Monthly Archive

I’ve not been blogging much lately as you’ve no doubt noticed. Sorry about that. Work has become a bit all-consuming. As it doesn’t require much thought or time I figured I’d throw up a list of my favorite games of 2007. Here it is in all its not-quite-glory! The games are listed in no particular order as I couldn’t really tell you whether I enjoyed playing Puzzle Quest 6 months ago more than I’m enjoying Rock Band today, for instance.

• Supreme Commander - Greatest RTS ever made. PC.
• Mario Galaxy - It’s the reason you buy a Wii. Two-player mode (aka ‘girlfriend mode’) is awesome for playing with one’s less-of-a-gamer significant other. Wii.
• Rock Band - Because Ronnie James Dio would want you to play it. And because if you ever want a job with us, you better be able to play one of the instruments on ‘Hard’ or ‘Expert.’ Remember that “sucking at Rock Band” is not yet a protected category when it comes to discrimination in the hiring process. Xbox 360.
• Puzzle Quest - I hate match-three games, and yet I loved Puzzle Quest. Played it on the DS.
• Portal - I still feel bad about murdering my Companion Cube. Had I known that a birthday party with Companion Cube in attendance was a possibility, I probably wouldn’t have murdered it. Played it on the 360.
• Halo 3 - The best multiplayer action game ever made as far as I’m concerned, though I have never really been into PC-based shooters so I recognize I’ve got a huge blind spot here. 360.
• Settlers of Catan - I played a lot of Settlers on Xbox Live. My girlfriend, on the other hand, continues to be addicted to it and takes every opportunity possible to “get her Catan on.” 360 - Xbox Live.

Rock Band….rocks. The major downside is that the equipment they ship with the game is quite poorly-made for the most part. For instance, one of my drumsticks has already broken, as has the strummer on the guitar. Apparently more than a few people are having problems with the strummer though to their credit EA has made it easy to return the guitar and get a new one.

A couple friends have seen their bass pedal break already and I’m sure mine will as well, as it’s very cheaply manufactured. Luckily, some enterprising fellow is selling an aluminum plate you can screw onto your pedal, thus saving it from your perhaps slightly over-zealous rocking. I played on a reinforced pedal last night and it was delightful. Just ordered one for myself, and I suggest that anyone else who aspires to to Neil Peart status pick one up as well.

Why Rock Band? Why? Why do you not alert me, in big letters that I cannot miss, that there’s new downloaded content (ie new songs) available for purchase? I know new songs come out every Tuesday but I bet most RB users have no idea. As someone who is keenly interested in seeing Rock Band become a platform for new music, I beg you to please shove the downloadable content (DLC) in front of your users. They will not resent it. They’ll be thrilled to know you’re offering them new songs. But listen: If you don’t let them know the DLC is there, can you expect them to go buy it and validate your platform as an ongoing concern in a way that Guitar Hero has failed at aside from releasing sequels? (Guitar Hero always teased us with the promise of lots of downloadable content but they always reneged nearly immediately.)

Communicate what you have to offer to your users more effectively!

Jeremy Liew has an interesting post up today about fantasy sports as asynchronous MMOs, which was itself spawned by an article in early November by Charles Hudson about fantasy football as casual games for men. I’m not a fan of watching sports and don’t play fantasy sports but I get some of the appeal, and while I wouldn’t classify fantasy sports as an MMO (I’m a traditionalist - if there’s no world representation, it’s not an MMO) I think Jeremy and Charles are right insofar as they serve the same purpose and have a great deal of similarity.

Charles talks about a few of the game mechanics that make fantasy football work so well for men (it’s a multi-billion dollar industry as well):

• Simple game mechanics - If you understand how the NFL works, you can play fantasy football.
• There is a good combination of luck, skill, and strategy. Skill comes in working the waiver wire, doing your homework before the draft, and staying on top of who’s emerging during the course of the season… However, there’s a lot of luck involved - you can’t control who gets injured and how long they’re out.
• The time commitment is manageable (unlike other fantasy sports) - You can basically manage a fantasy football team in a few hours a week… The beauty of fantasy football is that almost all of the action takes place in about 24 hours per week.
• Fantasy football is a social experience - Go to any sports bar on Sunday and make an offhand comment about one of the players on your team. Guaranteed you’ll get at least a few other folks at the bar who have a rooting interest in one player or team. Because the rules for fantasy football are fairly universal, two players in separate leagues can often have a good conversation around fantasy football in general.

He’s bang-on, I think, but he leaves out one huge factor: story. Whenever people tell me they don’t understand the appeal of spectator sports I sum it up for them that single word. Though they’re not for me, people who are really wrapped up in a particular sport and, usually, a particular team are very into ongoing stories that evolve from the activity in and around the sport.

When I think of the sports moments that stick in my mind they are all wrapped in a very strong story. For instance, the 1980 US victory over the heavily-favored Soviet ice hockey team in the game called “the Miracle on Ice.” I’m sure it was dramatic based on the play alone but I don’t remember any of that. I remember feeling, at 8 years old, like this game represented the forces of good against evil (one is allowed to indulge in over-simplification when one is that age), and that somehow a defeat for the Soviets was some kind of tangible payback for the evil they’d done my father.

Think of other monumental sports moments: Jesse Owens embarassing Hitler at the ‘36 Olympics, Jackie Robinson signing with the Dodgers, Michael Jordan’s entire career, virtually every big fight Muhammed Ali fought in (Cassius Clay vs. Sonny Liston and Ali vs. Foreman in “The Rumble in the Jungle” come to mind), and so on. They’re all powerful because of the stories that back them.

My point is that sports contain, to those who keep abreast of what’s happening, an astonishing myriad of stories, and your hardcore sports fan is, in effect, watching a soap opera with a cast of thousands, spanning decades. Further, they’re not just watching them. They’re participating through retelling the stories and discussing them with friends or strangers at the bar, by playing sports video games, and of course, by playing fantasy sports.

It all makes for a massive, coherent (if uninstantiated) world with rules, players, guilds/teams, and plenty of story. MMO players would be wetting their pants with joy if the stories in their favorite games evolved at the same pace they do in sports.

Gamebunny has a Q&A up about Earth Eternal. I am my usual feisty and blunt self.