It's been a sort of chaotic week. Between trying to find a job, writing, and getting sick, getting things done this week has been a little less streamlined then normal. But regardless, one of the great things that has occurred this week is the return of my freshly repaired X-box 360, which has allowed me to reopen a few games I haven't touched in a while, one of which I had deliberately walked away from just to see how it held up over time before I wrote its review. Now, after some extensive secondary play months after its release, I give you my results.
Reviews, Commentaries, and Discussions Centered Around the Medium of Video Games
7.16.2010
7.10.2010
Net Ease: Why Is It So Hard to Play Games Online?
So the other night I was playing Trackmania Nations Forever (the same game I just finished reviewing) online with friend. Or at least, I was trying to. You see, despite all these advances in computer technology, for some reason networks and routers seem to be determined to remain as obtusely difficult as they have always been. While I could join my friend in a game, for some reason I was unable to host or set up any sort of game on my own. I've recalled having the same problem before with other titles and I have to say, I'm still mystified.
Review: Trackmania Nations Forever
Despite how often I tend to wax on about events inside the industry or their effect on all of us as gamers, I still remember that once in a while, most may actually care to read about something more tightly related to our favorite hobbies. In this case, today you're all getting a double feature, starting with a review of Trackmania Nations Forever.
7.07.2010
Micro Update: Bobby Kotick is Missing Two Stooges
At the current rate, if Bobby Kotick keeps talking in public, he may actually eclipse Sony for some of the worst and most uninformed statements said to the public about gaming. If you've ever followed the game industry in the last few years, you've probably heard of Bobby Kotick, either talking about stuff he doesn't understand or going on about (more unfortunately) the one thing he does understand: Money.
7.06.2010
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: Why DLC is both a blessing and a curse
A few weeks ago when I ran my piece on things that are killing gaming, one area that I did wish to discuss, but did not due to it's more complex nature, was the now booming market of downloadable content, or DLC. DLC has actually been around for quite a long time, although what we now call DLC was more commonly called a patch or an update and was exclusively for PC based games only, for a very simple reason: Consoles didn't get online. In the mid to late 90s of gaming, it was common practice for game developers to release numerous free updates for their various releases, rewarding players with dozens of new maps, weapons and sometimes entirely new game-types and single player campaigns over the course of the games life. All in all, it was a pretty sick deal for gamers. You buy a game and periodically you would sometimes get free stuff. It also made sense because with most PC games, user-made modifications were the order of the day, and if the developers didn't, the fans usually would.
Around the turn of the millennium, gaming consoles finally picked up enough power to make the move into the online market full-force. At first the use of online connectivity to manipulate games followed the PC gaming side of things. Games could be patched, changes could be made, and new material could be added. However, at some point someone on the console side asked the question of why they were simply giving players this content for free. From there the gaming industry as a majority began to change it's stance on DLC. Where once bonus content was simply a bonus that came as a free perk, it instead has moved to being a primarily paid for extra. So is this bad, or is it good? Well, it's a little of both. Paid for DLC has pros and cons, just as free DLC did. While it's pretty much impossible to see a downside to free DLC (unless you're waiting on a sequel), there are some downsides to paid for DLC. But then again, there are a lot of pros that can be seen. So what we're going to look at today is how paid for DLC is both good and bad, based on how it's handled.
Around the turn of the millennium, gaming consoles finally picked up enough power to make the move into the online market full-force. At first the use of online connectivity to manipulate games followed the PC gaming side of things. Games could be patched, changes could be made, and new material could be added. However, at some point someone on the console side asked the question of why they were simply giving players this content for free. From there the gaming industry as a majority began to change it's stance on DLC. Where once bonus content was simply a bonus that came as a free perk, it instead has moved to being a primarily paid for extra. So is this bad, or is it good? Well, it's a little of both. Paid for DLC has pros and cons, just as free DLC did. While it's pretty much impossible to see a downside to free DLC (unless you're waiting on a sequel), there are some downsides to paid for DLC. But then again, there are a lot of pros that can be seen. So what we're going to look at today is how paid for DLC is both good and bad, based on how it's handled.