In an attempt to steal Nintendo's new found popularity with the "General" population, I did have the belief that both the 360 and PS3 was in the market of going Wii-crazy.

I was right to suspect some foul play was about to arise and someone going middle child on everything because they felt to be the middle child of it all. Any guesses as to who that may be?

The Wii-mote, in its core is very simple in design and its simplicity in its structure and if you want to know more about the Wii-mote, go to Wikipedia and read off that. Though, in all honestly, PS3 has done something very similar with it, with the main problem being... the function being under-utilised to even become a serious threat to Nintendo.

In being the ruler of the universe by becoming really powerful and mass slave over all that ever exist in the comfortable land of the gamers, it starts underperforming, slouches on the couch, bludges around a bit and claiming that it knows all that is known in the world, people has come to be bored of all talk and no substance, ditching the probable Wii-killer, but has... instead, lead the little leaguers market of Wii-dom to become the child which many have come to know and love by all...

Xbox 360, being the middle child and all, wishes for attention by copying instead of fending on its own and bare its own market by being something which others haven't been... and the Achievements system now being copied by PS3 (not available to all games.... suckers!) and to few Wii titles.

I do realise that the Xbox is actually the last system to of entered the console race, but in defence of calling it the middle child, there are two main facts...
1) Sega did work with MS on the Dreamcast project and it did leave the door open for them to pick up the scraps of Sega's former glory and do something with it
2) Microsoft's Operating System has been available to play lots of games before Sony came into play with the Playstation, which almost does mean that Sony is in fact the youngest of them all...

It is odd how the middle child in the race does copy ideas but left and right and coming first in lots of races... but where exactly does it sit when it comes to the 8th generation of consoles do actually come into play?

No doubt Sony will go in the direction of where technology is leading towards and being quite power hungry. As a suggestion for them (chances are they won't get this), stay on that path as it would be beneficial in the long run as I will explain later)
Nintendo will follow in the success of the Wii by adding on the Wii-mote functionality and adding power plus fun rating into the mix... whilst keeping costs low and making some profit on its console... and I don't care if it actually does make loads of money for not going all out as if it does slap the back of your head just to grab your attention like an attractive opposite sex, then congrats to them and whingers can take a quiet pill and STFU.
Xbox 360 can go both ways with them having the Wii-mote like device almost ready for the market... big question of the games and the amount of time left before the next generation of systems does actually come onto the market... The balance of time, game titles, functionalities, cost, etc, all comes into play for its venture into copying the Wii-mote.

In all honestly, I worry about the direction in which Xbox 360 is going as not very many good things come out of being the copy cat in the race and hurting its nearest rival to gain their position. Even though, PS3 did shoot themselves in the foot for being far too cumbersome to become useful, the ability to up the dosage in peripherals and having a garage full of gadgets which one day may be useless, does beg the question of the direction Xbox is going to head into...

Middle child syndrome can be a massively overhyped exclusive game. This does go in all directions of 360 from here on out, just not in the same spot.

Do something good, you'll be blasted for it sooner or later. Do something bad, you might get away with it. Proves that the rules to life are usually flawed.

With the land of the pirates, comes the land of the not so free. It is weird how the land of the supposedly free, comes the land of the hypochondriacs running around like headless chooks if they lose something, even something as small as 5%

Sure, 5% can be a very huge amount, but get the bigger picture... there's tax... in whatever percentage the country actually does... which is 30% here... expenses... more taxes and so on... Costs here and there, it just stacks up...

Some companies on the other hand... take advertising to the extreme... such as... O ... I don't know... EA... yet... they still complain about the sales of their games since they would get a damn profit from sales of games, advertising, downloadable contents and many of the advertising fixtures within the game can be changed if people are connect via the net...

Though, not all companies are of that way. One of the more famous DRMs is Steam. Sure... people find ways around it... though... this system... I actually prefer... oddly... not because of the free updates... not because of its subtlety, but because of the ability to log into your account and play anywhere without having to bring the install disc..., if someone does get into your account.. you're quite stuffed... (please work out a way to prevent it)

I did mention about the DRM problem which isn't really exclusive to the Steam network and other game companies... but it is quite common for people to become pirates... virtual pirates, software pirates... or the people's favourite... the "share and care" community. Either way, they all mean the same thing.

How people do it... It is not for me to say as it is almost to the point of common knowledge and then again... there are Operating System which does block it... though guess what... it was so unpopular that most that ever took up on it, complained like hell about it and didn't ever want to ever use it again... now, it is the butt of all jokes in terms of most nerds...

Piracy may be a big issue and those in the know will try to get around it and most of those honest people wouldn't think about it unless it creates problems... for say... O... I dunno... with very destructive anti-DRM programs... and in all honest... I'm one of those who rather not take that chance for the system to start screwing up to only find out that it as the Copy Protection software doing it... like StarForce and so on...

Some argue otherwise, stating that it is safe... but it comes down to which side of the Berlin wall you are really with... The East... or The West?
The East - There are freedoms, just that supply we the thought process
The West - There are freedoms, just that we question about the process
The same old, same old. Until the divide is taken down and freedoms restored, this wall will remain standing...

Those sad enough to stand on the wall, diluting the problem can take the entire wall and shove it up their A## !!!



Winning is a battle, Losing is an experience... Vista... take note!

This is a major stand off in Australia, especially about the gaming censorship being as it is and how games become blocked from being allowed to be sold within the country, making companies actually lose revenue because of it.

In one of the latest news articles, the Office of Film and Literature has been hacked with messages being changed to reflect the mood of the hackers as a parody of the site and the conditions many gamers are feeling in regards to how the country is positioned in the developed world.

Links
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/032609-oflc-web-site.html
http://au.gamespot.com/news/6206902.html?tag=latestheadlines;title;6

This is a gravely contentious topic and has really been raging on for a long while now and times do change, but sometimes, the things may do require filtering to provide as a warning block rather than as a military blockade.

There are so many things in the world which has been changed or modified to suit societal realms of safety living safety standards. Some of them rightly justified some, over the top. The R rating is one of those which is due for a review and be up for consideration greatly due to the aging population of gamers and the wider spread of audiences now.

At any given time, I can bring up a totally innocent game that's rated as a safe game and then replace the safe intention with a really wrong view.

I know! Space Invaders! You are to shoot down aliens with that weird weapon to stop an alien invasion. Yep, there's honestly nothing wrong with the view of using strange objects, either being flung or shoot towards things which you have no idea about or what they are due to the conceptualisation of it being bad. Wait... isn't that the same thing that's being done by China about Capitalisation? Actually... that isn't about right... Oh! I know.... Germany... and I'll just stop it right there.

In honour of games as a legit entertainment medium and getting my point through, I'll just get on with it.

The rule about no R rated game was mainly cause by Mortal Kombat since it had an extreme amount of blood and gore along with the player models based of real images of people, but greatly pixelatted and I can understand why right now, but back then, it hasn't an issue.

Back when games didn't have ratings, stores even refused to stock games. It did happen in the acknowledgement of looking after their customers. What's to stop shops from doing the same now? Even there are some games which do have an adult rating, mainly in USA, which does refuse to stock a certain title due to content. It is all apart of natural Selection, Survival of the Fittest.
Some games are really great and some games are just too ill-conceived to be given the right to exist.

Businesses exist for a reason. To make money and lots of it! If a game is too risky, they would be afraid of their image being tainted and will resorting to not selling it at all.

I know I have written a blog about the inverse, people who actually buys them... but the main cover topic was, there are too many stupid people in the world complaining for the wrong reasons when it is their fault to start off with.
If you want to stop games from falling into the wrong hands; use a plain DVD case, put an R rating game warning on it and write the game's name on it. Before annoying the purchase of title, the sales assistant or cashier must check ID of proof of age (same with MA15+ game titles you non-checking idiots) and provide verbal warning about the game's contents.

If the people still complaining after being given the warning, then I'm afraid that they really should get their brains checked and learn to accept their mistakes and take it off of whoever they gave the game to and play it themselves... The games do exist and sell for a reason...

Australia is due for a revamp in the game rules and require a full review and update just like how the Exorcist has been rated from an adult rating to a Mature rating. We don't want to become like China do we?

People always complain. Most of the time, for the wrong reasons!

Ever go to the game store and sometimes look for the killer game that's on the shelves or to get the game which has dropped in price and it is about time to play it?

I'm not too sure if anyone's really noticed a trend with the kind of titles which are on the pre-loved shelves for many consoles, but there's a really really noticeable trend if anyone ever tried to go through them.

About 95% of the games there are just made up of really really crappy and over-rated games which doesn't actually earn the Collector's badge... that part, I don't find it hard to believe because of one thing...those games were crappy to begin with...

I know that I'll be using figures here, but hell, this pre-loved thing in Australia isn't as big as people may think... about 5% actually bother to trade in their games for something better (I wish I have more updated figures, this came from a paper in 2007, I know this because it was my professor's paper)... and that's just take a location in Australia now... Sydney is the obvious choice... about 6mil play games and 5% of that... that's 300,000 people bother to trade in games... roughly and take the CBD now... we'll be dealing with roughly that same number of preloved games on the shelves...

That's one large number of unloved games... I wonder what stores do with the games which have over flooded the shelves and can not be sold... anyways... there are just too many crappy titles in that pile and I can honestly say.... swinging in a pool of crap is equivalent to the find, though there are some real gems provided you can find them... but that's a very messy swim.

So, if you are looking to play that really crappy game that you've been looking for? Well wait about 3-5 months and it'll avalanche in price and quite badly too! Makes owning a car more over-rated than owning a crappy game.

This has given me an idea here... Making a prediction list of crappy games and classic ones! Now that Monday is exclusive for blogs like this and Friday is for game reviews... I should make a place of my own just to update a list of good and crappy games every Wednesday... if anyone can help out, please send a line through to gamergrunt@gmail.com

This list is to help out those who loves their games and aren't wiling to pay full price because it "might" be crap, well if you are considering looking at MetaCritic... I'm sorry, but chances are, game would be over-rated such as Devil May Cry 4 and Burnout Paradise.

If something is good, wait til next week

Before I start, heart goes out to all the innocent victims of those affected by violence of any type as I did plan to write this about a month ago, but believed that it would conflict with a possible previous blog ages back. But since there was a game put into the limelight due to a horrific incident, it is about time to dispel the myths and truths about games which "appear" to be hypo violent.

The game being put into the spotlight... well... Counter-Strike. Sure, it shows plenty of death, gore and loads of blood, but it is not real and ask the mature gamer and they'll give you good insight into the game.

I've played plenty of Counter-Strike back in the day and I'm still quite good and competitive, but being an exploration gamer as I am, I don't like being tied down by one game, and so, it is something more of a social scene to just join in and have fun.

In Australia, Counter-Strike is rated on the Highest possible rating due to the high amount of blood and gore content and I wouldn't blame them, they are right, but so long as people do have the mature minds, the rating would merely be an indicator, but then again... some older people in the crowd are what you would call "children at heart". Though, don't let that scare you if they mention Counter-Strike.

The biggest put down with this game is the association of the murder in Germany, which is also greatly condemned by the gaming community, but this alone can not stop bad things from occurring. And this community can not stop the younger immature minds from playing this game, even at times, I would tell them off, but, this would only get those idiotic brats into a circle of stupid bratiness, mainly due to their lack of understanding and mental compensation of knowing what is real and second life in terms of its contexts. Having said that, I do have a cousin who is young and doesn't understand why I refuse to allow him access to my stash of games, apart from the EULA agreements (if people bother to read those, which I actually don't...).

I grew out of the game, not because of the lack of control or people stopping me, but merely to the lack of the point to playing it since there are other games available to blow time on. So in simple and short summary, it was the only game I actually had for a long time and only changed my taste in games when I could afford to do so, or turn pirate from other means... Next game being... some building simulator... or Age of Empires II.

At times, when playing Counter Strike on hours and hours on end... being gathering up to about... 5-8 hours per day on weekdays, my mental capacity is quite sane as it is and the weird part about the entire extended gaming, my eyesight was quite good and did delay the need for glasses, like the rest of my family, but has only recently deteriorating at a steep rate... sure I could go back to stare my eyeballs out to play the game, but the stupid internet and the whole capping system is preventing me from doing so... and even if I could, it isn't my cuppa tea to do so...

First Person Shooters don't actually reflect real world dexterity with weaponry of any sort, such as the use of archery and firearms; oddly, I'm a natural in the use of non-auto and non semi-auto weapons. The difference between game and real world dexterity would be many things. Games have fixed aims with a randomiser to add a bit of realism with a dead straight aim, real world incorporated the weight of the gun into the equation and the fact that the use of the sights and it would alienate those who play games too much, not understand the concept of sight alignment and how to read the sights correctly... along with breathing techniques needed to perfect the shot. Yeah, that murder did perfect his aim due to his father's collection, but, FPSes are only just outlets to delay his rage and FPSes is usually a great way to blow some steam, along with other games which does allow the destruction of the gaming environment.... on a virtual basis.

To understand the mind set of a Counter-Strike gamer, you can just judge everyone in that community to be fiends to the world and anti-sentimental people of the world, the greater majority of the community are gamers one way or another and tonnes are just there to have some fun and not get too carried away by replicating game world scenes into reality as if the game if god... Though... it would be hella funny for guys to play with dolls just to replicate Sim City Society, which comes with matching houses, subway lines and working heavy polluting coal stations with the occasional greeny working out that renewable power just doesn't help power the entire community or big city... close to the same as real life... though... I've never seen sleeping tubes in my entire life... Can someone please show me that it really exists?

In closing, a game can never truly be a bad game in terms for a community, sure people may perceive them to be bad, but compare them to weaponry of any sort... Bad in the wrong hands, but a good tool in the right.

The good is never remembered, just the bad

Gamer Grunt: The Starbucks Effect

Like all establishments which people have come to know and love, management can do something really stupid and implode in itself. Well... not physically and nothing to do with coffee beans, but the way some people are doing business, imagine ultra charging a Red Bull about 6 times the norm; well, that's what's happening out there.

Off the topic of caffeine now, this is actually to do with sporadic appearance of game stores, and some appearing in stupid places, just like what Starbucks did at one point, build a store in the middle of just nowhere. I know now is the best time to actually go and invest for the future, but there's a limit to how stupid someone must get to actually bother to build one in places people would actually think about games.

One such location... about 200 metres away from a freaking beach, close to the strip and when I say the strip, the strip that's just full of pub, nightclubs and gentleman's areas, not brilliant I must say... Another store location, in a shopping centre in the middle of nowhere, but I'll let that one slide since it isn't actually a half bad idea, though, it does become moronically idiotic to actually build it in every single shopping centre that's also located in the middle of nowhere, along with the big shopping centres less than 10km away.

I call that a problem due to many simple facts, Games are a commodity; it isn't like food where it runs out when it is done. They may have the same value as books or even more (or less if you count specialised books), but the simple fact is, if someone wants it and it is close to where they work, which would be the more suitable option? If one argues that it would be targeting people who live close to that location, think about the closest schools and people who love games.

Let's see... average age of gamers... 30-ish... 20's and up, they'd half the brain to actually either look for a cheaper place or closer to where they work if the store is still open... schools... more than 1km or mile away. Get the picture? Unless it is a remote place in the country side, then small would be deemed okay and it may do well.

What really startles me in a total whole is that idea of being very inflexible in terms of the way the entire franchise is done. This is such as the argument of the twig and sticks; stick being the big store and twig being the small. Though, places selling games cheaper than most of the other bigger stores, should take note not to tick people off.

Those believe everyone are idiots, always paying high prices, one word... "Starbucks".

Nothing is ever free, just inflated prices

I'm not here to mock the good work and the selflessness of Left 4 Dead but a news headline caught me off guard and let's just say, there's an age gap between who should know about it and who should ever dare to see it.

I'm not a huge fan about the idea of porn as it has always been the same... silly plot, some odd convo and then come the action and it is the same over and over. To end things on a blunt note, if you want interesting porno, imagine yourself in that scene and then doing your will to whatever sexually... just as effective.

Porn is nothing new as many systems, regardless of what they are, so long as they are popular and mockable, a porno would be made. Whether they sell or not, that's not really the case here. Perhaps the porn industry would try harder to make something decent enough to maybe attract attention.

Street Fighter is too easy and the Japanese have already got dibs on it... Halo and Fallout would be possibilities, but then again... maybe the topic of game porn should be avoided... We already have a Sex games... that's good enough as it is...

Hot Coffee anyone?

If you think you're going too fast, you probably are

If you think you're going too slow, ask someone

It is about time I were to explain myself about my hate of almost everything EA. I'm sure that there are many people out there which does share the same dislike for them.

EA is famous for their sporting titles mainly along with their racing games... Need for Speed if people can't think straight. They also distribute other titles, some series and what not.

But where the main pet peeve lies is their practices of stinking up the gaming playing field. Back in the day of fair and fun gaming for the masses, games produced by them were fair and decent to really enjoy. Gaming was great in the resurgent years known as the computer geekiness years which were the exclusive fun times for the selected. As capitalism has reigned supreme in the nower years, games start becoming repetitive, pirated and now in an attempt to pass blame and deny all responsibility for the law abiding citizens of the world, all peaceful means of communication to the company for a truce is quickly shot down with a whole batch of Friendly-fire or shooting the white flag carrier.

Many game studios which were indie and not apart of EA, they made killer smash hits and revolutionised the way everyone played games and without their contribution, games now wouldn't be as good as they would be now with the exception of where EA now comes in the equation.

As EA became bigger, feeling like they need to wave their big fat cheques and their huge egotistic endowments around like they own the world, bigger than Microsoft has been doing, they buy out their competitions as a friendly gesture of support, only to be shot down in a flaming ball of crap with a few shots to the back of the head for maximum damage and ruin the stallic name which the past companies have been, not being able to go into a blazing hail of glory, but to be taken out, executional style.

Bullfrog, one of my all time favourite publishers created a really glorious game called Theme Hospital and it was the whole toast to the whole of gaming geeks for its morbid humour, which has been a void yet to be filled... why? EA owns all rights and yet, destroyed the company from within.

I personally do have plans to create a resurgent of Theme Hospital and bring back joy in the world of gaming, but that's for another day.

Red Alert 3 in my opinion is the worst Red Alert ever released! Red Alert 2 was better in terms of gaming style and the number special units everyone can much around with. The same formula was tried in General, namely in the expansion pack, only to just create more problems with balancing issues. Either EA are hiring sub-par employees with an imagination as wide as a port within the power or they are really being thick and not playing testing their games.

On the point of hiring... I know someone who works for them and when they found out that there were going to be cuts within the studio, his total health dived like tomorrow, worrying, fretting and drinking excessively as the cuts were really major. EA is no stranger to job cuts as it happens very frequently, acting all emo, letting old bloody out with nice price tags only the let the cost of cheapness overtake everything. As for that person... he's still in the job, mainly because of their art and programming skills.

For years, before knowing about it, I've always said that I will not work for EA due to their blandness and their repetitive BS and lack for inspiration, always focusing on making as much money as possible and not really caring about the community of gamers and treating major concerns as just filthy insects that requires a good swatting.

Sure they are profitable, but all I see from EA is the possibility that they are going to be an Atari in a really extended phase of Warner Brother virus due to their size.

Not happy EA... This BS has gone far enough and if it doesn't clean up its act by crapping on everything, even the great and beautiful things in the world... who will there to pick up the pieces of the Stone Golem?

As businesses goes, a business will try to put a guarantee and will only then attempt to break it with a hidden loophole

According to one of my previous lecturers, addiction or addicts is a very very horrible word to use for someone who is hooked on something, especially in gaming. This is coming from the same guy who helps Ben "Yahtzee" Crowshaw from time to time.

You know what, I would have to agree with him on that front, not because you wouldn't call those kind of people addicts, more to the point that they don't actually admit to actually having a problem and believe that everyone in real life is out to get them to do one thing or another.

I'm not here to throw rotten tomatoes at World of Warcraft even though I'm one of those who just simply can not be bothered to actually play the game and fork out money to play a game when I would be simply be doing something more worthwhile... say like... Designing... so everyone who were about to bag me out for abusing a game which I can not be bothered playing, you'll have to bag out someone else... say like someone within your inner circle who's killing your bandwidth when playing WoW

Sure that those who plays games for an extended amount of time would be deemed to be addicts, due to the signs of what an addicts goes through, with a large amount of resources attempting to fix the problem, but there may be no actual cures to act like a silver bullet, but usually the best way to cure it would be something which hits them like a bombshell for say.

If they don't react to it, then isolation may be a fix. It isn't as simple as keeping them away from the game but as many games nower days requires internet connection; they may try and venture off in search for the gaming habitat. Start the rolling ball and once it gets critical, something going to change, but that's a hefty but interesting gamble as not very many has attempted it yet. If anyone's tried it, let me know.

Now comes the next problem of what to call people who are hooked excessively into gaming. Well, we can use the known term that's quite tame and we could possibly have two subgroups... The Hardcore Gamer. I know it would slur the original term coined by gamers, but then again... two groups, competition gamers and extreme. Some could argue that there should just Competition gamers and Extreme Gamers.

Competition Gamers is an obvious one... they can earn a living through it. Extreme... well, you can guess... plays games to an excess.

All this talk about Excessive gaming, but how to identify.. because there are some which are deemed to be excessive which isn't actually that excessive at all... but then again... it is near to case per case face value, so as a sorta general guideline. In excess of 8 hours per day over a stretch of 5 days, disruption to normal day to day activities, confinement to one area and violent behaviour when driven away from those activities. Some could argue the lack of social interaction, but there are many games which people do interact socially to complete an achievement then some will argue that they are playing with their friends, which does throw that theory out the window.

Send me your thoughts and hopefully this will be a social unity on this subject before the extremes on both sides do get out of hand.

Threats are usually treated accordingly... punched, kicked, prodded and thumped by many parties involved

Gamer Grunt: Guitar Hero v Rock Band

The lovable series of musical games for your local system and despised by everyone that doesn't understand the whole concept of the game and then calls you a **** regardless of your back being turned or in your face, so either way, it's their loss...

Back story in case no one knows... Guitar Hero was first coming up with a couple of "good" releases of the game and it was actually fun with such memorable songs, even though I did at one point despise the game and call people ****s... oops... then the two companies split and went into two different directions leading to the Rock Band vs. Guitar Hero clash, which are owned by two different companies.

Before people throw shoes aimed at my crotch about making it sound like a monopoly of the series is a better idea than competition, hold your shoes until I've finished.

Noticed I did highlight "good" for a reason and it is a simple reason... because they were really good before the entire song collection felt more retarded than not knowing how to tie shoelaces whilst attending a business meeting in hyper expensive suits. About 80% of the songs, I really enjoyed more than anything but now, they are so focused on making people download songs... it seems like too much of a money grabbing exercise and to royally piss off people, but that's only part of the problem.

Biggest problem I've had with this game is due to the two games, completely same concept, near identical company unless you really are trying to analyse the age of the cheese on the table and then working out that one is a day older than the other... but those darn instruments don't work when playing the other game...

This never happen in concerts by a really crappy brand of connector leads being rejected by the high quality amp even though they are made in the same country... China if anyone is guessing... and one plainly says that it's too cheap and then chucks a dummy into your face and then the concert just goes downhill from there.

This is just another stupid EA and Activision fight for money... Making everyone just a sitting duck in their war for money... EA being the worst for making other countries than US, forking out triple the price for the gear, incompatible gear with the old and other titles but theirs, things actually breaking worse than stuff made in China... (I actually know the irony in that statement), making PAL regions suffer for their amusement and a whole bunch of other stuff. Now... Activision's turn...

Umm... Crappy song lists... Umm... trying to mimic EA's extortionist prices...umm... making the two original makers of the series suck? Wait... that's EA's fault... umm... okay... I'm actually stumped on that one...

But both ways looking, making ordinary people pay hefty prices for songs is just the tip of a slightly existing problem... since I actually own the Wii version and then caught in a stupid money grabbing exercise finding out both games hating each other... last thing I wanted to find out from both games is the stupid fact that there are a horrid selection of songs which either, I really hate, never heard of or completely farfetched that only a drunkard playing darts could conceive by turning the whole music selection phase a total farce. Further more... I'm not buying the stupid song packs as over 80% of the songs are just pure crap!

Back in the era of total fun-ness, so many of the songs were actually good and at a time when I thought it was crap... it was actually hella good... make it great... now... just total crap in the idea of money grab.

On a small side question... how many people actually bother singing in the game? When a group does come around, one just goes psycho and screw everyone else up, has anyone else come across that?

As a side trivia, there's already another guitar game in existence, way before the release of Guitar Hero. Happy hunting on that side note :P




The ones acting like a hard nut are the first ones to be thumped, the smart ones just get others thumped