Did Not.....Flabbergast?

Well it's been less than a week since Duke Nukem Forever was finally unleashed on a suspecting world and already the knives are out. Common criticisms range from loading times, a structure made from an incoherent jumble of ideas, inane jokes, nothing new to offer the FPS genre and being outpaced by it's older brethren (Half Life and Halo being two such examples)
I've read quite a few negative reviews and it seems everyone is more than willing to put the boot in. Indeed, the only good positive review I've seen came from Good Game - and I was indeed waiting for Bajo and Andrew Hansen to suddenly turn around and say "Just Kidding: THIS is what's really like."

It may be too soon to deem the eventual product/conclusion of the DNF saga to be a complete failure but, for the purposes of this post, I'm going to do it anyway. You see, looking at the divisive opinions of DNF it seems that everyone is angry by the fourteen years of inaction and, as a result, can't escape that fact - thus leaving many critics more than willing to put the boot in. It's as if the development time was more important than the game itself - but me, conversely, I find the fan reaction more important than the game itself. I'm intrigued that people can feel so hurt and betrayed that they are ready to dismiss the game before it has a chance to prove itself. I'm fascinated with the idea that people can make jokes for so long about this game and can get angry with the idea of their joke being taken away from them. I'm enthralled that people can get so worked up about a game. I'm amazed that people can be delighted that it turned out rubbish and get so infuriated with the idea that it might actually be good (and before you say a prolonged development couldn't possibly yield a great game then I suggest you retreat back to the bosom of Team Fortress 2).
Indeed, I myself will admit I have yet to play DNF - becuase in all honesty I find the venomous fan reaction far more entertaining. And if the fans garner more attention than the game itself then something has gone very wrong.

That being said, with this saga coming to such an anti-climatic ending, who are the real winners here? Is it 3d Realms? No, they had a hit with Duke3D but the momentum afterward fell apart. Is it Gearbox? No, they just took, what seems to be, a mess and tried to make it go. Is it Duke himself? No, he seems now more like an anachronism. Is it the franchise? No, it seems it won't go any further following this debacle and it's unlikely an attempt to be a better job the second time around a sequel will emerge.
No, I think the real winners are the fans: Those who felt betrayed to a point where they were more than eager to dismiss the game as rubbish. Those who got their wish of an irredeemable disaster. Those who refuse to forgive and forget. Those who have been shouting "I told you so", are shouting "I told you so" and, I suspect, will continue to shout "I told you so" for the next fourteen years. And those who are no doubt waiting eagerly to hear Yahtzee tear into it with the next Zero Punctuation.

Personally, considering the troubled development DNF had, I wanted it to get a happy ending - but there's always the thought of how many people genuinely wanted it to fail.

So GLaD you decided to join us

Recently I finally got my claws on the Orange Box. It may have taken me awhile but I saw a sale and snapped it up for $25. Five bucks for a game? Sounds like a sweet deal for me!
And once I got it home, I made a beeline for Portal. Having heard so much about this I had very high hopes for it and was keen to see how it would hold up.

And what did I think of it?

To be honest I'm not entirely sure.

To begin with, lets get what we know out of the way: When Portal came out in 2007, it was a completely new title that came packaged with two well-established brothers (Half Life and Team Fortress). In the time since then, Portal has scooped up plenty of praise, awards and spawned a whole lot of memes. And it's into this environment I step into.
Maybe I'm an interesting candidate to assess Portal: Unlike everyone who first played it back in 2007, I know exactly what to expect, I have an understanding that this is a highly regarded game and I have become familiar with both the phrase 'The Cake is a Lie' (although more through accident than design) and the song Still Alive (to the point I have downloaded for use in Rock Band).

But that's the thing: Through many words being written about Portal and the prevalence of the Cake is a Lie meme, a lot of the mystique about the game is gone. Anyone playing Portal now is going to go through a completely different experience then those playing it for the first time in 2007 had.
That's not to say that I didn't enjoy Portal: Far from it. I liked the black humour, I liked the challenge of the puzzles and the final confrontation with GLaDOS was intense - yet bizarrely counter-balanced with her witty insults.



But for me the popularity of Portal has more or less killed the subtle nature of the game itself. With Portal being a huge hit and inspiring more than a few catchphrases, there are no surprises left. Sure seeing 'The Cake is a Lie' scribbled on the wall may be a surprise but it's not when you've heard many times elsewhere. And I found the promise of Cake isn't really featured that many times in the game itself - which left me wondering why that aspect of the game got more attention than it did. There were some great ideas being put to work in Portal but it a shame that many of them got lost in GLaDOS' witticisms and endless youtube clips of Still Alive. And I find the reaction to the heart-cube puzzling - and indeed the presence of the heart cube plushy's seem more of an undermining of the point Valve were trying to convey (although personally if you're going to invoke feelings of remorse towards the player you may as well not bother becuase Shadow of the Colossus has already been made).

I guess humour is really hard to pull off in a game: If it's not funny then the game looks silly. But if it's really funny then it ends up being repeated endlessly in chatrooms and e-mails everywhere and it gradually loses it's impact.
And that's what bothers me about Portal: There were some great ideas at work but they seemed to have been lost in a tidal of wave of fandom. Imagine if someone wrote a novelization about Ico and gave their own interpretation on the characters and events in the game. Wouldn't it suck to have all that mystery taken away? Wouldn't it suck to have your own ideas squashed by someone else's? Wouldn't it ruin your own perception of the game?
But then again, Valve have made more games and more fans then that of Team Ico so maybe the adulation should come as no surprise.

Mind you, one consistent theme in this blog is how I've been discovering games in my own time and how I've come out better for it. Indeed this is not the first time I've been intimidated by a game through reputation alone. But in the case Portal, it has made such an impact within such a small space of time - is it any wonder why someone like me would be intimidated?
I don't know: Maybe I should've left it for a few more years.....

DNF-Day

So today's the day that Duke Nukem Forever finally appears. The end of 14 years of delays, frustration, broken promises and unconfined fan rage. I suspect that people will have low expectations and be all-too ready to the boot in.

So who has it? Who's willing to place bets on the length of time before the vile starts appearing on the lips of gamers? Who would be willing to condemn this anachronism in an age of realistic/cover-based shooters?

Still you have to give Gearbox props for trying. From the blurb on the back of the game case:

Put on your shades and prepare to step into the boots of Duke Nukem, whose legend has reached epic proportions in the years since his last adventure. The alien hordes are invading and only Duke can save the world. Pig cops, alien shrink rays and enormous alien bosses can't stop our hero from accomplishing his goal: to save the world, save the babes and to be a bad-ass while doing it. The King arrives with an arsenal of over-the-top weapons, non-stop action, and unprecedented levels of interactivity. This game puts the pedal to the metal and tongue firmly in cheek. Shoot hoops, lift weights, read adult magazines, draw crude messages on whiteboards or ogle the many hot women that occupy Duke's life - that is if you can pull yourself away from destroying alien invaders. With hours and hours of over-the-top single player action, and a range of bodacious multiplayer modes, rest assured knowing the fun will last. Duke Nukem was and will forever be a gaming icon, and this is his legend.

The text suggests the wait was worth it but only the players themselves will be the judge of that.

Choose your tribe

Tribes - are they still prominent within gaming circles?

Being a child of the eighties I can remember quite vividly growing up in the early-to mid nineties. This period is often looked fondly by gamers as The Golden Age of 16 bit gaming. And one of the key elements of that period was the rivalry between the big two: Sega and Nintendo. And as such, one had to pick one side, stick with it and keep defending it no matter how much crap comes from people telling you otherwise.
Of course, now it's changed. Now it's a three way race: Sega has fallen and Sony and Microsoft have stepped into challenge the almighty Nintendo.

So what I want to know is does the rivalry that happened back in the nineties still persisting.
And if so, is it still as intense as it used to be?

I really found the passion of these console debates rather puzzling. I mean, back in the day I played both Mario and Sonic and found them both great games in their own right. I swore allegiance to no console (and still do) favoring the games instead. Thus it is indeed peculiar that the way some fans react. Particularly the Nintendo mob who laughed at Sega fans and treat the Sony fans with the same venom usually reserved for some scum who sleeps with one's wife.



One compelling argument is that when you're a child, your parents can only afford to buy one console. Thus it is a challenge in order not to pick the wrong one. But that argument doesn't really have weight - at least from my perspective because I'm an adult and, like most gaming veterans from the Golden Age, I have the money to obtain more than one console. Thus I have a PS2, a Dreamcast, a 360 and a Wii. But again there is no loyalty - because the games rule.

I can understand a human need to find people with similar interests and band together in groups but the same thing is happening is more war-torn regions in the world today. Conflicts that make these console debates feeble in comparison, dealing with race, territory and an inability to co-exist
Compared to the console debates which are ultimately based on forms of entertainment.

I honestly feel that loyalties can have a drastic effect on gaming in general. Some people may refuse to play anything but the games on their console of choice but in some cases they may be missing out on something good. After all, that goes against something that drives any game: Exploration It is this single drive that makes people pick up games. It makes us keep coming back. It makes us go hunting down everything from every last corner in the game. It makes us to invest so many hours into a game itself. Thus, shunning a system really goes against one of the foundation stones of gaming: Both as a game and a gamer.
I liked the Sonic games, in their heyday, but I wonder how many Nintendo fans overlooked it in passionate (and ultimately futile) disgust. They were great games and at least worth a look. And indeed, I still think it's a delightful irony that the Megadrive Sonic games are now accessible on the Wii Virtual Console.

So to summarize, loyalties may exist but I don't care. I'm only interested in the games.
As we all should.

Forever is Yesterday's Tomorrow Today!

For a laugh, I posted the following poll on Facebook:

So how do you REALLY feel about Duke Nukem Forever finally showing it's face?

o - Hope it sucks so it'll serve Gearbox right for not letting this farce die!
o - Hope it sucks so we can all move on with our lives!
o - Hope it sucks so it'll serve Gearbox right for taking our joke away from us!
o - Hope it sucks so we gamers can have the last laugh that is truly ours!
o - Hope it's actually good so this story gets a happy ending

Ironically, all the votes went into the fifth option....

Rock n Roll Ain't Noise Pollution

Those who have been following my posts on the Rock Band series may suspect that I have RB on both the Wii and the Xbox 360. And I can confirm this: yes I have RB2 for the Wii and Rock Band 1+2+3 for the Xbox 360.

Why the same game on multiple system? Well, it was more accident than design (thankfully). In 2009, I attended an EB Games con in Melbourne where they had live Rock Band on stage, offered to anyone willing to go up and have a go. A promise of a prize was on offer to anyone willing to make an arse of themselves who rocked out. I went up dressed as a Cloud from Final Fantasy 7 and performed a blistering performance of Jet's Are You Gonna Be My Girl. And I won a prize. I told the people running the event I had a Wii as it was the only current-gen console I had at the time. I had no idea what the prize in question will be but I certainly wasn't expecting a complete RB set with game, mike, guitar and drumkit! (yes I've told this story before but what the hell - It's one I'll never tire of telling!)
But eventually a problem arose: the Wii didn't offer backwards compatibility/exportation with any of the other RB titles. Sure I had some DLC to show for it but it also meant missing out on some other cool songs. So when RB3 came around, I got all three of the titles for the 360.

Looking back, I'm not sure if this was a wise move. Sure the graphics on the 360 make it difficult to go back to the Wii but there is also the troubling thought that I would need to go back and download all my favored songs all over again. Sure I have my exportation feature but the Wii can let anyone pick up an instrument and play - without any of the profile building nonsense that can delay the fun.

Indeed, I have a whole lotta dead money on my wii and going through the DLC again means a whole lot more money going up in smoke.
Still, would this be a surprise to any gamer? just think twenty years ago, people were playing a LOT of money for SNES/Megadrive games, whereas now you can pick them up for a few dollars. Makes you wonder if the DLC for Rock Band will be any good some five/ten and a number of sequels later....

RPG Suggestions

I heard that Bioware may continue making RPGs but beyond the confines of a fantasy or sci-fi setting. That's not a bad idea - I mean why not? So many RPGs get the fantasy/sci-fi setting down so why not something else? With a bit of thought and creativity, anything can work.

How about a pirate RPG? I heard Sid Meier's Pirates! started out this way before it turned into the open-world game it eventually became known as. Why not dust off the original idea? Using the Mass Effect/Star Wars KOTOR model, I can see a pirate captain going on a ship with a crew, visiting islands to go on a main quest to find a buried treasure (or something). Along the way, the captain can do sidequests like doing things as a privateer (ie killing certain dudes) or exploring unfamiliar territory. As for character classes, I can see three types (again going with the ME model): Combat (swordplay), Cunning (lockpicking) and Gunner (firearms and explosives).

Or how about a western RPG? If Red Dead Redemption is anything to go by, there may be an audience for Sergio Leoni-inspired antics and certainly room for it the gaming world. Indeed, I would like see a western-based RPG having a character traversing across a world, killing dudes with antiqued firearms and exploring the world he lives in. I like the idea of getting a posse together and riding out into the great wild open righting wrongs and shooting people.

Of course, both the reference points I have mentioned above are both open-world games and such games do a lot and offer so much to the player. Perhaps that's why no RPG's have been attempted in either a pirate or western setting - perhaps they have nothing more to add to that which has already been done.

Oh well....