GRID, Dead Heat, H2Overdrive: Three Arcade Reviews

Ok guys, while on July 9th's exciting Dave & Buster's expedition (complete with Daytona USA footage), I also had the chance to play some other racing games.  And at this D&B's, there was a TON of racing games. Unfortunately, only Daytona USA and Club Kart (which I've never really talked about...it's Chuck E Cheese fodder (so is Scud Race) ) in terms of Sega racers.  So I decided to play some other racing games.  Bear in mind that each of these following games cost slightly more than Daytona USA so every time I played one of these games, that meant one less run at Daytona USA so these better damn well be worth it.  These brief reviews are only based off of one play session so take 'em with a grain of salt.

GRID

This is the arcade version of Codemasters' racing "classic," GRID.  Surprisingly, this arcade version was distributed by "Sega Amusements" as you see the Sega logo plastered all over the thing.   Now, this game is off to a bad start for me because the game's dingy "realistic" hues still turn me off.  I mean, look at the box art of the game for gosh darn's sakes:

When the Xbox 360 logo is more colorful than the rest of the game then we have a problem.  The game's format is similar to Scud Race--four cars. four tracks.  IMO, that's disappointing.  In 1996, four tracks/cars would've been okay but it's 2010 (when the game was released) and based on an existing console game so cut me some slack.  Not only that, but three of the cars are American (Mustang, Viper, Challenger) and one is Japanese (Supra) so that's a great mix there (compare to the four nationalities of Scud Race cars).  There's only six cars on the track, not eight, not twelve, which is another disappointment, seeing as this isn't some PS1 racing sim people, it's 2012, remember?

Putting all that aside, I admit the gameplay itself is not that bad.  I picked the San Francisco track and some medium-level car, I forgot which one.  Indeed I picked manual transmission--the gear stick is like that of OutRun 2 & Crazy Taxi--shift up and shift down only.  It reminds me of Project Gotham Racing but with dingier hues.  Handling is a bit drifty and I had no idea how to drift so I just cornered hard on every turn and hoped for the best.  That seemed to fair well as I moved up from 6th to 3rd just before the finish line.  Only problem is you never seem to reach OutRun/Daytona speeds of 180+ mph which is kind of a bummer.  There's also a bit of car damage (including car doors flinging wide open mid-race) so that's kind of gnarly without being Burnout-ridiculous.

Overall, you could put some time into this game since it's not shoddily made but with only four cars & tracks and limited top speeds, I only see so much worth in this game.  Better off buying the console version for cheap I suppose.  LAZY REVIEW SCORE: 7.4

Dead Heat

Check out the official Namco page.

Ah, Namco, we meet again.  I heard about Dead Heat a couple of times and I wanted to know what all the fuss is about.  It looks like a crap Fast & Furious clone with loose Ridge Racer elements plus photo booth in one slick cabinet.  And we all know that in this Facebook/Twitter/awesome Blogspot era, everyone wants to slap their mug shot all over the place so what's not to love about this game???  Well, I'll tell you...

While writing this review, I have my conflicts on whether or not I'm factually correct.  For instance, this four-player Dead Heat setup DID NOT have gear shifters available on any of the dashboards.  I don't believe I was asked at all to choose Automatic or Manual Transmission.  But the pictures/footage I looked up online show that the game does, in fact, have a four-gear stick shifter.  But in my recollection of my game, there was no stick.  I'm serious folks--I could've sworn that this version of Dead Heat didn't have Manual Transmission.  If for some reason the game did have manual, then I was never made aware of it at any time during the game. EDIT: I recall seeing a couple of Fast & Furious cabinets that didn't have a manual stick at all so I believe there may be Dead Heat cabinets without the stick too.

As an aside, I'll say this.  Aside from a few exceptions such as Mario Kart and non-traditional racers (like Super Sprint or Bang Bang Racing), if your racing game does not have manual transmission (not even a simple hi/low gear like OutRun/Crazy Taxi) then it sucks, period.  I don't care if it's a "crap" racer like Cruis'n World, you get that gear shift working or else my interest drops rapidly.  Another reason why we need to round up all copies of Burnout & Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit and have a bonfire Fahrenheit 451-style.  EDIT: The way I see it, if you program different gears into to the game (to resemble an actual car, not just one long gear), then I'd better damn well be able to switch through them.  How hard is it to implement manual?  Press a button and the gear switches instead of automatically.  Wow, that was hard.

So what else is there?  Well, when choosing my car out of a lineup of generic street racers like the Corvette, Skyline, Viper, Supra, etc. I only had like, what, 9 seconds to choose a car?  So I scrolled through the cars then all of a sudden--BOOM, I was locked into the Dodge Viper.  Once again, I have a feeling that I'm inaccurate again because upon consulting other gameplay footage, they had more time with the car select.  But once again, I swear that I only had 9 seconds.  I just don't get it.  Nine seconds isn't enough time to pick a car when you offer so many cars as it is.

Then the best part of all, smile for the camera!  Now, the last thing I want the game to do is to take a picture of me and make me stare at it for 3 minutes!  God Forbid the game actually "stored" the photo in memory and used it as an AI photo for people who play the game after me!  That's probably not true but there's way too many mysterious faces in the game as it is so I don't know if they're recycling or not.  Either way, I just got up out of the seat and boom--game now has a picture of an empty seat.  Haw haw.  You can also tie your photo to your own account and come back and earn extra miles for paint jobs and stuff (remember, flame decals add 50% more horsepower) but the last thing I planned on in this moment was playing the game ever again.

Look at these people, they're demented.

Holy cow, how about the gameplay?  Well, there's for tracks--New York, San Francisco (dayum, this city is in every racing game these days), Chicago, and London.  I picked London cause...I really don't know why.  The tracks are supposedly based off of real city layouts (you mean like Project Gotham Racing???) but that doesn't excuse the fact that just four tracks is crap, I'm sorry.

Your car starts out with three NOS boosts.  Okay, nitrous in a racing game, never seen that in a racing game before so w/e, sounds neat.  Press the NOS boosts within the first 15 seconds of the race only to find out that the NOS doesn't come back.  It doesn't recharge like in other racing games so that's a bummer.

Car handling...well, it's loose in that you have to be careful while turning lest your car rubs the outside wall.  Either way, nothing about the game felt taxing at all.  The AI cars always stayed on your ass because of rubber-banding, that I know.  The landscapes were at least colorful and the sense of speed wasn't that bad (180+ mph) but that's all I got out of the main gameplay itself.  It was just mundane for me.  Taking a photo of myself wouldn't have sweetened the deal at all.

Then, as abruptly as you can imagine, the race ends.  I literally only played for 80 seconds.  Once again, this is my personal recollection and may not be accurate for other Dead Heat cabinets but I truly do remember saying, "Holy cow, that's it?"  I'm stunned that such a racing game could be so short.  I thought we moved on from crap short races like Cruis'n USA but no, nothing's changed over the last 20 years.  What a huge letdown.

This game's garbage.  Aside from the photo gimmick, nothing about this game is really any better than Fast & the Furious.  And since F&F is already terrible enough as it is, this game is truly mediocre.  Your money's better spent playing a Sega racer.  LAZY REVIEW SCORE: 4.4

H2Overdrive

Check out the official H2Overdrive page.

Oh God, another Raw Thrills racer.  This can only turn out badly.  So there was a twin cabinet setup at D&B's and I decided to give it a shot since I hate myself and want to take the hit so that the rest of you don't think about playing this lousy ass game.  EDIT: Thanks to the anonymous poster who said that this game was just published my Raw Thrills and actually not made by them.  Bonus point on the review score!

I'm just kidding with this game sucking so bad.  Anyway, I heard that NBA superstar Rajon Rondo owns his own personal H2Overdrive machine.  How do we know this?  Check it out.

Good for Rajon!  However, I have different opinions.  The game has seven tracks and nine boats.  It plays pretty much the same as Hydro Thunder.  Pick a boat, pick a track, use the handle to speed up, collect the little blue/red boost thingies, and race to the finish.

I picked the hard track "London Underground" as well as some other hard difficulty boat.  Anyway...there's really not much to say about this game.  It's practically Hydro Thunder but with different stuff.  Problem is the game didn't seem as "exciting" as Hydro Thunder was.  This H2Overdrive version felt washed up.  Hence while I was playing the London Underground level, I was driving through these dark alleyways, dodging police boats and buoys while bouncing off the walls.  I tried doing the jump trick to reach the high boosts\ but failed because they must've changed how to do it or I'm just an idiot.

The London Underground level wasn't that great.  After plowing through dreary canals and sewers for a minute, I had a sneaking suspicion that I would fall through the ground into a vat of lava/radioactive waste.  Instead, I hit a ramp and flew into a happy forest setting with a sign that reads "Ye Olde Finish Line."  That's great, Raw Thrills, after fumbling around the most depressing level ever, I finally see blue skies and a few hints at something pertaining to Renaissance England and the race is over.  It only lasted about 90 seconds which, like in Dead Heat's case, isn't great.

Like in Dead Heat and every other Raw Thrills racer, you can save your progress with a password.  I really don't know what for but it seems like another gimmick to get people to play more than once.  Overall, this game is just "meh" to me so that's what score I give it.  I'd probably take Hydro Thunder over this.  LAZY REVIEW SCORE: 6.0

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There were a couple more racing games at D&B's such as Fast & Furious Super Cars, Fast & Furious Bikes, Dirty Drivin', Need for Speed: Carbon, Tokyo Police Cop (wtf indeed)...I mean, what's the point of playing any of these games?  Playing any of these games meant one less play at Daytona USA so why waste my time with that dreck?  It also meant I had to wrack my brain even more writing more details about these non-Sega racers.  So I went to play Daytona USA and that was the end of it.  BTW, yay Olympics.  So that began today?  Cool, back to watchin NASCAR races...

EA Tiburon Field Trip And Retrospective (Do They Really Suck That Bad?)

So today, me and 50 other people from school drove 15 minutes up the road to tour EA Tiburon for a couple of hours.  While the words "EA" and "building" together conjure images of an Eldritch Location, the real estate is quite nice.  It's in this business park next to a Charles Schwab and Fidelity place.  The first building you see is the main studio.  Adjacent are two parking garages--one for employees, the other for visitors.  So where is EA getting all these visitors???  Um, whatever, we park wherever we can.

View Larger Map

This is it if you're interested.  So anyway, it's a six-story building.  First floor has a lobby, a store full of EA goods (including wonderful t-shirts that make you a big hit at gaming conventions), a conference room, and a cafe adjacent to a enclosed park/picnic area.  Second floor is marketing/finance stuff.  Third floor is NBA.  Fourth floor is Tiger Woods.  Fifth floor is Madden.  Sixth floor is NCAA Football.  So they're working on four games at once in the building.  There's about 350 employees working here right now.

The tour began with us all going to the lobby, getting a pass and a bag of EA freebies.  I got an EA Sports blue t-shirt and foam golf ball!  Others got mini basketballs & footballs.  Damn shame cause if they still did NASCAR then maybe I'd get a tire!  But anyway we were taken into a conference room where some guys talked to us about EA and stuff.

The propaganda presentations were about the Tiburon studio--"this is how we were founded" and "we're on the cutting edge of technology/social media," you know, all that softball stuff to get you loosened up.  Later we would all split into groups--the developers, the producers, the software engineers (they don't use the term "programmer" there), the tech artists, and the regular artists.

Oh, and about that NDA I signed...hardly anything mentioned was confidential.  During the programmer presentation, it was mostly about programming/shader/new tech stuff.  I couldn't even remember it all anyway and the blinds were open so anyone could look in and see for themselves (OMG, A SHINY LEBRON JAMES IN NBA LIVE).  Although we weren't allowed to bring cameras past the front gate.  Okay, sure thing, lady.

Frankly, these chats went on for way too long...I was waiting to tour the damn building.  But nonetheless, I got to ask a few questions for the EA guys:

"Will Sean Peyton be in Madden 13?"  Everyone cracked up.  Apparently not but it's because he wasn't part of the "coaches' club" or something so his likeness wouldn't be in the game anyway.

"Do you know where Peter Moore is?"  Peter Moore...that Sega bastard that killed the Dreamcast.  Apparently, he's living in San Francisco as the COO of EA Sports.  Didn't know he moved up so fast but w/e.  I'm always on the lookout for Sega guys.

"What happened with the NASCAR license?"  Apparently, EA decided to drop the series because they thought they'd make more money elsewhere. *coughFIFAcough*  I was wearing my Daytona Speedway hat so I looked like a moping racing fanboy I suppose.  Hey, it was a good question.  If they were still working on NASCAR, I might be more enthusiastic about an EA career.

(to an ex-student) "How similar is work at EA compared to grad school?"  Not much, apparently.  EA mandates that if you work too long a couple of days that you must go home and take a break.  I guess they don't want half-asleep programmers ruining the Perforce & stuff.

I should mention something funny.  During all this, some people brought out a bunch of goodies for us to enter for a raffle.  The prizes were some old-school EA t-shirts/phone cases, a bookbag full of EA games, an authentic Cleveland Browns helmet signed by Peyton Hillis (still in the box), some pair of shoes, and a pro-gaming headset.  Everyone got two tickets each and put theirs in the buckets of the prizes they want to win.  Everyone went heavy on the EA games and the headset.  Me?  I waited and put my tickets in the box with the best odds-to-value ratio and that was the NFL Helmet.  Surprise!!!...I won an actual NFL helmet signed by Madden '12 cover star Peyton Hillis.  It was the highlight of my day.

Me upon winning the helmet

Okay, time to go tour the building.  Obviously, I went on the "Engineer" tour.  Unfortunately it was a brief one and we only stopped on one floor--the six floor with NCAA Football development.  Even more unfortunate was that I had to haul that damn Peyton Hillis helmet around the entire building..."Whatcha got there?"  "Oh, I won a Peyton Hillis helmet in a raffle!"  The place looked rather...normal.  There were hardly any employees working at the time but the ones I saw looked clean.  The cubicles were densely packed but everyone had their own posters & toys so it really isn't that much different than grad school.  They had tons of reference posters of college football stuff for obvious reasons.  There was also all sorts of free food--chicken wings, cereal, candy bars, macaroni & cheese.  And a Mortal Kombat cabinet.  Didn't stop at the NBA, Tiger Woods, or Madden floors since they're pretty much the same thing with the same floor format (uniformity, it's in the game!).

The tour ended and we went to the cafe/picnic area, got some sandwiches and drinks and there were lots of EA guys around.  Most of them were young guys.  Everyone seemed nice and not terribly obnoxious.  Obviously, being socially awkward as I am (and still holding the Peyton Hillis helmet), I stuckwith my classmates.  I get a conversation or two with some tour guides and stuff because I radiate this aura about me as I sit lonely in the crowd staring at stuff and eating free M&M's and Twix bars.  There were also cookies with EA logos on them.  I'm sure they were delicious.

That's where the EA tour ends.  Regardless of my future with EA, I still got to see a legitimate game studio for the first time so the experience was alright.  Lately, everyone's been passing out resumes for job/internship interviews.  I dropped mine in a couple of inboxes--EA's included.  So I might have an interview with them really soon.  Hmm, interesting...a job interview with EA.  I just blew my mind.  They like to devour these newbie programmers...about 75% of them from previous classes (I'm not making this up) so that's pretty heavy.

Here's a bit of an aside from my recent expedition.  Looking at Electronic Arts for the millionth time, they're still full of crap in my book.  You can bring up a million reasons why EA sucks--the DLC, the DRMs, the killing of studios, the constant iteration of the same games, etc.  But give EA some credit since they do something right.  They're efficient, successful publishers.  If it weren't for them putting out mega hits like Mass Effect or Battlefield, you'd never have the luxury of ever playing them.  As for being an "evil" corporation, I could care less how much money EA makes.  The fact is I dislike them for other reasons...things that seep over to games I am actually interested in.

During the initial presentations, one thing we got a lot of was the "exciting new technology" from EA.  This included the new Madden tackle animations (look at this) and the realistic NBA light shaders (all the specular lights from the sweaty players, hence shiny Lebron James).  You know...it's great and all but I ask, "Where's the gameplay?"  Oh sure, for the most part new features/R&D begets new gameplay but still...it's the same game trapped in an eternal cycle.  "Oh, give us a few more years and we'll perfect it!"  Some EA guys said this is not a rehash at all and even went as far as to talk about 2K Sports and the exclusive NFL license.  BTW, did you think these guys were going to say anything remotely bad about themselves?  I don't think they're as evil as gamers say but I also don't think they're as good as they say about themselves.  Gaming is such a cut-throat business you take everybody with a grain of salt (even our beloved Sega).

In other words, if I hop on board with EA, I'm afraid most of my work with shaders/graphics.  Nothing really "new" in terms of gameplay besides bug squashing and whatnot.  Maybe I'm overstating this but that's the impression I got from the conversation.  And thus, this leads to even greater problems.  Yeah, EA puts out decent games but a lot of it is monotonous, only to be saved by massive, MASSIVE production value (EA has that $2 billion war chest, remember?).  And that's okay if that's their business plan.  I just think these big budget, broad, casual, play-it-safe titles are mainly what makes the game industry suck these days.  Hey, if EA is making money off this strategy, other publishers will follow suit.  Doesn't matter how stupid it is, if it sells, MAKE IT ANYWAY.  It it can't break 2.5 million copies, it's a failure (technically 5 million if you take it from this EA guy pertaining to Dead Space 3).

Sports, okay, I'll let those slide since there's no room to improve on that besides graphics.  But this mostly applies to Need for Speed I might add, most of which I find mediocre.  Most everything they make is a sequel or rehash in some way.  Hell, even Origin is a ripoff of Steam.  If it weren't for the HUGE IP's they've recently acquired like Mass Effect or Battlefield, I doubt anyone besides the sports junkies would care about EA.  Yeah sure, EA has recently made NBA Jam or NFL Blitz but those are just remakes which are really no better than the originals except for the graphics.  NFL Street was good but they canned it way too soon.  Skate is new I suppose.  Tony Hawk has gone to crap so at someone stepped up to the plate instead (speaking of which, where's the baseball games, EA???  Little Facebook/iPhone apps don't count).

EA I AM DISAPPOINT

On the other hand, there's one of the most beloved game developers in the world, Nintendo.  Now I'm not a huge Nintendo fan but I respect them for coming up with clever new IPs over a long time span like Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, Smash Bros, the Wii, etc.  Even if they use the same IPs often, at least they do different things with them (different generations of Mario & Zelda).  Yeah sure, they've made some blunders recently but only extreme segments of gamers really hate Nintendo.  On the other hand, you can't say the same thing about Electronic Arts whom everyone seems to be indifferent to or hate.  Holy cow, EA won the Worst Company in America contest, what did you expect...that people love EA???

And how about Sega?  Hey, I'm not denying production value is bad (Sega was on top of things with arcade hardware like OutRun or Daytona which made them even more successful) but at least these games came with revolutionary gameplay.  And how about the Dreamcast?  Most people overlook this but Sega had some serious GUTS back then!  Look at all the IP's they released in that time: Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, Space Channel 5, Samba de Amigo, House of the Dead, Sega Bass Fishing, Seaman, Super Monkey Ball, Shenmue.  I mean, geez, if modern-day EA went back in time and made their own figurative Dreamcast, what games would they make for it?  A bunch of sports titles, a Need for Speed, and some more titles from other companies that they didn't make themselves.

I don't know.  Taking shots at EA gets old after a while.  It's really dumb.  So how can I still think about working for these guys?  I have my doubts.  But these guys apparently like making Madden and NBA games (I assume...defectors will be PUNISHED by their EA overlords).  And no one there is really a scumbag--they're just guys working on games and getting along just fine.  If you're not emotionally attached to one particular game/genre/company then EA is probably up your alley...BUT THAT'S NOT ME.

I make a big deal out of the games I want to work on.  This can be a terrible attitude to have at times but I can't help it since if it weren't for Sega, I'd never be in this scenario in the first place!  So assume I get a job at EA.  While I struggle to program a simple shader at an EA "incubation session," Sega continues to commit suicide and by the time I make it there, they'll be dead.  You can't flat out ask any of these guys "hey, do you know how I can work for Sega?" since they obviously want people to stick with them and no one else!  The EA experience helps a lot on resumes, if that means anything.  You can also use that in-house experience to slingshot to other EA studios across the world (this includes Bioware and DICE) but that's not where I want to touch down, of course.  Still, it's SOMETHING to think about.

I have mixed emotions about EA and the whole thing right now.  Hey, I don't know where to work right now but in the coming months, we'll just examine our job opportunities and choose.  EA's not off the table but I am super hesitant.  There's smaller studios where I'd feel more at home that are eager to hire people in the Orlando area.  I can't spend all my time worrying about the future cause then I won't have fun.  Fairly certain everyone is a bit worried as well, even if they don't express it so you're not alone.  Okay, I'm done rambling, another super late night post, signing out...

Assembly Is Making Me Miserable (ft. Shaquille O'Neal)

I know talking about school sucks but I'll be back to Sega games no time!!!

I'm so fatigued right now.  I spent almost all week working on my Assembly (programming) homework.  And no, I didn't put this off until late, it was just that aggravating.  Ironing out bugs and whatnot.  This is the final result:

The goal of this assignment is to create a "turret game" that shoots balls at moving targets using a power bar & angle.  Rather than do some mundane 80's arcade game or "space shooter," I decided to make a basketball game.  With Shaquille O'Neal canning 3-pointers at the local playground.  You MUST hit the top of the rim to score points.  The ball will go "swish" and fall through the rim which is super-tight.   Oh and BTW, the rim moves back and forth.  Note that in this screenshot, the square cut-out on the ball is only temporary.

I got carried away and decided to polish the hell out of this.  One reason is because, in class, we're holding a "contest" in that the students who post the best screenshots of their game in action are nominated to win some free prize and get their work published at an end-of-the-year party (score points with potential employers).  Three games were chozen.

How were they chosen?  The teacher brought in two random judges to look at the screenshots (without knowing whose made what game) and pick the three they like the best.  Who were these judges?  Heh...the teacher walked down the hall and hauled in two female art students.

My game didn't get picked purely because it's basketball.  Girls don't like sports.  I lost out to a game with the art teacher's floating head as a destroyable object. I didn't get any such "props" or anything to keep my head held high that day. Oh my, what a horrible day. I got hosed. I'm pissed off and super tired but I'm not going to let that get in my way...we can't grieve forever, gotta get BACK TO BUSINESS!! (the joys of programming...)

So, I'm going to preserve the game & source code for you and me. Take a look and see for yourself how much "fun" this is. I'm not letting this game go to waste (like many programming assignments of the past). If you want to run the game, hit the jump and take a look at the source code.  You need to copy & paste this into an Easy68K Assembler file (click here to get Easy68K).    Then run & compile it.  You must also save the two .bmp files you see to the same directory as your code.

NOTE: Please don't read this code for the sake of criticizing me--my teacher will give me enough of a tongue lashing later on.

OutRun 2, Crossword Puzzles, Game Flaws, NBA Elite, MW2

These last few days were kind of interesting because I got the chance to do a couple of Sudoku's in the USA Today.  Yeah, I like to do those--I remember them in Brain Age for the DS and they're not hard as long as you use a pencil...  I also did a crossword.  Now those are hard--I had to Google some terms but I figured it out without calling the 1-800 number.  What is the prayer book of Zoroastrianism (Avesta)?  A column foundation piece (socle)?  Oh yeah, I really was supposed to know those.

I also got the chance to play OutRun Online Arcade in a long time and it was really refreshing...just nice to see all those colorful landscapes, crazy drifts, just good stuff.  And yeah, that game's not easy either--I was twitching all over the place mostly because I think I had the sensitivity too high.  Yeah, I look at the times that my friends F40, rjay, all of them set and it certainly seems tough...give them some credit.  Oh, and if you haven't bought ORA for Xbox 360 already, just do it...

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I would like to talk about this funny story I've heard and then transition into game design-ish stuff.  First, in case you're not up on sports, there were supposed to be two NBA games released this year.  One is NBA 2K11 which has Michael Jordan in it--can you believe it?  The other is NBA Elite '11 by EA Sports which is supposed to be the glorious return to the Live series...well, things aren't looking so great for them once again.

The Elite demo came out in mid-September or so and the actual game was supposed to be released in early October.  Well, just a week before the release date, EA postponed the game indefinitely.  Let me repeat, a WEEK before the release date.  RIP.  The game was hallmarked by a bevy of glitches, among them the "Jesus" glitch where a player stands in the center of the court, arms spread, not moving at all.  Wow, what a glitch.  This is the video that cost EA $60 million!  This is legendary IMO.


NOTE: The uploader's account was suspended once, here's the same video again:

WARNING: Some Profanity NSFW


Or you can watch the "longer" version here (3:00 is when it gets good).


The Jesus pose is merely the "default" pose for any given player model--if not assigned a wireframe, it will just snap to that.  Standing at the dead center of the court (the origin: 0, 0, 0) not moving at all, one could assume that all data on that player (in this case, Andrew Bynum as "Jesus") has been dumped/erased thereby taking him out the game.  This glitch is widespread and I really can't believe something like this exists in a game...I was cracking up in tears over this.

There's no way that EA's going to compete with 2K Sports with a buggy product.  I'm all for delaying the game if it means it will be semi-decent.  But why do developers do this?  This all began with the 360--release the game and patch it later.  You couldn't patch N64 or PS2 games, but now, let's just do it all the time...  This everyone knows I'm sure.  But it's not just glitches to fix--it's game balance issues as well.

Look at Modern Warfare 2.  It's not that bad a game, I've played it up to 4th prestige on the PS3, 1000/1000'd on the 360, it sold tons of copies, but I've never seen a game community SO BITTER over a product before.  Not just glitches and exploits, but noobtubes/grenade launchers, knife sprinters, annoying perks, killstreaks, etc.  Just a lot of things that that should've gone back to the drawing board.  But that's the thing--glitches and balance issues only bother a small portion of the consumers, enough for game devs to say "Screw it, just release the game, we'll sell tons of copies anyway."

I mean, call me old-fashioned, call me puritan, but if you're gonna go out of your way to hire hundred of employees to work for two years, design a game engine from the ground up, work on art design/models, advertise, etc. I would at least make sure the game is somewhat solid and pleasing to everyone.  Why leave a game at 80-90%?  I mean, how many opportunities do you have to work on a project of such a grand scale?  The only reason why these games are as they are is because of greed--pure and simple.  Yes, I know that greed is good in driving people to be successful as possible, but not when it means denying the consumer a solid product.

I imagine that all gamers have select games they really wanted to like, but are heartbroken to find out how flawed they are...like say someone really liked Modern Warfare 2, they say "I love everything about this game more than any other game, the graphics, the guns, the sound effects, EXCEPT for all the noobtubers, IF ONLY THE DEVS COULD HAVE FIXED THAT..." and then they spend the rest of their lives mourning over what could've been a better game...  Usually, these flaws are easy fixes that the devs pass up.  Considering the nomadic nature of gamers, we are rarely satisfied by one game so we just keep moving on to get our fill which kind of sucks...

I miss the old days where you didn't need hundreds of people to work on a game...NES, Genesis, SNES, N64, games that only needed thirty or so people.  I talk about Goldeneye N64 quite a bit and that was a game made by a small bunch of novice developers that went on to be one of the most memorable of all time.  I've heard that the multiplayer source code was created overnight by one man, amazing stuff.  Same thing with Daytona USA and stuff, small groups of people make good games.  It's more personal to them instead of being caught up in crowds of hundreds.  That's just the way I see it--with games becoming so intricate due to graphics, processing power, etc. you're not going to see any "small" games outside of the standard indie/iPod/flash game or whatever.

Next time you beat a game, do this.  Count how many people are mentioned in the credits.  And no, silly stuff like marketing and special thanks don't count--look for how many people sat in that developing studio and got their hands dirty--programming, modeling, art design, sound, you name it.  You'd be surprised.

I guess the good news about newer games is that with the increase in communication--magazines, internet, game rentals, downloadable demos--is that there's less ability of devs to BS you...back in the NES days, there were a lot of good games, but also plenty of abysmal ones.  You just bought and game and hoped for the best.  Nowadays, you can't really push a piss-poor product, but then again, you see a lot of lukewarm games that aren't really good or bad.  This is mostly because of the informational aspect, plus having tons of coworkers to rely on in case you slack off (someone's gonna get the game done, even if it's sloppy).


I was going to talk further about Dead Rising 2 in this post but I'm gonna postpone that for later.  Peace.