Gaming's 3R's 02.08.10: Mass Effect 2, XBox Support, Sonic and Mario, More

Posted by Chris Lansdell on 02.08.2010

Original Xbox support gets dropped from Xbox Live, Target drops some Wii games, Civilization comes to Facebook and Sonic in a Mario game! 411's Chris Lansdell breaks it all down into Right, wRong and Ridiculous in this week's installment of Games 3Rs! Click the link for the full article!

Hey yo. Welcome to the second edition of Games 3Rs. I'm your host Chris Lansdell, and this week we have a few changes. First and foremost, new day! What better way to start your work week than with a healthy dose of vitamin R? We're also switching up the format to more closely align with that used in the other zones, namely Right, wRong and Ridiculous. I will still occasionally have a Rant as well. Finally, as we only had a column on Thursday, this one will be a little shorter than normal. We're also still short one

BANNER!

The Right

Farewell, Old Friend - Microsoft announced this week that they will finally pull the plug on support for the original Xbox on Xbox Live as of April 15 this year. As I expected when I read the news, it was instantly met with hoots of derision from gamers, who by and large are very change-resistant.

Face the facts guys: progress is inevitable. The 360 has been around now for years, and some of the things they want to do with Xbox Live are being held back by having to support the old hardware. Microsoft's pockets might be virtually bottomless, but the fact of the matter is that even Renton cannot fabricate bandwidth. Sure, you can't play Halo 2 deathmatches any more. What you will be able to do is have a larger friends list (add lansdellicious, if only for some easy MW2 kills...) and do a myriad of other things that are planned. The original Xbox hung on for a lot longer than most expected, especially considering the lifespan of things like the EA Sports games (rarely more than a couple of years).

You can't please everyone, and you can't piss everyone off either. Most gamers won't care about this, and of the ones who do, many will be over it by June. It really is a necessary change, otherwise we'd still be seeing Halo played online when Duke Nukem Forever comes out.



Super Bowl Halftime performance coming to Rock Band - I love this plan, and I want more of it. I've long thought that Harmonix should talk to WWE or even TNA about bringing some wrestling themes to the game. With a huge library of EA games to draw from, they could also publish game music as DLC. The fact is, special events like the Super Bowl, the Grammys, even the Oscars often have unique musical performances that people might want to recreate, and Harmonix is giving them the chance here. Hopefully, this is a sign of things to come and not a one-shot deal.

Target discontinuing certain Wii titles, Best Buy and WalMart being selective - How is this good? Well, the problem with the Wii has long been the ubiquity of crap titles on the console, most of which are compilations of mini-games, or "waggleware," games which make minimal use of the motion controls on the system just to capitalise on the Wii Sports craze. Both WalMart and Best Buy have told game companies not to bother approaching them with such games, because they will not be stocked. This may be the only recorded incidence ever of me having anything good to say about either of these two companies, but more retailers need to take this approach. If nobody will stock the games, then nobody can buy them, and hence nobody will make them. I believe the Wii has an essential role to play in gaming, bringing in as it does people that would otherwise never buy a console, but new gamers won't stick around long if they buy some of these $20 compilations and come to the realisation that they suck mightily.

Target's situation is a bit different. Here's the list of discontinued games so far:

• Call of Duty: World At War
  
• Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2
  
• Indiana Jones: The Staff of Kings
  
• Disney's G-Force
  
• Nihao Kai-Lan: Super Game Day
  
• Boom Blox Bash Party
  
• De Blob
  
• Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz
  
• Excitebots
  
• TMNT: Smash Up!
  
• Boy and His Blob
  
• Silent Hill: Shattered Memories
  

Of those games, the only losses really are Ultimate Alliance 2, Silent Hill and possibly Boy and His Blob. Many of the games are mid-level or niche titles that really just need to be rotated out to make room for new games. This is not a sign that the Wii is dying, moreover it's a sign that it is thriving. Cut off the dead weight so that new shoots can grow.

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The wRong

Mass Effect 2 will continue to look bad on SDTV - BioWare put its foot down this week and said that they could not (not "would not") patch Mass Effect 2 to make the on-screen text larger and easier to read on standard definition TVs. As much as I believe that people should be gaming on HDTVs these days, I can't in good conscience put this in the Right. Not everyone can afford a hi-def TV, and by making the game hard or unpleasant to play without one you are essentially adding $400 to the price of the game. If a person is upgrading from a PS2 or original Xbox to the 360, and they pick up ME2 to go with the console, it's entirely possible that they don't have a hi-def TV.

You know what else concerns me about this story? Not only did BioWare not do anything to fix this problem in beta testing (which suggests either they didn't know or didn't care, which are equally bad), but they are indicating now that they cannot do anything to fix it. I'm no game programmer, but when you look at the things that developers have been able to do with DLC and patches, it seems strange that enlarging text and changing the font is beyond their capabilities.

Civilization is coming to Facebook - Wait, what? Have I lost my mind? How is this wRong? Sid Meier's iconic franchise has consumed many hours of many people's lives, mine included, and is widely considered the best turn-based strategy franchise in existence. Civ II doesn't run so well on newer PCs and the newer games are just not up to the same standard, so a chance to play a version of the game that will have to be watered down somewhat should be tickling me pink, right? Here's what Sid himself has to say about the game:

"You can coordinate your strategy to win great battles, share your technology to jump ahead of your rivals, lobby your family and friends to form your own government and win vital elections, manage and grow your cities to maximize production and happiness, spy on your enemies, and work with your friends to create the great Wonders of the World. The game will offer everything you enjoy in Civ in a fully persistent environment – you can play as much as you like, whenever you like, and it'll be free to play."

Oh great. See, here's my problem: this game is going to consume my life. Unless it is terrible (and I just don't think Sid Meier knows how to make a terrible game), I will be playing this every waking moment. It happened with Civ 2, it happened with Civ 3, it even happened with Civilization: Revolution. Playing it on Facebook, for free, with people across the world, is too good to be true. Dammit, I just kicked my Castle Age habit!

Teen Stabs Father In Neck Over A Game - From the light-hearted to the downright serious. An Italian teenager named Mario, 16, having got into a disagreement with his father over the tactics to use in a game of FIFA 2009, went into the kitchen and retrieved a 15-inch knife, which he promptly plunged into his father's neck. He then went on to clean the knife calmly in front of his mother. She did not know why he was cleaning the knife until her husband staggered into the kitchen clutching his bleeding neck. Mario went to his room and locked himself in until the police arrived, and was arrested without incident.

FIFA 2009. Not Grand Theft Auto, not Modern Warfare. His mother was quoted as saying "We bought him FIFA 2009 because we didn't want him playing violent games." Mario did not go on a killing rampage, or lose it entirely and stab everyone in sight. Clearly there was something wrong with this boy. Nevertheless, you probably didn't hear much in the news about this case, because it was FIFA and not some ultra-violent game that Mario was playing. I still like the words of Marcus Brigstocke on this matter:

"Computer games don't affect kids, I mean if Pac Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music."

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The Ridiculous

What do you get the man who has everything? How about a pair of Mortal Kombat cufflinks? Because nothing says style and sophistication like cufflinks with a dragon on them, representing a game which includes people ripping each other's heads off. That said, I need a pair of these, pronto. The only thing missing is a little button you can press to hear Shao Kahn say "FINISH HIM." Wait, no, that should be on the right cufflink. The left cufflink should say "You win. Flawless Victory. Fatality." God I'm a geek.



And the Ridiculous keeps on coming! I actually love this clip; the only thing that could have made it better would have been the guy at the bottom wearing a Mario outfit. The world needs more arcade game re-enactments.

Super Mario Galaxy 2, Featuring...Sonic?

British Nintendo magazine NGamer has started a mighty strange rumour, saying that Sonic the Hedgehog will be a playable character in SMG2. The rumour says that Sonic will be in a stage called "Green Hill Galaxy" and only that stage.

So how likely is this? At one time this would have been considered sacrilege, when Mario and Sonic were the faces of their respective consoles during the 8- and 16-bit wars. Even with the two characters appearing in the same games now, they have never been in a game specifically about the other one, if you get my meaning. However Sonic 4 is coming out soon, and Sega may well want to exploit their new relationship with Nintendo to get some positive publicity for the little blue hedgehog. After all, it's not like any of his recent games have been any good.

Now this is not by any means confirmed, but if it turns out to be true this might just be the strangest thing we ever see. What next, Mortal Kombat vs Street Fighter?

Well folks, that's the column for this week. I'll be back next Monday to once again break it all down into Right, wRong and Ridiculous. Now put the snacks in the bag and I'm ghost like Swayze!