This review is going to contain some spoilers for the game. I’m going to try to refrain from spoiling the biggest plot twists in the game, but I’m going to give you a heads up anyway, as well as putting the biggest spoilers below the cut.
As you probably already figured out from my last blog post, I’ve been thinking about the end of 1up and EGM as we know it. With most of the GameVideos staff getting the chop, I’ve started to think about the role of video in Video Games Journalism and how to handle it.
Video Games are a visual medium. Duh. Consequently, when you’re talking about video games, it really helps to see the game. Before high-speed Internet, the standard way of going about this was through putting screen shots on your web pages, or in the magazine articles about the game. Later, as Video Games became moderately mainstream, and we got Video Game related TV shows, like Gamespot TV (later Extended Play) and Electric Playground, we finally got to see the video games in motion before we bought them – and consequently we could get a good look at how good or bad the graphics were, and how good or bad the controls were. As an example, from seeing gameplay footage of Enter The Matrix on Extended Play before the game was released, I was somewhat able to tell, in advance, that the graphics weren’t very good, and that the control wasn’t very good. Surprise, surprise, when the reviews came out, the game was panned for, among other things, poor graphics and poor controls.
As broadband proliferated, using video to talk about games became more feasible, and higher quality video files became more feasible as well. This lead to the Video Review, where the reviewer got to stand in front of a camera, with footage of the game edited into the review (and possibly also playing behind him) and talk about the game. This turned game reviewers into recognizable personalities, the same way that television made Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert recognizable to people outside of Chicago.
Once you’ve got personalities, you’ve now got a way to support a TV show, first with just streaming programming on the web pages for sites like Gamespot.com, and later to (once Podcasts started catching on) video podcasts, from On The Spot on Gamespot.com, to the 1Up Show on 1up.com.
This brings us to now. Gamespot has On The Spot. They still have video reviews, but their reviewers don’t appear in the actual reviews (possibly as a way to, well, make it easier to get rid of reviewers if they need to – or if publishers want them too). GameTrailers makes it’s living out of video, but with the exception of Geoff Keigley (sp), Amanda McKay, and David Kayser, they don’t have any first party personalities. There are 3rd party personalities, like those through ScrewAttack (Stuttering Craig and the Angry Video Game Nerd), but that’s about it. The fate of video on the 1up network is in doubt. Giant Bomb is, really, the last bastion of the classic Gamespot video review, with the reviewer on camera.
So, what I want to know is this – how is the video in video games journalism going to pan out in the future. Will video reviews go through a voice-over person or through similar steps to make the people reviewing the games more faceless, or will the concept of the visible video game journalist move to smaller sites, as major sites like 1up and Gamespot.com become homes for the faceless, voiceless, disposable reviewer?
I’m putting an open call for comment by people in the games press, particularly those who used to work for 1up.com. Am I going in the right direction? Am I totally off base? Or is it a mixture of both?
I got the Quake Pack from Steam a while ago, and finally gotten around to playing Quake III arena, except I can’t play it. When I try to join a server I keep getting prompted for a product key, and in Quake III Team Arena, the last portion of the product key is blank.
Now, I have contacted Steam for support, but I haven’t gotten a response yet.
So, Steam, are you going to get this fixed, or not?
For those of you who don’t read Kotaku, here’s the link to the article. In short, Hearst Publications Group, which owns UGO, has bought the 1up Network from Ziff Davis. They then canceled EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly, their only and flagship gaming magazine) canceled just about all of their podcasts, and then fired most of the staff, including James Mielke (I can’t believe I spelled that right), Shane Bettenhausen, Skip Pfister, Ryan O’Donnell, among 30 other staffers and the GameVideos team, in a purge that I might call, and will call, Stalin-esque.
Aside from the tragedy of Vampire William Randolph Hearst draining the life blood out of the 1up network, leaving only a lifeless husk, hopefully there will be a lesson to be learned from this, but a costly one. You see, people in the business of reviewing film and reviewing video games like to talk about how different reviewing games and reviewing movies are, but they actually have a great deal in common, in certain respects.
For the record, this is a “Semi-Review” because I have not beaten the game, nor have I gotten 100% completion. What I have done, however, is get 55% completion of career mode, which is enoguh to give me a good grasp of single player, more or less.
“Hither came Conan the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.” – From The Phoenix In The Sword
(For the purposes of this review, I played the PS3 version of the game)
Conan is the kind of game that wants to be a fair number of things, but doesn’t necessarily do very well at a lot of them. The game places you in the furry boots of the titular barbarian, and not the one of the films, but of the original novels. The story begins with Conan raiding some distant tomb seeking treasure, and ultimately releasing a great evil that steals his armor. Being as Conan is not one to shrink from perils that he thinks he can handle, goes forth to defeat this evil.
I’m going to let you know right off the bat – this review contains spoilers. The game has been out for almost a year, so I’d say it’s pretty close to the Spoiler Statute Of Limitations.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, as the title would suggest, brings the franchise finally out of the European and North African theaters of World War II, and into the present day, or rather the not-so-distant-future, while maintaining the theme of prior installments, where they followed the conflict in question from multiple perspectives (previously the Russians, British, and Americans, now just the Americans). With the transition, the game adds a more cinematic approach, but cuts back on it’s length, for good and for ill.
In the first decade of the 21st century, the Video Games Industry has found itself facing a lot of political pressure from Washington DC, as well as the politicians of various state legislatures. The Hot Coffee controversy started a wave of game legislation against the game industry, with many states passing legislature to impede the sale of video games that contained violent content (the levels of violence being legislated against varied from state-to-state).
Rising up against this sea of foes, was the Entertainment Software Association, then lead by Doug Lowenstein. Thanks to the dues paid by member corporations, the ESA was able to file suit in multiple state courts to block the aforementioned laws, and in many cases get them declared unconstitutional. Further, as an outgrowth of the ESA’s sibling organization, the Entertainment Merchant’s Association (or EMA came the Entertainment Consumer’s organization, or ECA, lead by Hal Halpin, which sought to bring a voice for those who play video games and other electronic media, so that someone is fighting for them. Among one of the ECA’s first actions was to join with GamePolitics.com, a blog that tracked attacks against gaming in the public sector, from politicians, and from the news media.
The reason I’m bring up this melodramatic alphabet soup is that there is dissension in the ranks – specifically between the ECA, and the ESA – and the ECA didn’t start it.
According to a news article at 1up.com, Tomonobu Itagaki is resigning from Tecmo and filing suit with his old company after the president of the company allegedly said he would not pay Itagaki a promised completion bonus for the game.
As someone who is a fan of the Dead or Alive games, as well as the Ninja Gaiden games, regret this turn of events a great deal. I hope that Itagaki’s lawsuit will result favorably for him. He is a talented game designer, and look forward to playing his future games. Also, I hope we don’t get a boycott in this case, at least not unless the lawsuit doesn’t go Itagaki’s way. If Itagaki wins, he’ll likely get paid his promised bonuses, as well as any promised royalties, and those will be decreased if there is a boycott. However, Itagaki loses, then would be the perfect time for gamers to vote with their wallets and take their money somewhere else.
Alternatively, rather then refusing to buy Tecmo games, this would be the perfect time, to show Tecmo just how much we enjoy Itagaki’s work. Rather then refusing to buy Tecmo games, instead, we only buy Itagaki’s games. All of them. And only the Tecmo games made by Itagaki. Have Itagaki make oodles of money for Tecmo showing two things.
Just my two bits.
