Black Box memorial

Above: You will not do this successfully until your 30th try.

My review of Skate 2 is up now at thephoenix.com. This is just a good game, well made, accomplishing exactly what it means to. The word of layoffs at Black Box on the very day the game hit store shelves was all the proof you need that there is no underlying logic to this universe. We are all alone.

This is, by the way, an incredibly difficult game. If you're like me and difficult games get your blood boiling, you should be aware of that going in. I'm not saying to avoid it by any means. Just that it might be worth your while to set up a pile of pillows and blankets that you can safely punch after the 50th straight time you fail to defeat Danny Way in the super park. I was so excited when I finally did beat him, only to discover that it was a best 2 out of 3 matchup.

God damn it.

Friday afternoon tidbits

No cute intro this week. Let's get to it.

-The news of layoffs at EA's Black Box studio must have been a punch in the gut, coming as it did on the same day that the company's Skate 2 hit stores. Black Box also made the apparently terrible recent Need for Speed games, but Skate is the real deal. Hopefully its core team is sticking around for the third game. Good luck to everyone else there in the hunt for work.

-Denis Farr questions the accepted wisdom that Gears of War is homoerotic. Interesting read, although you're never going to convince me that a bunch of sweaty, muscular dudes crouching together is anything else.

-How bad is Sony doing? So bad.

-Duncan Fyfe takes on Yakuza 2, as only he can.

-Jeremy Parish always does great, high-minded work, but a list like "The Worst Presidents in Gaming" is what brings the links.

-Speaking of which, are we what we link? I've always assumed that when I link something, the implication is that I endorse the quality of the article, not necessarily that I agree with the argument. Context helps, I guess. It's a bad idea to assume that people know when you're linking something ironically.

-I approve of Hardcasual's reinvention as Onion-style satire. Of note: "'Parent Killer 64' Had Nothing to Do With Me Killing My Parents," and "UGO Reverses 1up Buyout Thanks to Brave Actions of bdnjfbdenk."

-Is February the month of DLC? Sounds like it. I'm itching to get at Operation Anchorage.

-Iroquois Pliskin is back! I was starting to wonder if he'd died. Sounds like he nearly did.

Friday afternoon tidbits

Ah, long weekends. I'll be spending mine with extreme sports, both actual and virtual. Snowboarding on Monday, weather permitting, and Skate 2 before that.

-Speaking of Skate 2, Gus Mastrapa wonders why the game so explicitly favors male avatars. In Gus's formulation, "if you chose to play with a female avatar in Skate 2, you're not playing a natural-born woman, so much as a post-operative transsexual." It's easy for me, a white, male gamer, not to notice these things, but lots of games make the assumption that the people playing are just like me. That is a little odd.

-I was surprised to see that Giant Bomb readers chose Metal Gear Solid 4 as their game of the year, and not just because it seemed absent from almost every top 10 list I read. It's just that, given the ongoing commercial struggles of the PlayStation 3, it's amazing that enough people even played it to box out some Xbox 360 titles. Then again, maybe the 360 vote was split, while PS3 owners had only this one game to rally around. (Although LittleBigPlanet also placed.)

-Two great write-ups about Braid came down the transom on the same day this week. Julian Murdoch at Gamers With Jobs writes about his inability to separate the work from its author. L.B. Jeffries at PopMatters defends the only universally maligned aspect of the game, its inter-level textual interludes. I'm glad people are still playing and thinking about this game.

-In the 1980s, only Galaga could provide a soft landing for a cocaine-addled Alec Baldwin.

-From Time's Karen Tumulty: "The metaphor came from our TV screens. On the day that George W. Bush gave his farewell address, the image that got the nation's attention was one of relieved survivors scrambling out of a jet that was sinking into icy water."

Gamestop.com user-submitted previews: Skate 2

Above: Sweet Suzie!

Like a lot of people, I'm looking forward to Skate 2. The first game was a real surprise, one of the few games I've ever thought I underrated in my original review. As a result, expectations are high for the sequel. You can tell just by reading what the kids have to say about it over on Gamestop.com.

User "none." gets things started with the airtight logic we've come to expect from our friends on the Gamestop boards:

This game by far beats skate 1. The graphics are/will be amazing and the game play is so much smoother and realistic feeling. Saying the graphics suck from just playing a demo is stupid, its barely 2gb, Just like Cod waw, the graphics were bad on beta and then they turned out to be good. The getting off board mechanics could be a little better but we'll barely ever need to use it unless getting up stairs and what not. It's all about skating, not who can run through the maze fastest. This game will be a must have for 2009. I would recommend this to anyone. give the game a chance instead of judging it by a 2gb demo.

Got that? Don't judge it by the demo, like I did.

The I, Robot award for most excessive use of a titular word goes to "Turbo 2112":

I personal think the demo is great. Skate was a fantastic game and still is. All skate 2 is added additions to skate for example getting off your board. Skate 2 is a great game and way more realistic than the first one. I cant wait to skate the other places in Skate 2.

Thanks to all this repetition, the word has lost its meaning. It's all just a bunch of bullskate.

"Boomshakatak" is a bit less optimistic than I am:

What were they thinking? I played the demo and i have to say what a great way to massacre one of the best games ever made. This game is nothing like the first one, too tony hawkish, controls flat out bite, tricks feel awkward, graphics are terrible. This is the worst let down i have ever experienced.

Let's hope he never gets turned down for a date.

I honestly can't figure out which side of the fence "Sk8SoDontH8" is coming down on:

I am a skater and was getting tired of the same old Tony Hawk games of pushing a bunch of buttons to land something. Then i saw skate and was blown away! Then saw skate two and almost cried!

Cried because it looked so good, or so bad? I can't deal with this kind of ambiguity and subtlety. Fortunately, we've got "A Customer" to get us back to what Gamestop.com user-submitted previews are really all about: unreserved fawning.

Ok all I have to say is... this is going to be the greatest game ever made! I already pre ordered it. I can't wait! Skate number 1 was awesome! Now I can't wait to see what this is going to be like! It is going to be a whole new world to me and a whole new generation of video games!

Not to be outdone, "Grahamatic" says:

I have played skate. for the longest time and to be honest i haven't put a new game in my xbox 360 for over three months. Skate. is the best game ever made and don't even try to argue. The reason I am saying this will be the game of the year, if not best ever made, is because it is only perfecting an already perfect game. Skate. 2 will be the greatest thing ever to happen to the world since sliced bread! Can't wait, so pumped!

I'm speechless, as usual. And then "Deamon" proves, once again, that no joke I can make can possibly top the source material:

This game is gonna Own face all night long, Sweet Suzie! I can't wait to start my own label and make my own spots. That's gonna kick so much ya know what i'm saying dude. How can you not like Skate? C'mon u know u want a PRE-ORDER! WEWT!

But I'm not here to judge. I'm like an anthropologist, bringing you stories of far-off tribes whose cultures are quite different from yours and mine. Sweet Suzie!

Winter preview

Oh hey, check out this preview of the games coming out this winter. I'm looking forward to a lot of them.

Still on vacation.