The Honor and Duty… of Fanboys.
[The serious downtime between articles has been a result of a very busy few months for me, particularly due to my new responsibilities volunteering at the RSPCA and, moreso, the death of a family member. I apologize for the delay since my last article post, but hope you all understand. -Fuzz]
I spend a decent amount of time on the internet nowadays, as most people do. I tend to spend most of that time participating in online gaming or gathering information. Information is power, and an endless diversity of information can be too much to pass up.
There are few things on the webbersphere that can get me truly frustrated; I even find humour in the trolls and various idiocies, but sometimes a point of view will escalate to a full-blown meme that everybody claims as their own. One that simply doesn’t deserve to be considered a valid basis for any opinion in the first place.
Everybody’s opinion is their own, and I can respect that. If all opinions were right there would be no debate or taste and, through that logic, little-to-no distinct creativity. Parrots who hear one argument and mimic it over and over again simply to defend something intangible though (Your validity as a gaming consumer, for example)? I wish every one of you would go headbutt a bullet.
There are two particular examples lately which simply demoralize anybody with any rationality. The first culprit isn’t really related to games, so I will skim over the details.
There was a flood in Australia around Christmas time, but it was far enough back that it’s no longer a very sensitive subject anymore, so people are trying to point fingers regarding who’s fault it was for the flood. Was it the fault of the officials who decided which areas would be settled in… on an island continent with a limited locational supply of water? No. Was it the people in charge of the dams? Maybe if they had whipped out some hoses and a few buckets and got to work on it themselves?
It was rain. Follow my lead here.
It rained a lot. There was water, then there was more water. When there was too much water, it went places. Places flooded.
I'm sure there's an inappropriate League joke in here somewhere.
This isn’t just my response to some internet parroting either; I heard debates about it on the radio and watched a few on television, and by ‘watched’ I mean ‘sternly frowned at for a while til something else was on’. I mean, I didn’t even suffer much from the flooding and I’m still pissed off about the debates; the water only reached high enough on my property to soak my lawn a bit. I came home after the evacuation and thought “Well, this is a bit anti-climactic.” then ended up with muddy water soaking into my socks. Travesty abounds! Uncomfortable squelching noises!
*Slaps dust off of hands* Subject dropped! Let’s move on and make this about gaming again.
There is another thing which has been giving me the Freddy Frowns; fanboys. In particular, Call of Duty fanboys. Yes, the Modern Warfare series is great. Yes, it bares some similarities to the timeline of the Medal of Honor franchise. No, Medal of Honor is not a slap-dash cash-in copy of Call of Duty.
For the past few years I can’t experience a conversation regarding different games in the ‘unnamed soldier’ niche without this coming up, but this broken-record is so dumbfounding-inaccurate that it’s just rather sad: “EA are such shameless bastards. Look at what they keep trying to do with Medal of Honor. They are trying to copy Modern Warfare”. No Nancy, they aren’t.
When Medal of Honor was announced the entire industry was intrigued. It was a game that was created by, and would also be directed by, the film director Steven Spielberg. At the time, a famous director getting involved in a video game release beyond a movie tie-in was just unheard of. The original game was released in 1999, then in 2002 Battlefield 1942 came out and was its damned schmexy self. It was a smooth and delicious palette cleanser for the market. You were thrown into an open world with a basic kit and told ‘Here are your orders. Now, go.’ It was probably the real protogame from which the sandbox gameplay style developed, and proved to consumers and developers everywhere that a large-scale multiplayer environment could exist, which was quite a big thing back then.
So everybody was kung-fu guerrilla fighting in Medal of Honor and turning tides in Battlefield 1942, then *pop*! Out of nowhere a year later in 2003, Call of Duty comes out and… wait, it’s actually a good game?
Yes, that was the exact response of the gamer everyman. We had our immersing survival wartime FPS in Medal of Honor and the completely nameless feel of Battlefield 1942. The common consensus was that Call of Duty was only being made to jump on the bandwagon, gripping strongly on the coat-tails of EA.
Epic Beard Man on a bad day.
It sounds really wierd doesn’t it? EA published two good games that everybody loved, and another company (at the time, Activision) saw some dollar signs and decided they could do things better? It’s funny how the circle comes around, isn’t it? So when Call of Duty came out and it wasn’t a completely crappy cash-in game, people were surprised. The game itself was a happy accident; it was another company’s attempt at doing a better job of providing a deep wartime experience, but it mainly came through thanks to a completely different company altogether.
Call of Duty was build upon ID Software’s Quake III Arena engine, which was a lead competitor in the multiplayer FPS core engine market that successfully rivalled the Unreal engine. This is important; modifying an engine with roots in deathmatch play to suit a wartime epic series ended up causing a strange effect: the multiplayer mode worked. It was crisp, clean and fun. It offered variety for map design, weapon implementation and graphical settings. To put it simply, people finished the single player campaign, got on multiplayer to give it a go, and were hooked.
Suddenly Call of Duty had their own fanbase, which they continued to cater for with each release in the franchise; while they strive to continue with their vision of making a better wartime experience for the player, they understood why they were successful and made an effort to maintain the clean multiplayer experience.
The Medal of Honor franchise has still been steadily releasing new games in its series to this day, and has taken its step into different wartime events, mostly due to having specifically built game releases around World War II campaigns for a while and needing new content. The series has still been primarily focused on the giving a truly heroic feel, where you step into the shoes of a soldier of the time to follow his misadventures and do your part for the greater good…
…but you know what, fanboys? You probably don’t know half of the history behind these two games, if any of it at all. All you do is spout of your comments in an attempt to put Call of Duty on some kind of pedestal and proclaim that somehow Medal of Honor is trying to take the podium. The games may have had similar roots (which, funnily enough, came from the opposite of what you believe) but they have evolved into two completely different experiences.
Call of Duty wants you to have fun, Medal of Honor wants you to feel proud.
.
Fuzz Goes off in a Tangent:
.
This type of pointless, stubborn fanboy behaviour is not limited to internet randoms or certain genres; it could just as easily be regurgitated by somebody you know about a game from a genre you wouldn’t expect. Allow me to portray one of my regular experiences with it first-hand.
I’m a big fan of all genres, but I’ve always had a soft spot for RTS games. I own and play the whole Command & Conquer franchise, the Dawn of War games, Blizzard’s productions, the Supreme Commander series, and many more different releases. Well, except Command & Conquer 4. I bought and played some of that, then almost facepalmed myself into a coma.
Some days I just really feel like playing a particular game, so I will get on my Ventrilo server and or take a trip to a local gamer’s hangout (like a LAN centre or hobby shop) to chat to people. There will be people talking about messing around on MMOs, playing FPS, RPGs; you name it. Unfortunately, many of these gamers have their foundation built from Blizzard games.
This poses to be quite the dilemma. Here’s a sample Ventrilo conversation that covers about 3/4 of the conversations I have when trying to drum up an RTS game.
“Hey, anybody wanna play some RTS?”
“Starcraft 2?”
“No thanks. I’d like to play some Dawn of War/SupCom/Red Alert 3/etc right now.”
“[Insert fanboy lingo here that dismisses the ENTIRE RTS GENRE unless it is made by Blizzard]“
No, I’m not joking. One of the biggest hurdles to make it over when playing a game with friends comes forward in the RTS field. Blizzard fanboys are like rabid bears, with Blizzard games being their caves which they shelter within to protect them from having a bad experience. Don’t step into their cave and confuse them with things such as ‘new concepts’ or ‘interesting gameplay mechanics’ or they might attack you with their fragile viewpoints and maul of inconsistencies.
“Starcraft 2 is the best RTS available. Nothing competes with it. There’s no reason to play anything else.”
“Comparing SupCom to Starcraft is a mute and pointless argument. They only share genre; they are completely different. They are fun for unique reasons.”
“I don’t care.”
Eventually it spirals downwards with me being accused of being the real fanboy of whatever RTS game I want to play at the time, despite playing all of them. Starcraft 2 is a good game, and most of Blizzard’s steps into the RTS genre share that trait, but for Pete’s sake people, play a different bloody RTS game you insecure twats.
So Blizzard fanboys, let’s put this into perspective:
By your logic, I shouldn’t have played and enjoyed Borderlands because I like FPS games made by Valve, or should never have played any of the Donkey Kong Country series because I should only have experienced platform games made by Shiny. Sure, Shiny only released 3 platform games in the last 15 years, but that wouldn’t stop you, would it? I mean, Blizzard has only released the RTS games Starcraft, Warcraft III and Starcraft 2 in the last 15 years, right? Though to throw your mind for a loop, I might not have ever played Earthworm Jim or Wild 9 if I was going by your logic, because I would still be playing Sonic the Hedgehog games.
Why should we even limit that logic to games? It’s so diverse!
You remember when you had some of your grandma’s jam on toast as a kid? Well, why aren’t you eating that every day for breakfast? Hell, don’t even worry that your roommates are sitting across the table enjoying crisp and spongy waffles. Is your toaster broken? Don’t risk it; stay away from that cereal in the cupboard and wait for lunch. You never know; the cereal might not be satisfying. Never mind that your friend Bob went out to the Diner with you and ordered some bacon on eggs. You’ve got jam on toast, right? You know that jam on toast is good, because it’s never let you down. You don’t need their fancy bacon, convenient cereal or sweet-smelling waffles.
In conclusion: Buy Borderlands. It’s cheap now and, after still playing it on-and-off for so long, I can safely say it’s worth the money. Plus, it gives them more incentive to go all-in for the production of Borderlands 2. Good stuff.
The Honor and Duty… of Fanboys.Nukem has gone gold!
Duke’s gone gold! The game discs are being manufactured and shipped as we speak! [Source] [Source]
Gearbox making fun of itself.
You may remember my post a fair while back which mentioned that Duke Nukem: Forever was shaping up rather nicely. I’ve been looking forward to this game for a long time now. (You can view the older article here, though the page formatting has mixed things up a bit).
It’s scheduled for release on June 10th (June 14th for the USA). The game looks like it’s ridiculous fun, and why wouldn’t it be? Any game with over a decade of production behind is certain to have witty moments pouring out its ears.
If you haven’t seen it already, here’s the trailer [Warning: Harsh language]:
There’s another couple of videos you might want to see, but I’ll avoid clogging up your browsers. You can find an interview here, and a ‘mockumentary’ here.
The gamer in me is anticipating a probably-awesome experience, while my inner businessman just really wants to see the sales figures a week after it comes out; on the game, sunglasses and, of course, bubble gum. Even if the game turns out to be a failure (gameplay-wise, since we all know it’s going to sell) it’s still worth giving it a spot on your shelf just for the weird factor.
Nukem has gone gold!Steam: The Little Engine That Could
It’s one of the most utilized and enjoyed programs in the world: Steam.
Steam was a rather niche program for the longest time, so many gamers didn’t even realize its importance to the game industry until around 2007. So where did this symbol of digital distribution and indie game promotion come from? Well, that’s a story of trials and hurdles that often goes unappreciated.
Valve was enjoying the great success of Half-Life in 1998 and was being lavished with praise from the community for its release of mapmaking tools and a supported SDK [tools and information for the development of third-party games based off of an engine]. The SDK was received by many wide-eyed fans, who proceeded to make a multitude of mod games unsurpassed in number to this day.
It was commonly joked amongst gamers that when you purchased Half-Life you were purchasing dozens of games, since you only required Half-Life itself to have access to a large selection of single-player and multiplayer mods.
Snap the Delorean‘s clock forward to 1999: Counter-Strike’s beta has been released and is an overnight success. Valve offers to partner-up with the developers of the mod and they oblige. In the year 2000 (dramatic 80s music here) Counter-Strike 1.0 is released to the public. It is one of the most popular multiplayer games of all time, and through it many more copies of Half-Life are sold, to the point of Valve releasing Counter-Strike as it’s own game.
[Note: The Counter-Strike standalone game could run mods in a fashion similar to Half-Life. It was effectively just Half-Life for 'CS fans']
Welcome to Steam in in the earlier 2000s. Well, okay, I admit that this is SLIGHTLY exaggerated.
Skip forward again to 2001 and Valve is listening to the community. Many mods are popular, but the fans lose connectivity if they don’t maintain the latest copy of the mod they are using at the time. This wasn’t the only problem; cheaters (hackers) were running rampant and the anti-cheat systems of the time were banning people based upon their ‘WONid’ [World Opponent Network Identification], a virtual CD-key which acted as a registration number for a player. The main concern with this approach was that the hackers had figured out several ways to acquire the CD-keys of legitimate players (either through stealing or key generation) to obtain innocent players’ WONids, causing the loss of their games (or at least, their games being declined multiplayer access to large networks who shared ban lists). Valve decided it was time to create front-end software that would be compatible with future releases to deal with this problem, and the first steps towards Steam’s production began.
Valve’s intentions were rather noble; a system which automatically updated games, prevented piracy and halted hackers in their tracks. Unfortunately they struggled to get the project off the ground; upon approaching many developers to commission the production (including Microsoft, Yahoo and Realnetworks) they were turned away. The concept simply didn’t appear profitable.
Valve finally put their foot down and started independent production on the software in late 2001. A few names were thrown around (including Gazelle… yeah, I have no idea where that came from) before the program was called ‘Steam’.
Mid 2002 comes around and Counter-Strike 1.6 is ready for beta testing. Valve decides: this is the right time. They release Counter-Strike 1.6′s beta exclusively over the Steam program. Rumours spread that the program’s name ‘Steam’ was coined when the servers struggled to handle the stress of constant access and downloading prior to the front-end software’s initial release, but they were neither confirmed or denied (but were joked about by Valve representatives). Steam’s primary function at this time was to streamline game patching.
Over the next couple of years Steam grew in use. It provided front-end [operation before launching a primary game or program] matchmaking, updating and, eventually, a reliable counter to the growing annoyance of hackers. Unfortunately the software was considered buggy, unreliable and plain painful to keep updated; it would crash randomly, it would sometimes refuse to patch itself and it had issues with alt-tabbing out of games. The most famous of these bugs was the issue of Half-Life’s sound bugging: the game’s sound would completely crash upon alt-tabbing; if you did so intentionally, a third party program popped up or Windows forced your program to tab out, which was common at the time.
Steam's quality certainly improved with the release of Half-Life 2.
Steam wouldn’t be accessed by third-party games until the release of Half-Life 2 in 2005. Half-Life 2′s popularity was considered phenomenal; it was considered the “game of the year”, ‘revolutionary’ and ‘must have’ due to its innovative gameplay and in-game physics. Not only was the game popular, but it also happened to run on what was dubbed ‘the Source engine’ which was built specifically to interface with Steam. Game developers sprung at the chance to have their product advertised-by-affiliation. Smaller game companies and third-party developers began releasing downloadable games and demos over Steam.
Valve began to finally see a return on their investment. They began patching out problems with the Steam client with a new, focused zeal. Several of the major problems which hampered Steam were patched out and the program would become more streamlined. The program found itself with a more functional friends list, browser, game library and store. It also stabilized its capability to synchronize with games which were not intended to interface with Steam, allowing you to run them off of your Steam game library.
In 2007 the program finally gained popularity. Key developers (such as Eidos and Capcom) began online distribution of their games across Steam. Valve would see a major backlash from several key sectors of the game industry, who claimed that online distribution was designed to “steal money from important links in the industry”, such as distributors and stores. These claims were put to rest when game designers and producers across the world leaped to the defense of the software, claiming that it was the key to breaking the stagnant culture of game production.
Gamers all over the world now rely on Steam not only to play the games they love, but to also protect them as their own. The software also offers companies the opportunity to sell their older classic titles to a wide audience for Steam exclusive discounts (which are appreciated by gamers everywhere) as well as partnerships with LAN centres through the Valve Cyber Café Program. When you stack the aforementioned benefits up with the friends list, browser, game library, demos and free multiplayer weekends: Steam is the must-have program for gamers the world over.
So there you have it. Steam was only ever conceptualized for the benefit of Valve’s consumers, had to be produced by the developers themselves, ran at a loss for several years, required constant maintenence and patching, needed an obscene outlay of hardware and bandwidth to operate and was demonized by the industry’s media; but it pushed through all of its problems to become what it is today.
Kudos to you Valve. Kudos.
If you are one of the few gamers on the planet who have yet to download Steam, you can do so at http://store.steampowered.com/about/. The program is free, of course, as Valve always intended.
That’s all, TTYL!
Steam: The Little Engine That CouldDuke Nukem: Finally, but where’s Dark Millenium?
First of all i would like to apologize for my absence. While it was relatively beyond my control, this site was left stagnant with no warning or explanation. I will endeavour to become more reliable in the future, and i thank you all for your concerned correspondence and support. I am not worthy.
It's not just a dump stat!
Now that we have that out of the way, let’s get back into it with some tasty facts and witticisms!
Let me take you way back to the historic ages of 1997:
- John Howard was baby-steps into his first term as Australian Prime Minister
- The world mourned Princess Diana after her fateful car accident at the Pont de l’Alma road tunnel in Paris.
- Bill Clinton was still in office on his first term and was considered a faithful husband. Monica who?
- The Christmas blockbuster movie this year will be Titanic; all romantically involved men are forced to see it and develop a deep hatred for Leonardo DeCaprio.
- The first teaser info about Duke Nukem Forever was released
That’s right; 3D Realms announced production of Duke Nukem Forever 14 years ago! The fans were weighed, measured, delayed repeatedly and yes, they were found wanting.
Duke Nukem: Finally, but where’s Dark Millenium?Borderlands and Brutal Legend: My Hobby Is Now Justified!
To put it simply: the title says it all. Recent game releases have been depressing and weak. It was as if I was crawling on my hands and knees through an allegorical desert of fancifully-priced coasters that came in shiny boxes, occasionally graced with wonderful, soothing mediocrity that granted about 2 days of satisfaction at best.
I found myself digging back to older titles to feed my hunger for decent gaming. I was soon booting up the true classics such as Dawn of War (which was highly underrated), Portal and Starcraft, just to name a few. Now two fantastic game titles are releasing around the same time, each of its own original style with the longevity of fantastic gameplay value.
Of course one of the games I’m talking about is Borderlands, described as a Role-Playing Shooter on more than a single occasion.
The sheer effort put into this game is staggering.
You may remember the crew at Gearbox for their work on Half-Life mods and console ports. Their work is typically on the fringe of whatever genre they are involved with at the time, often taking the time to add a new feel to an old sensation. Fortunately for us, they have more freedom to pursue their potential nowadays and kick things up a notch.
Borderlands will utilize technology which on-demand generates almost unlimited variations of enemies, encounters and weapons. It features a leveling and customisation system unheard of in a shooter. Even the combat feels very fluid and merged: feeling like a cross between Half-Life 2 and the new MMO standard of interface. Scrolling combat text AND live fire? Now you’re talking.
Words probably can’t express the synergy at play here. Click here for a YouTube video showing some preview footage of Borderlands, as well as offshoot links to actual gameplay trailers. Be spontaneous: click what you feel.
In other (perhaps even more orgasmic) news, the game Brutal Legend (check out the game soundtrack in that link!) recently released in Australia. It’s no secret to anybody who knows me that I love my metal and I have always enjoys Jack Black’s comedic stylings. Then there’s my respect for Norse and Vikings and general iron-clad kickassery that I’m often told is ‘unhealthy’. Throw into the mix the fact that I think Tim Schafer is gifted and he is producing the game? Epic.
Too much Red Bull can be dangerous to your health.
It would be incredibly difficult for Electronic Arts to blunder this one. They would have to pull something rediculously short bus to make me hate this game. Even this reply querying a PC release couldn’t make me hate the concept:
“Well it’s really an action game, that when you play it you’ll see that it was meant to be on a console.” I am not taking this out of context, the full interview can be found here and you can clearly see he has no intentions at this time to release to PC.
After hearing this, I would typically be very frustrated.
I choose to play on the PC platform because I enjoy the ability to customise and, to an even more important note, keybind my games to how I like them. Say what you will, but a standard controller will never have the accuracy and finesse of a mouse, and you would need obscene, genetically enhanced hands to use one with the same macro capabilities of an entire left side of a keyboard. While some RTS games allow mouse & keyboard setups, I doubt this game will. It’s just not the right genre.
Strangely enough though, the idea of playing it on a console still makes me excited. Possibly even more so, as I get the feeling this game will be hilarious fun to play with friends, even in single player mode. The dialogue and game style just has this wierd feeling to it, an aura if you will, that makes you want to watch it unfold.
I mean, it even lets you select as you play whether or not you want to enable or disable certain options which provide the roadie experience. If you assumed by that I meant gore, nudity and liberal swearing then you would be spot on. To be honest, the toned-down swearing in alot of games crushes the immersion. For crying out loud, remember the last time you stubbed your damn toe? You sure as hell didn’t slam out “Well gosh-darned it, that stung a mighty bit.” did you? So how do you think you would react to being hit by something that actually hurt? Or maybe encountering something that made you feel like luck kicked your gonads?
All Ozzy wanted was a stellar hug from you twats.
As for the game’s actual quality, I guess I’ll find out if EA has ‘pulled another EA’ soon enough. I’ve delayed purchasing a copy lately due to other pressing concerns, but I’ll grab one in the next couple of days and playtest it a bit with Jason. If I don’t post for a week, It’s probably safe to assume that things polished up well. There are a few songs on the soundtrack I know he’ll enjoy, but I don’t think Jason will appreciate Dragonforce or the similar styles so much (maybe Manowar?). He has a habit of allowing Nostalgia to clog his ears methinks, but I’ll admit that he has good taste and excellent musical sense.
Now, imagine air-guitaring this game with Project: Natal? Or should I say, Project: Natahl. Nat-ahl. Now I realise that Natal is innovative and worthy of much praise, but I don’t think it’s possible to expect everybody to bend the pronunciation of the spoken language around your product or service and not realise you sound pretentious.
Lionhead studios have been having their fun as usual. This isn’t exactly breaking news, but if you haven’t seen their work with Project Natal and ‘Milo’, then I highly recommend that you click here.
That’s me for the day. TTYL!
Borderlands and Brutal Legend: My Hobby Is Now Justified!