MK vs. DCU – Don’t make me laugh!

Appears in The Whit on April 24, 2008.

About another year has passed and it’s time once again for Midway Gamers’ Day in good ol’ Sin City. Every year Midway drops bombshells, announces new projects, and allows attendees to get their eager hands on the latest builds for upcoming games. This year is no different and yet again Midway wows press and gamer alike but this time with a fresh helping of “WTF” courtesy of Mortal Kombat vs. DC.

The only conclusion I can reach is that Ed Boon, who is the co-creator of the Mortal Kombat (MK) franchise along with this little gem, was high when he gave the colorful Powerpoint presentation to sell this “great” idea to all the Midway execs. MK vs. DCU reminds me of one of those “Wouldn’t it be cool if…” ideas that sixth graders come up with around the cafeteria table while eating overcooked burgers and drinking sour 2% milk. Originally thought to be good ideas at the time quickly degenerate into “What was I thinking?” upon reflection several days later.

So here we have staple MK characters such as Liu Kang, Scorpion, and Sub Zero going toe-to-toe with the likes of Superman, Batman, and Aquaman which totally makes sense. Granted, I’ve desperately wanted to see Aquaman get his ass handed to him in general but the pairing here just doesn’t fit. It’s like mixing Lucky Charms with Banana Nut Crunch, they may both be cereals but that is where the similarities end and I don’t think it would taste any good either.

Diehard MK fans will be pleased to know that there will not be any fatalities but fatality-like finishing moves. Basically we get some lame body slam or a punch to the gonads in true Johnny Cage Block + Low Punch style instead of an epic move of gory showmanship. In a recent interview with Boon, he explains we won’t be seeing hearts and spines ripped out by Superman or Batman and that sucks. To me this game feels like a DCU fighting game with MK characters thrown into the grinder for good measure because without fatalities, gore and massive pools of blood it’s not MK. MK vs. DCU will also ship with a T rating which is an MK first, for shame.

Despite my opinions, I’ll admit that the new directions the devs are taking are fairly intriguing. Dubbed the “clean slate” approach by Boon and his cohorts, everything we know about the MK fighting system will receive a total revamp. The weapon and multiple fighting style systems we’ve gotten used to throughout the past few MK games will get the boot and a more brutal, visceral approach gets the nod. Don’t ask me how they’ll do it; I thought impaling someone with a sword was brutal enough.

Also new on the table are three different battle modes called Klose Kombat, Freefall Kombat, and stage interaction. In Klose Kombat the camera zooms in on the action and the player who initiated the mode gets to throw the punches while the poor sap with slower reaction time is on the defensive dodging blows or taking them like a man. Freefall Kombat comes into play when you or your opponents are thrown off a very tall level. When this occurs, you won’t watch the character plummet to their death but you’ll jump with him and battle in mid-air. Stage interaction is just how it sounds. You can throw your enemy into walls, buildings or pick up random objects and have a good ol’ fashioned melee.

Will this game be a success? It may do well financially because it carries the MK and DCU logo all in one package but in regards to quality, we’ll just have to wait and see. Despite the odd backstory and removal of fatalities and extensive gore, I’m intrigued to see what Boon can cook up. My only hope is that other companies don’t try to fit mismatched pairs and make Dragon Ball Z vs. Naruto, Halo vs. Gordon Freeman, or Jesus vs. Satan, although that last one would be pretty cool.

Gamers Rejoice Jack Thompson is no more

Appears in The Whit on March 27, 2008

Any gamer worth their salt knows all about Jack Thompson and his advocacy to ban violent video games, citing the supposed connection between violence in video games, or “murder simulators” as he likes to call them, to violence in real life. His fearmongering, baseless criticism, and outlandish behavior have plagued the industry for years but there may finally be an end in sight.

On March 20, the Florida Supreme Court finally issued sanctions against Thompson after a month of deliberation. This came as a result of a show cause order issued last month where the courts demanded that Thompson “show cause on or before March 5, 2008, why this Court should not find that you have abused the legal system process.” Obviously Thompson’s rebuttal didn’t have any effect on the collective minds of the court.

The ruling means that the court will no longer accept anything from the man unless it is through another lawyer. Judging by how terrible his reputation has become over the years, I doubt any lawyer would want to sully their name by siding with him.

Thompson has been on a long road since he first represented the parents of three teenagers killed in the Heath High School Shooting back in 1999, claiming computer games were the catalyst for then 14-year-old Michael Carneal’s shooting spree on the morning of Dec. 1, 1997.

What followed was a path littered with controversy ranging from filing picture books as documents to including gay pornography into the court filing, issues which caused the show cause order to begin with.

One of his most notorious acts was his open letter sent on Oct. 10, 2005 to several members of the press and Doug Lowenstein, the president of Entertainment Software Association (ESA) titled, “A Modest Video Game Proposal.” In the letter, Thompson explains that he will donate $10,000 to any charity designated by Take-Two Interactive CEO Paul Eibeler if a game was created, marketed, and sold based on a scenario of his design.

The scenario features a protagonist named Osaki Kim, a father who lost a son, who was beaten to death with a bat by a 14-year-old gamer who played a game about beating people with bats. Kim vows for revenge and goes on a killing spree murdering video game developers, company CEOs, and then heads to E3 to off industry execs in “one final, monstrously delicious rampage.”

As a result of the month-long proceedings, Thompson’s behavior has taken an obvious turn for the worse. Earlier this month, Thompson submitted a near-bomb threat to the Florida Supreme Court. In the letter, Thompson submitted a picture of an old, bombed-out building and wrote, “Below is what the Florida Bar will look like if [the Florida Supreme] court acts affirmatively on its show cause order, figuratively speaking, of course.” Thompson’s craziness doesn’t stop there either.

Just last week during an interview with Jim Sterling, a writer for destructoid.com, Thompson said, “Why don’t you just molest children directly rather than through Rockstar. It would be more personal that way,” when referring to the lifted ban on the Manhunt 2 game.

Despite the sanctions, Thompson can continue to practice law in the state of Florida if he chooses to do so. However, Thompson faces disbarment if the ruling of the nine-day professional misconduct trial that occurred late last year doesn’t fall in his favor. Judge Dava Tunis, who is presiding over the case, will make her ruling next month.

I doubt this will be the last we see of dear ol’ Jack Thompson but until then, cheerio!

Co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, Gary Gygax, dies

Will appear in the Whit on March 6, 2008.

Originally I had an article lined up about the Game Developers Conference that took place in recent weeks but upon hearing the grave news of Gary Gygax’s death, I knew that he needed to be written about. He deserves center stage because his passing is more important than 50 conferences combined and felt by millions across the world.

As the co-creator of the world famous Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) tabletop game, Gygax’s contributions to the gaming world are vast, numerous, and immense. Gygax had an unfathomable love for games. Without D&D we wouldn’t know what a role-playing game is, hell, the entire RPG industry wouldn’t have existed either. The term “fantasy world” would be something we would only see in our dreams or read about in books by authors like J.R.R Tolkien. Author of dozens of books and creator of a multitude of games, the industry has lost one of its best and most influential.

Created in 1974 by Gygax and friend Dave Arneson, D&D allows its players to create unique characters like a human mage or dwarf warrior and have them travel on imaginary adventures to various locales like dungeons, castles and other places based within a fantasy setting. The results of choices characters make in the game and the storyline arc is determined by the Dungeon Master, who basically runs the whole game. The game is also played according to the DM’s interpretation of the game rules. “The essence of a role-playing game is that it is a group, cooperative experience,” said Gygax in an interview in 2006. “There is no winning or losing, but rather the value is in the experience of imagining yourself as a character in whatever genre you’re involved in, whether it’s a fantasy game, the Wild West, secret agents or whatever else. You get to sort of vicariously experience those things.”

Since its release all those decades ago, D&D has taken the world by storm. According to a recent article by The New York Times, D&D has garnered an estimated $1 billion through books and equipment and over 20 million people have partaken in the D&D experience. D&D is also responsible for countless spin-offs in both the tabletop RPG and computer RPG realms as well. Companies like White Wolf Inc., creator of the famous Vampire: The Masquerade RPG, and Black Isle Studios, responsible for games like Planescape: Torment and the Baldur’s Gate series, pay homage to D&D and Gygax because if it wasn’t for him, they wouldn’t have existed.

In 1967, Gygax organized a 20-person gaming meet in the basement of his home which later became known as “Gen Con 0” and it is where he met Arneson and Brian Blume, a future partner of his company Tactical Studies Rules. This meeting would eventually become the Gen Con gaming convention, the world’s largest annual hobby-game gathering.

Gygax died the morning of Tuesday, March 4 at his home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. He was 69 and died due to an abdominal aneurysm. Gygax leaves behind six children, seven grandchildren, countless friends and his wife, Gail Carpenter.

“I would like the world to remember me as the guy who really enjoyed playing games and sharing his knowledge and his fun pastimes with everybody else.”

Farewell and safe travels Mr. Gygax, we will miss you.

Game Developers Conference Wrap-up

            Another year has passed and another chance at juicy gaming news and inside information has come and gone. No I’m not talking about E3, I’m talking about the Game Developers Conference or GDC for those familiar with the event. This year’s GDC took place on February 18 – 22 and it turned out to have the biggest attendance ever, boasting over 18,000 people coming to see the show and I doubt any left disappointed.

Every year GDC is jam-packed with information, sneak peeks and game developers discussing a multitude of topics and this year’s was no different. Gamers had the opportunity to see famous keynote speakers talk about their games and the industry itself such as Dave Jones, creator of Crackdown and the famous (or infamous depending on your opinion) GTA series, Peter Molyenux, creator of Fable, and even Ralph H. Baer, dubbed the “Father of Video Games” by the industry for creating the first commercialized video game system, the Magnavox Odyssey.

The sheer amount of information that was unveiled this year was staggering. Games were showcased, release dates were announced, and sequels were discussed. The GDC gave a pleasing forecast for 2008 and thanks in no small part to the games that are on the horizon, it looks like it’s shaping up to be a very good year.

The crowd went silent as Cliff Bleszinski, leader designer for Epic Games Inc., walked onto the stage to finish Microsoft’s keynote address, bringing it to a dramatic close. He announced that Marcus Fenix and Delta Squad are continuing the fight on the Xbox 360 exclusive title Gears of War 2 and that it will be here in November. Applause and cheers echoed throughout the room not soon after.

Many new features for games were also discussed throughout the GDC and gamers had the opportunity to see more facets of games they’re dying to play.

When Molyenux took the stage everyone knew he was going talk about Fable 2 and that he did. Molyenux talked about his ‘big three’ ideas for Fable 2 – drama, co-op, and combat – he explained that it will be more difficult to be the good guy whereas in the original it was very easy to do. Combat will include swords, guns, and fists and you can even duke it out with a friend in co-op mode. Character interaction is also receiving a complete tune-up and it won’t be as dry or stale like it was in the original. Notably, Fable 2 will ship with an Xbox Live Arcade game spin-on where a player can gamble to win money and then use it while playing the Fable 2 itself. No word on a release date.

Over 200 games were showcased and discussed during this year’s GDC making it impossible to include them all here.

As is customary during each year, the GDC ends with the Annual Game Developers Choice Awards. Two games cleaned house this year and they were Portal and Bioshock. Portal took home Game of the Year for 2007, Best Game Design and the Innovation Award. Bioshock won three awards as well and they were Best Visual Art, Best Writing, and Best Audio. Other games to win were Real Time Worlds’ Crackdown for Best Debut, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for Best Handheld Game, and Best Downloadable Game went to flOw.

And that about wraps it up. Hope to see you at next year’s GDC back at the Moscone Center in San Francisco but on March 23 – 29 instead.

The Movie Format War: Blu-ray disc wins

Will appear in the Whit on February 21, 2008.

As if the console wars weren’t bad enough a separate conflict has been waged for several years in the trenches of electronic stores between the Blu-ray and HD DVD movie formats. What was once a battle of epic proportions between the two has turned into nothing short of a complete slaughter.

Toshiba’s HD DVD format has taken hit after hit since the 2008 began starting with Warner Brothers Pictures going Blu-ray exclusive and its sister company, New Line Cinema, quickly following several weeks later. Universal Studios, according to Variety magazine, is supporting both formats rather than HD DVD exclusively. Paramount is continuing to back HD DVD but the option to go Blu-ray exclusive is available to them due to the Warner Bros. switch. All of this happened in January alone.

The month of February has wrought even more disaster for the HD DVD format with Best Buy and Netflix joining the Blu-ray camp. Like Universal, Best Buy will support both formats but will predominately market and recommend Blu-ray discs and players to its customers. Netflix on the other hand will make the switch to begin phasing out HD DVD by the end of 2008. Unlike the other companies it has joined forces with, Netflix will not have as much of an impact on this whole fiasco since their business is based on buyers who have already made the decision of which format to follow.

Not helping HD DVD’s case is the fact that Sony’s PlayStation 3 comes with a built-in Blu-ray player while Microsoft’s Xbox 360 requires a $129.99 HD DVD player to even play the discs.

On February 15 it was announced on Walmart’s official blog, www.checkoutblog.com, that they will be going Blu-ray exclusive. Susan Chronister, author of the Gaming, General, and Movies section of the blog posted the announcement. “…following the news from Best Buy and Netflix, everyone’s asking ‘what about Wal-Mart?’ Ok, so are you ready…Wal-Mart is going Blu,” she said, “…by June Wal-Mart will only be carrying BluRay movies and hardware machines, and of course standard def movies, DVD players, and up convert players.”

Hot off the heels of the Walmart announcement, The Hollywood Reporter is citing “reliable industry sources” who say that Toshiba is dropping its own format, pretty much ending the whole format conflict. While Jodi Sally, the vice president of marketing for Toshiba America Consumer Products, swears up and down that no official decision has been made, she hints that something is in the works. “Given the market developments in the past month,” she said, “Toshiba will continue to study the market impact and the value proposition for consumers, particularly in light of our recent price reductions on all HD DVD players.” If you remember, Toshiba slashed their prices of HD DVD players by as much as 50% on Jan 15.

The final nail in the coffin for HD DVD came on February 19 when Toshiba finally decided to drop its own format, despite Sally’s response to The Hollywood Reporter claiming otherwise.

Well, the HD DVD format has met its end after a long and brutal conflict. Sony has bided their time since the Betamax failure and has finally become top spot with Blue-ray. So what happens now if you’ve already purchased an HD DVD player? You’re pretty much up the creek without a paddle. Although some companies like Best Buy and Netflix will continue to sell HD DVD movies, you’re better off saving your money for a Blu-ray player or PlayStation 3. HD DVD’s demise has arrived.

Spore Slated for a Release Before the Holidays. It’s About Time.

Will appear in The Whit on February 7, 2008.

The heavily anticipated title from the mind of Will Wright, the designer behind the critically acclaimed SimCity and The Sims series, has finally been slated for sometime before the holidays. In a recent interview with Gamespot, Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello talks about Spore’s release, “We will tell you it’s going to be before the holidays. This is one of the titles we pay enormous attention to for all of the obvious reasons, and we’re very, very bullish.”

If you are unfamiliar with Spore, it is a multi-platform god game developed by Maxis and published by EA where the player can create their very own species from scratch. You start your race at the cellular level and eventually end at the space phase, giving players the opportunity to invade other worlds or co-exist peacefully with them. You can even take your race online and battle it out with other players to see if your race deserves to rule the galaxy.

Thanks to Spore’s unique creature editor, there are unlimited possibilities when giving your race a physical appearance and not a single one will be the same. The editor is so intuitive that it will mathematically calculate how a creature with four legs or even 18 will walk and how it will fight if it has claws, teeth or 50 arms. Once your creature is created, you let it loose and see how it fares against the other computer-generated races on the planet.

Depending on how well your creature does initially, it will begin to enter different phases. In the tribal phase you lose control of the single creature but now control an entire tribe of them. The player also gets to design how the buildings of the tribe will look resulting in even funkier creations. Once the tribe reaches a population of 20, it will enter the civilization phase. This phase is just as it sounds, the player will control entire cities and the objective here is to gain control of the entire planet either through diplomacy or all-out war. In this phase, players can construct many varieties of vehicles such as cars, planes, boats and tanks.

Once world domination is achieved, your race sets their eye or eyes on space as they gain the ability to construct UFOs. This is where the fun takes off even further. You can abduct other races to experiment on them and terraform planets by shooting ice comets to create water or cause volcanoes erupt to create an atmosphere. The most interesting thing you can do here is pump a planet full of carbon dioxide to observe the Greenhouse effect turning a livable planet into an inhospitable wasteland.

Despite the fact that Spore hasn’t even been released yet, it has already won numerous awards. In 2005 at the Electronic Entertainment Expo or E3, Spore won Best of Show, Best Original Game, Best PC Game and Best Simulation Game. At E3 2006 it was awarded yet again for Best PC Game, Best Original Game and Best Simulation Game.

Sadly, Spore has been continuously pushed back and many potential players feel that it is vaporware at this point similar to Duke Nukem Forever. It’s nice that EA’s CEO has finally decided to chime in and give Spore a release date. While not completely set in stone as usual, here’s hoping that we will see this wonderful and original game in time for Christmas.

An article I wrote about the Gerstmann/Eidos debacle

Originally written on December 12, 2007 and appeared in Rowan University newspaper The Whit in the issue of that week.

If you aren’t familiar with the gaming realm you probably missed the recent controversy which rocked gaming media two weeks ago. Jeff Gerstmann, who reviewed games at Gamespot.com for nearly 11 years, was fired. Big deal right? When rumors start spreading saying he was fired because he gave a game a poor review though, then it IS a big deal. The game in question is the title “Kane & Lynch: Dead Men” and it was developed by IO Interactive and published by Eidos Interactive.

Dubbed “Gerstmanngate” by the gaming press, the story states that Eidos, displeased with the review their game received, pulled some strings in Gamespot’s management to get Gerstmann fired for his review. Coincidentally, Eidos paid a great deal of money to advertise Kane & Lynch all over the Gamespot website and on a number of other websites as well.

There is also some evidence pointing to Gerstmann being fired for his review but even now it is still unclear if what happened was purely coincidental or not. Shortly after his review was posted, it was taken down and the text was altered to shed the game in a more positive light. The video review was also removed from the site because, according to Gamespot, “[the video’s] audio was deemed inferior due to a faulty microphone.” Now, I’ve seen the video myself and his voice was quite clear and there was never a moment when I didn’t understand what he said. Lastly, a day after Gerstmann was fired on November 28, all Kane & Lynch advertisements were removed from the Gamespot website.

Amongst all of the widespread controversy and rumors going about, Gamespot released an article in an attempt to answer all of the pertinent questions. Due to legal reasons, Gamespot will not be revealing the actual reason why Gerstmann was fired but they claim it was because of internal reasons. In regards to the timely removal of the advertisements Gamespot said, “Due to design and development considerations, media buys on GameSpot are made weeks in advance. The timing of said ads was extremely unfortunate but was purely coincidental and determined solely by the game’s release date of November 13, 2007.” Gamespot goes on to say, “Internal documentation filed before the review appeared shows that the site skin was scheduled to run from November 17 to 29, 2007.”

While Gamespot does provide good reasoning behind what happened, the argument hoisted by the public also seems to hold some water as well. In my opinion, there are far too many coincidences going on here and Gamespot dances around the most important question: Why was Jeff Gertsmann fired?

Despite the fact that this story only dealt with videogame reviews, who is to say that things like this don’t happen for other products? How many times did you not agree with a review because it was so far off? Is all of this purely coincidence or the acts of companies trying to get a positive spin on their products? Are reviewers pressured to give a positive review or risk losing their jobs?

We may never know.

To view Gamespot’s response in its entirety go here
Also go here for another story of note.