Category Archive » Gaming

My first 'Lord of the Rings Online' demo impressions.
[ April 08, 2007 | Permalink | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

A lot of LOTRO players have taken on a Napoleonic type complex when it comes to LOTRO vs WoW comparisons. Too bad the breadth and depth of comparisons is as great as it is, even if I'm just 7 levels into the game.

You kill stuff, you gather stuff, you run around and talk to random idiots who can't do things for themselves and you get XP for doing all of the above. The only thing I've run into so far that is different from WoW and represents and innovation is how certain events will permanently change the game world.

After you've been questing in the newbie area you will get a quest to go kill a head bad guy. When you initiate the quest you zone into an instanced 'dungeon' (it's a town) and you go thru the dungeon killing mobs and talking to NPCs. After you've done the quest and killed the bad guys you zone back out and the town has physically changed (it's on fire in the instance and afterwards is all singed/burned/under-construction). That right there is a HUGE differentiator from WoW and it is worth playing the beta just see how it works.

For those who haven't finished that quest series yet, they will see the town in it's pre-inferno condition and have quests that apply to the timeline before the fire. For those who have done that quest, the town is all burned and new/different quests are available. In WoW nothing changes until the devs patch in new content, so seeing this change was pretty neat and breaths some life into the game.

Unfortunately, there are too many comparisons to WoW and all of the basic MMORPG mechanics to make LOTRO feel fresh (for me, right now, as a level 7 Burglar). I played WoW for a year and a half and had 86 played days on my main (an undead warrior specced for tanking). As a tank you get used to tedious gameplay and repetitive actions and watching timers, and then you burn out and quit. I did that recently and picked up LOTRO at the urging of my best WoW friend and I'm afraid I might eventually let him down.

The game will certainly evolve into it's own game and the WoW comparisons will fade away into those endless "mac vs pc" threads that only insecure nerds take part in (ahem). I suppose that's a measure of success though since no game has come close to challenging WoW's MMO hegemony. There's enough here to warrant a $5 preorder at EB to try the game out, but the fact that I had to run around and kill piglets to get 6 pieces of pork for a quest says that Turbine hasn't avoided what makes WoW tedious and has instead embraced it. That leads me to believe that I'll let my friend down.

To reiterate; collecting 10 apples for an NPC that is too lazy to walk 5 feet in front of him to collect them himself is NOT FUN. A long quest series that tells a story and yields permanent changes to the game world IS FUN, so I'm causiosly optimistic about the game while being worried that I might end up playing another tedious game. There's other issues with the game that are easily explained away since the game is a beta. There are animations that need to be smoother, textures that need to be smoother and much of the textual elements in the UI need to be refined (WoW's ability to make something clear via text is unrivaled in my opinion).

At any rate, the MMO market is ripe for an FPS, that's for sure. My guess is that LOTRO might be able to be the game I play until a good MMOFPS comes out, but then again, it might not.


Review: RalliSport Challenge 2 for Xbox
[ June 03, 2004 | Permalink | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

The most telling fact about this review should be that I finished the game. There are four racing series ranging from Armature to Professional to Champ to SuperRally. The last one only unlocks when you have beaten the Champ series.

Each series plays out like a NSCA March Madness like bracket where you ear points in each race cluster you finish. A race cluster being anywhere from one to four races. If you do well and place first, you get 20 points, and you need a certain amount of points to advance to the next bracket of available races. This allows you to play thru the entire solo campaign more easily and non-linearly than the first game where if you didn't win, you didn't advance.

In the Pro series I played each and every race, won all of them and fished that series with a perfect score (720 points I think). In order to save time in the Champ and SuperRally series, I only bothered to race enough to gather enough points to move on to the next round, but I did finish the solo campaign. But, don't think that it never got tough, or challenging, because it did, especially in the snow rally races in Sweden.

The reason I played everything is due to the all around polish the game has over other such titles as Toca Race Driver 2 and Project Gotham Racing 2. The standard of visual quality in RC2 of Toca2 is an order of magnitude, while the difference between RC2 and PGR2 is not as pronounced. In many ways RC2 is just a dirty version of PGR2 with a way more organic feeling with all the dirt flying around, and with a boost in graphical realism.

Toca2 has a pretty wide range of racing styles, and within it's own universe of rally racing, RC2 offers ample variety. Hill climbs, rainy nighttime rally racing, downhill dirt fests, stadium ice racing, mud with standing water, leaf covered tarmac, etc. All of this variety is underscored with pretty well designed and well implemented environments that very much feel like the english countryside, or the cliffs over Monaco, or the snowy forests of Sweden. Add in the elevation changes, and you get something that is much more interesting than Project Gotham Racing 2.

On the other hand, the variety of cars leaves something to be desired (for me anyway). I may be ignorant about rally cars, but for the most part, many of the cars feel, drive and act the same. The Suzuki loves to get sideways, the Volvo 240 loves to bounce, the Tacoma is nice and fast, and the 206 T16 looks like an ice cream truck. Besides these examples, there isn't much car variety.

For those who want to play online, you really should (and are pretty much forced to) play the offline campaign to unlocks the cars you will need to be competitive. The Supra and the Saab are fast, and if you are puttering along in the Opel (which has the most awkward sounding clutch/shifting mechanism), you are going to lose. I liked being able to onlock everything in Toca2 (for a price of course) without having to finish the solo campaign (which is a lot harder than the RC2 solo campaign, imho).

Also, for the online play, more than four player races will be automatically set to wireframe mode, and the wireframes are stylized, and extremely distracting. If colissions were not turned off, a 16 player rally would be a terrible racing experience, so I think they made the right decision there, but the wireframes are just horrible. Also, they totally screwed the pooch on the voice communication while racing.

You can only hear who is directly in front of you, and directly behind you while racing (in the lobby you hear everyone). If you are third in a 10 player race, you can only hear and talk to second and fourth place racers. It makes it really tough to have a conversation with anyone due to the many position changes that occur in most races. what's worse is that the leader and last place racer will only hear who is second or in front of them (respectively). This MUST be fixed imho, and setting it to be three people in front and behind would be a huge improvement. I suspect bandwidth issues are at play here though, and I have no hope for a change.

The bandwidth is, I believe, being sucked up by the car telemetry. As far as I can tell so far, the position of cars while racing is more accurate than it is in PGR2. Quite often, I will get bumped or bump someone in PGR2 and that situation played out differently on the other person's screen where the bump was more significant, or no bump happened at all. I have yet to experience that in RC2.

The online scoring is similar to PGR2 where your points only go up, and really are just a measure of how much you play the game. There is no ELO rating to tell you who is really good or really bad at the game, so it's hard to be a stat whore in this game, and I think that's for the best.

Last, I want to mention that the XSN integration in the game is very interesting, and I wish more games had it. It's too bad XSN is being shelved for the next year because it could enhance other games that aren't necessarily sports (eg, Crimson Skies). The organization of rally racing thru XSN allows for competition when you, as an individual, have time to compete. This is a great addition to the game and is a should be significant factor in your decision to buy a racing title for the Xbox. PGR2 and Toca2 are both worth the price, but the newness and overall polish on RC2 has resulted in RC2 getting all of my racing play time.


Major Nintendo DS HCI issue.
[ May 13, 2004 | Permalink | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

IGN got a chance to play with the new Nintendo DS, and had this to say...

Movement is done by the D-pad: side-step left and right, run forward and backward. To lock onto a target, players hit the L trigger. Aiming, rotation and shooting is pulled off with the stylus; dragging the stylus around will have Samus turn and look up and down, offering a sort-of "mouselook" FPS control to this shooter on the DS. Shooting is performed by repeatedly tapping the screen…obviously the faster players can tap, the more shots they can get off.

Using that picture of the orange theme DS as a guide, imagine this...

The D-pad, which is on the left side of the unit, is used "side-step left and right, run forward and backward" and locking on to enemies requires the left trigger (right next to the left index finger of the person in the picture). So, my left hand is holding the left trigger down, and my left thumb is moving the D-pad. And now I'm supposed to use a stylus in my right hand to fire...

I'm left handed. And the fulcrum provided my left hand means the unit is going to get torqued down as I pound it with the stylus in my right hand while trying to kill the enemy. This sounds beyond awkward, and I hope this is one of those tech demo things where they are showing something working as opposed to showing how it should actually work/be-fun.



Review: Toca Race Driver 2
[ April 27, 2004 | Permalink | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

I have played thru 27% of the solo campaign and have played a few multiplayer races in Toca Race Driver 2 for the Xbox (Toca2) and I think the game is "better than I thought."

I have been playing Project Gotham Racing 2 (PGR2) for months now and have almost all of the cars unlocked. Almost. You have to play the game a lot and win the solo campaign on increasing difficulties to earn token and unlock cars. I'm unable to win all of the races on the most difficult settings which means I won't ever be using the two top cars in the game. But that's ok because I can still whip Action Replay lamers with my GT1.

Toca2 takes a approach to this by allowing you to just buy your way into all cars and tracks. For three quid (or a little less than 5 bucks) you can buy unlock codes. The game is good enough that I expect I will be playing it online enough to want to have all cars unlocked, so I bought the codes. I paid money for less than 50 characters of data.

A nice thing about this is that the solo campaign isn't won by paying for the unlock codes. It keeps that separate so you can play thru that campaign, which is, for the mast part, enjoyable. You go thru many races in various cars and tracks to become a racing superstar. The cut scenes are 'well produced' or so I'm told, but I think they are dumb and add nothing to the game play. Maybe I'm just more objective based when it comes to games and just want to know what that objective is without some story line matrix.

The races are not easy, and there's no difficulty setting (that I have found yet; more on that later) like there is in PGR2 (where you can do each races in one of five difficulty levels). But, you aren't expected to win each but instead get objectives like 'place in the top three' or come within two places of these other racers. I like that because it makes it possible for the race to be set up with many more cars and it places in back in the pack, so there's lots of overtaking (out braking your opponent is how to win) in the races. Overtaking is fun.

It's a racing sim instead of an arcade racer like PGR2. When you make a mistake, it costs you, especially if you break the wheel off of your Formula Ford (an open wheel race car). Power sliding is something to master just like it is in PGR2, but it's a more delicate art than the brute force, point grabbing slide-a-thon in Gotham. The different types of cars in the games this tough to do, because just as soon as you get used to the slow turning Formula Ford, you get into carts that turn on a dime. This variety is one of the major underlying features of the game and gives it at least as much depth as Gotham in the 'each car is different' category. I think Toca2 may do this better than PGR2.

Another variety factor in favor of Toca2 is the types of cars available to you. Open wheel racers, rally cars, classic street cars and modern super cars are all there. So, in one session you might be on the world renowned Nurburgring F1 circuit and the next may be a rainy, muddy Rallycross sprint over the moors of England (on and off road). PGR2 offers pavement in the day or night, or in the rain.

What Toca2 doesn't do better is the menu systems. The UI is nice and clean, and the loading screens are clever, but navigating around is confusing with odd names for some menu options (to get to Xbox Live games, you have to hit the 'Simulator Modes' menu). Also, one menu with 5 options might have three of them on the top of the screen, and two on the bottom, then when you select one of them, the next menu may be along the top of the screen in a horizontal row. There's a confusing quality to the menus that requires you to learn them.

Menu systems are not gameplay though. We buy and 'play' games, and Toca2 is certainly worth buying and playing. Since it's a budget title ($29.99) it makes the purchase of unlock codes easier to swallow and raises the 'value' of the game higher than if it was the typical $50. In an ocean of racing titles on the Xbox, you may overlook this one, but you shouldn't.


Unreal 2 is... uh, not so great.
[ February 29, 2004 | Permalink | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

This is of course all IMHO, but...

I bought Unreal 2 based on previous Unreal experience and the prospect of adding vehicles to the mix. To bad the game is unpolished, unnecessarily complex and self-imbalancing.

The character animations are just weak. It's 2004 for crying out loud and Epic could only manage death animations that are rough approximations of falling down, and doing so within a few frames. Everything in Tribes 1 was better than everything in Unreal II.

The Multiplayer game is far to complex for its own good. The not-immediately-spawning thing is pretty cool and allows you to change your character class before you choose to spam. That's cool. But the choice on where to spawn based on which spawn points your team has captured accelerates unbalance team play when the other team gets forward spawn points. And don't bother using a vehicle to get anywhere because they are easily killed and they go from 'just fine' to 'blowing up.'

As the game goes on you capture generators to get energy for your team. The more energy, the more weapons and tech available to you. It doesn't take too long before one team has captured enough gens to rob you of any energy, so they have all the toys and you are stuff with your pea shooter. It's as if the game is designed to unbalance itself as you play and allows a critical mass to develop that should NEVER exist in a multiplayer game. May God help you if you are on a shitty team, because if you are, you will lose, period.

Also, a major gripe is the user interface in MXP mode (why call this MXP?). The HUD has sooooo much crap on it that getting an accurate or meaningful status is difficult and since this is a first person shooter I have no time to be scanning the interface for multilayer status indicators...

That's right, weapon status and energy have two layers. With the weapon portion of the HUD there's a bar for ammo in the current clip, and a bar for how many clips. And for energy there's you energy level and the team's level. There's about 10 icons for the tech items and diff colors for their status. So grokkable, no wonder it's #1!

There's a bunch of other crap on the screen that I have no clue about and the manual gives no info about. Thanks Epic. And thank you too Best Buy for not taking back opened software products.


Video Game legitimization.
[ February 27, 2004 | Permalink | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

I hadn't thought that playing video games would be characterized as "going mainstream" (because I've played them since the 2600) but more and more often I see stories in the news saying that video games are indeed doing that. As far as I can tell, this happened a long time ago in a Mushroom Kingdom only a power switch away. This audio stream (Real; bleh) from the BBC discusses how the BAFTA's (the Brit Oscars) are adding games to their awards.

When I was in line at the local 'Hair Sluttery' waiting to get my mop cut I was playing Mario&Luigi with a kid right next to me coveting my Gameboy with sidelong glances and likely wondering why this old dude was playing video games... oh wait, games are "going mainstream."


Key command inconsistency on Xbox Live games.
[ January 05, 2004 | Permalink | 3 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

On our computers we expect that the key labelled "x" will give us an "x" on screen when we push it down. On our Macintoshes, we expect the key combo "command-q" to quit the currently running application, and on our Windows machines we know "alt-f4" will kill the top most window on the screen. These are system wide standards and allows us to work faster by reducing the stream of thought to complete our goals to almost zero.

At some point, hitting "command-s" or "control-s" is second nature and is made even more efficient by muscle memory. Really, you only need to say to yourself "I should save my work" and your hands find their way while you keep your eyes on the screen. There's no need to loop-up the key combo or to think about how to do it, you just do it.

In their interactive menus, Xbox Live games (at least the ones I've bought) do not leverage this fundamental usability concept. All of these games very similar features...

• Search for games
• Create a new game
• Manage your "Friends" list and see what your "Friends" are doing
• Quickly join a game without doing a search
• Refresh and re-run your search for games
• Invite "Friends" into your game
• Change the game rules

Not all Xbox Live games have the same feature set and not all games have as many game modes as the others, but all of these games do have the features mentioned above in common. The unfortunate problem is that some games use one button for something and other games use a different button for that thing. For example, Project Gotham Racing 2 (PGR2) uses the blue "x" button to refresh and re-run your search for games. Crimson Skies uses the yellow "y" button for that, and puts the 'friends' menu on the blue "x" button. PGR2 puts the 'friends' stuff behind the yellow "y" button.

Now, take a moment and reflect back on Microsoft's decision to own everything associated with Xbox Live...

[A Microsoft Representative] defended the closed network approach of Xbox Live, in which Microsoft maintains control over the network, even bandwidth used to run titles from third-party publishers. Many publishers haven't invested in network resources and appreciate having Microsoft do the heavy lifting, he said. The unified approach will also benefit customers, as they will need only a single user name and password to access any online game.

More to the point...

"[Microsoft is] giving you a (complete setup) that means you don't have to worry about infrastructure or billing or security."

Shouldn't centralized control yeilds some HCI standards? End users shouldn't have to deal with mismatched methods for doing the same actions within a game. But, does it really matter? Well no, because it's just a video game system and there's more important issues out there, but I find that I have to stop and consciously think about what I'm doing when I'm playing my Xbox Live games, and I kind of feel weird saying this, but good (entertainment) experiences can often be tarnished by making me think.


The online video game paradox.
[ December 09, 2003 | Permalink | 1 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

The problem with online multiplayer gaming is the other players.

Internet enabled video games are, in my opinion, WAY more fun and have far more replayability than solo only games. This boosts the value of the game and makes the $49.95 price I paid for Project Gotham Racing 2 and Crimson Skies easier to swallow. Now, being who we are and what we are (competitive boys, but sometimes the ladies get into the mix), the online experience can be highly engaging, compelling and immersive. But this is a double edged sword because of who we are and what we are (again, boys).

Back in the day, online gaming meant gameplay with people you have never met and never heard. Now, with the Xbox communicator, I have to listen to anyone who wants to talk, and often it's a pure stream of epithets, abused english and stories about utterly random existential minutia. The game makers realize this and have started tossing up interstitial screens when logging onto Xbox live stating that the ESRB rating of the game make take a nose dive due to the real live humans out there.

Of course I can mute people, and often do so by going thru multiple menus (a slow and annoying process), or I can just take the headset off, but then I miss out on the benefits of voice communication in the game. Being able say "be at such and such a place on the far side and attack from the left" creates an incredible advantage against a disorganized enemy. Unfortunately, real cooperation is rare in the loosely organized games you find in public arenas, and most often the ESRB warning was right.

Are you an Xbox owner and a non-idiot who wants to play some online games with a similarly situated individual? Then post a note here or send a friend request my way (gamertag = Circ).


$2,772?
[ December 05, 2003 | Permalink | 2 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

So, Space Invaders was kinda cool back in the day (I was more of a Defender and Asteroids kind of guy) but I think this is just dumb...

Japanese game machine maker Taito Corp said on Friday it plans to restart sales of "Space Invaders" in the United States, almost 25 years after the game first appeared in video arcades.

Taito aims to sell 10,000 of the stand-alone game machines at 300,000 yen (U.S. $2,772) a unit.

Uh, $2,772? that's a pretty big price to pay for nostalgia and a meagre amount of technology. And besides, Geometry Wars is way cooler.


I want a console better than the PSX.
[ December 05, 2003 | Permalink | 4 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

The scaling back of the PSX (as I first learned of at 8bit) is making the device very un-compelling for me, and confirms my suspicion that I wouldn't but the thing. As mentioned by 8bit, "The device will no longer read CD-R and DVD+RW discs." DVD+RW will be supported, but not all DVD writers can write that format.

I mean, come on, the only reason to cut that support is to ineffectively fight piracy and to annoy people who make their own DVD's (such as myself who has a nice DVD of his daughters first four months of life). The 'no CD-R' part is probably a stab at pirate SVCD's, but that's just a guess. Sony makes the point that they had to cut features to get it out before Xmas, but when you release an anticipated product 10 days before the big day, you aren't going to see the sales thruput you wanted. Chances are that you will undersupply the market place with a rushed/flawed product.

8bit also mentions that "MP3 file playback has been removed but digital music playback is still there using the Sony ATRAC format." The lack of CD-R support and lac of MP3 support begin to make this media device not be a media device. And the facts seem a little fuzzy on the ethernet port being included or cut. No ethernet means, imho, that it's DOA. The huge ass price ($600+) is another non-starter for me, but enough complaining, here's what I want in my next gen game/media/entertainment console (roughly in order of importance).

Large Software Library

Sony owns the other consoles when it comes to depth and breadth of their software library, but the Xbox is coming along pretty well, and Nintendo is way behind (but is the only place to get your Mario/Zelda/Yoshi/Viewtiful-Joe fix, and is $99 for the console, so it's a no-brainer). Lots of software means lots of choices and lots of choices means there is going to be something I want/like.

Ethernet

This one is pretty simple and fundamental... without an internet connection I can't play multiplayer games (split screen is such a bad experience (imho) that it does not qualify for 'enjoyable multiplayer gaming'). My Xbox has network play and my Gamecube does not and I spend more time with my Xbox than my Gamecube by a 2 to 1 margin, and all of that time is spent online (eg, PGR2 and Crimson Skies). Network play is where it's at, and WarpPipe underscores that fact.

DVD Playback

Nintendo's decision to use the small DVD format and the small DVD format tray means that I can't put my movies into it and play them. I can do that on my Xbox, which handles wide screen formatted movies nicely (I have a 16x9 HDTV Ready Samsung in my living room), even if it will only play them at 480p (720p would be suhweet).

HDTV support

Optimally, a pure digital interface from console to TV would be cool, but component video (as it stands currently with the Gamecube and Xbox) is already working well and doesn't cost a ton to add into a system (where digital outputs are kind of costly). More importantly though, I want my next console to support playing back DVD's in 720p and for the games I buy to play in 720p with support for 16x9 display. that would require a somewhat beefy main processor and graphics subsystem.

Web Browsing

Yes, that's right, I said it... I wanna surf on my TV. Seriously, sometimes I feel the need to use my TV to find some info about something. Usually it's a transient interest, or my wife has the laptop and I'm stuck without a web browser, and browsing on the TV would be good enough. If I had my 720p display going on my ethernet/internet enabled device, the web browsing wouldn't as horrible as it is on such devices as WebTV. I'm sure folks like MSFT would love to sell a shrink wrapped package that has a mini operating system on it with some basic internet functionality (web, email, etc). And that brings up another desired feature, a keyboard which would best be implemented using Bluetooth. If MSFT did the shrink wrapped app disk idea, it would likely be polluted by their own applications and Passport requirements. But, that could be worked around by the next item...

Publically Available SDKs

If anyone could develop software for this device, then I might be able to things like read RSS feeds on this device, or chat with people, or play music thru a custom interface. If the only software that can be run is software approved by MSFT and written by people who paid a fee to do so, then the scope of the software I can run, and the scope of what my investment can do for me, is limited/diminished. I realize however that globally dominate media corporations want to control every aspect of media consumption and don't want me to engage in fair use of the things I buy (or permanently rent thru licenses), so this is a total pipe dream.

Digital Video Recording (and a big fat hard drive)

Two hard drive bays, one or both of them customer serviceable, and DVR capabilities would allow me to cut my list of devices down by one (I love you Tivo, but you are a space hog) and boost the amount of recording time available to me as the prices of hard drives decline. The scheduling interface could be done thru the aforementioned browser and the recording would support the aforementioned high definition format.

Backwards Compatibility

By now you should be picking up on the fact that I'm making an Xbox 2 wish list, and that I'm dream land (or is that "la la land"?). I have invested my money in several games for my Xbox and I don't want to lose out on that investment. I tend to play the games I buy for a long time (I played Tribes2 for 2 years) and would want to keep that going on the next system. Backwards compatibility really should be that hard, but I imagine the other features I'm asking for are not going to come from MSFT.

DVD Recording

Now, I'm really dreaming, but it would be really nice to record all of these Futurama episodes from my Tivo onto DVD's to keep them from eating up valuable space. Right now, I have 31 episodes of Futurama on my Tivo, none of which are available on store buyable DVDs (which I bought, and used as a guide to which episodes I could delete from my Tivo). I'm sure the MPAA would fight a cheap widely available digital recorder due to the afore mentioned desire to own/control all aspects of the media I consume.

Internet Voice Chat

My Xbox already has this, so I'm really just adding it in here as a footnote. With Xbox Live, I can chat with other Xbox Live subscribers while inside of the game, or even outside of any games at the main Xbox interface. That's pretty cool, and the quality is on par with my land line phone. If I got my mom this wonderful media machine, I could talk with her and bypass the ass rapingly high long distance charges.

Video Game HCI/Ergonomics
[ November 26, 2003 | Permalink | 2 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

Video game nerds who are also into human/computer interaction issues and ergonomics might find this article about video game controllers interesting (and they might be nerdier than they think)...

First-party controllers are almost always reliable in the way of comfort and accuracy, but they do vary from one product to another. It's often a very personal and preferential thing; I happen to prefer to play racers on GameCube. I don't think any gamer can avoid this partiality. To that same end, however, there are many games, often first-party published, that I couldn't imagine playing on another console's controller.

In my experience, this is true, except for the horrible first version of the Xbox controller. That thing was huge and felt like you were holding a watermelon in your hands. Even worse were the triggers under the controller (which you pull with your index fingers) that had very strong springs in them, so holding the trigger all the way down for more than a few seconds would cause muscle fatigue.

At the other end of the spectrum is the Nintendo Gamecube controller, which was made with kids in mind and is smaller than the original Xbox controller. There is a smaller Xbox controller available now, but its trigger springs are still too strong, and a racing game that uses the trigger (such as PGR2) turn into a carpal tunnel accelerators.


Metcalf's Law and broadband gaming decisions.
[ October 30, 2003 | Permalink | 1 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

Metcalf's Law states that...

The usefulness, or utility, of a network equals the square of the number of users.

Online videogames are the ultimate proof of that law, which leads to purchasing decisons when considering which version of a game you will buy. For example, XIII is due to be released in the coming weeks, and will have an online component to it. Experience tells me that the Xbox, PC and Gamecube versions will not be online compatible (for any one of several reasons, such as code differences and unfair advantages for keyboard and mouse based players, Xbox/MSFT meddling). If my assumption is wrong, this application of that law is moot, but it's fun to prattle on about it, so...

Microsoft's Xbox seems to have pulled ahead of Nintendo's Gamecube in terms of total units sold. Moreover, the Xbox is meant to be an online gaming machine (ethernet on-board) and the Gamecube is not (broadband adapter sold separately). Don't take my word for it, just listen to what Nintendo said when it announced an online gaming deal with AOL...

The company reaffirmed that as of yet it is not developing any online games for GameCube. It stated: "To be clear, this does not indicate the unveiling of a new online gaming approach from Nintendo. Nor does it signify that we have changed our position on the current business viability in the online console gaming field."

Being a long time network gamer, I find that to be a truly unbelievable statement (why announce something like that without the huevos/games/business-model to back it up). More empiracle evidence hardens my position where the online component of Crimson Skies (which I bought mere hours after posting a question about which game to buy) shows you how many Crimson Skies purchasers have played it online. As of today, it was over 20,000 and seems to grow by 1,000 a day.

Nintendo wasn't completly honest when they said that the deal with AOL did not represent an "unveiling of a new online gaming approach from Nintendo", because there are changes afoot. Kirby Air Ride, 1080 Snowboarding and Mario Kart: Double Dash all support LAN based multiplayer gaming. Better yet, some folks are working on moving that over to the Internet much the same way Halo internet play was enabled a year ago. This fact will probably make me buy the Nintendo Broadband Adapter and get it hooked up to my home network, but how many other people out there will buy the broadband adapter and Mario Kart and set-up Warp Pipe and be online when I am. One guy I work with will satisfy all of those conditons.

I have already made my XIII purchasing decision though. The value and power of the Xbox Live system will make XIII online play more viable/possible/enjoyable. I can't hazzard a guess as to how many more/less people will go for the PC version, and if that pool of players will be more valuable a gaming resource á la Metcalf's Law, but you can be damn sure that more Xbox owners will pick up XIII than Gamecube owners making that pool of players exponentially more valueable when it comes time to find a game of CTF.


I need a new online game.
[ October 24, 2003 | Permalink | 2 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

PC gaming certainly was a lot of fun back in the day ("back in the day" = three years ago) because there was plenty of great modem based online gaming available. I was a major Myth addict 'way back in the day' and later moved onto Unreal Tournament and then to Tribes and Tribes 2. During this time, I made the required video card and processor upgrades, but continually fell behind the curve and was/am unwilling to buy a new PC for the sole use of gaming (I do my work on a Mac).

Life without 2+ ghz processors and Radeon 9600's means that you move back to consoles as your video game delivery mechanism. In my case, that was a Gamecube and an Xbox purchase meant to satisfy two needs; Mario and Zelda action, and PC gaming without the Windows.

I've got the broadband running at home now and have been playing MechAssault and Unreal Championship recently. For some reason they don't have the longevity that I was hoping for (but I certainly have gotten my money's worth on each because I got each of them cheaply and have put in 100+ hours on each (but I still suck)). I need a new online game and the choices are these...

Choice #1 ->   Midtown Madness 3

I'm very interested in seeing how online racing games work and if they can be any fun. I'm also curious to see if the type of person playing them is any different than the jerky 16 year olds I tend to find in the first person shooters.

I assume racing games are more episodic than deathmatch sessions where you can just drop in and start fraggin' the aforementioned zit factories. Does this appeal to my 32 year old gameplaying sensibilities, or will i always be waiting for a race to start? I have RalliSport Challenge, and I can go from turned off Xbox to rally action in about 20 seconds.

Choice #2 ->   Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge

I have seen several good reviews for this game in terms of graphics, style and online play. This game would be less of a departure from FPS play than Midtown Madness but would still be within that genre making my extensive experience at sucking at FPS's slightly useful. And besides, I don't have any flight based games for my Cube or Xbox and this would probably be the best choice to change that.

Choice #3 ->   XIII

I'm pretty positive that I'm going to buy this one when it comes out in two weeks. In particular, I'm interested in this part of what the game has to offer...

Sabotage stood out at the one most likely to get the most play when XIII launches in a few weeks. One team plays offense and the other is defending. The team on offense has to detonate bombs in three specific areas that the defense will be trying to protect. Bombs spawn at the offensive team's base and can only be used one at a time and hand delivered by one of the players to one of the target areas. The bomb carrier isn't handicapped while carrying the bomb and so he can still shoot and use all of the weapons at his disposal, but once he gets to the target area --indicated by a big red numeral 1,2 or 3-- that's when trouble begins. The carrier has to trigger the bomb by selecting it from his arsenal and then continuously press the primary attack button to arm it. It takes 12 seconds for the bomb to be armed, during which the carrier is totally vulnerable since he can't fire any of his other weapons. If at any point, he removes his finger from the fire button before the bomb is armed or if he moves too far away from the target area, he'll have to fire again within the target area to restart the countdown. Repeating this process for the other two locations can make for some dramatic encounters with the defense.

That all sounds like the type of network gaming I want to play. Tribes had a seige based online gametype, and it was lots of fun if you had enough people to play it. Unfortunately, it wasn't the most popular gametype next to CTF and the ever present Deathmatch.

This entire discussion goes on in parallel with the gut wrenching decisions to make on Gamecube purchases. Viewtiful Joe is a must have and I was thinking about Rebel Strike too, and I'm not done with F-Zero yet...and...and....

Too much to play, too little time to play it.


A wireless architecture for getting an Xbox online.
[ September 16, 2003 | Permalink | 1 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

Due to problems with the physical communications architecture in my community (fiber, not copper, so no DSL for me) and bad local government deals with cable monopolies (I hate you Adelphia) the only broadband option in my neighborhood is wireless. You have to have broadband to play your Xbox Live games, and being a fan of online games (I love you Tribes2) I wanted to get my Xbox online when I originally bought MechAssault (a long time ago in a Best Buy not so far away).

Also, due to the fact that my wife likes the house to be well apportioned and clean, cables laying along the baseboards will simply not be happening. I'd do it if i were alone, in an apartment, playing Quake all day long, but I'm a father, and I don't want my house to look like shit box. Therefore, wireless gear will have to come to the rescue.

So, taking the two points outlines above to heart, I laid out obscene amounts of cash to get all of the gear I need to virtually crush 16 year old boys into the virtual dirt (or the other way around, as the case may be). That gear includes all of the following...

1. A pizza box shaped wireless receiver
2. A Linksys BEFW11S4 router and wireless access point
3. A Linksys WET11 wireless bridge.
4. A 5 port SMC switch (so i can get my TiVo online too)
5. An Xbox and the Xbox Live kit

And connected it all in such a way as to make the diagram below factually accurate, but proportionally inaccurate like the London Underground maps... As noted in another post here at IMX, there are several issues that folks need to deal with when using an Xbox with wireless gear, most notably, Linksys gear. I found one particular point to not be an issue for me...

For all you people having problems with WET11 and not being able to connect 2 xbox's together using system link i have a solution (if you are using a LINKSYS wireless access point router and a LINKSYS WET11 bridge). All you need to do is download the latest version of the firmware for the BRIDGE (version 1.5.4) and install it. Once you have that downloaded and installed you need to download the latest setup wizard (version 1.06) in order to configured the BRIDGE, you cant configure it without it (unless you can figure out the ip address). Then use the setup wizard to set up the bridge (but remember the ip address of the bridge) then once the setup wizard is done and has you exit you need to open internet explorer and put the ip address in the address bar and go to it, both the username and password should be the same (admin). Then once you are in (able to configure the bridge) you NEED TO ENABLE MAC ADDRESS CLONING!!!

1. download firmware update for the bridge and install it
2. download the latest setup wizard, go through the setup
3. enable MAC ADDRESS CLONING on the bridge!!!

4. you can now play with 2 xbox's using system link!!!

Now to any of you who understand my instructions, have fun!

-Posted by laubsterboy on May 31, 2003 01:56 AM

I did not enable MAC cloning, but I do filter by MAC address, and was able to find the Xbox MAC address when I installed the Xbox Live software from the disk that came with the start up kit. Lucky for me, all of the gear I bought had all of the up-to-date firmware installed, so there was no upgrading annoyance involved, instead, I had to enter in all of my personal info into the Xbox using the controller instead of a keyboard. THAT SUCKED but the games I've played have been lag free so far.


I'm buying the Gamecube version.
[ September 03, 2003 | Permalink | 4 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

One upcoming game, that has gotten almost zero press, but looks like an awesome game, is Freedom Fighters...

In a world where the Soviet Union won the Cold War, a fierce conflict is unfolding in the streets of America. Taking on the role of Christopher Stone, players evolve from an average New Yorker into a fearless patriot who recruits and leads an army of freedom fighters in the streets of New York City. Freedom Fighters combines the depth of a squad based game with the intensity of an action-packed war game that unfolds in the streets, subways, and buildings of the city.

For the UI geeks out there, one of the more interesting UI designs in the game is the circular weapon selection menu seen to the left. I suppose it's ironic though that this type of menu is best suited to a random access, mouse based pointer selection system, rather than the linear tab-like progression used in the game.

I especially love that a huge monkey wrench is in that menu as a selectable weapon. Blunt force trauma baby!

Previews are available at GameSpot and IGN.


Has Nokia made 'pay to play' even less attractive?
[ August 20, 2003 | Permalink | 4 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

I'm not sure if there's some journalistic sloppiness here, or if Nokia is plain stupid, or out rightly greedy. But consider the following...

1. The Nokia N-Gage will have Bluetooth local networking connectivity.
2. C|Net sates that "Wireless gaming is expected to generate $8 billion a year by 2007, according to figures provided by Sega."
3. C|Net also states that "N-Gage gamers will use minutes from their calling plans to play."

If playing a multiplayer game on an N-Gage, via Bluetooth is going to cost me calling-plan minutes, then the user is being ripped off, hand over fist. I assume that Bluetooth will be the method of multiplyer gaming simply because Nokia says so when they say "The Nokia N-Gage game deck enables wireless two-way gaming and multiplayer gaming via Bluetooth connection."

Bluetooth operates in the 2.4 ghz spectrum (along with cordless telephones, 802.11b and 802.11g networking gear, and baby monitors) and does not use the cellular/pcs/gsm networks, therefore, charging customers their calling plan minutes is pure and utter bullshit. I hope C|Net is has its facts mixed up.


We've come a long way, dorfie.
[ August 18, 2003 | Permalink | 1 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

Back in the day, Hex editing Myth game files was all the rage (for Myth nerds anyway). Do you want a dorf (dorf == Dwarf) who throws arrows instead of molotov cocktails? No problem, hex edit that bad boy and do whatever you want. These days, the l33t thing is to hack Halo.


The waiting is the hardest part.
[ August 06, 2003 | Permalink | 9 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

I want these Gamecube games.
Release Date	Title	Studio	Previews
August 25, 2003	F-Zero GX	Nintendo	IGN	Gamespot
September 10, 2003	P.N.03	Capcom Entertainment	IGN	Gamespot
September 23, 2003	Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike	LucasArt	IGN	Gamespot
October 7, 2003	Viewtiful Joe	Capcom Entertainment	IGN	Gamespot
October 9, 2003	XIII	Ubi Soft	IGN	Gamespot
October 27, 2003	Pikmin 2	Nintendo	IGN	Gamespot
November 18, 2003	Metal Arms: Glitch in the System	Vivendi Universal (Sierra)	IGN	Gamespot
December 1, 2003	Mario Kart: Double Dash!!	Nintendo	IGN	Gamespot

A day late and a dollar short.
[ June 05, 2003 | Permalink | 1 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

Ok, maybe not a dollar short, but for crying out loud, the update for Myth II: Soulblighter just came out yesterday. The game was originally released, what, three years ago? And I just love these bug fixes...

Version 1.4 adds over 100 enhancements, bug fixes and new features to Myth II: Soulblighter, in the areas of: graphics; interface improvements; elimination of plugin lag; elimination of chat lag; elimination of the 'walking bug', new mapmaking features; AI improvements and bug fixes; optional vTFL (virtual TFL) gameplay, which effectively brings both games and communities to the same program; and much, much more.

The "chat lag" and "plugin lag" issues are primarily the reasons why I stopped playing Myth II (usability and user experience issues!). I was a beta tester for the game, and those bugs existed back then, <sarcasm&rt;but the game shipped before Christmas!</sarcasm&rt;. Seriously, it did actually ship before Christmas that year due to heavy pressure to get the game out and make some money. This came after years of pressure release systems that made Bungie great. They always said "soon" or "when it's done" when they we asked about release dates. But this time, they totally screwed the pooch.

But, at least they actually fixed these issues and perhaps made the game playable (and it's one the greatest game types ever conceived). I was a total Myth addict (I used to be a Myth news reporter back in the day) beginning with the original Myth release (I got it two days before release, and played it for 2 years straight). I might actually pick it back up a little and check it out, even if it's three years late.


Gameboy Advance controls make some games good and some bad.
[ January 21, 2003 | Permalink | 6 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

In the old days, most (all?) video game controllers were digital in nature. If you pressed a button, the signal was "on" and if you didn't the signal was "off." Take a look at the Nintendo game controller, and you will see the directional pad in the shape of a plus sign. When you push one nub the signal goes something like "right is on" and the game system deals with it as needed. On or off, up or down, that's the way the signal used to be.

I think it was the original PlayStation (or maybe the Nintendo 64) that introduced the analog stick to the game console world. Now, the controlling signal sent to the game was something like "up about 20% and to the right about 68 degrees" which makes fine tuning possible in a game. This makes skills based games possible (and yes, keyboard and mouse are probably the best skills based game play control scheme available, but that's not the point). The fundamental difference in the control scheme has a massive impact in terms of being able to control the game.

I own a Gameboy Advance (GBA) which is essentially a Super Nintendo in a tiny little handheld form factor. The controls are all digital with a four way directional controller. That controller is actually 8 way if you push the controller to make two contact points trigger. So, top and left points both down means, "diagonally up to the left." Analog sticks offer 360 degrees of control AND a proportion of how much in that direction.

Super Monkey Ball 2 (SMB2) is a skills based game where you guide a monkey in a ball to a goal on the play map. Obstacles, patterned movements of the playing area and randomness get in the way, but using your trusty analog control stick, you can leverage your skills. Without the analog stick, this game suffers immensely. I own Super Monkey Ball 2 for Gamecube (which has an analog stick) and Super Monkey Ball Jr. for Gameboy Advance (which has digital controls). The Gamecube version is far more playable, complex and FUN than the GBA version. It has EVERYTHING to do with the control scheme.

Advance Wars is as good on the GBA as SMB2 is on the Gamecube, and it has everything to do with the control scheme and using to the benefit of the game. Advance Wars is a turn based strategy game that would be suffer it were a Gamecube game, and the producers of Super Monkey Ball Jr should have taken the controls more into account when making the game. The version of SMB for my Sprint PCS Vision phone (a Samsung n400) is better aligned with the control scheme (the dial pad, which is, incidentally, the worst game controller ever) but costs $4 for limited gameplay and actually EXPIRES after a month or so. That's lame.


Nintendo amazes me.
[ January 07, 2003 | Permalink | 3 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

In my short life I have bought...

1. a Nintendo
2. a Super Nintendo
3. a Nintendo 64
4. a Gameboy Advance
5. a Gamecube

Those last two items can talk to each other, and that will likely make me buy more software titles from Nintendo, just to see it work. To do that, I'll need to buy the aforementioned software and then add in some more hardware to get the Gameboy to read these trading cards that have old school Nintendo games on them. Unbelievable!

One of the true values in the Nintendo universe is the immediacy of the experience. The Gamecube boots in a few seconds, and requires little effort to get a game going. To go play a round of Tribes2 I have to boot my PC (over a minute, and quite likely to complain about something) and then dial in, then start the game (and if that game is Unreal Tournament, that load time feels like days), then connect to the master server, select a game server, then wait for the map load, and then play. sprinkle in random modem drops, or game server drops, and the value gotten from the process drops like a stone.

Back to the Gamecube. It boots quick, plays games well and has good software titles that can be found no where else. For a vidiot game junkie like myself, that's a compelling feature set. Nevermind the Gameboy Advance/Gamecube integration.

Also, I'll be buying the new Gameboy Advance SP as soon as it comes out. Damn you Nintendo.


Xbox Live for the motivated only.
[ October 22, 2002 | Permalink | 22 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

I play online games like any red blooded American and would love to get my Xbox online (if only to say that I can) but have a look at this set up process mentioned at Kuro5hin...

I set the system up in a fairly simple matter: cable goes to my TV already.  I split cable (you can get your local cable company to do this) so one goes to the TV, and one goes to the cable modem.  I connected the cable modem to a wireless router (I recommend SMC's Barricade).  Lastly, I plugged the Xbox into to one of the router's ports, and set the rest of my network up for wireless.  Voila.  Internet in the living room.

I like figuring stuff out and getting stuff to work. Most other techies out there share that sort of interest as well, but how many of them have an Xbox and a fast connection at home. Very little.

Now, balance that (if you can) against the line up of games available for the Xbox (live and un-live) and it ads up to a big ass yawn compared to the new Lord of the Rings game available for the Playstation2. DROOL. [December 12 update: LOTR for Xbox is now coming soon, but the fact remains the game line up for PlayStation is at least much larger, and likely, better]

My point? Compare the experience of getting your Xbox Live mojo going compared to any other gaming platform, and it doesn't look compelling (yet?).


User Centric Design makes for tough decisions.
[ October 16, 2002 | Permalink | 4 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

I have yet to work on a web application or regular ol' website (including this one) where I didn't have to make a decision that wasn't 100%. To be a bit more clear, every site or app I've worked on has some feature, or bucket of content in a somewhat odd place.

As a site or app gets built and features and content buckets get added, removed and modified, odd conventions arise due to other conventions you are trying to adhere to but can't due to one bucket spanning multiple other buckets, or one feature creating value for three different outputs. Have I lost you yet? If not, you are probably a web developer or IA. Let's take out experience over to the Gameboy Advance.

Arcada Zen is a blog focusing on video gaming and human computer interaction which is, imho, a big deal. The author makes this point about the Gameboy Advance...

the unit is miserable to play except under the most ideal light conditions.

Its a complaint everyone seems to have, and yet I wonder how Nintendo could fail to understand their users' needs.

This is one of those things where two user needs are battling against each other and the blogger lost. The problem with backlighting a Gameboy is weight and battery depletion. Currently, there are two double A batteries in my (pink) Gameboy Advance (that I originally bought for my wife because she actually wanted one, but I'm the only one who uses it). Those two batteries are pretty light and moderate use of the unit eats the batteries kind of quickly. I am a 31 year old male with a good job. I can afford batteries, and I can hold up the unit with no trouble.

My nephew is also a Gameboy Advance owner (his is blue), and he has a little trouble holding the thing in the right position to play for too long (especially with the unwieldy third party lighting apparatus). Imagine adding in the gear for backlighting, and another 2 or 4 batteries to support that. This core constituency of little kids couldn't be ignored by Nintendo, who had a tough choice to make with their product based on the needs and desires of disparate users (eg, my nephew and I). Should they have added in backlighting, and make the unit bigger, heavier and more expensive to run? Or, slim it down, and lower the price of the unit?


Wireless bridge to an Xbox, not.
[ September 12, 2002 | Permalink | 43 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

[Note: Dec 30, 2003; This relatively old post has been seeing more traffic now that Wireless tech and the Xbox have become cheaper and more popular. Read the comments left by the people below to get some good info on how to set up your Xbox on a wireless network. I have it working at my house.]

I've said before that I think wireless is the last mile solution that is desperately needed in these here United States. But, this won't work out for Xbox users who want to subscribe to Xbox Live (or so says this guy on slashdot) and this is too bad.

I'm expecting Adelphia to finally get cable modem access out to my area sometime before the end of the year and I was planning on doing the following...

1. Bring connection into house.
2. Patch it thru to the second floor (for full 1st and 3rd floor coverage).
3. Attach it to a Linksys wireless access point.
4. Bridge that with the Linksys WET bridge.
5. Attach my Xbox (on the 1st floor) to that bridge.
6. Make all my other machines (a tiBook running OSX and a Wintel box) talk to the access point.
7. Go sterile from all the radiation.

Sounds like a plan, right? Well, maybe not.

Update: Nate notes below that there is a fix for this issue. Thanks Nate.


Console controllers suck for complex games.
[ June 27, 2002 | Permalink | 1 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

I made a not so intelligent decision to buy Morrowind for the Xbox. Don't get me wrong, it's a great game that is eating up lots of my time. It's like gamer crack, but playing it via a console controller is not the way to go. Especially when I have a PC sitting a few feet away with the best game interface ever conceived, the keyboard and mouse.

For racing games, and simple games like Gauntlet, a console controller is fine. Even more complex platformers like Banjo & Kazooie play just fine with a controller. Unfortunately I have found myself getting mauled by any random monster while I hold down the X button on my Xbox controller while frantically pulling the left trigger, going from item to item, until I find the object need to help stomp the monster. I currently have about 30 items in my inventory that all go by when I x-trigger my way thru. On a keyboard, I could (coulda shoulda woulda) program each number key to a specific item.

In certain situations, you need two or three items to kill something (eg, paralyze it with the Dwemer Jinxsword, sap it's willpower with an enchanted ring, and then hack the thing to death with an axe). Man that sounds dorky. Well, it's even dorkier when you have to fumble thru it with a console controller. :^/


Why require broadband for console gaming?
[ June 19, 2002 | Permalink | 3 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

(AS I wrote this, I realized how fragmented and incomplete my initial hunches and conclusions were. Not so ironically, this article is as meandering and lost in the dark as the subject it explores, so read with caution and please bear with me. Thanks)

So, why require broadband for console gaming, User Experience is the answer, plain and simple. UI designers (UID's), Info Architects (IA), Usability Engineers and Product Managers all know that user experience is a significant key to product/project success. One of the first things the UID or IA asks, is "who is the audience?" The answer to that question will direct the development one way or another, towards simplicity (37 signals), or design-y sophistication (k10k, adobe exchange). The same thing goes for the console market, but it's probably less clear how to proceed in that market than it is in the Web App market (after all there's many UI and web dev blogs and self proclaimed experts out there, but how many broadband gaming blogs do you see?).

There have been online gaming announcements by Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo for their respective systems.. What they all have in common is this broadband requirement for connectivity, which has puzzled me for a while now. I'm a PC gamer (ie, I play networked video games on my Windows computer) and have been for several years now. The Myth and Tribes series of games have been my favorites, and I have always managed to be competitive using a 56k modem. So, it has confused me that console games would require the fat pipe, until I accepted console gamers are different than PC gamers (even if Microsoft is trying to bridge that gap).

EA Games, a video game publisher, knows the console gamer well, and knows that broadband is coming. Console gamers play games without network lag, which is a huge difference in expectations for game performance. Quite often I hear players in Tribes2 saying things like 'this map causes lag' and 'user x is causing lag on this server.' Both of those comments reveal a huge misunderstanding of a network game and what is caus