I don’t think the general public is quite ready for a controller-less system. First off, I find one of the most charming aspects of gaming to be that I can do it while relaxing on the couch with a beer. While things like Wii Fit have their place (in the closet, covered with dust, apparently), I prefer to keep my workout in the gym and my gaming nice and sedentary.
Secondly, while controller-less systems are touted as completely intuitive and natural, I think the casual market finds them the opposite. I had the pleasure of getting together with the HarlotFamily over Easter break to re-enact a Wii commercial: three generations all cozying up to the soulless glow of the big screen to do some virtual bowling. (And, you know, drinking heavily.) I’ve seen a lot of inexperienced gamers interact with regular controllers, and the way my family dealt with the Wiimotes was very similar: apprehensive, clumsy, and kind of confused. Maybe my family is just a little slow, but I think hardware companies might be overestimating the user-friendliness of motion sensing controllers. Multiply that by having to learn voice commands and gestures and interacting with a game system in a completely new way, and I think it could be quite a challenge for casual gamers.
Finally, unless Microsoft is planning on pulling a Nintendo-esque “What’s that, core player fanbase? You want games that don’t involve pretending to be a wedding planner or playing a musical instrument? SHUN!” reversal, I wouldn’t consider the 360 to be the most family-friendly platform. While I adore playing on Live, it is a hive of scum, villainy, and squeaky voiced 13 year old boys calling everyone some witty variation of “homosexual.” Somehow, I can’t see them calling up their friends via Natal and discussing what they’re going to wear to the party tonight. I realize that this whole thing is a push to get casual gamers and all, but I would caution Microsoft to be wary of pushing their former players out.
Despite all my snarkiness, I think it’s going to be a really neat toy. But whether game developers will be able to turn it into something lasting and innovative remains to be seen.
In case you have been living under a rock for the last two months, Microsoft did indeed announce their speculated motion-sensing peripheral for the 360, codenamed Project Natal, at E3. (For your geeky cocktail party needs, it’s pronounced na-TAHL, and it looks kind of like an evil robot head.) And, in case you had any doubts who M’s target market is, check out their simulated use trailer, just bursting at the seams with good clean family fun:
Aww, how utterly wholesome. Little Timmy can pretend to be a monster, Big Sis Sarah can get fashion advice, and Mom and Dad can snuggle on the couch watching Netflix movies in between all that family bonding!
(Oops, sorry. Did I get a little bit of cynic on you? Here, have a tissue.)
Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s fantastic that motion-cap/facial recognition tech that sensitive will soon available for personal use. (The live demo from E3 is particularly impressive; bonus points for the blatantly bitchy shot at the Wii.) It’s definitely a revolutionary piece of equipment. But is revolutionary what their target market (read: casual gamers) really wants?
Let me know what y’all think… my answer will be forthcoming as well.
Hello, darlings. You may have noticed things have been a bit quiet around here lately, and that’s because I’ve been busy with a few other creative endeavors. But worry not, GH is not dead… I’m just going to start emphasizing quality over quantity. I expect there will be at least a post a week, and perhaps more, though not necessarily on regular days. If you’d like to be informed of updates, you have a couple options:
1. Follow me on Twitter. (I promise I tweet other things besides spamming posts.)
2. Hit the cute little RSS text located at the bottom of the right frame, or just type in gameharlot.com in your friendly google reader.
3. If you really want the star treatment, e-mail me (the harlot at game harlot dot com) and I will hand deliver update info to your mailbox. Who loves you, baby?
One of the most hyped events in a gamer’s year is coming up soon: yes, I speak of E3, claiming to be with 90% less suck this year. Regardless of whether it lives up to its claims of awesomeness, there’s already a lot of juicy gossip going around. Here are some of the more intriguing stories, ribbed for her pleasure:
- Rich Taylor, VP of communications and research for the ESA, says the public might be allowed in someday… but not this year, suckers.
- Atari says “thx but j/k” to showing up to the expo.
- Microsoft says via Twitter: “June 2009 will be an important month for Zune lovers. New product launch, that’s all I’m allowed to say. Hold off from buying an iPhone/Pre.” Unveiling a new portable gaming device, perhaps? (PS - Do any Zune lovers exist?) Also: they keep talking about something revolutionary, perhaps a camera motion capture system? Ooh, mysterious.
- Like many 3 year relationships, Sony might be trading in that old PS3 for a younger, slimmer model. Shallow, perhaps, but you gotta keep things interesting.
I’m really interested to see how E3 plays out this year. It’s kind of like our celebrity culture: we shrug when they do well, but it’s only when they fuck up that we pay attention.
I love burlesque, and I love video games, so this article in the LA times about troupe Devil’s Playground doing a show featuring game characters brought a smile to my face.
I really wish there was video; you know it would have been entertaining to watch the girl doing Seamus to try and wiggle out of that suit in a sexy manner.
So, geek is officially cool now, as evidenced by this video from the “Society for Geek Advancement” entitled simply “I am a Geek”:
But, lest we forget, we must all be socially approved geeks. We will all use Twitter (soo subversive and counter-culture) and talk about it a lot, since that will make us edgy and tech savvy. We will wear stylish glasses in an ironic fashion, and also ironically appreciate the nostalgic humor personified by the appearance of MC Hammer (an obvious pillar of geek culture) in this video. Also, we shall throw around a few words about coding in order to really up our cred and make us seem cool and mysterious with our “new language,” but we swear never to do anything as lame as actually play D&D, because that would be… geeky.
Uh huh.
While this… project… thing seems to be benefiting a charity, it comes across as a trying-too-hard social media commercial. (They use the term “social capital” in their About section, for fuck’s sake.) Even Wil Wheaton came out and said he regretted doing it!
“I was under the impression that this video would feature actual geeks who are important to our culture, like Woz, Felicia Day, Leo Laporte, and Jonathan Coulton. Instead, I saw a lot of entrepreneurs who have good marketing instincts, joined by a bunch of celebrities who are attempting to co-opt our culture because it’s what their publicity team is telling them to do.
When you’re speaking to people who read TMZ and People magazine, getting contributions from MC Hammer, Ashton Kutcher and Shaq is a logical choice. But when you’re speaking to geeks, it’s insulting to us to pretend that they are part of and speak for our culture. Those people are not geeks; they’re celebrities who happen to use Twitter.”
He also comes out in huge nerdy support of D&D, which is utterly charming; the whole post is basically an excellently written “this was not what I signed up for” damage control piece.
I really have no problem with social media, nor the people who can do amazing things with it to their advantage. But let’s call it what it is and leave the pretending to the LARPers.
IGN has a video up of “rumored leaked footage” of the upcoming sequel to one of my favorite games, Beyond Good and Evil.
If this is actual gameplay, it looks like the gorgeous bastard child of Mirror’s Edge and Assassin’s Creed. And of course, the lovely Jade seems to be badass as usual.
Confession: I was indeed a band nerd in high school. In fact, I was so nerdy I was Drumline Captain for two years, which is why I did a double-take upon seeing this video:
So close to awesome. But… having a guy pretend to be Mega Man by running back and forth for a majority of the show? Really? Let’s leave the interpretive dance to the cheerleaders, kids.
MMOs have become pretty ubiquitous these days; it’s a safe bet that your clueless coworkers will at least know what World of Warcraft is, even if they look at you blankly when you launch into the finer points of theorycraft and epic lootz.
According to an article on MMORPG Examiner, however, there’s still a new market out there: the Middle East.
“The absence of MMO Game publishers in the region have resulted in the state of unawareness about the concept of MMO Gaming.
Many gamers in the region have no idea that there is a genre of games where you “live” at, play and interact with thousands of others, and improve your “game life” as you play your way through. Many starting players were confused at not being able to find the “Game Over” of the game, or at not being able to aim while shooting a monster.”
Seems a new company named Game Power 7 aims to change that, with a unique challenge: making MMOs more understandable to a completely different culture. GP7 took the free Asian MMO Rappelz and tailored it to their target audience.
One of the more startling changes is the lack of chainmail bikinis, illustrated at the slideshow at the bottom of the article. While the characters mostly retain their “fantasy” look, GP7 decided to make the outfits much less revealing to keep to the higher standards of female modesty in their target countries. (Sorry, guys; no more making a female alt and dancing in your underwear in front of the AH. Tragic, I know.)
Also interesting was the process of removing any religious symbols; again, on the premise of making the game more understandable (and, obviously, less contraversial), according to Fadi Mujahid, GM at GP7: “the original story talks about three races and three gods, which is very odd to our culture. We had to modify that to make it about three nations and three kings.”
I have to admit, I initially rolled my eyes at the whole process of “censoring” a MMO. But reading more into the story, it seems like Game Power 7 genuinely wants to bring a new style of gaming to a new market on their terms. While it may seem overly conservative to Western gamers, I think it makes sense to err on the side of caution and avoid inadvertently killing the emerging market.
Video games are a great uniting force, and the more we have in common with people from different cultures, the more we’ll realize that we’re all just geeks at heart.
File this under “things other games journalists get invited to but the Harlot will get there someday, bitches” category: Massively gets a press-exclusive first look at the beta of Champions Online. Apparently public quests (a la Warhammer) make an appearance, and the graphics look as sexy in motion as they do in the screenshots.
I’ve been ready for a good Supers MMO ever since I decided killing 10 billion snakemen wasn’t worth the character creation fun in City of Villians; here’s hoping Champions lives up to its hype.
It’s kinda fun going from the blood-spattered hallways of Rainbow 6 Vegas 2 (which I am enjoying way too much lately) to a magical land full of faeries and sheep and stuff.
Yes, it’s apparently free MMO week in my brain, because I decided to give the aptly titled Free Realms a shot.
Free Realms is currently being marketed as a “fun for the whole family” MMO, which means that some internet subculture is probably plotting its downfall at this very moment. In all seriousness, the best way to describe it seems to be Nintendo DS + Popcap games + a hefty dose of “hey kids, you gotta pay for the good stuff!”, all wrapped up in a shiny 3D graphics package. In short, marketing brilliance.
Players can choose to be a human or a pixie character (I made a human chick named Violet Ponyhammer, in case you were wondering. Fear me.) and run around doing jobs. For example, the Chef career involves things like playing a Bejeweled clone to harvest vegetables and then playing a blatant Cooking Mama ripoff to actually craft things. Other careers include Postman (whoo, sign me up!), Miner (in case you get nostalgic for killing people over ore in WoW), Pet Trainer (better get Mommy’s purse), and Kart Racer/Demolition Derby driver. Luckily, you don’t have to choose just one out of so many fine options; you earn xp in the job simply by doing it.
I will say I’m highly impressed with the game itself; you sign in from your browser, but it launches in a new window that looks like you just fired up a regular MMO. Which, you have to admit, is pretty brilliant when the thing is geared toward children.
While I mock Free Realms, I would actually highly recommend it to anyone who has school-aged kids; I can see myself going crazy over this back in the day. (We barely had the internet back then! You kids these days don’t know how good you got it! Now get off my lawn!) Just be mindful that SOE has strategically placed “buy me!” things every two feet, so be prepared to tell your little snowflake “no.”
“It generally isn’t the reactions of the developers and publishers themselves that cause problems. It’s their perception of how the players will react that results in them making unwise decisions.”
I’d heard a bit about the new MMO The Chronicles of Spellborn but dismissed it like an unattended free sample of Cheez-its at the grocery store. (Seriously, people are disgusting.) And then I saw that the boys at Penny Arcade had declared it “not total bullshit,” and my interest was piqued, especially with the advantage of not having to hand over any money to give it a shot.
I was a little unenthusiastic at character creation, mostly because it kept booting me off the server when I was halfway through making my cute little pink-haired spellcaster. (Launch weekend FTW.) However, I managed to persevere and discover that there is no such thing as the “noob outfit” in CoS: you get to design your look right off the bat. So, after about 5 tries and suitably equipped with pink armor and a nice whompin’ mace, I was in.
The combat system is quite unusual, but I think Tycho did a beautiful job of explaining it:
“The Skilldeck solves an interesting problem in a unique way, and joy is the result. I want you to imagine your action bar in World of Warcraft, a braying menagerie of icons you might even be turning to third-party mods to manage. There’s a lot going on and - if nothing else - versatility is assured. The Skilldeck offers up an interesting riposte: no more than six of your abilities are visible at any time, on a cylinder that spins to the next row when you use a power. You construct these rows in such a way that effective combinations present themselves. The metaphor will be tortured, and you may suffer as a result, but it’s discovered some verdant place midway between a collectible card game and a slot machine you build yourself.”
I was also pleasantly surprised by how pretty the game is. I really enjoyed the unique art style, particularly on the various critters of the world. The animals look normal from a distance, but getting close reveals some amazing aesthetic touches, like dogs with spiral fur patterns and cute rabbit-eqsue characters with little antennae instead of ears. (Bonus: most animals will run from you when you get close, apparently haven spoken to the WoW critters about players’ sensless brutality.)
Unfortunately, at the end of the day the game seemed to be a variant of “kill 10 wolves” or “deliver a message to Captain Lazyface all the way across the zone.” But props to Acclaim for coming up with some innovative ideas.
I went to visit the HarlotParents for Easter, and I was sitting in the airport tapping away on Pixel (my new mini 9!) when I noticed something. The flight was headed to Orlando, so as usual there were tons of kids in the terminal, many of them glued to a Nintendo DS. But I was struck by the fact that there were no adults similarly equipped. (My own DS was tucked safely in my bag for later, naturally.)
Granted, kids with a handheld system are pretty much the norm; I know I spent much of my childhood absently following my mother around a mall while stomping Koopas. But game stores are awash with DS games marketed to adults, offering everything from cooking instruction to Japanese lessons. And, most notably, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, M-rated media darling and bane of parents everywhere.
“Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter had estimated that Chinatown Wars could sell 400,000 units—but as of March NPD, the game had sold only 89,000.”
Ouch.
The article goes on to make a few good points: most “older” DS players are women and might not be interested in GTA (what do they know?), or that people might have already bought the game for another console.
Interestingly, they’re not blaming Take-Two:
“Pachter reiterates his position that any sales weakness can’t be attributed to Take-Two—‘we can’t say that Take-Two made a bad game or marketed it poorly,’ he says. ‘Instead, they created an M-rated game for a largely E and T audience, and those DS owners who are legally allowed to buy an M-rated game are not particularly interested.’
‘The bottom line is that we’re very confident in Chinatown Wars’ potential for long-term success,” counters Take-Two. “We think it’s going to have a long life in the market, as we’ve seen with other GTA titles.’
However, Pachter maintains: ‘There’s no point making games for an audience that is not there.’
Audience Participation for extra credit: Am I wrong in my observations and adults in other cities are playing DS like crazy? Or could this be the death of M-rated games on the DS?
