lost in games

Ever since Microsoft announced that it would be bringing the Live video service to Europe (US only so far) i was both happy and sad.

Happy because i believed (and still do) that this is one of the most important features this generation’s consoles will have i.e. downloadable movies and series.

Sad because i knew that the service would definitely be restricted to certain countries due to licensing issues. According to Joystiq the new MS Points Cards state that the service willo only be available to Xbox Live members in the UK, Germany and France.

The service is thought to be included in next week’s (4th of December) dasboard update. I doubt that “phoney” accounts will do the trick. Most probably they will be checking the console’s IP address thus locking out other countries including countries where even the Live service is still not available like Cyprus.

I wonder if the whole Live service will ever be officially released here. If the service providers working with MS in other countries are making profits on this i don’t understand why CYTA or some other provider can’t do the same here.

Of course we are talking about a country where you are charged more than Euros50/month for a 1mbit/128kbs connection….

Dear Microsoft,

Although i will never, ever forgive you for completely abandoning the original XBOX once the 360 was launched i want to say thank you for this latest update of the backwards compatibility.

I don’t say that often but when a company, two years after launching its console, is still updating the backwards compatibility i do find it commendable.

You announced yesterday that a further 80 titles of the original XBOX are now playable. In this updated backwards compatibility list i found Freedom Fighters. I have been wanting to play this game for some time now but was put off by the fact that i had to bring back the original XBOX to the living room. Although this is still US only i believe and hope that real soon i will be able to play my PAL version too.

At a time when one of your competitors asks gamers to pay a premium to have backwards compatibility i applaud your commitment to letting gamers have a taste of the old.

Thank you again. I am a happy customer.

I have been taking the easy way lately with some of my gametime selection. I have been choosing games that are longer than average but are not particularly hard. You see i get easily frustrated. And then i mean frustrated, i mean really pissed off. My neighbours may be under the impression that i am insane with all the yelling and screaming.

That’s why i have taken the easy way out. Long and easy games. Until i read SVGL’s blog on the feeling she gets when she is playing a particularly difficult game.

Here’s an excerpt from her article “Difficult Games: The New Brain Training”

I began to memorize levels, to arrange myself precisely on the same pixel time and time again to coordinate an attack. I accepted that I would fall, repeatedly, into the same gap, be slain again and again by the same boss. I realized that, yesterday, when I’d died so many times (where was my graceful leaping, my effortless succubus-spanking?) I’d presumed something was wrong, either with the game or with me. Now, I’ve got my memory back — this is the way it’s supposed to be.

Games can be challenging even when they are far more intuitive. But this kind of gameplay that engages every fiber of your concentration stirs old reflexes, wakes wrinkles in my brain that have been slumbering for years. Screw Brain Age, man. I’m gonna beat Rondo.

I read this at the time i was having the Metroid Dilemma. A game which i found frustrating and tedius at the time. That’s when i said, “Screw my peace of mind, I want to feel alive! I am going to beat Metroid Prime. ”

And you know what? As i get more into the game the less frustrated i get. In fact I am at 72%, and am loving every bit of it. A sense achievement can go a long way.

Microsoft released a list of known issues with regards to the games (e.g. Halo, Fable etc) which will be available for downloand after the fall dashboad update. I had this experience with SW:KOTR which i played on the 360 emulator and had audio issues and more importantly severe slowdown/frame rate issues which made the game almost unplayable at the later stages of the game.

It is disgraceful for MS to make available to consumers products which are known to have such issues. Especially since at the 14Euros price you can find most xbox original games in mint condition on Ebay which gives you the option to play the game either on the 360 or on the original Xbox which will have no issues.

Have you ever played a Zelda game? If yes, then you have basically played the rest of the series’ iterations as the story is always the same, the theme and setting is always the same and the weapons are almost always the same with a couple of new ones added each time.

Check out this “review” of Zelda Phantom Hourglass on the DS. So funny and true. Brilliant!

“This week on Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee travels to Hyrule to save a princess, etc.”

I have not been able to find time to buy the game (plus the fact that the game has serious online issues) but i was directed by a Destructoid blog entry to Gamespot’s review of the game. It appears that once each PS3 copy of the game locks on to a particular online account. Therefore if the game is taken to be played on another PS3 the online mode is not accessible via the other user’s account.

Gamespot Review

It’s also worth noting the online registration process, which locks your copy of the game to your Konami account for online play. This means that if you ever want to sell your copy of the game, the next person will be unable to play online unless he or she has your registration details. To our knowledge this is the first time this has happened in a PS3 title, and Konami’s UK office declined to respond to enquiries over why the system was implemented.

The industry has long been moaning about used games being a huge problem and it appears that this is one of the ways they may be starting to tackle it. For me this is a non issue. Since i have bought the product, and probably at the steep price of CYP40 as well, i am entitled to use it however i want for as long as i want. If for some reason i want to sell it then i should not be penalised nor should the second hand buyer much like second hand market for cars, cds, books etc. Only time will tell whether more developers and publishers will follow this route.

I have talked about this before in comments i made about a Time article on Halo 3. How games are perceived by non gamers and the acceptance of games as a form of art. There is a discussion going on at N’Gai’s blog over at Newsweek about this with some really good comments worth reading. It is a never ending debate but one which needs to be made and fortunately now there are people who can now do so in a mature manner, strong arguments and in more influential positions. You can just look at the way the issue is now being discussed to realise how much the medium and its fans have matured.

This is a comment posted by a Newsweek user, StolenName

I’m 22 at the moment and when I read these interviews (Clive Barker interview) I actually feel younger than I am, call it lack of experience, but from what I can glean from your interviews with Barker and the media at large, it seems like critics, whether of art, film or novel, are close minded or myopic. Couldn’t their rejection of media like games and music be partly because they have no way of understanding the mixed media, as games are a marriage of visual, audio, writing and player interaction, and actually finding a way to understand that within their on learned discourse?

And also, N’Gai, do you believe that as younger gamers grow older and begin to move into the industry (as I’m trying!) and the older critics move on, that the perception of games as art / not art or for adults (as well as children) will shift? Or is there something about games in particular that forces them to remain an under-appreciated artistic medium by the general public?

To which N’Gai replied:

StolenName, every critic has assumptions, biases, prejudices, dogmas and blind spots, all of which add up to what some might call myopia and others might call personal taste. The challenge is for we critics to recognize the baggage that we bring to the table and to constantly engage it–publicly, whenever possible–so that our readers can see us working through our thought processes.

As you correctly point out, games present a particular challenge to older critics because while many older media only require the intended audience to have eyes and/or ears, videogames add a mechanical component that necessitates varying degrees of skill. I’m fond of saying that we “see” games with our hands; unfortunately, this means that a number of people who sit in positions of influence and authority over videogames–parents, politicians, protesters, even some publishers–are for all intents and purposes blind to the medium.

As for whether or not demographics alone can solve the art/not art conundrum surrounding videogames, I don’t believe that that alone will be sufficient. First, there are many people who make videogames who don’t believe that games are art–Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto and Konami’s Hideo Kojima among them–and the same is true of a lot of people who play games. Second, those of us who do believe that videogames are art are still struggling to understand and articulate the nature of that artistry. If I had to predict, I would say that the process by which videogames may become widely accepted as art will be both long and incremental, and its success is not guaranteed.

There are more comments like these over at the Newsweek blog - LINK

Last night i was playing Jeanne D’Arc on my PSP. I finally reached the big boss and after 30-45mins i managed to defeat him. Or so i thought. There is a second stage for defeating this boss. I got really mad!!!!!

I have to say that I am extremely opinionated on this subject as I really hate bosses in general and especially the final boss in a game. I find bosses to just be time consuming and I don’t think there is a great skill involved. You just need to die a few or many times and figure out the pattern that will help you defeat the boss.

I remember playing PSI-OPS with a friend and whenever we got to a boss I would gladly hand over the controller for him to take over. It was just boring for me. As simple as that.

Okami, one of my all time favourite games, is a great boss offender as you had to fight the same main boss again and again and again and again! Literally! And if that wasn’t enough you also had to fight all the other bosses again at the final stage of the game. I could hear my controller cracking before each boss fight. I just wanted to break it in half.

The only time I loved a boss was in God of War. Not the whole final boss fight mind you. Only the second part where you had to defend and give health to your family against an onslaught of other Kratosses (is that the right way to say it?). Maybe it was because it wasn’t your typical boss fight and also because of the deeper meaning of that particular fight.

There you have it. I really hate final boss fights. I long for more non boss fight games like Halo or even Ico (just one final boss). I can dream can’t i?

Most of the high profile games have now been released but there some excellent games left which i have to say i am pretty excited about. First off is Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (9/11/2007) on which we had a lot of fun during the beta testing. I just hope they improve the lag issues as this was a serious problem.

The other shooter i am excited about is Haze on the PS3. I have not been playing on the PS3 for some time now so it will be a good opportunity to do so alongside Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction (9/11/2007). The latter has been getting good reviews so far with the exception of gamespot which only gave it a 7.5.

Late November is Mass Effect (23/11/2007) on the 360 which could be a game of the year contender. I have been hearing great comments about this game on podcasts from reviewers. Can’t wait.

Amazingly i have 3 titles for the Wii which has been hybernating ever since i finished Twilight Princess. Metroid Prime: Corruption which is coming out this Friday and Super Mario: Galaxy (16/11/2007). Lastly its Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbasos’ Treasure with a release date in December according to play.com’s pre-orders.

So many games out there. If somebody told me that i could only play one of these games i would go nuts. But if i really had to choose i would go with Mass Effect and Super Mario: Galaxy a close runner up.

Which game would you choose?

Yesterday, i talked about the new 40GB PS3 model and who i think will and should buy it.

Today i would like to quote some excerpts from N’Gai Croal’s reaction at Level Up in his article Broken Promises: Why the Elimination of Backwards Compatibility With PS2 Games Is Great For Sony–and Terrible For Playstation Fans to the news that this new model will be going to North America soon after the European launch.

Like myself he was also disappointed but he goes further to compare the format with other forms of entertainment where backwards compatibility is taken for granted and is standard practice. The gaming industry on the other hand treats this as a privilege and gamers according to Sony need to pay more to acquire it.

In fact even Sony’s current Playstation chief, Kaz Hirai promised this in 2006 with the following statement:

Like N’Gai says, we could not have put it any better ourselves.