Sony confirmed during their GDC presentation that SOCOM 4 will be MOVE-enabled when it released in the fall.  The controls appeared similar to the Conduit, which was released last year, but with more precision and better use of on-screen pointers.  SOCOM 4 will also be playable with a standard Dualshock 3, so don’t fret if pointer controls aren’t your cup of cake.

Also revealed was Motion Fighter, a fighting game that was controlled with two MOVE controllers.  The players can throw punches, shift their weight to duck and move, and perform special moves with their controllers in-hand.

Both games will be available this fall.

[Images courtesy SONY]

At GDC 2010 tonight, Sony officially unveiled the MOVE motion controller.  Shu Yoshida, President of Sony’s Worldwide Studios, unveiled the device and described it as being a “more precise experience” than any other motion controller.

While the main portion of the controller is the now infamous glowing orb, one of the available (not included) components of MOVE will be a wireless controller containing an analog stick and buttons and called the Playstation MOVE Sub-Controller.  Yes, very Wii Nunchuk at first glance, but Wi-Fi.

Sony displayed several interactive sports games and mentioned that the MOVE would also appeal to core as well as social gamers.

The MOVE will be available in several bundles this fall: as a standalone controller, with a $100 “starter kit” that includes the MOVE and Playstation Eye, and a full PS3 bundle.  Sony is making a major play at the Nintendo Wii audience, especially with the full system option.

Sony displayed a series of WiiSports-like games, part of their Sports Champions pack-in game.  Shown were archery, table tennis, and even a fighting game called “Gladiator Duels“.

A version of Little Big Planet using the MOVE controller was shown, with waggle-included motions.

[Images courtesy SONY]

The maps that came along with the initial game guides in Nintendo Power back in the 80s for games like Dragon Warrior (Dragon Quest) and Final Fantasy were always a sort of interesting phenomenon to me: someone out there had to plan the world that characters would walk across, and the terrain they would walk over or interact with. This would start with highly-detailed and beautiful maps… which would be turned into grainy blocks that represent grass or swamps and placed on a grid. Even though the visuals weren’t exciting, their placement was perfect and pivotal to the experience. That one block representing a town? I couldn’t wait to make it across the swamp to get to there.

Artist Brett Camper takes his love of games and media to new levels when it comes to the classic 8-Bit map. His creation, 8-Bit NYC, is a scalable map of New York that is entirely done with classic graphics. Complete with locations for New York schools, landmarks, and parks, the map is just begging to be placed into game itself. The labor of love has become so popular that Camper is looking to make similar maps of other cities, if there is enough interest.

Now, anyone good with RPG Maker want to help me out? I have an idea for Brooklyn Quest that’s floating around in my head.

[Image courtesy 8-Bit NYC]

Well, that’s at least what I was saying when I got done watching the brand new trailer for TRON: Legacy, the follow-up to the 1982 classic. Click on through for my impressions, and a link to all the trailery deliciousness.

Taking place in what appears to be modern-day, but what could also be sometime in the future, it appears that Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) has been missing for ~20 years. His son is looking for him, and a mysterious message from Flynn’s office leads him to a back-room which appears to have been used as a conduit between the ‘real world’ and the ‘game world’ in the past.

A counter on a desktop (think MS Surface) display shows more than 20 years. We don’t know what this means (could it be a counter from a significant date, the last time Flynn ‘jacked in’, who knows?), and it’s not revealed. We’re not left to think about it much, as the all-to-familiar laser scanner fires up, and we flash to the game world.

The rest of the trailer is mostly flashes of action and characters. Just enough to set up interest for future trailers, and the movie itself. What we do see, though, is a massively updated virtual world that makes the cutting-edge effects of the original seem downright quaint.

Every design is (wonderfully) updated. From the famous light suits and discs, to the menacing (in a delightful red-orange glow, of course) recognizers. As seen in the first teaser, the light-cycle update is nothing short of amazing.

If you’re even remotely a fan of the original flick, I HIGHLY recommend you check out this new trailer. Though be cautioned: It will only make you yearn for more. My only disappointment is that we’ll need to wait until December to finally get our eyes on it.

See the new trailer in all kinds of sizes here:

http://www.program-glitch-esc.net/

It’s been seven days of my trip into Farmville, the insanely popular Facebook game by Zynga.  Not only did I learn why someone may or may not like it, but I also learned how people can become incredibly addicted.  This article covers my final two days and closes with my overall impressions.

When I started Day 6, I was unsure of what the next steps would be for me.  Should I buy more stuff, plant more stuff, or… wait, I think that’s pretty much it.  I harvested any remaining crops I had and planted as many raspberries as possible.  I figured that 4 hours would be a terrifically quick amount of time for me to grow my cash reserves.  The unfortunate part of planting the berries is that they don’t give any experience points; they are purely designed to amass quick bursts of gold coins in short periods of time.  Planting them in the morning before I went to work, I was hoping to come home to a great stash.

I was wrong.  When I got home, the raspberries had wilted.  So, not only did I lose my fruits but also the money that went into buying them and the money to plow the fields again.  Farmville makes it clear: this is a game about speed and about being active.  The more I lounge around throughout the day, the more I need to spend money to make up for it.

Once I re-planted everything (the 12-hour rice plants and 8-hour pumpkins would work best, I thought) I let the game sit overnight.

My Day 7 was a hectic one filled with a great amount of ups and downs.  The ups: waking up to an incredible amount of veggies and crops that were ready to harvest.  With about 5 minutes of clicking around in the morning before I headed off for work, I had gained a level and had created a virtual fortune.  The downs: I found myself without much of a purpose.  None of my friends were really fertilizing my farm, and I was unable to gain any Farmville dollars no matter how hard I tried (outside of leveling up) — I refuse to pay money for any virtual item on Facebook.  Until the platform becomes accessible to some “core” games (action games, adventure, 3D, RPGs, etc) I can’t take it seriously enough to plunk down any money… especially when I have to fill out a survey or subscribe to an email list to gain that item.  My buildings will never be built, and my horse will have to be sold.

Day 7 was also where I really fixated myself on the graphical and backend issues of the game.  The visuals, although purposefully simplistic, are not dynamically accessing the ginormous Farmville database.  That is, when I zoom out enough over my farm I expect to see my neighbor’s farms.  Instead, all I see is green.  It’s very solitary, to the point where I feel as though I’m building up an island instead of a farm.  Oh great, I just gave Zynga a new game idea.

I also realized that no matter how much I try to grow my farm, I will always be behind those who have been playing longer than me.  It’d be impossible to catch up.  Browsing my neighbors’ farms I was becoming jealous of their chicken coops and mansions, white picket fences and trees.  All I can buy is veggies and the occasional snow-blanketed field.  Now, it may seem that I am asking a lot to receive these things right away since the main principle behind the game is “waiting”, but with Mafia Wars I was able to advance at a pretty quick pace and see a considerable return on my investment.  In Farmville, I don’t get that.  I don’t get instant gratification.  I get the option to wait even more.

The opposite is also apparent.  As many of my friends that had massive farms, double hadn’t gone past the first log in, or were at levels even lower than me.  Farmville is polarizing.

Day 7 came to a close with a bad taste left in my mouth about the game.  I was beginning to like it, but its superficiality was showing through.  This game is trumped by Animal Crossing, which has more gratification for me as a player.  Farmville seems to treat me as a web surfer, not a gamer.

That is the big turn-off of this game.  I don’t feel that connection that I get with other experiences.  Mafia Wars at least made me feel like I was dropped in the middle of an on-going event, with my mafia having the power to wipe out others.  Farmville is so incredibly casual that it doesn’t need me to function.  It doesn’t need me to grow crops or harvest them.  It doesn’t need my farm.  That forced interaction made me, a typically single-player gamer, feel like I had to go out of my way to make my neighbors happy before I could make myself happy.  I relate it to grinding in a JRPG: it’s not required to advance the game in any way exciting yet takes up the majority of my time.  At least with Dragon Quest the grinds are expected and I earn unique spells or increased strength.

Then something happened.  As I was about to put my farm out of its misery and block the app, I reached Level 10.

Level 10 opened up a slew of new features, notably the ability to improve my crops by earning stars and advancing their own levels.  Suddenly, the game became interesting again.  Suddenly, I could have that individual experience that I wanted.  I could get hooked reaching for that proverbial (and literal, in this case) carrot of trying to get everything in the game at my own pace.  The only problem?  I had to wait 7 days to get to this point.  Farmville’s slow pace doesn’t permit the “core” gamer to start enjoying the game until this point.  Whether this is by design or not — to weed out the aggressive players — is unknown.  The game should have introduced those aspects to me at the beginning, like in Mafia Wars.  The plant ratings are similar to the ratings of missions in MW, with the missions keeping me hooked for well over a year.  In fact, I still find myself coming back to the game once in a while to check my stash and pull off a hit or bank heist or two.

Growing the plant ratings in Farmville may keep me slightly interested, but that still wasn’t enough to get me to come back on a regular basis.  It isn’t so much that the game isn’t addictive, but because I’ve played games like this to death already and I can’t see myself investing time in yet another casual experience like this.  I guess I’m Zynga-ed out.  The Facebook casual gaming genre is massively popular, but I think that popularity is waning.  I more and more see my friends post negative comments about the game (especially the Wall spam that Facebook apps are known for) and I can’t help but agree with them.

Zynga and Farmville are huge, but they already feel like dinosaurs when I compare them to other modern games.

Welcome to the SideQuest, your semi-weekly podcast devoted to gaming, culture, and gaming culture, with the occasional tangent.

This show is vulgar, disgusting, irrefutable, vile, and will probably stop me from EVER holding public office. Its also pretty entertaining, and we do talk a little about video games… Dali still has a baby, Kevin and I (Yaniv) were at the Olympics, and Mike, well he’s not doing anything special at all. THIS is The Sidequest. Or maybe its the SideQuesting podcast, the Sidecast? Whatever.

Hosts:
Yaniv Pereyaslavsky, Dalibor Dimovski, Ryan ‘Pat Pat’ Gan, Mike Wehner, Kevin Hustler, Tub Girl.

Music:
Main Finger

Links:
Twitter.com/MikeWehner
Twitter.com/kewlrats
Twitter.com/keveviathan
Twitter.com/yanivp

Suda 51 and Grasshopper Manufacture, Inc. are back with a sequel to one of the most ridiculous, gratuitous, waggle-heavy games to hit the Wii.  There were plenty of complaints with the first outing. In fact, it couldn’t hold my interest to the end. But has that all been addressed with the sequel?  Get your otaku butt in gear and take a nice steaming pile of “save” before you slice past the jump with your Beam Katana.

If you’re reading this, it means you are at least partially interested in the otaku-rife world Suda 51 has created as well as anti-hero, Travis Touchdown — the crude, misogynistic, all around “too cool for school” character that you play in this refreshing take on the beat-em-up genre.  However, what’s more likely is that you are reading this as a fan of the series and are just interested to read more about what others think of the sequel or how it stacks up.

There isn’t much needed to go into the background of the story especially since the game itself lampoons the idea with some 4th-wall-breaking dialogue at the beginning of the game.  Not that it wouldn’t be entirely apparent right when you pop in the disk, but this is a game that knows exactly what it is — a video game — and doesn’t get stuck up its own butt with some highfalutin story.

The game can be best summarized as Kill Bill The Game.  Swap out Uma Thurman and replace it with a male lead, whose sexual appetite is only equal to his thirst for vengeance and blood.  Sprinkle in some awesome 8-bit styling, and out of the oven comes No More Heroes 2.

If you have played the first game, the combat is instantly familiar. The controls are pretty simple, accessible at first, but the longer you play, you uncover more elements of depths, which is a sign of a good beat-em-up.

As Travis Touchdown, you are competing to be the number one ranked assassin in a twisted league comprised of assassins killing assassins.  This time, Travis has fallen way down the ranks to 51.  On the onset, you may think that 51 boss fights may be a bit much, but the game finds clever and unique ways to get you catapulted to the top again quickly.  Some of the most interesting missions involve playing as Shinobu, the blindly faithful “student” of Travis, despite his overt and apparent lack of caring to be her “Master.”  This character was introduced in the first game, so fans of the series will be glad to see her inclusion as a playable character.

The Shinobu levels offer a perfect relief in the game.  They’re one of the”tricks” the game uses to break up tedium and get you up the ranks faster.  She plays differently from Travis, but not so much so that you feel like you’ve been thrown a curve and have to learn all over again.  However, her controls are not so different that they feel unfamiliar after playing as Travis.  Her ability to jump introduces a “Devil May Cry” type combo attack since you can air juggle enemies.

With the jumping comes twists on the boss fights which is the main staple of the game.  However, her game play needed a bit more time in the oven.  Her first boss fights teetered on infuriating to damn-near-broken game play.  Dealing with having to jump quickly and accurately, an awkward camera, and undefined rules about what keeps you stuck on a ledge (and what allows you to walk completely off it) caused for more than a couple unnecessary deaths.

If you are familiar with the game, the save system requires Travis to find a restroom and pop a squat to save your progress.  Playing as a female, you may be thinking, “Does she go to the little girls room?”  Sadly, She doesn’t go about saving in the same way.  While you do need to find a restroom, the game shows her from behind taking a shower, and conveniently placed ribbons cross the screen keeping the content very PG-13.

No More Heroes 2 addressed many of the issues with the first game.  These issues weren’t addressed by improving the overworld and such but by completely doing away with it.  To go to a new battle, you just pick it from the menu screen.  Want to do side missions to earn cash?  Go right ahead. The menu will plop you right into it. Though not actually required to progress in the game, they’re actually fun this time.

In my first play through so far, I tore through it like a bat out of hell, so I didn’t play much with the side missions, but I am very excited to go back and play them all.  The side missions this time are mostly 8-bit style games.  In fact, before you see the “title screen” of an 8-bit game, you can hear Travis blowing, followed but the rustling of inserting a Nintendo cartridge into the machine.

There are few major issues worth pointing out that I experienced during my first run-through.  Since it has been awhile since I’ve played the original No More Heroes, I remembered needing to charge my Beam Katana by furiously shaking the Wii mote, which Travis mimics on screen in a unwarranted masturbatory way and caused some boss fights to just seem impossible.  I ran into the same struggle with the sequel, but about 60% of the way through the game, I, instead of mimicking the motion on screen to charge up, started swinging the Wiimote in a circular pattern, instead of a side to side pattern that the in-game icon looked to be showing.  This caused my charge times to go from nail biting “oh crap I’m not going to make it” moments, to minor inconveniences.  This left me wishing I had done this from the start.

The final major grip comes with the last boss fight.  I am going to do my best to explain the problem I had without giving anything a way.  The final boss has some specific telegraphed attacks.  Once literally drives right at you.  So, the obvious thing to do is get out of the way, and find an better opportunity to attack him.  That was all fine and good, as I was dodging and smashing the crap out of him like a mofo.  However, after about 10 solid minutes of this, it appeared his energy meter was no longer depleting despite my various swings and mashes of the wiimote.

Starting to become physically exhausted in a battle that seemed I couldn’t win, I started to experiment with other ways to attack.  Maybe I can only use punches now, maybe I need to switch my weapon, maybe only strong attacks work, etc…  Nothing helped, despite my brutal beatings I was taunted by the enemy, and his life bar hadn’t budget for over 10 minutes beyond the half way mark.

Well, it seems the telegraphed direct attack the boss tries to do on you isn’t something to dodge, but to contest.  This was counter-intuitive to the way I played most all bosses.  If they charge at me, I get the eff outta dodge.  Once overcoming this hurdle with the game play, the rest was smooth sailing, and over all, the game provided an enjoyable experience.

There is plenty here, in this game.  I ripped through it, so I didn’t experiment with all the mini games, clothes, weapons, etc.  But I can’t wait to jump in again, to try them all out.  Unfortunately, the game sort of “starts you over” once you finish it.  I was expecting to just be able to mess around, play mini games, do extra challenges and customizing my guy by picking to load my “No 1 Rank” save, but it just keeps taking me to the opening cinematic and starting me over again. Oh well.

The game is dripping with style.  From its art direction, to its wall to wall blood splatter, to its 8 bit sprites sprinkled through out the game.  This kind of style and sensibility is what makes this game, summed up in one word, fun.  It’s just pure fun.  Its sophomoric, scatological humor may wear on most folks, but taking the game at face value is all you need to enjoy yourself.  You may be surprised at the end of the game that you had a bit more fun with the story than one might think at first sight.  There are some truly interesting boss fights, and some that give just a sliver of background to make you wish you knew more about that assassin.

My real hope, is that if there is a No More Heroes 3, for it to be completely side scrolling, using the 8-bit graphics found in this game. Now, that would be sweet.

This review is based on a purchased retail copy of the game.

Days 4 and 5 of my time in Farmville have been eye-opening.  Not only did I continue to add friends and harvest veggies, but I started to see why people can get addicted.  Mighty addicted.

When the sun rose on Day 4, I had achieved level 7 and accrued over 3000 coins from harvests.  Suddenly I had a lot of cash and no idea what to do with it.  I began by plowing more fields and planting more veggies, naturally.  White grapes became available so I began plopping those down, as well as raspberries and pumpkins.  The pumpkins, raspberries, and rice all had decent turn-around times for harvesting (less than a day) so I was able to plant them and walk away knowing that I could reap the benefits later that evening.

I left the house around noon and had to run a few errands, not returning for about 8 hours.  By then my pumpkins and raspberries were harvest-ready.  I also was able to harvest some of the crops that had 2 days worth of growth time needed, so my fortunes were at a nice peak by then.  I bought more land and plopped in more seeds.

Scouting around some of the other purchasable items that had opened up for me at level 8, I also decided to begin building a stable for the horse I had.  Buying the stable foundation was no problem, but in order to complete it I would have to attain Farmville cash, part of the game’s dual funding system.  Via a tab at the top of the page, I could either pay real cash to buy the fake greenbacks or gain levels, earning one FV dollar each time.  This could take ages, but I wasn’t even going to think about putting down real money for this.  I’ll wait, hoping someone can gift the required items to me later on.

Day 5 – While scouting around the neighbor list, I was able to perform some tasks to help out my friends.  These tasks, such as scaring away crows or digging up weeds, earned a bit of FV coin and experience each time.  I was also able to help fertilize my friends’ crops after completing some of these tasks.  Fertilizing allows the crops (once harvested by my friends) to earn more experience points.

Suddenly, the game became this incredibly cooperative experience.

The point of Farmville isn’t so much to outgrow the competition, but to help it along.  By helping my neighbors and friends, they in turn help me.  The entire thing is part supportive and part extremely individualistic.  It’s easy to remain a singular player, but when friends help out my farm becomes that much better.  The more I play, the more my friends play, and the more we all get rewarded.  And, the more we play again.

Is that the point of Farmville?  Instead of competition, the idea is to help each other?  Is Farmville the ultimate peace-maker?

No.  Hell no.  I still want more raspberries than my cousin.

Nobody likes the act of moving to a new house.  Perhaps the most terrible part of moving to a new place involves rummaging through your possessions in your old apartment and deciding what goes with you and what gets thrown out.  As you pick up each item, you ask yourself, “Do I really need this?”  Items that get the nod get to make the trek to the Promised Land  — a nice brown box, a trip in a U-Haul, and the new house.  Unfortunately, some items — things like old magazines and wire hangers — are not as lucky.  They usually end up on the curb inside of a big, black Hefty bag.

A similar phenomenon happens in the video game industry.  As years pass and more consoles are released, it becomes more apparent that some genres either relocate or become obsolete.  Where are our puzzle games, 2D platformers, and on-rail shooters today?  For the most part, they’re restricted to hand-held consoles, DLC, and arcade cabinets.

We’re knee deep in this current generation of consoles, and I’m wondering if the Japanese RPG has a similar fate.

“This house is too big for us”

The JRPG, as well as the pen-and-paper-RPG, is something that had to exist. That is, they’re games that people would have had to invent at one point or another.  It all comes down to imagination and doing what you can with certain limitations.

As technology progressed, the pen-and-paper-RPG evolved and was made available in the form of a video game, the JRPG.  The convenience of these “ready-made” RPG campaigns is that they provided visuals, a story, and rolled the dice for you.  When the earliest JRPGs were released, the imaginations of both gamers and developers far surpassed what technology could accomplish.  Therefore, things like world maps, battle screens, and dialogue boxes had to be used as tools to help convey the complex stories that had to be told.  Characters became party members and injuries were produced by random number generators.

One can argue that the golden age of JRPGs occurred sometime during the PSone/PS2-era.  At that time, we hit a “sweet-spot” where world maps and battle screens were presented beautifully, in better detail.  Unfortunately, battle screens and world maps were still required — huge, open worlds that have been simplified due to limitations. During this time Japanese developers, well-known for peppering their games with computer-generated cut scenes, released many titles, each with their own spin on the genre.

But what happens when the line that separates cut scene and gameplay footage becomes blurred?  What if that line were to become non-existent?

Today, Sony and Microsoft set the bar when it comes to visuals.  Nintendo continues to innovate by allowing us to interact with our video games in new, exciting ways.  With this technology, mechanics that are usually implemented in JRPGs become archaic.  Battles take place on the world map; the player fights battles in real time; text boxes are replaced by Nolan North.

Will future consoles become too “big” for the genre?

The Current Situation

Video game genres have evolved towards more life-like representations.  The Madden and NHL franchises make it look like you’re actually watching a sports game on television.  Mirror’s Edge has allowed gamers to platform in first person.  As our consoles improve, many things that make a JRPG what it is may become unappealing.

Let’s take a look at the battle systems in our typical JRPG.  Success in battles takes some deliberation and requires the player to be able to manage their party members well.  Giving orders to party members usually involves navigating through a series of menus which may stop the action if we’re talking about a turn-based RPG.  The stop-go action during these battles doesn’t seem to lend itself well to the age of gaming we’re in.

Recently, it seems like Western game developers have been out-RPG’ing Eastern developers.  Game developers like Bioware and Bethesda Softworks have truly exemplified what it means to give players a role-playing experience.  Western developers have done a great job of engulfing players in the worlds they create by providing meaningful dialogue trees and (more importantly) allowing the player to make decisions that change the experience. Western developers seem to spread their efforts evenly across characters’ conversations, providing different scenarios for different choices players make, and cut scenes, thus putting a console’s capability to good use.

Unlike most of the decisions players are prompted to make in a JRPG, some decisions in a game like Mass Effect 2, for example, have a lasting effect on the storyline.  Today, there are high standards when it comes to “role playing” in video games.  The term, “JRPG,” seems like a misnomer since Japanese RPGs tend to provide players with shallow consequences for the decisions they make.

Can JRPGs do more with current-gen consoles than provide fancy CG sequences?

Population

Playing through a JRPG is a very nostalgic, comforting experience for many gamers who grew up playing them.  However, when I think of nostalgia in games, I think of old technology.  By checking out upcoming releases at RPGamer, it’s clear that there are more than two times as many RPGs in the works for the PSP and Nintendo DS than there are for the PS3, 360, and Wii.

Are JRPGs more suited for hand-held consoles?

Moreover, when you click through to see the profile of each game, you’ll see that the ratio of Eastern developers to Western developers working on games for hand-held consoles is much greater than that of the ratio for the PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii.  Based on RPGamer’s list, I found that there are about 10 Western-developed RPGs in the works for the PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii, while there are 28 Eastern-developed RPGs in the works for these consoles.

The numbers for hand-held consoles are more telling.  Out of the 44 RPGs in the works for the PSP, none of them are being made by Western developers.  Out of the 63 RPGs in the works for the DS, only two are being made by Western developers.  If we pool these numbers together, we get a ratio of 2 to 107 for Western-developed games to Eastern-developed games in production for hand-helds.  In summary, about 73.6% of the RPGs that are in the works for PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii are being made by Eastern developers while about 98.1% of the RPGs that are in the works for hand-held consoles are being made by Eastern developers.

There are a few ways to interpret this data.  This could indicate that Western RPG developers are just not interested in making games for hand-helds.  Since there seems to be a greater variety of developers working on hand-held RPGs, this could also indicate that Eastern developers are more interested in making games for hand-held consoles since it’s cheaper.  Smaller developers have less to lose in doing so.  Either way, the percentages say that there are more JRPGs being made for hand-helds than there are for the PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii.  It’s also worth noting that the the PSP and DS are closest to the PSone and PS2 in terms of capability and technology.  Perhaps when it comes down to consoles, JRPGs tend to gravitate toward that level of graphics and power.

Do hand-held consoles provide a “safe neighborhood” for JRPGs?

Suitcase or Heftybag?

Today, the JRPG genre seems to be stagnant since popular (and good) titles are released few and far in between.  As a once-avid fan of the genre, I’m not sure if what I’ve written about here worries or comforts me.  A piece of me would like to see innovation take JRPGs to the next generation of consoles.  Another piece of me would just be content with playing Breath of Fire III on the PSP.

In writing about this once-beloved genre, there are a few questions that are worth thinking about.  Since no meaningful innovations have truly come out of the JRPG genre aside from different battle systems and level-up mechanics, what kind of changes are needed for this genre to thrive on current-gen consoles?  What characteristics of games in the genre need to be left behind in order for JRPGs to be appealing to the masses (again)?  When these changes are made, are you still left with a JRPG?  Moreover, what happens to the JRPG when the DS and PSP become obsolete?

As I post this, I think about how I’ve recently put $10 down to reserve a copy of Final Fantasy XIII.  The Final Fantasy series has always set the bar in terms of what a JRPG should represent and “strive to be” for current consoles.  In a way, the genre’s relevance is riding on its reception.

It’s a silent battle that the JRPG has to fight, and it’s a matter of staying relevant.  With every release on the PS3, 360, or Wii, JRPGs have to show that they too “have a use”; they need to earn a spot to move on with us to future consoles.  It’s either that or be confined to the comfortable hand-held gaming market where JRPGs have remained plentiful.

While Day 1 was spent learning a bit about the game and setting up my farm, Days 2 & 3 were spent mostly growing crops and making friends.

When I logged on for Day 2 I had amassed around 700 coins, so promptly decided to plow and fallow some of my land.  My strawberries, which take about 4 hours to grow and harvest, had become plump and red.  The soy beans didn’t seem worth the hassle, though.  For the length of time I had to wait to harvest the soy I could have done the same with several strawberry patches, and turned more of a profit.  With the money I had, I planted pumpkins, eggplants and more wheat.

Day 3 saw me harvesting the strawberries and planting more pumpkins, although this time I decided to add in some squash for good measure.  I had gotten to experience level 5 by then and the ability to plant squash had opened up for me, as well as several items for decoration and buildings.  These, however, required that I have more than just coins.  I needed Farmville cash, something that I had no idea how to get.  Would I have to buy the cash?  Sell the crops to get it?  I had no idea.

One thing that Farmville doesn’t do all that clearly is the ability to allow someone to add friends (who are already playing Farmville) as neighbors.  When I would click “Add Neighbor” at the bottom of the screen I would be asked to send invites to all of my Facebook friends.  There was no list of those friends who were already playing the game, like there was during my time with Mafia Wars (Zynga’s other huge game).  I had to hop into my Facebook notifications and see who was already playing, remembering to add them in via the invite after wards.

That all changed once I clicked on the “My Neighbors” tab at the top of the page.  Here was the list I was looking for.  Why wasn’t this integrated better into the icons at the bottom of the Farmville play screen?  No idea.  Regardless, I began adding neighbors.  And adding.  And adding.  And… Wow, I never realized how many of my friends were playing Farmville, and at prolonged periods of time.  Each person seemed to be at higher levels (25 and above) which meant that they had been playing consistently.  Apparently this game is quite addicting to almost everyone I know.

On occasion I would have a notification pop up during play that informed me that someone –a Facebook friend who plays Farmville — needed their fields fertilized or to scare away crows.  Two of the pop-ups from friends brought gifts: a horse and a bail of hay.  I had no idea what to do with these yet, so I plopped my horse off to the side and the hay next to my trough of water.

At this point, I came to the conclusion that I have nothing to keep me motivated to play the game.  With Mafia Wars I was able to be competitive with friends on a level I understood: fight battles to win money, buy equipment, and even travel to other cities for somewhat unique experiences.  I felt like I was actually playing a game.  Farmville has been around long enough where I expected it do be as creative as MW, yet to this point it felt like it was lacking any direction.  It is EXTREMELY casual.

I still don’t know what the draw is, but perhaps the remaining 4 days will change that.

Check out the event schedule and let us know!  You can leave a comment here or @reply us on Twitter.

Farmville is wildly popular.  How popular?  Popular enough to be the most widely-played video game on the planet.  Eighty million people popular.  Farmville is part MMO, part Animal Crossing, part Monopoly.  At first glance it is incredibly simple, but I’ve been assured that it can become quite deep.  I’ve seen countless friends playing it, their updates flooding my Wall on an hourly basis.

I held strong for the entire time.  I played Zynga’s other huge game, Mafia Wars, extensively early on.  It became too complicated (and boring) to continue for more than a few weeks.  I admit that I come back to it once in a while to see how much money I’ve stockpiled, but it just isn’t the same.  I think the static text and graphic game genre had a nice revival, but its time has come and gone again.

Farmville, I was assured, was different.  Yes, I was told that there is some specific daily timing for events to occur.  Yes, there are a considerable amount of “pay to play” aspects.  But the visuals are improved, there is plenty of animation, and it is designed for those sick of Mafia Wars.  I still held tough.

But then something hit me the other day: Why not?  Why not give it a whirl?  It should be easy to turn off if I get sick of it (which I’m sure I will).  It should be a synch to quit.  If I’m already on Facebook, and all of my friends are playing it, it may be worth me checking out to kill some time in between Olympic hockey games.

So I decided today to do just that: Give Farmville a try.  But the caveat is that I need to play it for 7 days straight.  One full week.  If at the end of that week I haven’t become so bored that I want to gauge my eyes out then I’ll have perhaps discovered what draws so many people to this meta-game.

What will follow is a daily journal of my experience in the virtual farm world.  Beginning cold, beginning now.

DAY 1: Moving in

I need to clarify that I know virtually nothing about Farmville.  I know there are plants, and I think a pig or two.  That’s pretty much the extent of it.  So, going in cold I had little to no expectations.

What first greeted me was the simple 2D visuals.  Very “Flash” and very basic.  This is the “Chevrolet” of game designs: don’t offend anyone’s tastes.  What’s worse is the repeating theme song of Farmville, a musical clip-art that I’ve probably heard in a commercial for Viagra in the past.

Once the title screen passed and I selected my gender, I was almost at a loss as to what to do next.  I realize I was in some sort of training session, but the lack of clear tasks left me plowing all over the place, and planting strawberries in each isometric square.  You see, the playing field consists of isometric squares that can be plowed, filled with decorations or buildings, or left as grass.  I plowed everything I could before realizing that the task took away from my gold stash.  The initial 200 coins were good enough to plow and clean up a few sections of the yard, as well as purchase strawberries or soybeans.  I think I over-killed on the soy beans.  At least I know my farm will be healthy.

Once I logged in all of the plowing and seeding, I sat and waited.  I was, frankly, out of things to do.  Wait for my crops to grow, or invite friends to become my neighbors?  I opted not to flood the walls of my friends, lest they call me for the annoyance.

And so I waited.  At first, nothing.  But after taking a break to play some Modern Warfare 2 I returned to find that my Strawberries had begun to sprout.  Another couple of hours and I was able to harvest the berries and sell them.  Suddenly, I had more money… which I promptly spent on more soy.

Then, all of a sudden, I was promoted to Level 2. 

There are levels!  Aha!  Perhaps there is some sort of RPG element to the game!

… Nope, I was wrong.  All that the leveling seems to do is reward me with slightly more things to buy.  Regardless, I can hang my head high (or low?) as a Kinderfarmer.

Soon after being promoted I recieved a pop-up that one of my Facebook friends needed help raking leaves on their farm.  “Sure, why not?”  I was rewarded with a nice bounty of 20 coins, good enough to do nothing and be proud of it.

The more I examined my farm, the more I realized that I would need more space.  More digging, plowing, fallowing, and seeding.  Soon, my farm was as big as any town in Sim City.

And, now I wait.  For what, I don’t know.  I’ve planted a few more seeds, used up the majority of my money (I’m down to about 125 coins) and must sit tight for my plants to grow.  There is an awful lot of waiting in this game.  It’s annoying and I’m not in the mood to have to come back in 8 hours to check up on anything.  Can’t I just… play?

It’s at this point that I gave up for the evening.  The full 15 minutes off and on that I played the game didn’t do anything to appeal to me.  At this point, 6 more days of Farmville seems like water-boarding instead of fun.

Join me tomorrow as I continue my week in Farmville!

For every game that gets created, there are dozens that get put on the chopping block.  Here are a few that didn’t quite make the cut.

Pac-Man: 20^th Anniversary Edition (If Ms. Pac-Man hadn’t Left him before their 20^th Anniversary)

Although she left many times, Ms. Pac-Man continued to reappear on the other side of the screen until Pac-Man finally professed his addiction to power pellets.

Get Your Kids to Play a Real Musical Instrument Hero

Just because your nine-year-old is badass at Guitar Hero doesn’t mean he can actually play the guitar.

Moral Kombat

Mortal Kombat characters prepare to fight, then set aside their differences and talk about their feelings instead.

First Person Shooter Game: Just Like Every Other First Person Shooter Game

This game’s just like that one game where you get locked in a place and have to shoot a bunch of things in order to escape. You know which one I’m talking about.

Q*Bert: Uncensored

If you only knew the horrible things that come out of Q*Bert’s mouth when he gets hit by a giant blob.

The Legend of Zelda: Adventures in Awkward Dating Situations

Sorry, but no girl wants to date a man in tights.

EA Sports: Lawn Bowling

The newest hit from the EA Sports franchise features all the action of crooked-toothed British men drinking beer and occasionally throwing a ball.

Tax Season! The Game

Almost as fun as actually doing your taxes!

Brutal Legend: The Rise of Emo

Yeah, that was pretty brutal.

Super Mario Brothers: The One Where the Princess Finally Admits she’s been having an Affair with Bowser

After twenty-nine years of getting “captured” by Bowser, don’t you think it’s time for the princess to tell Mario she’s just not into him?

We’re addicted to achievements.  We can’t get enough of trophies.  We love to rack up high gamerscores and show off our gaming highlights to anyone who is willing (or forced) to see them.  Whether it’s through the XBox 360’s Live network, or via PSN or Steam, or even through the Wii’s tracking of game play time, we need to show off our accomplishments.

While there are already several game-related methods of tracking accomplishments, there are quite a few that can be found outside of the gaming world as well.  In this article we’ll take a look at two of them: Foursquare and LoseIt!

Foursquare

I’m sure you’ve seen the tweets: “I’m having lunch at Panera (426 Squire Rd).”

I’m you’ve also thought, “I don’t care where you are eating lunch.”  That hasn’t stopped people from constantly disclosing their locations over social networks on a regular basis.  Foursquare is self-described as “a cross between a friend-finder, a social city-guide and a game that rewards you for doing interesting things.”  It really came of at over the past year, when notable Twitterati began to use it.  The biggest draw may not be so much the social networking as it is the inherent “game” that is its backbone.

Foursquare functions like this:  Go out to a bar, club, restaurant (or any place, really) and “check in” through the mobile app on your phone of choice.  Each check in earns points.  Leaderboards between you and your friends (or regionally) track these points.  Earn medals based on numbers of check-ins, times of the day checked in, or whenever some task is achieved.

If it seems similar to XBox Live, it’s because Foursquare’s evolution over time has adapted it into something that works and is familiar to its users… what Microsoft’s network has done in the past.

Not only am I competing to get points based on my daily travels, but I’m also being exposed to new venues.  You see, by seeing that some place has been visited several times by friends I can assume that the locale might be interesting enough to try for myself.  Or if I am a couple points shy before the Monday leaderboard reset I might be inclined to leave the house and check in to a few locations to catch up.  Visit a place enough times and you are awarded “Mayorship” and can stake your claim as the champ of  said location… until someone out-visits you there, at least.  Mayorship has its advantages, too, as some businesses offer discounts and freebies to Foursquare mayors (although I haven’t run into any yet).  “Keeping up with the Joneses” never felt so competitive, at least from a social level.

There are issues with Foursquare, though.  The leaderboards are temporary, and the lack of history-tracking keeps people focused on what points are earned within the week instead of what has happened over a set time frame.  Cheating is incredibly easy, too — just sit in your car and check into every location that appears around you.  The security issues arise as well, as now potential stalkers know where you are, and potential burglars know when you are not home.

But even after all of this Foursquare remains an increasingly easy-to-use and fun way of tracking your daily travels and competing with friends.

Lose It!

A similar achievement-tracker, but with a completely different focus, is Lose It! LI! is the free calorie-counting app for the iPhone and iPod Touch that allows users to track their daily caloric intake in hopes to help lose or maintain weight.  Calorie-counting seems to be all the rage these days, as folks work to achieve the typical New Year’s Resolution by March, after when they also typically abandon it.  Calorie-counting isn’t a rocket science and has been available on the web and on computers for decades, but with the all-in-one feature phones that we currently carry the applications are all that much more accessible.

The interface to LoseIt is pretty similar to other calorie apps, like Tap ‘N Track or the ones included in WiiFit Plus and EA Sports Active.  You first select a weight goal, then the amount of weeks to that goal and your starting weight.  LoseIt! works out the required amount of calories per day, equating to a specific amount of weight loss per week.  Exercising subtracts from the daily total, allowing you to tune your day based on your activities. Eat more?  Jog on the treadmill for 30 minutes.

While the app isn’t necessarily a typical achievement system like those on Steam or even Foursquare, the accomplishments are based on daily/weekly goal achievement.  The app includes things called “motivators” – status updates on the user’s Facebook or Twitter account.  Though optional, these motivators publicly update the user’s weight loss or gains, for the ultimate embarrassing kick in the ass.  Yes, it’s the ultimate embarrassing method of motivating people.

In Conclusion

These real-world methods of accounting for accomplishments and achievements may not mean much to the typical gamer, yet provide a way to dangle a carrot in the face of those who don’t frequent the Lives or PSNs of the day.  The achievements are based more on improving the lifestyle of the user as opposed to counting how many kills in a multiplayer Modern Warfare 2 match.  They won’t replace my Live account, but do a decent job of allowing me to remain slightly competitive while outside of my living room and feed my addiction for attaining a score for just about anything I do.

This influx of achievements in apps and software adds to the growing “gamerization” of the general public.  The question now is that if there are so many variations of the achievement process, which one is winning out?  Certainly XBox Live is at the top of the list, but the more that these methods seep into the things we do every day, the more that the value of achievements starts to go down.

Either way it’s a fun time to be a competitive person, whether in “real life” or in the virtual sphere.

Foursquare.com

LoseIt.com

Are there a new Wii and DS in the works from Nintendo?  In all probability, the answer is “Yes.”  Typical business and product-development cycles dictate that work begins on a new iteration once the current version “breaks even”.  After this point, the current product is generating pure profit and a successor is prepared for the next sales cycle.  This is why companies like Apple create new versions of their iPods every year, why Microsoft began developing Natal as a possible pseudo-successor to the current XBox 360, and why Nintendo itself created the DS Lite and DSi.

It should come as no surprise, then, that Nintendo has more than likely been developing an update to its current consoles as long ago as early 2008 in preparation for an announcement at this year’s E3 Expo.

Nintendo has on several occasions noted that there is no successor to the Wii and DS to announce.  This, as we can deduce, is mostly to stave off a potential decline of sales as buyers wait for the new product.  However the NPD has stated that sales of the current Wii is on the decline, with year-over-year numbers depicted as only a shadow of their 2007/2008 records – barring the enormous price-drop induced 2009 holiday season, of course.  January 2010’s sales have shown a drop from the previous year, and all estimates point to a continued decline as consumers anticipate the launch of Microsoft’s Natal and the enticement of Sony’s PS3 price-drop and the growth of Blu Ray and Hi-Def in US consumer homes.  Not to mention the continued growth of the iPhone as a portable platform powerhouse.

This may be the “kick in the product-launch butt” that Nintendo needs to push ahead the announcement of the DS and Wii successors, and there are several bits of information that allude to this occurring as soon as this year’s E3 Expo.

The Nintendo DS2

Nintendo’s DS product family continues to sell at high level.  Since its launch in 2004 it has technically been the same, barring the addition of the cameras and aesthetic tweaks.  The DSi, the latest iteration, has even spawned a larger “XL” version that soon to be released in the US.

So why create a successor?  With increased competition from the more technically advanced iPod and iPhone and the PSP still in the mix, the DS has seen a flattening of its sales growth.  Note:  It is still selling incredibly well at a high rate, but that rate has not changed in the past two years.  This is usually the first sign of a coming downward trend.  Also to note is the slow and apparent death of core gaming on both of Nintendo’s hardware platforms.  On the DS, the low-res graphics do nothing to bring fidelity to the visuals, something that not only adult gamers but also children (the prime DS buyers) are becoming more aware of as home entertainment moves to Hi-Def.

In the past few weeks, more and more clues have appeared that point to an upcoming revamp of the hardware.

As was rumored back in October, Nintendo may have contacted Nvidia to work on a DS-specific Tegra chipset.  This chip powers the Zune HD, which translates to better visuals — something the DS sorely needs.

According to recent news from CVG the development kits for the next DS have already been released to a few high-profile Japanese developers, the first of which may have been The Pokemon Company.  The dev kits apparently include actual hardware that one developer stated as being “genuinely the best thing [he thinks he's] ever worked with” and that “it’s got a ’tilt’ function that’s not dissimilar to iPhone, but does a lot more.”  The developer also noted the hardware’s time frame didn’t seem to fit a March announcement (when the annual Game Developer’s Conference will be taking place).

Even Nintendo’s President, Satoru Iwata, let “slip” that the next DS will have improved visuals and motion detection, although those comments were later noted as being “misinterpreted”.

A final point of interest would be to note the dearth of scheduled “big games” for the DS in 2010.  In fact, the upcoming Pokemon Heart Gold/Soul Silver and Dragon Quest IX games may be the highest-profile releases, and all three have already enjoyed release in Japan in 2009.

The Nintendo Wii Plus

The Nintendo Wii has been under scrutiny for some time now.  When motion controls were initially ridiculed by the core gaming group the Wii’s success was treated as a fad.  Now more than 3 years later the Wii’s sales continue to set records, expanding the gaming market and serving as the reason that both Microsoft and Sony have spent considerable time creating their own motion-control apparatuses. Still considered a fad, the Wii is on a path to become the highest-selling home console of all time.

But sales have slowed.  From 2008 to 2009, during the “Great Recession”, the Wii saw its sales drop by about 500k units year-on-year.  In comparison, the XBox 360 saw flat sales and the PS3 saw about 1 million units in growth.  This is amid price cuts and the release of several high-profile Wii games in 2009 including New Super Mario Bros Wii, Wii Sports Resort, and WiiFit Plus.  The outlook for 2010 has analysts predicting a further slide in sales and revenue.

Back in 2009, we asked our readers what they would like to see from a successor to the Nintendo Wii.  The #1 response: Hi-Def visuals.  Nintendo has often stated that it would move to HD when the time was right.  Apparently, the time may be right now.

In November 2009, during a conference call to investors, Iwata divulged that Nintendo may be open to an SD/HD console hybrid.

If we can find out the most appropriate medium, between SD and HD, and flexibly move around them depending on the game’s contents, it will be good, I think…  Won’t HD be better for the games like Pikmin? The developers should choose the most appropriate graphical format depending on the software they make.

This may infer that Nintendo may be allowing publishers to create HD content for games like the upcoming new Legend of Zelda, yet still allow SD visuals for those games that require less, like the plethora of fitness games on the system.  Or, it may also lead to the notion that Nintendo may be working on an update that would allow specific Hi-Def Wii games to still be playable on the current standard definition Wii.  For example, placing the next Metroid game in an HD Wii will showcase visuals in 720p or 1080p, but will “down-res” the visuals when played in a current Wii.  While this may not be the optimal way to handle visuals on an HD system – lighting, textures, etc play a huge part – this would allow for a “bridge” console between the current and eventual actual successor to the Wii, something Nintendo says needs to be more than just HD content.

Last year, sources also claimed that Nintendo had been spending considerable amounts of R&D, looking to incorporate high definition into the successor to the console by 2011.

As recently as this past week Ubisoft showed the first screens from the next Prince of Persia game for the Wii, with surprisingly crisp visuals that left most viewers wondering what Photoshop trickery had taken place.  One method potentially offered up to create the visuals, which seem to rival high end original XBox or low-end XBox 360 games, is to start in 720p and downgrade to standard def.  Could this be the first game to utilize the Wii’s new up-res console?  PoP is due in May.

Earlier this year High Voltage Software, makers of the Wii-exclusive The Conduit, removed the game’s spiritual successor The Grinder from Wii-exclusivity, planning to release on both the XBox 360 and PS3 as well as the little white console.  Since The Conduit’s sales were less than stellar, creating the next game for the more core-oriented HD consoles is a natural fit.  But why continue to work on a Wii version?  Perhaps the reason could lie in the SD/HD Wii console question.  Creating a Wii version of the game may be much easier and less of a risk if it was developed in 720p (or 1080p) alongside the 360 and PS3.

Finally, this year sees the release of three extremely high-profile Wii games: the new Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Galaxy, and Metroid: The Other M.  While these alone may be enough to give the current SD Wii a solid 2010 gaming year and momentary sales jolt, the sequels alone may not be enough to carry Nintendo into 2011 on a sturdy sales pace.  The intended market for these games, the core, demands more than just sequels to purchase console.  Providing a “Wii 1.5″ (or Wii Plus) with enhanced visuals for these games may help bring back some of the core that has abandoned the console.  Essentially, Nintendo would be able to sell the same game for both the Wii Plus and the standard Wii, much like they did with the Wii and Gamecube versions of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

An E3 reveal for the Wii Plus (or WiiHD) and the DS2 may be forthcoming.  Nintendo may utilize the event to remain relevant with an ever-increasing assault by Sony and Microsoft on their motion-control territory.  With E3 just a few short months away, we’ll know for sure.

Sources:

Joystiq
Kotaku
NPD
Gizmodo
Computer And Video Games
What They Play

Contributed by: Toby Davis

Wine.  Many of us enjoy and drink it on a regular basis.  However, it hasn’t quite been a “gamer’s” drink (Mountain Dew tends to take that crown on late Friday nights).  Michael James, the founder of 8-Bit Vintners, believes otherwise.  Wine, according to James, is meant to be a fun, enjoyable experience.  Growing up a gamer himself, James’ wine selection offers that fun experience, especially those of our gaming youth.

Mike took some time away from tasting the latest batch of wine to speak to us about his company and his love of video games.

Toby Davis – So how did 8bitvintners come about?

Michael James – I was learning to make wine and planned on working in the wine industry for the rest of my life. It just so happened that I’m also a gamer. I only chose to use a gamer centric theme for the wine because it represents me and my love of game culture. It’s also much more interesting than using my last name or some obscure environmental object.

TD – What was the first game that got you started playing as a child?

MJ – The first game I remember playing was the original Super Mario Bros. for the NES. I know that’s kind of a boring answer, but its the truth. It was a family friend who lived down the street who let me play it when I was 5. I was instantly hooked and have been a gamer ever since.

TD – How does gaming affect the way the wine is made? If so could you elaborate on it?

MJ – Well I wouldn’t say that gaming affects the way the wine wine is made, but I do find artistic parallels between the people who design and develop games and winemakers. Both are incredibly passionate artistic mediums. I never understood the argument that games cant or are not art.

TD – Since you’ve started making wine, what kind of support have you seen from the gaming community?

MJ – Its been mixed, but I would say its been more positive than negative. I think some people think this is some sort of gimmick, when that couldn’t be further from the truth. I love wine and I love games. Its that simple. I didn’t want to put a cartoon animal or an environmental object that nobody could relate to on the bottle. Even if it creates a niche for the wine, I would rather have a label that speaks to my interests. It also happens to be something that a lot of other people are interested in as well. My hope is that my wine brings back good memories from a time many of us are so fond of and that it gets people who may have been intimidated by wine a reason to give it a try.

TD – With motion controls being more prevalent in today’s gaming society, what are your thoughts about them?

MJ – Well I own a Wii that’s really dusty and used primarily for virtual console. Does that answer your question? I’m just not a fan of gimmicks. I enjoy the subtle motion controls in the new Mario games, but anything that forces me to get off my couch to play a game just makes me feel like I should go outside or to the gym. Natal looks like a very cool proof of concept, but as a way to play games, I’m just not interested…yet.

TD – While you have been making wine, what has been one of your best gaming memories?

MJ – Two come to mind. The first is simply game culture related. My first PAX in ’08. It was the first chance I ever had to go to a Con and it was amazing. Meeting other gamers and sitting in on panels hosted by people Ive read or listened to since I was a kid was so cool. I made friendships at that PAX that will last forever. The second would probably be the finale of Modern Warfare. Such a cool cinematic moment that felt so satisfying. I hate leaving off the time I tried to teach my wife to play Left 4 Dead. That was a good one.

You can find out more information about 8-Bit Vintners at the company’s website, www.8BitVintners.com

Welcome to the SideQuest, your semi-weekly podcast devoted to gaming, culture, and gaming culture, with the occasional tangent.

It looks like the show this week is a little earlier than usual!  And lucky for you, dear viewer, its a tad more organized. We’re joined again by devoted listener and friend, Joshua Arnold, we talk about Dali’s strange sex life, MAG, LOST, and the podcast goes off the edge of a cliff when Dali leaves and is replaced by Ryan. Then again, even Ryan has his own ‘Shocking’ charms, so tune in and enjoy this latest episode of The SideQuest.

Hosts:
Yaniv Pereyaslavsky, Dalibor Dimovski, Ryan ‘Pat Pat’ Gan, Mike Wehner, Josh Arnold

Music:
Main Finger

Links:
Twitter.com/MikeWehner
Twitter.com/kewlrats
Twitter.com/RyanGan
Twitter.com/randomslagathor
Twitter.com/yanivp

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: “How do I get into games journalism?”

Now, we at SideQuesting don’t necessarily consider ourselves journalists; we’re more of the “active enthusiast” type.  We play games as much as we can, but don’t make a living writing about them.  We write for the fun of it, whenever we can, to whomever will read it.  We have many friends on the video game journalism side of things who make a living (sometimes barely) from reporting and writing about the industry.

We’ve always wondered, as have many others, just how they got into the field professionally.

So, it was a great surprise to us that The Freelancers Podcast recently launched.  The Freelancers — comprised of Xav de Matos and Kyle Horner — deal with answering just that question, giving hints and tips and reminiscing of both good and bad experiences in the industry.  Each episode the duo are also joined by a special guest sharing their experiences, allowing the listeners to hear from several writers and their points of view on the topic.

We dissect the show on this week’s OPP: Other People’s Podcasts.

Entertainment Value

Both Xav and Kyle have podcasting experience, allowing them to be a little more at ease with the format and the delivery to the audience.  Being well aware of the expectations, they are focused on being informative over being humorous. Their guests bring their own individual flair to the show, but always stay focused on bringing their experiences and knowledge.  There aren’t the bookended “segments” that we’ve come to expect from other video game podcasts, but then again this a podcast about video game journalism and not necessarily the games themselves.  It’s an easy listen, and by keeping under 1.5 hours it remains manageable.

Original Content

There isn’t a podcast like The Freelancers out there.  It’s highly focused on the subject matter, as opposed to the podcasts that rely on news bytes or an already-flourishing community.  As noted above there aren’t the standard bookends, so the Freelancers does remain an interview-heavy show.  Relying on that format can be both a godsend and a downfall, as in many cases we already know how our favorite journalists have broken into the industry.  The podcast is in its infancy, however, and the show’s hosts have mentioned the fluid format may change as they progress along.  The show isn’t lacking anything, but may gain a virtue if the episodes have a bit more of a theme to each one (breaking into the web, contacting PR, writing styles, etc).  These don’t need to take over the show, but may allow the interviews to be more focused.

Production Value

As noted in their first episode, the show hosts do not have the expensive equipment that many other podcasts do.  It’s just Skype and a microphone.  Perhaps that is what allows us to truly relate to the show: the hosts are doing their best to survive in the journalism landscape and can’t afford the high-end gear yet.  However, this does make it… interesting… at times when trying to listen.  The Skype combo has downfalls that we are all aware of and live with, but one bad connection can ruin a great show regardless of the content.  While the most recent show, Episode 3, was edited well enough to keep the majority of the audio issues away that may not be the case each episode.  Here’s hoping that some on-location shows happen down the line.

Cast/Hosts

Xav and Kyle are experienced hosts and know the subject matter extremely well.  It never feels like they talk down to the listeners, instead opting to say “hey, we’ve been there, too.”  Perhaps what makes the show so palatable is that they are in some of the same situations as those who listen: they aren’t the full-timers who strictly work at a magazine or newspaper; they’re the people who will write as much as they can, and at times wherever they can.  It really does well to form a connection to.

In Conclusion…

The Freelancers is a highly enjoyable podcast dealing with a topic that many journalists have often blown off.  The question of breaking into the industry is a common on, so tackling it is a huge undertaking.  But, by making a palatable show Xav and Kyle have been able to bring a bit of the answer to that question and mix in their own experiences along the way.  A bit more focus on each episode may be all that it takes to become a must-listen for anyone looking to break into not only gaming journalism but almost any other form of journalism as well.

The Freelancers is a truly unique podcast that really lends a hand to anyone looking to “break into the biz.”  If you find yourself writing with this goal in mind, subscribing to The Freelancers is a perfectly sane step in the right direction.

The Freelancers can be found at their Tumblr page and on iTunes.

Do you have a podcast that you’d like us to listen to?  Send it over!  Visit our “Contact” page and send us the link!  And remember, a podcast is only as good as its latest episode.

It’s been a long road.  The smashing year 2009 came and went, and now here we are: choosing our favorites of the year.  After a long month of arguing, fist fights, high fives, and liquor, we’ve come to the conclusion that we all have some pretty varied tastes here at the ‘Quest.  We’ve managed to play great games across the majority of consoles, hand-helds, mobile, and PC, and have created our list of our Top 5 of the year.

A little inside baseball: For this list we’ve used the 5-4-3-2-1 grading scale for our picks.  We realize that there are other methods, but in the end we utilized the simplest one.  We also realize that this list may not have satisfied everyone on our team or even our readers.  We’ve decided to list our editors’ and authors’ individual picks at the bottom, to allow our readers to see just what got us to the final 5 and to allow everyone to know what we’ve been playing and loving all year.

With that said, let’s begin with #5!

5. New Super Mario Bros Wii

The latest edition in the long-lasting Nintendo series should probably have been named “Super Mario Bros 5” to distance itself from the DS counterpart that many often mix it up with, as it is a completely new and fun experience.  Containing all of the hard core flavor of the classic Mario games, for the first time the entry brought us 4-player co-op action that somehow managed to create enough chaos to keep the replay value at an all-time high.  Oh, and it managed to end several friendships in the span of a weekend.

Read our full review here.

4. Modern Warfare 2

Modern Warfare 2 may not have been as ground-breaking as it’s predecessor, but it did provide an exceptional FPS experience.  Some might say that it was a terrific iteration rather than an all-encompassing new game.  Whatever you might think, it still stands as a wonderfully fun experience, and the additions to the multiplayer modes are what have made the franchise the best around.

Read our full review here

3. Uncharted 2

Being the good sequel to one of the best games on the PS3 may be a tough act to follow, but Uncharted 2 did just that… and more.  The game not only capitalized on the wonderful cast of characters that the series had already built up, but it also added an incredible story, gorgeous mountain and jungle visuals, and a surprisingly deep and fun multiplayer to boot.  Nathan Drake is the only modern action hero you need to know, point simple.

Read our full review here

2. Assassin’s Creed 2

The original Assassin’s Creed had a lot of promise, but failed to deliver.  Falling victim to an incredibly repetitive mechanic doomed the game from the start.  The sequel, taking place in Renaissance times, improves on the original’s shortcomings in almost every way.  Assassin’s Creed II had lush visuals, an enigmatic lead, a supporting cast (including an uncle Mario and Leonardo Da Vinci), and a story filled with action, adventure, and medieval backstabbing… err, assassinatering. Assassin’s Creed II showed us what a good sequel can do to a franchise as we wait intently for III.

Read our full review here.

1. Red Faction: Guerilla

Explosions?  Check.  Jet packs?  Check.  MARS?  CHECK!  Red Faction: Guerilla may not have been the highest-rated game of the year.  It didn’t sell the most.  It came out at an awkward time (E3 week).  Heck, it wasn’t even as great as other games in it’s open world sci-fi genre (inFamous is calling our names).  But what it did do, it did great.  The game managed to suck in more of our time over the summer than any other, providing both fun single-player and well-engineered multiplayer modes.  RF:G wasn’t mind blowing, and it didn’t need to be.  It was just plain fun.  Who couldn’t fall in love with the incredible physics or the unique variety of weapons?  Oh yeah, and JETPACKS ON MARS!  It appeared on more of our lists than any other game.  Red Faction: Guerilla, congratulations on being our Game of the Year.

Read our full review here.

Want to know how we got to the SQ top 5 of 2009?  Our Editors and Authors have thought long and hard about their lists, which we’ve compiled most of below. Agree? Disagree? Feel free to let us know how wrong we are in our comments.

Ryan Gan:
1.  Assassin’s Creed II
2.  Uncharted 2
3.  Modern Warfare 2
4.  Flower
5.  Battlefield 1943

Dali Dimovski:
1. Uncharted 2
2. New Super Mario Bros Wii
3. Red Faction: Guerrilla
4. Batman: Arkham Asylum
5. Shadow Complex

Yaniv Pereyaslavsky
1. Red Faction: Guerrilla
2. Episodes from Liberty City: The Ballad of Gay Tony
3. Modern Warfare 2
4. Uncharted 2
5. The Sims 3

Mike McGarrigle:
1.  Borderlands
2.  Modern Warfare 2
3.  Red Faction: Guerrilla
4.  Ghostbusters
5.  Shadow Complex

Mike Wehner:
1. Red Faction: Guerrilla
2.  Beatles Rock Band
3.  Assassin’s Creed II
4.  Retro Game Challenge
5.  Modern Warfare 2

Aaron Kirchoff:
1.  Assassin’s Creed II
2.  ‘Splosion Man
3.  Battlefield 1943
4.  Shadow Complex
5.  Flower

Doug Lang
1. New Super Mario Bros Wii
2. WiiSports Resort
3. Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story
4. Punch Out!!
5. The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks

Our friends over at the newly re-minted EGM have announced that subscriptions are now available for the upcoming new issues.  The plans include a split between digital and print issues of the magazine, with the print issues retailing individually for $6.99 and billed as a higher quality.  Subscriptions run from $14.99 to $24.99 for 32 and 64 issues, respectively.  We have a soft spot for EGM, with all of the turmoil and drama that had plagued their cancellation last year.

It’s nice to see the recent renaissance in gaming magazines continue.  Both Game Informer and GamePro saw updates to their traditional formats, and with EGM back in the game (#pun) the only “big” magazine left to begin anew is Nintendo Power.  Come on, NP… I want another Dragon Warrior pack in.

Subscribe here for the new EGM.

What’s this?  Fallout: New Vegas coming Fall 2010?  Yes, please!

The trailer for the next Fallout game has landed, teasing us about what we will see and play come Fall (read: probably October, right up against Fable III).  Is this something we will be playing?  Are we burnt out from shooter RPGs?  Are rats and mutants going to make dubious acquaintances?

Coming for the PS3, XBox 360, and PC.

This past weekend I packed for my recent business trip to Japan and instinctively included my DS.  Upon boarding the plane and plugging myself into the barely-comfortable seat (yay for coach!) I whipped out my Lite with a copy of Dragon Quest V and began to repeatedly press “A” for attack.  I always choose an RPG for my longer flights, as they provide enough meat to help at least 7 of those 12 hours go by without a flinch.  The hours melted away, thanks to the prerequisite grinding and slime-herding.

The gentleman next to me had a more unique situation.  He had both a DS and a PSP and switched between several games on each.  On the DS I watched him play what appeared to be a Japanese point-n-click novel (they’re all the rage) and what appeared to be a Hotel Dusk style of detective game in which there was a constant tapping taking place.  On the PSP it was more puzzle-based endeavors.

As for me, I didn’t change the DQV cartridge out of its slot.

I noticed something similar on the train and subway.  The Japanese all play games, but not so much on portable consoles.  Most of the time they engaged in cell phone gaming (flip phones, not touch screen) and in a rare instance I saw a DS come out to play.

That got me to wondering about what everyone else plays on their plane trips, car rides, and so on.  Are you an RPG person?  Or are action/puzzle games more to your forte?  And, do you play differently depending on your trip length?

Episode 125. It took us a while, but episode 125 is here.  We’re joined by Holly Attesi of TheXBoxDomain to have incredibly dysfunctional mayhem.  Mike is the XBox Gamer of the Week.  Dali needs to wash a baby. Yaniv wants more days off.

Hosts:
Dali Dimovski, Holly Attesi, Yaniv Pereyaslavsky, Mike Wehner
Music:
Mainfinger , Disco Link

Links:
www.TheXBoxDomain.com
Twitter.com/mikewehner
Twitter.com/yanivp
Twitter.com/supertess
Twitter.com/kewlrats

Yes, yes.  I know.  You’re sick of Apple iPad articles flooding the web the last two days.  Well, I am too.  I hopped on my favorite gaming websites and blogs and found information that, surprisingly, could have been summed up with one post — nay, one LINE — instead of 67: It has a bigger screen.  But no, I had to read a hands-on with the interface.  Then, a hands-on with the non-gaming apps.  Then the gaming apps (which were not even iPad games).  Then an article about the design, one about the specs, one about how it is a let-down, and one about how it’s divided the gaming world.

I realize that it draws immense traffic to websites, which in this economy of ad-driven economics is crucial, but it adds nothing to the conversation about games.

As a gadget geek I love to talk about a product and look at its specifications.  I love to debate on why my MacBook is better than any PC laptop I’ve owned, or which distro of Linux is optimal, or even which e-reader has the best UI.  But there are already several places I can do that: GDGT, Engadget, and Gizmodo had that covered in excruciating detail.  This simply isn’t gaming news.  Perhaps if there was some piece of gaming software that had been REALLY effing cool I would sit and read the RSS feed while on the crapper at work.  But nope.

Now, I realize Apple invited several gaming outlets to the event.  Pissing off Apple by saying “no thanks, we already have a tech blog team that can handle that” may seem like a bad idea but it certainly saves a little time to write about far more interesting things, like Mario cupcakes or Master Chief wallpapers.  Really, though, 6 articles about how it may or may not change gaming forever is 7 too much.

The amount of unneeded coverage has been deafening, and I don’t know about you but  I need a break from it.

Video game publications, websites, and communities have a tough job at the end of every December: selecting their top game of the year.  Will it be Uncharted 2 or Assassin’s Creed 2?  Is it an exclusive?  Is one console’s version better than another?  Is it an original game or a refined sequel?  There are plenty of factors that are looked at when determining whether one game is considered the “GOTY”.

I have often wondered how some of my favorite publications have selected their top games.  In many cases they rely on a point scale awarded to the individual editors/community members’ selections.  For simplicity’s sake this seems like a clean and standard method that has made the rounds:  Each voter selects 5 games.  The top game gets 5 points, the second gets 4, and so on down the line.  When all votes are tallied the highest scoring game generally wins out.  (This is in fact how SideQuesting is selecting our GOTY for 2009.)

But then I noticed some variables starting to pop up.  For one, the voting method is inherently flawed.  In a 5-point scale, there is a greater chance for ties to happen.  And, is a game that gets 17 points really better than a game that gets 16 points?  Also, point scale methods seem to have a “gray area” where the amount of voters plays a role in making or breaking the system.  Too many voters = too many games with low point totals.  Not enough voters = one-sided voting towards one or two games.  These issues were just the tip of the iceberg.

It’s time to get down to business.

Let me go off on a tangent first. Initially my goal was to set up a perfect formula for helping deduce an actual Game of the Year for publications & communities.  I came to realize that, well, I never usually agreed with a GOTY for whatever reason, whether it was an accurate point total or a game that I hadn’t played yet.  No matter what happens, someone’s GOTY isn’t going to end up at the top, or perhaps even make the cut.

In other words a Game of the Year is an almost personal selection.  Communities and publications select them as a culmination of what a group has played throughout the year, but they will never be more valuable than an individual’s selection.  I enjoy when websites post their Editors’ own personal picks as it allows me to sort of align to those writers whom I share similar interests with.  If I agree with Joe Schmoe on 8 of 10 games I’m much more interested in what he has to say about game selections down the line.

Regardless, we still may need to create a better formula that helps put a face on a publication’s selection… if anything else than to at least give more credence to a staff pick.  We need to start with the variables: What can cause a selection to be skewed?

The variables

1) While console-specific websites will obviously be able to focus on one platform, their GOTY is in comparison only to the other games on that platform.  Playing games on competing platforms may change what one player likes/dislikes in a year.  Liked The Conduit?  After playing Modern Warfare 2 one may decide that the FPS controls of The Conduit aren’t optimal, thus pushing the game lower on their scale below Muramasa.

On the other hand console-agnostic sites have to deal with an issue of too many games and too many platforms.  There are great games on the XBox and PS3, but what about the iPhone?  Android?  Facebook?  Flash- and web-based games?

2) As noted above, the most common way of selecting a top game is usually to poll the site editors or community members.  Therein lies a perpetual struggle: Do the opinions of the editors who live, eat, and breathe video game reporting have more weight than those of the fans or community?  The editors typically see and play more games than community members.  And even then, who’s opinion is more valid: the editor that played 50 games but not Assassin’s Creed 2, or the editor who only played 6 games, one of which is Assassin’s Creed 2?

3) In some cases, a game will appear on everyone’s list at various levels yet never end up cracking a top spot because another will have two or three high ratings.  Is a game that appeared only twice at #1 a better game than one that appeared 7 times at #4 or #5, even though it may have a few more points?

4) While it may be a decent task to narrow down a list to five games, it can often be a fight to select between 2 or 3 for our favorite of the year.  “Did I like Uncharted 2 better than New Super Mario Bros.?” Sometimes the difference between our personal #1 and #2 games isn’t as clear.

5) Finally, is it okay to select a game as a GOTY if the player/editor hasn’t completed it yet?  Sometimes games are great throughout.  Sometimes editors never get a chance to complete very many games throughout the year, only playing 60-75% of the way through some.

The Formula

Once we have a set of variables — I’m sure there are more, but we’ll stick to these for now — we can begin to create the formula that solves for them.  Ideally, 7-10 is a great number of voters to help really get a good range of games and gamer types (casual, core, fanboy, etc).  Anything less or more seems to leave awkward ties or holes in lists.

*Note: While scribbling notes on a chalkboard ala my 7th grade math teacher Mrs Crabtree, I ended up creating a second formula that seems to work to an extent as well.  Instead of tying it to this article I’ve added a post in our message boards… found here!

First, we’ll use the 5-4-3-2-1 scale as our starting point.  The top pick receives 5 points, the bottom gets 1.

Knowing that there may not be a clear delineation between selections in a top five list, we need to create a method that allows voters to adjust their pick’s point totals.  In comes “the bonus point.”  By allowing the voters to place one extra point anywhere on their list, the ability to make up for some of the gray area is resolved.  Can’t choose between two games for the top spot?  Give them both 5 points.  Really loved your top game over all of the rest?  Give it 6 points instead of 5.  This allows for some level of indecisiveness AND clarity  to be accounted for.

Next we need to resolve the issue of games that are listed multiple times.  This “frequency” issue is common for games like Borderlands that appear often but never at the top.  In this case, the 7-10 voter total really shines.  For a game to be considered “frequent” it needs to appear in at least half of the lists.  For each time it is listed after that it receives an extra point.  This allows for games that more voters play to show higher on the list.  Games like Battlefield 1943 gain higher rankings, and may crack the overall top five.

The last bit of the formula left to fix is to help leverage the votes of those who have played more games than others.  We can call this this the “Ryan Gan clause”.  SideQuesting staffers Ryan Gan and Aaron Kirchoff had played more games in 2009 than anyone else on the website.  They have a great understanding of why they choose their top pick over their second or third.  So how do we make sure that their point totals (and those of other avid gamers) are given a fair amount of relevancy?  With a staff of 7-10 we can select the folks who have played the most games and give them extra points: two for their top pick and 1 for their second.  Selecting who gets the extra points is relative.  If there are two people who vastly outplay the other gamers then those two would get the extra points.  The best rule of thumb would be to keep the top players to 33% of the voters or less, otherwise the “minority” of experts starts to become the median amount.  Hey, playing a lot of games pays off.

Essentially, this formula can account for several of the variances that occur within a publication’s selection process.  While it may not create a surprise grand champion, it might be able to resolve the small gap between two or three games’ point totals.  There is just one problem: It’s too damn complicated.  In fact, it’s too complicated for even at SideQuesting us to use.  It’s borderline Calculus II.  An advanced formula still doesn’t account for everything, like HUMAN EMOTION or the ability for people to change their minds during a discussion (see: our GOTY podcast).  I guess that is why going to a simple 5-point scale (while not the most accurate) provides an easier way to bypass all of that.  And, it just works.  Period.

In Conclusion…

Using a point system takes away the human aspect of selecting an outlet’s top game.  While I personally chose Uncharted 2 as my game of the year, Modern Warfare 2 may have earned the top point total.  Yet after a lengthy discussion with the Editorial team we may push for Assassin’s Creed II to take the top spot.  There really is no way to accurately choose a Game of the Year without some flubbing here and there.  Using a formula may seem like a good shortcut, but it’ll never replace personal preference.