Towards Mecca

If you haven’t heard, Little Big Planet is the upcoming phenomenal PS3 system seller scheduled for a September release! I can say that LBP and Spore are my two most anticipated games of 2008! I’m so excited about LBP being released that I’m already trying to think of what levels I plan on making!

I’ve decided that my first venture will have me recreating world 1-1 of the original Super Mario Bro. game. I’m not sure if the tools in LBP will allow a close enough translation of the classic map, but I’m definitely going to do my best!

I’ve also thought to maybe recreate a Sonic the Hedgehog or Donkey Kong Country level but I haven’t decided yet. Anyone out there have any other suggestions for cool map remakes?

I just don’t get it. How could a potentially great game like Motorstorm fail on such a basic, primal level. How hard is it to add a splitscreen mode to a video game? How hard is it to realize that splitscreen in a racing game is not just a good idea, it’s friggin necessary!

My wife is a gamer. Not only casual games like Tetris and Suduko, she also played Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six, Project Gotham 3 and a whole slew of other games with me. She doesn’t care much for single-player games but she loves to play with me splitscreen. Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter I and II were amazing! We were able to play splitscreen AND online either with 14 other people in campaign and co-op modes, or huge player-only battles! Rainbow Six Vegas pissed us off because the splitscreen wasn’t online, but at least we could play the two of us against 40 or so bots. She wouldn’t even touch Call of Duty 4 because the splitscreen mode is also not online and there are no bots for us to kill together. How fun is it to play splitscreen 1 on 1 in an FPS? Not very.

Stupid things like this piss me off. Horrible decision making. I don’t care if the graphics are crippled in split-screen (as with Rainbow Six Vegas). I just want to be able to play with my wife. Is that too much to ask? Especially for racing games! This should be a mandatory feature!

Oh well, let’s see how long the single-player can keep my attention before this game gets traded or sold. At least MotorStorm 2 is supposed to have 4 player splitscreen. I guess the designers saw how big of a blunder it was not to have it.

Honestly, if you hire someone for a technical support position, shouldn’t you make sure they know about the product they’re supposed to be supporting? I worked as a technical support agent in the past, so I do know it’s a hard job. I appreciate that most of your clients are old techno-phobic half-blind dumb people who would need instructions to plug in a power cord. I appreciate that, but that is not me.

My problem is probably caused by Vista (which I hate but which came with my PC) and it’s my fault that I never got around to installing a dual-boot with another OS on this system, I understand that, but Steam claims to be Vista compatible, so it should be! My problem is that I can’t purchase anything from within the steam store. Clicking on the purchase button does absolutely nothing. When I try to open the link in a browser instead, I get “steam://purchase/38 is not a recognized protocol” as an error. In IE, it gives me a generic “this page cannot be displayed” error.

I reinstalled steam 6-7 times and it doesn’t work. Ran as admin and not, same thing. Ran with and without backwords compatibility, same. Searching for “steam://purchase/38 is not a recognized protocol” in google and yahoo produces less than a page of results with suggestions that didn’t work. After trying all that, I e-mail tech support. 3 days later (I kid you not) they sent me a link to the knowledge base with a few things to try. All were simple and generic and, most importantly, they didn’t help. I e-mail the same guy back, what did he do? He e-mailed me the same friggin link again! Now I’m getting peeved.

After I calmly and politely explained that I’ve already tried all those steps, he asked me to reinstall Steam. I explained that I had done that both before and after his “helpful” link advised me to do so. Then he asked me to lower my IE security settings. I realized that he was now just reading me the steps from the link he had already sent me twice! What a friggin bonehead!

Anyway, I’m waiting for his response. If I don’t get something that will actually help me fix this issue, I’m taking my business elsewhere. Actually, I really want steam so after I calm down I’ll probably just install another OS and re-download steam.

Anyone out there in Cyber-Space have any advice for me?

Yesterday, my brother re-introduced me to the wonderful world of MUGEN. I’ve seen some youtube MUGEN matchups before and did a little research to find out what it is, but I had never taken the time to actually download and try making my own fighting game.

You see, M.U.G.E.N is a freeware 2D fighting game engine that emulates Capcom’s Street Fighter and allows the creation and integration of customer characters, stages, game modes etc… Ever fancied pitting Peter Griffin against Homer Simpson? Or Spider-man vs Superman? Or Wolverine vs Batman? How about Mario vs Sonic? Ok, with the exception of the last one, no video game has ever allowed you to do the other match-ups before!

So I downloaded the software, dabbled with it, downloaded thousands (yes, thousands) of characters, and made my own version of MUGEN. Sure, it’ isn’t where I want it to be, but it’s a start! It might take me YEARS to get most of my favorite characters and stages in there but the creation of this game really is half the fun! I’m simply in love with MUGEN and am looking into getting TV-output for my computer and 2 PC Gamepads just so I can see it on my big screen and play it when people come over.

The previous post ended with a very valid question about the possible end of Media Ownership: Is it a good thing or a bad thing? For that I have no answers, only guesses and weighted assumptions.

As my friend said in the previous post, the end of corporate control over the music world can (mostly) have only good consequences for the customer: better choices, greater control and less filling. However you have to wonder if it would also see the end of the professional artist.

Now, before we go any further lets not confuse ‘professional artist’ and ‘good artist’. That’s not what I mean all. I use ‘professional’ here as in ‘the main/only occupation of the person’. An artist certainly does not need to be in the music business full time to create something great, nor is a 24/7 artist assured of fame and money.

What I mean is, in a (near) future where there would be (pretty much) no revenue for creating music, could one afford to do it full time?

Of course, many artists (and even more would-be artists) would/are more than happy with just the fame coming from their creations and most would still be happy working full time in an unrelated job to provide their livelihood.

Would this work on the long run? Would we loose a lot of creativity due to the artists spending most of their (waking) hours on non-musical related activities? Or would this simply provide some kind of culling of what we consider today ‘filling’ and results in only the best of the best being released in the wild? The question is on the table and I have no answer for it.

Now don’t kid yourself, you’re saying ‘we would still be paying for music somehow’. Let’s be honest: no, you won’t. Copying a file is just too easy and convenient. Osama was wondering if this is also the future of the gaming industry. I don’t believe so; for the average Joe, copying a music file can be considered ‘easy’ but punching through today’s software copy protection is not. Most of us who ‘hang around’ blogs and the like will laugh at my last statement. Of course for ‘computer literates’ it’s mostly a piece of cake, but not for the other 95% of the populace. But I digress…

And don’t you start with the micro-payment crap. Except of a few minor exceptions it had been shown as a failure. Remember; the same average ‘computer illiterate’ Joes who find it hard to copy software will be baffled trying to set up a Paypal account and way too afraid of ‘hackers’ to trust paying real money on the internet to independent musicians. McCloud is wrong, deal with it and move on.

As Osama pointed out, today’s digital tools are making creation (not just music, but movies, writing, drawings and most of the other non-physical artistic venues) a lot easier and us, the end-users will keep on living on an ever expanding wave of creativity (as long as the internet remains a bastion of free speech). I don’t think we can even imagine today how much this will affect the world cultures, nor what it will represent for the artists themselves. The end-users (us) will enter a new global cultural golden age never seen before in history. Such a golden age that, once it gets the necessary momentum, will never be stopped and will follow us into the stars and eternity.

Since MP3’s, WinAmp, Napster, iPods and the like, the Music industry has been in trouble. Fewer people are buying Music CDs and more are downloading songs and albums. The Recording Industry sees declining revenues year in and year out. They’re also not the only ones complaining. Both the PC and Console game markets are seeing declines in sales due to pirating. The movie industry is trying to crack down on the number of illegal movie downloads to no avail.

What will this mean for the consumer? It means that if this keeps up, and it most likely will, all those industries will be short on cash. This could mean the eventual end of big-budget million dollar projects and the rise of independent music, films and games. Due to advances in affordable software and hardware, recording a professional-sounding song is much more viable now than it was 10 years ago. With HD cameras and video editing software, amateur film-makers are also bursting on the scene like never before and Youtube.com is full of their work! Independent games are harder to come by but the numbers are increasing and that’s good news!

The sad part is, I’m a collector at heart. I like holding a movie I’ve just purchased in my hands. I like stacking them up neatly (and sometimes alphabetically when I can be bothered) to show that I own a staggering 450 original DVD’s. I like buying a copy of my favorite game and looking at the front and back covers on the way home in anticipation.

I’m not saying that I want Media ownership to end or not to, I’m just saying that analysts everywhere are predicting it. I, for one, will miss the box and the instructions books. I don’t see the same thing happening to Novels and comic books though as I still think that the majority of people prefer to have hard-copies of those.

But the likely end of Media ownership is not all bad. For one, there will be much less control over what we watch. How hard will it be for corporations to control our intake of information when they have nothing to do with the sources anymore? Independent developers, song-writers, and film-makers will not be easily controllable! Take a look at digg.com as an example. News stories on that site don’t make it to the front page because some high up exec thinks we need to see the news item in question. News articles discrediting major news sources are on an all-time high simply because the end user has more and more control now over what they will see.

Also, eventually, raw talent and passion will push someone to stardom, not connections. If a song-writer records a brilliant work of art in his basement, he already has the tools to make it available for all the world to see! The ever-increasing internet crowd loves to praise as well as criticize, and so, the masses will finally be able to decide what will “sell” and what will not.

But what about all the Major players? If the music industry keeps taking big hit after big hit, won’t this mean the end of recorded music as we know it? Even if these basement musicians and their film and game creating counter-parts win over the world, won’t it mean nothing if there’s no mighty dollar to reward them with?

The myth of the mighty dollar being linked to corporations is a strong and widespread one. People will have to come to the realization that the corporations are not discovering and rewarding talent, they are artificially creating and profiting from it. With the corporations out of the way, there will be more money for more music. It’s true that most individual artists will not become over-night millionaires anymore but that’s a good thing! Musicians will have to work for their money with live-shows and actual good content (not fillers) or they simply won’t survive for long. Their work will have to be readily available as a free download online and they can make their money off advertisements. Anyone, and everyone, with talent will have a chance at making a living through music!

Of course I haven’t forgotten the ease of downloading content vs having to go to a store to buy it or even having it shipped to your home. Or the fact that “illegal = free” and “legal = unaffordable” to most. Those points and a few more only lend credence to the opinion that Media Ownership is on the decline.

So, what do you think? Is this a good or a bad thing?

I intended my first post to be a touching plea about censorship and free speech but this would be for later, for since then something more important happened: I had to eat!

So I tried to fix myself a nice a nutritious meal (6 hotdogs actually) and found out that I was out of Ketchup. Now I’m French-Canadian, not an American so I don’t put ketchup on everything and anything but hotdogs NEED ketchup.

So I went to the 7-11 (it’s quite late as I write this) and all they had was a ‘classic’ GLASS Heinz Ketchup bottle.

I just finished battling with it and am eating as I write this (keyboard cleanliness is for wusses) and a battle it was, of epic proportions. I had forgotten how frustrating those Glass Ketchup bottles could be. A little drop here and there, then you knock on the bottle and get a big batch covering your hand like if you had just went into a killing rampage in your neighborhood then you have start over for the next hot-dog. (not that I ever went into a killing rampage nor that you could prove it)

WHO THE HELL at Heinz still think it’s a good idea to market those glass bottles? I mean, come on, the first time I saw those ‘squeezable’ plastic bottles when I was a kid I was convinced (and still am) that it was the greatest invention of ALL TIME, on par with Velcro (Velcro looks like a very good invention for a kid who hated lacing his shoes. But I’m ok going solo since I’m 11…. Ok ok it WAS my 12^th birthday but I was born at night so I was STILL technically 11… but I digress).

Back to the plastic bottle: You just squeeze it and Voila! Perfect spread and quantity of ketchup everywhere, no longer do you have to clean the floor just to savor a few north-American delicacies.

Why but WHY do they keep making those glass bottles? Is glass cheaper than plastic? Me no think so. Keep it fresh longer? I doubt so very much. So WHY???? Nostalgia? Well maybe, but I don’t see anyone keeping a bucket full of polio viruses for nostalgia sake.

What do polio and Glass ketchup bottle have to do with one another? Well, they were both a plague upon mankind for decades and if you wonder which one was worst, you have to remember that the polio problem was fixed at least 20 years BEFORE the glass bottle.

Does my 7-11 own the final batch of glass bottles made decades ago? Well I simultaneously hope for and against that (hope it’s so for the good of mankind but hope not for the good of my digestive track).

In conclusion, I don’t think there could be ANY reason to explain why Heinz still make GLASS ketchup bottles except for pure evil so in this, as with everything else, I blame the Muslims.

Good night.

I can’t say that I went into this movie with very high expectations. Quite the contrary, I’m actually very wary of movies with a lot of hype and mystery surrounding them. Still, I did watch Cloverfield with an open mind. Maybe that’s why I wasn’t as disappointed as most. In general, most people I spoke to were disappointed.

Even though I did somewhat enjoy the movie I have to admit it had many plot holes, bad decisions, and absurdities. In a whole, it was entertaining, I give it that, but the following points keep it from being good in my eyes. Warning, from this point on the article is pretty much all spoiler:

10. The Camera’s constant shaking made a lot of movie-goers sick to the stomach. It wasn’t all bad though. It did work in a few ways. It provided mostly only short glimpses of the monster in question, which makes for more suspense. It also did immerse the spectator more as you do feel that it is more “real”.

9. The Camera survives the bombardment. I admit that this is a possibility, but it’s still a huge stretch. The scene at the end leads the viewer to believe that the monster was in close proximity. After bombing the hell out of it, I’m sure whatever they hit it with last would have been able to destroy a camera nearby.

8. The Monster looked plain stupid. I understand that this could just be my own opinion but I found the design of the monster itself absurd. If you disagree then disagree all you want. This is an opinion piece after all (mostly).

7. Lack of Reaction to Brother’s death. I don’t know what kind of relationship the main character had with his brother but it seemed like they were very close during the party. If my brother was just killed I’d be a hell of a lot sadder than the character was. It’s not like he was scared into lack of feeling, it was his love for his once-friend-turned-one-night-stand that kept him from remembering his brother until his mother called him? Please, spare me. Even though she was very pretty, a brother deserves, and would get, a lot more of a reaction.

6. Chopper Flies too close to the Monster. If you were a pilot charged with rescuing people from a Monster, wouldn’t you fly in a straight line, at top speed, away from the Monster? I sure would! I wouldn’t hover on top of him. I know a chopper isn’t a jet, but make an effort at least! Also, surviving the plane crash is pretty insane. I know it has happened before but what are the odds?

5. Last People on Chopper? So, the last rescue copter leave at 06:00 hours. They just happen to be the last people there (no line-up) out of all of Manhattan? Come on! This is just so friggin unbelievable it’s laughable.

4. The Monster Sneaks up on the Camera man? Hasn’t anyone learned anything from Jurassic Park? If a Monster walks towards you, the earth itself will let you know. How does a monster the height of a skyscraper sneak up on anything?

3. The Monster took notice of the Camera man after the copter crash? If you were just hit with a crap-load of bombs, would you stop and smell the cameraman? While diligently ignoring his friends who are just a few feet away? If I was attacked by a swarm of bees, I wouldn’t stop and look at a group of ants and single one out to step on.

2. The Monster is Houdini in Disguise. Ok, so after killing the Camera man and no one else, the Monster tip toes out of there quite a as a mouse? I don’t know why I’m surprised, in number 4 he snuck up on the cameraman, only natural that he vanishes afterwards like a bona fide ninja after his super ancient, silent, and secret monster stealth assassination!

1. He held on to the Camera the whole time. This is the most absurd part of the movie. I understand that there wouldn’t have been a movie if the cameraman had dropped the camera at the first sign of danger, but maybe that should have been enough of a cue for the directors/producers to decide that the whole hand-held camera thing was probably a bad idea in the first place. If I was attacked by insects the size of a pit-bull I’d drop a hell of a lot more than a camera and so would anyone else out there.

Well there you have it. Did you find any plot holes or absurdities that I missed? Let me know!

To make the claim that any game is “the Future of Gaming” is a bold move, I admit, but if you’ve played Valve’s Portal than I’m sure you’ll agree that the industry will (or at least should) head in this direction. Sure, Portal hasn’t made any hardware innovations such as rumble support, online play, or motion/touch controls did. Sure, it’s not even a new genre as much as a new spin on several pre-existing genres. It’s true that every element, except for the actual portal game mechanic, has existed in games before. But that, my friends, is not why Portal is the Future of Gaming. It is so because it does offer something which we haven’t seen in the video-game industry in a long time … hope.

With the rising cost of producing non-independent commercial games, developers are simply not willing to take any chances. This isn’t something new of course. In the past, depending on which period we look at on the relatively short video-game time line, nearly every game released was a Super Mario Brothers clone (platformers), a Street Fighter Clone (2D Fighters), a Final Fight clone (Beat-em-up), or a Doom clone (FPS). Sure, those games might not have been the first of their kind, but other companies saw their success and tried to emulate that more than anything else. And, of course, even between those game we’ve been blessed with unique gems, but even those have since been cloned to death.

Video-games as a medium is still in its infancy when compared to other mediums such as print and movies. As with movies, video-games are likely to reach a point where innovation is nearly impossible and the clone is the norm. Unlike movies, video-games will likely only reach this point in a long, long time! Unlike movies, video-games are an interactive medium and vary in so many different ways one can interact with them and benefit or be rewarded by them. Movies, however, are limited to being a visual means of story telling.

Portal shows us how far we are from falling into the movie industry’s hole. Taking already established conventions, adding one brilliantly unique game play element, and infusing a surprising amount of quality humor and story-telling could possibly result in my best gaming experience in recent memory! Portal reminded me why I love video-games and Valve deserves praise for this! No need to lose hope, fellow gamers, the future of gaming is bright, and Portal has shown us that this is a good time to be a gamer.

Let’s start by setting the record straight. I’m a Muslim. I’m not a Terrorist nor do I have any criminal record of any kind. I believe that the events of September 11th, 2001 were horrible and I do not support their perpetrators in any which way. I love Canada and plan on living here for the rest of my life if I can help it.

It might also be good to point out that I’m a big fan of the multi-player part of Call of Duty 4. I’ve played it for 50+ hours and have already unlocked all of the challenges and all the weapons (and am now just trying to max-out head-shots for the golden weapons). I’ve played many First Person Shooters and have to admit that Call of Duty 4 offers enough innovation to keep me interested and coming back for more.

I hadn’t even tried the single-player mode up until today. I’ve seen preview videos of Call of Duty 4 and came to my own conclusions about it before I even played the game. I was born in Iraq and much of my family still lives there. Call of Duty 4 partially takes place in an un-named Islamic state that bears more than a passing resemblance to modern-day Iraq. Also, the subtitle “Modern Warfare” is a clue in itself to the location of the action.

My family and I were never supporters of Saddam Hussein. Quite the contrary, I have family members who were executed by him for being part of the Iraqi resistance. We were very happy to see him deposed and executed. But we’d be even happier now if the Americans left Iraq. As much as the mainstream media is trying to convince the world to the contrary, there is no civil war brewing in Iraq. Shias and Sunnis in Iraq have been living in peace, and repeatedly inter-marrying, for centuries. My extended family is predominantly Shia even though I personally am not.

It is common knowledge now that there never were any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and nor has there ever been. The majority of the world deemed the invasion illegal and groundless. As I understand it, the majority of Americans want an end to the war as well.

That said, I cannot support a war in Iraq in any way. And no, I do not support the American, British, and Canadian troops who are there. How can I support an army waging a war I oppose? The thought it ludicrous. I don’t wish death on them, I just want them to peacefully go (and come) home.

Call of Duty 4 has you fight “the good fight” as an American Marine or a British SAS agent in circumstances that resemble the current war too closely. I felt sick to the stomach shooting down digital representations of Muslims fighting in their own streets with inferior weaponry. I couldn’t get past the first desert map and I don’t intend to try again, my heart still hurts from when I tried the first time.

I felt almost the same way but, regrettably, not as intensely when I played Ubisoft’s Ghost Recon: Avanced Warfighter I & II. They pit you, American Special Forces, against Latin-American revolutionaries of all people! I felt sick to the stomach then, but kept playing. Why is it that Vietnamese are never depicted as the bad guys in video games? Because that was a war the world would rather forget. If Infinity Ward had more foresight they would have seen that the Iraqi War will undoubtedly fall into this category in the future.

It’s really a shame because the multi-player part of the game is solid. I’ll continue to play that but will leave the single-player to both those with a stronger heart, and to the heartless….