Noby Noby Boy

The following is actual footage from a real video game:


The fact that it is made by the creator of Katamari Damacy is the only reason I really want to play it. Unfortunately it's only on the PS3. Oh well.

Sleeping With The Enemy

I was supposed to meet up with Graham and some other people at Family Bowl last night. I was going to dominate the lanes and make everyone ashamed that they even dared to challenge my ten-pin skills.
Instead, Graham received a PS3 as an early Christmas present and the bowling plans kind of fell apart from there. I hung out at Graham's for a few hours to witness the spectacle. Of course, the entire time I was just cursing my own luck in not having procured my Wii. But I didn't want to rain on his parade entirely, so I mostly kept the anti-Sony rhetoric at a minimum. I played a single death match round of Resistance: Fall of Man, which everyone seems to agree is the killer app for the system launch. But it pretty much wins by default. Almost every other launch title is multi-platform, and the few that aren't are fairly lackluster. Genji looks pretty enough, and I really didn't see enough of it to form a solid opinion, but the reviews have not been favorable. Resistance has been getting great reviews, on the other hand. My brief play time was not unsatisfactory, and the single-player campaign looked interesting. But it's not the kind of game I go crazy over. It looks like a Call of Duty game, but with aliens. I'm just not into the shooters that much these days. The problem might be that I compare every shooter experience with the Goldeneye days of yore. And nothing will ever live up to that. The other problem is that I've played Gears of War, and that game just raises the bar for shooters above and beyond anything else. Sure, it's not really a first-person shooter. You spend most of the time hovering just over the character's shoulder. But it switches to first-person when aiming, so I find the differences between the two genres negligible.
One area I did notice Resistance excelling in was with the physics engine. It's very cool to see objects (especially the bodies of your fallen enemies) slide down slopes, or off ledges, realistically. Too many times when playing similar games you'll see a dead soldier or alien lying halfway off of a staircase, stiff as a board, an entire half of their body seemingly defying gravity. It's like the fastest-setting rigor mortis ever. Or even worse, as they slump against a wall part of their body will fuse through it like something out of the Philadelphia experiment. But Resistance seems to avoid these pratfalls for the most part. At one point Graham passed a fallen foe who was half crouching, half leaning against a wall. It looked eerily natural, as if he had been killed in the midst of reloading or seeking cover. Pretty cool stuff.
Other than this I wasn't too impressed by any of the games. Tony Hawk, Tiger Woods, and Madden all looked very good. But again, they aren't exclusive, and the graphical quality isn't very far removed from the XBox 360. It still boggles my mind that the system can come out a year after the competition with supposedly much more powerful hardware (and price to match), and not look significantly improved. The PS3 still has to prove itself as far as I'm concerned.
So, that was my experience with the PS3. My hands didn't boil when I touched the controller, it didn't explode when turned on, and it didn't shoot blinding rays into our eyes. So at least in that respect it's not as bad as I would have guessed.
Enjoy it, Graham.

Filling The Voiid

This began as a response to Brian's recent comment: "Speaking of releases, did anyone actually buy a PS3 to keep? We ended up not waiting in line any where to sell the PS3, and to be frank it looks like pretty much all of them are on ebay any way. There are actually still Wii's available here in Orlando, I've seen a few on shelves in stores."

My response quickly became post-length, so here it is:

The fact that PS3s are so expensive and that they sell for even more money on ebay pretty much guaranteed that it was a lot more worthwhile to buy one as an investment rather than for personal entertainment. I think the people that were potentially going to triple or sextuple their money were a lot more dedicated to camping out than the people who just wanted to play the one or two exclusive games that are even worth playing.
If you go to IGN's PS3 review section you'll notice that only two of the exclusive titles got decent scores: Resistance Fall of Man, and Ridge Racer 7. A shooter and a racer. Woo. The rest of the worthwhile games are on the other consoles. There's nothing there that would make any real gamer need a PS3 on launch day. Most of the people who are buying one for keeps are technophiles who just want the latest gadget. Nothing about this console seems fun to me.
I spent almost an hour last night reading a forum on Joystiq where people shared their Wii experiences post-launch. The general opinion was pretty universal, that the system is just a blast to play. Many people raved about the simplistic pack-in Wii Sports. A lot of people mentioned Zelda, of course, with a lot of praise. Many people also mentioned their family members, who never play video games, hijacking the console to play wild Wii Sports free-for-alls. Sounds like Nintendo's strategy is a success in that regard.
I don't hear anything like this surrounding the PS3. It's all, HD graphics (which apparently don't work properly, from early reports), Blu-Ray, and...some third thing. In any case, I don't hear anyone saying that the PS3 is a really fun system to play on. Most of the early owners' reports tend to be about system glitches rather than actual game playing. And I hear the download store (Playstation Arcade, or whatever it is) is poorly conceived. The 360's model is really good and it's been around for over a year now. Why reinvent the wheel?
The general opinion seems to be that the PS3 may eventually be worth owning. Most people agree that the system doesn't feel finished, and I personally think that almost every aspect of the system's launch backs this up. So, who in their right mind would pay $600 for one after camping out for two days? Who in their right mind would pay $10,000 for one (as one person reportedly did) on eBay? It's completely insane.
Some people are claiming that the Wii has a ways to go before it proves itself. But if people are having a great time playing it on day one, what the hell else does it have to prove? *sigh*
I want one so bad...

One More Wiik (Again)

No luck at Sears. They only had two Wiis. Two! So I have to wait till Friday. In the meantime I've got the new Zelda game in hand (or on shelf), taunting me, urging me to play it. Damn.

Here's the big launch commercial that's showing everywhere now. It's a lot better than Sony's crying-psycho-baby/exploding-rubik's-cube bullshit.
Hey Sony, fire your advertising department. While you're at it fire everyone that works for you. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the PS3 doesn't even deserve to make money, having the most botched launch in history. Actually, the PS3 isn't going to make money. I should have said it doesn't deserve to be recognized as an actual product that people buy, but more of a hole that people bury their money in. Not for safe keeping, but just to get rid of it. And every once and a while you can come to the hole and look at it and think, "It sure would be nice to have that money," but it's too late. It's in the hole.
The ridiculous thing is that Sony can lose so much money on each console and still potentially be a huge success. The video game industry is seriously fucked up.

Sony Online Has No Structure

It turns out my last anti-Sony rant, while beautifully written, may have been premature and unfounded. So the downloads may be optional. Ok, that's actually a nice feature, then.
To make up for posting the positive news, I'll link to these three stories from Evil Avatar about Sony's online plan. Which apparently is non-existant, or at least so convoluted that none of the developers can actually agree on how to use it. All you have to do is read about EA's online service for the 360 to know what can happen when a developer tries to do its own thing. With the 360 it just doesn't make sense, because from all accounts the XBox Live service is fantastic. For EA to ignore it is just plain stupid. On the PS3, developers don't really have a choice. So instead of an online system that runs smoothly with most games, you'll have a mish-mash of services that may or may not be ideal for playing games. It could work, but what a pain in the ass. Again, it's just extremely complicated for a console. The whole point of a console is simplicity.

Add to that this developer's opinion that the 360 and PS3 are nearly identical in power. Take that, Sony! Your system comes out a year later and costs $200 more, it had damn well be a more powerful system on all levels. Instead, the power gap is marginal at best. This opinion comes from someone at Silicon Knights, a company that gives a lot of credence to gaming power. I know this because they abandoned Nintendo for a more powerful system, the jerks.
There's nothing in the PS3 that seems to create confidence for the consumer. I believe anyone who buys this system on day one is a sucker. This is a system that needs to be observed from a distance before any amount of money is spent on it.

Don't Re-Elect Sony In '06

This little blurb from Evil Avatar contains what might possibly be the number one reason not to buy a PS3.
Apparently, portions of the games you play will have to be downloaded to the internal hard drive just to make the game run properly, much like installing a game on your PC.
The article states that the Ridge Racer game launching with the system will require 5GB of information to be stored. The reason for this is that Blu-Ray drives apparently run at a slower rate than normal disc drives, and the install helps the game run at a tolerable speed.
I'm sorry, but if I wanted to go to that much trouble to play a game I'd buy a gaming PC. At least the PC would have more than 20GB of storage from the get-go. At that rate you'd be able to play 4 games of your choice on the PS3 before having to erase one game's data to make room. And anyone who's even remotely tech-savvy knows how long it takes for 5GB of data to transfer.
Of course, the system allows for any owner to buy a larger compatible hard drive to solve the problem. And I'm sure anyone who has dropped 600 dollars on the system wouldn't mind spending an extra 200 for that storage breathing room, right?
The thing that boggles my mind is that this information is only now seeing the light, when the system comes out in just over two weeks. This information is kind of critical, don't ya think? It's like Sony is trying to reveal as little as possible about their system, for fear that once we see the thing in its entirety we shall at once be repulsed.
Sony is the Phantom and we, the consumer, are Christine. We are compelled to look under the mask but we aren't prepared for what we'll find. Sony knows it's a monster and understands when all is revealed the illusion is shattered and the romance is finished.
If Sony remains dominant in the video game industry this time around I'll probably react in much the same way as I would if the Republicans maintain dominance after the elections. Slack-jawed stupefaction.
I don't know. Maybe I'm just a biased Nintendo fanboy, trying to justify the weaker graphical power of the new system in my future. Maybe nearly a thousand dollars is a small price to pay for the "next generation" of video gaming.
No, wait. It's a huge price. Fucking huge. Goddamn, look at the size of it.

More Sony Wisdom

Next-Gen has an interview with yet another baffling Sony suit.

Regarding the PS3's online strategy:
"What we don’t do however is have a brand name for the network service, you know, like PlayStation Online or PlayStation Live, and this is because we don’t see a 'PlayStation offline'.
What I’m trying to say is that it doesn't matter if you are enjoying content from a Blu-ray disc or you are enjoying content you just downloaded from the network, at the end of the day it’s all PlayStation 3 so we don’t differentiate between content, and I think that makes a clear point between us and some of our competitors, who like to differentiate how the consumers get the content, that’s the difference in the strategy or the basic philosophy towards the online service."

Brilliant, absolutely brilliant PR bullshit. In the words of my local rapping pals: "Break it down!"

1. "We Don't See A 'Playstation offline.'"
This is Sony trying to sound hip, man. The PS3 is never "offline," dude.
CONSUMER: What about games that don't have online content? Aren't they offline?
SONY: Who let him in here? Seize him!!! I mean...help him out...dude.

2. "It doesn't matter if you are enjoying content from a Blu-ray disc or you are enjoying..."
...a wonderful bowel movement.
Seriously, Sony can't say Blu-ray enough. They'll slip it into any conversation even when it doesn't really fit. They are so desperate for this media format to be accepted by the mainstream., because they're practically hinging the entire company's success on it. They're forgetting that they defeated the Betamax with the VHS buy supplying consumers with a much more affordable (albeit shabby) product. With Blu-ray they're trying to get us to buy into a much more expensive (albeit shabby) product.

3. "I think that makes a clear point between us and some of our competitors..."
You know who we mean. *awkward wink*

4. "That’s the difference in the strategy or the basic philosophy towards the online service."
It's finally clear to me now. Sony's master philosophy is that they offer content the same way as everyone else, but they don't have a name for it.
That's on par with the philosophy of any pothead I've ever met at a party.
That's not a philosophy, Sony. This is.

More Sony Madness

Item 1:

Sony unveiled the official PS3 controller recently.
Instead of the originally previewed boomarang,

this is the controller PS3 owners will receive:

Snah?

So unlike Nintendo, who jumps at a chance to innovate at every turn, Sony dips its toe in the innovation pool and promptly runs screaming back to familiar territory. They're calling it the "sixaxis" to emphasize its motion-sensitive features. "Six degrees of freedom!" is the mantra that Sony is spouting now. Which, when you compare it to the Wii-mote, might as well read "Only six degrees of freedom."
The Wii controller detects full movement of the controller, so you can manipulate things on the screen simply by pointing at them, like you would with a laser pointer. It also has a built-in accelerometer to detect the speed and motion of the controller's movements. Basically any movement can be transferred into gameplay. It just depends on what the developer wants to do. Read this developer blog for a good idea of what this means.
The PS3 controller only detects the controller's movements and can't distinguish, say, the position of the controller in relation to the television. Sony incorporated this feature shortly after Nintendo unveiled their own controller, and did a pretty shoddy job in the process. Since it was a last minute addition it's unlikely that any PS3 games will even utilize the feature for quite awhile after the system's launch. Also, Sony had to sacrifice the rumble feature. They claimed it screwed up the motion sensor. Maybe if they'd developed this ealier they could have figured out a way to make it work, like Nintendo did.
Sony takes two steps back for every stolen step forward.

Item 2:

Sony just doesn't care.
As its development of Blu-Ray technology suggests, Sony creates its products in a complete market vacuum that shields it from competition and consumer demands. It must be nice to create your own world and live there every day.

The Lyricism Of A Tycho Rant

Just wanted to draw attention to the latest Penny Arcade post, entitled The Secret Weapon. Not so much for the comic (which hasn't been uploaded as of this post), but for Tycho's discussion of the PS3, which is absolutely hilarious. Click the link above to hear about the "gimped" PS3.
Or watch the pretty pretty trailer for White Knight Story, which is, as he points out, the only game shown for PS3 so far that might actually be worthwhile.

For an unrelated tidbit, click here for more game trailer goodness. This one is called Lost Odyssey and it's for the Xbox360, and it is stunningly beautiful.

It's easy to see the appeal for Xbox and PS3 when you watch these trailers ("see" being the operative word). Whereas with the Wii, the main appeal (from what I've heard, of course) is felt when you play. This is a much more difficult sell and requires huge, swaying-in-the-breeze, tanuki-sized balls on the part of Nintendo. It is a gamble. Microsoft and Sony can just show you a video of the game, with all its pretty colors, and your mouth begins to water. That is, the part of your mouth that, for whatever reason, craves video games. Nintendo on the other hand invariably has to show (either in cut-away, or picture-in-picture) someone playing the game, excitedly swinging away at the air like a madman. Which isn't even required for playing the system, because the controller (or Wii-mote) has much more sensitive and intuitive controls, allowing you to play with subtle flicks of the wrist rather than head-cleaving power slashes. But Nintendo has to show these things so ignorant non-gamers (the very people they're trying to bring into the fold) understand just what the hell is going on. So when Grandma walks past the display case she can see someone jumping behind their couch, popping back up and firing away at the screen, at which point she makes the conclusion that she still has no interest in playing video games. Because they are just "silliness."
Anyway, my point is, Microsoft and Sony's systems are very appealing in their own right. Video games are a visual media, so it stands to reason that better visuals means better games.
But they are also a tactile media, which stands to reason that better interaction means better games.
Two different ways of looking at it. Which is right? Well, Nintendo's of course! What did you think I was going to say?
In all seriousness, I think it just comes down to the individual gamer. Cost is a huge factor for someone like me. If I was a rich man (yadda-badda-dadda-dee) I would have no hesitation in buying all three systems, and whatever games I wanted without a second thought. But my pockets are not that deep. So I have to consider what I'm getting for my money. On the one hand, I can buy a 360 or PS3 for a lot of money and reap the benefits of really fast processing and amazing graphics and sound, because if we're still assuming I'm a rich man I'll also have the biggest HD television known to man. For all its talk about HD and Blu-ray, Sony hasn't really said much about everything you actually need to own in order for that to be worthwhile. The component cables alone are outside my price range. Do they really think the average gamer/consumer has that kind of set-up at home?
Nintendo's Wii is a lot less money and offers a brand new kind of experience, with the addition of nicer graphics (just not as nice as its competition). Throw Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong, etc. into the mix and it's a clear winner in my opinion.
However the tide turns when all three systems have been released, I don't think sales numbes should be the deciding factor. Whichever system is the biggest seller doesn't necessarily make it the best system. I'm in the camp that considers video games an art form. More importantly, it's an untapped artform. I have yet to have an emotional experience while playing a video game that has equaled that of my favorite movie or CD. Video games have this potential. I think the interface of the Wii is a small step in the right direction. Nintendo is trying to blur the line between the gamer and the game. If we're moving toward holodeck technology (bear with me here) then motion sensitive control will be a huge part of that. I'm not just daydreaming. The military is already working on this kind of technology to train its troops. The more realistic the experience the more accurate the training. At some point in the distant future video game technology will reach this level. Realistic graphics will be a part of that, sure, but it will not be the most important part. You could make an engaging holodeck-style game completely set in a crayon-drawn stick figure world as long as the body and mind felt like they were there. The eyes will follow.

Addendum: I started to mention the importance (or lack thereof) of sales when it comes to video games before taking a right turn and discussing video games as art. I meant to connect these two ideas before I got sidetracked by the whole holodeck thing. The point I was going to make was that, like music or film, sales aren't the best indication of quality. So, while it's important that video games make money we shouldn't let sales necessarily dictate the direction of the industry. If you created games based solely on what sells you'd end up like the Fox Network, creating cheaply produced crap while canceling all your critically acclaimed series. Or in video game terms: more Grand Theft Auto, less Katamari Damacy. More hype, less ingenuity.
The video game industry isn't quite to this point yet. It still falls into a sort of niche market, unlike CDs and DVDs which are absolutely everywhere (including cereal boxes). So the people buying video games are generally very educated and very very picky. Just read any video game message board, you'll see some very heated opinions. The gaming public as a whole is a lot less likely to put up with commercial bullshit than is the movie-going public. This is gradually changing. It has to if the industry is to survive. The biggest roadblock is the fact that there is no standard media for video games. Right now we have three major devices to play games that are exclusive to those devices. With CDs or DVDs you have a ton of different companies producing hardware, but the software is universal. I'm not saying the game industry should necessarily go this route, but it is a difficulty.
Nintendo's primary goal with the Wii is to bring video games to a wider market than ever before. The problem with a wider audience, however, is that we'll see a lot more companies appealing to the lowest common denominator. Again, this will mean a lot more Grand Theft Autos, a lot more Final Fantasy games that focus more on graphical prowess than actual playability. MTV just bought the company that made the immensely popular Guitar Hero game. If MTV's smart it will leave the company alone and simply profit off their work. If it's more like MTV it will suck all the life and joy out of the company and release Guitar Hero: the Ashlee Simpson Edition. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Sony At TGS

Hahaha! I love to hear about Sony stumbling toward its next generation console launch. Here's a short article about a Sony exec's "trainwreck" keynote address at the Tokyo Game Show this week.

Here's another one, detailing how all the bored keynote-attendees amused themselves with the Nintendo DS's communication tool. It's funny because they're using a Nintendo product to roast Sony at its own event. But it's also sad, because these are the people representing the gaming press and they write things like "8 Deez Nuts."

Add all this to the PS3's large price tag and extremely limited supplies, and things are looking bad for Sony.

Irwiisponsible? (the worse these get, the more I enjoy them)

The latest Penny Arcade news post points out a little article over at joystiq.com which, in so many words, explains why you'd be foolish to buy a Wii over an Xbox360 or PS3. Their rationalization? Microsoft and Sony will lose money on every system they sell whereas Nintendo will be making a profit for every Wii sold. They claim that Microsoft and Sony take losses on their consoles because of their confidence in the product, whereas Nintendo is too insecure to accept a loss.
Mwuh? In what other industry would such an argument hold up? I read it as just the opposite. If Microsoft and Sony were so confident in their incredible systems, wouldn't they charge more? This article doesn't take into account that Nintendo has never taken a loss on any hardware. They've never had to, because as a company run by intelligent people, they develop new hardware that is both advanced and reasonably cost-effective to produce. Microsoft and Sony, on the other hand, in their never-ending race to one up each other in processing power, create monster systems that cost a lot of freaking money. Those companies have always considered better graphics the sole definition of next generation gaming. Nintendo always uses the next generation as an opportunity to make new steps in innovation. They invented controller rumble features and anolog control sticks, ideas which were quickly implemented by Sony (and Sega, at the time). They are now considered standard for video games. Notice how after Nintendo revealed the motion sensor nature of the Wii's controller, Sony comes out after a long silence and says, "oh yeah, us too," revealing a much more primitive level of sensitivity.
The Nintendo DS opened up a lot of new gameplay possibilities. Gamers seem to appreciate that, seeing as how DS sales are putting Sony's PSP to shame. This demonstrates Nintendo's philosophy vs. Sony's. Innovation vs. more of the same. Remember the original hype around the PSP? Now, unless you go to a PSP-specific website you're not likely going to hear much about it in the gaming community. It's not a terrible system. There might be a few decent games out for it. But it is being stomped by a system that is graphically two generations behind. Remember how many other handheld systems came and went, defeated by the simplistic pea-soup colored graphics of the original Game Boy?
Now this Joystiq article basically calls the Wii a glorified Gamecube, based on the fact that the processing power isn't into the next stratosphere like its rival systems. It manages to ignore the fact that the play mechanics are brand new, meaning types of games never before possible in addition to more traditional style games. That is a claim Nintendo alone can make in this generation. Also unique to Nintendo is the Virtual Console (almost the most exciting feature of the Wii, if you don't include any of the new games), and the ability to play your friends online for free. No subscription fee for online play. How come the people jawing away about Nintendo's profit greed never mention that? And since when did Microsoft and Sony obtain the status of the friendly mom-and-pop companies, trying to save the consumers a buck or two (never mind the fact that Nintendo's system is the cheapest by far, almost a third the price of PS3). Sure, Nintendo's making a profit. They're a business. One of the most successful businesses in Japanese history. They've never been in the red, despite Japan's troubled economy. As a Nintendo stockholder, I for one find that comforting.
If you read these articles carefully you might begin to wonder what Sony reprogramming camp the author spent the week at. How are PS3 devotees pointing fingers at Wii's price tag and crying fowl? I believe it comes down to the fact that Playstation fans have a $600 price tag ahead of them, and many of them are secretly beginning to wonder exactly what they're getting for their money. Sooner or later you have to start rationalizing, at which point you start to make arguments like, "I'm slightly annoyed that Nintendo is so uptight about taking losses when it is pretty much standard in the game industry" (taken from the comments of the article linked above). Well, it's never been standard to Nintendo and they've been around longer than anyone. Hmmm, coincidence?

Addendum: This guy at eToychest has written a very similar article, with the same idiotic point of view: "This is not to say that Nintendo should not be making money off the Wii, but it is clear that Nintendo is doing something very radical with their approach to the industry." Again, this is clearly written by someone whose outlook on the gaming industry has been mired solely in Microsoft and Sony for the past five years. How is Nintendo being radical by following its exact same successful business philosophy since 1889? How have these people run popular gaming sites for so long with such a limited (and cynical) view of the industry they claim to love? It's like listening to people explain why they still wholeheartedly stand behind their vote for President Bush.