Tag Archives | Gaming

What’s Really Wrong With Bioshock 2’s Disc-Free DLC

Posted by Jared Newman on March 15, 2010 at 7:17 pm

A funny thing happened when players of Bioshock 2 began downloading a $5 package of downloadable content: They realized there wasn’t very much to download at all.

Turns out, most of the “Sinclair Solutions‘ content pack — a collection of characters, abilities and challenges for the game’s multiplayer component — was already on the disc. A community manager for publisher 2K Games confirmed that its customers were basically buying an unlock code. She explained that if the content wasn’t included on the disc, players who bought the DLC wouldn’t be able to play with people who didn’t.

Outrage in this situation easily turns to the obvious. If the content already there, why is 2K charging for it? It would be a valid question if downloadable content wasn’t already sandwiched against new releases, but publishers are increasingly relying on these optional extras to boost profits (for example, last year’s versus mode for Resident Evil 5 or the Warden’s Keep dungeon in Dragon Age: Origins). Not enough people voted against these extras with their wallets, and the rest of us lost the battle. Whether the disc actually holds the content is academic if it’s all being released at the same time.

I propose a different question: Why is 2K withholding a portion of the multiplayer that lets players progress further in the game? Among the pseudo-DLC’s contents, you get the ability to reach level 50, new ways to evolve your weapons and extra trials that give you more powers. It’s the multiplayer equivalent of stopping players before the last level of a game and making them pay $5 to see the conclusion.

I know, multiplayer isn’t plot-driven, and there’s no ending whether you buy the extra content or not. But it feels cheap to hit a ceiling in multiplayer that goes away if you pay up, especially considering that 2K didn’t announce this little trick until after the game was released.

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Xbox 360 Games on Your iPhone? Yes. But Not From Microsoft

Posted by David Worthington on March 12, 2010 at 4:41 pm

On Monday, Novell will demonstrate new technology that will allow Microsoft Xbox 360 games to be translated into iPhone apps. It also has the capability to be used to create Android games, potentially taking some Xbox games to the mobile masses.

Novell, a Microsoft frenemy, is making it possible for you to play Xbox games on other devices now, while Microsoft, which created the platform, will leave you waiting for Windows Phone 7 handsets, due late this year. For whatever reason, Microsoft has chosen to be less than aggressive in supporting two extremely popular smartphone platforms despite obvious consumer demand.

It is worth noting that Microsoft has partnered with Nokia to port Silverlight, a .NET technology, to Symbian phones. But there has been no word about porting Xbox games to Symbian. Thankfully, the Mono team has taken up the slack where Microsoft decides it isn’t going to play.

The iPhone app that Novell created is an open source derivative of an Indiana Jones games that Microsoft is showing off running on Windows, Windows Phone and Xbox. The game is built using Microsoft’s XNA framework, which is based upon its .NET Framework.

Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 will run XNA 4.0 games, enabling developers of those games to reuse their investment and programming skills for Windows Phone handsets.

Novell is supporting XNA in its MonoTouch technology, which enables developers to translate .NET applications into native code on the iPhone. It has also done something similar for Android, but that solution is in its early stages of development (rumor is Microsoft may be porting Silverlight). Who wants to wager that Novell will bring Xbox games to Android before Microsoft finishes Windows Phone 7?

Interestingly, Microsoft supports the Mono effort. I can vouch that it has a strong relationship with the Mono team, and it views Mono as an insurance policy to protect customers’ .NET and Silverlight investments. Does Novell benefit from that arrangement? Sure. It’s like Microsoft’s pilot fish; it gets the business that Microsoft doesn’t want.

However, Microsoft is losing developer mind share as more and more apps are created specifically for Android and iPhone. Will a broad library of indy Xbox games be enough to differentiate Windows Phone from the rest of the pack? That remains to be seen – we’re not talking Halo.

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OnLive’s Cost Still Looks Like a Sticking Point

Posted by Jared Newman on March 11, 2010 at 6:15 pm

Now that OnLive has finally revealed some pricing details, the cloud gaming service is looking more than ever like a dubious proposition.

OnLive will cost $15 per month when it launches on June 17, but that price won’t let you play any full games. You’ll still have to rent or purchase games to stream to your computer in addition to the monthly charge, at prices that are still undisclosed. Even if it costs less to rent or play a game — and it probably will, given that OnLive promises lower distribution costs compared to retail — OnLive will have a tough time competing with actual hardware for all but the most dedicated gamers.

Let’s say you spend $300 on a new console every five years. That’s $5 per month, already less than a subscription to OnLive. Now, let’s say you buy one new game every two months, at $60 each (a very generous estimate given that average game ownership per console hovered around six games after 24 months in this generation ), you’re basically spending $35 every month. That means publishers have to charge $40 or less for a game through OnLive (which makes $70 every two months when you add in the subscription) to make the proposition worthwhile.

Even if publishers are willing to go that low, the consumer is making concessions. Yes, you get instant gratification and the ability to play anywhere, but you lose the ability to buy, trade or sell used games, and there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to play what you bought 10 years from now. If OnLive goes belly up, so does your entire game library. And I wonder, if you decide to stop playing games for a year or two (say, you’re raising a baby), can you recover your library when you’re ready to start playing again?

The prospect of game rentals raises more questions. How much will an OnLive rental cost and how long will it last? In other words, how long do you have to rent a game before it becomes more feasible to “buy” it? Will the amount you spent on the rental be credited towards the purchase price?

I’m still willing to give OnLive the benefit of the doubt that its technology will work (despite one rogue report), and that cloud gaming itself isn’t a bad idea. But on pricing alone it’s too early to call OnLive a console killer.

Article updated to fix calculations.

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Playstation Move: Motion Control for Whom?

Posted by Jared Newman on March 11, 2010 at 9:22 am

For too long this morning, I’ve been trying to think of something pithy to write about the Playstation Move, Sony’s newly-unveiled motion controller for the PS3. But aside from the facts — it’ll be out later this year, for $100 including one controller and a camera that tracks the controller’s movement — all I can spit out are conflicted opinions.

I’m somewhat excited for the Move, if only because it’s a more sophisticated version of Nintendo’s Wii, with its wand-shaped, button-laden controllers. The difference is that the Move uses an existing product, the Playstation Eye, to track the controller’s motion along three dimensions. This allows you to step closer or farther from the table in virtual ping pong, or make 360-degree turns in real space.

Cool technology, for sure, but is it a cohesive vision for motion control, or a half-hearted attempt to capture the so-called casual gamer? I can’t tell yet.

Take the games, for example. There’s the requisite Wii Sports Resort clone, but with more realistic graphics. There’s an on-rails shooter, but with a playful, arcade look and feel. There’s a pet-training game for children, but there’s also the military shooter SOCOM 4. Instead of showing off a killer app, Sony’s throwing pasta at the wall, hoping to find a target audience that sticks.

The Move has a controller issue as well. Some games will require you to wield two motion controller wands, while others will use a Wii Nunchuk-like secondary controller, with an analog stick. That means even if you’re playing solo, you’ll need three controllers for every possible scenario. It’s confusing, and it escalates the cost well beyond $100. Can this kind of set-up compete with the $200 Wii? Doubtful.

I think the issue is that Sony’s still in tech demo mode. I’m sold on the technology, but not on the product. This early look at the Move suggests that Sony wants to create both a Wii Sports killer and a Halo killer with motion control, but so far we’ve seen a controller that does neither.

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Valve Gives Mac Gaming a Boost

Posted by Jared Newman on March 9, 2010 at 5:04 pm

Some serious PC gaming is about to come to Macs, with Valve announcing that its Steam platform will support Apple computers in April.

Valve says it’ll treat the Mac as a “tier-1” platform, meaning that its games and all updates will be released simultaneously for Windows and Mac. A new feature called Steam Play will let people play the same game on a Windows PC and a Mac for no added cost, with saved games transferring between computers.

Valve’s a heavy hitter in PC gaming, with iconic first-person shooters such as Half-Life, Counter-Strike and Left 4 Dead. And Steam, a platform for digital game downloads and online play, has 25 million members. That number will soon inflate with Mac support, and there’s a good chance other game developer will give Mac ports more serious consideration; DICE, the maker of recent blockbuster Battlefield: Bad Company 2, is already mulling a Mac version.

Why now? Thanks to Wikipedia, I found this 2007 Kiziko interview with Valve co-founder Gabe Newell, in which he explains that Apple never seemed particularly interested in gaming. “I just don’t think they’ve ever taken gaming seriously,” he said. “And none of the things developers ask them to do are done. And as a result, there’s no gaming market there to speak of.”

Apple has since made a few moves that show the company no longer ignores gaming. Indeed, the iPhone has proven that games are a lucrative market, so why not give the personal computer some love? Newell didn’t elaborate in the Kiziko interview what he wanted from Apple, but I’ll wager that Apple has addressed Valve’s concerns. Given the way Valve teased its announcement of Steam for Mac, it seems there’s a lot of love going around. Nothing wrong with that.

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Sony Phone and Tablet Will Take on Microsoft, Too

Posted by Jared Newman on March 4, 2010 at 5:57 pm

Sony’s got big plans for the Playstation brand, reports the Wall Street Journal, whose anonymous sources say a phone and tablet that run Playstation games are in development.

The prevailing thought is that these devices will compete with Apple’s iPhone and iPad, but that seems too obvious. All high-end smartphones and tablets are competing with the iPhone and iPad to some extent. The main target here is Microsoft and the Xbox brand, or at least it should be.

When Microsoft announced Windows Phone 7 Series, the gamer in me loved hearing that Xbox Live would play a role. We’re short on details, but Microsoft has at least confirmed that its WinPho7 phones will play some Xbox Live games. Depending on how Microsoft plays it, this could be the company’s first major foray into portable video games.

Meanwhile, Sony has repeatedly insisted that Apple isn’t a gaming competitor, as if iPhones exist in some bizarro market that isn’t stealing Sony’s business. It’s a hollow argument, but one that I’ve already refuted to death. If I was a Sony executive, I’d at least be worried about Microsoft.

To put all this another way, there’s a good chance the console wars will spill over to mobile phones, and that’s a good thing for gamers. It’s about time Sony’s gaming division and Sony Ericsson stopped pretending the other one exists (I know, the Sony Ericsson Aino has PS3 remote play, but not for games).

Just one question: If Sony’s planning on bringing Playstation games to a tablet and smartphone, what does that mean for sweet, sweet buttons?

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Modern Warfare to Become a Litigious Mess

Posted by Jared Newman on March 3, 2010 at 10:01 pm

Some really strange things happened this week between Call of Duty publisher Activision and Infinity Ward, the studio that created the franchise and developed last year’s blockbuster Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

Long story short: The studio’s two heads, Jason West and Vince Zampella were abruptly fired for “breaches of contract and insubordination,” according to an SEC filing. Shortly thereafter, Activision announced that one of its internal studios, Sledgehammer Games, would be making a Call of Duty game for 2011. Infinity Ward developed the last two Call of Duty games released in odd-numbered years.

It makes for high drama, but it’s mostly inside baseball. Things just got interesting, however, with the announcement of a lawsuit from West and Zampella against Activision. In addition to seeking compensation for royalties Activision allegedly owes, the former Infinity Ward heads are looking for control over “Modern Warfare-branded games,” reports G4’s Patrick Klepek.

If West and Zampella prevail, think of the implications. Activision’s already releasing Call of Duty games annually, alternating between studios to keep things fresh. Modern Warfare, as its own franchise, could theoretically become its own franchise and sit next to Call of Duty on store shelves. You could get three games with the same DNA in a two-year span (and somehow I don’t think gamers will get tired of this).

The funny thing is, last year I wildly predicted that a full Modern Warfare spinoff was conceivable. Of course I had no idea it might happen through messy internal politics and lawsuits.

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Nintendo DSi XL Will Be an E-Reader, Too

Posted by Jared Newman on February 25, 2010 at 5:29 pm

Nintendo’s DSi XL will double as an e-reader soon after it launches next month, though it won’t have anything close to the book selection of Amazon’s Kindle or Barnes & Noble’s Nook.

The DSi XL, a chunkier, larger-screened version of Nintendo’s wildly popular gaming device, goes on sale in the United States on March 28 for $190. The “100 Classic Books” collection, which includes classic public domain works from William Shakespeare, Mark Twain and others, will be available in June, Bloomberg reports.

Sound familiar? That’s because Nintendo already released the books-on-a-cartridge to the United Kingdom in December 2008. I’m not sure why it took so long for the collection to come stateside, but reading the books on the DSi XL, with its 4.2-inch screens, sounds more pleasurable compared to the original DS and DSi, which had 3-inch and 3.25-inch screens respectively. And despite the growing competition among e-readers, Nintendo’s device could be the most book-like, with two displays that you can hold up side-by-side.

Nintendo’s sales and marketing vice president Cammie Dunaway told Bloomberg that the company’s not trying to get a piece of the e-reader market. Let’s face it, without a cloud book store or the promise of weeks-long battery life, the DSi’s not equipped to do so anyway.

But I do think publishers would be wise to start bundling books onto DSi cartridges. Imagine the entire Harry Potter series on one cartridge — what a great gift that aunts and uncles who clueless about video games can give to their niece or nephew who has a DSi. As Dunaway said, “It’s just one more way to enjoy your device.” It shouldn’t start and end with the public domain.

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Calling it: The Holiday Game Glut is Dead

Posted by Jared Newman on February 24, 2010 at 4:29 pm

It’s finally happening. This year, the most promising video games won’t be held for the holiday shopping season, as they have been for as long as I can remember. Instead, noteworthy game launches are scattered throughout the year, giving us things to play in the spring, summer and fall, and it’s wonderful.

This dawned on me today after hearing that Nintendo will launch two of its biggest releases in the next few months. Super Mario Galaxy 2 got a May 23 release date, and Metroid Other M will launch on June 27.

It’s not that blockbuster games are never released in the spring and summer; Grand Theft Auto IV came out in April 2008, as did Mario Kart Wii, and Wii Sports Resort launched last July. But as I look over release dates for 2010’s noteworthy games, the majority will arrive between now and the end of June. That’s not including all the games released already this year, such as Mass Effect 2, Bioshock 2, Heavy Rain and Dante’s Inferno — several of those are merely the result of a 2009 holiday season abandoned by publishers.

Here’s a short list of games that will arrive before the end of June, not including Nintendo’s two sluggers: God of War III, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Super Street Fighter IV, Splinter Cell: Conviction, Lost Planet 2, Alan Wake, Max Payne 3, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, Skate 3, Singularity and Alpha Protocol. Move out to September, and you’ve got Civilization V and Brink. It’s possible that Halo Reach, scheduled for a fall release, could arrive in September as well, seeing as Halo 3 and Halo 3: ODST had September launches.

Some things won’t change. July and August are still dry, but there will be such a backlog from May and June that it won’t matter. And I doubt the 2010 holiday gaming season will be dead, with Microsoft and Sony releasing motion control devices. But perhaps publishers are realizing that games are a year-round hobby, not just a toy for the kids on Christmas morning. I hope the strategy works out financially, so the cycle holiday gaming overload is broken for good.

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Redux and Boxee Make Hours of Uninterrupted Randomness

Posted by Jared Newman on February 23, 2010 at 4:48 pm

Could you sit on your couch and watch a steady stream of randomly-selected videos from YouTube and other sites? Redux hopes so, bringing its service to television through Boxee’s software for set-top boxes.

I hadn’t heard of Redux before its Boxee partnership was announced today, but it seems destined for the television. You set up an account and select from a list of interests, such as humor, art or video games, and Redux automatically creates a playlist, letting you sit back and watch without hunting for new clips. You can also follow like-minded people through the service — or sync with people you already follow on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace — to see what they’re watching.

It’s easy to see Redux’s disposable entertainment as something to play in the background at a party or after stumbling back from the bar — things like the Toronto Raptors’ mascot swallowing a cheerleader, a random fight on a bus, or an epic steel drum solo. At a computer I wouldn’t necessarily need these videos chosen for me, but from the couch it could be fun to turn on Redux and let the user-made content come to you.

There are some things I wish were different about the service. I personally don’t like the user comments that pop up when watching a popular video, so it’d be great if you could toggle them off. And because I don’t have a set-top that supports Boxee, I’d like to see Redux on other set-tops, Blu-ray players, game consoles or televisions. I’m told both of those gripes will be addressed in the future.

Redux, however, doesn’t plan to add premium content, which is a shame. I can understand that the service is all about people sharing videos made by other people, but I’d love to see Redux apply its brand of serendipity to TV shows and movies. There’s only so much user-made content I can take now matter how it’s delivered.

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