WEEK IN GAMING: FROM 8.12.13 TO 8.16.13. SPECIAL FEATURE(S) INSIDE.

By: Jamaal Ryan

Let’s take a looking at a week in gaming from 8/12/13 to 8/16/13. Below are two special features; one covering Call of Duty: Ghosts' multiplayer reveal, and the other discussing gamer on game developer abuse.

We’ve seen a new Xbox One. Will we see a cheaper one? (8/12)

Remember the Xbox One three months ago? 24 hour online requirement, restriction on used games, wasn’t intended to pack in with a headset, indie developers required publishing, it could not work independently from the Kinect sensor; there were many, many features that branded the Xbox One non-consumer friendly. Today, it’s almost a completely different console.

It’s quite interesting how the Xbox One has progressively aligned itself with the Playstation 4. The PS4 has no online requirements or used game restrictions, celebrated indie development at their press conference while sticking to their allowance of self-publishing, will pack in with a headset – a turnaround from the PS3’s lacking accessory, and not only can it work without the Playstation Eye – not that they were ever stupid to consider that it might not, but it will sell separately which puts it at a competitive price of $399.

Nearly all of these features now exist in the Xbox One with the exception of that fact that as of now, it will still come packed in with a Kinect sensor.

As appealing as the Xbox One is today, there are some that have shown a bit of disappointment in the system’s 180, mainly when it comes to their DRM pull. While the DRM reversal is more or less universally a good thing, seeing these continuous 180s makes me concerned that Microsoft will align itself even further, specifically with the packed in Kinect.As consumer friendly as the Xbox One is today, the Playstation 4 still has one major advantage over it, $100 difference in price. Though it may seem unlikely that that Xbox One will pack in a unit that just holds the console itself due to its “All-in-One” advertising and massive push at the reveal event in May, we’ve seen Microsoft pull crazier stunts. The Xbox One still differentiates itself hardware wise mainly because of the immediate access to the Kinect sensor. Developers can be certain that if they design a game using Kinect, all systems will be compatible with it because all of them have one packed in. But now since the console can now operate separately from the Kinect, this Kinect-less package seems a bit more likely.

There are still changes Microsoft can make to sell the console at a cheaper price without taking Kinect out of the picture. Microsoft has experimented with a subscription based SKU of the Xbox 360 with some success. After reaching 8.5 million viewers at their reveal event pushing the message as an entertainment center, for the casual consumer, it’ll be a hard pill to swallow forking over $500+. A lower entry price point could hit that target audience they aimed for, while keeping the $499 model of us hardcore gamers.

So what will Microsoft change next? Will they find a way to make the Xbox One as cheap as or cheaper than the PS4 (and possibly the Wii U’s current price at $349)? November is just over three months away. 

Sources: IGN, Polygon, NeoGAF

That Dragon, Cancer coming to Ouya (8/13)

The Ouya has had trouble finding its footing in the games market. Its library is largely made up of Android based games that originated on a cell phone which hardly justify its purchase in an industry dominated by established home consoles, and its games comfortably at home among millions of Android smart phones out there. It’s been branded as having an un-user friendly experience, and it also doesn’t help that among its already available and/or uninspiring games, there are only a few that stand out such as Towerfall.

And while there are hardly any major announcements for the system, news this week reveals a major Ouya exclusive, That Dragon, Cancer. Headed by Ryan Green, That Dragon, Cancer is a game that tells his story, his struggle that he and his family face with his 4 year old son Joel who’s been diagnosed with terminal cancer while have had battled seven brain tumors thus far. It’s a touching two hour point and click adventure game who’s demo has already pulled the heart strings to tears of the press who’ve tried it at this year’s GDC.

"I think playing it in a living room with your family and friends, this experience can be a catalyst for talking about hard things. Bringing it to the living room makes a lot of sense; we wanted to make a one to two hour game, something that could be done in one sitting," Green says. A game such as this differentiates itself from the vast majority of Ouya’s library as it’s intended for a single playthrough; and as a game originally slated for PC, it opens itself up for a collaborative conversation in the living room.

There aren’t many reasons to pick up an Ouya, especially with the next generation of consoles opening up their platforms to be more indie friendly than ever before. But if the Ouya continues to pick up little potential gems such as That Dragon, Cancer, the Ouya might be the ideal little indie game platform it promised itself to be.

Source: Polygon

A Week in Gaming Special Feature (1):

Call of Duty: Ghosts Multiplayer Reveal

Reported on August 14th 2013

If you’re not a Call of Duty fan, it’s likely difficult to win you over. But let’s set aside the fanboy slamming and semi-legitimate claims that the franchise is samey year after year. Call of Duty Ghosts has brought a bevy of changes to virtually every single facet of the game: from movement to how you customize your loadout, to player immersion, and of course, new game modes, weapons, and Killstreaks.

Yes, that Eminem joint Survival was dope.

Game Modes

Infinity Ward is very good at messing with vanilla COD rules to create abominable match types. Game modes like Cranked push the offensive nature of Call of Duty to its limits; pressuring players to keep a kill momentum by eliminating enemy players as frequently as possible or they’ll explode within the initiated countdown clock. Smartly included are earned perks that make you faster each time you get a kill. Low latency 60 frames per second damn well means something here. Search and Rescue adds an element of Kill Confirmed into its game mode where after a player dies, if an ally picks up the tag, then they’re revived; if an enemy picks it up, they’re out for the round.

Soldier Customization

There seems to be this obsession of character customization that I can never understand in first person shooters. I tinker with my Halo 4 Spartan because I spend so much time looking at him in the lobby screen. Call of Duty Ghosts finally gives the option to decorate and alter your appearance as a soldier. I remember watching the Xbox One event edition of Podcast Unlocked, and one of the fans pointed out that she didn’t see any indication that we could play as a female soldier. Well in that case, Ghosts has got you covered with female soldiers.

Infinity Ward shepherded the mainstream use of loadout customization with Call of Duty 4, and though Treyarch took the franchise in an all new direction with the Pick 10 system (which Infinity Ward respectively gave credit to), Ghosts is seeing an even higher levels of customization options. Treyarch went in one direction by offering only a small handful of perks in Black Ops 2, Ghosts gives us a whapping 35 perks to choose from. With a similar idea to the Pick 10 system, you can chose as many or as few perks you want. Perks are now divided into categories such as Speed, Stealth, and Awareness. Each category holds perks that are as cheap as 1 point and can cost as much as 5. Essentially, players can hold up to 11 perks if they free up enough space in their loadout.

Squads Mode

In my mind however, that transitions over to Squads Mode. Give me one guy or gal to look at, and I wouldn’t pay them no mind; give me 10, and I’ll start to diversify. In Ghosts multiplayer, you’re allowed up to 10 characters to customize, each with their own builds and loadouts. This excites me as one who never prestiged and was stuck with 5 loadout slots.

Speaking of prestiging, though it wasn’t explained properly at the event, instead of losing all of your unlocks, prestiging will evidently unlock another soldier in your squad until you’ve reached the full 10. FINALLY, after 6 whole years, we get a Call of Duty where prestiging doesn’t only avoid being a punishing trade off, but it adds to your custom options. Squad members can also be brought into squad based matches that are either solo, competitive, or co-op including Safeguard, a wave based multiplayer mode that’s similar to MW3’s most underrated mode, Survival.

In some of these match types in Squads Mode, you’ll be facing up against AI. Now the AI in Call of Duty has never been the best; in many ways, Black Ops 2’s Strike Force Mode highlighted how piss poor their behavior was. However Infinity Ward claims in Squads, the AI has been programed to use more human tactics such as Drop Shot and Side Strafe. It’s an interesting take on the COD multiplayer that we may not have asked for, but may wonder where it has been in all of our COD careers.

Tons of Weapons

Infinity Ward’s executive producer Mark Rubin boasts about the all new weapon class as being the Marksman Rifles, however such a class of weapons has always existed in Call of Duty. They were simply semi-automatic assault rifles in the assault rifle class. However this time, some, if not all, of the rifles can be modded with a three round burst trigger, taking after Black Ops 2’s weapon behavior attachments. In addition to this, Ghosts comes with 30+ weapons, giving players such as myself well over 100 hours of strictly gun experimentation.

Bring Back the Killstreaks

Infinity Ward is the studio leader when it comes to Killstreaks in the Call of Duty franchise. While Treyarch admirably strives to nerf and balance the streaks, Infinity Ward is geared towards offering us more at our finger tips; in Ghosts, we get over 20 extra Killstreaks. New Killstreaks such as Juggernaut Manic which separates itself characteristically from the offensive and defensive Juggernauts from MW3, and earns its title as a sprinting knife wielding manic; Riley, the featured Navy Seal dog at the debut of Ghosts, will be an accompanying Killstreak that will alert you for nearby enemies and attack anyone within proximity.

I was critical in my Black Ops 2 review of Treyarch ignoring Strike Packages. Thankfully while Ghosts is adopting many of the golden ideas from Black Ops 2 such as Pick 10 and streaks earned by objectives, the Assault, Support, and Specialist packages are back. Now as I’ve mentioned that Infinity Ward looked to giving us more Killstreak options, they have also made efforts to balance it even further by reducing the number of airborne rewards such as a ground based UAV that you can hide and enemy players can destroy without wasting a slot on a launcher, and reducing the lethality of Killstreaks earned in the Support class and instead making them more counteractive to offensive rewards.

My only concern is the very name, ‘Killstreaks’. Though Mark Rubin stated that completing objectives will add to your Killstreak count, he didn’t state whether if extra points earned such as SAT COMM assistance (better known currently as UAV assistance) will contribute to earning Killstreaks as well. The idea behind earning Scorestreaks was the single – and substantial -- improvement that Black Ops 2 implemented into Call of Duty's streak system. I’d hate to see that go away on Ghosts.

Dynamic Maps

I was skeptical of the Dynamic Map system they announced at the Xbox One reveal, but seeing it in action made me a believer. This isn’t your simple minor alteration seen in the Black Ops games, these are level altering changes from toppling gas stations, to triggered traps, to map recreating Killstreaks. This isn’t near the level of skyscraper leveling Battlefield 4, but it’s a major change for the franchise, and adds another layer of spontaneity to this hair-trigger shooter.

Ear Rattling Sound

Audio has always been a Call of Duty strong suit just purely based on its ballistic action. Now, Infinity Ward has taken it to an all new level of immersion with their new engine. The sound dynamically changes based on the environment you’re in. Gun fire will soften in an enclosed carpeted room and echo in a large metal lined space; gates will rattle behind me after a grenade explodes in front of me. Battle chatter has become more and more distinguishing over the course of Call of Duty’s history. While not much of what we’ve seen in this week's reveal was a drastic change such as calling out land marks and snipers, I can’t wait to see what they’ve developed. While they mentioned how players will have better awareness of if enemies are in their space, I’m wondering if we will be able to distinguish between our footsteps and another player’s. At times, I’ve found it difficult to discern the difference when I’m moving.

All New Maneuverability and Control

We’ve heard about the new lean, slide, and vaulting mechanics at the Xbox One reveal, but seeing them in action really shows off how this bakes into the momentum of Call of Duty gameplay. Very few first person shooters use cover smartly other than those such as Rainbow Six, but leaning from cover, though not adding to the speed of the game, strangely un-affects it as we see players pop into cover and carry on. Vaulting looks exciting not only because it'll keep you running, but you can also shoot while mantling over obstacles. I’ve always stayed away from anything I’ll have to climb as it lags you into a brief moment of defenselessness. Sliding can be used in an interesting way. The reveal video showed the player sliding and turning their view 90 degrees to take on players coming from the right in a smooth quick transition. I for one have never seen movement like this in any shooter, and I’m excited to practice using that technique as well as the other new mechanics into my routine.

One thing I did notice however was how the knifing animation has changed. Shanking someone in Call of Duty is – in my eyes – the fastest, most responsive and satisfying melee attack in any shooter. Just a swipe of the arm, and you’re dead. Now, it looks like they’ve drawn the animation out longer where the player plunges the knife into an opponent’s chest and pushes them off. Sure it’s fast, but the extra step of pushing in and shoving off takes precious milliseconds that can you can use to react to events in gameplay. I won’t know for sure how much this will impact the gameplay until I actually get my hands on.

Wrap Up

The amount of additions that Infinity Ward as brought to the Call of Duty franchise is daunting. There’s simply too many new features to comfortably process at this time, especially given that most of us haven’t even played the game yet. Call of Duty: Ghosts ships in just a few months, and I have a feeling that many players will spend more time adjusting to all the changes then they have in a Call of Duty game in many years. See you online on November 5th.

A Week in Gaming Special Feature (2):

Stop Talking Shit to our Developers

Reported on August 16th, 2013

You ever pick up a game and think to yourself, “Who’s the idiot that thought up this idea?” Have you ever been enraged by understatedly inconvenient assets such as an always online requirement, nerfing patches of your favorite weapons, or just feel that a developer is just too damn smug to be speaking his mind?

Did you ever want to direct that frustration in the form of hateful language towards them?

Yeah? Well you should stop right there.

Gamer to game maker hate has been a rising concern seeing recent exacerbation in the past year. Developers have been victims of abuse, an inevitable product of fame gone ramped. Name calling, vicious berating, and death threats have all become a part of consumer abuse.

This seems to be an issue in the games industry for a few reasons. We as gamers are sometimes heavily attached and unknowingly fanatical about the products of our pass time, the characters in our products, the fiction in these titles, and the spaces and specific tools that we use to enjoy our games and have fun. Some of us have a monetary relationship with these games shortly after their inception, participating in crowd funding like Kickstater and Indiegogo. It’s a passion that we can’t measure of a medium that we can argue is the best form of entertainment. If the catalysts of our attachment is f**ked with, we flip.

Gamers also are very much in tuned with social media; the forums, Twitter, Facebook, and message boards. Our passion has led us to knowing our products inside and out and knowing who’s responsible. Pissed off gamer + easy access + having easy access to whom= slandering, threatening, trolling, and other uses of hurtful language.

For many of us, it’s simple anger; sometimes it leads us to join a conversation (conversation is a very generous term for hateful trolling) where the topic and opinion resonates with us. Few of us get so enmeshed in it, that we rot and persist in such vile behavior.

The Cyberbullying Research Center see these actions as triggered by a “disconnect” between who we are and our internet aliases. On an episode of Podcast Beyond, Greg Miller discussed how some raging Twitter followers are profusely apologetic when they’re responded to, not thinking that their message will be read. It’s like shouting I WANT TO KILL EVERYONE only to then quickly clasp your mouth once you realize someone is nearby. On the same subject, Colin Moriarty firmly stated that he’s still waiting for someone to say hurtful things directly to him in person, “because no one has ever had the balls” to say it to his face.

He’s absolutely right. The homophobic and racist chatter in matchmaking lobbies is hardly ever heard in the general public.

But we get so engaged in such a deplorable manner that we don’t realize who we’re effecting. When it comes to game developers, we forget to parse the difference between a AAA studio and an indie developer. Sometimes we know exactly who we’re speaking to, and attack with more venomous language at representing faces of an indie team.

Bioware writer Jennifer Helper was vilified, targeted to take the blame for Dragon Age 2’s radical change in its combat style to the point that she received threats, both via online messaging and phone calls, to her children’s and family’s lives. David Vonderhaar was targeted with similar threats to some simple weapon balancing in Black ops 2. These are people behind large development studios, hardly the face of each company. But people like George Lucas shows that even one of a large entertainment company can be turned away by hateful fans, and we got to see that recently with Phil Fish.

But no matter the victims, big or small, they can be affected by consumer abuse. We’ve seen large studios bend at the sheer volume and will of the consumer with Bioware’s alternate ending to Mass Effect 3. While not a fan of the ending myself, many have noted how frightening it was for the industry that Bioware gave under pressure. They unintentionally made an example out of themselves which can give reason to the inevitable next protest to a game’s creative choice. Indie developers are all the more vulnerable. They do not have the capacity to guard themselves with a PR buffer to moderate the hate. When trolls attack with flame throwers, they’re taking the brunt of the scorch directly.

Bioware’s bend and Phil Fish’s bowing out are only the beginning to what may continue to encourage consumer hate. Developers, AAA or indie, need to prepare themselves for the onslaught of hostile fanaticism. They must ignore, and if possible, impose consequences to those who irrationally threaten their lives. But changing behavior shouldn’t only be about punishment. They should also be directly responsive to those who convey their concerns and even offer their ideas as ways to reward consumer feedback.

We need to encourage keeping the gaming space a healthy and productive community. Give attention to those who deserve it, not to those who demand it.

WEEK IN GAMING: FROM 8.5.13 TO 8.9.13. SPECIAL FEATURE INSIDE.

By: Jamaal Ryan

Let’s take a looking at a week in gaming from 8/5/13 to 8/9/13

AAA “Stifling” Creativity (8/5)

It’s been an increasing concern this generation when it comes to creative freedom in AAA development under big budget studios. From franchises with several and even annual installments, to dissolving of middle grade developers and publishers, to the rise of the indie scene and alternate avenues of funding such as Kickstarter and Indie Gogo. This weak, Ubisoft Toronto Jade Raymond expressed her concerns on how big budget costs could “stifle innovation” in game development.

Her point is simple, as the cost of development rises and with the expected significant increase this upcoming generation, publishers are becoming more and more rigid in which games they’re willing to invest in. Raymond notes a few examples from her company as exceptions, being Watch Dogs and The Division, two new IPs with a new –yet contemporary appealing – approach to their targeted genres.

She continues in suggesting alternate models that have become quite popular this generation, them being episodic content, free-to-play models, and micro transactions. But she suggests them with caution, stating the episodic format typically only works well with games such as The Walking Dead, and free-to-play as well as micro-transactions should avoid pay to win traps.

It’s both interesting and refreshing that an executive withholds this perspective from within a publisher that blatantly only invests in franchises as seen with annualized Assassin’s Creed games and the short lived IP ZombiU.

These three alternate models can be forecasted as seen more frequently in the next generation. Free-to-play has quickly become more popular, starting on the PC, making their way on current gen systems, and confirmed as being more present on next gen platforms. The current standardized format of DLC releases can give way to having episodic format more common place, and while micro-transactions have yet to find its footing on home consoles, publishers have taken risks such as EA with Dead Space 3.

The $50-60 package of bulky content is quickly becoming old fashioned with the accelerating indie scene and the monetary advantages of alternate models such as free-to-play. Moving forward from next year and beyond, we may see a drastic change in the way we consumer our games.

Source: Digital Spy

VIA: Polygon, The Escapist 

Since When Was The Last of Us Sexist? (8/7)

Skip reading if you haven’t beaten The Last of Us. Spoilers.

There are plenty of games that can be labeled as sexist. Look no further than the Tropes vs. Women in Video Games series I reported on last week. Misogyny, chauvinism, intended and unintended, video games is a growing medium with much work needed in these areas. But Naughty Dog’s masterpiece The Last of Us isn’t necessarily the last game you can accuse as being sexist, but it does a damn good job of respecting women to avoid that label.

Creative director Neil Druckman and the rest of his team did a damn good job casting actresses for the roles of Tess, Marlene, and of course, Ellie. Ellie played by Ashley Johnson spoke high praises about the role she took as a strong female lead character as a gamer herself. The team also fought to keep women in focus testing to ensure that the game appealed to female gamers as well. So when Druckman and game director Bruce Starley heard the accusations of sexism thrown towards it, you bet they were quite surprised.  

Despite being a huge fan of The Last of Us, calling it “the best game I’ve ever played” I can see a few points critics have made. Tommy’s wife could have been more than capable in defending their camp, especially as the leader managing it instead of hiding and leaving it to the men; Marlene could have put up a bit of a fight before Joel gunned her down.

But after reading a feminist point of view, it appears that naysayers are critical of superficial elements such as Joel being a male lead, his daughter Sarah incapable of defending herself, and two of the strong female characters dying throughout the game. Their preferences almost defeat the theme of the overall game and criticize the story for what it is, demanding an overwhelming female representation. There’s nothing wrong with female dominant cast, but there’s also absolutely nothing wrong with the way The Last of Us exists in and of itself either.

Tess, though later dies in the game, is a fearless and very dominant character. She dies in a guns-a-blazing fashion, something hardly seen from women in any medium. And Ellie was arguably the star of The Last of Us, easily the center of the game’s highest gameplay and narrative moments. Sure Ellie needed to be looked after by Joel, but Ellie’s a fourteen your old child, and Joel is her father figure.

Criticizing games’ gender, race, and cultural representation is a healthy practice needed within the industry. It challenges developers approach with social sensitivity and allows them to engage gamers on an identifiable level. But targeting specific games while failing to recognize its thematic achievements does nothing for the industry and devolves into little more than white noise. 

Source: GamesBeat

VIA: The Escapist

Nintendo Games Will Stay On Nintendo Platforms (8/8)

With struggling systems sales and a starving library of games, one time or another many of us had the thought, “Maybe Nintendo should just become a third party so that everyone can play their amazing games.

Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata has heard your thoughts loud and clear, “If I was to take responsibility for the company for just the next one or two years, and if I was not concerned about the long-term future of Nintendo at all, it might make sense for us to provide our important franchises for other platforms, and then we might be able to gain some short-term profit.”

But given Nintendo has a strong and unique philosophy as a producer of software and hardware, he kills this idea, “I'm really responsible for the long-term future of Nintendo as well, so I would never think about providing our precious resources for other platforms at all.“

Nintendo has gone from the leader of the video game industry to the embodiment of the unconventional. Nintendo ignores what the industry expects. When Sony and Microsoft are building entertainment hub spaces on top of online infrastructures, Nintendo responds with Miiverse. As Sony refines the Dual-Shock controller and Microsoft is upgrading the Kinect camera, Nintendo is searching for new ways to use its tablet controller. The Xbox and Playstation brand presses fourth to the center of your living room, Nintendo’s consoles are alternate games machines built for Nintendo’s game ideas.

No one can deny Nintendo’s glaring misfires, the grossly underpowered hardware, their failure for reigning in third party support. But for Nintendo to give up their creative freedom to develop strictly software for other home consoles is almost nightmarish. For every Call of Duty Watch Dogs, and Destiny, we need Pikmin, Super Smash Bros., and Super Marios. Nintendo might empty space where other games on their home console should be, but there’s always room for Nintendo to operate at their fullest in our gaming lives.  

Source: CVG

VIA: Polygon, Kotaku

Gamestop Still Getting Sued for Online Passes (8/9)

We’re all too familiar with pesky online passes. We go out of our way to pick up new copies of games instead of used ones, and get fed up with having to punch in those codes slipped on the inside of the CD case.

We have become fluent in the language of online passes, but it turns out that there have still been some that Gamestop took advantage of. Earlier this week, a federal judge in New Jersey has authorized the right for three consumers to file a class action lawsuit against Gamestop.

All three plaintiffs bought EA titles, Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, Madden and FIFA 2010. All three were failed to be notified that their used copies didn’t allow access to online content without the extra fee of $10-15 which ultimately set the price of each game over their standard MSRP. This is yet another lawsuit after Gamestop was successfully sued on California for the same failure to notice.

Gamestop has notoriously taken sometimes unethical strides to push the sales of their used games. Anyone who’s shopped at Gamestop knows exactly what I’m referring to. Empower yourself as a consumer, and make the best purchase decisions that best benefit you, though I encourage gamers to support their developers and publishers. 

Source: The Philadelphia Enquirer

VIA: Polygon 

A Week in Gaming Special Feature:

Who's Responsible for Video Game Addiction?

The idea of personal responsibility is very divisive. Gun advocates abide by this principle – along with self-defense and the right to bear arms – while countless deaths occur every year due to gun violence, even as late as this past week. In the medical and mental health field, we emphasize to patients and clients to take personal responsibility for their medication, monitoring side effects and making a point to notify prescribers if they have an addiction history while state and federal laws monitor individuals purchasing of amphetamines and opiates. Gambling addiction is recognized to many as an illness, which can cause an immeasurable amount of damage from property loss to suicide, yet states capitalize on their huge amounts of cash revenue.

Arguing personal responsibility doesn’t always work. And with that, we can talk about video games.

We swear by this a lot as proclaimed game advocates. Mature games cause violent behavior in impressionable children. To that we say, “Where are the parents who should be taking full responsibility to what their own children consume?” We can just as easily say that in response to instances where long sessions of gaming lead to child neglect or even death.

Though this hasn’t reached western federal minds yet, researchers from U.K. universities in Cardiff, Derby, and Nottingham warn that if game companies don’t take measures to make their games -- specifically MMOs -- less addictive, that Western governments might looking to inflict limits similar to those seen in Asia.

Dire predictions on Western fates from a European perspective typically would be something to sneeze at, but with Joe Biden’s statements that there would be “no legal reason” why taxing video games would be an issue, and constant attacks from political officials on video games, such fates aren’t too farfetched.

So where does personal responsibility play here?

Well, it’s easy for us to simply say that gamers should take responsibility and monitor their game time to a healthy degree. And in the grand scheme of things, that would be most appropriate. Video game addiction hasn’t (yet) been recognized as a diagnosed addiction, and there are no reports of an epidemic of gaming addiction. We cannot, however, ignore the effects of addictive behavior enabled by video games.

Gamers who have an addictive relationship to video games need help. We don’t see federal involvement in making merchandise less attractive for kleptomaniacs, so why should we make games less fun for gamers? As the one who succumbs to these impulses, they lose their ability to practice personal responsibility. Instead the responsibility relies on their family and or anyone else in their immediate support system. Counseling services coaching warning signs, coping skills, and alternative activities (in addition to, not replacing) for gaming to both the person and their support members would help wean these individuals off their addiction.

Government shouldn’t intrude on video game development. It’s a violation of constitutional rights in more ways than any game regulation proposed. But this doesn’t mean that we should ignore the warning signs of video game addiction. A clinician once told me, an addiction involves persistent behavior that an individual engages in at the risk of abandoning physical and social needs. If we see someone that might be succumbing to video game addiction, it then becomes our responsibility to help.

Source: BBC

VIA: The Escapist

HOTLINE MIAMI (VITA) REVIEW: UNZ-UNZ. SPLAT

Reviewed By: Jamaal Ryan

Few games have left me in various states of synesthesia like Hotline Miami. The hypnotic tempo of the electronic soundtrack zoned me in, sometimes pied-pipering me into a complete disregard for my life. Other times, I was completely lifted with euphoria in such a way that few arcade games can after I wiped out an entire floor of enemies within seconds. Hotline Miami loosely simulates homicidal psychosis, having you giggle creepily along the way.

The golden age visual overlay of this top-down twin stick brawler rechristens your appreciation for 16 bit style simply because of what the developer has been able to accomplish with it. Simply put, Hotline Miami is the most disturbingly colorful and violent game I've ever seen, standing as the epitome of art direction over realism.

Pretty...

Heads burst open like watermelons soaking the floor with brain matter, pink entrails spill out leaving gaping torsos and horrifying expressions, jets of blood shoot out of faces and jugulars redecorating hallways and colorful rooms. It’s even more disturbing watching these isometric sprites grab their cut throats and kick hopelessly, or crawl away after suffering a fatal head injury. The results of your brutal inflictions, and your very own demise, depict enough for you to register what has happened, but leave enough for you to fill in with your imagination, making the violence that much more shockingly brilliant.

This obfuscating grime tale as a contracted serial killer is an ideal cesspool of conveying the various states of confusion and insanity the masked murderer goes through. While you may be able to read the text on screen from chatty pixelated faces, the context is so foreign it’s almost as if they’re speaking another language. Some ignore the horrible deaths that befall various victims, others mock your deliberate lack of understanding. It’s almost worth revisiting just to formulate your own theory of the events that take place, but it absolutely deserves multiple playthroughs just to kill countless bald headed, white blazer wearing men again.

Apparently not.

You can lose an undocumented amount of time between seeing how far you can go with no strategic planning whatsoever, and patiently observing enemies' patrol patterns until they align with your mental death constellation. Most games frustrate when that constellation is broken by an unaccounted variable, but the startling pop out of any assortment of fire arms, or a thwack or shank of a tire iron or cooking knife elicits a near comical reaction. With a fast pace, swift deaths and instant reloads, you'll engage, then die, engage then die over and over again.

And you’ll do so by caving faces into mush, spilling out guts with knives and fire arms, and painting the walls and floors with blood with either a careless gallivant or military precision. Once you get it right under the hazy beats, it’s electrifying.

Your objectives may be straight forward: receive job via answering machine, enter you vehicle to the designated location, slip on you mask at the door, and slaughter. But how you'll approach each job will vary playthrough to playthrough.

Nothing personal.

Masks grant special perks from elongated lines of sight, to auto equipped knives, to turning any throw-able object and even doors into environmental fatal weapons. You mostly begin each game unarmed, having to then gather guns or melee weapons from your fallen foes. In one session, you can gun down enemies with the limited ammo in your fire arms which then attracts the attention of near-by AI, or immediately after a game starts, slit a guy's throat from behind and kick open a door as a poor sap passes by, killing him instantly and then repeat covert assassinations till everyone’s dead.

It's easy to set challenges for yourself to complete levels while experimenting with mechanics. But the results are always the same. Every game ends with having you backtrack down the stairs to the entrance you invited yourself through; and each time as you pass your homicidal trail of mutilated corpses and blood stained floors, you’ll want to say to yourself, "Fuck yes, I did that.”

(Repeat quote here.)

The Bottom Line

And you’ll want to do it again, and again, and again. Hotline Miami is an extraordinarily addictive action game. Its provocative 16 bit visuals and psychedelic/electronica soundtrack are agents to this dependency wanting to make an absolute mess of soon to be disfigured bodies. Regardless of the fact that Hotline Miami exists on the PC, this isometric slaughter hyper simulator can't not be on your Playstation Vita.

+ Disgustingly gorgeous 16 bit visuals

+ Sound system worth soundtrack

+ Rapid twitch paced gameplay

+ Excellent replay value

SCORE: A+

MECHWARRIOR ONLINE (BETA REVIEW)

I'll start off by saying that Mechwarrior is one of my all time favorite franchises. Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries is easily in my top five games of all time. So this review is coming from a true fan of the series. I hold this game franchise as the pinnacle of Mech based gaming. So the opinions ahead can be taken with a grain of salt. I can admit that but praise is earned on this site so strap up and prepare for a ride in this reviewers Mech of opinion.

My love for controlling a huge heaps of armored machines was further enforced by the purchase of my first car. A overheating piece of shit Ford Tempo purchased for $600. My few months with the car reminded me of piloting a Mech in the Mechwarrior Universe. I had to manage my heat every time I decided to take her out for a roll.  For most people it would be stressful but for me every single time I arrived at a destination without overheating was a successful mission. So now as I pilot the iconic Atlas I get the same trills.

“DECLINE IN THE FAITH OF THE DEVELOPER”

I wanted to get this review out before the changes come from the games official release of September 17, 2013. Mainly to address the decline of faith in the developer PGI in delivering the product the community wants. The Mechwarrior community loves the game but they love to complain about the game just as much. Not in the pissy whining you get from “kids” complaining about no “dino-mode” or overpowered weapons they cannot counter More so you are getting season veterans that have played for decades pointing out the fundamental flaws of the latest metagame (damn ppc snipers was so two patches ago).

If PGI was listening closely to the top-tier players they would learn a lot about their game. They may be great at programming MWO but there people out there that understand the gameplay much better than them. I have the feeling PGI is in house testing the newest tweaks of the gameplay this is what is fucking up the balance. They really need to outsource testing to small top-tier players as focus groups. With the intent to better understand weapons and builds in a gameplay setting.

My personal loss of faith in PGI comes from the upcoming addition of 3rd person cameras. This game was never struggling because of the point of view. Any person complaining of POV is a fucking noob sorry but its true. The fact that PGI took time away from coding so many other aspects of the game to work on 3rd person mode is only one of many bad decisions I think they have made.

THE EVER CHANGING BATTLEFIELD

It seems like every introduction of a new battlemech to the game further disrupts the previous balance of the game. With the addition of the Raven and Ecm came the downfall of lights successfully fulfilling their role of scouts. With the Highlander taking the field we encountered a jump sniping metagame that was the only viable option for months. Nothing wrong with the game evolving but there seems to be a slight oversight when new mechs enter the ecosystem. The change they bring is then corrected in a way that hurts all other Mech builds and not necessarily the Mech that disrupted the ecosystem. The latest Alpha Strike penalties are what I would say was a bad call on PGI’s behalf.

I do not have all the answers but the strong leaders in the community do. PGI you have their info you need to seriously start contacting them and work out the issues of you game together. Where I can admit the community is wrong is the complaints of wanting a return on founders packages. Whoever wants a refund, you need to suck it up and either go along for the ride or eject from your cockpit permanently.

DO NOT BREAK THIS PROMISE

Here’s where PGI’s will either epically fail or go on to thrive. Community Warfare, this promise is going to make or break the community. Whatever you do PGI do not fuck up Community Warfare. If you cut any corners on this or if its just some shitty feature that is not better than what House marik did for their civil wars you will lose nearly all your customers past, present and future. So many users are not playing because they are waiting to hear the verdict on this aspect of the game. This feature can pull in countless new players if its the talk of the town. Please PGI do not fuck up this feature.

  

For the “BETA” I’ll say damn good. The tweaking they have done to the Cry-Engine impresses me a lot. Some really great lighting that even reacts in real time to the battlemech models. But I am a gameplay over stunning visuals. Here Mechwarrior does a great job of two. They support each other. However once we move out of beta and we receive the Direct X I will give the final verdict. As far as what I see now I like it a whole lot, and would approve of PGI’s efforts with the engine.  

They won me over once the startup sequence was added to the game. I am a sucker for that sexy robot voice. She gives me a comfort that all systems are nominal. Some of the latest patches sounds make you feel like the year is 3050 and shit just got real. Here is where I think PGI exceeded mine and most users expectations.

Bottomline: Download and enjoy this title, but make sure you join a faction so you get the best experience out of the game. Pugging it doesn't do this game justice. It relies heavily on teamwork.

A WEEK IN GAMING: FROM 7/29/13-8/2/13. SPECIAL FEATURE INSIDE

By: Jamaal Ryan

Let’s take a looking at a week in gaming from 7/29/13 through 8/2/13

The Next Generation of Indie Games (7/29)

We’ve heard the rants from Phil Fish and the harsh criticisms from Jonathan Blow, Microsoft’s penetrating publishing attitude has turned away many indie developers. But since Microsoft’s second about-face, now allowing indie devs to self-publish on Xbox One and enabling each console to be their own dev kits, it is very clear that indie development is the new hotness this generation, allowing freshly untainted minds to deliver unique and potentially unconventional experiences.

The indie scene has been pioneered by PC for many years, with many avenues in which players can engage them, whether that may be a free download on the game’s website, or new community supported titles debuting on Steam Greenlight. However many gamers, such as myself, don’t have access to these titles out of avoidance of the PC as a platform.

Sony has already given many gamers the opportunity to enjoy some of these games, such as Hotline Miami, Thomas Was Alone, and Stealth Inc. But now with Microsoft entering the new era of indie game support, there’s no telling what will grace our consoles in the future.

Perhaps we’ll see games with a more with more intellectual subject matter; games like That Dragon, Cancer, which places you in lead designer Ryan Green’s shoes as he tries to comfort his six year old son who’s suffering from cancer, Papers, Please where you as an immigration inspector has to control the flow of individuals while accepting or denying their entrance to the city, and 9 Months In, a game about a pregnant woman 9 months pregnant in prison.

This next console generation is equally about impressive graphical fidelity, sound, the ability to topple sky scrapers and travel cross county in a player populated United States as it is about low budget driven niche ideas that introduce new ways to play and convey themes and storytelling. 

Source: Polygon

The Inception of Video Game Consoles (7/30)

When we think of the development of next gen hardware, the many of us are led us to believe that this is a process engineered in a closed environment where the publisher signs deals with hardware component manufactures and takes an occasional look at leaked information of their competitors system features. It’s a process that we’re generally ignorant to, typically relaying on pre-launch rumors and post launch executive interviews. 

In the book Dreamcast Worlds, author Zoya Streets gives us insight into the development of the Sega Dereamcast, offering perspective that grants us a better understanding on the forces behind these games entertainment centers.

Streets describes the factors behind console development as a network, stating that they consist of, “human developers, hardware components, development tools, games, corporations, competitors, consumers, the media, and more.”

In this very candid upcoming console generation, we can draw similarities from these factors to what has driven console development today: Sony’s outreach to developers asking what kind of system they would want to develop for, Nintendo’s philosophy on engineering their systems around particular game ideas, the consumer’s influence on Xbox One’s 180, and the messaging of these systems themselves targeting multiple demographics.

There are many questions with unsatisfying answers about today’s and tomorrow’s fast approaching hardware.  Why was Sony so dodgey about making announcements before and after Microsoft? Why didn’t Xbox One’s development start until 2010? And why does Nintendo continue to release hardware with last gen specs on next gen hardware?

Dreamcast Worlds may not have the explicit answers we’re looking for, but it might help us better understand the reasonings for these decisions.

Source: Kotaku

Wii U: The First Party Nintendo Machine (7/31)

Owning a Wii U as an additional console to any other current gen systems likely entails you to have one primary interaction with it, wiping off that thin layer of dust.

And if you only own a Wii U, then I’d ask you, what the hell are you doing?

This week, we were introduced to Batman Arkham Origins multiplayer mode, an interesting Splinter Cell influenced competitive mode to a franchise that one would least expect to see supported multiplayer from. But in addition to that announcement, we’ve also learned that outside of the 360, PS3, and PC versions, the Wii U build of Arkham Origins won’t support multiplayer.

For the platform, this doesn’t come as a surprise as we’ve seen features that existed in other multiplatform versions absent on Wii U. From Sniper Elite V2’s co-op mode to Black Ops 2’s missing DLC. Third party developers are have halted and pulled support from the system entirely. Ubisoft pushed the previously Wii U exclusive Rayman Legends to release alongside the 360 and PS3 versions, and the critically divisive launch title ZombiU will not have a sequel, a clear sign that Ubisoft meant business when they stated they will not take a chance on games that won’t support franchises.

 With numbers like 160,000 units sold globally in three months, we begin to better understand why EA previously stated that they have no games in development (until they said they did), and scratch our heads as to why Activision approved Call of Duty: Ghosts to be released on Wii U.

The business perspective is simple, Wii U sales are light and slow; investing in such a poorly performing console is not feasible.

As an owner of multiple systems, it’s nothing short of foolish to choose the Wii U version of third party titles over any other system, unless the developer explicitly highlighted exclusive perks. Splinter Cell: Blacklist, Watch Dogs, and Call of Duty: Ghosts will release on Wii U this year. But with the trend of lacking DLC and missing online features, there’s very little reason to have faith that the Wii U build will be better, or even comparable than versions on other platforms.

The games press has called the Wii the “Mario and Zelda” system, and for now, it looks like the Wii U will follow the same trend. I’m hanging on to my Wii U for Pikmin 3, The Wonderful 101, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, and New Super Mario 3D World; but given that E3 has shown us that the industry has “next gen” development for the Xbox One and Playstation 4 in focus – on top of the lack of Wii U support we’ve seen even without these systems out yet -- for the better part of 2014, my Wii U will be my go to system for Smash Brothers, Mario Kart, and whatever other quality Nintendo published titles release next year. But that’s just about it; nothing more, nothing less.

Sources: IGN, Polygon, Kotaku

Tropes vs. Women in Video Games Episode 3 (8/1)

Anita Sarkeesian’s series Tropes vs. Women in Video Games sociologically critiques the portrayal of women in video games, reviewing the empowering, the disempowering, and the down-right chauvinistic roles women fit in many of our favorite titles.

This week, Feminine Frequency posted Episode 3 which takes a look at what games have done in order to recreate the damsel in distress relationship. Anita dissects the stereotypes still shown in these recreations, and highlights games that have approached this trope well.

There are a few games that have subverted the “damsel” and hero relationship, games like 1990’s Balloon Kid, 2003’s Kya: Dark Lineage, and more known cult hits such as Primal and Beyond Good and Evil. Each of these games has missions or uses the primary story thread that involves a female lead rescuing a male in distress.

Mario, the franchise that is the oldest contributor the damsel archetype, had the spin off Super Princess Peach for the DS in 2006. Here, instead of Mario looking for Peach in another castle, Peach is doing the rescuing, looking to save both Mario and Luigi. And as empowering as this may seem, Super Princess Peach falls into some glaring stereotypes. This is mainly seen in her special abilities which involve her using emotional outbursts to defeat her enemies. Essentially, she PMSs them to death.

Anita then discusses three approaches that developers have taken to recreate or parody the damsel trope. The first sounds more like a cop out, where the game follows the same formulaic beats as an old school rescue adventure with the only disclosed defense is its attempt to highlight the zeitgeist of a typical man saves woman dynamic. But even as a parody, this idea does nothing to solve the problem or move us away from this stereotype. It reinforces the trope, hoping the comic relief will excuse its nature.

The next two seeks to actively change the trope, but hardly moves away from the stereotype. Many games such as Super Meat Boy reward the player after beating the game by unlocking a female avatar as a playable character. Yet it still doesn’t get away from having to play as the male lead in the first place.

The third mentioned springs a surprise on the player once they’ve beaten the game. Games like Earth Worm Jim where a cow falls and kills Princess-What’s-Her-Face, like at the end of Eversion where the princess turns into a cannibalistic monster and eats you alive, or like Castle Crashers where one of the princesses shocks you with her clown face. The joke’s on you, but you still spent 99% of the game ostensibly saving a helpless princess.

Few games get this right, like in Secret of Monkey Island where the damsel you’re saving was completely capable of saving herself until you ruined it, or Braid where the damsel you’re trying to save is actually running away from you.

We’re seeing the role of empowered women more and more, like in games such as Tomb Raider, Bioshock Infinite, The Last of Us and upcoming Beyond Two Souls. The tropes are being subverted more rapidly than any other medium, but we’re not quite there yet. With the presence of more and more women in game development, game studios led by women such as 343 Industries, and the rise of indie game development, we can look forward to seeing more inspirational representation of women in tomorrow’s games.

A Week in Gaming Special Feature:

Minority Representation in Video Games

I came across a story a while ago that pointed out the coincidence on how many video game character leads looked too similar. They typically had low cut, mostly buzz cut hair, maybe a little bit of stubble, and had a fixed scowl on their face. Do you know what else they had in common? They were all White.

At the IGDA Summit in San Francisco, developers Mattie Brice and Kristen Finley spoke about how the lacking and misrepresentation of minorities in video games often reinforce stereotypes and create barriers to the connection players have with their characters.

Too often we see minority cast members in a game making it seem as if it was an attempt to diversify the “band of heroes” seeking to save the world… yeah, like Power Rangers (anyone find any issues with the Back Ranger?). Other times we see that member work as an interpreter for the main hero as a way to translate their alien and sometimes savage culture. While the former is seen as well intentioned, the later comes as a sometimes offensive result.

While the White male lead would hold the most nuanced, culture free behavior, characters of other races and/or cultures are packed into these rigid parameters to highlight what they have to contribute to the cause: The Black guy= the gangster and/or heavy hitter, the Hispanic and/or Middle Eastern= the gate keeper of language and culture barriers, the Eastern Asian= the one well versed in the secret arts of specialized combat, the woman=the healer.

With no imperial data to back this point, I would assume that minorities and females are more inclined to customize lead characters that more represent themselves than White males; Fem-Shep or Fem-Hawke, Black-Shep or Hispanic Hawke. I approach that hypothesis because we as minority gamers don’t see positive representations of ourselves in video games; whether that would be another damsel that needs saving, or a brutish Black male carrying a very large gun. The demographic that is the most represented in games might feel more comfortable creating an avatar characteristically antithetical to themselves because they don’t feel the sense of misrepresentation or lack of representation.

As is with every early area of growing pains this industry had developed through, racial representation has become increasingly subtle. These growing pains have been seen in characters such as Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas’ CJ. Though Rockstar always infamously portrayed elaborate caricatures, CJ was, and deliberately so, a stereotypical Black male in almost every way. We can already see that GTA V’s Franklin will carry the “hood” culture with him into the trio, but let’s hope that they treat him with a more personable level of care.

Much better than Final Fantasy XIII’s awful Sazh who fit nearly every stroke of a Chris Tucker-ish “You crazy for that!” jester, Final Fantasy VII’s Barret Wallace, beyond his muscular, heavy gun totting stature and deliberately slanged dialogue showed a more insightful purposeful side of him that was quite unexpected. Gears of War’s Cole, though fueled by the jockish life-of-the-party energy, featured a similar level of depth.

The signs of growth have shown in Crysis’s Prophet and Starhawk’s Emmet Graves where the lead just happens to be Black. Everywhere from Mass Effect’s Jacob Taylor and David Anderson, to Left 4 Dead 2’s Coach and Rochelle, to Half-Life 2’s Alyx and Eli Vance, each character was fleshed out as a person without paying too much attention to their skin color.

Virtually all of the above mentioned characters were Black which gives me the chance to highlight the next point. Outside of a few protagonists such as Just Cause 2’s Rico Rodriguez, The Ballad of Gay Tony’s Luis Fernando Lopez, and Sleeping Dogs Wei Shen, the painful statistics show that Hispanics and “other” -- which may include Native American, Middle Eastern, or Eastern Asian collectively – are the least represented in video games third and fourth behind Blacks. Some can argue that Japanese developed games have Japanese leads, but from a generalist Western perspective, many of these character are more or less “racially ambiguous”. Japanese development aside, this still doesn’t solve the issue for everyone else.

Perhaps the best example of a well-represented minority comes from Telltale’s Lee from The Walking Dead Season One. Despite his very clear ethnicity, Telltale was able to write Lee in such a way that his motives, his fears, and his perspective transcended barriers of diversity and was able to connect with players who walked with him until the game’s final moments.

Tracey Lien discusses on Polygon that, “Lee was a character whose race and place in the world informed his thoughts and motives. This was communicated to players in subtle ways, without the need to resort to stereotypes” She continues, “The result was many players felt a deeper connection to the character and a better understanding of the politics and social issues that informed his agency. The Walking Dead was no longer just about surviving a zombie apocalypse.”

Part of this success undoubtedly comes from the number of minority developers in the industry. Just as the best paternal stories are told by fathers, the best stories of mental illness comes from the mentally ill, the best stories from a minority’s perspective come from those of the same group. As we see more and more developer representation, we should see more and more character representation.

Video games are rapidly tackling more and more mature themes: parenthood, rape, and child birth. But games have rarely scratched the surface of exploring ethnic and cultural differences. As this industry grows, not only will we see characters that look like us, but we may see characters engage, differ, and debate like us.

Source: Polygon