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Thursday, December 14, 2006 |
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BioShock Marketing
If you have been following Irrational's BioShock closely (due in spring 2007), then you may have noticed the change in language used to describe the game in the last three months. Originally, Irrational and 2K referred to BioShock as the spiritual successor to System Shock and a great effort was made to refer to it in the same light as that first-person shooter RPG.
In the last four months, 2K decided to market its game in a different way. It wanted people to see it as a first-person shooter, not an RPG, not a first-person RPG, and not as an adventure game. But as a first-person shooter. The fantastically cool Ken Levine, who runs Irrational, spoke with Websites and magazines to try and show us their logic and explain why BioShock would expand the traditional definition of a first-person shooter (read the interview.) We challenged Ken on the idea, and he smartly explained his thoughts on the game.
Recently, we got an email from 2K about a video that's going up this week. And in it was this intelligent default description of BioShock. This little paragraph neatly sums up what Ken Levine was getting at in our phone conversation and I like it. Of course, I haven't played the game and can't vouch for any revolution, but I can say that BioShock already looks and seems in concept and execution like it could very well match up to this description and more. Here is the paragraph:
"BioShock is a revolution in the shooter genre that will forever change the expectations for the FPS. Going beyond "run and gun corridors," "monster-closet AIs" and static worlds, BioShock creates a living, unique and unpredictable FPS experience. BioShock is the Shooter 2.0. BioShock is slated exclusively for Xbox 360 and Games For Windows in spring 2007. Rating pending."
What do you guys think?
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Monday, December 11, 2006 |
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The Top 25 Franchises: My Take
Since we posted the final five of the top 25 videogame franchises, IGN has received an onslaught of mail. Sure, we see letters congratulating us here and there. Recently, though, we've received all sorts of super angry letters, many of which are totally legitimate. The honest truth is that nobody ever wins in these lists. Let's us look at the Top 25 Game Franchises of All Time.
25. Virtua Fighter
24. Half-Life
23. Donkey Kong
22. Tetris
21. Command and Conquer
20. Mega Man
19. Sonic the Hedgehog
18. Chrono Series
17. Pokemon
16. Tom Clancy Series
15. Madden
14. Dungeons and Dragons
13. Grand Theft Auto
12. Street Fighter
11. Star Wars
10. Civilization
9. Sims
8. Metroid
7. Resident Evil
6. Warcraft
5. Metal Gear Solid
4. Castlevania
3. Final Fantasy
2. Legend of Zelda
1. Mario
Not only are the majority of readers upset by the list -- because their favorite game wasn't listed or it wasn't in the right order -- but some franchises were wholly left out. Halo, for instance, is not on the list. Mortal Kombat, Doom, Quake, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, you name it, they somehow didn't make the list.
The thing is that IGN, as a whole, voted for the games. That means my singular vote was 1/30 of the vote. That means I got to vote in the election, but it sure seemed like my vote, like a presidential vote, didn’t make a damn bit of a difference. When I voted for the Critics Awards at E3 I felt the same insignificance. I voted for games and my games never won. At IGN when we voted for games of the year in 2001 I voted for Grand Theft Auto III, and Halo won the game of the year. Seemed fair. Halo is a great game. But GTAIII lost? Yep. Of all the game I have voted on over the years I have only won once. In the inevitable mass of people, a single vote matters, but it also gets lost in the horde.
I disagree with the final outcome for the most part. My top 25 wouldn't have included Chrono Trigger, which doesn't really seem much like a "series." Or if it is, it's as much of a series as Halo and Halo 2. To be honest, I do think Mario and Zelda are the two to franchises of all time, but Command and Conquer is better than the Half-Life series???!!! And Donkey Kong is better than Half-Life? Come on. Also Tetris isn't so much a series as it is the same game with different failed versions in its wake.
What would your top 25 list look like? Mine would include Doom and Quake, or at least Quake, Halo and even though I'm not a big fan of the series, I would include Mortal Kombat. Whether you like the series or not, that game is a major franchise that's worth recognizing. Also, where is Gran Turismo? Damn, that's a serious missive. But again, it's not like it wasn't voted on. It was. It just didn't make the list. This list looks at the entire history of videogames and attempts to fit 25 top franchises into a list. Seems like a pretty improbable tasks, eh?
My personal top 10 would look like this:
10. Resident Evil
9. Gran Turismo
8. Metal Gear Solid
7. Castlevania
6. Grand Theft Auto
5. Star Wars
4. Halo
3. Half-Life
2. Mario
1. Legend of Zelda
What would yours be?
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Tuesday, November 14, 2006 |
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Pictures of Vivi
Since this blog scrolls vertically, you might have missed the rather emotional announcement of my baby girl, Genevieve Juliet Perry. Excuse my gushiness, I'm told I'll get over it soon (though just as many people told me it only gets worse. Gak!). If you like baby pictures, this blog will satisfy your inner parental longing because I've included a few shots of our 12-day-old. This mini-person is bringing us unending joy and sleeplessness. Working at IGN and missing nights of sleep is nothing compared to this! But it's all worth it. I really wanted a child and Miriam and I have been trying to have one for 12 years, so we got what we wanted, sleep deprivation and all.
This is the life.
No, no. THIS is the life.
The Perry Company. LTD.'s new CEO sets up her controversial management style on day one.
Robin meets his new little sister with constrained glee.
Sutter Memorial's extreme car seat challenge. The goal? Not violently crying in this baby carriage...for an hour. Our new baby has proven she excels at three things: eating, pooping, and sleeping. Naturally, she passed with flying colors.
A real natural.
Miriam begins the baby parade by placing a New Zealand-made angora hat on Vivi. Her reaction? Zzzz....
Doug contemplates what it's like to get one hour of sleep per night for the next three years...
A real picture.
Another real one.
And finally, the closer...
Vivi learns she's going home.
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Friday, November 03, 2006 |
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Life Anew
I'm a papa.
Yesterday, I got an emergency phone call from my wife while she was lecturing at the university.
"Doug," she said urgently. "Get in your car and drive to Sacramento. She is having the baby NOW."
My wife and I have been trying to have a baby for 12 years. A few years ago we finally managed to secure enough money to find a healthy surrogate to bear our child. We have been in close contact with her for about a year now, and during that time she revealed again and again how quickly and easily she had children. That meant we had a small window between the time she was alerted of and the actual birth. Like 45 minutes. Her last baby was delivered in 32 minutes.
I spoke to my team, looked around bewildered and giddy, and said goodbye. I had to leave right before the biggest weekend for reviews of the season, Gears of War, Tony Hawk, Rainbow Six, Call of Duty, even Viva Pinata. Let's see...which is more important?
I jumped into my car and hit Highway 80. My wife, working farther south, got in her car. Independently, we both rushed North hoping to beat time, hoping we'd get to the hospital before the baby was born. Low on gas, I stopped to refuel and feeling silly, bought a pack of cigars.
Two hours later I arrived at the hospital. At the front desk of the maternity I arrived feeling proud and absolutely at a loss for words. Six nurses stood around and sat at the desk. The room was relatively quiet. They all looked at me.
"Hi...I'm the father of..."
What should I say? They waited patiently, but the head nurse looked at me and smiled a little.
"Let me try that again. Our surrogate was just admitted to the hospital, and she's either given birth or is giving birth to my child...."
"You're the father?"
"Yes."
She put a name tag on my chest and told me to follow her. In a large room with several small beds each surrounded by thin curtains, I saw our surrogate. She was pale and in pain, on morphine. I gently held her arm and spoke with her for several minutes. Our surrogate had an emergency C-section caused by the child breaching in her uterus. The baby was losing oxygen and our surrogate, who recounted later that she was in the kind of pain she had never experienced before, told me the baby was OK, 6 lbs, 11 ounces. She was low in blood sugar, and whisked off to another room. I told her I'd be back and blustered into the white walled wilderness of the hospital.
I found her, eventually. Our girl was healthy, five fingers on each hand and five toes on each foot, and resting. My wife finally burst out of the mid-day Sacramento traffic and arrived. We spent the rest of the day at the hospital.
I was finally able to hold her. I held her tiny, blanket-wrapped body. She was soft and light. Feeble. New. I held her. I stared at her for long uninterrupted minutes as a warm chill ran across my entire body.
I'm a father.
Lumines! Part Deux
My most recent blog update was an instantaneous response to seeing and finally playing Lumines Live on Xbox Live Arcade. The game in concept and in practice is still an outstanding puzzle game. Look at it this way, any game that prevents you from blinking for long periods of time because you can't stop playing is beyond good.
On the other hand, Lumines Live! on XBLA is bunk on a number of levels. Especially with regards to the pricing, deceptive content, and the nickle-and-dime additions that are coming in 2007. A majority of the IGN editorial staff argued, discussed, and hashed out the issues concerning Lumines Live during the course Wednesday, the day it was released. We talked about it all day. We discussed Q Entertainment’s Tetsuya Mizuguchi's idea that games should be sold like iPod songs, or looked at in the same way we should buy movies or even TV. We discussed how poorly the game was presented and how little information was given to explain Lumines Live, and MS's intentions with it. We talked about how much we love the game and how we felt that, despite the deceptive presentation, Lumines is still an impressive and amazing game. But it's too bad that it's been packaged the way it is. MS seems to have heard our and others opinions and has posted an update, which is more or less an apology (see Gamersblog.com) with this response.
It's a bitter pill to swllow, this version of Lumines. It's great, yet it stinks. As Hilary Goldstein said, we should have given it a 4.3 and added a score to it when the additional packs come out.
I interviewed Tetsuya Mizuguchi about the game and questioned the pricing issues. At the time I wasn't sure how I felt about it. I know I hate consumables and the attempt at charging people for things that were once free is simply a bad idea that's greedy and wrong. I don't think Tetsuya Mizuguchi is greedy by any means. He is a creative, interesting and insightful designer who's done great things with music in games over the last five years (plus he made SEGA Rally!). But I have to disagree with the way Lumines was handled. Games aren't the equivalent to songs. A game isn't easily broken up into 12 nice little pieces that are of equal value like songs from an album. Unless, of course one is so financially motivated that they see each level as a buyable item, which is a horrible, dumb, and insidious notion. Games aren't like that. Activision actually handled its packs well. Some were free, some were for cash. Bungie did the same thing, they charged for some maps, but gave away some for free, and you could tell that Bungie had to really fight to ensure its fans, its community, was not dismissed. Or that Bungie has sold out. This really is the generation of the bean counters vs. the creatives, and as gamers who have a say in what they purchase, we should make our choices wisely.
I'm playing Lumines right now and I'm happy I have the game on a big screen. I also got it for free, so I'm not as invested as someone who spends $15 on it. But still, I'm unhappy about how this game was handled, as are 99% of the readers who have written in, and I feel that this plan isn't really the best deal for gamers in any light.
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![16184_[/yourself]](/Code-https-web.archive.org/web/20061216015722im_/http://media.ign.com/boards/images/newicons/other_endyourself.gif)
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