Reflect on your all-time favorite video game(s). What are the parameters of all that gaming goodness that make you so love those game titles above all others that are "out there"? Now reflect on who the people are that made those games soooooo lovable. Who designed and developed those games into the masterpieces that you grew to love? Nine times out of ten, those people were, first and foremost, devote gamers themselves. Gamers making games for others that love games that they will love to play as well. When a gamer designs a game, his or her foremost thought is to make a Work of Art that hopefully others will remember fondly, and maybe even drag out of the closet years later to play "just one more time". Passionate people making games that they want others to be passionate about as well.

Too bad those passionate people aren't in control of the industry anymore.

It seems that scientists won't be satisfied until they "prove" that absolutely EVERYTHING will kill us....eventually. Now word has come out out that _sitting_ is deadly. [That means YOU! Those all-nighters with the latest/greatest computer games will be the death of you yet!]

Now all we need are studies "proving" that standing and/or lying down will do you in and we'll have the complete set.

Experts: Sitting too much could be deadly
LONDON — Here's a new warning from health experts: Sitting is deadly. Scientists are increasingly warning that sitting for prolonged periods — even if you also exercise regularly — could be bad for your health. And it doesn't matter where the sitting takes place — at the office, at school, in the car or before a computer or TV — just the overall number of hours it occurs.

Or lack thereof, to be more precise.

Consider: My mighty Warrior (from any fantasy RPG of your choice) starts his day by strapping on a w_i_d_e array of armor that includes components for arm, leg, head, torso, and family jewels protection. Next he straps on an assortment of weapons for up-close combat as well as long range deathdealing. Since the world as of yet has not developed ATMs, most of my available cash, consisting of umpty-hundred gold, silver, and copper pieces is placed in a miniature Bag of Holding coin purse. Lastly, I grab up a backpack that contains all of my other worldly possessions. Fully accoutered, I sally forth to face the world. Only to have an evil archmage skewer me with a Death spell of some sort, making me keel over without a scratch on me.

Now, the question I have in mind is: What kind of loot would you expect a scavenger to find on my corpse? If loot-finding works for NPCs the same way it does for player characters, the answer is, "Hardly anything at all."

It's that time of year again!

'Twas the day after Christmas
And all through our home,
Conditions resembled the Downfall of Rome.
The toys were all broken, and under the tree
Lay tinsel and stencils and piles of debris.
The children, chuck full of turkey and roux
Were claiming they had nothing, but nothing to do.
My wife in her nightgown, and I with my pills
Were gazing with loathing at the great mound of bills.

I've come to the conclusion that democracy sucks. Any system that allows a block of people (sometimes that block only being close to the majority) to dictate to the entire population that "You CAN have this; you CAN'T have that" means that that group gets what it wants, but others outside of that group have to settle for watered down "compromises', or often nothing that they want at all. You can see it in politics. You can see it in business. You can see it in democratically run common interest groups. And now you can even see it in the game stores.

Adventuring is for young people. How else can you explain starting characters that have next to nothing in the way of skills and abilities? (Also known as being Level 1-3.) When a game such as Dragon Age: Origins introduces a main NPC that is nearing retirement age, yet that character has abilities equivalent to a fantasy world's version of a high school graduate, it seems quite innocuous, to say the least. _Especially_ when the character in question has a backstory that is thoroughly fleshed out. The more you see of that character's biography, the more you've got to be asking yourself, "Has this character been on Hold all those years or what?"

Playing the latest, greatest RPG, Dragon Age: Origins, I am reminded that in nearly every fantasy adventure RPG, the best choice for your hero is the Rogue/Thief/Assassin. He or she may lack the sheer bashing power of a dedicated Warrior, and he or she will never be able to hurl the mininukes that Mages eventually master, but in the opening chapters of any adventure it is the Rogue that almost invariably CAN get the job done.

Borderlands seems to be the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I have just _got_ to speak up about a foundation premise that supports post-Apocalypse-type games: the ready availability of ammo.

In games like Borderlands and Fallout 3 you have game environments of modern civilizations where the civilization seems to have seriously broken down. It seems like everyone is at constant war with everyone else. You have a few pockets of relative quiet -- communities where order is maintained, or else.... But most of the gameboard is based on "He who shoots first and most accurately is allowed to survive." Most of these games involve scrounging the wasteland, looking for the Biggest, Baddest weapon that can be found.

But what good is the Biggest, Baddest Weapon if there is no ammo for it?

It's probably different for the current generation, seeing as they were barely more than toddlers when they first got introduced to computers -- and computer games, of course. But I have vague recollections that seem to go as far back as the Stone Age when the kids in the neighborhood excessively played "Cowboys & Indians". Or, in the case of the neighborhood where I grew up, "War". Very simple rules: First, you needed a toy gun of some sort. Then split into two teams and take up positions at a distance from each other. Then start stalking each other, hoping to sneak up on an opponent, aim your toy weapon, and then yell, "Bang! You're dead!" Of course, thereafter ensued the inevitable argument of, "Am not! You missed!", "Did not!", "Did so!" Because of the inevitable arguments, "Cowboys & Indians" is generally a short-lived phase and we all moved onto other toys and games.

Or did we?

That's NOT "Do they make you stupid?" It's more along the line of, "Do they do too little to make you think well?"

I became a hardcore gamer via a path that started with Chess. I moved onto boardgames, then on to paper-and-pencil RPGs. Then video games appeared with the advent of Pong. Of course, video games existed before Pong; it's just that the only place you could find them was in an arcade where you spent vast quantities of quarters/tokens to get in several hours of gameplay. But arcade games are NOT what I considered to be "real" gaming. They seemed much more like playing a sport than like playing what I had grown up thinking of as being what a game should be. That is, something that made you think.

What a shocker. Yet another study claims to prove that gaming can be bad for you. But as the writer in this article rightly points out: "Which came first? The gaming or the poor health?"



Study: Games are depressing... or are they?
The average gamer is 35, overweight, and more likely to be depressed, says a new study conducted by researchers at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The study, which was carried out in the Seattle-Tacoma area, found that gamers reported "lower extraversion, consistent with research on adolescents that linked video-game playing to a sedentary lifestyle and overweight status, and to mental-health concerns."

Don't you just hate it when you finally score a great game EXCEPT that.... Doesn't matter what the reason; the annoyance factor is that the game would have been near perfect, except for one eccentricity -- and invariably the exception is a monumental pain in the butt.

One such almost-perfect game is East India Company. As the title clearly lays out, the game is about building a merchant empire during the 1600-1750 period. The game operates on two tiers: a strategic overview that covers the wheeling and dealing a la Merchant Prince, and the other side being the tactical sea battles. The first part works wonderfully. The latter, on the other hand, can frustrate a player to the point that he very possibly may just chuck an otherwise great game.

Have you ever come across a game that looks promising, but the closer you look, the more frustrating it becomes? Did you ever jump in only to discover that the designers never seemed to have heard the phrase "attention to detail"?

Today I picked up Hinterland: Orc Lords, and ever since I opened the package, it's been one thing after another. First, I open the case and there's no manual. I realize that this is actually an expansion to Hinterlands, but it is also a stand-alone in its own right. It is NOT a safe assumption that every purchaser also has the original game (which I assume _had_ a manual, or clear directions on where to find it). I had to go online and Search all over the place to find the manual. If I wasn't particularly computer savvy, I would have been doomed. The next wtf? moment was when the game actually starts: it opens with a quite small window. If you max the window, you discover the graphics stretch horizontally because of the 3:4 aspect; it really wants a square window, so you have to fiddle with grabbing the corners. EVERY time you start the game. Then the next wtf? is when the purchaser discovers that it's a RTS. Not a _single_ word on the package about that. If you enjoy RTS, fine and good. If not, you can wonder what the store's return policy is about opened games. Then comes the so-called tutorial -- all two paragraphs of it. It boils down to: Attract followers. Become famous by vanquishing enemies. Honor the king's requests. Not a word about how to balance the needs of the community with the production values of the different kinds of followers. No "How Combat Works". No description of the different types of buildings. No....Well, quite frankly, I could write a manual about everything that the Tutorial does NOT provide that one would expect to find in a Tutorial. But the real kicker is the Save. The _only_ time you can Save is when you quit the game. Also, in order to quit the game you MUST Save and exit. That means that if you trip into a really bizarre set of circumstances, you can NOT quit and reload a previous Save. Whatever just went tremendously wrong, your ONLY choice is to live with whatever it is. Your only alternative is to start a new game entirely.

This game is a clear case of the designers know all the details, but then they make the mistake of assuming, "Well, it's soooo obvious, everyone should be able to figure it out."

I really think the designers need to go back and take Designing Games 101.

If you've already played Hinterlands you'll probably be able to grasp the essentials in no time. Everybody else: caveat emptor.

Back in February, I posted a commentary concerning a legal battle between Odyssey Marine Exploration and the government of Spain. The battle centers around a Spanish galleon, sank by England, that went down between Spain and North Africa in what is pointedly international waters. For over 200 years the wreck lay unfound until OME located and salvaged the wreck. Once that treasure came to light, Spain stepped in and demanded that ALL of it should be summarily handed over to Spain. This demand was predicated on the lame argument of, "Well, gee, it was a Spanish ship after all, at the time it was sunk." Spain seems to think that trifling arguments like 1) the Republic of Spain is NOT the Kingdom of Spain, 2) Ships abandoned at sea traditionally belong to whoever salvages it, 3) the wreck lay in _international_ waters, 4) Spain did NONE of the salavage work -- and the cost that entails, and 5) Spain wasn't even looking for the wreck, that none of those matter. Spain wants it; end of story. Spain went so far as to seize two OME vessels sailing out of the British port of Gibraltar and on a course in what are legally international waters -- an act of _piracy_ that everyone seems to be overlooking.

Today U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Pizzo handed down a recommendation that all the treasure should be handed over to Spain.

Why do I smell politics entering the picture? After all, having the U.S. stay on good terms with Spain is so much more useful to the _U.S._ than it is to stay on good terms with OME.

Read it for yourself here

Think "luxury automobile". Think of what that entails. Think of what the classic lines and style would look like. Think of the fine features that are inherent to a "luxury automobile". Elegance. Comfort. Exceedingly comfortable interiors. So you're off to the Rolls Royce or Bentley dealership where they're advertising "New & Improved!" You're figuring that means new safety features, better suspension, or maybe a better sound system. What you're expecting is something that looks like this:


But when you walk through the dealership's door this is what you see:


Not what you expected, right? It's certainly different, granted, but is it really an _improvement_? For those that actually like pimpmobiles, they're saying, "Hell yeah! that's an improvement!" You may even think that what is offered has its merits and interesting components. But, really, when you were thinking "luxury automobile", is what you were offered what you expected? Or even what it was that you _wanted_ in the first place?

Not too long ago I did a preview of Dragon Age: Origins. Frankly, I raved about how great the game was looking. As a fantasy RPG, it seemed to me that BioWare was going to be trotting out gaming's version of "the best thing since sliced bread".

Now I'm not so sure.

Up until I did my preview, Dragon Age: Origins was looking like an exceedingly well-polished Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights. "Under the hood" was going to be this incredibly well-fleshed out character development system that assured a player/character bonding that was second to none. In a word, the game was looking phenomenal.

Then BioWare changed the game's logo. The blood splatter design was more reminiscent of Godfather II than anything else. But I figured that had more to do with EA's influence than anything else. And obviously, it foreshadowed that this was going to be somewhat more graphic about martial mayhem than what most RPG aficionados are accustomed to. That is even somewhat praiseworthy, that the developers/publishers want potential customers to know in advance that they may want to scale back the gore setting.

But then came the "Violence" gametrailers.

Now we're talking not just gory graphics. We're talking over-the-top, slasher flick eviscerations, complete with gouts of blood spewing in every which direction. So much blood spray that characters should look like they've donned red slippers. (If anything, there should be an automatic Dexterity drop, just from the inevitable slipping and sliding on all those rivers of blood that would result.). Sort of like a rainy day football game where you can't tell the two teams apart, except for their helmets. Only substitute blood for the mud caking all of the players. News flash: Medieval combat -- which is what fantasy combat is based on -- wasn't nearly as blood-splattered as you might think. The broadsword, the weapon of choice for the majority of combatants, was essentially a blunt weapon. The point was hardly ever used to skewer opponents. The idea was to batter down the opponent, break his bones, and kill him with contusions. Moviemakers seem to think European swords had keen ages, much like their distant Oriental katana cousin. Different physical morphology. Asians specialized in silk-based lacquered armor that an exceedingly sharp edge could slice through. Europeans favored combat in metal containers, so it was more straightforward to smash and bash, or puncture with seriously force-driven projectiles. In the latter case, most of the bleeding occurred _inside_ the armor. The net result is a far less bloody battlefield than what you would expect.

However, the truly disconcerting aspect in BioWare's change in emphasis is the music background. As evidenced in the "Violence" gametrailer, They've decided to accompany martial mayhem with acid rock, a la Marilyn Manson's "This Is The New Shit".

Have they forgotten what "setting the mood" is all about? You go out to a romantic restaurant that features strolling musicians and you expect a violinist or two. Maybe a Mariachi trio if it's a Mexican restaurant. But how do you react when a Ted Nugent wannabe serenades you with some head-banging punk slam dance music? Undoubtedly, in a large enough population you will get some punk-lovers that would exclaim something along the lines of "That's awesome, dude!" But what about the rest of us that actually _want_ the more traditional mood music? Throughout history, there is an enormous catalog of martial music. There's even music from the Middle Ages that would fit nicely to a fantasy RPG's imagery. (Some of the Gregorian chants come to mind.) Why is the acid rock necessary?

Marketing, that's why. BioWare/EA know that they've pretty much hooked the fantasy RPG fanatics just on the design. Now they're going after the gore and slasher flick crowd with promises of over-the-top gore fests. And next they're after the headbangers via the new soundtrack. Their obvious objective is to expand the game's demographics to attract a wider audience. But in so doing, they seem to have overlooked a distinct possibility.

When word gets out that your favorite romantic restaurant has replaced the wandering minstrels with a Grunge band, the management stands to scare away more of its loyal base of customers than they stand to attract to the new music motif. After all, who wants to spend Big Bucks on great food if the ambience leaves you with indigestion?