Can't Link Your 3DS To Your Club Nintendo Account? Here's How...

You're in the 3DS eShop for the first time, and it offers to link your Club Nintendo account to your 3DS, presumably to help you rack up stars and benefits. You judiciously input your email address and password, only to have an error message appear, telling you that your email address and/or password is incorrect. So you hop on your computer and login to the Club Nintendo website without issue...

???!

According to the Troubleshooting section of Nintendo's website, this error can be caused by two things, neither of which are mentioned in the original error message, and neither of which has anything to do with an incorrect email address or password.

Here it is:

1. Login to your Club Nintendo account via the relevant Nintendo website (on your PC, laptop, phone - basically anything other than your 3DS!).
2. Click on the "EDIT MY PERSONAL DATA" button.
3. Under the "User Data" section, click on the little "EDIT >" button.
4. Click into the "Username:" field and remove any "special characters" from your username. This includes underscores ("_"), and I assume other symbols used for swearing like !@#$%^&*()-+=, etc. If you've always hated your username, here's your opportunity to change it.
5. Check the "Date of birth:" to ensure that you are registered as being born more than 13 years ago.

 If you're under 13, or you entered a fake date of birth that's less than 13 years ago, then I'm afraid you're out of luck. Nintendo has pre-emptively "protected" you from the evils of the internet! There appears to be no method of editing the date of birth after an account has been registered.

That being the case, I would recommend trying to contact Nintendo customer service to see if they can change it on their end (which is probably more time consuming than it's worth), or failing that, give up and create a new Club Nintendo account. A date of birth greater than 21 should have you covered, but you might want to make yourself 100 years old just to be on the safe side...

I wrote this because I found Nintendo's troubleshooting instructions to be woefully low on detail and generally unhelpful. I am a trainer by day, so I thought I would try writing some instructions that were quite the opposite!

Rage Against the Machine: Wii U and Bayonetta 2

Platinum Games have copped a lot of hate - and even death threats - following the announcement of Bayonetta 2 as a Wii U exclusive.  Nintendo named itself as the game's publisher, practically assuring its exclusivity, and no doubt adding fuel to the fire.

The people who are angry about all this are people who considered a multiplatform Bayonetta 2 to be a real possibility.  To the those people, I would say this: you should be thanking Nintendo, because I assure you, Bayonetta 2 would not exist on any platform without them:

"That being said, the console games market is in a state of upheaval, so establishing a new game franchise requires a considerable amount of will, determination, and love. Bayonetta is a brand that we want to see become stronger, reaching the hands of more and more gamers, so we have continued to consult with SEGA, the previous game’s publisher, on how we can make sure this takes place. Our answer was a new partnership with Nintendo."

It's not all roses for Bayonetta 2.

Consider this: Platinum Games have not had a hit since the original Bayonetta, which only sold 1.35 million units worldwide.  Now, if I sold 1.35 million of anything, I would regard that as a success, but for SEGA as a publisher, I would imagine that the game sold well below expectations given the marketing push it had.  Now consider the fact that SEGA has financially hit a tight spot, and have had to drastically scale back their publishing operations in order to guarantee future profits.  That means sticking to your Sonics, your Yakuzas, your Monkey Balls, and your Total Wars - not your Bayonettas.  I would add that it is highly likely that Bayonetta 2 was part-way through development before SEGA's scale-back as well.

So you're Platinum Games, and you're faced with a decision: either throw Bayonetta 2 in the bin and it will never get made, or shop it around to another publisher, one that will not only need to fund its remaining development, but will also want it bad enough to buy it back from SEGA.

The only publisher who fits that bill is Nintendo.  Nintendo needs a strong launch lineup for the Wii U, and it needs to prove to 'core' gamers that it is serious about securing exclusive AAA third party content going forward.  In a huge show of faith, Nintendo is also putting its name to Platinum's new IP, publishing Wonderful 101 at launch.

It's clear that Nintendo is supporting Platinum in a big way, and Platinum is returning the favour.  Platinum was clearly looking for a way that Bayonetta 2 could exist, and Nintendo has provided them with that way.

Fighting Vapors

This is all that exists of Tekken X Street Fighter.  (And all that will ever exist of it.)

With regards to Tekken X Street Fighter, the Tekken team and Harada-san over there haven’t even put together one page of design documents regarding their game yet! They’re so slow… I want to put in all sorts of whatever nods or easter eggs that I can, but just two weeks ago Harada-san called me and said, “Hey… can I have a list of the Street Fighter characters?” And I was like, “What? You’re so slow!” It’ll probably take them six years to come out with their game!

~Yoshinori Ono, producer of Street Fighter X Tekken

To summarise, Tekken X Street Fighter has not been in development during the past 2+ years since its announcement, is not in development currently, and - mark my words - will not see the light of day, ever.  Given the PR nightmare engulfing Street Fighter X Tekken, this result grows ever more likely.

Power to the People

The nickel and dime operation known as VIDEOGAMES got just a tad more ridiculous when Nintendo revealed that the 3DS LL (aka XL) would not release with an AC adapter in Japan.  They then went on to announce that the price of the 3DS plug would be reduced from 1,500 yen to 1,000 yen, presumably in response to the web-wide backlash.  This is good news for serial lead-losers and cord collectors alike, but I'm not certain Nintendo grasps the full stupidity of their decision.

When the DSi LL (XL) saw release, it was squarely pitched towards the elderly, in the hopes that they would take to the device's bigger screen, bigger grip, bigger stylus, and bigger...well, everything.  It's not much of a stretch to assume that the 3DS LL is aimed toward that same demographic.  Will Japanese seniors be tech-savvy enough to know that this thing needs to be charged?  Or will they return to stores in droves three hours later to refund a doohickey that just stopped working?

Will someone just come out and tell me

which version of Skyrim to buy?!

It's doing my head in.

The consensus view is that the PC version's better looking, while the console version has a smoother interface.

But which is more important?!

The Vita Will Tank at Australian Retail

Sony Computer Entertainment Australia has just announced the launch date and retail price of the Playstation Vita in Australia, and people are spitting chips over it.  We are looking at a launch price of $349.99 AUD for the Wi-Fi model and $449.99 AUD for the 3G model.

[This is the part where I talk to Sony as if Sony are actually reading this blog.]

Sony, this kind of crap used to float 6 years ago, but not anymore.  The world has grown smaller, not larger, and Aussie gamers are savvy to what the rest of the world is paying.  Australian retailers are no longer competing against each other; they're competing against the world, and they're competing against the online space in particular.  And that is why I believe the PS Vita will tank at Australian retail.  With the Aussie dollar riding high, expect Australian gamers to import in droves while the price is this unreasonable.

To put this in context, I paid $400 AUD for a Nintendo Wii at launch in 2006.  US gamers were paying $250.  The Australian dollar was sitting around the 79 cent mark at that point in time.  As I write, $250 US is currently worth $244.46 AUD; which happens to be the price of the Wi-Fi PS Vita at launch in America.

Australian consumers aren't unreasonable; they understand there are shipping costs associated with getting these products to our remote shores (although, truth be told, it all has to be shipped from China anyway).  But someone's hand is in the cookie jar here.  Whoever that is will be responsible for driving gamers into the arms of importers and online retail.

Such is life.

Sonic 4 talks the talk, but can it walk the walk? Can it even walk at all?!

I finally got around to booting up Sonic 4 on my Wii this morning, and as much as it pains me to say it, the game is nigh-on unplayable.  Prior to playing the game, I thought complaints about the game's physics were pedantic and manufactured, but there is something very off about the way Sonic walks, then runs.  It is as though there is an invisible gate held directly in front of and behind the blue-blur-to-be that is very suddenly lifted after several seconds of holding left or right.  Sonic seems incapable of walking at a normal pace.  It is as though he is walking uphill constantly.

Sonic's endless struggle for legitimacy.

The curious thing for me is how few of these complaints actually addressed this issue.  I remember many, many furious comments and even videos about the physics of jumping and landing, but walking?  The issue is so glaring it's all they should have talked about.  Perhaps I didn't help matters with a quick round of BIT.TRIP.RUNNER beforehand, but there is literally no getting past it for me.

What's even more curious was the rabid defence that followed, particularly from the likes of Destructoid's Jim Sterling.  The game is indefensible!  Platformers are all about running and jumping, and if you don't get that right, you don't get anything right.

If I had of known about this issue beforehand, I never would have purchased the game, but here's the rub: most Sonic fans are inarticulate and crazy, and most critics are not Sonic fans.  For once the vocal, rabid minority were correct and I couldn't stand listening to them.

Unfortunately this leads me to the most expensive possible conclusion: where Sonic is concerned, you just have to see for yourself.

Wii! What is it Good For?

This is a response to "Nintendo is Lazy" that I started writing quite some time ago, but never finished. I was going to simply stow it away when every man and his dog beat me to the cake, but now that the value of the Wii is being so hotly debated, I thought it the perfect opportunity to dust this off in some finished form or other:

Four weeks ago, IGN's Editor-at-Large Matt Casamassina took aim at Nintendo's methodology and to a lesser extent, loyal Nintendo customers in his article "Nintendo is Lazy and You Don't Care"; an article which set the internet ablaze for all the wrong reasons. While I personally disagree with Matt's core argument, it is clear from the overwhelming reader response that this is a discussion worth having, and one that resonates with the gaming community.

The prevailing idea is that the Nintendo of Today is quantifiably different from the Nintendo of Yesterday; and now that they are ruling the roost (again, I might add), they are 'content to cut corners and cash in'. As his first example, Casamassina cites two playable versions of the character Toad in New Super Mario Bros. Wii, in lieu of a playable Princess Peach. (Lest we forget Luigi's genesis as a Player 2 palette-swap in Super Mario Bros.) There is a symmetry inherent in the line-up here that I believe was very much intentional - two plumbers and two anthropomorphic toadstools - Miyamoto himself noted the similarities in physique between the two basic player models. As soon as you disrupt that symmetry and introduce a third player model, you are immediately obliged to devise a fourth player model, and additionally, behavioural and physical quirks (like those vaunted floating dress physics) to differentiate each character in gameplay. The question Casamassina and Nintendo fans need to ask themselves is just how much would a playable Princess Peach with floating-dress-physics really add to the overall experience? Not much, I'd wager. And yet, the entire game would need to be re-balanced to account for its inclusion, or something similar. Yes, this decision was made because it was easier to do, but it was also taken because the drawbacks (time spent rebalancing the gameplay, changing the physics, and possibly even redesigning the levels) absolutely outweigh any benefits that could possibly be gained from it (a playable Princess Peach with a floaty dress). This isn't laziness, this is a conscious design decision. Mario himself looks the way he does because the easiest way to define his bodily form was to give him a cap, moustache, and a pair of overalls. The entire experience was built around it - he's an Italian plumber that eats mushrooms (because Italians like mushrooms) and climbs down pipes (because that's what plumbers do); turtles try to stop him (because they live in the sewers, as any Ninja Turtles fan will tell you). New Super Mario Bros. Wii is built around four people enjoying the same experience in the same room at the same time - simply pick up and play, with no adjustments to be made - and if a feature of the game does not facilitate that, then it's extraneous, pure and simple. By extension, if Peach was playable in the game, she should have been cut. The road to game development is paved with these kinds of decisions; fraught with compromise - ask any developer whether there was anything they'd like to have implemented, but couldn't or didn't, and I'm sure they'd be happy to rattle off a laundry list of ideas and features - but most of the time, they just make sense. Like this one. Next!

Then Casamassina simultaneously applauds and decries Nintendo for effectively rejuvenating their business by bowing out of the hardware arms race. He mentions that he has covered both the Nintendo 64 and Gamecube during his tenure at IGN. It's hard to know where to even start with these remarks. Effectively he is asking for a repeat of the previous hardware generation - three similarly powerful consoles vying for a larger quadrant of the same piece of pie. Because it worked so well for them last time, didn't it? Come to think of it, I can't remember there ever being a time when cutting-edge graphics and audio has 'won' a 'console war', signifying to me and any other logical person that the gamers who demand this are indeed niche. Six million people may have purchased a copy of Modern Warfare 2, but how many more millions have purchased Mario Kart Wii or Wii Fit, and continue to do so month to month, year to year? When Nintendo disengaged themselves from the 'nuclear arms race', they also disengaged themselves from self-destructive business practices. Both Sony and Microsoft can afford to indulge in this, but for every unit they sell, they take a hit to the hip pocket, and more importantly, when one doesn't sell, they take an even greater hit. If the DS was to the Gameboy Advance what the Wii is to the Gamecube, then Nintendo's strategy was simply to extend the hardware lifecycle to whatever was sustainable. We're already seeing Sony and Microsoft grapple with this issue at the moment. We've had Sony banging on about their 'ten year cycle' when we just KNOW their machine doesn't have the legs to pull it off [and while we're here, has anyone noticed there's been virtually no mention of this vaunted cycle since the Slim came out and the console actually started selling?]. Meanwhile, Microsoft has been posturing Natal's release as a system relaunch. Both companies have realised they cannot afford to advance graphically at the pace they have been if they wish to remain (or in some cases, become) profitable. The bottom line is this: if you value cutting-edge graphics and audio, you should invest in a PC and keep your screwdriver handy. Otherwise, get ready for a seriously rough ride over the next few years.

But this isn't about Sony or Microsoft, this is about Nintendo. It wasn't laziness that drove Nintendo to 'redo' the Gamecube and rethink the input mechanism for console gaming - it was brilliance, and it was daring. Yes, it failed to live up to its promise of 'a new way to play', and yes, Wii Sports and WarioWare can now [sadly] be measured as the extent of motion-controlled gaming on the console rather than the potential, but I STILL APPLAUD THE STANCE. What it essentially said to me was this: prettier graphics, online play, and multimedia bullshit just doesn't cut it. The gaming industry has spent the last three hardware generations languishing in hardware upgrades and a well-stocked library of male power fantasies. What its devotees class as 'mature' games are actually insular, self-referential and immature. I agree with all of these statements, and that's why I bought the Wii.

DSi LL: What's the Big Deal?

My riffs on ANBUKaptain's posts continue today, when I say this: I fail to see how the announcement of the DSi LL is a slap to the face to gamers.

Big Deal? Or Little Deal?

For those who haven't heard, Nintendo yesterday announced new, larger-screened iteration of the DSi would release in Japan in November, and Europe in early 2010. The DSi only launched seven months ago, so this has angered some people. But where to start, where to start?

Let's start with:

1. You, Joe Gamer, are not the DSi's intended audience.
The biggest giveaway is its lack of a GBA cartridge slot. Nintendo netted most of the gamers they were going to net with the original DS, and picked up the stragglers (like me) with the DS Lite. The DSi was designed with the respectable salary man in mind. It looks more business-like - it could pass for a PDA - it has downloadable applications on DSi Ware that aren't games, and Nintendo announced their intention for several non-gaming applications of the handheld in the future, for use at baseball games, subway stations, et cetera. If you want to upgrade, that's your choice, but if you don't get wise to the business model soon, you will be disappointed. It was never intended as an 'upgrade' model. There's not many people who've wanted a DS that don't already own one. The DSi, and now the DSi LL is about widening the net and making people who don't want one see the value in it.

2. What are you really losing here?
This recalls a parable told by the Man himself:

"The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 'These men who were hired last worked only one hour,' they said, 'and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.'

"But he answered one of them, 'Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?'

This is of course, about something far more noble than gaming, but the core message still rings true (imagine for a second that the denarii are great videogames, and the 'work' is what they paid to play them): if you purchased a DS, a DS Lite, or even a DSi, you paid what you were willing to pay at the time, to play handheld games at that time. You didn't pay to play DS games seven months down the track, or in two years time; you paid to play them right then and there. If someone doesn't discover the DS until late in the system's life-cycle (the eleventh hour, if you will), their only real option is to purchase the upgraded version of the hardware. But would you trade the time they didn't get to experience all these great DS games for the better hardware? I know I wouldn't. Don't grumble that others are getting better hardware, rejoice at all the great gaming experiences you've had thus far! Furthermore, rejoice that Mr. Salary Man too can share in those same great experiences!

3. It's more expensive, dummy!
Even if you bought a DSi, chances are you still paid less than what you'll pay for a DSi LL next year. That, and like I said before - YOU'LL ONLY HAVE IT NEXT YEAR! The Japanese will be paying ¥20,000 (US$220) and Nintendo confirmed it'll be selling at a higher price than the DSi in Europe as well. This is the basic math behind it: mo' screen = mo' money, yo! Makes sense to me.

4. What were you expecting?
Name the last Nintendo handheld that didn't have incremental improvements throughout its life-cycle. Yeah, I thought so. In fact, name the last console. To not expect it (and accept it) is to ignore over 20 years of console history (probably even more than that). Even if you can't see the difference, the guts are always changing. Early adopters know what they're getting themselves into; they know that they're paying a premium to get ahead of the curve. It's an acknowledged risk, and it's the price of entry.

5. The DS is approaching the end of its life-cycle.
This means that the market needs to be re-invigorated on a regular basis to maintain momentum. The phrase 'change or die' springs to mind. Products need to get slimmer, slicker, and in brand new colours! And they need to do it in shorter, more regular intervals when The End is in sight.


Still angry? Well, then let me ask you this: if you could do it all over again, would you really wait six years for a slimmer handheld, increased battery life, and a bigger screen? Or DSi owners, let me ask you this: Would you wait 7+ months for a bigger screen and extra battery life; and would you pay extra for the privilege? Knowing what you know now, would you wipe your memory of the last six years (or even seven months) of handheld gaming experiences, for an incremental upgrade? Because you can't have it both ways.

A Lesson in Poor Taste.

Coming to a store near you, from the coat-tails of her father's death, it's Bindi Irwin, with a brand new interactive experience! Ladies and Gentlemen, Ubisoft and Terri Irwin is proud to present:

Bindi Presents Big Ocean Adventures

The final boss is a stingray, and the scene plays out a little something like this:

RAY: Terri never told you what happened to your father.

BINDI: She told me enough! She told me you killed him!

DARTH RAY: NO. I AM YOUR FATHER!

BINDI: No. No! That's not true! That's impossible!!

DARTH RAY: Search your feelings. You know it to be true.

BINDI: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

Okay, so that was in even poorer taste, but there's something unsettling to me about Bindi's child star status. It seems very forced, and her rise to fame pretty much coincided with her father's demise. It feels like the poor girl never took the time to grieve properly.

What unsettles me even more is Terri Irwin's business acumen and "go get 'em, Tiger!" attitude. Now that Steve's gone, she seems to have let loose in her unbridled fury. I mean, Steve Irwin himself never had his own videogame.

But hey, what the hell do I know? It could just be a cultural misunderstanding on my part, but the American "everyone's a winner, baby" spirit feels strangely at odds with the Australian "fair go"; and child stardom is the antithesis to our Tall Poppy Syndrome.

If it grows too tall, then it's time to cut it down.

Age of the Multiple SKUs.

I have to hand it to Sony - they're really turning this game around. They used the first year to test the waters [or stumble around in the darkness, if you like], but they've finally moved towards a single SKU [that's 'Stock Keeping Unit' for the uninitiated] for the PS3. By moving away from the confusion of chopping and changing multiple SKUs with their alienating gigabytes and HDMI capabilities (or lack thereof), they've finally given consumers a definitive picture of what to expect from their console. It may have been a tad unnecessary to strip the features that they have [is it just me, or did they strip the features most likely to appeal to the mainstream, like backwards compatibility?], but at least there is ONE STANDARD MODEL.

Microsoft, on the other hand, are flooding [read: diluting] the market with more and more SKUs, to the point where existing 360 owners (and possibly developers) don't know where they stand, and consumers can't keep up.

fanboy_gamestop_employee posted:

---

Sooo, would you like the Core, the Premium, the Elite, the Halo 3 Elite, the Pro, the Arcade, the upgraded Premium, or the Blu-Ray-enabled model?

---

Did I get them all, or have I missed some? That last one was pure speculation, but there's been some very loud whispers across the interwebs that Microsoft is seriously considering a Blu-Ray-enabled 360. If they do go down this route, they'd have to keep the games on DVD, or risk losing software sales from 20+ million 360 users. See the problem with Microsoft's 'chop and change' philosophy? It doesn't work well in the long term. They would do well to adopt Sony's 'stubbornly stick to your guns, even in the face of certain death' philosophy. Sony took a huge risk with Blu-Ray, and while you could legitimately argue that it was their risk to take, at least PS3 owners are on the same page now.

And let's not forget the good ol' Wii. It hasn't changed since release - everyone knows where they stand with Wii - and it's still selling like hotcakes [hell, it's selling better than hotcakes; I haven't bought hotcakes since I got my Wii!].

Perhaps Microsoft should be looking at upgrading [read: eliminating] the Red Ring of Death(TM) first.


Does Microsoft remind you of a cartoon with too many characters? Are consumers literally spoiled for choice? Would they sell more 360s with one SKU? Thoughts! Now!

Fallujah's Days Are Numbered...

"ZERO!" says Konami.

I must admit to being *a little* surprised about Konami's cancellation of Six Days in Fallujah just ONE WEEK after showing it off at their very own Gamers' Night event. I say 'a little' because of:

• a) the backlash from soldier's families and veterans ("how DARE you document true war in a toy?!");


• b) mixed responses from games journalists regarding the intent behind the game; but most of all:


• c) Konami and Atomic Games don't seem to be on the same page regarding (b).

Konami storming the Atomic Games office for Fallujah's source code.

[Does anyone else love the fact that 'Fallujah' looks just like 'Hallelujah' except you get to enunciate the 'j'?]

Take a look at these choice quotes and see if you can spot the difference:

'US Marine Corps Corporal Michael Ergo explained how important he feels videogames have become to our culture, and how they are "one, if not the most important" mediums for telling stories such as his.'

Creative Director Juan Benito posted:

---

"We want people to experience something that's going to challenge them, that's going to make them think and provide an unprecedented level of insight into a great military significance."

---

Atomic Games President Peter Tamte posted:

---

"What we're trying to do is recreate the stories of the Marines that we've spoken with and that are involved in the creation. And we're telling those stories of those particular Marines."

---

VS.

Konami Marketing VP Anthony Crouts posted:

---

"We're not pro-war. We're not trying to make people feel uncomfortable. We just want to bring a compelling entertainment experience. At the end of the day, it's just a game."

---

Bit of a contrast in vision there, wouldn't you say? It sounded like the Konami VP was trying to put out a PR fire.


Atomic Games: on mission to find a new publisher?

It's probably for the best, really. Hopefully now Atomic Games can shop around for a publisher whose vision for Fallujah doesn't conflict with theirs. And then we can finally get around to defending a videogame's right to tell someone's story.


Toy indeed.



P.S. Interesting how Konami backed down from Fallujah, while Capcom went full steam ahead on RE5 following similar, if not greater levels of criticism from the press. If Fallujah was a Call of Duty game, this may not have been a problem.

P.S.S. For more Fallujah-related reading, check here, here, here, and here.

Zombie is the New Black.

You thought this would be yet another discussion paper on race and Resident Evil 5, didn't you? Not that that discussion isn't worth having or anything (though nearly every article I've read is too timid to provide a definitive verdict on the game, other than to conclude 'this is a discussion worth having' - 'RE5 IS RACIST' - THERE YOU GO; now let's get on with the discussion already!)


Let's have that discussion one day. But not today.

No, I won't be talking about any of that. (From that point of view, it would have been more prudent for me to name this article 'Zombies: The Darlings of the Development Community,' but I needed a real attention-grabber. Seeing as 'RE5 May or May Not Be Racist' is such a hot topic at the moment, I thought I'd use a bit of double entendre with 'the New Black'. For the purposes of this article, 'the New Black' refers to the colour black in a fashion sense. Is that blacksploitation?)

Zombie is the New Black; or, Zombies: The Darlings of the Development Community; or, RE5 May or May Not Be Racist. THERE.

Zombies are all the rage at the moment. Resident Evil 5, House of the Dead: Overkill, Left 4 Dead, Dead Space, Dead Rising - all from this generation of consoles; all featuring undead antagonists. Even MadWorld has zombies. It's a worrying trend when you think about it, not from a genre homogeneity point of view (though there is that, too), but from an AI perspective:

Zombies are dumb. And that's convenient.

The problem then becomes, "how dumb should we make the A.I.?" And it's a lot easier to make something dumber than smarter. It's like porting down games versus porting them up. If you're porting from DS to PS3, then all of a sudden you have to make things that weren't even there before.

When a player sits down to play a zombie game, they immediately throw all expectations of artificial intelligence out the window. Zombies are dumb, and that's why game designers love using them. That way they can spend more time working on scabby oatmeal textures, zombie-swagger animations and body-dismemberment physics. You don't even have to write a story, really - some evil corporation is experimenting on the general populace, a shadowy government conspiracy to cover up a botched military experiment, aliens come to Earth to probe humankind, a stupid kid reads an incantation from a dusty old book in the library 'cause he thinks zombies are k00l, d00d - basically, all possible stories come back to someone experimented on something and now we have zombies, and that's the only real explanation players expect for a zombie apocalypse. (Which suits game designers just fine, as they clearly hate (and suck at) writing stories, and were obviously brought up on a steady diet of B-movies and porno.)

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the zombie apocalypse has become something of an arbitrary direction for developers to take (albeit a clear one), so that they can get on with the actual game-making already.

This is all fine, as long as something worthwhile's being brought to the table. Valve springs to mind here, as I suspect they used the tried-and-true zombie apocalypse to showcase their team-play mechanics. And let's not forget the A.I. Director, which for all intents and purposes acted as a Zombie Overmind.


Me? Accuse Valve of unoriginality? Never!

But what about RE5*? Well, it sure brought a race debate to the table, didn't it?! But in the way of gameplay, not a great deal...and besides, aren't we all getting a little sick of the Great Undead?

It's hard to say who's really to 'blame' for all this. Are publishers simply trying to push games out the door? Are developer deadlines too tight? Presumably Valve put out Left 4 Dead to maintain the bottom line while Episode 3 development marches on. Is it laziness on the part of developers, or is it simply focus? Surely there are more original ways to frame a game's mechanics.

With development focus firmly on high-definition graphics, artificial intelligence has been getting the back seat. When graphics hit the dubious watermark of ultra-realism, where do we go from there? Artificial Intelligence, dummy.


There's nothing particularly horrifying about shooting zombies in broad daylight.

So once again, here we are in the thick of a new(ish) console generation, blazing a trail with our face-melting graphics while the A.I. languishes in the dust. In the context of a zombie apocalypse, sales figures and Metacritic scores show we're willing to let it slide, but for how long? Already people are questioning whether the survival horror genre has passed its sell-by date - Capcom responded in kind by making RE5 an action shooter - but maybe we're just sick of zombies.

Or maybe we just want to be challenged by the game and the story.



* The answer's simple: Capcom wanted (needed?) to make another Resident Evil. It stands to reason, though, that if they wanted to make an action shooter, why not make it a completely different game without zombies? And the answer to that of course, is that the story is written for you.

P.S. While I was writing this, I came up with a third title:

'Zombies: the Cure-all Crutch of the Development Community.'

WiiWare: Nintendo's Third Party Sweatshop.

A simple firmware update was all it took for WiiWare's Strong Bad sales to double, substantiating claims that prospective customers worldwide had long run out of storage space.

Telltale CEO Dan Connors posted:

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"Nintendo's new solution really opens the door for players to add to their collection of downloadable games, which is critical for a series with multiple installments. This is a major step forward for episodic gaming. We're looking forward to even greater success on WiiWare with Strong Bad, as well as other projects."

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Dan sounds very positive about Nintendo's 'solution' to the problem that they themselves created, but what about the sales they could have made before now? Were all prospective buyers waiting in the wings last week, or did Telltale lose some custom when the iron was hot? Only future sales figures will tell. It is well established, though, that a majority of software sales are made within the first few weeks of release, even for episodic content. Other, less fortunate WiiWare titles - the dates dictated by Nintendo themselves - have since been buried in a sea of newer releases.


Strong Bad performed strongly, but how did the others do?

Strong demand for a Wii storage solution has been well-documented throughout the games media and blogging communities for well over 18 months, but it wasn't until the Game Developers Conference 2009 that Nintendo finally announced the addition of SD memory card play for the console.

This shot in the foot to downloadable game sales was seemingly at odds with Nintendo's minimum threshold policy - developers are required to achieve four-figure sales to qualify for payment - also confirmed at this year's Game Developers Conference.

So, on one hand developers had to sell 5,000+ virtual copies of their software (slightly less in Europe), while on the other, their potential (and target) consumer base was limited from the outset: Nintendo fans with net-ready Wiis, lumbered with hard drives full to the brim with channels, save files, and retro games before the WiiWare service had even launched. Consumers that wanted to spend their money, but not at the expense of games they had already bought. (If they were anything like me, they would have run out of space after downloading their first WiiWare game of import, Lost Winds.) "Cleaning the fridge" became the vernacular for Wii owners who were forced to delete or re-shuffle games they weren't currently playing to make room for new ones.


So many games to not fit on one hard drive.

Online protest was loud in the Nintendo camp, but at every major press event, Nintendo reps would deny the importance and the scope of the issue. After the recent sales explosion of Strong Bad, I think we can put that assertion to bed. NOA president Reggie Fils-Aime [how the hell do you pronounce that, anyway?] and others have dubbed Nintendo fans "insatiable" on more than one occasion, yet here they were demanding the ability to simply purchase games that were already released. That's right, for the better part of two years, Nintendo fans wanted to give Nintendo more money, but couldn't.

Now that Nintendo's panacea has come down from on high, that problem has been solved (well, if you don't mind swapping SD cards in and out), but what about the problem of the indie developer? The indie developer that, for all intents and purposes, has delivered Nintendo free intellectual property for resale; and thanks to Nintendo's dodgy policy and slack response to demand, will never see a cent for their labours? The indie developer whose game sees release whenever Nintendo deems the time is right, whose sales were neutered by the storage problem, and whose title is now buried under a slew of newer titles? Yeah, let's talk about that problem.


Minimum sales = quality control?

Would you believe that this minimum sales policy is to ensure a certain level of quality in WiiWare titles? You heard that right - quality control on the Wii - the irony is almost delicious! I can already think of a more effective quality control method that will separate the sheep from the goats, and net the developers their hard-earned cash: scrap the minimum sales policy and have time-limited demo downloads. That way the developers will earn royalties from the get-go, consumers can discern whether or not they'll enjoy the game, and the demo will expire so that freeloaders will have to download to play it longer than say, a week. It could reduce the sales of a few games here and there, but it wouldn't do so dramatically - any games that don't sell under this system probably wouldn't have made four figures anyway. A more conservative, but less effective solution would be to reduce the minimum sales required, but I guess that's a decision Nintendo would have to make 'out of the kindness of their hearts.' Either way, it's high time Nintendo loosen their grip on WiiWare. They've been happy to strangle their own profits for so long, would it kill them to share the love?

I Bought MadWorld.

So shut yer cakehole.

Not that it was my obligation or anything. Just because I WANTED TO. I recommend it to you if you like hard-boiled comic books, stylistic gore, underground hip-hop, and side-scrolling beat 'em ups. But don't be a fool and buy it just because it's 'mature'. 'Mature''s not a genre; that doesn't help you decide whether you'll like it or not. I could expend 5,000 words or more on the inadequacy of terms like 'casual', 'hardcore' and 'mature', but I'll save that for another day. Instead, I'll tell you this; MadWorld's success - good as it is - is Sega's responsibility, not yours. If MadWorld fails to sell a million copies, it's not your fault for not buying two copies and telling your twenty friends to go out and buy it as well; it's Sega's fault for not promoting it aggressively enough. So read the review, see if it sounds like your cup o' tea, rent it if need be, and go out and buy it if you want to play it. Don't buy it just because it's 'mature' [which I assume means it has lots of blood and gore] and you want to secure the possibility of seeing more 'mature' titles on the Wii in the future. It's not your responsibility.


MadWorld: it's a good game. Buy it if you want.

Videogame publishers needs to wake up and realise that they're Big Boys now, and like the other Big Boys of Industry they need to advertise their products to make them profitable. It's no longer acceptable to dump a videogame on the shelves and expect it to sell off the back of enthusiast press coverage and word-of-mouth. Ever notice that when a 'good' game doesn't sell, we get blamed for either not buying it, or not 'getting it'? Don't look at us, buddy - most of us purchase more videogames per capita than entire family units combined. We've known about your game *at least* six months prior to its release because we read these websites every freakin' day like starved animals with an insatiable appetite for gaming news. We're freakish anomalies and we are not to be relied on for sales, marketing, or otherwise. That's your job; you know, that thing that you get paid to do?


This is 'mature'?

They also need to wake up and realise that there's more than two types of gamer. The IGN Nintendo team (and others) have probably done more harm than they realise for peddling this hardcore/casual BS so aggressively; now developers and publishers are starting to believe it. There are games for old-timers, children, and soccer moms, and there are games for psychotic adolescents who just want to kill things in the most gruesome fashion possible. It's funny, because the terms came into popular use via the mainstream media to describe something they didn't really understand. Gaming journalists latched onto those terms because they didn't really understand nor expect the Wii's success (and still don't), and in the process have denied decades of genre diversity and envelope pushing. Okay, I promised I wouldn't discuss this at length so I'll leave that issue right there. The point is, that like in every other entertainment medium, every type of gamer should expect to be catered for, not beg to be catered for. If a game doesn't sell, it's not because x type of games don't sell on this system; it's because people didn't know about your game, you dolt!

[Aside: Hideo Kojima was just lamenting the lack of a comedy genre in gaming this week at GDC, and I think it's a very valid observation.]

Sega has taken a particularly long time to come to grips with this, which is funny, because they used to understand it. It's no coincidence that Sega's most successful console was the only one they advertised on television on a regular basis. They advertised their games regularly as well. They even made good Sonic games.


Panzer Dragoon Saga: The Greatest Game No-one Played.

If ever there was a Top 100 Greatest Games No-one Played, Sega would probably take out half the list. Shining Force III, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Burning Rangers, Jet Set Radio Future, Shenmue, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Virtua Fighter 2, 3, 4 & 5 - and that's me not even trying. The common denominator? No advertising, save for print ads in comic books and banners on websites. Talk about preaching to the converted! Sales, then, were entirely reliant on enthusiast press coverage and word-of-mouth. You know who else relies on the enthusiast press and word-of-mouth? Local rock bands with NO MONEY. And even they use flyers sometimes. There is NO EXCUSE for multi-million/billion dollar videogame publishers not to adequately advertise their product. It should never come down to the consumer at all - we're not disciples "spreading the Good News", and we're not 'Street Teams' for emo bands with bad hair. We're the customers, dammit. We pay for a videogame, [hopefully] enjoy it, and that's the end of it. Sure, there's nothing to stop us recommending it to someone, or showing it off to our friends, but when the marketing stops with us and not the publisher, then the publisher isn't doing their damn job.

The onus doesn't lie with the gamer to 'vote with their wallet' to ensure that they are catered for with future releases; the onus lies squarely with the publisher to ensure that the product they've spent thousands or even millions on becomes a profitable endeavour, and reaches the largest audience possible. When marketing duties fall to someone who's not even paid to market anything, then it's time to either fire your entire marketing division or get them off their asses and make them do something.

Things That Make You Go "Hmmm...": PETA Goes to War With Call of Duty.

Hmmm...

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have taken issue with yet another videogame. Surprise, surprise. And this time it isn't Cooking Mama. No-hoo, this time it's Call of Duty: World at War. I can feel your surprise increasing. PETA also apparently take issue with modern history, and seek to change it. So, all around, not so many surprises.

No, it isn't the slaughter of millions of soldiers that have got on PETA's goat, but rather those poor Nazi attack dogs. You know, the ones you receive as a bonus after getting seven kills in a row?

[Maybe you don't, in which case ur a n00b.]

Well, apparently shooting these crazy canines in self-defense (i.e. to prevent one's own virtual consumption) is cruelty to animals. Or maybe it was just the Nazis training the dogs to be flesh-eating psychos in the first place, I'm not quite sure. The reason I'm not sure is because PETA are up to their same old gimmicky nonsense again.

It all started when a group of Academy of Notre Dame students [is it wrong to imagine a posse of hunchbacked youths?] organised a petition to voice their displeasure. PETA, in their trademark arrogant and patronising tone, put together a 'care package' to send to Acti-Blizz. Consisting of copies of Nintendogs. Oh, and a free pass to their 'Developing Empathy for Animals' seminar.

I hope to God that the seminar is real, otherwise PETA have completely wasted their patrons' funding. They could be using the money to - I don't know - save real animals from abuse perhaps? I can already think of several more effective 'care packages' than the one they provided, one of which involves doing what most of them probably already do - coming home to greet the family dog with a friendly pat and a nice scratch behind the ears.


"Promote animal cruelty and we'll give you a free videogame!"

I'm not a historian or a World War II expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm *pretty* sure that ze Germans didn't pet or play frisbee with their murderous muts. Just a hunch. Thankfully PETA drew the line at burning the history books on a pire, because that would be too ironic.

It's not even like World at War was the first game to feature attack dogs. We've been committing virtual acts of killer dog cruelty since the dawn of the FPS genre: Wolfenstein 3D. If anyone's earned a free copy of Nintendogs, it's John Carmack - he practically invented the rulebook on killing killer canines.


Don't do it! You don't know what you've started!!


What do you think? Are we too cruel to animals in videogames? Or is it all about context? Who's up for a game of Pokemon?

Games Industry = Epic Fail.

In an interview with Gamasutra, Peter Molyneux reflected on an era of broken dreams and untapped potential.

"I would say, to a great extent, we in the development community have really let this industry down. Because I wouldn't say there were exponentially more people playing computer games today than there were when Game Developers Conference first started. Fifteen years ago? Twenty years ago? It's been quite a while.

When it seems to me that the number of people that use computer games as entertainment isn't getting exponentially bigger. Although the market is getting bigger, and we're selling eight million units.

But I've been really thinking about, I remember back in the early eighties... when Clive Sinclair in England released the Sinclair Spectrum.

And he famously said, "Every home in Britain will have one of these, and people won't watch television anymore, they will play computer games." That was a dream that was put forth in the seventies, when this thing had 1K of RAM -- and for a little while, we all believed that."

Strong words from Mr. Molyneux.

Despite its seniority, the Gaming Industry indeed remains infantile when compared to the other entertainment industries. The Wii's recent successes notwithstanding, videogames are still very much a niche industry, with very few mainstream standouts ['Wii Sports' and 'Wii Fit' are the only two that really spring to mind]. Compare that with the movie and music industries, both of which maintain a steady stream of major releases all year round, and it appears that Gaming has a long way to go.

The more I hear from Molyneux, the more I think he should be developing Wii games:

"Now, there seems to be this big barrier that exists. And I was actually just in the shops, down here -- I'd forgotten to bring a shirt -- and I was talking to the bloke who's selling me a shirt, and he said: "Aw, I don't play computer games. Because I'm not good enough. I can't get my head round this thing. [Molyneux holds up an Xbox 360 controller.] Every time I do it, I hit my head against a wall."

Too many characters, too many characters!!!

So he openly acknowledges that the X360 controller is alienating, and yet his Fable series appears exlusively on Xbox consoles. Obviously there's other reasons for these decisions [Lionhead is an in-house developer for starters], but ultimately I'm sure he could afford to leave and take his ideas with him.

"You know, I think you can already see that games are being made that are making inroads in [bridging casual and core games], but unfortunately, they're not quite as obvious. Maybe they are, when you think about it. Wii Sports is a huge step to bring casual gamers and hardcore players together."

Surprising comments for someone who once counted himself amongst the Wii's biggest detractors.


Do you agree with Mr. Molyneux? Is the Gaming Industry behind, a shadow of what it should be? Will Sinclair's vision ever be realised? Post your thoughts below.

'Fanboy' This, 'Fanboy' That: Gaming's New Apartheid.

It's not 'fanboys' themselves that I despise, but rather the use of the term in the first place. Every time I see *that word*, I shudder. It irks me, like fingernails running down a blackboard, or watching custard move. 

The reasons I hate the term 'fanboy':

• When did this ridiculous title first pop up?
When people got sick of calling other people 'biased'? Honestly, it feels like I just woke up one morning a year or two ago, hopped on the interwebs, and all of a sudden every gamer and his dog started calling other gamers 'fanboys' as a derogatory term.

• This in turn annoys me because it hails back to the times of apartheid,
where one would call their adult, male slave 'boy' to denote their apparent inferiority and standing in society. It also reminds me of the French, who address their waiters as garcon [translation: boy] when ordering a meal.

• It also annoys me that the word has an inherent gender,
suggesting that females can't be ardent fans of a particular console or console manufacturer (which I gather is what 'fanboy' ultimately means).

• The word is redundant.
Either you mean someone's a fan (derived from 'fanatic', duh!) of a particular console or console manufacturer, or you mean that they are biased towards a particular console or console manufacturer, and therefore their viewpoint on a particular game or gaming-related topic cannot be taken without a grain of salt.

• In what other arena of entertainment is being a fan considered a bad thing?
I can't think of any. The last time I remember being a fan of anything being a bad thing was when that Pantera fan killed 'Dimebag' Darrell or when that Beatles fan killed John Lennon. Okay, sometimes being a fan can be a bad thing, but there's nothing wrong with enjoying or admiring something. Perhaps it's only a bad thing when someone's admiration of something equates to an unreasonable hatred of another thing, say a side project or a solo career. In any case, it has to be pointed out that neither of these killers was called a 'fanboy', even though their love for their respective favourite bands led to the death of those bands' members. If they can get away with it, then that guy who said that Halo 3 was the best game of all time should get away with it too. He didn't kill anyone from Bungie (well, he might have killed Masterchief a few times, what with being a 'n00b' and all).

• It just plain sounds dumb, and it makes the people who use the word sound dumb as well.
It's like when people make that face (you know, that face) when they call someone a 'spastic' or a 'retard'. Didn't you used to think it made them look like a complete wanker, or at the very least, retarded (though I guess that was the point)? Well, that's what you sound like when you call someone a 'fanboy'. Take that!

But I'm not finished yet! The term 'hardcore gamer' is also a load of subjugating codswallop. It's a ridiculous elitist term coined by gamers to elevate themselves above the 'casual gamers', 'fanboys' and the 'n00bs'. It would be like a movie buff calling themselves a 'hardcore movie buff' to separate themselves from movie buffs that clearly don't watch enough movies [not 'buff enuff']. People who see movies once in a blue moon don't call themselves 'casual movie buffs' now, do they? Then why the hell would someone who plays a videogame here and there call themselves a 'casual gamer'?! Chances are, if you're reading this blog, then you are a gamer.

Now that we've established that *the word* actually means 'fan', and that 'hardcore gamer' actually means 'gamer', we can all stop using them. Right?

The Rising Sun's Reflection in the Mirror's Edge.

***Before I begin, please set your Irony Detectors to 'ON'.***


Apparently, the Japanese are none too fond of Mirror's Edge protagonist, Faith. So much so, in fact, that Japanese Kotaku reader Torokun reworked her (pictured right):

Don't forget the nipple show-through!

The mammary augmenter himself puts up a decent case for a character model re-design:

Torokun posted:

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"There is always a huge complaint from Asian gamers whenever Western developers design Asian female characters. This is mainly because many Westerners' definition of what is considered as 'Asian' beauty is very different from what Asians consider beautiful."

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Fair enough, though I would argue that everyone loves big eyes (see Mickey Mouse, Mario) and large breasts (see Pamela Anderson, Dead or Alive).

Anyway, so Kotaku post the image, Japanese game site Game*Spark go to the trouble of translating the comments and quoting them, and we now have what appears to be an Intercontinental Flame War [I've always wanted to say that!] on our hands. Check out the Japanese responses to the original Faith design:

"There's no way Japanese would accept a face like that."

"That woman is extremely homely."

"Not sure if moe-style is necessary, but that original face is awful."

"She's totally flat."

"I kinda like the character. I don't think Asian equals ugly."

"**** off Asian beauty!"

"Man, the Mirror's Edge protagonist is way creepy... It's like some Asian female stereotype."

"The eyes are way too Asian."

"Everyone knows Western female game characters are ugly."

"That face makes her look 40 years old."

"For Westerners, there's not much difference between the faces that eat kimchi and the faces that eat soy sauce."

"The original is better looking."

"Slant eyes for Asians is the same as big lips for black people."

"If you really sit and think about it, in America, Lucy Liu is an angel, right?"

"Who cares about this one game person's opinion."

"But foreigners think slant eyes are sexy."

"Americans like aggressive faces?"

"Well, Japanese people have the stereotype that Americans are fat, bald and clumsy. It's the same."

So apparently Westerners like Asians that look like...Asians, and Asians like Asians that look like Westerners...

...

...

***You may now return your Irony Detectors to the 'OFF' position.***

Wii Sports: As Good As It Gets?

I could spend an entire blog post arguing the merits of Wii Sports as the Wii's best game, but I won't.

Best. Game. Ever.

crazed_ninty_fanboi3000 posted:

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"OMFG WTF?! Did teh_red_baron just say Wii Sports is teh best Wii gamez?! LAFF! 'Sif!"

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In many ways, it is. From the point of view that its motion controls are unparalleled on the Wii thus far; it's accessible to almost anybody due to its intuitive control; it sells systems; and it is a compendium of pure, unadulterated fun.

With the release of Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 and its subsequent praise from IGN, it struck me that despite Wii Sports' clear demonstration of the Wii's control possibilities and its sporting chops, we are yet to see a sporting title, nay, a title proper that rivals its IR implementation and motion control. The Wii has tennis games, bowling games, and boxing games in their own right, and yet none of them come close to matching the precision control or feel of any one segment of Wii Sports.

That to me is a disgrace, but it all comes back to one central issue: developers don't know how to implement IR and motion controls.

Look at the finest examples of Wii controls: Wii Sports, WarioWare, and Metroid Prime 3. They're all first party Nintendo titles. I think the onus is on Nintendo to encourage the effective use of the Wii's control possibilities - it's supposed to be the defining aspect of the console, and they're allowing it to be passed over.


Disrespect for the elderly? More please!



Is Wii Sports as good as it gets? Are you excited about the future of sporting on Wii? Who's doing it right and who needs to get their act together?