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15 Apr 05
It appears I once again spoke too soon. As I'm writing this, my internet connection is down. Hopefully, it won't be too long until it's up again. Time Warner was actually supposed to be out here today to look at it. Somehow they cancelled the appointment without telling me. That wouldn't be upsetting if the connection was working flawlessly.
Well, I just talked to my friendly customer service representative. It turns out my appointment was automatically cancelled when my internet connection came back online. Fortunately this time they promised they put it in the system as an intermittent outage, and my new appointment should not be cancelled.
If I get this up this weekend and anyone happens to see it, Overstock is having a 5% off sale. You can click the new link at the right of the talkstrategy.com front page (that strangely says White Sale) to get in on the additional 5% off and $1 shipping. Their shipping isn't the fastest, but they have good prices on most items and great prices on some. You might be able to find something of interest, get a great deal and help out the site.
This column is quite a downer so far. Whining and some advertising. Let's try to pick things up. David had his six month shots today. They're a little early to keep his RSV protection up. RSV season is almost over plus he's getting strong enough that he's at less a risk. He's making steady progress catching up to his real age peers despite his rough start.
Debbie and I were looking at some of his first pictures from when he was in the NICU. It's really hard to believe he's the same baby. He looks so big and strong and healthy now. He was so tiny and fragile then. What's even more amazing was that when he was in the NICU he was one of the bigger preemie babies. I wonder sometimes how they doctors and nurses do it there. They deal with death and loss of innocent life on a scale I can't imagine.
That's why we try to take David and his pictures back there. They love seeing him even if they can't recognize him. It's good they can see the joy he brings into our life. I know they need to know things like that when it's rough in there. I've said thanks before, but it can't hurt to do it again. Thank you to all the NICU doctors, nurses and staff at the Memorial Hermann Hospital, the Woodlands
I had a nice spurt of gaming time a few weeks ago. It was nice. I had missed it. Now I'm short of time again and haven't got much gaming in. That's ok. It'd be easier to take if I didn't have so many great titles in the backlog (including Darwinia recently mentioned). Still it gives me a bunch to look forward to. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. It's a great time to be a gamer.
Jason
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14 Apr 05
There's a new Command and Conquer: Generals: Zero Hour patch out today at the Usual Suspects. I like seeing publishers and developers continue to support their games that have sustained communities. As you know I'm not the biggest EA fan, but they do something very well. Those help balance out their evil empire image.
CNN has the story of the game created by the UN's World Food Program to educate kids about worldwide needs and troubles. I'd tell you a bit more about the game, but it appears their site has crashed. In cases like this it's usually safe to blame Slashdot.
The Hollywood Reporter (of all places) has an article on the lack of respect for the ESRB. It seems lawmakers think they're letting game developers run amok while developers chafe against their inflexible standards.
Speaking of Hollywood, our Daily Gamasutra Story is about the potential for a union voice actors strike if a deal is not reached tomorrow. While there are a lot of nonunion voice actors used in games, a lot of big name games and movie licensed games could be affected.
Finally, Nintendo is crowing about a FBI raid that snagged lots of miniconsoles that ran pirated games. I think it's great that this fraud is being stopped as I'm a big supporter of intellectual property rights. However, when Nintendo claims that they lost $860 million in lost sales in 2004, they lose some credibility. I'm sorry no one is paying $50 for Duck Hunt any more. That's the equivalent of 8.6 million Gamecubes. That would put them comfortably ahead of Microsoft in second place.
Jason
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13 Apr 05
Cross your fingers, my connection has been more stable lately. Maybe we can get back to normal.
CDV sent a free downloadable campaign for Blitzkrieg: Rolling Thunder. I decided to try hosting it to gauge interest in this sort of thing. If it's coming too slow from here, you can find it from the Usual Suspects. Anyway, Here's the TS link. Your feedback is always appreciated.
Speaking of new things around here, I finally got the Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War review up. You can check it out Here.
Bill Harris has put up his impressions/review of Darwinia. He seemed to like it. Check it out Here. I'd like to take some of the credit for his enthusiasm. I was one of the early proponents of the game and brought it to his attention. Just as it feels bad when you recommend a game to someone, and they don't like it, you feel good when you recommend a game they like. Thanks Bill.
On to the newsbits, the best I could find for our Daily Gamasutra Story was the sales race between the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP.
Next up, we have Eurogamer reporting that the Xbox 2 is officially going to be called the Xbox 360. The investment analyst article yesterday said Microsoft was shooting for the lower end of the consumer spectrum. Interesting. Gamer reaction that I've read has been tepid at best. Mostly it's been summed up as, "kinda stupid." Compared to the "HD era" tag, it's positively brilliant. I'm sure it'll grow on me. As I recall, I thought the name Xbox was a poor choice. I guess that's why I'm not in marketing.
Shacknews brings us the sad news that ECTS has kicked the bucket. There's still a European game show, so all's not lost. Even though I never got a chance to go, I had some fond memories of ECTS. Times change.
Jason
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12 Apr 05
I've been reading some of the reviews of Jade Empire (Xbox). It's an action RPG from Bioware. The reviews have been interesting. The one camp (I'll call them the 'Good' camp) claims it's too simple, too linear but highly polished. The other camp (the 'Great' camp) claims Jade is near perfect for a console action RPG. I suppose it's possible that both are true.
I haven't played the game (yet), so I can't judge myself, but it's interesting to look at the arguments. I have to feel the good camp is being unrealistic asking for an open ended RPG, with moral choices that affect the game world and a deep fighting system that rivals fighting games (even lighter ones like Tekken and DOA). They also seem to want a game the length of Baldur's Gate II with full voice acting, in 3D with better graphics and load times than KOTOR. That just doesn't make sense. If those are your expectations, I can understand why it couldn't be better than good. I'd also expect that you don't enjoy many games.
I don't know if the game can achieve the greatness some ascribe to it. By all accounts there are many different fighting styles that change the way the game plays. There are many side quests. The moral choices do affect the plot. The game looks gorgeous, has improved loading times, and quality voice acting throughout. I haven't heard many complaints about the story either (beyond the linearity). It certainly sound like it has the potential for greatness, at least if you go in with reasonable console action RPG expectations.
In our daily Gamasutra story, they tell us that IGN/Gamespy is entering the game world advertising business. On the one hand it would seem to make sense. They have the gaming and advertising contacts. They already have gaming plug in tools with Gamespy Arcade. However, we also have the other hand. IGN (and to a lesser extent Gamespy) is known for its obnoxious ads. They're in your face annoying. While it might be a good tool to get people to sign up for their premium service that removes ads, that's not what I want to see inside my games. Hopefully, the competition from Massive Inc. will push them in the right direction. Then they can both compete to see how subtle they can make the in game ads. A webmaster can dream, can't he?
I like to pretend I'm a gaming industry analyst. But really I'm just a jerk with a website that keeps an eye on what's happening in the gaming industry. My problem is that I like looking at the macro trends not the day to day dollars and cents, business plans and advertising strategies. Nobody pays me for big picture. That's probably because what I get is about what it's worth.
That won't stop me from making fun of real analysts though. Forbes reports that Goldman Sachs is projecting Microsoft could ship up to 3 million Xbox 2's in the last quarter of this year. They expect the PS3 to launch in Japan the first quarter of 2006. That's all good and good news. Then we come to the quote about Microsoft's sneak preview of the Xbox 2 on MTV, "This appears to be a tactical effort to show the Xbox 2 before Sony demonstrates the PS3." Really? Ya think? Of course, they could have done that at GDC as originally planned. My take is they want to get it out there, but they don't want to give Sony time to specifically respond. Don't worry, it'll be silly.
Jason
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11 Apr 05
To follow up last week's thrilling news about the Xbox 2 launch. Microsoft has announced a sneak peak. You can get the full details in the news section. Suffice it to say it will be on MTV. I'm guessing it won't be an in depth hardware analysis show. No word yet on Sony's response (perhaps on the WB).
In other megalithic corporate news EA has bought an exclusive license from the NCAA to use the teams, stadiums and schools for football games. Gamasutra has the details Here. It's interesting to note that EA did nothing to soften its image. They didn't do a Take Two and allow first party development. On the plus side, they also were the only company in the last two years to put out a college football game. I'm not sure it would have made any financial sense for another company to put out a NCAA football offering without a pro counterpart. Without being able to leverage the engine and assets from one into the other, it probably would have just been too expensive.
In a sad (depending on your point of view) bit of news, Ubisoft cancelled the PC version of Ghost Recon 2. They did point out that Ghost Recon 3 will be out by the end of the year. On the one hand, reviews of the console versions ranged from poor to decent. The problem was the positive high points listed by console reviewers included the removal of the deep (or complex) tactical interface and the switch to third person view. Those were not exactly the things the original's faithful would be applauding. We'll have to see what direction they take Ghost Recon 3.
I put some more screenshots up from Stolen. I'm not sure it will actually be a tactical game, but the emphasis on avoiding combat certainly should make for some interesting gameplay. It remains to be seen if it will be open enough to qualify. Either way, I always like to see developers try something different.
There is a bit more Xbox 2 news. In the press release from last week regarding publisher support for the Xbox 2, Microsoft confirmed support for the original Xbox through 2007. That's somewhat promising especially if the end of production rumors aren't true.
Also, you've probably seen the buzz about OurColony.net the latest in viral marketing. Although this one sounds like it's pushing more people away than it's pulling in. Supposedly it's for the Xbox 2 and has a counter counting down to the MTV special. If you look around you can find what some players have unearthed. There are some pictures supposedly of the Xbox 2 controller. It looks similar to the S, but moving the black and white buttons to L1 and R1 buttons. It also appears to be wireless. So far nothing shocking beyond the ivory color. They tease us so.
For this week's game we'll revisit an old pal. It's Domination (official site) from Wargaming.net. It's the latest iteration in the Massive Assault series. The sides this time aren't just palette swaps. There are unique units requiring different strategies to employ, deploy and destroy. It's still got the balanced turn based goodness and high quality sci fi visuals you've come to expect, but look for more depth and even more sinister tactics than before. Domination is available now.
Jason
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