Floating Debris

The Mike Thomas Show - Week 2

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Thomas) — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 15:17:00 +0000

http://www.archive.org/details/TheMikeThomasShow-Week2

The Mike Thomas Show

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Thomas) — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 16:08:00 +0000

Links to The Mike Thomas Show

3:00 Demo
http://www.archive.org/details/TheMikeThomasShow300Demo

1:00 Demo
http://www.archive.org/details/TheMikeThomasShow100Demo

Commercial
http://www.archive.org/details/TheMikeThomasShowCommercial

Week 1
http://www.archive.org/details/TheMikeThomasShow-Week1

Amazon Gold Box is all Xbox 360 stuff today.

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Thomas) — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 16:13:00 +0000

Amazon has a bunch of Xbox 360 games for sale today, and today only. BioShock 2 is on sale all day for around $40, and right now Mass Effect 2 is also on sale for just under $40.

There are clues for the upcoming titles too. My guess is that starting at 2:00 EST, they'll have Dragon Age Origins: Awakening, followed by either one of the many Rock Band titles, or the Rock Band Stratocaster guitar at 5:00, Aliens Vs. Predator at 7:00, and even more later on.

I'm anxious to see if I'm right about the Dragon Age expansion being available. If it's a decent sale price I might have to pull the trigger. I'm also thinking long and hard about Mass Effect 2, but I might be able to continue my trend of financial responsibility and hold off.

Bioshock 2 Impressions

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Thomas) — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 19:55:00 +0000

I decided to be financially responsible for once, so instead of buying a new game I decided to give Bioshock 2 a spin.

I have to admit that I've had a negative attitude towards Bioshock 2 since it was announced. The original BioShock was one of the best games of 2007, but didn't really need a sequel. I was terrified of the world of Rapture. The atmosphere in that game completely sucked me in from the opening scene until I was finished. But unlike other games, I had no desire to return to Rapture. Actually, the thought of returning to that underwater hell filled me with a kind of dread.

That's how good the original was.

Then the reports came out that Ken Levine, the mastermind behind the original, would have nothing to do with the game, and that the sequel would have multiplayer added on...yeah, I wasn't exactly thrilled with the game. Even the mostly positive reviews couldn't shake the negative feelings I had.

I'm glad to say that after 3-4 hours, I'm having fun. Does the atmosphere of the game hold up to the original? Not really. Is there a deep story here? If so, I haven't seen it yet. Does any of that matter?

Nope.

What this game does is refine the gameplay from the original, and try to make it as fun as possible. And so far it has done that very, very, well.

Is Dead Rising 2: Case Zero a bad thing for gamers?

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Thomas) — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 15:56:00 +0000

The original Dead Rising was an instant hit. You play Frank West, a sarcastic photojournalist, who gets dropped into a mall filled with zombies. What made this game stand out is that the player can use anything he can get his hands on to mow down the zombie horde.

That's as close to a sure thing as you can come in video games.

So, zombie loving gamers have been waiting patiently for Dead Rising 2 to be released. And when it was announced that there would be a prequel called Dead Rising 2: Case Zero, to be released as DLC only on the Xbox 360, people didn't know how to react. On the surface it seems great. A stand alone story that will bridge the gap between the events of the two games, and basically be the demo for the sequel. The problem is many are afraid that this will inspire the industry to start charging for people to play their demos.

Bill Harris, one of the few writers who I feel is required reading, is not a fan of this trend. Not at all.

He writes:

Again, and I hate to harp on this, but it just seems to be the dominant theme day after day after day: big gaming companies are giving us less and less value.

I've had free demos last much longer than three hours. This isn't any new kind of content category: it's a price increase. A price increase on top the price increase that DLC gave us if we wanted to experience the "full" game. A price increase on top of "one-time use coupons" included in new games that are intended to gut the resale market. A price increase on top of the change in game price from $50 to $60 when the 360 and PS3 launched.

Good grief.

While I feel that Harris' has a point when he says that "big gaming companies are giving us less and less value," at this time I can't agree that Case Zero is a good example of this. The reality is that Case Zero promises to provide a unique story that bridges the two games. What's the difference between it as a stand alone game/demo, and releasing it as DLC for the original game?

Grand Theft Auto IV has two big DLC games, that have little to do with the main story. If Rockstar announces that they are going to release another piece of DLC that bridges GTA IV to the eventual GTA V, would anyone object? I don't think so. In fact, I have a feeling the opposite would be true.

If done properly, and that's a big if, this can only add to the experience. There's a lot that Capcom can do to screw this up. The main thing is that the DLC needs to be affordable. Anything more than $5 is going to be tough to swallow. The story also needs to be good. This can't feel like a tossed together, last minute idea. And finally, it should not be required for people to be able to play the prequel in order to get the full experience of the main game.

Do I think Capcom will do this properly? Probably not. I'm sure they will violate one of, if not all three, of the points I listed. Still, lets find out some more information before we decide whether or not Case Zero is a good idea.

An in-depth look at Roger Ebert's belief that video games cannot be art.

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Thomas) — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 17:59:00 +0000

Over the past several years, film critic Roger Ebert has written about his belief that video games can never be art. In 2005, Ebert wrote “I… consider video games inherently inferior to film and literature. There is a structural reason for that: Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control.” In 2007, Ebert again criticized video games in a response to a speech by Clive Barker, given at the Hollywood and Games summit. Most recently, Ebert authored an article titled Video games can never be art. Here, he responds to a presentation given by game designer and publisher Kellee Santiago, in which she defends games as art.

When debating any topic, it’s important that both sides agree on some key definitions. You can’t argue if bowling is a sport without first defining what a “sport” is. The same is true here. Before we can explore whether or not games are or are not art, we have to first define “art.”

While Ebert never flatly states his definition of art, he repeatedly alludes to a few reasons why games can never be art. His most prevalent reason is that art can only be created by a single artist, and the audience has no control over what he or she is experiencing. Since players have some control over the narrative in video games, they inherently become the artist telling the story. The irony here is that many games do only provide one single narrative. While it’s commonplace for games to provide multiple endings with diverging storylines that can make each playthrough unique, that doesn’t mean this is how games have to be played.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare features only one single narrative. Sure, I might play the game differently from the next fifty people who play, but we are all experiencing the same exact story. Final Fantasy XIII is another game with one story. As a player, it doesn't matter what you do with the characters. Once players reach certain checkpoints in the game, the story is advanced regardless of the actions they have taken. God of War III is the latest installment in another series that features only one narrative throughout each game. Players don't get to choose what Kratos is going to do, they just get to control how he does it. These games, and many others, offer a single narrative. One the player has no control over.

And what about games with multiple endings, like Heavy Rain or Dragon Age: Origins? Does the fact that I can have a completely different experience from everyone else who played the game mean that I have somehow grasped control of the narrative from the author? Of course not. I’m still experiencing a story told by someone else. I didn’t hack into the game’s code and change the ending.

Another reason Ebert states games can never be art, is that they can be “won”. The reality is that this is irrelevant. Granted, there are some games where you play solely to “win”. Sports games and multiplayer games come to mind as examples where I play to win, and not much else. But this doesn’t fit all games. I didn’t play BioShock to win. I played to experience the narrative. Some games can have both. I bought Modern Warfare for the story, and stayed for the multiplayer.

The closest Ebert comes to defining art is in his latest article: “Plato, via Aristotle, believed art should be defined as the imitation of nature. … Does art grow better the more it imitates nature? My notion is that it grows better the more it improves or alters nature through an passage through what we might call the artist's soul, or vision.”

This is the perfect place for Ebert to explain why video games (the medium, not individual games) can never break into the exclusive club filled by other, accepted, mediums. Instead, Ebert throws in an analogy about artists painting nude portraits. Most are “very bad”, but he acknowledges that some become “masterpieces”. He then analyzes three examples that Santiago used to show video games as art: Waco Resurrection, Braid, and Flower. Admittedly, these are very poor examples when talking with someone who knows virtually nothing of video games. Still, what Ebert essentially does is to point out three “very bad” nudes, and then use those as an attack against the “masterpieces”.

In the end, Ebert's argument is weak at best, and only illustrates his ignorance of the medium, rather than point out the reasons why video games can never be art. The irony in all of this is that the best defense for games as art was written by Ebert himself: "Santiago might cite a immersive game without points or rules, but I would say then it ceases to be a game and becomes a representation of a story, a novel, a play, dance, a film. Those are things you cannot win; you can only experience them."

Exactly.

Weekend Update

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Thomas) — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 13:36:00 +0000

My original plans of staying home all weekend and playing games fell by the wayside. I was pleasantly surprised by my girlfriend coming to visit me for the weekend. Combined with the Pittsburgh Penguins playing Games 2 and 3 of their playoff series against the Ottawa Senators Friday and Sunday, I didn't have much time for video games. I did manage to squeeze in about an hour Sunday night after the hockey game was over, enough time to finish up Final Fantasy XIII. As much as I enjoyed the middle part of the game, the final chapters are just tedious and boring. I do plan on having a spoilerific post to discuss the story sometime this week, so keep an eye out for that.

In the meantime, thanks to two Penguins victories, I really want to get my hands on NHL 10. Still, I might have to be the responsible adult and play some of the games I already own...stupid rent.

Actually, I have an extra copy of Madden NFL 10 lying around still in its shrink wrap. It's on Best Buy's list of games to trade in for $30.

Uh-oh...

Final Fantasy XIII

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Thomas) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 18:34:00 +0000

Platform: Xbox 360
Time Spent: 55 hours
Still Playing

I have an up and down relationship with Final Fantasy XIII. I absolutely hated the first few hours of the game. The story is thrown at you with no exposition, the combat system involves hitting A over and over again, and the menu was a confusing mess filled with options that I knew nothing about, and couldn't even access if I tried. And the characters were about as one dimensional and cliched as a casting call for Jersey Shore.

But I slogged through until about the 6 hour mark, and I realized that I was starting to enjoy the game. The story started to make sense, the game progressed to a point where the battle system became far more than just smashing a single button repeatedly, and the characters became surprisingly deep and likable. Then, after roughly 30 hours, everything changed again.

Instead of focusing on the story and characters, the game forces you through generic uninspired landscape after generic uninspired landscape. The story slows down to a crawl, and character development is non-existent. The final three chapters of the game are completely different from the first 30 hours of the game, and nearly as long if you spend any time working on the "optional" side quests available starting in Chapter 11. Optional is in quotation marks, because you actually have to finish some of them in order to advance the main storyline. Many of these side quests are meant to be finished after you beat the final boss, but unless something changes I just don't see myself sticking around to finish them. I'm literally forcing myself to finish this game, just because I've already invested this much time into the story that I want to see its conclusion.

Besides the issues I have with the pacing, there are only two other issues I have with the game. You can upgrade your weapons and accessories using components earned by winning battles. The game gives you the basics in how this system works, but doesn't do a good enough job to make you understand the system. I've heard that the rules for upgrading weapons and accessories are clearly explained in the strategy guide, but I chose not to use one for this game, and it doesn't seem like it's completely necessary, unless you want to aim for the achievement that requires you to upgrade everything to its max potential.

My other complaint is with the datalogs. Basically, the game relies too heavily on datalogs to present the story. Without reading them, the story is never fully presented. I'll dive into this with more detail in another post once I finish the game.

I know that sounds like the game is crap, but for nearly 25 hours I was really enjoying the game. This Final Fantasy is significantly different from its predecessors, and it's almost all in a good way. Wide open areas filled with cities and local NPC's are gone. For all but one of the 13 chapters you are essentially running through hallways fighting bad guys. This might seem like a bad thing, but it forces the game to focus on the characters in your party. The result is some impress character development, and characters that rise beyond their initial stereotypes.

The game suffers from not having a "save anywhere" feature, which really should be mandatory for modern games, but it does makes up for this by a noticable increase in save points. In this game most save points are about 15 minutes apart at the most. You also are not punished for losing a battle. If your leader dies, you get dumped back out to the map with the option to try the battle again, or avoid the bad guy and do something else. Really, this small feature is a godsend, and allows you to take on stronger opponents early in the game with the only thing you can possibly lose being your spare time.

The battle system has also been revamped from previous Final Fantasy games. Gambits from Final Fantasy XII are gone, as is the turn based system made famous by the earlier entries into this series. Where previous Final Fantasy games had players choosing what actions they want their characters to take, in XIII you instead choose what type of job you want your characters to be. This is done using the "Paradigm System". There are 6 different jobs, or roles, you can assign each character. The catch is you can only have one job assigned to a character at any given time. So instead of the player being forced to directly input each of his characters actions, the player sits back and juggles which roles he wants his characters to be. This sounds boring on paper, but in practice it works.

The other huge improvement this game has made is there is almost no need to grind for levels in this game if you just want to play through the main game. Instead of a traditional leveling system, you level up your characters in the Crystarium. You have to play past certain points in the game in order to unlock different levels of the Crystarium, which means that it is entirely possible to essentially max out your characters before those higher levels are unlocked. I did this easily throughout the game, and spent only 10 minutes or so running back and forth through a hallway because there was a difficult boss battle ahead that I had already failed once or twice. The only reason you'll really have to grind through the game is going to be if you want to get some of the achievements, which involve maxing out your characters and fully upgrading all weapons and accessories. Since the last level in the Crystarium is not unlocked until after you beat the final boss, only those obsessed with the game would ever have to do this.

Hardcore fans of the series will find this game easy, boring, and light on all the aspects that typically pull them in to other JRPG games. However, fans new to the genre can easily pick up this game and play from beginning to end. The story is engaging, and is strong enough to overcome the many missteps the rest of the game takes in the end stages of the game. For roughly 55-65 hours worth of gameplay, it's well worth the price of admission even though it's not perfect.

On Deck Update

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Thomas) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 13:22:00 +0000

I'm a big Pittsburgh Penguins fan, and to see them come out completely flat to start the 2010 NHL Playoffs was really disappointing. Disappointing enough to knock NHL 10 down my list of games I'm thinking of picking up next. I'm sure if they redeem themselves with a win Friday night I'll be running out to pick this game up tomorrow, but in the meantime I'm still unsure of where I'll move on to next. It dawned on me last night that Splinter Cell Conviction is out this week. I haven't played a Splinter Cell game since the original title came out for the original Xbox back in 2002, but this series has a big fan base and always has a lot of hype. I downloaded the demo, so we'll see how that goes.

On Deck

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Thomas) — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 22:34:00 +0000

I've been slowly working my way through Final Fantasy XIII. I'm finally on the final chapter, and I've started to think about what to play next. I could, and probably should, start working my way through my Pile of Shame, but the reality is that I'm not that eager to play any of those games. Bioshock 2 would be at the top of that list, but I just can't get excited for it, even though I loved the original. Mass Effect 2 is high on my list as I recently finished the first one and have only heard good things about the sequel. Then again, the NHL playoffs start in less than half an hour, so chances are I'll be itching to play some NHL 10.

We'll see how I feel when I finish Final Fantasy, which will most likely be before the weekend.