Month: December 2006

Space Empires V

Space Empires V is the culmination of 4X turn-based space strategy games. 4X, of course, refers to eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate, in this case, a space empire game. Pretty obvious from the title, guys. Essentially, it’s in the style of the Civilization series.

Though I usually prefer Real-Time Strategy, I really liked this game as well. Beginning with a single homeworld, the player can expand throughout their star system, and then into the surrounding ones, all the while researching new technology and weapons that allow them to control their emergent Space Empire. The customization is probably the greatest feature but also the thing that most sharply brings up the learning curve.

Its easy to build ships from your build queues, but in order to do so, you have to design them first. The design manager allows the player to select a hull chassis, and then from there, add on whatever components are necessary to make the ship run, like crew quarters or life support, and then other components to serve the ships purpose”perhaps a satellite bay, or armor and weapon systems. There is an autocomplete feature, which allows you to select a ship, and then select its purpose and the game will automatically complete the ship with whatever components you have available, but I’ve found that you can be more successful designing them yourself.

The component idea is a really outstanding feature of this game. There are so many components and different kinds of weapons, armor, shields, and types of research that it may be a little dizzying at first. Once in the swing of it, though, it allows for very varied gameplay.

Aside from the component system, another one of the remarkable features of the game is the real-time combat. Once units enter combat, you can choose to go to tactical, much in the style of Lords of the Realm II, and use your ships in real time to combat enemies. The ships animations are very good even though they fly on a 2D plane.

From a graphical standpoint, the game doesn’t rate so high. The game actually is in full 3D, though all the gameplay takes place on a 2D field (Probably for the betterwith everything else you’ll be thinking of, its much easier to simplify game controls and spend time on your strategy). The illustrations and 3D models of most of the ships are a little sub-par. The icons for each component look pretty good, but while the models for the ships look good the textures kind of bring it down.

There are a lot of races in the game, and depending on what gametype you’d choose to play you can even customize your own, choosing specific race features, bonuses, and weaknesses to customize your people. Another fun thing you can do in the game is invade and conquer your opponents planets, which allows you to colonize, for instance, a gas-giant when you have only the technology to colonize Rock planets. This will usually result in a planet populated with a different race, so you can always choose to ship in some of your own kind, or let them live on their own.

There is also an extensive online community which discusses and mods this game, and available is a lot of user-created content. Coupled with the component system, the full 3D graphics, and the advanced alliance system (ranging from trade agreements to full partnerships), and the technology, I give this game a plus. Its fun to get on here for a couple of hours, play through a game you’ve been running for a few hours from last night, then come back to it again in a week and play a few more hours. Its rather addicting.

Deal or No Deal (+)

Based upon the NBC game show of the same name. Experience what it is like to be on the TV show in this video game!

Deal or No Deal is obviously a game that is trying bank on the new TV Show on NBC. This game show features Howie Mandel and has players randomly guessing which suit case out of the 26 total has a low amount of money in it. The idea is to be left with the highest amount possible.

Deal or No Deal is effective in sucking the player into a gambling addiction. It’s frustrating when you knock off $1 million. It’s also relieving when you knock off $0.01!

The graphics are relatively clean with minor annoyances here and there such as all the “case holding” girls looking very similar. It appears that the developer Cat Daddy Games simply reused the same model and made minor changes such as the hair, skin color, etc.

This is the sort of game that needs to be played in a social environment to get longevity out of it. The game does feature some mini-games, but none of them are nearly as fun as the actual game.

The biggest problem with this game is its price tag of $19.99. Don’t bother picking this game up until it’s at most $9.99. If you’re a fan of the Deal or No Deal TV show, the video game is just as good.

Rocky Balboa (+)

The sixth movie in the Rocky series. Do we really need to see an old man fight?

There’s a lot to be said for a movie which no one believed in. After both the critical and financial disappointment that is Rocky V, how could Rocky VI be any better? There’s no other phrase to say except Sylvester Stallone punched this movie till it bled.

Rocky Balboa represents the reason why old people are crazy! No one in their right mind would fight in a boxing match that could potentially end their life.

Rocky Balboa is a great movie because it’s like seeing an old friend that you haven’t seen in over 10 years. You catch up with them and still feel an emotional connection for the person after all these years.

Now it definitely doesn’t hurt that Rocky is in the same slump that he was in during the first film. As with the first film, the environment is a character in itself. Rocky Balboa talks a lot about the situation that today’s society is in, focusing on its materialism. Seeing the new champion fighter in comparison to Rocky is just depressing. The new champion fighter, which Rocky eventually boxes in a Pay Per View match, has everything that money can buy, while Rocky has barely anything.

Much like the previous films, Rocky Balboa places little emphasis on the fight itself and focuses mainly on morals and values. There are many moments in this film when you’re on the verge of tearing up. When all is said and done it’s amazing that this film was done for a mere $24 million.

There’s something about Rocky that will never get old. This was the first Rocky movie that I saw in theaters and it was an amazing experience. This is the type of movie that makes people want to applaud throughout the entire film. The kind of energy that this film brought out was simply amazing.

Somehow Stallone made a great film about the old vs. the young (ok it wasn’t solely about that). Now all I want to see in Rocky VII is Rocky fighting someone when he is 90 years old. That would be interesting…

Vigil: Blood Bitterness (-)

The first episode in this gothic horror puzzle indie series.

There’s a lot to say about indie games. For the most part the word indie games may make you think of a puzzle game, or something lacking commercial quality thereof. Vigil: Blood Bitterness crosses the boundary of indie game and tries to reach commercial status, but ultimately fails in doing so.

Vigil itself is an interesting game right off the bat thanks to its visuals and demon story. For the most part the graphics are in a black and white tone, with other colors, such as yellow and blue, used on specific objects. This visual style is reminiscent of the movie Sin City and as it did in the movie, the game looks great!

The gameplay consists of opening and closing doors, running around, and solving puzzles. Due to these watered-down gameplay mechanics there is a lack of interaction with the environments themselves, not that the environments are filled with many objects to toy around with in the first place. Moving the character consists of pointing the mouse and clicking. The camera is third person and is usually placed at odd angles to “scare” the player, after all this is a horror game.

Being an indie horror game, Vigil pretty much has no other games to compare itself too. It stands out above the rest of the crowd, but even so it isn’t that fun to play or even scary for that matter. Its story sounds like a good premise, well actually it’s really hard to understand what Vigil is about. This game was made by a French studio called Free Gamer and some of the translations aren’t that clear. Calling a ‘bed’, a ‘couch’ seems a little weird. The story is simple – you play as a demon called Dehon and you want to kill other demons.

Overall there isn’t anything truly wrong with Vigil: Blood Bitterness. It’s simply just not fun. If there is something that Vigil did right, it’s that it didn’t try to be the average indie game. Breaking the mold is always something hard to do and Free Gamer did it.

Video Game Violence

Video games have been a part of my life for nearly my entire life. I was four years old when I received my first video game console. Subsequently my life has probably changed in ways that I cannot imagine. As a child I never played extremely violent games, but as I matured I have played notorious titles like Mortal Kombat, Doom, and Grand Theft Auto. These games all have one thing in common: gore and violence. At times I wonder if my personality has in some way been affected by playing such games. Of course, it’s impossible to know for sure what effect long term exposure to violent games has had on me. But with the exponential growth of the video game industry, the subject of video game violence remains one of the hottest topics of the 21 st century. As the graphics in video games become more realistic, many have questioned whether the most damaging effects of exposure to video game violence are yet to come.

The first mainstream video game, Pong, was released in 1972. While this harmless game had players hitting a pixel from one end of the screen to the other, it did not take long for game designers to create experiences which lead some to question their morality. In 1979 an arcade racing title called Death Race had players drive around in a car running over gremlins. Controversy struck when the game was first released under the title Pedestrian. Even in the days of blocky black and white graphics one could easily pass judgment that the developer was teaching players to take pleasure in running over ordinary people, not monsters. The National Safety Council called the game ‘sick’ and ‘morbid’. Violent and sexually themed video games continued to be released throughout the 1980s, but nothing came close to the commotion that a fighting game caused in 1992. In Mortal Kombat, players competed in a tournament to the death. This game featured realistic looking characters that each had a specific fatal move, such as ripping out the spinal cords of opponents, or causing opponents to fall to their deaths on a bed of spikes. Despite an uproar that included Congressional hearings, the violent games did not stop here. Wolfenstein 3D was the world’s first first-person shooter and its success paved the way for one of the most popular games of all time: Doom, where players get to play as a space marine who must shoot at any Hellish creature that crosses his path.

To address mounting concerns from Congress and parents, in 1994 the video game industry formed the Entertainment Software Regulation Board. The ESRB is a self-regulatory organization that rates games based on an age rating system. This system is meant to help consumers chose what games are right for them. Despite this, in many states a retailer can still sell M (Mature, 17+) games to minors. However, most retailers do not carry the highest rating, AO (Adults Only). If the ESRB had not been formed, Congress would have taken it upon themselves to regulate games, possibly forever changing this unique industry.

When Columbine High School students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold went on a deadly shooting rampage in 1999, parents and school officials searched hard for reasons to explain the tragedy. One of the most popular theories involved the influence of first-person shooters on the teens. On behalf of the teacher killed in the attack, one group claimed that, “ absent the combination of extremely violent video games and these boys incredibly deep involvement…these murders and this massacre would not have occurred.” Both Eric and Dylan were enthusiastic fans of first-person shooter games like Doom and Wolfenstein 3D. FPS’s engross the player in a world of fantasy violence, where many gamers feels like they become the avatar. Ironically in 2005, a filmmaker named Danny Ledonne created a video game based on this tragedy titled Super Columbine Massacre RPG and set off a whole new wave of controversy.

Even though the video game industry has tried to solve its content issues on its own, the problem still persists. Most recently in 2005, the game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has brought even more criticism of the practices of the ESRB. In what became known as the Hot Coffee mod, players unlocked hidden sex mini-games contained within the commercial title. This ignited the anti-video game activist movement. Lawyers like Jack Thompson slammed both the ESRB and GTA publisher Rockstar Games for allowing a game like this to get out into the public’s hands. “ How lovely that GTA weds sex and violence in the same game. We are training a generation of teens to combine sex with violence, just what America needs. ”As many parents became angered at the video game industry, politicians have jumped into the fray. Senators Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman have suggested government regulation of video games. The 10th Annual MediaWise Video and Computer Game Report Card, issued by the National Institute on Media and the Family, gave the video game industry a “D+” and said the ESRB was “beyond repair.” On the other side of the argument, pro-video game activists declare that any government regulation would be censorship and a violation of the First Amendment. Just this week, the Electronic Software Association sued the state of Minnesota to try to overturn recently passed legislation regulating the sale of video games to minors.

Many research studies have been conducted to determine whether or not violent video games effect one’s behavior. According to Craig A. Anderson and Brad J. Bushman “Violent media increases aggression by teaching observers how to aggress, by priming aggressive conditions, by increasing arousal, or by creating an aggressive affect state.” On the opposite side of the spectrum, according to Jeffrey Goldstein “Video games cannot ‘reinforce’ aggressive behavior since players do not engage in any aggressive behavior in the first place.” The bottom line is that the research is inconclusive; video games may or may not cause violent behavior. What is clear is that violence affects everyone differently.

What happens in the next few years will determine the future of the video game industry. With the business reaching higher revenues than the film industry, a total of $9.9 billion in 2004, video games have a major impact on the economy. Any new rules and regulations could have a chilling effect for the industry at large. In the meantime, new technological advances result in violent and graphic images that are becoming nearly lifelike. As the next-generation of consoles loom on the horizon, the line between freedom of speech and expression and the need to protect children and society from over exposure to violence will continue to be tested.

Bibliography

1. Death Race. 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Race

2. Video Game Censorship. 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_censorship

3. Real-life death makes sick choice for video game . Leonard Pitts JR. 2006. http://www.freep.com/

4. Video Game Rating Act of 1994 . The Library of Congress. 1994.

http://thomas.loc.gov/

5. GameSpeak: Jack Thompson. 2005. http://www.cbsnews.com/

6. Clinton Introducing Federal Game Regulation. Tor Thorsen. 2006. http://videogames.aol.com/

7. ESA sues Minnesota over new bill. Jesse Hiestand. 2006.http://msnbc.msn.com

8. Effects of Violent Video Games On Aggressive Behavior, Aggressive Cognition, Aggressive Affect, Physiological Arousal, and Prosocial Behavior. Craig A. Anderson and Brad J. Bushman. http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/

9. Does Playing Violent Video Games Cause Aggressive Behavior? Jeffrey Goldstein. 2001. http://culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/

10. NPD GROUP REPORTS ANNUAL 2004 U.S. VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY RETAIL SALES. 2005. http://www.npdfunworld.com/

11. ESRB. 2006. http://www.esrb.org

12. Columbine High School Massacre. 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_High

New Super Mario Bros. (+)

Mario is definitely back in his old-school goodness form! Of course he still has to save Princess Peach – what else is new?

If the DS is trying to be a handheld gaming system that bridges the market between hardcore and casual gamers, New Super Mario Bros. is the game is a game that not only old and new Mario fans will enjoy but also hardcore and casual gamers. There’s just something about this game that screams play me! Whether its the cutesy graphics or the extremely well-rounded gameplay, this is a game that competes for best Mario game ever.

While Super Mario 64 brought Mario into the realm of 3D, New Super Mario Bros. takes the series back down a notch into 2D gameplay mixed with 3D sprites. The world of Mario has never looked so good! From its vibrant colors to its well-animated characters, this Mario game stands out above all DS games.

As one of the main features of the DS is the touch screen, New Super Mario Bros. does use it to a good extent. While for the most part the game uses the touch screen as a score counter, there are tons of side mini-games that use the touch screen. A good amount of these mini-games were featured in Super Mario 64 DS, but now feature some distinct upgrade such as improved graphics.

The sound in this game is superb. This is one of the few handheld games where you want to blast the music so that everyone around you wants to see what you’re playing!

New Super Mario Bros. takes its roots mostly from the NES and SNES versions of Mario. If there is one Mario game that you have to play on the DS it’s New Super Mario Bros. There’s just no competition to it. It takes old-school gameplay and revamps so that the game does not feel like a rehash.