Gaming Pondering

Game OverThinker Monday

2008-12-22T22:35:00.001-05:00

With only 2 days of Christmas shopping left, I thought this would be appropriate. Happy holidays guys and I hope to start posting topics in early 2009.

Taking a break

2008-12-04T12:23:00.005-05:00

Well I've been running this blog for like 6 months with over 20 original topics. Most of these topics were on my list of ideas before starting all of this and I added a few along the line. Posting a new topic almost every week is like going to oil well to often, you hit rock bottom and now I'm out of ideas.

Instead of doing like everyone and their dog by forcing creativity, I'll just take a break and let new ideas come to me and when I get to a decent list, I'll start writing again.

I'll keep adding videos from the Game OverThinker and Gaming Historian as well as others that I may find worthy.

Finally, if you have any ideas that you would like me to throw on my list, let me know and I'll see if I have opinions or knowledge about them.

Thanks for reading and I hope I can get a new list of ideas before spring.

Game OverThinker Monday

2008-12-01T12:19:00.002-05:00

Moviebob is back with a more political approach to video games, agree with him or not, you got to give him credit for the imagination:

My Zelda Timeline

2008-11-28T21:37:00.004-05:00

One of the biggest debates on the Internet regarding video games, the Legend of Zelda Timeline. Which is the right one or is there one at all? Personally, I don't believe that Miyamoto ever intended for the Zelda franchise to ever have a Timeline, much like Mario, each games were suppose to be independent regardless of their numerical titles. The main problem with the Zelda games is that they have deep story line unlike Mario games which usually consist of rescuing a kidnapped Princess Peach. Although fan have been debating on the order of the games since the Zelda 16bits came out, the real Timeline boom started after the first Zelda 64bits was released.

Before we get started, I need to point out a few things about the person who created the franshise, Shigeru Miyamoto.

1- In most Timelines, Ocarina of Time is placed as the first game, mainly because Miyamoto said so and because we first see Ganondorf in a more human-like form. That being said, it was never confirm that this was Ganondorf's first incarnation and as for the Miyamoto quote, he also said (during the N64 times) that the SNES/SFC Zelda took place after Zelda II which most of you Timeline makers seem to disagree. You're saying that OOT is the first game because Miyamoto said so but then you turn around and say that he's wrong about A Link to the Past/TriForce of the Gods being after Zelda II, how do you justify this? It's all or nothing, you either believe what he said or you don't.

2- Personally, I believe that Miyamoto handed the Zelda franchise to Aonuma because he didn't want to be bothered connecting the pieces of a non-existing Timeline together. When Aonuma shed some light on the connection of Twilight Princess with OOT, things began to make sense for a lot of Timeline makers and well as non-believers like myself.

The Rules:

The Rules for my Timeline are:

1- Ganon is always the same Ganon, at the end of a game, he is either killed or sealed
2- When Ganon returns in a new Zelda game, he is either unsealed or resurrected
3- Ganon only needs the Triforce of Power (proven in OOT, LOZ, TP) to become Beast Ganon or Anthropomorphism Boar Ganon and when he his sealed, the Triforce of Power normally follows him (proven in OOT)
4- There is no such thing as a split Timeline, 2 Timelines cannot coexists. That being said, split dimensions or realities can be created and coexists. Considering that the Zelda franchise is famous for this concept, it's not too hard to accept
5- We don't have the same Link or Princess Zelda during every game, 2 games max
6- The location of the Triforce of Courage is not something that must be ignore
7- The existence of the Master Sword cannot be ignored
8- Zelda is always named Zelda because of the legend of the sleeping princess
9- The geography of Hyrule can't be taken too seriously, it differs too many times and if want an explanation, continents shift and Hyrule is a land of fucking magic!
10- If you're going to argue my timeline, make you to be specific and be ready to be debate because I'm pretty good at pointing out contradictions.

Now with this out of the way, let's go to the video presentation of my Timeline:

I'm not done with my little project

2008-11-27T12:48:00.001-05:00

Sorry guys, I'm not done with my little project. I was shopping for hours looking for Chrono Trigger for NDS. Good news is that I got it, bad news is that it was too late to finish my project. I'll try to have it up by tomorrow afternoon.

No Monday Video

2008-11-24T12:26:00.002-05:00

Sorry guys, looks like neither moviebob or mcfrosticles have made a new video that I can show you today.

Just a heads up, my special project for this week should be ready for Wednesday. It will be in the MISC section since it has nothing to do with my usual topics.

Later

No topic this week

2008-11-20T15:51:00.002-05:00

Sorry guys, I'm fresh out of ideas, the list I first created before starting this blog 6 months ago as well as other ideas I had have all been posted. I am working on something that is rather different from what I usually post, but this might take a week or two to complete.

For now, enjoy a new blog I added in the link section (8-Bit City) as well as as the previous one (World 1-1).

Gaming Historian Monday

2008-11-17T10:57:00.001-05:00

Didn't mean to skip over this one, but with the Halloween special and the return of the GameOver Thinker, I had to hold on to this one. You've already heard a bit about the history of Kirby from the GameOver Thinker, but this is a bit more elaborated. Due note, this is the last video to date from the Gaming Historian and last week was the only new video from the GameOver Thinker, if they don't make a new video for next Monday, I'll have to come up with something else for the first time in 6 months :(

Should the Used Game and Rental Market be Outlawed?

2008-11-13T12:36:00.004-05:00

FUCK NO!!!

Seriously, to the American game companies who are saying this, STFU before you crash the gaming industry again!!! I've been reading this bullshit idea from an American game company to make the endings of games downloadable in order to reduce the resale and rental of games and my first thoughts were “We got to hang this guy before it spreads around”.

Here in North America, we've enjoyed the privilege of being able to rent video games ever since I can remember. In Japan however, this has always been outlawed as far as I know. Why? Not sure, but my theory is that video games were big when the Famicom was released back in 1983. Nintendo totally owned the market in Japan and with the help of their lawyers, managed to make game renting illegal. I'm kind of sure about this theory because this is how a bunch of gaming companies managed to make the used video game market illegal for a 2~3 years period. During the time of the Dreamcast, SEGA and about 5 other companies gang up with their lawyers and managed to convinced a judge that selling used games was some sort of copyright infringement (look at the back of you Japanese DC imports' cases, you should see “No Resale”). That law was removed within a few years when it was made clear that it was contradicting a similar law that we have in NA where you are free to resale what you have legally purchased.

The tards in the North American gaming industry that want to make make game resale illegal have to be the biggest hypocrites in the world because I'm 100% sure that they've purchased something used in their lifetime (car, couch, TV, etc...) in order to save a few bucks. So to them and all the brainless gamer agreeing with them, let me ask you, how do you justify buying used furnitures and electronics, but not games? Why, because companies put a lot of efforts making these games? Well news flash dumbasses, Samsung isn't exactly making TVs by taking a shit and La-Z-Boy isn't making recliners by scratching their balls.

Every product needs conception, development/assembling and then needs to be sold at retailers. No company in the world likes it when you buy one of their products used, obviously, but there's nothing they can do about it because there are LAWS in our societies that prevents them to do so. If it wasn't for these laws, they could do worst things like preventing you from using their products after a certain period of time or after a certain amount of usage like some software companies are doing with downloadable programs (there's no law that protects consumers from companies removing usage of virtual objects yet).

Anyway, enough swearing for this week, I just wanted to get this off my chest

Game OverThinker Monday

2008-11-10T12:23:00.003-05:00

Moviebob is back after having some major computer issues. This video is more about his opinion about what's been happening while he was gone.

Why do you Think Old 3D Games Haven't Aged Well?

2008-11-06T12:36:00.009-05:00

Backward compatibility on game consoles is standard today but prior to this generation, only a few systems have had this features. I think we can all agree that 360, PS3 and Wii games (for most cases) don't look better than their predecessors because the jump of technology wasn't that far, but what if we were to go back further, back in the 32/64bits era, ya doesn't look too good now does it?

Now why is that, why do great games like Final Fantasy VII and Zelda Ocarina of Time look like crap by today standards while games like Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Metroid still look great? Well the answer is quite simple, although the PSX, Saturn and N64 didn't invent 3D, they sure were the systems that brought 3D gaming to a mass audience, making them the earliest 3D experience for most gamers.

When we speak of 2D gaming, we normally refer to Nintendo and SEGA's 8 and 16bits systems, forgetting the early players in the 2D console market such as Atari and Coleco. Old SEGA and Nintendo games look great because they had a reach a certain peak in 2D gaming where future improvements weren't that major. 3D games have recently reached this peak in the 6th generation where XBOX360 games don't look THAT different than old XBOX games, not like going from Atari to SNES or PSX going to PS2.

I'm will be getting Chrono Trigger for NDS on the 25th (hope BestBuy Canada will be getting on time) and I really don't care that they kept the original graphics since they still look great and that they're adding full stylus controls and the PSX cut-scenes. However, if Square-Enix was to release FF VII on the PS3 without adding any improvements to it, I don't think I would bother buying it, especially when I can still play the original on the PS3 or even better, on my media PC via emulation with enhancements.

IMO, there was a better quantity of great games back in the 32/64bits era because developers focused on fun rather than graphics, but sometimes, even fun is not enough to compensate for bad polygons after being exposed to better eye candies :P

Until next week

Gaming Historian Monday

2008-11-03T13:40:00.000-05:00

Well Halloween was 3 days ago, but if the Simpsons Tree House of Horror can air 2 days after, I see no harm in posting this today:

So Who's Responsible for Shovelwares Anyway?

2008-10-30T12:27:00.006-04:00

If you've been reading my past topics, you'll know that I don't like to classify games too much and that I don't believe that there's such a thing as casual or hardcore games. Regardless if you don't see my POV regarding these articles I've wrote, I think we can all be in agreement that shovelwares do exist and that they are starting to hide actual games on store shelves. It doesn't matter if you like playing Gear or Wars, Guitar Heroes, Zelda, Madden or Tetris, shovelwares are a common enemy that are probably contributing in sales lost of real games.

Shovelwares aren't anything new, we've had them since the days prior the age of Nintendo, hell, they are partially responsible for the Video Crash of 83'. When Nintendo entered the market and imposed restrictions for 3rd party games, companies started releasing better quality titles or at least games that would make today's shovelwares look like the original Super Mario Bros. With Nintendo giving more freedom to 3rd parties and the new contenders (SONY & M$) not imposing much, the shovelwares are starting to take over again just like the Atari days. Regardless if it's based on a movie/TV show or not, they all have 3 things in common:

1- They've been rushed
2- They're buggy
3- They're not fun

So who the hell is responsible the industrial amount of shovelwares we've been getting for the past years? Answer: Developers, Publishers, Retailers, Buyers

That's right, everyone is a bit responsible for these insults to the gaming industry. Developers make the shit, Publishers package the shit, Retailers sale the shit and Suckers... err... I mean Buyers will cough over the cash for shit with an appealing box art >_>

There's not much we can about Developers and Publishers, I mean for them, these games are cash cows and they'll keep making them as long as Retailers keep buying them. Speaking of which, Retailers who normally carry these craps are stores that either don't know any better (Wal-Mart) or stores that are stuck with Auto-shipping because of signed contracts. Buyers on the other hand, now that we can try to control.

If you're reading this, odds are that you don't buy shovelwares, but perhaps you know people that do (younger sibling, friend). It's your job to tell these people to avoid these kind of games and pinpoint them to actual games that they'll be able to enjoy. Now when I say enjoy, I mean don't point them to Metroid Prime 3 when they were thinking of buying one of those Ubishit Petz game for Wii, just point them to Animal Crossing or something. Finally, if your local store doesn't know better and is always stuck with shovelwares after voluntary ordering them, tell them, perhaps you could start some sort of relation were you tell them what to avoid and they can give you discounts on games once in a while.

Remember, only you can prevent the spread of shovelwares!

Gaming Historian Monday

2008-10-27T12:32:00.000-04:00

Just like the NES 2, I never had the chance to try an SNES 2 (SFC Jr. in Japan), so I can't really comment. Still, just by looking at the unit itself, it lacks the charm that the original SNES and SFC both had.

So what is a Fanboy Anyway?

2008-10-23T12:51:00.008-04:00

I'm surprised I haven't talked about this way before considering we're in the middle of one of the most important console wars up to date.

So what is a Fanboy, well there really isn't an actual definition since it's one of these made up names, but according to a mass audience, it's a person who only buys game systems from one of the console makers. I personally I don't buy this definition, I mean what if we would apply this to other things in the world? So because you bought a Toyota and not a Honda, you're a Toyota fanboy? I don't see why NOT buying something means that you're worshiping it's competitor.

For me, the real definition of a Fanyboy would be: Thinking that the company you like can do no wrong.

Seriously, I mean how many people do you hear defending stupid moves made by video game companies? I think it's clear that I prefer Nintendo systems over SONY or Microsoft because I like the IPs that come with them, but I'm not blinded by Nintendo's retarded decisions with both the Wii and NDS, the list is long and I mentioned a lot of them in my previous posts. Speaking of which, I don't talk a lot about SONY and Microsoft, so just to even the odds, here goes:

PS3

The PS3 is an amazing machine and SONY should be proud of it. If I didn't have a PC already connected to my LCD, this would be the 2nd choice for a media PC. The system is very compatible with PC peripherals, Codecs and Linux OS. That being said, the consoles wars are about software, not hardware, if you don't have the software, the hardware is doomed. Because the PS3 is SOOO expensive, not too many people bought and in return, not too many exclusives were made for the system.

If SONY would have opted for a standard DVD format for the system, the PS3 could be dominating right now or be in 2nd place, I wouldn't have one since I bought it mainly as a Blu-Ray player, but I'm sure many others would have.

360

Considering the original, it's amazing that the XBOX 360 stands were it is today. Most of the big Japanese titles are made or being made exclusively for Microsoft's console and I envy this since I'm more of a Japanese gamer. That being said, the hardware is a Piece of Shit! Ya, I just said that the console wars are about software, but you still need stable hardware to run these softwares on and the 360 is far from being stable!

Gamers have to be the biggest whores in the consumers electronic market because if this was anything else, a recall would have been made, not a 3 years warranty replacement. It's not that I don't want a 360 or that I can't afford one, if MS would announce a permanent fix for the RROD, I would pay for one cash with like 10 games. Gamers who keep supporting the 360 regardless of the hardware issues are responsible for MS not fixing the issue. Seriously, if you're not seeing this as a scam to delay until their next platform, you're blinded. MS' warranty is meant to prolonged gamers to stay with the XBOX brand until their next system. The original XBOX was removed from the market pretty fast and the 360 will go just as fast when the 720 or whatever gets released. Once the 360 is gone from the market, you won't be able to buy another another one and get a new warranty, so when your original warranty expires, you'll be temped to get a 720 instead of paying for a repair.

Anyway, enough of my bitching, nothing is perfect, you just got to go with your guts.

Gaming Historian Monday

2008-10-20T12:23:00.001-04:00

Now there's History for you, the Video Game Crash of the early 80'. It's no wonder when looking at this, it explains why I have more love for Japanese games than American ones. If you ask me, if North American publishers and developers keep topping the sales chart, it's going to happen again >_>

So what are my Thoughts on TGS2008?

2008-10-16T12:32:00.002-04:00

Very good and I'm not just comparing to E3. Sure, 75% of the stuff we already knew about, but we got to see some nice trailers and Japanese booth babes to go along with them. Hardware side, there wasn't much besides more pointless info on the DSi. Software side is where the show shined with one of the best surprise IMO, No More Heroes 2 !!!

Seriously, No More Heroes 2, I never saw this coming, mainly because of the poor sales in Japan, but Suda51 believes in the potential of the Wii and wanted Travis to make a comeback. So here's hoping for an early 2010 release.

Phantasy Star Zero (PSØ) is another title that I'm looking forward to. I'm a big fan of PSO and I was disappointed with PSU, so a revert back to the original formula might prove successful, in my eyes anyway.

Other games I might just pickup if I like them after trying:

Street Fighter IV: Having all the other SF games running on an arcade emulator, I'd need a lot of convincing before buying this one, especially since it looks like another incarnation of SFII.

King of Fighters XII: Same deal as SFIV, SNK will need to prove themselves by making this more than a sequel.

Chrono Trigger DS: If the touch screen controls are decent, the translation is better than the previous one and that the cinematics of the PSX version are there, I'll pick this one up.

Anyway, back to the regular schedule for next week

Gaming Historian Monday

2008-10-13T10:06:00.002-04:00

History behind the Dreamcast, one of the best consoles ever made, too bad it died prematurely :(

I'm currently playing Grandia II on my Dreamcast using a VGA box hooked on my LCD TV, and it's not bad for for a console that like 10 years old (counting the 1998 release date in Japan).

Well anyway, here's a 2 Part Video from the Gaming Historian:

So what's my Opinion on the Nintendo Summit?

2008-10-09T12:38:00.005-04:00

To quote the AVGN, “It sucked Monkey Fuck!!!”

Although not as horrifying as E3 2008, it still remained a pile of steaming shit meant to get the cash from the new buyers and ignore the current ones. Let's list the top 3 disappointments:

#3 The DSi:

I'm putting this in #3 because it's not the worst, but will eventually fail. Let me know if you've heard this one before. Nintendo releases a new version of their popular handheld, reduces the size, adds a gimmick or two and removes backward compatibility for old games and peripherals. Sounds familiar? That's right, the GBA Micro!!! The GBA and NDS have had the same pattern so far where the first version was total garbage and the next one was a blessing, so it doesn't take a genius to guess what will happen to the DSi.

Nintendo even admitted that the DSi is a way to make more money, hence why they're not bringing it the NA until the sales of the NDS Lite slow down. They get a point for honesty but they loose ten for being greedy bastards >_>

#2 The GameCube remakes for Wii:

Like the 3rd version of the NDS, we all saw this one coming. Nintendo lost a lot of potential sales for great games because of the position the GameCube had after the last console war, so it was only a matter of time before they gave these games a 2nd chance. This is a tricky decision, I mean on one hand, you don't have to use GameCube peripherals anymore and you get the motion control treatment but on the other hand, not every games will be remade (meaning that you can't get rid of your NGC stuff) and you'll have to spend cash on games that you may already have. Instead of showing us a new Pikmin, they're showing us the remakes and announced that they're making a new one. Next time, do it in reverse, show us the goods and announce the crap >_>

#1 Storage Solution

I didn't think Nintendo could become anymore idiotic, paranoid and just plain irritating, but they managed to prove me wrong once again. For fuck sake, people who want to to pirate VC games have been doing so on computers for over a decade now, it's called emulation! Also, there isn't enough good Wiiware games to even bother pirating and filling a 2GB SD card with. The goal of a storage solution is NOT to have to remove stuff around in order to play something you've paid for! It's less trouble to insert disks than to move around VC games and Wiiwares >_>

Well I won't end on a negative note, so:

-The new Punch Out looks awesome
-3rd party games seem promising for 2008~2009
-For those of you using the Homebrew Channel, get the version of GeckoOS, it allows you to boot any imported games for Wii or GameCube from the Wii menu and allows you to copy protected saved files from to your SD card (like SSBB)

The Tokyo Game Show is up next, don't expect a topic for next week, I need to read all the goods first.

EDIT: I got what I need, so there will be a topic next week.

Gaming Historian Monday

2008-10-06T12:18:00.005-04:00

Ah yes, the history of Rockman and yes, I said Rockman, not that 1960 gay name that NA and Europe gave him because they were afraid that the video game company Mastertronic would sue them because they already had made a character and games called Rockman:

Well it's not very surprising since we're talking about a company who was afraid of getting sued by Mike Tyson if they would have left the name Mike Bison to the boxer in Street Fighter II. Anyway, enough of my renting, time for a history lesson about one of the greatest video game characters ever conceived.

No topics this week

2008-10-02T12:34:00.002-04:00

I'm keeping track of the Nintendo Summit, I'll give my POV about this next week. Make sure to keep up with GoNintendo and Kotaku for the news.

Game OverThinker Monday

2008-09-29T12:39:00.001-04:00

Fresh new from this morning, Moviebob has a new Game OverThinker video. I'll be honest by saying that I was hesitant to post this one since it's basically a game review and that I normally don't do that here. Still, at the core of the video, there is an important message that Moviebob as told us over and over again, try to spot it.

Proprietary Peripherals on Game Consoles, a Thing of the Past?

2008-09-25T12:44:00.002-04:00

This topic sucks. Seriously, I wrote this over 3 months ago and I felt that it was so bad that I decided to to post it. I chopped it down and modified it to make the topic for this week.

Proprietary peripheral is a term used to describe non-standard piece of equipment for a device. Standard and proprietary can be compared to open and closed sourced in the software side of things. When a video game console requires proprietary peripherals, it means that you can’t simply go out and buy a peripheral for it unless it was design to be used with the console to begin with (licensed or unlicensed). A fine example flash or memory cards, the Wii and PS3 use non-proprietary memory cards which we can use in a multitude of devices while the XBOX 360 uses proprietary memory cards, meaning that these cards are for the 360 and 360 only.

Personal computers can use a variety of external peripherals and most of the time, there’s no compatibility issue if the minimum requirements are respected. Being almost computers themselves, game consoles seem to be taking that same route. Anyway, enough of this, let's start

Controller Sockets

Controllers have evolved with the years and it would seem that the 7th generation of video games made cordless controllers a new standard, meaning that there are no need for proprietary controller sockets. Sure, the Wii has GameCube controller sockets, but that's optional for any Wii, Wiiware or VC games and is only required for GameCube games. The only input method seems to be USB ports that people can use to recharge their controllers. Although the Wiimotes doesn't have rechargeable batteries by default, it is possible to buy some with a USB connector and the PS3 do use standard USB cables to recharge the Dual Shock 3 and Six Axis.

Extension Cords

Speaking controller sockets and cords, extension cords are another thing that will no longer be needed since the controllers are wireless. Sure, you might need an extension when your XBOX360 or PS3 controller needs a charge, but those are standard USB extension cables.

Proprietary Memory Cards

Although Microsoft forgot to read the memo, it would seem that proprietary memory cards are a thing of the past now. All 3 systems have internal memory (minus the XBOX Arcade model), the Wii can use SD cards for external storage and the PS3 is compatible with most USB Keys, USB drives and flash cards. I personally am not sad to see this go and I'm still wondering why the PSX, PS2 and GameCube did not copy what the SEGA Saturn did with internal memory in the first place.

Multitaps

Boy now there's something that should have went away after the 16bit era. Although they had good intentions, these devices prevented the development of 4 player games because most people wouldn't have been able to play 4 players anyway without buying one of these expensive splitters. It's not a coincidence that every consoles since the N64 that had 4 controller ports received many titles that were 4 players compatible. The PS2 was the last system to have 2 ports and cursed their owners to own a PS2 multitap for PS2 games and a PSX multitap for PSX games >_>

Link Cables

Not very known on consoles nor were they used often, but the PSX, PS2 and Dreamcast did have an Link Cable port for LAN play. Handheld game systems were the real victims here since everone of them since the first GameBoy until the last generation of Handheld systems had it's own link cable for multiplayer play. Fortunately, link cables have been removed from consoles and replaced by good old Ethernet ports and handheld systems are now wireless.

Rumble Add-ons

That on is a no-brainer since the last system that used an add-on rumble pack was the Dreamcast, but still, it's nice that rumble is now included (Dual Shock 3) with the controllers of every game systems.

Keyboards

Well there hasn't been a lot of keyboards with proprietary plugs for game consoles and it won't happen again since all current consoles can use a standard USB keyboard for typing needs.

Proprietary TV Output

OK, so all consoles have their own AV, S-Video and Component cables, but HDMI, well that's standard. It's funny that we went from RF-Switchs which was 1 cable to RCA and S-Video which was 3 cables, to Components which 5 cables to HDMI which has 1 cable :P

Well that's all I can think of, I might add others in the future.

Gaming Historian Monday

2008-09-22T12:27:00.002-04:00

Although I have never used a DexDrive on the PSX or N64, I have used a similar product on the Dreamcast and I was very happy with it. Let the gaming historian tell you more about this product that is no longer needed now and days before of flash memory storage.

Classification of Gaming Genres, are we Wasting our Time with this?

2008-09-18T12:41:00.004-04:00

Do you recall my topic on Casual and Non-Casual gamers? No? Well go read it again! Anyway, this week, I'm bringing a similar topic to the table, gaming genres.

Is Zelda an RPG, Action RPG or Action Adventure game? Is Mario a platformer or Action game? Is Twisted Metal a racing game or combat game? Is Final Fight a fighting game or beat-em-up? Believe it or not, no one can officially answer this, not even the game makers themselves. Oh sure, they might list it on the box, but for something to be classify, there needs to be an official ruling about it and last I checked, there wasn't some big meeting between all the video game companies where the decision was made to classify game by their content.

Taking back my examples above, Nintendo once called Zelda an RPG, then an Action RPG and is now calling an Action Adventure game (most of the time). Why is that? Zelda games have remained basically the same over the years, so why would it's genre change? Well the sad answer to this is generalization because over the years, people have started to identify an RPG by having characters gain EXP and then Lv-up. But where does it OFFICIALLY states (caps means forget about Wikipedia) that an RPG require EXP and Lv-ups? By definition of terms, an RPG means Role Playing Game. Now most game required you to play the role of a character, so if anything, the genre of games like Final Fantasy should be:

“Game where you have to fight countless enemies in order to get stronger and beat the game”

Now what about fighting games? Before Street Fighter II came along, games like Double Dragons and Final Fight were called fighting games because, well, you fight. But now and days, unless it's a 1-1 match with a timer and a stupid announcer, it's not a fighting game.

I'll give you one more funky example, racing games. A race by definition is trying to beat something by using speed, whether it be an opponent of time itself. With that definition, any game where you have to get to your goal before the clock runs out (2D Sonic, 2D Mario, etc...) could be called a racing game.

The point to all of this is to tell all of you gaming genius wannabes to keep your opinions to yourselves. Seriously, if I have to see another topic on a forum where some idiots are debating the classification of a game, I swear I'll destroy the Internet !!!! Until all or most of the game makers and publishers gather up and officially state what needs to be in a game to fall into a certain genre, STFU !!!

Game OverThinker Monday

2008-09-15T12:38:00.002-04:00

Movie bob is back with another Game OverThinker. This week, he hits the subject of Stereotypes which kind of falls into previous subjects that he talked about:

So What's my View on Console Emulation Anyway?

2008-09-11T12:40:00.011-04:00

The year was 1998, it was summer, I graduated from High School and I was applying to take an extra class in Math before moving on to do anything else. That summer marked the first time that I connect my computer to the Internet, that's right, I was a late cyber world bloomer. One of the first thing I did with my old PI 100MHz was to download games. I couldn't believe that SEGA ported so many Genesis and Saturn game to Windows and I wanted to see if Nintendo did the same, so I searched on Altavista (yes, that was THE search engine back then) for “Super Metroid for Windows” and the results: Emulation.

I remembered having previously seen emulation at work with SNES9X for Windows 95, but the emulation was soooo slow that I never paid attention to this concept. I tried that same emulator to see if it was faster, but it wasn't, but the DOS version of it was much better and much faster. Then I tried the DOS version of ZSNES and that was even better. Finally, after establishing which emulator I wanted for Genesis, SNES, NES and GameBoy, I download the ROMs I wanted, went and purchased 2 SideWinder controllers and the rest as they say, is history. This summer now marks the 10 year anniversary of when I fell into the emulation scene.

OK, history lesson over, now time to give my opinion on it which is that I'm in favor of it regardless the legal aspect of it. Before we go further, let's take a deeper into software piracy, no I mean a real deep look, not the usual bullshit ignorance crap that you read on forums. Software piracy is really Copyright Infringement and believe it or not, most websites on the Internet do violate Copyright Infringement! How do you ask, simple, even a little action such as using art work which belongs to a company is a violation of Copyright Infringement ie: Using Mario for a banner of your website.

Now you might be saying:

Importer you wannabe lawyer, no one as ever got convicted from using Copyright images on their website!

True, but then I could reply that you probably never meant someone who got a ticker for spitting his gum on the ground even if that's technically polluting, which is also a crime. What you need to understand is that there is the law, then there is the “law”. Have you ever stopped to ponder why the Emulation scene is still here after all of these years, why if keeps growing, why are some websites with ROMs are still alive and kicking? Simple, tolerance. Yes, downloading Super Mario World for usage with ZSNES when you don't own an original cartridge copy is a crime by law, but in reality, Nintendo doesn't give 2 fucks. Oh sure, their website claims otherwise, but in practice, they only went after the websites that carry N64 ROMs (they don't anymore) and they still attack the ones that carry NDS ROMs.

This raises another question, which is why, why not go after websites that carry oldschool ROMs? Well this is a 5 part answer:

1- Video game companies are busy, they have bigger fish to fry
2- It's better to target people who dump and download current commercial games like NDS and Wii where profit lost is a bit more realistic
3- Wiishop channel aside, it wouldn't make sense to start a legal process for old games that are no longer in circulation
4- Unless you're like me and have a living room PC hooked up to your TV with game controllers, odds are that console emulation on PC for you is done by sitting on a chair in front of a monitor, so Nintendo has an upper hand in this with the Virtual Console aspect of their business if you wish to play oldschool games in your living room.
5- No profit is being made. Regardless if it's emulation or distribution of current commercial games, pirating tends to be something that's free. Companies will more often than anything else, go after people who are selling bootlegs mainly because the people who wanted to get the free pirated version wouldn't have have bought it legally if no alternative was available to them.

All of these are plausible if not the reasons why emulation is and has been tolerated for over a decade now. I'm not trying to say it's not illegal because technically, it isn't, but it's what we call a victimless crime because these games are old and that the development cost and profit has been made a long time ago. As for the reviving of these games via XBOX Live or Wii Virtual Console, it's clear by now that companies aren't worried because whatever they sale is pure profit.

Anyway, I could go on, but I'll leave it at that. I might expend on this later if I get many e-mails or replies on the subject.

Gaming Historian Monday

2008-09-08T12:32:00.002-04:00

Everyone's favorite Video Game Ape got his start somewhere, let the Gaming Historian tell you where:

Will Future Console Generation Include More or Less Competition?

2008-09-04T12:39:00.003-04:00

A short topic this week, mainly to compensate for last week's novel :P

Most ignorant gamers keep saying that there are too many players in the video game market, but little do they know that 3 consoles is among the lowest amount of systems that have ever fought in a console war. Don't believe me, well take a look at Wikipedia:

first generation
second generation
third generation
fourth generation
fifth generation
sixth generation
seventh generation

Sure, a lot of these past wars were basically one or two giants Vs. a bunch of minor players, but they were still competition. So back to the question, will there be more or less competition in the future? Well if we compare consoles makers to game makers & publishers, it would seem that merging is the path that the video game market has taken. I wouldn't be surprised at all if two of these console makers joined forces and I don't see anyone being dumb enough to make anything resembling a console besides one of these educational systems for kids. So, unless it stays the way it is, my money is on less consoles in the future.

Introducing the Gaming Historian

2008-09-02T12:45:00.002-04:00

With no new GameOver Thinker videos for this week, I figured the time was good as ever to introduce some new blood. The Gaming Historian, YouTube user mcfrosticles, brings us a short history into the retro gaming world starting with the 2nd model of the NES:

Digital Purchases, is this the Future of Console Gaming?

2008-08-28T12:56:00.011-04:00

Well as you might have read a couple of weeks ago, my local video store started renting Blu-Ray movies, so I got me a PS3 to play these babies as well as buying a few games for it. While I'm enjoying games like Virtua Fighter 5 and Soul Calibur 4 (that is until lately when I sold it because I realized that it was the exact same game I hated on PSX, Dreamcast and GameCube), I'm also enjoying a couple of titles I downloaded from PSN: Lemmings and Bionic Commando Rearmed.

I'm really like these titles which combined, didn't even cost me $20 and I'm looking forwards to other great titles such as these two. Question remains, is this the future of gaming? Yes, this has been asked millions of time, so nothing original yet, but let's dig deeper and bring you 2 reasons why I don't think that Disk based games aren't going away anytime soon.

1- Regardless of what software companies would like you to believe, when you purchase a game or software from a retail store, YOU OWN IT. Companies would like to make you believe that you have simply bought the rights to use it, but that could never win a case mainly because of the law of possession. Another reason why it wouldn't work is because when you think about it, all of the agreements for which you have to agree when reading the manual or installing it (PC side of things), you can only read them after opening the package, you are not told about them prior to purchase and since you can't return an open software unless it's defective, you disagreeing to the agreements won't get you your money back. In short, all of this would be considered a scam.

My point to the previous paragraph is that when you download data from the web, you're not buying something physical, so the law of possession doesn't apply the same way as it does when you purchase a disk, in short, I don't own Lemmings and Bionic Commando Rearmed the same way I own Virtua Fighter 5. This alone is enough to discourage some people from converting entirely to digital purchases. When you download, you don't own anything physical, you can't show it without a the usage of a computer or game console nor can you store this on your software shelve for showing purposes.

2- It's no secret that digital music will completely replace music CD in the near future. There are many reasons for this: digital songs are small, they don't take a lot time to enjoy, you can listen to many of them in a single hour and you can pack a lot of them on a disk or drive. Movies, TV shows and games however: you're not going to enjoy them as often as you would with music, they are rather large in capacity and they usually last you more than 4 minutes.

Yet despite what I just said, it would seem that a lot of people don't mind buying large capacity hard drives just for the sake of avoiding the disk format (CD/DVD/Blu-Ray). Is our population getting so lazy that people would prefer to manage multiple hard drive and making backups of these on other hard drives rather than to grab the require disks to play movies or games? Disks have apaprently a lifespan of 100 years, give or take a decade, this means unless you break them, they should last you a life time. Not to mention that we get a new format every 10 years of so and that once we transfer our data to the newer one, we start the lifespan cycle all over again. It makes perfect sense to keep disks around since they are more durable than Hard Drives.

Digital purchases are here to stay, there's no questioning that and the year 2008 has already proven itself to be the year of downloadable games, but I definitely don't think that the disk format is going anywhere, especially not for the console and movie side of multimedia. CDs might go away due to the fact that digital audio has surpassed analog and that 700MB of data is simply not enough for other types of media, but DVDs and possibly Blu-ray, that's here to stay.

When will NA Divisions Start Listening to Japanese Gaming Fans?

2008-08-21T12:45:00.002-04:00

Before the 32bit era, the average gamer had no clue that most games (good ones anyway) came from Japan, so people never knew about most of the censorship that Nintendo imposed on the domestication of games.

In the mid 90', two things happen: the Anime boom and the Internet boom. Suddenly, it was no longer appropriate to watch dubbed Anime and call yourself an Otaku and people started importing more and more games from Japan.

Importing was done for two reason: In order to play them earlier or simply to avoid censorship and keeping the original voice actors (for games on CD-ROMs). With the times, censorship began to go away mainly because it was no longer taboo to talk about sex, religion, violence, etc.. but the bad dubbing, they still haven't done anything about that.

It was understandable that companies chose to stick with the English dubbing because of the limitation of the technology from the the mid-90' had primitive compression and 700MB of storage doesn't give you a lot to work with. We're now living in the year 2008 with Double-Layer DVDs and Blu-Ray Discs, so what's they're fucking excuse this time? Seriously, why are they still removing Japanese voice acting from RPGs and other non-fighting games? Are the American devisions offended by the language or do they still think that people still believe that these games were made in the USA?

We're not asking for the default voices to be in Japanese, just give us the option to switch them, is that so hard to do? We might not be the majority, but we're not a decimal percentage either.

Ya, I know what some of you are saying right now:

Importer you Japanophile wannabe, listening to Japanese voices won't make you Japanese!

True, but then I could also say that playing GTA and listening to Rap music won't make you anymore of a gangster, so STFU you hypocrite.

As a French Canadian, I am well aware that dubbing is NEVER as good as the original language. Most English Canadians consider English TV shows and movies dubbed in French to be absolute crap and they're right! So then, how can they justify the dubbing of Japanese games and Anime into English? Dubbing it dubbing and there isn't one case scenario which makes it better. The real reason why they don't tolerate English media to be dubbed but will accept media to be dubbed in English is because it's usually the only language they understand and therefor, are not as open minded as people who might be bilingual, trilingual, etc...

Not much else to say about this. As you can tell by my user name, importing has been part of my life for a long time, so I'd like to think that I have an upper edge when it comes to this subject. I've compared the original Japanese to the NA version of countless games I can tell you for a fact there's still a lot of room left for improvement.

Game OverThinker Monday

2008-08-18T06:56:00.003-04:00

This week's Game OverThinker is a bit far fetch. I kind of agree with Moviebob, but not at 100% like I mostly due. Obviously, game companies do need to target more kids, but considering that a lot of adults (single or married) do spend a lot of hours playing, I don't think gaming is going anywhere for a while.

No topics this week

2008-08-14T12:53:00.000-04:00

Sorry guys, had both computer and Networking issues this week, so I didn't have time in between this and my job to write an article. Enjoy the Soul Calibur IV video in the meanwhile and Moviebob made a new GameOver Thiner video, so I'll link it next week.

Game OverThinker Monday

2008-08-11T11:54:00.003-04:00

GTA, love it or hate it. In my case I hate it, mainly because it uses crime and violence to attract the masses. Moviebob bring a very good point about the wasted potential regarding this franchise.

Side note: Moviebob hasn't made a new Game OverThinker for about 4 weeks now, I can't guaranty a new one next Monday.

Soul Calibur IV to Toshinden

2008-08-10T01:23:00.009-04:00

A Sunday Special this week.

Now that my local video store started renting Blu-Ray movies, I went headed and bought a PS3 mainly because it's still the cheapest Blu-Ray player that you can get at this quality and considering that it's SONY's main focus, my bet is that they'll keep this system up to date for a very long time.

I picked-up one game with this system, Soul Calibur IV, for 2 reasons:

1- It was one of the few Japanese games currently on the market (this system is cursed with too many Western games)

2- The character creation feature which perfect for a when you couldn't care less about the drone characters already inhabiting the game. Seriously, for a franshise with the word "Soul" in the title, you'd think that the characters would have more personality and be less generic.

Anyway, I have a little story for you:

There once was a weapon fighting game called Battle Arena Toshinden that was released along side the SONY PlayStation.

When NAMCO saw the success of this game, they decided to make their own weapon fighting game and named Soul Edge (just like they copied Virtua Fighter by making Tekken). While Toshinden managed to have more games during the 32bits era, NAMCO's Soul franchise managed to continue onwards in the 128bits.

But now, near a decade after the final title, Toshinden returns with the ultimate vengeance, by invading the latest Soul Calibur game:

I made these 15 characters as best as I could. I can safely say that most of them turned out very well. The only ones that aren't too close to the original would be Uranu, Sho and Vermilion, mainly because of the outfit and weapon. There's no Wings or Bow & Arrows for Cupido, Sho and Verm have complex outfits and Cervantes's weapons were the closest thing to gun fighting in this game. I didn't make the Master because there wouldn't have been a single thing that would resemble her, which is why I made Cupido (from Toshinden Saturn) instead.

When making Anime based characters, what's important are the hair and clothes, you don't have that, you might as well give up. Also important for this case was the weapons. They may not have their old moved from the Toshinden games, but that doesn't mean that their weapons need to change if I can leave them.

If Your Name is NOT in Credits, How can you Say it's NOT Fair?

2008-08-07T12:39:00.005-04:00

Anyone here love Tetris? I sure do :)

Any old school Tetris fans hate the new rules that were introduced in the last few years such as infinite spin or block holding? I know I am :(

So can I go and say that these new rules aren't fair, that they're cheats? Well I personally feel that they are, but I can't go on record saying that they truly are because that's the direction that the franchise went, even Nintendo adopted it. I may not like it, but that's just me, Tetris continues to sale and if I want to play with the old rules, I just have to stick with the older games.

So by now, you might be wondering what this topic is all about (if you haven't gone to another site already). Well this week's topic is basically to shut some light on a very old complaint regarding video games: “IT'S NOT FAIR !”.

How many times did you hear or said that yourself when playing either against the CPU or another player? Every game has been cursed by gamers one way or another but I'm going to focus on two franchises in particular, Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros.

The biggest complaint regarding these two franchises seems to revolve around the items. For some reasons, a lot of gamers want to play these games without items, like if they were other racing and fighting games. They keep saying that it's not fair to use items, that it's cheap and if you use them, you're not a serious gamer.

My question to these gamers is: Who the fuck are you? No seriously, who the fuck are you to say that it's cheap? Because you don't like them? Since when does disliking something makes it cheap?

Here's the sad truth behind people who say this:

1- They want to play these games without worrying about anything besides beating their opponents, having to concentrate on avoiding items is asking to much and they can't multi-task. So because they're not able/willing to deal with more than one task, people who wish to use the items are cheaters in their eyes.

2- They want Smash to be like other fighters and Mario Kart of be like other racers. Unfortunately, Smash Bros is not a fighting like Street Fighter or Virtua Fighter and Mario Kart not like Ridge Racer or Gran Turismo, they're basic games where the trill and action come from the the random items that generate during the gameplay.

Now I know what you're going to say: Importer, you ignorant douchebag, how can strategies and skills apply to games with randomize chances of getting power ups?

I would reply: The same reason why skills and strategies still works in RPGs (critcal hits, random battles) and card games (luck of the draw).

Poker, being a very old game still has a lot of randomize chances, but that's part of the fun and allows people to use a strategy called a Poker Face. Most games predating video games had randomize chances in them and a lot of them still exists today, it doesn't matter if it's card or dice based, luck of the draw still applies and will remain one of the most used form of entertainment in the world (See Gambling).

Anyway, I think you get the point. See you next week.

Game OverThinker Monday

2008-08-04T18:49:00.002-04:00

Luigi and Daisy and item, well I always thought so. I mean Mario is the good guy, Peach is his girl and Wario if the opposite. Then you have Luigi who's the good guy, Daisy his girlfriend Waluigi his opposite. Well anyway, I'll leave this debate to Moviebob:

Removing Repetition in Game Sequels, are We Fooling Ourselves?

2008-07-31T12:40:00.005-04:00

Stop me if you've heard this one before:
Nintendo games are the same as they were 20 years ago but with better graphics.

Now how about that one:
This sequel is too different from the original, they really screwed it up by removing what made the franchise great.

This is what some gamers and reviewers are normally complaining about when it comes to sequels to video games (or any other type of media for that matter). According to them, if a game is too much like the last one, it's bad and if it's not enough like the original it's also bad.

Here's what's really going on behind all of these nitpicking complaints. Gamers actually want the sequels to be like the original because that last one was great, but at the same time, they don't want to feel ripped off by paying for the same game. Well news flash, you can't have your cake and eat it too. If a game was successful, it normally means that it was great in both gameplay and sales, so why would any company in their right mind purposely screw around with a winning formula that could potentially affect their sales? It's been proven time and time again that when a game derives too much from it's original formula, that the fans will response negatively. Most long running franchises have a black sheep in their titles including Mario and The Legend of Zelda.

Speaking of which, Nintendo seems to have the bigger end of this stick here because their franchises are among the oldest that are still on the market. That being said, a lot of the people who keep saying that every Zelda games are always the same tend to either buying the same fucking EA sport games every year or will continue gunning down the Nazis in every WWII FPS they can get their hands on. Even worst, what about the people who keep paying every month to play to same Online MMO? How are all of these examples NOT a clear case of repetition? Because they haven't been around as long as Mario? Since when is repetition been determine by time or amount?

It doesn't matter how long a franchise has been on the market, repetition is repetition. Most singers stick to what they do best because drifting from their genres normally means loosing a big chunk of their current audience and being laugh at by the ones they're trying to reach, so why bother? What if Universal Studios made Back to the Future IV and that last one would have nothing to do with Time Traveling, do you think that would work? Hell no, and fans would probably crucify them for doing so.

To conclude this week's topic, it doesn't matter if we're talking about stores or media, franchises are called franchises for a reason, it's because there needs to be resemblance.

Game OverThinker Monday

2008-07-28T06:56:00.003-04:00

Moviebob talks about a touchy issue this week with racism. Being a guy who just see's people in 2 ways, douche or not a douche, I'm not in a the best position to talk about this issue, so I'll just let him do the talking for that one. Oh and BTW, ya, he screwed up with his "Africa is a Country" quote, he's going to make up for it next week.

So what is my opinion on E3 2008?

2008-07-24T12:49:00.000-04:00

As I stated 2 weeks ago, E3 will either blow our minds or will simply blow. With the exception of the new Wii Sports and Microsoft kicking SONY in the balls by killing their exclusivity of FFXIII, the entire show blew.

There was barely anything that we didn't expect, MS tried to much to be like Wii, SONY talk too much and Nintendo embarrassed themselves with the bad acting and Wii music. I won't go into details since every websites and blogs have already insulted E3 in every possible way by now, but I will add my 2 cents.

Some companies have mentioned that E3 is no longer the show for golden age gamers and that's it's meant to attract the new gamers. Fine by me if they manage to balance their statement by showing the good stuff at E4all, PAX, TGS or GDC. If they fail do so, this will be a clear sign that gaming will be heading in an new direction for which we may or may not like. I have nothing against party games, I enjoy them once in a while, but I also love other genres. A lot of people (including yours truly) have the theory that gaming reached it's peak between mid 2007 to the first quarter of 2008 and that it will go downhill from there. Let's hope that this hill has a few pit stops and an escalator along the way or else we might get the 2nd Video Game Crash >_>

Anyway, that's it for this week, next Thursday, we get back to our regular scheduled program :)

Game OverThinker Monday

2008-07-21T12:58:00.003-04:00

So is this how most Nintendo fanboys think? I can't say because that's not the way I see Nintendo, but it's a plausible situation for some people. On a side note, my article this week will about my opinion on this last E3.

Game OverThinker Monday

2008-07-14T12:56:00.002-04:00

This week's Game OverThinker is a continuity of the representation of women in gaming, make sure to watch the 2nd episode if you haven't done so. On a side note, I won't be posting a topic this week since I'll be busy monitoring E3 via the web and since I have a real job, that doesn't leave me much time to write down one of my weekly topics. I'll post something Thursday of next week.

So What are my E3 2008 Predictions?

2008-07-10T22:15:00.006-04:00

With E3 coming up next week, I thought I would do like everyone else and their dog by giving out my predictions. I won't focus on any titles, but more on what each console makers should in order to keep the rhythm going until the next generation.

My first prediction, E3 2008 will either blow our minds or will simply blow, there will be no middle ground.

-Blow our minds: This would need to include so many surprises in both software and hardware that it would keep us excited for the next 12 months.

-Simply blow: Having nothing new that we haven't read about on every gaming news sites and blogs out there (which could happen considering how much details we've been getting about games for the past months).

So what would make or break this E3 for the big 3s? Well these are my other predictions, if each company misses even half of stuff I listed for them, it will prove my theory that gaming has currently reached it's peak and won't be climbing up (and could possibly go down).

Nintendo:

Some new franchises or reviving very old ones, introduce a damn storage method for downloadable games and content (External Hard Drive or allow SD card reading for Channels), making the console actually available on store shelves, giving more for your buck for VC games, get away from the kiddy image that has plagued them since the N64.

Microsoft:

Fixing the RRoD issue once and for all in the current models or in a brand new (smaller and cute) model, dropping the price (pretty much confirmed by now), getting more original games on XBOX Live instead of just remakes and ports, better monitoring of the douchebags on XBOX Live, making Wi-Fi out of the box in the current models or a new model, drive away from the Sports and FPS image that most people consider that this system is only good for.

SONY:

Better exclusive titles and a significant price drop, seriously, that's all I can think of. You want more? OK, how about they fire that freak in the pink shirt who looks like a pedophile.

That's it for this week, I'll be monitoring E3 from my home since I'm not invited, well that and I'm aviophobia :(

Game OverThinker Monday

2008-07-07T12:38:00.003-04:00

As far as I know, we Quebequers aren't really patriots of anything. Our French ancestors were cowards and our English ones were traitors, so we basically live for ourselves. We celebrate the day of the Queen and Canada day, mainly because it gives us a day off from work. Anyway, when it comes to being a patriot, no one knows this like an American, which is why I'll let MovieBob tell us more.

Game Retailing, is it a Profitable Business?

2008-07-03T23:35:00.005-04:00

Well there's a subject which kind of hits close to home for me, game retailing. After I graduated from High School, I had it with studies and decided to get a job while I figured out what I wanted to do with my life. I was fortunate enough to get a job as a video game salesman in a Compucentre (now defunct franchises that use to sale everything computer and video game related). This was my first “real” job and I kept it up as both full and part time for more or less 3 years before I went back to school.

While working there, I learned a lot about the video game business, mainly that it's not a profitable one. If you're reading this and are into games, odds are that you have or have tried to sale a used video game to a store such as GameStop and you felt ripped off. Not that I support trade-ins in these kind of stores, but do you know why they buy back for peanuts and sale back at almost the full price? Simple, because they barely make dick on the new stuff >_>

That's right folks, the industry that's making companies like Nintendo rich is one that retailers are struggling with everyday. Before we get into details, let's break down the numbers. Now I haven't check the cost of these items for a while now, but I doubt it changed much.

-Console profit is no secret, retailers make dollars if not pennies of each units they sale and with the exception of Nintendo, the makers of these systems make and sale them at a loss.

-Games, the bread and butter of the gaming industry brings around 8 to 15% profit per sale depending on the price and if the title is 1st or 3rd party (Nintendo games are among the least profitable for retailers). Also, it's important to note that PC games not only sale for less than their console equivalents (no need to charge for console licenses) but also bring much more profit for retailers, up to 30%.

-Official accessories bring anywhere from 20 to 50% depending if it's an actual peripheral or just a piece of plastic.

-Unofficial accessories, if they sale at all, can bring up to 75% since they're usually crap.

So when you need to pay rent, phone bills, employees, etc..., how can you make money with this small-profitable media? Well small electronic stores have other merchandise to sale that do bring better profits, they mainly keep video games around to attract people. Game stores will concentrate on 2nd hand games and will normally harass you for pre-sales and extended warranties. As for big chain retailers like Wal-Mart, they don't give a rat's ass because they know that not a lot of people will go shopping for a single game in a store like this, they'll buy snacks, t-shirts, books and other junk.

So why did I make this topic anyway? Simple, I wanted to warn anyone with the crazy fantasy of running a game store that it's not all that it's cracked up to be. You simply can't make a living off this unless you rent and/or sale 2nd hand games. If you're really determined to go into game retailing, you'd probably be better off selling games Online like on an eBay store where you could maximize profit and cut on spendings.

Game OverThinker Monday

2008-06-30T07:00:00.002-04:00

This as to be my favorite Game OverThinker video, it's funny because it's true:

Should 3rd Party Companies Still Bother with Console Exclusives?

2008-06-26T18:46:00.002-04:00

Since the console wars began (well minus the first Generation), most of them had one behemoth and some minor players, making the clear winner an obvious prediction. There as been two exceptions during these 7 generations:

1- The current console war. I love the Wii and even if I don't own a 360 or PS3, I still think it's too early to declare Nintendo the winner of this console generation. Both the PS3 and Wii haven't been out for 2 years, so it's still anybody's game. That being said, this 3 legged race as turned out to be the most balance one as each systems has a little something that the others want, making it temping to own all 3 of them. As it stands, not to many 3rd party titles are or remain exclusive on a single console.

2- The second exception to this was the 16bits war with SEGA's MegaDrive/Genesis and Nintendo's Super Famicom/SNES. SEGA came out with their 16bits system two years before Nintendo and it's a no brainer who was headed at first. When Nintendo came out with their 16bits system, grounds started to shake as these two Japanese giants were fighting it all over the world, each with their strong and weak territories. Not to many 3rd party titles were exclusive to either one system, good ones anyway.

If you've been into the console wars for a while, you might have noticed that the 16bits and the current one seem to lack the exclusives 3rd party titles that have helped other console wars determine the winner. Well it's no coincidence, publishers and developers are nobody's fool (most of them anyway), they know when to go exclusive and when not to. You make your titles exclusive to one system when you're sure that it will come out the winner, because the deal you'll make with the console manufacturer will more than compensate for the fact that you'll only miss out on a small percentage of the market. On the other hand, when you don't have one console dominating at 75%+ of the market, it's kind of stupid to go exclusive because you might be loosing a big chunk of the market if you do so.

By now, you must have read that game designer “extraordinaire” Tomonobu Itagaki will be leaving TECMO (Team Ninja) in July and will also be suing the company for unpaid bonus promised for his previous titles. Now if all of this is true, there are two reasons why a company would not pay you what they've promised:

1- They're cheap bastards
2- They haven't made enough money in order to pay your bonus or raise

Although it is possible that TECMO are cheap bastards (I don't know them personally), odds are it's because they haven't ranked up the amount of cash they were hoping for in the past 7 years. Now why wouldn't great franchises such as Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden not bring as much profit as expected? Well perhaps it's because they were all (well almost all) exclusive to Microsoft's systems since 2001. So what's was wrong with all of this, well let's see:

1- The original XBOX wasn't on equal grounds with the PS2 and was a failure in Japan
2- Fighting games are still more popular in Japan than they are anywhere else in the world
3- The 360 is even a worst failure in Japan
4- Although the 360 is strong outside of the land of the rising sun, the sales aren't ranking like the PS2 in the last generation
5- With more and more people buying games that fall into a retro category, is there still room for complex and difficult games like DOA and Ninja Gaiden?

All of these points are plausible factors that could explain why TECMO wasn't able to pay Itagaki his promised wages. If they would have made their games for PS2 back then and on the 360 and PS3 for this generation, I'm sure that they could have prevented this incident that will probably make them go bankrupt >_>

Like I previously stated, this console war is well balanced and at the moment, it seems foolish for a 3rd party to go exclusive for any of it's titles. Sure you have the exception of HD graphic games that would never work on Wii and motion control games that wouldn't work anywhere else but on the the Wii, but that's besides the point. Should TECMO or any other 3rd party focus on a single platform for their titles? My answer, NO, not for now at lease, leave the console exclusives for 1st party titles and make money anywhere you can.

"Why Aren't you Allowing my Comments to be Posted?"

2008-06-24T11:15:00.003-04:00

This what some people are probably thinking when I reject their posts in my topics. This is from my own F.A.Q. that you can read my clicking on it on the right menu under "Features".

Q- Why can’t I leave comments even after registering?

A- Comments need to be approved. This isn’t Kotaku, I want deep stuff. Flaming and even simply agreeing with the topic isn’t comment worthy, think outside the box.

Game OverThinker Monday

2008-06-23T12:40:00.005-04:00

Like many golden age gamers (yours truly excluded), Moviebob once rejected Kirby for being cute and pink. Watch this great video if you're the type of person who's ever rejected a game based solely on the appearance of the game and characters.

Game Bashing Videos, is There a Lasting Appeal?

2008-06-19T12:56:00.001-04:00

Unless you've been living under a rock or didn't have Internet access in the past 2 years, odds are that you have come across a game bashing video. Examples of this recent trend would Zero Punctuation and the Angry Video Game Nerd.

Now before you go and open up your G-mail account to flame me in hopes that I will hang myself, let me go on record by saying that I do still watch ZP and AVGN videos, I simply don't enjoy them as much as I use to. It's not that I don't enjoy their viewing earlier work, those are still classics even after watching them 200 times each, the problem is with their more recent videos.

Does anyone here know why movie sequels are rarely as good as the original movie or why TV shows tend to jump shark after the first couple of seasons? Well for one thing, creativity is not something that can be forced out and it's hard to make lightning strike twice at the same spot. Now you can go and say:

“Well Internet videos are just a few minutes long, why would it be to keep it fresh?”

It might not look like it, but combine all of Yahtzee's work since his “Darkness” review and you would have about 180 minutes of footage, something that could account for 2 movies (90 minutes each) in a period of less than a year. Add the fact that he's trying to dish out something new every week, that's pressure as well as forcing creativity.

As for the AVGN, well having started way before Yahtzee, you can imagine that he has covered hours and hours with only his video game reviews.

Forcing creativity however is not the main issue with game bashing videos. The real problem is that negativity or hatred is not something that a person can equally share multiple times, there's just so little to go around. I'm sure that any of you can name 5 games that you've played and hated with a passion, but can you say that you equally hate 100 games with that same passion? Of course not. So what happens when you try to do this for about for 16 to 20 minutes per month? Well you start going stale and change to way you do things.

The AVGN seems to have 3 ways around this:

1- He reviews gaming hardware which makes it easy since there's so much stuff to cover for a console or bad peripheral, mainly because it involves games as well.

2- He reviews an entire franchise of games, making the ranting on a single game shorter, allowing him to move on to another title pretty quickly.

3- He puts on a show when he reviews a single game, allowing him not to nitpick for 8 minutes.

Although James' videos aren't as good as they once were, I prefer his approach compared to Yahtzee's

“I'm running out of good material so I'll nitpick everything and just insult everyone who likes this game and everything revolving around it”.

Seriously, since his GDC video, everything went down hill from there until he reached the point of pathetic when he forced his review of SSBB. Why review a game if you don't like the genre to begin with, isn't that just asking for a negative review? The point of a review is to be able to approach it with a neutral point first, but if you're not into the genre, why even bother? I personally don't play FPS, so I'm in no position to say if Haze is a bad FPS or not, but I've played enough fighting games in my life that I'll be able to judge Street Fighter IV when it comes out.

So to conclude this topic for the week, I'll just advise you that if you're going to get yourself involved with video reviews, make sure that your tastes are varied enough to cover most if not all genres and try to keep the rage to a minimal. I'm not saying that you're not allowed to get pissed at a game that REALLY deserves it, but remember, you have to take the good with the bad and who knows, you might have a longer lasting appeal if you do so.

Game OverThinker Monday

2008-06-16T19:47:00.002-04:00

Another great video by moviebob:

Why is There Still Secrecy in the Gaming Industry?

2008-06-12T00:07:00.002-04:00

Secrecy and the Gaming Industry go together like bread and butter and it's been like this ever since I can remember (I promise I won't try to rhyme again). The question remains, why? Why is it that in the year 2008, do game companies still insist on keeping mum on their upcoming projects or refuse to give specific details on upcoming projects we already know about? Why do they keep saying:

“We currently have no information/announcements about this title at the moment”

When it comes to video game rumors, over 80% of them turn out to be either true or partially true, so why do they even bother keeping secrets? Every companies in any industry have secrets, that's normal, it's a way to protect their ideas, but why do gaming companies like Nintendo refuse to give us a simple yes or no when we ask them “Will you make a new Zelda game on the Wii”? Are they afraid that EA would say:

“Wow, Nintendo is making a new Zelda game, well we should get cracking and make our own Zelda game before they release theirs.”

Well they can't! Zelda belongs to Nintendo, no one can make a commercial game of this franshise without their permission.

This doesn't only apply to software, but also hardware. Look at the famous Wii Hard Drive demands, buyers are bitching left and right about the lack of space in the Wii and Nintendo's answer:

“We have no plans to make a Hard Drive for the Wii at the moment, simply transfer to SD card or delete and re-download later on if you need extra space”.

Seriously now, anyone with half a brain knows that Nintendo has something up their sleeves and this article is a nice evidence of this: Nintendo job posting - creation of USB devices for Wii

There's been 2 theories out there that have tried to explain the secrecy in the gaming industry:

1- Video game companies don't want to get our hopes up by having to cancel games or peripherals that they've already announced.

Well that's just fine in theory, but that would imply that they actual give a rat's ass about their consumers' feeling and we all know that's a load of crap, especially since they cancel games all the time.

2- They don't want announcements of future releases to interfere with nearly release titles or existing ones.

Wow, imagine if the movie and music industry did the same. Last time I checked, Sony Columbia wasn't too shy about having a few movies running in the same theaters or having two dozen albums from their own label competing with one another at HMV.

Speaking of movies and music, I want to get something off my chest. Now I don't want to insult people who are into movies and music as a main hobby, but I always felt that to be a gamer, you needed to have a little more will, skill and determination, mainly because unlike movies and music, you need to do something else besides viewing and listening. So you can understand why I always feel like the video game industry is insulting my intelligence every time they play dumb with us >_>

Introducing the Game OverThinker

2008-06-09T09:30:00.005-04:00

As long as he keeps making them, Mondays on Gaming Pondering will be Gamer OverThinker day. Moviebob makes these really deep videos regarding video games which are right up the alley of Gaming Pondering. He's not officially with my blog and he told me that he doesn't wish to get involve with any associations for now but if you do write to him regarding his work, please make sure you mention where you saw his video :)

This is his first Game OverThinker video and it's one of his best work, watch it a few times to fully understand his logic.

Casual Games, is There Such a Thing?

2008-06-05T00:51:00.005-04:00

“Casual” by definition comes from "Casually" and that last one means "On Occasion". A “casual” gamer would then mean a person who plays games on occasion. In short, a person that doesn't play games as a main (or one of main) hobby would be a “casual” gamer.

I personally know some “casual” gamers:

-On of them a friend from college and her boyfriend. They have a Wii, PS2 and PS3. They have about 3 to 4 games per system and play once in a while, mainly Super Mario and Mario Kart (on Wii) and GTA IV and Medal of Honor (PS3/PS2).

-Two others are my sister's kids. I bought them a GameCube a few years ago and they have about 15 games, most of these are Nintendo hits. They only play once in a while however since they're into Soccer & Hockey, so that console is mostly for rainy days.

So casual gamers of different age and gender, playing what most people on the web consider to be “hardcore” games. But wait, aren't casual gamers suppose to be playing “casual” games? Wouldn't that make Mario and GTA “casual” games then?

This brings us to the topic of today, do “casual” games exist or is it just a term made up by so called “hardcore” gamers who feel alienated by games that don't require you to read an FAQ before playing? I won't deny the fact that party and puzzle games aren't a common amongst the “casual” gamers, but does that automatically classify these games as “casual”?

Some of you “hardcore” gamers might look at an old game like Tetris and say it's a “casual” game, but what if a person played Tetris more than you played Halo 3, would that person be playing a “hardcore” game then? Not sure how to answer that question, well have a look at this video then:

Still consider this to be a “casual” gamer playing a “casual” game? Didn't think so. The point I'm trying to get at is that any game can be casual or hardcore, it just depends how often you play it and how much effort you put into it. I'll play an FPS once a year or so when I go a friend's house, so for me, a game like Halo is a casual game because I play it on occasion (oh I can just hear the fanboys screaming now :P).

Even if a game is easy to learn, it doesn't mean that it can't take a lifetime to master. A fine example is Othello/Reversi/Turncoat. It took me about 30 minutes to learn how to play this old board game and I'm still mastering it after well over a decade now.

Finally, another reason why personally don't believe in classifying games in the “casual” or “hardcore” genres (or any genres period, but that's a topic for another day) is because the entire gaming industry never sat down and classified their games into one of these categories to begin with >_>

Welcome to Gaming Pondering

2008-06-03T22:47:00.004-04:00

Alright, let’s keep it simple (maybe I’ll add more later):

Q- What is Gaming Pondering?

A- It’s a VideoGame Blog.

Q- OK, what will you post on this blog, Gaming News, Top10s, Game Bashing?

A- Nope, there’s enough of those out there already, this blog is going another way.

Q- Like what?

A- Untouched topics in VideoGames and topics that are often talked about, but without going deeper into the subject.

Q- Sounds cool, can I have my stuff post stuff in here?

A- If it’s a good topic, sure. E-mail and I’ll review it.

Q- What about videos?

A- Same thing.

Q- Why can’t I leave comments even after registering?

A- Comments need to be approved. This isn’t Kotaku, I want deep stuff. Flaming and even simply agreeing with the topic isn’t comment worthy, think outside the box.

Q- When will you update this Blog?

A- I'll try to post a topic of mine every Thursday, but I will post anything I find interesting and intelligent out there.