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• Go West! Red Dead Redemption and How to Get Cowboys and Indians Right

  By the time videogames had evolved beyond batting a ball back and forth across a digital net, the Western had already lost much of its cultural currency. The Lone Ranger’s audience had ridden off into the sunset, replaced by minds and eyes hungry for space instead of the frontier. That’s why we have Spacewar! in 1961 and not Stagecoach!. The last quarter of the 20th century’s appetite for science fiction is most certainly why Bald Space Marine is the icon he is in 2009’s gaming landscape, but I don’t think it fully explains why games have yet to produce a spectacular Western. Why is it that after decades of creation, there isn’t a game about cowboys sitting on Top One Hundred Games of All Time lists? Why is Oregon Trail the entire canon of frontier gaming? Rockstar’s Red Dead Revolver seemed like a contender before it released in 2004. The game certainly sold well, one and a half million copies according to publisher Take-Two, but its critical reception was lukewarm. Despite Red Dead’s grand narrative ambitions — bounty hunting protagonist Red Harlow and his quest for revenge are Louis L’Amour vintage — and seemingly fitting open world play, it wasn’t the defining videogame Western it could have been. Now, it could have been the game’s troubled development that kept it from greatness. It started as a Capcom game in 2000, stalled out, and was sold to Rockstar, where it apparently became a Frankenstein’s monster of legacy code and newer features. I think the real problem is that the Grand Theft Auto-styled open world is not the foundation for a great Western. Read More... Posted Feb 04 2009, 04:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, capcom, rockstar, shadow of the colossus, team ico, grand theft auto, spacewar!, take two, Red dead revolver, trico, Oregon trail, red dead redemption

• True Tales of Multiplayer: Fights, Tricks, and Fights!

  Lately I've found myself chilling with my homeboys Dan and Ryan, playing old video games that most of our friends don't remember or never heard of at all hours of day and night. It started when Dan found an old cartridge of the Jaleco's SNES beat-em-up The Peace Keepers. I was impressed by the ability to recolor any of the game's sprites however you wanted, but otherwise the game was an all-around stunningly frustrating experience. Things picked up for the next round, however, when I popped in my favorite SNES "sports" game, DMA Designs' Uniracers... Read More... Posted Jan 26 2009, 06:00 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: derrick sanskrit, snes, konami, super smash bros, Playstation, tony hawk, grand theft auto, uniracers, power stone, multiplayer, jaleco, the peace keepers, poy poy, dma design

• Where is Prototype?

  The open world game, or sandbox if you prefer, isn’t a genre any longer. At this point, it’s just another method of structuring other genres in a way that gives you more freedom in how to play the game. Open world games aren’t GTA clones anymore; they’re just games with a modern version of the ol’ Mega Man boss select screen. It’s been neat over the past couple of years to watch the open world platform branch out. Crackdown, Assassin’s Creed, Burnout Paradise, Far Cry 2, hell, Spider-Man; all very different games that let you do whatever the hell you please in their world (to a degree) on your way to completion. One of 2008’s more promising games, Radical Entertainment’s Prototype, is a violent action game with a nice open world foundation. It looks gruesome and brutish but it also has some neat ideas behind it, particularly its brand of character customization. Alex Mercer, the genetically altered amnesiac protagonist with a spooky past, eats his felled foes and gains all of their characteristics, abilities, and memories. This lets you come up with all sorts of horrific, bombastic ways to destroy things but it also lets you blend in with crowds, a nice twist on the open world formula of manipulating hordes of NPCs. Sounds cool, no? Read More... Posted Oct 29 2008, 07:30 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, where is, mega man, grand theft auto, sierra, activision, burnout paradise, far cry 2, crackdown, radical entertainment, assassin’s creed, prototype, spider-man

• Miyamoto Is Concerned About Excessive Violence in Games

  Are you? Miyamoto stated that he's troubled by developers' tendency to rely on excessive violence to attract gamers. "I don't want to curb freedom of expression, but I am concerned many developers focus on excessive violence in order to stimulate people's minds. "I believe that here are more ways of grabbing players' attention than violence alone." On one hand, Miyamoto is absolutely right; a game doesn't need to be excessively violent in order to garner interest. On the other hand, just as family-oriented games like Animal Crossing and Super Mario Whatever are for everyone and not just sissies and little girls, "violent" games are not the wretched product of a diseased society. There is nothing wrong with an adult enjoying a Grand Theft Auto game; humans are an aggressive species. It's a bit unfortunate, but natural--and far better to stick to outlets that don't harm others. Read More... Posted Oct 21 2008, 07:02 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: mortal kombat, shigeru miyamoto, grand theft auto, nadia oxford, game development, game violence

• Surprise of the Week: Sega Releases a Good Game

  Man, that PS2 just keeps hanging in there, doesn't it?  We're nearly 8 years after the system's launch and still getting some pretty high-profile games; part of me wishes that the PS2 wasn't on its last legs (as far as  quality software goes), because that would mean we'd still be seeing the great output that Japanese studios gave us last generation--when development costs were merely crazy instead of wholly and intractably insane.  But in the world of reality, Yakuza 2 ships today, and it's pretty important. If you didn't play the first Yakuza, you're not alone; it came out in the Fall of 2006, when the world cared only for the tidal wave of next-gen was about to hit. I actually found out about the game long after its release date, and GameFly-ed it the following Fall. Yakuza was actually pretty surprising for what I assumed would be a ripoff of Grand Theft Auto--okay, it kind of is a ripoff of Grand Theft Auto, in its own way. Add a distinctly Japanese sense of game design to the GTA series, and you've basically got Yakuza; and obviously, there are some benefits and drawbacks to this equation. Read More... Posted Sep 09 2008, 01:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with no comments Filed under: sega, ps2, grand theft auto, bob mackey, yakuza

• 9/9/99 9 Years Later

  Numerology fans take note; what was one purported to be the biggest day in entertainment history took place exactly 9 year ago. Plagiarism fans also take note: I got this idea from the latest episode of Retronauts. Yes, we're nearly a decade from the launch of Sega's little-console-that-could-but-didn't, and aside from making me feel incredibly old, this anniversary of sorts had me thinking about just where I was on 9/9/1999. My most distinct memory of that time period--which is mostly fuzzy and inexplicably filled with Pokemon--is being madly in love with a high school girl. Luckily for her, I was also in high school; but even with us having that much in common, it was never meant to be. So did I console myself by splurging and then weeping on Sega's newest system? Fittingly, Final Fantasy VIII absorbed most of my pain in telling the story of an emotional cripple that made me look much more stable by comparison. I eventually got a Dreamcast a whole year later, but my relationship with it was just as sordid and artificial as my high school fling. I used it. Read More... Posted Sep 09 2008, 11:00 AM by Bob Mackey with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: ico, sega, sonic the hedgehog, grand theft auto, dreamcast, bob mackey

• Just How Far Behind Is Australia?

  To say that PAL regions like Australia receive their games later than the rest of the world is a passé understatement. Now, from the land down under, comes this roundtable discussion on violent games being banned due to the lack of a video game rating system: Read More... Posted Aug 04 2008, 03:30 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: derrick sanskrit, yahtzee, fallout 3, grand theft auto, porn, australia, ratings, censorship

• Revenge of the Port: Dead Rising Shuffles, Moans on Wii

  The true death of the arcade came at the beginning of this decade. It wasn’t when gamers started opting for the comfort and value of playing at home; it was when home consoles finally started equaling (and surpassing) the technological heft of the arcade cabinets themselves. Sega, one of the only surviving arcade giants, signed the death warrant themselves when developing the Dreamcast and its arcade-motherboard-twin, Naomi. Games at home and games in the arcade, identical for the first time. The move may have had the negative effect of killing off the already declining amusement center population across the Western world, but it also had a significant silver lining: the death of the shoddy arcade port. Approximations of more technologically demanding games have been a staple of gaming in the home since the 1970s, but, with the exception of stray PC-based ports, downgraded game experiences have largely disappeared since 2000. Today, in 2008, the fracturing of the console space seems to be bringing them back in force. Read More... Posted Jul 16 2008, 01:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, nintendo, xbox 360, resident evil, wii, capcom, nes, PC, pokemon, sega, grand theft auto, dreamcast, port, koei, Naomi, dead rising, dynasty warriors

• Whatcha Playing: Fallout (Metaphorically Speaking)

  Truth to tell, I’ve never played a Fallout game. The vast majority of my gaming career has been spent in front of a television, not a monitor, my hands clutching a controller instead of hovering over a keyboard. It’s not a point of pride, let me tell you. Not gaming on a PC throughout the ‘90s meant you were perpetually on the outside of the cutting edge, waiting for advancements to come to Nintendo, Sony, or whoever else’s systems sometimes years later. Deus Ex, Half-Life, Diablo, even Sierra’s King’s Quest V, all games I’ve gotten to try my hand at, eventually, when they were ported to a console, shadows of their former selves. It’s even kept me from really experiencing whole genres; I’ve never played a real-time strategy game for more than a few minutes and my aging laptop could barely run World of Warcraft when I tried it out in 2005. Since that year, though, consoles have started gaining on PCs as the place where developers make their greatest strides. It’s not too surprising. Consoles have turned into high-end computers themselves. Read More... Posted Jun 26 2008, 03:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, the world ends with you, whatcha playing, wii fit, rock band, mega man, grand theft auto, final fantast vii, metal gear, diablo, deus ex

• Alternate Soundtrack: Uniracers vs. Think About Life

  Video and words by Derrick Sanskrit My fellow 61FPSers know that I'm a big fan of the quirky 1994 SNES racer, Uniracers. Aside from starring self-aware, unmanned unicycles and having appropriately psycho-geometric backgrounds, the game ran at Sonic the Hedgehog speeds. It pioneered the whole doing-tricks-earns-points-and-makes-you-go-faster mechanic later popularized by the Tony Hawk: Pro Skater series and borrowed by every racing game from SSX to Mario Kart Wii. A lot of Uniracers' charm is explained by looking at the other work by its developer, DMA Design Limited. They broke onto the scene with the wildly popular Lemmings in 1990. That, along with Uniracers, won them some favor with Nintendo, who helped DMA with Body Harvest, a 3D vehicular action game for the Nintendo 64. DMA took everything they'd learned from Body Harvest to build the extremely controversial, unexpected hit Grand Theft Auto. Soon enough, DMA was bought out and renamed Rockstar North, where they continue to make Grand Theft Auto and Manhunt games to this day. So yeah, Uniracers is the senseless SNES racer by the people who made Lemmings and Grand Theft Auto 4. Interested yet? Read More... Posted Jun 17 2008, 11:00 AM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: alternate soundtrack, derrick sanskrit, rockstar, snes, grand theft auto, manhunt, uniracers, lemmings, think about life, dma design

• Guns and Football: The Ten Best Selling Games in America

  It’s one thing to hear people in the international community exclaim that Americans are loud slobs who don’t care about anything except violence and football. It’s another to see it spelled out in raw numbers. Brian Caulfield of Forbes, using data provided by the NPD Group, wrote an article early last week looking at the ten best selling videogames in the US as of April 2008. The list, after the jump. Read More... Posted Jun 09 2008, 12:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, top ten, call of duty, guitar hero, halo, grand theft auto, madden

• The Ten Most Adventurous Sequels in Gaming History, Part 3

  Jak II As Amber recently mentioned, Jak's personality changed between Jak & Daxter and Jak II. This wasn't an, "Oh look, he's got a new hat!" sort of change either. Jak went from being an unassuming, Pixar-styled young-and-plucky hero to a gun-toting, tortured prisoner of war in the span of two credits sequences. But Naughty Dog's decision to frame the sequel around a loss of innocence isn't what's adventurous about Jak II. In Jak & Daxter, Jak is mute, but following his fall from grace at the beginning of II, he chats up a storm. As significant as the shift from a silent vessel for the player to inhabit to a defined personality driving story are the changes made to Naughty Dog's original play design. Jak & Daxter was a hub-based platformer in the vein of Super Mario 64 (albeit more linear) that featured basic melee combat. Jak II has more in common with Grand Theft Auto than Spyro the Dragon, eschewing platforming arenas and challenges for a mission based structure and vehicle play with more gun combat than melee. Naughty Dog have established themselves as one of gaming's most reliable developers, but few of their titles have the sheer balls of Jak II. — JC   Read More... Posted Jun 05 2008, 08:32 PM by Peter Smith with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, peter smith, super mario bros 3, top ten, list, jak and daxter, the ten most adventurous sequels in gaming history, super mario 64, star fox 2, grand theft auto, naughty dog, spyro the dragon, super mario world 2, jak ii, resident evil 4, star fox command, donkey kong country, yoshi's island, command & conquer, star fox 64, super mario world