Are they devolving? Matthew Sakey seems to think so.
“What do you mean by ‘devolving’?” asked one developer.
I mean they’re getting worse.
Read the whole thing. This was the first I’ve read of Sakey but it won’t be the last.
Mashing buttons since 1984
Are they devolving? Matthew Sakey seems to think so.
“What do you mean by ‘devolving’?” asked one developer.
I mean they’re getting worse.
Read the whole thing. This was the first I’ve read of Sakey but it won’t be the last.
There are people out there that have a lot of time on their hands. A lot. (Trying hard to refrain from “I pity the fool” jokes). From Faces of WoW to Videogame Lookalikes. I’ve often been told I look a little like George Clooney, but that’s neither here nor there. He’s not video game character or anything.
Here at buttonmashing.com, we surf the net so you don’t have to.
From games.Slashdot, we get the head-scratching link du jour. It appears that the idea that teenagers playing video games can kill each other (digitally, not literally, although that’s happened, too) doesn’t sit well with the Chinese Government. What is this, communism?
“Minors should not be allowed to play online games that have PK content, that allow players to increase the power of their own online game characters by killing other players,” Liu Shifa, head of the MOC’s Internet Culture Division, which drafts policies governing the online gaming market, told Interfax. “Online games that have PK content usually also contain acts of violence and leads to players spending too much time trying to increase the power of their characters. They are harmful to young people.”
I’m a little confused here. What’s the “harmful” thing to young people? Being able to kill each other or having to grind hour after hour to “increase the power of their characters”? Of course both can be viewed as harmful, but let’s be honest. How bad can it really be? Let the kids play and let them beat up on each other. It’s fun!
Oh, and that sound you heard when this was announced? Thousands of Chinese gamers cheering when they realized that the days of being PK’ed by a 12 year-old who plays all day and has a character named Legola5.
I had plans to head to the Ohio State Fair yesterday. Unfortunately, the buttonDaughter has been afflicted with dual ear infections. It sucks for her but she seems to be on the mend. We didn’t make it to the Fair but we have plans to go soon. For now I’ll have to be content with The Carnival of Gamers #5 over at Unfettered Blather.
Update: Well down, Botswana, another Carnival has come and some good stuff has been posted. I don’t know if it’s the summer months, or what, but the submissions seem to be a little down this month. There were a few new faces, which is always good to see, but I had hoped for some of the old stand-bys to participate as well. No biggie, hopefully next months will attract a few more people, what with the summer winding down and Foton being the host. That’s gotta count for something!
I enjoyed every last one of the posts. I was surprised that there were only a couple GTA:SA posts. I guess people are just tired of it. I know I am (even though I submitted one of my GTA rants)! Personally, peterb’s piece on why consoles are better (which has been mentioned elsewhere) was my favorite.
Shortly thereafter, I stopped playing it. This week, I bought Myst III: Exile for Xbox at The Exchange. I had also bought Silent Hill 3 for the PS2, another game I already owned for the PC.
The reason is simple. I can play the console versions of these games from my couch.
True, that.
August is State Fair time in our beautiful state of Ohio. That means two things — the butter cow and fair food. If there is anything better than greasy fair food (served by greasy carnies) I don’t know what it is. Just behold the fried twinkie!
August also brings us the Carnival of Gamers #5! If you have a blog and you want to join, don’t hesistate! All your Carnival questions can be answered at the Carnival HQ. We’ve switched to the monthly format, which I think is more conducive to the submission of well written and witty blog posts. Hmmm, I guess that excludes me.
Oh well, I submitting something anyway.
While the NCAA 2006 criticisms are piling up, The Blog for the Sports Gamer points to a forum discussion about a game-stopping flaw in Madden 2006. If you don’t have (or feel like making) an account on Operation Sports, here’s the pertinent information:
20 yard dropback shouldnt be an issue this year. whats going to be an issue is what we talked about on the radio show tonight, which is that animation where the CPU does a jetpack animation for you. Its tough to stop. we labbed with it online earlier tonight. You could send 3 guys in zone on that one WR and it couldnt be stopped a lot of the time.
ok this “jet pack” animation is definitely there and its damn easy to do. You just throw the ball high and the CPU will do the animation for you. Marcus from MM and I tested it. I’d tell him, what WR i was going to. He’d try dime, nickel quater, shading inside, and manually took his safety or DB. It worked, rarely. Most of the time the WR caught it. He could be surrounded by 3 guys andn they couldnt stop it. Even when he was there manually for some reason the ball would just go above him and the wr would catch. Its pretty lethal on curls because the wr jumps. I havent figured out a way to stop it consistently.
BTW, it doesnt really matter how good your WR was. I was doing it with Mushin Muhammed, and he got injured and Justin Gage was just as effective. I could do it to the other side of the field as well and Bobby Wade, who sucks, would make the catch all the time.
The jury is still out on NCAA 2006 for me (I’ve only played a handful of games so far) and I swore off Madden after 2003, but this is still disheartening news nonetheless. It’s a good thing EA has the NCAA and NFL licenses wrapped up for the next two generations of console systems! Now we can expect more of the same, year after year. Wonderful.
It was interesting that when the EA exclusive licensing deals were announced most “gamers” were pissed off (to put it lightly) and some swore of EA all-together (except for something called Battlefield 2). The casual sports gamer, however, was either unaware or shrugged it off with a, “I play Madden anyway, who cares?” Well, if they get release after release of broken, flawed gameplay with the promise of “next year,” they won’t be shrugging it off much longer. They’ll care.
And then what?