All Entries in the "Editorials" Category

A Proposition for Sony: Worldwide PlayStation Store

One of the most appreciated aspects of Sony’s consoles this generation – and this applies to both the PS3 and the PSP – is that, when it comes to games, they are “region free”. What does this mean? For those of you who don’t know, various forms of media are typically locked into one region, and can only be played on devices that originate in that region. If you look on the front and/or back of any DVD or BluRay you purchase in North America, you’ll typically see a “Region 1” somewhere on it. This means that it can only be played in DVD or BluRay players native to “Region 1”, which is basically all of North America.

Aliens in Video Games: Fact or Fiction?

For as long as there have been video games there have been aliens in video games. The cultural phenomena that was Roswell, New Mexico has sparked so much controversy and belief and of course art imitates life so we have seen just about every angle of the topic represented through movies and television from as early as the 50s shortly after the event took place. With the new age of technology ushering in a couple decades later we saw the explosion of video games as an art medium and it was not lacking for alien-based titles such as Asteroids, Galaxian, Lunar Lander, Defender, Space Invaders, Star Castle, and even the first ever arcade game Computer Space had an out of this world theme.

With such a debatable topic giving birth to video games as a medium, it is easy to see why many people might not have taken it serious as a platform for works of art that are inspired by life itself and rather saw it as all fun and “games”, see what I did there? With such a strong and persistent focus on this topic though, I begin to wonder, are the aliens we see in video games based on imagination or reality? You be the judge as we examine some of the most popular titles from today’s era from Resistance to Mass Effect to Killzone which seem to borrow from popular culture surrounding the subject.

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Remember When?: Kids’ Meal Toys Were for the Gamers

Being a kid and being a gamer go hand in hand. All kids like video games. It’s not until we’re older that we decide gaming is no longer a “cool” thing to do. Being a kid also meant that we loved getting kids’ meals. With that said, remember when the fast food place had kids’ meal toys that were video game themed or oriented? It was like killing three birds with one stone. You got to eat, you got to play with a toy, and it satisfied your gamer side, too. What more could you possibly want being a gamer kid. Over the years, I have gotten the kids’ meal toys when they were associated with a certain video game at various fast food restaurants and I would just like to share some of the toys with you. I never went really hard at collecting every single toy each time they offered them, so it’s not much. I only have a handful to share.

Views: 284

StarCraft II My Long Lost Love

You know you are addicted to a game when you start viewing replays… in your sleep. I found myself literally dreaming about Starcraft II last night. I could see myself building probes and working out strategies and then realized that I was in fact asleep. I woke up laughing to myself and thinking ‘wow’. This had not happened to me for a while, I was having video game pr0n dreams.

Why a Simple Story is Better

If you’ve been hanging out around here for a while, you’ll probably recall that the single biggest part of any game for me is the story and characters. This isn’t to say I don’t play games without a great narrative and some solid characterization, but when I really dig my feet in and get down and dirty with a game, I like seeing some substance to it, instead of superficial multiplayer or a half-assed single-player campaign. At the same time, though, I do think a game’s writers can get too carried away making a complex story that is possibly hard for the player to follow. When they link the characterization to that story, it sometimes turns into a clusterfrak of confusing banter about things the player can’t care about even if they tried, because the narrative is so convoluted they can’t understand it. So, there is something to be said about simple, even cliché, stories.

How Social Networking Drives Competition

I can’t think of a time in my life when I wasn’t competitive about something. In elementary school, it was how many Pokemon I had collected. In middle and high school, it was how high my GPA was. And in college, my main competitive force is video games. But I’m not the only one; mankind as a race has been competitive since the beginning. At first we needed to compete for resources to survive, and now that that era has passed, the residue of that nature remains and spurs us on to activities like sports and gaming, to show off our physical or mental prowess. Or whatever kind of prowess makes us better at shooting aliens and terrorists.

And gaming companies are beginning to catch on to this competitive trend and taking advantage of it. Companies like Valve and Microsoft have already implemented social gaming networks like Steam and Xbox Live, which track achievements and scores in games, and often include ranked lists so that players can view their scores versus their friends. Most likely due to the success of these two, other companies have begun their own networks as well; Blizzard recently launched Battle.net, and Ubisoft has been in the beta stages of a network called Uplay. Naturally, I jumped at the chance to flex my e-peen on yet ANOTHER site. But now that my friends can all see what league I’m in on Starcraft II, and what level I am on World of Warcraft, I have to play more and get better!

Move is No Better Than Kinect

You know it kills me; nowadays people just can’t get enough of talking about how Microsoft’s Kinect is terrible, not appealing, and just overall a complete mess. I’m not saying I disagree with these claims. The first word that comes to mind when I think of Kinect is boring. Honestly, all the game-play videos and games just look like complete garbage, and I can’t believe they expect people to pay $150 for it. I think it takes a very specific kind of consumer for Kinect to look enjoyable at all.

Yeah the voice commands and what not are cool, but what kind of gamer do they think will pay $150 for that functionality? So, since we’ve all confirmed that I too think that Kinect will suck eggs, on to the real meat of the motion gaming fetish: the PlayStation Move. It seems like everyone has very low expectations for Kinect (which again I understand) but everyone is behaving as if Move will be the best thing to hit the PlayStation this year. This is what I do not agree with.

Thank You Square Enix, FFXIV Fatigue System Rocks

Many people on the internet have been rage-writing lately about a little-understood feature for Final Fantasy XIV called the fatigue system. While Square Enix may be vague, misleading, and sometimes even downright confusing while explaining how this system works, the basics are plain to see. The amount of experience a player can gain will be limited by the fatigue system. Now before we get into the convoluted details, let’s talk about some reasons why this is not necessarily a bad thing. I can understand some people might not like this proposition, especially as one who has played MMO-RPGs for days on end at times without break. However, I believe this concept is rock solid even if the implementation may be a little bit risqué. Just think about being able to play an MMO without the obligation of ‘no-life’ing’ whenever you can just to keep up with the progress of your friends (and enemies). A higher level of balance than seen in previous MMO-RPGs will be achieved with this system.

Hulu Plus on PS3 – What Can You Expect?

A couple months ago, when I found out Hulu Plus was going into a closed beta test of sorts, I signed up. Hulu had always been somewhat of a foreign land to me, even though it supplied a service similar to Netflix streaming, which I use frequently. I rarely, if ever, sit in front of my computer to watch TV. But, as the summer wore on my thoughts turned to getting rid of cable TV altogether to save a boat load of cash each month. Most of my favorite shows were available on Hulu in some form or another so I wanted to check it out.

Late last week I finally got an invite. The main way I’d use it, of course, is on the PS3, which annoyingly requires a PSN+ subscription, but only during this trial period. Once Hulu Plus leaves beta, it will be available to everyone without PSN+. So, I signed up for a three-month PSN+ subscription just to try this out. An investment, sure, but even having both Netflix and Hulu Plus, as well as Xbox Live Gold and PSN+ was still infinitely cheaper than our cable bill every month, believe it or not.

So, enough about that – how does Hulu Plus stack up to Netflix? What are the pros and cons of the service? Is it worth it?

Why I Feel That Music Video Games Are A Great Way To Learn the Fundamentals of Playing Music

As my author bio at the top of the page lists, I mentioned that not only am I a gamer, but I’m also a musician as well. I’m a vocalist by nature, but I also dabble in other instruments, such as the piano, guitar and bass guitar. But, in no way, shape or form do I consider myself great, hence the wording “dabble.”

Games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero allow players to take part in a performance of popular songs by playing controllers that are modeled after musical instruments. Over the years, players were really just able to shred out with their plastic guitar’s out, but now we are able to play lead guitar, bass guitar, drums and sing.

I honestly feel that these games teach you the fundamentals of playing music when playing on expert. Of course, if you are not there now, you will get there soon, and I’ll include some tips for you to be able to achieve that goal by the end of this editorial.

Views: 506

Gaming as a Subculture

Video games used to be thought of as a solo activity; terms like “mana” and “critical hit” used to conjure up images of a lone gamer sitting in front of a glowing screen on a Saturday night. Not that I haven’t spent a few Saturday nights this way…it’s just not a typical night for me, or for many gamers I know. But nowadays it’s clear to see that gaming is becoming an increasingly social activity – Xbox Live, Battle.net, and Steam are just a few integrated social networking tools that allow gamers to interact with each other and socialize by sending messages or playing games together in a party system.

I personally have made many friends using these sorts of tools as well as gaming websites and forums. Most of these friendships are maintained in a strictly online sense; but last weekend I had the great fortune of being able to attend a meetup with a group of 10 other friends I had never met in person before, for the sole purpose of hanging out and gaming the whole weekend.

And what an amazing weekend it was.

Views: 344

Seeing Colors: An Underrepresentation of Minorities in Video Games

Take a moment and think of some of the best-selling video games released in 2010. According to cnbc.com, the top ten games this year (in order from least to best selling) were Pokemon HeartGold, Mass Effect 2, Wii Sports Resort, Pokemon SoulSilver, God of War III, Wii Fit Plus, Final Fantasy XIII, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and New Super Mario Bros. Taking away the games with non-human lead characters (like God of War), and those with customizable characters (like Mass Effect), we are left with the four best-selling games of 2010. And of these four, all are presumably of Caucasian descent, and only one is female. And in fact, the protagonist of Final Fantasy XIII was originally designed to be male, and then only later changed to her final design.

So what is the reason for this under-representation of minorities as lead characters? First of all, it’s probably fair to say that the world’s population is about 50% female. It would make more sense, then, that about half of the population of video game characters would be female as well. And while this seems to be the case when factoring in supporting characters like NPCs, or alternatively playable characters, there is a significant lack of games with female leads. This statistic speaks to me with a question of causality: do games like the Call of Duty series sell best because of the apparently Caucasian male lead character, or did the developers design such a role because they thought it would appeal more to the target audience?

Views: 530