Working Title 01.27.11: Working Rants - 3DS vs. The World and Mothers vs. Dead Space 2

Posted by Jordan Williams on 01.27.2011

The Nintendo 3DS is one of the most anticipated gaming products of the year, but will Nintendo's past dealings with consumers give the handheld a harder time benefiting from customer loyalty? 411's Jordan Williams takes a look!

Welcome to the #1 Column to still take the 'underdog' Green Bay Packers in the Super Bowl...WORKING TITLE. Yeah, Big Ben might be the veteran here (a raping the competition joke is too easy to make) but I still trust in Godgers and The Thunder God Clay Matthews.

Anyway, my awkward and out of place football talk has no place here in my column about neck beards and video games. If you haven't noticed by now Working Title is back on Thursdays and (hopefully) updating again regularly. But since news is still kind of slow in the gaming world outside of all of all of the 3DS details (more on that in a second) I figure it's time to dust off an old column staple that has been gone for awhile.


Working Gaming Update

You remember this; it's just an account of what I have been playing lately. Also just going to merge this with the next games in my GameFly Q just so you all can see the type of shit I am GOING to play and warn me if it's good or not. Not like I care…I find bad games are fun to stream online.

Battlefield Bad Company 2: Vietnam
As much as I love BC2, I am still having trouble liking Vietnam so much. Don't get me wrong, I do love that we finally have some legit new maps and stuff but it just seems like right now it is suffering from too many problems and balance issues to make it as perfect and seamless as BC2 Vanilla. They removed most of the cheapness that you can still do in BC2 Vanilla (C4 UAV, Carl Gustav, The Helicopter Hurricane (or as I call it, "The 50 Roll" because it's always a level 50 doing it). But it seems to have replaced them with more cheapness and new problems. The maps are great but outside of two (Phu Bai Valley and Cao Sun Temple in Rush) they are sometimes TERRIBLY unbalanced. I am speaking strictly from Rush mode because Conquest isn't my cup of tea but…fucking Vantage Point is borderline unfair for attackers. You are funneled into a trench that becomes just a meat grinder for both sides. But what but then if you SOMEHOW beat that first section the tide of battle just completely turns on its tits and all of the sudden Defenders are useless. Another map that does that is Hill 137.

I fucking hate this map. Why do I hate this map? It's FUCKING BORING. It might be the most visually impressive of the new bunch but soon as you get to the actual ‘Hill' it becomes painfully one sided either way. What don't help this are the weapons that…are kind of broken. I am not talking broken in the BC2 Vanilla M60 Medic Sniper Laser. I am talking broken as in if you are an Engineer and you are rocking the PPSh you are unstoppable.
But I am still having fun with it and I'll stick with it. I'm about 3 levels away from Level 40.

Fallout: New Vegas
I love Fallout and I really wanted to play New Vegas earlier than this, but when it came out the game was pretty much unplayable so I decided to wait and I am glad I did. I haven't encountered any out of the ordinary bugs or game freezing bugs yet and I must say that I am sort of liking F: NV a bit more than I thought I would. It still feels a bit like a DLC Expansion Pack for Fallout 3 but I think what changes it up for me is that fact that I am playing this not only on Hard, but on Hardcore mode as well. It really REALLY makes me think about what the fuck I am doing and how I am doing it. An example? I have decided I am playing F: NV as a Viking.
No guns.

I have guns on hotkey for use but my actual Gun skill is still in the low 30s. Meanwhile Unarmed and Melee are pushing 60. Endurance and Strength are through the roof so what ends up happening is that I see a guy with a gun, I whip out my Bumper Sword or Rebar Club and run head on full bore and CRUSH SKULLS. And I LOVE it.
The story is? I'll get back to you. I haven't done a single story mission yet.

Ninety Nine Nights 3
Is bad.

On its way from GameFly

Halo: Reach
Never played it when it came out, figured I might as well now.

Enslaved
See above.

Two Worlds 2
The first game was utterly horrible, but apparently everyone is saying that the second game is positively great. I want to see it to believe it.


And now onto the topic of today's column. Last week we finally got all of the news on the 3DS we wanted including the big number everyone has been waiting for. The price. For North America we are getting it at the widely speculated price of 250USD and the UK is still in the middle of a pricing war. But with all of the news that has sprouted up are we in for a problem with the 3DS? The launch line-up admittedly isn't that great (although we do know for once that there is good stuff coming down the line) and the price point is lost on people who don't really want the 3D. Also there is strong word saying that Nintendo might've burned all of the early adopters with the DS. Don't forget about the looming threat of the PSP2. So is the 3DS going to stroll again undeterred or will it have a tougher sell this time around?

And if you are reading this column you have no doubt seen the "Your Mom Hates This" ads for Dead Space 2. If you've been on the internet you have probably seen all of the reactions (good and bad) to them. Now it's my turn to explain why I really have problems with the ad campaign. I won't say it's not working...but it's just something too easy to be used against them (the gaming industry) especially given all of the Supreme Court shit going on.

So let's get this shit started.


Working Rant: 3DS vs. The World and I Hate Moms That Hate Dead Space 2


The 3DS vs. The World


I'll just go ahead and say the meat of the part right now to save you the trouble.
I have no problem with the 3DS costing $250. I might have problems with the launch line up, the problems with a data and the overall hype surrounding the 3DS, but for 250? Not a problem for me. I think the bigger problem here with the 3DS is going to be just how loyal the Nintendo fan base is.

It's no big secret that between the lackluster GameCube, the casual Wii, and the FOUR different variations of the DS that Nintendo has slowly but surely squandered some of the good will with the consumer base that they have built up.

"But the Wii sold like fucking CRAZY"

Yes, the Wii and the DS both sold like fucking MAD but how did the software sell on that? As far the Wii goes the casual crowd ate that shit up but how many people bought the Wii as their sole console? After they bought it for Wii Sports or whatever eye candy casual game how many kept using it? I'd venture to say that number wasn't necessarily big. So in the end what MOST (yes, I mean MOST) people ended up with was a 250 white box that played that one game you busts out when family is over.

As for the DS, the catalogue and support was infinitely better but the problem was that just as soon as you got used to a DS, another one came out. And it wasn't something superficial like a new color. This was a new DS with genuine changes that were not present in the previous design. While I stuck with my DS Phat for the entire lifetime but a lot of people hopped on the Lite as soon as it came out. Then there was the DSi which finally used internet and had cameras and fixed buttons and what not. More people bought those. Then there was the DSi XL for people who wanted the size of the phat but the functionality of the DSi.

So you had people in some cases buying the DS THREE TIMES OVER. Which was a slightly easier pill to swallow…but once that pill is 250 dollars a pop, it might not be.

So in just the previous ‘generation' of Nintendo they have proved that they are more than willing to sell you something based on hopes and promises AND are willing to re-sell the same product over and over..AND PEOPLE STILL BUY IT.

But how did this hurt Nintendo negatively with the 3DS? Just do Google searches to see how many people are planning on waiting until 3DS Lite or XL or what have you.

Then we have the launch line up. What the fuck, Nintendo? You show us Kid Icarus and are like "THIS IS THE NEW SHIT, BITCHES" and you DON'T launch with it? You show us Starfox 3D, 3D Zelda, all of your BANGERS then you proceed to go "Oh, launch window". Why does Nintendo always try to be its worst enemy? We saw the list at E3. We know that you are going into the 3DS balls out going "HARDCORE, WE HAVEN'T FORGOTTEN YOU!"

But then you launch with Nintendogs + Cats and Pilotwings as your first party showings.

But wait! The other stuff is coming out in the launch window! What the FUCK is a Launch Window? You KNOW the hardcore Nintendo fan base is fickle as hell. You NEED to get that shit out of the door right away to somehow lure them back in. Especially since the prices of the games are going up (now I DO have a problem with that) and the device is going to be 250…you NEED to show the hardcore gamers that you have lost that there is a reason to own the 3DS.

But all of this is moot. The 3DS will sell well. Period. It's going to wreck shit when it comes out. There are going to be shortages, there are going to be flying off of shelves and be the big gift this Xmas. My main point is Nintendo going to get its act together and lead off strong on a launch and SUSTAIN that strength or are they going to just leave handheld money on the table for the PSP2 and iPad to pick up?

It's going to be an uphill battle this time and I don't think Nintendo fully realizes it yet.




I Hate Moms That Hate Dead Space 2


Before I get into my version of the rant I want to say that I am not the first (or the last) to chime on this but you really should go give Shacknews' Garnett Lee's rant on it on last week's episode of Weekend Confirmed because we both have pretty much the same exact thoughts on this entire ad campaign.

It's fucking STUPID. Not stupid in the sense that the commercials are not entertaining. It's stupid in the sense that for YEARS and YEARS the games industry has been trying to say they deserve the same exact respect that gets afforded to books, movies, and the other art forms.

We have been trying to shed the ‘gamers are slackers' image and all of the other negative stereotypes associated with it. So for them to put out an ad that pretty much goes back to going "LOOK GUYS, THIS GAME IS SO EDGY BECAUSE YOUR MOM HATES IT. X-TREEEEEEME" just makes us end up looking like the same shit they are trying to lock behind the counter in the California.

Let's just go ahead and ignore the fact that Dead Space 2 is a rated M game.
Actually. Let's not ignore that. Why can't we ignore that? BECAUSE RATED M GAMES ARE WHAT WE ARE TRYING TO SAVE IN THE SUPREME COURT. We JUST had a case about this. We JUST sat here and tried to fight California by saying we don't market Rated M games to children, we don't intend for children to play them and that "Mature" means that. "Mature."

So a few months later the first BIG release of 2011 has an ad campaign that shows mothers (I know they are actresses) looking at violent, gory, and disgusting clips from the game and saying things like "I'll drive someone insane" and "This game is an atrocity" followed by the tagline "It's violent. It's disgusting. It's bloody. Everything you love in a game...and your mother will hate it."

WHAT THE FUCK? Did we NOT just get all up in arms about how California and other states just "didn't get it" when it game to video games? Did we NOT just show all of this data and shit that shows that the average gamer is an ADULT that is in their mid-20s and early 30s? So why in the HELL are we marketing this game like we are marketing it to 14 year olds?

And don't say they aren't trying to market it to kids because ANY gamer of age to buy a Rated M game gives a FUCK what their mom thinks about the games they play? You're an adult. You don't need to rebel against your parents and what not.

Every time I see the commercial the only thing I can think of each time is "Good job marketing a rated M game to kids, EA!" and now the bad thing is if the Supreme Court comes back and says that games are protected speech and sends California back to re-write the law and try again. I can GARUNTEE you that they are going to bring up the marketing and promotion of this game as an example. If the Supreme Court comes back says games are NOT protected speech and California can have its way with dealing with violent games…I can bet you that someone is going to point a finger at a lot of things for why we failed.

It's gone viral. It's getting people talking so it's doing its job as an advertisement…but we can't sit here and try to put up this façade of us being a mature industry and being able to prove that violent games are okay and we don't need the government or anyone to step in…and then proceed to willingly give all of the opposition the ammo they need to throw it back in our faces.

Bad idea, EA.

---

Man, I think I might be the only column on this zone of 411mania that has been on every single day of the week. Either way that puts the first official Working Title of 2011 to bed and next week I'll probably talk about the PSP2…which probably is announced by the time this column goes live. If not…then I'll talk about some other shit no one cares about.
BUT IT'S QUESTION TIME, BITCHES!

Working Question
Running with the themes today I want your take on them.

For the 3DS are you up for getting one on launch…or the fabled launch window?

As for Mothers Hating Dead Space 2 what are your takes on the ad campaign?
And if you don't want to answer either of those questions...then you can freely gush about HOW FUCKING AWESOME IT IS THAT BANE IS THE VILLIAN FOR DARK KNIGHT RISING. FUCK YEAH!

I never cared for Batman Begins (never saw it), I saw The Dark Knight and it was nice but I didn't think it was the BEST MOVIE EVER like everyone else did. Truthfully, I'm not even that big of a Batman fan…but I AM a Bane fan. He is my favorite DC Villain PERIOD because he is a giant meathead…WHO ISN'T A MEATHEAD. He's smart. He's cunning…he's the SMARTEST Batman villain but also the strongest.

The fact that Nolan might be bringing Bane back to the glory he once enjoyed (and still enjoys thanks to Secret Six) is just great.

I hope he breaks Batman's fucking back, too.

Until next week, I'm Jordan Williams…and I hope that this rumor that the Nickelodeon TMNT series is being handled by the same team that did Avatar: The Last Airbender is true.