I vaguely remember an article I read just before the launch of the Sega CD and the CD-i, that was about multimedia gaming. I didn't really understand it, since I was about 13, but looking back on what it was supposed to be, I see it was ahead of its time. I don't mean in terms of technology, but in game design.

Multimedia gaming simply means trying to incorporate a separate medium into a video game. On that note, text based games might count, since they incorporate books, but not really, since the prose is usually limited to describing your surroundings and your actions.

The first attempt to directly incorporate other media into gaming was FMV gaming. Many of you should have at least heard of Dragon's Lair and Space Ace. In reality, they were simple memorization games, but most games were simpler at the time. In the case of those games it was the technology that was the problem, as Laserdisc was too expensive and unreliable to be a game format.

The next step in FMV gaming came with the advent of the CD-ROM, which was far more suited to gaming, being a completely digital format, and costing a lot less.

In this case, the problem was game design. FMVs were simply not suited to complex gaming. For one thing, primitive compression meant the FMVs had to be extremely low resolution (Laserdisc did have a higher movie capacity than CD), but in terms of actual performance, the framerate of those games was slow.

If you don't know what I mean, watch The Angry Video Game Nerd's review of the system. It reminds me of streaming video over dial-up, only these days, even that could top those games.

Either way, most of these games were usually either Dragon's Lair knockoffs, Adventure games with FMVs instead of text or pictures (I would say Night Trap was that kind of game), or FMVs with digitized sprites overlaid to have actual interactive elements (such as Sewer Shark). Almost none made any really compelling games.

So despite the cost and effort, FMV gaming died out. Yet that wasn't the end of multimedia gaming. It was just that developers were trying too much, too soon.

The beginnings of successful multimedia games seem to have started with a game called Miracle, which used games to attempt to teach kids to learn to play the piano (even though the actual peripheral was a synthesizer keyboard). In other words, this was a music based game.

So it would be music, not FMVs, that would be the birth of true multimedia gaming.

Of course games had music, but to directly incorporate them into the gameplay was another matter. One of the earliest games to use music for non-educational purposes was Konami's Beatmania, which lead to a whole division of music games, from Guitar Freaks, to of course Dance Dance Revolution.

Guitar Freaks wasn't that successful in the US, but Harmonix, which had developed the games Frequency and Amplitude, took the idea and made Guitar Hero and then Rock Band. This was absolute multimedia gaming. For the gamers, it had the chance to of course live out the rock fantasy in the form of a video game, but there was also multimedia on the business end. Songs on those games tended to get sales boosts. These games had done more to help the music industry than years of lawsuits and DRM ever could.

Another form of music making an absolute multimedia game is Audiosurf. Sure it's basically just gliding around, collecting and avoiding blocks, but the fact is that the levels are actually altered depending on the song. You don't even need to map out the music, like in Guitar Hero. The game does it for you. Game and music are one.

So what does it mean for the future of multimedia gaming? Well that depends on the ingenuity and imagination of developers. It's unlikely that movies could be incorporated into games the way music is. It would take something else. Whatever it is, it will be interesting to see it pulled off.

If I recall, there are only three times the Castlevania series allowed playing as women (no, they are not the two Sorrow games): the Saturn version of Symphony of the Night, although she was an optional character, and in Castlevania Legends, and that story is now not even canon (that character was also supposed to be in the canceled game ironically titled Castlevania Resurrection). The third time, was in Portrait of Ruin although she's a mage (thanks to bovine for the correction).

I don't consider myself a feminist as much as knowing that women can kick ass as well (something that is still uncommon unless a woman is either butch, dressed like wonder Woman, or dressed like Catwoman).

So this time around, with Order of Ecclesia, we get a total ass kicker. Hopefully the plot won't try to water that down in any way. Not that she can't show emotions (I think that's a dumb standard for being tough), but I would hope they don't slap stereotypical feminine weaknesses on her.

The guys get written with enough of those in these games. ;-)

Anyway, I guess it's a lot to ask for a fully three-dimensional character in an action game, but with a series that has turned as story-rich as Castlevania, I would say it's a reasonable request.

BTW, if you consider me a hypocrite because of my banner, why? What does admitting women can be hot have to do with thinking women can kick ass? Some people consider those to go hand in hand. Not me, but I still think people shouldn't be shoehorned into one role.

Gamespot has done a second annual comparison of games on both the 360 and PS3. They took screencaps of the same points in both versions of the games, in as similar conditions as they could get (naturally this was almost impossible with GTA IV).

What does this prove? That developers know how to get good graphics out of the system. It does not prove which is more powerful*, as the list of games were designed mostly with both systems in mind.

As for which is better, it depends on the games. A couple have a gray filter on the PS3 version (Assassin's Creed, Rainbow Six Vegas 2). One has a gray filter on the 360 version (Orange Box). A few just have the shadows moved around (Need for Speed Pro Street, Call of Duty 4, Burnout Paradise). And one has almost negligible differences (Madden 08, although there is the framerate issue).

Then there is GTA IV. Yes these are screencaps. but the PS3 version seems to have a green filter in a couple of them, and has an orange filter in the others. Also, the cars look a bit rougher in the PS3 version, although I don't know the terms to explain it.

So what would it mean to someone who hasn't gotten either system yet, like me? Well I'll just speak for myself. It means little. I'm not a graphics whore. To me, how much fun I have is more important. I just thought it would be interesting to look at the games.

Conclusion: Both systems have good graphics, but of course the fanboys won't stand for such a compromise.

Gamespot compares dual platform games.

* And even then, it won't shut the fanboys up.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-9948454-52.html



I'm shaking my head. First of all, Sony admitted they are still losing money on the PS3, and Kaz said it might take until the end of 2009 to turn a profit on it. Thus selling another 25 million systems (12 million sold so far, subtracted from the less than 40 million according to the chart), would hurt Sony a lot more than it would help the PS3's marketshare.

Second of all, I question why the PS3 will climb, but the Wii will level out. There is no actual justification for that in the actual article. It just seems to be a way to insist the Wii still won't win.

Not that the Wii has to win, but just the idea that the other systems are somehow going to catch up. There is little to indicate that here. The games are selling, but the fact is that the Wii is selling out, and still beating them. Assuming either system could top that needs some kind of damn good reason for that. There isn't any now.

BTW, this isn't bashing any system. It's just stating that a prediction like that doesn't make sense, based on current information.

Just look up the all-time rankings on gamerankings.com. Ocarina of Time now has a score of 97.4%, when it had a score of just under 97.7%. Guess what two games also have a score of just under 97.7%.

Now normally I wouldn't mind which game is in what place. Yet the fact is that OoT got knocked down just when GTA IV's reviews were leveling out, and both versions had just gone below OoT's score.

What the hell?

BTW, this could be an honest mistake, but the timing makes it mighty damn suspicious. Worse yet, gameranking is owned by CNET, which also owns gamespot.com. Now they've been bought out by CBS, but that was just yesterday, so we don't even know what influence CBS has right now.

Either way, to quote a forumgoer on another board, "Along with the lost source (for OoT) comes a healthy dose of lost credibility for Gamerankings."

Update: It wasn't gamerankings. cubed3.com changed their review system, which lowered Ocarina of Time. However, they chose to round down, when the score they adjusted should have been rounded up. That is still a faulty way to adjust the reviews, so they still screwed up. It just was another site than I thought.

The first three Pokemon games had a rather simple pattern of naming them after colors.

So on the original Gameboy, we had:

1.-2. Red - Blue/Green (depending on the region)

3. Yellow

After that, Nintendo evidently decided that was a little bland, and they decided to name the games after well known precious materials, since the sales of the games had, well, shown the series itself was a well known precious material (just guessing, though).

So on the Gameboy Color, we had:

4.-5. Gold - Silver

6. Crystal

Then when it came to the GBA, Nintendo realized they wanted to stick with the pattern, and even top the materials, to show the series was advancing (although some would say that was one of the only ways the series was advancing)

7.-8. Ruby - Sapphire

9. Emerald

Now with the DS, it seems to be reaching a head.

10.-11. Diamond - Pearl

12. Platinum (which has just been announced)

What the hell? If they stick with this pattern, what's left? It would have to be well known, and even more precious than those three.

13.-14. Uranium - Plutonium?

15. Um, what's more precious than those, that most people have actually heard of?

Of course they can break that pattern, since there isn't much left. Then again, it would also be good to have a major change in the series as well, but that's a whole other discussion.