Classic Quake Machinima August 7, 2012

I know that during the recent Quake Podcast I mentioned a fan made machinima called “Escape from the Bastille” but other than a simple story synopsis I gave very little information about it or where you can currently find it.  After that I got to thinking about all the other great machinima that the Quake series made possible.

Machinima is still being made to this day, but a lot of current generation machinima is bound by the rules of whatever the game is that it is created for and in some of those cases the toolsets for modding are not available.  That wasn’t a problem with a game like Quake, which could be very flexible to users who wanted to create custom arenas, gametypes and character models.  Let me tell you, there were some really talented people who made some great work back in the day and I wanted to shine some light on that.

First off, I want to show the movie that I mentioned in the podcast.  While its unofficial working title was simply “Quake: The Movie” during its development, its official title is “Escape From the Bastille”.

During my search for the short I actually found a lot of new content had been created by the game’s director over the years.  In fact, he had actually gone back and practically made a feature-length Quake movie using assets from Quake 3 Arena and Doom 3, called “Arenas”.

In it, you follow Doom, a guy stationed on Phobos base during the invasion by Mars.  After defeating the invasion, we discover he may have brought a part of Hell back with him.  When escaping from quarantine he is transported to an unfamiliar place, an arena world where he is forced to compete…or die.

A second season of Arenas was planned but cancelled due to lack of funding.  You can watch what they did make from the cancelled project here.

Next off I want to mention the Ill Clan.  They were a group that started off making shorts with the original game Quake, which followed two lumberjacks, Lenny and Larry, who just wanted to slack off.  My guess is that they chose the job of lumberjacks for their characters because the starting melee weapon in the original Quake was in fact an axe, but I could be wrong about that.

When they really took off was when they made “Hardly Workin'” on the Quake II engine.  They created their own sets, character models, and had a hilarious script.

In fact, they became so good at what they did, they could actually make machinima in real-time.  “Common Sense Cooking with Carl the Cook” was a live machinima they did with their “Hardly Workin'” tools, and it was actually recorded in front of a live audience.

The last time I checked on the Ill Clan they had changed their name and were producing high-end CGI animation for television and feature films.

The Best Use of Licensed Soundtracks in Games August 6, 2012

For those of you who may have read my previous article on the greatest video game songs of all time, you’ll notice that I intentionally left out any songs that were used in games that had been licensed but were not developed specifically for the game itself. That was because I wanted to save that discussion for another time, and the time is now for me to bring it up.

So this is the list of some of the best uses of licensed music in video games. The songs may not have been made for the games but at times it feels like the games were made for the songs. These are in no particular order.

Rock Band

Lets just get the big one out of the way right now. The music of Rock Band is probably the gold standard for games. Each game in the series has had a phenomenal tracklist of modern hits and classic songs, and the new tracks have never stopped coming. Harmonix knew that when they created the game and had it revolve around an entire band that they needed to focus on some of the best songs that people would love to jam along to.

The game’s eclectic tracklist of good songs kept me buying every new version. The games would have songs ranging from The Who’s “We Won’t Get Fooled Again” to “Carry On Wayward Son” by Kansas, all the way to “Ghostbusters” by Ray Parker Jr.

You’ll also notice that I did not include Guitar Hero on this list. That is because with the demise of the license, Rock Band has been able to offer a huge amount of some of the best previously exclusive Guitar Hero songs, like “Through the Fire and Flames”. And unlike Guitar Hero, which has stopped releasing DLC, there’s no end in sight for when new songs will stop being released for download. It gives the player the message that if they don’t like the tracks currently out, they can just wait until next week.

Run Like Hell

This was an older game released for the Playstation 2 and original Xbox that I first became aware of during an early episode of Unskippable. While the game itself wasn’t particularly good, it had huge production values from A-List voice actor talent, a fantastic storyline, and four licensed tracks from Breaking Benjamin’s album Saturate.

Today, nobody would bat an eye for me to mention Breaking Benjamin, but at the time Run Like Hell was made Breaking Benjamin was still a relatively unknown band. However, their music melded perfectly with the atmosphere of the game. One of their songs would start to play during a frantic paced moment, like a boss fight, and could make an otherwise terrifying or tense moment turn into pure awesome.

In fact, the music video for the song “Polyamorous” was included as a secret in the game, and can be viewed by inputting a cheat code. If you want to view just how that process worked, I helped someone online a few years ago view it on her game, and she did a recording of herself trying to get it to work. You can watch that hilarious video here.

Infected

Ever wanted to fight zombies with a rockin’ soundtrack playing the entire time? Infected is the game for you. You play Officer Stevens, fighting a zombie outbreak in New York City in the days leading up to Christmas. I have no idea if the New York Bio Team gave Officer Stevens an iPod along with the Viral Gun he uses to fight zombies, but the player gets the full benefit of a complete library of licensed tracks, with which they can select their own playlists, pick their own favorite songs, or just let shuffle.

For me the best song to listen to when turning zombies into meaty chunks had to be the instrumental-only version of Ill Nino’s “When it Cuts” which I have not been able to find ANYWHERE. The game also included some music videos of the licensed tracks that you can watch without the need of a cheat code.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

When traveling through the jungle performing surgery on yourself and living off the land to survive, make sure to bring a good soundtrack with you. While Harry Gregson-Williams once again composed one of the most noteworthy game soundtracks of all time there were a few licensed tracks used in the game that got it on this list.

This game could have made the list for the title theme “Snake Eater” alone but for me what really moved me was the use of Starsailor’s “Way to Fall” during the game’s closing credits. After the huge twist in the game’s finale, so many emotions were going through my mind. I don’t want to spoil the game’s ending for anyone so you’ll have to play the game yourself if you want to find out why. As Harry Gregson-Williams’s score roused us at the game’s finale, “Way to Fall” was a great song to bring us down as we absorbed all the revelations and as we learned just what the game’s place was in the franchise and just who our protagonist really was.

Indigo Prophecy

The game developed by the same company that did Heavy Rain and are now working on Beyond, Indigo Prophecy was the first game that I played by those developers and I loved every second of it. During the game you were trying to solve a murder from multiple different perspectives, the police who are trying to solve just who did it, and the person who committed the murder, who is trying to discover why he had done it. Over the course of the game we also are privy to the lives of the main characters. We learn how they live, who they interact with and just what makes them who they are.

Indigo Prophecy also had several licensed songs for the game, including four tracks from Theory of a Deadman’s album Gasoline. In fact, some of the best moments in the game are punctuated by one of their songs. In a simple moment where the protagonist Lucas Kane decides to work out with a punching bag “No Way Out” starts to play. If the player performs the scene properly, the scene ends when Lucas ends up punching the large bag off its hook and across the apartment. Lucas, and the player both discover at that moment that Lucas is much stronger and faster than he should be.

Of course I can’t talk about Theory of a Deadman in Indigo Prophecy without talking about the song “Santa Monica” which was practically the theme song for the entire game. A wonderful song about a guy who’s girlfriend leaves him to try to become famous, the song punctuates every romantic moment in the game, as well as the ending credits of the game. I had never heard about the band before, but I remember going out to the store and buying Gasoline on CD just because of the game.

Prey

There was a very fitting use of licensed music in the game, and most of it could be listened to in the game’s first level. The game designers made the correct decision to let the player live out the protagonist’s last night, just before he and his family is abducted by aliens. As you walk through the fully interactive bar, you can play games like poker, blackjack, and slots, all the while listening to music from a wide assortment of classic licensed tracks on the bar’s interactive touch screen jukebox. Songs like “Barracuda” by Heart play first, but you can select from a pretty wide range of songs like “Cat Scratch Fever” by Ted Nugent, “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming” by Judas Priest and some great independent songs like “If We Could Be” by Railer which I have not been able to find.

But what I think really gets me every time is the use of Blue Öyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper” somehow selectively being chosen to play during the moment of abduction. The song makes the scene so awesome you don’t even need more cowbell.

Alan Wake

Our returning champion from the last list, I couldn’t pass up mentioning Alan Wake again. While the game had a fantastic list of never before released songs performed by Poets of the Fall (credited as The Old Gods of Asgard) there were a ton of songs that the game licensed for the game which worked so well. The game also included songs by artists like Harry Nilsson, Poe, and David Bowie.

Several licensed tracks in Alan Wake have already made other best game song lists, in particular “Haunted” by Poe was chosen by Lisa Foiles for a list she did for The Escapist. However, there’s a different song in the game’s soundtrack that is what got it on this list. Knowing what we knew about the game as the credits started to roll, could there possibly be a more fitting song played for the credits than David Bowie’s “Space Oddity”? I would tell you why, but that would mean spoiling a very important revelation in the game, so you’ll just have to play the game for yourself and make your own decision.

Saints Row 2

While plenty of open world games like Saints Row and Grand Theft Auto have provided the player with full radio stations to listen to as they drive around the game environment, in my opinion Saints Row 2 consistently had the best tracks out of all the open world games that I’ve played. At any moment in the game I could turn on any station and hear a song I liked, unlike other open world games where I would just end up sticking with the talk radio station.

While there wasn’t any options for a talk radio station, the game did provide an 80s music station, which featured such songs as “Sister Christian” and “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” and given that the game’s narrative was about causing almost cartoonishly crazy things to happen in order to claim the whole city back for the Third Street Saints, having “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” playing in the background while literally taking over the world was quite fitting indeed.

The Games That May Never See Sequels (And Need To) July 31, 2012

With the games that I’ve been replaying this summer, I’ve been reliving a lot of classic memories over the years, and also been forced to play them with the full knowledge that in many cases the development houses that made them no longer exist, and that a chance for seeing any more games in the series is very slim.

I thought it would be a good opporutnity to talk about some games that really need sequels, but for several reasons probably will never get one. This is by no means a complete list, but its a good start, and I’m sure more will follow. These are in chronological order.

Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines (2004)

Welcome to the World of Darkness. Everything you thought you knew about monsters is actually true. Vampires, werewolfs, ghosts, and monsters are all real and they live among you. However, the reason why you don’t know about them is because of the Masquerade, which are the rules they have enacted to ensure their own protection and make sure that normal people don’t know about them. Southern California is practically a haven for the creatures of the night, and as a fledgling vampire recently sired your job is to learn the rules and quickly, and to make a new life for yourself in the real Los Angeles.

The end of the game leaves very little actually resolved, and in some cases it looked like it was going to be the start of horrible days to come for both mortals and immortals alike. However, the World of Darkness in Los Angeles was still ripe for further stories to be told in it. It would be great to check in with all the characters that we had become so attached to and see how they were doing in these dark times. It also opened up the possiblity to play from other clans that were not part of the Camerilla and see the game world from an entirely new perspective, like the Anarchs or the Sabbat, or possibly even the Thin Bloods.

While the game’s finale left open the chance that the player character could have died at the end, I would have had no problem creating a whole new character and going back into the world that Troika had created.

Why We Probably Won’t Get a Sequel:

There are many things working against the chances that we will ever get a sequel for this game. After completing the game the game’s developer, Troika, announced their next project was not going to be a sequel to Bloodlines. In fact the promotional video for their new game looked like it was heavily inspired by Fallout. The other problem is Troika closed a few months after the game’s completion, due to the fact they couldn’t secure funding for their next project.

The other issue is the Vampire: The Masquerade license. It’s over. In fact Bloodlines was supposed to set up the finale of the game’s universe! White Wolf has changed their entire RPG ruleset with a completely different world which has no story ties to the Masquerade. If a new game was going to be developed, it would probably be forced to use the new license, and that would mean cutting story ties to the older game.

However, not all is lost for lovers of the creatures of the night. A MMORPG is in development for the updated World of Darkness by CCP, but it is unlikely that a continuation of Bloodlines will ever see the light of day.

Infected (2005)

My favorite game for the Sony Playstation Portable, Infected is a third person action game where you fight zombies througout New York City in the days leading up to Christmas. You discover after being bitten that your blood is completely immune to the zombie virus, and in fact is so immune that firing it at a zombie causes them to explode in large groups! It was developed by Planet Moon Studios, well known for their hilarious stories in games, and this game was no different.

At the game’s conclusion, the source of the zombie infection is revealed and the news anchor announces that New York City has been saved, but that there was still no word from other major cities in several days. It is possible that future games could take place in these still-infected cities. Could it be possible that the other cities could have people in them that are also immune to the virus like Officer Stevens was?

Why We Won’t See a Sequel:

Well, other than the fact that the Playstation Portable is in the process of being phased out in favor of the new Playstation Vita, there are many reasons why the game may never see a sequel. The game launched very early in the PSP’s lifespan and while it was a fantastic game which took complete advantage of the hardware’s capabilites and control system, it was a new property on a new platform and the game just didn’t have the publicity blitz behind it to sell the platform. I am curious if the game could have sold better if it was released later in the PSP’s lifespan, but as it stands the game never even released as a downloadable title on the Playstation Network, completely cutting out sales on the PSP Go.

There’s also the problem with the game’s publisher, Majesco, deciding to shift all their focus to value software instead of producing full priced retail games. Because of that, they’ve let many of their properties languish, and even lost some of them in the process, most recently the Psychonauts property, as it reverted back to Tim Schaffer and Double Fine last year. It’s just too bad. With its superior hardware and second analog stick, man would it be awesome to see a sequel to the game on the Vita.

Brütal Legend (2009)

Mic check, one, two. A roadie is mysteriously transported to a land far, far away during a rock concert. With his ability to build things on the fly and his knowledge of heavy metal music he takes the materials in the land the inhabitants could never understand and is able to take a rock concert and turn it into a weapon. His goal is to free the land from those who oppress it, and if that means taking on the gods, then so be it.

At the end of the game all appears to be well, but the roadie never returns home. There could still be plenty of stories told in the universe that Double Fine created. Perhaps a new threat could emerge to conquer the land, and it will be up to the characters that we grew to love to save it.

Why We Won’t See a Sequel:

Double Fine was ready and willing to go at making a sequel to Brütal Legend. In fact, development started on the game’s sequel almost immediatly after the game’s release, but that was stopped by the game’s publisher. Since Brütal Legend‘s release (and slightly disappointing commercial results) Double Fine shifted focus to producing downloadable games like Costume Quest and Stacking.

While the new downloadable games are a lot of fun I would have loved to see what Double Fine’s plans were for the sequel.

Splatterhouse (2010)

Thirty years after the first Splatterhouse hit the arcades the game that die hard Splatterhouse fans had been asking to play for years was released. A 3D action game where you play a frail man attacked and left for dead in a haunted mansion. During his last breaths an old mask in the mansion speaks to him and offers him a deal. If he puts on the mask he will have his wounds healed and give him the strength to save his girlfriend, who had been taken by the master of the house. He does, and with his newfound strength he fights his way through the mansion all in an effort to get back the woman he wants to ask to marry him.

The game’s ending was a heavy cliffhanger. At the end of the game Rick saves his girlfriend, but we have no idea what has happened to her during the time Rick took to save her. Is she herself or has she been possessed by whatever Dr. West was trying to bring into this world? The mask knew that something was indeed wrong with Jen because it wouldn’t let Rick remove it when she was saved. All the pieces were set for a whole new story.

Why We Won’t Get a Sequel:

It was pretty obvious in the time leading up to the release of this game that Namco was preparing for Splatterhouse to be a disappointment. There have been plenty of articles written about this so I really don’t want to retread them but comments from everyone ranging from the former webmaster of the biggest Splatterhouse fan site on the internet to the Happy Video Game Nerd have made that case.

The biggest rumor I’ve read was that Namco was planning to shift their development focus from creating brand new retail games to focus instead on their nostaglic back catalog and get to porting them on modern platforms like the iPhone and Android. In fact, the original arcade version of Splatterhouse was released to the iPhone around the same time, and you can find plenty of other classic Namco games on sale for the mobile platforms as well.

With the development teams shut down and the project leads now on other projects its unlikely we’ll ever find out if Rick really did save his girl or not.

Catherine (2011)

The sleeper hit of Summer 2011, Catherine came out after a media blitz and suprised everyone. Here was a game that was completely unlike anything we had seen in a long time and completely unlike any other game that was currently on the market. In it, you followed an everyman as he tried to balance two relationships with two very different women, all the while making all the hard decisions we all have to face in life. Am I ready to settle down? Gamers and critics alike loved it, and let me tell you I have put plenty of hours this summer into replaying this game and getting the last achievements in it.

Wouldn’t it be awesome to catch up again on Vincent and see what he’s up to now? Or to shift the game’s focus to a new character that is having the same nightmares that Vincent and the other people at the Stray Sheep were having for that week? Or possibly to go to a new venue, like Kappa Heaven, and interact with people there?

Why We Won’t See a Sequel:

Here’s the spot where I normally will mention the development team was shut down or the publisher wasn’t interested in any further use of the license, but actually in this game’s case we have seen no evidence of that. Atlus is best known for it’s Persona series, and it looks like their attention got shifted back to that after completing Catherine, as Persona 4 Arena just got released. In fact, I couldn’t find any announcements saying anything along the lines of Catherine being a financial disappointment or anything bad happening to the development house following the release of the game.

The only thing that is working against it is that Catherine is a complete package. The entire story is told in one game. No loose ends were left dangling, and by the end of the game all your questions are answered. There was also a wide array of endings for the game, with everything from Vincent ending up single and going into space to Vincent getting married and settling down. I know, that’s not much of a reason to completely rule out a sequel may be coming. In fact, this is probably the most likely game out of this entire list to actually get a sequel.

So that is my first list of games that I feel really need sequels but unfortunatly will probably never get one. I’m sure there are more games that can be added to this list, and I would love to read your comments on what games should be added!

Rest assured, more articles about this will be coming, and more games will be added to the list!

The Greatest Video Game Songs of All Time July 30, 2012

A video game is more than just a collection of action and story sequences, it’s a complete package that includes everything down to the sound effect of the footsteps. Music is an important part of that experience. The right music can take a moment and make it all the more powerful, and heard on its own, it can trigger the memory of the exact moment you heard it when you played the game.

With all that in mind I’m going to list what I think are the greatest video game songs of all time. But here’s the catch. I’m not counting any orchestral scores. Yes, I know that in plenty of cases orchestral scores are absolutely fantastic, but I’m going to save that for a different time. So that means that this list will only count original songs that were licensed specifically for individual games.

For the first one, I’m going to pick what is probably going to be the most obvious. It is at the top of pretty much everyone’s list for many reasons. It was the perfect melding of a video game song with an original artist, which both served to entertain at the completion of the game, as well as continue the story of the game after it’s completion.

I’m talking about what was probably the greatest song of 2007, from Portal, this is “Still Alive” by Jonathan Coulton.

Next I’m going to bring up (in as chronological an order as I can make it) the song that probably was the inspiration for this list.

You hear characters singing and performing parts of this song throughout the entire game. It’s almost as if during the course of the game’s timeframe the song is an extremely popular radio hit inside the game’s world. Everyone, from the janitor cleaning the walls to highly trained assassins have the song stuck in their heads. Finally, as the game’s conclusion rolls, the song starts to play in its entirety during the credits and we’ve come full circle.

From Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne, this is “The Late Goodbye” by Poets of the Fall.

However this would not be the last time that a 3D Realms produced game would have a rocking licensed track to close their game. In 2006, they were producing a game in development by an outside studio that would revive a franchise that they had long since cancelled. In the end of the game, he was able to save his home planet but not his girl. I can’t think of a better song to wrap up the game’s story of and heritage, heartbreak and finally triumph.

From Prey, this is After Midnight Project with “Take Me Home”.

Backtracking a bit (hey, I only said I was going to TRY to be chronological) I want to talk a bit about a classic PC game that still holds up even today, and the main theme that was made specifically for it. I first became aware of it when I saw it performed on the Video Games Live Tour Level 2 Blu-Ray Disc as the song has long been a staple of the tour. Six years later the song actually won a Grammy. Why did it take that long? Because the awards organization does not consider a song produced for a video game, it only became eligible for consideration when the artist released it to CD.

From Civilization IV, here is the Grammy Award Winning song “Baba Yetu” by Christopher Tin.

In 2008 a new kind of game hit the PC and consoles by EA. It changed up the formula in a way that we hadn’t seen in gameplay before. You were playing as a freerunning courier with the ability to race across rooftops. With the game’s unique art style and gameplay, the tune was quite unique to the video game space, but it worked wonderfully as a main theme, and they did a pretty interesting music video for it as well.

From Mirror’s Edge, here’s “Still Alive” by Lisa Mikovsky.

And now we’re going to come full circle. In 2010 a video game came out that made probably some of the best use of licensed tracks that year. While they did have a lot of classic tracks like “Space Oddity” and “Coconut”, those were songs that have been around a long time. No, there were several unique tracks made by a band we have long been familiar with. This particular song would quickly become part of the band’s next album, so it is possible that the song may not have been made uniquely for the game, but seriously, you just can’t watch the song’s official music video and not see the game’s impact.

From Alan Wake, this is Poets of the Fall (again) with “War”.

The Games That Define Summer July 25, 2012

As a kid I lived for my summers. During summer, since I wouldn’t have to get up at insanely early hours to go to school every summer I would stay up late, eventually becoming practically nocturnal. Without school I could enjoy my time and not worry about things like homework or projects being due, giving me three months of a stress free environment.

However, the downside of being up late hours and being asleep during daylight is that there’s really not much you can do during that time. If you don’t live in a big city most venues, except for maybe fast food restaurants or diners, will be closed. So, you have to find alternate ways to spend your time, and I would spend it playing video games.

During each summer, I would always find myself going back and replaying the same games that would reflect my own nocturnal lifestyle. The late hours were some of my favorite times in my life.

Since we’re right in the middle of the summer once again I thought I would share with you all some the games that I would find myself playing each summer. Regardless of when they were released they all have a special place in my memories.

The original Max Payne came out in summer 2001 for the PC and immediately I was drawn to playing it. It cost me a day’s pay from my summer job to buy it (and three more days to afford a decent graphics card to play it with) but it was worth every penny. While the game took place in the winter, the game embodied what I was doing that summer. With the exception of the prologue, all of the levels in Max Payne took place late at night in the city that never sleeps. What better way to spend my time then, as the game developers put it, continuing Max’s journey through the night? The game was groundbreaking in so many levels. Sure, the graphics were a huge leap over the games that had come before it, but it was the story that had me up all those late hours. It didn’t matter how hard that last level was, or how long it was going to take me to finish it, I just had to see how it ended. I owe the game a lot, I got my early start writing for a site dedicated to that game back in 2003.

Before I talk about this next game I’m going to give a quick bit of backstory about me. I spent a year living in Southern California. During that year I spent time at all the popular places you’d imagine, Hollywood, Santa Monica Beach, and Downtown Los Angeles. After the year ended and I returned home I was quite happy with the time I spent out there and ended up writing a play.

When Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines released a year later for the PC it felt like a homecoming to a place I had been very familiar with. Yes, I know the game came out in Winter 2004, but I don’t think I ended up playing it until at least Summer 2005. And furthermore, compared to where I’m from, pretty much every time of the year is Summer in Southern California. Since I could make my own schedule that year, I had spent the year sleeping late hours, being up when the sun had long set and doing things late at night. A year later here I was playing a video game where I was practically reliving that year…only now I was an actual vampire. I wasn’t much of an action/rpg player at that time, but for that game I made an exception. The game’s atmosphere of night, mixing the real locations with the supernatural themes perfectly is what kept me playing it each and every summer.

I think Psychonauts also deserves a special mention as well. Taking place at the Whispering Rock Summer Camp, the game practically defined a summer experience. While it starts off bright and cheerful I can’t imagine a game that drew me in and kept me playing until the sun came up better. The second half of the game takes place late at night in the camp, when all the other campers have gone to sleep, so when you are backtracking through all the spooky wilderness as your own clock says 3AM I could really relate to the character. With all of the game’s different secret hidden item types, you can imagine how many late hours I would spend going from mind to mind in the collective unconscious making sure that I found EVERY single figment, brain vault and mental cobweb, all so I could finish the game at Rank 100 and get the secret cinematic.

Alan Wake is one of those games that perfectly fit the summer game mold for me. I had been anticipating it ever since Remedy announced it in 2005, it released in summer 2010. While the game didn’t take place during the summer (the game establishes that it takes place in the days leading up to Deerfest and that Deerfest started September 15th), the theme of a vacation was prevalent throughout. The main character came to Bright Falls in order to go on vacation with his wife just as the town is hosting their huge yearly celebration.

But then of course there is the most obvious parallel, and that is that Alan Wake would fight his battles at night. The Dark Presence could not function in light, and anyone it controlled could be protected by darkness against any damage, but only as long as anyone it controlled was not exposed to light. The game’s atmosphere alone drew me in as we were exposed to a whole town, which seemed so normal on the surface during the daytime, but at night our whole perspective was shifted from a small town square to a dark forbidding, untamed environment, where light is our only ally. Only when the sun came back up were we safe. In fact, when Remedy made the next game in the series, Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, they made the sunrise a major component of the game’s arcade levels.

Catherine was a game I first became familiar with at E3 2011, the first E3 I had attended in many years. It released in Summer 2011 and got a lot of exposure by the gaming press across the board. What really got my attention was its demo, which released on both the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. The game was unlike anything I had seen before, detailing the story of an everyman who was trying to find his place in the world, while his long-term girlfriend tried to get him to settle down. He would spend his late nights hard-drinking with his friends in a really cool bar, talking about their lives and trying to see who could get the highest score in the bar’s arcade game, Rapunzel.

Oh and, did I tell you that he was having nightmares where he was being chased by all of his fears while climbing up high towers into the sky and if he died in them he would die in real life? Yeah, kind of missed that part. This summer, I’ve been spending some of my nights up late trying to beat all 128 (yes, 128) levels of the bar’s Rapunzel arcade game.

So those are the games that defined my summers. I can’t tell you how great its been writing about all the good memories I’ve had while playing them. I will usually find myself playing or replaying one or more of these games, because to me replaying a game is more than just reliving the experiences I had playing the game itself, it also reminded me of all the good times I had in my summers as I was playing these games.

Hope you’re enjoying your Summer too!

Batman Day – KWing Reviews July 19, 2012

Looking for reviews of all the classic Batman games?  Look no further than Knightwing…no, not that Knightwing, I’m talking about Knightwing01, or KWing for short.  On his YouTube channel, you’ll find some of the most in-depth video reviews I’ve seen for even the most obscure of Batman games not reviewed by a mainstream publication.

For me to post up all the videos he’s done on Batman games alone would take up so much space it would probably break my site.  This guy did a full Let’s Play of Batman: Arkham City (and the DLC) with his wife, and that alone would be enough to break the site.  Instead I’m going to post up some of my personal favorite reviews of his of various Batman games, but I encourage you to check out his YouTube Channel because there is a TON of fantastic reviews that he did, both by himself and with his wife, of all kinds of games ranging from Batman all the way to Metroid.

Well, first off, if you had any questions about just what happened between Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City, you’ll want to check this Lore out.

Next off is the first review of his that I ever saw, his review of Batman: Return of the Joker.

Next off I want to highlight some of my favorite reviews of some more Batman games that he did as a small miniseries.  First off is a game that I had on the Nintendo GameCube called Batman: Dark Tomorrow, which only redeemable quality was the comic book art style and the cutscenes.  The gameplay was complete garbage.  If you ever wondered what a game like Arkham City could have been like if it was done badly, watch this review.

Next up is a review of a video game that I happened to like a lot.  It was the first Batman video game that Kevin Conroy had done (no, not Batman: Arkham Asylum or Batman: Rise of the Sin Tzu), Batman: Vengeance.  Inspired by the last season of the animated TV series and voiced by all the voice actors of that series, the game fantastically served as a 3D recreation of that classic 2D animated series.

Seriously how groundbreaking was this game?  The creators of the Batman: Animated Series were so inspired by the 3D graphics in the game, they decided to use 3D models for the opening credits sequence in their next series, Justice League.

And since we’re talking about the Batman Animated Series, here’s a review he did with his wife where he compared the different versions released of the video games based on that groundbreaking animated series to the Super Nintendo and Genesis.

And finally, here’s a review I really liked for Batman Returns on the Super Nintendo.

Now be aware there are a TON of reviews Kwing and Kwife have done, as well as Let’s Plays that I did not embed here, including reviews of Batman Begins (multiplatform) and Batman (NES) and I totally recommend checking those out as well!  Of course you could always just go check out his channel for yourselves and check out the tons of reviews he’s done over the years!

How To Save the Playstation Vita June 7, 2012

In the lead-up to E3 2012, all eyes were on Sony to see just what they were going to do with their new portable console, the Playstation Vita.  It had great previews and fantastic potential, but after launch the sales of the device had stagnated due to its high price and lack of any exclusive games that could serve as the killer-apps for the system.  Uncharted: Golden Abyss, the expected killer-app launch title, had not received bad reviews, but it didn’t score high enough for the critics to tell all the players to go out and buy the system immediately.  After launch, there wasn’t a regular release schedule of exclusive games, the majority of the games released for the console were either handheld versions of already released titles with either some extra features or extra content, which weren’t enough to merit purchasing the device. or some of the highly anticipated exclusives that did come, like Resistance: Burning Skies, which turned out to be major disappointments.

Now, with E3 on the way, people were looking at Sony to make the announcements to bring the Vita back into the handheld fight.  The top requests I heard amongst the gaming press and my peers boiled down to two things.  They wanted a price drop (including a price drop on some of the peripherals like memory cards) and they wanted TV Out capabilities.  After Sony concluded their E3 2012 Press Conference, neither of those things were mentioned, and I can think of plenty of gamers, myself included, who considered at that moment to think twice about the future of the handheld, whereas some decided to write off the handheld entirely.

But how can a handheld made by Sony and released with so much potential, have had such disappointing results?  Well, lets look at some of its problems and lets see if we can determine why they are problems, and what Sony can do to fix them.

A $250 price point for a handheld is not an unheard of or taboo price.  The Playstation Portable launched at that price, and while it was not the winner of that handheld generation, it was able to hold its own against Nintendo’s undefeated handheld platform track record.  However, there is a stigma attached to high prices for a handheld.  At $250 dollars its competing with more than just the Nintendo DS or 3DS, it’s competing with other handheld devices that, lets face it, have more uses than just for playing games, like the Apple iPhone or Droid.  Other gaming handhelds, even ones that had the ability to make phone calls, have come and gone at higher prices, like the Nokia N-Gage.  In this day and age, it seems like $250 is just too much disposable income to expect from the consumer for a device with only one practical use.

When I was in Los Angeles last year, I waited patiently to be one of the first people to actually use the Sony Vita at E3 2011 and I asked the people in the crowd what features they were hoping to see in the new handheld console.  We had heard from Sony how good the graphics were going to be on this handheld, and how good all the games were going to be looking on it.  The problem was, these graphics would be limited by the Vita’s screen, which, while a high-quality OLED, was not as impressive as the big screen HDTVs they already owned.  Their response was they wanted TV Out in the Vita.  When I got up to the front of the line and had the opportunity to do Q&A with Sony’s Vita people, it was the first question I asked, and the response was no.

I’ve also been hearing a lot of comments in regards to the 3G version of the handheld.  At a $50 dollar premium over the WiFi only model, it is quite possible that the decision to make a 3G version of the handheld at launch was a mistake.  Requiring its own data plan and forcing users to pay money for the service from a provider that has a serious stigma attached to it for poor performance in other handheld devices was a major concern since it was first announced, but that didn’t necessarily mean it was a mistake.

Where they failed was in the implementation and sales of these 3G premium models.

For one, the 3G model Vita, even though it requires a cell phone provider and a cell phone plan, is not sold in cell phone stores.  This was cutting out a HUGE opportunity for cell phone retailers who wanted to sell new devices and data plans.  The problem is, cell phone stores don’t even have the ability to stock the Vita.  With that in mind, I asked a family member of mine who worked in a cell phone store if anyone brought in a 3G Vita to set up a data plan for it and they told me that not one person has come in asking for that, and they hadn’t heard from any other sales people that this was even tried.  Had they sold the devices in the stores, they may have had a better opportunity to sell it to the customer with a data plan bundled with it, but even with 3G connectivity and an expensive plan the Vita lacked the ability to make full use of it and allow the user to do something else they wanted it to be able to do, make phone calls.

The other problems are the costs to the customer and the provider.  On most cellular devices there’s a limit as to how big a file is which can be downloaded over the cellular airwaves.  If Sony intends to release full-sized retail Vita games for download over 3G, this would make the cellular providers cry, or if they let the cellular providers disallow large downloads, they will make their customers cry for paying premium money for a device and a data plan where they have to use WiFi for big downloads every time.  Its a lose-lose on both ends, and is why I’m questioning the decision to release a 3G model of the Vita at all.  If anyone has a 3G Vita with a data plan they use, can they please post a comment if there are indeed limits as to what can and can’t be downloaded over 3G?

So, what was coming to the Vita after E3?  What was Sony’s major plan for reinvigorating the platform?  Connectivity among the devices.  You would be able to play games on your Vita against players playing the same game on their PS3.  As I watched Jack Tretton speak at the show about all the possibilities this opened up for platform owners, all I could say to myself was, “I’ve seen this trick before.”  In fact, what Sony was doing was nothing new.  It happened back in the early 2000s when Nintendo wanted to make up for slumping sales of the Nintendo GameCube and the hope was that they could augment sales by adding connectivity between the GameCube and their extremely popular handheld devices, like the Game Boy Advance.  It didn’t work.  Game connectivity was on a game by game basis.  Most of the implementations were bonus features like exclusive armor in Metroid Prime when it was connected to a GBA running Metroid Fusion.  Other games that made heavy use of this kind of connectivity, like Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, saw some popularity, but it was probably due to the branding.  The costs of having a multiplayer setup in that game, where you had a Nintendo GameCube, a copy of the game, and individual Game Boy Advances and connection cables for up to four players was a very expensive prospect for consumers, and that was just to play one game!.  It didn’t save the slumping sales of the GameCube, and by Nintendo’s own math the GameCube did not meet the total sales Nintendo was hoping for before the platform was discontinued.

So after this lengthy list of problems and complaints, what are my recommendations to save the platform?  That is, after all what this article is supposedly about.  Simple.  Give the customers what they want, don’t tell them what they want.  In fact, most of what the customers want probably could be done.  A price drop is a no-brainer.  Sony will end up taking a bigger hit on the sales of the devices than they initially wanted to, but with a wider install base it gives them the opportunity to profit further on the sales of games, especially downloadable games, which they’re pushing heavily with this device, and which have no danger of running out of supply and don’t need to be reprinted.  They also have the opportunity to make more money through retail with games and peripherals, as nobody is going to be interested in buying a memory card or a charge cable for a device they don’t own.

The second recommendation is to implement the heavily requested TV-Out feature.  Yes, I know that was probably the most requested feature from the Playstation Portable at launch and at the time it required a brand new version of the device in order to give that capability to users, but really all you need is to do exactly what is already done with iDevices (iPhone 4S, iPad 2, 3) and the Apple TV.  In fact, you already have a set-top box with a large install base you can update to be the device’s TV connection, the Playstation 3.  Simply use the WiFi capabilities of the Playstation Vita to stream the video broadcast of the Vita’s game locally to the Playstation 3, which can then display the content on a tv in HD.  Now, there are some technical challenges to this solution, mostly on the Vita’s side as it would need a lot of processing power and bandwidth to deliver a video stream wirelessly to the PS3, but Apple proved it can be done and it sure beats having to rerelease the devices with a HDMI port, which a lot of gamers asked them to do before it even launched.  In fact, the PS3 can already interface with devices like the PSP wirelessly without the need of a wireless router, so long as the Playstation is equipped with WiFi hardware and plugged into a wired network connection.

The final recommendation is to make the 3G data plan free.  Yes, I’m not typing that incorrectly.  The $50 premium on the devices should subsidise some of the costs of having a new device activated on the cellular network.  There’s no unlimited data plans offered anymore, and there are size limits on what can be downloaded on certain phones, as well as maximum data caps that can produce extremely high bills if they are gone over.  People don’t want to pay money for crippled data plans!   Sony can in turn use the free data plans as an incentive to get gamers to buy the premium models of the Vita.  If there’s any extra costs to the provider, they should be paid by Sony.  Where will the money come from this?  In the sales of the downloaded games.  As Apple figured out with the App Store, if you make it easy for people to buy your products anywhere, they will choose to buy it.  You can then take a cut out of each sale.  If you have a large install base for your product you have the opportunity to make a lot of money in sales.

So that’s my plan on how the Playstation Vita can be saved.  Is it entirely doable?  Well, you would have to talk to some experts on the Playstation Vita’s hardware but they are more then welcome to post a comment about that.  Thanks for reading!