Downloadable Content Brats

Downloadable content is a great thing. It gives you a bit more life out of your favorite games and the game creator gets a little more cash out of your purchase. However, this technological break through has had some negative consequences. Downloadable content has made consumers less excited for sequels

. Unless the sequel is on a new system, claims to be ground-breaking, or uses a completely new engine, most of us aren’t interested. But why? What’s wrong with buying a $45 game with $45 worth of new content? Games like Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Katamari Forever have been completely over looked by even the biggest fans of the series.

A sequel doesn’t have to be a completely different game because it’s a sequel, a new installment. Especially since it’s becoming easier and easier to pirate new content online, developers have seen more of a profit from creating completely new games.

Now doesn't this game look like fun?

So what’s so wrong with new content? You liked the first game didn’t you?

Can Video Games and Movies Get Along?

Video games and movies are two different things. You might read that and think, “Uh… duh?” but honestly, I’m not so sure if the actual game developers and movie makers fully understand this. And if there’s one thing that I am sure of, its that they sure as hell don’t understand each other.  At all. That is very bad, seeing as the two spend a ridiculous portion of their time trying to copy the other one into oblivion.

Movies have been copying off of other media since its inception. Many of your favorite movies likely started off as a book or TV show. But adaptations of video games rarely ever work out right. Why? Well, It’s a vastly different medium. Games are totally interactive, and almost always follow the exact same camera angle, on the exact same character for the entire game(excluding cutscenes). Fans generally like it when adaptations from one medium to another are as closely matched as possible, which is really difficult to do in movies. Also, video games have very little dialogue, which is kind of a major part of films. So all of that basically adds up to this: Movies of video games suck. And I’ve seen very little evidence that this can change.

Oh sweet Jesus why?

It’s exactly the same if you flip it around. Video games of movies generally suck, too. The gameplay is forced, boring, and uninteresting and the plot is never as good as the movie. Also, they’re rushed to a ridiculous extent so that they can be released alongside the movie. The movie basically has to be put together already so the developers know how to make the game, and the time in between mid-production and release is not enough time to make a game. Period. The example of this that comes to mind is E.T., a game so bad that it nearly killed off gaming altogether. That’s colossally bad.

If Uwe Boll was a game designer, this is the game he would make.

So really, some game developers and some filmmakers need to sit down together and enlighten each other as to why their mediums are so good. Maybe they can learn from one another, and I can play Saving Private Ryan: The Game and have a good time.

Artificial Stupidity

So, I was at work today, and one of my co-workers mentioned that she was playing Resident Evil 5. Eventually, she told us about how she hated how her computer controlled partner was constantly getting herself killed. This made me think. Do the developers intentionally make your AI counterparts stupid? Or is it just another unsolvable problem of the game industry?

Please, leave comments with your opinion on the matter. If you don’t, then we’ll realize that you don’t care, and our little project will be sucked out of existence.

P.S. Sorry for the short length. I’m working on a pretty big feature for next week. Check in next Thursday.

Julio Lawrence (Xbox 360 Editor)

You Got Literary Elements in My Gaming… You Got Gaming in My Literary Elements… Yum!

Since the video gaming industry began people have said that it was dangerous for the kiddies. I mean mothers were up in arms because of CIRCUS ATARI. What a violent game that was… Smashing their little pixel heads into the little pixel floor.

Non-gamers, not just parents, are still horrified of the idea of video games and all them violent Grand Theft Autos…. But even though video games have definitely gotten more violent… They are slowly becoming more meaningful. I’m sorry if that scares you.

Video games have began to grow these little things called “stories”. It’s not just about smashing alien brains in anymore. It’s about smashing alien brains with a purpose.

Kingdom Hearts, Half-Life, Mass Effect, Bioshock, Sly Cooper all have in depth stories that could easily be placed on a literary level.

Video games aren’t rotting brains… If gaming keeps going in this direction, it’s probably going to teach the youth more lessons than BOOKS ever would. Books… Gross…

Too Much of a Good Thing?

Since the very beginning of gaming, developers have known that we all really, really love killing. And we do love killing. It seems to be the main problem solving method in most games. Need some rupees? Kill some shit. Are those aliens invading your homeworld? Kill ‘em. And war games? You can most certainly bet that your enemies will get a big fistful of DEAD before the end of the day.

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That’s not a bad thing, necessarily. It’s a very fun aspect of video games. But we have too much of a good thing. Killing is getting a little, well…overdone. How many great games have you played recently where you didn’t kill anything? And no, sports games do not count. The majority of them are not great, and are barely games. Death-less games are difficult to come by nowadays. And it’s a bummer because developers can certainly make games like this. And good ones, no less. Look at Jet Set Radio. An artistic, unique, complex game without a ‘HEADSHOT!!!!!!!1ONE’ in any form.Non-killing games do exist–you don’t have to kill everybody in Metal Gear Solid games, and Portal is a great first person shooter–especially when what you’re shooting isn’t bullets. But the ratio is frighteningly unbalanced. And that needs to change. Believe me–I love shooter games. I like killing in games just as much as anybody else. But we need more games where the main objective isn’t just to kill. It seems ridiculous that such a creative and diverse industry has decided to focus on any single activity, that shows in the vast majority of their games. And don’t say that there isn’t anything else to make a good game about. Because there are two distinct categories of activities in the world: Killing shit, and fucking everything else that you could possibly do. Guess which category is bigger? And besides, it is really the developers’ jobs to think of creative new games.

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But it’s not the developers’ fault. They’re just catering to our interests. Like everybody else, they need money, and they’ll make it by pumping out FPSes by the dozen. It’s only what you want. When was the last time you walked around as a normal person in Grand Theft Auto? Probably never. Developers know that, so they put all of their resources into killing people in new and exciting ways.But if we can get outside of the deathmatches, and the killing sprees, and the slayer modes, then I believe that games can get more creative. Some murder-centric games have a great story. But limiting games to killing also limits the story-telling ability. Too few games really make you think. Too few games really absorb you into the storyline, make you care about the characters and what’s happening in the game, like a good novel can. More games should. The more you care about the game, and the people in the game, the better you’ll play, and the more you’ll play. Everybody wins.

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Things are fine the way they are, for now. The shooters and such can be really fun games–some of the best. But we need to incorporate an even number of different games. If the industry wants to move forward, it’ll need some diversity. That’s just evolution at its most basic.