Weekly Opinion - Double pack - Used Video Games

Like other sources of entertainment, there is a market for used video games. Unlike used books and music, however, it is somewhat hampered by Digital Rights Management attempts, but all the same, there is a small industry for it.

I Liked This Game, You Can Do

There are a few reasons as to why a person can resell their game to one of a few stores. One is that they didn't like the game and enough time has passed that they aren't able to return it to get their money back. Another is that the game is quite old, for much the same reason. Yet another is that people sometimes want to share the games, or just want to make room if they have a ton. And some just see it as a way to make a quick buck (as I did once).

There are a few places one can look. eBay and Amazon.com are good places, though one must be careful for bootlegs and the like. A place like Gamestop will often buy back games, but be warned there, they do not buy back older games (I recall hearing recently they stopped buying back Playstation 2's) and often shortchange a person, or find some minuscule reason to not buy back a game or system.

Finally there is Play N Trade. I haven't been to one yet myself, but I have heard good things, and it would appear that they even have games going back to the old Sega Genesis and Nintendo days. Excellent!

Bargain Bin Hunting and Buried Treasures
There's two other good reasons to go shopping for used games. First, you can often find a game for quite a low price. Though, be careful that the game is not damaged in some way.

But the main reason, in my eyes, is to find that diamond in the rough. Though you can sometimes find them in mainstream retailers (I found previously reviewed game Tribes at Best Buy for all of $20 or so, if memory serves), you're far better off in the backwater stores.

Go Digging

So go and find your nearest used game store. You may be surprised by what you find.

Weekly Opinion - Game Ratings

Previously, I touched upon the game rating system by the Entertainment Software Rating Board, or ESRB. Mostly it was in relation to the Adults Only rating and how games with that label essentially become lepers to retailers.

Now, though, I wish to touch upon the ratings in general.

Favorable

For the most part, I don't mind the ratings. As I have been a gamer for most of my life, I've seen it grow and know most of it by heart. To me, they're as clear as the Motion Picture Association of America's ratings (G, PG, etc). If there is any rating system that is not really clear, the TV Parental Guideline are the confusing ones (TV-Y, TV-14 DLV, etc).

Enough of that, though. I feel that the ratings, for the most part, are apt. Generally, E games are good for everyone, T has action and some violence, but not as much as M, and so on. I do feel that AO ratings get a bad rap, and that they should be allowed (just through specific venues).

The problem is, it doesn't always seem as though people get it.

Parents

Parents, it seems, are often the ones who don't understand the ratings, and sadly, they are often the most vocal, complaining about how lil' Timmy bought Grand Theft Auto 4. The thing is, if anyone actually looks into it, they'll find that the parents didn't pay any attention to what game the kid was buying, and it is clearly rated M for mature.

I feel, as a society, people are becomming more prone to blame others for their own shortcomings. If something goes wrong, it isn't their fault, especially as a parent. If their kid messes up, the fault belongs to the teacher. If the kid kills someone, a violent video game warped their fragile little mind. If they buy a violent video game, its the fault of the retailer and not their own for just rubber stamping lil' Timmy's purchase.

It is really annoying.

Reaction

I'll grant you, I only started buying M games after I turned 18, and became more interested in them. I've only been carded once, which surprised me, but I felt it was a good thing. But it seems that many others don't. This does surprise me a bit, but at the same time it doesn't. I know I don't get carded often when I am supposed to (I was taught while working at Harris Teeter when I was 17 that a license needed to be seen when a credit card was used, yet I rarely see this happen).

Not much can be done, I think. Society can only do so much for the parents, though. The parents need to pick up the slack.

Weekly Opinion - Gimmicks in Gaming

Games and gimmicks often go hand in hand. They are often a way to make a game at least somewhat memorable, as gimmicks can make a game stand out.

For some games, the gimmick is a way to transform the controller into a gun of sorts. Others require you to purchase (either with it or as an addition) special controller-instruments. Still others require a certain game, and some platforms have the gimmick built right in.

Gimmicks can be beneficial to a game, though the problem lies in that developers sometimes just include gimmicks for the sake of it having a gimmick. I'll go into some examples below.

Wii and Mii

The Wii can be seen as a console built almost entirely around a gimmick. The whole Wiimote with the motion sensing abilities allows for some interesting games, and can be fun (or so I hear, I myself have never touched a Wii), but at the same time is a bit odd, at least in choice. Nintendo did suffer some backlash for this design, as when the Wii took off, the wristbands for it often broke and had a person launching a Wiimote into their TV.



But ok, for the most part, the Wiimote is ok. You can hold it and pretend you're using a gun or Lightsaber. Yay for imagination! Only...Nintendo has created some peripherals to make the gimmicky Wiimote even more of a gimmick. They have a plastic holder that turns it into a gun (something one can do without it just as well), and a steering wheel case to make it a steering wheel (again, something easily done by people with...oh, I don't know, imagination).

Still, its ok, gimmick aside. Sometimes Nintendo seems to be going for the gimmick for gimmicks sake route, but it works well enough for now.

Touch Me, Feel Me

Nintendo makes my small list again, this time with the Nintendo DS. The DS, coming from Dual Screen, has...well, two screens, heh. The bottom one is actually touch sensitive, and games often make use of this. In truth, the fault for gimmickry does not lie with Nintendo here. It lies with developers. The touch screen can be quite useful and, when utilized well, can make a good game great.

But the problem is that some developers tend to forget that they can use it. I mentioned this in my Pokemon Pearl and Diamond review a while ago, but that's a good example. I can use the touch screen to do a few things, issue commands (but I can use the directional pad and regular buttons for that too), sort my bag, and change modes on my character's watch, but...that's it.

RAWK OUT!

The final one I'll bring up is Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Both are essentially the same. You play through a DDR-esque game where you hit the right colored button at the right time. In this case, your controllers are music instruments (Guitar, Drum, Mic/Tamberine or whatever, etc). Though I dislike the games (it seemed to just get popular all of a sudden. I can't tell you the amount of times I groaned when someone coming through the airport I work at was bringing a Guitar Hero guitar with their ON BOARD LUGGAGE. What, you think that you can play mid-flight? Ugh), the idea is good, and actually seems fun at times. Instead of air guitar or drums, you can let loose, and it doesn't require that much practice to use.



Conclusions

Gimmicks can make or break a game at times. But it can also cheapen a game, too. Developers and the companies behind the consoles need to learn how to balance a gimmick.

Weekly Opinion - Double pack - Movie Tie-ins

As Summer approaches, so too comes the glut of Summer movies. And along with Summer movies (and really, any movie that's connected to a comic, book, or something for kids, so it doesn't have to happen during Summer), so too comes the glut of game tie-ins.

I've been told of a few that don't suck, but as a general rule, I avoid them like the plague. There's a reason for that.

If you LOVE [Blank] - The Movie, You'll LOVE [Blank] - The Movie - The Game!

What I titled above is pretty much one of the main reasons why I hate movie tie-ins. The majority are put out to capitalize on all the free publicity that the movie generates. Game companies can generally slap a title like Spider-Man on a game, add a 1, 2, or 3 as it needs to so it fits with the movie, have some general plot points the movie has, and ship it out. Even if the game blows, hordes of people will buy it.

These games tend to be loaded down with bugs and gameplay issues. But the developers and companies behind it all don't truly care. They put it out as quickly as possible to make money, money, money. And if you think about it, most movies are just out for the money nowadays too.
I'm Batman

Interestingly, there was one movie that didn't have a game tie-in that I expected would. Batman: The Dark Knight did not have any such game. As we all know by now, The Dark Knight was pretty much a license to print money. Surely a game, even an astoundingly crappy one, would've been expected.

According to The Escapist, who link to an article from Kotaku Australia, there was an attempt, but it never came to fruition. I suggest reading both, as they talk about it far better than I ever could (and check out their sites, especially The Escapist. Quite good guys there).

Final Thoughts

I'm keeping this brief due to a headache, and that this is mostly opinion instead of fact. Movie tie-ins blow. There are a few diamonds in the rough, but generally there is just the rough. Until such time as developers and the movie industry that demands games decide that they want to put out a game that's good instead of just advertisement for the movie, and until such time as the hordes of Walmart shoppers stop buying this crap, there will always be shelf space for such games.

Weekly Opinion - Sequels

Sequels are a common thing in just about any story-driven media. Books, TV shows, movies, and one could argue that music fits in too (an artist putting out several albums, one could argue that the other albums are sequels to the first, and then there are artists who tell a story that may branch out over several albums....it happens). Games are no exception.

Just like the aforementioned media forms, game sequels can be both good, bad, and mediocre. The reasons for this can vary as wildly as possible, so I won't delve too deep into that (I have neither the time nor the space to possibly cover every reason why a sequel could be any of the three). Instead, I will give some examples of good, bad, and mediocre, along with some games that I feel fit the categories.

I also want to warn, I may touch upon some plot points, so spoiler warning ahead.

The Good...

A good sequel builds upon an already established world in some way. Sometimes a sequel will have a large visual improvement (Warcraft 1-2-3-World of Warcraft; Half Life-Half Life 2). Sometimes they'll expand the world (Warcraft again, Half Life again). And sometimes they'll introduce new ways of playing (Wa-...just read the previous examples).

I've talked quite a bit about WoW so I'll put that aside for now and focus instead on the Half Life series.

Half Life, developed by Valve, is notorious in the gaming world for a number of reasons. It was one of the first First Person Shooter games that allowed for extreme modifications to be made to the game engine. Thanks to this, fans were able to create endless mods. One such mod I mentioned previously, the popular Counter-Strike.

But this is about Half Life, not it is easy to modify. Half Life's story was fairly simply. You're Doctor Gordon Freeman, a rather low leveled scientist in a top secret facility in Black Mesa, Arizona. Due to a mishap (which you learn in HL2 isn't quite a mishap), you tear open multiple portals to a "world" (in the loosest sense of the world) of Xen, unleashing countless creatures upon your scientist buddies. You now have to escape. At the end you suddenly find yourself in a tram car hurtling through space. A bland looking man, the G-Man, as he is known, is before you, offering you two choices. Stay and do nothing, or go through the door, accept his proposal of a job. You really only have one choice to end the game, go through the door. As you do so, the game ends.

Half Life 2 took quite a while to come out, but it did, and it, thankfully, picked up where things left off. In a sense. Freeman has been in a sort of stasis for about 20 years in the game, so he comes out to a world that's quite a bit different. There he learns much of what truly happened while he pushed the crystal sample under the laser and unleashed hell on Earth. Though some questions are answered, more are asked, and HL2 (and its sequels too) are weaving a great storyline.

That, I think, is a good, even great, sequel. It uses the previous game(s) as a foundation.

The Bad...

I previously wrote a review about the game Tribes. Tribes is a cult classic, and finally spawned a game, Tribes 2. People, such as myself, were quite happy. The game wasn't that hard to emulate, all we wanted was better graphics, more modes to play, the ability to modify it like the first game.

We didn't get much. Graphics were better, yeah. But the game blew otherwise. It tried to have a story. A story for a game whose predecessor was renowned for its multiplayer. It also clamped down on the speed of players, which was a bad move. Tribes players loved the original because you could go extremely fast at times. That's why you had jetpacks, for Pete's sake!

And while mods in the original Tribes had various vehicles, they weren't the main focus. Tribes 2 changed that. And most of the vehicles sucked.

Some say it got better. But for me, I left it.

And the Meh...

Another game I went into previously was Homeworld. In the case of Homeworld 2, it was an expansion that was ok in some regards, meh in others. Story-wise, it was pretty good, expanding upon the story of the Hiigarans and their homeworld, as well as expanding upon the background of their Mothership, the friendly alien Bentusi, and the origins of the warp cores.

However, in my experience anyway, the game kind of failed in the Real Time Strategy portion. Some RTS games are renowned for their need of micromanagement. Homeworld didn't need it, outside of needing to keep track of your ships' fuel amounts (removed in Cataclysm, thank god). Homeworld 2 required a lot of micromanagement and you had to go through various bars to research things.

It wasn't a bad game, by any means, but it wasn't a good game either. There was potential, but it failed.

Final Thoughts
It can be hard to create a sequel. I think the creators have to truly be a part of the game, to love it to create a good sequel. That's not to say there couldn't be flukes. I'm sure there are some awful games created by lovers of the game itself. I couldn't name one as I don't know of one, but I'm sure there's one or two out there.

Weekly Opinion - Censorship in Gaming

For the most part, I think that gaming has gotten by with minimal amounts of censorship. I'll expand on my theory as to why shortly, but I think I can count the number of games that have been censored in some way on one hand.

Still, the thought has come up from time to time. Various agencies like to take potshots at video games as they are an emerging medium, so I sometimes sit back and think that such-and-such a game will get people angry and call for censoring. But as I said, I can't actively recall any real occurrence. At least, not here.

Nihao

As I mentioned previously, World of Warcraft boasts a subscription base of around 11.5 million or so. A nice chunk of that base live in China. World of Warcraft has basically three "regions" for the game. There's the American version, which is available to, of course, the United States, Canada, Mexico and other areas south, as well as Australia and New Zealand. There's the European version, which, logically, serves England, France, Germany, Spain, and so on. Then there is the Chinese version. South Korea also plays, but I can't seem to figure out where they go. They may have their own server node as well.

Anyway, while WoW is just fine in most of these regions, it has hit some problems with China. You see, China has some laws or rules that prohibit certain things from appearing in games or movies.

For example, I mentioned in my previous post about WoW that there is a race of Undead (zombies, but sentient) in the game. You look reasonably human, but your skin is pallid and bones show at your joints and your spine is visible. Not so in the Chinese version. To get it passed, they actually redesigned the model to cover the bones. You can see a comparison to the right.

That's not the only change. There are numerous skeletal creatures that all grew flesh in the Chinese version. And another example, when your character dies and you resurrect, a skeleton of your character is left behind for a time. In China, this is replaced by a tombstone.

Reasonable Changes, Unreasonable Future

So far, I suppose you could say it is reasonable. A little anal, perhaps, but reasonable. What the harm could be in not showing the skeletal joints, I don't know, but each country runs itself differently.

However, The9, operator of WoW in China, has had some problems with attempts to bring the latest expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, over. They've tried twice so far and both attempts have been shot down.

See, Wrath of the Lich King involves players bringing the battle to Northrend, the northern lands in WoW's planet of Azeroth, to battle the Lich King. The Lich King commands legions of undead who are, naturally, in various states of undeath. This has caused quite a problem.

WoW Insider reported that the problems seem to stem from "Skeletal characters" and a "city raid." The city raid is a quest where you enter a phased version of one of the capital cities that has been attacked and basically remove the enemies from it. A fun, new quest that came with WotLK.

So far, The9 and Blizzard have jumped through a number of hoops to get WoW up and running in China. Though I think that what they have to change is daunting, they may very well do it, since there are so many fans in China.

Panda's Banned-a

There's one other issue I'd like to touch upon, since I'm talking about WoW and China and censoring problems. In WoW's lore, there's a race called the Pandarens. They are pretty much what they sound like, a race of humanoid Pandas. They started out as a bit of a joke (heard around 05:12) spawned by a piece of art created by WoW-artist Samwise Didier. They've since ballooned into a full blown race. But they've never been seen in the game itself.

Rumors have floated around. There was the rumor that the new race for the Alliance in the first expansion pack would be the Pandaren but China had a problem and so it was changed to the Draenei (I don't buy it). Some claimed that there is a law forbidding the virtual killing of a panda in a game, but that doesn't make sense either (I haven't found a law like that, and Pandarens showed up, at least as one unit, in the game Warcraft 3 which sold in China just fine).

There is only one theory that I heard that I could buy. The Pandarens are a mix of Chinese and Japanese cultures. Many are samurai and the like. Some, myself included, think that the Chinese, who have a bit of history with the Japanese, don't like seeing a cultural icon like the Panda dressed in Japanese garb.

At the last Blizzcon, developers did mention that there was some sort of problem, but did not elaborate. I think it was what I mentioned. We may never know, though.

Theorycrafting

I think the reason why gaming has gone by mostly uncensored is because of the ESRB rating system used. Though some think that the system doesn't work (it does, its just that parents don't seem to care that the game they're buying their 9 year old is clearly rated M for Mature. You just can't idiot-proof everything, sadly), most businesses try and make use of it. I have actually been carded, CARDED(!), once when buying a mature game.

Anyway, the ratings go:

Pretty simple, right? Pretty much like the ratings for a movie or TV (hell, I'd say that TV's ratings are more confusing. TV-MA-SLV. What? TV-Mature...slave?). Makes you wonder how people just don't notice it, but that's a rant for another time.

Anyway, I have seen every one of those ratings in a store. Every one but AO. Adults Only is, from what I have read in a few gaming magazines (I'd link but unfortunately they have since closed shop and I cannot find it), a death sentence for a game. No store will sell it. This forces a developer to pare things down so it will fit.

So in a way, the industry regulates itself with censoring. Anything that may hit an AO rating will edit itself down to M so it could be sold.

Until we see a mass-selling AO game, though, this is just a theory.

3/14/09 - 9:05 pm: Just a small edit. Came across an article on WoW Insider that sent me to this article. Apparently, if The9 can't get Wrath of the Lich King passed and up and running in China, they face bankruptcy. This may cause problems for WoW as a whole in China.

Weekly Opinion - Rabid Fanning

Rabid fanning is just a term I came up with, right this instant. Was thinking maybe Fanboyism or Rabid Fanboys, but fanning seems to be a better term, I believe.

Though I feel that this has diminished over the last few years, it still exists in some way. There are fans of the various gaming systems that feel as though their's is the superior one, that their's is the king while the others are not fit to lick the scum off the boot of their company of choice's president.

Diminishing Returns

I mentioned that I feel it has diminished. While there is no way to keep track, to my knowledge, as one who often associates with other gamers, it is a feeling I've had. The "Console War" was probably at its hottest in the last Generation, with Sony's Playstation 2, Microsoft's Xbox, and Nintendo's Gamecube (some include Sega's Dreamcast, though I feel that was out too early and died before the others came into being).

Part of this change may be due to the games in this latest generation (belonging to the Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii) are reaching across platforms. Big hits like Grand Theft Auto 4 can be played on both the 360 and PS3, where once the GTA series played on only the PS2.

Though there are still exclusives (360 with the Halo franchise, PS3 with...actually I can't really think of any off the top of my head at this moment), the 360 and PS3 have become somewhat homogenized. But what about the Wii, you ask? Nintendo's targeting an almost entirely different crowd with their gaming system now, so they're almost out of the console race at this point.

All the same, though, you still have people who decry one system over the other, and refuse to back down. These people often refuse to listen to reason and back their system like a dedicated football fan backs his losing team.

The Why of Things

Just how did rabid fanning come about, though? The reason I think fits best is that this arose from kids from my generation only being able to get one console. Yahtzee of The Escapist said it best in one of his videos, but I can't find it (his videos are good to watch though. Be mindful, however, that he curses quite a bit, so his videos aren't exactly safe for work). Essentially, though, a kid could only get one console platform, and since he was stuck with it until perhaps the next generation, they either convinced themselves that the console was the best or just never tried the others and so never knew what the other consoles could offer.

The Outcast

There is one thing that most console players seem to be able to agree upon, though, and that is their dislike for PC gamers. Some just can't see the PC being a good gaming system, that the consoles are better. While the consoles have some advantages, and the PC have some disadvantages (check out my Piracy opinion post to see one such problem), the PC deserves to be counted among the 360, PS3, and Wii.

One can easily upgrade their own PC, thereby allowing them to continue to play new games as they are released, while console players may have to abandon their old platform in order to play new ones. This can be cost saving, if the PC gamer is careful.

But even PC gamers sometimes look down on their console gaming brethren.

Can't we all just...get along?

Why can't more gamers just see beyond the lines of their consoles and enjoy the fact that others are happy with their systems? Why do some have to be unhappy that former exclusives to their console can now be played on others?

I wish I had the answer, but I don't. While I would happily categorize myself as a PC gamer first and foremost, I absolutely love my Nintendo DS, and the Playstation 2 was one of the best gaming consoles, in my opinion. The Xbox line...I don't like too much, but eh, its there and people like it, that's good enough for me.

I hope that rabid fanning continues to diminish. We're all gamers. We all love the same thing. Why must we fight?

Weekly Opinion - Piracy

Gaming and Piracy go together, much like music and piracy. Like music, gaming is heavily impacted. However, the results from said piracy have gone in two different directions. Music pirates were once haunted by the Recording Industry Association of America. However, starting last December, the music pirate's boogeyman ceased their mass lawsuits. They are still suing some, but their days of suing people wrongfully accused are over.

Pirates and gaming are a bit different. To my knowledge, I've never really heard of a suit like the RIAA has done with music pirates. That may have something to do with the fact that the gaming industry does not have an RIAA of its own (its tried a few times, and certain organizations, such as the PC Gaming Alliance, are trying now). So it fell to the various developers and distributors to sue others.

Consoles and PCs

Piracy itself has seemed to have come down the hardest on PC games. Numerous developers have complained in the past about how games they release on the PC get pirated and they lose money.

While piracy exists on the consoles, from the research I have done, it is of a somewhat different sort. For them, it is more of a problem of exported games and mod-chips. As I am a PC gamer, I only know of those in passing, though to my understanding mod-chips often allow consoles to play games they otherwise wouldn't.

PC Gaming has taken a major hit with piracy. Some developers steadfastly refuse to make games for it now after bad game sales. Many of those that remain, however, are beginning to turn to DRM - Digital Rights Management. The problem is, many are getting quite zealous.

DRM and Controversy

DRM, Digital Rights Management, is exactly what it sounds like. It is a way for someone, whether it is a band, a music label, movie studio, or game developer, to protect their creation online. There are a number of ways to do it, ranging from keeping it from being ripped from DVDs (doesn't seem to work from what I have seen) to software installed in it to keep from being ripped, to software being installed to ensure it isn't pirated (this happens mostly in gaming cases). DRM is disliked by many as people often hold the opinion that, as they are the ones who bought it, it is their right to use it as they see fit, and attempts to keep them from, say, ripping a movie from a DVD in order to have it on their computer, is stifling them.

One of the best, most recent cases of over zealous DRM is the game Spore, released by Electronic Arts. Spore used a type of DRM known as SecuROM, a type of DRM that has caused problems for users in the past. SecuROM sometimes blocks installation based on the software a user has, even if they are innocent. SecuROM, for Spore anyway, at one time required the game to be authenticated upon installation as well as every time it accessed the internet (as one could download content).

The backlash was quite harsh. The game was ratings-bombed on sites like Amazon.com, EA and the Spore forums lit up with posters, angry over this. Some minor changes were made, but the DRM remained. Did the DRM live up to EA's expectations?

Not in the slightest. Within 9 days of release (Spore was first released in Australia on September 4th, 2008), the game had been pirated over 171,000 times. Effectively, the DRM failed in keeping the game from being pirated. All it did was make legit buyers into suspects.

Guilty Until Proven Innocent

That is what gets me the most about DRM and video games on the PC. Some companies, like EA, seem to treat real buyers as pirates, even though we aren't. I understand that they need to protect their interests, no argument there, but I draw the line at being held guilty before being proven innocent. I bought the game with my own money, I don't want to be restricted by how many times I can install the game, locked out of installing it because of one type of software I have, or what have you.

However, while this angers me, I can also kind of understand why some are so heavy handed. They're losing money, and it seems that nothing they do can help. But at the same time, I should not be held accountable for something that I am not doing.

Some companies have done away with DRM entirely (Stardock, off the top of my head). Good for them. But I don't see that happening with every company.

Unfortunately, piracy will continue, there's no denying that. I just hope that game developers will at least try to realize that not all of us out there are trying to steal games.

"Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong" ~ Dennis Miller