What Does X, Square, Triangle, Circle Mean Anyways?

Coming by way of 1UP via a translation of Famitsu magazine comes some pretty interesting details about the design of the Playstation 1 and it's controller, famous for not having letters represent buttons.  I love this kind of stuff.  Hearing stories from the creator of things still in use years later is always a good thing.  I'm not talking just about video games.  I love hearing straight from the author about anything.

It is a wholly interesting read, and you should really check it out over at 1UP.  Among assorted anecdotes about demo controllers almost being thrown in anger (what?) and how the Playstation console was a box with a circle in it comes the reasoning behind those symbols that make Xbox and Nintendo gamers scratch their heads:

Other game companies at the time assigned alphabet letters or colors to the buttons. We wanted something simple to remember, which is why we went with icons or symbols, and I came up with the triangle-circle-X-square combination immediately afterward. I gave each symbol a meaning and a color. The triangle refers to viewpoint; I had it represent one's head or direction and made it green. Square refers to a piece of paper; I had it represent menus or documents and made it pink. The circle and X represent 'yes' or 'no' decision-making and I made them red and blue respectively. People thought those colors were mixed up, and I had to reinforce to management that that's what I wanted.

While I understand the Japanese see circles to mean "yes" and Xs to mean "no," the western gamer will always want the button under their thumb to mean yes.  We're impatient, you see?

Gamescom Dead Space 2 Trailer... Wow.

Portal 2 Footage From Gamescom

This Portal 2 footage from the floor at Gamescom is absolutely stunning.  First things first, I'm so happy to see that there are a lot more mechanics being added.  Portal may have been worth the full price of a game, but it was not a full experience.  I can't wait to see the puzzles.

More importantly?  I can't wait to see the narrative!  It's been a while since Episode 2 came out and honestly, I need some Valve story telling.

Lastly, I'm going to need a new computer if I have any hopes of running the PC (or Mac) version of this game.  I'd hate to swallow my pride and buy a console version of any Valve games, but I know I'm not going to let that get in the way of play Portal 2 when it comes out next year in February.

Black Ops Special Edition is Ridiculous

Red Dead Redemption's Legends and Killers Pack Lands August 10th

I make my love of Red Dead Redemption no secret.  I am not reluctant to spend more time in single player or multiplayer.  Frankly, I think its the best game so far this year, the only possible contender being Mass Effect 2.

What good news that more is on the way!  The first of four planned DLC packs, Legends and Killers, has been detailed and readied for release on August 10th.

What does that mean?  For $10 in your console's brand of funny money, you'll get nine new multiplayer map locations, a new weapon (the tomahawk), and eight characters from that other Red Dead game, Red Dead Revolver.

Not too shabby compared to some other DLC pricing schemes, right?  As much as I question whether or not I really need to pick up this DLC, its been confirmed that new achievements will be thrown in as well.  That pretty much has me sold.  God knows I'll do what I need to do to maintain my completed achievement statistic.

Four new characters have been revealed for Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 in honor of Comic-con: Chun-li, Trish (Devil May Cry), Doctor Doom, and Super-Scrull.

Post Script (11:45 PM): So maybe Comic-con means there'll be a MvC3 trickle of reveals; Ametarasu (Okami) and Thor also join the fray.

Post Script ( 07/22/10 12:30 PM): A trickle is right; Dormammu and Viewtiful Joe appear to be on the brink of announcement.

What is a "Fallout 3?"

This is really late, but I hope there's some semblance of relevance left in what I wrote in response to an old (very old) Kotaku feature now.

Leigh Alexander has an interesting piece up on Kotaku about trying to explain video games to non-gamers. She certainly sets the bar high for herself in attempting to open the discussion with laymens-terms-Fallout-3, an arduous task that is sure to become a new olympic sport of words.

Anyways, Fallout 3 is obviously (/sarcasm) a First Person Shooter Role Playing Game with a morality and combat systems overlay set in a postapocalyptic Washington DC.

Wow, what mouthful. I'm beginning to think about Luke Plunkett's (also Kotaku) feature on attempting to define video games in more approachable genre terms. That description of Fallout 3 could sure benefit from a simpler label... say, Science Fiction? Perhaps this difficulty is, in fact, generated entirely by gamers themselves. Maybe we try to insulate ourselves in our genres in a weird sort of meta-delusional-escapism.

Despite these subconcious efforts, gamers are also constantly arguing that their medium is art and that it should be taken seriously. So what do you want then? As games mature and male themselves taken seriously through their content and interaction with the audience, they're ultimately going to have to do a good job of explaining themselves too. Until games can do it for themselves, gamers will have to get better at being the ambassadors.

Red Dead Redemption Co-Op Missions available today!

Video Games | Red Dead Redemption | Exclusive Co-op Mission Pack Trailer

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

While I might not have reached a 100% statistic, or even level 50 in Red Dead Redemption's online multiplayer, I'm sure the co-op mission pack will help me reach that second goal. I'm aiming to reach a completed achievement listing on RDR, but haven't had the time I'd like to do so. Hopefully, the co-op missions will aid in that while also adding a handful of extra achievements. Did I mention the DLC was free?

Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 looks awesome!

I was a little disconnected and busy during E3 last week. Thus, I missed out on this Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 gameplay footage.

While I was entirely sure about what the game would look like without the use of 2D sprites, I think my fears have been pretty well pushed aside. Little comic book flashes, background changes, and attack splashes sure do keep the feel around. Honestly, what I like most about this footage is the background design. I love the NYC Spider-man parade and how the level changes as the fight progresses.

Now I'll I have to worry about is the remainder of the character list and whether or not I'll have an arcade stick to play on when this game finally drops... NEXT YEAR?! Jeez, this is going to be a long wait.

Finishing Red Dead Redemption

First, let me explain that I will not be reviewing Red Dead Redemption for PLAY READ WRITE. I've experienced a ton of the game and I don't need to go over it all again. Let me be frank and say that you should buy and play Red Dead Redemption. I don't need to tell you that it's a terrific game in all aspects and should be experienced first hand. Secondly,

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS

in this post. I don't know how I could avoid SPOILERS in a post titled "Finishing Red Dead Redemption," but I figured someone might come along and still find an excuse to get upset with me for ruining a great ending.

Truthfully, I think RDR's ending works so well because you don't really know when it's going to end. You've been chasing these outlaws for the entire game and them you're left to tend to the farm, drive cattle (ugh!), and ultimately teach Jack how to be a man.

Jack is RDR's legacy, and while Rockstar is plenty sure of connecting you with Marston throughout the campaign, connecting the player with Jack is a little shakier. If spending time with your son, rescuing him, and ultimately sending him to survive a coming storm doesn't prove the "daddening of video games" to be a successful trend, I don't know what will. Whether a player would like to defeat the mob and keep Marston alive is besides the point. How the player feels about taking on the role of Jack is a much more debateable prospect. In its ability to polarize, forcing the player to step into Jack proves its power.

In this way, RDR succeeds in ways a Grand Theft Auto never could. Giving Niko a family outside of Roman would have seemed forced and silly. Part of what made his family so believable was Marston's reluctance to reveal information about them. Perhaps Roman seemed so annoying and forced because the player immediately learns a little too much about him too soon. In a way, Roman works in his vaudevillian antics. While that tactic might work sometimes, a real connection, like that of an immediately family, has to be introduced and built more subtly. The player would reject a constant barrage of "I'm your son!" or "I'm your wife!" and so they would reject caring for these two digital players as well.

Congratulations Rockstar. I've never held your games in higher regard than I have with Red Dead Redemption. The title has trancended any of the immature trappings GTA's history tows along with it in favor of a mature story, marvelous combat, excelled pacing and a breathtaking connection between the player and the world you're involving them in.

I've got Portal back on track!

While my Portal on Mac experience was a little off the on the night of launch, I quickly found a work around on the Steam forums. I guess there's a problem with Portal and my version of the Mac OS X software.

Having squared that away, I thought I'd post this little ditty and remind everyone that Portal is free for Windows and Mac users until the 24th (?) of this month. There's absolutely no reason anyone shouldn't at least download the Steam software and get in on that free-Portal-goodness. Even if I didn't have a system that could run the game, I think I'd still hop on and make sure I got the game for free in case of an impending upgrade to my hardware.

The video embedded above is a great example of why I love Valve. Check it out for yourself and then go download Portal for God's sake! (That means you Jenna!)

Getting Split/Second Early?

So sweet. As you can see, I've been playing Split/Second all weekend. A retail copy of the game was in Game Revolution's mail box on Friday while I was leaving the office. Enclosed within was a note stating that reviews were embargoed until Monday. I'm not entirely sure what a review embargo entails.

Can I talk about the game? Can I talk about my impressions short of a full review with a grade? How much about the game can I say?

All of these questions and more will... not be answered in this post. Sorry everyone! That being said, I am trying to finish up and write a review for GR to post tomorrow. I'm going to spend some more time playing the game tonight and then see what I can't do over the next 12 hours or so. I'm sure the editors would like a little time to copy edit and then get the text up on the site before the end of work hours tomorrow.

Is anyone reading PLAY READ WRITE planning on picking up the game on Tuesday, instead of any other big names dropping this week (Red Dead Redemption, Alan Wake anybody)? Let me and the other three of you know in the comments.

New Game Rituals

While I'll have some things to say about the game in the post I wrote over at Game Revolution, instead, I'll simply say, that I wrote a little bit about what I do when I open up a brand new game. For now, I'll simply post a link over to the Daily Manifesto post I wrote for GR. Check it out and leave a comment here or there.

That new game smell!

And yes, that is Split/Second! Previously written about here for PLAY READ WRITE.

Resonance of Fate Review Now Live

I won't lie, Resonance of Fate was a difficult game to review. This fact is primarily reliant on the fact that the game was just plain difficult in and of itself. I'm hoping that facet of the the JRPG shines through in my review, which you can now read for yourself over at Game Revolution.

I have a small stack of games I'm ready to trade in to Gamestop in the next week or so, but I wonder if I'm really ready to give up on Resonance of Fate.

A few weeks back while I was in the middle of playing through the game, I hopped on to Modern Warfare 2. I had to get out of the frustrating quest battle I was stuck on and I wanted to play something I was enjoying much more at the time. While playing, I was talking with my friend Nick and lamenting having to return to the game. Someone else on the team said "Well there's your review right there."

Regardless, I've trudged through and written a challenging review. You can read the full body of text at the following address: http://www.gamerevolution.com/review/xbox360/resonance%20of%20fate

How To Train Your Dragon: Post-Review Thoughts

I've finished my review of How To Train Your Dragon for the Xbox 360. In fact, I've nearly completed the entirety of the game. A diminuitive 45 achievement points lie before me and a full 1000/1000. Here's hoping DLC doesn't wretch the perfection from my hands!

I played most of the game over Spring Break the other week, and while I was out, I didn't post impressions, so I thought I'd write a few things after the fact. These thoughts aren't exactly on the gameplay itself, but more on what it's like to have to play a bad game.

You could excuse a lot of Dragon's flaws based on the fact that it's a movie licensed game. Of course that means an extremely tight development schedule, a lot of unnecessary hands in the development process, and a lack of personal involvement by the creative team. Still, movie games don't have to be bad. Licensed games don't have to be bad, so why excuse anything at all?

The real trouble is the fact that everyone knows the game is going to sell no matter what. How much it sells is largely based on the product it's based on. If the reviews and numbers for How To Train Your Dragon are any indication, I'm guess the game will sell well enough to recoup its costs and make the publisher, Activision, a little money.

Why bother reviewing the game if it doesn't matter anyways? Why go through the trouble of decry all of the games negative points if no one is going to listen or take heed? I wouldn't say I was very conscious of this before or during the review process. I tried to be excited about the game. Jenna and I saw the movie, which I actually liked, and Jenna's mom even got me a McDonald's Dragon toy on my half-sarcastic, half-very-real excitement of such a prospect.

In the end, when it came down to the game, it just wasn't there. It's a bad game. I'll be sure to give you reader of PLAY READ WRITE the lead over to GR when my review is published, but until then, why not share your movie game experience in the comments?

What came on Saturday?

What came in this box? More later....

EDIT: It's now July and I have the answer for you all.  The Beatles Rock Band.

Resonance of Fate Impressions

I was pretty excited to try out Resonance of Fate for the Xbox 360. I hadn't played a JRPG in quite some time and Final Fantasy XIII wasn't exactly appealing to me. Now I remember why it's been so long since I played a role playing game from Japan.

//I hate the grind. I hate it so much. I have little else to say about the game aside from the fact that grinding for levels in order to pass some lowly side-quest boss is the stupidest thing gaming could possibly do. It is a complete waste of time. I might decry the constant leaking of rewards and levels that other games might do, but I don't want to spend my precious gaming time feeling like a complete failure. Another big problem for Resonance of Fate's grind is the fact that it literally throwing the player against a wall from the very beginning. I'm only on Chapter 03 and I'm already tempted to compeltely give up on the game. If it weren't for a trip down south to Ventura with Jenna, and an unhealthy desire for achievement points, I'd probably be tempted to trade the game in for a copy of Just Cause 2, or maybe that other JRPG (FF XIII).
//The artwork is interesting. The back of the box item calls it a steam punk world "like no other," but I wish the backstory made more sense. Still, the overworld map is a mass of hexagonal pieces that have to be unlocked gradually, and I honestly love the tetris like aspect of it all.

//My last gripe for these quick impressions is leveled at the character design. Your party is made up of the blandest group of JRPG derivatives and the enemies are no better. All the characters take from the kind of Japanese genre tropes that are tired, stale, and overused. Please create something new! You're dying! Game development is moving westward!

Japanese devs are struggling with evolution and staying relevant, and as much as it makes me sound like a complete wuss, the difficulty and grinding and design decisions that should quickly be reversed in all Japanese RPGs. Seems to me that Resonance of Fate has taken the "evolution" Final Fantasy is attempting to make, and just laughing in it's face. Are you so determined to go down with the ship, Tri-Ace?

Splinter Cell: Conviction Demo Impressions

Splinter Cell: Conviction is the latest in the long Splinter Cell series that surrounds Sam Fisher, the human version of a Swiss army knife, always with the right tool for whatever espionage job you need done. A lot has been done to up the cinematic qualities of Splinter Cell while still maintaining that all that sneaky stuff gamers have gotten used to.

A demo is up on Xbox Live, and since I couldn't get my hands on the game at E3 2009, though there was a constant demo with color commentary on the show floor, I figured I'd check out the game at home. The demo covers a quick interrogation scene and a warehouse infiltration. Here are my thoughts:

//Brutality seems to be the soup du jour when it comes to the interrogation scenes. Sam has no problems slamming his perp's head into urinals, sinks, and the stall door. I thought these destructivle environments worked well as a sort of interactive cut scene. Of course, I haven't played the full game, but the interrogation really is little other than a cut scene with some player input attached. Why do gamers complain about the hour long cutscenes in Metal Gear Solid 4? Because we play games so that we have control, so that we have input. Obviously in giving people that control, Ubisoft is maintaining a link between Sam and the player. I'm always a fan of deepening that link and making the experience more profound in games.
//I'll be honest, I've never played a Splinter Cell game before. Maybe that allows me a clear view of things, made it clouds my opinion. I guess I just never found the patience to sit and wait, to memorize enemy movement, to strike at the proper time so as not to be seen. All of that, along with the tense situations espionage games put you in, really had me jumping too soon. Conviction's gimick is the execution manuevar, which allows you to target multiple enemies after performing a hand to hand take down. This puts a lot more emphasis on the player's movement than it does the enemy AI's. To me, and Mike Fahey of Kotaku, that's a good thing. To me, games are about activity. Players are most excited about what they do and what the results of those actions are, rather than what happens before the player makes his or her move. I count myself among those players.
//I usually don't find a reason to play a demo a second time if it doesn't hook me in any way. I played the Crackdown demo easily 10 times before that game's release in 2007. I have yet to replay the Just Cause 2 demo. I played the Conviction demo twice before removing it from my hard drive. Obviously the game play hooked me, and there's a different way of attacking enemies or messing with them before taking them down, but the demo was still extemely short and linear. Two playthroughs was more than I would think I could have spent on the demo. In a way, that says something very positive about Conviction. I'd really like to play more of the game, but I'm still not sure if I'd spend $60 on the title if there isn't a lot more to it.

Splinter Cell: Conviction lands on April 13th, 2010 and is exclusive to the Xbox 360.

Just Cause 2 Demo Impressions

Having played one solitary session of the Just Cause 2 demo, I have to admit, I had a lot of fun, and the parachute-bungie-cord-vehicular madness wasn't as confusing as I thought it would be. There's still a fair amount of cheese to receive from the main character, but that's not really what I wanted to write about.

I wanted to hop on to write about the game's chaos system. I have to say, it truly felt like chaos to me. I had no idea what was going on, who I was disturbing, what kind of havoc I was causing, who was shooting at me, or even where I was. Maybe some of this is entirely back story related, and a demo is never going to fully promote the plot elements as well as the full game will.

Essentially, the Just Cause 2 demo sets you down in a small clearing with a bunch of explosives, and gives you no real direction. Of course, this has its benefits and its draw backs. An obvious draw back kind of had me griping for the first 15 minutes. Where the fuck am I supposed to go?

All of that expansive landscape is wonderful, to a point. I don't want to float around on my parachute for 30 minutes. I want to get in the bases and start mixing things up with some bad guys. I want to destroy a bunch of stuff in creative ways so I can feel like a badass. That's how I should be getting sold on this game. Instead, I was mostly confused and listless for the half hour demo time.

With about 10 minutes to go, I just figured, screw it, I should just experiment with the game's main draw, the always on-hand parachute and grappling hook. I never quite got the hang of the grappling hook's ability to chain baddies to things and watch them get dragged across the desert, but I did end the demo with a good handle on grappling to a point far ahead of me, and then pulling my chute to float up into the air. This worked rather well as I floated to a gas station and politely blew it to smithereens.

Those few explosions I did cause, including a base packed with weapons of mass destruction, were exhilarating, and certainly led the exclamation points I found in the demo. Quietly floating though the air at a high altitude was another. Despite that, there were still too few. I checked the map and gave myself some mental way points, but I was still left wondering where to go, and what would be there once I arrived.

Just Cause 2 isn't exactly on my list of must-buys, but I'll keep my ear to the ground and see what I hear about the game in the weeks leading up to its release.

PlayStarion Move has me saying "Meh"

Concrete details are always nice aren't they? When Sony showed off it's own motion controller in the shape of a wand, there were some pretty bright possibilities. Obviously, with Nintendo's grip on the motion control market as firm as a wrist strap will hold it, some entering competition might just force them to up their software game right?

Honestly, nothing of the Move-supporting software has appeared appealing to me in any way. SOCOM 4 is the only core game that supports Move right now, and I would rather play it with a traditional controller. That title alone seems like the fig leaf Sony is handing to their primary audience at launch of the PlayStation Move.

Other titles look exactly like Wii Sports Resort, a light gun game, and the minigame collections that line the shelving at any old big box retailer. Motion Fighter might be the only exception, but without a proper preview of that title, I'm inclined to lump it in with the others and label the whole project a mess.

What the PlayStation Move has really got me thinking about is having "the option" to use motion controls, and having "the option" to use a standard controller. I don't have to buy every motion controlled game that comes down the pipeline, but in core games, if there's an extra incentive to use motion controls, or they add something to the overall experience, then I might buy in. That calls multiplayer balancing into question though because of the difference in controls, but that's another topic for another post.

Beyond the software, I have to admit that the Move controller looks interesting, especially thanks to its color-changing ball. There's been some confusion as to whether the ball changes to reflect on screen action or the colors the PS Eye sees, but it doesn't matter, it just looks cool. If it helps add to the overall accuracy of the device then that's awesome, it just looks neat.

The rest of the decice and the "movement" wand that it's paired with still look like PlayStation branded Wii Remotes. I can see how the overall input is different, and I can see what a developer might do with the Move is different, but I still think the overall interface will be the same.

Of course, that means a lot of the software will be the same too. Maybe I'm being an elitist asshole when I say that video games are meant to be experienced in one way, and while that way may diverge into many different ways of experiencing games, the core input device will remain a two handed controller.

There's still another motion control initiative to hear from, but I'll keep myself reserved. Ever since my fervor for the launch of the Wii, I've tried to temper my excitement with thoughts of how disappointed I was with console in the end. I hate selling my video games, and I hate selling consoles even more, but my Wii was just taking up space. How will the Move be different?