Category: Video Games

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Reviews Video Games

Falling out not with a bang, but a whimper

A long time ago, I declared Fallout 3 to be little more than “Oblivion with guns” and set off to play said fantasy game and its expansion. Naturally, my short attention span got the better of me. I created a new character for Oblivion, spent a few days levelling him and finishing the Mages Guild quest path, and went to explore the Shivering Isles expansion. Too bad that this was exactly the moment when I got bored with the game.

In the meantime, I had been watching Flip play Fallout 3 and decided that it looked like fun. We had also been talking with nobody, who had already finished it once and had some good things to say about the versatility of the character build system. So, I resolved to dig in and give it a try. Flip generally plays a good character, so I went for agent of chaos (which in too many CRPGs is equivalent to destruction) and found a build online which would allow me access to pretty much all the skills fairly quickly.

In the fast moving world of game critique, a lot has already been said about Fallout 3. I know I’m several months behind the ball, but I’m happy to not be bleeding edge, and pitch you my own observations.

Continue reading “Falling out not with a bang, but a whimper”
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Music Video Games

Music Industry vs Music Games

Wired.com is running an essay on the music industry’s beef with music simulation games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero. In some ways, it’s like listening to a broken record: old business hasn’t anticipated how the times are a-changin’ and starts whining about not having a big enough cut of the proceeds.

They’ve done it with Apple and the ITMS, they’re doing illegal things  to hinder file swapping, and they’re doing very little to be innovative and stay ahead of the game. What they don’t seem to realise is that if they weren’t stuck in this orthodoxy of the plastic disc, they could be inventing new distribution channels like games and ringtones and online file distribution.

One fact jumped straight off my monitor and burned into my brain when I read the article:

Music games are proven earners—Aerosmith has reportedly earned more from Guitar Hero : Aerosmith than from any single album in the band’s history.

Wow! Aerosmith is one of the biggest rock bands in history, and they make more money off a game? It’s obvious this could be used as a fantastic promotional tool, but it can also help revitalise bands.

Due to the last couple years of music games, I’ve (re)discovered music and bands I haven’t given a thought to in over a decade. I’ve spent money on them. Even if the label gets a relatively small cut from the game, it gets much more from my track purchase.

I would hate to be working for such an introverted, conservative company. It would frustrate me to think that my employer behaved like a spoiled brat who wanted credit every time somebody came up with a better idea.

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Video Games

In case you missed me ramble on about video games

Originally, I was going to play and review Fallout 3. Then Flip started it while I watched and realised that it was just Oblivion with guns. So I figured why not just play that and hit the two main expansions. So I’ve spent the last week making a new character (a Mage) and levelling him up a bit (he’s now the head of the mage’s guild). And now I’m spent.

I got home after work last night with no desire to hit The Shivering Isles or even Fallout 3. I will get there, but I’ve run out of steam for the moment.

Instead, I turned back to Rock Band. It’s good for a quick pick-up game and we’re slowly garnering more songs for it. I’m picking up some tracks that were on Guitar Hero 2 & 3. The note tracking is different (and generally easier), but I’m also getting them for the other instruments. In particular, I like singing them.

Anyway, now that things are a little quiet on the release front, I’m starting to look at slightly newer games. Speaking to nobody recently, I’ve been convinced to try the revisioned Prince of Persia. Though it probably could have been done under a different title, I’ll survive. It looks like fun.

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Video Games

Hot and blue!

Even though he’s very late in taking the piss of Mass Effect, Shamus Young has some interesting points regarding the Asari in general, and the consort in particular.

Personally I’m slightly disturbed by xenoeroticism, but Bioware obviously thought there was a market for that sort of thing. Can anybody tell me they weren’t at least somewhat put off by the whole notion of sticking it inside the blue thing with tentacles on her head?

Oh yeah, Lucas did it first with the Twi’lek.

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Tech Video Games

Yo ho, a pirate’s life for me!

In my daily stumblings around the net, I discovered this little gem of an article. It purports to be a rational and researched examination of PC game piracy, DRM, and general hysteria surrounding the whole topic.

It provides an interestingly cool-headed counter to some other bloggers I could mention.

One thing about Shamus Young’s stance on DRM that bothers me is that he assumes that the consumer owns the game when they purchase it. Now, I don’t like it, but the actual way things work (and he should know this, being a professional programmer) is that end-users purchase a license to use the software, not the software itself. There are very few (if any) commercial software products that transfer ownership of the software (either in source, or in binary format) upon purchase. Just because you paid money for it, doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want.

And it’s never been that way. Looking back as far as I’ve been buying software, I can remember seeing license agreements in packages that were quite explicit about that. And it’s understandable: how else can the creator of the code enforce their ownership?

DRM is pretty evil, but I am (at least temporarily) swayed by the arguments in the article that piracy causes the escalation in protection of software, and that the only determinant of piracy is the popularity of the software. There is a vocal minority that might claim DRM causes piracy, but the numbers certainly seem against it.

I also liked the acknowledgement that no copyright protection system is fool-proof, but if it can prevent day-one piracy in order to help developers and publishers recoup their expenses, then that’s a good thing. Developers and publishers with cash in their pockets can continue to make games.

Don’t get me wrong. Poorly-implemented DRM (a la Bioshock) can make life a living hell, but the only way for us to reduce it is to put pressure on people who won’t put any money into a game developer’s pocket at all.