Food For Thought

"Instead of making games that immediately make sense to everyone and everyone agrees about, it would be better to have dimensions to games that cannot easily be explained. That's the kind of game that people remember ten or fifteen years down the road. There were more of those games during the Super Nintendo era compared with today."

-- Hiroki Kikuta, Composer, Square-Enix (Secret of Mana, Concerto Gate)

Not Now, Honey, I'm Exploring

So, I've been playing Shadow Complex -- since we touched on the controversy some have raised around the game, I feel obligated to disclose I had a code for it. For whatever it's worth, I would have purchased it anyway.

Snafu aside, I like it all right. "Metroidvania" style is one of my all-time favorites -- I play Symphony of the Night several times a year, for example, and given how engrossing that core style is, I don't mind much that it's "ripping off" Super Metroid.

Two issues, though -- not especially fond of the aiming. If I can't use the Z-axis, why should I have to try to target enemies that are further "back" than I am? Sometimes, it doesn't seem to work very well. Of course, given that you've got unlimited ammo and enemy soldiers generally go down easy, it's not a major obstacle, but I like feeling precise.

The larger issue for me is one of plot and tone. This particular style of design encourages the player to experiment and explore, so I absolutely love that resources are either unlimited or easily replenished, and that thus far I haven't encountered any time-limited events (hopefully there aren't any).

I also think it's interesting to see the genre wrapped in distinctly Western military sci-fi as opposed to the more fantastic environments to which we're accustomed even with Metroid -- even though it's long been my position that video games have more than enough steel gray helmets-and-guns stories.

But these supporting elements stand in direct contrast with the game design. Granted, I'm only a few hours into the game, but the dichotomy is already jumping out at me: Your girlfriend's being dragged away for advanced torture into a helicopter that is about to take off, and you...

...Decide to go and search for more stuff?

Like, really, the mission objective practically SHOUTS at you, BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE, and you're just like, "huh, I wonder if there are any gold bars hidden in this weird underground complex." Uh, okay?

The cut scenes attempt to convey a sense of urgency -- take the most direct route to solve an immediate crisis -- and yet the gameplay requires precisely the opposite mindset. If the player chooses to engage with the plot, the gameplay feels weird, and if they go the other way 'round, as most will, the plot becomes even more goofy and cliche than it already is.

None of the things I'm pointing out are dealbreakers. I'm still enjoying the game so far. And I do think it's possible to wrap this genre with an appropriate story and atmosphere -- I hope Shadow Complex sells well, and proves that there's still a strong demand for this style of gameplay. I'd like to see some more original, modern takes on it come out of its success.

A Complex Shadow

A notable constituency of the gaming community online has taken issue with Shadow Complex because of the involvement of author Orson Scott Card, publicly an opponent of gay rights. As excited as they are about Shadow Complex, many gamers are hesitant to spend their money in a way that would benefit someone whose political viewpoints offend them -- regardless of your personal stance on such issues, the unwillingness to reward a person who actively opposes something important to you is understandable.

Wanted to point your attention to an excellent, reasoned editorial by my Gamasutra colleague Christian Nutt, analyzing the internet protests. It makes me think -- as someone who believes games have only scratched the surface of their potential for social relevance, I'd surely like to see more creators express themselves on important issues through the art of games.

Of course, there is to my knowledge absolutely no political sentiment, anti-gay or otherwise, within Shadow Complex. But my strong feeling that art should authentically express the artist certainly comes under the microscope when I'm confronted with a situation where I don't much like the creator.

Every time the world of games comes up against real-world social issues, it's always a little tricky to navigate. "It's only a game" didn't work well at all for things like Six Days in Fallujah or the race questions raised by Resident Evil 5, for example. I like the comment on Christian's article which says "'It's Just a Game' is a very intricate logical fallacy used by gamers that don't want to grow up."

Regardless of a game's content, would you support a title if it had the involvement of someone whose views or actions in the real world violated your personal morals? Is it really possible to fully separate a product from its producer, even when there's no agenda in the content?

Fight!

Back In The Day, were you team Mortal Kombat or team Street Fighter?

Personally, I was an MK kid. I loved the gore (maybe a little too much), and I've never been patient enough for the precision required to be even passable at Street Fighter. Lord, to this day I can hardly even do a hadouken. I've been playing a bit of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 lately and the results are embarrassing.

Either way, though, when you think about it, that fighting brand rivalry was nearly as big as Mario-versus-Sonic (I was Sonic Team, in case you're wondering). But the genre in general largely fell off over the years with the decline of arcades, and except for a couple good brands -- Soulcalibur and possibly Virtua Fighter, essentially* -- the arcade-fighter heyday seemed basically over.

Now a few things have happened that stand to change that. Connected consoles mean we no longer need arcades to square off. And now that Warner Bros. has bought up Midway primarily for Mortal Kombat, it's a good bet we could see "Fatality" return to the common lexicon once more.

Of course, Capcom brought it in style with Street Fighter IV last year, and the publisher has up til now faced few, if any obstacles in the way of cornering the traditional fighting game market in the West. I wondered how the company would feel about the return of Mortal Kombat, and so I asked 'em.

Turns out they're more than ready for MK to bring it on. Capcom's Chris Kramer talked to me about the evolution and dynamics of arcade fighting franchises over the years, and he says a return to the rivalries and richness we remember from our arcade-fueled younger days would be a good thing for the genre, the industry and gamers alike. Check out the article!

Not included in the story, but cute: Kramer says that when Capcom developers and staff attend EVO tournament finals, they're often encouraged by fans and attendees to show off their skills at Street Fighter -- having developed it, they ought to know its ins and outs well enough to give the tournament fighters a run for their money, right? Not so.

"You dont generally see Capcom staff playing in public," Kramer told me (he was trying to make me feel better for my admitted barely-remedial SF skillz). "Everyone's like 'where's Seth [Killian]? I don't want to make this game look bad.'"

[*there's always gonna be that guy who leaves a comment about HOW CAN I NEGLECT all the AMAZING LAST-GEN FIGHTERS blah blah. i'd like to tell that guy to cool his jets for today.]

Divestiture

Today your favorite retailer -- or, especially in the U.S., the retailer you really have no choice but to frequent -- GameStop announced its second-quarter financial results, and the company's feeling the pinch of the crummy summer the games biz is having.

Don't worry about GameStop, though. Like, ever. The profit margin they make on used games gets up to 50 percent when all is normal, and even though this is one of the worst summers the industry's seen in years in terms of NPD declines, it's still the second-best quarter ever for GameStop.

Which makes me think a lot about used game sales -- I even sell things periodically, usually because I need cigarette money [srsly ten bux a pack in new york, lame]. I should probably just trade my next round of trade-ins for My Stop Smoking Coach.

I've never sold a piece of hardware in my life, but a few weeks ago I got rid the PSP-3000 -- I got very little use out of it in general and am eager to upgrade to the UMD-less PSP Go. It felt strange, as if even with a perfectly rational reason to divest myself, it sort of violated my natural reflex. I had a pang of wanting to clutch it back when I saw that Piano Black pass across the countertop.

Are you guys big re-sellers? If so, do you use GameStop or something that won't, um, rip you off? What I'm most interested in is this: how do you determine what you're going to trade in or keep?

It's Hardware Time!

I've been asking you guys to vote in the sidebar poll on whether you think the PS3 price cut will be a game-changer for the console war. If you want to know what the pro analysts think in terms of market effects and options for Sony's rivals, I've gathered up their perspectives over at Gamasutra today -- give it a look if you like that kind of thing.

The standout there is that they all seem to think it's Nintendo who has the most to fear from current market pricing trends. Guess we'll see, huh?

Following the announcement, I talked to Sony yesterday, too, about why 30 percent is the big number for the PS3 Slim in more ways than one. And now, up today is the portion of my interview in which the company denies it's angling for iPhone marketshare with the PSP Go's planned 'Mini' titles.

If you're skeptical of that, I am too [s'like, come on!] -- however, one can hardly blame Sony for wanting to avoid giving the impression it's publicly squaring off against the explosive iPhone. And there are, as the company says, plenty of alternate aims for the device that are not within the iPhone's jurisdiction.

I'm a pretty heavy iPhone user, though only a dabbler in iPhone gaming. I'm very excited about the PSP Go, actually -- I hated UMDs from the get-go, found the PSP too heavy and not portable enough even in the slimmed version, and only rarely found something in its software library worth giving the system regular use over.

But ever since I got my hands on the PSP Go at E3, I concede my sentiments are approaching outright gadget-lust -- that I've come to rely so heavily on iPhone as a lifestyle product seems to mean a device like PSP Go fits into my life better, and that correlation, at least, is something Sony is consciously capitalizing on. How do you feel about it?

The past 24 hours have been The Sony Channel for most media outlets, thanks to this long-anticipated and pretty big pricing news. Given that, it seems like bad timing for me to call attention to some Game Informer stats making the rounds -- the mag did a survey and calculated that an unsettling 54.2 percent of Xbox 360 owners have had a Red Ring. Does that stat sound plausible to you? With all due respect to Game Informer staff, I'll just go ahead and quote one of my Twitter friends -- it's "hardly Consumer Reports," after all.

So to keep it all nice and balanced-like, I'd like to direct your attention to a really fun interview late last week I got to do with former Microsoft VP of game publishing Ed Fries. He talks about his time overseeing the games division's transition from basically nothing but PC flight sims into the full-scale hardware/software house we know and love today, and it's a fascinating story.

My favorite parts of the interview are where Fries explains how the console got its name, the revelation that Microsoft never thought Halo was going to be particularly big nor iconic for the platform, and how candid he is about the amount of stress involved in working on the high-stakes front lines of the platform wars. Please do give it a read!

Bonus material!!!111 Get sexy PSP-tan wallpaper here. Get adorable PSP-tan wallpaper here. More console-tans than you can shake a stick at here.

So, PS3 Slim Is Officially Here...

For $299. Personally, my prediction was that the rumors were too good to be true, and that the best we could expect was perhaps a lower-priced bundle for the main SKU, with the introducton of the Slim as a somehow less-capable alternate SKU (think of how well the Arcade model has worked out for Microsoft!)

But I was wrong, since Sony has reduced its manufacturing build costs 70 percent and unveiled a smaller, cheaper PS3 at last -- with no catch. True fact!

So of course, the important question is this: If you are not a PS3 owner, will this do ya? Vote in the sidebar poll! Get your friends to vote, too! And feel free to discuss in comments or in the Shoutmix chat box also on your right.

Wilting The Evergreen

"'Growing out' of Nintendo is an entirely understandable sentiment. Blaming them for it, however, is not."

So writes commenter juxtapixel on last week's post, and I've got to agree. I've long been a little bit baffled at the never-ending knell for a traitor that audiences have rung for Nintendo pretty much ever since the beginning of the Wii generation (see also 'What Can Nintendo Say That Will Impress You', 'The Curse Of The Gifted Child', and Wii Music, Coda).

But, okay -- I, too, will cop to an initial, reflexive sense of betrayal at Nintendo's new market strategy (I sheepishly dredge up 'Nintendo Rolls On Us', from 2007).

I got over that, though. Mostly. A lot of the persistent dissatisfaction heavy gamers express toward -- well, everything -- has a lot to do with rose-colored lenses, in my opinion. Not realizing we're simply growing up, we cling to this vague idea that games were better at some nebulous point in history. News flash! The entire world was way cooler when we were children (which is why I've done so much writing on nostalgia and childhood imagination lately).

We have rigid quality expectations today where one design flaw is a total dealbreaker, when as kids we played and adored far more broken things (which is why I was frustrated with what I perceived to be an arbitrary critical/audience response to games like Mirror's Edge and Silent Hill Homecoming).

So have we been blaming Nintendo for ditching us when it's in fact we who've changed?

I think the answer to that one is 'only somewhat.' After all, we all liked Mario Galaxy (pretty much). Smash Bros Brawl sold so well last year that it's making us look bad this year (that I kinda dislike that game has nothing to do with Nintendo). We all want a new Zelda. No, like, a real one.

And while you could argue that the business initiatives on Nintendo's part that seem unfamiliar to us now are just the modern era's incarnation of the innovation it's always pioneered, that's a flawed argument.

After all, if Nintendo's always been successfully reaching the mainstream and changing the definition of "video game" like it does with Wii Fit and Wii Sports Resort, "we" wouldn't have stayed a niche for so long.

But Wii sales are on the decline. Is it because everyone who wants one already has one? Is it because of the economy? Is it because Wii Sports, Wii Fit and Wii-mote waggle really were a "fad," as many suggested would turn out to be the case?

As we discuss our sentiments toward Wii (did you vote in the sidebar yet? Please?) and Nintendo's evolving market position -- and as our industry hardware sales languish in an alarming Summer slump -- it's worth asking.

Satoru Iwata has a perfectly logical explanation today, though. Nintendo's biggest head-scratchers from last year, Animal Crossing: City Folk and the misstep that is Wii Music, just were not the mega-sensations the company thought they'd be. Had those titles, which released in the second part of 2008, sold as well as that year's first-half hits, Mario Kart Wii and Wii Fit, Nintendo reasons that Wii sales would still be going strong. Iwata says it'll get it right this year, expecting Wii Sports Resort, Wii Fit Plus and New Super Mario Bros each to sell 10 million units globally in the fiscal year.

The company relies on what it often calls "evergreen" titles to keep selling and sustain hardware growth for month, even years, and City Folk and Wii Music shed their needles unexpectedly soon. Why do you think that was?

By the way, Iwata also admits that the E3 presentation was a little bit off (the Vitality Sensor was referred, with scornful bemusement, as "Wii Tampon" all over the show floor that week). This shows that Nintendo's at least aware it has a communication disconnect sometimes, in terms of helping audiences "get" what it is it's trying to do at any given time.

***promise i'm not starting a trend of abusing parentheticals, forgive this temporary anomoly, love ya

Wii On The Brain

[These Wii Remote-tans are sleeping, just like mine.]

So I still haven't played Little King's Story, and this is because I am too lazy to fiddle around with my Wii remotes and figure out why the pointers won't synch up to my sensor bar anymore. I'm annoyed, because I know what I'm missing.

It's been a while since I spent much time with my Wii to play anything besides my usual ritualistic zone-outs to Super Mario World, and I was hoping that this was the game that would renovate my fondness for Cute Little White, after I developed waggle fatigue and a lapse in patience for anything that wouldn't let me just sit still and push buttons.

But I think of Wii a lot, especially since it's become such a watchword to investors in those companies whose business I cover daily at Gamasutra. For example, EA in particular has invested heavily in Wii strategy; if you're an EA investor, wanting the publisher to grow its marketshare on the platform with the largest userbase is a reasonable desire.

And it's been successful; EA announced its EA Sports Active has sold 1.8 million copies since it launched in mid-May (you'll recall I meant to try that one, too, honestly -- but nope, tired of messing with Wii) and that its marketshare on Nintendo's platform is at a new high. In the UK specifically, the publisher's Wii titles like Tiger Woods and Harry Potter had the charts on lock for a while.

The primary complaint against Wii was that only first-party titles were successful on the platform; I'd argue that EA's been the company to prove in the biggest way that this isn't necessarily the case. Other companies are making strides, too -- you can bet Activision's just-announced Call of Duty 4 for Wii will sell well.

Or can you? Is it conceivable that CoD4 on Wii will only do about as well as, say, GTA: Chinatown Wars on DS? Which is to say with surprising modesty, given how those franchises rake it in on other platforms. What kind of games sell very well on Wii? Besides Nintendo's crown franchises, it's fitness and sports games, and that's usually about it.

And, y'know, that makes a ton of sense. It's a console that requires you to

move your body to play, so why shouldn't its bestsellers be those kinds of games? It just means that Wii is not the kind of game console we're used to -- and that it's heavily outsold core market hardware says a lot about our shifting audience.

That's why I polled you guys about how you're feeling towards Wii these days (right hand sidebar, vote vote vote!!) if you're reading this site, you're probably closer to a core gamer than not, even if you enjoy Wii's casual and physical fare too. It's really splintered away from the rest of the market into a product that's no longer "for" us, hasn't it?

You guys know I'm a huge fan of the Harvest Moon games, and the creator of that franchise, Yasuhiro Wada, is now in an exec role at publisher Marvelous. When you look at the games Marvelous does -- Harvest Moon, the upcoming Vanillaware gem Muramasa, and yes, my longed-for Little King's Story, you'd think they had the ideal recipe: family-friendly, universally-appealing themes with enough depth and gameplay sophistication to attract and sustain core players (Nintendo's own Pokemon is such a megafranchise thanks to similar traits).

You'd think if any game could bridge the schism between the Wii and "gamers", it'd be Marvelous'. But I bring this up to point you to an interview we recently did with Wada, wherein he highlights the challenges of being core-oriented on Wii. His thoughts make an interesting read.

How about you guys? Think there's a place for successful core market titles on the Wii (that do not have Mario, Zelda or Metroid in the title)?

So while I procrastinate mucking with re-syncing Wiimotes or lighting pairs of candles or whatever, I've been playing Fat Princess, which might actually be the game that lures me out of my anti-multiplayer cave. WILL THAT REALLY HAPPEN? We shall see...