TESLA

This has absolutely nothing to do with games, I have several posts in the works but I couldn't not mention this. We don't get a lot of sports cars around St. Paul, MN. It's a little too cold, and a little too snowy most of the year to justify it I think. So when I saw this sitting across the street from my apartment today...well I just couldn't not take some quick pics and share them. Oh and if you want to know more about the car that will bring electricity to the masses check this out.

The Shorter the Fewer

Honestly it seems like there are two kinds of games. The under 20 hour kind, and the we can't really say how long the game will be because it's so long we stopped counting; I'm looking at you Fallout 3, Far Cry 2, and any game in the last 7 years by Bethesda.

I have mentioned games I have enjoyed before that are rather lengthy, but that was a lot of my past gaming. Just like I dislike it when reviewers knock a game for it being to "linear" I also think that well crafted, independent or blockbuster, but short game is not a real critique.

Take a game like Mirror's Edge, or even Assassin's Creed. Both games clocked in under 15 hours, but were two of the best games I played last year (yea I got Mirror's Edge Pretty Late). Even the single player campaign in Call of Duty 4 was barely over 10 hours. All of these games have their flaws, but the length of the game isn't one of them.

For someone like me who only get maybe an hour a day tops to play, and not on a consistent basis, this the perfect length. A 12 hour game can last we two weeks or more, which is all I really want to spend on a game. Looking over the games coming out this holiday season, how the hell am I supposed to play through all these? People talk about the movie season as if seeing 10 or 12 two hour movies is difficult, but how am I supposed to play through five or six 30 hour games?

It's not that longer games aren't great, but too many of them add on extra time just to say their game is so much longer than the next. I took the extra time to play through GTAIV; all 40 hours or so, but that was an exception. That game managed to play strong all the way to the end, but wading through the end of a Zelda game, or even trying to find the end of Oblivion can get next to impossible. You don't complete the game because it's to engrossing you can't put it down, you beat it because... well because you're a gamer and that's what you do.

So when Assassin's Creed II comes out I'm hoping it's not much longer than the first. With any luck Uncharted 2 will clock in around 15 hours, and I'll get to play Left 4 Dead 2 over my time off around Christmas.

MMO's or How I Spent My Summer Vacation

First off lets clarify. I don't play MMO's. I spent my summer vacation starting a running program and playing with the PS3 I finally acquired (for a little over $100 with rebates). I have a friend or two who does play WoW, and knew a few guys in college who plays Ultima, and that's as close as I have ever come.

I guess at the core I don't see anything wrong with them, but I just don't think I could ever grind. Oh sure I played Final Fantasy VII for somewhere around 120 hours when I was young, and a lot of that was spent wandering around level building. But it never really felt like "grinding"; that wasn't even a term that was used at that point.

And I think it's a little sad that people are willing to spend so much time to accomplish so little. I enjoyed all those hours playing FF because I was always doing something. Training my chocobo, exploring side quests, and really if we're honest the game itself could take you 80 or 90 hours to complete on your first play through anyway. That means you are always advancing the story.

So it wasn't unreasonable to ask a gamer to spend so much time, there was a story, there was a purpose. Oh and I didn't have to pay an additional cost every month just to keep playing.

I can't schedule my life around video games either. I can't plan on having a raid on a certain day of the week, or tell my wife I can't go out for dinner because my clan is counting on me. That sort of thinking just doesn't fly in the real world. Oh there are exceptions, but exceptions do not make up the millions of WoW players worldwide. I've met a lot of women in my life, there aren't enough understanding wives out there to account for it.

Which means the players are single, for the most part, and probably pretty much what you picture them to be. This is a separate post, but that bothers me since it makes it harder for working professional like me to mention gaming as one of my main hobbies.

Anyway so that's how I spent my summer, and why that summer did not include any MMO's. Though I am holding out for the new Star Trek.

How the PS3 Could Carve Itself a Niche

While I have no doubt that the recent release of the PS3 Slim and the price cut that has gone along with it will increase sales of the PS3 I'm not sure that will be enough. I know that Sony likes to brand them selves as the "premium" console, but I think there is a different direction they could go that could help them tremendously.

As video games are continued to be recognized as a legitimate art form the comparisons to movies and the cinema have grown. Besides the obvious correlations I think that Sony should take a new stance with the PS3. Instead of being branded the "premium" console, why not brand them selves the "art house" brand? Think of the console exclusives that have really stood out on the PS3 since its release. Metal Gear Solid 4, Little Big Planet, Infamous, and the upcoming FFXIII and Heavy Rain. The PS3 has been a haven for the kind of games that appeal to select gamers who may be looking for something a little different from the typical War/Sports/Family fare.

Think of it this way. The Xbox 360 has scored major hits with the carnage, dull color palate, and churn out another sequel every year crowd. You could easily equate this to movies like Transformers, or the latest super hero movie. There is nothing wrong with the latest Transformers film; it is fun, and entertaining. The same can be said for games like Gears of War. Its fun, it's entertaining, but would not be considered great art.

On the other side we have games like Metal Gear Solid, that attempt, and I think succeed, to create a game that goes a little higher in terms of the story and game play. It is unique in the world of gaming, breaking boundaries and crossing genres, and the films shown in art houses and produced by the independent film studios do the same thing. And it's a place I think the PS3 could thrive.

They aren't going to catch up to the 360, it's just not going to happen this generation. Instead why not position themselves as the brand of choice for those who want more than just the typical FPS, or multi-platform title. Play up the underdog status, and switch from the pimple faced teenager focus, to the discerning adult with taste.

Of course I bought mine because I got it cheap...so maybe I'm just wrong. Thoughts?

P.S. I know I left the Wii out. One of the few things I agree with Sony and Microsoft about is that they aren't really competing with the Wii. I haven't turned mine on in over a year...

Sniffle Sniffle

::sigh:: Looks like my favorite game ever may not get a sequel. This saddens me greatly. Perhaps I can go against my better judgement and explain more another time...

In Defense of the Linear Game

As someone who doesn't have hours and hours to play games, I have come to appreciate linear game play more and more. A game I can pick up and know exactly what needs to be done next, that lets me save mid-level rather than dropping me back into an open, is something I can come back to again and again.

I loved GTA IV, it was a blast to play, but I played through the whole game in two weeks for fear that I would lose an idea of what was going on. Such a large open world and complex storyline that did not have to be played in order made coming out of the game and trying to get back into it months later almost impossible for someone who doesn't have more than an hour or two a day to play.

I experienced the same problem with Oblivion. The game was so long and the world so large, that if I didn't play it continuously for hours on end trying to return to the game after taking a break was almost impossible. I spent most of my time re acclimating myself to the world; what I was doing, what the side quests were, where the hell my next quest was supposed to be.

Contrast this with my last play through of Uncharted. The game is short, 12 hours at most, the levels are linear, you go from point A to point B killing whoever gets in your way, and the story was an easy to follow adventure game. The weapons were limited to a few special weapons and handguns that were easy to keep track of, and the characters were easily recognizable making the story even easier to follow. I loved the game, and wish I could find more like it.

Fable II's solution to this also seemed ideal. PeterMolyneux loved to talk about how the in bread crumb trail eliminated the need for a map, and that's true. But for me it also eliminated the need to memorize the world. While the menu system was a bit unwieldy I could jump in find the quest I wanted to continue and then follow the bread crumbs until I got where I needed to go. Here was a very "non-linear" game that still brought a degree of narrow purpose. It told me where I needed to go, and how I needed to get there.

It's not that I don't love longer games with wide open worlds, it's just that I don't have time for them anymore. More over, it really bothers me that often times games are knocked for being too "linear". I love linear games, they make up the majority of my gaming, anyone else have a favorite game that allows the player no degree of control over where they go?

Weird Post

Maybe you'll find this entertaining...I just found it weird.

It's not that I don't like irony, I just think there is a legitimate discussion to be had, and instead all I got was a joke. Real post on the way!

Where have all the editorials gone?

One of the staples of almost every news source has always been the editorial department. Editorial departments of the NY Times, The Washington Post, and others have been some of the most read, discussed, and influential in journalism. For some reason this seems to have been forgotten in today's video game journalism environment, and instead we find the sly comments or state of gaming observations written into the reviews and previews that dominant today's gaming journalism instead written as stand alone editorials. Top ten lists and discussions of retro gaming are all well and good, but they don't add to the cannon of video game journalism, and they certainly aren't going to help legitimize the journalists who write them.

That's a shame. The biggest news stories, and the most discussed video game journalism is what score was given to the latest game. Perhaps that will spark some brief discussion on how scores are given out, or what makes a game great, but this is short lived and usually only conceptually responsive. In other words no one seems to talk about these things except to respond when they see something they don't like or agree with.

There have of course been exceptions to this rule. N'Gai Croal with his Level Up blog is a great example. Providing commentary, editorials, with reviews and interviews mixed in, this was the kind of video game journalism that is missing from the market place. Sadly Level Up has been shut down and N'Gai has moved on. That was a huge loss for me, and maybe part of the reason I am doing this now.

So who will be the H.L. Mencken or Thomas Friedman of video games? Both of these writers have made names for themselves in the editorial pages of their respective newspapers, and have contributed to the national political conversation. That's what I would love to see. Video games can cross state, country, and continental lines, so why can't our discussion happen on such a scale? Why can't what we say here have an effect on how our friends in Germany see and play games? Can that only happen during convention season? I guess there is the problem of there being no video game daily paper, but that's a post for another day.

Begginings

So I wanted my first post here to give me a reason to keep doing this. What am I hoping to accomplish? Is there something I really want to say? Am I going to just forget about this in a month and stop writing all together?

To last question the answer is, I hope not. I've kept a few blogs over the years, and even posted to one diligently for over 2 years, but it was all personal, with the occasional editorial style post thrown in. That's not what I want to do here. I am hoping to accomplish something that I think is missing from massive video game cannon right now.

The Nintendo Entertainment System launched in 1985 in the US. I was born three years prior to that, and basically don't remember a world without video games. Mine is the first generation that can really say that, and now we are all grown up. We have full time jobs, we're married, we have children and homes, and the hours and hours we spent playing games when we were younger is a thing of the past.

So how do we make it work? How do you convince your wife that your favorite past time if worth spending the extra family income on? That you are willing to spend a day of vacation because Fable II just came out, and you want to spend some time playing undisturbed. I think these are the types of questions that no one is answering right now.

But most of all I want a place to talk maturely about video games. We have matured, video games have matured, and I think we are missing a place to discuss that. I hope this can be that place.