Less Grind, More Story

It's because my Night Elf Thistletoes has stalled in the mid-40s in Stranglethorn Vale that I can heartily agree with Richard Garriot, who commented in his keynote at the Develop Conference, "The obsession with damage inflicted over time as the mechanic behind combat reduces games to data management... The fact that people use the nomenclature 'grinding' to describe what they do in online games is a bad sign. Missions have been reduced to taking the next pellet from the slot machine."

And you know, reports are that Tabula Rasa is not looking that bad. And it sounds like - with the targeting system and the reduced HUD - that they are going for a more mainstream, less MO-focused audience. More actiony, perhaps, than usual for an MMO.

I also like that it's NOT MEDIEVAL FANTASY. Seriously. I am, yes, a dork, but I've spent too many hours messing about with trolls and elves now and at this point I'm ready to leave them behind. So the former Lord British's transformation to General British (will he turn his castle into a giant alien ship?) suits me just fine.

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Beautiful Katamari

Namco announced a new, online multiplayer (yay!) Katamari: Beautiful Katamari. It seems a bit silly to tout next-gen graphics for this game, since graphics hardly matter - it's the art style and the whimsey and the music that matters most, of course. Still, the multiplayer aspect could be fun. And although Keita Takahashi, the original creator, is not part of the latest incarnation of the series, I think the Katamari model is not established and can be safely replicated by others. The only thing I worry a little about is the music. The Katamari music was so perfect; whoever puts the next soundtrack together has some big shoes to fill!

A Historic Exhibition for the Living Room
While there's some question to the accuracy of its claim, this post on the Nintendo forums seems to indicate exactly which classic games will be available for download through the Revolution's online gaming network. While the company has not yet officially announced whether or not each download will be accompanied by a micropayment, some are still hoping that the revolutionary software will be available freely following the purchase of the upcoming console; seems pretty damn unlikely, doesn't it?

TREASURE'S SIN & PUNISHMENT

It would, of course, be wonderful to have access to so many innovative titles free of charge. Yet, the idea of paying a few dollars for each doesn't really turn me off either. While I still own cartridges that house many of my favorite games on that list, there are still several titles I'd like to experience; there's no telling whether or not the likes of Sin and Punishment (N64) or F-Zero 2 Grand Prix (Satteleview) will be available for download in the US, (the game list is Japanese in origin) I can imagine North American Nintendo fans would appreciate a first taste of these titles.

More interesting to me though, is that now a new younger generation of gamers will have access to these games. Sure there are a great number of ways to obtain these titles by illicit means, but now the mainstream audience will have a chance to experience earlier adventures starring the famous cast of Nintendo characters that still drives sales of the company's platforms. While navigating Mario through three-dimensional environments aided by analog sticks and more than seven buttons may be difficult for a toddler, stomping a Goomba in Super Mario Bros. is a far simpler task. I very much enjoy the fact that the Revolution will allow new gamers to follow a path through the bits of history that mimics the one many of us remember so fondly. Who knows what the system's new content will offer? At least it's back catalogue is now of unquestionable high-quality.

A Look At Spore
Next time you've got an hour free, take a look at Will Wright's Spore Presentation from the 2005 Game Developer's Conference on the GDCTV website. (registration required) With all the complaints about me-too titles and sequels, FPS-overload and yearly Madden releases, it's quite motivating to see that the creative mind behind the Sims is most definitely doing his part to initiate change.

The post-presentation buzz on the GDC floor was enough to make those who had other appointments scheduled during the same hour wishing for an encore performance. Now after having seen the video, I want my hour back, as well.

Before I start throwing out hyperbole after hyperbole, I'll let you take a moment to watch. Hearing the pitch from a third-party just won't cut it. Take a look, and discuss this ultra-revolutionary piece of software when you get back. Damn, let one slip ;)

Play 24

I knew it! SCEE announced that it's working on a videogame based on the Fox series 24. Since the series already plays like a game, it shouldn't be that hard to adapt.

Playing as super tough agent Jack Bauer might be fun. Would you still have to rescue that pesky daughter though?

Whither the impulse shopper?

I'm trying to be an adult about this and buy my PSP Value Pack with my tax refund. But they've made it so that in the gaming world -- not strictly limited to the gaming world, either -- you have to buy anything you might actually want to buy weeks or months in advance of its release. I can today, at least for the next couple hours, pay fifty dollars to "pre-order" something I will not get until Thursday no matter what. My tax check has yet to make an appearance and I've promised myself, PSPs being the sorts of things tax checks are for, that I won't buy it until my refund arrives. But Sony wants my money now.

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Efficient German Sex Games

I first heard about Singles: Flirt Up Your Life!, a The Sims-esque life simulator from German publisher Deep Silver, a few months back when I was looking into games that were trying to mine the Sims vein. Well, now Singles has graced the pages of The Sun, and has been, fittingly, farked, so we may as well talk about it.

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"Taito" is Japanese for "insane".

This morning, CNN reports that Japanese video game maker Taito will rerelease the all-time classic Space Invaders -- from the accompanying photograph, apparently the somewhat less classic color version -- to the United States in an arcade enclosure. Taito plans to sell the units through Namco, which retains U.S. distribution outlets, for a reported 300,000 yen. That's 24 million rupiahs. Seriously, though, it's a chunk of change. Approximately US$2,800. Immediately, you must be thinking, as I was, that Taito's marketing people have lost their pachinko balls; or they're shipping the units through Thailand, where the pressboard arcade enclosures are stuffed with special, organically grown all-natural "padding" and then ferried along to North America.

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Roots

I'm having a fine old time here at GenCon exploring unplugged games, but it's hard to ignore my first love. I admit my eye and my fancy are caught by the electronic booths that are here. One game in particular that intrigues me is Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. It's got lineage to make a racehorse jealous: sired by Troika, maker of two great games very popular in my household (Arcanum and Fallout); dammed by White Wolf, who created the award-winning pen-and-paper, and LARP-friendly World of Darkness series, and given bones by Valve Source, the amazing engine used in the stunning Half-Life 2.

"We're, uh, obviously going for the M rating," the producer demoing the game grinned. No kidding. It's dark, it's bloody, and you play as one of the creatures of the darkness. It looks gorily gorgeous.

It's slated for spring next year. Oh, yeah. Pack up the dice and bust out the mouse!

Le Mystére de Jeanne d'Arc

Hong Kong-based Enlight Studios is making a Joan of Arc game - an action/strategy game which will allow the player to command key battles of the Hundred Years War.

As a young girl I developed a fascination for the historical figure around the same time I fell in love with horses. I saw the Bernard Shaw play performed three times, and read it several times, I amassed a great deal of biographical material on her from my school library. Needless to say, I can't wait to play this game.

The sketch of her life is familiar: when she was a teenaged girl she heard voices telling her to become the savior of France. A few years and some military victories later, she was burned at the stake by English clerics for being a witch.

That's the challenge with making a historical game - if we were awake in history class, we know the outcome. Doesn't that defy the basic concept of a videogame, which is interactivity? How do you make a compelling, interesting interactive experience while acknowledging what everyone knows, that at the end poor Joan will be killed for political reasons and then, several hundred years later, canonized as a Saint?

And yet historical recreation games, particularily military games, have longstanding appeal. There's something exciting about pitting your wits against tactical and strategic geniuses like Napoleon and Hitler that, completely independent of nasty political implications, gives the mind a satisfying exercise. With the same conditions, and the same troops, could I have won Waterloo? What if I hadn't invaded Russia in 1941?

But what I really want to understand about Joan of Arc I'm not sure can be represented in game-format. As a horse-obsessed twelve-year-old with a name that is just another English version of Jeanne, I wondered what Joan's inner life was like. What were those voices she heard, which she believed to be from God? What inner strength guided her from her simple life as a shepherd to offer her sword at the feet of France? How did she learn strategy, riding, combat? Did she ever have doubts? Did she despair? Did she ever wish to go home and be with her family again? Was she excited by battle? Did she fall in love?

I still wonder these things. And I think someday we will be able to explore these sorts of questions in an interactive format not unlike a videogame.

Game Girls - Looking for a Job?

Somehow the company responsible for Laura Croft, buxom action-archaeologist, they're having trouble recruiting women to design and test their games. This is particularly a problem for the next Laura Croft game, because as a Core spokesman says, "A women's mind would bring a different angle to the game" (as opposed to the angles men have already brought to Ms. Croft's gameplay?). As the BBC puts it, Women shun Lara Croft.

IKARUGA!

Looks like a great but short-lived system has seen its last game: Treasure's Ikaruga Comes to Dreamcast. A rich-looking arcade shooter drawn from the arcades, this could be the last full-fledged release for the system that brought you Shenmue, Crazy Taxi, Soul Calibur,
Skies of Arcadia, Space Channel 5. You'll be able to see the sequels to most of these on other systems (SoAL!); as Sega has finally stopped hemorraging money now that they are out of the hardware business.