Be Sure to Drink Your Ovaltine

The small part of my soul that is not yet tainted by cynicism is somewhat a-flutter this morning, now that I've read this official PSBlog post revealing the launch of an ARG for Home.

Of course, the problem here is that the most successful and engaging ARGs don't come right out and tell you that they're ARGs; the idea is that you discover them without knowing you're looking for them. I've only really been invested in 2 of them, but they're the ones you've heard of: the A.I. game, and the I Love Bees game; both times I happened to stumble across them, and both times I got totally sucked in, even if I didn't actually go out and do any field work. It's true that I knew that it was just advertising, but it was advertising that was actually more interesting than the product it was selling. (Did I just say that I Love Bees was more absorbing than Halo 2?)

The other problem, of course, is that I haven't used Home - or, indeed, even thought about it - since my initial, less than thrilling experience with the beta a bazillion years ago.

But here's the thing - if I were using Home, and I happened to stumble across this strange grafitti, and then crazy things started happening, I'd totally love it.

I might just fire up the ol' PS3 tonight and check it out. I just hope I don't end up totally hating myself as a result.

Sony: I bitch, I praise

This post was originally intended to be a mini-rant about Sony's ass-backwards approach to online interactivity, but then I glanced at my RSS feed and they came out with a press release that suddenly makes the PSP instantly relevant again. So: toh-may-toh, toh-mah-toh. I say: why not write about both?

When I bought my Blackberry Storm, it came with a bluetooth headset that I never use - until I realized that I could use it as a headset for the PS3. I don't really do a lot of online gaming on the PS3, but I do like communicating with the few PS3-owning friends I have, and chatting is easier through speech than with the clunky text interface, and I wasn't about to spend $50 on a Sony headset or the official chat-pad thing which, speaking of being ass-backwards, look at that thing. So a free solution to the problem seemed awfully appealing...

... except that the process of getting a headset hooked up to the PS3 is not at all intuitive and there was a key thing that I apparently wasn't doing, and I only figured out what I missed through extensive google searches. (It's not just enough that you pair your device; you then must dig into another sub-menu on the dashboard and flip a few switches, and I'd never have figured that out on my own.) A lot of fanboys like to point out that PSN is free while XBL is a paid service, but I say you get what you pay for; if you want to use a 360 headset, you put the plug into the controller and that's it. In any event, I was eventually able to get my headset to work, and so I was finally able to talk with my friend as she kicked my ass in Street Fighter 4 yet again, and I was able to send the game back to Gamefly with a clear conscience, knowing I had tried my best.

As for the PSP news, peep this MTV Multiplayer article for the full press release; the important PSP releases are as follows:

• LittleBigPlanet (sounds like a port, with added levels and features)
  
• Assassin's Creed (and a themed bundle)
• Rock Band Unplugged (I'm actually pretty curious about this - it'll have its own wi-fi store)
• Madden 10 and Tiger Woods 10 (meh)
• MotorStorm Arctic Edge
  
• Dissidia Final Fantasy

It's maybe not as jaw-dropping when you look at it like that, but this is a hell of a lot better than the nothing that's been the PSP's status quo for the last year or so. I'd certainly like to see a new GTA title on the PSP (as would lots of people, it would seem).

Everything Old is New Again, Part 1: FFVII

Again, sorry for the lack of posts lately; I've been pretty busy with some music stuff over the last week or so, and there hasn't been much to play.

That will soon change, however. Today I'm announcing a new, hopefully recurring feature called EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN, wherein I (and Gred, if he so chooses) play classic games for the first time. This feature is especially timely because when I get home from work today I'm charging up my long-dead PS3 controller to play a borrowed copy of Final Fantasy VII, which (as you may have guessed) I've never played.

I'm doing this because I'm starting to get excited about next year's FFXIII for reasons I'm not sure I can explain - especially since my experience with FF games is strictly limited to a few hours with III and IV on the DS. For one thing, I've been getting a little burnt out on turn-based RPGs, especially since so many of them end up being quite similar. I haven't even necessarily played that many,* but I've played enough to spot an annoying cliche from a mile away. I would imagine that my experience playing FFVII for the first time, in 2009, is going to be quite different than everyone else's, especially with regard to annoying cliches, but since everyone insists the story is one of the greatest of all time, I'll do my best to keep everything in the right context.

...It occurs to me that I might not be able to play tonight after all, being that Lost is on (and then my wife will want to watch Top Chef). Hmm...

*JRPGs (and other turn-based non-strategy RPGs) I have played (that I can remember off the top of my head):

• Skies of Arcadia, Dreamcast (adored it)
  
• LOTR: Battle for Middle Earth, Xbox (hated it - the computer cheated all the goddamned time)
• Blue Dragon, 360 (didn't finish it, meh)
• Lost Odyssey, 360 (finished it, was quite impressed)
• Eternal Sonata, 360 (liked it, but didn't finish)
• Eternal Arms, 360 (wanted to like it, but lost interest)
  
• Final Fantasy III, DS (didn't finish... got the general idea and got bored)
• Final Fantasy IV, DS (see FFIII)
• Chrono Trigger, DS (still technically playing, although I'm stuck)
  
• Star Ocean something, PSP (got insanely bored in about 10 minutes, which probably isn't fair)
  

Things That Make No Sense: The Killzone 2 Demo

This article from MTV Multiplayer explains Sony's justification of its bizarre and counter-intuitive Killzone 2 promotion, wherein the Killzone 2 demo is being offered 24 days before the game's release only for people who pre-order the game from Gamestop.

MTV's Stephen Totillo asks the relevant question:

Why would Sony do this? Isn’t the practice of selling a demo to people who have already committed to order the game contrary to the logic of why one would release a demo?

And Sony gives the following answer:

"Offering a playable demo to motivate preorders speaks to our confidence in the appeal of a game such as Killzone 2. We take this approach when we are convinced that the experience will cement a consumer’s interest in purchasing. Retailers will then merchandise those demos within their stores and online to maximize their visibility. Through this process, consumers are often times able to reserve their copy of the final game, which provides an incentive to purchase and helps seal the deal. We also offer demos on the PSN, which we have done in the past with great success, and will continue to make that available. Killzone 2, for example, will have a downloadable demo launch in North America the week that the game is launching, for consumers who prefer that option.”

Read the first sentence again. Here, I'll isolate it and bold it for you:

“Offering a playable demo to motivate preorders speaks to our confidence in the appeal of a game such as Killzone 2. ”

No, no it doesn't. To the extent that sentence makes any coherent sense at all, it does precisely the opposite. Killzone 2 is one of the most anticipated titles for the PS3 this year - it's also one of the only exclusive titels for the PS3 this year, but that's besides the point - and yet Sony's marketing blitz for it has been, for lack of a better word, non-existent. Which is to say, if you didn't already know about it, you wouldn't know anything about it.

Releasing a demo for a highly anticipated game ONLY for people who have already spent money on it tells me that they don't have a lot of faith in the game; it tells me that if the uneducated and unwashed masses were to get their hands on the demo a few weeks before the game was released, they'd be disappointed and thus less inclined to pre-order.

And really, while we're at it, what is it about Killzone 2 that makes it so highly anticipated, anyway? The first game supposedly boasted fantastic production values, especially for an aging PS2 system, but didn't really get great review scores (Metacritic average is 7.0); and if I remember correctly, the first trailer for it - the one that dropped every jaw at E3 a few years ago - turned out to be a "target render" and not actual gameplay.

Sony has been languishing in 3rd place ever since it launched, and doing arrogant, nonsensical, stupid shit like this only reinforces the idea that they truly have no idea what they're doing. And I say this as a PS3 owner, as someone who really wants the PS3 to succeed and be great and not simply exist as an overpriced Blu-Ray player.

Home

If this Gamepolitics article is to be believed, Sony is officially releasing Home tomorrow. Sony previously had been rolling it out in larger and larger numbers, similar to what Microsoft did with the NXE; I somehow got into the beta a few weeks ago.

I've maybe checked it out once or twice since I initially installed it, and the experience hasn't gotten better. It's still unclear to me what exactly the experience is supposed to be. When I see Sony's press releases, describing it as...

...a ground-breaking 3D social gaming community available on PS3 that allows users to interact, communicate and share gaming experiences...

...well, I guess that sounds interesting in theory, but in actual practice it's useless. It's certainly useless without a headset; the canned responses are not particularly robust, and that assumes that you're interested in participating in a chat room with a bunch of teenagers. Maybe it's better with the chatpad thing that's coming out soon, but that's not even the point. There's no real need for a 3D social gaming community; it serves no practical purpose. The gaming community is a robust and diverse many-sided thing but the side that most people end up witnessing, whether in forums or in multiplayer matches, thrives on anonymity and calling each other assholes. You can't get into virtual fistfights in Home, and you certainly can't pwn someone in Home because there's nothing to play other than a few crappy minigames that start to get boring about 20 seconds in.

You can look at advertising, though. And what the press release doesn't tell you is that Home is slathered in advertising. There are game posters and game trailers all over the place, and I'm sure that non-game-specific branding will soon follow, if it's not already there. Maybe you can buy a Mountain Dew T-shirt for your virtual dude and then meet up with your similarly-attired "friends" by the bowling alley and watch a trailer for SOCOM. Boy, that sounds like a great time. Meanwhile, I'll be getting on with the rest of my life.