Archive for May, 2005

updating site…

Sunday, May 29th, 2005

So get ready for some strangeness…

that is, more than you IE users have already been witnessing.

Update: Awesome. Updated to Wordpress 1.5.1.2. And the site looks okay. This is the default theme so I plan to work on some new ones later. If you notice any problems, let me know in the comments. And feel free to suggest some themes.

Now I’m off to make some paella burgers.

more game time

Thursday, May 19th, 2005

Remember that last post when I said I would come up with my own topics? I lied. Here’s another post I got from responding to a post on Engadget. Essentially the post was about how the next generation of consoles would. The author essentially was saying developers should make simplified versions of their games. But I don’t know. Seems to me we don’t need simple version of games… just simpler games. This post kind of expands on my last post as well, not only do simpler games save us hardcore gamers time, it can entice your other, non-gamer friends to join in.

My Engadget post follows.

“I don’t know if we need simplified versions of any game, we just need games that are fun, light-hearted, uncomplicated, and easy to play in small chunks.

My girlfriend, for example, isn’t against video games by any means but she doesn’t play them. Unless, that is, we play Puzzle Fighter or Katamari Damacy. Games that take a few minutes per round and quick to pick up. Any social setting I’ve ever played games with non-gamers is always with something that didn’t take persistence to get anywhere and just knowing the basics could get you moving. That’s usually a puzzle game, but I remember playing things like Goldeneye and Soul Caliber because a round was short and even if you didn’t know anything you could do some damage (and laugh at yourself for being so terrible). So maybe shorten up the games, focus on replay-ability, and don’t worry about making an epic every time.

Also, think about taking different tones with the games. How many games have you played lately that didn’t seem it was directly targeting that 18-24 year-old male demographic (with dark or xtreme type things) or fantasy geeks? Granted, I’m both of those demos so I appreciate the games but I understand why my girlfriend isn’t too into games when every hyped piece of software stars a sexy woman, a hard-boiled cop/spy/thug/vigilante, or a knight of some sort all trying to save the world from some great peril in gritty, dirty, dangerous places with low lighting. Perhaps something more light-hearted is in order.

And I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… while you’re making that light-hearted, easy-to-pick-up-and-play, replayable, and fun social game, why not make it 20 bucks too? So while I’m at the store picking up the latest Metal Gear, I’ll pick up one or two of these fun, shorter games to play with my friends and family.

It’s kinda like movies… Sure, I have 2001: A Space Odyssey in my collection, but I think at my next party I’ll put Dodgeball in the DVD player. I wish I had a few more games like that.”

game, time….

Thursday, May 19th, 2005

This is from a Joystiq.com question (one day I’ll come up with my own post topics, I promise)…

“I find it’s pretty difficult to experience all the games I want to play and still finish a game. The other day I went to pick up Katamari Damacy and Devil May Cry 3 and as I looked at the store shelves I realized there were six games I wanted to get my hands on since last year that I completely forgot about.

Other entertainment does get in the way. I love college basketball and football (luckily that’s over with for now). I love movies too so that takes some of my time.

And there is, of course, my full-time job.

And then there’s spending time with my girlfriend, friends, and family few of which play games.

And dammit it’s almost summer! Time for grilling, drinks, parties, vacations, outdoors, etc.

Gah. Not a lot of time unfortunately. Still, I do finish most of the games I buy and lately I’ve had a small streak beating Voodoo Vince, GTA: San Andreas (finally), Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal (100% too), and Katamari Damacy (though that’s short and meant to be played repeatedly).

I have a few games I haven’t finished though. In a former life I wouldn’t have given up if someone put a gun to my head. In college (when one could argue I had even less time) I got everything – and I mean EVERYTHING – in Tony Hawk 2 but I never finished 3. Plus somewhere along the line I lost all my patience with RPGs. I finished Fable a while back, but I couldn’t stand KOTOR for more than a few hours.

Anyway, getting back to the original question, I’d say that yes, for most of us there is too much to experience in the game world. So we either have to choose whether we want to experience full games or be exposed to more titles. Perhaps we can help ourselves by picking our games wisely. Pick some games for the experience and pick others for the “arcade” play – short but infinitely replayable (or has a terrible single player but has great multiplayer). Get a good mix. That way we aren’t bogged down by a huge load of epic games and break things up with short-but-sweet titles. Perhaps we should also consider whether a short game length is necessarily bad. After all, a round of Street Fighter 2 was pretty short, but we did it over and over again.

Developers could help out by making more compact games – not having a million tasks to get 100% on. Or more arcade like games that don’t have steep learning curves and you don’t feel bad putting down and coming back to in a few months. Or making more compelling stories and characters so you want to find out what happens in the end. Or just making more short, replayable games.”

quickies…

Friday, May 13th, 2005

Haven’t written in a while… maybe because no one is reading…

Anyway, some quickies.

  • I didn’t watch the xbox 360 unveiling last night because a) I was at a baseball game and b) since it was on MTV I assumed it wasn’t for me anyway. It probably didn’t matter. I’ve deadened my hearing to hype.
  • Some site changes are (hopefully) coming up. New sections, alternate designs, upgraded backend, etc., etc.
  • I have some more game-related posts in the queue waiting for me to finish them. Speaking of which… thanks to Design Synthesis for linking to me.
  • Tiger is pretty neat. I like how Safari handles RSS feeds and Mail works better than before with my Exchange server at work. I had a problem getting iChat to work (which I’m only using because Tiger seems to have broken Fire and a coworker wanted to test out the video conferencing stuff) but dumping the preference files seemed to fix it.

they found me…

Monday, May 2nd, 2005

Just received (and deleted) my first set of comment spam. I’m somebody now…

edit: small change made to the comments that will hopefully stop the spam… if it doesn’t, then I’ll have to disable it while I research a more robust way of killing the messages.

edit2: commenting has been suspended until further notice. thanks mr. spammer. All those posts for a site that doesn’t get any hits…