Monthly Archive

I realized that although we announced Sparkplay Media a couple of weeks ago, I neglected to reference it here.

Briefly, we (Iron Realms) have spun off Earth Eternal and future graphical products into a separate company called Sparkplay Media. We’ve got some pretty interesting plans that go well beyond EE but they’re going to have to remain under cover for now.

We announced the first member of our Board of Advisors recently, and it’s fair to say that his mainstream media history speaks to our long-term ambitions. We have very definite ideas on how online gaming in general (from MMOs to casual) will evolve and we think what we’re planning strongly addresses that future. I’m looking forward to talking about what we’re up to, and in any case my strong suspicion is that we’re going to see a lot of groups planning similar strategies in the next 6-12 months, because our plans do not require a leap of genius to get to. It’s just a natural evolution for the industry, whether we’re the ones to execute first on it or not.

Rock Band Rules!

(”The King is Dead, Long Live the King!“)

Rock Band is out. I have purchased it, which is a given if you know me or read this blog regularly. As I realize there are some people who read this who don’t know what Rock Band is, I’ll explain: Guitar Hero was a game that let you play (by hitting 5 buttons on the neck) a 2/3-sized guitar along to mainly cover versions of guitar-driven songs. It was fantastic. Truly. Rock Band, on the other hand, is nothing short of revelatory. Not only can you play the guitar, but you can play drums (it comes with a 4 pad electronic drum set) and sing (comes with a microphone).

Unfortunately I only had time to play two songs tonight, which is killing me. Eileen (girlfriend) played drums and I sung. We chose that combo because it’s going to be challenging for both of us. She’s never drummed (I was one of those drummer band geeks in high school) and I can’t sing. Imagine a wounded panther bellowing its death screams as it sinks in an eternal pit of Jello pudding and you have the idea. Under normal circumstances I spare my fellow man the horror of my voice lifted in song but Rock Band kicks so much ass that I don’t feel bad about inflicting my cracking cry upon Eileen and Nixon (dog).

Guitar Hero transformed the experience of hitting buttons rhythmically (something I’m fairly good at) into the feeling of being Eddie Van Halen or Stevie Vai. Rock Band goes you one better. Not only can pretend to be Eddie or Stevie, but you can actually be Neal Peart (drummer for Rush) or Kurt Cobain (lead singer for Nirvana). While the guitar parts are purely game-like (insofar as they are nothing like really playing the guitar), the drumming and singing are, on the harder levels, virtually exactly like really doing those things.

Rock Band is the greatest educational game ever created. Guitar Hero is dead to me. Long Live Rock Band!

This is…I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s….well, just watch it. Prepare to creeped out somewhere between a little and a lot.

I’ve made precious few posts lately as I just don’t have time but I wanted to write briefly about some games I’ve played recently. (The great thing about working in games is that you legitimately have to make time to play games.)

Halo 3
I wrote about my first impressions a few weeks ago here. I haven’t had a chance to finish the campaign yet but the multiplayer continues to be flat-out awesome. Whether it’s a 16 man big team battle complete with ground and air vehicles or an every-man-for-himself deathmatch the game is polished to an incredible level. The machinima capabilities are amazing as well. The highly-polished ability to watch every match from any angle, follow any player around, etc is unprecedented in console gaming. I will be playing Halo 3 a few hours a week for a long time to come no doubt.

Portal
Great little game. At 3 hours I got a chance to actually finish it. The humor is exceptionally well-done (possibly the funniest game I recall playing) and I could have messed with the core ‘portaling’ gameplay for many hours more. I would love to see their core gameplay extended into a multiplayer FPS.

Guitar Hero 3
An awesome track list composed mostly of original master tracks (rather than covers as in the previous GH games) sold me on this. I hadn’t been planning on buying it since Rock Band comes out later this month but I couldn’t resist the song list. There’s nothing innovative here (which is fine. Innovation is overrated when it comes to fun.) but there is a feature so annoying that I quit playing career mode in disgust. In essence, you have to suffer a ‘boss battle’ every now and then in career mode. In battle mode, you and your opponent don’t gain star power, but instead gain the ability to ruin the game for the other person. Switch the notes so that they’re displaying as if for a left-handed guitar, breaking a ’string’ on your guitar, make the screen blur and shake, etc.

I had tried the battle mode against a friend and we quit after about 30 seconds as it’s got absolutely nothing to do with what makes Guitar Hero great. I am a GH fan because it lets me feel like I’m a, well, guitar hero. When I’m rocking out on ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ I am Slash. It’s fantasy fulfillment. The thing is, breaking your opponent’s strings or flipping his guitar around to make him play lefty has nothing to do with rocking out. It’s just completely unrelated to the wish fulfillment that makes Guitar Hero the greatest fantasy fulfillment game in the history of man, at least until Rock Band is released in a couple weeks. Worse: the battle mode bullshit isn’t just irrelevant, it actively destroys the experience by taking you out of the ‘flow’ of the game like a frying pan to the face.

So here I am, the biggest Guitar Hero fan among my friends, and I had to resort to using a cheat code to unlock all the songs since I simply refuse to play through the game on career mode (required to unlock the full track list) if I’m going to be forced to engage in battle mode during it. I am pleased to note that Damion has equally strong feelings about the crapness of boss battles.

Upcoming Games I’m Greatly Anticipating

• Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) I really hope this becomes the first game for the Wii that I like. So far, the Wii is a complete disappointment to me. I can’t even get into Zelda or Metroid, which saddens me. Everything I’ve read about SM Galaxy tells me I’m going to love it but disappointment and video games are frequent companions in my world.
• Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance (PC) I was completely addicted to Supreme Commander for about 5 months earlier this year and I cannot wait to pick this up this weekend (it’s already out). It’s the finest RTS (real-time strategy) game I’ve played and the expansion looks to simply, well, expand upon the goodness. The only problem here is that my favorite Supcom games are with 4 people on large maps. That setup tends to require 1.5-3 hours to finish a game and it’s hard to find that much consecutive time to play.
• Rock Band (360) Duh.
• Mass Effect (360) It’s Bioware, it’s in space, and it looks awesome.
• Assassin’s Creed (360) I don’t know if I’ll actually play this or not (depends on the reviews) but I will be pleased to be able to stop hearing about it and about its attractive female producer, Jade Raymond. It is a sad, sad comment on our industry when the simple fact that an attractive female is involved in a non-HR/marketing role is cause for publicity. I’m forced to conclude that the same embarassing nerds who used to wet themselves in excitement while getting a picture of themselves with a semi-attractive ‘booth babe’ draped over them at E3 are driving the Jade Raymond fan bus.