Journey

Journey is the third video game produced by independent development house thatgamecompany. I really enjoyed their previous games Flow and Flower. These games stretch the definition of "game", and Journey stretches that definition the furthest. In Journey you play as a...well.. who knows. Your character is an armless humanoid dressed in a robe that covers you from head to foot. Your objective is rather vague: there is a mountain in the distance, and you will journey towards it. Your interaction with the world is limited to just a few actions: moving about, vocalizing, and leaping. The world that you move through is really extraordinary, and it is fun to explore and find out just how much you can do with these limited controls. Still, this limited interaction leaves me wondering if "game" is the right term to apply here. In Flow you battled against other organisms to become king of the depths. Flower was more vague, essentially a finding exercise as you searched for enough flowers to bloom in order to open up the next section of the game. Journey offers even less direction. If you wanted, you could just tape the joystick to point forward and come back in two hours to see the credits roll.

There has been a lot of dispute about whether or not video games should be considered art. Acclaimed film critic Roger Ebert has famously said that they are not comparable to film and books as art, while the Smithsonian Institute has created a traveling museum honoring the art of video games. Journey, in my view, is trying very hard to be considered art. It is an interactive experience that each person is going to react to differently. The gaming press has been falling over itself to lavish praise on this game, but I'm not sure that this is necessarily a good thing. Yes, Journey is beautiful and unique, but the "game" element here is pretty weak. Someone looking for the same sort of release that a game like Call of Duty provides isn't going to find it here, and that could create a backlash by the gaming community. The entire experience can be completed in under two hours, and many gamers might feel cheated by that.

I definitely recommend giving Journey a try, but caution to approach this as a piece of interactive art rather than a video game. Consider it a $15 door fee to a private showing at an artist's gallery.

Flower on PS3

Last week the highly anticipated game Flower was released for PS3 via PSN.  I had heard a lot of hype around this game.  Rather than a high intensity kill fest, it was supposed to be a very relaxing experience more than a game.  I liked the idea, and for only $10 was ready to give it a try.  After getting the software loaded I jumped right in.  The idea is that you control a gust of wind.  Tilting the six-axis controller determines the direction the wind will blow, and holding a button will cause the wind to build up speed.  You guide the gust of wind into flowers.  Each time you connect with a flower, the flower blooms and adds a petal to the trail of the wind gust.  Bloom enough flowers and a section of the map comes alive with color.  As advertised, it is a very relaxing experience.  It is a game to the extent that there are loose objectives, a start, and an end, but really it is more something to do for the simple pleasure of the experience, like doodling or hanging your hand out of the car window.  If you have a spare ten-spot, and an open mind, I definitely recommend downloading this software.

I also watched a video published by the games creators.  In the video they describe Flower as a new experience in gaming, a video game poem, and something that will elicit an emotional response.  I can agree with the first two items, but I draw the line at the third.  Flower is definitely more experience type play than gaming play, and I can see the parallels with poetry.  I'm not buying the emo BS though.  When I think of emotional response, I think happy, sad, angry, etc.  I get none of those from "experiencing" this "poem".  The emo bit is just new age nonsense to my ears.  Fortunately, it doesn't detract from the experience.  

PlayStation Home

One of the features of the PlayStation 3 has been the Home "game". I use game in quotes because it isn't really a game, per se, but a virtual environment where PS3 owners can mingle, see previews for game, movies, and accessories, as well as socialize with their brethren. If you have ever heard of SecondLife, PlayStation Home is a much scaled down version of that.

I've spent a few hours dabbling in Home. It's certainly an interesting idea: provide a 3D virtual environment that recreates a campus atmosphere and let players use it however they like. Unfortunately, it isn't a new idea, and it has rarely worked in other scenarios. Remember VRML? It was supposed to be the next big thing in web interfaces back at the turn of the millennium, allowing users to mingle at a 3D website together. Or more recently, how about Google Lively? Never heard of it eh? It was another attempt at 3D virtual social environments that just never had legs. Second Life has succeeded by filling a particular niche well. That niche being the ability for someone to anonymously fulfill whatever bizarre kink they like to indulge (furries much?) Oh, and some folks manage to make a living at it, but mostly it is about sex.

PS Home doesn't have that aim. Worse, it doesn't have any aim. After spending several hours listlessly wandering the sterile environments (a personal apartment, campus plaza, bowling alley, mall, and theater) I found absolutely nothing compelling to do. The few games that are available feel half-baked, and aside from Echochrome, there is no reason to play them (playing Echochrome wins you a new outfit). Like SecondLife, there are shops where you can use real money to purchase upgrades for your avatar, such as new clothes or furniture for your apartment. Unlike SecondLife, there is no way to earn that money, or to get the virtual items without spending cash. As such, it feels like a shallow attempt to nickel and dime the players ($7 for a santa outfit you have to buy a piece at a time!!!)

Let me take a step back and describe my first experiences. The night that the beta was opened to the general public, I logged on around 11 in the evening to see what the fuss was about. After a few minutes dressing up my avatar with the paltry set of clothing and shaping selections (the Wii has this totally beat for being able to create a recognizable representation of your likeness) I was delivered to my apartment. A sterile, empty place with a seaside view, and all the furniture facing the wall. I'll leave out the bits about the application crashing (it did, a lot). After familiarizing myself with the controls, I stepped downloaded the rest of the environments and stepped out in the plaza. Here I was met with probably hundreds of other likeminded curious gawkers. Most were milling about, wandering from place to place to see what Home had to offer. The bowling alley was chock full of folks waiting in line to play the games that were available at the lanes and in the arcade. This post and comic from Penny-Arcade sum up that experience pretty well. The Mall environment had a few stores, but I wasn't about to start spending 50 cents to $2 for the privilege of "personalizing" my avatar or apartment.

Twenty minutes later I had seen everything in home, and was unimpressed. I went to the plaza again to see if I could find any interesting conversation going. That's when I noticed that the demographic of the plaza was 99% male. The one poor female avatar had a crowd of 20 or so other avatars dogging her around from place to place, kicking on dance moves whenever she would stop. Of course, this quickly led to the act of gender-bending pranks now known as pulling a Quincy. When I did find a group of folks with a conversation going on, I found it really hard to participate. I have a bluetooth headset, but only a few others were using voice chat. Most were text chatting, but doing so with just a controller was very difficult. By the time I had entered my comment, the subject of my comment was already off the page and so I came off as non-sequitur. Annoyed at this and the over-all feeling of meh, I gave up and just played a game.

A couple of weeks later now, and I have a new PS3 Wireless Chatpad to assist me in communicating, so I decided to give Home a second look. There was a new update, and I notice that one of the changes is that voice chat has now been turned off for all but private zones (your apartment, premium gaming clubs). On entering the plaza I see not the hundreds of avatars from before, but possibly ten. The demographic is now closer to 60/40 male/female, but I'm fairly certain that most of the "girls" are just boys waiting to pull a crying game prank. A new movie is playing at the theater. I picked up with a small group in the plaza that was just having a amicable chat. Participating with the chat pad was much better than the joystick entry I was using before, and I was actually able to be a part of the conversation. This was certainly a viable way to pass the time and potentially meet other players with similar interests. One frustration in chatting was the draconian word filter. A lot of words are banned from use, and result in a your text appearing as **** where the banned word would be. Unfortunately, there is no contextual help. Even if that banned word appeared as part of another word, it got the star treatment. So Hello became ****o and Christmas became *****mas. It frequently broke up the flow of conversation as we tried to figure out what the speaker meant (and the speaker gets no indication that their word was filtered either). Worse, there is no way to disable this feature. A second frustration is that the ability to add a new friend to your friend roster is not part of the interface. The whole point of Home (in my mind) is to meet with other folks and find new friends to play with, yet Home doesn't facility either adding friends nor launching games. It's a major oversight in functionality.

I can't say that I'm disappointed in Home. It is a free application, and I'm free to not use it. I can't say I'm surprised by what I found in home, as it was about what I expected from my experiences in Lively and SecondLife. I am a little surprised at how much effort Sony is putting into this environment though. If they want it to be a success, they need to make it integrated with friend making and game launching. Above that, they need to find a hook to make spending time in Home worthwhile, and not just another empty virtual environment.

Burnout Paradise

A buddy of mine at work was generous enough to loan me a bunch of PS3 games.  He is knee deep into the Wrath expansion for WoW, and so he said he wouldn't miss them for a while.  Initially I set them aside as I really wanted to get to 100% treasure collection on LittleBigPlanet, but now that I have achieved that goal, I was ready for something new.  

The first game we pulled out of the stack was Sonic the Hedgehog.  Now, I loved Sonic on my old Genesis, so I had some expectations going in.  Ooooh, was I disappointed.  Gone are the 2D platforming levels with insane speed (thank you blast processor!).  Today's game is filled with 3D platforming at it's worst.  Every conceivable issue that could afflict a 3D platformer is here: unclear objectives, horrible character control, uncooperative camera system, and outright bugginess.  If you get this game in your stocking this holiday season, don't even bother to unwrap it.  Just take it to your nearest games dealer and hope they give you $5 on trade-in for it.

So I set that one aside and picked up the next on on the stack: Burnout Paradise.  If you've played any of the Burnout series of driving games, you know that the series is far from a pure racing sim.  In Burnout, crashing your car in the most spectacular way possible is part of the fun.  First, let me say that this game is gorgeous!  The vehicles, the environments, and the wrecks are just amazing.  This is what next gen console play is all about (sorry Wii, I love you man, but this is not your forte).  The gameplay itself is a lot of fun too.  The game is set in an open environment that is Paradise City (cue G'n'R).  You can simply cruise around in your vehicle enjoying the environment at your leisure, or you can pull up to any stop light and hit the gas and brake to start an event.  The events are one-on-one race, group race, stunt run, marked man, road rage, and burning route.  The first two are typical racing fare.  Marked man and road rage are variations on a smash up derby.  In marked man you are the target, and your goal is to get to your destination in one piece while your opponents attempt to destroy your vehicle.  In road rage, it's a roadway free for all with the objective to destroy a target number of opponents.  The burning route is a special timed race that, if you win, you get a new version of your vehicle.

This game is a lot of fun, but it can be a little daunting to first jump in.  With so much city to explore it is easy to get lost during a race.  There are lots of times that I'll manage to get the lead only to see the pack peel off to a side street while I barrel down the road heading the wrong direction.  

Burnout Paradise supports Trophies, so if you are a trophy hound this is another opportunity to get your fix.  The PS3 is my first experience with a trophy system and I'm finding that I really enjoy it.  It's giving the games a lot of replay value as I try to attain the more difficult goals.  It's also fun to compare my trophy collection with other folks on PSN just to see how I rank against other folks.

I noticed that Burnout Paradise is now available as a download on the PSN Store for $30.  If you own a PS3 and enjoy driving games, $30 is an easy investment for this kind of fun.

PS3 and LittleBigPlanet

So after my rant about the lack of good games on the market, I lucked out and received a PlayStation 3 and LittleBigPlanet as gifts. After spending a day playing around with the system and game, I have some initial reactions. First, what a beautiful machine! The PS3 certainly has a professional look to it. It looks right at home among the other A/V equipment on the shelf. The main system interface is a little polluted, but not difficult to learn and navigate. The controller is going to look immediately familiar to anyone who has play a PlayStation 2, as the buttons and layout are identical. The only difference is the cord - a detachable USB cable. The controller that came with my unit is the new DualShock 3 controller, which has both rumble and the six-axis waggle.

After updating to the latest firmware and signing up for a PSN account, I scheduled a bunch of game demos and movie trailers to download. Here is where I think the PlayStation 3 has a real leg up on the Wii. The Wii Channel is meant to give you a way to view trailers and download demos of some DS games. The PlayStation Network (PSN) is so much better. Not only can you get demos for the PSP and PS3, but you can also get trailers for movies and a slew of great content. Downloads can be performed in the background, unlike the Wii where you must complete the download before doing anything else. I got a couple of trailers for Wall-E (I love that movie) as well as the demos for Mirror's Edge, LEGO Batman, and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. The downloads were huge (over 1GB in the case of Star Wars), but it was nice to be able to do other things while they downloaded. I let the controller charge and went outside with the family while it finished the download.

The first demo I played was for Mirror's Edge. This is a FPS game that has you running and jumping much like a free-runner from rooftop to rooftop. This was also must first taste of the six-axis control, which I found to be grossly inferior to the Wii controllers. Really, if this is the best it can be used for, Sony should just save the cost of the parts and remove it from the controller. The biggest problem is that while holding the controller your hands simply can't move in a natural way to "waggle". Tipping forward and back is about the best you can manage. I was glad to see that none of the games I tried depended on this feature.

Graphically, the PS3 is night and day better than the Wii. This wasn't really a surprise, as the Wii has been described as two GameCubes duct taped together. Still, the system really brought out the best in our HD set. The HD trailers I downloaded looked phenomenal, as did the games. We haven't watched a movie on it yet to see how well it upconverts. I suppose the only drawback is that the crispness and brightness of the picture has me thinking about getting a 1080p set for the basement so I can see the machine perform at the highest resolution (our current set is 1080i).

This brings me to LittleBigPlanet. LittleBigPlanet has gotten a ton of media hype over the last few months. It's a simple platformer with gorgeous graphics. So what makes LBP so special? The interactivity and customizability. From the get-go, LBP is giving you the tools and showing you tricks on how to construct a fun level for a platform jumping game. You can either play the levels created by the game designers - there are 50 of them and the few I've seen are a lot of fun, or you can create your own levels. In addition, you can sign on to your PSN account and play levels that others have created, and other players can join you. It opens the door for some fantastic user-created content, and Sony is really pushing folks to come up with interesting levels. I think this will do wonders for the replayability of this game. The family has given it a try, and everyone is enjoying it so far.

If you have a PS3 and a sense of humor and fun, I can definitely recommend picking up LBP. If you are in the market for a Blu-Ray player and also enjoy games, the PlayStation 3 is a solid appliance. If you are in the market for a gaming system....I haven't seen enough to give a firm recommendation there. Between the Wii, the XBox 360, and the PlayStation 3 (not to mention the DS and PSP), you have a lot of choices to make about your personal preferences and style.

Exer-Gaming

People who enjoy video games have a certain stereo-type:

• Pale and Pasty
  
• Overweight
  
• Weak
  
• Socially backward
  

It's not a pretty picture. Fortunately, that image is going through something of a change, thanks in part to the growing popularity of "exer-gaming" titles. Exer-gaming titles are games that require you to move around to play. These games fall into a variety of categories and styles.

Dance Games

There are a variety of dance games out there, but the most popular are the Bemani games published by Konami under the nam

e Dance Dance Revolution (DDR). In these games you must follow a pattern of footsteps displayed on the screen in synchronization to the beat of the music. You can start out light with just a few steps and a slow song, but you can really work up a sweat if you turn up the beat. Many iterations of the game include a workout mode that will count your steps and give you an estimated number of calories burned.

Drumming Games

The Donkey Konga series of games and Taiko Drum Master games utilize a drum / bongos and this can be a nice workout for your arms. The frantic drumming in Donkey Konga makes a heck of a racket, but it is a lot of fun. My son and I will play this together and it doesn't take long before we are both grinning ear to ear and wearing out our arms.

Full Body Workouts

The Wii Fit and the PlayStation Eye Toy both are used in games that encourage a full body workout. In the case of the Wii Fit, the accessory is intended fitness directly. The game that comes with it steps you through a variety of simple exercises and tracks your progress. The eye toy has a variety of uses, but in DDR games it can be used to also track arm movements. In this way you get a full body workout rather than just your legs.

There are a lot of options out there now for folks to change the stereo-type of the gamer.  And guys, if you need a little more encouragement to jump into this, here you go.

Where have all the good games gone?

I'm a gamer.  I love to play video games.  For as long as I remember I've looked forward to browsing through the latest game offerings and wishing I could play everything.  Lately, though, I feel like I've been in a slump.  Where are all the great games?  Store shelves are stocked with variations on a theme:  Generic First-Person-Shooter 7, Generic 3D Platformer 9, Nostalgia Retro Mashup 4, SPORT!  I take a look through the list of games coming soon and I don't get the least bit excited.  I was considering a PS3, but after looking through the paltry list of titles worth playing, that's out.  An Xbox 360 has a better selection, but nothing incredibly interesting.  We have a Wii in the house, but the most excitement we've gotten out of that lately are LEGO games.  I'm not looking for a ultra-violent blood soaked adventure.  I'm not looking for an exercise / brain training game.  I'm looking for something fun and innovative.  Something that makes you smile when you play it.  Something that doesn't require an immense investment.  Where are you fun games?

The best game I've played recently is BioShock.  That was a very interesting variation on the FPS theme, but at its core was still just a FPS.  Games that fall into the category that I'm looking for are games like Katamari Damacy and Elite Beat Agents.  There are a couple of games like that out now (Loco Roco, Patapon) but two interesting games is not worth the price of admission ($200 for a PSP plus the cost of the game).  A quick look at upcoming games with a lot of hype doesn't really offer me anything.  Gears of War 2 is a console based FPS.  Strike one - I can't stand console based FPS games.  The control is vastly inferior to what you get on a PC.  Strike 2 - Nothing interesting in this game to make it stand out from, well, Doom really.  And that game is how old now?  15 years old!  Call of Duty : World at War.  Again, another FPS, and this the fourth in the COD series.  Even the developers are getting tired of this and have said this will be their last WWII based FPS.  How about the Wrath of the Lich King expansion to World of Warcraft?  As tempting as that sounds, I've been off the WarCrack for some time and don't really want to relapse.  Fall0ut 3 and Resident-Evil 5 are coming up.  Both are third person shooter adventures.  I know, third person, what a revolutionary take on the first person genre right?

So what games are coming out that don't involve first or third person shooting?  LittleBigPlanet is one.  I'll admit, this one is an interesting variation on the 3D platformer theme.  Unfortunately this media darling title is only available on the PS3, and is about the only really interesting title for the system.  With a PS3 system running around $400 and the game another $60 or so on top of that, it better be one helluva game.  Fable 2 is out for the Xbox 360.  I really enjoyed the first one, but again is it worth purchasing a whole new system to play one game?  Admittedly, the 360 has a pretty rich library of games, so it wouldn't be an entirely bad move.  However, $250 for a new system plus the cost of the game is pretty steep.  Guitar Hero might be fun, and I do like rhythm based games.  Unfortunately most of the content for Guitar Hero is 80's and 90's pop rock, which I was never a big fan of.  

The one ray of hope for interesting new games are the downloadable content on each system.  The WiiWare titles on the Wii have been unique games, like World of Goo, that don't conform to the typical releases from major vendors.  The Wii Virtual Console doesn't get me all that excited because the nostalgia of the old games wears off too fast.  The WiiWare titles, on the other hand, are new content.  The DS also seems to have the occassional divergent game, but these have so far been few and far between.  The Wii has been a lot of fun so far, but lately Nintendo has seemed to avoid releasing true games.  Between the Wii Fit, Wii Sports, and the myriad of franchise rehashes, there hasn't been much of interest to a jaded gamer looking for something new to play.  Exer-gaming is fun, and I'm glad that Nintendo is getting non-traditional gamers into the mix, but I want to play a fun video game.

Have I missed something?  Is there something out there right now that is new, different, and fun that I've just overlooked?  I'm looking for suggestions here, so if there is something you've discovered and enjoyed, drop me a line in the comments.

LEGO Movie Video Games

Everyone in our family is a big fan of the LEGO series of games from Traveler's Tales. This series of games takes favorite films, such as the Star Wars series, the Indiana Jones series, and coming soon the Batman series, and puts them in the world of LEGO. All of the action takes place in a world of LEGO bricks, and you play as a LEGO interpretation of the characters from those movies.



The gameplay is your typical 3D platformer fare. Each level represents a portion of the movie content, and the levels are broken into scenes. In the scene you must take on baddies, solve simple puzzles, and navigate your way to the end of the level. Along the way you can find hidden treasure and collect "studs", the small, round, flat, one peg LEGO piece which acts as currency in the game. At the end of each level you are returned to a staging are where you can select another level to play, or use your studs to purchase upgrades. Upgrades include additional characters to play as, additional abilities, videos, or other doodads.

There are a couple of things that really draw us to this series of games. First, there is basicly no penalty for death. Each time your character is killed, falls off a cliff, or otherwise perishes you get recreated a short distance from where you died. You get infinite lives, so completing a level is more about finding your way through rather than mastering the combat system. This makes it very approachable for our kids. You do lose some studs for each death, but even if you have no studs you will get reincarnated.

The second thing we really like are the destructable environments. Nearly everything in these games can be destroyed, and it is really cathartic to rampage through a level, breaking everything in site.

Our son really likes being able to buy things in game. He can earn studs and use those studs to purchase new characters. This has been a great learning tool and we've found that it translates into real life as well. We give good behavior points, and he can use those good behavior points to get special treats, whether it is a cookie after dinner, or chocolate milk before bed.

Of the games we have (LEGO Star Wars 1, LEGO Star Wars 2, LEGO Star Wars The Complete Saga, LEGO Indiana Jones) LEGO Indiana Jones is probably the weakest. This isn't really any fault of the game, it is just that the Star Wars games have such a rich culture surrounding them that you can have lots and lots of characters and have them all be recognizable. Indiana Jones just doesn't have that same richness, and so you end up with 20 or so variations on the "Enemy Gunman". We'll probably grab the LEGO Batman game as a Christmas gift for our son, and we have hopes that the very full world of Batman will lead to a more enjoyable game.

So if you haven't tried any of the LEGO games yet, go pick one up. My recommendation would be to grab the Star Wars : The Complete Saga game, as this will give you the most bang for the buck, and probably be the most enjoyable.

Zero Punctuation

One of my favorite bits of web content are the regular video game reviews from Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw over at The Escapist. Titled Zero Punctuation, these rapid fire reviews are cynical, snarky, irreverent, and generally negative on each target. Croshaw obviously has an obsession with games and knows the industry inside and out. Each review is delivered at a breathless pace, which leads to viewing them over and over again to pick up on the dry wit and humor throughout. If you like games, and you don't mind some colorful language, I highly recommend it.

Clean and Sober

I'm proud to report that I have been clean and sober for going on 4 months now. Of what you ask? World of Warcraft. That game got it's hooks deep into me. Prior to our trip to Gulf Shores I was spending sometimes 6 hours a night raiding, prepping for raiding, and grinding out gold. It was too much, and I was letting other things (including my health) slide. After a week of vacation with no chance for WoW, I decided it was best to just quit. There wasn't a whole lot left in the game for me to see, and it certainly wasn't worth the price of admission.

So what have I been doing with all of this new-found free time? Well, I've been hitting the treadmill for one. One of the worst aspects of WoW is that you are totally sedentary while playing. We got a treadmill about a month before our trip, and I had tried setting up WoW while on the treadmill. I could do a couple of things, but it was very difficult to type, and even more difficult to keep track of the tiny text on the screen. Now that WoW is completely shutoff, I've been much better about getting in my exercise. I try to get a minimum of three 30 minute work-outs in each week, with my goal to get in five good runs. My breathing is much better, and I've dropped 10 pounds.

Another bad habit I've dropped is drinking. It was my standard routine to mix up a scotch, vodka tonic, or gin as I sat down to play. If it was a long session I would sometimes have a second. Believe it or not, this was social drinking, as when you play WoW you are typically on a headset chatting with the other folks you are playing with. I never drank alone. Still, sedentary butt in chair plus alcohol is not a healthy combination. I still enjoy a beverage from time to time, but certainly not on the schedule I was before.

So running and not drinking account for about an hour of my night. What about the other five hours? My sleep schedule has improved a bit, though not much. I'm now getting into bed between 1am and 2am, which is a spot better than my 3am ritual before. Getting to bed at a decent time has always been a problem for me, so this isn't something I expected a huge change in. I have been able to see new and interesting games! I played through BioShock, which is outstanding. If you have a decent PC, definitely give this one a try. I also started enjoying our Wii more. The current household favorite is LEGO Indiana Jones. I spent the last couple of weeks getting pretty much every collectible in that game. There is a whole library of games that I have that I either never completed or lost interest in due to my WoW addiction.

Finally, I've gotten back into reading. I've read a number of great books throughout this year, including Spook and Agile and Iterative Development : A Manager's Guide. I'm currently reading The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I don't think I qualify as a true geek until I have read through this sci-fi favorite. I'm about half-way through the five novels, and so far it is great fun.

There is one possibility of relapse in the future. Blizzard is planning to release another expansion to Warcraft around my birthday. If the baby is up late at night and I'm doing the feeding, it will be really tempting to get back into my old habit. Maybe I need a sponsor :-p