Last week, Gabe over at Penny Arcade held an open forum about the stores who re-sell games. To quote him off of his Twitter account @cwgabriel - "I have personally made a choice to support the people who make games rather than a pawn shop." I pitched in my own reply in Twitter, but I wanted to take some time this week to write my own thoughts about these stores that re-sell games.
First, video gaming is effing expensive. Your average game these days is $60 for the non collectible / non -legendary /no super amazing with also no bonus rocket pack edition. Most games want to be able to maximize their sales, so they create them around the ESRB rules to get them rated as appropriate for children or teenagers (The ESA Reports that 84% of all games sold in 2008 were E, T, or E10+). What that means is that kids and teens want to play these games, and unless something's changed since I was a kid, they can't afford to buy them by themselves, as they can't really get jobs.
So what happens? Well, piracy for one, but that's not what we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about the legal way to be able to catch a break on the prices of the upcoming new hotness hitting your console of choice. Kids go out and they trade their last week's toy in for some store credit, usually a pittance, and buy a used copy of the game that somebody else did pretty much the same thing with. These stores then take that game, and sell it at an amazing profit to the next person who is also looking for a break in the game prices.
So who gets hurt here? The game studios and developers and publishers, of course. In the scenario I created above, one copy of the game was sold, but two different people were able to play it, AND somebody made money off of letting the second person play.
The game industry obviously sees this as a problem and has recently been taking steps to combat it. The more noticeable methods include offering something extra like a free set of multi-player maps for purchasing the game new, or a special skin for pre-ordering, and then charging for the extra content to anybody who didn't buy their game new. EA has taken this a step further in offering only the single player version of their game on the disc, but including a code to enable multi-player for free in the box, and then charging for it for those who have bought the game used.
So after presenting my views on both sides of the argument, where do I stand? Well, I can't condemn the people buying used games. I've purchased used games, I've sold my games on eBay, I've borrowed them from friends. I can't really blame the guys on the industry side either, though. They work hard to bring forth quality entertainment to the masses and deserve to make some money doing it. The US Inflation Calculator site reports that the $50 that we spent on a game back in 1987 would be $95.96 in today's money, and all they've done is increase their prices to $60 (that's a rant for another day).
There's no easy solution for this. Despite their efforts, restricting multi-player and providing Club Rewards will not stop people from buying used games. Game developers have created a product that the people want, but are unable to afford at the rate that they are becoming available. Just from my last The Ones to Watch article, I had 7 different games, and if you average them at $50 apiece, there's no way that anybody can keep up with all of that. So in response, the people are looking for any way they can find to save some money on their hobby. The stores who buy and sell used games have moved into that market to capitalize on the situation.
In the end, the solution that we seem to be coming up on is downloadable games. We've already seen some success with this, in that the Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, and Steam (to name a few) all provide the ability to download games and lock them to a specific ID so they can't be shared or sold. Once internet speeds, prices, and availability reach a proper level, we'll see studios put their games out ONLY online. This doesn't really help consumers, unfortunately, but this is what things will come to when the game companies are fed up with other stores making profit off of their work.
I'm eager to see what company fires their first shot on exclusive online sales. That's going to be one hell of a press release.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
The Ones to Watch For - September Edition
Fall is by far the best time to be a video gamer. This is when all of the game publishers push out their triple A+ titles out before Christmas to make as much money as they can on them. Typically, the faucet gets turned on in September and doesn't let up until well into February and it doesn't look like this year is any exception. Here's the ones that are paving the way for all the rest, here's The Ones to Watch For
The Sims 3 Fast Lane Stuff - PC - 9/7/10
Wait, wait. Give me a chance here. The Sims 3 is an extremely popular EA franchise, particularly with women. Now, we have a LOT of good games coming out soon, and we're going to need the TV to play them and even the best of games will have problems competing against the Fall TV lineup. Pick this one up for your woman and begin booking your game nights with buddies. This probably won't be the best expansion EA has ever put out for their Sims fans, but it should rekindle the love and let you move on to more important things.Things like...
Halo Reach - Xbox 360 - 9/14/10
Ladies, you just picked up the latest Sims 3 expansion, and all you want is your big dumb (but lovable) husband to go away and let you spend some quality time exploring mummy tombs. Pick him up a copy of Bungie's latest (and reportedly final) Halo game, Halo Reach, and win yourself the wife of the year award. Don't worry, your secret is safe with me. Better yet, teach him how to REALLY play Halo by getting him in your sniper cross hairs a few times. Just not in front of the friends, save him the embarrassment of not being as good as you are.
MOVE Sports Champions Bundle - PS3 - 9/17/10
PlayStation enters the motion controlled market with their MOVE controllers and gaming options. This bundle gets youWii Sports Sports Champions and a Wii Remote PlayStation Move motion controller as well as the PlayStation Eye Camera to get started. The tech demos of it looked impressive, but I'm not sure how receptive the population will be to this one, especially since nearly everybody owns a Wii. Keep an eye on these to see what Sony does to bring it into the public eye.
Sid Meier's Civilization V - PC - 9/21/10
For the PC gamers out there, Civilization V is hitting shelves in September and I know of a few people who are really looking forward to it. I was never a huge Civilization fan, but I cannot deny that it is a lot of fun to sit down and play. Beyond that, I'm not going to pretend I know enough about this one to keep talking, so just do yourself a favor and check it out.
Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock - Multi - 9/28/10
Activision brings out it's very successfulhorse Guitar Hero franchise and beats it over and over gives it an updated story mode in which you rip off the story to Brutal Legend traverse the lands of rock and unlock content as you progress through the quests given to you. If that sounds awesome to you, be ready to pick up their latest offering in late September. Personally, I'm waiting for Rock Band 3.
Dead Rising 2 - Multi - 9/28/10
Now here's one that I'm really looking forward to. I loved the original Dead Rising game because I love to kill me some zombies. Was it a perfect game? Hell no. Capcom has learned many of its mistakes from the previous game and is bringing this one to some very eager fans. You play as Chuck Greene, a motocross champion who gets caught in Fortune City just in time for the next zombie outbreak. The selling point this time around is the ability to combine items to create bigger more awesome ways to kill zombies. Strap chainsaws onto a bike and tear through a crowd or combine a gun and a teddy bear and create a sentry to guard important points. I can't wait for this one.
Final Fantasy XIV - PC - 9/30/10
It wouldn't be right if I didn't write about Final Fantasy XIV coming out at the end of September. This is SquareEnix's latest offering to the MMO crowd and as somebody who played Final Fantasy XI and loves the series, I'm not really even thinking about this one. The Final Fantasy MMO universe prides itself on its difficulty and it's hard to recommend that anybody try out an MMO that isn't World of Warcraft. In any case, its worth keeping an eye on, especially now that they're showing off all of the stuff that players will be seeing in the game.
Alright, that's it for September. These brave games have stepped out as the front line soldiers this fall, and I salute all of them. Even if I they're not in my "must buy" list, these are the games to watch this fall and see what kind of ripples they'll create in the gaming community. Looking forward, September has nothing on October. We'll see you in a month to discuss what's coming up.
The Sims 3 Fast Lane Stuff - PC - 9/7/10
Wait, wait. Give me a chance here. The Sims 3 is an extremely popular EA franchise, particularly with women. Now, we have a LOT of good games coming out soon, and we're going to need the TV to play them and even the best of games will have problems competing against the Fall TV lineup. Pick this one up for your woman and begin booking your game nights with buddies. This probably won't be the best expansion EA has ever put out for their Sims fans, but it should rekindle the love and let you move on to more important things.Things like...
Halo Reach - Xbox 360 - 9/14/10
Ladies, you just picked up the latest Sims 3 expansion, and all you want is your big dumb (but lovable) husband to go away and let you spend some quality time exploring mummy tombs. Pick him up a copy of Bungie's latest (and reportedly final) Halo game, Halo Reach, and win yourself the wife of the year award. Don't worry, your secret is safe with me. Better yet, teach him how to REALLY play Halo by getting him in your sniper cross hairs a few times. Just not in front of the friends, save him the embarrassment of not being as good as you are.
MOVE Sports Champions Bundle - PS3 - 9/17/10
PlayStation enters the motion controlled market with their MOVE controllers and gaming options. This bundle gets you
Sid Meier's Civilization V - PC - 9/21/10
For the PC gamers out there, Civilization V is hitting shelves in September and I know of a few people who are really looking forward to it. I was never a huge Civilization fan, but I cannot deny that it is a lot of fun to sit down and play. Beyond that, I'm not going to pretend I know enough about this one to keep talking, so just do yourself a favor and check it out.
Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock - Multi - 9/28/10
Activision brings out it's very successful
Dead Rising 2 - Multi - 9/28/10
Now here's one that I'm really looking forward to. I loved the original Dead Rising game because I love to kill me some zombies. Was it a perfect game? Hell no. Capcom has learned many of its mistakes from the previous game and is bringing this one to some very eager fans. You play as Chuck Greene, a motocross champion who gets caught in Fortune City just in time for the next zombie outbreak. The selling point this time around is the ability to combine items to create bigger more awesome ways to kill zombies. Strap chainsaws onto a bike and tear through a crowd or combine a gun and a teddy bear and create a sentry to guard important points. I can't wait for this one.
Final Fantasy XIV - PC - 9/30/10
It wouldn't be right if I didn't write about Final Fantasy XIV coming out at the end of September. This is SquareEnix's latest offering to the MMO crowd and as somebody who played Final Fantasy XI and loves the series, I'm not really even thinking about this one. The Final Fantasy MMO universe prides itself on its difficulty and it's hard to recommend that anybody try out an MMO that isn't World of Warcraft. In any case, its worth keeping an eye on, especially now that they're showing off all of the stuff that players will be seeing in the game.
Alright, that's it for September. These brave games have stepped out as the front line soldiers this fall, and I salute all of them. Even if I they're not in my "must buy" list, these are the games to watch this fall and see what kind of ripples they'll create in the gaming community. Looking forward, September has nothing on October. We'll see you in a month to discuss what's coming up.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
3D Dot Game Heroes - Review
I remember back when I was but a lad of seven or eight, and my mom had taken me to Blockbuster Video to rent movies and a game for me. I looked up and down the aisles, but couldn't decide on what one to pick. My mom, seeing my indecisiveness, picked up a gold box and asked "What about this one?". I took it home and became a life long fan of The Legend of Zelda.
So it was with great interest to me when I saw that a new imagining of Zelda was coming to the PS3. I went out and picked it up for a very modest cost of $40, took it home, and played. It brought me back to a time where games were simpler. Where you would adventure out into an unknown world and try to find what was out there, and 3D Dot Game Heroes has quite a bit out there for those willing to look for it.
The graphics are presented in a "what if 8 bit graphics were done in 3D" manner, and makes no attempts to hide this fact. 3D Dot Game Heroes actually is very self referential in terms of graphics, story, other games that the company has put out, and even the designers themselves have a cave that they work out of. It's all done in a very campy manner that throws back to the way old games played.
I suppose my greatest complaint though would be how it may have gone back too much to how video games used to play. It doesn't do a very good job of guiding you around the many many side quests that you can undertake. Maybe this is a reference to the olden days where you needed a copy of Nintendo Power next to you to figure out concepts, but I'm a firm believer that games need to stand on their own and not need somebody else to write up an FAQ about it. If you don't find certain secrets, you get to the end, kill a succubus clone of the princess, and finish the last boss off. Maybe I missed some old lady tell me what I needed to do, but it should shine out there a little bit brighter if it's that important.
I felt that the overworld design was kinda crappy in that it only allowed you to explore certain parts without special equipment. I know that this is pretty much par for the course, especially when villages get involved, but in this game, if you don't hit certain elements in time, you can't go back and do them. In this case I wish they would have thrown back to the original Zelda where you could go find Death Mountain before completing level 1.
The dungeon design on the other hand felt familiar, but had enough tricks to keep me going. The same monsters appearing over and over was a bit batty though, and I wished they would have put more diversity in them. If I need to cast reflect one more time to finish off all the spell casters in a room, I think I'll go nuts. The bosses at the end of the dungeons felt easy for the most part, and except for a couple, were completely forgettable.
In the end, if you enjoyed the top down view Zelda games, especially The Legend of Zelda and A Link to the Past, you're going to have a good time with this. Though I might recommend having that FAQ next to you while you're playing so you get the most out of it. It's not a hard game, but there's just too much out there that you can look over, and the game makes no attempt to steer you where you need to go.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
What's Wrong in Gaming - Exclusives
As a gamer, I, like many of you, have noticed a trend in all types of gaming for companies to make exclusive offers to their customers, depending on what store you go to, how quickly you sign up for something, or even what convention you attend. Some people see it as merely an item to show off, a golden gun or a reskinned car, for example. But some exclusives are going past just something fancy, many are now adding additional gameplay elements that are making some people have to pick sides or even have to shell out some real money to participate in.
The companies do this for several reasons. It gets people to pre-order their game, giving them an idea of how many they will sell, it allows them to generate extra revenue by signing exclusive deals with chain stores, and even generates some buzz about their game. Who would wait to pick up something from their local store if they can get it right here and now and they'll toss in five new quests that you can only get through them? It's these types of bonuses in which the problem lies.
When game companies add things that enhance the play experience for some people, but leave others out in the dark, they're shifting how the game is experienced by everybody. Some players may have a chainsaw weapon right from the start while others will never be able to use it because it will never be offered to them since they shop at Best Buy instead of GameStop. Some players will get to play as Darth Vader in Soul Caliber 4, some players will get to play with Yoda, two different fighting styles to learn to play and play against. What determines which one you get? If you own a PS3 or if you own an Xbox 360.
Here's a particularly harsh case of choosing sides: Batman: Arkham Asylum.
As you can see by the tiny little sticker on it there, you can "Play as the Joker" in PS3 exclusive content. That's a jerk move by Eidos right there. Those who have both consoles would have to choose between achievements on their gamertag, or play an extra little bit of an already fantastic game as the primary villain. If you didn't own both consoles and just own a far cheaper and more accessible (at the time) Xbox 360, you were screwed without any kind of special offer of your own. But why should there even be a special offer? Isn't there a problem that some people are allowed to play something extra because they picked a different side?
Video games are not the only case where promotional offers are made. Card and board games also have game companies that will release certain items that you only have one shot to get, and if you can't get it, then you either can't play with it, or have to shell out a lot of cash to be able to get them.
One of the easiest games for me to demonstrate this is a non-collectible card game called "Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot". The Blue base set which includes the first expansion, consists of 165 cards and all the dice and bits that you need to play the game with can be found online for about $20 with shipping, and each expansion can be found for $10 - $15 dollars, each consisting of about 55 cards. The whole set can be had at retail price for about $180, which isn't bad for a ten set expansion. The problem comes in with the promos. A current search on ebay shows these prices:
That's just three cards, and the auctions all have more than two days left on them, and they all have bids. So for the price of an entire ~600 card set, you can get three convention exclusives. They don't change the game, they merely enhance it. They were given away for free at various conventions, but because of the secondary market, if somebody wants one of these, they have to pay extremely high prices.
Why would a company create cards and not release them to all of their fans? They could even make a collection of these promos and sell it in another set, but instead they have created a secondary market that has become so ludicrous that I know of people who visit the Playroom booth over and over to get more of these promotional cards and sell them at nothing but profit.
There's several other companies that will do this, Heroscape has had several promotional pieces that have been handed out at conventions that were available nowhere else. When Last Night on Earth first debuted at GenCon, they offered additional missions for anybody who could refer 5 people to buy a copy of the game. I personally just paid for a full set of Dominion promotional cards that have spiced up play a bit. All of these items that were free for the people who happen to be where they're given away now sell for big bucks on eBay and that's a problem.
I know I have the ears of some game companies now, and I plead with you, do not continue to do this to your fans. Create special packs of these items that you can sell in stores, make sure that all sides of the console wars are treated fairly, find some way to make sure that ALL of your customers and fans are getting to enjoy your game the same way everyone else gets to. The loyalty you can gain from us gamers can hit fanatic levels, and this is great way to help us reach that kind of devotion.
The companies do this for several reasons. It gets people to pre-order their game, giving them an idea of how many they will sell, it allows them to generate extra revenue by signing exclusive deals with chain stores, and even generates some buzz about their game. Who would wait to pick up something from their local store if they can get it right here and now and they'll toss in five new quests that you can only get through them? It's these types of bonuses in which the problem lies.
When game companies add things that enhance the play experience for some people, but leave others out in the dark, they're shifting how the game is experienced by everybody. Some players may have a chainsaw weapon right from the start while others will never be able to use it because it will never be offered to them since they shop at Best Buy instead of GameStop. Some players will get to play as Darth Vader in Soul Caliber 4, some players will get to play with Yoda, two different fighting styles to learn to play and play against. What determines which one you get? If you own a PS3 or if you own an Xbox 360.
Here's a particularly harsh case of choosing sides: Batman: Arkham Asylum.
As you can see by the tiny little sticker on it there, you can "Play as the Joker" in PS3 exclusive content. That's a jerk move by Eidos right there. Those who have both consoles would have to choose between achievements on their gamertag, or play an extra little bit of an already fantastic game as the primary villain. If you didn't own both consoles and just own a far cheaper and more accessible (at the time) Xbox 360, you were screwed without any kind of special offer of your own. But why should there even be a special offer? Isn't there a problem that some people are allowed to play something extra because they picked a different side?
Video games are not the only case where promotional offers are made. Card and board games also have game companies that will release certain items that you only have one shot to get, and if you can't get it, then you either can't play with it, or have to shell out a lot of cash to be able to get them.
One of the easiest games for me to demonstrate this is a non-collectible card game called "Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot". The Blue base set which includes the first expansion, consists of 165 cards and all the dice and bits that you need to play the game with can be found online for about $20 with shipping, and each expansion can be found for $10 - $15 dollars, each consisting of about 55 cards. The whole set can be had at retail price for about $180, which isn't bad for a ten set expansion. The problem comes in with the promos. A current search on ebay shows these prices:
 |
| Omega 03 - Go With the Flo - Current Bid - $98.00 |
 |
| Omega 04 - The Conch - $78.00 |
 |
| PSI 05 - Pucker Up - $51.00 |
That's just three cards, and the auctions all have more than two days left on them, and they all have bids. So for the price of an entire ~600 card set, you can get three convention exclusives. They don't change the game, they merely enhance it. They were given away for free at various conventions, but because of the secondary market, if somebody wants one of these, they have to pay extremely high prices.
Why would a company create cards and not release them to all of their fans? They could even make a collection of these promos and sell it in another set, but instead they have created a secondary market that has become so ludicrous that I know of people who visit the Playroom booth over and over to get more of these promotional cards and sell them at nothing but profit.
There's several other companies that will do this, Heroscape has had several promotional pieces that have been handed out at conventions that were available nowhere else. When Last Night on Earth first debuted at GenCon, they offered additional missions for anybody who could refer 5 people to buy a copy of the game. I personally just paid for a full set of Dominion promotional cards that have spiced up play a bit. All of these items that were free for the people who happen to be where they're given away now sell for big bucks on eBay and that's a problem.
I know I have the ears of some game companies now, and I plead with you, do not continue to do this to your fans. Create special packs of these items that you can sell in stores, make sure that all sides of the console wars are treated fairly, find some way to make sure that ALL of your customers and fans are getting to enjoy your game the same way everyone else gets to. The loyalty you can gain from us gamers can hit fanatic levels, and this is great way to help us reach that kind of devotion.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Quitting WoW
I've written a little bit about this before, but I've been planning on quitting World of Warcraft since last December, and have finally let the account expire, despite not meeting my goal of defeating the Lich King.
I've been burning out on WoW for well over a year now, and looking at my guild's progression in the game, it was going to take longer than I wanted it to to finish it all up. So one day, I looked when my account was due to expire, and it was coming up in a little over a month, so I decided to do the rational thing and cancel it.
So why the burn out? Why quit when we're so close to our goal? Well, there's a lot of reasons for this, but the one that comes to the forefront is that playing World of Warcraft in a raiding guild is like having a job that you pay to be at. Sure, you can enjoy the people you're at work with, but you kinda have to be there, or else they won't be able to progress further in the game because they'll be short handed.
And boy, were we short handed. Burn out was more than evident, many times we would have less than 20 people on for the raid start. Several times we've had to all out cancel the raid because there wasn't enough people online.
So here I was, committing ~10 hours of time to scheduled WoW a week, which made me have to reschedule other things for other times in the week, leaving me less time to relax and play other games, and then I'd show up and there wouldn't be enough people to play with. You can clearly see how I began to think of this as a waste of time.
I can't really blame people for not showing up, though. When we did have a full raid (or as close to it as we dared to try), people weren't paying attention all the time, and vent would be filled with inane chatter. People would be asking in raid how to maximize their dps or what skills they should be using or talenting for, things that should have been taken care of well before stepping into the instance. Tanks would have connection problems, healers would be dead, and dps would be standing in stuff. All of this sloppyness lead to frustration and people not showing up.
The only thing that kept me going were the friends that I had made in the guild. I enjoyed coming online and talking with them about whatever weird stuff was going on while we were pulling trash mobs. There were some great conversations over the two years that I was with them, and that's the thing that I'm really going to miss.
So I let the guild leaders know of my decision, finished off raiding until the account expired, ordered my figure print, and spent the next would be raiding night at GenCon instead. I'm going to miss a lot of those guys, and yeah, sometimes I feel the urge to just hop on to check things out, but I know I'm just going to be going back to an abusive relationship. WoW, baby, sometimes you treat me right, but I can only grind on so long before we're through.
 | |
| You got me this time, but I win in the end |
I've been burning out on WoW for well over a year now, and looking at my guild's progression in the game, it was going to take longer than I wanted it to to finish it all up. So one day, I looked when my account was due to expire, and it was coming up in a little over a month, so I decided to do the rational thing and cancel it.
So why the burn out? Why quit when we're so close to our goal? Well, there's a lot of reasons for this, but the one that comes to the forefront is that playing World of Warcraft in a raiding guild is like having a job that you pay to be at. Sure, you can enjoy the people you're at work with, but you kinda have to be there, or else they won't be able to progress further in the game because they'll be short handed.
And boy, were we short handed. Burn out was more than evident, many times we would have less than 20 people on for the raid start. Several times we've had to all out cancel the raid because there wasn't enough people online.
So here I was, committing ~10 hours of time to scheduled WoW a week, which made me have to reschedule other things for other times in the week, leaving me less time to relax and play other games, and then I'd show up and there wouldn't be enough people to play with. You can clearly see how I began to think of this as a waste of time.
I can't really blame people for not showing up, though. When we did have a full raid (or as close to it as we dared to try), people weren't paying attention all the time, and vent would be filled with inane chatter. People would be asking in raid how to maximize their dps or what skills they should be using or talenting for, things that should have been taken care of well before stepping into the instance. Tanks would have connection problems, healers would be dead, and dps would be standing in stuff. All of this sloppyness lead to frustration and people not showing up.
The only thing that kept me going were the friends that I had made in the guild. I enjoyed coming online and talking with them about whatever weird stuff was going on while we were pulling trash mobs. There were some great conversations over the two years that I was with them, and that's the thing that I'm really going to miss.
So I let the guild leaders know of my decision, finished off raiding until the account expired, ordered my figure print, and spent the next would be raiding night at GenCon instead. I'm going to miss a lot of those guys, and yeah, sometimes I feel the urge to just hop on to check things out, but I know I'm just going to be going back to an abusive relationship. WoW, baby, sometimes you treat me right, but I can only grind on so long before we're through.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Everybody Experiences GenCon Differently - 2010 Edition
I've said it multiple times over the past two weeks, but everybody experiences GenCon differently. In watching my group of friends and followers, it had never been more apparent to me how true this was. My different friends all had different agendas and different goals, and therefore had different experiences. Now, it's impossible for me to tell you what everyone went through, but I have a few ideas that I hope that some people don't mind, as well as my own personal experiences from this year that I'll share.
My wife and I spent most of the time working on blog stuff, either directly or indirectly. She always wanted to do the Cheese Weasel ConQuest, and I saw it as a great excuse to get out there and talk to the dealers and game makers. I thought I did a really great job in speaking with these people and to draw out their passion for gaming, but I did a really bad job at promoting myself and giving out those business cards that I had printed up. I just introduced myself as a con goer who was interested in hearing what they had to say about their games and products, and only a couple times was able to say "Yup, I'm Video of Video, Gaming at 30, and I'm going to post about this on my blog, here's my card." Hopefully, I get better at that.
A friend of mine had never experienced GenCon before and spent the bulk of time gaming in the card hall. His experience was that GenCon is a huge tournament hall where there's always another game to be played. I would see him go to matches at 9pm and come in at 3am, weary from the day of gaming. He missed the experience that my wife and I had about going up to these game makers and demoing their games, but had a great time anyway.
Another friend who was a newcomer to GenCon started off his GenCon experience by being killed by another player in a game of D&D. He then went to the hall, ran into my wife and I, and soon departed off to his next event. He also bailed on our True Dungeon run, leaving us short a player, because he had scheduled another event to take place at the same time. From what I saw, he didn't have a good time at all, and left the con on Saturday afternoon instead of Sunday. I wonder what other problems he ran into, and remember when I was first at GenCon essentially by myself, and remember what a social setting this is, and that you have to give and take with friends to get the most out of it.
I had some personal problems of my own. One night I was very frustrated with trying to get up all the day's updates with a poor internet connection and just couldn't get anything done. I felt that I needed to get everything up and ready and posted before somebody beat me with one of my own stories and that nobody understood how important this all was to me. Once I simmered down and potentially pissed off a couple of friends, I got up what I could and then went out for my favorite dinner of the con, wings and beer at Buffalo Wild Wings.
Speaking of dinners, another friend set out on his quest to get every die from Scotty's Brewhouse and otherwise have great eating the entire con. He played in some games as well, sure, and ran around a bit on the con floor, but I didn't hear about any of that. All I heard about was going to Scotty's, going to the Ram, going to the Weber Grill.. I wonder what else he did there.
A couple of my followers spent the con working and doing interviews and blog reporting. I saw them a few times, but they always looked so busy with what they were doing that I didn't want to interrupt. I did get my free die from @sagesofrpg, since we happened to both be going to the True Dungeon Riddle Reveal on Sunday, but I missed a lot of others. Others were involved in the setup and tear down of the events (specifically True Dungeon), so I wonder what else they were able to do while they were there.
Another friend spent the con looking at it as a money making opportunity. He would go around to the booths that offered free promos and collect as many as he could. He would get upset that his time was wasted in tournaments that he was performing poorly in, which just led to more frustrations and declaration that GenCon was CrapCon. He too bailed out on us at True Dungeon, because he had a PTQ, but for some reason I understood this one. He did pretty bad in the tournament, and overall didn't have all that great of a time. I think he put too much pressure on himself and forgot that games are supposed to be fun.
As for me, I played a lot of different games, got to learn some ones that I had meant to learn how to play, met some new people, and all in all had a pretty good time. Sure, there were some really frustrating moments out there, but there were some really good ones, too. I didn't get to play in any of the Magic events that I wanted to, but I discovered a whole new game in its place. I got some new readership for the site, and took my first steps in writing about something that I love.
GenCon is just a venue. It's a place for gamers of all types to come out and do what they love to do, play games! What makes GenCon is the people, and the interaction that people have with each other. Sure, there's some real ass hats out there, but the overall awesomeness of people overshadows all of it. All of those people had their own experiences, and everybody has some sort of horror story to tell, but their awesome stories will totally overshadow it. Everybody experiences GenCon differently. How was yours?
My wife and I spent most of the time working on blog stuff, either directly or indirectly. She always wanted to do the Cheese Weasel ConQuest, and I saw it as a great excuse to get out there and talk to the dealers and game makers. I thought I did a really great job in speaking with these people and to draw out their passion for gaming, but I did a really bad job at promoting myself and giving out those business cards that I had printed up. I just introduced myself as a con goer who was interested in hearing what they had to say about their games and products, and only a couple times was able to say "Yup, I'm Video of Video, Gaming at 30, and I'm going to post about this on my blog, here's my card." Hopefully, I get better at that.
A friend of mine had never experienced GenCon before and spent the bulk of time gaming in the card hall. His experience was that GenCon is a huge tournament hall where there's always another game to be played. I would see him go to matches at 9pm and come in at 3am, weary from the day of gaming. He missed the experience that my wife and I had about going up to these game makers and demoing their games, but had a great time anyway.
Another friend who was a newcomer to GenCon started off his GenCon experience by being killed by another player in a game of D&D. He then went to the hall, ran into my wife and I, and soon departed off to his next event. He also bailed on our True Dungeon run, leaving us short a player, because he had scheduled another event to take place at the same time. From what I saw, he didn't have a good time at all, and left the con on Saturday afternoon instead of Sunday. I wonder what other problems he ran into, and remember when I was first at GenCon essentially by myself, and remember what a social setting this is, and that you have to give and take with friends to get the most out of it.
I had some personal problems of my own. One night I was very frustrated with trying to get up all the day's updates with a poor internet connection and just couldn't get anything done. I felt that I needed to get everything up and ready and posted before somebody beat me with one of my own stories and that nobody understood how important this all was to me. Once I simmered down and potentially pissed off a couple of friends, I got up what I could and then went out for my favorite dinner of the con, wings and beer at Buffalo Wild Wings.
Speaking of dinners, another friend set out on his quest to get every die from Scotty's Brewhouse and otherwise have great eating the entire con. He played in some games as well, sure, and ran around a bit on the con floor, but I didn't hear about any of that. All I heard about was going to Scotty's, going to the Ram, going to the Weber Grill.. I wonder what else he did there.
A couple of my followers spent the con working and doing interviews and blog reporting. I saw them a few times, but they always looked so busy with what they were doing that I didn't want to interrupt. I did get my free die from @sagesofrpg, since we happened to both be going to the True Dungeon Riddle Reveal on Sunday, but I missed a lot of others. Others were involved in the setup and tear down of the events (specifically True Dungeon), so I wonder what else they were able to do while they were there.
Another friend spent the con looking at it as a money making opportunity. He would go around to the booths that offered free promos and collect as many as he could. He would get upset that his time was wasted in tournaments that he was performing poorly in, which just led to more frustrations and declaration that GenCon was CrapCon. He too bailed out on us at True Dungeon, because he had a PTQ, but for some reason I understood this one. He did pretty bad in the tournament, and overall didn't have all that great of a time. I think he put too much pressure on himself and forgot that games are supposed to be fun.
As for me, I played a lot of different games, got to learn some ones that I had meant to learn how to play, met some new people, and all in all had a pretty good time. Sure, there were some really frustrating moments out there, but there were some really good ones, too. I didn't get to play in any of the Magic events that I wanted to, but I discovered a whole new game in its place. I got some new readership for the site, and took my first steps in writing about something that I love.
GenCon is just a venue. It's a place for gamers of all types to come out and do what they love to do, play games! What makes GenCon is the people, and the interaction that people have with each other. Sure, there's some real ass hats out there, but the overall awesomeness of people overshadows all of it. All of those people had their own experiences, and everybody has some sort of horror story to tell, but their awesome stories will totally overshadow it. Everybody experiences GenCon differently. How was yours?
Monday, August 9, 2010
Castlevania Harmony of Despair - Review
On my last day of my GenCon vacation, I picked up Castlevania Harmony of Despair to spend the day playing some multiplayer Castlevania. I'm not one to usually get into multiplayer games on Xbox Live, and this game reminds me why. To take a concept as fun and pure as the "Metroidvania" series and distill it down to this is a crime in itself, but to throw in an extremely bigoted multiplayer system is downright wrong.
Let me explain. Castlevania HD is a fun game in which you have 30 minutes to get from the start of the level to the boss' death. Along the way you'll pick up equipment and level up your off weapon abilities and die. Alot. This is not a single player experience. With some practice and some hand me down equipment, sure, you can make it through the early levels by yourself, but past that, you're going to need some help.
That's where the multiplayer component comes in. You can have up to six people in a game all try to work together and beat the (ramped up) boss. I didn't have a lot of problems while I was playing, in fact it was a lot of fun. The problem was actually getting a group together. The game doesn't allow you to join games in progress, so, no hopping into my friend's game, and it doesn't allow you to setup the game specifications past "only take players from my country" until you have everyone in a group. What happens then is people get kicked out for not having achievements associated with beating the game, or you get a new player who is starting up get paired with players who want level 6 on hard mode. Of course, when you start the game on level anything else, they all quit leaving you to have to start up another whole new group and hope you don't get caught again.
The interface is not slick at all. You can't equip items outside of games, the looped music and page turning graphics and noise while trying to find a group gets more annoying every time I try, and there's no instructions on how to use any character, only vague bits that don't tell you what they reference to (martial arts instructions, for example). I had some problems with the game freezing up while looking for group, and another player told me of his experiences with the game crashing when the map comes up in multiplayer. These are not the hallmarks of a good game.
I think this game can be salvaged with some heavy patching. I did have a lot of fun when I was paired with players my own skill level and I still keep trying to join up with groups (thankfully I was able to beat Dracula on normal tonight, so I'm getting kicked out less). What really needs to happen is that some kind of searchable lobby needs to be implemented allowing players to post up what level they want to do, and what difficulty they want to do it on, and then let players join in from there. Also, we need some in game explanations on how things work. Why is my Alucard's store better than my Soma's, is it because he has beaten normal mode, or is it because he has killed more monsters? Why can I hand down some gear, but not others? Is there a behind the scenes leveling system? The game doesn't explain any of it.
Is this one worth picking up? Ehh.. maybe. If you like Castlevania games and want to play quick pick up games, then yeah. It reminded me a lot of doing a pick up dungeon in World of Warcraft. Sometimes you get paired into a group that's overpowered, and sometimes you get sent off to the Oculus and everybody drops. I'm going to keep playing it for now, but I'm not sure how much longer my patience can last with it.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
GenCon Day 3 - True Dungeon
Today we spent this afternoon inside of True Dungeon, a semi live action role play environment in which players experience a room to room adventure composing of puzzles and combat with monsters.
In order to brave the challenges that you'll be presented with, you'll need some gear. While you're given a random pack of tokens when you're about to start, anybody who follows the game will have ordered their own packs (often hundreds of dollars worth) months in advance to have a better chance. The money then goes towards building better sets and props, but creates a nasty difficulty curve that they've recently begun to address.
Combat is performed by taking these treasure tokens and sliding them across a game board towards the silhouette of your target with various numbers on it representing weak points. The sliding is best compared to shuffleboard miniaturized to a table. The strongest monsters will often have extremely hard to hit weak points, adding difficulty to the encounter.
Puzzles are often clever, some involving pure mind work while others require some physical work. It's hard to describe what they've come up with over the years, but they often are physical versions of some smaller puzzles that I've worked with over the years. This year we had to physically move a labyrinth table, for example.
The monsters in the past few years have been played by live action actors to bring you even more into the story. Over the years we've been confronted with Moss monsters, Medusas, Golems, and various demons. This year had a gelatinous cube and a frost demon, along with the dragon Smoak.
The Frost Demon was worthless without her morning coffeeSo this year we were down a party member, having our group of five, and then two others who joined up with us who weren't geared at all besides what was given to them at the start. We lent them a few pieces of our gear to keep us alive because we knew that we were going up against a dragon, and ventured on.
We went from room to room, feeling that even though we thought we were on the equivalent of the combat side, we were running into more puzzles than monsters. By the time we had made it to the final room, we had counted 2 combats and 4 puzzles. Maybe we were expecting too much, but when we signed up for the non "puzzle oriented" adventure, we figured we'd have some more combat.
The dragon fight itself was amazing to see, but we stood no chance at all. We're not exactly slouches when it comes to gear, having many epic level items in the party and those that aren't are filled with rares, but each hit we took from the dragon was more than enough to kill any player at full health. My hats off to anybody who managed to kill Smoak, because we got devoured.
I've written quite negatively in the past about the way treasure was handled, with players often receiving the most common of items pull after pull after pull. They have since discovered some problems with leavng extremely valuable tokens unwatched, and have moved to a system where you draw all of your treasure at the end. This worked great for us, pulling a few rare items and several ingredient tokens. We did pull a common token, but compared to what we've pulled in prior years, we felt like we got some great stuff.
So despite getting Smoak'd, our party had a pretty good time this year. The balance between puzzles and combat really needs more tweaking, but they've fixed many of the problems we'd run into in previous years. I can't wait to see what Jeff Martin has in store for us next year, but I really hope that they turn down the difficulty level of the Draco-Lich that we're undoubtedly going to see. There's nothing wrong with letting some people beat the last boss, after all.
Friday, August 6, 2010
GenCon - Day 2
GenCon - Day 2
Day 2 of GenCon has come and gone, marking the half way point of the convention. The wife and I set out with the plan to finish up our Cheese Weasel con-quest, and made extra efforts to speak with the people at all the booths we attended. Here's some games and systems that really stood out for us.
Filsinger Games - Champions of the Galaxy
When first walking up to the booth, we saw this to be a game about wrestling. These have never caught my eye before, but for journalism and my own (non existent) cred as a game reviewer, we went up and asked for a demo. The next 15 minutes were by far the most fun I had playing anything at the con. Champions of the Galaxy captures wrestling's essence, and presents it in a very well designed very well thought out, very FUN game. You pick a character, either based on an actual wrestling legend, or a fictional one created by the designers depending on what system you're playing under, and proceed to roll dice against another wrestler while referencing tables for what kind of move was performed, and how much, if at all, it hurt. Momentum carries through the match but things can quickly turn around leading to fantastic upsets. Go seek this one out and give it a try, and tell them we sent you over. www.cotgonline.com
K Studio
If you want a graphic way to represent something in your game, you can commision K Studio to create works of art for you. They seem to specialize in creating character portraits, but stressed to me that they also do things like environments, space ships, creatures, basically anything that you can describe to them. After filling out a description sheet, they will email you to let you know they have begun working on it, and in 7 - 14 days and a very low fee of $30, you'll have your very own digitally created representation. Some of their work was very impressive, while others looked a little off in their facial features. Swing by and check them out.
Lone Wolf Development - Army Builder / Card Vault
I wanted to like these guys. Their software looks very slick, and what they show looks very impressive. But after speaking with one of their staff running a demo machine, it became apparent that some of their databases were running behind and they didn't know a whole lot about the games they were advertising as being supported. We asked specifically about Magic: The Gathering and Warmachine for the two programs, two of which we are very familiar with. They admitted to me that the person who creates the Warmachine database was behind on his entry, so it was not up to date. We weren't able to get a clear answer as to how out of date it was, but they didn't seem happy about it. They told us that MTG could potentially be updated within hours of being made public information, but weren't able to tell me how quickly the last set was updated because they didn't work on that particular game. From what I saw, it takes a lot of setup to teach the program what can and can't be included in an army, and they weren't able to tell me what kind of rules were already setup in the program. Basically, if you already have something out there that does this all for you, there's no reason to even check these people out. Stay away.
D20 Pro - Gaming Software
These guys, on the other side of the booth, knew exactly what they were talking about and put on a very neat demo of combat for us in their GM / Player Interface software. The software allows a GM to take a picture (say, from Google Earth, or a scanned map or anything), lay a customizable grid on top of it, place monsters that are pre-programmed into the game from the D&D 3.5 Monster Manual, and then allow players to connect and interact with his world. The setup process didn't look all that bad, and the software handles all the numbers for you once you get them setup. If you're looking for something to run an adventure on and be in a computer enviornment with your players (say, to play over the internet), check these guys out at www.d20pro.com.
Table Top Adventures
Speaking of DM tools, we also found Tabletop Adventures, a company that makes its living by helping game masters with all the little details, literally. They put out books that have descriptions of various locales such as dungeon rooms, cities, taverns, and caves, providing a better atmosphere to bring your players deeper into your story. Instead of walking down a dimly lit corridor, Tabletop Adventures adds rotting carpets growing with pungent mildew, adding something your players can imagine to smell, drawing them in. They had materials available in both book and digital formats, and even soundtracks to add a bustling city to the background. Visit their side at www.tabletopadventures.com.
That's all for tonight, folks. Tomorrow We'll be delving into True Dungeon and hope to check out a few of the Saturday events, so check back in with us here and on Twitter @videogamingat30 to see the latest neat stuff we find. Happy Gaming!
Day 2 of GenCon has come and gone, marking the half way point of the convention. The wife and I set out with the plan to finish up our Cheese Weasel con-quest, and made extra efforts to speak with the people at all the booths we attended. Here's some games and systems that really stood out for us.
Filsinger Games - Champions of the Galaxy
When first walking up to the booth, we saw this to be a game about wrestling. These have never caught my eye before, but for journalism and my own (non existent) cred as a game reviewer, we went up and asked for a demo. The next 15 minutes were by far the most fun I had playing anything at the con. Champions of the Galaxy captures wrestling's essence, and presents it in a very well designed very well thought out, very FUN game. You pick a character, either based on an actual wrestling legend, or a fictional one created by the designers depending on what system you're playing under, and proceed to roll dice against another wrestler while referencing tables for what kind of move was performed, and how much, if at all, it hurt. Momentum carries through the match but things can quickly turn around leading to fantastic upsets. Go seek this one out and give it a try, and tell them we sent you over. www.cotgonline.com
K Studio
If you want a graphic way to represent something in your game, you can commision K Studio to create works of art for you. They seem to specialize in creating character portraits, but stressed to me that they also do things like environments, space ships, creatures, basically anything that you can describe to them. After filling out a description sheet, they will email you to let you know they have begun working on it, and in 7 - 14 days and a very low fee of $30, you'll have your very own digitally created representation. Some of their work was very impressive, while others looked a little off in their facial features. Swing by and check them out.
Lone Wolf Development - Army Builder / Card Vault
I wanted to like these guys. Their software looks very slick, and what they show looks very impressive. But after speaking with one of their staff running a demo machine, it became apparent that some of their databases were running behind and they didn't know a whole lot about the games they were advertising as being supported. We asked specifically about Magic: The Gathering and Warmachine for the two programs, two of which we are very familiar with. They admitted to me that the person who creates the Warmachine database was behind on his entry, so it was not up to date. We weren't able to get a clear answer as to how out of date it was, but they didn't seem happy about it. They told us that MTG could potentially be updated within hours of being made public information, but weren't able to tell me how quickly the last set was updated because they didn't work on that particular game. From what I saw, it takes a lot of setup to teach the program what can and can't be included in an army, and they weren't able to tell me what kind of rules were already setup in the program. Basically, if you already have something out there that does this all for you, there's no reason to even check these people out. Stay away.
D20 Pro - Gaming Software
These guys, on the other side of the booth, knew exactly what they were talking about and put on a very neat demo of combat for us in their GM / Player Interface software. The software allows a GM to take a picture (say, from Google Earth, or a scanned map or anything), lay a customizable grid on top of it, place monsters that are pre-programmed into the game from the D&D 3.5 Monster Manual, and then allow players to connect and interact with his world. The setup process didn't look all that bad, and the software handles all the numbers for you once you get them setup. If you're looking for something to run an adventure on and be in a computer enviornment with your players (say, to play over the internet), check these guys out at www.d20pro.com.
Table Top Adventures
Speaking of DM tools, we also found Tabletop Adventures, a company that makes its living by helping game masters with all the little details, literally. They put out books that have descriptions of various locales such as dungeon rooms, cities, taverns, and caves, providing a better atmosphere to bring your players deeper into your story. Instead of walking down a dimly lit corridor, Tabletop Adventures adds rotting carpets growing with pungent mildew, adding something your players can imagine to smell, drawing them in. They had materials available in both book and digital formats, and even soundtracks to add a bustling city to the background. Visit their side at www.tabletopadventures.com.
That's all for tonight, folks. Tomorrow We'll be delving into True Dungeon and hope to check out a few of the Saturday events, so check back in with us here and on Twitter @videogamingat30 to see the latest neat stuff we find. Happy Gaming!
Thursday, August 5, 2010
GenCon on the Floor - Day 1
I've just gotten back to the hotel room after taking on the Exhibit Hall from the opening ceremony to the close of buisness, and only got through a small portion of what I wanted to try out. I got to meet up with several companies and talk to them about their games, and even on the first day, you can tell who's passionate about their games and who's already worn out. Here's what we checked out today:
Opening Ceremony
Geek Chic
Right at the opening doors, Geek Chic was showing off their very impressive display of tables, including a small table with a built in multi touch display that they said Microsoft Surface couldn't do. It looked like it was based on a projector underneith it based on the picture quality (it was a bit fuzzy), but seemed to work great. I watched them zoom around a map, and move icons representing game characters around it and tracked their progress. Very impressive. They didn't have any kind of price tag on it though, from the sounds of it, they got ther thing together last night, so consider this a very early version of it.
Smirk and Dagger - Cuthroat Caverns
We sat down to play this game first, because I'm a sucker for any game that takes place in a dungeon. Players choose from a variety of heroes (that gain special abilities with later expansions) to get back out of a dungeon after claiming its almighty prize. There was only one, so the goal is to have the highest amount of prestige when you're done fighting through the monsters. And they're tough, while we were able to combo some attacks to take them down quickly, most will run a few rounds of combat. You draw cards that allow you to attack your enemies, boost your abiltities, or mess with your friends. We really liked this one, but were wary of the number of expansions that were out for it. We'll probably be picking this up tomorrow.
Castle Panic
Castle Panic is a cooperative game that allows players to work together to defend a castle in the center of the gameboard from an army of monsters attacking from the forest. Monsters move up and try to break down the walls, then the towers, but can be felled by various cards that work in different game zones. We didn't get to sit down and play this one, but the run down was very informative and gave me a real feel for the game. I'd like to head back tomorrow and check it out, especially while they still have scratch and dent copies of the game going for $20 (opposed to $35).
Posthuman Studios - Eclipse Phase
We spoke with two representatives of Posthuman Studious about their free RPG system called Eclipse Phase. Conceptually, it's a sci-fi genre in which consciousness can be shifted between bodies, enabling you to take on new abilities to get whatever job you need done done, but also allowing your character to never truly die, as your concious can be shifted and backed up. All the materials are open and free to download at their website www.eclipsephase.com. I'm really not doing enough justice to this game, so check it out if you're interested in a percentile based role play system where you can play as a gun toting octopus.
Wildfire - Cthulhu Tech
Another sci-fi role play system, Cthulhu Tech is set in 2085 with humans on the verge of extinction after discovering limitless sources of energy from portals, allowing monsters to come forth. An alien race has watched humanity stumble over this power and believe they need to be checked, all while their own government claims to have everything under control. The creator I spoke with about this was so passionate about this license and had so many great ideas about how stories could be written into the events that are unfolding from their expansion books, it really made me want to give it a try. Check out cthulhutech.com for all the information on this very diverse series.
Iron Dice Products - Iron Die
There wasn't much to check out at this booth, but it was drawing quite the crowd. In fact, the starter sets for the game completely sold out within three hours. I only got to check out a little bit about this game, but Jeffrey Lee, the representative at the booth, sure did know his stuff about the game. From what I was able to gather from the information at the table and speaking with Jeffrey, it's essentially a semi-collectable constructed dice rolling game in which you build a dice pool and then challenge other players with them. It uses the laws of averages to balance itself as gameplay, but there seems to be a deeper level of strategy behind it. He encouraged anybody interested to check out Board Game Geek for information, and their website, www.greatdice.com. The dice are beutiful, but from I saw, pretty darn expensive. Keep an eye on this one to see how far they can take it.
Crystal Tower Games - Sub Heroes
This is a family oriented game in which players build sandwhiches according to "quests" they draw from a deck. There's varying degrees of success to the sandwhich, if you have the first three ingredients on the quest card, you score 3 points, if you manage the next 2 as well, you get 5 points, and if you can finish the full sandwhich with another 2 ingredients, you'll get 7 points. First player to 21 points wins, but watch out as your opponents can steal ingredients or completely trash your whole sandwhich. I wasn't super impressed by this, but it was a little fun, they clearly tried to spice it up a little bit by having titles under the ingredients like "black belt olive" or the "provolone ranger". I think they should reskin this game to take their quest idea to a whole new level. Send a character on a quest and let him complete certain goals along the way for more points. Got a horse, saved the princess, and brought her back? 3 points. Slayed the dragon and found the treasure? 5 points. Retrieved the artifact and found a new sword along the way? 7 points. I think it would be a lot more exciting, but again, I'm a sucker for anything in a dungeon.
Council Games - Combat: Last Man Standing
This is a type of medieval era fighting game in which players design a character with a base pool of ability points, which affects how many cards you draw, how much damage you do, and basically how you effectively play. I wasn't sure about this game until we sat down and played it for a bit. It played pretty well, but we were playing from a community deck. I'm not sure how I would feel about having to build my own deck to play against other constructed decks. I already play Magic.
Check back later for more updates, and keep following us on twitter @videogamingat30 for more GenCon mini reviews of the games on the floor! I'll have a few more game updates done later tonight!
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Game Review - Limbo
Ok, I lied. One last review before I head to GenCon.
Limbo is probably best described as a puzzle platformer. It's easy to draw comparisons between this game and Braid, but that's really taking the easy way out of the review process. Limbo is its own right a beautiful, great, albeit very short, game. I sat down this morning to start playing sometime around 11, and finished at about 1:30, giving you an idea of how short it really is. But in the end, it was a mostly satisfying play experience.
Along with the normal platformer mechanics, there's three types of puzzles in the game, "push this object", "throw this switch" and "make this jump". Even with this limited pool, the puzzles presented are very clever, and I found myself laughing at myself for making a silly mistake. Laughter over wanting to throw my controller is always a good thing.
That's not to say that there weren't a couple frustrating parts. One part in particular towards the end doesn't teach you about a new twist on a mechanic without letting you plummet to your death over and over again. Now that I've played through it once, I think I could get through it again and maybe snag the achievement of completing it in one sitting and dying less than four times, but it would still be pretty difficult.
I do have a small complaint about the ending, in that it doesn't even offer to explain anything. It presents you with a scene that it has shown you briefly a couple other times earlier in the game, and then doesn't explain what it is or why its important. I can interpret it all I want, but I'd really like to know what the game designers were intending it to mean without having to go read interviews or the like.
Going through the game, I only had a 78% completion rate, and from what I saw on the leadership boards it goes up to 125%. I also only got 2 achivements for the game, leaving me to believe there's a lot that I missed.
So in the end, is it worth picking up? It's hard to say. If you like these polished independent games, then it's definitely worth a play through. It's a bit on the pricey side at 1200 points, but if you're planning on picking up any of the other Summer of Arcade games and taking advantage of their Free Points offer for buying multiple games, then you can't really go wrong here. If not, wait for it to drop in price and pick it up then.
Limbo is probably best described as a puzzle platformer. It's easy to draw comparisons between this game and Braid, but that's really taking the easy way out of the review process. Limbo is its own right a beautiful, great, albeit very short, game. I sat down this morning to start playing sometime around 11, and finished at about 1:30, giving you an idea of how short it really is. But in the end, it was a mostly satisfying play experience.
Along with the normal platformer mechanics, there's three types of puzzles in the game, "push this object", "throw this switch" and "make this jump". Even with this limited pool, the puzzles presented are very clever, and I found myself laughing at myself for making a silly mistake. Laughter over wanting to throw my controller is always a good thing.
That's not to say that there weren't a couple frustrating parts. One part in particular towards the end doesn't teach you about a new twist on a mechanic without letting you plummet to your death over and over again. Now that I've played through it once, I think I could get through it again and maybe snag the achievement of completing it in one sitting and dying less than four times, but it would still be pretty difficult.
I do have a small complaint about the ending, in that it doesn't even offer to explain anything. It presents you with a scene that it has shown you briefly a couple other times earlier in the game, and then doesn't explain what it is or why its important. I can interpret it all I want, but I'd really like to know what the game designers were intending it to mean without having to go read interviews or the like.
Going through the game, I only had a 78% completion rate, and from what I saw on the leadership boards it goes up to 125%. I also only got 2 achivements for the game, leaving me to believe there's a lot that I missed.
So in the end, is it worth picking up? It's hard to say. If you like these polished independent games, then it's definitely worth a play through. It's a bit on the pricey side at 1200 points, but if you're planning on picking up any of the other Summer of Arcade games and taking advantage of their Free Points offer for buying multiple games, then you can't really go wrong here. If not, wait for it to drop in price and pick it up then.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Preparing your days at GenCon
At this point, everyone should either have everything packed up or have a really good idea about what they're bringing, have their travel plans all set, their hotel arrangements all confirmed, and generally be ready to pick up and go. Once you get to GenCon, what's next?
I'd like to think there's two types of people on this one. The first type has every single hour of every day planned out, knows how long they're spending where, what they're having for lunch when, and who they're going to be spending their time with how. The second type are those who are going to see what they can see, have no concrete plans, and will take things as they come.
I've been guilty of being on both sides of this, but this year I'm more about the second type. I'm all about getting out on the show floor this year and talking with the game companies about their upcoming games, taking pictures, and getting all the information out to my followers, but other than that, I have pretty loose plans. What I think I'm going to try to do is attend a bunch of the things that I wrote about in my previous article, since I honestly haven't been to many of them before, and think it sounds like a good time. Otherwise, I've got a group run for True Dungeon on Saturday, and plan on playing Magic whenever I'm bored and have some down time.
So whether you've got a spreadsheet with all your plans on them (yes, I've done this), or flying by the seat of your pants, everybody go out and have a great GenCon. If you spot me at a table, or if I swing by your booth, be sure to say hi, I'd love to meet some of the people who have been following along with my posts this past week.
Safe travels to all, the next post here will be from Indianapolis!
I'd like to think there's two types of people on this one. The first type has every single hour of every day planned out, knows how long they're spending where, what they're having for lunch when, and who they're going to be spending their time with how. The second type are those who are going to see what they can see, have no concrete plans, and will take things as they come.
I've been guilty of being on both sides of this, but this year I'm more about the second type. I'm all about getting out on the show floor this year and talking with the game companies about their upcoming games, taking pictures, and getting all the information out to my followers, but other than that, I have pretty loose plans. What I think I'm going to try to do is attend a bunch of the things that I wrote about in my previous article, since I honestly haven't been to many of them before, and think it sounds like a good time. Otherwise, I've got a group run for True Dungeon on Saturday, and plan on playing Magic whenever I'm bored and have some down time.
So whether you've got a spreadsheet with all your plans on them (yes, I've done this), or flying by the seat of your pants, everybody go out and have a great GenCon. If you spot me at a table, or if I swing by your booth, be sure to say hi, I'd love to meet some of the people who have been following along with my posts this past week.
Safe travels to all, the next post here will be from Indianapolis!
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Don't Forget This! - Packing for GenCon
Are you packing for GenCon yet? You probably should be, it's Monday as I write this, and most people will show up on Tuesday or Wednesday for the full con experience (or full "working the con" experience, sorry game companies!). So as you're packing your clothes and soaps (please be packing your soaps..) it might occur to you that you're forgetting something. Well look no further, here's some things you might not want to forget:
- Paper Towels: If there's anything that I consistently find myself wishing I had, it's paper towels. At some point in the hotel room, somebody is going to knock over a drink, or you're going to order pizza and wish you had something to wipe the grease off with besides the hotel towels. Bring along a roll to not have to worry about such things.
- Umbrella: As of right now, weather.com is reporting that there will be thunderstorms on Wednesday, Thursday, and Monday. I don't recall a GenCon where we haven't had at least one day of rain, and unless you don't plan on going outside at all (which isn't a half bad idea, but hard to pull off), you're going to wish you had an umbrella. Bring it with instead of looking for a place to pick one up in.
- Snacks and Drinks: Eating at the local restaurants is very tasty, but you should be spending your money on games, not overpriced downtown food. Bring some juice/pop and snacks (cereal bars, jerky, bread, peanut butter) to keep in the hotel room to avoid spending too much and eating too unhealthy. Con food will only go so far.
- Backpack: This one caught one of my friends who's experiencing GenCon for the first time by surprise. While roaming around, you'll see things you want to buy, and people will hand you fliers, free stuff is everywhere, and you're going to need somewhere to store it all. I do, however, recommend instead of a backpack to have a messenger bag. You wouldn't believe how many times I've been whacked in the face by an overstuffed backpack by a careless con goer.
- The Normal Stuff: 4 days worth of clothes, plus a little extra because bad things happen, your badge with a holder and a lanyard to wear it with, cell phone, netbook, camera, dice, pen, notebook, asprin, toothpaste, toothbrush, hairbrush/comb, soap, shampoo, deodorant, wallet, keys, money, credit cards, ID, and anything else that you wouldn't normally leave the house without. Everybody forgets something at some point, try to stave it off another year by checking things off as you pack them.
Above all, try to keep it light, and only bring what you need. You're going to GenCon, you're going to be bringing stuff back with you, and you want to be able to fit it all. For those who have bigger eyes than car trunks or overhead bins, there's an on-site packing company that will ship all your purchases home for you, so keep that in mind when you've got your eye on something you wouldn't normally be able to get home.
Just a few more days everyone, we'll see you there with nothing forgotten, and lots of space to bring back all of your loot!
- Paper Towels: If there's anything that I consistently find myself wishing I had, it's paper towels. At some point in the hotel room, somebody is going to knock over a drink, or you're going to order pizza and wish you had something to wipe the grease off with besides the hotel towels. Bring along a roll to not have to worry about such things.
- Umbrella: As of right now, weather.com is reporting that there will be thunderstorms on Wednesday, Thursday, and Monday. I don't recall a GenCon where we haven't had at least one day of rain, and unless you don't plan on going outside at all (which isn't a half bad idea, but hard to pull off), you're going to wish you had an umbrella. Bring it with instead of looking for a place to pick one up in.
- Snacks and Drinks: Eating at the local restaurants is very tasty, but you should be spending your money on games, not overpriced downtown food. Bring some juice/pop and snacks (cereal bars, jerky, bread, peanut butter) to keep in the hotel room to avoid spending too much and eating too unhealthy. Con food will only go so far.
- Backpack: This one caught one of my friends who's experiencing GenCon for the first time by surprise. While roaming around, you'll see things you want to buy, and people will hand you fliers, free stuff is everywhere, and you're going to need somewhere to store it all. I do, however, recommend instead of a backpack to have a messenger bag. You wouldn't believe how many times I've been whacked in the face by an overstuffed backpack by a careless con goer.
- The Normal Stuff: 4 days worth of clothes, plus a little extra because bad things happen, your badge with a holder and a lanyard to wear it with, cell phone, netbook, camera, dice, pen, notebook, asprin, toothpaste, toothbrush, hairbrush/comb, soap, shampoo, deodorant, wallet, keys, money, credit cards, ID, and anything else that you wouldn't normally leave the house without. Everybody forgets something at some point, try to stave it off another year by checking things off as you pack them.
Above all, try to keep it light, and only bring what you need. You're going to GenCon, you're going to be bringing stuff back with you, and you want to be able to fit it all. For those who have bigger eyes than car trunks or overhead bins, there's an on-site packing company that will ship all your purchases home for you, so keep that in mind when you've got your eye on something you wouldn't normally be able to get home.
Just a few more days everyone, we'll see you there with nothing forgotten, and lots of space to bring back all of your loot!
Some Personal Memories from GenCon
As I've said before, I've been going to GenCon now for nearly 15 years. Over them, I've built up some fun memories of the place that I still look back fondly on. So, in absolutely no order and as random as my mind can come up with them, here are some of my favorites.
-Playing Live Action Kill Doctor Lucky and Devil Bunny Needs a Ham
-Playing Killer Bunnies with the creator (several times)
-Driving around looking for Adam's Mark to discover that the Hilton had bought it a couple months prior, and then discovering that they had overbooked our room, so we got a free upgrade to the Presidential Suite, the largest room we've ever had by far.
-Playing Killer Bunnies around the dining room table in the Presidential Suite, and having somebody play The Conch, a card that forbids anyone from talking for three full rounds, and having one of the players decide taking off their pants and throwing them at another player was a good tactic to get people to talk.
-Attending the Wizkids and Privateer Press game organizer parties
-Participating in the final huzzah for GenCon while it was still in Milwaukee
-Going to the Safe House in Milwaukee and having three of the four people there know the password, and leaving the poor fourth person to gain access by proving his spy training by putting on a wig and doing a dance. He got back at us with his snoring, however.
-Standing in line to pick up The Order of the Stick, and playing DS games with those also in the same line.
-Watching a sculptor create a clay griffin statue as well as a dragon's head
-"Hacking" into the hotel TV's to hook up our Gamecube / Wii
-Participating in the MKRealms.com Clan Cup Challenge for Mage Knight, and fighting our way up to second place.
-Having the pool in the Westin spring a leak above the Privateer Press party, causing a massive waterfall down the chandeliers and escalators on the second floor.
-Watching a small religious group parade through the center chanting something about saving our souls.
-Haggling with a dealer to trade Magic cards for my first Katana
-The Last Mage Knight National / World Championships - When I think back on memories, this one stands out the most. Wizkids was stopping their Mage Knight line and was throwing one last championship and good bye party for it. I had qualified for Nationals months before, so thought I should give it a shot, despite that I had already stopped playing for about two months. The first day of champions led way to the second day, and after the second day, I had won, becoming the last Mage Knight national champion. I was awarded my trophy and prizes in front of a huge crowd of friends cheering for me.
If you have some great memories from GenCon, post them below in the comments or send me a message on Twitter @videogamingat30. Tomorrow's post: Things to Not Forget to Take to GenCon
-Playing Live Action Kill Doctor Lucky and Devil Bunny Needs a Ham
-Playing Killer Bunnies with the creator (several times)
-Driving around looking for Adam's Mark to discover that the Hilton had bought it a couple months prior, and then discovering that they had overbooked our room, so we got a free upgrade to the Presidential Suite, the largest room we've ever had by far.
-Playing Killer Bunnies around the dining room table in the Presidential Suite, and having somebody play The Conch, a card that forbids anyone from talking for three full rounds, and having one of the players decide taking off their pants and throwing them at another player was a good tactic to get people to talk.
-Attending the Wizkids and Privateer Press game organizer parties
-Participating in the final huzzah for GenCon while it was still in Milwaukee
-Going to the Safe House in Milwaukee and having three of the four people there know the password, and leaving the poor fourth person to gain access by proving his spy training by putting on a wig and doing a dance. He got back at us with his snoring, however.
-Standing in line to pick up The Order of the Stick, and playing DS games with those also in the same line.
-Watching a sculptor create a clay griffin statue as well as a dragon's head
-"Hacking" into the hotel TV's to hook up our Gamecube / Wii
-Participating in the MKRealms.com Clan Cup Challenge for Mage Knight, and fighting our way up to second place.
-Having the pool in the Westin spring a leak above the Privateer Press party, causing a massive waterfall down the chandeliers and escalators on the second floor.
-Watching a small religious group parade through the center chanting something about saving our souls.
-Haggling with a dealer to trade Magic cards for my first Katana
-The Last Mage Knight National / World Championships - When I think back on memories, this one stands out the most. Wizkids was stopping their Mage Knight line and was throwing one last championship and good bye party for it. I had qualified for Nationals months before, so thought I should give it a shot, despite that I had already stopped playing for about two months. The first day of champions led way to the second day, and after the second day, I had won, becoming the last Mage Knight national champion. I was awarded my trophy and prizes in front of a huge crowd of friends cheering for me.
If you have some great memories from GenCon, post them below in the comments or send me a message on Twitter @videogamingat30. Tomorrow's post: Things to Not Forget to Take to GenCon
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