Home is where the heart is

Just because I'm an Xbox fanboy doesn't mean I automatically assume anything on other consoles is junk. I take a good, hard look at the pros and cons of each feature, and then I declare it junk. ;)

I've been interested to see where the PlayStation Home feature will go (besides pushed back further and further to an unspecified date in the future). I think it's an interesting idea, trying to capitalize on the popularity of things like Second Life. But just how useful is it? If it were available today on a console that I owned, would I be dying to spend time there? Or would I just see it as getting in the way of my games?

I noticed an article on The Escapist by Susan Arendt, who was treated to a tour of Home at E3 2008. Her conclusion? "I still don't get [it]." From what she described, Home centers around these sponsor-themed areas, which seem to be focused on driving advertising to the players. It does provide a way to meet up with people, play mini-games, get together to launch full games, and so forth. Although personal spaces have been talked about before, Ms. Arendt doesn't mention it in her article. Whether they're still there or not, her report seems to indicate that the focus is on advertising-themed areas. And it all seemed open.

I have to agree with her assessment about "not getting it". I'm not sure it'd be somewhere I'd want to "hang out", either. As it is, I get plenty of "hanging out" in the in-game lobbies of Halo or Call of Duty between games — which is, after all, why I have a game console in the first place, to play games.

So anyway, I just finished a long night of Halo, jumping around from party to party of Geezers, occasionally playing by myself until I found an open party of Geezers, musing about my friends list and how it's filling up again with some new GG members, when suddenly it occurred to me. I suddenly realized exactly what Home should be.

Home should be filled with community-driven sites (houses, buildings, bars, whatever the paradigm is). Perhaps these sites could have memberships, to control the population and protect against "griefers" — how sites are created, who owns them, and who could control who is and is not a member would have to be worked out somehow. Then these spaces would have people who share more than just a passing interest in a particular brand name; they'd have a sense of community, and want to hang out there. Advertising space could still be sold, but it could be open to ads that cater to a much broader demographic than just the "Uncharted Theme House". Give these communities some control over how their house is run, and they'll be more than glad to hang out there.

From my world view: I don't spend a lot of time on the Xbox.com corporate page; I spend my time socializing on the GeezerGamers.com forum. How useful it would be if I could log on to my console, wander into the "Geezer Gamers" house, see who's playing what and who's hanging out waiting to play, and go from there. And if there were bulletin boards where schedules could be posted, or tournament information specific to the house, with an integrated web site for when I wasn't in front of my console...

I think Sony has it backwards. Home shouldn't be advertiser-driven; it should be community-driven.

Of course, now my big hope is that Microsoft sees this, steals the Home idea from Sony and flips it right-way-around for the 360, because that's the console I own. ;)

Crosswords on a console?

Released to Xbox Live Arcade this last week was Coffeetime Crosswords. Because Arcade games have a trial option, I downloaded this to see how it would work. I usually love that feature of Xbox Live Arcade, because it gives me the chance to try out games that I would never risk my hard earned cash on. In this case, though, I'll make an exception. I wish I never even had a chance to try this one.

I already had some doubts about how a crossword puzzle would work with a controller, but it seriously seemed like they tried to make the interface as clumsy as possible.

A few things were done right. You can use the stick to move around the puzzle, or press the triggers to jump from word to word sequentially, and a quick tap of X switches between across and down. Then a tap of A (I think it was A) brings up the letter input wheel.

"Ah ha", I thought. "This is like Shadowrun. Or even that Buku Sudoku game. I just push the stick in the direction of the letter on the wheel I want and..." Bzzt. Wrong. Pushing the stick, you see, moves you around the puzzle. To input letters, you have to use the bumpers to cycle around the wheel until you get to the letter you want, and select it. Only half the letters are visible at a time, so you either cycle around to the "switch" option to switch it from A-M and N-Z, or you press and hold both bumpers for a second or two.

"Well, that's awfully inconvenient," I thought. "Fortunately, I have a chatpad attached to my controller with a full keyboard. I'll just use that to type the letters I want." Bzzt, wrong again. The chatpad is completely not supported. Nothing happens when you type letters.

The time required to enter the answer for "a Hawaiian feast", the short word "LUAU" (which requires flipping the letter wheel back and forth for each letter) — that alone was enough to make me delete this game with prejudice.

I don't think a user interface has ever before made me quite so angry so quickly. I quite nearly felt insulted.

Even if they added keyboard or chatpad support, I'm still not convinced that a console is the best place for a crossword puzzle. Buku Sudoku was, by contrast, pretty well done (although it did expose the flaw in my controller, in that it doesn't recenter itself from a slight drift left — apparently a common problem, and a big issue in navigating the sudoku board), but I still wouldn't play that on a 360 when I have a PC. Even the most basic of freeware is easier to use when you have a full keyboard and mouse. Achievements and Xbox Live can't make up for that.

Wii could care less

My aunt spends a lot of time entertaining her grandkids, so she has a lot of toys at her house, and sometimes she buys (or successfully talks my mother into buying) toys she finds especially "neat" or "fun" for my mother. So while we were visiting my mom and aunt, my kids and I got to spend some time playing with the console whose name I still can't use without my inner child giggling hysterically: the Wii.

My 8-year-old son is at that stage where he wants anything, just because it is remotely "neat" or "fun" or well-advertised on TV. (Case in point: he was trying to convince us how much our lives would be improved by a certain kitchen gadget after he stayed up after his bedtime watching an infomercial the other night.) So when he says he wants one, I have to take this recommendation with a heavy dose of salt. Now, it is true that my boys are spending quite a bit of time playing it, but considering it's really the only thing they have to do while my wife and I help my mother get some of her home improvement projects done while we're here, it's pretty much the default activity.

I suppose it should be noted that my mother is not a gamer, by any stretch of the imagination. So it should come as no surprise that the only games we have available are Wii Sports and Wii Play, and by her own admission, the only reason she has Wii Play is because she wanted a second controller, and for the same price, Wii Play is a controller and a game.

So, what is my general impression of the system and these two games?

Eh.

There just wasn't anything really exciting. I started to understand comments like "two GameCubes duct-taped together". Actually, I'm more reminded of that scene in Back to the Future 2, where the kids deride the arcade cabinet as being a "baby's toy". Although I did see one instance of what other people have witnessed: my mom, the non-gamer, did actually play, enjoy, and win a game of bowling against me and my son.

The system doesn't really draw me to it, though. I don't want to go and play it, and when I do, the moment is really fleeting. I don't get immersed in the gaming experience like I do playing a 360 game.

As far as the major gimmick, the "Wiimote", I didn't care for it. There is definitely something to be said for a literal "point and click", especially when it comes to aiming. But some things were more difficult. If that sensor bar wasn't right at the front edge of the TV, or if someone walked in front of it, it was rather useless. Not to mention jittery. Although on the one hand, it felt like I had more "instant" control over where I was aiming, on the other hand, it felt like I lacked precision, as I couldn't hold the stupid thing steady with a tripod. And that doesn't even get into trying to maintain precision while using the rest of the buttons (re: the tank game, where one must aim with the Wiimote while moving one's tank with the cross pad and firing with the trigger).

Motion sensing was a little better, although somewhat frustrating. I don't know if it was a function of the game or the Wiimote itself, but it seemed that small movements wouldn't register correctly, so I had to exaggerate. Also, movements had to be "set up". Case in point: I couldn't take a couple practice swings in golf in rapid succession; I had to pull my arms back, pause, wait for my Mii to wind up, and then make my swing. Also, as far as golf was concerned, I had to swing the Wiimote in an arc that was perfectly perpendicular to the ground. If I didn't bend directly over it, thus having my arc at any kind of non-90° angle, it either wouldn't register the swing, or would be extremely unpredictable in the strength it did register (instead of just rather unpredictable, which it was most of the time — why could I make the same practice swing 5 times, have it register at one strength, and make the same swing a sixth time, and have it register at something completely different?).

Although there is something to be said for actually swinging like a bat or tennis racket, those motions — and more especially the motions for bowling, pitching, and golfing — are very tiring (at least for an old guy like me — not so much for my kids at that age).

Unfortunately, neither my mom's nor my aunt's systems are connected to the internet, so I was unable to investigate how that works, which is a shame. How much is missing from the "dashboard"?

I'm sure that this experience is directly related to the discs I had available. What would I think of the Wii in the home of a gamer, where it is well-fed with a healthy diet of new, varied, immersive games, connected to a stable lifeline of internet connectivity?

I don't know, but what I did see, compared with what I already have with the 360, made it really hard for me to care.

Jump, jump, JUMP!!! -- The Fuzion Frenzy announcer explained

Probably one of the most universally hated things about Fuzion Frenzy 2 is the announcer. During the games, he chatters non-stop, saying the same things over and over again; and between games, he does a lot of extra hand-waving and unnecessary talking. Fortunately, the game has the option to turn the announcer's volume down to zero, which is absolutely essential to save one's sanity; but why does this guy exist in the first place?

While on vacation, I got a chance to see G4TV on my grandparents' satellite TV. One of the late night shows was a japanese show where contestants had to do some pretty challenging athletic feats. The host instantly reminded me of the Fuzion Frenzy announcer, with the deliberate hand gestures and overly-dramatic statements. During the competition, an announcer would chatter incessantly about what was going on (although, not being a computer program, he had a more limitless repertoire of phrases). But he did at one point say "Hop! Hop! Jump! Jump!" as a contestant attempted to hop a unicycle across some low platforms. :D

So apparently, as annoying as the Fuzion Frenzy 2 announcer is, he's actually rather authentic as far as japanese game shows go. Now I know. And knowing is half the battle.

He still gets muted, though.

Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures

Traveller's Tales hit upon a winning formula. Take two franchises, mix together with quirky humor, and serve. My kids and I loved playing the Lego Star Wars series, so it was with only the slightest hesitation that I picked up Lego Indiana Jones when it released this week (the uncertainty coming from the fact that my kids have not seen the Indiana Jones movies, and are still probably a little young for them).

If you're familiar with the gameplay of Lego Star Wars, you'll find they haven't strayed from the basic formula: you and a partner (either an AI or a human, drop-in and drop-out at any time) proceed more or less linearly through a level, breaking stuff apart to collect studs, building things, and fighting bad guys. The primary goal is to get through the level, while bonus goals consist of finding hidden treasures, such as the ten pieces of an artifact hidden in each level or the parcel to be mailed back to Barnett College (analogous to the "minikits" and "power bricks" of Lego Star Wars). The game spans the first three movies, with each movie broken into six levels. There are certain classes of characters that have specialties — females can jump higher, researchers can use a book to decode heiroglyphs, etc. Each level has a "Story Mode", where a scripted set of characters are at your control; and once you complete each level's Story Mode, it unlocks "Free Play", where you can transform into different characters on demand. Free Play is required to get some hidden treasures, as you can access different classes' specialties as needed, e.g. be female to jump to a high ledge, become Indiana to use the whip to swing to another platform, and then become a short character to crawl through a small tunnel to reach a hidden artifact piece.

It might be easier to point out the differences between Lego Indiana Jones and Lego Star Wars. The puzzles in Lego Indy are more complex, requiring a lot more problem-solving. In addition to building things up and tearing them down, you also have to pick up and move boxes, find keys, pick up and throw items, repair machinery, and dig up items and treasure from the ground. For the most part, the game does a good job indicating what needs to be done where. When you pick up a box, for example, a white arrow begins flashing at the point where it needs to be placed. Also, when you get reasonably close, the arrow turns blue, telling you it's ok to drop the object, as it will be placed where it needs to go. Trying to perfectly place some object in some location is almost never a problem. If you see some machinery smoking, it's a sure bet you'll need a wrench. Something glowing on the ground will require a shovel, and so on. There are a few occasions where it's not immediately obvious what to do, however, and that can lead to some frustrating moments. A certain boss battle, for instance, that takes place around a plane, had me wandering the field for a good 20 minutes before I finally went online and found that someone discovered the plane can shoot. If the movie scene didn't play out so differently, maybe I would've stopped trying to recreate it.

Although speaking of recreating movie scenes, when you get to the final chapter of the last movie, if you haven't seen the movie, you may have a very hard time. I didn't see any clues to the right answer and had to rely on my movie memory to progress; I wonder how my kids will do there.

Some tasks must be completed by using both characters in concert. In Lego Star Wars, this was usually accomplished by having the player perform some primary function, while the AI does some supporting role to finish it off. Occasionally, that happens in Lego Indy as well, but there are times when you are required to do both actions. You position the first character, and you press Y to switch to the other. Different from Lego Star Wars, it now no longer matters how close or far away you are from your partner; you can switch at any time (just about; opposite sides of very large levels, not so much). The game will prompt you to press Y when this is required, so you don't have to spend too much time wondering. Half of me thinks that makes solving those puzzles too easy, but the other half prefers that to the 20 minutes of wandering around not realizing the plane I kept jumping into and out of can shoot.

Combat can be a little frustrating at times. Many of your enemies will come after you with guns, and by default, none of your characters carry them. Thus, you will have to run at them, taking hits until you get close enough to hit back. The whip is effective, but slow, and only hits one enemy at a time — not so good when you have three or four shooting at you. Fortunately, when you fell an enemy, in most instances you can pick up their weapon; so it is possible to take a gun and open fire on your foes. Ammo is limited, however. Bazooka soldiers are probably the most annoying, as they have a tendency to fire at just the right time to kill you two or three times in a row (the second explosion hitting just as the invincibility time from your first respawn wears off). Fortunately, they don't appear all too often, so the annoyance is temporary.

Overall, the game can feel rather small. Partially, that assessment may have to do with most recently playing Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga, a game that was based on six movies, with six levels in each, expanded to have two stud meters and two sets of minikits per level, plus extra levels, bounty hunter missions, a two-player arcade mode, five hundred characters, two turtle doves, a partridge in a pear tree, and a kitchen sink (plus Indiana Jones as an unlockable character) — I'm sure adding features until they felt it was more than just a bundle of two existing games and worth buying even if you had those other two (hey, it worked for me). However, it's not necessarily a bad thing. Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga was huge, to the point that the 100% achievement felt like a chore. Considering the number of things that had to be done, the number of gold bricks to collect, the number of times you had to play each level to make it happen — in the end, it was just too much. Lego Indy has no "Super Story Mode", no bounty hunter missions, no stud-collection extravaganzas; it just goes back to the basics, keeping the game simple and clean.

Downloadable Content and Forwards-Compatibility

It's just been revealed that Guitar Hero: Aerosmith won't support GH3 DLC. While I think that's a bad move, because it makes GH:A just a niche side-product, it got me thinking (a dangerous pasttime, I know).

We're starting to see the potential of DLC, how it can extend the life and interest of games for a long time. I think EA/Harmonix is the poster child for this. While I may not be interested in what they offer every week in Rock Band, I do keep an eye out to see what they are offering each week.

But how long should we expect this extra investment to carry? Is it reasonable to expect DLC to be forwards-compatible with future versions of the product? (Or new versions to be backwards-compatible with the DLC, however you want to look at it.)

I've seen the comment made (by myself included) that current Rock Band DLC should be compatible with Rock Band 2. But it could be impossible, depending on how different RB2 is from RB1. Just hypothetically speaking, if RB2, say, added a fifth instrument, and you had a five-person band, what would happen if you tried to play a set that included a RB1 song, which only has four instruments? Force one band member to sit out? Unless they re-encode all DLC to be RB2-compatible by adding the fifth instrument, it would be pretty pointless; and that's a lot of work I don't see any company willing to do for free for existing content.

Additionally, why would DLC for a specific game be treated any differently than the included content for that same game? Sure, if the content isn't compatible, I'm going to miss playing Boston's "More Than a Feeling" in RB2, but I'll also miss playing "Foreplay/Long Time". What would I reasonably expect Harmonix to do about that? They'd have to distribute all the RB1 content on the RB2 disc with all the new content, provide some way to hot-swap discs (or use the HD-DVD player to load both discs at once), install the RB1 content to the hard drive, or release the RB1 content as DLC — and that's assuming the content would even be compatible with whatever RB2 does.

I can see why Activision/Neversoft is getting a lot of flak about GH:A, seeing as how what they're releasing is essentially a content pack for an existing game (GH:A hasn't been advertising any big features or innovations over GH3). If Rock Band 2 turns out to be Rock Band 1.5 and has the same lack of compatibility, they'll deserve a lot of heat, too.

I think the reason that some of us hope for more is because the content is a little more personal. This is music many of us have grown up with and enjoyed, to which we have an emotional attachment. Having a chance to actually (pretend to) play those songs we used to just listen to is something we're hesitant to let go of.

But if Rock Band 2 has the innovation, I know I'll buy it. Of course, how much innovation is required to offset losing all the old songs is another question. I know of some must-haves, like online bands (although if you ask me, that should be a patch to the existing Rock Band), but I'm afraid that's more of a case of "I'll know it when I see it".

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars

So why did I just post about a five-year-old PC game that I don't play anymore in my Xbox-centric blog? It seemed like good background for introducing my next game, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars.

This game was completely off my radar. When I heard that some Geezers were looking into it, I was completely uninterested. Although it did have "Enemy Territory" in the name, I didn't connect it with my previous hobby. After all, despite being from the same publisher, Wolfenstein and Quake are very different games. But when a couple brave Geezers picked it up and started talking about it, it caught my attention. They talked about Engineers and Covert Ops and calling in air strikes, and I started to realize: This is Enemy Territory. So, despite their somewhat negative reviews (which seemed to revolve around being unfamiliar with the game and having some difficulty picking up on the mechanics), I went out and bought a copy and joined them that night.

Being a W:ET veteran, I found it very easy to jump right in to ET:QW. The basics are all there, with the same five classes with very similar abilities as before. However, one thing that stands out right away is that the objectives are no longer focused on the Engineer with such myoptic tunnel vision. While yes, there is a lot for the Engineer to do — things must be built, and escorting a tank could take numerous repairs as it gets repeatedly stopped by the enemy — objectives in general have been spread across other classes as well. Planting explosives is now the duty of the Soldier (although it still takes an Engineer to disarm), and there are "hacking" objectives that belong to the Covert Ops class. And to give you a little guided boost, when you're selecting your class, the game indicates which class is required to accomplish the next objective.

Also new to ET:QW is AI. Whereas W:ET required human players, ET:QW will fill out the teams with bots. And, as an added bonus, when it comes to man-to-man combat, they're halfway decent. (Friendly AI does seem to have a problem with vehicles, though, whether controlling friendly or eliminating enemy.) AI medics also seem eager to heal, sometimes not even waiting for a request before dropping a medkit on you (or rushing at you with a pair of electrically-charged paddles). AI Field Ops sometimes take a little nudging to get them to give out some ammo, but eventually, they, too, will help out.

The environment is very different, of course. Instead of Axis vs. Allies, you have humans vs. aliens. To go with that, the weapons and equipment have been vastly upgraded from their 1940s representatives. Engineers can now deploy auto anti-personnel and anti-vehicle turrets, and their landmines arm themselves and only trigger when an enemy approaches. Covert Ops carry PDAs that, in addition to performing hacking functions (completing objectives and disabling the aforementioned turrets), perform the disguise function using some sophisticated holographic projection, instead of physically stealing a uniform — very useful in that it doesn't leave a half-naked body behind. ;)

The way they did weapon/equipment cycling, I found took a minute to get used to, but very handy. Weapons cycle on the right bumper, and equipment on the left. You still only hold one thing at a time — if you're placing a mine, you're not holding a gun — but because they're on different buttons, and because equipment can take time to deploy, it does make it convenient. More than once, I had a mine waiting to deploy, and an enemy approached. It was always a single right-bumper tap to switch back to a gun, instead of, say, rotating through all available equipment to cycle back to guns.

The game definitely moves faster than W:ET. There is a very strong aim assist function that I dare say almost makes it too easy to shoot, but at the speeds at which players moved, it was most welcome, especially on those rare (and they were rare) occasions when the lag kicked in.

I definitely had a lot of fun with the game, and from what I can tell, so did my fellow Geezers, especially as they got to know the game a little better. I do admit, it was a lot easier for me, being so experienced with Enemy Territory from the Wolfenstein version. That's not to say there's not a lot for me to learn here — I still don't know what happens when you "level up" a class, as it doesn't seem to be immediately obvious; and although the game prompted me to use the alt fire of certain equipment, I couldn't figure out what happened when I did; just to name a couple unknowns — but I think it won't take long for those in unfamiliar territory (so to speak) to get up to speed, and hopefully we'll get a few more Geezers to take the plunge. After all, with this game, the more you have working together, the better it gets.