I wouldn't be much of a gamer if I didn't shamelessly post my own E3 impressions on my blog while simultaneously watching it on no less than 3 (Spike, G4, Gamespot) sources. What makes my impressions different than the rest of the gamers blogging about E3 is that I've been gaming long enough to know who Arnie Katz was and fondly remember his self-published fanzine which used to contain HIS impressions of the CES. You know, that thing we had before E3 was created?

Ok, enough bragging about my accelerated age, let's get this thing started.

First up was Microsoft, and if you know me you know how much I hate the Xbox 360. Unfortunately, I'm forced to play one due to most multiplatform games being programmed for it rather than for the PS3 or (god forbid) my PC. Still, I approached their conference the way a hooker does a sale on condoms and hoped I'd come out with something that would be worth remembering. For the most part, I didn't.

Musambani, while we watched the MS conference, said this gem:

"Every time Microsoft takes the stage they always induce rage in people with more than 5 brain cells"

They opened up with a demo of Call of Duty Black Ops, and I immediately facepalmed. These games are nothing more than U.S. military indoctrination programs meant to instill a false sense of patriotism and duty in the mindless rednecks/white-trash that play them. Whether it's teaching kids to hate brown skins, teaching kids that America never does any wrong or teaching kids how important it is to "kill first and ask questions later", these games never fail to make me despise pop culture more and more every time a new one is birthed from the rancid bowels of Electronic Arts.

What's even worse is that MS went on to announce that they've bought exclusive rights to the DLC for the CoD series, something they did with GTA4 as well. I really despise any one company having an unfair release embargo on new content, and this is no exception. Sure, the PC and PS3 will get the DLC eventually, but MS has once again proven how desperate they are by doing this. It is unfair to people who do not have an Xbox and punishes those who, unlike me, were not able to buy all three platforms.

Next up, MS showed a couple short clips of the new Metal Gear Rising game...and I was rather unimpressed. Metal gear died when it went 3D and lost its tense, frightening, serious edge...and I want nothing to do with it. Also, Katanas. Yippee.

Next up was Fable 3. Does anyone really want to play this train wreck? I bought Fable 2 used for 7.50 and regretted it. It was watered down and so easy that I couldn't even get myself killed ON PURPOSE. Not to mention that damn dirty animal (the dog) is back. I've said it before and I'll say it again, you don't keep animals as pets...you eat them. Including a dog in an RPG is a sure way to get me to avoid it. The only good moment in Fable 2 was when that disgusting creature got shot. I actually cheered when that happened.

Next, they showed the new Crytek game, "Codename Kingdoms". Can't say much since it offered no new information. Looks like another silly "300" cash in about Spartans if you ask me.

Then, they went ahead with some Halo: Reach nonsense. *yawn*.

...and then, we had the real reason Microsoft showed up: Kinect. I think Musambani summed it up best with the following statement after I asked why people would buy this crap:

It's because all of the technological neophytes think it looks very streamlined and "futuristic", but it really lacks all of the features you'd expect from how it looks. It's much like Apple and their products.

To be perfectly honest, the games they showed looked exactly like Wii knock-offs. The kart racer, the sports games, everything was jsut a carbon copy of the Wii motion titles only with Avatars instead of Miis. It was so sad and depressing to see MS fail this greatly that I went downstairs and made a sandwich before going back to my game room and watching the rest of the conference. If anyone walked away from that wanting to buy Kinect than they are either mentally retarded or incredibly stupid.

Some of the Kinect demos were more embarrassing than others. In particular was that god awful Kinectimals demo. the tiny little asian girl running around playing with a tiger. The only thing I hate more than animals would be children, so seeing BOTH together was enough to cause me to punch a hole through my thin wooden table. It's wonderful, isn't it? Seeing kids using their xbox to play with animals? the only people who will buy that game are furries that want to get their rocks off.

Electronic Arts Conference:

The EA conference wasn't too bad. Crysis 2 looked fabulous and added to what was already a huge amount of excitement I had about it. I did laugh though when the game chugged and had some minor audio lag. It's obvious the consoles can't handle the game engine and the only correct way of playing it is to run it on a PC. Nonetheless, it looks incredible and seems to be a much faster game than the previous one. This may not be what most wanted from it (Since the open-ness and slow crawl through the jungle is what made it stand out) but I won't judge the game on just one level.

Star Wars the Old Republic also looked great. Even though I hate MMOs with a passion, I'll definitely be buying this for its story-heavy singleplayer focus and lack of grinding. Everything I've heard and seen about Old Republic leads me to believe it's simply KOTOR1 with an optional online co-op mode, and that's exactly what I want. Unlike WoW, it has a deep dialog system with a non-linear story...so I can easily see this becoming the "anti WoW" that the industry has been trying to create for the past four years. Kudos to Bioware for keeping me hyped for the game.

Later on G4 after all the conferences were over, they showed more of the Old Republic and I was REALLY impressed with what I saw. The graphics are low spec, sure, but the art direction and combat look fabulous. I'm really sold on the game and have no doubt I will be buying it.

Ubisoft Conference:

Mostly forgettable. More Assassin's Creed nonsense, Jade Raymond mouthing off like she actually knows something about gaming, a frenchman who speaks English about as well as I speak french...mostly fail. I did like the new Ghost Recon game though. Shame I refuse to play american propaganda war games though or else I might buy it.

Nintendo Conference:

Wow. I never expected to be blown away by Ninty of all companies. My PS3 motto on my player profile reads "The Wii is trash", and yet here I am thankful I own one. Fancy that.

The new Zelda looked wonderful. I've always wanted a heavier emphasis on swordplay and smarter enemies that BLOCKED and my wish seems to have been granted. Another great thing about Zelda: Skyward Sword is the fact that they combined the cartoon-ey aspect of Wind Waker with the grown up adult link of Twilight Princess to create a hybrid art st.yle that seems to have hit the "sweet spot" in terms of realism v.s. fantasy. Though it's too early to say if we'll see that familiar Ocarina of Time gameplay, at least they are on the right track.

Most of the rest of the games didn't interest me much. The new Kirby looked supremely silly, Epic Mickey looks to be Warren Spector's next shameful entry on his resume (Can't blame Harvey Smith this time, can we Warren?) and the new Mario sports game doesn't appeal to me at all. However, there were a few other games I was pleased to see.

Donkey Kong Country's new entry looks interesting. I've always liked the series and had hoped it would make a comeback, so I was happy to see a proper sequel given to Mario's former nemesis. It has all the familiar side scrolling fun as the SNES original but with sharper visuals and more interaction with your environment. Once again, you can't tell much due to the short playtime of the pre-recorded demo they showed on stage, but what WAS there looked good enough for me to consider buying it when it's released.

Then we saw the new Goldeneye. This was already leaked a couple weeks ago so astute gamers were not surprised to see this. Though I'd love to get it, I've yet to see an FPS on the wii control even halfway decently. Furthermore, as much as our nostalgia wants to tell us otherwise, Goldeneye really isn't as good as we remember. It has long since been improved upon by other console shooters such as Bioshock and Gears of War, so it's hard for me to get excited about going back 12 years in the past. Especially with *real* shooters such as Crysis 2 and Singularity coming out this holiday.

Then we have the elephant in the room to talk about: the 3DS.

They showed almost no real footage, unless you count Kid Icarus. While Icarus looked decent, it's hard for me to rationalize buying one after the disappointment I experienced with the DS. Laugh if you must, but my Ds gathers dust while my PSP is constantly recharging and being played for hours on end. The PSP has all the great RPGs while the DS is nothing more than a kiddie machine. Hell, I have a friend who traded in his DS for a second PSP and hacked it, that's how valuable a DS was to him. Thats roughly the same feeling I have towards the system and I doubt the 3DS will be any different. For every decent game it gets they'll have a few dozen NINTENDOGS and PETZ titles.

Sony Conference:

Sony doesn't talk down to you during their conference, which was so refreshing. They talk in even tones, act mature, and don't expect us to be retards. MS and Nintendo sound like they are talking down to people and Sony's conference was, surprisingly, very mature and pleasant.

First of all, Killzone 3 looked great, but as someone who only played the first and didn't like it I don't think I'm going to buy it. Still, the visuals (and the 3D) help separate it from Halo Reach or even Modern Warfare. A definite plus one for Sony.

As for the 3D montage they showed, it looked impressive. Unlike both of their competitors they have native 3D support built in and if you are a rich jerk who has a 3D television set then you'd be best off with a PS3. I can't deny that.

As for PS Move, I'll admit I don't care for motion control. With that being said, I think out of all 3 systems the Ps3 Move is the only one that piques my interest. Unlike MS and Nintendo, they seem to have quite a few hardcore games developed for it. I especially loved the demo of "Sorcery" and have to admit that if the Move is only 49.99, I may just buy it to play Sorcery. It truly looked that damn good to me.

Now onto the part I loved the best: The PSP.

I love the PSP. Next to the TG-16, it's my favorite system of all time. It does everything an iPhone does but does it BETTER. Yes, I said it. Why the hell people don't bow down and worship the greatness of the PSP is still beyond me..but you can read my earlier blog where I spoke about it to understand my feelings better.

The PSP, once again, has a killer lineup coming out. Ys Seven, Valkyria Chronicles 2, Parasite Eve 3, a new God of War game...how can a gamer prefer the DS over the PSP? Nothing but goodness here and a PSP is the only system I need outside of my PC. Fact.

Next they showed Little big Planet 2. Hmmmm...no. I like the improved toolset (Someone even made an RTS with it in only 24 hours) but that game simply isn't my cup of tea. No kid stuff, ever.

Next we had the biggest shock of the Sony show: Gabe apologizing for dissing the PS3 for the last 3 years and announcing that Portal 2 would not only be coming to the platform, but that the PS3 version was the best of the bunch. Big words...but coming from a man that big, I'd believe it.

Lastly (I won't count Twisted Metal since that series means nothing to me) was inFamous 2. Very short video, somewhat confusing. I'd hope they show more online in the coming weeks, but doubt it. Infamous was one of my favorite games of 2009 and I've been anxious to see footage from the sequel. I was a bit disappointed at Cole's new look, but as long as the gameplay is there I'm in.


And now, my personal awards:

Best Shooter of E3 2010: Crysis 2 (Honorable mention: Bulletstorm. People Can Fly are FPS GODS!)

Best Action/Adventure game of E3 2010: Zelda - Skyward Sword

Best RPG of E3 2010: Star Wars The Old Republic

Best New Technology: Playstation Move

"Winner" of E3 2010: Sony (Nintendo would have won if they would show some real F'ing 3DS footage, even if in 2D)

Game of E3 2010: Star Wars - the Old Republic

Roughly two months ago, I was fairly excited about the upcoming release of Alan Wake. So excited that I would not only preorder it, but go on to download the so-called "webisodes" that were released over xbox live which laid out some of the game's backstory for those curious enough to watch them. In my defense, it was a hard game to avoid, considering how many of the annoying boxed advertisement squares on the 360's GUI were used in promoting the thing. After awhile, it began to sink into my head the same way telephone company jingles do after you hear them twenty times a day on your television. Throw in the fact that I'm a huge Twin Peaks fanboy that can't get enough of that old Stephen King/David Lynch style psychological horror and I think you understand where that anticipation was coming from.

Then, about a week ago I started seeing the news articles about the game's DLC plans pop up on my RSS feeds. While DLC is nothing new and I've learned to begrudgingly live with it, I was shocked to hear how incredibly "Below-the-belt" the post game downloadable content was going to be. So shocked, in fact, that I canceled my pre-order.

First of all, the game finishes abruptly with an unresolved ending that requires purchase of DLC to actually see the conclusion of. Apparently, after listening to several reviewers who've completed Alan Wake, you won't see the ending until you've bought and completed all of the DLC. In short, the game, like so many others now, has been released half-finished with the other half only available through overpriced and regrettably short DLC.

Before the game was released, they made a big deal about how they canceled the PC version due to Microsoft's laughably inane beleif that, quote, "[Alan Wake] is best played from the couch in front of a large TV screen". Apparently, Microsoft has never heard of ATI Eyefinity which has given us PC gamers some rather big screen sizes.

Though I initially chalked the statement up to Microsoft being the gutless imbeciles they usually are, the articles about the DLC have given me the answer I needed.

The reason why they ditched the PC version is that they knew they couldn't get away with this chicanery on a gaming platform where consumers are far more intelligent and "game-savvy".

In this new era of DLC, you no doubt have realized how hard it is to get a PC port of a console game. If we get them, they're usually several months to a year late (Mass Effect, Gears of War, Force Unleashed, Bully, Grand Theft Auto 4 etc.) or come to us in a visually dumbed down form thanks to the console's weakened graphical capabilities (F.E.A.R. 2, Bioshock 1+2, Borderlands, Fallout 3, Dragon Age's infamous wood textures to name but a few), and even when we do get them in these low quality forms the game's poor sales are blamed on piracy instead of the real culprit...lack of commitment to quality.

The simple reason Alan Wake's PC version was canceled was due to the reliance on launch day DLC to complete the story. With the aborted failure known as "Games for Windows Live" being Microsoft's only delivery service, they knew throwing out a half completed game and hoping there would be enough Games for Windows Live users to fall for this trap in order to make a profit would be extraordinarily foolish. Even by their standards.

This, as sad as it is to admit, is what you'll be seeing more of in the future.

We've already seen small examples of this sort of behavior before. Look back to Dragon Age and its Grey Warden's Keep DLC. Regardless of how vehemently Bioware talking-head George Zoeller defends EA, the party storage container was witheld from the main game and placed within the DLC to bump up sales of what was admittedly a very weak piece of bonus content. They had originally planned to put the storage container in your camp but Electronic Art's made them remove it and put it in the DLC so that people would be more inclined to buy it.

Did it work? Well, I don't know, you tell me.

It isn't just western companies doing it either, even the Japanese have been caught doing it.

As much as I love Capcom, they were caught doing this twice. Once when they did it with Resident Evil 5, and then again with an even bigger slap in the face when they did the same thing with the costumes in Street Fighter 4. Capcom tried to deny this was true but anyone with a modicum of common sense knows that if a DLC is about 4KB in size, chances are fairly good you aren't downloading shader model 2 textures. Heck, even most Atari 2600 roms are more than 4kb in size...how even one modern shader based texture can be less than an Atari 2600 rom is either a feat of science-defying technical wizardry or a tiny line of code that tells the game launcher to load a previously unread section of the disc at startup.

Hmmm...which do you think it is?

Oh, but I'm not done yet. Let's talk about Bioshock 2 and the cover-up that went on at their boards earlier this year when it was discovered that they also had their DLC on the game disc. Of course, 2K Marin's talking puppet Elizabeth (Always make sure your community manager is a woman so the lonely guys feel like they need to white knight her) tried to explain it away by saying it had to be that way in order to keep everyone together, but I fail to see the reasoning behind her argument.

Borderlands also has DLC that can be used in games alongside of other players that cannot access it if they don't own it, and the DLC, which numbers several hundred megabytes in size, is not on the disc. If you elect not to download any of the DLC packs for Borderlands, you are NOT in any way locked out of playing with gamers who DO have it, so I fail to see Elizabeth's point.

Even Neverwinter Nights, whose modules can sometimes be several gigabytes in size, are effortlessly streamed in real time to people who are in a game where they do not have the content locally stored. Want to enter a module that you don't have on your hard drive but you want to see someone else run around in the new content? Just join the game and let the system send you the files as it loads. the new area is stored in memory and used as needed.

Further making Elizabeth look like an idiot is the fact that Neverwinter Nights 1 was doing this eight years ago back in 2002.

So by now you're probably wondering where I'm going with this and why I've hung onto all of these URLs for so long just to use them in a dusty, barely read gaming blog.

The answer is simple, I want you to know when you're being screwed with.

With these incomplete games being cut apart to make DLC packs and data being secretly stored on the discs, it's making it easier to milk the average gamer for what is essentially unearned and undeserved money. While Borderlands and (I hate to admit this) Fable 2 had some great DLC content at a fair price, they are not the norm in this industry. This is why the PC platform is seen as a danger to these companies, since we can and often DO peruse the files of our newly bought games and begin to look for hidden content or ways to add OUR OWN content to the game. Whether it's unlocking the Hot Coffee mode in San Andreas or adding nude patches to everything from Tomb Raider to Oblivion, PC Gamers have always had unstoppable and unlimited control over every single one of their games regardless of what the End User License Agreement says. We own our games and we control the hobby, and this has frightened developers enough to the point where they will make any excuse they can to avoid releasing a PC port. It isn't piracy, it isn't low sales, it's fear that keeps them away from the PC. Fear they will have to commit to releasing a complete and high quality product.

Therein lies the real reason why you didn't see an Alan Wake for the PC. The Fear of the Democracy known as PC Gaming.

Console gaming is, without getting too political on a gaming blog, nothing more than a fascist dictatorship. You have no rights, no power, no say in anything that goes on. Your money is taken and you are given temporary passes to play a game until "they" decide you aren't allowed to play it anymore. You are forced to pay for what you once got for free and you are told to either shut up and take it or just leave and not come back.

Meanwhile, the Democratically controlled PC platform allows people to modify games that the developers refuse to allow them the right to modify as well as release free mods that are significantly better than any of the "pay only" DLC the console users are forced to settle with.

In closing, let me just say this: Alan Wake is the future of gaming.

The future of gaming in much the same way that Nanking was the future of Japanese-Chinese relations.

Most of you have probably read my Resonance of Fate review by now, and while I wrote a lengthy article about it I didn't really take my time in creating it. There was so much more that needed to be said and I felt I really should have waited until it was perfect before I posted it. What's done is done though, so I figure I'll use my blog here to not only properly describe the sheer awesomeness that is Tri-Ace's Resonance of Fate, but to point out what this game is doing right that nearly every other recently released JRPG is doing wrong.

#1: The story, while not neccesarily new, is presented in a way that few JRPGs are. Unlike the Final Fantasy series, which mostly revolves around some meglomaniacal emperor or general or demonic bad ass, the "Main Villian" in Resonance of Fate isn't really a Villian. Cardinal Rowen is merely a misunderstood man who, in his grief, chose the wrong paths when trying to deal with that grief. He is pitiable and not the kind of guy you can really hate.

Although the game makes him the last boss, he isn't supernatural or in possession of great reserves of strength. He is a normal, but extremely stubborn man. He is, after all, still a human. Resonance of Fate doesn't give people god powers or make them demons. You fight as normal people against normal people. There are no mind readers, telekenetics, winged angels, supermen or fallen gods. The game is about science and technology and how technological progress finds itself at odds with mankind's compassion. Not having to deal with crazy psychopaths or god-men in a JRPG was a refreshing change of pace.

Simply put, Resonance of Fate's story was very deep and yet the characters were all very easy to identify with because it "kept it real". If I see another god or man with godlike Powers as a JRPG last boss I'm going to fling the disc right out of the window.


#2: The voice acting is top notch, and if you've read my review you know why. The problem is that most JRPGs, even when they have great voice actors working for them, don't sound as if they've really made the actors "work". What's really amazing about Resonance of Fate is that the actors appear to be ad-libbing a bit. Maybe they aren't, maybe they're just reading a script...but if they are reading scripted lines then they are doing a fine job at hiding it. The actors, especially when making fun of each other in combat, feel so at ease and casual that it seems like they are artfully ad-libbing the dialog. This feeling pervades the whole game making the speech feel extremely natural and helps remove that "Forced" feeling you get in just about every other JRPG (And a good percentage of Western RPGs as well).

Search youtube and check out the cut scenes. You'll see that the actors do an incredible job at putting feeling and emotion into the main characters. Without a doubt, it's the best voice acting I've heard yet in a JRPG. No more squeaky voice little girls or teenage boys that sound like 5 year olds.


#3: The combat in an RPG is, to me, the most important part. I want my combat to be fast, strategic and deep. Naturally, you don't find this too often in JRPGs and when you DO, they often confuse "depth" with "Japanese Dating sim/social networking silliness". Don't believe me? Go play Persona 3 and 4. I don't mind when this silliness is an optional or a non essential part of the game (Ar Tonelico comes to mind) but when you base combat effectiveness around it you ruin the game.

Combat in Resonance of Fate combines turn based strategy with real-time quickness. Battles move fast like a modern real time RPG yet retain the same kind of strategy you'd expect from an old school turn based RPG. Rather than bore the player to death with plain vanilla combat or with complicated and unnecessary systems that add absolutely nothing to the fighting system, Resonance of Fate creates a well defined set of rules that are easy to learn but take quite a bit of time to truly master. While it causes confusion and anger early on, after you learn it you wonder why more games can't be like this.

I wrote this blog because the old "Japanese RPGs are dying" argument is still going on within this website's message boards as well as elsewhere. Articles are being written, doom is being predicted, and no one is addressing what needs to be changed.

What I'm saying here is to just take a look at Resonance of Fate. It is the perfect "East-meets West" JRPG that can save the genre.

I'll always enjoy my ultra Japanese casual RPGs like Ar Tonelico and the Atelier series, but if the rest of them intend to survive in this market they'd do well to study what Tri-Ace has done with Resonance of Fate and learn from their success...as niche as that success may in fact be.

If only Sega hadn't released the game in such limited quantities.

The world of portable gaming has been heating up lately, hasn't it? Not only has Nintendo started hyping up their new extra large DS re-package called the DS XL, which is essentially just a DSi that put on a few hundred extra pounds of fat over the holidays, but Apple has been sneaking in hints that their new iPad is going to make a run for the handheld market in the coming year. Of course, none of this hit me as hard as the news that Nintendo's Ds successor will be coming out next year and that it will be a 3D enabled device, appropriately titled the "Nintendo 3DS".

Clever.

See, this is why I've lost faith in my fellow gamers. People actually want to buy the new DS XL, the new 3DS and purchase an iPad to play infantile 1.99 app-based casual games. This is what sells, this is what is trendy, and this is what moves units. Portable gaming has leapt so far backward, technology-wise, that I'm half expecting to see someone develop a handheld that is powered by a hamster wheel and whose screen is replaced by a rotating rock with pre-painted images on it.

This startling fast descent to the world of casual silliness has left behind one very unfairly ridiculed victim in the gaming world, and that would be the PSP.

I bought both the PSP and the DS during their respective launches. While I didn't care much for the PSP initially, as the years went by I began to see its superior value. My DS played games that were nothing more than rehashes of old 16 and 32 bit games that, in many cases, used the same exact engine as their forebearers. The DS had a very low quality LCD screen that always looked "fuzzy" in any light and was encased in a block of plastic that was about as ergonomic and "Big-hand-friendly" as the mishapen ashtray I made for my parents in 3rd grade.

In the past few years the Ds has descended even further into gaming mediocrity, releasing either complete engine rehashes of old crusty RPGs (Dragon Quest 4-6, Final Fantasy 3 & 4) or peddling tedious, grind heavy archaic JRPGs (Nostalgia, Etrian Odyssey) as legitimate portable game experiences. While the PSP isn't immune from rehashes itself, a good portion of them (PoPoLoCrois, Legend of Heroes 1-3, Star Ocean 1) were Japanese-only RPGs that American audiences never saw. Combine this dredging up of old games with the lackluster graphics of the DS and you see why I despise it so.

Though I'm sure to get hit with the "Graphics don't matter" excuse when it comes to portables, I beg to differ. If I want a portable SNES I can either buy a Gamepark portable or jailbreak my PSP and do it on there. Granted, that latter option isn't exactly legal, though that doesn't stop people from doing it. When I pay 100-200 dollars for a new portable gaming device, I want it to look like it uses the latest technology. I want the games to not just have pleasing gameplay, but entertaining visuals as well.

Furthermore, as a media device, the DS fails miserably. I am aware they never pitched the DS as anything other than a gaming portable, but with four hardware revisions they have still yet to let us store movies or music on it the way we do everything else. Partly due to this lack of features, my DS has very rarely left my house and unlike my PSP, is only used for gaming.

It honestly didn't take long for my PSP to replace my ipod as my defacto media playing device either. With a 16GB sandisk card I was able to put several movies and MP3s on my PSP without it getting in the way of my saved game files. I was even able to back up my game data and comfortably surf the web in a way no other handheld device would allow for.

Around 2008 I bought a new iPod touch...and a year later I stopped using it and returned to my PSP. Music, movies, and some of the very best portable JRPGs I'd ever played (Phantasy Star Portable 1 & 2, Star Ocean 1 & 2, Crimson Gem Saga, Radiant Mythology, Lunar, Persona) it was an all-in-one portable media device that never once failed to surprise me with its versatility and power.

So why is the DS such a run away hit and the PSP is the laughed at, picked-on, ridiculed "has been" that everyone likes to make fun of?

I think it's due to the hatred surrounding Sony this generation. Console gamers were angered by Sony's refusal to lower the price of the launch PS3, and many less-than-affluent console kids decided that if they couldn't afford something they would spend all of their time ridiculing those that could. It's much the same technique applied to elitist PC nerds like me who spend 3K a year on our rigs. They ridicule what they can't afford, even more so when that thing they can't afford is technologically superior.

So this summer while PSP owners are playing Metal Gear Peace Walker, A new Kingdom Hearts game, Mod Nation Racers, Persona 3 portable and Valkyria Chronicles 2, Nintendo Ds owners have My First Dollhouse, Mean Girls, Farmtopia, Pokemon, Club Penguin and "Yard Sale Hidden Treasures". The only game the Ds has that can be considered "Hardcore" would be Dragon Quest 9. unfortunately, it too has that same blocky, ugly looking N64 engine that Nostalgia and Phantasy Star Zero had.

Sounds awesome, doesn't it?

I suppose this is just a symptom of Nintendo's hatred of core gamers. They realized they can make more money peddling toys to middle aged parents for their ungrateful pre-teen rugrats to slobber over than wasting development time creating serious games for core gamers.

...but the new DS will be in 3D. That'll make Farmtopia 2 look SO much better, right?

Those of you who read my recently posted Heavy Rain review might remember the brief diatribe I wrote concerning my belief that the controller is under-used, and that motion sensing accessories actually take you out of the game playing experience rather than place you into it. While I'm often finding myself on the wrong end of popular opinion, I was shocked to see that response to that little rant was unusually positive. Well, positive in the way that three people told me they agreed with it.

Now that Playstation "Move" has been revealed, I can confidently say that my opinion on the subject of motion controls has not changed.

Many of the GDC attendees that received play time with SOCOM 4's move-based controls have been saying that it feels like a "downgrade" from the Dualshock 3 and that it is, rather unsurprisingly, no better than the Wii's controls in Red Steel or The Conduit. Though they haven't gone so far as to dismiss the product entirely, they do go on to say that it's very unlikely this will be used in a significant number of first person shooters.

Once again, no surprise there.

What is a surprise, however, is that Sony would consider this a lucrative decision. Ever since most gamers ended their unnecessarily long honeymoon with the wii and its own motion controls, the idea of waggling your arms to navigate your own screen persona has become about as appealing as the return of plastic cartridges and 8-bit era password entry screens. Motion controls failed to make the impact we were assured they would, and after three years of party games and hard to play first person action games the majority of gamers out there have turned their back on the idea entirely. After all, why struggle with a waggle stick when you can just pick up a dual analog controller or, even better, a mouse and keyboard? Does that infrared sensor and the plastic stick in your hand really make you feel like you are part of the game? Not for me it doesn't.

Sony's argument is that what they are doing is more immersive, responsive, and enjoyable than what the Wii has as well as being focused more on the hardcore gamer subset than Nintendo's own motion control games. While that sounds nice enough, anyone giving Move's lead-in title even a cursory glance can see the striking similarity to Wii sports. Like Nintendo's game, it includes archery, sword fighting and table tennis...only this time in glorious 1080p HD. It's essentially nothing more than "Wii Sports HD".

While they could in fact be making several hardcore games for the Move controller, after seeing (and reading about) how poorly it worked in SOCOM 4 I'm very skeptical about their "More responsive and comfortable than the Wii-mote" claim. No matter how they pitch this, it still won't offer you the same kind of precise control you're going to get from the Dual Analog sticks you already have. Nothing short of fully encased, body suit wearing virtual reality will get you closer than that or your mouse, so why bother switching bats in the middle of the ball game?

I see this all as one giant bomb just waiting to blow up in Sony's face. A gamble that simply won't pay off. While I understand their desire to "Catch Nintendo" and "Out do Microsoft's Natal", I think that the quickly dying and recently pariah-branded motion control gimmick is the wrong arena to fight this battle in. If anything, they would have been better served by jumping on the REAL untouched frontier of television based gaming: The console MMO.

Instead, Sony has decided to place the future of their already hurting console on a slightly improved Wii-mote, all the while promising the disenfranchised hardcore gamers they have courted these past 15 years that "This will be different than what you're used to".

As for Natal, every RSS feed I receive that mentions it tells me that programmers with developer's kits are complaining about the immense lag and overall clumsy feel of it. How jumping around the average American's small knick-knack filled living room is going to improve gameplay I have no idea.

Before the Wii came out, I got into a lengthy discussion with a friend of mine about how I felt gaming was, and I quote, "meant to be done with one hand on the controller, one hand in a bag of chips, and leaning back in a chair with half your clothes on the floor".

Perverted jokes aside, that's what gaming means to me. It's a sedentary activity meant to relax me after a long 9 hour work day. I come home, peel off my clothes, hop into the shower, grab my robe, and plunk down in front of the TV for a few hours of inFamous or Demons Souls. I don't have the energy or desire to jump around my room and/or foolishly wave my arms like someone about to have a stroke. That isn't relaxing, and it certainly isn't what I call gaming.

Using a quote from author Robert Heinlein and changing "writing" to "Gaming", I could say the following:

Gaming is not something to be ashamed of, but make sure to do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.

This hobby wasn't meant to be something you do with 3 other family members in a bright room with jumps, kicks, cartwheels and frantic flinging of appendages. It's meant to be done alone in a poorly ventilated and abnormally dark room with ample amounts of fried snacks and sugary beverages. If we hardcore gamers wanted to run, jump, throw and flail about we'd play sports.

And really, who wants to waste their time doing that when there are so many games to finish?

Gaming is meant to be done with your butt firmly planted within a chair and a controller under both thumbs. Anything else is just a roadblock to your enjoyment and a waste of time and money.

I've noticed over the past few years that game reviewers and developers are complaining more and more about what they call "Needless complexity" in modern RPGs. With Todd Howard scaling back the character creation in the most recent Elder Scrolls game and one famous king of RPG complexity Richard Garriott retreating to the casual game business, I'm beginning to think these voices make up the majority and I'm just an old relic that needs to be put out to pasture.

Case in point, look at Gamespot's staff review of Drakensang. I happend to read it for the first time tonight and it shocked me quite a bit.

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/drakensangthedarkeye/review.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=gssummary&tag=summary;read-review

This isn't a rarity...this is the norm. While Drakensang is a complex game, its system only takes a few hours of play to learn. I ended up scrapping a character I made three hours into the game because I realized my build was a failure and wanted to start over with a keener understanding of the rules system. I accepted this as part of the process in learning how to play the game and thought nothing of it. However, very few seem to agree.

Now, take a look at these two character creation screens. Both have been called "OVerly complex" by the gaming media.

http://i47.tinypic.com/2n6dj7q.jpg

http://i46.tinypic.com/2zdxik9.jpg

clever gamers will realize that while the second pic is drakensang, the first one is from its predecessor, Realms of Arkania.

Both games are European RPGs that are, as reviewers call them, "needlessly complex". Is this a bad thing? Is it wrong to ask the player to study the manual and learn the rules before playing? Should it be acceptable that a game get half of its skills ripped out in favor of making it easier for casual gamers to enjoy it? I suppose it makes sense, since targeting the mainstream means more money...but at what cost? Haven't RPGs been diluted enough already?

Just something to think about.

I flip-flopped constantly over the past month or two about whether I was going to purchase Heavy Rain or not. After spending two hours with it, I'd have to say I'm glad I took a risk and went for it.

First of all, I'd like to say that no game has given me such a (literal) headache more than this. The tension, the fear, the "OH MY GOD" moments....it had me screaming and cursing at the characters on the screen. Something I don't even do at movies. I was so caught up in the controller movements (Especially during Ethan's "Driving the wrong way" scene) and the character's fight scenes that I gave myself a tension headache.

Granted, the game is a bit limiting. Each "level" is a tiny set piece area that only allows you to interact with certain objects, most of which are un-usable until an NPC tells you about it. Still, the atmosphere and storyline more than makes up for it.

So far I like what I see, but I don't know how much replay value the game has.

One thing I'd like to say is that I haven't seen facial graphics this realistic since Crysis. This furthers my belief that the PS3 is the more powerful of the two consoles. Unfortunately, the facial *animations* aren't that swift, and still don't measure up to the PC version of Mass Effect 2. Still, it's amazing to see on a console.

PS3 exclusives are always something special, and this is no different.

By now you've probably heard about it since it's igniting the web like a California Brush Fire in the dead of summer. However, in the event that you didn't, refer to the following links and then come back:

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=235290&site=pcg
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/62412
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/02/17/ubisoft-drm-doesnt-sound-like-such-a-good-idea-anymore/
http://www.evilavatar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=106513
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/02/17/you-maniacs/
http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/02/18/0719256/Ubisofts-Constant-Net-Connection-DRM-Confirmed

If you don't feel like reading the links, or you're still a bit confused (Understandable), then let me catch you up:

Ubisoft announced this new DRM last month, only then it was believed that the online connection was just required to start and save the game. People were understandably upset, since not everyone has a stable internet connection or can rely on their internet working at the moment that they want to play or save their games. The vast majority of gamers hated the idea of this new DRM, while a small percentage actually defended Ubisoft.

Well, no one is defending them now.

Apparently, the DRM is worse than what anyone could have imagined. Instead of merely phoning home to the Ubisoft servers when you want to save or launch the game, their new titles using this copyright protection scheme will require that you have constant and uninterrupted access to the internet throughout the entire game. If even for one second your internet hiccups or loses its contiguous connection to Ubisoft's servers (Or your own ISP, or your Router) the game will shut down and you will lose all of the progress you've made since your last automatically saved checkpoint.

I'd like to state that other than Starforce or Tages, I'm comfortable with most DRM. Unlike a lot of other gamers, Steam and Games for Windows Live don't bother me. I have been running Steam in offline mode on my secondary PC for over a year now and never worry about having to connect it to my network to authenticate a game. Games for Windows live is significantly crankier, but at least both of these services have "offline modes" that allow you to run your games without needing any connection to the internet. Granted, you lose some features (such as achievements, stat tracking and multiplayer) but the main game itself is still 100% yours to play.

With this new Ubisoft DRM, you lose all right to play the game whenever your internet connection fails. The 50 dollar DVD you paid for is now nothing more than a coaster because your DSL signal is getting weak, Ubisoft's servers start to lag or your Cable is on the fritz. I don't see how this is acceptable or fair. Especially when pirates will have this cracked about a week before the first game using it hits the market.

Ubisoft has responded to this by using the tired old excuse that this is intended to stop "casual piracy". The problem here is that so-called "casual piracy" doesn't exist. It's like saying "casual murder" or "casual rape". You either do it or you don't, it isn't done flippantly and without a very short time between "this is cool" and "Oh lord, I'm addicted!". It's something that is far too easy, far too mainstream and far too tempting to be done casually.

Now, you may notice on my "Now Playing" list here on Gamespot I have a Playstation 2 game that wasn't released in America. I won't say what device I'm playing it on, or how I came about getting it, but you might notice that it isn't on my "owned game" list. Thanks to some very talented translation gurus, I applied a patch to the PS2 Dragon Quest 5 game and I'm enjoying a decent JRPG for a change.

While I have been guilty of using *a certain program gamespot wouldn't want me mentioning*, I only used it to get a hold of old or unreleased games that were not available to be bought. I'm a game collector that needs to have the box and manual to his games. It's the same reason I don't buy used games. I refuse to own games that aren't mint condition and have all of their documentation with them.

My point? Even someone like me has indulged in hundreds of gigs of worth of what Ubisoft calls "casual piracy". As a frequent poster in a few so-called "Pirate" game trading forums I feel I can argue against this casual piracy garbage better than most.

First of all, the vast majority of these "pirates" are just game collectors like me. The only difference is that they don't care about manuals or packaging. They collect games and collect the DRM cracks that go with them the way I collect limited edition PC boxes. I can't tell you how many times I've chatted with someone on these boards and had them bragging to me about how they have "thousands of downloaded games" that they "never even bothered to play". Most are just serial collectors that enjoy beating the title's DRM and having a brag-worthy collection. They would have never bought the game to begin with, so the publisher loses nothing.

The other side of the pirate coin is made up of gamers like me who are either grabbing a game to bypass restrictive (and harmful) DRM, want to demo a game that doesn't have a publicly released demo, or is trying to play a game that isn't available to them. Though services like Good Old Games and Steam have a lot of older titles for sale, there are still hundreds of DOS and windows95/98-era games that are still unavailable. This form of piracy is also mostly harmless, since it "attacks" games that are no longer able to be purchased.

When there are two very large and well known sites that allow you to download cracks for every game in known existence as well as several very well maintained private torrent trackers that have these games for download, it's very hard to get anyone with a modicum of intelligence to believe in Ubisoft's "Casual piracy" argument. When you can grab a 7GB DVD rip of a new game in under 3 hours of leeching and have both it and its accompanying crack installed a couple of minutes later, it doesn't look like there is any way the process could be anymore simplistic than it already is. "Casual" implies that piracy must be extremely difficult and therefore most people find it difficult to break DRM, so the more extensive the DRM is the higher the talent needed to for the average joe to crack it.

The thing is, the average joe isn't cracking the games, the average joe is just downloading them with the crack already in the zipped file. The "Casual" guy doesn't have to do jack-squat. The big name pirate groups do their work for them and the average joe merely runs (insert Disc burning/recovery software here) and installs the illegally obtained game. It's a process so simple, easy to understand and effortless that I find it more challenging to proofread this blog post than to go out and grab a game off of a torrent.

Ubisoft and companies like them are fooling themselves. There is no divide between "Hardcore Pirates" and "Casual Pirates". No such thing exists. The more you push against the pirate community, the more these people will fight back. The only way to lower the instance of your games being pirated is to simply do away with the DRM.

Case in point, Electronic Arts. They published both Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2...and did so without using any DRM. They put in a simple boot-up disc check, but that was it. Did their game sell poorly due to piracy? No. As a matter of fact, Mass Effect 2 went on to become the highest selling January game in the history of the medium.

http://talkingaboutgames.com/news/generalnews/5645-mass-effect-2-sets-january-sales-record

Or you can look at Fallout 3. Other than Games for Windows Live (which you don't even need to be online with to play it) and a disc check (which can be bypassed by just loading the main EXE directly) Bethesda's 2008 hit had no DRM. Yet it sold incredibly well on the PC. You can also look at The Witcher, Stardock's Sins of a Solar Empire or the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series as proof that light or no DRM doesn't instantly mean the game gets pirated into oblivion.

Oh yeah, and Oblivion had no DRM either...just a simple and easily bypassed disc check.

In the end, Ubisoft will come out of this with egg on their face. It will significantly reduce sales and increase piracy...but part of me believes that is what they want. They hope that they can use this little stunt as proof that the PC environment is hostile and that they can't do business here due to piracy.

No loss though. I've yet to play a decent Ubisoft game. Far Cry 2 was passable, at best. Good riddance.

That chaos being caused by angry forum nerds.

Oh, I'll be buying it. No doubt about it. The thing is, from the looks of the Bioware Social boards (The biggest joke forum on the Internet) it looks like I'm part of the minority.

What really shocks me is how jaded and bitter most people are out there. So many people who loved DA are actually giving up on the expansion for silly, asinine reasons. Either they hate Oghren, or they are mad about their dead warden, or they hate Anders, or they hate the price, ot they are mad that player mods won't work in it, or that their overpowered DLC-only equipment won't be available, or pissed that romances don't carry over, or their angry over the fact that there won't be any new relationship quests, or perturbed at the lack of new graphics engine upgrades etc etc etc... It's really sad. I sometimes wonder why Bioware puts up with it anymore. Or why any developer puts up with it.

You know, when BG1's expansion came out we didn't see this kind of reaction. It was 40 dollars and people didn't care. RPGs were so rare, and PC RPGs even rarer, that just getting a little scrap was a reason enough to celebrate. I think somewhere along the line, many of us became spoiled.

I'd buy Awakening even if it was 5 hours long and had you playing as Oghren while plucking weeds from Alistair's royal rose garden. I happen to like the story and the characters, and no amount of negativity or nit-picking will change that. I support Bioware because Bioware supports the RPG genre. If it wasn't for them, things like romantic options (BG2) and openly supported end-user modding (NWN1) wouldn't be considered standard features in an RPG nowadays.

I could see if these naysayers weren't buying the expansion because they didn't like the main game. I could understand that, and would not hold it against them. If they hated the game, or didn't think it was good enough to warrant an expansion, or just felt that they "had enough" of the game world...I could understand it. The problem is that these folks are "hating on" the expansion for silly, nonsensical reasons.

I thought the lonely shut-ins fantasizing about alien sex on the Mass Effect 2 boards were sad, but these cranky gamers whining about the expansion give them a run for their money.

So now, the forums are filled with sniveling little brats who whine that Bioware isn't bowing down and catering to their every whim....in an budget priced three-month development time EXPANSION PACK.

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/127/index/1257270

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/127/index/1250047

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/127/index/1187384

Bioware recently tried to calm the never-ending storm of hatred and nerd rage by changing the game so that you can actually resurrect your (possibly) dead main character to use in the expansion...thus defeating the whole point of the endgame's famous "choice". This was done after several hundred posters began flooding the board with angry CAPS-LADEN posts about how Bioware abandoned them.

Really, Bioware needs to shut down that forum. It's worse than anything I could ever imagine.

And FF13 isn't looking too good.

As I mentioned in a blog post earlier this year, Final Fantasy was not received very well in Japan. Its hyper linearity, annoying characters, shallow storyline, and lack of any real item trading/hunting or town/hub adventuring made it one of the poorest selling Square games in recent memory. Which, although still isn't bad considering they made a boatload of cash from it, was nonetheless considered a huge failure in the East. So much so that the game is selling at below 50% off and is clogging bargain bins and resellers all over Japan.

Now, take a look at this:

http://www.evilavatar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=106344

As I said in my earlier blog post, the JRPG is dead. Gamers, especially amongst the hardcore here in the west, are tired of linearity and lack of choice. Perhaps we've become spoiled in this post-Elder Scrolls CRPG world, but hyper-linear, cheesy, Jpop infused Asian RPGs just don't work here anymore. Unless you're Atlus and cater to adults (Persona, Devil Summoner, Demon's Souls) don't expect to make any money in a country where sandbox gaming is mandatory. This isn't 1992, and we have more to play around with now in terms of technology and storage space. Gaming has advanced, and "Western Gamers" aren't willing to take a gigantic step backwards in terms of gameplay depth.

I don't mean to pick on JRPGs since I grew up loving them (And still do, thanks to Persona), but lately the genre has become nothing more than a long running joke that needs to be put out of its misery. Final Fantasy 13 is the nail in the genre's coffin, and hopefully Square sees the writing on the wall. They are no longer relevant in an industry where Blizzard, Bioware and Bethesda reign supreme. They either need to change, adapt, or get off of the playing field altogether.

What really made me laugh was Squarenix's excuses behind Final Fantasy 13's various design choices.

When asked why there are no towns in FF13, they said "RPG towns are too hard to do".

when asked why the path through the game is so linear and the world so small and closed off they said "You can't tell a story in an open-world game".

When asked why the game was so buggy and unfinished (In Japan, on launch day) they said "Testing costs too much money"

When asked why the review scores were so low on western websites they said "They're looking at the game wrong, it's not a western RPG"

Excuses, excuses, excuses.

Japanese RPGs have become what I like to call "Cardboard games". By that I mean the towns and NPCs all seem to be cardboard cut outs that randomly jog around the screen and bark out the same text replies no matter what you do or where in the game you are. While this was fine in the 80s and 90s where the size of your average game was roughly 32megabytes of data, those days are long gone. When an NPC doesn't acknowledge your deeds, doesn't change their opinion of you due to your "alignment", doesn't attack you if you've angered his faction or doesn't remark about your current standing in the world...the entire game feels "Cardboard". Unmoving, stiff, and ultimately very fake. Japan still hasn't learned this.

The last decent Square game I played was Chrono Cross...and even that is being kind, since I felt it was a vastly inferior sequel to Chrono Trigger and had the most easily exploitable combat syste I had ever seen in a JRPG. Since then, however, Square has churned out nothing but garbage. I always chalked it up to them marketing games to Japano-philes and Cosplay freaks instead of real gamers, but after seeing the backlash the game has been getting from importers, I think they've even lost *that* demographic as well.

The negative reviews should be fun to read. As much as the extremely positive ones where fans try to rationalize the 1980's era gameplay.