What I've Been Playing

Quite quiet in the way of gaming again.

World of Warcraft

I had a go at World of Warcraft. It was enjoyable questing fun but didn't really draw me to a monthly subscription model way of thinking. I didn't really get into much of it though. I didn't try the instance dungeons or really group quest with anyone so maybe I was missing out on much of the fun. It's my first experience of massively multiplayer games in a long time and... it hasn't changed all that much really.

Dungeon Seige II (Demo)

Thought I'd give the demo of this game a go. We played the first one in Multiplayer mode for quite a while so I was looking forward to this one. I have to say they seem to have changed the weapon switching and spell system for the worse which isn't good at all given I felt the first game had done poorly there. I found so much of the gameplay similar to Diablo II it almost felt like I should have just been playing Diablo II instead. They have Skill Trees and Item Sets for example. Anyway one of the big wins that I'm hoping for is the ability to persist the server state for a multiplayer session which the first one lacked.

The Sims 2

My love/hate relationship with The Sims continue. I set up a couple of new families and tried to make them do their thing. I expect hearing tales about what someone's sims are up to must be more dull than hearing about what someone's pet has been up to so I'll refrain.

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

Still love this game and it's style but I got board looking for peices of the Master Sword so I put this game down again not long after I picked it up.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

So after getting bored of sailing around in The Wind Waker I loaded up Ocarina of Time to remember the good old days of Zelda. The control system is a little poor in this one; perhaps it was because I had just finished playing some of the newer one. Anyway I got a bit of the way through it but it failed to really hook me so I expect it will sit on the shelf a bit longer.

So The Situation Escalates

So it continues; after the court decided that the game (GTA; what else) was not a factor in the shooting of two police officers there is still a civil case going on to take any company (pretty much involved in any stage of the game) involved in the game getting into the shooter's hands. I find it interesting that:

The makers, distributors, and retailers of that murder simulator equipped Moore to kill as surely as if they had handed him the gun to do it.

Lawyer vows to prove link between video games and murder, The Register

If that is the case then why not take anyone involved in the production and distribution of the firearm used to court. Furthermore I'd argue that if you handed someone a gun and they then went on a killing spree then they have made an active choice to do that rather than to, as most people would, put the gun down. The game was not a tool; the person was mentally unstable to begin with. If you want to find a tool why not question the accessibly of a firearms to the population?

I also find it strange that they aren't just going after Take Two Interactive but also the entire distribution chain. I was disappointed to see that the trucking company that distributed the game from the warehouse to the shops wasn't included on the list. I'm also confused as to how you can sue Walmart and Gamestop for the game's distribution unless it was a Gamestop located within Walmart; I guess.

I'm not sure what is going to come out of this; I'm very interested to see.

Grand Theft Auto San Andreas: Part 2

Well it looks like the GTA has been blown out of all proportion. I see that the kids that are being protected from this polygon sex are the seventeen year olds as (quoting Penny Arcade):

The ESRB is suggesting that they may change the rating of the game to Adults Only, a category that by their own definition should see a great deal more use in a retail environment. This is great. Look at the descriptions for these.

MATURE Titles rated M (Mature) have content that may be suitable for persons ages 17 and older. Titles in this category may contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content, and/or strong language.

Or, as the rest of our culture calls it, "Rated R." Check out AO.

ADULTS ONLY Titles rated AO (Adults Only) have content that should only be played by persons 18 years and older. Titles in this category may include prolonged scenes of intense violence and/or graphic sexual content and nudity.

Penny Arcade

Interesting so I year separates the suitability of the game being vastly inappropriate to just fine to play. Of course it isn't just about that; the game is withdrawn as policy in many shops on account of this. It is very much a political thing.

It was interesting to see the reaction to all this. Even blogs of people who rarely ever move out of their own disciple have taken to talking about it.

The action has not stopped with Rockstar though. I was reading on Extra Life about articles mentioning Sims 2 content worse than Hot Coffee (the actual article). I'm not sure how you can define the extent of which someone has to mod a game before you should no longer consider that in any way part of the original game. In my mind it has to be one of the craziest rants that has ever had a press release but the media being what it is this might also take a life of it is own. VGCats had a interesting comic on the subject.

Retro Fortnight (Recently Played Games)

I thought I'd make my what I've been playing list a regular thing.

Lionheart

It's an old game from the disbanded Black Isle Studio who did do a range of really good games. I didn't feel this was one of them though. Lionheart failed to capture me much. The story seemed ok, a descendent of Lionheart in the world but where evil spirits had been released, but the actual character interaction and quests lead much to be desired pretty much just turning it into a click 'n slash game. I quick-saved where I was meant to quick-load and then just gave up.

Neverwinter Nights

A few friends and I tried playing Hordes of the Underdark (a single player expansion pack) online anyway. We had a few glitches but things seem to be going ok. There were a lot of complaints at Bioware that they released a single player only expansion pack. In all honesty I have single player roleplaying games that I can play; Neverwinter Nights is more enjoyable as a group and I felt it was a shame that the second expansion didn't accommodate that.

Burnout 3: Takedown

I've played the Party Crash mode of this a few times recently. It's a fun game. It's not quite as freeform as the second installment though and that's a pitty.

Dance Dance Revolution: Euromix

In an attempt to get a better rhythm sense and get a little healthier I've been playing this. With dance mats; of course.

Legend of Zelda: Four Swords

I've had this game for a while but I was waiting for four of us to get together with some GBAs for some Four Sword action. It was really good fun to play and I liked the simple graphics. They took me back to wanting to play some of the other Zelda series so you might see those on recently played later. There were a couple of issues though. We did the first stage then messed up saving. We figured we'd redo it and the second time my GBA's battery was running low so I paused and turned it of. The game sensed a player had disconnected and so ended the game! We couldn't be bothered starting it again so we played the Shadow Battle mode (PVP action) and then called it a night.

Grand Theft Auto San Andreas

The whole Sex Scenes in GTA: San Andreas has been predominant enough to make it into mainstream media. Effectively people are criticizing the ESRB system as a mod for the game allows a player to unlock some sex subgame. The current rating is (in the USA), I believe, an R and basically they want it set to some Adult Only rating which, as far as I can see is for the same age range as an R but lots of shops don't stock it or something.

The argument revolves around the fact that Rockstar North already had the code in there. Of course they may have had it in as they planed, but later dropped, the subgame. It's not officially part of the game, someone has to alter the code (even if only slightly) to access the mini-game so I fail to see how the ESRB can be criticized for failing to rate the game correctly as they can only rate the actually content they get to see.

I suppose the main point that I find worrying about is when I read things like this:

Once again, ESRB has failed our parents. This particular game has been known to include extremely heinous acts of violence, and now it has been uncovered that the game also includes explicit sexual scenes that are inappropriate for our children.

Leland Yee (Reported in the Scotsman)

That's the point isn't it? Why are you letting your young children play the game in the first place? I also find it sad that we deem extreme violence as better than showing some form of sexual act. That controlling some rendered models having sex is somehow worse than controlling those same models to beat a random street full of other models into a pulp.

I actually firmly believe that the GTA series should not be played by children I'm quite happy with games like it and Doom III actually falling under the BBFC jurisdiction.

What I've Been Playing

I think a little update to the current games that have been taking up my time is in order.

Forza Motorsports

A fine driving simulation game. The lack of GT4 license and a fairly good difficulty curve keeps this game enjoyable and I haven't even had the pleasure of playing it on Live! yet. Graphically it isn't quite as strong as GT4 but that is presumably, in part, caused by the fact that you can customize the look of your car a lot more. The addition of a damage model is a big plus over GT4. I'm still terrible at driving games but this has been one that I've managed to get into.

Onimusha 2

I've had this for a long time but haven't really had time to play it. I'm not so sure about the merchants and the whole giving gifts to characters at all. I feel it detracts from what should really be a horror game. Plus the whole gift giving, I mean, is it really necessary? Anyway random demon hacking action.

SSX 3

Racing down a slope, or trying to do a few tricks, on a snowboard. It's straight up good fun; tricks are much easier to pull than in the first one and though that takes away a bit of the skill it does make the learning curve a bit easier and all that really results is for the criteria for winning to be generally tougher.

That's really it for the last week and a bit. I'm not really sure I can even call myself a gamer anymore. With the exception of a bit of Halo 2 I probably haven't even been online that much either.

Square Enix and The Curse of the Title

Some people say that Squaresoft (now known as Square Enix ever since that merger) really should have had a better title than Final Fantasy when making a game that ended up having lots of sequels*. However I just read a press release stating, SQUARE ENIX SHIPS FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST™ 2: CURSE OF THE CRIMSON ELIXIR. Fullmetal Alchemist 2: Curse of the Crimson Elixir; seriously... April the 1^st was a long time ago you know. Maybe they should just stick with Final Fantasy XXIX.

* Final Fantasy was released just as Squaresoft were running out of money; they assumed it was going to be their last title.

XBox 360 and Playstation 3 Articles

The Internet is full of articles about the XBox 360 and the PS3. Some that stood out, as a detailed look at the hardware, was the articles on Ars Technica namely:

• Introducing the IBM/Sony/Toshiba Cell Processor — Part I
• Introducing the IBM/Sony/Toshiba Cell Processor — Part II
• Inside the Xbox 360, part I
• Inside the Xbox 360, part II

They can get a little technical, and are quite lengthy, but are certainly worth the read.

Realizations

Ever come to the conclusion about something while not really thinking about it? I did just yesterday. I realized that my current PC might well be the last PC I ever buy. Sure I might still upgrade it a couple of times but what do I need more power for in my PC? Games. Now given the next generation of consoles all do some fine resolutions with some astounding graphics and, hopefully with wireless, support some keyboards and mice why do I want to continue playing games on my PC. Currently strategy, RPGs and FPS are all that I really play on my PC. Now FPS are already ported to consoles and the line-up for the next generation consoles suggests this practice will continue. I'm quite certain that with a resolution capable of showing text clearly and the falling price of persistence storage to write save games it will be well within the interests of people who develop strategy games to produce for the console market, even including those hard-core games that wouldn't normally appeal to the console audience.

Of course game development is a moving target and though the next generation consoles seem impressive now, they probably won't compare to a PC when we are looking at the next console cycle. However I'm becoming less and less impressed with incremental graphics updates and I'm not sure that the possibility of doubling the resolution on my PC monitor would appeal to me when I could put that money into a HDTV instead.

So if I remove games from my PC, and I'm not saying with the ever improving market that this will hold true, that pretty much leaves game development as the only thing that keeps me on an upgrade cycle. If there is one thing that requires more power than games it is generally the tools that are required to build for that game. Whether or not I'll find my current PC good for this purpose or not remains to be seen. I suppose maybe I'll get into video editing one day and realize that I'll have to bump up my machine for that. For checking email, listening to music or writing a document though there is going to have to be a hard sell as to why it is worth my time to upgrade.

E3

Like most gamers I follow many of the announcements of E³. Also, like most gamers, I'm not actually there. This leads me to rely on those shaky-cam videos that you see splattered over FileRush. I noticed that Nintendo actually released their videos rather than them being taped. This is a good thing. The way I see it the fans want to see what the future might hold and will download these videos. If the videos are of poor quality then I find that I'm left with a not overall great impression.

I think, as we approch a much higher resolution image in games, that the thumbnail videos that you used to get aren't really worth squat in our broadband world. I'm sure most of the game companies are reaching this conclusion as well but I felt it was worth mentioning. Vision Gran Turismo looked great, more importantly it didn't just look like a revision of the graphics; if you look at how many cars are on track: that's a good use of technology.

What else? I watched the second Final Fantasy: Advent Children trailer and it made my mouth drop. Sure it is non-interactive, but it looks like everything Spirits Within should have been.

I'm sure, like all the other people who have game related blogs, will talk about the big 3 consoles at some stage.