Hello! You wouldn't know it from watching this space, but I have been busy lately.
First, my review of Child of Eden is up at thephoenix.com. I liked this game, although I utterly failed to connect with it on the level that most of its ardent fans seem to have. My biggest takeaway was that the Kinect version was slightly, though clearly, inferior to the gamepad version. I continue to think that the Kinect will never work if it is used to perform the same actions that a gamepad does. There's a reason Dance Central was awesome -- it would not have been possible to play it with the stock controller.
Also, I appeared on the most recent episode of the Experience Points podcast. Scott, Jorge, and I discussed what makes a game overrated or underrated, and how the expectations we bring to a game color our experiences. I had a great time recording the podcast. I hope you enjoy listening to it.
Finally, while it's not nearly as incendiary as the first, my most recent column at Joystick Division is all about the game I've been playing the most recently: Words with Friends, on the iPhone. In a late-breaking update, I am happy to tell you that I have won a game or two since that column was published. And also lost several more.
Showing posts with label Joystick Division. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joystick Division. Show all posts
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Tuesday, July 05, 2011
The case against Ocarina of Time
My first original column went up at Joystick Division over the weekend. It's called "Hey! Listen! The Case Against Ocarina of Time."
You can probably guess what it's about.
I never have understood the fuss about the game. Before it came out, I was as excited as anybody. I had pre-ordered it from Toys R Us so I could get the gold cartridge. The day it came out, I rushed to the store to pick it up, and drove home recklessly to start playing. Then I found it to be meandering and uninteresting, and before long I put it down.
Several years later, I started a new game, determined to crack its shell. I was successful, in the sense that I finished it, but out of a sense of obligation more than anything. There was a lot that I liked, and just as much that I didn't. After all this time, I still don't get it.
But there's something else I understand even less. I keep reading reviews that say that Ocarina is the best game of all time, or one of the best games of all time, and that the 3DS version is graphically stunning and every bit as good as the original. Then the reviewer gives it one point less than a perfect score.
Really? It's a superior version of your favorite game of all time, and not even that merits a pefect score?
I can only think that the reason not to give it a perfect score is because it's a remake. That's not a good reason. People complain, justifiably, about how reviewers don't use the bottom end of the scale, but it's just as nonsensical never to go all the way to the top. That's what it's there for.
You can probably guess what it's about.
I never have understood the fuss about the game. Before it came out, I was as excited as anybody. I had pre-ordered it from Toys R Us so I could get the gold cartridge. The day it came out, I rushed to the store to pick it up, and drove home recklessly to start playing. Then I found it to be meandering and uninteresting, and before long I put it down.
Several years later, I started a new game, determined to crack its shell. I was successful, in the sense that I finished it, but out of a sense of obligation more than anything. There was a lot that I liked, and just as much that I didn't. After all this time, I still don't get it.
But there's something else I understand even less. I keep reading reviews that say that Ocarina is the best game of all time, or one of the best games of all time, and that the 3DS version is graphically stunning and every bit as good as the original. Then the reviewer gives it one point less than a perfect score.
Really? It's a superior version of your favorite game of all time, and not even that merits a pefect score?
I can only think that the reason not to give it a perfect score is because it's a remake. That's not a good reason. People complain, justifiably, about how reviewers don't use the bottom end of the scale, but it's just as nonsensical never to go all the way to the top. That's what it's there for.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Friday afternoon tidbits
I've had a two-week layoff from reviewing games, and in that time I have played... nothing. Didn't pick up an old favorite, or finish off something that had been lingering. Haven't even turned on a console. Weird. But I've still been reading lots of blogs!
-There were a couple of good editorials at Game|Life this week. Earnest Cavalli said good riddance to Duke Nukem, calling him a relic with no place in 2009. It's true that Duke is an anachronism today, but it's possible that a solidly executed Duke Nukem Forever would have made that seem like a good thing. After all, who doesn't get sucked into watching Commando on AMC every time it's on? Even though the character might still have his place, it's probably for the best that we close the book on Duke Nukem, forever. This game would have had too much baggage, regardless of how it turned out.
(As an aside: Remember when Daikatana was an oft-delayed, much-maligned punchline? It's still got nothing on DNF, right?)
-Also at Game|Life, Chris Kohler decried the looming possibility of an English-only audio track for Final Fantasy XIII. Although I think it would be nice for players to have the option of Japanese audio, I disagree with his premise. Movies and games are not a fair comparison when discussing the merits of dubbing and subtitles. The reason for this is simple: all video games are dubbed.
Sure, I'd rather watch a live-action movie in the original language, with the voices belonging to the actors onscreen. It's jarring when the movement of someone's lips don't match the words coming out of their mouth. And, quite often, inferior actors are used for the voiceover. In a film, the dialogue, the actor's voice, and his movements are equal parts of the performance. You can't reconstitute it from its many parts and make it work. I doubt anyone would argue that.
But in the majority of animated films and video games, the voice actor in the studio is providing only one element of the performance, whether he's the "original" performer or not. He's not doing motion-capture in most cases, nor is the movement of the characters' mouths so precise that you can tell when the lip-synching fails. There is no inherent drawback to dubbing animated characters. The process for giving them voice is exactly the same. (It may be the case that the Japanese voice actors are better than their American counterparts, but that's confusing the issue. The solution to that problem would be to hire better American actors.)
Kohler's larger point about not scrubbing the "cultural odor" from the Japanese-made game is one that I sympathize with a little more, but that's not the reality of the market. If Square Enix wants to sell millions of copies of Final Fantasy XIII to Western audiences, they have no choice. Maybe it's a shame, but you may as well complain about the sun always coming up in the East.
-Michael Abbott makes a great point about what video games are really sending the wrong messages to kids. Certain culture warriors get hung up on depictions of violence, sex, and profanity in games, but one thing they never seem to do is consider the context. Often, violent games make an effort not to reward indiscriminate bloodshed. Even the notorious Grand Theft Auto series sends the cops after you when you break the law. Believe me, I'm not giving a pass to GTA or anybody else, but at least they implement some kind of recognizable morality system in their games (usually too simplistic a one, in fact).
Marketing games specifically to kids that emphasize rabid consumerism, materialism, and social climbing -- that's just as bad. Now, I don't think playing a first-person shooter will make a kid shoot up his school, and I don't think playing Style Up for Prom will make a kid max out her parents' credit cards. But I've called for everyone, from publishers to players, to take the messages of their games more seriously, and what's bad about the games Michael mentions is how innocuous they seem to be. Lots of parents look at Grand Theft Auto and say, "Not appropriate for my kid." What parent would say the same about these?
-Finally, Gary Hodges bids farewell to Joystick Division, and, apparently, to freelance game reviews. Can't say I blame him. It's very hard to do this for the love of the game, especially when there's so much about the game that makes it hard to love. In his reviews for Village Voice Media, and his posts on JD, Gary's always shown thoughtfulness, integrity, and a real ability to get to the core of a game in just a few words. We'll miss him.
-There were a couple of good editorials at Game|Life this week. Earnest Cavalli said good riddance to Duke Nukem, calling him a relic with no place in 2009. It's true that Duke is an anachronism today, but it's possible that a solidly executed Duke Nukem Forever would have made that seem like a good thing. After all, who doesn't get sucked into watching Commando on AMC every time it's on? Even though the character might still have his place, it's probably for the best that we close the book on Duke Nukem, forever. This game would have had too much baggage, regardless of how it turned out.
(As an aside: Remember when Daikatana was an oft-delayed, much-maligned punchline? It's still got nothing on DNF, right?)
-Also at Game|Life, Chris Kohler decried the looming possibility of an English-only audio track for Final Fantasy XIII. Although I think it would be nice for players to have the option of Japanese audio, I disagree with his premise. Movies and games are not a fair comparison when discussing the merits of dubbing and subtitles. The reason for this is simple: all video games are dubbed.
Sure, I'd rather watch a live-action movie in the original language, with the voices belonging to the actors onscreen. It's jarring when the movement of someone's lips don't match the words coming out of their mouth. And, quite often, inferior actors are used for the voiceover. In a film, the dialogue, the actor's voice, and his movements are equal parts of the performance. You can't reconstitute it from its many parts and make it work. I doubt anyone would argue that.
But in the majority of animated films and video games, the voice actor in the studio is providing only one element of the performance, whether he's the "original" performer or not. He's not doing motion-capture in most cases, nor is the movement of the characters' mouths so precise that you can tell when the lip-synching fails. There is no inherent drawback to dubbing animated characters. The process for giving them voice is exactly the same. (It may be the case that the Japanese voice actors are better than their American counterparts, but that's confusing the issue. The solution to that problem would be to hire better American actors.)
Kohler's larger point about not scrubbing the "cultural odor" from the Japanese-made game is one that I sympathize with a little more, but that's not the reality of the market. If Square Enix wants to sell millions of copies of Final Fantasy XIII to Western audiences, they have no choice. Maybe it's a shame, but you may as well complain about the sun always coming up in the East.
-Michael Abbott makes a great point about what video games are really sending the wrong messages to kids. Certain culture warriors get hung up on depictions of violence, sex, and profanity in games, but one thing they never seem to do is consider the context. Often, violent games make an effort not to reward indiscriminate bloodshed. Even the notorious Grand Theft Auto series sends the cops after you when you break the law. Believe me, I'm not giving a pass to GTA or anybody else, but at least they implement some kind of recognizable morality system in their games (usually too simplistic a one, in fact).
Marketing games specifically to kids that emphasize rabid consumerism, materialism, and social climbing -- that's just as bad. Now, I don't think playing a first-person shooter will make a kid shoot up his school, and I don't think playing Style Up for Prom will make a kid max out her parents' credit cards. But I've called for everyone, from publishers to players, to take the messages of their games more seriously, and what's bad about the games Michael mentions is how innocuous they seem to be. Lots of parents look at Grand Theft Auto and say, "Not appropriate for my kid." What parent would say the same about these?
-Finally, Gary Hodges bids farewell to Joystick Division, and, apparently, to freelance game reviews. Can't say I blame him. It's very hard to do this for the love of the game, especially when there's so much about the game that makes it hard to love. In his reviews for Village Voice Media, and his posts on JD, Gary's always shown thoughtfulness, integrity, and a real ability to get to the core of a game in just a few words. We'll miss him.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Conflict of interest
Gary Hodges at Joystick Division has an astonishing interview with one Richard Kain, the man behind games journalism site GameCyte.com, as well as games PR firm TriplePoint. Kain comes off either as refreshingly forthright or embarrassingly unprepared, depending on your viewpoint, but what seems clear is that, until recently, readers of GameCyte were given no indication of the potential conflict of interest in the site's coverage.
Among the points of concern Gary raises:
Among the points of concern Gary raises:
- GameCyte managing editor Jason Babler is simultaneously employed as a creative director at TriplePoint.
- Richard Kain is an investor in Telltale Games. Telltale Games was once a client of TriplePoint. Neither relationship was disclosed in GameCyte's positive reviews of any Telltale titles.
- GameCyte's review of Off Road, published by TriplePoint client Empire Interactive, was among the most positive to be found anywhere.
I'll be honest: I never heard of GameCyte before I read this story. If Kain's claim of 62,000 unique visitors last month is true, then it's not a massive site by any means. And it's well within the realm of possibility that the GameCyte staff is doing solid, independent work. But in journalism, transparency is everything.
Gary sums it up when he says this system is "designed in a way that allows for abuse." That doesn't mean it has been abused, only that the possibility is there. And once you open the door to that kind of suspicion, your credibility among your readers is shot -- or ought to be. The simple remedy is disclosure. That's standard practice for newspapers, and if Kain wants to defend the quality of his site's journalism then he ought to hold it up to the same standard.
It seems that since Gary started talking to the GameCyte and TriplePoint people, they have revised their About pages to include more information about the relationship. If you want to know what games journalism really looks like, read the whole interview. Incredible stuff.
Update: Dan Kennedy at Media Nation, writing on a different topic, shares a hilarious aphorism about conflict-of-interest that I'd never heard before: "You can fuck an elephant if you want to, but if you do you can't cover the circus."
Friday, May 16, 2008
Friday afternoon tidbits
Nothing worth mentioning about the upcoming weekend. Plenty to mention about the past week.
-Where are my manners? Earlier this week, I posted about a Village Voice Media story without mentioning their newish blog, Joystick Division. It's jam-packed with high-concept pieces, the best of which may be Nate Patrin's attempt to play 24 games in 24 hours. Consecutively. There's even a video.
-The latest New Yorker has a story about an experimental treatment for Iraq war veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome: a modified version of Full Spectrum Warrior. This is heartening to hear, and it sounds like preliminary results are encouraging. But it makes me wonder: If it could be scientifically proven that games could affect someone's psychological makeup in a positive way, wouldn't it logically tell you that they could also be psychologically damaging? The difference, of course, is that someone suffering from PTSD is already damaged. Perhaps that makes him more susceptible to this sort of conditioning.
-Gene Koo alerted me to the existence of Valuable Games, a joint venture between Harvard and MIT that aims to, as he put it, instill some "pro-social" values into gamers. Besides their blog, they also meet monthly for discussions. Next Wednesday, they'll be discussing Grand Theft Auto IV. Now that I seem to be off the hook for reviewing anything next week, I just may go. If I do, I'll be sure to report back here.
-If it's not murder simulators teaching kids how to kill cops, it's WiiFit telling them how fat they are. The BMI is a useless tool for measuring fitness, but it's also quick and easy, and that's probably why Nintendo chose to use it. Whoops. I doubt this will turn into a bona fide controversy, but considering how people seem to be going apeshit for this "lifestyle product," who knows.
-Matthew Gallant ponders the upcoming BioShock movie. Count me as cautiously optimistic about this one. I actually think that there's plenty of latitude for the filmmakers to change what's there, while still keeping true to the spirit of it. I'd like it if they went with practical effects for the Big Daddies, but they'll probably be CG. Easy prediction: Dr. Tennenbaum's role will be expanded significantly.
-Where are my manners? Earlier this week, I posted about a Village Voice Media story without mentioning their newish blog, Joystick Division. It's jam-packed with high-concept pieces, the best of which may be Nate Patrin's attempt to play 24 games in 24 hours. Consecutively. There's even a video.
-The latest New Yorker has a story about an experimental treatment for Iraq war veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome: a modified version of Full Spectrum Warrior. This is heartening to hear, and it sounds like preliminary results are encouraging. But it makes me wonder: If it could be scientifically proven that games could affect someone's psychological makeup in a positive way, wouldn't it logically tell you that they could also be psychologically damaging? The difference, of course, is that someone suffering from PTSD is already damaged. Perhaps that makes him more susceptible to this sort of conditioning.
-Gene Koo alerted me to the existence of Valuable Games, a joint venture between Harvard and MIT that aims to, as he put it, instill some "pro-social" values into gamers. Besides their blog, they also meet monthly for discussions. Next Wednesday, they'll be discussing Grand Theft Auto IV. Now that I seem to be off the hook for reviewing anything next week, I just may go. If I do, I'll be sure to report back here.
-If it's not murder simulators teaching kids how to kill cops, it's WiiFit telling them how fat they are. The BMI is a useless tool for measuring fitness, but it's also quick and easy, and that's probably why Nintendo chose to use it. Whoops. I doubt this will turn into a bona fide controversy, but considering how people seem to be going apeshit for this "lifestyle product," who knows.
-Matthew Gallant ponders the upcoming BioShock movie. Count me as cautiously optimistic about this one. I actually think that there's plenty of latitude for the filmmakers to change what's there, while still keeping true to the spirit of it. I'd like it if they went with practical effects for the Big Daddies, but they'll probably be CG. Easy prediction: Dr. Tennenbaum's role will be expanded significantly.
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