'Bragging'? Hardly. It's one of the reasons I was so glad to have got out of the games mag business - because it just became too depressing. "How many games are coming in for review this month?" "Six." "How many pages do we have to fill?" "Ninety." "Fuuuuuck..."
Grow up and do your fucking job. You know, the thing they teach in journalism school about, I don't know, following the rules of journalism ethics.
That made me laugh. You think most videogame writers are in any way trained journalists? Hee! Oh, you crack me up...
Speaking as a former games magazine editor, I can say this with authority. The reasons magazines do all those more-or-less uncritical previews on upcoming games is...
To fill pages.
No kidding. When you start the month, you have anything between 100 to 164 pages to fill. (Certainly where I worked, the editor had no say in the total number of pages - that was decided based on projected advertising revenue and the whim of the publishing director.) The advertising department says they expect to need X pages. You know fairly well how many games will come in for review based on the release schedules, and can allocate pages based on that. You have all the standing pages - news, letters, cheats and guides, house ads, subscriptions, etc.
Anything left over has to be filled. And the nature of the games business means they either have to be filled by either wacky filler features (which the magazine writers love because it gives them a chance to be self-indulgent, but the readers generally couldn't give a shit about)... or you have to talk about games that haven't come out yet. They might be lengthy interview-based stories, or they might be based entirely around the latest set of screenshots that have become avilable. Either way, they're previews.
And the sad fact is, if you preview a game that's still some months from release and get all snarky about the lame concept, the horrible control system or the blatant swipes from other games, even if it's deservedly so... the publisher is likely to tell you to fuck off when you ask for final review code down the line. Which will leave a hole in your predicted number of pages for the review section. You can fill that either by extending other reviews, even if the games aren't worth the extra space, or throw in another last-minute filler feature... or add another preview. Either way, you quickly learn to walk the fine line between gentle mockery and actual criticism, and to keep the latter until you actually have the game in your hand.
Jerry Seinfeld said it best. "Magazines are another medium I love, because 95% is simply based on 'How the hell are we going to fill all this blank space?'"
Returned it? Where did you buy it that they let you return an opened game?
I bought it in the UK, where being able to return goods (for an exchange, even if not a refund) is not only good business as it keeps the customers happy, but also the law.
UK chains like Game actually offer a 10-day, no-questions-asked exchange policy on all their games, even used ones. In this case, though, I got it from a supermarket - Asda, which is now owned by Wal-Mart - hence the Seinfeld DVD exchange.
Every time this topic comes up, I'm always bewildered by the American insistence that there be some form of *machine* involved in voting. You pull levers, push buttons, tap touchscreens, etc, all at what must be surely a ridiculous cost (from TFA, $12 million to $16 million?!?) compared to the British system of a pencil, a piece of paper, a big box with a padlock on it and a bunch of volunteers to count the votes when the polls close. If a recount is demanded, then there's a big pile of papers with Xs on them right there.
But then I remember - this is America we're talking about. The company that *makes* the machines has doubtless bribed... uh, 'lobbied' the relevant politicians to ensure that such machinery is the only possible choice for such an important task...
I actually returned it (and swapped it for the Seinfeld season 4 DVDs, which are almost infinitely more entertaining) because I'd seen everything there was to see in three days.
The main problems I had with it were: * Bizarre definition of 'headshots' - sometimes I could hit a guy five or six times in the face with an M-16 from close range, and he'd just shrug it off rather than dying. * For a game that was touted as being like a Hollywood blockbuster (I was thinking Commando, Rambo, Die Hard, The Rock), there was a distinct lack of gleeful mayhem and carnage - it very rapidly became 'shoot each guy 30 times to make sure they die. Unless they're armoured, in which case shoot them 60 times.' * Unskippable (and boring, and irrelevant to gameplay) FMV before each level - if for whatever reason you power down before finishing a level, you have to sit through the whole thing again next time you play. And unskippable credits? Which are just white text on a black background? What the fuck is that all about? * Several levels were tedious attrition rather than all out action. I hated the bridge level. For a start it was almost the same as a level in some WW2 FPS I played last year. And the gameplay was just 'advance slightly. Take cover. Deal with bad guys hiding behind cars. Wait as more bad guys run up to take their places. Advance slightly. Take cover. Deal with bad guys hiding in a bus. Wait as more bad guys run up to take their places. Advance slightly. Take cover. Deal with bad guy with rocket launcher shooting at you from some angle you can't quite figure. Advance slightly...'
I was hoping it would be the Burnout Revenge of FPS games. Unfortunately, it was just the Burnout. Wait until Black 2 or 3, and they'll probably have got the right amount of fun into the game. But all the tedious advance/cover/shoot stuff made it exactly the same as any other 'realistic' console FPS.
If you're going to have a game that's 'gun porn', why not treat it like an OTT action movie and just throw in hundreds of disposable, easily-killed goons coming at you from all angles a la Arnie's Commando? I mean, Jesus, why does it take 12-15 bullets to the chest just to put one generic bad guy down? I want a hilarious blood-spurting ragdoll death spasm if I hit him in the toe!
Let's face it, there were some real block busters that came out in recent years like the LOTR trilogy, Spider-Man 2, Shrek 2, The Passion of the Christ, Finding Nemo, Stealth, The Dukes of Hazzard, etc.
You mean the Stealth with a budget of approximately $130 million and a box-office gross of just $32,116,746? I don't think that exactly qualifies as a 'blockbuster'...
...but then I returned it because I got bored with it, having seen everything it had to offer in just three days. So I guess that doesn't technically count as a sale.
the Origami is 'not a portable version of Microsoft's Xbox videogame console,' nor is it 'a music player designed to take on Apple Computer Inc.'s mega-popular iPod.'
Then what is it? It's not an iPod, it's not a PSP, it's not a Mini-Xbox, and apparently it's not a computer either.
You know what I want? I want a 21st century equivalent of my Psion Series 5. I don't want a cut-down Windows PC/PDA combo that does 27,000 things, none of them even remotely as well as a desktop or laptop, as a portable - I want something that does a good job with basic tasks like word processing (and things like playing MP3s are now included in that), fits in a pocket, works off a couple of AA batteries and has a keyboard. Stylus plus keyboard may not be the most convenient way of working... but it's better than stylus and no keyboard.
Oh, and I'd like it to integrate seamlessly with OS X. Steve Jobs, are you there?
I still play the original TR (and TR2, to a lesser extent) on my PS2. The irony of the series is that as the technology improved, the gameplay deteriorated. TR 1 and 2 concentrated on doing one thing well - 3D platforming and puzzles. From TR3 onwards, more and more distracting crap was thrown in to make the games more 'realistic', to the point where you practically needed a shift key on the joypad to access all of Lara's new abilities. (Angel Of Darkness was all but unplayable because of the horrible control system.)
The original Tomb Raider had a purity to it that rapidly became lost in the sequels. Hopefully getting the original game's creator back for Legends will return some of that feeling.
Ah, I remember them well from my games journalism days. When they wanted some coverage from you, they were all smiles and helpfulness. When you asked for something from them, they were bastards of the first order.
I was actually kind of hoping that TFA would announce that they'd signed up as publishers for the Infinium Phantom. That would be about on the same level as their other business decisions!
By delaying the PS3, they cleverly make the Xbox 360 not a 'next-generation' machine, but a 'last-and-a-halfth generation' machine - ie, the new Dreamcast. See, they know what they're doing!
You watch, they'll pull an Apple and announce before launch that they've 'just realised' they can upgrade the CPU speed for no extra cost and thus make the machine more powerful, leaving that Microsoft thing in the dust...;)
(What marketdroid imbecile thought that would be a good name for a company? Why not go the whole hog and call it 'Games On Rails' or 'Recycled Ideas'?)
My view on the drive to multiplayer over one-player content is even more extreme. I have no desire whatsoever to play online multiplayer games. Videogames are a way for me to avoid human contact, not be forced to endure what Penny Arcade christened the "Shitcock!" brigade whenever I want play a game!
Did the poor widdle shareholders lose money when they thought all they could do was win, win, win?
What happened to 'the value of shares may go down as well as up', or didn't they read the small print? Boo hoo. The stock market is basically upmarket gambling. They gambled, and they lost. Cry me a river.
Re:Lemme dawn some clue upon you
on
Know Thy Bosses
·
· Score: 1
Dude, a game's _only_ purpose is to entertain you. That's it. If it doesn't, then, yes, it is the game designer's failure. It's that simple.
Totally agree. Case in point: Resident Evil 4 on the PS2. Great game throughout... except for one of the boss battles (Salazar), which drove me to a seething fury out of sheer frustration. Even though I knew exactly how to beat him, the precision needed, combined with the limited ammo and the sheer amount of repetition (shoot eye twice, dodge, shoot Salazar, dodge, shoot eye twice, dodge... over and over and OVER again) rapidly stopped being fun and turned into a chore.
I don't play games to do chores. I play games to get away from doing chores! There have been plenty of games over the years where I've got stuck at some frustratingly repetitive point (usually a boss), and just decided that life's too short, and never touched the game again.
I'm pretty sure if you give me Reloaded and Revolutions and a knife, I can cut you a lone, 100-minute Matrix sequel that would flatten your balls.
I actually did that, just for the hell of it. It wasn't 100 minutes, but 117 isn't too far off. As to whether it flattened anyone's balls, I couldn't really say - but I do know it's now the only way I can watch the sequels, because it made me realise just how awfully bloated and padded and pretentious they are.
The major changes:
All the 'Trinity's death' dream sequence (and references to it) removed.
Film now starts with Smith possessing Bane, then cuts to Neo jolting awake on the Neb as if that's what woke him.
Meeting of the captains shortened.
Arrival at Zion shortened.
The Kid excised almost completely (I accidentally left one shot of him in).
The rave deleted.
Neo's fight with Seraph removed.
The Oracle's conversation with Neo shortened.
Most of the meeting with the Merovingian taken out (including the 'virtual orgasm').
Chateau fight shortened.
Twins fight shortened.
Car chase shortened.
Fight between Morpheus and the Agent deleted.
The scene where the Machines destroy one of the ships re-edited to take out the 'WTF?' accident that kills the crew (now they just get blown up).
The Architect's bafflegab shortened.
Trinity/Agent fight shortened.
Trinity doesn't get shot while falling - Neo simply grabs her, so the scene of him taking out the bullet also goes.
The 'DUN!' ending of Reloaded re-edited using a shot from Revolutions so that the two films blend together.
The entire Mobil Avenue/Club Hel/Morpheus and Trinity meet the Oracle section deleted.
Neo's meeting with the Oracle shortened.
Smith's meeting with the Oracle, ditto.
The standoff between Neo and Bane as Trinity's held hostage removed.
The three stories at the climax are now intercut - Neo's flight to Machine City, the Hammer's Sewer Shark fight and the Battle of Zion now all take place at once.
Huge amount of cutting of the Battle of Zion - the only minor character who now gets any screentime is Mifune (Zee and all her pals are completely gone).
Major re-editing so that Mifune, not The Kid, opens the door.
Trinity's death scene cut by three frickin' minutes!
Super Burly Brawl shortened.
Meeting between the Oracle and the Architect cut - the film now ends with Neo's apotheosis cutting straight to sunrise over the Matrix.
All done using iMovie and iDVD! I know that some Matrix purists were enraged by the mere idea of cutting any of the existential dialogue when I posted about this elsewhere, but screw 'em - if you live your life according to the philosophy of a movie, you've got bigger problems than some guy doing his own edit of it.
There are no real killer titles (and a lot of ports); and You still can't buy the damn thing. Nowhere that I've seen, anyway. It's 'Out of stock' notices all round where I live...
This is why I could never work as a salesperson. My view is that if somebody doesn't want to buy something, then that's the end of the story, and salespeople should shut the hell up and accept that no means no. As soon as any salesperson starts trying to foist extra stuff on me, that's generally when I head for the door. You can't *force* people to buy something they don't want.
If for some weird reason I decided I had to buy an Xbox 360 tomorrow (like I could - every game shop in town still has 'out of stock' signs up) and some PFY told me that I *had* to buy the package with an extra controller and yadda yadda in it, I'd tell them that they just lost a sale. Why? Because I never play multiplayer games. Seriously. The only reason the extra controller ports on my PS2 and GameCube aren't full of dust is that I've played Metal Gear Solid on them and used the 'swap controllers' trick to beat Psycho Mantis. None of my close friends give a shit about games, and I can't see me ever summoning them all round to play the latest version of Madden!
The only time I accepted a 'forced' package was when I bought a slimline PS2 so that I could play GTA:SA, and another game (out of a choice of 8 or so) was part of the deal. But since I was trading in a bunch of old games - most of which I'd bought used - anyway, I figured that paying an extra fiver for Tiger Woods '05 wasn't too bad. Especially when I traded it in for 20 quid two weeks later!
That would be Echelon's job. They're already monitoring your email. Used words like 'bomb' 'al-Qaeda', 'assassinate', 'hijack' or 'Allahu akbar!' in an email? The Echelon computers at NSA, GCHQ or any of the other members of the UKUSA intelligence alliance will already have flagged it for further investigation. In fact, I expect a knock at the door any seco
Slashdot Mirror
26 new episodes of Futurama? Woo! Fox'll be able to stretch those out for another five years!
Grow up and do your fucking job. You know, the thing they teach in journalism school about, I don't know, following the rules of journalism ethics.
That made me laugh. You think most videogame writers are in any way trained journalists? Hee! Oh, you crack me up...
To fill pages.
No kidding. When you start the month, you have anything between 100 to 164 pages to fill. (Certainly where I worked, the editor had no say in the total number of pages - that was decided based on projected advertising revenue and the whim of the publishing director.) The advertising department says they expect to need X pages. You know fairly well how many games will come in for review based on the release schedules, and can allocate pages based on that. You have all the standing pages - news, letters, cheats and guides, house ads, subscriptions, etc.
Anything left over has to be filled. And the nature of the games business means they either have to be filled by either wacky filler features (which the magazine writers love because it gives them a chance to be self-indulgent, but the readers generally couldn't give a shit about)... or you have to talk about games that haven't come out yet. They might be lengthy interview-based stories, or they might be based entirely around the latest set of screenshots that have become avilable. Either way, they're previews.
And the sad fact is, if you preview a game that's still some months from release and get all snarky about the lame concept, the horrible control system or the blatant swipes from other games, even if it's deservedly so... the publisher is likely to tell you to fuck off when you ask for final review code down the line. Which will leave a hole in your predicted number of pages for the review section. You can fill that either by extending other reviews, even if the games aren't worth the extra space, or throw in another last-minute filler feature... or add another preview. Either way, you quickly learn to walk the fine line between gentle mockery and actual criticism, and to keep the latter until you actually have the game in your hand.
Jerry Seinfeld said it best. "Magazines are another medium I love, because 95% is simply based on 'How the hell are we going to fill all this blank space?'"
I bought it in the UK, where being able to return goods (for an exchange, even if not a refund) is not only good business as it keeps the customers happy, but also the law.
UK chains like Game actually offer a 10-day, no-questions-asked exchange policy on all their games, even used ones. In this case, though, I got it from a supermarket - Asda, which is now owned by Wal-Mart - hence the Seinfeld DVD exchange.
But then I remember - this is America we're talking about. The company that *makes* the machines has doubtless bribed... uh, 'lobbied' the relevant politicians to ensure that such machinery is the only possible choice for such an important task...
The main problems I had with it were:
* Bizarre definition of 'headshots' - sometimes I could hit a guy five or six times in the face with an M-16 from close range, and he'd just shrug it off rather than dying.
* For a game that was touted as being like a Hollywood blockbuster (I was thinking Commando, Rambo, Die Hard, The Rock), there was a distinct lack of gleeful mayhem and carnage - it very rapidly became 'shoot each guy 30 times to make sure they die. Unless they're armoured, in which case shoot them 60 times.'
* Unskippable (and boring, and irrelevant to gameplay) FMV before each level - if for whatever reason you power down before finishing a level, you have to sit through the whole thing again next time you play. And unskippable credits? Which are just white text on a black background? What the fuck is that all about?
* Several levels were tedious attrition rather than all out action. I hated the bridge level. For a start it was almost the same as a level in some WW2 FPS I played last year. And the gameplay was just 'advance slightly. Take cover. Deal with bad guys hiding behind cars. Wait as more bad guys run up to take their places. Advance slightly. Take cover. Deal with bad guys hiding in a bus. Wait as more bad guys run up to take their places. Advance slightly. Take cover. Deal with bad guy with rocket launcher shooting at you from some angle you can't quite figure. Advance slightly...'
I was hoping it would be the Burnout Revenge of FPS games. Unfortunately, it was just the Burnout. Wait until Black 2 or 3, and they'll probably have got the right amount of fun into the game. But all the tedious advance/cover/shoot stuff made it exactly the same as any other 'realistic' console FPS.
If you're going to have a game that's 'gun porn', why not treat it like an OTT action movie and just throw in hundreds of disposable, easily-killed goons coming at you from all angles a la Arnie's Commando? I mean, Jesus, why does it take 12-15 bullets to the chest just to put one generic bad guy down? I want a hilarious blood-spurting ragdoll death spasm if I hit him in the toe!
You mean the Stealth with a budget of approximately $130 million and a box-office gross of just $32,116,746? I don't think that exactly qualifies as a 'blockbuster'...
...but then I returned it because I got bored with it, having seen everything it had to offer in just three days. So I guess that doesn't technically count as a sale.
Then what is it? It's not an iPod, it's not a PSP, it's not a Mini-Xbox, and apparently it's not a computer either.
You know what I want? I want a 21st century equivalent of my Psion Series 5. I don't want a cut-down Windows PC/PDA combo that does 27,000 things, none of them even remotely as well as a desktop or laptop, as a portable - I want something that does a good job with basic tasks like word processing (and things like playing MP3s are now included in that), fits in a pocket, works off a couple of AA batteries and has a keyboard. Stylus plus keyboard may not be the most convenient way of working... but it's better than stylus and no keyboard.
Oh, and I'd like it to integrate seamlessly with OS X. Steve Jobs, are you there?
The original Tomb Raider had a purity to it that rapidly became lost in the sequels. Hopefully getting the original game's creator back for Legends will return some of that feeling.
So I used Mac The Ripper to rip the disc to my hard drive with the UOPs disabled. Just on principle. ;)
I was actually kind of hoping that TFA would announce that they'd signed up as publishers for the Infinium Phantom. That would be about on the same level as their other business decisions!
You watch, they'll pull an Apple and announce before launch that they've 'just realised' they can upgrade the CPU speed for no extra cost and thus make the machine more powerful, leaving that Microsoft thing in the dust... ;)
I mean, come on. That says it all...
(What marketdroid imbecile thought that would be a good name for a company? Why not go the whole hog and call it 'Games On Rails' or 'Recycled Ideas'?)
Morrissey got the title of his last album wrong. It should have been 'I Am The Quarry'.
My view on the drive to multiplayer over one-player content is even more extreme. I have no desire whatsoever to play online multiplayer games. Videogames are a way for me to avoid human contact, not be forced to endure what Penny Arcade christened the "Shitcock!" brigade whenever I want play a game!
What happened to 'the value of shares may go down as well as up', or didn't they read the small print? Boo hoo. The stock market is basically upmarket gambling. They gambled, and they lost. Cry me a river.
Totally agree. Case in point: Resident Evil 4 on the PS2. Great game throughout... except for one of the boss battles (Salazar), which drove me to a seething fury out of sheer frustration. Even though I knew exactly how to beat him, the precision needed, combined with the limited ammo and the sheer amount of repetition (shoot eye twice, dodge, shoot Salazar, dodge, shoot eye twice, dodge... over and over and OVER again) rapidly stopped being fun and turned into a chore.
I don't play games to do chores. I play games to get away from doing chores! There have been plenty of games over the years where I've got stuck at some frustratingly repetitive point (usually a boss), and just decided that life's too short, and never touched the game again.
I actually did that, just for the hell of it. It wasn't 100 minutes, but 117 isn't too far off. As to whether it flattened anyone's balls, I couldn't really say - but I do know it's now the only way I can watch the sequels, because it made me realise just how awfully bloated and padded and pretentious they are.
The major changes:
All the 'Trinity's death' dream sequence (and references to it) removed.
Film now starts with Smith possessing Bane, then cuts to Neo jolting awake on the Neb as if that's what woke him.
Meeting of the captains shortened.
Arrival at Zion shortened.
The Kid excised almost completely (I accidentally left one shot of him in).
The rave deleted.
Neo's fight with Seraph removed.
The Oracle's conversation with Neo shortened.
Most of the meeting with the Merovingian taken out (including the 'virtual orgasm').
Chateau fight shortened.
Twins fight shortened.
Car chase shortened.
Fight between Morpheus and the Agent deleted.
The scene where the Machines destroy one of the ships re-edited to take out the 'WTF?' accident that kills the crew (now they just get blown up).
The Architect's bafflegab shortened.
Trinity/Agent fight shortened.
Trinity doesn't get shot while falling - Neo simply grabs her, so the scene of him taking out the bullet also goes.
The 'DUN!' ending of Reloaded re-edited using a shot from Revolutions so that the two films blend together.
The entire Mobil Avenue/Club Hel/Morpheus and Trinity meet the Oracle section deleted.
Neo's meeting with the Oracle shortened.
Smith's meeting with the Oracle, ditto.
The standoff between Neo and Bane as Trinity's held hostage removed.
The three stories at the climax are now intercut - Neo's flight to Machine City, the Hammer's Sewer Shark fight and the Battle of Zion now all take place at once.
Huge amount of cutting of the Battle of Zion - the only minor character who now gets any screentime is Mifune (Zee and all her pals are completely gone).
Major re-editing so that Mifune, not The Kid, opens the door.
Trinity's death scene cut by three frickin' minutes!
Super Burly Brawl shortened.
Meeting between the Oracle and the Architect cut - the film now ends with Neo's apotheosis cutting straight to sunrise over the Matrix.
All done using iMovie and iDVD! I know that some Matrix purists were enraged by the mere idea of cutting any of the existential dialogue when I posted about this elsewhere, but screw 'em - if you live your life according to the philosophy of a movie, you've got bigger problems than some guy doing his own edit of it.
Which would be very helpful if Wal-Mart had any stores in my country (the UK)...
There are no real killer titles (and a lot of ports); and
You still can't buy the damn thing. Nowhere that I've seen, anyway. It's 'Out of stock' notices all round where I live...
If for some weird reason I decided I had to buy an Xbox 360 tomorrow (like I could - every game shop in town still has 'out of stock' signs up) and some PFY told me that I *had* to buy the package with an extra controller and yadda yadda in it, I'd tell them that they just lost a sale. Why? Because I never play multiplayer games. Seriously. The only reason the extra controller ports on my PS2 and GameCube aren't full of dust is that I've played Metal Gear Solid on them and used the 'swap controllers' trick to beat Psycho Mantis. None of my close friends give a shit about games, and I can't see me ever summoning them all round to play the latest version of Madden!
The only time I accepted a 'forced' package was when I bought a slimline PS2 so that I could play GTA:SA, and another game (out of a choice of 8 or so) was part of the deal. But since I was trading in a bunch of old games - most of which I'd bought used - anyway, I figured that paying an extra fiver for Tiger Woods '05 wasn't too bad. Especially when I traded it in for 20 quid two weeks later!
Guess I'll be keeping all my old ripping software that doesn't include watermarking technology, then!
Wait, you mean there are still people out there who don't own The Terminator and Ghostbusters on DVD already?
That would be Echelon's job. They're already monitoring your email. Used words like 'bomb' 'al-Qaeda', 'assassinate', 'hijack' or 'Allahu akbar!' in an email? The Echelon computers at NSA, GCHQ or any of the other members of the UKUSA intelligence alliance will already have flagged it for further investigation. In fact, I expect a knock at the door any seco