Greetings all, just posted up my Castle Crashers review, a game I've fallen in love with.

The Review
Sprite based beat-em-ups generally fell by the wayside over the last decade or more as technology improved and their throne was usurped by 3D action games. Castle Crashers is proof that the genre is far from dead, and some tweaks to the old formula can make them feel fresh and exciting again. It brings a comic book styIe and plenty of humour to frame the action with great presentation.

At the outset you choose one of four coloured knights (or more if you have some buddies along for the ride), and the game begins with your hero(es) in your hall, raising your horns and rocking out to the music being played, until one of your fellow knights rolls through the door, raises his arm feebly, then dies. That basically serves the start of the story, and the rest is told through the locations themselves, a few brief cutscenes, and the occasional scripted behaviour of some of the bosses before and after a fight. It is very subtle, but also very effective without getting in the way of the action.

Once the action starts, you can begin laying waste to the local thugs. Your knight is equipped with a light attack, a heavy attack, a jump, a shield to block with, a magic attack, and gains items throughout the game that can be used. Mashing attack buttons puts in some quick combos, plus there is the ability to juggle enemies in the air. These start out fairly basic, but as you level up, you learn more combos.

The levelling is one of the great aspects of the game. Defeating enemies earns you experience points, and whenever you finish a stage during which you levelled up, you get to allocate points to Strength, Vitality, Magic or Dexterity, which improves certain ways you play. Strength increases your melee damage, Vitality decreases the damage you take, and Dexterity increases your movement speed and archery ability. Magic makes your magic bar recover faster, improves the power of your spells, and unlocks more spells at certain levels. This gives you options for how you want to play, and can focus on attributes that complement your play styIe. It's unlikely you will want to neglect any of them completely, as doing so might make you vulnerable or less effective against particular enemies later on.

While there are some enemies that can be beaten easily by simply bashing them on the head, it is usually the number of enemies at once that brings some of the challenge. Many of the enemies have melee and ranged attacks just like yourself, so hit and run tactics are a viable option; standing still and wailing on one enemy can often lead to getting an arrow in your back, especially in single player. There are plenty of different regular enemies to fight throughout the game, each with their own attacks and patterns, from regular grunts who prefer melee, those that evade you and try to shoot you from a distance, and bulky toughies that will pick you up with one hand and throw you across the screen if you engage in close quarter combat. To be most effective, you will have to employ many of the different moves in your arsenal throughout the game.

As with any good beat em up, there are bosses and mini-bosses throughout the game. These are all larger than life, and their actions are often quite amusing and original. For example, the Catfish is a huge cat with a fin strapped to it that surfaces from the river, and hocks up furballs. These are all entertaining to fight and to watch. It usually doesn't take too long to discern their patterns, but it will still take some precision movement and strikes to take down most of them.

Aside from the levelling system, there are a couple of other ways to customise your character. Weapons can be picked up or purchased in certain locations. These don't affect the onscreen action itself aside from a change in graphics (so no change in range or combos), but each weapon has modifiers to your stats, and you can only have one weapon at a time. Before long you will also find yourself with a pet, of which you can also only have one at a time. They each offer some kind of bonus while they follow you around. For example, one will fetch fruit from trees to replenish your health, another may knock down nearby enemies, and another munches on bad guys heads. Once discovered, they will be available at your blacksmith and ark respectively. Between levels you can go back to these places, and swap your current stuff for something else you have already discovered. The biggest gripe is that until you go back to these places, you have no idea what bonuses they offer, so when you discover a new weapon, there is no way to tell whether it is more or less effective than what is already in your hands. You have to go back to the blacksmith when the level is over to see if it is any good.

The levels are nicely detailed and varied, and look like colourful comics. While you will tend to walk to the right most of the time in standard beat em up fashion, most levels are broken up with a few environmental hazards or obstacles, such as sheets of lava, electric fields, or rocks while floating down a river. One of the most memorable levels has you being shot from a cannon onto the roof of an escaping wagon, where you have to fend off goons while a huge boss chases along behind you. There is usually stuff to break such as tables or rocky outcroppings to reveal money or healing items. Sound in the game is very impressive, and matches the comic book styIe of the art. There are plenty of meaty clanks as you beat enemies, and exaggerated thwips when you fire an arrow. The music is memorable and suits each level well, and there isn't a bad track among them.

A first play through will probably take somewhere around 4 hours. The game is never frustratingly difficult. Players can buy potions to recover their health, and if they die in single player, you go back to the map screen where you can start the level again, go stock up on items, or play a previous level to grind if you choose. The game offers plenty of replay value. In addition to the 4 knights available at the start, there are a sizeable number of unlockable characters, and the core gameplay is so fun you may feel compelled to play through the game with all of them. Finishing the game unlocks insane mode which really ramps things up to challenge your levelled characters. Some of the items and pets you collect later in the game can be used to uncover secrets in the earlier levels. There is an All You Can Quaff mode, which is a minigame where you just bash buttons mindlessly and really offers no value. Arena mode throws an increasing number of one enemy type at you until you clear the level; in multiplayer players must fight each other instead.

The game can be played by up to 4 players online and offline. The game becomes easier with more players, but experience is also divided among them. I have not played online, and there were some known issues with dropouts and even losing information; I recommend you look to forums to determine whether this has been patched if this feature is important to your purchase. A quibble I have with local player is that levelled up characters are tied to player profiles, and each player needs to sign in. Therefore if you level up a bunch of characters in single player on one profile, additional players will have to use fresh characters instead of sharing the ones that already have experience.

The flaws though are minor when compared to how unabashedly fun the game is. Castle Crashers offers a fun and funny experience whether paying on your own or with others, and offers tweaks in all the right areas to successfully bring the 2D beat-em-up genre into this generation.

Final Score 9.0

I reckon I will be playing this game pretty frequently for the next 6 months or more. As always, feedback appreciated. If you would like to give it a thumbs up, the actual review is here. I noticed someone thumbsed down my Uncharted review, which I thought was one of my most thorough. If it happened to be a regular reader I'd love to hear your feedback, though I suspect it may be a random fanboy unhappy I didn't give it a 10 or something.

I read somewhere (or even a few places) that the dual stick genre is relatively young, and that it has exploded onto this generations downloadable services. But is it really a new genre? Where did it come from? What innovations have led us to where we are today?

Multi-directional shooter
We commonly call them dual-stick shooters today, because that is our method of controlling them on todays consoles; we use the left stick to control the movement of our avatar, and the right stick to control the direction that it shoots on a 2D plane. Once we adopt the term multi-directional shooters however, we can see that the basics of the genre have been around for many years - probably before a decent number of readers were born. The key feature that warrants this description is the ability for the players character/avatar to be moving via one control input, while being able to shoot in different directions with another input (as opposed to using one input to move, and a button to shoot in the direction you are moving).

Arcade
Dual joysticks
Robotron : 2084 was released in the arcades in 1982. Players used the left joystick to move, and the right joystick to shoot; the game had no buttons. It played very much like todays dual stick shooters, albeit limited to 8 directions of fire. Players were tasked with clearing the enemies on a single screen while attempting to save humans. Once a wave was cleared, the next wave spawned.

Brief research only turned up one more game that used the control method (if you know of any more, feel free to let me know). Smash TV was released in 1990, which played much the same as Robotron (Eugene Jarvis, the creator or Robotron, lent a hand), with higher production values, two player simultaneous play, and a basis for a story; players were contestants in a hyper violent game show. Once in an arena, enemies poured through doors until the area was cleared, and at times players were allowed to choose which arena they wanted to play next as they made their way to the bosses.

Rotary joysticks
Ikari Warriors, released in 1986, was the first arcade game to introduce rotary joysticks. Whereas the dual joystick shooters fired as soon as you pushed them in a direction, Ikari Warriors sported only one joystick and a shoot button. As well as the joystick having 8 directional movement to control the players movement, it was shrouded in a knob that could also be turned with 8 degrees of movement.

This method may seem slightly inferior to dual joysticks; you still have to aim and them press the shoot button. Having not played Ikari Warriors myself, I don't know how this affected gameplay. I did however play Heavy Barrel (1987) and Midnight Resistance (1990) at the arcades. These games used the same rotary joystick, but also had limited ammunition for upgraded weapons. In my experience, this gameplay mechanic was better served by rotary joysticks than continually tapping a second joystick in a direction to conserve ammo.

Rotary Dial
Tron introduced the rotary dial to arcades in 1982. It had a joystick for moving, a button for firing, and a rotary dial to control the direction of fire during certain modes. Forgotten Worlds is another arcade game that used the rotary dial, which was also a button. It could be turned, but required you to push down on the dial to actually fire. I could not find information on how many degrees of fire these allowed, but footage of the games would indicate more than 8 directions.

Consoles
There were console ports for many of the above listed games at or near the time of their arcade release. Due to the limitations of the controllers at the time, some of them lost the seperation between movement and firing; players could only shoot in the direction they were travelling. Smash TV for the SNES was perhaps the most faithfully ported game of those listed above. It allowed for movement with the D-Pad, and the face buttons to determine direction of shooting (pressing 2 adjacent buttons to fire diagonally). The same method is available in the XBLA version, as it is a port and not a remake that takes advantage of the controllers dual analog sticks. Robotron 2084, the game to start it all, is also available on XBLA, but it too has only had a facelift, no changes to the original controls.

As I recall, the Forgotten Worlds port on the Master System did away with a fire button altogether, had you firing at all times, and the two buttons rotated your character clockwise or counterclockwise. While this had the minor effect of slowing down how fast you could turn, it did give you more than 8 degrees of fire.

Personal Computers
Personal Computers have had the controls available since day 1 for multi-directional shooters; 4 keys for movement and 4 keys for fire direction (holding two for diagonals). This limits it at 8 directions (unless you want to assign a cumbersome number of keys), but has been possible for decades. I'm sure it has been done, but I don't specifically recall any games that adopted this method.

The mouse has been much more effective at giving more degrees of fire. This is a little different than aiming in a general direction and firing, but the in-game effect is similar enough to bear mentioning. The first game I recall to use this method was Abuse, released in 1996. The keyboard moved your character, while the mouse was used to aim where you wanted to fire, and left mouse button fired your active weapon. I don't recall the control scheme becoming a raging hit, but I have seen it used since in some flash games (Unreal Tournament flash, for example).

A similar system to this has been adopted this generation by Nintendo systems, the DS and the Wii, using the stylus and pointing the remote instead of using a mouse, in the likes of Monster House for the DS, and Geometry Wars Galaxies for both systems.

Why suddenly so popular?
Given that the first dual stick shooter was released in arcades in 1982, why does it seem like it has taken until this generation of consoles for it to really take off and have more than a few dozen titles in under 3 years? The first thing I pondered was whether it was due to the limited degrees of fire, which are possible with todays analog sticks. But if it was only that limitation, we would have seen a proliferation of arcade games if the demand was there; I don't see any reason why Geometry Wars could not have existed in an arcade cabinet over 10 years ago. Even in the home, I don't recall any such games for the Playstation 2, which introduced dual analog sticks as standard. If there were, they certainly weren't heralded like those that belong to this generation.

Is it other in-game technology? I don't think so. Apart from prettier graphics, I don't see how any of todays dual-stick shooters could not have been made for the Playstation 2. I don't know much about what happens under the hood, but I'm sure the PS2 could have handled Geometry Wars simple shapes; potentially the large number of enemies might have taxed the system, but generally the gameplay could have remained intact. The newest thing added this generation is leaderboards. That however is not universal to the appeal of all these titles, and I doubt it was the one factor that pushed them in the stratosphere.

Which brings us to price, the only other item I see as being a potential factor. People obviously DO want to play these games, otherwise we wouldn't see sequels like Geometry Wars 2 or Assault Heroes 2, and the plethora of other dual stick shooters that grace todays consoles, and continue to sell. However, the vast majority of them are downloadable games that cost US$10/AUS$15 or less. The only retail games of this nature I recall this generation are the previously mentioned Monster House and Geometry Wars Galaxies. Monster House may have sold more copies based on its licence (and it's actually a decent game) and Geometry Wars Galaxies probably got a boost by awareness of the previous game. However all of those games sold less than 100,000 units (according to http://www.vgchartz.com/), and I imagine without the licence or brand awareness, they would have performed worse.

But do I have it right? Or is there another factor? Some perfect storm? Perhaps with Geometry Wars being a launch title for XBLA and so cheap, people purchased it to test this newfangled downloadable service and became hooked by the gameplay. Perhaps the combination of its initial sales, critical acclaim, and use of leaderboards had people talking about the game and brought the genre to the forefront? Or perhaps ease of distribution made developers more interested in attempting their own take on such a simple (yet enjoyable) concept, making the genre more well known simply by weight of numbers?

In any case, the basic tenets of the genre have been around for over 25 years, so it is certainly not a new genre. That said, I still think it is an underdeveloped one when compared to other genres like fighters, platformers and first person shooters which have had hundreds of games developed for them. I look forward to seeing what the gaming community can come up with in the future; while the basic controls will remain the same, I see plenty of room to lay varied and interesting gameplay concepts on top of them. Are there any particular innovations you would like to see?

Disclaimer : I'm no video game encyclopaedia or historian; I don't think I've ever seen a Robotron 2084 or Tron cabinet, let alone played one. While I did some research I may have missed some other relevant games or information; let me know about them, and I will edit them in.

Sources : Information and images mainly obtained from individual game pages on wikipedia and www.klov.com (Killer List of Video Games).

Just a quick one. I mentioned this amongst a previous blog, but perhaps it went missed. If any of you guys have Geometry Wars 2, I'd be keen to add you as a friend so I've got some scores to shoot for. I imagine I am pretty bad at the game, but I did manage to score some 19 million-something in Pacifism early on, and now I can't get anywhere near it.

So if someone else wants to give me some inspiration to be a bit more competitive, my 360 tag is bacchi.

I wrote my first user review a few months back, and have enjoyed writing them since. I noticed recently that when looking at my ratings for games, I had scored them all pretty highly, and I also noticed this on a few friends pages as well. Part of that would be because games that probably deserve the lower scores I simply aren't interested enough in finishing. There are also some games that I haven't tested features which are probably required for a complete review of some games, usually multiplayer. So here are some mini-reviews/impressions of a few games I've played recently but don't feel qualified to write a full review.

Medal of Honour Heroes 2 - Wii
I played about 5 levels over the course of a couple of weeks before I decided I just wasn't liking it enough. What is interesting is that I think the controls (at least for the Zapper) are mapped very well, and you can do almost anything you could in a first-person shooter with more traditional controls. When in aim mode, you can tilt the Zapper to the side to lean out, which is pretty neat. The controls generally feel pretty good, and you have plenty of options of changing the turn speed and the bounding area until you start turning. One major sloppy part is that when there is a tutorial, it requires you to press the A button to skip it, which is on top of the Zapper; this should have been swapped to the B button when you select the Zapper as your preferred control scheme.

The game looks pretty nice for a Wii game. The enemy AI is both stupid and terribly accurate. It is obvious that the enemies are pathed as opposed to running around freely, sometimes running directly past you to get to the spot where they are supposed to be before they start shooting, so if you have to repeat a section, they will always be in, or be running towards, the same place.

As said above, the enemies are pretty accurate. MOHH2 adopts the 'stay out of fire to heal' standard, but it is just a tad too slow to recover. Sometimes I had enemies swarm and I would be hiding behind small cover, but still have a small section of me able to be shot. They would plink away, with the odd hit dealing more damage than I was recovering until I was dead. It doesn't take too many hits in quick succession to die, so usually standing up to fire back would result in death anyway. This compounded with infrequent checkpoints. To be honest these would probably be par for the course in a standard FPS, I think the effort of raising the Zapper makes them feel so much longer. These two issues eventually made me find the game a little too tedious for my liking.

Frontlines : Fuel of War - Xbox 360
I'm not big into multiplayer, and this is a multiplayer game, and I only played the single player campaign (scandalous!). Apparently multiplayer can have 50 players to a map, and some of the single-player levels also have you fighting alongside and against a fair number of enemies. The storyline is there if you care, but it didn't excite me too much, that in the future the world has been plunged into chaos because nearly all the oil has dried up. Guess what you are fighting over?

You are tasked with capturing control points or destroying targets. While you may have AI team mates, only you are able to complete these specific tasks. You can't issue them commands which is a bit of a bummer, as usually if you die, they all come running away from the objective to support you as you respawn a short distance away. There are no checkpoints and the action is continuous, meaning there is little penalty for death early in the game. Halfway through you suddenly have limited deployments, and capturing objectives seems to give you more deployments. You can take a bit of damage and in later stages may find yourself near death fairly often, but actually dying is infrequent (at least on normal).

There are a few loadouts you can choose and can choose a different one if you die, but everything but the assault cIasses are fairly useless. The sniper rifle is atrocious, giving one hit kills only if you get a head shot, which is rare given that it never seems to hit what you are aiming at (which made the solo recon mission suck). Why choose the anti-vehicle cIass when many levels give you a rocket launcher to pick up anyway? The assault rifles sound and feel pretty chunky though, and I never tired of using them. An interesting feature is the drones. Find a hiding spot, release your drone, and remote control it. These can be mini-helicopters armed with mini-rockets, or a little buggy with a machine gun. These were quite fun to use.

There are some vehicles, but I didn't care for them much. I think I just suck at controlling tanks (sorry raven, I don't know what type they were). Unless I was facing off against other armour, I had more fun getting out and taking people out on foot. Everything looks pretty nice. Levels take place mainly throughout wartorn towns, but some of this involves going indoors. The last level in particular is very large, comprising an assault on a town, and heading into some of their largest buildings to take out specific objectives. The single player campaign is fairly short, somewhere between 6-8 hours, though the last level probably took me over an hour by itself (but I admittedly play carefully). While the game was obviously designed with multiplier first and the campaign tacked on, I still found it to be a good experience. While I don't play multiplayer, I imagine the different loadouts, various drones, and large player count could make for some pretty fun play.

Call of Duty 4
The reason I don't feel qualified to review this is again because I am not really interested in the multiplayer. In short, if you have any inkling to play single player first-person shooters, play this game. If you are tired of first person shooters and only want to play the absolute best ones, play this game. If you don't like first person shooters... you should probably still try this game.

I will keep this one short. The game excels on every level. It contains some of the best graphics I've seen for games this generation, the attention to detail is simply amazing. Controls are sharp and responsive. Sound is used effectively to convey what is going on around you. There are plenty of scripted events that take place throughout the levels, but they are executed brilliantly. Some of the cinematics and events in-game actually moved me, far from the stupid bravado chatter we get in a lot of these games. There is a fair bit of variety, including sniping and evading enemies with a spotter, and attacking enemies from above using night satellite imagery (if memory serves)

About the only thing I can complain about is the length of the single player campaign, which only clocks in at about 6 hours. If you are like me and only interested in single-player that may not sound like much bang for buck, but those 6 hours are some of the best I have spent gaming. It may not make it a must buy, but it is a must play.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl - Wii
I'm not going to say I dislike this game, more that I just don't quite 'get' it. I played a little bit of local multiplayer as well some Subspace Emissary. I might go back and play Subspace Emissary in the future, as I didn't mind this aspect. I also won't say that the multiplayer wasn't fun to a degree. It was certainly entertaining to watch. I just didn't feel in control. It felt too button-mashy to me.

I could tell that there was plenty of depth and nuances there if I wanted to dig and discover everything that was on offer. I knew if I put the time in, eventually I would 'get' it and understand all the moves and which ones took priority, which characters performed better against others, understanding all of the jumping techniques to stay in the level, and all the other stuff. However, it seemed to me that the gap between mashing buttons and mastery was very large, and one I was not interested in crossing.

-----

There are a few other games I've given a single play session but just wasn't interested enough to play more. Conflict : Denied Ops, Haze and Kane & Lynch are games that I gave a shot in co-op, but didn't find them compelling enough to give a shot in single player afterwards. I already mentioned Ninja Gaiden 2 recently and I never quite felt in control, plus it seemed a bit buggy; slowed down to about a third of the speed at one stage until I turned off the console, and another time I ran past some enemies and fell down a pit. I had to climb a ladder, and always got shot by some archers and fell off the ladder, but they were too far away from me to lock on with my shuriken attack, so I had no choice but to eventually die. The first boss pummelled me several times, I hadn't learnt any successful strategies for avoiding the attacks or getting decent hits in by that time, so I gave up. It wasn't a bad game; it was feeling like I lacked control and the punishing difficulty that turned me off it.

There are a couple of games with multiplayer aspects that I think I could review. The first is Stranglehold, since I've heard that no one plays multiplayer in that and it was subpar in the first place. The second is the Orange Box, as 4 out of 5 parts are single player-centric, so long as I make that clear at the start of the review that I won't be covering Team Fortress 2. What are your thoughts?

I saw these a little while ago and thought I would share them. Video game ads from the 80's and 90's.

Video 1
Video 2
Video 3
Video 4

Here are some reasons to click the links;

Zelda rap.

A Mortal Kombat case being crushed in a Streetfighter 2 ad.

Live action Super Smash Bros with people dressed up in suits.

Mike Tyson advertising for Nintendo.

Tons of brilliant system bashing, including such cheese as "Genesis does what Nintendon't"

Nintendo Cereal. No, I am not joking.

An ad for Make Your Own Music Video, which Darth Homer just included on his worst 10 games list.

If there are any other cheesy ads, I'd be glad to hear about them.

This might be a bit boring to some and fair enough. I just like to think about game design and mechanics from time to time. A couple of blogs ago, I wrote about ways to improve console versions of light gun games. At the end, I joked that puzzle games seem to meld with everything these days. While I said it jokingly, a thought in the back of my mind said 'There might just be something to it'. And by jove, I think I've done it.

While the puzzle element itself is mild, it is enough to change a shooter from 'shoot every target as quickly as possible' to caring about which targets you hit, in what order, and when. I guess the quick way to be to say it is a cross between Point Blank and Zuma with Geometry Wars style scoring. Because it isn't so focused on shooting really fast and accurate, it could even make sense using traditional console controllers, and might make for a good downloadable game.

I will teach you the gameplay much as if you were playing a tutorial. The games presentation is simple, relatively bland even. This might make it look a little boring early in the game, but later you don't want to be distracted when things ramp up. For the first level, there are two thin lines across the screen. These are indicators, showing you the route that targets will travel. These are simple targets like you would see in Point Blank. So, targets start appearing, in the first level they will be blue and green. These will move what appears to be painfully slow for a traditional shooter.

However, when you shoot your first target, you score 10 points, and a small ball of the same colour drops to the bottom of the screen. Once it hits the bottom, it gravitates towards the centre. When you hit your second target, it does the same. This line of balls always 'centres', and balls can drop in between existing ones. For example, once you have two balls, if you shoot a third target when it is in the middle of the screen, it will drop between the existing two balls, pushing them out a little bit.

Once you have two or more balls of the same colour connected, you can shoot one of those balls to clear them and gain a bonus. The bonus will depend on the colour, and how many balls you had lined up at the time. You can also shoot out single balls if it isn't connected to something else for no bonus, but it can help make longer chains with surrounding balls.

Targets are worth a base score of 10 points when they are shot, and your beginning multiplier is 1. Here are my thoughts for effects for various colours.

Blue - Increase multiplier
2 balls - by 1
3 balls by 2
4 balls by 4
5 balls by 6
+2 multiplier for each additional ball

Green - Bonus Score (not sure whether this should be affected by multiplier or not)
2 balls - 100 points
3 balls - 200 points
4 balls - 400 points
5 balls - 800 points
double the score for each additional ball

Red - Slow motion. This wouldn't be available until a little later in the game, when things are getting a little more hectic. It adds to an onscreen bar, and holding a button slows down time, using up the bar for as long as it is held. This makes it easier to set up further combos.
2 balls - 1 second
3 balls - 2 seconds
4 balls - 4 seconds
5 balls - 6 seconds
2 extra seconds for each additional ball

Yellow - Time increase. Each level is timed. Using the slow down feature listed above does not also slow down the timer, adding another element of strategy. If things are getting hectic you can slow things down, but this means new targets will take longer to appear.
2 balls - 1 second
3 balls - 2 seconds
4 balls - 4 seconds
5 balls - 6 seconds
2 seconds for each additional ball

So, that is the basic premise. Each stage has multiple waves. Once the time limit is up, that wave is over, and there is a 5 second delay before the next wave starts, so that you can shoot some balls at the bottom of the screen if things got too hectic during the actual wave. While the stage listed above had two lines, stages get more complex, with more lines that are not horizontal, or weave around all over the stage, and get faster with each wave.

There are plenty of ways the scoring could be tweaked as well, whether applying to the game overall, or only in particular stages or modes. For example, maybe if a target leaves the screen (i.e. you don't shoot it) your multiplier goes down by 1, or if you choose to shoot a single ball without chaining then you lose a multiplier. Perhaps some modes could have you starting off with a chain of balls down the bottom, and you have to clear them in the quickest possible time, but you are unable to shoot out single balls.

The more I think about it given some recent Geometry Wars 2 playing, this might be actually be decent as a XBLA game given the leaderboards, and the cursor speed would actually be a nuance of play. As it is more about timing and placing your shots instead of speed and accuracy, it probably wouldn't make too much of a difference. At worst it could make for a nice little flash game...

...so do any of you know how to program flash :)

Couple of quick things before I get into the meat of what I want to say. I bought Geometry Wars 2, and after owning my Xbox 360 for a couple of years, I finally found a game that makes me feel like adding some friends so I can compare scores. So if you have the game, send me a friend request, my username is 'bacchi' (Note : I don't really play online so don't expect me to play other games with you, at least for the time being).

I mentioned the difficulty of Devil May Cry 4 in my review... then I played Ninja Gaiden 2. Lost 80% of my life in my first encounter, and died in my second. Died a number of times before getting to the first boss, and then got annihilated about 5 times by said boss. I can see that the game is good and I wanted to like it, but no thanks. Call me weak or bad at games, but if a game is making me frustrated, it is not fulfilling its purpose.

Anyways, on with the topic. I had my recent discussion about piracy, and someone from EA discussed the apparent problem with second hand game sales. He was having a whinge about the fact that if people buy second hand games, no money goes to developers (a similar argument some people made that second hand games are just as bad if using the 'no money goes to the developer' argument in my piracy topic). Second hand markets exist for just about everything else, so why not games? Apparently because it is data, and the quality never deteriorates like furniture or books might.

We are already seeing the start to addressing both of these problems; digital downloads. I've bought some XBLA games and Virtual Console games. I can't sell them back or to anybody else, and there doesn't seem to be an easy way to illegally copy them should I want to. Most of these have been small games, but we have seen Warhawk and Burnout Paradise as full priced games from this generation available for download. I suspect we will begin to see more and more games released as both digital downloads and on-disc simultaneously for the rest of this generation. But what about next generation? What if download is the only way to get games?

What if you buy your console, and need to be connected to the internet to get your games? What if they also had a rental model? For example, you download the full game for free. One would hope that you get to play the game for half an hour for free, as a demo. If you keep playing after that, you start paying by the hour, where money gets taken from your account (like Live points, or the PSN Wallet), until you have played the game for long enough that you have paid retail, and thus can play it whenever you want after that for free.

Does that sound compelling? Here are some potential advantages and disadvantages for publuishers/developers and consumers

Developer Pros
Inhibits Piracy - I've not heard of any downloaded games being pirated this generation on consoles. Even if they are cracked, it is unlikely that it will be anywhere near as widespread as being able to copy a disc like we currently can.

No second hand sales - This addresses developers concerns that each copy sold into the market place might be played by a number of gamers, as they can't be sold or traded to someone else.

No need for production - Publishers get rid of the physical costs associated with duplication.

Sell direct to the customer - Publishers take out costs associated with distribution costs and retain the retail mark-up.

Earn all rentals - As well as getting rid of all second hand game sales, they earn all of the rentals that ay currently go to other services.

Longevity - Some games lose their steam after a while, at which point it is no longer cost effective to keep them in production. Once a game starts to sell very slowly, it will only take minimal server space to keep it available at all times for those late comers that do want it.

Developer Cons
Initial Server Requirement - If a game is expected to sell big, it is likely to need a lot of server space in it's first week or month. If they get the expected demand wrong, they may not be able to get the game into the customers hands quickly. I don't know how much server space costs; the costs here may more than outweigh duplication costs.

Customer Pros
Availability - Any game is always going to be available. You never have to worry about your local store not stocking a lesser known game. Every game is also available for rental, where that game may not have been offered via any rental service available to you.

Customer Cons
Hard Drive Space - Every game is going to take up hard drive space, and we would need to buy additional hard drives (which I imagine would be 'installed' to a console so the games can't be taken anywhere else).

Bandwidth - Perhaps most importantly, game downloads are going to suck up bandwidth, and in all likelihood the next generation are going to be larger than they are now. Some consumers may require internet plans with larger download limits to cater to their hobby.

Price probably won't go down - Despite using up extra bandwidth, and us needing to pay for storage space, I doubt very much that savings publishers may make from absorbing the retailers margin and distribution costs, and extra revenue from less piracy and second hand sales, is going to translate into lower prices for consumers.

No physical products - Some people simply like physical products. It would also mean the end of collectors editions. I guess those associated products could still be available, but you would have to buy them online if the retail market died out.

Can't sell - Once you have paid for a game, you can't sell it.

Gone Forever - While I put in the developer pros that games can be available forever, if they decide to pull them or the services eventually go under, those games can never be acquired by someone else, unless they buy a console with the game already on it.

I think I'm going to stop there. When I started writing this, I thought it was an interesting business model. Now I'm depressed. It seems like all potential upside for developer, not so much for the consumer. I'm also wondering about my current downloadable games. What if the current slate of XBLA games go by the wayside come next generation and my hard drive stuffs up? Does that mean I can never acquire that game again? I'd never thought about that before.

This seemed like a reasonable idea before I sat down and wrote it, I swear...

Light gun games aren't anything new. The first game I remember was Duck Hunt on the NES, and the first arcade game I remember was Lethal Enforcers, though I imagine there are earlier examples. I don't recall too many console light games from generations past (as I wasn't a gamer for most of them, and they weren't prolific), and I don't recall any of them having much function other than pull the trigger.

Most of the innovation for light gun games seemed to happen in the arcade. I don't know whether early gun games had unlimited ammo, but I believe the first mechanic other than just shooting enemies was aiming and firing off-screen to reload. While I didn't mind House of the Dead, it was pretty hard (or I'm just a bad shot) and you had to be a good shot to get anywhere. Another notable early light gun game was Virtua Cop. I also remember a House of the Dead sequel, I think it was 3, that had 3 players, 2 of which had pistols, and one who had a shotgun.

But it was Time Crisis that really got me to sink money into a cabinet. In case you haven't played it, it has a foot pedal. If you don't have your foot on the pedal, you remain in cover and can not be shot. Putting your foot down has you come out from cover so you can fire on your enemies, but makes you vulnerable. This gave you something that many other light gun games didn't; control. The others demanded you be accurate at the exact right time, but Time Crisis let you hang back if you were coming under heavy fire, and this remained a staple for the series and spin-offs. In fact, since playing Time Crisis, I don't think I've ever played any other gun series in an arcade. The series had some other minor but notable innovations (at least, this is where I noticed them first) such as being able to hold multiple weapons and change them while playing, and while I haven't played Time Crisis 4, I have seen it played and it seems there are a few segments where you can aim at the edges of the screen to turn and face enemies coming at you from different directions.

As stated earlier, most home versions of these guns haven't had too many features, but the Wii Zapper gives plenty of options with a number of buttons and an analog stick available to use, as well as motion controls. I have played 3 games using the Wii Zapper; Links Crossbow Training, Ghost Squad, and Medal of Honour Heroes 2, leaving Resident Evil : Umbrella Chronicles as the notable game I haven't played.

Links Crossbow Training has a few different modes; standard on rails shooter/target ranges, 360 degree sections where you are stationary and turn by aiming at the edges of the screen, and free-roam sections where you move with the analog stick and aim at the edges of the screen to turn. Probably the best feature is holding Z to zoom in on the area you currently have your cursor for more precise aiming.

Ghost Squad is an on-rails light gun game throughout. It does let you unlock new guns and uniforms once you earn enough rank from extra playthroughs (I managed to unlock 2 guns which seemed worse than your standard one... shotguns are not hostage friendly), and play ninja and bikini party modes, which are new skins on the same gameplay, but fun enough to warrant replays.

MOH : H2 takes your standard WWII first person shooter and gives it Zapper controls, thus you can do almost anything that you would normally do in those games. It makes things interesting by offering decent motion controls; swinging the Zapper up to reload, punching it forward to melee, and tilting the Zapper to the side to lean out of cover. It does also have an Arcade mode, which plays more like a standard rail-shooter, moving you automatically through the same levels. It does still let you crouch at any time, which can keep you out of the line of fire if you happen to have a mid height obstacle between you and the enemy.

While rail shooters can be fun to play a number of times, console versions do need a bit extra to keep them going to warrant paying full price for them. Link was a nice pack-in that has replay value because of the scoring system, and MOH : H2 is really a first person shooter. Here are a few things I'd like to see in Zapper rail shooters to make them different or give them longevity (some of these might apply to the GunCon too).

Calibration - Apparently this was done in House of the Dead 2 & 3. I'd be happy spending 15 seconds aiming at some dots at the start of the game to be closer to actually aiming down the sights, which is perhaps the biggest criticism levelled against the Zapper.

Bullet Time - This might sound silly to some, but I think it would be kind of cool; earning bullet time similar to Stranglehold, and holding a button uses it up to slow down time so you can hit weak spots or fast enemies. Again like Stranglehold, it could even tie in to using the environment to kill enemies to earn more of this bonus (ie shooting a sign so it falls on enemies heads instead of blasting them directly in the face).

Only use B, C and Z buttons - This might just be my preference, but if I am using the Zapper, I don't want to have to use buttons that are on top of the remote. I know the games want to add more complex actions, but using the other buttons interrupts the flow of the action. Sticking to these buttons and motion controls would be preferable to me. Holding C or Z to bring up a radial menu for weapon changing or other actions seems workable.

Third person - It can still be on rails, but having a 3rd person view allowing some limited character movement would be nice. For example, a fixed view might have a row of crates that your character can hide behind, and pressing up on the analog stick raises you from cover, and you can move left and right as well to get better angles. You could also fire from cover with an obvious accuracy disadvantage. Enemies could also blow up your cover if you don't deal with them quickly enough, keeping the pace brisk. This point of view would also allow two players on screen at the same time while still allowing for the cover mechanics. Actually, that wouldn't be third person, but a fixed camera with your two characters in the foreground, but you get the idea. Think Gears of War but you have to stick to the same piece of cover.

Wiiware - The games don't all need to be modelled in 3D and have fancy physics for all the targets and such. A new Point Blank game seems like it would be a good fit for the service. Or even a new version of Duck Hunt. This combats one of the rail shooters shortfalls; value. They are usually most fun during the first few hours, and $10 for a couple of hours of rail shooting is fine by me.

Zoom - I liked this feature enough in Links Crossbow Training that I think it should almost become standard in single player settings. If designed properly, the benefits of greater accuracy should be offset by not seeing other enemies/targets while zoomed for the right mix of risk/reward.

Balance Board - I find it highly unlikely that a developer would want to take this risk, but what about a game that combined the Zapper and the Balance Board? I'm not even sure what I'm thinking as far as control goes, but it could be kind of neat. Maybe it detects your weight, and leans you in that direction. Or maybe each scene in the game lets you strafe left or right by leaning in the direction. I'd guess that the frantic pace of most rail shooters might make smooth moving while trying to aim with the Zapper a challenge to design for though.

Does anyone have any other thoughts on how to make rail shooters more appealing and valuable to the console gamer? Puzzle games mixed with other genres seem to be all the rage right now...

A bunch of random stuff today, I didn't think any of these really needed their own blog. I received an imod invite 4 days or so ago, and I felt very privileged to be considered. It's nice to know that your contributions are being noticed. I turned it down as I don't think I have the time to be able to do any sort of mod position justice.

Ironically, a couple of days later I get suspended for a post I made 6 months ago, for telling baby jokes in a pre-existing off-topic joke thread. I never go there, I must have been bored that day. I didn't think they were particularly offensive, but I guess someone dug them up 6 months on. Obviously regular readers would know (or at least I hope so) I'm not the type to offend people on purpose. I don't have a problem with the post being deleted, but being suspended seemed unnecessarily harsh for something that happened so long ago, particularly as it wasn't expressly offensive. It also had to happen just after I posted my Piracy blog, which got plenty of replies that I couldn't respond to! I had to laugh at the situation.

The responses to that raised some interesting points, and made me re-evaluate some things. For starters, if I see performer on the street and I am entertained enough to stick around and see what else they do, they are getting $5. After arguing in defense of supporting the industries that supply us games, music and movies, I feel like a cheapskate for having watched these guys and not giving them something in times past.

It also got me thinking about format shifting. I think for the most part it is illegal, but I'm not too sure about the nitty gritty details there. I've ripped plenty of songs I own on CD to my ipod, but it may not technically be legal. How do you guys and gals feel about this issue?

Another point of interest is items that are no longer available. I ordered a CD yesterday, and was told today that it has been deleted worldwide. I haven't checked to see whether there is a legal way to get it online digitally, though I am doubting it, as it is an obscure Australian heavy metal release from about 10 years ago. She told me she had looked on Amazon for me, and there were 3 second hand ones going for $50 (I assume this is $US, and would not include the shipping), and I'm not sure I'm willing to pay that. Similarly, I recently discovered that a CD that has been on my want list for ages (that I used to have illegally on tape that I wanted to replace) was limited to a 1,000 print run, which is probably also about 10 years old. Again I doubt this will be available legally online.

Retro games have also gone through a bit of resurgence. Prior to this generation, emulators were all the rage because older systems were no longer available, though it could be argued that they should have bought a second hand console and game. Now those games, which have always remained licenced if not available for sale, are being re-released on Virtual Console. I know I downloaded an emulator to try out some homebrew levels for Super Mario World, but I had bought the title on Virtual Console prior (which led me to be interested in said homebrew). What are your thoughts on this issue? Should it just be a case of buying a potentially high priced second hand copy of this stuff?

Some people also mentioned that second hand sales are just as bad as piracy when it comes to the argument of not supporting developers, which led me to an interesting thought. What if there was a second hand dealer who sent $5 to the developer each time a disc was sold? Obviously the price would have to go up by that $5, but would that entice people to buy or trade with that entity, knowing that you were still supporting the developers? While this sounds like an interesting business proposition in theory, I'm guessing that setting up trade with the publishers/developers would be a chore, many players probably don't really care and would go the cheaper standard second hand option, and probably most of all wouldn't trust the business to do what it says (send money the developers way). Thoughts?

On the personal gaming front, I've just finished and reviewed No More Heroes. What a whacked out game. I don't know if it will be for everybody, but Wii owners should definitely check it out for its oddball humour. I've just started playing Medal of Honour Heroes 2, which is supposed to be designed with the Wii Zapper. The controls generally are good, but whenever you die or a tutorial comes up, you need to press the default A button...which is on top of the Zapper. Sloppy, this should also have been changed when you select the Zapper as the control method. Even though the Zapper is not terribly heavy, I only want to play one level at a time before stopping because it gets pretty tiring. I tried the standard controls, and they are horrible. The two buttons on the nunchuck don't seem to do anything (as far as I can tell at least) and I have to press down on the D-pad to crouch, which means I can't crouch while I am in the middle of firing. Why isn't crouch mapped to the nunchuck? Thus far I imagine I will get over these initial gripes and play it through with the Zapper, but I'm wondering if I might just like the simple standard rail shooting of the arcade mode more, which I haven't tried yet.

Just a note on that review too; I can't see new reviews you guys have done since going to Gamespot Wide when clicking on 'friends reviews'. If you've reviewed any since then, let me know and I will check them out.

Copyright theft is a hot topic for music, movies and games. I thought I would have a look at some of the points of view on piracy, and my thoughts on them. Most of these will cover CD's, DVD's and games, though some sections may only apply to certain media.

It's easy, free, and no-one is going to catch me
This isn't a defence I hear in favour of piracy, but I thought I would start here as it is the reason that piracy is so prolific. I know piracy is easy. I'm sure I've got a freeware program at home that can copy DVD's if I wanted to, and if I don't, I'm guessing I could find one on the internet pretty quickly. Or I could probably just download movies and PC games straight to the hard drive. Perhaps you know a mass pirate who sells them for cheap, or perhaps your mate just hands you a free copy.

And you are right, for the average person who owns pirated media (i.e. is not a mass reseller) you are unlikely to be on any authorities radar. They aren't interested in you, they want the guy selling hundreds or thousands of counterfeit items a week. So, it's easy, and you are unlikely to get caught. So what happens if you are presented with an opportunity to steal someone's wallet? Someone's bike? Someone's food? In those cases, if you know there is no way that they can pin the crime on you, do you steal it? (Note : If you would, don't bother reading any further, you won't learn anything). Usually peoples response if asked this is...

But it doesn't hurt anyone
That's a misguided blanket statement, and for a long time I've been unsure how people convince themselves that this is true. I think the problem is derived from the fact that nearly all of us know what it is like to be deprived of a physical product. Most of us have been through the unfortunate experience of having something stolen. In short, it sucks. We have to go without, or spend money and time to replace it. We've all owned physical items. I'd say more than 99.9% of us do not own any legal intellectual properties. As such, most people don't relate, and only see that they are not depriving another specific individual of the property, and thus don't see it as theft.

Think about it for a moment. Think about something creative you have done. Or something creative you could have done. Maybe an idea in your head that you think is worth something. If someone got hold of your work, or caught wind of your idea and turned it into something and was able to sell it, wouldn't you want to be paid for inventing it in the first place? There are a whole range of people, and the industry in general, that are hurt by piracy. So perhaps a refinement of this argument is...

Well, all those stars and companies earn megabucks anyway.
So Tom Cruise earns more than you. Does that mean you are allowed to say he should earn less royalties by pirating his film? If you believe he is overpaid, then perhaps the homeless deserve to take your money seeing as you are better off than them. Those companies might show some pretty big profits, but those profits are usually divided up between a large number of shareholders.

Of course, it isn't just those people who are affected by less sales. What about cinemas? With counterfeit copies available sometimes before movies even hit the cinema, or at best the next day, you can bet it has an effect on their numbers, including how many staff they can employ. The same goes for the rental industry and your local video store. While I think the stars deserve their money, it's your local video shops and cinemas that are going to be hit harder in the hip pocket.

People wouldn't have bought it anyway
So they weren't willing to listen/watch/play it if it involved any money, but if it is 'free', then they will take it? Even if these things don't cost any money, they do take up a far more precious resource; time. Thus, they already decided it was worth paying attention to instead of something else. Assume for a moment that a failsafe security measure is introduced that prevents pirating of PC software. Do the freeloaders who never paid a cent for software suddenly lose all interest in gaming? I doubt it. They may be more discerning than when it was 'free', but if such a pipe dream occurred, I'd say there is a much higher chance they will put some money into the industry instead of dropping out of it entirely. When companies tout how many pirate copies of their product is out there, I'm not foolish, and I don't expect all of them would have bought it if a pirate copy was unavailable. But some of them would have. Whether it is 10%, 1% or 0.1% of them, all the companies and individuals involved in the product deserve their slice.

If I have a pirate copy and I like it enough, I will buy a legitimate copy.
This is usually said about games. Sorry, but I say bollocks. Obviously people who say this have different criteria for when a game is 'worth it', but there is plenty of information out there to help you decide whether a game is for you without resorting to piracy. You can read Gamespots review, you can read other critics reviews, you can read player reviews, you can view gameplay footage, there may be demo's available, or you can rent it first. All these resources should give you a pretty good idea whether you will like a game and is worth your money and time. I imagine most people who say this very rarely actually pay for games that they do enjoy.

What I do has almost no effect on the industry.
The illegal copy you have might affect a few dozen people involved in that project for a cent or so each. That's pretty harmless, isn't it? And you are absolutely correct. If one person has an illegal copy of every movie, game or CD in the world, it will have negligible economic impact. The problem is that worldwide, it isn't just one person, it's millions. Do you mind if I take a cent out of your bank account? No? Would you mind if a million people did?

I can't afford to go to the cinemas and I don't want to wait for the DVD.
This doesn't happen to games a lot, but it is possible, such as the leaked PC code for Assassin's Creed before the game was shipped. But it does happen to movies all the time, and someone manages to get a master copy out, or camcorder versions make their way into the marketplace. I don't understand how anyone can watch these camcorder versions anyway; if you've spent money on a home theatre system, why would you even bother with these movies that do your investment a gross injustice? Maybe I just have more patience than others, but I don't understand why people can't wait a few months for a legitimate DVD release.

The copy protection on the game is ludicrous, and requires me to jump through too many hoops.
While I'm not a PC gamer and thus have not had to deal with this problem personally, I do feel for the people in this position. If this is your only complaint and you don't subscribe to any of the other claims I've raised here, I suggest that even if you do obtain a cracked version of the game for ease of use, that you do purchase a legitimate copy as well. You would also do well to advise the developer/publisher that you have done so. Let them know that you are willing to support their core product with your dollars, but the way they implement these features must be improved if they want to sell you their next game. The threat of losing a paying customer has much more impact than someone who wasn't going to give them a cent anyway.

I don't want to pay for it if it isn't going to run on my PC
Another legitimate concern. Obviously local law and store policy plays a part here regarding whether the game can be returned if it does not run on your system. I would hope that most PC games have demos that allow players to evaluate the performance, but I guess not all do. If such a demo doesn't exist and local law/store policy does not favour you and you feel you must head down this path, try to hold yourself to a higher standard. Treat it like a demo, play a level or half an hours worth of gameplay, and if it runs and you like it enough, go buy it.

If it weren't for piracy, I wouldn't have heard of this band. Piracy gave this band more circulation, and they wouldn't be as popular as they are now without it.
This argument is obviously specific to music, and may even have had some merit a decade ago. Now music is so much more accessible. Any time someone asks me if I have heard a band, they don't need to give me a copy; I turn to legal sources on the internet. The vast majority of bands have embraced the likes of youtube and myspace, and usually have their own website. Look them up, and no doubt you will find a plethora of their tracks or at the very least samples legally available for you to listen to before you buy tracks/albums.

Games/music/DVD's are too expensive.
I wouldn't mind a top of the range sports car (among countless other desirable items), but I'm not going to steal one just because I can't afford it. You either think they are worth the asking price, or they aren't. Such entertainment is a luxury, not a right. Companies can sell these products for whatever price they like. Buy second hand games, or wait for them to come down in price. Rent your movies or games. There are plenty of free games available on PC; you can start in Gamespot's download section. You might have to dig for quality, but there are plenty of browser-based and flash games.

Some counterfeits are hard to distinguish
I thought I would mention this as a challenge to reducing out piracy. While some people may intentionally buy what they know are pirate discs, some people who own pirated discs may not even realise it. People who aren't in the know can be fooled by a decent looking cover and a well-printed label slapped on the disc. Even I may have fallen prey. I bought a DS game on ebay, which arrived sealed. Upon looking at the instruction manual, I was puzzled by its contents, including the fact that it highlighted the games flaws. After thinking I had read the information before, I found that it was Gamespot's review of the game copied verbatim. Even being in the know, I still don't know whether it is counterfeit or not, as the slicks card stock, print quality, and cartridge hold up under close scrutiny and appear to be legitimate.

Funds from piracy may be funnelled into organised crime and terrorism.
I would like to highlight the "may" in the above title. The reason being, while these claims have been made by some officials, I have found no substantial articles that point to any particular group or hard evidence of it occurring. The purported reasoning is that these organisations see this as an easy way to fund their other agendas. My personal belief is that this does occur, but would only make up an extremely small portion of worldwide piracy (and even then, I'd weight it more towards organised crime than terrorism). For the most part I expect mass pirates to be in it to make money at someone elses expense, but I'm sure this aspect does exist. The following is from AFACT website (Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft)

Police jurisdictions recognize organized crime involvement in film piracy. Organized crime links to movie piracy in Australia were first uncovered following a raid on Malaysia-linked movie pirates in 2002.

While not organized crime, various reports have pointed to some sellers as being involved in other criminal activity, including selling unlicensed/child pornography, drug trafficking, other counterfeits, and owning illegal firearms. This information is from AFACT; I'm sure similar organizations in your country will have similar reports.

My Story
This article is not meant to point fingers at any pirates out there and liken them to criminals who would stab your mother. I imagine the vast majority of people who own pirated discs/software are otherwise not criminals. My intent is to educate. I used to be a pirate, until I found out that it actually affects people. I probably had 500 discs for my Amiga 500 that I got from a friend, and I downloaded a bunch of music from the likes of Audiogalaxy that I then put onto CD's. In recent years I have replaced those CD's with legitimate product.

I own a video store, and I can tell you that piracy definitely hurts my business. I'll add that the business is under a contract of sale, in case anyone thinks this is a rant to help improve my business; my perception of piracy won't change once the sale is completed. If we assume that because of piracy just 20 of my customers aren't hiring an extra movie a week at $5 each, that's $100 a week I've been missing out on for 6 years. $5000 a year. How would you feel if a bunch of people took $5000 of your pay each year because they were doing something illegal? I don't think that is a stretch at all; customers regularly tell me about movies they have seen at home or a friends place that have not been released on DVD. But this isn't about me; I'm not alone. In Australia there are somewhere up to 2000 rental outlets, plus a huge number of retailers, and we are a blip on the worldwide population. Maybe the large multimedia companies can afford to make a loss (not that they should to an illegal activity); it's the little guys that are much harder hit by these losses.

Once I'm out of the business in a few weeks, I will still be supporting the industry through local businesses, not just preaching because I am currently in the industry. I'm not naïve, piracy is not going to go away any time soon. Are there any perspectives I haven't covered above? If you are a generally upstanding person but you own pirated media, what is it that makes piracy seem only as bad as jaywalking?