Game Reviews

Believe it or not I've been reviewing games for quite some time now.
Oh, you do believe it. Okay then.
Then I shouldn't have to tell you that all my game reviews are on Gamespot, do I?

HA! Got you there.

Anyway, head over to my Gamespot account and check out all my reviews. I just started rewriting them yesterday and it's going to be a while before I'm done. I'd say BMW M3 Challenge is the best place to start off at. I did that one back in November and so far it's the most professional sounding review I've done.
I've gotten some really low agreements on a few of them so I've decided I should rewrite the ones that are painful to read. I'm trying a non-passive (if that can be the phrase) tone without referencing myself throughout the review.

Read and enjoy.

Keep Playing.

Control Freak: Just my thoughts on Nintendo

(Posted this one on Jan 1, 09.)

It's just me thinking all this, and I could most certainly be wrong, but everyone has their own opinions and these are mine. Because, honestly, it's not like you get enough of other people's opinions when you're online. *sarcasm* Whether or not you agree with them, I don't care. These are just thoughts that have been going through my mind for a while now.
Point 1: Nintendo has not abandoned their core audience. I can hear the haters shouting already but let me get to the second part of this opinion: their core audience is in Japan. All the shovel-ware games like WiiMusic, Hula Wii, and the like are aimed at little kids in Japan. Here in America they're also aimed at the young as well as those who have never picked up a controller in their lives. Which leads to Point 2.
Point 2: "They've abandoned the hardcore audience." This depends on your definition of "hardcore." One example could be those who really get into the game, shout when they're losing, or play a game months after the hype is over. Another definition could be those who play a game thoroughly, look for and learn all the secrets, or are avid collectors of a certain genre of game. I remember once upon a time there were people who were "hardcore Nintendo" and wouldn't touch anything Sega made.
Point 3: If Nintendo cared about America, you'd think Shigeru Miyamoto would have learned English a long time ago. I guess since he spends all his time developing casual titles he has no time to learn English. Did you know Nintendo has a lifetime contract with him and essentially owns every thought he has?
Point 4: I know I sound like I'm attacking Nintendo and I probably am, but
fact #1: More American game-makers need to make Wii games, whether they use the Wiimote or find a way to make them compatible with a GameCube controller. Or. heck, they could even make GameCube games and just have people play them on their GCs or Wiis.
Point 5: Not all good Wii games have to be first person shooters. It seems like the "hardcore" crowd flocks to these expecting the Halo-killer and are not looking towards the Wii. I'm pretty sure that, despite it's flaws, Red Steel was okay as well as Metroid Prime being a must-buy for the Wii.
Alternate Point #1: There have been a lot of good FPS games that were overlooked by many people only because game sites compared them to Halo. Area 51, Project Snowblind, Goldeneye: Rogue Agent, and even Serious Sam 2 would brushed to the side.
Point 6 and this is for all those who are old enough to remember: the Virtual Console offers a ton of old school NES and SNES games to play. Not being a Wii owner I can't give you any examples of what games their are but I'm pretty sure you can find a list online. Go Google it. Thing is, most of the young kids dont' care for these old games, making the VC mainly for those who grew up playing them.
Point 7: I would like to see Nintendo create a newer version of the Wii without restrictions, but design it different from the currect console as to make sure the differences are known. The lack of restrictions would allow people to add others without friend codes, Brawl codes, Kart codes, or anything else. Just implement a name system and have it registered to one person. If the person decides to change their names then their friends are notified instantly.
This has been a public service announcement brought to you by me. But honestly, I never really know how to end blogs of this nature. I'm sure I would like Nintendo more if they just paid attention to people and stopped shipping in Japanese games. They could do so much better.

Random Blog: The Future of Gaming

(I wrote this back in July 08. Thought I'd give you all something to read since the original blog I was working on was deleted thanks to having to reformat my computer.)

Something that's been on my mind for a few months now has been, as the title states, where is gaming going in the future?
This generation has taken the leap to high definition. In the last generation we saw DVD players/CD recorders added to video game systems. The generation before that had CD players even before the Sony Playstation was introduced (think 3DO). We can even connect two of the current consoles to our computers and easily transfer music and videos. And the Xbox 360 has us playing against others using a PC.

So where's the next gen going to take us?

Are we going to see a blending between consoles? Playstation 4 players alongside the next Xbox players alongside PC players?
Are we going to see newer CD-type players? CD burners on the consoles? And how much are we going to need before we realize it's all too much?
Will home-created games become a new market?
What kind of connectivity are we going to have with our handheld systems?
Are holograms and virtual reality going to make a comeback? The possibility of holograms is now a reality, we've explored virtual reality in the past but most of it was simple polygons.
Are we going to see a wider spread of DLC?
Are games going to skip being sold in stores and go direct-to-download? (In other words: putting places like Gameslop out of business?)
Are achievements, trophies, etc. going to matter?
So many games take cues from other games that many claim the creators are running out of ideas. Are we going to see old games made new again or simply a reformatting and return of what once was? Or both?
Is Hollywood going to branch out and "make" more games or vice versa?
Are pros going to be more recognized among the mainstream? Will that in turn cause more competitive games to be made?
Are we going to see a blur between media? Such as comics, movies, music, tv and games becoming more intertwined.
What types of controllers are we going to see? (Such as the rumored 'finger-tip' controllers being developed by Nintendo.)
What will companies do to bring in more new customers?


There are a million different possibilities and there are a million different directions. What do you think is a possibility? Speak your opinions, I like to hear them.

Keep Playing.

Video Game Videos

Random Blog: N-Gage: What could have been

When the N-Gage was announced in ’03, there was very little buzz around it. Gamers were unsure of what they thought of a gaming telephone, and anyone who wasn’t a gamer sure as hell wasn’t going to buy one. Well of course not, it looked like a freakin’ taco.
Recently Nokia "moved" the N-Gage to a series of phones. Basically meaning they withdrew support and decided they would put ARM processors into new phones.

What went wrong with the entire thing is

1. The price. $300 for a phone that played games that looked like they were below PS1-quality.
2. It was easily outsold by the GBA.
3. In order to change the game you had to open the back of the deck and change out game cards.
   

The latter was changed with the introduction of the N-Gage QD: there was a side slot to easily change games. The graphical problems continued since the games were still low-quality.

Sure, the N-Gage could do a lot of things: play games, browse the web, make phone calls, play mp3s, etc., but what did it matter if the games sucked? That’s all that gamers were looking for and that's what most of the advertising went towards. And with the promise of the release of the Playstation Portable and the Nintendo DS, what reason was there to get one?
The N-Gage could have succeeded if it had waited 2 or 3 years. They could have taken a lot from other devices, such as the iPod, with the touch-sensitivity, a touch-screen like the DS, and media compatibility like the PSP.

If they had made it a sliding phone, the above would have been possible. I’ve used the Nvidia Tegra as an example, meaning I just drew on the thing to show you what imagine it could have been.
KEEP IN MIND: THIS IS THE NVIDIA TEGRA, NOT SOMETHING DRAWN BY ME, I’ve only drawn on the imagine. Even then, I'm sure this is a prototype image.

As you can see the N-Gage could have worked, the media-type could have been games DLed to the memory stick, DLed wirelessly, or bought in a store.

The two circles represent control stick areas, this is where the iPod touch-sensitivty comes into play. During game play the numbers and letters fade and the rings light up representing the touch areas. It has standard 4-buttons and shoulders buttons like on a console controller, as well as Start and Select. The Alt keys are replaced by start and select buttons. As for the screen to be touch-compatible, I'm sure that would jack the price up by about $50-$100.

If they had only waited, the N-Gage might have survived.

Aaron Stone

All I can say is "It's OWN, NOT PONE!"

I expected more video game references but with ones like above being mentioned its hard to take it seriously.

I know I'm sounding harsh, but at least they're trying. Hero Rising is a real game but still in beta. If its anything like in the show I'll pass.
What got to me was the the first scene with the main character Charlie: he plays basketball so what good is that going to do him when he's fighting off a small horde of nameless thugs. What also bugged me when near the beginning of the show was when the character Charlie was free running and grinding a rail from a jacked skateboard. I can understand this being a show of his physical prowess but it's too much in a short amount of time.
The camera work is too fast when the action happens. I wish there were more wide-angle shots rather than split-second hit moments.

Some part of me wishes there were REAL video game references. Like something about Atari, or at one point Charlie yells "Hadouken!" when he's shooting off his laser. I understand copyrights and all that but I'm just saying, that would keep me more interested.

But bad points aside the show is worth watching. I know I'm being hard on the pilot episode(s)(the first part was on Disney and the second part was on Disney XD), and I'm hoping for more in the future: a deep storyline, new characters, new weapons, and a new miniboss instead of SoulTaker. Whenever that guy speaks it looks like his voice is being dubbed over.

Oh and more LIFE, they all seemed like they were halfa$$ing it because it was the pilot.

Live!

One thing that has interested me lately is the Quake Live beta. Not because its free, well maybe, but it's completely browser-based and is a fully-actualized, stat-counted, kill-tracking, return of what competitive gaming is supposed to be. It's Quake 3 in an internet browser.
Another game that I've been playing is Cartoon Network's FusionFall. I know what you're thinking: "Why would you play a childish game like that?" My response is the old adage: "Don't knock it 'til you've tried it." The fusion aspect is not so much a fusion in the storyline, but a fusion of generations. In the game you'll come across an older Dexter, later on you'll meet Ben from Ben 10. It's a fusion between old and new. A perfect meeting in the middle and most of all its just fun to play.
I've been hearing a lot about Battlefield Heroes, but so far I'm just not excited for it. Another browser-based game set to the tune of a brand new game engine, BFH is either loved or hated: loved because of the "free to play" aspect and hated because it resembles a cartoon. If some people nitpick so much about a game then why do they play them at all?
I don't see browser-based gaming as becoming "the future of gaming," but I do see these games becoming more recognized as the pioneers who started the whole revolution. There will definitely be more in the future, and as long as none of them are JRPGs, they will succeed.
I like these games since you don't have to listen to the 12-year-olds with foul mouths every server. Its just smack talk in text that you can simply ignore, even block. It offers the same amount of anonymity that the consoles offer.


(I know this is a bad first, or second, blog but I don't really have a lot of time behind me to think about what I want to write. It's noisy and I write best at night when no one's around. I'm not the most articulate writer, I'll be the first to admit it. As long as one person reads it and finds out a bit more, then I feel better. Also this keyboard needs some serious cleaning.)

I'm done. I seriously can't think. I feel like I'm being rushed for no reason.

What to expect from me

I have a lot of thoughts of video gaming: casual, hardcore, and professional. I have thoughts on the IT world, the business end of Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, AMD, ATI, Nvidia, etc. I have thoughts on where these people, companies, products, and technologies are going. I also have thoughts on the past: Atari, Dreamcast, AOL, etc.

And I will post my thoughts on them whenever I get my mind clear. Unlike right now.

Chicken-poodle.

That is all. :)