Every time I read my news feeds, I mark items that strike me as good blogging fodder. But lately I've been tied up at work and haven't had much chance to delve into a lot of these. So here are my brief, dumb opinions on some news from the past month or two - in no particular order, except chronologically.
As my heart bleeds for technology freedom, software licensing is something that's kept me up at night (well, not really). In the digital space, the software industry is fond of selling licenses, rather than products - meaning that the conventional rules of digital goods don't apply. Want to rip it off and sell millions of copies? Tough luck! Want to return your rightfully-purchased software for a refund? Just-as-tough luck! Wait, shit.
The story is about a guy who re-sold his copy of AutoCAD. Autodesk wanted to put the kibosh on this - naturally, they'd make more money from selling a brand new copy, instead. The court ruled in favor of the re-seller, stating that upon buying the software, it became his to do with as he pleased. Great news for anyone who buys things.
Nothing against Steam (more on that further down), but what is the deal with all this pre-order bonus shit? Gamestop, Amazon, everyone seems to be getting in on this: if you're pre-ordering a big game, you can get a different crackerjack prize depending on where you choose to do your business.
I'm all for strong competition in the game-selling space, and as far I understand, a lot of these end up being paid or free DLC later on - and were probably in development long before anyone started talking about pre-orders. But I shudder to think of a day when publishers crack the whip on a game developer to implement Gamestop-exclusive levels and items. Blegh.
Speaking of retailer competition - in line with what Randy Pitchford said a few weeks back, as good a job as they do, it is worrying that Valve has such tremendous vertical integration in Steam. Calling Steamworks a "Trojan Horse" is pretty stupid; but requiring a game that uses Steamworks to also install Steam is just nonsense. It's an inconvenience to the consumer, it's anti-competitive, and there's no good reason why Valve can't spin all this stuff off into independent divisions.
Gamespy may kind of suck, but Borderlands didn't force you to install IGN's Direct2Drive, did it?
This ties in with something I wanted to post about UPlay, and about Gamestop nonsensically trying to sell digital downloads in stores. With consumer dollars starting to dry up, everyone in the game business is looking to figure out how to keep the gravy train rolling; and it seems like a lot of them are thinking consumer loyalty.
On the one hand, publishers and developers and retailers paying increased attention to retaining customers is a good thing for the consumer. We can look forward to getting more stuff and better treatment in general. On the other hand, one should definitely be wary of the platform makers getting desperate and abusing their positions as masters of our game domains. Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony are all in great positions to prevent third party software from competing with their own major franchises; hopefully they're not stupid enough to try.
Re: what I said about Steamworks, above, and Brad Wardell's recent open consumer statement about Impulse et al, I've been giving some thought to how the digital distribution space might become more competitive. The other day I mentioned to some buddies of mine that I thought it odd, that Steam or Impulse or Direct2Drive had yet to appear pre-installed on PCs as an OEM deal. Then this happened!
It shouldn't be long until more PC makers decide to bundle Steam with their kits. Then Stardock and IGN will (rightly) cry foul, and either their stuff will get pre-installed too, or everyone will come up with some mutually-compatible marketplace software, where everyone can live in harmony. Maybe I'm just dreaming about that last part.
In which I spoil the entire plot of Bionic Commando (2009), and your life becomes worse for it, as has my own.
From 8- and 16-bit classics whose entire plot fit in a single paragraph, to Japanese RPGs translated into English by someone who read neither, to modern Hollywood-style games that're all tits and explosions - there's no shortage of bad stories in video games. It's a hallmark of the industry that narratives must fall somewhere between 'absurd' and 'retarded.' I've seen some pretty bad ones; sometimes they're bad enough to be good, not unlike Manos: The Hands of Fate.
But nothing could have prepared me for Grin's new Bionic Commando.
IT STANDS IN DEFIANCE OF LOGIC AND REASON
The first mistake in the game's script - and this is a doozy - is existing, at all. Writing staff was apparently driven to show that other ham-fisted retro revivals are kid's stuff. Rather than discarding the existing story that no one cares about, or making itself out as similarly farcical, the new Bionic Commando attempts to turn the original game's implausibly ridiculous plot into serious canon, set in our future.
Protagonist Rad Spencer has become Nathan "Rad" Spencer, grizzled bionic veteran sitting on death row for refusing to follow orders. Brother-in-arms Super Joe is now Joseph Gibson (voiced by that guy who's in everything), lobbyist for the Tactical Arms and Security Committee - a military-industrial powerhouse of bionic research and development, up until the Federal States of America outlawed bionics. Now a terrorist organization called Bio-Reign uses its bionic might to shove people around, and kill a shit-ton of civilians for whatever reason.
So when Bio-Reign nukes the shit out of - and subsequently occupies - Ascension City, Killer Croc- er Joe Gibson, called in to clean up the mess, hauls Spencer out of the clink. The only way to fight these bionically-enhanced motherfuckers, he concludes, is with a bionic commando of their own. Only one, though. One should be enough.
But why should Spencer help now, when his former buddy let him languish in a cell for almost two years? Because Spike Spiegel has information on Spencer's missing wife. Keep this under your hat for now, because it won't come up again until the end of the game.
Nate Spencer proceeds to be shot into the city in some sort of carrier-missile. His arm is in another missile. Yeah, in the first few minutes of Bionic Commando, he's not even Bionic - just taking pot shots at assholes with a pistol. Eventually he finds his arm, plugs it in, and becomes an amoral killing machine. Spencer doesn't really make a good case for lifting the ban on bionics.
But what's really happening in Ascension City? Why have the terrorists taken a dead city, and why is the government sending a lone commando in after them? Because they're searching for a super-powerful technological artifact, of course. Spencer quickly discovers that Bio-Reign is being assisted by the same neo-Nazi fucks he thought he murdered years ago. Dark Star from No More Heroes confesses that Spencer's real mission is to recover this nonsense widget from the ruins of Ascension City, and to save military survivors if he gets around to it (he doesn't).
Naturally, along the way Spencer runs into his old bionic buddy Jayne Magdalene, a sassy bitch with legs that don't quit (because they're robot legs!). She works for Bio-Reign now, killing innocent people to restore legitimacy to bionics. Man, all these people are retards.
GIBSON'S PLAN DOESN'T MAKE ANY GODDAMN SENSE
Eventually Mugen gets a government stooge on the horn, who when pressed with Bio-Reign's impending sack of the federal library, reveals the location of the secret techno-magic device. Spencer stashes it in his pocket or something, then proceeds to knock the fuck out of the hilariously overacted German cyborg leader.
Oh, and Super Joe takes the device, because it turns out he was the bad guy the whole time - using Spencer and the Nazis to get ahold of the thing.
Let's see if we can follow Jack's (from MadWorld) train of thought:
1) I'm mad or something, I want to take over the world why not.
2) There's a super sciency thing in Ascension City, but only this military general knows how to get it.
3) I can trick him into giving it up by making him think it's in danger!
4) I'll just get this terrorist organization to attack the city, leaving it in shambles, and, uh, they'll probably kill everyone who tries to ruin my plan.
5) Until I uh, probably, get to pick someone to send in to recover the device!
6) I'll select my old buddy Nathan Spencer:
6.1) I can trust him because I betrayed him at his court martial hearing, and there's no way I would do that again.
6.2) The government can trust him because they banned his livelihood and he's got nothing left to live for.
7) Then I'll have the terrorists throw super-powerful robots and solders at Spencer, so he can kill them, because that will be fun.
8) Once he recovers the device, I'll take it from him.
9) I make enemies of Bio-Reign, the federal government, and Spencer all at once!
10)???
So what does this device do? Hard to say. As far as I can tell from the last level, it allows Gibson to pilot a man-sized flying exoskeleton, and exert command over an army of robot harpies. That he had already built. And was already prepared to use. For ... something.
THE TWIST IS DUMB
As Spencer chases Roger Smith into his underground lair, Joe finally lets out the secret: Spencer's wife never really "left" him. She was made into his arm.
So apparently the dirty little secret of bionics - that no one really talked about up till now - is that they're made from people. Spencer lost his arm in a grenade blast, and his wife (who, it should be said, was not terminally ill or anything like that) sacrificed herself to make him a new one. Then no one ever told him about it. He thought she left him.
Come on, really?
IT BUCKLES UNDER ITS OWN WEIGHT
You may notice that Grin/Capcom did a fuckload of retconning to make this backstory as remotely comprehensible as it is. The in-game info dossiers have pages upon pages of background on characters, organizations, and events like the Bionic Purge. (Incidentally, most of this looks like it was translated from Swedish and/or Japanese via Babelfish.)
In the game, all this boils down to:
- The government is somewhat fascist and also impotent
- Bionics are for nerds
- Nazis!
There are gaping holes in the storytelling, and it's obvious that someone thought they would be able to accomplish more in the game than they did. Shockingly, Grin may not have been so great at project planning.
IT STINKS
Until Bionic Commando, I never believed that a game's story could be so awful as to make the rest of the game feel worse, just by associating with it. As much fun as I had swinging through canyons and zip-lining my feet into a robot's face, I've no doubt that I would have much fonder memories of the game if God of War's Ares hadn't been laughing like an idiot on the radio the entire time.
Spencer routinely yelling "I'll send you the bill later!" after killing a man didn't help much, either.
Recently, a high-profile game has come under fire for using realistic settings and events to depict a bloody conflict. The game's makers - whatever their intentions - are so short-sighted that they've completely ignored the history and images that the game so obviously invokes. Exploiting memories of human tragedy for the sake of entertainment is sick, and wrong. And doing so in a hyper-realistic manner only amplifies how disgusting these tragedies can be.
Of course I am speaking about the biggest first-person shooter of the year, Wolfenstein.
World War II is a topic well-covered in modern gaming - so Raven and Activision decided that just another sequel wasn't enough. Wolfenstein has taken the last steps toward jaw-dropping, gut-wrenching offensiveness, by portraying the Nazis as they really were, occult weaponry and all.
These hideous realities of the war - so gross and inhumane that history books, even Wikipedia, refuse to record them! - dial Wolfenstein all the way up to 11 in "realistic traumatization." The game features the same particle cannons used by real Nazi monster-men. It showcases the Veil, where countless men died mysteriously, but probably painfully. And Germany's horrifying, invisible assassins are strewn around as ordinary enemies!
Who is holding these monsters accountable for their flagrant disregard and reckless insensitivity? Must we really force our brave veterans to remember being tossed about by powerful, psychokinetic Nazis? Or the tense moments when their Veil Shields ran out, and they risked their lives tangoing with a Tesla cannon?
Wolfenstein is just too real. It is impossible to interpret as anything other than a caustic, flippant insult to the men and women who perished in the tragedy of World War II, and to their families. Regardless of how fucking sick it is to vaporize Nazis.
---
This post began as a Monthly Musing about how human tragedy isn't sacred, at least not in the context of entertainment or the arts. But eventually I realized that I was just making fun of that anxiety-ridden dickbag who thinks a burning White House goes "too far" in our retarded post-9/11 social climate.
Seriously, guy, go fuck off in a sandstorm. Asshole.
Both Batman: Arkham Asylum (2009) and Golden Axe: Beast Rider (2008) have fairly, let's say rich ancestry. The original Golden Axe is an unforgettable classic that you might still dick around with in the company of two friends and cheap beer. Batman games have a long history of, more or less, being about Batman.
I dug out my analog capture equipment for this one. Sorry for the shitty screenshot quality.
STORY
Batman: Arkham Asylum is an excerpt from Batman's eternal struggle, eternally retold, against the supervillains of Gotham City. The Joker takes center stage, but many of Gotham's other prominent celebrities show up too, from Commissioner Gordon and The Riddler to that fucked-up crocodile man that no one likes.
The plot is basically Die Hard, with the Joker (Hans Gruber) taking over Arkham Asylum (Nakatomi Plaza), trapping Batman (Bruce Willis) inside. Bats spends the rest of his now-ruined evening trying to defuse Joker's sinister plan. Along the way he'll gather evidence, save civilians, beat the shit out of prisoners, fight a giant plant, and maybe even learn a little something about himself. If the game was a Hollywood movie, some newspaper you've never heard of would call it a "TOUR DE FORCE!" - French for "like Star Wars" - of storytelling.
Golden Axe: Beast Rider follows a day in the life of Tyris Flare, warrior of Axir. The game opens to her being frightfully late for a very important date with a giant dragon, the god of her all-female, no-bras-allowed clan. But her confusing ceremony is interrupted when the dragon is kidnapped by the minions of Death Adder, who is ravaging the already-lifeless land and trying to ... kidnap dragons, apparently. Tyris vows to defeat Death Adder, but first she'll need the power of the - wait for it - Golden Axe.
Obviously the axe has been split into several pieces, so, a quest happens. In the ensuing hours, Tyris meets with the dwarf and that other guy from the original Golden Axe, with whom she has brief, nonsensical conversations. She goes on to fight skeletons, lizardmen, fire demons, dinosaurs, wizards, ghosts, and some helpless dudes in light armor who were clearly in the wrong place at the wrong time.
GAME WORLD
Arkham Asylum is set in an asylum for the criminally insane, on an island that also has a mansion and a huge greenhouse because, why not? The game's locales are skillfully differentiated and extremely well-detailed, from generously-placed security monitors, to blood smeared on a hospital corridor.
Batman can interact with his environment by grappling up structures, blowing up walls, and sneaking through ventilation shafts - he can even use Samus Aran's Scan Visor (presumably the two met at a grappling-hook convention) to view detailed information about his surroundings in real time.
Arkham Island interconnects all the game's set pieces, so Batman can return to them whenever he likes, to find the Riddler's garbage. Gotham City better be preparing a massive littering fine for this asshole.
The world of Beast Rider is predominantly brown. The game's levels are separated into a half-dozen major areas, from a brown canyon, to brown mountains, to a brown fortress. One of them is called the Wastelands (no shit!).
Some levels take place in the City of the Dead, which is gray, instead of brown.
COMBAT
Rocksteady's "Freeflow Combat" system allows Batman to punch, elbow, blind, flip over, and toss goons like some sort of ballet-dancing Chuck Norris. Simple visual prompts show when certain actions will be most effective, but how a fight plays out is really up to the player. Batman's foes can even be taken out by his rockin' bat-gadgets, as if getting kicked in the head just wasn't humiliating enough.
Tyris's skill with a sword (or the eponymous Golden Axe, for uh, one level of the game) is something that Secret Level actually did an okay job with. Enemies will glow a particular color before attacking: Blue means that you can parry and counter an attack, Orange that you can evade, or Green that either will work. Quick reactions to these prompts are what help keep the game interesting. Well, tolerable.
Harder enemies will attack so quickly that you barely have a chance to do anything - heaven help you if Tyris is surrounded by these fuckers, which turns Beast Rider into a perverse reimagining of Guitar Hero with multicolored skeletons. There's also a Red attack that can't be parried or evaded, so Tyris will get raped by those until you figure out that, no, your timing is right - it just doesn't do a goddamn thing.
BEAST- OR ZIPLINE-RIDING
Batman can (after he finds it) use a zip-line to zip between towers and across chasms. He can also fly. Glide, anyway, with his cape. How awesome is that? Pretty fuckin' awesome, that's how.
Tyris can ride beasts, hence her game's otherwise-inexplicable subtitle. Said beasts don't appear to like being ridden very much. Driving one of these feels slightly better than rolling a large boulder, but not quite as good as pushing a rusty shopping cart.
T&A
Poison Ivy is about 75% naked, and has underwear made of leaves. She's also green. So yeah, hot, but in a sort-of uncomfortable way. Like that one porno you accidentally downloaded where... well, you know.
The star of Beast Rider is Axirian warrior Tyris Flare, or perhaps more accurately, Tyris's luscious hind-quarters. Naturally, beast riding calls for a form-fitting leather ensemble.
Gotta give this one to Tyris.
CHECKPOINTS
Arkham Asylum has autosave checkpoints whenever you enter a room, and sometimes more within. It is basically impossible to lose your progress, short of telling Gary Busey that your hard drive called him a pussy.
Several of Beast Rider's ~30 levels are excruciatingly long sequences of running through valleys and killing retarded skeletons, with no checkpoints, capped by a fight or a trap that will probably give you a game over. (There are continues, but if you use one to finish a level, it stays gone for the rest of the game. What?)
LEGACY
Prior to 2009, video games about Batman had a reputation of being, well, licensed games. Shitty, in so many words. Arkham Asylum's lavish production values, sensible game design, and evocation of Batman's ultimate badassery, have sullied this long-standing and shameful tradition. In creating a great game, Rocksteady has failed to capture the true spirit of Batman games.
Meanwhile, the recent re-release of the original Golden Axe on Wii's Virtual Console and Xbox Live Arcade reminded us all that, despite our fond memories of kicking dudes in the nuts with a portly dwarf, the game kind of sucked. Granted, back in 1989 its stiffest competition was taking apart a fucking wall (also known as Reverse Tetris). Regardless, Beast Rider does manage to recreate that feeling of overly familiar, utterly dated game design.
It is also (almost*) the only Golden Axe game with no multiplayer. If Things You Remember About Golden Axe was a Family Feud topic, the "Multiplayer" answer would be worth at least 80 points.
*In 1991 there were a pair of Golden Axe spinoff adventuregames. Did you know about these? What the fuck, right?
IN CLOSING
In Batman, you can beat up Mark Hamill. In Golden Axe, you can watch a dwarf exclaim "Blood and shit!"
On Monday (that's ... today!) the Federal Communications Commission is expected to lay out some official rules regarding Net Neutrality, a hot-button issue for Slashdotters and other super-nerds over the past few years. Everyone from the Commission chair to president freakin-Obama publicly states that Net Neutrality is the right thing to do - but so far, enforcement has lacked teeth.
This GEEKS ME OUT because network regulation has a direct, profound impact on the growth of the video game industry, not just in the far future, but immediately. If you use the Internet (hello, and welcome to it), this affects you.
--- HOLD ON, WHAT IS THIS SHIT AGAIN? ---
"Net Neutrality" refers to policies and procedures for making the Internet a level playing field for all online services. Internet Service Providers like Comcast and AT&T use their infrastructure ownership as clout, to dictate terms of service to the consumer, like monthly download caps.
Despite current, vague legislation, ISPs are more-or-less permitted to direct traffic as they see fit. Comcast was accused of blocking Vonage (while introducing its own VoIP service). Time Warner cable reserves the right to throttle internet video. The most common victim is BitTorrent, with ISPs in general choking the life out of torrent traffic.
Of course, if you have an iPhone or other mobile broadband device, you can forget about just about anything beyond light web browsing, unless AT&T says it's okay.
The goal of Net Neutrality is that all online service providers, be they audio, video, download or gaming, have equal opportunity to serve the consuming public, regardless of the target device.
--- OKAY, BACK TO WHAT YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT ---
So why should you care about Network Neutrality legislation? How about online gaming? However lag-free your connection is, you probably think it could be better. AT&T is trying to claim that "broadband" doesn't cover games, in order to get away with not caring about game-quality service. Meanwhile Comcast uses their "SpeedBoost" "technology" to prematurely ejaculate bandwidth at the beginning of a connection, then limp along until connection activity pulls out - good for surfing porn, not so much for keeping up a hot and steamy Team Fortress match.
American ISPs have been trying to get away with shitty service since the invention of the word "shit." But Net Neutrality rules, in the act of opening up the online marketplace, will increase consumer demand for connections that are actually fast and reliable. Not overnight, but ultimately, rich online services will hold ISPs accountable for their connection quality.
The second reason Net Neutrality should keep you up at night is smartphone gaming. Yeah, yeah, iPhone games are for retards - but like it or not, this segment of the market is exploding with the force of a thousand Steve Ballmers, and mobile games are coming closer and closer to serious sophistication. It seems pretty likely that the next handheld platforms from Nintendo and Sony and whoever else will come packing 3G or 4G mobile broadband connectivity. But there's a problem looming: mobile broadband providers.
AT&T is the man of the house now, with the ability to say yes or no to whatever iPhone applications end up on its network. It hasn't affected games yet (at least not that I'm aware of), but if Ma Bell has a problem with streaming video, how much do you think it'll like the idea of a mobile MMORPG? Or a multiplayer action game with a large, active playerbase? Since Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile have nearly identical 3G service plans ($60/5GB/month), they'll probably see things the same way - unless legally obligated otherwise. Solid Net Neutrality rules would prevent mobile broadband providers from playing favorites with their network applications, and require that they allow the same categories of usage as non-mobile broadband.
Finally, and most immediately, Net Neutrality rules will determine how long it takes you to download a game on demand, and how much it will cost. I said it already above - BitTorrent is at the top of most ISPs hitlists. Which sucks, because if there is a future in Microsoft's Games on Demand service, it's torrented distribution.
Frankly I'm surprised that Microsoft, and Valve for that matter, haven't already picked up on this. Blizzard uses torrents to distribute World of Warcraft patches, and it works brilliantly. Downloading huge files from Xbox Live and Steam not only limits your download rate to their servers' availability, but also puts a huge strain on their pipes, and their bandwidth bills (which of course leads to less availability for other downloaders). The Internet was designed to be distributed, and if the FCC starts really cracking down on ISPs interfering with torrent traffic, then speedy, torrented game downloads will be an obvious imperative to digital game distribution.
If you think that shifty ISPs are only a problem in America - which you might, since we're the only country that matters - you might want to check on that. European ISPs in particular have historically shamed American ones in terms of connection quality, but the kind of shit that Comcast et al get away with is clearly setting a dangerous example.
Hopefully the FCC is about to set a counter-example. Vegas odds on today's statement are that it will be pro-consumer, but it remains to be seen what kinds of standards they'll set for our online rights. Don't wimp out, FCC!
I was talking with a co-worker earlier about Overlord, which I'd finally gotten around to starting yesterday, and am in love with. He recently started playing Little King's Story, and we both mused on how they don't control quite as well as Pikmin, despite having the same basic mechanics.
That's when I realized:
- Overlord was developed by Triumph Studios, in the Netherlands; published by Codemasters, in Britain; and features heavily English (as in Jolly Olde) thematic influences and dialog.
- Little King's Story was developed by Cing and Town Factory, and published by Marvelous, all Japanese - but was released in Europe first, and still isn't out in Japan. It also seems to have European influences, namely monarchy, and Don Quixote.
- Pikmin was Nintendo-developed and -published, in Japan first. But its lead programmer was Colin Reed, who I met once and, if I recall correctly, is quite British. His resume also goes back to Argonaut Software, which is in Britain.
Okay, so that last one is a bit of a stretch. But Little King's Story being released first in Europe is bizarre enough that I feel like this might be more than just a coincidence.
Is there some old game like these that every European kid has played, but we never heard of on the other side of the Atlantic? Is this all Peter Molyneux's fault, somehow? I suspect the worst. (Well, as bad as something can be that brings us games like Pikmin, Overlord, and Little King's Story.)
Once I was stuck in traffic, in the middle of an intersection, blocking another lane. When my route was finally clear and I was able to drive through, a man yelled out his window at me: "It's all about you, eh asshole?"
Destructoid is an independently-run publication forged by our love of video games and the gaming community's need of accountable enthusiast press living the dream since March 16, 2006
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