BigBob

Announce nothing. There's already too many games to keep track of.

AGDQ just happened, and I've been thinking about running a monthly contest for GB users. Each month we'll pick a game, old or new, and everyone has one month to record a full playthrough of the game in as little time as possible. Prior speedruns won't be allowed - only runs done within the month can be submitted. Does this sound fun to anyone? What games do you think would make for fun speedruns? Personally, if this were to take off, I'd make the first game Resident Evil HD Remaster in celebration of Resident Evil 7, but I'd switch up genres from month to month so users with different skills can get their shot.

Question: if I've written a quality review, how would it get on one of these lists? Is there someone I send it to after I've submitted it on the site?

I almost never buy multiplayer-centric games. I don't like playing with strangers because they have a tendency to be assholes, but it's hard to get my friends to play a game too. So I play single-player only games. Then people look at me weird when I say I don't like Call of Duty.

Oh geez, I almost forgot about this thing. Well, time to get my ass kicked.

Alrighty.

PSN: HeyGuysItsGhoul

...Yes, I have a Giant Bomb screenname. Woo me.

It's too late for me to sign up for this thing, isn't it?

Recently, Steam had the two Penny Arcade episodes for sale.  Being a longtime fan of the webcomic, and never having played them, I figured it was a no-brainer to grab this deal.  And it turned out to be well worth my time.  The games were funny, clever, with an interesting battle system and fun adventure game-style puzzle solving.  It's a shame that Hothead games decided to ditch episode three in favor of doing their own thing in the form of Deathspank, but I'll live. 
 
However, the game do raise a curious question: how the hell are you supposed to make a video game based off of Penny Arcade?  The comic strips are gag-a-day, with no overarching storyline.  There's no adventure, no combat to speak of.  Most of their jokes are based on licensed material.  Since the Penny Arcade guys really wanted to make a game, they did the wise thing and figured out what their game would need most would be to feel like a Penny Arcade game.  The art, the character design, the dialogue and the rapid-fire jokes...those are all in there.  The gameplay makes callbacks to other video games, while still able to distinguish itself.  While Penny Arcade will occasionally write a serious storyline just for a change of pace, the game is firmly self-aware and does not take itself seriously in the slightest.  You can argue that the comic strip does not feature player characters hitting mimes with a rake, but all in all I think they nailed the experience. 
 
It does make me think about other licensed games I've played an enjoyed, regardless of the source material.  Aside from watching the two Batman movies in the last decade, I've never cared for him.  Yet I played Batman: Arkham Asylum, and thought it was fantastic.  Even for someone unfamiliar with the franchise's lore, I still felt right at home without the need to look up online to see who the characters were, and the gameplay itself was fantastic.  A couple other licensed games come to mind, such as Astro Boy: Omega Factor for the Game Boy Advance.  I have never watched an Astro Boy cartoon in my life, but that game is one of the most unappreciated gems of the GBA library, because it uses the Astro Boy license as a launching point for the gameplay, not just a tacked-on layer of paint.  And of course, back in the day, Goldeneye was one of the greatest games for the N64, because it worked well with the source material. 
 
Of course, there's a clear and obvious problem with licensed games: they're made just for a quick buck.  It's easier to sell something with an established name on it, regardless of quality.  The result is terrible games based off of movies, rushed out because they're the equivalent of action figures to the marketers.  Tie-in merchandise with value only to the brand name.  It'd be nice to just say "Marketers need to learn better so their games will stop sucking!" but that's been the advice for as long as games have been around, so this post isn't going to change anything.  If anything the general public needs to learn better.  I'm still amazed that Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II was so hyped, considering the first wasn't even that good, and the fact that the Star Wars brand has been going downhill for a while now.  It's all about getting the name out, I guess.  That's why Call of Duty has been outselling each installment, because the simple fact that people are playing it means more people want to play it. 
 
Which kind of leads into my next point, which is Episodic Gaming.  Going back to Penny Arcade Adventures, Episode 3 was cancelled pretty much because the second game sold like crap.  In hindsight, it makes perfect sense.  The first episode was just that: the first installment.  The idea of a webcomic making a video game was pretty cool, and everyone wanted to see how it would turn out.  Episode 2 wound up just as good as episode 1, but sold only a third as many copies.  It's an ongoing storyline, and there were supposed to be two more episodes after this one, so Episode 2 just kind of fell by the wayside due to a lack of hype.  The gameplay was different, but not radically altered in any way. 
 
This isn't the first time this has happened.  Xenosaga was meant to be a six-part series, but after episode 2 bombed, the developers quickly skipped to episode 6 just so they could "conclude" the series properly, which was probably a wise idea on their part.  In the same time period, I've got to hand it to the developers of the .Hack series.  I've never played the games, but they brought out each new installment on a timely schedule and finished the series the way they intended.  Valve managed to avert this problem by distributing Half-Life 2: Episode 1 digitally; it was available to pretty much everyone who played Half-Life 2.  Additionally, they packaged a bunch of games in The Orange Box, just so people could play the first games before Episode 2, the latest in the series.  Though I have no idea where Episode 3 went... 
 
A novel idea is the way Telltale games have been handling their adventure games lately: offer the entire season for a base price, and put out the games as needed.  It worked well for Tales of Monkey Island, and a couple more episodes down the line, I might look into the Back to the Future games they're releasing.  It's still too early to say out well this will work, but it's an interesting idea, at least. 
 
Anyone have any ideas of how they would like to see episodic gaming implemented?

Don't worry, this entry is spoiler-free. 
 
If you own a DS and you have not played 999, it is now your civic duty to go buy it.  It's one of the best-written games I've ever played, with an excellent cast, a suspenseful atmosphere, and gameplay that really respects the intelligence of the person playing it.  The game's little-known, but it's easily worth the $35 price tag.  If you've played Ace Attorney, Professor Layton, or Hotel Dusk, you'll have a good idea what you're getting into.  It's point-and-click adventure, with lots of dialogue and puzzles to solve.  While I was initially skeptical, it earns its 'M' rating, a rarity for the DS.  Off the top of my head, the only other M-rated DS game is Grand Theft Auto, which has nothing in common with 999.  The story is a little tough and hard to follow, and some of the math in the game really requires that the player know how to think, but I still feel this is a game that everyone who considers themselves gamers should pick up. 
 
That said, it's difficult to discuss the game without blowing all the major plot points.  Everything in the story just fits together so damn well.  However, there is one aspect of the game that I haven't seen done in a game before, and that's the way 999 handles multiple game endings.  They aren't that uncommon in games...Heavy Rain comes to mind first, and I know the Shin Megami Tensei series loves to do it.  But in Heavy Rain, I still felt that one ending was enough for me.  I beat the game, and it was my own personal experience.  Sure, it's interesting to see what happens to other people, and it's fun to read up on how all the different choices you make effect the game...but in the end it's still the same experience for me.  In SMT, multiple endings are more of a gimmick.  You play the game this way, it ends a certain way.  That's all there is to it. 
 
However, the multiple paths in 999 serve a very different purpose.  Instead of each ending being a definite stopping point for the player, they serve instead as instruction.  The different paths you take reveal different facts about the characters, and depending on what conversations you've had previously, your next encounter may go a lot differently.  There are really only two substantial endings, and one only serves as a bridge to the final, true ending (which I somehow managed to get through on my first playthrough, but I lacked the necessary information to actually finish the game).  The other endings are basically glorified "game overs", though one in particular is genuinely creepy and unnerving, and worth playing through just to see it for yourself. 
 
It really says a lot that breaking up the narrative structure like this can have such an impact on the game's experience.  I felt bored with games like Red Dead Redemption or Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood thanks to that simple "seen it all before" feeling, even if the game is in the wild west.  But when was the last time that getting multiple endings told you more about the world?  Shadow the Hedgehog?  (not recommended you play that one)  My biggest complaint with games like Ace Attorney or Hotel Dusk is that they're ridiculously linear, but 999 tells a compelling story despite, and because of its branching paths.  Otherwise it'd just be a well-written, but unremarkable adventure game.  Pursuing multiple scenarios as if they were all equally important as the last just strengthened my bond with the characters, including seeing what would happen if I decided to just screw everybody over. 
 
Oddly enough, my only complaint about 999 is that I wanted to see even more of it.  It doesn't end on a cliffhanger, but the potential for a sequel is there, and the director is fully ready to make another one, possibly for the 3DS.  I read a long interview with him, and it pleases me to know that there are people like him who take video game writing seriously.  He openly discusses his thought process and discussions, which make me all the more excited to become a writer myself.  The thing is, he'll only make a sequel depending on how well-received this game is.  So go purchase Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors right now!

Since Christmastime, I've had the chance to catch up on some of the big games from last year.  Of course, there's Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, an open-world game set in Rome.  Time to time I also played Just Cause 2, an open-world game set in Southeast Asia in the present day.  And finally I finished with Red Dead Redemption, an open-world game set in the wild west. 
 
It's hard to criticize these games for "ripping off" one another (or at least ripping off of what Grand Theft Auto III did a decade ago), since despite their open-world-ness, they're all actually quite different.  Assassin's Creed is all about city building and stealth, RDR is about exploring vast deserts of the southern US, and in Just Cause, you blow things up.  Yet despite the drastic difference in gameplay styles, art styles, and general design, I still felt a constant feeling of deja vu going through each of these games one after the other.  Go to the dot on the map, talk to the guy.  Go somewhere else.  Kill somebody.  Repeat.   But they're all well-designed games with various objectives, great sense of progress and motivation for the player, and intriguing stories (Just Cause has a stupid story, that doesn't make it any less fun). 
 
So why am I so bothered by this?  It would be so much less fulfilling to play a bland shooter where you constantly run down hallways shooting guys, following a linear path until you get to the ending, with nothing else to find except to do it all again on a harder difficulty.  Open-world games tend to offer a great world to explore, more of a playground than a strict "game".  But it's weird to complain about a dearth of this kind of game, because it's hardly the kind of thing a small developer would be able to crank out to capitalize on a fad.  Big game worlds are hard to make, and even reusing art assets from Assassin's Creed II, or running the game off of GTAIV's engine is still troublesome.  Then again, it's much easier to make the game a second time around.  Fallout: New Vegas also falls into the category, and it's superficially identical to Fallout 3. 
 
It's less that I want open-world games to stop, and more that they should be spaced out a bit.  Everyone wants to make that next big hit video game, and an impressive looking world is a great way to get a bunch of Game of the Year nominations.  But even though Red Dead Redemption looked beautiful, had a great storyline, and is the first wild west game to impress people, it still just felt like I was playing Grand Theft Horse.  I found myself a lot more impressed with Super Meat Boy, or even Heavy Rain, as flawed as it was.  They gave me experiences I didn't know I wanted from games, while RDR just made me feel dull at times.  
 
In summary, smaller = better.  Find a way to innovate other than sticking GTA in the future.  Or the caveman age.  Though I might change my mind for an open-world Pokemon game...