Monthly Archives: November 2006

So Many Consoles, So LIttle Money……

So we’ve now seen the launch of the PS3 and the Nintendo Wii (worst name evar…) and the good old 360. And me? I got nothing.

I was going to go out and do some coverage of the local game launches, but none of the local stores did any midnight sales or even seemed to have people camping out and waiting in line. So no coverage for you!

Personally, I bought Half-Life 2 for X-Box for $9.99 just to see how it compared to the XP version. It looks the same, but the controls blow. The right stick is used to aiming and if you click it, you zoom in, but you can’t shoot. Therefore, inevitably, whenever I get into a tense fight, I inadvertently click the stick, zoom in, can’t shoot, and die. The D-Pad is used to switch the weapons. In a fairly clever approximation of the PC version’s menus where multiple weapons would be under each number, the X-Box D-pad has four categories with multiple weapons under each one and pressing in the same direction multiple times will cycle through the weapons in that category. The problem is, however, to switch you have to take your thumb off the left stick which is used to control the direction you are going. So when you switch weapons, you have to stop moving, which is frustrating. I’ve started to stretch my right thumb over to the D-pad to switch.

I’ve played Halo, I’ve played Goldeneye, and now I’ve played Half-Life 2 — all on consoles. And guess what? They all sucked. So is the appeal of games like Goldeneye and Halo simply people that have never played FPS games on a PC? Or is there something I’m actually not getting about these games? On some level, I suppose it is similar to EA who keeps releasing Madden for PCs. Who buys those? If you are going to play Madden, buy a console. If you are going to play a FPS buy or build a gaming computer.

Are videogames remkes of movies?

The journal The Velvet LIght Trap recently released a call for papers for a special issue about remakes. That got me thinking about the recent trend of making videogames based on old movies. Just this year games based on, The Godfather, The Warriors, Jaws, and Scarface have been released — and those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

What are these games? Since the call for papers asked for papers about remakes, the question that popped to my head was, “Are these remakes?” In some cases, they are sequels. In other cases they are side stories. Can a story taken from one medium and made in another even be a remake — that is to say, are adaptations different things than remakes? Must a remake be in the same medium as the original? Is a film of Romeo and Juliet a remake?

I’m not sure. Any thoughts?

Ratings game followup…

Back in September, I wrote an entry called, The Ratings Game in which I looked at Computer Gaming World’s recent decision to stop printing scores along with their reviews. In that post I noted that it seemed that in many cases, CGW was simply rewriting reviews from their 1up.com site — reviews which actually had scores attached to them.

At the end of that post I noted that CGW was being replaced with Games for Windows: The Official Magazine and wrote:

It will be interesting to see if they retain the “no ratings” policy or if they use that opportunity to reinstate them.

Well, I got the first issue of GFW in the mail a couple days ago and guess what? They have gone back to rating games and printing scores with their reviews.

A letter in the issue addresses the issue and their comment is:

The great thing about magazine redesigns is they let you hit the reset button and when you flip to the Reviews section about two-thirds of the way through this magazine, you’ll see that’s exactly what we did. The Computer Gaming World Viewpoint section was a grand experiment, and we think it was a successful one. We learned a ton. And the Games for Windows: The Official Magazine Reviews and Extend sections reap the rewards. (Page 18)

Now to be fair, they didn’t put back their old 5 star system, but they put in a 10 point system which is totally different, right?

Of course the only thing that really matters is that I was right, right? I am so smart! I am so smart! S-M-R-T!

Are you listening??

I’ve become a big fan of podcasts mainly since Leo Laporte started putting up his radio show and then started the TWiT podcasts.

While 1up.com and PCGamer and even the IUGaming Club have gaming related podcasts, they are all mostly news-related and talking about new games that are coming out. That’s fine, and I sometimes listen to them, but I’ve often thought that there should be a videogame studies podcast. I’ve thought about doing it myself, but I think it would be boring just listening to me talk.

One nice podcast with somewhat of a games studies edge to it is the NPR-funded podcast, Press Start, which is hosted by Robert Holt, Kyle Orland and Ralph Cooper. I only wish it would come out more often!

Another podcast I occasioinally listen to is No One’s Listening which is not about videogames but about media in general. Now I have to be honest, a lot of times I find myself rolling my eyes at them because they seem so ignorant and naive about media literacy, which is the very thing they are supposed to be talking about.

Recently, however, they did a special about videogames. Although listening to hosts whoh admittedly know nothing about videogames or the issues surrounding them can be very irritating, the episode, called Games Under Fire, is worth a listen. If nothing else, you can download it and fast forward through the irritating parts.