was a pretty big loser as a kid, and I didn't shed my virginity until later on in life. Point being, I'm pretty sure that if BULLETSTORM!!!!!!!!!!! and MORTAL KOMBAT 2011 had been released ten years earlier, I wouldn't have seen a girl's bits up close for at least 2 extra years, if ever.
As mentioned, MORTAL KOMBAT has other stuff going on, too. A lot of it. During the game, you earn KOINS. You spend these KOINS at the KRYPT. The Krypt has over 300 items for you to unlock from treasure chests, except the treasure chests are all prisoners and corpses, and when you buy the thing at that particular spot, something nasty happens. So if I pay 1500 Koins to get Scorpion's alternate fatality, it's not like some gay Zelda shit where the green elf man opens the box and a stupid ring tone plays and holds up a potion. It's more like I pay the Koins, and then a man is ripped apart into four quarters, or an iron maiden closes, or a bloated body is picked open by crows, or sludge is force fed into a hanging man's throat until his gut explodes, etc. Then a little message pops up to inform me that I have a new thing to play around with. Did I mention there are over 300 of these?
I would love nothing more than to give MORTAL KOMBAT a perfect score of 5/5. I can't do that, the best I can do is 4.5 out of 5, because MORTAL KOMBAT follows this shit industry trend of forcing those who buy used copies to pay 10 bucks to enable online play. That's why MORTAL KOMBAT gets 4.5, 9/10, etc. Because getting raped is enough to warrant a bit of a dock on the rapist, however otherwise charming he might be.
(Giving MORTAL KOMBAT a 4.5 or comparing MORTAL KOMBAT to an actual rapist who engages in actual rapes are both ridiculous symbolic protests, like suing Microsoft for a buck. In a world where industry executives could take the cashdick out their mouths for half a second, MORTAL KOMBAT would have a 5/5. My pet peeve aside, you should probably buy MORTAL KOMBAT at any price, because I'm really just on some irrelevant bullshit here, and you've paid $60 for games that weren't 25% as good as MORTAL KOMBAT, not even 15%.)
MORTAL KOMBAT is every Saturday morning you ever spent in front of the rotbox wearing your pajamas and eating sugary cereal, and all it will take for you to relive that joy is 60 American Dollars. With Duke and Rage on the way (and Bulletstorm already in the can), MORTAL KOMBAT might not be the MOST AWESOME game of 2011, but it will undoubtedly be in the top 10, maybe even the top 5.
Friday, April 8, 2011
The Legitimacy of Video Game Music Is Beyond Reproach.
Fat Little Monkey hosts our discussion of why anyone who hates on video game music circa 2011 is an outright scrub. Chiptunes, it ain't.
(We love chiptunes, too.)
(We love chiptunes, too.)
Sunday, April 3, 2011
The Greatest Health Bar In The History of Video Games
Jurassic Park: Trespasser is artistic digital retro art of profound artistic proportions. Art!
Our reasoning can be found at Fat Little Monkey. Sometimes we write things there, too.
Our reasoning can be found at Fat Little Monkey. Sometimes we write things there, too.
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