next generation

A Cosmetic Conundrum

  • Reading time:13 mins read

by [name redacted]

Part seven of my ongoing culture column; originally published by Next Generation, under a different title; something like “The Problem With Game Consoles”. People seemed to take this article more seriously than I intended.

In May I finally saw a PlayStation 3 up-close – and dear lord. Whereas the Xbox 360 at least puts on a pretense of tenability, sucking in its gut like a real man, Sony’s system sets a new standard for girth. Maybe it was the rotating display, walled behind likely-bulletproof Plexiglass – yet I swear it must be the most outrageously massive game console that’s ever been designed. And that’s on top of looking like a space ship based on the template of a waffle iron. Whereas the Sega Genesis looked like you could top-load a CD into it, the PS3 looks like you could top-load a side of bacon.

The Crying Game

  • Reading time:14 mins read

by [name redacted]

Part six of my ongoing culture column; originally published by Next Generation under the title “Can Videogames Make You Cry?”.

A few weeks ago, Bowen Research published the results of a survey, on the role of emotion in videogames. Hugh Bowen polled 535 gamers on their own views and history, with the end goal to rough some kind of an objective analysis out of their subjective experiences, and thereby maybe to shed some light on what emotional effect videogames have had in the past. The paper is well, and humbly, written; its conclusions, though, are less than revelatory: the only genre that tends to elicit reasonably complex emotion is RPGs (presumably Japanese ones), while other genres all inspire at least some basic kind of motivational urge in the player – be it rage or fear or what have you. Meanwhile, the paper is full of comments about Aeris, and the profound affect of her death on people who had never played Phantasy Star II.

The problem, I suppose, is in the question being asked: “Can videogames make you cry?”. It’s a binary question about a complex issue, much like asking whether Americans are happy and then concluding “sometimes!” And indeed, Bowen’s answer seems to be “well, yes… probably. In theory.” A second issue is the way Bowen approached the issue as a matter of statistics – and then based his analysis on the subjective responses of a skewed sample. “Gamers”, as with any obsessives, have by nature a peculiar perspective of their medium – a medium which, furthermore, is not yet refined as an expressive platform.

The question should not be whether videogames are capable of eliciting complex emotion – as, given the complex analog weave of our brains, anything can result in an emotional response of any depth and sophistication. Rather, what Bowen might have asked is how innately bound any emotion is to the current fabric of videogames (that is, whether it has anything to do with what the medium is trying to accomplish), how much emotional potential videogames might ideally hold, and – assuming some degree of innate potential – how best to insinuate emotion into the framework or theory of a videogame. Or rather perhaps, how best to cull emotion from that same framework.

Home of the Underdogs

  • Reading time:13 mins read

by [name redacted]

Part five of my ongoing culture column; originally published by Next Generation, then reprinted by BusinessWeek, under the title “The Lasting Impact of “Failed” Consoles”.

The videogame industry is usually portrayed as a battle of titans: Xbox versus PlayStation versus the Nintendo Whatever, butting heads over the biggest market share. The winner, by virtue of winning, will lay the law for future generations. This is a tough industry, where the ruthless survive and the weak or incomprehensible are savaged and devoured.

A curious thing about videogames is that, underneath the bluster, you’ll nearly always find that the “losing” platforms – from the Sega Saturn to the Turbografx-16 – are in many ways either objectively superior to or subjectively more intriguing than what “won”; what they typically lack is balance. Like root beers or politicians, typically the top candidates rise to the top not out of pure excellence; they rise because they serve the basic desires of the greatest audience while offending the fewest.

Mascots and Messages

  • Reading time:16 mins read

by [name redacted]

Part four of my ongoing culture column; originally published by Next Generation under a different title; something like “The Problem with Mascots”. Somewhere between this article’s completion and its publication, one of my more vocal “fans” started a forum thread about Sonic the Hedgehog. He felt a few of the points were similar; I think something in my description of Sonic. Considering this is one of my least favorite articles, I sometimes wonder if it was worth the bother. Still, here it is again.

I wrote a while ago that there’s maybe one good Sonic game for every two flops. At the time I was halfway kidding, setting up the premise for a silly “top ten” list. Where I wasn’t kidding, I was speaking from a historical perspective rather than a contemporary one. As much as I have loved the guy, I’m aware that Sega hasn’t done too well by Sonic for a long time – to the point where he’s now the butt of dumb jokes on semi-respectable business websites. Since the Genesis we’ve seen, what, one truly great Sonic game?

When Sonic and Sega came back with the Dreamcast, they did it with a collective bang. Everyone cheered at his return, and at Sega’s. Then came a less interesting sequel. Then Sega went out of the console business, and suddenly there didn’t seem much point to Sonic anymore. More games kept coming out, each worse than the last, each building on the least compelling parts of Sonic Adventure. People stopped caring about the character, then started mocking him. Sega tried to address the problem with Shadow: a grittier, cooler answer to Sonic. Without even playing the game, people immediately wrote off the character, Sega, and everybody involved with the franchise.

The problem wasn’t really Shadow, or his game – even the concept behind it, for what it was worth. Heck, people didn’t even have to play it to dismiss it. The problem was that it didn’t seem like Sega knew what the hell it was doing anymore.

The Nintendo Syndrome

  • Reading time:12 mins read

by [name redacted]

Part two of my ongoing culture column; originally published by Next Generation.

So Nintendo’s at the top of its game again – or near enough to clap, anyway. The DS is one of the bigger success stories in recent hardware history. People are starting to buy into the Wii hype; even Sony and Microsoft’s chiefs have gone on record with how the system impresses them. Japan is mincing no words; 73% of Famitsu readers polled expect the Wii to “win” the next “console war”, whatever that means. And these people aren’t even Nintendo’s target audience.

Satoru Iwata has done a swell job, the last couple of years, taking a company that was coasting on past success, whose reputation had devolved to schoolyard snickers – that even posted a loss for the first time in its century-plus history – and making it both vital and trendy again.

So what happened to Nintendo, anyway? How is it that gaming’s superstar was such a dud, for so many years? What’s the white elephant in the room, that everyone has taken such pains to rationalize? It is, of course, the same man credited for most of Nintendo’s success: Shigeru Miyamoto.

NextGen’s Top Ten Years In Gaming History

  • Reading time:30 mins read

by [name redacted]

Originally published in some form by Next Generation. I was asked not to include 1999 or 2000, because the Dreamcast was perceived as a low mark in the industry rather than a high one. I was also asked to include the previous year, to suggest that we were in the middle of an upswing. So… that explains some of the selections.

In videogames, as in life, we tend to get things right about a third of the time. There’s one decent Sonic game for every two disasters; one out of every three consoles can be considered an unqualified success; the Game Boy remake of Mother 1 + 2 was released in one out of three major territories. With the same level of scientific accuracy, one can easily say that, out of the thirty years that videogames have acted as a consumer product, there are maybe ten really excellent milestones, spaced out by your 1984s and your 1994s – years maybe we were all better off doing something out-of-doors.

It kind of makes sense, intuitively: you’ve got the new-hardware years and the innovative-software years, spaced out by years of futzing around with the new hardware introduced a few months back, or copying that amazing new game that was released last summer. We grow enthusiastic, we get bored. Just as we’re about to write off videogames forever, we get slapped in the face with a Wii, or a Sega Genesis – and then the magic starts up all over again, allowing us to coast until the next checkpoint.

The Ends of the World

  • Reading time:27 mins read

by [name redacted]

Part one of my ongoing culture column; originally published by Next Generation, under the title “Culture: Games and Metaphor”.

For the last several months, this site and others have been nodding along to figures like Satoru Iwata explaining that everything you know is wrong; that everything you recognize as videogames is actually backward and childish, and making bold claims about what the future might hold for the medium. We’ve seen the “games as art” movement and “new games journalism”, and the backlash to both. It’s understandable enough; we’re human. We get attached to things; mere familiarity is enough to calm us down. Make the world a little less lonely.

Something I’ve not really seen addressed is, well, what’s wrong with videogames, anyway? The simple answer is that, in their current form, they’re pointless. Or, well. They’re not conducive to conveying a point, anyway.

This Week’s Releases (May 22-26, 2006)

  • Reading time:9 mins read

by [name redacted]

Episode forty-one of my ongoing, irreverent news column; originally posted at Next Generation

Game of the Week:

Steambot Chronicles
Irem/Atlus
PlayStation 2
Tuesday

You have likely read, if you like to read, of a game called Bumpy Trot; this site in particular, in the hands of Japan columnist William Rogers, has taken every possible opportunity to name-check the game – resulting in a blurb on the its Atlus USA site. Here’s where I remind you of its Western name – the Haruki Murakami-esque Steambot Chronicles – and mention that it really is nifty, for what it is. For a more elaborate description you can turn to NextGen’s “Ten Best Games in Japan” column for last year; for here, suffice that it’s sort of like a Zelda game done right, thrown into a post-GTA sandbox, and produced on a shoestring budget by a sincere bunch of underdogs who aren’t used to making this kind of game. So it’s a little wonky, and a little glitchy, and it doesn’t know what it’s not supposed to do, which results in as many weird decisions as inspired ones. It’s not really made for prime time, and yet it’s got so much heart and it’s got such good ideas that it’s got the workings for a real sleeper hit. Give it some hype and some word-of-mouth, and this game will surpass expectations.

Atlus has done a pretty good job on the localization; the voices are… solid enough, and the writing is appropriately stark. Though something tells me the game might have made more of an impression with its original Japanese name, the new one maybe fits the game a little better. This is only one of maybe a half-dozen impressive new acquisitions Atlus USA had to show at E3; if Atlus can just get the word out the way it did with Trauma Center, this could be one of the company’s best years yet.

This Week’s Releases (May 15-19, 2006)

  • Reading time:5 mins read

by [name redacted]

Episode forty of my ongoing, irreverent news column; originally posted at Next Generation

Game of the Week:

New Super Mario Bros.
Nintendo
Nintendo DS
Monday

Out of all the pre-release devisiveness, in my experience New SMB takes the ribbon. Every time the game’s brought up, the Internet melts just a little. There’s no pleasing anybody! Maybe that has something to do with the game’s own conflicts: it wants to both revisit the style of Super Marios 1 and 3 for the NES and to “update” it with all the advances since Super Mario World. It wants to both play on nostalgia and to attract all the new and disillusioned eyes who have gravitated toward the DS. It wants to both be the successor to the Super Mario Bros. mantle and to come off as something altogether new.

So what we’ve got is a forward-pressing 2D platformer (as with the NES games) that calls upon the moves introduced in Super Mario 64 to help Mario more precisely explore a 3D world, flashy gimmicks introduced in Smash Bros. as a kind of a joke, and a whole lot of silly scripted events and mechanic-wanking intended to impress the pants off of anyone who thinks he knows how Super Mario Bros. works. And yet, it’s kind of fun. Maybe it’s a little too concerned with the past instead of with doing its own thing – and maybe it’s too concerned with making the past appealing to people who weren’t there at the time – yet maybe the gamers are a little too concerned about Mario.

In its overkill, its mix of old and new, the game clearly isn’t taking itself very seriously. The game gives off an air of exuberance; it knows it’s just screwing around, and it doesn’t care. Within those constraints, New SMB is pretty neat. The past has had its time; if you’re going to bring it up again, you’d better either take it somewhere new and inspirational or have shameless fun with what’s there. Ikaruga and Jonathan Blow’s Braid do the former; New SMB does the latter. Fair enough.

This Fortnight’s Releases (May 1-12, 2006)

  • Reading time:8 mins read

by [name redacted]

Weeks thirty-eight-and-nine of my ongoing, irreverent news column; originally posted at Next Generation

Game of Early May:

SiN Episodes: Emergence – Episode 1
Ritual/Valve
PC
Tuesday

It’s kind of weird; back in mid-1998, everyone was waiting for SiN – then the very day it arrived, Half-Life sprang out of nowhere, and took all the attention. That didn’t stop SiN from becoming a cult hit; it’s just hard to escape such a poor case of timing. Over the past eight years, the game has built up a reputation as perhaps the pinnacle of the old “Duke Nukem“-style FPS, before Half-Life changed everything. Traditional genre fans, who just like to charge forward and shoot stuff, have been waiting a long time for a sequel – and here it comes, via the Half-Life 2 engine, via Steam, and via the episodic template that Valve has set out.

This first episode brings back all the major characters from the 1998 original, to do much the same business as before: run forward and shoot. The difference is in the method; aside from the obvious enhancements in physics and envionmental interaction allowed by the Source engine (and the consequences thereof), the game now automatically adjusts itself to the player’s skill level and playing tendencies. If you get good at head shots, apparently, enemies might start wearing helmets. According to Ritual, the game will take experts about as long as new players to play through.

Emergence, being only one of at least nine planned episodes, will only last about six to eight hours; on the other hand, it only costs about eighteen bucks. Something tells me this episodic download thing is going to take off. It’s almost like a revised take on the early-’90s Shareware scene. The difference with shareware was that people got a whole episode for free, then typically had to pay full price for another several episodes. Now you pay pocket cash up-front for each episode. Same thing; just reorganized for efficiency on both ends. Tie in Steam, and you’ve even got the return of online distribution. It’s obvious, in retrospect.

Now if only we’d come up with this ten years ago – if we’d just adapted and kept up with the Internet – just imagine where the PC development scene would be today.

This Week’s Releases (Aug 24-28, 2006)

  • Reading time:8 mins read

by [name redacted]

Week thirty-seven of my ongoing, irreverent news column; originally posted at Next Generation

Game of the Week:

Guild Wars Factions
ArenaNet/NCsoft
PC
Friday

This is sort of an expansion, though it’s being sold as a standalone entity. Think of it as Phantasy Star Online version 2, for the Dreamcast. With Factions installed, you can access either the normal Guild Wars campaign or a new second campaign exclusive to this release. This second bit, which ArenaNet likes to describe as a completely separate game, has your new regions, skills, professions, and whatnot and a whole new feature set for guilds and multiplayer play.

This Week’s Releases (April 17-21, 2006)

  • Reading time:6 mins read

by [name redacted]

Week thirty-six of my ongoing, irreverent news column; originally posted at Next Generation

Game of the Week:

Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day
Nintendo
Nintendo DS
Monday

Times sure are a-changin’. Even given that this game is the biggest sleeper hit in perhaps all of Japanese history (or at least since Godzilla), I dare you to imagine it getting released over here even five years ago. No, wait; Seaman came out in 2000. Let’s say seven years ago, then.

Not so much a game as a utility for daily life and health, Brain Age is essentially a set of mental exercises – math, especially – that you’re meant to run through once a day to keep your brain limber. Even for math dumbos like me, it’s nothing hard or frustrating; that would go against the whole point. The idea is just to see how quickly and how well you process information – then to flex that, gently, over an extended period. The “younger” your brain is, by the game’s measurement, the further you are from senior onset dementia.

With a population aging as rapidly as Japan, you can see where the appeal lies. Over here, the trick is in unconventional marketing. Nintendo’s trying to play up how much fun the product’s quizzes are. They’re… kind of not, for their own sake. Sure, the overall package is charming as hell. It’s not really a videogame, though. Try to get it on Oprah, guys. That’s the real test.

Samurai Champloo: Sidetracked

  • Reading time:3 mins read

by [name redacted]

Expanded from my weekly column at Next Generation, and posted on the game’s release date.

Samurai Champloo is the latest hit by Cowboy Bebop creator Shinichiro Watanabe, who might well be described as the Sergio Leone or Quentin Tarantino of the anime world. killer7 developer Grasshopper Manufacture has what might be described as strong aspirations to be the Quentin Tarantino of the videogame world. So this is a sort of clever pairing.

A Japanese trend I’ve begun to notice lately is the subcontracting of lucrative licenses to the most prestigious niche or up-and-coming developers – the likes of Treasure, Dimps, Cavia, Yuke’s. These are damned good developers, each with specific skill sets, specific views toward what makes a good videogame, and a substantial cult following. The trend is not unlike Hollywood’s recent predilection toward matching big blockbusters to the Cannes elite, resulting in movies like Batman Begins and the Spider-Man series.

Over here, any parallels are more the exception than the rule. The closest you really get are the likes of Neversoft, which sprang out of nowhere with Tony Hawk and – despite its success – has managed to keep relatively small and self-contained, seemingly more interested in exploring its ideas about design than in growth for the sake of growth. Treyarch is another good example. Maybe some past incarnations of Shiny or Raven or BioWare would count, though in their current forms they’re a little too… important.

Tomb Raider: Legend

  • Reading time:6 mins read

by [name redacted]

Expanded from my weekly column at Next Generation, and posted on the game’s release date.

Something that people keep bringing up, yet probably don’t bring up enough, is that the first Tomb Raider was a damned good game. The last few levels were thrown-together and buggy; still, at the time it was Lara and Mario. Lara was your 3D update to Prince of Persia – all atmosphere and exploration. It had a snazzy, strong female lead, when that was unusual. (At the time, I had a friend who wouldn’t stop complaining that the character was female. He couldn’t understand why they’d made such a dumb move, since the rest of the game was so good. Go figure.) The game felt fresh and new, and – right or wrong – just a little more sophisticated than what Nintendo had to show.

Then, immediately, Core and Eidos started to listen to the fans. They listened to the media. Posters on the original Tomb Raider message boards kept complaining of a lack of thumping music. They kept asking for more human opponents to blast away, instead of these stupid animals of the first game. They wanted more and more outfits for Lara. And of course, there was the whole “nude code” business.

So a year later, there’s a sequel with the same engine – fair enough – with most of these concerns addressed. It was less interesting, less atmospheric, less intimate than the original game. Still, not too bad. Then a third game, and a fourth, and a fifth, with barely an update to the game engine – since, hey, who has the time for that with a yearly schedule – and less and less focus on what made the game so appealing to start with. The game became the Lara Croft franchise, and everything else became secondary to her new look, her new abilities, her new weapons – because these are the things that fans yammer about, so therefore this was the feedback that Eidos got.

This Week’s Releases (April 10-14, 2006)

  • Reading time:11 mins read

by [name redacted]

Week thirty-five of my ongoing, irreverent news column; originally posted at Next Generation. Two of the sections are expanded into full articles, posted later in the week.

Game of the Week:

Tomb Raider: Legend
Crystal Dynamics/Eidos Interactive
Xbox/Xbox 360/PlayStation 2/PC
Tuesday

Something that people keep bringing up, yet probably don’t bring up enough, is that the first Tomb Raider was a damned good game. And what it seems Crystal Dynamics has done is go back to the framework of Tomb Raider 2 and to break it down, analytically. What they chose to do is bring the focus back to exploration – in part by introducing some new gizmos, in part by making the environments more fun to navigate. Reviews nitpick a few fair issues; still, the overall response seems to be a huge sigh of relief. Maybe it’s not the best game in the world, or all it ever could be. Still – it’s not terrible! The theme that keeps coming up is one of nostalgia – that, for the first time, someone has managed to recapture what makes Tomb Raider interesting. And that sentiment is itself interesting.