Late to the Party: Burnout Paradise

Playing Burnout Paradise has reminded me of two things, 1) why I only buy one racing game a generation and 2) that Crash mode really made Burnout 3 for me.

I've enjoyed my stint with Burnout Paradise, and a lot has been said about its innovative approach to driving games and online mode, and a year later re-iterating that would be a waste, so I'm going to touch on a couple of the things that are causing me to move away from the game.

The first is that it has the typical racing game difficulty curve. I started out defeating the AI opponents easily, with the matches then becoming a more even challenge. Then I seemed to cross a line where I could win one out of every 6 matches. This happens to me in nearly every racing game, but typically it's attributed to rubber-band AI. In Paradise's case, it just becomes too fast and too open to handle. The AI knows a route, if not the best route, to the finish line, but I only know the general direction and am often traveling far too fast to hit my turns. This is probably just further affirmation that open-world games just aren't for me.

The other problem is with people. Burnout Paradise's online mode truly is innovative, but without a good host it just goes nowhere. I've had on online session with a great host, and it really proved everything good that was said about the game, but every other match was just boring. I really wanted a button of some sort to just initiate a vote to getting some kind of challenge moving, to force the hosts hand.

Overall, it was worth $30 and I had a good time after work for a couple weeks, but I think if I had spent $60 at launch I'd have been disappointed.

Backlog: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

I recently download STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl on Steam to play along with the latest edition of 1up FM's backlog. I went into this with a fair degree of anticipation, as former GFW staffer turned Ken Levine's padawan Shawn Elliot has been building this game up for over a year.

What I found once I got into it was a PC game. While that's a "no shit Sherlock" kind of statement, it's what defines this game. This is the kind of game that feels like it should have came out ten years ago. In it's own way that's refreshing, but in the end I didn't find it sticking with me. What ended it for me was the inventory system. While it does reflect realistically how much a person could carry, it's very restrictive when there's something to pick off of almost every enemy you down. By itself, this could have just been an annoyance, but when coupled with (as far as I got) the fact that only one person will by the weapons you pick up, and it quickly becomes a trek to get to him, the game becomes not much more than tedious. Adding to that is the frustration of dying very easily. I enjoy a challenge, but when a number of tedious activities are combined with methodical combat, it starts to become fatiguing.

I can see how this could be an enjoyable game for some folks, certainly for people like Shawn who seem to enjoy minutia, but I had one long walk too many.

Censorship, Ethics, and Retail

I was having lunch with a friend at work today when she asked me what I thought of censorship in music. I looked at her quizically and said, "it's bad?" What she was getting at was my opinion on retailer's, or more specifically Wal-Mart's, ability to effectively censor the entertainment products they put on their shelves. I thought it was an interesting question, and since I'm most comfortable dealing with it in the context of video games, this is what I've come up with.

Even with the immergence of digital distribution, the bulk of games (and music and movies) are sold through traditional retailers, with the biggest chunk of that going to Wal-Mart. Because of that, publishers need their products in those stores or they simply won't sell. This allows retailers to exert pressure on publishers for price, print runs (the number of copies made), release dates, and even content, all to varying degrees. Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Gamestop, etc. all have policies of not putting Adults Only ("AO"), as rated by the ESRB, content in their stores. This effectively censors game content based on what they can put in and still not receive an AO rating, as was the case of Manhunt 2, which had content cut from the final version so that it would be rated Mature ("M") as opposed to its original rating of AO. This effect is multiplied by the fact that console manufacturers also do not allow AO content on their systems, but this is something they don't have to consider because even if they did, it wouldn't get into stores.

Boiled down: retailers won't carry certain content, which puts pressure on publishers. Publishers put pressure on developers to change content. Developers censor themselves and their artistic vision.

The question then is, is it ethical that retailers can and do exert this pressure. My answer is yes, it is. Every company's sole responsibility is to maximize their shareholders profits as best they can through legal means. With that being a retailers sole impetus, they have every right to not put content on their shelves if they reasonably believe it will not increase their profitability. However, regardless of whether this type of censorship is ethical or not, it is bad for creativity, which puts the onus on developers to push back on their publishers, for publishers to push back on retailers, and for consumers to show what they do want and find acceptable by voting with their dollar. Retailers won't change their mind on their own, they'll have to be pushed into it.

Hello and Welcome

For my first blog post, I couldn't think of a better way to start than by quoting Jeff Green and just saying "Hello, and Welcome" to Frigid Gamer. I know the name of the blog is pretty generic, but it fits well as a) I live in Fargo, ND and b) I plan to write about games. This post isn't going to blow any minds, it's just here to get something down, but I have one brief thought to put down.

Something that has struck me is that, for me, podcasts have quickly become my most used and most relied upon source of gaming information, especially when it comes to reviews. Listening to the guys on 1up Yours and the dearly departed GFW Radio gave a much clearer insight into who the editors are as gamers, and so a much clearer angle for the listener as to whether or not you're going to buy into their opinion. On top of that, you also get a much more frank opinion as well as feeling their excitement. A specific example of when podcasts affected what I play is when Soul Calibur 4 came out, it got a lot of jaw time on my favorite podcasts which lead me to pick it up (and I was very glad I did.)

Much more could be said on the subject (and probably will be later), but since this is just a quick post from the office, I'll end with one last thought on the subject. It seems to me that podcasts could become a much stronger segment of the gaming press, and the site to really nail the marketing and presentation of podcasts could find a very strong niche, and right now it seems like 1up is in the best position to make something of this, but something that will need to be considered as part of future hiring practices in the industry is not only interest in games and writing capability, but also whether the individuals have personalities that people will be interested in listening to/viewing and their capability to express their opinions audibly. Right now there are a lot of podcasts out there, but very few that really nail the presentation and personality, and once someone both gets it right and gets it out there they could have something big.