Gluttony

One of my most anticipated games of the year was released yesterday: Fallout 3. I started my playthrough this morning before work, so I’ve only got an hour or so invested in it right now. Already I’m worried about the length of time it’s going to take me to play through this game, and there are other similarly epic games on my must-play list, such as LittleBigPlanet and Far Cry 2. I’m by no means the first to pontificate about the huge glut of top-shelf games this holiday, but I had a thought the other day that I never thought I’d have.

I hope most of the games I play this year are short.

Last holiday, I got my copy of Call of Duty 4 and played through the campaign that night, stopping only for a couple bathroom breaks. Many people tell me I’m crazy for doing so. But I’m glad I was able to experience the game that way. Like watching a movie, experiencing a game in one chunk is a completely different experience than playing it in bits. I’d love to do the same thing for Call of Duty: World at War. And I hope that Gears of War 2 doesn’t add padding to the original’s concise adventure. I’m fine paying $60 for a brief game if it’s good enough to play through multiple times. If there weren’t so many games on the way, I’d be playing through Dead Space again right now.

In a time of a huge game glut, here’s to short games.

Vindicated

This is by no means a return to a regular posting schedule, but I simply had to comment on some news that’s surfaced recently. In my most-viewed post ever, I commented on Halo 4 being developed by Gearbox, as well as another project. To quote myself:

There was also a Halo RPG in development by a well-known Western RPG house, but I don’t know the current status of that project.

The Halo 4 info was quoted far and wide, but for some reason the news of the second Halo project was widely dismissed and occasionally mocked. That project, as I can now confirm, was the Halo MMO by Ensemble Studios. Gamasutra has the story on this cancelled project by the dead developer. It’s nice to be right!

Spaceship Down

Well, it’s finally happened. I’ve reached the point where I’m forced to admit that I can no longer maintain this site on a regular basis. I will still be posting here from time to time, but only when I have something very pressing to say. Even I don’t know how often that will be. If you’ve enjoyed my essays in the past, I suggest adding this site to your RSS feed so you can catch what will likely be very sporadic updates. Thanks to those of you who have visited.

Until next time,

Oddity Out.

Value

The other day this comment was posted on my Braid story by reader Zombinate:

So I finished the game (Braid), the main story anyway, I haven’t gone to get the stars yet, or whatever the hell they are. I’ve decided that this game is the movie “Brazil”; It really doesn’t make any sense, but is just compelling enough to be enjoyable. That said, like Brazil, I feel it would have made a good rental. I really enjoyed my time playing the game, but wonder if the $15 was really worth it. Honestly, if I could, I would sell this at (insert favorite second-hand game store). It is kinda like Bioshock, once you are done with that game are you really gonna do it again and again?

On a bigger level, this is the problem I see with the live arcade. It isn’t a true market, as no price deductions take place as interest in the property wanes. For example Geometry wars 2 was just released, any change in the cost of the first? Nope. This is fine for classic arcade like games, where the point is a high score. For story based games though, which have limited replay value, I am disappointed that they are treated the same way.

With regard to Braid, the topic of value in story based games have been discussed before. With this game, it was fantastic, but i don’t think was a good value.

Bionic Marketing

This week’s entry in the Summer of Xbox Live Arcade promotion was the long-awaited revamp of the classic NES game Bionic Commando. Bionic Commando Rearmed takes the original game and jazzes it up with updated graphics and music and adds new features like a couple new moves, challenge rooms and two-player co-op. Unlike the previous games in the Summer of XBLA promotion, I bought Bionic Commando: Rearmed and didn’t receive a free download code, because I was a huge fan of the original game. Nostalgia alone is rarely enough for me to drive a purchase, but in the case of Bionic Commando Rearmed there was another compelling reason for me to check out the game: It is a perfect example of the phenomenon of selling marketing material to the audience in the guise of a stand-alone product. Bionic Commando Rearmed is, at its core, an advertisement.