Welcome to the Home of Game Strategies and Stories
24 Sept 04
It Tokyo Game Show time, so all kinds of information is trickling out. Everyone seems excited about getting their hands around a PSP. All the reports seem positive Oh, surprise, surprise, the PSP will support MP3's. The PStwo has gotten lots of buzz. I still don't understand the flip top, but otherwise it seems to be doing well as far as the press is concerned. I did like the explanation of the lack of the hard drive. Essentially they said the only people interested were the hardcore gamers and they already have PS2's so there. Ok.
Of course there was this little tidbit from Polyphony: Gran Turismo 4, the first online version, won't be online after all. They're going to release for Christmas without online then later next year release another version that has online. Ok.
Let's see, the PS3 will use Blu Ray. That means up to 54 GB disks. Wow. That sort of ties into the next bit. There are reports around the web that small publishers are scared of the next generation of consoles. It seems the time and costs of a AAA title is expected to skyrocket. I guess they don't read this site.
For those of you that missed it and don't want to wade through the archives or use the search function, I'll recap my vision of the future. It's all going to be about the experience you create. Sure the days of everyone with their own custom engine might be over, but is that such a bad thing? It's time for the rise of Middle Ware. Maybe Peter Jackson will do a film about it someday.
I keep going back to my movie analogy. There's a big market for high quality cameras, editing machines, lights and the things used to make movies. The same thing will happen in the games community. You'll need graphics engines, physics engines, sound engines that conform to certain standards and can work together. The hard work will still be in making the games. Right now if you see a game with the Lithtech engine and Havok physics, you have certain expectations, but nothing that tells you the game will be great or that it will suck. In fact, the only quality indicator there might be from that is that there will probably be less bugs since the engines are well tested.
Yes, I'm predicting a broad support industry for the games industry will emerge. I saw one complaint about the need for high resolution models. I wouldn't be surprised to see groups specialize in that. Todd McFarlane's company could probably start doing that now without changing what they do much at all. I'm sure other artists could band together and do the same thing. I was reading the other day about an orchestra that specializes in game soundtracks (Nimrod Symphony Orchestra).
So yes we might lose some publishers in the short term, but if they can't get out of the rut of "everything from scratch every time," maybe that's not such a bad thing. The new train is coming, get on board. Whatever you do, don't lie down on the tracks and complain about how unfair life is.
Did you see that Immersion Corp. won a patent infringement suit against Sony over "vibrating controllers?" I'm sure the appeals will take forever and a settlement will be reached. I think we're headed for a major overhaul of the way the patent system works.
Jason
Comments?
23 Sept 04
Since I gave you a little update on Houston weather yesterday, I figured I should let you know the big news. Houston is about to be hit by a hurricane. Ok, actually the remnants of Ivan have reformed and are expected to make landfall tonight. It's such a ghost of its former self that it's almost laughable. Unless it sits over us for two weeks like tropical storm Allison did a few years ago. Then that would suck.
Who says developers and publisher lack a sense of humor. I've been hearing reports on the net about two recently released games. While I tend to decry excessive and intrusive copy protection, I must admit I was amused to hear this. It turns out if you use a no CD crack while playing Kohan II, your upgrade town center button actually functions the same way as the demolish town center. Yes, it essentially makes the game unplayable, but it is amusing. I'm sure the crackers are hard at work on a fix.
Apparently, EA did something similar with The Sims 2. When you install a no CD on it, the build menu is disabled. Again that makes it quite hard to play the game. I am amused, but part of me would like them to take the time to consider why people would use a no CD crack and realize that not all of them have criminal intent.
Oh, there's also reports out there of a utility that removes the censor blocks from the Sims 2. If you're interested in that kind of thing, Google is your friend.
Jason
Comments?
22 Sept 04
Well, it's now fall. Of course, in Houston that doesn't mean much. Not as hot, doesn't really equal cool. All the ads are good to go again. You can use them as you will with plenty of time for your holiday shopping. Thanks to everyone who's used the links to make a purchase.
I've been trying to come up with a continuum for the RTS genre. This is still sort of an evolving thought so please bear with me. It seems to me one end of the spectrum would be your pure building games. So things like Simcity 4, SimGolf, and Rollercoaster Tycoon. You have a lot of pressures on you, but no combat. It's all balancing resources with building.
Next, you move on to games like the City Building Series. Games like Zeus and Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom and the forthcoming Children of the Nile. The focus here is on building a stable and prosperous city. You might have all kind of external threats, but the greatest pressures and balancing come from within.
Moving on down the continuum, we have games such as Space Colony or Startopia. I'm sure I should be able to come up with an example not set in space, but they escape me at the moment. Any these games are about setting up your people or "sims" for success. You try to meet their needs and accomplish objectives. There is combat and it might be part of your objectives, but it's not the heart of the game. It's more of a diversion from the other challenges.
After that we reach citadel style building games. These are games like Evil Genius, Dungeon Keeper 2 or the Stronghold series. You're building a prosperous base and trying to keep your minions at peak performance, but combat is one of the main goals of the game. You simple cannot avoid it. Good base building with poor combat management won't cut it here.
Now we start to switch over. Now combat is becoming more important than base building. We have games like Kohan or Warrior Kings. You must build solid bases to withstand attack, but their primary purpose is to support your armies of conquest. Buildings now serve to move you up the tech tree as well as providing the resources to build your army. On the other hand, losing a major stronghold will probably result in the loss of the game.
Continuing, the buildings start to diminish in importance. Here we get to some of the most popular games like Warcraft, Command & Conquer and Starcraft. Here you'll often build multiple bases. Some will be sacrificed or abandoned. The bases are the means to get your army and climb the tech tree, but they can always be rebuilt. In fact, sacrificing a minor base to seize resources or cut off your opponent is a tried and true strategy. Here build orders are good, so you don't worry about your base and can focus on your army.
Now we're getting into more heated battles. The pace picks up as we get to games like Sacrifice and Battlezone II. Yes, you have structures to build and resources to secure, but you spend barely any time focusing on that. If all your structures are destroyed the game is over, but if that happens, your army has already been smashed. Defensive strategies can still win however.
If that's still too much base building for you, perhaps you want something more like Homeworld 2 or Warhammer 40k: The Dawn of War. Yes, there's work to be done before you get the most powerful units, but most of that work will be conquest. You have to seize areas to capture their resources. Those areas will constantly be under some form of attack. Defense? The best defense is a good offense. Smash them before they can smash you. Sure, you might have to pull back and regroup from time to time, but it's only to hit them harder the next time.
Now we reach the far end of the continuum. It's all about tactics baby. We have Ground Control II and games like Freedom Force. It all about how, when and where to hit them. You need to use surprise and tactical advantage to defeat your opponent. None of this building nonsense. About all the building you do is healing your units and consolidating forces before attacking again. All combat all the time.
So what do you think? Am I on the right track? Have I completely lost it? Close, but I'm miscategorizing some games? Drop me a line or comment on the story or post in the forum.
Jason
Comments?
21 Sept 04
Well, amazingly enough, Sony did actually announce the PStwo today. I put up some links on the news section of the site. The price remains at $150. It looks like they kept the IR receiver. The network adapter is built in, but there's no space or option for a hard disk drive. There only seem to be three drawbacks. One, the lack of hard drive support pretty much means that any future HD support from Sony is gone. Two, the power supply appears to have been moved out of the case resulting in a large transformer "brick." Three, the disk is inserted via a flip top. I can live with the first two, but why in a space saving device would you make a feature that requires you to have three times the depth of the device available above the device?
Maybe it's just me, but don't most people still use entertainment centers of some sort? It's quite common to have four shelves. So now you have the Xbox with its curved top and the Gamecube and PStwo with flip tops so you can't stack any of them. Hopefully, they lengthened the cables for the PStwo since you'll have to pull it out each time you need to change a disk.
I've long had the feeling that Sony was looking for an excuse to kill off the HDD support. They never seemed enthusiastic about it. They never pressured developers to use it, and they haven't made it easy for customers to get one. I think when products like HDAdvance and HDLoader came along, the execs felt their excuse had arrived. With the PStwo coming on the market is there any reason at all for developers to support the hard drive?
I don't want to sound too pessimistic. Overall I'm pleased with the new PStwo from what I've seen. Less heat, less noise, and hopefully a lower failure rate. Perhaps we'll even see a price drop to the magical $99 point after the holidays.
There are reports that certain games will not be compatible with the new unit. It should be interesting to see that list.
Jason
Comments?
20 Sept 04
I fixed all but one of the ad links. See if you can guess which one. I also added a new link to Lik Sang. It's fun just to look around there even if you don't want any of that stuff. Where else can you find a pair of knock off Dreamcast Maracas? Can someone from overseas tell me if they can use the Amazon link or if they force you to use your local version. Thanks.
Gamespot has an excellent article up on the Valve/Vivendi lawsuit. Check it out Here. There are some interesting implications in both the original suit and the subsequent counter suit. I'll sum up a little, but you really should read the article. It's one of the better pieces discussing a complex issue I've ever seen from the gaming press.
In short, Valve sued originally because they said that Vivendi Universal Group and Sierra (VUG) were licensing Half Life games to cyber cafes. (Side note: I'd love to open a Cyber Cafe/Gaming Center one of these days, but the more I look into the complex licensing involved, the more unrealistic it seems) Valve claimed this activity was beyond the scope of the original agreement. Of course arguments over royalties and production schedules were later added.
VUG counter sued claiming that Valve essentially mislead VUG to gain the right to have online distribution. VUG claims that even their amended agreement doesn't allow direct competition as they view STEAM.
Well, that's pretty convoluted, but the article explains it well. There's a lot of money out there and each side wants to maximize their slice of the pie. I've gone through the whole necessary evil thing about publishers before, but this really seems to drive it home. How would gamers feel if VUG got an injunction stopping Valve from releasing Half Life 2 over STEAM?
That's not to say that Valve is clearly in the right. It's quite possible that VUG was lead to believe that the online clause was to be used for "harmless" activities such as making sure all players had the same version, mods and maps when they tried to play each other. That is opposed to steam which is clearly a revenue generating model.
On the other hand all those could be resolved without any impact to gamers. Some of the other issues could be more serious. Who owns the intellectual property of Half Life? Could you imagine Valve being barred from making another Half Life game? Or, what will Valve produce next if VUG enforces its option on the next property from Valve and Valve isn't satisfied with the results of the suits?
As if that weren't enough controversy, notoriously independent developer Derek Smart weighed in on the issue in this thread on the Gone Gold forums. Sorry, but I just had to use this great quote:
"There's nothing surprising about it. Most publishers are run by scumbags and its only when devs like myself, Valve and others - who make news - get to sue, that it gets heard about.
Practically ALMOST every publisher besides Microsoft, EA, Take Two (which seems to have cleaned up their act since going public) and a few others, is either currently
1. In breach of their contract (in some form or another) with the developer
2. Is being sued for breach of contract (e.g. not paying royalties, cooking the books etc
Such publishers are EVERYTHING that is wrong with this industry; which is why in the very near future (closer than you might think), games are going to be content delivered online more often than not."
Certainly that's a little different than the average gamer. It's interesting to think of the giants, EA, MS and Take Two as being the good guys. Still there's no better way to support developers than actually paying them everything they're owed.
Since all this was so strange, I'm following in that vein for this week's game. It's Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne (official site) from Atlus for the PS2. Sure it's technically a RPG and not even a strategy RPG at that. However, the battles seem to offer a good deal of strategic options including the ability to stop fighting your opponents and recruit them to your team. You can also fuse your team members together (did I mention they're demons?) to form more powerful creatures. Since all this takes place in modern Tokyo after the apocalypse, it should be an interesting ride.
Jason
Comments?
© Talk Strategy 2004
