What is Next-gen?

I love how most players out there have this preconception about how next-gen means "graphics".  This is really bothering me.  That's like classifying a classic car a classic just because of its body frame.  Its more than that.  I see next-gen as something greater as a whole.  Sure the graphics have been beefed up a tad but look at the processing power, ram, hard drive space, online options, high definition support, etc. before sentencing next-get as a "has not happened yet" phenomenon.

First off, I think we will start seeing improvements in AI, interactive environments, more on-screen population of characters, and broader online options and possibilities.  In many ways, we have already seen this but have not really commented much about them.  I remember finishing Kameo and seeing that long-road battle of Orc and Humans being fought numbering in the hundreds on-screen at the same time.  That is impressive!  There was no background-looping animation you would have seen on the old Xbox or PS2.  This was hundreds of Orc battling hundreds of humans all in front of you in real time with no frame rate loss what so ever.  That's next-gen to me!

I also like seeing the excitement over MS Marketplace as well as the arcade on Xbox Live.  It seems like a ton of companies are jumping aboard this ship.  Capcom is the newest believer as their Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting will be introduced as a downloadable game in a matter of weeks.  Not to mention a lot of these games support multiplayer via local and Xbox Live connections.  Being able to play classics like Gauntlet with 4 friends online is just a fun experience.  I can already see the limitless possibilities in this tool and I know I'm not the only one!

Add to that the ability to give you some bragging rights with the introduction of Gamerscores.  For me, I've noticed new motivations to play games on Xbox 360 by trying to attain as many points in one game as I can.  Take Call of Duty 2 for instance.  I finished this game twice; once on easy and the other on hardened difficulty.  Now I find myself finishing the game on veteran difficulty (the hardest setting), just to score all 1,000 gamerpoints.  I like seeing this as an accomplishment and gives the player the feeling of being able to challenge fellow friends to beat or match a score.  I remember my Coleco days when my brother and I would play games just to beat each other's score.  That was fun for me but as soon as the NES was introduced, we threw away "points" as a way to brag about player skills.  With the NES, it was all about finishing the game.

Now we get the best of both worlds.  Microsoft has done a terrific job of making your Xbox Live profile viewable in forums, e-mails, websites, etc. so you can really show off your accomplishments.  Not only is finishing a game impressive, but also how many achievements you unlock enables you to set the bar even higher for others to follow or match.  I've noticed a lot of players comparing their overall gamerscore as a way to challenge others.  I see that as a bad and mediocre way to brag.  Time is of the essence for most people so game time varies by individual.  Joe might have 30 hours a week to play video games and Bob has only 4 hours a week....is it really a fair to compare their over all gamerscore against each other?  Not really but in some instances you can.  Its more satisfying and fun to break down achievements and scores game for game.  However way you slice it, the addition of achievements and gamerscores is a fantastic upgrade.  Even if your not competitive by nature, it gives you a chance to see others accomplishments to compare to your own progress.

With online gaming becoming more and more competitive, it is good to see more players getting broadband access and joining the community.  With this brings the good and bad however.  Most of us have run into the screaming little kiddies and ego-ish "noob calling" teenagers from last-gen consoles.  These characters often ruin the fun for most of us because of their annoyances.  It was very difficult to filter them out too.  Microsoft has done their homework by including a reputation rank and player type classification included in a players profile on the 360.  Now it's as easy as a few presses of a button to send feedback about certain gamertag explaining what kind of player this individual is.  Aside from that, players now have the option to tell Xbox Live what kind of player they are (competitive, recreation, family, etc.) and games will recognize this as players will be matched up accordingly.  This has yet to really prove it's worth and I have my doubts, but its comforting to see steps are being made to better match up the online community.

To top it all off, I love (AND I MEAN LOVE) the idea that you can download game demos for free direct from the Microsoft Marketplace.  Finally, a practical way for companies to hand out a taste of its product to customers via a low cost, low risk medium.  I really hope developers use this tool a lot in the future and take advantage of it.  One thing that has always plagued the world of demo's was the problem of deploying it.  Its costs a lot of money to print demos to CD.  Don't expect customers to go out and buy demo's either.  The only thing that has worked in the past was to give away a demo with another product (either another game or magazine).  Now this problem has been solved.  In the words of Homer Simpson "Ahhh the internet...is there anything you can't do"?!

If your still saying to yourself that this is not next-gen than I have no idea what will make you happy.  Maybe graphics IS everything.  If you think that way, I really feel sorry for you because your missing out.  Keep in mind you can't have a "2D to 3D" type of jump every time a new console comes out.  You gotta crawl before you can walk people!  Lets master the hardware first before we start pushing it beyond our reach.  I believe there is still a ton of value in the current-gen consoles because developers are still finding new ways to push the hardware.  There is still a lot of life left in those systems.  I still have mine and play it on a regular basis!!  Lets keep in mind that we have yet to see the hardware boundaries in the 360.  These launch titles that come out hardly do the system justice as to it's potential.  I have all the faith in the world we will see significant progress in the world of gaming with the 360 and PS3.  I'm just glad these companies are not just focusing on graphic enhancements but rather trying to improve the entire scope of the gaming experience.

Recently I was reading thru the Freeplay columns on Gamespot and came across some interesting opinions about defining the game industry.  Who does it belong to?  What roles do companies like Gamespot play in all this?  What SHOULD Gamespot be writing about?  This all came about because of a blog entry from God of War designer, David Jaffe and the point of view he shared that seem to spark some controversy.  

Jaffe wrote:
 "It really bothers me when game journalists throw themselves in with the folks who actually make the games when they talk about OUR industry.

I'm not sure if you have noticed this as well, but I see this a lot, especially in op-ed pieces, letters from the editor,etc....often times it reads something like this:

-We need to examine other ideas than just racing games or our industry will dry up....

OR

-Our industry is worth 11 billion dollars...

...but the thing is, the game journalists are not part of the game industry in my mind. They have their OWN industry: magazine publishing. Or web publishing. Or hey, even journalism! But not GAME MAKING."

To me, this is some dangerous thinking.  The only good part of what he said is how he ended the sentence saying "in my mind".  Now, I know we live in a society that values free speech but I felt I should say something about this ignorant way of thinking because I have yet to read a rebuttal that directly disagrees with what he said.....and put this controversy into context. 

First off, lets look at the video game industry as a whole and figure out what makes an "industry" an industry.  It is made up of a bunch of different entities in order to exists....just like anything else.  I think we can all agree that there are game developers, publishers, marketing guys, accountants, etc. that play a direct role on how certain video games succeed in the industry.  In reality, these guys have general control over the direction the industry will move.  But there are other sides of the Video Game Industry, not just the "Game Making" part.  Saying that, I think there is some major confusion about Jaffe's definition of "Game Making" industry. 

The way I see it, all of us make up the industry:  The game developer, the consumer, and even the "journalist" (I hate using that word to describe them).  Without the "journalist", the video game industry would defiantly be a different beast.  Companies like Gamespot help force competition between different developers that continually raise the bar against each other to meet and win over consumer expectations.  Because of their reports, they influence the way consumers buy games that directly dictates to the developers what is successful and what is not.   Would the industry be the same without companies like Gamespot reporting on games?  No way.  I think we'd see a lot more "not so great" games being made like Big Mutha Truckers 2 if it weren't for the "journalists" that really expose them for what they are.

Personally, in the past few years I pretty much only buy the games AFTER I read some kind of review about them.  My faith in the opinions of Gamespot editors (and other companies like PC Gamer, IGN, Gamespy) are so influential, they pretty much tell me on which games to buy and what not to.  I can make up my own mind, but their feedback is a critical deciding factor for me.  I know I'm not the only one that does this.  After talking to fellow members of my Xbox Live group, going to forums, and talking to clerks at places like EBgames, I know the "journalists" of this industry have a strong impact on the way games are developed and made based on consumer demands.   

Jaffe even went on to suggest what direction game "journalism" should go in.  This one made me laugh out loud: 

"Give me THAT but with KOJIMA....OR MIYAMOTO! And no more of this bull**** about how he plays the ****ing banjo and likes to garden. Wow, that's hard hitting! **** guys, dig into the man and let us know what makes him tick, what he really likes and dislikes, his political views, what his stresses are, what his vices are, does he feel stress to save Nintendo, etc....you know, go and WRITE something! " 

Ok, as a consumer, what would you rather know?  Would you rather read about a game or console your on the fence about buying OR reading about some faceless developer's political views.  A poll was put up by Bob Colayco in his Freeplay column and out of 2250 votes, 90% of you said that consumers are more interested in knowing about the actual game than about the guy who made it and his political agenda.  Yea, maybe fanboy will go out and want to know more about the developers personal interests but generally speaking, most of us don't really care.  We get enough unwanted political views from Hollywood already, we don't need the game industry to do the same. 

The bottom line is these "journalists" are making great contributions to OUR industry right now.  I seem to rely on them more than I can trust anything that comes out of EA Games these days!  As long as our game "journalists" remain faithful to our industry, we can rest assure we need them close to us to keep these developers honest and putting out quality products.  So what it boils down to is this guy, David Jaffe, needs to continue to make good games but for God sake stop telling game "journalists" what to write about and selfishly hording all the industries credit to just GAME MAKING.  He has some shallow thinking here and I think we all have to be careful not to step in the Bull *%@#. 

....Thats my two cents....

I just thought I'd post this here so some of you could read what I had to say to EA Games about their products.  To sum this up in a few words, EA Games have sucked lately and I'm pretty pissed about it.

I have since given up on this.  I'm uninstalling this from my computer and probably selling this game on e-bay (for a loss).  This is the 2nd time in two weeks I've been severely disappointed with a product from EA.  The other product was Battlefield 2:MC for Xbox.  I purchased the game the day of its retail release and took it home and received nothing but disappointments and problems.  The single player mode was very buggy and the multiplayer was implayable as it would crash and freeze during every game.  I shouldn't have to WAIT for a patch from you guys to fix this problem.  To release this game that you already delayed a year and have it come out with the problems that it has is just insulting your customers.  To think people actually think of this is OK just boggles my mind.  ITS NOT OK for you to release a game as buggy as that.  Lucky for me, EB Games let me return this for full refund. 

I've updated all my drivers (MS digitally signed), I've downloaded the latest patches, and all my settings are correct.  All my other games play without a problem on my computer (F.E.A.R., Half-Life 2, Doom 3,etc.) all very hardware dependent games and run just fine over the internet.  After all of my current issues with you as well as my disappointed with Tiger Woods Golf 06 and Madden 06 (for Xbox) with bugs and its content lacking value, I am no longer giving any more of my business to EA.  I feel your quality in your products have turned borderline pathetic and I'm voicing that opinion to all the forums and game websites like Gamespot, Gamestop, EB Games, etc.  I'm getting the word around about the quality of your games and I'm going to encourage others to do the same that have had similar problems with you. 

I remember a time where EA put out quality games and I was willing to pay full retail price for them.  Now, instead of enjoying my time with your products, they are causing nothing but headaches.  Unfortunately, I work two jobs so I can support my family so when I get a chance to relax with video games for couple hours a week, I don't expect to spend a week troubleshooting problems with a product that should be running fine on my computer (The BF2 DEMO SURE RAN FINE ON MULTIPLAYER both PC and Xbox).  So, its not my settings, its not my drivers, its your product.  If you ever visited your forums you would see how many players are having the same problem I have....but you guys don't care to visit your forums because nobody ever gets an answer there to their questions! 

The worst thing on top of all this is I really wanted to enjoy some of these titles that you were coming out with.  I want nothing more than to enjoy my limited time with some EA game titles.  The reality is, my game time is very limited and I need games I can just pop in and out of without having to go thru a troubleshooter or tolerate a lot of bugs.  There are plenty of other companies that produce games that actually work well and play exactly how they are advertised to play.  I'll stick with them and stay clear of any future titles from EA.  For your customers sake, that continue to buy your products with more tolerance than I have of your shortcomings I hope you guys get your act together.  I've lost my patience and I will make the effort to get the word around how the quality control around EA is, at best, poor.  Please forward this message to your manager, sales team, development team, etc. so they will get a glimpse of what this customer has experienced with their products.  I really hope EA improves things in the future but for now I guess I'll remain another disappointed customer.