Z Trigger -- Rollerball Review

At long last, I have produced a video review. I have more coming, all of which will be better than this one.



Hope you enjoy it. Again, more is coming.

Ways to Show Immaturity as a Video Game Journalist

If anyone has paid attention to the internet following E3, they have probably seen a number of articles deconstructing the recent announcements from the Big 3 and beyond. If you have looked for an article from me about E3, don't. I've decided no to make any comment beyond a long sigh. So, just go ahead and let one out for yourself, lasting about twenty seconds, and move on.

The other thing that is common are articles that just show how far the "video game journalist" has to come before they will have any level of acceptance as writers. And while I'm not here to defend my hobby, because it's not real journalism folks, I will say that we could at least act like professionals. This means that we need to let things take their course before we say that something doesn't work. Sure, we can speculate, and post our speculations. I've done that myself, saying that Microsoft has something to prove with their next generation. No console has blown everyone's minds out the gae on the third generation, so there is some history to the statement. That doesn't mean that Durango is going to be awful, or that it will have growing pains. It's a statment, based on history. Okay, let's move on.

1. "Franchises that Need to Die" lists:

This one is just immature. I've seen countless articles on N4G saying that various game series need to end. There are often some positive reasons for their statements, such as putting the spotlight on other franchises, or that some games over saturate certain markets. More often than not, it's a cheap ploy for page views by writers who want to make money off of site advertisement. We all want that, but writing unique content for your page helps more for this, or breaking a story before anyone else. Instead, we get frequent pieces about how Call of Duty has too many games, and that Final Fantasy is garbage now. Some go as far as to say that Halo should never have had sequels. Well, let me break it down for you folks. The video game industry runs on money. A lot of it. Millions of dollars go into these productions, and it's a nightmare trying to recoup the costs. Franchises help this more than it hurts. A new Call of Duty every year doesn't mean anything more than Activision grabs a quick million seller, and they even have enough of a creative soul to make it different. That can't be said for EA who could pretty much copy one set of Madden code into the next year and add whatever cheap new feature they have left to try, and shove that thing onto store shelves. But that's a different conversation. Final Fantasy is one of the most important role playing games on consoles, and to end that has dangerous repercussions. Taking away Final Fantasy would bring Square Enix to it's knees, and possibly mean a lot of lost jobs for a big named studio. As for Halo, gamers should be so lucky that there is a studio that cares as much about it's IP as 343 Industries, and Bungie before them. Halo has a rich, well crafted lore that is about to be explored in the games themselves. The single player campaigns have always been brilliantly crafted, and have even been the blueprint for FPS games since the series reached the public in 2001. Not to mention, the console shooter is now a standard because of Halo. Without it, we probably wouldn't have gotten The Elder Scrolls franchise on consoles. That's just the short version. I've seen a lot of other games hit lists like this.

2. "Why X-Console/X-Idea is Going to Fail"

I'm slightly to blame here, considering that I never had any faith in the Playstation Move. But hey, let's face it, Sony hasn't ever had that much push for their peripherals (remember the Pocketstation). So, take what I'm going to say with a grain of salt if you must.

There are dozens of naysayer articles about the WiiU and the tablet controller, and people have every right to believe that Nintendo is nuts for doing this. However, none of us own the WiiU yet, and not even the mightiest of crystal ball will tell us the fate of this device in gaming. Obviously, someone thinks this is a good idea. Look at Microsoft's Smart Glass technology that is going to be launched on the X-Box 360 this generation. That is Microsoft experimenting with a similar concept to Nintendo, doing a preemptive take on what could be their own tablet control. If Nintendo pulls it off, expect Sony to rush their way into some overly complex design of the exact same thing that may somehow involve shoving a Playstation Eye into the box because they still have warehouses full of the stupid things years after that toy died on the PS2.

In reality, there is no way to determine how successful a product is going to be at an early stage in its life. If we did that, then we wouldn't be looking forward to new 3DS games right now. The PSP wouldn't have...had...an...acceptable run. The PS3 definitely wouldn't be the giant it is in the industry. Speculate, but be realistic. Some things work out, and the rest fall by the wayside and end up on the shelf of a collector who likes weird obscure things. The WiiU is a risk, taken by Nintendo. As a business, they believe in it. Microsoft believes in Smart Glass, and they believed in the Kinect. Sure, I hate the Kinect, but I'm glad it has panned out for them. It puts revenue in their pockets, and keeps them in R&D to prepare for the next move.

3. "Top 10 Best Games Ever."

People have been playing home video games for almost forty years. That's a lot of games. When you factor the amount of consoles, iterations of home computers, hand held consoles, cell phones and tablets, you have an enormous library to pick games out of. These might be your favorite games, but that doesn't mean that you should toot your horn on the internet with a blog about it, post it to N4G to get attention, and, at times I have seen this phenomena, get angry when someone points out that you putting Super Mario Bros. in your list means you haven't played anything.

Opinions are just opinions, and fighting about them doesn't really get you anywhere. State it, be prepared to back it up, but it doesn't mean that someone is wrong when they say you haven't played enough games. It's disgusting how people act when they are trying to put themselves out there as professional writers. Sure, if this piece gets circulated on N4G I'm going to probably see two year old blog posts of mine brought up where I may have said something that contradicts this article, but who cares. That was two years ago. I've changed since then, and so has my opinion. Just like the opinions of those ten best games out of the thousands that exist, it's flexible.

As for why it's detrimental to your writing career, it's just not creative. If you break out your top ten games, then you are writing a piece about yourself, and you don't have anything else to talk about. It's filler. Your top ten NES games? Equally weak. Everyone has a pretty good idea about the best titles in the NES library, and even the best obscure ones. Web celebrities can get away with this because we are already interested in their opinions anyway, but even then, it's a quick thing. Screw Attack does decent top tens, but they also put a comedic spin on things. Top Ten Games that Make you Want to Bone? That's a brilliant list to put out on Valentines Day!

People do enjoy a good list, and maybe they will even enjoy this rant on the poor state of content generation for blogs on my website that has an incredibly small amount of entertaining content on it. I understand why people do it, and I even think that I will stick some of my favorites on a list some day just for the fun of it. But that doesn't mean that I'm going to run that list right over to N4G so I can pick up some views of it. N4G is a great resource for up and coming writers and websites to build a viewer base. Don't exploit it for your Top Ten Genesis games not Starring Sonic the Hedgehog. The five viewers you pick up is not worth as much as the review of Pier Solar, which is a recent homebrew Genesis game actually programmed onto a Genesis cartridge.

If you disagree, fine, but I'm tired of the cheap shots made on video game websites. I've been watching the Vita not do so well, but even I know that I will pick one up if they ever get some games I care about on it. I don't see it crashing and burning, and even if I did, I have the intelligence to realize that spilling a list of reasons why it's doomed is counterproductive. Think forward, to what's coming, or just write retro columns. Negativity in the gaming community is part of why we all seem to have so much trouble getting along. I exist in a great spot in the middle. I'm well played on many genres, even thundering my way through most of those Call of Duty games that it's fun to hate these days. I've got a few Madden titles, but only one per console at maximum. My JRPG collection contains some obscure titles, and my interest in shmups is only hindered by my inability to drop several hundred dollars on Saturn imports. Just think before you crack open that WordPress editing screen to show why you think Nintendo is mad to put money in something for kids again. Remember, you were a kid once. Didn't you have enough fun to still be playing games twenty years later?

Nintendo 3DS--Yes, I have one now.

This photograph was taken at UNCW, using the AR Cards that came with my beautiful new blue 3DS. Yes, I spent most of my first day with the console playing around with the pack ins. But, honestly, I feel like this was a justified move. Why move on to my games when there are toys packed with the toys, and built into the toys, that just have to be taken advantage of. And this, as always, is one of Nintendo's strongest suits. They have the ability to make the most simplistic of things into a key selling point, as they have done with their augmented reality demo AR Cards and Face Raiders.

But that's not all I have with my sweet new system. With this wonderful graduation gift, I was also gifted Super Street Fighter IV 3D and Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars. I'm going to leave the story short on those--pick em up if you have a 3DS. They are fun, functional, have minimal to impressive amounts of 3D, and have given me plenty of reasons to keep coming back to the console for more. They are performing admirably in keeping my appetite in check until Zelda comes out next month, and Star Fox later on, and Metal Gear Solid 3...and well...you get the point.

So what if there aren't a massive amount of games right out of the gate. I can't really recall any NDS launch titles that were even of this quality, so I'm just excited about the potential of the system right now. There are a few RPG's headed my way, several fighters that I'm actually excited about (but the lack of Soul Cal 3D is heartbreaking), and even that Kid Icarus thing that has been the shining emerald of the rumor mill for years now.

And this isn't even including the upcoming e-store opening in early June. I'm not sure of where I'm going to dig up points by which to jump on some early digital titles, but I'm going to try to. It's hard enough to even pay off my copy of Zelda right now. But the question for me is--do I want the 3D updates of classic games, or to play old hand held titles that completely passed by my five year old radar that ignorantly ignored the majority of games that were not platformers.

Probably both.

Anyway, this entire post has been completely driven by the desire to say something about the 3DS, and say that I'm actually at the party on time for a console for once in my life, thanks to my beautiful girlfriend, and my roommate who is awesome himself, though I can not claim any grounds for his looks. It's disconnected, brain dead, and loopy, and just the kind of thing to expect on hour twenty-two of my day. Perhaps I'll drop another post up here later when I'm on hour thirty, and completely out of my brain.

In other, non 3DS news, we want to bring Z-Trigger back out, but keep having scheduling issues. Sorry folks. Really am. I'm dying to get back on the phone and talk games with everyone.

Also, elephants.

Wait, where are we now?

Nintendo's Next

Anyone who knows me personally knows that I love Nintendo more than any man should love a corporation designed to empty his wallet. Regardless, I can't help but get excited when they have a new console coming down the pipe. Sure, the Wii has had hard times all throughout, and I absolutely despise the me-too minigame collections that have poured out of the woodworks trying to capitalize on the success of WiiSports and WiiPlay. I imagine people have been trying to understand my excitement about the things that Nintendo does to sell their product since I claimed my love for the GameCube so many years ago.It's simple.

When Nintendo makes video games, they make the best video games. Mario, Zelda, Metroid, yes, all of them. Sure, it's an easy ploy, banking hard on one's franchise characters. But you have to remember, these are the games that brought us to the consoles, hooked us, and made us seek out other games. I know this isn't true for everyone, but I'm not going to try and make a play for Sonic, who has an even rougher track record than any of the aforementioned characters in this post.

Another reason I will always back Nintendo is their sheer insanity. I've not witnessed one of their console launches that didn't make blink twice at some aspect of their console and controller design. I can't help but get excited because they always do something different. They have redefined how we play video games with everything that they do, and don't just stick a new console out just to increase the graphics processing power. Sure, that usually comes in the package, but it's not the main event, so to speak. The only console I've actually seen them fail to completely rewrite things was with the GameCube, and it was still a great console with a fantastic library of games. The only thing I remember warping my vision was the controller, and I still love that silly little pad. Although, it must be said--the GBA cable was the testing ground for one of the rumors floating around about the next Nintendo console: the on controller screen.

And this, friends, is what I mean by insane. The most exciting rumor in circulation about the new Nintendo is the hi-def screen dead in the middle of the controller. Yes, the controller is still traditional in that it has buttons and analog sticks. Beyond this, it's a play in keeping the "casual" crowd that funded this beast of a console. It's a concept that has been tried by Sega and Nintendo alike, but never made it's way into the forefront due to lack of support. Honestly, it's the most interesting part of the package to me. I have long thought that if they could bridge the game to the screen on the controller, containing information on controller screen that could be interactive within the game beyond using menus, than they would have the opportunity to have an experience so immersive that no third party would be able to contest it. Not to mention that they can employ the online store to keep the casuals contented and stick a knife right into the heart of Apple, who quite frankly doesn't belong in the gaming market. Remember the Pippin, my friends. Remember!

I'm going to let the other rumors pass, because this was the most exciting one to me. But let's think about the reaction from the Sony and Microsoft pending the success of this insane concept.

We can already predict that Sony will be smug and bash the console with that prick in the commercials right up until the day that it's in stores. Microsoft, if I recall correctly, didn't sit around complaining that motion controls were a joke, so I can see them being respectable about it, if nothing else. I mean, Microsoft is fairly new to this game aside from the MSX in Japan, so they need to remember that they are only making video games because Nintendo saved the market in the 80's. But both of these companies are probably working on their follow up consoles at the moment, whether they are going to admit it or not, and will be watching closely as Nintendo readies their new console for marker. So I see two scenarios, which apply to each company. They will either wait it out, and see if the controller catches on, and apply the technology to some "higher" degree (like the Move, haha, haha), or send out an attachment for the current consoles. However, I don't know if Sony will be willing to try and cash in on Nintendo's success again, considering that the Move is derided by most gamers, and their own audience won't adopt the bloody thing because it costs so much. Microsoft could easily pick up some steam with the concept, as they seem to have a much better idea of what the casual crowd wants--silly easy games where you look stupid playing them. After all, the Kinect is outselling the Move in spades, and is actually appealing to the audience it's made for. They are trying to shoot for the whole "hardcore" thing supposedly, but I haven't really seen anything outside of Child of Eden that even raises my eyebrows. And I won't be playing Child of Eden with one of those contraptions either!

But this is all purely speculative at this point, seeing as we still have no real idea what Nintendo is hiding at their secret underground laboratories, stroking their angry white cats, and counting their money. The next few months will be interesting, not just because of the official announcement of their new console, but because the backlash from the Sony and Microsoft fanboys will be so blinding that I might actually have to get some sunglasses.

Let's just hope that Nintendo doesn't blow this golden opportunity. They appear to have been trying hard to appeal to the whole "hardcore" audience again, pushing real video game experiences for the past couple of years, and having a ground for that as well on the 3DS. It's not enough to just push this concept though, they are actually going to have to work to get that slice of the market back in their corner. It's going to take time and sheer insanity. Since they've already got that, I think it's now that they should put the time in.

Guess we will just find out in a month.