Exclusives truly dead

Could the pundits really be wrong? Of course. Third party exclusives are so dead that EA is having a whole studio work on exclusives for the Wii.

More from here:

"We do have two Wii games that we're working on right now," Cook said. "We also continue to do a lot of the work that we've done in the past, but going forward, our future will be exclusively Wii development."

[...]

"Things always change, but the plan is that we'll just be developing for the Wii."

And what platform are they abandoning? The Windows PC.

Labels: nintendo, wii

--jvm at 20:22

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Third party exclusives: We're not dead yet!

The conventional wisdom about this generation of consoles contains two ideas that seem at odds:

1. The Wii will unquestionably succeed, possibly taking second place to Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3, primarily on the strength of its unique controller.
2. Because all three platforms will have significant marketshare third parties will be less likely to make games exclusive to one system.

You can hear both of these ideas, albeit at different times, in this week's Next-Gen.biz podcast. It seems to me that for the Wii to succeed it must have games which are tailored for its unique controller, and not just from Nintendo. Otherwise, it's simply a GameCube Turbo. Since neither of the other two systems has an input device comparable to the Wii's controller -- Sony's SIXAXIS really isn't the same thing -- that means Nintendo will have to encourage exclusives.

In fact, Nintendo has already been doing this. Just look at the Wii launch: Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam (Activision) and Red Steel (UbiSoft) and Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz (Sega) are all third party exclusives. While Madden NFL 07 (EA) isn't an exclusive, it is reworked heavily enough to use the Wii controller that it might as well be considered one. To maintain relevance, that kind of stream of exclusives will have to continue.

It is possible that Nintendo obtaining exclusives will push Microsoft and Sony to obtain similar agreements from publishers. These will likely be of the Grand Theft Auto and Splinter Cell variety: time limited exclusivity. Remember that such time-dependent exclusives mitigate the original development cost because the port is cheap to make, and publishers may not want to spend time crafting a game that extensively utilizes the Wii's controller. So Sony and Microsoft will benefit from such exclusives, but Nintendo will end up with games designed for a PlayStation or Xbox controller (i.e. more buttons) and some trivial Wii controller gimmicks -- if it gets a port at all.

I'm not saying that third party exclusives must continue or the Wii will fail, but it is difficult for me to see how their fates aren't inextricably tied. The end result is, as Campbell said in that same podcast, that the publishers "have a lot more power" and "do what they want to do". I'm arguably a Sony fan, but even I can appreciate that their fall from power is likely to improve the marketplace for developers and consumers. It isn't clear, however, that that independence is obviously good for the Wii.

Labels: nintendo, wii

--jvm at 21:28

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Goodbye to Wonder

Videogames don't have the same effect on me that they used to.

I won't ever forget my exhilarating first game of Sabotage on the Apple ][+. I used to just sit in a Star Wars: The Arcade Game cockpit to bask in the glow of the colored vectors and hum that unforgettable music. The beautifully smooth movement in DooM mesmerized me, the increasingly disturbing levels and enemies drawing me forward in fearful anticipation. One of the most beautiful sights I ever saw was Quake on my Voodoo2 as the transparent console pane slid down over the exploding grenades of a raging ogre. The Tyrannosaurus Rex in The Lost Valley level of Tomb Raider made me drop the controller in awe. Goldeneye 007 on the Nintendo 64. The Tanker level of Metal Gear Solid 2. Opening up the second island of Grand Theft Auto III. The final level of Rez. The effortless acrobatics of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

And then it just stopped. It wasn't enough that the games looked more real. It wasn't enough that worlds were larger. It wasn't just that my on-screen persona could pull off action movie feats I'd previously only dreamed were possible.

I've stopped having a sense of wonder at games.

This isn't to say that I've stopped enjoying games, of course. I'm excited about all kinds of new games -- like Every Extend Extra on the PSP and Elite Beat Agents on the Nintendo DS. I look forward to owning a PlayStation 3 and eventually a Wii. However, I haven't seen a single game -- on established or new platforms -- that excites me like the experiences I named above.

I've passed the point at which beautiful explosions or huge, detailed worlds would suffice to impress me. Starting with Silent Hill and continuing through Ico and Ace Combat 04, I've sought more interesting storytelling, taking for granted that the technical aspects -- graphics and sound -- would see sufficient mastery. Simultaneously I have grown increasingly weary of games like Black which are brilliant technical achievements but little more. Regrettably, game trailers focus more often on how nice a game looks. It's probably easier than trying to lure people in with a game's story, especially when there is little of the story to show.

There is no guarantee that the new systems will offer anything other than more of the same. I might have lost my sense of wonder, but it appears I haven't lost a sense of hopefulness.

--jvm at 20:30

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Abandonware *still* not legal, people

"Abandonware" is not legal. Please stop it. Some people may circumvent copy prevention schemes on software they own in order to access that software. That is all. It mentions libraries and archives, not end users, which seems a rather important point. If a library owns a copy of Defender of the Crown by Cinemaware and can't get the fast loader (V-Max!) to work with their Commodore 1541 drive, it now appears that on Monday they could legally crack the program so it doesn't use the fast loader. An archive can't find its hardware dongle to access some old, obsolete program? That archive may now have a right to work around that hardware without running afoul of the anticircumvention part of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. And any such activity which is now permitted is only permitted between 27 November 2006 and 27 October 2009, i.e. for a limited time.

That is all.

Again, that's what it appears to say -- I'd consult an attorney to make sure you are actually affected by this ruling. It isn't clear to me that this even applies to a normal software owner like me since I'm not a library or archive. I'm certainly not going to advise anyone that their situation has changed.

You still may not distribute copies of someone else's software, cracked or not. There is no such thing as "make sure the games really are abandonware". You shouldn't be winking and saying "rarely do any abandonware cases go to court". If you're not an attorney, you probably shouldn't be giving out that kind of advice.

So just fricking stop it.

Here is what you need to read, excerpted from the DMCA page on the Library of Congress website, my emphasis added:

Persons making noninfringing uses of the following six classes of works will not be subject to the prohibition against circumventing access controls (17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1)) during the next three years.

[...]

2. Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and that require the original media or hardware as a condition of access, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of preservation or archival reproduction of published digital works by a library or archive. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.

3. Computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to malfunction or damage and which are obsolete. A dongle shall be considered obsolete if it is no longer manufactured or if a replacement or repair is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.

[...]

These exemptions will go into effect upon publication in the Federal Register on November 27, 2006 and will remain in effect through October 27, 2009.

Am I a lawyer? Heck no. So feel free to correct me in the comments, if you see something I missed. (This is the point at which Bob normally comes out and slaps me around. I like it.)

Labels: legal

--jvm at 08:23

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jvm's Xmas List '06

At home visiting family, we've been chatting about gift ideas. I'm hoping some of these will show up under the tree this year. They are ordered roughly by my level of interest. I feel confident that I've left some things out, so please feel free to make suggestions.

1. Guitar Hero with guitar (PS2)
   
2. Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops (PSP)
3. Every Extend Extra (PSP)
4. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (DS)
5. Sega Genesis Collection (PSP AND PS2...curse you Sega!)
6. Brain Age (DS)
7. Field Commander (PSP)
8. Electroplankton (DS)
9. Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast (PSP)
   
10. Capcom Classics Collection Remix (PSP, not Capcom Collection Reloaded)
11. Zone of Enders: 2nd Runner (PS2)
    
12. EA Replay (PSP)

Budget games, no ordering implied:

• God of War (PS2)
• SSX Tricky (PS2)
• Shadow of the Colossus (PS2)
• Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (PS2, neither Warrior Within nor Two Thrones)
• Trapt (PS2)
• Max Payne (GBA)
  

My list of "To Get" games for the PSOne is too large for this space. It's just insane how long the list gets when you want to build a library. I keep a rough list of wanted games on MobyGames here.

Is Final Fantasy III DS worth getting? I'd like a nice RPG to play on the DS or PSP, and this is the only one that seemed reasonable.

I have left off imports, since I doubt any of my family reading this intend to import Alien Hominid or Payback (both GBA) from Europe (among other games) for me. If I'm wrong, email me.

Speaking of GBA, I was pulling up a blank on new GBA games that are worth getting. What am I missing?

--jvm at 18:33

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Bomberman '93 is Excellent

When I drove a hundred miles to be home with Dad for Thanksgiving, I dragged my Wii along for the ride.

Unfortunately, due to an oversight, I neglected to drag its power supply along for that ride.

A scan through local retail outlets made it clear that replacement AC adaptors were not yet available in stores, and Gamecube adaptors don't fit. In the end, I ended up driving BACK to Statesboro, just to get the power supply. But it was all worth it, and for one reason above all else:

BOMBERMAN '93.

Back in the days before its battle game became progressively polluted with 3D, overly-gimmicky level layouts and dino buddies (JVM's coinage here, meaning Pokemon-like helper characters who follow you around wanting to be pals), the Bomberman series produced what could be the finest multiplayer games ever made. I and my friends got hooked playing Super Bomberman with a multitap on my SNES back in the day, and while that game is not yet available on Virtual Console, the similar Bomberman '93 was released last night, becoming the first must-own VC release. Many people missed this game on its original release since it was made for the Turbografx-16, the Gamecube of its time. It is only six bucks to boot.

Not only is the play the cleanest it has ever been, but it even supports five player games! The instructions explicitly state that, although the Wii only accepts up to four wireless controllers and four Gamecube controllers, by using a combination of the two types players can map controllers to each of a Turbo Tap's five virtual controller ports.

Bomberman-maker Hudson has announced that they plan to provide extensive support to Virtual Console, with dozens of games planned for eventual release. The company has some neglected gems in its history (the excellent Bonk's Adventure was also released last night), and they could well be Nintendo's best ally in the fight to unseat X-box Live Arcade from its comfortable spon on the console download gaming throne.

EDIT: Fixed the game's name, thanks to mgroves for pointing it out. Damn numbers.

Labels: nintendo, wii

--JohnH at 04:07

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The Good, the Bad, and the (ugh) Wii

The epic tale of my wait in line for a Wii will be told some other day -- a story of happy chance, of suffering, of corruption, of sacrifice. A story, also, of about an hour total of playing Elite Beat Agents on my DS.

I haven't been able to play it an awful lot since getting it back to the apartment, as I have this pesky term paper to write, but as the Wii-blessed member of Curmudgeon Gamer's crack (as in "cocaine") staff of writers, I felt duty bound to put off working on my paper describe my experience.

Good:

• The controller, for the most part, works without a hitch, and better than I had been expecting. Its use in Wii Sports is almost like magic.
  
• Wii Sports is a better game than rumor had it and reviews have let on. Scores have been around the low-to-mid 7 range for it, they deserve to be higher. My roommates were almost fascinated with it when they saw it in action. The depth in the title is in perfecting your movements more than the strategy of the game itself, but the games are not bad. Bowling, in particular, with that controller in hand, is automatically the best console rendition of bowling of all time, because it is actually like bowling.
  
• Mii creation is a lot more fun than you might think. While the characters themselves are very simplistic, the creation options are not. They are even used in ingenious ways by Wii Sports, who will automatically fill out baseball teams with random Miis lounging around the console, potentially even those scavenged from friend's system's over the internet.
  
• Virtual Console games seem to work well. The two I've gotten so far, Solomon's Key and SimCity, are pretty much exactly like the originals, with one big difference in SimCity: saving took a while on the SNES, but here is instantaneous.
  
• If one goes back to the Wii menu before turning off a virtual console game, the next time the player plays it he'll find that his old "console" is exactly at the point where he left it. That is, the Wii actually saves the entire state of the virtual machine, in addition to supporting any built-in save function of the game.
  
• The unified, X-box 360-like menu system is cool. All games have a "Wii menu," even disk ones, and the player can end a game and return to the home page at any time, without a reboot.
  
• The video report of one website, which showed a video of the system taking over two minutes to copy the tiny NES game Donkey Kong to a SD card, turns out not to be the general case -- SNES SimCity takes maybe 10-20 seconds to copy to my own recently-purchased 512MB card. The age and speed of the card probably plays a role here.
  
• There are a number of of cool little things to discover while browsing through the options, like the message board that not only keeps records of how long you've played each game on a calendar-like screen, but even functions as a basic email client. I'm surprised that the big gaming blogs haven't made a big deal over the fact that you can actually send mail to any email address, provided the recipient replies to an initial confirmation message.
  
• The pointer hands on the menu screens rotate when you rotate the controller! So cool! There is also an entertaining little animation when a Virtual Console download is going.
  
• Zelda is, indeed, great.

Bad:

• However, Zelda is not as great as it could have been, and the problem is not the graphics. It is the storytelling. A lot of people have been raving about how the story of this one is darker than the others almost from the start. I do not regard this as a good thing; the high-spirited adventure of the other games (especially Wind Waker) was one of the best things about them. This is just one more way that Zelda is becoming like its copiers (that is to say, practically all other action-adventures).
  
• More on Zelda: these games have traditionally been actually rather light on story, leaving the player on his own to do all the things that need to be done. My first three hours of Zelda, on the other hand, were hand-held almost the whole way. Zelda games need to give the player space so he can explore! I've not seen any of that yet, although maybe once I hit Hyrule Field this'll change.
  
• Upon initial connection to the internet there are two major system updates, each of which taking quite a while to complete. This may be from Nintendo's servers being slammed, but they should take note, this isn't going to get better in the future. System updates are always a cause for trepidation since an interrupted update may result in a bricked system, and there have been stories of this happening.
  
• The email client is an unexpected nicety, true, but it is hampered by the fact that you have to type using the virtual keyboard. It's faster than control pad based solutions, and it has a cell phone-like quick keypad feature, but it's nowhere near as quick as using, say, a USB keyboard.
  
• By the way, USB keyboards do not work.
  
• I did have one bad moment with the remote. After one particular update, my remote suddenly ceased functioning. I checked my second remote and it wasn't working either! Whenever I pressed a button, the lights on the remote flashed several times then went dark. Turning off and on the console didn't work, there were no bright lights in the room and there was no obvious RF interference. Ultimately I restored their function by guessing that holding in the power button for a few seconds would do a "hard reset." Fortunately I was correct, and upon turning it back on again the controllers worked normally.
  
• The Shop Channel is in bad shape. Several times now I've tried accessing it, only to be stuck for several minutes at the "Connecting...." screen. There is no way to cancel the connection early without doing a hard (not a soft) reset in the manner described above. When it does work it is responsive, but one has to get that far first.
  
• As is typical for Nintendo, their features that interact with not-made-by-Nintendo data tend to be slapdash. A user can listen to MP3s while looking at photos but there is no standalone MP3 player! That oversight seems malicious enough to be intentional. The viewer channel can display JPEGs and MOVs, full stop. Some of these problems may essentially go away once Opera is released, but probably only in the little world of the browser.
  
• Internet features are a bit less developed at launch than I was expecting. No Turbografx games, only one N64 game and two SNES and Genesis titles, and a NES roster padded out by first-generation dreck (although it does have the awesome Solomon's Key). X-box Live Arcade is mostly original stuff with a few recreations so they aren't expected to have a huge number of downloads available, but the stuff in Virtual Console is all emulated! There is little reason that ALL of Nintendo's first party output for their systems isn't available now. The Internet Channel, the Forecast Channel AND the News Channel, basically most of the system's internet support, is MIA for launch as well.
  
• Finally, and for me most dishearteningly, Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz seems to be a shadow of the first two games. Who the hell's idea was it to drop Challenge Mode?!

Labels: nintendo, wii

--JohnH at 23:05

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16% of my PSOne library buggy on PS3

I spent some time with Sony's PS3 Backward Compatibility database today checking out my PSOne library's compatibility. I have 125 or so PSOne games, and 20 of them, or 16%, have some sort of bug. They are:

1. Air Combat - repeating startup bug, but works
   
2. Arcade's Greatest Hits: The Atari Collection - Asteroids and Tempest with missing bullets
3. Arcade's Greatest Hits: The Atari Collection 2 - music/dialogue stutter in Paperboy and Crystal Castles; lock-up Blaster if no activity on controller for first 4 seconds of new level
4. Area 51 - graphics corruption on status screen between sections
5. Atari Anniversary Edition Redux - Asteroids, Tempest, Asteroids Deluxe with missing bullets
6. Croc: Legend of the Gobbos - stutter during FMV at boot
7. Dead or Alive - graphical corruption in background during training mode
8. Dino Crisis 2 - graphical corruption during FMV from idle main menu, audio bug during New Game starting audio
9. Driver - missing menu graphics
10. Driver 2 - slowdown during missions
11. Final Fantasy Anthology - fatal bug at first save point
12. Gran Turismo - controller switches to digital mode in certain type of race
13. Kagero: Deception II - some graphical corruption and missing background music
    
14. Konami Arcade Classics - graphical problem in Super Cobra
15. Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver - serious slowdown and pausing during gameplay
16. Loaded - memory card issues
17. Medal of Honor - fatal bug in one mission
18. Namco Museum Volume 2 - graphical corruption in Xevious
19. Silent Hill - medium tone when shooting
20. Tomb Raider - 15 seconds on title screen and game will hang

Disappointing. Makes this previous report of fewer than 40 incompatible PSOne games difficult to believe, or I'm lucky enough to have half of those. It's likely that Sony's criterion for compatible is playable with bugs, in which case only Driver, Final Fantasy Anthology, Loaded, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver are bad enough to fail.

It will be interesting to see how Sony improves compatibility over time.

Labels: ps3, sony

--jvm at 21:50

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Nintendo DS vs. Sony PSP: Game and system pricing

I was more tempted to buy a PlayStation Portable game when browsing a local shop yesterday, not just because there are more interesting games out but several of them are more attractively priced. One advantage I'd felt the Nintendo DS had over the PSP was lower priced software, and that's just not as true as it used to be. In fact, several PSP games have launched recently at $30 or less: Capcom Collection Reloaded, Activision Hits Remixed, EA Replay, Sega Genesis Collection, Every Extend Extra, and Lumines II. Each one of those is starting at $19.99 or $29.99. If you are into retro games or flashy puzzle games, the PSP has to be your handheld system of choice, once you can swing the system price.

I did some browsing at EB Games (online) and put together some numbers for new games (not used games, which can fluctuate with inventory). The store currently lists more $10-$20 games for the PSP (30) than it does for the Nintendo DS (26). The average price for a new game is $32 for the PSP and $28 for the Nintendo DS, and the median game costs $30 for both systems. (Note: That's just games available; sales volume obviously isn't something I have access to.) Each system has a nearly equal number of games.

The PSP isn't so far behind the DS that it's lost the war, but Sony needs to do more than just stay close. If the PSP were priced at $150, my gut tells me it'd sell a lot more strongly. You've got a ton of best-selling software at the $20 level now, including Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, and several more interesting games at the $30 level. With the software side of the business under control, I think, and a system price adjustment would help.

Addendum: The other thing about PSP game pricing is that it appears to be more flexible than Nintendo DS game pricing. There are PSP games launching at prices from $50 down to $20, which makes it possible for a game to portray itself as anything from a big-name release down to a chintzy piece of shovelware. Moreover, this gives games room to drop in price, so a publisher can squeeze top dollar out of the rich and then appeal to the masses later with a budget price. Nintendo's model, especially for its big-name games, has seemed much more rigid. The price for New Super Mario Bros. will probably still be $35 two years after its release, whereas the price of Liberty City Stories on the PSP has dropped from $50 to $20 in just over a year.

Labels: data, nintendo

--jvm at 01:03

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Bust-a-Move Deluxe (PSP)

This is a reasonably comprehensive, competent collection of Bust-a-Move (aka Puzzle Bobble) games for the PlayStation Portable. Many new bubbles and characters have been added to this series since it attained perfection as Bust-a-Move 2: Arcade Edition on the Sega Saturn. Regrettably, the whole enterprise lost its soul somewhere on the road to cold-hearted, craven exploitation.

--jvm at 00:34

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Confirmed PlayStation 3 Launch Games

Today, the day the PlayStation 3 launched in North America, I swept through three stores (Circuit City, Best Buy, and EB Games) and cataloged the games available on the shelves. Here is what I saw:

1. Call of Duty 3
2. Genji: Days of the Blade
3. Madden NFL 07
4. Marvel Ultimate Alliance
5. Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire
6. NBA 07
7. NBA 2k7
8. Need for Speed Carbon (only at EB Games)
9. NHL 2k7
10. Resistance: Fall of Man
11. Ridge Racer 7
12. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07
13. Tony Hawk's Project 8
14. Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom
    

Have you seen any other games actually for sale today? If you see something in the next week or so, I'm willing to call that a "launch title" and make a call on a definitive list.

For the record, there were The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Sonic, Full Auto 2, Rainbox Six: Vegas, and F.E.A.R boxes at EB Games, but they were just advertisements -- you couldn't actually buy those games yet.

As I finished up at Circuit City, my last stop, I picked up Bust-a-Move Deluxe for the PSP for $10 and chatted with the manager who was running the checkout. He said they got 6 PlayStation 3 units, which he volunteered was better than the 4 Xbox 360s they'd initially received in Fall 2005. Apparently people started camping out in front of his store on Sunday (12 November) and due to bad weather they'd gone ahead and given out vouchers on Wednesday night to the first six in line at that time. All six showed up on Friday to claim their machines.

I really don't see the point of anyone putting out any new games until Sony ships more machines.

--jvm at 21:55

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Patience pays off

The PSP gets another game I want: Sid Meier's Pirates! is announced for a January 2007 release. One step closer to having enough games for a Top 10 list.

On the other hand, yet another ad hoc wireless game. Argh.

--jvm at 16:44

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Analyst analyzes analysts' analyses

Michael Pachter makes a good guest in this week's Next-gen.biz podcast. He comes across as "a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk" and goes on at length about various aspects of the Wii, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. In particular, I was intrigued by this bit:

I think that where most analysts are going to be not only proven wrong but are actually going to backtrack and change their opinions to the extreme is that the cost of the Wii at $249 is so dramatically much lower than the cost of the [Xbox] 360 or of a PS3 that many households are going to opt for a Wii first and wait for the others to come down in price before they buy a 360 or a PS3. [...]

I think what's going to happen is analysts are going to see the Wii selling at a much more rapid pace mid-year next year than anybody expected and they're actually going to call Nintendo the winner of this cycle.

And in fact, what I think is going to happen is, over time, Nintendo's sales are going to slow -- over time as in 2009, 2010 -- and Sony's sales are going to pick up as the PS3 comes down in price.

So I think Sony's going to look like the clear loser this cycle, come summer. I think Nintendo's going to look like the clear winner this cycle this coming summer, and that's going to be wrong. And it will reverse in 2009, 2010 when there are 5000 Blu-Ray movies available to rent at Blockbuster and when all the households who already have a Wii get their HD monitors and PS3 sales will pick up.

The part about choosing the Wii first is certainly plausible -- especially because of standard TV and the prices of HDTVs -- and it's a prediction I think we could easily check up on in 10-12 months. Will we be reading about Nintendo winning the war less than a year after their launch? That'd be fun, especially if you read videogame web forums. Then in two years we can see if Sony's made up ground and beating the competition, as he further predicts, making all those other analysts who declared a Nintendo victory for the generation wrong. Good times ahead, either way.

I've still got 15 minutes of the podcast to listen to, but that won't happen until tomorrow morning on the way to work. Perhaps there are some more interesting bits later on. I certainly enjoyed the first 30 minutes.

One question that hadn't been asked of Pachter that I'd like an answer to: Does he play games? It's pretty apparent he's got a feel for the business of games, but does he actually play them or is he just a detached observer watching numbers and analyzing technology trends in the abstract?

Update: Answer is that Pachter does play games and even plays them at work. In addition to what sounds like playing as part of his job, he mentions a Guitar Hero party they're having at his workplace. I should get Guitar Hero at some point, since I keep hearing such good things about it.

Update 2: Interesting to note that Pachter basically doesn't mention any specific way that the Xbox 360 wins. If Blu-Ray takes off (or HD-DVD doesn't succeed, take your pick) or the Sony PlayStation brand remains strong, then the PlayStation 3 wins. And Guitar Hero is the proof that the Wii's new control mechanism will be a hit with consumers. For Microsoft to win, I'm guessing he thinks that the other two have to fail, which isn't necessarily the same as Microsoft succeeding on its own strengths.

Labels: microsoft, nintendo, ps3, sony, wii, xbox360

--jvm at 20:08

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Resistance - light on the story

I'd hoped for a good story from Resistance: Fall of Man. Looks like if/when I play it, I'll be playing for the action, not the plot:

You'll learn a bit about the Chimera as you fight, and there's some resolution once you finally finish the campaign after countless grueling shoot-outs. But Hale's character is never developed and he almost never speaks, and the plot has some noticeable gaps. Ultimately, this is a game whose personality mostly comes across when you're shooting something. The Chimera and their ugly spider-like features make them easy to hate straightaway.

Ah well. It does appear to have the tone and combat under control.

Labels: ps3, sony

--jvm at 19:41

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Halo 3 vs. PS3 (almost called it)

I predicted that Microsoft would release a Halo 3 demo on Xbox Live in time for the PlayStation 3 launch. I was wrong on the timing, it appears. This week's announcement of a Halo 3 multiplayer test available in Spring 2007 along with a new trailer is just one more example of how Microsoft is hitting its stride in the console market: they'll suck lots of headline space away from the North American debut of the PlayStation 3 with some well-chosen bits of information. They didn't even have to put the demo itself out -- they just needed to announce the future demo. As I said back then:

See, it's one thing to get the big magazines and websites talking about Halo 3 in previews. It will be another thing altogether when over a million Xbox 360 owners download a Halo 3 demo, invite friends over to play, and set online forums afire with post after post of gushing praise. [...] What's going to be louder? A dozen well-paid articles on the coming of the PlayStation 3 or literally millions of monkeys banging away on their keyboards about the most important demo since shareware Quake?

And, while Bill Gates was wrong about some of the specifics -- he had Halo 3 coming out Spring 2006 -- he did promise this would happen, in his own creepy way:

'It's perfect,' Gates says, radiant with bloodlust. 'The day Sony launches [the new PlayStation], and they walk right into Halo 3.'

The image of Gates radiant with bloodlust is a bit disturbing, no?

Anyway, I continue to be impressed with the swiftness with which Microsoft has learned to play to the crowd. If they do come out with the higher sales this generation (and that may happen in terms of software, even if it's not true of hardware) then they'll have earned it.

Labels: microsoft, ps3, sony, xbox360

--jvm at 15:29

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Worst PS3/Wii launch coverage - NPR!

On the way to work I heard Laura Sydell's report on Morning Edition about the launch of Sony's PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Wii. I thought it was awful.

• The whole thing has a pro-Nintendo slant, to my ear. Except for the price mistake.
  
  
• The original version of the report, the one most people actually heard, said the Wii was going for $279. The audio now has the right price, and the web page shows the correction, but this happened only after an untold number of folks heard the wrong price this morning.
  
  This seems a particularly poor reporting mistake, since I haven't seen any report anywhere that priced the Wii at $279.
  
  
• The correction refers to the prices of "the Xbox". That's needlessly ambiguous. In the audio of the story it's referred to as the "the latest generation Xbox", as if it didn't have a name yet.
  
  
• The text blurb on the website throws in this needless groin kick:
  

  The stakes are especially high for Sony, whose PlayStation Portable was trounced by the Nintendo DS during the last round of format wars.

  Say what? The last round of format wars? How is the competition between the PSP and the Nintendo DS a format war? I think you got your buzzwords mixed up.
  
  Worse, the audio of the story never mentions the PSP nor the DS. It's actually relevant to the story's thesis -- that Sony and Nintendo aren't competing directly because they're pursuing different audiences -- but that's never actually addressed by Sydell.

Hire a freaking videogame blogger to fact check your stuff, NPR.

Labels: nintendo, ps3, sony, wii

--jvm at 21:30

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Fifteen seconds with a PS3 controller

Target has its PlayStation 3 kiosk set up, but not running anything yet. I held the PlayStation 3 controller for about fifteen seconds as I passed by. I liked the feel of it, especially the L2 and R2 buttons. They're like real triggers now, an innovation that Sony has needlessly avoided since the Saturn 3D Controller and the N64 Z-trigger (whichever came first). The whole thing is certainly light, but I'd hope that'd be an advantage if I have to be whipping it around to use the sixaxis functionality. Early reports had had a negative slant, but my superficial first impression (not playing, regrettably) was positive.

In other news, picked up Zoo Keeper for the Nintendo DS. This is the same game that I enjoyed in Flash form back in early 2003.

Labels: ps3, sony

--jvm at 20:30

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Finally, Zaxxon comes home

My wait is finally over. According to a post on the Sega newsgroup and the GameFAQs code page, the PlayStation 2 version of Sega Genesis Collection includes the arcade version of Zaxxon as an unlockable game. Now, will the PSP version have the same?

--jvm at 10:34

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Review: Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception (PSP)

The typical Ace Combat game is dog fighting and strafe bombing in real planes over nearly photorealistic landscapes with arcade controls. The games commonly culminate with an assault on a huge military complex that is armed with a weapon of devastating power. The story of an unjust war unfolds between missions, usually focusing on the player's pivotal role as a flying ace who single-handedly turns the tide of the war. I enjoy the combat and the sense that I really could be that flying ace. Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception for the PSP succeeds by sticking to the proven formula with some small, experimental improvements.

Ace Combat 04 still stands as the high point of series (excepting for now Ace Combat Zero, which I've not played). As with all games in the series, the action is intense and rewarding, but without the exceptional story and style, it would just be a highly polished shooter.

Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception has a carbon copy of the time-tested dog fighting and strafe bombing action of the other games. Early on the game shifts the combat a bit closer to that of space sims: instead of a fighter skimming along the outside of an enormous capital ship, your plane is zipping around a giant flying fortress five times your size. A simple branching mission structure permits choices best suited to the player's abilities, adding some welcome self-determination to the more common rigid mission progression. A flimsy, ridiculous plot seriously detracts from the otherwise enjoyable experience. You might notice that the story reads like a conspiracy theory about American motives for invading Iraq, except military equipment sales -- not oil -- are the focus.

Ace Combat X also exhibits Sony's continued failure to promote online gaming through its capable handheld: ad hoc networking is supported, but no online play is available.

By living up to its pedigree and adding a couple of new features, Ace Combat X succeeds and in the process becomes the latest worthy game for the PSP. Like much about the PSP, however, it fails to live up to its full potential. A second outing would be appreciated, especially if it adds a more mature story or permits me to make my own career fighting other pilots online.

--jvm at 21:31

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I hate "original IP"

This week's Next-Gen.biz podcast has Jeremy Williams, a guy I normally appreciate hearing from, utter this (my emphasis):

One thing that we're not talking about here is that [Gears of War] is an original IP [intellectual property]. So for a game that is not a sequel to receive so much industry promotion and to have this kind of hype behind it is very, very uncommon.

I know that jmro and other Microsoft-lovers are going to say I'm just being hypercritical of an Xbox 360 game (and here an especially well-reviewed Xbox 360 game). That's fine -- I'm used to it now. But is anyone else galled by the ever growing use of "original IP"? I'm told that this means "new story and characters" and, perhaps more appropriately, as a synonym for "not based on an existing license".

The problem with calling things like this "original IP" is that most new stories and characters are really quite poor. If your story and characters could be made up with a modern version of Mad Libs, then the distinction is meaningless. Assuming the GameSpot review of Gears of War is accurate, the story was an afterthought: "The game's story isn't very deep, and aside from a very brief mention in the front of the manual, it doesn't really bother to fill you in on the details behind the conflict or the main character's incarceration." That's not original -- it's lazy.

So then what does "original IP" mean in this context? A brand new first-person shooter? New guns? New "I'm going to make you my b-tch!" voiceovers? That's hardly original. While it might be a very, very polished first-person shooter with awesome weapons and brilliant multiplayer and the snappiest one-liners since the original Die Hard, it's still not horribly original. Moreover, while you can't technically call it a sequel (a point that Jeremy raises), if you threw the name Unreal Championship 2007 on the front I doubt most people would notice. It's not like Epic walked away from everything they knew about first-person shooters and created something brand new from the ground up.

I'm sure I'm stepping on someone's Gears-of-War-loving toes, so as always leave your all original IP (gripes) in the comments below.

[Removed references to "first-person". See comment below. -jvm]

Labels: microsoft, xbox360

--jvm at 12:39

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Sony doing it the hard(ware) way

Via PS3 Blog, I see that Sony's putting a PlayStation 2 inside of every PlayStation 3. Is there also a miniaturized PSOne? This is the hard way to get backward compatibility, at least from a cost perspective. My guess is that a software solution, amortized over millions of system sales, would come out cheaper.

Now I want a first-generation PlayStation 3. The first versions of Sony's systems always have the neat doodads that are cut later. The original PlayStation had the serial network cables for linking consoles and non-proprietary video output connectors and that other funny port on the back. The original PlayStation 2 has the iLink port, two USB ports, and the bay for the hard drive. In each generation the smaller, sleeker version of each console had all those features cut.

If/when they move to a software emulator I think it highly unlikely that they'll achieve the same compatibility they can with hardware. Then again, the mighty Cell is magick, so anything's possible.

Labels: ps3, sony

--jvm at 23:19

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But now I see...

So, the Nintendo DS (Lite, Onyx) came in last night along with a copy of Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow. I've spent some time playing and it's a neat system. I'm hoping the promising touch screen display is used well (in all games). I'll have more to say later, on the system and the game.

What I want to say right now is just how strikingly bright this thing makes my Game Boy Advance games look. I popped Metroid Fusion in for a test drive and it was like seeing the game for the first time. While I still love my little Afterburnin' GBA, it can't hold a candle to the vibrancy of the Nintendo DS screen. Wow. It makes me want to pull out all my GBA games and see what I've been missing.

Labels: nintendo

--jvm at 19:47

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Storytelling and Elite Beat Agents

So there's this DS game that hit the market just yesterday, called Elite Beat Agents. The Americanized sequel to the import favorite Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, it centers upon a fictional, and quite silly, covert operations agency whose task it is to find people (and some creatures who don't quite qualify as people) in various kinds of trouble, send out trios of agents to the scene in Blues Brothers outfits and bizarre hairdos, and have them essentially perform a musical number on the spot to cheer them through their problems. This is done by tapping numbered circles that appear in various places on the touchscreen in time with the music. The better the player does with his timing and hitting the circles in order the more a meter fills, but it's constantly draining. It is very easy to lose, as the meter drains quite rapidly later on and you're constantly having to hit circles to keep the darn thing full. The more successful the player is, the better the characters in the story progress. Doing badly, but not too badly, in a section can also cause a "bad" result for that section but not fail the level, which doesn't give you as positive an outcome at the end but at least gets you through the thing.

But that's beside the point. The levels themselves are inspired, chosen specifically to illustrate just how weird the idea of a secret agency that exists to cheer people on is. The first level has the player helping a babysitter through a problem session in order to keep her boyfriend around long enough to ask him to go steady. (There is a subtle bit of innuendo at the end in the thought balloons of the athlete boyfriend, who thinks of everything in terms of football....) The atmosphere is maintained masterfully, through the player's smirking agents and their over-the-top serious leader, Commander Khan. Every level begins the same way, with a comic panel presentation of the situation, ending with the harassed character yelling "Heeeaallpp," then the scene is revealed to be on a computer screen presided over by Kahn, who calls out dramatically "Agents... are... GO!" Then your guys arrive on the scene (always from out of the blue, in transportation appropriate to the setting), the agents and the character do a bit of hand-waving, the level's title appears (usually something that seems amusingly mistranslated, but probably on purpose) then the (usually painful) level begins, and so on.

And that's how the game continues, with the same basic structure in every level. A director is having problems on the set of his movie, "Agents are GO!", and in they come on jetpacks! A taxi driver has to get a pregnant woman to the hospital, "Agents are GO!", in they come in their Agentmobile! Leonardo da Vinci is having trouble with the model for the Mona Lisa, "Agents are GO!", and in they come in a horse-drawn carriage! A dog is lost miles from home, "Agents are GO!", they pull up on motorcycles! A track star's come down with a cold and his immune system (portrayed as a sexy white blood cell) needs help overcoming the viruses, "Agents are GO!", and in they go down the track star's throat in a miniaturizing capsule! In one level a couple of starlets are stranded on a deserted island, and when Commander Khan shouts his words and does his pose, he's unexpectedly wearing a Hawaiian shirt. In this way the game sets up the expectations in early levels, then plays with them in later levels, to enhance the goofy atmosphere.

Until level 12, "A Christmas Gift," that is. The pseudo-military drumbeat is absent from the opening prologue, replaced with sleigh bells, a subtle clue that this one's going to be different. A little girl and her mother is seeing her father off on a trip. She excitedly asks him for a girlfriend teddy bear for her own toy, and he says he'll get her one. She says, "Promise you'll be back by Christmas?" He says yes, he promises. Fade to black.

Six months later... no word has been heard from the father. The girl's faith begins to waver. She asks her mother and she angrily tells her to stop talking about him. Daddy's been in an accident she says, and won't be coming back. (Has he really? It's not clear.) The little girl is heartbroken, and begins to cry.

She does not call "Heeaaalllppp!!". Commander Khan watches on his screen, but doesn't shout out "Agents are GO!" There is no scene of the agents showing up. There is no hand-waving. There is just a short cutscene and the level begins, just like that.

It's a brutal level too. When the player fails (and he will, the first few times at least) he gets a scene, ten years later, of an emotionally-scarred 17-year-old clutching her teddy bear. But that's not how it really happens, right? Maybe if I tried it again....

What happens if you get the level right is happy, but seems purposely a little vague. The father seems to come back, but it's unclear if it's him or a kind of shade. The victory image doesn't help.

After that exceedingly cathartic level, the game picks right up again afterwards with the usual zaniness. But wow, to set the player up like that through the whole game really to just bring it all crashing down like that. It's just awesome how it was executed. In a different game, the whole family, Christmas & teddy bear scenario, presented exactly as it is in the level, would come across as oppressively sappy, as melodrama. It wouldn't work as well, if at all. It only works here because the game's been so irrepressibly silly up to that point, but because of the silliness the impact is tremendous.

Well done, Inis.

--JohnH at 13:40

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Gears of War reloading: this is fun?

Ok, I'm not an Xbox 360 owner (and won't be one for many years yet, if ever) so I can't test for myself, but perhaps a reader somewhere has picked up Gears of War and can give some context. From the GameSpot review of Gears of War:

Another really cool facet of the gameplay is that there's a trick to reloading your weapon. By default, reloads take a set amount of time and aren't anything flashy. But if you look just below the gun indicator on the screen, you'll see a line sweeping across a bar with a couple of different colors on it. That's the trick. A button press stops the meter. If you stop it in the gray area, the weapon reloads faster. If you stop it in the tiny white zone, you'll reload and all the bullets you just fed into your weapon will do more damage. But if you miss and hit it in the black, the gun jams and takes even longer to reload. It's a fascinating risk-versus-reward scenario that isn't difficult to master, but when you're under fire in a tense situation, you're still likely to screw it up now and then.

As Mike put it earlier, this is basically God of War-style button mashing applied to reloading weapons. On paper, it sounds terrible. I'd like to hear from someone else playing on whether it's really "a really cool facet of the gameplay".

Labels: microsoft, xbox360

--jvm at 21:48

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One of these things is not like the other

Ah, yes, that immortal Genesis game ... Virtua Fighter 2? Of course that deserves most of the space on the cover of Sega Genesis Collection for PSP! People can barely remember Sonic, after all.

True story: Ruffin and I rented Virtua Fighter 2 for the Genesis way back when. I think it went back early.

--jvm at 14:42

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More humor: The Red Star for PS2

I'm subscribed to an RSS feed from Sony that tells me what new games are released. Today I got an announcement for The Red Star. Just check out this description:

Set around three main characters, The Red Star tells the tale of an alternate Russia, the URRS, where massive technology and futuristic weapons are wielded by its army, The Red Fleet. Your journey begins as Maya Antares, the sorceress-general for The Red Fleet, searches for her husband, Marcus, who was lost in battle.

This looks like a bad high school short story. Or is that giving it too much credit?

I love how it's science fiction (massive technology!) in the first sentence and fantasy (sorceress-general!) in the second.

--jvm at 14:31

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Hilarious: EA the bald eagle

From EA profile on Next-Gen:

A few months ago, some of the people who make this website had a 'feature ideas' meeting during which agreeably workable ideas were winnowed from spectacularly poor ones. One of the latter, which I have yet to completely disavow, was 'If Game Publishers Were Animals'. (A wave of crimson shame has just rolled over me; but still, I can't let it go.)

Anyway, during that meeting it was generally agreed that Electronic Arts would be the American Eagle, emblem of this nation. The parallels are entertaining (with the country, more than with the bird; now you begin to see the tenuous nature of the 'animals' notion).

Oh man. I so needed that break from mid-term election coverage. Let it go, man, let it go!

Of course, he probably means the bald eagle (i.e. the bird, not the symbol), a bird of prey that also happens to feed on carrion.

--jvm at 10:33

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Decent PR from Sony, finally

The Gamasutra interview that Brandon "whoa" Sheffield did yesterday with Dave Karraker, new senior director of corporate communications for Sony, confirms some things I've said here before. For example, Karraker says (my emphasis):

We were allowing media to drive the message for us, and interpret it for us. [...] Now we're very aggressively defending our turf, and attempting to right all the wrongs that have been said about us in the past, which includes misrepresentation of quotes from our executives. I think you've probably seen the difference, just in the last couple months, where if somebody goes out and says something negative about Sony, we're not going to sit back and allow that. We're going to position it properly, and provide the facts.

That reminded me of what I wrote back in June, right after SCEA's publicity chief resigned:

When such [damaging] stories come up, I think it best to apply overwhelming force, through the press, and stamp [them] out immediately. If you're lucky, you'll kill it. You can't rely on the press to fix it for you on their own.

Then, back in July, I proposed that Sony should start answering more questions immediately and clearly define the PlayStation 3. Then after the Tokyo Game Show, I pointed out that they hadn't managed to answer any of those questions in a serious way. Karraker addresses this pretty directly, again my emphasis added:

I think there has been a lot of negativity around Sony recently just because people have such high expectations for the system. And I think following recent events like Sony's Gamers Day, where we answered a lot of those questions - what are the games, what's coming in the box, what does the online service look like - the tide has kind of turned a little bit. We're seeing a lot less negative stories about us, unrelated to batteries, and people are starting to ask questions about Microsoft.

I wondered why that didn't happen at TGS, and the answer is in Karraker's hiring date: Karraker apparently joined Sony only a week before the show. No doubt the entire TGS plan was already determined by that point. Given that Sony's only gotten better since TGS at providing useful information and making the case for the PlayStation 3 more aggressively, I cringe to think who planned what was shown at TGS.

Later, on page 3 of the interview, Sheffield asks why there aren't more budget titles in North America, as one can find in Europe and the UK. The answers don't entirely make sense to me. Karraker does say this:

Yeah, that's all based on the market. It's all based on what the market will allow.

I wonder if this isn't some sort of code for "the market is filled with filthy pirates over there!" On purely anecdotal evidence (ergo a possibly ill-informed prejudgment) my impression is that Europe is host to a strong market of illegal copies, and to combat that difficulty Sony Europe is willing to flood the market with lower-quality budget titles. If Americans are less likely to pirate, then we don't get the piles of cheaply made games. With all the licensed garbage we already have on the shelves, we're better off without.

This guy, Karraker, is still trying to spin some unspinnable points, however. Anyone who thinks that the PSP is doing "incredibly well" is just deluded. I'll permit that the PSP is improving -- it's getting more interesting games -- but it's far from what Sony (or the press) expected before its launch. Sony needs a better way to address that question when it comes up. And the dismissal of the appeal that Nintendo's Wii will have with the (so-called) hardcore gamer could well turn out to be a miscalculation. Still, I'll give the guy credit for pushing some of my buttons: he drops a hint that emulated games on the PSP will be $5 a pop (is he talking PSOne games?), that the entire Turbo-Grafx 16 library could show up on the PS3/PSP, and then finishes with "Panzer Dragoon, man, that was the game." If he's not really a gamer, he does a decent impression of one.

Labels: ps3, sony

--jvm at 08:54

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PS3 reads thr-- SIX formats!

Next-Gen does a profile of Jack Tretton, the Sony executive VP in charge of the launch of the PlayStation 3. Obviously addled by the pressures of the impending launch, he utters:

"I'm like everybody else. I'm saying 'come on! Just build 'em, man! What's so complicated?' But think about what that blue laser diode has to do. It has to read audio CDs, standard DVDs, Blu-ray DVDs, PlayStation 1 games, PlayStation 2 games, and PlayStation 3 games. Six completely different formats that have nothing to do with each other and you're going to have one device that's going to read all those."

Give me a break. It reads CDs, DVDs, and Blu-Ray. That's three, not six.

Yes, I know Sony pulled all kinds of tricks to make the "standard" game CDs and DVDs difficult to copy, but the essential point is that the blue laser diode can read three types of media, not six different formats. I'd also question the "have nothing to do with each other" bit -- don't the PlayStation CDs and PlayStation 2 DVDs both essentially have ISO9660 filesystems? That'd make it, again, simply a matter of reading the medium.

As always, correct me in the comments.

Labels: ps3, sony

--jvm at 11:01

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Five recently played handheld games

I hope to write about some of these in more depth later.

1. Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception (PSP) - Best PSP game I've played since Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee, and certainly the best action/combat game, period. Having played Air Combat, Ace Combat 2, Ace Combat 3, Ace Combat 04, and Ace Combat 5 before this one, I'd say it's my second favorite behind Ace Combat 04, but only because Ace Combat 04 has the best storytelling; story in the PSP game is pretty poor. On a technical level, the PSP game appears to come out ahead, but that may just be bad memory on my part. Giving the player mission choices that affect subsequent missions substantively is an important step forward. (Could have been in Ace Combat Zero, but I haven't played that one yet and I don't recall choices this important in previous outings.)
   
2. Coloris (GBA) - Use cursor with time-varying color to shade squares and form 3-in-a-row matches (vertically, horizontally, or diagonally). Matches disappear, squares above fall down to fill space, and random blocks fill in from above the matrix. When bad gray blocks appear, making matches in adjacent squares will get rid of them. Some color shades are difficult to distinguish, but otherwise simple rules lead to complex, enjoyable timesink.
3. Digidrive (GBA) - More complex than it looks. Find instructions in English and learn how to share and double your fuel. Then learn how to fill all four fuel gauges. Then you'll be hooked. I like this better than Coloris, which surprised me.
4. Ms. Pac-man Maze Madness/Pac-man World (GBA) - This double cartridge has twice the mediocre games of the usual cartridge. Neither game is remarkable, but suffice to pass the time collecting random objects in a pseudo-3D environment (think Pac-mania with Donkey Kong Country prerendered graphics). Find it cheap and used if you really must have it.
5. Ace Combat Advance (GBA) - Terrible. Avoid.
   

--jvm at 20:24

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Interesting quote

About a war started on false pretenses in the game Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception:

The trail of money surrounding Diego Navarro would lead me to the answer. Diego Navarro was not only Leasath's commanding officer, but also controls their arms industry. He has used continued conflict to amass an enormous fortune. This war was conceived as a replacement for the civil war to further increase arms sales. I can't help but wonder how much of this truth the soldiers risking their lives for Leasath really know.

Do a search and replace with the right words, and you've got a post on DailyKos. Someone should ask how they come up with the stories for these games.

If only the Leasathians had listened to Eisenhower's warning about the military-industrial complex...

--jvm at 21:20

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