Up late talking games & writing? You're...

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Music: I don't often write about music, but every once in a great while I get the itch. It's a bit of a struggle as the vocabulary for games criticism and music criticism doesn't exactly coincide, but I'll do my best…
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Anyway, this may not be common knowledge but I'm a huge Prince fan. He may not have quite the cachet that he did in the late 80s, but I definitely see him as a musical genius of sorts, and I've always been an admirer. In fact, the best concert I ever saw was when Prince played the Key Arena… every person in the entire building was on their feet when he took the stage, and not a single person sat down until the show was over. The man puts on a hell of a performance.
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As far as CDs go… his track record is a bit of a mixed bag.
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The most recent, ‘Lotusflow3r’ was just released a week or two ago, and comes with three separate discs: Lotusflow3r, MPLSound, and a third featuring the work of whom I assume is his latest protégé, Bria Valente. All told, it's far from his best effort.
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A strange mix of sounds, the work here has a bit of the tight funk and energetic jams he's known for, but there's also some bizarre Hendrix influence as well as a few noodly instrumentals, and some that would be a perfect fit playing inside an elevator somewhere. I usually tend to listen to every song on a CD from start to finish, but in this particular case I skipped over more than a few. It's odd, because at times I think Prince does some of his best work on his lesser-known B-sides, but in this case most of these tracks feel like throwaway filler.
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It's not all bad though. Colonized Mind, Feel Good Feel Better Feel Wonderful, Valentina, and Ol’ Skool Company are all in line with the kind of quality I expect from a Prince album, but that's only four tracks out of twenty-one. (The less said about Bria’s disc, the better…) as an overall package, this is pretty disappointing and not one that I will likely put into regular rotation. Still a Prince fan, but not a fan of this collection.
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Loutsflow3r rating: 3.5 out of 10.
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Games: The wife and I polished off Resident Evil 5 today. I've got to say that having co-op in more games these days is a fantastic option, and doubly so since players aren't required to go the splitscreen route if they've got the correct hardware.
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Each player having their own screen in a game as visually rich as this one is a real treat. That's not to say the game itself is flawless, but I will leave further comment to the review. Turned it in this afternoon, so look for it soon.
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Also finished Henry Hatsworth and the Puzzling Adventure on the DS. The game was a bit of a shock to the system with the demanding old-school difficulty level, but overall it was a superior effort and one that I would definitely recommend to anyone looking for a quality DS experience.
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It's obvious that the people behind it put a lot of love and attention into its crafting, and the core idea of combining platforming adventure with match-three puzzling was sheer genius. If you haven't tried this game yet, you're missing out on one of the finest titles 2009’s seen so far.
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With those two games taken care of, I'm moving on to the PSP’s Resistance: Retribution and Condemned 2: Bloodshot on 360.
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Retribution seems like a very solid title so far, though I'm still in the very early stages. That said, this is the second time that I've been completely impressed with the work put out by Sony’s Bend Studios-- and also the second time that they've got me playing a game on PSP that I had no interest in on a standard console.
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Both Syphon Filter and Resistance: Fall of Man left me cold, but Bend sure knows what they're doing on the handheld.
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As far as Condemned 2 goes… not quite sure what to make of it yet. I am a huge fan of the first game and still think that ranks as one of the 360’s best experiences, but something just seems off about this sequel. The graphical quality seems a little sketchy, and the level design of the first stage is pretty atrocious… lots of black oil over everything making it very hard to see, and starting off a little rough for my taste.
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To be totally fair, the first Condemned had an atrocious first level before the game came into its own, so I'm going to stick with it for a while and hope that it gets better.
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Writing: The work progresses, and today marked the completion of a major milestone in the plot. It's been something my co-author and I have been working towards since the start of the project, really, so finally putting the words on paper gave me a great sense of satisfaction. We've still got a lot of work to do, but at this point I feel comfortable in saying that we've made substantial progress. It's a very good feeling, indeed.
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Games: If you've been reading this blog or following me on Twitter, you’ve probably picked up on the fact that Solar has been my latest Xbox Live Community addiction. An original, refreshing title that shows a great deal of creativity and craftsmanship, I wanted to know more. After doing a little clicking, I was able to convince Solar’s developer, Australian Jay Watts, to take a few minutes and speak with me.
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Thanks for the chat, Jay. What can you tell me about yourself?
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Not much really! I started my first year of university in biotechnology and decided to pick up a bit of Flash just for fun. I soon discovered that I thoroughly enjoyed Flash so I kept with it and started making a few games. Soon I was making some really great games, and I thought to myself 'could I make this a career'? So I went to a conference for Australian Game Developers where I learned of XNA. 4 months later I had completed Solar and the rest is history.
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How did you come up with the idea for Solar, and what did you do to go about starting the project?
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Solar was conceived after I made a Flash RTS engine. The RTS engine was powerful enough to rival Starcraft and is unmatched in terms of other RTS Flash games I've seen on the web. But unfortunately, I was too ambitious, I had no chance of making an entire RTS game myself. So I decided to leave that project and make a new game with the express purpose of making something I could handle. My weakness is graphics, so I played around with Flash to see if I could create some really simple but good looking graphics. I found I could make some really neat looking planets, so I decided to stick with that. I started off making a realistic simulation and the game wrote itself from there.
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I read that the game was put together by just yourself with the exception of the music. Is that true, and if so, what did you like or dislike about being a single-man operation?
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Yes, I did all the work myself (apart from the music). Being a single-man operation means it's easy to tie everything together. In some games you see the graphics, programming and design having little communication but when the same person is doing all that you can really unify everything and make a game greater than the sum of its parts.
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But the disadvantage is that everyone has their weaknesses. I was able to mask my weaknesses with good design, but it means I'm fairly restricted to the games I can make. You won't be seeing any games that involve 'humans' or 'animals' from me because I simply can't draw them.
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Solar definitely has an identity all its own, although there are some similarities to Nintendo’s Art Style: Orbient. Have you played that game, and if so, what did you make of it?
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I've never played a Wii yet, so I haven't heard of this game. I looked it up on YouTube and yeah, it is a pretty similar looking game. It appears to be more of a puzzle type game, where as Solar is more of a sandbox type game. I also think the graphics are a little bland, the graphics in Solar are brighter and more vibrant but hey, I'm just a little biased.
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Between the time that I originally started playing Solar and now, you released an updated version with a few fixes and some new Challenges. I would definitely be eager to see more content added. Are there any plans to further expand Solar at the moment?
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No plans for the Community Games version, but I have plenty of ideas for a larger game that I may pitch to XBLA, so I'll be reserving my ideas for that.
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What was the process like getting your game to Microsoft and going through the approvals process for Community?
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It was longer than I thought but ultimately very valuable. People had a lot of good feedback to give and Solar is much improved because of it.
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What do you think of Community in general? Do you feel as though you're getting enough support as a developer?
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The community there is great. The forums are headed up by Microsoft MVP's and XNA framework developers, so there is always good support to be given if you need it. Plus there are lots of samples and mini-games you can download from the site and I found most of my learning was seeing how they did it.
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How successful has Solar been since its release?
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The purpose of Solar was to look good on a resume when I want to go for a full time job as a game developer. In terms of that, the game has been favourably reviewed by many sites and has a conversion factor of over 20% which are fantastic things to have.
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But for the people who want to know how profitable XNA can be, the game has earned about $5000 USD of profit after Microsoft have taken their cut. Although there are several games that have earned more than that on the service, they've been up for months where as Solar has just finished its 2nd week. Sales are still strong, so I'm optimistic about what that can become.
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Besides Solar, do you have any other plans in terms of developing new games at the moment?
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I have one game on the table that I'm working on. Unfortunately I'm really struggling with the design of the game but I'll get there, if game development was easy it wouldn't be as fun!
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On the player side, what Community titles do you feel are noteworthy, or which do you like?
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Community Games aren't available in Australia yet so I can't download or purchase any of the games on the service. The only games I've played have been ones I've reviewed or playtested, but since most of these aren't the final product I can't really judge on them.
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There are a few sites that review Community Games and you can find them with a few good google searches. Just like XBLA, there are some good games and some not so good games. The difference is that there are more sites reviewing XBLA to it's easier to decide which ones are the good ones. The good games are out there on Community Games, you just need to look for them!
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Infinite thanks to Jay Watts for taking the time to speak with me. If you want more information on Jay and his work, you can check out his website here. My full review of Solar will be up at GameCritics soon, but until that time rest assured that it comes absolutely recommended. Download the full version and give Jay a few bucks-- you won't be sorry.
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Writing: I'm back in the saddle and things are progressing on the new book. Chapter 17 is close to being in the can.
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Games: The wife and I are doing co-op in Resident Evil 5 right now. Haven't finished it yet, but I'd say that we are at least halfway through, if not a little further.
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Gotta say, it's fun enough and a good rental, but I think anyone who complains about the control system is justified and there are a number of other issues that just don't make any sense. For example, you can buy all sorts of guns and life-up items between missions, but not ammo? Instead, it’s somehow better to have players breaking barrels (a truly fresh idea, indeed) to find boxes of ammunition scattered throughout tribal huts and swampland?
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I don't want to talk about it too much since I still have a good chunk of the game to get through and I will likely be doing the main review for it at GameCritics, but looking past the super-spiffy graphics and general fun quotient of having a co-op campaign, Capcom is looking pretty guilty of being absurdly complacent in light of what else is going on in games development right now.
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Oh, one thing in its favor: it has the most realistic-looking alligators I've ever seen in a videogame. Pretty damned impressive. Not sure why they aren't listed on a bullet point on the back of the package, really.
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In other games news, the good people at Twisted Pixel (The Maw) have announced their next project: ‘Splosion Man. There's not a ton of info on it right now, but it is confirmed that it's coming to Live Arcade, there’ll be four-player support in addition to a traditional story mode, and lots of things will go boom.
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Based on the quality of their last Live title, this is certainly going to be one I'm looking forward to.
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One from the “wow, didn't see that one coming" department: Saints Row 2 has an upcoming DLC pack that includes new missions, new vehicles, and *ahem* well-known “film actress” Tera Patrick as one of the ride-along homies you can call for backup. Although I didn't love SR2 as much as I did the first game, it was still an enjoyable open-world experience that delivered a lot more entertainment than GTA4 did, if you ask me.
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Although Ms. Patrick isn't much of a draw from where I’m standing, going back to Stilwater for a little while isn't sounding too bad, actually.
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Finally, there isn’t a lot of new information on Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor for DS, but the fantastic folks at Atlus have released a few screens with translated English text. It's not much, but I'm definitely looking forward to this title in a big, big way, so I'll take 'em. Check their site for more, but here's one to chew on.
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Books: My friend Ann Aguirre's new book, Blue Diablo, is now out... My copy's en-route from Amazon, and I suggest you buy one, too.
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Go here to get one online, or pop into your local book retailer and tell 'em I sent you. It won't mean anything and will only confuse the cashier jockey, but it sounds cool to say.
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Games: Downloaded Burn, Zombie, Burn! On the PlayStation Network a few days ago, and I'm quite done with it now. Honestly, I really don't understand how he can be so hard to make a game about killing zombies. It seems like an absolutely simple thing to do, yet I can't think of a game that has nailed it. BZB is no different.
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Basically, the game is like Robotron 2084 or Smash TV at heart. One hero, hordes of zombies, and a bunch of weapons on one screen. The difference between BZB and those two is that that those two are classics-- I sincerely doubt that anyone will remember BZB existed in six months, let alone a few decades.
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Although I will admit being disappointed that there was only an Arcade and Challenge mode (No story mode here. Bah.) the game would have been just fine regardless except for the fact that the developers made some really unusual choices that have a significant, depressive effect on gameplay.
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For example, it's the standard these days that intense shooters implement the twin-stick formula. Move with one stick, shoot with the other. There's no denying that it works. In BZB, the developers have mysteriously avoided this control scheme and went with something completely different: a choice between shooting in the direction you're moving or computer-assisted auto-aim.
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I really don't see any benefit to this setup, and the decision to go with these controls seems more like an effort to *not* be like other games, rather than anything that really dovetails with what's happening onscreen. Shooting in the direction you're moving is a death sentence with the absurd number of zombies on your tail, and although the auto-aim is deadly effective, you can't single out specific targets with it. During my time in the game, there were endless instance when I wanted to hit one specific zombie in a crowd in order to trigger a death-averting explosion, and just couldn't do it.
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The other really bizarre choice on the part of the developers was to overcomplicate what should really be a very simple formula. I mean, killing zombies with a variety of weapons-- do you really need anything else? Instead, the game is based on score and the only way to get into the absurdly high upper tiers is to work the oddly thick system that's in place.
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(Stay with me, this gets a little confusing…)
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The point of the game is to earn a high score. Killing zombies straightaway earns next to nothing, and the only way to rack up big numbers is to get a high score multiplier and eliminate large numbers of them simultaneously via explosions.
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Killing normal zombies rewards the player with either life-ups or worthless TNT. In order to make TNT effective, TNT-ups must be collected by killing zombies that are on fire.
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Setting zombies on fire with a torch gives a score multiplier. Killing zombies on fire rewards the player with vital TNT-ups needed to take out large masses and rack up points, but it also lowers the score multiplier at the same time.
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Still following? Instead of crafting fast, reflexive action or just good, old-fashioned zombie-killing, Burn, Zombie, Burn! becomes all about running around and dispatching normal zombies to get life-ups as needed, then setting more zombies on fire, harvesting the TNT power-ups, setting more zombies on fire again, and then detonating them en masse. Keep going until you hit 25,000,000 points.
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In practice, I found that this system felt very cumbersome and tedious, and really kept me out of the game in the sense that I was constantly trying to farm power-ups and then re-farm them if I died, instead of going to that reflexive flow state that something like Geometry Wars or Smash TV can bring me to. Add in the frustration of the unconventionally ineffective controls and a real difficulty in being able to visually locate power-ups or navigate with precision thanks to the extremely cluttered playfields, and the end result is something that seems like it should be a lot more fun than it actually is.
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Still a zombie fan, but not a fan of Burn, Zombie, Burn!
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Misc: The Spring visit with my son is over. It was a good one, just like any visit with him is a good one, although as time goes by the nature of these visits change. He is seven now, will be turning eight later this year, and it's pretty amazing to see him growing as a person. The funny things he says, the small observations that only a child would make, the unique perspective on anything that comes across his path… it's all joyful and incredibly entertaining at the same time. Also, I'm quite proud to say that he finished two more games on his own, bringing the grand total to seven. Can't wait to see him again this summer.
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Fishing Master: pwned by my son

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In other child-centric news, the wife is officially nine months pregnant today, so I'm on high alert for imminent infant arrival. We spent a couple days this past week getting the house all ready; moving furniture around, decluttering, and making sure we have all of our diapers and wipes in appropriate places. The doctor’s thinking early May, but I have a feeling that it will be sooner than that. If I stop posting updates to this blog and I vanish from twitter for a little while, you can probably guess what happened.
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Games: Been spending some time playing Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure on DS lately.
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It’s been getting quite a bit of positive praise from people whose opinions I usually put some stock in, and I'm glad to report that it's as good as they suggest. I won't talk about it too much since I'm contemplating a review, but I will say that it's certainly worth a purchase for anyone who can appreciate tightly tuned platforming and some straightforward puzzle action. The game is certainly more than the sum of these parts and combines very well together, and honestly, I'm little bit mystified as to how EA ended up publishing something of such quality.
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Besides Hatsworth, I've been completely addicted to Solar on Xbox Live Community. I'm definitely going to do a review on this one, but instead of making you wait for a verdict I will say that you should just go and download the full copy right now.
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It's a little hard to categorize, but the game puts players in the role of a sun roaming the universe. While traveling through the cosmos in sandbox mode, you can absorb planets that are drawn into your orbit, crash into other planets, and generally screw around in a cosmological sense. For players wanting a little more structure, there are eighteen challenges. Things like ‘destroy eighty asteroids’ or ‘get three life-bearing planets to orbit you’, and so on. It's a perfect balance between form and function, and I'm just really in love with it right now. It reminds me a bit of Nintendo's Art Style: Orbient, but a lot more relaxed and less stringent.
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Writing: Although I had every intention of keeping up with the progress on my current novel, I've got to confess that it went by the wayside over the last two weeks. It was really hard to justify taking an hour out of my day to work on the book when my son is only here three times a year, so I put the entire thing on hold. Of course, now I'm five thousand words behind schedule and I've got a lot of catching up to do.
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On the plus side, taking that two weeks away from it and then coming back and rereading what I've gotten down has really reinforced my impression that the piece is coming along in a good direction. Even better, working with the co-author has been basically effortless since we're on the same page about 99% of the time. Overall, I've got a good feeling about this one.
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Even though the economy is lagging right now and book sales might not be quite what they used to, I take comfort in the fact that even though I have no illusions about being the next J.K. Rowling or turning out the quintessential American novel, I can certainly say that the stuff I turn out is better than a lot of books I paid $7.99 for at Barnes & Noble.

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If those wankers can get a mass-market paperback out, then us wankers can too.
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Games: Don't get me wrong-- technology is a wonderful thing. Seriously, I'm not the kind of person who wishes we could go back to the days of listening to the latest pop hits on wax cylinders, or who thinks that microwaves have killed the art of cooking. That said, a person's got his limits and there are definitely some times when things in the tech world just get going too fast.
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Of course, I'm talking about all this newfangled ‘cloud’ stuff that's been going around. For those who may not have heard about it yet (and trust me, I'm sure you will) the gist is that some people have gotten the idea in their heads that the best way to take video games to the next level is to do away with traditional consoles as we know them. No more going down to the store, picking up a disc, popping it in your console of choice and enjoying with a slice of pizza or cold beverage. Instead, games will allegedly be run from a central server and streamed via broadband to a ‘receiver’ box which will then send that signal to your home TV.
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While the initial response from some people might be that this seems incredibly convenient and hassle-free, I'm going to be perfectly honest and say that I find it to be pretty disturbing. All discussion of whether this concept is actually technically feasible or not aside, there’s a whole host of issues that should be looked at before the industry goes rushing ahead into uncharted territory. For now, I'm going to be talking about two.
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The first thing that pops into my head is that people won't own games anymore. This is particularly chilling to me, since I'm definitely a collector. I love games. I love looking at the cases, I love flipping through the manuals, I love looking at the art on the discs. I get a warm, fuzzy feeling from looking at a shelf full of alphabetically-arranged titles and reminiscing about all of the different experiences they brought me.
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Some may say “hey Brad, what gives? You're totally down with downloadable content. DLC doesn't come with any discs or cases, so what's the problem?”
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I'll tell you what the problem is. The problem is that in general, I definitely prefer hard-copies. If there was a disc version for every single piece of DLC, I’d own it. The fact that I own several games and add-ons in strictly electronic format was (and still is) slightly unsettling for me, but it's been tempered by the fact that you can save these items on hard drives and access them whenever you'd like. As a matter of fact, I'm actually elated that Nintendo finally implemented their SD memory card support. The Wii’s internal memory was pathetically tiny, and it was giving me an ulcer thinking about the fact that I had to delete several games I paid for in order to make room for new ones. Now that there are satisfactory solutions for all three consoles in terms of DLC storage, I'm okay with that. It's not optimal, but it'll do.
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This cloud concept just takes things one step too far. Now, there won't even be copies of games paid for with my hard-earned money, on disc or on hard drive. Every title I allegedly “buy” will be stored at a central server somewhere across the Intarwebs, and I'll have absolutely nothing whatsoever to show for it. Some people may be all right with this, but I'm not. Absolutely not.

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I work hard and I'm not frivolous with my money. Every penny counts. Therefore, whenever I decide to spend some, I expect that whatever I pay for would have some inherent value to me past the instant gratification of the moment. Books, comics, CDs, movies, games… while not every item is worth its weight in gold, there is definitely something to be said for the fact that you can take any of these things and sell them or trade them. There is a real value there. With the cloud model, I've got nothing. If the service is down that day, I don't have anything to play. If I get tired of the game I paid for, I don't have anything to trade to a friend or to resell on eBay. I've heard talk of a ‘subscription’ cloud model, and in that scenario, if I decide that I don't want to pay a monthly fee to whatever company is charging me, then I'll lose access to everything I've ever bought. I am not at all excited about the idea of ‘renting’ ephemeral, phantom games for the rest of my life.
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The other major problem besides the issue of ownership is from the historical perspective. As a critic, I very often find that I need to go back to older titles to do hands-on research. As players who've been in the hobby for more than a few years will notice, trying to track down older games isn't as easy as going down to Blockbuster and renting a classic, going to the library for a literary masterpiece, or even going to a local convention and finding that issue of Alpha Flight or Spectacular Spider-Man that you've been missing. In my opinion, finding old games can be extremely difficult, and in this new, rapidly growing field, we would do well to not forget our roots.
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How would art have progressed if all the works of the Renaissance were tossed out when someone invented a new type of paint? How would film have continued to grow if every black-and-white picture was thrown at landfill when color became popular? Having tangible, physical copies of things is inherent to the human process. In order to keep moving forward with game design and development, we need to be able to look back and see where we've come from, and if games no longer are available; if they simply disappear with the next iteration of cloud-receiver hardware and improved servers back at headquarters, how will this media evolve?
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Videogames are especially vulnerable to disappearing into a void because it's such a new venue for human expression and experimentation in relation to all the other arts, and it's advancing at such a rapid pace that the potential to have huge revelations and movements simply vanish is entirely too real. Unlike books, paintings, sculpture, or other forms of creativity, there has been precious little cataloguing and discussion. We are not leaving much of a trail for ourselves, and while we are still fortunate to have many of the pioneers alive and with us today, that won't always be the case.
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In a best-case scenario, every game created would still be available whether it was burned on a disc or stored in a server somewhere, but I think in the real world, we all know that simply doesn't happen. Completely eliminating the physical storage and archiving of this media pushes videogames perilously closer to a perpetual state of partial amnesia, potentially trapping us in a process that makes it nearly impossible to reach maturation.
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As a critic, I'm extremely concerned. As a fan and collector, I’m chilled to the bone. As a consumer who wants to receive fair value in exchange for my hard-earned money, I'm not going to stand for it.
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