Remembrance of Things that Almost Were

I feel like I have about a million things I want to talk about today; I'm not sure how many are actually post-worthy, and I'm definitely not sure how much time I have to write, so we'll see how it goes.

But first things first - I'm now only 15 measly Points away from my goal of amassing 10,000 Points in a year. It's probably too difficult to try to get to 40,000 before the end of the year unless I go on a Points-whoring binge, and to be honest I'd much rather actually enjoy the games I'm playing right now; then again, I'm only 1227 Points away...

And here are some quick recaps before we get to the meat:

• I think I'm almost done with Tomb Raider: Underworld, in every sense of the word. I'm pretty sure I'm in the last level, and unless I feel the need to chase after some (minor) Points, I'm probably not going to play it again. I think they dropped the ball with this title, big time; Legend and Anniversary had generated a lot of goodwill towards a franchise that had been plummeting into oblivion, and Underworld was a fantastic opportunity to really blow us all away, and instead the game feels a bit under-developed. Even something little like cutting out the Croft Manor minigame is a bummer.
  

• I played another 30 minutes of Left 4 Dead with some friends last night - for some reason I got booted off of Xbox Live after we all wiped in the middle of a stage and I couldn't log back in. That game is friggin' awesome. The computer AI is absolutely fantastic - you almost can't tell the difference if one of your friends is handing the reins over to the computer - and the overall pacing is absolutely incredible.

...

This is where I was going to talk about the recent discussion of the reviews of Mirror's Edge that have been circulating around the 'tubes, as well as answering a question from the MTV blog about waiting for DLC, and I was also hoping to put up the synopsis of a conversation I'm having with a friend of mine who is somewhat anti-gaming. But as the fates would have it, I've gotten super-busy at work and so those things will have to wait. Have a great holiday, everyone.

Weekend Recap: pre-Thanksgiving 2008 edition

Last Tuesday I noted that, among other things, I was hoping to increase my Gamerscore by 10,000 points over my total at the end of 2007:

I started the year at 28788; I am currently at 37403. There's still 6 weeks left in the year, so I still have time to make it to an even 10,000 point swing.

I certainly made up a lot of ground over the last few days; by my calculation, I've gained 1075 Points in less than a week, which means I've only got 310 more to go.

At least 600 points came from Scene It: BOS, which doles out the points like they're going out of style. (My wife likes playing the Scene It games, which means I buy them as soon as they come out.) I like this new game a lot; it uses Avatars, which make them seem a little less pointless, everything's gotten a nice graphical make-over, and they seem to have a healthy obsession with Simon Pegg, which is OK with me. The only real problem with the game are the announcers, who are even more horrible than they were in the last game; I mean, they're FUCKING HORRIBLE. Thank God there's an option to mute them.

A few more achievements came from Fallout 3, but that game should not be played for points AT ALL. I was all set to name GTA4 as my Game of the Year, but I have to say that every hour I spend with Fallout 3 makes that decision a little less concrete. I'm about halfway to level 10, and I'm probably going to stay away from the main quest for a little while longer and work on some side stuff. There is so much to see in this game, and the level of detail is simply staggering. Perfect example: I was doing one of the very first sidequests in the game, which required me to go to this bombed out town and pick up some mines; while I was there, I decided to break into some houses and see what there was to loot. And each house that I broke into featured this little unspoken short story of each family's last moments - one house in particular had a pair of skeletons lying in bed holding each other, and it actually made me stop for a second and think about what I was actually seeing. What I love about Fallout 3 is this deeper notion of history; everything you're looting is stuff that belonged to a different time and place - and, well, it belonged to a human being who died. Not many games are able to convey that sense of a lived-in world very well - even Bioshock struggled with it at times.

What else, what else... oh, well, yeah. I caved and bought Tomb Raider: Underworld, mostly because Gamefly kept pushing it back and when I checked Sunday morning, it was slated to ship this coming Tuesday, which is bullshit. My initial reaction is pretty much par for the course: it's Legend with a gorgeous new coat of paint and a really shitty camera. I'm in the Mexico level (which is, I think, the third level if you don't count the prologue), and it's got a wierd non-linear progression which is actually a little annoying, to be honest - Tomb Raider games shouldn't be sandbox-y. I'm also missing the Croft Manor exploration level that's been a favorite feature of mine in the last 2 games, although considering that the very first thing you see in the game is the Manor exploding, it probably makes sense that it's missing. (Maybe it's unlocked after you finish the game?)

Played a tiny little bit of Left 4 Dead; that game is awesome and I need to give it another go.

Oh yeah, also played a bit of A Kingdom For Keflings, which I think I really only downloaded to be eligible for some stupid contest. It's basically a super-lite strategy game, with Avatar support; it's actually a decent time-suck, although I'm not sure how much time I'm going to spend with it. I'll probably finish one game and then go back to Civ Rev for my strategy needs.

Oh, Eidos, what the hell is wrong with you?

The general sense of bummer-dom that I am feeling towards Tomb Raider: Underworld is only getting worse.

1. Gamefly keeps backing up the release date. When I checked on Monday, it indicated that I would already have the game in my hands; as of 12:18pm today, however, they're not even sending it out until tomorrow, which means I won't get it until probably next Tuesday at the earliest.

2. And I should probably be glad I'm not playing it, if the reviews are to be believed. There aren't very many reviews out there, though; I've only seen scores from IGN (7.5) and 1UP (B), and one other review from action button dot net. I've been a little surprised that there haven't been more reviews thus far, but then I came across...

3. ...this morning's Joystiq article about Eidos UK blocking TR:U reviews under 8/10 from publication, which is just mind-boggling.

From the Joystiq piece:

Really Eidos? Really? You didn't lose enough goodwill being blamed for getting the world's most popular video games journalist fired and bringing a respected games portal to its knees? (Yes, we know you denied any involvement. This sort of thing certainly makes that seem credible.) You thought maybe journalists would keep this quiet because you were buds? Because they were worried about not getting advance copies of Just Cause 2?

It's funny; after the Kane&Lynch fiasco, I rescinded my membership from Gamespot in protest and solidarity with Gerstmann and started up this blog. I felt so hurt and betrayed - startlingly so, to be honest, because I certainly wasn't prepared to have such an emotional investment in a fucking videogame website - and it took a rather long time for those feelings to subside.

In the process, though, I was forced to open my eyes a bit and really see what was happening to the industry as a whole. The fallout from Gerstmann-gate revealed a tremendous amount of behind-the-scenes goings-on, not just with the press but with the publishers; suddenly it was revealed just how important things like Metacritic were to the perceived success of a particular title.

I was going to put something in here about how the movie industry does something similar to this, but the more I think about it, the comparison isn't totally fair. If a movie studio is releasing a movie that they know is going to be savaged in the press, they simply elect not to show it to the press so it can't be reviewed, hoping to get as much as they can on the opening weekend before word of mouth can trickle out. What Eidos is doing here, though, is a bit more slimy and evil; they thought they had an AAA title, and they shuttled it off to get reviewed, and now that the first reviews are starting to trickle in with less-than-hoped-for scores, they're trying to suppress the rest of the reviews unless those reviews are favorable.

I read something the other day about how one of the CEOs of a major publisher was saying that "the videogame market is recession-proof." With the economy falling apart and any number of developers closing up shop, though, I'm not entirely sure that it's fair for the market to be taken for granted. And shit like this only makes "the market" that much more skeptical. Until I read this article, I was pretty sure I was going to forgo Gamefly and spend my lunch hour buying TR:U at the Best Buy near my office; now I'm somewhat tempted to take it off my queue altogether.

In the words of The Dude, "this aggression will not stand, man."

GTA DLC; TRU bummer; Gadgets

1. GTA IV DLC revealed (sorta)

It's not quite enough for a Guessing At Future Games feature here on SFTC, but it is certainly something to look forward to during the post-holiday doldrums of 2009. Everyone was wondering what DLC for a GTA game would look like, and this is apparently what it will be - a new character in a new story, and featuring "a whole new side to Liberty City" (which presumably means that it will take place in areas of Liberty City that were not central to Niko Bellic's adventures). No word on length or price just yet; I'm going to guess 800 Points, although I think I'd be prepared to spend up to 1200.


2. Tomb Raider's disappointing reviews

My fondness for the Tomb Raider franchise starts with Legend. Having never owned a PS1 or PS2, I never played the original games and so I never really paid much attention to how terrible the series had gotten (although I do recall playing a demo for whatever TR title was released on the Dreamcast, and absolutely hating it). Legend, however, scratched a very specific itch for me - it had all the fun Prince-of-Persia environmental puzzle solving that I liked, it had decent-enough combat, and it looked and played fantastic. Anniversary was more of the same, which was just fine with me, and so I have rather high expectations for Underworld.

Unfortunately, the reviews are starting to come in, and for the most part everyone seems to be a little disappointed in this one. I obviously can't agree or disagree, since my rental copy still hasn't left Gamefly's offices, but I must admit I'm a little bummed out by this. I'm curious to see if my fanboy-ism will blind me to the game's obvious faults, or if my knowledge of the game's apparent crappiness will only make these things even worse than they actually are; if nothing else, I'm certainly self-aware enough to know how easily swayed I can be by external opinions... except in the case of Metal Gear Solid 4, because nobody will ever convince me that MGS4's storytelling is anything other than a normal-mapped turd.


3. I am in need of a new cellphone. I covet the iPhone, but there's two big things preventing me from pulling the trigger:

• I'm a Verizon customer, and I'm not looking to switch service providers; and
  
• There isn't nearly enough storage on the iPhone for me to use it as my primary music storage device.
  

So I was eagerly awaiting for the Blackberry Storm, Verizon's first big attempt at making an iPhone killer. And, unfortunately, it looks like it still needs some time to cook.

• Engadget
  
• Gizmodo
  

I suppose I can wait a few more months for them to fix the bugs (and, by doing so, avoiding the crush when it launches tomorrow), but still: damn.

Guessing At Future Games: Valve

I can't help but feel that Valve is up to something big.

I'm going to come right out and argue that Portal and Left 4 Dead are experiments and tech demos for something bigger, as much as they are self-contained gaming experiences. The technology that makes the Portal gun work and the "Director" AI program that governs the L4D pacing and spawning are both somewhat radical and yet also totally seamless; you're never "aware" of the complicated math that makes it possible, you're simply swept up in the experience.

More to that last point - the storytelling method and the notion of narrative in both Portal and L4D is incredibly unique for modern FPSs... it's never explicit, but rather subtle and environmental. Rather than throwing in a long opening cutscene full of exposition that means nothing to you and giving your player character a backstory, they simply drop you into a strange world and you learn about the world (and yourself) as you progress, and they manage to do this without succumbing to the worn-out "amnesia" cliche. The gameplay is incredibly tight and the pacing is perfect, so even if you're not paying attention to the story you're still having a good time; but if you take the time to explore, you are rewarded with all these clever little details that fill out the world without beating you over the head. Seeing "The cake is a lie" scrawled on the walls of a hidden room reveals far more about the Apeture Testing Facility than any voice recording or cutscene could ever accomplish.

I would expect to see some of this stuff used in HL2 Episode 3 - the last level of Portal certainly posits a link between the Portal universe and the Half-Life universe, so it seems pretty likely that Gordon Freeman will get his hands on a Portal gun at some point - but it wouldn't surprise me AT ALL to see Valve working on a totally new IP that uses all these technologies and methods (as well as other stuff we don't know about, and I'm sure they're going to beef up the rapidly-aging Source engine) to some other, grander purpose. Let's face it - Half-Life 1 had an unconventional narrative method but as the sequels have borne themselves out, the overall story arc isn't terribly absorbing, and they certainly couldn't start using these new techniques in a sequel without messing up Half-Life's DNA.

It also needs to be said that having Erik Wolpaw on Valve's payroll ensures that future Valve games will have, at the very least, a very twisted sense of humor.

I couldn't possibly begin to guess where Valve is going, but Valve keeps very close tabs on what people do in (and with) their games, and I suspect that they'll be very curious indeed to see how the public responds.

Best of 2008: Inventory

There's something about this time of year - and it seems to happen earlier and earlier - that just gets me revved up. Obviously, I'm talking about making Best-Of-The-Year lists.

2008 was a notable year for me in the gaming category. This was my first year owning all major systems, and I spent quite a lot of money in the process. As a result, I've got a lot more ground to cover, and since it's a slow Tuesday morning in mid-November, I figure now is as good a time as any to figure out what the hell it was that I actually played this year.

Also: The year in Points: I started the year at 28788; I am currently at 37403. There's still 6 weeks left in the year, so I still have time to make it to an even 10,000 point swing. I could put a serious dent in that if I get the new Scene It? game, and I just might; I really enjoyed the last one.

And some notes, before we get into the business:

• This list simply reflects everything I played this year, not just what I bought.
  
• This is going to be as chronological as I can make it.
  
• It will also probably omit XBLA and PSN titles, because I can't keep track of all of them. (But I have not forgotten about Braid.) EDIT: Added at bottom.
  
• All titles were played on the 360 unless otherwise indicated.
  
• These are only the games that came out in 2008; I also bought up a bunch of 2007's best titles for the Wii and PS3, but those will not be reflected in this list.

OK, on to the madness.

1. Burnout Paradise
   
2. Devil May Cry 4
   
3. Lost Odyssey
   
4. Professor Layton (DS)
5. MLB2K8
   
6. Bully
   
7. Condemned 2
   
8. Flatout: Ultimate Carnage
9. Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 (PSP)
10. God of War: Chains of Olympus (PSP)
11. MLB08 (PSP)
12. Okami (Wii)
13. Grand Theft Auto 4
14. Boom Blox (Wii)
15. CrossworDS (DS)
16. MLB08: The Show (PS3)
17. Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds (PS3)
18. Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee 2 (PSP)
19. Lego Indiana Jones
20. Ninja Gaiden 2
21. GRID
22. Dark Sector
23. The World Ends with You (DS)
    
24. Mario Kart (Wii)
    
25. Metal Gear Solid 4 (PS3)
26. Alone in the Dark
27. Unreal Tournament 3
28. Battlefield: Bad Company
29. Frontlines: Fuel of War
    
30. Tiger Woods 09
31. Civilization Revolution
32. Civilization Revolution (DS)
33. Tales of Vesperia
34. Mercenaries 2
35. Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise
36. Infinite Undiscovery
37. Pure
38. Too Human
39. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
40. Silent Hill: Homecoming
41. Sonic Chronicles: Dark Brotherhood (DS)
42. Fable 2
43. Saints Row 2
44. Dead Space
45. Little Big Planet (PS3)
    
46. Motorstorm: Pacific Rift (PS3)
    
47. Fallout 3
48. Rock Band 2
49. Gears of War 2
50. Mirror's Edge
51. Bond 007: Quantum of Solace
    
52. Left 4 Dead (not yet released)
53. Tomb Raider: Underworld (not yet released)
54. Prince of Persia (not yet released)
55. Last Remnant (not yet released)
56. Chrono Trigger (DS) (not yet released)

XBLA titles

1. Rez HD
2. Poker Smash
3. N+
4. Penny Arcade 1
5. Geometry Wars 2
6. Braid
7. Bionic Commando Rearmed
8. Fable 2 Pub Games
9. Duke Nukem 3D
10. Portal: Still Alive
11. Penny Arcade 2
12. Kingdom for Keflings
    

Mirror's Edge: so close.

Had a pretty busy weekend, but was able to get in some time with a rental copy of Mirror's Edge.

I argued for a parkour game a million years ago on my old blog and while Mirror's Edge isn't what I had in mind, it's the closest thing there is right now. (Prince of Persia doesn't count, even though it kinda should.)

Mirror's Edge has a lot of great things going for it: a simple control scheme that isn't intuitive the first time you play it but very quickly becomes second nature, a fantastic visual design, a female protagonist that isn't overly sexualized or half-naked, and, well, a unique concept that's actually compelling. And when the game is cooking, goddamn, it's just a hell of a lot of fun to play.

It's also got some maddening problems, and this is ultimately why I elected to return it instead of trying to finish it. And the problems here are the same problems that Prince of Persia had, and even the recent Tomb Raider games have had; the combat fucking sucks. The combat sucks especially bad in Mirror's Edge because your character is incredibly fragile and if you mis-time the buttonpress to disarm your attacker, you are totally fucked, always. The enemy AI is dirt-stupid and yet also psychic; they will stand in the middle of a hallway and shoot you, but they also seem to know where you are even when you're totally hidden from view. At the point I stopped playing last night, I had tried and re-tried this one particular section at the very end of Chapter 5 about 30 different times, and when I finally succeeded it wasn't through skill but through sheer dumb luck, and so when I finished the level I didn't feel rewarded, only pissed off. I knew what I was supposed to do, and the game felt like it was broken at that particular point, and there was no way of getting around it.

It's an ambitious game and, again, when the game is working, it's exhilarating and breathtaking and everything I'd hoped it would be. It just feels like in every game of this type, the developer feels compelled to break up the awesome running-jumping bits with combat, which slows the pace down and never feels quite right. Either cut out the combat all together, or treat the combat as less of an afterthought and more of something just as integral to the game. Of all the games that ever did this sort of thing, Crackdown is the only one I've ever played that really felt like it could handle both, and what's funny is that Crackdown wasn't necessarily about either.

Quick Shots

1. In seemingly direct opposition to The Thing I Cannot Talk About, the New Xbox Experience knows exactly what it is and offers some exciting features that I have already been able to take full advantage of.

2. One of those features is the ability to play games off of the HDD. I spent a considerable amount of time earlier this afternoon installing the games in my current rotation, and all of them loaded faster and even seemed to play a little smoother. Fable 2 benefited incredibly well from preloading; menus were readily accessible and the sluggishness that I'd mentioned before was pretty much completely gone. The initial load-up for GTA4 is noticably shorter. It's been noted elsewhere and I must agree: everything on The Orange Box loads very, very quickly. Saints Row 2 feels a lot smoother (and the 360 itself is much, much quieter). And Fallout 3 is quick and responsive and rock solid.

3. Fallout 3 deserves its own section. I hadn't gotten very far - maybe 1-2 hours out of the Vault, maybe level 4 - and I realized that the character I'd created was totally out of balance with the way I'd decided I wanted to play, and I wasn't having any fun; it didn't help that Gears and Fable and other titles then appeared and so it was easy for me to put it on the shelf and forget about it. I think what happened was that I took the "Oblivion with guns" comparison literally, and maxed all my stats in strength and melee, which is absolutely useless in Fallout.

Having finished Gears last night, though, I decided to re-roll, concentrating on weapons, stealth, medicine and hacking - either I or the game conveniently put a save point right before I left the Vault, which allowed me to change everything - and now I'm having a ball. Stealing items lowers my Karma score, which is fine since I've already decided to blow up Megaton. It's still hard for me to be a real asshole in conversations - mostly because I don't want to lose any potential side quests in doing so - but at the very least it's nice to steal items with impunity.

4. Back to the NXE. I don't really care about Avatars, at least not in their current form; there's nothing to do with them. I do care about the Netflix thing, though, and I was able to sync up my account with absolutely no hassle. The problem, though, is that the number of streamable movies on Netflix is pretty low, and the selection is pretty weak; if I have 200 movie title in my queue, only 20 of them are streamable, and I can't say I'm terribly excited to watch any of those 20. BUT. The option is there, and hopefully Netflix will get its act together and get more movies available online.

5. Oh, and as for Gears... it seems odd that I should be writing so little about such a big title. It is what it is, basically; it's Gears of War 1, but better. The story is still ridiculous but it doesn't really matter, because the gameplay is so astoundingly solid. It looks great, it feels great, the campaign is well paced and presents a nice challenge. It probably won't be in my top 3 candidates for Game of the Year, but there's not a lot to complain about.

Lucky Day

Well, whaddya know; I got early access to the NXE, too.

Full impressions in a bit. For now, I'll say that it's pretty snazzy, and playing games off the HDD is fantastic, but the layout does take some getting used to.

ALSO: so glad I re-rolled a new character in Fallout 3.

Can't Talk About It

Heard on Major Nelson's podcast a couple weeks ago that Microsoft would be pre-releasing the New Xbox Experience to a small percentage of the respondents of a specific survey. For some reason, I was utterly convinced that I would be one of those lucky people, and was actually a bit crushed when I wasn't. A week or so later, they gave out even more pre-release NXEs, and I again missed the cut. The NXE officially launches in 7 days, though, so I guess I can wait another week. I'm not sure why I was getting so bent out of shape over it, though.

On the other hand, I got an e-mail from __________ last night, telling me that because I'd downloaded the free __________ PS3 dashboard theme about 3 or 4 months ago, I was now eligible to participate in that beta program.

Maybe my luck was starting to turn around, after all. Maybe I'd finally be able to talk about something substantive and new here instead of just listing all the games I play.

Except, according to the beta EULA, I'm not sure if I can talk about it... here.

1. As a condition of your participation in the Trials, you must:

a. keep the contents of the Trials, including any information, software and service in connection with ___________, confidential as between you and us and not discuss any portion of the Trials with anyone beyond your close friends and family and other Trialists. You shall not discuss or disclose any portion of the Trials with any third party who is a competitor of ___________ or is linked to any news, press or information service (whether on television or radio, in newspaper or magazines or via the Internet or any other online medium) without the express, prior, written consent of ___________.

See, the phrase "anyone beyond your close friends and family" is what's tricky, here, because I'm not sure anybody reads this blog besides people who actually know who I am. But the internet is the internet, and I'm pretty sure this blog is Google-able, and I don't feel like getting sued.

Understand, it's not even like I have that much to say about it. The truth is, there's really not very much to talk about.

Consider me even more skeptical than I already was.

Keeping my fingers crossed, though.

So there.

The Greatest Thing (take 2)

I have been guilty of using excessive hyperbole for pretty much my entire life, which can (obviously) lessen the weight of any endorsement or criticism I might have. That said, eventually, we will all look back on the sum of one's experiences and be able to say, "That was the greatest thing I ever did," "that was the most fun I ever had," "that was the shittiest thing I ever saw."

So I won't say that playing drums yesterday afternoon in Rock Band 2 for 5 hours while my wife played guitar is the most fun I've ever had. "Fun" is an incredibly subjective term and is therefore almost impossible to define with any degree of specificity.

If I were to say, however, that my experience yesterday afternoon playing the drums in Rock Band 2 while my wife played guitar was about 1000 times better than I thought it would be, and actually made me feel like I was really playing the drums which is something I've always wanted to be able to do, and basically let me live out my secret drum-playing fantasies in all their sweaty glory, and that it will probably be my favorite gaming moment of the year and maybe make the leap into my top 5 gaming moments of all time, I think that would be fair.

I would estimate that in 95% of all the band rehearsals I've ever had over the last 15 years - and this is no exaggeration - I've managed to squeeze in at least 10-20 minutes of drum-kit time, which is usually whenever the drummer leaves the room. I would never pass myself off as a gig-worthy drummer, but I can keep a steady beat and can generally get a pretty good groove going. I take a certain amount of pride in my drum machine prowess, and almost all the drumming on my recent recordings has been "live", not pre-programmed.

The point is, I've always loved playing drums. And I got to feel like I was actually playing drums yesterday, and it was awesome.

I should back up here and clarify the record. Just a few days ago, I wrote about my disinterest in music games, and specifically my reluctance to buy Rock Band, even though all of my gaming friends love the hell out of it. The biggest obstacle, though, was my wife; I didn't want to spend that much money if she wasn't going to play it with me, and she's always been somewhat reluctant to play those kinds of games.

But then, this past Saturday, I was at an anniversary party for some friends of mine; they had rented out a private karaoke room at this sushi place in the East Village and hooked up Guitar Hero to the projector. And as we all got into the spirit of the thing, I could see she was starting to melt a little bit.

With some minor cajoling, she gave in. And so I traded in a ton of old games and was able to procure the full Rock Band 2 package, and it only cost me about $30.

[Games I Traded In:

• Dead Rising
• Call of Duty 4
• Dirt
• Eternal Sonata
• Kameo
• Lego Indiana Jones
• Pure
• Saints Row 1
• Lego Star Wars: Complete Saga
• Rockstar Table Tennis
• Tiger Woods 09

Alternately, I probably could've just traded in my Wii, for all I use it these days. I am not a fan or supporter of the used games market, but, hey: I have no problem using it to my advantage.]

My brief time with Guitar Hero World Tour at the karaoke bar was enough to seal the deal, in terms of brand loyalty. Both GH and RB are functionally identical in terms of gameplay, but there's just something about GH that just turns me off. Maybe it's the gratuitous product placement, or maybe it's the way everything is laid out, but everything in GH just screamed out "CASH-IN". Whereas Rock Band 2 feels a lot more... I don't know... awesome. My wife and I named our band "Lilo and Two Poots" after our dogs (and their farts), and seeing the bandname on logos and posters randomly appear in the game totally cracked us up. Every once in a while we'd try a "Mystery Setlist" and we'd start playing these awesome songs that weren't yet appearing on the set list creation screen, and after every song we'd instinctively reach over and give each other a high-five.

I can't tell you how awesome that is, to be high-fiving my wife after getting 5 stars on a Jane's Addiction song.

And to think, I was planning on writing a thing about Gears of War 2 today.

State of the Console Warzzzzzzzzzzzz

Most of my most productive creative thinking comes in the shower. And during this morning's shower, I had an idea for a SFTC blogpost - taking a general lay of the land in the console war. 2008 is my first holiday season in which I have a vested interest in every console and handheld, and so I finally have as complete a sense as I'll ever have of what my options are as a consumer.

Problem is, I pretty much knew how it was going to end even before I turned off the water. And this chart of each console's attach rate pretty much speaks for itself.

Let's face it: the Wii is a joke. I knew it was a joke even though I wanted one so desperately, and now that I have it, the only time I even think about it is when the stupid Mario Kart Wheel is taking up valuable real estate on my shelving unit. The last game I was genuinely excited about for it was freakin' Boom Blox. Did I really spend $500 on a stupid Circuit City bundle for this? Is Wii Music really the big Wii holiday title? I read a quote this morning that sums it up quite well - this is from Sega's Darren Williams:

I think on one hand the Wii has become the most expensive board game on Earth - it's the kind of thing that families will play at Christmas, and probably won't play again throughout the remainder of the year.

The PS3, on the other hand, has started to come into its own. Its roster of exclusive titles is still pretty minimal, but Little Big Planet is pretty great, and I'm looking forward to trying out Resistance 2 this weekend. If nothing else, though, it is a fantastic BluRay player and I take my movie watching very seriously.

That said, LBP's troublesome online service (as well as the problems I've heard regarding SOCOM) only serve to highlight the problems with Sony's online network. Many people have talked shit about Xbox Live and how you have to pay for it when you can have it on the PS3 for free, but here's the thing: Xbox Live actually works, and when it doesn't, it gets fixed pretty goddamned quickly.

Which brings me to the 360, of course, which is in its heyday. Gears of War 2 dropped today, only a week or so after Fable 2, and the NXE arrives in 12 days. (It should be noted that the PS3's much-discussed HOME thing still hasn't arrived, and its purpose still hasn't really been clearly stated; meanwhile, the 360's dashboard is getting a complete makeover with tons of new features and everybody's getting it before Thanksgiving.) The vast majority of my gaming time is on the 360 these days, and I'm not even sure why anymore. I'd hate to think it was only because of Achievements; I'm not nearly the whore I was for them last year but I still kinda pay attention to them.

I would discuss the state of the handhelds, but it's too depressing. My PSP collects dust and my DS doesn't fare that much better.

The Greatest Villain Of Them All

Obama's victory on Tuesday has had me alternating between being euphoric and scatterbrained, both often at the same time, but life is slowly starting to return to normal - especially since I just got my confirmation e-mail letting me know that my Amazon'd copy of Gears of War 2 should arrive at my office tomorrow afternoon.

I didn't expect to be this jazzed about GoW2; frankly, I expected to be waist-deep in Fallout 3 and only put in Gears as a change of pace. But I've been getting that half-glazed look in my eye whenever I think about it, and I'm starting to foam at the mouth a little.

Anyway. This post is not about that. This post is about the forthcoming Sega Collection that's dropping in the spring. I've written a bunch of times about my fondness for the Sega Genesis, and of my memories of playing Streets of Rage and Golden Axe with my younger brother. This collection is pretty robust, and apparently there might be even more games on the disc than just the 40 listed.

One notable omission, though, is Road Rash 2. Granted, it's not a Sega first-party title, so it wouldn't be on this disc, but it's a game that I very closely associate with the Genesis. It was a motorbike racing/combat game, and my brother and I were very much obsessed with it.

In fact, here's an IM conversation I just had with my brother about it:

Jonathan: Road Rash!

i loved that game

Jeremy: what was the name of the evil opponent, who was always a pain in the ass to take down?

Victor?

Venom?

something with a V

Jonathan: Viper

Jeremy: VIPER

holy christ

Jonathan: that fucker

Jeremy: i hated that asshole

Road Rash featured whatever it was that passed for rubberbanding AI in those days, and Viper was basically the AI at its most evil. Viper was always the rider you'd be dealing with the most in the latter stages of each race; Viper would hit you with chains and knock into you and always be right on your ass, and if you ever successfully knocked him off his bike, you pretty much guaranteed yourself a stress-free cross of the finish line.

And what I love about it is that Viper had no face, no voice, no memorable lines of dialogue in the pre- and post-race flash screens, not even a discernable gender; Viper was just the AI opponent who was the biggest pain in the ass to beat, and we assigned him the worst qualities of humanity we could think of as reason enough to destroy him.

I love that even now, 20 years later, the fire of our hatred still burns for this nameless, voiceless enemy.

Fable 2 Wrap-Up

I finished Fable 2 last night. I'm not done with it, necessarily; there are still a few side quests I'd like to finish and some Achievements I'd like to pick up, but I finished the story and for all intents and purposes I am the ultimate goody-goody badass I'd set out to be. (In addition to my blue glow, I also seem to be covered in tiny flies, which is odd since I don't recall getting my character that dirty.)

It's a fun game but it's marred by some technical problems that never stopped being annoying, and the story turns out to be more generic and bland than I'd feared. The game is also pretty easy, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but I probably would've enjoyed a bit more challenge. I was able to buy what appear to be the most powerful weapons in the game pretty early on, and so I pretty much mowed through everything without too much trouble.

The game is most certainly NOT revolutionary, regardless of what Peter Molyneux says. Almost every game worth its salt features moral choices these days, and many of them look prettier and load less frequently. I did not fall in love with my dog, as much as I wanted to; in fact, the dog started to get annoying. I'd gotten my dog to be a level 5 treasure hunter, and so I wouldn't be able to move more than 10 feet without my dog barking about something stupid in the other direction. Certainly I would feel bad after a big fight when my dog would be whimpering and limping, but - again - the technical problems in the game would make it difficult for the controller to register that I was hitting the button to heal my dog, and so it became a bit of a pain in the ass: "Hey, dog, I'm healing you! You're right in front of me and I'm healing you and it's NOT WORKING."

I'm glad it's out of the way, at the very least; I'm still a little intimidated by Fallout 3 but I'd like to get back into Saints Row a little bit more before Gears drops on Friday.