Buckle up people. We're entering a golden age of video gaming. There has never been a greater time to be a gamer! I should confess, before we go any further, that I do have a slight tendency to exaggerate. For instance, my girlfriend is so bad at video games, she comes with a warning label from the Office of Film and Literature Classification! So I'll dial back the tendency to inflate and embellish and I'll also take off the rose-coloured 3D gaming glasses, and cast a critical eye over the video gaming landscape. Nope…no change. I'm sticking with my initial assessment. There has never been a greater time to be a gamer! Why such optimism I hear you ask?
- Next Gen is now: Well, here in Australia it's still a few weeks off, but it's so close you can almost touch it. In fact, those who can't wait for the Xbox 360 to launch on the 23rd of March, can pick up the VIP Premiere Pack for not much more than the price you'll be fleeced for a next generation 360 game. You'll be able to touch it, lick it and smell it, if you so wish. Not the console, but the contents of the VIP pack at least. Prop the face plate up in your entertainment unit and you'll be able to soak up the next gen goodness, without that accompanying sinking feeling in your gut as buyer's chill sets in and you start to wonder whether the $649 price of admission might have been better spent on other frivolous luxuries like breakfast cereal and toilet paper. With just the wireless controller, a copy of Perfect Dark Zero and the snazzy blue face plate, your new set-up will run significantly quieter too. Enjoy your cereal and the tranquillity for a few more weeks, safe in the knowledge that, if you so desire, you can line up for the start of next generation gaming in just a few more sleeps.
- Current Gen is now too: It’s not meant to be like this. Current gen is meant to end with a whimper so quiet that we don't even notice its demise. All the five-star titles and the big publishers make the jump to the next gen, and we make the jump with them, bailing out of our current generation consoles, faster than Aussies exiting the Australian Open. But this time around it’s different. Microsoft is off and running in the next gen sweepstakes while Nintendo and Sony are yet to even announce the date they will leave the starting gate. Neither the PS3 or the Revolution are likely to surface in Australia for at least another 12 months. As such, the current gen consoles still have a lot of life left in them.
Look to the next few months. Rather than drying up, the publishers have some exciting games coming down the pipe. Two weeks ago, the much anticipated Shadow of the Colossus was released to universal critical acclaim. PALGN’s own Chris-Leigh rated Shadow “undoubtedly the first essential game of 2006”. V8 Supercars 3 hit retail last week on both the Xbox and PS2. Black debuts later this week on both consoles also. In the coming months we can look forward to Ghost Recon 3, Tomb Raider Legends, The Godfather, Full Spectrum Warrior – Ten Hammers, the latest in the Hitman franchise and the PS2 exclusive SOCOM 3 US Navy Seals. Fast forward to September and the latest Splinter Cell hits all three current gen consoles. The pickings may be a little slimmer for the GameCube, but with Zelda Twilight Princess confirmed for sometime between September and November 2006, there is enough gaming goodness to go around for all, regardless of your console preference.
- Gaming to go: Competition is good. You know it, I know it, Nintendo may not be all that happy about it, but deep down they know it too. Regardless of whether you love portable gaming, or hate it, the DS and PSP have changed, not just the portable gaming playing field, but the video game landscape for good. To date, the DS takes the crown for innovative game play, while the more powerful PSP has for the first time taken the current generation home console experience and made it portable. Fierce competition in the portable gaming market means great games. On the PSP, Daxter, SOCOM Fireteam Bravo and Tomb Raider Legends are lining up to do battle for your hard earned cash, while Metroid Prime DS and New Super Mario Bros are leading the charge on the DS.
- The sky's not falling: There’s always someone warning us the end is nigh. "Development costs have spiralled out of control." "Smaller studios are being swallowed up by an ever decreasing pool of game developers." "The industry is plagued with a terminal case of sequelitis." "Original games get squeezed out by big name blockbusters." Don’t listen to the professional naysayers. The fact is the gaming industry is a billion dollar business, and despite predictions of doom and gloom, it’s not disappearing any time soon. The truth is not all sequels are dogs, innovation isn’t dead, and quality is recognised, both by the industry, the media and the gaming public.
- Thrill of the chase: There’s nothing quite like the excitement of an up-coming console launch, the speculation, the misinformation, the expectation. We trawl the net for those leaked images, and seize on rumours no matter how tenuous. We start planning, start saving, start salivating. Given the choice of owning the console and playing the games or playing the waiting game, it’s clearly a no brainer. We’d all take the console. But in the years, the months, the weeks and days that stretch out before you as you wait for Launch Day, there’s something unmistakeably wonderful about the idea of the next gen console. We haven’t yet seen it in the flesh, let alone touched or played it. The console remains full of promise. And so it is with the Revolution and the PS3. Give it a year and we can bemoan such failings as the size of the power brick, the length of the loading times or the lacklustre graphics. For now, the consoles remain flawless and full of promise, their shortfalls yet to be revealed.
So there you have it. Do you agree or disagree with my 'golden age' declaration? Are you excited about video gaming in 2006, or feeling jaded about the year ahead? Let me know your thoughts.
Waiting is half the fun.
Taking a page from their phone book
Last week, Telstra announced plans to cut 5000 payphones around Australia. Judging by the response and the coverage by the mainstream press, you may have thought they’d announced the execution of 5000 customers. Now that's just plain silly; because we all know the telecommunication carriers draw the line at simply screwing their customers. Still, the reaction was quick and fierce. The Canberra Times screamed “Fury at plans by Telstra to cut 5000 payphones”; the Herald Sun ran "Payphone Cull rage”.
Here’s the thing. This country has got almost as many connected mobile phones services as we’ve got people. Hell, if we take the toddlers and babies out of the equation, we’re left with quite a few Australians with a mobile handset for each ear. Yet within hours of the news that Telstra had put a hit out on 5000 payphones, opposition groups were expressing outrage. Telstra were adamant that they were only removing the payphones that had been vandalised or were used only once or twice a week, although you could probably raise a pretty good argument that the fact that the phone was broken was partly responsible for the drop off in its use. Hello!
But what’s got me really stumped is the strength of the opposition. Who is leading this crusade for the oppressed, damaged and unloved payphones?. More importantly, how do we get this powerful lobby group working for us? Take free wireless DS hotspots for example. (You were wondering where I was going with this weren’t you?) Last time I checked there was only one Nintendo Wireless Connection Hotspot in the entire ACT. That’s one solitary hotspot for a population over 300,000. Ok, I concede that not everyone here in the nation’s capital has a DS. But still! One lonely solitary DS Hotspot? It’s not even in the middle of Canberra. Things aren't much better around Australia, with 9 Nintendo Wireless Connection hotspots in New South Wales, 7 in Victoria and 5 in Queensland. I’ve scanned the newspapers and the web, and there’s no sign of an up-rising, no seething anger, no community backlash. Perhaps it’s going to take drastic action? Perhaps it’s time to unleash the Nintendogs?
Now here's a use for those abandoned payphones.
Last week, I wrote that the decision by the Classification Review Board to refuse classification of the game, Marc Ecko’s Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure was a good decision, if only because it thrust the classification debate centre stage. I stand by those remarks, but with the added disclaimer. We, (the industry and the gaming public) need to lobby effectively for reform of the classification system. This week’s payphone debate is proof positive that even abandoned payphones and their users can have an effective strong voice in national debates.
Marketing Lara
Initial impressions from PALGN and around the net suggest the latest Tomb Raider instalment is a return to the Lara we loved before the game lost its way.
I watched a videocast earlier this month which featured an interview with Tony Gard, the lead designer behind the original Tomb Raider game. Seven years ago he jumped ship (quite literally – he went on to develop the game Galleon). Now he’s back with Lara, having joined the Eidos owned Crystal Dynamics Studio as a senior designer. Explaining his motivations for leaving, Tony Gard told the 1Up Show that he felt at the time that the Tomb Raider brand wasn’t being managed in the best interests of the game. “The old marketing departing department wanted to sell the game purely on sex. I didn’t appreciate that, and that’s why I left.”
So I was a little surprised, after hearing Tony Gard’s candid remarks, to read the announcement, just a couple of weeks later that the folks responsible for marketing the new Tomb Raider game were doing exactly what the old marketing team before them had done. 20 year old British model, Karima Adebibe, is the latest, in a long line of models, to be annointed as the new face of action hero Lara Croft. Don’t get me wrong. If it’s a choice between Karima dressed as Lara or someone stuffed into a Sonic costume, I’ll pick Karima every time. But it did make me pause for thought. Is this a hint of what’s to come from the Tomb Raider marketing juggernaut? There’s no sign of Tomb Raider Tartlettes (TM pending) in my local supermarket biscuit aisle, but it might just be a matter of time!
Karima Adebibe, the face (and body) of Lara Croft. Tony Gard thought his old marketing department were thinking way too sexy. In that case, we're not so sure he'll be pleased with the work of the new marketing department either, but we're not complaining!
Universally Maligned Discs
Late last year the sales of PSP UMD movies were exceeding expectations, interestingly at a time when gamers were complaining about a lack of games for Sony’s portable games machine. Last week we were told that UMD movie sales are flat and that the film studios are cutting back on their PSP movie releases. The timing for this news is no less interesting, with Sony soon to launch a bigger and better Connect music and video download service, and with more killer game titles being released for the PSP. Call me a cynic, but I suspect the truth about UMD sales lies somewhere between the two, neither booming nor failing. Sure it’s anecdotal evidence only but the bigger retail outlets seem to be moving their stock at a steady rate. I strongly believe that this news topic is being very carefully stage managed by Sony.
Ultimately it’s all about choice for the consumer, and I, for one, hope the UMD movie format will continue to be supported. News that Sony will package movies both in DVD and UMD format for a few more dollars than the DVD version is certainly a step in the right direction. To be sure, UMD Movies have their faults. Still, if video quality is your biggest concern, then UMD movies remain your best option, at least until such time that Sony allow you to run full resolution video off the memory stick duo.
).So many countless hours spent trying(and eventually suceeding woohoo) in capturing those blasted 3 legendary dogs in pokemon gold, so many times ganging up on and being ganged up upon in goldeneye multi with my mates, that great two week stint in the school holidays where i started and completely finished zelda oot...ahhhhhh..........sorta brings a tear to your eye.
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