Terraria and Minecraft

Hey guys, it's good to be back. Expect 3 to 5 updates a week going forward for the foreseeable future. Anyways to the topic at hand....

I recently purchased a 4 pack of Terraria for my buddies and myself over the Steam weird summer camp sale thing. Being a huge Minecraft fan (PC Master Race hello?) I figured it was high time I try the seemingly 2D concept ape. Not to my surprise Terraria is about as awesome as a 2D Minecraft can be.

The point of this post is the potential for Minecraft will always be greater than the execution of Terraria.

Allow me to clarify; Terraria is an amazing Indie game. It is really great to explore caves and dungeons, fight boss monsters, craft new weapons and armor, find new materials, and have lots of really fun items and possibilities. Despite having a lot of fun with the 8 or so hours I've put into Terraria so far I still have the thought nawing at the back of my mind saying one thing....

What if these features were in Minecraft?

Despite spending at least 100 hours over the last year in Minecraft I really think, like many people, that it really isn't much of a game. I am in the process of building my 3rd giant map spanning castle thing on my friend's server and all I can think about is why? The major flaw with the build thus far (1.73) is there is still no purpose. Terraria has that purpose, but all it does is remind me how awesome Minecraft could be.

In Terraria if you build a castle useful NPC's will come and populate it. Imagine if we built a giant 3D castle in Minecraft and different shopkeepers and other service providers would bustle about, adding life and purpose to your creation. Imagine if there were 5 times the monsters to fight and if there were more differences between a skeleton and a zombie rather than one has a bow and arrow. Imagine if there were 10 times the ores to find, much more intrecate caves and
dungeons, and a real reason to explore in Minecraft?

Now I know Minecraft is still in Beta and we have had the "Adventure Update" being touted by Notch for a little over a month now. There still is a lot of time to see this potential be realized, but Terraria serves as a catalyst for my desire to see it happen.

Quick thoughts about the Supreme Court Decision

So in case you have been living under a rock the Supreme Court has heard and ruled on the California law equating violent video games to tobacco and firearms. Pretty scary stuff. Of course the Supreme court heard none of it and ruled the law unconstitutional.

Won't someone think of the children is, and has always been a low-brow argument. When I was a kid my parents did allow me to play violent videogames. They also allowed me to read Shakespeare. Let me ask you a question.... when was the last time you read MacBeth or even Romeo and Juliet? Pretty gruesome stuff. Sorry to get sidetracked, but the won't someone think of the children argument will get you political points in certain demographics. They won't stand up in court.

Sonic the Hedgehog

Way back when in the magical time of 1991, when America was invading Iraq for the first time and the Spin Doctors had not yet come to prominence, a game came out called Sonic the Hedgehog. The game, and character, were designed for the sole purpose of aping Nintendo's marketing of home videogame consoles. When it came out (and still today) the original game was amazing.

Now of course I carry a huge bias when it comes to the original 2d Sonic platformers. Growing up my house was a Genesis household. I did not aquire my SNES until about 1998 (which I still own by the way.... Super Bomber Man with multitap ftw!!!!), so the Genesis and it's mascot were the focus of my young budding fanboy praise.

20 years later Sonic should not be relevant. Towards the end of the Genesis era Sega made the poor-decision to take the franchise to 3d with the aptly titled "Sonic 3D blast". They continued with the release of the ill-fated Dreamcast (it sucked btw, more on that later in a future post) and Sonic Adventure. In the 2000's Sonic has developed a cast and many, many terrible games. Time after time Sega has continued to release terribly received titles bearing the Hedgehog's likeness, and time and time again people hope that the series would redeem itself. Of course the problem is Sega completely forgot what made the series fantastic in the first place.

Sonic the Hedgehog games could have been called anything and stared any protagonist. This is a game (I refer to the 2D Genesis releases) that had perfectly executed mecanics, a well balanced difficulty curve, fantastic art and level design, and the best music of the 16-bit era (with apologies to Final Fantasy 3/6). It was always the smooth flow of the 2d mechanics, the vertical-ness of the level design, and the varied art of the locations that made the games the really special journeys that they were. The real apex of the series for me was the combined cartridges of Sonic 3 and Sonic and Knuckles played together. It really was something special.

Like all good things it wasn't meant to last. Instead of pulling a Seinfeld with it (read go out on top) Sega decided that the draw to the series was Sonic's bad attitude and backstory, not the previous paragraph, and continued to dig a hole they now hope to dig themselves out of with the forthcoming downloadable release of Sonic Generations and a real return to the series's 2D roots. Problem is that the magic is gone. What was once a special moment in time has faded away and it really is time to move on (like most of us have).

I will always have a fond place in my heart for Sonic (and maybe Tails). I spent a lot of really amazing hours ensconced in his creative 2D worlds as a kid and the series has definitely shaped how I play games and spend my leisure time. It is a feeling I will always cherish and never look to recapture.

Here's to nostalgia. Now what else we got (time to download Trenched!!!!!).

PS

Not enough time for good and why Kaos studios closed

I have been doing this blog now since February (sorry for the recent infrequence of posting.... will resume 4 to 6 posts a week very soon as my schedule clears a bit) and in easily 66% of my posts I talk about the hard fact that the average gamer is not the 12 year old boy with negligent parents, or the college frat kid wasting $50k a year to get drunk and make bad decisions, but rather the average age of a gamer is 34. (Side Note: I link to that report so often but it is relevant in most every point I try and haphazardly make!)

Here is the thing though with people who are all grown up; they have outside obligations. Most of us have jobs, lives, etc and we don't have the 40 hours a week to game like many of us used to. Problem is with the lack of free time, the leisure activities we do engage in need to be as worthwhile as possible. Getting to my point....

Publisher THQ recently shut down Kaos Studios. Despite decent sales, the poor precieved quality of recently released FPS Homefront ended up being the final release from the New York based studio.

How did everyone not see this coming?

Saying the FPS market is saturated right now is like saying there are a few polygons in the models for Crysis 2. Thing is that the core demographic for these games, the "34 year old's", don't have enough time to play every FPS that comes out. We are going to only get the best titles that all of our friends are getting. We want new ideas that make the interactive medium more enticing. You can't just say "well we have an awesome story!" That only works in books and movies; it takes more to carry a game (see this post).

Right now the FPS war is dominated by the Battlefields, the Call of Duties, and the Halo's. Unless you are willing to spend millions of dollars and throw as much top notch talent as you got, you can not compete with a standard FPS. If you are clever you can try something completely different (upcoming post on why Left 4 Dead is the best FPS series in the last 4 years), but ultimately AAA publishers are not willing to put enough eggs in one basket and really take a risk on a product.

The video game industry needs to realize that the business model of good makes more money than great will not propel them to profitability. What I am really trying to say is that if I can only play one new game every couple months it's not going to be good. It's not even going to be great. I, and the core demographic whom I represent, only have time for the best.

How many layoff's from Valve have we ever read about? Even Blizzard?

I don't have time tonight but I really want to expand on this idea with my thoughts on publisher Kalypso, with whom I am very torn.

Duke Nukem (and the videogame industry) is Sexist, and another Post About Marketing

I read this amazingly well written article on Kotaku scribed by Lydia Heitman. It was all about how terribly Duke Nukem was marketed, and it isn't a surprise because the project is a failure in every way. It really is the zenith of how the video game industry does not understand it's customer base at all.

Stay with me!

Bethesda is stupid because they are wasting money on marketing for the already hyped up sequel to The Elder Scrolls Oblivion, Skyrim. Like all good PC master race out there I can not wait until November when this game comes out and would get a second mortgage on my house for the privilege to play it. I'm already sold. The demographic that Skyrim appeals to is me. We know the game is coming, and we will pay full price on release day.

Seeing ad's for Skyrim on sites like The Escapist is like watching an advertisement for the Next Food Network Star during an airing of the show; I'm already watching. You don't need to waste time and money getting my attention.

When Valve spent millions of dollars to air a television commercial for Portal 2 what was in the video? Was it Glados? Was it Chell? Nope! It was two adorable robots hugging. Why you may ask? Because Valve knows that people like me are already going to purchase the game no matter what they do, so they want to get my wife to buy it. They wanted to advertise to another demographic who wasn't already predisposed to having a favorable view.

Advertising a game like Duke Nukem is tough. Most people old enough to remember the original (ME!) have long outgrown the mechanics and spirit of the game. People who are younger and into FPS's are curious. The people you want to market to are the people who wouldn't normally purchase your game, but might be interested. You don't need to market sex to young men because hey; it's what they (we) will flock to like flies on stink.

If Duke Nukem was really a good game they would go after the second largest demographic in our indusrty (women over 25!!!!! Its true!!!!). Let's not also forget that the largest group who consumes video games is men over 25 and the second largest is women of the same age range. We have careers, spouses, often kids (yikes!), we have mortgages, life insurance, and real world problems. We aren't college kids or teenagers. We don't care what our parents think about games. When Duke Nukem 3D came out we were 11 to 15. Now we are in our late 20's to 40's. We don't care about digital boobs, we care about a fun escape from our normal, mundane lives. We want a mature plot, a well realized world, and a story that can make sense. That doesn't mean it can't be full of dick and fart jokes, but that won't be enough to make a successful experience.

Problem is the game is crap, so they thought they could pull a fast one on "hardcore" gamers and throw a fastball by us. When a game is actively marketed towards me (the apex of the largest consumer demographics for video games, see previous paragraph) it makes me very wary, because I know what games I like. I know what sequels are good and which are crap, I know what new IP's look awesome. I'm too savvy for box art blurbs. If you aren't marketing towards a new demographic to whom you can expand your userbase, and instead are solely focused on who should be your bread and butter it is indicative of a big ol' desperate move.

That is clearly what the king has become.....

Epic Fail.

Silent Hill Book of Memories and Skyrim

Two completely different games I know.

Take a journey with me if you would please!

Joystiq reported that there will be an upcoming entry in the Silent Hill franchise entitled Book of Memories that will be predominantly a multiplayer experience. As I have mentioned before this will be an epic fail. Ultimately this move really encapsulates what is wrong with the AAA game industry.

A lot of publishers and developers see Intellectual Properties as brands to be exploited rather than living, breathing universes that are specific works of art.

It is what I will refer to as the Guitar Hero effect. Something is popular, so lets push the shit out of it rather than take the time to develop the property into something that evolves and is continually exciting. Silent Hill 2 was so good that even 10 years later just the name will help a game sell well. It has brand recognition. Multiplayer games sell well too so if we combine a brand name with popular mechanics it should be a hit right?

This is indicative of what the AAA industry does wrong, but it must be doing something right? Right?!?!

Of course it does! I can't remember or find where I read it, but I saw that some lead on Skyrim said "we just want to make the most awesome, giant RPG" (paraphrasing). That attitude, right there, is how you make the big bucks. Take your time (within reason of course) to make the best product you can. It's how Blizzard did is, how Id did it, how Valve did it, and why all of those companies continue to be profitable when Activision and EA are laying people off and closing studios left and right.

AAA games will always be great if the people with the money, talent, and resources recognize the power they have to create brilliant art rather than analyze trends and imitate and not innovate. If you are going to spend $20 to $30 million on a game, why not commit those kind of resources to creating the best product you can? If you do there will always be plenty of "me's" to throw our disposable income at you (and we will be happy to do so).

Next time why Nintendo is stupid (short answer Wii U) .

My quick thoughts on E3 Day 1

Another summer is upon us and in Los Angeles another Electronic Entertainment Expo is in progress, highlighting many of the industry giants and their products.

We certainly have a lot of sequels and clones that look to have cost millions upon millions of dollars. The sad fact is that most of these games will lose money, people will subsequently lose their jobs, and publishers will be more risk adverse than they already are. The mainstream of our industry continue to overlook what makes our medium special, and thus are doomed to keep trying to ape WoW or continue to churn out brown shooters.

I am always a little disappointed while watching the coverage every year because it proves to me that the American video game industry of today is a lot like the American car industry of the 70's and early 80's...

Our industry seems to think it can tell us what we want while studios fold, profits plummet, and there are record layoff's everywhere.

Of course I don't really worry because most of my favorite studios make plenty of money, have solid economic models, and make games that real people will continue to pay for because they have earned our money, but lets take a quick look at some of what day 1 has brought to us.

Microsoft seems to be convinced that the Kinect is the way of the future and why not? They seem to have hit their American and European sales goals, and hardware has done reasonably well. The biggest problem is, however, is the sustainability of the Kinect market. The reason the Wii has done so well is not the motion control gimick, it's the strong 1st party support. I am certainly not a fan of pretty much anything Nintendo has done in the last 12 or so years, but they give the masses the sequels, mini-game collections, and rehashes that the drooling masses seem to want. Microsoft does not have that acumen (read Mario, Zelda, etc) to fall back on. They are putting a lot of egg's in one basket and when the snakes are no longer charmed by the motion controller tune (and people get sick of Dance Central like they've gotten sick of Guitar Hero) we will see the ugly bite of market drop-off.

Sony has done nothing but apologize, but words mean very little. What are you going to do Sony? Give people Infamous when most people who want to play it A: already have it and B: there is a sequel due to release soon? Super lame. Give people some of their money back and hope they will give you the opportunity to earn more of it. Show us what you got. So far, despite being a "hardcore" gamer and having plenty of disposable income for such devices, I do not own a Playstation because you haven't given me a reason to own it along side my PC and Xbox. Here's your chance.

BioWare proves again that they have the best cinematics department in all the world with another trailer for their upcoming MMO The Old Republic. Seriously take the next 6ish minutes of your life to watch this. If you already did watch it again:



Seriously, how amazing does that look? If there was 2 hours of that I would see it over and over in the theater. That, as a movie, looks amazing. My fear is the same as that for Dead Island; will the gameplay live up to the cinematic? Only time will tell but BioWare has recently left a bad taste in my mouth.

The Skyrim gameplay trailer looks amazing as well, but for a different reason. This is the actual game. The graphics, the mechanics, and the world all look amazing. Bethesda may not release the most polished games, but they are big, beautiful, and just damn fun. Lets watch!



300 hours? Really? I believe it as I believe that they will be 300 quality hours that are all lots of fun. Bethesda has a habit of making more game then they need to; they always not only meet the minimum requirements for demanding $60 of our money but continue to always provide new experiences, rich lore, new worlds, and spend the time and money to create a product that is truly special. Something that isn't rushed, mimiced, or reactionary to trends pencil pushers think are profitable. They don't see whats popular, they decide it through hard work and artisan like craft.

Bethesda always strive to make the biggest, most amazing RPG's they possibly can and that's why they sell millions of copies.

Side note, have you ever noticed how all great western RPG's have flower picking mechanics? Think about it...... =D

There is a lot more complaining to do, but I have will have plenty of time and plenty of fodder as the expo progresses. More will come in the following days! Certainly a lot to talk about!!

Dungeon Keeper and the PC Golden Age

Have I ever mentioned how much I plain ol' adore GoG.com. It reminds me of the PC golden age of the 90's where developers could make weird games about mustering armies of humans vs. orcs, or a young visionary named Peter Molyneux could make a real commercial success about being a dick in high fantasy.

There is so much to love about the game Dungeon Keeper. Despite the dated graphics the game is very playable and the mechanics are so good that the game feels it has aged incredibly well. Nostalgia aside there is something inherently fantastic about strategy games with perfect mechanics (well great mechanics at least. Perfect may be a stretch) where it achieves a zen no other genre can hope to attain.

The intro cinematic also will forever be hugely nostalgic for me (despite having aged considerably worse than the game).

What I really loved and continue to love about this game and the 90's on the PC in general is that true innovation was possible. Development costs were in line enough where developers and artists could really experiment and make whatever they want and chances are they would even break even.

It's also nice to play something that isn't The Witcher 2 or Minecraft. Why did Notch have to put Nether in SMP. Dammit.

Heart of the Swarm is coming....

As an openly huge fan of e-sports and specifically Starcraft 2 it may come as a shock to anyone who cares that I am actually not that excited for the upcoming expansion Heart of the Swarm. Of course it is too soon to tell how good it will be, but in hindsight it is my not-so-humble opinion that more doesn't necessarily always equal better. Heart of the Swarm's success in my eyes will really focus on what it brings to the table and what it really improves. In case you haven't seen the teaser/gameplay video:



Maybe I started off a little harsh, as the single player campaign of Starcraft 2 is really only rivaled by earlier entries into Blizzard's RTS's in terms of polish, variety, arc, and quality. The mechanics were amazing and the design was so meticulous that it may as well have had a mirror shine. My only issue was that the story, characters, and setting weren't really that good.

*Spoiler warning* the plot of Wings of Liberty was pretty much a drunken rebel faffing about, crying about his evil bug girlfriend for most of the game until he attacks the "swarm" and leads a small band of soldiers to defeat the greatest threat the Korpulu sector has ever known. By his side was his old friend who has always been his old friend who evidently only wants to kill his bug girlfriend (and is probably right to do so).

Dude, how did a few marines fight an entire planet swarming with the most evolved killer sentient bug race in history? What really happened for the first 80% of the game? I know I always say story doesn't make a great game, but it certainly can make a good game amazing and can take a great game down to good. Stracraft 2's single player mechanics and mission variety are rivaled by no other modern RTS's, but the plot is certainly garbage. Can they turn that plot around and make it actually as epic as it should and thought itself to be?

The best thing about Wings of Liberty's story was the launch trailer. Epic:


The multiplayer, ie the reason Starcraft 2 was really created, is what keeps millions of players worldwide glued to their PC's. Starcraft 2 is pretty damn close to perfectly balanced, and I know my friends all make fun of my love of watching the pro's play (btw did you see the AMAZING game QXC played? Mass micro'd Reapers FTW its a new thing) and around the world there is a reasonably lively scene. The question here would be would it be too much to alter the delicate balance? Does more mean better or would it throw off the delicate flow of the match? Would chess be better if it got 2 expansion packs?

Ultimately Blizzard has yet to deliver a product not worth full price and then some. They have made the 2 best RTS franchises in the world, the best click fest ever, and the best legal drug to ever ruin nerd culture. They are the best of the best and it will be nice to see them bring the story forward and improve the already amazing multiplayer. I am just going in to it with the attitude that it will be messing with a good thing and will leave the burden of proof with Blizzard to show me otherwise.

E

The Witcher 2 and Dragon Age 2 Lessons Learned Part 2

As I mentioned in a post last week-ish I didn't like the first entry in The Witcher series much at all. Despite being a premier member of the PC Master Race, the controls were a little too unintuitive for me (pains me to say that). The writing was also unbearably awful. The game felt like a parody of itself except it wasn't funny. The entire 5 hours I played of it all I could think of was the All My Circuits Futurama where they kept saying "I have...... AMNESIA!"

So the Witcher 2 hit me totally out of left field. So far I am absolutely blown away, and it's awesomeness really makes me sad about how terrible Dragon Age 2 is in comparison. Not to say that w2 is perfect (far from it), but it is pretty damn amazing.

First off the graphics are unbelievably amazing; probably the best this console generation. The bloom effects, the textures, and even on low graphics settings the game looks fantastic. I have the game running on high settings on my mid-range desktop as ultra makes my GPU cry for mercy. Seriously though, how does a barely not indie developer like CD Projekt with much more limited resources then BioWare put out a game that looks THIS much better then Dragon Age 2? Lets take a look at some screenshots I took side by side.


It really is night and day.

Honestly what is BioWare's excuse? One can assume it's development costs i.e. money. Okay, enough BioWare and Da2 bashing, I did that enough last time!

Anyways like Da2 the writing is also very good. Of course the less experienced, Polish developer has a much different style than the very experienced Canadian developer, but The Witcher 2's writing sucked me right in to it's fantasy world. Despite thinking that the first Witcher was written terribly they clearly, in my pretentious opinion, have really honed in on their plot arcs, dialogue, and character development.

The attention to detail in the Witcher 2 really helps the world come alive. Whether it's the background chatter in the local village, the beautiful bloom effects of the sunlight coming through the trees that are gently billowing in the breeze, the amazingly detailed monsters, or just that one cool, weird carved face you see once of the beaten track in the forest, the game world really feels alive.

So far the Witcher 2 has been showing me what it's like to be in it's universe, it hasn't been telling me.

Although flawed, I am really enjoying the action and combat elements of The Witcher 2. One of the biggest complaints I've found is the inability to drink potions during combat. While I would probably prefer the ability to do so, it really makes sense in the game world and for the character to drink potions while meditating. Alchemy is a huge part of the Witcher, as is preparation and diligence. W2 shows us very early on that it is not interested in holding our hand and expects a level of understanding and preparation to get through even the most menial combat. Of course this will, and has turned a lot of people off but are we so afraid of having a game that has a steep difficulty curve? Granted I wouldn't call the first missions a tutorial because they teach you nothing, and they definitely should introduce the mechanics one at a time and make sure the player understands them. There is a LOT to know about surviving even the first battles of the game, but once you do figure out the mechanics there is a certain zen like bliss to picking out potions, managing buffs, and weaving signs, bombs, daggers, and traps into just roflstomping even the scariest of boss's.

The side quests in The Witcher 2 are also much better prepared. Maybe it's that the game has more than 3 dungeons, but I really felt like each task was relevant or important; that each one had a purpose. Even the "kill a bunch of spider-ey things" was more in depth than that.

The inventory and crafting systems in W2 are very old school. The crafting is based around collecting recepies and diagrams and carrying around lots of components. Nothing feels superfluous though. The one area where I prefer the inventory system in Da2 over W2 though is the junk option. It would be nice to go to a vendor and just hit the sell all the crap you don't want button. Aside from that I absolutely love the crafting and inventory systems and they are a shining example of how to adapt old school concepts into a new school game.

Regardless I think the Witcher 2, despite it's shortcomings, is a shining example of what should occur during a development cycle, how to properly "streamline" game mechanics, and how to really tell a story and describe a world that works best in an interactive medium.

I am psyched to pour of my precious leisure time in to this game and once again bravo CD Projekt.