It's another murderous night
Another left hook from hell
A bloody war on the boardwalk
And the kid from Lowell rises to the bell

• 24Aug 08

  News Flash 8-24-08

  To developers:

  Putting the word "unleashed" in the title of your game is like a five star restaurant calling one of the items on their menu "vomit."

  • Posted Aug 24, 2008 6:48 am PT
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• 22Aug 08

  Galaga Legions' Fatal Flaw

  Awesome game. Awesome visuals. Terrific pacing and difficulty.

  However, one thing keeps this game from its true potential, and that is that when you deploy satellites, they reset if your ship moves over them. Those of you who haven't played the game won't know what I'm talking about, but those of you who have played beyond Area 3 will know that this is a huge, huge problem. Your satellites are your only horizontal defense AND offense, and this simple mistake makes a great game only good.

  Buyer beware.

  • Posted Aug 22, 2008 6:04 am PT
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• 14Aug 08

  Pirate Station Network

  There are a number of things I don't like about Sony's online service -- PSN. It's slow. It's often late. You have to install items you've downloaded. But those arguments have always been tempered somewhat by the "it's also free" crowd.

  Generally, they have a point. I don't remember a time where I got something for free that was as good as something I paid for. So in that sense, it's hard to argue with the service. Still, I make it a policy of giving it my business as rarely as possible. I don't even go out of my way to network with people by making it common knowledge what my PSN ID is.

  The primary reason for this is "game sharing," a mechanism Sony themselves implemented on the network to allow people to share games among up to five people as long as they are on the same PSN account. Well, it didn't take long for people to figure out that you could allow your friends to play (and essentially own) games they hadn't paid for by letting them download a game you'd already bought on their system. This is wrong. And it's even more wrong seeing as Sony not only encouraged it by implementing it on their own, but has since done nothing about it. Piracy has always existed and always will, but this is the first time (that I know of) where a hardware company has condoned it and tried to pretty it up by calling it something benign like "sharing" instead of what it is, which is STEALING.

  This isn't an isolated thing. I've seen people do it many times before, and I myself have been solicited by people who wanted to know if I wanted "free PSN games." I've always hated piracy, but PSN piracy is the worst kind, because it goes after the one group that are trying to breathe new life into the industry, and who, generally, are doing it because they love it. The indie scene is the one area of the industry where it feels like chances are being taken, and concepts introduced that weren't cooked up in a high rise's boardroom by out of touch men in three-piece suits. Condoning theft from the little guy is quite possibly the worst kind of theft there is in the video game industry.

  I've been following the blog of Jonathan Blow (he's the dude who designed Braid) and it's interesting for a couple of reasons. First, it tells how much time and capital went into making even a small-scale project like Braid come to be. The game has sold somewhere in the area of 50,000 copies, yet Braid still hasn't broken even yet (it should soon). Blow still has to recoup hardware expenses, certification advances to Microsoft, his lost time from his well-paying analyst job, and costs incurred from other people who helped with the game.

  Secondly, it's very rare that a developer gives the public a window through which to view how much his game cost to make, and Blow's frank attitude shows just how risky it is to get into game development. In spite of Braid being a commercial and critical success (it's currently got a Metacritic ranking of 93 -- just 1/10th of a point away from games like COD4 and Metal Gear), the game is just barely at the breaking even point, and that's without a bunch of losers pirating it.

  In closing, this is a plea for those of you who steal via game sharing to take a second and think twice about it. Most of you are more than ready to claim you love this hobby, yet you are doing one of the things that hurts it the most. Just because Sony has implemented a scummy policy with their machine, that doesn't mean you have to use it. You wouldn't let me come up to you in real life and pull money out of your wallet would you? This is essentially what you're doing here. Stealing is stealing.

  Keep your honor. Make your friends buy their own goddamn games. Don't lose your virtue over a lousy ten spot.

  • Posted Aug 14, 2008 11:53 am PT
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