Hasbro spells J E R K for 45 points

For months now, I have been fighting a personal addiction to what many of my friends call 'digital crack'. Yes, I am talking about Scrabulous, the best facebook application available to date. While in the middle of at least 5 different games with friends across that country, I along with everyone else in the US have been locked out of Scrabulous. Why you say? It turns out that the execs at Hasbro have decided that since Scrabulous is a better version of their own online version of Scrabble, they need to sue the pants off the independent programmers that both developed scrabulous and provided it to us FREE of charge. Now normally I would say that a patent holder absolutely has the right to profit from their own creation. However, in this case I think Hasbro is absolutely wrong for a number of reasons. First, Hasbro has their own facebook application aptly named Scrabble, yet even though it was released some time after Scrabulous, it blows (that is as eloquently as I can think to put it). Second, the two guys that made scrabulous have not profited directly from its development and continuously iterate and improve upon their work. Finally, Hasbro is causing a HUGE backlash against itself with these actions. The posts decorating the Hasbro facebook application page are filled with angry Scrabulous players who none too happy about losing one of their favorite past times. Come on Hasbro, I know you read my blog, quit being a jerk and let us enjoy your invention again.

How Human is Too Human

For two years now, I have been hearing all about Silicon Knights upcoming release entitled 'Too Human'. I recall several key events along its tumultuous development that have triggered a proverbial shitstorm of buzz and commentary from both enthusiast press and message board posters alike, all claiming the game was a disaster in the making. If you don't know, this has elicited an intense series of reactions from Silicon Knights CEO, Dennis Dyack, who has essentially called out everyone who has made any sort of negative commentary about Too Human. Like a doting father, Dyack has proven that he is willing to sacrifice his own image and credibility to support what he has called, 'the best game he has ever made'. With so much on the line, I was thrilled last week when I saw the release of the Too Human demo on Xbox LIVE. I was excited to have the opportunity to experience what must be the polished, slick, Diablo inspired, loot packed space odyssey that I had been promised.

The first thing you notice upon starting the game is an archaic presentation that is reminiscent of a bad PC role-playing game from 5 years ago. The menus are nothing to note, and the selection screens are what you would expect in a standard RPG. The visuals are sub-par for the current cycle in this generation, the environments are strikingly bland and barren, and the only impressive graphical feature is the amount of enemies present on the screen at one time. The sound design is serviceable, but again nothing to write about. The story itself is intriguing, I enjoyed the Norse-inspired mythology, but is nothing you have to pay too much attention to simply because it gets bogged down in long cut scenes that honestly aren't that impressive in terms of visuals or voice-acting (which is where cut-scenes should shine). Where this game succeeds is in the armor customization and variety of acquirable weapons. Altering the armor pieces noticeably changes the look and feel of your character, making the micromanagement of the loot the central focus of the game. As far as RPG elements are concerned, the menu system to control the customization is a bit underwhelming, and the skill tree is on par with an average RPG, nothing revolutionary. One of the biggest problems I had with Too Human is the HUD, it is huge and entirely over-complicated. Honestly, I had no idea what each bar, point, number, and word meant and I didn't really care.

After reflecting on my play-through of this demo, I came away utterly confused. Why would Dyack put up such a fight for a game that is in NO way revolutionary, graphically underwhelming, and thoroughly flawed? While I am reserving judgement until the final product is released, I am no longer interested in purchasing Too Human and it will probably not make the top of my gamerang cue for a while. Additionally, Dennis Dyack has successfully reversed the very effect he was trying to elicit from undecided gamers everywhere: instead of discrediting the enthusiast press outlets that prematurely reviewed Too Human, he has discredited himself and his company. The next time Dyack makes a fuss about a game that respected journalists (cheers Mark MacDonald) clearly have problems with, I will probably run in the opposite direction. So here's a tip from me to you PR reps at Silicon Knights...get a handle on your man. Perhaps you should try to persuade him to utilize the energy he exerts defending his games on internet message boards and invest it in refining the actual game he is defending. In the words of my favorite statutory urinator, 'Don't talk about it, be about it' Dennis.

Accessorizing your living room with Peripherals

Within the limits of a standard sized living room, there is only so much space that any one person has to store the necessities (furniture, television, gaming consoles, lamps...you get the idea). This leaves precious little room for the finer things in life, like fake drum sets and guitars that function only to facilitate you living out your wildest rock star fantasies. While I currently possess four guitars, a drum set, and a much less imposing wired microphone for Rock Band and the much less occasional Guitar Hero performance, I cant help but worry about the future of gaming peripherals. Surely new advancements in faux musical instruments will cause me to replace my current ones, but what about the rumors that every major game company is planning to add new hardware to thier lineup? We already have the Wii Fit balance board, the new motion sensing plus add-on for the Wiimote, the rumored pointing device from Microsoft, and whatever bastard controller Sony is concocting to stay in the motion sensing race (I'm still jaded I had to buy a $55 Dual Shock when we all know rumble should have been included with the original six-axis).
Is this a repeat of the 90s? Have we learned nothing from the past? I still remember having to box up my Power Glove, Track and Field pad, and assortment of Dreamcast light guns, banishing them to the depths of my basement. All that money, spent for the sole purpose of enjoying a variety of new titles that would eventually support each peripheral...which never happened. I'm not saying that we should protest new innovations in gaming, but I feel there are better ways to innovate than to introduce new input devices to modulate the same old gameplay. So heres to encouraging console manufactures to enforce interoperability among similar peripherals with similar functions and holding off controller innovations until they are more than single modifications introduced in each iteration. Its high time we only shell out the dough when something novel, worthwhile, and more importantly well designed and thought-out has been presented to us. Until then, we need to fight our impulsive urges to buy everything released for our beloved consoles and demand better.

Declining Interest Rates in GTA 4

I bought GTA 4 on day 1 purely on the hype provided by various well respected video game journalists and the numerous A's and 10's that were giddily stamped onto Niko Bellic's slightly cro-magnon forehead. I recall phrases like 'Oscar worthy story' and 'what video games were always promised to be'. And while I'm not naming names (ahem Hillary Goldstein), I am starting to realize that this game is not as revolutionary, nor as great as I was led to believe. I started GTA 4 'on the train' as they say, my eyes and ears closed to any sort of imperfections, playing until the wee hours of the morning, sacrificing precious sleep to play out what was surely to be the greatest story ever constructed in an interactive environment. After completing what others have told me is the halfway mark (bank robbery), I have not even come close to finishing it and struggle to put down the Rock Band drum sticks in order to complete the next mission. Now, months have gone by and I still am waiting for the urge to re-enter Libery City. Is anyone else finding it difficult to regain the momentum necessary to finish GTA 4?