Not Buying The Hype On Next-Gen Gaming

Happy New Year.  As you may have guessed, video games in 2014 are off to a great start.  Here's what I have to say about all the new titles.

It's time for the anti-video game circlejerk!  Now I'm pretty sure everyone's seen this PS4 commercial before but here it is anyway:

This commercial is beyond cheesy and pisses me off.  Two dudebros playing their mainstream games together.  But after a while, I noticed there is more to this commercial than meets the eye.  Two things:

1. These are the same kind of games we've seen a thousand times.  Hack-and-slash medieval/fantasy game.  Racing sim.  Gritty futuristic FPS.  Originality at its finest.
2. They all involve killing people and/or destroying things.  Think about that for a sec.  Two games involve outright killing people.  The third isn't really about violence but you're encouraged to smash things to bits.  Hence for no reason at all, one dudebro rams the other into the wall, sending him into a slow-mo Burnout/Split-Second wreck.  Games thrive off of destruction/death way too much these days.

Neither of these consoles impress me.  Sure, the Xbone was one massive skidmark that MS went back and corrected but I still have disdain for because MS tried to take us for fools and I don't forget that easily.  There's also the PS4, but I'm only marginally interested it compared to the Xbone.  Sony is still trying to smuggle DRM policies into their console like Microsoft did, just a lot more covert.  Both of these consoles are vanity goods that you really don't need.  Need top-end graphics?  Get a gaming PC.  Need a wealth of new titles?  Errrm, we already had seven years of Xbox 360/PS3 games.  If you've played all of those, then you need to go outside.  Need a console that changes the channel when you tell it to?  Well, that's not a need, that's just stupid.  Come back in 2030 when everything is made out of chrome and holograms.  You know what I'm getting at here cause I already talked about it before.  I think a year or two down the road, when they fix all the bricked consoles, the price goes down, and the library grows (including a new Sega racer, fat chance...) I might invest in one but until then, screw you both.

Anyhoo, you may be surprised to find out that my family is in possession of TWO Xbox Ones.  Yes, one Xbone, two Xbones.  They were Christmas presents for two of my brothers.  It's a load of crap, I know.  We own one game at the moment--Dead Rising 3.  I watched my brother play it for about an hour.  All I have to say is I just don't really care.   The game takes place in a fictional Los Angeles, a zombie outbreak happens, and you play as some mechanic dude who turns into a macho badass.  I didn't need a plot or anything, just as long as I get to kill zombies and rescue survivors.  Off the bat, I recognize the improvement in graphics.  Great, but it wasn't as shocking of a transition as, say, Super Nintendo to Nintendo 64.  It's just the same games as before but with a slight layer of polish.

Maps of Dead Rising 1 (upper-left), Dead Rising 2 (lower-left), and Dead Rising 3 (right)

The map is bigger this time around with huge streets for driving cars.  But the problem is the environment looks so piss bland I find nothing recognizable about it whatsoever.  Sure, they put a huge emphasis on cars now but it's hard to drive anywhere without plowing over zombies and getting stuck on debris.  If I wanted to free drive around, I'd probably play Grand Theft Auto.  If I wanted to kill zombies in cool locations, I'd probably play Dead Rising 1 or 2.  Just my two cents, you enjoy the game, great for you.  If you were a Dead Rising/zombie aficionado then yeah, you'll like this just cause it gives you more stuff to kill.  Otherwise, it's really a placebo game designed to sell the Xbone, as you can tell cause the game is exlusive to that console.  It's crap cause Dead Rising 2 was available for PS3 but whatever man...Capcom and Microsoft can fudge up the game however they like so I'm not losing sleep over it.  

My brother was playing Spiderman 2 on the Gamecube, got DR3 on Christmas, beat the game in a week, and went back to Spiderman 2.  Don't think he's touched his Xbone yet since.  True story bro.

Another thing I should mention, going back to the paragraph before the previous one, is that these games don't really do anything "new" for me.  Sure, the graphics are better, there's more zombies, and they ditched the load times (sorta, you still get them when fighting psychopaths), but other than that, the gameplay STILL feels the same as games from 5-10 years ago.  Your special weapon attacks still kill zombies in that canned animation sequence.  Quick-time events.  Predictable trigger-based   Psychopaths run back and forth trading blows with you until you smack them enough times and they die.  Friendly AI is not very smart.  The thing that surprised me the most was seeing your character climb out the windshield of the wrecked car.  With new consoles bragging about "new ways to play the game," it certainly doesn't feel like it.  But as long as they keep the games running at constant 60 FPS, then I'll give them a modicum of credit for that.

As for other launch titles, all fifteen of them, you got Zoo Tycoon.  Yes, Zoo Tycoon is a launch title.  Killer Instinct is lacking in the content department.  Ryse looks pretty but it's a redundant hack & slash that'll go the way of King Kong and Eragon--such pretty launch titles but with bland gameplay.  Call of Duty, Madden, FIFA are what you expect--same game but prettier.  NBA Live 14, which was EA's response to the shit-canned NBA Elite, is a total embarassment.  Forza is a mess because the game is loaded with microtransactions like a Facebook game.  And Need for Speed's frivolous online gameplay has up to six players (that's right...SIX PLAYERS MAX, an abysmal number for an online racing game) zipping across the map far away from each other as everyone does their own thing to progress their respective campaign/story modes.  In other words, crap, crap, mega crap.

Give the consoles a few years to gel and the games should get better.  After all, the first Xbox 360 games looked like Xbox titles.  That's all well and good BUT...how much bigger can these games get before they collapse under the weight of their own production costs?  Models and worlds get more detailed, stories expand, gameplay branches rapidly, advertising money and review payola, etc.  Sure, we have tools to accelerate these things but the point is we're spending more and more money to make these games.  Remember that GTA5 required over a thousand people to make it.  Tools can't speed up the creative process much--you still need producers to sit down and think these things up.  We're outsourcing our art overseas now which I guess helps with the overhead but sucks for my art friends out there.  So expect less risk taking more and more DLC/microtransactions to milk the consumer's wallet for what it's worth.  The corporations need their money!

EDIT: A little aside, basically Kotaku posts an article about the worthless piece of crap that is the Kinect and how they are "a little it worried about it," citing how much it sucks that you're forced to buy a lackluster piece of hardware with your Xbone.  Nope, no one saw that coming, complaints about the Kinect 2.0, why who would say such a thing???  Also, I saw Madden 25 up-close and aside from the beatdown my friend put on my brother, I wasn't impressed by what I saw.

As for PS4 games, there's Gran Turismo 6.  Which is basically GT so nothing surprising like that.  Except for one feature--you can drive on the moon.  At 19 miles per hour.  I honestly don't know whether to think this is the most awesome or most useless thing in racing game history.

Compare to this gem of a racing game:

I think gaming isn't going to crash because it's so insanely popular, like today's terrible pop music.  But I've never been this jaded before about gaming in my life that I think SOMETHING has to blow up before I can get excited about these games again.  I'm done here, enjoy the hot air I'm emitted into the atmosphere.

P.S. There's no Ridge Racer launch title.  Whoops, someone tell Namco they planned their release one year late.  AWWWWWW.....

E3 Drivel, Sony, Racing Games

Guys, I have a confession to make.  I haven't been keeping up on E3.  I do not care about 99.9999% of the games they talk about.  I know about how everyone is taking a dump on Microsoft whom is trying to spin-doctor their way out of the fact their console sucks. Microsoft blows now, Sony all the way, even though I have little incentive to buy any next-gen consoles.  But I will tell you what I know.

This is the best thing that Sony has done since Kevin Butler.

Yeehaw, watch this burn on nine different screens for nine times the sizzle.
Also the PS4 is region-free, Xbox One isn't, oh happy days are here again.

See you in Hell, Microsoft.  Where you'll be forced to play sub-par Kinect games for eternity, the same exact games you forced your pitiful developers to make.  Really, they have a patent on viewing/counting the number of people the Kinect picks up on, NO SERIOUSLY, READ THIS.  Didn't get this from from /r/gaming either.  See you in hell too with your little 2-second satisfaction posts for LE SWEET, SWEET KARMA.

As for Pokemon, you now have Fairy type Pokemon.  Boy I'd never see the day, rofl!!  As for Smash Bros, you have Mega Man and Wii Fit Trainer.  Hooray Nintendo.  Let's hope that Sonic makes a return especially to return the favor that Sonic games are going Nintendo-exclusive.  Speaking of Sonic and Sega, well, there's really nothing I give a crap about.  There's new Sonic games, including another Sonic & Mario Olympics game (WHO KEEPS BUYING THESE????), Bayonetta 2, and some Mickey Mouse game I don't care about (I'm trying to get the fuck out of Orlando, remember?) but that's it.  Hey Sumo, where is that elusive DLC character for Sega All-Stars Racing: Transformed?  Where's Ryo Hazuki?  Where's Segata Sanshiro?  Where's Yu Suzuki with the Shenmue 3 announcement?  And that's how the world turns for a Sega fan--get your hopes up, wait, wait, wait, wait, get old, wait, wait, wait, wait, muse about how good you thought Sega was, wait, wait, wait, wait, then get a life or die of heartache.

Now about racing games.  Nope, nothing I care about.  Forza and Driveclub are bleh--too much realism, not enough emphasis on having fun.  Well, how about Need for Speed: Rivals?  Surely this game would induce vomiting but hold up a sec--just watch the gameplay footage.  It's a bit weird cause there's multiple screens going on.  Basically, it's simultaneous gameplay from the points of view from the evader and the cop.

  

Now this game isn't made by Black Box, responsible for the atrocity that is NFS: The Runs, or Criterion with their overrated crash-gasm games.  This is from Ghost Games, a new EA studio out of Gothemburg, Sweden.  And overall, looking at this game, it doesn't look TOO bad.  Basically, it feels kinda like the old NFS games--you drive around, cops are behind you with the radio chatter, you weave around ever-changing landscapes, and there's no stupid bonuses for doing stunts, shunting and using EMPs to make your rivals crash and die.  Here's footage from NFS 4: High Stakes on the PS1.

Looks familiar, don't it?  Plus Rivals has Ferraris in it.  Hey, if Ferrari endorses something (*coughoutrun2cough*), you know it's gotta be good stuff.  But I'm not getting my hopes up cause this is still a NFS game that has EA's greasy fingerprints all over it so I'm still a no-buy for me.  But it's worth giving props where it's due.

Other racing games...well, there's also Mario Kart 8.  Their new feature this time around is driving up on the ceiling and walls, kinda like in Super Mario Galaxy, to create more dynamic looking tracks.  They also seems to have tightened up the handling a bit cause I bet you they saw Sega All-Stars Racing: Transformed and thought "oh shit we're gonna get our asses kicked here" even though they have yet to introduce boats or planes into their game--rather they stuck with hang-gliders and driving on the bottom of the lakes.  Sumo, you got Nintendo where you want 'em.

One more thing.  Dead Rising 3 sucks ass.  What made the first two cool were the colorful mall/casino backdrops.  Here's it's a crappy-ass town loaded with gritty shaders.  Oh, and I don't give a damn about The Last of Us either.  I know that's not E3-related but I'm tired of hearing about that damn game.  Again, where's Shenmue 3.  Later guys.

Xbox One Roast

Congrats, everyone, you are looking at the brand new console to be released by Microsoft at the end of the year.  And yes, that's really the new Xbox One, can't you tell?

Anyway, to celebrate this glorious occasion, the game studio decided to throw a pizza party and air the conference on a projector.  Me, I was just trying to hang myself from the other room cause I knew it wasn't going to be the Dreamcast 2 so what's the point of going on???  Anyway, Xbox One...really?  What did we call the original Xbox?  Just the "Xbox."  Wait, you can't say that since you might be talking about any one of the three Xboxes.  Damn, the "first Xbox."  Well that ALMOST sounds like Xbox One cause "One" sorta equals "First."  Fine, "original Xbox."  Now that's just a mouthful and doesn't roll off the tongue at all.  Screw it, the name is the least of our worries.

Remember that rant from a long time ago?  About how games are trying to move away from gaming and more into the realm of electronic entertainment or "interactive stimulation"?  Well, the future is here ladies and gentlemen.  Games are secondary now.  I want to be able to haul my console up to my damn room just for the sake of playing games--not to watch TV, make Skype calls, update my fantasy football, or be bothered by other people in general cause those are things I can do rather easily without the need for the Xbox One.  Besides, people are the worst.  Would you really like to be FORCED to interact with other people on your game console?  Aren't we already loser nerds as it is, forced to play our games by our lonesome for hours on end?  Last thing I want is to talk to anyone, geez.

I specifically remember playing this video from a year ago at Microsoft's E3.  Oh how nothing's changed for the better.

Ah, finally, about 30 minutes into the conference, they finally mention games.  Speaking of which, I really didn't expect many games to be shown here because E3 is around the corner (though odds are that'll suck too).  But they went ahead with the same expected pre-rendered crap (they actually said "in-game footage" late in the conference, inferring everything before it was a sham) from the same games--EA Sports games, Forza 5, Call of Duty: Ghosts.  Graphics are always nice to have but I'll say this--I'll fucking lose it if these games only run at 30 FPS max.  I would rather play Xbox 360 games with 60 FPS than Xbox One games with 30 FPS.  It makes a subliminal impact on the gameplay.  I'm looking at old games like Daytona USA that run at 60 FPS and have responsive controls.  THAT GAME WAS RELEASED NINETEEN YEARS AGO!!  If we are still obsessed with graphics that bad that we need to crank up the level of detail to the point where the human eye can't notice it anymore, then fuck it, I'm done with this generation of games before they even started.

Oh, by the way, the Kinect is mandatory.  So you can do Minority Style movements to navigate the menus.  Okay, cool.  They also said the detail is now more fine-tuned than ever.  They say that "the Kinect can even recognize wrist turning" which translates to "the Kinect THINKS it can recognize wrist turning but it does such a shitty job at picking it up therefore the broken wrist turning mechanics will be shoehorned into your games, thus breaking certain aspects of the game because some fool thought that shoving the Kinect up your game's ass like a dildo was a smart idea."

Forza 5.  Okay, great graphics, the cityscape was pretty, other than that, what else is there to be expected?

Call of Duty.  Somehow,  features in video games like "feeling affection for your characters" and "character customization" are groundbreaking in the year 2013.  Oh, and lighting in the year 2013 as well.  And the dog.

EDIT: Oh, and Microsoft employees were the only one cheering.

Somehow, to suppress the fact their console is laden with a bunch of shit, they decided to announce the rest of the bad news at a tech conference proceeding the main show.  Never mind the fact that Sony's stock went up 9% at the very moment you guys unveiled the name "Xbox One"!  Here's a couple of QA questions that should alleviate maybe 2% of your concerns.  BTW, their answer to always-online is flat out deceptive--the console must be connected to the Internet at least every 24 hours to remain functional off-line.  I can see why they'd give you the 24 hour leeway in case your connection drops for a moment but still, the fact you have to sign in often is ridiculous.  EDIT: Also dawned on me, I know Microsoft has like some 3000 servers up, but what should happen if the servers (or at the ones near you) went down?  Could you even play the Xbox One anymore if that was the case??  Ya know, cause of the whole mandatory sign-in thing.  Brilliant, we've seen it before with Diablo 3 and SimCity, let's do consoles next.

Then there's no backwards compatibility.  Congratulations, Xbox One, now I have no reason to buy your console right away (assuming I felt like buying this giant VCR-shaped paper-weight) because the library of games over the last 7 years is meaningless!  And with the rate that 360's are bricking (RRoD), then it means that within a couple of years, it'll be nigh impossible to play any 360 games, awesome!!!

Also the used games debacle!  You must pay a fee for each unique console you play a game on.  No longer can you just toss your friend a copy of the game for him to borrow--he has to pay money to play it on his machine too, even if you can't play simultaneously with him.  Again, sticking fingers up the ass of the used game market.  Oh woe is me, I bought a used car, house, furniture, clothes, those are okay.  But video games aren't.  How about you stop making such shitty games and maybe I will actually buy them new instead of used.

Do the math.  Mandatory Kinect + Always Online + No Backwards Compatibility + Death of Used Games = our worst nightmares come true.  I will not be supporting the Xbox One, period.  And the fact is, I bet a lot of you people agree.  But the fact is Microsoft is still part of the console oligopoly.  How long can you hold out until you buy the Xbox One?  Look at the Xbox 360--it's debatably the most mainstream of the three console (at least in North America) because of huge library and tons of other cool features.  If the Xbox One, God forbid, starts to pick up steam after its release (and it will, Microsoft will pimp that out like they did with the Kinect), how long until you cave?  Fact is Microsoft can frankly have their way with you, you can detest it, but in the end, you'll probably give them a little more leeway, "this thing sucks but at least I can play the games I like so I'm okay," etc. etc.  Same thing with Electronic Arts and so forth--how they still continue to look good despite the fact that large swaths of the Internet hate their guts.  "Mass Effect, Battlefield, Madden...okay I'll support EA, but just this once!!!"  Whew, good thing Sonic is staying Nintendo-exclusive after all...

EDIT: Hey, here's another infograph I saw comparing the Xbox One's specs to the PS4:

Yep...stick with the PS4.

Whatever, just one more kick in the balls before I'm through.  I caught this on Kotaku out the corner of my eye.  It's the first revealed screenshot of the new Need for Speed game.

Someone tell me what's wrong here.  If you said "lack of colors" you're absolutely right.  Grey skies, dingy hues, "grungy shaders" (literally, some guy came down from Epic to lecture some artists about shades of brown).  Somehow, being colorful is "gay" while being colorless is "cool, epic, beast mode."  Well, I'd rather be gay than all those other things.  Gay as in "happy" you sick freaks.  I'm out, deuces man...DEUCES.

In case you hadn't seen it before...TV TV TV TV TV TV XBOX WATCH TV TV TV MOVIE TV EXPERIENCE MOVIE TV TV TV SPORTS SPORTS SPORTS SPORTS SPORTS SPORTS SPORT SPORTS TELEVISION TV TELEVISION WATER COOLER TV TV TV CALLOFDUTY CALLOFDUTY CALLOFDUTY CALLOFDUTY DOG CALLOFDUTY CALLOFDUTY DOG CALLOFDUTY 

SEGA NEEEEEEEWWWZZZZZZ

Now, about old-ass Sega news that I didn't bring up until now, rofl.

First of all, The 90's Arcade Racer has met its goal of £10,000 ($15,521)!!!  WE DID IT!!!  The Kickstarter raised a grand total of £16,309 ($25313).  By its release in Dec. 2013, it should have:

* A total of eight cars--2 stock cars, 2 F1 cars, 2 McLarens, and 2 "bonus cars".
* Three tracks each with two different layout variations, forward/reverse, and day/night features.
* A drift scoring system.
* Arcade and championship modes for each car type.
* Leaderboards.
* Available on PC, Linux, iOS, Android, and Wii U.
* Possibly more features to be announced in the future...

This list was "confirmed" by an e-mail update I got for donating the £90 ($140) to the project.

Now, when I made whatever limited communication with the guy, I brought up a few things.  I inquired about manual transmission.  I really hope he's able to get that in but with the 6-gear shifter, it might be particularly hard (Daytona USA and Scud Race both used 4-gears).  And then there's the car audio which I think he needs to kick up the bass volume if he can.  Also have the car lean more in the turns and emit more tire smoke.  Basically stuff from Need for the Sense of Speed post...how to get great sense of speed in your game.  And no, I didn't link him to this blog, that would just be stupid of me.

Also I might add that today I'm a lot poorer.  And a lot more depressed because woe is me, all I can do is sit here and watch everyone make Sega racing games besides me.

But I got interesting news...if you happen to be a real-life race car driver AND a playable character in Sega All-Stars Racing (I'm talking about Danica Patrick), then you're happy dancin today.  Cause you qualified on the pole (1st place) for the first time in the history of ANY NASCAR Cup Race (the Daytona 500).

Well, shit.  If Danica actually wins this race and/or many others, I'm going to be kicking my own ass all the way back to Florida knowing that if Danica had only gotten better JUST A BIT SOONER, she could've won the Texas Nationwide race in the Sega Sonic car.  I have nothing against Danica and I actually kind of like her (as a driver, idiots) but her suddenly becoming good post-Sega is just one big WHY???

EDIT: Well to go over more Danica stuff.  Yes, she still has a "Sonic" sticker on her GoDaddy car.  Yes, she just appeared in another Sega All-Stars Racing commercial.  Yes, I would be "happy" for her if she won (though I don't think she will...starting position means next to nothing in NASCAR besides to intimidate the competition).  But talking before about the difference between racing aficionados and gamers who simply like racing games, I don't think Danica (or any real life driver, really) would do a good job promoting Sega All-Stars Racing.  So if she won in the GoDaddy car, well...I don't think Sega has much to gain anyway.

Now for news actually pertaining to Sega.

The big story for all Sega fans...Microsoft admits not buying out Sega post-Dreamcast era due to "lack of muscle."  Okay, I'm not really surprised or offended by this.  Am I supposed to be mad that Microsoft didn't deem Sega worthy of being bought and basically left them to die in the post-Dreamcast era?  Basically, Microsoft got what they wanted out of their Sega partnership and that is the launching of their own console (the Xbox).  Plus they got ex-Sega of America CEO Scumbag Peter Moore (who now works for EA Sports).  Sega has some of the greatest IPs under their belt (Sonic, arcade racers, Genesis/Saturn/Dreamcast stars, etc.) but why Microsoft passed up on them, I don't know.  Because they're not gritty FPSes like Halo, yeah that makes sense.  Besides, judging from where MS is now, was that really a good thing?  Look at Rare, a smaller company bought out by MS but aside from Viva Pinata, they've just sucked recently.  Good riddance, Microsoft.

Speaking of company cannibalism, I remember a while back how Kotaku said that Sega planned to buy out Disney.  DISNEY.  Quick lookup on Wikipedia and right now, Disney's assets equal $75 billion.  I really don't know what Sega's are but after this whole 2012 restructuring, I bet it's less than 10% of that.  What was Kotaku smoking...

And then there's Aliens: Colonial Marines!  Gearbox, what...a...disgrace.  Frankly, I don't give a crap about the game at all--it looks like another linear sci-fi shooter, I'm not too keen on the Aliens franchise, and it doesn't have ANYTHING to do with traditional "Sega-go-lucky-blue-skies" theme (other than the Sega logo on the box).  The only reason I really care is because this is supposed to be one of Sega's big moneymakers for the year and now I hear the game is so bad that people are canceling preorders by the thousands!  Anytime Sega fails, I die a little on the inside.

Right now, there's rumors being spread about how Gearbox dropped the ball on Aliens and this is the best TLDR version I got.  If I'm wrong on some things, feel free to correct me since the situation is rather nonsensical:

* Sega and Gearbox agree to a new Aliens game starting in 2006.
* Gearbox works on Aliens (under the project name "Pecan") for four years.  Game looks "good" but Gearbox is working on other projects at the time such as Borderlands so there's a lot of feet-dragging going on (list of Gearbox games by year here).  Sega is obviously annoyed.
* Gearbox, now preoccupied by the GOTY Borderlands 2, outsources parts of the game to smaller studios, most notably TimeGate which'll handle the game's campaign mode.
* However, TimeGate falls way behind and even removes a bunch of features that Gearbox added previously.  The s*** hits the fan for Gearbox.
* Sega, pissed off that the game has taken over 5+ years, demands it be finished soon.  Gearbox then hastily spits out a final product held together by duct tape and Elmer's glue.
* Reviewers bash Aliens: Colonial Marines to no end.
* Gearbox developer goes on defensive explaining what we know here.  Sega employee teases a lawsuit against Gearbox because they "spent" all the money on Borderlands 1/2 development.

I don't hold Sega culpable for this mess.  Gearbox butchers Duke Nukem Forever, let it slide, now they butcher Aliens: Colonial Marines and that's strikes two & three, you're out.  But Sega IMO really has to cut out these movie IP games.  First it was Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, now Aliens.  None of these games were that good in the first place.  STOP IT SEGA, GO BACK TO DOING WHAT YOU DO BEST AND CHANNEL YOUR OLD CONSOLE-ERA SELVES.  SUPPORT UNIQUE VIDEO GAMES BESIDES THESE GRITTY FPSES THAT DON'T STAND A CHANCE TO THE TEN-TON PURPLE GORILLAS IN THE ROOM.  End of this nonsense.

Was going to talk a bit more about the new video game consoles but this post has gone on long enough.  More pettiness coming your way in about five days, sixteen hours, forty-five minutes, and two seconds (get a stopwatch, I might be off by a few days tho).

Spike VGA's: No Wonder Miyamoto Is Leaving...

As we all know, Miyamoto is set to "retire" soon.  EDIT: Okay, he's really not but whatever.  Although I don't suck up to Nintendo, I do give Miyamoto a LOT of credit for kick-starting Nintendo and the Japanese game market so kudos, man.

Anyway, a few days ago or whatever, the Spike Video Game Awards were on.  I had no idea about this until today.  And thank God I didn't watch it live otherwise I would've gone skydiving without a parachute.

So Miyamoto is in attendance at this Oscar's style award ceremony.  Wait a second, who died and made Spike the leading authority on video game awards?  Bunch of schmucks.  Although G4TV is probably worse, I dunno.  Anyway, the Black Keys (some lame-o alternative band I don't listen to) performed and here's Miyamoto head-bobbing, having a grand old time.  No really, he looked just weirded out throughout the whole thing.  Don't worry, Miyamoto, I'll mail you some Deep Purple/Cheap Trick CD's when this is over.

And then you have the STUPIDEST F***ING THING THAT COULD POSSIBLY HAPPEN.  Burnout winning game of the year?  No, not that bad but it's close.  So Charlie Sheen (oh God) goes up to announce the best FPS of the year.  He says Modern Warfare 3 and half the Internet becomes vehemently ill.  Up comes some producers from Infinity Ward to accept the award, followed by a cosplaying soldier who knocks one of them down and proceeds to teabag repeatedly.  Can't embed the video, fortunately.

Please bear in mind that SHIGERU MIYAMOTO was in attendance.  The Man, The Myth, The Legend.  Sitting there watching a guy get tea-bagged.  Have we gamers lost or minds or what???  Just to illustrate, I'll put both pics side by side.

What a joke.  Miyamoto the legend is subjected to this crap?  SHOW THE MAN SOME RESPECT.  This is like at a wedding before the bride says "I do," a fat naked guy goes streaking by.  Tons of advertising and crap celebrities like Jack Black, Hulk Hogan, Charlie Sheen, the Tosh.O guy, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Green, Eddie Griffin, Neil Patrick Harris, Ashton Kutcher, any pinhead celebrity who think it's "cool" to be down with video games???  Is this a show about VIDEO GAMES or is it about being a stupid ass???

No wonder Miyamoto is qutting.  He's probably thinking, "There's no hope for these kids."  I also know Hideo Kojima was there...sheesus, this stuff serves as fuel for his crazy MGS conspiracy crap.  All Kojima could do was babble on.

EDIT: S*** THIS GOT DELETED FOR COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT, VIACOM BLOWS


I only pray that Yu Suzuki didn't have to sit through this.  Although I wish Toshihiro Nagoshi did to teach him of his idiotic ways.

Oh, and which games won awards?  Well, Skyrim, Batman, Portal 2, the same crap you'd come to expect.  Really love how the best Xbox 360 game was a non-exclusive (Batman).  Forza 4 won Best Racing Game although we clearly know Daytona USA should've won.  And thank God NFS: The Runs didn't win either. Also, I really can't help but enjoy the CoD vs. Battlefield war going on.  Did BF3 deserve to the win the award???  Sure they did.  But this just proves how idiotic the game industry has become.

I read an interesting article about the Spike VGAs from Giant Bomb.  TBQH, those guys over there are the only "big" gaming media that doesn't have their heads up their asses.

And one more thing.  The new Xbox Live Dashboard sucks.  Downloaded that bad boy and got hit in the face with a huge Terms of Use agreement.  Just scrolling down from start to finish, it took me 5 minutes to reach the end.  Brilliant, Microsoft, thanks for not releasing a TLDR version cause we gamers love to spend our time reading legal documents rather than blow other players' heads off.  Although I can't decide what's "worse" at this point.  Both make me wanna puke.

Also love seeing the Chuck Norris/World of Warcraft ads every slide.  We know you folks over at Blizzard are tossing and turning at night over your declining numbers in WoW.  And I keep seeing the Kinect in all these TV commercials.  Well, anyone who buys the Kinect is a toolbag, so there you go.  Yowza, I'm on fire tonight!  Suck it down.  Poor Miyamoto, here, from a Sega fan, let me give you a hug.

At least the Broncos won again so you have an uplifting story in Tim Tebow.  Better than reading about the game media, that's for sure.

School Is Cool, Sonic Free Riders Is For Fools

Oh boy. So it's been two weeks at FIEA. I still don't have a lot of work yet. However, I've been assigned to work on a Flash game with four other people. Obviously when you throw five people in the same room and force them to make a game, they all can't agree on everything, but I'm pretty satisfied with what I was told to do: make a 2-D pizza delivery game. I s*** you not. It wasn't even my idea too. So I'm designing 2-D car physics! I'm stoked, this is looking good. I even implemented drift handling! It will be done in two weeks.

Also, I got my cubicle set up. Got pictures up of Daytona USA 1/2, Scud Race, OutRun, Sega Rally, Yu Suzuki, everything, including lamps and all that garbage. Looks good. No one really said anything about the games in particular, but some of my teammates upon seeing all these cars, they said, "We got the right guy for the project," which is sweet.

And also, I get to shop at Target for all the foods I want to eat like Milky Way bars, frozen chicken nuggets, chocolate chip waffles, strawberry toaster strudels, Dr. Pepper, green beans, YooHoo drinks, turkey sandwiches, Spongebob macaroni & cheese, I mean everything. And I got my new Xbox 360 and Rock Band 3 (had to queue up & redownload all 1000+ DLC songs off XBL, a royal pain in the ASS) so I'm living the dream! In my own little Bachelor's pad here folks.  TOTAL FREEDOM.  Seriously, don't get married and have kids--stay at home and eat your own damn food.  Really, nothing worse than opening the fridge/pantry to see everything gone.  Nice to have such few obligations...yeah.


Thanks hamada2700!!!!!

Oh yeah, the money where I get these things...don't ask.  I have an unknown source of income.  I'm saviing money the best I can (bargain brands, baby!!!)

As for what else we learned at FIEA, not much...one class is specifically dedicated to talking about intricate details of the game industry. We're even watching game footage (already saw Dragon Age 2 and Bastion, two games that make me go "ehhh") and discussing things from a technical perspective. Sweet, I love easy grades like this.

Another thing we talked about was different platforms to make your games for. You got Flash, i-Phone, Xbox, Panda, UDK, all these game engines. One options was the Kinect. What the Kinect does is condense some 60+ gestures into a simple keystroke. For instance, during game development, you assign an action to a simple keystroke, such as A. Then when you're done, you swap A with a gesture that the Kinect reads for you, such as "jump" or "wave arms like idiot."

And then a *ding* went off in my head. I already talked about Sonic Free Riders, that Sega racer for Kinect that really bombed because the controls sucked so hard. Well, if it was just as easy to swap Kinect gestures with buttons, then WHY DIDN'T THEY ALTERNATELY PROGRAM THE GAME FOR STANDARD XBOX CONTROLLERS??? I mean, really, judging from what I assume, it could've taken them a very VERY short amount of time to convert the game to standard controls and thus made it available to a wider audience (you shouldn't buy a Kinect game without the Kinect, mirite???)

I'll tell you why. Because it's a gimmick to get people to buy Kinect. If they could play it with a controller, why would they need the Kinect. So there you go--Sega taken hostage by the Kinect and that whole entire game, Sonic Free Riders, could've actually been excellent without the Kinect, but no, it's ruined.  EDIT: Yes, I actually do think Sonic Free Riders could be a good game.  Thanks Microsoft!

There's A Warthog In My Forza

EDITED ONCE

Hey guys, did you know PAX happened this weekend?  Yes?  No?  What did they do there...talk about games, yada yada yada...  The less said, the better.

Now folks, this is kind of funny.  Forza 4, which is coming out in October, will not have Porsches (boo, get used to RUFs, boys and ladies).  According to Jalopnik, it's Porsche's fault cause Porsche hates video games (although it would be easy to blame Electronic Arts since they're somehow at fault for anything Activision isn't involved with).  But at least RUFs are damn close to Porsches so it's not a total loss....

Ok, so maybe EA is to blame since they like to give the scroogie to everyone else (see the Origin spyware controvery--they're not angels in my eyes).  But why EA doesn't snatch up more big auto makers like Ferrari, Audi, Lamborghini, whatever is beyond me.  I guess cause there's only so much "hate" they can bring upon themselves before they give up...don't want to topple Activision now, do we?  Let them be the punching bag, not us, they say.

WWWRRRRRYYYYYYYYY?????????

But don't fear people!  Forza 4 will have the Warthog from Halo.  I don't know whether or not to be excited or appalled by this (considering Micro$oft has been trying to infuse Halo into practically everything these days).

But oh, don't get your hopes up.  You can't drive the Warthog.  You can only observe it in Forza's Autovista mode, which incorporates the Kinect and allows you to observe it from the perspective of a car show attendee. EDIT: Apparently, in an attempt to divert our attention from the fact that you can't drive the Warthog, they get Jeremy Clarkson of Top Gear to talk about it. Gee, thanks Jeremy, that's great. I love just staring at cars in video games, right?

Is it just me but isn't this typical of the game industry nowadays?  Hey guys, I got a shiny new gadget!  You can walk around in a car show and look at the cars!  It's like you're actually there!  THE FUTURE IS NOW!!!  But does it contribute to gameplay?  In other words, can you drive it?  No.  You can only stare at it.  Kind of like a hot babe you want to go out on a date with but you can't come within 12 feet of her...

I heard from somewhere that the main reason you can't drive it is because it's too slow?  Really?  Did that stop Polyphony Digital from putting the Model T and the Daimler Motor Carriage (top speed: 12 mph) in GT4?



Or maybe it's because of the machine gun on top...but just take it off.  Driving the Warthog in Halo is crap ,really.  It doesn't pan out like a usual racing game.  It's like "driving for noobs"--right joystick aims the camera, hold up and the Warthog immediately steers wherever the camera is facing.  This is opposed to steering with the joystick in traditional racing games (you don't need to stare directly in the way you want to go).  It's also the same way the RC-XD handles in Black Ops and I'm annoyed by that too.

Don't matter...I don't need no stinkin Warthog in my Forza game anyway.  We want Sega cars FIRST AND FOREMOST...  Second would be monster trucks.  And funny cars, 18-wheelers, and school buses loaded with NOS (man, f*** the Veyron and Datsun).  I mean, really now--no Porsches, Warthog isn't driveable--this is what Turn10 needs to do to save this travesty to the series and avoid hitting rock bottom like GT5...

*flips over*

I know this vid's crap but it's the best actual Monster Jam commercial I could find.

FUN FOR ALL AGES!! BRING THE KIDS!!

Goodbye Xbox 360, Goodbye Rock Band 3 (Endless Setlist)

Well, this is it.  I'm currently on my third Xbox 360 and I've taken good care of it...keep it vertical and well-ventiled.  I've had it for a couple of years (which is much longer than I expect) but now is starting to freeze up on me when I'm playing Rock Band 3, especially at the most inopportune times.  Such as when I'm going for a high score on Antibodies X-Pro Keys and IT FREEZES with just 15-20 seconds to go.  I was primed to beat my old score by 50,000+ points and it just FROZE!!!

WWWRRRRRYYYYYYYY!!!!!

I can't keep playing like this so now I must buy a new Xbox 360 if I'm going to continue with my RB3 career.  Oh and my XBL Gold runs out in September.  Micro$oft, take my money!!

Or I can always go through a litany of tests to see if there's any solutions to fix the 360.  Bulls***, I hate this crap.  For the record, I have RB3 installed to my HD plus I had the wireless adapter disconnected.  I'll be back to see if I can fix this bastard.

I'm going to tell you another fun story.  This was on my second Xbox.  In Rock Band 2, there was an achievement tied to a goal called the "Endless Setlist 2."  In this, you had to play 84 songs in one sitting.  From start to finish with no breaks, this would take over 6 hours.  Oh, and there's a special achievement for good players--finish the entire list without pausing or failing and you get an extra achievement, "Bladder of Steel."  I was going to do it on Expert Guitar to knock out these achievements for 125G.

I went through a bit of conditioning...make sure I could tolerate the 6+ hours and pass Visions on X-Tar without failing under duress.  Plus I had to find a good time to do this...during the weekend (I had college at the time, duh)

The first time I did it, and I'm not lying to you, I got to Song 80 (Shoulder to the Plow) without pausing or failing.  The XBOX FROZE DURING THIS SONG.  So basically, I was like, "Nooo, please work, please work," as I caressed the Xbox like that little kid who mourned over Old Yeller.  So six hours of work DOWN THE DRAIN.  Man, f*** the Xbox 360.  I proceeded to towel trick the 360 and mail it in to a repair center right afterwards.  The straw that broke my back...

But the second time I tried again and I did it flawlessly.  And I recorded it!!!



Oh yeah, one more fun story.  As soon as I beat the Endless Setlist 2, my Guitar controller ran out of batteries five minutes later.  Had they run out during the setlist, I wouldn't have unlocked the Bladder of Steel achievement.

Thankfully, there are no long-ass achievements like this in Rock Band 3.

EDIT: Here's how the 360's gone down since I posted this.  First, I tried cleaning out the system cache.  Then I started playing RB3 again and it froze about 20 minutes in.

Second, I backed up as many save files as possible to a USB drive and formatted the entire HD.  Now I'm in the process of getting everything back on the HD (means going thru my Purchase History and re-downloading EVERYTHING off XBL) and we'll see from here if it freezes again or not.  Before I began all the downloadin', I gave RB3 a spin for 10 minutes without any incidents so MAYBE this'll work.

It does beg the question whether or not I can still rely on this console a year or so down the road.  But that's a discussion for another day.

If this doesn't work, then I have few options left...perhaps I should just buy a new 360 and donate my old one to my family (since I'm going to Florida soon).

EDIT 2: Reformatted the whole hard drive and reinstalled all the post Rock Band 3-DLC (because doing the whole library would take AGES).  Xbox 360 freezes after 20 minutes of playing.  Wonderful, just erased my entire 360 HD for NOTHING.  That's it, gotta buy a new Xbox 360.  It's done.  I want to smash this thing with a hammer.

Video Game Meltdown Continues: It's Nintendo's Turn!

EDIT: Screwed up my Sega analysis

At first, it was Capcom with their laundry list of idiotic decisions, but at least they aren't losing tons of cash (to my knowledge).  But Nintendo, well...things aren't looking so good for them.  Found this stuff out from Kotaku and the Nonstop Gaming Board on GFAQs.

Remember back in March there was this "Wii/3DS: It Prints Money!" meme?  Well, congrats guys, the exact opposite has happened.

In the past three months (worldwide), Wii and DS sales have dropped about 50%.  Also in that time, the 3DS only sold 710,0000 units.

Nintendo's stock has dropped 20% (that's TWENTY PERCENT) in ONE DAY.  They also posted a $324 million quarterly LOSS.

Former Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi’s wealth may have plunged more than $300 million today after the flop of the 3DS player forced the company to slash its profit forecast.  

Satoru Iwata (Nintendo CEO) has taken a 50% pay cut and other execs have taken a 30% cut.

The 3DS price has dropped from $250 to $170, a 32% decrease.  Anyone who bought the 3DS before this price drop is entitled to 20 (that's TWENTY) free downloadable games for the device.  At this point in time, Nintendo is simply abandoning the 3D gimmick and going for DLC (games from NES, GBA, etc.).

There's a litany of problems with the 3DS.  The 3D aspect has worn thin (and made some people sick as well).  Not enough unique games.  Expensive.  Low battery life.  In direct competition with the regular DS and other handheld/mobile games.  Also, you can't play some games without a patch (see Ridge Racer).  EDIT: And check out this dude's link about Nintendo tracking your information among other things...pretty shady stuff, thanks Mr. Anonymous.

Also, throw in there that the Wii hasn't received many good titles recently, both first, second, third party.  Nintendo has abandoned that too in favor of the Wii U.  So basically, Nintendo better pray that the Wii U doesn't suck too or else they're in serious trouble.

I know I'm reporting facts instead of ideas again, but you should never forget about this.  This is history in the making.

-------------

You know this is going to shake up Nintendo big-time.  It's probably their biggest down-time since 2000 when they were hurrying to release the Gamecube.  There's a tradition is Japan that if a company man makes a poor decision, he's not outright fired but forced to step down for a period of time.  Like putting someone in the dog house.  Hey, it happened to Gunpei Yokoi (Virtual Boy, the biggest bomb ever) and possibly Yu Suzuki (Shenmue didn't sell so Sega basically stopped him from making any more games).  Now someone at Nintendo's gonna get punished for this.  Who, I don't know.  Nintendo just shot themselves in the foot.



Hey Nintendo, sell the Seattle Mariners to make some money.  Besides, the Mariners are sucking right now (they recently snapped a 17-losing streak) so who cares, lol.

But really, this proves the point I've been saying for years.  You know what we want first and foremost?  GOOD GAMES!!!  Gimmicks won't cut it for me.  You can say, "Oh look, we made a 3D game!" but if the game sucks, no one cares.  Nintendo, learn this.

The Sega fan inside of me can't help but be a little bit jovial that Nintendo is getting jacked up over this.  I mean, Sega got roasted when it come to the Dreamcast--great console but Sega's soul was lost in the process.  Now Nintendo got a little arrogant here and thought "Hell, anything we produce is gold," and now they're paying the price for it.  Of course, the Japanese quake in March may have helped contribute to their hit, perhaps.  It just sucks ass that Microsoft is pushing this gimmicky Kinect crap and they have yet to take a major hit for it.  Oh their day of reckoning will come soon...

But otherwise, this sucks for Japanese gaming.  It's almost like Keiji Inafune put a curse on Japan in order to look like some sort of Nostradamus of gaming.  Now think about this--all Japanese game publishers as of late have done some stupid things recently (Nintendo, Capcom) or were already mediocre (Namco, Square, maybe Konami).  But I wouldn't be too worried about these companies--they'll hopefully learn from their mistakes.  The PS3 had a slow start, maybe the 3DS will follow suit.  EDIT: Or it could go the way of the N-Gage and PSP UMD's!!

But I'll tell you who's staying above the fray.  SEGA.  Yes, that's right.  They are doing okay.  Not producing any stellar games, but at least they're not "sucking" as usual.  For instance, they posted the highest revenue in Japan for the month of June, beating out Nintendo by 33%.  They also made an assload of money last fiscal year ($513 mil profit).

EDIT: Dammit, this came out a day after I posted this, Sega-Sammy posts a quarterly loss of up to $50 million.  Well, this is embarassing.  I only hope that in the long run, Sega has lost the least of all the other devs.  I apologize, I was wrong.  Well, that's why we have to step up and save Sega...

But anyway, if Sega suddenly does good....:

THE PIECES HAVE FALLEN INTO PLACE.  NOW IS THE TIME FOR SEGA TO DROP THE HAMMER* AND OVERTAKE THESE OVERRATED GAME DEVS!!!  BRING HOME THE GOLD MEDAL FROM THESE LOUSY AMERICAN DEVS LIKE ACTIVISION, ELECTRONIC ARTS, MICROSOFT, AND ROCKSTAR!!!  IT CAN BE DONE!!!



* - When I say "Drop the hammer," I mean the racing term to slingshot ahead of the competition (change gears), don't know if people picked up on that right away...

Video Game Industry In Full Meltdown Mode! (Capcom, Activision)

Occasionally, I skim over GameFAQs Nonstop Gaming Board to see what people are talking about.  One thing that's going on is that there's an increasing animosity towards Capcom.  Now I haven't been paying any attention to them (no racing games certainly doesn't help) recently other than Keiji Inafune's recent departure and shellacking of the Japanese game industry and the occasional Dead Rising news.  I would venture a guess that Capcom is Japan's second-biggest game publisher behind Nintendo because they have so many hits (Street Fighter, Megaman, Resident Evil, etc.) and don't even mention Square since they suck now.

What has Capcom done lately, you ask?  Bam, read this:

To rehash: No Megaman in Marvel vs. Capcom 3.  MvC3 is basically a demo of Ultimate MvC3.  Dead Rising 2 is basically a demo of DR2: Off the Record.  Canceled Megaman Legends 3 and Megaman Universe.  Can't erase save files from Resident Evil 5/Mercenaries 3D.  Devil May Cry is trash now.  Too many Street Fighter games.  And I could go on but DAMN it is bad.

IT'S HIS FAULT!!!  HE PUT A CURSE ON CAPCOM!!!  YOU SINISTER BASTARD!!!

Heh, and I thought Sega had problems.  Well, no, Sega's doing okay as far as I'm concerned.  I guess Inafune was right--Japanese companies have their heads up their asses right now.  OH WAIT, NOT NINTENDO, THEY ARE GODS AMONG MEN, THEY CAN DO NO WRONG.  Well the Wii U and 3DS are questionable at this stage so there you go.

EDIT a few days later: I also heard that Capcom has revealed Hello Kitty x Street Fighter merchandise at some point in the future.  So basically, Capcom is hiring 4chan users now?  Dammit man, stick a fork in Capcom, they've drank the Kool-aid...

------------

BUT WAIT.  It doesn't end there.  America, you're not off the hook yet.  Oh, we can't forget about our good friend Bobby Kotick over there at Activision.  He has plans to reboot the Guitar Hero franchise.  As you can tell, it's gonna suck big time.  Here's what he had to say:

...But we created this critically acclaimed, highly rated game –and these are the hardest failures, when you put your heart and soul into it and you deliver an extraordinarily well received game, and nobody shows up to buy it. So that’s what happened with DJ Hero. At the same time we were so excited about going down this new direction with DJ Hero, I think we abandoned a bit of the innovation that was required in the Guitar Hero franchise.

And so it was the double whammy of DJ Hero was unsuccessful, and then Guitar Hero became unsuccessful because it didn’t have any nourishment and care. So we made what I think was exactly the right decision last year. We said you know what, we need to regain our audience interest, and we really need to deliver inspired innovation. So we’re going to take the products out of the market, and we’re not going to tell anybody what we’re doing for awhile, but we’re going to stop selling Guitar Hero altogether. And then we’re going to go back to the studios and we’re going to use new studios and reinvent Guitar Hero. And so that’s what we’re doing with it now.

Oh Good Lord.  What he's trying to say is that they pooled all their effort into DJ Hero at the expense of Guitar Hero.  And DJ Hero didn't sell (and to a certain extent, neither did the latest GH) so Activision just wasted their time on nothing.  And now the new Guitar Hero will inexplicably rip off aspects of Rock Band and I don't know what to say anymore.  Oh, and DJ Hero?  That's gone forever, kiss it goodbye.

Got this from some Kotaku photoshop contest long ago...you find it yourself.

As an aside, if Activision REALLY wants to "save" Guitar Hero, follow the name--JUST INCLUDE GUITARS, that's it.  Drums and vocals just didn't work out for GH--you'll NEVER outclass Rock Band at this rate, they got you beat there.  Pick songs that include the best guitar charts so that people don't have to sit through songs that are lousy in guitar but good on other instruments.  Really, people just want to go back to the old GH style (GH3 grossed over a BILLION dollars in sales), but you know they ain't doing that.

EDIT: And Activision will find a way to nickel-and-dime you with Call of Duty.  Complaining about the $15/1200 MSP map packs?  Pssh, I admit that's steep for some but we play enough Call of Duty get our money's worth.  But they're gonna whore out CoD to the end...just like Tony Hawk and Guitar Hero.  You heard about this "Elite" service for paying members?  MW3 has train-wreck written all over it.  Then maybe WoW and Starcraft too...

------------

And ultimately, this ends with a GameFAQs poll taken today.  EDIT: These are the final results of the poll out of 56,256 votes.  "Which video game publisher do you like the least (or hate the most) right now?"  Rounded percentages: 

Activision Blizzard 23%
Capcom 22%
Electronic Arts 18%
Microsoft 9%
Square Enix 9% 
Nintendo 8%
Sony 6%
Ubisoft 4%

Actually, at one point in this poll, Capcom had 26% & Activision had 22% but you can see that this is not the case anymore.  Wow, Microsoft in 4th place--who would've thunk it?  Thankfully, there's no Sega here because they're pathetic enough as it is.  The antipathy towards Capcom may wear out after a while--I can't see them outclassing Activision in the long run...

I really can't talk about this anymore.  If you want to know more "bad" things the industry has done, read what I posted before.  I've never seen the industry and its fans on edge before.  Everyone's at each others' throats, crappy business practices, tons of shouting at the devs to do this and do that, making all sorts of demands, it just never ends.  Maybe I ought to just step back and let the chips fall as they may since I don't want to join the angry mobs and get blasted with the hoses & tear gas, so to speak.

Random Google image search to the rescue!

Cracked.com Cracks Open The Game Industry (And I Reply)

Cracked is a good website if you want to read engrossing articles about nothing.  A lot of it is ridiculous but some of it I actually agree with wholeheartedly.  This is a remarkable article I alluded to before but now I'm going to be lazy and leech off of it for one of my post.  I scrapped my original write-up to this article so I'm doing it again here.

The 6 Most Ominous Trends in Video Games by David Wong.  TLDR:

6. Technology is going backwards.  First you had Pong on the Atari which was revolutionary.  Then you had Wii Bowling which was a nice improvement.  Now motion control games haven't improved as you wave your hands in front of the TV like an idiot (especially Kinect).  The Wii U and PS Vita are basically iPhones/iPads which are nothing new either.

5. "Big Brother" online servers are ruining gaming.  Can't run some games without hooking up to a server, including single-player ones (see Starcraft II).  Security measures are horrible.  Also hackers and poor maintenance are proving this point even further since when Sony's server went down, everything went to hell.

4. Many video games promote endless playability by grinding for items (see any MMORPG).  Even worse, you have to pay for perpetual online subscriptions, cheat codes, additional single-player addons, basically things you never had to pay for except in the last 5 years.

3. Creative bankruptcy.  Almost all new games are sequels.  Most obvious are FPSes like Call of Duty: MW3, Battlefield 3, and Crysis 2 which are strikingly similar in nature.

2. No real vision for the future.  First it was make games look realistic, which we've done already.  Now it's make a bunch of $1 apps, crap motion control games, and other awkward gimmicks (Nintendo 3DS).

1. We don't even know what a game is anymore.  First it was "get a high score," now it's split into many different "art" forms--largely interactive movies with limited replay value, mini-games that involve decorating a landscape for s***s and giggles, etc.

And if what I wrote was still TLDR, then let me TLDR that for you...Today's Video Games SUCK.

------------

Well, let me reply to these and throw in my three cents right now.

6. I can understand the hate-on that everyone has for motion controls.  I don't like the Kinect either--I've already made that clear before.  Now these motion controls are starting to seep into my beloved racing genre.  But the majority of the industry seems to be clear of motion controls for the time of being.  I'm playing Rock Band &  Call of Duty without the Kinect so this is a completely exaggerated point, right???

If you haven't known already, Microsoft has spent over $500 MILLION on Kinect advertising (Fun Fact: at $150 a piece, MS has to sell 3.33 mil Kinects to break even on the $500 mil benchmark alone).  You can tell MS is trying to ram this thing up our ass.  As a matter of fact, I hear the new Forza & Halo games are going to incorporate the Kinect somehow.  And as for the Wii U?  Well, everyone already pissed themselves over that already...remember, this is NINTENDO we're talking about, everything they produce is GOLD.  Disregarding more motion control crap, I can't imagine playing with that big-ass iPad controller which hardly looks comfortable.  So in other words, we're closer to this motion control "utopia" than we think.

5. Big online servers, heh.  Remember back in the PS2/Xbox/GameCube days when you didn't need an online server for permission to play a game?  Eh, those were the days.

While I am not familiar with DRMs and that madness, I've already talked about online servers being the life force for games and how they're rigged to blow.  I already talked about OutRun Online Arcade, which'll be removed from XBL at the end of this year and you can't play it again.  I also talked about MMORPG's.  I also talked about Halo Wars and Call of Duty!  Basically, once the server disowns the game, you really can't play it anymore.  I could go on but I'm not gonna repeat myself even further.  I really do like this quote for the Cracked article, sums it up perfectly:

Imagine if every time you drove your car, you had to first check in with the car manufacturer to confirm that it's you behind the wheel. Let's say that this relies on an Internet connection, and if the connection is down, you can't drive.

4. Eh, I don't have a problem with DLC if it means getting tons more content than normal (Rock Band songs in particular), but I see how things like cheat codes and already-on-disc content are really getting in the way.  Elements of the game completed before release but were held back for monetary gain.  Basically anything they can charge money for, they'll do it.  Hey, I like capitalism and think they have the right to charge whatever they want but there's only so much that I'm willing to pay.  That's why I'm such a scrooge when it comes to gaming--I only maybe play a few games and that's it--screw the rest and their media hype...

3. I don't have that big of a problem with sequels as long as they add something new or refine gameplay that we've come to love, but I do have a problem with all these damn gritty FPSes and fantasy adventure/MMORPG's.  I've already talked about game violence and how its prevalence is driving me nuts.  I'd much prefer a new Daytona game which, even though it's a sequel, is much more refreshing than anything else that these devs have put out nowadays.  Anyway, don't have much to say about this though this quote SUMS UP MY THOUGHTS PERFECTLY: 

This here is why all of the innovation in games seems to be about going backward, simplifying instead of pushing the experience further. They are trying to lower the barrier of entry for gaming as a hobby, because they don't know where else to go with it. So I guess what I'm saying is that one thing is becoming clear ... 

2. Basically a repeat of #6.  When game companies who think technology sells & gameplay be damned push faster and faster, then they reach the end and then we do get tons of random crap.  Then at this point, dollar apps become the norm and it's all about watering down games in order to make everyone feel "involved."  The only really good thing I see about dollar apps is that now anyone can be a game designer--you don't have to be part of some 500-man game studio with a $50 mil budget (read what I said).  Ridonkulous...

1. I really hate these games that are trying to be like movies more than games.  Need for Speed: The Run and all these FPSes.  I'm anything but a movie buff so this really pisses me off.  But I still think this point is being a bit harsh since there's some good movie-based games that actually have some variation, like Shenmue and LA Noire.  But yeah, I do long for the days where ACTUAL GAMING TALENT was a necessity rather than the ability to click a few buttons and then you're now a certified "Gamer"...

Conclusion:  The above quote in #3 really sums things up perfectly.  Back in the 20th Century, gaming was sort of a "reclusive" activity--like only nerds and miscreants would play games.  But it was cool because we got a lot of classics that still make us smile...Super Mario, Goldeneye, Zelda (yeah I admit), Sonic, DAYTONA USA, everything by Sega in its glory days, and so forth...

Nowadays, everyone loves games.  Gaming studios are getting bigger and pushing better graphics and new gimmicks.  Well, I believe that if things become too popular (in this case, gaming) then they are crushed under their own weight.  Now that gamers have become "accepted" into society, everyone wants to join in. Everyone wants all this crap like movie games with state-of-the-art graphics, motion control skill-less games, etc. so what you get are well...a lot of soul-less products pushed merely to sell tens of millions of copies and everyone eats this junk up like we're pigs at the trough.

I've already mentioned this before so I'll do it again.  As an aspiring game developer, I almost think I have to play politician and not offend everybody...like I'm supposed to say "Oh yeah, MMORPGs and mindless racing games like Split/Second are okay."  If I get in as a programmer, then I'm basically a hired mercenary--tell me to make something, I'll do it and I get paid.  If I go around trashing something, then that's going to cost me a job.  Simply put, I gotta make money first and foremost.  How many game devs do you see pushing blogs about how much this sucks or that sucks.  Not many--the fan can rant cause he has nothing to lose...

I almost think I was born too late.  Ugh, sorry if this article was too pessimistic.  I'll get to Sega Racing Stuff LATER.

Sonic Takes One Step Forward & Two Steps Back...

Oh boy, ever have one of those moments when you wake up and proclaim, "My God, I'm a GAMER!"???  Like, dammit, I spend my time on video games and the computer so this is a stupid day for me.  Ok, let me get my head screwed on straight here.

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But anyhooo...enjoy this footage of the Sonic Boom event at E3!  Here's some fun YouTube comments I picked out!

* Why are you pandering to the worst fans SEGA?!
* Suddenly the sonic games sucking makes sense. They are making them for retards.
* Well I'm glad this happened on the opposite side of the country from me.
* So this is what it's like to be autistic. .
* I.... I..... I don't know what the f*** did I just watched..... My childhood memories were just raped and tossed to the garbage bin.
* Those segafags are so retarded XDDDD
* These people buy the same games I do? F*** my life.
* Just another reason why I'm a Nintendo fan.

I thought Sonic Boom a more enlightening experience when I first mentioned it, now I'm not so sure.  So it was "stupid," I get the picture.  Hey, go back to E3 and fiddle with your new Wii U controller which I'm sure will please you in many ways.  FYI, I happened to live with someone with autism so don't throw that term around with me.

EDIT: Some people have said that Sega should've spent the time & money on making better Sonic games or localizing Valkyria Chronicles 3.  Really?  This is just a drop in the bucket--it means next to nothing on what
Sega does pertaining to game design.

Oh boy, where have we come as a gaming society?  Nintendo making new controllers that look like iPads with buttons and have silly names.  Microsoft completely pissing away the Kinect.  Sony sucking at everything.  And what's Sega doing?  Throwing nerd parties.  Awww, come on!  The frustration builds every day.

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Anyway, this is an utterly ridiculous story.  This is on SEGAbits.  Now you know about the game blog 1UP.com, right?  Well, it along with several other sites have a real Sonic problem.  Now you know why I prefer Kotaku & Joystiq.  1UP goes to E3 and pulls a little stunt on the Sega people there.

Click here to see the video (can't embed it).  This is someone named Boss Janine or something like that.  The volume here's awfully low so I transcribed it for you:

LADY: Hey 1UP, I'm gonna ask Mike here a quick question, so uh...this is the new, is it, Sonic game?

GUY: Yep, Mario and Sonic London 2012 Olympic Games, it's the third in the series.  Second time we're in the Summer Olympics.  First time was in Beijing, last time was in the, uh, Winter Olympics in Vancouver and now we're in London.  Coming out with the Olympics next year.

LADY: So, uh, do you have any anti-depressants?

GUY: Anti-depressants?  No I don't.  Why do you--why do you ask?

LADY: Oh, I don't know, just hearing about Mario and Sonic, another Sonic game.  *guy, huh?*  Just hearing about another Sonic game.  *overtalks guy*  I have an overwhelming need for anti-depressants.

GUY: No it's not, it's a Mario and Sonic game...bringing the two back together in an, uh...international Olympic game...atmosphere.

LADY: Okay, well I'm gonna go off to Walgreen's to get that prescription then.

Nice drive-by piece.  I'm surprised "Mike" was able to keep a straight face.  So stupid, not even worth replying to.  TBQH, Mario & Sonic Olympic Games aren't exactly hall-of-famers, if you know what I mean, but they're not abominations upon mankind.  I can think of many, MANY games that are worse than that.  In all honesty, thinking about new Burnout games would make me wish for medication, but I'm not about to break into E3 just to shame a Criterion employee on the Internet.  I'm much classier than that.

 EDIT: Well...if you're a Sonic diehard, this is all you can really say:

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I did try looking for some Sonic articles on 1UP and I found one that I seem to stumble upon often: How Sega can Save Sonic the Hedgehog.  It mentions five steps:

1. Only Sonic should be playable.  Other characters have limited appearances or not at all.
2. No more Shadow the Hedgehog.
3. Huge emphasis on running fast with skill involved.
4. Spend more time between game releases.
5. Get rid of "epic" plotlines, focus on just running and saving animals.

Okay, a lot of this is common sense.  I do have a problem with #1 and 5...ever since when did Mario get away with bunches of playable characters and convoluted plots (see Paper Mario series), but when Sonic tries it results in prescription overdoses?  Hold that thought for a sec...

Now here's another 1UP article: How We Would Save Sega.  Oh Good Lord, this can't go over well.  This is the TLDR version:

1. Invest in classic games.  Make use of existing IPs.  Only aged diehards care about Sega's super-old classics so attempt to raise user awareness (Microsoft Game Room, etc.).

2. Take your time with games, have games evolve for the new generation (don't copy-and-paste, try to compete with other titles).  Okay, so Afterburner is bad because it's too niche.  Got it.  But this is worse:

"I'd seize control of Sonic from Japan and pass the next big console game off to some young studio full of the Sonic fans who grew up and are professional game developers now," says 1UP news editor Frank Cifaldi.

Well, hasn't that already happened?  You got Dimps and Sonic Team in America who made multiple Sonic titles.  But isn't he suggesting that Sega go further and completely disown Sonic...?  Well, congratulations, Sega, that would be suicide.  If Sega can't even take care of its #1 franchise, then that's it, just close up and burn the studio to the ground.

And another thing.  They mention that games need to "evolve" and change and become more innovative...but what about the five things that 1UP mentioned above on how to save the Sonic series?  They want to return the series back to Sonic 1 on the Genesis, but here they're asking for all sorts of new crap?  So isn't Sonic basically trapped in limbo here--can't come up with anything new, but can't go back?  Sonic will always be hated for whatever reason--furries, it's not Mario or Zelda, etc... 

3. Worst case scenario: When fanservice fails, press the big red button and nuke the company, come up with new ideas, and work on digital distribution.  Sega needs to make games that are marketable to the whole world in general.  This is what the article has to say: 

Tough as it is to swallow, Sega's drastic cuts and reorganization may prove to be the only medicine that can cure what ails the company. Fanservice and warm nostalgia won't do the deed, and neither will constantly flogging the company's cash cow, Sonic. Sega has to completely rethink how it works.

WE SUCK AGAIN!!  GOODBYE, WORLD!!  Sega becomes a backbencher dev of backbencher devs...thereby becoming completely irrelevant.  Thankfully, this was written a year ago and Sega's been making money recentlyso maybe they won't have to resort to making iPhone/iPad games to get by anymore.

And that's it, I can't take it anymore.  Now I need anti-depression meds.  That's right, I already take them...but I need even MORE THAN EVER CAUSE I'M LOSING IT!!!