The days of Rock Band games being clearly superior to Guitar Hero games are finally over. When Harmonix went to EA and MTV to make Rock Band, Neversoft tried not once, but twice to hold onto the "old" formula of guitar-only play, in both Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock (which came out before Rock Band, to be fair) and Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. Neither game was as good as Rock Band, let alone the last Harmonix GH, Guitar Hero 2. When Neversoft made their full-band game, Guitar Hero: World Tour (aka GH4), which came out around the same time as Rock Band 2, it seemed like they didn't bother looking for what didn't work in the first Rock Band. They kinda just threw something together, and it was a train wreck. Guitar Hero: Metallica, the second full-band game from Neversoft, had better music, if you like Metallica and '80s metal in general. Worse if you didn't, but the gameplay was about the same. Bad. Now Neversoft is stepping up the game with Guitar Hero 5, but have Neversoft learned from World Tour/4 as well as Rock Band 1 and 2? In short, oh yes. In detail, read on.
First impression
It's still Guitar Hero. Sign-in issues that shouldn't exist, do, and will annoy you to no end. Your "band" will develop stupid tricks for doing this stuff "just right". For example, it pays to have the same person sign in first (to be the "leader") every time. Stupidly stupid stuff happens when you don't, but some cool things happen when you do. More on that later. The menus seem bloated with too many entries. However, to its credit, the game goes into a "demo" play when you're at the menu, some song will play, and you can press a button (Y or yellow on the Xbox 360) and you jump right in. If you're on a guitar, you choose guitar or bass, lefty or standard, difficulty, and you're playing. Instantly. Anyone can press Y to join in. Just like that. This is the party mode you've probably heard about. It is quicker than quick play. No loading, no nothing. (No failing, either.)
Quickplay/Playlist
The Quickplay playlist is far more advanced than Rock Band 1 or Guitar Hero World Tour by a long shot. Like Rock Band 2, difficulty is given, on a scale of ten. (RB1 had a scale of 9, RB2 has a scale of 7, and World Tour had no difficulty notation.) Like other games, a sample of the song plays as you hover over each song. Album covers are not shown, as in Rock Band 2, but the length of the song is given. You can sort by "intensity" for each instrument (intensity is difficulty), total running time, year the song came out, name of the song, name of the artist/band, and maybe a couple others. You can make a playlist of as many songs as you want, it would seem. (RB1 had no playlist, RB2's playlist is seemingly unlimited, but WT's was limited to 6 songs.)
If you're the band leader, you can load and save playlists, too. But you can only load playlists saved when you were the band leader. If someone else was, everyone has to exit out, and that person must sign in first to become the leader, and then load the playlist. You can name the playlists, but Neversoft continues to not support the chat pad; you must enter text arcade-style.
Gameplay
The first thing you may notice is that Guitar Hero 5 lets you play as your Xbox 360 Avatar. Doing this, in fact, unlocks an achievement. In the first hour, too, don't be surprised if you get half a dozen achievements, if you're any good at all. Neversoft's plan thus far seems to be to lure Rock Band loyalists in with achievements and the promise of more to come. I think I have 135-185 Gamerscore with it already?
Anyway, a lot of the "band play" mistakes that World Tour made are gone. Star Power is no longer confusing. Like GH:A and previous, and both Rock Band games, each band member now has their own Star Power. (World Tour tried to "pool" Star Power, and it was just confusing.) Everyone also has their own crowd meter, as opposed to Rock Band's "shared" crowd meter on the left. The score now shows a sort of "band streak" I don't fully understand. GH5 introduces a new feature called "Band Moments", which is like the Unison Bonus in RB2. During a Band Moment, everyone's notes burn in flames for a few seconds. Hit each one and you get a big band multiplier. The band multiplier goes up to 11, between Star Power and Band Moment, if everyone's on the ball.
As such, scores tend to be a lot higher than in Rock Band 2. Expect a million plus points for a decent performance. For a long song with a great performance, don't be surprised if you get a few million. Also, for the first time, you can see each musician's individual score, in addition to the percentage and note/phrase streak. Score-wise, vocalists still get the short end of the stick. An expert guitarist scoring in the low 90s percentage-wise is going to get many times more points than an expert vocalist scoring in the high 90s and getting FCs. Jen complained about the vocals, but not as much as she did with World Tour. Even RB2 has sloppy vocal recognition, in parts, so vocals is bound to be a mixed bag anyway.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack is pretty damn good. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana is finally playable. John Mellencamp is finally in a rhythm game, for better or worse, with "Hurts So Good". All kinds of rock, from the 60s to today, is represented in this game.
If you have downloaded songs for World Tour - we do, but only 15 - they will play in GH5, but not right out of the box. You must download a 300MB patch (I have no idea why it's so big, but it IS FREE) which allows downloaded songs for WT not by Jimi Hendrix to work. (Maybe it just re-downloads your DLC in one patch, I don't know.) For $3.50 (280 Microsoft Points) you can export SOME but NOT ALL of your World Tour songs, specifically 35 of them, plus an additional 21 from Guitar Hero: Smash Hits (no, the DragonForce song is NOT one of them, dropping the ball becomes a regular thing at Activision). Still, it sounds like you can get a lot of songs in Guitar Hero 5. And, songs exported from World Tour and Smash Hits will also work as DLC in the upcoming, family-friendly Band Hero Neversoft is putting out later this year (to compete with Harmonix's kiddie offering, LEGO Rock Band).
Conclusion
All in all, Guitar Hero 5 is a good game that, for once, allows Guitar Hero and Rock Band to compete directly. Both Guitar Hero 5 and Rock Band 2 have good features I miss in the other, and they both have a lot of room for improvement. Rock Band will probably always have the larger library, even if Neversoft does figure out how to get the soundtracks of the previous games into the latest one. But Guitar Hero will probably always have the better exclusives. When playing the same song, on the same difficulty, on the same instrument, the track still differs from Rock Band to Guitar Hero, so even the same song is a different playing experience from one to the other. So it is definitely worth buying. And as an added bonus, they're going to give you Guitar Hero: Van Halen when it comes out in December? That's a great deal. And this is coming from a Rock Band loyalist.
Showing posts with label Gaming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gaming. Show all posts
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Oblivion: A closer look at Fighters
A couple weeks ago, I wrote about how I finished Oblivion, did everything in the game worth getting points for (which is a good distance short of doing everything doable in the game). Now, being that I'm pretty good with it, I thought I'd pass along some helpful hints on how to play the game better. Now, this isn't a guide - go to GameFAQs for those. A guide is strict and technical. This'll just be a casual read, an overview.
-Your Character-
First of all, the key to beating any RPG, with little exception, is to use a fighter. Mastering an RPG requires you to be a little more creative, and use a rogue (thief) or mage/wizard, and that's where the challenge is. Fighters don't need to be all that creative. Now, Oblivion is very great with character creation. For race, which you choose at the start, look very closely at Nords, Orcs, and Redguards. These guys are built for action. Look at their bonuses and penalties and see which fits you better. (Unlike in Lord of the Rings, Dungeons & Dragons, and other media, Orcs are not villains in this game. They're like Klingons in recent Star Trek series - rough but still civilized. And socially acceptable.)
As for class, which you choose after the Emperor dies, go custom. For focus, you can choose between offense, defense, and sneak. Maybe not those exact words... choose offense. Then you get to choose a couple stats to get bonuses in. Strength is obvious. Look at Endurance and Speed and pick one. Endurance for being a stronger fighter, and Speed for being a quicker one.
Next you can choose seven attributes. You can raise the others all you want, but raising the main seven is what gets you up in levels, so choose wisely. While you can raise Athletics just by running and swimming and Acrobatics just by jumping, you want to think about balance. The higher your level is, the better the loot will be, but also, the stronger NPCs, including enemies will be as well. Don't make worthless choices (like Alteration - useful for a wizard, but not a fighter) but don't make easy choices. Look at Armorer. You get experience by fixing your weapons and armor. At high levels you can fix magic stuff, which you'll get a lot of. If you repair after every encounter, you will go up quickly, but you don't need to. So you have good control over your leveling. I recommend Armorer, if you couldn't tell. Next pick one kind of armor. Heavy weighs more and protects more. Light, same in reverse. It does you no good to pick both because you'll want to wear all light or all heavy to get bonuses in the skill. If you picked Speed as an attribute, pick Light; if you picked Endurance, go for Heavy. Now pick a weapon type - Blade or Blunt. Swords are quick, axes and hammers are slow, but do a little more damage. Blade gets my recommendation. (There's also Marksman if you want to use a bow and arrow, but a Fighter shouldn't rely on that.) Blocking is good to have. Despite what I said earlier, Acrobatics is not bad, but it does tempt one to jump everywhere (which is faster than running anyway). Even if you're not a wizard, Alchemy is great. Not only can you sell potions for profit, but you can make poisons you can apply to your weapons for one use. Just "use" the poison and it will coat your current weapon with it (but only for one strike, so make it count).
A Redguard with a custom class specializing in Offense, getting bonuses in Strength and Endurance, and having Acrobatics, Armorer, Heavy Armor, Blade, Alchemy, and two others that you think you might use will give you a good place to start.
-Starting Out-
In the beginning of the game, you've got to escape from the dungeon. It isn't too hard if you're a Fighter. The hardest part is the little Goblin community. Rogues and mages must be clever, but Fighters just roll on through. I didn't even know it was hard until I brought a rogue through. Remember, take out the shaman (mage) second, archers third, and everybody else last. First? Well, anyone who gets in your way you take out first. You don't need somebody hitting you from behind.
Once you're out of the dungeon, the main quest should not be hard. However, understanding its effects on you and the world are important. At some point after you start it, gates to Oblivion will begin opening all around Tamriel (the country you're in). At some point, Martin (the Emperor's bastard son) will ask you to complete one of the dozen or so Daedric (demonic) quests and give the reward to him (so he can complete a ceremony -- he won't give it back). Lastly, once you complete the main quest, all of the Oblivion gates close. Those Oblivion gates are annoying, so if you'd rather not mess with them, set the main quest aside. Just know that it will be harder at higher levels.
The best place to start is the Fighters' Guild. Fighters' Guilds in any city not called Anvil or Cheydinhal will send you to those towns. Cheydinhal will send you to Anvil. So make your way straight to Anvil. (The Mages' Guild can be joined in any city that has one; if you're on the Xbox 360, you might as well join Anvil's and get your 10 Gamerscore.) Around Anvil, talking to people will get you various quests from the townspeople. Go ahead and take them. An early Fighters' Guild quest will earn you the permanent respect of a dockside merchant, but he can only give you up to 800 gold per transaction. Get in good with the guy in town, the Peacemakers place, right inside the north gate and to the left. He only deals in weapons and armor though, but he will also train your Armorer skill. The second-cheapest house in the game is in Anvil, too. 5,000 gold and it's yours, do a quest to get it fully furnished. Using Anvil as a base of operations will carry you through much of the game, though if you stick with the Fighters' Guild, you'll eventually move your game northeast to Chorrol. The house there is much nicer, but worth it. (Also, the shop to the left of the south gate has a quest that will get you in good with the owner, so there's that as well.)
The Dark Brotherhood, a fraternity of killers, is also a good place for a Fighter to learn, and has some of the best missions in the game. Simply take one innocent life to get started. Go to sleep, and you'll be visited in the night and given a dagger. Kill who they tell you to and sleep again. You'll be told how to join. That's all easier than it sounds. Killing anybody gets you an immediate bounty of 1,000 gold, whether anyone saw you do it or not. The only exception is when the game tells you to take a life, and those kills will not get you into the Dark Brotherhood. If you can't pay the bounty, you go to jail and lose a lot of skill points, so that is not good. Raid a few forts, Ayleid temples, or caves, loot what's worth something, and sell it to the stores that like you and have a lot of money to spend. Save up 1,000 gold. Find somebody and get their name. Look them up on UESP.net and make sure they don't have a quest associated with them. Kill them creatively, then turn yourself in. Pay the gold and be on your way.
Being a Fighter does not exclude you from joining the Mages' Guild or even becoming Arch-Mage. In fact, the "last boss" in the Mages' Guild story is very easy if you're a Fighter. He's a good spell caster, but a few good hits brings him down. He wears a robe. Just hack him down. If you're on the Xbox 360, this gets you about 130 Gamerscore (from joining to becoming Arch-Mage). The Mages' Guild is the slowest to allow you to advance, at first, as you have to do a quest for each town before advancing in rank once. Still, once you join the Mages' Guild, you can steal anything you want out of their Guild Halls (with the exception of one desk in each, I think) and make a ton of money. Really, there's no reason not to join. (Don't steal at all from the Thieves' Guild or the Dark Brotherhood though. Or from individual Mages.)
-The Arena-
The best part of being a Fighter is the Arena. Travel to the easternmost district of the Imperial City, the Arena District. Go into the Colosseum, hang a left, go into the training area, and in the "side" training area, talk to the guy on the far right. The really rude guy. Join and fight. None of the fights will challenge you if you know how to fight. Once you'll fight two sisters, and twice you'll fight three people. Not a problem. The only challenging fight is the very last one, against the Grand Champion. My rogue beat him, so it's not hard, just harder than the others. However, if you get in good with the Grand Champion early, he will give you a quest. I won't spoil it for you, but if you do the quest for him, he will train you in three fighting areas (Block, Hand to Hand, and Blade, if I remember right) and when you go to fight him, he's a pushover. Easiest fight by far. But only if you do his quest, which is not hard.
The Arena will teach you a lot about fighting. It's simple really. Get a one-handed sword and a good shield. Come into the center of the arena and watch your opponent. Do the opposite - if he comes in swinging, block. If he doesn't, get him with a quick jab, but block early in any case. Once he hits you and you block it, lower your guard and wail on him. 2-3 hits is good. Once he's ready to deliver another blow, block again. Rinse and repeat. You'll get a feel for how many hits you can get in before needing to block again. Once you win, if you lost more than a third of your health, rest for one hour. That will refill your health. Healing magic and spells are good, too. Bear in mind that blocking and getting hit will increase your blocking skill, and getting hit without blocking will increase your armor skill, if you're wearing all heavy or all light armor. (You must wear Arena armor, which includes footwear, but you can use whatever helmet, gauntlets, and shield you like.) And naturally you will increase your blade or blunt skill with each blow landed.
If you are low level when you start the Arena, you may likely gain 1-3 levels just doing the Arena. Also, the Arena is open from 9am to 9pm. If you get there right at 9am, and don't do the Grand Champion's quest, and never rest, it is entirely possible to complete the entire Arena quest in one day in game time. In real time, about 30-45 minutes. (130 Gamerscore in 45 minutes, vs. my wife getting 25 Gamerscore for playing all 84 of the songs in Rock Band 2 on Expert Vocals for six hours without a break is not a bad deal! Just don't tell her I said so.) However, the Grand Champion's quest is worth doing for the training alone. Never mind that he throws the match.
Be warned, however, that completing the Arena gets you a groupie who will pledge his allegiance to you and follow you anywhere you like, and stay anywhere you like. (Search YouTube for "oblivion adoring fan" for creative ways people have killed him.) However, later, when you're building an army for the main quest, the Adoring Fan comes in handy - as cannon fodder.
-In closing-
The Fighter is the easiest way to play Oblivion, but don't let that stop you from playing a rogue or a mage if that's what you like. Each class has its advantages; the Fighter's are just more straightforward and obvious. This is also the first in a series of "closer looks" at Oblivion. I mainly had this, and a guide on illegal activities planned. Maybe I'll do another one, like on side quests or something. If you liked this and/or it helped you, please drop me a thank-you in the comments. If you want to host it, in full or in part, you can do so as long as you link back here and don't change anything. (I'm going to license the text of my blog under a Creative Commons license (BY-SA-NC) soon, but until I do that, well, that's pretty much what it is. Not interested in submitting it to gaming sites (they probably have better guides) but if you run or represent one, I don't care if you do it, just don't charge for access (ads are fine).
-Your Character-
First of all, the key to beating any RPG, with little exception, is to use a fighter. Mastering an RPG requires you to be a little more creative, and use a rogue (thief) or mage/wizard, and that's where the challenge is. Fighters don't need to be all that creative. Now, Oblivion is very great with character creation. For race, which you choose at the start, look very closely at Nords, Orcs, and Redguards. These guys are built for action. Look at their bonuses and penalties and see which fits you better. (Unlike in Lord of the Rings, Dungeons & Dragons, and other media, Orcs are not villains in this game. They're like Klingons in recent Star Trek series - rough but still civilized. And socially acceptable.)
As for class, which you choose after the Emperor dies, go custom. For focus, you can choose between offense, defense, and sneak. Maybe not those exact words... choose offense. Then you get to choose a couple stats to get bonuses in. Strength is obvious. Look at Endurance and Speed and pick one. Endurance for being a stronger fighter, and Speed for being a quicker one.
Next you can choose seven attributes. You can raise the others all you want, but raising the main seven is what gets you up in levels, so choose wisely. While you can raise Athletics just by running and swimming and Acrobatics just by jumping, you want to think about balance. The higher your level is, the better the loot will be, but also, the stronger NPCs, including enemies will be as well. Don't make worthless choices (like Alteration - useful for a wizard, but not a fighter) but don't make easy choices. Look at Armorer. You get experience by fixing your weapons and armor. At high levels you can fix magic stuff, which you'll get a lot of. If you repair after every encounter, you will go up quickly, but you don't need to. So you have good control over your leveling. I recommend Armorer, if you couldn't tell. Next pick one kind of armor. Heavy weighs more and protects more. Light, same in reverse. It does you no good to pick both because you'll want to wear all light or all heavy to get bonuses in the skill. If you picked Speed as an attribute, pick Light; if you picked Endurance, go for Heavy. Now pick a weapon type - Blade or Blunt. Swords are quick, axes and hammers are slow, but do a little more damage. Blade gets my recommendation. (There's also Marksman if you want to use a bow and arrow, but a Fighter shouldn't rely on that.) Blocking is good to have. Despite what I said earlier, Acrobatics is not bad, but it does tempt one to jump everywhere (which is faster than running anyway). Even if you're not a wizard, Alchemy is great. Not only can you sell potions for profit, but you can make poisons you can apply to your weapons for one use. Just "use" the poison and it will coat your current weapon with it (but only for one strike, so make it count).
A Redguard with a custom class specializing in Offense, getting bonuses in Strength and Endurance, and having Acrobatics, Armorer, Heavy Armor, Blade, Alchemy, and two others that you think you might use will give you a good place to start.
-Starting Out-
In the beginning of the game, you've got to escape from the dungeon. It isn't too hard if you're a Fighter. The hardest part is the little Goblin community. Rogues and mages must be clever, but Fighters just roll on through. I didn't even know it was hard until I brought a rogue through. Remember, take out the shaman (mage) second, archers third, and everybody else last. First? Well, anyone who gets in your way you take out first. You don't need somebody hitting you from behind.
Once you're out of the dungeon, the main quest should not be hard. However, understanding its effects on you and the world are important. At some point after you start it, gates to Oblivion will begin opening all around Tamriel (the country you're in). At some point, Martin (the Emperor's bastard son) will ask you to complete one of the dozen or so Daedric (demonic) quests and give the reward to him (so he can complete a ceremony -- he won't give it back). Lastly, once you complete the main quest, all of the Oblivion gates close. Those Oblivion gates are annoying, so if you'd rather not mess with them, set the main quest aside. Just know that it will be harder at higher levels.
The best place to start is the Fighters' Guild. Fighters' Guilds in any city not called Anvil or Cheydinhal will send you to those towns. Cheydinhal will send you to Anvil. So make your way straight to Anvil. (The Mages' Guild can be joined in any city that has one; if you're on the Xbox 360, you might as well join Anvil's and get your 10 Gamerscore.) Around Anvil, talking to people will get you various quests from the townspeople. Go ahead and take them. An early Fighters' Guild quest will earn you the permanent respect of a dockside merchant, but he can only give you up to 800 gold per transaction. Get in good with the guy in town, the Peacemakers place, right inside the north gate and to the left. He only deals in weapons and armor though, but he will also train your Armorer skill. The second-cheapest house in the game is in Anvil, too. 5,000 gold and it's yours, do a quest to get it fully furnished. Using Anvil as a base of operations will carry you through much of the game, though if you stick with the Fighters' Guild, you'll eventually move your game northeast to Chorrol. The house there is much nicer, but worth it. (Also, the shop to the left of the south gate has a quest that will get you in good with the owner, so there's that as well.)
The Dark Brotherhood, a fraternity of killers, is also a good place for a Fighter to learn, and has some of the best missions in the game. Simply take one innocent life to get started. Go to sleep, and you'll be visited in the night and given a dagger. Kill who they tell you to and sleep again. You'll be told how to join. That's all easier than it sounds. Killing anybody gets you an immediate bounty of 1,000 gold, whether anyone saw you do it or not. The only exception is when the game tells you to take a life, and those kills will not get you into the Dark Brotherhood. If you can't pay the bounty, you go to jail and lose a lot of skill points, so that is not good. Raid a few forts, Ayleid temples, or caves, loot what's worth something, and sell it to the stores that like you and have a lot of money to spend. Save up 1,000 gold. Find somebody and get their name. Look them up on UESP.net and make sure they don't have a quest associated with them. Kill them creatively, then turn yourself in. Pay the gold and be on your way.
Being a Fighter does not exclude you from joining the Mages' Guild or even becoming Arch-Mage. In fact, the "last boss" in the Mages' Guild story is very easy if you're a Fighter. He's a good spell caster, but a few good hits brings him down. He wears a robe. Just hack him down. If you're on the Xbox 360, this gets you about 130 Gamerscore (from joining to becoming Arch-Mage). The Mages' Guild is the slowest to allow you to advance, at first, as you have to do a quest for each town before advancing in rank once. Still, once you join the Mages' Guild, you can steal anything you want out of their Guild Halls (with the exception of one desk in each, I think) and make a ton of money. Really, there's no reason not to join. (Don't steal at all from the Thieves' Guild or the Dark Brotherhood though. Or from individual Mages.)
-The Arena-
The best part of being a Fighter is the Arena. Travel to the easternmost district of the Imperial City, the Arena District. Go into the Colosseum, hang a left, go into the training area, and in the "side" training area, talk to the guy on the far right. The really rude guy. Join and fight. None of the fights will challenge you if you know how to fight. Once you'll fight two sisters, and twice you'll fight three people. Not a problem. The only challenging fight is the very last one, against the Grand Champion. My rogue beat him, so it's not hard, just harder than the others. However, if you get in good with the Grand Champion early, he will give you a quest. I won't spoil it for you, but if you do the quest for him, he will train you in three fighting areas (Block, Hand to Hand, and Blade, if I remember right) and when you go to fight him, he's a pushover. Easiest fight by far. But only if you do his quest, which is not hard.
The Arena will teach you a lot about fighting. It's simple really. Get a one-handed sword and a good shield. Come into the center of the arena and watch your opponent. Do the opposite - if he comes in swinging, block. If he doesn't, get him with a quick jab, but block early in any case. Once he hits you and you block it, lower your guard and wail on him. 2-3 hits is good. Once he's ready to deliver another blow, block again. Rinse and repeat. You'll get a feel for how many hits you can get in before needing to block again. Once you win, if you lost more than a third of your health, rest for one hour. That will refill your health. Healing magic and spells are good, too. Bear in mind that blocking and getting hit will increase your blocking skill, and getting hit without blocking will increase your armor skill, if you're wearing all heavy or all light armor. (You must wear Arena armor, which includes footwear, but you can use whatever helmet, gauntlets, and shield you like.) And naturally you will increase your blade or blunt skill with each blow landed.
If you are low level when you start the Arena, you may likely gain 1-3 levels just doing the Arena. Also, the Arena is open from 9am to 9pm. If you get there right at 9am, and don't do the Grand Champion's quest, and never rest, it is entirely possible to complete the entire Arena quest in one day in game time. In real time, about 30-45 minutes. (130 Gamerscore in 45 minutes, vs. my wife getting 25 Gamerscore for playing all 84 of the songs in Rock Band 2 on Expert Vocals for six hours without a break is not a bad deal! Just don't tell her I said so.) However, the Grand Champion's quest is worth doing for the training alone. Never mind that he throws the match.
Be warned, however, that completing the Arena gets you a groupie who will pledge his allegiance to you and follow you anywhere you like, and stay anywhere you like. (Search YouTube for "oblivion adoring fan" for creative ways people have killed him.) However, later, when you're building an army for the main quest, the Adoring Fan comes in handy - as cannon fodder.
-In closing-
The Fighter is the easiest way to play Oblivion, but don't let that stop you from playing a rogue or a mage if that's what you like. Each class has its advantages; the Fighter's are just more straightforward and obvious. This is also the first in a series of "closer looks" at Oblivion. I mainly had this, and a guide on illegal activities planned. Maybe I'll do another one, like on side quests or something. If you liked this and/or it helped you, please drop me a thank-you in the comments. If you want to host it, in full or in part, you can do so as long as you link back here and don't change anything. (I'm going to license the text of my blog under a Creative Commons license (BY-SA-NC) soon, but until I do that, well, that's pretty much what it is. Not interested in submitting it to gaming sites (they probably have better guides) but if you run or represent one, I don't care if you do it, just don't charge for access (ads are fine).
Friday, August 14, 2009
Oblivion, my first completed Xbox 360 game
Just yesterday, I completed The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. As in, I earned all 1,250 Gamerscore associated with the game. 20 years ago, it used to be that grabbing the axe to retract the bridge and kill the dragon and save the princess was all that was required to beat a game. Now there are so many more definitions. I like the Gamerscore answer. I actually beat the main game a couple weeks ago, but I had more Achievements to unlock - each Achievement is like a trophy and worth so much Gamerscore - 10, 20, 30, 50, whatever. So I pressed on until I had my 1250/1250. Xbox 360 games are supposed to only have 1,000, and Oblivion is no exception - the expansion, Shivering Isles, adds another 250. That was what I had to do to get all 1250. The scary thing is that I am actually a long way away from doing everything Oblivion has to offer. More on that in a bit.
Oblivion is a beast of a game, and very open-ended. You start in prison, and the guy in the cell across from you is sure you're going to die. Future uncertain, you wait - not long, even - and then the Emperor himself, Uriel Septim VII, voiced by none other than Patrick Stewart (Star Trek's Captain Picard; X-Men's Professor X), opens your cell and then opens a secret exit. He's being chased by assassins, and must escape - through your cell. He recognizes you immediately - he saw you in a dream. This tells him that today is the day he dies, and he confides in you that whatever you did to get locked up doesn't matter; that isn't what you'll be remembered for. Rather, you have a grand destiny ahead of you. He charges you with the task of finding his bastard son, who doesn't know he's the only heir to the throne. However, once you get out, the world is all yours to travel as you please. The game will point you toward your next objective, but only because the main quest is the active one. Once you receive another - and you can have as many open as you like - you can make it your active quest, and you will be pointed toward that objective.
Aside from helping Martin Septim regain the throne, there are two Guilds you can join. The Fighters' Guild does odd jobs for people, from pest control to personal defense. Basically what you'd expect out of security guards to mercenaries, everything in between. The Mages' Guild will make you think of Harry Potter, perhaps. Same basic idea, except you've got to travel the land, visiting the Mages' Guild Hall in each city to get a "recommendation" from the local Guild Master in order to actually join. Some of these are more straightforward than others. On top of that, there are two "secret" Guilds - to join the Thieves' Guild, you have to read a wanted poster for and then ask around about famed thief the Gray Fox; this leads you to an associate of his. This guild works a little differently; in addition to doing jobs for people who want things found, you move up through the ranks by stealing things from others and selling them to "fences", members of the Thieves' Guild who buy stolen property (legitimate shopkeepers will not). Then there's the Dark Brotherhood, a fraternity of assassins - led by a vampire, no less. To join these guys, you must take an innocent life. Murder is hard to get away with, but the punishment isn't even death. You can either pay a fine of 1,000 Gold, or go to jail. You don't even stay overnight, but you do lose a few skills. You don't have to get away with the murder to be accepted, however, and even if nobody witnesses the murder - or it's an accident, as was the case with me - you'll be noticed. Then, next time you go to sleep, you'll be visited by a member of the Brotherhood, who gives you a dagger and assigns you a kill. Do this, and sleep again. He'll visit again, and tell you how to actually join. The Dark Brotherhood offers some of the best quests in the game. And each of the four Guilds has a finite number of quests, which all end in you ultimately running that Guild.
In addition to all of that and the main quest itself, you can buy a house in each town, except for Kvatch, which is destroyed at the start of the game. And Imperial City, because that house is actually just a shack on the waterfront. And the unmapped villages you come across - they don't count. Just Chorrol, Anvil, Skingrad, Lleyawin, Bravil, Cheydinhal, Bruma, and the Imperial City. The price of each house varies, from the cheap shack in the Imperial City to the mansion in Skingrad. Each house comes with little more than a bed or bedroll, but you can buy "upgrades" for each house in the same city, usually in total for the price of the house again. Fully upgraded, the shack is not really nice, but better than it comes. Fully upgraded, the mansion is very nice, and you can even buy a maid. You can get quests all over the game, from hearing gossip and talking to people of interest, to talking to counts and lords, it seems like every other person has something for you to do. None of them conflict, so you can do everything. Scattered around the land are shrines to Daedric lords - essentially demons - where you can make an offering and do one quest for each of them, for a substantial reward (and in fact, you will have to do one of these, and then give up the reward as part of the main quest).
And then there's the downloadable content. Oblivion gets a lot of flak online because the first downloadable content cost $4.25 and all it did was allow you to buy armor for your horse. People were not amused at what they got, let alone what they had to pay. Then four properties came out - Battlehorn Castle, for fighters; Frostcrag Spire, for mages; Deepscorn Hollow, for assassins; and the Thieves' Den, for thieves. These were $1.89 apiece and, like the houses, came pretty bare until you bought all the upgrades (with the in-game money, not real money). Each also included a quest or two apiece and various other things to do. And Mehrune's Razor, the largest dungeon in the game, which includes an underground village, and ends with you getting a relatively weak sword. Weak compared to what my character currently has, anyway. It'll look nice in my castle, though. But those are the little things. There are two large downloadable expansions. The first is Knights of the Nine, which costs $10. You travel the country looking for shrines to the Nine (the good gods) and you must pray at one of each. Then, you form an ancient brotherhood of knights to oppose a god-killer. This is huge and worth every penny, but don't - and I mean DON'T - do it before finishing the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves' Guild. The reason is, you get some good equipment, but do one bad thing (well, two bad things) and all the stuff you get from KotN - falls right off you. You must be a righteous character to use those things. And the first thing you do, the pilgrimage quest - forgives all your sins. Then there's Shivering Isles, which costs a whopping $30, but it adds a whole new country to explore, so it is worth it as well. The Shivering Isles are home to and the creation of Sheogorath, the Daedric Prince of Madness, and his world reflects that. It's divided into two sections, Mania and Dementia. You end up working for Sheogorath, working to stop the invasion of another Daedric prince named Jyggalag, the Daedric Prince of Order, who Sheogorath describes as "boring".
Anyway, that does sound like a lot of money, but if you buy the "Game of the Year" version of Oblivion for the Xbox 360, it comes with a second disc which installs Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles to your Xbox 360 hard drive (takes up about 1GB). That's $40 of extra stuff, and this pack is only $30. The thing is, it adds 30 seconds to the start of the game to "load" the "additional content", so bearing in mind my warning about Knights of the Nine and its conflicts, it pays to actually not install the expansions until you're completely done with the original game. You're also on your own for the four extra properties and Mehrune's Razor. Also, Xbox 360 games start out costing $60. This is one that is completely worth that, so getting it for $30, plus $40 worth of expansions, is really a steal. It really is $100 worth of game. It's more, actually, I've put 120 hours in and I still want to play.
So is this game perfect? Near about. It's not without its pitfalls, however. Like I said, the $10 expansion quest Knights of the Nine doesn't play fairly if you choose to be a bad guy later. That's stupid. It makes sense, being as that you're an agent for the (good) gods, but for a game that gives you this much freedom, it counts against it. Then there's the extra 30 seconds of loading. That gets old. On top of that, the game itself lags in places it really shouldn't. Around the Net, they say if you press A/green while the game is starting, it "defragments" the "disk cache" which should fix it. It really doesn't. Or maybe I'm doing it wrong, the instructions aren't clear, and everbody's got a different way of doing it. There are a couple of bugs which will halt your game right in its tracks, so save often. Fortunately the Xbox 360 version does this for you, but some crashes like to take the last few saves with them. Some instructions are unclear and you'll find yourself hitting up a site called UESP - it's like the Wikipedia of Oblivion. The game's menu icons are never explained, but they're mostly self-explanatory. A couple of caves are death traps - fall down a hole and you're stuck. Whoops. A dead goblin drank himself to death in there. If you have about a dozen paint brushes on you, you can sort of get back up through the hole - paint brushes don't fall when dropped. Drop one right in front of you and it floats. On top of that, you can stand on it. There are also a lot of useless items you can find, so when going through loot, you have to know to separate trash from treasure. And speaking of treasure, nothing's actually worth what it shows up in your inventory as. First of all, shopkeepers only give you 39% of what something's worth, though you can usually haggle that up to around 55%. The more business you do with a merchant, the more they like you, and you can work it up into the 70s and 80s percentage-wise, but you'll never be able to sell stuff for what it's actually worth. And merchants have a cap - if a merchant's cap is 800 gold, your Daedric warhammer is worth 4500 gold, even if you haggled him up to 75%, he's still going to give you no more than 800 gold for it, because that's his cap. There are a lot of factors, but the most you can get for something is commonly accepted to be around 3,000 gold. Yet they will be glad to take 5,000 or more gold for items they sell, and their cap doesn't go up to reflect their newfound wealth. The most expensive item I saw cost nearly 20,000 gold, and I think it was a ring. But on the other hand, once you've bought all the properties and their upgrades, all you use money for is to repair your equipment. And you can buy spells, I guess, but that's trivial when you get up around 50,000 gold in no time. You stop picking up glass, Daedric, and Ebony weapons and armor to sell for top dollar; you end up only picking up gold and stuff you'll actually use. Because you can only carry so much.
Still, this game has gone above and beyond the Grand Theft Auto games for making a truly open world where you can literally do anything you want. Actually, if fans of GTA (which does include me) can get over the lack of cars, cops, and explosions, Oblivion is actually a very attractive game to that crowd. It is a role playing game, however, and while you can actually control the battles (unlike Final Fantasy's infamous menu-based fights), it's still rolling dice in the background, and of course you have a ton of stats and proficiencies. What works here, though, is that your character learns by doing. Fighting with a sword builds your Blade proficiency, and just running and swimming raises Athletics (jumping raises Acrobatics). Every transaction in a shop raises Mercantile. You have seven major proficiencies; level any/all of these so many times, and you go up a level. Stats (strength, dexterity, intelligence, luck, etc.) can raise zero to five points per level gain depending on how much the proficiencies they govern (e.g. Strength governs blade and hand-to-hand, dexterity governs athletics and acrobatics). If all you did to gain a level was jump and run, you have the option of raising dexterity by a full five points. So it's all very clever.
While I highly recommend Oblivion for the Xbox 360, I can't recommend it for the PC, unless you have a very expensive beast of a computer. Oblivion is very demanding for PCs, and does not look as good. With an Xbox 360 and even a 720p HDTV, as we have, it looks fantastic. You would need a computer costing a couple thousand dollars to play this game, not something you can get at Walmart or even Best Buy. For that price, you might as well buy a nice TV and an Xbox 360 and not have to worry about getting it to run under Windows. PC games used to dominate, but that time has passed. Maybe it will come again, maybe not, no one can say. Then again, if you do have a PC capable of playing Oblivion, there are a lot of homemade mods for it. New weapons and items, new quests, changes to the game itself (for example, one I saw added muggers to towns at night). What most PCs can play, however, is Oblivion's predecessor, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. While not quite as intuitive as Oblivion, I fully intend to play through Morrowind now that I've beaten Oblivion, and now that I feel that I know how an Elder Scrolls game is meant to be played. Also, not to come off as an Xbox 360 fanboy, I hear that the PlayStation 3 version of Oblivion, while just as good, does not have the downloadable content available. I'm not sure if there is a "Game of the Year" edition which adds the big ones or not, but I'm pretty sure the downloadable stuff is unavailable to PlayStation gamers. Still, as it's among the best Xbox 360 games, I'm sure it's among the best PS3 games as well. And hopefully PS3's stronger processor eliminates those slowdowns. One can only hope. Best thing is, Oblivion came out in 2006, and the fans are expecting a fifth Elder Scrolls game next year or the year after. They just made Fallout 3, a futuristic RPG that is said to be a lot like Oblivion. While I can't see myself enjoying a game with guns and radiation as much as Oblivion, I owe it to Bethesda Softworks to give their new game a try, given how much I enjoyed their last one.
Oblivion is a beast of a game, and very open-ended. You start in prison, and the guy in the cell across from you is sure you're going to die. Future uncertain, you wait - not long, even - and then the Emperor himself, Uriel Septim VII, voiced by none other than Patrick Stewart (Star Trek's Captain Picard; X-Men's Professor X), opens your cell and then opens a secret exit. He's being chased by assassins, and must escape - through your cell. He recognizes you immediately - he saw you in a dream. This tells him that today is the day he dies, and he confides in you that whatever you did to get locked up doesn't matter; that isn't what you'll be remembered for. Rather, you have a grand destiny ahead of you. He charges you with the task of finding his bastard son, who doesn't know he's the only heir to the throne. However, once you get out, the world is all yours to travel as you please. The game will point you toward your next objective, but only because the main quest is the active one. Once you receive another - and you can have as many open as you like - you can make it your active quest, and you will be pointed toward that objective.
Aside from helping Martin Septim regain the throne, there are two Guilds you can join. The Fighters' Guild does odd jobs for people, from pest control to personal defense. Basically what you'd expect out of security guards to mercenaries, everything in between. The Mages' Guild will make you think of Harry Potter, perhaps. Same basic idea, except you've got to travel the land, visiting the Mages' Guild Hall in each city to get a "recommendation" from the local Guild Master in order to actually join. Some of these are more straightforward than others. On top of that, there are two "secret" Guilds - to join the Thieves' Guild, you have to read a wanted poster for and then ask around about famed thief the Gray Fox; this leads you to an associate of his. This guild works a little differently; in addition to doing jobs for people who want things found, you move up through the ranks by stealing things from others and selling them to "fences", members of the Thieves' Guild who buy stolen property (legitimate shopkeepers will not). Then there's the Dark Brotherhood, a fraternity of assassins - led by a vampire, no less. To join these guys, you must take an innocent life. Murder is hard to get away with, but the punishment isn't even death. You can either pay a fine of 1,000 Gold, or go to jail. You don't even stay overnight, but you do lose a few skills. You don't have to get away with the murder to be accepted, however, and even if nobody witnesses the murder - or it's an accident, as was the case with me - you'll be noticed. Then, next time you go to sleep, you'll be visited by a member of the Brotherhood, who gives you a dagger and assigns you a kill. Do this, and sleep again. He'll visit again, and tell you how to actually join. The Dark Brotherhood offers some of the best quests in the game. And each of the four Guilds has a finite number of quests, which all end in you ultimately running that Guild.
In addition to all of that and the main quest itself, you can buy a house in each town, except for Kvatch, which is destroyed at the start of the game. And Imperial City, because that house is actually just a shack on the waterfront. And the unmapped villages you come across - they don't count. Just Chorrol, Anvil, Skingrad, Lleyawin, Bravil, Cheydinhal, Bruma, and the Imperial City. The price of each house varies, from the cheap shack in the Imperial City to the mansion in Skingrad. Each house comes with little more than a bed or bedroll, but you can buy "upgrades" for each house in the same city, usually in total for the price of the house again. Fully upgraded, the shack is not really nice, but better than it comes. Fully upgraded, the mansion is very nice, and you can even buy a maid. You can get quests all over the game, from hearing gossip and talking to people of interest, to talking to counts and lords, it seems like every other person has something for you to do. None of them conflict, so you can do everything. Scattered around the land are shrines to Daedric lords - essentially demons - where you can make an offering and do one quest for each of them, for a substantial reward (and in fact, you will have to do one of these, and then give up the reward as part of the main quest).
And then there's the downloadable content. Oblivion gets a lot of flak online because the first downloadable content cost $4.25 and all it did was allow you to buy armor for your horse. People were not amused at what they got, let alone what they had to pay. Then four properties came out - Battlehorn Castle, for fighters; Frostcrag Spire, for mages; Deepscorn Hollow, for assassins; and the Thieves' Den, for thieves. These were $1.89 apiece and, like the houses, came pretty bare until you bought all the upgrades (with the in-game money, not real money). Each also included a quest or two apiece and various other things to do. And Mehrune's Razor, the largest dungeon in the game, which includes an underground village, and ends with you getting a relatively weak sword. Weak compared to what my character currently has, anyway. It'll look nice in my castle, though. But those are the little things. There are two large downloadable expansions. The first is Knights of the Nine, which costs $10. You travel the country looking for shrines to the Nine (the good gods) and you must pray at one of each. Then, you form an ancient brotherhood of knights to oppose a god-killer. This is huge and worth every penny, but don't - and I mean DON'T - do it before finishing the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves' Guild. The reason is, you get some good equipment, but do one bad thing (well, two bad things) and all the stuff you get from KotN - falls right off you. You must be a righteous character to use those things. And the first thing you do, the pilgrimage quest - forgives all your sins. Then there's Shivering Isles, which costs a whopping $30, but it adds a whole new country to explore, so it is worth it as well. The Shivering Isles are home to and the creation of Sheogorath, the Daedric Prince of Madness, and his world reflects that. It's divided into two sections, Mania and Dementia. You end up working for Sheogorath, working to stop the invasion of another Daedric prince named Jyggalag, the Daedric Prince of Order, who Sheogorath describes as "boring".
Anyway, that does sound like a lot of money, but if you buy the "Game of the Year" version of Oblivion for the Xbox 360, it comes with a second disc which installs Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles to your Xbox 360 hard drive (takes up about 1GB). That's $40 of extra stuff, and this pack is only $30. The thing is, it adds 30 seconds to the start of the game to "load" the "additional content", so bearing in mind my warning about Knights of the Nine and its conflicts, it pays to actually not install the expansions until you're completely done with the original game. You're also on your own for the four extra properties and Mehrune's Razor. Also, Xbox 360 games start out costing $60. This is one that is completely worth that, so getting it for $30, plus $40 worth of expansions, is really a steal. It really is $100 worth of game. It's more, actually, I've put 120 hours in and I still want to play.
So is this game perfect? Near about. It's not without its pitfalls, however. Like I said, the $10 expansion quest Knights of the Nine doesn't play fairly if you choose to be a bad guy later. That's stupid. It makes sense, being as that you're an agent for the (good) gods, but for a game that gives you this much freedom, it counts against it. Then there's the extra 30 seconds of loading. That gets old. On top of that, the game itself lags in places it really shouldn't. Around the Net, they say if you press A/green while the game is starting, it "defragments" the "disk cache" which should fix it. It really doesn't. Or maybe I'm doing it wrong, the instructions aren't clear, and everbody's got a different way of doing it. There are a couple of bugs which will halt your game right in its tracks, so save often. Fortunately the Xbox 360 version does this for you, but some crashes like to take the last few saves with them. Some instructions are unclear and you'll find yourself hitting up a site called UESP - it's like the Wikipedia of Oblivion. The game's menu icons are never explained, but they're mostly self-explanatory. A couple of caves are death traps - fall down a hole and you're stuck. Whoops. A dead goblin drank himself to death in there. If you have about a dozen paint brushes on you, you can sort of get back up through the hole - paint brushes don't fall when dropped. Drop one right in front of you and it floats. On top of that, you can stand on it. There are also a lot of useless items you can find, so when going through loot, you have to know to separate trash from treasure. And speaking of treasure, nothing's actually worth what it shows up in your inventory as. First of all, shopkeepers only give you 39% of what something's worth, though you can usually haggle that up to around 55%. The more business you do with a merchant, the more they like you, and you can work it up into the 70s and 80s percentage-wise, but you'll never be able to sell stuff for what it's actually worth. And merchants have a cap - if a merchant's cap is 800 gold, your Daedric warhammer is worth 4500 gold, even if you haggled him up to 75%, he's still going to give you no more than 800 gold for it, because that's his cap. There are a lot of factors, but the most you can get for something is commonly accepted to be around 3,000 gold. Yet they will be glad to take 5,000 or more gold for items they sell, and their cap doesn't go up to reflect their newfound wealth. The most expensive item I saw cost nearly 20,000 gold, and I think it was a ring. But on the other hand, once you've bought all the properties and their upgrades, all you use money for is to repair your equipment. And you can buy spells, I guess, but that's trivial when you get up around 50,000 gold in no time. You stop picking up glass, Daedric, and Ebony weapons and armor to sell for top dollar; you end up only picking up gold and stuff you'll actually use. Because you can only carry so much.
Still, this game has gone above and beyond the Grand Theft Auto games for making a truly open world where you can literally do anything you want. Actually, if fans of GTA (which does include me) can get over the lack of cars, cops, and explosions, Oblivion is actually a very attractive game to that crowd. It is a role playing game, however, and while you can actually control the battles (unlike Final Fantasy's infamous menu-based fights), it's still rolling dice in the background, and of course you have a ton of stats and proficiencies. What works here, though, is that your character learns by doing. Fighting with a sword builds your Blade proficiency, and just running and swimming raises Athletics (jumping raises Acrobatics). Every transaction in a shop raises Mercantile. You have seven major proficiencies; level any/all of these so many times, and you go up a level. Stats (strength, dexterity, intelligence, luck, etc.) can raise zero to five points per level gain depending on how much the proficiencies they govern (e.g. Strength governs blade and hand-to-hand, dexterity governs athletics and acrobatics). If all you did to gain a level was jump and run, you have the option of raising dexterity by a full five points. So it's all very clever.
While I highly recommend Oblivion for the Xbox 360, I can't recommend it for the PC, unless you have a very expensive beast of a computer. Oblivion is very demanding for PCs, and does not look as good. With an Xbox 360 and even a 720p HDTV, as we have, it looks fantastic. You would need a computer costing a couple thousand dollars to play this game, not something you can get at Walmart or even Best Buy. For that price, you might as well buy a nice TV and an Xbox 360 and not have to worry about getting it to run under Windows. PC games used to dominate, but that time has passed. Maybe it will come again, maybe not, no one can say. Then again, if you do have a PC capable of playing Oblivion, there are a lot of homemade mods for it. New weapons and items, new quests, changes to the game itself (for example, one I saw added muggers to towns at night). What most PCs can play, however, is Oblivion's predecessor, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. While not quite as intuitive as Oblivion, I fully intend to play through Morrowind now that I've beaten Oblivion, and now that I feel that I know how an Elder Scrolls game is meant to be played. Also, not to come off as an Xbox 360 fanboy, I hear that the PlayStation 3 version of Oblivion, while just as good, does not have the downloadable content available. I'm not sure if there is a "Game of the Year" edition which adds the big ones or not, but I'm pretty sure the downloadable stuff is unavailable to PlayStation gamers. Still, as it's among the best Xbox 360 games, I'm sure it's among the best PS3 games as well. And hopefully PS3's stronger processor eliminates those slowdowns. One can only hope. Best thing is, Oblivion came out in 2006, and the fans are expecting a fifth Elder Scrolls game next year or the year after. They just made Fallout 3, a futuristic RPG that is said to be a lot like Oblivion. While I can't see myself enjoying a game with guns and radiation as much as Oblivion, I owe it to Bethesda Softworks to give their new game a try, given how much I enjoyed their last one.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Do you care about your Xbox 360 Gamerscore?
If you have an Xbox 360, do you care about your Gamerscore?
If you don't have an Xbox 360, this video game console has a new system not seen previously in video game systems. It has a system-wide system of tracking Achievements from game to game. An Achievement is a kind of trophy given for accomplishing a certain feat in a game, and it comes with an icon, a name, a description, and a point value of one Gamerscore or more. Every Xbox 360 game has at least 1000 Gamerscore total (some have more), and each game can have up to 99 Achievements. Some games are more generous, with huge rewards for finishing the game and certain milestones, while others are more conservative, instead offering dozens of Achievements for finding various secrets in the game.
Most people earn their Gamerscore by playing games, but others cheat to raise theirs. You can give somebody you trust your username and password, and they can "recover" your profile to their Xbox and earn you achievements; usually they do this for Microsoft Points (the currency on Xbox Live, which costs $1 for every 80 points) or other online currency. Some do it for free. When they're done, you recover your profile back, and, if you're smart, change your password back. I have never done this, I've only heard. There are also various hacks which will raise your Gamerscore exponentially. One, as I understand it, figures out the total possible Gamerscore one could have if one bought every single Xbox 360 game and unlocked every Achievement for each one - something like a quarter-million points.
However, Microsoft not only disapproves of Gamerscore manipulation and outright hacking, but they will reset your Gamerscore if they catch you at it. They will also revoke your online privileges, even if you're paid up a full year in advance. In the worst cases, they will blacklist your entire Xbox, so if you had, say, six accounts paid up for a year in advance (a cost of $300) you would not be able to play online, and you wouldn't be able to recover any of that money.
The thing is, do we care enough about Gamerscore that this is such a big deal that we approve of Microsoft cheating people out of their money? More importantly, how do we feel about Microsoft having that level of control? Mind you, these people are not (necessarily) cheating in online matches. They're simply raising a score, which hurts nobody at all. You cannot buy anything with Gamerscore; it's worthless except, maybe, for bragging rights. But if you have a quarter-million Gamerscore, is that really worth bragging about? I would say anything over 100,000 is evidence of manipulation of some kind. I would say that a Gamerscore of 25,000 or more belongs to somebody who has absolutely no life. My wife's brother has about 13,000, he's had his Xbox 360 for three years, and he hasn't had a job in that time. His girlfriend had a good job, and was able to support his gaming habit while he (read: his friends and family) looked after the kids. He has that plan with Blockbuster where, for $22 a month, you can rent one game at a time for as long as you like. He rents a game, plays it until he beats it, and then returns it for the next game. He doesn't seek all 1000 (or more) Gamerscore from a game, but he does complete the main objectives, which get him between 40% and 75% of the total Gamerscore.
I have about 2900 Gamerscore; Jen has close to 2200. And we've had ours nearly a year and a half. I would not care if Microsoft reset my Gamerscore. It means nothing to me. Sure, it's nice to get the Achievements, and it's extra nice when they're worth more (like 50, as opposed to 10), but it's never more fun than actually earning the Achievements. If I wanted to jack up my Gamerscore, I could rent Avatar: The Last Airbender (a fighting game); I understand it's not only possible, but very easy, to rack up 1000 Gamerscore inside of about five minutes from the start of the game. But I don't want that game on my profile; I don't want it known that I was willing to put a stupid game from a stupid franchise on my Gamertag's profile just to raise my Gamerscore. I'd rather earn fewer points by playing games I'm proud to have on my record. Not that I've never played a stupid game; Dash of Destruction is a free Arcade game sponsored by Doritos worth 200 or 250 Gamerscore. I got it for Jen to help her catch up, but it actually looked fun, so I played it until it wasn't. I got some points from it, but nowhere near the total. Jen got all the Achievements but one, so she got more from it than I did. And that's fine, she wants a higher score, but she mostly sticks to games with "Guitar" and "Band" in the title. I've played through The Orange Box and Oblivion, and those games hand out Gamerscore like candy. Assassins Creed and Mass Effect were also both good for Gamerscore, but they bored me, so I stopped playing them. Grand Theft Auto IV is a little more conservative, still gives Gamerscore, but not as much as the others; it bored me as well, so I put it down. I am going to strive for all 1250 Gamerscore associated with Oblivion, but not because I need the score to stroke my ego, but because I love the game and want to get everything out of it. But I'm also doing things that don't get me Gamerscore, too; I'm going for 100% completion, which just happens to result in getting 1250/1250 along the way.
So that brings us back to Microsoft. How comfortable are we with Microsoft policing video games? Sure, crack down on people cheating in online matches. I'm fine with that. If people want to cheat, though, don't take away their access if they want to pay. Just create a new Gamerzone (e.g. Pro, Recreation, Underground, Family) called Cheaters, or perhaps Hackers, and lock them in it. Make a new option in the profile called "Play with cheaters?" and set it to NO by default. Cheaters would thus only be able to play with other Cheaters, and with those brave souls who enabled play with cheaters (which is what their friends would have to do to play with them). Sure, crack down on people putting offensive language in their profile. I'm fine with that, too. The Xbox 360 is a family-friendly console, and people actively undermining that are threatening Microsoft's financial situation. Sure, crack down on people modifying their Xbox to play copied games. I am fine with that as well. Video games cost millions of dollars to develop, just like films. I do not agree that Microsoft should be able to remotely kill an Xbox 360, if their employee they laid off can be believed, but Verizon does something similar with their phones, they can remotely disable a phone's ability to charge its battery, forcing you to buy a new phone. That ain't just crazy talk, either, they did it to me in 2004. I couldn't afford a new phone, either, and they said they'd rather I just cancel my service than let me continue charging the battery until I could. So I guess when you're at the top, you can set the rules like that. But Microsoft's video game competitor, Sony, is no better. Sony put a nasty computer virus on music CDs with the understanding that anyone who puts a CD into their computer is probably intent on distributing it online. Meanwhile, thousands of people, perhaps millions, downloaded the album on BitTorrent and other networks, courtesy of Linux users who were unaffected by the virus, which affected Windows and Mac OS systems only. Playing by the rules is no safe harbor either; users who updated to Microsoft's new Dashboard for the Xbox 360 last November were blocked from Xbox Live for up to three weeks if they were not part of Microsoft's beta team. Too bad the download and the installation didn't say that. Whoops. Not to mention the whole Verizon thing, or fans of music on Sony's BMG label who just wanted to play music on their computer that they'd bought legally.
So again, how important is Gamerscore that it's worth making such a big deal out of?
If you don't have an Xbox 360, this video game console has a new system not seen previously in video game systems. It has a system-wide system of tracking Achievements from game to game. An Achievement is a kind of trophy given for accomplishing a certain feat in a game, and it comes with an icon, a name, a description, and a point value of one Gamerscore or more. Every Xbox 360 game has at least 1000 Gamerscore total (some have more), and each game can have up to 99 Achievements. Some games are more generous, with huge rewards for finishing the game and certain milestones, while others are more conservative, instead offering dozens of Achievements for finding various secrets in the game.
Most people earn their Gamerscore by playing games, but others cheat to raise theirs. You can give somebody you trust your username and password, and they can "recover" your profile to their Xbox and earn you achievements; usually they do this for Microsoft Points (the currency on Xbox Live, which costs $1 for every 80 points) or other online currency. Some do it for free. When they're done, you recover your profile back, and, if you're smart, change your password back. I have never done this, I've only heard. There are also various hacks which will raise your Gamerscore exponentially. One, as I understand it, figures out the total possible Gamerscore one could have if one bought every single Xbox 360 game and unlocked every Achievement for each one - something like a quarter-million points.
However, Microsoft not only disapproves of Gamerscore manipulation and outright hacking, but they will reset your Gamerscore if they catch you at it. They will also revoke your online privileges, even if you're paid up a full year in advance. In the worst cases, they will blacklist your entire Xbox, so if you had, say, six accounts paid up for a year in advance (a cost of $300) you would not be able to play online, and you wouldn't be able to recover any of that money.
The thing is, do we care enough about Gamerscore that this is such a big deal that we approve of Microsoft cheating people out of their money? More importantly, how do we feel about Microsoft having that level of control? Mind you, these people are not (necessarily) cheating in online matches. They're simply raising a score, which hurts nobody at all. You cannot buy anything with Gamerscore; it's worthless except, maybe, for bragging rights. But if you have a quarter-million Gamerscore, is that really worth bragging about? I would say anything over 100,000 is evidence of manipulation of some kind. I would say that a Gamerscore of 25,000 or more belongs to somebody who has absolutely no life. My wife's brother has about 13,000, he's had his Xbox 360 for three years, and he hasn't had a job in that time. His girlfriend had a good job, and was able to support his gaming habit while he (read: his friends and family) looked after the kids. He has that plan with Blockbuster where, for $22 a month, you can rent one game at a time for as long as you like. He rents a game, plays it until he beats it, and then returns it for the next game. He doesn't seek all 1000 (or more) Gamerscore from a game, but he does complete the main objectives, which get him between 40% and 75% of the total Gamerscore.
I have about 2900 Gamerscore; Jen has close to 2200. And we've had ours nearly a year and a half. I would not care if Microsoft reset my Gamerscore. It means nothing to me. Sure, it's nice to get the Achievements, and it's extra nice when they're worth more (like 50, as opposed to 10), but it's never more fun than actually earning the Achievements. If I wanted to jack up my Gamerscore, I could rent Avatar: The Last Airbender (a fighting game); I understand it's not only possible, but very easy, to rack up 1000 Gamerscore inside of about five minutes from the start of the game. But I don't want that game on my profile; I don't want it known that I was willing to put a stupid game from a stupid franchise on my Gamertag's profile just to raise my Gamerscore. I'd rather earn fewer points by playing games I'm proud to have on my record. Not that I've never played a stupid game; Dash of Destruction is a free Arcade game sponsored by Doritos worth 200 or 250 Gamerscore. I got it for Jen to help her catch up, but it actually looked fun, so I played it until it wasn't. I got some points from it, but nowhere near the total. Jen got all the Achievements but one, so she got more from it than I did. And that's fine, she wants a higher score, but she mostly sticks to games with "Guitar" and "Band" in the title. I've played through The Orange Box and Oblivion, and those games hand out Gamerscore like candy. Assassins Creed and Mass Effect were also both good for Gamerscore, but they bored me, so I stopped playing them. Grand Theft Auto IV is a little more conservative, still gives Gamerscore, but not as much as the others; it bored me as well, so I put it down. I am going to strive for all 1250 Gamerscore associated with Oblivion, but not because I need the score to stroke my ego, but because I love the game and want to get everything out of it. But I'm also doing things that don't get me Gamerscore, too; I'm going for 100% completion, which just happens to result in getting 1250/1250 along the way.
So that brings us back to Microsoft. How comfortable are we with Microsoft policing video games? Sure, crack down on people cheating in online matches. I'm fine with that. If people want to cheat, though, don't take away their access if they want to pay. Just create a new Gamerzone (e.g. Pro, Recreation, Underground, Family) called Cheaters, or perhaps Hackers, and lock them in it. Make a new option in the profile called "Play with cheaters?" and set it to NO by default. Cheaters would thus only be able to play with other Cheaters, and with those brave souls who enabled play with cheaters (which is what their friends would have to do to play with them). Sure, crack down on people putting offensive language in their profile. I'm fine with that, too. The Xbox 360 is a family-friendly console, and people actively undermining that are threatening Microsoft's financial situation. Sure, crack down on people modifying their Xbox to play copied games. I am fine with that as well. Video games cost millions of dollars to develop, just like films. I do not agree that Microsoft should be able to remotely kill an Xbox 360, if their employee they laid off can be believed, but Verizon does something similar with their phones, they can remotely disable a phone's ability to charge its battery, forcing you to buy a new phone. That ain't just crazy talk, either, they did it to me in 2004. I couldn't afford a new phone, either, and they said they'd rather I just cancel my service than let me continue charging the battery until I could. So I guess when you're at the top, you can set the rules like that. But Microsoft's video game competitor, Sony, is no better. Sony put a nasty computer virus on music CDs with the understanding that anyone who puts a CD into their computer is probably intent on distributing it online. Meanwhile, thousands of people, perhaps millions, downloaded the album on BitTorrent and other networks, courtesy of Linux users who were unaffected by the virus, which affected Windows and Mac OS systems only. Playing by the rules is no safe harbor either; users who updated to Microsoft's new Dashboard for the Xbox 360 last November were blocked from Xbox Live for up to three weeks if they were not part of Microsoft's beta team. Too bad the download and the installation didn't say that. Whoops. Not to mention the whole Verizon thing, or fans of music on Sony's BMG label who just wanted to play music on their computer that they'd bought legally.
So again, how important is Gamerscore that it's worth making such a big deal out of?
Friday, July 17, 2009
Portable Applications, and Right & Wrong
A few months ago, I wrote about this great new technology in PC computing called "portable applications" by which applications were not installed (to Windows and its Registry), as usual, but rather installed (to a flash drive, usually, and set up for portability) and then could be used on any computer. Normally, when you install a program, the old way, it is tied to that Windows installation. You can't move the program's folder to a flash drive and run it on another computer, because it hasn't got those roots. Likewise, you can't reinstall Windows and expect the program to still work, for the same reason. And why should it be this way? Why should a program which has nothing to do with Windows be tied to Windows? The most practical reason is file associations. Generally, you want your media player to open your music and video files when you double-click on them. Nevermind the fact that, if you're not careful, a Windows Media Player upgrade will steal those associations away. Also never mind the fact that virtually every media player has a means to open media files themselves. Most also let you "drop" media files on them to play them. The double-click method is the most convenient, sure, but you can set this up without having to tie a program to the system. Internet Explorer wasn't even part of Windows initially, but since the third edition of Windows 95 (colloquially referred to as "Windows 97" but more lengthly titled "Microsoft Windows 95 Microsoft Internet Explorer" on the loading screen) it has been. Before that, it was its own program and Windows Explorer, the file manager in Windows, was completely different. Does anybody remember Windows Explorer before it was married to IE?
All in all, portable applications are great. You can take your favorite programs and their settings you've fine-tuned over the years from computer to computer. And all portable applications are free and open-source, right? Well, that's what their chief proponent, PortableApps.com, might have you believe. Well, another advantage to a complex installation is that if your program is commercial, it can also be tied to one user and steps can be taken to ensure it isn't being shared by all your friends. Of course, software piracy is even older than music and movie piracy; it's been going on for years. Software that's controlled by alphanumeric codes (like Windows) is shared with a code that works. Software that's controlled by online activation (like Windows XP and newer) is shared with altered files which have been tricked into believing they've been activated. But not everybody can follow often simple instructions to get a downloaded version of a commercial program (such as Adobe Photoshop, one of the biggest targets of software piracy) to work. Portability to the rescue. Once an application is thusly cracked, it can be made portable, and then the process is automated for everybody. Make no mistake, this is illegal as hell, but it's done every day and fewer than a thousandth of a percent of software pirates are ever convicted of a crime or sued. If that.
But while most people honestly know that pirating paid applications like Windows and Photoshop are illegal, did you know that it is also a violation of many free programs' end-user license agreement (EULA) to redistribute them without permission? Technically, while you can download and use programs like Winamp (a media player) and CCleaner (a computer maintenance program) free of charge, you can't burn them on a CD and pass them off to your friends. You can tell them where to get the programs, or email them the links to the official webpage, but you can't just redistribute them. But wait, you say, what about sites like Download.com, Softpedia, and FileHippo? These sites get permission, and that's OK. If you, a nobody on the Internet, email AOL (they publish Winamp) or Piriform (they make CCleaner) and ask for permission to share their programs with your friends, your emails will probably go unanswered, or you'll get a nice form letter thanking you for your interest and directing your questions to the program's homepage. On the other hand, if you pass off the programs, nobody will care, most likely. But what about Firefox and VLC Media Player (formerly known as VideoLAN)? These programs are open source, which is supposed to be the big savior of software. While open source is freer than freeware, there are still some caveats. For open source, you have to share the source as well. Firefox, despite popular belief, is not 100% open source. The logo and name are trademarks of Mozilla. You can redistribute Firefox the program, but you cannot call it Firefox, or use the logo. People do do this, of course - Iceweasel is one, and Blackbird is another. Both are basically Firefox, but they have a new logo and name. I don't recall what the story is with Iceweasel, but Blackbird has a black theme and is set up with bookmarks and extensions which, as a complete package, are supposed to make it the ideal web browser for African-Americans, whatever that means. Sounds separatist to me. As a "white boy", I'm highly tempted to use it, just for laughs. "Hey, I'm rockin' BLACKBIRD..." Heh...
So anyway, they tell me over at PortableApps.com that it is in fact illegal to redistribute closed-source free programs like CCleaner and Winamp (CCleaner is the more usual target of these discussions, Winamp is just my example) and that it is illegal to redistribute open source software without the source code. And they get pretty serious about these things, too! While I admire their dedication to righting wrongs, I find hypocrisy in the fact that they publish portable versions of emulators, programs used to play old console games. Specifically, they carry programs which emulate NES, Super NES, and Game Boy Advance games. Now, personally, I have no problems with emulators or people who use them. I really don't. I've in fact used two of the three programs they offer - the NES emulator I used was another one. Not too sure about the one they have, but it must be good if they chose it. And here's the thing I've tried to explain to them: Nintendo has never authorized the use of those games on personal computers, and in fact they speak out against it at great length. Some console games were available on other systems, including PCs (MS-DOS, usually). Some were ported to newer consoles (the Game Boy Advance has a "NES Classics" series, for example; also the Nintendo DS features a Nintendo 64 game). Konami even released both Contra and all three Castlevania games for the NES on the PC, using what amounted to an emulator. That's all fine and that's all legal, but at the end of the day, Nintendo has license agreements in every game manual saying the game is only licensed for use on the console it was designed for.
In their defense, members of the PortableApps.com forum have offered a couple defenses. First, they argue that emulators don't violate any licenses, it's the ROMs (the game files) that do, and they don't offer them. True, but the emulator is good for nothing other than running these ROMs. They argue that programs like VLC can be used to play pirated music and video files. This is also true, but they have many legal uses as well. There are no legal uses of emulators. Second, they've argued that they use emulators for "homebrew", software written by others to run on consoles. That's cute on the console, but running console homebrew on a console emulator is pointless. The point of homebrew is to extend the features of the console. There's no console homebrew which beats the equivalent software on a PC. Furthermore, they failed to name any of any merit. They've also argued that they play games they still own, but the consoles have fallen into disrepair and have been given or thrown away. When I asked if they actually kept all those games in a drawer, that question went unanswered as well. Essentially, they were blowing smoke, covering up the fact that they have no respect for Nintendo's licenses of paid software (games). Also, most of these defenses are answered by Nintendo's legal FAQ. Yet they will go to war over freeware, and open source, particularly Firefox.
Now, I know I sound like a real bastard saying all this. The truth of the matter, actually, is that I really don't care if people use emulators. I've used them. They just don't make games like they used to. Games used to be fun, so fun we didn't care how bad they looked. They looked good to us not because they did, but because they were fun and we genuinely loved playing them. Now it's all about polygon counts and frame rates. Games push people to buy a new computer every year just to keep up, but are the games actually getting better? Quite the opposite, in fact. There are some great games out there, but they're so few and far between. Deus Ex (2000). Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004). The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006). Rock Band 2 (2008). Deus Ex: The Nameless Mod (2009, independently produced!). There are more, I know I'm forgetting a few, but this decade, compared with the last, is quite shameful for gaming. Those are some of the shining stars, though. So yeah, emulation is fine by me. But so are sites that redistribute Firefox and other free programs. They're fine by me. I do not see the problem. I do not see the problem with people downloading old console games they have no legal business playing on their PC, for a good many reasons, so who bloody cares if somebody passes along free software to a friend? Not I, that's for sure.
All in all, portable applications are great. You can take your favorite programs and their settings you've fine-tuned over the years from computer to computer. And all portable applications are free and open-source, right? Well, that's what their chief proponent, PortableApps.com, might have you believe. Well, another advantage to a complex installation is that if your program is commercial, it can also be tied to one user and steps can be taken to ensure it isn't being shared by all your friends. Of course, software piracy is even older than music and movie piracy; it's been going on for years. Software that's controlled by alphanumeric codes (like Windows) is shared with a code that works. Software that's controlled by online activation (like Windows XP and newer) is shared with altered files which have been tricked into believing they've been activated. But not everybody can follow often simple instructions to get a downloaded version of a commercial program (such as Adobe Photoshop, one of the biggest targets of software piracy) to work. Portability to the rescue. Once an application is thusly cracked, it can be made portable, and then the process is automated for everybody. Make no mistake, this is illegal as hell, but it's done every day and fewer than a thousandth of a percent of software pirates are ever convicted of a crime or sued. If that.
But while most people honestly know that pirating paid applications like Windows and Photoshop are illegal, did you know that it is also a violation of many free programs' end-user license agreement (EULA) to redistribute them without permission? Technically, while you can download and use programs like Winamp (a media player) and CCleaner (a computer maintenance program) free of charge, you can't burn them on a CD and pass them off to your friends. You can tell them where to get the programs, or email them the links to the official webpage, but you can't just redistribute them. But wait, you say, what about sites like Download.com, Softpedia, and FileHippo? These sites get permission, and that's OK. If you, a nobody on the Internet, email AOL (they publish Winamp) or Piriform (they make CCleaner) and ask for permission to share their programs with your friends, your emails will probably go unanswered, or you'll get a nice form letter thanking you for your interest and directing your questions to the program's homepage. On the other hand, if you pass off the programs, nobody will care, most likely. But what about Firefox and VLC Media Player (formerly known as VideoLAN)? These programs are open source, which is supposed to be the big savior of software. While open source is freer than freeware, there are still some caveats. For open source, you have to share the source as well. Firefox, despite popular belief, is not 100% open source. The logo and name are trademarks of Mozilla. You can redistribute Firefox the program, but you cannot call it Firefox, or use the logo. People do do this, of course - Iceweasel is one, and Blackbird is another. Both are basically Firefox, but they have a new logo and name. I don't recall what the story is with Iceweasel, but Blackbird has a black theme and is set up with bookmarks and extensions which, as a complete package, are supposed to make it the ideal web browser for African-Americans, whatever that means. Sounds separatist to me. As a "white boy", I'm highly tempted to use it, just for laughs. "Hey, I'm rockin' BLACKBIRD..." Heh...
So anyway, they tell me over at PortableApps.com that it is in fact illegal to redistribute closed-source free programs like CCleaner and Winamp (CCleaner is the more usual target of these discussions, Winamp is just my example) and that it is illegal to redistribute open source software without the source code. And they get pretty serious about these things, too! While I admire their dedication to righting wrongs, I find hypocrisy in the fact that they publish portable versions of emulators, programs used to play old console games. Specifically, they carry programs which emulate NES, Super NES, and Game Boy Advance games. Now, personally, I have no problems with emulators or people who use them. I really don't. I've in fact used two of the three programs they offer - the NES emulator I used was another one. Not too sure about the one they have, but it must be good if they chose it. And here's the thing I've tried to explain to them: Nintendo has never authorized the use of those games on personal computers, and in fact they speak out against it at great length. Some console games were available on other systems, including PCs (MS-DOS, usually). Some were ported to newer consoles (the Game Boy Advance has a "NES Classics" series, for example; also the Nintendo DS features a Nintendo 64 game). Konami even released both Contra and all three Castlevania games for the NES on the PC, using what amounted to an emulator. That's all fine and that's all legal, but at the end of the day, Nintendo has license agreements in every game manual saying the game is only licensed for use on the console it was designed for.
In their defense, members of the PortableApps.com forum have offered a couple defenses. First, they argue that emulators don't violate any licenses, it's the ROMs (the game files) that do, and they don't offer them. True, but the emulator is good for nothing other than running these ROMs. They argue that programs like VLC can be used to play pirated music and video files. This is also true, but they have many legal uses as well. There are no legal uses of emulators. Second, they've argued that they use emulators for "homebrew", software written by others to run on consoles. That's cute on the console, but running console homebrew on a console emulator is pointless. The point of homebrew is to extend the features of the console. There's no console homebrew which beats the equivalent software on a PC. Furthermore, they failed to name any of any merit. They've also argued that they play games they still own, but the consoles have fallen into disrepair and have been given or thrown away. When I asked if they actually kept all those games in a drawer, that question went unanswered as well. Essentially, they were blowing smoke, covering up the fact that they have no respect for Nintendo's licenses of paid software (games). Also, most of these defenses are answered by Nintendo's legal FAQ. Yet they will go to war over freeware, and open source, particularly Firefox.
Now, I know I sound like a real bastard saying all this. The truth of the matter, actually, is that I really don't care if people use emulators. I've used them. They just don't make games like they used to. Games used to be fun, so fun we didn't care how bad they looked. They looked good to us not because they did, but because they were fun and we genuinely loved playing them. Now it's all about polygon counts and frame rates. Games push people to buy a new computer every year just to keep up, but are the games actually getting better? Quite the opposite, in fact. There are some great games out there, but they're so few and far between. Deus Ex (2000). Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004). The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006). Rock Band 2 (2008). Deus Ex: The Nameless Mod (2009, independently produced!). There are more, I know I'm forgetting a few, but this decade, compared with the last, is quite shameful for gaming. Those are some of the shining stars, though. So yeah, emulation is fine by me. But so are sites that redistribute Firefox and other free programs. They're fine by me. I do not see the problem. I do not see the problem with people downloading old console games they have no legal business playing on their PC, for a good many reasons, so who bloody cares if somebody passes along free software to a friend? Not I, that's for sure.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Would you play this game?
Among many others, one thing that sets the Xbox 360 apart from other home entertainment consoles today is the Achievement system. For years past, we've been able to brag about our accomplishments in video games, but there really hasn't been any way to consistently prove this. Computers have screen recorders, but none are very reliable. You can record gaming footage from a console, but there's no way to prove you did it, as opposed to having downloaded that video from the Internet. With the Xbox 360, you have individual profiles; when you use it, you first sign into your profile (or use it as a guest), and your profile keeps all of your information separate from everybody else's, much like an account in Windows, Linux, or Mac OS X. Your profile has an avatar, improved upon but nonetheless based on the Mii on the Nintendo Wii, a 3D character of your own creation, which can be made to look sorta like you, or it can be something entirely different. Then you have your gamer picture, a square icon which predates the avatar, but is still used to represent you in a smaller capacity. After that, you have your gamer score.
Traditionally, and though there are exceptions, retail Xbox 360 games come with 1,000 gamerscore that you can "unlock" by doing certain things in the game. This 1,000 gamerscore can be divided up into 1-99 Achievements, set accomplishments which net a predetermined score. Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) games come with 200 gamerscore and must have 12 achievements, no more, no less. Exceptions include a couple huge games which have 1,200 gamerscore, and the expansions to the Rock Band franchise (e.g. AC/DC Track Pack, Track Pack 2, Classic Rock Track Pack) only come with 200/12 as though they were XBLA titles. How a game gives gamerscore depends entirely upon what the developer of the game wanted to do with the feature. Most games will give you a substantial award for completing the main objective. Many will give awards for completing important milestones in the game. Most award you for winning online matches. Some give you tiny awards for losing, as a sort of consolation prize. Many award you for finding secrets or by doing something creatively. For example, in the beginning of Half-Life 2 (from the game The Orange Box), you have no weapons, and you're being escorted through security checkpoints. A black stormtrooper guy knocks a soda can off the rim of a trashcan and tells you to pick it up, and throw it away. This is part of the tutorial. However, if, instead of throwing it in the trashcan, you throw it at HIM, well, he comes after you with a cattle prod. If you can get around him and away from him, you get 5 points for "Defiance". Later, in the course of normal game events, you're given the character's trademark crowbar from the first Half-Life, and you receive an award for this landmark.
Achievements and their associated gamerscore awards have become a point of pride for many Xbox owners. My account currently has 2405. My wife's is around 1800, and her brother has close to 12,500. But that's chump change; some people have 25,000 or more. A quick Google search lead me to a YouTube video showing a gamerscore of 237,355, but it's implied that this was obtained through an exploit in the system. On a given day of Xbox Live gaming, you're likely to see scores in the 40,000 to 50,000 range from time to time, but those are rare. Gamers in the 20,000 range are more common. What my brother-in-law does to get his, besides actually being very good at the games he plays, is, he has that membership at Blockbuster where, for $22 a month, he can rent as many games as he wants for as long as he wants, but he can only have one out at a time. Like us, he owns Rock Band and a handful of other games he plays just for fun, but he gets new games, and he beats them, not for all 1,000 points they're worth, but just to the end of the main story. He has 55-60 games on his profile (it keeps track of every game you play, as well). So that would be 50,000 gamerscore if he'd gotten all 1,000 from each. So it got me wondering: Would Xbox 360 gamers play a game which could take gamerscore as well as give it? This got me thinking, and I came up with an idea:
An auto insurance company and a car company team up to make a realistic driving game focusing on safety. While this game would seem boring, they'd map an entire state (New York or maybe California) and you'd be able to drive anywhere. The game itself could give you missions to drive people around, kind of like a tame Grand Theft Auto. The game's initial appeal would be that a total of 2,500 gamerscore could be obtained by unlocking all 99 of its achievements. However, there's a catch - there are a total of 99 "red" achievements which total NEGATIVE 5,000 gamerscore. Speed through a small town 10 miles per hour and get docked 10 points. The game could feature local trouble, you'd have a chance of getting a ticket and your insurance rate going up, creating an additional challenge to overcome within the game. You wouldn't get docked 10 points the next time you went 10 over, because the achievement was already unlocked, the penalty already imposed, but you could still be punished in-game if you were caught. However, maybe you go 15 over, you get docked 25 points. And so on until every green (normal) and red achievement were unlocked.
If you really went for all achievements, you'd have 99 green ones and 99 red ones, and you'd have 2500 gamerscore less than when you played the game. But, having accomplished this, would you really consider yourself worse off? In other words, is it the number of the score, or is it the sum of the accomplishments of playing and completing the games?
Traditionally, and though there are exceptions, retail Xbox 360 games come with 1,000 gamerscore that you can "unlock" by doing certain things in the game. This 1,000 gamerscore can be divided up into 1-99 Achievements, set accomplishments which net a predetermined score. Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) games come with 200 gamerscore and must have 12 achievements, no more, no less. Exceptions include a couple huge games which have 1,200 gamerscore, and the expansions to the Rock Band franchise (e.g. AC/DC Track Pack, Track Pack 2, Classic Rock Track Pack) only come with 200/12 as though they were XBLA titles. How a game gives gamerscore depends entirely upon what the developer of the game wanted to do with the feature. Most games will give you a substantial award for completing the main objective. Many will give awards for completing important milestones in the game. Most award you for winning online matches. Some give you tiny awards for losing, as a sort of consolation prize. Many award you for finding secrets or by doing something creatively. For example, in the beginning of Half-Life 2 (from the game The Orange Box), you have no weapons, and you're being escorted through security checkpoints. A black stormtrooper guy knocks a soda can off the rim of a trashcan and tells you to pick it up, and throw it away. This is part of the tutorial. However, if, instead of throwing it in the trashcan, you throw it at HIM, well, he comes after you with a cattle prod. If you can get around him and away from him, you get 5 points for "Defiance". Later, in the course of normal game events, you're given the character's trademark crowbar from the first Half-Life, and you receive an award for this landmark.
Achievements and their associated gamerscore awards have become a point of pride for many Xbox owners. My account currently has 2405. My wife's is around 1800, and her brother has close to 12,500. But that's chump change; some people have 25,000 or more. A quick Google search lead me to a YouTube video showing a gamerscore of 237,355, but it's implied that this was obtained through an exploit in the system. On a given day of Xbox Live gaming, you're likely to see scores in the 40,000 to 50,000 range from time to time, but those are rare. Gamers in the 20,000 range are more common. What my brother-in-law does to get his, besides actually being very good at the games he plays, is, he has that membership at Blockbuster where, for $22 a month, he can rent as many games as he wants for as long as he wants, but he can only have one out at a time. Like us, he owns Rock Band and a handful of other games he plays just for fun, but he gets new games, and he beats them, not for all 1,000 points they're worth, but just to the end of the main story. He has 55-60 games on his profile (it keeps track of every game you play, as well). So that would be 50,000 gamerscore if he'd gotten all 1,000 from each. So it got me wondering: Would Xbox 360 gamers play a game which could take gamerscore as well as give it? This got me thinking, and I came up with an idea:
An auto insurance company and a car company team up to make a realistic driving game focusing on safety. While this game would seem boring, they'd map an entire state (New York or maybe California) and you'd be able to drive anywhere. The game itself could give you missions to drive people around, kind of like a tame Grand Theft Auto. The game's initial appeal would be that a total of 2,500 gamerscore could be obtained by unlocking all 99 of its achievements. However, there's a catch - there are a total of 99 "red" achievements which total NEGATIVE 5,000 gamerscore. Speed through a small town 10 miles per hour and get docked 10 points. The game could feature local trouble, you'd have a chance of getting a ticket and your insurance rate going up, creating an additional challenge to overcome within the game. You wouldn't get docked 10 points the next time you went 10 over, because the achievement was already unlocked, the penalty already imposed, but you could still be punished in-game if you were caught. However, maybe you go 15 over, you get docked 25 points. And so on until every green (normal) and red achievement were unlocked.
If you really went for all achievements, you'd have 99 green ones and 99 red ones, and you'd have 2500 gamerscore less than when you played the game. But, having accomplished this, would you really consider yourself worse off? In other words, is it the number of the score, or is it the sum of the accomplishments of playing and completing the games?
Thursday, June 18, 2009
331 songs on Rock Band: Evanescence, Iron Maiden
I'm so used to writing Evanescence as Evanuisance because, well, that's kind of what they are. My Firefox spell checker even recognizes "Evanuisance"; yeah, I got that bitch trained. "Evanescence" is actually a real word, just not commonly used; it basically means the act of evaporation. (Sadly Evanescence didn't evanesce, and now they're in Rock Band. C'est la vie.)
Anyway, we got 3 tracks by Evanuisance: Bring Me to Life (feat. Paul McCoy of 12 Stones), Call Me When You're Sober, and Weight of the World. The latter I don't think is even a single; all I've heard from their new album is "Call Me" (and the radio station goes nonchalantly back to their first album... sure sign the new one sucks) but it sounds fun, so we get it. And they give you a break when you buy the whole pack, so some smart shopping there.
As for Iron Maiden, these guys kicked your grandpa's ass so many years ago and they still rock to this day. However, they do kinda suck live, Bruce Dickinson has mostly lost his voice. Doesn't stop me from getting the live version of "Hallowed Be Thy Name", probably their best song after "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" which is too long for Rock Band anyway. So we've got Hallowed, and the studio versions of "Run to the Hills" (a cover was on Rock Band 1, and did not export with the others, so it'll be nice to have that again) and "Number of the Beast" (a cover we've had as DLC for a while). Rounding out the four is the semi-poppy "Two Minutes to Midnight", which should be fun to sing.
Anyway, "Midnight" is about to finish, and that's the last of 'em, so I'm gonna go get my ass kicked on vocals (I'm up to Hard now) and Jen's gonna get her ass kicked on drums.
Anyway, we got 3 tracks by Evanuisance: Bring Me to Life (feat. Paul McCoy of 12 Stones), Call Me When You're Sober, and Weight of the World. The latter I don't think is even a single; all I've heard from their new album is "Call Me" (and the radio station goes nonchalantly back to their first album... sure sign the new one sucks) but it sounds fun, so we get it. And they give you a break when you buy the whole pack, so some smart shopping there.
As for Iron Maiden, these guys kicked your grandpa's ass so many years ago and they still rock to this day. However, they do kinda suck live, Bruce Dickinson has mostly lost his voice. Doesn't stop me from getting the live version of "Hallowed Be Thy Name", probably their best song after "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" which is too long for Rock Band anyway. So we've got Hallowed, and the studio versions of "Run to the Hills" (a cover was on Rock Band 1, and did not export with the others, so it'll be nice to have that again) and "Number of the Beast" (a cover we've had as DLC for a while). Rounding out the four is the semi-poppy "Two Minutes to Midnight", which should be fun to sing.
Anyway, "Midnight" is about to finish, and that's the last of 'em, so I'm gonna go get my ass kicked on vocals (I'm up to Hard now) and Jen's gonna get her ass kicked on drums.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
324 songs and counting! Alice Cooper and Social D added
"Poison" by Alice Cooper and "Story of My Life" by Social Distortion added. I think the Social D song was on Guitar Hero 2 or 3, but it sounds great and I'm glad to have it. Axel, our drummer, ALWAYS picks "I Was Wrong" by Social Distortion, I don't know if he digs the tune or just loves playing it, but it's a real SOB on bass. I can hang with it half the time, but I'd pick something else if it were on me. Good song though.
Gonna do something a little different with this bulletin. I'm now gonna play 'em and post my scores. Not tryin' to brag, unless you're a freakin savant, your first play ain't gonna be all that special, but if you know the kinds of scores someone gets on songs of the same difficulty tier, maybe it'll help you figure out your own chances at it.
Difficulty is out of 7. Zero filled circles on the difficulty chart is first tier. One filled circle is second tier. All five circles filled is tier 6, and 5 devil heads is the hardest tier, Tier 7. These are both pretty easy in comparison to, say, the Yngwie Malmsteen, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Dream Theater stuff.
Regarding ratings, you're given a points score, a "star" rating out of six, the percentage of notes that you hit, and then the longest unbroken streak of successful notes. Here's how the new songs stacked up, and here's how I did:
STORY OF MY LIFE by Social Distortion from "Greatest Hits" (2007) (originally 1990)
BAND 2/7 GUITAR 2/7 DRUM 3/7 VOCALS 1/7 BASS 1/7
59,132 3 stars 91% 56 note streak
Notes: "Story of My Life" is long and tedious. It starts with one green note, a long green note, and then 2 together, and then repeats a similar pattern on seemingly random colors, with an occasional burst of, like, 6 notes in a row, real close together. There are maybe four orange notes in the whole song, they're not close to other notes, and you can see 'em coming a mile off. Bassists, keep your fingers green-to-blue and take the orange ones as they come. And don't stay on red-to-orange, just hit the orange note and then come on back. This song felt like it was ten minutes long, but I'm just out of practice. It ain't a short song; I'd guess six minutes; Wikipedia gives it as 5:48. Close.
Oh, and though my guitar reported half battery strength, the batteries died partway in. I just turned the guitar back on and kept rockin. After the THIRD death, I changed batteries - and started over. So it's not a true sightread, per se. Close enough though. And it ain't like I did great. Onto "Poison"...
POISON by Alice Cooper from the album "Trash" (1989)
BAND 3/7 GUITAR 5/7 DRUM 2/7 VOCALS 2/7 BASS 2/7
22,892 3 stars 79% 30 note streak
Notes: "Poison" starts out easy as hell, with two sets of two green notes and then a series of long notes on the red-to-orange track, so switch down as soon as the green goes away. Once the long notes are gone, it gets kinda random, with a lot of jumping around and then a long series of notes, with every seventh or eighth just a little off. I got up to half my overdrive, but was afraid to use it, because all the overdrive notes were on those one-off trick parts I couldn't nail. After getting up to 75% on pure chance, I went ahead and went, and even with overdrive (each note counting double) I dipped into the red, but held on for the whole song, which thankfully wasn't long. I could perhaps do better with practice, but this song's really for the real fast-fingered guitarists who can just fly all over the controller, being where they need to be on a split seconds' notice. There were a couple cruel tricks, but mostly it was just straightforward.
Now it's onto bed... I actually intended to follow up those sorry performances with me owning all over "Say it Ain't So" or "Orange Crush" but my wrist is so damn tired (and you'd think being single for 25 years, that wouldn't be a problem...).
In other news though, got some new equipment. Our Xbox 360 got the dreaded Red Rings of Death, so we took it back to Best Buy. Now, Best Buy is the best place to buy electronics, and they're not paying me to say that or anything (they don't know, and probably don't care). The trick is to always spring for the protection plan. Long story short, my camera goes out, and they give me a newer one, since it was actually the bottom of the line of the same brand, but still much better than the one I had. I did however have to buy a new memory card as it used another format. And a new warranty - that's always the gotcha. More recently, we took in a broken wired guitar, they replaced it with a wireless one. Sweet!
So we bring in the Xbox 360 - and now, we paid $350 for the old 20GB "Pro" model. They have the new 60GB "Pro" for $300. After the exchange, since the Xbox is now $50 less, that $50 actually went to us. It covered the warranty renewal (which gives us another year, since it starts now, or rather last week) and they gave us a gift card with the remaining balance. It's like $12! So we got a brand new Xbox 360, a 2-year warranty, and $12 to spend there (most likely on song credits for Rock Band). If you ask me, the Red Rings of Death aren't so dreaded! I think we came out alright!
A couple weeks before this, Jen and I both upgraded our guitars with authentic albeit entry-level guitar straps from First Act - they make a bunch of entry-level musician equipment, most of which can be used by Rock Band and Guitar Hero players. Guitar straps, drumsticks, a drum stool, guitar stands, a lot of nice stuff. (No, they're not paying me to type either - nobody is.) So we got their straps, and while they are sturdier, they still scrape my neck on long setlists. Here's what I did: We're in Walmart last night, and I got this thing meant for seatbelts. It's like a wooly sock thingy that goes around the strap for comfort. I put it on my guitar strap and it feels great. It does tend to slip as I adjust the guitar, so I'll have to work on something to hold it in place. Axel Steel - again, our drummer - is pretty demanding during practice. I'm talking about playing for 4-5 hours straight (well, with breaks - him and Jimmi Rivers (think Bret Hart), our guitarist, are pretty heavy smokers, they can't go too long without a Newport, which works great for me when I'm out of practice.
Now, I hope you realize these band names are made up. Well, they're the names we use in the game. I'm Ben Sisko, named after the captain on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Kinda look like him, but younger and with Costello glasses. Jen's Aura Jo, and the other guys, well, I haven't asked their permission to name them publicly, so they get called by their stage names up here. And Aura Jo on vocals, Jimmi Rivers on guitar, Axel Steel on drums, and last but not least Ben Sisko on bass, we're DysS\MemB/EreD. Don't laugh, either, dammit, we came in 3rd place at the Carolina Gaming Summit Rock Band 2 tournament in Goldsboro, NC this past February, and the 8 guys who bested us couldn't be nicer guys, even though the ones who came in 1st got their ticket to the finals by beating the event promotor's kids. A little bit of backstage trickery there, but they beat us fair and square, so it's all good.
Gonna do something a little different with this bulletin. I'm now gonna play 'em and post my scores. Not tryin' to brag, unless you're a freakin savant, your first play ain't gonna be all that special, but if you know the kinds of scores someone gets on songs of the same difficulty tier, maybe it'll help you figure out your own chances at it.
Difficulty is out of 7. Zero filled circles on the difficulty chart is first tier. One filled circle is second tier. All five circles filled is tier 6, and 5 devil heads is the hardest tier, Tier 7. These are both pretty easy in comparison to, say, the Yngwie Malmsteen, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Dream Theater stuff.
Regarding ratings, you're given a points score, a "star" rating out of six, the percentage of notes that you hit, and then the longest unbroken streak of successful notes. Here's how the new songs stacked up, and here's how I did:
STORY OF MY LIFE by Social Distortion from "Greatest Hits" (2007) (originally 1990)
BAND 2/7 GUITAR 2/7 DRUM 3/7 VOCALS 1/7 BASS 1/7
59,132 3 stars 91% 56 note streak
Notes: "Story of My Life" is long and tedious. It starts with one green note, a long green note, and then 2 together, and then repeats a similar pattern on seemingly random colors, with an occasional burst of, like, 6 notes in a row, real close together. There are maybe four orange notes in the whole song, they're not close to other notes, and you can see 'em coming a mile off. Bassists, keep your fingers green-to-blue and take the orange ones as they come. And don't stay on red-to-orange, just hit the orange note and then come on back. This song felt like it was ten minutes long, but I'm just out of practice. It ain't a short song; I'd guess six minutes; Wikipedia gives it as 5:48. Close.
Oh, and though my guitar reported half battery strength, the batteries died partway in. I just turned the guitar back on and kept rockin. After the THIRD death, I changed batteries - and started over. So it's not a true sightread, per se. Close enough though. And it ain't like I did great. Onto "Poison"...
POISON by Alice Cooper from the album "Trash" (1989)
BAND 3/7 GUITAR 5/7 DRUM 2/7 VOCALS 2/7 BASS 2/7
22,892 3 stars 79% 30 note streak
Notes: "Poison" starts out easy as hell, with two sets of two green notes and then a series of long notes on the red-to-orange track, so switch down as soon as the green goes away. Once the long notes are gone, it gets kinda random, with a lot of jumping around and then a long series of notes, with every seventh or eighth just a little off. I got up to half my overdrive, but was afraid to use it, because all the overdrive notes were on those one-off trick parts I couldn't nail. After getting up to 75% on pure chance, I went ahead and went, and even with overdrive (each note counting double) I dipped into the red, but held on for the whole song, which thankfully wasn't long. I could perhaps do better with practice, but this song's really for the real fast-fingered guitarists who can just fly all over the controller, being where they need to be on a split seconds' notice. There were a couple cruel tricks, but mostly it was just straightforward.
Now it's onto bed... I actually intended to follow up those sorry performances with me owning all over "Say it Ain't So" or "Orange Crush" but my wrist is so damn tired (and you'd think being single for 25 years, that wouldn't be a problem...).
In other news though, got some new equipment. Our Xbox 360 got the dreaded Red Rings of Death, so we took it back to Best Buy. Now, Best Buy is the best place to buy electronics, and they're not paying me to say that or anything (they don't know, and probably don't care). The trick is to always spring for the protection plan. Long story short, my camera goes out, and they give me a newer one, since it was actually the bottom of the line of the same brand, but still much better than the one I had. I did however have to buy a new memory card as it used another format. And a new warranty - that's always the gotcha. More recently, we took in a broken wired guitar, they replaced it with a wireless one. Sweet!
So we bring in the Xbox 360 - and now, we paid $350 for the old 20GB "Pro" model. They have the new 60GB "Pro" for $300. After the exchange, since the Xbox is now $50 less, that $50 actually went to us. It covered the warranty renewal (which gives us another year, since it starts now, or rather last week) and they gave us a gift card with the remaining balance. It's like $12! So we got a brand new Xbox 360, a 2-year warranty, and $12 to spend there (most likely on song credits for Rock Band). If you ask me, the Red Rings of Death aren't so dreaded! I think we came out alright!
A couple weeks before this, Jen and I both upgraded our guitars with authentic albeit entry-level guitar straps from First Act - they make a bunch of entry-level musician equipment, most of which can be used by Rock Band and Guitar Hero players. Guitar straps, drumsticks, a drum stool, guitar stands, a lot of nice stuff. (No, they're not paying me to type either - nobody is.) So we got their straps, and while they are sturdier, they still scrape my neck on long setlists. Here's what I did: We're in Walmart last night, and I got this thing meant for seatbelts. It's like a wooly sock thingy that goes around the strap for comfort. I put it on my guitar strap and it feels great. It does tend to slip as I adjust the guitar, so I'll have to work on something to hold it in place. Axel Steel - again, our drummer - is pretty demanding during practice. I'm talking about playing for 4-5 hours straight (well, with breaks - him and Jimmi Rivers (think Bret Hart), our guitarist, are pretty heavy smokers, they can't go too long without a Newport, which works great for me when I'm out of practice.
Now, I hope you realize these band names are made up. Well, they're the names we use in the game. I'm Ben Sisko, named after the captain on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Kinda look like him, but younger and with Costello glasses. Jen's Aura Jo, and the other guys, well, I haven't asked their permission to name them publicly, so they get called by their stage names up here. And Aura Jo on vocals, Jimmi Rivers on guitar, Axel Steel on drums, and last but not least Ben Sisko on bass, we're DysS\MemB/EreD. Don't laugh, either, dammit, we came in 3rd place at the Carolina Gaming Summit Rock Band 2 tournament in Goldsboro, NC this past February, and the 8 guys who bested us couldn't be nicer guys, even though the ones who came in 1st got their ticket to the finals by beating the event promotor's kids. A little bit of backstage trickery there, but they beat us fair and square, so it's all good.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Disturbed for Rock Band DLC next week
Downloadable content (new songs) just announced for Rock Band; we're getting "Stupify" and "Stricken" by Disturbed.
"Stupify" has got to be one of the best jokes in radio. Most radio stations play the song uncensored, even during the day, even though he's dropping the almighty F-bomb after every other line. I guess because it sounds more like "rock!" or even just a grunt. I wish I saved it (and Jen probably did somewhere), but on the old Disturbed board, in the "Ask the Band" area, someone asked of vocalist David Draiman what he was saying at the end of the lines. His answer was short, sweet, and to the point. He basically said "X fuck, one luck, no rock" where X was the number of F-bombs in the song, and "luck" ends the line "shit outta... luck". It better be uncensored on Rock Band, long after the cat's been let out of the bag. But it probably won't be. If it were just me, I wouldn't get it, but Jen loves 'em, and I gotta admit it would be fun to sing.
"Stricken" on the other hand is an awesome song. Disturbed stuff is hell hard to play in these games. The four we have in Rock Band ("Inside the Fire", "Indestructible", "Perfect Insanity", and "Down With the Sickness") are no pushovers and I've played "Stricken" on Guitar Hero 2 or 3, and it wasn't easy there, either.
Also on deck next Tuesday is "My Old School" and "Black Friday" by Steely Dan. I'd never heard either - where's "Reelin' in the Years"? "My Old School" doesn't sound all that great, but "Black Friday" is a cool song - I might pick it up.
There's also a few songs by Social Distortion. I don't really care for punk, but it's always fun to play in the game, including Social D's other song, "I Was Wrong" included on the Rock Band 2 game disc.
And a song by Elvis Costello, "Radio Radio", but I've never gotten into Costello, and his song on Rock Band 2, the name of which escapes me at the moment, isn't anything special.
...And maybe another obscure song or two, I don't know. Jen left the post up for me and I didn't grab the URL. There's a small army of folks on Twitter who post the updates, you can follow any of them to be kept in the loop, or if you prefer to kick it old-school, you can hit up the announcements page on RockBand.com.
Note: Lot of links here. Clicking on song titles will take you to a YouTube video so you can hear it (most always not the official video). Clicking on artist names will take you to their Wikipedia page. The word "Twitter" goes to my boring-ass Twitter page, and the three links immediately surrounding it go to Twitter pages that post Rock Band updates. The last two are kind of self-explanatory.
"Stupify" has got to be one of the best jokes in radio. Most radio stations play the song uncensored, even during the day, even though he's dropping the almighty F-bomb after every other line. I guess because it sounds more like "rock!" or even just a grunt. I wish I saved it (and Jen probably did somewhere), but on the old Disturbed board, in the "Ask the Band" area, someone asked of vocalist David Draiman what he was saying at the end of the lines. His answer was short, sweet, and to the point. He basically said "X fuck, one luck, no rock" where X was the number of F-bombs in the song, and "luck" ends the line "shit outta... luck". It better be uncensored on Rock Band, long after the cat's been let out of the bag. But it probably won't be. If it were just me, I wouldn't get it, but Jen loves 'em, and I gotta admit it would be fun to sing.
"Stricken" on the other hand is an awesome song. Disturbed stuff is hell hard to play in these games. The four we have in Rock Band ("Inside the Fire", "Indestructible", "Perfect Insanity", and "Down With the Sickness") are no pushovers and I've played "Stricken" on Guitar Hero 2 or 3, and it wasn't easy there, either.
Also on deck next Tuesday is "My Old School" and "Black Friday" by Steely Dan. I'd never heard either - where's "Reelin' in the Years"? "My Old School" doesn't sound all that great, but "Black Friday" is a cool song - I might pick it up.
There's also a few songs by Social Distortion. I don't really care for punk, but it's always fun to play in the game, including Social D's other song, "I Was Wrong" included on the Rock Band 2 game disc.
And a song by Elvis Costello, "Radio Radio", but I've never gotten into Costello, and his song on Rock Band 2, the name of which escapes me at the moment, isn't anything special.
...And maybe another obscure song or two, I don't know. Jen left the post up for me and I didn't grab the URL. There's a small army of folks on Twitter who post the updates, you can follow any of them to be kept in the loop, or if you prefer to kick it old-school, you can hit up the announcements page on RockBand.com.
Note: Lot of links here. Clicking on song titles will take you to a YouTube video so you can hear it (most always not the official video). Clicking on artist names will take you to their Wikipedia page. The word "Twitter" goes to my boring-ass Twitter page, and the three links immediately surrounding it go to Twitter pages that post Rock Band updates. The last two are kind of self-explanatory.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Tech News: March 2009
Haven't done one of these in a while. Pick a few news stories and pick 'em apart. There have been slim pickings in the news as of late, but I was able to find a couple at a glance tonight.
India unveils world's cheapest car
Ooh, I want one. The good news? For $2000 (or $2200, sources differ on this) you can get a four-door car, seats four, and in addition to being the world's cheapest car, it's among the smallest as well. "Smaller than a Mini Cooper" small. And it gets 47 miles to the gallon. The bad news... no heater, no A/C, no automatic transmission, and no radio. Top speed of 65mph... and you might get teased for driving what's being called a street-legal lawnmower. But the good news in that is that for the higher-end model with all of those features is still only $3800.
It must not ever get real cold in India. No heater? You probably couldn't sell a car in North Carolina without a heater. You get in your car which is covered in ice, you scrape the ice off the windshield, what stops it from reforming? And as you race down the road, even if it's only at 45mph, that actually lowers the perceived temperature. You go numb, your little car is now a liability, a hazard to every other car on the road. I can only imagine the problems with selling one up in Wisconsin or somewhere like that.
Still, a little car like that is all most Americans need. Now I'm not one of those Republinazi "do it my way or you're going to hell" types, but most SUV drivers really don't need an urban assault vehicle to carry them to Starbucks for a latte. But, people have issues, and they feel the need to compensate for something, maybe they got picked on in school, maybe they just have underdeveloped genetalia, and need to feel like they're on top of the world. One of these popular celebrities really needs to endorse these small cars, make "small" the new "big".
Oh yeah... they've received over one million orders, but they're only going to make 60,000. Smart, business-wise. Stupid overall, but par for the course. I mean, it's not like we're in a recession or anything.
Rock Band Track Pack: Classic Rock: Coming in May
Good news for those of you playing Rock Band who haven't got your Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 connected to the Internet (or have a Wii or PlayStation 2, the former of which hasn't got a hard drive and the latter can't get online). Depending on your system, Harmonix is releasing the third or fourth track pack, 20 songs you can play independent of the original game and its songs. Track Pack 1 was only released for the Wii and the PS2. The first real track pack, available for all four platforms, was Track Pack 2. Then they put out the AC/DC track pack, only 18 songs but all of them top-dollar songs.
Here's how a track pack works. Rock Band isn't just a game, it's really just an interactive media player. Rock Band and Rock Band 2 have three elements: The media player (Quickplay), the songs, and the game (Tour). The track packs are simply the media player and 20 songs. Unfortunately and stupidly, it's the first version of the media player, not the second. That is, it's the Rock Band 1 engine rather than the updated Rock Band 2 engine. Not a big deal, but it's silly that the track packs don't represent the latest and greatest.
On the business side, Rock Band downloads go for $2 apiece, except in special cases where it's an independent artist and the song's only $1, though there are plenty of independent artists up there whose songs cost the same $2 as famous artists. The problem with downloads is that only two of the four consoles Rock Band is available for support them, and the lower-end Xbox 360 doesn't, either, unless it gets upgraded with a hard drive. (You can buy them separately, or in my younger brother-in-law's case, you can have an older sister who sprung for the 120GB drive and wound up with a spare 20GB drive in need of a happy home.) Then, not all PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles are online. Furthermore, for whatever reason, not everyone who can download, does. But they will buy track packs. Harmonix knocks $10 off the price of the 20 downloads, which would be $40, nevermind the cost of the disc and packaging, shipping and handling (to the store) and all that. Because not all the songs on the track pack are songs you'd pay $2 for. They give you some good ones and some not-so-good ones. It depends on your taste, but anyone can look at the list of songs and see songs they'd swap for something else. Some boil down to opinion, but some are just plain fact. Like the Lenny Kravitz song, "Let Love Rule". How about "Are You Gonna Go My Way"? I could do this all day, but instead I'll just post the list and let you decide if it's worth $30 for the lot:
Boston - Peace of Mind (1976)
Boston - Rock and Roll Band (1976)
Dead Kennedys - California Über Alles (1987)
Dead Kennedys - Holiday in Cambodia (1987)
Free - All Right Now (1970)
George Thorogood & the Destroyers - Bad to the Bone (1982)
James Gang - Funk #49 (1970)
Jethro Tull - Hymn 43 (1971)
Lenny Kravitz - Let Love Rule (1989)
Pat Benatar - Hit Me With Your Best Shot (1980)
The Police - Can't Stand Losing You (1978)
The Police - Truth Hits Everybody (1978)
Rush - Closer to the Heart (1977)
Rush - Red Barchetta (1981)
Siouxsie and The Banshees - Kiss Them For Me (1991)
Steve Miller Band - Take the Money and Run (1976)
Steve Miller Band - The Joker (1973)
The Stone Roses - Love Spreads (1994)
The Who - Baba O'Riley (1971)
The Who - Behind Blue Eyes (1971)
Some of those are pretty good. Both of the Who songs are excellent. Bad to the Bone and The Joker are evil if you're a bassist. Pat Benetar's song is fun as hell - for a bassist, at least.
Despite my comments about some songs not being as good as other offerings by the same artist, if I wasn't on Xbox Live, I'd get this in a heartbeat. But at the same time, if I had $30 to spend on Xbox Live and had no downloadable songs, I could come up with 15 songs I'd rather have than these 20 (though the 15 would include some of these). But since I do have DLC, I'll point out that I have all the songs on this list I want, though I don't have Closer to the Heart (Rush) and wouldn't mind having that. We have the Who songs, we have the Steve Miller songs, the first Boston song, the Free song, Bad to the Bone, Funk 49, and the Benetar song. Plus a bunch of other great songs.
India unveils world's cheapest car
Ooh, I want one. The good news? For $2000 (or $2200, sources differ on this) you can get a four-door car, seats four, and in addition to being the world's cheapest car, it's among the smallest as well. "Smaller than a Mini Cooper" small. And it gets 47 miles to the gallon. The bad news... no heater, no A/C, no automatic transmission, and no radio. Top speed of 65mph... and you might get teased for driving what's being called a street-legal lawnmower. But the good news in that is that for the higher-end model with all of those features is still only $3800.
It must not ever get real cold in India. No heater? You probably couldn't sell a car in North Carolina without a heater. You get in your car which is covered in ice, you scrape the ice off the windshield, what stops it from reforming? And as you race down the road, even if it's only at 45mph, that actually lowers the perceived temperature. You go numb, your little car is now a liability, a hazard to every other car on the road. I can only imagine the problems with selling one up in Wisconsin or somewhere like that.
Still, a little car like that is all most Americans need. Now I'm not one of those Republinazi "do it my way or you're going to hell" types, but most SUV drivers really don't need an urban assault vehicle to carry them to Starbucks for a latte. But, people have issues, and they feel the need to compensate for something, maybe they got picked on in school, maybe they just have underdeveloped genetalia, and need to feel like they're on top of the world. One of these popular celebrities really needs to endorse these small cars, make "small" the new "big".
Oh yeah... they've received over one million orders, but they're only going to make 60,000. Smart, business-wise. Stupid overall, but par for the course. I mean, it's not like we're in a recession or anything.
Rock Band Track Pack: Classic Rock: Coming in May
Good news for those of you playing Rock Band who haven't got your Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 connected to the Internet (or have a Wii or PlayStation 2, the former of which hasn't got a hard drive and the latter can't get online). Depending on your system, Harmonix is releasing the third or fourth track pack, 20 songs you can play independent of the original game and its songs. Track Pack 1 was only released for the Wii and the PS2. The first real track pack, available for all four platforms, was Track Pack 2. Then they put out the AC/DC track pack, only 18 songs but all of them top-dollar songs.
Here's how a track pack works. Rock Band isn't just a game, it's really just an interactive media player. Rock Band and Rock Band 2 have three elements: The media player (Quickplay), the songs, and the game (Tour). The track packs are simply the media player and 20 songs. Unfortunately and stupidly, it's the first version of the media player, not the second. That is, it's the Rock Band 1 engine rather than the updated Rock Band 2 engine. Not a big deal, but it's silly that the track packs don't represent the latest and greatest.
On the business side, Rock Band downloads go for $2 apiece, except in special cases where it's an independent artist and the song's only $1, though there are plenty of independent artists up there whose songs cost the same $2 as famous artists. The problem with downloads is that only two of the four consoles Rock Band is available for support them, and the lower-end Xbox 360 doesn't, either, unless it gets upgraded with a hard drive. (You can buy them separately, or in my younger brother-in-law's case, you can have an older sister who sprung for the 120GB drive and wound up with a spare 20GB drive in need of a happy home.) Then, not all PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles are online. Furthermore, for whatever reason, not everyone who can download, does. But they will buy track packs. Harmonix knocks $10 off the price of the 20 downloads, which would be $40, nevermind the cost of the disc and packaging, shipping and handling (to the store) and all that. Because not all the songs on the track pack are songs you'd pay $2 for. They give you some good ones and some not-so-good ones. It depends on your taste, but anyone can look at the list of songs and see songs they'd swap for something else. Some boil down to opinion, but some are just plain fact. Like the Lenny Kravitz song, "Let Love Rule". How about "Are You Gonna Go My Way"? I could do this all day, but instead I'll just post the list and let you decide if it's worth $30 for the lot:
Boston - Peace of Mind (1976)
Boston - Rock and Roll Band (1976)
Dead Kennedys - California Über Alles (1987)
Dead Kennedys - Holiday in Cambodia (1987)
Free - All Right Now (1970)
George Thorogood & the Destroyers - Bad to the Bone (1982)
James Gang - Funk #49 (1970)
Jethro Tull - Hymn 43 (1971)
Lenny Kravitz - Let Love Rule (1989)
Pat Benatar - Hit Me With Your Best Shot (1980)
The Police - Can't Stand Losing You (1978)
The Police - Truth Hits Everybody (1978)
Rush - Closer to the Heart (1977)
Rush - Red Barchetta (1981)
Siouxsie and The Banshees - Kiss Them For Me (1991)
Steve Miller Band - Take the Money and Run (1976)
Steve Miller Band - The Joker (1973)
The Stone Roses - Love Spreads (1994)
The Who - Baba O'Riley (1971)
The Who - Behind Blue Eyes (1971)
Some of those are pretty good. Both of the Who songs are excellent. Bad to the Bone and The Joker are evil if you're a bassist. Pat Benetar's song is fun as hell - for a bassist, at least.
Despite my comments about some songs not being as good as other offerings by the same artist, if I wasn't on Xbox Live, I'd get this in a heartbeat. But at the same time, if I had $30 to spend on Xbox Live and had no downloadable songs, I could come up with 15 songs I'd rather have than these 20 (though the 15 would include some of these). But since I do have DLC, I'll point out that I have all the songs on this list I want, though I don't have Closer to the Heart (Rush) and wouldn't mind having that. We have the Who songs, we have the Steve Miller songs, the first Boston song, the Free song, Bad to the Bone, Funk 49, and the Benetar song. Plus a bunch of other great songs.
Monday, March 30, 2009
The big three zero zero
As opposed to the big three zero coming in just under six months, that is... No, Saturday night (or rather, Sunday morning) we got our 300th song on Rock Band. At the time of this writing, there are 614 songs available for the Rock Band platform. We've got 300 of them. And that's a good thing, because we don't want most of the other 314. There are a few I wouldn't mind having, but all in all I'm proud to say that we have the best of the lot.
For the curious, #300 was "War Zone" by Rob Zombie. It's the only song of his in the game. I passed on it when it came out because I'm not too fond of the song, but admittedly, it's fun to play. We let Jen's brother pick the 300th song because he got us into the game.
We still have enough for one more song, which will most likely be "Heartbreaker" by Pat Benetar when it comes out Tuesday morning. That'll put us at 301.
Update: 9 April 2009:
We never got that 301st track, so we still have enough Microsoft points to get another one. At this point we're trying to decide between "Heartbreaker" and one of the Toby Keith songs. I could go either way on that one. However, a friend of Jen's from the Disturbed board bought Pearl Jam's "Ten" album, which came with a code to download 3 of their songs for free, so we used that, and got a couple songs I've never heard of and a live version of "Alive", so, thanks Herb for that! And that puts the official count at 303.
Update: 1 May 2009:
The official count now stands at 316 (Steve Austin reference FTW) with "Jane Says" by Jane's Addiction and "Joker and the Thief" by Wolfmother. And we have points to buy nine more. Tuesday (5 May - Cinco de Mayo) it's "Smooth Criminal" by Alien Ant Farm (covering Michael Jackson), "Naked Eye" by Luscious Jackson, and "Midnight Rider" by the Allman Bros. band we'll be getting. That will leave us with credits for six more. Maybe a couple more Stevie Ray Vaughan?
For the curious, #300 was "War Zone" by Rob Zombie. It's the only song of his in the game. I passed on it when it came out because I'm not too fond of the song, but admittedly, it's fun to play. We let Jen's brother pick the 300th song because he got us into the game.
We still have enough for one more song, which will most likely be "Heartbreaker" by Pat Benetar when it comes out Tuesday morning. That'll put us at 301.
Update: 9 April 2009:
We never got that 301st track, so we still have enough Microsoft points to get another one. At this point we're trying to decide between "Heartbreaker" and one of the Toby Keith songs. I could go either way on that one. However, a friend of Jen's from the Disturbed board bought Pearl Jam's "Ten" album, which came with a code to download 3 of their songs for free, so we used that, and got a couple songs I've never heard of and a live version of "Alive", so, thanks Herb for that! And that puts the official count at 303.
Update: 1 May 2009:
The official count now stands at 316 (Steve Austin reference FTW) with "Jane Says" by Jane's Addiction and "Joker and the Thief" by Wolfmother. And we have points to buy nine more. Tuesday (5 May - Cinco de Mayo) it's "Smooth Criminal" by Alien Ant Farm (covering Michael Jackson), "Naked Eye" by Luscious Jackson, and "Midnight Rider" by the Allman Bros. band we'll be getting. That will leave us with credits for six more. Maybe a couple more Stevie Ray Vaughan?
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Who decides what games YOU play?
Looking at the title of this article, you probably think "Well gee Nathan... I do!". Sure you do, I say. You go to the store, or you go to Amazon.com, or if you have a new iPod (iTouch?) or iPhone, the iTunes App Store, you browse the selections, and you buy what you want. Right? Right? Of course there's the ESRB - the Entertainment Software Ratings Board, who rate games, and granting a game the legendary AO rating (which means Adults Only) means it won't get sold in stores, but that doesn't mean you can't get it. By far the most popular AO title was, on a re-review, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, after the ESRB discovered that Rockstar had included sex scenes without telling anybody, and a tiny patch to flip an on/off switch inside the game inaccessible to the players otherwise was all that was needed to get at the sex scenes. (Nevermind that the patch also broke the game; after the first lowrider/dance challenge, the player was unable to continue the game's story.) But nevermind the ESRB, I'm looking past them. Who's past the store, even past the ESRB, who decides what you can play?
I gave a hint... no, actually, I named one such entity above, when I mentioned the iTunes App Store. I'm talking about publishers - specifically, publishers with exclusive rights to a platform, such as an iPod/iPhone, or Nintendo with the DS and Wii platforms. As a gamer you give thanks to these people - they bring you your games. As a developer, however, you see them in a different light. Games cost money to make, and they take time to develop, which in turn costs more money. At least that's what Nintendo would have you believe when they tell you to buy their games, rather than play their older (and some of their newer - up to the Nintendo 64 on the home side and all the way up through the DS on the handheld side) games on your PC or download DS and Wii games for use on modified versions of their consoles. They will tell you that they invest millions of dollars in developing and publishing their games, and in this trying economy, downloading games forces them to lay off gamers and reduce their ability to entertain you in the years to come. Never mind that the same economy hurts the gamers worse, because most of them aren't working for a high-tech company like Nintendo or Apple; most of them don't have a profit-sharing program, have much less benefits and far less pay.
I don't know how easy it is to modify a Wii, but apparently it's been done, and a modified Wii will play burned DVDs of Wii games. A DS can be modified by using a "flashcart", a DS cartridge with a memory card slot - it takes the same microSD cards cell phones use, up to 2GB for the most common device (though more advanced units support bigger cards) - and the games are downloaded from the Net. A flashcart can contain dozens of DS games. And an iPod/iPhone can be "jailbroke", which as I understand it, lets you use programs not approved by Apple. You can pirate the ones they offer or you can use ones they don't offer, which is known as "homebrew". (Likewise, the DS and Wii have homebrew available, in addition to commercial games.)
So, in short, you can buy a console or handheld for a couple hundred bucks, but then you can get the games for next to nothing if you're tech savvy, but Nintendo and Apple would rather you didn't, since they pay their game developers well and want to continue to do so, so they will continue to make you games.
Pretty picture, eh? But what happens when someone makes a game that people would love to play, they spend all that time and money developing the game - and the publisher tells them no? Of course, Nintendo and Apple would never acknowledge that ever happens. They continue on with their story that buying games supports the poor developers who need you to buy their games to continue putting food on their tables to feed their young children - all the while, unknown to most, telling developers, who want to make games to put food on their table, that their game isn't good enough, even when bloggers and forum posters the world over voice their support for the game (albeit just based on what they read online).
I should take a minute to note two things here. First, Nintendo, Apple, and other publishers have a right to protect their gaming device's image, and if your game sucks, and they feel that releasing it would cheapen their image, they're well within their rights to not publish the game. Business is business and crap is crap. Second, and more importantly, before even sending a game to the ESRB, publishers must maintain a status quo of content they allow. It's entirely within the abilities of today's game programming environments to make a game where you play a rapist, chasing women down, luring them into dark areas, or drugging them at parties, and then taking advantage, at times forcefully, in graphic detail. Or taking guns into elementary schools and shooting as many children as you can, with bonus points for kindergartners and developmentally disabled kids. Sure, it can be done. But it shouldn't. Some think Grand Theft Auto games are explicit and obscene. They really aren't; they're not doing anything the movies don't. GTA lets you live an action movie. That's cool. That sells. GTA does absolutely nothing negative to the image of the console it comes on. But if Nintendo were to publish a game about rape or Apple were to publish a game about school shootings, it would look bad for the systems, for the company, and in the end it would cost them a whole boatload of money.
(If the above paragraph offended you in the least, then I have made my point. Because just imagine if it really happened. You would feel dirty touching those game systems, even if you'd never played the games in question.)
But then again, Nintendo doesn't really have much of an image to protect. Not really. I mean, just browse the Nintendo DS section at Walmart or Gamestop and see what they've allowed the system to become. The games that make the DS a good handheld, such as the Zelda game, the Mario game, Mario Kart, the Castlevania games, are mostly hard to find. You can get them, but most of the games you'll see end in Z and are about pets (Horsez, Hamsterz, Ponyz, or Nintendogs); or they're called "Imagine (something)" and are targeted to little girls, or they're crappy, second-rate puzzle games. Not good ones like The New York Times Crosswords or Planet Puzzle League (previously published on the Super NES as Tetris Attack), but stuff like CrossworDS or Clubhouse Games. Neither of those two are bad, per se, but they're far from great. The DS has become a toy for kids, and there is really much more to it.
So when I saw the YouTube video for "Bob's Game", I thought "Hey, this might have potential." Bob's Game may or may not be a hoax, though. Blogger Robert Pelloni has apparently sunk 5 years of his life developing this game; based on the timeline I'd guess he started developing for the Game Boy Advance, but since the DS has been out, he's been aiming for that system. The YouTube video says nothing at all about what the game is actually about, but it's littered with those pop-up captions which provide information about what you see. And what you see is a guy he calls "Yuu" (and replaces "you" with "yuu" all over his site), who is often compared to Crono from Chrono Trigger, walking and running around a 16-bit town, kind of like a Pokemon setting, but in realtime rather than turn-based, with cars driving and people walking around. He shows off mostly design elements, pointing out that all the graphics are original and handmade (and, admittedly, it does look sharp). Then you read the story on his site, and he's talked about how he's gone through all the motions to get a developer's license from Nintendo, and they've given him the runaround. He reportedly registered a business, leased a small office, bought equipment, and ended up satisfying all of their requirements. Still rejected, he then staged a protest, locking himself in his office and sitting in front of a webcam, cut off from the world otherwise. Apparently there was a fire, I think at one point aliens abducted him - yeah, it got pretty silly. At one point he said his antics were authorized by Nintendo to promote the game, but at another he said that he was the best developer in the world, far surpassing those at Konami, Capcom, Square, Nintendo, and others. He seems rather crazy, and maybe it is a viral website raising interest in a forthcoming game, or maybe he's just mad, but there does remain the issue of his game. That video showed something, and that something had promise.
Now, if there's something there and I (and thousands of others) say I want to play that, and I'd pay for it, how can Nintendo on one hand tell him no and refuse to sell him his developer kit, and then on the other hand tell us, the gamers, that we need to pay for games to support the hard-working developers? It just doesn't make sense. But then, the entry-level TopToyDS flashcart costs about $10. You can get a small (512MB) microSD card for around $5. If Bob were serious, he could buy up a whole crapload of TTDS's, 512MB microSD cards, and sell his game for $25 a pop. You'd get, in the mail, a flashcart with memory card preloaded, you pop it in, and there's his game, right in the root of the folder, and maybe some other DS homebrew. Then, you like the game so much, as an F-U to Nintendo, you turn around and download the Mario and Zelda games to your memory card. Well, maybe. To make a point. To tell Nintendo that if they won't let this guy make money on his hard work, you'll not spend money on theirs. But yeah, your mother was correct, two wrongs don't make a right. Piracy as a protest doesn't accomplish anything.
Going back to Apple, PC World has published a list of ten iPhone apps that Apple rejected for various reasons. Granted, none of them are all that impressive, and none come close to the promises made by the Bob's Game video linked above, but hey, we're talking about a cellphone here. You don't expect great things out of cell phone applications. Quick functions on the go, sure, but nothing too spectacular. The South Park one looks good, combining episode clips, information, and fun stuff like wallpapers. What's wrong with that? And hey, #6 looks nice, if nothing else. The politicians-on-a-trampoline looks like decent fun, and who wouldn't like to toss a virtual shoe at a virtual Bush? Bad economy and all.
And then there's Rock Band, with coming up on 600 songs available (and we have close to 300! go us!), one just has to wonder, what makes a song OK to play on Rock Band? I'd have thought, since the game came out, that it would be a good challenge for the hardcore players to play Nightwish, but I always thought that that would be too hard, might void the warranties of the instruments, as it would push them all to the limits (imagine Enya singing for Iron Maiden - but heavier), but then they went and released Yngwie Malmsteen and Stevie Ray Vaughan, with some of the hardest songs for the game so far, effectively erasing my theory.
So, we're back to where we started. Who decides? And, as the one paying, how do you feel that it isn't you?
I gave a hint... no, actually, I named one such entity above, when I mentioned the iTunes App Store. I'm talking about publishers - specifically, publishers with exclusive rights to a platform, such as an iPod/iPhone, or Nintendo with the DS and Wii platforms. As a gamer you give thanks to these people - they bring you your games. As a developer, however, you see them in a different light. Games cost money to make, and they take time to develop, which in turn costs more money. At least that's what Nintendo would have you believe when they tell you to buy their games, rather than play their older (and some of their newer - up to the Nintendo 64 on the home side and all the way up through the DS on the handheld side) games on your PC or download DS and Wii games for use on modified versions of their consoles. They will tell you that they invest millions of dollars in developing and publishing their games, and in this trying economy, downloading games forces them to lay off gamers and reduce their ability to entertain you in the years to come. Never mind that the same economy hurts the gamers worse, because most of them aren't working for a high-tech company like Nintendo or Apple; most of them don't have a profit-sharing program, have much less benefits and far less pay.
I don't know how easy it is to modify a Wii, but apparently it's been done, and a modified Wii will play burned DVDs of Wii games. A DS can be modified by using a "flashcart", a DS cartridge with a memory card slot - it takes the same microSD cards cell phones use, up to 2GB for the most common device (though more advanced units support bigger cards) - and the games are downloaded from the Net. A flashcart can contain dozens of DS games. And an iPod/iPhone can be "jailbroke", which as I understand it, lets you use programs not approved by Apple. You can pirate the ones they offer or you can use ones they don't offer, which is known as "homebrew". (Likewise, the DS and Wii have homebrew available, in addition to commercial games.)
So, in short, you can buy a console or handheld for a couple hundred bucks, but then you can get the games for next to nothing if you're tech savvy, but Nintendo and Apple would rather you didn't, since they pay their game developers well and want to continue to do so, so they will continue to make you games.
Pretty picture, eh? But what happens when someone makes a game that people would love to play, they spend all that time and money developing the game - and the publisher tells them no? Of course, Nintendo and Apple would never acknowledge that ever happens. They continue on with their story that buying games supports the poor developers who need you to buy their games to continue putting food on their tables to feed their young children - all the while, unknown to most, telling developers, who want to make games to put food on their table, that their game isn't good enough, even when bloggers and forum posters the world over voice their support for the game (albeit just based on what they read online).
I should take a minute to note two things here. First, Nintendo, Apple, and other publishers have a right to protect their gaming device's image, and if your game sucks, and they feel that releasing it would cheapen their image, they're well within their rights to not publish the game. Business is business and crap is crap. Second, and more importantly, before even sending a game to the ESRB, publishers must maintain a status quo of content they allow. It's entirely within the abilities of today's game programming environments to make a game where you play a rapist, chasing women down, luring them into dark areas, or drugging them at parties, and then taking advantage, at times forcefully, in graphic detail. Or taking guns into elementary schools and shooting as many children as you can, with bonus points for kindergartners and developmentally disabled kids. Sure, it can be done. But it shouldn't. Some think Grand Theft Auto games are explicit and obscene. They really aren't; they're not doing anything the movies don't. GTA lets you live an action movie. That's cool. That sells. GTA does absolutely nothing negative to the image of the console it comes on. But if Nintendo were to publish a game about rape or Apple were to publish a game about school shootings, it would look bad for the systems, for the company, and in the end it would cost them a whole boatload of money.
(If the above paragraph offended you in the least, then I have made my point. Because just imagine if it really happened. You would feel dirty touching those game systems, even if you'd never played the games in question.)
But then again, Nintendo doesn't really have much of an image to protect. Not really. I mean, just browse the Nintendo DS section at Walmart or Gamestop and see what they've allowed the system to become. The games that make the DS a good handheld, such as the Zelda game, the Mario game, Mario Kart, the Castlevania games, are mostly hard to find. You can get them, but most of the games you'll see end in Z and are about pets (Horsez, Hamsterz, Ponyz, or Nintendogs); or they're called "Imagine (something)" and are targeted to little girls, or they're crappy, second-rate puzzle games. Not good ones like The New York Times Crosswords or Planet Puzzle League (previously published on the Super NES as Tetris Attack), but stuff like CrossworDS or Clubhouse Games. Neither of those two are bad, per se, but they're far from great. The DS has become a toy for kids, and there is really much more to it.
So when I saw the YouTube video for "Bob's Game", I thought "Hey, this might have potential." Bob's Game may or may not be a hoax, though. Blogger Robert Pelloni has apparently sunk 5 years of his life developing this game; based on the timeline I'd guess he started developing for the Game Boy Advance, but since the DS has been out, he's been aiming for that system. The YouTube video says nothing at all about what the game is actually about, but it's littered with those pop-up captions which provide information about what you see. And what you see is a guy he calls "Yuu" (and replaces "you" with "yuu" all over his site), who is often compared to Crono from Chrono Trigger, walking and running around a 16-bit town, kind of like a Pokemon setting, but in realtime rather than turn-based, with cars driving and people walking around. He shows off mostly design elements, pointing out that all the graphics are original and handmade (and, admittedly, it does look sharp). Then you read the story on his site, and he's talked about how he's gone through all the motions to get a developer's license from Nintendo, and they've given him the runaround. He reportedly registered a business, leased a small office, bought equipment, and ended up satisfying all of their requirements. Still rejected, he then staged a protest, locking himself in his office and sitting in front of a webcam, cut off from the world otherwise. Apparently there was a fire, I think at one point aliens abducted him - yeah, it got pretty silly. At one point he said his antics were authorized by Nintendo to promote the game, but at another he said that he was the best developer in the world, far surpassing those at Konami, Capcom, Square, Nintendo, and others. He seems rather crazy, and maybe it is a viral website raising interest in a forthcoming game, or maybe he's just mad, but there does remain the issue of his game. That video showed something, and that something had promise.
Now, if there's something there and I (and thousands of others) say I want to play that, and I'd pay for it, how can Nintendo on one hand tell him no and refuse to sell him his developer kit, and then on the other hand tell us, the gamers, that we need to pay for games to support the hard-working developers? It just doesn't make sense. But then, the entry-level TopToyDS flashcart costs about $10. You can get a small (512MB) microSD card for around $5. If Bob were serious, he could buy up a whole crapload of TTDS's, 512MB microSD cards, and sell his game for $25 a pop. You'd get, in the mail, a flashcart with memory card preloaded, you pop it in, and there's his game, right in the root of the folder, and maybe some other DS homebrew. Then, you like the game so much, as an F-U to Nintendo, you turn around and download the Mario and Zelda games to your memory card. Well, maybe. To make a point. To tell Nintendo that if they won't let this guy make money on his hard work, you'll not spend money on theirs. But yeah, your mother was correct, two wrongs don't make a right. Piracy as a protest doesn't accomplish anything.
Going back to Apple, PC World has published a list of ten iPhone apps that Apple rejected for various reasons. Granted, none of them are all that impressive, and none come close to the promises made by the Bob's Game video linked above, but hey, we're talking about a cellphone here. You don't expect great things out of cell phone applications. Quick functions on the go, sure, but nothing too spectacular. The South Park one looks good, combining episode clips, information, and fun stuff like wallpapers. What's wrong with that? And hey, #6 looks nice, if nothing else. The politicians-on-a-trampoline looks like decent fun, and who wouldn't like to toss a virtual shoe at a virtual Bush? Bad economy and all.
And then there's Rock Band, with coming up on 600 songs available (and we have close to 300! go us!), one just has to wonder, what makes a song OK to play on Rock Band? I'd have thought, since the game came out, that it would be a good challenge for the hardcore players to play Nightwish, but I always thought that that would be too hard, might void the warranties of the instruments, as it would push them all to the limits (imagine Enya singing for Iron Maiden - but heavier), but then they went and released Yngwie Malmsteen and Stevie Ray Vaughan, with some of the hardest songs for the game so far, effectively erasing my theory.
So, we're back to where we started. Who decides? And, as the one paying, how do you feel that it isn't you?
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
It has begun...
Nintendo's full transition to the DS, that is.
In 2004, Nintendo dropped its most ambitious handheld, the DS, worldwide. The first Nintendo handheld to not bear the Game Boy name, Nintendo distanced itself from its experiment so as to avoid tarnishing the near-spotless Game Boy name (as they had with a previous flop, the Virtual Boy). Not sure the DS would take off, they included a Game Boy Advance slot in the bottom in addition to the dedicated DS slot in the top, so that in case the DS line crashed and burned, early adopters would at least have a GBA that could play a few of the new games. Following the release of the DS, Nintendo released a third model of the wildly popular Game Boy Advance line, the Micro; designed to look like a classic NES controller and only a little bigger than the game cartridges themselves, the GBA Micro was an utter failure. Everyone wanted a DS. This handheld, which like the GBA SP before it, looked like a cross between a makeup kit and an electronic dictionary with its clamshell design, which protected its signature and as of yet unparalleled features: Two screens, the lower of which a touch screen. The system also featured a microphone. Originally costing $149.99, the console dropped in price to $129.99 just a year or so later, and has stayed at that price point since.
It's important to know that the DS, while a Game Boy in spirit, the DS is actually something else entirely. As early as the late 80s, the Game Boy line has been accused of, purely by the name of the product, excluding girls. Laugh it up, but girl gamers are a huge financial incentive and have helped propel DS game sales with titles such as Nintendogs and the Imagine line, with focus on care and nurturing rather than conquest and destruction. While "Game Boy" is marketable to sentimental old fossils such as myself, Nintendo, much more so than Microsoft or Sony now or Sega or, well, anybody else back in the day, wants to appeal to families, games that are fun for Mom and Dad and educational for the kids, as young as possible. And while the debate as to whether edutainment titles actually help kids learn more so or even as much as traditional learning, none can deny that it makes learning fun, or better yet, Nintendo's sales records. In the 1980s and pre-PlayStation 1990s, Nintendo creamed their one major competitor, Sega, to the point where the company stopped making consoles and focused, instead, on games, primarily for Nintendo, it would seem.
2006 saw the release of the DS Lite, a smaller DS with a more squared-off design, and, at a glance, about a 33% reduction in overall size (though, oddly enough, the stylus got bigger). The battery was said to be better, the screens got two more brightness settings, but it was pretty much the same thing. The size reduction caused the original DS to be redubbed the "DS Phat" by fans, and was still preferred by some (including many with larger hands). The DS, now marginally bigger than a smartphone, could now be carried discreetly in most articles of clothing. It was about the size of the GBA SP, only wider.
2006 also saw another advancement in technology: the rise in popularity of micro SD to Nitro converter cards. (micro SD is the kind of memory card your cell phone probably uses if it takes a memory card, and Nitro is the code name for the DS; "DS Cartridges" are technically "Nitro cartridges".) Such a device allows, among other things, one to load a few to a couple dozen DS games on one memory card and play them for free. Of course, there are legal uses for the converter cards (referred to as "flashcarts" by many of their users, as cartridges which take flash memory) as I've even blogged about in the past, such as music and video playback, PDA features such as calendar/appointment keeping, painting, writing text files, and playing homemade games. And quite naturally, it's Nintendo's responsibility to its game publishers (as most of their games and arguably all of their best games are exclusive to the DS) to try to prevent this. They've gone after Japanese shops selling a popular flashcart called the R4 (the one I've got), but so far their efforts have been in vain. Like the RIAA going after KaZaA and other old networks long after most users have jumped ship, Nintendo likely hasn't stopped anybody from downloading, rather than paying for their games. However, Nintendo really can't fight pirates in realtime. The DS just isn't set up for forced firmware updates. Sony's PSP is better equipped to do so, relying more on the Internet (it has a web browser that actually works, unlike the one Nintendo put out in partnership with Opera a couple years back) and releasing firmware updates every so often.
In 2008, rumors circulated about a new DS system. Videos appeared on YouTube; one showed what looked like two iPhones side by side, implying an ultrathin clamshell design, and another showed something straight out of Transformers which is probably a physical impossibility. These viral videos probably fooled very few people, but the gaming world was indeed abuzz that something new was coming for Nintendo's handheld market. Quietly announced in Japan and hurriedly translated by American gamers, the DSi features two 0.3MP cameras - one on the outside and one on the inner hinge - a slightly slimmer design, slightly larger screens, an SD card slot in the side, and a more intelligent design, as far as the indicator lights, placement of the power and reset buttons, and speakers, all the "little" things. Oh, and no GBA slot. The casual dismissal of the GBA slot led to a fair bit of controversy among fans. Fans who sold their GBAs and intended to replace their DS Phat or DS Lite for a DSi but still wanted to play GBA games felt burned. Oh, and the two (and one upcoming) Guitar Hero games, among others, rely on an attachment which plugs into the GBA slot.
The removal of the GBA slot is a far more important move than most fans notice, or care to admit. The DSi is Nintendo's first dedicated DS, as in the first DS which does not double as a GBA. The DS Phat and DS Lite were really both two systems in one. With a DS game, it was a DS, something totally new, but with a GBA game, it was really just another GBA. With the DS Lite, Nintendo said, in not so many words, that they did not trust the DS to carry the Nintendo handheld, but combining the failure of the GBA Micro and the success of both DS systems, as well as the exclusion of the GBA slot from the DSi, Nintendo has finally accepted that DS is the future of Nintendo handhelds. It will not become the "Nintendo Game Boy DSi"; likely, they will never put the "Game Boy" name on anything, again. The last true Game Boy platform was the Game Boy Advance line, and it was a hit. The only thing that burns me is that the Game Boy Advance was a widescreen gaming platform, and the DS line took a step back returning to square gaming. But regardless, Game Boy went out with a bang, and may it rest in peace.
If it's any consolation, PSP loyalists like to let Nintendo fans know that a modified PSP can play GBA games with 100% accuracy in most games. A PSP is good for music and video, much more so than a modified DS, so if a DS Phat or DS Lite owner really must have a DSi, the PSP looks real good as a second system. Never mind that it's expensive and has few really good games. Its homebrew emulators are far in advance of the DS's, so it can play the NES games, just like a modded DS can, and it can play Super NES games, ironically, better than a DS, especially as most Super NES games don't even play correctly. They may be playable, but they don't look right. Nintendo wants us to forget about the past and move on (and of course buy all their new games, good or otherwise) but many of us self-proclaimed Nintendorks just can't let go of the classics. It's a damn shame Nintendo doesn't accept this and try to make money by reselling all their classics every year on the latest platforms. They'd really make a killing, and on franchises they own - namely Mario, Zelda, and Metroid - they wouldn't even have to pay any licensing fees. They already own the content. That said, the DSi will have an SD card reader and a "Channel" system like the Wii - it's speculated that it might have a Virtual Console of its own. Obviously not as many games would be supported, if it's true at all, but it is a step in the right direction.
Oh, and about the pirates. The DSi will not support homebrew software from booting from the SD slot, so apparently, that's out as a means to play downloaded games on the system. Apparently it can store resources, but the actual executable programs (or the keys to run them) will be held elsewhere, possibly on a flash memory device inside the unit. The anti-piracy measures of the DSi are not known at this time, but it is known that most if not all of the flashcarts made for the DS Phat and DS Lite will not work on the DSi. However, flashcarts are out now that work on Japanese DSis, as the console is available there. When the DSi comes to America in May of this year (unless it gets pushed back) it's pretty much assumed that the system will be ready for hacking.
And so it goes. Another great handheld game system is about to come out with unforseen potential, and the hackers, crackers, and pirates will have their way with it, as they always have, and those who buy games, well, both groups are in for a new world of surprises, only one's paying more, and hopefully it's enough to keep Nintendo going long enough to go at it again in 2011 or 2012.
In 2004, Nintendo dropped its most ambitious handheld, the DS, worldwide. The first Nintendo handheld to not bear the Game Boy name, Nintendo distanced itself from its experiment so as to avoid tarnishing the near-spotless Game Boy name (as they had with a previous flop, the Virtual Boy). Not sure the DS would take off, they included a Game Boy Advance slot in the bottom in addition to the dedicated DS slot in the top, so that in case the DS line crashed and burned, early adopters would at least have a GBA that could play a few of the new games. Following the release of the DS, Nintendo released a third model of the wildly popular Game Boy Advance line, the Micro; designed to look like a classic NES controller and only a little bigger than the game cartridges themselves, the GBA Micro was an utter failure. Everyone wanted a DS. This handheld, which like the GBA SP before it, looked like a cross between a makeup kit and an electronic dictionary with its clamshell design, which protected its signature and as of yet unparalleled features: Two screens, the lower of which a touch screen. The system also featured a microphone. Originally costing $149.99, the console dropped in price to $129.99 just a year or so later, and has stayed at that price point since.
It's important to know that the DS, while a Game Boy in spirit, the DS is actually something else entirely. As early as the late 80s, the Game Boy line has been accused of, purely by the name of the product, excluding girls. Laugh it up, but girl gamers are a huge financial incentive and have helped propel DS game sales with titles such as Nintendogs and the Imagine line, with focus on care and nurturing rather than conquest and destruction. While "Game Boy" is marketable to sentimental old fossils such as myself, Nintendo, much more so than Microsoft or Sony now or Sega or, well, anybody else back in the day, wants to appeal to families, games that are fun for Mom and Dad and educational for the kids, as young as possible. And while the debate as to whether edutainment titles actually help kids learn more so or even as much as traditional learning, none can deny that it makes learning fun, or better yet, Nintendo's sales records. In the 1980s and pre-PlayStation 1990s, Nintendo creamed their one major competitor, Sega, to the point where the company stopped making consoles and focused, instead, on games, primarily for Nintendo, it would seem.
2006 saw the release of the DS Lite, a smaller DS with a more squared-off design, and, at a glance, about a 33% reduction in overall size (though, oddly enough, the stylus got bigger). The battery was said to be better, the screens got two more brightness settings, but it was pretty much the same thing. The size reduction caused the original DS to be redubbed the "DS Phat" by fans, and was still preferred by some (including many with larger hands). The DS, now marginally bigger than a smartphone, could now be carried discreetly in most articles of clothing. It was about the size of the GBA SP, only wider.
2006 also saw another advancement in technology: the rise in popularity of micro SD to Nitro converter cards. (micro SD is the kind of memory card your cell phone probably uses if it takes a memory card, and Nitro is the code name for the DS; "DS Cartridges" are technically "Nitro cartridges".) Such a device allows, among other things, one to load a few to a couple dozen DS games on one memory card and play them for free. Of course, there are legal uses for the converter cards (referred to as "flashcarts" by many of their users, as cartridges which take flash memory) as I've even blogged about in the past, such as music and video playback, PDA features such as calendar/appointment keeping, painting, writing text files, and playing homemade games. And quite naturally, it's Nintendo's responsibility to its game publishers (as most of their games and arguably all of their best games are exclusive to the DS) to try to prevent this. They've gone after Japanese shops selling a popular flashcart called the R4 (the one I've got), but so far their efforts have been in vain. Like the RIAA going after KaZaA and other old networks long after most users have jumped ship, Nintendo likely hasn't stopped anybody from downloading, rather than paying for their games. However, Nintendo really can't fight pirates in realtime. The DS just isn't set up for forced firmware updates. Sony's PSP is better equipped to do so, relying more on the Internet (it has a web browser that actually works, unlike the one Nintendo put out in partnership with Opera a couple years back) and releasing firmware updates every so often.
In 2008, rumors circulated about a new DS system. Videos appeared on YouTube; one showed what looked like two iPhones side by side, implying an ultrathin clamshell design, and another showed something straight out of Transformers which is probably a physical impossibility. These viral videos probably fooled very few people, but the gaming world was indeed abuzz that something new was coming for Nintendo's handheld market. Quietly announced in Japan and hurriedly translated by American gamers, the DSi features two 0.3MP cameras - one on the outside and one on the inner hinge - a slightly slimmer design, slightly larger screens, an SD card slot in the side, and a more intelligent design, as far as the indicator lights, placement of the power and reset buttons, and speakers, all the "little" things. Oh, and no GBA slot. The casual dismissal of the GBA slot led to a fair bit of controversy among fans. Fans who sold their GBAs and intended to replace their DS Phat or DS Lite for a DSi but still wanted to play GBA games felt burned. Oh, and the two (and one upcoming) Guitar Hero games, among others, rely on an attachment which plugs into the GBA slot.
The removal of the GBA slot is a far more important move than most fans notice, or care to admit. The DSi is Nintendo's first dedicated DS, as in the first DS which does not double as a GBA. The DS Phat and DS Lite were really both two systems in one. With a DS game, it was a DS, something totally new, but with a GBA game, it was really just another GBA. With the DS Lite, Nintendo said, in not so many words, that they did not trust the DS to carry the Nintendo handheld, but combining the failure of the GBA Micro and the success of both DS systems, as well as the exclusion of the GBA slot from the DSi, Nintendo has finally accepted that DS is the future of Nintendo handhelds. It will not become the "Nintendo Game Boy DSi"; likely, they will never put the "Game Boy" name on anything, again. The last true Game Boy platform was the Game Boy Advance line, and it was a hit. The only thing that burns me is that the Game Boy Advance was a widescreen gaming platform, and the DS line took a step back returning to square gaming. But regardless, Game Boy went out with a bang, and may it rest in peace.
If it's any consolation, PSP loyalists like to let Nintendo fans know that a modified PSP can play GBA games with 100% accuracy in most games. A PSP is good for music and video, much more so than a modified DS, so if a DS Phat or DS Lite owner really must have a DSi, the PSP looks real good as a second system. Never mind that it's expensive and has few really good games. Its homebrew emulators are far in advance of the DS's, so it can play the NES games, just like a modded DS can, and it can play Super NES games, ironically, better than a DS, especially as most Super NES games don't even play correctly. They may be playable, but they don't look right. Nintendo wants us to forget about the past and move on (and of course buy all their new games, good or otherwise) but many of us self-proclaimed Nintendorks just can't let go of the classics. It's a damn shame Nintendo doesn't accept this and try to make money by reselling all their classics every year on the latest platforms. They'd really make a killing, and on franchises they own - namely Mario, Zelda, and Metroid - they wouldn't even have to pay any licensing fees. They already own the content. That said, the DSi will have an SD card reader and a "Channel" system like the Wii - it's speculated that it might have a Virtual Console of its own. Obviously not as many games would be supported, if it's true at all, but it is a step in the right direction.
Oh, and about the pirates. The DSi will not support homebrew software from booting from the SD slot, so apparently, that's out as a means to play downloaded games on the system. Apparently it can store resources, but the actual executable programs (or the keys to run them) will be held elsewhere, possibly on a flash memory device inside the unit. The anti-piracy measures of the DSi are not known at this time, but it is known that most if not all of the flashcarts made for the DS Phat and DS Lite will not work on the DSi. However, flashcarts are out now that work on Japanese DSis, as the console is available there. When the DSi comes to America in May of this year (unless it gets pushed back) it's pretty much assumed that the system will be ready for hacking.
And so it goes. Another great handheld game system is about to come out with unforseen potential, and the hackers, crackers, and pirates will have their way with it, as they always have, and those who buy games, well, both groups are in for a new world of surprises, only one's paying more, and hopefully it's enough to keep Nintendo going long enough to go at it again in 2011 or 2012.
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