The Negative Edge News Report 02.28.07
Posted by Tommy Coloma on 02.28.2007
The Negative Edge returns to give gamers a two-in-one yo-yo attack to the gut!
Welcome to the long overdue return of The Negative Edge. It's been a little while since I've had enough time to put one of these together. In case you missed the small announcement that I made in one of the Fact or Fiction columns, I've been busy helping some startup company with its Flash UI for the past few weeks. We actually launched the Beta two weeks ago. Thinking that the hard part was over, I determined that I would start again but it turned out that the REAL launch was last week so that threw things off. Apologies to Ashish and Caleb for once again lagging behind.
Before I get started, I thought that I'd mention that the Command & Conquer 3 demo was just released. It contains several complete cut-scenes, two missions, and a skirmish mode. Overall, I'd say that it's a solid game but I can't shake the feeling that it's just Red Alert 2 glossed over with a fresh coat of paint - different story, better graphics, and different units but without any significant gameplay changes. The cut-scenes were professional looking which was nice. Nobody hammed it up which I'm sure a lot of people are happy about. I personally miss the cheese. EA didn't allow us to use the aliens in the demo so maybe things change once that element is added, but until then, I can't really say that I was blown away by the demo. I'll be getting it anyway since I'm a fan of the series in general and I have no problems with the established gameplay mechanics, but still...
The News As I See It
Can they really deliver?
In an interview with MTV, Ray Muzyka, the CEO of BioWare, equates Mass Effect to "Jack Bauer in Space." Ray goes on to say that "you have complex moral choices to make. You're out to save the galaxy. You're going to have to do things that don't seem like they're good to do that."
Hey, I'm all for a game experience that gives us a free-floating version of Jack Bauer. Story-wise, those elements would be great. But how about the gameplay? Can you imagine how awesome they can make some of the torture scenes in the game? -
- MEJB (Mass Effect's Jack Bauer) brings the victim out into space with a syringe in one hand and some heavy-duty tape in another. "I'm gonna poke a little hole in your suit. Tell me what I need to know before the vacuum sucks your eyeballs out." Yeah, I can imagine him saying that!
- MEJB throws the detainee into one of those liquid sleep chambers (the ones with breathable water like in The Abyss). "I'll slowly add normal water until you run out of oxygen."
The possibilities are endless. Should we also expect all the cool characters that we grow to like throughout the game to die as well? Probably not. They'll be needed for the sequels.
Seriously, if they bring out the "Jack Bauer" card, they'd better be able to deliver.
Over the last few weeks I've collected a few GBA games to play while on the train when I don't feel like programming. Sometimes I leave the train while I'm at an important part of the game so naturally I'd want to continue when I get home. I figured that while I'm at home I shouldn't settle for the small screen so I thought that I'd go to good old eBay for a GameCube Gameboy Player. Imagine my surprise when I saw that new ones are going for as much as $119 a pop. WTF? Bullshit! I've got a love/hate relationship with eBay - it's cool to get all this rare stuff but I hate all these entrepreneur bastards that buy stuff up to make a quick buck while screwing actual gamers up the ass.
What's on my desktop
Since the Command & Conquer 3 demo just came out, I thought that it would be fitting to have some C&C related wallpapers this week. I chose some Tesla Coil images because they just happened to be my favorite structures in the series. Don't you just love the sound of these going off? How about the sound of your whole base shutting down because you built too many without building enough power plants? Oh the memories...
On a side note, Tesla spent his time creating the Tesla Coil so that they can be used as WMDs, not for creating duplicates for some silly magic trick. Thought you should know the truth...
Both of these were done by someone named Aircraftkiller over at deviantART.
The game industry douchbag of the week
Phil Harrison – President of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios
Some of the stuff that this guy threw out in a recent interview with GameDaily are beyond comprehension. Of course, to avoid the pitfalls of "selective quoting" I'll give you a chance to read the source first. Go ahead. I'll be here when you return. Back? Alright, let the fun begin –
I don't really care about the negativity in the press; if it was true, if they were talking about real big issues that were genuine criticisms, then of course we'll address them, but there's nothing that bothers me.
Dude! GAMES and COST. G-A-M-E-S and C-O-S-T. I'm a gamer. Those are my genuine criticisms. Can you imagine how much ass Sony would be kicking right now if their system had decent games and retailed for as much as the 360?
I think the fact that we are able to have a very well organized, very well managed supply channel, which allows us to keep the stores restocked, is a really positive thing. You would be sitting here saying, "Why the hell are you out of stock? Why the hell can't you manage the supply chain and why can't people buy PS3s?" So we're actually doing in succeeding in managing to keep the demand satisfied, so I think that's a positive.
What the hell is he talking about? I've seen units sitting in Walmart, Target, and Frys that are literally collecting dust. Of course you can manage to keep demand satisfied. Here you go Phil - Econ 1. You need to take it.
BIZ: That actually leads into my next question, because a lot of the analysts have been making a big deal out of the fact that retailers seem to continue to sell out of the Wii while PS3s are found in stock at more stores. What do you make of that?
PH: I think you should talk to the people who are running those stores. Talk to the people who run GameStop, talk to the people who run BestBuy, and they'll tell you that the demand is unprecedented and that they give us kudos for managing to keep a very sophisticated supply chain moving. What our competitors are doing I can't speak to but I know we are achieving our goals of keeping the market supplied and working closely with retailers to make sure they get informed about when supplies are coming in so that they can match their internal and external communications to store managers and consumers about when to buy a PS3. If that means that for Wednesday through Friday there were a few machines on a shelf in a store in Milwaukee, great!
If you're saying that the fact that there is no demand is unprecedented, then yes, you are right.
"Hey, our PS3s aren't flying off the shelves"
"That's UNPRECEDENTED!"
[What you said regarding] disc speed is a complete myth. It makes no difference to the operation of the game whatsoever.
Really? Why does it take over a minute for the some of the damn games to load their menu screens? Their freakin' menu screens!
There is more crap that I can pull from this interview, but that's all I can stand for now. It's not like I hate Sony or the PS3. I've seen it in action. The games look awesome so I know that it can do great things. I just can't stand the fact that these Sony guys have the nerve to both charge so much for a GAME system and then feed people all this bullshit without delivering.
I'm not sure how I'm gonna finish this section in the future. I was going to give out an award to the biggest douchbag of the week, but there's already something similar to that on this site and besides, there aren't too many game industry figureheads that do these things regularly. Correction - there aren't too many non-Sony game industry figureheads that do these things regularly. It's too easy to go after Sony each week. I want to give you variety. I'll think of something for next week but for now, I'll just equate the person in question to a video game character.
So, without further adieu, this week's douchbag of the week is similar to -
Bridget from the Guilty Gear games
Bridget was introduced in Guilty Gear XX: The Midnight Carnival back in 2002. The character can be seen sporting a nun's outfit all the time. As the picture above suggests, Bridget's weapons of choice are a yo-yo and a Teddy bear. To the casual gamer, she looks and sounds like a girl. But people in the know know the shocking truth - Bridget is, in fact, a guy. How can anyone mistake a guy for a girl in a video game? It's simple - they don't know the whole story.
"The reason for his feminine, and, at times, rather androgynous appearance, as well as his name is that he was the second of two twin boys (the other is, as yet, unnamed) and was born in a village (also unnamed) in which twin boys were said to be bad luck and an omen, so he was raised as a girl." (credit: Wikipedia)
Make sense? Bridget is not what he appears to be. What casual gamers see and hear contradicts the truth. The same thing goes for what Mr. Harrison says. Casual gamers who just go by what they see and hear will believe his bullshit. Only the people that care to pay attention know what's what. Sad but true.
But we can help. We can make sure that people know the truth. And, as many of you must already realize, when dealing with Sony, knowing is half the battle.
Alright. That's it for now. Next week I WILL get this column in on time. How do I know? An enemy dropped a stopwatch after I killed it. I intend to use it. (I'm also done with most of next week's non-news sections, so...)
