After the reveal of the Xbox One, it was also revealed that backward compatibility with Xbox 360, and current gen XBLA games, would not be possible given the new architecture of the Xbox One. Though not yet explicitly announced, given that the PS4 is also changing from the PS3’s cell processor to an x86 architecture, backward is also unlikely for Sony games as well.  Nintendo offers full compatibility with Wii and Wii U games and peripherals, but Microsoft and Sony have always been more stringent on compatibility.

So what gives? Why is this such a big deal one way or the other? Should we at all be surprised by Sony and Microsoft’s issues on compatibility? How indignant am I allowed to be? Does this even matter?

The reason this matters to so many gamers, more so now than ever before, is because of the length of this current console cycle. We have all had time to amass tremendous libraries. Not to mention, this is the current generation represents the first time we have widely distributed downloadable titles. We love the idea those old titles continually being supported because if we get rid of our old systems, we are also getting rid of those games too. That’s why this matters to gamers.

Why then is this happening? Well, from Microsoft and Sony’s perspective, backward compatibility doesn’t really generate any profit. Converts from PS3 to Xbox One might want to go back and play the old Xbox exclusive library that they missed out on if backward compatibility were available, however this doesn’t necessarily help the publishers or Microsoft’s bottom line as most gamers would go pick up those titles used. So from Microsoft and Sony’s perspective, the time developing emulators or other methods to make compatibility possible would only represent a loss.

The other reason Microsoft and Sony would be hurt by providing backward compatibility is something we have already seen a great deal of in the current cycle. That reason is just two words: HD Remake. We have seen it again and again with large, popular franchises like God of War and Halo. Those old beloved properties can be improved and re-launched and given that unless the gamer has their old consoles still hooked up and working, there’s no other way to play those games.

Now take what we have seen in this generation and imagine re-launches on the scale of the next gen.  Assassin’s Creed re-launched on next-gen with updated gameplay and graphics (I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t buy that). A Call of Duty Modern Warfare bundle where all 3 are released for next gen. I’m no soothsayer, but you have got to admit, this is all well within the business model for publishers.

So the games that many people will want to play will likely be available again, we’ll just have to pay for them. Consider this also though, what of current gen games after the PS4 and Xbox One launches? Given the tremendous install base that both PS3 and Xbox 360 represent, we will see them continually supported for years to come in the manner of PS2 in the years following the PS3 release. PS3 and 360 might not get all the features, and obviously not the best graphics, but they also might be getting brand new versions of the games for less than the price of Xbox One and PS4 games. Afterall, they can’t charge the same price for both current gen and next gen consoles as they need to imply next gen is worth more by charging more.

Remember how you’re also upset about the prospect of trading games being a thing of the past? Of course you do. That’s where the PS3 and Xbox 360 infrastructure will continue to shine. There are tons of gamers who will be looking to trade in their old games, and you could do quite well if you were interested in picking those games up for a decent price. Remember, everyone here is in the same boat. We all will be playing the old games that matter on the old systems and only with people who also feel that those games are important to still play. It might be a good thing if some people jump ship onto the new consoles. It might actually improve the online experience for a while. At least until the new consoles become ubiquitous.

Look, I feel for you. I too have a huge library of 360 games. I used to sell and trade them but the returns on the games have been dropping so I just assumed to keep them.  I also would love to have a single Xbox that can play everything I have (they did say this was an “All-in-one” entertainment solution). The reality is that we don’t really have an option. If you want to play 360 games you’ll need a 360. They won’t stop working (at least not for single player). Those looking to go back and play the old hits can still buy an Xbox 360 or PS3 (and it will continually become cheaper to do so). No one is stopping you from playing those games, but while you are considering dusting off your old console, might I interest you in an HD remake of FFVII for PS4? What’s that? You want me to shut up and take your money? Like you had a choice.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Everything that can be said about the reasons people are upset, has been: The Xbox One does introduce some restrictive and exclusionary limits to gamers – including mandatory internet and Kinect connectivity and a lock-down on used games.
But apart from the console itself, the reveal has me even more confused as to the future of Xbox:
Why did Microsoft do everything in their power to not talk about gaming?
Is this their attempt to move the medium forward, by moving it sideways – blurring the lines between television, movies, sports (?!), and gaming?

Is it really not enough – too boring, maybe – to tell fans that the Xbox One does in fact play games, and “Here they are!”. Why is the notion of putting a game into your console and playing it becoming antiquated?

As the world of gaming is changing before my eyes, making a principled stand against the new console ecosystem is difficult for me. I have entered a sort of crisis of criticism. Am I being stubborn in the same way many were when considering the idea of the future of phones being touchscreen? These kinds of answers are never truly revealed until several years later, when the technology either takes over (touchscreen phones), or flops (3D Home TVs); and to me, this change in tone from Microsoft is as significant as those.

I am one who enjoys games by myself and with others, shares games with friends, and is really just a person who is hungry to engage in neat fictional experiences in an interactive capacity. This is the only perspective I can offer, and as such, it is what educates my opinion that the Xbox One announcement was wholly uninteresting. So here I am, waiting for E3, hoping developers still have stories to tell me, worried that I’ll have to go through so much more to get the experiences I want, and hoping the future of gaming is not full of inconveniences, gatekeepers, and extraneous features that get in the way of my games.

Or perhaps I’m already out of touch and missing Microsoft’s point of homogenizing our entertainment.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Don’t count me among the people who think Microsoft’s Xbox One announcement was an unmitigated disaster. It wasn’t. In fact, it was exactly what I expected. Why everyone else in the gaming community seemed to be blindsided by it is beyond me.

Now, I’m a news journalist but not one who deals full-time on the subject of games. I don’t talk to industry insiders. I don’t get press releases on new games. I don’t attend trade shows. I play games, I read about games, and occasionally I write about them. Despite the basic level of knowledge this exposure gives me to the inner workings of the industry, I knew exactly where Microsoft was going with its next Xbox. The writing has been on the wall for the last couple of years, displayed daily by the very Xbox 360 consoles sitting next to so many televisions.

Did no one notice the less than subtle transition? Did they assume it was a fluke? Or did they simply think Microsoft wouldn’t dare poke the bear that is the gaming subculture, a loud and sometimes fatalistic collection of voices crying deep into the night on Internet message boards?

Yes, Microsoft is now fully comfortable in placing the Xbox at an intersection where video games, TV, movies, music, and sports meet. Microsoft execs feel confident that the Internet is becoming a more ubiquitous and pervasive entity — something that will consistently be there and available to people at all times. They feel the digital age will usher in a new way to share games with friends as well as buy and trade on the second-hand market. They have the notion that, on the whole, somewhere down the road, people will stop regularly playing their old games in favor of new ones.

I don’t find any of these ideas to be particularly groundbreaking. Microsoft isn’t revolutionizing gaming with Xbox One, it’s simply bringing it up to code with the rest of our modern amenities.

“But what happens if my Internet goes down?” ask people who certainly must be eyeing warily their stove tops and microwaves pondering the implications of an interruption in gas or electric service.

I suppose it won’t work, but catering to the exceptions rather than the rule makes you a better doomsday prepper than a gamemaker. I live in and around some of the most backwoods areas of the continental U.S. you could imagine, but four-wheel drives and smartphones are still pretty commonplace. If your high-speed Internet service is spotty or nil, talk to your local government officials because your situation is far more dire than access to video games given the trend of digitally transferring for all types of information (medical records included).

There’s actually not a lot to hate about the Xbox One once you settle your mind on the fact gaming has become an accepted part of the entertainment spectrum and will be treated as such from here on out. Perhaps we have spent too long skulking in basements and bedrooms, becoming set in our ways partaking in our niche interests. Perhaps this kind of mainstream exposure will ultimately be a good thing for the evolution of the gaming culture.

Perhaps getting out there will help us all see the forest for the trees next time.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Microsoft unveiled the next generation Xbox, the Xbox One, Tuesday in Redmond, Wash. to a tent full of journalists, planted Microsoft cheerers, and to the world via livestreams. The world awaited for Microsoft’s answer to Sony’s Playstation 4 reveal but certain rumors about always-online connectivity and no used games set a dark cloud over the entire event. Instead of subsiding these fears, however, Microsoft reinforced them by confirming daily-online connectivity, used game fees, a focus on television and sports, and having no games showcased other than EA sports titles and Call of Duty: Ghosts.  It became instantly clear that the Xbox One is not only forgetting to keep the wants of the core game enthusiast in mind, it’s leading the industry on a path that will hurt the consumer and the video game market as a whole.

Daily-Online Connectivity:

One of the main concerns people had with the new Xbox was a rumor circulating that it would require a constant connection to the Internet to be able to continue to play games. This would be a form of digital rights management, most commonly implemented for game distribution services like Steam and Origin, that safeguards against piracy. This may sound like a good idea on paper but when a game requires an always-online connection this causes problems most notably with games such as Sim City V and Diablo 3 where if the game detects a lost connection it will boot them out of the game entirely even during single player mode. This greedy form of safeguarding compromises the comfort of the player in order to prevent piracy and displays a total distrust of the consumer.

The entire subject wasn’t mentioned until after the conference when Geoff Keighley asked Don Mattrick about the shady subject to which he responded by saying that an internet connection is necessary for the many functions of the Xbox One but it won’t prevent you from playing the games.  However, later in the day, news articles began popping up about how Mattrick restated that the Xbox One would indeed need to have an online connection once every twenty-four hours.  It wasn’t clear what would happen if the Xbox One fails to detect an internet connection and while it may not seem as bad as how certain PC games have it currently, this is all a slippery slope. If the Xbox One is successful then it’ll give Microsoft and other companies the go-ahead to implement harsher DRM in the future.  This could lead to future consoles becoming always-online machines in the future which will blur the line between owning purchased software and just borrowing it from the publishers.

Fees for Used Games:

Another concern about the next Xbox was that used games would be unplayable on it. This ended up being true. Microsoft confirmed that in order to play used games the consumer would have to purchase the ability to install the game onto the hard drive. Microsoft confirmed that the price for a used game would be the same as its retail price. Taking a look at the 360′s track record of lowering prices on their on demand service some games take up to two years to lower in price. This means if a game costs $30 dollars at Gamestop, it would cost an additional $60 or so to be able to activate it on your console. This model would definitely put a dent in sales in video game novelty stores such as Gamestop. While it’s not yet sure how Gamestop will adjust to Microsoft’s model for selling used games, it can be expected that consumers will not find it convenient to pay over retail price for a game that not only has been on sale for years but is also used. Gamestop might end up just ending all trade-ins of Xbox One games altogether.

The inconvenience will not end there. Imagine asking a friend to borrow a game. He gives it you and after you pay the $60 installation fee, you download it onto the hard drive. Your friend then calls you and complains that he can no longer play his game that he too bought for $60 at the store. After you’re done, you give it back and your friend has no choice but to pay an additional $60 in order to install it back onto his Xbox One. It all, once again, displays a total mistrust and control of the consumer.

No removable hard drive:

The Xbox One is reported to have a 500GB hard drive but unfortunately it cannot be removed. Considering that every game must be installed in order to play, that hard drive is going to fill up quickly and the only other option is to connect an external USB hard drive dedicated solely to Xbox One games in order to expand the memory.

A Focus on Television:

The Xbox reveal event was a little more than an hour long and more than half of it was dedicated to how the console can also work as a television. The first thing shown was Yusuf Mehdi’s attempt to showcase how well you could watch The Price is Right on the Xbox One. Later on, they revealed that a Halo television series is in the works. Not a new Halo game or even an expansion, but a tv show. They advertised a television program during a video game conference. Microsoft proved through their reveal conference that being a glorified DVR comes first before being considered a video game console.

Video Games on the Backburner:

I’ve come to expect Microsoft presenting anything but video games at their e3 conferences. They literally Ushered in a new age of gaming at last year’s e3 conference. From pushing the whole television gimmick to showcasing nothing but EA sports games and the new Call of Duty: Ghosts (which is going to be multiplatform), the desire to create innovative, original, and compelling titles is not needed for the new console. Instead the consumers are getting annual franchises that have brought nothing new to the table for a decade. Microsoft did announce 15 exclusive titles coming to the Xbox One, but my concern is just how many of those will be Kinect titles. Just like this article states it; “Xbox One is the first games console for people who don’t like games.”

Kinect Focused:

Ever since e3 2009, Microsoft has had a goal of putting emphasis on Kinect games in every conference. Kinect has proven to either not work or the games never live up to expectations.  Kinect should have been a dream come true for gamers yearning innovation but ended up being a broken mess and with every Xbox One coming package with a Kinect everything will based around it. Not saying that it will totally substitute a controller, but the always-on Kinect may cause some problems with the overall system. Even during the livestream of the conference, those people watching on their 360s would be cancelled out whenever the presenter would make commands using the Kinect. With  broken technology being on the forefront of the new console, the Xbox One’s future looks dull.

No Backwards Compatibility:

We should be used to no backwards compatibility by now as only the first batch of PS3 units could play PS2 games and only a select few Xbox games could be played on the 360. However, Microsoft takes it to a whole new level; not only can you not play 360 games, reports say that you won’t even be able to transfer previously purchased Xbox Live Arcade games over to the new console. It’s another tactic to get consumers to buy games that they already own except now they have an “HD Remake” sticker attached to it. It’s a shame neither Sony or Microsoft has embraced Nintendo’s view of backwards compatibility.

Aside from no gameplay being shown in the gameplay trailers, Call of Doggie, Sports galore, water coolers, the Xbox One is a frightening look into the future of the video game industry; a future where total control is taken away from the player and put into the company’s hands just to ensure no dollars or cents will slip through the cracks. One can only hope, Microsoft considers these concerns travels down another path. A video game console should be just that; a console made for video games. Video game innovation should be the highlight of the conference, not tv shows. Give me the video games first and let everything else be icing on the cake, not the other way around.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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I’m a bit of a Microsoft fan but for this article I took the stance of someone pissed at Microsoft and their pretty shitty Xbox One reveal. This is me pointing out why everyone is saying the Xbox One sucks. If you’ve got anything to add or say, comment away!

Microsoft’s Xbox One reveal was supposed to be big, shocking and amazing. It was supposed to blow the PS4 reveal out of the water and take everyone by surprise. It was supposed to prove all of the Xbox naysayers wrong. But it didn’t. In fact it went possibly as bad as it could have gone.

I do like Microsoft but why do they never listen?

It’s been a couple of days since the Xbox One event and everyone’s had time to mull over what they saw and heard. Ultimately I was very disappointed by the it, however this isn’t just about what I thought. Gamers everywhere are grouping together and saying about how much the Xbox One sucks and how the PS4 is without doubt going to be better.

Microsoft have received such negative backlash from the reveal event that the question of whether or not they have just completely screwed up the next generation for themselves is becoming ever more asked.

Currently practically no one likes or is siding with the Xbox One. But why? Why does it look like Microsoft have just fucked up their next console? The consumers are the ones that Microsoft needs to impress. And to do this you often have to listen to them and take their views onboard, something Microsoft hasn’t seemed to have done.

There are 3 core issues here that Microsoft did not approach or deal with properly. These 3 issues are what are greatly contributing to the Xbox One looking like a bad deal. These 3 things, which could have been avoided, are what are really causing the consumers to get pissed. These are 3 things Microsoft didn’t take note of, that they didn’t work with the consumers and their users to make work. Why did they do it alone? Why did they not listen? Why do they not seem to have any idea what we, the buyers, the people with the money, WANT?

* The first issue is the lack of games and the whole entertainment side of the console.

Sony’s reveal was all about the games. Sure, they did not show the console and I was very disappointed by how shady they were about some aspects of the it, but they did NOT forget their audience: the ones who they were broadcasting to.

My sister likes movies and TV and entertainment. She does. The things that Microsoft highlighted that the Xbox One does in the entertainment area of things are probably things my sister could very well use and like. But she doesn’t care about the Xbox One. She didn’t watch the reveal. Why? Because she doesn’t game. It’s not her deal. So, Microsoft, the Xbox One is still a games console. It is an XBOX. It’s part of a GAMING brand. It has hardcore gaming CAPABILITIES. It’s why people BUY the CONSOLE.

This. This was the most interesting game related thing they showed.Which isn’t bad. I can’t wait for it. But this wasn’t even proper gameplay. Fucks sake.

So why were you pushing all of this entertainment crap into our faces? Why on earth were you emphasizing areas of the console and what it does that NO ONE watching gave two shits about? You want to make an all-in-one entertainment device? Go ahead. But just don’t call it an Xbox and market it as a games console at the same time.

The lack of games at the reveal was stupid. They totally neglected basically who their entire audience and following was and tried to convince us other things mattered. But no one cared Microsoft. We just want games. And that’s what Sony and the PS4 is making SURE they deliver. So why aren’t you?

* The second issue is the online requirement. How many times did people have to yell and scream and fucking make it CLEAR AS DAY that they DID NOT WANT online to be a necessity?

OK, OK, so it isn’t a ‘constant necessity’, but the Xbox One’s core features still rely on it.

The Xbox One doesn’t have to be constantly connected to the internet to be used, but it needs to be connected about once a day in order to keep functioning. This means if the internet goes down you can still game and do things on it for some time (about 24 hours) but will need to reconnect it at some point soon to still be able to use it before it shuts off completely.

This isn’t a big deal for a normal person who lives in a normal place, but what about people who don’t have consistent or constant internet connections? Well they can’t use it. Simple as that. The fact it HAS TO HAVE an internet connection to function longterm is not what we, the consumers, wanted. It might not be always online, but it’s as good as. All Microsoft did by making the console like this was reduce people’s confidence in them and whether or not they actually listen to the community.

* The third and final main issue is the charge for borrowing games. You can use a friends game on your console if you are signed in as them, however if you’re not singed in as them and you simply want to borrow a game for a week, you have to pay a fee. A full price game fee. So basically you have to buy the game yourself.

This is the final straw for many people. It’s the thing that proves just how much Microsoft don’t seem to care. While Microsoft has said pre-owned games will still be available and game rentals will still somehow work, not being able to borrow or simply lend games is a ludicrous feature to get rid of. People made it clear months, maybe even years ago, that they did not want restrictions like this. And what has Microsoft done? They’ve fucked you. They’ve fucked me. They’ve fucked the consumer.

Yeah Microsoft, no one gives a fuck about apps ona games console. Where are the fucking games?

It’s almost like they thought the pros would outweigh the cons, but didn’t they realize everyone was going to be looking at the bad parts of the new console? It’s like they tried to say “Yeah it has to have a consistent internet connection to work and you have to pay to use a friends game but hey, look, we haaaaaaaaaaaaaave – SPORTS GAMES AND ENTERTAINMENT THINGS!!!” But Microsoft wake up. No one cares. Nobody gives one shit. No one cares about this ‘app’ and that ‘app’ and this ‘movie thing’ and that ‘movie thing’. No. One. Cares.

Hey but you know what gamers do care about? Games. We care about games. We care about being able to lend a friend a game for free. We care about being able to game without an internet connection. We care about the fucking video games we can play on your fucking video game console. And basically everything we, gamers and consumers, care about you didn’t seem to care about. You seemed to brush aside or screw up. And it’s hard to have faith in a company like that.

That’s why everyone is pissed. That’s why everyone is saying the PS4 is better. That’s why everyone says the Xbox One is rubbish. Basically that’s how you, Microsoft, fucked up the next generation for yourselves. Take a fucking bow.

Don’t forget to check out my blog (michaelthekyle.blogspot.co.uk) for way more exclusive content, like my Metro: Last Light Review, Xbox One reveal coverage and blogs etc. Follow me on Twitter too @mookyst.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Following Microsoft’s 60-minute press conference on Tuesday, in which it revealed the Xbox One to much anticipation, an unfortunate feeling of melancholy grew inside me. It was immediately and painfully clear that I am no longer Microsoft’s target audience. Instead, the company’s new key demographic is the casual audience that has kept the Xbox 360 selling in recent years, and with this choice, the Xbox brand has transformed from a gaming system to an all-in-one entertainment device.

Over the course of the hour-long press conference, I slowly felt more and more out of place as if this wasn’t intended for me … as if it wasn’t a place I should or want to be. The wild ride of buzzwords and snappy features introduced us to an impressive multimedia center — one that could stream films, play live television, and initiate video chat via Skype. Microsoft gave a worryingly small amount of attention to games. This new console will obviously be innovative in how it “Kinects” people (har har), but the question I regularly asked myself over that hour was why, as a gamer, do I care about most of this?

It was frustrating to watch many big names march out and discuss features that will barely impact or improve the future of gaming. Being able to review fantasy football or basketball leagues during live matches sounds cool, but as I’m not a massive sports fan, the early sections of the press conference might as well have been white noise. Equally frustrating was how anything that did reference the gaming potential of the Xbox One did so through loose terminology — merely suggesting how the console was going to offer enhanced “experiences” or “content.” I can’t say I saw anything that could provide the innovation I was sorely hoping to see.

At least we now know some of the specs for the Xbox One: 8 CPU cores, 8GB of (nondescript) RAM, multichannel 802.11n WiFi, and a Blu-ray drive definitely sound good. However, instead of showing us how this technology will be put to use, such as through the numerous demonstrations we saw during Sony’s PlayStation 4 press conference in February, we merely witnessed a handful of cinematics and teaser trailers.

While the games look good, the graphical fidelity isn’t mind-blowing. The visuals are not as ground-breaking as the HD leap from the previous generation. And sadly, the only new creative work announced, Remedy Entertainment’s Quantum Break, was a predominantly live-action trailer sprinkled with in-game cinematics. This teaser was severely underwhelming and didn’t provide nearly enough information (assuming the game isn’t about a little girl who makes boats collide with bridges) to generate serious interest.

Because we saw nothing resembling real gameplay, it’s difficult to picture how each experience will feel when it’s eventually in our hands. If these new titles do nothing but improve graphics, it’s hard to be too excited about them. Even the new Call of Duty felt a little flat. Eric Hirshberg, the chief executive of Activision, presented a lovely trailer for Call of Duty: Ghosts, but I had to chuckle when Mark Rubin of Infinity Ward added, “America’s military is in disarray, and as the player, you’re the underdog fighting back against superior forces.” I don’t want to steal your thunder, Mark, but I’m pretty sure that’s the storyline of every Call of Duty since Modern Warfare 2 — not to mention numerous other shooters, such as Homefront. But hey, we get a really fancy-looking dog, so that’s innovative, right? … Right?

Still, the most surprising element of the conference was not what Microsoft did mention but what it didn’t.

Microsoft had the gaming world’s attention; the show was its chance to put millions at ease regarding the worrying issues of digital-rights management and preowned games. Rather than addressing any of these concerns, Microsoft chose to ignore the community’s queries about persistent Internet requirements. This decision has led to evasive and confusing explanations spawning from Twitter or interviews that went up immediately after the event.

It now appears that Xbox One will require access to the Internet to install games and enable regular play. Used games will also involve an activation fee. If you’re going to take such drastic actions, Microsoft, at least have the balls to come out with it head on and explain why you feel such changes are necessary and how they potentially improve your console. Don’t sweep our questions under the rug and hope we forget about it because I can assure you — we won’t.

Other interesting aspects barely covered at the show were the alterations to the controller and computing assistance from the cloud. I understand that the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is imminent and you don’t want to blow your load now, but gamers need a reason to be excited for your console, Microsoft. Making a lackluster first impression can only hurt your sales potential. The dip in value of Microsoft’s shares — and the consequential increase in Sony’s — is evidence of this.

Microsoft would be wise not to forget who bought the Xbox 360 and the original Xbox during their infancy: core gamers. These early adopters and evangelists will buy these consoles at any price because they have a desperate need to play great games that they can only experience on Xbox. Unfortunately, Microsoft has done very little to prove we need the Xbox One right now. The system’s new focus as a futuristic hub that houses all your entertainment needs may backfire as the intense hardware and forced inclusion of Kinect will likely lead to a substantial price point. The casual sector probably won’t experience the same uncontrollable craving for new content as the core gamer and may keep its distance until the price drops.

The beauty of the Xbox 360 was how its target market migrated from core to casual slowly as its price fell and multimedia functionality improved. After all, $200 isn’t an overwhelming cost for a system that can fulfill multiple functions in the home, and the eventual introduction of the Kinect presented additional novelty for young children and new gamers.

Now Microsoft seems confident that the casual market is ready to throw down considerable cash to replace their 360s with a new and improved Xbox, and it has bypassed the core gamer almost completely. But will the casual market be willing to spend double or more of the current cost of a 360 just for enhanced social and multimedia functionality? Do people like our parents really care about a device that can make phone calls while they watch a movie? The system will obviously sell after release, but what portion of the casual audience will pass it up, and how big an impact with this have on Microsoft?

Maybe I’m speaking prematurely. E3 is right around the corner, and Phil Spencer, the corporate vice president of Microsoft Studios, did make a bold statement announcing 15 exclusive titles for Xbox One within its first year of launch. Even still, I’m dubious how many of these 15 will actually release in that time. Console launches rarely ever go as planned, like with the Wii U’s debut games lineup. I also wonder how many of these 15 will be exclusive sports, fitness, or family games for the Kinect, which core gamers have close to zero interest in.

I hope I’m wrong. I hope Microsoft comes out at E3 and wows us all with some incredible new intellectual properties and a revelation in how the Xbox One will change how we game. Unfortunately, right now I can count the things that interest me about this new Xbox on one hand.

Thanks for reading. For this and other rambles, please check out my blog or follow me on Twitter.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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There’s this Hungarian outfit you may know of. Neocore Games. They’re one of those quiet achievers in the Eastern vales of Europe, creating quite ambitious and endearing strategy games up until this new effort of theirs. In the same vein as Torchlight 2 and the wacky fun of Krater, a new and alarmingly cheap ARPG is about to take the stage. I’ve spent a bit of time with a preview build and if you’ll hold my enchanted sabre as I load my Premier Consul flintlock, I’ll fire a thundering rundown in your direction.

Indeed, it is The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing and it is Neocore’s most honed and finely crafted yet. One might suggest there’s a implicit and rather obvious scaling of emphases when leaving the realm of a sprawling dark fantasy strategy like King Arthur: The Roleplaying Wargame for an ARPG, but if anything, the sheer competition in the mouse-busting genre means you either bring it hard or you go home.

It’s also very curious that I don’t particular love the ARPG genre, or sub-genre, or Diablo family or whatever you want to call it. The strange catharsis that comes from one hand curled atop a beleaguered mouse and the other spreadeagled over numeral keys doesn’t bloom under the floodlights of the heavy-hitters. I tried with the first two Diablo games and neither did terribly much for me. Sacred Gold, Space Hack, Dark Spore and Krater were the few who managed to make inroads into an otherwise comfortably popular style of game.

So when gearing up to hack my way through a mysterious, pulpy baroque Europe, I was more intrigued to see what an ARPG by Neocore looked like than how it measured up to its contemporaries. After five hours’ worth of carving and blunderbussing my way through the first chapter of Van Helsing, I came away giddy. Not only was this another showcase of Neocore Games having one of the best art teams in the business, it was an ARPG bristling with character, mission design and intricacy that I felt could stand toe to toe with the big names.

You play as Bram Stoker’s vampire hunter extraordinaire, driving him through the wilderness with sword and flintlock to staunch the flow of beasts and bandits on the road to Borgova. Accompanying you is one Lady Katarina, a ghostly companion providing conversation and combat assistance. There’s a nice back and forth relationship between Van Helsing and this ethereal lass; the rich, sharp dialogue does a good job of elevating time away from towns as proper adventures, rather that simply clocking on at the grind-face.

Combat itself is solid and meaty, proffering the right level of audio-visual feedback that makes for compelling clickery. Players can switch between melee and ranged, with up to three active combat skills on each weapon stance as well as a host of other proximity and area effect skills. There are no classes, instead aiming for an ala carte skill tree system where you’re free to pick and choose between abilities across the discreet melee, ranged and magic-aura trees. There are also perks that become available as Van Helsing’s reputation increases. Throw in a number of crafting systems, a few good item enchantment mechanics and you’ve got many boxes being ticked.

The visuals are great, but I am markedly swayed by the aforementioned art team. Their direction here is the usual high watermark, with the infusion of plate, sword and firearm across a gnarled 17th Century Europe aesthetic. The music, at least going by the preview chapter, is one of the highlights. As much as there’s a sentimentality for Tristram’s lonely strumming, Van Helsing’s dynamic score and location-specific pieces are quite intoxicating.

And the best part of Van Helsing’s strong showcase is the 15USD price tag. We’re absolutely spoiled with games rolling in under the 20 dollar mark, and the ARPG genre has been treated to some great production and content combos at a fraction of the price of the so-called Triple A juggernauts. Van Helsing looks to be another example of that comfortable price-production dichotomy.

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing comes out in a day or so (or has already done so!). That’ll give you enough time to squirrel away a few gold pieces and hopefully a quiet achiever’s best effort yet.  

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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I’ve been a massive Bat-fan for years. I have shoes, T-shirts, figurines, and even a watch — all with the Dark Knight’s logo on it. As invested as I am in the World’s Greatest Detective, I was overjoyed when I heard the announcement for Batman: Arkham Origins. Sure, I was disappointed when I heard that Rocksteady wouldn’t be in control of development, but I feel that the British studio missed a few good opportunities when creating Arkham Asylum and Arkham City — ones that I hope Warner Bros. Games Montreal will seize.

With that in mind, here’s what I think could improve the formula in Batman: Arkham Origins.

Access to the Batcave

What is Batman without the Batcave? Some may argue that letting the player leave Gotham and skulk around some dark, dank cave would ruin the pace of what is predominantly an action game. I couldn’t disagree more. The Batcave is just as much a part of Batman as his utility belt. It’s where the Dark Knight goes to think, plan, and prepare for coming battles or review important intel.

The previous Arkham titles were structured in such a way that returning to the prime Batcave (meaning not the mini-Batcave in Arkham Asylum) was impossible. In comparison, we will be roaming the streets of Gotham in Origins, and I feel the option to return to the Batcave — to review case files or research the assassins — would make perfect sense.

Also, the addition of the Batcave could introduce a “press A to brood” option — something the Arkham franchise is sorely lacking.

The Batcave was my favorite challenge map in Arkham City. It would be awesome to explore more of it in Arkham Origins.

Limited but manageable inventory

The abundance of gadgets you collect in each Arkham title is awesome, but the utility belt began to feel bloated toward the end of Arkham City. Almost every gadget still had a purpose and filled a fun or unique niche, but when you have upward of 10 to use, some aren’t used nearly as much as others.

To combat this, Arkham Origins would benefit from restricting the number of gadgets you can carry; players could potentially increase this capacity by completing side missions or story progression. This would add additional incentive to return to the Batcave and give players more control over how they want to fight injustice.

More Bruce Wayne

One of my favorite sections in Arkham City was the opening, where you face off against numerous thugs not as Batman but as Bruce Wayne. You have no gadgets to help you — just quick moves and equally quick thinking. I greatly enjoyed this short but memorable section and hope Origins provides additional cowl-less game time, perhaps with less focus on action.

Imagine a side mission where you attend a Christmas gala event as Bruce Wayne. Suddenly, the Penguin or Black Mask crashes the party. It’s a classic Bat-scenario that could introduce original gameplay mechanics, like sneaking out to change into the cape and cowl or defeating thugs out of costume without revealing your secret identity.

This could also add in some fun, awkward scenarios, like meeting enemies in a dinner suit instead of the Batsuit. What if an inebriated partygoer unwittingly introduced Bruce Wayne to Slade Wilson (Deathstroke)? How do you escape such a situation without letting innocent people get hurt?

Arkham City proved Bruce Wayne doesn’t need the Batsuit to be a bad-ass. Let’s see more of that in Arkham Origins.

Randomly emerging objectives

Gotham City is a dangerous place. Crime can occur at any time, and as the Dark Knight, you can’t run away from it. As such, it would add to the vigilante feel if you had the option to swoop into emerging crimes and crack some skulls. It could work similarly to the radio in LA Noire, but with additional consequences for assisting or ignoring active crimes.

What if, while chasing down a group of thugs who robbed the Gotham National bank, you hear on the Bat-radio that a nearby hotel is on fire? What’s a hero to do? The fire department is on the way, but a lot of civilians could be hurt. On the other hand, millions of dollars are about to be stolen, which could potentially increase gun crime in Gotham.

Stopping the thugs could reward players with a map from the bank manager that reveals secret tunnels in the surrounding area. But helping to stop the fire and escorting survivors to safety could earn players an upgrade from the Gotham Fire Department that reduces fire damage to the Batsuit. That would be handy if Firebug turns up.

Multiplayer and co-op

Rumors have surfaced regarding the inclusion of multiplayer in Arkham Origins. I say bring it on! Batman was one of the first and biggest comic book heroes to regularly fight with a sidekick, and although Origins’ location in the Bat-timeline is somewhat uncertain, it’s plausible that a young Dick Grayson (Robin) could be on the scene. If so, co-op would make perfect sense.

I’m genuinely excited at the thought of teaming up with a buddy to take down thugs in special missions or challenge maps. I had the same thought when playing Arkham City, too, and I’m hoping this rumor is evidence that fans’ strong desire for change in the franchise is forcing new elements into existence — although it’s more likely that WB Montreal just thought it would be cool.

Either way, the potential for bone-crunching combo attacks and witty one-liners has me tingling. Smell that? Smells like justice.

That pretty much wraps up what I’d like to see in the upcoming prequel. There are other things, like driving the Batmobile or meeting Commissioner Gordon on the roof of the Gotham City Police Department to collect missions, but I doubt those will happen. If you’re a fellow Bat-fan, I’d love to hear what you want to see in Origins — or maybe even things you don’t want to see.

I’m now struggling to decide if the Adam West bomb disposal scene would be in the do” or “don’t” category … .

Also posted on my blog, Beards and Pixels.

Holy smokes, Batman! We just got the high score for that mission.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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With the reveal of the next Microsoft console coming tomorrow, there’s probably a larger portion of people than Microsoft would want to acknowledge who still shudder at the mere mention of the name Kudo Tsunoda, creative director of the company’s Kinect add-on for the Xbox 360. While I wouldn’t call Kinect an abject failure, it certainly did not live up to the hype nor the potential of the accessory. I fear a forced feeding of Kinect 2 or more motion controls that aren’t necessarily wanted in the 360′s successor system. While there are problems that any new hardware faces, I earnestly hope that Microsoft has considered some lessons from its Kinect past.

Do not sell what you do not have

Perhaps one of the biggest barriers to full-on Kinect adoption was that we believed — or at least hoped — that Microsoft was offering a controller-less PlayStation Move/Nintendo Wii control scheme. “You are the controller,” we were told. Unfortunately, the delay between movement and onscreen action was a little too noticeable to be as fun or connected for what serious gaming requires. While anticipation could be negotiated in lighter fare like Kinect Adventures, the lag between a person’s actions and the resulting onscreen acknowledgement dooms any game needing immediate, precise movement.

In an ideal world, motion controls for Tiger Woods seem like it could or should be a golfer’s dream — an off-season way to stay sharp and hone and improve real wold skills. But Kinect is not a fine enough sensor to capture the subtleties of a golf swing. Heck, even using Kinect to navigate menus, the goals of ease and simplicity are clearly further away than just picking up a controller and using the analog sticks and buttons. That the Xbox controller feels so comfortable in the hands of the player makes it that much tougher a sell what appears to be an over-promised gimmick at best and a complete pander to the Wii family crowd at worst.

It’s the software, dummy

Games, game, games. As great as the technology may be, if there’s no appropriate software to take advantage of the beast under the hood, then what do we have? Not a big step from the current generation. Certainly, systems have had weak launches and still succeeded, but to have an “it” game can really get the ball rolling in the right direction. Halo — ’nuff said, right? Looking at the Wii U launch, I don’t know that I could tell you what came out on day one. I’m guessing a Super Mario Bros. of some type?

But really, what makes a person make the jump? I have pondered during this past year the thought that I feel perfectly satisfied with the current console generation. Unless I’m offered something I don’t know that I want or need right now, launch day becomes more about the experience of getting on board early and less about playing what I can’t currently play.

For Kinect, Dance Central did just that. It was the game I could depend on to show my family and friends my new Xbox peripheral. It worked within the Kinect’s limitations and provided a show piece — fun play where frustration was minimized with no fail conditions. But before I realized it, “poker face” was irritatingly and irreversibly etched in my subconscious.

Of course, part and parcel of the “killer app” is the all important next wave of games. And for Kinect, I don’t count Dance Central 2 or Dance Central 3 or Zumba Fitness or Zumba Fitness Rush or Zumba Fitness Core as worthy successors. Gunstringer, Child of Eden, and Fruit Ninja all showed promise, but most often, software support didn’t come in the form of innovation or originality. Instead, options were limited to fitness and dance titles and their sequels.

Just because you can doesn’t mean you should

The last thing I think Microsoft can learn from its Kinect experience is that just because all these bells and whistles are available does not necessarily mean you need to use them. Microsoft described a number of games that were Kinect compatible but not required as “better with Kinect,” and yet, I don’t know that many (any?) of these titles were actually better. Did anyone use Kinect with Mass Effect 3, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, Forza Horizon, or Tiger Woods? No, no, no, and no.

Of course, as with any new toy, I can see why a company would want to tout all of its features. But there’s a point where it’s too much. Don’t let features be crammed into a game just because your system can support motion or voice controls. If it’s part of the game … fine, but when it’s an add-on, the forced gameplay detracts from the natural flow and progression.

I have no idea what to expect come tomorrow, but let’s hope Microsoft remembers the past and heads in the right direction.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Even though more details about this action IP (Intellectual Property) is yet to be released, brief snippets shown during the launch of the PlayStation 4 revealed armored men stealthily advancing into a cave to kill a dragon. It also showed fire arrows being shot at the dragon with the intention of slaying it. Designed for PlayStation 4, the gen-next console, Capcom’s footage showed the use of advanced lighting and particle effects in the game, made achievable due to the highly advanced Phanta Rhei engine for graphics.

A game to look out for from the stable of Capcom, well known the world over for their multi-million selling franchises, this game is all set to create a never before seen experience when it is launched. Anticipation for this game is already on the rise with gamers waiting to see what kind of setting it will have, the elements that are introduced in it and what challenges will be put across. Even though a launch date is yet to be fixed and the game is still in its development stages, this game is sure to have a gameplay which will keep the gamers on their toes till the end.

Filled with underground caves and catacombs, the happy hunting ground of the dragons, and knights in shining armor stalking them fearlessly, Deep down is a fantasy game par excellence. Creating situations which appear more real than ever seen before, this game has knights putting up a brave fight before finally being able to defeat the dragons. At the same time these fearless, fire spitting dragons residing in the dark and murky interiors of hidden caves, use their cunning to lure the knights and need no excuse to spit fire on anything and everything.

It is a fight to the finish, a fight which will ultimately see the knight winning. As the tagline says, fear if not conquered will make a man die a coward, the knights too are shown conquering their fear and coming out victorious after slaying the dragons. The teaser trailer released at the PS4 launch ended with a digital message being received by Yoshinori Ono of Capcom requesting him to help out with food, weapons or anything else. This has only served to increase the expectation and anticipation of the fans.

While Deep Down is only the working title as has been stated in the game teaser shown at the PS4 launch, there is no doubt that this game is all about co-operative hunting for monsters. Capcom’s versatility and the powerful features of the PlayStation 4 sure make this a game to beat all other games, once it is released.

Ferrell Marsh is a regular contributor to Sony PS4.com a web magazine focused entirely on the PlayStation 4.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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I’ve always been rather suspicious of high fantasy. Not as any great deceptive and corruptive force in the collective consciousness, but suspicious of its capability to be anything other than tired and twee. Which is hilarious, given that I’ll soak up any old cornball space opera. Fantasy and I have had a troubled history. I enjoyed riffling through the pages of Tolkien’s best and spent hours upon hours in Azeroth during the first and second Warcraft games. Hell, there have even been moments where you would have caught me in some curious, forgotten title like Heroes of Annihilated Empires, but these are fleeting affairs.

In short, I’ve never really been able to tuck away my disdain for the rote tropes of J.R.R.’s legacy to truly appreciate what – in this instance – fantasy-themed games can and do offer. At least until recently. I blame an intoxicating dual dark fantasy hegemony of HBO’s Game of Thrones and Neocore Games’ original rough diamond King Arthur: The Roleplaying Wargame.

And now, Eador: Masters of the Broken World. I do like this one, warts and all.

So, just to get it out of the way, Eador is indeed akin to the Heroes of Might and Magic titles. My dilettantism regarding the older fantasy empire epics means I can’t very comment further than that. You stride about the countryside with heroes, you conquer lands, you develop your kingdom, you win. Or die in the early game because you had no idea what you were doing, which was illuminated in my paltry book of deeds in Eador for many a session. Death isn’t quite the right word. Reborn into extreme poverty from the lofty heights of once-heroism. Oh verily, finding yourself plucked from a field of dead peasants and reanimated at the keep in some cruel karmic backhand was my tale until I figured out the glacial but rewarding pace of Snowbird Games‘ fantasy strategy.

And glacial is a word best fitting Eador. Referencing pace, but also of sheer size. Eador is colossal. And, like a warming 21st Century glacier, it creaks and cracks under its own weight at times, but remains a majestic creation.

I must admit at this point that I entirely skipped the campaign. Custom or bust in my opinion. It hands you the palette with the paint pot, rather than merely a few pencils. Not to say the campaign isn’t gargantuan – it undoubtedly is – but you play here for the systems. Building a kingdom, unfettered from go to woe, wrapped in a pantheon of heroes and their retinues, provincial wrangling, civic development and building the mightiest and most skilled of armies. The problem here is trying to describe it to you with any dexterity; it’s just one of those games. One that holds a little more in its cheeks than your average turn-based strategy – grand or otherwise.

You start with a fledgling hero or two in a quiet, microscopic realm. Assembling a crack team of ragtag men-at-arms from the dingy, near-neolithic facilities within the walls of your castle, you begin to explore. And by explore, I mean selecting the option to explore your home province or the surrounding locales. Here, you will find a variety of sub-locations, ranging from lonely grottoes and abandoned towers to mysterious ruins and secret fortresses. While you might think every single location discovered during this particular phase is a nice early-game grind paddock, not so. Some are brutal and require you to come back much later on or to developed your city to the point where higher grade troops can be recruited. Each unit is capable of leveling up in a variety of ways, so while a player might not think too much about losing a grubby serf, that very serf might have served a greater, more pivotal purpose for a few later battles. The serf would undoubtedly die or be relegated to gate duty once obsoleted, but this isn’t a game of cheap hiring. Each province proffers a particular specialty, and once you’ve explored a place to its fullest and retrieved all manner of gold and loot – yes, a plethora of loot to adorn and buff -

As you’d expect from a game likened mechanically to Heroes of Might and Magic, combat takes place away from the main map and civic development screens. Atop a field of finely-detailed and varying terrain hexes, valiant heroes and their retinue do battle against all manner of foes. The combat is a touch slow, even with the option to hasten traversal with an extra click of the mouse, but it’s a satisfying aspect and looks quite stunning. Once leveled to the point where troop numbers become somewhat legion, it’s great fun to assemble and utilize an army of front line troops, ranged units and a bevy of support characters to wage war. This won’t replace any sort of SRPG on its own, but as part of the Eador combat experience, it’s more than adequate. Dare I say, quite fun!?

Another part of the equation delivering in the fun stakes is the development of a player’s kingdom. There is an absolutely enormous list of buildings to erect within the walls of your fair cities. Many pertain to units – each with their own benefits to the realm, or indeed, bringing some sort of negative effect to civic operations – but also affect fortifications, economy and unit capabilities. This is where some of the UI quirks will either be a bane or a boon to a player. Such an exemplar would be the building construction menu, or the version that doesn’t just list the currently available options.

The advanced construction menu is an impressive creation. Every building within Eador splayed across the interface; every type of barrack, fortification, market, manufacturer, temple, civic installation and more. What’s more, clicking on a particular building in the menu highlights other buildings that it either requires or affects. There’s a construction queue sub-menu that allows a hefty project – be it sequential or scattered – to be fired and forgotten until a pop-up heralds completion.That said, there’s a touch of higgledy-piggledy when it comes to a cohesive UI across the various menus. It all works, but compared to a title like Elemental – another fantasy empire building contemporary – Eador can be a smidgen confounding. Maybe I’ve been pampered by the thematically-insistent svelteness of science-fiction strategy, having grown weak and slovenly in the bosom of zero gravity. In any case, Eador keeps its leathery self together rather respectively.

Just to come full circle, I’m really not sure why this of all games has me relishing and reveling in high fantasy. Is it the Russian edge? It’s not immediately apparent, outside of the overly-ambitious kitchen sink approach to the design. Is it the strange and subtle morality system that fuses the character development to the empire management? These strange and often wry choices offered when confronting all manner of event situations? Is it the Netstorm-esque floating shards of this so-called Broken World?

I don’t rightly know. All I know is that there is a heck of a lot on the Eador: Masters of the Broken World smorgasbord, and it all tastes pretty damn good – even if the crockery supplied is a touch misshapen.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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After 281 consecutive weeks of downloadable content, on April 2, 2013, Don McLean’s “American Pie” marked the day Rock Band’s weekly DLC ended. I visited the depths of my basement and saw the dusty remnants of my rock god past awaiting the next neighborhood garage sale. But though the age of popular plastic instrument accumulation has long since passed, the successes of Guitar Hero and Rock Band will leave an indelible mark on my memory of the current console generation, worthy to stand alongside of the likes of Super Mario Bros. and Tetris on the NES or Halo 2 on the Xbox.

Just the facts

Guitar Hero/rock Band titles (15) in my Xbox history (in no particular order):

Guitar Hero 2; Beatles: Rock Band; Rock Band Blitz; Rock Band 3; Guitar Hero: Metallica; Rock Band 2; Rock Band; Guitar Hero 5; Guitar Hero 3; Rock Band: Country Pack; Guitar Hero: Van Halen; Guitar Hero: Smash Hits; Guitar Hero: World Tour; Guitar Hero: Aerosmith; Rock Band: AC/DC

Rock Band Unplugged (PSP)

4 guitars, 2 sets of drums, 2 microphones, 1 keytar

447 songs in RB3 library, 8.9 GB on Hard Drive

461/671 achievements (68.7%)

8,600/13,250 G (64.9%)

17.5% of my total Gamerscore (49,092) is from the above titles

Just the feelings

I am not even sure where to begin exactly. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention two great pieces from Penny Arcade Report: the first describing Rock Band as the best argument for video games’ potential to be art, the latter a reflection on the end of weekly DLC. As for this post, it’s more personal to me, though I suspect the story is similar to many.

Maybe the seeds of Guitar Hero addiction were planted deep within my gaming soul when I was a wee child in 1981. Activision released a game called Kaboom! in which a mad bomber dropped bombs from the top of the screen in increasingly greater numbers and quickening pace. The player was responsible for dousing the bombs’ fuses in buckets of water maneuvered on the screen using the Atari paddle controller.

Fast forward to 2006 when I first played Guitar Hero 2 on a PS2. Falling jewels, odd controller, rhythm mechanics and a great rock soundtrack later and I was firmly hooked. I marathoned through (foreshadowing) my initial medium run through knowing that “Freebird” was the final encore. How perfect. The humor was pitch perfect as well, verifying that I really, truly, really wanted to attempt to play the legendary tune. I couldn’t wait for the game to come out on the 360.

When GH2 finally appeared on Xbox, I dove in head first. I made the slow progression through the game’s perfect learning curve. I added the orange fret to my repertoire, shifted my starting position to rest my middle finger on the yellow fret, figured out the benefits to the strum-less HO/PO, and lastly shifted from the down-press strum to the controlled up/down strum. I was so obsessed that I modded my X-plorer guitar, inserting small fret-sized, cardboard cutouts to increase button sensitivity/activation/deactivation.

The thing was, Guitar Hero and Rock Band became a cultural phenomenon. Non-gaming folks knew and played the game publicly. Of course the local game shop had a Van Halen-inspired GH booth for play, but the local sports bar had a Guitar Hero night and I came away with free swag for winning. In the course of the Rock Band evolution, I would play with my young nephews and nieces, brothers and sisters-in-law, and even parents.

There have been no shortage of GH/RB memories: working through Expert playlists, playing with the GameJabber band to compete with other Geezer Gamer bands, NYE 2008, putting together a full Beatles band (3 mics, Ion drums) at Game Junkie’s, seeing friends play and 5-star “Jordan” and “TTFAF” on Expert, drawing a small crowd at the GH arcade machine at the “World’s Largest Entertainment McDonald’s & PlayPlace” in Orlando with a little “Paint It Black” on expert (easily impressed I suppose), and seeing the well-worn spot on the carpet where I would plant my rear for hours at a time. But probably the most notorious memory for terribly right and wrong reasons, was the run Pez and I made on the Rock Band 2′s Endless Setlist 2.

Heading in, we knew this achievement run was probably a one-off, 100 G for Platinum, Gold and Vinyl Artist, and more importantly, 25 G for the Bladder of Steel. In the perfect storm of external factors, my then-girlfriend was not only out of town, but out of the country, and an October Sunday afternoon set up as our small window of opportunity. For the curious, the Bladder of Steel achievement required not only a serious, continuous time commitment (6.5 hours or so of Rock Band 2 goodness (and crappiness)), but, also, required serious skill to not fail while playing on Expert. Bad batteries, inadvertent pauses, a tough run on a solo section and the opportunity was lost.

It was a fine line to balance between consumption of BAWLS energy drink and 84 songs.  I tried to assure myself that the 32 oz. Gatorade bottle would suffice in case of an emergency. Thankfully, I did not need to resort to that, but it was perhaps more from fear of well… let’s just say fear more than anything else. The mistake I made though was having my laptop on beside me. Not a problem by itself but made so when I decided to answer the Skype call from Kuala Lumpur from the then-girlfriend. Needless to say, it did not take very long to discover simultaneous internet calling and Endless Setlist 2 playing were not very compatible. A close call with “Visions” and a long-past due restroom break later, achievements were unlocked and my now-wife would always have a story to hold over me about how she lost the Skype/Xbox battle to Rock Band 2. And what can I do but shrug my shoulders and sheepishly mention that I love her.

So with some nostalgia, I dust off my modded plastic guitar, queue up “American Pie,” and “remember how that music used to make me smile.” And I do not exaggerate when I say I literally got goosebumps playing.  It just seemed right… perfect.. especially when my wife, who had casually reading on the couch, asked if she could play with me.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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So it’s come to this, has it, Nintendo? You’re now content to skulk in the corners of the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) with your innovative devices and sequels to 20-year-old Super Nintendo games? This once mighty company won’t even attempt to assert itself on a stage against the new titans of the age, Sony and Microsoft?

I’m not so out of touch as to think E3 in 2013 is as important as it was to the video game industry back when it started in 1995. So in one respect, I can understand why it seems like a good idea to skip the expense and hassle of a major press conference. I’d applaud the decision if I didn’t think it was yet another symptom of the isolationist culture that’s embedded itself somewhere deep within your business, Nintendo — leading you to behave like an old hermit stubbornly whittling away at the same wooden toys that used to bring the kids out to visit a long time ago.

The Nintendo Directs are welcome and informative, but you might be overestimating how widely they are spreading your message. Sure, dropping a prerecorded video message from some far-flung corner of the earth has gotten people plenty of attention before, but I doubt you want to apply that communications model to your free-market enterprise. There’s something to be said for putting on a show at a venue where media, distributors, and industry officials will be converging for several days. You don’t want to leave it up to everyone to watch a 24-minute YouTube video presentation set against a stark white background.

With the Wii U, you’ve met the bare minimum requirements to say you launched a new console: You shipped boxes of them to stores, released a glossed-up version of New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and put out a variation on the theme of “Look at Us, We’re Innovative” with Nintendo Land. There was no effective marketing done to actually sell the Wii U to the people who bought the original Wii. Your promises of third-party game support have thus far fallen short, your own lineup of software keeps suffering delays, and the latest series of advertisements for the console show families struggling to put two cogent thoughts together about why they even bought the damn console in the first place.

You’re not in the clear yet, and it seems like a bad time to rely on others to come to you, especially when Sony and Microsoft won’t be waiting patiently for people to pass by their E3 booths to show them their versions of the next big thing in gaming. It’s not that the IGNs, GameSpots, and Kotakus of the Internet won’t notice you at E3. They will, and the gaming-informed will be able to recite by heart your holiday release schedule by the end of the show.

The problem is with U.S.A. Today, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal — the big types of mainstream news sources whose video game coverage largely consists of statements from congressmen and senators panning the medium for its portrayals of violence. They are going to be hard-pressed to find time for your discreet show when they are writing about how Microsoft will be taking over the suburban living room with the new Xbox this fall, with Sony’s PlayStation 4 tagging close behind.

Maybe in a year — when you’ve established a strong lineup of games for the Wii U, when the anticipation around next-generation consoles has died down, and when it’s just another time for more games — I might suggest forgoing the stage. In 2013, my only advice to you, Nintendo, is to “break a leg.”

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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BioShock Infinite is this year’s Skyrim: Flawed in just about all design but completely forgivable due to its overwhelming atmosphere.

BioShock Infinite is exactly what Spec Ops: The Line would’ve been if its game elements worked. Instagram filters and the chained shooting galleries of a bland shooter that relies mostly on a storyline with an immense twist.

BioShock Infinite is like the Twilight series minus the scruples: Its third act becomes as convoluted and incredible as Bella becoming impregnated by a vampire baby who wants to eat her from the womb.

BioShock Infinite is what Proteus would’ve been if the developer had forced in traditional gameplay elements: Simply being present in its universe is more consequential than any other, lesser element of the game.

BioShock Infinite is Far Cry 3 with opposite priorities: a gorgeous shooter with unnecessary ultra-violence that we accept because of the overall product’s excellence.

There are bound to be a few more succinct comparisons to be made in a snappy one-liner. If you have one, feel free to leave a comment!

This was originally posted on gg3.be.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Recently, an old Destructoid affiliate of mine, Allistair Pinsof, essentially “outed” a transgendered game developer, Chloe Sagal, for misleading Indiegogo supporters to fund her sex reassignment surgery by referring to it as “lifesaving.” Tragically, we now know what she meant. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about. I don’t have all of the facts, and enough has already been said on this subject.

What instantly draws my gaze toward these oh-so-common floggings is the most common factor: those carrying the whips. Like clockwork, they labeled Allistair “transphobic,” demanded that he be punished, and seemingly dusted their hands off for what they perceived was a good deed. This is not the first time they’ve done so.

Ironically, they are the biggest proponents for positive change, yet they seem so consistent with their own negative behavior. Their usual approach is far from persuasive, and is even potentially damaging.

An eye for an eye, if you will.

Though her passion is understandable, to call this “excessive” would be a bit of an understatement. And she’s not the only one.

Back in the Felicia Day…

I can’t really avoid pointing this out here: In the past, I made a stupid mistake on Twitter that cost me my career and a lot of respect. Similarly to Allistair, I had a significant (and somewhat unjustified) amount of hate and criticism hurled my way. I admitted my poor actions, and also accepted much of what resulted from them, but it made me raise a brow toward similar instances of public scrutiny that others have faced.

Leaving my own experience out of the equation, I looked to others whom were “burned at the stake” for their trespasses, both minor and extreme. In the process, I made two inquiries: What is the intended goal of those with torches, and what lesson are the ones aflame supposed to learn? Not enough people ask these questions. In fact, too few individuals even bother considering every potential result when it comes to their actions, particularly those convinced that they are doing something noble or good.

It’s a damn shame, because some of the worst offenses anyone can commit are often perpetuated by God, “justice,” and a personal sense of absolute morality.

Nevertheless, those two questions remained, and the answers I found are as follows:

Got drunk. Said something stupid. Apparently, I hate and mistrust women. News to me.

1. Concede, you piece of shit!

Disagreement is almost always accompanied by a desire to persuade. The main reason we enter debates, discussions, or arguments is to potentially convince someone to see things from our point of view. Even those who present their case with exposed teeth aspire to have the opposition kneel before their passionate conviction.

Many people seem to forget two things: Opinions are only worth the amount of thought that goes into them, and a part of getting others to consider them is a matter of presentation. Yes, the “tonal argument” is indeed a logical fallacy, but let’s be real: People don’t like being spoken to like they are inferior … or evil, in this case.

Your argument is your product, and you are its salesperson. No matter how compelling and valuable your commodity may be, if your sales pitch consists of vilifying language and a condemning regard for your hopeful customer, they will not feel inclined to give two steaming shits about what you’re selling.

When people stumble — myself, Allistair, and even greater authorities like David Jaffe and Jim Sterling — the goal is to make us learn from our mistakes, but what do we learn if the lesson is delivered by a figurative bat to the head? Treating offenders like dirt not only gives them a reason to ignore you, but it can also reaffirm their original position, as well as reinforce any negative preconceptions they had about you and your case.

Pitched his game. Said something stupid. Also hates and mistrusts women (despite having two daughters). Hello again, Gawker.

2. If you don’t yell, they won’t plug their ears.

Do you want to know how to gain a valued, loyal customer?

I was raised in Bakersfield, California. For those who don’t know, “Bako” is quite conservative … and a bit of a shithole (see the following music video). This, coupled with a Christian upbringing, meant I retained a relatively non-existent knowledge regarding gay people.

I don’t hide the fact that, when I first moved to San Francisco nine years ago, I was genuinely homophobic. I hadn’t a single clue about how to feel or behave when it came to gay men and women. I didn’t hide it then, either. Given my inquisitive nature, I was open and honest with gay people when it came to my devoutly religious beliefs, what I was taught, and my confusion regarding their sexual orientation. Considering my exposed Christian tattoos, I couldn’t hide it, even if I wanted to. All I desired was to gain some perspective, some understanding.

An odd thing happened, though. The gays I spoke with weren’t angry. They didn’t despise me for knowing so little about their ordeals. They didn’t lambaste me for being raised to believe that their way of life was wrong or immoral. They heard my case, considered my misinformation, and carefully answered with some of the most valuable and level-headed responses that I’ve ever been given in my life.

Due to their kindness and patience, I was sold. I had absolutely no excuse to be repelled by homosexuality or the issues it faces in this country, and I never will. Though I’m no longer religious, I can’t help but feel a sense of amazement that people could go through such trauma, yet never bother to use my past faith and upbringing against me.

So many of them (particularly gay women) were incredibly grateful that a straight, white male would actively desire to learn what it meant to be a gay American, and I was equally thankful that they didn’t scold me for not knowing in the first place.

For several years now, the gay community has had one more supporter because of it.

Was insulted. Said something insulting and stupid back. Hated and mistrusted women. Has always loved Jonathan Holmes.

The paradox of shelling a munitions factory

It’s not difficult to understand how some can feel so hurt that they resort to armed retaliation. But to fire back at the “bad guys” is to equalize the battlefield. In that instance, villains and victims become grayed. Treating anyone like they are subhuman is equally as deplorable as whatever behavior may have instigated it.

This industry certainly has its issues, and I dare not deny that its transgendered, gay, and female members have and will face an unfair amount of problems. But their target demographic — those who do not fall under the three aforementioned categories — will rarely provide their patronage if the service being offered is laden with glass shards and caltrops.

We all desire for others to understand us. In the process, though, we so often become the new embroiderers of scarlet letters (“M” for misogyny). We claim to have the high ground, yet voluntarily remain in the piss-soaked dirt of the struggle below. That provides nothing substantial or positive to the games industry we claim to serve, and it perpetuates an even greater disconnect between social groups.

“Goodness” and “kindness” are not subject for debate, nor are they anyone’s to redefine. If you still feel that fighting fire with fire is a reasonable and justifiable strategy for extinguishing a societal blaze, then perhaps you should spend more time off to the side, watching the flames burn everything to the ground.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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It’s actually really important to note that all of the things I say below about why devs don’t like the Wii U are linked. All of the issues with the console go hand in hand to create a device that ultimately isn’t good to make games for. 

It’s More Effort To Develop For

Less Fans & Popularity 

It Doesn’t Move Consoles Forward

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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As we stand on or over the cusp of the next generation of consoles, I wonder where my gaming lifestyle will intersect with the future of gaming. Gone are the repeated days of marathon gaming sessions. I don’t have the ability nor the inclination to come home from work, fire up the Xbox, and play until 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. with only the Taco Bell dinner interruption.

With the dual constraints of time and budget, gaming now often consists of manageable, bite-sized sessions consisting of rounds in Hot Shots Golf or Tiger Woods, the Halo Tuesday appearance, an occasional Jeopardy! practice. They do not require large investments of time or attention. It’s not that I’m not willing nor is there a lack of titles to play. But there are going to be limits, what will crack the rotation needs to be something special and therein lies the challenge to and for the next generation of consoles.

During the years since the 360′s release, I’ve logged more hours than I care to know. While I have loved my time alternating between enlistment with the UNSC and COG, it has been the non-staples, the not AAAs, the unexpected titles that have most captured my heart as favorites of the system. Certainly, I have been impressed with Red Dead Redemption and Modern Warfare, but it’s the likes of Kameo, Rockstar Presents Table Tennis, Halo Wars, Rayman Origins, and XCOM: Enemy Unknown that are stand outs. In some ways, I believe the same to be true for the Vita as well. Gravity Rush has been my most memorable game experience on the handheld even if it hasn’t received all the play time of say Hot Shots Golf.

There have been shorter experiences (and cheaper) but still classic and memorable. Geometry Wars, Rez, Shank 1 and 2, Trenched/Iron Brigade, The Walking Dead, Catan, Castle Crashers, Mark of the Ninja from XBLA. Sound Shapes, Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack, Motorstorm RC on Vita. I haven’t played much of Guacamelee! and Retro City Rampage but have heard good things about these titles as well.

I understand we’re in the age of the .99 iOS download and I appreciate the addictive qualities of Angry Birds and Temple Run as much as the next guy. I don’t expect free-to-play though rumors exist that maybe it could work (Phantasy Star Online 2). I think there’s something to be said about what a developer can bring when not faced with the pressures of creating a AAA title. With such high stakes involved, it’s much easier to churn out Madden X than it is to release Child of Eden.

I want something that will foster my online community, in-game and out. I want portability and the opportunity to immerse myself in game discussion, info, stats, on-going developments. I want choices that have meaning and effect. I want others to play and influence what I see, how I play. I want cross-platform. I want noob friendly but interesting and challenging enough that games are difficult to master. I want shiny graphics but also compelling story and characters. I want to play with friends cooperatively and competitively. I want games that can be taken in small bits but are engaging and varied enough to sustain marathon sessions. I want precise controls that aren’t overwrought or complicated. I want flexibilty to adjust difficulty, turn off and on voice or motion controls, save or sleep when and where I might need unexpectedly.

Most of all, I want something I don’t even know I want yet. I want something new. Is that too much to ask?

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Have you ever wondered what the God of War games would have been like if the protagonist wasn’t Kratos, but one of the many lustrous prostitutes scattered throughout Ancient Greece? Well, if that’s on your bucket list, then the cover of what is Heavenly Sword probably drew you right in.

The game stars a beautiful looking woman, Nariko, donned in nothing but her lingerie and a sword. On the outside she may seem like an unstoppable badass engine of destruction, but the game consistently pushes you away thanks to a boring and repetitive combat system, a pathetically paced storyline, and terrible acting.

Heavenly Sword seems too much like a God of War spinoff than it does its own game. The concept is simple, Heavenly Sword is a third person action-adventure game where the player must traverse through a series of brief missions that are littered with forced SIXAXIS mechanics that destroy the fun.

But most of the time you are fighting waves of enemies in melee combat with the titular sword, an object you have bound your life to to protect. The controls are pretty straightforward as well. Pressing square or or triangle will perform quick attacks while holding L1 will transform the two buttons (square and triangle) into ranged attacks or doing the same action holding in R1 would trigger heavy attacks.

There is also a combo system where you can chain together various attacks to unleash a devastating amount of damage on your foes. Although the few combos to be found are few and far between. The only challenging part about the game is the concept that your enemies will use the same three types of attacks that you have in your arsenal against you.

The only way to block their attacks would be to retaliate with the same type of strike. A powerful attack blocks a powerful attack, light blocks light, and so on. The system sounds like a cool idea and believe me, it was at first. But when you find yourself in a fight with ten or so guys and each of them are attacking with different types of moves, parrying them is next to impossible and the only thing you can really do is take the hits and constantly roll out-of-the-way with the right thumbstick.

But the type of enemies you face are almost always the same. Fighting off waves and waves of the same melee and archer enemy types got very old, very quick. Even the bosses are a repetitive wash of the same old thing over and over.

But not all the levels follow the same, consistent third-person brawler kind of play-style. On occasion, you’ll be put into the shoes of a character that uses a ranged weapon to take out the baddies and the controls are just god awful. Players will have to hold down square while guiding a projectile towards its target with the SIXAXIS motion controller.

The one thing I think developer Ninja Theory did nail were the spectacular looking graphics. The textures, characters, weapons and animation are all gorgeously detailed right down to the finest point. The game is actually one of the best looking games I’ve seen on the PS3 to date.

Closing Comments:

Although the game is graphically stunning and boasts a fantastic soundtrack, they do not make up for the boring, repetitive gameplay mechanics nor the poorly paced storyline. Heavenly Sword is more like a cheap version of God of War than anything else.

Score: 2.5/5

Replay Value: Low

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Open ears are alluring little things. Because of our inherent desire for relevancy, the mere site of an attentive individual inspires the tendency for loud, affirmative oratory. Many of us desire an audience that looks to us for something of value: guidance, knowledge, a perceived truth, or just plain information.

As I’ve stated before, a prominent temptation in videogames journalism is to establish a considerable sense of self-worth. Because one writes for a popular publication and receives enough attention for their work, they can develop a personal ingratiation. This, coupled with a lack of a disciplinary background in journalism, can encourage people to overstep the basic expectations of their position.

Many proud pundits, reporters, and editors in the videogames industry splice their personal ideologies, moral beliefs, social concerns, and political views with the information they provide. Whether or not it applies to the artform doesn’t seem to matter, nor does the fact that the job calls for nothing more than a neutral, objective approach.

They have their podium, they see the gathering of gazing onlookers, and so they proceed to preach on.

Wanna see a magic trick? I can make the moral high ground disappear. Poof … gone.

Got an idea? Run it!

It’s important to first identify a core motivation for sermonizing in videogames journalism. With the fall of print and the ease of accessibility/connectivity that came with the internet, a new world of opportunity opened up for those aspiring to somehow be on the fringe of the videogames industry. The rise of blogs saw the average gamer doing what they so admired within the EGMs, GameFans, and Nintendo Power magazines they read while growing up.

The issue presents itself with the fact that young up-and-coming weblogs need to fill a void of content, all for the sake of establishing a readership. They often achieve this by featuring second-hand information and, more commonly, an abundance of editorial, which is often simple, provocative, and entertaining. This usually encourages the habit of writing and printing whatever interesting content one can think of.

With this “anything goes” mentality that even professional blogs can retain, those who organically grew into journalism can sometimes turn the wagging finger of individual belief into a slamming fist of broadcasted evangelism. So, if they retain an underlying dissatisfaction with certain societal, cultural, and moral commonalities that the medium may sometimes feature, you bet they’re going to voice their seemingly brilliant viewpoint on it.

Let the impassioned journalizing begin.

Need content? Want to take a stand? The bowels of YouTube are just for you!

“Punch the keys, for God’s sake!”

So then what’s the issue? Well, firstly, this is not what journalism is typically about. With a few intellectual exceptions (e.g. Christopher Hitchens), the profession is predominantly based on the information one knows, not the sort that one merely believes. Journalism is a service, and that service calls for little else than stating that blue is indeed blue, not that the color is inappropriate and shouldn’t exist.

Again, since most pundits in the games industry don’t have any vocational background in the profession, they misconstrue it as an opportunity to be an activist of sorts for their personal ideals. Much like how they sometimes regard the gaming medium, reporting is a sort of tool that is meant to trick or “teach” people into believing one way or another. If they feel a great injustice is transpiring in the industry, they feel it’s a natural obligation of their job to explain how it’s utterly deplorable and why you should be entirely against it.

One blogger will see what they view as a negative character depiction and claim it’s somehow influencing people into transferring that misconception onto others. Another will see an imbalance regarding the amount of [insert minority group] in games, therefore the medium retains a prejudice and needs to be more inclusive for no other reason than “just because”, never mind whether such forced inclusion is actually valuable to the art.

In the world of righteous reporting, correlation equals causation. Why? Because they say so, apparently.

Let’s talk, but please leave your dogma at the door.

At a point like this, one could easily misunderstand that opinion has no place in journalism. That’s just not true. But opinion is only as valuable as the objective thought that goes into it.

A reporter can absolutely provide their personal observation on a particular topic or event, but the mark of great (and academically sound) editorial is an equal consideration and measurement of all sides to an argument. As a result, few readers can then legitimately claim an inherent bias on the part of the writer, and the overall point will have been clearly and persuasively reasoned. Inviting the predisposition of personal influence (political, religious, ideological, philosophical) is nothing more than bland recitation.

For instance, imagine a kerfuffle erupting with regards to the scandalous depiction of a female character (a popular subject, these days). A valuable journalistic approach would be one that considers every variable, all potential points, and whatever contradictory views that may or may not compile into a logical conclusion. It’s an analysis of that person’s own design; they added up the valuable bits and tossed the chaff.

A valueless approach would be to largely appeal to a set of guidelines or ideals (fittingly, that would likely be feminism). This is an outside influence affecting a journalist’s view on the subject — an influence with its own statements and conclusions. This is a ready-made answer of another’s design.

Have you ever wondered why this type of bias usually includes a consistent use of simple and clichéd terms (in the case of feminism, “misogyny”)? That’s because such systems don’t challenge their own perspectives, just those of others. Therefore, they fall back on the only terms and verdicts that they’ve ever bothered to attribute to relevant concerns.

That’s moral appeal, and it should have no place in the news room. It already has enough safe spaces elsewhere.

Skepticism: The only hope for an honest future.

A chapel too bright? Find new light.

The next time you stumble upon editorial that encapsulates noticeably petty offenses, embellishes the fine details, and remains consistent (and one-sided) with their tone, you can all but guarantee it’s being expressed from a linear approach.

Fair questions to ask yourself would be: Is this really an imperative issue? Is this person analyzing and addressing it through a clear pair of spectacles? Are they recognizing opposite and equally valuable sides to the argument?

If the answer to such queries is “no”, then do feel free to move on to the next person with a keyboard, opinions, and web space. You have hundreds to choose from, and, concerning videogames, the bulk of them are born from the same black hole of predilection and moral authority.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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So, this weekend I attended PAX East, and there was a ton of good stuff to see. One of my favorite things was definitely Saint’s Row IV and if you thought that the last entry was insane then the bar just got set higher.

They started off by showing a few new weapons, and these weapons look like they are going to provide a ton of fun. The first was the Inflater, which you shoot someone with it they inflate making them bigger and bigger until they explode. My favorite new gun that they showed though was the Dub Step gun, which when you shoot it the person you shoot gets disintegrated while everyone else around them starts dropping to the beat, car windows explode from the bass, and stuff becomes pixelated. ​Volition also wanted you to be able to customize your weapons with a lot of new skins to make them more unique and they pull them from a lot of pop culture. The ones they showed us were for the rocket launcher, which you could make look like the Scope gun from the Super Nintendo days or a guitar case. Volition said that there would be a ton of these skins to find and unlock throughout the game.

The biggest reveal of all of this was the super power aspect being added to Saint’s Row. You need these powers to fight the new alien invasion that has descended upon Steelport. ​Volition was showing quite a bit when it came to the powers. You can have super speed like The Flash and get from place to place quickly. You can jump super high, and even fly. Essentially, they have made you Superman, and with the track record of Superman games this could end up being the best one. The combat powers they showed off were the freeze ray, which is exactly what you would think. You freeze anything and then you can shatter it or something like a car will be sent flying. They also were showing the TK power which is telekinesis, and it allowed you to pick up anything and throw it. It looks like a ton of fun. You won’t start off with these powers, but you’ll be able to unlock them as you progress through the game. Most of the enemies won’t really give you much trouble when you have way more power than they do, so they introduced the new aliens called Wardens who are also super powered and you won’t be able to escape from them.

That is what has been shown so far for Saint’s Row IV by Volition. It was such a fun experience too watch, and I hope that everyone gets to see that demo soon enough. I really enjoyed Saint’s Row The Third and it was definitely one of the biggest surprises from a few years ago. ​Saint’s Row IV looks like it is turning the crank of the last game from an eleven to a fifteen, so I am looking forward to playing the full game. It comes out August 23rd, so check it out!

Originally Posted on Spiderduck.net - Follow me on Twitter @TrevorOsz

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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I was 12 years old in 1997, a perfect time to be introduced to Final Fantasy VII because I was going through puberty, which we all know is a strange experience. I was young with little confidence; it’s no wonder that I attached so easily to the characters of FFVII. But what about 16 years later? Does the game still hold the same meaning now that I’m a grown man? After all these years, it’s the same game, and it’s still important to me but for different reasons.

Cloud is a mysterious and powerful — something my 12-year-old self instantly attached to. It was Cloud’s rivalry with Sephiroth that interested me most. The spiky-haired protagonist was a strong fighter but not much compared to the almighty Sephiroth. I wanted Cloud to beat Sephiroth and show his true strength — much like how I wanted to show all those around me how strong I could be.

At that time in my life, I was vicariously living through Cloud Strife. I was an awkward kid who wasn’t good at talking with others, and because of this, I had no confidence around the girls I liked. This is why when I got home from school, I would play FFVII. Cloud and his friends didn’t have to worry about girls. They had a world to save. It was a great escape from the typical-yet-trivial problems of becoming a teenager. Cloud, Barret, Red XIII, Tifa and all the others helped me through this strange period of my life, making FFVII a special experience for me.

Sixteen years later, many things have changed, but the characters of FFVII still mean a lot to me. Nowadays, however, I attach to the game for different reasons.

Personally, I’m in a time of major shift. I’m not sure what my future holds, and I’m trying to find my place in the world. At first, I decided to replay FFVII just to see if the game had aged well. The answer to that question is simple: The gameplay holds up, but the graphics are horrible. But something deep inside me moved while playing the game.

I realized I was once again escaping into its world. And once again, I was attaching myself to the character of Cloud Strife — this time for his struggle to find his identity. Cloud is a clone of Sephiroth, a failed clone, actually. The knowledge of this tears his psyche apart. Cloud goes into a deep coma while his mind battles to find his true identity. That search for identity is something that 27-year-old me can relate to.

Cloud eventually comes back to reality by finding the truth. The thing is, he didn’t find it by himself. He had friends who helped him along the way. Cloud realized that it isn’t his origin that defines him but his love for his friends, a lesson I am starting to learn myself. It’s not my career that defines me but those who are close to me.

FFVII is great at what makes video games so special. It allows us to escape from our lives for a few hours. My never-ending job search feels petty when the world needs to be saved from a giant meteor. The game itself is still great in my mind, but that isn’t why I love it. I love FFVII because it’s timeless. Maybe in another 16 years, the game will again teach me new lesson.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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I have a friend who is a huge pothead. He smokes all day every day — his life revolves around the stuff. At the same time, he’s one of the most responsible people I know. He’s worked at the same job for the last 13 years, where he’s moved up to run his own store.

He’s also been to jail several times on pot-related charges. He doesn’t deal. He doesn’t grow. The cops in my suburban hometown just love to treat every instance of possession as a federal crime.

Now, I’m not gonna bore you with some research paper about weed because I assume you are aware of the talking points. For example, everyone has heard that pot is far less dangerous to your health than alcohol. Tons of evidence supports that. Very little evidence suggests pot is anything but a gateway drug. Of course, the only reason pot is a gateway drug is because you have to go to a drug dealer to get it and they would rather move you on to drugs with higher profit margins. If I could only get burritos from a drug dealer, I would consider burritos a gateway drug.

But I digress.

This is all my way of pointing out that humans tend to overreact. In response to pot and narcotics, America has run a decades-long drug war that has filled our jails with non-violent offenders while simultaneously costing us billions and not solving the problem.

The government did all of this without evidence that its policies would work or that the thing they were criminalizing was even dangerous.

This leads me, somewhat embarrassingly, to video games. I’m not going to compare any threat facing video games to the Drug War, which is truly evil. That is an extreme example, but it’s one most people can latch onto as a point of comparison.

These days, a growing number of gaming personalities are vocalizing their distaste for violent video games. Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Gears of War, God of War, Mortal Kombat, BioShock, Far Cry, Tomb Raider, Mass Effect, Metal Gear Solid, Dishonored, Dead Space, Resident Evil, Crysis — on and on it goes .

We have a monsoon of blood and guns and some gamers are sick of it. I don’t blame them. This embarrassment of violence is especially noticeable since gaming is so homogenized and targeted nearly entirely at males 18 to 34 males who respond well to violence.

For many gamer-critics (critics from within the gaming community), the answer is to burn it all down.  Burn it all to the ground. They hate violent games. They hate who violent games are for. They want games that are different.

To me, it’s fine that you hate violent games and me for loving them. Gamers like me get everything they want while people with differing tastes must walk a gaming desert. That’s not fair.

But for me, those critics cross a line when they begin to insist that violent video games are dangerous or harmful. For that, I’m gonna need to see some evidence, otherwise I’ll assume that these people — noted for their hatred of violent games — are simply seeing something they hate personally and projecting a negativity onto them that doesn’t exist.

Yesterday, Braid creator Jonathan Blow suggested that twitch games, and especially violent ones, are bad for your body:

@LaurieCheers Both, but I suspect violent-themed games are worse.—
Jonathan Blow (@Jonathan_Blow) May 03, 2013

When asked to present evidence for this, however, he told someone that “it’s obvious.”

It isn’t obvious. Not to me anyhow. Renown critic of gaming and gamer culture Leigh Alexander sympathized with Blow and his suggestion that the harmfulness of violent games is obvious. At least that’s how it appeared to me.

“If we can reject the potential for harm because of absence of evidence, then why are we so righteous in the absence of evidence, y’know?” Alexander wrote in a tweet to Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s John Walker.

Humans tend to overreact, and those overreactions don’t wait for evidence.

Why are we righteous? Well, we could probably tone it down a bit, but I think it’s because demanding evidence is the best defense against people who want to take stuff away from other people simply because they don’t like it.

Until Blow or anyone else provides evidence that games are bad for my body (or that they turn me into a murderer, which Blow doesn’t believe is true), I’ll keep assuming they are just wildly charging games with something because they don’t like violent games on a personal level.

Again, it’s OK to not like violent video games but labeling them as harmful without proof is something that makes me super uncomfortable.

We know that outside of gaming, congress is waiting for any opportunity to regulate this form of expression. I don’t think that Blow or Alexander support government regulation, but their vague claims that “violent games are bad for us in some undefinable way” is all some Representative from Nowhere Dakota would need to overreact.

It’s especially frustrating because both Blow and Alexander (and others before them) are ignoring the solution, because they want to cause damage to those that they perceive are keeping them down. They’re looking for equality through subtraction. These critics believe they can take away violent games from dudebros and suddenly we will have more games for lesser-served minorities.

It doesn’t work like that.

The answer, as always, is more speech. More art. You don’t need to take Call of Duty 27 from me in order for Blow’s next game, The Witness, to exist.

We need 50 more The Witnesses. We need an industry that is so saturated with indie think-first games that dudebros can’t even stand it.

When everyone can find inclusion somewhere, no one will have time to worry about the stuff they hate.

I don’t blame anyone for resenting 20-year-old gamer dudes. Publishers do everything they can to serve them. That’s gross but not because 20-year-old gamer dudes don’t deserve it. It’s gross because everyone deserves it and only 20-year-old gamer dudes actually get it.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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We’re coming close to the one year anniversary of my first article that made the front page of Bitmob. It was about my bromance with Garrus Vakarian in the Mass Effect trilogy. At the time, I was excited to share my favorite moments from Mass Effect 3. The article was the deciding factor in my wanting to begin a career in games journalism, but it’s also my most cherished article because it came from the heart of an innocent gamer. I hadn’t then been exposed to the greater gaming community.

A lot has happened since last April. I’m sure I don’t need to recap all the events for you; this isn’t that kind of retrospective. I’m more concerned about the video game community itself.

A year ago, I was pretty naive about our community. I thought it was filled with a bunch of passionate gamers who liked discussing their favorite hobby over the Internet. Bitmob itself was a great place — maybe too great. It truly was a shelter from the legions of trolls that infest the Internet. Eventually, the more I invested in Twitter, the uglier the conversations became, the more websites I visited, and the more bickering that went on.

Why would anyone want to be a part of this industry? I’ve asked myself this question a lot recently. Everywhere I turn, I see arguments about violence, sexism, and bigotry. I wish I could go back to last April, when I decided to write about video games. I would tell my former self to just enjoy the hobby and not try for a career in it.

I always feel awkward when someone asks me what I want to do for a living. Whenever I reply, “I want to write about video games,” I feel an awkward chill run down my spine. Recently, I realized that chill isn’t because most people view video games as childish but because I’m ashamed to associate with our community. Video games are no longer a children’s toy, but gamers sure as hell still act like children.

Last year, Electronic Arts was voted the most evil company in America, and it looks like it will be receiving that title once again. Really? How about the companies that skyrocket prices on pharmaceuticals or create a monopoly off blood diamonds? There is a laundry list of companies out there that treat humans and the environment like garbage, yet a software publisher is voted the most evil company in America because a bunch of gamers didn’t like the ending of Mass Effect 3. No wonder I’m ashamed to associate with this crowd. It’s pathetic; it’s disgusting.

I know I’m coming off as pessimistic, but this is coming from anger. I’m angry that women are treated terribly from all angles in this community. I’m tired of seeing the trolls get more attention than those who are actually trying to add value to conversations. However, every once and awhile something great happens — something that revitalizes my love for video games. Two recent dates come to mind: February 20 and March 26, or the reveal of the PlayStation 4 and the release of BioShock Infinite, respectively.

On the day of the PS4 reveal, Twitter was vibrant and optimistic. Everyone was sharing their favorite PlayStation memories, and there were great discussions about predictions and what Sony needed to reveal. From the early hours of the morning to late at night, after the two-hour presentation, it was a great day to be a gamer — not because a new console was announced but because everyone put down their weapons for a day and shook hands in excitement.

On March 26, an amazing video game came out: BioShock Infinite. The Internet was abuzz once again. Everyone was enjoying common experiences in Columbia. A week later, great conversations are still being had — another example of trolls and white knights alike dropping their issues and sharing something together.

These significant events show how great our community can be. Sadly, it seems it can only sustain such greatness for a single day.

A lot has happened since last April. I’ve made great friends and played some fantastic games, but that feels overshadowed by a colossal community filled with pettiness. As long as the web is the main method of discourse for this industry, it will never get better.

I wish I had some answers, but I don’t. Remember, my first article was written only a year ago. I have no influence in this industry, but maybe one day I will, and I’ll have some answers then. Until that day comes, I think we should all ask ourselves one simple question: why would anyone want to be a part of this industry?

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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The year is 2018, and a disrupted war economy has plunged the world into financial instability. But money hungry arms dealers and corrupt politicians scheme to rejuvenate their cash flow through child-cyborg experimentation and a staged terrorist attack. This dark glimpse of our possible future is the backdrop of Platinum Games’ “lightning fast” action game Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.

As outlandish as the Rising’s depictions of 2018 are, Kojima Productions is a master of making the outlandish seem totally plausible. But of all the wild predictions made by Rising, the most plausible is also the most underplayed: the militarization and subsequent privatization of America’s police forces.

Rising only explicitly shows the Denver City Police Department as a privatized force owned and run by World Marshall Inc., America’s largest private military company and one half of the game’s antagonists; however, in protagonist Raiden’s codec conversations with Maverick military strategist Kevin, it’s revealed that an unspecified number of other cities also have privatized their police forces. While Kevin is quick to note that the majority of Denver’s police are unmodified humans, the city’s highly militarized SWAT unit is entirely comprised of cyborgs and weaponized robots. But will such heavily armed units really have a place in the future of America’s law enforcement?

The idea of a police unit dedicated to tackling high-risk operations was originally conceived in 1967 by Daryl Gates and further developed by John Nelson of the Los Angeles Police Department. Comprised of specially trained and equipped LAPD officers, the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) unit found early success in their 1969 raid on the Black Panther head quarters and 1974 siege on a Symbionese Liberation Army stronghold. Since that time, SWAT units have been established in every major police force across the U.S., neutralizing immediate and deadly threats deemed too risky for uniformed police officers.

Following the terror attack on 9/11 in America and the subsequent War on Terror, however, the noticeable increase in usage of SWAT teams to carry out non-life threatening tasks — and the increased militarization of both SWAT and members of uniformed police — has been questioned.

The beginning of March saw the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announce their nationwide investigation into the increased presence of militarized police units in American towns and cities. The organization’s concerns are laid out on its website and backed up by ten “chilling” news stories of botched drugs raids, inappropriate handling of protesters, and the shooting and death of those mistaken as combatants.

While one of the ACLU’s main goals is to curb what it sees as a growing trend in “overly aggressive policing,” their focus also falls on the extent to which federal funding is fueling police militarization.

In Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, World Marshall is not only providing the entirety of the Denver City Police Department’s personnel but also their weapons and vehicles and the SWAT teams’ cyborgs and robots. Real-world police forces, on the other hand, currently receive a significant amount of equipment from the Department of Defense’s Excess Property Program.

Also known as the 1033 program, the Excess Property Program sees the Defense Logistics Agency hand out free army surplus weapons and armor as well as land, air, and sea vehicles. Government statistics show that the demand for this service has increased dramatically over recent years with police forces acquiring $2.12 million worth of military equipment in 2010, $4.98 million in 2011, and a staggering $5.46 million in 2012.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) also awards grants to local police departments that, according to a report by the Center for Investigative Reporting, have totaled over $34 billion since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. These hefty grants are used, among other things, to pay for military-grade equipment and training from defense contractors.

Radley Balko, policy analyst for think-tank Cato Institute and author of several white papers on civil liberties and paramilitary policing, believes that the large DHS grants have cemented defense contractor-police relationships across America. In an interview with Motherboard, Balko voiced his concerns over where these growing trends may lead to in the near future.

DHS grants are lucrative enough that many defense contractors are now turning their attention to police agencies — and some companies have sprung up solely to sell military-grade weaponry to police agencies who get those grants.

That means we’re now building a new industry whose sole function is to militarize domestic police departments. Which means it won’t be long before we see pro-militarization lobbying and pressure groups with lots of (taxpayer) money to spend to fight reform. That’s a corner it will be difficult to un-turn. We’re probably there already. Say hello to the police-industrial complex.

Unnervingly enough, Balko’s argument reads as though it has come straight from the script of an unreleased section of the Metal Gear saga. In fact, to take his Metal Gear-esque prediction of a police-focused arms industry a few steps further would see it fall in line with the same predictions made in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. After all, defense-contractor-owned, privatized police forces and the rejuvenation of Metal Gear Solid 4′s “war economy” within American borders was precisely the dream of Senator and Rising boss Steven Armstrong.

Walking tanks and full body cyborgs aside, Kojima Productions’ vision of privatized police forces may just be its most accurate.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Last week, Japanese developer Hideki Kamiya sparked some controversy when he tweeted about the length of his upcoming Wii U game, The Wonderful 101.

Unsurprisingly, many took this to mean it will be short. However, his colleague, Atsushi Inaba, has since added some clarification, stating that Kamiya was actually commenting on the lack of padding in the game and how the development team will not attempt to artificially increase its length.

Regardless of how long or short The Wonderful 101 is at release, the response made me consider how it’s often worse when games are too long than when they’re too short. The feeling that a game ended too quickly surely indicates that it’s good, right? In comparison, a game that drags on can sour an enjoyable experience, especially if the player loses interest before the end.

With the increase of downloadable games and small-scale titles that don’t sacrifice quality, I believe the argument that game length will become incredibly important in the next generation.

How long is too long?

Calling a game “too long” is obviously a subjective statement. I’ve heard people say six hours of gameplay is perfect while others have scoffed at anything below 20. Still, it’s fair to say that any game that requires substantial investment before being fun is, in some way, too long. Personally, I don’t decide how long I want a game to be until I’m actively playing it. However, as an aging gamer who works full time, I must admit that even in good games, I regularly hit points where I’m bored and race to the end.

Still, I’m in the minority. While I push myself to finish a game because I want to see the conclusion, most people quit when they stop enjoying themselves.

The average gamer is now 30-years-old. They likely have familial, social, or professional responsibilities and some form of disposable income. When they sit down to play, they want immediate enjoyment, but they often don’t have the time to pour hours into a game that isn’t instantly gratifying.

If the average gamer isn’t having fun, they will stop playing and seek another, shorter experience. Full-priced titles that feature obtuse late-game sections or shoehorned-in multiplayer don’t meet that need.

The development perspective

If we consider this issue from a development standpoint, the length of a game is a balancing act of funds and design.

Given infinite time and resources, I doubt developers would stop before they were happy with what they had created. However, we don’t live in such a reality, and developers must regularly weigh how much they have remaining and how best to use it. They still want to give players an experience worth their money — the expanding mobile market with cheap, fun games is proof of this — but if they don’t have the time to produce brand new content, they may consider other ways to increase its value.

Sadly, this can lead to the infamous padding that Kamiya wants to avoid in The Wonderful 101.

It’s a wise concern as consumers are beginning to ask themselves if they want the same old 20-hour experience with a few good parts or a fun and unique three-hour downloadable experience. Considering the price of downloadable titles versus their boxed counterparts, it’s becoming an easy decision.

This divide is made more significant as fans notice the varying quality of video games bought in stores. The average film lasts one to two hours and costs around $8 a ticket, so assuming this is the standard cost to entertainment ratio, the average $60 game should last roughly 11 hours (not far off from most recent triple-A titles). But many games provide much more enjoyment without sacrificing quality. Great multiplayer-focused titles, such as Call of Duty, can also provide almost infinite entertainment.

This uneven value means consumers are looking at the $60 game with much more scrutiny. Incredible free-to-play games, such as League of Legends, are not making this any easier for the big boys.

Is there a problem?

So as gamers, do we have a problem? The answer is yes — and no.

When triple-A games stretch themselves out through extended tutorials or pointless backtracking, then yes, we have a problem. At the same time, as the number of games at our fingertips increases, we can easily find something that suits our tastes. As such, the real problem lies with big studios that produce anything other than perfectly balanced $60 experiences.

As the market for games grows, high-budget games must focus on matching length with quality to remain relevant and enjoyable. Otherwise, they risk losing customers who may decide a $1 app with simple but addictive gameplay is a better value than a humungous $60 experience that demands considerable investment before any payout of pleasure.

A new generation

The allure of the $60 price tag is no longer something I understand. If developers have a great concept but the final product is smaller than they expected, they should market and price it appropriately. Most gamers recognize that a game doesn’t have to be long to be good, and some of the greatest games of this generation have shown this, like Portal and Journey.

So what is the solution to bloated games? I believe indie and mobile developers have already found it — selling games at reduced prices that reflect the entertainment value of the product. I’m using “entertainment value” as a catch-all term that encompasses single-player length, game quality, and replayability (including multiplayer), but developers and publishers should analyze each of these areas to understand how worthwhile their game experience is and determine a reasonable price.

Enough is enough. If you realize your game is done but don’t think it’s long enough, consider bowing out of the $60 price bracket before cramming it full of content that might ruin it. Or just aim for lower prices and develop your game accordingly. Crazy, I know.

Please don’t misunderstand. I believe there is space in the industry for the $60 triple-A title, and I don’t think those games should automatically be shorter. But that price shouldn’t be the goal for every game destined to be on store shelves.

The games industry is underdoing an important transition, and big budget studios must make the move before they become obsolete. It’s surprising when a game like Ridiculous Fishing can achieve higher review scores than Tomb Raider, but I believe this is a sign that the $60 dream can finally fade away — and with it, games that are too long for their own good.

Thanks for reading. For this and other rambles, please check out my blog or follow me on Twitter.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Most everyone remembers the first time they fell in love. It’s a really special feeling, falling in love for the first time. You get all tingly inside and feel all of these weird things that you’ve never felt before. When did I first fall in love? In 1999, when I played Super Mario Bros. for the first time.

I was six years old, and I had never played a video game before. My cousin had upgraded from the NES to the PlayStation and decided to give me his old NES. It’s the Toploader. I still have it.

Being only six, I had no idea that this would be the beginning of something very special. It was the first time I would play a video game, and it would spark my lifelong passion for gaming. I put in the cartridge and played Super Mario Bros. for the very first time.

I have the cartridge with Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt, the one that was bundled with most Nintendo Entertainment Systems. I couldn’t play Duck Hunt, because I didn’t have the light gun. ‘That’s okay,’ I thought. ‘I can still play Super Mario Bros.’

I played that game over and over and over again. To this day, I can put that same game in the same NES Toploader, stomp on the same Goombas, collect the same coins, and still enjoy it just as much as I did way back then. I introduced the game to my childhood best friend, and we used to play it every time he came over, which was about every weekend. We always fought over the controller; I was a bossy kid, and I always wanted to use the “dogbone” controller. I gave him the crappy regular controller with the sticky D-pad. I let him be Luigi, though, who has always been my favorite.

Most people probably don’t remember the first video game they played, but I do. If I wasn’t given that NES, I’m not sure if I ever would have played video games. My friends who played video games were introduced to games by me. If not for that NES Toploader, I probably wouldn’t have this blog.

What is the first game you remember falling in love with? Tell me in the comments below.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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I haven’t written any articles on the upcoming sequel to the two previous Batman Arkham games, however as I am going to replay both Arkham Asylum and Arkham City very shortly, and given that they are two of my favourite games ever made, I thought I should at least do an article acknowledging the existence of the prequel game Arkham Origins.

When I first heard about Origins I was mega excited. I mean, I absolutely adored the two previous Batman games by Rocksteady and I was totally psyched for a third game in the series. Unfortunately Origins isn’t being developed by Rocksteady and has instead been handed over to WB Games Montreal. To be honest, while this is quite worrying, it isn’t the end of the world from where I’m standing. Rocksteady have already developed two Batman games and have laid the foundations for the series. WB Games Montreal are dealing with a prequel, not the sequel, so they have had two games developed by the masters Rocksteady to learn and appreciate how to develop a good Batman game. I’m really confident that they can do a fantastic job.

That said, the lack of Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill is slightly worrying. Nobody noticed that Harley Quinn’s voice actor in Arkham City had changed, however The Joker and, obviously, the mighty Batman are two of the most, if not the most, important characters in the entire game and their voice actors are not easily replaced, especially Batman’s. Kevin Conroy is a legend and the voice that he uses for Batman in borderline irreplaceable. His gravelly tone hasn’t just set the standard for how Batman’s voice should sound, he has 100% MADE it Batman’s voice – and his ONLY voice.

I don’t think it’s impossible for WB to find a guy who sounds similar or who does a good, maybe even great or amazing, job of replicating Conroy’s tone, however it’s still a BIG disappointment not to have the master doing it. What’s more, it is slightly worrying WHY he decided not to do Batman’s voice in Origins. Is the game not good enough?

As for Mark Hamill, well, we all knew he wouldn’t be returning for anything Joker related since Arkham City as he said he was giving up the whole Joker thing, so obviously there was always going to be a new voice actor for Batman’s nemesis. I’m kind of split with this one. While I do believe there are many other actors who can do great Joker voices, being able to do a GREAT Joker impression doesn’t mean that they can still BE the Joker. Mark Hamill is also irreplaceable from the perspective that his Joker voice is so borderline unique and perfect that other people who might even be able to do really good impressions of the bad guy, can’t do it exactly how Hamill did. It’s a tricky situation and I hope WB’s have chosen their voice actors EXTREMELY carefully. This is NOT the type of thing they can be all blasé about.

Anyway, moving on. Origins is set in Gotham City unlike the Arkham City game which was set in, well, Arkham City. It takes place on Christmas Eve too, which I think is absolutely awesome. Can you imagine running around in the snow, taking out The Joker and completing cases and everything with Christmas lights up and maybe carols being sung somewhere? I can and I think it could be stunning – if WB does it right that is. I think the whole Christmas tone could make it more depressing and yet lighter at the same time. Very nice contrast indeed.

As for the rest of the story, well, here’s the synopsis:

Set a good few years before Arkham Asylum, and, as I mentioned, on Christmas Eve too, a less experienced Batman finds there are 8 assassins who are out to kill him due to a bounty having been placed on his head by the gangster Black Mask (great to see he is making an appearance). The devs have emphasised that this isn’t a story of how Batman became Batman and is simply a story set within his time as Batman, albeit before he became as experienced and powerful as he was in the likes of Arkham Asylum and City.

Deathstroke, The Joker, Black Mask, The Penguin and Alberto Falcone (as well as other, currently unknown, bad guys) will feature in the game. Hopefully Harley Quinn will make an appearance too, however this is very debatable as, given the time in which it is set, it is unlikely that the Joker will have even met her.

Aside from the story there is not much else to note about the game really. There is now going to be a fast travel option. There is more of a focus on side missions (like aiding the GCPD and things like that). There will likely be some new gadgets as well as returning ones. There is a greater emphasis on the detective side of things this time around. Previously crime scenes had never offered any challenge really and all of the complicated work was done for you. However Origins will have bigger, more expansive and deeper investigation areas so this should be really interesting.

Part of my problem with Arkham City was that it felt a bit rehashed from the first game in some parts. I loved it and all, and it more than qualified for a 9/10, however some of the gameplay and story sections felt predictable, easy and/or copied from Arkham Asylum. Like the gliding across the ice part in AC was just like the tiptoeing along the wood while avoiding Killer Croc part in AA. A bit more variety in Origins would be awesome.

I also found the story in AA completely uninteresting. I adored the parts where you had to go after The Joker and battle Ra’s Al Ghul and the mini little side stories were nice, however the main plot was feeble at most. Maybe the main story hasn’t always been the focus of Batman, and it has always been more about the fights and the characters and everything, however I do expect more from a video game.

Aside from those couple of things I had no other significant beefs with Arkham City, so there aren’t really any proper ‘issues’ with the game that Origins needs to avoid doing, however it certainly will need to switch things up. Rehashing is never good and hopefully it will offer a brand new story and mission selection.

I have to admit; I am super excited for the upcoming Batman prequel. It looks amazing. Some things are worrying me a little, however if WB Games Montreal pull this off then B:AO could easily be another game battling for Game Of The Year.

What are your thoughts on the Batman games and the upcoming Origins prequel? Lemme know in the comments! PEACE.

Remember to check out my blog (michaelthekyle.blogspot.co.uk) for way more, exclusive, content and follow me on twitter @mookyst.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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