You Must Reboot The System!

This past year there have been an absolute load of announcements for games coming out in 2012 and beyond. There were also some good game releases last year as well. But there has been something that has been niggling me about some of the latest announcements which make me think that game developers are fixing things before they are broken. I.E. Rebooting game franchises. In some respects some games need in but most of the time games don’t need a reboot. It’s like turning Mr Muscle in the Mr Muscle cleaner ads from a scrawny geek to a CGI Super hero. It’s not necessary and it’s not cool.

So far only two games that are coming out in 2011 that have been rebooted for no reason. These two games franchises I really have a lot of love for these two games, I grew up with them and they have made some fantastic game play. So I present to you the two games in 2011 that shouldn’t be Rebooted.

Devil May Cry

I know I have complained about this before, but for this post I am going to complain again. Why oh why would you want to take an awesome character like Dante and totally change him?! What I loved about Dante was the fact that he was a kick arse half demon with a bad ass attitude. He loved the fact that he was a demon hunter, and a highly skilled one at that. He also didn’t really give a crap what people though of him and wasn’t afraid to speak his mind. He also had a cool hair style and an awesome dress sence (even though he only had a long red coat on In Devil May Cry 3 but it was an awesome long red coat)

Last year, we saw the trailer of the next Devil May Cry game. I was personally excited about this announcement and couldn’t wait to see what Dante was going to do next. Well, I was stupidly excited untill I saw the teaser trailer for the game. Apon watching this trailer I simple was left staring at the screen for a good five minutes. To Quote Wayne’s World here; “You know that scene in scanners where the guys head is just about to explode?” That was the look of fear I had across my face. What the hell did they do to Dante?!

This picture had me laughing for ages

You know how much I said he was cool and bad arse? Yeah they have scrapped that and have pretty much turned him into the lead singer of My Chemical Romance! He is now an Emo kid, a teenage with obvious prepubescent problems who isn’t cool at all. You can imagine this rebooted Dante telling his mum to stuff it because he doesn’;t want to come home when tea is ready. Sure ok he looks like he is kicking some demon butt, but having him strapped up in what looks like an insane asylum? That doesn’t bode well for his image either.

Basically why did they have to change Dante? Ninja Theory, they guys behind this bold move said that the old school Dante wasn’t cool anymore and people were getting board of him. Of course, that makes sence, I mean look at Marvel Vs Capcom 3! Capcom put the Devil May Cry 3 version of Dante into the roster for exactly those reasons. Well spotted there Ninja Theory, well done.

Tomb Raider

Ok before I start this one off I can tell you know that I am not going to go on as much of  rant as I did with Devil May Cry back there. But again with the new Tomb Raider it seems like they have gone backward with the main protagonists age. No before you ask I am not going to give you a whole paragraph about how her boobs have shrunk, I am not like that. It’s more due to the fact that again Lara Croft was pretty kick ass when it came to scaling terrain and getting to unreachable places. Turns out this is going to be a younger and inexperienced Lara. Does this mean that we are going to get a limited when it comes to scaling walls etc? Are we going to get next to no weapons? What does this mean?

Also it would appear that this game is going to be a hell of a lot darker, which is again not what Lara Croft is about. I alway saw Tomb Raider as a franchise much like Indiana jones, something fun for all the family that could have dark undertones if needed. Not a dark and quite horrific game which may get an 18 rating. According to game informer, a couple of examples of ways Lara can die on the island she has been stranded on are being stabbed in the chest by a “deranged” knife-wielding man, and another is having a boulder land on Lara’s leg to trap her, followed by another boulder landing on and crushing her head. I mean what the hell? I know her quest were dangerous but the beauty of Tomb Raider is that you don’t have to go into ever gruesome detail.

From those two examples, it would appear that rebooting franchises these days involve making your Protagonists younger, possibly to related to the younger gaming demographic, which in turn leaves us older guys just not interested or annoyed. Making a game Darker than it needs to be, I.E. Tomb Raider sounds like more of a survival game than just a simple awesome relic hunting title. Finally to make a reboot these days you need to slap probably at least a 18 rated sticker on it to make it ‘cool’, which in turn defeated the point of even making the protagonist younger to suit the more younger gaming demographic….FACEPALM.

Garv

I have been without Xbox Live for about two months now, and I am pretty damn surprised on how much stuff I am missing out on. I feel like that the games I got for Christmas are significantly missing something without access to DLC. I have had Fallout 3 for some time now and haven’t bought any of the story Add on packs, I feel like I only have half a game now, god knows if Boarderlands will follow the same suit.

So are game developers crossing the line here? Well for starters I can think of some perfect examples where, without a shadow of a doubt, Developers are taking the biscuit. Lets take Soul Caliber IV into consideration here. Now your probably have a pretty good idea on what I am gonna say here but, for those of you who don’t know, when soul caliber IV was released they released star wars own Yoda for the Xbox 360 version and Darth Vader for the PS3 version. Absolutely no problem with that, seeing as Soul Caliber 2 did the same thing (They released Haihanchi for PS2, Link for Game Cube and Spawn for Xbox.) So when you played through Soul Caliber IV and eventually unlocked all the characters there was still a blank space for a character. About a month later Namco releases Darth Vader for Download on the Xbox Live Market Place and Yoda up for grabs on the PlayStation Network, you have to pay for both of these characters in order to down load them. A bit stingy to my mind seeing as Soul Caliber 2 had no option to get the other console exclusive charters. It was then uncovered that both Vader and Yoda had already been programmed into both the PS3 and Xbox versions of the game, meaning you were paying for a means to unlock the character as opposed to actually downloading it. What….The…..F&$£!

Street Fighter IV did the same with downloadable costume packs, but it is not only the fighting games that are being a little cheap with DLC games such as Ninja Gaiden II which also had downloadable costumes. But the DLC saga doesn’t stop there. Before the release of GTA Episodes From Liberty City the lost and damned and the ballad of gay tone were DLC only, they had all these new element to add to the GTA IV environment which weren’t in the original game, meaning that when they came out Niko’s city seemed really empty compared to the city that Johnny and Luis were in. With that example in mind, it does beg the question whether Developers are making half arsed attempts of games? Because in the back of their minds they are thinking, ‘Oh, its ok we can bulk it out with DLC at a later date, also means more money for us‘ (Que Pound Signs in the eyes).

Even though there are Developers out there who are just milking the cash cow of each release they have. There are some out there who I have the utmost respect for, because they are making and releasing their titles with minimal DLC and putting the new improved stuff in the next game. Perfect example is Left 4 Dead. First game had the minimum of killing zombies with guns and explosives and fighting you way through the hordes to survive. Left 4 Dead 2 is an improvement on that with much more, like gun upgrades, melee weapons, new enemies etc etc. So why the hell did L4D fans start complaining and boycotting this game just because they thought it would be better as a DLC pack!? Back on the PS2 no one thought ‘Hang on a second. I refuse to buy GTA Vice City because its only an updated GTA III, I want a game add-on disk!‘ It just doesn’t make sense. To my mind DLC has made the gaming world go a bit barmy, with Developers thinking money money money and games not knowing really what is makes really good DLC.

A Welcome Addition To The Zombie Slaying Sequel

For me some DLC can be justified, other are just taking the mickey. I can understand story add-ons to make the game longer but new costumes you have to pay money for? Really? Rockband and Guitar hero must be laughing at the moment. I hate to be the poor soul who went and bought the Band kit then every single DLC song under the sun. They have probably spent more money on that than the console they are playing it on.

Garv

It certainly sucks to be you right now, Sony. All that PSN hacking nonsense can’t have been very good for business; you’re being sued and investigated for it by multiple parties, you’ve shut off the ability for many indie developers to get their revenue and cost yourself and other companies tons of money in the process. On top of that, you’ve also made it a lot harder for people to trust you in the future, and you’ve caused a load of implications about security and personal information that’s quite frankly a tiny bit over my head.

The worst part of all of this for me is that I don’t feel sorry for you.

When PSN went down, it provided endless entertainment for me and my friends, who were huddled over Lee’s iPad reading out tweets. Whoever tweeted Major Nelson asking why the PSN was down, you won the game and we salute you. Granted, I didn’t know at the time that it was going to last as long as it has done, but I can’t say I didn’t see it coming. After all, it was more or less Sony’s fault that it happened. When you tout your console as being unhackable, you’re setting a challenge to a community who’ll then go out of their way to prove you wrong. When you then threaten to sue them and demand the names and information of everyone who visited the site giving out the information that allowed people to hack their consoles, and try to get Twitter to reveal the identity of everyone who tweeted the PS3′s private key, you just prove how out of touch you are and set yourself up for a downfall. Declaring that no one would hack your console, and then trying to sue whoever did? Are you really surprised that some people would set out to retaliate and show you up in response? Why didn’t you even update your security measures that you were told were outdated, or do a better job of encrypting personal data on the serves, instead of leaving a good deal of it in plain .txt files? It simply baffles me.

Jen, this is the PSN Security Box...

When you came out with the original Playstation, back in the bygone age when games being in three-dimensions was unprecedented, you were the plucky newcomer up against the increasingly arrogant Nintendo; they may have bettered Sega time and again, but you made them look outdated with their reliance on expensive cartridges on a less powerful console. Then comes E3 2006, after you’d provided two of the most memorable and successful consoles in gaming history, and you manage to make yourselves the most arrogant company around. You also managed to look completely ridiculous and out of touch by unveiling an incredibly expensive console, telling us we’d want to get second jobs just so we could afford to buy one, then created that year’s most popular memes by looking like colossal idiots and shouting about massive damage, giant enemy crabs and Riiiiiiiiiiiidge Racer! Sure, Nintendo and Microsoft have had their terrible conferences too, but that was a pivotal moment for you; you had the change to still prove you were the company the others should be gunning for, but instead you managed to shoot yourself in the foot.

There’s not specifically anything wrong with the PS3, or for that matter the PSP, it’s just Sony’s arrogance before and after their launch that just keeps turning me off. Their arrogance just pisses me off; especially when they run their mouth off about Microsoft and Nintendo every chance they get then copy everything they do but worse.
“Wow, Nintendo sure are ridiculous with those motion controls! No one’s going to want to use them, they’re stupid.”
-Months later-
“Hey, we’ve got this thing called SIXAXIS… Basically it’s like motion controls, but you tilt the controller uncomfortably in a way that mostly breaks the immersion, and we took out rumble in order to accommodate it because rumble is last generation and does nothing to help the gaming experience.”
-Months later-
“So yeah, uh, SIXAXIS is barely used and mostly poorly implemented, but we’re bringing back rumble you guys! Meanwhile, achievements are pointless and they’ll never catch on.”
-Months later-
“Look! We have trophies! They’re like achievements, but without anything that people like about them, and they’re mostly as enticing and addicting to the player as shit-covered skittles! On the other hand, Nintendo aren’t going to achieve anything with appealing to the casual market, and motion control has man-tits and erectile dysfunction.
-Months Later-”
“Guess what we’ve made that’s totally unique! It’s this thing called ‘Move’, and it’s nothing like the Wiimote because this has a glowing ball that changes colour! We’re also going to make a bunch of casual games specifically for it and vaguely try and appeal to the casual market. However, digital distribution is a smelly pirate hooker who should go back to its home on Whore Island.
-Months later-
“Introducing the PSPGo! It’s like a PSP, but everything is digitally distributed; the games cost more than physical copies at retail and Minis are expensive and sent out to die. Also, we’ll promise free digital copies for games you already have on UMDs then cancel that for no reason! It’s literally irredeemable and we’re sending it out to die! In the meantime, the mobile market is a loser; I had sex with its mother last week, and she said it was adopted.”
-Months later-
“Hey, so we’ve got these things called Xperia Play, and… where’s everyone going?”

Then there’s the matter of their marketing and advertising; before recently, most of it was horribly misguided, moronic and in some cases even offensive. Sony’s failed marketing is for the most part just as famous as their use of Kevin Butler; that advert with the creepy baby toy, the “White is better” PSP advert, the PSP advert with the squirrels, the list goes on. Sony botch marketing campaigns like Kotick ruins franchises. At this point, I know people are going to mention Kevin Butler; the VP of Whatever-Is-Relevant-For-The-Advert in the “It Only Does Everything” campaign. He may be awesome, but you have to keep in mind that Kevin Butler is a character played by an actor, and that he’s actually the creation of a company called Deutsch/LA; in a rare intelligent move by Sony, they hired someone else to sell their consoles for them, and it worked. Not that I have any faith in that lasting any longer; he’ll be run into the ground sooner rather than later, and they then bungled anything positive they achieved with Butler by introducing Marcus Rivers; a character so annoying and offensive that he’s more likely to caused PSPs to be destroyed rather than sold. It’s easier to justify why the bit in Resident Evil 5 with the natives wearing tribal skirts and carrying spears wasn’t racist than it is to justify Marcus Rivers.

The only way he could sell me a PSP is if I could bludgeon him with it afterwards.

After all that, it’s probably not that hard to see why I’m not only unsurprised at the PSN débâcle but unsympathetic about it too. It just seems to me that the hacking came about because of their attitude towards their security and the hackers, and their inability to realise the potential consequences of their actions. Their attitude set themselves up to be taken down, and as a result, they’ve screwed over millions of consumers and many of their partners in the industry. After all, think of all the money those partners have lost through the network being down, or all those sales indie developers have lost and won’t be able to recuperate Sony appear to be doing very little to help anyone else out or compensate developers for their loss; instead they’re only serving themselves by providing temporary free access to PSN Plus and providing free games that are basically used as extended adverts for upcoming or recent sequels. In other words, Sony’s only real action is to try to make themselves more money to make up for their own losses, not anyone else. That’s simply disgusting, and actually kind of reprehensible behaviour, and it just eliminates any positive feeling I had towards the company.

I was a big fan of the latter-day PSOne, and the PS2 gave me some of my favourite moments in gaming, but since the PS3, Sony have become a company I’ve found myself increasingly unable to defend. From everything I’ve mentioned in this article to the stuff I haven’t, like the rabid Sony fanboys (Hey there, N4G!) who’ll leap to the company’s defence over everything to the point that they give death threats to writers who give Sony exclusives anything below a perfect score (and in some cases even when they do) and attack anyone who doesn’t totally love the console. I’m already prepared for negative backlash from people intent on portraying me as someone who hates Sony because I’m a self-professed Nintendo fanboy, or claiming that I’ve been paid off by some other company to write this, even though recognise that as a potential possibility is ludicrous. I’d have better luck capturing a Unicorn and persuading him to be my friend. I have my own reasons to dislike Sony, and I’m not telling people to stop supporting them or giving solutions for Sony’s problems; I’m just trying to explain why I feel like I can’t support a company that shows itself to be increasingly out of touch and arrogant with little apparent respect for either its customers or partners. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again…

Sony couldn’t sell me a PS3 if it came with the girl of my dreams and a winning lottery ticket, then gave me a crown and made me King.

-Jokesound
<3

Some people don’t like videogames.
Not only that, but some of them actively refuse to fully understand them, revel in their ignorance and limited knowledge and go on television and communicate those ignorant views to everyone watching!
Get the medical team in here, we’ve got another fainter. Dammit, this happens every time.

It stands to reason that with every invention comes considerable backlash from ignorant parties. From the insistence of putting 3D into nearly everything to iPhones and mechanised looms, any invention is going to spawn a group of luddites lining up with blunt instruments ready to smash it in fear it’s going to take their jobs away. Videogames have been one of the biggest victims of this kind of ignorance for years; from a lawyer so persistent on getting them banned that he ended up being disbarred, to politicians trying to ban sales of them to minors for fears of violent content, and that “Videogames cause rape” débâcle around the time of Bulletstorm’s release. The fact that there are so many ignorant comments made in the mainstream media about games isn’t the surprising thing to me. What is surprising is that while the controversy may change and our preferred medium may grow up, the way some gamers approach the criticism and accusations levelled against games hasn’t.

And it’s ruining it for the rest of us.

Verily, some ruffians communicated their displeasure for the iPhone in their own manner.

Recently in the UK, a Channel Five show called “The Wright Stuff” became the latest attempt by the mainstream to criticise something they don’t actually understand and members of that broadcast became targets of another pro-games campaign. This time around, the campaign’s led by CVG and called WRONG (Stop the Witless and Ridiculous Opinions of Non-Gamers). It’s a harmless enough campaign; CVG are tired of seeing the same tired arguments from people who clearly don’t understand the medium, and if you see the transcript of what irked them, it’s difficult as a gamer to sit there and disagree with them. I’d recommend you read the original transcript provided in CVG’s WRONG article, as I’m about to horribly skewer the quotes in lieu of copying the whole thing:

Stefanie Powers: “It’s the horrible violent video games which [have] been used far too long as baby-sitting devices, so that children are raised with these flashing, hot symbols of [irresponsible] violence. And it’s probably that emotionally he’s just as detached from the potential of this as he would be with his Nintendo.”

Anne Diamond: “Having just that sort of armoury under his bed – just like you’d have a couple of Nintendo’s and a PlayStation under your bed.”

Matthew Wright: “You can equate with a teenage boy who almost certainly would have played just those games, spraying a machine gun… maybe we should talk about the shoot-’em-up games again tomorrow in the light of this, because I think you’re dead right.”

Pretty damning and ignorant statements, especially that one comparing having consoles under your bed to having weapons there; that’s practically begging to be criticised right there, and the worst part is that they’re somehow trying to blame videogames for unrelated gang violence. Sure, violence is at a forefront in a lot of videogames, but blaming that violence on games is like blaming the recent economic depression on that fact that the hero is often betrayed by an ally for money in films; it doesn’t make sense, and I actually feel stupider having to create that analogy.

It gets worse.

“The Wright Stuff” then made a reference to the WRONG campaign on another show and called those taking part in the campaign “brain-dead computer nerds” in a manner they knew would bait critics like a paedophile to a playground, and on a following episode they then chose to actually discuss videogames with statements so ignorant and evidence so shaky even creationists would stop in their tracks and re-assess themselves a little. They’re so bad I can’t even bring myself to paraphrase what they said because typing this sentence explaining why I won’t is a better, saner use of my time and the oxygen I’m inhaling in order to be alive enough to type it. You can read the summary of what’s said by clicking on this sentence, and you should feel sorry for the poor guy who had to type it all up.

So after this incredibly long-winded explanation of the situation at the time of writing, I’m all on-board to support CVG and their campaign when I scroll to the bottom and see…

That’s the first comment. The first damn comment to the article. However, in the interests of selectively handpicking comments so I can make my point, here are some selectively hand-picked comments that prove the point I’m about to make.

You may need to click to enlarge these.

Now before I continue, I have to admit that a much larger majority of the comments than I was expecting were actually much more intelligent and reasonable than these ones, so hats off to the people who restored a little of my faith in the people who comment on videogame articles on the internet. The people I’ve quoted? You’re who I’m writing this about, and I’d like to ask you to stop. It’s you, the vocal minority that are ruining things like this for the rest of us.

Just throwing this out there, but just for once, when the mainstream media attacks gaming with incredibly ignorant statements and insinuates that playing videogames will make us all violent socio-paths, can the majority of gamers not act exactly like that in response?
“Oh, they said games make us all violent, sociopathic and detached from reality? Well, I’ll go shit on their doorstep! That’ll show them!”
Excuse me for examining your obviously flawless logic, but surely by doing that you’re just helping to prove their point? After all, how many other groups of people can you think of who’ll look at the criticism they get and then actively and willingly prove said criticism?

On the aforementioned TV show Anne Diamond said something that cannot be overlooked in this circumstance: “I’ve come across these people before. If you write anything critical or say anything critical of computer games, you become a victim of really vicious hate mail.”
The worst part of what she said? She’s completely right.

When Fox News investigated Bulletstorm and Carol Lieberman claimed that “‘the increase in rapes can be attributed in large part to the playing out of [sexual] scenes in video games“, the gaming community was in uproar, and quite rightly so. After all, she made an incredibly inaccurate statement and any attempts at rationality were clearly abandoned for the increased attention they’d get by sensationalising the story and scaremongering. What did some gamers do in response? Quite hilariously, admittedly, attacked Carol Lieberman’s book on Amazon, rating it poorly and making inaccurate statements about the book much like she did about the game in an amazing display of irony. I couldn’t discourage it at the time because the best ones were way too hilarious and gamers weren’t being worse, just being the same and using the same logic as their opponents, and dealing with it with humour is fine as long as you’re aware your opponents can choose not to recognise your sarcasm and take you seriously for their own ends. That, I can deal with. What I can’t deal with is what some of the vocal minority were doing, and it’s the same as what they were doing with the Penny-Arcade ‘Dickwolves’ kerfuffle. For those not in the know, Penny-Arcade made a comic that satirised the inherent evil of “rescue x amount of people” quests, but gained controversy and ire for making a rape joke in the process, angering vocal feminists and other detractors. What did they want? For Penny-Arcade to either pull the comic that they felt was insensitive towards women, apologise, or both. What did that vocal minority of gamers do? Send those people death threats and advocate their rape. You’ve just crossed the point where you’ve made it impossible to defend yourselves or for others to defend you, and you’ve just ruined it for everyone else. You, the vocal minority, have become children so desperate to defend something that you’re willing to cause legitimate grievance to anyone who dares disagree with you. It’s something that makes you rub your eyes, get out of your chair and loudly exclaim “What the fuck?!”

He played Bulletstorm then couldn't stop raping

Again, I know these gamers are the minority, and that’s something I can imagine anyone willing to dismiss this tirade will be thinking and desperate to say to me, but consider this:
Those people on the TV? The ones you’re attacking for giving gaming a bad name with their uninformed opinions? They’re also a minority now. Gaming has become more mainstream in recent years and now those people running their mouths off are a minority that’s slowly dying out as their generation are gradually replaced.

Think about the insurgents in Iraq for a second. Trust me, I’m going somewhere with this. Now, tell me, who did you think of first; the many innocents who haven’t done anything wrong, or the terrorists? Both have fundamentally similar beliefs, but different ways of expressing those beliefs. Those terrorists may be the minority, but they’re the ones who come to the forefront and who many think are speaking and acting on the behalf of the rest. That’s what this situation almost feels like, that those vocal minority of gamers ruining it for the rest of us are claiming to fight for our cause, but doing so in such a way that it makes it difficult for the rest of us to be taken seriously, because the minority are all-too willing to fulfil the stereotypes others are willing to brand us with.

I want to end this with a direct message to those people:
You’re making it harder and harder for gaming to be taken seriously and you’re making it harder for the negative stigma surrounding playing games to dissipate. As a result, it’s harder for the medium to defend itself against criticism and it prevents the industry from maturing as quickly as it should be. The way you act is childish, and you’re ruining gaming not just for yourself, but for everyone.

I’ll still support CVG and their WRONG campaign, but only in tandem with my own view…
GRIFT: Gamers are Ruining It For Themselves.

Sources:
CVG – WRONG: Anne Diamond, Matthew Wright. Please stop talking about video games.
CVG – WRONG: ‘Brain-dead computer nerds’ gifted national TV exposure.
CVG – WRONG: Which came first, GTA or drive-by shootings?
Rock, Paper, Shotgun – Will Bulletstorm Murder Your Children? (No)
Rock, Paper, Shotgun – BulletstormGate: Fox News Responds.
Channel 5 – The Wright Stuff – Episode 68-22

Something that has become a bigger and more pressing issue in the world of games recently is the portrayal of women. After the “dickwolves” saga Penny-Arcade went through and some of my favoured sites like GJAIF harping on and on about similar issues, I found it increasingly difficult to keep silent on the issue. With the newest ‘controversy’ arising recently, I felt that even though I’m about as qualified to talk about this as I am to pilot a submarine, I can keep quiet no longer.

Duke Nukem Forever was recently revealed to have a “Capture the Babe” mode, which is nothing more than the standard capture the flag variant of multiplayer, but with a twist: Occasionally the ‘babe’ Duke is meant to capture will freak out, and can only be remedied by Duke giving her a slap to calm her down. Unsurprisingly, people are jumping up from all corners with their opinions and I’m no different in this regard, I must admit. You want to know what I think?

I think it’s a load of bollocks, and I’ll explain why after the jump.

SEXIST

For a start, I’m honestly starting to wonder if a lot of people who have major issue with what Duke Nukem Forever is doing are even aware of what the game is like, or if they’re just trying to find issue with it because they can. Duke Nukem is a man who is so macho he makes men in the UFC look like they’re in High School Musical, he spouts ridiculous one liners and is meant to be a parody of action heroes. Granted, he’s been gone for twelve years, but the memories of the things you could do in Duke Nukem 3D mean that a lot of the things that come up in Forever shouldn’t be a shock to anyone in the know. I didn’t even bat an eyelid when some journalists were taken to a strip club to see the game previewed; I knew from hearsay that 3D featured strippers and while it may not have been the most sensitive thing for them to do, it’s still something that fits Duke like a red tank-top. Footage of the beginning of Forever reveals Duke being serviced by twins while playing a video game of his exploits, and the whole plot centres around aliens getting rid of Earth’s women to the point Duke intervenes. You know what I did when I found out about having to slap women in ‘Capture the Babe’?

I laughed. I sat in the office next door to the studio before doing a radio show, called my friend over who was appearing on the show with me and made her read the news piece. We even talked about it on air a little. While some people are about to fire up their torches and pitchforks and call up Angry Mobs Inc., I will fully admit that I found it funny. Does that make me sexist? I’d argue that while it probably doesn’t show me in the best favour I can at least understand exactly why it’d happen in the game and appreciate exactly why it fits into the game. To me, it’s not something that stands out and it’s not something that should even stand out to anyone or be such a source of drama. Even though it being a pat on the bottom and not a slap around the chops that some people seem to think it is hasn’t stopped some people complaining and freaking out over it.

Duke readied his fists. This was going to be a long night.

Why are people getting so shocked that Duke Nukem Forever contains sexism and misogyny? That’s like getting shocked that you have to turn your console on before playing a game. I’d be more surprised if I discovered I had to press start to continue.

I know for a fact that women are a minority in gaming, and they’re made to feel like they are; whether through games that constantly feature gritty, gruff and macho protagonists, with female characters that seem to be constantly shoehorned in and written as an afterthought and the way that the worst of humanity act whenever a girl appears online in a video game. I’m constantly disappointed by the fact that women are made to feel like they’re not allowed to express themselves or talk during online games without being harassed, but short of finding a way to cull anyone who ends up on fatuglyorslutty.com I know I’m not in a position to change anything. It’s hard to do so; Ben Paddon of GJAIF is an active feminist and advocate of more women in the industry, and while I enjoy his site greatly, it was very difficult for him to make his comments on feminism and the treatment of women in the industry captivating enough and he ended up with a lot of negative backlash for trying to force the issue too much. It’s tough because a lot of people like to act bigger on the internet than they do in real life (myself included) and it only serves to exacerbate the issue. The ultimate problem I have is that while I support those who want to bring attention to these problems, I don’t always support how they try to do so.

Take the Penny-Arcade ‘Dickwolves’ saga. For those not in the know, in August 2010, Penny Arcade published a comic that involved a protagonist who refused to save a slave who is “raped to sleep every night by dickwolves” because he’d already saved enough slaves to finish the quest. What was something that was meant to poke fun at the whole inherent evil of those quests in games was something that ended up being a massive controversy that descended into two extreme sides; those who decided Penny-Arcade were ‘Rape-Apologists’ and those who defended PA to the point that they sent dissenters death threats and threatened to rape women who felt they had a legitimate grievance with the comic. What did anyone gain? As far as I can see it, all it did was show up how inherently stupid the controversy was that it became so extreme that it ended up becoming more sick and twisted than the comic itself.

A better example would be the incident that caused GJAIF to go on its feminist crusade. David Gaffe commented on Sony’s NGP after it was announced by comparing it to ‘pussy’. Some people, quite fairly took issue with that and he apologised. Jim Sterling, a man whose writing in the gaming world I am a big fan of claimed that the apology was unnecessary and as a result was trolled by a feminist to the point where he bit back. Suddenly, people were trying to get Jim fired and even Felicia Day commented on his response that the woman trolling was a “feminazi bitch” as they perceived him to be sexist and out of line. People sprang out of their seats to be the next in line to criticise him for being a sexist and making the gaming industry worse for women, and all of those people blindly ignored the fact that the troll who caused it was being incredibly homophobic. While I understand, and to some extent I’m pleased that so many people are willing to help make games a better place for women, in their blind fury to over-react and condemn perceived sexism they allowed homophobia to seem perfectly acceptable. It was a case of no steps forward, and tumbling down the staircase trying to walk backwards.

That’s not forgetting the fact that now people are allegedly taking issue with the fact that there are female protagonists in Gears of War 3, a series that was previously so manly that it ate lumberjacks and shat bulls. The issue wasn’t that the portrayal of women was offensive, but because they could be chainsawed like every other character and this was apparently sexist or something for encouraging violence to women? What? It’s essentially going “Well, we want women to be more equal in games, except in this case, in this case, in this case…”

Because sawing this gentle flower in half is the most sexist thing you can ever do....EVER!

Being selective in your arguments makes things worse. If you want women to be equal in games, then don’t let their gender mean they’re more or less deserving of violence in a game where violence is the soup du jour. Ben Walke of Gaminglives recently said to me that “Gender specifics have no place in-game design, characters should be thought of as neutral, they don’t eat, live or breath”, and I can’t think of a better way to summarise what I’m trying to say than that.

Randy Pitchford has gone on record to say that Duke Nukem Forever satirizes men and the way they treat women more than it in any way negatively portrays the ‘fairer sex’. He’s also encouraged feminists to use Duke Nukem Forever as a way to get their voices heard more clearly and help make games more equal. You’re more than free to do that, but the whole point that I’m trying to make is that if you’re trying to help makes games more equal, why use Duke as your primary argument, or an argument at all? Why not those games where the women are purposely scantily clad, where they’re literally there for the men to ogle over, where they’re such shockingly cliché stereotypes you can’t cope? There are far better ways to argue equality in games than to use a game and a character that is such a blatant parody and so purposely over the top that trying to take it even a little bit seriously is doing it wrong.

I know so many amazing writers and great people in the gaming industry who are women and who don’t have to keep constantly pointing that out to get any credibility; Guitargirl on this site (who as a matter of fact has written something on this subject in the past and can be accessed by clicking these here brackets), the writers on Gaminglives, the creators of TheAverageGamer and Death By Robots, the producer and other members of GinxTV and a bunch more people I could mention. Surely soon we can get to a point with the games we play as well where the gender of the person doesn’t matter, but the quality of their output does. We should care about game characters not because of the quality of their writing, voice acting and portrayal, not just because they might have tits.

The perfect battle attire; as modelled by Soul Calibur IV

I think I may have lost a bit of steam, and I fully recognise that maybe what I say doesn’t make a difference, but I’ll end with one last thing before the angry mob someone ordered seven paragraphs ago arrives to rip me apart:

While we have to do everything we can to help make gaming more available to every one of all races, sexualities and genders, there’s always going to be something that you disagree with and you’ll want to change. When you do that though, there’s one thing to keep in mind. If we take even the silliest and most ridiculous game and try to rip it apart for our cause, we’re forgetting why these things exist.

Never forget gaming is about fun.

Edward Price, AKA Jokesound.

I must admit that the title may be reactionary, but this week EA have announced that they are planning to join Ubisoft in ditching their video games instruction booklets in order to cut their printed materials down by 40%. All well and good for the environment, but is it the way forward?

I know that I can’t speak for all of the gamers out there as I write this, but when it comes to video games, films, comics, graphic novels and anything else I am a keen collector. I am one of those guys who always flinches when someone opens a graphic novel way too wide, or starts frowning when my instruction booklet inside my video game box has been slightly bent. I love complete things in mint condition, and what I also love is flicking through instruction booklets as soon as I get a new game.

I am one of those gamers who excitedly runs out of the video game store just after they have purchased a new game, finds a bench somewhere and flicks through the instruction manual. I know its geeky, but hey, it’s what I do.

So when I hear that EA are planning to ditch the things altogether my heart sinks slightly. I know a portion of you out there are either thinking I am totally crazy or slightly strange. But I know there are gamers like me out there who are exactly the same. Take Collectors Editions of games for example; you get a metric ton of booklets and stuff. Imagine if you just bought shiny Collectors Edition of a game, and upon opening it a post-it drops out saying “Here is your game… to save trees we haven’t included any art books, instruction manuals or any paper of any kind… enjoy your game!”

Looks good doesn't it? But we must think of the trees...

Granted, reading back at the last paragraph or two I did go off on a bit of a tangent there, but you have to realise Instruction Manuals complete the game for me. EA have said that they will put the instructions book on the disc in digital form, but where is the fun in that? I also bet that 90% of new game smell comes from the instruction book and I love that new game smell.

What do you guys think? Is having the instruction manual something that should be left alone? Or am I just ranting for no apparent reason?

Garv.

The video games of 2013. Enjoy!

Ever since I have been sinking my teeth into curtain game genres such as Hack and Slash games and fighting games, I have come to realize that some titles seem to get to a point where the game stops being difficult and just becomes frustrating. This is typical of some hack and slash titles and some fighting games as well. I am of corse talking about cheap boss’s.

An example of a non-cheap boss and he is called DR ROBOTNIK not Egg man!

So for those of you who don’t fully understand the concept of a cheap boss let me explain. imagine Your pretty much at the end of a level/game and there is the final boss staring at you and you launch into battle. Next thing you know you are being pummeled by all sorts of over powered moves that you can’t block or find it near on impossible to dodge. So you find yourself dying time after time to beat this git, untill you A)extremely lucky and beat the boss out of sheer luck. Or B) Find yourself going to your latest video game retailer and buying yourself a new controller because the last one you had is now in tiny pieces scattered around your living room/bedroom.

So why do developers implement cheap bosses into games? Is it just to piss gamers off? Are the Developers trying to get 1 up on the gamers, thinking they worked hard on this game so we should work hard defeating it? This I cannot answer now, but what I can do for you is give you some warning. I bring to you the top three cheapest Boss’s in my opinion. This is hope that you can save yourselves from hours of frustration, or you can just have a go at these guys and see what I mean.

WARNING: The next bit of this article will now contain spoilers for Devil May Cry 3, Dante’s Inferno and Street Fighter IV. You Have Been Warned.

Arkham – Devil May Cry 3

This demonic blob from the demon realm has to be a pretty cheap ass boss because he just doesn’t let you get near him. His main trick it to push you backwards with demon power and then pummel you from a distance with things like flying demon tentacles and demonic eels sprouting from the floor. It’s only once you get close to him you can deal some damage. If you don’t have infinite DT then your pretty much screwed. You have to be very precise with dodges, so i suggest your best bet here is to use trickster and dodge like you have never dodged before. Then as soon as the eels come from the floor it’s a case of jumping and firing your rocket launcher at the floor.

Lucifer – Dante’s Inferno

It may come to no surprise to you that the lord of Hell is the boss in this game. When you first fight him your thinking this is easy. But it is his second stage you have to be aware of. He attacks you in his humanoid state, what really annoyed me about this was that my attacks were doing hardly any damage, and every now and again he would teleport and then spam an uber move on me leaving me incapacitated. Weather it was smashing the ground or firing hellish demon power at me, moves like that would take half my health bar down in one. So my advice here is get yourself the holy armour spell, equip it and spam the crap out of him, yes it may take you several years and a million tries but it works eventually.

Seth – Street Fighter IV

Now this is one of those cheap bosses which I have no strategy for. This is the cheapest boss I have come across in my gaming career. He loves to spam moves such as the pile-driver which takes a huge chunk of your health out, and the chain three shyroken. If your lucky he may do both at the same time. Oh and don’t forget the move where he kicks you and it suddenly becomes a million kick combo. That’s a doozy. So that’s what to watch out for, I suggest using maybe Bison or Dhalsim so you can teleport and dodge his attacks, or maybe fight fire with fire and use Seth himself if you have Super Street Fighter IV.

So there you have it, the top three cheap bosses in my recent gaming career that have really given my a hard time. There are probably more which I have blanked from my mind because they annoyed me that much. So with all this in mind, what are your top three cheapest Bosses and why?

Garv.

You Must Reboot The System!

In the past few months there have been an absolute load of announcements for games coming out in 2011 and beyond. There were also some good game releases last year as well. But there has been something that has been niggling me about some of the latest announcements which make me think that game developers are fixing things before they are broken. I.E. Rebooting game franchises. In some respects some games need in but most of the time games don’t need a reboot. It’s like turning Mr Muscle in the Mr Muscle cleaner ads from a scrawny geek to a CGI Super hero. It’s not necessary and it’s not cool.

So far only two games that are coming out in 2011 that have been rebooted for no reason. These two games franchises I really have a lot of love for these two games, I grew up with them and they have made some fantastic game play. So I present to you the two games in 2011 that shouldn’t be Rebooted.

Devil May Cry

I know I have complained about this before, but for this post I am going to complain again. Why oh why would you want to take an awesome character like Dante and totally change him?! What I loved about Dante was the fact that he was a kick arse half demon with a bad ass attitude. He loved the fact that he was a demon hunter, and a highly skilled one at that. He also didn’t really give a crap what people though of him and wasn’t afraid to speak his mind. He also had a cool hair style and an awesome dress sence (even though he only had a long red coat on In Devil May Cry 3 but it was an awesome long red coat)

Last year, we saw the trailer of the next Devil May Cry game. I was personally excited about this announcement and couldn’t wait to see what Dante was going to do next. Well, I was stupidly excited untill I saw the teaser trailer for the game. Apon watching this trailer I simple was left staring at the screen for a good five minutes. To Quote Wayne’s World here; “You know that scene in scanners where the guys head is just about to explode?” That was the look of fear I had across my face. What the hell did they do to Dante?!

This picture had me laughing for ages

You know how much I said he was cool and bad arse? Yeah they have scrapped that and have pretty much turned him into the lead singer of My Chemical Romance! He is now an Emo kid, a teenage with obvious prepubescent problems who isn’t cool at all. You can imagine this rebooted Dante telling his mum to stuff it because he doesn’;t want to come home when tea is ready. Sure ok he looks like he is kicking some demon butt, but having him strapped up in what looks like an insane asylum? That doesn’t bode well for his image either.

Basically why did they have to change Dante? Ninja Theory, they guys behind this bold move said that the old school Dante wasn’t cool anymore and people were getting board of him. Of course, that makes sence, I mean look at Marvel Vs Capcom 3! Capcom put the Devil May Cry 3 version of Dante into the roster for exactly those reasons. Well spotted there Ninja Theory, well done.

Tomb Raider

Ok before I start this one off I can tell you know that I am not going to go on as much of  rant as I did with Devil May Cry back there. But again with the new Tomb Raider it seems like they have gone backward with the main protagonists age. No before you ask I am not going to give you a whole paragraph about how her boobs have shrunk, I am not like that. It’s more due to the fact that again Lara Croft was pretty kick ass when it came to scaling terrain and getting to unreachable places. Turns out this is going to be a younger and inexperienced Lara. Does this mean that we are going to get a limited when it comes to scaling walls etc? Are we going to get next to no weapons? What does this mean?

Also it would appear that this game is going to be a hell of a lot darker, which is again not what Lara Croft is about. I alway saw Tomb Raider as a franchise much like Indiana jones, something fun for all the family that could have dark undertones if needed. Not a dark and quite horrific game which may get an 18 rating. According to game informer, a couple of examples of ways Lara can die on the island she has been stranded on are being stabbed in the chest by a “deranged” knife-wielding man, and another is having a boulder land on Lara’s leg to trap her, followed by another boulder landing on and crushing her head. I mean what the hell? I know her quest were dangerous but the beauty of Tomb Raider is that you don’t have to go into ever gruesome detail.

From those two examples, it would appear that rebooting franchises these days involve making your Protagonists younger, possibly to related to the younger gaming demographic, which in turn leaves us older guys just not interested or annoyed. Making a game Darker than it needs to be, I.E. Tomb Raider sounds like more of a survival game than just a simple awesome relic hunting title. Finally to make a reboot these days you need to slap probably at least a 18 rated sticker on it to make it ‘cool’, which in turn defeated the point of even making the protagonist younger to suit the more younger gaming demographic….FACEPALM.

Garv

This looks exciting. It's not.

However, there has been one ray of hope for me – the long announced Final Fantasy Versus XIII. A completely seperate story to XIII, Versus XIII is a Final Fantasy game that utilises a combat system in the vein of Kingdom Hearts – albeit with a more mature style. Five years since the game’s initial announcement, there’s still no news of a release date – even word that it might not hit stores for yet another year. Supposedly featuring a world map, exciting combat, and a whole new story – Versus XIII could seemingly offer me everything I hope for in an RPG, but I’m starting to give up hope on seeing it any time soon.

With Final Fantasy XIV being an MMORPG in the vein of XI – not my kind of thing, really – and no word of a fifteenth title in the series, it does leave me wondering if I’ll ever be seeing the true current-gen successor to the series that I’ve longed for. Perhaps Final Fantasy has become something different now, it’s path gone in a different direction to my tastes.

So why has this all come up once again? Well, according to sources, the domain name “finalfantasy13-2game.com” has been registered. Now, this much is true – the domain has indeed been purchased. While it’s not concrete evidence of anything, the name of the domain’s owner is “Corporation Service Company” – the same name that has been used to register domains for other Square-Enix titles in the past. So, there’s a possibility that Square-Enix are actually considering a new game – “Final Fantasy XIII-2″, perhaps in the same vein as previous game, Final Fantasy X-2, which continued the plot from Final Fantasy X, reusing parts of it’s world and characters with a whole new plot and adventure.

There have been other hints of a sequel in the past, too. In March last year, Producer Yoshinori Kitase was asked about the idea – responding “If we could do a XIII-2, we could direct all our attention to the story and refine what we have already built.” Also, in December, Tetsuya Nomura – the game’s character designer  – released an image of Lightning, along with the words “She must not be forgotten”.

So, it looks as though the idea is at least planted within the minds of Square-Enix, and I wouldn’t personally be surprised if it came to be. But the question is, would it simply be a new plot with more of the same of what I came to hate last time around? Or will it perhaps refine the game and turn it into the game Final Fantasy XIII should have been? One way or the other, I think this move could decide whether or not the series really is for me any more. Unless, of course, Versus XIII ever does get released.

- Leon

It’s happened to all of us at some point – that is, had certain in-game glitches, or general imperfections in a game’s build that manage to spoil a game’s overall magnificence due to a few glaring bugs that detract from the overall realism of the experience. Sure, I’m not expecting to be fooled into actually believing that games are real – but at times you do wonder “Why did the creators not fix that?”, or “Did no-one notice that?”. While I understand that games will rarely (or never) be perfect, sometimes it does make you wonder what the creators were thinking when they let some of these things slip through the net. Here are a few of the things that really bug me, and you’ve probably seen them yourself at some point.

1. Clipping

Clipping is perhaps the worst of these problems – and has been around as long as games have been around. It’s also the hardest to avoid. Basically, it’s when two objects intersect each other, when realistically they shouldn’t I’m sure you’ve seen it at some point, perhaps you’ve been running around with a large sword in hand, and walked past another character or object, only to see it sticking through the object or character with no effect. Now, this is generally understandable – unless the game has excellent physics, it’s rare that all things in the game will have collision detection (i.e. react when touching other objects), but sometimes it’s worse than others.

One recent occurence was in Fable III (arguably a series known for its various bugs and glitches). Of course, with a game such as Fable, many people are willing to accept a few errors for the sake of the overall experience. However, there was one thing that particularly bothered me – clothing and weapons. Now, for the most part of Fable, you are equipped with at least a sword across your back, and often a rifle as well. Mostly (perhaps surprisingly), you are generally urged to wear some form of clothing. So, I wonder why a good few of the clothes happen to clash with the weapons equipped on your back? It’s great having a cloak, but the effect is a little spoiled when your sword constantly swings through it. So it leads me to the conclusion that the team never bothered to look at the clothes being used even once in-game before going “Yep, that’s done.” Similarly, there’s nothing worse than seeing your sword pass through enemies without actually inflicting any damage. As well as looking pretty awful, it really does give the impression that your attacks have no weight behind them, spoiling any illusion that you’re fighting at all.

2. Enemies unaffected by the environment

Generally, when fighting a group of enemies, I like to use the environment against them. Spiked walls may be a little bit of a hinderance to me, and another thing to keep an eye out for – but it’s also good to be able to use the situation to your advantage, and instead push your enemies onto said areas. Of course, some inhuman enemies may be immune to certain elements, but usually throwing a man into a pit of fire should set him ablaze – not give him a tactical advantage where he can shoot me protected by fire he is apparently allied with. Not only does this remove realism and common sense from the game, it also loses some potential strategic ideas and gives you that feeling that the game is very one-sided. When I throw an enemy into a minefield (as seen in Fist of the North Star), I expect the enemy to go out with a big bang – and clear a couple of mines from my path in the process.

Obviously, Sephiroth is too cool to catch fire and is an exception to the rule.

3. Repeated dialogue

Understandably, the longer a game is, or more specifically the more time you play it, the more chance you’ll hear the same line repeated by a random NPC or enemy a couple of times. While this is understandable to a degree – after all, AI characters are scripted, non-intelligent entities with only as much dialogue as there are voice clips recorded into the game, with some producers recording hundreds of hours of unique dialogue – there’s still an element of common sense that seems to be missing sometimes. You may have realised that my introduction of this post was based around Dynasty Warriors – a game that encourages you to fight through hordes of enemies and officers repeatedly. So when one of the main objectives is to defeat officers, would it not be appropriate to record more than one line of dialogue to be repeated for each defeated foe?

Occasionally, voice clips can be repeated so often that the same line can play twice at the same time, with a chorus of enemies all screaming “Die, punk!” or some other line. While I don’t wish games to be silent for the sake of avoiding this issue, it would be nice if a game’s programming could say something along the lines of “Once voice clip #1 plays, do not play it again for at least 5 minutes”. That said, the first Assassin’s Creed is the worst that springs to mind – with several NPC’s repeating the same few clips of dialoge in different voices, meaning that Ubisoft actually had various voice actors record the exact same lines multiple times, when they could have been mixing it up a little. That’s just crazy. Never will I lose the sound of “You dare steal in my prescense? That will cost you your life!” being repeated for the hundredth time over, and over again in my head.

4. Audio levels

As games become more and more cinematic, and closer to movie experiences, the quality of the dialogue, sound effects and music has gotten exponentially better. So much that sometimes it’s almost as if the creators couldn’t quite decide which they wanted people to hear more. As I very much enjoy to follow the plots of games, there’s nothing worse than having important bits of dialogue  drowned out by an epic orchestral score that stops you from understanding what’s actually going on.

While bombs going off over voices can be realistic – after all explosions are generally loud, games don’t give you the opportunity to make your character say “CAN YOU SAY THAT AGAIN? I DIDN’T QUITE CATCH THAT!”, instead assuming you heard every word with your cybernetically enhanced ears.

In the end, there are two simple ways to remedy this. First of all, give us subtitle options. While most games now do – there are some that yet fail to do so, when such a straightforward option could save hours of frustration – and hey, it means deaf people can enjoy the game, too. The other option is to give us control over the relative volume of the dialogue, music and SFX levels, allowing us to choose what gets priority – I usually put dialogue a good 20%-30% higher than everything else when given the option.

When there’s so much good storyline in games, please make it easy for us to follow what’s actually being said!

5. Graphics ‘popping-in’

This one is more of a problem that I’ve noticed in the recent generation of gaming – the more impressive the graphics, the more power is needed behind the texturing and the detail that goes behind it. Games such as Mass Effect 2, God of War 3 and Metal Gear Solid 4 have some of the most impressive graphics seen to date – with detail that can be jaw-dropping at times. But due to hardware some games have such demanding graphics that they actually load once the game has already started. You then get the “pop-in” effect, where a character or object looks somewhat shoddy for a moment, before the game catches up and inserts the texture over the top right in front of your eyes – or in some cases, entire objects. While the graphics look great once loaded, that horrible effect leaves the overall experience a little worsened – or in the case of some games can spoil it majorly. The Last Remnant suffered from this, with the ugly texturing being so awful that I couldn’t bring myself to keep playing, the pop-in’s being so distracting that it was just irritating. I’m no sucker for graphics – but I’d much rather a game used lower graphics than had them fill in mid-gameplay.

While games today have gotten more powerful, with bigger engines and generally more under the hood than ever, along with these advances come their own problems, while some problems that have plagued gaming for years still exist. While gaming has so much to offer that we can learn to put up with things like these, it leads me to wonder, should we have to? While we can’t expect perfection, there are some design choices that just lead me to believe that things haven’t been properly tested or thought through – and sometimes it can cause us to be put off a game altogether.

-Leon