News & Reviews

EA Remakes Syndicate

The news recently came out that EA is remaking the classic Bullfrog game: Syndicate. If you were like me in the 90′s you were aware of this game and its successor- syndicate wars.

Both games featured an isometric birds eye view of a team of cyborg soldiers controlled by the player. The idea behind the game is that big corporations are competing to be the biggest and best and send genetically engineered cyborgs to assassinate, infiltrate and “persuade”.

I personally loved the first game for its use of special weapons; like the “persuaditron” which is a weapon used to control civilians and be able to create a whole army that can pick up weapons for you (very fun). Of course its used to steal scientists etc., but i loved getting the whole city on my side to assault an enemy stronghold.  Other weapons included machine guns, rocket launchers, shotguns…. and nuclear grenades.

The remake will be from a first person shooter perspective, but if done right I will be very interested to play this game.

Video Game Industry Takes Hit From Nowhere?

Apparently, the Video Game industry doesn’t realize we’re in a recession. Not sure I believe that NO ONE saw this coming. As the article below will point out, video game sales dropped 20% year of year during the month of May, but lets look at some of the reasons why.

1) Where were the big titles? The normally release heavy month of May saw the release of only one highly anticipated blockbuster caliber game, L.A. Noire. I am personally still working my way through it as I have been inordinately busy lately. That said, being only 30% through the game, I am NOT impressed. It’s interesting to see how the previously unheard of extreme amount of live action MoCap translated back into game play. There is certainly a novelty factor to seeing a character in a video game and immediately recognize them as a relatively prominent character actor. Otherwise, it’s just another Rockstar sandbox game. There’s plenty of interesting places to explore and landmarks of old L.A. to see, but the cut scenes are jumpy, the dialogue is hardly better than the film I made as my Senior thesis in film school, and the backstory is just randomly thrown into the story for no reason and has no relation to the cases you’re working. I’m wholly unimpressed. Still playing Red Dead Redemption though.

2) Last I checked, we’re still in a recession. The price of video games has always technically stayed pretty well the same. Not to say they’ve always been $60, but when adjusted for inflation you see what I mean. Take for example the late 1985 release of the NES, by May of that year they were still on their way to critical mass, but really starting to catch on. The May 1987 Consumer Price Index is 113.1, whereas the May 2011 Consumer Price Index is 225.96. This indicates that the average market in the US experienced approximately 112.86% inflation from May 1987 to May 2011. While that seems like a lot to explain one small point, here’s that point. The average NES games in 1987 cost $49.95. Adjust that for inflation and you get about $57, eerily close to the average $60 you see on games now. The reason this blows is that the cost of media production, through technological advances, has declined similarly over the same period, effectively increasing profit margins on the game. So there’s no reason that games need to cost $60 now. They’re usually just covering their losses on the consoles themselves by marking up the games. Anyways people, what I’m getting to is that these games are a HIGH PRICED LUXURY! When the proverbial shit hits the fan, economically, luxuries are the first thing to go. Simply put, the economy was going to catch up to the game market at some point. Also, the above explanation also account for why I believe you’ll never see a new gaming console released in the future…

3) Waiting for the new announcements maybe? This is a bit of an extension of point number 2 above. With E3 taking place during the first week of June, perhaps it’s such that in a limited economy, with limited cash, people were simply waiting to see what the new big games coming out in late summer and fall were. I would expect to see less of a decline in sales for the month of June, year over year, accounting partially to summer vacation. Winter was very bad in many places this year requiring most schools to add days and run into June. So all of the kids who are out of school this week may run out and buy a game. But further, no we know what’s coming. If we didn’t see something we liked, we go ahead and buy the title we’ve been wavering on for a few months.

What I’m saying video game industry is this. Man Up! Everyone’s going through some tough times, so will you. Well maybe not Lebron James, because he doesn’t have to live in reality like all of us poor people. Go Mavs! Oh, and yes, I had a Power Glove.

After riding high from the thrill of E3 last week, the video game industry got a harsh slap in the face Monday.

As reported by the NPD Group, sales of video games in the month of May were down 19 percent compared to a year ago — the worst performance for the industry in nearly five years.

You have to look back as far as October 2006 to find a dive this steep. And, making matters worse, none of the industry’s fortunetellers saw it coming. Analysts had expected May to be relatively flat thanks to a Wii price cut early in the month.

Game software sales came in at $375.8 million, $90 million less than May 2010. Year to date, the industry is a worrying 14 percent off of 2010′s retail sales pace.

“This month’s story really is about a light new release schedule as compared to last year,” said NPD analyst Anita Frazier.

There’s some truth in that. Last year saw eventual Game of the Year winner Red Dead Redemption hit stores, along with Microsoft’s Alan Wake and several other big budget releases. This May offered us a different Rockstar Games release in L.A. Noire, the month’s top selling game, and Brink, a shooter that didn’t score well with critics but managed to capture the #2 spot.

On the hardware front, it wasn’t a happy story for Nintendo, which saw sales drops across all of its systems, a fact that particularly underscores the weakness of the Wii these days, given the price cut. The 3DS, the company’s best hope for righting the ship this year, saw continued weakness, but that might reverse itself within the next week with the release of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D.

Sony saw some minor sales increases with the PS3 hardware, though, and Microsoft actually has something to celebrate as the Xbox 360 has consistently had month-over-month sales increases for nearly a year and a half now.

“Overall, the Xbox 360 platform has contributed 34 percent of year-to-date revenues (across hardware, content and accessories) generated by new physical retail sales, gaining 7 share points over last year,” said Frazier.

Here are the month’s top 10 games.
1. L.A. Noire | Take 2 Interactive
2. Brink | Bethesda Softworks
3. Lego Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game | Disney Interactive Studios
4. Portal 2 | Electronic Arts
5. Mortal Kombat 2011 | Warner Bros. Interactive
6. Call of Duty: Black Ops | Activision Blizzard
7. Zumba Fitness: Join the Party | Majesco
8. NBA 2K11 | Take 2 Interactive
9. Just Dance 2 | Ubisoft
10. Lego Star Ware III: The Clone Wars | Lucasarts

Courtesy of Chris Morris at Yahoo’s PluggedIn

http://blog.games.yahoo.com/blog/766-may-video-game-sales-worst-in-five-years

From GanskeLaw.com

XCOM Release Date Anounced… Sadly

One of my favorite games during the PlayStation 1 era was XCOM: UFO Defense. A game that pits the player (a global agency) vs an invading alien army. Build world wide bases, intercept alien craft, collect technology and alien captives… and take the fight to the aliens. As you can see above, the game has went from a base building, turn based strategy game; into a first person shooter story. I for one… am not very excited. To me too many games are going to a first-person shooter game and away from anything that requires brainpower.

Non-the-less, the new XCOM release date is March 6, 2012. Am I the only one that isn’t very excited? Do you like that they are going away from the traditional alien enemy in favor of …. mass-effect geth type technology that turns humans into mech-zombies (that is what it looks like from previews)?

Obama Given DRM-Free Witcher 2 as Official Diplomatic Gift

As reported on the Witcher 2 website, while visiting with the Prime Minister of Poland, President Obama was given an official gift … The Witcher 2 and the books that inspired the game. Showing an immense pride for their nation’s successful video game industry and literature, the Prime Minister of Poland has promoted what U.S. leaders from both aisles have openly fought against.

The difference between U.S. and Polish ideologies could not be greater. One country is Proud of literature and entertainment that are both mature and riveting. In the other country, games such as the Witcher 2 are called to be banned by liberals and conservatives alike. Hell, having the “hand on foggy window” scene from Titanic in a video game (between a human and alien) is considered so vial that it should be banned…. seriously. The same people must be having strokes considering that full on nudity and graphic language is contained in the Witcher 2… in the first 10 minutes.

In another trend that is against the American Norm, the makers of the Witcher 2 have REMOVED the DRM (digital rights managment) that was originally placed in their game. Unlike Sony, Apple, etc.; the company CD Projekt RED has decided to remove all digital rights protections in favor of giving owners of the Witcher 2 a better game and experience. The hope is that having a good product will insure sales and success, and that handcuffing the consumer is not the best way to fight piracy.

Being a huge fan of the original game (and the game world), I can only hope that other leaders of the industry follow this good example.

Modern Warfare 3… because we need another one (sigh)

Well the news is out and on November 8, 2011, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 will be released. Everyone generally seems excited. Since a new Call of Duty comes out every November  I guess early November is like an early Christmas for all the Call of Duty fanboys. Personally I haven’t really gotten excited about Call of Duty since the original MW… and I wasn’t really that excited. I mostly prefer First Person Shooters on Computer, and to me Call of Duty always seemed a bit too clumsy compared to Counter Strike and BattleField.

Now I can’t really say Call of Duty games aren’t great… I think sales of each game would help to prove that wrong. I may just be bitter because Modern Warfare 2 is still $40 and the original is $30. Why would a game that loses almost ALL multiplayer traffic to the next year’s game still demand such a high price? Since all you are paying for is essentially the (SHORT) 1st player campaign, it seems like they would give some of …ME a break and let me at least catch up on the 1st person storyline so I might be interested in purchasing the new yearly games. Oh well, I most likely will skip Call of Duty and go to BattleField 3, I won’t be missed…

Oh here is the Modern Warfare 3 Trailer