GameSpot has always been a personal favorite of mine when it came to gaming web sites. Sure, there were sites with more “street cred,” but GameSpot always seemed to present a universal level of quality. That was then, and this is now. Ever since GameSpot fired Editorial Director Jeff Gerstmann, the Internet has been ablaze with discussions of their imminent demise. Perhaps.
But all of this is missing the bigger issues, which 1Up.com Editor Sam Kennedy details in a very good blog entry. Sam’s observations about the behind-the-scenes leading up to Gerstmann’s dismissal are as fascinating as they are sad. Personally, I can’t say I was too surprised when it happened; nor would I be surprised to find out that it has happened in the past at both GameSpot and other gaming journalism outlets.
Make no mistake, there are many within the industry who take gaming journalism quite seriously. But it has rarely, as with other entertainment journalism, risen above the level of PR rubber stamping. Previews for games rarely do anything but laud praise. Most review scores fall in the seven or above range, which realistically skews scores in most readers’ minds. Woodward and Bernstein the gaming press is not. (more…)
Sex in video games is not really that big an issue. In truth, very few games ever address sex in the most rudimentary of ways. So, what is the problem then? Well, generally, it’s the way games handle sex.
The above posted video is one of those weird meetings of the mainstream media with the gaming media. These never tend to go well, as the mainstream media is hopelessly ignorant of games and the gaming media is hopelessly ignorant of everything mainstream. We end up with arguments such as, “Games are evil!” countered with, “No game is ever wrong!” Both arguments have some merit, but both are far too simplistic. (more…)
The video posted with this story almost entirely speaks for itself. Essentially, a group of MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) players decided that real life retaliation was needed for a simulated world slight. The outcome? Murder.
What’s perhaps even odder is that not only did the group kill the player they were mad at, but they followed that up by harassing his sister. Now, granted, the individuals involved in this sound like they must have been truly disturbed individuals, but one wonders about the sociopathic behavior exhibited in stalking the dead man’s sister. What would cause such actions? Rage alone could explain the murder, but apparently this was very premeditated-over a game. Then, to follow that with harassment of a completely unaffiliated bystander, makes one question if these people had any indication that they were playing a game, and then suddenly weren’t? (more…)
This is a tough one, as it almost works as a game title. It completely sums up the theme of the game that there are some causes and some things in life that extend beyond the terms “good” and “evil.” Why does it only almost work? Because no piece of art (and if you choose such a pretentious title you are going for art) should ever be title its theme. How much boring would Heart of Darkness be if the title were Descent Into Madness? What if Star Wars were Trust Yourself and Use the Force? Yeah, it just doesn’t really work, even for great art.
I may be wrong here, and feel free to correct me if I am, but other than an Atari Jaguar title based off the fairly bad animated Highlander series, has there ever been a Highlander game made? No? Why not?
There’s some details floating about for this game, and the included screenshot here, but the bigger question to me is why are we getting an entirely new MacLeod to deal with? That’s right, the new game centers on Owen MacLeod. Why not Duncan or Conner? I know buying the likeness and voice to Christopher Lambert and Adrian Paul cannot be that expensive, and there is still that newest film, Highlander: The Source, floating around in release void. Why not use the series’ two biggest stars to help promote the game? (more…)
In the excerpt, Staten reveals that the on-again, off-again Halo movie was to be far less like the games that perhaps many had hoped. How so? Master Chief was to be a supporting character, and not the star of the film. Yes, that’s right, because Halo is so deep with characterization they decided not to waste an entire film on the masked man in green. Instead, the film was to apparently revolve around the characters that, umm, revolve around Master Chief.
Now, before you grab your pitchforks and go after Staten (who seems like a swell guy from interviews), understand that this was most likely the correct decision. Master Chief may be iconic to gamers, but he’s also some nameless (Chief is not a name, folks), faceless, and generally personality-less figure in the games. Sure, he has the occasional one liner, but for the most part it’s those around him who get the real meat and potatoes of personality, even including his AI companion Cortana. So how would one make a movie about a character with no emotion and personality? Cast Keanu Reeves? (more…)
For several years now rumors have been flying about that Apple was going to enter the gaming market with their clever design in tow. Rumors have circulated from an easy development platform within OSX, to a portable iPod/Gameboy hybrid, to a full on home console you’d connect to your TV. So far, none of these systems have materialized, though Apple has seemed to at least invite game developers to the Mac party, and the iPod has seen its share of casual titles ported to it.
But what if? What if Apple entered the gaming market with the some ferocity that Microsoft did, and now one generation later is a serious contender? What if Apple decided Apple TV wasn’t enough of a force in the living room, and they threw their considerable weight into the gaming market? What if we could see that system today?
Of course, much of the appeal originally of an Apple designed console was to be the intuitive interface and the simple, elegant design of the console itself. Well, Nintendo did that with the Wii…sort of. While the Wii’s startup interface is quite the departure from the Xbox 360 and PS3, it’s also not quite as elegant as the best Apple designs. For instance, the Wii’s photo channel lacks the smoothness we could expect from an Apple developed project, which would also likely include integration with Flickr, Picasa, and iPhoto. While the Wii’s Opera based web browser is a nice touch, it certainly lacks what we’d expect from a full implementation of Safari, such as on the iPhone. Along with a more robust web browser one could expect better integration with YouTube and iTunes, a la Apple TV. (more…)
A recent Christian Science Monitor piece questioned whether the bigger threat posed by video games isn’t to increased levels of violence, but to decreased levels of morality. It’s a valid question, and one that far too often gets ignored in favor of, “The game made me do it!”
The crux of the piece, by Matthew Devereux, is that by not portraying any real consequences within video games, the developers absolve the player of moral choices. For instance, blowing up a building to get to the end of a level is justifiable regardless of how many innocents it would kill in reality. The truth is that few games do present any moral consequences or conflicts, and those that do portray them extremely limitedly.
When searching for moral consequences, I chose three titles that I think at least attempt to do what Devereux calls for. Those titles were Fable, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. We’ll start with Fable, as one of its major selling points was supposed to be its ethics/morals engine. The developer originally bragged how killing someone in one town would affect how people in other towns would react to your character. In other words, your character could earn a reputation. In truth, the game delivers a severely limited version of this. Kill someone and you will be chased by townspeople, but given enough time they will lose interest and you’ll be good as new. While in reality a case might go cold after a while, you’ll still find people investigating thirty year old murder cases. More than that, many criminals who are never convicted become social pariahs all the same. Where’s that level of reality? In the end, all of your moral choices within the game are supposed to affect the outcome of the game, but in truth you are given one last decision to go good or bad, undermining all previous decisions. Fable is perhaps the start of something, but not the goal. (more…)
Rare’s classic FPS GolenEye 007 almost saw a release on Xbox Live Arcade. Almost. In the end, though, 1Up.com reports that Nintendo and Microsoft let greed get in the way of one of the most requested classic re-releases. It’s a shame about the greed, but is the lack of a release really a shame?
GoldenEye, if you didn’t know, is one of those games for which gamers hold an almost religious fervor. The game was tie-in with the movie of the same name, and was one of the first console FPS to really integrate story with gameplay. In other words, it was the Half-Life of consoles. Beyond that, though, it was a great party game. The multiplayer showed the potential for social gaming that Halo would capitalize on several years later. Having said all that, it was on the N64.
Games for the N64, like many of its PlayStation and Saturn contemporaries, have not really held up well over the years. While the sharp sprites of classic Super Nintendo and Genesis titles tend to age well, titles form the early days of 3D games do not. N64 titles, especially, not only suffer from bad cameras and low polygon geometry, but the textures tend to be super low resolution, and that’s to say nothing of the frame rates. In other words, GoldenEye hasn’t held very well graphically. Additionally, the gameplay which was fantastic for its day tends to pale in comparison with many modern shooters. The AI isn’t quite as smart and the general horizontal plane of gameplay doesn’t take full advantage of the vertical plane that modern titles do. (more…)
David Jaffe, designer of such madcap romps as Twister Metal and God of War, thinks there might be merit to a one console platform. Does this maverick know no bounds with his heresy?
To be fair, Jaffe is not advocating one unified console platform as much as he is waxing philosophically about it. He questions whether the competition between the hardware manufacturers really does much to benefit gamers, or simply themselves. He’s updated his original blog post a few times now, including explanations of how a consortium of big name developers such as Electronic Arts, Capcom, Square, Ubisoft, and others could make such a fantasy a reality. He even defends against the idea that this would simply be the 3DO2 (or 3DO 360 if Microsoft made it). There’s been some negative reaction, especially to his assertion that it would be the equivalent of the standardized DVD, VHS, and television broadcast formats. And he’s right, because of the nature of the format.
Unlike with unified home video formats, which often are fought out, video games are a uniquely home format. Ever since the death of the arcade in the 1990s, it isn’t like there’s some other first-run format for a video game other than your PS3, Xbox 360, or Wii. Want to play the newest Madden? Your only bet is to buy the full game, or perhaps rent it. This is quite different from film, where you actually have a wide variety of avenues. There’s theatrical release, pay-per-view, pay cable (such as HBO), broadcast TV, DVD, etc. Several different stops await a film along its distribution path before it runs out of new ways to generate revenue. Video games, on the other hand, essentially have one. (more…)
GameSpot has always been a personal favorite of mine when it came to gaming web sites. Sure, there were sites with more “street cred,” but GameSpot always seemed to present a universal level of quality. That was then, and this is now. Ever since GameSpot fired Editorial Director Jeff Gerstmann, the Internet has been ablaze with discussions of their imminent demise. Perhaps.
Beyond Good & Evil
I may be wrong here, and feel free to correct me if I am, but other than an Atari Jaguar title based off the fairly bad animated Highlander series, has there ever been a Highlander game made? No? Why not?
Newsweek tech guru 
For several years now rumors have been flying about that 
When searching for moral consequences, I chose three titles that I think at least attempt to do what Devereux calls for. Those titles were 
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