I assume many gamers give up rather quickly when picking out a gamertag and write down whatever comes to mind first. You see, that gamertag is the only thing preventing you from going online and playing with your douchebag friends, as we all know douchebags travel in packs. So you try to be cool and type in ‘TigerClaw, but it’s taken! Suddenly, you decide to add 29 to the end of it, and you’re off to the races. You just made your first mistake.

There are certain rules when it comes to gamertags, the rules link to handy examples of actual gamertags:

- No numbers at the end of your name
- None of that Xx or xX shit, as well as Zz or single letters like ‘xsomethingx’
- Only one letter can be substituted with a similar number, for instance you can replace an E with a 3
- You cannot just use your full name, nor your first name (without being clever, ie ‘RonCore‘)
- IT SHOULDN’T BE ALL UPPERCASE
- If the word actually ends in a ’s’, a ‘z’ does not suffice
- None of that Twiztid shit, no rappers in your goddamn name
- Also, none of this AZN garbage.
- Let’s not randomly capitalize letters in your name
- You can’t just hit random letters
- Refrain from using stupid shit from movies
- The name of your favorite or current car does belong in your gamertag
- Generic I play video games names must go
- Your gamertag must be spelled correctly
- Throwing words together you think are awesome does not a name make
- Spaces in between the letters in your name isn’t really cool, I’m s e r i o u s

Also, don’t put these words in your name:
- Army
- Shadow
- Reaper
- Killa or killer
- Spartan
- Cyber
- Unknown
- Dogg
- Blu
- Marine
- Vortex

Now, not all gamertags suck, here are some good ones I came across in writing this article:

Emptyjar
UnclaspedDeb
Playful Pinky
NuclearPenguins

Unfortunately, the list is pretty short. I also came across gamertags so horrid I had to single them out, they are:

llxBLADExll
GhStRdR2k

I literally could do this for several hours, right now I’m forcing myself away from the Official Xbox Forums so I can do my actual job. Please remember these rules carefully the next time one of your friends decides to create a gamertag, or else you’re an idiot who should get cancer of the stomach. And groin. And then a car should hit you, and your favorite pet.

Got it? Now read one former MTV journalist’s (is that what he was) quest to play ONE LEVEL in Scribblenauts.

Attempt 1: Created bear to attack bee buzzing over first flower, so I could safely grab the flower. Bear killed bee. Bear then killed Maxwell. Level failed.

What the fuck man? You’re going with a bear to kill the bee? How about a goddamn flamethrower.

Attempt 2: Made bear; bear killed bee. Laid down bear trap. Died. Level failed.

Still going with that bear eh?

Attempt 3: Made bear; bear killed bee. Laid down bear trap, ran away. Bear didn’t chase. Ran back over. Caught self in bear trap. Mauled by bear. Level failed.

Ok, now you’re just a fucking moron. Let’s say the level had a bear you had to get past, I assume you’d just chuck a grenade at it and be done with it. Instead you lay down a stupid bear trap, YOU CAN DO ANYTHING.

Attempt 4: Made bear; bear killed bee; laid trap. Bear caught in trap. Bear broke free. Killed Maxwell. Level failed.

TRY SOMETHING ELSE ALREADY.

Attempt 5: Made exterminator. Exterminator fumigated bee. Exterminator did not maul Maxwell. Has Maxwell grab first flower and placed it in basket. Approached lake containing piranha and second flower. Fell in. Jumped out. Made fishing pole. Fished piranha out. On land, piranha flopped, attacked, killed Maxwell. Level failed.

Great, you managed to get past the bee after 5 tries. Still not very imaginative with an exterminator, but it worked. Then you promptly failed the next part.

Attempt 6: Made exterminator. Exterminator fumigated bee. Did not grab first flower. Approached piranha lake. Made fishing boat. Dropped big boat into lake. Boat must have crushed flower. Level failed.

I can actually see this as being an honest mistake.

Attempt 7: Made exterminator. In a twist, exterminator failed to fumigate bee. Bee attacked fleeing exterminator. Bee stung exterminator to death. Bee killed flower basket girl. Level failed.

Fuck your exterminator in it’s goddamn face. You need to go 187 on that fucking bee.

Attempt 8: Made gun. Shot bee dead. Gun disappeared. Made gun again. Approached piranha lake. Attempted to shoot piranha dead. Bad shooting angle and touchy controls prevented this. Either was too far away and shooting into ground (game was connecting Maxwell’s gun to fish in straight line; allowing me to select a “shoot” prompt when tapping on piranha, even though trajectory was blocked. New idea: Made corpse. Threw corpse into piranha lake. Piranha attacked corpse. Dove for flower. Piranha finished corpse and ate Maxwell. Level failed.

Look who finally got some balls. I wouldn’t have gone with the corpse thing myself, first I would of tried ‘Piranha seeking missle’.

Attempt 9: Made gun. Shot bee dead. Made hand grenade. Tossed it into piranha lake. Greande killed fish. Grenade killed flower. Level failed.

Well someone watched Crocodile Dundee, although he fished with a stick of dynamite. Also Grenades don’t kill flowers, stop being so melodramatic. And it’s spelled ‘Grenade’.

Attempt 10: Made gun. Tried to shoot bee dead. Bullet ricocheted and destroyed first flower. Level failed.

You would admit this?

Attempt 11: Made beekeeper. Beekeeper fled from bee (?). Made exterminator. Exterminator killed bee. Made fisherman. Fisherman cowered near piranha lake (??). Made fishing pole and gave to fisherman. Fisherman looked like he was about to fish but instead fell into lake and was eaten. (Some of the characters are kind of dumb.) Made another fisherman. Gave him pole. Couldn’t figure out how to make fisherman fish. Accidentally made Maxwell fall in lake. Piranha latched on. Death. Level failed.

The key here is to not rely on the games AI. Makes sense when someone says it out loud right? Thought so.

Attempt 12: Made hot air balloon. Put Maxwell in it. Flew over piranha lake. Made gun. Shot at fish. Gun destroyed hot air balloon instead. Fell into lake. Jumped out of lake. Made corpse. Threw it into lake to draw fish away. Made gun to shoot fish while it ate corpse. Shots didn’t hit. Made new corpse and tried with sniper rifle. Didn’t work. Dove in and just grabbed flower. Success. Bee was gone. Put lake flower in basket. Put bee flower in basket. Made helicopter to get to high ridge for final flower. Was afraid to land helicopter on ledge, out of fear of destroying flower. Tried to jump out of helicopter. Fell into piranha lake. Died. Level failed.

I’d say 80% of people who look at the level think ‘hot air balloon’ for grabbing the cliff flower, apparently he decides a helicopter will be better and fails.

Attempt 13: Made gun. Shot bee dead. Got first flower. Made two corpses. Tossed them into piranha lake for distraction. Dove and recovered second flower. Made truck and dumped it into lake. Did same with a boat. Tried climbing over those vehicles to get to ledge and final flower. Vehicles shifted; Maxwell thrown into ridge wall. Died. Level failed.

Don’t fill the fucking lake up, FLY OVER IT YOU IMBECILE. If you want to not fly create ‘Jesus holding a table over his head’, then you can just ride on the table while Jesus walks on water.

Attempt 14: Made gun. Shot bee dead. Made hot air balloon. Flew to ridge. Got out, grabbed flower. Parked balloon plummeted to lake and killed lake flower. Level failed.

That’s what you get for not dealing with the lake before the cliff. I see you’re also going with that ‘flying’ concept again. Nice.

Attempt 15. Same as Attempt 14, except replace “gun” with “machete;” and “shot” with “chopped after accidentally destroying nearby house.” Level failed.

Who the fuck knows what you did this time. Next time type ‘dildo’ and slap yourself with it, maybe it will give you special powers.

Attempt 16. Made gun. Shot bee dead. Made hot air balloon. Flew to ridge. Got out, grabbed flower. Got back in balloon. Safely put cliff flower in basket. Put bee flower in basket. Threw corpses into piranha lake to distract fish. Dove in and grabbed lake flower. Jumped out. Put lake flower in basket. Starite found! Success!

I love how you keep doing the same thing over again. What you can infer from this is that you screwed up and felt you could do it better a second time. This in turn means anyone who doesn’t suck at video games will do rather well at this game, and won’t fuck up every time.

Take his experience as you will, and also note that he loved every minute of it. It really seems that using things that use AI or require tricky controls are a recipe for disaster. That said, with everyone ranting and raving about this game it could be the next great thing. Unlike Halo or Madden X though, your success in it depends on your creativity and imagination. I for one will try to stab the bee with a tainted aids needle.

To them I have one thing to say; suck my fucking cock.

Quote time! This one is from David Jones:

With Crackdown we sold about 1.5 million copies, but even at that we pretty much only managed to break even. It was due to the amount of factors that were out of our control as the developer, influences such as GameStop’s amazing used-game sales; we know 1.5 million new copies were sold, but it’s likely there were 2.5, three million sold when you include used.

Oh how I <3 quotes, they make the article longer and I don't have to write anything! But anyway, someone should tell him selling 1.5 million games is a GOOD THING. It was brand new IP for godsakes, of the top 75 best selling games on the Xbox 360 only 11 were new IP! Stop bitching, it's not like you shipped Too Human, you sold one of the best selling games (and one of the more fun games) for the Xbox 360. I'm sure you can add that to your resume.

Now it's time to address the issue at hand, the blame everyone lays on Gamestop and the used game market in general. You have to understand something, people who buy used games DON'T BUY NEW GAMES, although there are some exceptions. Everyone knows the first one, if the games is the fucking bee's knees people will go out and buy it. Other than that, used game buyers generally break their rules for Madden and Halo, but I'm sure they purchase these by trading in all their used games. The second part to this issue is the fact that the market exists, and this cannot change. Whenever you sell something to someone there will always be a method of them pawning it off to someone else. You can't stop Johnny from selling something HE OWNS, so stop complaining you twats. If Gamestop didn't exist it would happen somewhere else, and the same people who hate paying full price would seek out where. This may shock folks in the videogame industry, but not everyone out there gets paid tons of money to design videogames.

When it comes to his 3 million dollar mark, he's completely delusional. He obviously budged for at least 2.5 million copies to be sold of his game, and the game was obviously not appealing enough to sell 2.5 million copies. It's not because people were being sneaky-sneaky and stealing Crackdown or copying their friend's copy, they weren't buying it. Who knows how many copies were sold just so people could play Halo 3, maybe without it he would of only sold 1.1 million copies.

In short: David, it's not our fault you just broke even, it's your fault for spending too much money and being a general douche.

Love,

Rich

So lookie there, full real-life video games running in a web browser, albeit running flash. In the video Perry clearly states he is, “using Firefox with no plug-ins, no installs, nothing”, yet you have to install Flash to make it work. I guess if he was using the new fancy HTML 5 standard in Firefox 3.5 he could pull it off, but I really doubt it. I know I’m nit-picking here, but it’s still important to note.

When OnLive was first shown at GDC this year, lots of people were saying really good things about it. Being the dark minded sycophant that I am, my thoughts were mostly negative. But hey, that’s how I roll. In my defense, part of my hatred was the concept of a system where you never own the game. What you’re really doing is renting access from a server, and that doesn’t sit too well with me. I’d also like them to be more transparent when it comes to the backend, until then I’ll be skeptical that this thing can actually run smoothly.

While I still have reservations with the renting part, seeing Gaikai in action really got me thinking about its potential. Three things really piqued my interest: Mario kart 64, World of Warcraft, and Photoshop. I know Nintendo would never officially let Mario Kart 64 on Gaikai, but the concept is still valid. This would make re-releasing classic titles that much easier, and in turn allow more people to experience them. As far as WoW goes, it would be amazing if it actually worked in the first place. Just think, you wouldn’t have to install a 10GB game and then patch it for the next 20 hours. Any current or future patches would be done server side; just open a browser, sign in, and play.

Of course if they actually had all 12 million WoW players playing through Gaikai, who knows what it would require. Which makes me wonder, how many people could they fit on a server? I know my brother has tested his computer out and got 3 windowed instances of WoW running simultaneiously – with a solid 60fps in each window and the highest setting on each. I’m sure you could fit a bunch more instances on an actual beefy server, at which point you would only need to worry about bandwidth. Luckily, it looks minimal, which will definitely help out our ‘rural gamers’.

Now about Photoshop, this is something completely different from what OnLive has demonstrated. I would first like to say that I don’t think people will latch onto this delivery method in the professional world. Studios will always want their applications to run as fast as possible, and running programs like Photoshop or 3DS Max (if it becomes available) local is the way to go. I do think that this might useful for people who are out of town or not in their office, they could easily utilize the server to make a quick edit wherever they are. Heck, they could even use it on their Netbook. I could also see this type of service for a start-up or a smaller studio because they might not want to make the initial investment in the high end workstations along with the licenses for the software.

But let me get back to the main point in all of this, videogames. When I think about the type of videogames that I play on a regular basis, I don’t think this service would be good enough. Granted I am a minority in the market as I do have a $1500 computer and can run games on their highest settings at 1680×1050. It could be that this is the reason I only see this service really working for either MMOs or in the handheld market. The high-end visuals don’t matter as much in those markets and maybe all that those people want is to play a wider variety of games at a fraction of the cost.

I can see where this service may be viable but I am still not convinced. At GDC I think OnLive had 10-20 units playing games, for all we know they had a $4000 server running for each person that was playing, and they didn’t even show up for E3. Until these companies show more of their back-end and are able to demonstrate their technology working on a larger scale I will remain skeptical. Hopefully, we will be able to get more information soon.

I have noticed in my time playing puzzle games that Bust a Move never really got the play that other puzzle games did, despite the fact that it was fun, fast paced, and had quite a good head-to-head component. Almost every system has had a good version of Bust a Move and the game play has changed slightly on every release, slowly adding various modes, bubble types, removing the “ceiling” of the levels in Bust a Move 99 (Puzzle Bobble 3 1996), retooling of specific scoring mechanics, and the “chain combos” and “rainbow Bubbles” introduced in Bust a Move 4 back in ’97. Taito, either wisely or accidentally, has aged Bust a Move into a fine wine. Even forays into early DS touch screen development produced one of the finest DS stylus controlled puzzle games for the system, bested in my opinion, only by Intelligent Systems Planet Puzzle League (Panel De Pon DS) and Q Entertainments Meteos series. The stylus control was well implemented, changed the game enough to deliver a new experience and held up at high level play.

With all that awesome, why no love? I don’t have a clue. I think that puzzle games in general don’t get the play they ought to, players either focus on the single player portion of a puzzler or can never find anyone to play puzzle games with. There have been more than a few times that I have been at a games convention and put my feelers out there for some Meteos/Puyo Pop Fever/Planet Puzzle League matches and was met by blank stares and offers to play Mario Kart. I think Bust a move suffers from the fact that you both have to think and perform, really quickly, and just like games of that type (Puzzle League, Puyo Pop, I’m looking at you!) it’s that execution requirement and pattern memorization that keeps people from playing them as much as they would. Kinda like fighting games, only with more sequential thinking and less chess-like strategic branching. (multiple options for various reaction possibilities, or absence thereof.) Luckily, Bust a Move is really easy to learn and the aiming and shooting of bubbles comes naturally. As such people pick up the game quickly and play the hell out of sinlge player and never touch it again, which is lame by any and all accounts. There is a lot of good fun to be had in the versus modes and I encourage all puzzle game players to give it a shot if they haven’t already.

My first experience with Bust a Move was at an arcade on a Neogeo cabinet. The fast game play and skill based aiming aspect really drew me in, and the vs. component, which I still play to this day, really cemented Bust a Move as one of my favorite head-to-head puzzle games. It’s fast as hell, equal portions skill and knowledge/strategy, and set up – with 2 out of 3 rounds, just like a fighting game, victory is cut and dry. It made for some very fun and heated battles. The game play is not quite as cut throat as say Puzzle Fighter, Panel De Pon or Puyo Pop (which has gotten totally out of fucking control and somehow more awesome) but it certainly deserves its place among the better head-to-head puzzle games, and has definitely earned its place as one of the best puzzle games for its creative and highly addictive single player modes.

If you have always been a Bust a Move fan, and don’t play the versus mode, play more of it. If by any weird chance you don’t play or haven’t tried Bust a Move, give it a shot. It truly is quite good. With 4 player online and a plethora of single player modes, Space Bust a Move is a great deal at $20. Get on this. Now.

Space Bust a move is available for the Nintendo DS July 28^th.

System: Nintendo DS
Developer: Taito (Square Enix)
Publisher: Square Enix
Price: $19.99

The only reason I post this is because I read a recent tumblr blog post from Mr. Ron Workman himself which is titled “Dear EA Games: Fuck Your Shit!”

Microsoft allowing EA to do this bullshit is too far. This is the 3rd EA XBLA title that has not worked at all for me (as well as many many others). Other dev’s have to fight to get games up on XBLA and EA can swoop in and throw a non-working broken pile of shit on there. This has to stop.

Allowing EA to use its own servers as well as its own logins on Xbox Live is bullshit as well. Someone (An actual journalist) needs to really lay this one out. Out of all of the problems people deal with, this one is serious and allowing EA to bend to rules this far and also fuck it up is really over the top.

I just realized most of you have no idea what I am talking about. Battlefield 1943 on XBLA as well as any of the old Draft/Fantasy sports games published by EA just dont work. This one is a new major release, online gameplay only (the others also), and you can’t play it. 15 bucks and you can only attempt to connect. It will not play. It sucks when smaller dev’s fight for a year or more to get a game through certification and EA is allowed to come in and do this.

These games all cost me real money and to date I have not been able to play them. Contacting EA in the past did little to nothing. It shouldn’t have anything to do with them. I don’t call ESPN when my cable goes out, so why should I contact EA when something won’t work on Xbox Live?

-Ron Workman

Look how he speaks the truth. He’s like a modern day preacher, in fact he’s a lot more relevant than Reverend Al Sharpton. But I digress, I agree with what Ron has to say. Independent/Smaller Developers work their asses off to make a game meets all the rules that MS requires, while EA can take a giant dump, somehow digitize it, and then upload to XBL. First off, no company should be able to host their own servers, that’s the whole reason that XBL exists! You pay 50 bucks for a reason, and it’s not to play on EA’s shitty servers (probably powered by third world children running in hamster wheels or some evil shit). EA basically undermines the entire system by running their own servers, and then failing to support them and their own game.

Seriously EA, get your shit together.

Now I want to say that I do agree with SOME of Alon’s article, but I also think that Alon kind generalizes a bit much. Every genre had standout games that are still fun to this day. Whether or not Alon, or like-minded folks, enjoyed those games is beside the point. For example, just because Alon (and Ara apparently) think(s) Megaman sucks doesn’t exactly make it so. First of all, let me get this out of the way. Turtles in Time is a bad game to use for this idea, as Alon is in the minority when it comes to opinions on TMNT: TIT. I would go as far as to say that he may need to sit down and play some more brawlers/beat em’ ups before he makes such outlandish claims. Very few brawlers were meant to be played over and over, much less to be examples of great interactive media. People have to keep in mind that a lot of these games were designed first and foremost to get a coin drop from us. Fun and innovation were lures to get us to spend money. Now despite that somewhat nasty barrier, there were still a couple companies that could both make fun games and satisfy the arcade era’s somewhat cutthroat requirements for success. It is hard to be successful AND have artistic integrity. Konami found a way to satisfy both by having fun, fast paced 4-player beat-em ups accentuated with pattern memorization. This satisfied the drop rate, @ 4 credits a pop (you and 3 friends because TMNT is not TMNT if you are not playing 4 players) and of course the 4 player brawling nature of the game coupled with assist attacks made the game innovative and fun. (although Bucky O’Hare/Simpsons was also four players, Bucky was not as widely available and Simpsons was easier to play. That double wide X-Men game was 6 players and that was hot shit.) Limited item placement, enemy types, and unit grouping coupled with boss pattern memorization made it so that skilled players could in fact 1cc this fucker. Turtles in Time was both a great arcade game and a great beat’em up for it’s time. We can look at any selection of brawlers and aside from Technos/Sega/Capcom/SNK/ and some Data East stuff, nobody really did it better. See Alon, Brawlers can be fun! (If you don’t like beat em ups, that is fine, you simply don’t like fun.)

At one point, Alon had mentioned that puzzle games are really the only genre of games he thought would stand the test of time. Really, besides Tetris, Puy-puyo and Puzzle de Pon what other puzzle games are you still playing? Almost nobody plays competitive or marathon Dr. Mario, at least nowhere near the amount of folks who play Tetris. Bust a Move? I’ll be the first to admit BAM2 rocked my lame ass and continues to rock my ass to this day, but I can’t find a single person to play that with me. Twinkle Star Sprites? The game was awesome, but where’s the love? Not only that, how often do you go back and play Tengen Tetris or the original NES Tetris? I can tell you as an actual puzzle game player, playing old Tetris games as opposed to the newer, more balanced, faster Tetris stuff… (Arika Yes that Arika does the best Tetris at this point in my humble opinion) it is a little hard to swallow. Is it bad? Absolutely not, it’s still good. Newer versions of classic stuff are welcome as long as they add something that makes them better. This goes for all newer versions of puzzle games: Puzzle De Pon, Pokemon Puzzle League, Planet Puzzle League, (although this one is certainly arguable.) Puyo-Puyo, Kirbys Avalanche, Puyo Pop Fever etc… They got better but the original games, and even though they’re somewhat sluggish they are still quite good.

Annnnd on to fighting games. Fighting games are another example of really old games that stand the test of time. Companies like Capcom, SNK, Namco, Sega, and to some degree Tecmo and Data East, did well for themselves in the arcade industry while also making good games. Stuff like SSF2T, KOF98, and SF3:3rd Strike are now well over ten years old and are still being played quite a bit because they are intensely deep and well designed games. ST is still played competitively for over a decade after its release. New things are still discovered, there are more ST players now than there were in recent years BECAUSE of a “nostalgic re-release”. HD Remix is a PERFECT example of how sometimes, SOMETIMES old games just do it better, and to assume this only happens with Street Fighter or Zelda or Mario or Final Fantasy or any other strong franchise is just silly.

Ultimately, games are for entertainment, and trying to tell people what should and shouldn’t entertain them makes you sound like a prick. Especially when you don’t have any idea what you are talking about.

I for one will say there are lots of great older games out there to play. they were good back then, and they are still good now. If you enjoy interactive media, you should go back and give them a shot. You might find something you like.

So how does it make you feel? If you’re about my age (read: old), you probably remember playing one of the TMNT games in the arcade when it was the new hotness. What does that do for you? Does the fact that you played it years ago make it awesome again? If you’re like most everyone else, and you are, the answer to that question is yes. A blind and pathetic yes.

Emotional Tug of War

The battle between Emotion and Rationale is a difficult one. Your emotional response to these old-school rehashes makes you feel all frothy at the mouth. Where’s Rationale, that bastard? The problem with the marketplace (that’s you, the consumer), is that Rationale is almost always late to the show. To be specific, he usually shows up about three minutes, twenty-eight seconds into your oldschool gaming experience – just after you’ve fronted the money for a little byte of history. Rowdy little prick, he punches you in the face with his fist of truth, reminding you why you stopped playing this same game so many years ago. My suggestion to you is to make friends with him so you don’t make the same mistake again. Unfortunately, Rationale is the kind of friend you only remember to talk to on holidays. So, my second suggestion is to move him up in your buddy list, put him in your fav’ five, follow him on Twitter… whatever it takes to keep him around.

Oldschool remakes are usually NOT awesome

You know why you don’t have your Super Nintendo sitting in the entertainment center anymore? It’s because most of the games you played on it were crap. Don’t get me wrong, I played it tons… back in the day… and the games didn’t suck back then. But times have changed. There’s a good reason we don’t use/play/eat/drive/f*ck/watch old shit anymore. Things don’t really get better with age. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

Skeletor Pfeiffer might be hot for 50, but she's still 50.

It’s not just the graphics

It might not seem like it when shit like Proposition 8 gets passed, but the world really is making progress. Our games are better than they used to be. A whole lot better. And it’s not just that they look better. Your backseat analyst friend might try to convince you that all these old games were great and that it’s you, who needs to stop being a graphics snob so you can appreciate the greatness of the old school, but there’s a reason you don’t normally listen to him – he’s an idiot. He can’t see that gaming has truly evolved over the last 30 years. Sure, we still have to weed through a lot of crap games to find the good ones, but the good games of today are infinitely better than most of the good games from years ago. It’s about time that you stop feeling like a heretic just because you think so too.

Doom sucks

Very few games hold up with time. Case in point – another blast from the past, Doom is available for the iPhone. Any one of you played Call of Duty 4 lately? Feel like going back to f’ing Doom? I hope not. Forget that it’s on an iPhone and that the controls could never feel right [and that id Software plans to republish even more of their dated pieces of trash]… It’s still Doom, and it always will be. And… it will always suck. Just because Doom is doomed to be released on every system into eternity, you don’t need to like it. It’s okay not to like it, I promise you.

I know, I know, it’s heresy to say anything negative about the big N. And the current console “war” (not much of a war any more, is it?) is all the evidence we need that Nintendo is doing just fine, thank you.

But Nintendo blew it. They blew it with the Wii, and they’re blowing it with the DSi.

Duct Tape

I remember the E3 where the Wii was revealed to be a Big Deal. Some of my coworkers had been there, and they raved about the controls in the Wii Sports demo they tried. It was a totally new experience, they said. It does what you do, they said. Soon after E3 our publisher targeted our team to make a Wii game. We exitedly started researching the platform. We made our best guesses about what the hardware would be able to do, and what we could do with the hardware. We were giddy.

Imagine our surprise when we found out that it was just two Gamecubes duct-taped together – and that’s a generous characterization, by the way. It’s really just a Gamecube, sped up and made smaller. Hardware bugs from the Gamecube still exist. Put side by side, the Xbox 1 is arguably a more powerful machine, and that’s a whole generation ago. What were we going to do with this? Less than we had hoped for, that’s for sure.

Even though Nintendo doesn’t put forward that they’re competing with the Xbox 360 and the PS3, they’ve benefitted from being in the same generation as the other two. Consumers see it as a choice between three game consoles, and along with that, they assume they deliver fairly similar experiences – especially if they’re not gamers and buying for their kids or their family. When it turns out Wii games don’t really look or feel much like a next-gen game, who gets the blame? I’ll give you a hint: not Nintendo.

Waggle

On top of the limited hardware, the Wii controller turned out to be a disappointment too. Nintendo markets the Wii like the controller is some magic device that knows exactly where in space it is and how the player is manipulating it. When games fail to deliver on that implicit promise, control feels artificial, tacked-on, not fun. Well, guess what: the controller is a simple, noisy three-axis accelerometer. Detecting motion along its axes isn’t hard, but tracking it through space is a tough, tough problem. When we started working on motion controls for our game, we had a choice: either spend lots of time and research trying to detect lifelike motion, or throw together something Grandma can do from the couch. I wanted the former; we shipped the latter.

Nintendo offered little help to developers for this problem. I can recall Nintendo documents that basically suggested we keep it simple with control complexity, in contrast to the image their marketing department put forward. Years after launch, still very few games have good, natural motion controls. Nintendo has announced the MotionPlus peripheral that is what the controller should’ve been in the first place. The MotionPlus is Nintendo’s owning up to that particular mistake while still making money doing it.

Same Difference

The DSi is getting the Wii treatment, but with cameras instead of motion control. It’s 1.09 DSes duct taped together. Sure, it has double the CPU speed, but it’s internal architecture is so slow that the speed increase will be nearly imperceptible. Sure, it had four times the RAM, but you’d have to make a DSi-exclusive game to really take advantage of that, and who’s going to do that? And the kicker: Nintendo left the graphics hardware alone, so games will still suffer with abysmally low polygon counts.

I have no doubt the DSi will sell like hot cakes. I also expect people to complain about lousy camera controls and disappointing software, except that the DS’s audience is less likely to get on a forum and rant about it.

Wii and DSi: Paycheck Loans

Nintendo’s mortgaging their future. They’ll come out ahead this generation, but if they remain on their current tech ramp, no one is going to want to develop for or play on a Nintendo platform because they’ll fall so far behind. Processing power is enabling for the developer. It allows them to create new ways to play and try things that couldn’t be considered on lower-class hardware. That leads to better games in the eyes of the consumer, which slowly builds the platform’s reputation and brand. Eventually Nintendo will have to change their ways or this trend will catch up to them.

It’s a shame, really – the company that innovated the most with the controller allows the least amount of technical innovation on their platform.

now u tell us. what a let down

y did u let the ‘CHEAT’ balloon to be inflated so much THEN pop it spontainiously

- Skeloton

I get what he’s going after in what should be the first sentence (but comes out as two sentences), but he completely loses me in the second (or is it third?!?). I could examine is word structure and grammar, but that would be too boring. Any somewhat intelligent human being can see what’s going on here, the poor kid is being beat senseless with a hammer while typing. Stop laughing, domestic abuse isn’t funny. Actually I take that back, it is for right now.

well atleast we know.sorta a letdown now it would off added some great replayibility. guess i will play some assasins creed
- antiprototype

I love this one, he complains about Prototype not having ENOUGH RE PLAYABILITY and instead says he’ll play ASSASSIN’S CREED. Yes, Assassin’s Creed, the most un-replayable game on this face of the earth. In his defense some people are scared of change so they like doing the same thing over doing the same thing over doing the same thing over again. Thank god for people like antiprototype, who else would serve me burgers at Jack in the Box on 3am Christmas Day?

FFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU now im angry >_>
- corban123

CALM DOWN, JUST CALM DOWN. DON’T FREAK OUT. Dude this guy is wiggin’ out. Also I thought the appropriate smiley face was >_<.

Well done, you guys are really good at * everybody off. You must be the worst game creators ever to not implement cheats in a sanbox game. * IS WRONG WITH YOU!!!! I am defernatly never buying a radical game again, all you do is let the fans down and lie. I bet next you’re going to tell us the leg does nothing.oh and you completely * us over. I think I’ll just go and trade this back in now and get a bettergame. Thanks for wasting my money you * !!!
-Flappyman

I would like to first point out the word ‘defernatly’, he’s obviously spelling it phonetically so apparently that’s how he pronounces it. This in turn means he has a speech impediment, something with shouldn’t be apparent OVER THE INTERNET.

I HOPE U GUYS REALIZE NO BODY IS TAKING ANY OF THIS * AND I KNOW I AM RETURNING MY GAME AND BUYING SOME OTHER ONE. ANY GAME WOULD BE BETTER THAN THIS NOW THAT I FOUND OUT THERE IS NO CHEATS! THANKS A LOT GUYS FOR RUINING A GOOD GAME AND LETTING YOUR COMMUNITY DOWN. THIS IS BY FAR THE BIGGEST LET DOWN YOU COULD SAY TO US. WHAT TERRIBLE DEVELOPERS AND EVEN YOU SOKUN. I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS…..A GAME WITH THAT MUCH HYPE IS NOW DONE FOR. GOOD. I HOPE YOU GET NO MORE BUYERS AND EVERY SINGLE PERSON RETURNS THEIR COPY. NOT BUYING ANY OF RADICAL’S FUTURE GAMES AND I GUARANTEE THAT THERE WILL BE NO PROTOTYPE 2 BECAUSE YOU WILL MAKE NO MORE MONEY. THANKS A LOT WE COULD ALL TELL THAT YOU GUYS CARE WHAT WE HAVE TO SAY…..
- AMERCER182

Now his username is all UPPERCASE which leads me to believe he either has a faulty keyboard or is a very angry young man. But then we look at his signature:

Question:
How Much Wood Could a Woodchuck Chuck if a Woodchuck Could Chuck Wood?

Answer:
Exactly 87 Pieces.

And that theory goes to shit, unless he copied and pasted. From reading his post it doesn’t even seem he could appreciate such dry humor. Maybe he’s playing into the stereotype the world expects him to be – a fucking retard.

I feel I’ve posted too many idiots, let’s look at a better structured post:

I personally love codes that make me god-like, because of the fact they make me god-like. I LIKE having absolutely unstoppable characters, it’s fun for me. Making the game easier has nothing to do with it. I’ve already beaten the game, gotten all WoI targets and done every Event, and got Platinum in them all. So I have no problems with difficulty.

However, I would LOVE being able to stand in the middle of Times Square having tanks and helicopters constantly firing missles at my face and being unable to die from it, ever. Not that I would just stand there, but you get it.
- HatchedHound

At least he was able to intelligently articulate his point, and you can kind of see where he’s coming from. He’s a lonely boy, he exceeds at school only to be alienated by his other classmates. He comes from a poor family so he can’t buy every videogame that comes out, and unfortunately he chose Prototype. You’d think he’d choose a game with a lot of replayability, Gears of War 2, Orange Box, L4D, or Call of Duty 4, but instead he picks a game without any multiplayer. Thus he gets his enjoyment out of constantly playing by himself in the game’s immense sandbox, but it’s not enough for him. He wants to be invincible, he wants to feel special, he wants to be a GOD. And he can’t, he is unable to because Radical didn’t have enough time to put cheets into the game. He feels betrayed, but then again he should concentrate on making some real life friends. If he did he wouldn’t have to worry about the lack of cheets in the game, only the lack of Multiplayer.

So as a special note to all you fanbois out there, calm the fuck down. It doesn’t matter when you complain, the only company that actually cares is Valve. Also, video games are great, but life is also worth living. Don’t stress about small stuff, and please learn proper grammar and spelling when posting on forums. It makes the Internet a greater place, and makes you look at lot less like a flaming retard.