How to give me a GNU/Aneurysm

From an Extreme Tech article on the plight of GNU/Linux gamers:

Nobody is a bigger critic of Microsoft than me, but if you're a Linux gamer, it's time to go buy a copy of Windows.

Idiot! That's a great plan. Here's what the author was really thinking: "The key to enjoying and supporting gaming on GNU/Linux is...ah, screw it, look at those SHINY NEW WINDOWS VISTA BOXES!"

I'm all for honest assessments of the state of GNU/Linux gaming, but any article that doesn't mention native versions of Unreal Tournament, Doom 3, Quake 4, Darwinia, and many other games (see TuxGames for an exhaustive list) isn't worth a pitcher of warm spit. And the misguided focus on WINE-based gaming...ARGH!

Labels: linux

--jvm at 16:52

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Ridge Racer series revealed: a sequence of tech demos

Today Gamasutra ran an interview with two Namco Bandai people: Hideo Teramoto (Ridge Racer 7 designer) and Hirofumi Inagaki (chief producer of Gundam). Brandon Sheffield is the interviewer (who has appended a comment to this post you might want to read). On the very first page, we find out that the Ridge Racer series has a very functional role at Namco Bandai:

GS: And what is the thinking behind having a Ridge Racer at every console launch?

HT: Well, my team likes to work on new hardware a lot. We're kind of hardware nerds, I guess. Any time something new comes out, we want to mess with it.

Well, there you have it. Namco Bandai essentially recreates the classic 1995 drift racer as an exercise to get used to the hardware. When they're done, they sell the resulting tech demo as a launch title.

Already this has been done for the PlayStation 2 (Ridge Racer V, the game I actually bought on launch day), the PSP (Ridge Racer was my third PSP game), and the Xbox 360 (Ridge Racer 6). Now Ridge Racer 7 will be a launch game tech demo for the PlayStation 3.

Whenever someone starts hacking a new piece of hardware, be it a digital camera or a console, one of the first things that gets ported is DooM. This is sort of the same thing, only it gets sold for $60 at your local store.

Unrelated to the above point: Is it just me or are the questions in this interview kind of lame? This exchange in particular was painful:

GS: I liked the Wonderswan version of Klonoa a lot.

HT: Well, I didn't work on it!

GS: That's ok, I liked it anyway.

Labels: microsoft, xbox360

--jvm at 22:08

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Shoot me if this happens

The PlayStation 3 hands-on articles are starting to pop up, and via Next-Gen.biz we get an abridged one by PSM. If I ever say this, or something like it, please shoot me:

Resistance is truly stunning. When you play it, you say "Now that's PS3!"

Ugh.

Labels: ps3, sony

--jvm at 11:26

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That's right folk, it's yet another preview of the World of Warcraft expansion preview, this time ON THE MAC, thanks to Macworld. Incredible.

I've been meaning to write a preview of the Burning Crusade for Curmudgeon Gamer. I believe I'm familiar with the requirements. Mention the two new races, raised level cap, flying mounts, new land, socketed items, and *poof*, apparently hordes of WoW fans descend on your site to read for the hundredth time that these things still haven't changed! I don't even have to play, have interviewed someone at Blizzard, heck, have done much more than read the Blizzard press releases. Wow.

Some sites unnecessarily go so far as to add something new, like a screenshot that's not been shown before, sometimes actually from the expansion, or a quick note like, "Will the forums be updated too?!!" Macworld admittedly goes one better, with new screenshots (I think) and a Mac-specific comment about OS X 10.5 adding multithreaded OpenGL support that could be useful in, well, any 3D game on the Mac worth playing. So the second bit was particularly at home in a WoW preview.

So though Macworld's preview isn't quite a standard example of the WoW previews' kwality, these pages on the Burning Crusade have taken a pretty interesting tack to the generic preview. Generally, like in the Macworld preview here, the company has to give the authors inside access to the still in-development game. To pay for this access, as I've said before, the previewer must then write as if every feature is potentially revolutionary and every bug, well, potentially won't exist and is, therefore, not worth mentioning. For Burning Crusade, Blizzard doesn't even have to give inside access for the free pub. A press release is more than enough, in this special case, for not just "news" notes' but whole previews' worth of lovefest.

One might also note that Macworld takes the love fest a bit farther than usual when they mention...

At last check, Blizzard pushed back the release date of the Burning Crusade from the end of 2006 to January, 2007. Objectively, the release date has only slipped a few weeks, but it's enough to make WoW fans seethe with rage at not being able to get their hands on the add-on when they expected to. Trust me--it'll be worth the wait.

Perhaps it'll be worth the wait for those who don't have, say, scads of extra play time this coming holiday break, but Blizzard's going to lose some cash because a number of kids aged 12-22 are going to have a lot less time to play and, therefore, a lot fewer reasons to reactivate or start up a new account. It's one thing to pimp the new game, but Cohen's editorial riff is a bit unearned. Must have been some pretty slick insider access he's buying. (That said, Cohen's generally one of the fairer game reviewers, regardless of platform. Maybe he has a weakness when previewing.)

(And yes, I know, it's me with more WoW content. If Matt can take up so many inches with Tomb Raider [not] on PSP, well...)

--rufbo at 21:09

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Tomb Raider Anniversary, a loss for the PSP

The Tomb Raider Forums are all abuzz with the announcement, seen here at Tomb Raider Chronicles, that Eidos has officially announced Tomb Raider Anniversary (the game formerly known as Tomb Raider: 10th Anniversary Edition or Tomb Raider: Anniversary Edition) and released a single screenshot of Lara in the reimagined Lost Valley of the original game:
What was originally announced as a PSP game is now looking more and more like a Windows game, given that this screenshot is at a resolution of 1024-by-768. I realize I'm in the minority, but that's a real loss. The PSP has had precious few important, exclusive games, and Tomb Raider Anniversary promised to be an exception. (Aside: PSP owners are still getting one such game: Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, which actually adds to the Big Boss/Solid Snake storyline. Now it just needs to be worth playing.)

I wonder if the loss of focus on the PSP is a statement on the handheld's fortunes. It certainly hasn't sold as well as everyone expected back when this Tomb Raider was announced, and now there is better money to be made on the Xbox 360 and (presumably) PlayStation 3. Everyone wants a hit game on a popular platform, but if the platform ain't a popular...

It wasn't obvious to me until I loaded up the GIMP and applied some filters to this image, but Lara is standing just in front of the suspension bridge from the Lost Valley. You can barely see it to the left and right in the mist. The famed Tyrannosaurus Rex lives right in this area, and for fans it is his notable absence that adds tension to this scene.

--jvm at 17:20

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Why is Sony holding back on PSP demos?

After zakk suggested I try out the Ridge Racer 2 demo for the PSP and Sony announced the Loco Roco Halloween demo, I figured, I'd see just how many PSP demos there are. Here's one list, among others. The number of demos out there is pitifully small, especially for a broadband-enabled system with plenty of local storage.

I tried out the Japanese game, Kazuo, known as Go! Sudoku over here. It plays far better than I'd've thought, considering the complexity of the input, and I'm now putting that game on my to-buy list. It's only $20 new, and less than that used.

As far as I can tell, Sony doesn't provide any page with a listing of PSP demos anywhere on its site. I can't browse to the Sony PlayStation site with my PSP, even, and have it provide a list of demos to try. If an official page exists, please tell me where it is.

Update: I forgot earlier about the problems I had with the PSP site (viewed via the PSP) -- it wouldn't log me in. Just tried same username/password again and it's now allowing me to log in. I found the PSP demos page. It has three sad little demos: Loco Roco Halloween, Loco Roco, and World Tour Soccer 06.

I cannot understand why Sony is being so stupid.

When I was a Windows game player, I loved demos, and more than one of them turned into purchases. It kept me in touch with my system and I played it more as a result. Microsoft is doing something similar with downloadable demos of newly released games on Xbox Live for the Xbox 360.

Seriously, does Sony want the PSP to fail?

--jvm at 15:03

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Updated Launch Game Data

As promised in the comments, I'm making an updated post on launch game data.

The game list has been updated, with several games added that were missing. Jason Cross helpfully provided his data for the Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox, and Xbox 360. (Thanks!) After several emails, I think we've converged on a common list. Download this CSV of the full list of games and load it into your favorite spreadsheet if you want to play around with the numbers on your own.

Now, here are updated versions of the graphs that appeared on Next-Gen.biz and here in the past few days.

Average launch game review scores, by platform:
Maximum/average/median/minimum review scores, by platform:
Number of launch games, by platform:
Average number of sources providing reviews for each launch game, by platform:
One key difference is that the number of outlets reviewing the Xbox and GameCube is now about equal. However, this makes the jump between the GameCube/Xbox launches and the Xbox 360 launch even more dramatic: from 40/41 sources to 65 sources, a more than 50% increase in just four years.

The new top 10 launch games:

1. Halo: Combat Evolved, Xbox, 96%
2. Soul Calibur, Dreamcast, 96%
3. Super Mario 64, Nintendo 64, 96%
4. Wave Race 64, Nintendo 64, 92%
5. SSX, PlayStation 2, 91%
6. NFL 2k, Dreamcast, 91%
7. Call of Duty 2, Xbox 360, 90%
8. Star Wars: Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader, GameCube, 90%
9. Madden NFL 2001, PlayStation 2, 90%
   
10. Madden NFL 2002, GameCube (!!), 90%

That's 2 for Microsoft, 2 for Sega, 2 for Sony, and 4 for Nintendo.

And the new bottom 10:

1. Mortal Kombat Gold, Dreamcast, 56%
2. Orphen: Scion of Sorcery, PlayStation 2, 54%
3. Arctic Thunder, Xbox, 54%
4. Cruis'n USA, Nintendo 64, 54%
5. Mortal Kombat Trilogy, Nintendo 64, 54%
6. Evergrace, PlayStation 2, 52%
7. Shrek, Xbox, 51%
   
8. ESPN Extreme Games, PSOne, 50%
9. Total Eclipse Turbo, PSOne, 48%
10. Surfing H30, PlayStation 2, 42%
    

And the count is 2 for Microsoft, 1 for Sega, 2 for Nintendo, and 5 for Sony.

As always, I invite corrections and revisions.

Labels: microsoft, nintendo, xbox360

--jvm at 21:10

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Clever Sony

This must drive the homebrew people mad:

Take some time out from your lollipops and jawbreakers to download the new software 2.82 update to your PSP system. Once you do, you'll be able to download the all-new, totally sweet LocoRoco Halloween demo.

A few minor feature updates, it appears, but the big carrot they've got here is the new Loco Roco demo. A smaller carrot is the World Tour Soccer 06 demo I can get after this update.

Good thing I never saw any homebrew software worth owning. Now if Sony would just go ahead and show me the PSOne games they're going to offer on the PSP...

--jvm at 21:16

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More Launch Game Stats

Update: Revised data is now available in a newer post.

The piece for Next-Gen.biz is up, called Predicting Those Launch Review Scores. It looks at how launch games have performed in the past and applies the ratios to make a guess at what we'll see for the PlayStation 3 and Wii. I'd like to add a few things here that didn't get into the other piece.

First, here is an expanded version of the graph showing averages. It includes the maximum, average, median, and minimum review averages for each platform.
And here is a comparison of the number of launch games, by platform.
The systems are color coded:

• Sony: RU E? (One of the slogans for the first PlayStation, as I recall.)
  
• Nintendo: Yellow, for no good reason.
• Sega: Blue, as in the hedgehog.
• Microsoft: The unmistakable Xbox green.

I was surprised at how well the GameCube looked on paper when it came out. The games reviewed well, and it even had a Madden title in there that was well-received. You might also note that successive systems from the same company tend to have more games and be reviewed more positively. My gut tells me that the PlayStation 3 won't do as well this time around, and I really can't get a grasp on how the Wii games will be reviewed. So much will depend on how the controller handles.

There are a few other bits of data people might find interesting.

Top 11 Launch Games:

1. Halo: Combat Evolved, Xbox, 96%
2. Soul Calibur, Dreamcast, 96%
3. Super Mario 64, Nintendo 64, 96%
4. Wave Race 64, Nintendo 64, 92%
5. SSX, PlayStation 2, 91%
6. NFL 2k, Dreamcast, 91%
7. Call of Duty 2, Xbox 360, 90%
8. Star Wars: Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader, GameCube, 90%
9. Super Smash Bros. Melee, GameCube, 90%
10. Madden NFL 2001, PlayStation 2, 90%
    
11. Madden NFL 2002, GameCube (!!), 90%

Because someone will ask: 3 for Microsoft, 1 for Sega, 2 for Sony, and 5 for Nintendo.

The bottom 9 on the list:

1. Eternal Ring, PlayStation 2, 57%
2. Mortal Kombat Gold, Dreamcast, 56%
3. Orphen: Scion of Sorcery, PlayStation 2, 54%
4. Arctic Thunder, Xbox, 54%
5. Cruis'n USA, Nintendo 64, 54%
6. Mortal Kombat Trilogy, Nintendo 64, 54%
7. Evergrace, PlayStation 2, 52%
8. ESPN Extreme Games, PSOne, 50%
9. Total Eclipse Turbo, PSOne, 48%
   

And the count: 1 for Microsoft, 1 for Sega, 5 for Sony, and 2 for Nintendo. It is also worth noting that Street Fighter: The Movie, Kileak - The DNA Imperative, and Power Server 3D Tennis (all for the PSOne) didn't make the cut on GameRankings (too few reviews). I suspect at least one of these might have made the bottom of the list.

I don't have anything else to add, but I suppose others might have opinions. If you want to look at the data for yourself, here is a CSV file you can load into your favorite spreadsheet.

Labels: data, graphs, microsoft, nintendo, xbox360

--jvm at 09:16

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Media consolidation...or not

Update: Revised data is now available in a newer post.

I was doing some number crunching recently on system launches and Next-Gen.biz offered to put some of them up on their site. That post will run over there tomorrow [it is now up, click here], and I'll be posting some auxiliary results that complement that post here. In the meantime, I want to show a related graph that shows how many more voices have joined the videogame media in the past decade. (In case you're coming here from the nod we got in this week's Next-Gen.biz podcast, this is the data that the editor, Colin Campbell, mentioned.)

The basic questions: How many outlets (magazines, websites) does GameRankings list which contributed reviews to each PSOne launch game, on average? How many for each launch game on Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox, and Xbox 360?

The answers are here (click for full-sized version):
As you can see from this graph, the coverage of these launch games has increased every generation. Since GameRankings probably wasn't around in 1995, that of course limits their data from the early launches. Even if we just look at the PlayStation 2 and newer, there is a clear increase in sites providing reviews of games. When we get to the Xbox 360 an average of almost 65 sites are reviewing each game.

A few points:

• A little of this growth is probably coming from magazines. Since 1995 and 2001 respectively, the Sony and Microsoft systems have added a few dedicated magazines each. Nintendo has always had their own. GameStop has its own publication. I'm sure there are more.
  
• Most growth, however, is coming from websites. Look at all the coverage of Halo: Combat Evolved. There are dozens of sites that I bet you've never heard of. Who was Into Liquid Sky and did they really run for seven years before quitting? Good gravy.
• All of this growth means that it is more difficult for a big name site to dominate the conventional wisdom. It's one thing for IGN to have one of only two reviews for Battle Arena Toshinden on the PSOne, but quite another for it to have one of 58 reviews of Tekken Tag Tournament on the PlayStation 2.
• The big sites will probably always have a jump on the little ones because they get advance copies, get to play previews, and so forth. However, after a week or a month you'll see more sites add to the average score.
• Even with all the extra coverage, it's still the case that big sites can dominate a game's reviews, especially smaller games. Look at It's Mr. Pants for the Game Boy Advance. There are 20 reviews, and at least 11 of them are from big-name sites or magazines. The smaller sites have fewer resources and no doubt have to focus on the big name games to stay relevant.
• I was particularly struck by the Xbox and GameCube numbers. Those systems launched at almost the same time, but the Xbox games were clearly more covered than the GameCube games. Perhaps just because the Xbox was the big story, being Microsoft's first console? Or some other factor?
  

That's it for tonight. I'll have more stuff tomorrow when the other piece goes up on Next-Gen.biz.

Labels: data, graphs, microsoft, nintendo, xbox360

--jvm at 22:58

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Total number of PSP games with online multiplayer? (or: Why is the PSP online such a mess, even in reviews?)

Turns out the answer, as of today, is 28 34 [update from jmro in comments]. There will be a few more by the end of the year, but it's disappointing that it still isn't a standard feature. I guess they're confused by the whole networking thing, except the iTunes Music Store PlayStation Store built into the PlayStation 3.

Anyway, here's the list I compiled:

1. ATV Offroad Fury: Blazin' Trails
2. Field Commander
3. FIFA 06
4. FIFA 07
   
5. FIFA World Cup 2006
6. Fight Night Round 3
   
7. Gretzky NHL
8. Gretzky NHL 06
9. Infected
10. Madden NFL 06
11. Madden NFL 07
12. Major League Baseball 2K6
13. Metal Gear Acid
14. MLB
15. MLB 06: The Show
16. NBA 06
    
17. NBA 07
18. NBA Live 06
19. NBA Live 07
20. NCAA Football 07
    
21. Need for Speed Most Wanted 5-1-0
22. Need for Speed Underground Rivals
23. Rengoku: Tower of Purgatory
24. SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALs: Fireteam Bravo
25. Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror
26. Tiger Woods PGA 06
27. Tiger Woods PGA 07
    
28. Twisted Metal: Head-On
29. Untold Legends: The Warrior's Code
30. World Championship Poker 2: Featuring Howard Lederer
31. World Series of Poker
32. World Series of Poker 2: Tournament of Champions
33. World Tour Soccer 06
34. X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse

Some of these are suspect, I'm afraid. Does Metal Gear Acid really have infrastructure online play? I can't figure it out from what I've read online, and the two owners I spoke with couldn't figure out where the mode was hidden if it indeed exists. What about Need for Speed Underground Rivals and Rengoku: The Tower of Purgatory? Apparently they have something, but I can't figure out just what it is they have from reading bits online.

Sony's PSP site says that others have infrastructure mode, but I believe this just means they have the ability to trade data outside of a live game. For example, Exit can download a bunch of new levels, but it is listed as an infrastructure mode game on Sony's PSP site. Similarly, you can't play against others online in Tekken Dark Resurrection, but you can download data from another player's matches. I'm going to assume that games like Lemmings and Darkstalkers Chronicle and Mercury are in the same class of online-but-not-multiplayer games.

Which brings me to the text that launched me on this little project (emphasis added):

Deception also includes a thoroughly groovy multiplayer mode. With flight mechanics as tight as those in Ace Combat, specifically in Deception, it'd be a crime not to have competitive dogfighting. Using the PSP's wireless functionality, would-be pilots can battle for air supremacy through a number of maps. Better still, the game offers a number of team-based and cooperative modes in addition to basic dogfighting. There's Base Attack, where players split into teams to defend (or attack, depending) a base. There's also Air Superiority, which has pilots patrol a stretch of sky under strict weapons limitations; the longer a pilot stays alive the more points he scores. Every mode included in multiplayer is a worthy addition to the package. They all make great use of the PSP hardware and they grow increasingly addictive the longer one plays.

This is from IGN's review of Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception. From what I can tell, this is not an infrastructure game (see GameBrink's review which says "multiplayer while well created and a lot of fun to play sadly has no infrastructure or internet capabilities"), so none of this is available unless you've got another sucker PSP owner nearby who also happens to buy this game. So, in the sense that it makes "great use of the PSP hardware", you can't actually use it to play a multiplayer game in the 2006 internets-enabled sense of the word, but rather in the 1993 DooM IPX LAN sense.

In compiling the list above, I was shocked at how poorly reviews (on GameSpot in particular) document the networking capabilities of PSP games. Apparently the online mode of Madden NFL 07 was too difficult for GameSpot to comment upon in their review. I haven't found it mentioned in the IGN review either. This isn't something lesser known like Mercury here, folks, this is frickin' Madden. Even worse, I didn't know about the PS2-to-PSP features of Madden until I read about them in EA's press releases -- one of the last places a consumer is going to look for information about a game.

Ok, I'll stop ranting.

--jvm at 21:37

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Third sold-out system this holiday: Nintendo DS

When the November Bloodbath begins and Nintendo and Sony are sold out of their respective consoles, the Nintendo DS will be the primary beneficiary, along with the PlayStation 2. While supplies of the PlayStation 2 are probably robust enough to withstand the buying frenzy, I suspect the Nintendo DS will be impossible to find in mid-December.

I guess I should go ahead and get mine now. Is the new Castlevania out yet?

Labels: nintendo

--jvm at 11:30

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Hint for Consumer Reports: PSP doesn't use AA batteries!

The November 2006 issue of Consumer Reports covers electronics and rates rechargeable batteries -- the AA kind. Unfortunately, this picture is out of place (click for full-sized version):That's right, the Sony PSP is the device used to represent handheld game systems that use AA batteries. As you may already know, the PSP comes with its own custom battery, just like the Game Boy SP and the Nintendo DS. I guess the Jakks Pacific Direct-to-TV Spongebob Squarepants handheld isn't sexy enough.

Even worse, it is identified with nickle metal hydride batteries when the PSP battery is of the lithium ion variety (at least according to my owner's manual). That's just shoddy.

Worst of all the PSP is grouped with devices that "are used often". Oh my.

--jvm at 23:32

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Ridge Racer 2 Demo

At zakk's suggestion, I tried out the Ridge Racer 2 demo for the PSP. I can confirm that the file I downloaded has not bricked my PSP (yet), and it does work with the v. 2.80 firmware.

I can also confirm that the game plays just like Ridge Racer. The graphics might be a tiny bit smoother, but I can't see much difference. If this demo is intended to entice me to buy this second game based on something new, I don't see it. Don't get me wrong: I love Ridge Racer. But I haven't seen anything to recommend it over the original PSP game.

Maybe if it included some kicking online component, like easy matchmaking and online scoreboards. Sony and its third parties, however, have shown no interest in making the PSP a real online platform, so I'm not holding my breath.

I am impressed that they made a nice looking one-level demo out of 6Mb. Also, it's got what I believe is a reference to Xevious right in plain view. Old timers like me eat that up.

Labels: sony

--jvm at 18:38

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Bugs on Xbox 360? Just wait for PS3...

Today I was listening to Next-Gen.biz Podcast #6 and they addressed a listener question about bugs in games, specifically Call of Duty 2, Dead Rising, and Lego Star Wars 2: The Original Trilogy on the Xbox 360. Well, just wait for the PlayStation 3. Along with all the other gnashing of teeth over low system supply, good and bad launch titles, and the varied other fanboy/hater ranting, I fully expect this to be the buggiest system launch ever.

We've all heard about the motion-sensitive controller being sprung on developers a few weeks before E3. There have been stories about how the PlayStation 3 and its set of Cell processors are difficult to program for, much as we heard stories about the PlayStation 2 before it. There were the claims (and subsequent denials) of overheating consoles at Tokyo Game Show. And, of course, the online system is still in flux, with some features ready for launch and others simply promised for the future.

With more than 20 games available at launch, I'm betting at least one of them has a showstopper should-have-been-a-showstopper bug. It's precisely what Sony does not need, but it's going to happen.

Labels: microsoft, ps3, sony, xbox360

--jvm at 21:51

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What I wanted to hear: TF2 on PS3

From Next-Gen.biz today, in an article about Valve's Source engine being offered as middleware on the Xbox 360:

Although both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 will be receiving their respective versions of Source-based Half-Life 2 (bundled with Episodes 1 and 2, Portal and Team Fortress 2), Lombardi added that "We're not currently working with Sony on PS3 middleware."

Would I like to see more engines running on the PS3? Yes, of course. For now, I'll be content with a (future) version of Team Fortress 2 running on my (future) PlayStation 3. Hope it plays as well as it looks.

Hey, does this mean a port of Half-life 2 to a system that is essentially GNU/Linux? Just askin'...

Labels: microsoft, ps3, sony, xbox360

--jvm at 16:48

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Unexpected connection: Rampage and The Movie Monster Game

One of my favorite Commodore 64 games was The Movie Monster Game by Epyx. Basically you are a movie monster, for example Godzilla (the real licensed deal), and you fight other monsters, destroy the defending human army, knock down buildings, and so forth. The original is tons of fun, and Incog's regrettable The War of the Monsters for the PlayStation 2 missed a golden opportunity to bring that idea to modern audiences.

I also enjoy the classic arcade game Rampage, which shares some of the big monster destruction theme of Movie Monster, but ultimately find it far less interesting. Regardless, I own it for several systems, including a recently acquired version for the Atari Lynx.

When I fired up Rampage on my Lynx, I was surprised to find that the title screen music for it is a remix of the title theme for The Movie Monster Game. I figured I had something mixed up, so I fired up The Movie Monster Game just to be sure, and I was right.

I've put up some samples so you can listen for yourself:

The Movie Monster Game for Commodore 64: ogg mp3
Rampage for Atari Lynx: ogg mp3

The original music appears to be for The Movie Monster Game and was composed by Bob Vieira. The version of this theme in Rampage for the Lynx is credited to Vieira and Alex Rudis.

--jvm at 00:15

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Now Xbox and Game Boy on The New Yorker cover

You might recall that Counter-Strike and PS3 (which I took to mean PlayStation 3) showed up on The New Yorker cover a while back, and this week's issue has two more videogame icons: the Xbox logo and a classic Nintendo Game Boy. Here's a snippet, which I hope is small enough to qualify for fair use.
This cover is titled "All That's New All the Time" and was created by Richard McGuire. Incidentally, the full cover will eventually be online at the Cartoon Bank cover section. For example, the full cover with Counter-Strike is here.

So are games mainstream enough for you yet?

Labels: nintendo

--jvm at 16:15

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Anybody can just take 'em.

Woohoo! This just in from Electronics Boutique! I can reserve my Wii now!



Reminds me of a TV show (the clip).

RENTAL CAR AGENT: I know why we have reservations.
JERRY: I don't think you do. If you did, I'd have a car. See, you know how to take the reservation, you just don't know how to *hold* the reservation and that's really the most important part of the reservation, the holding. Anybody can just take them.

Come to think of it, I think I'll start offering reservations for Wii's. Only $10. But, um, please do keep in mind that, as I cannot control production and shipping issues by the manufacturer, a reservation deposit does not guarantee receipt of a system available to purchase at launch. Or, honestly, at any other time. You may drop by and play my NEX, however, if you call ahead. Limit ten (10) per household.

--rufbo at 23:11

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Pitfall! was not a side-scoller

GameSpot previews Activision Hits Remixed, a collection of Atari 2600 games emulated on the PSP:

...such luminaries as Chopper Command (fly a chopper and shoot stuff), Barnstorming (pilot a biplane through a bunch of barns), Boxing (uh...box!), Plaque Attack (fire toothpaste at incoming food to protect the teeth, Space Invaders style), and the aforementioned seminal side-scrolling precursor Pitfall.

Wrong. Being a side-scroller would require, oddly enough, scrolling, often from side-to-side.

Perhaps you meant platformer? That'd make sense.

Also, the game is Pitfall!, with an exclamation point.

Update: Ok, I get it. The wording means "precursor to side-scrollers". Perhaps "proto-side-scroller" or something similar, to avoid making it sound like Pitfall! itself is side-scrolling.

--jvm at 23:39

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Best popular music in a game

I've been relatively disconnected from the outside world for a week, so I have nothing on any recent events.

Meanwhile, the best use of popular music in a game is "Paint It Black" by The Rolling Stones in Twisted Metal Black. Really brilliant.

--jvm at 11:44

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More Dead or Alive Xtreme, seriously

So today JohnH pointed me to some griping about the costumes in the upcoming Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 which features barely clad women doing frivilous things on a beach. John's comment: "Oh yeah, this game is SO getting an M."

You know what? I hope it gets an AO rating and I hope it sells like fricking hotcakes. Heck, put true nude skins on Xbox Live Marketplace in an Adults-Only section, and let people pay for the dirty bits just like they do in other media.

As I believe I said back when BMX XXX was the whipping boy for nudity in games, someone's got to break down the barriers. If it's DoAX2, then so be it. Better games will come along when we're past this ridiculous immature, nearly puritanical, stage. Once you've got your own copy of Playboy magazine, gotten a little more perspective, you can take nudity and sex as a natural part of life. Once you get older, possibly married or into a stable relationship, the taboo diminishes. Compared to what one can find in movies or literature, games are positively stunted sexually.

So, yes, I'm in favor of sexual -- or sexy -- content in games. Will I buy Dead or Alive Xtreme 2? No, not my cup of tea (and I'm not an Xbox customer), but games like that and BMX XXX and Rumble Roses XX are filling a need. If they can serve a larger purpose and they make it easier for serious games to be more natural, then let's have at it.

--jvm at 21:50

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LucasArts game offers chance to blow up Iranian warship

In response to this Reuters report about an Iranian game offering a chance to strike an American tanker, I felt it might be instructive to point out that kids like me were blowing up Iranian warships about twenty years ago. The game was Strike Fleet, developed by LucasArts (known as LucasFilm at the time) and published by Electronic Arts in 1987. I owned it for the Commodore 64 and recall it as a truly engrossing simulation. I'll even admit that, in my innocent youthful enthusiasm, I enjoyed blowing things up.

Now I'd rather kill zombies or aliens.

--jvm at 22:31

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CrossOver 6.0: Competition for Cedega?

While I no longer play games on Windows, I do have a pile of older Windows games from my pre-GNU/Linux days. Until last week, Cedega (by TransGaming) and vanilla Wine (the project on top of which Cedega was built) were the primary means by which I might attempt to play Windows games on GNU/Linux. Now CodeWeavers, primary corporate backer of the Wine project, has released a public beta of their CrossOver 6.0 product for GNU/Linux and MacOS X on Intel, and it supports World of Warcraft and Steam-based games like Half-life 2 and Counter-Strike.

I downloaded the beta and tested a handful of my older games on my Fedora Core 5 machine, just for kicks. All of these are unsupported, so I didn't expect them to work. I do not have the proprietary NVIDIA driver installed, so I only have software OpenGL. I suspect that with hardware acceleration, some problems noted below might go away.

• Worms 2 by Team 17 - Installed and ran fine, at least just to get into the game and shoot a few worms.
• Unreal by Epic Games - Installed and ran fine using software renderer. Played through until I got to the outside portion, had no problems.
• Tomb Raider III by Core Design - Installs fine, runs extremely slowly. Probably needs hardware acceleration.
• Tomb Raider Chronicles by Core Design - Installs fine. Dies when the game is started.
• Kingpin by Xatrix - Installs fine. Dies with a hardware device error. The renderer requires hardware acceleration on Windows, and therefore probably under Wine.
• Dungeon Keeper Deeper Dungeons by BullFrog - Installs fine. Dies after initial splash screen when game is run.
• Shogo: Mobile Armor Division by LithTech - Installs fine, but don't select "Custom Install", which causes a lock-up. Shows opening cinemas and game menu, but died when I used keyboard to start a new game.

I know some people will ask "Why Kingpin and Shogo? Those games have native GNU/Linux clients!" Yes, and I have both of them. However, Kingpin still required a Windows install from which to copy files; this relieves a GNU/Linux user of that step, at the very least. As for Shogo, it was ported to GNU/Linux by Hyperion, who left the mouse movement so buggy as to render the game extremely painful to play. I'm still angry about that, and if I could play the Windows version at a decent speed, I might do so as an alternative.

The other games never had native GNU/Linux ports. I have been able to play Dungeon Keeper under dosemu and DOSBox, but the former was far too fast and the latter far too slow. As for Unreal, there was a hack to play some of its levels using the GNU/Linux client of Unreal Tournament, but this is a cleaner solution.

If CodeWeavers continues to improve this product, it could be some real competition for TransGaming's Cedega. At the very least, I will be pleased to see them follow through on their usual policy of kicking every improvement to Wine that they develop back into the official Wine project. Certainly their "Wine bottle" front-end to the whole bundle of Wine software is impressive, and I can see how they might be making some money. Wine itself is very good, but somewhat difficult to configure (last I tried), and I'd much rather mouse-click my way to a working game than muck around with text files, at least until I retire and have days of spare time to burn again.

Anyway, this is just some random blogger's tale of a few games he tried. If I get the urge to install the NVIDIA drivers or plop my ATI card into the box (and can use the Free software hardware drivers for that card) then I'll give it another try and see if things are any better.

Labels: linux

--jvm at 16:13

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PlayStation Museum

I enjoyed browsing The PlayStation Museum, found via this item at GameSetWatch. I'm adding it to my mental list of sites to check for reference information.

--jvm at 02:13

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Soundvoyager

I breezed right through to the first ending of Orbital on my GBA and I'm slowly earning the moons I need to see the second ending. If you've read the game has 30 levels, then that's a reference to the standard levels. You get five more after finishing those 30 and then five more again after finishing capturing each moon on each of those 35 levels, giving the game a total of 40 levels. (The moon is a special satellite on each level that looks like the Earth's moon in one of its phases.)

Between plays I've been bouncing around to various games like Ace Combat Advance, Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness, and Pac-Man World, none of which are particularly good. But when I found myself awake and the house quiet (not an easy thing with two kids) that seemed the perfect opportunity to play Soundvoyager, the other bit Generations game Ruffin and I bought. It is completely aural and therefore can be played without looking at the screen, even though the screen does display graphics to give you an idea of what you should be doing.

So far, I've seen two types of levels: Sound Catcher and Sound Drive. When you start Sound Catcher you can initially hear a brief, faint musical track which is gradually getting louder. As it gets louder you can hear that it is stronger in one ear or the other, and the goal is to move the D-pad left or right until the music is centered. If you have it centered when the music reaches its highest volume, then you catch the music and it continues to play. Shortly another track will begin playing -- one which is a little harder to hear over the existing track -- and you must again catch it. Each successive track will mesh with the ones you've caught, and the end result is a short musical piece built layer upon layer. Of course, as the music becomes more complex, each new sound is a little more difficult to hear.

When you finish collecting tracks, a "you won" sound plays and the music you built dies away. What happens next is not entirely clear to me. I believe that you are given a choice between two new sounds, and by centering one of them you can choose the next stage you play.

I didn't notice until after I'd finished the first few levels that there is a stage select screen that is built like a tree, sort of like the tree in the story mode of Bust-a-Move 2. Apparently in each level I've played of Soundvoyager I've chosen to go left in the tree, so there are levels to the right that may be very different.

The second level I played is a Sound Drive level. You can hear cars coming toward you, getting louder, and by figuring out if the sound is centered or to one side, you try to avoid getting hit. There are five lanes of traffic, and the leftmost and rightmost lanes have a bit of white noise, like the reflected road noise I've heard when driving beside a wall in a real car. Simply avoid getting hit to win this level.

The third level, again left on the tree, is another Sound Catcher level with new music. The fourth, again left on the tree, is another Sound Drive level with horses instead of cars. The fifth, again on the left, is another Sound Drive level, with different music yet again.

And that's all I've seen -- I mean, heard -- of the game so far. Hardly any instructions are necessary. Even the stage select screen gives each stage (not each kind of stage, but actually each stage) its own sound so in theory you can find a particular stage without ever looking at the screen.

I played this game for nearly 30 minutes tonight without opening my eyes except to peek at the screen a few times to see what kind of level was coming up and to examine the stage select screen. It's an odd experience, but one that's entirely natural after the first minute. I am curious to see if the Sound Drive levels get much more difficult -- the last one simply moved more quickly at the end. Perhaps they'll use horses and cars simultaneously so you can distinguish the two from each other and get between them to avoid getting hit.

I am not as sold on Soundvoyager as I am on Orbital. The latter simply has more depth so far, but then again I've only played about five of former's 33 levels shown on the stage select screen. Orbital is certainly worth playing. Soundvoyager is more interesting to me as an experimental -- as opposed to enjoyable -- game.

--jvm at 01:28

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