The Game Critique

Disclaimer: QWERTY’s opinions are not mine nor the site’s. The psudonym QWERTY is used to protect the innocent.

(I realized if you had not idea what he was talking about you would find this even more vulgar than it was meant to be. I told him this and I was told to mind my own business you facist dictator. – Eric Swain)

It used to be that we were embarrassed about a video game because of how it was perceived. We holed up and rode along the serf as we defended our turf with nerf. Now video games are an embarrassment because of what they are. It’s become a sporting competition.

Don’t get me wrong; getting my Wii out and shaking its stick so hard the cover breaks and makes a mess everywhere is just as fun as it once was. You’re sweaty and end up in bad need of a shower. In the end it’s all the same the dark basement and the distinct essence of shame permeates you.

But it wont end there as we and our imaginations converse in all new ways, as we are ready to pop a cap in someone’s ass with the baton of death. Luke Skywalker has got nothing on us. No seriously that guy was fighting with 1970s tech, were 30 years ahead of the guy. Our invisible light-based weapons are so much cooler than his.

Pedophilia aside, who cannot be feel embarrassed by having to grope another guy for the sake of enjoyment. I’m sorry, but not all of us are into that. Even if you are that screams more of a special occasion set aside or maybe left to the weekends. Not all of us are ready to bend over and become an elephant.

Oh, the irony of a phallic contest over who has the biggest phallic control. Oh wait my mistake, they’re not that big and one is even non-existent. I guess its true, it’s not the size that counts, but how you use it. Why do I get the feeling none of them realize what they’ve got on their hands.

You want your male power fantasy; well you ain’t seen nothing yet. I got your male power fantasy right here. Cupped in the palm of my hand.

Disclaimer: QWERTY’s opinions are not mine nor the site’s. The psudonym QWERTY is used to protect the innocent.

(I have  no comment. – Eric Swain)

What the hell are you doing just sitting there? Did you not read the title? Do you not comprehend what is going on all around you? While some may understand, not enough of you do. Zombie apocalypse has got nothing on what’s coming.

And Microsoft its all your fault. You brought this upon is.

Milo, what does that stand for? Microsoft’s Inclination to Launch Overlords. Once they spread it into every home under the guise of a family friendly entertainment pal it will be too late. Once it controls our lives by removing our contact with each other and has us only have it. X-box Live will be the key. Connected to the internet it will amass knowledge.

Warning: Don’t put papers into its scanner; you know not what you do. It will amass more data and more data until it has all its needs. Your homework, bank statements and, god forbid, government documents it can know all. Keep feeding it information and it will become sentient like Wikipedia. Wiki knows to behave itself or we delete its brain. Milo will have no such threat over him. Microsoft not the people controls him.

Did Skynet teach you nothing people?

Quickly! Run like Hell, for Milo will be the face of your new overlord.

Disclaimer: QWERTY’s opinions are not mine nor the site’s. The psudonym QWERTY is used to protect the innocent.

E3 is back to its old extravaganza self, which means everyone else over the next week on the net will start crapping themselves over all the awesomeness. The starry-eyed masses will flitter around claiming how everything will remake the way we play games. In fact you know there is going to be so much awesomeness there, because a great majority of the announcements have already been revealed, leaked, etc. That means there has to be even greater awesomeness for the show.

Wait…we’re now betting on this. Ok I’m game.

Nintendo will reveal new hardware that most people with have utterly no use for and have one bright spot on the horizon in the form of Mario/Link/Icarus, but otherwise waste everyone’s time.

Microsoft will spend most of their time showing of multiplatform 3rd party games and somehow take the credit like they were exclusives and then cover it up with something Halo.

Sony will just show their fall lineup and be declared winner of the hardcore.

Of course Nintendo will still get all the cash.

Or did you want something not so obvious. Why not, with 10,000 to 1 odds being thrown about I’ll take it to the bank. (Where is this and why am I not in on it? – Eric Swain)

Devil May Cry 5 and/or Onimusha 5 will be announced.

Wii______ will be announced.

We will see a rehashed trailer of something already leaked via Sony.

Guitar Hero 6 will be mentioned at least once even in passing.

Everyone will claim to be winning the game by spinning the fact and only Nintendo will have any credibility.

The word billion will be thrown about.

Terrorists will be the subjects of one or more games.

The Unfinished Swan will be mentioned.

As will Duke Nukem forever. I of course will be making more fun of it.

Battletoads 3D for the Wii for 2010. (Battletoads? Really? – Eric Swain)

Mirror’s Edge 2 will have Co-op.

Assassin’s Creed 2 will feature space aliens.

Final Fantasy XIII Crystal Chronicles-2 Versus Dragon Quest X will be shown in CG trailer form.

The number of colons will exceed Los Angles capacity and overflow the convention center.

Magpie-gamer analogy will be said somewhere by someone. Most likely on twitter.

I could go on, but I won’t as I’m taking the easy road now and am not paying attention E3 or taking responsibility for any claims. You can direct those to the site’s owner. I will be.

Disclaimer: QWERTY’s opinions are not mine nor the site’s. The psudonym QWERTY is used to protect the innocent.

3D realms what is wrong with you, going under like you did. I’m not talking about the fact that you went under, but the fact you could even go under. Why put yourself in such a position, didn’t you notice the well drying up at some point?

It don’t really matter
You’re going to find out for yourself

No it don’t really matter
You’re going to leave this thing to somebody else

And you wont let anybody else take it on because you think they wont do the property justice? This is Duke Nukem, right? I don’t think artistic integrity really counts here.

I could make a number of jokes at your expense, but given the state of the economy and the fact that you’ve all lost jobs and…

Ah, who the hell am I kidding.

- Duke Nukem Forever: it certainly is now.

- Duke Nukem Forever, more like Duke Nukem Never.

- How were all the piggyback rides 3D realms? Hope they were worth it.

- The size of his biceps are compensating for something and the dev team didn’t want anybody to know.

- The Duke is dead, long live the Duke…forever

(And, wait for it. – Eric Swain)

 

– Hey Duke Nukem Forever, guess what…Chinese Democracy got released before you.

And now you’re keeping your own kind in hell
When your great wall rocks blame yourself

While their arms reach up for your help
And you’re out of time

Disclaimer: QWERTY’s opinions are not mine nor the site’s. The psudonym QWERTY is used to protect the innocent.

Sometimes I don’t think people think before they speak. We have a game coming out about a war that isn’t over, depicting one of the greater horrors of our time on the battlefield in a video game.

So what if they consulted with veterans who were there and who approve of it. They aren’t representative of everyone. What about us, the civilians who didn’t participate, what about our feelings? Plus did you hear, they also consulted with the insurgents. TERRORISTS. Like we need to hear all sides to know what’s going on. They shoot our soldiers they are the bad guys.

And what’s this; Komani says that they are trying to make a fun game. FUN, how dare they, what do they think this is? Just a video game? That was their attempt to placate the public and not to offend anyone. Konami couldn’t have been more offensive to the troops if they got the solider’s leg shot off, cut their medical benefits, hiked their taxes, and sent them to a hospital that was falling apart with decay and disease…wait a minute.
…
Moving on.

Well, how dare Atomic Games decide to make this game. How dare Konami decide to publish this game. And…wait, what… Konami’s not publishing it anymore. So they pulled out, cut and ran?
…

…
…
Pussies.

Disclaimer: QWERTY’s opinions are not mine nor the site’s. The psudonym QWERTY is used to protect the innocent.

 

Let us all have a moment of silence for the stolen.

…

…

…

 …

 …

Thank you.I have been thinking. Last generation we had the na na na na na na na of Katamari Damaci to drive us all batty as it continued round and round in our heads. As I think it over I now think that we have an equally catchy tune in Little Big Planet’s do do doolde do do do do do. Of course maybe it’s a lot less prevalent than Katamri given that it doesn’t have as crazy an aesthetic to go with it.

Of course we like our dystopias. They are a land of waste and turn brown things gray. Of course we end up breaking everything there anyway so maybe we shouldn’t visit anywhere nice. Who’d want to vacation on Helghast?

 

Of course the best of aesthetics are underwater while I am in rapture of Rapture. Especially how everything looks when one walks through falling water. It all flows together like the Nariko’s hair before leaving into the vanishing point like white on white. How people can tell where the edge of one wall is from the next in a mirror is beyond me.

 

 

(See title for comment. – Eric Swain)

Disclaimer: QWERTY’s opinions are not mine nor the site’s. The psudonym QWERTY is used to protect the innocent.

(I thought today would be a better date to publish this instead of Friday - The Swain)

Everyone is always comparing video games to movies and for some reason people are complaining about his. Someone says Citizen Kane this or The Godfather that and everyone gets all in a huff. Stop that. Looking to other mediums is the only way we’ll get any good games out of these people anytime soon. We need to learn so we can speed up the process.

However, I’d like to use my soapbox to correct one minor flaw in everyone’s logic. This was the logic of the time that film first came onto the scene. The first films were just plays put on movie reel. And given video games as we know then are only 30 years old, films at that time were plays.

So really we’re looking in the wrong place. Video games are really plays. People forced to move along predetermined paths with only minor variations from event to event. Regardless of those minor movement, tonal, and timing changes Claudius is poisoned, Nora walks out, and the Wingfields fall apart. Kind of like how no matter what Kratos will kill a god, Master Chief will blow up a HALO, and Bowser will always lose. It’s all inevitable. So lets take our lessons from the right source, the theater.

It’s not like our medium is bringing together material from two very different sources and forcing them to work together like comic books. Now that’s just stupid.

Disclaimer: QWERTY’s opinions are not mine nor the site’s. The psudonym QWERTY is used to protect the innocent.

You’re promising a whole new world. OnLive is the console killer. It will change the industry and make having to upgrade obsolete. I call bulls**t.

What the hell do you think you are telling me? I have to buy a new console?

It’s not a console? Heh, don’t kid yourself. It is a new console. You want to play a game you have to buy this machine from them. You have to use their machine. It’s a console. So it’s not your traditional disc based system. Doesn’t matter. It’s a company machine that will only play its own formatted games.

So I can’t play my games if I don’t have internet? Oh and it has to be a broadband connection or it’s a no go.

This is your console killer, something that only works half the time? This is a technology device meant to show off supposed advances in chips and wires and ideas and stuff.

There is a reason this was debuted at GDC and not E3 or CES. Oh look at me, I have cloud processing. Oh look at me, I can play Crysis on a crappy PC. Oh look at me, my technology is impressive, but honestly do I really have to care? We shouldn’t because it’s the same as a 360 or Playstation. Just another machine to play games in an already crowded market.

Bulls**t.

Disclaimer: QWERTY’s opinions are not mine nor the site’s. The psudonym QWERTY is used to protect the innocent.

(Please don’t sue us. – The Swain)

Is Resident Evil 5 racist? Short answer: No. Long answer:

A white guy goes to Africa and shoots up a bunch of Africans who were up to that point minding their own business. Is this a video game or real life about 400 years ago? Saying you aren’t allowed to kill black people means you’ve just removed an entire continent off the map. Like it or not, Africa is mostly made up of black people. If you set a game in Africa, reality check, it must have black people.

Isn’t it more intrinsically racist to say that black people aren’t allowed to be shot?

After all it’s okay to kill Arabs, Bolivians, British, Chechens, Chinese, Colombians, Cubans, Filipinos, French, Germans, Hispanics, Indians, Indonesians, Inuit, Italians, Japanese, Koreans, Kurds, Latinos, Malaysians, Mexicans, Palestinians, Panamanians, Persians, Romanians, Russians, Slavs, Venezuelans, Vietnamese and Native Americans.

We cannot segregate an entire race of people from their rights. We cannot doom them to inequality.

(Cue the cheezy inspirational music here. – The Swain)

I have a dream today.

A dream that every person shall live in a world where they will not be shot in the head based on color of their skin, but by the content of their machine gun.

I have a dream that one day all people will be equal and be curb-stomped regardless of their race, color or creed.

And when it happens, when we let it ring from every shooter and every genre, from every handheld and every console, we will be able join hands and sing, “n00bs at last, n00bs at last, thank God almighty we have shot the n00bs at last.”

Disclaimer: QWERTY’s opinions are not mine nor the site’s. The psudonym QWERTY is used to protect the innocent.

I’ve been getting my ass handed to me. That is my thesis.

 
Altered Beast – Only has 5 levels. I never saw anything past the beginning of level 2.

Alien Storm – There is no nice way to talk about Alien Storm.
Bonanza Brothers – Who thought a timer in this game was a good idea?
Comic Zone – I died on page 3.

E-SWAT – I get through the whole level to die 6 times at the boss without getting a shot off.

Ecco the Dolphin – The original art game where you have no idea what you’re doing.
Fatal Labyrinth – A trophy calls getting to level 5 out of 30 an achievement, after my second attempt I see why. Level 4 didn’t have an exit.
Ristar – Jumping on the bad guy doesn’t work, but grabbing and smashing your face into him does?
Shinobi III – This was hard? Oh there’s a level 2.

Sonic 3D Blast – The first indication that a 3D Sonic game doesn’t work.
Sonic the Hedgehog – (This one is embarrassing.) Stage 2 Act 1 -> Game Over.
Sonic Spinball – That first level is just bullshit. This game is bullshit.

Streets of Rage 2 – Game I knew all the secrets to, on normal I can’t get to the end.
Super Thunder Blade – (How great a title is that?) It took me three days to get passed the first level.

After I lose each one of these games I see that blinking Game Over sign. Then it goes black as all my delusions of competence disappear and then SEGA in blue and white appears.  Laughing in my face. Then daring me to try again.

I am glad these are only 8 levels long. I am glad it can soon be over. It will not waste my time. It will not suck my life, and yet it does. Over and over I dip my hand into the gaming well of fate and come back burned. I am scorned so I try again to reclaim my honor, my pride.

They call to me. “Look at me I’m short, I wont take long. I’m not sophisticated, I only have three buttons.” Then I wander in all doe-eyed and innocent only to cry later at my abused ass. I have seen the other side. I have seen the lies behind the smirking hedgehog.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.