IGN's Review System Dealing with Multiple Releases

I'm not complaining about the review system, but the way that IGN reviews multiple "copies" of games is slightly, from a technological standpoint of running a website/database, dimwitted.

I first noticed it when the Xbox team started posting reviews of XBLA games that were remakes of classic system games (ie. Galaga, Pac-Mac, Joust). Sure some of these games may add multiplayer and online modes, but we're talking about the exact same game. Then the Wii team started doing the same game. I can't imagine working for IGN over 11 years and having to review Super Mario 64 twice.

But what's worse is that when I go to check the Editior's Choice site, IGN's review/article management system shows it's true colors. Below is a screenshot of their top-to-bottom sorted "Editor's Choice", which is really nothing more than the highest rated games reviewed on the site. There are four entries for the same game with the Australian version given a lower rating because it's barely neutered.

Then we have two copies of BioShock and three copies of Fallout 3. Every review linked by the game title, including Grand Theft Auto IV, are exactly the same as their duplicate entries on the list. Here we have the top 9 Xbox 360 games which are really only 3 titles.

Why doesn't IGN work with single reivews for multiple releases of games? Sure, one game might come with a metal tin or a t-shirt, but all of their reviews point to the same URL anyway. Can't they just say that there are multiple releases (and most articles do) and be done with it.

There you have it. I wasted a whole post to complain about what is essentially a database query.

TED: David Perry on Video Games

A TED presentation was sent to me today from 2006, where game design David Perry touches on the history of gaming and what lies ahead.

In particular, it contains a students documentary on how video games affected him.

It's worth the 20 minutes to watch it.

His closing thought: Games, on the surface, seem like simple entertainment, but to those who look a little deeper, the new paradigm of video games could open entirely new frontiers to creative minds that like to think big.

Gamer Gone Missing

So while I'm in the hospital, I just learned about this missing gamer.

The story is that the father of Ontario teenager Brandon Crisp's Xbox and game Call of Duty 4 because he was too involved in it and in return, Brandon fled his home. Among the suspected reasons were that he ran away with someone he met or possibly even a sexual predator and even the father's parenting has become suspect, the last two theories his mom sticks to.

Yesterday Microsoft donated $25,000 to the reward fund, bringing the total to $50,000. Microsoft is now even loosening privacy details of Brandon's XBLA account and Xbox 360 harddrive to help with the search, hoping to uncover messages or logs about who he had contact with before he disappeared.

Today, Canadian "reality" tv show star Terry Grant of Manhunter has also joined the search. Manhunt is a race-based chase show airing on an outdoor canadian channel where Terry gives the contestants a headstart with their map and compass and releases them out to the  and Terry hunts them down on horseback.

Currently, that is where the search stands.

With such little information, it's hard to place blame or pose a solution for this kind of awful ordeal. I never would have thought of running away, at least past our 14 acre property, when I was a kid. It's easy to place the blame on an outside source, knowing how people can easily band together online with no possible reprocussion from their advice, not even knowing the person on the other end.

It will be interesting to see how this turns out, what happens to him when he's found (and sadly, if he's found) and what kind of effects this will have on gamers, local media, and more importantly, politics. Having such a rough time now being blamed for every youth incident you see on the news, video games aren't getting a better rep because of this, no matter how it turns out.

About Media, News, Drinking

Almost the first thing I did after getting back from vacation was picking up Rock Band 2. It's a really good version 2.0 of Rock Band, adding the ability to play in a band online, drum fill training, and, of course, tons of new songs. It's going to be a new staple of gameplay.

Mercenaries 2 is also still loveable. I'm just starting to realize that performing insane stunts along with shooting up bad guys, stealing helicopters in mid-air, driving motorcycles with tank treads, and calling in precision bomb drops are the stuff over imaginative 12-year-old boys (and some girls!) dream of.

I listen to a lot of gaming podcasts from 1up and IGN, getting the real scoop on the industry and what gaming media thinks of games and developers. The thoughts that they have developed about gaming have a lot of personality and insight. It's not like traditional subject matter in news is skewed or judged. You know your getting a person's opinion, kind of like movie reviews, but the podcasts are free formed, recorded after work hours and usually might involved some kind of drinking. You know it's guys sitting around with friends talking about what they love most. They've written their reviews for their websites and magazines and now they get to sit around and relax, joke around, and have a two-hour water cooler conversation.

I wonder how other media could benefit from this kind of outlet; listening to the NBC News anchors talk politics around a bottle of bourbon on your iPod, Jonathan Stewart and Stephen Colbert at a cafe discussing Hurricane Ike over coffee or even Harrisonburg's own DNR reporters having a pizza around a microphone after hours. What would they talk about? How would their personality change or confirm their look on their news stories?

Religous Gaming: A Year in Comments

So about a year ago I posted a news clip on YouTube of CNN covering the Left Behind video game. Their "news" review and interviews for the game were terrible.

Anyway, the video has garnered some 23,000 views and over 100 comments. I just checked it today and happened to scroll down through it and read some of them. It's an interesting read and, actually, not too much Bible verse throwing.

My favorite comments:

AlIord (1 year ago)
Anyone read the bible? Plenty of graphic violence in there. Not like this is any worse.

My point of the video still stands: if people get all of their news from these commercial news sources, we're all in way more trouble than just some religious video game hitting the streets.

Link

Video Gaming: The New Golfing

When most people think of sports, they think of grown men getting paid ridiculously high salaries to play a game. We laugh at their mansions and cars and money. But we know they are the best at what they do and we know that most of will never reach their level.

It's the same in the world of video games. Except without the money. But that's changing.

To get a glimpse into this world of Joystick Juggernauts (I'm coining that phrase, btw), Spike TV's Game Head show is touching on the World Cyber Games 2007. It's a global video game "olympics" that consists of about 700 players from 70 countries all playing for a piece of the $450,000 pot. There are quite a few other major league tournaments like this one, but this gets the most publicity as far as I'm concerned.

A lot of gamers think it's boring to watch this stuff on tv, but that's only because they do a poor job of it. We don't get to sit and watch the matches as they go down, just clips of them and knee jerk reactions of the teams as they win games. It would be like watching highlight clips of a football game. That's fun and all, but we want to see the WHOLE thing.

But my take on gaming as a sport is like this: Any activity can be raised to a competitive level. It's what we do as humans. We find something we're good at, brag about it to other people, and hopefully find a way to live off it. Gamers don't need to defend themselves from ridicule and naysayers. The people trying to make a living out of it right now are just having a hard time while the idea gets it's legs. The X-Games started the same way, with skateboarders and BMXers leaving the parking lots and signing sponsors. Gamers, too, will leave the basements, sign sponsors and one day there will be a channel that covers gaming well and lets us all track stats and hang posters of our favorite gamers and collect their trading cards.

In the meantime, I'm still going to play games to waste time, relieve stress and entertain myself with my friends. I'm going to spend money on it that I don't need to, shun my pile of laundry and leave the dirty dishes in the sink, ignore my wife for 5 hours straight and waste an entire day fragging people on the internet and still not get any better than I was the day before.

Sound like a golfer you know? Well, minus the fragging part?

Games and Violence and Parenting

I have a hard time dealing with people who say video games turn people in to killers. This six part series deals with everything from the consistency of ESRB rating system to Columbine HS.

It's actually very informational and thankfully everyone in the video has common sense to realize that all media can influence violent behavior but are usually the least of the psychological problems in a violent person.

The best point that they make is that children try to emulate everything they hear, see, and read. Addiction was the subject they seemed most worried about, but they continue by saying that addiction to anything is bad.

Unfairly pointing out video games as an enabler is ludicrous. And creating legislation that breaks the First Amendment is even worse.

And I love the mother in the videos. Too bad all parents aren't like her. She's brilliant.

Here's the last video in the series.

Obsolete Gaming

Ever since the idea came up that next generation consoles could play older games via Xbox Live Arcade or the Nintendo Wii Shop, online websites have started to re-review them. Realize that ten years ago, they already had reviews of these games up. Then as time went on and readership of that particular console's content went down, they removed all the old reviews and stories about the games and moved on.

Now, IGN's Wii Editor's Choice page is flooded with the "virtual console" entries in it's database. It's annoying at least.

But today I read the absolutely stupidest review for a virtual console game, Street Fighter II Turbo. It was the third or forth game in a huge series of games (there were 11 Street Fighters on the PS1 alone).

So imagine the irony when I read this.

The problem with recommending it is that, eventually, it will be rendered obsolete – just as it is itself rendering the Christmas-released original version obsolete with its own debut.

Really? I couldn't imagine how it could be rendered obsolete. Has technology really come that far to render a 15+ year old video game obsolete?

I wonder how many times a video game has to be obsoleted before I run into my future self and smack him with an original copy of it.