Random Dialogue

I’ve mentioned before that EGM is probably my favorite of the videogaming periodicals that I receive, and October’s Issue is a perfect example of why I feel that way. Aside from a kickass cover, the issue covers some great games and puts down some interesting opinions in a well-written fashion.

“Xbox vs. PS3″ covers some of the details out of development houses in the approach to the Tokyo Game Show. Specifically, they discuss the fact that both the 360 and PS3 will have to share Resident Evil 5 between them. RE5 looks terrific, with the fast zombies and stuff. An actual new piece of information, that the blazing sun will have a detriment on the protagonist’s state of being. They’re also talking up ways to keep development costs down, like with XNA or middleware. Interesting stuff.

“Gun” is the first good looking western shooter I think I’ve ever seen. I don’t really like the western genre in videogaming, but looks kind of promising. It’s a GTA-style freeranger with cattle to herd, bears to skin, and banditos to arrest along with the actual story missions. Resident Evil 4 is already a tremendous game, but they have a look at the PS2 version coming out soon. It’s looking pretty good. The most interesting add-on is a new single-player campaign that allows you to play as Ada Wong, running parallel to Leon Kennedy. It allows you to dog Kennedy’s heels as he moves through the game, occasionally overlapping to allow seeing the game from a different point of view.

“Game Coaching” is a fripping funny article about professional Halo 2 coaches. An intern gets coached by a series of individuals ranging from one of the top competitors in the country to a 7 year old (the youngest pro player in the country). I love the idea of a 20-something player getting schooled by a 7 year old, and an interesting look at the practice of game coaching. Overheard: “Be a Nerd. Watch lots of movies, read comics, do what you’ve gotta do. If you can run your friends through a Dungeons and Dragons game as a dungeon master, and they have a good time, congratulations: You’re a game designer.” - Alex Jimenez

Speaking of design, a fluffy non-piece about Lorne Lanning’s work as a game designer. I’d care more if he hadn’t crapped his company down the tubes to do magic happy movies. “Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow” looks truly excellent, on the other hand. It’s a traditional 2D Vania title, with 3D elements and some interesting collecting bits. EGM’s countdown to their 200th Issue continues to be interesting. The “Top 10 Bosses” hits some of the all-stars; Alma, Nemesis, Psycho Mantis, Mother Brain. Sephiroth snags the top spot. It makes sense that he does, of course, given the central topic of this issue.

“Preview Feature: Shooters” is a several page spread about upcoming FPS titles. A few of them (Battlefield 2: Modern Combat, Half-Life 2) are console ports of PC titles that sound as if they’ve already had all the interesting sucked out of them. HL2 is supposed to be a good port, but what’s the point of a Valve game with no multiplayer? Star Wars Battlefront 2, though, and Serious Sam 2, look like a lot of fun. It’s very interesting to me that a lot of titles I remember playing several years ago are now coming back in new forms. Serious Sam, Half-Life…it’s like a 90’s revival.

“The Final Countdown” details the many Final Fantasy VII sequels and spinoffs that Square-Enix has been working on for the past few years. Advent Children gets a deep look, an interview with Director Tetsuya Nomura. Interesting stuff, especially in regard to some of the decisions regarding the supporting characters. Before Crisis, the mobile game that was looked at so deeply in Game Developer, and Crisis Core, an upcoming PSP game, both get brief looks as well. The Dirge of Cerberus FFVII shooter starring Vincent Valentine looks absolutely delicious, and probably is the FFVII project I’m most looking forward to. It’s not scheduled to be out until next year, but it looks very promising. They then have a look at the future of the series. Final Fantasy XII is likely to be released in the states at the end of next summer (yay), but there has been a lot of coverage on the nets about production difficulties. I’m not going to hold my breath. Either way, the big deal that everyone is shvitzing about is the possibility of a Final Fantasy VII remake for a next-gen console. The FFVII tech demo at E3 was absolutely breathtaking, and was literally the only moment during the event that I gasped while looking at footage. I even saw it live, so that was cool. That would be really cool, but I don’t see it coming anytime soon. Maybe a nice christmas present for PS3 owners next December?

Reviews are solid, as always. I really like the sheer number of numbers EGM throws at you for each review. It allows a number of opinions and outlooks to get filtered by your brainpan. They gave Darkwatch the same score I did too, which is always nice to see. Next month: The 360 will be here. :D

Ahh…Game Developer. My monthly periodical that makes me feel dumb. Luckily, this one is kind of short because it’s a special “Mobile” issue of the magazine. There’s less article for me to feel dumb through. Mobile gaming has been a quickly expanding business the last few years, as phones gain in sheer computational power and graphical capability. Pretty much every movie that comes out gets a mobile tie-in now, and now more respectable developers are taking a look at the mobile market.

Actually, I felt pretty good about this issue. I understood most of it because ,um, I was a programmer. Sometimes I forget about that. The Skunk Works piece is about an IDE for Java Development on phones. Not only does it do the normal IDE stuff (colour coding, diff viewing, code management), it lets you develop for specific phone hardware and software.

Which is good, because the big lesson I got out of “State of the Industry: Mobile Games” is that developing for mobile platforms is very lucrative. License games sell like crazy nowadays, because people who buy games for the cell phones are pretty much, by definition, those mythical creatures we refer to as “casual gamers”. Arcade style games and quick, easy to pick up and put down titles are mostly what seems to be getting made, with 3D gaming on mobiles being a very recent and still largely niche market. Not only is the business expanding, but the cost of doing business is going up. Like the casual gaming market on the PC, what was once pretty much a cottage industry is expanding rapidly and the cost of developing games is rising as the expectations of consumers go up. As consumer interst rises, the heavyweights of more traditional videogaming are starting to sit up and take notice. Mobile gaming revenue is expected to hit $1.8 Billion by 2009, and EA (surprise, surprise) is looking to get a slice of that pie. An interesting piece with a lot of good background material.

Which I needed, because “Mobilizing Content”, an article about actually developing games for mobiles, was quite eye opening. Mobile gaming may be lucrative, but it’s also hard. Between the hardware (dozens of different handheld sets which may be big sellers on the market at the time) and the software (again, dozens) there are hundreds of environments on which your code might have to run. Above and beyond the internal bits, gross physical characteristics like the screen size and orientation, or how the buttons are laid out are going to have a big impact on how well people can play your game. The idea, then, is portability. They cite the Aqua Teen Hunger Force mobile game, which uses as much hardware and software agnosticism as possible to ensure that many configurations will be able to run it well. There is also a lot of discussion about trimming down the amount of memory used for the title, very old skool in thought.

The postmortem for the issue is old skool as well. “Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII” is a prequel to the PS1 title and was released in Japan back in 2004. Here in the states, it’s due to be released sometime in early 2006. The mobile game is an action/RPG starring the Turks, the black-suit clad villain group from the original FFVII. Not surprising given the high quality that Square-Enix usually aims for, the postmortem was extremely interesting. The piece highlights the difficulties and possibilities of mobile gaming amazingly well. The game managed to meet hardcore and casual gamers halfway, moved people into a network-oriented mode of gameplay without the many downsides of an actual MMOG, and managed to do a little bit of innovating by making use of the ubiquitous cameraphone in a clever way. (Photos could be taken with the camera, and were transformed into appropriately colored magicite based on the general color of the photo taken.) The difficulties of the project were illuminating as well. Primarily they seemed to beserver limitations, the lack of interoperability between different phone models and manufacturers, and the inherent problem of setting the right difficulty level for a game aimed at hardcore and casual audiences. Postmortems give the non-developer an interesting glimpse behind the scenes, and this one was especially interesting given the hardware and developer in question.

Back to the grind on the games page today, and this week overall. This is going to be a very busy fall and winter for me, with lots of worthwhile releases to look at and this little thing called the Xbox 360 to take a look at. Last Friday I put up an editorial about the Revolution’s possibilities, and this week should see three reviews. The first one is already up, and you can take a look at my opinion of Darkwatch. Wednesday should see another shortish review about Sims 2: Nightlife. Friday’s piece will discuss Burnout: Revenge, which is a lot of fun. The third game may have been moreso…I haven’t decided yet. Revenge definitely gives some clues as to what we can expect on Microsoft’s next gen hardware. Lots of interesting UI choices and visual bits.

This weekend went past quickly. Watched “A Knight’s Tale”, the football/knight movie that is very, very bad. Very. It was okay though, because the De Smets made french onion soup, which was tasty. Yesterday’s game went well, I think. It was our first all-dungeoncrawling session; the group is moving at a good pace and showing good teamwork. Here’s hoping we can keep it up.

Otherwise, the only things on my plate are birfday stuffs. Thursday I’m having dinner with the fam, Saturday we’re having folks over for funnery after a showing of Corpse Bride, and Sunday is dinner with the in-laws. (As an aside, I apparently now have a subscription to the Official Xbox Magazine. I don’t know why. Did someone sign me up? Did I? I don’t remember. It’s tough getting old.)