The Full Circle: 360 News Report 01.09.09

Posted by Joe Roche on 01.09.2009

It's the unofficial, official first Full Circle of the New Year. Now that the holiday season hangover has come and gone 411's Joe Roche returns with the news you need to usher in the weekend. This week we're talking about PETA, sales figures, Call of Duty 4, Primetime, Halo Wars, and other stuff coming out of Microsoft's CES Keynote Address. All of that and the kiss of death for video game print journalism.

Right from the jump I am about to make a lot of people upset and not for my usual reason (ie: my poor writing). You see while last week was the first official column of 2009 for The Full Circle, it was written prior to the curtain closing on 2008, which means I didn't get to talk about my New Year's Day tradition of watching every movie that I missed in 2008 so that I can start the New Year off with a clean slate. Part of this year's batch of movies was The Dark Knight. I realize that to have missed it in theaters seems insane, especially from an admitted comic book fan like myself, but between taking the Bar Exam, and getting married my summer was a bit booked. Here is the crazy part –

I thought the movie was a huge let down.

I mean – this movie is getting Oscar buzz? Would I be out of line to call this movie one transcendent performance, and a whole bunch of crap? And am I the only person who thought they jammed two movies into one for no particular reason? Why use the entire Harvey Dent storyline in this movie when everyone and their grandmother knew that there would be a third movie in this line of Batman films? You want to know how to make a fantastic comic book movie that builds to the next film? Watch Iron Man and then come back to me.

Outside of Heath Ledger was there one really good performance in that movie? Christian Bale is on par with Val Kilmer as far as Batman's go, and the only reason people don't talk about it more is because his material is so much better. Maggie Gyllenhal was so terrible that when she was finally killed it immediately improved the movie. I'm sorry but without Ledger's outstanding turn as The Joker this movie would have been shot into space like Spock at the end of Star Trek III.

But enough about my movie tastes you all come here to read my incoherent ramblings about the Xbox 360 and that is what I shall produce.

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Fable II > Michael Vick

PETA has announced that Fable II was 2008's most Animal Friendly Game. I guess this is a yearly thing as PETA gave their 6th Annual PROGGY Award to Lionhead Studio's Xbox 360 RPG epic the honor of being this year's most animal friendly game.

Fable 2 is a vegetarian's dream come true. Why? In this virtual fight between good and evil, characters powered by tofu are just as powerful as their meat-eating counterparts—and are more fit and attractive to boot.

Featuring a strong pro-vegetarian theme, eating a plant-based diet helps you rack up "purity" points, whereas eating meat makes your character fat and evil. A fun and innovative game, it's also an effective tool that teaches gamers the real-life benefits of a vegetarian diet

Of course leave it to the "gotcha journalists" at EDGE Magazine to point out that in Fable II you are also asked to shoot bunnies and kick chickens which I'd imagine would be the type of activity that PETA would look down on. Dan Shannon, a representative of PETA responded to EDGE with this quote:

I'll be honest, it's not our favorite part of the game. But what we like about Fable II and why we gave it the award is because the game presents you with choices, and then you see the repercussions of what those choices are. This is what the awards are based on, and that's what PETA's philosophy is—for people to understand how their choices affect the real world.

It's not like people eat meat to score evil points, but you are supporting an industry that is cruel to animals. People need to be aware that their choices affect the world. We like that message in Fable II.

[The Chicken-Kicking] is done in a light-hearted manner. I don't think anyone's going to go out and start kicking chickens in their yard because of this game. Just like real life, you can go kick chickens if you want to, but we don't think most people get off on that.

Am I the only person a bit perplexed by this line of reasoning? I understand that Mr. Shannon was on damage control, but isn't the more likely scenario that PETA just didn't do their homework on Fable II? I mean you do get Gamerscore for kicking chickens, so it's not as passive an activity as PETA would have you believe. I'm sure that when they saw the cute dog, and heard about the tofu they immediately jumped for joy and handed out, an otherwise worthless honor to Fable II even though the game isn't exactly the animal lovers dream like they claim. Either way isn't this way more time spent on this issue then was necessary?



Not NPD But Impressive

Most people might take any "official" numbers released by Microsoft with a grain of salt. I mean the company isn't exactly an unbiased participant, and they do have every incentive to puff out their chest when they've got the opportunity. However, as I am an Xbox 360 columnist and apologist I'm going to ignore the potential bias, put on my rose colored glasses and proclaim that Microsoft is kicking Sony's ass right now in the console war. According to Microsoft they've sold 28 million Xbox 360 units, compared to Sony's 20 million PS3's, and there are currently 17 million subscribers on Xbox Live.

According to Microsoft's Alan Greenberg: "We're widening our lead against Playstation 3." Thanks in large part to console exclusives like Gears of War 2, Fable II, Banjo Kazooie Nuts & Bolts, and Left 4 Dead. When you combine this with Sony's financial woes, Microsoft has every reason to be cocky and confident as we head into 2009.



Microsoft Announces Primetime

Remember when Microsoft announced the New Xbox Experience feature Primetime? It was the interactive games feature that they put on display at E3 2008? Oh c'mon you remember, there were a bunch of Avatar's playing 1 vs 100? Well if you'd forgotten about that because it feels like the announcement game a hundred years ago, let this serve as a reminder, because during their CES Keynote Address, Microsoft announced that Primetime is finally going to launch. The feature, which was delayed on the initial NXE release will be released as an update sometime in the Spring. Yes I realize that it's an incredibly nebulous release date, but it is better then the previous 2009 release that we were given before. So if you've been holding your breath for the chance to play 1 vs 100 against the same kids who call you "douchebag" on Live during Halo 3 then you've only got half a season left to go.

Where is the Freakout?

When Sony dropped LittleBigPlanet on the world last year it was hyped as the most immersive experience available on a console (Note: I cannot confirm that this was what it was called, I'm just making a point so bear with me). Sony fans have continued to pound the drum for LBP as one of the best and most innovative games in console video game history. Regardless of how ridiculous that claim is when you consider it's basically a platformer with a level editor, it has been made (or at least I'm sure it has been made by someone). Well during the CES Keynote Address given by Microsoft's Robbie Bach we were all informed that Kodu would soon be coming to the Community Games Channel. What is Kodu you might ask? Well it is essentially a game creator that will allow almost anyone to pick up a 360 controller and create a game. Bach made the claim that the controls will be simplified from those found in LittleBigPlanet with over 200 building blocks and almost limitless options.

From people in attendance I have seen it written that the Kodu on screen menu system looked very bulky and difficult to navigate, but you'll have to take that for what it's worth. Remember when Microsoft announced avatars and everyone freaked out because they were "ripping off" Nintendo? Where are the Sony fans this afternoon with claims of how Microsoft has no original ideas and now they're just stealing from LittleBigPlanet? I say bravo to Microsoft to identifying a feature that everyone would love to tinker around with and providing it to their customers – that's why we're not reading about Microsoft's game division hemorrhaging money right now.



Halo Wars Demo Etc. Coming

Easily one of the most highly anticipated 360 releases coming out in the first part of 2009 will be Halo Wars. I'm not even an RTS fan but I'm looking forward to giving the game a try because everything I've seen of it thus far has been pretty fantastic. My anticipation is why it pleases me to no end to find out that Microsoft will be releasing an official demo of the game on Feb. 5th (just in time for RE5). There have been some rumors that the game was slated for a March release, pushed back from a February date – and it appears that those are not true as the first rated "T" game in the Halo universe has an official launch date of February 28, 2009. All of this info came out of Microsoft at CES and it must make you Halo fans extremely happy.



Impressive CoD4 Numbers

This week Infinity Ward announced that "as of January 3rd" Call of Duty 4 had registered 10 million + unique online users. The numbers broke down to be about 10 million users over Xbox Live and 4 million users over the PS3. The game only counted Xbox users who had logged on to Xbox Live at least once to play the game (or while playing the game, they're not entirely clear) so the number of Xbox users is most likely even higher then what was provided. I think if nothing else this is another statistic that Microsoft can hold out there when they approach developers to provide exclusive content for the Xbox 360 console. Live is easily one of the biggest selling points of the 360 and it's obvious that companies can see a clear cut return on their Microsoft investment with how popular their online component is with the console.

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The Hot Button

This Week:EGM Shut Down

This was a somber week for a lot of people in video game media. As has been reported all over the place this week, and I'm sure you're all well aware –January's Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) will be the final issue. For those who don't know the whole story, Ziff Davis has been trying to sell the 1UP.com and all that came with it for some time. A deal was finally complete with the Hearst owned UGO Network this past week.

The sale included 1UP.com, Mycheats.com, Gametab.com and GameVideos.com which all now fall under the control of UGO Network. At the time it seemed as though many of the people involved with these entities would be saved, and Ziff Davis CEO Jason Young even claimed in an internal memo that many of the people involved in the sale would make the transition to UGO Network. This of course turned out to be completely false as almost simultaneous to that email being sent, 30 members of the production, editorial, and podcast staffs were fired. At the same time Ziff Davis announced that EGM would be shutting down due to the decreased demand for print journalism.

Frankly this was more then just a simple reorganization. It has been said that UGO Network kept as many people as they could, basically the all-stars within the company to keep things afloat, but there was no stopping the scorched earth policy of the company on the way out the door. In my mind the reason that so many people lost their jobs is due to the poor management decisions by Ziff Davis, mainly concerning the soon to be defunct EGM.

I am at best a gaming journalist on the outskirts of the business. However, I don't think that you need to be an "insider" to know the influence that 1UP.com has had since their launch in 2003, and to say that EGM was one of the major players in print gaming journalism is an understatement. So the fact that this cost cutting measure has been undertaken is all the more shocking, and unfortunate and speaks to the overall health of the video game journalism industry.

Video game journalists are not alone as the only victims of the dying days of print media. This past week Jay Mariotti, the completely insufferable former sports columnist from the Chicago Sun-Times debuted as a national columnist for AOL Sports – it is the last throes of print media, and I think that the shakeup at 1UP.com and the failure of EGM points directly to that. Hell, I think that myself, and everyone here at 411mania is partially responsible for the decline in our reliability on print media.

Think about this – when I was a kid Nintendo Power was a magazine that a lot of people had delivered right to their homes. It was the only way that we'd be able to learn about upcoming games, and get excited for the next big thing. Can you imagine if the first time you saw anything from Resident Evil 5 it was screen grabs in the January issue of a magazine? Now there are sites like this one that exist solely to bring you the most current, most up to date, and latest breaking news and analysis – and we do it for free.

For my part The Full Circle is admittedly as close to print media as you can get on this site (or any other). I write this column at least one full day before it is posted, which means the stories that I wind up talking about are already old news by the time I'm writing about them. Which is why I made the decision to add my own commentary on the news, which is why I add this section to my column each week – and it's why I constantly strive to get feedback from you, the readers to make this column more enjoyable. We live in a 24 hour news cycle world now – sites like Kotaku literally never take time off. If Konami announced that Solid Snake would appear exclusively on TIGER Games platforms it would be posted on sites like Kotaku, or 411mania within minutes of the announcement being made. The days of waiting weeks for your news are simply gone – and that's what ultimately led to the unfortunate events of this past week.

The people who lost their jobs – the video production people, the podcast crews, and everyone else were talented. Hell the 1UP podcast was one of the very best video game podcasts available, but they got caught in the crossfire of a poorly run organization that was weighed down by their reliance on print media. These people will land on their feet – it's the beauty of the internet, people find quality.

While most of the focus this week was on the transfer of ownership at 1UP (and its associated sites) I'd prefer to see this as a sign of the times. EGM was one of the pioneer gaming magazines on the market and they are no more – this month will be a sad time for gamers as they pick up the final copy of a magazine that many of us grew up with, but it is the reality that we now operate under.

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Punching Out

Achievements Unlocked by Rod Oracheski

Working Title by Jordan Williams

PC Spotlight by Chris Vicari

Nintendophiles by Theo Fraser

The Hall of Shame by Vincent Chiucchi

What If? by Greg Bruno

The Release List by Tommy Coloma

What I Hate About You by John De Large

Living LIVE by Trace Aber

The 10th Hour (Part 1) by Derek Robbins

The 10th Hour (Part 2) by Derek Robbins