Just Suck It Up and Say It Already

So I feel the need to ammend an earlier argument I had against Demigod. I stated that I felt the devs would be unable to continually patch it.
But Visiting their forums I found a brief video of their madness after working on fixes for 48 hours straight. It is enough for me to admit that if they continue with this kind of devotion the end product will be quality.
Too bad the game is still working on fixing connection issues. But they are committed it appears, so my hats of to them.
Now if they could just make one truly great map, with some actual design elements within it. And get some balance patches out already, seriously, the game is more or less pretty balanced but you can always make it better.

Oh and for Lost fans. Wasnt that an awesome Season Finale, quite epic. Well minus the ending, I mean I loved the cut to white, that was awesome, but the complete lack of any reveals for next season is gonna me nuts. Great episode though. Hope Sayid is dead, not because I dislike but because I think he needs to finally be able to rest, he's gone through so much. Hope Juliet doesnt die, because she's smoking hot, and Sawyer and her were great. Hope Jack is dead, because that flip flopper deserves it by now. 

It May Be The Most Important Garden Ever

So Plants vs Zombies, or Lawn of The Dead as it should have been named, is put simply an outstanding game. First of all it is cheap. $10. You get a lot of good gameplay for that price. It is from the makers of Peggle, but I believe it is head and shoulders above that game. Peggle is addictive, but there is alot more interesting gameplay in PvZ. 

It has its basic lawn defense gameplay, whereby you plant plants to shoot back the invading zombies. You need to manage sunflowers for resources and deciding how many sunflowers to plant is crucial to your home defense. Even more robust is the number of flowers available to use, there is well over 50. Each person will find their own favorite strategies. Personally I prefer to use the kernel launcher, with starfruits and spikey traps. But the options available are incredibly diverse and profound. The options are often limited more by your mind than anything else. 

Needless to say, the game costs 10 bucks, is awesome, so just get it. Worst case scenario, you dont like it and you are only out $10. 

I'll end this post by saying that the new Batman game looks pretty fun, and have my fingers crossed. Also Wolverine looks fun, but not $70 of fun. $30 and I'm sold.

Ciao.

Thy Imprenetrable Fortress Is Not So?

So, I was thinking about things at work today, as I often have much free time. And I noticed that our sales were quite low in general. We were not meeting any goals or anything, and while I brings me no immediate cause for concern, it is somewhat striking for the video game industry as whole. Here's why. 

We've heard the analysts brandy about sayings like the games industry is recession proof. But I think that is something of a misnomer, because the video games industry has simply been recession proof. Which is all great and fine. But things change. Demographics change, your core audience is altered and your expectations get bigger and bigger. 
Put simply, the industry that survived prior recessions does not resemble the current industry that faces this recession. As such, it is foolish to expect the gaming industry to automatically receive a free pass because 'well last time it did not crash so why would it this time around?'
I am saying this because look at the current climate, lots of developers are struggling. But more interesting is that publishers are taking it much harder, regardless of how they react, they are taking losses. Sure they can take the hit. I'm not worried about the future of gaming. It will always go own, so long as there are people out there with PCs who want to express themselves. But the issue is that gaming has become too successful, a business ruled by corporate interests first and game quality second. 
But is that such a bad thing? Most things in the world are governed by corporate interests. Sure it tends to mean that if you don't understand how to tell quality from crap you'll find yourself knee-deep in crap without noticing it. But the crap only illuminates the good stuff all the better. 
Thats all I've got. Gloom and Doom. But meh, I wanted to talk about so I have.
Will the recession knock out the gaming world. No. 
Will it subdue the current giants? Doubtful, but who knows.
I know this. If gaming publishers ever go to beg for a hand out from the government, It will be a sad sad day.
Ciao.

So I Know This Guy Actually Its Not Even A Guy

He's an alien from Tau Ceta province, anyways he has this problem. He really likes playing games, especially on his PC, but you see he has Steam, which he feels is awesome (rightfully so I think). But the problem with Steam is they continue to get compelling titles brought onto the service, that are merely a click away from being purchased. As a result this alien friend of mine, Bob from Tau Ceta province, sees good games that he'd like to purchase and he sees them with a nice little 10% off discount for the first week. This immediately compels him to purchase whatever great title it happens to be. For example last week King's Bounty emerged. Clickity-Click Click, and he bought it. Yesterday, Men of War arrived on Steam, Click Click Cluck, got it. Now getting game's quickly, easily, and at a reasonable price is all well and good. The problem emerges with so you are buying a game a week. 

How in the name of the great googamooga is one expected to actually play them all an acceptable amount? 

Bob told me this morning that there are dozens of games he has purchased through Steam and failed to even start them up. Many he has played a coupla times before being forced to move on to the next title. 

Worst of all, Bob is in charge of export and imports for the Tau Ceta gaming commission (they handle gambling and such not video gaming as one may expect), as well as prisoner transfers from nearby the Staffholdt Prison cluster.
Needless to say Bob cannot find the time in his section (roughly a month) to alot for all the requisite gaming time to play his games to completion. I told Bob to piss off. There are alot of people who only wish they could have too many games to play.
Yeesh some people.

 Side Note: Crafting in LotR:O... little pricey.

Ciao.

Oi Vey

Seems like a tough time to be a game's publisher. Make good games and you lose money. Make shit games and you'll probably lose money. Make Wii games and you might make money, but you could still lose money.

EA and THQ have recently posted significant losses of late, and last year they put out some very compelling software for gamers, that did fairly well critically and in units pushed. So the question that arises to me is what is wrong with their business models? Lets be clear though, large publishers like EA, Ubisoft, and THQ have incredibly huge "money banks" if you will, and a bad year is not the end for them. However what it does mean is certain developers will get the axe, often times despite quality. 

Do they simply have too many games that are costing too much, are not compelling titles and do not sell? Or is it that a AAA title takes too much money to develop and as such the profits cannot possibly add up to match it. Are they blowing money producing far too many copies far outstripping any possible demand? Is piracy bleeding these companies dry as they often claim? 

Is there any possible solutions? I've got a few but most are not exactly sunny and great.
They could charge more for games. Increase the cost and you get more money. But then push it too high and people begin to feel like they are being ripped off.
They could charge less. Decrease your profit margins with the hope that a cheaper game will sell more. Valve has posted some very interesting findings of sales on Steam resulting in huge increases in units sold. However much of the Steam community strikes me as being fairly affluent and content with most games. Further the Steam purchase system seems to be built for impulse purchasing.
They could get advertising involved even more so in games. I mean television works because of advertising. In television I have read that it takes roughly 20 failed shows to get one hit. That is horrid and seems fairly in line with what goes on with game development. We get a lot of shite games, plenty of decent enough games, and a coupla games that are worth our time. The problem with the comparison to TV is that you do not have to pay money for each show you watch, you pay a flat rate and get them all regardless, the whole thing you invest is your time. This appears to make advertising in games rather difficult to work. Because if you buy a DVD boxset, you do not want commercials to play. And further you expect to be able to skip them.

Overall the whole game's industry is a strange beast. Rest assured, though the industry is not going to up and disappear, as long as there are profitable giants like Valve and Blizzard there will be enough incentive for those Venture Capitals to try to duplicate them and reap the benefits. Tragically it seems like alot of interesting IPs/game ideas might die for it to happen.

In other news Plants vs Zombies is pretty compelling for a Popcap casual game. Full of plenty of strategy and zombie killing goodness. I heartily recommend it to all, especially given it $9.99 price point. Maybe there is something to be learned from a publisher like Popcap. Good simple games, that many people can enjoy and bring in the profits. Sure they are not producing Half-Life or Fallout or Company of Heroes, but they are not in danger of anything.

Also, your Demigod update, game is slowly growing on me. Getting into game's is better but still not as robust as it should be. I'm winning games, but I feel it is more because of opponents lack of skill rather than my superiority. There is some definite problems between Assassin heroes and Generals, that the generals by and large are superior as long as they dont die. Seriously the game has big issues with addressing the reward for pushing. Towers give no experience or gold. Killing grunts gives no gold, only experience. Summons give no gold or Experience. Heroes give moderate experience and shitloads of gold. Control of the map is important, but if you die trying to gain control of the map you're hooped.
But it is fun, and the heroes have good diversity, although standard builds are emerging as people figure out what skills are worth getting/maxing and which get left behind. Updates continue to be fairly regular so there is no reason to be negative though. I'm not giving up on it. 
LotR:Online is still a fun game. But i think I've talked about it enough.

Cya round.

There's More Than A New Paint Job On This MMO

So, I've put considerably more time into Lord of The Rings Online, and I feel confident that I can state that while it is roughly a WoW copy, a significant difference is the much greater emphasis on the story elements that it is able to pull from. WoW, is good but its story never truly makes you feel attached or valuable to the world, it never makes you feel like anything more than a good samaritan, at least from experience with it a few years back. 
I should also like to point out that I have finally returned to The World Ends With You, and it is a great little title, in so many ways. Art Style, Music, combat... all unique and pulling from that Platinum Games/Clover Studio/Suda51 japanese developer resurgence. It is refreshing to turn it on and just have a game play unlike anything I'm used to playing. Most importantly though is that all the previously mentioned elements coalesce with the story. I simply really feel attached to the story of the game. I mean the amount of games that are set in modern times, in your average urban environment can be counted on one hand, but then you mix this strange type of death/spirit game competition, and the strange use of ghosts/noise as opponents. The sheer diversity of how combat flows makes me love to turn the game on. You get these little 'pins' and they determine what attacks you get. But there are dozens of different types of attacks, and only 6 equip slots to put them. Further, you can level up your pins to make them stronger, some will evolve. Further, there is different types of experience available and only certain types will make some pins evolve a specific way. Needless to say, the game is a touch complex, but I adore it for the depth, because it gives the game so much more reason to come back.
I also got Final Fantasy Tactics A2, and it seems good so far, but i haven't put enough time into it yet to say too much. I like the changes to the Judge system, and how your clan operates. Not a huge fan of how they modified the experience/leveling system, but i understand the necessity to prevent exploitation from people who felt the need.  I do think the MVP feature is nifty, but not really sure what happens when the trophy is fully built, eager to find out though. 
Oh and Left 4 Dead now has pretty detailed stats. Apparently I never miss with the uzi (literally 100%), and headshot them far more often than seems possible. And I think it is missing alot of my gameplay. But oh well, nothings perfect and I still like the stats function.
Oh and Demigod is starting to develop for me, but the utter lack of any depth beyond skill order and items to purchase makes me question if it is a worthy successor to DotA. I am currently leaning towards DotA because the higher skill demand makes winning or losing feel like it was more than just picking the right skills and items.
Thats my thoughts. Ciao. 

Survive This?

So Left 4 Dead released some new stuff. Two new versus maps (which are in fact merely the other two maps that were not yet versus compatible made so they are) and a brand spanking new Survival Mode.
How are they. Well they're fun. But they're different. 

The versus maps are easier to address so lets start there.

After playing through Dead Air and Death Toll on versus it makes you question a few things. 

0. Was there a huge surge of people to decided to start playing Left 4 Dead again now that there is new content?

1. Did the player base recently all become newbies somehow?

2. Are these maps simply just too new for people to understand how to survive them?

3. Is this why these maps were not available for versus play up until now?

I say this because wiping is fast and frequent in these new maps. Prior to the the patch you could randomly join some guys in versus and be reasonably sure that you would do alright assuming the other team is stacked full of friends who have pre-planned everything. Post-patch 

The three above points cover my main thoughts as to why there is so much wiping in versus.

Lets get rid of #3 and #2 right away. Go play the old versus maps and you'll see early wiping occurring as well.  Although #2 may explain why it is much more so in the new stuff.

This means everyone either sucks now, or people came back after not playing. You can figure that one out.

I will say this. The versus maps that just came out are far more difficult than the other two. There are many more options for flexible and diverse attacks and further the fact that many are unaware of where attacks are likely to come from means that it is harder to defend against them.

Simply put, we've got a compounding situation. The new maps brought back people who had left, but the new maps also confused many. 

The maps themselves? They're good. But like a said they feel pretty lop-sided in favor of the Infected side.

Survival Mode.

So the other half of the update is a new mode that seals off sections of the maps and tasks you to simply not die. How is it. It is either too easy, or too hard. The one map made specifically for this task "Last Stand" is exceptionally hard. But it is in a good way. You can't simply adopt one strategy for it and find success with it. I've tried numerous strategies that all work fairly well for a time, but ultimately crash and burn. 
That is the problem with the other survival maps, culled from prior content, they are making the best out of what they have. Some are easy, and involve just standing near the ammo and dropping tanks with 3 auto shotties ASAP, while the M16 guy picks off smokers and other specials from a distance. 

Overall I really enjoy survival, but it makes me want to play with friends more so than any other mode. You really have to be comfortable with these people to tell them your opinions on where you think you should shoot zombies from, or rather what the general plan for your survival will be.

So the survival pack? It sure was good for me. And really free content... kinda hard to bitch about it. 
Strange side note. I've seen more girls in Left 4 Dead matches since the patch, which is worth noting because girls either hide their gender, from fear that everyone else in the game will begin to hit on them. Or they wear it on their sleeve and torment all the guys in the game to make them feel shit. Please note I am not suggesting that more girls playing Left 4 Dead is the reason that there are so many wipes. In fact the girls were better than most other players, myself included. 
Well yea. Zombies and Girls and such. CRAZY!