Editorial: A Beta Preview: Why Aren’t More Companies Doing this? April 29, 2010

The Halo Reach beta video was released this afternoon and is avalible to download to all Halo 3 ODST owners who boot their first discs up.  It is a very detailed video narrated by Aisha Tyler who goes over the rules of the beta and what is avalible.

The video, taking up several minutes, keeps smack talk to a minimum and specifically shows all the new components of Halo Reach, including the menu interface, matchmaking, and gives a rundown of weapons, controls, maps and gametypes.

So simple an idea, do a video where someone tells you how to play the game.  I haven’t played a second of the Reach beta yet but I feel completely ready to play.  Why aren’t more companies doing this?

The beta will not start until May 3rd, they’re probably going to take the video down once the beta becomes active.  If you have a copy of Halo 3 ODST and intend to play the Halo Reach beta, you owe it to yourself to watch this video to be fully briefed on it before you play.

Editorial: Have the Extreme Ghostbusters Solved Alan Wake’s Problem Before? April 28, 2010

For those of you who haven’t taken a look at the Alan Wake X10 Trailer, please do so before reading the rest of this article.

Did you catch the post script to that?  Alan Wake was writing something beyond his control.  I did, and then I realized I had seen something like that before, and then I remembered where.  When I was growing up I loved the Ghostbusters (naturally, they were awesome on all levels).  In 1997, when I was in middle school, a new series based around Generation X was released on weekday mornings.  With the ghostbusters now middle aged and only Egon still living in the firehouse, when the ghosts returned and him no longer able to fight, four of his community college students, each with their own specialty took up the new proton packs to fight a newer stronger generation of ghosts.  They called themselves the Extreme Ghostbusters.

The ghostbusters have been known to fight anything, gods, demons, posessions, all in the name of a day’s work, but one episode of Extreme Ghostbusters touched on a myth that I think is the same myth that Alan Wake is evoking.  Demons were terrorising New Jersey, taking human hostages, and they looked very similar to a popular series of books.  One of the Extreme Ghostbusters was a fan of the books and recognised them and they discovered the writer, paticularly one based off of RL Stine, was bringing these creatures to life through his writing.  He was compelled beyond free will to type down his stories, and with it, everything he wrote was coming true.

The trick was that it had to be written for it to happen.  At one point, to save a fellow ghostbuster, one of the ghostbusters was able to mess around with the typewriter as something was happening, turning a weapon that the demon was holding into a banana, which meant that no matter how crazy whatever was typed, it would happen.

In the end, the Extreme Ghostbusters triumphed by destroying the typewriter that the writer was using to weave the story, breaking the demon’s control over him and destroying everything that had been done.  All in the day’s work of your neighborhood ghostbuster.

Thank you Sony Support for Saving Me March 23, 2010

Well I’m very happy right now.  I had a serious issue downloading the God of War: Unearthing The Legend documentary due to it’s incredibly large filesize and Sony’s unnecessary DRM system on videos preventing them from being downloaded or played on any PS3 other than the one it was registered on, and after being unable to download it more than once I hit a serious problem.

Well that was Thursday.  I sent an issue to Sony Support that day.  Today I got an email, they had restored my download link, and I was finally able to download and now watch the HD version of this fantastically produced documentary.  I still argue this should’ve been released on a seperate Blu-Ray (or at the very least released with no DRM), but its nice they fixed my issue.

So if anyone’s having problems with their download codes still (like I did) contact sony support.  There’s a phone number in the booklet that’s a good place to start.  However it will probably take anywhere from 48 hours to 4 days to help (take into account I don’t think they work weekends).  Their support staff are a bunch of really nice really helpful people I can’t give them better props.

UPDATE:  I did a little reasearch on cases similiar to mine, (IE people wanting to download or redownload videos after the initial download wore off because maybe the file got deleted accidently or intentionally because they take up A LOT of space).  Sony official policy is to give you ONE extra download after asking them nicely (Like I did) then upon a second request say SOL.

So apparently there was no question I was going to get one more shot at the file, but I’m screwed if my PS3 breaks or I want more hard drive space.  After I get paid, I’m going to invest in a high capacity flash drive and back it up.  I have no other option.  Is this really necessary?

God of War III Ultimate Edition: The Empty Box March 18, 2010

For those of you collectors out there, who just love collectors editions in every way shape and form, you’ve had to deal with extremely high priced ones with very little substance as of late.  Originally collector’s editions would be 10 dollars over the initial price, come in a slightly better package and include a second disc with behind the scenes goodies which would be well produced and informative and entertaining.

Within the past year, I’ve noticed that these CEs have become more fluff than actual content.  But recently the God of War III Ultimate Edition has earned my purchase.  I paid 40 dollars more than the initial price for a mostly empty box.  The box the game came in is quite beautiful, but it’s empty.  Other than the hardcover art book (which is the standard size and shape for most other CE artbooks I’ve seen, there’s nothing in the box.  The case the game comes in is identical to the standard edition, and the disc itself is identical as well.

The difference is (other than Pandora’s box and the Art Book, the only physical additions, and those alone would not fetch a 40 dollar price tag) that there’s a tiny leaflet included inside the game case with three download codes.  One for a downloadable skin and Combat Arena, both of which could’ve been unlockable game content, one for a downloadable documentary starring Peter “Robocop” Weller which is taking me over an hour to download and is going to use up the very last of my 60GB PS3’s storage space, and one for two soundtracks to be downloaded off the God of War site, which doesn’t work because the God of War site is no longer accepting logins or code redemptions, all attempts to do either are just frozen, and then met with an error message.

Is it that hard to make some CDs?  Is it that hard to do a second Blu-Ray?  You have to be kidding me if you charged 100 dollars for this thing that you couldn’t have done all that and still charged the same price?  Hell, I would’ve gladly sarificed having an empty Pandora’s box (which can’t fit the PS2 versions of the games, but can fit the God of War Collection if you need a place to put that disc) for having instead this content on physical discs.

I really like collector’s editions, but what’s collectable about revolving it around a leaflet with codes on it?  It’s a great empty box though.

Don’t Redeem Your God of War: Unearthing the Legend Codes Unless its on a PS3 You Intend to Watch it on for the Rest of Your Life March 18, 2010

Following up on what I was saying earlier, I decided to redeem my God of War: Unearthing the Legend documentary code. I really wanted to watch the documentary badly, so I redeemed my code and realized, oh crap, I don’t have enough space for it. The file is 3+GB. Not a problem I figured, I had another PS3 downstairs with much more storage capacity, so it shouldn’t be a problem. So I deactivated some authorizations on the one I had, and reactivated on another, and started the download of the documentary on the other PS3.

Then I tried watching it two hours later after the download finished and it didn’t work. Whatever crap Sony put in the video, even though my authorizations were all valid and allowed me to download the video no problem (If they weren’t, I wouldn’t have been able to download the video at all) refused to let me watch the documentary. So I decided if the file was going to work anywhere it was going to be on the original PS3 I put the code into, the one with very little space left. In frustration I deleted the video and set about the way to change my authorizations (again) so I could go back to watching the video on my original PS3, only to find that the HD video was no longer in my download queue, and there was no way to get it back.

I called up Sony support to get them to rectify the situation, and they told me it would take about two days for them to email me back with either a new code or for them to reactivate my download. So until then I’m stuck watching the SD version of the documentary (unacceptable if you own a 1080p 120hz HDTV). But here’s the big problem with all this. When you download that video, it’s tied to that playstation for life. Authorization be damned! So what’s the point of activating/deactivating playstations if the content’s going to be tied to whatever it was first redeemed on in the first place?

You’ll never be able to redownload it again or watch it on a different playstation! If this was a blu-ray I could watch it on any blu-ray player I wanted in the house or bring it to a friend’s house (adding to the collector’s value of the box!). Who’s brilliant idea was this?

I also asked the guy about the God of War soundtrack site (since apparently manufactering CDs and making websites that don’t crash when people try to use them is hard) and they still have no ETA on when either the site’s coming back up or when the replacement codes for people who redeemed them and had failed downloads will come back.

Lets try comparing to other competing services. Apple’s iTunes is considered by many to be draconian at best but they offer a whopping five activations for downloaded content, and even have some DRM free files for a slightly higher cost, and when you deactivate/reactivate content on your systems, it actually works! The files don’t care where they were initiatlly bought or downloaded, the activation certificate is all they care about.

Next time Sony, spend an extra dime and buy some CD-Rs.

Editorial: Why I learned to Stop Waiting For Duke Nukem Forever March 13, 2010

In 2003 on my former website The Deep Six (which was online then it went offline, then it went online again, now it’s lord only knows) I posted just before the release of Max Payne 2 some things for 3D Realms to do to celebrate something unfamiliar to them, the release of a game. I had no idea at the time it would be six years later and we’d be talking about that project’s demise.

Does anyone else think it a bit shitty that more news about Duke Nukem Forever has been released since the game had been cancelled than when it was operating? I mean, a whole synopsis hit the internet, trailers of really cool mostly complete gameplay footage, pictures and concept art. You know, the kind of stuff that would get released normally if you were making a game. But none of this stuff had been released during the development. Could you understand now if they had bothered to release what that artist had posted together overnight people would actually continue to care about your product?

You had the worst management system in history. That’s not nearly insulting enough as it should be. I don’t think anyone could actually come close to being as bad a manager as what was seen in this game. They made tons of royalties from Duke Nukem 3D that were still coming in, and they were making tons of money off the Max Payne franchise, enough to sustain them for years.  The managers always thought there was going to be an infinite amount of time and would not put a time restriction on innovation, and because of that, there was no progress.  At some point the bubble is going to burst for you and the money’s going to dry up, and it did.

So now the party’s over. Why shouldn’t I be bitter about this? Well had they managed their game properly they could’ve finished it well over six years ago and still had more money left over and released the game. Why should I care about this? After 2001 when they released that fantastic E3 trailer, I really wanted to play the game. Then the years passed more and more, and no information at all was coming out, and I slowly paid more attention to real games that were coming out instead of fantasy ones that only existed in the mind of George Brussard.

Last I heard Take 2 has filed an injunction demanding the source code for the game, probably so they could give the development to one of their teams to finish it. I hope they get it, I really do. I know if they hand it to a competent development house and lit a fire under them they could have the game released in a year. 3D Realms has shown they are not a competent development studio, they’re a joke, plain and simple. Gamers gave them all the rope they could have and they just continued to wrap it around their necks, and then the chair under them broke.

Editorial: What’s With Japanese People and Toliets? March 5, 2010

It’s Friday, and I guess there would not be a better day to release editorials than this one.  Some of the best great editorials got released on Fridays, PlanetFargo being my favorite.

With the recent Kotaku article on Japan, it got me thinking I should brush off an Editorial I wrote some time ago following a playthrough I did of No More Heroes.  Enjoy, and feel free to comment.

I guess the title is pretty self explanatory. But let me phrase this question better with this amount of background.

Normally we in the United States are against using toilets or bathroom humor. I remember when taking a video class we were forbidden from doing anything involving a bathroom or toilet. However it seems that Japanese game developers take pride in their crappers (I mean Crappiers) as these serve in some Japanese games as basically hubs with which to build an entire game mechanic around, particularly the save game system.

Normally a user goes to a menu and selects save game. This wasn’t good enough for the Japanese. No, they don’t believe in having menu functions for other than stat and progress displays. No, they want you to have the save game mechanic built into the game play.

Hideo Kojima built the save mechanic into the codec radio system to solve the design problem of working into gameplay without bringing the player out of the gaming experience in Metal Gear Solid. It was not the best solution, but it worked fine. Later on, in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots he decided it was better to take my advice and just have a save game option in the menu, probably Ryan Payton’s doing. This worked much better and you were allowed infinite saves until your memory ran out.

But then came the fantastic Dead Rising. The only place in the game you could save was the toilets, so keep bathroom locations in the mall in your head at all times, and oddly enough bathrooms were the one place zombies didn’t congregate in! Must be due to some unholy zombie belief. I’m not kidding. If you haven’t played the game let me explain it to you. You MUST go into a designated bathroom area which look exactly like mall bathrooms look, select any stall (doesn’t matter if it’s a male or female bathroom, although female bathrooms do not have stand up stalls), and activate it. That brings up the save game menu, where you are allowed to override the one save the game gives you, and after that you may choose to quit the game.

Now onto No More Heroes, the game I’ve been playing non-stop for the last three days. (I’m about thirteen hours in and ranked number three). The only acceptable save spot is again a toilet. In fact the female protagonist (your handler) informs you before each boss battle to go to take a pee. In the hub world of Santa Destroy, you may only save from your motel room bathroom, but in each boss battle area, there is usually a port-a-potty conveniently located before the boss. By using the toilet it brings up the save screen. You’re allowed 4 save spots, generous compared to Dead Rising. Hope you found all the collectable cards before you saved, but if you think you’re off by one and it’s the rank III boss battle, the last card is in the battle area where you’ll easily spend 10 minutes looking for it.

So now that you’ve got it all down, my question again is what’s with Japanese people and toilets?  Did anyone think this was actually a good idea?  I’m sure Suda 51 of No More Heroes did, as it was used in his game, and I’m sure that the Dead Rising director did as well.

However this does save one problem.  Everyone’s always offended anytime someone brings the bathroom up in the United States.  It’s hard to descriptively say, “I need to use the bathroom” and be considered polite.  Some kids like to say, “I have to pee pee” or the more offensive, “I have to go poopie.”  Others have used more slang terms to be less offensive like, “I have to pay the water bill,” or, “I have to drop my kids off at the pool.” But in most cases nobody gets what that actually means.

So thank you Japan, because now I can just inform everyone when my call of nature arrives, “I’m going to save my game.” 

Possible Halo Reach News Snuck into Halo Encylopedia! March 4, 2010

I’ve got a copy of the Halo Encyclopedia for Christmas and I’ve been thumbing through it for the past few days (it’s a beautiful coffee table book of Halo Goodness(TM)!) and found something I think they wanted to keep buried.

After watching the full Halo Reach trailer, everyone seems to be pointing to Noble Six,  called the Lone Wolf, as the probable playable protagonist of Reach, sounds pretty interesting, but here’s what I caught in the Encyclopedia.

There is one section on SPARTAN-IIs in the encyclopedia, with a listing of SPARTAN-IIs that have previously found their way into canonical backstory, like the Halo novels. I found one buried entry in there that caught my eye.  There is one known SPARTAN with the nickname “Lone Wolf”, it’s SPARTAN-058, Linda.

Now since that discovery Bungie has come forward with much more Halo Reach information, such as character bios of the members of Noble Team.  They appear to be a diverse group of men and women comprised mostly of SPARTAN-IIIs and one SPARTAN-II (Spartan-052 seen clearly in the trailer).  However, Noble Six’s character bio still been intentionally left blank.  There’s no telling if Nobel Six is a man or a woman.

However, according to several of the Halo books, Linda never was on the surface of Reach during the battle, making it unlikely that she is Noble Six, but the possibility is still there that for the first time in a Halo game, you might play as a female.  Would be very interesting if it were true.

This is only my opinion/conjecture and this article has the EDITORIAL tag, this is NOT confirmed news.  What would you think if the next Halo protagonist was a woman?