Meditative Gamer: Passage

I'd like to introduce a new segment to this site called "Meditative Gamer." This is where I get more philosophical, more contemplative about gaming and what it means to us. If a game affected me in a certain way, or if there's a certain sentiment or feeling in the gaming community I want to discuss, I'll post it here. This is going to be more serious than most of my other posts, but if you stick with it, I'm sure you'll be able to get a lot out of it.

There's been a contest going on recently called Gamma 256, where game entries could not exceed a resolution of 256X256 pixels, and where the most unusual resolutions were encouraged. Well, one of these entries was highlighted on Ian Bogost's site - it's called Passage, and I heartedly encourage you to download it and play it. See what you think. I don't really want to reveal what it's about here, as that would spoil it. It needs to be experienced individually. Make sure you have the sound on your computer turned up, too. If you want to discuss this in the comments section, feel free. I just recommend that you play it. Above all, meditate on it. See what it means to you. I might come back to this in a few days and discuss it in more depth - I know how much of a tease my vague statements can be.

(Also, once you finish with the game, read the Creator's Statement on the Passage website. It's worth your time.)

Rock Band and ARGH (the two are not related)

There was a game convention in Philadelphia and I didn't know about it? There was a game convention, complete with playable Rock Band, a huge collection of arcade games, game tournaments, several guests, and even a debate with Jack Thompson, and I didn't go? WHY DID I NOT HEAR ABOUT THIS? Oh, I could've gone so easily, and it didn't even cost that much! I'm sure it would've been an awesome time, and that debate would have to have been a highlight. I think I'm going to bash my head against the wall soon, but first:

(My camera is a piece of crap, sorry)

Well, I did say I missed Rock Band at the convention, but I didn't miss it on the University of Pennsylvania campus. They had a truck set up near the main bookstore with some Rock Band demo units in the back and with a stage in front where you could make a fool with yourself. There were cameras and some recording equipment out there as well, and according to some signs I saw, they were looking to record some participants for this MTV contest or something. I didn't really care about the specifics, to be honest. However, I did care about the game, and while I didn't get the chance to play it (curses!), I did spend some time watching people monkey around with it. I'm sure none of this will be new to people who've been keeping up with the game, but hey, I haven't, and maybe you haven't too!

Well, it looks like a fun game: you get a bunch of friends together, have them pick out a song to play, and get them to hammer on a bunch of plastic instruments. The guitars themselves are modeled after Fender Stratocasters, and they look pretty cool overall. The buttons aren't bright colors like the Guitar Hero controllers, either, so they look slightly more realistic, if that even matters. I was also surprised to see that the drum sticks were authentic and not plastic at all. While you will be playing on plastic instruments, they certainly don't look like toys, which is a pretty good thing.

The demo on display only had five songs to choose from. I don't know how many times "Black Hole Sun" and "Wanted Dead or Alive" were played when I was there, but it sure seemed like a lot. You can select the difficulty level separate from each instrument, which I thought was helpful, and the menus seemed pretty easy to navigate as well. As for the game itself, it's pretty much what you'd expect: the instrument players hit their notes/beats in time with the song according to what's on screen, and the singer does his or her best to stay and pitch and sing the lyrics. All of it seemed pretty accurate and easy to work with. When one person screwed up a lot, only they dropped out of the song; everyone else kept playing. At the end of one playthrough I witnessed, there was a jam session of sorts, with the players just madly mashing on their instruments and and the singer belting out whatever was lodged in his throat. It was a kind of bonus round, really, and it looked like a good way to cool off after a long song.

But once I continued watching people play, I came to a realization about who this game might be for. Guitar Hero, I think, leans heavily towards a lot more "harder" rock and some classic rock, particularly with metal songs. In Guitar Hero III alone you've got Slipknot, Iron Maiden, Dead Kennedys, Smashing Pumpkins, Dragonforce, and White Zombie, for example, with some stuff like the Rolling Stones and Santana on the side. While I'm seeing a lot of the same bands and even a few songs in both games (hey, both have "Mississippi Queen" and "Cherub Rock"), I'm also noticing some "lighter" stuff in Rock Band as well - Boston, Rush, the Police, and the aforementioned Bon Jovi. This is not to say any of these bands are bad or anything, I'm just saying the the song list in Rock Band seems to have a wider appeal than the one in Guitar Hero III does. Check them out and see what I mean.

Granted, I'm not a big music nut, so my analysis could be way off, but Guitar Hero seems to be aiming for mainly the hard rockers and the metal heads, while Rock Band is definitely going for a wider demographic. I suppose part of this has to do with the fact that there's a singer thrown into the mix. I imagine your throat would get pretty raspy if you tried to sing some of the harder metal stuff in Guitar Hero. But this title is also getting published by EA, who does often appeal to larger groups of people, and Harmonix, the developers of the game, admitted this themselves: "We'll be covering a great breadth, from metal to classic rock to Southern rock to everything in between." If this isn't a sign that they wanted Rock Band to appeal to a wider audience, I don't know what is. Maybe that'll give Rock Band a certain niche to stand out in.

Not sure about the price tag, though. $170 is less than you would expect for a full game, three fake instruments, and a microphone, but I'm not sure how well it'll go over with your average consumer. We'll see come this holiday season.

Well this is a surprise.

Today suddenly just got worse. What this means for Bioware and Pandemic, I'm not sure, but I can't say I'm happy about the purchases. I hope that they can still be relatively independent, but nowadays, I can't be so sure...

And there was much rejoicing (yay)

Halo 3. Do I need to say more? But it looks like I'm doing it anyway, so here goes: already we're getting stories about how people have lined up for launch events and such, which doesn't surprise me in the least bit. I mean, given the money Microsoft funneled into the marketing of the game, and with all the pre-existing hype for the franchise, you know it's going to sell well. And of course, most review sites are jumping on the praise bandwagon with the lowest score (as of this writing) being an 88 out of 100.

But that's not to say I'm cynical about the game selling well. The franchise has become such a phenomenon that it's become recognized in the public eye for quite some time now, increasing recognition of the video game industry as a whole. And yeah, the series is pretty fun. Granted, I'm no big Halo fan, but Bungie got some stuff right. It was one of the first shooters to really bring a PC experience to a home console, and it's a pretty well polished game as well. Of course, it's fun, especially in multiplayer. I don't think the series is all that remarkable to me (it just feels like another futuristic shooter), but there's nothing really wrong with it at all.

Well, I'm sure some could argue that having Halo get all this recognition and respect takes away from other, supposedly better games, but I'm not going into that territory right now, mostly because I don't think that's happening. Halo is certainly popular among the more "casual" gamer types (I'm sure there are a lot that are really into it at my college), but hey, they're having fun, and we're having fun with both Halo and other games, so it all works out. Besides, a lot of the other games are marketed more towards a hardcore audience anyway - would you ever want a game like Deus Ex to have its own Mountain Dew flavor?

I read the news today, oh boy...

Sooooo...lots of stuff going on from when I last posted. Let's discuss a few things, shall we?

• The ESA is ramping up their lobbying efforts, it looks like, and while I like some of what's being discussed (First Amendment protections yay), others are a little worrying to me. Virtual property taxation? The first sale doctrine? Since I haven't found out much more about it, I'm just hoping this'll turn out to be good rather than bad. We already know what happened when certain copyright owners lobbied to increase copyright terms...
  
• The Tokyo Game Show is going on, and lots of good stuff is to be had: Metal Gear Solid 4 playable, Metal Slug 7 (for the DS!) shows up, Soul Calibur 4 looks the same but different, Mr. Destructoid hangs with the booth babes there...lots of stuff going on, and it's too much to mention here.
  
• Super Smash Bros. Brawl is turning out better and better by the day: first we get a music selection feature, and then we have confirmed online play, and we're still getting all kinds of new characters out the wazoo right now, especially with Snake being reconfirmed today. His attacks look more tactical than we're used to with mines and rockets and such...this could get interesting.
• SNK Playmore USA announced a lot of great stuff: the aforementioned Metal Slug 7, another King of Fighters collection, a pack of old SNK arcade games under the moniker "SNK Arcade Classics" (I'm a sucker for retro compilations), and Samurai Shodown 2 for Xbox Live! Of course, we're getting Neo Geo titles for the Virtual Console as well, so hooray.
• Resident Evil 5 is now officially said to be set in Haiti. I honestly don't think this setting is racist, like some have said. After all, many of the original beliefs about voodoo and zombies originated in Haiti, so I think this decision makes some sense. I'd have to see more of the game before I make a final judgment, though.
  
• I think I'm going to buy a Sega Master System soon. It couldn't stand up to the prowess and console monopoly of Nintendo, but it still has some neat stuff for it. Of course, it's just going to add to all the stuff I already know...and God knows I have enough game clutter lying around already. But then again, I already committed to buy Zillion and the 2nd Alex Kidd game...so yeah.

And to finish off on that last note about the Master System, I think it's prudent to link to one of my favorite pictures...Brandon Bird, I salute you. Check out some of his other work, too, it's good stuff. (Hope you don't mind me linking to you, you're awesome!)

I'll try to actually get video footage and such up for you all soon, but I still need to get my equipment ready for it. Hopefully by that time I'll stop being such a writing hack and actually entertain you guys! A glorious day indeed...

National Video Games Day!...wait, what?

Well, it's news to me: apparently today, September 12th, is National Video Games Day, at least according to the people over at Holiday Insights and American Greetings. Um, okay? So instead of celebrating games everyday (like I do), we can focus our attentions on one very specific and obscure holiday to send goofy cards to each other. What better way to prove your smacktalking deathmatch skills to your friends than by sending them this heartwarming sentiment! Yeah, this sure feels like a Hallmark Holiday to me, especially since there's another so-called gamer holiday already: July 8th's Video Games Day. Nope, not similar to each other in the least bit!

One last thing...about the weird card with the spaceship flying out of the screen. ("Nah, Mom, that happens all the time!") Well, the animation on it kind of syncs up with the Tears for Fears version of "Mad World." Don't ask me why I know that.

Gaming on the Rise

(NOTE: By "casual" games, I mean stuff that appeals both aesthetically and gameplay-wise to a wider audience, and that is more accessible and can be played with for minutes at a time. "Hardcore" games are your 50-hour long affairs with gratuitous blood and gore and more complicated controls. These are generalizations, but it's just to give you an idea by what I mean.)

I recently flew back to college again for another semester, and while I was waiting for my plane to depart at the airport, I noticed something peculiar: normal, everyday people playing video games on handheld machines. Now, you might ask, "why is this surprising? They're just passing the time away while waiting for a flight." Yes, this is true, but I've never really seen many other people (besides kids) playing games like this before, and I see it as the sign of a growing trend: gaming is on the rise in popularity among adults. I guess I've never noticed this before, and while I've heard about the rising popularity of casual games, I guess it's never really filtered through to me until now that non-gamers are playing games in their spare time. Perhaps being in this hardcore bubble for too long makes you forget about the world and the big picture. Gaming has started to become socially popular, and I only think it can get bigger from here.

What do we owe this rise to? Of course, casual games are a part of this. PC titles like The Sims and Internet games like Bejeweled have been captivating people of all ages for years now, but it's only been recently that console and handheld systems have been enticing consumers and non-gamers, in part thanks to a shifting focus on those who play games. The hardcore market is fairly saturated right now, but companies like Nintendo recognized the potential that could be tapped out of other groups. The meteoric popularity of the Wii and DS, the increased media coverage of consoles, the greater public exposure...video games are getting noticed more these days. Of course, we've been hearing and talking about games for years now, but not in such a way as this, and I think I know why: it lies in many of these games being more accessible. You don't need to spend hours learning how to play a game, and you can just pick up and play at any time. Traditional games just don't have that much appeal to working adults with so little spare time, but their greater disposable income still allows them to buy games, so in many cases they go more casual. The market's growing, and casual games account for one reason this is happening.

Maybe I should put my thoughts into context. At the airport, I saw a number of people playing games. Of course, you have your typical grade-school kid playing Pokémon on his Game Boy. This is nothing new. But there were older individuals playing games as well. A flight attendent, waiting at the gate among the rest of the passengers, was using his PSP to watch a movie and play a little. A college-aged student frittered her time away, if only for a little while, with her DS. And most notably, I noticed a couple playing together on some game with their own PSPs. Now, these people didn't seem like the hardcore gaming type to me. (Yes, appearances can be deceiving, but for the sake of example, bear with me.) They were normal individuals waiting for their flights, just like I was. But instead of reading a book or listening to music while waiting, they opted to play a few games and have a little fun while doing so. If there's one personal sign to me that games are getting more popular in the general public, this is it.

I'm aware that this is just anecdotal evidence. If you're looking for more hard figures, try researching the sales figures on games like Brain Age and Guitar Hero and tell me what you find. See what I mean? We're not just seeing your stereotypical gamers playing these: we're seeing moms, dads, sisters, music fans, elderly...we're seeing more varied groups of people legitimately playing games in their spare time. As much as some people proclaim this to be a foreboding sign of doom, I can't really see too much negative out of this. Even though casual games are getting popular at the expense of "hardcore" games, gaming is starting to be recognized more and more. We'll still have our Bioshocks and Metal Gears to fall back on, but those who won't play these games will get to enjoy themselves too. I'm wondering what the future will bring...