You are currently browsing the monthly archive for December, 2006.
I thought I’d make a list largely for my own edification, but figured I’d post it here as well. Note that these are MY top 10 games of 2006. I don’t care what year the game was made in. If I didn’t play it until 2006, then it’s eligible for the list.
- Guitar Hero 2 (PS2) - I can’t imagine anyone who reads this blog is surprised given how often I’ve written about the franchise. Just as Guitar Hero was before it, Guitar Hero 2 is, in the sense that video games can let you be something you aren’t, the best video game ever made. (Which isn’t to say it’s flat-out the best video game ever made. I don’t have an opinion on that.)
- Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (360) - Few games aside from text MUDs ever immersed me as much as Oblivion did. It probably would have been #1 except that I found that I ran out of new enemies to see and places to go long before I finished the main plotline, making the last 10-15 hours I played it feel progressively more tedious.
- Half-Life 2 (PC) - I don’t mean Episode 1 either, as I haven’t played it. I know this didn’t come out in 2006, but I played it this year and, predictably, loved it. I haven’t played the original, but this was a lot of fun. The gravity gun rocked.
- Viva Pinata (360) - First of all, the theme song permanently lives in my head. Second, it’s the cutest game I’ve ever played, and third, it lets me have a four-headed snake as a pet. Plus, my girlfriend loves it, which is a big bonus.
- Gears of War (360)- One of the only so-called “next-gen” games that feels next-gen to me (and when can we stop calling them ‘next gen’ now that they’re all ‘current gen?’). In fact, I think the ‘next gen’ label is a bunch of crap. Most of the 360 games look and play like the better-looking Xbox games, and I shouldn’t have to buy a new piece of hardware to play games that should have been running on my Xbox. Gears of War is a notable exception in the visuals department, and a small exception in the gameplay department. Yeah, there have been third person squad-based shooters before, but this feels different.
- God of War (PS2) - Another game that wasn’t released in 2006. Ultra-violent and over the top in every way. I loved it.
- Kirby: Canvas Curse (DS) - This was the first game I played on the DS I got given as a birthday gift last summer. It completely sold me on the power of the DS’s interface. For those who haven’t played, it’s a 2d scroller in which you play Kirby the Ghost. You control Kirby’s movement entirely by drawing lines on the screen, which form the platforms he rolls on. Make him do loops, go straight up, whatever. Never played a game that felt quite like it.
- Splinter Cell: Double Agent (360) - This was the game in the Splinter Cell franchise I’d played, and I was a bit hesitant as stealth doesn’t tend to be my thing, or didn’t used to at least. I found I enjoyed the stealth aspect of the game immensely, and the multiplayer, in which one side plays a spy and one plays a mercenary, each with completely different capabilities, felt unlike anything I’ve played online before.
- Geometry Wars (360) - The best Atari game that was never on an Atari. This is the game that Asteroids and every permutation of the 2d space-based shooter wished they could have been 25 years ago.
- New Super Mario (DS) - There was absolutely nothing innovative or even evolutionary about New Super Mario, but the devs did such a superb job of translating the feel of classic 2d Mario games that it didn’t matter. I loved every second of it, though my only complaint was that it felt too easy.
I’m
all for protecting your IP by means up to and including lawsuits, but man does this ever scream desperation. The RIAA is suing AllOfMP3 (a massive download site based in Russia that happens to be, apparently, perfectly legal under Russian law) in New York courts for massive IP violations. The suit is for 1.65 trillion dollars! Nevermind that AllOfMP3 has no assets nor personnel in New York. Nevermind that there is simply no conceivable way by which AllOfMP3 has caused even 0.1% of that amount of damage to the music industry. I guess I cheer them on but it’s pretty hard to muster up any enthusiasm.
The meme that’s been spreading through the blogosphere lately has struck me, courtesy of Raph. Thus, I’m supposed to post five things that you don’t know about me (ok, some of you will probably know most or all of these) and then tag some other people.
1. I had a 13-year-old brother who died in in hunting accident when I was 15. I was carrying the gun. We were out hunting for pheasants in a field near the rural Wisconsin property I grew up on with a friend of mine, and things went very badly. Please don’t judge. We had been #1 and #2 in our hunter’s safety classes, and hunting in the Midwest as a teenager is simply a large part of the rural culture. It was a tragic accident but unfortunately, accidents happen. I stopped hunting at that point, but my dad still hunts, for instance. I have zero problem with responsible hunting. I just find animals too cute to want to kill. (I’ll happily eat a tasty animal if you’ll kill it for me though.)
I’ve
always been somewhat dubious, as a player, about the 360’s Gamer Score paradigm. The temptation is to assess it as completely meaningless given that having a higher Gamer Score gets you absolutely nothing tangible but a higher Gamer Score. In one sense of course, it is meaningless. One gets nothing that can be tangibly measured from increasing one’s Gamer Score. You don’t get more powerful in Gears of War. You don’t unlock more animals in Viva Pinata. You get nothing.
Clay has another excellent piece discussing the smoke and mirrors tactics that are Linden Labs’ modus operandi. Read it!
I don’t quite understand the name, but Sulake, developers of Habbo Hotel, are experimenting with a mobile-based virtual world with their Mini Friday application. There’s nothing especially notable about this aside from the fact that it’s Sulake doing it. They managed to create the 2nd most popular virtual world in the West (after Runescape). Can they be the first to really break open the mobile virtual world space? (Note: You need a Nokia to use Mini Friday…Sulake is Finnish after all.)
More to the point, is there a space to break open there? Do virtual worlds on mobile phones make sense at this stage in mobile technology? Gemini Mobile certainly thinks so. Last month, they released a platform for mobile virtual worlds (kind of a Multiverse for mobile, but less ambitious) called eXplo. So far, Softbank in Japan has created a S! TOWN. I have no idea if Gemini’s tech is any good but they haven’t made much of a splash that I’m aware of. To be fair though, it would be overstating the case to even say that I am a casual mobile phone user. I use mine so little that it can run out of batteries and I won’t notice for days.
So how about those readers who are heavy mobile users? Is a virtual world on a mobile phone something of interest to you? I’m not necessarily talking about MMORPGs here either. I’m thinking more of a Mini Friday, as it’s a much lighter application. If you’re on the bus or train, would participating in conversation in mobile-accessed virtual world (keeping in mind the severe limits that mobile platforms impose as compared to PCs) be of interest? Is it preferable to texting your friends or would you view it as a different kind of activity? I’m just really not in touch with the mobile market generally, but presumably some of you are.
Keep in mind that I’m not talking about mobile applications that extend current virtual worlds. I think being able to access a sub-set of your favored virtual world via a mobile phone has real possibilities, but I’m not (yet) convinced that stand-alone virtual worlds are ready for primetime on mobile yet.
I 
got a new gadget yesterday: a digital SLR (single-lens reflex) camera, or, to photo enthusiasts, a “real” camera. I’ve never owned one before, always sticking with the simple point-and-shoot cameras. In fact, until yesterday, I’ve been using a 2 megapixel compact jobby and have never attempted anything beyond snapshots of cool vistas and people I know. I absolutely love where I live though (Mill Valley, California) and I decided it was time I had a camera capable of taking some nice pictures of it, once I learn something about what I’m doing.
Last spring I went to meet with the folks at Multiverse and see what they were up to. Corey Bridges, one of the founders and the executive producer, spent a few hours showing me their technology, introducing me to the team, and explaining Multiverse’s approach in general. Although I had been an early skeptic of Multiverse, the visit to their HQ convinced me there’s a good chance I had been wrong about them. We elected, in the end, not to use Multiverse for Earth Eternal, really through no fault of theirs. Multiverse just wasn’t quite far enough along at that time to tempt us into switching our strategy.
Raph’s new company. There’s not much to say as there’s not much info available about it yet. Gamasutra article here.
An article in today’s Asia Times Online explains that the QQ coin, a virtual currency issued by Tencent, China’s largest IM provider, has become so valued that the central bank of China is worried that it will affect the value of the yuan (China’s official currency). Tencent’s services have about 20 million simultaneous users and dominates the Chinese IM market. They’re so popular that there are QQ branded sausages and noodles in internet cafes in China, and soon, QQ-branded sneakers will be available as well.\
I 
got volume 1 of the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon from the ’80s tonight. I haven’t seen it in probably 20 years, but it holds a fond place in my memory. Having just finished watching the first two episodes, I’ll say that this holds up better than many other cartoons…but it still, unsurprisingly, kind of sucks.
So far, the best part was when the kids defeated Tiamat, the Chromatic Dragon by putting a large carpet over a hole in the ground, which Tiamat promptly walked on and fell into.
Tiamat. The Chromatic Dragon. It wasn’t even Bigby’s Magic Carpet of Hole Concealment. Just an ordinary carpet. Tiamat.
I realize I might be expecting a bit much from a Saturday morning cartoon.
Good article in the Escapist this week about boutique MMOs. I am pleased to note that I’ve already played almost every game he mentions.
Clay Shirkey has a truly excellent post up outlining his reasons for skepticism about Second Life. None of his reasons are new to anyone reading this blog, but the fact that Clay is, well…Clay Shirkey, is a good reason to read his take on those reasons. Tony Walsh has some good comments on Clay’s article as well.
That Ian Baverstock! 
I just got a bulk email from GDC ‘07 that contains Mr. Baverstock’s (he’s on the GDC Advisory Board, though I’ve never met the man) recommended sessions for the Business & Management track, and one of them is the roundtable Dan James and I will be holding again this year. Put on that fur, straighten the brim of your peacock-feathered hat, slide on into your gold-rimmed Caddy, Mr. Baverstock (Or I.B. Pimpin’ as he’s known in some circles), and get to work. Ain’t nobody your equal in this game.
[self-pimp]I’m also doing a lecture with Sulka Haro (lead designer on Habbo Hotel) and Erik Bethke (CEO of GoPets Live).[/self-pimp]
This is a pretty amusing. There’s a Christian-oriented game called “Left Behind: Eternal Forces” based on the immensely popular “Left Behind” novels that take place during the run-up to Biblical Armaggedon. Apparently in the game you have to either convert people to Christianity, or kill them.
Clearly, this should have been an MMO, not an RTS. I want to get a raiding group together and go up against the Lucifer boss, with his horde of Muslims (many of the bad guys in the Left Behind game have Arab-sounding names), in the real Molten Core.
A
guy named K4rn4ge has achieved 360 million in Geometry wars. He says it took him over 30 hours to do, and that he intentionally stopped at 360 million. His next goal is going to be breaking 1 billion.
One billion! That will make him approximately 1000x the man I am in the world of Geometry Wars, where I have broken the one million mark precisely once (and felt pretty darn good about it, thank you very much).
I
rented Viva Piñata (it’s on the 360) this weekend expecting to pop it in, check it out briefly, and then send it back. Instead, Eileen and I have spent a good chunk of the weekend doing some virtual gardening, building our very own Eden. This is possibly the single cutest game I’ve ever played. I don’t have rugrats, but if you do, I can’t imagine any parent objecting to content in Viva Piñata, and I suspect most video game-oriented parents who play with their kids may find themselves at least as interested as the little ones are.
Basically, you spend time building your garden and attracting new kinds of animal pinñats to it, some of which are fairly wacky. You’re able to grow fruits, nuts, and vegetables (some of which are required to keep some types of animals happy), cause animals to engage in “romance” (G-rated) that results in the Stork delivering an egg. You can name your animals and buy various accessories for them from pirate hats to ‘yokel teeth’ (which Beth, one of our ‘Sparrowmints,’ has been running around wearing), and send them to friends on Xbox Live if you wish. Speaking of which, if anyone wants to send me something, I’m ‘Sarapis’ on XBL and my garden is ‘Eden.’
Linden shows its colors, again. Although I think Second Life is pretty neat (if not terribly useful aside from those who are entertained by scripting and 3d asset creation), I tend to be extremely cynical about Linden Labs, its developer. Occasionally I wonder if I’m being too harsh on them, and then I read this BBC article, which served to assure me that I’m not. Linden, as far as I can tell, operates on a policy of intentionally misleading and essentially lying to the press either directly or via their PR firm. Here are the relevant quotes out of the BBC article linked to above. The quote is from Joe Miller, their VP of platform and technology. In other words, someone who knows exactly what the performance limits of their setup is.
Mr. Miller is quoted as saying, “World of Warcraft touts a six million or larger active user base - but they shard their world off into smaller servers so you never see 16,000 people in the same place.”
Quite true, and nobody is going to argue with that. You will not see 16,000 people in the same place in WoW. Mr. Miller goes on to say, “That’s unlike Second Life, where tonight you will see 16,000 people enjoying exactly the same world all able to communicate with each other, all attending the same live music event should they wish to.”
Come again? Perhaps someone could explain how that is not a flat-out, bald-faced lie from the guy in charge of their technology? 16,000 people in Second Life attending the same live music event? Please. Second Life can barely handle 75 avatars in the same place before it starts having problems that make it effectively unusable. Try putting 1000 avatars somewhere, much less 16,000. The sound of the resulting crash will come milliseconds later, despite their CEO’s claim that they are “perfectly scalable.”
I 
haven’t posted much about Earth Eternal lately because there’s not a whole lot we want to release right now. I just approved the final version of our main theme music tonight though, and as nobody is going to be able to really garner much info about the game from the music, I’ll offer it up for your enjoyment or disdain. I like it, quite a bit. It brings to mind echoes of both classic RPGs like Zelda or Secret of Mana, and the epic RPG environments in the line of WoW or Oblivion, though I want to emphasize that I am in no way comparing Earth Eternal with those hallowed games.
Susan Wu, of Charles River Ventures, doesn’t think so. She mentions the standard litany of problems with Second Life: high barrier to entry (in terms of using the interface and creating anything), closed standards, and so on. When I take the dropcloth off the giant crystal ball that inhabits my living room, I see a number of big problems for SL. Keep in mind that despite my pessimism and snarkiness about Second Life, it is growing at a healthy pace, though it’s still not profitable as far as I know. Nothing like the pace Linden or their media fluffers trumpet of course, but it is growing.
From BusinessWeek. It appears that Sean Fanning, Napster’s creator, has raised money from a couple of very prominent tech investors (Ron Conway and Joi Ito) to put together the site that will presumably be appearing here. I wonder if their plans are to focus solely on WoW or expand into a more general meta-community for MMO users? The former seems like a business that can’t be sustained longer-term (because WoW will eventually lose popularity, hard as that is to believe sometimes), while I know at least one other group that’s working on something like the latter.