Yeah, the game is over two years old, but that didn’t stop Ready At Dawn from making the graphics simply breathtaking even for a PS2 port. This is one of those games that people who wander by the TV will just stop for a few minutes to look at, even if they have no idea what the game is. The whole theme of the painted world is taken far beyond just using the brush controls. The entire pacakge just seems like a painting come to life, and it really shows off the production value that Capcom put into this game.
 
Speaking of the brush controls, they work pretty well for the most part. There is the occassional moment when the game won’t recognize an object that you draw because your hand slipped a little bit, but those moments are few and far between and a minor annoyance at worst. Even considering this, there’s no way I’d trade the motion controls for the clumsiness of drawing shapes on the screen with an analog stick. No way.
 
Okami is all about style, style, style. Capcom took an interesting concept and ran with it to create a product that just draws you in (pun somewhat intended) and really makes you feel like you’re in a living, breathing game world. If you haven’t tried Okami yet (which is possible considering that depsite the game’s numerous accolades it has flown under the radar of a whole lot of people), do yourself a favor and go out and grab a copy. It’s pretty cheap now and you’ll be glad you did.

Farewell, old friend

Yes, it’s undoubtedly a symptom of the rut that our economy is in, but to me it’s also demonstrative of another, more gradual change that’s been happening for the past decade: print media is going the way of the dodo. This is especially true with video game publications - as gamers are naturally tech-savvy, we were among the first to switch to getting our info online instead of in print. While this was a logical step, and I can never see myself going back to limited gaming news once a month when the internet provides all the updates we need the instant they become available, it’s still sad to see the gaming mag industry withering away. There’s something irreplacable about holding that fresh magazine paper in your hands, looking at the vibrantly colored screenshots and reading the editors’ attempts at humor (with varying success).

You’ve had a great run, EGM. Thanks for the memories.

Exhibit A: Last year Sony sold quite a few more PS3’s than previously. This is accredited to the new 80- and 160-gig models (both of which, I must point out, are inferior choices for many gamers than the defunct 60-gig, as neither of the new models has PS2 backwards-compatibility.)

Exhibit B: Sony doesn’t get its ass handed to it quite as much on production costs. Granted, it’s nowhere near as profitable as the Wii’s production costs (Nintendo actually makes money for each Wii sold, a foreign concept in the industry’s recent years), but at least they’re not getting hit for almost double the cost of the console like they were at launch.

Now I’m sure Sony officials would love to play up these news items to show how great they’re doing. But while this is definitely a change in the right direction, it still reeks of being “too little, too late.” 40% more consoles is great and all, but when your base numbers are dismal it’s not terribly impressive. $50 lost on each console sold is a big improvement from $250, but it still hurts like hell, especially when you have almost no A-list titles to back it up. Good effort Sony, but it doesn’t change reality: you’re too far behind to catch up at this point.

                                     Little known fact: these guys wrote penned this album shortly                                               after spending two excruciating weeks away from their gaming rigs

I’m home for the holidays, and since I managed to brilliantly forget bring my DS, I’ve been playing absolutely nothing. Unless air hockey on my iPod touch counts. (It doesn’t.)

This a-hole is just asking to have his face blown off

The week before I got here, though, I spent most of my waking hours melting faces on the game that is destined to ruin my life: Left 4 Dead. I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to getting back to my apartment so I can continue to ward off the zombie apocalypse. 

Most Likely to Make Me Commit Murder: Professor Layton and the Curious Village

Watch your back, Layton: I’m going to murder you.

I borrowed (well, it’s been almost eight months, so ’stole’ might be more accurate) this delightful DS puzzler from my friend, Kate, and proceeded to get lost in the wonderfully illustrated village brought to life by the folks at Level-5. I say ‘get lost’ not only because I found myself immersed in the game, but also because I was also god-awfully terrible at it. I’d take waaaaay too long to solve even the most rudimentary puzzles, and every time I got an answer wrong, I came a little bit closer to diving into my DS screen, a la Pleasantville, to massacre that town full of needlessly cryptic weirdos. The fact that my girlfriend was much better — leaps and bounds better — at the game than I was only made my bloodlust stronger. 

Most Likely to Make Me Throw My Controller Through My Roommate’s HDTV: Mirror’s Edge

When I received the review copy EA generously provided me, I expected to quickly absorb what looked like the most excitingly original game I had seen in ages. A first-person parkour game! With those graphics! With an Asian female lead! I seemed ready to fall in love. 

One hour later, I had progressed painfully slowly, and had to be restrained from snapping my controller in half. “WHY DO I HAVE TO FIGHT THESE GUYS?” I screamed, when forced to take on hordes and hordes of police officers that I had no hope of disarming. “WHY DO I HAVE TO STOP RUNNING?” I yelled, when stuck inside boring, repetitive indoor environments. “WHY ISN’T IT MORE OBVIOUS THAT I COULD CLIMB ON THAT?” I shrieked, when I spent twenty minutes trying to figure out what handhold I could use to get on a ledge that was just out of reach, only to discover one that wasn’t made glowing red by the visual aids. “WHY DID I PUT IT BACK IN?!” I moaned when I found myself experiencing the same frustrations every single time I sat down to play it again. 

I don’t mean to say it’s not worth playing: it’s gorgeous visually, it’s got a great soundtrack, and when you’re running on the rooftops, sliding under pipes, and leaping over ledges, it’s an exhilirating and unique game experience. But that didn’t happen often enough for me to truly enjoy it. 

Most Horrifyingly Glitchy: Gears of War 2

I love Gears, and the time I spent on the Horde game mode is maybe the most fun I’ve had on Live all year. But spending more than a half hour on Gears of War 2’s hopelessly gimped online games revealed how badly this title needs patching. I have made whole meals - appetizers, main courses, and desserts - in the time it took to get a match made. I’ve pumped enough bullets to kill an entire village (say, a certain curious one being visited by one top-hat wearing d-bag mentioned earlier) into one Locust, only to realize that it’s holding a boomshield that is inexplicably invisible. I even once got chainsawed by a person wielding a shotgun, which was a real doozy. Why can a less anticipated game like Left 4 Dead feature such sublimely quick matchmaking and suffer from so little lag while a AAA monster like Gears trips over its own two feet? Epic, please patch this game soon — it’s too much fun to remain this glitchy. 

Most Likely to Completely Dismantle My Life: Fallout 3

Oh man. Fallout. I haven’t played one game for longer in single sittings, over a longer period of weeks, than I have this game. I’ve shaved, played this game, and had to shave again once I turned off my console — and I can barely grow any facial hair! I can sing, with sobering accuracy, the lyrics of every song played on Galaxy Radio, including that truly putrid “I’m In Love With A Wonderful Guy” song from South Pacific. I guess it didn’t help that I just returned from a truly terrible summer in Washington D.C.; seeing it converted into an irradiated wasteland was somewhat cathartic. And what section of any game this year was as funny and as unsettling as entering a video game version of Leave it to Beaver? Or soil-my-pants scary as Vault 106? My favorite game of 2008, bar none. 

Most Likely to Make Me Scream Like A Little Girl: Left 4 Dead

Aside from being the only game to make me glad I have a headset, Left 4 Dead has the distinction of being the most purely exhilarating game I played this year. While Fallout 3 was full of slow-burn gameplay with some combat sprinkled in, Left 4 Dead is full of adreneline pumping action as any I’ve ever played. I remember one moment where I was minding my own business, thinking I was safe, when I turned around to see a Tank hurl it’s fist at my face. The yelp I let out as I flew across the map surely deafened my Live partners. And moments like that happen pretty much every time I popped it in. Another excellent (and wonderfully functional! So few technical problems!) game from Valve; they’re the best in the business. 

More tomorrow!

Not pictured: 13-year old boy at his computer

As an avid World of Warcraft player, I feel it is only right to tackle a serious issue that the game’s unbelievable popularity has created: a whole new brand of racist and classist stereotypes unique to the game world. Is it not enough that Asians still suffer from racism from time to time in real life? Apparently not, for when you step into WoW you also enter a world of hateful insults and preconceptions based not on who you are, but who your character is.

It might sound ridiculous to someone not familiar with the game, but an active player is all too aware of the amazingly complex subculture that has arisen around WoW. The game has spawned so much jargon that chatting in WoW is almost like speaking another language. To give you a small idea of this, Wowwiki.com has 1,047 entries for in-game terms, from Aggro to Zerg. Taken in this context, it’s really no wonder at all that racist and classist slang has also popped up.

Here are some of the more popular offenders:

Huntard: A derogatory name for people who play the Hunter class, and insinuating that all of them are stupid. This originated due to the fact that Hunter is generally the easiest class to play and when the game first came out many first-timers who didn’t know what they were doing chose it. The name has stuck ever since, even though most of those players have long since learned how to play perfectly well.

Retardin: A reference to players who choose a Retribution Paladin, a ”spec” or playstyle that emphasizes melee damage. Ret Pallies for years were considered to be the worst damage dealers in the game, until Blizzard recently fixed the class to allow it to compare strongly to others. As such this term is not used nearly as much anymore.

Ninja: Surprisingly this is not exactly Asian-oriented, though it is based on the stereotype that ninjas are quick and crafty. A ninja is someone who plays with a group and then steals (or attempts to) their hard-earned loot. In the earlier days of WoW the term was applied to many Hunters and Rogues. Being labeled a ninja is the worst possible slander to a WoW player.

Beyond specific terms like these, there are also general preconceived notions about certain characters. For example, Rogue players are typically considered to be assholes because their playstyle revolves specifically around ambushing unsuspecting players and killing them from behind. Anyone who plays a Night Elf female is automatically assumed to be a horny teenage kid (especially the ones who strip their character down to their underwear and dance on mailboxes for gold. Yes, that actually happens and for some reason people do actually pay them).

Unsettling as it may be, some of these stereotypes are thrown around more viciously than real life ones, and in turn people sometimes react even worse. WoW has accrued a disturbing body count since its release from cases of neglect and rage, but I don’t think there has been a death yet attributed to in-game slander. I can cetainly see it happening, however, so I implore you: When you step into WoW, leave the stereotypes behind. We have enough of it in real life.

XSEED Games, the offshoot of former Square-Enix members, recently launched the website for its tantalizing DS game, Retro Game Challenge. This may not be very enticing to the younger generation, but those of us who grew up with the golden age of 8 and 16-bit gaming should all sit up and take notice of this title. While it remains to be seen if the gameplay itself will be any good, the idea is great: Create a world of fake old school classics that mimic our real favorites, and compile them all in one game. Retro Game Challenge has shooting, racing, platforming, and even an entire original RPG packed in, along with fictional magazines that detail their fictional history. I for one hope that efforts like this and the recent Mega Man 9 herald more titles that return to our gaming roots. We’ll keep an eye on this one for sure.

LOS ANGELES, December 18, 2008 – With a glow of success, IndieCade: The International Festival of Independent Games concluded its first stand-alone event hosted at the contemporary Open Satellite gallery in Bellevue, Washington.  Participants came from as far as Japan, Holland, Denmark, Germany, and Canada, as well as from cities across the US. Events included master classes, salon discussions, artist talks, new-work previews, and an emphasis on playing one another’s games. Culminating IndieCade’s annual game competition, a panel of celebrity jurors assessed entries from every corner of the gaming strata for the final awards and eagerly anticipated award ceremony.

As juror Geoff Zatkin of Electronic Entertainment Research and Design stated, “I am a huge proponent of expanding the game space, and I think that the games here have the capability to do that, as well as expand the definition of art. The decision on which games should receive awards was challenging, since all 26 finalists are fantastic.” Juror Gen Tremblay of the Bellevue City Arts Commission concurred, saying “This hearkens back to historical movements when emerging media, such as photography, film or video made the transition from being the purview of technicians to being an art form. This is a pivotal moment.”

Awards were granted to the following games in the following Award Categories (alphabetical):

IndieCade finalists and awardees are featured in greater detail on the IndieCade website. These games and the finalists reflect the breadth and depth of the independent games field, including some that deliberately defy the conventions of mainstream gaming. Divergent in form and subject, these games span the predictable, the unexpected, and beyond.

Prizes given to these games included thousands of dollars worth of time and legal resource materials including multiple gifts from attorney Tom Buscaglia’s GameDevKit, “featured game” award from JACT media, music composition by Emmy award-winning Sundance Fellow Stephen T. Cavit, and a Design Metrics Assessment Package by Electronic Entertainment and Design.  Additionally, each award-winning game received an individually sculptured trophy by renowned artists Tom Kennedy and Haideen Anderson, and every finalist game received a limited edition print by artist Jon Burgerman. Premiere event sponsors IDG World Expo and the City of Bellevue hosted the celebration receptions.

IndieCade’s submissions for 2009 will open January 15, 2009.  The IndieCade 2009 Festival will be held from October 1-10 and confirmed showcase events throughout the year include stops at E3 in Los Angeles, June 2-5; Siggraph in New Orleans, August 4-6; as well as an expanded IndieCade Europe at GamecCty in Nottingham, UK. Other venues and shows will be announced in the coming months.