http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/90239-Police-Say-Adults-Shouldnt-Own-Animal-Crossing
I never thought I would see the day when Animal Crossing games became under-the-shelf products for adults... what a bizarre world.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Correction - Hyper
Speaking of Grand Theft Auto - Hyper magazine p.22 states that the first game had a lot of controversy and offered to give a discount if a speeding ticket was provided when purchasing the game.
If you read the previous posts, there was little, if any, controversy for the first GTA games. I also cannot remember any such promotion from the game's publishers (DMA) or find any history of it. As far as the promotion goes, the closest marketing I can remember being similar to this was one of Acclaim's publicity stunts, where they offered to pay any speeding fine issued on the day Burnout 2 was released. I have no idea if they ever did pay any of the fines they were undoubtedly encouraging, or if they even could; but it garnered press that no amount advertising could ever cover.
I say one of Acclaim's marketing promotions as this stunt pales in comparison to the "Officially name your baby Turok for a year" and I'm sure there was one with a tattoo...
UPDATE: Finally heard back from Rockstar and they have no recollection of such a marketing campaign.
If you read the previous posts, there was little, if any, controversy for the first GTA games. I also cannot remember any such promotion from the game's publishers (DMA) or find any history of it. As far as the promotion goes, the closest marketing I can remember being similar to this was one of Acclaim's publicity stunts, where they offered to pay any speeding fine issued on the day Burnout 2 was released. I have no idea if they ever did pay any of the fines they were undoubtedly encouraging, or if they even could; but it garnered press that no amount advertising could ever cover.
I say one of Acclaim's marketing promotions as this stunt pales in comparison to the "Officially name your baby Turok for a year" and I'm sure there was one with a tattoo...
UPDATE: Finally heard back from Rockstar and they have no recollection of such a marketing campaign.
Barbarian - history in the making
Palace Games released a sword wielding beat-em-up game named Barbarian, I mentioned it in the previous post (or the following one, if you're reading this top-down) and it reminded me of the rest of the game's history.
The first thing about the game was the ability to behead your opponent, the other barbarian, if you timed one of the moves correctly; it could be pretty tricky to pull off later in the game, but it was kinda fun. Especially watching the creature dragging off the body, kicking the head along. That caused a lot of fuss - especially in the ever-reserved Germany where a long list of games have been banned and are still being banned today.
The second thing about the game was that it started the career of Wolf from the UK's Gladiator TV series. He was on the cover of the game box as his first gig and he was noticed by the producers of the show; which led him to becoming a house-hold name. On the box, he stood alone with sword in-hand and faux bear-fur briefs on-hip, but it was not always that way, which leads us to the third thing.
In the original game, the Page 3 model Maria Whittaker was on the box cover too in a matching faux leather bikini. But it was decided by the censors that it was sexist to have a semi-clad woman on the cover, so she was removed, leaving the less than semi-clad man. The 80s were like that.
The first thing about the game was the ability to behead your opponent, the other barbarian, if you timed one of the moves correctly; it could be pretty tricky to pull off later in the game, but it was kinda fun. Especially watching the creature dragging off the body, kicking the head along. That caused a lot of fuss - especially in the ever-reserved Germany where a long list of games have been banned and are still being banned today.
The second thing about the game was that it started the career of Wolf from the UK's Gladiator TV series. He was on the cover of the game box as his first gig and he was noticed by the producers of the show; which led him to becoming a house-hold name. On the box, he stood alone with sword in-hand and faux bear-fur briefs on-hip, but it was not always that way, which leads us to the third thing.
In the original game, the Page 3 model Maria Whittaker was on the box cover too in a matching faux leather bikini. But it was decided by the censors that it was sexist to have a semi-clad woman on the cover, so she was removed, leaving the less than semi-clad man. The 80s were like that.
BAFTAs - The gaming ones
By accident, I caught the video game BAFTAs on the BBC News website as a live feed; it wasn't being broadcast on television due to it only being a multi-billion worldwide industry. I was following the live updates from game journalists and the general public but I found it somewhat grating with the amount of garbage still written about games in general.
Check it out here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7933672.stm
Why was it a shock that Super Mario Galaxy would win best game, when everybody (and I include the rarely happy Zero Punctuation) thought it was a good, or even great, game? I cannot find one bad review of it; which is a rare thing.
2216 The BBC's Daniel Emery writes: I'm gobsmacked. One of the biggest selling games of all time, GTA IV, revolutionary in so many ways, has failed to pick up a single industry award.
The above quote, amongst other similar ones from people claiming to be journalists, regarding Grand Theft Auto (GTA IV) caught my eye, mostly following along the lines of their amazement at GTA IV not winning any awards.
"But it sold so well..." So did Enter the Matrix, 'nuff said.
"It was so revolutionary..." The 'IV' in the title should give away any indications as to the originality and innovations in the game.
The first top-down GTA games were original, innovative and fun games to play; so much so that most people passed them over in their haste to play the shiny 3d games that were coming out around the same time. The third GTA game, handily named GTA III, took it into 3d with excellent results carrying forward the central concepts and introducing some new stuff that would become staple thereafter. I am a big fan of the GTA games, even the cut-down hand-held (GBA) one which is one of the few that I have actually completed; and given that they are developed in Scotland, I have obvious bias. However, just because it's good, or even really good, it shouldn't automatically get burnished with the innovation label.
As a bit of a digression, it's worth nothing that people only got upset about the violence in GTA once it had become a 3d game and it didn't raise a politician's or censor's eyebrow prior to this. However, having now gone back to top-down for the hand-held Nintendo DS console, the violence in the game is making headlines again. Go figure. The upshot is that you can buy the first couple of games and expansion packs allowing you to do all the same stuff with more-or-less the same graphics that are in the new DS game, but people will only complain about the new one.
To put that in context, the game on the left is Barbarian (the Palace Games one); it caused a lot of fuss at the time and was banned in Germany for violent content. Can't see it being banned now...
Check it out here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7933672.stm
Why was it a shock that Super Mario Galaxy would win best game, when everybody (and I include the rarely happy Zero Punctuation) thought it was a good, or even great, game? I cannot find one bad review of it; which is a rare thing.
2216 The BBC's Daniel Emery writes: I'm gobsmacked. One of the biggest selling games of all time, GTA IV, revolutionary in so many ways, has failed to pick up a single industry award.
The above quote, amongst other similar ones from people claiming to be journalists, regarding Grand Theft Auto (GTA IV) caught my eye, mostly following along the lines of their amazement at GTA IV not winning any awards.
"But it sold so well..." So did Enter the Matrix, 'nuff said.
"It was so revolutionary..." The 'IV' in the title should give away any indications as to the originality and innovations in the game.
The first top-down GTA games were original, innovative and fun games to play; so much so that most people passed them over in their haste to play the shiny 3d games that were coming out around the same time. The third GTA game, handily named GTA III, took it into 3d with excellent results carrying forward the central concepts and introducing some new stuff that would become staple thereafter. I am a big fan of the GTA games, even the cut-down hand-held (GBA) one which is one of the few that I have actually completed; and given that they are developed in Scotland, I have obvious bias. However, just because it's good, or even really good, it shouldn't automatically get burnished with the innovation label.As a bit of a digression, it's worth nothing that people only got upset about the violence in GTA once it had become a 3d game and it didn't raise a politician's or censor's eyebrow prior to this. However, having now gone back to top-down for the hand-held Nintendo DS console, the violence in the game is making headlines again. Go figure. The upshot is that you can buy the first couple of games and expansion packs allowing you to do all the same stuff with more-or-less the same graphics that are in the new DS game, but people will only complain about the new one.
To put that in context, the game on the left is Barbarian (the Palace Games one); it caused a lot of fuss at the time and was banned in Germany for violent content. Can't see it being banned now...
Looking in from the fringes
I am more and more finding myself missing something that everything around me points to as being really important; the media, the adverts and the games themselves.
Why is it than when I complete the Resident Evil remake on the Gamecube I get the option to play through exactly the same (long) game again with the main character wearing a different costume? What? Why would I want to that? Why would anyone want to do that?
Why would I be interested in playing a beat-em-up with the character wearing a different pair of trousers? Why would I want to paint an in-game car a different colour? Do go-faster stripes actually make the car faster? On the subject, why would I want a new Nintendo DS because the plastic is a new colour? What did a platinum Gamecube or Silver PS2 provide that the others didn't? If it did have anything useful that the others didn't then it would be incompatible with the standard unit, so it makes no sense.
What is it with all these things that add nothing to the game, but are given as some kind of bonus? Never once have I played a game and thought, "I can't wait to play all this again with the character wearing a new hat."
Why is it than when I complete the Resident Evil remake on the Gamecube I get the option to play through exactly the same (long) game again with the main character wearing a different costume? What? Why would I want to that? Why would anyone want to do that?
Why would I be interested in playing a beat-em-up with the character wearing a different pair of trousers? Why would I want to paint an in-game car a different colour? Do go-faster stripes actually make the car faster? On the subject, why would I want a new Nintendo DS because the plastic is a new colour? What did a platinum Gamecube or Silver PS2 provide that the others didn't? If it did have anything useful that the others didn't then it would be incompatible with the standard unit, so it makes no sense.
What is it with all these things that add nothing to the game, but are given as some kind of bonus? Never once have I played a game and thought, "I can't wait to play all this again with the character wearing a new hat."
Monday, March 16, 2009
Common Forum Mistakes - 1
nintendo sux . they keep making the same mario and zelda games over and over again and @ssh0les keep buying them . sony rulez
I came pretty late to the Nintendo party; they really never got a hold on the UK while the ZX Spectrum and C64 ruled the roost, followed by the Amiga and Atari ST. A console by its nature was restricted in what games it could provide (try playing The Hobbit or Gunship on a NES) and those console games cost a lot, lot more. These home computers also gave myself, and many others, the taste for doing our own programming, without having to worry about silly stuff like licensing and IP laws.
I raise all of the above in explaining that I never actually played on a Nintendo console until my wife one day told me she really liked playing Mario while she was an au pair. Being the first time I had ever heard her express any sentiment on any game, I ran out and got an N64 and Mario64, from a mobile phone shop I had seen them still for sale (they had been discontinued well before). I connected it up, invited said wife in and showed her the Mario game.
"What's that, then?"
"Its the Mario game you talked about!"
"I've never seen it before..."
It appears she had been playing a Super Mario game on the NES... but no matter, I sat down and played a Mario game for the first time. It was a revelation for me; it was the first time in years I had been blown away by any game and I played it for quite a long time thereafter. I'd never seen so much crammed into a game before, the fluidity of the controls and the excellent, never getting in the way, camera.
All this leads me back to the original statement shown above; it is very, very wrong in every way conceivable. Let's look at the Mario games:
Super Mario Bros. 3 (1990) is a side-on scrolling platform game and considered one of the best examples of game design ever created. It showed what could be done with the with a platform game and how well simple controls could be used. The game still plays well today, even if it still has that old-school difficulty that I'm just not used to anymore; you know, when you were expected to practice a game to become good at it. The amount of secrets in the game was impressive and the variety in the levels is somewhat surprising given the limits of the NES.
Super Mario 64 (1996) was the first real, free-roaming 3d platform game (ignoring fixed perspective 3d games like Knight Lore and Head over Heals many years previously). Amazingly, though it was the first, it got so many things right that other games have still not managed to do as well to this day, one specifically being the camera. It was designed around the analogue controller for the N64 console; although it is worth noting that this controller was not, as many have stated, the first analogue joystick ever released (I think, personally, that the Vectrex may hold that honour). I cannot emphasis enough how good this game actually is to play; although it didn't work very well as a re-release on the Nintendo DS (NDS) hand-held console; pretty much due to the NDS not having an analogue controller.
Super Mario Galaxy (2007) took the genre to a completely new level, again, with gravity-bending planet hopping in a very, very 3d environment and, once again, utilising a totally new kind of controller; the one released with the Wii console. Special mention should go to the music for this one and the running story book as you progress through the game. The thought and planning that had gone into the game design for this and pretty much every other Super Mario game (yes, I do include Sunshine in that list) puts most other games to shame.
Then there are sport games like Mario Strikers, multi-player games like Mario Party and the rarely equaled racing game series Mario Kart (also considered a classic genre-creating game and one of the only games my wife will play) amongst many others. The upshot of all this being that since Mario is the Nintendo mascot, his image is used in a lot of their games. To say they are all the same would be like saying that just because you are born in a certain month, you will go out and do the same things as everyone else who was born in the month with the same name.
As far as Zelda goes, if you've read the previous posts you will know my thoughts around the original Legend of Zelda game; however, Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time is also considered to be one of the best games ever made (and one I enjoyed greatly myself) and bears little resemblance to Wind Waker, Link to the Past or the Gameboy Colour exclusive titles. The distinction is more subtle in the Zelda games if you haven't actually played them.
Ironically, these games get a lot of stick for having the same backstory but completely different gameplay, whereas FPS games get accolade when using the same gameplay with a different backstory.
I came pretty late to the Nintendo party; they really never got a hold on the UK while the ZX Spectrum and C64 ruled the roost, followed by the Amiga and Atari ST. A console by its nature was restricted in what games it could provide (try playing The Hobbit or Gunship on a NES) and those console games cost a lot, lot more. These home computers also gave myself, and many others, the taste for doing our own programming, without having to worry about silly stuff like licensing and IP laws.
I raise all of the above in explaining that I never actually played on a Nintendo console until my wife one day told me she really liked playing Mario while she was an au pair. Being the first time I had ever heard her express any sentiment on any game, I ran out and got an N64 and Mario64, from a mobile phone shop I had seen them still for sale (they had been discontinued well before). I connected it up, invited said wife in and showed her the Mario game.
"What's that, then?"
"Its the Mario game you talked about!"
"I've never seen it before..."
It appears she had been playing a Super Mario game on the NES... but no matter, I sat down and played a Mario game for the first time. It was a revelation for me; it was the first time in years I had been blown away by any game and I played it for quite a long time thereafter. I'd never seen so much crammed into a game before, the fluidity of the controls and the excellent, never getting in the way, camera.
All this leads me back to the original statement shown above; it is very, very wrong in every way conceivable. Let's look at the Mario games:
Super Mario Bros. 3 (1990) is a side-on scrolling platform game and considered one of the best examples of game design ever created. It showed what could be done with the with a platform game and how well simple controls could be used. The game still plays well today, even if it still has that old-school difficulty that I'm just not used to anymore; you know, when you were expected to practice a game to become good at it. The amount of secrets in the game was impressive and the variety in the levels is somewhat surprising given the limits of the NES.
Super Mario 64 (1996) was the first real, free-roaming 3d platform game (ignoring fixed perspective 3d games like Knight Lore and Head over Heals many years previously). Amazingly, though it was the first, it got so many things right that other games have still not managed to do as well to this day, one specifically being the camera. It was designed around the analogue controller for the N64 console; although it is worth noting that this controller was not, as many have stated, the first analogue joystick ever released (I think, personally, that the Vectrex may hold that honour). I cannot emphasis enough how good this game actually is to play; although it didn't work very well as a re-release on the Nintendo DS (NDS) hand-held console; pretty much due to the NDS not having an analogue controller.
Super Mario Galaxy (2007) took the genre to a completely new level, again, with gravity-bending planet hopping in a very, very 3d environment and, once again, utilising a totally new kind of controller; the one released with the Wii console. Special mention should go to the music for this one and the running story book as you progress through the game. The thought and planning that had gone into the game design for this and pretty much every other Super Mario game (yes, I do include Sunshine in that list) puts most other games to shame.Then there are sport games like Mario Strikers, multi-player games like Mario Party and the rarely equaled racing game series Mario Kart (also considered a classic genre-creating game and one of the only games my wife will play) amongst many others. The upshot of all this being that since Mario is the Nintendo mascot, his image is used in a lot of their games. To say they are all the same would be like saying that just because you are born in a certain month, you will go out and do the same things as everyone else who was born in the month with the same name.
As far as Zelda goes, if you've read the previous posts you will know my thoughts around the original Legend of Zelda game; however, Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time is also considered to be one of the best games ever made (and one I enjoyed greatly myself) and bears little resemblance to Wind Waker, Link to the Past or the Gameboy Colour exclusive titles. The distinction is more subtle in the Zelda games if you haven't actually played them.
Ironically, these games get a lot of stick for having the same backstory but completely different gameplay, whereas FPS games get accolade when using the same gameplay with a different backstory.
Funny things happen on the way to the forum
The internet allows us, for the first time, to have many-to-many communication. It also allows us more information than we've ever had before at our fingertips. This has led to the ability to provide feedback on news articles and for informed discussion over a range of topics. If an argument is presented, you can quickly look-up any background information or confirm certain facts to present a well formed argument in response.
This is highlighted no better than in game forums, where such is the level of familiarity of the subject matter, that the complexities involved in the medium can be boiled down into a single phrase along the lines of:
xbox sux ftw
or
halo rox - woot
... regardless of the subject being discussed. I'll be dealing with common misinformed (or generally assumed) forum statements from the ignorant masses; opinionating on things they actually know nothing about.
It would seem that as long as you don't actually play or spend any time finding out the details of what you are talking about, you can rest easy behind your shield of ignorance. In the land of forums, not knowing you are wrong seems to be considered to be the same as being right.
This is highlighted no better than in game forums, where such is the level of familiarity of the subject matter, that the complexities involved in the medium can be boiled down into a single phrase along the lines of:
xbox sux ftw
or
halo rox - woot
... regardless of the subject being discussed. I'll be dealing with common misinformed (or generally assumed) forum statements from the ignorant masses; opinionating on things they actually know nothing about.
It would seem that as long as you don't actually play or spend any time finding out the details of what you are talking about, you can rest easy behind your shield of ignorance. In the land of forums, not knowing you are wrong seems to be considered to be the same as being right.
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