What the Gamers are doing for PAX 2009

Some of you may be familiar with Penny Arcade, and online comic based on the adventures of Gabe and Tycho, two gamer dudes who pretty much do nothing more than glorified gamer things. This is my third year in a row, and I found that PAX had a lot to offer this year.

Here are some of the highlights.

Blizzard Entertainment has their Starcraft and World of Warcraft booths up.  No surprise there.  Their new version of Diablo is drawing quite a crowd, which is also not a surprise.

Nexon has three really cool games displayed that are all free to download:  Dragon Nest, D ungeon Fighter, and an FPS game called Combat Arms.

Speaking of completely free, I also got a chance to try out Faunasphere, a browser based game where characters make pets called Faunas and put them in a Faunasphere.  It’s a lot like other browser-based pet games out there, but not as cutsey-wutsey as Facebook’s Pet Society.

The Entertainment Consumer Association (ECA) has a booth that is all draped off with elegant translucent curtains and elaborate dƒÂ©cor.  It almost makes me want to join them, especially for $20.00 a month. It is good for almost $300 worth of savings on video games, as well as a chance to hang around and eat snack food.

CDV has their DS games which include I Love (with a heart) Geeks and My Little Baby.  It also has PC games Divinity II and Serious Sam HD.

Turbine games is proud to be displaying D&D Online.  I believe I covered much of this in a previous article.

2K Games has some sort of display that has this odd room that everyone is searching through.  BioShock II and a new game called Borderlands is the big draw, though.

PAX often has a lot of energy drinks that are free to try.  One of them is called Healing Potion from Mana.  It comes in a fancy bottle like the one from Shrek 2, but it takes awful, like cough syrup.  I feel less than healed.  Another is some new non-carbonated ones from the Jones soda company.  The Jones’ drinks are an improvement, but nothing that I would buy.  Omni Consumer has a product called Tru Blood, which is supposed to be a fruit drink that looks like blood.  I believe there is some vampire show in which characters drink this stuff, and this is actually what the actors drink.  Who would have thought that Tru Blood would taste so delicious?

Nintendo has all the bells and whistles in effect, with the highlight being the displays of the new version of Super Mario Brothers for the Wii.

Disney Interactive has Split Second, which looks like a run-of-the-mill racing game.  Not really what I would expect from the Mouse House.  Pretty soon they’ll have Marvel-related games, thanks to that acquisition thing.

Sony’s PS3 display prominently features God of War, Ratchet and Clank: Future, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, and an Eyepet, which uses augmented reality to make a virtual pet come to life.

EA’s booth makes you wonder what they don’t have.  Some of the newest are The Saboteur, Army of Two, Dead Space Extraction, two Need for Speed games (Shift and Nitro), and a new Nerf game.   Not to mention the Dante’s Inferno game that allows you to enter hell.

NC Soft has not one, not two, but three booths based on their successful franchises like City of Heroes, Aion, and Guild Wars 2.  They also have some time to devote to Star Trek Online and Champions Online.

Bethesda is devoting much of their time sharing about Brink, a very Splinter Cell-ish looking game.  Other games include Wet and Rogue Warrior.

FunCom has their barbarian fantasy MMO Age of Conan display set up.  They also have another MMO game going on called The Secret World which takes place in modern times involving a global conspiracy.

As for iHarmonix, two words: Rock Band.  Beatles Rock Band was on display prominently, and it looks very good.  Fans could rock along with the Fab Four for one of the first times.  Also on deck was Lego Rock Band, which uses bricks for the little bars that scroll upward.

Capcom had some interesting offerings with Lost Planet 2 (or Lost Planet Squared, depending if you read the 2 as an exponent or an actual number 2), Spyborgs, and Dark Void.  The real draw was the new Resident Evil game.

Runic/Perfect World had an interesting downloadable game known as Torchlight which looked quite interesting.  It involves you going into a dungeon and kicking butt, sort of like Gauntlet back in the day.

Phantom EFX had one of the most creative games that I have seen in a while with Darkest of Days, a first-person shooter that involves time travel.

THQ had this odd promotion for their DarkRiders game that consisted of a horse known as Ruin that was a mechanical bull that attendees could ride.  Quite a draw for that, and you had to sign a waiver to ride it.

Stardock was up to their old tricks with Sins of a Solar Empire, and some new tricks with Elemental and Impulse.

CCP had their usual EVE Online fare displayed, not much new there.

WB games had Scribblenauts, which is easily one of the most original games that I have seen in a while.  In the game you play a character that has to gather up stars in this virtual world.  To succeed in your goal, you write you want.  For example, if you want a ladder, just write ladder and one will appear.  I am told it can do almost all nouns.

Flying Labs, makers of the Pirates of the Burning Sea MMO, were there in full pirate garb, using cannons to fire T-shirts into the crowd.  Nothing new there.

Alienware this odd set up for that made you feel like you were in a UFO.  They even had a bunch of booth people that were dressed like the Men in Black.

Ubisoft had their new Splinter Cell prominently on display, but I liked the Wii game known simply as Just Dance where you just dance.  All the player needs to do is dance like the guy on the screen.

Nvidia and Zalman showed off their 3D emulators.  There was a booth where attendees could see a preview of the new Avatar game (based off the upcoming James Cameron movie) that showed off its 3D as well.  Yeah, I think 3D is just getting bigger.

So, if you have never been to a video game conference, this is what you have missed.

New Sony Offensive

Sony launched a major offensive in the console war this week with a number of big announcements. During a presentation at the GamesCom 2009 event in Cologne, Germany they unveiled the new slim PlayStation 3 and talked about their plans for the platform. There have been suggestions that Sony are lagging behind Nintendo and Microsoft in the battle for gamers and this package of products and updates is clearly an attempt to redress the balance.

The Wii and the Xbox 360 have been outselling the much more expensive PlayStation 3 and Sony has resisted any price drop. Back in June they claimed to be happy with their price point, which even then represented a loss on every console sold. With pressure to stimulate the market amid falling sales they have finally made a move. The new version of their popular console heralds the long awaited price drop and the 120 GB machine will cost $299 in the US, ¢â€šÂ¬299 in Europe and £249 in the UK. By comparison the 120 GB Xbox 360 Elite remains priced at $399.

The new PlayStation 3 slim is 33% smaller and 36% lighter than the old PS3. The interior has undergone a complete redesign and the console will use less energy and operate more quietly than the old model. In fact power consumption has been cut to two-thirds the previous level and as a result the machine does not heat up so much so there is less need for noisy fan operation.

The console looks sleeker and more attractive than ever and the visual redesign has also seen the logo change to lower case and a matte, textured finish instead of a shiny one. It supports Wi-Fi out of the box, it has two USB ports and you can access the hard drive from the front and upgrade more easily than with the previous iteration. In fact you can now upgrade the hard drive without voiding the warranty. The old 80 GB and 160 GB models will now be phased out.

If you are looking for a downside then perhaps you could point to the lack of backwards compatibility for PlayStation 2 games, although it can run PlayStation 1 games. You also can’t store the PlayStation 3 slim vertically unless you buy a stand and they have ditched the option to install another operating system.

Sony didn’t rest there and the announcements continued with a big firmware update for the PlayStation 3 platform. PS3 Firmware 3.0 adds some useful menu updates which make navigation on the console a bit smoother with easier access to the store and a redesigned friends list. There are a few new cosmetic updates as well which allow animated themes and the option of new avatars for your profile. Most exciting for UK gamers is the support for BBC iPlayer. There is also a new video on demand movie rental service offering HD and SD movies due to launch in November.

These new developments look set to take advantage of the superior capabilities of the PS3 and technically speaking it is by far the best console of the current generation. The PS3 supports Blu-ray playback, it offers 1080p HDMI output, integrated wireless, free online support and a 120 GB upgradeable hard drive. The firmware update will combine with a big redesign of their online Home space where companies are now looking to establish an online presence.

The new offensive was not limited to the console space and Sony had news for the handheld market as well. The PSP Go was unveiled back in June. It is a smaller, slide open version of the PSP handheld. At GamesCom Sony announced that they will be launching a mini-game store for the machine and gamers will be able to download casual games which are under 100 MB in size. They also plan to launch a reader for the PSP which will allow people to read full length novels on it and the video on demand service due to launch in November will be extended to the PSP as well. To round things off it will be available in some funky colors.

There are obvious moves here to beat Microsoft on price and also to challenge Nintendo on accessibility and the casual gamer market. Sony is uniquely placed to capture hardcore and casual gamers and their PS3 console is truly an entertainment center. If consumers were to shop for a Blu-ray player with internet surfing capabilities and access to streaming video on demand they would be hard pressed to find a device cheaper than the PlayStation 3 and it offers gaming as well. Perhaps with this new design and all important price drop we’ll see the console really take off at last.

Highlights of E3 2009

E3, the biggest gaming convention in the world, has recently had its annual meeting at the Convention Center in L.A.. The gaming companies love to make their big announcements at this time, and here is a list of what they have been holding out on the gaming crowd.

Xbox 360 News

• The open-world action game Crackdown will have a sequel, appropriately named Crackdown 2. Like its predecessor, it is only available for the Xbox 360.
• Mass Effect 2 will be out in early 2010 for the PC and Xbox 360.
• Accept no substitutions, the one and only Jack Black will star in Brutal Legend. Jack is a roadie in this game, who must battle demons for some reason. It is available for the Xbox 360 and PS3, and will also star Lemmy Kilmeister and Ozzy Osbourne.
• Put out an APB on APB, a game available for the PC and Xbox 360 where the gamer plays a gang member.
• One of the bigger announcements was Project Natal, Microsoft’s answer to the Wiimote. This is a camera and microphone that mounts on the television that can sense motion, three-dimensional movement, and sound. This controller that requires nothing but the user was introduced by none other than Steven Spielberg.

Nintendo Wii News

• Red Steel 2 is due out for the Wii, and will make full use of the MotionPlus.
• For the first time, Super Mario Brothers will be available to play on the Wii. A sequel to Super Mario Galaxy is also coming.
• WiiFit Plus and Wii Sports Resort are two sequels that encourage Wii gamers to be more active.
• Dead Space Extraction is a prequel to the popular science-fiction M-rated game. This one appears to be available only for the Wii and is due out September 29^th.

Nintendo DS News

• Nintendo DS users will have a unique gaming experience with Women’s Murder Club: Game of Passion. This is based on James Patterson’s novels, and I believe this had a series, didn’t it?
• Other new DS titles include Kingdom Hearts, Mario and Luigi: Bower’s Inside Story (Fall 2009), and Golden Sun DS (2010).

Sony PS3 News

• God of War 3 is slated to hit the PS3 very soon.
• PS3 titles to be released will be Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Assassin’s Creed 2. Believe it or not, Final Fantasy XIV is under development, exclusively for the PS3.
• PS3 is also developing a motion-sensitive controller similar to the Project Natal from Microsoft.

Sony PSP News

• PSP Go has finally been made official. The Go is smaller, has a slide-up screen, and no UMD drive.
• PSP games to be released include racing game Gran Turismo and a few others. For example, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker should be available for PSP in 2010.

Multiple Platform News

• Tony Hawk made a personal appearance for Tony Hawk Ride, which Zmogo has already reported on in a previous article.
• In case you haven’t heard, Beatles Rock Band will be released on 09.09.09.
• Lost Planet 2 will soon be available for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC.
• While we are on the subject of those three platforms and sequels, Dead Rising 2 will also be available soon.

The Future of “Hero” Games

With Activision’s announcement of the upcoming release of DJ Hero, featuring Jay-Z and Eminem, it looks like we are finally reaching the conceptual limits of the real-instrument-as-a-toy rhythm game, which is an exciting prospect for people who take joy in witnessing events of almost pure absurdity.

Even for those of us who love games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero, there’s always been something just a little bit ridiculous about playing a fake guitar along to real songs. While the common internet troll’s cry of “get a real instrument” has always been an aggressive, narrow-minded view that ignores the fact that rhythm games are fun, there is perhaps a nugget of truth in their vitriol: learning to play songs on a real instrument is also fun, and everyone will think you’re cool if you can bust out a John Mayer song or some junk at a party. No one will think you’re cool if you bring your special edition Slash Guitar Hero controller to your friend’s get-together and start to fake-wail.

So with Guitar Hero we have replicas of instruments that can be used to simulate playing music. Kind of weird, but reasonable enough. DJ Hero on the other hand takes that dull point of weirdness off in the distance and makes it into a full-blown, retina-melting supernova. No longer will rhythm game players be using a replica of an instrument, but rather will be using a replica of a device used to play already-recorded music in the first place.

Let me elaborate. Want to play a song on guitar? You learn how to play a guitar. The mechanics of this are difficult, and so making a game that allows even the musically illiterate to simulate playing guitar is significant.

Want to play a song on a turntable? You put a record on the turntable and it plays the music.

I can’t stress this enough. In order to play a song with a turntable, all you have to learn to do is turn on the turntable. By playing DJ Hero, we are simulating the act of playing music on a record player. This is truly absurd, and also fantastic. As such, I predict that it is only a short matter of time before we start to see the most ridiculous of all instruments become the subject of rhythm games. What bizarre new depths will Activision bring us to with future instrument peripherals? The answers may surprise and disgust you!

So join me as we look at The Future of “Hero” Games!

Piano Hero

Appeal: The piano is a widely popular instrument used in everything from classical to jazz to pop, and as such the Piano Hero game is sure to be a success. But unlike guitars, which require strumming, and drums, which require hitting things, pianos only require that the player push a bunch of buttons. As far as I can tell, this is exactly how a normal videogame controller is used, which doesn’t exactly make a piano game controller sound too appealing. So, Piano Hero is going to need something to differentiate it from both normal videogame controllers and other rhythm game controllers.

How will Activision do this? That is a great question, fine reader, and I’ve got an answer coming straight at your question-hole right now: more buttons.

The standard guitar controller only has a wimpy five buttons, making it at best a dull abstraction of an actual guitar, and most drum controllers don’t even have cymbals or a high hat. The Piano Hero controller on the other hand will include a button for every key on the piano. Actually, scratch that. Piano Hero will just include an actual piano with the game.

That’s right, Piano Hero will be the first game with the balls, guts, and other anatomical stuff to push the rhythm game to its logical conclusion by going ahead and forcing the player to just learn how to play piano in order to play the game.

Too difficult? How about too awesome!? What could be a more immersive gaming experience than playing a game about playing piano with an actual piano? Nothing, that’s what. Well, except actually playing piano, I guess. Anyways, the goal of Rock Band is to make you feel like you’re a guitar player for once in your pathetic life, which is fun, so Piano Hero will maximize that fun by just making every Piano Hero player an actual piano player!

Even better, the programmers won’t have to fuss around with scaling every song down to an abstract level, because there will only be one difficulty setting: actual song.

Audience: Kids whose parents forced them to take piano lessons. Church ladies.

Tracks: I know we said that classical music and jazz are popular, but let’s face it, nobody who listens to that stuff would lower themselves to being anywhere within a 100 foot radius of a videogame. So, it looks like it’s going to be all Elton John, all the time.

Theremin Hero

Appeal: The theremin is a bizarre instrument that is played by not touching anything. This truly unique form of playing is the sole reason for  this unusual instrument’s esoteric appeal, since it sounds about as beautiful as an air-raid siren.

Unfortunately, this is a game, so it has to have buttons to press. As such, players will press a series of buttons on a normal videogame controller to manipulate a set of virtual on-screen hands, which will then move around within an actual 3D representation of a theremin. This a truly incredible advance that gives all the fun of playing a theremin while still being able to touch something!

But we couldn’t just stop there, oh no. The truly groundbreaking feature of this game is that it will require you to hold the controller in a theremin while you press buttons to manipulate the virtual theremin, giving the game an unparalleled true-to-life feel!

Audience: People who read Boingboing and like stuff that is weird for the sake of being weird, even though it is actually kind of awful.

Tracks: The sign-off tone of your local cable TV station.

Oh wait, this just in: the theremin has already been used by some nerd to play Rock Band. Ignore everything I just said.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OybiXxxkQG8[/youtube]

Bongo Hero

Appeal: Bongo Hero will be the first Hero game to allow you to tap into the exciting and visceral world of being that one guy on stage that doesn’t have a microphoned instrument, because why did we let him in the band again?

In contrast with most instrument peripherals, the Bongo Hero controller will only include one button: a bongo. But this game will make revolutionary use of that one button. Rather than encourage players to go along with the song, Bongo Hero will reward players for a-rhythmically smacking the bongo controller while bobbing up and down and swaying around with their eyes closed, just like a real bongo player!

On second thought, this has no appeal at all.

Audience: Smelly hippies who always show up to the show incredibly stoned then bang on their authentic African bongos that they got in Capetown during their “humanitarian aid work-term,” where they were really just trying to pick up girls who wear hemp and have dreadlocks.

Tracks: Whatever music is being played where more than one person wearing a Che Guevera t-shirt can be found.

Katzenklavier Hero

Appeal: It’s a freaking organ made out of cats. The end.

Audience: Renaissance-era ADD patients, dog-lovers, the deaf.

Tracks: Jingle Cats.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPp0g0A_6x8[/youtube]

Hero-Game Hero

Appeal: Do you suck at rhythm games? Of course you do! Your hands have been permanently locked into wretched, clenched claws from carpal tunnel-inducing videogame playing and masturbation. As such you are never able to join in on the fun of a boisterous game of Rock Band, and are instead forced to sit back and make a feeble attempt at drinking a beer with your horribly disfigured appendages.

But have no fear, because Hero-Game Hero is here! (Oh.)  With Hero-Game Hero, players will get to experience all the exhilaration and thrill of playing a set, without the need for any of that physical proficiency stuff!

The gameplay mechanics are simple: just choose the difficulty you want to play the song at, then enter the skill level at which you want the song to be played. Want to experience the excitement of completing Through the Fire and the Flames on expert difficulty? Simply set your playing skill to little kid phenom and watch the points roll in! Want to suck really bad at Bark at the Moon? Just set the song’s difficulty to expert and your playing skill to toddler chewing on the controller and experience the agony and tears of defeat.

The game will even include a selection of playing strategies to highlight the tactical aspects of Hero-Game playing. Strategies will include: know the song before you played it in the game so you don’t screw up until you get to the bridge that no one cares about, try to get overdrive to go off by tilting the guitar as violently as possible multiple times only to have it not respond, making you scream at your TV when you fail, and hit the right notes at the right time instead of the wrong ones.

The ultimate goal is to become the best Hero-Game player ever, giving you the skills and talent to beat any individual rhythm game ever created!

Audience: People who like the idea of rhythm games but not rhythm, people with no hands, fans of meta-irony.

Tracks: Every song ever made! (Due to licensing fees, the game will cost 849 million dollars.)

The Controversy of Six Days in Fallujah

Imagine if they had video games back in the early 1940s. Now imagine if they released Medal of Honor or similar World War II video game back then. Ask yourself how weird it would be to playing a game where soldiers are killing Nazis when the real thing is actually happening overseas, probably at that moment.

Not that little kids weren’t playing a World War II version of cowboys and Indians while their fathers were fighting the war in Europe and Asia. I suppose there is an instinct of game-making of writing what you know, and draws from current events for subject matter of games.

I’m not saying that is right or wrong, but this is the controversy of a soon-to-be released video game from Konami and Atomic Games known as Six Days in Fallujah. I’m sure that you can already tell from its title what kind of game that this is.

Yes, this takes place during the Iraqi war, the one that isn’t finished as yet. Specifically, it is about the second battle in Fallujah, Operation Phantom Fury. It is also based on Operation Al-Fajr, which took place between November 7 and December 23, 2004. Yes, that is more than six days, and I suppose those six days that this game takes place in are somewhere during that time.

Just a day after its announced release, there has been some serious controversy surrounding it. For example, Reg Keys, father of deceased soldier Red Cap Thomas Keys, stated that glorifying the Fallujah crisis of 2004 in a video game is poor judgment and bad taste.

Believe it or not, this isn’t the first game to based on the situation in Fallujah. There is an online PC game called Kuma War which draws from real events taken on the war on terror.

Is it odd we would use events from the war on terror as subject matter for a video game. It’s kind of like these movies like The Kingdom and Stop-Loss which don’t do very well in the theaters. It is complete understandable why, because box office results have shown that the general public doesn’t really want to see films based on something that too contemporary and too tragic.

Didn’t anyone think Fallujah wouldn’t be a controversial topic? I understand about using contemporary controversial material to sell your product, but this might be a little too much.

Well, unless the controversy is so thick that it stops production, gamers should expect to see Six Days in Fallujah sometime on the shelves next year for the Xbox 360, PS3, as well as the PC.

So, should we keep these games out of people’s hands because they are based on contemporary history that has not resolved as yet? I’m not certain about that one.

I think that it is a bad idea to make video games based on current events, simply because video games take so long to make. Six Days in Fallujah has taken several years already. If you’re going to make a video game based on current events, make certain it will not be passƒÂ© by the time of its release. Can you imagine making a Y2K video game? Yeah, that wouldn’t be such a hit if it was released in September of 2000.

If you want to create a video game set in the midst of a present day-crisis, just use the economy as your subject matter.

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